Junkie Offers To Mind The Pharmacy

David Cameron seized on public anger over MPs’ lavish pay and perks yesterday, as he attempted to put the Conservatives at the heart of attempts to clean up Parliament.

The Poverty Of Ideas

On the same page a NuLabour minister says-Unemployed council and housing association tenants should seek work or face losing their home– there is a link to a story from last year saying income gap at it’s widest for 40 years, this after 11 years of a supposedly Labour government.

[click for embiggening!}
Perhaps a BBC minion has a sense of humour and even outrage to put that link on this story’s page, I hope so. The reactions show the conservative dominance of politics, the official opposition, the tories, do not disagree they just needle her by saying it might be hard to enforce. It is left (ha!) to trade unions and NGO’s to voice opposition to this charter for homelessness. Clearly we need representation as neither main party are anything but tools of the elites, and quick, before the workhouses come back.

Lockdown Addicts

Never mind the hoo-hah of the tories wanting more armed police, because-

Overall, the number of authorised firearms officers went down from 6,738 in 1997 to 6,584 in 2006, with reported firearms offences rising more than 10%.

So less than 200 and 10%, is reporting uniform over the years, population growth blah blah, effect of statistical targets? And they all now have Tasers to satisfy you law ‘n’ order freaks but…so we still haven’t grown past responding to every instance of crime with calls for yet more police with greater firepower, because y’know nothing could go wrong with that and it has certainly worked in the past, ahem.
The more unequal a society becomes the more crime will happen (far beyond that inevitable base level due to the human condition in all its complexities) and the tories would increase that inequality (as Nulab have done) so no wonder they want better guards to keep the peasants from their gold piles. And after all ambitious gun owners are simply following the dog eat dog capitalist environment in which they find themselves, usually the gun violence is overseas against state targets, these people are just bringing it home. An elite that prospers by war sends a message to those at the bottom with comparable levels of ruthlessness. Wanna get ahead? Get a gat.

Repeatedly progressives measures in drugs, gangs and prostitution have been rebuffed by the government as going off prejudice and ignorance, they think, gets them more votes. Again with a conservative administration in power the tory opposition is actually criticising them not for going against their policies but by not implementing them extremely enough. A race to the bottom, a race to the lockdown state.

Shocked I tells Ya, Shocked

The art market is corrupt, full of shady accounting practices and manipulates demand to inflate prices in a celebrity obsessed clientèle? Whatever next? Will the sun rise tomorrow? Best send a reporter to the horizon to report back in case it does.

Also tories raise money in dodgy ways!!!

And the nuclear industry concentrates on issues of carbon emissions to back a huge subsidy and increase in Britain’s nuclear infrastructure.

Major Chutzpah

Well yes, but um, pot & kettle with it coming from you Johnny boy-

Former Prime Minister Sir John Major has accused Labour of presiding over “systemic sleaze” during its 10 years in government. 

He acknowledged that “lots of people misbehaved” when he was prime minister, but said they did so as individuals rather than members of the government. It was not institutional sleaze, he said.

Sir John warned that the good economy that Labour inherited from the Conservatives “is now beginning to unravel”. He blamed government policies on pensions and too many taxes for a drop in competitiveness and productivity.

Or short version- Whine, whine, whine, why can’t we be the ones in power fucking over the people. You get so much bigger bribes when you’re in power…or looking like you might reacquire it.
No, I’m sorry but Nulabour are scum because they are exactly the same as you, you tory wanker. This is utterly pathetic, two groups offering the same basic policies with minor cosmetic tweaks and a few crossed words so we all feel the warm glow of ‘democracy’, just two gangs fighting over territory in an unchanging utterly immoral system, arse biscuits! Fuck off Major and take the rest of the conservatives of NuLabour with you. How’s that for back to basics, you cretin.

How about telling the interviewer how exciting it was to cheat on your wife while under a campaign of family values your party shat on single mothers, the disabled, the unemployed, gave us clause 28 and piled as much cash into you and your business friends pockets as the mathematically illiterate chancellor of the week would allow. Of course removing any barriers to the elite hording all the wealth while destroying unions clearly is the way to alleviate poverty, it worked so well NuLab uses it too! Pensions? Oh because of course no old people froze to death under your benevolent regime you ineffable dullard, not that you meant that, you meant can’t my City chums have all the welfare cash and um, when the time to payout comes, oh dear, it was here somewhere, the bloomin’ market must have mislaid it, dearie me. Tony Blair is an appalling war criminal but if we have to take lessons on government morality from John fucking Major then we are truly screwed. The Conservatives would have lied us into Iraq too except they would have enjoyed it more, I’ll at least give them that, they are not so ashamed of their evil, their wilful ignorance makes them proud of it.

This Is What You Get

This crime happened almost 20 years ago and only now is the official cover up, that was put in place to aid the conservative’s water privatisation policies, unraveling. However all of our water supplies remain privatised with no prospect of regaining public control, crime pays.

We have also been handed an explosive letter which reveals how officialdom set out to downplay the Camelford disaster and any wrong-doing by the water authority, which was about to be privatised by the Conservative government of the day.

The letter from a water official to Michael Howard, then Minister of State for Water and Planning, states that a police investigation into the poisoning incident was viewed as “very distracting”. It goes on to say that any subsequent prosecution of South West Water would also “be totally unhelpful to privatisation . . . and render the whole of the water industry unattractive to the City”.

Cross, who believes both deaths were linked to the pollution, today said there had been a cover-up from the beginning.

“Probably the worst part has been that the medical establishment has hidden information which would have changed the course of the investigation. People would have been looked at and treated if possible,” said Cross, who now lives in Cumbria.

He served on the government’s committee on toxicity, set up to look into the health effects of the pollution disaster, and claims it had been forbidden from looking at medical records and had to rely on anecdotal material.

Tories Fail To Blag £8.3m Out Of Madman

It is possible they are simply a job creation program for satirists-

“In 1984 my father became mentally ill. He was diagnosed as suffering from paranoia,” he said. “He was tormented by delusions that I and other members of my family were part of a worldwide conspiracy of terrorists and criminals who were trying to kill him. My father refused medical treatment, because he also feared that doctors would harm him. In the grip of his delusions, my father turned to the Conservative Party for help to fight the conspiracy that he imagined. He gave them donations and eventually made two wills leaving them everything that he owned.”

The court heard that Mr Kostic had made the will after saying Margaret Thatcher was “the greatest leader of the free world in history” and that she would save the world from the “satanic monsters and freaks”. 

But of course the conservatives were bastards as ever-

Following the judgement, Zoran, [his son] who lives in Edinburgh, said in a statement that he was “relieved” the case was finally over. But he said he was “disappointed that the Conservative Party Association made it necessary for my family to come to court and to give evidence on private matters that we found deeply distressing”. 

But baby, the money quote (and let’s face it the judge knew he was spinning out some gold with this)-

Handing down his judgement, Mr Justice Henderson, said Mr Kostic would not have left the money to the Tories if he had been “of sound mind”. 

What Are They Gonna Do? Put Them In Prison?

Thousands of prison officers are defying a High Court injunction and refusing to end their national strike over a pay dispute.

The surprise walkout by members of the Prison Officers’ Association (POA) in England and Wales began at 0700 BST.The action came after it pulled out of a no-strike agreement with government.

Officers in Bristol, Canterbury and Long Lartin returned to work in the afternoon, but other POA members said they would stay out for 24 hours.

Frolix put it nicely-

The Government’s message is all too clear: work harder, in deteriorating conditions, while we year on year cut your pay but try to withdraw your labour and we’ll force you back to work using the courts.

And this is supposed to be a Labour government? 

And as he also says prison officers are less sympathetic than nurses, but they are agents of the implied violence of the state, if the govt. cannot control them it loses some authority, some legitimacy. Which drives authoritarians nuts especially with their newly minted Ministry of Justice, MiniJust won’t be pleased. It also shows the inherent conservatism of the Blair project, the restrictions on the prison officers labour rights started with the Tories and NuLab continued them while spinning that it hadn’t-

In the event of the POA giving notice to terminate the legally enforceable collective agreement in circumstances where further agreement was not possible, the Secretary of State would seek during the 12-month period of notice of withdrawal from the agreement to reapply Section 127 through primary legislation.

the prison officers have full union rights on condition that they don’t use them!  How wonderfully New Labour.

 

Former Tory Has BNP Festival On His Land, Guards Linked To Redwatch

It is being held on land owned by Alan Warner, a former Tory councillor who was elected to the local parish council as a BNP member in May. At the entrance to his land a security guard films everyone who approaches. When asked what the footage will be used for he laughs and replies “Redwatch” – a reference to an extremist rightwing website which carries details of journalists and political opponents and has been linked to a series of violent attacks.

The British National party has chosen the former mining and farming community for its annual Red White and Blue Festival. The far-right party has held the event every year since 2000 but six weeks ago, after an internal row which ended with a failed leadership challenge to Nick Griffin, it was moved from Lancashire to a plot of land in the centre of Denby Village.

If you don’t know what Redwatch is (and I’m not linking to it) it is a site where fascists put as many details (address, phone, email, places of work) and photographs of people they deem leftists/reds/anti-fascists and with a nudge and a wink (though not much, they don’t process subtlety well) encourage violent attacks on them. In short, they promote terrorism. The site has several mirrors and claims to be hosted outside the UK to avoid the law, the people that run it are hilariously stupid, but unfortunately that doesn’t stop them from being dangerous. Which is an apt description of the Tories, coincidentally. Go figure.

Empire- Colombia, Venezuela, Ethiopia, Rwanda & Tory Wankers- Edition

The Colombian army installed its third military base with 1,000 troops on the border with Venezuela, the Colombian government said on Monday. Governor of northeastern department Norte de Santander Luis Morelli said the base, the third to be established this year, will begin operations in October in the Catatumbo border region.

One brigade is based in Cucuta city and is already operating in Norte de Santander and a mobile base is patrolling across Ocana province. Colombia and Venezuela share 2,219 km of border that is often illegally crossed by armed groups who extort, kidnap and smuggle drugs and gasoline.

Somehow this isn’t getting the attention the RCTV issue got. Meanwhile the Empire’s Ethiopian proxies are accused of stealing aid and using starvation as a military tactic-

the Ethiopian government is putting hundreds of thousands of people at risk of starvation by blockading emergency food aid and choking off trade to eastern parts of the country. The area affected is home to the Ogaden National Liberation Front – a rebel group that has opposed the current government. One humanitarian official accused Ethiopia of trying to starve out the population. He said “If something isn’t done on the diplomatic front soon, we’re going to have a government-caused famine on our hands.” The official refused to be quoted by name because he feared reprisals against aid workers. The New York Times also reports the U.S.-backed Ethiopian military and its proxy militias have been siphoning off millions of dollars in international food aid and using a UN polio eradication program to funnel money to pro-government fighters. 

Will the conservatives condemn this from their genocide PR HQ in Rwanda? Will noted humanitarian and man of compassion Peter Lilley-

Lilley’s remarks at that party conference took the form of a pastiche of a Gilbert and Sullivan song. He said he “had a little list” of people he wanted to “root out” including “young ladies who get pregnant just to jump the housing list”.

demand transparency in that process? Oh and just one question in regard to that Mr. Cameron, which party was in power when the Rwandan genocide happened? Hint- You’re now it’s leader.

John Major’s government was most definitely warned, because during the build-up to genocide, the violence, hate propaganda and militia increased in scope and power. In the weeks before the genocide, the Belgian ambassador to the UN tried desperately to persuade the permanent members of the security council that it was five minutes to midnight in Rwanda and that their mission urgently needed reinforcing and a stronger mandate. But the warnings were to no avail. The US and the UK were against a stronger mandate. 

Simpering, Whining, Pampered Crooks

The wife of Downing Street’s former chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, has lifted the lid on the private fury felt by Tony Blair’s inner circle over the cash-for-peerages inquiry, accusing the police of ‘Gestapo tactics’. In a remarkable intervention, which contrasts with the measured language of the former Prime Minister, Sarah Helm singled out a dawn raid on the former Number 10 aide Ruth Turner as a sign of police heavy-handedness.

Helm, a journalist and author, writes in today’s Observer: ‘I know one shouldn’t make these comparisons, but I was writing about Nazi Germany right then and I couldn’t help think: Gestapo tactics! Pick on the vulnerable, preferably a single woman, living alone. No matter that you may have nothing on her that will ultimately stand up in court – give her a scare.’

Un-fucking-believable, a govt. that has covered up torture flights, chose a war of aggression and whose inconvenient opponents turn up dead in the woods and this whining little moron thinks their being treated in exactly the same way as any member of the public is ‘gestapo’ nazi-like tactics. Fuck me, the police have been shooting brown people in raids for the last few years, whither your outrage there Sarah my dear? Not surprising in a culture that rehabilitated Marie Antoinette via a crappy biography written by a tory ariostocrat (then filmed to further excuse imperial capitalist decadence to it’s credulous audience of facile retards) this entitled bleating cretin thinks they are the victims. Boo-fucking-hoo, what next? A global series of concerts to raise awareness of the terrible shortage of wardrobe space in penthouse apartments? Or a searing idictment of developing country’s diet where because of poor nutrition the organs we harvest are not as organic and healthy as the bodies of the elite they are implanted into? Cry me a fucking river.

Blair’s Tory Policies Succesful

The gap between rich and poor in the UK is as wide as it has been for 40 years

The JRF found that households in already wealthy areas had become “disproportionately” richer compared with society as a whole. But the number of “poor” households has risen over the past 15 years. Since the 1980s, wealthier people have moved to the suburbs while the poor remain in inner cities, the JRF added.

Looking at wealth patterns over the past four decades, the JRF found that the gap between rich and poor actually narrowed in the 1970s. But during the 1980s and 1990s inequality had increased as a “polarisation” in British society had occurred.

As for the decade beginning in 2000, the report said the picture was “less clear”, with some initiatives such as tax and pension credit helping the poor while wealthier people were gaining from a property market boom.

Rich and poor are also less likely to be living next door to one another than in the 1970s, it was reported. The report concluded that “both the poor and wealthy have become more and more clustered in different areas”.

The wealthiest of households, defined by JRF as “exclusively wealthy”, are concentrated in suburban pockets, usually in the south of England. Meanwhile a separate report into public attitudes to wealth inequality, also produced by the JRF, found some unease.

“There is widespread acceptance that some occupations should be paid more than others: but the gap between high and low paid occupations is far greater than people think it should be,” said Michael Orton, the author of the report.

Mr Orton added that people are more likely to think that people at the top of pay scale are paid too much rather than people at the bottom paid too little.

Yet another wonderful legacy for our dearly beloved former PM, 28 years of tory rule and the very best free market economists have triumphed. Rejoice!

Sick & Twisted

The tories released their proposals for NHS ‘reform’ it is simply more masked in labour bashing privatisation hetoric. They’ll abolish targets, by having other targets and the internal market is to be expanded to all areas with individual accounts for high demand patients, which means if you are a big drain on resources, guess who gets to have treatment denied on grounds of cost? Unless you can afford private of course…

So neither main party will run a public NHS, and you want to know the really simple reason for all this? Public run healthcare administration costs are typically below 5% with no profit, private is in the order of 15%-30% and profit. And to sell this bad deal? The myth of private sector efficiency.
All this is happening as ‘Sicko’ is about to be unleashed (available as a torrent one hears). So the one hope is that momentum from that could re-energise our thoughts on the NHS and save it from the social darwinists and their profit motive dictatorship.

Zombie Nightmare Over?

Thanks to D-Notice who caught this a few days ago it looks like David Macleans zombie bill that will exempt MP’s from FOI scrutiny may have finally met it’s machete wielding match and ended its undead rampage. Although no senior politician would admit it, it was backed by both Tories and Nulab scumbags, but it seems maybe the Lords don’t want to get associated with the sleazy bill.

It is now generally assumed that the Bill to exempt Parliament from freedom of information – the ‘Maclean Bill’ – is dead.
This is because no peer had decided to sponsor it and obtain a second reading debate for it in the Lords by last night’s deadline. This does not guarantee for certain that it has come to an end. Parliamentary procedure does still allow for it to be revived later in the session. But it has now missed a crucial window of opportunity to make progress. Even if someone does emerge to sponsor it later it will have major difficulties in getting sufficient debating time given the other business in the Lords between now and the end of the session.

For some this will be a victory for transparency in public life. For others it represents the frustration of the will of the elected House, because any peer feels too intimidated by the prospect of media attention to sponsor the Bill.

And in comments the author reveals:

What I meant was the point about intimidation was part of what ‘others think’, not necessarily my own view. However personally I do believe it was one factor, and that is based on conversations I have had.

I don’t want to take all the credit (if only corrupt pols were scared of me), but hey, we helped scare a toff into not sliming the bullshit bill through, woohoo! But seriously, ‘intimidated’ boo-fucking-hoo, cry me a river, drop the frame douchebags, this was a bad bill coming from bad faith and you got caught. The UK is already insanely secretive and we really don’t need any more shadows in which the elite can conduct their business.

Call me cynical but I won’t be taking the hastily nailed boards off the windows next (hell yes I’m enjoying the zombie metaphor) I also reckon they might try to tack the measures on to another bill, probably something with ‘terrorist’ or ‘paedophile’ in the title. So look out for the “Homeland Protection & Security Safety from Terrorist Paedophiles Bill’ appendix 37 q subsection 14 f- and we are exempt from FOI so pass the lobbyist cash over here Mr Mammon (but y’know, in lawyer speak).

Tories Praise Conservative

The Conservatives are best placed to carry on Tony Blair’s public service reforms, the shadow chancellor says.
George Osborne claimed Gordon Brown, the next prime minister, had “abandoned the centre ground of public service reform to the Conservative Party”.

Two words when you think about Osborne should enter your mind- Flat Tax. Blair is a tory Osborne only more so, flat tax is the rich’s holy grail, anyone that mentions it has the concerns of less than half a percent of the population at heart. And most of them avoid tax anyway. Yet strangely more than that tiny percentage vote conservative, there’s one born every minute.