Thatcher was not a saint so don't treat her like one

Meryl Streep has starred in a new film about Margaret Thatcher, it has received critical acclaim and recommendation.  However, it does not portray the real effects Thatcher had on the whole of British society, for the working classes and the poor she only reduced their options.  I would even say it is ironic an American took on the main role of Thatcher but it was probably only an American who didn't know, hadn't lived through it and could be hoodwinked would accept such a role.  I love to watch movies, but the scar tissue left after growing up through the Thatcher years runs deep.  The film is supposed to show a woman who is the vanguard of women's rights.  I can not believe any self preserving woman would look at Maggy as a role model.  For she has none of those female charms a self respecting man could ever fall for, there was no compassion for family life, no acknowledgement for the opportunities of children, education or the NHS.  Thatcher was in it because she could act and be a Sergeant major and everyone else had to take note.  Shame on this country for ever putting her there, and shame on us for not having a viable alternative.

Anyone would know she won the first election because she was the better alternative to a verbose Kinnock, he may have been OK as a Labour activist but at the ballot box it is public impact and impression which mattered.  Unfortunately Labour stand by their leaders even if they don't cut the cloth with public opinion.  Thatcher public backing because of her authoritarian air she carried the appearance of the wannabee middle classes in stereotype.  She duped them by her background of being a grocer's girl.  For me though she was and is in every way the personification of evil in politics.  She did one good thing, got Britain the biggest rebate ever from the Common Market.  Otherwise she stole from the poor, she stole ice creams from babies on hot summer days.  Meryl dear you have done yourself no great good by representing such a despicable person you have only shown ignorance and your fan base has certainly diminished by one.  I'm sure though there will be others who feel the same way on this matter.

It was because of Thatcher's deregulation of the financial sector today's recession has hit Britain even harder than it should of.  Regulations are there for a reason.  There was the boom of the 80s because of this deregulation and everybody began to purchase shares in amenities which were once state owned.  Amenities now such as the railways that have become a downtrodden mess, constantly looking for cash because their operators are constantly looking for profit.  The tax payer helps rail companies keep profits but had they never been privatised in the first place then the cost wouldn't be so great today.  Our very infrastructure is now built on decay and is ready to crumble.  Subsidies which would of paid for the basic improvement of infrastructure now go to pay the profit of fat cats.  Such is the legacy of Thatcher.

There was no doubt in the minds of the majority of people Thatcher would of lost the third election except for one branch of hope, which portrayed her as the most likely person to see the UK through.  On account of her Iron Lady temperament.  In short it was the Falklands.  If we were going to war it had to be someone who showed we were tough and could not be pushed about.  This is the absolute and sole reason she managed to win this last term.  With her cabinet constantly being reshuffled, if they did not agree or shape up to her way then there was only one other way, the highway.  Out.  She could not take dissension amongst her midst everyone had to suck up to her.  This ultimately lead to her own downfall and the downfall of the then Tory party.  Thank God for that.  Her hubris was limitless. She once even referred to herself using the royal "we,"  what she did was to impose an even greater class society.  The rich stayed rich or got even richer from taking over state owned and runed facilities, the poor became destitute.  This is not the actions of a saint and the sooner she is expunged from memory the better.

Cameron's grip, but not on reality

Cameron is a person who knows nothing about poverty, he has lived a privileged life never wanted or known what it is like to feel hungry.  His idea of prosperity for the UK is the 2012 Olympics and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.  The giant white elephant of an Olympics which to date has cost this country 9.3 billion pounds.  Something which he has had no part in bringing to fruition which was achieved by the government before.  Further for him stating there is a Jubilee or Olympics is one of those other pitiful excuses to say he has no idea of what to do.  He has shirked his responsibility.  Cameron is a man who doesn't conceive to create jobs means there has to be a growth strategy which in turn would mean spending money in order to make money, to secure the future of this country.  He has even admitted unemployment will go up.  Cameron was the man who said he will cut back on public sector jobs and the private sector will create more jobs.  This was without any notion of what is happening in the private sector or of how the private sector would create these jobs.  The fact is the private sector doesn't have the vacancies available and isn't being encouraged by Cameron or his henchman Osbourne to make jobs; flies over his head.  The effect as public sector jobs are lost the welfare state bill increases, less taxes are paid and the country descends gradually down into a gloomy pit which Cameron is industriously digging.  Cameron is a miner.  A miner of depression.  When ever listening to this man you can only get the impression here is someone who is in charge, he and Osbourne are drenched in their own hubris, they can't see it, and will carry on talking about things they know nothing about.  They stand up and wave the Union Jack, then close the door wrap themselves in those flags and this becomes their Teflon shield.  They fail to listen and attack, attacking everything related to the working people of the UK that is needed.  Welfare rights, education and the National Health Service.  Nothing is off limits.  Their mouths open and all they speak are lies, the more emphatic it is said the greater the lie.  God help the UK.

January 2012 idiot award goes to...

The idiot award of January 2012 may have been snatched up.  Unsurprisingly by a politician, the labour MP Dianne Abbott who stated on twitter ''White people love playing 'divide and rule'".  She was soon reprimanded by Ed Miliband and advised a quick apology was in order.  But it does make you think, if she was not bought to attention over this would she of had insight enough to have made her own apologies.  Furthermore in response Tory MPs have said if it were one of their lot they'd have to resign from government.  It's a fair comment to make.  Perhaps she thought twitter was an OK place to put personal remarks for other people.  In any case as Nick Clegg noted the comment was stupid and crass.  So should Ms Abbott be allowed to front the Labour party I wonder.  After all, quite a few white labour party supporters might well be offended. Me one of them.

Michael Gove, a dispicable irritant

The face of the present government is a nasty one.  It acts like a bully, anyone who does not agree with it's austerity measures and fiscal policy is chastised.  There is no room to listen because it thinks it knows best.  An icon of this warped attitude is Michael Gove.  He has been on news programs voicing his opinion all day to the strike action taken.  When I see him I see a man who can not string an argument together, a man who should not be in a ministerial post by any means.  He has like all those other minsters a self righteous attitude and I can't help but feel the urge to throttle him.  Mild mannered moi.

Maybe it is something to do with his body language and the way he looks.  There is this false sense of sincerity all Tory MPs give off.  They are in the middle of a storm and haven't got the faintest notion of their own hubris about to hit them full in the face.  Unfortunately, they can easily turn the other cheek being they are financially better off than most of the population.  Millionaires the lot of them.  Gove, Osbourne and Cameron, they all ooze this slimy better than thou attitude.  They love the blame game, they love to shower their hard words of depravity upon the rest of us.  They have no sense beyond their own world how other people survive and empathy is not a word they perceive.  Just take any video of Gove and see for yourself, hold back from shouting out "idiot" followed by some other obscenity because this will only increase your blood pressure.

Gove, Gove, Gove, when will you be gone?

Riots in England - reactive justice has it's own consequencies

It is truly unbelievable how an epetition has developed over the last few days.  A petition to parliament so MPs discuss the issue of penalising those convicted rioters by stopping their welfare benefits or by evicting them from social housing.  This petition is one which does not have my vote.  Because someone is in a riot and has committed criminal damage or theft it does not mean they should be stigmatised for the rest of their life or given a judicial kicking.  Yes they should pay for the crime, but not for the rest of their life and not the rest of their family.  Individuals are individually responsible for their actions.  If a man for example is convicted of rioting, and then loses his home, his wife and children may also become homeless.  In order to make ends meet how could this person not now descend lower in the social scale?  Rather than become reformed, to then descend into further crime, street robbery you name it.  There must be consequences of actions, but on a second level, justice dished out in this way will have a new set of consequences. It is short sighted, blinkered and it is reactive.

The riots arose in part because the mob mentality took over.  Le Bon's book The Crowd would teach and give anyone reasons why crowds work in this way.  Even those with criminality.  Forethought of consequences has nothing to do with it.  Like being at a football match.  A feeling of the crowd takes over.  Supporters shout, scream and swear the atmosphere is infectious.  They follow it and are part of it.  It is difficult to stand away from it and be individualistic.  A voice of descent would be pounced upon and shredded up into little pieces.

The big questions really have to be asked on the issue of rioting, and again we have an inept parliament who can not be bothered to see beyond their noses.  Inner cities have unique problems, poverty, racism, education, health, crime, there are sociological issues beyond comprehension.  There are housing issues, ergonomic issues, religious issues.  If you have never suffered from poverty how can you make a judgement of the effects it has on a society and on each individual's mental make up.  How important is their self-esteem and self-worth are, how important a job is and with work which helps combat some of these issues.  Having an income which is enough to live off and not resort to crime. 

It was Nelson Mandela who said:

 "there can be no keener revelation of a society's soul, than in the way it treats its children."

The news report of those arrested for rioting has stated over 50 per cent of them were under the age of 17 years.  Something would seem to be pretty wrong with society in these circumstances.  David Cameron in his agenda of getting the country to sort itself out has used references to British society in a pretty flippant way.  Suggesting he can create the "big society" but he is just a lone person and it seems very alone and ignorant with such a comment.  Further he has used the term "broken society" to describe events over the last week.  It's a pity he hasn't come up with a different term more along the lines of lets "fix society."  Of course fixing it involves more than could ever be contemplated by one individual.  Certainly not by a politician suffering from myopia..  Only society can fix itself, but some times it needs a little help. Help that would inspire not judge.  Where's our Nelson Mandela, that's what I say.

Rich media chick Rebekah Brooks and Rupert Murdock's nasty politics

Politics is a captivating thing to watch, especially when it involves the richest people on the planet. The Murdocks, very powerful right wing politicians such as Cameron and a perceived to be sexy woman, Rebekah Brooks.  The beauty factor for Mrs Brooks and the fact she is reported to be the 5th most loved nearly but not daughter to Rupert (doddering-old-codger) Murdock.  Maybe it is something to do with her outdated flowing curly red hair, hair which now resembles rusted heavy chains, pulling her down into the depths of deception, which is a place I believe she is quite comfortable to be in.

So out of a desire to be in the know I searched the BBC web site and managed to find the two hour culture select committee interview with Mrs Brooks.  I am now think this woman is the most irritating woman I have heard.  On three occasions I nearly nodded off to sleep as she droned away, answering questions not with acute journalistic style but more of dithering, struggling and I-will-not-implicate-myself-here format.  I saw her prevaricate, I watched her body language closely, how she excessively blinked her eyes, trying to avoid her questioner.  I could hear in the tone of her voice and her slow meandering she was holding back facts.  She denied knowing things which she must of known.  Strike me down if I am wrong but I can only come to the conclusion the performance I saw was of a liar, a manipulator and someone who was not undergoing the same forensic, accusatory tone of questioning she would give were she doing her journalistic role.  The select committee were not quite there.  They were not on the ball enough or offensive enough.  She was there for the breaking but it needed a tenacious rottweiler to do it, and the were not up to the job.  More of tenacious collie than rotty.  I so wanted one of them to say explicitly "I don't believe what you are saying." She came out of it but that is as far as I would go.  Her performance was not impressive, it was defensive and meandering.   She avoided questions by her own confusing semantics of what the questions were about, trying to pretend she was answering them.  After her performance she is now tarred and nearly feathered.  Not quite, nearly.  But absolutely one hundred percent the most irritating woman ever.

In the parts of the Murdocks interview I have seen, it is obvious they live on the deferral of responsibility.  They dress it up in this ethereal cloud and tell the world it is made of concrete.  They are inextricably linked to Mrs Brooks and they know it.  Just as they know the world is now examining them under the microscope, except of course Fox News.  Of course not, they own Fox.  A good a reason as any to say such people should never be allowed a foot in the door way of impartial news, for it is so tainted impartial is a forgotten word.  They will support Mrs B, for the reason Rupert loves her as his own.  With any luck she will never work in the media again, but maybe in a year or two after the dust has settled her surrogate father will find her something nice, cushy and well paid to land in.  Then she can brush all this investigation lark under the carpet shine off her Most Irritation Woman World Cup and start counting her rich fan famous friends in the Chipping Norton Set.  Anyone for a party?

Question Time's new low with Fern Brittan

"I can not believe it" was a phrase often quoted by TV character Victor Meldew.  The same words crossed my lips when I saw the panelists for the last Question Time (23/06/11), one of which was Fern Brittan, a soft TV presenter of daytime TV who in order to lose weight had tummy reduction surgery and said it was down to dieting.  Who has never in her years of TV presentation ever asked a political question.  Who quite frankly on this program could only make a sours ear of it.  The producer of QT should of gone to a children's nursery to have got a guest rather than ask Fern to turn up.  Not to mention comedian David Mitchel.  It can only be someone has had a quite word in the producer's ear to get her on there.  She must be suffering from her less than normal 8 hours TV coverage.  Within five minutes of the start her ignorance belows out like Sarah Palin commenting on any political issue in the US.  A question on Greece and whether they can be saved, all Fern can do is refer to a conversation she had with an John Redwood MP (Tory) on the panel earlier (not during the program airing) and gave no viewpoint. In ignorance she states troops should come out of war torn countries such as Afghanistan, but she doesn't present any justifiable reason why those countries would then be allowed to run amok in a self genocidal manner.  It is as though Fern wishes the word "ignorant" be replaced in the dictionary with her own name.  Her view is talking should of taken place first.  Weird, all the while the talking would of taken place she doesn't care about the many more thousands of innocent people dying at the hands of tyrants.  Talk about lost it.

So it seems, the producer of this program must of lost it because he bloody well could not of been in his right mind when he put the panel members together.