National Anthem

I’ve made a petition – will you sign it?

Click this link to sign the petition:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/108656/sponsors/lWOHEZbf3ivoNd6oWYD

My petition:

We the undersigned believe that the United Kingdom needs a new National Anthem.

We accept that the current National Anthem ‘God Save the Queen’ can remain a personal Anthem for Her Majesty the Queen but it fails to unify us as a Nation and is no longer fit for purpose. The UK needs a new National Anthem that celebrates our political and multi cultural reality.

The USA have both Hail to the Chief and the Star-Spangled Banner and it makes sense for the UK to also have separate Anthems that are able to represent the Head of State and then again the Nation as a whole.

A Christmas at Cameron’s Warehouse with apologies to Dicken’s.

“Plan-A my boys!” said crimson Cameron. “No more work to-night! Christmas Eve, Cleggy! Christmas, Gideon! Let’s have the bedroom tax up!” cried Cameron with a sharp slap of his hands on Nadine, “before May can say Abu Qatada. . . .”

“Plan-A!” cried Cameron, skipping down from the dispatch box with wonderful duplicity. “Privatise away, my lads, and let’s have lots of money here! Plan-A, Cable! Swear away, Mitchell!”

Privatise away! There was nothing they wouldn’t have privatised, or couldn’t have privatised with old Thatcher looking up. It was done in a minute. Every company was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life forevermore; the Royal Mail was swept away and posted abroad, the Probation Service was trimmed, the NHS was gradually heaped upon the fire; and the MPs house was as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright as unlimited expenses could desire on a winter’s night.   

In came fiddler Alexander with the Orange book, and went up to the dispatch box and made Tory policy out of it turning the pages like fifty stomach aches. In came Mrs. Cameron, one vast fixed smile. In came the three Chairmen; Shapps, Green and Fox, looking scheming and unlovable. In came the last six LibDem followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young Tories and  the token women employed in the business. In came courting couple Rebekah and Andy. In came William which surprised everyone as they vaguely hoped they’d got rid of him. In came the little girl they thought they left in the Pub. In came the ex chief whip with three policemen. In came Huhne with Brucie thinking points get prizes. In came Jeremy the little boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having brains enough for his master, trying to hide himself behind a tree next door but was once proved to have had lied for Uncle Rupert. In came Maria the Miller’s daughter redundant as a Royal Charter. In came the rejected IDS but to their rare, but late, universal credit they all thought him not very bright.  In came Gove who thought himself an unqualified success. In came Paterson in his best badger hat. In came Pickles and Soames and the feast was soon devoured. In they all came, any-how and Geoffrey Howe. Away they all went, everyone coupled with a banker in hand.  Half round and back again the other way; down the middle way and up right again; round and round in various stages of zero growth. Affectionate groping, old Tory couples always turning up in the wrong place; new Tory couples starting off again, as soon as they got there; all Tory couples at last, and from the bottom not a poor, disabled, unemployed, immigrant, teacher, nurse or badger amongst them.

When the 2010 result was brought about the fiddler struck up “We’re All in it Together.” Then Cameron stood out to dance with Mrs. Cameron. Tory couple, too, with a good stuffing of pasties cut out for them by hard-working people; three or four and twenty pairs of business partners; people who were not to be trifled with; people who would cut a dance, or anything else, on your grave and had no notion of walking.

But if they had been thrice as manly, oh, four times as manly, Cameron would have been a match for them, and so would Ms. Mensch. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. If that’s not low praise, tell me lower and I’ll use it. A negative light appeared to issue from Mensch’s calves. They clouded every part of the dance like an eclipse. You couldn’t have predicted at any given time what would become of them next.

And when Cameron and Mrs. Cameron had gone all through the dance, advanced retirement age; both hands to your partner, bow and courtesy, screwing, needling, and back again to your homeland; Cameron cut so deafly that he appeared to wink with his bottom, and came upon his feet again with a swagger.

When the clock struck midnight the domestic balance of payments broke up. Mr. and Mrs. Cameron took our stations (and everything else they could take), one on either side of the door, and shaking down every person individually, as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas!.

A Mini Mitchell Mumble (I Swear).

Politicians from all political parties have been eager to rush to the defence of the erstwhile Tory Chief Whip, Andrew Mitchell, in what is a prima facie old fashioned Police stitch up over the ‘Plebgate’ incident.

Mr Mitchell recorded a meeting which was subsequently misreported by the Police in attendance but, and this is the problem, he did admit he swore albeit without being abusive which, in itself, is a tad odd.

Without knowing what his actual words were it is difficult to say he was neither abusive or demeaning of the Police and he has never attempted to elucidate. Two wrongs don’t make a right even for a Tory Mandarin.

Legal Aid – Courting Disaster

Since the 18th March, 2013, I have attended a complicated Fraud Trial centering around Film Tax Credit and VAT.

Whilst I have no intention whatsoever of commenting on the precise details of that Trial it is relevant to point out that there were 4 defendants and would have been 5 if one had not passed away.

It was what the Lawyers like to describe as a ‘Cut-throat’ Trial wherein each defendant blamed one or more of their fellow accused, together with the deceased, as being responsible for elements of dubious practices.

In itself there is nothing remarkable about this and the Law has taken its course and guilt or innocence has been proclaimed by the Jury.

What does concern me though is the Grayling proposals for reform of the Legal Aid system.

Under the Grayling proposals those defendants using Legal Aid would have had Court appointed Solicitors foisted upon them who would probably have lacked the experience or ability to act in such a specialist field. Once you are using inexperienced Solicitors it would seem highly likely that the danger occurs of the use of equally inexperienced Barristers in representing them in the Crown Court. This is even more likely as the Solicitors appointed will be selected from a pool of representatives of the legal profession who will come from companies motivated by profit and not their clients justice and they will not want to be using ‘high’ value Barristers to take their cases to the next stage as this would mitigate the profit.

All defendants should have an equal opportunity to defend themselves but when it impinges on specialist fields such as fraud this definitely will not be the case under the Grayling proposals. It will be one law for the rich and another for the poor.

This is just one major flaw I can see happening from first hand experience and I am sure there are many others.

 

 

UKIP – Cooking the Tory Goose

Conservative strategists are so worried about the advance of UKIP that they are apparently cooking up a swathe of ‘new’ policies to make us British more aspirational no doubt caught up in the ideological fantasy that we are now all Thatcherites.

The main ingredient amongst their plans is a desire to increase home ownership by boosting the purchase of rented accomodation. Whilst this may at first glance appear admiral to middle England we should remember where this led before. Firstly it decimated the Social Housing sector; a position, from which, which we have never recovered in the last 30 years. Secondly for those who took the bait many, eventually, found themselves in Court with repossesion orders and subsequently searching to be accomodated in those reduced Council stocks. Thirdly many homes were purchased by well off relatives of elder residents as a future investment. Hence the vast majority of these ‘homes’ have ended up in the Private sector and caused the rise in the Housing Benefit bill.

Next top up with privatisation of anything that moves. Salting away National assets such as the most profitable Rail company, giving Banks back to the Bankers and destroying the Royal Mail. The theory being, as was under Thatcher, that hosts of us normal citizens become minor capitalist shareholders acquiescent to Conservative values. But what happened in reality was that many ditched the shares immediately for a quick profit whilst in the long term the majority of the rest were aquired by the normal suspects. And let us not forget that those wonderous leaders of large companies invariably take shares as part of their remuneration package which, to me, is akin to corporate dipping in the till (just look at the Diamond geezer and his mate Ricci Rich).

Add to the mix their misguided actions on Immigration (where only the rich need apply) which will enable the extreme Right to focus their vitriol on asylum seekers and genuine workers from new members of the European Union whilst deliberately misdescribing them as immigrants. We rightly denounce institutionalised racism in such bodies as the Police so we should never justify it as a Nation.

Gently stir in the backdoor Privatisation of the NHS and high profile closures of A & E’s that will not be hidden away because of the birth of the NHS Party which, at the very least, will continually prick at Labours conscience.

Finally give Michael Gove a big wooden spoon to stir education into a gruesome Victorian gruel and the recipe is complete with all the fat being in the Tory gravy boat.

Overcook with extreme callousness Welfare reforms, Workfare, cutting the Minimum Wage et al burning those already at the bottom of the financial food chain and you have a toxic recipe for an eventual voters backlash.

Whilst many will turn to Labour as their natural ‘home’ experience shows that others take a more aggressive voting line. In the recent past the BNP have been the beneficiaries but now they are diminished the more astute electorate are moving to the ‘acceptable’ Right and conjoined with a damaged Liberal Democrat party we see an almost inevitable rise of UKIP.

The Tories have already seen with their EU Referendum promise that by attempting to adopt UKIP ground they actually legitimize them as an acceptable Right wing alternative.

Sadly for the Tory deluded not only are we not all Thatcherites but the vast majority of us are not even slightly of the Conservatives ilk be we Left or Right. They are totally missing the point that whilst  they are continuing to roast their turkeys UKIP are busy using all their most priceless spices in cooking their goose.

Thatcher; Cause or Effect?

What I find sad is that, to a degree, people are right to blame Labour for not tackling adequately the UK economic failings back in the ’60s and ’70s.

However I would be more specific and point the finger principally at Jim Callaghan who during Wilson’s Government initially proved himself to be the most incompetent Chancellor and then pandered to the Unions to such a degree that in Cabinet he led the destruction of the efforts by Barbara Castle (no right winger by any imagination) from introducing her ‘In Place of Strife’ Bill back in 1968. He was also one of the most ineffective, if not the most, incompetent Prime Ministers in my lifetime whilst allowing the extreme Left to entrench itself when clearly some reform was needed but he had made his bed 10 years earlier and by then the bed bugs were biting.

To this day I find it incredulous that Labour put themselves in that position but they made their choice and paid the penalty in 1979 after Callaghan dithered in ’78, (in much the same way Brown did 31 years later), and exposed Labour to the horrendous images conjoured up in the so called ‘Winter of Discontent’. But then the hard Left, as with the hard Right, have always been reluctant to accept any argument or learn any lessons from their political opponents.

Between times the Conservatives, under Heath, misjudged the attitude of the public to the Miners and the three day week (which meant, strange as it may seem, that I actually earnt more then as an employee of BR). That respect for Miners was abused and eventually lost totally under Scargill who must hold a very large personal responsibility for the demise in Union power generally as well as the virtual extinction of our Coal mining Industry regardless of whether you think that was or is a good or bad thing. If Howe was sent into bat without a bat Scargill arrogantly and stupidly batted without helmet, pads and box with inevitable results.

There is a reasonable case to be put forward that it was actually the excesses of the Left and the act of being a ‘fellow traveller’ by the likes of Callaghan that really moved the political centre and that Thatcher was not cause but effect.

Thatcher’s Legacy

When talking of or writing about Lady Thatcher it is easy to be either raised by feelings of absolute hate or total adulation. That said there is no doubt that we are all living in a Britain that has been altered substantially by her being and her policies.

She may well have been a nice kindly woman in private but that has been said of many in history, some of whom we would never want to meet on a light night let alone a dark one. She was the 1st woman Prime Minister but to equate that to feminism is to equate di Canio to socialism. She may well have been focussed and not for turning but wasn’t that the doctrine of Generals in the Great War. What some will regard as positive virtues can, in retrospect be construed as an actual weaknesses. In reality nothing is ever that clear-cut. She created her image wilfully and was never in truth the person the Public saw as she was molded in looks, voice, actions and policies in the greatest PR exercise ever because most were not aware of the wiles of the spin doctor in her day.

As for the ‘Iron Lady’ image this was based on her tackling Argentina and Unions.

Lest we forget the Falklands War was a result of bad policy in removing the one and only naval vessel there whilst under threat from a bellicose dictatorship and partly won back by brown-nosing an equally despicable dictator in Chile. Britain may be a Society where Thatcher’s children hold sway but Chile’s children went ‘missing’.

The victories against Unions were predominantly those of the Miners and Wapping. The Miners were unfortunate to be led by an equally belligerent World War I type General in Arthur Scargill who incredulously launched his troops in March 1984 when they would have a minimum effect. The long-term effect has been the total demise of a home-grown coal mining industry. However, that said, Scargill has now been vindicated in his view of Thatcher’s intent to decimate this Industry. In the long-term hardly a great win for the UK. As for Wapping there is no doubt there were dubious Print Union ‘Spanish Practices’ that were unjustifiable but remember that Murdoch’s News International built and equipped their new plant under secrecy. The long term effect of this dispute was to entrench the power of Murdoch and sow the seeds that led to Leveson.

Thatcher envisaged the UK economy being based on Service Industries not manufacturing. This led to policies freeing up the potential for banks and insurance companies to operate in less strict environments and, as sure as eggs are eggs, the rotten eggs Thatcher laid grew up and the chickens came home to roost in our current economic crisis.

What about her great work in getting Brits to be homeowners I hear. Well the positive effect was to bring about estates with mixed tenancies and ownership but why and at what cost? The why is simple it was her policy to turn voters, in predominantly Labour areas, into mini capitalists. The downside is those homes removed from the Social Housing stock were not replaced causing massive waiting lists and now being attacked by an unseemly act of social cleansing by the Coalition in manipulating welfare payments, council tax and the odious bedroom tax.

The other major way Thatcher tried to make us all capitalists, and therefore not Labour friendly, was the propagation of Privatisation. Who now can honestly say we are better off with a mish mash of rail and energy companies with obscene profits, poor service and unexplainable pricing policies. And who wouldn’t wish back a water bill that was a small separate extra that came as Water Rates with your annual household Rate demand when the only time there was a hosepipe ban was in the exceptional Summer of ’76. And just how many of those original shares issued are still in the hands of the ordinary man and not the top 1% now getting their windfall tax cut?

Another area that needs to be examined is her xenophobia and homophobia. The first is clear in her dealings with her fellow Europeans whom she always acted superior too and had the bullies streak of ‘handbagging’ her colleagues within the European Union. The homophobia came out clearly in her support of the now widely accepted as infamous support of the anti-gay measure : Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which forbade schools from teaching “the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”. I cannot say whether she actually hated these people but she certainly engendered hatred.

It is also worth mentioning that Thatcher was the Prime Minister who introduced Rate Capping and abolished the Greater London Council. Two actions which were politically motivated and diminished local democracy, their autonomy and assisted the decline in voting at Local Government Elections.

This legacy is one of which I personally would be totally ashamed. I don’t, now she is dead, echo her cry of ‘Rejoice! Rejoice!’ but neither could I be that hypocritical that I would shed one tear for her.

Warsi and Hunt, The Cameron Hares

   Much has been made by politicians and pundits alike on the reasons for Cameron launching an enquiry into whether Baroness Warsi has breached the Ministerial Code. Adding to the other enquiry to be conducted by the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards, triggered by her herself, for other ‘problems’.

   It is suggested by some that Camerons’ actions are racially motivated and that he wants to dump her because she is a Muslim. My personal view is he does want to get rid of Warsi, not because she is a Muslim, but because she has been an ineffectual joint Party Chairperson. However to just sack her would, in itself, have left him open to those very same racist accusations. So not wanting to appear in that colour he has used the instruments of Government, expecting a negative report, to get the result he wants without getting his hands dirty.

  Irony of irony his defensive actions have opened him up to the very charges he tried to avoid in that, perversely, his actions are racially motivated.

   How much simpler it would have been for Cameron to ‘advise’ Warsi to step down as she had become the story, however, he could not do that because he has placed himself in a lose lose situation over his stubbornness in clinging on to Hunt. A stubbornness that has already brought him to grief with Coulson.

   There is an often quoted saying that an effective Prime Minister needs to be a good butcher. Cameron has shown himself to be incapable of wielding the knife and so the hares will keep running. And by chasing more than one hare he will catch neither.