The Daily Mail goes hard left....apparently

Stephen Hester is a rich man. He is the archetypal grammar school boy who had the skill, support, and luck to do well. Oxbridge and a very successful banking career has been the result of this hard slog. He didn't have daddy's friends to help him to position or riches. He got there through hard work and skill.



In the banking world such success brings wealth.



Hester is rich. Part of this wealth he spent on a nice home for he and his family to enjoy. Years after buying this he was headhunted by the government to fix the bankrupt RBS, the bank the labour and SNP allowed to implode with massive debts. As a job it's important. He has to succeed if the umpteen billions can be repaid to the taxpayer and the workers long term jobs secured.



I am surprised that the Daily Mail seems to have lurched to the left of the hard left Socialist Worker newspaper. The are crucifying Hester for owning a nice home, which he bought before the government begged him to overhaul the nationalised RBS. Rather than calling his very nice home that, suddenly it's his own Versailles. It isn't, it's just a nice home. Not a stately manor of the feudal class, just a nice home most of us cannot afford. Apparently his crime is to dare to open his garden to the public to raise money for a local hospice.



I'm sorry what's the problem here?



It's a good thing to raise money for our local hospices. The only scandal is that our hospices need to scrabble and beg for funds to survive rather than getting state funding.



Anything we can do to raise money for our local hospice is good. More than that it shows that he is part of the local community rather than being a distant, uncaring, figure.



This is a good thing.



For the DM to try to whip up class envy and to distort and lie to stir up jealousy is pathetic. It's the type of thing you're supposed to find in loony left rags not a supposed right leaning paper.



However what really stones my crows is that the DM is owned by a peer from staunch nazi roots who owns real stately homes and doesn't pay any tax.



And they dare smear a self made man helping the ill?



They're shameless

Another Mail attack on the disabled

I've read the Daily Mail for longer than I care to remember. However I am sure they are getting nasty. I think all this influx of tabloid hacks is coarsening the paper. One of their several crusades is their attack on those people injured by car accidents. This is part of their whole 'the disabled or all conmen stealing from the taxpayer, feel free to park in their spaces and attack them" campaign.



And yet again the Sunday Mail attacks those who have whiplash injuries due to accidents. It spreads the smear that they are con artists and scum who need to be imprisoned forth with.



As someone who has lost family to untreated whiplash injuries which happened during a trivial accident this is a disgusting campaign. Yes their are frauds who need catching but there is a real danger that real victims are going to avoid going to hopsital because they think others will regard them as frauds. Really injured people will not receive the compensation they truly deserve because of the perception that they are fakes.



The danger of tabloids (and the Mail is certainly that, and is getting more gutter by the day) is that their efforts to fill their pages cheaply and whip up their ignorant readership, or rather what the Mail thinks are ignorant readers, will hurt the really deserving and the vulnerable and kill people.



It's not nice to keep attacking the disabled and the vulnerable when there is so many bigger scandals out there, including the crimes committed by an out of control press. You would have thought the crimes of the Mail which may yet see some of them imprisoned to be more worthy of journalistic zeal than sick attacks on the injured.



It's all rare pathetic really.

The Sun newspaper jumps on a bandwagon: against nudey women!

Things must be hard at the Sun newspaper. The majority of its reporters have been arrested (they haven't, it just feels that way), it's influence with politicians and real people are at it's absolute lowest. For a paper which honestly thought it had the power to make or break the government it must be a shock.

 

Now I may be wrong but I think this heady mixture of fear and surprise is the reason why they have jumped on the unpopular bandwagon of banning Internet porn. And it is unpopular. Most intelligent people realise that it is a dangerous precedent to make and that giving government a power to censor what we do or say online will lead to ever greater curbs on our freedom. Forget porn it's all about our political elite, who have been proved to be sleazy, and in over half the cases downright iffy, and their moves to control us. They, like the Chinese and the Iranian regimes have seen the power of people using a unfettered Internet to expose corruption, incompetence, and overthrow hated politicians.

 

That's why these iffy politicos want to destroy a free Internet. It isn't about porn or children: it's about control.

 

And so in an effort to suck up to politicians out to get the Sun they suddenly find that they agree with what labour and the Tories believe and want to censor the Internet using the selfsame fatuous excuse of protecting the children.

 

However the Sun goes beyond censoring what we look at on the Internet, they give a favourable story about how the police should be able to look at all our emails to make sure we are not peadophiles.

 

Like I've said before they always excuse removing our freedoms by using the children.

 

I've written here before about the horror of child abuse. The utterly depraved rapists who violate the bodies and innocence of a child deserve nothing but our just contempt and the most severe justice.

 

But the nightmare of a few peadophiles does not mean we should surrender our freedom. We are not all peadophiles, or rapists, terrorists, or guilty. We don't need to be watched by a paranoid state eager to protect their positions and justify their power.

 

The police have the power to see any emails, web histories, tap our phone, search our homes, or arrest us if they can prove to a judge there is a justified suspicion of illegality. Most if us can agree with that.

 

There is no excuse for the police, who let us not forget have some in their ranks who sell sensitive information to the papers, amongst others, to go on fishing expeditions into our priviate lives.

 

We are all innocent until proven guilty, not guilty until we can prove otherwise in the eyes of the state. This assumption is about how the state views the people. It moves from a state protecting the people and the freedoms of the individual and moves to the parnoid attitude that sees the people as the threat.

 

It's dangerous.

 

The thing that really grates my petunias is the craven bandwagon jumping of the Sun as moral adjudicators to suck up to polticans.

 

This is a anti-nudey paper which has made a fortune printing nudey pictures of young women in every issue. A paper who has battled to keep on printing nudey pictures of women. A newspaper whose own website would be censored under the censorship push they are supporting.

 

And it gets better. Their parent company owns porn channels each of which has a porn website.

 

And yet they think their readership is so thick that it will allow them to help some seriouslly iffy polticians take our freedoms.

 

If it were not so serious it would be funny how powerless the Sun has become. Being a politcal class's bitch in order to curry favour when not so long ago they thought they had the power to make or break the government is a serious fall.

 

But that's no excuse to surrender our freedoms.

 

 

 

Margaret Moran, ex-labour MP, getting away with her crime

I've written here many times about the labour thief, and ex-MP, Margaret Moran and her thieving ways. Now unlike most of our political thieves, of all parties, she was arrested and was due to stand trial for her crimes. A cozy prison cell was awaiting her and some semblance of justice was due.




However it seems this isn't going to happen.




She's got some pet shrink, paid for by the taxpayer so it seems her leeching of us is not over, to say she shouldn't face justice because it'll make her sad. The judge has accepted this ruse and she's got off with stealing 80 odd thousand from us. This vast amount a fraction of the full amount as she was let off the rest when she was arrested.




It's a farce.




Now I am sensitive to the issues of mental health and how they can reduce a person's guilt or ability to stand tril due to insanity. But this isn't one of those cases. Moran hasn't been committed to a mental institution. She hasn't tried to kill herself. She's just a bit sad about the prospect of being out in jail for her thieving ways. The fact that she gets a bit upset when people mention her crimes is natural. It's a reminder of what is awaiting her.




Most people facing jail for their crimes are not overjoyed by the prosect. It's natural.




This ludicrous judgement sets the precident which means that if you're unhappy about facing prison then the trial must be stopped and you found not guilty because you are unhappy by the prosect.




It's idiotic.




So Moran faces an expensive, taxpayer funded, trial in which it is impossible to fine or imprison her.




And so another labour thief escapes justice.



And people wonder why polticians are held in such low esteem!

Simon Cowell's pillow problems

Simon Cowell has let it be known that since he read his semi-authorised biography which revealed his womanising ways to a surprised public he has,

"been hiding under a pillow"

At least he wasn't biting it.

Russell Brand's drug testimony: what's the point?

As it happens I'm rather anti-drugs. I've seen too much damage and death done by drugs, both to addicts, their communities, and the poor benighted countries destroyed by the drug trade to be anything else. However I am a strong supporter of treatment and rehabilitation of addicts, with justice to the victims of their crimes. I worry that the needs of the addict can mean that the hurt they do to their victims, the robbed, assaulted, or killed, is ignored.



But on the whole I'm sympathetic to the addicts and strongly support them getting help.



The comedian and ex-junkie Russell Brand testified before a parliamentary committee investigating drugs yesterday. It has to be said that my default setting when seeing celebs appearing in front of committees is to think it is about publicity hungry politicians trying to garner cheap publicity, or wanting to meet a star.



It's not very edifying.



I disagree with some of the things Brand has done, see the hurtful answer phone message scandal, but he can be amusing and has talent. However his appearance before the committee was pathetic. As an junkie who kicked the habit he should have been able to give the MPs a real insight into addiction and perhaps suggest ways in which other addicts could be saved or even stopped from becoming addicts.



He wasted that opportunity.



Turning up in painfully trendy ripped shirt was frankly pathetic. A suit and tie isn't hard to wear. It isn't about conforming, or even about being an old idiot. It's about respect. The committee is a court of law. You dress appropriately for court so you should do so in parliament. You'd have to to appear before a US senate committee.



It matters.



Like his rather poor jokes and excruciating mock friendship it matters.



It matters because his dress and jokes is all that's being reported. Whatever sense he spoke is lost. And that's a waste.



Brand had a golden opportunity to influence government policy concerning addiction. He squandered that. His appearance was pointless.



And that's a shame.

What if Nadine Dorries jumped?

The Tory MP Nadine Dorries isn't everyones cup of tea. She has the unforgivable fault, to many, of being working class, a nurse, and being of the right. This means lefty types target her and attack her for being a woman.




However her relationship with David Cameron has been fraught. The way he crudely ridiculed her in parliament wasn't nice. Worse than that it showed a immature dislike for the working class and especially women of independent mind who don't make moon eyes at him and do as they are told.




I don't agree with Nadine in a lot of things but I fully support her right to speak her mind. As a person who has had a real job, one which dealt with the sick and dying as a nurse she speaks from a background of experience and knowledge that is rare.




To paraphrase the cliché about a woman scorned she's really done damage to Cameron and Osborne by calling them out of touch "arrogant posh boys" who don't understand the lives of ordinary people, or indeed care.




It's a line of attack that will stick. The fact that the leaders of all the main parties are out of touch posh boys all cushioned by unearned wealth who have never done a real job in their lives won't matter.




Nadine has done real damage with this.




The Tory leadership have done a u-turn and that far from being a sexually repressed women Nadine is in fact a credit to the Tory party.




The reason for this is simple: if they attack her it will be seen as posh boys attacking yet another inconvenient woman. This doesn't go down well with the vital female voters who are already being turned off Cameron by his anti female spiel.




Much more seriously Nadine could defect to UKIP.




That would be serious. Not only would it mean that it would give UKIP their first foothold in the House of Commons it may be the impetus of other defections. Cameron's line on the EU, and his sundry broken promises make him out of touch with the majority of his own party and the country at large.




And that's a dangerous position for a leader to be in.




Once one MP defected Tory MPs are going to see there is another way. Many may feel that defecting to a party that is getting more popular and much more intone with the views of the people may be the best option rather than waiting for electoral punishment for following the Cameron line.




Put it this way would you calmly face losing your job following a leader and policies you don't agree with or are you going to take the risk that you'll save you position by joining UKIP?




Nadine has seriously got her own back and could be the wound that never heals for Cameron.




Revenge is sweet when it chimes with the public.




Will Nadine jump?

Stop porn or corrupt the kids: another Daily Mail Crusade

The tabloids love a good crusade. It riles their readership and allows them to fill acres of space with cheap stories. Today the Daily Mail is full of stories about how Internet porn must be stopped and how, what they call a government u-turn on censoring everything we do or say is tantamount to abusing our children. In one day the DM have run several demands on state censorship of our Internet use (see here, here, and here).




The DM use use that pathetic excuse for any erosion of our civil liberties: think of the children. The tell us is we don't surrender our liberties, censor what we say, or do, or stop parents taking photos of their children, whatever, then children will die and we are to blame. More than this they smear any opponents of the curtailing of our rights as porn addicts.




It's all very dispicable. Tragically some minor politicians of no importance and some charities who should have more sense have joined this tabloid crusade.




I've written here before about the importance of Internet freedom, and why polticians or all types hate it so. I've also written about the nightmare of defining what pornography is. One things for certain it'll be the thin end of the wedge. It'll start at 'porn' and then will move to ban unacceptable, not illegal, words, and thoughts. And that's terrifying.




However it's a bit rich for the DM to critisise the smut peddlers as they fill their pages with scantily glad women, many taken by seedy paparazzi hacks.




Much worse than that is the very creepy way the DM is obsessed with young girls and publishing images of them in as little as possible, see the Vice






:



















Following the Vice's advice I typed 'all grown up' into the Daily Mail's search box. As of now this gives 650 pages of results!

 

All gown up is a euphemism for a child the DM have been drooling over and ticking the days off a calander until they are barely legal and can be lusted after. It is so creepy and sleazy. Sometimes they don't even wait until the child reaches the age of concent until the sexualise them and print revealing photos of them to a baying public.

 

I remeber when the Harry Potter films where just being released the DM was obsessed with the twelve year old actress in it, any royal child is hounded and any photo of them in bikinis are hungrily printed.

 

It's incredibly distasteful.

 

If you really want to ban something to protect children maybe we should start with the Daily Mail.

 

So will the Lib Dems return their stolen money now?

I've written about the Lib Dem donor, and criminal, Michael Brown before. Just to jog your memory a very brief recap is that Brown stole millions from innocent people, gave £2.4 million to the Lib Dems and then ran away.




The news is that he is the process of being brought back to the UK to face justice.




Now I don't know what possessed Brown to become the countries largest indvidual poltical donor. One would have thought is you'd stolen the money you'd want to keep a low profile, or at least funded labour which seems to provide you with protection and probably a peerage. I suppose it just shows the arrogance of the con man.




Anyway the Lib Dems have steadfastly refused to return their stolen money to its rightful owners.




Now Brown is being returned to the UK I'm sure they will see how scandalously sleazy, corrupt, and untenable it is for them to keep stolen money and will seek to return it forth with.




But I wouldn't hold my breath!




It seems for too many political parties our money is theirs by right even if stolen.




All parties have their historic crimes and shames but this marks the absolute nadir for the Lib Dems, the Liberals, and British politics. Keeping stolen money is, or should be, criminal.




Return the stolen money to its rightful owners.

A tax dodging Guardian criticising tax dodging

The Prime Minister is a rich man. His father was a rich man who when he recently died gave money to his children. Most parents leave something, however little, to their loved ones. In the case of Cameron Snr this was a lot of money. As he was a financier the inheritance was tied up in trusts and offshore gizmos and other legal rigmarole.




All of this is perfectly legal and above board.




That is what makes the Guardian's attack piece criticising Cameron for inheriting via offshore trusts so distasteful.




There is something nasty by attacking someone using their dead parent.




More than that the rank hypocrisy of the Guardian is sickening. This is a loss making paper which is dependent on state advertising to survive. A paper who claimed tens of millions from the taxpayer at the very same time it made £300 million profit and didn't pay a single penny in tax becuase they used a offshore tax haven trust.




If they can attack Cameron for inheriting through a tax haven trust then why don't they repatriate thier umpteen millions and pay their bloody fair share of tax?




People, espeically politcal types need to pay their full share of tax. However Cameron isn't being accused of doing anything illegal. For the Guardian to ignore their own tax avoidance trusts, and that Ed Milliband, and various labour leaders use to avoid paying tax on the millions their parents left them, or in one case to use an offshore trust to buy a UK house without paying the taxes we lesser, poorer, mortals have to pay is pathetic.




This story is damaging to the Guardian, and draws attention to labour's non-tax paying antics more than Cameron. It is interesting that the article does not allow comments. I've found the Guardian don't allow comments on articles that damage them.




Strange that.

The local elections: UKIP's rise?

I am writing this in a rampant labour stronghold. It is a proudly working class area with a history of resilience and social deprivation. It's one of those area which the reigning party takes it as theirs by right. Left or right it doesn't matter, if areas are seen as 'theirs' they are ignored and taken for granted by the dominant party.




It is a sad fact of life that if you are in an area a political party thinks is loyal you get nothing. Be in a marginal or key area you get money spent on you by the bucket.




If not you get nothing but blind contempt.




The area I am in is loyal labour.




But for the first time ever I've driven though it at election time and there isn't any labour posters. Not one. That's never happened before. No posters in houses nothing.




However UKIP posters abound. And not just in farmers fields. Modest houses which usually proudly position labour posters are now showing UKIP ones. That's never happened before.




I'd be worried if I were labour. Once the tribal ties of party loyalty are broken our whole system will be in flux.




I don't live here but I am proud of the people here. Not only are they showing independent thought and are not sheep they are not retreating into racism or BNP extremism. The UKIP candidate is of an ethnic minority.




In such hard times it's great that they are openly showing support for a non-white candidate in a predominately white working class area.




That's brilliant.




If this area is anything to go by things are looking good for UKIP. They are beginning to move from the fringe and into the mainstream. Their rise being result of the metropolitan elite of all parties ignoring the people and sucking up to an undemocratic EU. People seem to be turning their back on the traditional parties and placing their vote in one which seems to speak for them.




People may be turning. No mainstream party can play the Euro skeptic card anymore as we've seen their betrayal of solemn promises and the sucking up to the EU.




Good for UKIP, worrying for everyone else.

More Livingstone hypocrisy

There is a terrible affliction that strikes too many politicians. Even is they are one of the few who enter politics for the right reasons and not for easy money and power they become seduced with the said power and lackies.



Rather than being their to serve the public it is the public who are seen to be there to serve the politician. Lavish wages, expenses, and honours are given to politicians by politicians.



Worse than that is the sense that their position and power are theirs by divine right.



It is this mentality that leads to corruption and abuse. The perfect example of this is Ken Livingstone. He truly thinks he has a divine right to rule London. This is bad, but this mentality comes with the "do as I say not do what I do" attitude.



With Ken we've already seen the damage he has done to himself and labour by attacking Boris Johnson for his tax affair only for it to emerge that it is Ken himself who used every ruse on the book to not pay tax. Boris pays nearly 50% tax, which is the legal requirement for people who earn as much as he, Ken paid 13.5%.



Damage was done to an election prospect by Ken's attack. Alas for Ken that damage was done to Ken.



And his hypocrisy strikes again. It now emerges that Ken, who makes great play on supporting the NHS and attacking anyone who dares to use private health care has used private health care for at least ten years.



I , and I would imagine most people not on the left, don't care if a person uses private health care; it's a free country. What we don't like is the way politicos like Ken attack and smear others whilst doing the exact same things themselves.



We've seen labour MP's spending years attacking Tory MPs for thier affairs at the same time as he was having a very grubby affair. We've seen labour MPs attack private education only to send their kids to private school. We've seen labour MPs attack peers and the House of Lords only to greedily snap up their own titles and unelected positions. And now we have a tax avoider and private health care user attacking the actions of others when he is doing far worse.



It is this hypocritical attitude and sense of the right to rule over of us that does the most damage to our poltical parties and our country.



Ken really is a nasty, lying, hypocrite. London and labour deserve so much better than him.

A human politician: Michael Gove is a nice man

The world is full of stories of horrible, corrupt, useless, iffy politicians. So it is with a smile that I post, courtesy of Guido Fawkes a charming letter sent by the Minister Michael Gove to a child,

It's all very lovely. Sometimes we lose sight of the important things. Politics and ambitious infighting abound. But sometimes things like this letter reminds us that the important things can be a letter to a child. Ones poltical beliefs don't matter. Gove is a nice man, I wish more of them were. It's sad they are rare in politics.

On charitable giving

I give to charity. Most people do. I've spent years working for charitable ends. It is what is known as 'a good thing'.




It is for this reason I don't understand the mess the government is in with it's war against the rich giving to charity. I think the fact that at the very time they are undermining charitable giving they want the charities such largesse is funding to do more and take over more functions of what was the preserve of government shows how amateur or government is.




As it happens the money I give to charity costs me money: I don't gain any tax benefit from this altruistic giving at all. This is the case with most of us.




However there is an old man born very near where I am sat writing this. The place is rough now. When he was born I was a slum. And not just a slum; a slum other slums looked down on and warned its toughs not to visit because it was dangerous.




Now this man went to war and returned and got himself a second hand hand cart and collected junk. Through sheer hard work and an honest reputation he saved an bought himself a garage. Through his brilliant business mind this grew and grew. In the end he had an empire. Of garages, buses, trains. When he retired he was worth over £500 million.




But he is that rarest if things: a self made man who remained true to his roots. He retained his honesty and treated everyone as equals. And he has given umpteen tens of millions to charity. He has worked tirelessly to help the disadvantaged.




Not to save on tax but because he is a decent man with a social conscience.




It's wrong that any government should attack him, and the many others who simply want to give back. Its ridiculous that it is the philanthropists who are being attacked and smeared as tax dodgers when the wealthy who fritter their money on luxuries and froth escape criticism.




This idiotic politicking is wrong.




It's is really simple. If charitable giving is seen as a good thing that merits tax breaks, or gift aid considerations, then that should apply to all giving, however large or small.




If a organisation is a charity then any donations are suitable for state recognition. You could argue about the laxity of some charities but that's the fault of the government.




Giving money to a legally recognised charity is a good thing.




It really is that simple. It is pathetic that any of the political pygmies who form our body politic are undermining them for their simplistic aims.




Giving to charity is good. Not all charities are worth it, but those that are deserve our support not attacking those who fund them as quasi-criminals.

Derek

I am not always a fan of the work of Ricky Gervais. I am sure this fact upsets him! I never really watched the office and some of his stand up was a little unfunny, though other routines I loved.

I did watch his latest work Derek with mixed feelings. To be honest I think I watched it to see how Karl Pilkington coped with his first acting role. The answer is very well indeed. The part was written for him in his voice but is performance was really well done.

However I thought the rest of the programme was wonderful. There were some brilliant performances. It gave realistic characters which is rare. It's the little things that gave it it's depth. They way in which the chief career described her career from no qualifications in a dead end job through to a NVQ qualification and a vocation is reality to many people working in care homes. Such working class careers are not shown on tv, thier lives are unglamorous and unseen. Their vital work too easily ignored. It was great to see it centre stage.

Derek himself was lovely. A kind man loved by all. A man whose life is his work, as is so often the case. A bit slow but a valued human whose decency shone.

There where comedic bits, and a bit of slapstick, but when his elderly friend, Joan, died it was incredibly moving. That's rare.

It wasn't perfect, nothing ever is, but that's not the point. Gervais has created a unique work. For a phenomenally successful comedian and writer who is one of the very few British types to break America to create something so British and downbeat is admirable. Not to go for the celebrity cameos and the glamour but for a reality is brave and heartfelt.

Gervais is taking a chance with this. It's a change from reality tv crap or the identikit tripe too often pumped forth.

What saddens me is the way in which he Daily Mail conform to their worst stereotype and commission a hatchet job on the programme. Worse than that is the way in which their writer Christopher Stevens exploits his autistic son to condemn Derek as worse than illegal racism or homophobia. Stevens actually ends with a demand that Derek and all programmes he, as a dad of a autistic son, doesnt like be banned.

So much for freedom of expression.

I'm sorry it simply leaves a bad taste in my mouth that a man can exploit the work of others to flog a book he's written about his son. It's not nice to make money of another's disability like that.

The point is Derek isn't autistic. He isn't mentioned as being disabled in any way. He's a bit slow, but that's it. Derek isn't the joke. He isn't laughed at, except for one scene where he is insulted in a pub. In that scene it is his friend who protects him which adds to her depth as a person. It also reflects the reality where the vulnerable, disabled, and the different are insulted and attacked.

Derek is the heart and soul of the care home. His humanity and kindness touch all. He's the star not the joke.

Just. because you have a disabled child, or are disabled yourself, or gay, or whatever, doesn't give you the right to demand stuff you don't like is banned. If such things are illegal (promoting race hatred, or murder say) there is already laws to prosecute. We have no right not to be offended. We have less rights to be offended on someone else's behalf.

To use the cover of victimhood, or another's victimhood wrapped in the mantle of being a parent of a 'victim' is lazy. To use such a vacuous attack which seems to be based on not watching a programme, writing of the disabled being mocked in a way akin to the vilest of illegal racist attacks when there was no such attack, and no such disabled person to make a few quid from a tabloid is wrong. To use the opportunity to flog a book to profit from a son's disability is seedy.

Derek isn't perfect. It is however deeply moving and marks a growing maturity in Gervais' writing. It is rare to be funny and touching without descending into bathos.

And Derek was moving. .

In an effort to do something about the tragic sinking of the Titanic Fox News cite experts which  say human remains may remain in the wreckage.

Yes, yes there will be.

Now I am no expert but for any large, complex, wreck such as the Titanic or any warship, in which so many have died there is bound to be human remains still present. Even when ships hundreds of years old are investigated human remains are found. The Titanic lost so many and is so huge there will be a lot of poor souls for who she is their grave.

That's why the Titanic, like every ship who have people die within them need to be treated with respect and not looted.

They are  a grave. People need to remember that and not be carried away with the movie fiction. A lot of innocent people died there. They and the ship deserve respect.

Is it right or wrong that an insane killer is released?

Murderers are not punished enough for thier horrific crimes in my opinion. This isn't an argument about capital punishment but rather the length of their sentence not being life, as was promised when capital punishment was made illegal. Worse than that they only serve a fraction of their sentence anyway before being released and helped to return to society.

But what about those killers who murder whilst insane. Is it right that these sick killers are freed when they are cured, or at least judged not to be a threat?

If they are innocent of a crime due to insanity and recieve treatment and become sane is it right they are released directly into society without any prison time at all? They are innocent people due to their mental state so how can they be imprisoned just to satiate the public?

But what if they a freed after only one year? Is that right and proper?

Is it just?

The case in point is that of Farrukh Malik who killed Sarwat, his wife of thirty seven years, stabbing her 120 times. This frenzied killing was judged to have been done when Farrukh was insane so he was found innocent due to insanity and committed to institution for treatment.

However that cure has been speedy as he has been released in less than one year due to him being judged to have been 'fixed'.

Is it right or just that a poor woman be so brutally killed and her killer is back in the community in less than a year?

Or does mental illness mean than a innocent man who did a horrific act whilst insane for which he bears no responabilty should be freed when cured?

Most of use wouldn't want to punish the mentally ill but in this case the speed of the cure causes unease.

On access to the countryside: the Daily Mail's ongoing war against the disabled

I used to spend a lot of time walking the the countryside. In what seems like a bucolic throwback to an earlier age I knew every nook and hidden place for miles.

It's was wonderful.

As anyone who does any walking in the country knows stiles and tricky gates are a fact a life. They are there to stop beasts getting out and wrecking havoc. As such they work brilliantly. Now there is a move at Dartmouth National Park to remove some of these styles to make the park more accessible.

For some reason the hack Melissa Kite thinks this is an affront and smears the move as a sop to help fatties. Her line being that removing styles is to allow fat people greater access to the countryside and is a damning indictment into how obscenely fat the lower orders are, how thick scum is not to diet, and how criminaly politically correct the National Park is to cater for chunky people who should be confined to workhouses and made to cavort for her amusement.

I may have made that last bit up.

The thing is its crap.

Yes there are some obese people out there. And yes getting them to do excersise is a good idea. However the proposal isn't anything to do with how fat people are. Put it this way if you can walk miles under your own steam stepping over a stile isn't a problem.

The idea is to allow those who cannot step over things greater access to the countryside. Now it can be a hassle to lift prams over fences and the like but the move is about allowing adults confined to wheelchairs access to the countryside. They cannot be lifted over walls by their parents. Giving the disabled the chance to enjoy the countryside is a good thing.

Having certain routes wheelchair accessible is a good thing.

For Kite not to understand or mislead the reader is pathetic.

She seems to have this ridiculous idea that the disabled don't go out and should not be seen or heard. This idiotic stereotype of what a disabled person is and what they should do is insulting.

It is part of this anti-disabled push the Daily Mail is embarked on. First they attack them having access to help, parking spaces, and now attack them for leaving the house.

Nasty really.

On ill patients being kicked out of hospital at night

I'm a fan of the NHS. I seen so much of it over the years with family and friends I'd be an idiot not to be. However I'm not so blinkered as to think its perfect. I, and anyone who deals with the NHS, or private health, or any organisation, has seen negligent, dangerous, uncaring people, uncleanliness, and neglect. But on the whole in grateful to the NHS and the professional an caring staff that make up most of them.

However I am not surprised about the Times report that the NHS sent just shy of 240,000 patients home at night to free up beds (the Times article is behind their pay wall so see the BBC). This is a dangerous practice which can release people without support to care for them.

As it happens I was in hopsital in January this year having emergency surgery. I've no complaint about the wards, doctors, treatment, or nurses. They did very well by me.

However I was in a bad way with a massive infection on a nine inch wound. I'd come off the morphine a few hours previouslly when a nurse came to me at night and told me they needed the bed and get out!

A little brusque.

Now I couldn't actually get me trousers buttoned because of the operation but I had to dress, pack my stuff, and carry my bags. No wheelchair (which was a first as I've always found that they make you use one even when you're fit). No ambulance or passenger transport. No calling for a taxi. No waiting until someone could come and pick me up.

I had to get out ASAP.

Carrying the bags tore three staples from my wound and was deeply unpleasant.

So I'm not surprised about evening discharges of putting people's lives at risk doing so.

Threatening children in a email isn't trolling

Anyone who spends any time on the Internet will have met the all pervasive troll. These are those sad sacks who use the impersonal nature of the Internet and what perceive as the safety of anonymity to make outrageous statements, bully, disrupt, threaten, and make life unpleasant.

I, like a lot of us, have been threatened with murder by trolls. It's a sad part of our online world. For the vulnerable such abuse is too much and some have killed themselves because of the pressure. It is horrific.

And yet I still think the benefits of freedom to create one's own online identity is a precious thing. It allows vulnerable people to get help and advice which they are too embarrassed to seek in their offline life. It allows ordinary people to do extraordinary things and bring down dictatorships.

It is for these reasons, and my love of freedom, that I don't want our freedoms impinged and for states, or more likely unelected bodies, to control our online actions and know who we are and what we do.

I am struck by the ignorance of many in our media about social networks and illegality. The case in point is the current case concerning the Tory MP Louise Mensch. A sixty year old man named Frank Zimermann has been found guilty of threatening to murder one of her children in an email. Idiotically he claimed to be a member of the Anonymous hacking group and to have hacked her and told her to choose which of her children he should murder to save the others.

That is horriffic.

Now Anonymous isn't without controversy, like Mensch herself, but they don't kill people, especially children.

What gets me is the ignorance of what Zimmerman's crime is. The papers, see above link and here for examples, call Zimmerman an internet troll and decry his horrific actions as those of a Internet genius who proves we should have state regulation of our online lives.

This is playing into the hands of the government and is a bit rich coming from a press we now know is riddled with criminals, but there you go.

Zimmerman isn't a troll or a hacker.

He sent Mensch an email because she gave him her private address. that's not trolling or hacking.

He is a sad creep who sent a vicious and sick email. It's just like a poison pen letter of old. It isn't a reason to curb our freedoms. It isn't a an excuse to smear those who chose to post using other names.

How can a media, espeically the Mail which tells us it is the most popular newspaper on the Internet, not understand such basic terminology and how the Internet functions?

I would imagine that Zimmerman was not going to murder Mensch's children, but it is a horrible, sick, and nasty thing to threaten. I hope he receives justice.

But that doesn't mean our freedoms should be taken from us just because it concerned an MP. We all know how dictatorial and sleazy they can be. We need the freedom to keep an eye on the, and not vice versa!

On ECHR allowing the UK to extradite to the US

I have serious doubts about many of the extraditions to the US from the UK. In too many times the cases there is no UK testing of the case against them. It seems wrong that the US can demand British people be handed over without the case against them tested in a UK court and for alleged crimes committed in the UK.

It's wrong.

However I am pleased that the ECHR has ruled that six serious suspected terrorists, or those who have alleged ties to terrorism are to be extradited to the US to face justice. My proviso is that they receive a fair and open trial.

Their argument that if convicted they'd recieve a long prison sentence which would be agianst their human rights is ludicrous.

I hope their thirteen year fight agianst extradition is soon at an end and they recieve justice.

However one thing that has always struck me as odd is pointed out by this case. Now we don't know the actual nationality or immigration status of this group, one at least secured his British passport by lies.

However if a foreign born British passport holder, even if they didn't lie to secure that passport, acts agianst the interests of Britain by planting bombs, inciting violence, raising funds and volunteers for foreign terrorist groups, why isn't their passport removed and they kicked out of the country?

I just don't understand how people hungry for safe passport who then use it to kill us can remain British.

It seems very odd and illustrative of how out of touch our legal system can be sometimes.

The cruelty of the gutter press: making money off the dead

The gutter press are utterly immoral. This lack of centre is one of the reasons why so many fell into illegality and hacking to get a story. It's why they use paparazzi photographers, who they know make people's lives hell and led to Princess Diana's death.

It's all about making money and screw their victim.

All these things have one thing in common: it's a very easy way to get a story. I mean to say it is a lot easier to hack someone's phone that to actually go our an uncover a real scandal.

This gutter mentality is alas apparent in today's Daily Mail. They get a juicy story publishing the details of the autopsy, including the diagram of the body, of Whitney Houston. It makes horrible reading. It is truly a sad end for anyone much less a beautiful and talented woman.

Why publish the horrific details?

Why would the DM get off by telling us all the details of missing teeth and slipping skin?

This isn't a story. It's just a cruel way the gutter press make money. It's sad but illustrative of the mentality of the tabloids. It isn't nice.

The Oxford/Cambridge Boat Race protest: another posh boy protest

The annual Oxford and Cambridge boat race was a farce as a idiot swam in front of them causing havoc. Although apparently he forgot to mention it when he was arrested this is a protest against elitism.

It is just a shame it's bollocks. Yes Oxbridge is elite. As our top universities they are supposed to be elite. That's the whole point of any university. Yes a lot of monied folks go there, but not all. Some of the people protested against are medical types. I don't think people are against them and their elite training if they are sick.

What gets me is that, like most recent protests, it's always posh public school boys protesting for their stereotypical idea of what the working class person is. The actual working classes aren't bothered and have too much sense.

This whole idea that the working classes are too stupid and ignorant to protest against injustice is offensive. The same thing permeates the labour party where rich people who inherited their wealth tax free, went to private school and Oxbridge, and in many cases are aristocracy, run a party for the disadvantaged and the working.

It just seems wrong to me.

I find the hypocrisy of the Austalian protester, Trenton Oldfield pathetic. Not only is he a ex-public school boy, he has enjoyed an elite education. Worse than this if he was so concerened about social injustice why would he protest in a country where he is a guest and not in Australia which has a scandalous history and present in the way it treats it's Aboriginal people's, immigrants, and the working people?

He is just another unproductive posh boy trying to get a media career off the back of a pathetic stunt rather than by actually doing anything of note.

It's sad really.

A week of Brick: the over milking of a story

It's been an odd old week.

Political strife, unrest, press illegality, and worse swarm like flies. And yet the only story the Daily Mail is covering is the pathetic one about the deluded Samantha Brick who works for them pumping out bilge.

Last week we knew nothing of her, not even her name. This week every day the DM have published two or three articles about this woman.

Today there are two about her.

I've written here before that the Mail don't care why people visit their site as long as they visit. Page views and advertising clicks mean money. This is why some sites make outrageous claims, lies, or offer porn. The more people who visit the more money the publisher gets.

This over saturation of stories about Brick is the very definition of over milking a story. People are sick of the sight of her and her husband (who is quoted today threatening to kill people who doubt his wife's gorgeousness, so why isn't he being arrested?).

This is dangerous for Brick. She's had a good week, though only one story she wrote and a couple of photos hoots which made her look unattractive and a bit fat. She got £10,000 to appear on tv, which is nice. However if people get sick of her then the work dries up. Not being a engaging speaker or personality reduces the chance of a tv programme she can star in.

She needs to work, even if what she writes is crap. Alienating the readership isn't a very good idea for a jobbing writer, especially one who is spectacularly talentless as Brick. If she had any sense she would put her greed on the back shelf and not take everything that comes her way, as she has doe this week, but only so things that will give her a longterm career.

The Mail doesn't care about her or how employment prospects, but she needs to look after her career. It won't survive many more weeks like the last.

Sympathy for the Brick: with apologies to the Rolling Stones

I think we all like a joke but today's Daily Mail has gone beyond that. They are not only publishing yet another story about the self-proclaimed beauty that is Samantha Brick for the third day running, they are publishing four stories on the self-proclaimed beauty Samantha Brick.

I'm sorry but that's taking the piss.

It is obvious now that Brick is a vacuous, deluded woman who has made herself look idiotic. However what the DM is doing to her goes beyond a joke. People see a tabloid attacking their own female reporter to make money. one only has to look at the comments on these stories to see that (see here for an example).

People see a deluded, idiotic, woman being made to look a fool and exploited by a greedy tabloid to make money. This makes the DM look like a nasty paper who hates women.

This isn't a good look for a paper. Regardless of the reality papers should always give the impression of being nice, pro-female, honest, and one of 'us'. The Brick stories let the public see the DM to be a gutter tabloid.

Not good.

And so I hope, with little chance of success, that Brick goes back to anonymity. I really hope she doesn't keep turning up in the DM with her godawful bilge. She really is a terrible, idiotic writer. I fear that she'll get tv appearances and programmes off this which would be sad. To replace talent with scandal and page views is wrong. To get a media career out of bring laughed at is insulting to women and all those with talent who don't get a chance.

I suppose it's lucky that Brick seems so thick she doesn't understand the contempt she is now being held in; that she is a joke.

However when the laughter stops Brick will be left to pay the price.

Samantha Brick and the faux media storm

Yesterday's Daily Mail published an idiotic story by a minor female writer known as Samantha Brick. The article was about how this, how shall I put it, plain looking woman was hated by all women for her beauty.

As a story it was awful. It's either the piffle of a deluded person being published to mock her, a joke, or the DM thought we are all idiots.

I have never seen so much anger and comments for one article.

She's made herself, or has been made to look like a vacuous, airhead, and a twonk to boot.

All this I wrote yesterday. However what I find really depressing is the inevitable follow up article in the DM. The article is about how what the DM calls a backlash proves Brick's contention that her sheer beauty makes women jealous. It also tells us how sad she is that people who she says she admires hate her because of her gorgeousness.

I think this proves that Brick wasn't misquoted or stitched up by a tabloid.

The sad thing is that this drivel has been published for a second day. Brick is an irrelevance, it's the way in which it shows how the DM, and all tabloids, work. All that matters is the manufacture of page view hits, or mentions, and comment. It doesn't matter if they agree with you or not. It doesn't matter if they laugh at you or hold you in contempt. It doesn't really matter if what you publish is true.

All that matters is traffic.

Today Brick is the ten second wonder. Tomorrow it will be something else.

All that matter is site visitors and tweets.

It doesn't matter what they say or think only that they come. Be scandalous and hateful if you need as long as your site gets visitors. Visitors equals more advertising revenue and a higher google rank.

It's pathetically sad. Have we descended to such an extent whereby journalistic integrity, truth, or a good story is replaced by crap in order to whip up a faux media storm to improve your google ranking?

The world is a little dumber and more ill served because of bilge like this. Why don't they do real stories for flips sake?

Samantha Brick: Daily Mail joke, victim, or just deluded?

The Daily Mail has a deranged article in its Female section by one Samantha Brick, a journalist who I have only heard of from another DM article where she bragged about spending £25,000 on psychics, including getting their advice on what colour paint to use. Other articles are about how her fat French husband would divorce her if she got fat.

 

So as you can see she's not going to win the Pulitzer Prize!

 

However today's article takes the preverbal biscuit.

 

The article is entitled,

''There are downsides to looking this pretty': Why women hate me for being beautiful'

This garbage is then plastered with images of the said Brick.

As anyone with half a brain can guess this isn't going be an article that is nice to women. It plays into the idea that women are all bitches. Seems a little sexist for a article in a paper's female section.

However it is the photographs used in the article, and there are many of them.

 

She isn't beautiful. Audrey Hepburn was beautiful, Cindy Crawford is, Brick isn't. She's just a normal looking woman with some crap photographs.

If you're are going to write in a national newspaper about you're beauty and the gifts of champaign pilots lavish on you for being so gorgeous you better make damn sure you are or it makes you look like a deranged idiot.

The question is is Brick deranged? A victim of the Daily Mail's editors who played on her self image to make money. Or is she a cruel joke by sexist editors?

I've no idea what the answer is. I do know that it's made Brick an international laughingstock. People are laughing at her and not with her.

It's horrible really but she really does seem so vacuous that she'll not see it. Fame is fame I suppose to the airhead and it doesn't matter if you're the butt of the joke.

It's not nice of the Daily Mail though.

Silly woman.

 

 

Tony Benn's birthday

The ex-labour minister Tony Benn is 87 today. It's a good age and I hope he, like all of us, has many more healthy years.

However I'm not going to fall into this trend to think him the best PM we never had, or that he was some kind of saint.

He was neither.

He was wrong about most things in his life. That takes skill. If someone as extreme had been PM god knows what would have happened to our economy.

For all the talk of him being some kind of saviour of the working man, he sacked nearly 150,000 highly trained scientists and engineers. People who were the cheapest, and most successful, space programme in the world. He then gave all their hard work to the French who have made billions by using it as an integral part of the their successful satellite launching system.

This isn't good.

Worse than this, Benn gets praise heaped on him for renouncing his Viscount title to stand as MP, but he kept all the tens of millions he inherited. If he truly was a socialist champion of the working classes I'd have been more impressed if he kept the title and gave up his wealth and estates.

Now that would have shown solidarity to the working people!

The fact that Benn is so against hereditary principle in our monarchy but made damn sure his own idiot son, again very wealthy due to inheritance not work, followed him into being chosen for a safe labour seat, and his talentless granddaughter was chosen to stand for election as a labour MP before she was twenty, though thankfully she failed and is now a banker.

That irritates me.

So happy birthday to Tony. And I hope he enjoys many more in perfect health.

But I'm still glad he didn't become PM or had any real power. For all the jokes and talk of him being a "real character" he would have been no joke if he was.

An out of touch government's spies charter:how not to make friends

During the last labour government they showed themselves to be dictatorial and with a deep distrust of we the people. They wanted to lock people up for months on end without trial, and they wanted to snoop on what we do online.

 

It was a hated policy which the Tories earned kudos from derailing and making some very good speeches and commitments against it an in favour of our civil liberties and Internet freedom.

 

And now they have showed us that all these fine words and successful fight were all about spin, and political point scoring and not about belief, or morality.

 

The current collation government have fallen for the same siren voices and power hungry need to control everyone else whilst keeping their affairs secret. This government want all our email contacts, all the sites we visit, and what we do online recorded to be used against us.

 

This is obviously bad as it is no ones business what we do online unless it about child abuse or murder. Storing everything we do in our online life holds the danger of blackmail, journalists being able to use all our embarrassing search histories to get a good story.

 

I don't think anyone can doubt that journalists would stoop so low.

 

The thing you need to remember is that we all have embarrassing search histories. Mostly this is porn, but it could be sites about gay rights, self-harm, politics, therapy, etc. It could simply be our browser being redirected to a nasty site or pop up. Even if it not our fault the history remains to be used agianst us, or to be laughed at.

 

These things are private. we simply do not want everything we do to be public even if it legal. Put it this way if you're a teenager feeling confused and suicidal about their sexuality would you seek help and advice if you think for one second at it could be made public.

 

The retention of activity is bad.

 

Much worse is the way the government wants a huge list of people to be able to demand access to these records without a court order.

 

And this is key. If you are a criminal, a terrorist, or anyone acting illegally then there is good reason why such information should be available to law enforcement and the security services. If they can convince a court of law, or at least a judge, there is a overwhelming public interest that such information be made available to law enforcement.

 

But the new legislation proposal doesn't restrict the snooping to the police or the security services. It doesn't restrict it to the 'bad' people. They won't have prove they need access to fight crime. They simply have to ask and it will be given.

 

No restriction, no protection, no rights to defend yourself, no court.

 

All our online lives will be made public on asking to anyone who is curious.

 

This is a dangerous precedent and undermines both pre-election commitments and actively damages our internet economy and online talent.

 

Worse than that it is an idiotic proposal.

 

By betraying their pre-election promises it feeds into the meme that all politicians are untrustworthy spin merchants.

 

It is also politically stupid. As I write this a poll in Telegraph, a traditional Tory newspaper let us not forget, have 92.86% of people being against the proposed changes.

 

This just shows how out of touch and frankly incompetent this government is to anger the overwhelming majority of the population, especially after the fiasco of the recent budget.

 

They are simply tone deaf to what the people want. That's worrying. Worse than that though is scarey fact that all our mainstream parties support China and Iran like censorship.

 

Like I said scary.

 

I have been consistent in my belief that workingclass boy, and ex-council house dweller David Davies should have been made leader of the Tories. He is distinct from the other main party leaders by not being a posh public school boy, multimillionaire (inherited) who's never had a proper job. He also is a fabulous champion of civil liberties and scupperd the labour Internet censorship proposal.

 

I hope he, and all the libertarian Tories, stop this ridiculous and dangerous proposal from happening.

 

It he doesn't god help us all.

 

An out of touch government's spies charter:how not to make friends

During the last labour government they showed themselves to be dictatorial and with a deep distrust of we the people. They wanted to lock people up for months on end without trial, and they wanted to snoop on what we do online.

It was a hated policy which the Tories earned kudos from derailing and making some very good speeches and commitments against it an in favour of our civil liberties and Internet freedom.

And now they have showed us that all these fine words and successful fight were all about spin, and political point scoring and not about belief, or morality.

The current collation government have fallen for the same siren voices and power hungry need to control everyone else whilst keeping their affairs secret. This government want all our email contacts, all the sites we visit, and what we do online recorded to be used against us.

This is obviously bad as it is no ones business what we do online unless it about child abuse or murder. Storing everything we do in our online life holds the danger of blackmail, journalists being able to use all our embarrassing search histories to get a good story.

I don't think anyone can doubt that journalists would stoop so low.

The thing you need to remember is that we all have embarrassing search histories. Mostly this is porn, but it could be sites about gay rights, self-harm, politics, therapy, etc. It could simply be our browser being redirected to a nasty site or pop up. Even if it not our fault the history remains to be used agianst us, or to be laughed at.

These things are private. we simply do not want everything we do to be public even if it legal. Put it this way if you're a teenager feeling confused and suicidal about their sexuality would you seek help and advice if you think for one second at it could be made public.

The retention of activity is bad.

Much worse is the way the government wants a huge list of people to be able to demand access to these records without a court order.

And this is key. If you are a criminal, a terrorist, or anyone acting illegally then there is good reason why such information should be available to law enforcement and the security services. If they can convince a court of law, or at least a judge, there is a overwhelming public interest that such information be made available to law enforcement.

But the new legislation proposal doesn't restrict the snooping to the police or the security services. It doesn't restrict it to the 'bad' people. They won't have prove they need access to fight crime. They simply have to ask and it will be given.

No restriction, no protection, no rights to defend yourself, no court.

All our online lives will be made public on asking to anyone who is curious.

This is a dangerous precedent and undermines both pre-election commitments and actively damages our internet economy and online talent.

Worse than that it is an idiotic proposal.

By betraying their pre-election promises it feeds into the meme that all politicians are untrustworthy spin merchants.

It is also politically stupid. As I write this a poll in Telegraph, a traditional Tory newspaper let us not forget, have 92.86% of people being against the proposed changes.

This just shows how out of touch and frankly incompetent this government is to anger the overwhelming majority of the population, especially after the fiasco of the recent budget.

They are simply tone deaf to what the people want. That's worrying. Worse than that though is scarey fact that all our mainstream parties support China and Iran like censorship.

Like I said scary.

I have been consistent in my belief that workingclass boy, and ex-council house dweller David Davies should have been made leader of the Tories. He is distinct from the other main party leaders by not being a posh public school boy, multimillionaire (inherited) who's never had a proper job. He also is a fabulous champion of civil liberties and scupperd the labour Internet censorship proposal.

I hope he, and all the libertarian Tories, stop this ridiculous and dangerous proposal from happening.

It he doesn't god help us all.

April Fool's Sadness

Every year all newspapers try to show how smart and human they are by indulging in their own April Fools Day prank. One story secretly secreted within their pages as a joke. A false story to amuse the wise.

A lot of the stories are rubbish and very badly done. Others are brilliant. A few archive their own immortality by becoming legend.

So it is with some keeness and nerves I pursue today's newspapers. The nerves being the fear that I'll fall for the joke and tell all and sundry the story as fact.

It's been a sad day.

The newspapers are full of stories that simply cannot be true. Badly written non-stories that scream April Fools prank.

Unfortunately each paper seems to have several of them rather than a single prank.

And that's sad.

It's sad because it just shows how inept, idiotic, and rubbish our press have become. These are not stories. The shame is that only a few of the many are meant to be untrue jokes. The rest a 'real' stories the editors think are suitable to put before their paying public.

'Real' journalists mock us bloggers as being pathetic little runts and an object of hate. Even after the incredable work of bloggers and social media activists in uncovering British corruption and bringing down dictator's this is an Inge the mainstream media holds.

Today's press show how this isn't true, of it ever was. It shows how vacuous, inept, semiliterate, and insulting our press have become.

And that's a shame when we need a strong, independent, and fearless press.

Our press are truly demeaned.

It may be an April Fools day joke, but the joke is on all of us, reader and press. It's a killing joke though.