Hard on the heels of hearing Lucy Verall’s story of being at the cat shelter and seeing a family having to bring in their family cat for re-homing because their house had been reposessed, I heard today about someone who is a bipolar sufferer now having second thoughts about offering a home to a shelter cat because she is concerned about being “bipped” onto a lower rate of benefits by Iain Duncan Smith’s so-called welfare “reforms” (ie making poor people pay for the mistakes of the rich)
And reading things like this, stories of people having to hand in their pets to the shelter because their houses are being repossessed, and stuff like that, makes me wonder what country I am living in sometimes.
It's not Britain anymore. It's not England, that's for sure. England, Britain, that I knew, was a place of tolerance and compassion. A place where people looked out for people. A place where, of all the countries in the world, you were likely to get cut a bit of slack, on the understanding that you, in turn, would cut slack to others should it be necessary. Give us this day, our daily slack. And forgive those who trespass against us.
Not a place where people would respond with "well you've only yourself to blame, snap out of it, can't expect the state to provide you with a pet, why not get a stick insect, they're cheaper yadda yadda yadda"
Jesus H Christ on a unicycle. What a mean, spiteful, petty, shop-thy-neighbour society we are creating. I thought Labour were bad enough, but...
Animals are always the first casualties of any recession
An animal charity hit by the rise in abandoned pets during the recession has issued an urgent appeal for help as it fights for its future.
The Hastings and District branch of the Cats Protection League is struggling to cope with the number of cats and kittens it is now being asked to care for.
The volunteer-run organisation has issued a desperate plea for funds as the demand for its services carries on growing.
It is the second local cat charity facing an uncertain financial future after the RSPCA Bluebell Ridge cattery, Chown's Hill, revealed cashflow problems late last year.
Experts say the recession left many pet owners unable to care for their animals.
Peter Hepburn, chief executive of the Cats Protection League, said one branch received 100 unwanted kittens in just a few weeks.
"This surge in unwanted cats is extremely distressing. It is a crisis for the cats and it piles additional pressure onto our volunteers. Our network of branches and centres are already stretched to the limit looking after the cats in their care.
Well done, Tories.
To all those who say Iain Duncan Smith’s “reforms” are necessary to get scroungers off the dole and into jobs, I have a simple question
WHAT jobs? WHERE ARE the jobs?
Thursday 27 May 2010
Literal Dimwits
So, we have had an election, and we have got a government. Of sorts.
The inconclusive result of the election has stirred up a veritable hornets' nest of demands for electoral reform and changes to the voting system.
I find myself thinking that the result reflects not so much the defects of the system, as the defects of the candidates. The major parties all fought dishonest, nasty, negative, vacuous, campaigns, based on "policies" such as "vote for me because I am not him!", "don't vote for him, he smells of poo!", and "if you don't vote for us, the bogeyman will get you!".
It is hardly surprising, when faced with such rubbish, that a suspicious and already angry electorate has been unable to demonstrate conclusively which of them we hate the most. The choice on 6 May was like trying to decide if you should have emergency bowel surgery in the woods using a rusty nail or a piece of broken glass. Ideally, you wouldn't want to be in that situation to start with.
Here's my solution for electoral reform. Given the economic storm heading our way, Brown should have stayed on as a caretaker, to at least make an effort to clear up the mess. But only because he has experience in that area, and for no other reason.
There should have been another election within six months, based on some real policies this time. Policies of vision, courage, leadership and social change. Plus, the parties should all have levelled with us beforehand about how truly ghastly the economic situation, and their proposed remedies for it, were.
I am not that bothered who is actually leading the parties, to be honest. I think an election should be about policies, and not a beauty contest. If we have politicians of the highest calibre, who believe in things, and have the courage to fight for them and to take others with them, and who don't take us for mugs and insult our intelligence, they will win an election under whatever system. We don't need a better system, we need better politicians.
But in any case, we didn’t have better politicians, we had the Liberal Democrats. Or ToryLite, as it seems we now must call them.
I find it difficult to express my utter disgust and contempt at their party, demonstrated by their complete abandonment of principles, in a naked grab for power, following the inconclusive result. Although I am not one of them, indeed I am not a member of any political party, the people I feel sorry for are their local party activists who pounded the streets of each constituency, delivering leaflets that said “only the Liberal Democrats can win here”, like they did in the Colne Valley, who have now seen their party turn overnight from being in favour of an amnesty for illegal immigrants to being in support of a cap on non-EU immigration; from being opposed to the automatic renewal of Trident to now supporting it; and from being opposed to nuclear power stations to providing the Tories with a Minister for Nukes! I find myself wondering, if the Tories had a policy of stamping on kittens, whether they would have signed up to that as well!
I hope they feel proud to be propping up the Tories at a time when they are poised to take £6BN out of the economy, targeting the poor and the disadvantaged, and potentially tipping the country back into recession.
I sincerely hope their party gets decimated in the next election. How can anyone ever vote for them again, when they now know that if they do, they will get something diametrically opposed to what they wanted?
And, talking of the “next election”, could I just add that attempting to install yourself in power for five years unchallenged is the sort of behaviour we have previously condemned on the part of military Juntas and other non-democratic regimes across the world. If I wanted to live in North Korea, I would bloody well move to North Korea.
Make the most of it while it lasts, Liberal Dimocrats, because your own supporters are going to be leaving in droves between now and whenever it comes, and when it comes, for the Liberal Dimocrats, always assuming they haven’t merged formally with the Tories in the interim, and they do still exist, that, I am afraid, will be that. Go back to your constituencies, and prepare for annihilation!
The Lib Dimwits have sold their birthright not for a mess of pottage, but for a “pot of message”. They not only ratted on their policies, they also re-ratted and ratted again. And their constituents will be queueing up, come the next election, whenever that is, to administer the Warfarin.
The inconclusive result of the election has stirred up a veritable hornets' nest of demands for electoral reform and changes to the voting system.
I find myself thinking that the result reflects not so much the defects of the system, as the defects of the candidates. The major parties all fought dishonest, nasty, negative, vacuous, campaigns, based on "policies" such as "vote for me because I am not him!", "don't vote for him, he smells of poo!", and "if you don't vote for us, the bogeyman will get you!".
It is hardly surprising, when faced with such rubbish, that a suspicious and already angry electorate has been unable to demonstrate conclusively which of them we hate the most. The choice on 6 May was like trying to decide if you should have emergency bowel surgery in the woods using a rusty nail or a piece of broken glass. Ideally, you wouldn't want to be in that situation to start with.
Here's my solution for electoral reform. Given the economic storm heading our way, Brown should have stayed on as a caretaker, to at least make an effort to clear up the mess. But only because he has experience in that area, and for no other reason.
There should have been another election within six months, based on some real policies this time. Policies of vision, courage, leadership and social change. Plus, the parties should all have levelled with us beforehand about how truly ghastly the economic situation, and their proposed remedies for it, were.
I am not that bothered who is actually leading the parties, to be honest. I think an election should be about policies, and not a beauty contest. If we have politicians of the highest calibre, who believe in things, and have the courage to fight for them and to take others with them, and who don't take us for mugs and insult our intelligence, they will win an election under whatever system. We don't need a better system, we need better politicians.
But in any case, we didn’t have better politicians, we had the Liberal Democrats. Or ToryLite, as it seems we now must call them.
I find it difficult to express my utter disgust and contempt at their party, demonstrated by their complete abandonment of principles, in a naked grab for power, following the inconclusive result. Although I am not one of them, indeed I am not a member of any political party, the people I feel sorry for are their local party activists who pounded the streets of each constituency, delivering leaflets that said “only the Liberal Democrats can win here”, like they did in the Colne Valley, who have now seen their party turn overnight from being in favour of an amnesty for illegal immigrants to being in support of a cap on non-EU immigration; from being opposed to the automatic renewal of Trident to now supporting it; and from being opposed to nuclear power stations to providing the Tories with a Minister for Nukes! I find myself wondering, if the Tories had a policy of stamping on kittens, whether they would have signed up to that as well!
I hope they feel proud to be propping up the Tories at a time when they are poised to take £6BN out of the economy, targeting the poor and the disadvantaged, and potentially tipping the country back into recession.
I sincerely hope their party gets decimated in the next election. How can anyone ever vote for them again, when they now know that if they do, they will get something diametrically opposed to what they wanted?
And, talking of the “next election”, could I just add that attempting to install yourself in power for five years unchallenged is the sort of behaviour we have previously condemned on the part of military Juntas and other non-democratic regimes across the world. If I wanted to live in North Korea, I would bloody well move to North Korea.
Make the most of it while it lasts, Liberal Dimocrats, because your own supporters are going to be leaving in droves between now and whenever it comes, and when it comes, for the Liberal Dimocrats, always assuming they haven’t merged formally with the Tories in the interim, and they do still exist, that, I am afraid, will be that. Go back to your constituencies, and prepare for annihilation!
The Lib Dimwits have sold their birthright not for a mess of pottage, but for a “pot of message”. They not only ratted on their policies, they also re-ratted and ratted again. And their constituents will be queueing up, come the next election, whenever that is, to administer the Warfarin.
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