One of the problems is that they are given different quotas for each species.  But their nets that trawl our coastlines cannot determine which species of fish they will catch as they hoist them from the sea.  Hence, if they have already caught their quota of one fish, say cod, but to make the fishing trip commercially viable continue to drop their nets for other species that swim in the same waters, then they are legally forced to throw any cod over and above the quota back into the water.  But by the time the catch is sorted, the fish are dead.

As part of the Channel 4 Fish Season, top TV chefs have joined forces in the Big Fish Fight championing sustainable seafood.  Hugh Fearnley-Whittingshall’s three-part special this week has made for very disturbing and frustrating viewing.  While scientists continue to say certain fish stocks such as cod need protecting, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingshall finds a different perspective from fishermen from Scotland and the Kent coast.

The fishermen see large stocks of cod as they are catching them in their trawler only to be forced not to bring them ashore but throw them back into the sea.  Over half the fish caught in the North Sea are, Fearnley-Whittingshall has learnt, thrown back overboard, dead. The fishermen say the scientists and politicians are not up to date with their findings.  Moreover, the EU laws that have fishermen strangled by quotas are not doing anything to help fish stocks increase, only creating waste.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingshall is campaigning to stop this madness and in doing so has set up the Big Fish Fight website and a Facebook Big Fish Fight lobby which over 86,000 people have already signed.

You can watch the Big Fish Fight programmes on the Channel 4 website.

Coming across as smarmy and despicable as the former RBS Chairman Fred Goodwin, when asked to apologise to the British Public, Diamond just repeated the same sentence about the time for remorse being over.

He may well have said get over it, we are still here earning big bucks and that’s the end of it.

In fairness to Diamond, Barclays never profited directly from government intervention with tax payers money, but their business has benefited from it since, with the Bank of England’s quantitative easing programme and extremely cheap borrowing.

Whether the coalition does big itself up and stands by its manifesto to hit bankers hard with some sort of tax levy remains to be seen, but I believe they realise they will be shooting themselves in the foot to do so.

Half of the bonuses paid in the UK will find itself back in the Treasury through taxation and it is fair to assume that the vast majority of the remainder will be spent in the UK, fuelling our economy. So what exactly is the point?

Well, an apology from someone somewhere down the line would have been nice considering the mess that the financial crisis has caused the general public and I think we are entitled to that.

Barry Sinfield, 36, picked on the defenceless bird after drinking at least 20 cans of strong lager with a friend at the Swanswell Park in Coventry in October.  The sadistic yob grabbed the goose which was struggling to get away from him as he threw the bird into the air before battering it against the ground.  As the goose flapped its wings around in desperation to escape, Sinfield stamped on its neck.  While the bird clung to life, the evil torturer moved his foot along it’s neck before ripping its head off and chasing his friend around with his trophy and laughing.

Sinfield also pointed the head towards many of the visitors to the park where he threatened to smear them with the birds blood.

As well as the trauma it caused to the children playing in the park, a vet stated that the bird would have suffered severe pain before it eventually died.

In court Sinfield’s actions were described as one of the worst cases of deliberate cruelty ever seen and that no justification should be given whether he was drinking alcohol or not.

Sinfield was seen laughing with friends outside the court before the hearing and has shown no remorse since the incident took place.

No point in sending him to jail, send him to the front line in Afghanistan and let’s see how big a man he is then!

Fox Hunting

Almost two weeks ago, twin baby girls Lola and Isabella Koupparis were mauled by a fox that had gotten into their bedroom via an open door.  The nine-month old girls were attacked as they slept in their cots at their home in Hackney, East London, where they both received life-changing injuries.

The babies were discovered covered in blood by their mother with the fox still in the room which has now led to many people believing that fox hunting ban should be overturned.

I don’t think overturning the fox hunting ban would be of much use in the City of London but I do believe that the foxes need to be humanely culled.  The creatures cause no end of trouble on farms, killing and maiming livestock resulting in many of them being shot by the farmers.

Poisoning or trapping is not only illegal but also kills other animals so what is the best method to control the number of foxes living in or around the cities?

14-month old Holly Agius, died after she was taken to hospital in Gloucestershire after repeatedly being given the heroin substitute.  The mother, named as Bonny Richards, 27 and her partner John Davies, 31, have admitted two counts of child cruelty with both being bailed and are expected to be sentenced next month.

Earlier this month a lesbian couple were jailed for giving methadone to a crying baby.  The drug addict mother Susan Taylor, put the heroin substitute on the dummy of her 10-week old son to stop him crying.

The baby boy fortunately survived but doctors have said that it is too early to say if there will be any lasting effects after a huge quantity of the drug was discovered in the baby’s urine.

The Edinburgh mother was jailed for three years while her lesbian partner Lynn Cowan was jailed for 10 months for not telling medics that the baby had ingested methadone.

The two woman were said to be watching television when Cowan noticed that the baby wasn’t breathing, his face was grey and his lips were blue.  When an ambulance arrived the baby only let out a gasp before suffering fits on the way to the hospital where he was kept in intensive care, thankfully making a recovery over the following 36 hours.

His mother admitted to rolling his dummy around in the medicine cup used for her daily dose of methadone but it was said that she had no concept of knowing how dangerous methadone was to a young baby.

Unbelievable, should drug addicts be allowed to have children, I don’t think so!  The mothers three year sentence she was given was to follow the 26-month sentence she was currently serving for snatching the bag of a 66-year-old lady at knife-point!  What a great mother she would have been, hopefully this little boy will now get some chance of a normal life away from his scum of a mother!

Pritt Stick

A teacher with an unblemished 30 year record was today acquitted of attacking a disruptive pupil with a ‘Pritt Stick’ at Swansea Crown Court in Wales.

The 12-year-old, who was not allowed to be named, was said to have suffered from behavioural problems and described as ‘very volatile’, was having a tantrum after the paper he had been gluing had stuck to his fingers and had slammed the glue stick down onto the table.  The teacher, Lynda May, removed the glue stick and slammed it down onto the desk to show him how stupidly he was reacting but accidentally caught the boys thumb.

The boys parents took him to the hospital where they were told that the wound was superficial!

Mrs May has had to endure eight-months with this ridiculous case hanging over her and at a cost of an estimated £30,000.  The child, who was said to have told the teacher to ‘F*** Off’ and called her a ‘C***’, needs to be taught a few other lessons I think!

This case should never have gone to court, a school is there to teach children not to have to put up with the abuse and an easy way for parents to make a quick buck through compensation cases, bring back the cane and do away with the social work that is expected within the education system today.  Will the boy and parents now be prosecuted for bringing about false accusations?

The evil thug had previously threatened and harassed the young woman who had then reported the incidents to the police but was told no action could be taken.

The jealous lover had been asked to marry Movahedi a number of times previously but she had refused and he then went on to threaten to kill her.

While Bahrami, who was an electronics graduate at the time of the attack, sensed that she was being followed and quickened her pace only for Movahedi to catch up and step in front of her where he then threw the acid at her face.

The evil man claimed that he decided to attack her when she told him she had married someone else and asked him to leave her alone.

Movahedi told the court,

“I decided to splash acid on her face so her husband would leave her and I could have her.”

When asked if he would still be prepared to marry Bahrami, despite her injuries, he replied,

“Yes, I love her”

This poor woman has so far undergone seventeen operations in an unsuccessful attempt to reconstruct her face.  She lost one eye and is totally blind in the other.

When testifying at the hearing, she told the court that she wanted,

“to inflict the same life on him that he inflicted on me”

She was asked if she wanted Movahedi’s face splashed with acid, she replied,

“That is impossible and horrific.  Just drop 20 drops of acid in his eyes so he can realise the pain i am undergoing”.

Under Iran’s sharia law (an eye for an eye), Movahedi, has now been sentenced to the punishment, he will be blinded in both eyes from drops of acid.

Maybe if the same punishment’s were handed out to other mindless thugs around the UK, they would think twice about the pain and destruction caused.

In fact, Tehran’s deputy public prosecutor, Mahmoud Salarkia, stated that,

“Awareness of the punishment has a huge deterrent effect in stopping social crimes”.

Travellers Should Travel

Today it was reported that the travellers evicted from the site of the London Olympics, have had six three-bedroom houses built for them on a gated development in East London, paid for of course by the taxpayer.

Each home also includes a large garden and a driveway big enough to take a caravan which has enraged local residents who feel that the gypsies are being given special treatment.

A spokesman for the new site confirmed that 450 residents needed to be relocated from the site which included the gypsy families, who he claims will be charged rent for the property and a charge to keep a caravan on their drive.  The rent has been allegedly set at the ridiculous price of £104.66 per week and £91.23 for the parked caravan.

The traveller families involved had already lost a High Court battle against their eviction from the council-owned site in Hackney Wick, shortly afterwards the work began on the new houses.

Surely, travellers, as the name suggests, should be travelling.  They lost their court case against eviction and then they are rewarded with a new home, that’s after the tax payer has already paid for court fees no doubt!

Surely they only need the driveway as that is where the caravan is too be parked so they could rent out the house to people that really do need some help, like the thousands of hard-workers out there that struggle to make ends meet.

Interest rate cuts are currently solely geared towards those with mortgages, doing nothing to help taxpayers who are renting property.  It is also to the detriment of savers.  Some savers, including pensioners who have been prudent with their money and not over-stretched themselves by taking on debt, have seen up to 75% cut in their savings.

Surely a more sensible approach to lending and more level house prices will kick start the housing market and be a better long term strategy than the populist short term, short sighted politics that is being currently implemented.

I was outraged to hear that last month (January 2009) house prices increased!

I heard someone interviewed this morning who was in favour of further interest rate cuts as it would help pay the mortgage on his own house and help with a new mortgage he was looking to undertake with his partner for a second home.

It is this kind of greed that has created this recession and has over inflated the price of houses in the UK in the past decade.  Many people see owning more than one house as a way of increasing their income through schemes such as ‘Buy to Let’ while others are struggling to pay rent or a mortgage for a family home, not for profit.

I am opposed to further interest rate cuts as this doesn’t help all taxpayers.  I believe a cut in the basic rate of tax would be a better solution as it would give individuals the choice to save or spend.

If interest rates are to be cut, wouldn’t it be a good lead for the government and the Bank of England to persuade people to be less greedy by offering a cut in interest rates only to the first property of anyone who has more than one, and maybe include payment to those who are renting too.

She cried out for help to a man who was walking past but he ignored the distressed pensioner and it is believed she may have been lying there for up to ten-minutes before somebody stopped to help her.

Molly Morgan died some hours later in hospital from a subdural haematoma but not before telling police about the stranger who ignored her plea.

Some witnesses apparently assumed that this lady was drunk and so just left her, but surely even if this was the case you would still try and help!

I know in this day and age we need to be vigilant, and are taking a risk getting involved in certain situations, but how could someone just walk past in this instance, it was an elderly person that was obviously in pain, you certainly wouldn’t have been in any danger, Shame on you!

This is now a case of murder, the thug stole a handbag, which allegedly only contained an extension lead and an umbrella, which led to this poor woman’s fall and her ultimate death.

We need to stand up to the scum that is on our streets, not bury our heads in the sand.  This country no longer has any moral standards, the government are doing nothing to get our streets back to a safe place and the police have their hands tied, so it’s back to the people to take control, come on make Britain Great again a safe and good place to be.