Blair wants to help....yeah right!

For the first time in a very long time in his political career Blair is not making an arse of himself in public because of his foreign policies. Now he's doing it because of his home policies. Sure it makes sense to identify problems in society but keeping young mums on benefit? I'm all for benefits, they are incredibly helpful. However they need to have practical help and advice for themselves and their children. Surely, they need to be giving encouragement to help these people to get on their feet and ultimately improve the lives of their children?

Workplace revolution

Plans are being draw up for radical changes for Women and parents in the work place

Under the plans Parents will be given the right

• to work part time ,
• to choose their own hours,
• to statutory sick in the event of child illness,
  

Lets ignore the impact on business, lets look at how it could affect you on an individual level.

Imagine you are working in a shop, factory or office and you don't have young children? Ah yes folks you are stuffed, your colleagues have to go and pick little Robert and Amanda from school? So YOU are working late, it's the law. You get last choice on working hours.

You want to be off over Christmas? Ah well your colleagues have kiddies so YOU have to cover. None of this I worked last Christmas so I get this off lark.....

If one of my colleagues wants to have a child then fine, but I don't see why that should impact me. I accept we have to be reasonable, I accept there maybe a need for family friendly policies, but having children is a duty and responsibility that people choose.

Another thing in the proposal is that companies must prove they are paying Men and Women the same for doing the same job. Now firstly let me state I see nothing wrong with this but, oh come on you new there was one, you have to allow for different levels of experience and you have to be treated the same.

What do I mean? Well if a man and a woman do the same job they should be expected to do the same activities. Telling the man he is expected to do overnight support but, that it is unreasonable to expect the woman to do so because it may not be safe is not equality.

Equality is a noble and worthy aim and one we should all want but you can't have your cake and eat it.

On My Hols

I'm going to be on holiday until Thursday, so everyone play nice LOL Only joking ;-)

See you soon :-)

Good Neighbours?

Uzma Rahan, her husband Arshad, their two sons Adam (11), Abbas (8) and daughter Henna (6), sadly these names have been become familiar to UK news viewers for all the wrong reasons. Arshad is missing, is known to have flown to Thailand but could be good knows where. His wife and three children are all dead, murdered by a blow to the head. A horrific and hugely tragic story. However, the reason I have mentioned this story is as follows. This family lived in suburbia, yet the bodies of the Uzma and her three children are believed to have lain undiscovered in their house for up to four weeks. Four weeks! How bad do things have to be for inactivity at the house not to have been noticed for such a length of time?

It may not be so obvious to read politics into this. However we do have to wonder what our politicians and local councils are doing to help engender good community relations or bad ones? I'm not suggesting we all go round to our neighbours straight away to give them a hug, metaphorical or otherwise. After all we can choose where we live but not who our neighbours are. Even so at some point we all have to rely on our neighbours for something.

Lord's Reform - A view

If you checkout the side bar you will see a link to Lords Reform, if you go through the archive you will see a post from our esteemed editor arguing the same view.

As a collary to this BBC Radio 4 was interviewing some US politicians asking for opinions on our "beloved" PM and one republican referred to the UK as not being a true democracy. He was referring to the Lords and the Monarchy (if memory serves). He was taken a back when the interviewer asked if there was a chance of US troops invading to bring democracy to us..... but I digress.

Lords Reform, and the abolition of the Monarchy (by extension), is seen as necessary to ensure Britain is a true democracy in the 21st century. Please don't get me wrong I do see the argument but I don't think the alternatives are fully thought through.

For instance a fully elected second chamber makes common sense but I think the Lords has much to commend itself.

It isn't elected - no seriously, the British people are more concerned with personality than policy.
It isn't elected - Lords members don't care what the press say about them. They can stick to principles, if the press lambast them so what.

When Baroness Thatcher was overthrown (oh happy days), the contenders were John "The Common Man" Major, Michael "Hezza" Hestletine and Douglas "patrician" Hurd. My father's comment was that he would vote for none of them, but that Hurd came from a "class" that was brought up to believe it was there "duty" to look after those less fortunate than themselves.

Hereditaries have that tradition instilled in them and frankly that's more than some politicans do.

Ex politicians like Geoffery Howe do not spend time debating in the Lords because they need the money. They do so because they have gained a lifetimes experience of politics and want to give something back.

Law Lords work on the same principle. Bishops too, debate on principle. Ah Principle something you won't hear much of in the Commons these days.

I remain unconvinced that an elected second chamber would improve Britain today. The Lords job is to hold the Commons to account and to act as a revising chamber, that lack of accountability means they don't have to worry about fads. And if the commons wants its way it will get it eg. Fox Hunting

In some respect the monarchy is perhaps the most anacronistic element of our democracy, but again I'm not sure about the alternatives. I would prefer The Queen to Baroness Thatcher and Prince Charles seems to have more principles (I keep using that word) than our current Prime Minister. And he is willing to take a contrarian view regardless of public perception.

An ex-colleague of mine argued against the monarchy but was horrified at the thought of a President Blair.

If anything has gone wrong its the presidential style of the current government. Politicians have become so concerned about "party loyalty" and "image".... and whose fault is that? Well look in the mirror. How many of us really research the issues? We read a headline but seldom read the story. Image Image Image.

Are the British people really capable of deciding its government? Most of them know more about some idiot on Big Brother or X-Factor, than they do about what is going on in the Middle East, Africa or any of a number of other places.

I ask would you trust the majority of people you meet in the steet with deciding something so important ? Would you ?

The current system may not be perfect but....

There is a saying, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

A peaceful world ?

I wish that I could be more erudite and intellectual in this post. However, at the moment I find myself so disillusioned with current events that it is impossible not to be angry tonight. Our leaders say that they want a free and peaceful world. How can this be when Israel are defying the terms of the truce in Lebanon? How can this occur when the UN is increasinly viewed with suspicion and it's authority undermined? How can this be when security measures that have been introduced in an emergency have led to chaos that has led to repeated security scares? How can it be when this has led to blatant instances of racism. It may seem that I am looking at this from a very western centric point of view. However, if we are to believe that terrorism is a global threat then all these are of extroadinary importance to all of us.

The UK air industry about to give itself a good slapping

As I have been reporting here and before that here the UK air industry is being systematically decimated in the UK by the UK government.

This news just in:

Air passengers could face a fresh surcharge on tickets to pay for the escalating price of airport security.
politics.guardian.co.uk

So what they are saying is that I now need to pay for the right to be treated like a man under arrest, harassed and then have everything I own lost while facing delays and cancellations while the people who are charging me for this dubious right by-pass the same humiliation.

All this in the name of a truly dubious idea that no right thinking terrorist would actually consider.

I have to pay for the right to be harassed so that something that wouldn't work can not be attempted by people who couldn't make it work.

I'd much rather travel on the eurostar and catch my flight from a French or Belgum airport. If only out of principle.

In my back yard, please!

    I don't know what kind of worldwide circulation it's achieved but there's an acronym in use in the U.K. used to descibe a person who has objection to the siting of...well...almost anything really near to property they own. NIMBY stands for "Not In My Back Yard", not literally the rear of one's property you understand, just uncomfortably close to.
    One of the installations that one sees run foul of the NIMBYs on a regular basis is Windfarms. In my part of the world (Eastern England) there are a few of these windfarms around. It seems to be a fairly regular occurence that local councillors are reported as objecting to the siting of proposed windfarms in their locales, the most recent example being County Councillors refusing to back plans for the Sheringham Shoal Offshore Wind Farm off the North Norfolk coast on the grounds that it may impact the local fishing industry. While I have a certain amount of sympathy with the issue of the fishing industry (although not sufficient not to back these plans), it's way past time that some people opened their eyes to "the bigger picture".
    West Devon Borough Council turned down plans to build nine wind turbines in January of this year and admitted that

"the main reason for refusing the application was the impact of the turbines on the landscape."

    which is the reason guaranteed to have me climbing up onto my virtual soapbox. Perhaps these people would prefer a nice picturesque nuclear power station? Ok, I know that a nuclear power station wouldn't be sited there but there'd be objections to it whereever it was proposed.
    My point is that society today demands electricity. Surely its better to try and generate it by means that don't further impact the environment as a whole even if it means putting these wind turbines in "areas of outstanding natural beauty"? If some climate change models are to believed (and they are, increasingly by people who know about these things) then the point of choosing whether to try to generate our power by renewable means, even if it does have an aesthetic impact on the environment or losing most of the land mass of Great Britain to rising sea levels has already been reached. Is it really that difficult a decision to make?
    And on the subject of "aesthetic impact", I don't find that these wind turbines are that objectionable. Tall and brilliant white, they have a strange otherworldly elegance which is far more pleasing to the eye than the endless ranks of steel pylons which for years have carried electricity across the countryside with hardly a murmur against them.
    Dependent on the approval of my landlord, I would like to offer here and now that if any electricity generator would like to site a wind turbine in our back yard then they're more than welcome. An offer of a  roof installation, generating power exclusively for us would be met with a very favourable response and could be a PR coup for someone!


Technorati Tags: electricity, climate change, environment

Age Discrimination - Financial Insanity

Earlier this week The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) warned that a shortfall in the numbers of graduates with science and technology qualifications was creating a skills shortage and forcing employers to look overseas for suitable candidates. At the same time a growing number of older people are complaining that they have suffered the effects of age discrimination. It doesn't take a genius to see the first problem could be solved by the employment of people suffering from the second.

Age discrimination is still rife, and unregulated against. However, a new law is set to be introduced in October, which may at least begin to tackle the problem. Although, older workers are those most commonly discriminated against, under 25s can also be affected, and it is not unusual for a recent school leaver or graduate to be told that whilst they may have relevant qualifications they lack experience and are therefore not worthy of employment. Older people who have both qualifications and experience are often turned down for different reasons. The more qualified and experienced a worker is, the more they can reasonably expect to be paid, business owners want to keep costs down, so prefer to employ someone less costly. I believe that this is partly the reason for the skills shortage the CBI have highlighted.

There may be fewer people studying science and technology subjects, but, there are still plenty of people with relevant skills who would be happy to make up any shortfall while a new generation can be trained. However, these people have years of experience, are often highly professional and respected, and are therefore worthy of a salary to match their experience and professional standing. It is cheaper to import people. If you are watching a profit margin, the choice is pretty simple, but it is a short-sighted one.

Cheaper overseas workers may fill a temporary gap, but this can't be a long term solution. At a time when we are being told that we must work for longer, the idea that anyone over 45 is going to become steadily less and less employable is worrying. As a population we are living longer, we have children (who need supporting) later, it does not make economic sense to throw a whole generation on the scrap heap when they are still valuable and productive. These people will need to have some kind of financial support, many won't have been working long enough to have built up a pension that is capable of providing for them adequately. So, they will turn to the benefits system, this will in turn lead to a rise in taxes which will cost business owners more.

Anti-age discrimination legislation is not going to change perceptions, or bring about any kind of improvement overnight but, hopefully it will have a positive effect over time, in the same way that laws to prohibit race and gender discrimination did not really achieve much in the short term, but did create a long term sea change in attitudes. This long overdue measure is both necessary and hugely important to us all. We will all get older, and like it or not, we are going to have to work for longer than our parents and grand-parents did. Unless we want to spend several decades of our lives living in relative poverty, we need to be confident that the judgements about our suitability to do our job are based on ability not the date on our birth certificate.

Technorati Tags: age+discrimination, uk+anti+age+discrimination+law

UK Airport Chaos: update - attacks wouldn't work anyway.

"Our official protectors and deciders trumpet the fools they catch because they haven't got a handle on the people we should really be afraid of. They make policy based on foibles and follies, and Hollywood plots."
theregister.co.uk

The Register has a story investigating the potential of the threat of "Liquid Binary Bombs" and concludes that security should be far more worried about white powder (like sugar) than liquids.

The reason: the terrorist is more likely to damage the toilets and blow themselves out of the window than actually kill anyone else.

"But what do these experts know about chemistry? Less than they know about lobbying for Homeland Security pork, which is what most of them do for a living. But they've seen the same movies that you and I have seen, and so the myth of binary liquid explosives dies hard."
theregister.co.uk

The Conclusion: someone has been watching too much TV.

"After a few hours - assuming, by some miracle, that the fumes haven't overcome you or alerted passengers or the flight crew to your activities - you'll have a quantity of TATP with which to carry out your mission. Now all you need to do is dry it for an hour or two."
theregister.co.uk

read the full story

A Snippet of News

I sent this info by email, but I'll post it here in case anyone missed it. Could anyone not listed as a contributor in the sidebar (that's everyone except Charlie and I) please let me know what form you would like your listing to take, and also what you would like to link to. I'm adding the list manually because not everyone wants to link to their profile or regular blog.

BTW, it's great to see people starting to post :-) Nice to see we have a bit of controversy already - and that those who are disagreeing are doing so in a vigorous but polite way.

UK Airports

Yes the UK airport system has it's head up it's own arsehole. Yes the Department for Transport is in dire need of a good overhaul but then the gradual "discovery" that most governmental departments are not "fit for purpose" is no surprise to those of us who have been saying so for a very long time.

The entire system is a giant cancer of inefficiency and expense.
lordmatt.co.uk

It may be "not done" or it might be "OK" to quote oneself in opening a new topic but what is done is done.

In a continuation of the terrorism effects that a well motivated and dedicated group of many thousands of people armed with military grade tactical thinkers UK airports have been effectively reduced to a circus. A circus that our leaders get to by-pass.

This so-called "security reaction" where everyone is treated as though they are guilty of something has required that every airport perform everything short of a full body cavity search of every passenger.

The result: cancelled flights inbound and outbound and many many British subjects ending holidays with long stays in foreign airports only to finally be forced to fly separately home on cramped and under equipped plans running a skeleton staff.

It is this sort of silliness in the avionics industry that causes crashes, not because of terrorist actions but because the rush didn't allow a full check and the plane simply was not fit to be in the air.

One mother quite rightly points out in the Daily Telegraph "Never again will I take the kids on a plane". When they suggest that the children travel back first (and separately).

I can just picture it - a bunch of three and four year olds wondering around London airports after three hours in a sardine-can with strangers wanting the potty, dinner, mummy, daddy, teddy or all of the above (if possible). Little kiddies getting lost and run over outside, locked in toilets, vanishing and never seen again or simply getting sent to the wrong airport like so much luggage has of late (another side effect of not having enough staff to carry out the ever changing requirements of the department of "transport".

Any shares you had in the aviation industry should have been shed already but my advice to all is sell now, sell fast. Other industries like coach and rail will be doing well out of this for a few years to come.

It has, quite frankly, gotten so far beyond stupid that it makes the tate modern look mainstream.

What is most telling is the effort the leaders of the UK are going to to avoid seeing the problems while they get fast tracked past security and onto private jets.

After all it's one rule for us and another for them!

The US cult of Bin Laden.

Edit: I can not believe I made such a twiglet of myself!

opinions - like buttocks, we all have them and they are all different.

I hate to burst the bubble of so many but your "research" for blog postings the world over shows just a little too much propaganda for my liking. Osama Bin Laden has nothing (what was I thinking) little to do with Al Qaida despite all the puff and noise he makes / made. It is led by fanatical devotion to a perverted and twisted idea. (it's political).

What really rails me into posting silly ill considered posts is the entire "war on terror" which does nothing to cure what is a cocked up oil related PR disaster. Having proven our lack of care for international law with our treatment of Hussein we continue to press an unwinnable battle.

(now for a whole passage of mixed up thinking getting sorted out)

He was clearly not the mastermind behind the attacks just as the queen is not the mastermind behind our military manoeuvres. She is the figure head and the generals are the brains. So too for Mr Ranting Laden (he could have been a popular yet hated blogger).

Nor was Saddam Hussein ever a face, figure or buttock of terrorism.

Bin Laden (no he's not, wrong dude) Saddam Hussein was the leader of a "small" country whose only significance is her control of oil and gas pipelines.

Likewise Al Qaida controls areas of oil and gas but worse still the way we have taken that oil and gas has given grounds for us to be hated.

It takes only a good preacher to stir that hate into action.

We are not talking about a small area like island but a territory used to and good at war.

Hussein is also a leader that had repeatedly been quite obstaneant with the UN (and the US) to the point that we have been to war with him before. But he has every right to have been short with west in what he and others view as a middle Eastern matter.

In Africa issues are sorted out as they have always been with guns and bombs but unlike the middle east without us taking sides based on where we get our oil or the matching of names in our religious texts (Israel/Bible).

The only reason the US and it's puppy dog the UK had for hitting the guy (Hussein) is that of all the people of the right ethnicity he was the only one who couldn't hide in the mountains after shouting rude names (Like Bin Laden).

While his (Husain) leadership was not the most civil, nor like our own (being more intolerant than even us) there have been shown to be no grounds to have attacked him other than the feel good factor of "hitting back". Even if we have to hit back at some one else (and we did).

However while Mr Husain has been removed and is paraded around like some sort of trophy the terrorists that smacked the US so hard all those years ago are still free and unstopped.

Now I have made myself look like a total crackerhead - I have edited the two thoughts into separation so I don't look like a total crackpot. Just a minor one.

After all the terrorists here is ME... and you and everyone that did not speak out when our countries did evil for greed (oil). We are the face of terror.

The face of terrorism today?

Ask yourself, who do you consider to be the true representative face of current terrorism?

Is it contestant number 1: Osama Bin Laden

Contestant number 2: Michael Mckevitt, imprisoned leader of the The Real IRA.


Contestant number 3: Rev Michael Bray, considered to be the chaplain of The Army of God.



Or is it all three?


Nobody would blame you if number 1 was your answer. Al Qaida and it's cohorts are the current terrorist bad boys du jour. Furthermore, Al Qaida, and those groups associated with it have brought about a new era in the history of the world and terrorism. Since it's inaugral attack on the west, the world trade centre attack of 1993, it has committed acts of such scale and cruelty as have never been committed before by terrorist organisations: death on massive scale in 1998, 2001, Iraq, 7/7, kidnappings and beheadings of hostages both foreign and islamic, Nick Berg springs immediately to mind. Islamic terrorism is nothing new, this is merely the latest example of it

However, as the case of Al-Qaida demonstrates the world has in the past been caught on the back foot. I would hypothesise that this is in large part due, atleast publicly to the UK and US's concentration on a singular threat ( UK and IRA), or as in the case of the U.S, concentration on the protection of another state and it's own political agenda ( Israel, UK, and the cold war). It was in this climate that Al- Qaida was allowed to develop into the organisation that it is today.

As I said earlier you could be forgiven for pointing to the picture of Bin Laden. You could also be forgiven for thinking that the only terrorist threat to humanity is Islamic. However, I did not choose the other pictures merely as contrasts. Mckevitt, although imprisoned and convinced of his own innocence, is still the leader of the currently active Real IRA. This remember is an organisation that has no fear about attacking UK targets. Bray is the spiritual leader of the group known as the Army of God. He is proof that terror and bigotry exist in the country that is currently at the forefront of the war on terror. Neither of these organisations have been in the news much recently. We in the west have been concerned with other matters. However, as al qaida demonstrated we should not take relative dormancy and lack of high profile coverage as a sign of blunted power.

Furthermore, terrorism is not unique to one cause or people. It is an ideology of hate and terror that is capable of being prevalent anywhere in the world, especially where their is great social, religous and political unrest.

Lastly, I guess the main point of this article is fairly obvious. Terrorism, unfortunately is an ever evolving and ever present threat. We ignore, other potential threats and their causes at our peril. However, please do not mistake me. I will never advocate falling into the easy trap of viewing your neighbour with suspicion. That only leads to conflict and unrest, both things the leaders of these awful organisations feed on as they only propagate their ideologies by taking in the disilliusoned.


For a list of organizations currently and historically classified as terrorist please go here.

House of Lords: It's time for reform

I am writing the following post in support of Lords Reform Day

To the residents of other democratic countries, the UK must seem a bit strange. On the one hand, we have a free and fair democratic system, on the other we have a hereditary head of state and an unelected upper house. It is the latter I wish to discuss.

Reform of the House of Lords was one of New Labour's original election pledges back in 1997. Yet, it is now 2001, and this same party are in the middle of their third term of government, but the House of Lords is still unelected. The best they have managed to come up with is the idea of making 50% of peers elected ones, and allowing hereditary peers to keep their seats until they die.

The House of Lords is an anachronism from the days when peers were seen as somehow better than the common herd. This, quite rightly is no longer true, and the average person tends to see those with titles as at best lazy twits and at worst corrupt and dishonest members of an old boys club. Since the cash for peerages scandal came to light, I would guess that most people veer towards the worst possible judgement.

We no longer doff our caps to our 'betters', we no longer believe that Lord Soandso deserves to be seen in a better light than anyone else. We view those who do receive knighthoods with some measure of suspicion because we wonder who they curried favour with to gain such an award, and we suspect that they will use their title and privilege to support their friends and cronies rather than act in the best interests of the citizens of this country. Yet, these same people are allowed to make decisions which effect our lives, our financial stability and our rights.

It is time we ended this out-dated relic from a time long gone, and had an upper chamber that truly reflects modern, democratic Britain.