My take on Occupy and St Paul’s Cathedral

A quick thought as I read that Occupy have been evicted from St Paul’s Cathedral after their 4 month siege.

Just think of the money that could have been spared for essential services that was instead wasted defending the pointless legal challenges, ensuring human rights and social services were provided to the protestors, and policing the event.  Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pounds wasted to allow a tiny fraction of a percentage of the population to claim they represented those who would foot the bill.

Update

The Telegraph website has quoted that:

The total cost to the City of London Corporation of policing the protest is believed to be less than £1 million, with taxpayers footing almost £600,000 of that cost.

So with legal costs, and other expenses not paid for by the City the sum funded by the taxpayer will easily be over £1 million

We Are Equals

M has a frank talk with Bond about equality:

To find out more go to the Equals website (www.WeAreEquals.org).

Some thoughts on the Saville Inquiry

I wrote this post hurriedly on June 16, 2010, and it has lingered in my draft posts for some time. I don’t know why I never posted it before so I post it here unedited from the original draft form.

After 12 years and £191 million, the Saville Inquiry has found that the 14 people killed by the British military were wrongfully killed as none of them posed a direct threat of causing death or serious injury.  This key finding is something that has been known for many years, and although the report did answer many other questions, and hypothesised as to whether the soldiers shot first for me it did not address a key question:

In 1972, 479 people were killed as part of the conflict known as “The Troubles” (Wikipedia) which means, after the 14 victims of Bloody Sunday, 465 people were killed and no inquiry or explanation for them has been given.

As mentioned in The Telegraphs report of the key findings:

Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, second in command of the Provisional IRA in Derry in 1972, was “probably armed with a Thompson submachine gun” at one point in the day, and though it is possible he fired the weapon, this cannot be proved. But the report concluded: “He did not engage in any activity that provided any of the soldiers with any justification for opening fire.”

So being a known terrorist, carrying a submachine gun  at a banned protest march directed against the military, and possibly (probably, he wasn’t carrying it just for show) firing it at the military or police would not provide any soldier with any justification to open fire? A “wall of silence” existed about what exactly the IRA were doing on the day, with witnesses refusing (intimidated into silence) to name who they saw firing at the soldiers before the incident occurred.

The Saville Inquiry was a purely political gesture started by the Blair appeasement government which freed hundreds of active terrorists under the Good Friday Agreement.  It brought no justice to those killed as it failed to address the motives and actions of the terrorist organisations that forced the events to occur.

Sources:

The Bloody Sunday Inquiry Website

The Telegraph – Bloody Sunday: Key findings

The Telegraph – Bloody Sunday: calls for new ‘truth’ body to investigate Troubles atrocities

The Telegraph – Bloody Sunday: soldiers criticise Saville report findings

Don’t Stop The Music!

Worrying news that Peter Mandelson (I still hate calling him The Business Secretary) and one of his departments are changing music licensing to remove the PPL exemption that allows music to be played by charity groups.

The Business Secretary is abolishing an exemption for charities from music licensing rules – hitting them with huge bills for holding events with recorded music.

Community groups said last night they would be forced to abandon hundreds of services for the elderly and children because of the new rules.
Abolition of the so-called PPL exemption will affect charity discos, tea dances, youth clubs, salsa groups, sports clubs, coffee mornings and even charity shops which have a radio in their staff room.

The changes are being imposed by the Intellectual Property Office which is part of Lord Mandelson’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The new levy will come into effect in April 2010 subject to the regulations being ratified by Parliament.

In its own impact assessment the Government admits that it will cost voluntary groups £20 million a year and will be “highly detrimental”. Some organisations will “cease playing music” because they cannot afford a license, and it will hit a quarter of a million organisations – 140,000 charities, 6,750 charity shops, 66,440 sports clubs, 4,000 community buildings, 5,000 rural halls and 45,000 religious buildings.

The Telegraph – Charities face £20 million ‘tax’ for playing music

So even after the Governments own impact statement say it is a bad idea and will have a negative impact, good old Mandelson pushes it onwards!

If you disagree with this money-grabbing change to the law set to take effect April 2010, then please visit the National Council for Voluntary Organisations website and take part in their Don’t Stop The Music campaign (click for more details).

Nick Hurd, the shadow minister for charities, said: “This is another Labour assault on the fabric of British community life. Having shut down post offices and local pubs, Labour’s Whitehall bureaucrats now have village halls, scout huts and churches in their sights.

“This is a heartless tax on Christmas discos and tea dances in community buildings across the country. Peter Mandelson’s Christmas message is ‘strictly no dancing’ to struggling charities this winter.”

The Telegraph – Charities face £20 million ‘tax’ for playing music

MSPs and The Queen’s trip to Holyrood

50 MSPs (Members of the Scottish Parliament) snubbed the Queen by not attending her address to the Scottish Parliament to recognise and celebrate 10 years of devolution.  One of these wonderful characters, a Christine Grahame (Scottish Nationalist Party for Scotland South), stated she stayed away to work on email:

“I’m earning and working for my constituents far more than if I sit hypocritically in the chamber watching a monarch for an institution I do not support. – BBC News – MSP ‘snubs’ Queen to read e-mails

What a wonderful thought, working so hard for you constituents.  Do you do that all the time, or just when it plays into your media positioning hands?

So why does this make me angry?  Easy, I’m British, I am three quarters English and a quarter Scottish (my father’s father was a Scot, everyone else was Sassenach). I grew up in England under the rule of the British Government, in the British Parliament, that ruled Great Britain.  Through a series of dealings with that amazing visionary Tony Blair and his brilliant New Labour government, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland all achieved devolution, and acquired their own parliaments, but somehow we failed to establish an English parliament.

Let me just repeat that, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are granted their own parliaments, housed in state funded buildings, and stocked full of time wasters MPs, aides, secretaries, mandarins, and all the other essential servants of governance, who have their saleries paid by the state.  So my British taxes have gone to fund a tier of middle politician, not talented enough for the big national game, but playing competantly politely in their own league.  I am sure regional government is required, and that is why we have county and district councils spread across the whole of Great Britain, so why do we need this extra layer of tax payer funded tomfoolery? and if it is so vital for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland how come it is not essential for England?

Overlooking this basic flaw in the plan, let us now look at this specific incident.  The monarch of the kingdom of which your country is a part comes to congratulate you on the 10th anniversary of the establishment of your own devolved waste of money parliament. This monarch is both your Queen, and the figurehead of the larger government that funds your job, your parliament, and your email server.

Now I believe in an old Scottish idiom “He who pays the piper calls the tune” and so Ms Grahame, SNP Scotland South, I’d say your choice is simple; either step down and fund yourself completely independently with no assistance, salary, office, email, or monies provided by Holyrood and its evil Sassenach tax funding, or show up when you’re called to attend parliament.

For those who are wondering, the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood cost more than 10 times its original £40m estimate and was completed three years late in 2004 for £431m.  The bill was paid by British taxpayers, and not just Scottish taxpayers, even the Scottish Parliament’s own auditor hit out at the poor use of public funds.