Archive for the 'News' Category

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MPs’ Expenses: The Solution

Published on 19 May 2009 in News, Public and Stupidity. 0 Comments Tags: .

MPs need to represent their constituencies. They should therefore live in the areas they represent. To be an MP, they then need to be in the Commons and because of all the chit-chat they tend to work extended hours (when they’re actually there…), so I accept that MPs should also live in London when they need to be in the House.

Now all the hoo-hah has been about what they claim for in terms of mortgage interest, repairs, etc. There is a recession on and that’s affecting the construction industry and also the amount of office space going begging. So bearing in mind the 646 need to be going to the same place from time to time, why not simply build or convert a block into 646 flats plus security near to the Houses of Parliament and give each MP a room whilst they’re MPs. Think Premier Inn stylee. That way the daily travel exes come down. No worries about pisstaking. Security is less of an issue as they’re all within a security cordon. When the MP stands down or is replaced, he gives up the room and his replacement moves in.

In the meantime, he gets a comfortable room with decent bed, TV to keep up to date, desk and power to catch up out of hours, cleaners can come in daily as and when, etc. And the public gets to keep a tight rein on expenses. No frills and not too much like a room in a monastery either. You could also add a ground floor with office space for meeting rooms they could book.

What’s the problem?

Budget Car Scrapping Scheme Rip-Off

Published on 22 April 2009 in News, Travel and Vehicles. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

So Alastair Darling has announced a new plan to offer a £2,000 discount if you trade in a ten year old car and buy a new one. Woohoo!

Now then, let’s have a little think about this. I drive a 1999 Ford Mondeo ST200 which would qualify in a few months’ time. I bought this second-hand at less than a year old and got a whopping discount off the new price. So woohoo! Let’s go and buy the new equivalent Mondeo.

Except there’s not really an equivalent, but there is a 2.5L 220PS version though not as nice looking.

In 2010, I will pay £205 to tax the ST200. On the basis of the Ford’s emissions figures, I would pay £245 a year on the new one but in the first year, I’d pay £550!

So let’s do the sums: the Government discount of £2,000 is probably £1,000 more than mine’s worth. So I’m up £1,000. Then I would pay £350 more for tax in the first year, so I’m only up £650 now. And that’s around a 2.3% discount in real terms. No doubt the dealers won’t want to add their own discounts on top of this if they can help it and of course buying new and turning the wheels would lead to a huge reduction in value that would dwarf that discount.

And of course every year I’d be worse off because the VED is higher on the new one than the old one.

If I go for more of a performance car then the numbers simply don’t stack up especially as the first year’s VED would go as high as £950!

No doubt the banks wouldn’t want to lend me the money anyway…

“I’m sure that the majority of motorists would support the proposals”

Published on 8 March 2009 in News, Roads, Society, Stupidity and WTF. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

From the same bunch of fuckwits that brought you “People ‘can’t wait for ID cards’” comes news of another twat suggesting that if the road speed limit was cut to 50mph the majority of motorists would support the new restrictions, which would be enforced by average speed cameras.

Well here’s news for you, Jim Fitzpatrick: I would be dead against yet another piece of ill-conceived, knee-jerk legislation from you bunch of arrogant control freaks! Or, put another way, you can fuck right off you power-crazed, arrogant, self-obsessed piece of shit!

Sounds like it’s about time for some well organised campaign of civil disobedience before the nanny state imposes yet more draconian legislation on us. Any takers?

The Latest Bandwagon

Published on 6 February 2009 in News, Society, Stupidity, TV and WTF. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

So the BBC’s Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson is in trouble for calling our glorious leader, Gormless Brown, a “one-eyed, Scottish idiot.”

All sorts of people with their own agendas such as Labour MPs (especially Scottish ones…) and disability activists are hopping onto this latest bandwagon to denounce him and demand that the BBC acts to punish him.

Why?

El Gordo is indeed one-eyed. Fact.

He is Scottish. Fact.

He is an idiot. Opinion.

And?

For what it’s worth, I think Jeremy Clarkson is a twat. That’s my opinion. But frankly the bigger twats are these complete and utter wankers who want political correctness to ruin our society. Fuck the lot of them!

I Fought The Law

Published on 16 December 2008 in News, Public, Society and WTF. 0 Comments Tags: , .

So then. Not a lot of good press for the boys in blue recently.

Despite being stopped from delivering an Unlawful Killing verdict, the jury in the Jean Charles de Menezes inquest chose not to believe the evidence from the police – none of whom are being charged with anything, by the way – that they had shouted warnings before shooting an innocent man, choosing instead to believe the evidence of all the other passengers who heard and saw the whole things and were unanimous in saying that no such warning was given by anyone. So an Open Verdict was the ‘best’ they were allowed to reach.

That they may have lied about it to protect themselves when taken with the appallingly incompetent way in which the whole thing was mishandled is a pretty big indictment on how the police see themselves as being well above the laws they are supposed to enforce.

Of course, it always looks bad when people like Police minister Vernon Coaker has to apologise for telling Parliament that 70 officers were injured dealing with protests at Kingsnorth power station. Why?

“According to information obtained by the Liberal Democrats, Kent Police officers and staff suffered only 12 reportable injuries, four of which involved direct contact with another person.

“The Lib Dems said the eight other injuries included being “stung on finger by possible wasp”, “officer injured sitting in car” and “officer succumbed to sun and heat”.

“Kent Police confirmed that 12 officers were required to retire from duty because of their injuries.”

But of course the reports of all those “injuries” was used to justify the heavy-handed policing and stop and search tactics employed by the police.

On which subject, I should add that I saw on the local BBC News that plans were in place for people to be stopped and searched for drugs and knives when boarding Thames dinner cruise boats this Christmas: we’ll see, because one of the places they mentioned such searches would be taking place is where I’ll be going this week.

I suppose it makes a change for them to stop and search a white, middle-aged professional. A few weeks back, I was travelling through Leytonstone tube station where a large police presence were carrying out a stop and search on black males whilst I walked straight through. Maybe a white, middle-aged professional type in a suit and carrying a laptop case isn’t likely to be committing a crime?

Or perhaps they do. But on a much, much larger scale…

That 1.5% Base Rate Cut and Those Banks

Published on 7 November 2008 in News and WTF. 0 Comments Tags: , .

So the Bank of England yesterday cut base rates by 1.5% to their lowest level since the 50s.

Now bearing in mind we as taxpayers have pumped billions of pounds into the banking sector after they proved they were all so incompetent to have got themselves into this mess, how do you think they have reacted? Have they passed it on to us to say ‘thank you’ and to help us out of the situation they have put us in?

No. They blame the LIBOR and claim that that is stopping them from passing on the base rate cut. Erm… Sorry, who sets the interbank offered rate? That would be … the banks…

“People ‘can’t wait for ID cards’”

Published on 6 November 2008 in News and WTF. 0 Comments Tags: , .

So claims Home Secretary Jacqui Smith:

“I regularly have people coming up to me and saying they don’t want to wait that long.”

ORLY?

Who? Sheeple? People working for the companies that would operate the system at huge public expense?

Name names or shut up about these ludicrous claims!

Our Friends in the North

Published on 7 October 2008 in News, TV and WTF. 0 Comments Tags: .

…have let us down. Not like those humourless Filipino bastards.

Whilst Britons from the North of the country have not – as far as I am aware – complained about an Enfield and Whitehouse sketch featuring a family keeping a Northerner as a pet, the Filipinos are up in arms about a Filipina maid “inciting stereotyped racial discrimination, vulgarity and violation of the maid’s human rights”.  And yet they don’t seem to want to stick up for the poor, enslaved Northern bloke, do they?

Air Miles

Published on 21 August 2008 in News. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

So it seems as though Gary Glitter has decided that after being in one place for a few years, he’d better start earning some more air miles by travelling around from location to location in the Far East.

If that is the case, then he’d be well-served by not returning to the UK as there are plans afoot to slap a Foreign Travel Order on him which would prevent him travelling abroad from here. That would scupper any plans he might have to get access to decent airport lounges in the future by upgrading from blue to gold or platinum frequent flyer programmes.

The Biggest Threat to our National Security…

Published on 17 June 2008 in News and Stupidity. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

…is of course our political leaders and the unelected civil servants.

How so? Well this bunch of fools regularly lose CDs containing our personal data, lose laptops with defence secrets on them or leave confidential briefing documents on trains through nothing but their fuckwittery.

And now a Cabinet Minister has had a computer with sensitive documents on it stolen. This is, of course, against the rules on handling sensitive information, but then we can’t expect Labour Ministers to actually follow any rules, can we?

And yet they expect us to have confidence in them!