Out of Step?

Obviously getting elected to parliament in 2010 means you're inclined to agree with war, either that or I'm just hopelessly naive. For only 13 MPs to vote against military action in Libya suggest that only 13 people in parliament care more about the citizens of the UK than they do those of Libya. Because that has to be the message being sent out from Westminster.

Perhaps I'm missing something. Perhaps I don't understand the power that the UN wields. Perhaps the thousands of people affected by this monstrosity of a government's cuts, care more that we spend £10million a day protecting the lives of citizens of a country that for most of the last 40 years has had nothing but contempt for the UK. Perhaps, when it boils down to it, we'd rather be spending money defending Libya, when thousands of people will barely be able to survive when the cuts take real effect. Perhaps the money spent on this military action is coming from the UN, or from some secret bank account we only use when we get to kill people and blow things up?

I know a lot of other people who feel as passionately about this as I do, so obviously they're just as out of touch as me. I was disgusted that not one single MP asked Cameron where the money was coming from or how he thought people being decimated by his government's cuts would feel about it. My faith in politics took a massive down swing today. Not for a long time have I felt as though I don't want to be here any more. I don't want to think of myself as British. I understand what is happening in Libya; it isn't good and someone should do something about it. Someone who has the money, or the connections or someone who hasn't been involved in every other bloody military action for the last 50 years.

I sit here and wonder if it would even be worth writing to my MP, or Clegg or even that self-righteous twat Cameron and I realise that it's all a bit worthless and pointless. I'm going on a march on Saturday to campaign against the massive cuts. The weather forecast is dreadful and the outcome will not change - we won't see the government change its strategy; we won't see them acknowledging that we vote them in, so we should have some say when we really don't like being made to pay for the banks or the politicians' bad mistakes. Big Society? Make the people that matter accountable? Hold your politicians to account?

Never have I been so disgusted with politicians. They don't serve the people, they serve whatever agenda suits them.

Get Your Libya Yas Out

One day. probably not in my lifetime, we'll have a government that says, "No thanks. Got nothing to do with us. We have enough problems in our own country to get involved in someone else's problems. Yes, we understand that this country that you want to invade/defend/obliterate has lots of oil and a history of terrorism; but if we can't help countries that don't have oil with the same zealousness then we'd rather spend this money on keeping people in work; helping people from getting into massive debt; feeding people who now rely on charities because they're so under the poverty line it's a fucking disgrace...

I'm disgusted by any politician that can support this action. This country DOES NOT need to be the world's deputy police officer. It CANNOT afford to do it while so many thousands of people in this country lose their livelihoods. It SHOULD NOT put even more British forces lives at risk for the sake of oil. This has nothing to do with the people of Libya, if it really was then the UN would have been invading countries with appalling human rights records, or defending Tibet, or protecting Zimbabweans, or supporting Chechens, or protecting the good people of Burma.

This is a fucking disgrace. Blair was wrong to get involved with Iraq. Cameron is an arse for wanting to become yet another prime minister with a war on his hands.

When will we learn that not getting involved is the best way forward?

Hope for the Future Unemployed? Not on Your Life!

Good news! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12686000 Many people living in Middle England are going to see a slight reduction in their Council Tax.

Woo and indeed Hoo. Unfortunately, while the middle classes won't see any major changes, the working, lower and under classes will feel the pinch because frontline council services will be axed. If Northants County Council increased their tax by 3% - which is less than £30 a year per household - there would be enough money to save 750 of the 1000 jobs that are going over the next few months; it would also help with the next round of redundancies scheduled for December.

But, at least we won't see an increase on our indirect taxes and that means that some people, who aren't affected by the cuts, will be able to quietly think, "I'm all right Jack", because that's what Tory policies are all about. Cameron might harp on about the Big Society, but the reality is Conservatism promotes the individual.

***

http://www.cypnow.co.uk/bulletins/Daily-Bulletin/news/1058548/?DCMP=EMC-DailyBulletin is a scary article. It basically explains how, because of the cuts, the Youth Justice Board is losing a lot of its funding, which means that there will be less workers trying to keep our kids on the straight and narrow. Ken Clarke wants less people in prison; to the point where 5 prisons are closing in the next 10 months; yet the police are having their budgets slashed; Probation is having its budget slashed, the Youth Justice system is having it budget slashed. Just how is this government going to get crime figures down and work at rehabilitating offenders when all of the people doing good work are facing the axe?

If you know someone that ends up being a victim of crime, be sure to ask them who they voted for at the last election.

I'm beginning to think that tackling the budget deficit should be a long term plan; one that guarantees the future of this country, especially if neither major political party has the balls to tackle tax evasion issues. The public - all of them - are going to eventually pay for this mess three times and it wasn't even any fault of our own.

In a Pickles

As much as I abhor the fact that council chief executives earn shed loads of money, compared to bankers - the group of people that the tax payer bailed out and are now paying for again - these people and their £200k salaries are nothing. Eric Pickles is calling for these CE's to take self imposed 10% pay cuts; to send a message to all the people being hit by the cuts that everyone is making a sacrifice.

Is that the most hypocritical thing yet from this government? Telling us it's time to forgive the banks and let them get on with helping re-establish growth (oh and turning a blind eye to millions of pounds worth of bonuses they plan on giving themselves) while simultaneously berating council chiefs for paying themselves too much in light of all the many public sector workers who are losing their jobs as a result of the government slashing local government subsidies.

I'd accuse the ConDems of double standards, but that would be too simple. This is on many levels incredibly offensive.

I shall ask my favourite question, yet again. How do the Liberal Democrats sleep at night?

Big Society or Big Failure?

Share the love on Valentine's Day. Share the love and watch as more and more people face unemployment. The day has not been about love, it's been about administration, liquidation and the Big Society and how you too can lose your job, but still do it.

The Big Society has potential. There are elements of it that appeal to my socialist tendencies. The idea of rebuilding community spirit is admirable, even if it comes from a party responsible for its original destruction. But while Cameron answers concerns by using soundbites like 'We're all in this together' and 'It's not up to central government to dictate to local government how to spend its money', there is an overwhelming fear as to how it will work, especially when local government is slashing the amount of money it's giving to the 3rd sector. The many friends I have who work in the voluntary sector are more concerned about losing their jobs than they are about making the Big Society work.

It would appear, that when you strip away all the political rhetoric, posturing and altruism, what the leader of the government wants is for people to do the jobs they do at the moment for nothing, or for about £60 per week; which is the average amount of Job Seekers Allowance. Alternatively, if you haven't lost your job and you're not already using most of your spare time entertaining your kids or doing all manner of other voluntary things, then perhaps you'd like to do some volunteer work when you could be eating or sleeping?

I could, if I don't lose my job, give up writing blogs, so I could go and work for nothing in a library; except, 8 of the county's libraries are shutting and possibly more will follow in the coming years; so perhaps I could stand on street corners with boxes of books and hope to encourage a new generation to read, when they're not being encouraged to go and do some volunteer work, like emptying rubbish bins or policing the streets.

The Big Society will ultimately get supporters and those supporters will criticise the people who complain about it or haven't got the time to get involved. They'll argue that by volunteering they stand a better chance of getting off the dole queue and into a very low paid alternative job to the career they once thought they had. The right wing press will spin it all to seem as though people like me are doing everything in our power to devalue a great idea and will be unaware of the short cuts that will be risking lives or the lack of funds that will be making people poor and wishing for food.

The government don't want to do anything; it's up to you to do it, until they have to make a decision and then they will blame you for forcing them into doing the job they were elected to do.

The Future is Cancelled

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/07/tax-city-heist-of-century

George Monbiot explains to us how the future of the average person is about to be destroyed by Cameron and Osborne's decision to turn the UK into Switzerland mkII.

If you know someone who voted Conservative, ask them how their children or grandchildren are going to survive in a country with no future!

How Do the Liberals Sleep at Night?

Just when you think David Cameron (or his team of hatchet men) can sink no lower, the tenuous prime minister defies all logic and doesn't just upset the apple cart, he napalms it. So multiculturalism is dead? Really? Is this based on some extensive government research or is it just that Cameron doesn't like blacks?

I'll accept that many Brits have a problem with Islam, especially over the last few years, but to say that multiculturalism is dead is just abhorrently ignorant. Talk to the average - non-bigoted - Brit and you'll find that they worry about Muslim extremism, but equally many of them know some very 'normal' Muslims and don't even consider these people when they're considering extremism. In Northants, there is a concern over the number of Eastern Europeans in the county, but as the budget cuts bite deeper you can bet that a lot of them will be heading home as their own countries are probably not quite as bad as this one. Yet the most common complaint I hear about Eastern Europeans is the fact they're rubbish drivers and have no manners; I used to say the same thing about Volvo drivers and now believe white van man is possibly the most suitable human being for either castration or death! The majority of white van drivers tend to be Brits, so what am I? Inversely xenophobic?

To suggest multiculturalism doesn't work is crass and considering there was an English Defence League march in Luton yesterday, unbelievably badly timed. Cameron is an offensive upper class twat and I despise him a damned sight more than the majority of people who have either different coloured skin or talk in their native language. These people do not have such a profound affect on my life the way the leader of the Conservative party does!

I can count almost as many 'foreign' friends as I can British ones. A lot of my non-British friends are considerably more accommodating than a lot of English people I know and guess what, the nicer you are to a non-British person the more respect you get from them - period and fact!

There are so many people in this country at the moment who haven't got much to smile about (myself included) and the last thing we need is some idiot prime minister giving the ignorant and stupid among us the opportunity to blame someone else for his government's massive mishandling of our budget deficit. I'm beginning to get the impression that Cameron feels that this is his party's only chance of power for a long time, so he's going to do everything in his power to fuck it up for those who inherit the reins. It's customary for an outgoing government to make it difficult for the new incumbents to hit the ground running, Cameron, Osborne, Gove and co seem to be making sure that the country is in such a terrible mess that no one will be able to fix it and the Liberals are party to this erosion of our country and sit on their hands, say nothing and enjoy the trappings of power for the now, because they suppose there will never be an again.

There is a new cable TV programme called Tool Academy; essentially it is 30 men competing to see which one of them is the biggest twat; if the producers managed to get Cameron on it they would have a 5 minute show...