Goodbye David Miliband -

 - and good riddance.

The paeans of praise gushing around Miliband senior must have been very satisfying for the chap. Oh how troubled he has been, wrestling with his desire to serve his constituents, and his party, and yet not undermine his beloved brother. Bollocks.

He actually claimed that the life of a back bench MP was important to him. Oh yeah. 

Try this for size 

“May 2012: Paid £14,000 for three hours work speaking at a conference paid for by hedge fund investors including Tory donor Michael Hintze and Mitt Romneys former employer Bain Capital.

May 2012: Paid £12,500 for four hours ‘work’ speaking to Bridgepoint, a company who’s interests include NHS privatisation - it owns the hospital contractor, Care UK.

August 2012: Paid £4000 by Qatari government for addressing the Doha Forum Conference on Middle Eastern security.” Private Eye, September 2012

Also

“£30,200 per year for advising Indus Basin Holdings which invests in Pakistani food crops.

£92,840 per year for advising VantagePoint Capital - a US technology investment firm.

£65,000 per year for helping the United Arab Emirates government host a high profile international conference.” (ibid)

Not content with that, he also gets £75,000 per year for being Vice-Chairman of Sunderland football club. Mind you he has to work 12 - 15 days a year to ‘earn’ the money. In all he has made over £500,000 in one year. Which does not include the £66,000 he claims as an MP.

He is clearly following in the footsteps of the Reverend Blair, who makes the Televangelists  of the Deep South of the U S of A look abject and bereft.  

He attended under half of the votes held in the Commons and made 15 parliamentary speeches in the last year. He represented one of the poorest constituencies in the country. It contains Jarrow within its boundaries. The descendants of the Hunger Marchers are surely not happy to see their MP swanning about around the world, making a fortune while they struggle to put food on the table. 

And that is not to mention his collusion with rendition and ‘black prisons’ and all that entailed. Perhaps the enquiries currently ongoing are getting close to home? A secure position in the States would make it harder for m’learned friends to get at him.

It is a thought.

Another thought -  good riddance.

‘Search and Rescue’ sold off to private US company.

“Heir to throne made redundant by Tory cuts”

A headline you will not see but one which would attract more odium on this appalling government wheeze. It is difficult to comprehend just how brainless this latest Tory privatisation is. Anyone in any doubt that the Tory’s mantra of private=good, public=bad had been shelved following several embarrassing revelations needs to think again. 

‘Theonearmedbadger’ had this to say in the Guardian Online this morning:

“The military's tasking in the SAR role (for 60 years now) was the rescue & recovery of downed aircrew and support for military vessels at sea; the happy by-product of that was an air sea rescue service that rescues more than 1500 people each year, with aircrew who will fly in the most difficult of circumstances - remember the Boscastle disaster, where 150 people were plucked to safety.

In recent years the RN and RAF crews have been joined by the equally brave men & women of the Maritime Coastguard Agency, who have proved every bit as capable as their military counterparts (in the main they are ex-military). I'm sure (I hope) that the Bristow crews will be every bit as professional; but this is another extremely short-sighted proposal by one of the dimmest governments of all time, who look only to the short term gain & forget the investment for the future - the investment, in this case, being the loss of invaluable training for the military helicopter pilots. Yet again they've proved they know the cost of everything & the value of nothing.” 26/3/13

‘One of the dimmest governments of all time’  - spot on. 

Boris Johnson “A Nasty Piece of Work”

Anyone familiar with Eddie Mair will know that beneath his humour and affability lurks a man of steel. Listening to him put the same question three times to Danny Alexander on the ‘PM’ programme on Budget Day, then cutting through the flanneled responses with a terse, “The listeners will note that you did not answer the question,” was typical of his approach. Friendly and warm, but coldly scathing wherever and whenever politicians (it is usually them) try to bluster or deny responsibility for their deeds.

He has hit the headlines today for his treatment of Boris Johnson. Standing in for Andrew Marr, (remember him, the journalist who invoked a super-injunction to cover up his infidelity....) on TV yesterday morning, he engaged with BoJo rather like a spider with a fly. 

Confronting Johnson with uncomfortable facts from his history he assembled them together in a killer sentence: “Aren’t you, in fact, making up quotes, lying to your party leader, wanting to be part of someone being physically assaulted? You’re a nasty piece of work, aren’t you?” BBC Andrew Marr show 24/3/13

Johnson blustered, shambled and equivocated, claiming these things were a long time ago, and there was another side to it all etc, etc. The photos accompanying the articles this morning are damaging too. In one Johnson sits with his head in his hands, in another he sits looking downcast.

Good.

The man has cultivated an image of being an intelligent buffoon which until yesterday acted as a bubble the media did not prick. A serial adulterer and darling of the Tory Right, Johnson is anything but a buffoon. Even Conrad Black - no charmer he - described Johnson as, “A sly fox disguised as a teddy bear.” 

Thanks to Eddie Mair, Johnson stands exposed for what he is, ‘a nasty piece of work.’

You can’t beat the Daily Wail

Huhne moved to a cushier prison.......maybe

As ever there are two sides (or more) to a story. The Daily Wail had this in its online edition tonight: “Disgraced MP Chris Huhne may be sleeping a little easier tonight after he was moved into one of Britain's minimum security prisons.

After spending just seven days in tough Wandsworth prison, the former cabinet minister has now taken up residence at HMP Leyhill, Gloucester, where prisoners are not even locked in their cells.

It will be his home for the rest of his eight-month jail term.” Mail 23/3/13

Years ago a cricketing team-mate was sentenced to a stretch in prison for receiving stolen goods. Initially, he too was sent to a ‘tough’ prison, Strangeways in Manchester, and was then later transferred to an open prison. His experience does not match the Wail’s line. He found being in Strangeways OK. He felt safe and although he spent a lot of time locked in his cell, he began a fitness regime, doing sit-ups and press-ups to work his way through the sentence. He was largely left alone to get on with it. The prison officers recognised him as presenting no trouble so were always civil and reasonable.  

All this changed when he was transferred to the open prison. The regime was much more lax but that was not a good thing as far as he was concerned. There were a couple of  gangs in the prison who wanted to run things in their own way and expected loners like him to kowtow to them. Supervision was very loose.  He felt far more unsafe in a so-called ‘soft’ prison than he ever did at Strangeways. He said he had to tread very carefully and spent as much time as possible in the gym working even harder to become stronger so they would leave him alone.

The line ‘where prisoners are not even locked in their cells’ is a double-edged one. It also means that a person or persons with evil intent can get at you in the middle of the night.

Perhaps after all the hacking inquiries are over  -  and several journalists have been locked up at her maj’s pleasure, maybe even incarcerated in ‘minimum security prisons’ for a spell - the tabloids may just start to sing a different tune. 

They just don’t get it

Australia 50 years ago....

An interesting juxtaposition of two stories happened this week. From Australia we heard that Julia Gillard, the Prime Minister, had apologised to an audience comprising women who had had their babies taken from them within minutes of their birth. Quite horrific and a subject worthy of an abject apology. 

“Unwed mothers were pressured, deceived and threatened into giving up their babies from the second world war until the early 1970s so they could be adopted by married couples, which was perceived to be in the children's best interests, the Senate committee report found.” Guardian 21/3/13

“Roman Catholic hospitals in Australia apologised in 2011 for forcing unmarried mothers to give up babies for adoption and urged state governments to accept financial responsibility.

Catholic Health Australia, the largest nongovernment hospital operator in Australia, said the practice of adopting out such children to married couples was "regrettably common" from the 1950s to the 1970s.

Adoption in Australia is mostly controlled by state laws, but the report found that the federal government had contributed to forced adoption by failing to provide unwed mothers with full welfare benefits to which a widow or deserted wife would have been entitled until 1973.” ibid (my emphasis)

Britain today....

The second story came from a blogsite recommended by a friend. The allegations made on the blog are serious and current. The hub of the report on the blog came from a whistleblower working in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). 

As ever with our government, there are many things which are left unsaid. In the era of spin, spin and spin again, it is vital that whistleblowers are supported and their complaints publicised. 

“The DWP site alleges that ‘ahead of expectations, local authorities reported in January [2013] that they had successfully turned around the lives of 1,675 troubled families after just nine months of the three year programme, meaning that the children in those families are regularly in school and not committing crime or adults are in work.’

Note the use of the word ‘or’ at the end there – not ‘and’. A 50% improvement is clearly being used as the criterion for ‘success’. We are also given no details of what the work/school/crime ratio was before the scheme began.....

......what has not been released and is being kept hush hush [is that] this will not be an option where families can choose not to be involved…..if they refuse to participate, their benefits will be stripped under sanctions.”

If after a period of 26 weeks results are not forthcoming and improvements tangible and sustained all benefits will be withdrawn. From then on, the adults will have to work in any position that can be found – and will be paid via fuel, food and basic clothing. Children over 13 will be expected to work under the same terms as their parents at special schools.

* If the children continue to truant and participate in anti social behaviour, those under 13 will be taken into care. They will not be living with their parents, but in dormitory accommodation. (And we all know what that means)

• Any of the parents having children throughout or once they’ve failed the initiative will be taken into the care of local authorities. The families will be allowed supervised access at contact centres as deemed acceptable by the people overseeing the project and the handlers for the individual families. (And we all know what that means)

Are we in a State now that believes it has the right to ban people having children – to the extent that they fire the parents off the programme and put the kids into paedoland (sic)?

“Myself and many other staff are horrified, but are powerless to stop this. The government are saying they will save more on what they cut on the benefits including DLA for the people in these families getting high rates for anger and behavioural problems, housing benefits and benefits for babies and children…children whether in these families or other families on low incomes are a drain on resources, and they believe if they stop paying then the children will stop being born and those already here will have to either conform or to be excluded and earn their keep….This is all underway and being arranged as we speak.”

The mind boggles at the kind of mentality that believes the children will stop being born if the benefits are removed. But as the clincher, it’s worthwhile taking a look at the private intermediary facilitators shortlisted for the task of running the rollout. They are G4S, Deloittes, Veolia, Capita and Serco.  ‘The Slog’ blogsite 17/3/13  (again, my emphases)

Wherever and whenever policies and practices aimed at the poor and vulnerable are decided by a rich and powerful elite, they invariably make a complete mess of them. Their understanding of hardship is a world away from reality. 

Using the withdrawal of benefits to punish the so-called feckless is another policy in a long line from the Fleet debtors prison to the ‘undeserving poor’ - an expression much favoured by tory toe-rags - who would welcome back the workhouse. 

Commons Debate on Leveson

Watching a lot of the debate yesterday was fascinating but also disturbing. There had clearly been an 11th hour deal struck between the three main parties at Westminster. Many contributors paid respect to the hard work and diligence of the teams representing each party who had striven hard into the night to reach a compromise from which each could claim a sort of victory. 

Whenever the House of Commons acts quickly to legislate or approve a course of action such as sending troops to Afghanistan it invariably gets it wrong. For example the Dangerous Dogs Act was rushed through at the behest of tabloid hysteria and has proved to be virtually unworkable. 

As one speaker pointed out halfway through the proceedings, they did not know what the final draft on which they were to vote on looked like, as it was still being written. Not good. 

A significant omission is the lack of anything about tweeting, blogging, facebook or similar internet activities in the regulations. After taking all of this time since Leveson published his report last November, another couple of days spent getting the wording right would not have gone amiss. 

In that time there has been much activity. There have been several off-the-record meetings between Cameron and a group of editors. Who knows what has been happening behind the scenes with the proprietors? One of the biggest problems with our politics has been the undue influence of powerful scum like Murdoch and his attack dogs. The way the old scrote continues to carry on anyone would think he was as innocent as the day is long. Slimeballs such as Boris Johnson and Michael Gove still openly enjoy dinner with him. 

‘Hacked Off’ profess themselves pleased with the outcome, which is a positive; while a significant group of newspapers are not, which is a problem. Among them are such luminaries as the Barclay brothers who want to run ‘their’ Channel Island as a personal fiefdom, ‘Dirty Desmond’ who made his fortune with porn channels and now runs the Express and Star (and Channel 5) , Paul ‘expletive deleted’ Dacre is not happy and neither, surprise, surprise, are the old scrote’s group. 

This follows on from the Sun having a front page yesterday that beggared belief. They invoked Churchill and his trenchant views on the freedom of the press on the same day they paid a Labour MP £50,000 for using material from her stolen phone. 

Only the editor of the Independent, Chris Blackhurst, has come out and said that the outcome was what he expected. He did not have a problem with a key issue - that of putting an apology when the paper had a story wrong - in the same place it appeared - even if that was the front page. This is a sticking point for some of the press.

Years ago the Mail ran a front page story claiming that because ambulance drivers were taking industrial action, some unfortunate had died. This was in blazing headlines, on the front page and named the ‘guilty’ men. Several days later, in a tiny paragraph tucked away deep within the paper was an apology. The story had been bollocks.

The damage done to ordinary mortals who do not inhabit the elite bubble of celebs and politicians is profound and is something which has needed redressing for years. 

Do not hold your breath. Cameron has probably had several interesting conversations this morning.....off the record.

Hen Harrier e-petition

                                                                                              

The facts

Male Hen Harrier (courtesy RSPB)

• There should be over 300 pairs of Hen Harrier across England
• Last year the population was down to one breeding pair.

Why has this happened?

The simple answer is persecution by grouse moor owners.  

Research undertaken by the government's own advisory body on conservation, Natural England, points to a correlation between harrier losses and grouse moors.

A study by a researcher working for Natural England attached tiny transmitters to 12 harriers to track their progress and movements over winter. They were all recovered i.e. found dead, on or very near grouse moors in the Pennines.  The study has not been published. Natural England claim it is part of an ongoing PHD despite the fact that the tracked harriers were killed ten years ago. DEFRA maintain a wall of silence on the issue even though they are responsible for the ‘Hen Harrier Recovery Plan.‘ 

How do they get away with it?

• They are rich and powerful, with friends in political high places. Richard Benyon, currently under-secretary at DEFRA, is himself an estate owner. The shooters expect to pay £1200 - £1500 for a days shoot, not the sort of sum Joe Public has handy. The estates tend to be the preserve of the very rich. 
• Gamekeepers occasionally get caught poisoning birds of prey. It is more difficult to prove persecution when nests are destroyed, usually by the eggs being smashed, in extremely remote upland areas. Harriers are ground-nesting birds. 

Finally

Shooting estates receive considerable public subsidy in the form of grants. This subsidy comes from our taxes. Among the criteria to qualify for grants is the need to conserve protected and endangered species. The Hen Harrier meets that requirement yet is virtually extinct. 

It would be unfair to label all grouse moor owners and keepers as being anti-harrier but the overwhelming evidence is there that a significant number of estates flaunt their responsibilities, regard raptors as a pest and are quite happy to break the law on a regular basis believing themselves to be immune from prosecution.

So what can be done?

Click on the link below. It will take you to an e-petition created by a friend, John Armitage. 

Licencing upland grouse moors and gamekeepers.

Having done that, please encourage your friends to support the petition too.