Category Archives: authoritarianism

Physician, heal thyself.

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Here we go again;

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges is calling for fewer fast food outlets near schools and a complete ban on unhealthy food in hospitals in a report which warns the crisis is at risk of becoming “unresolvable”.

No. No it isn’t, the risk is entirely resolvable. You just don’t eat nothing but takeaways and shitty ready meals. There – risk averted. It comes down to the old adage about ‘public health’; there is my health, there is your health, there is no our health.

By 2050 more than half of adults will be seriously overweight and tough measures are needed to prevent the situation spiralling completely out of control, the UK’s 220,000 doctors warn.

Where do you get this from? I’m not going to say they won’t, but you cannot say with any certainty that they will. Look, the adults of 2050 have not in the main been born yet. How can you possibly say what will happen in forty years? Look at how our habits and attitudes have changed since the 60′s. We have no idea what the future will look like. As an example, since the horsemeat story broke the butcher down the end of my road has been run ragged. He has, and this is no exaggeration, been giving tours of his cold storage room, showing supermarket shoppers who have come to him how the meat on his counter and in his window has been carved off the carcass hanging up in the back. He can tell them what farm the meat came from, what the farmer’s name is. These shoppers have been coming back. He provides better meat, supporting local farmers, in a better atmosphere and a price which is the equal of, or cheaper than, the supermarket.

Things change.

Doctors are united in viewing obesity – the consequences of which include diabetes, heart disease and cancer – as the single greatest public health crisis facing the country, the report says.

Blah blah blah.

The report criticises both current and previous governments for “piecemeal and disappointingly ineffective” attempt to deal with the problem, given that one in four adults in England is obese and these figures are set to climb to 60 per cent of men, 50 per cent of women, and 25 per cent of women over the next 37 years.

Yada yada yada.

Look, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. It is your job to fix us when we’re broken. How we got broken is of no concern to you.

More to the point, may I suggest that you deliver on your promises? The actual Snowolf is part of a little pack that meets up every afternoon. One of the pack humans is ill, he’s a man just past his 80th birthday and has a nasty cancer which keeps popping up in his bladder. It now looks like his bladder is going to have be removed. He’s been subjected to  a battery of tests, the last one was a scan, the results of which would be interpreted and revealed three weeks after the scan. Three weeks was up on Thursday. Nothing, not so much as a peep. The Consultant is ‘unavailable’. How about a little less time on the golf course and preaching to everyone and a little more time doing your actual job?

Actually, I have another question. Where in the blue hell were the sainted, hugely important and no doubt vastly knowledgable ‘Academy of Royal Medical Colleges’ when their members were overseeing the needless deaths of over 1,000 people, left sat on the bog, or dying in sheets covered in their own piss and shit, or denied even a drink of water? Hmmm? Where was this august organisation when these people, who had been entrusted to their members to make them better, died of neglect in circumstances that would have embarrassed Haringey Social Services?

Perhaps, when our medical professionals can display a capacity for not neglecting their patients to death in circumstances that would have scandalised a Napoleonic War charnel house, or can take someone into their care without deciding that it would be best for all concerned if they were just left to die, then maybe, possibly, I might just be prepared to give some credence to what their rent seeking, power hungry, arrogant trade bodies have to say.

All your bedrooms are belong to us – part deux.

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A couple of months ago I blogged about some arseclowns that wanted to take charge of everyone’s unused bedrooms.

Well, it’s gone a step further. Now I see over at Big Brother Watch that Newham council want to take charge of bedrooms that are in use. They want a list of everyone that comes to visit, and no doubt dates and times to boot:

It’s already been dubbed the ‘sex snoop list’ and residents are up in arms.

Newham Council’s decision to force residents to sign-in every visitor to their property in 30 tower blocks is a clear invasion of privacy and an entirely misguided response to a problem.

The policy was announced with less than 24 hours notice and staff are being asked to refuse entry to visitors who don’t sign in.

Wow.

Just wow.

It’s all for your own good, obviously.

Ridiculously, the council say it’s for fire safety and to combat anti-social behavior.

Ahhh, the old health and safety dog whistle. Well, bravo. I bet the person who thought of this wanked themselves sore when the idea popped into their head. Still I suppose it justifies their continued employment, because obviously all the other problems have been magicked away.

Haven’t they?

Despite finding the time and resources to implement the guest register, the council failed to fix the locks on doors for several years.

Oh.

It won’t be long until there’s tellyscreens installed in each flat, so the community health officers can browbeat the feckless prole residents for not doing their exercises with sufficient vigour or eating the wrong food. I wonder if smoking is already banned in these flats?

Meanwhile, British troops – immeasurably braver than I – continue to be killed in Afghanistan as they fight to ‘protect’ our ‘liberties’.

It really does make me feel nauseous.

They’ve got a little list.

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Leg-Iron wrote yesterday about the fate of non-smoking drinkers. I can only echo his sentiments. Did you really think that smokers were the only ones on the list? They were always coming for you next.

The indicators have been there for a little while, exactly the same thing that happened to smoking is happening to drinking now, except faster, because now they have a template to follow.

Boris outlawed drinking on the tube (although even as a militant smoker, I accept that smoking on the underground isn’t perhaps the smartest thing someone can do), all the alcohol ads carry the ‘please drink responsibly’ tag line now, the advertising of alcohol is restricted and banned in some areas across Europe. The health warnings, in the shape of the little how many (completely arbitrary and totally made up) units are contained within are now commonplace. It won’t be long until pictures of diseased livers, wrecked cars and some bloke looking terrified having woken up in bed with an ugly bird start turning up on bottles. Oh, it won’t just be Asda own brand alcopops, it’ll have to be on that very expensive bottle of château bottled burgundy as well. We’ve already got stories of adults being refused sale of alcohol because they once met a child and could perhaps set up some sort of intravenous drip system for the little tyke. Similarly, pregnant women have been asked to leave pubs because they’ve had a sip of someone’s drink. Then there’s the tax. It’ll not be long until people will be forced to go and drink outside for fear that they give people alcoholism through passive drinking, and don’t even get me started on third hand booze, that’ll give you cirrhosis.

The restrictions will continue to be rolled out, and it will all be for our own good.

Don’t drink? Don’t think it matters to you? Feel happy because the filthy smokers and boorish drinkers are finally being brought to heel? Well, good for you. How about food, do you eat any of that? Because the screw is being turned there as well. Just think of the progression against smoking and drinking. Now look at this story:

Tougher action – including taxing junk food – is needed by all governments if the obesity crisis is going to be tackled, experts say.

‘Ah, but I don’t eat nasty junk food, carry on.’ OK. Just remember, they started on cigar and pipe smokers first. They targeted the niteklub set and their drinking promos before going on to all the other drinkers. Do you really think they’ll stop at the kebab eaters?

They said changes in society meant it was getting harder for people to live healthy lives.

You see, this is how they think we think. They honestly believe that we’re unable to pass a branch of McDonald’s without nipping in for a Big Mac, and fries, and a milkshake, and some chicken nuggets. And an apple pie.

And an ice-cream.

Really, because they are so intellectually superior to us, because they are incapable of making a mistake it obviously follows that as we are inferior, we are unable to make a good decision.

Who decides what is a good and a poor decision? Well, they do of course. You think we mere mortals have the ability to make a judgement like that?

I was watching Sky News this morning and had to rewind it and make a transcript of what the chilling authoritarian and utter (and I apologise, I’ve made a conscious effort to cut back on swearing in my posts, but sometimes there’s no alternative) waste of fucking skin, Klim McPherson had to say:

“People know that obesity is a real problem. People don’t know as individuals what to do about it. Governments do know, as governments, what do about it.”

 

(speechless)

 

 

No, prole. You don’t know how to stop getting fat. Only government and very clever people can tell you how to do it. Don’t believe for one moment that you belong to you. You are a chattel, a possession, a slave. It is your job to work and hand over the results of your toil without question. You MUST pay for your healthcare, but then when you need care, forget it, you’re costing money. The fact that you’ve paid for it is immaterial, that money doesn’t belong to you, you disgusting little peasant. How dare you not take care of yourself? If you’re ill, how are the clever people supposed to survive and pontificate? All the time you’re ill, you’re not producing the cash they need.

These fuckers will not rest until we are all eating and drinking in huge refectories, lining up with a plastic tray to collect the menu that has been approved for us all. Well, not for us all, some will be eating venison with potatoes roasted in goose fat, they’ll have a nice pot au chocolat for dessert and a selection of fine wines. But that’s fine, because they know what they’re doing. Who do you think ‘they’ will be?

First they came for the smokers, and I didn’t speak out for I didn’t smoke. Then they came for the drinkers, but I said nothing as I was teetotal. Then they came for the wobble bottoms. . .

Looking past the decoy.

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There were breathless reports in the British media yesterday about the actions of two women who went out defy the ban on the wearing of face coverings in France. The reports on BBC radio were of the tone that these women were being very silly and that the ban was a good thing.

My French ain’t great, but as luck would have it, I was in the country yesterday and French radio was carrying a lot of vox-pops that suggested the general population was mystified at best by the ban, and in a couple of interviews the reaction was hostile.

Now, I don’t like the burqa, I think it is a hateful item of clothing which disconnects the wearer from the rest of society, it also suggests that all women are sluts and all men are rapists. It is the physical embodiment of one of the things that turns me off from religion, the mania for collecting people whilst dictating their actions and thoughts and telling them they are worthless. I also hate socks worn with sandals and the old blazer and jeans combo, but because, like the veil, they don’t actually do any harm, I am not calling for their prohibition.

But of course the story is a bit of a decoy. You see, the law in France doesn’t ban the burqua or the niqab, what it does is ban all face coverings in public. Everyone is prohibited from covering their face in public in France now; this means that Old Holborn’s little walk would be illegal. Well, when I say everyone, that isn’t quite accurate. You and I would be breaking the law by going out with a face covering, whether the reason for doing so is malicious or not, but for agents of the state, it is perfectly acceptable for them to go out dressed thus:

The odd, non-assimilationist, muslim women wearing the burqa, the section of society that the rest doesn’t trust because their behaviour is so different to everyone else, have been used as a smokescreen, a decoy, to prevent attention from falling onto the fact that every private citizen is being restricted here.

It isn’t jsut that; as the Torygraph correctly reports:

But Alexis Marsan, a public order official, said they were solely given warnings for taking part in an illegal gathering.

Five men and another women were also held for taking part in the demonstration.

Whereas in the UK, it is illegal to hold a demonstration without permission within a certain radius of parliament, which is bad enough, in France it is illegal to hold a demonstation anywhere without permission. This is what was being reported in a very matter of fact way on French radio, that these people had been arrested for an unauthorised demonstration.

The BBC also reported on their TV news that the pair were spirited away to a police station to ‘have their papers checked.’ It should be noted that any resident of France is obliged to carry their Carte d’Identitie or Carte de Sejour at all times and you can be stopped and checked at any time, for no particular reason, I don’t know if you can be obliged to go to the police station for your papers to be checked for no good reason, but given the reputation of the gendarmerie and the paramilitary CRS for being robust, I’m not too sure I’d be asking too forcefully.

So, just across that short stip of water we have a country where you cannot demonstrate against the state unless the state gives you permission to do so, where you cannot wear a face covering, for example a rubber mask of Sarkozy or De Gaulle, and where you can routinely be swept up off the street to have your ‘papers’ checked.

Am I the only one who finds this disturbing?

Normally, I’d be saying that this is a matter for the country in question, but reports are that Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands have plans along similar lines, and you can only wonder how long it will be before the same comes in over here, either through our own parliament or as the result of a dictat from Brussels.

Stupid, stupid everywhere, and no-one stops to think.

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Bugger it being a big weekend for sport, this has been one of the biggest weekends for idiocy I can remember in a long time. Let’s start with sport though;

Iran has indicated it will attend the 2012 Olympics in London, despite complaining that the Games logo resembles the word “Zion”.

I couldn’t help but chuckle when the story of a proposed boycott broke, but it would appear that perhaps it isn’t that important to them after all.

They objected on the grounds that its resemblance to the word Zion – a Biblical term for Israel – was racist.

But now the Iranian-backed Press TV has quoted an official as saying Iranians will “participate gloriously”.

Will they? Oh, that’s nice. It’s not often I agree with Cameron but he hits the nail on the head here:

In an interview with the London-based paper Jewish News, Mr Cameron said: “It’s completely paranoid. If the Iranians don’t want to come, don’t come – we won’t miss you.

I think Iran may have one or two more important things to worry about. Boycott the Olympics because the logo is a Zionist insult to Islam? Really? I can understand you boycotting the Olmypics because the logo is crap and a PR catastrophe, but this?

William Hague isn’t about to quit, and hasn’t lost his mojo and has the full support of the PM. That makes me think there’ll be a new Foreign Secretary before the month is out. It seems that Baldy Bill hasn’t learned from his mistakes of the past:

“So there’s a certain irony,” he adds. “People tell me there’s a newspaper article saying I lack energy, presumably written by some lounge lizard who’s rolled up at 11am and wondered what to write about (without being rude about journalists!) when I’m already on my second country that day. We’ve put a huge amount of new energy into British foreign policy.”

How many pints at how many pubs on the dray round? ‘When I’m already on my second country that day’? I have visions of Hague sat at a table, with the tablecloth tucked into his collar, knife and fork in hand.

What is it with politicians and willy waving? What is it with politicians and making laws, then deciding that the laws they’ve made don’t apply to them because they’re too important? EU law especially. I forget who it was who made the point in the House over the prisoner votes debate about the danger of governments picking and choosing which laws they abide by, and the SNP are masters of this.

Plans to introduce minimum drink pricing in Scotland will be revived if the SNP wins May’s Holyrood election.

If, although given the low regard the big three are held in at present, May probably can’t come quick enough for the SNP.

But they [the plans] were opposed by Labour, the Lib Dems and Tories, who said minimum pricing would penalise responsible drinkers and was probably illegal.

It doesn’t matter if it’s illegal though, because a politician wants to do it. The thing with politicians (especially Socialists) is that the rule of law is absolutely sacrosant, right up until the point where it is obstructive or inconvenient for them, then it must be ignored.

But addressing delegates, Ms Sturgeon, also the Scottish health secretary, will say the SNP acted like a government, while opponents acted disgracefully.

Oh, how telling. She’s right though, by completely disregarding a law they don’t like, the SNP have indeed acted just like I would expect a government to act. The disgraceful actions of the opposition must only refer to their saying ‘but that’s against the law, we can’t do that’, if so, I have no desire to be a disgrace, does this give me carte-blanche to ignore all laws? Because I’m game.

As Counting Cats pointed out the Ecoloons are already starting to make capital out of the quake and tsunami in Japan. He has some arseclown putting it all down to homeless polar bears, or something. Meanwhile in Germany. . .

The nuclear accident in Japan has sparked a discussion about atomic power in Germany, where a massive anti-nuclear protest was already planned for Saturday. A senior Green Party politician has said that some German plants are vulnerable to the same kind of failure as happened at Fukushima 1.

Riiiiiight. Vulnerable to the same kind of failure?

According to the US Geological Survey, the last earthquake in Germany was as recent as February 14th this year, it came in at a jaw dropping 3.9 on the Richter Scale. 3.9 is labelled as ‘often felt, but rarely causes damage‘. The difference between 3.9 in Germany and 8.9 in Japan is akin to the difference between dropping teaspoon on your kitchen floor and dropping a reinforced concrete box full of lead and elephants on your floor.

I can find no records of a tsunami in either the Baltic or the North Sea. So when you say that ‘some German plants are vulnerable to the same kind of failure as happened at Fukushima 1′, you mean that after an earthquake of unbelievable power and then being hit by a bloody great tsunami it still hasn’t blown up and made the east coast of Japan uninhabitable for the next four generations, I think I’d be tempted to take my chances. I wonder how many Japanese wind turbines are standing after the quake and tsunami. I’m betting not many, but then I’d be surprised if there were that many to start with, because the Japanese have more sense and realise that a functioning country is more important than making offerings to some green god.

It looks like 10,000 people in one town, half the town’s population, has been wiped out. It makes Aberfan look like a stubbed toe, and you have the gall to make capital out of it for your own self-importance and political agenda? The Greens really are some of the least attractive people about, there is no depth to which they will not stoop.

The bread is stale and the circus is crap.

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The coverage of events in Bahrain by the BBC and Sky is peppered with an almost tangible sense of incredulity and stats to back this sense up.

According to the CIA world factbook, none of the population are below the poverty line, it is, according to Sky the most liberal regime in the gulf. The population have nice houses, access to the internet, schools, healthcare, jobs and a shiny new F1 race track.

Life in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya is not pleasant, so it is entirely understandable that the populations have risen, are rising, or look like they will rise, up against the regimes there. But Bahrain? Why?

Sky have been at pains to point out all day that the majority of the 1.2 million population are Shi’ite, yet the ruling royal family are Sunni. That must be it. It’s the middle east, it must all be down to religion, it always is there, it’ll be some nutjob with a turban and a raggedy arsed beard shouting a lot.

Well, no.

Despite everything the Bahrainis have, there’s one thing they’re missing. Freedom. The same thing that is missing all over north Africa and the Gulf. The rest is just dressing, when you have no power, no say over your life, no chance to influence or change your society, then all the nice air conditioned houses and imported German cars don’t matter. Sure, they’ll delay the inevitable, but it is inevitable. There comes a point when the population will take no more, they will hit back.

How to deal with it?

Well, in Tunisia the authorities thought about it for a while then decided it wasn’t worth the effort. In Egypt the army made it perfectly clear whose side they were on and did a good job of doing nothing whilst saying ‘don’t make me come down there.’ In both countries it remains to be seen if the population will get what they want.

In Bahrain the authorities (that is the King, the only authority) have made it perfectly clear that the population can go take a running jump. Shooting at people who are angry only makes them angrier. Shooting at people where the group constitutes women and children will make people absolutely furious. It all depends on which comes first, is it the angry mob saying ‘sod this, I’m tired of being shot at’, or is it the troops who suddenly realise the people stood in front of them are their mate, brother, sister, father, mother, niece, nephew, grandmother, grandfather and suddenly decide they don’t fancy shooting any more, at least not in the direction they’ve been told to. In a small country like Bahrain, I’m betting the latter comes first. I’ve always thought the best way to disarm an army in a civil dispute is to march a line of old women up to the troops carrying placards that say ‘I’m your Grandmother and I want you to stop this nonsense right now.’

What will be interesting will be the American’s response to this. They have a large amount of floating hardware anchored off the coast, they’ve certainly sold the arms to Bahrain that are now being trained on the population, they (and we) get oil from Bahrain. The King is a good mate to Uncle Sam, but how far will that friendship stretch? When will the concerned noises turn into ‘Oh, come on now.’ What happens when/if the American public realises that their weapons are fired at people who live under an effective absolute monarchy? What happens if the flow of oil is disrupted? Will America look at the King with such fondness then, especially as the regime seems to go against everything the American constitution stands for? The only difference between Bahrain and Iran is that Bahrain wouldn’t drop a shed load of missiles on America given half the chance. It’s a big difference, but can a President with a certain public facade to keep up be seen to be supporting the total extermination of free speech, freedom of assembly and shooting of innocent citizens in the street?

Yes, they may have the nice TV, the big sporting events, a comfy bed in a nice house, but all the time you have no say, no freedom, it isn’t worth anything. The EU would do well to look at Bahrain over the next few days and take note. It could happen here, very easily, one of our cousins in this brave new world have recent experience and people have longer memories than dictators think.

The bell is a message for me, not for you.

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I quite enjoyed school, mainly because I derive a great deal of enjoyment from learning stuff. It makes me smile. Even as an adult, being shown things I had no comprehension of and being shown how to do or use it can still induce a fit of excited giggles. I really like learning stuff.

But, you may also be surprised to know that I could be a right pain in the arse at school as well. I have a habit of asking inconvenient questions like ‘why do you say that?’, ‘why is it not done this way?’, what difference does it make if I wear a tie or not, will it have any influence over the speed or depth of my learning?’ I was annoyed by stupid rules which made no sense, or imposed inconveniences which seem to benefit nobody. When I was in the 5th year (is that year ten in new money?) I grew a beard, a beard you could lose a badger in. It didn’t say I couldn’t in the rules, so I did it, it annoyed quite a few people.

When in the sixth form I went to visit some family friends in Washington state during term time. The head of sixth form tried to carpet me for going out of school in term time without permission. I pointed out that I was in the sixth form because I chose to be, not because the law required me to be in education so where was the beef?

I turned 18 in the sixth form, and was subject to an attempted bollocking for pissing off home at lunchtime once a week because I had no lessons in the afternoon (this was a school, not a college), I pointed out that had I been in a college it wouldn’t have been an issue. It was, I was told, for my own protection, that the school had a duty of care for my welfare. Which expired when I ceased to be 17, I explained.

I was an intransigent, obstinate, yet polite, annoyance. I think they were quite pleased when I pissed off to university. I steadfastly refused to do what I was told unless I could be provided with a reasonable explanation as to why certain rules were in place. ‘Just because’, or ‘Because we say so’ was never going to cut the ice.

Even now when I read stories like this about the imposition of ridiculous rules in schools it makes me bristle:

Dozens of pupils were sent home from a city secondary school this week – for wearing the wrong kind of shoes.

Around 100 pupils at Cardinal Newman Catholic School were sent home on Monday with a letter for parents explaining boots, trainers and pumps were banned.

Disgruntled parents claimed as many as 400 pupils had fallen foul of the footwear crackdown, but the school insisted the figure was nearer 100.

Why? What bloody difference does it make what sort of footwear someone wears?

I’ve heard the arguments over uniform for years, and I’ve never been convinced about them. There’s the preparation argument; wearing an acceptable mode of clothing will give the child an understanding of what will be expected when they enter the world of work. And yet, the shcools will send kids out who are functionally illiterate and innumerate. How is that useful perparation? They can tell you when Eid is, quote chapter and verse on global warming, or tell you what it was like to be an Aboriginal child in the horror of the stolen generations, but they can’t write a letter, construct an argument or balance a cheque book. But hey, they’ll be able to pick out a nice pair of shoes (imitation leather, to avoid offence to others, naturally).

Then there’s the argument about fairness and bullying; if you don’t have a uniform then the poorer kids will be subjected to bullying because they don’t have the latest or coolest kit. Well, bollocks. Firstly, there may well be kids who can afford it, but just couldn’t care about the shallow materialism. Secondly, and this is a point illustrating an awful lot about what is wrong with this country today, how about actually dealing with the problem of bullying? Merely removing one focal point of bullying will just move the gaze of the bullies from one subject to another or one item to another. Any headteacher who tells you bullying isn’t a problem in their school is either a fool or a liar. Don’t remove the opportunity to bully, remove the bully him or herself. Teach a worthwhile lesson. That lesson is not ‘Conform!’, that lesson is ‘your actions have consequences, you acted in such a fashion, here is the consequence’. Schools all over Europe and north America seem to survive quite happily without a uniform policy, why should the UK be any different?

My mind goes back to my term-time trip to Seattle. I was given the impression that those lessons were gone, irreplacable. I’d taken the trouble to speak to the teachers beforehand, to see what I would be missing out on and how to catch up. I think one of the problems was that I’d done it off my own back, rather than asking for permission and having some plan drawn up for me. Going away in term time, to see a foreign country, and to spend a good deal of time kicking around on the University of Washington campus with the daughter of the family friend who studied there was an education in itself, but I was made to feel it was an act of heresy. And yet, schools will send kids home, missing these vital, never to be repeated lessons, because they’re wearing the wrong shoes? Really? I’m calling bullshit, it means either the lessons aren’t all that important, or the school feels its arbitrary rules are more important than the education the teachers are paid to dish out. Which is it?

Not only is it dress code which gets educationalists juices flowing, there are other ways to get the authoritarian beating stick out, another method of teaching the kids that the most important lesson they can learn is to simply do as they are told, all throughout their lives.

New search powers being given to schools over mobile phones are more suitable for terror inquiries, human rights pressure group Liberty says.

England’s head teachers will be allowed to search for phones without consent in a bid to combat cyber-bullying.

The Education Bill, to be debated in the Commons next week, also allows heads to delete data from the phones.

The government says heads asked for the powers and will be expected to use them sensibly.

What. The. Hell?
Search without consent? Just wait for the kiddie fiddling claims.

Delete data from the phones? Uh-uh. Not even the police can do that. If my kid is being cyber-bullied, I want the data retained, because I’m going after the little shit.

Heads asked for the powers? Did they know? Is there anything else they asked for? Will you give that to them? In my experience headteachers are used to being kings of their castles, I used to have regular contact with teachers, outside of schools but on school business, and they love to stamp their feet and make demands of everyone, expecting to be obeyed by all. They quite upset when it doesn’t happen, and are not used to hearing the word no, not unlike many of their charges, really. Will they use the powers sensibly? Some won’t. Once again, go after the bullies, not the tools of the bully.

I don’t like this. The problem with giving people authoritarian tools of control is that they will use them. And then seek to expand them.

Finally, when we do get someone who absolutely tries to do the best for the kids, she gets pilloried, insulted, smeared and sacked. Anna Raccoon has the latest quest she is on. Please do pop over and read about it.

But who decides?

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Let’s see how this ‘Big Society’ thing works shall we?

People could give to charity every time they use bank cards in shops or at cash machines, the government has said.

 So you mean beyond the collection tins on many shop counters, the charity muggers on the high street, the envelopes dropped through your letterbox and the door to door collectors, the government has decided we need more opportunity to give to charity?

They could also be prompted to give money when they fill in tax returns, or apply for passports and driving licences, the Cabinet Office suggested.

We’re already prompted to give money when we do all those things, that’s the reason we have to do those things in the first place. What they mean to say is we could be prompted to give more money.

Lottery winners would get thank-you letters from ministers if they donated large sums to good causes.

Oh, that would be the icing on the cake, wouldn’t it? Only a politician would think that winning a lottery prize would be made better by some arseclown, who is probably due to be sacked, voted out or convicted of stealing the equivalent of a nice lottery win from the taxpayer, sending a letter telling you what a good little drone you are.

But here’s the thing, who decides what constitutes a ‘good cause’? Of all the big charities, the only two I have any faith in are the RNLI and Help for Heroes. As far as I know, neither of these two take any cash from taxes. Both these charities save lives. Both these charities stand for what I believe charities should do. I’m betting that the ‘good causes’ the politicians have in mind are probably made up of the usual suspects: the RSPCA, who seem to no longer really care about the animals, all they care about are prosecutions and taking people to court to make them donate. The NSPCC, who spend most of their time spreading fear about noncism and picking the very lowest of the low hanging fruit. ASH who, well, go see Dick and Leggy.

To me, this looks like a scheme to get even more money out of our pockets and into those of organisations who already take a hefty portion of their income from the tax pot. You and I are well aware of the fake charity scam, but the vast majority of people aren’t. When the subject arises and I explain my objections, I am looked at as if I’ve just said the moon is actually a giant vanilla cheesecake and the Royal Family are alien zombie robot lizards from space.

‘But, but, they’re charities.’ It does not compute. It’s kinda like pointing out to a seven year old child that Father Christmas doesn’t exist. The bottom lip goes out, it is contrary to the evidence available. The TV goes on about him, he saw him at the shopping centre, the toys from Santa arrived the previous Christmas, even the mince pie and carrot were reduced to crumbs. So how can this be the case?

Here’s a line to strike fear into all our hearts:

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said it was not an attempt to “compel” people but to encourage the “big society” agenda championed by Prime Minister David Cameron.

And we all know what happens when government calls for something to be voluntary, optional or safe-regulating, and the preferred choice is not taken up, don’t we children? Yes, that’s right, they’ll just pass a law.

 
The Big Society is goverment telling us ‘give us your money, and we’ll decided where it is best spent, once we’ve taken an admin fee, natch.’
Where’s the difference?

What a waste of bloody money.

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It is bad enough that money is taken from our pockets and pissed up the wall with gay abandon on projects you’d never even be able to dream up, let alone support. It is even worse when you willingly surrender your income for a service and then find that you’ve been stabbed in the back.

What am I going on about? This:

Workers at a district council in Norfolk must now clock off and back on if they take a cigarette break. 

Staff at Breckland Council will no longer be paid for the time they spend smoking after the proposals were given the go-ahead.

Simon Clark, from smokers’ lobby group Forest, said everyone was entitled to a break during work.

That’s old news. We’ve heard this story before. But here’s a new spin:

The group described the plan as “tyrannical”, but council management, unions and workers backed the change.

Council management I’d expect no more of. Workers come in the same group as ‘the people’ in Righteous speak, they are a homogenous mass, of one opinon and utterly identical to each other. But the unions? What the fucking flying fuck?

I don’t even know where to begin. I really don’t.

Firstly, I bet I can guess which unions are involved in this, at least two of them, and they are biggies.

What the hell? Are members paying their subs only to find that when management penalises people for engaging in a perfectly legal activity, an activity which sits very much in a bracket with other perfectly legal activities, the unions actually support it? As the bloke from Forest says:

Some take coffee breaks others go out for a cigarette.

In the old, old days, you could smoke at your desk, but they are long gone. I don’t object to that. In the old days there was a smoking staff room where I worked, people would take their work in with them, so the loss to the business was nil, now we’ve been sent outside, from our sealed and vented room which no non-smoker had to go into, and having been sent outside we find ourselves being penalised for doing what we’ve been told to do.

Ah yes, but you don’t have to smoke.

True, but then I don’t drink tea or coffee, you don’t have to drink it either. So why the fuck aren’t you clocking off when you go out to get your umpteenth fix of caffeine of the day? Oh, they’ll come for you eventually, your addiction will become as anti-social as mine, make no mistake, they’re coming. Don’t come crying to me. You’ve spat in my face, when your time comes, I will point, dance and laugh at you until I’m sick.

I’m getting side-tracked here. For a union to take subs from members under the pretence of representing their desires and interests, and then to arbritrarily abandon those members, members who are engaging in an activity which harms no other members, nor the union as a whole is a sickening betrayal.

I disagree with the TUC affiliated unions on a good number of subjects, but give them their due, they will support (by and large) the terms, conditions and rights of their members, even when those demands are excessive, outdated and completely against the interests of the public that fund them.

But this? This is a total betrayal, and if were a member of one of these unions, I would be livid.

The thing is these unions, the really big ones, I’m talking PCS and Unison here, the two I’m convinced are behind this capitulation, aren’t really about staff in the way unions were when they first came into existence. They are more about politics than staff t&c’s, it is the members’ job to pay their subs and then dance to the tune which is played for them.

How loudly would they squeal if a clock was put on the computer terminals in the office to measure how much time was spent on ebay or slebrity news websites? How high would the pitch of that squeal get if that time was then knocked off staffs’ flexitime?

Exactly.

Treacherous, spineless, hypocritical cowards. The fucking lot of them.

If you are a member of the union(s) behind this capitulation and you smoke, make no mistake, this will not be confined to one anonymous district council in Norfolk, it will come to your office soon and the precedent has been set. Be a good drone, pay your cash and do what you’re told. They know best. Not you.