May 23. Yesterday a British serviceman was hacked to death in broad daylight. Lee Rigby was run over and brutally stabbed before his assailants tried to decapitate him. Yet looking at Twitter this morning you’d think the real story was that an EDL protest demo got a bit rowdy last night. On the Left, the standard liberal cringe kicked in. Let’s cover our eyes and pretend it isn’t happening; that it’s an aberration, that it’s no big deal. BBC1’s 6pm news was reluctant to even mention that the murderers were Islamist... Don’t mention the elephant in the room, the one that’s shouting “Allahu Akbar.” There are two words for this response, the politer one is apologist. Whatever atrocity occurs, the modern middle class Left will bend over backwards to take the side of people who want to do Britain down. The great and the good; the self-styled intellectuals, the cultural relativists... there seems to be nothing they hate more than the English working class, specifically the white ones with their quaint belief that parts of our culture and traditions are actually worth fighting for. They don’t even realise that THEY are the reason groups like the EDL exist.

I saw the kneejerk anti-Muslim stuff on Facebook and Twitter last night, and I admit a lot of it made me feel sick. I understand why people are angry – watching the story unfold on Sky News made me incandescent with fury. It would have been horrific anywhere but this was happening in Woolwich, the place where I was born, a place that I now barely recognise. But it’s mad, illogical and wrong to blame all Muslims for this atrocity. Islamist nut-jobs no more represent majority Muslim opinion than the Ku Klux Klan represented all Christian opinion. The Muslim Council of Britain was quick to disown the pair, saying “This is a truly barbaric act that has no basis in Islam and we condemn this unreservedly. Our thoughts are with the victim and his family.” They rightly went on to point out that British Muslims have long served in the Armed forces and that “This attack on a member of the Armed Forces is dishonourable, and no cause justifies this murder.”

The Council should do more to monitor the hate-preachers in their own community, but the fault for this barbaric killing does not reside with everyday Muslims and the people who have responded by attacking mosques are not helping anyone. Religious war is precisely what the jihadists most desire. If you want to protest, get smarter. Instead of throwing bottles at the cops, picket the politicians and professors who came up with the deeply flawed and ruinous ideology of multiculturalism, and the Guardianistas who defend it; stage mass demos outside of the European Court of Human Rights; repeatedly name and shame the self-loathing fools behind unrestricted immigration; mock the pretend-Marxists who embrace reactionary clerics; vote for politicians who aren’t part of the corrupt elite. Take the protest to the top, don’t turn on the poor sods at the bottom. Above all, at a time like this, keep calm, keep alert, sling some cash at Help For Heroes and stay free. No surrender.

May 11. I was accused recently of being “obsessed” with the EU. Not so. I’m just incensed by the constant insane meddling and bureaucracy of this undemocratic anachronism. The latest law proposed by the European Commission would make it illegal to "grow, reproduce or trade" any vegetable seeds that have not been "tested, approved and accepted" by a new EU bureaucracy called the EU Plant Variety Agency. This Plant Reproductive Material Law would effectively criminalise home gardeners who grow their own plants from non-regulated seeds. Organic growers and small market farmers would be stopped from developing vegetable varieties, according to Ben Gabel of The Real Seed Catalogue who adds: “Home gardeners have really different needs - for example they grow by hand, not machine, and can't or don't want to use such powerful chemical sprays. There's no way to register the varieties suitable for home use as they don't meet the strict criteria of the Plant Variety Agency, which is only concerned about approving the sort of seed used by industrial farmers.” He goes on: “This is an instance of bureaucracy out of control... this new law creates a whole new raft of EU civil servants being paid to move mountains of papers round all day, while killing off the seed supply to home gardeners and interfering with the right of farmers to grow what they want. It also very worrying that they have given themselves the power to regulate and licence any plant species of any sort at all in the future - not just agricultural plants, but grasses, mosses, flowers, anything at all - without having to bring it back to the Council for a vote.”

Meanwhile, the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive seeks to re-classify e-cigarettes either as tobacco products or medicinal products. Eh? Tobacco products? E-cigs contain no tobacco at all (and are actually used by ex-smokers to break away from normal fags.) Either classification would make e-fags harder to buy. Shouldn’t the health fascists be promoting and encouraging these ingenious consumer products as a healthy alternative to lung-rotting tobacco?

Incidentally, May 9th was Europe Day, and over in Brussels EC President Jose Manuel Barroso, the Portuguese Maoist, used the occasion to promise to drive on to what he called “intensified political union.” He is pledging a revised treaty to speed up the EU's aim of becoming Europe A Nation (the old Mosley dream). So don’t be fooled when Shameron tells us Britain can renegotiate our relationship. Sovereignty, our right to make our own laws, along with economic freedom, nationhood, liberty and democracy are the price of membership – as our rulers have always known, even though they have lied shamelessly about it for decades (and still do). Full political, economic and military union is the stated goal of the EU elite. Member countries can’t pick and choose. British voters will (eventually) have one simple but very real choice to make: in or out. Let’s hope we make it soon.

May 7. Just heard Nick Clegg spouting cobblers about the EU and “what people want” on Radio 4’s Today Show. The latest polls indicate that what more than eight out of ten voters actually want is an In/Out referendum... something Clegg promised to deliver before the last election. The Lib-Dim leaflet calling for a “real referendum” even had his face on it. It read: ‘It's been over thirty years since the British people last had a vote on Britain's membership of the European Union. That's why the Liberal Democrats want a real referendum on Europe. Only a real referendum on Britain's membership of the EU will let the people decide our country's future. But Labour don't want the people to have their say. The Conservatives only support a limited referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Why won't they give the people a say in a real referendum?’ Yes, and why won’t you Nick? Nick? No answer. Oh, that’s a shame. I’d hate people to think he was just another slippery liar intent on lining his own pockets on the EU gravy train.

Conspiracy Corner: Jimmy Tarbuck was arrested on 26th April. Why was this only announced yesterday? We can’t be sure, but it certainly keeps deputy speaker Nigel Evans off the front pages...

I hope Tarby is innocent, but if he’s not, the joke of the day is at least he’ll be Live From Her Majesty’s again...

May 2. Unfortunately I can’t vote today, but if I did I would protest-vote against the clapped-out establishment parties. There are only two protest parties to take seriously, the Greens and UKIP. The Greens have some admirable sentiments. I like their commitment to smaller companies and cooperatives, decentralised health care, and high-quality public services. You just feel that almost everything they stand for would involve punitive levels of taxation. In practice they backed Red Ken, which is never a good sign, their energy policies are ridiculous, they’d tax your kids’ tellies, and they give credence to homeopathic hogwash. At heart they’re dippy hippies who’d love the world to be one great big happy commune – and it never will be. UKIP have been accused of being something far worse. One Facebook group paints them as the gateway to Nazism, which is ridiculous even by internet standards. In reality they’re the closest we’ve got to a Libertarian Party. Their economic policies make far more sense than say anything endorsed by Ken Clarke (the clown who wanted us to join the Euro). UKIP were mocked on last night’s 10 O’Clock Live for stating prominently that they are not a racist party. Why do they do that? Because for decades infantile ultra-Left politicos have accused anyone remotely patriotic of being ‘racist’ or ‘fascist’ even when they plainly are not. Are there cranks in the party? Of course there are. Which party hasn’t got them? One eccentric Labour fruitcake praised a repressive totalitarian South American regime just a couple of years ago – Harriett Harman was her name. Miliband’s mate Eric Hobsbawn was an apologist for Stalin’s multitude of horrendous crimes against humanity. Livingstone is a friend of the maddest of Mullahs... I have spoken at length to Nigel Farage on the record and off the record. He isn’t a racist, and he has taken huge steps to expel anyone with dubious connections (unlike the Labour Party which currently has three ex-BNP councillors and an unhealthy paedophile scandal they’ve managed to keep out of the papers). He is one of the few MPs I’ve met who actually seems a) normal and b) in touch with everyday reality. Labour’s Joe Ashton was another one. You couldn’t sling that accusation at Ed. Like the Greens, Farage’s motley crew appeal to those nostalgic for a lost world, but in their case it is one that actually existed, a world of small freedoms which we seem to be losing more of day by day. Nostalgia isn’t necessarily healthy but neither is surrender. At a time when politics and politicians are increasingly remote, when our lives are blighted by decisions made in European Courts and undemocratic ‘parliaments’, voting UKIP today represents a chance to kick back and to show the powers that be that we’re not dead yet.

April 23. Happy St George’s Day! People who try and tell the English that we shouldn’t be patriotic are either misguided fools or self-loathing nitwits. “What does being English even mean?” they sneer – a question they wouldn’t dream of asking a Scot or a Frenchman. “You’ve got no culture”, they parrot, being too blinded by wilful ignorance to acknowledge that from Chaucer to Tallis, Purcell to Elgar, Kipling to Browning via Tennyson and Ralph Vaughan Williams, the English have one of the richest cultures in the world.

Patriotism should not be confused with nationalism; it’s a healthy natural emotion. It’s about loving your country, not hating others. Patriotism crosses party boundaries, of course, but I’ve long felt it would do the Labour Party good to endorse the St George’s Day campaign. It’s never been more obvious that the super-rich and multinational corporations are the real anti-social elements in our society. Trouble is, the Labour Party don’t really exist in any meaningful sense. Old Labour was a people’s party and as such it was instinctively patriotic. But that was before the middle class professionals and consultants took it over and watered it down to the party of nothing very much, thank you.

This wretched ragbag that calls itself Labour today stands for globalisation, regionalisation, rule by Brussels, and ‘British jobs for the cheapest imported workforce’. In power, Blair and Brown fawned over failing bankers and genuflected before irresponsible speculators. Jet-setter Anthony Blair now pockets £7million-a-year; he has at least seven houses – one worth £5million - and more than £20mill in the bank. Oligarch enthusiast ‘Lord’ ­Mandelson, who made more than £2million out of the EU gravy train, has a £180,000-a-year pension and a £5 million mortgage... People’s party, my arse. Miliband shows no sign of being any better. In fact ‘Red Ed’ seems happy to be part of the hypocritical new elite, alongside Cameron and Clegg. They’re all busy selling the birthright of the English, and all British people, down the river – including our liberties and our democracy. Tens of thousands will protest-vote UKIP on May 2nd because they want this process of deceit and betrayal to stop. I don’t hammer my colours to any political party, but it’s a protest that needs to be registered – and loudly.

Blog silence now resumed.

Sorry, this blog is off-line while I finish my new book. Bushell On The Box carries on as normal.

April 19. Poor old Rolf Harris, 83, is the latest aging celebrity to be nicked by the ludicrous Operation Yewtree plod. We don’t know the details of the decades-old accusations against the veteran entertainer, but I reckon it’s all a tragic misunderstanding. Rolf probably just asked the woman to close her eyes and hold out her hand before asking “Can you tell what it is yet?” And it was his didgeridoo all along. (For all possible bad taste gags about tying kangaroos down, wobble boards, Jake The Peg’s extra leg and Two Little Boys, see sickipedia, Twitter, Facebook etc etc...)

Don’t you feel sorry for the old boys being humiliated like this? Ten will get you twenty that none of these charges will stick, but their lives and reputations are ruined. So what’s it all about? See my earlier answer – it’s a smoke screen to keep our minds off bigger scandals involving the rich and powerful.

Paul Offit, who argues that the MMR jab should be made compulsory for all kids, is no impartial expert. Yet strangely the BBC chooses not to mention his ties to big pharmaceutical companies...

April 18. The Independent’s review of the Thatcher funeral, by the usually entertaining Grace Dent, includes talk of empty streets, and claims “the throngs never came” – all undermined by pictures of the thousands lining London streets, eight deep on the pavements around St Pauls. The only throngs who didn’t show were the protestors.

Nigel Farage might live to regret his Maggie remarks. How many thousands of votes will that cost him in the North East?

April 17. The far-Left did themselves no favours at Margaret Thatcher’s funeral. A handful of activists near Ludgate Circus heckling a corpse? They’d have been better off boycotting the procession and staying home. At least then the myth of furious mass opposition, fostered in advance on the BBC website, might have been more believable. Other talking points, besides Sam Cam’s ludicrous Pan Am-style mourning look? Shameron’s claim that “We’re all Thatcherites now” – David Cameron has never believed in anything, other than the advancement of D. Cameron, in his slippery, over-privileged life. And David Dimbleby’s half-hearted gaffe-strewn BBC1 commentary.

April 15. So here’s my big news: I’ve signed a deal with Caffeine Nights to publish the third part of the Harry Tyler pulp fiction series. People kept asking me what Harry did next; for all his flaws as a human being, you seem to really like the character. I didn’t want to leave Harry in limbo either. So I’m very happy to be finishing the trilogy and even happier to have signed up with Caffeine Nights, an independent publishing house who specialise in crime fiction, to do so. This new adventure reunites Harry with his smartest, toughest foe, gangster Johnny Too from The Face, and pits him against a deadly new adversary... The press release reads:

‘Face Down follows The Face and Two-Faced and is the closing instalment of the brutal but darkly funny Harry Tyler trilogy. Book one, The Face, introduced undercover cop Harry Tyler and told how he brought down vicious South London crime family, the Bakers. The novel was a controversial success when it was published, selling out three editions and making front page news. The follow-up, Two-Faced saw detective turned renegade Harry escape a lonely death in Ireland after being set up by MI5. Face Down catches up with Harry in 2012. The fast-talking character is surviving on his wits in the North West of England until fate conspires to reunite him with formidable villain John Baker, known as Johnny Too, released from jail early as bait for a serial killer. “We are thrilled to have Garry on board. Face Down is a great book in the style and tradition of the previous two novels in the series. It’s a fast, action-packed and full-on sexy book that readers will love,” said Darren Laws, CEO of Caffeine Nights Publishing. “Signing Garry is a major coup for an independent publisher of our size, but it highlights our ambition to attract quality authors with great novels.”’ Face Down is scheduled (a trifle optimistically) for an autumn publication in paperback and all eBook formats. Watch this space for news on my other new book, Rock Zombie Dreams, which should be published in the USA and here this August.

*Also launching soon is an exciting Street Sounds e-book imprint, initially aimed at publishing youth cult related fiction by new authors... more details will be in Street Sounds #3

April 14. If you live anywhere near Southend, don’t miss the live comedy benefit gig for the C.O.P.S. charity on May 6th. Comics including TERRY ALDERTON and MARK ROUGH will be performing at the Park View Suite, Chalkwell Park, SS0 8NB Southend-on-Sea. Tickets: £10 from here.

Dark thought: most high profile celebrity arrests are based on accusations that could never be proved in court. Am I alone in suspecting that Operation Yewtree is a smoke screen designed to distract us from a bigger scandal? It seems unlikely that Cyril Smith was the only stinking pervert in Westminster.

Good news coming: tune back here next week for a BIG announcement... Meanwhile, smartphone users can now add this website to their phones by scanning the QR code. Try it!

April 9th. Yes, they all despise Maggie. George Galloway, the silver-tongued apologist for brutal Middle East dictators, wants to ‘tramp the dirt down’ on the former PM’s grave. Gerry Adams, a former Provisional IRA commander, says, with no sense of irony, that Baroness Thatcher “did a great deal of hurt.” The rapist-friendly SWP are “rejoicing” in the 87-year-old grandmother’s death, which is in marked contrast to the respectful tone of their obituary for Osama Bin Laden, whom they dubbed “the only serious response to the power of the West.” No doubt the Argentinean government have got a few harsh words for Maggie as well.

If we are judged in death by the people who hated us in life, then the old girl didn’t do so badly.

Of course Margaret Thatcher did many things I disagreed with – back in the day quite vehemently. But in stark contrast to most modern British Prime Ministers she was a conviction politician. She was also anti-Establishment, a radical of the free market Right who acted on her beliefs, and so of course she divided public opinion. She split Britain, she had to – in order to change us. But was it change for the better or for the worse? Let’s remind ourselves what life was like in the 1970s. The UK was essentially washed up, floating up shit creek without a paddle. Our economy was the sick man of Europe; our GDP was 46 per cent below the Germans, and 41 per cent below France. We were even out-performed by Italy. Inflation was in double figures, there were three day weeks, rubbish was piling up on the streets, the dead in Liverpool went unburied and it was the widespread belief of politicians and the media that this horrendous decline was inevitable, unstoppable and probably deserved. Margaret Thatcher turned all of this around. Monetarism kick-started the ailing economy; free enterprise and aspiration were encouraged, taxes were cut, revenue flooded in, productivity rose, business boomed and Britain bounced back from disaster. Managed decline had turned into rampant recovery in under a decade, and Thatcherism created the boom that other PMs rode... until Gordon Brown pissed it all away.

Here’s what else Maggie did right: she refused to endorse the single currency and gave council tenants the right to buy their homes; with Reagan, she helped speed up the collapse of the repressive state-capitalist ‘Communist’ regimes and she stood up to Argentina’s fascist junta when it tried to crush the Falkland Islanders, who were all British citizens, under its iron heel. Her values were simple but they were good ones – self-advancement, self-improvement, hard work, and taking responsibility for your own actions. So where did she do wrong? The Poll Tax was a major political misjudgement. Our manufacturing backbone was destroyed and the defeat of the miners’ tore the hearts out of many communities. Yet people conveniently forget that more pits were closed down under Harold Wilson than under Thatcher, and that the main architect of the miners’ defeat was that jumped-up Stalinist Napoleon Arthur Scargill who fought the wrong fight at the wrong time for the wrong reasons. We could argue for some time over whether it was right to stop state subsidies to heavy industries that were already clearly doomed by globalisation; it was certainly wrong not to encourage new jobs to flood into single-industry towns when those subsidies did stop.

The bottom line is Margaret Thatcher is hated because she achieved things. People either loved her, including millions of working class voters (she was elected as Prime Minister three times) or they despised her. Uniquely both left and right wings of the modern Establishment hated her. They looked down their noses at this upstart grocer’s daughter who had bigger balls than any man in Westminster and to this day they cannot comprehend why Maggie commanded respect from so many. I think the venom of the abuse storm on Twitter says more about the Left and modern ‘left-wing’ values than it does about the late Baroness. In a democracy surely we can disagree with someone without rejoicing vilely in their death? Let’s count the thousands who line the streets in Maggie’s memory next Wednesday, and then ask would any current Labour leader attract a tenth of that turn-out.

Great Thatcher quotes: “We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain only to see them re-imposed at a European level with a European superstate exercising a new dominance from Brussels.”

“People from my sort of background needed grammar schools to compete with children from privileged homes like Shirley Williams and Anthony Wedgwood Benn.”

What she ACTUALLY said about society: “People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.”

April 6. Random thoughts: how has Labour got themselves on the wrong side of the Philpott row? The Labour answer to poverty and unemployment should be job creation not welfarism – there is a great piece by Brendan O’Neill on the welfare myth in today’s Mail. The respectable working class want nothing to do with cheats and scroungers. It's true of course that more money is lost by tax avoidance than playing the benefits system, but welfarism is a poisonous cancer rotting the nation’s soul (and sapping the will to fight). Most of our people want to work – we should encourage them.

It just cost me £4 to go through the Dartford Tunnel and back. We were told that the toll was only introduced to cover for the construction costs. Yet the Crossing was paid for NINE years ago. This didn’t stop the current operators, Connect Plus M25 from putting the price up last October. It’s daylight robbery plain and simple, the worst stitch-up this side of BBC1’s Sewing Bee. Motorists shell out enough already.

I saw a brilliant poster driving into Bexley today: a cross of St George over the slogan: Home Rule. Too right. The fight for English home rule should be our priority; to save democracy, and freedom, we need our Parliament to be sovereign rather than subservient to Brussels and the European Courts.

Nigel Farage is storming the country on his speaking tour; every public meeting is packed, with standing room only at the back. I expect UKIP to do as well in next month’s council elections as they did in Eastleigh. Voters have had enough of our Tweedledum and Tweedledumber politicians. It’s time for change.

Question of the week: who causes the most damage – the tame fascist managing Sunderland or the lame ex-Communist overseeing the dismal decline of the NHS?

Jim Davidson has been barred from the Marlowe theatre in Canterbury because the director says his jokes could cause offence to women and the disabled; in the same breath he says he’d consider booking Frankie Boyle. That’s it folks, irony has officially died.

April 1st. The Mirror got in a great April Fool’s Day gag today with their front page story: ‘D-Day For Savage Con-Dem Cuts’. How we laughed! Government spending (and state debt) is still rocketing up not down, of course, and do they really think a Labour government would be doing anything different? Gertcha. Quick fact check: in 2009-10, under Gordon Brown, social security benefit spending came in at £163.7bn; tax credits were £22.9bn. The forecast for 2013-14 is £180.4bn on social security benefits and £29bn on tax credits – that’s an increase of more than 12%. If the Con-Dem Coalition government is really intent on “dismantling the welfare system”, they’ve got a funny way of showing it.

Nature has played the cruellest prank on us, though, by carrying Winter on into April. We changed to British Summer Time two days ago, someone tell the weather.

David Miliband has quit his £75,000-a-year directorship of Sunderland FC over new head coach Paolo Di Canio's “past political statements.” Miliband is however delighted to accept a £300,000-a-year job with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), the New York based “relief organisation” that has Henry Kissinger on its board of “overseers” ... That’s the same Henry Kissinger who Christopher Hitchens convincingly accused of war crimes in Cambodia and Chile. Tom Lehrer famously said satire was “obsolete” when Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973. Next to him Di Canio, the self-proclaimed “fascist, not racist” seems almost harmless... although it’s hard to believe anyone with half a brain could seriously advocate the corporate state as the answer to Europe’s economic malaise.

*Di Canio was a great footballer but as a politician he’s an embarrassment. Surely it’s up to Sunderland fans to decide how to react to his appointment, though. Many of them will have had relatives in the Durham Light Infantry, the Northumberland Hussars and the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers who would have fought against Mussolini’s boys at Monte Cassino, in Sicily and at Salerno. If they are offended by a fascist sympathiser manager then they should vote with their feet and stay away. As Jock Stein once said (and too many club directors forget) “football without fans is nothing.”

*We’ve had political managers before, of course. Brian Clough, a socialist, gave free tickets for Derby's games to striking miners. While Bill Shankly once said: “The socialism I believe in is everybody working for the same goal and everybody having a share in the rewards. That's how I see football, that's how I see life.” (The shares have got increasingly lop-sided since then of course.) As a matter of fact, England have only ever won the World Cup under a Labour government, but I doubt that there’s a causal connection.

March 31. Happy Easter? Not if you’ve got your savings in a Cyprus bank. Thanks to the arrogant robber barons of the European Union, British ex-pats with deposits in the Bank of Cyprus will be walloped for 37.5% of every penny they’ve got over £85K. Those saving with Laiki Bank face an 80% raid. This grand larceny isn’t for the benefit of the Cypriot people – it’s purely to save the Euro. The doomed currency, dreamed up by politicians and bureaucrats, is already responsible for more theft than Bernie Madoff and Ronnie Kray put together. Of course, the Cypriot people would have been much better off if they’d been allowed to leave the Eurozone and devalue, but that doesn’t suit our masters. The Euro-fanatics would rather help themselves to your hard-earned dosh than give up on the dream. You wonder what they’ll go for next. Will they send in EU dinner inspectors to over-see how many chops the Cypriots can have for tea? “Two for you, two for Angela Merkel”? You wouldn’t put it past these creeps to start breaking into kids’ piggy banks. Some call it asset confiscation. It’s more like economic rape. The will of the German parliament outweighs the rights of the Cypriot people. They’re the daddy, Cyprus is their bitch. It isn’t over yet, either. Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who heads the Eurogroup of Eurozone finance ministers, says this is the template for ALL eurozone countries. That’s right. If you live in a country whose currency is the Euro then your rulers believe they can do what the hell they like with your money. Something to chew on if you’re Spanish, French or Italian with a few bob in the bank.

March 28. My John King interview is now up and running at litopia.com. We discuss his novels, Orwell, Alan Sillitoe, London Books, punk, identity, Richard Allen, the EU and more.

Will any of the celebrities lifted with great publicity by the Operation Yewtree cops actually be charged? It is looking increasingly unlikely, yet the likes of Jim Davidson and Freddie Starr have had their reputations tarnished by being unfairly linked to the odious Jimmy Savile. I do hope they have grounds to sue.

March 27. Ed Davey has an “action plan”. That sounds like good news, what with energy bills rising, gas supplies running out and no sign of Spring. For the best part of a week most of our back gardens have looked like a trailer for Game Of Thrones season three. Sadly Ed’s grand plan is completely out of step with reality. The Lib-Dem Secretary of State for Energy & Climate Change is setting up the Heat Network Agency (more pen-pushers), “green apprenticeships” and a £9million Heat Network scheme. It all seems as disconnected from modern Britain as Babylon 5. As we endure the coldest winter since 1963, this useless government is imposing new taxes on gas and coal-fired power stations to drive up fuel bills. They, and New Labour before them, have blown billions on pricy wind farms that don’t work that well. Labour stopped building nuclear power plants, and the recent announcement of planning approval for Hinkley feels like too little too late. “Science drives our policies,” claims Ed. It doesn’t. UK energy industry has been sacrificed on the altar of suspect ideology and a “capacity crunch” is looming. My advice? Buy in candles and look forward to the black-outs.

March 25. My latest podcast is up and running at Bloodstock Radio, with studio guest Rhoda Dakar from the Special AKA, and tasty tracks from Bonecrusher, the Harrington Saints, Smalltown, the Dualers, the UK Subs, Vinnie & The Stars, the Black Marias, the Selecter, Klasse Kriminale, the Skoisters, Mannequin, Dublin’s Hooligan, and the Noxious Toyz. Hear it here, if the mood takes you.

The papers reckon Boris Johnson has been fatally damaged by yesterday’s Eddie Mair interview. Somehow I doubt it. Surely most people will just shrug and say, “If that’s the worst they can dig up about him, he can’t be too bad.” I disagree with Bo-Jo on a whole range of issues, but compared to Livingstone he’s an incredibly likeable figure and he’ll make a much better Tory leader than Shameron. These ancient charges will bounce off Boris like bullets off Superman’s chest.

David Cameron’s new pledges on migrants are empty rhetoric. He’s playing to the gallery. They won’t change a thing.

March 24. Is now a good time to remind the Independent that 13 years ago they solemnly promised us that snowfalls were “a thing of the past”? Thought not.

March 23. It’s one month until St George’s Day, and as is traditional, there are no grand national events planned. But there are some good and varied local celebrations of England’s national day including a St George’s Day gala at the Royal Albert Hall on Sunday April 21 which features traditional English music played by the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra with readings from Wordsworth and John Betjeman. (Tickets range from £14.00 to £46.50; booking line: 0845 401 5045).

Most knees-ups for England's patron saint will be low-key affairs on the day itself. The Lamb & Flag in Covent Garden is one of many London pubs laying on colourful events; while up in Lytham there’s a four day festival including a comedy night with Phil Walker and UKIP supporter Gregg Cook. All good, but a long way short of the festivities for St Patrick (another fine Englishman). Why is this? The traditional problems still persist: chiefly middle class self-loathing and the left intelligentsia’s illogical distrust of patriotism. Elsewhere on this site, you’ll find my archive feature on England and English identity, which analyses the arguments that are trotted out against St George’s Day and finds them wanting. More recently, it has been claimed that the use of the English flag by groups like the EDL have “toxified” it, which is cobblers on a stick a) because what other flag would they use? b) if this were the case why didn’t the Provos use of the tricolour toxify that? And c) the EDL only came into existence because ordinary people felt their identity and rights were being sacrificed on the altar of multiculturalism.

The suppression of English identity leads to unsavoury mutations. Yet that identity has long been genuinely threatened by politicians – the EU would like to break us up into regions, while New Labour tried to permanently change the nature of the country by recklessly relaxing immigration controls. The devolution debate in Scotland and Wales gave these countries a renewed affinity with their national identity, but Establishment politicians and the media have been keen to suppress this process in England. John Prescott, born in Wales, infamously said: “There is no such nationality as the English.” We have to prove him wrong. And to prove also that there is no shame in being English, rather that there is much to be quietly proud of – from Alfred the Great and Magna Carta to English law and jurisprudence, from trade unionism to one-man one-vote, from the Bard to the Buzzcocks via England’s historic role in the fight against slavery, Nazism and other foreign tyrannies.

Oh I know the temptation is to shrug apathetically and say “What can we do?” but the answer is actually quite a lot. Firstly, if you’d like to see St George’s Day become a bank holiday, then book the day off work as a holiday and join thousands of others who agree with you. That sends a mighty message to our rulers: this is OUR day and we’re taking it, like it or not. Detractors say a national day off would cost a packet – the Centre for Economics and Business reckons it’d cost the UK economy a whopping £2.3billion. Except, we’re not asking for a new bank holiday, merely for the May one be moved forward to April 23rd. And besides, St Patrick's Day is a massively commercial, money-spinning event. Four million pints of Guinness were sunk in the UK alone. This is a challenge England’s bitter drinkers could easily out-do, given half a chance. Guinness has backed St Patrick’s Day for three decades, and I’m pleased to see English breweries like Wells & Young and Shepherd Neame doing their bit too. As Labour’s Hilary Benn, the Shadow Communities Secretary, said last year: “Each country should feel comfortable with celebrating its own identity while being part of a partnership from which we all derive benefit, security, mutual support, and greater influence in a changing world." Too right, Hils. But don’t let’s wait for the green light from untrustworthy politicians. Party for England! Celebrate for England! Drink for England! Remember, as G.K. Chesterton wrote: ‘St George he was for England and before he killed the dragon, he drank a pint of English ale out of an English flagon!’ Cheers.

March 22. The fight to save Lewisham Hospital’s A&E and maternity services goes on. The Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign has called for a lobby of Parliament next Tuesday, 26th March, under the slogans: ‘Say No to Privatisation Of the NHS’ and ‘Stop the Section 75 Regulations’. Protestors are asked to assemble at the Lobby Gate at 12 noon. Heidi Alexander, MP, says: “At the end of January despite huge public opposition, the Government decided to proceed with the closure of the full A&E and full maternity department at Lewisham Hospital. They claim they will retain a ‘smaller A&E’ at Lewisham and a mid-wife led birthing unit. Be under no illusions - these changes will lead to a decimation of services at Lewisham. Whilst the plans will take about 3 years to implement (and all services at Lewisham are set to remain until investment has taken place at other hospitals in order to deal with patients displaced from Lewisham), it is clear that ultimately, all "blue light" ambulances will be sent to other hospitals and up to 9 in 10 babies will have to be born elsewhere. The sale of two thirds of the land and buildings at Lewisham Hospital is also set to proceed.” Lewisham Council has launched a legal challenge, and a challenge fund to assist with covering the costs of the legal action. If you are able to make a donation (no matter how small), please click on this link.

March 21. George Osborne’s Budget was like watching Mr. Bean attempt to stuff a partially-inflated blow-up doll into a bedroom drawer. He got increasingly furious to little effect. Osborne has one economic policy which he sticks to like glue: carry on building up debt but lie about it. At one point, his voice gave up on him as if even it couldn’t contemplate reading out any more of his bullshit. George has been preaching the gospel of austerity for three years yet real public spending continues to rocket. The Government is spending £120billion a year more than it earns. £120billion! That’s disastrous. The only sensible policy would be to slash taxes and stop blowing billions on useless quangos and undeserved overseas aid; but that’s a message no establishment party will deliver.

March 20. What a tough choice for the people of Cyprus. Do they do a deal with a sinister bunch of pushy, dictatorial villains with no concern for democracy, or do they tell the EU to poke it and deal with the Russians instead?

March 19. Bit by bit, the freedoms that the British once took for granted are being chipped away. The Royal Charter deal, seized on by our discredited political leaders, is the first step towards state control of the press. Putting MPs in charge of the debate was like asking Kim Jong-un to watch out for the best interests of South Korea, or Millwall supporters to regulate West Ham. Of course politicians, still smarting from the expenses scandal, want to create a powerful ‘watchdog’ to gag the Fourth Estate. But is their proposal in the interests of freedom of speech? Of course not. Look at the small print and any website containing ‘news-related material’ also falls under the Charter’s remit – and that means anyone running a blog. Why? Laws already exist to protect the rights of anyone abused or libelled on-line as well as by newspapers. At the risk of sounding paranoid, I suspect this is actually more to do with long-term suppression of dissent. It’s not about protecting the merry band of shaggers, coke-sniffers and sadomasochist orgy enthusiasts behind Hacked Off. It starts with Hugh Grant’s blow-job and ends with the gagging of anyone critical of the EU – something much harder to swallow, as I’m sure even Divine Brown would testify. We’ve already seen civil servants attempt to gag anti-wind-farm protesters. Who next? Britain’s national newspapers, for all their flaws, have long been at the forefront of exposing the follies of the European ‘project’. But for how much longer? The basic principle of a free press, which Churchill called “the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize” has been lost. Still never mind though, Clegg and Miliband are certain to walk into well-paid EU jobs once their domestic political careers end in ignominious failure.

March 18. I’m still reeling at the thought that the EU can just over-ride the law and individual rights to pick the pockets of savers in Cyprus. The German news media are peddling the line that the island is awash with dodgy Russian loot. But clearly not everyone with a Cypriot bank account is a Muscovite money-launderer. And besides, if they were, isn’t that a job for Interpol? These two-bob tin-pot Eurocrats seem to think that we are here to subsidise them. What’s theirs is theirs and what’s ours is theirs too. Cyprus today, Madrid tomorrow, your bank next Tuesday. This will get a whole lot worse before it gets better. Sod the banks, buy gold and silver.

March 17. A nasty outbreak of mugging in Cyprus. The victims are anyone with savings, the muggers are the EU. They’re calling it a tax on savers, imposed as part of the bail-out deal for the island. Savers with deposits over £86K will be robbed of 9.9% of their money; anyone with less will lose 6.5%. More than fifty thousand of them are thought to be British, including about 3,000 members of our Armed Forces. They don’t have a say in the matter, but will be compensated by our Government – i.e. British taxpayers. This direct pillaging is scandalous of course, but at least it’s more honest than our own politicians’ approach. Governments, who continue to live way beyond their means, regularly pick our pockets through inflation, savings taxes or by fixing interest rates so they can borrow cheaply (at the cost of plummeting returns for anyone prudent enough to save). Sometimes they do all three at the same time. That’s pillaging by stealth. Savers in British banks and building societies have been robbed of around £43billion since the Bank Of England froze interest rates at half a per cent four years ago. It’s estimated that the average UK saver has lost £2,500 in real terms since the credit crisis began. In other words, it’s not just Cyprus. We’re all being fleeced. As Bernard Manning used to say, “At least Dick Turpin wore a mask.”

Bizarrely I have been named as one of House magazine's Top Ten 'Political Comedians'. The piece manages to make three mistakes in just under two lines, including misspelling my name, but never mind. The hook is of course the rise of Beppe Grillo in Italy, whose major gift to his country's battered political culture is V-Day - that's V for Vaffanculo, the Italian for “Fuck off.” That's pretty much his manifesto: “Politicians, fuck off”. You can see why he's caught on. Brillo’s 5 Star Movement are the Italian equivalent of the Monster Raving Loony Party, only with more brains, a broader base and a serious manifesto. Italian politics has long been a boom area for clowns, of course, from Il Duce to Berlusconi (AKA "the Great Seducer") so one more won't make much difference. But you get the feeling Grillo could make a real difference if his Movimento 5 Stelle had more coherence. He says it isn’t a political party but rather “a democratic dialogue” born online and in public squares. Every ten days, they vote on positions, always working from below, never from above — “the opposite of the political pyramid that has suffocated our democracy.” He has swerved traditional areas of political debate, taking his message to the people via comedy shows, demos, on-line forums, city-council meetings, and public gatherings. His core values appear to be "trasparenza" (transparency), "coerenza" (consistency), "efficienza" (efficiency), and of course, "democrazia" (democracy). Unlike many Italian politicians, M5S MPs can't have criminal records, can't serve more than two terms in office, and will only take home one third of their MP salary. (The left-over dosh goes back into the government pot.) You might not agree with M5S’s political manifesto, but it’s still exciting to see something grow from the bottom up and challenge the established system - especially one as corrupt and tarnished as Italy's. The cynic is me says M5S will be rapidly corrupted itself, but the dream of citizens running their own country is a just and beautiful one.

* I quite like the idea of being identified as a comedian. It must be the funny walk... but if I were a stand-up, the last thing I’d be is a political one. You listen to Jeremy Hardy on the News Quiz and he sounds like Eeyore with a death wish. They must hide the razor blades every time he’s on the panel. Like Mark Steel, Hardy is from the wilder shores of the Far Left, which rather buggers the standard leftwing argument that the BBC is a conservative monolith. In fact it’s far easier to get on state radio or TV if you’re a Marxist comic. Rightwing ones barely get a look in. I know a few good, popular turns who support UKIP and they get no air-time at all. It makes you wonder if the Beeb operates a blacklist. This isn’t paranoia. I haven't been booked to appear on a BBC TV show since I stood in a by-election arguing for the establishment of an English Parliament in 2005. But look who has prospered from state endorsement: Marcus Brigstocke (public school rebel turned atheist and climate change bore), Mark Watson (who campaigned for bloated hypocrite Al Gore), Stewart Lee (right-on comedy snob)... Oppose the ruling elite from the Left and exposure is assured; oppose them from a position the Tarquins crudely identify as "the right" and you can kiss broadcasting goodbye. It's one of the things I touch on with Nigel Farage in my first talk show, now available for free on iTunes - (I'm not a UKIP member, but Farage is right about the damaging anti-democratic monolithic nature of the EU and it's hard not to warm to his honesty, openness and those funny old lizard eyes.)

My new book-related chat-show is up and running at Radio Litopia. The first guest is Nigel Farage, the leader of UKIP, sounding forth on Cameron, BBC bias, and of course the EU. We also chat about Chandler, Madness, Windrush and much more... Hear Nigel’s robust views on The Garry Bushell show.

Jan 27. This blog is closing down, but be warned - this is coming soon:

And for those in need of fine reading matter, issue #2 of StreetSounds will be available to order from Tuesday 29th, here.

People often ask why I don't do much TV any more. The simple answer is I can't bake or skate and the only low dives that interest me are bars, clubs and gambling dens. The longer answer is that TV is now so feminised there is precious little I'd care to be on. I've got nothing against women of course, but like most men I consider it a sad state of affairs when the likes of Miranda and Call The Midwife occupy prime time TV slots which were once the preserve of Steptoe and the Sweeney. It's not a question of gender but of quality. BBC1's evening schedules in particular are full of badly written soaps, while their poorly presented Saturday night line-up makes you long for the simple joys of Noel's House Party. Where is this generation's Marti Caine? Male interest TV is neglected and ghettoised or sabotaged by the idiotic and illogical pursuit of demographics. I say no to two or three shows a month and will continue to do so until something decent comes along.

Jan 25. Thrill-seekers are said to be having sex near the top of London’s Shard Tower. Talk about being taken up the Shard. The dubious evidence for this claim is a solitary pair of black thongs found discarded in the gents’ toilets. Very possibly on floor 69. But at nearly £25 a ticket, thong woman isn’t the only one getting screwed. (In a related story, applications for window-cleaning jobs have gone through the roof... )

Imagine the scene. He’s pounding, she’s panting, her eyes rolling. “Vertigo?” asks the fella. “No,” she replies breathlessly. “Just three more strokes... ”

Jan 24. The Socialist Workers Party, by far the most influential far-Left organisation in Britain, is said to be a war with itself after a senior official - Comrade Delta - was accused of raping a female member only to be cleared by seven other senior 'comrades', five of whom had served with him on the party's Central Committee. Instead of facing the 'bourgeois' courts, he was tried by his mates who surprisingly found in his favour. Trebles all round. But branches all over the country are up in arms about it. Decades ago I was a member of the SWP's predecessor, the International Socialists. They were a bright, principled and funny bunch; unlike the grim Workers' Revolutionary Party who were led by the rapist and serial sex pest Gerry Healy. But I became disillusioned by IS policy changes; specifically their defence of the Paedophile Information Exchange and their support for English working class people getting blown to bits by terrorist bombs. When the IS absurdly declared themselves to be the Party, they became increasingly anti-democratic and cult-like. They were led, badly and erratically, from the top. For the last decade the SWP have marched hand in hand with clerical fascists who detest the very feminist and gay issues the SWP claim to espouse. The weight of ideological contradictions has seen membership drop to under 2,000 'cadre', a long way from the highs of the mid to late 70s when 40,000 copies of the Socialist Worker were sold every week and they were riding the crest of a militant wave of union action and cultural revolt. And their old tactic of crushing dissent by expelling 'factions' no longer seems to be working. Not that other far-Left organisations are likely to gain from the SWP's crisis. Deeply flawed by Leninism, they are unable to speak to working class people in language they understand. A new 'UKIP of the Left' may be needed for the good of democracy, but it won't come from these clowns.

One thing the sordid SWP business illustrates is that the far-Left have no monopoly on virtue. Their activists believe, rather like Jehovah’s Witnesses, EU Commissioners, Nazis and Islamists, that they are the sole beacon of light in a darkening world. It’s this sense of being on the side of history, on the side of the angels, that allows them to think that they can break any law they choose with impunity. Your truth means less than theirs; your rights have less value, your arguments less merit. In practice, the far-Left are just as venal, bent and obnoxious as their political opposites. In practice, absolute power still corrupts absolutely.

Jan 23. What a strange speech from David Cameron. He told us today that the public are pissed off about being denied a referendum on the EU, while failing to mention that he denied us the “cast iron” one he promised before he got elected... Now, as predicted, he’s promised us another one, but in five years time... when he won’t be in power... This isn’t a serious pledge, it’s an obvious ruse to win over Eurosceptic Tory MPs and win back Conservative voters. Like the rest of the British political establishment Cameron is instinctively pro the European Union. If he wasn’t he would have made this speech in 2010, and given us a referendum five months later. Why wait until after the next General Election? Why wait at all? The Article 50 option of the Lisbon Treaty means we could be out in two years. Instead, it will cost us £80billion to stay part of this expensive fiasco until at least the end of 2017...

Cam is now promising to renegotiate Britain’s position within the EU, just as Harold Wilson did. Like Wilson, he’ll achieve a few face-saving cosmetic tweaks that won’t derail the EU’s drive towards complete political and economic integration. (Euro politicians have always been open about this, it’s only British MPs of all parties who have lied about the nature of ‘the Project’ from the off - the political class has been absolutely complicit in betraying us).

5,000 MOD jobs are to be cut, but Cameron still wants our boys to fight in Mali, and Afghanistan, and possibly the Falklands too... must be so easy being an armchair general. Perpetual war was of course one aspect of Orwell’s 1984, which is becoming less a novel and more a guidebook every day. Now the EU want to regulate the views of the British press to keep our papers in line with their aims. Goebbels would have been proud. “Freedom? There ain’t no fuckin’ freedom” – Stinky Turner, 1979.

Jan 22. Two unexpected and intriguing developments this morning; both ultimately disappointing. Firstly I received an email from Pauline Black’s PR informing me that the Selecter will be playing ‘Live at Garry in Bushell’ in March. Well, I cleared the patio and everything but sadly this turned out to have been a computer glitch. The 2-Tone stalwarts are actually playing at the Assembly Hall in Islington, fourteen miles away. Still, if Pauline ever changes her mind, my back garden is always open for her. Secondly Official Danny Boyle tweeted saying how much he looks forward to reading my telly page in the Star, saying it “gets my bowels ready”. It’s kind of him to say so. I prefer my bowels to be like the column: irritable. Of course on closer examination ‘Official’ Danny turned out to have just five followers, suggesting that either the esteemed producer/director is very choosy about who he hangs with, or he’s about as authentic as a politician’s pre-election promise... (if it is the former, then Dan is of course welcome to come to my big Selecter gig/barbecue on condition he brings Freida Pinto and a bottle or two.)

Jan 21. Owen Jones is advocating the creation of a new force in British politics – “a UKIP of the Left” he calls it – to rally “progressive” forces. He writes in the Independent : ‘Capitalism is in crisis, but its opponents are writhing around in an even bigger mess.’ Which is true enough; but the Left has two massive problems: it no longer knows what it wants, and it has completely lost touch with working class voters. Socialism was easy once. It was about the workers vs the toffs , about replacing the market system with a socially owned, planned economy that put the needs of the many above the greed of the few. What does the Left stand for now? Its leaders are as posh as the Tories, its “cadre” are largely middle class, and its focus isn’t on working people but various minority interests. A genuine “UKIP of the Left” would have to get back to socialism’s roots, which would mean rejecting both the EU and the clapped-out Labour Party. It would have to talk about re-industrialisation, nationalisation, re-unionising, protectionism, curtailing the multi-nationals, radical home building programmes, and “British Jobs For British Workers”. It would be a lot like the BNP without the racism. Long-term, it would have to deal with the small matter of socialism’s appalling track record. Socialism sounds great in theory; unfortunately it doesn’t work. It failed in the alleged “socialist countries”, and it failed less brutally in the social-democracies. In practice, ‘socialism’ means Statism, a system that delivers power to the bureaucrats, economic inefficiency, the suppression of democracy, and national decay. A genuinely radical alternative would beat back the state, spread ownership, encourage small businesses and workers’ co-operatives, protect liberty and safe-guard freedoms – including free speech and freedom to protest. And as we have seen time after time, the British Left aren’t fit for that purpose.

The 'Puke Box Jury' edition of my Bloodstock Radio podcast is up and running; judges Max Splodge & Paul Hallam weigh up the hottest track of 2012. Did it come from Case, King Brillo, Missing Andy, Night of Treason, the Cockney Rejects, Argy-Bargy, Buster Shuffle, Honest John Plain, Chris Pope or one of the eleven other contenders?? Ooh the suspense, ooh the tension... (Warning: extreme bad language throughout, as Max channels the spirit of missing judge Bev Elliott.)

Jan 18. Obama has stuck his nose into our business again, telling us he wants Britain to stay in the European Union. What’s it got to do with him? You might suggest that maybe, given the US current economic position tap-dancing between the fiscal cliff and the debt ceiling, the President should concentrate on putting his own house in order. Obama giving advice on how to run a country is like Lyndsay Lohan giving tips on etiquette or Donald Trump writing a guide to sensible haircuts. The Pres doesn’t know what’s best for his own economy, let alone ours.

Obama’s administration supports the “European Project”, despite it being cumbersome, meddlesome, inefficient and anti-democratic. We’ll hear a lot more about Britain’s EU membership from the Yanks over the next four years. There will be much talk of “the Special Relationship”, which, if it exists (and I suspect it doesn’t) would surely be a lot stronger with a free Britain, unshackled from EU waste, red-tape, over-regulation and economic ineptitude. We might be more inclined to listen if the US were to become part of a supra-national trading bloc with its Parliament moving between Havana and Mexico City and with open borders to all points south.

I recorded my 2012 Rancid Sounds round-up podcast for Bloodstock Radio today. Some mighty tracks competed for the dubious prestige of being named song of the year, with sterling ditties from Argy Bargy, Missing Andy, the Cockney Rejects, Night Of Treason, King Brillo and Taurus Trakker in the mix. I’ll let you know when it’s up.

Jan 17. All week we’ve been hearing that the PM shouldn’t make his big EU speech, that he’s been forced into it by the rising UKIP vote. The Times suggests he’s misreading the public mood because the EU isn’t the main concern even for UKIP voters, immigration is. This conveniently overlooks the fact that most immigration into the country is from Eastern Europe and is only possible because of our EU membership. It’s all tied up together. And Romania and Bulgaria join the party next year. According to Migration Watch, about 50,000 people from Romania and Bulgaria will come to the UK every year when restrictions are lifted in 2014 with “significant consequences” for housing and jobs. I’ve got nothing against immigration; most immigrants are hard-working people seeking a better life for their families, and good luck to them; but an open door policy can never work in a country with a welfare system and to impose one on us is suicidal.

Jan 16. Just looked in the fridge at the burgers I’d bought from Tesco’s… And they're off!! (Not an original gag, just spreading the joy - I got it over the canter... ) Message from the webmistress: Well you wanted fast food. I heard that they're thinking of putting greyhound meat in the hotdogs too.

Jan 15. All these crocodile tears for HMV are getting right on my thruppennies. If people had genuinely cared about the chain then they’d have used it more, and it wouldn’t have failed. And if HMV had cottoned on to internet sales a decade sooner, ditto. That said, the death of local book and record shops (the only shops I’d ever willingly browse in) is a crying shame. Especially when the English high street is curling up at the edges. Most now consist of charity stores, boarded-up pubs, over-priced coffee hell-holes and empty premises, courtesy exorbitant rents, ridiculous rates, and the pox of yellow lines. If you love shops, use them or lose them! Pubs too.

HMV were good enough to stock my Time For Action book on the Mod revival bands of 79/80 – so that’s a few grand the publishers can kiss goodbye to... BUT you can still buy the book on-line. Here’s the review from Zani, to give you a taste of what’s in store.

I’ve just heard Nick Clegg on Radio 4’s Today programme answering questions about a Lib Dem election leaflet issued in 2010. The leaflet, complete with a picture of Clegg, stated clearly: ‘It is time for a real referendum on Europe. Sign our petition today.’ Not much space for misinterpretation there, you’d think; but the shameless git proceeded to shrug off the leaflet as insignificant. It didn’t mean what it said, he explained. The Lib Dims’ actual position was that we could have a referendum the next time we’re faced with a “fundamental change” in the UK’s relationship with the EU. And who defines the fundamental part? Two-faced, self-serving weasel-politicians of course... Which brings us neatly to that other slippery chameleon, David Cameron, the man who previously gave us a “cast-iron guarantee” of a referendum about the (fundamental) Lisbon agreement which never materialised. The PM has been promising us to deliver his new blueprint for Europe for at least six months. He was due to make his big speech a week today, but he’s had to bring it forward to this Friday to keep the Germans happy (there’s a good omen). It’s believed that he will offer us a referendum sometime in 2018… five years from now. How completely pointless. For starters Cameron won’t be in office in 2018. Secondly why would anyone who objects to the EU quagmire - its excessive meddling, its relentless drive to integration and homogeneity, and the eurozone’s continued debt crisis (not to mention the new wave of Eastern European immigration due next year) - want to wait that long to debate our position? Thirdly, we know that Cameron’s Conservatives have absolutely no intention of leaving the EU, so ‘Dave’ will be setting out the goal of a new relationship between Britain and other member states that he knows cannot and will not be achieved. It is a huge game of bluff that serves only to placate gullible members of his own party. Cam cannot buck the system – he doesn’t even want to try and do so. His speech will be a smoke and mirror exercise; all blather and bullshit. The only point to it is to con us some more.

Jan 14. You know what I’m sick of? TV arts programmes metaphorically kissing the butts of over-rated elitists. Shame viewers can’t press the red button on their remotes to register a protest. If enough of us vote, then that message should flash up on screen: ‘Hey, Yentob, that novelist is unreadable’, ‘This playwright is unwatchable’, ‘This band is unlistenable!’, and increasingly: ‘This very camp man is a talentless show-off, get him off telly until he can do something remotely entertaining.’ I’m also sick of always being told all our weather in centigrade and distances in kilometres. At least one third of the British population has no idea what you’re talking about, so please do us the courtesy of using a dual system that also includes Fahrenheit and MILES. Who voted for the metric system anyway?

Jan 13. Quite excited, I’m recording the first of a new series podcasts today. This show will be all about books, authors and matters arising. It starts with special guest Nigel Farage who will be discussing his autobiography Flying Free as well as wider cultural issues. No doubt the European Union will get a mention... It’ll be on-line in about ten days time. My old punk and Ska podcast continues apace but now at Bloodstock Radio. Very ’eavy, not very ’umble.

Jan 10. Morrissey has told Loaded magazine: “I nearly voted for UKIP. I like Nigel Farage a great deal... His views are quite logical – especially where Europe is concerned.” This has excited (and irritated) the chattering classes, although personally I won’t be satisfied until I hear Steve Harris of Iron Maiden’s views on the matter. On Sounds, back in 1979, I asked some of the hottest acts of the day who they would vote for at the General Election. John Otway was Tory, but the majority were Labour by a landslide... and Maggie still romped home with a 43-seat majority. Pop and politics: as meaningless now as it was then. PS. Hey Steven, if you had a bit of meat inside you then you might have the energy to get down the polling station next time old son.

Jan 9. The economy is still broken, our soldiers are still dying but at least there’s time to talk about David Cameron’s pants. He says they are from M&S, and his wife makes him wear them (the bloke can’t take responsibility for anything). They’re women’s pants of course, and true to Coalition policies they have a big soggy centre. In other pants news: Ed Miliband reports a swing to the left and Eric Pickles has gone commando. I’d like to know what Clegg’s wearing; what are the most comfortable underpants for political eunuchs?

*Just seen today’s Times. Now I love David Bowie as much as the next 1970s teenager, but is the great man’s new single really front page news in The Thunderer? Man Releases Single isn’t the world’s biggest story, is it? Especially as the Thin White Duke hasn’t had a Top Ten hit since 1992. Is the story actually, David Bowie Not Dead? (for which we’re all grateful) or perhaps Children Of ‘The Revolution’ Now Run The Show... (and everything’s still crap)? New bosses pretty much the same as the old bosses, but taste in music has improved. Noddy Holder Rejoins Slade is the splash I’d like to see.

I like the way Bowie has managed to stay under the radar for ten years... it reminds me of me.

Jan 8. Happy birthday, David Bowie; and thank you for the haunting new single, ‘Where Are We Now’. As long as there’s fire, indeed... Bowie’s latest album (his 25th) is out in March. (Part of the lyric is ‘Walking the Dead’ - one letter out from a Jimmy Savile tribute. Sorry for lowering the tone.) By the way, regarding that allegedly unheard Hendrix single, I’m pretty sure we have heard it ‘Somewhere’ before. Crash Landing from memory.

Jan 7. David Cameron has called some UKIP supporters “odd.” This from a man with Michael Fabricant and Jacob Rees-Mogg in his own party! This from a man in bed with the LibDims, an outfit who have elevated oddness into a way of life! Personally I’d prefer the company of eccentrics to the kind of Teflon-coated, two-faced, conviction-free careerists who rise to the top in our political system; but UKIP’s leader Nigel Farage is probably the least odd politician I’ve met since Labour’s Jack Ashley. (His Deputy Paul Nuttall is as down to earth as a Brookside corpse too.) Farage drinks, he jokes, he doesn’t do jargon. He takes his message seriously but isn’t puffed up with self-importance. He’s charismatic and good-natured; he works hard; he doesn’t seem to tell lies... unlike a certain PM we could all mention who, before the election, promised to give us a referendum on the European Union, get shot of the human rights act and reduce immigration. No wonder UKIP are rattling Shameron’s cage. Is it odd to be concerned about the EU? No. Is it odd to query the economic competence of the disastrous last two (or three or four) governments? I’d have said not. Cameron claims he will offer voters a “real choice” in 2015. Great. Except, firstly he’s a proven liar, and secondly we’ve got that now: vote UKIP.

Jan 6. Today’s scandal: up to 40,000 soldiers and 300,000 nurses will lose money under Osborne’s benefits crackdown, according to a report. That’s it Geo, stick to all those craven shirkers and scroungers who work long hours in crap conditions and put their lives on the line for us.

Jan 5. Went down to the basement of the Vintage Shop in Brewer Street today to look for old copies of Sounds, and was surprised to come across (consider re-wording) 1970s soft porn mags: Men Only, Penthouse... talk about All Our Yester-Wanks. Maybe that guy with the hand transplant would relish the chance to splash out on Liz Richards from a fresh perspective.

Jan 4. The Argentineans are rattling their sabres about the Falklands again, banging on about British colonialism. Their big mistake is the Falklands aren’t a UK colony; they are self governing under the British crown. The Argies are the colonialists – they want to make the islands an Argentine colony against the will of the people who live there.

People say you can’t rely on our trains, but give them their due, the fare rises always arrive on time.

Jan 3. Jim Davidson was arrested as he stepped off the plane from Dubai yesterday. Talk of a “Jimmy Savile” connection was all over twitter. Today’s papers also link Jim’s “nick-nicking” to the Savile investigation: ‘Davidson arrested by Savile police’ (Mail), ‘Davidson arrested in Savile abuse investigation’ (Telegraph). The mental image of Jim being involved with the DJ’s sickening crimes against kids was conjured up revoltingly. Except he wasn’t. Not at all. But it’s only when you read beyond the headlines that it becomes clear that Jim’s alleged offences had nothing to do with Savile or any form of child abuse. Rather, Jim, released on bail last night, was questioned about claims made by two women who were “in their mid-twenties" at the time of the alleged incidents, sometime in the late 1980s. So we’re talking about something that might have happened between adults more than 25 years ago; something that will almost certainly boil down to their word against his. So why is this happening? Why are much-loved stars, and Max Clifford, being dragged through the dirt? I suppose it makes the cops look good. They couldn’t get Savile but look at all the front pages they’re generating now. Freddie, Max, Jim... And when they’re all found to be innocent, as I suspect they will be, will they be entitled to any compensation? Because suspicion and public humiliation is costing them all a packet – Jim’s dropped out of tonight’s Celebrity Big Brother because of it, much to the delight of Davidson haters on Twitter. How they love running him down, slurring his character and questioning his skill as a comedian... which is like pygmies mocking a giant for being too short. The twitterati may hate Jim because of his politics – not only is he a working class boy made good, he’s a working class boy made Tory. But there is no doubting his comedic abilities. I’ve known him for thirty years, I’ve watched him mature and grow as a stand-up. He truly is the best comedian of his generation. Even the Independent’s Terry Blacker wrote that Jim’s live show is ‘unspeakably filthy and, by all civilised standards, goes too far. But going too far is what Davidson is good at and, if the best comedy is about taking an audience out of its comfort zone, then that is precisely what his does. He takes the rage and hang-ups of everyday life, not to mention his own insecurities, and uses them as material. The result, while often shocking, is curiously more engaged and life-enhancing than safe liberal chunterings from an allegedly alternative stand-up about Bush, Prescott and Noel Edmonds. Jim Davidson is the true alternative comedian. His is not the English humour that will necessarily appear in Open University joke surveys or the next interminable compilation of the country's favourite comedians on Channel 4. Self-revealing, raw, angry, sentimental, it reflects the audience's prejudices back at them, sometimes unflatteringly, and yet avoids endorsing them. He may make us uncomfortable, but his brilliant comedy catches our national identity all too well.’ Jim might not be the easiest man to get on with. He’s opinionated, misogynist and argumentative. But he is also loyal, and sincere, and brilliant at what he does. I reckon he’d be a lot more successful today if he knocked the politics on the head and got back to filth, but then again that might just be me.

Five Reasons to be Cheerful in 2013: Game Of Thrones, season three, airs in March. Harry Hill goes live with his Sausage Time tour. Johnny Marr’s debut album is out next month. Mad Men is back in May. Springsteen tours the UK in June...

Jan 1st. Happy New Year. Here are my awards for 2012, starting with Book of the Year: (Factual): Iron Curtain: The Crushing Of Eastern Europe 1944-56 by Anne Applebaum; and Danny Baker’s hilarious autobiography Going To Sea In A Sieve.

Album of the Year: ‘Generation Silenced’ by Missing Andy (Invasion Records). Runner-up and Top Punk Album: ‘Hopes Dreams Lies & Schemes’ by Argy-Bargy (Randale Records). TV Show of the Year: Game Of Thrones. Film of the Year: Marvel’s The Avengers; Top Documentary Film: East End Babylon

Irritations of 2012: the compulsion to reward failure; from bungling bankers to George Entwhistle via social services incompetents, no matter how badly anyone screws things up they still get handsomely bunged, more often than not out of the public purse. They muck up, we foot the bill. They might be forced to resign but they'll still pocket a year's salary and the gold-plated pension ta very much. Also endlessly infuriating: the narrowness of political debate, the debasement of British popular culture, Afghanistan, the enduring cult of Che Guevara, and dogma-blinded fools like the publically funded Environment Agency who earlier this year told us that Britain would have "hotter, drier summers" for decades to come, and that the drought was likely to last "until Xmas and perhaps beyond". Cue the wettest eight months since records began. Well done, everyone.

Political quote of the year: “The entire political class is held in contempt. I am just lucky to be held in less contempt than the rest of them.” – Nigel Farage.

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