Mwai Kibaki denies vote rigging!

Kenya's president, who was reelected today denied vote rigging in the presidential elections. In a statement he didn't make he didn't say:

The allegations of vote rigging are a dangerous slur put about by imperialist lackeys. I deny totally the allegation that we rigged the vote. That would be too much like hard work. We rigged the count instead, it's so much easier to do, and you need to pay fewer people to do it. What do these people think we are? Stupid?

Meanwhile Raila Odinga, the person who would have won had the electoral commission of Kenya not been up to a bit of cooking is complaining bitterly.

The BBC has this.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't!

It appears that David Cameron is getting some flak over his decision to carry on with his trip to Rwanda which has been in planning for over a year.

The Rwanda trip also involves a number of volunteers on the ground getting involved in some on the ground projects which are both helpful to the local population and a learning exercise for the volunteers.

The overall message of the trip is that Africa needs trade to get off aid. Trade makes individuals wealthy, as they get jobs, can feed themselves and move out of poverty. It also gradually makes them less accepting of the old ways of bad governance particularly as they get a bit of education and communication. In fact this is beginning to happen in some parts of Africa as highlighted by this article here, on a mobile revolution in Africa.

However, David Cameron is being criticised for going on the trip, for two days whilst there is all this flooding. Well, he has visited some flood hit areas, and all he can do really is go look, and nothing more. If he spent too much time there he could arguably get in the way of the rescue and rebuilding work.

On the other hand what would have happened if he had cancelled his trip? I have no doubt that some would criticise him for "rubber necking" at the floods, just to get his picture taken, when all he can in fact do is ask awkward questions at the next Prime ministers questions.

The real legacy of two World Wars

A few weeks ago I was watching a drama documentary about the sinking of the Lusitania, and in particular noted that Charles Voegele, Quarter master of the German U Boat U20 would not issue the order to sink her, and also other incidents where he had been unhappy about sinking non fighting vessels. In fact on her mission the U20 only sank merchant vessels. One of his comrades scolded him in an earlier incident pointing out that his family in Hamburg could not get enough to eat because of the naval blockade of the Royal Navy.

In both World wars we tried to strangle each other in terms of both food and supplies. The Germans with U Boats and us with a surface fleet. This has led to what is the real devastating legacy of the wars. The devastation to both African and South American agricultural business that the European Common Agricultural Policy is immense.

Argentina used to be a wealthy country, exporting lots of agricultural produce, but post war, Europe started to feed it self with food produced on subsidised farms. Africa can't progress because it can't compete with American and European dumping.

This is of course all nuts. I am paying tax to keep black people poor. People I have never met, are not my enemies, and to whom I have no ill will. I would rather not pay the tax. We then get taxed even more to provide aid to people who for no particularly well explained reason we keep poor with MY money but make such a bad fist of that, that most of us then have to give yet more money to charity to try and make up for it.

Frankly I would rather not pay the tax to keep Africans poor. I can then spend the money on better things, and not only that, but a rich African is a little more likely to buy goods our country makes than one who can't even feed his own family.

I think it is an affront to tax me to keep someone else poor. It is disgusting, there is no other word for it. I do hope all those farmers across Europe who riot when they think they may lose the CAP can sleep at night. Disgusting small minded b*rstards the lot of them.

So why bring this up now, well there is a person called Erik who keeps raising subjects he thinks I should be discussing, (well Erik, it is my blog, and I will blog about what I feel like) but I was going to write something along these lines. Then Erik drew my attention to this article in the Telegraph about how much more this is going to cost us in the next few years.

In short our payments to the EU are going to double, and the money we get back is going to go down, and whilst a bit of it will go to getting Eastern Europe on its feet which is a good thing (provided the money is well spent) we are still paying to keep Africa poor. Well done Tony, giving away our rebate whilst still screwing Africa and getting us to pay for it!

It is nuts it really is!