Wednesday 15 August 2012

What You Missed Whilst The Olympics Were On

1. Boris Johnson Invites His Mate to the Olympics
Mere weeks after the Leveson inquiry, created in part due to alleged illegal activity at the News of the World and the allegations that Rupert Murdoch held undue influence over elected officials, Boris Johnson invited his buddy Rupert to join him at the Olympics without a care in the world. In the Evening Standard he was quoted as saying "We've got to stop demonising people. As far as I understand the matter, Rupert Murdoch is not under any criminal investigation."

I don't know how anyone else read that but apparently, as far as Boris is concerned, as long as you are not currently being investigating for a crime everything else is fair game.

2. Dave and Nick Have a Spat
It had to happen eventually I suppose. Dave said that he couldn't care less about the House of Lords reform. He said Nick could say whatever he wanted but he wasn't gonna do owt about it. Nick said, "yeah well you do that! I don't even care because I was going to vote for your stupid boundary changes and I'm not now so ha" and then stuck his tongue out and walked away.

3. Here, 24 Hours a Day to Take Your Call
It seems that prisoners are being let out on day release to work in call centres for just 40p an hour. As someone who has spent many a year working in call centres I would have to say that it is punishment enough for anyone.

Flippancy aside, it has caused controversy. The company employing the prisoners, Building Green, have some very disgruntled ex-staff members. They are alleging that the company are firing staff and using the prisoners as cheap labour. The company, obviously dispute this, said newly appointed press officer, Charles Bronson.

4. Boris's Former Aide Cleared of Extreme Pornography Charge
Simon Walsh, former aide to Boris Johnson takes the word kinky to a new level. Walsh was acquitted of the charges which were brought against him in relation to pictures found on his Hotmail account for which his user name was "Cityfister." This, I feel should set the tone for what is about to come, it is not for the faint hearted. The pictures, three of which were taken by Walsh himself, contained images of anal fisting and something called urethral sounding, an activity that involves surgical equipment and a pee hole. This gives a new meaning to the phrase "work hard, play hard."

5. Ed Miliband
And it seems you weren't the only one. While David Cameron was pictured looking decidedly uncomfortable on the tube and Boris Johnson got stuck on a zip line across The Thames, Ed was...well, we are not sure. And I for one am thankful. That's one less cringeworthy picture of a politician trying to look normal.

Thursday 28 April 2011

Don't Believe the NHS Hype



I read an interesting article the other day.


It's nice of the Daily Mail to take a fresh look at the Government cuts to the NHS. You can always depend on the Daily Mail to take  an objective view on, well,nothing really. There were a few things in the article that made me really think.

They point out that the NHS isn't actually being cut (Probably best to disregard this article then). In fact, it turns out that the NHS is advertising 6,175 vacancies on a single day. Now that is a lot of jobs available, it's almost like the economic crisis has been invented by the left wing media. Those bastards!

I'm assuming that the reason the article doesn't mention the fact that the NHS is one of the biggest employers in the UK or the fact that 6,175 jobs make up less than 0.5% of the total jobs in the NHS was just an oversight on the journalists behalf.

They then go on to expose the unbelievable wages that NHS are paying to people with jobs that are a total waste of time. Such as an Associate Director of HR. I know, I don't understand either. How can the NHS, with 1.7million members of staff need a HR department. They cover such stupid things human rights, equality, pay services, performance and productivity. Sounds like a waste of time to me.

It gets worse. Kingston Hospital NHS Trust is going to pay their new chief operating officer a “staggering” £120,000. Unbelievable!

Oh, just one quick thing. Did you know that the editor of the Daily Mail had a pay rise this year of 70% to £2.8 millionProbably deserves it much more than an Operating Officer of an NHS Trust though.   


Tuesday 12 April 2011

Don't Worry, Be Happy

Some very nice people have started an organisation called Action for Happiness.  It is a charity aimed at refocusing society's attention away from the fact we have no money and concentrating on the more important things in life.

Happiness all round!

So what generous persons would fund such a charity in this economic climate?  Well it turns out it's those that tell us there is no money.  It's Dave and his "Big Society" Cronies over at the Office of Civil Society.

So instead of making massive cuts to vital organisations in education, health, childcare and emergency services and telling us to get it on with it, they have done their chopping and used the spare cash to tell us if we aren't happy it's our own fault for not surviving on love and puppy dog tails.

To add insult to injury the charity isn't run by three aging hippies living on a commune doing their best impression of The Good Life.  No they are all Oxbridge graduates.

Mr Richard Layard, a baron no less, who sits in the House of Lords, Geoff Mulgan, former Director of Poilcy for No. 10 and Anthony Sendon, Tony Blair's biographer.  Now could you ever find three men more suited to tell us how to be happy without wealth?

Well Dave,  heaven knows I'm miserable now.

Saturday 9 April 2011

Feminists Hate the Poor!

Feminism. It's a good thing right? You know, the whole women getting treated as equals thing? Well I can understand why you would think that but no, you're wrong.  You see the lovely Minister for Universities and Science,  David Willets has been doing a bit of poking around and figured out why working class men can't get a decent job and he wants to share it with us all.


Now I don't want to be petty about this Mr Willets but there are a few little flaws in your arguement aren't there.  Please don't feel embarrassed, I understand the pressure you're under. Your government is ripping the country to shreads and your scared aren't you?  All those angry, young, unemployed men with nothing better to do than direct their anger at you and the rest of your corporate groupies.  Best to destract them hey?

We can all see your hard work at making sure immigration is still right up there -  lowering student visa numbers was a great idea!  Make them think that all those foreigners are sneaking in and not only stealing our jobs but stealing our education!  How dare they?  OK, you will have to lose some of the £5 Billion that students on foreign visas will bring in to the economy but it's definitely worth the message it sends.

Then you come up with a blinder!  Not only will we blame the immigrants,  we can blame the women too.  Its been years since you've had a proper go at them, they won't see it coming.

The fact that you are comparing middle class women with working class men does make the argument hard to follow.  You would think to make the point you would compare middle class women and middle class men or working class men with working class women,  you know, comparing something that actually makes sense.

I understand if you did that your argument wouldn't really stand up. Issues like poverty will start cropping up and all the people are going to start moaning that you're just for big business and hate the poor and its best if that didn't crop.  OK, maybe you don't hate poor people but they just aren't very important are they?  Pretty safe to say they aren't going to vote Tory isn't it! 

And all those university places those woman have stolen,  who do they think they are!  Let's keep quiet about the fact that the amount of university places has increased dramatically since the 1970's when the university was a male domain (ahhh the good ol' days hey Dave.)

We should probably just brush over the fact that women are still not paid the same wage as men or the fact that unemployment is rising faster for women than men and that women are far more likely to work part time.  You don't want anyone to dwell on that or your just going to look like....well, exactly the man you are - an out of touch, over privileged, sexist bigot.