IT ISN’T the privacy or the civil liberty issues that worry me most about the hateful spread of CCTV cameras across our country.
What really sickens me is how this reliance on blanket spy cameras tells us everything we need to know about Britain’s steep decline into a nasty and degenerate society.
Cruel times have indeed come to this beautiful country.
The State does not trust its citizens. Citizens don’t trust each other.
So many people live in fear and expectation of the worst, which is no way to live.

Richard Thomas, the Government’s information commissioner, has rightly raised concerns about the constant monitoring of people’s activities.
There are up to 4.2m CCTV cameras in the UK – that’s about one for every 14 people, a much higher density than that of other European nations.
Hmmm, and well might we want to keep tabs on most of our people, since they are so badly behaved most of the time.
Don’t talk to me of Asbos. They are a waste of time. Young thugs consider them a diploma in crime and a badge of honour – though they are able to breach them with impunity.
So many people now have absolutely no moral training and crucially they experienced no physical punishment when they were growing up.
Millions of people, no longer knowing the moral values that built our civilisation (essentially contained in the Ten Commandments) have been set adrift as young adults. Trouble and anti-social behaviour is – in these circumstances – to be expected.
What is needed urgently is the return of real moral training, based on Judaeo-Christian principles, and the return of caning in schools. I am not joking. I mean it.
The trouble is, of course, our stupid liberal politicians have signed us up to the European Convention of Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, both of which outlaw corporal punishment.
We should certainly disentangle ourselves from these foolish codes, though that would inevitably mean the UK leaving the European Union (good, we should do that anyway!).
As for the UN. It is so corrupt and weak, that within ten years I predict it will have collapsed and its conventions will not be worth the paper they are written on. I certainly hope so.
To get real moral training and discipline (including physical chastisement) back into the lives of the young is key to rescuing our society from chaos, criminality and squalor.
We all of us need to know fear. Fear is essential for discipline’s sake.
Because, as the book of Proverbs in the Bible rightly states: “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom.”

QUITE a few of the New Brighton Massive turned up at The Ginny pub on Rake Lane the other night, expecting to hear me read my bitter and twisted love poetry.
Trouble is I was never called up to the microphone by Corky, the singer with Recklessly Hellbent, the folk band who are the main attraction at the Tuesday night sessions.
Corky called up several guest musicians, sure enough, but not little old me, even though I thought it had been pre-arranged that I’d do a slot.
Apparently I should have told him on the night that I wanted to do a wee reading. Hmmph!
Never mind. Poets performing at mixed media venues often get squeezed out of their spots by guest musicians, who spend ages tuning up and overrun their slots.
All was not lost, however, because Corky and I agreed to go together the following night to the open floor at the Dead Good Poets Society held in the Everyman bistro bars in Liverpool.
As well as being a fine singer, Corky is also a poet who commands attention when he takes the floor.
It was a great night. We arrived a bit late and spotted Dr Gyggle and Litherland Lou at a table so joined them.
Because of our tardiness in arriving, we only got slots in the third session of poetry, but the man who runs these versifying sessions at the Everyman likes to give everyone their five minutes in the spotlight.
We did hear some very good poems, about love, about the naffness of corporate culture, about politics and about the war in Iraq (these were anti the war, and though I disagreed strongly with the sentiments expressed, I will admit they were cleverly written poems).
There was also a sharp and funny poem about prostitutes by a young bard from Leasowe, Wirral, called Aaron, if memory serves me correctly.
Dead Good Poets is a indeed a good club, very supportive of the poets, though it is quite unlike the London poetry clubs I used to perform in, which were darker (literally and spiritually) and certainly bitchier.

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