Free Speech?

What the hell is happening to freedom of speech and expression in this country. Liberal Democrat MP is censured over his remarks about the appalling treatment of the Palestinians by Israel, I copy it here for you:-

” Mr Ward said he was “saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza”.

Now, what is unreasonable about that statement? There is another outcry regarding the cartoon by Gerald Scarfe in the Sunday Times which more forcefully expresses the same sentiment. Even Rupert Murdoch has been issuing grovelling apologies. Arguably it might have been insensitive to publish it on Holocaust Memorial Day although I would argue that there could hardly be a better time.

We are losing hard won freedoms and rights in this country on a regular basis and if we let freedom of speech slip through our fingers the future is not looking just bad, it is looking horrifying.

Britain at Risk

Details from the 2011 Census have just come out making for interesting reading.The population of England & Wales is now 56 million of which 7 million+ were born outside the UK making White British just 80% of the population and indeed London now has only 45% White British.

Now those figures are, to me, concerning enough but let us add to that the British born children of those originating from outside the UK plus the countless numbers (hence no stats) of illegal immigrants and those who did not fill in the forms at all. The rapid dilution of the indigenous British puts at severe risk our very culture and accepted way of life.

I am no isolationist but I believe we are a unique and special group of Nations and islands and so also believe the time has come to say enough.

The Cameron Cancer

Would you pay £47.51 for a chicken? Of course not! If the cost of chickens had increased at the same rate the same rate as house rentals over the last 30 years that is what you’d be paying.

A majority of people believe that benefits should be cut, they have swallowed the Tory lies. Housing benefit rose by £1 billion last year and you are lead to believe that it went to the lazy workshy or to single mothers or to drug addicts. In fact 98% went to people who are actually in work! The continuing shortage of housing and landlords greedily ripping off the State are the reasons behind this incredible increase; to cut benefits is to tackle the problem from completely the wrong end.

Cameron’s answer is to compel thousands of our fellow citizens to move hundreds of miles from their homes, their friends and families, and to drag children away from their schools. Under 25′s to be forced to go home to their parents after further education or training rather than starting employment (if they can find any) on low wages because they simply can’t afford a roof over their head. This is the economics of the madhouse.

The arrogance of this extremely wealthy Prime Minister beggars belief, in that he thinks that by kicking away the crutch of a cripple it will make him walk. He cannot countenance the real solution as this would possibly affect his and his rich friends grasp on the national wealth. Embark on a massive house building program which not only employs building workers but also manufacturing by way of the building materials but also every new home will need carpets, curtains, furniture, the list is almost endless, creating even more jobs. Rents to be controlled by law and the National Minimum Wage increased substantially to catch up with what it should be worth. This would also put more of the burden onto employers rather than the tax payers.

It was announced today that government borrowing for the month of May increased by £2 billion more than expected due mainly to lower tax receipts. What the hell do they expect? 2.6 million out of work and 1.4 million in part time work wishing they were in full time employment and therefore not paying any or very little income tax. This regime is a cancer spreading over our land and the only therapy that will work is to cut it out and soon.

Opening Ceremony

So, the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games is to feature the British Countryside and ‘Shakespeare’! A countryside that vast numbers of our population never see as they can’t afford to visit it let alone explore it. A countryside where small farmers struggle to exist while the supermarkets make a fortune from selling their produce. A countryside where huge investment companies and the agro/chemical companies create vast fields devoid of wild life as they cut down the ancient hedgerows to make space for their efficient machines.

Secondly “All hail Shakespeare” as part of the theme! Let’s be honest most people haven’t heard of Shakespeare and couldn’t give a stuff; at best he might have been something to endure for a brief period at school during English Literature lessons. Yes he was a brilliant play write 100′s of years ago but totally irrelevant and incomprehensible to most of us. Anyone would think we haven’t produced another brilliant writer since then. God alone knows how much it cost but the organisers have commissioned the casting of a bell for the ceremony that is twice the weight of Big Ben and inscribed with a phrase from The Tempest “ ”Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises”! FFS! The rest of the World will think we are stuck in the past which of course we are, at least, those who tend to rise to the top of the pile are.

Only 10% Cut So Far and still in Recession

It’s not good is it? Officially back into the recession that we’ve barely left for two years, despite the Con?Dems austerity program. A program I might add that has so far only implemented just 10% of their planned cuts to expenditure.

This government, with no real mandate from the people is the most vicious I can ever recall, yes, worse even than Margaret Thatcher and particularly bad because they are utterly incompetent, arrogant, out of touch with reality and unable to listen. They were warned, not just by me and assorted other bloggers, but by many financial experts, that their plans pointed towards disaster. Not of course, disaster for them personally as most are millionaires well cushioned with their tax havens and trust funds but disaster for countless citizens of our lands.

Unemployment and fear thereof in the millions and rising including huge numbers of our young people who now may never get a job, hospital waiting lists getting longer, home repossessions on the increase and poorer tenants being compulsory moved from London and South East to the North, leading towards a North/South divide like never before. Thatcher left little public assets untouched but now even the jewel in the crown, our NHS, is being sold off for private profit along with our schools. It didn’t take a genius to predict all this would happen so it has to be assumed that these are deliberate policies conjured up for the sole benefit of those who have manipulated themselves into power.

The current situation tends to lead the electorate into a depressed condition whereby apathy takes over along with a feeling of individual isolation which in turn leads to a sense of powerlessness. We are not though powerless if we collectively recognise that the power is ours and we can take it back from those to whom we unwittingly lent it. We can demand change and change we will get but only if we work together for the benefit of us all. We must remind those who say they can’t be bothered with politics that politics is health, employment, education, social services, the cost of fuel, pensions or whether your sons or daughters are going to war.

Osborne : Liar or Cheat?

Questioned on BBC’s Today programme George Osborne was asked if he would personally benefit from the tax changes on the wealthy he replied that he would be unaffected and implied that he gets less than the £150,000 per year.

According to the best information I can find he has a personal fortune of £4 million. Now either he is lying to the nation or he has engaged in extensive tax evasion or tax avoidance schemes that he is supposedly against. So it would seem that we have as Chancellor of the Exchequer either a liar or a cheat running the finances of our country; surely he should be made to explain himself or better still resign.

Twenty two of the twenty nine cabinet ministers are millionaires so to expect fairness, equality and help for the less well off would be like expecting turkeys to vote for Christmas. Wake up Britain, rise up Britain, we deserve better than this. We need to pay off our debt; not the notional paper monetary debt, because almost every country in the World is in reality bankrupt but the debt of fairness and equality that we owe to ourselves, our children, our grandchildren and generations yet unborn.

Benefits – Wrong Cuts

The Bishops .in particular, in the House of Lords are speaking out against the proposed Welfare benefit cuts and putting aside the fact that Bishops are un-elected and should have no place in our law making process, they are right to do so.

Yes there is a problem with too much being paid out but this is not the fault of the claimants at whom the government likes to point the finger of blame. As usual governments and particularly Tory ones, wear blinkers and always react by hitting the weakest hardest rather than looking more deeply into a problem. Stopping just short of naming them as ‘scroungers’ ministers speak of them as ‘getting’ £25000, £35000 + per year but let’s just pause and think for a moment. Who is actually ‘getting’ this largesse? A not uncommon rent in London and other large cities could be £300 per week which equates to nearly £16,000 in a year and this goes to Landlords who are generally investment companies and rich individuals taking advantage of a cronic housing shortage and the, so far, willingness of the welfare system to keep paying. It is the Landlords who are ‘getting’ the payouts not the claimants.

Tackle the greed of landlords, tackle the housing shortage and there will be no need to uproot people, to risk family breakdown and impose intolerable stress on individuals. These proposals should be fought  with as much vigor as was the Poll Tax but I doubt it will happen. The Poll Tax affected everyone, these proposals affect only a weak and demonised minority.

Sleeze Alive and Well

Interesting start to the day; I was just doing a little research into David Cameron and came across a nice aerial view of his home in Oxfordshire  valued at around £800,000 and then his London home  at around £1.5million bought with a tax payer funded mortgage of £375,000. In addition he owns a £2.7million pound house in Notting Hill that he rents out for £6000 per month. I was reminded that he is also a slightly distant cousin to the Queen and his father was a wealthy stockbroker.

I linked this sarcastically on my Face Book Wall to “We’re all in this together”! This initiated a selection of humorous remarks such as ‘poor man, he’s not even got a tennis court or swimming pool’. Within minutes The Daily Mail published an item showing that a Tory donor and boss of one of the largest lobbying company’s in the UK, Lord Chadlington, had purchased property and land adjacent to Cameron’s and had sold some of this land to enhance Cameron’s. The Prime Minister did not register this transaction in the MP’s Register of interests claiming that as he paid more than the market rate for the land there was no profit involved. Maybe not at the present moment but as Cameron extends his estate it certainly will in the not so distant future. Nest feathering continues apace.

The sleeze and cronyism goes on while the masses can only write humour on Facebook.

Choices

Let’s face it this country is in a mess! It’s like a ship in a raging storm heading towards rocks and the captain shouts “Hold this course!” His Lieutenant who hopes one day to become captain shouts “Hold this course but slow down a bit.” The little cabin boy can see the rocks but feeling helpless crawls into  his hammock and puts his hands over his eyes and cotton wool in his ears, holding on to a blind trust in the madness of the officers because to do otherwise would require him to DO something.

The UK, along with other Western nations, owes money, a lot of money and so it was rightly decided to reduce this debt and this is where our witless leadership went wrong. They had no one with vision or moral integrity and so they set about taking money from those who had little, those without, they believe, power, attacking the sick, the pensioners, students, the lower paid workers who actually produce the wealth that makes us the 6th richest nation on Earth. They chose not to rein in the bankers and financial directors, they chose not to go after those who avoid paying their proper share of taxation amounting to tens of billions each year because they themselves belong to, or aspire to belong, to that elite band. They chose not to save up to £200billion by cancelling the Trident nuclear weapon system which will never be used and deters no one simply because this would deprive them of a seat at the top table of the United Nations. Instead of strutting they may have to walk like the rest of humankind.

They chose not to invest in a massive social housing programme that is desperately needed for millions of our citizens and would create and safeguard hundreds of thousands of jobs. In it’s wake this would generate spending power for the workers thus creating more employment and in addition, tax revenues. A bi product would also be a likely reduction in ever increasing housing rental costs which (some) greedy landlords are reaping in such places as London where tenants are now to be evicted because of government cuts to housing benefit. Instead they chose borrowing even more to fund rapidly increasing unemployment which is a tried and tested method of keeping wage increases to a minimum. Not such a surprising choice either when many of those currently in power like Chris Grayling, are indeed wealthy property owners.

We too though have choices. Even in this poor democracy of ours we do not have to be like the cabin boy; the power ‘they’ hold is in reality, our power that we lend to them. They stick together but they are only a few, we are millions and if only we can stick together and demand a new way, a new vision, then we can take back our power and steer our ship away from the rocks, into calmer waters of fairness, justice, democracy, co-operation and peace.

But have we the guts?

Very Strange

A huge row has erupted today over a YouTube video that appears to show four US Marines urinating on the bodies of several dead Afghanis or Taliban. An investigation has been instigated and threats of prosecutions and even imprisonment if this video is genuine and leads to the identification of those involved.

Now, any decent person would find this act utterly appalling and disgusting but that said it is hardly surprising and in some respects understandable. In order to fight effectively soldiers must be trained and encouraged to ‘de-humanise’ their enemy, to think of them as less than animals, so with such a mindset pissing on their dead bodies wouldn’t seem, to the soldiers, as the abhorrent act that it would and does to us.

What is strange though to my mind is, that it is ordered, approved and applauded for the military to riddle the enemy with bullets, to throw grenades at him and blow his body into little pieces or to drop bombs on a village killing or maiming the innocent as well as the enemy and ultimately to drop a nuclear device over a city and kill millions.

Let’s stop the killing first and then there’ll be no bodies to urinate on.