Losing Labour's core vote, which has happened now in London to some extent, Crewe markedly, and Glasgow East devastatingly must be the chief concern of any Labour politician. The debate about the increasing of 'choice' over publicly provided services, or the outsourcing of service provision to private entities is by the board now. Labour needs to consolidate its very foundations. The 'choice' agenda has lost out to the 'survive' agenda imposing itself in every lower paid home in the United Kingdom.
So David Miliband has been forced to act earlier than he wished, proffering a New Labour programme for the future made up of the usual empty inanities dressed as policy, because the core has begun to act to protect itself. Harriet Harman, Alan Johnson, John Cruddas, and not so much the left as the old Labour members of the Parliamentary Labour Party have rooting systems spreading through the union and affiliated party, as well as the constituency parties - the Party most shocked by the loss of Crewe, and Glasgow East. The membership of the Labour Movement is embodied here, in the unions, affiliates, and CLPs, not in the Parliamentary Labour Party.
Harman was voted into office as deputy Leader by all of these party votes, unlike the failed Leader. Others in the PLP are union-based and union supported, or affiliated with parts of the wider Labour movement. They know that the Party must exist either as its mass membership, both organised, and individuals, and seek their interests and their aims, or it will have no purpose and disintegrate. New Labour is not a purpose that interests working people and is becoming understood rapidly as inimical to their hopes and expectations now, in our changed economic circumstances made so much worse by Brown's policies.
Recognising that Labour cannot win a general election, and acknowledging that the Labour Movement has no wish to be involved in any anti-democratic manoeuvres or attempts to prolong artificially the current regime's hold on power, it is likely that David Miliband's weak and disloyal atttack upon his puppet master will be pushed aside. Pushed aside by the leaders of the Labour Movement who will accept the need to regroup, abandon the anti- working people policies of New Labour, limit the damage to the Movement and establish a firm resistance to any damage to the working conditions and lifestyles of the core Labour supporters, who will otherwise abandon the Party to oblivion.
This is not to say that people wanting a continuation of the last eleven years ahould vote Conservative. No Conservative government would engage in the financial incompetence and recklessness, the economic folly and disregard for manufacturing and infrastructures, the grotesque levels and complexities of the taxation system, the warmongering and wasted opportunities of New Labour and its punctured dreams.
It is to say that voting Labour must be a choice for the support of the working people and for their aspirations and security, not a vote for the ruined, lying, deculturalised, economic and financial wreck New Labour's idealogues have brought us to.
Thursday, 31 July 2008
Wednesday, 30 July 2008
What Is Worth Caring ABout
All this stuff about challenges, and meltdown, and full support for, and change, and listening. So what?
It's what is to be done about unfunded pensions, PFI bills coming home to roost, dishonest and incompetent national statistics so that no-one knows what is what any more, tax-mess made by all those years of Brown instead of simply pulling the lowest paid out of taxation, tax avoidance by anybody sane on a massive scale induced by the same meddling fool in the Treasury, transferring the borrowing of the dishonest onto those who remain trapped inside the tax system, and rampant, roaring inflation.
Just to mention a few worries.
It's what is to be done about unfunded pensions, PFI bills coming home to roost, dishonest and incompetent national statistics so that no-one knows what is what any more, tax-mess made by all those years of Brown instead of simply pulling the lowest paid out of taxation, tax avoidance by anybody sane on a massive scale induced by the same meddling fool in the Treasury, transferring the borrowing of the dishonest onto those who remain trapped inside the tax system, and rampant, roaring inflation.
Just to mention a few worries.
Monday, 28 July 2008
Homework
'A new report from the General Teaching Council for England suggests that although many parents would like to be involved in their child's learning, they don't think they have the right knowledge and skills to properly do so.' (Times, and, no, I can't be bothered to sort out that mess of a sentence from a 'professional' writer.)
The whole point about homework is that it substitutes for the lack of hours in the school day for repetition and for the working out of examples following the taught blue print. It should not be used for such undertakings as 'research' projects, or accession to new material or for recouping parts of the curriculum untaught for various reasons - usually classroom disruption. So why are parents feeling unable to help? Sit there with the reading book, spelling list, tables, number bonds, poetry by heart, to be learned, and refuse them their tea until they have memorised the necessary. Is that so hard? No.
Faced with collecting material on 'Castles, their uses and abuses in the history of the British Isles and elsewhere compared and contrasted', or, ' define the proper use of the ablative absolute with at least 5 examples from latin texts you have studied', and who does not blench?
Tea first, I can do tea, then they were on their own.
The whole point about homework is that it substitutes for the lack of hours in the school day for repetition and for the working out of examples following the taught blue print. It should not be used for such undertakings as 'research' projects, or accession to new material or for recouping parts of the curriculum untaught for various reasons - usually classroom disruption. So why are parents feeling unable to help? Sit there with the reading book, spelling list, tables, number bonds, poetry by heart, to be learned, and refuse them their tea until they have memorised the necessary. Is that so hard? No.
Faced with collecting material on 'Castles, their uses and abuses in the history of the British Isles and elsewhere compared and contrasted', or, ' define the proper use of the ablative absolute with at least 5 examples from latin texts you have studied', and who does not blench?
Tea first, I can do tea, then they were on their own.
The Solution
Die Lösung
Nach dem Aufstand des 17. Juni
Ließ der Sekretär des Schriftstellerverbands
In der Stalinallee Flugblätter verteilen
Auf denen zu lesen war, daß das Volk
Das Vertrauen der Regierung verscherzt habe
Und es nur durch verdoppelte Arbeit
Zurückerobern könne. Wäre es da
Nicht doch einfacher, die Regierung
Löste das Volk auf und
Wählte ein anderes?
After the uprising in every election held since he usurped power Brown is
Stating that the people
Have forfeited the confidence of the government
And can win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
[apologies to Brecht for taking liberties with the translation; taking liberties is what is needed in England].
Nach dem Aufstand des 17. Juni
Ließ der Sekretär des Schriftstellerverbands
In der Stalinallee Flugblätter verteilen
Auf denen zu lesen war, daß das Volk
Das Vertrauen der Regierung verscherzt habe
Und es nur durch verdoppelte Arbeit
Zurückerobern könne. Wäre es da
Nicht doch einfacher, die Regierung
Löste das Volk auf und
Wählte ein anderes?
After the uprising in every election held since he usurped power Brown is
Stating that the people
Have forfeited the confidence of the government
And can win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
[apologies to Brecht for taking liberties with the translation; taking liberties is what is needed in England].
Sunday, 27 July 2008
Brown Must Go Immediately
He's lost it, hasn't he? Brown. He doesn't want to understand that either there must be a general election or there must be a determined rejection of democracy. He can't go on wandering about Southwold pretending there is a job to do. There isn't for him as Prime Minister. Not unless he's prepared to accept the reality of refusing to go to the country.
Will he face the electorate and accept their judgment, in full, immediately, or will he use state power illegitimately to maintain his position?
Permitting this deluded man to press on into infamy will be the death knell of the Labour movement; the parliamentary Labour party is so steeped in self interest and corruption it can barely be regarded as part of that movement, unless it moves to co-ordinate the removal of a would be tyrant at once.
Will he face the electorate and accept their judgment, in full, immediately, or will he use state power illegitimately to maintain his position?
Permitting this deluded man to press on into infamy will be the death knell of the Labour movement; the parliamentary Labour party is so steeped in self interest and corruption it can barely be regarded as part of that movement, unless it moves to co-ordinate the removal of a would be tyrant at once.
Reforming the Union and the Parties
Neither the Labour party nor the Conservative party can expect to win seats for the Westminster parliament in Scotland. A Conservative government in Westminster will drive the Scottish independence movement further forward, and faster than any other stimulus. The seeming inevitability of a Conservative victory, should there be a general election, will see Labour's Scottish heartlands following Glasgow East in voting for a government that can stand up for them against Tory London rule.
This is the end of Labour as a serious power contender, at least as the Party is constituted at the moment. Whether it is possible to build a truly Scottish Labour party, as opposed to the Westminster appendix currently masquerading in the part, depends on the Scottish National Party being budged from the centre left ground it is holding so successfully. For the moment, it seems unlikely. And where is the English Labour movement and its Party to find its lost Scottish support? Wales? The indications from every recent election suggest that only the lack of a serious Welsh-oriented centre left party, for Plaid is not that, is leaving Labour some seats.
The Conservatives need a policy for re-ordering United Kingdom member country relations to maintain the Union and reassure Scotland that there will be no more Westminster diktats or interference in Scotland's choices on how it is governed. The Labour party's 'devolution' and its 'Britain of the countries and the regions' policy is a clear and absolute failure, and they must rethink all they have implemented both wittingly and unwittingly in their destructive years. For Labour too, there will have to be a re-ordering of the Party itself to end the authoritarianism and centralisation of power in the Executive that is the defining characteristic of New Labour.
This is the end of Labour as a serious power contender, at least as the Party is constituted at the moment. Whether it is possible to build a truly Scottish Labour party, as opposed to the Westminster appendix currently masquerading in the part, depends on the Scottish National Party being budged from the centre left ground it is holding so successfully. For the moment, it seems unlikely. And where is the English Labour movement and its Party to find its lost Scottish support? Wales? The indications from every recent election suggest that only the lack of a serious Welsh-oriented centre left party, for Plaid is not that, is leaving Labour some seats.
The Conservatives need a policy for re-ordering United Kingdom member country relations to maintain the Union and reassure Scotland that there will be no more Westminster diktats or interference in Scotland's choices on how it is governed. The Labour party's 'devolution' and its 'Britain of the countries and the regions' policy is a clear and absolute failure, and they must rethink all they have implemented both wittingly and unwittingly in their destructive years. For Labour too, there will have to be a re-ordering of the Party itself to end the authoritarianism and centralisation of power in the Executive that is the defining characteristic of New Labour.
Saturday, 26 July 2008
Glasgow East Shows What Labour Risks in Scotland
The issues are Trident, control of taxation and fiscal policy, oil, and relations with the European Union. Just to list them shows how far Scotland has asserted its interests within the current devolution provisions, and in only a little over a year with a minority government.
Trident is the most important, in terms of importance to the nature of the UK state. International status and the determination of membership of crucial bodies -not just the Security Council - rest on this, as does UK status within US global defence strategies.
There is a model of the resettling of nuclear bases provided by the break up of the Soviet Union, which went better than might have been feared or even hoped.
But resiting nuclear weapons bases, particularly Trident which is a first strike weapon, would raise huge problems and awarenesses in yet another generation that the UK state would not want at all. What part of England would accept Trident bases without protest? What relations with the US, agreements, clarifications of who is in control, would be opened up to debate again.
Settling ownership of oil and gas resources, and particularly the unexploited fields, is a reasonably clear legal process, but the loss of territorial claims to new fields that rest on the unity of the UK state and would otherwise instantly revert to Scotland, could be dramatically damaging to the English economy.
The EU is much less attractive to Scotland in its new constitutional form than it is to England. The Scottish government is making alliances with its geographical neighbours other than England which emphasise and confirm extra-EU interests, as well as accepting EU funding to set up intra-EU energy programmes and are, too, working on the exploitation of the Scottish seas and a new settlement. It makes Brown's behaviour over the ratification of the Lisbon constitution look particularly inept and irrelevant, though it does show the depths of his bullying dishonesty as a politician.
Scotland is much closer to independence than is represented in the press. And engaged in the crucial and delicate real power shifts touching every aspect of the state - not just the government of the UK - is a party Leader who is Prime Minister only because of that unelected status, represented in Scotland by a part-time minister, and whose party is in power only because of Scottish Westminster seats that are now, all of them, unsafe.
[This was written as an answer to Sackerson on the previous thread].
Trident is the most important, in terms of importance to the nature of the UK state. International status and the determination of membership of crucial bodies -not just the Security Council - rest on this, as does UK status within US global defence strategies.
There is a model of the resettling of nuclear bases provided by the break up of the Soviet Union, which went better than might have been feared or even hoped.
But resiting nuclear weapons bases, particularly Trident which is a first strike weapon, would raise huge problems and awarenesses in yet another generation that the UK state would not want at all. What part of England would accept Trident bases without protest? What relations with the US, agreements, clarifications of who is in control, would be opened up to debate again.
Settling ownership of oil and gas resources, and particularly the unexploited fields, is a reasonably clear legal process, but the loss of territorial claims to new fields that rest on the unity of the UK state and would otherwise instantly revert to Scotland, could be dramatically damaging to the English economy.
The EU is much less attractive to Scotland in its new constitutional form than it is to England. The Scottish government is making alliances with its geographical neighbours other than England which emphasise and confirm extra-EU interests, as well as accepting EU funding to set up intra-EU energy programmes and are, too, working on the exploitation of the Scottish seas and a new settlement. It makes Brown's behaviour over the ratification of the Lisbon constitution look particularly inept and irrelevant, though it does show the depths of his bullying dishonesty as a politician.
Scotland is much closer to independence than is represented in the press. And engaged in the crucial and delicate real power shifts touching every aspect of the state - not just the government of the UK - is a party Leader who is Prime Minister only because of that unelected status, represented in Scotland by a part-time minister, and whose party is in power only because of Scottish Westminster seats that are now, all of them, unsafe.
[This was written as an answer to Sackerson on the previous thread].
Friday, 25 July 2008
The Voice of Reason
“I wonder whether we can put up with this for another 18 months.
“... whenever people have had a chance to speak about this Government, whether at the local elections, whether in Crewe, whether in Henley, whether in the London mayor elections and now in Glasgow, they have said 'Look, we think you’re failing and we want change’.”
“...the Prime Minister should have his holiday but then... we need an election. ... we need change in this country, and that’s how change should come about.” (David Cameron, speaking this morning).
“... whenever people have had a chance to speak about this Government, whether at the local elections, whether in Crewe, whether in Henley, whether in the London mayor elections and now in Glasgow, they have said 'Look, we think you’re failing and we want change’.”
“...the Prime Minister should have his holiday but then... we need an election. ... we need change in this country, and that’s how change should come about.” (David Cameron, speaking this morning).
What does it mean for the Union?
Voting Scottish Nationalist cannot be dressed up as just an anti New Labour vote. The very name of the Scottish Nationalist Party says it all. People in Glasgow East, cradle of the Labour movement, chose to support Scottish independence.
The relationships between the countries of the United Kingdom must be recast or the United Kingdom will fracture irretrievably. The New Labour devolution of 'the powers of a parish council' to Scotland and Wales, rather than the true remaking of the Union, has brought this result. As New Labour's failed policies, persistent lying, individuals' corruption, warmongering, and dishonoured manifesto commitments have brought poverty, poor services, denied democratic control and left the United Kingdom infinitely vulnerable as a revenge target for the illegal attacks on Iraq, as veto powers are handed by Executive act to the European Union, as the surveillance regime is installed upon all of us, and the country collapses into the steady misery of recession, the Scots know it doesn't have to be accepted.
Of course people who have had the chance to vote have done so motivated by the observed threat to their living standards, and the experienced degradation of their services and their environment both physical and social, but it is a cheap and patronising interpretation of their democratic votes to deny that we are all aware of what is being destroyed in our country.
In Scotland they voted out Labour at a national level and have now taken the first opportunity to vote out a Labour representative at United Kingdom level. The experience of government by the Scottish National Party has been widely agreed to be professional, highly competent, socially just and rightly determined in forcing the machinery of devolution to function, and correct in its political actions to raise Scottish self determination. No nuclear power stations, no nuclear waste dumping, well-received links being built with the other countries of the north and western Europe, a proper regard for defending agriculture and fisheries, a determination to resettle oil issues, the encouragement of Scotland's other great strengths - tourism advanced academic and industrial research.... the list is well known.
Scottish vision is embodied in the Scottish National Party governance, and the dying Labour regime is not going to take Scotland down with it. In the hollow pretence that the electors of Glasgow East were voting only on narrowly defined issues that Labour can explain away as beyond their control, the Labour regime risks even further rejection of Scotland's remaining within the Union. If the relations within the Union are not redefined and settled more equitably for England and its people as well as Scotland, the realignment will be imposed by the Scottish people to the disadvantage of us all.
The relationships between the countries of the United Kingdom must be recast or the United Kingdom will fracture irretrievably. The New Labour devolution of 'the powers of a parish council' to Scotland and Wales, rather than the true remaking of the Union, has brought this result. As New Labour's failed policies, persistent lying, individuals' corruption, warmongering, and dishonoured manifesto commitments have brought poverty, poor services, denied democratic control and left the United Kingdom infinitely vulnerable as a revenge target for the illegal attacks on Iraq, as veto powers are handed by Executive act to the European Union, as the surveillance regime is installed upon all of us, and the country collapses into the steady misery of recession, the Scots know it doesn't have to be accepted.
Of course people who have had the chance to vote have done so motivated by the observed threat to their living standards, and the experienced degradation of their services and their environment both physical and social, but it is a cheap and patronising interpretation of their democratic votes to deny that we are all aware of what is being destroyed in our country.
In Scotland they voted out Labour at a national level and have now taken the first opportunity to vote out a Labour representative at United Kingdom level. The experience of government by the Scottish National Party has been widely agreed to be professional, highly competent, socially just and rightly determined in forcing the machinery of devolution to function, and correct in its political actions to raise Scottish self determination. No nuclear power stations, no nuclear waste dumping, well-received links being built with the other countries of the north and western Europe, a proper regard for defending agriculture and fisheries, a determination to resettle oil issues, the encouragement of Scotland's other great strengths - tourism advanced academic and industrial research.... the list is well known.
Scottish vision is embodied in the Scottish National Party governance, and the dying Labour regime is not going to take Scotland down with it. In the hollow pretence that the electors of Glasgow East were voting only on narrowly defined issues that Labour can explain away as beyond their control, the Labour regime risks even further rejection of Scotland's remaining within the Union. If the relations within the Union are not redefined and settled more equitably for England and its people as well as Scotland, the realignment will be imposed by the Scottish people to the disadvantage of us all.
Thursday, 24 July 2008
A Horrible Thought About Gordon Brown
Should the SNP take Glasgow East, or come anywhere near it, then Kirkcaldy and Cowden Beath will not be a safe seat for the Leader any longer. Which constituency with a huge Labour majority is in line for its member of Parliament to be ennobled, and then awarded a Brown candidacy? Or are there already no safe seats left for Labour even before the Declaration?
Labour's Failures at Every Undertaking
Tony Blair led New Labour to victory in 2005 offering these pledges:
1. Your family better off
2. Your family treated better and faster
3. Your child achieving more
4. Your country's borders protected
5. Your community safer
6. Your children with the best start
Apart from Blair being defenestrated and replaced by the unelected current Leader (pace Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath electors) who survives on Blair's majority, there is the problem of where we now find ourselves under the New Labour knout.
Families are paying almost £1500 a year more in food and energy costs alone, never mind their housing costs which are excluded from the false inflation figures provided by the regime.
Families are subjected to country, regional, and postcode discrimination in accessing all and any aspect of health care when using the NHS.
More than 40% of children leaving primary school for secondary education are functionally illiterate and innumerate.
Immigration, from inside and outside the European Union, is no longer counted by any government measure. They have lost even the possibility of counting who, and how many, enter the country.
56 young people have been knifed to death in the last 2 months. Alcohol and drug- fuelled disorder is commonplace in all communities and worse in less-affluent centres.
Children are being finger-printed, removed from their parents' care at birth, placed for adoption by force, subjected to gross levels of bullying in and out of school, failing academically, and levels of child labour are rising fast.
It's not just Glasgow East. It's everywhere. In Glasgow East there is the chance to speak for everyone today.
Vote.
1. Your family better off
2. Your family treated better and faster
3. Your child achieving more
4. Your country's borders protected
5. Your community safer
6. Your children with the best start
Apart from Blair being defenestrated and replaced by the unelected current Leader (pace Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath electors) who survives on Blair's majority, there is the problem of where we now find ourselves under the New Labour knout.
Families are paying almost £1500 a year more in food and energy costs alone, never mind their housing costs which are excluded from the false inflation figures provided by the regime.
Families are subjected to country, regional, and postcode discrimination in accessing all and any aspect of health care when using the NHS.
More than 40% of children leaving primary school for secondary education are functionally illiterate and innumerate.
Immigration, from inside and outside the European Union, is no longer counted by any government measure. They have lost even the possibility of counting who, and how many, enter the country.
56 young people have been knifed to death in the last 2 months. Alcohol and drug- fuelled disorder is commonplace in all communities and worse in less-affluent centres.
Children are being finger-printed, removed from their parents' care at birth, placed for adoption by force, subjected to gross levels of bullying in and out of school, failing academically, and levels of child labour are rising fast.
It's not just Glasgow East. It's everywhere. In Glasgow East there is the chance to speak for everyone today.
Vote.
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
Pay Your Money and Have Whatever Houses You choose
The Living Working Countryside review has some illiberal proposals. Some houses are to be sold not for what the market will bear, but for less because houses are to be categorised as 'first' and 'second' homes. If the local authority and the tax authorities offer financial advantages for nominating houses in various categories then obviously any advantage will be accepted and maximised. But if an owner pays the going rate council tax and the going rate capital gains tax on any property they choose to own (something to be supported whole heartedly, why ever are these subsidies offered?), who is to restrict anyone owning whatever they like and can afford?
Is this regime seriously proposing to require owners to live in their own property? Remissions on costs can certainly be withdrawn (and won't add much to outgoings any way). But that is very different from sequestering properties and imposing usage conditions in the name of housing people who have less money than others. What happened to building council houses for those on low incomes?
Is this regime seriously proposing to require owners to live in their own property? Remissions on costs can certainly be withdrawn (and won't add much to outgoings any way). But that is very different from sequestering properties and imposing usage conditions in the name of housing people who have less money than others. What happened to building council houses for those on low incomes?
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
Poor and Closely Watched
Sixty billion pounds has been spent on various schemes to encourage employment take-up since 1997. Even more goes out on welfare 'incapacity' benefits. The proposals for reforming this disaster are ineffective and unattractive. The plan is to reassess recipients and ensure that they really are incapable of working. Those on other kinds of benefit may be required to work for their dole, and prove themselves available for employment by signing on every day thus demonstrating under constant monitoring that they are not working in the grey and black economies.
This is supervised poverty. What an inglorious end to Labour as the party of the working people.
This is supervised poverty. What an inglorious end to Labour as the party of the working people.
Monday, 21 July 2008
Mr Embarrassing
To die of embarrassment barely begins to react to the ill-written, bombastic, lying nonsense spouted by the incompetent posing as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (what he vulgarly refers to as 'Britain') before the Parliament of Israel.
'Britain' would 'increase the pressure on Teheran until President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad halted his atomic programme'. So Brown can set up 40 nuclear power stations, over riding current planning laws to do so, but the Iranians had better watch their step or Cowardy Custard will 'increase pressure' on them.
"Our country will continue to lead, with the US and our European partners [mass leadership then? A sort of rabble at the front, more than a United Kingdom leadership here. And we do not have 'European partners', we have an uneasy association with a European Union that regards its foreign policy as theirs to impose and ours to accept, now all vetoes we could have used have been thrown away by Executive act rather than democratic decision] in our determination to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapons programme. We stand ready to lead [thought you were leading already, sort yourself, or at least your thoughts on this issue, out] in taking firmer sanctions,".
'Turning on Mr Ahmadinejad, [bet he didn't flinch], the Prime Minister said': "To those who believe that threatening statements fall upon indifferent ears we [who is we, precisely? Certainly you, Brown, do not speak for America or for the European Union] say in one voice that it is totally abhorrent for the President of Iran to call for Israel to be wiped from the map of the world." [Well, usually we say 'the face of the Earth' but something from your mind has entered the mind of your speech writer and infected it with infelicitous use of word, gesture and rhetorical device. Are we surprised? No, you could and have spoiled anything and everything, not just the lives but even the minds of others, Brown].
Mr Brown stressed his own personal attachment to Israel, [Angels do not know the universal and instantaneous lament that will spring to the lips of Jews the world over at the revelation that the ultimate Jonah has embraced their being, but lament away now] recalling how his father, a Church of Scotland Minister, paid frequent visits to the country. [That speaks for itself. Jonahism is hereditary it seems.] "For the whole of my life, I have counted myself a friend of Israel". [All Angels can say here is 'Jesus'].
He added: "Britain is your true friend. [Thank goodness they know that 'Britain' is a virtual rather than real power, being as they are from Israel and therefore very sharp]. A friend in difficult times as well as in good times, [what kind of friends does Brown have? unfortunate revelation of self and circumstances here] a friend who will stand beside you whenever your peace, your stability and your existence are under threat; a friend who shares an unbreakable partnership based on shared values of liberty, democracy and justice. [Share those values with Brown and you can give up the ghost].
"Britain and Israel continue to stand together. [Where, exactly, would that be? We all wish Israel well, as they do us, so what's all this standing about then?] So to those who question Israel's right to exist and threaten the lives of its citizens through terror we [We, who, precisely?] say: the people of Israel have a right to live here, to live freely and to live in security." [So does everybody. All people who on Earth do dwell.... thought his father was a priest. Is that a lie too?]
However, [Don't you just loathe that however word. It means invariably that everything that has gone before was a load of lies. Still, anyone condemned to listen to Brown trying to say G'Day in Hebrew and muffing it (is that a word or action allowed close to the word Brown these days?, should be unsurprised at its entrance], Mr Brown added that Israel itself [as opposed to some other Israel?] needed to make concessions to its neighbours to secure "a historic hard won and lasting peace" which had been brought within reach by the cooperation of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas - Israel's "best partner of a generation". [It is here that expiry from embarrassment occurs. What, on Earth, business is this of the unelected, Scottish, derided, contemptible so-called prime, minister of, heaven help us, our country?]
He urged Israel to create the conditions for a final agreement [not the happiest choice of words - final agreement - try not to say final anything when at the table of Jewish friends and pretending to speak for us, Brown] by "freezing, and withdrawing from settlements." [And stop wasting food; anything can be frozen and got out later for some horrific, Brownian meal].
He added "like many of your friends, [Angels would add enemies too] I urge you to make these decisions."
One member of the Israeli parliament heckled as Mr Brown delived what he described as his "honest analysis." [Only the one? Quite some level of contempt].
'The prime minister had tried to begin his speech in Hebrew but struggled with the pronunciation of "nazal tov", or good fortunes, and "shalon Aleichem" or peace to unto you.' (Telegraph) [It's that weird jaw position, set permanently to telling lies. It doesn't do good wishes, never mind truth].
'Britain' would 'increase the pressure on Teheran until President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad halted his atomic programme'. So Brown can set up 40 nuclear power stations, over riding current planning laws to do so, but the Iranians had better watch their step or Cowardy Custard will 'increase pressure' on them.
"Our country will continue to lead, with the US and our European partners [mass leadership then? A sort of rabble at the front, more than a United Kingdom leadership here. And we do not have 'European partners', we have an uneasy association with a European Union that regards its foreign policy as theirs to impose and ours to accept, now all vetoes we could have used have been thrown away by Executive act rather than democratic decision] in our determination to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapons programme. We stand ready to lead [thought you were leading already, sort yourself, or at least your thoughts on this issue, out] in taking firmer sanctions,".
'Turning on Mr Ahmadinejad, [bet he didn't flinch], the Prime Minister said': "To those who believe that threatening statements fall upon indifferent ears we [who is we, precisely? Certainly you, Brown, do not speak for America or for the European Union] say in one voice that it is totally abhorrent for the President of Iran to call for Israel to be wiped from the map of the world." [Well, usually we say 'the face of the Earth' but something from your mind has entered the mind of your speech writer and infected it with infelicitous use of word, gesture and rhetorical device. Are we surprised? No, you could and have spoiled anything and everything, not just the lives but even the minds of others, Brown].
Mr Brown stressed his own personal attachment to Israel, [Angels do not know the universal and instantaneous lament that will spring to the lips of Jews the world over at the revelation that the ultimate Jonah has embraced their being, but lament away now] recalling how his father, a Church of Scotland Minister, paid frequent visits to the country. [That speaks for itself. Jonahism is hereditary it seems.] "For the whole of my life, I have counted myself a friend of Israel". [All Angels can say here is 'Jesus'].
He added: "Britain is your true friend. [Thank goodness they know that 'Britain' is a virtual rather than real power, being as they are from Israel and therefore very sharp]. A friend in difficult times as well as in good times, [what kind of friends does Brown have? unfortunate revelation of self and circumstances here] a friend who will stand beside you whenever your peace, your stability and your existence are under threat; a friend who shares an unbreakable partnership based on shared values of liberty, democracy and justice. [Share those values with Brown and you can give up the ghost].
"Britain and Israel continue to stand together. [Where, exactly, would that be? We all wish Israel well, as they do us, so what's all this standing about then?] So to those who question Israel's right to exist and threaten the lives of its citizens through terror we [We, who, precisely?] say: the people of Israel have a right to live here, to live freely and to live in security." [So does everybody. All people who on Earth do dwell.... thought his father was a priest. Is that a lie too?]
However, [Don't you just loathe that however word. It means invariably that everything that has gone before was a load of lies. Still, anyone condemned to listen to Brown trying to say G'Day in Hebrew and muffing it (is that a word or action allowed close to the word Brown these days?, should be unsurprised at its entrance], Mr Brown added that Israel itself [as opposed to some other Israel?] needed to make concessions to its neighbours to secure "a historic hard won and lasting peace" which had been brought within reach by the cooperation of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas - Israel's "best partner of a generation". [It is here that expiry from embarrassment occurs. What, on Earth, business is this of the unelected, Scottish, derided, contemptible so-called prime, minister of, heaven help us, our country?]
He urged Israel to create the conditions for a final agreement [not the happiest choice of words - final agreement - try not to say final anything when at the table of Jewish friends and pretending to speak for us, Brown] by "freezing, and withdrawing from settlements." [And stop wasting food; anything can be frozen and got out later for some horrific, Brownian meal].
He added "like many of your friends, [Angels would add enemies too] I urge you to make these decisions."
One member of the Israeli parliament heckled as Mr Brown delived what he described as his "honest analysis." [Only the one? Quite some level of contempt].
'The prime minister had tried to begin his speech in Hebrew but struggled with the pronunciation of "nazal tov", or good fortunes, and "shalon Aleichem" or peace to unto you.' (Telegraph) [It's that weird jaw position, set permanently to telling lies. It doesn't do good wishes, never mind truth].
Sunday, 20 July 2008
Fair Does
The Times reports that a 'child who had performed much better than a classmate in the Key Stage 2 English test was marked lower.'
Child A wrote about Pip Davenport, a fairground inventor, “If he wasent doing enthing els heel help his uncle Herry at the funfair during the day. And had stoody at nigh on other thing he did was invent new rides. “Becoues he invented a lot of new rides he won a prize. He didn’t live with his mum he lived with his wife.”
Child B wrote, “Quickly, it became apparent that Pip was a fantastic rider: a complete natural. But it was his love of horses that led to a tragic accident. An accident that would change his life forever. At the age of 7, he was training for a local competition when his horse, Mandy, swerved sideways unexpectedly, throwing Pip on to the ground, paralysed.”
'Both children were awarded five out of eight for sentence structure. Child A was given eight out of twelve for composition and effect while Child B received only seven marks.'
Performed much better?
The second script is punctuated well and using commas too often is open to taste. The correct use of a double point is impressive. The spelling conforms to standard usage, indeed the spelling of: apparent, led, forever, swerved, sideways, unexpectedly, and paralysed puts countless bloggers to shame. Usually numbers are written in full in such a text so the use of a numeral is failing to conform. Being severe, 'thrown to the ground', not 'on to the ground' conforms better.
The other text needs more extensive editing.
“If he [wasn't]wasent doing [anything]enthing [else]els [he would help]heel his uncle [Harry]Herry at the funfair during the day[,][delete .] [and]And had [to study]stoody at [night]nigh[insert full point] [One]on other thing he did was invent new rides. [Because]Becoues he invented a lot of new rides he won a prize. He didn’t live with his [M]mum [,] he lived with his wife.”
"If he wasn't doing anything else he would help his uncle Harry at the funfair during the day, and had to study at night. One other thing he did was invent new rides. Because he invented a lot of new rides he won a prize. He didn't live with his Mum, he lived with his wife."
“Quickly, it became apparent that Pip was a fantastic rider: a complete natural. But it was his love of horses that led to a tragic accident. An accident that would change his life forever. At the age of seven he was training for a local competition when his horse, Mandy, swerved sideways unexpectedly, throwing Pip to the ground, paralysed.”
The marks were fair. Child A speaks with a lively, observant, eleven year old voice. Child B has been tutored more to conform to objectives that have silenced that liveliness and produced a 'correct' but curiously sad text.
Rhetorical usage, standard spelling, punctuation, are essential. But child A has the edge in communicating time, place, personality and character. Pip the prizewinning fairground rides inventor comes alive, with an uncle Harry who is part of the funfair and whom he loves, studying in the evenings, and a Mum who one day he will no longer live with and, instead, a wife.
Having a horse called Mandy, who swerves, and being paralysed from the fall at seven?
We should be vey careful about imposing conformity at such a cost to insight, imagination, fantasy and the sharing of emotion.
Child A wrote about Pip Davenport, a fairground inventor, “If he wasent doing enthing els heel help his uncle Herry at the funfair during the day. And had stoody at nigh on other thing he did was invent new rides. “Becoues he invented a lot of new rides he won a prize. He didn’t live with his mum he lived with his wife.”
Child B wrote, “Quickly, it became apparent that Pip was a fantastic rider: a complete natural. But it was his love of horses that led to a tragic accident. An accident that would change his life forever. At the age of 7, he was training for a local competition when his horse, Mandy, swerved sideways unexpectedly, throwing Pip on to the ground, paralysed.”
'Both children were awarded five out of eight for sentence structure. Child A was given eight out of twelve for composition and effect while Child B received only seven marks.'
Performed much better?
The second script is punctuated well and using commas too often is open to taste. The correct use of a double point is impressive. The spelling conforms to standard usage, indeed the spelling of: apparent, led, forever, swerved, sideways, unexpectedly, and paralysed puts countless bloggers to shame. Usually numbers are written in full in such a text so the use of a numeral is failing to conform. Being severe, 'thrown to the ground', not 'on to the ground' conforms better.
The other text needs more extensive editing.
“If he [wasn't]wasent doing [anything]enthing [else]els [he would help]heel his uncle [Harry]Herry at the funfair during the day[,][delete .] [and]And had [to study]stoody at [night]nigh[insert full point] [One]on other thing he did was invent new rides. [Because]Becoues he invented a lot of new rides he won a prize. He didn’t live with his [M]mum [,] he lived with his wife.”
"If he wasn't doing anything else he would help his uncle Harry at the funfair during the day, and had to study at night. One other thing he did was invent new rides. Because he invented a lot of new rides he won a prize. He didn't live with his Mum, he lived with his wife."
“Quickly, it became apparent that Pip was a fantastic rider: a complete natural. But it was his love of horses that led to a tragic accident. An accident that would change his life forever. At the age of seven he was training for a local competition when his horse, Mandy, swerved sideways unexpectedly, throwing Pip to the ground, paralysed.”
The marks were fair. Child A speaks with a lively, observant, eleven year old voice. Child B has been tutored more to conform to objectives that have silenced that liveliness and produced a 'correct' but curiously sad text.
Rhetorical usage, standard spelling, punctuation, are essential. But child A has the edge in communicating time, place, personality and character. Pip the prizewinning fairground rides inventor comes alive, with an uncle Harry who is part of the funfair and whom he loves, studying in the evenings, and a Mum who one day he will no longer live with and, instead, a wife.
Having a horse called Mandy, who swerves, and being paralysed from the fall at seven?
We should be vey careful about imposing conformity at such a cost to insight, imagination, fantasy and the sharing of emotion.
Friday, 18 July 2008
Mr Stupid
John Eatwell and Avinash Persaud, writing in the Financial Times, (Fannie and Freddie, damned by a Faustian bargain) underscore the sheer incompetence of financial, economic and regulatory policies pursued by New Labour. There are few things to regret about Kinnock losing the 'put out the lights' election but one of them was that John Eatwell did not become the economic guru for Labour.
Never and then never would the ignorance uniquely combined with arrogance of Balls and Brown have wreked such damage on the livelihoods of people in the UK had sensible advisors been at the Treasury. Not Maynard Keynes, or Nicki Kaldor (considering the tax mess Brown created) but intellectually and technically competent and trained professionals would have prevented our current nightmare.
Half-baked personnel lead to half-baked policies. Everyone knew Brown was trouble, everyone didn't want trouble while they took power, so they gave him a sop thinking to lose him later. What they left out of their power-seeking equation was what Brown was dragging along with him, fawning idiots instantly recognized by Heseltine in his classic put down, but grotesquely determined in their ambition.
When the minister is Mr Stupid and his political coterie a rabble of power-seeking inadequates, much can rest on the quality and steadiness of technical appointments and civil service senior staff. It can be of greater importance than which Party is in power, or which Party Leader becomes prime minister. So it is now; we have had Mr Stupid for 11 years.
We would have been infinitely safer under Kinnock.
Never and then never would the ignorance uniquely combined with arrogance of Balls and Brown have wreked such damage on the livelihoods of people in the UK had sensible advisors been at the Treasury. Not Maynard Keynes, or Nicki Kaldor (considering the tax mess Brown created) but intellectually and technically competent and trained professionals would have prevented our current nightmare.
Half-baked personnel lead to half-baked policies. Everyone knew Brown was trouble, everyone didn't want trouble while they took power, so they gave him a sop thinking to lose him later. What they left out of their power-seeking equation was what Brown was dragging along with him, fawning idiots instantly recognized by Heseltine in his classic put down, but grotesquely determined in their ambition.
When the minister is Mr Stupid and his political coterie a rabble of power-seeking inadequates, much can rest on the quality and steadiness of technical appointments and civil service senior staff. It can be of greater importance than which Party is in power, or which Party Leader becomes prime minister. So it is now; we have had Mr Stupid for 11 years.
We would have been infinitely safer under Kinnock.
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
The Risk of a Return to Feudalism Recast
Never having lived in a financial meltdown, it must be said it's a spectacular occurrence. Economic theoretical positions are being destroyed before our eyes. There is little agreement on which effects interventions by authorities are trying to control, or even what those interventions should be. Or even if there is any authority able to intervene, or should be making such intervention claims.
This last is more worrying because any regime with an authoritarian psychosis assumes that the regime can and should intervene in the lives of others and is welcoming this opening of fields of activity that individuals formerly played on.
What the forces of economics and failing institutions at national and international level will grind into history is going to happen - faster, slower, it has a geological inevitability. But what irresponsible and dishonest opportunism will ride on the shifts in power and control of resources is unveiling itself already. The loss of individual and private control over livelihood and life choices, currently making for a poor and restricted enjoyment of opportunity and potential, is becoming not consequential but ever more coercive.
Quite soon it may be difficult to withdraw deposits from any bank; formally made difficult by regime regulation in the name of maintaining confidence and orderly financial relations. It may become difficult to organise to obtain higher wages, and planned control of incomes will be centrally decided, though this will not be the same as the wage control policies of Wilson's day and other Labour former governments. Work itself will be reconceived not as the sale of labour for a given sum and in certain conditions, but as a way of qualifying for social existence and regime-surveilled and provided, 24/7 activity. In many ways it will be a revisiting of pre-capitalist feudal structures, with labour dues and fealty required by hierarchical local, and regional, power holders - known now as stake-holders, but carrying titles and centrally-awarded status and income in return for services rendered. They are in position today.
Freedom of movement, curtailed now, will become a sanctioned activity, rather than governed by cost and opportunity. Communications will need to be face to face for privacy to be ensured, so travel control (and the proposed national communications data base) will be of some regime urgency to install.
Choice will be the key propaganda concept masking the classing into consumption categories of the national population as their consumption behaviour is modelled and channelled into cost-effective provision for their category.
Watching the financial, and then economic earth quake is unnerving yet fascinating. Living its political aftermath needs mass involvement and assertion of individualism and effective control of governance and its growth and control agenda by defended and embedded state guarantees of freedom.
This last is more worrying because any regime with an authoritarian psychosis assumes that the regime can and should intervene in the lives of others and is welcoming this opening of fields of activity that individuals formerly played on.
What the forces of economics and failing institutions at national and international level will grind into history is going to happen - faster, slower, it has a geological inevitability. But what irresponsible and dishonest opportunism will ride on the shifts in power and control of resources is unveiling itself already. The loss of individual and private control over livelihood and life choices, currently making for a poor and restricted enjoyment of opportunity and potential, is becoming not consequential but ever more coercive.
Quite soon it may be difficult to withdraw deposits from any bank; formally made difficult by regime regulation in the name of maintaining confidence and orderly financial relations. It may become difficult to organise to obtain higher wages, and planned control of incomes will be centrally decided, though this will not be the same as the wage control policies of Wilson's day and other Labour former governments. Work itself will be reconceived not as the sale of labour for a given sum and in certain conditions, but as a way of qualifying for social existence and regime-surveilled and provided, 24/7 activity. In many ways it will be a revisiting of pre-capitalist feudal structures, with labour dues and fealty required by hierarchical local, and regional, power holders - known now as stake-holders, but carrying titles and centrally-awarded status and income in return for services rendered. They are in position today.
Freedom of movement, curtailed now, will become a sanctioned activity, rather than governed by cost and opportunity. Communications will need to be face to face for privacy to be ensured, so travel control (and the proposed national communications data base) will be of some regime urgency to install.
Choice will be the key propaganda concept masking the classing into consumption categories of the national population as their consumption behaviour is modelled and channelled into cost-effective provision for their category.
Watching the financial, and then economic earth quake is unnerving yet fascinating. Living its political aftermath needs mass involvement and assertion of individualism and effective control of governance and its growth and control agenda by defended and embedded state guarantees of freedom.
Monday, 14 July 2008
Armed
Mr Brown said: "We need to make it absolutely clear to everyone, but especially young people, that in our country there are boundaries of acceptable behaviour (and) that it is completely unacceptable to carry a knife."
You don't carry a knife Brown, you carry a panga.
You don't carry a knife Brown, you carry a panga.
Union
The Union of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland needs to be reconsidered. The reconsideration must involve all the people in all the divers parts of the Union. It cannot be right to have only the Scottish people engaged in a 'National Conversation' about their relations with England, Wales and the British counties of Ulster.
There is great bitterness lying across all of these relationships; and enormous, strategic resources, and great wealth involved too.
We should not allow such a contemptible regime as Brown's to make irreversible choices (or reversible only with levels of violence we had thought to have ended within these Islands - the only claim New Labour can make to establishing the good) on behalf of us all.
The necessity of a general election that is conducted on manifestos offering choices for the union of the United Kingdom, and choices on the nature of our union with Europe is paramount.
There is great bitterness lying across all of these relationships; and enormous, strategic resources, and great wealth involved too.
We should not allow such a contemptible regime as Brown's to make irreversible choices (or reversible only with levels of violence we had thought to have ended within these Islands - the only claim New Labour can make to establishing the good) on behalf of us all.
The necessity of a general election that is conducted on manifestos offering choices for the union of the United Kingdom, and choices on the nature of our union with Europe is paramount.
Marriage and its Purposes
Contrary to romanticist vulgarisation, marriage does not either yield lifelong love and partnership, nor does it exclude such a relationship. Marriage is a contractual, social mechanism that povides the weft to the warp of kinship systems.
Italians, which really means Roman law, say always that we know who our mother is. Fathers are socially determined. Whatever web of kinship used to shape a society, men are invariably associated within it by social categorisation. Supposed to marry your mother's brother's son? Then that is where your husband (in the sense of recognized father of the familial descendant generation) will be located. Sometimes he might even be that, but more usually that is just a part of his socially ascribed role.
Essentially, groups of men exchange women (and, variously, associated property), in the interest of maintaining their command of that most fundamental economic good, human reproduction. The next generation is ultimate wealth.
Women resent this. Well, you would, wouldn't you? Dress it up any way you like, kinship groups, dominated by males, exchange women. They do so because exchange generates society, and from social order springs power that is institutionally embedded, rather than constantly reasserted by force of arms.
These bald and unnuanced assertions of fought-over theory (oh yes, it looks like Flanders Fields out there), provides some explanation of what is being reasserted in the reality of Brown's Britain. Women are exchanging themselves, without reference to established structures and norms, in their regime-provided shelter and subsistence. It may feel like 'liberation' but in the end, when the assertions of brute force are played out, they will find out who is the 'father' of their children.
And there will be a new understanding of the meaning of to cheapen oneself. What group will make an exchange for those without a constellation of connection, sent into the world naked, without fathers, uncles, grandparents...
Those who seem to be unmarried but are surrounded by appropriate adjoined kinship groups are merely playing with the formalities and in no real danger. But those who have tried to negotiate their own exchange without understanding of contract have condemned themselves and their children to a terrible status.
Italians, which really means Roman law, say always that we know who our mother is. Fathers are socially determined. Whatever web of kinship used to shape a society, men are invariably associated within it by social categorisation. Supposed to marry your mother's brother's son? Then that is where your husband (in the sense of recognized father of the familial descendant generation) will be located. Sometimes he might even be that, but more usually that is just a part of his socially ascribed role.
Essentially, groups of men exchange women (and, variously, associated property), in the interest of maintaining their command of that most fundamental economic good, human reproduction. The next generation is ultimate wealth.
Women resent this. Well, you would, wouldn't you? Dress it up any way you like, kinship groups, dominated by males, exchange women. They do so because exchange generates society, and from social order springs power that is institutionally embedded, rather than constantly reasserted by force of arms.
These bald and unnuanced assertions of fought-over theory (oh yes, it looks like Flanders Fields out there), provides some explanation of what is being reasserted in the reality of Brown's Britain. Women are exchanging themselves, without reference to established structures and norms, in their regime-provided shelter and subsistence. It may feel like 'liberation' but in the end, when the assertions of brute force are played out, they will find out who is the 'father' of their children.
And there will be a new understanding of the meaning of to cheapen oneself. What group will make an exchange for those without a constellation of connection, sent into the world naked, without fathers, uncles, grandparents...
Those who seem to be unmarried but are surrounded by appropriate adjoined kinship groups are merely playing with the formalities and in no real danger. But those who have tried to negotiate their own exchange without understanding of contract have condemned themselves and their children to a terrible status.
Sunday, 13 July 2008
Taking From the Working to Give to the Compliant and Dishonest
Labour’s members of Parliament have told Brown in plain terms that they think the biggest obstacle to regaining popularity is his own performance, reports the Mail on a series of meetings with regional groupings.
'In a meeting at No10 with the party’s influential North West group, Mr Howarth, a member of the Privy Council, challenged Mr Brown when he blamed Labour’s woes on the economic slump. Mr Howarth told him: ‘I have to tell you that many of us think it is not so much the economy that is the problem, but you who are the problem. We would like to know what you are going to do about it.’
Brown then did a Kruschev at the United Nations, banging on the table and venting what is referred to as his 'frustration': ‘In my opinion, the real problem we face is an economic one and I am doing all I can to improve the situation.', he dissembled. When Former Whip Greg Pope 'brought the debate back to Mr Brown’s performance' stating, ‘The problems we have are not just economic, they are political as well.’, Brown demanded: ‘Trust me, I can fix the economic problems and that is the most important issue.’
Well, yes, he can keep his clients onside. Flint is offering to take on the adventurous debts taken by those without means or intention of meeting them. Local Authorities will be provided with tax-payers' money to buy up their devalued houses and unsecured borrowings of various kinds and they can return to being council tenants, after their brief fling with capitalistic risk has ended in abject failure.
Some, those paying tax, and not paid out of tax-raised funding, might feel that they had jollier things to do with their money than subsidise Brown's feckless. Or even more prudent things, like saving for their old age or for periods of unemployment. But so inappropriate are they in their view, that taking their money and using it correctly on the deserving, hard-working, heartlands, client family is the right thing to do.
No wonder people who earn their living and create wealth are fleeing for the hills, as abroad is now known. Anything to escape Brown and his hordes of rabid, conscienceless, Labour-voting, self-justifying thieves.
'In a meeting at No10 with the party’s influential North West group, Mr Howarth, a member of the Privy Council, challenged Mr Brown when he blamed Labour’s woes on the economic slump. Mr Howarth told him: ‘I have to tell you that many of us think it is not so much the economy that is the problem, but you who are the problem. We would like to know what you are going to do about it.’
Brown then did a Kruschev at the United Nations, banging on the table and venting what is referred to as his 'frustration': ‘In my opinion, the real problem we face is an economic one and I am doing all I can to improve the situation.', he dissembled. When Former Whip Greg Pope 'brought the debate back to Mr Brown’s performance' stating, ‘The problems we have are not just economic, they are political as well.’, Brown demanded: ‘Trust me, I can fix the economic problems and that is the most important issue.’
Well, yes, he can keep his clients onside. Flint is offering to take on the adventurous debts taken by those without means or intention of meeting them. Local Authorities will be provided with tax-payers' money to buy up their devalued houses and unsecured borrowings of various kinds and they can return to being council tenants, after their brief fling with capitalistic risk has ended in abject failure.
Some, those paying tax, and not paid out of tax-raised funding, might feel that they had jollier things to do with their money than subsidise Brown's feckless. Or even more prudent things, like saving for their old age or for periods of unemployment. But so inappropriate are they in their view, that taking their money and using it correctly on the deserving, hard-working, heartlands, client family is the right thing to do.
No wonder people who earn their living and create wealth are fleeing for the hills, as abroad is now known. Anything to escape Brown and his hordes of rabid, conscienceless, Labour-voting, self-justifying thieves.
Saturday, 12 July 2008
The Knives Are Out
The economic news gets worse steadily, just as was forecast. Giving credit to those without means was always going to end in tears, but it was thought to be such a clever, egalitarian, Labour thing to do - pretend that the poor could meet the requirements for prudent lending by using demutualised , heartland credit agencies that wouldn't look at the poverty of their client base, not least because the employees are part of it. Indeed entire regions of the UK are clientilised poor facing, now, the results of regime financial cynicism, for there was, after all, a lot of quick profit to be made bundling them all up and rating the bundles inappropriately, then passing the parcels of bad debtors and their debts on before the music stopped.
Nevertheless, it is not poverty having its financial mask removed and still being there with us, as it always will be, that frightens. It isn't the economy; that can go wrong any time and, cyclically, it does. What is new is the collapse of lawful and civil behaviour.
People are physically unsafe because policing has withdrawn from many areas, either completely, or at fixed periods of the day. People are not just financially poor, they are financially unsafe in that their resources are open easily to fraud from lost personal data, depredation by regime demands, or the more old-fashioned burglary. The worst threat is the denial of expectations. This is not yet a contributer to the social and cultural fear being endured at present, even though it has struck many in the private sector already.
Pensions that are expected by public sector employees are not able to be paid. The regime will repudiate the pension expectations of its engorged client state. First up will be those newly enroled into Brown's Britain's service. Then the entrants into pensionable age will find their entitlements not starting at once. Then the established pensioners will be required to accept cuts in the name of 'fairness' to all potential as well as current pension claimants. The last to be knifed will be current employees as they can cause real trouble - they might even make a concerted effort and withdraw their labour so must be left alone until the appropriate legislation and control systems are in place. Couldn't happen? It did, all over eastern Europe and the Russian Confederation as their command economies collapsed. And who has tried to run a command economy for most of us (though not the rich, national and international, operating in the London trading post) these last 11 years - out of kilter with history itself?, though the intellectual arrogance would block off that, and all, awareness.
The last threatening piece in the jigsaw picture of lawlessness is the New Labour Regime itself. As we whooped it up on credit we could never repay, the Regime mined the bedrock of our state and its defences, lopping limbs from a body politic and constitutional, blinding and crippling until a basket case is our last defence aginst criminal and gang governance, against mishap and undeserved misfortune, is the under writer of our commitment to each other in the most general and therefore most binding ways. And it is gone, leaving nothing to restrain the use of force and protect the weak, which is most of us, from naked power and its wielding. Wielding right down at local levels too.
The devastation of the economy is but the beginning.
Nevertheless, it is not poverty having its financial mask removed and still being there with us, as it always will be, that frightens. It isn't the economy; that can go wrong any time and, cyclically, it does. What is new is the collapse of lawful and civil behaviour.
People are physically unsafe because policing has withdrawn from many areas, either completely, or at fixed periods of the day. People are not just financially poor, they are financially unsafe in that their resources are open easily to fraud from lost personal data, depredation by regime demands, or the more old-fashioned burglary. The worst threat is the denial of expectations. This is not yet a contributer to the social and cultural fear being endured at present, even though it has struck many in the private sector already.
Pensions that are expected by public sector employees are not able to be paid. The regime will repudiate the pension expectations of its engorged client state. First up will be those newly enroled into Brown's Britain's service. Then the entrants into pensionable age will find their entitlements not starting at once. Then the established pensioners will be required to accept cuts in the name of 'fairness' to all potential as well as current pension claimants. The last to be knifed will be current employees as they can cause real trouble - they might even make a concerted effort and withdraw their labour so must be left alone until the appropriate legislation and control systems are in place. Couldn't happen? It did, all over eastern Europe and the Russian Confederation as their command economies collapsed. And who has tried to run a command economy for most of us (though not the rich, national and international, operating in the London trading post) these last 11 years - out of kilter with history itself?, though the intellectual arrogance would block off that, and all, awareness.
The last threatening piece in the jigsaw picture of lawlessness is the New Labour Regime itself. As we whooped it up on credit we could never repay, the Regime mined the bedrock of our state and its defences, lopping limbs from a body politic and constitutional, blinding and crippling until a basket case is our last defence aginst criminal and gang governance, against mishap and undeserved misfortune, is the under writer of our commitment to each other in the most general and therefore most binding ways. And it is gone, leaving nothing to restrain the use of force and protect the weak, which is most of us, from naked power and its wielding. Wielding right down at local levels too.
The devastation of the economy is but the beginning.
Thursday, 10 July 2008
No to TV Licences
Are you receiving violent, abusive, arrogant, threatening letters from the BBC licensing administration when you decide to dispose of your television?
Shall we take our tv sets to their headquarters so that they can see we have thrown them out?
Do you think this will make them leave us alone and stop sending cruel and frightening envelopes of visciousness to tinkers, tailors, soldiers, sailors, rich men, poor men, beggar men and thieves?
Shall we take our tv sets to their headquarters so that they can see we have thrown them out?
Do you think this will make them leave us alone and stop sending cruel and frightening envelopes of visciousness to tinkers, tailors, soldiers, sailors, rich men, poor men, beggar men and thieves?
Tuesday, 8 July 2008
Licence
Owning a television is subject to a tax, a poll tax. The explanation is in terms of funding public service broadcasting. The complaint is that:
the tax is regressive
the service is highly politicised to self-serving, and then authoritarian, ends resulting in an improper warping of neutral reporting into a ministry for regime propaganda
the ownership of a receiver does not mean any use of public service broadcasts that could readily be made free to air no longer.
So unpopular is the tax on ownership of a television that many choose to entertain themselves with their computers, and listen to the wireless. It's time the tax was transferred to the ownership of a computer; or perhaps charged additionally to the television tax, to raise much-needed revenue from many computer-users already suspected of libertarian tendencies and of an unhelpful attitude to paying taxes.
[This is the second in a small series of posts under the provisional title:
'This Is How They Are Thinking.'
The first: 'Managing Democratic Expectations in the Post-Democratic State.' was published on 25 June 2008]
the tax is regressive
the service is highly politicised to self-serving, and then authoritarian, ends resulting in an improper warping of neutral reporting into a ministry for regime propaganda
the ownership of a receiver does not mean any use of public service broadcasts that could readily be made free to air no longer.
So unpopular is the tax on ownership of a television that many choose to entertain themselves with their computers, and listen to the wireless. It's time the tax was transferred to the ownership of a computer; or perhaps charged additionally to the television tax, to raise much-needed revenue from many computer-users already suspected of libertarian tendencies and of an unhelpful attitude to paying taxes.
[This is the second in a small series of posts under the provisional title:
'This Is How They Are Thinking.'
The first: 'Managing Democratic Expectations in the Post-Democratic State.' was published on 25 June 2008]
The Rule Book and Harriet Harman
A general election is needed now. Confidence in the Prime Minister can be lower only in the face of the end of the world. Many economic and financial commenters suggest, with a great deal of unnerving evidence, that the end of the world is what we are entering. So just to set out, straight and true, the formal rules governing what happens should our intellectually, morally and emotionally challenged new Labour Prime Minister be clawed down by his rabid colleagues:
when the Party is in power and the Leader, for whatever reason, can no longer serve as Prime Minister, the Cabinet will choose the new Prime Minister.
Alles klar? Not the deputy Leader stepping up to the plate, that's for when the Party is in Opposition, and is why Margaret Beckett took over automatically until a Party election for Leader could be held.
When in power the Cabinet chooses.
The notion that in such times the new Labour cabinet should impose yet another unelected Prime Minister upon a country that has used every means to express its rejection of Labour and its policies (where we have been able to discover them, its vision is still a shy creature) signifies either that we are now wholly bereft of any remnant of a constitutional state governed by democratic and extra-party rules, or that some part of the constitutional state is no longer performing its duties.
when the Party is in power and the Leader, for whatever reason, can no longer serve as Prime Minister, the Cabinet will choose the new Prime Minister.
Alles klar? Not the deputy Leader stepping up to the plate, that's for when the Party is in Opposition, and is why Margaret Beckett took over automatically until a Party election for Leader could be held.
When in power the Cabinet chooses.
The notion that in such times the new Labour cabinet should impose yet another unelected Prime Minister upon a country that has used every means to express its rejection of Labour and its policies (where we have been able to discover them, its vision is still a shy creature) signifies either that we are now wholly bereft of any remnant of a constitutional state governed by democratic and extra-party rules, or that some part of the constitutional state is no longer performing its duties.
Monday, 7 July 2008
Zugzwang
Cowardice is attributable and attributed widely to Gordon Brown. Repeatedly he runs away overseas, or to his own country, when his regime is being more than usually exposed as corrupt and appalling. Japan today, while Glasgow East constituency Labour party pretends to choose a candidate after their earlier four choices fell under the weight of their Labour pasts and their undesirable futures, and being asked personally to stand by the most famous political Jonah on Earth.
What he would like most of all is 'to get on with the job'. He keeps telling the electorate this. And every elector who gets the chance replies that he is not the man for the job of Prime Minister. So the Leader's aim, and that of his lickspittles, is not to disturb the electors for their opinion, nor disturb the status quo through bank melt downs, rampant street violence, collapsing living standards, power and water cuts, (these last occur quite routinely in London, the first world metropolis), premature death is 'hospitals', and the widespread impression that our money is as safe in British banks today as our pensions were from 1997 on.
If he doesn't have to make a move to remedy the damage done over the last 11 years he can get on with the private agenda of his post democratic elite of wrecking our standard of living and quality of life in the interests of global economic 'growth' and the institution of permanent governance of the resources and lives of the planet. (Gordon Brown has a very high opinion of his intelligence, understanding and management of the expectations of others, and the worth of his vision as opposed to theirs).
Every time he has to make a move in the world of democracy and morality he is forced back into a losing position. Every time he is forced to answer when he would rather not move is a victory. What we see as cowardice not just from him but from his regime creeps, is much more a determined refusal to even play the game.
What he would like most of all is 'to get on with the job'. He keeps telling the electorate this. And every elector who gets the chance replies that he is not the man for the job of Prime Minister. So the Leader's aim, and that of his lickspittles, is not to disturb the electors for their opinion, nor disturb the status quo through bank melt downs, rampant street violence, collapsing living standards, power and water cuts, (these last occur quite routinely in London, the first world metropolis), premature death is 'hospitals', and the widespread impression that our money is as safe in British banks today as our pensions were from 1997 on.
If he doesn't have to make a move to remedy the damage done over the last 11 years he can get on with the private agenda of his post democratic elite of wrecking our standard of living and quality of life in the interests of global economic 'growth' and the institution of permanent governance of the resources and lives of the planet. (Gordon Brown has a very high opinion of his intelligence, understanding and management of the expectations of others, and the worth of his vision as opposed to theirs).
Every time he has to make a move in the world of democracy and morality he is forced back into a losing position. Every time he is forced to answer when he would rather not move is a victory. What we see as cowardice not just from him but from his regime creeps, is much more a determined refusal to even play the game.
Sunday, 6 July 2008
Mandelson Go Home
Populist and self-serving Angels may be, but protection of our standard of living is what is wanted and required. The free trade, dated, economic past its sell-by date, cheap theorising of the awful Mandelson globalist freak is a conceited pretence that what happens elsewhere in the world has any claim to override the importance of our enjoyment of Ferragamo shoes, French dresses, Sander working clothes, proper hair cuts, Florentine parfumiers, food whose origins is known (is, indeed, often a former acquaintance, or at least supplied by a current acquaintance), books of choice, decent furniture, a place to retire to from visitors, and a place to be sociable, wine to drink or pat in its racks; a countryside tended and sleek under local owners' care, cities maintained in their various splendours, mountains to cool off in and seasides to paddle through.
All must have their particular priorities of course, (personally gazing at pictures is winning over listening at concerts right now, but doubtless that will change), and the Rowntree Foundation has consulted focus groups (fancy) to discover what is wanted by representative sectors of our society in a basic survival kit.
As an aside some of the things rated essential wouldn't be consumed free if offered, and some of the things essential to survival were not even mentioned. Why are focus groups thought to be representative of anything but themselves? Except in a collectivist, authoritarian mindset of course.
But to continue on the rejection of global economic growth and its centrality to our well being, what is essential is to live with well-designed, competently-built, decently priced goods, in a civil society that respects its members as sovereign and keeps its citizens in properly groomed public surroundings, both urban and rural, and in their infancy and in their dotage; and in the Schengen area too.
Goods from outside the Schengen area are of no interest, nor travel outside it of much either, (though hope springs eternal that Australasia might be visited, and perhaps the Trobriand Islands). What we have not got we will trade for, but not trade, and exposure, for growth of itself. Nor is the idea that Zimbabwe or some other despoiled part of the planet is for us to rectify acceptable, let alone mounting unwarranted war and lesser attacks, and creating entire countries ruined, and new enemies, all out of the evils, falsities and personal ambitions of Mandelson, Blair, Brown and their ilk.
If it is also the ideology of these new Labour degenerates to run riot over the history, culture, economy, living standards, well being and political morality of a United Kingdom foolish enough to have put them in a position of power, that has become our terrible mistake and misfortune. But in Europe no-one wants them or will allow them to be foisted onto our lives here.
All must have their particular priorities of course, (personally gazing at pictures is winning over listening at concerts right now, but doubtless that will change), and the Rowntree Foundation has consulted focus groups (fancy) to discover what is wanted by representative sectors of our society in a basic survival kit.
As an aside some of the things rated essential wouldn't be consumed free if offered, and some of the things essential to survival were not even mentioned. Why are focus groups thought to be representative of anything but themselves? Except in a collectivist, authoritarian mindset of course.
But to continue on the rejection of global economic growth and its centrality to our well being, what is essential is to live with well-designed, competently-built, decently priced goods, in a civil society that respects its members as sovereign and keeps its citizens in properly groomed public surroundings, both urban and rural, and in their infancy and in their dotage; and in the Schengen area too.
Goods from outside the Schengen area are of no interest, nor travel outside it of much either, (though hope springs eternal that Australasia might be visited, and perhaps the Trobriand Islands). What we have not got we will trade for, but not trade, and exposure, for growth of itself. Nor is the idea that Zimbabwe or some other despoiled part of the planet is for us to rectify acceptable, let alone mounting unwarranted war and lesser attacks, and creating entire countries ruined, and new enemies, all out of the evils, falsities and personal ambitions of Mandelson, Blair, Brown and their ilk.
If it is also the ideology of these new Labour degenerates to run riot over the history, culture, economy, living standards, well being and political morality of a United Kingdom foolish enough to have put them in a position of power, that has become our terrible mistake and misfortune. But in Europe no-one wants them or will allow them to be foisted onto our lives here.
Saturday, 5 July 2008
Who Will Stand for Gordon in Scotland?
Were an Angel candidate for the Glasgow East Westminster Parliament seat the automatic closing down of the selection process because of the absence of another hopeful might be taken as a hint that Angels were not wanted by the New Labour regime.
Doug Maughan and Irene Graham (not Angels, most certainly not) left meekly after 'giving their agreement' to the suspension of the selection meeting when family reasons caused the failure of the shoo-in candidate to present himself at his own adoption meeting.
George Ryan, a Glasgow councillor, had been fingered personally by Jonah Brown, which is a sufficient, (some might argue necessary) explanation, rather than 'family reasons'; better, even, than his family preferring not to have the searchlight of standing in a national election turned on Glasgow councillors and their activities.
Doug Maughan and Irene Graham (not Angels, most certainly not) left meekly after 'giving their agreement' to the suspension of the selection meeting when family reasons caused the failure of the shoo-in candidate to present himself at his own adoption meeting.
George Ryan, a Glasgow councillor, had been fingered personally by Jonah Brown, which is a sufficient, (some might argue necessary) explanation, rather than 'family reasons'; better, even, than his family preferring not to have the searchlight of standing in a national election turned on Glasgow councillors and their activities.
Friday, 4 July 2008
The Debt to Be Paid by the Weakest
Four million households are paying their mortgage or their rent with their credit card or a personal loan, reports the Times. That is quite, quite terrifying. The loan could very possibly be fraudulent in that its true purpose has not been declared, and if discovered risks the loss of the house. Credit card default risks the loss of the house also, regardless of the use to which funds have been put - funds carrying 15% and upwards interest rates at that. Effectively these households have sunk already. Four million of them, and there must be a strong suspicion that many of these borrowers are in so deep only to buy former council housing.
Nothing like 11 years of New Labour and Gordon Brown managing the economy to beggar the poorest and leave them homeless as well.
Nothing like 11 years of New Labour and Gordon Brown managing the economy to beggar the poorest and leave them homeless as well.
Do Not Eat Sea Bass and Langoustine
The head of environmental responsibility for Seafish, said: "Choosing alternative species helps to ease the pressure on stocks of more traditional fish." ..." a bland white fish you can add flavours to is fine. People don't want strong-tasting fish by and large."
The attempt to put us off a nice piece of haddock, or cod, the aim of decrying a finest cuts tinned salmon on a fresh lettuce from the garden with salad cream, then peaches in syrup with jelly (various flavours) and condensed milk, is a vile attack upon our tea.
Sea bass is an alien fish form that substitutes for decent food. A fishy version of spam. Reject it, and reject langoustine and squid too. While you are carrying the banner for higher teas, turn back the white burgundy tide and the battered and deep fried marrow flowers; and the ditto porcini mushrooms.
There are limits to substituting one food for another and in sea bass they have been reached and over-reached.
The attempt to put us off a nice piece of haddock, or cod, the aim of decrying a finest cuts tinned salmon on a fresh lettuce from the garden with salad cream, then peaches in syrup with jelly (various flavours) and condensed milk, is a vile attack upon our tea.
Sea bass is an alien fish form that substitutes for decent food. A fishy version of spam. Reject it, and reject langoustine and squid too. While you are carrying the banner for higher teas, turn back the white burgundy tide and the battered and deep fried marrow flowers; and the ditto porcini mushrooms.
There are limits to substituting one food for another and in sea bass they have been reached and over-reached.
Wednesday, 2 July 2008
A Smaller, Stronger, Committed Union for Europe
'Europe worries people and, worse still, citizens are asking if it is not the nation state that protects them better than the Union.' Nicholas Sarkozy.
Got it in one. The Union works for its original member states and, on the whole, for Spain, Austria, Hungary, and probably Poland and the Czechs and Slovaks; that is, for the central land mass of continental Europe. What it does not lend itself to is resolving the fractured history and cultures of peripheral nation states. These will be communitaire only when their interest is served, which is far less frequently than the identification of economic, geographical and historic interest in the main parts of Europe.
So why do we go on? Why cannot there be an inner core and an outer, looser favourable trade and commerce terms group of countries? Abandon Nice and build on the solidity of the original six plus the east and Spain. The United Kingdom simply does not belong, but neither too is it reasonable that Malta and Cyprus and bits of the Balkans, let alone countries suffering serious underdevelopment like Romania, should disturb the open-bordered Union many of us would like to see and some of us enjoy living in.
For many others, particularly those with a different institutional structure, as well as those who have only recently recovered self-determination, as it is for those who celebrate the Union ideals, it is too far too fast. Some of us want to be out and some inside equally strongly do not want those who do not share the dream.
President Sarkozy is right again when he condemns the destructive activities of the British Trade Commissioner Mandelson. Why should we open the Union to world trade when we have no wish to make our living standards vulnerable to global economic weather? The Union is there to protect us and our living standards; if the UK government wants to set up some global free for all, good luck and goodbye.
Got it in one. The Union works for its original member states and, on the whole, for Spain, Austria, Hungary, and probably Poland and the Czechs and Slovaks; that is, for the central land mass of continental Europe. What it does not lend itself to is resolving the fractured history and cultures of peripheral nation states. These will be communitaire only when their interest is served, which is far less frequently than the identification of economic, geographical and historic interest in the main parts of Europe.
So why do we go on? Why cannot there be an inner core and an outer, looser favourable trade and commerce terms group of countries? Abandon Nice and build on the solidity of the original six plus the east and Spain. The United Kingdom simply does not belong, but neither too is it reasonable that Malta and Cyprus and bits of the Balkans, let alone countries suffering serious underdevelopment like Romania, should disturb the open-bordered Union many of us would like to see and some of us enjoy living in.
For many others, particularly those with a different institutional structure, as well as those who have only recently recovered self-determination, as it is for those who celebrate the Union ideals, it is too far too fast. Some of us want to be out and some inside equally strongly do not want those who do not share the dream.
President Sarkozy is right again when he condemns the destructive activities of the British Trade Commissioner Mandelson. Why should we open the Union to world trade when we have no wish to make our living standards vulnerable to global economic weather? The Union is there to protect us and our living standards; if the UK government wants to set up some global free for all, good luck and goodbye.
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
Men Without Work Means Families Without Fathers
The Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society is a name to pause over. Might there be an agenda here, a reworking of notions of place and locality to fit the post democratic world? Well yes, but reading critically on, data on male worklessness and the rise of lone parenthood in Great Britain pulled attention irresistibly.
It has been a flagship policy of the Leader during his years bunkered in the Treasury with the Balls, and interfering ferociously at all levels with every aspect of domestic United Kingdom policy, to provide means-tested goads to the employment of single parents.
"UK government policy towards lone parenthood...has focused almost exclusively on efforts to get more lone parents into work through tax credits, employment promotion and training...in 2006 43.5% of loan parents were still without a job...[and] subsidising lone parents in work through tax credits is expensive." The authors note the further undesirable result of encouraging lone parenthood by "improving the financial situation of loan parents relative to that of couple families". To prevent lone parenthood in the first place is always better than to have installed the present system, which is referred to as 'second best', but might well be considered 'worst'.
The econometric results presented in the paper show that for the whole country as much as half the rise in lone parenthood between 1971 and 2001 "has been due to higher male worklessness".
When Labour was voted into power in 1997 much of the landslide was an expression of hope that, particularly in the old industrial heartlands, a party with a tradition of planned intervention in infrastructure and encouragement of industrial growth might recover the fortunes of those made workless by technological change and altered terms of trade. Instead we got Gordon Brown and his tax credits and PFI; and Harman, Jowell and the wimmin lifting the heavy hand of patrilineal exploitation.
And another generation without family, provided with school as a substitute place of safety rather than a place of extrafamilial education, learning and enrichment, a client state in Labour's ghetto heartlands, and the best hope of employment there to become a trusty and help administer the rest.
Relieving this regime of office, by whatever means, is not going to be enough; they must pay more than that.
It has been a flagship policy of the Leader during his years bunkered in the Treasury with the Balls, and interfering ferociously at all levels with every aspect of domestic United Kingdom policy, to provide means-tested goads to the employment of single parents.
"UK government policy towards lone parenthood...has focused almost exclusively on efforts to get more lone parents into work through tax credits, employment promotion and training...in 2006 43.5% of loan parents were still without a job...[and] subsidising lone parents in work through tax credits is expensive." The authors note the further undesirable result of encouraging lone parenthood by "improving the financial situation of loan parents relative to that of couple families". To prevent lone parenthood in the first place is always better than to have installed the present system, which is referred to as 'second best', but might well be considered 'worst'.
The econometric results presented in the paper show that for the whole country as much as half the rise in lone parenthood between 1971 and 2001 "has been due to higher male worklessness".
When Labour was voted into power in 1997 much of the landslide was an expression of hope that, particularly in the old industrial heartlands, a party with a tradition of planned intervention in infrastructure and encouragement of industrial growth might recover the fortunes of those made workless by technological change and altered terms of trade. Instead we got Gordon Brown and his tax credits and PFI; and Harman, Jowell and the wimmin lifting the heavy hand of patrilineal exploitation.
And another generation without family, provided with school as a substitute place of safety rather than a place of extrafamilial education, learning and enrichment, a client state in Labour's ghetto heartlands, and the best hope of employment there to become a trusty and help administer the rest.
Relieving this regime of office, by whatever means, is not going to be enough; they must pay more than that.
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