A New Democracy?

It is often said of our current democratic system that it is not a perfect system, but it’s the best we have. It is an excuse, used by those who hold power, to maintain the power and influence they have,  not to evolve and change, or try something different. Our system though, is deeply flawed, because MP’s have become nothing more than vote harvesters. They create a voter base, maintain it, and then try and hook in the voter that floats around the periphery that will enable them to maintain a majority. Hence we end up with self interested, time serving and unengaged politicians who work within a narrow ideologue that serves the few rather than the majority.

Using the current government as an example, we have a government that has no qualms about demonising the unemployed, the poor, stigmatising those who are in receipt of welfare or victimising the disabled because these people do not vote for them. So politicians feel justified in treating them like crap because they have no fear of damaging their voter base, and they are considered too far from the periphery to be hooked in. Frankly, the Tory’s do not give a damn about the plight of these people and never will.

When you challenge them, they attempt to portray themselves as tough minded and fair politicians who are making decisions for the good of the nation. This argument crumbles to dust though, when they are questioned on the ring fencing of pensioner benefits. Not only does the argument crumble to dust, but the politicians are uncovered as the lying self serving malcontents we always knew them to be as they refuse to go anyway near pensioner benefits until after the 2015 General Election.

They try to justify their policies on pensioners by painting pensioners as little pink rinsed, vulnerable old ladies in sensible shoes living on the breadline, that need protection, when many pensioners are robustly well off, as well as being nasty, bigoted racists filled with hatred and Werther’s Originals.

 The Tory’s leave the pensioners untouched by the cuts because pensioners vote and many well off pensioners vote Tory, It simple and very basic politics. Labour politicians are no different, except their policies have a vein of humanity running through them, because most liberal minded people have a concern for the plight of others, whereas right wingers are only concerned about themselves.

A new democracy needs to be constructed before the House of Commons descends into nothing more than a partisan baiting chamber filled with screams and insults such as “you’re a bunch of commie, socialist bleeding hearts” and responses such as “yeah, well your just a bunch of neo-fascist, Capitalist lickspittles with your tongues forever stuck up the arse’s of bankers and hedge fund managers.”

We need a system that screens out the time servers, the career politicians and people from the upper classes who see a life in politics as an hereditary entitlement handed down to them by their Fathers.

Here are some suggestions for change:

• ·         Each parliament is a 12 year fixed term: This will enable politicians to make long term policy that will benefit the nation rather than short term decisions based on votes.
• ·         A yes/no referendum is held every four years asking the electorate if they are happy for the current government to continue. A majority is required. If a majority is not achieved then a General Election would be held within three months.
• ·         All MP’s must stand down at the end of the 12 year fixed term and cannot stand again until the next but one General Election at the earliest ,which may not be for another 12 years. All national and constituency party’s would be required to have succession plans in place ready for the next 12 year term.
• ·         The only MP who can stand again would be the Prime Minister, who in turn can offer four current MP’s, the option of standing again, as long as each MP has the backing of his/her constituency Party.
• ·         A sitting MP can be recall if a petition is raised that contains signatures numbering in excess of 15% of the voting electorate in the constituency.
• ·         As MP’s cannot stand for consecutive terms this will ensure that all prospective candidates will have a solid grounding in life, having held proper jobs. This will also eliminate the problem of  career politicians, as anybody considering entering politics will be aware that after 12 years as an MP, unless they become PM, they will have to return to normal life an earn a living.
• ·         When the newly elected Prime Minister chooses his cabinet he must appoint a member from any opposition party for every 10% polled of the national vote. If an opposition party polled over 30% of the vote then four must be chosen. Opposition parties would be required to put forward a list of suitable MP’s that contained at least 33% of their elected representatives. A cross party select committee would be convened to ensure that lists contained suitable candidates and had not been drawn up for the purposes of political sabotage. Opposition party leaders could not be on the lists.

i.e Opposition party 1 polled 31% ( 4 members appointed to cabinet).

      Opposition party 2 polled 21% (2 members appointed)

      Opposition party 3 polled 11% (1 member appointed)

• ·         No MP can be elected as a party leader without at least 15 years work experience that does not involve working for a family firm ( close or extended, blood or marriage), any company or organisation that has any political connections, i.e. lobby group, think tanks, advertising, etc and any media that has obvious political affiliations.
• ·         Journalists cannot become MP’s. Their objectivity has been compromised.
• ·         Voting is made mandatory for all General Elections, Council Elections and all referendums.
• ·         Failure to exercise your mandate would result in a sentence of 20 hours community service for a nonprofit making organisation. This would be doubled for ever subsequent offence.
• ·         A Prime Minister cannot be removed from office by his/her party. Only the electorate can remove a standing PM.
• ·         Each constituency would hold 100,000 constituents with a margin of error of 10,000. Once this has been exceeded then boundary changes, with cross party consensus to avoid gerrymandering, would be implemented to correct the balance.
• Open primaries would be introduced .
• ·         MP’s salaries would be increased to £115000 per annum but expenses would only be paid for travel and office costs. Those MP’s who lived more than 40 miles from the Houses of Parliament and did not wish to commute daily could pay for accommodation from their salary or stay in accommodation blocks provided by the tax payer. A nominal fee would be charged. There would be no expenses available for items such as second or third homes, furnishings, electrical goods, meals or food, clothing or any item or service that a normal person would be expected to pay for with their own money. Being an MP should be an honour, not a privilege. The motivation should be ‘to serve for the good of the nation’ not ‘every opportunity I get I’ll line mine and my families pockets’.
• ·         MP’s living within the 40 mile zone would not be able to claim travel expenses to and from parliament.  MP’s outside the 40 mile zone would only be able to claim travel expenses for the cost of travel outside the 40 mile zone. Normal people have to pay irrespective of their salaries. Having to pay for travel, housing costs, food and other everyday expenditures that normal people have to meet, would keep the MP’s grounded and in touch with the daily pressures met by regular folk.
• ·         MP’s cannot employ close or extended family members.

This list is obviously not exhaustive, but provides a foundation for a new democracy. The ideal would be to pull away from a damaging, self serving, partisan politics driven by prejudice and ideologue and draw people into politics, from all walks of life, who would introduce an inclusive, people driven democracy, where decisions are made in the nations interests rather than self interest.

Cheap Clothes.

Since the collapse of the clothes factory in Bangladesh, it has been suggested that retailers such as Primark should be boycotted on the premise that their clothes are so cheap; they must source their merchandise from sweat shops full of low paid workers. Through implication the suggestion is that retailers who sell higher priced products are ethically acceptable. This seems to miss the basic point that the so called ‘ethical retailers’ may just have a bigger mark up and yet still be sourcing their products from the same suppliers. In other words, possibly, they are also using low paid workers in sweat shop conditions but making more profit for the items of clothing they produce.

The point is I have no idea where Primark, Tesco, Topshop, Marks and Spencer or any other clothes retailer sources it stock from, or the conditions the workers have to work in, or how much they are paid, because the information is not available, either in the shops or on the clothes.

 Retailers need to be forced to provide this information because they certainly will not provide it voluntarily.

Thatcher’s Legacy ?

I was reading about the Eton and Oxford educated PM’s appointment, of the Eton and Oxford educated Jo Johnson, brother of Eton and Oxford educated Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, as head of the policy unit at no 10. Apparently it was a suggestion made by the Eton and Oxford educated Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne.

It made me think how one of the few upsides of Thatcher’s rise to Prime Minister was how she swept the Tory hierarchy clean of all those detached aristocratic members of the Eton/Oxford/Bullingdon cartel that had ruled the Tory party, and the country, for almost 200 years.

 Some Recorded Incidents of Chemical Weapons Use.

·         Napalm/Agent Orange- Vietnam. Used by the United States Army.

·         White Phosphorus- Palestine. Used by the Israeli Defence Force

·         White Phosphorus- Falluja. Used by the United States Army.

 So, apparently, it not just the bad guys.

Poem.

A Man.

I wish to tell you a short tale,

About a man,

 a just and decent male,

He walked upon the earth one time,

His thoughts were honest, his teachings sublime.

But people have twisted and corrupted his thoughts,

For it is power, control and wealth, they have sought,

They have abused and brutalised, views that were true,

Who allows them to do this?

 Well, that’s me and you.

                                                                                                                 Anon.

Thatcher’s buried Now, Alongside Thatcherism. Now Let’s All Move On.

Thatcherism died the day the banks crashed. That was the day the scales dropped from the eyes of the British Public and they realised the financiers, bankers, hedge fund managers and asset strippers, so loved and lauded by The Establishment, were just a bunch of grasping, self interested snake oil salesmen. Of course, there were a few of us who had known this for many a year. You wouldn't listen, would you! 

Now that the state funded Tory party political broadcast/funeral can be consigned to those dark recesses of your mind, alongside that time you threw up, in front of everybody, at a party when you were sixteen, and Thatcher has been cremated alongside her legacy, I thought she said “the Lady’s not for burning” (to soon?), perhaps we can start forming a tripartite agreement of mutuality, between employers, employees and politicians, that benefits the many rather than the few.

The ‘trickle down ‘theory has failed miserably. The gap between rich and poor has increased dramatically over the last thirty years. Thatcher’s dream of creating a share owning, property owning democracy lies crushed and shattered in a dirty puddle of tears. Stamped on and smashed by the pension funds and large corporations that have harvested all the shares and the ‘ buy to let ‘ landlords that own multiple ‘right to buy’ council houses, making small share holders powerless and dreams of owning your own home futile and pointless.

We need to create a society where employers pay a ‘living wage’, corporations pay taxes on the revenues they earn in this country, rather than funneling them through a bank in Luxembourg and rents are controlled, which would enable people to save for deposits as well as keeping house prices reasonable.

On the day of the funeral, Cameron said it wasn't a day for political point scoring before going on to attempt to political point score by saying we were all Thatcherite’s now and how she had ‘saved the country’. The first bit I’m not bothered with. I care as much about Cameron calling me a Thatcherite as he does when I call him a doughnut faced, aristocratic inbred. What I do object to is his claim that Thatcher saved the country. I think if he studies his history books he’ll find that it was actually the pilots flying the spitfires, The Royal Navy and the participants of Operation Overlord that saved the country. Oh, and the Armed Forces of Canada, Australia, Poland, Russia, New Zealand, America etc. Anyway if Labour had won the Election in ’79 does he think that Callaghan, when asked what he was going to do about the rubbish and the unburied, would have replied “I think we’ll leave them, I’m not really bothered” rather than addressing the situation.

What Thatcher delivered for this country was rampant inequality, social breakdown, mass unemployment, financial deregulation, a massive increase in child poverty, dilapidated public services and schools  and a bloated welfare bill while handing over large amounts of North Sea oil revenues to the wealthy in the form of tax cuts.

One of the main planks to the Tory’s election campaign will be an attempt to smear Milliband as a socialist and they will claim he wants to return Britain to a pre-Thatcher era that was run by the Trade Unions. I, for one, am happy to return to a time when growth was greater, when inequality and poverty decreasing,  wages were increasing, productivity was booming and when women benefited far more in society than during the time of Thatcher and beyond.

 Thatcher was often claimed as a feminist icon, regardless of the fact she despised feminism and when she took office she pulled up the ladder behind her. Her cabinets were 99.9% male, giving the impression she did not rate other women or she felt threatened by them, although I think she enjoyed playing the role of Queen Bee and bossing around the male drones that she surrounded herself with.

The reasons that her reforms have not been reversed are down to simple economics. To renationalise the utilities services and the railways, at the moment, is not economically viable. Her privatisation drive produced mass unemployment, a price she was happy to pay because it produced a compliant workforce, fearful of losing their jobs, that has enabled employers to suppress rights and wages, leaving the State to subsidise low earners while the corporate elite rake in thousands in profits and bonuses.

 A radical enlightened government would take measures to achieve full employment and ensure a Living Wage was paid. This would provide higher tax revenues that could be spent on improving services as well as reducing crime, social disorder and poverty.

Thatcherism was a thin cloak used to cover a political ideologue that was nothing more than a class war, a war still being waged, sadly, as Cameron and Osborne  attempt to maintain the Them/Us divide with their ‘strivers versus skivers’ hate speeches. Its purpose was to destroy the working class and any aspirations that may have had and place the nation’s wealth into the greasy, grasping, sweaty hands of a small wealthy elite who were happy to misappropriate and redirect it into foreign off-shore banks accounts.

 Point the facts out to the man/woman on the Clapham omnibus and then ask him/her if they consider themselves to be a Thatcherite. I think the answer would be a resounding NO!

Over the past two weeks the right, assisted by the press and media, have attempted to suppress dissent and whitewash Thatcher’s crimes from history, while using a taxpayer funded funeral of an old woman for propaganda purposes, in a manner previously only seen in totalitarian states.

You can smell the desperation from here.

Crocodile Tears, Methinks.

Seeing a picture of Chancellor Of The Exchequer, George Osborne, crying at the funeral of a woman he had ,apparently, met only a couple of times, was perhaps one of the most repulsive, as well as a craven attempt at manipulation, I have seen for many a year.

Fat Boy and Slim.

Seeing pictures of Boris Johnson's brother. Jo, in the papers made me wonder what deep seated esteem issues made Boris Johnson turn into such a lard arse.

Tory Minimum Wage Disgrace.

It’s a shame the Tory’s haven’t rushed to demonise the companies that are willfully breaking the Minimum Wage Law as quickly as they have rushed to stigmatise people who legally claim benefits they are entitled to. Even more scandalously, the Government refuses to name the law breakers concerned, and instead, gives them shelter in anonymity. A classic case of Tories looking after their own.

Measles.

As the measles epidemic in Swansea considers to rage, I think the time has come to introduce compulsory vaccinations. Parents have a social responsibility to ensure their children are vaccinated. This not only ensures the children’s welfare but also creates herd immunity, which in turn would benefit children who, due to illnesses such as leukaemia, are unable to be vaccinated.

 

School daze.

Education Secretary Gove wants shorter school holidays and longer school days. It’s his current ruse to wind the teachers up. One I presume he came up with on his recent 20 day Easter break, of which he probably spent at his second home. The home he spent £7000  pounds of taxpayers money on, in furnishings, and was ordered to pay back. Gove’s an MP, right? Parliament sits for, how many weeks a year? How long is Parliament in recess for over the summer?

Pot, kettle, kettle, pot. Pot, kettle, kettle, pot.

P.S.

Now Thatcher’s buried, can we talk about something else, please?

Poem

The Hopeful daffodil

I think I’ll just pop out and see,

And hope the sun will shine on me,

And if it doesn’t, I’ll pop back in

And in a week I’ll try ag’in.

And when I do and just find snow,

I’ll look around and then I’ll go,

Back in the ground, I’ll hang around,

And wait and wait, without a sound,

But the time will come, there is no doubt,

When winter departs and spring will out,

And when it does, I’ll proudly parade,

In the sun and in the shade,

Through the spring, and summer to,

I’ll wave and sway, to cheer up you,

And as the summer fades and wanes,

And autumn taps on window panes,

Do not sadden, do not fear,

I’m hopeful I’ll be back next year.

                                                                                   Anon.

Boston Bombing???

People are shocked by the bombings in Boston and are rightly disgusted by the inhumanity. But I ask you two questions.

Question 1: How many people were killed in the Boston bombings on the 15th April 2013 and how many were children

Question 2: How many people were killed in the Nato airstrike in Shigal, in eastern Afghanistan, on 7th April 2013 and how many were children.

Until we and the media treat all deaths, irrespective of creed,colour or class, with the same level of intolerance, outrage and importance, anger will continue to be fed, retribution will continue to be sought, and atrocities will continue to be perpetrated upon the innocent.

"What goes around comes around"

Margaret Thatcher: RIP or Burn in Hell?

Margaret Thatcher was not a builder of nations; she was a destroyer of lives, communities and jobs and replaced them with nothing. She implemented policies that butchered the industrial base of the country and left a yawning gap that was allowed to be filled by a deregulated finance and service industry that was run by a small self serving group of financiers and bankers, who were happy to repay their gratitude in the form of donations to the Tory party.

The welfare state she so despised, was operating well, until she decided to rip jobs from the hands of people who only wanted to go to work every day and earn a living. All they asked for was the dignity of work. Thatcher chose to demolish their lives and park them on benefits for the purposes of political expediency. That was the gestation of the so called ‘benefits culture’.

Her version of the ‘right to buy’ policy was a disaster. The Labour Government was operating a similar system 10 years before Thatcher came to power, but they allowed local councils to recycle the funds raised in sales, enabling them to replenish stocks by building new council houses. Thatcher stopped that and misappropriated the funds, leading to the situation now of inflated house prices, a lack of affordable social housing and a younger generation realising they may never own their own home.

To suggest that she was the greatest peacetime Prime Minister is frankly ludicrous. She pales when compared to Clement Attlee who governed a nation that was bankrupt from fighting a World War, yet succeeded in rebuilding the economy and industry, whilst creating the NHS and strengthening The Welfare State, which lead to millions of people being lifted out of poverty and gave them free access to health care. The number of lives he saved is impossible to calculate. Add to that the millions of houses that were built that enabled families to move out of squalid slums, my parents included, and move into houses with gardens. How can you compare those accomplishments to a woman whose main aim was to tear down and destroy the social fabric of the country and blight the lives of millions?

Thatcher’s main attribute was luck. She was lucky that the opposition Labour party was broken and dysfunctional. She was lucky that her main political enemies was a hubristic and arrogant union leader (Arthur Scargill) and a hubristic and arrogant leader of a right wing junta in Argentina ( General Galtieri). If Scargill had held a ballot and legitimised the miners’ strike and Galtieri had bided his time, then the miners’ strike may have turned out differently and The Falkland Islands would probably have been ceded to Argentina( talks were being held in Whitehall to facilitate that happening) without a shot being fired.

The Miners Strike was of course one of a brace of disgusting political crimes committed by Thatcher. Utilising the Police as a government sponsored paramilitary to assault and brutalise mining communities, Orgreave being an abhorrent example, and then repaying their so called loyalty by facilitating a government cover up of the lies and crimes committed by South Yorkshire Police at Hillsborough which resulted in the death of 96 football supporters , some as young as 14, is truly repulsive. For those two aberrations alone, she should burn in hell.

Thatcher lacked compassion and kindness. In fact I was surprised to hear she had died because I didn't realise she was human. She had no understanding of sport or culture, considered people who did degrees in subjects such as medieval languages or South American poetry, as wasting public funds. She despised the working class and the establishment in equal measure, as well as  the BBC and The Open University, both of whom she considered to be riddled with Marxists. Also she held the Tory party grandees to the same level of contempt. They in turn mirrored their contempt for ‘the grocer’s daughter’ in spades.

There is a myth that she was a champion of freedom and democracy. It is a claim that quickly falls apart when you consider her support of the Kyhmer Rouge and Pol Pot, the apartheid regime of South Africa, ( she referred to the ANC, therefore Nelson Mandela in association, as an African terrorist organization) and General Pinochet’s right wing junta in Chile( a regime that enjoyed dropping bound and gagged dissidents from helicopters into the sea) as well as playing second fiddle to Reagan while the USA supported right wing regimes in Central America which lead to the mass murdering of thousands of men, women and children.

The right wingers, aided by the press, have attempted to rewrite history in her favour whilst ignoring the facts. They talk of the seventies and ‘the winter of discontent’, which I lived through and, to be honest, enjoyed toasting bread on a coal fire, but they ignore the facts that Britain was still an industrial powerhouse in the 1970’s. It cannot be denied that the Union Barons needed taming because they had become detached from the people they were supposed to be representing, but Thatcher decided to use it as a convenient excuse to punish an entire class, leading to tragic consequences. People who had worked all their lives watched their jobs being destroyed and communities being raped of a future. Some of whom, because they saw no future, making the ultimate sacrifice and committing suicide. If she had followed the German model of deindustrialisation and utilised the billions in North Sea oil revenue that had fully come on stream responsibly, when she came to power, instead of frittering it away, her legacy could have been so different, but because of her hatred and suspicions of all things European, she embarked on policies based on class prejudice and extreme political ideologue, which lead to catastrophic outcomes for the nation as well as sowing the seeds of her own eventual destruction.

Also Thatcher is attributed as one of the architects who ended of the Cold War. It is rubbish. The Cold War would never have ended if it was not for the bravery of Mikhail Gorbachev and the fact that the USSR was bankrupt and had no choice but to break up. Reagan and Thatcher were in the right place at the right time. Again it was luck, not design.

Thatcher’s Britain saw the destruction of affordable housing stock, utilities being sold off, leading to exorbitant fuel costs, while fat cats receive massive bonuses. The industrial base decimated, to be replaced by zero contracts, while financiers and bankers gambled away the opportunities of generations to come, as they themselves, pocketed millions in bonuses, leaving the taxpayer with a bill of millions. She gave us 3.5 million unemployed, a price she was happy and eager to pay. The rail network was sold off, costing taxpayers more millions in subsidies, whilst being delivered a creaking network close to crumbling. Interestingly, the only part of the rail network that is currently in national hands, The East Coast Rail Line, currently delivers a profit and is tops for punctuality.

  She destroyed the futures of many, as she decimated the coal and shipbuilding industries, demolished the car manufacturing industry and obliterated the steel industry whilst feathering the nest of a small group of rich elites and the large landowning classes. The poor got poorer, under her watch, while the rich got much richer. She achieved very little for the majority of Britain’s and created a nasty vile society that lacked compassion and empathy. It was a society that was a mirror image of herself, although of course she thought there was no such thing as society.

On the subject of her funeral, I’m surprised, that as she was a rabid free marketeer, it hasn't been privatised and put out to tender, instead of the tax payer being saddled with the cost. £10 million pounds is a large amount to lavish on a funeral in this age of austerity. It would appear that austerity is for some but, when the Tory’s see an opportunity to do some political electioneering, not for all. I’m sure Rupert Murdoch wouldn't object to throwing in a couple of million. Perhaps the coffin could be sponsored by G4S and the buffet by McDonalds, although Burger king should have an opportunity to put a written quote in.  Perhaps she could be buried in the Falklands, the site of one of her few accomplishments, maybe overlooking San Carlos Bay or at Goose Green. Instead, we have MP’s being recalled for a Tory political rally and told they can claim up to £3500  of public money in expenses, which is frankly disgusting. I repeat, it appears austerity is for some but not for all.

Celebrating her death is distasteful and is clearly getting up the noses of the right wing fraternity and press, but it is easy to forget that many of those celebrants live in communities still suffering the consequences of her policies. I think it is an example of hatred begetting hatred.

The irony of her demise was that it was due to her attempt to introduce a policy that was fair. The Poll Tax meant that people would have paid a fair amount for the local services they accessed. It would have meant a family of five would have paid a proportionately higher amount in tax than the single person or couple who lived next door. It would have been a much fairer system than the current Council Tax, which is based on property values rather than services used. But, as usual, the British Public allowed self interest to get in the way of a fair and equitable tax. The Tory’s have still not come to terms with the fact that they politically executed the woman who would later be claimed, by some, as their greatest Prime Minister. It was the Tory Calgary and many Tory’s still live with that guilt.

In conclusion, it cannot be denied that her achievements as a woman and the hurdles she overcame were admirable, but her social and economic policies divided people rather than uniting them. She was wrong on many foreign policy issues, particularly the reunification of Germany, her support of American policies in Central America and her views on gay rights were homophobic (clause 28 ). She championed the wealthy and despised the poor. She was a Tory Prime Minister, but not a nation’s Prime Minister. Her tactics, which the current government is also attempting, was to divide and rule.

 When Margaret Thatcher stood on the steps of 10 Downing Street in 1979, she said “ where there is discord may we bring harmony”. (Sic) 

Unfortunately, for Britain, she failed.

True Colours?

The song from The Wizard of Oz, ‘Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead’ is currently heading towards no 1 in the singles chart, causing people to discuss whether it should be played on the radio. Watch carefully, as the right wing factions show their true colours and start to whine and froth with indignation, as they squeal that it should be banned. They claim they champion freedom and democracy until they consider their own freedoms and democracy are impinged upon. Then they scream for censorship in order to close down dissenting voices. If the BBC does ban the song, it will be a particularly disgusting example of political censorship, an interesting test for the new Director General.

Tory's Reek Of Desperation.

Nothing has been more effective at shining a harsh light on Tory desperation and their nasty ideological political expediency than their attempt to use the deaths of six children to try to gain political capital, whilst continuing to demonise the low paid and welfare claimants.

The grotesque efforts of the Tory’s and the reactionary right wing press to try and blame the Philpott murders on The Welfare State, has been truly disgusting. You may as well attribute Michael Philpot’s violent nature and domestic abuse to his time in the military and blame it on the Armed Forces.

The house flipping Osborne, as always, is foremost among the torch bearing, pitchfork wielding crazed villagers, as he ignores the truth and continues to brazenly lie to the nation. The boy Gideon is now delivering his speeches in a sort of weird ‘cockerny’. I think the lying is a habit he may have caught off Cameron, who is becoming quite proficient in the art.

Some of the facts Osborne chooses to ignore are, that Jobseekers Allowance makes up only 3% of the welfare bill whereas Working Tax Credits make up 22%. Tax payers are subsidising large multi nationals and big business, who instead of paying workers a living wage, choose instead to pay share holders large premiums. The tax payer is making a rich large share holding class richer while the government is making ‘hard working families’ poorer and forcing them to rely on tax credits, whilst those same companies deny the exchequer £11 billion a year in tax revenue. The wealth gap just keeps getting bigger.

I will expect, in the very near future, for Tory’s to start insisting the minimum wage will have to be frozen or reduced ‘to keep us competitive in the global race’. It is self serving crap, being fed to the compliant right wing press, who happily add it to their menu of anecdotal bulls**t about welfare claimants and immigrants. Ready yourself for the headline ‘Bulgarian immigrants responsible for death of Princess Di’. It’s coming, believe me.

The saddest part of the filth and lies the Tory’s have been peddling is the number of right wing morons who lap this crap up and seem unable, either through choice or lack of intellect, to rationalise the lies and dissemination, and discover the real truth. A classic example was a right wing commentator speaking on the radio, claiming that low paid workers were tired of financing welfare through their taxes. The woman blithely ignored the facts that if they were low paid then those same workers would also have been in receipt of welfare in the form of Working Tax Credits, Child Tax Credits, Child Benefit and perhaps help with housing and council tax costs. And if they were low paid, they may not even be contributing through direct taxation. This is the level of stupidity currently being displayed by supposedly intelligent individuals. It is truly frightening how stupid these people are.

Over the next two years, leading up to the election, there will be a direct correlation between how badly the government is doing and the level of scaremongering and demonising they indulge in. That’s if they make it through the next two years. The cuts that have been implemented last week and those that have already been implemented since 2010 will lead to major hardships for many people. Add to that, employment rights being stripped, unemployment rising while millionaires receive massive tax cuts, the continued dismantling and privatisation of the NHS, food prices, fuel, gas and electric price increasing while executives and bankers continue to receive massive bonuses, families facing evictions due to the Housing and Council Tax reforms, interest rate rises and the introduction of Universal Credit, which will take an average of between £100-£150 per month from median earners, MP’s claiming thousands per year on expenses ( see previous blog referring to expenses claimed by employment minister Hoban) while the public are having to make the choice between heating and eating, educational standards beginning to drop because Gove thinks it the 1950’s  and sections of the public may reach  boiling point, look at the wealth of the 10% and consider enough is enough and start looking for scapegoats among the establishment and political classes.

Good people can only take so much.

Hold on. It could be a bumpy ride.

 I see George Osborne Is Putting His Degree in Stating the Bleeding Obvious to Good Use.

Osborne has said that the majority of people are against benefit abuse. Well surprise, surprise. Who would have thought it? Of course people are against benefit abuse, who wouldn't be. I’ll tell you what the Public are also against.

·         People avoiding million of pounds in Inheritance Tax through a trust fund.

·         People who use the MP expense system to ‘flip’ their house and make over £400000 in clear profit.

·         People who use the death of six children for the purposes of political gain.

·         People who park in disable bays when they are not disabled.

·         People, who have never had a proper job, yet are millionaires through inherited wealth, and prejudge others, based on anachronistic class stereotypes.

·         Oh yeah, and people who speak in a false ‘cockerny’ accent when in fact they are going to inherit a baronetcy.

More Bul**hi* From the Racing Fraternity.

When the national hunt chaser Battefront was pulled up at Aintree and then promptly collapsed and died, the racing community proffered the excuse that it could have happened while the horse was in the training yard on a normal day. That is self serving bull crap.

 On a ‘normal day’ Battlefront wouldn't be expected to run for 4 miles at full tilt, driven to the point of exhaustion whilst carrying a human being on its back and expected to jump fences, some of which are more than seven feet high.

I studied a sad and haunting photograph at the weekend. It showed several horses jumping a fence during last year’s Grand National. In the middle of the photo was a horse, a white blaze down it face, its eyes staring wildly, as it attempted to clear the fence. The horse was called Synchronised. I was witnessing it last moments. Seconds later Syncronised was dead. It clattered to the ground and suffered fatal injuries. If you look into the face of the horse you can see the fear. Horses are intelligent animals. It probably knew.

Thankfully, all the horses got around safely this year. Although there were still fatalities during the meeting.

If I do watch the Grand National, I watch for one thing and one thing only, that the horses clear the fences safely. If a horse goes down, I look to see that it gets up. If it does, I am happy and grateful. What happens to the jockey when it is unseated is of no concern to me at all. If a jockey gets it skull caved in, I couldn't care less. The jockey gets to choose.

The horse doesn’t.

The Awkwardness of Nelson Mandela.

The illness of Nelson Mandela is creating difficulties for many right wing politicians. I have recently seen a get well card sent by The British Conservative Party. It read

“Dear Nelson,

Hope you get well soon”,

From The British Conservative Party.

We didn't really consider you to be an extreme criminal terrorist and radical, of whom some members of the party were lobbying for your execution until that pesky apartheid thing ended and the fascist government of South Africa collapsed to be replaced by The Rainbow Nation, forcing us to revere you as a great statesman rather than glory in your state sponsor judicial killing. (drat and blast).

XX.

Kim Jong-Un Is One Crazy Kid.

Somewhere in a darkened room in North Korea a bunch of heavily braided military types and a fat kid are having a right ‘ole laugh. After threatening the USA with a nuclear missile strike all they have got to do now is get hold of a nuclear missile from somewhere that works.

Why this sabre rattling is taken seriously is mystifying. Even the nutcases in Pyongyang aren't so stupid not to know that a missile strike would lead to Pyongpang being leveled in an hour. And a war with America would last about a week at best.

On the plus side, a war with America or South Korea, would eventually prove very beneficial for the poor benighted people of North Korea, as once it’s over and the Kim il’s-whatever are removed or killed, both Korea’s could unify and become one country again and the North Koreans could at last taste freedom and a cheese burger.

Paolo Di Canio Is Not A Fascist.

Di Canio is not a fascist. If your political belief system is based on an extreme nationalist authoritarian ideologue that requires its citizens to be subjugated and give up their liberties in favour of The State and a small self serving political class, then that doesn’t make him a fascist.

It makes him a ……oh, I see.

21^st Century Road Signs.

Slow! Rolling Stones concert ahead.