Today is Nelson Mandela's 91st birthday and also Mandela Day.
Nelson Mandela has fought for social justice for 67 years, and so the campaign is asking people to start with 67 minutes.
Today should bring together people around the world to fight poverty and promote peace and reconciliation.
Well I'll be on a stall in Todmorden doing my bit, not much I know, but every little helps.
Saturday, 18 July 2009
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
BoJo - Some chicken some neck
Keep repeating to yourself "Tories aren't Toffs, Tories aren't Toffs".
Lovable (?) buffoon, Classicist, adulterer, Old Etonian, former Tory Shadow Front-bencher (twice), ex-MP for Henley, Boris "Boom Boom" Johnson, has revealed that £140,000 for running our nation's capital as its Mayor is not enough.
I know we're all having to tighten our belts in these straitened times, and some people have to hold down more than one job to make ends meet, but this is ridiculous.
He allegedly gets paid £250,000 for a weekly column in the Daily Telegraph.
That's right, two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, sterling.
I'll do some maths for you that's fifty columns, so about £5,000 a piece, at about a 1,000 words that works out to £5 a word, or a pound a letter.
I repeat a pound a letter.
Now, I'm not a fan of Johnson's, nor the Daily Telegraph, nor yet its tax exile billionaire owners, the Barclay Twins, and what they do with their money is their business.
But what really galls, what sticks in my craw, is Johnson's asinine comment that the fee he receives as a lickspittle wordsmith is... "chickenfeed".
* Ten times the national average wage, is "chicken feed".
* Enough to house, clothe, and feed TEN ordinary hard working British families, is "chickenfeed".
* The Old Age Pension is £95.25, Johnson gets paid, for one column mind, what a pensioner gets for a YEAR. That's "chickenfeed".
* The minimum wage is £5.73 an hour, Johnson gets paid the national minimum wage for writing one letter. ONE LETTER. And that's "chickenfeed".
* A small infant school costs around £250,000 a year to run, that's what Johnson gets, "chickenfeed".
Remember that, next time you think what a nice bloke that Dave Cameron is, and that you'll give him a chance, and trust him with your vote.
Remember the Tories, and their backwardness, their arrogance, their smug self-righteous superiority, their lack of knowledge of and feeling for ordinary folk.
Lovable (?) buffoon, Classicist, adulterer, Old Etonian, former Tory Shadow Front-bencher (twice), ex-MP for Henley, Boris "Boom Boom" Johnson, has revealed that £140,000 for running our nation's capital as its Mayor is not enough.
I know we're all having to tighten our belts in these straitened times, and some people have to hold down more than one job to make ends meet, but this is ridiculous.
He allegedly gets paid £250,000 for a weekly column in the Daily Telegraph.
That's right, two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, sterling.
I'll do some maths for you that's fifty columns, so about £5,000 a piece, at about a 1,000 words that works out to £5 a word, or a pound a letter.
I repeat a pound a letter.
Now, I'm not a fan of Johnson's, nor the Daily Telegraph, nor yet its tax exile billionaire owners, the Barclay Twins, and what they do with their money is their business.
But what really galls, what sticks in my craw, is Johnson's asinine comment that the fee he receives as a lickspittle wordsmith is... "chickenfeed".
* Ten times the national average wage, is "chicken feed".
* Enough to house, clothe, and feed TEN ordinary hard working British families, is "chickenfeed".
* The Old Age Pension is £95.25, Johnson gets paid, for one column mind, what a pensioner gets for a YEAR. That's "chickenfeed".
* The minimum wage is £5.73 an hour, Johnson gets paid the national minimum wage for writing one letter. ONE LETTER. And that's "chickenfeed".
* A small infant school costs around £250,000 a year to run, that's what Johnson gets, "chickenfeed".
Remember that, next time you think what a nice bloke that Dave Cameron is, and that you'll give him a chance, and trust him with your vote.
Remember the Tories, and their backwardness, their arrogance, their smug self-righteous superiority, their lack of knowledge of and feeling for ordinary folk.
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
Bastille Day - pleasant exercise of hope and joy
Today is Bastille Day, and I am celebrating as ever.
I've just bought a croissant and the coffee pot is on the boil, I've even treated myself to a copy of Libé, well a couple of pages off the Libération webpage.
Anyway I digress.
I love "le quatorze juillet", I love the republican feel, I love its symbolism as an act of rebellion, I love the fact that a few weeks later feudalism was abolished, and a couple of weeks after that, the Declaration of the Rights of Man was proclaimed.
I shall make a nice cassoulet for my wife and boys for tea tonight. I know it's really a winter dish, but the weather is pretty overcast today.
When we've put the boys to bed, I think we'll watch Casablanca. I just love the bit when everyone in Rick's Cafe, of all colours and nationalities join in with singing the Marseillaise, and drown out Nazis.
It still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
I've just bought a croissant and the coffee pot is on the boil, I've even treated myself to a copy of Libé, well a couple of pages off the Libération webpage.
Anyway I digress.
I love "le quatorze juillet", I love the republican feel, I love its symbolism as an act of rebellion, I love the fact that a few weeks later feudalism was abolished, and a couple of weeks after that, the Declaration of the Rights of Man was proclaimed.
I shall make a nice cassoulet for my wife and boys for tea tonight. I know it's really a winter dish, but the weather is pretty overcast today.
When we've put the boys to bed, I think we'll watch Casablanca. I just love the bit when everyone in Rick's Cafe, of all colours and nationalities join in with singing the Marseillaise, and drown out Nazis.
It still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
Saturday, 11 July 2009
Srebrenica - "People are not little stones"
Today is the anniversary of the most horrific atrocity on European soil in my lifetime, namely the genocide at Srebrenica in the former Yugoslavia.
In July 1995 more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed, and 25,000-30,000 refugees were "ethnically cleansed" in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by units of the Army of Republika Srpska under the command of General Ratko Mladić.
The presiding judge at the Hague said, "The Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide. They targeted for extinction the forty thousand Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica... They stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young, of their personal belongings and identification, and deliberately and methodically killed them solely on the basis of their identity".
The Srebrenica massacre is the largest mass murder in Europe since World War II. It was and remains a shameful stain on the conscience of Europe.
We must never allow such barbarity to occur again, and by strengthening the European Union and embedding democracy across Europe, we will go a long way to achieving this goal.
In July 1995 more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed, and 25,000-30,000 refugees were "ethnically cleansed" in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by units of the Army of Republika Srpska under the command of General Ratko Mladić.
The presiding judge at the Hague said, "The Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide. They targeted for extinction the forty thousand Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica... They stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young, of their personal belongings and identification, and deliberately and methodically killed them solely on the basis of their identity".
The Srebrenica massacre is the largest mass murder in Europe since World War II. It was and remains a shameful stain on the conscience of Europe.
We must never allow such barbarity to occur again, and by strengthening the European Union and embedding democracy across Europe, we will go a long way to achieving this goal.
Thursday, 9 July 2009
Nick Griffin-what an arse!
Honestly, how crap do you have to be when even European fascists don't want to sit with you? Oh yes, when you are the BNP!
News comes that having been elected to the European Parliament, he cannot find enough European MEPs to sit with him and Andrew Brons.
Instead the Italian neo-fascists, the Greek far-right, the Slovak xenophobes, and various anti-Semites, feel that the BNP is beyond the pale and would rather sit with UKIP (whose members are old-fashioned "golf club" bigots).
This is UKIP, who in the last European Parliament lost two of its members because of fraud!
The Italian Lega Nord leader Umberto Bossi described African immigrants as "bingo-bongos".
The leader of the Greeks in this group challenged the Israeli ambassador in Greece to come and discuss the "Auschwitz and Dachau myth", and claimed that "the Pope and the Jews are conspiring against Greece" and suggested that "the Jews" were responsible for the September 11 attacks.
The Slovaks in this motley crew are the SNS who are a "political party which incites or attempts to stir up racial or ethnic prejudices and racial hatred".
Their leader Ján Slota once said the best policy for dealing with the Roma was "a long whip in a small yard". He is quoted as saying "we will sit in our tanks and destroy Budapest" and that "The Hungarians are a cancer in the body of the Slovak nation".
Let me remind you that this lot REFUSED to sit with the ridiculous "Laurel and Hardy" of the Fascist world.
Griffin, "would be Fuhrer of the BNP", has been a Tory, a revolutionary nationalist, a radical National Socialist, a Third Positionist, a friend of the boot boys and the skinhead scene, and a man committed to respectable politics.
He has however, kept his links with the far right in Europe and America, where he has spoken on platforms with white supremacists, anti-Semites, Islamophobes, and Holocaust-deniers. He is obsessed with a coming race war and has called for adults to keep "in their homes a standard-issue military assault rifle and ammunition".
Well this week he outdid himself when talking about African immigration to Europe, when he said "The only measure, sooner or later, which is going to stop immigration... is to get very tough with those coming over... Frankly, they need to sink several of those boats".
How Christian of him, the jumped up little oik!
News comes that having been elected to the European Parliament, he cannot find enough European MEPs to sit with him and Andrew Brons.
Instead the Italian neo-fascists, the Greek far-right, the Slovak xenophobes, and various anti-Semites, feel that the BNP is beyond the pale and would rather sit with UKIP (whose members are old-fashioned "golf club" bigots).
This is UKIP, who in the last European Parliament lost two of its members because of fraud!
The Italian Lega Nord leader Umberto Bossi described African immigrants as "bingo-bongos".
The leader of the Greeks in this group challenged the Israeli ambassador in Greece to come and discuss the "Auschwitz and Dachau myth", and claimed that "the Pope and the Jews are conspiring against Greece" and suggested that "the Jews" were responsible for the September 11 attacks.
The Slovaks in this motley crew are the SNS who are a "political party which incites or attempts to stir up racial or ethnic prejudices and racial hatred".
Their leader Ján Slota once said the best policy for dealing with the Roma was "a long whip in a small yard". He is quoted as saying "we will sit in our tanks and destroy Budapest" and that "The Hungarians are a cancer in the body of the Slovak nation".
Let me remind you that this lot REFUSED to sit with the ridiculous "Laurel and Hardy" of the Fascist world.
Griffin, "would be Fuhrer of the BNP", has been a Tory, a revolutionary nationalist, a radical National Socialist, a Third Positionist, a friend of the boot boys and the skinhead scene, and a man committed to respectable politics.
He has however, kept his links with the far right in Europe and America, where he has spoken on platforms with white supremacists, anti-Semites, Islamophobes, and Holocaust-deniers. He is obsessed with a coming race war and has called for adults to keep "in their homes a standard-issue military assault rifle and ammunition".
Well this week he outdid himself when talking about African immigration to Europe, when he said "The only measure, sooner or later, which is going to stop immigration... is to get very tough with those coming over... Frankly, they need to sink several of those boats".
How Christian of him, the jumped up little oik!
Friday, 3 July 2009
The current state of Britain...
Labour have now been in government for more than a dozen years.
This government started with so much hope, (do you remember "Things can only get better"? I do) but now we are left with so much disappointment.
Labour has wasted its opportunities and wasted your money.
They've invested in health and education but lacked the courage that would have allowed them to spend it effectively.
They've failed to build a fairer society and instead inequality has increased and social mobility fallen.
They're the party of redistribution but in the wrong direction.
Above all they will be remembered for going to war in Iraq. It was an illegal war waged on false claims. Labour may have taken the decision to go to war but the Tories voted it through.
Even before the current Economic Crisis, the gap between rich and poor is now wider than at any time than under Mrs T.
Shame!
This government started with so much hope, (do you remember "Things can only get better"? I do) but now we are left with so much disappointment.
Labour has wasted its opportunities and wasted your money.
They've invested in health and education but lacked the courage that would have allowed them to spend it effectively.
They've failed to build a fairer society and instead inequality has increased and social mobility fallen.
They're the party of redistribution but in the wrong direction.
Above all they will be remembered for going to war in Iraq. It was an illegal war waged on false claims. Labour may have taken the decision to go to war but the Tories voted it through.
Even before the current Economic Crisis, the gap between rich and poor is now wider than at any time than under Mrs T.
Shame!
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
A dozen years of a Labour Government and the inequality gap is still widening
We all know that the Tories are for the well-off, viz Tory MPs' moats, duck houses, caviar-stuffed foie gras (okay, I made that last one up), but one thing we all knew (sic) was that Labour was for cutting the gap between the rich and the poor.
In fact the last time that happened was under the Wilson/Callaghan government of the 1970s.
However, thanks to a fellow councillor and statistics supplied by the Left Economics Advisory Panel:
* 13.2m people live in poverty, including 2.1m pensioners and 3.9m children.
* Over 20% are officially income poor, in 1979 it was 13%. However, 58% of British Asian and 40% of Black British people are income poor.
* The poorest 20% of the population pay nearly 40% of their total income in taxes, compared to 34.8% for the richest 20%.
* At 17% of average earnings, the UK state pension is the lowest in Europe (the EU average is 57%!)
* The gender pay gap is 17% for full-time work and 38% for part-time work.
* If unemployment benefit had kept pace with earnings, Job Seeker’s Allowance would be over £100/week today. Instead, it is £64.30 or £50.95 for under-25s.
* Executive pay has risen at 7 times the rate of the average worker.
* Tax havens cost the Exchequer at least £18bn annually.
A total and shambolic failure of Social Justice policies by Labour. Oh and what do the Tories recommend? Removing Inheritance Tax for millionaires.
In fact the last time that happened was under the Wilson/Callaghan government of the 1970s.
However, thanks to a fellow councillor and statistics supplied by the Left Economics Advisory Panel:
* 13.2m people live in poverty, including 2.1m pensioners and 3.9m children.
* Over 20% are officially income poor, in 1979 it was 13%. However, 58% of British Asian and 40% of Black British people are income poor.
* The poorest 20% of the population pay nearly 40% of their total income in taxes, compared to 34.8% for the richest 20%.
* At 17% of average earnings, the UK state pension is the lowest in Europe (the EU average is 57%!)
* The gender pay gap is 17% for full-time work and 38% for part-time work.
* If unemployment benefit had kept pace with earnings, Job Seeker’s Allowance would be over £100/week today. Instead, it is £64.30 or £50.95 for under-25s.
* Executive pay has risen at 7 times the rate of the average worker.
* Tax havens cost the Exchequer at least £18bn annually.
A total and shambolic failure of Social Justice policies by Labour. Oh and what do the Tories recommend? Removing Inheritance Tax for millionaires.
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