Chao’s. Apparently.

London has been hit by it’s biggest snowfall since 1991.  Of course the whole transport network fell flat on its face as a result. Usually I’d be the first to criticise those who run the privatised transport system in this country for probably thinking that we would never get hit by snow like this, so why should we spend money on snow clearance equipment we may not need?

But I won’t. The heaviest snowfall fell in the Thames valley which has the largest population concentration in this country and as such a transport network to match.

The media made a song and dance about, interviewing the usual disgruntled travellers trying to get to work and businessmen complaining about how much money has been lost in the economy as a result.

As I said before, we haven’t had snow like this for eighteen years, If snow like this was a regular occurrence and everything ground to a halt, then yes there would be cause to complain.

Get over it. The snow will be gone in a few days and it will be business as usual.

Writing to reach you…

The UK government has said it accepts a report’s recommendation that the Royal Mail should be part-privatised.

The study by Richard Hooper says new minority owners can offer the “confidence, experience and capital” needed to carry out vital changes.

Describing the current Royal Mail as “untenable”, the report adds that the universal service is under threat without modernisation.

Dutch firm TNT said it would be interested in a stake in Royal Mail.

Why is it that the solution to the problems of a state owned business is to privatize it? Reading the report into the Royal mail’s problems one thing is abundantly clear: Lack of modernisation in comparison to Germany’s Deutsch Post for instance.

But why the lack of modernisation? Because of decades of little investment by successive Governments.

The German government allowed Deutsch Post to plough back postal income into efficiency investments over the years. They used their monopoly income to improve service – but also buy dozens of private companies to become the biggest logistics operator in the world.

This simply hasn’t happened in the UK.

The trouble is, even with this “part privatisation” the Government is continuing to go down the road of the previous conservative Government; not wanting to invest and modernise itself, sell it off to the private sector.

But how long before it is wholly privatised, the best bits cherry picked, more jobs lost, unprofitable postal routes either restricted or closed, and price increases?

And you would have thought that they would have looked at the previous privatisation of former state owned services, they have been nothing short of disastrous for the UK customer and very profitable for the shareholder.

In short: Keep it wholly nationalised, make the investment, modernise and reap the rewards that it will return to the UK taxpayer, and not the dividend the shareholder alone will pick up instead.

Why is this Government not prepared to invest in this business at a time when it has thrown billions of tax payers money at private organisations such as the banks?

This Country Is Finished….

“An estimated 95,000 people have been overpaid a total of £126m over 30 years as a result of errors in public sector pensions, the Cabinet Office has said.”

“Retired civil servants, NHS workers, teachers, judicial and armed services personnel were given too much money. The government said the money need not be repaid, as this would not be cost-effective, but many face pension cuts.

The overpayments, averaging about £1,300 per person in total, began in 1978 and were caused by an “incorrect indexation” of pensions. If evenly spread over the 30 years it would equal overpayments of about £3.70 a month each.”

It’s not a huge amount to be overpaid, so my view is don’t bother. However, the Have your say section on the BBC news website ( I really have to stop going there) has given more “outraged people” a chance to froth at the mouth.

Take this fellow for instance:

“Those who feed from the public trough always seem to think they are entitled to more and more. They`ve been overpaid from MY taxes. Why shouldn`t they pay a portion of it back?”

So what you are saying is because of no fault of their own, they should pay back a small amount because you’ve been paying tax? Has it occured to you that these people have also paid their own taxes? I wonder if this fellow would be so incensed if the shoe was on the other foot and it was him that should pay the amount back.

This is an instance of the current generation showing resentment for paying tax into a system that will also benefit the older generation, even though the older generation have also contributed to it themselves. Well you are going to have to get used to it, since retired people will begin to outnumber the taxpayers in the country within the next ten years and the birthrate is dropping, we could solve a lot of this problem by increased immigration, bringing more workers in to pay taxes, but you’d probably be incensed by having more  “Johnny foreigners” come to these shores.

The selfish, mean minded people which now inhabit this Island is the reason why I think that the UK is going down. These people just can’t see past themselves.

The pound is falling, but God doesn’t care, Apparently.

I thought I’d take a look at the Have your say section of the BBC news website. One of the topics up for discussion was the drop in Sterling. Having glanced through the usual right-wing nutter claptrap you get in these sort of discussion forums (Please see my earlier post regarding the A to Z of right wing on-line commentating), I came across a totally new class of nutter.

And this is what he had to say:

“It is my view that this so-called global economic crisis has been contrived by the Iluminati and those involved in the New World Order in order to create the conditions for the introduction of a universal cashless society and one world government. Shortly will be the emergence of the new world leader that the Bible describes as the anti-Christ. As a Christian I am not worried about the pound because my trust is not in the failing humanistic and material values of this world.”

Erm, right.

So how does someone like this come to the conclusion that a world leader is the Anti-Christ? I am aware of certain evangelical Christians who genuinely believe that Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ, I can only presume this is what this fellow is alluding to.

What kind of brainwashing have these gullible people been through to believe this? And more importantly should they ever bee allowed to access the Internet?

Begining of the End.

“Bargain hunters have been flocking to branches of Woolworths on the first day of a store closure sale at all its 815 outlets across the country.

Woolworths administrator Deloitte say the company experienced the single biggest trading day in its history.

In what looks like the beginning of the end for the retailer, the administrator has said that some shops could close for good by the end of the year.

It is also due to consult with 30,000 Woolworths staff over redundancies.”

Well, in the high I pass through the queues have been out the door, full of people picking up bargains.  It’s just a shame it’s taken a closing down sale to get people to buy stuff from Woolworths.

You could say that the closure has been on the cards for a while now, but what gets me is that people are prepared to go into one of these stores and buy stuff now, but obviously thought that Woolworths were “beneath them” when they had to pay the full price for the products.

Well, I’m sure they aren’t they aren’t thinking about those who will lose their jobs.

Vultures.

Plane Stupid…

Dozens of flights at Stansted airport have been delayed or cancelled after more than 50 protesters occupied a secure area near the runway.

Climate action group Plane Stupid said it started the protest at 0315 GMT by breaching security. The runway was closed for about two hours, but reopened at 0810 GMT.

One protester, whose full name was not given, said: “We’re here because our parents’ generation has failed us and it’s now down to young people to stop climate change by whatever peaceful means we have left.”

As you can imagine those who had their flights disrupted were quite unsympathetic to the protesters cause, But you’d expect that from people who are going on cheap flights.

The question is: Does direct protest work?

It seems to have been quite effective in this instance, although the downside is the disruption to ordinary peoples lives.

But why has it come to this?

It’s simple, any other form of protest is simply being ignored by those in power. Successive Governments have curtailed the right to protest to such a point that UK citizens can no longer inform the Authorities that a protest will take place in let’s say Parliament square, they now have to ask permission from the Police.

The right to Protest is a sacrosanct  in a Democracy, not a privilege to be dispensed by the Authorities as they see fit. Successive Governments have increasingly curtailed our Liberties, most recently using Anti-terror laws.

In the case of the Protest group Plane Stupid, I can understand why they did it, One the one hand, the Government wants us all to reduce our Carbon footprint, yet on the other when Mr Businessman comes bleating that if you don’t build more runways it will affect business, the Government rolls over.

It now appears that Direct action is now the only way to get your point across.