In the spirit of the recent government diktat from dorky Francis Maude for all motorists to get into their cars, then queue for hours to buy up all available petrol, I’ve decided to jump the gun on the water shortage!
I’ve now run round the house turning all the taps on and put the lawn sprinklers on full blast because I’m just outside the hosepipe ban area.
Hosepipe Ban
Five Baths!
My partner plans to have five baths today as well.
This will ensure that all the water is gone before the ban starts!
News Items The only news item missing is that from a premiership football club at the wrong end of the league regarding the future employment status of it’s manager… There have been two news items in the UK today that must surely have everyone either rolling their eyes in the air, or laughing down their...
Atlantic Ocean Floor Profile Following the (as yet unresolved) crash of the Air France airbus on flight AF 447, much has been made about the ocean floor having huge cracks and being very uneven. Most atlases, online and TV news reports say this and back the statement up with visual imagery of the bathymetry. See...
Orwell must be turning in his grave in despair that what he predicted as a warning about what not to do, now looks like coming to fruition.
Remarkably, since wangling themselves into government, the conservative-libdem coalition government is now actually dropping a key part of their manifesto which they laboriously agreed two years ago. This can still be found on the government website, page 11 to be exact (pdf) . Here’s what they said:
The Government believes that the British state has become too authoritarian…. We need to restore the rights of individuals in the face of encroaching state power – FAIL
…reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties and roll back state intrusion – FAIL
… introduce safeguards against the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation – FAIL
…end the storage of internet and email records without good reason – FAIL
…a British Bill of Rights that … protects and extends British liberties – FAIL
(Actually, the whole Con-Dem pledge list makes good reading to see just how far removed from it our evil diktat of quangos has become.)
Johann Wolfgang Goethe (Photo credit: andreasmarx)
Not so long ago I was haranguing the former Labour government about their plans for ID Cards, their laws over CCTV and photographing in public places, the reduction in privacy for individuals and the removal of our civil rights over detention without trial, due cause and 3rd party notification for first 90 days and them 42 days.
I left the Labour Party because of it and have not rejoined.
Huge Vocal Resentment Against UK Government Secret Citizen Monitoring Plans.
Now, the tories and their liberal stooges have been shown to be both serially evil in their pronouncements and plans, and also serially incompetent of managing almost anything.
Their pathetic management of a minor industrial dispute (the fuel shortage) which did nothing except invoke almost universal resentment of the coalition and reawaken a general awareness of their ineffectiveness comes on top of stripping the very foundations away from one of UK society’s greatest inventions of the Industrial Age, our National Health Service (NHS).
Top this behavioural abomination with that of the revolving door policy between banking and politics which they continue to promote with zero penalties for failure while the population-at-large have to prop up the whole system with their taxes means only two things to me.
The government must do something desperate to have any hope of re-election in 3 years – this means either war (patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel) or economic boom-and-bust gambling.
They will do something desperate to have any hope of re-election in 3 years – this means either war (patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel) or economic boom-and-bust gambling.
Astute folk will see this as my prediction for government actions over the next 3 years.
Tories: Keep Friends Happy
Meanwhile, hundreds of extra Tory donors will soon be available to bankroll the “all is good” story. They will arrive as beneficiaries of the windfall provided as the “former NHS” contracts are handed out to friends, much like Michael Ashcroft benefited from the first round of NHS privatisation during the Thatcher era. This article on Powerbase and this one (sourced from a now defunct article in The Scotsman) show quite clearly that 1/3 of cleaning contracts went to Ashcroft’s businesses during this time, saying;
MICHAEL Ashcroft, (…) bankrolled an “independent” publicity campaign that allowed his multi-million-pound contract cleaning empire to prosper and led to a change in the law. The campaign was run from the London office of the former Conservative Scottish secretary, Michael Forsyth. A spokesman for Mr Ashcroft confirmed last night that he had contributed to the Public and Local Service Efficiency Campaign (PULSE), which was set up in 1985 to persuade the public sector to contract out services such as cleaning and catering. The campaign had been disbanded by the end of the 1980s after the Conservative government passed the 1988 Local Government Act . Mr Ashcroft’s Hawley Services Group, a contract cleaning firm later known as ADT, flourished under the new regime, with ADT, winning a third of NHS contracts between 1983 and 1988.
For further information into the depths that the Tories will go to enable all public money to be fed straight to their business friends, see this article which pulls apart the dealings of Ashcroft, discredited Dame Shirley Porter, NIMBY Nicholas Ridley, Chris Chope (the dog turd of Christchurch) and current (dodgy expenses, remember) minister Eric Pickles.
How Bad was Thatcher’s Recession compared to the Current Economic Slump? Q. Well, how would you find out, exactly? A. Surprisingly easily. This graph here compares historical economic slumps with the current one, on a month by month basis. It’s taken from the “National Institute of Economic and Social Research” (NIESR) website here. Notionally, it’s...
Too Little, Too Late, Gordon Brown This morning, PM Gordon Brown told Andrew Marr that he wants to ‘clean up’ parliament. He wants a ‘code of conduct’ for MPs to follow. The thing is, there’s already a code of conduct – it’s called the law! All we, ‘the people’ want, is to have reasonable laws...
How Bad was Thatcher’s Recession compared to the Current Economic Slump?
Q. Well, how would you find out, exactly?
Slump's Progress
A. Surprisingly easily. This graph here compares historical economic slumps with the current one, on a month by month basis. It’s taken from the “National Institute of Economic and Social Research” (NIESR) website here. Notionally, it’s an academic institution, but on examining it’s staff and management you’ll see that it’s a collection of vested interest groups, supplying a “knowledge base”.
But There’s No Denying their Facts!
The current slump is in black and the fall seems to have plateaued out a bit. It’s tracking something like the red line and the green line. So what you see is the Green Line, which is Thatcher’s Slump, being nearly as bad as the depression in the 1930s (the red line)!
However, in Thatcher’s time, Britain was awash with North Sea oil wealth! Coal mines were still producing horrendous quantities of fuel and North Sea Gas had been on-stream for years.
In short, the country was sound with it’s own supplies of energy, dependant on no-one. And yet, it had the worst economic state since the great depression!
So much for Thatcher’s miracle!
The current labour government has not been blessed with such good fortune during the current slump. Britain is now a huge energy importer and is vulnerable to the vagaries of the market in oil as we saw last year.
Where Did the Money Go in Thatcher’s Time?
Thatcher Explains All
The legacy of Thatcher’s time in office was leaking schools everywhere, a crumbling rail network, hived off bus services that redefined “service”, a crumbling road system, paid-for medical treatment…. an almost endless list!
So where did the money go?
Where did the strategic national energy reserves of oil, coal and gas go?
Where did Britain’s manufacturing industry go?
Well the energy was burnt to get money to pay people on the dole.
Britain’s manufacturing (and most of the Western world’s) went to China and would have happened anyway
That leaves the money. Where did the money go?
A. Tax havens, that’s where.
Thatcher and all conservatives of that ilk whine on about making a country fit for the entrepreneurial spirit. But their actions, both now and historically, for the most part, go soundly against that spirit. (I’m thinking particularly of Ashcroft here who may be entrepreneurial but whose contributions to UK PLC as opposed to Tory Ltd have been minimal…)
It’s in their name – conservative.
Their gut reaction is to hoard wealth, and if they can’t do it at home, they’ll do it abroad (like Shirley Porter). Remember, the wealth of “The City” is not derived from the re-invested wealth of landowning Tories suddenly looking for a home for their money once local industries had gone. It comes from abroad. There’s no way they’d invest their own money in infrastructure or development. Sheesh!
Their other modus operandi is to do as little as possible for the country while maintaining the status quo. Hence, this is why all large companies and financial institutions are full of the same old people, having the same background and speaking the same language. The banks and other institutions behind the economic collapse are headed by these people, who flit from government to the military, to law, ‘business’ and finance with impunity. Anywhere that’ll keep them busy, keep them wealthy and keep them pulling strings.
True, many do ‘charitable’ activities and are on the controlling side of many charities. But that’s purely dressage. Being involved with charity does not make you a good person. You just look good. In a truly civilised society there should be no need whatsoever for charity. It’s a definition of civilised, or being civil, in my book.
Worms from Woodwork
Now, with the piss-poor Labour government and their own side’s resurgence all the old tories are all coming out of the woodwork again. The odious slimery is oozing forth like the dark stain from history that it is. The Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) is one such place.
Thatcher-Cameron
The CPS, created by… Thatcher!… in 1974, proclaims it’s freedom credentials from it’s lofty privileged position. Among it’s luminaries is Thatcher’s advertiser (Saatchi) and the European gaffer of Goldmann Sachs, one of the companies internationally bailed out with public funds and one of those businesses at the forefront of the whole current economic mess! Most of the rest seem to have had various Tory positions over the last two decades. So much for independent think tank! (By the way, the CPS is a pseudo-charity – a non-profit-making organisation which relies on the donations of individuals and companies to carry out its work!!)
Part of the CPS’s ‘current thinking’ is to roll back the surveillance culture that has developed under Labour. Personally, I can’t see it happening…
The trouble is, as has just been revealed in a book supposedly derived from recently released archive material from MI5, (The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5), like all power-grabbers, Thatcher used MI5 for her own ends. She used MI5 to discredit Red Robbo the Trades Union Leader and had tabs on Scargill. Prime Minister Wilson even had the tabs on him and ordered tabs on others…. and so it goes. (see Book tells of MI5′s secret past – the fact is that Margaret Thatcher demanded action from MI5 to deal with “wreckers” in British industry and yet it was herself that wrecked that same industry!.)
That’s why I see it as highly unlikely that Cameron, if the Tories get in, will roll back the shutters on our increasingly closeted and shuttered state apparatus. He’s there purely to re-instate the old status quo….
To keep jobs for the boys
Re-exert the dominant power structures of the state and the wealthy, bolstering their unhealthy connections to their former pre-eminence
Say that all the new hospitals and schools which have replaced all the leaking and collapsing ones, would have happened anyway…
Say that the new fast rail links would have happened anyway without government sponsorship
Ensure that money stashed abroad by the wealthy remains unreachable by the state
Bring back smoking in pubs
Tax the poor to pay for the rich’s mistakes
Kill foxes ritually
Say that they’d have fixed the credit-crunch anyway..
All these and more will come under the banner of “freedom” and I’m quite sure that MI5 will be used to ensure they happen. The media will naturally be roped in to lend a publicity hand to smooth the waters and ensure that the status quo has safe passage; A media governed by;
a non-tax paying, non-resident Australian-American,
a non-resident Briton who prefers to pay French tax
and a brotherly twosome who threaten locals who don’t vote for “their man”.
Great? Britain.
Thatcher’s Economic Legacy
Greed
Selfishness
The Channel Tunnel (economic disaster, multiple bankrupt)
Too Little, Too Late, Gordon Brown This morning, PM Gordon Brown told Andrew Marr that he wants to ‘clean up’ parliament. He wants a ‘code of conduct’ for MPs to follow. The thing is, there’s already a code of conduct – it’s called the law! All we, ‘the people’ want, is to have reasonable laws...
New Jaguar XJ In common with most cars like this, it’s a lovely looking machine – a style marvel; sleek and vapid, mercurial. It’s also a waste of space and a waste of effort. It’s two tonnes of mass for a 400kg payload is pants. An ecological disaster zone. Money for Old Rope Not only...
I remember an old Tommy Cooper gag that went something like this;
I went to the doctor and said, “Doctor, doctor. It hurts when I do this” (Cooper raises his knee upwards to demonstrate)
The doctor said, “Well don’t do it, then“
The point is that it’s exactly like our prolific consumption of carbon-based fuels, but even worse, the now openly thought assumption that Global Climate Engineering is an antidote to global warming. An Elastoplast for the weather! Ha Ha.
Because of the world’s dependence on burning carbon, no-one wants to stop doing it. Economic growth, health, prosperity, comfort and status. We can’t afford to. No-one can.
So instead of reducing consumption, all the mad-cap ideas ever invented are now being loudly mooted which will put it into people’s heads that not only are they possible, but also that they will happen. People will think that climate change is like an illness, and can be treated with an aspirin.
But it’s not.
The trouble is, that all the ideas are possible, but the consequences have never been tested. Because it’s the climate on the world we inhabit, there is no dummy test run for any of these plans. And because the Thermo-haline Circulation (THC) in the oceans takes ~1000 years to complete it’s full circuit, and because the THC is a major component of the Earth’s climate (because water and salt are such good heat stores), any changes we make now and have made in the past, will take centuries to smooth out. In short…..
We’ve got one shot at it.
Royal Society afforability and effectivness graph
There are host of ideas; wave-powered pumps to speed up ocean circulation; salt crystals in the sky to increase planetary albedo; space mirror to reflect sunlight; grind up scrap cars for ocean fertilisation to increase algal growth; artificial trees (to replace the ones we’ve chopped down?) – in short, heaps of them.
But none have been tested and none can ever, ever, be tested. There is no sandbox area. No roll-back facility. No system restore. No Backup. That’s it. It’s all or nothing.
Q. Why? A. Because the climate is a very complex thing and errors done at the macroscopic level will take millennia to work out of the system, if at all. Remember, the climate doesn’t smoothly vary. It swings wildly between two or more stable states, currently “Ice Age” and “Not quite Ice Age“.
The simplest way to reduce global warming, and at the same time make our nations less strategically dependant on others, and without all the problems of over-compensation, is just as Tommy Cooper’s doctor said,
Don’t Do It!
Don’t burn so much, don’t consume so much.
The tipping point, from the guys at the Royal Society and James Lovelock, will be when I’m about 75. Reduced pensions in my old age will be the least of my worries!
Tests raise life extension hopes – see news here Possibly, this stuff, rapamycin, could be the next big internet scam. Acai berries are nearly done, same as Green Tea and Wheat Grass. Rapamycin It’s an anti-biotic, found in 1970 on the bleak Pacific island called Easter Island. I’ve mentioned this place previously as a comparative...
Atlantic Ocean Floor Profile Following the (as yet unresolved) crash of the Air France airbus on flight AF 447, much has been made about the ocean floor having huge cracks and being very uneven. Most atlases, online and TV news reports say this and back the statement up with visual imagery of the bathymetry. See...
Decent people everywhere will be appalled to learn that the charity Mencap recently sponsored an award at the first ever ERSA Employability Awards. ERSA are the trade body who were formed in 2005 to lie on behalf of the money … Continue reading → […]
The Civil Service Rank and File Network have called a rally outside the PCS conference this week to demand action from the union on the vicious benefit sanctioning regime. Benefit sanctions are set to become a huge issue for public … Continue reading → […]
