Big Issue and a Big Hypocrite

Walk down any high street in this country and you will meet a homeless
person selling the Big Issue. If you want a living indictment of the
kind of society millionaires like Cameron defend you need look no
further.

And what is this? The current Big Issue is edited by David Cameron!
John Bird, who set out wanting to help the homeless now has them
forced to peddle the most disgusting Conservative Party propaganda. If
his name does not appear in the New Year's honours list - there just
ain't no justice!

In an editorial Bird lavishes praise on "the big society" in which
individuals can take the place of the state in helping out. Yet of
course this very magazine shows what is wrong with this approach. The
homeless are at the mercy of the whims of a philanthropist. If those
whims include grovelling to the Tory Party then the homeless have to
grovel. Refuse to sell the magazine and you don't eat tonight.

And one final question. If Cameron or Bird go into hospital will they
be happy for a volunteer to walk in off the street and operate on
them? If so I am prepared to give it a go. Where's my scalpel?

Reports of Murdoch's Death

While Murdoch was impersonating Uriah Heep on his 'umble
Commons appearance, reports of his death were appearing on
The Sun website. Apparently he was not intending to 'do a
Maxwell. In an ironic move, Hacker Murdoch had been hacked!

The 'hacktivists' responsible have now released email
addresses and mobile numbers of the 'know nothing'
executives of News International. It really would be pushing
the boundaries of hypocrisy for Hacker Murdoch to insist
that the full force of the law be used against them.

And that is exactly what he has done. Obviously the humble
pie disagreed with him

--
http://www.derekmcmillan.com

Oh my God they killed Harry Potter!

No spoilers!

The final Harry Potter film is a fast-paced adventure with references to every adventure you can imagine.

Look for echoes of Star Wars and in particular Return of the Jedi, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Gringotts, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and even a reference to the story of how Horatius (or indeed Neville) held the bridge.

Watching Helena Bonham Carter go to pieces was entertaining. She is brilliantly unhinged in this (perhaps in RL, who knows?).

And the ending - well the epilogue is as sickening as in the book I'm afraid and I don't think of that as a spoiler. Why didn't somebody take JK Rowling aside and whisper about how dreadful it is? Perhaps her point was this is the end and there will be no more Harry Potter books....but the door is still open for a Potter Junior series!

Murdochgate

"‘Murdochgate’ is Britain’s Watergate. In politics, as in nature, the ‘butterfly effect’ operates. A seemingly small event – the famous metaphor of the flutter of a butterfly’s wings – can begin a chain of events resulting in massive unforeseen consequences.

In the case of the Watergate break-in, it led to the discrediting and downfall of Richard Nixon, the President of the most powerful nation on earth, the US. Cameron and his corrupt, rotten government deserve the same fate today. Watergate exposed the rottenness at the heart of the US administration and threatened the social system it was based upon, capitalism. "

Read more

A chatroom somewhere in Cyberspace

 A/S/L
 Pardon
 A/S/L Age, sex and location? Every heard of it?
 Oh LOL…. my name is Tracey I am 14 years old and I live in Canada
Hi Tracey
(snipped – long conversation about pony riding)

 Listen. You sound like a nice person Lesley and I see you are involved with adult MUDs. These miserable mothers won’t let me join because of my age and I wondered if….. Look do you mind me asking you this?
 Go on.
 That is very sweet of you, Lesley. Look I want to get onto Realms of Darkness and they wont let me on because I am underage, can you help me?
 Well why would I do that?
 Oh I will be very very grateful Lesley. You know what I mean.
 And all you want for me to do is propose you as a member of Realms of Darkness, the adult Multi User Domain?
 And you will be surprised how grateful I can be Lesley.
 Really.
* Really
* Well Okay then Tracey…

(Later)
.
*Hi, my name actually is Tracey but I am a 40 year old man working for the FBI in Seattle and you’re nicked sunshine.
* Hi Lesley here, Scotland Yard. You will be getting a call. Wasting Police Time. Ever heard of it?

(The BBC reported that law enforcement agencies were sending operatives into chat rooms to entrap paedophiles)

Defend the NHS

North Sussex and Surrey Trades Council launched a Coalition
to defend the NHS at a meeting on 06 July 2011.

Oliver Coxhead was elected as Chair
Derek Isaacs was elected as secretary.

Derek Isaacs was one of the first people to have his life saved by the new NHS in 1948. He had a playground accident
climbing the fence and was later taken to the hospital with an abcess which was growing inwards and would have
threatened his life.

However his mother didn't have to beg to a group of hard-nosed charity commissioners. The treatment was free for
the first time, so he was among the first of hundreds of thousands who owe their lives to the NHS.

People of sixty were old in 1948. The NHS has given us a new lease of life and that is why it is worthwhile for all of us
to defend it.

The government talks glibly about "reforms" of the NHS. In fact they propose to cut public provision and privatise
health care. The contents of your wallet will determine your treatment, not your medical need. You might as well say the German Air Force "reformed" Coventry.

The Coalition to defend the NHS will be meeting at St Johns Church Hall in central Crawley and the meetings will be
advertised on the blog.

To join the coalition contact crawleyagainstthecuts@yahoo.com
It could be the fight of your life.

Circus Clown in the West Sussex County Times

I would like to comment on Philip Circus's "non-political" rant about public sector pensions,

The average teachers' pension is 10,000 pounds. Excluding the very highest earners, the average public and civil service pension is £4200 a year. It would be an education for well-heeled lawyers to try living on that!

His argument is that because unscrupulous private employers have put their own profits first and robbed their employees of decent pensions, the public sector should follow suit. Presumably Robert Maxwell is his model employer here.

This is analagous to saying that three houses in my road have been broken into and robbed, so the only fair thing to do is to break into all the other houses too.

He ignores the fact that the government has failed to evaluate the Teachers Pension Fund in violation of an existing agreement, so all the figures about affordability or otherwise are just arrogant assertion. Do the sums first then give us the answers; not the other way round.

He ignores the fact that the government has already cut pensions, including police pensions incidentally, by sleight of hand. Violating another solemn undertaking to link public sector pensions to the retail price index the government has invented another measure of inflation which gives a lower figure. They only use this for pensioners;they still use the RPI for evaluating repayments on student loans.

And finally the whole tone of his article; "battling the unions" indeed. What next? Kettling pensioners? Thatcherism is so last century, Phil. Surely you remember that the blessed Margaret had completely routed and destroyed the trade unions thirty years ago. So how come they are still here and well-fed lawyers have to get apoplectic about them? Are there any grown up politicians out there who want to negotiate rather than bluffing?