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Archive for the ‘Reform and Change’ Category

Quite often, some might say all too often, the reader’s responses to articles published in the Media are often far more interesting than the published original and one response because no doubt of my personal experiences, caught my attention concerning “Carers”.

We all know that cuts in Government expenditure are coming and therefore in the run up to the final decisions being made in October, one can expect just about every special interest to be putting forward the case why they should be ‘left alone’. However and as I thought about it, there is rather more to this “Benefits Reform” and in a sense, the basic decision hinges around whether people expect help from the State on the basis of a ‘right’, a contractual basis or, on as ‘needed’ basis.

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A writer in the Independent today penned a piece entitled, “University is not right for everyone and that sentiment touches upon what I have felt for quite a few years now. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/philip-hensher/philip-hensher-university-isnrsquot-right-for-everyone-2053386.html

It is a simple fact of life that when only a few people take part in any particular activity, it tends to be ‘Fun’. Driving a car used to be fun before everyone had a car and were competing for the same bit of road space. Likewise, not only are our roads overcrowded but in these small islands subject to heavy commercial air traffic, so too are the skies. If you fancy flying privately, it is only tolerable whilst there are few other people wanting to do the same, faced with congestion and higher demand, rationing of any activity by “price or licence” is inevitable.

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Of all the former Labour Ministers, John Hutton was one of the better ones and at least as Defence Minister, looked like he cared. His very public resignation had a degree of ‘principle’ to it and the ever craven David Miliband would have done well to have followed him and set off a change of Labour Leadership before the General Election.

The Labour Party has very little ‘talent’ available as the current Leadership Election demonstrates only too clearly (a bit like a Muppet Show), they really couldn’t afford to lose people like Hutton who stood down at the last election.

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The Independent in its infinite wisdom has decided to change the way it deals with readers comments on articles, a move designed to increase boredom and decrease any valid ‘debate’. I have lived through this before; It was contributing to the Telegraph that first led me to set up this blog back in November 2007 but they too decided to change their “readers comments” set-up and turn the whole thing to boring dross and now too the ‘Indy’ follows – Oh Well…there you go.

But the reason that I mention this is simply that of only a couple of regular Independent columnists worth reading, John Rentoul is one and the starting point for this particular blog was an entry he made on the ‘old system’ so whereas I would normally just give you a web link, as this may disappear into the ether, I have had to quote the key passages which I dislike because it is other people’s copyright:-

John Rentoul: The Hung Parliament Party – http://johnrentoul.independentminds.livejournal.com/408639.html

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With a new Parliament gathering, there is the opportunity to elect a new Speaker. In my opinion, Bercow has not demonstrated the type of energetic leadership that was required after Martin stepped down and set against the background of the “Expenses Scandal” so, he needs to be replaced and likely by someone with a bit of gravitas and or intellectual wit.

At the time and although neither put themselves forward, I thought that either Frank Field or Vince Cable would be excellent candidates.

Of course one could argue that until the issue of the Separation of Powers between the Executive and the Legislature is resolved, there is currently no longer under the existing state of the Constitution, any particular reason that the Speaker is a sitting MP, their job could be done by a whole number of outside people – Speaker Paxman ?

As usual, John Rentoul in the Independent on Sunday wrote an interesting piece about Clegg and the LibDems teaming up with Cameron and the Conservatives rather than Labour. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/john-rentoul/john-rentoul-cleggs-right-to-cosy-up-to-cameron-1969230.html

Whilst I am a great fan of his articles, I had to point out a flaw which is all too common in the Media: “There is a lot of wishful thinking on the left about a progressive coalition that won 52 per cent of the vote in the election. Labour’s 29 per cent plus the Liberal Democrats’ 23 per cent outvotes the reactionary fox-hunting sceptic Tories with their measly 36 per cent.”

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There is a rather good article by Matthew Parris in today’s Times called: “Cameron’s hand is strong and he’ll play it well” worth a read although some of the readers comments are very odd as the Times practises quite annal censorship of those so, who knows http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article7120060.ece

The Independents lead Editorial was rather pathetic: “A result that confirms our electoral system is broken”: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-a-result-that-confirms-our-electoral-system-is-broken-1968245.html

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So the morning after the night before and here we are with a Hung Parliament. My personal wish was for a Cameron Government with a working majority as best for the UK as a whole but sadly not to be or…is it sad ? I have written before that a large part of the British Public have demonstrated quite infantile behaviour in not wishing to face up to the reality of our current economic situation in the UK and therefore the remedies required to correct it.

It may well be that this election result may well provide the necessary impetus to bring both reality and acceptance to the public at large…

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We have really been in “Election Mode” since the start of the year and I’m afraid that I am still of the opinion that if Brown had cared a fig for this Country, he would have called this last Autumn even though he would have lost then as he will today. The delay has placed us in both deeper and more dangerous waters, a new Government will have to follow Ireland’s lead to avoid Greece’s Fate.

Of course the other issue concerns just what the British Electorate decide, I suspect already have decided and whether we get a majority Tory Government or a Hung Parliament with another election within the year. I will be particularly interested in just how accurate the Polls have been of whether people have lied to them deliberately, we shall know all by tomorrow !

The Independent once again led with another ‘cringe worthy’ editorial on what essentially is a ‘vote LibDem’ ticket which I wouldn’t mind except that they try to dress up their prejudices with ‘grandiose: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-this-historic-opportunity-must-not-be-missed-1962527.html My view on this is:

It is very simple, if you want to vote LibDem, then do so, it is not illegal between consenting adults in the privacy of the poll booth, as far as I know. But do not prattle on about PR being “a great principle of the age”, it really isn’t, the public just don’t give a toss about it. In terms of popular politics, PR is as about as burning an issue as the EU for most voters, whilst the “devotees” of either cause will bang on endlessly about it, nobody in the mainstream is even slightly bothered.

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