Broke Britain

Being an MP is like being on Benefits

adam — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 01:51:29 +0000

It’s a hard life being an MP. After you’ve paid for that London flat and have no option but to eat at Cafes and Restaurants all day every day, you might as well be on Jobseeker’s Allowance. Well that’s the sob story that Conservative MP Nadine Dorries is hoping we are all gullible enough to swallow. Nadine wanted to know what is was like survive on £63.50 a week so she agreed to take part in Channel4’s new series ‘Tower Block of Commons’. Joining her in this ‘experiment’ was the Labour ‘middle-class man of the people’ Austin Mitchell MP, a shining example of how out of touch you become with reality after 30 years with a permanent seat on the Westminster gravy train.

From the off, Austin made it clear that he wanted the exposure of the TV programme but he was not going to live like one of the proletariat, insisting on his own council flat, bring along his wife and keeping his wallet and mobile phone. A man so deluded he thinks that on benefit you can treat your neighbours to a dinner party with wine! Hell I’m sure that’s do-able on just over £90 a week for a couple! Nadine actually stayed with a family but again thought ‘£63.50… fuck that!’ and stuffed £50 down her Bra like a street walker. When her host pointed out that this really destroys the whole point of the experiment, in a typical politician, spinning for dear life, she said she brought the cash along for the hosts little kiddies and definitely not for her, oh no.

Check out Channel4’s website here and watch next week’s show!

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/tower-block-of-commons/episode-guide/series-1/episode-2

Top 10 Leeching MP Scumbags

adam — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 02:07:14 +0000

Here’s a list of the largest repayments for second home expenses by our lovely MP’s after Sir Thomas Legg’s commission ruling. I have not included any Party affiliations as frankly it’s of little relevance. The top 10 alone have to pay back £314,393.91 ($493,274.58). Let’s face it if you or me had fiddled the Country out of £19-64k we would be in prison by now. The full list of shame is here, see if your MP is on there.

Bernard Jenkin	North Essex	£63,250.00
Barbara Follett	Stevenage	£42,458.21
Peter Lilley	Hitchin and Harpenden	£41,057.36
Julie Kirkbride	Bromsgrove	£31,827.26
Andrew Mackay	Bracknell	£31,193.00
David Heathcoat-Amory	Wells	£29,691.93
John Gummer	Suffolk Coastal	£29,398.46
Liam Fox	Woodspring	£24,878.27
Douglas Hogg	Sleaford and North Hykeham	£20,639.42
Alun Michael	Cardiff South and Penarth	£19,169.56

Die for Queen & Country and get your kid a Student Grant

Crowman — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:41:29 +0000

As the election looms, both main political parties are on the lookout for headline grabbing policies that cost next to nothing. The latest wheeze from the Tories is to offer soldiers that die in the line of duty, university scholarships for their kids worth around £8000 per year. A scheme no doubt concocted by middle aged politicians and civil servants who had the luxury of a grant not a loan when they were at University and did not have to lose their father in wars to control oil and heroin.

So let’s take a brief look at this new scheme that will come into force the same day the Tories win the next election. Since the average soldier on the front line is in their late teens or early twenties, even if they do have kids, it is going to be a very long time before they going to be old enough to go to University. The Tories estimate this scheme will cost £1.5m, but of course do not give a timescale. In reality, even if the Tories do win the next election, this scheme will only start to pay out after another 3 parliaments have been and gone. However, I’ve no doubt this little wheeze will be plastered over Tories rags like The Daily Mail all next week.

Climategate and the Hijacking of the Environmental Movement

adam — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:41:03 +0000

After hackers liberated emails, research and source code from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, we have to ask ourselves if the whole environmental movement is about to be derailed at a political level. I’m not talking about grass roots activism as seen at the Climate Camp protests, but the gravy train faux environmentalism of Corporations and career politicians. Since the early nineties, grass roots direct actions groups like ‘Reclaim the Streets’ sprung up in Britain. Green politics started to move from the fringes and into the mainstream as both Labour and Conservative politicians could almost smell the votes of the ‘caring’ middle England middle class. Corporations knew that by wrapping their resource raping businesses with a thin layer of Green social responsibility, they could ease the guilt of those consumers.

In to the 21st Century and the political and corporate language started to change. CFC’s and Global Warming were replaced with Carbon Footprints and Climate Change. The emphasis was being shifted away from global capitalism for CO2 production to the individual. Forget mass unessential Air Travel, Fossil Fuelled Power Stations and the Company Chairman driving to his 10 bedroom mansion in his 6lr Range Rover, the carbon enemy was now you and me and don’t you forget it. So with nearly six billion of us on a polluting rampage all over this planet, the politicians, well Western politicians have been harbouring a dream. Like a Corporate businessman, politicians like a takeover and the chance to upscale. So they hatched a plan, instead of legislating against resource raping at a national level, they decided to oppress the individual and the only way this could be done is for a worldwide carbon tax and ultimately a world government.

This is where we at now and the politicians have been doing a good job at pacifying the public and selling us their dream of a brave new world, what politicians are now openly calling a New World Order. However, scepticism has been slowly growing. It has been quite obvious that the British government has done very little to hit its CO2 targets and tinkered at the edges of commerce so ineffectively, it has almost been a joke. Their investment in renewable energy has been equally flaccid. Leaving the whole thing to the free market would never work. Now we have a growing percentage of the general public who are waking up to the fact that we are going to be in the firing line and to achieve their targets, we are going to suffer. Our quality of living will drop and our freedoms will be eroded, while corrupt politicians like Al Gore et al all get rich in the process. We can stop this. Climate change may or may not be man-made, but we all know that improving our environment is an absolute necessity if we are going to leave a planet fit for our children. We can do this, we need to wrestle back the environmental movement from global business and corrupt politicians and back into the hands of the people.

Pathetic Pro-War chain email sent in Britain

Crowman — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:41:45 +0000

The following email arrived in my inbox today from a good friend. His heart is in the right place so that’s why I suspect he forwarded it to everyone in his address book, just like the person who sent it to him did. However, it reminded me that this is how most of the public feel about Iraq and Afghanistan. Supporting ‘our gallant lads’ is the norm and how different my views are on the subject. I found the email frankly offensive with its jingoism and emotional blackmail.

See the full email at the bottom of this article.

The first paragraph is quite correct when it comes to who makes up the ranks of the non-commissioned infantry in the British army, underachieving, slightly thick, late teenagers from areas of high unemployment. It’s the army or the dole, and we are expected to to be humble because he chose the ‘work’ option with some rather alarming health and safety issues. I particularly liked the girlfriend section, it was straight from some WW2 propaganda film. As soon as I read ’swore she would be waiting for him when he returned’, my reaction was the same as in those films… ‘he’s definitely going to die!’ Then we have the third paragraph… he maybe as thick as shit, but he can do all sorts manual tasks and use idiot proof weapon systems to kill people. Good for him.

The forth paragraph starts to really ramp things up for the reader. You’ve swallowed the previous bullshit entree, it’s now time for the main course. He obeys orders but not without a rebellious spirit. What can we ascertain from this? He’s being told to do things he doesn’t want to do but does it anyway? Anyone with a true rebellious spirit would not have signed their life away in the first place. Then we are expected to be humble again, because soldiers, believe it or not, are the only people who can be self-sufficient, get their heads around the concept of collectivism and have the one emotion that sets us and the great apes apart from any other species on this planet, the ability to empathise.

On to the fifth paragraph. He works twice as hard for half the pay of a civilian. Welcome to the corporate war machine, son! Apparently there is a saying in the British Army, ‘If you can’t take a joke, you shouldn’t have joined’. Which is strangely apt as the sickest piece of black humour is on soldiers just like this, dieing not to protect King and Country, but for oil and fighting a never-ending phony war on terror to keep the corporate weapons manufacturers in business, plus protecting a £500m heroin business!

Finally he’s seen more suffering and death than anyone his age should have seen. That’s right and I’m sure when he returns to society, he will not have devastating post traumatic stress disorder or end up like 50% of the homeless people in London who just happen to be ex-servicemen. No, he’ll marry that English Rose who waited for him and they’ll live in a lovely cottage with a white picket fence and take The Sun or The Daily Mail every morning. We are then invited, well emotionally blackmailed into remembering him always as he’s earned our respect and admiration with his blood. Well not mine I’m afraid, all he has earned is my utter contempt. He’s not fighting for King and Country like the soldiers in WW2 to protect us from fascism, he’s fighting purely to forward a neo-conservative world political view and support the Corporatocracy. He has no one else to blame for his plight than himself.

The British Soldier

They are doing their bit…..please do yours by reading this and forwarding it to someone else:

The average British soldier is 19 years old…..he is a short haired, well built lad who, under normal circumstances is considered by society as half man, half boy. Not yet dry behind
the ears and just old enough to buy a round of drinks but old enough to die for his country – and for you. He’s not particularly keen on hard work but he’d rather be grafting in Afghanistan than unemployed in the UK . He recently left comprehensive school
where he was probably an average student, played some form of sport, drove a ten year old rust bucket, and knew a girl that either broke up with him when he left, or swore to be waiting when he returns home. He moves easily to rock and roll or hip-hop or
to the rattle of a 7.62mm machine gun.

He is about a stone lighter than when he left home because he is working or fighting from dawn to dusk and well beyond. He has trouble spelling, so letter writing is a pain for him,
but he can strip a rifle in 25 seconds and reassemble it in the dark. He can recite every detail of a machine gun or grenade launcher and use either effectively if he has to. He
digs trenches and latrines without the aid of machines and can apply first aid like a professional paramedic. He can march until he is told to stop, or stay dead still until he is told to move.

He obeys orders instantly and without hesitation but he is not without a rebellious spirit or a sense of personal dignity. He is confidently self-sufficient. He has two sets of
uniform with him: he washes one and wears the other. He keeps his water bottle full and his feet dry. He sometimes forgets to brush his teeth, but never forgets to clean his rifle. He can cook his own meals, mend his own clothes and fix his own hurts. If
you are thirsty, he’ll share his water with you; if you are hungry, his food is your food. He’ll even share his life-saving ammunition with you in the heat of a firefight if you run low.

He has learned to use his hands like weapons and regards his weapon as an extension of his own hands. He can save your life or he can take it, because that is his job – it’s what a soldier does. He often works twice as long
and hard as a civilian, draw half the pay and have nowhere to spend it, and can still find black ironic humour in it all. There’s an old saying in the British Army: ‘If you can’t take a joke, you shouldn’t have joined!’

He has seen more suffering and death than he should have in his short lifetime. He has wept in public and in private, for friends who have fallen in combat and he is unashamed to
show it or admit it. He feels every bugle note of the ‘Last Post’ or ‘Sunset’ vibrate through his body while standing rigidly to attention. He’s not afraid to ‘Bollock’ anyone who shows disrespect when the Regimental Colours are on display or the National
Anthem is played; yet in an odd twist, he would defend anyone’s right to be an individual. Just as with generations of young people before him, he is paying the price for our freedom. Clean shaven and baby faced he may be, but be prepared to defend yourself
if you treat him like a kid.

He is the latest in a long thin line of British Fighting Men that have kept this country free for hundreds of years. He asks for nothing from us except our respect, friendship and understanding. We may not like what he does,
but sometimes he doesn’t like it either – he just has it to do.. Remember him always, for he has earned our respect and admiration with his blood.

And now we even have brave young women putting themselves in harm’s way, doing their part in this tradition of going to war when our nation’s politicians call on us to do so.

When you receive this, please stop for a moment and if you are so inclined, feel free to say a prayer for our troops in the trouble spots of the world.

I wouldn’t dream of breaking this chain – would you?

Nick Griffin hangs himself with his right to free speech

Crowman — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:12:40 +0000

The leader of the British National Party and MEP, Nick Griffin, finally appeared on the BBC current affairs programme ‘Question Time’ last night. There has been a lot of debate in the British media about whether he should have been allowed to appear on this programme, as most people believe that the BNP is a racist, fascist political party. My gut feeling is that the BBC should not have given him a platform as I find his views and his party’s manifesto to be abhorrent. However, when the state and what is in effect, state television starts to censor a democratically elected politician, we start to head down a route to tyranny far worse than the BNP. How can you accuse Nick Griffin of being a fascist then not let him have his right to free speech, not matter how much it sticks in your throat?

My hope is that his appearance on this programme will hopefully let those, let’s be honest, thick, white, ill-educated casual supporters of the BNP who really believe that the BNP is not a racist, fascist party to see through Nick’s thin veil of political respectability. I’ll leave you with this recent Exposé of the BNP.

The Country is bankrupt, time to sell the family silver!

Crowman — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:37:04 +0000

In a desperate bid to stave off savage public service cuts before the next election, Gordon Brown has decided to flog off Government assets. Even the Tories are in agreement that this is probably the right thing to do in the short term. I disagree, we should have let the bank go to the wall and saved billions. We should have never offered to prop them up, but should have nationalised them.

Up for grabs in this corporate boot sale of Government assets are;

The Dartford Crossing
The Cross-Channel Rail Link
The Nationalised bookmaker the Tote
The Government’s 33% stake in Urenco, the European consortium which supplies equipment to enrich uranium for the nuclear industry (perhaps Iran will be interested).
‘Surplus’ Real Estate

I’m sure a number of multi-national corporations will be looking at this with much interest. With UK Plc on the ropes, it is ripe for an aggressive takeover for pennies in the pound!

Article: BBC
Pic: net_efekt

Orwellian Newspeak: Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

Crowman — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:54:12 +0000

U.S. President Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Price “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”. Apparently, the prize Committee highlighted his efforts to promote nuclear non-proliferation particularly in Iran. Now as a resident of the UK, I’ve got no inbred hatred of Obama like the American right alludes to having, but this is a joke. When Obama came to power it was on a wave of optimism similar to Tory Tony Blair in the UK. However, just like with Tony, after 10 months of Obama’s leadership the mantra of ‘Hope’ and ‘Change’ is starting to look completely ridiculous and people are waking up to the fact they were conned into bolstering the false political left-right paradigm.

Naturally western countries and others desperate for aid and/or World Bank loans have lined up to see which can ingratiate themselves to the U.S. President the most. However, how can a man who was going to close down GITMO but didn’t, was going to pull troops out of Afghanistan but is now sending more, win a Peace prize? As for the nuclear non-proliferation in Iran, it may not happen under his Presidency, but as soon as the American people vote in the New World Order puppet from the right, it is quite obvious that American will invade or even possibly Nuke Iran. Perhaps the only piece of diplomacy Obama has done for World Peace is to reign in Israel’s lust to wipe Iran of the face of the earth. Let us hope that more people wake up from the left-right paradigm ‘Jedi Mind Trick’ and stop the rush for another war in the Middle East.

Welfare Reforms

lefty_plasticleprechaun — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:42:34 +0000

Once again the Tories have shown they are the party of caring and sharing with their latest Daily Mail pleasing attempt at welfare “reform” or in truth, savage cuts if god forbid they regain power in the next election. So we are to return to the ever so successful policies of the 1980’s where the poorest and most vulnerable of society have to pay for the richest.

So all 2.6million people on Incapacity Benefit are going to be reassessed in a rigorous campaign to establish what “work” they “can do” rather than what they “can’t do”. Those deemed capable of doing ANY work are then stripped of their benefit of circa £90 a week and placed on Job seekers allowance of circa £65 meaning an immediate drop of £25 a week in income! In some cases of course, this is fair as any system is open to abuse BUT for a lot more there will be unnecessary suffering in this cut. So after having been transferred to JSA what then? Get a job? In the current climate there simply aren’t any! Training then? Great, gets them off the unemployment stats for a few months… Then the whole cycle starts again. As a disabled person myself who has spent a fair while on both JSA in the past and currently ICB have they considered how much harder it is get employment when you are disabled? Disabled people are both overtly and covertly discriminated against in the Labour market – I know I have experienced it on innumerable occasions!
I’m not saying that disabled people should spend their life on benefits but until laws (strong and easily enforceable ones) are passed making it illegal to discriminate against us all these “reforms” will achieve is to inflict even deeper poverty on the poorest in society.

Seeing beyond the left-right paradigm

Crowman — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:03:41 +0000

Member of Parliament, what does that mean to you? A person who was elected in your constituency by the people, to serve them and represents their interests in Parliament? If that truly is your view of our MP’s then it is time you were dragged kicking and screaming from the 1950’s into the new millennium.

The political race to occupy the centre-right and capture the hearts of the typical brainwashed and broken middle Englander and pander to the needs of Global Corporations has left Britain a country devoid of any political diversity. Exacerbated by a voting system that excludes the full political spectrum, politicians are now managers of public life who tinker with the status quo rather than effecting any real change. Political Parties have two goals, the first and by far the most important is to win elections by any means possible while seeming to stay within the law. That means policies and political decisions are often made in a reactionary knee jerk way to the whims of focus groups and not real world events. What colour suit should a politician wear? What accent should they have? Should they smile more, talk slower or look more concerned? To an ambitious politician these questions are as important as monetary and foreign policy. To put it quite simply, if you don’t win the election, you miss the gravy train. Once a Political Party has gained power, they then have one goal left and that is to serve their corporate sponsors as sycophantically and unflinchingly as possible. Do you really think Politicians and the Government are the ultimate power and authority in this country? If the Politicians do a good job at implementing their policies then they will be financially rewarded in the form of directorships and share options.

Ultimately politics in Britain today is nothing but a joke, an elaborate charade to convince the general public that they live in a genuine democracy. With a first-past-the-post two party system sponsored by the same banking and global corporate interests, it doesn’t matter what party you vote for they will get what they want, not what’s best for you and your community. You even have Labour party activists gloating about it. So what can you do about it? In the forthcoming General Election:

DO NOT VOTE

If you do, all you are doing is perpetuating this corrupt covert dictatorship. Throw away your electoral role registration form and get involved with non-violent direct action groups. The only way we can restore a true democracy in Britain is to overthrow the fractional reserve monetary system and move towards a resource based economy, which benefits every citizen rather than a rich ruling elite and raise the standard of living for everyone immeasurably. Monetary based systems such a Fascism, Socialism, Capitalism and Communism should be consigned to the dustbin of history where they belong.