Once again the shame of the British Army is writ large. This time the front page of The News of the World heralds further examples of behaviour that should be unacceptable in any vision of a civilised society.
But, it’s okay… They are just a few bad apples among a bunch of superbly disciplined young men doing a “fantastic” job in the new Iraqi democracy.
So why does the bullshit detector hit ten as soon as such sentiments are expressed? Could it be a history that quite simply says otherwise?
The history of the British Army is not – as we are so often told – one of fantastic fair play and good sport. Indeed it has a positive catalogue of previous form when it comes to behaviour so barbaric as to be comparable to any other army in the world.
If you need proof of this (and you may because you ain’t gonna read about it in the mainstream press) then check out our African adventures of the 1960’s and read about eyes being poked out, ritualised starvation and general mutilation…
But, that’s in the past and I am prepared to accept that we have moved on… except that the evidence seems to point in an altogether different direction.
I ask you to consider only one thing. If we have a certain amount of evidence of abuse and general misbehaviour among our troops from video and photographic releases then how many examples go unrecorded?
One would have to assume that the majority of such events pass without the handycam being a feature or that most tapes and photos remain in the hands of the original people involved.
It is hardly unreasonable to conclude that the few bad apples argument is as transparent as the lies that led to Iraq in the first place.

It seems to be the current question of choice in British politics. The mantra of all parties as they seek to gain their own advantage and drag a few more reluctant and recalcitrant citizens down to the polling booth.
The politicos answers may vary but they all seem to rest upon the same quirky foundations – There’s nothing at all wrong with the politics or the options available, it’s all about the fact that it’s not easy enough to vote. So they shout the odds about postal voting (already proved as a fraudster’s paradise), text voting (WHAT!!!!!), weekend voting (not too bad an idea, perhaps) or handing it all over to Tesco.
But what if they’re all wrong?
Look at it this way (if you will). Would you take advice on finance from a guy sleeping in a cardboard box outside Marks and Spencer?
That is precisely what politicians want us to do. They all (and I repeat, ALL) represent the bankruptcy of the guy in the doorway.
Take the briefest of glances around you and try telling yourself that this is the world as you would wish it to be. If it is, then congratulations you are probably the CEO of Asda (or similar). If it is not, then you are probably one of the rest of us.
These people and their politics have, quite simply, failed. And, yet, they continue to ask us for our commitment to them while they offer their commitment to business. This is a completely and ridiculously unbalanced use and abuse of power and yet it is the norm across much of the western world.
Take the most cursory of glances across the Atlantic and you will see the future writ large. A corporate government run for and by financial vested interests. A system entirely corrupted by lobbying firms with barely the most casual glance at the needs, hopes, dreams and fears of the voter. Government by the rich for the rich. So disastrous is this system that it will (and may have already) cost us the earth. The rapacious dreams of big business have become a corporate nightmare for everyone else. Your children have already suffered the total theft of their future… and the corporations and governments responsible never even asked for your permission. As a generation we have abdicated responsibility in return for the ancient Roman vision of bread and circuses and it’s our children who will pick up the pieces and try desperately to rebuild that which we have broken.
We should all be ashamed of our complicity in this but the politicians claiming to represent us while only ever truly representing the businesses with the deepest pockets should be on a one way ticket to hell. Their responsibility in this is total.
In a world featuring any sort of justice most politicians would be chased from office immediately and thrown to the wolves… and yet the reason we vote in ever decreasing numbers is supposedly because it’s not easy enough! BOLLOCKS.
We don’t vote because we are no longer represented (if we ever were). I have a confession to make here – I have always voted… although the prospect of me putting a cross in a box again diminishes by the day.
If you want my vote all you have to do is represent me. That means that the vote of a member of the general population has to count as much as the vote of the aforementioned CEO. That it doesn’t is a scandal beyond description.
Many times we hear the cry of foul about benefit scroungers etc etc etc etc etc…. What about the failure of business to pay tax? What about businesses making profits in the realms of the obscene laying off staff? Are they not adding to the burden of the rest of us? What about businesses paying the minimum wage and forcing staff to take up benefits to make up the shortfall? In such a circumstance the burden of the state is greatly increased in order that a handful of shareholders can make ever greater gains. So, if I claim a benefit I can be considered, at best, suspicious and at worst a fraudster while business can suck the benefits system dry in pursuit of profit while avoiding tax on the money they make. Just take a look at good old Rupert and his empire. I’ll let you guess what the tax take from News International in this country is….. (A clue – try somewhere near zero).
You see, if you are like me – and you probably are – then you can’t hide your cash in an offshore tax haven and then bend the Prime Ministers ear whenever you fancy in order to make sure that your prejudices become national policy.
Sorry people, but the reason we don’t vote is surprisingly simple. Our world has been raped by the failed policies of generations of politicians and now, it seems, people have finally got the idea… Once the big old alsation has taken a lump out of your arse, it’s best to not provide it with another opportunity.

Ladies and gentlemen a few hard truths are in order today… (as to the truth of the following – please think about it and check it out if you wish).
We are all slaves and that is not stated trivially, it is the sad conclusion of a look at the financial way the world currently operates.
We are all familiar with loans and credit cards… Perhaps, here is an opportunity to set out the facts by stating that all such things are wrongly labelled in ways that offer clues to what is really going on. Strike the word ‘loan’ and replace it with the concept of simply selling you money. A loan is something you might get from a friend or relative at a time of financial crisis. It is often repayable in one lump or may be spread according to agreed terms but it would not normally accrue interest.
And there’s the rub. They don’t ‘loan’ you money, they lease it to you which is an entirely different thing. And what is unique about this money that we all borrow? It’s the simple fact that it doesn’t actually exist. Within the whole transaction the only ‘real’ money is that which is paid in interest.
Which means, of course, that banks and other financial institutions get real money from us in return for absolutely nothing. All else is merely the shuffling of paper.
Perhaps a little history is helpful here.
Once upon a time (after all this is a fantasy), we emerged from the strictures imposed by the second world war. This led eventually to the upsurge in consumerism that we enjoy (or suffer) today. The only problem with such consumerism is that it needed a driver. We are constantly told that the solution is never to print more money because that would devalue the currency… (for who exactly?). Pause and think for a moment, because devaluation would not necessarily make any difference to the pound in your pocket but it would mess up exchange rates and therefore create a raft of possible consequences. But who suffers from these consequences? Not you or me, and that’s a certainty. The only people who could possibly suffer under such a scheme would be those with ‘real’ money – suddenly their stash of gold bars would seem to diminish a little before their eyes.
So they’re left with a problem. They desperately wanted to sell us loads of new stuff – TV’s, record players, cars, ultimately DVD players, TIVO etc… but they were hemmed in by their own refusal to increase the money supply. So they needed to create new money without printing any. Welcome to the world of credit and the personal ‘loan’. That way they could push ahead with their agenda in a uniquely devious way by selling us – at huge premium rates – a big crock of nothing while taking real money back in return. If it wasn’t so crappy it would be genius.
Of course this in itself leads to problems for both sides of the equation. On one hand the people are left in hock to the moneymen who can take real things from you in return for your failure to pay a debt that actually never existed while, on the other, most people are now up to their eyeballs in debt leaving the rapacious bastards at the top trying to work out how to perpetuate their cash cow.
Oh look, here it comes… transfer from one credit card to another and you can have zero interest for a while – even on purchases – and therefore can be encouraged to make yet more profit for cats, so fat, they’re barely able to move. No thought or worry about the problem of what comes next even though it may well spell disaster for many of the people in the street.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) capitalism is a dead creed. I accept that you may have a little difficulty accepting that at this stage but I honestly believe that we are living (and dying) through the last throes of a philosophy currently raging wildly against the dying of the light. The problem we all share is whether there will be anything left by the time they’ve finished.
The time has perhaps come for us to rage against them. I know of no-one who regards the amount of interest payable on loans at present to be acceptable. Therefore, it would be interesting to create a situation where we all refused to make any further payments until such rates were renegotiated. And, why not? Surely that is an appropriate relationship between vendor and customer. Or maybe we could just mount a class action on the basis that as we weren’t actually loaned anything real in the first place then we have no obligation to pay extra for it.
It’s like everything else in this crazy, money driven, madhouse. As was pointed out to me yesterday when I was complaining about a pay TV service – They cock up the service all the time but they never forget to send you the bill.
That’s not an appropriate relationship between supplier and customer and it really needs to be re-balanced.
In some respects it is the implication in that idea that is so worrying. Capitalism no longer has any interest whatsoever in the customer. Instead it is quite literally raping the entire planet to grab whatever it can with no concern to what it may leave behind.
It almost looks as though they know they’ve been rumbled and their response is to grab everything before we wake up sufficiently to take it back. After all, the ‘it’ in question belongs to us in the first place.
We entered (not entirely with open eyes) into a weird form of ad-hoc relationship with capitalism some years ago. It went something like this – If we (as a workforce) gave up our traditional aspirations for an improvement in the common good through unionisation, collective action etc then they would offer us in return a gentler form of comfort based capitalism. The selfish gene which seems to permeate humanity found this an acceptable arrangement. A guaranteed level of comfort (the unspoken truth of this, of course, was that it required a section of society to be left behind, but, what the hell these people don’t vote anyway) was the price we exacted for our meek compliance. It was all ‘look the war is over… we all won,’ which looked reasonable to a lot of people for a lot of the time. But, you all forgot one thing. These people are extraordinarily greedy and although they laid out levels of what was good enough for us there were no such levels set for them and they have returned to type. i.e. they want it all, not just part of it, or even most of it. THEY WANT IT ALL.
So, your role now is to maintain your weak, individual and selfish position while they take your job, your money and whatever else they want if it isn’t immediately conducive to their own ambition. Hence those very same financial institutions that sold you none existent money so they can then take lots and lots more of your real cash in return will then take your job and send it overseas because it’s cheaper and we are warned that we have to compete if we wish to survive.
Wakey, wakey people. This is not acceptable. We have been lied to, conned and ripped off. If we don’t fight back soon then there will be nothing left to fight for. We don’t have to take this crap.
Thanks for reading and, please, join the fight… the world deserves better and if we want to look our children and grandchildren in the faces then we really ought to get our arses into gear or we will be shamed throughout whatever history we may have left.

Did you ever stop to consider, just for a moment, how thick you actually are?
Sorry, there’s nothing personal in this. I’m thick and proud of it – at least by the standards demanded by our politicians.
You see, we must be thick because in my best Sherlock Holmes style I have ruled out all reasonable possibilities and therefore whatever’s left, however ludicrous, must be true.
The problem runs something like this… At the weekend the final nail was beaten soundly into the coffin of the Niger yellowcake Uranium story with the revelation that there was another document (one we have yet to see) and it was such a ludicrous fake that the CIA nearly died laughing at it. Sounds okay, doesn’t it? They’re protecting us and just to prove it they selected the documents used to argue the case for war with care. Yep, sounds nice, until you realise that the ludicrous document was exactly the same as all the others – i.e. it was on the same official paper, with the same stamps, signatures etc. The reason it was dropped from the case was because the content was just too clearly made up. (I wonder what that says about the rest of the documents?)
Even the global village idiot has had the sense to distance himself from this nonsense while our own dear PM still claims it’s all true.
The man is a liar – plain and simple. By the way, Mr Blair, a clever use of language and ambiguity is not the truth… it’s just lies in a frock.
A liar is a dangerous beast at the best of times… and war is never the best of times.
His Iraq lies notwithstanding (and there are a positive multitude on that subject) the man and his craven party also manage to keep up their tradition in almost every aspect of domestic policy.
We are thick, you see… They lie and we fall for it. Trouble is, that makes us accessories to all this nonsense and I want no part of it. I suspect you don’t either…
So, where else do these elected representatives tell nose growing porkies?
Unfortunately, every aspect of their behaviour demands scrutiny.
But are the lies the worst thing? Aren’t we accustomed to the idea of politicians being, as one once said, “economical with the actualite”?
That’s a neat role for any profession to allow itself. Just imagine if your doctor based his or her professional reputation on the fact that lying to patients was just part of the job and nothing to get too exercised over. It doesn’t look quite such a professional recommendation then, does it?
And yet, we are expected to, not only, accept but understand that all this lying is actually for our own good. It’s not people…… it’s not.
Once upon a time (thus begun because this now sounds like a fairy tale), politicians were elected on the basis that they would rise from a community, express their political philosophy and be elected as a representative of the people… Ah, such nostalgia…
When did you last feel genuinely represented? I will confess that my own MP, who shall remain nameless, is a good representative fitting most of the criteria outlined above but, by all accounts, he is a rare breed.
So if they aren’t representing us who do they represent? The question is crucial but the answer is all too obvious and depressing. You watch the news, you hear these people talk and only one thought will spring to mind – they represent business and then claim that business has our best interests at heart.
Sorry chaps, but no you don’t. There isn’t a business on the planet whose prime motivation is not money. And, in that sentence, perhaps lies the biggest untruth of all. We are constantly told of the benefits of hiving everything off to the private sector because they’re more efficient/cost effective/innovative etc. Bollocks are they.
The nature of private capital is to make more private capital – as simple as that. Therefore it’s hardly surprising that private ownership of railway maintenance led to little other than a shabby, badly done job and the death of members of the public. Meanwhile state subsidy to the industry rose while shareholders took dividends. Look, a double whammy, and all bad for the people… So what happened to governing in our best interests?
That’s the crux and perhaps the biggest problem we face. Business is God while the people exist as little other than wage slaves providing yachts for men with too much money to begin with. We no longer share in the wealth of the nation (otherwise the gap between top and bottom would not be wider now than it was under Thatcher) instead we create a wealth to be creamed off by those at the top while scraping by from day to day with the help of those credit cards they gave us when we weren’t spending enough to keep them in fur in the first place.
Meanwhile, as the little man renews his perpetual struggle with the world, hoping against hope that his elected representatives will help him out, corporate criminals walk free, the super rich avoid taxes and we’re told to shut up or watch our jobs disappear over the horizon towards India. I’ve got an idea on that one – If any company makes a penny of profit then no job should be jeopardised in the name of more and more greed.
The unions have been emasculated, the Labour party no longer exists and, it seems, dissent will no longer be tolerated. Not a happy picture as we veer dismally through the early years of the 21st Century.
So what do we do instead? That’s a difficult one and it requires a better mind than mine. But, if we can get together and share ideas for a future based in something a little better and more permanent than greed then maybe we will see the fruits of a fairer and more sensible world before the other side ruins it all completely.
Thanks for your time and please – if you’ve got anything to say, just say it.

Education, Education, Education.
What a load of old nonsense that proved to be.
We were promised a brave new world, not just in education but across the land. It was 1997 and we were assured that ‘things could only get better’. It was a great idea but was it true?
I hope, that like me, you remember the hope and optimism that heralded the dawn of a new era of policies with, at least, a nominal social bias. For eighteen years great swathes of our society had been left behind by a system skewed in every way to placate and reward the middle and upper classes. We were ready for change. We knew things had to be different the moment that the creed of selfishness that personified the Thatcher and Major years began to hurt their own. The sad truth for the British is that change was only available at all when certain, much coveted, constituencies in a mythical place called ‘middle England’ began to feel the first stirrings of a discontent that had been the lot of their compatriots for nearly twenty years.
Government in Britain knows that power is in the gift of a startlingly small group of voters and consequently the formula becomes depressingly simple. Appeal to the lowest common denominator of this group and power will follow.
For those of us who do not live such an idyllic life things are starkly different. We are duped into the grand idea that top rate tax is an affront to civilised society. Well, hold on a minute and return that idea to the garage… Have all the dummies out there who won’t vote for a party that pledges to raise the top rate of tax ever considered how likely they are to ever end up paying it? How many of your friends earn over £100,000 per year?
Sorry people, but you just don’t get it, do you?
Let’s hope I can stir your righteous indignation by pointing out that the very rich don’t actually bother paying any tax at all. And, for some reason (!!!) these people are never the ones who are investigated for avoidance…. No, that privilege – along with most other applications of the law – is the preserve of the little man.
So, after eight years of Mr Blair and his rag-tag band of followers (I do not include most Labour MP’s in this) must have some sort of legacy…. So, what is it?
Actually, it’s all a little disturbing and doesn’t look too good if you have any aspirations towards fairness or equality.
The gap between rich and poor is now wider than it was under Mrs Thatcher. (please think about that fact as I remember the horror stories during Maggie’s time about the fact that we had reached levels of inequality not seen since Victorian times… Now it’s worse.) You should be ashamed, Mr Blair.
Education was the rallying cry in ’97, so what’s the reality there? The only thing we can be sure of in a system that endures more changes than a chameleon glued to a traffic light is that the Government would be classed as failing if judged by the same criteria.
Today it is revealed that the working classes are missing out on university…. Now, that’s a surprise to everyone except all those who said that fees would prove off-putting to those without money.
What about schools though? Lot’s of money has been spent in schools… Credit where credit is due. There does seem to be a bit more cash swilling about in the system but the evidence would point to the usual New Labour problem… It’s all fur coat and no knickers. Test results are up. 16% for a ‘C’ grade at GCSE in maths…. If results weren’t up in the face of such a statistic then we might as well go back to living in a primeval swamp. In primary the SATS seem to show improvement. Yes, they do. Sadly this reflects two specific things, neither of which has any connection to the long term success of our young people. Firstly there is the problem of schools who, often, quite openly cheat. (In some respects it could be argued that cheating is necessary to maintain the reputation of the school. After all, either admission or proof of failure won’t get you the help needed it will merely assure a school pariah status.) Secondly – and more importantly – the concentration on testing and measurement at ages when young people need to develop, explore and understand the world around them is nothing short of a colossal short changing of our own people. Personal development has been sacrificed on the altar of statistics and for that we should all be ashamed.
Schools are, of course, supposed to be under greater scrutiny than ever with regular Ofsted visits and widespread accountability. If only…
On this subject I can speak with unaccustomed authority. I have worked in school (for several years) and have seen inspections and, supposed, accountability at first hand.
Inspections first: These are a joke. Warnings of inspection – where I worked – were signals for full staff meetings where people were threatened about their conduct or conversations with inspectors. Disruptive pupils were removed for the period of inspection. Buildings got the sort of once over previously reserved for a Royal visit. Documentation that was intended to be part of the school life was fabricated simply for inspection. Lessons were changed and staff and pupils were carefully selected and vetted (I got the full vetting procedure, being told what was permissible to say and what was not) before being allowed anywhere near an inspector. In short, it was a different school for the duration of the inspection with predictably ludicrous results in the final report.
So what of accountability? Well, this comes primarily through the governing body – comprising staff representatives, parents, local councillors etc – but they can only act upon what they’re told. If this isn’t the truth then there is really very little means of establishing the real facts. I know from experience that a failing school can quite effectively hide the fact behind skewed statistics and outright falsehood.
Education, Mr Blair? 5/10
None of this touches upon the war in Iraq or the other conflicts that Mr Blair has been so eager to sign up for. I find it hard to adequately express my contempt for the foreign policy of this shabby excuse for a government so you can fill in your own blanks on that one.
Sadly for the Labour Party (the real one) the future looks bleak. At present we have a sickly ideology perpetuated by a man who seems an increasing stranger to reality. The New Labour project is just that – a project. It is an ideology without foundation and as such it is doomed to crumble and fall. There may not be much left in the rubble for a rebuild if the party cannot bring itself to save the rest of us and remove the chief architect while there are any of us left with a faith in the future.

There is a much rehearsed argument emanating from the mouths of the pro-war brigade and it runs something like this:
“Okay, we accept that you don’t like the war but unless you can solve the problem we’re now in then you must shut up and accept the way things are.”
It’s doubtful if such an argument deserves a response any more sophisticated than “bollocks!” but in the absence of any likelihood that such a simple response would suffice then try some or all of the following.
We warned it would be a disaster, you muppets. It’s hardly our fault if you refuse to listen.
We never believed your lies – because that’s what they were, LIES.
We never believed there were stockpiles of chemical weapons. Why not? Well, Mr Blair, Mr Bush, Mr Cheney etc, etc, etc, we listened to those who know about these things and we understood basic scientific principles about the deterioration that is a natural part of the process of chemical weapons. As, Scott Ritter (former US Marine and UN Weapons Inspector) explained. Anything they had in 1991 was “sludge” by now.
Inspections had worked and were still working. We didn’t all fall for those crappy old lies about inspectors being kicked out by Saddam a few years back. (The Inspectors were withdrawn by the UN due to the impossibility of guaranteeing the safety of personnel in light of a decision by the UK and US to resume bombing missions.)
We knew that sanctions (carried out with an evil intent more in keeping with Ming the Merciless than so called Western Democracies) had effectively reduced a proud nation to near stone-age capabilities.
We knew that the one thing we could guarantee was that we weren’t going to invade any country with chemical/biological or nuclear weapons. Why? Because that would be dangerous!!
We knew that they couldn’t have weapons because we hadn’t sold them any recently.
We could see the glint in Dick Cheney’s eye when he pored over those maps carving up the Iraqi oilfields a year before the war was ever mentioned.
We had kept our eyes open long enough to see the documents produced by the neo-cons over many years detailing an invasion of Iraq as part of long term policy.
We could see that Tony Blair was so far up the President’s rear end that he could almost touch the soles of Condi’s feet.
We marched in the millions and were proved absolutely right.
So, Mr Blair and all his mates can get stuffed. They have presided over what may be seen as the worst single foreign policy adventure ever concocted and, quite frankly, as Colin Powell said, ‘You break it, you own it.’ That’s you, Mr Blair, not us, the sensible and ignored majority. How dare you suggest that Iraq is in any way ‘our problem.’ You broke it, and although we will all have to live with the consequences of your stupidity, it really is your responsibility to sort it out. Maybe, just maybe if you go and things are subsequently done in a sensible fashion then your idiocy might yet be mitigated. But don’t, under any circumstances, blame the honest, decent anti-war majority for your folly.
Thanks for looking...

Once again the media world obsesses over pensions without so much as a word about how we got into this mess in the first place. In fact I’ve just heard a BBC financial correspondent make the point that “there’s no central pot for pensions…” Okay, I presume this gentleman has forgotten all that national insurance he pays… you know, the one that went up recently? Collective media amnesia seems to give legs to the theory that national insurance was always meant as general taxation. It wasn’t. As usual your money has been stolen by the state and now the state seems so blasé as to be complicit in the unilateral decision of big business to pilfer their own pension schemes.
It’s funny how they never seem to have a commission or endless reports over whether we can afford to kill Arabs. That, obviously would be distasteful, but when it comes to the wealth and health of our elderly then their future is open to negotiation. Wake up people – the elderly means you. Not today, maybe not even tomorrow… but barring accidents, one day, elderly is you.
We are already being primed for a renewal of Trident, our so-called independent nuclear deterrent. By the way – for independent read US controlled.
Such priming indicates nothing so much as a preparation for a discussion free announcement. They will spend the coming period telling us that they haven’t made their minds up until it all happens anyway.
How many pensions might that all pay for?
We all have to scrimp and save, plead and beg for the little that’s ours while the profligacy of the ruling class is truly outstanding. This, by the way, isn’t a class issue!! The perfect example came with the arrest of a group of people (all subsequently released – bail pending) in London following the tragic shooting of a WPC last week. The entire motorway was taken up with a positive fleet of vans, cars and motor cycles all for the transport of a handful of murder suspects. The decision to afford these people such pomp was no more and no less than a display of police machismo designed not for practical purposes but simply for show. How much waste there?
It’s doubtful if Osama Bin Laden would be afforded such a police presence.

Anyway, thanks for looking and I hope to be back again soon.

So, what exactly is this rant all about? Perhaps it’s hard to explain but, simply put, it’s about that one thing that politicians treat as though it were debatable – the truth.
Ah but, you say, we both have truths are mine the same as yours.
Fair enough, I respond… but, and this is the rub… I will try and deal in truth that finds its base in fact.
Before I go on I will make a very important confession – There will be times when those ‘facts’ themselves are the subject of dispute and on such occasions I shall try and point this out. However, if you can prove me wrong about anything (note the word ‘prove’) then I will be absolutely delighted to correct anything I write.
Otherwise, I welcome any comments / abuse / ranting about anything you may see here.
So what sort of ‘truths’ should you look out for here? I hope that I will be able to provide truths behind stories that you think you already know or the facts that contradict the statements of politicians. I would also be delighted if anyone out there has something to bring to this little party because you’re all welcome.
Don’t worry too much – this isn’t all politics (except in the sense that most human activity has a political bias somewhere) I also hope to look at other aspects of life in Britain at the beginning of the 21st century and maybe even have a giggle from time to time

I would, however, like to begin with a political idea that in itself has expression in the mainstream news today.
As usual there are people using the senseless death of a Police Officer to further their own agenda (you could argue that I’ve just become one of them!).
On this occasion it’s the old chestnut of arming the police as a knee-jerk reaction to a specific event. In some respects it’s an easy argument to make. But, does it not reach into the very heart of modern politics that the response to anything bad is more of the same. If our doctors acted like our politicians then we would have some serious health issues to deal with.
Modern politics seems to have very little interest in progressive ideas – or dare I say, ideals. Instead it reacts reflexively to any event by prescribing more of the same or on bad days proscribing more of the same.
We live in a system of politics in the West which has existed in varying forms for centuries and barring the obvious – abolishing slavery etc – has not led to any great benefits for a majority of people. I realise that many people will throw their hands up at such a simplification but blogs are limited by their very existence. However, I ask you instead to look carefully at the past twenty or so years when the disconnect between those who lead and follow has grown ever greater.
People don’t want to work ‘til they drop and yet it is to be imposed from above. Why? The reasons are really quite simple – Your government has consistently lied to you and has aided and abetted big business in devaluing the money that you have handed over from your own wages. The chance of a decent pension for all is about priorities and choice, not about money. Think of the options you have been offered – You work longer or you get nowt. They call it the ‘politics of the possible’, I call it the politics of the greedy. How many company directors have pension problems? And, why aren’t you asking where the hell your money went? You paid, they spent and somehow it’s your fault. In any other area of life it would be called fraud. Why do I always feel that I missed a meeting somewhere along the line?
Are you happy? Do you see your loved ones as much as you would like? Do you have the mythical ‘work life balance’ or are you just another creature in harness to a system that intends, quite cynically, to milk you like a cow?
Can you honestly say that society is better now than it was? By the way, I’m not trying to look at the world through a cutely tinted pair of specs… I threw those out years ago.
We are fighting a war based on nothing but the lies and hubris. We have families in this country to whom a loved one has been lost, not because their was a great cause that needed defending or a threat we needed to respond to but because we have a prime minister in thrall to the most odious occupant the White House has ever seen and Iraq has massive stores, not only of oil but of gas… and we all know which country has just run out of natural gas!
In your name (and, with great, great shame, mine) horrors are being perpetrated on a people we are led to believe have already suffered more than their fair share of horrors and indignity. The use of White Phosphorous has been admitted by the US during an operation where we held the coats. This is a weapon of a ferocity so awful that it goes as far as using the water in a human body as fuel. The only way to stop the burning (as revealed by a Sky journalist (is that itself a tautology?) who was embedded during the assault on Fallujah) is to cut out the flesh where the phosphorous has landed. That’s okay say the Americans and by extension our own sickeningly complicit government, because it was only used on ‘insurgents’. That is a lie – plain and simple. A big fat Greek wedding of a lie. Yes, civilians were told to leave. How generous we are – become homeless and destitute and we won’t set fire to your flesh. But, even this is a lie. Any male – insurgent or otherwise – between the ages of 15 and 55 was not allowed to leave. This was enforced by US machine gun positions stationed along the river bank who shot anyone attempting to swim to safety. And perhaps we only need to take a short trip through time to find that even in the US evacuating a city simply doesn’t work and New Orleans was not in the middle of a war zone. So, it’s a lie.
By the way, Mr Blair, holding the coats is sufficient to make you complicit in that horror and one day you will be held responsible for your actions.
I’m sorry to have executed this piece in such a scattergun way but hopefully I will regain focus for future posts about such wonders as depression, benefits, war, and jokes. In the meantime…
Thanks for looking, you’ve made my day.

If you need a tap fixed you might call a plumber, but I think I may have a much better idea. Call Tony Blair or Ruth Kelly or any other of the hopeless, talent free morons who runs this, once, fine country of ours.

Bear with me - at least for a moment or two. I have a problem here. For some reason Tony thinks he knows about drinking problems... Little Miss Kelly thinks she knows about education... And there was little old me thinking that plumbers fix taps therefore it might be reasonable to think that education might be best left in the hands of educators and drinking issues - well, this seems a little more weird but stay around and all will be revealed.

Sadly, I have a very good friend who I am losing to alcoholism. Aha, I hear you cry, someone to benefit from 24 hour drinking... Not exactly, even he thinks it is a total disaster waiting to happen. Maybe Blair views drinking for sobriety in the same way that he seems to believe in killing people for peace.

Has anyone else noticed a particularly worrying trend in modern politics? The members of the House now seem to have found a new career path to the top of our legislature and it's frighteningly simple. Almost a twelve step programme, perhaps?

First, go to University.
Second, do politics or history or economics or whatever else you fancy.
Third, leave clutching your grubby little piece of paper.
Fourth, become a political researcher / advisor / crawler etc.
Fifth, become an MP.

This is where the whole thing becomes a little scary. We are entrusting our country to a group of people who have a relationship only with themselves. Suddenly we have dispensed with self understanding, self awareness or... wait for it... any damned experience of anything except being part of the problem.

It all adds up to a disastrous deficit at the heart of the nation. The people who rule 'us' are no longer of 'us'. What experience does Blair or Kelly or Milliband (both of them) or any of the others (with the noble exception of the mouth of the Humber, Mr Prescott who at least had a job at one point) actually have? These people seem to enjoy fantastic views of the world along the lines of, "I may not be a teacher but I've been to school". Sorry, people - NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

If you are going to inform my life then you have to understand it.

Perhaps you remain in denial because you have yet to get past stage five so maybe I can offer a little advice. Don't get into politics until you can (or at least have tried) to do something else - and I'm not talking about a cushy number in Chambers.

Until then, dear politicians, you do not represent me.

And so, I shall stick to my maxim. If someone asks for your vote then don't forget that they're exactly the sort of person who doesn't deserve it - and until Mr Blair pops round to fix my taps while Ruth Kelly holds his spanner my opinion is not going to change.