The ‘Right’ Answers

During training on how to deal with people whoa are confused, either through drugs or alcohol misuse, I was trained to speak clearly and simply, no complicated sentences or instructions.  Speak directly to the person, command focus be unambiguous.

Europe is in a panic. We have a crisis of the financial system unprecedented scales, as one Euro Zone country fails and is rescued so another one teeters.  The solutions are stark and often contradictory.  There are a cacophony of solutions, yet it is the ‘Right’ that is providing the calm collected voice, the simple solution we crave.  It is immigration that needs to be tackled, we need to leave the EU, we need to ‘Keep [insert national tag] jobs for [insert same nation-state].

The solutions are simple.

The rise of right is directly related to our national insecurity to believe we can survive.  We need answers that are simple even if they are unrealistic, we need a group, or groups, to blame for our predicament, we need answers – the simpler the better. In a very real sense the extreme right parties are the manifestation of our own insecurity and primeval fears that need to be comforted by knowing there is a solution, and we need not fear. The ‘Right’ panders to our need that we are not to blame for the crisis by overspending, a lack of investment, by not engendering co-operation between the workers and capital.

Of course if we stopped immigration we have more jobs, but if you to look at the facts prescribing immigration actually harm our economy, we fail to attract the skills that we need to survive and prosper.  Germany is benefiting form the current crisis by ‘importing’ relatively cheap Greek expertise in the computing fields, in fact certain sectors are booming.  If we sent home foreign nationals from the labour force, could we fill the gaps we have created, I think we would struggle.

What happens to our trade?  Why would anyone want to trade with us when they could argue, using the same logic, that national goods and services should be used in preference to imported goods.

Where do you stop?  Sending home non-national Europeans (my partner is German so I have a vested interest, though would be really happy to move to Germany) would also mean their families, so presumably there would be a lot of people born in the UK that would be parentless, a drain on the Welfare State. Others countries could, legitimately, send their ‘foreigners’ back home to the UK. Of  course sending Prince Phillip back to Greece might, how can we put this, be awkward.  Thankfully the Queen is only a quarter German.

If the arguments seem familiar, and I have not covered them in depth, then they are, I am looking at Germany, Spain, Italy, in to 1930’s  and I am looking at Greece’s ‘Golden Dawn’, UKIP, and any other ‘right of right’ party that is emerging and gaining a foothold.  Let us not forget that the 1930’s saw Moseley Black Shirts marching in London, and anyone who can say it will never happen here is forgetting their history.

Drawing more lessons history it was voter apathy that allowed the National Socialist Party in Weimer Germany to control the country for ten years, ten years that blighted not only Germany but the rest of the world.  We need strong leaders with equally strong democratic safeguards.  Feeble Governments allow for dissension, confusion and ultimately the rise of the ‘right’. If the vote ‘splits’ between the established parties and UKIP in the UK then we will be playing a dangerous democratic game.  Ever since Eastleigh buy-election on 28 February 2013 we have seen the Conservative and Labour Party swing to the right to shore up their support.

The solutions offered by the ‘right’ are deceptively simple, they are deceptively simple because they do not address the cause, but only the symptom.

The solutions to complex problems tend to be complex; I believe the solution to the EU crisis is not isolationism but deeper integration, that closer cooperation not segregation, that the answer is inclusion is the answer, not exclusion. The policies of UKIP are not conviction politics they are opportunistic.

MP’s do not represent us, they represent themselves

Something like 100,000 people have signed a petition for Iain Duncan Smith to live up to his comment that he could live on £53 a week, which is the amount that as Works and Pensions Secretary he has said is that the State will provide to the unemployed.

The amount doesn’t really matter as the Benefit Cap does not include the infamous ‘bedroom tax’ that means if you live in social housing and you have more bedrooms than the State says you need then you start paying between £14 and £25 a month of Benefit. It sounds fine apart from the fact that there is not enough ‘appropriate accommodation’ available.

The Social Welfare Changes have come in all at once, this is seismic shift in social welfare policy, all at once, without considering the effects, it social engineering on a national scale. Another of the proposals is that people unable to find work or on Benefits will be given ’food vouchers’ – those who have fallen on hard times are to be further stigmatised by this Government which, quite frankly, hates poor people.

The Daily Mail ran a story on January that stated Helen Grant, Equalities Minister:

An MP who claimed £20,000 a year for a London flat despite having a £1.8million home in nearby Surrey has complained that she is struggling to sell her house.

The house is 19 miles from the House of Commons, and she has been receiving £1,600 per month for her second home, as far as I am aware my local MP (a Conservative) lives 77 miles from London, lets say 80 miles from the House of Commons and claims £1,050 for rent, which is far more understandable, but the number of people who commute to London from Swindon is a fair number, I am sure our train service could stand one more. The claims that everyone is in this together rings hollow, we are not all in this together. The weak of our society are being far more harshly treated than the rich.

All this has been done in week when the ‘rich people’ have been given a tax cut.

The New Statesman asked the leading members of the Cabinet if they were prepared to live on £53 a week, these are the answers

David Cameron

“A Downing Street spokeswoman said ‘The Prime Minister, like the Secretary of State for Works and Pensions , feels that benefit levels are fair”

Translation – I am not going to answer the question.

Greg Clark, Financial Secretary to the Treasury

“I think it’s in incredible struggle to do and I think any MP, anyone earning a comfortable wage that an MP has would certainly struggle …”

At least some recognition

George Osbone’s reply was the most damming

“I don’ think it is sensible to reduce the debate about one individual’s personal circumstance. This debate is not about one any individual.”

It is sickening that the Chancellor cannot understand the concept that the policies of this Government are affecting individuals, that is what Government is all about, society, individuals. feel the Chancellors remarks show what the Tories are really doing, dismantling society to recreate it in their own utopian nightmare, regardless of the human cost. It is about ideology, not about governing responsibly. It is just about conceivable that the Tories actually welcomed the financial crisis, an excuse to implement their twisted policies.

Next on the agenda is workers rights.

Call me Jack, as in I’m alright

This is still my ‘happy picture’ it is still the photo that makes me smile, laugh and think about the courage and suffering these girls would have gone through to get there – it makes me see beyond the present to the past and to the future.

It is the nearly the end of January and I have had one the best January ever.  I seem to be, as my Boss would say, cooking on gas.

Having started the year on 10 Nights, I have managed to recoup the time lost and on with some amazing stuff, all rounded of this weekend with ‘Steam Gala’ at Loughborough with the incredible mixture of sun and steam, heady.  There are two possibilities of jobs that would mean that I can live my partner, and there is another job in the pipeline outside of Swindon I have also got into my new hobby of collecting Railway themed Postcard and got some great Postcards off Ebay of the great ’50s trains such as the 20th Century Limited and the Hiawatha, the last train was a prize – well it was until the card arrived and I found it to be reproduction from Zazzazle. To cut a long story short it was returned, and with all guns blazing I asked my money back.  I knew what was happening, someone had the card and was just reprinting it endlessly and making a lot of money doing it.

Yesterday I had to email the seller again and ask for the money, I was in my rights, only ‘within in rights’ is what is the matter with this world, and I had just contributed to the problem.  I received this email back

Hi – I don’t know how the paypal got mixed up. I think I sent it through the normal channels. I refunded $28.00 to include shipping both ways. I didn’t notice the 3rd card until later and sent $2.00 more. I hope this is satisfactory. I am not really a dealer, just a retired stamp collector selling off items from my collections and other items I have accumulated. My children and grandchildren are not interested so I am selling the lot. Unfortunately, I know a lot more about stamps than I do about postcards. I am very sorry for the problem. I try hard to describe the items correctly. Jack

It was the last line had me nearly in tears, someone had spent a lifetime collecting Postcards and Stamps and now was selling them, no-one was interested, they were just so much waste paper.  When I get information like the email above my empathy genes kick in big time.  I don’t know why this guy was selling his collection,was it to raise some cash to pay for food, was he dying and wanted his collection to go to a good home, what was this guy thinking has he posted each lot to a different bidder?  I felt bad, I had assumed that I knew this person, and proved only that I am more cynical than I should be and it is people like me that cause so much unpleasantness in the world we live in.

As daft as it seems I want to give this guy a hug, and also I look around at my collection and wonder what will happen to that, will it be just thrown out as so much rubbish?

So far this year in Swindon alone 2,000 jobs have been lost, and I have to care about this.  I know it is easier not to bother and not to notice, but that is because of out fear that we might be one of those, but we need courage and compassion to acknowledge what is happening around us, to be involved, to be change we desperately need to see; so a belated New Years resolution is not to get caught up in the rat race, to try to understand people more, and try to be a lot less judgemental. Whilst I’m alright Jack, Jack isn’t and I need to do something about that.

If you are wondering I gave him the money back for the postage, it was not fair that he should pay postage both ways, and it was the least I could do.

Skivers and Strivers

If his Omni-shambles of a government is good at anything it is the sound bite – reducing complex political and social issues to binary opposites, to black and white, good and bad. I the parlance of this Government my Mum would have been a striver and my Dad a skiver. Mum worked as ‘Buffer’ in one of the Cutlery firms in Sheffield, my Dad latterly unemployed. The fact that the reason my Dad was unemployed was that he had broken his back down a Coal Mine would have escaped notice, We would also be more socially suspect that it was broken marriage, so I guess ‘The Sun’ would have weighed with ‘stay away Dad’.

No need to bother questioning the facts – it only complicates matters

Making ends meet was a problem, and I know Mum struggled to pay the rent and keep putting food on the table, but she did. Of course we must have been on ‘State Benefit’ so Mum was probably a ‘scrounger’ as well, and was in a Council House – the list of our social crimes must be endless as imagined by this Government.

Mum was proud, fiercely proud, and tenacious with it, she fought the Sheffield Council, the fifth largest in the UK, for a house for us to live in, she wasn’t seeing her kids in ‘Care’ – she held the family together with a rod of iron, normally used for battering anyone who cared to ‘have a go’. My paternal Grandmother who took over the looking after me and my brother after Mum and Dad died was no pushover either. They came from a time when you had to survive somehow, and after 1947 and Labour Government victory, the State stepped and helped. It helped by providing social support, a health service and Welfare assistance – it was there to help ‘from the cradle to the grave’.

I was in Sheffield yesterday, and impromptu visit, and couldn’t help wonder what had gone wrong. I looked around at the decaying city centre where once there had been thriving businesses there were just ‘For Lease’ signs, or grubby little second-hand shops (I have no problem with ‘second hand’ by the way, in fact I love the idea); the Cocktail Bar where we used to decamp from the Theatre is now looking very tired and has become a ‘boozer’ and ‘Redgates’ – the emporium of literally everything in the universe that you could buy (I was seven at the time) now lies empty and forlorn.

More than anything else I looked at the people, the life blood that courses through any city, the same old familiar faces, but more and more I saw families barely old enough to have children, more than likely jobless, pushing Pram. I know it’s a cliché but rather than castigate the Chavs I could not help but wonder that Socialism had failed them. They were given everything the State could offer, education, health care, and housing and they did not use it. Yes I know we are in a recession, but I have to agree with the Tories, like I did in the late 70’s for a few weeks, that people should be entrepreneurs and seek advancement.

Surely the aim of socialism is not necessarily to provide, but to enable? Socialism should be about providing people who do not have equal chances to education and health care access to the means of bettering their lives and in the process bettering the life of society? Socialism is not about hand outs, it about enabling and providing a safety net that capitalism cannot, or will not.

I read recently in an article that the reason why people who receive a State Education fair less better than those who go to Eton is not so much the education, or the social connections, it is that people are told incessantly how inferior they are, and that the constant erosion of self-confidence leads to under achievement, yes I can run with that one. What socialism in the UK has totally failed to provide is a sense of confidence in people, a sense of aspiration and a sense of possibility.

Of course we cannot have a sensible political debate, and the binary opposition of skivers and strivers will have to suffice, not only is it binary opposition (you cannot have a skiver without reference to its opposite) they sound similar but mean the opposite, it is clever, and it’s definitely catchy, but it’s not helpful, it does not discriminate and yet on the other hand it does discriminate.

I not sure where we go next, but labelling people ‘skivers’ – or labelling people at all – is not the way forward, it creates for more divisions and a society that finds it easier to alienate those who are a burden, mainly through no fault of their own. It is designed to divide.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

The 24th December 2010 will be etched in my consciousness for a long time, it was a perfectly sunny day but it had snowed, it was the thick crunchy stuff that makes a satisfying crackle under foot as you wade through it – wading through was a good description as it was fairly thick.  The air was freezing, and I was Dog Sitting, my partner had decided that he eeded ‘Spike’ – a gorgeous Husky – keeping company.   I had meant to out with the camera taking the perfect winter pictures, but I was I Dog Sitting.

I haven’t quite forgiven my partner for that.

It snowing as I write this, it’s the  ‘flurry’ type of snow, or as British Rail famously called it -  but very accurately  – ‘the wrong type of snow’ when it got into the filters of the new ‘BedPan’ trains (yes they were called BedPan after Bedford – St Pancras  line they were working on).  Yes, it’s the wrong type of snow.

Despite my Twitter feed being full of the #UKSnow hashtag (well it used to be, it has been muted) I fail to be very excited by snow, yes it looks pretty, and I can take pretty pictures, but my mind wanders from the artistic to the mundane.

My first thoughts are always with the street homeless of the one of the richest nations on the face of planet, that whilst we look from our central heated rooms we fail to see the huddled homeless, finding a little shelter underneath an archway or in a subway.  Winter is a bitter time, and the heartlessness’ of Westminster Council forbidding charities from distributing a cup of hot tea or soup make the winter a lot bleaker. Whilst we rush to work and complain about the slush we pass the ‘The Big Issue’ seller standing in the doorway, trying to get our attention and flog us a paper, spare a thought, a few words, a few pound to make the this cold day a bit warmer,  a bit more human.

The pretty postcard snow is lovely, but if you are a Pensioner or an employed parent trying to juggle the needs of food or heating then it becomes a nightmare, the current Benefits cuts will be biting harder than the wind this winter.  In its infinite wisdom this Government feels that capping Child Support is required to save money, if you earn more than £49,000 you lose it, it is no longer a universal benefit.  I can run with that to be honest, the only problem if you earn £49,000 and your partner earns £49,000 then you still get it, the math is simple if your household earns £98,000 you still get the support, if you are a single parent and you earn £49,001 then you lose it.  The Government thinks this is fair, so it must be.

Under the Government’s plans for the economy this Christmas and New Year were going to be better, we were going to have growth of 2.4% but it has decided it would be fairer to have a triple dip recession, upwards of 6,000 people have lost their jobs in the UK within the first two weeks of 2013, will they be putting the central heating to keep the biting cold out?  In Swindon alone 800 jobs are under threat from the Honda plant, and another 300 from its suppliers, and this is not counting the staff of Jessops and HMV. As someone tweeted, are these people classed as ‘scroungers’ or are hey still ‘strivers’ until the axe finally falls?

The song for this is weather is not the 50’s classic ‘Let it snow’ it more the Dickensian ‘In the bleak mid-winter’

As Churchill said ….

The United Kingdom has never quite got over losing the Empire, to be honest it hasn’t ‘not quite got over it’ but is exhibiting total denial. I am not a psychologist – and never will be – but the UK has formed a delusional self-denial that tacitly accepts that the sun does set on the old Islands we still have, but relives its glory by talking about the war, we love the war, it was the last thing we did as an Empire, we relive the glory each day even though it was 70 years, and it comes as no surprise that when the Government, well a Tory Government, wants to do something unpopular it will invoke Churchill.

Quoting Churchill is a cypher for ‘we really want to make you believe that we are in this together, and that it really hurts us to say this, but we are going to use the current crisis to ensure we make this a country fit for exploitation. Churchill was invoked today, by Cameron, to basically there are too many nasty rules and regulations which we really should get rid, stuff that hinders growth like Health & Safety Legislation, Welfare Rights, along with Human Rights. The spirit of Churchill, is misquoted and misused to feed into the national lack of self-confidence. I live in a country that according the OECD, is third easiest economy to sack someone, and yet more Workers Rights are be brushed away.

The line in the text is:

“When this country was at war in the 40′s Whitehall underwent a revolution”

“Normal rules were circumvented. Convention was thrown out. As one historian put it, everything was thrown at ‘the overriding purpose’ of beating Hitler. Well, this country is in the economic equivalent of war today – and we need the same spirit.”

New legislation to be introduced in this Parliament will enable the Government and Local Authorities to ask for Internet Data at will, and it will also introduce ‘secret courts’ which evidence, as defined by the State, can be used to convict someone without the evidence being heard in Court; it will be the State that defines what is ‘secret’ without and judicial oversight.

That’s right David, invoke Churchill, fly the flag, and dismantle the freedoms this country fought for, enact laws that Hitler would be proud of.

This recession was not made my working people who have taken massive pay cuts in this country, or by sick people using Hospitals it has been made in Number 10 Downing Street, or more accurately No 11 Downing Street. The people who are suffering are being made to suffer more, I read this evening of the Elderly having to eat in Food Kitchens, this should not be the case. The elderly have fought this country – for Europe – and worked hard and they should not be made to suffer, and if they haven’t fought for anything and not worked hard then as Pearl S. Buck wrote in ‘My Several Worlds’

“Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members”

This Government has systematically attacked the weak and vulnerable, and it seeks to attack and punish everyone for not being rich.

The United Kingdom is drifting inextricably out of the EU, vote by vote, soundbite by soundbite, retreating into a utopian dream. I look at Germany, that has posted several years of growth, and wonder if it the UK that is wrong or is it the EU? The Workers Rights in Germany are superior to our own, yet they have fought for them through hardship after WW2 to construct a thriving nation that has been based upon cooperation, it has done this whilst paying Holocaust survivors (and has recently extended the Pensions to survivors not only in Germany, but everyone who survived the Nazi Regime, in the midst of the Euro Zone Crisis). I see a country that is not only looking after its vulnerable, paying back its debts, but also looking towards the future, not harking back on a glorious and inglorious past, but moving forward.

I do not understand how Workers Rights, and Safety Legislation, has hindered German growth, or France’s or Italy’s (all bigger economies than the UK).

Instead of embracing the new opportunities of Europe the UK is retreating into isolationism of a madman that cannot cope with reality, instead creating a story to tell itself.

I feel dismayed that my defence against my own country seems to the European Court of Human Rights, a body that this Governments want to leave. In it’s defence it has said it would introduce an Bill of Rights, but this is a government that would write it, and change it at will, as much as it would countenance ‘secret courts’.

The very ideals Churchill espoused are being eroded, and whilst we are not a communist regime, I will quote Churchill on his assessment of Europe 1946, the problem is I feel like I am on the wrong side..

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent”

Why Popeye’s is the answer to the Recession

I am not at work today, I had planned to go on a photographic expedition to Bodmin, but the weather is pretty m’eh so decided not to go, instead I had a lazy morning and ambled down stairs and do some ‘Channel Surfing’ and came across ‘Undercover Boss USA’ - a series where a Boss goes undercover and experiences life at the ‘coal face’ to see what life is like outside the Corporate Bubble – todays installment was Popeye’s. Watching the moving stories and the people, mainly Black Americans and ex-homeless people, I actually wanted to work for Popeye’s. One got my attention was the enthusiasm of the staff, ok I know that the camera was on them and they were specially selected. It occurred to me a major part of the worlds economic problems could be solved not by the Bankers, but by the Workers – but then again I am a Socialist, so I would say that wouldn’t I!

Employment is a contractual obligation, rather like prostitution in most cases, I work the company gives me money, if I am really good at my job they will give me more money until they have no use for me. I see a different paradigm, I see a better way, and it was articulated in the programme. Firstly the previous paragraph is important and needs little, if any modification, though I want to eliminate the term ‘prostitution’ from it. It works like this:

• The employer provides a safe environment, it has corporate policies on bullying, it promotes team work, and it operates in an environment of respect – which has to be mutual.

• Individual Managers see their staff as an asset, and invests training and assists where practicable in helping employees through difficult circumstances.

• The State legislates for maximum number of hours for an employee to work (to ensure work/life balance and peak performance – you thought I was going to leave all the benefits on the employee didn’t you?) and that the workplace is a safe place to work, within the bounds of common sense.

• The State creates a system where disputes can be mediated, and that employers cannot do things like sack for the sheer hell of it, they have to provide a valid reason – the employee has after all invested time in the company and has probably moved location to work for them.

• The employee responds to this positive behaviour by giving 100%, by attending work, by promoting an excellent employer and working to save the company money and boost the economy in the process.

On the whole this is the situation we have in the United Kingdom, without the negative effect of the recession and with the above in force employees will give good service. When I worked for South West Trains all the above criteria were broadly met (and more) and to be honest there were days when I walked in the office and thought “OMG, and I get paid to do this as well!” It was a company that respected its employees and to honest it was difficult for an employee not to want to go ‘the extra mile’. I would happily do a couple of hours of extra work, go in on a Saturday, stay behind when the ‘brown stuff hit the whirly thing‘ and had an immense pride in working for them.

Not only was there was immense pride with working for them, there was a wealth of ongoing experience that was just growing each year, and when people retired new people could learn from the ‘hive mind’ at Waterloo. To me it was a ‘win-win’ scenario.

The only reason I left was that you were waiting ‘to fill Dead Men’s shoes‘ for the next promotion – staff turnover was unbelievably low. All I will say is that where I am working now the staff turnover is ludicrously high – nuff said.

The Government’s solution to the supply side of the economy is to reduce the role of the State in ensuring Workers Rights. It wants to enfeeble Health and Safety Legislation and it wants to introduce ‘dismiss without reason’ for employers; the latter will be basically a ‘Bullies Charter’ in that if anyone ‘makes waves’ they will be sacked. This will lead inevitably lead to negativity in the workplace, it is a race to the bottom. It is what the UK is really good at since 1945, a false economy that does not invest in the future, but tries to struggle with the present. It is not only a false economy it is also ideological thuggery, with little to do with the economy.

Let us invest in a company’s greatest asset, its people, the people who produce goods to export and to pay taxes; let us not go down the path creating a rancid plutocracy where the coporate Fat Cats dine on the misery of its employees – let us cooperate; unfortunately ths Government is ‘old school’.

The Conservatives are still reeling at the moment from the Andrew Mitchell ‘Plebgate’ fiasco, and the reason is not what Mitchell said, or didn’t say, it is the appearance – based in fact – of Government that is hellbent on recreating the working practices of Dickensian Era, we already have the highest number of food kitchens, people living on Benefit and the number of scandals and cock-ups per week of any Government. The proposed revisions of Employment Law is edging it way to recreating the ‘Poor Laws‘. The fundamental arrogance of this Government is summed up succinctly by two Tories – Theresa May, the current Home Secretary, and Nadine Dorries MP for Mid-Bedfordshire.

When Theresa May was Conservative Party Chairman in 2002 she addressed the Tory Party Conference and said, in her ‘Nasty Party’ speech:

Politicians are seen as untrustworthy and hypocritical. We talk a different language. We live in a different world. We seem to be scoring points, playing games and seeking personal advantage – while home-owners struggle to make ends meet and schoolchildren see years of hard work undermined by the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen.

The full text of the speech is worth a read, and is sadly more true today – with Chancellors trying to ‘blag ‘First Class Train Tickets, swearing at Police with impunity, with Rib-Eye Steak costing £2.70 in the Commons Restaurant (a full article is ~ here) – which is less than a slice of cake at Starbucks, and now refusing to reveal more expenses scandals of MP’s renting houses to MP’s and other ‘dodges’. The Government is no longer ‘of the people’.

The second quote is from Nadine Dorries, this year:

Unfortunately, I think that not only are Cameron and Osborne two posh boys who don’t know the price of milk, but they are two arrogant posh boys who show no remorse, no contrition, and no passion to want to understand the lives of others – and that is their real crime.

Doesn’t that really sum up the past few weeks, this Government and it’s core attitudes – I think it does.

A joke in search of a punchline

The Lunatics have taken over the Asylum

Someone tweeted on my timeline that the UK Government is “… a series of jokes in search of a punchline” and in a week when the Government could have been getting some kudos it has managed to do a passable impersonation of a Laurel and Hardy film.

I have kept quite on the West Coast Rail Franchise where Government Ministers publically lambasted Sir Richard Branson for being a poor loser on losing the West Coast Rail Franchise, in one of those moment that most politicians dread, normally a few days after Justine Greening (Minister for Railways) said that the deal with First Group was fair and would be signed, and that the process was sound, it was then announced that the process was fatally flawed and would investigate what had happened, and a new competition instigated.

Of course it was all the Civil Servants fault.

If Sir Richard Branson had not had the guts to do the unspeakable and challenge the Department of Transport we would have been in a mess. The Government having to eat humble pie and ask Sir Richard to run the railway for a few more months – after categorically saying it would never happen is embarrassing. The antipathy between Virgin Rail and the Government has gone to the ‘personal’

Of course the other thing Justine mentioned was that Virgin would not get to hold the franchise until the fuss had died down, as it transpires Virgin will retain the franchise for several months, then an interim bidding process would be instigated, for two years, and then another 15 year contract would be let. So having three franchise bids is not at all wasteful!

Of course the farce not only delays the franchises (First Great Western, First Capital Connect, etc) it also costs the tax payer £40 million to reimburse the original bidders, that’s not government money, its my money.

Yesterday at PMQ’s the Prime Minister basically got ‘shish kebabed’ over Andrew Mitchell and plebgate affair, after the spit roasting (the Tory 1922 Committee baying for Mitchell’s blood, but Cameron defended Mitchell – today ‘Thrasher’ Mitchell resigned. It has taken him 4 weeks to ‘do the right thing’ and Ed Milliband to ask for his head on platter before he relinquished power. Our politicians are too attached to their Ministerial Cars to let it go. Lets face it the Andrew Mitchell thing was embarrassing, and Cameron has been weakened over not asking for his resignation – how many chances does he have give people.

Cameron was on a duty-free freebie to the European Summit, I say ‘duty free’ trip because no-one in Europe is actually listening to the UK, in a Government that believes in collective responsibility Cameron said nothing at a Minister saying the UK should leave Europe; as vile as Enoch Powell was at least he left the Cabinet when he disagreed with it. Of course the EU Leaders gave the PM a polite reception, didn’t yawn too much, and politely asked when the UK would be leaving the EU because they actually want to do some serious stuff, like rescue Europe from a financial implosion.

The UK has never signed onto the ‘European Dream’ the ideal, as much as I am a supporter of the EU, and I passionate about the EU, France was right not to let us join, in the 50′s and we shouldn’t have been allowed to join, we cannot understand the concept of ‘cooperation’.

I believe the qoute came from Le Monde the last tiem Cameron used the vetoed like a kid throwing his toys out of the Pram in 2011, and it sums up the UK and Europe perfectly and will be our epitaph:

The British do not believe in the European idea. They are alien to this project, which is currently bogged down, but which appears to be more necessary than ever; to forge a single entity that will be able to exist as such among the other powers of the 21st Century.

We should have no regrets about what happened in Brussels. The ambiguity about the role of Britain has been cleared up: deep down the British, who joined what was the European Economic Community in 1973, are only interested in one aspect of Europe – the single market – while they have remained indifferent, if not hostile, to the rest of the European project.

Cameron spoke about cutting staff, saying he would Veto stuff (as usual) and would not be attending the Nobel Peace Prize presentation for Europe, well that’s a few less heads to feed at the Reception I suppose.

Not to be left out the Home Secretary decided she would use the Human Rights Act she wants to abolish to stop a deportation of a hacker to the USA on the grounds of he might kill himself, she also said she wants to withdraw from EU Policing Treaties, and then pick, a la carte, the bits they want; unfortunately Treaties do not work like that. The announcement was made days after the process had been used to return a young girl who had run off with Teacher – to France which, I understand with my socialist education, is in Europe.

The timing of this Government is comedic, just like Mitchell swearing at the Police days after two Police Officers were murdered in the line of their duties.

Today the beloved Chancellor has caused furor in travelling in First Class with a Second Class Ticket (apparently he did not want to sit with the plebs), though apparently he offered to upgrade – oh, did I mention it was Virgin Trains he was travelling on? Perhaps at the next PMQ’s Ed Milliband should upgrade and ask Cameron for the Chancellor’s head on a platter rather than the Chief Whip’s.

David Cameron when asked why he wanted to be PM said, and this is the truth “because I think I would be rather good at it” – Dave, you’re not, really, you’re not

NEEDED – 21st Century Martyrs

Dorli Rainey, Occupy Seattle, Pepper Sprayed

On the second day of May 1923 Lady Constance Georgina Bulwer-Lytton died of a heart attack at the age 54.

history has somewhat bypassed Lady Constance, but in 1909 she was arrested, imprisoned and when she went on hunger strike she was forced fed. Lady Constance was a suffragette, but as a ‘Lady’ each time she was arrested she was separated from the other suffragette and released, it was only when she was arrested and gave her name as Jane Warton was she ‘allowed’ to treated as an equal (an interesting to corollary to Andrew Mitchell who allegedly called Police ‘fucking plebs’ and had I done I would have been arrested for a ‘breach of the peace’ – but he is a Government Minister).

A few days ago Yekatrina Samutsevich was released from jail in Russia on the grounds that she was not part of the Pussy Riot – I am using the Russian State’s language – incitement to religious hatred protest on the grounds she has been removed from the Cathedral before the protest took place. It seems in their haste to prosecute the Russian State forgot that to commit a crime you actually have to be there, or at least take part. I have to admit I was a little disappointed that she hugged her comrades and left prison, leaving the two other members of Pussy Riot to be taken to a detention facility. I felt cheated that someone ‘escaped’ – martyrs are supposed to remain in prison. Whilst the other member of the Pussy Riot Collective were happy to see her released, it was only a few days after that Yekatrina resumed her protest, but even better Yekatrina can now tell the story of the conditions faced my her comrades.

Thinking about this story I couldn’t help but wonder what made a martyr, what raises one protest from the crowd to spark revolutions, what made Rosa Parkes refusal set the United States on the path to the Civil Rights Movement by simply being too tired to move to the ‘black’ part of the Bus in Alabama, what was different about a Tunisian fruit vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, setting himself alight that ignited the Arab Spring and felled Mubarak and Gaddafi, more than likely Assad – what is the essential ingredient to be a succesful martyr?

Information Technology is definitely a factor, but there has to be passion, despair, there has be commitment and, unfortunately, something evil, something wrong with the society, that society has to be on the verge of collapse. Martyrdom has to illustrate the brutality of the status qou, make us and the world question.

I looked recently at the picture of Dori Rainey, the 84-year-old woman Pepper Sprayed in the Occupy Seattle, and I saw the indiscriminate brutality of capitalism, and I saw the transient nature of martyrdom in the 21st Century, Pussy Riot are yesterday’s news, the Occupy Movement flourished and died, well to those do not share the ideals of a fair society.

I ask you one question – what do you believe in so much that you would be prepared to die for, if you believe in anything that strongly?

I am socialist, and I leave you with Red Flag

Then raise the scarlet standard high.
Within its shade we’ll live and die,
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We’ll keep the red flag flying here.

Three Members

Waking up to the news that Louise Mensch is resigning her Corby Pride seat, that Nick Clegg has thrown his toys out of the pram and refused to vote for the Boundary Changes and remembering that Aidan Burley still clings hopelessly to his seat in Cannock Chase made me think today we have the perfect commentary on the State of British Politics.

Louise Mensch, Member for Corby and East Northamptonshire

I can actually agree with some of her pronouncements, but she is the epitomony of the sound bite, media savvy, low content Government we have.  No intellectual or ideological content, one of the best moments of her in debate was seeing her savaged by Yvette Cooper in Parliamentary Debate when she came out with a half baked political point – see the link it is really funny and illustrates her lack of understanding.

It is the rise of the media MP over the MP of substance and conviction – as much as I hated Maggie Thatcher at least she believed in what she was saying, and did not blatantly chase the media spotlight.  Louse Mensch, as much as she is entertaining, is worse than a career politician, she has used her two years in Government to publicise not her constituents, but herself.

The fact that she has made the news is that she has been smoozing the camera and media, I would said being a media whore to be honest, that she seems to have a great publicist behind her.  She has managed to not only to report the news, she has also been the news, very quickly picking the right fights and ensuring that every tweet ends with Corby Pride - I wonder if she will be visiting Corby when she leaves Parliament?  She is media savvy, and good on her for that, but she has no content.  There was some amusement that in month she picked up 20,000 followers, well done that woman – in one week!  Her love of Google and IT companies is public, and she has started her rival to Twitter.

Of course her unflinching support for the Murdoch has been a prime example of corporate loyalty, running to the defence of Rupert Murdoch in the infamous ‘Piegate’ it makes me wonder if she will pop up in one fo the sleazier tabloids.  I am cynical when it comes to politicians, especially Tory ones, and I wait being proved right.

Only someone with unsurprising naivety would believe she is quitting to “spend more time with her family …”

Nicholas William Peter Clegg, Member for Sheffield Hallam

Nick Clegg has not only kept a minority Government in power for nearly three years, he has secured for them an unparralled, well for at least 60 years, social and welfare reform that has seen the virtual sell off of the National Health Service and putting hundreds of thousands of people on Welfare into penary and misery.  Supporting the most right-wing adminstration this country has known, and providing them with political coverage to make un mandated changes.  Clegg has reneged on almost every promise that the LibDems have made, and now has decided not to vote for boundary changes, the reason because Parliament did not like his half-baked scheme on Lords Reform.

Firstly I want my politicians to act out of conviction, not political expediency.  If the House of Commons collectively could not agree on Lords Reform then they should not be forced to vote for it to keep a minority party, or a minority Government, in power.  Nick Clegg is proving that he has no convictions at all, and along with the Tories, are dismantling the State for idelogical reasons not for the good of the country,

This country is being run for the benefit of the Government – not the people.

Aidan Burley, Member for Cannock Chase

I have blogged before on this idiot who attends Nazi themed Stag Parties and then tweets about the Olympic Games being left-wing, amazingly he still has a job. The question is, what do you have to do get the sack from this Government?  The greatest charge, which Aidan is prime example, against this Government is that it is morally bankrupt -  a diseased ridden corpse showing an occasional twitch of life.