RANDOM THOUGHTS

So, to add to the list of broken promises from Better Together, we now find that the fleet of global combat frigates promised by Cameron to the Clyde shipbuilders is to be put on hold, because of a mixture of technical and financial problems, putting the jobs to thousands of the Clyde's shipbuilders at risk.

No one seem to know when they will be built, if at all. The number promised by Cameron was 13. This was already reduced to eight. No the immediate plan is for none to be built. 

Fortunately for Scotland the 50,000 jobs (sorry, my mistake; it's only 500) involved in maintaining nuclear subs on the Clyde was secured by the right wing parties in England yesterday, so at least Tory (sorry, keep getting mixed up here) erm, socialist, Jackie Baillie can sleep in peace tonight. (Echos of manic laughter echo around Munguin Towers.)
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 American politics is every bit as crazy as UK politics at the moment, and clearly their politicians like to treat the public with as much contempt as the British ones. But seriously, just how half witted would you have to be to believe this crap?

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Of course the Labour Party in the UK is in the most horrific mess too, and is treating, not just members of the public, but their own supporters and members too,  as if they were morons.

Their desperate attempts to keep Corbyn, a man chosen as leader by 59.5% of the electors, off the ballot paper in a challenge to his leadership would have been astounding in any party, but for heaven's sake, in the party set up to support the ordinary person against the British Establishment, it was breath taking.

When they were forced to allow him to defend his place, they tried to put all kinds of barriers in the way of potential support. They ramped up the minimum membership to £25 and allowed a small window of time for joining. That's a hell of a lot for someone on minimum wage (remember Labour, that's the people you're supposed to be there for), or the unwaged. Then they had a website, set up to raise money to help less well off people to pay this exorbitant fee, shut down. No charity in the Labour movement. Despite this, and hell mend them, 183,541 people joined.

They also shut down Labour Party branch meetings, presumably in order to try to stop angry members deselect their right wing and hard right wing MPs. Stalin and Pinochet both would have been proud of them.

Frankly I'm beginning to wonder if there will be a single British Labour Party by the end of the year. They surely have to split and let the Blairites follow their dreams or being American puppets, while allowing Corbynites to work for ordinary people, just as the Labour Party was intended to do.

(The illustration above was taken from Twitter.)
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Finally, I loved this!

SO BRITAIN IS DOING WELL ON HUMAN RIGHTS

Disabled activists have hailed as a major victory a decision by Scottish GPs to call on the government to abandon its controversial “fitness for work” tests.

Doctors at the British Medical Association’s (BMA) annual Scottish conference of GPs voted for a motion that called for the “inadequate, computer-based assessments” to be abandoned in favour of a “rigorous and safe” system that does not cause “avoidable harm” to disabled people and those with long-term health conditions.

The motion said the work capability assessment (WCA), the test introduced by the Labour government in 2008 to assess people’s eligibility for out-of-work disability benefits, has “little regard to the nature or complexity” of disabled people’s needs. (This is because all it aims to do is to save the British government forking out money to keep sick people alive. It has better things planned for that money. The toilets in the House of Lords need upgrading. Aristocratic bottoms need to park themselves on suitable upholstered pots!)

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Key Labour figures have squashed hopes that the party might call for the controversial “fitness for work” test to be scrapped, despite GPs demanding that it “end with immediate effect”.

GPs at a British Medical Association (BMA) conference voted unanimously last week for the work capability assessment (WCA) to be replaced with a “rigorous and safe system that does not cause avoidable harm” to their patients.

But senior Labour politicians have this week made it clear that they do not agree with the GPs. (Clearly, of course MPs know far better than GPs how medical assessments should be made.)

The assessment – which tests eligibility for out-of-work disability benefits – was introduced by the Labour government in 2008, and is now a centrepiece of the coalition’s welfare reforms.

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A disabled man has described how he was forced to scavenge for food from supermarket bins, as a result of the government’s welfare reforms.

Clive Baulch was one of about 20 disabled people who presented personal evidence about the impact of the government’s austerity programme on their human rights, during a testimony session in London.

A recording of the session – organised by Inclusion London and Disabled People Against Cuts – will be sent to Shuaib Chalklen, the UN’s special rapporteur on disability, whose job is to monitor progress around the world towards equal opportunities.

He had been due to visit England to attend the meeting and the launch of a human rights report but had to postpone the trip at short notice.

Baulch told the meeting how he was made redundant in April 2012, three years after he became disabled through a massive stroke. (You may remember how the Work and Pensions Secretary once took the best part of the year off work, on full pay, because his wife was ill.)

In November 2012 he had his benefits stopped because he was told he hadn’t been “looking for work diligently”, even though he had applied for 600 jobs.

Within days he had run out of money. “I was in pretty dire straits. I tried begging. I also tried three in the morning round the back of the supermarkets looking in skips. I spent a lot of my days ‘striving’.”

He told Disability News Service later that he had taken food from supermarket skips on about five occasions. (This is the same government that hailed its successes in the paralympics in London, and claimed that they were the best games ever. Irony or what?)

(Also taken from Disability News Service.)

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Talking about human rights, I see Cameron has said that he has talked to the Chinese about human rights on this visit. 

As he has and every Brit has for  as long as they have been going there. I wonder what good they think it has done. China's record on human rights remains relatively dismal.

And in the meantime the British government is evicting elderly and disabled people from houses because they cannot afford to pay the bedroom tax and there are no smaller properties available to them to go to.

According the the People's Daily, the state controlled Chinese newspaper, not a lot.

The Independent and Telegraph both report that an editorial, surely approved at the highest level, says that Britain is no longer a power, but a small European state and that it was only good as a destination for education and holidays.

Well, it's good to know that it is useful for something.

Cameron effected  indifference, but inside he must surely be seething. 

They don't treat the First Minister with that kind of disrespect.