All quiet on the Eastern Front

In this, my 100th blog posting, I am happy to be able to report a thawing of international tensions. After 2 days of frosty atmospheres and sharp exchanges, we managed to sort out the problems - I think. Once again, it appears he root cause was a basic lack of communication. No dobt from both sides, and yet I still feel frustrated that after years, the wife still doesn't "get" European culture with regard to the equanimity of status within th martial home. Still there is this lurking demon of the traditional Japanese housewife behind her modern, international outlook. I'm sure it's not the last fight we'll have, but I'm glad this one seems to be over.

Cold front sweeps in from the West

Day 2 of the big chill has dawned. After the wife's comments on Sunday night, I feel totally disinclined to engage with her at all, on any topic. I have always understood marriage to be, essentially, 2 people working together for a common aim. Her understanding seems to be, one person (her) maintaining a tight grip on her own self-interests, while the other (me) works himself into the ground financing it. Of course it is a husband's duty to provide for his family - nobody is questioning that. However the wife has an equal obligation to support and protect her husband's interests while he fulfils this commitment. I can't see how a marriage can work any other way.

There is a cultural issue here, of course, and I am fully aware of that. For that reason, I have been extremely tolerant of her (to my mind) completely insane ideas on domestic finance and the rules governing conduct in the house. The Japanese way is for the man to become a slave to his family; paying for everything while taking a minor role in all household affairs and being the last to be considered when it comes to common courtesies like not making noise late at night. Unfortunately for her, I am not Japanese and nor do I wish to become so. The fact is that she has chosen to travel to Europe to marry a European. From that, one would surmise that she also felt this attitude to be out-of-step with enlighted modern thinking. She is very critical of Japanese men staying out late drinking with friends and chatting to girls in bars, and yet she seems totally unable to connect their motivation for doing so with the intolerable atmosphere created at home by the woman of the house. I find that quite bizarre and extremely immature.

So, I'm giving her a taste of the good-old English cold shoulder: No cups of coffee made for her, no tables laid or plates cleared, no shopping done, no conversation and no consideration for her feelings or quality of life. Hey - maybe I'm turning Japanese after all.

That'll teach them - British Gas humbled

While the news of British Gas's record profits is pretty galling in the light of their recent 15% hike in prices, it could have been worse had it not been for the valient efforts of yours truly. Through a combination of BG's fuck-wittery, a lot of water-muddying and sheer bloody mindedness on my part, I can report victory in my long-running battle with the energy giant. Having reduced BG's profits by a mighty £100 and earned myself a handsome 67 pence refund (yes, really!) I feel a positively Robin-Hoodesque glow of satisfaction.

Will the last person to leave, please turn out the light

Britain is experiencing the worst "brain drain" of any country as highly qualified professionals settle abroad, an authoritative international study showed yesterday, writes Robert Winnett, Deputy Political Editor of the Telegraph.

Record numbers of Britons are leaving - many of them doctors, teachers and engineers - in the biggest exodus for almost 50 years.There are now 3.247 million British-born people living abroad, of whom more than 1.1 million are highly-skilled university graduates, say the researchers.More than three quarters of these professionals have settled abroad for more than 10 years, according to the study by the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).No other nation is losing so many qualified people, it points out. Britain has now lost more than one in 10 of its most skilled citizens, while overall only Mexico has had more people emigrate. Britain's exodus is far higher than any of the OECD's other 29 members. Germany has lost only 860,000 highly-skilled workers, America 410,000 and France 370,000.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics last year, suggested that 207,000 Britons - one every three minutes - left in 2006. The emigration rate is at its highest since just after the Second World War. The term brain drain was coined in the 1950s following the mass emigration of scientists and other experts to America. Tens of thousands of people also left the country to escape the industrial unrest and high taxes of the 1970s.

Damian Green, the shadow immigration minister, said: "Ten years of Labour has re-created the brain drain. High taxes and Government interference are driving people away."

The study found that foreign-born people make up 8.3 per cent of Britain's population. A House of Lords report into the economic impact of migration is due next month. Prof David Coleman, of St John's, Oxford, said the brain drain was "to do with quality of life, laws and bureaucracy, tax and all the rest of it".

The shamefaced idiot of Europe

Given the revelation that perhaps the "special relationship" isn't so special after all, maybe it's time to consider a bit of rebranding for the UK. My suggestion would be to replace the proud British lion with a toothless, naive and trusting puppy dog. Maybe we could call it Tony.

I find it hard to understand why our politicians seem unable to grasp the most basic fact about American foreign policy: It exists solely to protect American interests. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a naive fool. There is no special relationship, and I don't believe there ever was. Where was the USA in 1940 when we stood alone against Hitler?

Tony Blair and his idiot cohorts fell hook line and sinker for Bush's lies and misinformation. Ignoring the justified scepticism of our more mature European cousins (not to mention the 2 million people who marched in central London against the war), Blair blindly followed the American line without question, taking us into an illegal and pointless war which has destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. To say we look pretty bloody stupid is a bit of an understatement.

We have gained nothing by war in Iraq except making ourselves the number one target for terrorists. Brave British soldiers are risking their lives every day, fighting a war that brings us nothing. America, on the other hand, now has control of the second largest oil reserves on the planet, which they are busy pumping out through a newly constructed oil terminal in Israel.

The word I would use for what Blair and Campbell, Straw and all the others have done is treason. Until recently, we used to shoot people for it. If only....

Another immigration smokescreen

I notice that the topic of immigration has once again reared its head in the media. And once again, we are hearing tough words from Smith, Brown et al about how they are going to tackle the issue. And once again, either by stupidity or by design, they've missed the bloody point. Instead of tackling the real issues, they are once again using blunderbus legislation which unfairly penalises the long-suffering, law-abiding residents like us without touching those individuals causing all the problems.

Smith is talking about making it even tougher to stay in the UK if you are from outside the EU. So that's families like us, forced to cough up even larger sums of money (we've spent £2,500 in the last 3 years just to keep our family together) and jump through even more ridiculous hoops ("Life in the UK" etc). Meanwhile, the country is flooded with hordes of East Europeans, causing huge pressures on our ailing law enforcement, health and social services. It's a classic bit of sleight of hand from this government: distract the public with a bit of finger pointing and tough talk, while completely ignoring the real problem.

My wife views this attitude as pure racism, and I find it hard to argue with that. This government's attittude seems to be to pick on the brown, black and yellow skinned people, while allowing the white-skinned christians from Europe to flood in unchecked. For proof about this government's bias, look at recent cases like that poor Philipino guy whose wife was killed by an incompetant NHS trust, or the case of Hartley Alleyne- a former West Indian test cricketer and teacher in Canterbury for 30 years - threatened with deportation because he didn't have the right NVQ.

I absolutely refute the argument that mass migration from East Europe is delivering any kind of benefit to this country. Even the ones that are working legally and paying taxes do so at a lower rate than their native counterparts, thus devaluing the work market. Speak to any plumber or carpenter if you don't believe me. The money they earn is invariably sent back to their home country and so does nothing to benefit our economy.

So while this government steals the headlines with tough talk about immigration, law-abiding and valued contributors to our society are turned away by punitive legislation, while the tsunami of unskilled East European immigrants continues unchecked. Brilliant strategy. I can't wait to leave.

To err is human; but to really screw it up you need a civil servant and a computer

Hot on the heels of the Child Benefit data disaster and the foreign prisoner fiasco, we have another digital cock-up. This time it's the Home Office again - a CD containing the DNA details of 2000 wanted criminals sent by the Dutch police was left unactioned on some idiot's desk for over a year. Checks carried out recently reveal that 15 of these suspects are in the UK and 11 of them have gone on to commit further serious crime here. Well done Home Office.

I think we've all become somewhat immune to hearing about civil service and government blundering, but coming so soon after similar high-profile incidents, it is quite amazing that nothing seems to have been done to sort the problem out. The reason being, I suspect, is that the management culture in government and in the civil service has been allowed to flounder to such an extent that change is now impossible. To put it bluntly, we are not only being led by idiots but also administered by them too, through systems which perpetuate a culture of failure.

In this latest incident, the useless recipient of this vital data decided to go on sick leave for a year. What does it say about the management of this section that apparently nobody was given the task of covering this role during their absence? If such measures were not deemed necessary, then why does this role even exist in the first place? I strongly suspect that the reason for absence is something suitably pathetic, like "stress", but even if this individual had good reason to be absent for such a long period, surely any half-decent manager would have either covered the role with a short-term contract or replaced them altogether, moving "sick note" into a new role upon their return.

What this case reveals in stark detail is the total ineptitude of those charged with administering this country; a culture where the individual rights of those within these organisations takes total precedence over their responsibilities. I despair that even if we manage to get rid of Brown at the next election, we're still saddled with his legions of incompentant monkeys running the country.