Truck strike

as in, I feel like I've been hit by one today, following squash yesterday with an old friend. On the plus side I did win 4-1 ! despite his wholly unsporting attempts to cheat. Our last game, he beat me first time ever, and I had to hear about it for around 12 months. This time he had been practising, but to no avail.

Other issues, a good friend of mine had some major decisions to make recently and I think she's made the right ones, albeit, I'm somewhat removed from the direct situation.

Advert for the company going in the media in about 7-14 days, and this will have a huge impact on life one way or another.

Why can't we just tell the truth about drugs

Let's say you are a leading politician, and you are thinking of standing for the leadership of your party. And you've taken drugs, but you just can't quite seem to admit it.

So you say in an interview, "I won't talk about it" So it's absolutely obvious to all and sundry that you have. Why not just say "Yes, I was young, I regret it and wouldn't encourage anyone to do the same"

That way, you might get a connection with the people you want to represent. Come on, the rest of us have taken something at some stage. Really, people might actually start to relate to you in an honest way. Better that, than faking that you like Newcastle United, or that you watch Pop Idol, when we know you don't.

The state of our current hysteria on drugs is shameful, wasteful and pointless and distracts otherwise talented people, into making stupid public statements.

Time we grew up a bit ?

Islamophobia

I really don’t like the whole anti-islam slant that various groups are adopting, but guys I have to say, get some decent leaders. The current ones are failing you.

Setting aside all the looney-tune preachers who get a lot of media attention, but in truth, command little widespread support, there are some crazy views expressed elsewhere.

For example, the recently appointed muslim chaplain of the NY Fire Department had to resign for claiming the collapse of the Towers was a conspiracy. My first reaction was to dismiss this pretty much out of hand. However, I did about 10 minutes googling, and can across this

UMIST fire research

Which explains the collapse of buildings in some detail. Take the time to read this sort of stuff before espousing comic-book views that simply ridicule you and by default, your community.

Alternatively, it’s time for a new and sane generation of leaders to emerge from the Muslim community. Put down the rucksack, stop blaming Tony Blair, Bush and Israel for everything, look critically at your own communities, and above all, think for yourselves. You have a role to play in a democracy, but if you continue to paint yourselves into a corner of marginalization, you’ll simply become fodder for the fascists. So step up, get loud, and play the role in the UK you can and should play.

Local government funding

The government is currently jailing pensioners for not paying the inflation busting increases in their council tax.

Now there is the school of thought which says

“Asset rich, cash poor pensioners should move to smaller houses, thereby releasing cash and reducing their tax”

And I think one or two people in the labour party really believe this, because they don’t really respect the concept of private property. They see large houses as “community assets” which should house large families, not single old people.

I take a different view. A great many pensioners are too old or frail to move, and frankly, the state shouldn’t force them to do so through punitive taxation.

So the question becomes “How should we fund local government?”

Well first, council spending should be capped to inflation or below, the lunatic increases we’ve seen have been funding idiotic jobs like (seriously) fruit
co-ordinators, whose jobs include giving instructions on how to eat carrots ! or, how would you fancy being arts and culture officer for Brent CC on £42K p.a. (culture does not come from the council guys) or the corporate director for continuous improvement (you tell me ?) in Aberdeen for £97K p.a. or “innovation and development manager for the housing corporation on £47K p.a. (what can they possibly do?) or a “young bisexual project officer” for Westminster on £16 per hour (Come on!) Don’t take my word for it. For a laugh/cry, check out

site

We are jailing old people to fund these jobs and it’s simply wrong.

So firstly, council spending should be cut back. How many of us really use their services anyway?

Second, there needs to be mechanism in place, to ensure there is downward pressure on council revenue raising. Council tax simply goes up, and has manifestly failed, we should replace it.

I believe a local sales tax maybe the answer as it is affordable and enforces downward tax competition amongst local authorities. For a fuller discussion, read this paper

site

It maybe the answer

What is the department of energy, (within the DTI) for?

It can’t be to supply energy. We tried that in the 1970’s and anyone who remembers what a rip-roaring success British Gas was, would never want to go back to that.

Is it to ensure safety? They sure produce reams of paper, but again, would any sane gas supplier permit faulty pipelines to exist, because that could explode and destroy their own assets, as well as exposing themselves to ruinous litigation.

The whole climate change bit? Setting aside the arguments on global warming for a while, little progress has been made. 20% of energy from renewable sources by 2020 is the goal. This looks unlikely, as for some reason (which utterly escapes me) many environmental groups oppose wind turbines.

What about long term planning? Now you might reasonably argue that any business (including energy supply) that doesn’t plan for its own future is insane. However, in the wider world, they need various permits, and of course planning consent for the generators. Have we at last found a use for the DTI energy group?

Well No. Alan Johnson is a minister in the DTI who was doing questions on TV this morning (you may remember him from, his “high achieving” trade union days; clearly a trade unionist is the person entrust the country’s future energy supplies with?). He did a TV interview with Andrew Marr this morning, where he admitted that it was possible we would experience “supply disruption” if we see a hard winter. (i.e. supply disruption = not enough power for those who need it, the lights going out etc).

The sheer enormity of the phrase seemed to escape Andrew Marr.

Guys you’ve been in power for nearly a decade. And if a cold winter catches you out, there is surely no clearer statement of incompetent, muddled failure than this.

And the icing on the cake? When pressed on new nuclear energy supplies, Johnson with Canute-like resolution announced himself to be “undecided” he had, he told a bewildered Marr, “Only been in the job five months” (!)

Five minutes is enough to realise we have a significant energy gap, now, today. Truth of it is, many of the labour drones are instinctively opposed to nuclear power (memories of lentil sarnies and anti-nuclear marches in the 1980’s die hard). And Johnson finds it hard to once again disappoint the labour grass roots.

Well you’d best make your mind up sharpish Minister, before we all start shivering.