How about a tax cut for all of us?

Well they're at it again.

No not the Tories or the terrorists (who ever they may be this time around) but this time the minority that asks for so much but contributes so little.
Can you guess who I'm talking about? Could it be the long term unemployed or the sick? How about single parents? According to the media,they are always asking for something aren't they?.How those pesky rioters?
Well I'll tell you to save you all from guessing.

Economists.Yes that's right Economists.

Apparently a bunch of "20 high profile Economists" have got together to vent their spleen about how the 50% tax bracket that the 310,000 folks that earn over £150,000 pay is doing lasting damage to the UK economy.

Surely I cant be the only one who thinks that when they say "UK economy" they really mean "my own personal wealth which is mine so there" I must admit though I did feel a little bit sorry for them,because after they have had their tax deducted,how on earth do they manage on such a small amount?

At a time of national economic crisis like we are in now,people on high incomes can and should contribute far more in taxes.

Instead, this vicious cycle has been at work for years:

Reduced taxes on the rich leave them with more money to influence politicians and politics. Their influence wins them further tax reductions, which gives them still more money to put to political use. When the loss of tax revenue from the rich worsens already strained government budgets, the rich press politicians to cut public services and government jobs and not even debate a return to the higher taxes the rich used to pay.

How do the rich justify and excuse this record? They claim that they can invest the money they save from taxes and thereby create jobs, etc,some even going so far as to threaten to leave the country and take their money with them.But does this ever happen?
Actually cutting rich people's taxes is often very bad for the rest of us.It's been proven that the wealthiest take the money they save from taxes and invest big parts of it in China, India and elsewhere which often produces more jobs over there, fewer jobs here, and more imports of goods produced abroad!

Another thing that can be done with the money they don't pay in taxes is to invest it in hedge funds and with stockbrokers to make profitable investments. These days, that often means speculating in oil and food, which drives up their prices, undermines economic recovery for the rest of us, and produces acute suffering around the globe. Those same hedge funds and brokers likewise use part of the money rich people have saved from taxes to speculate in the global stock markets. That has recently driven stock prices higher: hence, the stock market recovery.

And that mostly helps – you guessed it – the richest who own most of the stocks.

Rioting for what? Something you really need?

As the news has moved onto other things such as Libya,I thought that the time was right to resurrect those events of a few weeks ago that had parts of the UK in terror.
That's right the riots.It seems to have completely gone of the radar for everyone apart from those poor folks that lost homes and businesses in it.

Aside from the sheer mindless ferocity and violence of those few days, one of the most depressing aspects of the protracted smashup was the nature of the looting: time and again, shops selling trainers or gadgets were targeted first. Fancy shoes and electric widgets mark the peak of ambition. Every looter was effectively a child chanting: "Give me my toys, I want more toys. Look at the idiot(I would have used a stronger word for him,but I don't want to offend) captured on video mugging the injured Malaysian student. Watch his unearned swagger as he walks away; the size of a man, yet he overdoes that swagger like a performing toddler. That's an idiot who never grew up.

Why the obsession with trainers? Trainers really aren't worth the effort. You stick them on your feet and walk around for a while util they go out of fashion. Whoopie doo. Yes, I know they're also status symbols, but anyone who tries to impress others with their shoe choice is a dismally pathetic and shallow character indeed – and anyone genuinely impressed by footwear has all the soaring spirit of a punnet of moss. There's no life to be found in "look at my shoes". There just isn't.

In the smouldering aftermath, some politicians, keen to shift the focus from social inequality, have muttered darkly about the role of BlackBerry Messenger, Twitter and Facebook – frightening new technologies that, like the pen and the human mouth, allow citizens to swap messages with one another.

Some have even called for the likes of Twitter to be temporarily suspended in times of great national crisis. That'd be reassuring – like the scene at the start of a zombie movie where the news bulletin is suddenly replaced by a whistling tone and a stark caption reading PLEASE STAND BY. The last thing we need in an emergency is the ability to share information. Perhaps the government could also issue us with gags we could slip over our mouths the moment the sirens start wailing? Hey, we could still communicate if we really had to. Provided we have learned semaphore.Hey let's just burn any books that we don't agree with either.Hang on,that's already been done.

If preventing further looting is the whole point of the exercise, then as well as addressing the massive gulf between the haves and the have-nots, I'd take a long hard look at MTV Cribs and similar TV shows that routinely confuse human achievement with the mindless acquisition of gaudy bling bullshit. The media heaves with propaganda promoting sensation and consumption above all else.

Back in the 80s the pioneering aspirational soap opera Dallas dangled an unattainable billionaire lifestyle in front of millions, but at least had the intelligence to make the Ewing family miserable and consumed with self-loathing.

At the same time, shows aimed at kids were full of presenters cheerfully making puppets out of old yoghurt pots, while shows aimed at teens largely depicted cheeky urchins copping off with each other in the dole queue. Today, whenever my world-weary eyes alight on a "youth show" it merely resembles a glossily edited advert for celebrity lifestyles, co-starring a jet-ski and a tower of gold. And regardless of the time slot, every other commercial shrieks that I deserve the best of everything. I and I alone. I'd gladly introduce a law requiring broadcasters to show five minutes of footage of a rich man dying alone for every 10 minutes of fevered avarice. It'd be worth it just to see them introduce it on T4.

If we were to delete all aspirational programming altogether, the schedules might feel a bit empty, so I'd fill the void with footage of a well-stocked Foot Locker window, thereby tricking any idiots tuning in on a recently looted television into smashing the screen in an attempt to grab the coveted trainers within.

Speaking of Foot Locker, if I were the head of Nike, I'd encourage Foot Locker to open special "decoy" branches near looting hotspots – unattended stores stocked full of trainers with soft sponge heels. Anyone pinching a pair of these would find it almost impossible to hoof in a window ever again. You'd be kicking fruitlessly at the glass for 15 years, making it less an act of spontaneous violence and more a powerful visual metaphor for your misguided existence.

But perhaps it's better to nip future trouble in the bud with the use of deterrents. Obviously a small percentage of the rioters are sociopaths, and you'll never make any kind of impression on their psyche without a cranial drill. But the majority should be susceptible to threats. Not violent ones – we're not animals – but creatively unpleasant ones. Forget the water cannon. Unleash the slurry cannon. That kind of thing.

Greater Manchester police has attracted attention by using Twitter as a substitute for the "perp walk": naming-and-shaming rioters by tweeting their personal details as they leave court.

Not bad, but maybe not humiliating enough. Personally, I'd seal them inside a Perspex box glued to a billboard overlooking a main plaza for a week, where people can turn up and jeer at them. It's not totally inhumane: they would be fed through a tube in the top – but crucially, they would be fed nothing but cabbage, asparagus and figs, and since they wouldn't be allowed out for toilet breaks, it would be getting pretty unpleasant in there after 48 hours. And it would be a cheery pick-me-up for passersby.

One for the road?

The recent news that there may soon be a minimum price per unit of alcohol (in Scotland anyway) has got me thinking...

Britain as a whole,and not just Scotland, is getting drunker than ever, apparently, with a government "consultation" expected to reveal the shocking statistic that, compared with 20 years ago, there are 80 per cent more documentaries or news items showing a clip of a girl in a short skirt being sick on a bench while a lad with no shirt makes a noise like a werewolf as he's thrown into a police van.

But what really gets my back up is the increase in pompous and self righteous doctors who come on the radio or programmes like The One Show to give us supposed guidelines, telling us, "Those of us who think we're drinking moderately may still be at risk. For example if you have one glass of wine and then later in life have another, you are technically an alcoholic and AA is the only option open to you".

Then they say, "Of course there's no harm in drinking safely. I often enjoy an Italian wine with my evening meal, by opening the bottle and pouring it all into a bush. That way there's only a small risk to my liver, as long as I do it once a month as a treat."

Websites offering advice on safe drinking are full of top tips (like the ones found in Viz) like, "If you're thinking of having a lager please consult your doctor first." Or, "One way of cutting down consumption while still enjoying a wild girls' night out, is on alternate rounds instead of having a drink have a bowl of soup, or go canoeing."

On one particular website I looked at, It said that three pints of medium- strength beer, twice a week, can lead to "heart disease, liver disease, impotence and cancer." I didn't check but I expect it went on, "and a fourth pint will cause cat flu, plague, rust, feeling like a woman trapped inside a man's body, fascism and a tendency to suddenly turn inside-out in the morning." I don't know about you,but can you name a medium strength beer? I can't...

But I digress.The website also told me, "If you consume alcohol to feel good, or avoid feeling bad, your drinking could become problematic." So it's only safe to drink if it's to make yourself feel worse.I had a can of Kestrel Super Strength and instantly felt terrible.Not because of the alcohol,just because it is awful tasting lager.

As we all know, alcohol can cause havoc, so we shouldn't be flippant. You only have to look at the demise of poor Amy Winehouse, who presumably had three pints of bitter on a Sunday and then heavens above, three pints of Mild the following Friday.

Unfortunately the campaign against drunkenness doesn't seem to have learned from the "Just say no" anti-drugs campaign, which connects with hardly anyone as it insists drugs lead rapidly to disaster and aren't fun. But if they weren't fun there'd be no need to tell people not to take them, just as there's no need to tell people "Just say no" to sticking your bare arse into a nest of wasps because no one does it anyway because it's not fun.

But people do see drinking as fun and enjoyable and in the current economic climate,why should a person who chooses to relax with a glass of something stronger than coffee be penalised by an increase in price?

Sure excess drinking should be addressed but maybe the reasons why people drink to excess should be investigated first.

The complex job of getting young people away from drug addiction and alcoholism will still be done by charities, such as Mentor UK. But they have declared that the recent cuts in rehab clinics have made that almost impossible, saying that proposed cuts "could have devastating implications".

So we're left with doctors telling us not to drink sherry on two consecutive Christmases, and if Amy was still around she could have updated her song by singing, "They tried to make me go to rehab but they said, 'Piss off, we've shut'."

Yet more rises with no extra value

Is BT desperate to lose customers? I'm no longer one of its many millions of landline users after I defected to Plusnet a while ago after seeing how much the line rental was costing,but now I see it's going up again for those I left behind.

The annual bill for just having a BT line – before you've made a single call – is now £166.80. Three years ago it was £132 a year. So line inflation has been 26% when over the same period the CPI index has gone up 8%.
I've often wondered why the cost of line rental increases. I can understand the initial cost for a line such as installation,raw materials and the expenses incurred for physically putting the line in,but after that what costs are there? Maybe British Gas,Scottish Hydro or their competitors could learn from this and start a pipe rental charge too? After all,if BT can make lots of cash doing it,what's stopping others?

I'm mystified as to what exactly BT are doing at its exchanges to justify such an increase. The obvious answer is that it's upgrading everything for superfast broadband. But surely the cost of broadband should be borne by broadband users, not by the still significant numbers of people, many of them pensioners, who are not on the internet and only use BT for landline phone calls.

BT's last reported profits, for the quarter to 31 December 2010, were up 30% to £531m. The free cash flow was up 69%, while its net debt – the money borrowed to invest in the likes of broadband and 3G – is falling fast. Chief executive Ian Livingstone (bless his heart)has to struggle on with a meagre pay packet of £2m-plus while presiding over steep cost-cutting; the last annual report said wages and salaries were down 7% at BT Group in 2009-2010, "largely due to the impact of labour resource reductions". I think that means jobs cuts to you and me, but no surprise that bonuses were available all round for the board.

The stock market loves it; BT shares have gone from 115p to 161p over the last year or so,but yet the company still feels the need to put up line rental costs not once but twice in the space of just six months. And it has thrown in some above-inflation rises in call connections costs too.

It also looks as if competition is failing in this market. There is now a well-established pattern in which BT's rivals benchmark their landline costs against BT. Within weeks or even days, they match BT's landline price rises. So maybe BT is not so desperate to lose customers. It knows that if you go elsewhere you'll pay much the same.

Now this does annoy me....

As you are all no doubt aware,this country (like many others) is seriously strapped for cash and no doubt savings need to made somewhere.
If you were in charge,what would you do? I reckon it's a pretty safe bet that those business people and global corporations who avoid paying taxes and those incompetent bankers that got us in this state in the first place would be pretty high on the list.

But it's not us who make the decisions.

Unfortunately.

Messrs Cameron and Osbourne have chosen a much more deserving group of people to contribute more.

The sick and disabled.

Have you heard of a company called ATOS Healthcare? Well,these caring people have been giving the task of deciding who will lose their disability benefit.

The method they choose is to interview each claimant, asking them a series of questions such as, "Do you look after your own pets?" Because clearly if someone can feed a hamster they're capable of driving a fork-lift truck. Another is "Do you cry?" If you do, you're probably told it's all very well being depressed but there's no reason why you can't get a job imitating actresses who've won an Oscar, or hiring yourself out to appear at funerals to make it seem the deceased knew more people than they did.

During this questioning the interviewer puts the answers into their computer, which makes an automatic calculation as to whether the claimant loses their benefit. This is so much quicker as a method of assessing health than the old-fashioned way of examining someone don't you think?

Just imagine if hospitals followed this example. Instead of faffing about with X-rays and stethoscopes, the consultant could say, "Which do you prefer, pizza or a curry? Who would you rather have to dinner Cheryl Cole or David Beckham? OK, let's see what the computer says – aah, you've got gallstones."

They could always turn the whole process into a radio panel show called "Fit on the Fiddle", in which claimants answer the questions from a panel including regular captain Gyles Brandreth. One man who might as well have done this was Larry Newman, who attended an ATOS interview with a terminal lung disease, when he could hardly breathe. So he took his medical records and ATOS ignored them, preferring their method of asking questions.

They decided there was nothing wrong with him so his benefit was cut, and a few weeks later, as the hospital attached a ventilator he'd have to wear permanently, with splendid jollity he said to his wife: "Still, at least I'm fit for work." He died a few weeks later, and I reckon that if his wife took him in again now they'd still say there was nothing wrong with him and send him for an interview to be a town crier or something.

Still, the cuts have to be made somewhere so I suppose it's only fair that the brunt of them should fall on those money grabbing terminally ill patients. But here's where it gets complicated. The ATOS system has worked so well that in the past three years 160,000 people have successfully appealed against their decision. So from now on perhaps they'll use a more reliable method, such as rolling two dice and anyone who gets eight or over loses their money. Or they could still call people in for interviews but do three at a time while the assessor lines them up and goes, "Ip dip dog shit, you are not it", and the loser has to crawl to the job centre.

The trouble is that these tribunals have cost £30m (and you'll laugh at this bit), and that money is paid by the Government, out of taxes. So they still get paid the £100m, out of taxes, and all the mistakes are paid for out of more taxes.

It's like a taxi firm that always takes you in the wrong direction, but you still have to pay them, then they charge you again to bring you back where you started. And to complete the analogy, on the way home they run someone over and shout: "If you can stroke a cat there's nothing wrong with you", as the victim is carried into the ambulance.

So here's my suggestion. On live television ATOS are called in for an interview by a panel of disabled people, who ask them to mime looking after their pet, then assess whether they're entitled to still get £100m or have to go and get a proper job.

Why don't you get a job?

The recent furore at News International which has damaged the media,police and the UK government,sees the UK getting more and more tainted by the corruption and generally crooked brush that was usually reserved for 'tin pot' Central African dictatorships of yesteryear.

The thing is though,that this is only the latest in a long series of scandals and body blows that have affected nearly every large national institution in recent years.
The bank bosses were exposed in 2008 as greedy incompetents,and as for both Houses of Parliament,I hardly have to explain about the recent expenses fraud do I?

As Britons,we've always liked to see someone at the head of society that we could look upwards with a little respect.No,I'm not talking about vacuous celebs or moronic football players.

But have the latest developments in Westminster been that very different than in the past? Let's go back a few hundred years to the period 1790-1820.Back then in a survey of 658 MPs,50 admitted having illegitimate children,220 were financially ruined,35 died in exile abroad due to having lost everything,5 were expelled for fraud.At least 19 committed suicide and 6 went mad...Makes our parliament seem quite law abiding and normal really doesn't it?

The thing that really gets me angry though about our modern day representatives in Westminster (and come to think of it the whole government)is the fact that most of them have never done anything.
What I mean is they've never held proper jobs,or served in the Armed Forces,or learned how businesses are run.Few have been tested in the fires of conflict or even commerce.Their whole adult and even adolescent lives have been devoted to the spin of politics,unlike previous folk such as Denis Healey,Michael Heseltine,Ernie Bevin and Willie Whitelaw of former generations.

They have studied polls and focus groups,TV interviewing techniques and speech writing,but know nothing about what most of us would call real life.Surely one of their many advisers must sit down at the end of the day and think " Well you've learnt how to deflect a difficult question,but if you could really know how it feels to be a typical person in today's Britain,more people would vote for you and not think of you as being a sanctimonious and aloof idiot who's fooling no one"

When David Cameron tells us that he is taking one of his holidays in the UK,are we meant to feel grateful? He tells us that "we are all in this together" and that he "feels the pinch too"

Surely his 2 weeks are not even remotely in line as the rest of us? I don't know about you,but having an estimated personal fortune of £30 million pounds to fall back on,must be a great comfort when travelling out to Spain for a week on Ryan Air? I'm sure if I was him,I would be able to manage putting up with something a lot worse (such as having to attend the Tory conference for example)knowing that after my own personal hell of having to associate with the plebs was over,I could go back to Chateau Lafite and Oysters for breakfast.....

Are pensions really a luxury?

I just can't think how the Government getting away with this idea that a public-sector pension is a "luxury"? Is it something that suave bachelors could show off, saying: "Once I've taken you for a spin in my Aston Martin, how about I show you the mid-range forecast for my teacher's pension over a bottle of Veuve Cliquot."

A pension is a necessity, so you might as well say we simply can't go on enjoying the luxury of a sewage system, given that the amount of waste we're flushing is 35 per cent higher than in 1996, so from 2015 we've got to throw it out the window otherwise we'll end up like Greece.

Also, a pension is part of a wage, not an added-on bonus. Employers don't come round to schools and fire stations once a month slipping a bundle of notes into each member of staff's pocket, whispering: "There you go doll, get yerself summink nice." The next complaint will be: "Public-sector workers who enjoy the privilege of spending all day in job centres and prisons paid for by the taxpayer are also paid MONEY to spend on THINGS, it was revealed in a shocking inside report today."

But apparently these pensions are gold-plated and it's where all our money has gone. So when you read that the richest 1,000 people in the country increased their wealth last year by £60bn, number 34 in that list must be Alf, a retired fireman from Ipswich, who now lives in Cannes on a boat he outbid Roman Abramovich for, and holds parties where he uses his skills to spray cocktails into everyone's glass from a hose. And number 49 will be Beryl, a retired midwife who's planning to buy Tottenham Hotspur if she can mount a challenge to the current chief shareholder, Amy, the retired lollipop lady from Workington.

One of the most infuriating arguments to justify cutting pensions is that private-sector workers don't have them, so why should anyone else? This is a strange way of assessing society, that if someone is badly treated everyone else should be as well otherwise it's not fair. Maybe that's the answer to the scandal in these care homes. People of all ages should be left for two hours face down in a bowl of cold soup and then it would be nice and equal.

Instead the public-sector unions asked their members if they wanted to take action against these cuts, and overwhelmingly they've said they do. It's argued by various politicians that the strikes are a stupid tactic as they'll make the unions unpopular. Presumably unions should adapt to the modern climate by no longer bothering with issues such as their members being asked to work three extra years for no money and instead bring in colouring books and grow watercress.

Strangely, the unions have rejected the advice of people who can't stand them anyway and have gone along with the votes of their own members. Because we do seem to be in a battle between opposite ways of seeing society. For example there's the view of the caller on a phone-in this week, who supported the rise in tuition fees because, "I haven't got kids so why should I pay for other kids' education?"

One answer to this is to point out that education benefits all of society, not just students, and suggest a mild redistribution of wealth would make such facilities affordable, and the same is true of looking after people once they've retired. But a better response, I think, is: "Oh really? I bet you see kids in a recreation ground squealing with delight and think, 'Baah, I'm paying for those swings and that climbing frame, it's not fair', you miserable, bitter, cynical, poxy, selfish pile of sludge. Well, seeing as you've got no kids I don't suppose a soul will turn up to your funeral, but that better not mean you get a pauper's one because the taxpayer will have to fork out for that." But I wonder if that's why I probably wouldn't be a very successful politician.

Striking teachers? I'll do it!

Last week'ss strike of teachers and civil servants could have been one of the most enjoyable industrial disputes, after Michael Gove asked parents to pop into school to take the lessons themselves. That should have kept teachers in their place, knowing they had been replaced by a French teacher who says, "Now listen, I've not actually done much French as such. But I HAVE delivered wardrobes for one of Norfolk's leading furniture suppliers.

"So to start with, let's see how you deal with a problem that might occur while you're on holiday in Brittany. You're on the beach, and suddenly remember you need to get a wardrobe delivered to your uncle's house in Great Yarmouth. You ring Terry at 'All Over Anglia' Ltd, who don't speak a word of French by the way, so how do you phrase your question to him?"

Teaching methods now are so different from when most parents were at school. So they'd leave the kids bemused, saying things like, "This morning we're learning the causes of the independence movement in India. Now as I understood it, the Indian is a basically happy chap but easily roused by troublemakers, so pad that out a bit and you should scrape an O-level."

And if anyone can pop along and help out, presumably somewhere a lucky class will be told: "Because of the strike, today you're very lucky to have your biology lesson taken by Mr Jonathan King."

The worry is the Government will decide all jobs requiring at least a couple of hours' training can also be done by whoever fancies popping in. Spirited members of the public with a spare hour can nip along and do some architecture, or heart surgery, or design an engine or fly a plane. That might make these cosseted workforces realise they're not as invaluable as they think.

The reason they were so determined to keep the schools open was, according to Michael Gove, the strike will "damage the children's education". Opponents of the strike also said the teachers were "taking out their grievance on our children". So it must have been an extremely important day the pupils would have missed. Presumably Michael Gove was just as furious when schools were closed for the royal wedding, yelling: "How dare this ceremony condemn an entire generation to a life of miserable failure? Couldn't they have got married on a Saturday like normal people, for 20 minutes around tea-time so it didn't disturb their homework?"

Presumably there must be thousands of people whose life has been a wasted litany of drug abuse, because the school was shut for a general election in 1979, and on a day when they'd have learned about pollination as well, so they ended up a botanical idiot and now they sleep in the park. And to make it worse they can't even name the plants they're next to.

And in 20 years' time the most successful people in science, business and sport will be those who gained a huge advantage because their school stayed open tomorrow, so they were taught chemistry by a retired accountant, who may have spilt acid over a girl, but put the children before his selfish needs and that's the main thing.

Thankfully, with our children being so damaged by a day off, (and children across Britain do seem extremely upset by this), they're not so delicate about other trends in education. The fact they'll all be 50 grand in debt when they leave university, for example, doesn't seem to trouble them at all. And if fewer people are attracted to teaching because the pension scheme is worse, so there will be more schools where, in some subjects, the kids are without a teacher at all, that should be to their advantage, especially if it means they get taught instead by a biscuit salesman who sees a fight, barges to the front and yells: "Go on, Jimmy, SMACK him," and ends the day by saying "WAIT. The bell is a signal for you, it is NOT a signal for me. Oh bollocks, hang on, I've got that wrong."

News or not?

Do you know,I think I know why some tabloid newspapers are upset about these super-injunctions. Because when they write something about a footballer with a prostitute it's almost the only time they print a story that's true. Then it turns out that's the article they're not allowed to publish. How is that fair?

You can imagine the thought process of the editor: "We try to be good and look where it gets us. Now we'll have to print 'Asylum-seeker eats kitten' again instead." I'm not making this up,but one story that began in The Sun but pops up in other papers, is that a Muslim bus driver ordered his passengers off his bus so he could pray. This turned out to be completely made-up and The Sun was ordered to pay £30,000 compensation.No doubt that this probably stopped it from following it up with: "Muslim bus driver takes Luton Hopper to Mecca. Instead of stopping at the Town Hall as usual, he insisted on driving his packed bus full of pensioners on to Islam's holy city, then charged the bewildered passengers an extra two pounds each, saying Saudi Arabia fell outside of Zone 3 meaning their tickets weren't valid." So if bus drivers, rather than TV presenters and sportsmen, could take out super-injunctions, that story wouldn't have been printed and The Sun would have saved 30,000 quid.

Or maybe judges should have the power to force newspapers to make up an really ridiculous stories such as: "Christian hospital authorities have told doctors they can no longer refer to patients as 'stable', as this demeans the birthplace of our Lord Jesus Christ. From now on they must declare the patient is 'up shit creek but hanging on'." Maybe I shouldn't joke about that as I think it has the possibility of actually becoming true one day soon....

Just imagine,Super-injunctions could be taken out by Pacific islands that are slowly sinking, every time the front page of the Daily Express says something like :"It's Official! Global Warming Is a load of crap!" A professor from Peckham said yesterday: "If it's getting hotter, how come it's warmer in the day than what it is at night, which comes after the day? Go on then, answer me that."

Instead, these papers like the Daily Mail have made-up stories about asylum-seekers stealing the Queen's swans and funding whole towns back home by begging, and all this could be prevented if the price of the legal action came down. Then the beggars could sit outside with a plastic cup, mumbling "Got 30 pence for a super-injunction?" and stop the nonsense from appearing.

How much embarrassment the press would be spared if they could be stopped from making up stories about councils banning black bin-liners and making kids sing "Baa Baa Green sheep", and articles that start: "Now a local council in Manchester has banned the letter 'W' on grounds of health and safety." Can you guess what paper has a page of stories every week, with a catchphrase: "You couldn't make it up". But the writer doesn't give himself the credit he deserves because he DOES make them up. So we should make super-injunctions affordable, and he'd be free to write something vaguely true.

Some newspaper editors defend printing whatever they like, on grounds such as: "It is very much in the public interest that we are free to make up stories about people we don't like. The moment you take away the public's right to be lied to, you might as well live in North Korea, which is to be twinned with a primary school in Hackney, say council officials from the barmy borough." So there should be "super-injunctions for all". Maybe we could all be given three a year, the way tennis players are allowed three challenges against the umpire.

Having said that, you couldn't help notice Jemima Khan was much quicker to stop the rumour on Twitter about her and Jeremy Clarkson, than Jeremy Clarkson. You can only assume one of them was going: "Uuuuugh no, put a stop to that thought NOW", while the other was thinking: "Hmm, I might let this run a few hours and pretend I haven't noticed."

But I wonder how many celebs are now seeing the flurry of media attention and public interest in certain people and are starting to think : "Maybe if I started a few rumours,took out a super injunction and then started dropping hints on Twitter about it,then maybe my flagging career could get a bit of a boost"?

Or maybe I'm just being cynical......

Royal Wedding? Bunker for one please....

I don't know about you,but it's now past the point where you can ignore it now, with almost every paper and magazine covered in it, and pubs full of flags and every news report has to mention it, so you expect to hear "Mister Gbagbo will be disappointed at being overthrown as leader of the Ivory Coast, but it does mean he'll have time to enjoy uninterrupted coverage of the Royal Wedding, and you can see from the smirk he gave when he was arrested this will be an enormous comfort as he awaits his trial."

But then again I'm surprised that the Queen doesn't actually INVITE Mister Gbagbo to the wedding just so he doesn't feel left out.

I mean she's already invited King Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain, just after his army had gunned down democracy protestors in the street, and quickly locked up at least six opposition politicians who still remain unaccounted for.

I don't think its just me that finds her wedding list a little perverse - the UN's human rights commissioner, Navi Pillay, said "This is "shocking and illegal conduct," The New Statesman also commented "How does the Queen justify her invitation to an unelected tyrant with fresh blood on his hands?"

But then, as an unelected head of state herself, I suppose she doesn't really give much worry about democracy..

Local news reports are full of items such as: "The town of Uckfield was celebrating today when they were told one of the eggs used in the cake was laid in a barn near the local ring-road. Mayor Donald Wigbert said 'I've read about the pride people feel when they've walked on the moon or disarmed a crazed gunman, but that's nothing compared to the glory of having our egg chosen like this.'"


One paper dedicated two pages to showing us Kate looking "slender" on a visit to Blackburn. So if this is news, presumably the day before she looked sodding massive.

A book's been rushed out called "Knit Your Own Royal Wedding", which gives instructions on how to knit your own royal wedding, so you can march your little woolly Kate up to your little woolly William and it will feel like you're in the front bloody row. There's probably a guide to tramps that goes: "Don't be disappointed if you haven't received an invitation. Follow these simple guidelines and you can make your own out of discarded boxes of chicken nuggets, then recreate all the glamour of the great day by making your sick curdle into the shapes of all your favourite royal characters."

Tomorrow there'll be a story from America about street parties planned on Death Row, with one inmate having his electrocution put back three hours so he can enjoy coverage of the ceremony on CNN.

No television show on any channel will be allowed to be broadcast unless it mentions the great day, so The Sky at Night will start with Patrick Moore saying: "Many people have asked me how the Royal Wedding will affect space. Well there is evidence to suggest some comets will alter their orbit to pass near to Earth on the day in the hope they catch a glimpse of the happy couple." Everyone who advertises anything has a wedding souvenir, so there are wedding plants and wedding curtains and B&Q is probably selling Royal Wedding Shelving Brackets.

But so far it doesn't seem to be working to the extent they would hope. For example, the Government is frustrated at the lack of enthusiasm for street parties, so the Prime Minister has had to intervene. But he looks like a joyless manager who suddenly wants his staff to enjoy themselves on some pointless training exercise, saying: "Go on, have FUN." You feel he's about to shout: "Can't some of you make a trifle, or play Roll Out the Barrel like I hear you types did on VE day."

So the solution must be to let everyone have a street party on whatever day they choose, to celebrate someone they really know, rather than someone they can only knit. Everyone should be allowed a day off and given permission to shut down their road and councils should be ordered to let them do it, when someone who lives there is getting married or divorced or whatever it is they want to celebrate.

Then William and Kate, who we're told is a down-to-earth type, can suddenly announce they've already got married, having nipped off to Las Vegas. Then they can have a truly happy marriage, unsullied by having to be a fairy-tale couple. Because that is guaranteed to disappoint people, in one of the spectacular ways in which modern royal marriages do, for example when Kate's frustration with her in-laws leads to her getting arrested for chaining herself to Prince Philip's equerries in support of UK Uncut, or something like that.

Or maybe we should all just be celebrating that Kate Middleton and her family have hit the jackpot?

Basically the Middleton's can now cream the state just like every other aristocratic family and we should be glad that they can. Fancy that... lay on your back to breed and people go gaga and give you loads of money. Its a bit like the welfare state and the lottery on steroids - rejoice, rejoice!


I wonder if there is anywhere that I'll be safe from the whole spectacle?

Are you really surprised that he's mad ? (or sane)

So most of the Western leaders are now condemning Colonel Gaddafi as a madman? They must be must be confused as to what's gone wrong with him, because up until a month ago they obviously all thought he was perfectly sane and well-balanced.Well they must have otherwise they wouldn't have sold him all that military hardware..

They must wonder if the stress of being a dictator has got to him, and if he'd had a fortnight off and started yoga all this trouble could have been avoided.

So maybe the best way to intervene is to send him a good Psychiatrist. Then they could make a report for the UN that went: "His desire to refer to his fellow Libyans as 'Cockroaches' who must be killed suggests the patient is experiencing the trauma of feeling he's a woman trapped in a Colonel's body. And the need to make speeches while under an umbrella is a classic symptom of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, so maybe we shouldn't send him any tanks for at least three weeks, until he's better.

They should have all know this event was coming, because they all said he was mad 30 years ago, then suddenly decided he was sane about 10 years ago.
This was coincidentally about the time he announced he'd back the West in the war on terror. To be fair, some of those who embraced him at this time are impressively unrepentant. For example, Peter Mandelson insists when Gaddafi renounced his desire for weapons of mass destruction we had to "bring him into the fold" with deals for oil and arms.

Because as we all know,when a dictator tells you he no longer wants destructive weapons, what else can you do but welcome his change of heart, by selling him a desertful of destructive weapons? It's like wandering up to someone at Alcoholics Anonymous and saying: "Congratulations on finally renouncing the drink. Now to celebrate let's go and get pissed."

Blair told us in 2007 "the commercial relationship between Britain and Libya is going from strength to strength". So everything was ok then. We could let a dictator sell us oil and buy our arms because he'd backed our war against a dictator, who used to sell us oil and buy our arms.

If Saddam had said in 2001 he was willing to back our war against Gaddafi we'd have got so confused we'd have declared war on ourselves!

The people who defend the befriending of Gaddafi, such as Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary, insist he promised he wouldn't use weapons such as tear gas "against his own people", which seems a liberal attitude towards someone you've derided as a madman for 30 years. Presumably Blair said to him: "Now I'm trusting you here, so if you DO open fire on thousands of protesters demanding a minimum wage, you'll not just be letting me down, you'll be letting yourself down."

In any case, who did we imagine Gaddafi might use this tear gas against? Perhaps he said: "Ah Mister Blair, I fear at any moment we might be invaded by a nation of badgers."

So now we expect the rebels to be grateful if we offer them our services, because when Britain wants to help by sending an army into an Arab country, what could possibly go wrong? It's like the builder who burned your house down ringing to say: "I hear you need your house rebuilt. We can offer very reasonable rates."

So the rebels seem to be aware that while the West can offer expert advice on the weaponry they're up against, seeing as it was the West that made it, on the other hand being supported by the British and American army won't help their aim of winning mass popularity amongst the Libyan people.

Because British and American leaders spent weekends with Gaddafi and arranged trade deals and hugged him for the press, and yet at no time did anyone spot he was in any way the sort of character you shouldn't send weapons to. And, in fact, even if he'd announced he had a split personality and then started talking in a high pitched voice insisting he was Sandra from Wolverhampton, Blair would have thought: "This is excellent news. We can sell tanks to both of them.

Can we have celebrities worth having please?

I've just heard that mega celeb Katie Price on the radio banging on yet again about she's sick and tired of the media hounding her and generally not leaving her alone.I don't know what I can stomach less.Her or the fawning sycophancy of her interviewer,Steve Wright.

Now if the same thing was happening to me,the last thing I would do is invite my critics into the sanctuary of my home.Not Jordan (or Katie or whatever she's calling herself these days).She actually invited them into her house to make them dinner....

I've often wondered what on earth makes her and other 'celebrities' think that we want to know every minutiae thing about them, and what valid point they imagine that they have to impress upon us.

Here's a thing that I reckon we should all try and do.Think of someone who's achieved something worthwhile and meaningful and make THEM a celebrity with the same media coverage.

A Celebrity for doing something other than being rich,beautiful,having large breasts or eating something unrecognisable in a far flung location.Someone that doesn't whore themselves out to who ever will pay the most for their tawdry life stories that nobody really cares about except themselves and their overpaid and delusional clique.

Here's a revolutionary thought: Let's start having celebrities that people can aspire to.Celebrities that are role models to be proud of.

In years to come,I dread to think what future generations will make of the society that we currently live,compared the those that have come before us.Previous people of standing in society were those such as Isaac Newton,Nelson,Churchill,Charles Dickens etc.What do we have now?

Try and think of a celeb(I'm really starting to hate that phrase)that isn't made into a media product.It's not that easy believe me.

Professor Brian Cox OBE is a Royal Society research fellow and a holder of the Institute of Physics Kelvin Prize.He works at European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) on the largest physics projects even seen on our planet (the Large Hadron Collider).He achieved all of this despite leaving school with a Grade D in Mathematics.He now presents and co writes the BBCTV series Wonders Of The Solar System.

Pretty impressive eh?

But the one thing that the media has chosen to publicise about him is that he played keyboards in D:ream.The Labour party chose to use their one and only hit,Things Can Only Get Better,in their 1997 General Election campaign.

I rest my case....

Don't tell them everything...

I see that Ladbrokes are offering 4/1 that more than 400,000 people will state their religion as “Jedi” in next month’s census.

For crying out loud why?


My opposition has nothing to do with US arms firm Lockheed Martin being paid £150million to organise the census, although that is offensive on just so many levels.

My point is simply what IS the point? In pre-internet, pre-hard-sell days when we didn’t have to submit every intimate fact about ourselves to buy a toaster, there was a point to us divulging 32 pages of personal details, every decade.

But today when computer databases hold so much information it would take a six-year-old two minutes to find out the precise nature of a personal injury that happened on a wet Thursday afternoon between Maths and Geography back in 1983, why bother?

How hard would it be to put together an accurate snapshot of modern Britain by scouring our NHS and NI records and adding that to all the information we’ve divulged to company questionaires? (my dead cat still gets offers of a pen from insurance firms after I filled in a pet food survey 5 years ago).

Why is this government wasting £480million on an out-dated paper exercise when they’re telling councils to sack thousands of staff because they’re skint? Especially when only law-abiding people will fill the census in, whereas those who have something to hide (illegal immigrants, benefits cheats, serial tax-avoiders) will use it to light-up a joint or some bootleg cigarettes,whilst drinking an alcopop.

Cuts aside, the timing is a joke because we’ve never felt less trust or apathy towards the faceless people who run our lives.

How much of the information we’ve given to civil servants in recent years, such as tax returns, child benefit records and health test results, have they mis-used or left in the back of cabs or even sold to identity theft criminals to supplement their supposed meagre wages?

Bungling MI5 officials cut photos of bomb suspects in half before sending them to US intelligence.

We don’t know how many people live here illegally and we’ve no confidence putting an elderly relative in NHS hospitals because we know the accountants would prefer to see them die.

Lib-Dems rule us despite ripping up every pledge they made to voters. We were kept in the dark about MPs screwing their expenses and we were taken into an illegal war against our will.

Yet they expect our trust when asking us every private fact about ourselves, down to who we sleep with.

They tell us to trust them to build an accurate picture of our country, to spend £480m wisely, and to not have our personal details stolen by Wikileaks or passed on to private companies.I don't know about you,but I'm just a little bit sceptical

But never mind, it’s only half-a-billion quid. And my dead cat could do with another pen.

Money Money Money (or the lack of it)

I know that it's been a while since New Year ,but like many people I too made a New Year's Resolution.Unlike those that deceided to give up smoking,go to the gym more or lose weight,I've done well at sticking to my choice.

I resolved to call any polititan a string of rude sweary names every morning as soon as I get up and so far I've managed with hardly any trouble at all.But the one person that really gets me succeeding more than any other is George Osborne.


Yesterday was far easier than normal because he was on the radio justifying the VAT rise he promised he wouldn't impose. This rise, he said, helps the poor and penalises the rich more than a rise in income tax. This must be because most bankers, when they receive a £1m bonus, immediately spend the whole lot on crisps. Whereas the poor tend to buy items exempt from VAT, such as antiques, second homes and septic tanks.
Of course we are all going through the same pain and suffering together arent we? Or are we?

Even for the few fans that Osborne has,must find it hard to defend his recent £11,000Christmas Swiss ski break. Like an excess of cheesey fondue followed by an ultra-cold lager, the Chancellor’s apparently care-free vacation has provoked some unpleasant après-ski indigestion. But while the general secretary of the Unite union might be expected to attack Mr Osborne’s “outrageous” holiday as “graphic proof that we’re not all in this together”, even the Taxpayers’ Alliance has said that the sight of such fun could be judged “highly insensitive”, given the backdrop.


The first days of the year have seen three tax rises: fuel duty, insurance premium tax and, most significant, VAT.

The Chancellor tied himself in knots yesterday trying to defend the VAT rise as a “progressive” measure – contradicting his leader David Cameron who has warned that it is “very regressive, it hits the poor hardest”. The mixed messages from the two most senior Tory members of the Government brought predictable accusations from the Labour leader Ed Miliband that they were treating the public “like fools”.



Osborne probably thinks if the poor are worried about VAT on things they buy, they should do what his mates do if they want to pay less tax, register their underwear in a drawer in Monaco and put their cat food in their wife's name in the Seychelles.

But if the rise in VAT places a greater burden on the rich than the poor, presumably this increase has caused untold anguish across the City of London, with wealthy shareholders screaming, "Why couldn't they have taken 10 per cent of my dividends instead of putting up the price of washing-up liquid. I'm ruined, I tell you – ruined."

There's a more worrying side to this increase, which is the decline in the standard of politicians' lies. So Cameron said at the election, "We have absolutely no plans to raise VAT", then immediately raised it to 20 per cent, and dismisses this contradiction as if it doesn't matter.

They're supposed to be more inventive than that. Even a toddler would make an effort and say, "I fell over and Jamie next door kicked me and said 20 was less than 15 and he said get up and I thought he meant put tax up on essential items except public schools and it was an accident because I forgot."

But the Coalition's deceit is so blatant they'd be better off having their policies made by one of these people in pubs who can't stop making things up. So at the next election Osborne could say, "I know a bloke who breeds polar bears; straight up, if you re-elect us I'll let you all have a ride on one. Here, guess who I'm going out with, that Emily wotsername off of Newsnight. She said I can take whatever pictures of her I like and pass them round to whoever wants a look, but only if we get back in with a majority. My brother can get you as much free money as you want, he knows the banker out of Deal or No Deal. But you've got to vote for us or he won't bother."

Instead the argument is put that on issues such as VAT and tuition fees, parties that stridently break a promise are being "grown-up", so now they're running things, abandoning the promise is a sign of maturity. Maybe this is what the wives of Cameron, Clegg or Osborne can expect if their husbands are caught having an affair. They'll say, "Oh you didn't believe all that wedding vows nonsense did you? You should be pleased you've caught me with twins in the basement, it's a sign I've grown up."

And worst of all is now it's been established that it doesn't matter at all what a party says at the election, as it's a matter of honour to do the opposite as soon as you're elected. So all that debating is a pointless exercise in which nothing can be achieved, so it might as well be treated like the last day at a school and Dimbleby should say, "With me tonight are the three party leaders, who have all been allowed to bring in games." Or the public should be allowed to swear at them all night long, because some of us like to keep our promises.



If the recent changes are really to help pay for the deficit,then how about Mr Osbourne doing something about the £120 Billion that is lost every year due to tax avoidance? Indeed, Osbourne himself has got out of paying £1.6 million in taxes.....