Another rioter bites the dust

So as the courts continue to deal with those who offended in the London riots, we come across Laura Johnson who was convicted of taking goods from a Comet store and handling a stolen television from a Currys outlet. She is 20 from the South East and but not exactly one of those living a hard life. In fact her parents are wealthy and run Direct Marketing company Avongate. 

She had driven several other individuals around in her car. She had claimed duress. Well if that was the case she wouldnt have driven towards a police officer at high speed to escape. Now I dont know about you but if I was under duress and I would have done my best to get away from the situation. This young lady well did the opposite and stayed part of it. She should be fortunate that she didnt run the officer over otherwise she could be facing a lot longer time in prison. She had plenty of time to phone the emergency services and contrary to what she claimed about the situation witnesses claimed otherwise to her being in duress.

Her defence claimed that she would be unlikely to offend againGiving her situation I imagine very much so. She could in theory lose a bit more and end up being kicked off her university course and thus really screw up her future. 

It doesnt matter what your background is, if you break the law you face the consequences young or old. I imagine we can look forward to seeing more sentences handed out to those who brought mayhem to the Capital that night.

You can run but you cant hide

The last week has shown many thinks. The moronic side of Britain and the side of Britain that makes you have faith in the people. From Saturday onwards for a few days UK cities were under attack. London Birmingham and Manchester with pockets of trouble in smaller towns showed the moronic selfish behaviour of a number of youngsters and adults alike who thought they could show people what they could do. Shops, homes, people all under attack. We saw innocent people lose their lives.

Why you may ask did these people commit such disgraceful acts? repressed? harassed? oppressed? No they decided they wanted to show the rich people what they could do, get their taxes back, their EMA cut blah de blah. Sadly its a whole lot of rubbish excuses. There is no justification to commit murder criminal damage etc because of boredom and no future. You make your future, there is no such thing as the world owes me, I know my rights etc. Well tough you choose to commit a crime you should expect to face the consequences.

The last few days we have seen individuals such as a teacher up in court, an Olympic Ambassador, an individual intending to join the army. I am afraid to say you are all an embarrassment. To the teacher you should no longer be teaching our youngsters, the Olympic Ambassador, no thank you and to the individual wanting to join the army, no thank you we don't want you serving our nation you hypocrite.

Of course the result of the riots saw the other side to the British People with the spirit that has helped the great nation through its darkest days. People of all ages cleaning their streets, cleaning up supporting locals, donating gifts. It makes you realise that the good will always outshine the bad.

The fall out from the riots will continue and the days ahead we will see many crimes met with many punishments. Time will tell but hopefully this will be the start of positive change

Bailed Out Banks and the bonus mess

Once again Ed Miliband continues to ride on the anti bonus line. It would not be so bad if his party had been so good at dealing with the bankers in the first place. It is important to remember that Labour spent thirteen years in government, yes thirteen years of overseeing banks handing out bonuses, hefty bonuses at that. Of course for many of those years the banks were not being bailed out by the taxpayer, that though is not the point. If Labour genuinely believed that regardless of whether there was government bailout, that bankers bonuses were too high, then surely they should have done something about it. That would have been too easy, Labour was too busy spending money and not even thinking ahead in case of a major downturn.

It seems a little cheap for Labour to try point scoring, seeing that back in 2008 they bailed out RBS to the tune of £20 billion, yes £20,000,000,000 for those who like to see it in full figures but RBS still would pay bonuses from a pot of £1.5 billion. Now surely if as a government you were handing over taxpayers money, there should surely have provisos. Well not with Labour, it seemed to be more of the case of here's some money now try and be good. Sadly it doesn't work like that. If you are to be giving out taxpayers money then surely you should be making sure there are some rules that should be adhered by.

Broken promises seems to be the line that Ed Miliband is taking as well. I don't think that is the wisest route to go down given the 2005 Labour manifesto contained over 100 broken promises.

• They said they would 'make work pay' - They failed.

• They said they would halve child poverty - They failed
• Give headteachers more powers for discipline - They failed

• They said they wouldn't raise Income Tax - They failed

I could go on but I'm sure you'll get the point.Labour are full of double standards driving whilst using a mobile phone, leaving the scene of a collision, all the things that we would get hammered for.

On this short piece, I will leave you with this thought

Why should we trust a party that couldn't run its own financial affairs and nearly bankrupted itself. Why should we trust a party that couldn't plan ahead, why should we trust a party that could have put a plan in place when they were earning bonuses in the good times. It's all very well crowing now, but Labour are only whining because they failed to do anything properly when they were in charge. I don't recall anything being done before the financial mess.

Why should we trust a party who has a leader that makes poor decisions, appointing Phil Woolas to shadow immigration, failing to act on Ken Livingstone, who broke party rules, appointing Alan Johnson as Shadow Chancellor who is clearly out of his depth.

You may wonder why Labour don't take responsibility, because that would mean having to admit that they were wrong.

Tomorrow is the Oldham and Saddleworth By-election, so good luck to Kashif Ali.

Happy New Year and lets say no to AV

Well a Happy New Year to those who read my postings (yes there has been a gap - technical issues and time) hope you enjoy my musings. Anyway enough of that. The great debate continues regarding change to the voting system. You have the Yes to AV and the No to AV, the way things work out, there's probably a Don't Know about AV campaign too. Well we all know the reasons that each side are putting forward and for me there is only one way to go. It's a big fat NO to AV. There is nothing to convince me otherwise to support AV.

FPTP may not be perfect and I'm sure that changes can be made along the lines, equal size constituencies for example, then everyone's vote would count then. All this second preference vote rubbish just doesn't wash with me. When I vote I vote for the candidate who represents what I believe in. I don't wish to put a second, third, forth choice etc. When I made that point in a conversation, the other person said that I was free to just vote for one candidate if I so wish. I don't know what you readers might think, but surely that defeats the whole point. What happens if everyone decides that they don't want to vote for candidates in a certain preference, we're back to square one.

AV lets the minor parties have a chance. This is about the running of a country, not a game. It's not about feeling sorry for a party because it gets few votes. If a party puts up decent policies that are worthy are voting for, if the party is believeable in it's cause it doesn't matter what size the party is.

For example UKIP. They want to withdraw from the EU, polls seem to suggest that voters want out of the EU. So if this is the case why are they not getting more votes at the election, why have they not got UKIP members at Westminster. Surely if all those who truly wanted to see the UK out of the the EU, then people would put crosses by their UKIP candidates if they have one standing. Should they not be knocking Lib Dems out of the top three? People say that if there was AV, then they may get more UKIP MP's. Maybe but if they can't convince people to switch in the current system, then why should they convince people to switch if AV did win the day.

Of course there are other voting systems, the AV+ and STV system. Neither appeal to me in anyway. One big question is, who actually favours AV other than the Lib Dems. Ive yet to find a Conservative or Labour voter who supports it. I'll keep looking but not sure I'll have much luck.

So come the day of voting remember to vote however you wish to vote. Remember if you want a government formed come the end of the following day vote No to AV, if however you want days before government being formed and backroom deals, then vote yes to AV.

The choice is simple really.

So Labour want an inquiry? - Pot kettle and black

It seems now that they are out of government, they have the right to call for inquiries. It's ironic that when they were in government, there was never any need for government or independent inquiries. It was just them telling us what we needed to or needed not to know.

I guess this is what happens when you have a leadership election. Five candidates all wanting to see an inquiry, or is this five candidates wanting to look good so they can gain more votes for Tory bashing. Were these 5 Labour members calling for inquiries into their governments own goings on? no. Did Burnham call start an inquiry into the Hillsborough disaster? The loans scandals. Oh no they wont want to have their own dirty linen out in public.

You see its easy to target the Conservative Party, Labour can do no wrong despite the hypocrisy and scandals of the last thirteen years. Of course its ok for Labour to do as they please and not to be answerable. A bit like how the Lib Dems would have been great forming a coalition with labour but not with the Tories, now the Liberal Democrats have sold their souls.

Excuse me if I dont yawn, but in this country I always thought it was innocent until proven guilty...unless there is fresh new evidence that would have Coulson's backside pinned to the wall, I guess people should keep quiet.

No doubt that Guido Fawkes can share some light, he seems able to cast aspersions without proof.

If there is shown not to be any new evidence that links Mr Coulson to the phone hacking, shall we invoice all those who called for an inquiry/investigation. They wanted it, so why not pay for it.

Payrises would be nice but think about your colleagues

With the economic situation as it is, pay rises will be unlikely for a number of public sector workers in some areas. It would be nice to have a pay rise and I wouldn't mind one myself, but sadly it isn't going to happen. You wont find me wanting to go out on strike. Lets for example look at this situation. Say for example we all got a pay rise, in the times of tightening budgets, this money would have to come from somewhere. This could even mean some of my hardworking colleagues having to lose jobs. This is not something that I would want to see. For me it is about having a job rather than wanting something that could wait. Knowing people who have lost their jobs in the private sector, it is very tough for those in the public sector to justify a pay rise.

Now there are calls for strikes, but what are they going to achieve? I imagine that more than 80% of some local authorities will not be interested in going on strike when they would rather have a job. Sadly times are tough and we all need to do what we can to get by with the situation. If we don't deal with the situation now, it would only get much worse later on.

It's been a long time and financial savings

Well since I last blogged a lot seems to have happened, Laws is out of the cabinet, the Labore leadership election process is as much fun as watching paint dry, there's a valve failure causing an environmental nightmare, then there is the post election dealing with Labour's screw up budget. They say it shouldnt be started early and that letting things stay as they are will be better. Yes now lets see. Say I had an overdraft and was maxed out and needed more.I'm really sure the bank manager is going to turn around and say yes do have more money.

It's time to realise things have got to change. Responsible spending and not wasting money on silly projects that give no benefit or value to the taxpayer.

Fancy stationery, expensive pens etc? Nope. Bic biros/staedtler pens are just as good as the more expensive pens. You can always rely on a bic biro.

Printing in house newsletters should be a thing of the past. Thats what we have intranet for. Why print them out when no doubt most of them will just be left unread and ultimately thrown away.

Buying fancy paintings, pictures when money could be better spent elsewhere. Instead, why not get staff to contribute. There are no doubt artists, photographers who would love to share their work and help brighten the office up. This surely is better than wasting money. People sharing their talent is far better and more morale boosting than wasting money on stuff that people dont actually like or give two hoots about.

Just a thought or two, the Labour leadership election process is a joke. I know its been a long time since they had a leadership contest but surely there shouldnt be the needs for them to go through hoops....Now saying that actually seeing them physically having to go through hoops would actually make this contest far more entertaining.

Young David doesnt think Labour left the country in a mess
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_t0sWc7yPM

Ed Miliband thinks that Gordon Brown was elected....erm don't think so
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f7Ll2LzWbk

Remember what Ed Balls said - what a nice attitude to have
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o300SGJ_G6U&feature=related

I haven't forgotten the little speech at the election count young Edward, you did though awfully sound like Pitt the Younger from Blackadder Third or you could just take the plum out your mouth. You want a fight we'll give you a fight. Then you can enjoy alternative employment afterwards.

Yes just three of the opposition who could be facing David Cameron at Question Time, they make Belgium seem like an interesting place to go on holiday.