Entries from February 2007 ↓

Couldn’t quite believe this one from but that’s what it would seem.

So according to the Philip Hammond the Tories work and pensions spokesman, it’s a disgrace the amount of money that is being paid out to dead people when it could be given to those families and pensioners who are experiencing real hardship.

This begs an interesting question. If the Tories do truly believe that there is hardship in the UK and that pensioners and people on benefit and no doubt even those on low incomes are experiencing this to such a degree then they by definition would wish to do something about it assuming they’re not going to be honest and admit they really don’t give a toss about the poor.

So that would be an increase in benefit payments, pensions and who knows, maybe even a good upping of the minimum wage.

Am I just the cynical sod that doesn’t think this likely to happen under a Tory administration.

There is a serious point to this though. The loss of a loved one, a parent or even a child is a truly heart-wrenching experience. I can quite imagine that in the context of that situation, the last thing on a relatives mind would be to call up the DWP to stop all the benefits/pension.

I know it’s

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Two days ago I got a letter from my Building Society (Portman) informing me that following their evaluation period their branch in Willenhall has been earmarked for closure along with branches in Albrighton, Bewdley, Bloxwich, Cradley Heath, Oakengates, Perton, Tettenhall and Wombourne.

This miffed me rather a bit, for two particular reasons.

Firstly, when the merger took place or takeover depending on your view between what was my Building Society (Staffordshire) and Portman we were all assured about the commitment to providing services and this wasn’t as some people expressed the view, a takeover and asset stripping by a bunch of southern arseholes (apologies to any readers from the South of England but such views were expressed).

I’ll admit I voted for the merger on the basis of promises made and perhaps a belief in the higher moral principle of the mutual sector which had been based on previous good experience.

However as it would seem, yes, it has been a takeover by a bunch of southern arseholes who don’t give a stuff about their Staffordshire customers. Notably they have not seen fit to close any branches on their own previous turf, just ours.

Equally now, thanks to their readjustment a nice big office block on the Wolverhampton ring road (the previous headquarters of the Staffordshire) now stands empty so this begs the question about what we as customers actually got out of this deal? Apart from a couple hundred quid sweetener. Personally I’d have preferred not to have the money and keep my local branch open.

Secondly, this means that Willenhall, for the first time in its history (post Building Societies existing of course) will not have a single Building Society in the town. I remember myself a time when there were five but sadly it seems that these days have gone. I could understand if Willenhall was some backwater village with half a dozen houses and a few sheep, but with a population of over 30,000 it’s hardly that.

Building Societies have long been the place where people on lower incomes have been able to save as opposed to banks who aren’t interested in such customers. Sadly this means that these people on low incomes and particularly pensioners will be hit the hardest.

For myself I’ve always been with the Staffordshire as have my parents. They set up my first account with them when I was born to put some money away and so did I with my son. I’ve always saved with them and even though it wasn’t the cheapest option I took out my mortgage with them as I would rather do business with a local company that puts money back into the local community and economy.

So what to do now. Probably a few years ago I would have accepted the situation but as I near 30 I’m increasingly vindictive with my consumer habits. If companies piss me off I simply won’t use them again and take my business elsewhere.

So that’s it, come the end of April when Portman merge with/get taken over by Nationwide, this customer will be treating them with the contempt for which his years of loyalty have been treated and taking the merger money and buggering off to the West Bromwich Building Society. At least they do a lot more community stuff and actually have far better customer service anyway.

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The wonderful libertarian defender of the free market and critic of wasting taxpayers money, Paul Delaire Staines AKA Guido Fawkes, lived the life of a freeloading student. At least that’s according to this article from Hull University’s newspaper in the mid-eighties, obtained from our sources up North.

While the taxpayer was providing for Mr Delaire Staines to experience scholarly pursuits in true, Young Ones fashion, he forgot to pass his exams. When he was supporting the Contras, poor Paul was obviously not going to lectures. When he was organising for the Federation of Conservative Students, he wasn’t doing his homework. Heaven knows what he was getting up to in 1986 but it wasn’t revision.

I like the bit that the ’sit-in’ arranged by the Tory students was in a room they’d booked for the purpose. Very radical.

I think the crowning glory of the article has to go to the last quote:

“Only someone with an incredibly high opinion of themselves would take this kind of action and make their own failure the object of such publicity. Mind you, during his one year with us he was always good for a laugh.”

Well, nothing changes does it?

This of course does pose the question for the man who is the first to point out waste and undue uses of taxpayers money. Just how much did this little bit of freeloading cost the tax-payer, and did Paul Delaire Staine AKA Guido Fawkes feel compelled to pay back the money his obviously wasted education cost the hard working families of Thatcher’s Britain? I think we should be told.

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Nah, not football, sorry. More this little snippet from the Register.
Seems Wolverhampton City Council are taking Dell to court over share fluctuations relating to massive sales by Directors of their share options which affected the price and the value of the West Midlands Superannuation fund.
I wish them all the best of luck.

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Beware of walking on green areas in Walsall Town Centre.

[Note: I know it's not the responsibility of Walsall Council even though I've put this item in the Walsall MBC category so please don't point that out to me, although if memory serves me correctly, the council have paid for it to be done at times in the past]

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Sorry, couldn’t resist this one. Hat tip to Bob Piper.

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I have always had a love for Lego since a young age. For me it represents one of the best toys a child can have. Constructive and with limitless potential for exploration. I’ve still got all of mine which I hope to pass on and from time to time I still add a set or two to the collection.
However, what motivates people to do such things with it is beyond me.
Two clips from You Tube, the first, for some strange reason makes me think of Paul Mac, and the second, well anyone who’s in to their football. If you were wondering what inspired someone to take so much time to create the second clip, it was a university project by a bunch of nutty German football fans. Enjoy.

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Spotted this article over at Paul Linford’s site about how different bloggers are lining up in regard to their support for one candidate or the other.

I’ve been thinking about who I’m going to vote for for a while now and just for your amusement, here’s my deliberations on each of the candidates. just to note, I’ve personally only met two of those people who have declared for the position, but I’m sure as you’ll see below, this hasn’t in any way skewed my views. The two in question are Harriet Harman and Jack Straw.

So lets do the easy ones first.

Harriet Harman – Cannot stand the woman, I thought she was a useless minister and my views have not altered on her since. Equally and I apologise if anyone is offended by this view, but her main selling point seems to be that the deputy leader shouldn’t have a penis and therefore she should get it – not a strong argument there.

Jack Straw – Again, can’t stand the bloke, thought he was an awful Home Secretary and equally as useless at the Foreign Office, currently fucking up the reform of the upper chamber, nope sorry, my vote does not go his way.

Hazel Blears – Not voting for her, she’s ginger. Nah, only kidding, got nothing against people with ginger hair. To be frank, other candidates have got a lot of previous form, things you can look back on, judge how well they dealt with things, Hazel’s just sort of appeared for me. I honestly don’t know much about what she thinks on any issue. I spotted a pisspoor performance on newsnight of her once and seen various interviews where she simply didn’t come over well, much as I hate to admit it, style is also important in politics. In all honesty, she just seems a bit lightweight to be up for it, nothing personal mind you.

Alan Johnson – Again for me, I seem to have missed his rise through the ranks to where he is in Education today. I appreciate that to lead one must be a bit of a hard-nosed bastard at times. Put simply, I was a bit disappointed at how he caved in over faith schools so for pretty much that one reason I won’t be voting for him.

Now things get a bit more tricky.

Hilary Benn – Once again, missed his rise to where he is. Seems to say some good stuff from what I’ve picked up and comes across well and authoritative on his brief. However he seemed to jump the gun on his campaign and is falling back in terms of momentum. Politics is a fickle world where keeping going constantly is an important trait as is timing. So for me, although there’s an outside possibility my vote might go his way if he turns up with some interesting goods, I think we’re down to the last two. (at least those who have declared anyway)

I’m going to introduce some criteria here, what exactly are we voting for and why. The problem I have with the whole situation is what is the role of the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and that of the Deputy Prime Minister. You see, they’re not a defacto twinned role. The problem being there is no set down constitutional position as to how this all plays out. With the Prime Minister it’s simple, leader of the party with the most seats in the House of Commons gets a cup of tea from the Queen and is asked to form a Government. Leader = Prime Minister, simple, we all know that one. However Deputy Leader = Deputy Prime Minister, well that’s a bit different. Some Government haven’t bothered with the whole Deputy Prime Minister role, some have been appointed by the Prime Minister, there’s nothing really to say that one role should equal the other and in terms of the job description, the two roles can be very different.

A bit of an example, John Prescott, current Deputy Prime Minister and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. I’ve met him a number of times and as a person we’ve got on, I like his style. However these situations were wholly party political. He’s got that touch for rousing the troops that few have and I respect him for that ability. Marked against that, when he had his own governmental department I would on balance say he didn’t do a particularly excellent job. Now this may be because in the context of managing a department he was crap at the job, it might equally be that his department never really found itself in terms of the work it did and I wouldn’t wish to comment either way on such things but there was a clear difference in both the roles and effectiveness that he achieved in both of them.

This is where I have a problem with who to vote for out of the last two although Hilary isn’t completely out of it yet but a long way behind. So let’s dip into the last two protagonists.

Jon Cruddas – He seems to be picking up a lot of support from Labour bloggers. I’ve heard good things about him from people who’s views I respect and I’m happy to take on board those recommendations. From what I’ve seen that he’s said I quite like and he comes across well. Whether intentionally or it is simply who he is, he’s been playing the grassroots card in garnering support from members. I know he’s been to visit Wolverhampton and Sandwell recently, not Walsall I might add but I wouldn’t wish a visit to Walsall on any of the candidates, not even the ones I don’t like.

The only problem I have is a lack of previous form, he’s saying the right things but I don’t know how he would deal with things in different situations. Equally, we’re back to the whole question of what the role is. Probably for me, if we’re talking about motivating members, doing the party stuff then he’s looking quite good. Running the country while the PM’s on holiday and or maybe a government department that’s a bit different and I simply don’t know about him.

One last thing, I tried to contact him on something and got no reply, wasn’t too happy about that.

Peter Hain – I know Bob might disagree with me on the orange candidate but I will qualify my thoughts here. Bear in mind I’m of a generation who although thankfully were born under a Labour Government, sadly grew up during the reign of the bitch queen from Finchley. The issues that formed my political beliefs stemmed from that era and of those apartheid was a biggy. I can’t discount the work that people like Peter Hain did during that era and whatever comes, I will always hold a great deal of respect for his involvement in the anti-apartheid movement.

In Government he’s got quite a lot of form in terms of various positions and I’m trying to think of a situation where he’s done something I truly disagreed with but can’t really. He seems a competent manager in the sense of government and indeed has promoted things through his various roles which don’t hit the headines but are of great value. His campaigning on the environment give him a tick from my perspective as does (and this is completely irrelevant in a political context) his passion for motorsport that I share. He’s someone who I’d be quite comfortable in trusting to run the country in the absence of the Prime Minister should such a situation arise.

Is he a motivator of people? Not entirely sure, never met him. He could be a complete twat in person but no one’s ever conveyed that view to me. Is he’s what’s needed to rouse the troops, again, I’m undecided especially as the sounds from Jon Cruddas seem to be quite strong in this area. Equally I thought his performance on the BBC during the openign of Parliament was awful. He truly came across like a lapdog to the leadership, not that loyalty isn’t important in politics but I’ve also always appreciated his more independent thoughts and views on issues that thankfully he seems to be going back to after that one hiccup.

So there you go, my musings on the Deputy Leadership contest. Still deliberating between Cruddas and Hain with Benn as a rank outsider but probably unlikely. It does all come down to what the role is, a party role or a governmental role, if it’s a governmental role then Hain is ahead, party role, then Cruddas is looking quite good.

I’ll end on the outcome of a conversation with my father today on the subject. He’s a party member and I asked him who he’d vote for. He said Hain. His reasoning being pretty much what I outlined above in terms of his past record. His views of Cruddas, never heard of him. I won’t mention his views on Harman and Straw, you never know, children might be reading.

I think that makes an interesting point. Cruddas has done a lot of work on his internet strategy and fair play to him for that, his website/blog is quite well put together and in comparison Peter Hain’s is absolute rubbish (perhaps I should give him a call and offer my services). However, although these debates may be going on in the blogosphere, it’s important to note that not everyone’s got a net connection, like my soon to be retired parents. Their information source and ultimately how they judge the candidates will be through more traditional media sources and we must not forget that a large number of party members fall into that category.

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OK, scrub the last post about posting being a bit light, I’ve had enough of doing HTML/CSS scripting for one night and there’s a few issues I want to let off about.
The first of these is David Miliband’s blog. I’m not exactly sure what to make of it. I’m not going to go down the line of various critics out there that this site must be costing a fortune to the taxpayer because that’s a bit of a simple attack line that would be more in the childlike interpretation of politics that one would expect from the trash end of the blogosphere.
However my views on it are in some way shaped by it’s particular hosting. Here’s the thing. Corporate blogging is quite common, not necessarily a bad thing, good for companies to keep in touch with customers, especially if they provide a service and equally a more open and honest approach to feedback if the company screws something up.
My webhost is a good example of this, they run a blog to let us customers know when servers have gone down, routers need changing or simply they’ve fucked something up but are trying to fix it. I appreciate that openness and honesty on their part and I’m quite happy to stick with them for this, plus many other reasons.
Blogging in the private sector has taken off, it promotes more honesty, but like most systems it is open to abuse and there’s equally a number of companies that use it to misinform customers, play mind games with competing companies and try to influence things like stock and share prices.
I’ll admit to have not come across any openly sanctioned public sector blogs, perhaps it’s something we should encourage. Personally I’d be very interested in reading the blog of the Walsall Council Chief Executive. It could promote the removal of barriers between faceless bureaucrats in positions that affect people’s lives and those that they serve. Even, just possibly restore a bit of faith in our continually bombarded by the right-wingnut brigade public servants.
So on that basis, a blog appearing on a Government departmental website I wholly support.
However, when that blog is by the Secretary of State for that department things start to get a bit more muddled. He is afterall a politician, and because of that however much he may try to keep the focus on specific areas that are in relation to his department, personal views get through. This steps into the very questionable area then of how such a blog is to be perceived. On the whole it’s quite business-like and deals with the issues relevant to his department, however there are some aspects which are definitely of a personal nature which represent his own views and step (not in the case of outright party political campaigning) away from his brief.
I personally don’t think this is a good thing as it opens up questioning and mud slinging from a host of different people which further damages politics as a whole.
I did however notice that he’s got a new blogroll. This is what spurred me into this article. Haven’t got a problem with a blogroll were David to have his own website which is openly his and may even be of an overtly political nature, but as it is on Defra’s system then this really does overstep the mark for me. It also calls into question about who or what David Miliband is as a person.
Bear with me on this one. You can tell a fair bit about someone by the company they keep. In our online blogocircle thingy there’s a good chance you’re blogroll represents a group of people whom’s particular view you either endorse or at the very least give credence to even if it may be oposing your own. However the presence of a blogroll that includes overtly political links is not appropriate for what is or should be a corporate blog of a particular government department.
It’s also interesting to note the blogs that appear there, I’m thinking Paul (whatever his other name is) Staines AKA Guido Fawkes and Ian (honestly I’m not a liar) Dale. Apart from them being Tories who have tried to bring the blogosphere into disrepute of late with their little antics, they also represent the trash end of blogosphere and quite frankly, if David Miliband does read their little titbits then he has seriously gone down in my estimation.
In all honesty, I don’t think he would read such trash, he openly admits that although he writes the posts, his blog is done by staff at Defra. So the question is, did he request those particular blogs to be included himself, in which case he really should do a bit more research beforehand or were they put there because some bod a Defra who probably equally does not understand the medium or the politics of the situation decided to add them because they’d heard somewhere that they were ‘leading’ UK political blogs.

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Not being anti-social or anything. Been a bit busy for the last couple of days working on some websites, plus the other myriad of things I normally have to get done.
Will get round to a post on the Deputy Leadership contest sometime this week but I think that’s going to be about it.
One last thing, just had a gander at my referral stats. Can someone tell me what the hell a ‘penguin beer insulator’ is?

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