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."