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Posts Tagged ‘A United Kingdom’

I just loved this Telegraph story: “Twice as many Tescos open 24/7 as Police Stations”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7957168/Twice-as-many-Tescos-open-247-as-police-stations.html

After some 13 years in power, just what did these two Muppets achieve – sad detritus that both of them are ! But and never-the-less, after increasing the public sector payroll by some 800,000, it sort of indicates what the likely result is for Health Care and Education – increased costs plus reduced outcomes. Policing is the least of it with efficiency further depleted by endless form filling to produce statistics to justify that Labour was “doing the right thing”.

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I saw on the BBC web site in their “Magazine Section”, an article that posed the question as to whether London ‘sucks’ the life out of Britain. The link is as follows: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/10508673.stm

In most ways, I suspect that the ‘proposition’ is an ‘Aunt Sally’ and the author is playing a “Devils Advocate” role which I was quite prepared to participate in as follows:

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“The Bloody Sunday killings were unjustified and unjustifiable”, the Prime Minster said in the House of Commons yesterday, announcing the findings of the Saville Report and making a full and public apology for the events of that day. The key point that he made was that whilst over a thousand members of the Army and Police were murdered by paramilitaries during “The Troubles”, the 13 people who died were shot by “Agents of the State” and consequently a higher standard is required of them than criminals, it is important to underline that distinction.

As to whether the Saville Report is correct in all its conclusions, will be open to debate as will be whether it will bring ‘closure’ or not but since the Good Friday Agreement, people on all sides have had to swallow what they have no doubt seen as rather many injustices for the sake of peace or, the “Peace Process” and I have no doubt that the UK taxpayers will continue to be burdened with the cost of Northern Ireland for decades yet to come. But all that said and having watched him at the Despatch Box yesterday, I was yet again impressed with David Cameron, he brings the right ‘touch’ quite often in his approach.

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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The other day, David Cameron and Nick Clegg presented their 34 page detailed document to outline the details of the Coalition agreement. The general consensus was that the Conservatives had given more ground than the LibDems on their Election Manifestos. An interesting observation but not one I suspect will stand the test of time.

The one thing I’ve always liked about Cameron and despite the odd stumble since he became Tory Leader and had to ‘learn on the job’, is it became clear that he was a pragmatist not a dogmatist and one suspects, as others have commented, he has used the coalition as an excuse to ‘off-load’ a number of Tory Policies that frankly wouldn’t play well in these straightened times.

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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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Over recent months and likely to continue over the next year or so there is lots of Media coverage concerning the “Recovery” and or the threat of a “Double Dip” Recession. Now whilst I am no economist, it does rather strike me that people are looking down the wrong end of the telescope on this one, my gut feeling is that the whole “system” and our approach to it needs to change radically and that is what this and a following essay is about but first a couple of samples from the Press:

Real Unemployment: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7257667/Eight-million-people-economically-inactive.html

The Double Dip: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/hamish-mcrae/hamish-mcrae-recovery-was-never-going-to-be-easy-1908331.html

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A 70 year old idiot called Ray Gosling went on a regional chat show and claimed that he had killed a former lover suffering from Aids by smothering him with a pillow. The Independent wrote an Editorial questioning all this: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-a-misguided-intervention-1902769.html

Gosling’s claim (if true), was to say the least, totally absurd and if he is campaigning for a “Right to Die”, totally counter productive to the “cause”. This man is no martyr, just another vain attention seeking old gay fart who can’t get a shag and because being GAY is all now ‘de rigeur in the Media’ let his gob runaway with him without regard to the potential audience. It is highly likely that because of idiots like him, the ‘acceptance’ of Gay People generally by the public at large will be put back somewhat rather than’advanced’, silly old Queer !

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To my mind, the most disturbing feature of the MPs “Expenses Scandal” has been the obsequious behaviour of the Media in being unprepared to tackle the real issues involved head on, like politicians themselves, they appear too scared of the “public outrage”.

This public outrage I suspect, has as much to do with with the pomposity of the Labour Government and in particular one Gordon Brown who it is now clear, made a total horlicks of the UK economy whilst Chancellor whilst boasting that he had abolished Boom and Bust. In addition, this Parliament has effectively been dead since sometime during 2008, there should have been a 2009 election and political clear out of Westminster then.

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The following is a totally daft tale but sadly, true and concerns BT the so called telecommunications company who have designed a system to ensure that as a customer, you will never ever be allowed to ‘disturb a manager’ with a question or a complaint

On my return from living and working in the States I rented a flat in Bedfont, near Heathrow Airport and at the time BT launched ‘broadband’ which was technically fine except that they wanted you to pay for it monthly by Credit Card for some bizarre reason.

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