99% Perfect

Still the 99%

So the baliffs and police have moved in and evicted the Occupiers at St Pauls.

It was amazing to see the protestors behave with such dignity and I’m sure the authorities will be upset there was no violence.

There have been reports of innocent people being dragged away and it appears that an eviction at another site was illegal because it wasn’t covered by the Order, hopefully the Occupy legal team will be onto that.

What the protestors did, camping out in all weathers, fighting through the courts for their rights and raising awareness of the abuse of power by the banks would be called a ‘British stiff upper lip’ had they not been against the establishment but of course with vested interests in the banking industry, Government and the Corporation of London, they are classed as rebels.

And yet again the Church has come out looking less than Christian in their attitudes – it seems they colluded with the police to allow protestors to be removed from the steps of St Pauls even though that wasn’t covered by the Order but at least they can get back to charging people to visit a church now.

I congratulate the Occupy movement for everything they have done, are doing and, I hope, will continue to do and I’m sure this won’t be the last we hear from them …. however much those vested interests try.

Taking the Pink

I recently saw a blog post from Matt O’Connor of Fathers 4 Justice (HERE) where he responded to a request from a publisher on behalf of a soliciter called Lucy Reed who had written a book and wanted Matt to assist with PR/promotion – he declined in his usual style.

In the blog he explains that Lucy Reed had basically said that F4J shouldn’t have allowed children to speak out against the Family Law system – if the children who suffer can’t be allowed a voice, it really does say a lot about the system.

Lucy responded very unprofessionally to Matt’s reply and a few people went onto her blog to voice opinions, including me using my real world name, John Levis (I use the Aaaaargh! character because I don’t feel a need to boost my personal ego by the way).

You can see the blog, Pink Tape and comments HERE.

To be fair to Lucy she did respond to most of the criticism but in the process she has confirmed everyones belief that lawyers are more interested in the money than the welfare of the children.

If you are going through the Family Court system and acting as a Litigant In Person (representing yourself) because you don’t have the funds or don’t trust the lawyers, Lucy’s book of advice is available on her website for £29.50 and will tell you how they want you to do it … but personally I would advise going HERE and downloading the Fathers 4 Justice Handbook which is a thoroughly researched and gives you information you will need to deal with it the best way for you – and the money will help fund Fathers 4 Justice rather than benefit an individual lawyer.

The F.A. (The Financial Association)

The Government recently announced they will be giving the Football Financial Association £3 million to help deal with racism in the sport.

Let me get this right – the country is on it’s financial knees and we are giving money to an organisation that represents some of the highest paid people in the country, to get it’s own house in order.

Surely the FA should be doing this anyway and using funds from their own members.

It was also interesting to hear on a local radio station about an Asian only football team. Surely this is discrimination, after all I can’t imagine being able to have a whites only team (quite rightly too) so where is the difference?

And will this be addressed with the new money from the Government?

I doubt it.

I’ve had no interest in football since the big money got involved but it does make you wonder about the Governments priorities.

I guess it’s only a matter of time before, in addition to the bailout of banks, we offer them millions to sort out corruption in the industry.

 

All Greek to you…?

I thought this was an excellent analysis of how the Greek bailout works.

I don’t know the original source but I do think it should be used on TV to explain what happens.

****************************************************

It is a slow day in a little Greek Village.

The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the village, stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one room in which to spend the night.

The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the €100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the €100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel.

The guy at the Farmers’ Co-op takes the €100 note and runs to pay his drinks bill at the taverna.

The publican slips the money along to the local prostitute drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him “services” on credit.

The hooker then rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the €100 note.

The hotel proprietor then places the €100 note back on the counter so the rich German will not suspect anything.

At that moment the German comes down the stairs, picks up the €100 note, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town.

No one produced anything – No one earned anything – However, the whole village is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism.

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is how the bailout package works.

NHS – No Hidden Secrets

NHS

The NHS has always been a difficult area for politicians. They’re either wasting it’s money or cutting it, depending on who is in power.

It’s something we, as a country, are justifiably proud of generally even if the original concept of a totally free service has changed over the years. It’s something we all have a connection with and indeed are told we have a personal interest in.

So at a time when the Government is looking to make wide-reaching changes, privatising the service some say, you would have thought that we would be provided as much information as possible so we can judge what the Government do with it.

The Department of Health has apparently produced a report on the damage the changes could do to the NHS but have refused to release it.

MP’s are voting on Wednesdayon whether this secret document should be made public.Why this even needs voting on is beyond me and I’m not mentioning this as a political point, I just feel that this sort of information needs to be made available so the public, who pay for the service, can form educated opinions.

Go to https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/nhs-risk-report to sign the petition and urge your MP to vote for this basic right to freedom of information.

Government and Business – all in this together

All in this together

There’s been some publicity lately over Tesco taking advantage of the Governments scheme to force people to work rather than claim benefits.

It seems that the biggest retail outlet in the country took the opportunity to offer jobs that only paid travel and expenses in addition to Job Seekers Allowance (and we’re not talking about the sort of expenses politicians get).

This meant that Tesco got staff effectively for no cost.

As soon as the uproar broke out, Tesco backtracked and said that wasn’t what was on offer – despite testimony that it was, from employees.

The last defence was that the DWP had made an IT error in the job ad. Now maybe if it had been in one ad you could accept this but there were a number of them.

When the Government started using their much-repeated phrase “We’re all in this together” I didn’t realise they were talking about themselves and big business but maybe I should have.

Tesco have now suggested the DWP “to avoid any misunderstanding about the voluntary nature of the scheme, this threat of losing benefit should be removed”. So now Tesco feel it is their place to advise the Government … who do they think they are?

One thing it leaves me wondering though, is if  Tesco somehow run into financial difficulty, or even suggest they are going to, will the Government see them as ‘too big to fail’ like the banks were. After all they probably employ as many, if not more staff than all the banks put together. Could we have a situation where we have to bail out Tesco?

For the moment though, while we are all having to tighten our belts, it might be time for Tesco to remove the first and last letters from their tagline to say what they are doing for the country – Tesco, very little help.

Official: Lord Justice Thorpe lives in another time continuum

Lord Justice Thorpe

This is Lord Justice Thorpe who, it has been revealed, experiences time at a different rate to us.

Let me explain.

He was recently publicly reprimanded for receiving a driving ban and not informing judicial authorities, see HERE

But this disrespect for the judicial system, which none of us would get away with isn’t the issue.

The amazing thing is that the 6 month (around 180 days) ban anyone else would have got, and he was due, was reduced by District Judge Daphne Wickham to 56 days because she was ” prepared to concede that the six months would be a long time for this defendant to be disqualified”.

So there you have it, 6 months is a long time for a judge so they couldn’t possibly be expected not to drive for that long – as against the rest of us to whom 6 months without a licence would obviously not be a problem.

The reason given was that he had to drive to his farm to herd and feed his cattle. Obviously being a senior judge he couldn’t afford to pay someone to do that.

Now I used to think that 6 months was the same length of time for everyone but obviously I was wrong.

As Lord Justice Thorpe is 73 of our years old, he must be over a hundred in his years – maybe it’s time the old fool resigned.

Equality in English Law – coming to a courtroom near you no time soon!

Achtung Bebe

European Flag?

Germany and France have almost done it. They’ve nearly got the control over Europe, including the UK, that they have been after for so long.

Whether it’s by design or just taking advantage of a bad situation, it’s been a masterstroke.

They know that no matter how much our citizens want a referendum on Europe, especially as it soon won’t be the Europe we signed up for, our weak Government won’t allow one – after all, when Greece tried to do it they forced their Prime Minister out and replaced him with their people.

The threat that will be used of course is that it would affect our credit rating badly. The credit rating that is given by the experts who gave excellent credit ratings that led to the problems we have now.

When I was at school we learnt about the First World War and I remember being struck by all the Agreements and Treaties that were made in an attempt to prevent war but broken when it suited individual nations. The current situation seems very similar to me – we are on the verge of a Franco-German treaty that will give those countries immense power, although this time it will be financial, not military.

(Mind you, that didn’t stop France and Germany from mentioning that if the treaty they suggest doesn’t go ahead it could lead to war in the future. That in itself seems like a threat to me, albeit a threat with no substance behind it.)

David Cameron has said  Britain may refuse to sign the EU Treaty but they must be thinking “so what”. Even if we delay the signing, they will simply change the rules so we no longer have the veto, or carry on regardless … and what can we do?

Rather than simply trying to fall in line with Europe all the time, we could concentrate on rapidly building up our manufacturing industries so we are no longer reliant on imports, which would have the added bonus of increased employment. The problem is, of course, we have relied on our service industries, especially the City Financial sector, too much and now it’s too late to go back.

And protecting the financial sector is the important thing for the Government, not looking after the interests of it’s citizens.

So if you really want to beat the recession, start producing the flag at the top of this post – they’ll be selling by the thousands soon.

Merry £a$hmas Everybody!

It's Cashmas!

It looks like we’re about to go into a major recession and you would have thought this would be a time for the Government to recommend restraint during the run up to Cashmas.

We have public information campaigns about the dangers of alcohol, drugs and unhealthy lifestyles but we really all know that stuff, it’s just that some choose to ignore it. A much more serious issue is that Cashmas is a time where we are encouraged to get into debt just to feed the annual capitalist frenzy.

Of course the Government stands to make a fortune in taxes, as the major Corporates profits rise, and none of them actually care that peoples lives will be damaged far beyond the effects of drink, drugs and unhealthy food – in fact all 3 will probably result from the frenzy.

What we need are Public Information films on the line of:

“If you see an item that retails at £50 and is advertised as half price, it’s only saving you £25 if you would have bought it anyway – if you buy it becuase it’s ‘cheap’, you have actually forked out an additional £25.”

But, as I mentioned before, the Government stands to make money so it’s allowed to continue.

(Another example of this is the way gambling websites have escalated recently. People are desperate and even though they know they have little chance of winning they reach the point where they see this as a last chance – and the companies are allowed to promote it as entertainment).

Cashmas is promoted as a family time but this glossy view ignores the fact that families nowadays are often living long distances apart and with  the price of fuel and travelling, those idealised family gathering are expensive events even without the cost of presents.

The New Year will bring good news though … for Debt Collectors and Loan Sharks when the debts come home to roost and for Family Lawyers when the pressures start to reveal the cracks in hard pressed families.

As Noddy might say … IT’S CASHMAS !!!

Just Desserts

£22k dessert

This is the dessert that got some publicity the other week because it was the most expensive ever, costing £22,000 – more money than sense comes to mind!

And speaking of expensive meals, last night at the Guildhall in London it was the Lord Mayors Banquet where the great and good, including David Cameron, probably spent more on a meal than most of us will see in a year.

Outside the banquet some local rabble-rousers had the cheek to try and demonstrate against their betters and were promptly arrested. Some had come from the Occupy protest at St Pauls and when they were bailed, coincidentally, their bail conditions prevented them from returning to the City of London and therefore their original protest.

Also yesterday, Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England who has overseen the worst economic downturn in 30 years, was knighted by the Queen (obviously a performance-based honour) but you won’t see any footage because the Bank of England asked media outlets not to show the pictures – so of course they haven’t.

Moving on to today, the new Italian Government has been put in place, not elected because not a single one of them has been.

I’m off to Ladbrokes to put a tenner on Mervyn King openly running the country next year.