The most inspiring left wing leader

Johann Hari recently wrote a piece that interested me entitled “Amid dark times, meet the most inspiring people of 2009” including left wing Bolivian president Evo Morales:

“When Evo Morales was a child, the indigenous peoples of Bolivia weren't even allowed to set foot in the capital's central square, which was reserved for white people. Today, he is the President, and for the first time in his country's history, he is diverting the billions raised from the country's natural resources away from the pockets of US corporations. It is building schools and hospitals for people who had nothing, and poverty is being eradicated in a stunning burst of progress”

Much of this is true, public services investment has increased from 6.3% of GDP in 2005 to 10.5% in 2009 and as the report from CEPR states:

“It is worth nothing that this would not have been possible without the control that the government gained over its natural gas production and reserves”

There also appears to be a reduction in inequality in the years to 2007 with the Gini coefficient falling from 60.2 to 56.3.

Before reading I knew next to nothing about Morales but soon after I came across a blog post by Hersey Corner also about Morales in which he argued:

“That's one way of putting it. Another is that, like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Morales has embarked upon a programme towards almost unlimited socialist state control. He has already nationalised gas, oil, mining and telecommunications and begun Zimababwe-style land reforms. Other sectors of the economy, including electricity and the banks, are already being lined up. When one opposition leader spoke up against Morales, a mob of the president's supporters ransacked his house.”

The first point is simply an ideological point, and as a right winger the Heresiarch is likely to take this position, one that I strongly disagree with. The nationalisation has been used to combat poverty, reducing the number of Bolivians living in extreme poverty from 37% to 31% The second point is a serious accusation but there seems little evidence to back it up with.

Morales has grown the Bolivian economy:

                                           

“Bolivian President Evo Morales, who nationalized the energy industry and rewrote the constitution, heads for re-election Dec. 6 bolstered by an economy projected to grow faster than any other in the hemisphere this year.”

He won that election with 63% of the vote and his party Movement Towards Socialism won large majorities in both the houses of the Bolivian parliament.

According to this Guardian report opponents of his regime are concerned that:

“The charismatic Aymara leader would become more radical and polarising and usher in an authoritarian personality cult.”

It’s not clear why anyone would think that apart from a western neo-liberal suspicion of socialist countries in the developing world. It’s been seen before in the criticisms of Hugo Chavez’ Venezuelan government and it’s completely unfounded.

There is actually an argument to say that he hasn’t gone far enough, Mike Gonzalez writes in this CiF piece:

“While the past four years have brought great advances in the recognition of indigenous rights and culture, the communities remain poor. The next Morales government has a responsibility to reward their support with a more forceful redistribution of wealth and to continue the progress towards the "21st century Latin American socialism" that he and other Latin American presidents will be attempting to define at next week's conference of Alba, the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America.”

This “more forceful re-distribution of wealth” seems to be beginning with the new constitution and the redistribution of land that comes with it. This can only be a good thing for reducing inequality, something that has been needed for a long time. I wouldn’t go as over the top as Hari has done in his piece, the job is not yet done, but Morales seems the only man who can do it

Completely insane

When it comes to Daily Mail comments, there's funny, there's strange and then there's downright insane. This definitely falls into the latter category. I'm not quite sure what Weary, England is trying to say here about Jan Moir's latest piece of rubbish. Something to do with these lessons being a form of brainwashing which will get your kids taken away because mum and dad had a pillow fight.

I think he/she wants an end to MODERATION and then start with more EXCESSIVISM. Or possibly the other way round. 

It's one of the worst written things that I've ever seen. Yes, even worse than Littlejohn.

The Sun on Tiger Woods crashing into a tree - He's having an affair!!

Whereas the Guardian have written a normal article based on facts. The Sun have taken it into their own hands to publish unfounded accusations.

Many other newspapers have covered the story, including the Express, the Independent, and the Times and none of them have given these accusations the light of day.

So where did the Sun get the accusations that firstly, Tiger had a row with his wife and secondly, rather more seriously that he has been having an affair. The Sun claims:

Reports in the US claim he has been cheating on her with party hostess Rachel Uchitel, 34.

“Reports in the US” seems to be a sneaky way to print wild allegations without substantiating them whatsoever.

The Independent also prints the allegations, but unlike the Sun they don’t make them the centre of the story, in the last line printing…

Rumours about the golfer's private life surfaced this week with a tabloid newspaper speculating about marital unrest, but it had little evidence to substantiate its outlandish claims.

Note how a respectable newspaper doesn’t engage in wild speculation and even the claim of marital unrest is said to be “unsubstantiated.” Even though the Independent is a quality paper, if they had found out through sources that they trusted and believed that Woods was having marital problems or even an affair, it would have featured more prominently in the story.

None of the American sources that claim this affair, such as this, this and this have any actual evidence to back it up and the Hollywood Gossip names the newspaper the National Inquirer (which first made the allegations) as “the unreliable tabloid”

Even the Mail and the Express have not gone as far as claiming an affair, with the former claiming an argument, and the latter – surprisingly – having the decency not to print unsubstantiated allegations.

It just makes you wonder, how low will the Sun sink?

Police brutality

Whatever inquiries such as this one say, makes little difference. The sort of brutality dished out at the G-20 protests was not officially sanctioned, it was individual police officers ignoring instructions and deciding that they could do what they wanted.

The inquiry comes up with a number of suggestions such as this one:

The report, published today, called for a softening of the approach and urged a return to the "British model" of policing, first defined by 19th-century Conservative prime minister Sir Robert Peel. O'Connor advocated an "approachable, impartial, accountable style of policing based on minimal force and anchored in public consent".

All well and good, but if the individual police officers continue to act as they did at the G-20 protests, i.e. pushing over a man walking along with his hands in his pockets, there will be no change. The assault of Ian Tomlinson was not done as part of a policing stratagy of brutality, it was done because police officers felt that in the middle of a crowd, protected by removing their ID they could do what they like. Until the average police officer is made accountable to the public this sort of thing will keep happening.

Public order training should be overhauled, with a new emphasis on schooling the 22,500 officers trained for protests in communication and diplomacy rather than riot scenarios. "Time spent on suppressing mass urban disorder should be reduced and time spent on planning and keeping the peace should be increased," O'Connor said.

This and any other measure brought in will have no effect until the police are taken to account and remeber that they (like politicians) are public servants.

And since the Met seem not to like the proposals anyway

Although the Met is expected to endorse today's report, O'Connor's findings will be seen as a damning indictment of a style of policing protest pioneered by Scotland Yard in the last decade. Senior Met officers are known to have lobbied hard against some of O'Connor's proposals, at one stage even hiring lawyers in an unsuccessful attempt to oppose one of his key recommendations.

What chance is there of any change? Only time - and another big protest - will tell. I'm not confident.
 

Can the Sun get any worse? Of course.

Deprived of any real news this Saturday morning, what better than something about kids - SHOCK HORROR - having fun. Yes, that's right, the fact that...

THE youngest son of Professor David Nutt - sacked as government drugs adviser - has posted pictures of himself on Facebook apparently smoking dope.

... is apparently newsworthy in the Sun. Professor Nutt's children's sins include appearing...

ZONKED in other snaps on the site

Maybe he was just tired after a long day. His son also commented on facebook…

"Steve Nutt thinks his dad is probably more famous than he'll ever be, BARRING A TERRORIST ATROCITY THAT IS... "

It's true, and slightly funny. Ok, not very funny, but what has off key humour got to do with Professor Nutt's sacking?

Shockingly, instead of sticking a portrait of himself in his "profile" photo slot like most Facebook users, his image is of an orange labelled "product of Israel" - one half of which is a GRENADE.

I'm still struggling to work out why this is relevant, possibly a little offensive but it makes a bit of a political point. It isn't something put up without any thought.  About Nutt's other daughter the Sun postures that...

Photos show her and girl pals cavorting with a bottle of spirits in hand - and were uploaded two years before she turned 18.

People before the age of 18 sometimes drink shocker.

Meanwhile older lad Johnny, 26, has posted photos of himself prancing NAKED in the snow in Sweden.

Sounds fun... I don't know about you, but I've failed to find anything relevant to Professor Nutt's sacking/resignation or anything that's offensive or abnormal about his kids lives. Maybe this is just another poorly done hatchet job.

What do we want? People to stop taking the piss out of student protest

That means you Tom Harris MP, remember the party whip isn't controlling your blog (or is he?) and the government have no policy of unfair and stereotypical blog posts against students (or do they?)

Quite frankly, this is stereotypical and unfunny and quite what an MP is doing posting it is beyond me. I generally like reading Harris' blog (even though sometimes it is a walking advert for New Labour) but this is an aberration and I hope he'll notice soon.

However this is just part of a general prejudice against student protest, i.e. that they're all a bunch of layabouts who have nothing better to do. In this case protesting against drug policy the implication is that they're all druggies, similar to the idea that anyone who challenges the status quo on immigration is a racist. Student protest however can be a very powerful thing and the party leaders would do well to give it a bit more consideration.

Oh and for the record, the fact I didn't get up until nearly midday today does not make me a layabout. It's the weekend. 

Spot the white supremacist making a youtube video

Oh... here he is, and he's taken to the streets of Peckham to make a propaganda film for the BNP





It's just complete bollocks, I've reported it to YouTube because it's clearly hateful and abusive content, and racist. The content of the video is not the main reason why I've flagged it, the main reason is the text that accompanies it.

A walk through the main shopping street in what used to be Peckham.

Oh, so because there are black and asian people now it's not Peckham.

The Third World has come to London

So, all foreigners are from "Third World" countries. No? Oh, I get it, just the non-white ones.

If I lived in Somalia or Pakistan, I'd be underneath the first lorry coming this way too! 

So all Somalian or Pakistani immigrants come in illegally. Funny that, I have a Somalian friend and he came here quite legitimately.

The indigenous white population have been replaced by a largely African population who buy their goods from Kurds, Afghan and Iraqi Muslims, many of whom ran for cover when they saw the camera. 

Probably because most people, whatever their skin colour don't like to be filmed going about their daily business by some random stranger.

Peckham now has one of the highest rates of HIV infection and street crime in Europe and the schools are 'no go areas' for indigenous white children.

I can't see where the person has got these figures from, or the point they're trying to make. Surely they're not saying that all foreigners bring diseases or that they're all criminals? That's exactly what they're saying. Also note a very BNP use of the word indigenous to supplement white.


All in all, a load of crap, and tagged with 'BNP' and 'Nick Griffin'


Update:The video has been removed from YouTube for 'terms of use violation'. It's good to see that I make a difference occasionally (not through the blog, but by flagging the content)

The Nutt case gets nuttier

The real problem – and it may be quibbling over details – is not that the government ignored the drugs advice, but it’s that they failed to offer any other explanations other than health issues as to why cannabis has been reclassified as a Class B drug.

If Alan Johnson had been able to find a convincing reason why it should have been reclassified there would be no reason why he shouldn’t have. As it is though, he hasn’t and Gordon Brown has crossed the line in pontificating about the science, which he doesn’t understand

In 2007 as Brown came into government saying that cannabis in the form of ‘skunk’ was lethal, something that Nutt denies completely. Nutt was never saying that cannabis isn’t harmful or should be legalised, rather that because the large majority do not have any harm caused to them by it that it isn’t as dangerous as alcohol or tobacco.

Over the years various governments have reclassified and reclassified over and over again cannabis to no effect. The government is legally bound to consult and take into account the council’s ideas, clearly in this case they have undermined its authority and broken the terms of the 1971 Misuse of Drugs act and in this case they have thought that they can pronounce on science better than real scientists.

This whole thing is a complete mess caused by policy that is patently wrong, Nutt hasn’t criticised them for ignoring their advice, he and many others are criticising the government for their policy making lacking any kind of evidence.

Rich people defend other rich people getting richer

So, the vice chairman of Goldman Sachs and (surprise, surprise) former adviser to Thatcher and now conservative peer Lord Griffiths has said that the public must learn to 'tolerate the inequality' of bonuses

Well, excuse me if I thought that there should be some kind of reform after excessive risk taking fuelled by the lust for bonuses caused a recession. Excuse me Lord Griffiths for thinking that we should take a more prudent approach to banking and take steps to stop us inflating another debt bubble that will burst again in ten to twenty years time. This time it really has to be an end to boom and bust.

Griffiths seems to be promoting the idea of ‘trickle down’ economics, a theory which is dubious at best. Even through the Blair years, where wages steadily increased, the gap between rich and poor continued to rise. There is no evidence whatsoever that exorbitant bankers bonuses are good for society as a whole and the poorest people in society.

Even worse is his pathetic patronising idea that because his father and grandfather were miners he knows what inequality is like.

His reasoning for not stopping bonuses is that companies would move to low tax countries such as Switzerland. Well why haven’t they so far? Britain already taxes far higher than countries like that, so the must be something else keeping big corporations here.

There have been some very good ideas about how to deal with bonuses including, taxing them heavily – I suggest 95%; a global tax on financial transactions that goes to help the poor (far too utilitarian to ever be taken seriously, mores the pity); banning bonuses over a certain amount, or as my dad suggested “Make bank payouts over a certain percentage of salary non tax deductible for the bank.” I’m not quite sure what that means, but he used to be an accountant so I’ll trust him.

What is clear though is that reform is needed, and radical reform at that. What Lord Griffiths is proposing is that we all turn a blind eye to what the banking industry is doing and has done for the last 20 years and wait for the next recession.

The Jan Moir saga... it gets worse

The pathetic attempt at an apology from Moir is almost as offensive as the original article. The full statement reads...

"Some people, particularly in the gay community, have been upset by my article about the sad death of Boyzone member Stephen Gately. This was never my intention. Stephen, as I pointed out in the article was a charming and sweet man who entertained millions. However, the point of my column -which, complaining have fully read - was to suggest that, in my honest opinion, his death raises many unanswered questions. That was all. 

"Yes, anyone can die at anytime of anything. However, it seems unlikely to me that what took place in the hours immediately preceding Gately’s death - out all evening at a nightclub, taking illegal substances, bringing a stranger back to the flat, getting intimate with that stranger - did not have a bearing on his death. At the very least, it could have exacerbated an underlying medical condition. 

"The entire matter of his sudden death seemed to have been handled with undue haste when lessons could have been learned.

This just makes it worse, what was previously just insinuated in the original article has now become painfully explicit, Jan Moir thinks that being "intimate with that stranger" i.e. in a homosexual way has in some way caused his death.  

This vile homophobic rubbish is supposed to be an apology? She didn't take back any of her offensive comments and didn't even express regret that she offended people. That, combined with her suggestion that gay sex killed Stephen Gately is only going to make things worse.

A couple of stupid Mail things

The story about the ‘supercop’ making 1000 arrests in 18 months brings to mind the phrase ‘quality not quantity.’ Maybe the Mail should look up which police officer brought most people to trial or had the most successful convictions. Unfortunately that wouldn’t fit with the Mail’s tub-thumping anthem about the bravery of this police officer.

A new BBC ‘row’ which is complete rubbish. A new 50p coin design was chosen from entries to a competition which closed in March, in May the finalists were chosen, in June the winner was chosen, and in July the winner’s father was appointed as the new boss of the BBC Natural History Unit, Andrew Jackson. The Daily Mail have construed this as the father using his influence at the Natural History Unit to choose the winner of a Blue Peter competition a month before he was appointed. That takes some doing.  

Britain is in danger of going bust. Where to start? We are about mid table in the percentage of debt to GDP and the budget deficit being one of the highest in Europe for this year is not going to change this hugely. The article shows that our budget deficit is quite high but fails to explain in any way how we are in danger of going bust. More tabloid fear-mongering I’m afraid.

Watch Cameron Squirm

I did enjoy today's Andew Marr show, a week on from asking ridiculous questions of Brown, he has asked the right questions of Cameron and got the Tory leader to squirm uncomfortably

After he tied him up in knots over Europe and the proposed Lisbon Treaty Refurendum, the question of economic policy came up and Cameron got himself into a circular argument over how many jobs he would cut in the public sector, he seemed to propose cutting public sector jobs, to reduce the deficit, improve the economy and create more jobs. In the meantime, all these people would need unemployment benefit, so Marr asked: Have you factored in the cost of unemployment benefit for all the people you will put out of work? It seemed he hadn't and it seems he doesn't care one jot about the human cost.

Later on Marr pulled out a quote from 2006, relating to the financial crisis. Cameron had revelled in criticising Brown for deregulating the banks and the part this played in the financial crisis. I always found this funny, coming from a conservative leader, and this quotes shows that in the years before he had been calling for even less regulation.

"Too often regulation is the first resort. The message from the city is that they should have less regulation and that the centre right should stand aside and let business get on with it"


"Government claims that all this regulation is necessary, they seem to believe that without it the banks could steal our money"

 To end, a  quote from the show that sums up Cameron's approach to politics

"What did you hear last week in terms of specifics about deficit reduction, nothing, from us you will hear specific points, I'm not going to go into them today, because I belive George Osbourne is the right person to set them out" 

Startling hypocrisy.

It's so easy to make the BNP look stupid

Almost every time they are quoted there is a chance to expose the racism, hypocrisy, and downright idiocy that the party was founded on.


Lancaster Unity does this better than most, scurrying information from all corners of the internet to expose this foul group of people. Most of what is found will make you want to cry, but some of it just make you laugh.


Take this quote from a story about BNP members trying to break an unwritten rule about getting on a school board of governers:

"I attended a Mitchell High School governors' meeting where we were told there are now over 104 languages spoken in Stoke-on-Trent schools. This has caused chaos, cost a vast amount of money and it needs someone with the backbone to tackle it."

Where to start? Maybe with the fact that they don't teach or specifically cater for all those languages, the vast majority of those pupils will speak English as well to a pretty good standard, with many speaking other languages as secondary languages with English as their mother tounge. I could continue... what chaos has it caused? The cost can't be calculated as schools don't calculate specific costs relating to language, it will get put in with the schools entire SEN budget. 


So in conclustion, Mr Batkin, you're completely wrong.  

Debunking all the tories promises

Starting, as is customary, from the beginning, with pledge number one:

We will work with councils to freeze council tax for two years - saving £200 for the typical family

Firstly, this has already been promised by all Labour's London councils and secondly, some brilliant calculations by Unity at Liberal Conspiracy have shown that Cameron's idea of the typical family is one earning in excess of £67,000 and with a house valued at over £260,000. Given that typical is synonymous with average, this is way above the national average of £35,000 and £155,000.

Next, moving onto their pledge about reassessing 2.6 million people on incapacity benefit, good idea, shame the incumbent government is currently doing it. Did Cameron not watch Benefit Busters on C4?
Replacing the universal human rights act with a British bill of rights can be described as, at best pointless and at worst downright dangerous. How would this 'strengthen traditional British liberties'? What are these liberties? Traditionally British law was stacked against homosexual people, homosexuality was only decriminalised in 1967. Doesn't this mean that this new bill of rights would re-criminalise homosexuality? Who's to say they won't? Section 28 was only introduced in the 80s and the current Tory party associate with some extreme homophobes in Europe. The tories can't call themselves the true progressives then bleat on about 'traditional British liberties.'

Cutting the number of MPs by 10% would surely increase the workload on those left, leaving some MPs having to sit on more than one select committee without saving a huge amount of money. Purely a populist vote winning idea, with little real benefits.

Cutting ministers pay by 5% will again, not save too much money but is an obvious populist policy, after the expenses scandal.

Cutting Quangos, a policy for Littlejohn to spunk over, but I'm sure one that will have little implications, considering all they will do (and have to do) is move the quangos functions to another department. Also Cameron is going to set up 17 new quangos anyway, just to give the Mail something to moan about.

The Military Covenent, as far as I can see... actually... A GOOD IDEA. Pity it was thought up by Labour MP John Cruddas. It's astonishing that Labour doesn't listen to the left of the party more often.

That concludes Part 1, I haven't got time to debunk all the policies at once...

Startling Naivety

When you look back over your life, most people are bound to recall moments of startling naivety, usually from several years before. Looking back over the first two months of this blog I can recall some brilliant moments of naivety from this young blogger.

1) My endorsement of Mike Gapes for Ilford South, before even checking his voting record (not good)
2) My idea that Labour and the Lib Dems being equal in the polls would gain them equal seats in Parliament (not with FPTP)
3) The idea that the Daily Mail could ever change (this blogger doesn't have any influence)

Still, onwards and upwards... you've got to be able to laugh at yourself

Tough on children, tough on the causes of children

In the Guardian today, a story about a possible vote winner for Gordon Brown has emerged from the party conference. The story is prefaced with the byline 'Attempt to woo Middle Britain with tough line on anti-social behaviour' and is about a return to the Blairite plan of stealing the Tory crime rhetoric.

Yet here Brown has gone further, the policy of parents of poorly behaved children having to submit to parenting classes or risk losing their benefits is plainly drafted to appeal to the traditional Tory heartland of 'Middle England.' This is evidence that the Labour party, not only want to take the rhetoric but the policies of the Tories too.

This policy, quite apart from not delving deeper into anti-social behaviour and the actual reasons behind it rather just blaming the parents, seems to be an indication that Labour are trying even harder to alienate their traditional support from the working classes and in the north in the push for middle england. The Lib Dems should be very pleased with this, yet again there is evidence of space on the centre left for a party that really does prioritise the needs of the working classes.

This is the perfect time for the Lib Dems to fill the gap on the centre left as Labour continue to slide to the right, on a collision course with the Tories. By the election you won't be able to tell them apart.

Tories and Lib Dems, a cigarette paper between

Or it seems not, after David Cameron has spent the last couple of days trying to woo Lib Dem voters and activists by claiming that there’s ‘a cigarette paper’ between the two parties, Chris Huhne on the Today programme brutally rebuffed these claims.
His discussion with Tory chairman Eric Pickles picked up on all the important points why you shouldn’t vote Conservative and why the Lib Dems are a much fairer, more progressive party. One is the fact that Tory tax cuts only benefit the rich – from his figures only 3,500 estates will be positively affected by their idea to raise the inheritance tax threshold on properties worth over £1million. Another is the fact that, despite what Cameron says, a lot of the party is institutionally racist and homophobic, as displayed by their willingness to ally with extreme right wing parties in Europe.

Also in the media, Nick Clegg has denounced the Tories as ‘the party of crime’ in the Guardian, and the attack on the Tories is beginning to get the Lib Dems some more exposure and showing that overall their policies are quite sensible and closer to Labour than the Tories. And after a poll showed that 36% of voters don’t know who he is he needs that a lot.

The fact that few people know much about him and his position on key issues may yet prove to be an advantage, as he has a lot of people who have no opinion on him available to be convinced into voting Lib Dem.


Who knows whether this will work? Only the election results will show, but if Gordon Brown manages to regain some ground too, the Lib Dems may gain enough seats for a hung parliament. Wishful thinking?

Who's the best of a bad bunch?

In the blogsphere recently there have been lots of posts about who people are voting for when the general election rolls around. Most people seem fairly sure of where their vote is going. Me? I really have no idea which party to vote for (providing the election is held after I turn 18).

Tories: Still the nasty party, nothing could make me vote Tory. Sorry Dave.

Labour: If they moved a bit further to the left they would be an automatic choice, but at the moment their handling of the financial crisis could have been better... or they could have not caused it in the first place. Also the policies section of their website just tells me what they've done so far in power not what the stand for or want to do in the future. Smacks of either arrogance or defeatism. But if I am indeed in the Ilford South constituency I will probably vote Labour as Mike Gapes seems to be doing a good job.

Lib Dems: An interesting proposition, their flagship policy of abolishing tuition fees entices me, but the prospect of it being ditched doesn't. Clegg's taxation policies seem quite left wing from what he said on the Andrew Marr show, but I can't see myself voting for them as they seem unlikely to get in.

So despite their flaws, it seems I'll be voting Labour. I just wish it was a better labour.

Foot in mouth time

Boris Johnson’s theory that the 2012 Olympics in London will inspire a new generation of sportsmen and women, apart from probably being rubbish, has brought out a great quote from the mop top tory.

“For every cynic there are thousands of budding Tom Daleys, eager to reap the benefits of the Olympic legacy with bigger better sports facilities and a huge sporting momentum.”

Right, for every one of those cynics - 57% of young people questioned in the Young Londoners Survey, who reject BoJo’s theory – there are thousands of young athletes. It seems BoJo and his team still haven’t mastered statistics

Both parties will cut - Neither should.

The Tories have embarked on another set of contradictions, criticising Gordon Brown for preparing to cut public spending, when it’s obvious that Cameron’s conservatives will cut, as they continue to delay on committing to what their public spending policies actually will be for the next election. In their economic policy section they continue to talk about tax cuts. In the middle of a recession the plan must be that these tax cuts will encourage people to start spending and borrowing again. Brilliant news, this economy of debt has collapsed, so lets re-inflate the debt bubble again in what they call “Real economic change.”

I’m no expert on economics but these tax cuts will leave an even bigger hole in the public finances and force the public spending cuts that Cameron seems to hate so much.

Any economist would tell you not to cut during a recession and Adam Lent at Liberal Conspiracy explains it a lot better than I ever could, stating that “Spending reductions cause job losses in the public sector and job losses and financial problems in the private sector (as the state’s procurement of services and products from private companies is reduced). This increases the bill to the state for unemployment benefit and also for increased spending on health, social and police services – the demand for which always rises during periods of higher unemployment.”

Spot on, neither party should be looking at wholesale cuts, Labour might be, but the Tories probably are. Which one would you want in government?

Daily Mail polls

The last refuge of the pointless question, the Daily Mail poll continues to hit new depths. A recent question asks: Should history be a compulsory subject in our schools?

What a completely vague question. History is already compulsory up to the end of KS3, which goes up to the end of Year 9. By then students should have a pretty good grasp of some important events and really, unless they choose to study it at GCSE, why should they have to continue?

It seems likely that most of this 94% have read the question and assumed that History is no longer compulsory up to any age, which is of course untrue.

What is a more useful issue to be discussed is the extent of politics taught in PSHE and Citizenship lessons, to stop the current generation being completely apathetic regarding having their say and voting.

The sad case of Iwao Hakamada

Japan is one of the few countries in the developed world where the death penalty is in use, and of the countries that do, their system is especially brutal and in contravention of basic human rights. Death row prisoners are denied visitors, not allowed to speak to other prisoners, often placed in solitary confinement, and not even allowed to look guards in the eye. This is the sort of treatment that could turn the most well adjusted person insane.

No wonder it turned Iwao Hakamada completely mad, when asked “Do you know what an execution is?” the former record breaking boxer who has been incarcerated on death row for 41 years replied “The wisdom never dies. On that kind of wisdom, this is wisdom. It never dies. There are lots of ladies in the world, lots of animals. Everyone is living and feeling something. Elephants, dragons. No way will I die … I won’t die. There’s no one who will die. Somewhere around God you can live.”

Hakamada is obviously insane, psychiatrists have described him as having “institutional psychosis and “a state of insanity.” What civilised country would murder this man? It would be morally wrong as well as in contravention of international law.

If Hakamada is executed – which can happen at a moments notice in Japan – it will be the most terrible miscarriage of justice. There are still doubts over his conviction, two of the three judges in his case convicted him, and the other resigned and became a defence brief. The evidence in the trial is flimsy, a signed confession obtained under duress from someone in a questionable mental state and clothing linked to the case which didn’t fit him.

Amnesty international are calling on the incoming government of Japan - led by the Democratic Party of Japan – to put an immediate halt to executions. They have stopped short of that, although a national debate on capital punishment has been promised.
Anyone who has read this, I urge you to show your support, and demand a retrial for Iwao Hakamada through Amnesty international here

Why I hate school assemblies

1) First day back and the head teacher decides to tell us about the brilliant GCSE and A-Level results they’ve got, conveniently missing out our AS results which were generally poor. We’re already at your school, you don’t need to impress us.

2) I would have been able to go home 1hr and 20mins earlier if we hadn’t had one.

3) Two in one day, during PSHE and afternoon registration, the sort of thing that causes gaping self-inflicting bullet wounds.

4) The head teacher always looks so self-satisfied.

5) Swelteringly hot day and we aren’t allowed to take our blazers off, equals sweating disgustingly.

6) Talking about how they “produced” the last year, they’re people not products.

7) Giving the teachers and the school almost all the credit for good results, the students worked bloody hard too!

The sad state of tabloid journalism - rubbernecking and demonising

What Amanda Platell is doing in her column about the dreadful attacks perpetrated by two young boys – however unwittingly – is the same thing she seems to be railing against, drawing conclusions about the nature of the case without the full facts.

The “apologists” she talks of are equally guilty of this, blaming society and some also painting the attackers as victims too, the tabloids are guilty of blaming their upbringing, and the Mail is cannot knowingly label them as pure evil.

None of these journalists have access to a detailed psycho-analysis of these two, none of them know the full details of their upbringing, yet journalists across the board continue to speculate on why these attacks happened.

The reporting throughout this case, especially in the Sun and slightly less to in the Mail has been despicable, the worst being the Sun’s list of how these boys attacked their victims, the gory details played out on the front page, a case of pure rubber-necking for the paper, who really play to the lowest common denominator. Phrases like “devil brothers” and “hell boys” may provide a cheap laugh, but when every story of this type is sensationalised in this way, horror stories like this lose their impact.

Even the clinical psychologist in the Sun is just speculating about how the two may have egged each other on to commit these acts, she doesn’t know why, we don’t know why and it’s possible the lawyers, parents and even the two children themselves don’t know why.

NHS Scandal is non-story

The Tories have reacted with their normal offended faces, despite the fact that under Cameron’s administration they would be making even more cuts, albeit sneakily through the back door.

In the Guardian, Conservative health spokesman, Andrew Lansley said: "Yet again, Labour ministers are failing to be straight with the British people. Andy Burnham [the secretary of state] promised to protect the NHS, but now we find out that his department has been drawing up secret plans for swingeing cuts.”

Typical party politics, criticise the other party for doing something which they’re not doing (the report wasn’t even ordered by the Department of Health) when they plan to do the same thing anyway

It’s not just those ‘pen pushers’ everyone who reads the Daily Mail hates, whose jobs would be cut, clinical staff could see their jobs disappear, when hospitals are already stretched for staff.

The Daily Mail has another shocking revelation, that:

“Patients may have to be discharged from hospital much earlier, outpatient appointments could be scaled back, and minor treatments such as varicose vein removals and tonsillectomies may be banned.”

They’ve either got some secret information that no other news source has found, or more likely they’re making it up.

Let's do down the country again - and take a different angle on it so it sounds new

What Peter Hitchins seems to have forgotten in his article today is that Britain has historically punched above its weight. We're a small island nation which established one of the biggest empires in the world, it was inevitable that when our empire fell (as all empires eventually must) that would lead to the country no longer being a superpower, this isn't a recent thing. Hitchins seems to blame every overblown problem this country has on fighting WWII, which apparently means we currently face...

conditions we might normally associate with defeat and occupation?

I'm sorry? Are the people in this country being denied basic freedoms? Do we have an undemocratically elected government? No, we don't, this country may not be perfect but it's a better place to live than Soviet occupied countries during the Cold War.

We are a second-rate power, rapidly slipping into third-rate status

By what measures? Britain is part of the G8 group of economic powers, we are in the top 20s of lists of GDP per capita, London is one of the world's leading trading centres, this is not a second or third rate economic power. We have considerable foreign influence, being one of the America's closest allies. Britain may not have an empire anymore (nobody does) and we may not be a superpower but we are one of the world's foremost powers.

The rest of his article is used to tell us how bad the country is... feral youths... blah blah blah... anti British dogma... blah blah... unelected government... squalid hospitals... everything's bad... AREN'T YOU LISTENING, the country is terrible...blah blah... foreigners... immigrants.

In conclusion, your life is terrible, you don't live in an economically developed democratic country that is mainly safe and not that corrupt... you're living in Broken Britain..

Worst columnists ever

What is the point of Liz Jones? Her column from a couple of days ago is as sexist, reversely misogynistic and appallingly written as usual, every Mail columnist needs a group to stereotype and Liz has chosen men.

Whilst managing to be appallingly flippant about what Caster Semenya has gone though Liz manages to show her true prejudices against men, calling them, amongst other things

“faster and stronger than us, but you are as obsolete as a VHS video: in the way, useless and gathering dust.”

“you should be flown to Switzerland and put out of your misery. “

Charming, no wonder no “femail” columnists can find a man.

Let's hate the 'gipsies' - Daily Hate time

It’s obvious to anyone other than a hideous bigot that all sorts of people are bad neighbours, middle class, working class, all ethnicities… and not just ‘gipsies’ as the Mail seems to believe.

The people in this article may be a nuisance but is there any need to point out that they are gypsies? Is there any need to use this family to continue this paper’s vile stereotypes about travelling people?

First come the attempts to portray this as some kind of utopia with everyone living together before the big bad gipsy family turns up…

In the peace and quiet of a summer’s evening, family life in Totteridge — where professional couples pay up to £1million for a substantial home a stone’s throw from good schools, shops, restaurants and trains direct to the city — appears to be a picture of idyllic suburbia.

So only middle class people should be allowed in Totteridge, good to know that.

John and Serena Connors and their seven children — an Irish traveller family — have been in residence at this five-bedroom £1million home since February, when they were moved by Barnet Council into privately-owned accommodation under the Local Housing Allowance scheme.

So not ‘gipsies’ then, is there any distinction in the eyes of the Mail?

Since then, there have been several cases highlighted by the Daily Mail where families, living off benefits, have been rehomed in some of the most exclusive and expensive neighbourhoods in Britain — all at the taxpayers’ expense.

Yes, we know, you already said that poor people shouldn’t be allowed in nice neighbourhoods, regardless of the fact that they obviously have been re-homed in a big house because they have 9 children. I know, let’s put them in a bedsit instead, that’ll help you sleep better at night.

This is not snobbery. As Hannah’s solicitor husband Jeremy puts it: ‘We don’t have a problem living next door to anyone. We don’t care who pays their rent or what they do for a living as long as they’re decent neighbours. But these people aren’t even decent human beings.’

It may not be snobbery from you, but the Daily Mail has turned a story of woe for you into another part of their bigotry towards ‘gipsies’

Who’d expect anything else?

It seems that Alan Duncan MP (a shady character if there ever was one) has been duped twice by the same person. After he had to pay back several thousand pounds worth of expenses he'd spent on his garden, activist Heydon Prowse from the online magazine Don't Panic dug a pound sign into his garden. The stunt left Duncan red-faced and let everyone else have a titter at the deeply unpleasant MP.

Now it has been revealed that he is not just unpleasant, but an idiot. Whilst having a drink in the commons bar with the same person he said the following things...

MPs had been "Treated like shit"

Granted, but you've been acting like a shit for years, I'd say you deserve it.

"You have to live on rations"

Poor you, only £64,000 a year plus a lot of benefits. Talk to someone who lived through the war and you'll find out what living on rations is like.

Asked how much he spent on his garden "About £2,000 a year and this was £1,000 a year on expenses" an amount he earlier dismissed as a "tiny fraction"

And in what way is spending £1,000 on your garden something that is essential for your work as an MP?

I love the fact that only after several thousand pounds were spent on the garden, the fees office decided that the claim could be seen as exorbitant.

The final irony is that Duncan is the overseer of expenses for the Tory party. Despite his apologising and claiming the comments were made in "jest" don't think that this scandal will stop him doing what he wants.