Archive for May 2009

David Wright: Thieving Bastard Politician

I’ve been patiently waiting for the Daily Telegraph to get round to my MP, David Wright.  I was confident he’d be getting a mention based on the fact that he’s usually the local rent-a-quote for the Shropshire Star but we’ve not heard a peak from him since the expenses fraud stories started.

So what has my thieving bastard of an MP been up to?  Well, he rented an apartment in London in an apartment block called Dolphin Square.  The block was bought from Westminster Council by a property developer who paid every tenant £16,787 to change their tenancy agreements.  So, bearing in mind that the taxpayer had been paying the rent for his apartment, where did this money go?  In the thieving bastard’s pocket of course.

Only a day or two ago he posted a “news” piece on his website about expenses in which he was very careful not to criticise anyone, not even “the system” which most of his colleagues tell us is at fault.  He even tried to divert attention from the expenses fraud stories, saying it’s detracting from the work they’re doing to get us out of the recession:

I am conscious that every day the newspapers are dominated by stories about MPs’ allowances. Each day this happens we lose a day when we could be talking about the work we are doing to help people with their jobs, their homes and their family. That is what I want to focus on in the coming months.

Another quality speech from David Wright, almost word for word what the grown ups have been saying.  How many times have you heard El Gordo or Harriet Harperson or countless other Liebour ministers say almost those same words?  David Wright always has been and always will be a low grade Liebour Party mouthpiece, right up until the next election when he loses his seat.

Back in January I wrote to David Wright and asked him not to support the Liebour government’s attempts to exclude MP expenses from the Freedom of Information Act following a High Court ruling last year that they had to be released.  He replied saying he supported making his expenses secret and instead breaking down the headline figures that were already available into different categories.  I sent him an email back which he didn’t bother replying to.  The last line of my email was:

I would strongly urge you to reconsider your support for this assault on democracy and accountability.  Or is your desire to hide your expenses, perhaps, because you have something to hide?

I wonder why he didn’t reply?  Could it be because he had something to hide?

And while we’re talking about his expenses, the previous “news” item on his website says:

The House of Commons Communications Allowance rules require that no news stories are added to this website during the 28-day ‘closed period’ before the European Elections and County Council Elections in England on 4th June.

So even when he’s talking about misuse of MPs expenses, he’s still fiddling the expenses system.

According to the “news” section of his website – the “news” section he’s not allowed to update because it’s against expenses rules – he’s holding a couple of surgery’s on Friday.  I might pay him a visit and see why he thinks he should have pocketed nearly 17 grand for changing a tenancy agreement for an apartment that the taxpayer has been paying for.

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100th Twitter follower

I got my 100th Twitter follower yesterday – @Mallarybc, an English ex-pat living in France.

I don’t normally plug blogs other than by adding them to the sidebar, especially when they’ve only been set up today, but as she’s my 100th follower I’ll make an exception: Mallary’s blog.

It’s not always possible to blog but I can Tweet almost any time, any place by text message so if you want to keep bang up-to-date, follow @wonkotsane on Twitter.

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Fixed Term Parliaments aren’t enough

David Camoron is making some vague noises about constitutional reform (that us proles aren’t allowed to express an opinion on of course) with a suggestion that he might look at fixed term parliaments.

Whoop-de-fucking-do.  Fixed term parliaments are generally a good idea but is it enough to re-engage a disaffected electorate and restore trust in thieving bastard politicians?  No.

So how about this for a suggestion: directly elected Prime Ministers.

Instead of voting for a candidate and then the leader of the party that had most candidates elected being made Prime Minister and forming a government, why not hold elections for the post of Prime Minister?  It also neatly deals with the problem of a party changing its leader and some other lame duck MP taking over as Prime Minister without a mandate mid-term.

The problem with the electoral system we have in the UK is that the top job in government is reserved for one of only a handful of people.  Republicans complain that a pleb like you and I can never become the most important person in the country but they’re missing the biggest injustice in the power game – the fact that your average voter can never aspire to hold the top job in government because you have to be the leader of the political party with most MPs to get it.

Ideally, the Prime Minister would be an almost presidential figure – leader of the country, not the party – but without the executive powers.  The Queen should, of course, remain as head of state and bills should continue to require royal assent.  The Prime Minister, once elected, should appoint a cabinet based on a system of proportional representation with a minimum number of independent MPs (and by independent I mean not a member of a political party, not just an MP who’s resigned the whip or had the whip taken off them).

What reasonable excuse is there for effectively banning independents or supporters of any of the smaller parties from heading up a government?

And while I’m on my soap box, there should be a basic requirement that a cabinet minister is qualified or at least experienced in the area their ministry covers.  We could then avoid the situation where, for example, we find ourselves in the depths of recession with a marxist lawyer as Chancellor of the Exchequer rather than someone with a qualification in macroeconomics.

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Lib Dims launch “diversity fund” for minority candidates in Wales

Lib Dim Welsh Assembly member, Kirsty Williams AM, has set up a Welsh Lib Dim Diversity Fund and her colleague, Peter Black AM, is soliciting £100 donations for the fund.

The “Diversity Fund” has been set up to raise money to fund election campaigns for female, ethnic minority, disabled and disadvantaged Lib Dim candidates in Wales.

I have asked Peter Black several times on Facebook why black, female or disabled people need or deserve more money for election campaigns.  Do elections cost more money for such people in Wales?  His answer?  It’s an “internal matter” and he doesn’t have to answer to me.
Well no Peter, you don’t have to answer but by not answering you look like a mealy-mouthed politician who’s been caught out making a tit of himself in a desperate search for a good headline.  Elections cost the same whether or not you are a “minority” candidate so there is no need for extra money for any candidate.

But there’s quite an important point that I would like to make, along the lines of the one I’ve made about the Ministry for Inequality and the institutional discrimination contained within it and the Equality Bill it has produced.  By grouping all the various “minorities” together, they actually form the majority and by focussing resources, legislation and policy on them, you turn white men into the under-represented, discriminated-against minority.  This is why positive discrimination is such a fallicy.

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The working class can kiss my ass

Michael Martin – aka Gorbals Mick – has finally resigned as Speaker of the British Parliament after being the first Speaker in over 300 years to be forced out of the job by his colleagues.

This is good news because Gorbals is, to be brutally honest, a tosser.  Even better news is that he will also be applying for the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds, one of the ways of resigning as an MP.

It’s not actually possible to resign as an MP so those MPs that no longer want to be MPs have to apply for a job as an agent of the Crown which means that legally they can no longer be an MP.  So MPs apply for the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds or the Manor of Northstead.

Anyway, archaic political lesson over, back to Gorbals.

Whilst it is a good thing that Gorbals has been forced out of office and is resigning as an MP, it is important that he isn’t made a scapegoat for the whole House of Commons over their expenses fraud.  The other corrupt MPs mustn’t be let off the hook – they must be forced to resign, by-elections have to be held and criminal investigations and prosecutions must take place.  Preferably, a general election should be called because the electorate has no confidence in the entire British government.

And someone really should tell George Galloway that Gorbals Mick, with his salary of £144,520 and the title of “Highest Commoner in the Land”, isn’t working class.  Yes, he was born to a working class family in some sink hole in Glasgow but that was a long time ago.  Alan Sugar was born to a working class family, he talks with a working class accent and he’s woth £830m – is he still working class?  Mohamed Al-Fayed was born to a working class family in Egypt and he’s now worth £900m and owns Harrods – is he still working class?

Gorbals is part of the establishment, part of the ruling class and an extremely wealthy man (probably a millionaire by now).  Working class he is not.

Let’s just hope that the next speaker is someone with the balls to stand up to the whip and carry out the job with the impartiality that Gorbals lacked.  And with a bit of luck, the next speaker won’t be an English hating ignorant jock.

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Mmmm, burger

We decided to go for lunch today at my sister’s pub, the Plume of Feathers at Harley (website, map).

The mushrooms with beef tomato and brie was fabulous, the garlic bread was THE best garlic bread on the face of the planet, the burger was … epic … and the chips weren’t cut, they were hewn from giant potatoes.

As anyone who has met me in person will no doubt have gathered, I like my food and this was one of the best meals I’ve had for as long as I can remember.

The picture quality doesn’t do it justice but you can at least get an idea of the size of the burger – this is on a large dinner plate, at least 12″ in diameter.

Epic Burger at the Plume of Feathers

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Liebour unveils latest clone PPC

Erith & Thamesmead Liebour Party have chosen a tax investigator as their PPC, according to the BBC.  I’m assuming she’s a former tax investigator as it would be incompatible with being a civil servant.

Teresa Pearce’s website is an interesting read …

Only Labour would have introduced the NMW and its up to Labour to defend it. (link)

Really?  The National Minimum Wage (NMW) was introduced as part of the EU Working Time Directive, not by the Liebour Party.  Whichever of the eurofederalist LibLabCon was in power at the time would have had to introduce it.

Further down the home page, she examine’s Boris Johnson’s record after his first year as Mayor …

  • The “letting go” of Sir Ian Blair as police chief
  • A rise in public transport fares averaging  6% overall – higher than the rate of inflation
  • Three year freeze on bus expansion program
  • Environment budget reduced by £139k
  • The Greenwich Waterfront Transit Scheme cancelled.
  • Mayor’s decision not to proceed with the Thames Gateway Bridge.
  • Failure to provide leadership over police mishandling of G20 protests
  • 2/3rd cut in funding for London Cycle Network
  • Dropping of £25 emissions charge for gas guzzlers and Western Extension of congestion charge.
  • Abandonment of 100 public spaces program.
  • Planning for new transport schemes abandoned: Cross River Tram; DLR extension Dagenham Dock; Croydon Tramlink, Oxford Street tram; large number of step free access tube schemes

(link)

Ian Bliar was shit at his job, he was a Liebour Party stooge and he was deeply unpopular.  He wasn’t sacked by Boris or “let go”, he resigned because he couldn’t carry on bumbling through his job without the protection of the Liebour administration.  Ian Bliar will go down as a liar and a weak commissioner whose primary purpose was to serve the Liebour government.

Public transport fares have to go up everywhere – London included – because the Liebour Chancellor keeps putting up fuel duty and road tax.  The Liebour Transport Secretary is also busily extending the annual MOT test to include all sorts of spurious checks that have nothing to do with safety but increase the cost of a test year on year.

The three year freeze on the bus expansion programme (note the spelling Teresa, we’re not Americans), the reduction in the environment budget, the cancellation of the Greenwich Waterfront Transit Scheme, the cancellation of the Thames Gateway Bridge project, the funding cuts in the cycle network, the abandonment of the public spaces programme (spelling again Teresa) and cancellation of the other transport schemes are all necessary because the Liebour Prime Mentalist and the Liebour Chancellor have destroyed the economy and we can’t afford them.

Abandoning the £25 emissions tax on big cars and expansion of the congestion charge is a popular move and reflects the wishes of the majority of Londoners and commuters

And it is not the Mayor’s job to take a lead on the investigations into the bad policing of the G20 terrorist protests.  The Mayor isn’t the head of the Metropolitan Police, he isn’t the head of the CPS, he isn’t the head of the IPCC and he isn’t the Home Secretary.  Ultimate responsibility for the Metropolitan Police and their actions lies with the Liebour Home Secretary, Jackboot Smith.

Going further back, she even has the nerve to complain about the Post Office being hung out to dry when it is the Liebour government that has withdrawn state services from the Post Office and implemented the EU Directives that have allowed that postal service to be plundered by foreign (mainly state-owned) companies.

What is it with the Liebour Party and hypocrites?  Is it a requirement to be an ill-informed, hypocritical party mouthpiece to get selected as a candidate?  The only consolation is that Liebour is going to be decimated in the next couple of elections and Teresa Pearce has got about as much chance as a ghosts fart in a force ten gale of getting elected.

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Another thieving bastard politician stealing from the taxpayer

Another thieving bastard MP has been suspended from the Liebour Party for expenses fraud.

David Chaytor - Benefit ThiefDavid Chaytor, the thieving bastard MP for Bury North, has been fraudulently claiming mortgage payments on his expenses even though the mortgage was paid off by the taxpayer in 2004.  In total he has fraudulently claimed nearly £13k.

Chaytor said it was an “unforgivable error in my accounting procedures”.  Well whoop de fucking do.  For you and I. that argument doesn’t wash with the taxman, it doesn’t wash with the police, it doesn’t wash with the CPS.  Even a troughing cabinet minister on £141k doesn’t forget that the taxpayer paid their mortgage off for them 5 fucking years ago.

This wasn’t an error in accounting procedures, this thieving bastard MP has stolen £13k from the taxpayer.  Suspension from the Liebour Party isn’t good enough, he has admitted defrauding the taxpayer and now he needs to be arrested and prosecuted for fraud, obtaining a pecuniary advantage and malfeasance in public office.

If one of my local MPs is exposed for fraudulent expenses payments – and I fully expect mine to be – then I’ll be reporting them to the police.

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It’s all within the rules

Shaid Malik MP, ironically a Minister in the Ministry of Justice, has resigned from his ministerial post after claiming nearly £67k over three years in second home allowances whilst paying just £100 per week in rent on his main home thanks to an undeclared subsidy he had negotiated with the landlord.  The landlord has allegedly rented out properties that are uninhabitable and been fined for the offence.

But of course, it’s all with the rules says Shaid Malik.  Lots of other MPs have been saying their claims are all within the rules as well.  Most of them have gone on to say that the system is wrong and that the taxpayer is right to be upset, dismayed, horrified at the expenses the system has allowed them to make.  You might say that they have concluded that their decision to make the claims was …

So outrageous in its defiance of logic or accepted moral standards that no sensible person who had applied his mind to the question to be decided could have arrived at it.

The above is a quote from the ruling in Associated Provincial Picture Houses v Wednesbury Corporation which gave rise to the legal test of Wednesbury Unreasonableness.  The test asks if an administrative decision is so unreasonable that a reasonable person would never make the same decision and if that is the case, a judge is entitled to hear the case and make a judgement on that basis.

The argument that it’s all within the rules is no defence and neither is ignorance of the law.  But a Justice Minister should know that, shouldn’t they?

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Resignations, suspensions, apologies but no arrests

Andrew MacKay, David Camoron‘s thieving bastard aide, has resigned from his job with Camoron after it emerged that he and his thieving bastard MP wife, Julie Kirkbride, have been claiming second home allowances on two different homes for 8 or 9 years.

Elliot Morley, the thieving bastard MP who claimed £16k in expenses for a mortgage the taxpayer had already paid off for him, has been suspended from the Parliamentary Liebour Party.

Lord Truscott has resigned from the Liebour Party and he and Lord Taylor of Blackburn face being the first peers to be suspended from the House of Lords since the 17th Century for offering to table amendments to bills for money.

How many thieving bastard MPs have been forced to repay expenses in the last few days?  And the best we’ve had is Andrew MacKay resigning as Camoron‘s assistant – but not as an MP?  Where are the arrests?  Where is our modern-day Cromwell (sans religion) to purge Wesminster Palace of the corrupt thieving fucking bastard MPs?

You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately … Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!

You are no longer a Parliament, I say you are no Parliament.

Damn it, I’d lead the fucking purge using Cromwell’s own words if there was any chance it wouldn’t end in me being locked indefinitely up on a terrorism charge.

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Hypocrites

A couple of months back a civil servant lost his job for releasing information on MPs expenses. He narrowly escaped a prosecution and during the police investigation, Damian Green MPs office was raided by police.

A few days ago, the Telegraph started publishing leaked details of MPs fraudulent expenses and the Speaker, Michael Martin, has called in the police to investigate the leak but not to investigate his thieving bastard colleagues.

All of which makes John Hemming MP, Austin Mitchell MP and Peter Bottomley MP hypocritical bastards for tabling a motion condemning the Jersey Police Force for arresting Jersey Senator Stuart Syvret and searching his home without a warrant.

People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

The Jersey Attorney General has ruled that the raid and arrest were legal under Jersey law. What business is it of these three MPs, none of which are Privy Councillors, what goes on in Jersey? They should be concentrating their attentions a bit closer to home.

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Institutional discrimination in the Ministry for Inequality

The Ministry for Inequality really is a bottomless pit of hypocrisy.  I sent the following Freedom of Information request the other day:

1.  What proportion of the Ministry’s employees are:
a. Male
b. Female

2.  What proportion of the Ministry’s employees are:
a. White English (or British if you don’t record English nationality)
b. White non-English (or British if you don’t record English
nationality)
c. BME

3.  What plans there are to appoint a Minister for Men.  If there are
none, why not?

The Ministry for Inequality has a Minister for Women but no Minister for Men and the three Ministers for Equality are women.  As expected, the Ministry for Inequality is heavily biased against men in its workforce as well:

Dear Mr Parr

GEO/09/FOI/000024

Thank you for your request for information sent on 28 April, which we have dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act.  I can confirm that the Department holds the information you are seeking.

1.  What proportion of the Ministry’s employees are:
a. Male
b. Female

Of our 118 staff in post:
42 are male &
76 are female.

2.  What proportion of the Ministry’s employees are:
a. White English (or British if you don’t record English nationality)
b. White non-English (or British if you don’t record English
nationality)
c. BME

Of the staff that have declared their ethnic identity:

36 are White British
30 are from Another white backgrounds
11 are from Black African/Caribbean background.

3.  What plans there are to appoint a Minister for Men.  If there are
none, why not?

Ministerial appointments are a matter for the Prime Minister.  The second part of your question is not strictly a Freedom of Information request, however we are sometimes asked about a Minister for Men. The following is the response that we use :

“The Government recognises that there are areas in British society where men face disadvantage or discrimination but the quickest glance at our income and poverty figures will show that overall, women are the main victims of inequality in our country.

This remains true today despite the passing of the Equal Pay and Sex Discrimination legislation almost 40 years ago. For example:

Women account for over half of the United Kingdom’s population, but only make up 19.4% of MPs and 29.3% of local councillors.
Black, Asian and Ethnic minority women account for 11.6% of the UK’s female population but make up less than 1% of local councillors.
Only 11% of the directors in the boardrooms of the top 100 FTSE companies are female;
The gap between the pay of male and female workers is currently 12.6% for full times and 39.1% for part-timers.
In 2007/08 there were 106 homicides where the perpetrator was the partner/ex-partner of the victim. Of these, 72 victims were female and 34 male;
Women still shoulder the lion’s share of caring for the old and the young and 90.5% (2001 Census) of lone parents are female.”

So almost two thirds of the Ministry for Inequality’s employees are women, they have no male ministers and there are no plans to create a Minister for Men to represent the specific interests of men in the same way that the Minister for Women does for women.  White “British” (I would imagine “British” in this case mostly means English as the Ministry for Inequality is in London) employees are also in a minority if the recorded information is representative of the whole workforce.
How on earth can the Ministry for Inequality use the way people vote as justification for discrimination?  If we didn’t vote for any women in the next election, what business is that of the state?  The whole point of democracy is that we can vote for who we want, when we want.

There are plenty of women working their way up through the ranks at FTSE100 companies but large multi-nationals tend not to employ people just because they’re women, being able to run a large multi-national is usually one of the key requirements.

How much of the “gender pay gap” is down to the type of work being done rather than the fact that they’re women?

Is the Ministry for Inequality really suggesting that a Minister for Women can reduce the number of women murdered by their current or former partner?  Does Ms Harperson also have the answer to the problems in the middle east and a cure for cancer?

And the reason why 90.5% of single parents are women is because the system is institutionally biased towards women.  In cases of marital breakdown, the mother will automatically be given custody unless there is a good reason not to.

So the Ministry for Equality really doesn’t live up to its name at all.  Institutional discrimination is clearly rife in the Ministry for Inequality but they don’t seem to have any intention to clean their act up despite intending to pass a bill forcing companies to publish this sort of information.  If publicising the gender bias in the Ministry for Inequality doesn’t banish discrimination in a government department, why is it going to make a difference in a private company?

Harriet Harperson is a shamelss hypocrite.  Don’t forget to sign the petition calling on the Prime Minister to appoint a Minister for Men and deal with the gender bias in the Ministry for Inequality.

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MestupCard

Inspired by Toque

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Bloggers4UKIP: Smart Meters for all! We’re saved!

The British government has unveiled plans to install gas and electricity smart meters in every house at the customer’s expense. Installation of the smart meters will be mandatory.

According to the British government, the meters will save consumers money and reduce CO2 emissions. The meters don’t make electricity or gas cheaper and they don’t reduce the amount of electricity or gas an appliance consumes but they will cost the consumer money to install. This makes them cheaper because …. ?

But of course, as with so many bloody stupid ideas that end up costing us money, it isn’t the British government’s idea at all

Last week, European politicians voted to roll out smart meters in every building across the Continent by 2022, and set an 80% installation target for 2020. The technology relays info about household electricity use and prices to consumers, who can then alter their habits to cut energy bills often by over 50%.

The European Empire strikes again and once again it’s the consumer that ends up paying the cost of the Empire’s stupid ideas. But at least we know how it’s going to save us money – we can alter our evil capitalist ways and be good little eco-friendly socialists reading Captain Euro magazines to our children by candlelight. In other words, it’s not going to save us money at all – it’s going to cost every household money to install something that is going to save the gas and electricity companies millions because they won’t need meter readers any more.

The economy has hit rock bottom, most of the world is in recession and national debt is touching 150% of GDP so obviously the priority for everyone in the country has got to be spending £7bn on smart peters

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HMRC to investigate thieving bastard politicians

Guido is beside himself at the moment and understandably so.  As an individual, he has done more than most – perhaps more than anyone – to expose and bring down the hypocritical, corrupt, thieving bastard politicians that make up the British government.

But as much as he deserves to enjoy himself at their expense, I have to give him a reality check.

The Commissioners of HM Revenue & Customs may have announced that they will investigate the aforementioned thieving bastard politicians for evasion of capital gains tax and taxation on benefits in kind but HMRC is an executive agency of the Treasury.  El Gordo is First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor is a complete bed wetter.  If the Metropolitan Police and Crown Prosecution Service haven’t managed to get a prosecution for openly fraudulent activities of thieving bastard politicians in the last year or two, what chance is there of HM Revenue & Customs being allowed to investigate and prosecute half the House of Commons?

Don’t forget, MPs tax records are all on paper for security reasons (only us proles are required to have all our personal details collected in big databases that our masters have no faith in) and embarassing paper records can easily be destroyed.

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Shut your fucking face Blears

Hazel Blears is so far off the moral compass it’s fucking unbelievable.

Having been exposed for abusing the expenses system by designating a flat she owned as her second home so she could claim £850 per month in mortgage payments on her expenses and then avoid paying capital gains tax when she sold it for a £45k profit, she has said that she understands “hatred” of the expenses system and that the system is wrong and needs changing.

Blears HangingNo.  Fucking no, you stupid fucking ginger chipmunk-featured fucking morally bereft fucking hypocrite.  You knew the system was wrong, you knew that what you were doing was wrong and you knew the taxpayer would consider your expenses claim to be outrageous BUT YOU STILL DID IT.  The system didn’t make you take advantage of a criminally slack expenses system, you made a conscious choice to abuse the system and to abuse the generosity and trust of the taxpayer.

The system doesn’t deserve to be hated, the corrupt MPs who have abused the system deserve to be hated and none more so than the ones like Blears who admit that they have acted in a morally reprehensible way but are trying to deflect attention from their corruption by blaming the system they abused.

Every MP that has abused the system should be fully investigated by the police and prosecuted for obtaining pecuniary advantage and malfeasance in office.  They have obtained money and property by deception – a pecuniary advantage – and have abused the trust of the electorate to such an extent through their deception that they can no longer carry out their duties of an MP effectively – malfeasance in office.

My preferred punishment would be to string the thieving bastards up from the lamposts outside Westminster Palace.

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Telegraph exposes thieving bastard politicians

The Telegraph has details of our thieving bastard MPs’ thieving bastard expenses and come to the conclusion that they’re thieving bastards.

  • The thieving bastard Prime Minister paid his brother over £6k for cleaning his flat.
  • The thieving bastard Justice Secretary, Jackboot Straw, claimed back the full council tax bill for his second home even though he had a 50% discount (he paid it back yesterday when he found out that it was going to be in a newspaper noticed the mistake).
  • The thieving bastard crook, Peter Mandelson, claimed thousands of pounds for improvements to his constituency home after he’d announced his resignation as an MP and then sold it for a profit of £136k.
  • The thieving bastard Communities Secretary, Hazel Blears, claimed £5k for furniture for three different homes by changing the title of her main home.
  • The thieving bastard Chancellor, Alistair Darling, changed the title of his second home four times in four years so he could claim second home expenses at all his properties.
  • The thieving bastard Transport Secretary, Geoff Hoon, spent thousands of pounds of taxpayers money improving his second home and then changed the title of his second home to another property and spent thousands of pounds of taxpayers money improving that home.
  • The thieing bastard Culture Secretary, Europe Minister and Welsh Secretary, Andy Burnham, Caroline Flint and Paul Murphy, all bought flats or the freehold for properties that they already owned and then claimed moving costs and stamp duty.

Hazel Blears said there would be no resignations because all the claims were within the rules but that they recognised the rules needed changing.  So they recognise that the rules are open to abuse, that thieving bastard MPs are robbing the taxpayer and that the rules have to be changed but they still abused the rules knowing that what they were doing was wrong?

Thieving.  Bastard.  MPs.

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Nice Printer, Shit Service

Mrs Sane went out and bought a new printer today – a nice Kodak ESP 7 all-in-one wireless device.

The printer installs fine on my laptop and Mrs Sane’s laptop but the desktop is having none of it.  I’ve tried to contact Kodak’s 24/7 customer support live chat for about 2 hours now and keep getting a message to tell me they’re too busy.

kodak1.png kodak2.png

kodak3.png

Update:
Kodak’s 24/7 online chat support is still unavailable this morning.

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Guilty until proven innocent

A Welsh man has had £67k confiscated by the police because he couldn’t prove it was legitimate.

Police were called to his house following a report of an attempted break-in and found £67k in cash.  The man said the money came from savings and selling German military memorabilia but couldn’t prove it so they got a court order for its confiscation under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

DC Phil Davies of South Wales Police said that “It is enough to show the cash is probably related to one of a number of kinds of activity, any one of which would have been unlawful, for example, cheating the revenue, trading in counterfeit goods, drug supply or falsely claiming state benefits.”

Probably?  Since when was it good enough for someone to probably be breaking the law to be guilty?  This man was arrested on suspicion of money laundering and then released without charge.  The constitution in England and Wales says that you are innocent until proven guilty and that it is illegal to force someone to forfeit their property unless they are convicted.  This is unconstitutional and illegal.  It is a breach of Article 1 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to peaceful enjoyment of their property.
Liebour has turned this country into a fucking police state.  I hope this bloke appeals and takes the police to the cleaners.  Fucking fascists.

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Petition the PM: create a Minister for Men and balance the gender bias in the Ministry for Equality

Harriet Harperson’s announcement the other day of a new Equality Bill that would legalise discrimination against men and force companies to publish reports on their gender pay gap gave me a great excuse to indulge in some devilment.

First their was my enquiry to the Ministry for Equality, so far unacknowledged, asking if they will be producing a report on themselves and if the new bill also applies to Scotland.  Then there’s the Freedom of Information request, also unacknowledged as yet, asking for details of their workforce gender balance and what plans they have for a Minister for Men.  Then there was the letter I had published in the Shropshire Star and now there’s a petition on the El Gordo’s petition website calling on him to create a Minister for Men and balance the gender bias in the Ministry for Equality.

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to create a Minister for Men and balance the gender bias in the Ministry for Equality.

The Ministry for Equality has a Minister for Women (Harriet Harman) but no Minister for Men.

There are three Ministers for Equality, all of which are women.

There is a clear gender bias in the Ministry for Equality which needs addressing to prevent discrimination against men within the Ministry and in society as a whole.

Appointing a Minister for Men and male Ministers for Equality will set a good example to companies who will be forced to report on similar examples of gender bias in their own organisations as a result of the Ministry for Equality’s new Equality Bill.

It’ll be interesting to see how they try and explain the lack of a Minister for Men when there is a Minister for Women as something that makes us all equal.  But the only way to make them reply is to get more than 500 signatures so get signing and pass it on!

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