Saturday, October 24, 2009

Indigenous?

On Question Time Nick Griffin referred to the "indigenous" people of these islands (the English, the Scottish, the Welsh, and the Irish) who have been here "for 17,000 years". Among other failings poor Nick has a slender grasp of history if he thinks the bloody English have been here for 17,000 years...

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Cameron the egalitarian


David Cameron says he wants everyone to have the opportunites he had. You can't say that's not ambitious. He is the son of a stockbroker, educated at Eton and Oxford, worth God knows how many millions (he won't say), who owns the mansion in Oxfordshire shown here, and is married to an aristocrat whose Daddy is apparently worth £60 million, and who designs handbags which retail at around a thousand pounds (although her cheap publicity stunt of wearing a High Street dress she wouldn't normally be seen dead in was applauded by a fawning and supine press). I'm not sure everyone could enjoy the opportunities Dave and Samantha have had. If everyone consumed the resources these parasites consume the earth would be stripped bare in a week.

Thursday, October 01, 2009

What to expect...

A recent edition of The Economist (Sep 26-Oct 2) has its wish list of cuts: the extension of VAT to food, ending free bus travel for pensioners, ending winter fuel payments to pensioners, means-testing child benefit... The "Tobin tax"? Obviously a very bad idea. Elsewhere in the same issue: the Tories are planning the wholesale privatisation of schools (currently they are to be "not-for-profit" but that could - will - change). And at their conference the Tories (while leaving their precious inheritance tax untouched) outlined their plans to freeze public-sector wages, end tax-credits for thousands of families, and raise the retirement age (which won't affect those with enough dosh to be able to retire early). A more recent edition of The Economist (October10-16) praises Osbone ("That's More Like It") and adds a few more items to the wish list: closing Sure Start Centres, and raising university tuition fees. And after the election: will the minimum wage survive? pension credit? public libraries? Will there be a private-insurance model for health? Just because its not in the Tory Manifesto doesn't mean it won't happen...