Author Archives: simon

Baton Rounds Being Stockpiled in London

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Police began “stockpiling” rubber bullets – responsible for fatalities in Northern Ireland – after the London riots, a BBC investigation suggests.

The month before last August’s riots, the Metropolitan Police held just 700 baton rounds.

But by December 2011, the number had jumped more than 14 times to more than 10,024, a Freedom of Information request shows. BBC.

This is a gross escalation of state violence against its citizens, baton rounds have never been used on the mainland of the UK an nor should they be, do we really want turn our street into a war zones.

The use of baton rounds in Northern Ireland resulted in the death of 17 people, 8 of them children, not an auspicious record of use!

We supposedly live in a civilised country it’s about time we started to act like it!

Cruddas Not Guilty! Did They Watch the Video?

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I’ve no love for Jack Straw, he proved to be an odious hypocrite, but he does have a point about the Electoral Commissions assertion that Peter Cruddas, the former Tory Party Co-Treasurer, had not breached the rules.

Former Labour Cabinet minister Jack Straw urged the watchdog to investigate the matter – saying the reporters had been allegedly told money could be channelled through a company they would set up. This, he argued, would contravene rules banning the use of “front organisations” to disguise the original source of a donation.

But the Electoral Commission said for an offence to be committed “a real arrangement to assist the making of impermissible donations has to be in place” rather than a fictitious one and no investigation was warranted.

“No donations were, in fact, made and the Commission therefore determined that there had not been a breach of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act,” said Lisa Klein, the watchdog’s director of party and election finance. BBC.

Expect Klein to leave the Electoral Commission for a high paid job in The City!

Miss-management at the Water Companies

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The whole debacle at the water companies is yet another example of what privatisation of national assets actually means for people, a deteriorating service as senior managers and directors collect ever growing bonuses and pensions.Caroline Spelman, the environment secretary is warning of standpipes next year, although I’d take that with a pinch of salt the Tories do love scaremongering as witnessed recently at the petrol stations last month over a strike that still hasn’t happened and might never actually take place!

Things are so bad that Trevor Bishop, head of water resources at the Environment Agency said.

We’ve already got one big desalination plant near London and that’s going to be really important for safeguarding supplies for London

I think the likelihood of seeing more desalination plants over the next 10 or 20 years in England is quite high – but you don’t want to rely on desalination, it’s very expensive, it produces a lot of carbon so that’s not good for the environment. BBC.

What desalination plants, as opposed to the water companies actually fixing their leaks? What other business wastes anything up to 27% of their product? Madness!

And In recent years some companies have managed to increase the amount of water leaked! If you look back over the years you’ll see many water companies have failed to make any reduction in the amount of water leaked from their pipes.

So instead of blaming a couple of dry winters we should put the blame squarely at the door of the directors of the water companies who’ve put profit before performance! And Margaret Thatcher and the Tories whole privatised them in the first place!

Tories Still Backing Murdoch

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Six members of the Commons Media Committee found that Rupert Murdoch was “not a fit person” to run a major international business however the four Tory MPs differed saying there was no evidence to support this and the judgement was outside their remit, go figure!

Border Control Madness!

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So London is hosting the world’s biggest sporting event, whatever your opinion is of that, it’s surely madness to cut UK border staff by 10% unless you’re going to relax border controls that is! Which would be a pretty unusual act for the xenophobic Tories! Personally I’d welcome a relaxation in immigration controls in line with the rest of the EU.

Klouchebag

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Klouchebag measures how much of an asshat you are on Twitter. Tom Scott, Klouchebag’s designer writes.

I got annoyed with the fuss around Klout, the horrible social-game that assigns you a score based on how “influential” you are online. This is the result.

OutofRangeNet gets a score of 62 and rated as Facepalm Central!

Clarkson Uses Human Rights Act!

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Jeremy Clarkson has lost a legal battle in a dispute over public access to a path near his Isle of Man home.

The Top Gear presenter and his wife, Frances, claimed having a public path so close to their lighthouse property breached their human rights. BBC.

I would have thought the bizarrely popular presenter would have been ridiculing the human rights act not trying to use it as an excuse to close a public footpath!

Posted in Law

The Trouble with Tappin

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“I didn’t know these batteries were for Hawk missiles and too, I didn’t know they were destined for Iran”. Christopher Tappin

My problem with Tappin is he didn’t seem to know what he was selling or who he was selling it to all he was bothered about was the profit being made! Ignorance is no defence.

Posted in Law

We’re Back in Recession!

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Here’s the figures from The Guardian:

The Office for National Statistics published GDP figures today showing that the UK is officially back in recession with negative growth of 0.2%. These are their top lines:

• GDP decreased by 0.2% in Q1 2012
• Output of the production industries decreased by 0.4% in Q1 2012, following a decrease of 1.3% in the previous quarter
• Construction sector output decreased by 3% in Q1 2012, following a decrease of 0.2% in the previous quarter
• Output of the service industries increased by 0.1% in Q1 2012, following a decrease of 0.1% in the previous quarter
• GDP in volume terms is flat in Q1 2012, when compared with Q1 2011.

What stands out is the 3% decline in construction! As Jonathan Portes of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research points out:

Figures yesterday showed a 25% decrease in public sector net investment last year – a lot of that would have been in building new schools and hospitals. It reflects the slowing down of public sector investment, for example after the scrapping of Labour school building programme.

So why George Osborn should find it a surprise that construction has taken a hammering surely shows a lack of basic economics, then again the Tories cling to the fantasy that private sector is going to take up the slack! But as these figures show that isn’t happening and it isn’t going to!

Investment is the way out and the first place to start is tax and making sure we’ve the resources to collect what is owed, clamping down on tax avoiders, this is a no-brainer, how I hate that word, but it fits the bill, I can’t remember the figures but tax inspectors make money for government any cuts here are shear madness! Well unless you’re a posh boy like Osborne! The government loses an estimated £25 billion a year in revenue to tax dodgers that’s the deficit paid off in no time, if you so wish!

Waiting for Justice to See the Light!

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Belfast Crown Court Judge Patrick Lynch said Mundy had behaved in a “callous and totally inhumane way” towards his victim and that he had “taken advantage of” a naive and vulnerable person.

“You dealt with her as a sexual object on this afternoon, you took advantage of the position she was in and then you simply ignored her,” he said.

“That says little about you as an individual and a person irrespective of the criminality you have been convicted of.” BBC.

However the judge then accepts that Andrew Mundy was “not a sexual predator” who posed a danger to other females! I’d suggest he’s a risk to every naive and vulnerable female he comes across that’s how predators like Mundy operate!

You also have to wonder about the jury who couldn’t agree on a rape charge. Mundy told his victim “I bring people in here and rape them”, and when she met him again he sexually assaulted her before raping her, well not raping in the jury’s eyes he had sex with his victim after sexually assaulting her, how does that possibly add up? Guilt of sexual assault but we can’t decide if he raped her?

What message does the suspended 18-month sentence that Mundy received give to the public? Nothing good is the answer!

Posted in Law