Move along, no free speech here

Obviously our government has learned from Beijing on how to use oppressive policies to keep an olympic event running smoothly and free from inconvenient things like free speech. Well, bill posters at least. Obviously not happy with giving the police all the fun, it looks like private boot boys can join in on the action too.

Apparently it's not to protect us from terrorists, it's to protect the likes of Budweiser and Coca Cola from other advertisers from muscling in on their olympic advert territory. So police, council workers and traffic wardens can smash in doors to seize any material deemed by those in power to be offensive to official olympic advertisers. It's a true UK Plc law.

Who said that this Labour government were the bitches of big business?

Wind loss

Despite enjoying the most bountiful wind resources in Europe, as a nation the UK is really poor at wind power. If this facility is allowed to fail, whilst our money is being pumped into a motor industry to fund business as usual, we'll see how green this government really wants to be.

Save Vestas

Power politics

Given that Ed Miliband has been whoring himself to the CBI's energy wishlist over the weekend, should we pretend surprise when the government's new white paper comes out giving the CBI exactly what it demanded?

Science not admissable in court

Facts are refused to be given in evidence and justice comes second to law. If any evidence was needed that the juduciary has become beholden to the string pullers of the status quo, it was in the case of the trial of the 'Drax 29 ' climate change protestors.

Like 'Justice' Eady's creative re-definition of the word 'bogus' to stack the deck in the bogus libel case against Simon Singh, 'Justice' Spencer similarly fixed the outcome of the case against the Drax train protestors by rejecting evidence about global warming as 'irrelevant', a key part of the defence. Spencer didn't make a legal ruling, he made a political decision, on behalf of a corrupt and dishonest government in thrall to a greedy power generator.

The filth beat 'em up, the beaks lock 'em up.

Crunching the credit

One of the key ways that could be used to combat the insiduous effects of credit which the government could use to make life a little easier for people at the sharp end of the current economic crisis is very simple: introduce capped rates.

But as this report shows, the government considered it then quickly discarded it, citing false and unjustified concerns about people being forced to rely on unregulated loansharks. What a joke. What the white shirts in government don't get is that the legal and regulated doorstep and payday lenders are loansharks, some charging interest to the tune of thousands of percent, while proudly waving their consumer credit licenses.

The decision to simply ignore capping, especially without referring to countries where capping has proved to be successful in limiting the excesses of some lenders, is a decision that favours only the scum like the pawn shops and high rate check cashers, the gold scrapers and doorstep voucher men, pond life who profit out those at the bottom end of the income scale.

But capping won't work on it's own. So many people need to be helped out of the clutches of the blood suckers on the fringe finance industry. This is a time when the government needs to show some serious support for finance organisations like credit unions, who in some places are the only experts in finance in disadvantaged communities. Credit unions' provision for lending to small social enterprises and local businesses, a bedrock of the economy, could be expanded to encourage more local entrepreneurs onto a self reliant route to a sustainable economic success.

South Tyneside Credit Union

G20 - Police not competent

MPs on the Commons home affairs committee spew apologia for police behaviour at the G20. Now our MPs have failed their responsibilities to the public over the G20 and found in favour of the police.

Principle among these apologists for corrupt policing is committee chairman Keith Vaz with a remarkably Orwellian abuse of reality:

"What's acceptable, what's within the police rule book - the use of distraction tactics, for example, slapping or hitting people - shocked the public, therefore, they need to look again at these tactics and consult the public to decide whether or not such tactics can be used again."

So beating citizens is a 'distraction tactic'? If any other citizen used that line they'd be laughed out of court and into the cells. Vaz is suggesting that extra-judicial punishments are justified when handed out by the police to those challenging a corrupt government. Soundbite crap about consulting the public is spectacular fuckwittery.

The excuse that the fault lies at the feet of inexperienced officers is bullshit of the highest order. It's little more than a variation on the 'bad apple' theory. The fact that the commons select committee let Commander Bob Broadhurst's story fly, despite the fact that most of the incidents involved highly trained territorial support group officers, indicate that they are either as dishonest as him, or too utterly fucktarded to sit on an important oversight committee.

Like the Kinsgnorth incidents, the behaviour of the police officers there was not out of the norm. The operations were clearly directed at a senior tactical level and supervised by mid level officers on the street.

This doesn't let those officers on the street dishing out violence to peaceful protestors off the hook - the 'following orders' excuse doesn't wash - and they should be facing criminal as well as disciplinary charges for gleefully acting as agents of government oppression.

Also, as the commander on the ground, Broadhurst's bollocks should be on a plate.

Keith Vaz standing down would be a bonus too.

Aiming high

Ah, the art of spin. A super new school is ahead of schedule - despite the fact that the old school is still standing and the local residents who will be impacted by the works haven't been informed of the changed timetable.

But more worryingly, why will the new school have a frickin hair salon? Is this some new policy where students will be encouraged to keep their career expectations low? Will the economy need hairdressers and beauticians?

And I thought Mortimer's enforced dance curriculum was bloody stupid.

As long as our kids can do a jig and do their highlights then the future must be bright. I suppose we should all thank Labour and South Tyneside Council for the next generation of X Factor hopefuls.

Sweet smell of ermine

Roy Sydney George Hattersley, aka Baron Hattersley of Sparkbrook, has had a go at the hereditary monarchy, in particular Prince Charles, for committing the cardinal sin of criticising one of (Lord) Richard Rogers' proposed works.

There's a sweet irony when folk like Hattersly and Rogers complain about the very establishment that has ratified their titles.

If Hattersley and Rogers have such a problem with the interference of priviledge and patronage, perhaps they should abandon their seats in the Lords?

Brown's Sugar

The clever rats don't join sinking ships, so why is Alan Sugar joining Brown on the bridge? I can see why Brown chose Sugar - Susan Boyle is having some problems at the moment.

Sugar was already in the engine room of Gordon's business brain trust, and as his company Vilgen won a £30m government contract to supply computers to the NHS, association with Brown so far has been painless.

Of course, as someone who enjoys the 'Suralan' tag, a peerage must be very attractive, especially since the telly bully will only have to tip his forelock to Brown for another year at most.

It seems only right that a wealthy man, who is given a job to help the rich stay rich, will be called a 'Tsar'. Now what happened to the last Tsar?

Labour's inaction on climate change

Joan Ruddock's hilarious defence in the Guardian of Labour's complete failure to get to grips with climate change, and the following responses, illustrates two important points:

1. Joan Ruddock is off her trolley.

2. Everyone knows it.

True, there'll be more than two points, but on every issue that Ruddock has tried to claim victory, Labour has failed miserably or fallen short of the required standard. The craven dishonesty even goes so far as to imply that Friends of the Earth's Big Ask campaign was somehow a Labour idea:

It's a model that Friends of the Earth campaign for other countries to adopt in their Big Ask, a sign perhaps of greater optimism and ambition than the Green party demonstrates.

Utterly utterly dishonest. The Climate Change Act was a result of FOE's Big Ask campaign, not it's progenitor. Parliament set about watering down the original Big Ask aims to such a point to make a Climate Change Bill just about toothless, except as PR fodder for Ruddock's rancid propaganda.

Dishonest. Fail.

Torturous

Thanks to Punkscience for the alert on Craig Murray's attempts to be heard by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. Sent an email. If you want the truth then please do the same.

North East Top Guns

I've been busy over the last few days so this is a bit belated, so respect to North East Labour MPs Jim Cousins, Newcastle upon Tyne Central, and Chris Mullin, Sunderland South, for having the cojones and principles to vote against the government in last Wednesday's Heathrow debate. Top blokes.

Asshats to those other North East Labour MPs, like our own Stephen Hepburn and David Miliband, who voted for a project intended to increase London's economic dominance at the expense of the regions.

Nineteen

For a government with a working majority of 63, winning tonight's vote, on the Tories' motion that the government should rethink the Heathrow plans, by only 19 votes is a thin margin indeed, and is another illustration how far out of touch with people this government is - and how close to BAA. Yet again, this Labour government has no doubt whored itself out to the sectarian fuckwits in the Democratic Unionists to win a close vote.

This isn't helped by some Labour MPs who claimed to be against the third runway but stayed away from the vote to avoid being seen supporting a Tory motion. Where's your principles you fucking cowardly hypocrites?

Whilst the Tories will claim a kind of moral victory, there are still some in Cameron's ranks who support the third runway.

Oh, and Geoff Hoon is a complete tool.

Troops come home

And they still haven't found WMD. No doubt more vote winners are on their way. I smell and election coming... unless Brown plans to just move them to Afghanistan.

Fantasy Island Fuckup

As I've noted before, I keep swinging in my opinion on Miliband. Good guy? Bad guy? Well, now it's settled. The part he's played in fucking over the people of Diego Garcia and the Chagos Islands to sate US 'security' interests (read killing and maiming folk) suggests he is a sociopathic twat.

Miliband wept over sovereign rights during the Russian invasion of Georgia. Civil liberties in Zimbabwe. Expressed regret over rendition flights. After his part in perpetuating this injustice, colluding with successive governments, he has precisely ZERO credibility when it comes to human rights.

Bryan's already covered it with his dry humour. My rage is still at DefCon 1. Bryan has a point. If the British government had such plans for the Falklands, Scilly Isles or the Channel Islands there would rightly be an uproar.

Most of those folk are white aren't they? The Ilois people of the Chagos are darker.

This episode does highlight another issue. Miliband doesn't take all the blame. After all, you could argue that he's only Gordon's (and by extension Dubya's) bitch.

The decision to perpetuate this ethnic cleansing was taken by Law Lords: score line 3 - 2. That's at least three unelected, bewigged and pampered fuckwits who think violating human rights is a jolly wheeze, especially when it's on behalf of the Crown.

The Queen. Yes, whilst Queenie is busying herself sniffing fresh paint, walking on red carpets and congratulating former communist countries for clawing back to freedom, the Chagossians get royally butt-fucked on her behalf.

Okay, technically the Queen has no power, it lies in Gordon's hands. But in nearly 40 years she hasn't said a peep about these people. Her subjects. We can conclude that like all those in the power Jenga tower, she couldn't really care less.

What really matters is the law of the goose and the common.

"The law locks up both man and woman,
Who steals the goose from off the common,
But lets the greater felon loose,
Who steals the common from the goose."
Anon

David's soul

In what's been tagged as an opening move for the top job in Britain, South Shields MP David Miliband wrote this missive in the Guardian, positioning himself and the Labour Party. It could be summarised as "We're Not Tories". It's more of the same oldskool NuLab tosh. I loved this bit:

"Every member of the Labour party carries with them a simple guiding mission on the membership card: to put power, wealth and opportunity in the hands of the many, not the few."

Labour have privatised and off-balance sheeted beyond even the most ardent Thatcherite's free market wet dreams. Much of our public services are being run now for private profit at a higher cost than if it had been run by the public sector. More is being prepped to go into private hands. Those membership cards must be so buried behind wads of cash that the "guiding mission" has been suffocated.

Anyhow, it's already been covered by Curly, but what has really interested me is the local angle.

First is the Gazette's coverage of the story. A massive front page splash reporting the article written for, hold on, it doesn't say where! Even the Gazette editorial could only just manage to strain itself so far to describe the source of the piece as "a national newspaper". If you're going to lift whole blocks of text from another newspaper then you should at least have the courtesy to give it credit. It's really bad show chaps.

Also in the Gazette, Alliance newbie councillor and former chairman of the South Shields Labour Party and former Labour councillor Geraldine White was quoted as saying:

"He doesn't promise anything unless he can deliver."

Whoa! Way to be opposition there Geraldine! But that's not all. On the Gazette website there's a fuller account, getting positively all moist over our own 'I'm David'. She swooned:

"David is a man of honour, and that is a quality which is highly prized in politics. He doesn't promise anything unless he can deliver. I endorsed him when he came to South Shields as MP in 2001, because he was open, honest and frank. On a personal level, he's very funny, he was [sic] a great sense of humour, and he adores his family."

It's kind of her to remind us that she endorsed the guy: friend and confidant of Tony Blair, who was parachuted into a safe Labour seat, and so close to former MP and waste of space David Clark's mysteriously timely ennoblement. Yay cronyism! And now she endorses DM for PM. Awww. It makes yer feel all warm don't it?

With enemies like Geraldine, Labour don't need too many friends. I think that's how it goes. Surely it can't be long before she's welcomed back into the Labour fold?

Voting away democracy

Another step towards a Britain not in the hands of it's citizens, but in the hands of big money. It's a return to feudalism in all but name.  

Whilst the government justifies the gutting of the planning laws on the basis of planning for climate change, the new system will not recognise climate change, the environment or people.  It will, however, recognise what's good for the CBI and its chums.

This move has put planning firmly into the hands of a free market economic fundamentalism that subordinates our society to the demands of big business. Gordon Brown has managed to smash our right to speak out against developments, and turn into another one of his pet pfi projects. Privatising democracy.

And who did this?

The very fuckers we voted for.

Want to stop a nuclear power station on your doorstep? An incinerator next to your kids' school? What about your house being demolished for that new motorway?

Now citizen, there's fuck all you can do about it, and you can thank your MP for that.

I've complained in the past about Labour members having lost a sense of principle after their party's warmongering and steady walk towards a police state. However, some of them still have the moral courage to stand by their principles.

Brown's desperate attempt to bolster his leadership, embodied in raising the pre-charge detention limit for terrorism suspects to 42 days, rallied most of the pliant troops who put party politics before the protection of our civil liberties. But not without some last minute horse-trading.

I've never often had an occasion to agree with Diane Abbott, but she rightly accused the government of:

"trading ancient civil liberties in a grubby bazaar"

Every concession Brown gave the wavering backbenchers was bought with another scrap of our freedom.

Kudos to Jim Cousins (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) and Chris Mullin (Sunderland South), the only Tyne/Wear Labour MPs with the cojones to stand up against Brown. Respect to all who voted against this disgusting charade.

PS - the Unionists where whores under the Tories. They're still on their back - but taking Brown's shilling.

Less well off language

An issue which almost slipped under the radar on David Miliband's 'keep the poor making the rich richer' Gazette article was his use of language.

Poverty is bad news, and the Labour spinners know it. So discussions of poverty have become clouded by obscurantist language. The phrase "less well off" is a classic example of an Orwellian euphemism, recognising that terms like "poor" or "low income" are taboo words which don't score enough happy voter points on the spin-o-meter. Grinding poverty gets a kind of 'glass half full' re-branding exercise.

It's all very doubleplusungood.

Renewables nuked

Micheal Meacher provides a calm and sober assessment for the future of nuclear energy policy. Nuke fails on several criteria - fuel supply, energy security, economics, waste management and sustainability.

Despite all this, the Labour government is pushing it's nuke dreams (blessed by the Tories), whilst at the same time quietly planning to water down our EU renewables obligations, nicely removing a low carbon competitor for nuclear.

It makes you wonder who is running our energy policy. At the moment it looks like the nuclear industry.