Flight Club

The First rule of Flight Club is: Aviation doesn't pull it's weight in the fight to reduce CO2 emissions.

The Second rule of Flight Club is: Aviation doesn't pull it's weight in the fight to reduce CO2 emissions.

Those are the rules according to the Miliband brothers.

Mili the Younger

Where I disagree with other people on aviation is if you did 80% cuts across the board, as some people have called for on aviation, you would go back to 1974 levels of flying. I don't want to have a situation where only rich people can afford to fly.

Mili the Elder

if we're going to fly more we've got to do much less of something else. Because what counts in the end is not whether emissions come from cars or homes or aeroplanes - what counts is that our carbon emissions are reduced.

So, what sector do the bros want to cut so folk can fly to Prague for a piss up and a shag? Health? Keeping houses warm?

Apparently, according to these guys flying is some kind of grand egalatarian right and deserves the state's protection. Most flights are populated by the well off or used to fly in kumquats (they are a fruit BNP readers), whilst being subsidised by everyone else through aviation's fuel tax breaks, money export and job losses abroad, not to mention the unaccounted externalities of climate change.

Protecting aviation is not about saving flights for the poor, it's about lining in the pockets of people like Willie Walsh and Michael O'Leary, whilst the poor around the world will be the first and worst hit by the unstable climate ushered in by short sighted policies like the ones the Milibands support.

Electoral frauds

I've been following Craig Murray's election campaign in the Norwich North by-election and it has become a catalogue of attempts by various public bodies to silence him. The BBC has ignored him, the Post Office has dragged it's feet over delivering his election media (a dvd - that's a first I think) and local schools have tried to deny him a platform on the hustings.

If you didn't know, Craig Murray is a former British ambassador, and has been calling the government out over it's record on colluding with tyranical regimes abroad to torture people on behalf of the British Government, and has made some people in parliament (including our local MP David Miliband) very uncomfortable with the evidence he has collected.

The BBC's claim to be detached and objective is rendered laughable. Why are these bodies attempting to corrupt the democratice process?

Killer costs

I've seen first hand the effects of an asthma attack - the desperate gasps for breath, the terror in the eyes. Asthma can be a killer, but fortunately one which can treated. So today's news that financial worries causes some people to think twice about using their preventers should be a warning for us all.

Many people who suffer long-term illnesses like diabetes receive free prescriptions, but most asthma sufferers have to pay. However, this inconsistent approach is unlikely to be resolved by this or the next government, given the huge numbers being bandied around about budget cuts. Some interesting chronic euphemismia from David Halpern (along with David Miliband one of Blair's Third Way architects) is worthy of note:

"Billions of public spending can be saved, for instance, if services for those with chronic conditions like diabetes are redesigned around self-care."

As we've seen today with the asthma study, self care begins to fail when cash becomes tight.

Both the Tories and Labour will choose to target cuts in areas which won't affect their vote negatively, aiming to keep the affluent and middle class South East voter happy. That means the disenfranchised who are less likely to vote or whose votes have little demographic influence, like those on low incomes, will be hit hardest. And with an NHS hemorrhaging cash as a result of the failure of the Tory and then Labour PFI con job, it's likely that healthcare will take a big hit.

Whilst business, like the banking and motoring industries are being feather-bedded, chances are that those hardest hit will be those who most need essential services like socialised healthcare.

Allen and Miliband: South Shields' Arse n Elbow experts

After her obviously heartfelt sympathy for those suffering from bingo tax, Tory hopeful Karen Allen has picked another populist target in beer tax, but I would bet that she has never been in the Cranny. If she had she would know the real reason why it's losing business.

It's a shit hole.

Decent people don't drink there. It's windows are regularly smashed. On sunny days like today it's customers will be standing outside intimidating passers by and laughingly casting sexual innuendo at children.

Complaints have been made to local councillors and the police so it's surprising that our local MP David Miliband is also equally clueless to the Cranny's shortcomings when he says that the pub is the lifeblood of the community.

Obviously local knowledge is neither candidates' strong point, but at least as a former resident of South Shields Allen should know something or know someone who does.