We Have Conquered All But Our Own Darkness

Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy, then gives them drugs to take away their unhappiness

Blamed on depression caused by poor living standards, benefit cuts and debt, the suicide rate in the UK is at highest ever recorded levels.

Common sense is so rare these days it’s often considered a super power.

How on earth did we end up paying to live on a planet that didn’t cost a penny to create?

During 2010-2011, 61,468 people used UK Trussell Trust food-banks.
During 2013-2014, the number was 913,138.
These are figures from just one food aid charity.

If you think there is no God, you’d better be right.

People Made Poorer After Tories VAT Hike.

Families have been stung for £1,800 as a result of George Osborne’s VAT hike.
A couple with children have lost £450 a year on average since the increase to 20% in January 2011, a parliamentary answer reveals.
A pensioner couple have lost £1,100, a pensioner living alone would be £600 worse off and a one-parent family is £900 poorer.
The 2011 increase followed a pledge not to raise the tax.
Labour’s Treasury spokeswoman Shabana Mahmood said that the only people to have had a big tax cut under the Tories were those earning more than £150,000.
( Jason Beattie, 03.01.2015 )

I wanted to be a politician, but my head wouldn’t fit up my ass.

UK prison cells are so crammed that open prisons are now being used for nasty criminals who should be detained on an island surrounded by man-eating crocodiles.

Because prisons are over-flowing, the UK Government are ceaselessly begging judges and magistrates not to send anyone to jail unless they absolutely have to.

Eventually all things fall into place.
Until then, laugh at the confusion.

If you don’t believe in miracles, perhaps you have forgotten you are one.

Before you do anything, ask yourself, would an idiot do that?
If the answer is yes, then don’t do it.

Hunger Stalks Large Parts Of Our Country.

Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, says we must not play political games with the plight of the poor.
Hang on a minute, Most Rev.
You started the controversy over poverty and empty kids’ bellies.
You said, “Hunger stalks large parts of our country.”
You were more shocked by scenes at a British food bank than the suffering in African refugee camps and you backed calls to end over-hasty “sanctioning” of benefits that leaves claimants penniless.
And rightly so.
This is not a game.
It’s deadly serious.
We live in the fourth-richest country in the world.
It is a scandal that food banks have to cope with more than a million requests for help in the fifth year of a Tory-led government that thinks the poor are responsible for their poverty.
( Paul Routledge, 12.12.2014 )

Only an idiot would say, ‘There is no God’.
Because to say that, surely, you must first understand everything.
And only an idiot would claim they understand everything.

Sugary soft drinks should carry a health warning, say experts.
What next?
Wine labels saying, ‘Caution, may contain alcohol’.

The Government call it benefits when given to ordinary folk.
And expenses when they give it to themselves.

I was asked this question today.
‘Would Saudi Arabia allow a million Christians to settle in their country and then build churches?’

No society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of a lack of means.
A community that excludes even one member is no community at all.

There is such beauty here.
The heat of the sun to warm you.
Food that springs out of the earth itself.
Man should want for nothing.
Yet he wants for everything.

It’s hard to accept the truth when lies were exactly what you wanted to hear.

I have no time to argue with egos and small minds.

Some of us may be the grand-daughters or the great-grand-daughters of the witches they didn’t burn.

You can’t put your arms around a memory.
So give those you love and those you care about a big hug today.

Stress.
The confusion created when one’s mind over-rides the body’s desire to choke the living daylights out of some idiot or asshole who desperately needs it.

Friends on Twitter you never meet.
But you can be touched by their soul, see the good in their heart, and feel the warmth of their being.

If one day you feel like crying, call me.
I can’t promise to make you laugh.
But I will cry with you.

I want to live my life without stress and worries.
I don’t need to be rich and famous.
I just want to be happy.

When an election is near, to make themselves look good, the Government often creates a problem that causes fear, and then offers a solution.

You cannot escape.
Even in your nightmares I will find you.

I know you believe you understand what you think I said.
But I am not sure you realise that what you heard is not what I meant.

Would you rather speak to the person in charge?
Or the one who knows what’s going on?

Science simply marvels at God’s work and then documents it.

Love, manners, morals, respect, and common sense.
Just some of the things money cannot buy.

Every child should be taught gardening.
Because food is very important, isn’t it?

We have conquered all but our own darkness.
Humans are the weapons of mass destruction

Never underestimate the healing power of listening to your favourite music playing full blast while jumping around the house like an idiot.

When you learn to accept instead of expect, you will have fewer disappointments.

I smile at those who claim they ‘know’.
None of us know for sure.
But perhaps one day we will.

Cameron Refused To Give NHS Nurses A Measly 1% Pay Rise.

When David Cameron refused to accept there is a crisis in the NHS, I felt like punching a hole in the television screen.
Only that would have increased the pressure on overburdened A&E nurses and doctors at my local hospital.
And I don’t want to do that because I know from first-hand experience exactly how hard-working and dedicated they are.

2014 was the year I really got to know the NHS from the inside, as a regular outpatient at Airedale General, near Keighley, where I was undergoing treatment for suspected prostate cancer.
PSA tests, an MRI scan, and a biopsy up the unmentionable.
The full works, over several months.
The doctors, the nurses and the support staff were absolutely brilliant.
Polite, professional and caring.
I couldn’t ask for more.

At the end of it, the consultant, Mr Koenig, rang me at home, in the evening, to give me the all-clear – for now.
More tests in the summer.
If I thought the NHS was a good thing before, I am lost in admiration for it now.
And I boil with rage at what the Tories are doing to the best thing that Labour ever gave to the people of this country.

Deceitful Dave prattled in Prime Minister’s Questions this week about how much he admires nurses.
He does that, all right.
He admires them so much he shot the umpire, by vetoing a measly 1% pay increase awarded this year by the Independent Pay Review Body.

So, next time I was at Airedale was on the picket line with striking hospital staff, including midwives who’d never taken industrial action before in their 149-year history.
I heard chilling evidence of over-worked staff, of privatisation of services, of job losses, of rock bottom morale.
This, too, was first-hand experience, of the kind that most patients don’t get.
It’s the side they don’t see, because staff are too busy looking after them to complain.

The Tories don’t see it either.
In fact, they’ve invented a new medical condition: incurable denial syndrome.
Cameron can’t admit that the NHS is in crisis, so he denies it’s happening while all around is hospital chaos.
Weeping nurses, worn-out A&E doctors, exhausted paramedics and patients left in agony on trolleys.
( Paul Routledge, 09.01.2015 )