Dec 18. This blog is closing again, as I have another book to finish, but there are no signs that the world is getting any saner. In recent weeks an in-depth report into the August looting spree managed to over-look the real victims: the old man who was kicked to death in West London, the hard-working shop owners who had to watch their businesses go up in smoke and that poor foreign student who was mugged in Barking by scumbags he thought were trying to help him. The researchers did make one fascinating discovery though. They found that people who commit crimes aren’t too keen on the cops. Who would have thought it?

The Yanks have pulled out of Iraq. The second Gulf war began eight years ago, thousands of lives have been lost yet everyday Iraqis still live in fear - al-Qaeda are active, sectarianism is rife, half the Christians have fled the country and militias backed by Iran are operating openly. Mission accomplished? What do you think?

December 17. Just out, ’30 Years Of Oi: Never Surrender’ celebrating three noisy decades of Oi music. The lovingly assembled triple album (which I compiled), features tasty tracks from the very finest street-punk bands: the Cockney Rejects, Cock Sparrer, The Gonads, Evil Conduct, Stomper 98, Booze & Glory, The Last Resort, The Business, the Badoes, Argy Bargy, NOi!se, Perkele, Resistance 77, Iron Cross, Control, Darkbuster, Foreign Legion, Hammer & The Nails, Marching Orders, Maninblack, Mouthguard, Nabat, The Masons, Jeniera & The Blades, Runnin’ Riot, The Traditionals and many more... I compiled the first four Oi-Oi albums between 1980 and 1982. Those with long memories may recall that Oi got shot by all sides back in the day. The pretentious stuck-up drips at the NME claimed that I’d invented it, and that it would be dead in a year; while the Daily Mail tried to bury us under an avalanche of ill-informed slurs and malicious lies. Yet thirty years on, Oi music is still going strong. It influenced and inspired groups such as Rancid, Good Charlotte and Agnostic Front; and Oi has a presence all over the globe – Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, the USA, South America, Australia, Russia, China, the Middle East. What was Oi? Working class punk pure and simple. Street rock with blue collar attitudes – a love of country and class and a commitment to not letting the bastards grind you down. Simple values with a worldwide resonance. I didn't invent Oi any more than Columbus invented America - it was there, it was happening, I just discovered it. And I’m happy to stand by the bands and their joyous racket. You can order Oi: Never Surrender direct from Contra Records.

PS. While we’re talking street-level products you can order in time for Xmas, Cass Pennant’s new documentary film about football Casuals and terrace fashion is out now on DVD.

My new podcast is up and running at Total Rock: a semi-coherent and slightly camp taster of low-rent, high energy bands such as the Cyanide Pills, the Dipsomaniacs, 360, Forced Reality, A Multitude Of Sins and much more. Hear it here.

Dec 16. A good result for UKIP in Feltham and Heston – they doubled their vote and were just 89 short of pushing the useless, discredited Lib-Dims into fourth place. Euro-sceptics are being called all sorts of bad names by Europhiles. Britain’s ruling elite and the bleeding-heart media would far rather our laws were made by the European Commission and the European Court of Human Rights than the British public who are much less likely to enforce their prejudices. They will get a whole lot nastier next year. I’m not a Euro-sceptic, I’m a democrat so naturally I’m against the EU which is anti-democratic to the bones. ‘Left’ and ‘right’ are increasingly meaningless terms in today’s political debate. The real divide is between those who want to expand the power of the state (communists, fascists, socialists, ‘liberal’-democrats) and those who favour individualism and freedom.

The Feltham turn-out was just 28.8 per cent – a reflection of how little mainstream politicians connect with public concerns. Despite soaring unemployment, our dying high streets and clear signs that the recession will deepen into a depression, Cameron’s Coalition found time to tackle such pressing matters as “transphobic hate crimes.” It’s good to see they’ve got their priorities right.

Dec 10. David Cameron is being praised for his apparent tough stand on Europe. It doesn’t sound very likely does it? And it isn’t. Shameron had already said that he wasn’t going to use the summit to win back any powers. All he did try to do is keep things as they are - and keep the City safe from Eurocratic meddling and malice. The result is an impasse, a bodge job that won’t hold. Either Cameron will quietly rethink his stance somewhere down the line and submerge us fully in the EU’s financial folly - and history suggests that is likely; or Britain will have to withdraw entirely from their mess, which is what most of us want. Dan Hannan sums up the EU’s financial policy as Fiscal Union – or FU for short. As the Greeks and Italians recently discovered, you do what the EU tells you or it’s FU all the way.

Dec 6. As Germany and France drive through major changes to the EU, David Cameron has once again ducked the chance to let voters have our say. Shameron bottled out of a referendum over Lisbon and assures us with a salesman’s smile that we don’t need one now. The man is as slippery as a snake in a sink full of sump oil. He says Merkel and Sarkozy’s new treaty won’t affect British voters – pull the other one Dave, it’s got Pinocchio’s balls on. We’re already meekly paying billions to bail out the failing Eurozone; we know more pain is certain to come. How much longer can Tory Eurosceptics be fooled by this unprincipled conman? The gap between Cameron’s rhetoric and what he actually does is large enough to park the Strasbourg Parliament. He is driven purely by personal ambition and the passing PR demands of whatever media bandwagon is rumbling by (A Transi-Tory?). Miliband is no better and the Lib-Dims are a lost cause. National sovereignty is dying along with Parliamentary democracy, and dying dishonourably too at the hands of liars, weasels, rogues and toadies. None of the establishment parties have any inclination to stand up for us. The only national politician of any stature who can be relied on to talk sense on Europe is Nigel Farage. I would therefore urge all of my readers in the Feltham area to consider voting for UKIP’s Andrew Charalambous at the Feltham & Heston by-election on Thursday 15th (especially as UKIP are now fully committed to establishing an English Parliament). There are other good candidates, but this is your chance to register your feelings about Britain’s relationship with the EU and the economic black hole that is the Eurozone. FIGHT THE SYSTEM! PROTEST! VOTE UKIP!

(Incidentally, this seat has been Labour since 1992; their current candidate lives in a £3.5 million house just off the Kings Road, Chelsea. So much for the People’s Party).

Dec 2. If you think Jeremy Clarkson seriously wants to shoot striking public sector workers you either need a psychiatrist or a sense of humour implant. Listen to what Clarkson said on The One Show in context and it was obviously a wind-up, a flippant remark, a saloon bar quip, a tongue-in-cheek piss-take. But this hasn’t prevented a depressing tsunami of hypocritical over-reaction from all the usual clowns, including Miliband who admitted he hadn’t actually heard the full quote. Clarkson, we’re told, should be sacked, or sued, or shot himself, or forced to work a public sector shift... for god’s sake grow up. All this from the same kind of people who stood up for Ross and Brand over the Andrew Sachs phone call, who instigate Twitter ‘twitch hunts’ ((c) Brendan O’Neill) and who filled cyber-space with sicko comments about Thatcher when they thought she’d died. What a strange country we’ve become. You might well think that the immensely wealthy Clarkson who trousers millions, some of it publicly funded, by writing naff columns and toddling about in cars is in no position to criticise hard-working nurses and dinner-ladies trying to fight their corner – and you wouldn’t be alone. Clarkson’s first mistake was to target the under-dog, which made him look like an arrogant pig, instead of say, the well-paid union bosses. Bankers and politicians deserve it, ambulance crews as a rule do not. His second mistake was the remark wasn’t particularly funny, or even logical. But to suggest the guy be sacked over a throw-away gag is a ludicrous affront to free speech. Especially at a time when Jimmy Carr is cracking jokes about disabled kids in Sunshine coaches. One thing I hate more than the sanctimonious po-faced Guardianista gag police is the stench of their hypocrisy.

Not coming this Xmas: The Lady & The Tram, an everyday story of South London folk. Emma West’s tram rant was inexcusable of course, but should she be really be jailed and have her kids kidnapped by the state for the ‘crime’ of expressing unfashionable opinions in an unintelligent way? Other passengers, black and white, stood up to her and put her in her place – which was good old English free speech in action. Wasn’t that enough? Had Ms West been a veiled Islamist sounding off in public about white Christian bastards would she have been nicked? Of course not. But Emma is white, English and working class, so clearly she has to be put away for her own good. Illiberal ‘liberals’ always know best. Welcome to the police state.

Previously.....