Sorry, couldn’t resist this comment from someone on Fox News Lite.

Tax, tax, tax

Posted by: Rosie England - 27-01-07 00:08

It’s nice to know that Fox News Lite is the land of reasoned and well informed viewers. France and Germany run by the far left? I’m sure Chirac and Merkel would concur on that one. Of course they’re only being governed by that well known far left organisation the EU. Not checked the makeup of the European Parliament lately have we Rosie?

Right, first off, I’m coming to this one a bit late as it’s been clunking around for a few weeks but this whole thing over Guido AKA Paul Staines astroturfer and general all round pisspot of the political blogging world and his little school boy antics is starting to annoy me. Till now I’ve left it in the capable hands of Tim Ireland and Unity but I think it’s about time I got involved.
I’m old fashioned, I’m of a generation who were there with computers at the start, learned the basics before Windows came out and suddenly any idiot could be let loose. Accessibility is a noble thing and the internet is one of the most enabling phenomena probably to this point in the development of our species.
I don’t advocate the position of exclusivity, every principle I believe in is against exclusion. However there was a time when there were certain codes, netiquette, terms of engagement, mutual respect. The problem we now face, particularly if we consider the culture of blogging in the UK, in particular political blogging is that with the advent of blogging tools for children (Blogger/Blogspot.com) (that’s not aimed at you Paul) is that any fuckwit with a gob that doesn’t match either their intelligence nor technical nouse is out there trying to make a name for themselves and stroke their own ego.
This poses a particular problem for someone such as myself. Given my background and personal beliefs about the principles of what blogging should be about and indeed this seems to be a common belief among Labour Bloggers that what is online stays online. However the last few months have shown the complete disrespect for which these principles are held by the Tories and they’re strategy is clearly to drag what’s online into the mainstream media environment with the constant drip drip of dodgy biased and downright wrong information about the Labour Party and various staff/politicians. It’s not a new approach, it’s one that’s been used by the LibDems for years although through more traditional campaigning methods.
It’s one that I’ve even used myself to blow the scummy bastard LibDems out of the water with from time to time, not to mention the BNP as well. This is simply a new variant of an old strategy played out in a different medium. So on that basis, if the gloves are truly coming off then I’m going to be one of the Labour Bloggers who ain’t going to put up with it.
The state of play is a bit uneven at the moment, with all honesty I agree with Unity that the Tories are ahead of the game on this, but lets just qualify that statement. The Tories are ahead not because they are technically better, nor more organised, nor more intelligent, they are simply more unprincipled and happy to break long held netiquette valued by those of us who have a sense of fair play and honour.
It is especially guileful to see the antics of Guido when it comes to his attempt to smear the Smith Institute which was set up in the memory of a truly great man of which none of his little ilk of fuckwits have a hope in hell of ever emulating. It’s also bleeding hypocritical of the Tories to try and infer that it is some kind of secret Labour organisation when they aren’t grown up to even acknowledge the work of their so-called independent Policy Institute which is stacked with Tories including none other than self proclaimed uber blogger Iain Dale. Fucking glass houses, fucking glass houses and if they really wish to go down this line through Fox News Lite then they might find that a few people on our side have a nice little stock of rocks to throw back, anyone remember the Midlands Industrial Council?
So there you go, I’m up for a bit of a rumble, my principles stand as they always have done, I’ll only post what I can prove, I never delete or edit stuff (apart from the odd typo I spot later) but I think it’s about time I started being a bit more partisan and ripping a few Tories (and the odd LibDem) to shreads.
A final congratulations to the likes of Iain Dale, Guido and PragueTory, you have dragged a noble medium into the gutter that you inhabit and it about time some of us got down and did a bit of cleaning up of the rubbish. Oh, and a final note, as it’s likely that Guido et al will release their little attack puppies, astroturfers and trolls on me to try and shout me down. A little warning, I’m a very nice guy, but a bunch of amateur techie wannabies of your ilk should really consider their position before picking a fight with someone who’s techincal ability you have no idea about.

Couldn’t resist this one.
Here’s a translation of the BBC article into what it actually means with a few commentaries.

Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor said he was disappointed with the decision
Ministers have been accused of trying to impose “a new morality” by ruling Catholic adoption agencies should not be exempt from gay rights laws.

You’ve done something we don’t like.

Tony Blair has ruled against an opt-out despite agencies saying they will close rather than act against their beliefs.

Tony actually standing up to the Catholic church for a change and doing the right thing instead of caving in to prejudices dressed up as a religious belief.

However they are to be given 21 months to adjust to the new regulations.

To be given 21 months to make their mind up whether their prejudices or a fair bit of tax payers wonga is more important to them.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor said he was disappointed, but said he hoped there might still be some way the agencies could “continue their work”.

Shit shit bugger bugger, we thought the Government would back down like on faith schools but they haven’t and we don’t want to give up all that lovely tax payers money that we’re getting so sod the principles of our church, we’d rather have the dosh.

Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, the head of Catholics in England and Wales, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Some legislation, however well intended, in fact does create a new kind of morality, a new kind of norm - as this does.”

“The government has a right to legislate and homosexual couples are also able to adopt in other agencies but we want to hold onto this principle.”

Damn, we’re not in charge anymore and the Government is making decisions that are in line with the moral position of the majority, not our little bigotted group. We believe that homosexuality is wrong despite there being bugger all in that book we base our religion on to actually say it but we’re quite happy to want to continue to hold prejudices handed down to us through centuries of equally bigotted Bishops and Cardinals from Rome.

Mr Blair said the proposal was a “sensible compromise”

Best I could come up with without pissing off either the missus’ or the PLP.

He said the move risked forcing religious people out of public life.

The problem being?

“Here the Catholic Church and its adoption services are wishing to act according to its principles and conscience and the government is saying: ‘No, we won’t allow you to … you have no space, you have no place in the public life of this country.’

Principles and conscience = prejudice and irrational beliefs based on no imperical evidence.

“Now that seems to me to be just one step and there will be further ones.”

Hopefully yes, the more we move away from daft superstition and towards an enlightened humanist perspective the better.

The row was said to have split the Cabinet and was opposed by the Catholic Church, backed by the Church of England and some other religious groups.

Yep, religion whatever it’s guise and prejudice go hand in hand, is there something new there?

There may well be some way in which without breaking the law, our Catholic services can continue in their work

Yep, we have realised we quite like being funded by the taxpayer and our morals are open to question when it comes to the dosheroonies.

The proposed measures are likely to face a vote in Parliament next month before coming into effect on 6 April.

Hopefully a good progressive day in Parliament.

But Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor told the BBC: “I’m very disappointed that we haven’t been given the exemption that we desired.”

Why can’t you let us be a bunch of homophobic twats if we want to?

He said that he hoped Catholic adoption agencies could still operate once the transition period was over.

Yep, still want the money, sod the principles.

“There may well be some way in which, without breaking the law, our Catholic services can continue in their work according to Catholic principles.”

We’ll just change the principles on which our faith is based, hey it’s not the first time, even the Pope is on about reforming ‘original sin’ so maybe we’d be happy to change our mind on homosexuality to increase our market share and keep getting those lovely cheques from HM Treasury.

Been meaning to do this for a while, Labour Humanist and Fair Deal Phil added to the blogroll. Both well worth a read.

Enough said really.
Hat tip to Labour Humanist.

Paul Mac has a good post on SERCO who took over the running of education in Walsall a few years ago and how they intend to transfer jobs ‘offshore’. This has always puzzled me when local government staff are handed over to the private sector about how exactly we can ensure their job security and in some respects maintain a suitable level of service to the general public.
Here’s a couple of examples.
I’m with O2 for my mobile contract, been with them for almost a decade. Can honestly say I’ve never had a problem and they’ve always sorted anything out for me quickly and on the whole I’m a satisfied and loyal customer. I also know they’re not the cheapest in the UK market. I’d hazard a guess that ‘3′ are of which I am constantly called up by some geezer, usually called Colin with a thick Indian accent wanting me to switch, and when challenged assures me all the call centres are UK based. I also remember being in the presence of a friend trying to sort out a problem with ‘3′ and she couldn’t get the person on the other end to understand her, despite the fact that she speaks half a dozen different Indian languages.
I also had a little experience with Walsall Council over an application for Council Tax Benefit a while back which I’ve referred to a couple of times.
During my time spent on hold for up to half an hour trying to get through and speaking to various people who simply couldn’t do anything which included someone who had a Nigerian sounding name and neither I could understand him nor him me, and I was speaking in as plain an accent as possible and not my normal black country dialect this made me think about the potential problems that outsourcing can create.
Now it doesn’t seem to be the case that SERCO are going to ‘offshore’ call centres, they afterall don’t really have them but this did remind me of the now defunct partnership with Fujitsu that Walsall Council was trying to set up.
This deal would have meant the outsourcing of frontline telephone contact along with a lot of other things to a private company. A friend of mine who reads this blog told me at the time that his partner worked for the intended firm who would handle the call centres and we really didn’t want to know about their work practices.
This does raise an issue though, at what point, once jobs are outsourced are these private firms allowed to employ who they want to do the job and not just the workers they inheritted from the council.
Being private firms, their first priority is profit, not public service, the worst they can expect is their contract being cancelled and my experience has always been that the private sector firms tend to be a lot cleverer than the local authorities when it comes to the contracts.
Something to ponder on.
This is OK when we are talking about the private sector, if like me you’d rather speak to someone in the UK then you can because there is choice of the service provider. However with local authorities you can’t. If I decide I don’t want to speak to someone at the Walsall Council Tax department, I can’t just call up someone at Wolverhampton.
I know what you’re thinking, you don’t have choice anyway, well here’s the difference. If the council service is crap then at the ballot box, as voters we have the option of voting for another party to run the council and if services are so crap then it would follow that the party in power loses and is replaced by a different administration that will improve the service. (that’s the theory anyway). However, if the service in question has been outsourced to a private company, usually on a massively long contract then it doesn’t matter who is in power because those who originally made the decision have locked the council into an agreement that almost certainly cannot be broken and if it is will probably incur severe financial penalties on the council, I’m thinking the botched deal between Walsall Council and BT here.
Anyway, for anyone who happens to have a problem with their Council Tax Benefit not being processed, or not being paid to a landlord who is about to evict you (overheard plenty of people at the One Stop Shop complaining about that) then here you go. Don’t bother calling the helpline, they’re useless, don’t even bother with the One Stop Shop, they’re equally useless, simple e-mail Carole Evans (I’m assuming she’s still the Executive Director) on “evanscATwalsallDOTgovDOTuk there you go I’m putting in a bit of a spam guard so she won’t get crap in her inbox, aren’t I nice. I e-mailed her and the problem was sorted in a week after nearly four months of arguing with the munchkins downstairs.

Before anyone calls me sexist, condecending, or some right-wingers decide to get up and support the bitch with counter arguments, I’ll point out that this is purely a bit of polemical fun for the amusement of lefties and anyone who knows me, knows I’m none of the above.
A few years ago, Britain got its first female Prime Minister who has a record for doing a few little things that got up the nose of the people of my particular political persuasion.
Even more recently Germany got their first female Chancellor so I thought I’d do a bit of a comparison.
Cut back on social welfare - Check
Hiked up VAT, a regressive tax that hits the poorer people first - Check
Introduced systems that favour making the rich richer - Check
Cut back on trades union rights - Check
And now the bitch is closing the pits.
So when is she going to start a war in the south atlantic and introduce the poll tax?

The environmentally concerned person in me doesn’t agree with the amount of electricity wasted by leaving TV’s on standby and I’m well in the camp that thinks all TV’s should have a proper on/off switch.
However, as Little Penguin has discovered a fascination with turning the TV off (but not back on again yet) then the absence of an on/off button might no be a bad thing.
That’s one to bear in mind for anyone legislating on this. Perhaps an on/off button is a suitable out of reach of small children location would be better.

I finally got sick of the amount of people who end up at my site with a variety of search terms that involve ‘whacking’ ‘beating’ ‘maiming’ Penguins. This is what you are looking for. Enjoy, although get a life, this game was out doing the rounds ten years ago.
Oh, and my top score is 574.

My son is almost one year old. I now understand the comments of my parents that time flies. It doesn’t seem five minutes since he first came into our lives and he is the most wonderful little person in the world to me.
I now also find myself worrying about what kind of a world he will grow up in, wanting to protect him from harm and always wanting him to be happy.
I also want to know why he has a fascination with turning the TV off and Mrs Penguin’s new mobile phone.
So there you go, a nice personal post for a change just to prove I am a big softy afterall.