The Human Race Is Destined To Die Out Sooner Than We Think

When Are We Finally Going To Sort It?

Why all the fuss about Calais’ migrant situation in the past couple of weeks, when it’s been going on for years?
And it’s not because migrants want benefits, as returning big-bellied Brit holidaymakers, with their car boots stuffed with booze, would like to think.
Part of the problem lies with our less than glorious historical habit of marching into countries around the world, destabilising them and leaving gaps for the influx of brutal regimes, so that people living there are constantly in fear of their lives.

Most of them speak English because we stomped into their countries and claimed them as part of the British Empire.
A great deal are doctors, teachers, nurses and other professionals.
And a large number have family in the UK.

On Wednesday the Prime Minister stepped into the fray several years too late, said it was important to work with the French and that there was “no point either side trying to point the finger of blame”.
Yes. And?
We caused it.
When are we finally going to sort it?
Instead of maintaining, as the Government seems to be, a constant state of surprise.
( Fiona Phillips, 27.06.2015 )

The Referendum Bribe.

I keep having this dream about David Cameron being chinned by a European president over afternoon tea.
It’s not unrealistic, is it?
There are all these EU leaders, wrestling with real problems like millions of desperate refugees trying to reach their borders, Russian tanks on Ukrainian lawns and Greece falling into an economic abyss.

Only to be interrupted by an upper-class buffoon asking if they’d mind awfully letting Britain keep all the advantages of being in the EU while rejecting all the inconvenient, costly stuff.
All done to placate a band of swivel-eyed loonies with a pathological hatred for every Johnny Foreigner like them?

What’s not to chin?
Granted, the dream’s not likely to happen, even though some of those leaders would surely love to smack his shiny, pompous, ham face.
But now that Cameron is forced to act on the referendum bribe he made to stave off UKIP defections, a possible nightmare awaits us all.
( Brian Reade, 20.06.2015 )

David Cameron Trousered His Pay Rise.

David Cameron trousered his £7,000 MPs pay rise, then condemned teachers, doctors and police to a decade of wages misery.
Before the election, millionaire Mr Cameron described the huge raise for politicians as ‘unacceptable’.
But in a shameless about-face, the Prime Minister confirmed he would pocket the extra cash.
He told ITV News, “I think the right thing to do is to be paid the rate for the job, and that’s what I will do”.
The MPs pay rise comes only a week after the Tories announced other public sector workers would get 1% extra per year until the end of the decade.
They have already suffered five years of real-term pay cuts.
( Jack Blanchard, 17.07.2015 )

Their Rich Friends Can Never Be Seen As Scroungers.

In a fit of pomposity totally in keeping with his new Lord Chancellor’s fancy dress outfit, Michael Gove has issued language rules.
He’s told staff he doesn’t want them to use “impact” as a verb, to write “ensure” instead of “make sure”, “is not” instead of “isn’t”, “meets” not “meets with” and “I am sorry to read” as opposed to “I am sorry to hear”.

If I was one of those being patronised to within an inch of my P45, I’d walk into his grand office, grab an ornament, “make sure” it “isn’t” too light and “impact” it on his head so he “meets with” an accident.
Then tell him “I am sorry to hear” about his four-hour wait in A&E.
It is typical of this power-crazed Government which believes it now has total control over our money and laws – so why not our language.

Take the way they are twisting the most-used word in their vocabulary: Welfare.
As they look to slash another £12billion, they’ve decided the pain will be borne by jobless families on housing benefit and workers receiving tax credits.
That means, on average, taking £1,000-a-year from 12 million people who can’t afford it, because they say it’s right for the taxpayer.

Meanwhile one family will next year see its state aid rise by 6.7% to £43million.
And because one of their eight homes (the 52 bedroom London palace) has a bit of a leaky roof, the Government is willing to give them £150million to do it up.
So the Royals are deemed the family most in need of welfare handouts even though they’re one of the richest in the land.
That’s because, in a Tory world, only the poor can possibly be seen as a burden, and their rich friends can never be seen as scroungers.
( Brian Reade, 27.06.2015 )

The Biggest Hypocrite Of All.

It’s no surprise that David Cameron changed his tune on a huge pay rise for MPs after the election.
When the Tory leader voiced outrage at the amount before the polls, we warned that it was just spin for gullible voters.
It gives us no pleasure that we’ve now been proved right.
How he must be laughing at those who feel betrayed.

But MPs who accept the money-spinning 10% aren’t off the hook if they back low pay limits for others, especially the Tory 1% cap on teachers, nurses, council workers, civil servants, police, firefighters and others.
What’s sauce for an MPs fat goose should be sauce for the public servant’s gander.
So any Westminster politician, of whatever party, who pockets 10% then lectures others on the need to accept a tenth of that is a prize hypocrite.

Deeds matter more than words and MPs should lead by example.
If 10% is good enough for them, the tens of millions of workers on less money deserve an increase at least as big.
Cameron is the biggest hypocrite of all for imposing lower living standards on staff in the NHS, education and other vital public services.
( Daily Mirror, 17.07.2015 )

The Tories Loathe Public Service Broadcasting.

Thatcher’s porky little pet, Culture Secretary John Whittingdale, is on a mission to destroy the BBC as we know and love it.
He’s asked his Beeb-hating mates to savage programming like The Voice and Strictly Come Dancing.
Like most Tories, he claims the BBC isn’t impartial.

What he means is that the world’s greatest broadcaster isn’t partial enough – in favour of a Conservative government.
The Tory idea of even-handedness is a right hook to the left.
They can’t stand honest, independent news coverage or hard-hitting documentaries that show contemporary Britain as it really is.

So they demand a poodle Beeb, on pain of scrapping the TV licence, imposing pay-as-you-go telly or outright privatisation.
But they’ll probably do that anyway, because they loathe public service broadcasting in the same way that they hate all other public services that haven’t yet been sold off to their rich pals.
( Paul Routledge, 17.07.2015 )

The Human Race Is Destined To Die Out Sooner Than We Think.

My husband asks me quite regularly to “stop going on about” how I think the greedy, selfish human race is destined to die out sooner than we think.
I do it in London traffic jams, which now last all day.
I do it on the packed-to-danger-levels Tube, when I’m hanging on a rail trying to avoid asphyxiation by a 6ft man’s arm pit.

I do it when I see increasing numbers of massive superstores under construction, ready to be filled to bursting with millions of slaughtered animals and tonnes of pesticide-doused fruit and veg.
I do it when I’m breathing in noxious nitrogen dioxide belched out of diesel engines.

I do it when I see the constant disruption of the Earth to erect huddled-together high-rise blocks with one-bed apartments destined to retail at a million pounds and more.
I do it when London’s nothing’s-too-big-or-brash-for-us brigade dig underground to accommodate an “essential” swimming pool.

I do it when I hear fracking proposed to eke shale gas out of the ground because we’re exhausting supplies with our selfishness and greed.
But most of all I do it when I see how far the human race has fallen in its lack of respect and empathy for other human beings.
( Fiona Phillips, 27.06.2015 )

A Class System Propped Up By Inherited Wealth And Corporate Spivs.

How jolly decent of Gideon Osborne to call an emergency budget just as The Season gets into full swing.
You know.
The Season.
That summer-long sloth-fest played out in marquees at venues like Wimbledon, Royal Ascot, Henley, Cowes, Cowdray Park and Glyndebourne.

That Pimm’s-soaked celebration of what sets Britain apart from other nations: a class system propped up by inherited wealth and corporate spivs.
And now that their political wing is running the show again, how spiffing to see The Season stage an event in Westminster.
And what a hoot!

First up on Wednesday the Queen’s distant cousin and son-in-law of an 8th Baronet, David Cameron, let it be known he was addressing the most urgent issue of the day: the need to dress up in Lord Fauntleroy costumes and chase foxes on horseback across a friend’s estate until they die.
Then Master Gideon, a 17th Baronet’s son, announced that everyone in the land was to be rehoused in Downton Abbey.
The Good Old Days are back. Chin-chin.

From now on there’s no need to pay inheritance tax on the million-pound piles being handed down to you, because it penalises aspiration.
The wealthiest 8% of families deserve that £1billion tax break because it’s hard work waiting for a big cheque to drop in your lap.
What about austerity you say?

Well we’ve found the readies by taking maintenance grants off poor students who work hard to get into university and aspire to a better life, and from poor kids who now won’t inherit holidays and shoes because their parents have had their working tax credits stopped.
It’s called restoring proper order.

Then there are public servants.
All 5.3 million of them.
The teachers, nurses, firemen, police, council workers, lollipop women and the rest of the “in service” folk.

They kept the country going when the bankers drove the economy off a cliff, so now it’s growing again, it’s only cricket that we reward them.
So we’re freezing their pay rises at 1% until 2020, meaning they’ll have had no real increase for a decade.
( Brian Reade, 11.07.2015 )