The Daily Telegraph was very keen this week to make hay out of the fact that there are apparently 102 criminals who we can’t deport because of the European Convention on Human Rights. This may well be true, although if the Daily Telegraph told me the sun would rise tomorrow, I would want the fact independently verified by a competent astronomer.
I would be much more likely to believe in the Daily Telegraph if it balanced its relentless bashing of the ECHR with some sort of statement to the effect that in any complex area of jurisprudence there are inevitably going to be times when the result of the process is not what you would expect. On both sides of the ledger.
I reckon, for instance, that – given the resources and the budget of the Daily Telegraph – I could probably find at least 102 instances of people who we have deported who we shouldn’t have done, because by doing so we were condemning them potentially to torture and death at the end of their journey.
Such as the Tamil asylum seekers we deported back to Sri Lanka this week despite clear evidence, which it was left to the likes of Channel 4 to publicise, that there was, potentially, genocide committed by government forces against the Tamil Tigers and those allegedly associated with them. One of the Tamils was so concerned about his potential fate that, rather than risk being deported, he tried to hang himself with his prison duvet. A Labour MP who raised the matter in the House of Commons said – quite truthfully in my opinion – that deporting them was akin to “painting targets on their backs”.
I once read somewhere, I can’t remember where, but I daresay it’s verifiable one way or another, that the standard test for the effectiveness of a particular type of toilet was whether or not it was possible to flush a rolled-up copy of The Daily Telegraph down it. If that is true, I would strongly contend that it remains the most useful thing you can do with it.
Showing posts with label Tory Bastards Liberal Turncoats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tory Bastards Liberal Turncoats. Show all posts
Saturday, 18 June 2011
No dissent, please, we're British
The possibility of being found guilty of thought crimes came another step nearer with David Cameron’s recent pronouncement that he was going to “crack down” on anyone not espousing traditional British values. Bizarrely, this apparently includes getting Ofsted to spy on universities and educational establishments to see if they are being “radicalized”. As the only difference between Ofsted and a plastic surgeon is that the latter tucks up the features, I can’t see this being a riproaring success.
Still, one question haunts me… would that include the “traditional British value” of free speech within the bounds of the law, Mr Cameron?
Still, one question haunts me… would that include the “traditional British value” of free speech within the bounds of the law, Mr Cameron?
Gadaffi your horse, and drink your milk
Can anyone tell me what we are still doing meddling in Libya?
VAT a Balls-up!
Hot on the heels of the IMF’s “endorsement” of George Osborne’s plans for the economy comes the disastrous May figures for retail sales, and Ed Balls making a speech suggesting that VAT be cut back to 17.5% to jump start sales on the high street.
Clearly, our economic waters are confusing and choppy at the moment.
Buried deep down in the original text of the IMF document (point # 9, in fact) we find:
Risks and uncertainty around this central scenario are significant. Large risks to growth and inflation arise from uncertainties surrounding euro-area sovereign turmoil, the housing market, the size of the output gap, and commodity prices. Indeed, unexpected spikes in commodity prices were a significant factor behind revisions to our 2011 inflation and growth forecasts since the 2010 Article IV consultation. Another risk is uncertainty surrounding the size of fiscal multipliers and the degree to which private demand and net exports will be vibrant enough to pick up the slack from fiscal consolidation. Uncertainties arising from key risks are further compounded by the unusually large disconnect between recent weak GDP outturns and other indicators that are stronger (e.g., rising employment, higher-than-forecast tax revenue, and stronger private sector surveys), making it all the more difficult to ascertain the economy’s near-term direction
Translation? We haven't got a fucking scooby.
My interest had been piqued by this, so I rang up the IMF Press Office. I know, I will be for it when the phone bill comes in, living off bread and scrape, sleeping in the dog kennel and no sex for a month (no change there, then) but it was worth every penny.
I wish I had recorded it.
IMF WOMAN: Media relations, how many I help you?
ME: Hi, I am a freelance writer in the UK and I was thinking of writing something about John Lipsky, following his pronouncement on the UK economy. Am I right in thinking he's now the acting managing director?
IMF WOMAN: That's right
ME: And is he getting the same salary as Mr Strauss-Kahn, I mean, given that he's going the same job?
IMF WOMAN: I don't know. Would it be possible for you to put your question in an email to ...
ME: Well, it's a simple enough question, someone must know the answer. Is there a section on the IMF web site where you publish peoples' salary scales?
IMF WOMAN: No.
ME: Is that because it's a secret?
IMF WOMAN: I don't know. If you could just send an email to...
ME: So you are saying that you either don't know or you won't tell me what the managing director of the IMF earns?
IMF WOMAN: Yes
ME: Well, I think that tells me all I need to know about your grasp of economics. Goodbye.
My reason for asking is that I suspect, from Mr Lipsky's bio on the IMF web site, that he is not short of a bob or two. Given his current directorships and his previous posts with various fund managers (hang on, weren't they the ones that caused all this...?) I reckon he's probably got the odd "portrait of Madison" in his safe. And good luck to him.
I also suspect, although, unlike Mervyn King, he hasn't been stupid enough to say that he's probably also of the opinion that unemployment in the North of England is a price worth paying etc etc chiz chiz, whatever the quotation was. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's ... probably ... a duck.
I managed to find out, by a bit more research, what Mr Strauss-Kahn was on in 2007 when appointed. A tax free salary of $420,930 pa [source: Bloomberg Economic Weekly] plus benefits.
So, let us assume that Mr Lipsky is on the same, although if he's still working on a 2007 salary scale, I will masticate my headgear.
$420,903 pa is $8094.81 per week, which, at today's exchange rate, is £4913.55 per week. Tax free.
The current rate of Employment Support Allowance in the UK at the lowest level is £65.45 per week.
Obviously Mr Lipsky is very well-qualified to rubber-stamp Osborne’s assault on the poor and the disadvantaged.
True, there has been one glimmer of hope for the benighted fools in Westminster in the news that unemployment is apparently down. The private sector created 88,000 jobs in three months, apparently. Of course, many of these “jobs” will be part time and poorly paid, with little or nothing in the way of security or workers’ rights. And I still adhere to my previous statement that we haven’t seen the worst of it yet, simply because the effect of the Tory cuts dumping people onto the unemployment register hasn’t percolated through to the bottom line yet.
Into all this maelstrom of uncertainty blunders Ed Balls, attacking the government and insisting that the VAT increase be reversed as a matter of urgency. On the face of it, it should be good news that at least the Labour Party has rediscovered its balls (literally and metaphorically) and is making some sort of effort to attack the Tories.
However, as Ann Pettifor points out on the blog “Left Foot Forward”, by accepting that the underlying premise for the debate is simply “cuts” to “pay down the deficit”, and the only point at issue is how quickly and how deeply these should take place, Balls has in fact surrendered much of the battlefield to Cameron from the start. The whole article is worth reading, but these are the salient points:
Balls began his speech by mentioning Labour’s “emphasis on jobs and growth”, but the speech immediately morphed into Labour’s concession to the coalition, that what is needed is “a steady and balanced approach to halve the deficit in four years”. The implication being that cuts must be matched by ‘jobs and growth’. But the highlight of the speech – the soundbite that his spin doctors no doubt intended the media to emphasise – is a call for a cut in VAT “to boost consumer confidence and jump-start the economy”; Cameron flashed back his retort: “slashing taxes”, he argued, would only make the UK’s fiscal deficit worse. And so Balls is trapped: the debate now centres on whether the deficit can be financed by increasing or cutting taxes, in particular VAT. For most people, Cameron has the upper hand.
‘Of course the deficit can only be financed by increased taxes’ is the consensus. Because we have ‘spent beyond our means’, we have to raise taxes, like VAT. “Slashing” VAT – when it is higher VAT returns that are paying down the deficit – is unacceptable to the coalition, to the Treasury, to orthodox economists and to the bulk of the British public. But that’s only because most have been drilled in the propaganda: “the deficit is like a credit card”. We need to pay it down. To do so, we have to mobilise/hoard ‘savings’, i.e. higher taxes, to pay down the ‘credit card’ – but the government’s deficit is not like a credit card. And nor do we need ‘savings’ to pay it down.
The only surefire way of paying down the deficit is not by government cutting the deficit (which I and others have argued it cannot do), but by employment. Put 2.43 million people back to work, and – hey presto! – the deficit will vanish. Get 2.43 million people, including thousands of skilled and unskilled workers, clever and talented student graduates, to address Britain’s very real insecurities in energy, food and health and – hey presto – the deficit will be financed.
How? By the tax revenues that will pour into the Treasury’s coffers, either directly or indirectly – and by the savings that will be made on welfare benefits.
However, keep 2.43 million people unemployed, keep them feeling insecure, with their purses firmly shut, and you can guarantee an ever-rising government deficit (April’s deficit numbers were the highest on record for that month). And 2.43 million unemployed is sure to make British ‘confidence’ fall and the recession deepen.
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
Clearly, our economic waters are confusing and choppy at the moment.
Buried deep down in the original text of the IMF document (point # 9, in fact) we find:
Risks and uncertainty around this central scenario are significant. Large risks to growth and inflation arise from uncertainties surrounding euro-area sovereign turmoil, the housing market, the size of the output gap, and commodity prices. Indeed, unexpected spikes in commodity prices were a significant factor behind revisions to our 2011 inflation and growth forecasts since the 2010 Article IV consultation. Another risk is uncertainty surrounding the size of fiscal multipliers and the degree to which private demand and net exports will be vibrant enough to pick up the slack from fiscal consolidation. Uncertainties arising from key risks are further compounded by the unusually large disconnect between recent weak GDP outturns and other indicators that are stronger (e.g., rising employment, higher-than-forecast tax revenue, and stronger private sector surveys), making it all the more difficult to ascertain the economy’s near-term direction
Translation? We haven't got a fucking scooby.
My interest had been piqued by this, so I rang up the IMF Press Office. I know, I will be for it when the phone bill comes in, living off bread and scrape, sleeping in the dog kennel and no sex for a month (no change there, then) but it was worth every penny.
I wish I had recorded it.
IMF WOMAN: Media relations, how many I help you?
ME: Hi, I am a freelance writer in the UK and I was thinking of writing something about John Lipsky, following his pronouncement on the UK economy. Am I right in thinking he's now the acting managing director?
IMF WOMAN: That's right
ME: And is he getting the same salary as Mr Strauss-Kahn, I mean, given that he's going the same job?
IMF WOMAN: I don't know. Would it be possible for you to put your question in an email to ...
ME: Well, it's a simple enough question, someone must know the answer. Is there a section on the IMF web site where you publish peoples' salary scales?
IMF WOMAN: No.
ME: Is that because it's a secret?
IMF WOMAN: I don't know. If you could just send an email to...
ME: So you are saying that you either don't know or you won't tell me what the managing director of the IMF earns?
IMF WOMAN: Yes
ME: Well, I think that tells me all I need to know about your grasp of economics. Goodbye.
My reason for asking is that I suspect, from Mr Lipsky's bio on the IMF web site, that he is not short of a bob or two. Given his current directorships and his previous posts with various fund managers (hang on, weren't they the ones that caused all this...?) I reckon he's probably got the odd "portrait of Madison" in his safe. And good luck to him.
I also suspect, although, unlike Mervyn King, he hasn't been stupid enough to say that he's probably also of the opinion that unemployment in the North of England is a price worth paying etc etc chiz chiz, whatever the quotation was. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's ... probably ... a duck.
I managed to find out, by a bit more research, what Mr Strauss-Kahn was on in 2007 when appointed. A tax free salary of $420,930 pa [source: Bloomberg Economic Weekly] plus benefits.
So, let us assume that Mr Lipsky is on the same, although if he's still working on a 2007 salary scale, I will masticate my headgear.
$420,903 pa is $8094.81 per week, which, at today's exchange rate, is £4913.55 per week. Tax free.
The current rate of Employment Support Allowance in the UK at the lowest level is £65.45 per week.
Obviously Mr Lipsky is very well-qualified to rubber-stamp Osborne’s assault on the poor and the disadvantaged.
True, there has been one glimmer of hope for the benighted fools in Westminster in the news that unemployment is apparently down. The private sector created 88,000 jobs in three months, apparently. Of course, many of these “jobs” will be part time and poorly paid, with little or nothing in the way of security or workers’ rights. And I still adhere to my previous statement that we haven’t seen the worst of it yet, simply because the effect of the Tory cuts dumping people onto the unemployment register hasn’t percolated through to the bottom line yet.
Into all this maelstrom of uncertainty blunders Ed Balls, attacking the government and insisting that the VAT increase be reversed as a matter of urgency. On the face of it, it should be good news that at least the Labour Party has rediscovered its balls (literally and metaphorically) and is making some sort of effort to attack the Tories.
However, as Ann Pettifor points out on the blog “Left Foot Forward”, by accepting that the underlying premise for the debate is simply “cuts” to “pay down the deficit”, and the only point at issue is how quickly and how deeply these should take place, Balls has in fact surrendered much of the battlefield to Cameron from the start. The whole article is worth reading, but these are the salient points:
Balls began his speech by mentioning Labour’s “emphasis on jobs and growth”, but the speech immediately morphed into Labour’s concession to the coalition, that what is needed is “a steady and balanced approach to halve the deficit in four years”. The implication being that cuts must be matched by ‘jobs and growth’. But the highlight of the speech – the soundbite that his spin doctors no doubt intended the media to emphasise – is a call for a cut in VAT “to boost consumer confidence and jump-start the economy”; Cameron flashed back his retort: “slashing taxes”, he argued, would only make the UK’s fiscal deficit worse. And so Balls is trapped: the debate now centres on whether the deficit can be financed by increasing or cutting taxes, in particular VAT. For most people, Cameron has the upper hand.
‘Of course the deficit can only be financed by increased taxes’ is the consensus. Because we have ‘spent beyond our means’, we have to raise taxes, like VAT. “Slashing” VAT – when it is higher VAT returns that are paying down the deficit – is unacceptable to the coalition, to the Treasury, to orthodox economists and to the bulk of the British public. But that’s only because most have been drilled in the propaganda: “the deficit is like a credit card”. We need to pay it down. To do so, we have to mobilise/hoard ‘savings’, i.e. higher taxes, to pay down the ‘credit card’ – but the government’s deficit is not like a credit card. And nor do we need ‘savings’ to pay it down.
The only surefire way of paying down the deficit is not by government cutting the deficit (which I and others have argued it cannot do), but by employment. Put 2.43 million people back to work, and – hey presto! – the deficit will vanish. Get 2.43 million people, including thousands of skilled and unskilled workers, clever and talented student graduates, to address Britain’s very real insecurities in energy, food and health and – hey presto – the deficit will be financed.
How? By the tax revenues that will pour into the Treasury’s coffers, either directly or indirectly – and by the savings that will be made on welfare benefits.
However, keep 2.43 million people unemployed, keep them feeling insecure, with their purses firmly shut, and you can guarantee an ever-rising government deficit (April’s deficit numbers were the highest on record for that month). And 2.43 million unemployed is sure to make British ‘confidence’ fall and the recession deepen.
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
For what it's worth (or "Rabid Davies Raves Again")
Another cog in the machinery of the relentless Tory onslaught on the ill and the disabled clicked into place this week, in the unlikely form of Philip Davies, MP for Shipley, who suggested that because “disabled” people are “worth less” to an employer, they should have to work for less than the minimum wage, at least until they have “proved themselves” in order to level up the playing field, because apparently this is how things should work in the “real world”.
I've just had a look at this geezer's declarations on the register of members' interests and I see he declares (inter alia) that he earned:
£600 for writing article for Mail on Sunday. Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, Kensington, London W8 5TT. Hours: 2 hrs. (Registered 29 November 2010)
I make that £300 per hour. Tell you what, I think a slightly more stupid MP could have done that for £250 per hour. If they could have found one. Such a level of part-time income (which I am assuming he declared and paid tax on) says to me that his familiarity with the difficulties faced by people already on the minimum wage may be er... less than nodding. He also claimed (2008/09)£23,886 for staying away from his main home, and a further £11,878 for travelling to and fro.
But yes, I mean, good idea, Davies old chap: why *not* put everyone on performance related pay, and only pay them pro rata according to their productivity and usefulness to the Tory master plan. After all, it sits quite nicely with their *existing* policy on the deserving and undeserving poor... and it's another step down the road to British Air plc, where your oxygen supply is regulated according to how little they can get away with giving you to breathe, and British Families plc, where your mum invoices you for cooking your breakfast. We've already got “thought crimes” and "cracking down" on people who don't espouse "traditional British values" (one of which I thought was freedom of speech, but hey, that's just me). We've already got "work til you drop" if you are lucky enough to still have a job. Why not go the whole hog. After all, it’s much easier to pick up litter in a wheelchair, you don’t have so far to bend!
The only *problem* with a completely unregulated market that only pays people according to what they are "worth" to an employer, instead of treating people with equaity and dignity, is that - if you are looking for “usefulness” and “productivity”, for instance - many of our MPs are among the most useless part- timers, wastrels and oxygen thieves. Motes and beams, mate, motes and beams.
Actually, thinking about it...I can write articles, I am in a wheelchair, so by his argument, *I* could write it instead of him, for say, oooh £500 a pop - just until I have "proved myself", you understand.
I think I might ring them up. After all, the repetitive xenophobic claptrap that fills the pages of the Maily Dail could *probably* be randomly generated by a program*, and it's got to be better than having him wittering on about his opposition to gays and his views in favour of smoking.
I'm gonna spend the weekend looking for a monkey and a typewriter - subcontacting, outsourcing, it's the Tory way, folks. Sorry Mr MP, you've just been downsized and replaced by a chimp on a Remington. For the benefit of Mr Davies, and other hard-of-thinking heartless bastards, I am not knocking the NHS here, they saved my life, it's what happens after you fall off the end of the system that could be better.
This time last year, I was a director of two companies, one of which I owned. I had worked continuously from 1976 to 2010, paid into the system, paid corporation tax in the good years when we were making money. Latterly, since a spat with Barclays bank in 2005/2006, the company I actually owned has had to divert any spare cash to paying those corporate leeches, so I have not been taking drawings from it. But that was OK, while I still had the other directorship, because I was doing well enough to cover the Barclays money out of that if need be. And come 2012, we would be free of them at last.
Bang! Life shook me a seven. July 2010, rushed into hospital for an emergency operation and came out on 7th December in a wheelchair as one of “the disabled”. Will probably never walk again, apparently. In the meantime, I (or rather my post, har har…) has been made redundant, leaving me as the sole director of a company that owes a lot of money under personal guarantee to Barclays Bank, oh, and of course the Halifax still want their £402.66 a month for the mortgage as well.
Yes, I do qualify for benefits, specifically DLA and ESA. The DLA is meant to be for coping with "disability" and motability and stuff like that, but to be honest, it's much more use to us at the moment in its raw form as "money" that can be exchanged for "food" at the "shops".
As for ESA, that has to be levered out of the DWP with a crowbar, because they have a habit of paying it a month or so in arrears or when they get round to it, presumably because it helps the government's cash flow to keep us on tenterhooks about whether or not we're going to be able to hold out for another month.
The council has just decided, after six months of dithering, that because we have too many "assets" (aka millstones) they *won't* after all be building a ramp to help me get in and out of my own house, so in effect, unless I prevail on someone to heave me down the temporary ramps like a sack of spuds, I am confined to two rooms. People in jail have more quality of life and freedom of movement.
I've also found out, during the course of my stay in hospital, that the underlying cause of my previous mobility issues, which didn't actually prevent me from leading an active and useful life up to that point, was facioscapularhumeral muscular dystrophy, which is progressive, and incurable. but, as the physio so cheerfully advised me, at my age (56), "something else will probably finish you off first".
Now, the thing is, life can do this to any of us. It would be a good thing if it happened to Philip Davies for instance. If he carries on smoking, it probably will. I have been doing a bit more research on Mr Davies. He is also a supporter of a movement called Interlibertarians, in fact they paid over £1000 for him to attend their conference last year, according to the register of members' interests. I have had a look on their web site, and they appear to be some sort of global alliance of scary, right wing whirly-eyed fundamentalists.
A lot of their web site is in Italian, and I don't speak fascist, so I am struggling a bit, but they have links to the Ausralian Liberal Party for instance, which believes that the disabled should work for "negative income tax", ie there should be no benefits structure at all, and that the gaps in such provision should be filled by a patchwork of "friends, family, private care and charities" - welcome back to Victorian Britain. I suppose as a last resort there is always the Workhouse. So this is the sort of people we are up against here.
People who think that just because you are "disabled" you are "worth" less to an employer and who think that your "worth" as a person, a human being, is the same as your "earning potential".
Well, Mr Davies, I am more than just a tick in a millionaire's ledger, thank you very much, I utterly reject your doctrinaire reduction of my "worth" to a calculation of what I can earn versus what the state provides for people who are unfortunate enough to be ill, and it is the attitude of you and people like you that means I have now applied for over 100 jobs and none of them wants a 56 year old hairbag in a wheelchair, because, thanks to the efforts of Mr Davies and those like him, people only see the wheelchair. His solution is that I accept the situation and agree to be treated as a second-class citizen.
My solution is that he goes and sticks his head in a dead bear's bottom. Except that he'd probably want to put the dead bear on expenses.
I've just had a look at this geezer's declarations on the register of members' interests and I see he declares (inter alia) that he earned:
£600 for writing article for Mail on Sunday. Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, Kensington, London W8 5TT. Hours: 2 hrs. (Registered 29 November 2010)
I make that £300 per hour. Tell you what, I think a slightly more stupid MP could have done that for £250 per hour. If they could have found one. Such a level of part-time income (which I am assuming he declared and paid tax on) says to me that his familiarity with the difficulties faced by people already on the minimum wage may be er... less than nodding. He also claimed (2008/09)£23,886 for staying away from his main home, and a further £11,878 for travelling to and fro.
But yes, I mean, good idea, Davies old chap: why *not* put everyone on performance related pay, and only pay them pro rata according to their productivity and usefulness to the Tory master plan. After all, it sits quite nicely with their *existing* policy on the deserving and undeserving poor... and it's another step down the road to British Air plc, where your oxygen supply is regulated according to how little they can get away with giving you to breathe, and British Families plc, where your mum invoices you for cooking your breakfast. We've already got “thought crimes” and "cracking down" on people who don't espouse "traditional British values" (one of which I thought was freedom of speech, but hey, that's just me). We've already got "work til you drop" if you are lucky enough to still have a job. Why not go the whole hog. After all, it’s much easier to pick up litter in a wheelchair, you don’t have so far to bend!
The only *problem* with a completely unregulated market that only pays people according to what they are "worth" to an employer, instead of treating people with equaity and dignity, is that - if you are looking for “usefulness” and “productivity”, for instance - many of our MPs are among the most useless part- timers, wastrels and oxygen thieves. Motes and beams, mate, motes and beams.
Actually, thinking about it...I can write articles, I am in a wheelchair, so by his argument, *I* could write it instead of him, for say, oooh £500 a pop - just until I have "proved myself", you understand.
I think I might ring them up. After all, the repetitive xenophobic claptrap that fills the pages of the Maily Dail could *probably* be randomly generated by a program*, and it's got to be better than having him wittering on about his opposition to gays and his views in favour of smoking.
I'm gonna spend the weekend looking for a monkey and a typewriter - subcontacting, outsourcing, it's the Tory way, folks. Sorry Mr MP, you've just been downsized and replaced by a chimp on a Remington. For the benefit of Mr Davies, and other hard-of-thinking heartless bastards, I am not knocking the NHS here, they saved my life, it's what happens after you fall off the end of the system that could be better.
This time last year, I was a director of two companies, one of which I owned. I had worked continuously from 1976 to 2010, paid into the system, paid corporation tax in the good years when we were making money. Latterly, since a spat with Barclays bank in 2005/2006, the company I actually owned has had to divert any spare cash to paying those corporate leeches, so I have not been taking drawings from it. But that was OK, while I still had the other directorship, because I was doing well enough to cover the Barclays money out of that if need be. And come 2012, we would be free of them at last.
Bang! Life shook me a seven. July 2010, rushed into hospital for an emergency operation and came out on 7th December in a wheelchair as one of “the disabled”. Will probably never walk again, apparently. In the meantime, I (or rather my post, har har…) has been made redundant, leaving me as the sole director of a company that owes a lot of money under personal guarantee to Barclays Bank, oh, and of course the Halifax still want their £402.66 a month for the mortgage as well.
Yes, I do qualify for benefits, specifically DLA and ESA. The DLA is meant to be for coping with "disability" and motability and stuff like that, but to be honest, it's much more use to us at the moment in its raw form as "money" that can be exchanged for "food" at the "shops".
As for ESA, that has to be levered out of the DWP with a crowbar, because they have a habit of paying it a month or so in arrears or when they get round to it, presumably because it helps the government's cash flow to keep us on tenterhooks about whether or not we're going to be able to hold out for another month.
The council has just decided, after six months of dithering, that because we have too many "assets" (aka millstones) they *won't* after all be building a ramp to help me get in and out of my own house, so in effect, unless I prevail on someone to heave me down the temporary ramps like a sack of spuds, I am confined to two rooms. People in jail have more quality of life and freedom of movement.
I've also found out, during the course of my stay in hospital, that the underlying cause of my previous mobility issues, which didn't actually prevent me from leading an active and useful life up to that point, was facioscapularhumeral muscular dystrophy, which is progressive, and incurable. but, as the physio so cheerfully advised me, at my age (56), "something else will probably finish you off first".
Now, the thing is, life can do this to any of us. It would be a good thing if it happened to Philip Davies for instance. If he carries on smoking, it probably will. I have been doing a bit more research on Mr Davies. He is also a supporter of a movement called Interlibertarians, in fact they paid over £1000 for him to attend their conference last year, according to the register of members' interests. I have had a look on their web site, and they appear to be some sort of global alliance of scary, right wing whirly-eyed fundamentalists.
A lot of their web site is in Italian, and I don't speak fascist, so I am struggling a bit, but they have links to the Ausralian Liberal Party for instance, which believes that the disabled should work for "negative income tax", ie there should be no benefits structure at all, and that the gaps in such provision should be filled by a patchwork of "friends, family, private care and charities" - welcome back to Victorian Britain. I suppose as a last resort there is always the Workhouse. So this is the sort of people we are up against here.
People who think that just because you are "disabled" you are "worth" less to an employer and who think that your "worth" as a person, a human being, is the same as your "earning potential".
Well, Mr Davies, I am more than just a tick in a millionaire's ledger, thank you very much, I utterly reject your doctrinaire reduction of my "worth" to a calculation of what I can earn versus what the state provides for people who are unfortunate enough to be ill, and it is the attitude of you and people like you that means I have now applied for over 100 jobs and none of them wants a 56 year old hairbag in a wheelchair, because, thanks to the efforts of Mr Davies and those like him, people only see the wheelchair. His solution is that I accept the situation and agree to be treated as a second-class citizen.
My solution is that he goes and sticks his head in a dead bear's bottom. Except that he'd probably want to put the dead bear on expenses.
Saturday, 11 June 2011
Turbulent Priest!
As far as I can see, the Archbishop is spot on.
Looking back at the last election, both major parties, and the Literal Dimwits, led vacuous, negative campaigns, more concerned with damage limitation and not dropping any major bollocks than with any vision for our country's future, or policies aimed at making things better for us all, despite the dire straits of the near-collapse of the world economy caused by the banks playing roulette with our money...
So instead of policies we got, in effect "don't vote for him, he smells of poo". That, and the unpredictable impact of the television debates, where Clegg came across as young, telegenic, and appealing to a large number of first-time voters who didn't know any better, plus of course Broon dropping the said bollock in the form of bigotgate, produced a result where no one party had a really clear mandate for their policies, such as they were. In fact, the election result was really the population saying, fairly unenthusiastically, "a plague on all your houses".
We then had a weekend of horse trading where the spectre of "what the markets would do on Monday" and the Greek economy (remember that?) was used as a goad to prod the various participants into a coalition of the unwilling.
Since then, the Toriess have pressed ahead with an agenda (previously hidden)of demonising people on welfare, the disabled and the unemployed, while inflicting savage cuts on public services, either directly or at one remove via reduced council grants, and have potentially stalled the economy and are planning to put yet more people on the dole to keep the likes of the IMF happy. The "Big Society" is supposed to pick up the pieces, of course, but it's a steaming pile of doodoos, and was only ever a device to cover up the cuts. Do one thing, while claiming to do the exact opposite, is how Cameron operates.
The Literal Dimwits, whose role seems to be to hand round the hobnobs at cabinet and act as apologists-cum-targets whenever there is something particularly nasty to announce, have proven to be the weakest link, and are left ... with nothing.
Plus, somehow we now seem to be at war with Libya, and Cameron is about to embark on a root-and-branch reform of the NHS which nobody wants, nobody voted for, is going to cost squillions, and will leave the NHS in a worse mess than it was.
In these circumstances, I think anyone has the right to question this government's "mandate" I've been questioning it since day 1, and pointing out to all the mad colonels in Gloucestershire who used to bang on about Brown being an unelected leader, that this government has just as little legitimacy, or probably even less.
It's a great shame that the official opposition is so weak feeble and generally useless, that it is left to the Archbishop of Canterbury, of all people, to point out the logical and moral weaknesses of the policies now being implemented by the Tories, and their effect on the many vulnerable people (economically, physically, socially, mentally) in society at whom they are targeted.
If Rowan Williams keeps this up, I might have to start going to Church again!
Looking back at the last election, both major parties, and the Literal Dimwits, led vacuous, negative campaigns, more concerned with damage limitation and not dropping any major bollocks than with any vision for our country's future, or policies aimed at making things better for us all, despite the dire straits of the near-collapse of the world economy caused by the banks playing roulette with our money...
So instead of policies we got, in effect "don't vote for him, he smells of poo". That, and the unpredictable impact of the television debates, where Clegg came across as young, telegenic, and appealing to a large number of first-time voters who didn't know any better, plus of course Broon dropping the said bollock in the form of bigotgate, produced a result where no one party had a really clear mandate for their policies, such as they were. In fact, the election result was really the population saying, fairly unenthusiastically, "a plague on all your houses".
We then had a weekend of horse trading where the spectre of "what the markets would do on Monday" and the Greek economy (remember that?) was used as a goad to prod the various participants into a coalition of the unwilling.
Since then, the Toriess have pressed ahead with an agenda (previously hidden)of demonising people on welfare, the disabled and the unemployed, while inflicting savage cuts on public services, either directly or at one remove via reduced council grants, and have potentially stalled the economy and are planning to put yet more people on the dole to keep the likes of the IMF happy. The "Big Society" is supposed to pick up the pieces, of course, but it's a steaming pile of doodoos, and was only ever a device to cover up the cuts. Do one thing, while claiming to do the exact opposite, is how Cameron operates.
The Literal Dimwits, whose role seems to be to hand round the hobnobs at cabinet and act as apologists-cum-targets whenever there is something particularly nasty to announce, have proven to be the weakest link, and are left ... with nothing.
Plus, somehow we now seem to be at war with Libya, and Cameron is about to embark on a root-and-branch reform of the NHS which nobody wants, nobody voted for, is going to cost squillions, and will leave the NHS in a worse mess than it was.
In these circumstances, I think anyone has the right to question this government's "mandate" I've been questioning it since day 1, and pointing out to all the mad colonels in Gloucestershire who used to bang on about Brown being an unelected leader, that this government has just as little legitimacy, or probably even less.
It's a great shame that the official opposition is so weak feeble and generally useless, that it is left to the Archbishop of Canterbury, of all people, to point out the logical and moral weaknesses of the policies now being implemented by the Tories, and their effect on the many vulnerable people (economically, physically, socially, mentally) in society at whom they are targeted.
If Rowan Williams keeps this up, I might have to start going to Church again!
Friday, 6 May 2011
Sheffield "Steal"
Well, Nick Clegg will certainly be crying into his Depeche Mode this morning, and he deserves to be.
The nerve of these people who bang on about Broon having been an unelected leader, when we have this Junta of Boobies "in charge"!
Yes, the Lib Dems have been shafted all ways up, and should have seen it coming, but Clegg was so desperate for power last May he'd have sold his own granny into white slavery for a chance to hand round the hobnobs at Cabinet. Well, tough. I said it would make Balaclava look like a walk in the park. Nobody will ever trust them again. True, Clegg may well have said at the last GE that he would bargain with the largest minority party, but he forgot to add "and I will slavishly prop them up and take the flak for them while they embark on an ideologically driven slash and burn attack on the poorest and most vulnerable in our society..."
The acid test of how long he has left will be when someone senior in the party like Ashdown or similar says "Nick Clegg has my full confidence". Whenever the words "full confidence" are used in that context, the subject of them is usually gone by the weekend.
General strike or general election. Or both. Soon. With real policies please, to help real people, and if the markets don't like it, let them invade. US Gilts hardly wobbled anyway when Standard and Poors (who were so good at spotting the credit crunch coming...) downgraded them.
Oh, and PLEASE, Labour, wake up to the fact that you have elected the WRONG Miliband, Gromit, and put it right.
Caroline Flint for Prime Minister... va va voom. That'd get the country growing again (well, bits of it...)
The nerve of these people who bang on about Broon having been an unelected leader, when we have this Junta of Boobies "in charge"!
Yes, the Lib Dems have been shafted all ways up, and should have seen it coming, but Clegg was so desperate for power last May he'd have sold his own granny into white slavery for a chance to hand round the hobnobs at Cabinet. Well, tough. I said it would make Balaclava look like a walk in the park. Nobody will ever trust them again. True, Clegg may well have said at the last GE that he would bargain with the largest minority party, but he forgot to add "and I will slavishly prop them up and take the flak for them while they embark on an ideologically driven slash and burn attack on the poorest and most vulnerable in our society..."
The acid test of how long he has left will be when someone senior in the party like Ashdown or similar says "Nick Clegg has my full confidence". Whenever the words "full confidence" are used in that context, the subject of them is usually gone by the weekend.
General strike or general election. Or both. Soon. With real policies please, to help real people, and if the markets don't like it, let them invade. US Gilts hardly wobbled anyway when Standard and Poors (who were so good at spotting the credit crunch coming...) downgraded them.
Oh, and PLEASE, Labour, wake up to the fact that you have elected the WRONG Miliband, Gromit, and put it right.
Caroline Flint for Prime Minister... va va voom. That'd get the country growing again (well, bits of it...)
Saturday, 30 April 2011
57 Reasons not to be Cheerful, one, two, three...
Any large public event is always a balance between freedom of expression and movement, safety, and civil liberty. The “Rile Widding” was no exception. Except it was – it marked a new watershed in the shifting of the balance away from freedom and towards outright repression. I have already remarked that there seems to be a disparity between Brian Haw camping in Parliament Square (not allowed) and thousands of people camping out in The Mall (allowed) and this double standard is indicative of the sneaky, insidious way in which major public events are used to undermine civil liberties. Presumably if Boris Johnson wants to prosecute the people who broke the law on Thursday night in the Mall, he has plenty of CCTV and TV footage to allow him to identify the offenders. I await his next action with interest.
These are the “facts” behind what was “hailed” as a “successful” security operation. I am going to quote this at length from the BBC because it bears some deconstruction. It is a curiously jumbled and un-focused piece that reads as if it is the police official statement merely rehashed and regurgitated.
Scotland Yard has hailed the security operation surrounding the royal wedding as an "amazing success" despite 57 arrests around its security zone. About half the arrests were for breach of the peace and a man was held for an alleged sex assault on a girl, aged 14.
OK, no-one would argue with that. Breach of the peace and a sex assault, it all sounds fairly straightforward.
Ten people carrying climbing gear and anti-monarchy placards were arrested near Charing Cross. Other arrests were for drunk and disorderly, criminal damage, theft and over a suspected environmental protest. Three people were held in the Covent Garden area over the alleged demonstration, police said.
To be frank, I am surprised that the BBC didn’t look into the anti-monarchy and environmental protests more closely. They seem to be accepting of the police lumping these in with drunk and disorderly, criminal damage and theft. In this manner, legitimate protest is subtly criminalised. Were these people charged, and if so, with what?
Anti-terror powers were used to arrest one man who was seen taking suspicious photographs of transport hubs and security personnel in the Charing Cross area.
This is the sort of thing that is an example of the insidious erosion of our civil liberties – and, of course, it will now continue right up to the Olympic Games and beyond, if they can get away with it.
Three others were held over drug offences and four for allegedly carrying an offensive weapon.
OK, we’re back to the straightforward stuff again. But why not make some effort to group the arrests by type? Why mix up protests with criminal activity?
Met Police Assistant Commissioner Lynne Owens said the success of the overall policing operation showed that the force could handle security for next year's Olympic Games. She said her 5,000 officers should be "immensely proud" of their role in the "happy and safe" event. She admitted to pre-event "nerves" and defended the decision to carry out a string of pre-event raids as "entirely justified".
“Entirely justified”? Justified to whom, justified by what? Is she saying she has some inside information that she is not telling us? Were the people who were arrested pre-emptively some sort of terrorist threat? Because I have a feeling that this is just the police justifying themselves to themselves, with no scrutiny.
Officers questioned masked anti-monarchy protesters in Soho Square as a huge security operation took place around Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey and The Mall.
So who were these masked anti-monarchy protestors? How many of them were there, were they charged with anything? Are they part of the 57 arrests?
Thousands of police officers created a "ring of steel" around the venues. Snipers took to rooftops and undercover officers mingled among the crowds
Sort of gives the lie to the “carefree, joyous celebration”, doesn’t it?
More than 90 people were banned from the area and up to 80 VIPs were granted personal protection.
Again – “banned from the area” – under what pretext, what law, what judicial process has been gone through to be able to ban people from walking through the streets of their own capital city. If we are getting to the state where we are having people “banned” then we need to be sure this is not just something being done on a whim or on a spurious assumption, there needs to be a proper legal process.
Over the past few days police have arrested three people believed to be planning to behead effigies at the wedding. They were detained by police in Brockley, south-east London, on Thursday night.
These people have presumably been detained under the law which says that planning a terrorist act is an offence? Again, the BBC doesn’t seem to have asked any further questions. Were they charged? What with? Or were they merely quietly released again after the wedding? Am I committing an offence if I am planning to burn an effigy on November 5th?
There were also several raids on squats across London, which drew criticism from one Labour backbencher. John McDonnell accused police of "disproportionate" action, saying the raids appeared to be "some form of pre-emptive strike".
These are presumably the pre-emptive arrests of which Teresa May spoke in her advance trail of the measures she was “considering” after the Black Bloc’s window-breaking protests on 26 March. The people arrested in the squats were arrested for electricity abstraction – bypassing the meter. They have probably been doing it for months, if not years. They could have been arrested at any time for it, but coincidentally, police swooped the day before the Rile Widding. Coincidence? You decide.
As I said at the start, any large public event carries with it inevitable issues of public safety and security, even on the basic level of making sure no one gets trampled in the rush. And yes, I accept that – given that we’ve annoyed every hothead east of the Euphrates and a good many nearer home – there might be some people who want to use such an event to cover terrorist outrages. It’s all very lamentable. And in any large gathering of people, statistically there are going to be a few lags, perverts and ne’erdowells. So yes, policing is necessary. Up to a point. But when it gets to the stage where we’re stifling legitimate protest, we have to say, I think, that it’s time to take a good long hard look at where this is going.
Personally, I would let the protestors protest. In the case of the more zany fringe groups, it would show some of them up for the unsupported talentless loonies that they really are. If the whole world can see that there are only twelve members of “Muslims against Crusades”, that shows the world exactly what you are dealing with here. I would have stuck them in some obscure corner of Horse Guards Parade, suitably policed, and let them get on with it. Because the freedom not to be part of this, the freedom to hold contrarian views, however far they are off the bus route, is still one of the things that makes us the good guys.
And personally, I can’t see how you can describe any event where it has to be stage managed to stifle those who disagree with it, and pushed through at gunpoint by the presence of snipers on rooftops, as in any way “happy”.
Good luck, if you want to pretend that the whole country rose up as one great spontaneous street party and boogied long into the night. It didn’t, but feel free to delude yourself. For my part, the Royal Family is only useful for one thing. As a constitutional wedge to stop the bastard politicians taking over forever and issuing a written list of everything you are allowed to do, and everything else is verboten.
So if we have to have the occasional Rile Widding to keep the unwritten constitution intact, so be it. But don’t use it as an excuse to stifle legitimate protest, and don’t expect me to enjoy it. Just pull my vest down when you’ve finished.
These are the “facts” behind what was “hailed” as a “successful” security operation. I am going to quote this at length from the BBC because it bears some deconstruction. It is a curiously jumbled and un-focused piece that reads as if it is the police official statement merely rehashed and regurgitated.
Scotland Yard has hailed the security operation surrounding the royal wedding as an "amazing success" despite 57 arrests around its security zone. About half the arrests were for breach of the peace and a man was held for an alleged sex assault on a girl, aged 14.
OK, no-one would argue with that. Breach of the peace and a sex assault, it all sounds fairly straightforward.
Ten people carrying climbing gear and anti-monarchy placards were arrested near Charing Cross. Other arrests were for drunk and disorderly, criminal damage, theft and over a suspected environmental protest. Three people were held in the Covent Garden area over the alleged demonstration, police said.
To be frank, I am surprised that the BBC didn’t look into the anti-monarchy and environmental protests more closely. They seem to be accepting of the police lumping these in with drunk and disorderly, criminal damage and theft. In this manner, legitimate protest is subtly criminalised. Were these people charged, and if so, with what?
Anti-terror powers were used to arrest one man who was seen taking suspicious photographs of transport hubs and security personnel in the Charing Cross area.
This is the sort of thing that is an example of the insidious erosion of our civil liberties – and, of course, it will now continue right up to the Olympic Games and beyond, if they can get away with it.
Three others were held over drug offences and four for allegedly carrying an offensive weapon.
OK, we’re back to the straightforward stuff again. But why not make some effort to group the arrests by type? Why mix up protests with criminal activity?
Met Police Assistant Commissioner Lynne Owens said the success of the overall policing operation showed that the force could handle security for next year's Olympic Games. She said her 5,000 officers should be "immensely proud" of their role in the "happy and safe" event. She admitted to pre-event "nerves" and defended the decision to carry out a string of pre-event raids as "entirely justified".
“Entirely justified”? Justified to whom, justified by what? Is she saying she has some inside information that she is not telling us? Were the people who were arrested pre-emptively some sort of terrorist threat? Because I have a feeling that this is just the police justifying themselves to themselves, with no scrutiny.
Officers questioned masked anti-monarchy protesters in Soho Square as a huge security operation took place around Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey and The Mall.
So who were these masked anti-monarchy protestors? How many of them were there, were they charged with anything? Are they part of the 57 arrests?
Thousands of police officers created a "ring of steel" around the venues. Snipers took to rooftops and undercover officers mingled among the crowds
Sort of gives the lie to the “carefree, joyous celebration”, doesn’t it?
More than 90 people were banned from the area and up to 80 VIPs were granted personal protection.
Again – “banned from the area” – under what pretext, what law, what judicial process has been gone through to be able to ban people from walking through the streets of their own capital city. If we are getting to the state where we are having people “banned” then we need to be sure this is not just something being done on a whim or on a spurious assumption, there needs to be a proper legal process.
Over the past few days police have arrested three people believed to be planning to behead effigies at the wedding. They were detained by police in Brockley, south-east London, on Thursday night.
These people have presumably been detained under the law which says that planning a terrorist act is an offence? Again, the BBC doesn’t seem to have asked any further questions. Were they charged? What with? Or were they merely quietly released again after the wedding? Am I committing an offence if I am planning to burn an effigy on November 5th?
There were also several raids on squats across London, which drew criticism from one Labour backbencher. John McDonnell accused police of "disproportionate" action, saying the raids appeared to be "some form of pre-emptive strike".
These are presumably the pre-emptive arrests of which Teresa May spoke in her advance trail of the measures she was “considering” after the Black Bloc’s window-breaking protests on 26 March. The people arrested in the squats were arrested for electricity abstraction – bypassing the meter. They have probably been doing it for months, if not years. They could have been arrested at any time for it, but coincidentally, police swooped the day before the Rile Widding. Coincidence? You decide.
As I said at the start, any large public event carries with it inevitable issues of public safety and security, even on the basic level of making sure no one gets trampled in the rush. And yes, I accept that – given that we’ve annoyed every hothead east of the Euphrates and a good many nearer home – there might be some people who want to use such an event to cover terrorist outrages. It’s all very lamentable. And in any large gathering of people, statistically there are going to be a few lags, perverts and ne’erdowells. So yes, policing is necessary. Up to a point. But when it gets to the stage where we’re stifling legitimate protest, we have to say, I think, that it’s time to take a good long hard look at where this is going.
Personally, I would let the protestors protest. In the case of the more zany fringe groups, it would show some of them up for the unsupported talentless loonies that they really are. If the whole world can see that there are only twelve members of “Muslims against Crusades”, that shows the world exactly what you are dealing with here. I would have stuck them in some obscure corner of Horse Guards Parade, suitably policed, and let them get on with it. Because the freedom not to be part of this, the freedom to hold contrarian views, however far they are off the bus route, is still one of the things that makes us the good guys.
And personally, I can’t see how you can describe any event where it has to be stage managed to stifle those who disagree with it, and pushed through at gunpoint by the presence of snipers on rooftops, as in any way “happy”.
Good luck, if you want to pretend that the whole country rose up as one great spontaneous street party and boogied long into the night. It didn’t, but feel free to delude yourself. For my part, the Royal Family is only useful for one thing. As a constitutional wedge to stop the bastard politicians taking over forever and issuing a written list of everything you are allowed to do, and everything else is verboten.
So if we have to have the occasional Rile Widding to keep the unwritten constitution intact, so be it. But don’t use it as an excuse to stifle legitimate protest, and don’t expect me to enjoy it. Just pull my vest down when you’ve finished.
The Undeserving Power
I have seen and heard quite a few pronouncements on benefits from the Tories over the last year, but David Cameron’s latest “photo-opportunity” asking workers on the BBC News blatantly, outright, if they were happy with the fact that there are apparently 80,000 people on incapacity benefit because of drugs, alcohol, or obesity, takes the biscuit. The nasty implication was, of course, that these people are still continuing this lifestyle on benefits, and being funded in this excess by the hard-working taxpayer. In reality, it is more likely that these people are struggling to cope with the effects of previous addiction, in a landscape where the very programs and funding that might be able to help them are being cut left, right and centre – by the Tories!
We’re a long way from “we’re all in this together.” But then, so is he. His NHS reforms have been savaged, and the previously docile lickspittles in the Literal Dimwits are having trouble keeping the lid on their section of the pressure cooker, as their leadership seems to have finally woken up to the slaughter awaiting them in the local elections, plus there’s the factor of the AV referendum adding extra strain on an already strained relationship. He has very little to cheer about at the moment (which is probably why they seized on the 0.5% growth in GDP over the last quarter – in reality, flatlining, when offset against the previous quarter’s fall – and trumpeted it like it was the Second Coming).
I’ve never seen a more disgracefully, deliberately divisive speech from someone who would do well to remember that the Prime Minister of this country is the Prime Minister of all of us, and he should be doing his best to unite the whole country, even those of us who would rather cut our own toes off with a rusty knife and serve them up on toast to next door’s cat than ever vote for him. But Cameron isn’t interested in me, except as someone whose disability benefits he can possibly cut. He’s talking over my head, to white van man, the man in the pub, to bigot Britain, to the people who support the BNP and the EDL, who think there are “too many scroungers, too many people on benefits, and too many foreigners”.
“We’re all in this together” has been ditched, apparently, in favour of the resurrection of the Victorian idea of the deserving and undeserving poor. In Cameron’s Tory Bullingdon Club world, the idea of a universal entitlement to benefits under a welfare state is anathema. You should earn your benefits, dear boy, preferably by picking oakum in the Workhouse. He’s preaching the same baseless, anecdotal shit that you can hear from any pub bore at closing time in any working class boozer – and around quite a few middle class dinner tables as well. Or you can pay good money and read it in regurgitated form in The Daily Mail. “ A man in the pub told me once that he had a bloke in the back of his taxi who said there are thousands of them claiming benefits that they aren’t entitled to, they’re all immigrants, over here taking our jobs, etc. etc.”
It more or less writes itself, which is why being a Daily Mail journalist in these heady days must be such a cushy number under this regime. All of the statistics on which these speeches and photo opportunities are based are at best, suspect, and at worse, misleading, cooked-up and completely bogus. The figure of 80,000 people which Cameron used, for instance, for people claiming benefits who are victims of drugs, alcohol or obesity, is actually based on a “snapshot” of the figures, according to the original DWP press release.
In other words, they have taken a small chunk of data, analysed it, then extrapolated the results to see what figure they could come up with if all of the remaining data followed the same pattern, and the answer is 80,000. Suddenly, that figure is enshrined in fact as if it was some kind of innate truth.
They followed the Cameron speech with another similar exercise, a story that “75% of incapacity benefit claimants are fit for work”. What actually happened, when you look into the figures behind the headlines, was that, of just over one million applicants over a given period of time, 39% were found to be “fit for work” but then 40% of this 39% actually appealed against these decisions – and won! [Not that there is any work, but that’s a separate gripe, let’s not get sidetracked here.] So the story didn’t go on to say that, because of that appeal, in fact, the real figure that were “fit for work” was nearer 19.5% of the whole sample, not 39% at all. A further 36% (the other bit of the spurious “75%”) gave up their applications uncompleted, and never bothered to pursue them. The implication from the ghastly Tories is that this is because they’d been rumbled and didn’t bother to go on because they knew the game was up and abandoned the claim, quitting while they were ahead.
Having had first hand experience of the convoluted process and the harassed and unhelpful DWP staff who administer ESA, I can imagine a more likely reason for this, easily. Although I am a “newbie” to the world of disability and benefits, I am a reasonably literate, educated, and fairly articulate person, able to fight my own corner, and even then I have struggled against the overwhelming torrent of forms, questionnaires, and bloody stupid fatuous standard letters asking the same old shit over and over again. It’s no wonder that people abandon their claims. Perfectly legitimate claims, I shouldn’t wonder. The system is set up with precisely that aim. To baffle you with bullshit until you snap and say “oh, sod it!” These mythical people that the man in the pub tells you about, the thousands of them that allegedly defraud the taxpayer of £1000s, must do it as a full-time job, and even then, they’d need a secretary and an accountant, just to keep track of all the paperwork!
So, at next week’s local elections, which is, in truth, what this was all about, had Cameron been honest enough to admit it, you have a choice. You can believe and swallow this hokum perpetrated by the Tories as part of their “divide-and-rule” tactics, if you really believe there are “deserving” and “undeserving” poor and “sturdy beggars”, go ahead and vote for him. If you think, however, that those who are ill through the effects of drugs, alcohol, and poor diet are just as deserving of universal benefits on medical grounds as the rest of us, in a civilised society, and that dividing people into deserving and undeserving poor on the basis of lifestyle “choices” is the thin end of an evil wedge (what about smokers, for instance? Cameron kept quiet about them because smokers might be highly represented amongst the white van man target group) then vote the bastards out, and give them the kicking they so richly deserve. It’s not all of us together, it’s us and them, and it always has been, because that’s their choice, that’s the way they want it, whatever they say otherwise.
We’re a long way from “we’re all in this together.” But then, so is he. His NHS reforms have been savaged, and the previously docile lickspittles in the Literal Dimwits are having trouble keeping the lid on their section of the pressure cooker, as their leadership seems to have finally woken up to the slaughter awaiting them in the local elections, plus there’s the factor of the AV referendum adding extra strain on an already strained relationship. He has very little to cheer about at the moment (which is probably why they seized on the 0.5% growth in GDP over the last quarter – in reality, flatlining, when offset against the previous quarter’s fall – and trumpeted it like it was the Second Coming).
I’ve never seen a more disgracefully, deliberately divisive speech from someone who would do well to remember that the Prime Minister of this country is the Prime Minister of all of us, and he should be doing his best to unite the whole country, even those of us who would rather cut our own toes off with a rusty knife and serve them up on toast to next door’s cat than ever vote for him. But Cameron isn’t interested in me, except as someone whose disability benefits he can possibly cut. He’s talking over my head, to white van man, the man in the pub, to bigot Britain, to the people who support the BNP and the EDL, who think there are “too many scroungers, too many people on benefits, and too many foreigners”.
“We’re all in this together” has been ditched, apparently, in favour of the resurrection of the Victorian idea of the deserving and undeserving poor. In Cameron’s Tory Bullingdon Club world, the idea of a universal entitlement to benefits under a welfare state is anathema. You should earn your benefits, dear boy, preferably by picking oakum in the Workhouse. He’s preaching the same baseless, anecdotal shit that you can hear from any pub bore at closing time in any working class boozer – and around quite a few middle class dinner tables as well. Or you can pay good money and read it in regurgitated form in The Daily Mail. “ A man in the pub told me once that he had a bloke in the back of his taxi who said there are thousands of them claiming benefits that they aren’t entitled to, they’re all immigrants, over here taking our jobs, etc. etc.”
It more or less writes itself, which is why being a Daily Mail journalist in these heady days must be such a cushy number under this regime. All of the statistics on which these speeches and photo opportunities are based are at best, suspect, and at worse, misleading, cooked-up and completely bogus. The figure of 80,000 people which Cameron used, for instance, for people claiming benefits who are victims of drugs, alcohol or obesity, is actually based on a “snapshot” of the figures, according to the original DWP press release.
In other words, they have taken a small chunk of data, analysed it, then extrapolated the results to see what figure they could come up with if all of the remaining data followed the same pattern, and the answer is 80,000. Suddenly, that figure is enshrined in fact as if it was some kind of innate truth.
They followed the Cameron speech with another similar exercise, a story that “75% of incapacity benefit claimants are fit for work”. What actually happened, when you look into the figures behind the headlines, was that, of just over one million applicants over a given period of time, 39% were found to be “fit for work” but then 40% of this 39% actually appealed against these decisions – and won! [Not that there is any work, but that’s a separate gripe, let’s not get sidetracked here.] So the story didn’t go on to say that, because of that appeal, in fact, the real figure that were “fit for work” was nearer 19.5% of the whole sample, not 39% at all. A further 36% (the other bit of the spurious “75%”) gave up their applications uncompleted, and never bothered to pursue them. The implication from the ghastly Tories is that this is because they’d been rumbled and didn’t bother to go on because they knew the game was up and abandoned the claim, quitting while they were ahead.
Having had first hand experience of the convoluted process and the harassed and unhelpful DWP staff who administer ESA, I can imagine a more likely reason for this, easily. Although I am a “newbie” to the world of disability and benefits, I am a reasonably literate, educated, and fairly articulate person, able to fight my own corner, and even then I have struggled against the overwhelming torrent of forms, questionnaires, and bloody stupid fatuous standard letters asking the same old shit over and over again. It’s no wonder that people abandon their claims. Perfectly legitimate claims, I shouldn’t wonder. The system is set up with precisely that aim. To baffle you with bullshit until you snap and say “oh, sod it!” These mythical people that the man in the pub tells you about, the thousands of them that allegedly defraud the taxpayer of £1000s, must do it as a full-time job, and even then, they’d need a secretary and an accountant, just to keep track of all the paperwork!
So, at next week’s local elections, which is, in truth, what this was all about, had Cameron been honest enough to admit it, you have a choice. You can believe and swallow this hokum perpetrated by the Tories as part of their “divide-and-rule” tactics, if you really believe there are “deserving” and “undeserving” poor and “sturdy beggars”, go ahead and vote for him. If you think, however, that those who are ill through the effects of drugs, alcohol, and poor diet are just as deserving of universal benefits on medical grounds as the rest of us, in a civilised society, and that dividing people into deserving and undeserving poor on the basis of lifestyle “choices” is the thin end of an evil wedge (what about smokers, for instance? Cameron kept quiet about them because smokers might be highly represented amongst the white van man target group) then vote the bastards out, and give them the kicking they so richly deserve. It’s not all of us together, it’s us and them, and it always has been, because that’s their choice, that’s the way they want it, whatever they say otherwise.
Sunday, 24 April 2011
Privates on Parade
David Cam-Moron thinks PARLIAMENT should decide on privacy law, not judges. Great idea. While we're at it, let's put Count Dracula in charge of the Blood Bank.
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
I was going to write a long, passionately argued piece deconstructing Cam-moron's recent playing of the race card in his immigration speech, but to be honest, what he was trying to do is so transparent, it's hardly worth the effort of smashing. There is, as always, a subtext with these speeches. I know exactly what he was trying to do, politicians of all parties do it when they are cornered like a rat.
He can see that his party is going to get a well-deserved kicking in the May elections. So he reaches for his dog whistle, looks out over the heads of the benighted fools he knows will still vote for him anyway, and gives a good long toot in the general direction of the British National Party and the English Defence League.
White immigration is good, brown immigration is bad, is what he was trying to say but couldn't in so many words. And why don't they all learn English and integrate (because er, most of them do. I notice he wasn't quick to castigate Tesco when they started to have aisles of Polish food, labelled in Polish!)
Meanwhile, Mr Ed the talking horse, has admitted that Labour may have made one or two mistakes in the way they presented and monitored immigration (such as sucking up the to the middle classes in key marginals for a decade, while your traditional heartlands were recruited en masse by the BNP, you mean, yes, that would be one of the many mistakes...)
Of course, this has been seized on by the Tory press and regurgitated as "Labour: We Were Wrong On Immigration".
It reminds me of that old adage that you can always tell when a politician is lying because his lips are moving.
Any politician who says that they can do anything about this issue while we are still members of the EU Political Unity Project, is just that. A big, fat, howling, pants-on-fire, liar. I wish they would get a grip and deal with it properly, instead of leaving it to UKIP, who couldn't run a village fete, let alone extricate us from the clutches of Mrs Merton and President Teacozy.
And furthermore: the argument always focuses on the "shortage" of resources - why does nobody ever ask why there is a shortage of schools, hospitals and affordable housing? What did I pay all those taxes for? To fire missiles at Libya?
He can see that his party is going to get a well-deserved kicking in the May elections. So he reaches for his dog whistle, looks out over the heads of the benighted fools he knows will still vote for him anyway, and gives a good long toot in the general direction of the British National Party and the English Defence League.
White immigration is good, brown immigration is bad, is what he was trying to say but couldn't in so many words. And why don't they all learn English and integrate (because er, most of them do. I notice he wasn't quick to castigate Tesco when they started to have aisles of Polish food, labelled in Polish!)
Meanwhile, Mr Ed the talking horse, has admitted that Labour may have made one or two mistakes in the way they presented and monitored immigration (such as sucking up the to the middle classes in key marginals for a decade, while your traditional heartlands were recruited en masse by the BNP, you mean, yes, that would be one of the many mistakes...)
Of course, this has been seized on by the Tory press and regurgitated as "Labour: We Were Wrong On Immigration".
It reminds me of that old adage that you can always tell when a politician is lying because his lips are moving.
Any politician who says that they can do anything about this issue while we are still members of the EU Political Unity Project, is just that. A big, fat, howling, pants-on-fire, liar. I wish they would get a grip and deal with it properly, instead of leaving it to UKIP, who couldn't run a village fete, let alone extricate us from the clutches of Mrs Merton and President Teacozy.
And furthermore: the argument always focuses on the "shortage" of resources - why does nobody ever ask why there is a shortage of schools, hospitals and affordable housing? What did I pay all those taxes for? To fire missiles at Libya?
Alles Ist In Ordnung!
A big public ceremony is approaching. Suddenly, in the days before, hundreds of extra police appear, apparently from nowhere. In the days leading up to the event, the streets are cleared of protestors, vagrants rough sleepers and homeless people, the manholes are searched, the surveillance cameras checked, the shadowy men in shadowy bunkers do their comms checks in front of gigantic screens, firearms are issued with orders to shoot to kill if necessary, and known troublemakers are rounded up and arrested.
China? Iran? Saudi Arabia? the USSR at the height of the Cold War? Hitler's Germany?
No, this is once-Great Britain, 29th April 2011.
In a previous blog about the sinister way that major public events such as the Royal Wedding and the London Olympics were being used to further curtail civil liberties and crack down on the most disadvantaged victims of Tory cuts, I wrote:
Finally, of course, following those dickheads from Black Bloc smashing bank windows on Saturday, Theresa May must have been chortling into her Horlicks that night as she seamlessly began the process of tightening up the policing of demos, talking about barring "known troublemakers" (ie anyone who disagrees with Cameron) from the right to protest. Well done, Black Bloc. Home Secretary 1 (black bloc, o.g.) Black Bloc 0. The pretext currently being used for this is the upcoming Royal Wedding, but given that the Olympics is following on in relatively short order behind this, I doubt anything brought in for the Royal Wedding is going to be repealed before the Olympics (or after it, come to that!)
And, true to form, the BBC reported last night that the security forces and police were considering "pre-emptive arrests" of known activists, on the day of the Royal Wedding, to prevent them "causing trouble" - accompanied of course by footage of Black Bloc smashing the window of a branch of Santander [and is there anyone who seriously thinks the cost of that window won't go straight back on next year's bank charges?]
So, we have really come to this. You can be pre emptively arrested, sans trial, judge jury or charge, detained and denied your liberty, because you might cause trouble on the day of the Royal Wedding. Given that there are going to be 5000 police lining the route, I think they have probably got the security overkill well and truly buttoned up anyway, but what do I know eh?
The real danger, the real acid test, the thin end of the proverbial wedge, is whether, once a docile population have got used to the idea, this sort of thing will just become the norm, long after the last Olympian has left Walthamstow.
China? Iran? Saudi Arabia? the USSR at the height of the Cold War? Hitler's Germany?
No, this is once-Great Britain, 29th April 2011.
In a previous blog about the sinister way that major public events such as the Royal Wedding and the London Olympics were being used to further curtail civil liberties and crack down on the most disadvantaged victims of Tory cuts, I wrote:
Finally, of course, following those dickheads from Black Bloc smashing bank windows on Saturday, Theresa May must have been chortling into her Horlicks that night as she seamlessly began the process of tightening up the policing of demos, talking about barring "known troublemakers" (ie anyone who disagrees with Cameron) from the right to protest. Well done, Black Bloc. Home Secretary 1 (black bloc, o.g.) Black Bloc 0. The pretext currently being used for this is the upcoming Royal Wedding, but given that the Olympics is following on in relatively short order behind this, I doubt anything brought in for the Royal Wedding is going to be repealed before the Olympics (or after it, come to that!)
And, true to form, the BBC reported last night that the security forces and police were considering "pre-emptive arrests" of known activists, on the day of the Royal Wedding, to prevent them "causing trouble" - accompanied of course by footage of Black Bloc smashing the window of a branch of Santander [and is there anyone who seriously thinks the cost of that window won't go straight back on next year's bank charges?]
So, we have really come to this. You can be pre emptively arrested, sans trial, judge jury or charge, detained and denied your liberty, because you might cause trouble on the day of the Royal Wedding. Given that there are going to be 5000 police lining the route, I think they have probably got the security overkill well and truly buttoned up anyway, but what do I know eh?
The real danger, the real acid test, the thin end of the proverbial wedge, is whether, once a docile population have got used to the idea, this sort of thing will just become the norm, long after the last Olympian has left Walthamstow.
Friday, 15 April 2011
Local Cuts for Local People
Eric Pickles is Satan. Or the Antichrist. Or possibly both, if that’s theologically possible. After seeing his performance on Newsnight the other night, I was only surprised that Gavin Essler didn’t start projectile vomiting, or that his head didn’t swivel through 360 degrees. It used to be only Michael Howard out of the Tory top brass that had a whiff of sulphur about him, but this is no longer the case. Roll over Beelzebub, tell Baphomet the news.
Pickles was being grilled on “localism”, which is Tory-speak for “you’re on your own, chum”, as the savage cuts to local government budgets, disproportionately targeted so the heaviest ones fall on the poorest authorities (a point made in the programme) are now starting to bite across the country.
Much of the interview, sadly, focused on “transparency”, which in the Pickles world involves publishing details of expenditure, regardless of any extra cost incurred in so doing. Even more sadly, Pickles was able to deflect the main thrusts of any attempts to call him to account, by focusing in turn on an error in the research, which led Essler to assert that the Department for Communities was only listing expenditure over £25,000 on its own web site, while expecting councils to list all items over £500. It emerged in the course of the debate that the DCLG is now also employing the £500 yardstick. [Actually, there is some interesting stuff on that web site, which repays further study, and I think I will have a closer look, and come back later to report my findings.]
Anyway, this is how localism works. You cut the rate support grant to the councils, taking care to make sure that the leafy suburbs (where the Tory voters live) “friendly” councils (such as the odious regime in Westminster) and key marginal targets are all protected, leaving the brunt to fall on the most deprived areas (coincidentally, many of them traditional Labour heartlands).
Then you meddle, selectively, as follows: when the council, faced with a decision which involves having to make drastic savings, cuts frontline services, and these cuts are unpopular, you make sure (if you are Eric Pickles) to blame the council for the cuts, as if the sudden, dramatic cut in income was nothing at all to do with you. When the council (quite rightly and sensibly) refuses to spend scarce resources on the extra cost of putting the items of their individual expenditure over £500 online, you criticise them for a lack of transparency. [So far, only Nottingham, out of all the councils, has had the cojones to do this. Shame on all the others.]
Funny stuff, transparency. Pickles seems to be remarkably opaque when it comes to admitting transparently that the transparent reason for these councils up and down the country being forced to cut to the bone and beyond, is, er, Eric Pickles. And localism, that’s a funny concept, too. It only works when the local decisions are exactly those which central government would have made and approved of. Central government in the form of, er, Eric Pickles. Any spending decisions taken at local level which don’t accord with the Tory plan for “slash and burn” are dismissed as “irresponsible”.
Of course, the Pickles plan is for the massive deficiencies his cuts will cause in councils to be picked up by the Big Society, for free, and for the massive job cuts in the public sector to be mopped up by the private sector. Neither of which is going to happen. Like all Faustian pacts, it has a sting in its tail. And possibly the horns of a dilemma.
Pickles was being grilled on “localism”, which is Tory-speak for “you’re on your own, chum”, as the savage cuts to local government budgets, disproportionately targeted so the heaviest ones fall on the poorest authorities (a point made in the programme) are now starting to bite across the country.
Much of the interview, sadly, focused on “transparency”, which in the Pickles world involves publishing details of expenditure, regardless of any extra cost incurred in so doing. Even more sadly, Pickles was able to deflect the main thrusts of any attempts to call him to account, by focusing in turn on an error in the research, which led Essler to assert that the Department for Communities was only listing expenditure over £25,000 on its own web site, while expecting councils to list all items over £500. It emerged in the course of the debate that the DCLG is now also employing the £500 yardstick. [Actually, there is some interesting stuff on that web site, which repays further study, and I think I will have a closer look, and come back later to report my findings.]
Anyway, this is how localism works. You cut the rate support grant to the councils, taking care to make sure that the leafy suburbs (where the Tory voters live) “friendly” councils (such as the odious regime in Westminster) and key marginal targets are all protected, leaving the brunt to fall on the most deprived areas (coincidentally, many of them traditional Labour heartlands).
Then you meddle, selectively, as follows: when the council, faced with a decision which involves having to make drastic savings, cuts frontline services, and these cuts are unpopular, you make sure (if you are Eric Pickles) to blame the council for the cuts, as if the sudden, dramatic cut in income was nothing at all to do with you. When the council (quite rightly and sensibly) refuses to spend scarce resources on the extra cost of putting the items of their individual expenditure over £500 online, you criticise them for a lack of transparency. [So far, only Nottingham, out of all the councils, has had the cojones to do this. Shame on all the others.]
Funny stuff, transparency. Pickles seems to be remarkably opaque when it comes to admitting transparently that the transparent reason for these councils up and down the country being forced to cut to the bone and beyond, is, er, Eric Pickles. And localism, that’s a funny concept, too. It only works when the local decisions are exactly those which central government would have made and approved of. Central government in the form of, er, Eric Pickles. Any spending decisions taken at local level which don’t accord with the Tory plan for “slash and burn” are dismissed as “irresponsible”.
Of course, the Pickles plan is for the massive deficiencies his cuts will cause in councils to be picked up by the Big Society, for free, and for the massive job cuts in the public sector to be mopped up by the private sector. Neither of which is going to happen. Like all Faustian pacts, it has a sting in its tail. And possibly the horns of a dilemma.
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Second Opinion
David Cameron is going to "pause for reflection" in his ill-judged reform of the NHS. What a pity he didn't pause for reflection before he even started, as he could have saved the money wasted on this project so far. In fact, the more I see of Mr Cameron, the more I wish his parents had paused for reflection.
In fact, I strongly suspect that the reflection, if any, during this period will be more concerned about how the Tories and mini-tories can sell this deeply flawed crock of shite to a) the Liberal Dimwits at large, who have already showed a marked inclination to defenestrate Clegg over this at their Spring conference b) the House of Lords, who are queueing up to amend it with a chain saw and c)a skeptical public, who are being told that we have no money, and yet see us firing rockets costing £800,000 at Libya and giving £650 million to Pakistan, and are starting to ask "what is this reorganisation of the NHS costing?
In his glossy, smarmy, airbrushed election posters this time last year, Cameron said "We can't go on like this - I'll cut the deficit, not the NHS". If the cost of this reorganisation is coming from existing NHS budgets, then that is a de facto cut. And if the cost is coming from elsewhere, then I can think of a thousand better uses for extra money for the NHS than a reorganisation that nobody wants. Apart from David Cameron of course, to whom it is a shibboleth almost as sacred as "The Big Society".
In fact, I strongly suspect that the reflection, if any, during this period will be more concerned about how the Tories and mini-tories can sell this deeply flawed crock of shite to a) the Liberal Dimwits at large, who have already showed a marked inclination to defenestrate Clegg over this at their Spring conference b) the House of Lords, who are queueing up to amend it with a chain saw and c)a skeptical public, who are being told that we have no money, and yet see us firing rockets costing £800,000 at Libya and giving £650 million to Pakistan, and are starting to ask "what is this reorganisation of the NHS costing?
In his glossy, smarmy, airbrushed election posters this time last year, Cameron said "We can't go on like this - I'll cut the deficit, not the NHS". If the cost of this reorganisation is coming from existing NHS budgets, then that is a de facto cut. And if the cost is coming from elsewhere, then I can think of a thousand better uses for extra money for the NHS than a reorganisation that nobody wants. Apart from David Cameron of course, to whom it is a shibboleth almost as sacred as "The Big Society".
Easy Git
Oliver Let-Wind has apparently been letting wind again. This time it was out of his mouth rather than his arse, but since he frequently talks out of both of them, any confusion is understandable.
Apparently, and up to the time of writing, he has not denied this, in an argument with Boris Johnson over airport development, he said that he didn't want to see any more families from Sheffield taking cheap holidays.
Notwithstanding that this was a private comment, my first thought, when I heard that this was in the context of an argument, was that it was a pity it didn't escalate and come to blows.
As it is, it shows up the Tory mindset brilliantly. We don't want these oiks having holidays, not people from Sheffield, no, they should work for free as interns, send their children up chimneys, and be bloody well grateful that we're only cutting some of their libraries, schools, police, and refuse collections, and not all of them. We've already got Sir Digby Jones, of CBI fame, suggesting that unemployed people should volunteer and work for nothing, the Tories love this sort of thing. Cut the benefits, starve them into non-existent jobs, or leave them in the gutter to starve. Pardon me, but is this 1811, or 1911 all of a sudden? Only, I thought it was 2011, that's all.
Welcome to the mind of the Tories. Work for nothing, get on your bike, and don't expect a holiday! If it wasn't for the fact that there are no jobs anyway, and many people now won't be able to afford holidays, cheap or otherwise, it would be laughable. As it is, it's a pathetic insult to the low paid and the unemployed.
It's also an insult, of course, to the people of Sheffield, and Clegg has apparently told Let-Wind to watch his mouth - ha ha ha hardy ha. If Clegg couldn't stop the Tories cancelling a loan (a loan, not a grant) to Sheffield Forgemasters in his own constituency, I hardly think Let-Wind is going to be quaking in his boots at anything Clegg says, especially as he probably thinks that everyone in Sheffield says "eee bah goom", keeps whippets in the bath, and wears a string vest, and a knotted handkerchief on their head.
Personally, I think all the people of Sheffield should take a holiday in Let-Wind's garden. And shit in his fishpond, except I don't believe in cruelty to fish, and he'd only put the cost of cleaning it out on his expenses and charge it back to us.
Apparently, and up to the time of writing, he has not denied this, in an argument with Boris Johnson over airport development, he said that he didn't want to see any more families from Sheffield taking cheap holidays.
Notwithstanding that this was a private comment, my first thought, when I heard that this was in the context of an argument, was that it was a pity it didn't escalate and come to blows.
As it is, it shows up the Tory mindset brilliantly. We don't want these oiks having holidays, not people from Sheffield, no, they should work for free as interns, send their children up chimneys, and be bloody well grateful that we're only cutting some of their libraries, schools, police, and refuse collections, and not all of them. We've already got Sir Digby Jones, of CBI fame, suggesting that unemployed people should volunteer and work for nothing, the Tories love this sort of thing. Cut the benefits, starve them into non-existent jobs, or leave them in the gutter to starve. Pardon me, but is this 1811, or 1911 all of a sudden? Only, I thought it was 2011, that's all.
Welcome to the mind of the Tories. Work for nothing, get on your bike, and don't expect a holiday! If it wasn't for the fact that there are no jobs anyway, and many people now won't be able to afford holidays, cheap or otherwise, it would be laughable. As it is, it's a pathetic insult to the low paid and the unemployed.
It's also an insult, of course, to the people of Sheffield, and Clegg has apparently told Let-Wind to watch his mouth - ha ha ha hardy ha. If Clegg couldn't stop the Tories cancelling a loan (a loan, not a grant) to Sheffield Forgemasters in his own constituency, I hardly think Let-Wind is going to be quaking in his boots at anything Clegg says, especially as he probably thinks that everyone in Sheffield says "eee bah goom", keeps whippets in the bath, and wears a string vest, and a knotted handkerchief on their head.
Personally, I think all the people of Sheffield should take a holiday in Let-Wind's garden. And shit in his fishpond, except I don't believe in cruelty to fish, and he'd only put the cost of cleaning it out on his expenses and charge it back to us.
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
The Streets of London
I touched on this in an earlier post, but I am definitely seeing signs of a concerted effort to "clean up" London in the run up to the 2012 Olympics. I don't mean sweeping up the rubbish, I mean a concerted effort to crack down on various freedoms and protests, and a further targeting of the disadvantaged, all as part of the process of packaging London for the (increasingly desperate, given Osborne's mishandling of the economy) sales, business, and tourism boom which is what the Olympics is all about these days.
Westminster Council is trying to banish the homeless by banning people from feeding them.
Boris Johnson (aided and abetted again by Westminster Council) is going through the courts to try and get rid of Brian Haw and his anti-war protest in Parliament Square.
There have been various reports on Indymedia about eastern European vagrants in the East End being rounded up and deported back to their country of origin. The UK is allowed to do this to homeless foreign nationals provided they are going back to a hostel or similar in their own country, and apparently the deportation often happens, but the hostel at the other end doesn't.
Finally, of course, following those dickheads from Black Bloc smashing bank windows on Saturday, Theresa May must have been chortling into her Horlicks that night as she seamlessly began the process of tightening up the policing of demos, talking about barring "known troublemakers" (ie anyone who disagrees with Cameron) from the right to protest. Well done, Black Bloc. Home Secretary 1 (black bloc, o.g.) Black Bloc 0. The pretext currently being used for this is the upcoming Royal Wedding, but given that the Olympics is following on in relatively short order behind this, I doubt anything brought in for the Royal Wedding is going to be repealed before the Olympics (or after it, come to that!)
We know already of course, that finding massive numbers of police from the secret deep freeze underneath Scotland Yard where they keep them in cryogenic suspension until there is a foreign tyrant who wants his goon squad to be able to run through London with the Olympic flag, or there's a miners' strike or something, is never a problem for the government. It's only when you are being robbed, mugged or raped that there is rarely a bobby on the beat.
I could be wrong. Maybe it is too early to discern a pattern emerging. But I will be watching this.
Westminster Council is trying to banish the homeless by banning people from feeding them.
Boris Johnson (aided and abetted again by Westminster Council) is going through the courts to try and get rid of Brian Haw and his anti-war protest in Parliament Square.
There have been various reports on Indymedia about eastern European vagrants in the East End being rounded up and deported back to their country of origin. The UK is allowed to do this to homeless foreign nationals provided they are going back to a hostel or similar in their own country, and apparently the deportation often happens, but the hostel at the other end doesn't.
Finally, of course, following those dickheads from Black Bloc smashing bank windows on Saturday, Theresa May must have been chortling into her Horlicks that night as she seamlessly began the process of tightening up the policing of demos, talking about barring "known troublemakers" (ie anyone who disagrees with Cameron) from the right to protest. Well done, Black Bloc. Home Secretary 1 (black bloc, o.g.) Black Bloc 0. The pretext currently being used for this is the upcoming Royal Wedding, but given that the Olympics is following on in relatively short order behind this, I doubt anything brought in for the Royal Wedding is going to be repealed before the Olympics (or after it, come to that!)
We know already of course, that finding massive numbers of police from the secret deep freeze underneath Scotland Yard where they keep them in cryogenic suspension until there is a foreign tyrant who wants his goon squad to be able to run through London with the Olympic flag, or there's a miners' strike or something, is never a problem for the government. It's only when you are being robbed, mugged or raped that there is rarely a bobby on the beat.
I could be wrong. Maybe it is too early to discern a pattern emerging. But I will be watching this.
You're AV-in a Larf!
I got my polling card yesterday for the AV referendum.
I have followed the recent debate on AV as a voting system, and I have to say it holds all the interest for me of watching a steward rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.
When you have a situation where the major political parties all run vacuous, negative campaigns based on slogans only one step away from "don't vote for him, he smells of poo", which is what we were treated to last May, while concealing their true intentions and keeping all the nasty things out of the manifesto until they are safely installed in number 10, it is no wonder that a cynical and apathetic electorate can't decide which of these poltroons they hate the most, and stays away in droves, refusing to become engaged in the political process. Especially as you are likely to find that the party you thought you had voted for has ditched all its promises and is now helping its former opponents to shaft you.
In that scenario, a set of venal, corrupt, self-serving bastards kow-towing to the bankers and the money markets represents the same outcome for most ordinary people, whether it was elected by AV or first past the post. I genuinely fear for the future of democracy in this country unless politicians wake up and start to have the courage to frame policies that will improve the lives of real people and make things better. People will turn from democracy to direct action if the democratic system fails to deliver this, and the result could be anarchy. I have previously said that maybe we do need the homeopathic solution of a few cobbles through the windows of 10 Downing Street to alert our political class to this danger, but after seeing the way the anarchy at Saturday's march played right into the hands of the media and the Tories, a better solution would still be a general strike, to precipitate a new, and hopefully more honest, General Election, where the parties tell us their real intentions.
I have followed the recent debate on AV as a voting system, and I have to say it holds all the interest for me of watching a steward rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.
When you have a situation where the major political parties all run vacuous, negative campaigns based on slogans only one step away from "don't vote for him, he smells of poo", which is what we were treated to last May, while concealing their true intentions and keeping all the nasty things out of the manifesto until they are safely installed in number 10, it is no wonder that a cynical and apathetic electorate can't decide which of these poltroons they hate the most, and stays away in droves, refusing to become engaged in the political process. Especially as you are likely to find that the party you thought you had voted for has ditched all its promises and is now helping its former opponents to shaft you.
In that scenario, a set of venal, corrupt, self-serving bastards kow-towing to the bankers and the money markets represents the same outcome for most ordinary people, whether it was elected by AV or first past the post. I genuinely fear for the future of democracy in this country unless politicians wake up and start to have the courage to frame policies that will improve the lives of real people and make things better. People will turn from democracy to direct action if the democratic system fails to deliver this, and the result could be anarchy. I have previously said that maybe we do need the homeopathic solution of a few cobbles through the windows of 10 Downing Street to alert our political class to this danger, but after seeing the way the anarchy at Saturday's march played right into the hands of the media and the Tories, a better solution would still be a general strike, to precipitate a new, and hopefully more honest, General Election, where the parties tell us their real intentions.
Hick-ery, Dick-ery, Bloc.
On Saturday, 26 March, half a million people marched through London to show their opposition to the savage, ideological cuts being imposed by the Tories, held up by Clegg and his band of merry men, (whose idea of a Robin Hood tax seems also to be to rob from the poor and give to the rich, while in the background, Caroline Spelman puts Sherwood Forest on e-bay).
People from all walks of life were there, people I know, either personally, or online,of all ages, across the whole community, people whose sole aim was that they wanted to demonstrate, peacefully and in a dignified manner, that these cuts in services and funding, affecting the poorest and those least able to manage, were "not in their name".
Unfortunately, none of that got on the news. The news media are often lazy, sometimes stupid, they have a "slot" to fill, and the VT gets edited to fit the time available. All of this is common knowledge.
And so, predictably, on the news on Saturday and all over the print media at the weekend, the story was dominated not by the vast, peaceful, dignified majority, but by two linked, but essentially separate activities - the occupation of Fortnum and Mason's by UK Uncut, and the actions of the so-called "anarchists", all 400 or so of them out of a crowd of half a million, who make up the organisation "Black Bloc".
It was very naive of UK Uncut, to have scheduled an action to take place in the context of this march. In the past, I have admired and applauded their cheeky, non-violent inventiveness in highlighting the part which big companies avoiding tax and shirking their responsibilities plays in the large black hole in Britain's balance sheet. But by doing what they did on a day when anyone with half an amoeba inside their skull must have known that it would be kicking off, they have scored a spectacular own goal, compounded by the feeble performance of their spokesperson on Newsnight on 28 March in failing to condemn the violence. Idiots. It plays right into the hands of the establishment, who now have the brush of anarchy and violence with which to tar UK Uncut. They have set their campaign back years. If they had only had the sense to occupy Fortnums the day after the demo, they would still have hung on the coat tails of the publicity, but the story would then have been the contrast between their peaceful demo and the violence of the previous day.
The "anarchists" of course, are, like the poor, always with us. They tag along at every demo, sticking it to the man by breaking the windows of a bus shelter. Freedom for Tooting, what did the Romans ever do for us? They are beyond satire, and, being bone from the neck up, impervious to it. But they are not that dumb, they have spotted how successful UK Uncut has been at organising and recruiting, and they have now "written" an open letter to them, offering their "support". Well, if you wanted a perfect example of an attempted reverse takeover by a wolf in sheep's clothing, there you have it. I hope UK Uncut have the sense to tell them to sod off.
I could rant for hours about what idiots these people are, but I will leave that for another day. Instead, here's an extract from a post on one of their forums from a trade unionist who was actually on the march, and took the time to register in order to tell them exactly what he thought.
It was a demo. It was supposed to set an agenda and make the public aware that we're not going to accept the cuts. It wasn't a revolutionary moment.
Those red'n'black lot (why do they all dress the same, its weird, like some cult) 'joined' the march at various points (Piccadilly mainly) and made gigantic pricks of themselves by such predictable and irrelevant acts of violence that were utterly meaningless in the bigger picture. Throwing paint and smoke bombs at the Ritz does absolutely zero to further any revolutionary aim.
What it did do however was enable the media to focus on the violence and avoid the issues in question. And, yes, they would have covered it well without the violence. The media have been all over the unions and TUC who organised the march for weeks in advance of this. But now they're ignoring us in the trade union movement and giving all the attention to the perpetrators of violence.
What the actions of the various show offs, self-obssessed and selfish bellends that decided to play revolution for the day managed to achieve was to directly support the objectives of the media. And to detract from the social movement against this government.
Oh and they also managed to scare the shit out of some familes and kids that got caught in the crush outside Fortnums in the process.
Well done. I hope they are very proud of themselves
Says it all, really.
People from all walks of life were there, people I know, either personally, or online,of all ages, across the whole community, people whose sole aim was that they wanted to demonstrate, peacefully and in a dignified manner, that these cuts in services and funding, affecting the poorest and those least able to manage, were "not in their name".
Unfortunately, none of that got on the news. The news media are often lazy, sometimes stupid, they have a "slot" to fill, and the VT gets edited to fit the time available. All of this is common knowledge.
And so, predictably, on the news on Saturday and all over the print media at the weekend, the story was dominated not by the vast, peaceful, dignified majority, but by two linked, but essentially separate activities - the occupation of Fortnum and Mason's by UK Uncut, and the actions of the so-called "anarchists", all 400 or so of them out of a crowd of half a million, who make up the organisation "Black Bloc".
It was very naive of UK Uncut, to have scheduled an action to take place in the context of this march. In the past, I have admired and applauded their cheeky, non-violent inventiveness in highlighting the part which big companies avoiding tax and shirking their responsibilities plays in the large black hole in Britain's balance sheet. But by doing what they did on a day when anyone with half an amoeba inside their skull must have known that it would be kicking off, they have scored a spectacular own goal, compounded by the feeble performance of their spokesperson on Newsnight on 28 March in failing to condemn the violence. Idiots. It plays right into the hands of the establishment, who now have the brush of anarchy and violence with which to tar UK Uncut. They have set their campaign back years. If they had only had the sense to occupy Fortnums the day after the demo, they would still have hung on the coat tails of the publicity, but the story would then have been the contrast between their peaceful demo and the violence of the previous day.
The "anarchists" of course, are, like the poor, always with us. They tag along at every demo, sticking it to the man by breaking the windows of a bus shelter. Freedom for Tooting, what did the Romans ever do for us? They are beyond satire, and, being bone from the neck up, impervious to it. But they are not that dumb, they have spotted how successful UK Uncut has been at organising and recruiting, and they have now "written" an open letter to them, offering their "support". Well, if you wanted a perfect example of an attempted reverse takeover by a wolf in sheep's clothing, there you have it. I hope UK Uncut have the sense to tell them to sod off.
I could rant for hours about what idiots these people are, but I will leave that for another day. Instead, here's an extract from a post on one of their forums from a trade unionist who was actually on the march, and took the time to register in order to tell them exactly what he thought.
It was a demo. It was supposed to set an agenda and make the public aware that we're not going to accept the cuts. It wasn't a revolutionary moment.
Those red'n'black lot (why do they all dress the same, its weird, like some cult) 'joined' the march at various points (Piccadilly mainly) and made gigantic pricks of themselves by such predictable and irrelevant acts of violence that were utterly meaningless in the bigger picture. Throwing paint and smoke bombs at the Ritz does absolutely zero to further any revolutionary aim.
What it did do however was enable the media to focus on the violence and avoid the issues in question. And, yes, they would have covered it well without the violence. The media have been all over the unions and TUC who organised the march for weeks in advance of this. But now they're ignoring us in the trade union movement and giving all the attention to the perpetrators of violence.
What the actions of the various show offs, self-obssessed and selfish bellends that decided to play revolution for the day managed to achieve was to directly support the objectives of the media. And to detract from the social movement against this government.
Oh and they also managed to scare the shit out of some familes and kids that got caught in the crush outside Fortnums in the process.
Well done. I hope they are very proud of themselves
Says it all, really.
Emergency, War 10!
The Tories and their stooges in the Mini-Tories have been quick to point out that the cost of the war against Libya will not come out of any existing budgets from Government departments already squeezed by the cuts, cut - in some cases - to the bone, and then beyond.
No, it will, instead, apparently, come out of a "contingency fund" in the Treasury, which is kept for emergencies and dire situations, according to Danny Alexander, on BBC's Question Time.
Now just hang on a cotton-pickin minute, thar, boy! Run that by me one more time, as Captain said to Tenniel or vice versa. The country is allegedly stony broke, on its uppers, so much so that the church mice are having a whip-round for us and yet, all the time, we're all in this together (though clearly some of us are "in it" up to our necks and sinking fast, while others haven't even had their expensive shoes splashed, yet) and all this time, the Treasury has a secret slush fund, a giant piggy bank in the underground car park, a hidden panel that, when pressed reveals a cupboard stuffed with £50 notes or something? What?!?!
Not only a secret slush fund, but one which must be fairly substantial, since it can stand funding the UK bombing the crap out of Benghazi with missiles that cost £800,000 each!
This, for me, raises a very important question. If this money is supposed to be used for emergencies, when is an "emergency" not an "emergency"? If we have got to the stage where we're shutting hospital wards, Sure Start centres and libraries, that is a bloody emergency! If we have got to the stage where we're cutting police because we can no longer afford to keep our streets safe, that is an emegency! If we've got to the stage where thousands of people are being laid off - in the construction industry for example - that is an emergency. If we've got people having their houses repossessed and being turned out onto the streets, that is an emergency.
Forget foreign adventurism and posturing on the world stage. We have little or no idea who these Libyan rebels are, or, in the long run, whether the situation there would be better or worse for our intervention. The examples of Iraq and Afghanistan don't hold out much hope.
Meanwhile, you don't need a flashing blue light and a howling siren to see that there are many more urgent "emergencies" at home, caused by the Con-Dims "bombing" their own economy, to appease the markets and bankers, that deserve much more to benefit from the judicious application of Danny Alexander's secret slush fund.
No, it will, instead, apparently, come out of a "contingency fund" in the Treasury, which is kept for emergencies and dire situations, according to Danny Alexander, on BBC's Question Time.
Now just hang on a cotton-pickin minute, thar, boy! Run that by me one more time, as Captain said to Tenniel or vice versa. The country is allegedly stony broke, on its uppers, so much so that the church mice are having a whip-round for us and yet, all the time, we're all in this together (though clearly some of us are "in it" up to our necks and sinking fast, while others haven't even had their expensive shoes splashed, yet) and all this time, the Treasury has a secret slush fund, a giant piggy bank in the underground car park, a hidden panel that, when pressed reveals a cupboard stuffed with £50 notes or something? What?!?!
Not only a secret slush fund, but one which must be fairly substantial, since it can stand funding the UK bombing the crap out of Benghazi with missiles that cost £800,000 each!
This, for me, raises a very important question. If this money is supposed to be used for emergencies, when is an "emergency" not an "emergency"? If we have got to the stage where we're shutting hospital wards, Sure Start centres and libraries, that is a bloody emergency! If we have got to the stage where we're cutting police because we can no longer afford to keep our streets safe, that is an emegency! If we've got to the stage where thousands of people are being laid off - in the construction industry for example - that is an emergency. If we've got people having their houses repossessed and being turned out onto the streets, that is an emergency.
Forget foreign adventurism and posturing on the world stage. We have little or no idea who these Libyan rebels are, or, in the long run, whether the situation there would be better or worse for our intervention. The examples of Iraq and Afghanistan don't hold out much hope.
Meanwhile, you don't need a flashing blue light and a howling siren to see that there are many more urgent "emergencies" at home, caused by the Con-Dims "bombing" their own economy, to appease the markets and bankers, that deserve much more to benefit from the judicious application of Danny Alexander's secret slush fund.
Gadaffi! Duck!
Colonel Gadaffi (is it Gadaffi or Gaddafi? It looks wrong both ways) may not be clinically insane, as some cohorts of our media wish to portray him, but I wouldn't be surprised if, at times, he didn't feel more than a tad schizophrenic, particularly on the subject of whether or not he is a legitimate target for the Western military air strikes that are currently pounding Libya. The answer seems to change day by day, and to depend on who it is you are talking to. Sometimes, it changes by the hour.
The UN resolution which is sort of "authorising" all of this activity, as I understand it, speaks merely of safeguarding innocent civilians and ensuring that the cease fire is enforced, things like that. Say what you will, but it can't be denied that, by giving air support to the anti-Gadaffi faction, the West is currently, if anything, prolonging he conflict, rather than seeking to curtail itand bring it to a swift conclusion. And presumably the argument which links regime change to the safeguarding of civilian lives rests on the rather shaky premise that, without a strong dictator at the helm, Libya won't degenerate into a completely shambolic, anarchic mess, post-conflict, with factions fighting proxy wars and Al Quaida using it as a training ground, in exactly the same way as Iraq did after the fall of Saddam Husseuin. We know very little about these people we are helping, but seeing one of them on the news miming the act of putting a pistol to Gadaffi's head doesn't exactly fill me with confidence that they will be rivalling the ancient Athenians as a paragon of democracy any time soon. In these types of circumstances, the lives of innocent civilians are probably just as much at risk, if not more, as they would be if Gadaffi stayed on. All that is different is which set of innocent civilians gets fed through the shredder.
Have we learnt absolutely nothing since 2002?
The UN resolution which is sort of "authorising" all of this activity, as I understand it, speaks merely of safeguarding innocent civilians and ensuring that the cease fire is enforced, things like that. Say what you will, but it can't be denied that, by giving air support to the anti-Gadaffi faction, the West is currently, if anything, prolonging he conflict, rather than seeking to curtail itand bring it to a swift conclusion. And presumably the argument which links regime change to the safeguarding of civilian lives rests on the rather shaky premise that, without a strong dictator at the helm, Libya won't degenerate into a completely shambolic, anarchic mess, post-conflict, with factions fighting proxy wars and Al Quaida using it as a training ground, in exactly the same way as Iraq did after the fall of Saddam Husseuin. We know very little about these people we are helping, but seeing one of them on the news miming the act of putting a pistol to Gadaffi's head doesn't exactly fill me with confidence that they will be rivalling the ancient Athenians as a paragon of democracy any time soon. In these types of circumstances, the lives of innocent civilians are probably just as much at risk, if not more, as they would be if Gadaffi stayed on. All that is different is which set of innocent civilians gets fed through the shredder.
Have we learnt absolutely nothing since 2002?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)