A couple of days ago I did a post on the part of Ed Miliband's speech about how the Olympics had changed us; the Olympics had made us work together as ONE NATION, just as the war had, etc... You can read it here. He made much of what he called (rather nauseatingly) the "Games Makers"; the volunteers who had made the games the success they were (along with the athletes, troops and all our money, of course).
There was a comment from Anonymous, which had ended up in the spam bin, and which I therefore didn't see until I was doing my now weekly clear out of spam. I thought it was a pity that the blog had moved on since that post and unfortunately no one would be likely to read the comment.
Now, I know that the comment was posted as Anonymous, and that it could just be spam, but there are a couple of people who post here regularly as Anonymous, and I'm assuming it came from one of them. (Please confirm if you are reading this Anon!)
Anyway, I've copied it and reproduced it here for you, because it's a bit of a lulu!
I wonder if Mr Miliband is aware aware of this:
"Anonymous said...
I was standing outside London Bridge station having a ciggie whilst waiting for my train, and got chatting to one of the Olympics 'volunteers'. She was a National Rail employee and was on paid leave for the duration of the games."
Assuming that this is a genuine comment, it seems very unlikely to me that this woman was the only person in that position. So, it appears that some, who knows maybe all, of the volunteers were, in fact, people employed by the government, being paid full wages to be volunteers.
It gives the word "volunteers" a whole new meaning.
I'd be interested in any comments from the Department of Transport in London....Mrs Greening (now at International Development)...anything to add?
There was the story of the 'volunteers' bussed in from outside London who were living in tents and were actually sent by their job centres. It was claimed they had been threatened with removal of benefits if they turned the 'job' down.
ReplyDeleteBut a few days later some of the folk said that they were happy to get the chance to add to their CV and do such a worthwhile job. And they said they were angry about the reports.
So it's all heresy unless you talk to the people yourself. The media just say what they're told to say by the govt so your 'anonymous' is as credible as any msm report.
Yes, Monty, or indeed any blog.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting. It had never occurred to me that a government department (or part of a government department) might be paying people to appear to be volunteering.
It may or may not be true, but now I think about it, it fits into the 'this must be a success at all costs narrative'.
tris
ReplyDeleteyou been at the NumptynetScotland again your conspirati levels are overhigh its infected your brain.
Sainsbury as a supporter of the olympics had thousands of volunteers
on full pay whats the problem wid that...
didnt fat boy send paid employees to attend an olympic rally to give out saltires to children all out the Public purse.
let alone all the other money the snp have stolen from the people on there attempt at destroying the uk.
see the greens have decided to join the yes malcontents.....
shame about there NATO stance(do you agree with them or follow snp orders) bit contradictory to the illusion of the (small but vocal)merry band of Scots for Independence.
ps
your obsession with the Olympics is getting to be a tad worrisome
Oh Niko, how nice of you to worry about me. I'm truly touched... or maybe that's what you were trying to say. Hmmmm.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't say that I was obsessed by the Olympics though. I'm interested in how they were used as a money making machine for the sponsors and a propaganda exercise for the British government at vast cost to you and me and everyone else in the country.
Now maybe it's old fashioned of me, but I thought that the kind of volunteers that we were talking about, when Ed was saying: 'THAT'S the kind of people One nation Britons are', were the kind that said "my country needs me; I shall therefore give up my free time to work for a great project of my government to show to the world that there is no-one, no race, in this entire world, like the English, erm I mean British" (because really most volunteers wouldn't travel daily from Scotland and all but the very richest wouldn't be able to afford a month's accommodation in London in the summer).
As opposed to: "I have this horrible little job in Sainsbury's, where I sit there on a till for 4 hours at a time putting stuff over a little glass thing and it going "beep", and me smiling at half wits who can't find their purse, and then fiddle around for 2ps... and I have the chance of a few weeks, on full pay, in the sun, watching sport, AND being hailed as a hero by Ed the Re... Ed the Blue..."
Now, as for your story about Eck. It was certainly reported in the press that there was an occasion where someone handed out saltires to Scottish children. Who suggested it, who paid and who did the work, I quite honestly do not know.
If you do, and it was the FM and we paid for Scottish civil servants to do it, then I think it was wrong, and I have no trouble saying that. I suspect that it wasn't him, that the SNP handed out the flags (I know there are stocks of them), and that it was SNP staff and volunteers who did the handing out.
As for the Nato situation, I really don't know what the SNP line is, except that it is to be discussed at their conference. But I never take the party line as a matter of course.
I'm perfectly happy to be, or not to be, in Nato, but with one proviso. No WMDs in Scotland.
If Nato says we have to have WMDs, then I say, no Nato.
I suspect that that is the SNP's current line, but it is up to the conference to decide.
If conference decides to accept WMDs on Scottish soil then I will support the SNP until we get independence, and then leave and join a party that wants rid of the nuclear killers.
:)
My last couple of posts have been under Anon as posting any other way was not accepted Probably my fault being a bit of a numpty
ReplyDeleteI did not send the post regarding payments to volunteers though
tris
ReplyDeleteIf conference decides to accept WMDs on Scottish soil then I will support the SNP until we get independence, and then leave and join a party that wants rid of the nuclear killers.
How very immoral of you but so very snp they would/are? proud of you.
why you would condemn people to a nuclear death in pursuit of a political chimera.
more nu-labour than nu-Labour perhaps nu-snp or even Thatcherite in its duplicity.
I am now more than ever convinced we will win
"Lose your temper and you lose a friend; lie and you lose yourself."
lie and you lose yourself.
ReplyDeleteYou should know Niko.
Hi Anon... Don't worry. I only mention it because sometimes posts from "Anon" find themselves in the bin.
ReplyDeleteI think that there is, at the bottom of the comment box, a list of alternatives for posting.
You can just choose "Name/URL" and type in any name you wish to use.
But in any case, thank you for continuing to contribute here. It is appreciated. :)
Hmmm. I don't see what is immoral about it.
ReplyDeleteWhoever wins the election after independence could change the Nato situation.
If Labour won, then England would tell them to remain in Nato and retain England's nuclear weapons on our soil. In the extremely unlikely event of the Tories winning the result would be the same. I doubt it is worth considering the Green or Liberal parties, as they aren't really significant forces liable to be forming governments.
If we remain in the UK, we shall have no say in the matter in any case.
If the SNP win the election then I dare say that they will carry out the will of their conference.
I won't offer long term support to a party that supports WMDs.
However, if the SNP agrees to have WMDs on Scottish soil, I will support them until the referendum, because they are our best hope of freedom.
After we achieve that I'll look for a party that believes in Scotland, but not in WMDs.
That said I'm sure that conference will only agree to being in Nato if the WMDs are removed from our soil.
Explicit ban on nuclear weapons in Scotland
ReplyDeleteI admire the spirit his One Nation speech was made.
ReplyDeleteMy problem with the (very charismatic) speech was that ... well ... the substance didn't match up.
Now I'm a member of Progress (that Blairite faction inside the party), and I'd frankly relish a genuine One Nation Labour. Remembering One Nation PMs like MacMillan, Butler ... Ken Clarke ... they all pushed for trade, competition, as well as cooperative spirit. I don't see this as compatible when Ed Mili makes noises about lowering the income tax threshold (which I want to see lowered to 40p in pound; Laffer and his curve was right)
(oops, Ken wasn't PM. But by gum he ought to have been)
ReplyDeletetris
ReplyDeleteI see fat boy is saying join NATO obviously requiring you follow their rules.
But also claiming(obviously shiteing bricks) he like Moses of more Cromwell will write a new Scottish constitution all of his own no constitutional convention of all the Scottish peoples nice of him.
saying you dont have to have wmds in contradiction to NATO/
must ask why bother with NATO which most snp but not the Unionists would agree with.
And you note fat boy says he not the snp and most certainly not the New Independent Scottish parliament.
The blokes a fecking nut has the pressure of losing got to him who knows (in the unlikely event) An Independent Scotland may decide many different things not in line with Herr Salmonds wishes.
At the end any nation has international obligations on a variety of matters.
what if the Salmonds ten commandments are at variance with EU law we all know as fat boy should EU law is primary even over UK law now.
still he just makes it up as he goes along and just makes himself look a bigger cnut ever single day.
like he has on keeping the English pound or having a say on UK monetary policy what a bloody knob head.
Deano
ReplyDeleteyer get more like a Russian doll every day you peel one layer of a political party and reveal a different one its hard to keep up.
trust thats a thing how do you trust
a chameleon
these nu-snp lot = nu-labour
That kinda seals it CH.
ReplyDeleteI'd be happy enough with being in Nato, and as long as they are content that we should be like most countries in the organisation, and have no nuclear weapons, then that's fine.
Hello Dean. Funnily, when he said 'one nation' (a few dozen times), the first thing I thought of was you.
ReplyDeleteBut you're right. Miliband said it because it sounded good. not because he actually really meant it in any kind of meaning it way.
Labour oversaw a rise in the divide between the rich and the poor in their last series of governments under Blair and Brown, and now Cameron is doing the same thing.
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
And I see today that Cameron has ruled out the rich making any more contribution to paying back what the rich took from us, and that there will have to be a further £10 billion cut in benefits.
I don't know where it's going to come from but he's said that universal benefits will not be affected.
So it seems that despite there being more and more unemployment (never mind what the figures say; they are rubbish), wages are being pushed down, rents rising, the poor are just going to have to lump it.
Not very one nation... and what will Miliband do about it?
Not a lot.
But hey, it's nice to see you again.
tris
ReplyDeleteHappy to be in NATO keep the pound have our queen monetary policy decided by the bank of England.
social union ????err!?????
That kinda seals it no need to bother wid Independence.
tris
'have no nuclear weapons'
although support an organisation which has and is committed to use nuclear weapons on other nations.
you are such a fecking hypocrite you really are so.
tell us hypo as NATO gear up to fight they will first use the armed non nuclear forces. Now presumably your mendacity will go along thus far.What happens if NATO were to go nuclear the snp would then say cant do it we are non nuclear...
NATO says thats all right wankers drops bomb incinerates the population........the snp and you say well thats fine and dandy and we now will send in conventional forces to kill any survivors.
oh! well another snp worthless pledge/promise/
tris
ReplyDeleteThe rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
and under snp misrule the pacifists become mass murderers
Hmmm. I think the idea is that we should write a draft constitution so that the people know what they are voting for.
ReplyDeleteThe constitution will have to be ratified by a government elected in 2016, which is the next election for the Edinburgh parliament with or without independence.
I can’t see how anyone could say that wasn’t doubly democratic.
'under snp misrule the pacifists become mass murderers'
ReplyDeleteCan you explain that Niko?
Yeah, I got lost with that last quip too Tris ...
ReplyDeletep.s. Niko, it may surprise you to learn but, One Nation liberal conservative type isn't very different from Blairism or New Labour at all.
So I've not really changed values, just party. I'm as consistent to my political worldview as ever, as a member of PROGRESS I'm probably even more so.
Exactly Dean.
ReplyDeleteThere is no doubt that even under "Red" Ed the Labour Party is moving towards the right.
If your political instinct is that 'right is right'... if you know what I mean, that is fine.
If however, like me, you think that left is right (ok, I know it sounds daft, but I also know you understand), then you are inclined to believe that they have left their political principles on the cutting room floor as they head off on a crusade to win the votes of the middle classes of SE England, secure in the knowledge that Scots will always see them as the party of the working man, and not stop to figure out that that WAS true, once upon a time.
If you want to know how right wing the Labour party are listen to the last 13mins Max Keiser
ReplyDeletetris
ReplyDeleteFat boy is/was a pacifist the snp was/is a pacifist party and now wish to sign up to an organisation.
Who are based on the premise the use of wmds are justified and will be used if needed.
Its a bit amoral to say we are with you up to he nuclear bit. If you are against nuclear weapons how can you support NATO and not accept helping potential mass muddlers means you are just as culpable.
And so those people who like Salmond are pacifists and members of the snp .
Must be considered just as responsible as those in NATO who would use wmds.
That's not a bad argument, Niko.
ReplyDeleteBut the truth is of course that Nato won't use these weapons.
These weapons like the last ones will be left to get old and obsolete, then decommissioned and a new lot purchased at another £70 billion. And why? Because it doesn't matter that we have no knickers, we have to have a fur coat. These weapons aren't about use, they are about morons like Cameron bigging himself up. I was born to rule the world at Mr Obama's right hand of course.
Of course added to that I don't want them on Scottish soil because they are far too close to a major centre of population.
We don't have to use them for them to go off.
All we have to do is have someone fly a plane into them, the same way as someone flew a plane into the most secure building in the West...the Pentagon and it's bye bye Weegieland..