February 2010 Archives

You have probably seen the verdict on the Somali woman who had no rights to residency here that the EU Courts of Justice have floated down from the top of their gold plated ivory tower.

It gave her the right to UK benefits despite being acknowledged as a "burden on the social assistance system".

Since arriving she has " never been self-sufficient, and depends entirely on social assistance" and she depends on the National Health for medical care despite having no medical insurance.

But because two of her four children are in school here under the judgement she is now entitled to a council house and full benefits. It seems the EU now dictates our immigration and benefits system and the Government wonder why the BNP are picking up votes.

The woman's case, by the way, which opens up a bumper-sized, catering pack can of very expensive worms, was funded by . . . you guessed it, legal aid.

There were some claims that Shelter paid her legal costs which the charity deny saying they only gave her help and advice stating emphatically "none of our funding or donations from the public or corporate sponsors has been used. The case was wholly funded by legal aid through the Legal Services Commission."

Which all sounds like a fear that the next fundraiser might find there is a bit less rattle in the old tins.

Have the Equality and Human Rights Commission nothing better to do between morning tea and afternoon coffee than come up with barmy 68-page reports - at no doubt a million quid or so a page - to tell schools they could be breaking the law by insisting on making girls wear skirts as it discriminates against transsexuals.

It will surprise no one that the report was commissioned by poor little rich girl Harriet Harman who really should get a life of her own and stop interfering in ours. This latest lunacy is about the same as some officer on the Titanic demanding a toilet was redecorated a different colour before the ship sank beneath the waves.

Now I have no idea how many transsexuals there are in our schools but I would wager there are probably more one-armed pupils whose hobby is playing baroque fugues on the mandolin than there are pupils eager to express their transexualism by way of cross-dressing in school uniform.

There can't be that many transsexual karate black belt 7th Dan about which is what most blokes who turned up at school in a frock would probably need to be on the safe side.

It is about time that the plonkers and their quangos who are in charge of the sweet shop were told in no uncertain terms that we make rules and laws to cover the majority. When it comes to the minorities, in some cases so small as to be almost negligible, we make allowances.

I must admit the idea of a hung Parliament hardly fills me with enthusiasm. Now if it had been a hanged Parliament I would happily vote for that . . . I'd even buy a ticket to watch.

Anyone spot the reports about ill fitting, loose condoms which are likely to split or come off as well as leading to increased risk of infection or pregnancies?

Condoms come in a variety of sizes and one of the people quoted in the flurry of stories said: "One of the main culprits is often something as simple as not using the right size."

Sounds simple but perhaps that is where the problem really lies. What bloke is going to tell his barber, or Boots or whatever that he want's 'something small for the weekend' or even admit to medium come to that even if it does mean he ends up like a little lad in his grandad's greatcoat at the romantic conclusion of a night when the Babycham flowed freely and the Chicken Biryani glinted in the shiny foil of the takeaway tray.

I suppose generations of mums are to blame, since the year dot they have put little lads in clothes three or four sizes too big for them telling them not to worry "you'll grow into them".

After years of conditioning is it any wonder most blokes now believe it?

I always reckon you can tell the state of a society by the way it treats its elderly and on that basis ours is pretty bad. People having to sell their homes to pay for residential care, couples married for years split up by offialdom and a Government that can pour money into the feckless and workshy in the hope of a few votes, waste billions on quangoes and political agendas yet is happy to abandon the elderly - until a couple of months before an election when it comes up with half baked proposals for the manifesto.

Perhaps it is time to challenge this penny pinching Government's attitude to the elderly under Human Rights Legislation. We hear about all the things we can't do in case some precious perceived right or other is denied so perhaps it is about time the Government were told what rights they have to observe.

The Tories are trying to get Labour to admit it is considering an extra tax on dying but don't kid yourself that Cameron, the Tories own Blair Lite and the rest of his party are going to be any better. Investing in old people doesn't buy votes for the future you see. It's social care with no political benefit.

It is easy to forget MPs work for us, we pay them right down to their duck houses and porn films. We own MPs and with an election coming up there is no better time that to tell candidates what we expect in return for our vote. Stuff their partty policy, the time has come for MPs to actually start to represent us.

We keep being told how the over 60s are increasing in numbers and if that is the case then the grey vote is getting bigger all the time. Time to use it.

Is it just me or is anyone else sick and tired of the nanny state meddling, interfereing and sticking it's nose into everything we do.

It seems the Government now wants to splatter bottles and cans of beer, wine and spirits with health warnings and, with the Treasury piggy bank not only empty but overdrawn to bail out the banks, a stealth tax to rip off the population with a minimum price per unit of alcohol is being floated again.

It does not take a genius - which is just as well as they are as rare as rocking horse droppings in Whitehall - to work out that the overwhelming majority of people who don't end up legless in city centres or honking up in A&E on Saturday night will jabbed by the dead finger of Government telling them what they should and should not do yet again and as usual we will be screwed yet again for extra tax with the lame excuse it is for our own good..

The increase in prices, incidentally, will also produce a nice little flurry of windfall profits for supermarkets who we all know really deserve them.

Now if the Government were to declare me a quango, give me a staff of hundreds and several million pounds to conduct research I am pretty sure I could come up with the findings that the average lager head only ever looks at cans or bottle to see what the strength is and by quite early on in an evening is incapable of reading - if he or she ever was in the first place give the state of our education system - while the majority of the population would see the labels as clutter spoiling the look of a pleasant bottle of wine.

I don't condone excessive drinking but it really is about time the Government started to solve society's problems without making everyone suffer particularly as most of the problems can be laid at the Government's own door.

And as for the labels . . . I am reminded of the time when the late Irish writer Brendan Behan was commission to write an advertising slogan by Guinness.

After working his way through several crates of the black stuff for inspiration (and payment) Behan was asked if he had come up with anything to which he replied; "Guinness makes you drunk." That should be enough information for everyone.

If there is one thing our MPs are good at it is spending our money.

Their maxim seems to be never spend a pound when you can set up a department, a quango or a delivery unit and spend 20. You suspect that a request for Jammy Dodgers for a Cabinet meeting costs about £76 a biscuit by the time they get on the plate (another £38 inclosing VAT and dishwasher fees).

As for themselves? Our MPs seem to feel they have let the electorate down somehow if they are forced to actually spend a penny of their own money on anything. Even Pinball Wizard Tommy - he was the deaf, dumb and blind kid remember - would have spotted there were enough on the fiddle in the Commons to form the world's largest Gypsy Symphony Orchestra - after all the Hungarian one only has 100 violins.

Now we find that the body created with much fanfare (£79,568.35p including Brasso for the trumpets) to oversee MP's expenses, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) has cost us £6,600,000 to set up which is about six times the amount MPs have been asked to repay "if you wouldn't mind awfully old chap, just for appearances, looks good for Johnny public . . ."

It gets sillier though. This body has a staff of 80 and the chairman, Sir Ian Kennedy, is on £700 a day for three days a week. I bet that job didn't go through the local Job Centre.

Now we are told the role has expanded and they also look after the pensions of MPs and ministers - personally I thought ministers were MPs but we will let that pass.

Someone must have been doing that job already one supposes but I suspect that that department has only lost the responsibility and none of the staffing levels.

Let's put this in perspective. There are 646 MPs. Now a firm with that number is at the skinny end of large firms - in global terms it is a corner shop. Now in the real world the number of salesmen in the Commons - which is what they are selling a mixture of lies, BS, snake oil and spin - would not need a staff of 80 to police their expenses. That is one for every eight MPs.

Think of any firm anywhere in the world which employs one person to look after the expenses of every eight employees even if they do keep an eye on their pensions as well? Think how many people deal with expenses and pensions in the firm where you work for example?

A firm on Planet Earth of that size would have Elsie and Doris in accounts and if there was a problem they would ask Mr Grimshaw, who was chosen for his hereditary miserliness and complete inability to distinguish between his own money and company money with every penny paid out causing him pain.

The rules for claiming exes should be simple and the same as people in more worldly jobs. For example a subsistence allowance would only be paid when an MP is away from home, or in an MP's case, homes, which means if you are living in your first or second home or even third or fourth home you can pay for your own food and trips to the supermarket or starve - which would be the preferable option in many cases.

MPs have a remarkably cushy number which is well paid, has a brilliant pension, holidays to die for and benefits the average wage slave could hardly imagine. What is missing is Elsie and Doris and Mr Grimshaw to keep their heads out of the clouds and their expenses within reason.

Instead we get another overblown department, another empire and when the seeds are already being sown for a huge increase in MP's pay to compensate them for loss of expenses - i.e. fiddles - I think we can take it that it might well be taking £6.6 mill of our money but will certainly not be working for us.

I have just heard that a great mate and a great photographer John Reavenall has died. He took early retirement at the same time I did at the end of 2008 and was looking forward to a life of playing with his beloved steam trains.

I worked with John for more than 30 years and in the days when writers and photographers went out together we used to be a regular team. We spent days covering fires in the 1976 drought, hiking through Hopwas Wood and Cannock Chase with teams of firemen, even doing a bit of fire beating.

Obviously the job also obviously involved copious rehydration in a number of country hostelries. I also remember a very pleasant, summer day in the Cotswolds on an oil exploration story which for some reason also involved several Cornettos which we managed to get through expenses as refreshments.

He was always like a friendly, shambling bear but he had the ability to put anyone at ease when he took their photo. He had a brilliant eye for the unusual, dramatic or just plain old stunning photograph and he was a superb hard news snapper when he had to be. One of the best.

He was a lovely bloke and if you knew him feel free to add your memories of Reavers or just add a tribute.

You probably saw that George Clooney had a fundraising concert for Haiti and just in case you didn't already know the album from the benefit concert Hope for Haiti Now is available for download on Itunes.

The album costs £5.99 and at least £5.60 of that going to seven charities providing relief to Haiti, which means you are basically making a donation and getting a free album featuring 20 A-list artists, which is a pretty good deal all for a good cause..

You will find the link on http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/hope-for-haiti-now/id352210151

I was in Birmingham city centre last weekend and spotted yet another Cornish Pasty emporium selling "awarding winning Cornish Pasties".

Now has anyone ever bought or does anyone even know anyone who has ever bought a Cornish Pasty that was not award winning? Does such a thing even exist? The hunt is one for the poor pasty that never won an award.