Am working on a project which covers the many hours of interviews I’ve recorded over the last few years, so posting here will be light for a bit. Might post parts of the recording transcripts where relevant.
Feel free to keep leaving comments. Also am still available via the contact form on the About page of this site if you want to get in touch etc.
Back soon.
I was on my way to Parliament when I met them in the hall,
Three Labour MPs looking glum and standing against a wall,
‘’Corbyn can’t win ! ’’ one exclaimed, and others nodded sadly,
‘’He just looks tired and worn, and he always puts things badly’’
‘’What can be done ?’’ said the second MP, ‘’After all we voted for him’’
At this he looked at the third MP, a member of Momentum,
‘’Don’t put the blame on us’’ said he, ‘’We gathered up the voters,
we pushed and shoved the Blairites out, and all the other no-hopers.’’
‘’But look what you’ve done’’ said the second MP,
‘’You’ve split the Labour Party !’’
‘’So what ?’’ said the third MP, ‘’So what if we lose the election ?
At least this way Momentum can say we kept the Red Flag flying !!’’
The more you slag off Labour the more you help our enemy the vile Tory scum, so put a sock in it for all our sakes and be supportive of Corbyn, or perhaps what you really want is for the Tories to be in power forever?
I think the poets are closet Tories. They do a better job at poetry than politics.
Ignore the harpies from Momentum Tony. Yours is the path of reality. #StayInLabour
Georgia, don’t you think you should show some concern about the articles Trev has posted about government interference in the work of GPs? If nobody else is concerned except me, that’s not a good look for the anti-Momentum crowd.
Notice how the trolls are posting under female pseudonyms now? LOL It’s just a small group of pathetic men trying to give the impression of a large ‘movement’. Sad really.
Spot on, Trev!
Tony you are a true poet. And I have to say it’s much appreciated here in Tunbridge Wells.
We need a return to genuine British Values in this country.
British values William, what do you mean by that? Deporting foreigners and hanging shoplifters, Workhouses for the poor, kids up chimneys, send the convicts to break rocks in Australia? Or do you mean the restoration of a functioning Social Security system and decent wages?
Trev, your last sentence should definitely be included in the government’s definition of “British values”.
Yaaaaaaaaar let go plunder the world for the resources then feel smug when we give back some spare change to the victims in the form of so called humanitarian aid.
Let us keep building that wall that prevents human beings in trouble from help and safety.
Let us all stand for our royal arm dealers and proudly sing the how great we are.
The only value we need to concentrate on is the human one !
Another article and further thoughts/comments on the replacement of Universal Jobmatch with Adzuna’s ‘Find A Job’ :
https://intensiveactivity.wordpress.com/2018/04/28/find-a-job-service-to-replace-universal-job-match-for-claimants/
This is what the neoliberal agenda leads to. It’s no longer Doctors who decide if a person is ill or not, it is the DWP, and the cure-all for any ailment is of course work. Work is now being seen as an health outcome. This is “Arbeit Macht Frei” all over again. Some of you may have thought this could never happen here in Britain but you need to wake up because it is happening right here, right now.
https://dpac.uk.net/2018/04/letter-to-the-royal-college-of-gps-and-bma-about-dwp-interference-in-gp-practice/
https://www.thecanary.co/discovery/analysis-discovery/2018/04/27/the-dwp-has-been-caught-trying-to-coerce-gps-into-saying-their-patients-are-fit-for-work/
This is the sort of thing that would have taken place in Germany during the 1930s. It is a very worrying development in a free society.
The role of the GP is to support the interests of the patient, regardless of the national government regime in place. Doctors serve all over the world. Imagine if President Assad banned doctors from diagnosing the effects of chemical weapons in those arriving at a hospital! Governments have no power to do that.
If one professional reaches a different conclusion from another, it is not possible to coerce one professional to change his/her decision. That never happens in medicine.
The fact that government is trying this one goes to show how disturbed the government’s perspective on health has become. Instead of taking heed of the thousands of suicides taking place each year among people affected by the current benefits regime, the government is now trying to drive GPs away from their professional duties and into the role of mere puppets for the regime.
I had all this out with my previous doctor 3&.half yrs ago, & he wouldnt have it. He became furious at the suggestion that Doctors are being leaned on or are in league with the DWP. But he still refused to put me on the sick despite giving me a diagnosis & having me on meds for 2 yrs, as well as subjecting me to very harrowing psychotherapy that resulted in memory loss & panic attacks.
I had some bad experiences with GPs at my surgery in 2012-14. One told me, “You need to take responsibility for your own life.” Attitudes have been improving since then. I think it is becoming more obvious that the DWP is at fault, not us.
Still, I wouldn’t say it to his/her face. That’s bound to make him/her angry!
I did ask one of my GPs what she thought of ATOS and she said she thought it was “very sad” that some of her patients are obviously unfit to work but have to go through appeals and the DWP won’t listen to her at all. That was more recently, though.
I agree with what you are saying BUT surely the only person who should make the ultimate decision is oneself.
I do not trust so called professionals at all, most of the time they turn out to be a contradiction in terms.
Paul,
Yes you can know or decide oneself whether you are fit to work or not, but that has to be validated by a sick note off your GP if you want to make a claim for ESA, but then the DWP WCA will overturn the Doctor’s opinion and declare you fit for work! It’s all very wrong.
In the second document Trev posted, the DWP issued this clarification:
“Regarding DPAC’s claims, the DWP told The Canary:
The ESA65B form was developed in conjunction with the British Medical Association and Royal College of General Practitioners. The word “encourage” is used in the context of someone being found fit for work, to prompt a conversation with the patient. Should a GP disagree with a WCA outcome, they too can provide medical evidence as part of any appeal. There is no requirement for someone to work during an appeal if they are claiming employment and support allowance (ESA).”
Specifically:
“Should a GP disagree with a WCA outcome, they too can provide medical evidence as part of any appeal. ”
Now presumably the GP disagrees with the “WCA outcome” as long as the GP issues a sick note after a fit-for-work decision. Therefore, it appears the DWP has crawled back and done a bit of a U-turn, after discovering the furore caused by such a nonsense edict, probably written by a pen-pusher with no medical understanding whatsoever (and a severe shortage of common sense as well).
All this is likely to achieve is fewer doctors voting Tory, which can only be a good thing for our country. After all, even if a GP were to agree with the thinking behind this edict from the DWP, there would be considerable resentment about being told what to do by the government.
It also results in people avoiding the Doctors & having no faith in them. That’s how I feel. I’ll never trust a doctor again after my previous experiences.
I have not seen a Doctor for over 40 years and just self medicate, heal or worst case at least I went naturally and not by some hospital bug, side affects or meddling.
I have chronic ergophobia and recently tried to start a campaign to have it officially recognised but my fellow suffers felt it would be to much hard work.
I think I’ve got ergophobia too. I might even be suffering from PTSD from my former work experiences. Only last night I suddenly leapt out of bed after an hour’s sleep, feeling very wound up & angrily re-living a minor incident from where I was working in 1979. 40 yrs is a long time not to go to a doctor though. I still go when I have to for physical ailments but don’t trust them with mental health, & have given up on getting a sick note. Just resigned myself to spending rest of my life on JSA ’til I can Retire, which can’t come soon enough.
A solution would be to fix MPs salaries in line with national minimum wage.
Allowed no outside financial incomes conflicting or not.
Savings capped at 5k
Bonus would include free Social housing and bus pass.
And subject to financial penalties should they not keep to the commitments they pledged when securing a seat.
Net affect would be,
Minimum wage would increase
More honest altruistic politicians
A parliament run by people who really do represent the majority.
Why should the MPs get social housing when I don’t?
I think capping them to live in a skip would be a step to far even though most people would say that was where they belonged.
Everybody else on minimum wage is expected to rent privately.
I am aware of the housing crisis and lack of decent homes but not sure why your are saying working precludes folk from applying for social housing.
Housing associations even set aside a percentage of the stock for only those who are working.
Paul, they changed the rules in 2009. You can no longer apply for council/social housing unless you have nowhere to live or are severely overcrowded. If you live in private rental, you cannot apply, even if you can’t afford your rent. I know because I’ve tried.
I too speak from personal experience having secured many social tenancies for myself and others over the years.
If you look on your councils home search / finder page or whatever they call it in your area they should have a “open to all” section as mine does.
Low income does not exclude you obviously it is all down to priorities in all cases how long it takes to get housed and as long as you have a roof your never going to be considered.
The average length of time it has taken to be offered a place in my experience is roughly 6-8 weeks and that is being classed as legally homeless but not a priority.
In my area, you can apply for housing association stuff, but it’s all shared ownership and above most people’s income. I was on that system for a long time, but I only earned enough for one property on the other side of London. I ticked the box for social rent, but round here they only fill social rent from the council lists.
There is no doubt though I am sure we both agree housing is major issue that needs addressing fast.
If this country had a little imagination there are many radical ideas out there that could achieve all that and more.
There a huge amount people living in tents travelling to and from out of town warehouses that those without transport could not normally reach.
Homeless workers could you imagine such a thing could ever be reality ?
That homelessness is now becoming a popular sensible lifestyle choice for some.
And who introduced the WCA ? A Labour government.
We know, “Susan”. The Tories keep saying so. Looks like you’ve blown your cover now. Don’t try to claim you’re Labour.
Correction: by a *New Labour* government, not the sort of Socialist government that Jeremy Corbyn offers. Hope that clears up any misunderstanding “Susan”.
Still a Labour government, Trev/Alison or is it Alison/Trev ?
“Hermione”, my name is Trevor, not Alison. As I have pointed out many times before, New Labour was created when Blair & Mandelson staged a neoliberal Silent Coup and not only infiltrated the Labour Party but took it over. They duped the nation and got away with it up until the Iraq War when their cover was blown by eagerness to side with the American neocons. New Labour was not Socialist and was not the real Labour Party. Jeremy Corbyn & John McDonnel are in the process of restoring the Labour Party to its former glory.
Like losing one election after another ?
There’s no point in winning elections if in the process you’ve had to abandon your principles to do so. It’s like throwing out the baby with the bathwater. You may as well have not stood for election in the first place. Personally, I never voted for New Labour, I voted Green all through those years because I wasn’t fooled by Blair and I saw the Green Party as being more Socialist than New Labour. I have only returned to supporting Labour because of Corbyn.
I’m Alison. I’ve been posting under the same name for ever.
Trev is a different person. He has been posting a lot, too. I’ve never met him.
Again we see the evil work of The Red Circle.
Tell me, what is it about being a Troll that you find so enjoyable? Is it the sense of power & fulfillment that you are otherwise lacking? Does it boost your ego, or perhaps provide you with a feeling of excitement in a perverse sort of way?
Some people have miserable lives. So they try to spread their misery around a bit.
I’m not a member of any red circle, if such a thing exists. Stop smearing me with baseless allegations.
Paul, you have my entire sympathies. Ergophobia is a serious condition, and one which the DWP have done their best to dismiss. Failing to realise that the reason so many of the unemployed are not working, is in fact that they are suffering from Ergophobia.
Many people have been sanctioned for missing a Jobcentre appointment, when the true cause is in fact an unexpected bout of ergophobia. As always the DWP pretend not to know the real cause of these situations. A serious condition which can be triggered by a difficult advertisement for a vacancy, or even the mere sight of someone working in a poundshop.
Unfortunately, Paul’s joke has only strengthened existing anti-welfare views.
Not really I think it is a valid argument and should not be dismissed purely as a joke.
What would you do with people who for whatever reason are unwilling to work ?
Do you think those that through design who choose not to work for profit or to grease the wheels of the state should be punished, live in the gutter and starve?
How deep do your sympathies go, at what point do you draw the line ?
Lets also be clear here that I and those like me are sacrificing the wonders of materialism and opportunities of life afforded to those who choose to work.
I am sure we all would agree “work should always pay”.
I support anyone for any reason they choose not to work and I do not need a government stamp of approval to judge them worthy or not.
I agree that we should support a basic safety net, even if those caught within it don’t want to work. I am concerned that current conditionality is a) expensive b) catching out those who do try c) supporting bad employers who should find it harder to recruit.
Totally agree with points a,b and c.
Removing conditionality would save tens of billions of pounds.
I would say £100 billion once you factor in the hidden costs.
And yes employers are taking advantage of the present climate to prop up businesses that would not survive otherwise.
Those who want to work and make every effort to come off benefits are ten times more likely to be sanctioned than those who know they game.
Whenever I am forced into a group environment at the JCP or providers I always make a point of doing a quick survey and ask for a show of hands from those have been sanctioned and more often than not 8/10 is a generous average, I have had the whole room show hands many times.
You only have to note that the largest group of people on benefits are working, benefits are being used to replace wages so really it is businesses that are on welfare workers are just being used as a middleman.
Bad employers like Sports Direct still get staff because those staff are too scared to say no to a job. If they turn down a job, they can lose benefits/the chance of a safety net should they need it for up to 3 years. The state is effectively propping up certain employers by requiring people to apply for their jobs. That is no incentive for employers to improve what they’re offering.
Thank you, I appreciate your understanding.
The rational the drives my ergophobia is that work is bad for you.
You only have to look to at the numbers of people who die on a daily basis with work as the major contributing factor.
Putting clothes on in the morning or falling down stairs due to tiredness or in a rush.
Slipping in the bath or shower.
Commuting to and from work also has its perils again down to rushing and tiredness.
And that is before you have even started the job.
The number of deaths on the job itself throughout the various industries is staggering and then not forgetting the long term health implications.
Once slavery is abolished from the statute books or my condition recognised I and others of my ilk can at least have a peaceful life.
Until then I have a long road to go before my carcass is deemed more trouble than it is worth and retired.
Very true Paul. We live in an era in which work has been idealised beyond common-sense. Now it is even seen as a sort of universal cure-all. Even workfare, where people are forced to work against their will, or starve, is seen as something wonderful.
Gorlatnaya hat emerged later that murmolka, and it was a fur headpiece of boyars (Russian nobility).
The hat was a wider on top fur cylinder, layered at the top with velvet or brocade.
The height of the hat was a length of a Russian elbow (54 cm).
Hats were trimmed with fox, weasel or sable fur. The fur was taken from the throat of animals, that is, making just one hat was very, very expensive. From the word “throat” (gorlo) the name gorlatnaya hat came from. Common people were strictly forbidden to wear these hats, even wealthy common people. #RussianHat
Tired of hearing about hats.
Shame “Progress” types don’t see the importance of so many other topics.
What has a nice furry Ushanka got to do with Progress, (whoever they are) ?
You don’t get female sarcasm from hats, or bitchy remarks.
They are quiet too, and don’t spend all day talking about themselves.
Thomas, can you explain what the difference is between “female sarcasm” and male sarcasm? Would you accuse a man of making “bitchy ” remarks? Sounds a bit sexist to me.
Try and be a little less PC dear.
So you’re advising me to be less correct in my thinking inorder that incorrect behaviour be tolerated and permitted . Are you a Rightwinger by any chance?
P.S.
The fake female pseudonyms are not fooling anyone
Well go back to your hats, then, Thomas. I can tell you’re not too keen on women.
…erm? I think you’ve wandered on to the wrong thread, Millinery is upstairs next to Haberdashery.
Officials are plotting to widen the controversial badger cull in a fresh blow to campaigners’ calls to halt the bloodshed.
More than 19,000 animals died in last year’s cull across eight English counties: Dorset, Cornwall, Devon, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Cheshire, Somerset and Wiltshire.
But Natural England has received applications to expand this year’s cull scheme to eight more counties: Avon, Berkshire, Derbyshire, Hampshire, Oxfordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire and Warwickshire.
Bill Badger, wherever you are, watch out !
Badger Trust chief executive Dominic Dyer said: “This is rapidly becoming a badger eradication programme from large parts of the country where livestock farming is taking place.”
What a shame.
If they keep killing innocent badgers like this there won’t be any left in a few years time. It’s a disgrace.
It’s destruction of the whole species, without any real evidence.
Typically immoral Tory acts of injustice, now extended to animals as well as people. They always target the most vulnerable who can’t fight back.
That’s interesting, Trev. Tories blaming the small and defenceless for the ills of the big.
Badger Anti-Sniper Tactics
Move slowly and carefully at night, as quietly as possible.
Avoid all main pathways, these will be known and under surveillance.
Keep to the undergrowth, avoid open areas.
Look out for human tracks, or disgarded food items.
The sniper will probably have taken cover somewhere near a known Badger Sett.
Or a well-used forest pathway.
Sniper equipment will include telescopic laser gunsights, and night-vision binoculars.
So do not assume that you cannot be seen at night by humans.
Change your usual route at night. Leave and arrive by different routes.
Do not simply travel in a straight line. But employ evasive manoeuvres.
Use circular and zig-zag patterns, backtracking, and then resume the original route.
Don’t leave droppings where they can easily be found.
Listen carefully for unusual sounds, any mechanical noises, or human conversation on a radio.
Look for torchlight, this can show the location of the sniper.
Be careful of decoys placed on a pathway. These can include artificial badgers operated by remote-control, or food set out as a trap. Beware of both.
If you stop to investigate, you will be shot by the waiting sniper.
Remain vigilant at all times.
Alan, how kind of you to think of us here in the forest. You have some excellent suggestions, and I shall see that all the other badgers in my locality are informed. Don’t worry, we are on high alert, as you humans say. This is nothing less than a struggle for survival. And I can say that we badgers entirely resent being blamed for transmitting TB, whatever that is. Still, snout up as we say in forest, and march ahead. Best wishes, Bill Badger
I often find the sight of hard work rather depressing. I know it’s not an easy thing to admit, but there it is. Also the idea that you should work yourself to death on minimum wage . Is there anything really good about any of this ?
Yes some good will become of it eventually.
In my view the future is bright we are just at the transitional period, capitalism and democracy as we know it have both had their days, alternatives are out there and will eventually become mainstream because quite frankly we will have no other choice.
Globally we have the technology, ability and resources to end world poverty, feed the hungry, house the homeless and give everyone a income to lead a decent meaningful life that could devoted to work, family, community, learning, contemplation whatever they see fit as a reason to live.
A Global Minimum income without condition for those who are here and those yet to come.
If we opened up all the borders and allowed free movement of all people then they would naturally gravitate towards whatever idealogical system they would prefer to live under.
There is no reason to have borders at all other than to imprison people and lay claim to land that should belong to everyone.
I am putting my trust in the technology gurus that are driving this world forward to deliver this and yes there is the naysayers that speak of dystopia but I believe we have already gone through that stage and heading towards a better, brighter future.
Stands down from soap box, beam me up scotty .
Sorry, Paul, but I disagree about open borders. It’s just not practical.
Look what happened across Europe a few years ago. Human beings do indeed gravitate towards desirable places, but the result is mass overcrowding, mass movement and widespread chaos.
And doesn’t an elite soon take power in any human group ? And then starts giving orders to the rest.
Then rules and regulations, structures put in place, and the whole cycle starts again.
Sadly true Alison. And no doubt we will see borders even more heavily guarded in the future. As resources like water run out, and a great mass of displaced people move north and west to the colder climates of the Northern Hemisphere.
I’m encouraged by the recent Libyan crackdown on immigration, but I think a barrier across the Mediterranean Sea may be inevitable.
For five years — 2012 to 2017 — after living in the one ‘property’ since 1984, I resisted the ‘social landlord’s’ bid to disregard my Secure Tenancy and my immediate neighbour’s Assured Tenancy in their bid for ‘vacant possession’ so they could sell the house in a ‘desirable area’.
Then I decided that better things might be in store for me out of that ‘desirable area’ that was not exempt from mice infestations, and gain maximum compensation for moving out of ‘social housing’ and into the private sector nearer family in Hereford, while keeping in contact with London folk by e-mail as someone unlikely to ‘work’ again before gaining Pension Credit status this coming October.
A down-side of Hereford life is that even as an ESA Support Group claimant I still have to pay some Council Tax, and my greater living space than in London is more costly to heat, but essentially I’d say that different people have different definitions of ‘desirable area’, and for those of us not regarded as ‘marketable’ or ‘workfare fodder’, purer air quality and more space have things to offer that a £1m house never could!
Aye Captain.
As Baha’U’llah said, “The earth is one country and mankind its citizens”.
And as Arnold Schwarzenegger said, ” I’ll be back.”
Never mind Arnie, Jesus said “I’ll be back” first.
Zac came back in Richmond. The LibDems said they were riding high on a tide of anti-Brexit feeling, but that didn’t last very long!
I must admit Paul you put great faith in the wisdom of the masses, and also these technological gurus.The planet faces a serious problem of over-population and resource depletion in the future. Including also climate change, and the inevitable global warming.
Artificial Intelligence remains very much a double-edged sword.
We already see the creation of drones and robots designed for combat. at the moment still under human control. A point will inevitably be reached in the future when they will be capable of fully-independent action. What will then be decided could well be crucial for humanity.
Just like in the Terminator films. The main computer Skynet becomes conscious, and decides to destroy humanity. So it launches all the nuclear missiles, which it had been put in control of.
Then it sends out killer robots after the remaining humans.
Human apathy allowing uncontrolled technological development.
True Carl. This is a real danger, as a number of eminent scientists have pointed out.
How can the planet ever be considered over populated when you can fit the entire worlds population in a space not much larger than London. (admittedly it would be cramped but it does emphasise my point).
Laboratory grown meat as it evolves and improves will eventually free up more space and resources as man made animals such as beef cattle become redundant.
Under ground Hydro /aquaponics Farms could replace traditional farming methods producing far more superior pest free products and less chance of pesticides getting in the food chain.
Again freeing up more space.
In fact the earth could be a lonely place if it were not for the fact we are all herded into towns and cities.
In a space the size of London ? In what, milk-crates ?
Perhaps he means that there would be standing-room only. Like that old Star Trek episode about the planet with no diseases ?
Perhaps if you reread you will know very well what I was implying but maybe as so many of YOU misunderstood I should try to be more clear.
It is the sort of rhetoric that emboldens people to demand the “right” to come to London from all over the EU and further afield.
And why not Alison? what are you actually afraid of ?
Well, house prices are going through the roof, operations are being cancelled because there is a shortage of beds, you can’t get a seat on the bus and train, the traffic congestion is so bad nothing moves and there’s so much air pollution that it’s killing us all. Companies are making a mint recruiting naive foreigners to work 16-hour days earning commission only. I could go on. These are all symptoms of POPULATION PRESSURE. If we keep on burying our heads in the sand, it will only get worse.
Further, too many of these EU immigrants commit crime and claim benefits. I have personal experience of both.
But Alison, you can’t say all immigrants are criminals, that’s Trump’s attitude towards Mexicans & Hispanics in America. Fact is *people* commit crime. It might depend on the demograph where you live that skews the crime stats. or peoples’ impression of who’s to blame, but many migrants are honest hardworking people, and indigenous people commit crime too. As for immigrants claiming Benefits, some will if they need to & are entitled to.
Trev, I did not say ALL immigrants are criminals. I said we are getting too many of the wrong sort coming in from the EU. The Tories complain about the size of the benefits bill and vast numbers of EU immigrants indeed come over and claim. Fact. I was robbed by East Europeans. Fact. A local nursery had their plants pulled up by POLISH vandals. Fact. I know people from Slovakia who come over and claim benefits. Fact. They may be entitled to it, but, unless Slovakia pays into our tax system as well, they should not be able to draw money our of our shrinking welfare pot. We’ve got enough problems of our own without importing the problems of the rest of the EU as well. Further, we are overcrowded. We need to stop making it worse for ourselves. End free movement. Leave the EU. Properly.
Perhaps it is like the study on Heathrow expansion that said public transport can accommodate 4 people per square metre!!
Scientists are in the process of developing edible meat made by a 3D printer, the ‘ink’, as it were, contains stem cells grown in a lab. I heard a science programme on Radio 4 about it a while ago.
Meat grown in a laboratory could be on restaurant menus by the end of the year, one manufacturer has claimed.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/clean-meat-lab-grown-available-restaurants-2018-global-warming-greenhouse-emissions-a8236676.html
A manufacturer has a vested interest in saying that.
We all need to eat less meat and more vegetables. Otherwise, we’ll all get bowel cancer and die anyway.
Plus, Hemp can be grown to provide oil & seeds that can be used for both food & fuel. As for us being herded into towns & cities, that mostly came about because of the Industrial Revolution, which is now over, hence towns & cities have outlived their purpose & are becoming obsolete. Even shopping centres are outoof town now and town centres are dying off, just boarded up shops, many being converted into flats.
The cotton and petrochemical industry have a lot to answer for, they are single handedly responsible for the death of millions and the criminalisation of a wonder plant.
A wonder plant whose only full potential to cure major ailments is now coming light since the legalisation of it some parts of the globe including the EU has allowed research to properly begin.
The rise in synthetic cannabis (mamba) has shown that legalisation does cannot work, most people who wish to purchase cannabis can do so easily.
If I could grow cannabis legally using hydroponics in my flat I could become self sufficient once I had bred a decent strain to sell to others or to the pharmaceutical industry and be able to compete with larger outfits as no strain is ever the same, think micro breweries, safety wise electricity and water is fine think fish tank.
The UK could take a lead in this new cottage industry if the had the imagination.
Save billions and make billions and provide a fantastic safer alternative to traditional medicines such as aspirin.
Cannabis is responsible for the hospitalisation of millions of users who develop mental illness, sometimes permanently, due to cannabis. It is also responsible for lung disease because cannabis is usually smoked. George Michael drove into a shop while under the influence of cannabis. It’s lucky he didn’t kill someone. Cannabis does reduce anxiety, but it’s effects last a very short time compared to the effects of the safe and legal anti-depressants already widely used and available on the NHS. I use Sertraline and it is very good.
Apologies for mis-spelling “its”.
I’ve been on Sertraline myself Alison, and I would NEVER take it again. Be careful on that stuff. I was on it for 2 years, it turned me into a zombie and made me very vulnerable to being abused & exploited by others. Had memory loss intermittently for at least 2 months afterwards & panic attacks (dissociative). Never again. I dispute your claim that millions of people are hospitalized through cannabis use. I used it for 25 yrs without any problems, and my doctors were not concerned about it. They said if I was drinking or using heroin or crack I could have a sick note, but said that cannabis didn’t count, so no sick note.
Well I’ve been taking Sertraline for 5 years, so I know more about it than the rest of you dope-smoking naysayers. Maybe your brains are fried by now. It would explain your let-the-world-in-or-you’re-a-Nazi rhetoric.
BE CAREFUL ON THAT STUFF??? Trev, look at the facts. Weed is banned for a reason. How many people are in hospital with skunk-induced psychosis? How many people die in gang wars over drugs, both here and overseas? No one is dying selling Sertraline. No one is in hospital with Sertraline-induced anything.
By the way, Paul, God created the cow.
Spot on trev 40 years use still going strong and far fitter than those of my age who choose alcohol.
It might surprise folk to know that a large majority of people in hospital are there due the treatment not the symptoms.
A cow is the product of thousands of years breeding by man, it has needs man to survive, why do you think they so willingly go to be milked?
Can you see a cow surviving without man?
What do you think they did to predators after God made them ? moooed themselves out of danger !
There is no substance at all to any of your points but plenty of ignorence.
Before man/woman altered them, male calves grew into fierce, horned bulls who guarded the herd and attacked anything that came near.
Paul, the sad reality is that most of what you say is more than a little out in left field, if you’ll pardon the pun. Forty years of cannabis cannot have had no impact on your brain. You don’t know whether you’re fit or not because you haven’t been to the doctor for forty years.
Open borders ? We’ll be lucky if people are not bar-coded in the future, with an ID tattoo on their arm, that they will be able to scan. With all biometric details held on computer.
So everyone will be living in London, packed together like sardines and eating some sort of artificial meat ? Sounds like being trapped in a McDonalds nightmare.
Don’t worry Alan, nothing is permanent, it’s all work in progess on the path to enlightenment & utopia. Even artificial meat will only be a stage along the way. Eventually the entire human race will be vegetarian, aNd after that we’ll reaCh a stage where we don’t have to eat at all, just sustainance from Chi, because we will have transcended the physical.
No, Trev. Humans are under no obligation to have so many children.
I am not sure will they ?
Not really your describing London as it is Today !
Surely what you’re suggesting would make it worse, though, Paul.
We’re halfway there already. London was already the destination for every young person from all over the EU until the referendum vote. Much of our meat is already produced in intensive/battery conditions. I would prefer not to see that happen any further. Animals should be outdoors, walking on grass.
Perhaps people in hot countries could have fewer children, instead of sending large numbers of adolescents to die in overcrowded boats, sleep rough all over Europe and crowd out the rest of us when they bring their “world is too full” problem over here. Clearly they have too many children. We should not need to destroy our green and pleasant land trying to accommodate them.
Humans need open spaces and outdoor farming in order to lift our spirits. The current mental health crisis is perhaps an indication that we are headed in the wrong direction.
I rise to logical arguments not bigotry.
The point is that my argument is so logical you can’t think up a good reason to oppose it, so you resorted to calling me a bigot. There are too many people in the world, so people should have fewer children. It’s simple maths, Paul.
Sexual self-control would help.
Yes, Thomas.
Also, our girls go to school and university, but in other parts of the world they are married off at 14, often against their will. Then they are expected to have large numbers of children. Living alone or in a same-sex couple is socially unacceptable.
And you can bet that someone would be making money out of it.
It sounds like what happens to the cows at the cow battery. They spend their whole lives in a pen, eating pellets of antibiotics and growth hormones.
I just heard Sajid Javid on the News attempting to grease-arse his way into his new job pretending to show solidarity with the “Windrush” generation by saying that his parents came here from the Commonwealth too. Well I don’t mean to be pedantic, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Pakistan is in the British Commonwealth, is it? So what’s he on about?
Oh, apparently Pakistan had “Dominion Status” (in the Commonwealth) until 1956, so I stand corrected.
Pakistan used to be part of the Commonwealth, just like all the other places the Windrush Generation came from. So yes, Javid is one of them.
Yes I hadn’t realized that til I looked it all up. Pakistan has a bit of a convoluted history. We all know it was created after Partition of India in 1947, essentially as an Islamic State, but was under the British Crown to some extent til 56, so they had a British Christian Queen! The British Pakistanis I knew in BraDford came over after that from Mipoor after their land was flooded to create a massive dam.
Very true Alison. The planet will simply not support an endless increase in population. This will be an ongoing problem unless or until we finally manage to colonise somewhere else.
It’s the current system and economic model that needs to change. There would be enough for everyone with a more equitable distribution of wealth instead of wealth &resources being hoarded by an elite minority.
And there you see the classic example of religious intolerance. Muslims flatly refusing to live under majority Hindu government.
Yet they are only too keen to come over here and live under a majority Christian government. Funny, isn’t it?
Regarding the ‘religious intolerance’, I believe it’s important to recognise that British colonialism thrived on ‘divide and rule’ exacerbation of tensions between indigenous groupings.
Now, while the UN Security Council members are homes to the biggest international armaments merchants, it has been argued that the same sort of thing applies regarding armaments sales and peace.
I don’t know why the Tories don’t just rename themselves The Don’t Care Party.
Good idea Barry. You could vote for a party that said it didn’t care right from the start, with no messing about. So cruel policies which caused all kinds of misery would really be expected.
UKIP could become the Stuff The EU Party and their logo could be a massive V on top of some white cliffs (with Dover Castle in the background).
Anybody got a good name for the LibDems?
Ha-ha!
Labour could become the Jeremy Corbyn Party.
And when it comes to artificial food, remember what happened in Soylent Green ?
They started using re-cycling people. How would you ever know what you were eating ?
Dave, that’s a solution to global population growth!
No wonder I couldn’t eat the school lasagne…
Well you don’t know what you’re eating now! Beef lasagne containing horse meat, pepperoni mostly donkey. And who knows what goes into sausages, or fast-food burgers? Vegetarianism is the way forward.
Or buy only modest amounts of high-quality, non-processed meat from reputable retailers such as Waitrose and LEARN HOW TO COOK!
Dimensional control would enable us to inhabit additional ‘spaces’.
Alison when your bigotry is so deeply ingrained there is no logic or evidence that will sway your opinion, I would be flogging a dead horse (metaphorically speaking) to even attempt it.
“Fascism” “bigot” “xenophobe” “racism” are words I associate with your views.
Are you clued up that there is global shortage of young human beings and as we are soon to find at our cost as have others.
Over population is a lie, we have plenty of room and need more not less children.
But then as long as they are white British children I presume you would have no problem ?
Pound to penny your flat problem is down to immigration yes ?
Yes, overpopulation is a myth. It’s the currentdistribution of wealth that is unsustainable. 1% of the population in possession of 80% of the wealth. Certain individuals owning vast areas of land. It all started with the Inclosures.
One day someone put a stake in the ground and said all the land air and sea animals, plants and resources as far as the eye can see now belong to me.
And everyone else said OK no problem.
So if people in Africa have 20 children each, but no food to feed them, that’s not overpopulation? That’s just not enough money from over here going over there to keep them in their unsustainable lifestyle? Or are you saying you want us to lose all our beautiful fields, parks and gardens to a bunch of lorry-jumping Africans and their endless babies? I don’t think that’s fair on us.
Why should I eat bugs or lab-meat because Africans are having too many children with no way to feed them? Nature takes care of it. If they have too many babies, they starve to death. Now that we’ve been throwing food out of aeroplanes, they’ve been proliferating. Now there are too many of them and no one knows where they will live, work or eat.
If all the Millionaires & Billionaires of this world gave up a fraction of their combined wealth the global poverty would be solved. Poverty exists because of the greed of others.
Well f you and your views as well, Paul.
My rent is the result of supply versus demand.
WHEN DID I SAY THAT WHITE BABIES WERE OK??? That’s you imposing your preconceived notions on me. What colour are EU immigrants? White. Where do I want them to go? Home.
WE DON’T NEED ANY MORE YOUNG PEOPLE. We’re full.
There is a lot on mansplaining on these blogs. Where men set out what they think as if it’s the God’s Truth.
We women have got opinions of our own as well.
Well, Julie, I have to admit I agree with you on this one! I’ve had too much experience (offline) of opinionated men puffing away on their “medicinal herbs” and then “educating” me about how much better my life would be if we just abolish all international borders and let the world in. One told me that Islamist terrorism would end if the world was better educated and he considers religion to be the root of all of the world’s ills.
If Hitler came back tomorrow, I suppose they would be in favour of letting him in as well.
So having an opinion drug fuelled or not that is contrary to a woman is now classed as sexist? really ?
Females seem to neglect the fact that men have played a major role in the emancipation of woman.
When I signed on today (which was a be stressful experience) I asked about the new Find A Job website that is replacing UJM, and the Adviser told me that it won’t have a facility for recording jobsearch activity or job applications that can be viewed by them, so we will have to go back to providing job application evidence when signing on, like we used to prior to UJM. That’s a step backwards. It means I’ll have to pay to print emails at the library.
I was told the same by my advisor today strangely enough.
If you are on JSA you can provide your job search verbally if you wish without writing it down.
3 steps per week satisfies the legal test that you are actively employment and that could be look shop window, ask family friends,update CV that easy to remember without writing it down.
Obviously add more if you want but too many applications raises as much suspicion as too few.
Keep it simple then less to pull you up on, as long as you shown your ASE the rest of your job searching activities are your own business.
I usually apply for several jobs per week but they’re never happy. Today the Adviser got on my case because she said I’d wasted time applying for a job that (she says) I only just meet the criteria & only might have a slim chance of getting, but she hadn’t even read the job description and it said training would be provided. She said I should instead apply for jobs I stand a good chance of getting that I can do, but there are no such Jo bs & I apply for whatever I can fined just to shut the fuckers up, but you just can’t win.
Yes exactly applying for a job they think you might not get is the same as not applying for anything at all in their eyes.
That why it better to keep it simple fuck trying to impress them, 3 steps per week the rest is your business.
Everything is geared to trip you up so do not give them the ammunition.
Don’t let them get you down Trev. Sometimes they say these things just to be seen to be doing something. And you can see them making little notes online about what they said to you. No doubt something about targeting your applications more carefully or similar.
My Adviser/Work Coach/dole clerk is just an awkward twat. I was already stressed & wound up because whilst waiting to sign I got a phone call from the nurse at my GP’s about blood test results & I was listening to her & trying to take it all in when mid-conversation the G4SS Guard started butting n telling me not to use my phone in the Jobcentre & to go outside, but I couldn’t cosi was waiting to sign on & my name was about to be called. Just awkward twats, the lot of ’em.
My job centre has about 30 of the governments private army patrolling up and down the isles intimidating everyone, telling folk where to stand and what not do.
It as though they were expecting folk to kick off big time but it never happened.
Cheaper to get rid of the guards and put the staff behind cages like it was before, always felt safer when they were behind cages.
Trev, didn’t you set up a voicemail facility on your phone? It doesn’t cost anything. The nurse can leave you a message while you’re in the Jobcentre and you can deal with the results of your blood test later. You don’t need to be distracted like that when you’re about to attend such an important meeting!
I lost access to my voicemail when I changed my number 3 yrs ago, besides she wanted to discuss things with me about putting me on Statins and about the blood sugar etc. but I had to cut her short & say Sorry I can’t talk right now as I’m in the Jobcentre & I’m not allowed to use my phone.
Trev, that’s interesting. Have some heard various rumours at my own JC about this. For example that they won’t be able to see any actual text that you have written. But that they will be able to get a summary from each account. Dates / Times for when the account was used ?
From what the JCP Adviser was saying it looks like they won’t have access to your Find A Job account & won’t be able to view what you’ve applied for because it doesnt even record it, it just lists jobs with links to other sites like Total Jobs or Indeed & so you would apply via them,therefore we’ll need to bring in evidence of what we’ve applied for, just like we did prior to UJM. The DWP dont know their arse from their elbow.
After all that fuss about trying to get access to the UJ accounts. You couldn’t make it up Trev. and how many millions has this cost ?
I can’t help thinking there is more to this than meets the eye Trev. You know how shifty the DWP are.
It wouldn’t suprise me if they kept it secret that th.ey could get into the accounts somehow. Of course I know this is what they want, people to start getting paranoid about being watched all the time.
They will find a way to hack into everything you do on the computer. If the Jobcentre won’t, the tabloid journalists and identity-thieves will.
Beware of technology. EVERYTHING can be seen…
…Including internet posts that reinforce existing stereotypes about working people’s taxes paying for cannabis and keeping “ergophobics” in the lifestyle of their choice. But then who cares? If the Tories do a crackdown, it’s only the people doing the RIGHT thing who will suffer!
Do you really believe the current regime is to crackdown on shirkers, if so then you have been conned.
It is a ideological, physiological, and immoral war against the working class.
It’s Class war, I’ve said it all along. And they know that many of us, people like me, are unemployABLE and unlikely to ever get a job, but the Regime is all aboutcontrolling the masses and frightening the shit out ofvthose who are in work, whilst also appeasing the middle Englanders who vote for them.
“A landmark legal challenge shows the cruel reality of Universal Credit for disabled people
Two disabled people have launched a case against the government. But none of us should ignore the impact Universal Credit has on people’s lives”
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/a-landmark-legal-challenge-shows-the-cruel-reality-of-universal-credit-for-disabled-people
and
https://intensiveactivity.wordpress.com/2018/05/02/universal-credit-behavioural-change-scandal-to-follow-windrush/
Much better effort by Corbyn at PMQS. Solid attack on the Tories, no hesitation.
Then a good finish saying with them you pay more & get less.
Determined, clear and to the point. This is exactly what’s needed, there is a great deal to criticise about Tory policy.
True. Much more of this needed. Keep the Tories on the back foot.
Minority government, Brexit in pieces, economy down. The Home secretary has to resign. Plenty of targets. Good to see some noisy front bench support for him too. We’ve got to get the Tories out in 2022, no mistakes this time.
Go Jeremy !
I Just would rather see off the cuff on the fly debate rather a scripted predetermined response and reply session.
They ask the question never get the actual answer and move on, it is so frustrating at times and infuriating to watch.
The conservatives have run the course hopefully the herd vote for the lesser evil and remove the nasty party.
I guess Thursday will help judge the mood of the country after the results of the local elections are known.
I haven’t watched Prime Minister’s Questions yet. It sounds like this episode is worth watching, considering so many people were impressed with Jeremy Corbyn! So I’ll comment when I’ve watched it.
I’ve been explaining to an EU citizen how to vote in tomorrow’s election. The process is a little different from her own country, where they are all required to show ID but can go to any school to vote, not just one specific address.
She works long hours at a coffee shop, including early mornings, late nights and weekends/bank holidays, but she can’t even earn enough to pay her own bills, let alone save up for the future. Meanwhile, some people get a free house and £72 a week to spend sitting at home all day smoking weed. Evidently, the crackdown by the Conservatives has failed to address this injustice and the wrong sorts of people are still slipping through the hoops and earning enough money from the taxpayer not only to eat but also to fund a cannabis lifestyle.
I can vouch for the fact that benefits don’t go nearly far enough, but for me that’s because I spend almost the whole lot on my rent. I’ve never touched a leaf of cannabis in my life, never even puffed on a cigarette, but I’m the one paying through the nose for private rent, while the drug addicts of this country get social housing fully funded by the taxpayer. No surprise they want to spread the love around a bit and let all and sundry pour in from all over the world to claim the same taxpayer-funded luxuries.
Where does all my rent money go? Perhaps my landlady is puffing away in a cloud of cannabis-smoke laughing at me!
Your outdated views on Cannabis remind me of the 1930s propaganda films.
Did you God not also create the herb, now why the fuck would he do that ?
What I chose to do with my benefits is only my concern, if they legalised the production of cannabis I and many others would be self sufficient and not need compensation from the state for the theft of my natural birthright to a share of earths resources.
I have always stated my relationship with the state is parasitical, you cannot shame me nor my way of life.
Seems to me the solution would be for you to downsize to a tent or maybe wooden shack on the local refuse tip and saves yourself some money.
A few months time you might contemplate emigrating yourself.
I love the way I always get told to emigrate by people who want the whole world to have the right to come here! If you don’t like British people, go to another country yourself. I expect most of our tax-payers would be glad to see the back of you.
If our country were so stupid as to legalise cannabis, you would not be self-sufficient at all. You would continue to claim your free council house and your £72 per week to sit on you backside all day smoking weed. In addition, you would take up precious appointments at our over-subscribed GP surgeries to ask for your taxpayer-funded FREE PRESCRIPTION of your RECREATIONAL DRUG that does you far more harm than good. Meanwhile, those of us with medical conditions that are NOT OUR FAULT would be unable to obtain a vital appointment with a healthcare professional whose opinion we really value to obtain our life-saving medication that provides no recreational value to anyone but enables us to go out, volunteer, work and in general give back to society far more than we otherwise could.
Incidentally, people like you do not help our NHS at all by demanding that not just medical professionals but all and sundry from all over the world can come here and claim their slice of free healthcare from our NHS, without paying one penny of tax into it in their lives.
For those in favour of a contribution-based healthcare system, the problem with that idea is that it catches out young disabled people born and raised in the UK but lacking the capacity to work for decades before making any demands on the NHS. Therefore, the solution is immigration control.
N.B. What arrogance you have! Sitting in your free house telling people who didn’t get one to go live in a skip, while the working people of this country cannot pay their own rent after all the tax they pay to keep YOU too stoned all day to do any work yourself.
Maybe he’s putting in an extra effort on account of council elections this coming Thursday.
But then again, it seems that a lot of Labour councils have a lot to answer for, as illustrated by this Lambeth Council Green Party candidate’s youtube video. The Brixton Soup Kitchen Letter — When there’s a Labour Party fly in your Green Party Soup.
Meanwhile, Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group’s Kwug Blog has a new posting by me, even though I don’t get to the meetings now that I live in Hereford. Brexit as a lever for further Tory attacks on our rights.
And there is also this
PROTEST AT DWP HQ FRI 4/5/18 NOON-1PM
Thanks for the links, Dude. I’ll look at them when I get a chance. (Too many emails; not enough time.)
WE DON’T NEED ANY MORE YOUNG PEOPLE. We’re full.
When you are old and cared for by one of those immigrants it will be sweet irony and poetic justice.
Spend a day in the shoes of those you are trying to demonize.
What would make you leave your home for foreign lands , take the dangers they face, that may end in your death.
It is not a choice taken lightly.
Do you think they produce children willy nilly to watch them die as though it was a trivial matter, they just get on with it ? they are not human beings with human emotions ?
It is not a preconception when I am basing my opinion on your posts.
Posts which indicate to me that your a racist and frustrated that your are afraid to speak what you really think.
I need help with some things already. I used to have a Scottish support worker and I currently have a lot of help from British people at my church. What a great help they are to me as well!
My late mother was an immigrant from the USA. She worked for the NHS and medical research for 20 years, paid her taxes, never claimed a day of Jobseeker’s Allowance in her life and still ended up with such a small pension that she had to rely on Income Support in old age.
My late mother also wanted to leave the EU and she also thought there were far too many people coming over here from Eastern Europe. Not just too many, but also the wrong types: people who showed no interest in integrating into British society; people who were rude and refused to queue for the bus and showed no manners in public; people who thought they had a RIGHT to everything from the moment they set foot on British soil.
My late mother had a number of immigrant nurses during the last months of her life and she found them all to be far more competent than the one British nurse who worked for her! However, like me, she was capable of discerning the difference between competent workers who benefit our society and the mob of unemployed/unskilled young job-seekers who pour into our country every year from the rest of the EU.
She retained full mental capacity until the day she died. Perhaps that was because she never touched cannabis in her life.
So you happy for those who have something to offer to stand on your green and pleasant land but those less fortunate who have nothing to offer can keep of that grass?
Who are you to judge the worthy and not worthy ? What does your teachings tell you about that ?
Is it not the mark of a civilised society to help those less fortunate, to share the bread and the fish equally and not judge.
They do not come for the benefit, they do not come for the land, they come because English is normally their second language and I wonder why that is ?
Paul, I don’t think it’s the mark of a civilised society to throw open the borders and let every chancer help themselves to the wages of our hard-working taxpayers.
I’m not sure “my teachings” felt it was necessary to spell out something so obvious! Ink was a precious resource in those days.
Paul, if they chose their country based on language, they would stay home and speak in their mother tongue.
Badger Alert !
Crime gangs selling badgers for up to £700 for baiting with dogs, fuelling high-stakes gambling.
Bill Badger, wherever you are watch out !
The Earth cannot provide for us all:
We are currently using up the renewable resources of 1.7 Earths— unless things change, we’ll need three by 2050
Global Footprint Network
We will need 70% more food by 2050
Food and Agriculture Organization
More than 4bn people will live in regions short of water by 2050
waterfootprint.org
Due to population growth, availability of land per person in developing countries is expected to halve by 2050
Food and Agriculture Organization
Globally, we’ll use 71% more resources each by 2050
International Research Panel
Rob desalination, aqauaponics, hydroponics, vertical farms, clean meat, renewable energy the possibilities are endless.
This why borders should be open so those who have been pushed to live in dust bowels can access what is out there for us all.
You have got to be kidding. That would be the end of western civilisation as we know it. Crazy.
Paul, so that they can turn our country into a sh1thole, just like the sh1tholes they’ve come from?
These are the attitudes that result from a free house in exchange for smoking weed all day. I guess it only seems right to reward the people who grow your weed and sneak it into your country for you, but not with your own money, of course.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it.
Convenience and decency cannot survive it.
As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn’t matter if someone dies. The more people there are, the less one individual matters. – Isaac Asimov
Why does removing global borders imply everyone will head to this country.
Over population is a myth and a lie we have enough room and resource’s to feed everyone 100 times over, it just the few that have 100,000 times more than they need in land, resources and wealth.
That is causing hunger homelessness and environmental damage.
No one has a right to own and take more than they need from the pot, we all should have shared ownership of the worlds resources.
It worked brilliantly for the USSR, didn’t it, Paul? That’s why their citizens couldn’t wait to climb over the Berlin wall and rush into our beautiful country to take our housing, our land and our money.
What has communism state got to do with it anything I have said so far ? the USSR was not global.
You keep saying “our land” I think you need to look at the title deeds again
Well then Paul, if it is not our land here in Britain. Settled and developed over centuries, then whose land do you think it is ? The Ethiopians ?
Africans ? Greeks ? The Russians ?
It is our land, and our British culture too, and some of us think that is worth preserving.
Exactly, John.
Paul, I think you’ll find that our passports and birth certificates do show that this is indeed OUR country. Mostly, those who disagree want to pile in and get what we get, without paying into our system.
John Have you ever tried claiming your piece of land you apparently own ?
“Britain’s land is still owned by an aristocratic elite – but it doesn’t have to be this way”
“Who owns Britain? Most of us would instinctively reply: we do. The British people own the British Isles. This is a democracy, isn’t it? But the facts tell a different story. When you look at a map of the British Isles, you are looking not at your home but at a land mass overwhelmingly owned by a tiny aristocratic elite. Extraordinary though it might seem, in the 21st century, 0.6 per cent of the British people own 69 per cent of the land on which we live – and they are mostly the same families who owned it in the 19th century.”
“But far from redistributing land, successive British governments have reinforced this inequality by subsidising the richest landowners in the country. For example, a recent New Statesman investigation found that the multi-billionaire Duke of Westminster – who has done nothing to earn his wealth – is entitled to pounds 9.2m in subsidies each year from you, the taxpayer. Kevin Cahill, the author of an award-winning book on land ownership in Britain, explains: “Money is being taken out of your pocket to enhance the assets of the rich, who, in their role as landowners, pay no tax. This is a massive scandal.” Yesterday, Tony Blair was talking about weaning poor people in Britain off disability benefit. How about taking the land-owning aristocracy off welfare before we start turning on poor people desperate for their extra pounds 50 a week?”
From The Independent, 2 February 2005
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/britains-land-is-still-owned-by-an-aristocratic-elite-but-it-doesnt-have-to-be-this-way-5385094.html
And then if you have the mistaken belief you actually own land and property because you have a piece of paper saying so, watch what happens when someone in power decides they need it.
Blair wants to “wean” disabled people off their existence? And die instead? Meanwhile, Blair squirrels away his fortune. F him.
Paul, we are a nation and share collective ownership of our country. Otherwise we couldn’t walk down the street.
I don’t have any trouble occupying the flat I rent and, from the sound of it, neither do you.
The USSR would have been global, if they had won the Cold War. That was always the ultimate aim of communism, to be a worldwide system that replaced capitalism.
Communism in practice is just another word for dictatorship by the state, as we saw in the now collapsed Soviet Union,and as we still see today in North Korea.
A privileged elite takes power, and rules over the people without even the freedoms of a democracy.
I don’t think the old USSR really was Communist. Stalinism was a twisted parody of Marxism and was nothing more than a Totalitarian Dictatorship, thta’s not Communism. True Communism hasn’t really been put into practice on a large scale apart from those community village farms in places like Israel for example.
Overpopulation is not a myth Paul. It is a trend, and if it continues will likely be a disaster. Alison makes a valid point. It is to the cooler Northern Hemisphere countries that such an exodus, driven by lack of water and food supplies, would take place. No-one will be heading for the desert regions of Africa or the Far East.
So your happy to put up walls to prevent those who need help as long as your alright jack.
Most people want to put up walls to stop the drugs getting in!
But who is to say how the worlds resources are to be divided up, and in what way ? The developed western world has far more wealth and resources. Should we just put these in the pot as it were, and wait to see how much other countries put in ?
The developed western world has far more wealth and resources.
I wonder why ?
We have more resources because everything costs more. For example, it’s too cold to live outdoors and all the land belongs to someone else, so life in the UK involves paying rent or a mortgage. Compare that with other countries, where you just find a bit of vacant land and gradually build your own house.
In Africa, laundry involves dunking your few thin clothes in the nearest bit of water, giving them a good squeeze and tossing them on the nearest bush. They dry instantly. Compare that with the UK. We have no problem finding water to immerse our clothes, but we have to wear many clothes and some of them are so thick it is virtually impossible to lift them once they get wet. Toss them anywhere and they will drip for days and mould before they dry. So we have developed machines: first mangles and then washing machines that spin the water out of our clothes. These things are not cheap. If you cannot buy your own washing machine, it is necessary to spend at least £4 a week at the laundrette. Then you either do your back in lugging your wet clothes home or you dry some things in an expensive tumble dryer.
We require heating, for warming our homes and for drying our clothes. Other countries do not.
We must find a way to preserve our food over the long winter, so we have developed a whole industry around the storage and processing of food. We have far too little land to live off our land, so we must rely on shops and food processing and expensive farming practices in order to get ourselves fed. We buy our food and our soap and our cotton from warmer countries. Therefore, we must make money, through industry, services, etc., or else we won’t be able to buy our food and we will starve.
Therefore, we invest huge amounts of time and resources in educating our young people and preparing them for the world of work, so that they can earn enough money to survive. We find that we cannot have many children because each child requires such a huge investment.
I wonder how we managed before eh.
But really if all this shit we have to go through so you can dry your clothes move to Africa be easier surely ?
Paul, there are many challenges about living in Africa as well. I am not expressing a desire to escape UK life. I am simply expressing an opinion about why we seem to have more reources.
What do you mean when you say resources ? wealth ?
Yes, wealth was meant by “resources” in the comment I made and the comment I replied to.
I don’t smoke cannabis anymore, for personal reasons, but I have no objections to other people using it, apart from I don’t think it’s a good idea for younger people/teens to use it, same as I don’t think it’s good for them to drink either, but for most people cannabis is harmless and even beneficial. I’ve known many professional people who smoked it too, Doctors, lawyers, teachers, university lecturers, one guy was the head of senior regional management in charge of a Quango (and an Aristocrat too), as well as artists, musicians, journalists, brick layers, etc.etc. One thing I would say is watch the film ‘Reefer Madness’ and the documentary ‘Run from the Cure’, visit Amsterdam and see how much more civilized it is than England, and above all try not to be judgemental.
If the government legalised recreational drugs most of the problems associated with them would go away.
You can safely use heroin and lead a normal life long healthy life.
It only the criminalisation that introduces problems.
To say that cannabis is banned because it is unsafe, then you have to question why tobacco and alcohol are legal.
The government want the monopoly on the drug trade and rather than increase the price of tobacco and alcohol to add more money to coffers why not ban them completely.
Alcohol makes you forget what a shit world it is, other drugs make you think.
Which drug would a controlling oppressive system prefer do you think ?
If the government legalised driving with no seatbelt, would we all be safer? If the government let everyone drive as fast as they liked, would people suddenly drive slower?
Would our roads be safer if everybody was driving to work stoned on heroin? Great work they would do as well, Paul!
For the record, I don’t advocate tobacco or alcohol either.
What about thieving and house-breaking? Is that only a problem because it’s illegal? It leaves people with nothing. Is that OK? Because the world’s wealth needs to be shared about anyway?
By the way, cannabis doesn’t make you think. It makes you think you’re thinking and pour out a string of nonsense.
“cannabis doesn’t make you think. It makes you think you’re thinking”
But with practice and experience Alison one can sift through the false epiphanies and reach an Higher mode of Thought where Spiritual experiences can take place. In that respect, used skillfully, Cannabis can become a useful tool in conquering the Mind.
Utter b.
Thank you for that well considered response.
In all fairness Trev, cannabis does have some questions over long-term use. Plus we now see it being displaced by synthetic cannabis like Spice, which is far worse. You might as well do DIY brain-surgery as smoke that.
Of course it is not good for anyone to smoke, be it tobacco or cannabis.
Exactly so the rise in synthetic cannabis which is now blighting the streets and prisons is a by product of criminalisation.
Look at the damage methadone, prescription opioids and all the other legal drugs we have today.
The war on drugs was over long ago.
Sativex (nabiximols) is the first cannabis-based medicine to be licensed in the UK and will not be the last as more and more folk including the medical profession realise the health giving properties.
Paul, the effects of synthetic cannabis are the result of the scourge of addiction and the vice of turning to drugs.
Cannabis is a completely unnecessary substance. The body has no need for it.
People only make synthetic cannabis because others want to buy it. They only want to buy it because they desire cannabis, lack willpower, have become addicted or don’t care.
The human brain has cannibanoid receptors
P.S. When I observe the “ergophobia” and delusional thinking that results from being stoned, I struggle to see any “health-giving benefits” of using cannabis.
true, smoking anything might affect your health, but then not everyone who smokes gets cancer or other lung diseases. Churchill smoked cigars and drank a bottle of Scotch per day but lived into his 90s. Plus not everyone smokes cannabis, many vape it, and I’ve known people in the past who used it in cooking, one guy used to grater it (resin) into his coffee. I used cannabis long term with no ill effects.
Not everyone who eats sh1t necessarily dies. Not a reason to eat sh1t, though.
But what if you enjoy eating shit, do you think you have the right to tell them not to ?
Yes, I have the right to express an opinion, Paul. It’s called freedom of speech.
Yes, I know the odd professional weed-head, but cocaine is more prevalent among the elite. No wonder our country is going to pot (pardon the pun), never mind America.
Well it’s difficult not to be judgemental when people start judging me for using prescription medication. Anyway, there are many things to be worried about. Young people are dying all over London in drug-fuelled gang wars. Our NHS has enough to pay for without the mental health wards filling up with the effects of cannabis. It’s not fair on people who develop mental illness NOT due to drugs.
Why are cannabis users so keen to open our borders? Oh, that’s right. Free movement of drugs.
There would be no need for any movement of drugs from abroad if we were allowed to grow our own here, like in Holland where people are allowed to grow a couple of plants for their own use. A vast amount of public money is wasted on Police resources in this country concentrating on Cannabis offences at the expense of other crimes. And I wasn’t judging you at all for using prescription meds, I was simply saying that Sertraline caused me problems and is not entirely risk free.
Perhaps your cannabis interfered with it.
Everyone should experience LSD at least once in their lives and the world would be a better place !
Brain dead.
Hallucinations are no substitute for reality. Drugs are just a fantasy world.
When we trip, our default mode network slows down. With the ego out of commission, the boundaries between self and world, subject and object dissolve. These processes may be related to something called the “primary mystical experience,” a phenomena highly correlated with therapeutic outcomes. As Matthew Johnson, a principal investigator in Johns Hopkins’s psilocybin studies, explains, these experiences include a “transcendence of time and space,” a sense of unity and sacredness and a deeply felt positive mood.
No, these things are what happens when your brain stops working. You start talking about “transcending” and other sh1t. If your brain was still working, you’d realise how silly it sounds.
Alison it does not surprise me you believe in a mythical being and ignore evidence and research.
Humans have only been around for 4000 years I guess in your belief.
If anyone needs to realise how silly anything is that is a good starting point.
“Hallucinations are no substitute for reality.”
It all depends how you define Reality.
A psychoactive substance causing hallucinations is just that, and nothing more.
Unless you are seriously suggesting that the ‘reality’ someone experiences while stoned on LSD / Spice etc. is somehow the true reality ?
Andrew read up quantum mechanics and the multiverse theory, it will blow your mind.
Paul, it sounds as though 40 years on cannabis has blown a big hole in your mind. Just because someone’s drug-fuelled nonsense sounds impressive while you’re high does not mean that it’s the truth.
It all depends how you define Truth.
Notions of Truth & Reality are not fixed, they are fluid, subjective and progressive. We can see this throughout history. Truths are realized and expanded upon, and Reality shifts accordingly. We don’t share the same Reality aS someone in the 19th century orthe Middle Ages for example, despite the Tories attempts to control &h curtail our progress. As Edgar Allen Poe said, “Is all we see or seem but a dream within a dream?”. And now with the advent of modern technology we are not only replicating or representing Reality, we are creating virtual realities!
Reality is what you know when you haven’t taken anything.
LSD could make you smarter, happier and healthier.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/04/01/lsd-could-make-you-smarter-happier-and-healthier-should-we-all-try-it/?noredirect=on
Enlighten yourself by reading that article.
This load of bull is exactly what you get from people high on LSD. I notice it says LSD reduces the blood supply to the brain. That explains everything.
Nobody should be taking LSD before church. What you feel after taking LSD has nothing to do with God. It is a chemical.
The best way to give up drinking and smoking: don’t start in the first place.
If you want to lift your mood, put down the spliff and go for a walk.
Alision I do not want to rock your world but you do realise we are made from chemicals.
The human body is made up of a long list of ‘ingredients’, with the most abundant being oxygen (65% by mass), carbon (18%), hydrogen (10%), nitrogen (3%), calcium (1.4%) and phosphorous (1.1%)
Human cells make up only 43% of the mass 57% is microscopic colonists.
We are less human than you think.
Any effect on the human condition is a the product of our bodies chemistry, drug just induce the chemistry your God gave us.
Always quick to point out the wonders of his creation birds, bunney wabbits and flowers but neglect to mention the horrors such as the micro organism that infect the brains of ants and turn it into a zombie host,cats carry a disease that infect mice to make them lose fear of the predator, a large percentage of humans have also been affected all down to the work of your glorious creator.
Not happy with God? Don’t come running to me about it! Take it up with God yourself. I don’t decide what God does and doesn’t do!
Paul, are you an anarchist ? I notice the No Wars / Government icon.
Yes Harry I am from the all property is theft brigade.
Albert Hoffman advised people to wait until middle age to try LSD. I did it many times in my 30s, and Magic Mushrooms (Psilocybin) many many times between age 18 and into my 30s. They grow wild all around the Yorkshire moors.
I have had some amazing experiences on liberty caps, never tried fly agaric.
Everybody, remember to vote Labour today. We are NOT the party of the “ergophobics” or “enlightened-by-drugs”, but we do hope to offer something better to working people than work-work-work-work-work and still can’t pay the rent, let alone any luxuries to show for doing the right thing.
Very true Alison. People need more than this austerity crap, and the only way to start is by getting the Tories out.
Still under the mistaken believe you are being given a choice ?
When the only choice is to be governed ? are you not capable of governing yourself?
Well evidently I can’t govern myself. I can’t pay my own benefits, deliver my own post, burn my own rubbish or run my own school. I can’t treat my own sewage, purify my own water, make my own pills or drive my own bus. As citizens, we rely on a functioning STATE in order to pool our skills and resources and help one another to get by. How will you provide your own care when you become elderly? Surely you will depend on the state to set it up for you!
Who needs buses, postman,benefits schools they are just instruments of control.
The state is designed to take your ability to self govern away from you.
If you are incapable of surviving without a state, in trouble, need refuge I am sure someone will give you a helping hand unlike your good self
When I am incapable of looking after myself then I will end my life.
I will not rely on the no hope surviving (NHS) for sure.
My final protest will be when it is the state who has to pick up the bill to dispose of my carcass.
“Don’t wanna be cremated, or buried in a grave, just put me in a plastic bag and leave me on the pave…ment”.
Snuff Rock ep,
Y Los Trios Paranoias
I value having a bus, a postman, etc. I wouldn’t want to lose them.
In Lambeth, it seems that the Labour Council are running scared of the Green Party. Perhaps it is ‘Judgement Day’ for Labour in Lambeth?
The Brixton Soup Kitchen Letter — When there’s a Labour Party fly in your Green Party Soup
I see by her not answering my input about Labour, that Alison is not answering questions that are critical of Labour councils.
Still, she is not alone in that stance among Labour members and supporters. Labour’s Education Secretary refused to take any questions from the Camden New Journal.
Labour’s Shadow Education Spokesperson said: “We’ve
got heads and chiefs of multi-academy trusts who are taking £300,000 a year out of the education system, when you’ve got children not being fed before they even reach the classroom.”
How much is LB Camden’s CEO paid?
Labour’s Shadow Education Spokespreson also said: “We
know that [public] services are being stretched thinner and thinner: older people being told they are living a little bit too long…” Perhaps that message has come over loud
and clear in more than Labour Camden’s closure of the Netherwood dementia centre?
I really try not get involved in politics to be honest but the few snippets of information that does cross my radar concerning the greens suggests to me they might the lesser of the evils the electorate have to choose from.
Dude, I don’t run the Labour Party and your personal cause is not the centre of my universe. If you think the Greens will do a better job in Lambeth then go vote for them. Polls close at 10pm.
Alison Price told me that if I cared for Lambeth Green Party candidates, I should go vote for them.
Dude Swheatie, living in Herefordshire [my byline on these blog comments], a Green Party member since 2005 and co-author of Green Party of England & Wales 2008 publication Writing off Workfare: for a Green New Deal, not the flexible New Deal cannot vote in Lambeth.
Alison, perhaps you paid as scant attention to my byline as you did to investigating the link evidence that Labour were running scared of Green candidates in LB Lambeth? A question arising from the evidence that Labour were running scared of Green Party in Coldharbour Ward Lambeth is, “What action might be taken against the Labour Party electoral agent for his apparently dirty tricks in sending out a letter that said Greens did not care about poverty?”
Anyhow, I’m delighted that in my former home ward of Highgate in LB Camden, Sian Berry got back in after Labour sent in big guns in an attempt to wipe out Green Party representation in that ward, while refusing to take any questions from the Camden New Journal.
DUDE, I AM NOT A SPOKESPERSON FOR THE LABOUR PARTY. I AM NOT A PRESS OFFICER. I AM NOT A COUNCILLOR OR A CANDIDATE. GO TAKE YOUR JOURNALISM ELSEWHERE. I REPEAT I DO NOT SPEAK FOR THE LABOUR PARTY.
Well, you did say, “Vote Labour” in council elections, and I ventured to disagree….
The problem with being ergophobic is other people blatantly working in public, right in front of you. You only have to turn the corner to see some poor devil labouring away, and if you’re not prepared, it can really be a shock. You feel dizzy, and a sense of fear overtakes you. The work itself draws you into watching it, and you can’t look away. Sometimes all you can do is to find somewhere to sit down quietly, and try to breathe slowly, until you feel better.
I feel ashamed because other people are working so much harder than me.
Rastus is a nigger, thug, mugger, junkie
Black gollywog, big horny monkey
Pimp, pusher, coon, grinning pick-a-ninny
Send him home soon, back to the trees
Black wogs, black wogs
Your face Don’t fit
Black wogs, black wogs
You ain’t no Brit
Ahmed is a Paki, curry-coffee queer
Ten to a bed, flocking over here
Tax-sponging canker, smelly thieving kids
Ponce greasy wanker, worse than the yids
Brown wogs, brown wogs
Your face don’t fit
Brown wogs, brown wogs
You ain’t no Brit
Stick together, we’ll all be all white, me and you
The only colours that we need, red, right and blue
We need a return to British Values. The good old Union Jack.
What are British values John?
!?! 😲
At least it reminds us how far we’ve come since those days!
If there was no government, wouldn’t there be chaos
Everybody running round, setting petrol bombs off?
And if there was no police force, tell me what you’d do
If thirty thousand rioters came running after you?
And who would clean the sewers? Who’d mend my television?
Wouldn’t people lay about without some supervision?
Who’d drive the fire engines? Who’d fix my video?
If there were no prisons, well, where would robbers go?
And what if I told you to Fuck Off?
What if there’s no army to stop a big invasion?
Who’d clean the bogs and sweep the floors? We’d have all immigration.
Who’d pull the pint at the local pub? Where’d I get my fags?
Who’d empty out my dustbins? Would I still get plastic bags?
If there were no hospitals, and no doctors too,
If I’d broken both my legs, where would I run to?
If there’s no medication, if there were no nurses,
Wouldn’t people die a lot? And who would drive the hearses?
And what if I told you to Fuck Off?
If there were no butchers shops, what would people eat?
You’d have everybody starving if they didn’t get their meat.
If there was no water, what would people drink?
Who’d flush away the you-know-what? But of course MINE never stink.
What about the children? Who’d teach them in the schools?
Who’d make the beggers keep in line? Learn them all the rules?
Who’s tell us whitewash windows? When to take down doors?
Tell us make a flask of tea and survive the holocaust?
Anarchy and freedom is what I want !
Anarchy – a useless dead-end and the refuge of losers and outsiders.
http://www.india.com/buzz/12-anarchists-who-changed-the-world-7780/
Do you consider those losers and dead ends?
I am really not here to educate or sell or push my ideology on anyone.
I have my views and will stand up to racism, bigotry and closed minds.
I
Well I suppose nobody’s mind is as open as yours is, Paul. There’s a whopping great hole in your mind, after years of drug abuse has denied your brain its rightful blood supply.
Paul, your poem is an excellent summary of all the reasons why government is good and anarchy is bad!
Spot on !
Alison the “poem” belongs to crass, a anarchist punk band from the 80s.
Clearly the subtlety was lost on you.
“Do they owe us a living?
Of course they do, of course they do.
Do they owe us a living?
Of course they fucking do! “
Trev I would say you are a kindred spirit but fear to say for tarring you with the same brush as me and my drug fuelled ramblings, but we do seem to have some views that align.
That song became my mantra when fighting alongside the miners.
I had great respect for them and their cause and helped out anyway I could.
it was a great injustice and proved to me beyond all doubt that profit would always come before people as far as the system was concerned.
I was a member of the 1 in 12 club in Bradford 20+ yrs ago, if U know it?
No trev until I googled it,so yep more in common than I first thought.
Closest I have been to Bradford is Leeds Christmas on Earth in 81.
Someone will always lead,
Others will always follow,
Rules must be made,
Then they must be obeyed.
What order can there be,
If everyone is free ?
What are you Gavin a sheep or a wolf ?
Freedom is a state of mind not a open top sports car.
There can be no room for discontented anarchists in a civilised society.
Government of the people, by the people.
The rule of law.
Nothing comes of chaos but more chaos and destruction.
Who said anything about chaos?
Governments corrupt people, people corrupt governments
But Paul, people can’t exist without some sort of government. A system, call it what you will.
Well they can and clearly did else we would never had reached this point in the first place.Governments are relatively speaking a new phenomena in our history.
We are at a crossroads that is clear, capitalism and democracy are failing, a 2 horse race can hardly be called a democracy can it ?
Warning drug fuelled rambling ahead !
We are born consume then die everything in between is inconsequential but to make that journey bearable then freedom, companionship and contentment are I think most peoples primary objective.
Freeing the mind from material wealth and concentrating on spiritual wealth would be a good start, we really have become gods in our ability to understand and manipulate the world on a quantum level.
We buck the Darwinian theory and physics conservation of energy in that we can achieve far more than we need to survive maybe we are reaching out to the stars and beyond as though it were a deeply ingrained spawning instinct like the salmon.
I cannot say what would replace a democracy or the system we have now, anarchy to me is more a state of mind than a actual physical state.
But it can transcend all borders regardless of the lottery of birth.
I am not calling for a revolution the most effective way of opposing capitalism and the liberal state is not through direct confrontation but by means of what Paolo Virno has called “engaged withdrawal,” mass defection by those wishing to create new forms of community.
So if you need a word to replace democracy then community is as a good a word as any.
The system imposed upon us has had only one mantra up until recently:
Work – Buy – Consume – Die
This has now been shortened to either:
Work
Or:
Die
You can’t just let people do exactly what they want, whenever they feel like it. What would happen to society ?
I am actually extremely content with my lot in life, that is why I am able to help others without profiting.
I am a Anarchist and a minimalist I need very little for myself.
People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.”
― Emma Goldman
But what about the chaos Paul of an anarchist revolution ? The looting and killing as the streets run red with blood, and the screams of women are heard over the gunfire ? Burning buildings. Mobs of crazy anarchists running about smashing everything they see. Destruction and death everywhere you look.
Anarchists did not try to carry out genocide against the Armenians in Turkey; they did not deliberately starve millions of Ukrainians; they did not create a system of death camps to kill Jews, gypsies, and Slavs in Europe; they did not fire-bomb scores of large German and Japanese cities and drop nuclear bombs on two of them; they did not carry out a ‘Great Leap Forward’ that killed scores of millions of Chinese; they did not attempt to kill everybody with any appreciable education in Cambodia; they did not launch one aggressive war after another; they did not implement trade sanctions that killed perhaps 500,000 Iraqi children.
In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy’s mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state’s mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.”
― Robert Higgs
There’s pretty much no government or rule of law in many of the nations of East Africa and the Middle East. Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, South Sudan, Ethiopia…take your pick. How’s it going in those countries? Peace and love?
Sadly, there is great destruction that heroin addicts leave in their wake. They steal from loved ones to pay for their habit, so precious items are lost and precious relationships are destroyed. They fail to pay bills and steal from strangers. They destroy their own bodies. All for the sake of a drug.
The neoliberal/neocon (Masonic) agenda is to create Order out of Chaos, but first they must create the Chaos, hence the Iraq war, the American Revolution, the French Revolution…etc. = the NWO.
Well I think he has the right to exist, Andrew, even if we don’t agree with the choices he makes. I’m not too keen on the suggestion he made that he would commit suicide before needing any physical care from anybody else. The world must be a frightening place if you’re addicted to illegal drugs.
Not really Alison I am preserving my dignity as I see it and making a choice as and when I decide to end my life.
I have had a good run, longer than a lot of my peers, I am not afraid of death, it is inevitable anyway, no one gets out of here alive.
I am not frightened of the world at all it is a wonderful place, it is other humans who believe they have the right to control and dictate my life which plagues me but I resited all my life and will continue to do so until my last breath.
I am at peace Alison I am content and free than most , I think I won MY fight no matter what the future holds now.
Paul, I don’t think you should commit suicide. I’m sure a little help from neighbours/family/friends and a few aches and pains and getting to know your doctor again won’t be as bad as all that.
Alison I am able to take care of myself I am not going to commit suicide over a few aches and pains.
I have managed quite well without the NHS. I am happy, content and believe healthy enough to go on for a lot longer and have no desire or plan to find the answer to the ultimate question anytime soon.
I avoid all activities that could potentially put me in hospital, I do not use transport, I am not an adrenalin junkie, I avoid crowds and people whenever possible, I look left and right before crossing the road and my ergophobia has taken care of the rest.
The only way I will end up in hospital is unconsciousness, then I will make my escape ASAP.
I would prefer to just drop where I stood than take my own life to be honest but Euthanasia is a option for me at least when I think I can no longer look after myself.
On reflection I have a great life , I have always chosen freedom over slavery, fun over work, controlled my own life and destiny, I am a happy person.
I am saddened however by the worlds inequalities, the hate, the intolerance to others way of life, the dog eat dog winner and loser mentality and greed that drives capitalism and other systems.
It would be sad if you cut your happy life short just because you needed to go to the doctor or you needed a nurse to visit a few times a week.
Freedom is life under strict rules,
Anarchy is the creed of fools,
We must have laws and prisons too,
We must be told what to do,
How can we live, how can we thrive,
Without restrictions to keep us alive ?
What future for the human race
Without strict laws to keep it in place ?
Give up Paul the anarchist’s tears,
Live by the rules and have no fears.
A fine poem indeed the irony is not lost on me but no thanks I will stick with Anarchy.
Yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions:
I’m glad several people were impressed with Jeremy Corbyn yesterday. I thought he looked and sounded very prime ministerial. It was a good thing that the Tories didn’t drown him out like they usually do.
The Tories didn’t look like they took the serious things very seriously. They looked kind of juvenile, smirking and squirming in their seats, while the Labour Party looked poised to run the country.
The Prime Minister didn’t look very well at all. She looked very pale, very tired and rather weak. I’m sure the Tories would consider that absolutely no excuse for not continuing to run the country, though! She had her Maggie moment comparing council taxes in South London. We’ll see how well Wandsworth’s low council tax played for the Tories when the results come in tonight.
I’m glad Universal Credit got a mention. I thought the Prime Minister’s answer was unacceptable, though. She basically said it doesn’t matter how much the sick and disabled and vulnerable suffer in our country because they need to get a job anyway. (I presume she means a full-time job because people in part-time work do claim Universal Credit. Doesn’t the Prime Minister know that?) That might be true for a few “ergophobics” out there, but most of the people claiming Universal Credit do have challenging circumstances, such as illness and disability, lack of qualifications, childcare responsibilities, etc. It’s not good enough for her to tell them they don’t matter because they haven’t got a [full-time?] job yet. She works for everyone in our country, not just those in [full-time?] work.
Peter Bone’s question was very good. He’s in line to be the next Nigel Farage.
I thought Amber Rudd was cheating because her “question” was not really a question.
Alison as your clearly obsessed with my ergophobia may I ask why you mock it ?
May I also suggest you at least visit this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Abolition_of_Work and the maybe some of the links at the bottom.
“The political left has, for the most part, failed to acknowledge as revolutionary the critique of work, limiting itself to the critique of wage-labor. The left, he contends, by glorifying the dignity of labor, has endorsed work itself, and also the work ethic”
It’s not taken seriously enough ergophobia. How often have you looked at someone trapped in an awful minimum-wage job, and felt a cold shiver of fear ? Wondering if a strict Work Coach is going to force you into something similar.
I mock it because it’s the sort of comment/term/identity that really doesn’t help at all when the rest of us are campaigning for a better safety net.
A selective safety-net that doesn’t include ergophobics ? That is pure discrimination. There are people suffering everyday in this country from Ergophobia. A serious condition that even has its own Wikipedia entry !
Ok I can accept you may see it like that, but your mutterings regarding building the wall, calling others lands shitholes and general intolerance hardly entices people to your cause now does it ? well not those who have compassion at least.
Although tongue in cheek my point is we cannot start judging people why they choose not work if we are to have a fair social security.
If someone does not or cannot work for whatever reason we must accept that or as what is happening now you get wca basically the state judging for them.
A guaranteed unconditional basic income is the solution then there would be no reason for a safety net or wca.
Work is set to become a privilege and not a necessity with the rise in AI and automation we are in the second phase where middle management and skilled jobs are all at risk.
This work ethic is outdated, we are heading towards meltdown unless there is a radical shift in thinking.
So yes if your are privileged enough or capable enough or lucky enough to find work then you should be rewarded adequately enough for your efforts.
But for WHATEVER reason that is not possible or wanted then they should at least be entitled to live without interference and receive a basic income.
Paul, I do agree with you that there should be less conditionality and more security in the benefits system. I also hope that you find happiness in your life. We benefit from equal access to our NHS, so I hope you take advantage of its services, e.g. health checks and screening services, even if you’ve fallen out with your doctor in the past.
I didn’t see it. I think I would rather hear Ian Bone speak than Peter Bone. Glad to know Corbyn did good though. I think it’s all over for May & the Tories, they have the pallor of death about them & the scent of failure, the vultures are circling & their end is nigh.
Yes much improved I thought Trev. It’s vital in parliament to make a good impression. More of the same needed right the way up to the election.
Only pray Trev that there are no cock-ups on the Labour side. No more free gifts to the Tories. I can still see that Miliband with a gormless face full of bacon, as if he didn’t whether to swallow it or spit it back out on the plate.
There were so many serious issues to vote on. It’s insulting when people reduce them to a bacon sandwich.
I think you’ll find Alison that bacon sandwiches are important to quite a number of people.
And a valuable source of protein.
It seems that the Tories might have done a little bit better than expected in , x Locals, whiLst UKIP are dead in the water, so it’s obvious what’s happpened, the Tories have gained the Nationalist, Racist , xenophobic vote.
Too right Trev ! They all soon run for cover in the Tory party when things start going wrong.
Well I don’t really care about silly Press items on bacon sandwiches David (though as a Vegetarian and an Animal Rights activist I’d prefer it if people didn’t eat bacon), but Miliband’s Labour leadership let us down badly with failing to oppose Tory Welfare Reforms, and were trying to emulate the Tories with all their rhetoric and Rachel reeves vowing to be tougher on benefits than the Tories. Hopeless. Now Corbyn is leader things might be different under his leadership if/when Labour win the next General Election.
I’d rather give a dog a bone than listen to either of them.
Like I said in an earlier response to Alison Price, yesterday may to some extent have been a time for Judgement Day for some Labour councils.
Sadly though, voters and national news media too often confuse council elections with national ones; and in a far-from Proportion Representation voting system, disproportionate canassing input is put into getting one Green Party cllr re-elected in LB Camden’s Highgate Ward.
What does that re-elected Green Party cllr stand for? Keep Labour homes, vote Green Party
And will those London Labour Councils that are all Labour be any better for being one-party states? Note that in Labour’s attempts to oust Siân Berry (Green Party) in Highgate Ward of Camden, Labour were not going to take any questions from the Camden New Journal.
Parodying an ‘incitement to disaffection’ song addressed to prospective Vietnam War volunteers and conscripts, songwriter Phil Ochs addressed the question, What are You Fighting For? A question for council election voters in 2018, given the ways that many councils have capitulated with central government policy, could have been, “What are You Voting For?”
Sadly Alison, Labour allowed all this to pass without much opposition in the days of Miliband, and voting for The Welfare Reform Act 2012. Like the WCA test.
Yes, Keith, recent history isn’t great. I pay my dues and vote for Corbyn.
Be nice to see Labour really going for it against Universal Credit.
Maybe a manifesto commitment to get rid of it.
‘ When meeting each other members of The Red Circle raise their right hand.
The thumb and index finger curled into a circle. This is the sign of the brotherhood.’
P.D. Thorland – Secret Societies & Their Role In Political Organisation
So what are you implying by that John T. ? And who is P.D. Thorland?
I knew it ! The Red Circle, now they are even in a book.
And what about Debbie Abrahams ?
It’s worth reading the Thorland book. Bit long but it covers a lot of this stuff, including all these societies and groups. It’s amazing how many of them there are, even where you would never expect it.
For the record, I belong to nothing except the Labour Party, Momentum and my church.
Yes, what about Debbie Abrahams? I miss hearing from her!
I think she was too outspoken onUniversal Credit for some of the party leadership. Don’t forget the official Labour policy is to support Universal Credit. Though admitting that it does need some changes.
Then, contrary to some hints on this forum, it wasn’t “the Red Circle” that got rid of Debbie Abrahams.
I don’t believe there is any such thing as a “Red Circle”, it’s just a paranoid conspiracy theory and the people posting on here about it know that full well but are intentionally spreading malicious rumours in a blatant attempt to discredit the Left.
Enormously disappointed to wake up this morning and found there was still a government, I clearly wrote no government on my ballot paper and put my tick next to that, unbelievable.
Local elections are not really the best indicator of how a general election might pan out but really after all the crap that has happened you would think there would be a dent in the conservatives armour.
Ever get the feeling your being conned ?
Yeah. Unfortunately Jeremy Corbyn is a bit like political marmite.
As we see from these results. This must all seem completely pointless to an anarchist Paul ? A game played to keep people in subjection.
Considering voter turnout many others anarchist or not see the process of democracy as pointless and futile.
But Paul, suppose for a moment that there was no government.
All the MPs and Lords packed it up and went home.
Then what ?
Then you take control of your own life and destiny.
But you can’t just say ” Okay its Monday 9am, we’ve abolished the government. Now you can all do as you like.” There would be absolute anarchy.
And if you abolish the government, who is going to run the Jobcentres ?
Then if the Jobcentres close where are people going to get their benefits from ?
What you wrote on your ballot: Ha-ha! Not bad!
Fruits, vegetables, and grains are a staple among vegetarian diets, but did you know that millions of animals die just so you can enjoy that piece of bread? Eating foods like grains means destroying ecosystems and all of its inhabitants. It means killing all the little animals, birds, bugs, and microorganisms that live among the fields. Do you know how many little animals and microorganisms die when farmers use machines to plow through wheat fields? The answer is a lot more than 1 cow.
Yippee! This omnivore can feel less guilty!
Polly Mackenzie was a policy director for Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg under the Tory-Liberal coalition government. On 19 April, she told Twitter:
“It is now so cool to ban plastic, it’s the government’s go-to policy to move the news on from a bad story. Worth reflecting on how far we’ve come in the last four years…”Lib Dem ministers started agitating for a 5p charge on plastic bags. It took us months to persuade Cameron and Osborne.
“We finally got the policy in an eve-of-conference trade, in return for tightening benefit sanctions.” Jesus H .Christ ! – thank you Libdems for all your concern.
Judas Party.
And what do you bet that they would do it again, if it meant getting a share of power at the next election ?
The badger is a protected species due to persecution (badger baiting) and it is illegal to harm, kill or capture them without a licence. However, DEFRA undertook a “controlled” badger culling program (known as the Krebs trial) of badgers to control bTB on farms in designated parts of the country. It took 10 years and killed over 11,000 badgers, at a cost of approximately £50 million.
What the Krebs trial found, was that killing badgers appears to provide a very slight reduction in cattle TB where badgers are killed, but just outside the killing zones, the amount of TB goes up; cancelling out the beneficial effect. The Krebs experiment suggests at least 70% of all badgers would have to be killed across large areas of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Avon, Gloucestershire and the Midlands to have a significant positive effect. Placing the entire species at risk of extinction.
If we culled the human race, we could reduce the spread of some diseases, but we’d never allow that.
Persecution of Badgers against all scientific fact is yet another Tory atrocity. They’re just trying to appease the land owners who vote for them, it’s entirely Political.
Well, don’t say we didn’t warn you. #StayInLabour
Now is the time for people to ask themselves are they doing the best thing for the party ? Going back to old ways. Unhappy ways. When there is a bright new path ahead. The path of Progress. #StayInLabour
The path of neoliberalism? No thanks.
We need a return to British Values.
What are British values Harold?
Harold, UKIP didn’t do well at all in the last council and general elections.
Still no answer from Harold as to what he means by “British values”. If no answer is forthcoming then Harold’s statement can be discarded as trolling.
Centre Left, that’s the way,
Forget what Corbyn and McDonnell say,
Think of Tony, he won three,
And Labour danced about in glee,
Then Miliband, of rolling eyes,
Eating bacon with suprise,
Carving words in hopeless stone,
And ending, sad and all alone.
Don’t listen to Momentum’s call,
They won’t win anything at all.
Miliband didn’t lose because of a bacon sandwich, he lost because he did nothing to oppose our enemy the vile Tory scum. Blair duped the nation in to thinking theywere voting for a Socialist, when all the while he was a Rightwing neoliberal masquerading as a Centrist.
Trev, you can’t force the general public to vote for an unpopular leader. Kinnock showed this, so did Miliband.
On the Tory side Hague was just the same. Candidates
that people just couldn’t see as Prime Minister.
Kinnock tripping over his own feet on the beach, Miliband eating the bacon sandwich. The ludicrous Edstone. Hague coming down the water-slide wearing a baseball cap, that made him look about 19. Duncan-Smith and the disastrous ‘Quiet Man’ campaign.
The bacon sandwich certainly didn’t help, or the Edstone. Or the geeking and the strange nasal problems. I can still see it , the mouth stuffed with half-chewed bacon. The look of disgust. Spit or swallow. Horrible.
You’re making it sound like Corbyn is a lot better than Miliband!
But Tom, Corbyn is one of the most popular Labour leaders there’s ever been, look at the huge increase in membership.
There are different kinds of socialist. Some believe in the role of capital and the free market. But guided by the hand of socialist principles.
Socialist principles like the Workers owning the means of Production.
Good poem Gerald , liked it !
If the bacon sandwich had been taken more seriously, then Labour might have won. No-one is going to vote for a vegetarian.
Dan, what an absurd comment!
I think Dan is trying to suggest that this Vegetarian / Pacifist stuff is not a great sell to a non-pacifist, non-vegetarian electorate.
The public is full of vegetarians, Malcolm, not to mention all-out pacifists and opponents of the likes of the Iraq War. I’m an omnivore, but it hasn’t affected my pro-Corbyn stance.
It looks a bit odd to a lot of people.
Or a pacifist. What about the defense of the country ?
The public don’t support these military interventions, though, Alan. Think of Iraq.
If Corbyn produces another result like the locals in the actual election, the Conservatives are going to win. Not by much maybe, but they’ll sneak back into power with another DUP deal, or similar. Labour can’t afford any more experiments.