What on earth could you add to this terrible story?

Pride's Purge

(It’s not satire – it’s ATOS!)

Yet more proof of the unprofessionalism of the so-called medical experts at ATOS – the company paid huge amounts of taxpayers’ money by the government to carry out tests on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions which are supposed to decide whether sick or disabled people are eligible to receive support.

A blind woman was found fit for work by an ATOS assessor after he wiggled his fingers in front of her eyes to test her sight.

The woman finally ‘won’ her case against ATOS – but not after a hard fight. You can read about it here in an article from the Manchester Evening News:

Blind woman ordered back to work wins benefits battle

What is it with this government and its obsession with paying out vast amounts of taxpayers’ money to bunches of cowboys to run public services?

ATOS, G4S…

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An excellent piece from Nick Cohen…

Nick Cohen: Writing from London

For Sweden’s Axess magazine.

Scandinavian culture is all the rage in Britain. The crime novels of Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson have been popular for years, and their success has not disconcerted the London cultural establishment. But the success of Scandinavian television is another matter. It raises hard questions for British programme makers. Beginning with Swedish television’s adaptation of Mankel’s novels, the realisation grew that the best Scandinavian television drama was as good as the best British television drama. After The Killing, The Bridge and Borgen, we began to realise that it was better.

For the self-congratulatory world of British broadcasting, that knowledge was a shock. British television likes to say that it is “the best in the world”. And in the 1970s and 1980s, the boasting seemed justified . Britain once exported quality drama and classic serials, and imported downmarket game shows, mainly from America. There has been…

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THIS IS NOT AN ACT OF GOD

We went to the fabulous wedding of our friends Lisa and David over the weekend, set in Bedwellty, South Wales it was a truly joyous occasion, as watching two people you know should be together publicly declare their love should be. The welcome for the English contingent was warm and generous, the church service not only solemn, but great fun. The only spot of bother would predictably be the weather.

The rain simply would not let up over the valleys – at times it was a struggle to see a landmark as close and as large as The Chartist Bridge. We were all incredibly lucky of course – all we had to put up with was a little dampness and wind, rather than flooded homes and workplaces, so there will be no grousing from me. Travelling back along the M4 on Sunday, you could see a little of the damage done – burst river banks and flooded pastures mainly. The news told the rest, or nearly all of it…

…The government, and the media have, as usual praised the unstinting efforts of local councils and the emergency services in the struggle to save life and property. Much has been made of the improvements in emergency planning made over the past few years, and rightly so, given the parsimony of the Coalitions’ austerity spending plans. Yet with floods, the main emergency workers who bust a gut are the Fire Service – the ones with hoses, pumps, ladders etc. Yes, that means members of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU).

The cuts have hit Firefighters across the UK, and the South West has been no exception to this. So far, everything has worked pretty well, mainly thanks to teamwork and professionalism, yet post-2010 cut mean that Firefighters at all levels have serious concerns as to whether in the future they won’t be overstretched. The only reason that people in the South West have been able to rely on the Fire service because extra engines and Firefighters have been available from other regions. Should there be a wider flooding crisis in these other regions, this will not be the case. As the Association of Chief Fire Officers has already warned, future cuts, leading to the potential loss of 4,000 Firefighters, sixty stations and around 150 engines make such sharing of force much more difficult, especially if the UK were to have to deal with two regional crises at the same time.

Today Matt Wrack, the FBU leader has written to David Cameron, once again highlighting the Firefighters concerns. I doubt that Ham-Face will take any notice. After all, he leads a party that once counted  Brian Coleman as a leading member in London. You remember Brian – he said that “we need to break the FBU, frankly…” , as if this would make up for cutting numbers of staff and engines in London.

I am sure that the cabinet are all distressed about the floods – after all no one could be more distraught at having to dehumidify their holiday homes. No doubt these blustering puppets will heap praise upon the Fire Service until the waters subside, then get back to cutting numbers and buggering up their pensions. Of course, once the FBU start to campain over this in earnest, they will be branded extremists and wreckers by this extremist, wrecking coalition.   

 

Good Luck to the Walmart Strikers!

Hmm, Walmart, don’t they own ASDA???

The Political Idealist

Originally published on 23rd November 2013.

In the United States today, there is a large group of ordinary workers is standing up to world’s largest, and probably most prolific, corporate giant. Walmart represents some of the worst excesses of globalised capitalism; it has depressed wages, introduced draconian working conditions, forced governments into offering subsidies, moved thousands of jobs to the developing world where they can behave in an even worse manner, shirked its responsibilities as an employer, destroyed local businesses, and driven down the quality of the products it sells.

Today, a large number of American Walmart employees are striking for wages higher than $8 (£5), working weeks of 30 hours and not 27.5 (In the US, employers need to provide health cover to employees who work 30 hours or longer) and to generally be treated as human beings rather than units to be exploited. Today is Black Friday, when…

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Relief across UK as floods move northwards to more unimportant parts of the country

Another excellent, cynical, angry post from Tom Pride at Prides Purge:

 

Relief across UK as floods move northwards to more unimportant parts of the country.

via Relief across UK as floods move northwards to more unimportant parts of the country.

TROLLING GIT

It happens to all of us at sometime I suppose. We let down our guard and trust the wrong person with access to personal information, then it all goes batshit crazy. 

We are so used to technology that we can be a bit slapdash with security sometimes. Recently, this has happened with this blog, and someone has used my ID to post crap about the middle east, specifically Israel and Gaza on another site.

Lesson learned, passwords changed etc etc. Apology posted to the comment feed of the site, and a huge inward cringe. Whilst in general, I do not agree with the ideas on that site, the comments left in my name were simply trolling at its worst. It was made worse by knowing that I had been face to face with one of the bloggers last week. Now all I want to do is get on with forgetting the whole sorry episode.

I am not going to reveal the site that this twat posted on, because I do not want to have to see those egregious comments again, still less have to justify them.

OUTRAGEOUS!!!!!!

Well fiddle-de-dee! There has been a huge amount of bollocks written and talked about Sarah Teather discovering her moral compass. Two thousand pounds every month would indeed be a very generous wage to be unemployed on, unfortunately the truth is somewhat different. The vast majority of the money spent on the unemployed goes directly into the hands of complete bastards. Sorry, lets call a spade a spade. Landlords.

Sarah Teather, a Lib Dem MP, had absolutely nothing to do until 2010. I believe that she spent her days watching “Homes Under The Hammer” or some such property porn, where the middle classes indulge their fantasies of unearned income. As someone who thinks unfettered markets are good, she still thinks that we should all pick up the tab for these latter day Rachmans. I look forward to the government that brings back proper public housing, and rent controls, regardless of what bankers think.

Labour Uncut Post – In Defence Of The BBC…

The previous post, about working conditions, was pretty well received, however my next effort gained me my first ever  cyber insult. Yes readers, if you defend the BBC, you must want sex with young girls (sigh)…

 

labour-uncut.co.uk/2012/10/26/governments-of-every-stripe-want-to-tear-down-the-bbc-don’t-let-them/

Labour Uncut Post – Why Labour Has To Win In 2012

This was published back on the nineteenth of October, and written after a long, hard shift at work. Please follow the link below:

labour-uncut.co.uk/2012/10/19/why-labour-has-to-win-in-2015

Been a little busy…

Apologies for my lack of posts over the past few weeks, work has intervened. I have had two posts published recently over at Labour Uncut, so I will be posting the links in a moment, with a few covering remarks.