THE THINGS THEY SAY:

...or maybe said

There was, of course, uncontrollable giggling and laughter at Mrs May's Downing Street arrival declaration of desire for a decent society, of wanting to build a country which was not driven by the interests of the privileged few, but the many; the people just managing to get by and working around the clock just to make ends meet.

Yeah right, we tittered, once we had calmed down. Whatever!

And who could blame us if we thought that we had heard it all before?

Because many of us remembered the words of St Francis of Assisi uttered by the sainted Margaret:  ‘Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope’ … 

Aspiration, no?

And then we recall that, in fact, where there was harmony, she brought discord; where there might have been truth, she brought ..well, error is an understatement (ask the miners and Hillsborough survivors, the steel workers and just about anyone who had a job in industry); where people had believed in stuff, she brought doubt and anxiety, and for anyone who wasn't very comfortably off or didn't have sharp elbows, well, they found that there was no longer any kind of hope.

The comparison with Mrs Thatcher was, of course, pretty obvious, because of their gender, I suppose. Britain's first and second female prime ministers were bound to be scrutinised for similarities. 

But we shouldn't forget that Cameron promised the same sort of crap and then delivered the exact opposite. (Even his Deputy Prime Minister admits this, although exactly why Clegg would boast about the fact that he sat on his hands and agreed to all this inhumanity, is quite belong my understanding. You'd think that devastating the Liberal Democrat representation in Edinburgh, Cardiff, London and Brussels would have been enough humiliation for any man. Still, when you have a book to sell...)

I can't find any reference to what John Major said when he arrived at Downing Street. Probably something about being not inconsiderable pleased to have been to see her majesty and that peas for dinner would be lovely, and would the staff ask Mrs Currie to leave now please. 

Possibly the Press treated it like an Angela Eagle Press conference.)

I couldn't be bothered to Google what what Blair said. It would have been something sickeningly insincere, or religiously fanatical, I have no doubt! 

Or maybe: Comb your bloody hair, Cheri?

YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE

I had intended to write something today about the outcome of the Hillsborough hearing.

That was until I read Mark Frankland's piece on it.

Now you'll know already that I'm a big fan of this guy, not only as a writer (his books are gripping reads, and available on Amazon) but as a food bank manager that goes just that step or two farther and provides for his clients more than just something to eat.

So I look forward to his posts, even if sometimes they make me angry, or sad, or just despairing of the United Kingdom and its foulness, and invariably make me cry.

It turns out that Mark was there that day in Hillsborough. At the match. 

Mark actually witnessed this stuff, and because he's Mark he got involved; wrote to his MP and ended up giving evidence to the court.

I'll not tell you more. 

It's a far better idea to read his own account, which you can do here (if you haven't already). He's a writer. He makes it real.

Suffice to say, I'm ashamed, once again, that we live in the kind of country where cover up by people at the very top is how we deal with incompetence and deceit in the very people we pay to competent and honest.

Any suggestion that leniency should be shown to people who put the football fans through this is, of course, beyond the pale in my opinion. Apparently the Daily Mail suggested that it may not serve the ends of justice for elderly men to be tried and possibly jailed for these crimes.

Nonsense.

We allow policemen and women to have a measure of power over us. We accept a similar, although different, situation for elected officials.  In return we have the right to expect them to behave as if they deserved that privilege.

When they fall short, we need them to be dealt with in the most severe fashion. 

Thatcher has form on covering up horrific crimes.

Of course it doesn't happen. When MPs and Lords stole money from the state in far larger amounts than any benefit scrounger, a few, a very few, hapless misfits that no one liked were thrown to the wolves and imprisoned for short periods; Hanningfield served as little as 9 days for the theft of thousands of pounds, before he was released to continue with his fiddling. 

I wonder how many DWP clients who've fiddled that kind of money could say the same.

At the same time people who stole from us to have their moats cleaned or their duck houses maintained, their wisteria removed or their hanging baskets watered, got off Scot free.

This though, was murder, by some other name. That's more serious than stealing a few million.

Senior police, no matter how old and frail need to be made to pay. Politicians compliant with orders from the top (Thatcher) to hush it up and blame the fans for crimes, including inventing preposterous stories about urinating on, and picking the pockets of, dead bodies, likewise. 

It's no good saying that speaking up would have ended their careers. So what? They were condoning murder, and we were paying them to do it!

Oh yes, just one final thought... what did they tell the Queen... these right honourable???? privy councillors? 

RANDOM THOUGHTS

I was interested to read that the USA has despatched 12 F15 fighter jets to Iceland and The Netherlands in a bid to deter Russian aggression.

I thought we were spending up to £200 billion of hard working families' tax money (see, we can do that too) so that Russia wouldn't be a threat?

If Moscow is so frightened of our nuclear capacity why does the West need to threaten them with American bombers?

I'd have thought that it was high time there was a summit meeting between the Russian and American presidents, although there will be those who would argue that in his last year, Mr Obama has little authority. In nine months the reigns will be in someone else's hands. Heaven help us if it is Trump's. 

Or maybe this is what it's all about? A genuine cross party fear of a Trump presidency?
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Interesting comment today in the Mail (yes, who'd have thought it) by Peter Hitchens. 

To his great credit it seems he's having second thoughts, and very desperate ones too, about the mad Thatcherite (and Blairite, Brownite, Cameronite) passion for privatisation.

He reflects on how it has ruined his country. As always with these refection type articles, there is an element of "la vie en rose" (I mean seriously, no one looks back lovingly at British Leyland, do they), but there is a considerable amount of good common sense in what he's saying.

Nothing is about service; everything is about making money, and yet we are putting at risk our health service, or at least the English are, and in doing so putting at risk the service that we all rely on to a great extent at some points in our lives.

Contracts in social security awarded to private companies are measured by results that can be quantified, not by results in compassion or satisfaction. 

It's become a very different union from that which existed before the Thatcher revolution. And on balance it's not really a better one.
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Interesting tweet I came across this morning! I reckon that 6000 jobs in an exaggeration (UK government's figure was far smaller), and that 15,000 is underplaying the job losses. 

 

Russ‏@DickGraceless

The argument for #trident is that is costs £120bn and saves 6000 jobs The argument against #steel is it costs £1.5bn and saves 15,000 jobs

Of course there are more arguments than jobs in both cases, but SLAB's best argument for Trident is not that it makes Scotland safe, but that it supports (I think Baillie said) 11,000 jobs.

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While we are talking about steel, I see the old argument rehearsed so frequently by Ms Lamont has shown its face again. The Forth Crossing is being built with Spanish and Chinese steel. This is becasue the bulk of the order for steel is for a type of steel that is no longer made in this country since the Tories shut Ravenscraig. The diminution of steel making in this country has been going on for a long time. No British company tendered for the work, because they couldn't provide the standard of materials required. Of course the Scottish government could have done a Thomas Bouche and made the bridge out of unsuitable materials... after all, that ended well!

Oh yes, and there there's this... 

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"Oooooops, them pesky kids stitched me up!!"
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I thought this was an interesting Facebook comment...

Nicholas Roach commented on an article.

Yesterday at 11:52 · 

Let's be clear; the "special relationship" that's so often trumpeted (every pun intended) as vitally important is only "special" when it suits the US to consider it so.

Every major European country thinks they have some sort of "special relationship" with the US, and changes of presidency effects them very marginally - unless and until, of course, the US elect a serial chancer and known dingbat to the Oval Office.

The Trumpet is such a chancer and well-known serial dingbat.

Trump is not likely to forgive nor forget that his "plans" to lay waste whole swathes of the Scottish coast were thwarted, his mindless opposition to a few offshore wind turbines was defeated and the little matter of a several hundreds of thousands of people who signed a petition to ban him from the UK may colour his opinion.

All the above and more are likely to sway his decision (should the US electorate be stupid enough to vote for him as POTUS, that is) to treat us to another round of that, oh so one-sided, US-interpretation of the "special relationship".

  

We only have a special relationship with the States if there's something for them to gain; you know, such as:

1 the UK cravenly following them into a series of unwinnable and largely illegal wars, 

2. the UK being their tame and caged attack donkey and main disrupter-agent within the EU,

3. being required to sponsor Turkey's application to join the EU,

4. making sure that TTIP has absolutely free rein to pillage and prosper from our public services, or what's left of them, unlike some of our more enlightened and less impressionable neighbouring countries, and,

5. the reciprocal deportation system which only works in one direction - deportations to the US to face justice happen often, the other way around, they never happen at all.

Whoever becomes the next POTUS will, as always in recent decades, call all the shots, hold all the cards and have a pair of loaded dice in case the other two don't achieve exactly what they want, when they want it and how they want it, and who will be the fall-guy in case things go wrong - and they so often go wrong, don't they?

If Trump is elected, the question everyone asked in the 1950/60s changes:

It used to be:

Shall I dig a nuclear fall-out shelter?

now becomes:

How deep shall I dig my nuclear fall-out shelter?

Just imagine the near future: Trump in the US, Cameron/Farage in the UK, Marin le Pen in France and a plethora of lesser fascists erupting around Europe - not a happy thought, I think you'll agree?

Discuss...

RANDOM THOUGHTS

Not much news to comment on, but there are always Tories to talk about.

Cecil Parkinson

Parkinson, the sophisticate with a very red face and very yellow teeth.

I've been amazed to read the tributes paid to Cecil Parkinson by his friends and colleagues in the Conservative party. Screeds have been written (and spoken) about his suave, sophisticated charm, and how great a man he was; how close to Mrs Thatcher.

Now I know that it is customary on someone's death to say nice things about them, but that was surely only one side of him.

I wonder what kind of man could have an affair of many years with his assistant then when she becomes pregnant, ask her to abort the baby for his career's sake. 

When she refuses, what kind of man then refuses to acknowledge his child and indeed uses his connections to get the most fearsome, and unprecedented legal restrictions placed around her so that, until she is 18, no one must know who or what she is. (The child was forbidden to be captured in school photographs or to participate in any activity like sports or school plays.)

He has the Tory air of looking down at people.

Not only that but she was sick with a brain tumour when she was just a child.

And still he didn't acknowledge her.

Ask yourself, what kind of man could have a very sick kid and not go to her; hold her hand; tell her things will be alright.

For all the sophisticated charm in the world that he was reputed to have (and I know it is customary not to speak ill of the dead), I only see an unspeakable monster determined to do whatever it took to ensure that his career was as little harmed as possible and that he went on to be yet another gubby peer of the realm.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

Oh how modest... not a word about your porn?

Just the kind of thing your average politician doesn't want to see.

Dunno whether that's down to the low murder rate,
or the propensity  of the DWP to get it wrong.

In our United Kingdom we seem to celebrate mainly English history.

This is true. 

It's when you have to honour the pigs that it gets really tiresome.

Well, you have to prove to the DWP that you are trying.

Yes, but these things don't make Dave look big
on the international stage.

So, getting it in perspective, it isn't exactly an empire, is it?

If only you were still PM, Mags, we'd be independent.
Or maybe not...

The reality is of course less spectacular.
There are a variety of reasons that operations don't go ahead.
Not least that people pull out at the last minute.
Fail to show for elective surgery.

This is an example of Labour running the health service in Wales.

But we all know that no matter how well they do,
 the press will always conclude that the SNP are bad.

THE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TORIES

Oh look, Scotland almost makes an appearance.
Just that little bit run by Theme Park Fluffy
 for the Huntin', Fishin', Shootin' brigade.

Sale of the Century
Actually it's more like the White Elephant Stall at the Church Jumble.
Any old garbage not yet sold going cheap to rich folks.

How VERY unfortunate Govey. Trust you to be seen with a pig!
Still, if it had to be someone, I guess you were made for it.

Oh dear... Tell me it's not true.

Anyone know where I can get Coke around here?
任何人都知道在哪兒能買到可樂在這裡？

Have you ever seen so much money wasted on such bad taste?
I mean if I were as rich as the Queen, I think I'd have a better class of oily spiv to tea.

Maybe Mags. Conservatives never seem to run out of other people's money though.

Bang on there, Charlie!

I think we will be laughing at Pigate for as long as we laughed at Major and his underpants, or indeed his nights in with a good Currie. But is it true. Did Cameron take £8,000,000 for a seat in the Lords and a job in the cabinet knowing all about  Mr Ashcroft's tax situation?

Thanks Dave, you lying git.

Honorary Tory, admired by Thatcher and Cameron alike.

Maybe George should try another recreational substance, cause things certainly aren't going better with Coke.