CONVICTED BY THE PRESS ?

It's good to see that the Attorney General has finally decided to do something about the disgraceful media coverage of the Jo Yeates murder, though it seems he has yet to be convinced that anything more than a few words of warning is necessary.

The arrested man may be responsible but he has not yet been charged with any offence. Regardless of this, some of the media coverage appears to have equated arrest not only with charge but with undoubted guilt as well. The naming of the man is, itself, surely an invasion of his privacy and civil rights, while the general publication of his life's story is entirely unwarranted. Overall, the coverage undoubtedly threatens his right to a fair trial, if it comes to that.

The murder of Miss Yeates was a shocking event, but it cannot justify the current media coverage. A few years ago, we were subjected to something similar after the killing of Jill Dando, and we all know how that ended. Let's not have a repeat performance.

CHARITY BEGINS .......... EVERYWHERE ?

So, in its desperation, the Government is considering a scheme whereby we would all be 'asked' to donate to charity every time we use our bank cards or cash machines, fill in tax returns or apply for passports or driving licences. Additionally, and joy of all joys, should anyone lucky enough to win a big Lottery prize give a chunk of it to 'Good Causes', they would receive, wait for it, a thank-you letter from a Minister ! WOW !!!

Before we all get carried away with excitement, let's pause for thought.

Charities are usually set up to fill gaps in areas where Government can't or won't provide particular services.

Before the Lottery was introduced, the 'Good Causes' were generally recipients of largesse from Government.

Government decides what is, and what is not, a 'Good Cause'.

Anyone shaking a tin under your nose in a public place is doing something illegal - they are begging.

What this adds up to is that the Government is actually considering the creation of a state-sponsored system of legalised begging, set up to provide funds for those services that it no longer wishes to provide itself, the funds accruing from the National Lottery no longer being sufficient.

Not bloody likely. When I give to charity, it's for something I, not the Government, believe in, it's on my terms and at a time of my choosing. These proposals are nothing less than the nationalisation of charitable giving and should be thrown out without further ado.

AIRPORT DISRUPTION FINES.

So the Government's response to the recent impact of the exceptionally rare and extreme of recent weeks is to consider fining airports for letting passengers down.

I despair. This type of knee-jerk reaction is designed purely for effect and to try to convince the electorate that Government is 'doing something about it'. Of course, if there is genuine failure on the part of organisations such as airports, there should be penalties, but these are already enshrined in various agreements and laws; travellers have rights and can exercise them, but the recent weather has been the most severe this country has experienced in decades.

Is the Aviation Minister, Ms Villiers, going to define what she means by the phrase 'let passengers down' ? Indeed, how can this phrase be properly defined, with its clearly open-ended wording ? Airports should be prepared and able to cope with conditions which occur with reasonable frequency but they cannot be expected to deal with all possible scenarios unless they also pass the additional costs onto their customers. Fining them will be no different, and the costs will ultimately appear as higher prices for travellers.

This Government originally said it was intent on sweeping away the mountains of red tape and bureaucracy created by the last lot; is it now simply planning to replace what it doesn't like with its own brand of crap ?

GREEDY TRAIN DRIVERS.

Train drivers on the London Underground have demanded triple time and a day off in lieu for working today, Sunday 26th December. London Underground has refused the request, so the drivers have gone on strike.

Sack the lot of them. Thousands of other workers have to give up the annual bank holiday and other days because their jobs demand it, and many get no extra pay, let alone the package demanded by these greedy wretches on the underground.

The travelling public suffers ever-less public transport during holiday times and pays ever-more for it. It is time this ridiculous situation was resolved once and for all.

NHS CUTS TO ENDANGER LIVES ?

The head of the nurses union, the RCN, says that job cuts in the NHS 'could endanger patients' lives'.

This is a typical remark from a union boss that is essentially meaningless. Anything 'could endanger lives'. Instead of bleating this sort of tripe, why doesn't this person make some suggestions as to how the grotesquely inflated budget of the NHS can be used more effectively WITHOUT endangering patients' lives ? That would be worth hearing.

WRITERS IN FANTASY LAND

I read that 'leading writers have condemned a government decision to withdraw funding from a charity that provides free books to children to encourage reading'.

My first reaction is to ask why such a charity should exist and my second is to ask why the Government should fund it. The Government pays for education in our schools and it is for parents to deal with the education of children at home. When I was a child, my mother sat with me and taught me to read; I gained an enthusiasm for reading and either bought books out of my pocket money or received them as presents for birthdays or Christmases. If this was insufficient, I borrowed books from the local library, another state funded body.

With all the billions of pounds spent on the education system and hordes of experts and, supposedly, highly qualified teachers that we have, why should it be necessary to have a charity that now takes on the role of encouraging children to read ? Is it that the parents no longer have the time, interest or ability to help their children with their learning and, if so, shane on them !

That this charity apparently receives £13m from the Government is astonishing. The whole notion of charity is that it achieves something Government cannot or will not and the modern practise of Government setting aside resources to give to charities is nonsensical. If a charity is needed, individuals will contribute and that's that. If individuals don't contribute, or don't contribute 'enough', it is not for Government to prop it it up and the charity should cut its cloth according to its available resources.

If there is a real need, this provision of books should be handled directly through the schools, doing away with the need for this charity and its no doubt costly administration. The writers who object so much to the Government's proposals can always contribute some of their own income to a new charity if they wish, though I doubt they will see that as an attractive option.

TOMMY WHO ?

With the news coverage of someone called Tommy Sheridan, one could be forgiven for thinking this is a man of some importance.

In fact, he's a member of an inconsequential Scottish political party who's been found guilty of lying. Shock, horror - a Politician who tells lies !

Is this story really of sufficient significance to be the main item on the BBC News ?

"IT'S THE 'TELEGRAPH' NOT ME", SAYS VINCE

Vince Cable's new outburst, blaming the 'Daily Telegraph' for his party's recent embarrassments, is a hopeless smokescreen.

Mr Cable seems to think it is the newspaper that is at fault for daring to expose the duplicity of him and his colleagues; what rot. Cable and his friends pretend one thing for public consumption and say another behind closed doors; the people should know this and understand how dishonest they are being. In the pursuit of power, they are prepared to pretend anything, but their true beliefs now cause them discomfort.

If the coalition is to survive, both sides must stop sniping at each other. Senior figures such as Mr Cable and those implicated in today's story should realise that they have a responsibility to be 100% supportive of the Government of which they are part, regardless of which party they are members. If they cannot do this, they should resign.

VINCE ISN'T ALONE.

So, following in Vince Cable's footsteps, several senior LibDems, Government Ministers all, have been caught making unguarded and derogatory remarks about their Tory colleagues - apparently, Cameron can't be trusted and Osborne's out of touch with ordinary people.

It's not that these comments are inaccurate, indeed I suspect most of us would agree whole-heartedly, but the gaping chasm between the coalition partners is now in danger of swallowing both sides. In any normal time, the guilty ministers would have been sacked, but these are not normal times and so they simply apologise and stay in office.

How ridiculous. This house of cards, built on the shakiest of foundations, is surely now in danger of imminent collapse.

GAFFE PRONE VINCE A DEAD DUCK.

When the LibDems were simply the second opposition party, Vince Cable's words of wisdom, not to mention his twinkling feet, shone through the gloom like a beacon of hope. Vince sounded as if he knew what he was talking about, and the tune he was dancing to, and became the darling of the Nation.

Now, in a senior Government post, he is proving an embarrassment to everyone. First the "I may not vote for my own policy" fiasco, and now caught making naive, unguarded and wholly inappropriate comments about the role he might play in Government decision making and more.

Mr Cable may be academically strong but he has demonstrated a serious lack of political judgement in recent weeks. A few months ago, his position was unassailable as the most high profile LibDem and a man whose expertise had struck a chord with the populace of a beleaguered nation; now he has shown himself as being politically unsuited to high office. He should go, and would if the Government was not quite so weak.

ANTHONY HOWARD

I see that Anthony Howard, the political journalist and commentator has died.

I didn't always agree with his views but he was an astute and shrewd observer of the political world. There have not been too many of his ilk and he will be missed.

EUROPEAN MADNESS.

I read that the European Union parliament has voted itself a budget for next year of €126.5bn., an amount equivalent to £107bn., that is £107,000,000,000. It also seems that the MEPs are not really very happy with this sum as it represents a budget increase of 'only' 2.9% over last year; they want greater powers to determine their budget independently in future years.

Let's be clear. The EU is an organisation that is, effectively, a super QUANGO though with greater powers, and perhaps we need to invent a new acronym in recognition of its multinational nature; perhaps ISGO - Irrelevant Supra-Governmental Organisation might be appropriate. It does not provide any of the usual governmental services such as health, social services, education, defence, transport etc., etc. What it does have are TWO parliament buildings which it uses alternately and a vast bureaucracy to support its separate, and non-elected, Commission as well as the Parliament; the Members and Commissioners exist on huge salaries and claim vast expenses, generally without being required to provide any proof of the expenses. And it plans to spend £107,000,000,000 next year.

£107,000,000,000 is enough to pay the wages of almost 5,000,000 people on UK national average earnings. How can it be that this organisation can be such a consumer of financial resources ? It is crewed by hordes of essentially faceless politicians, most of whom have never been heard of, even in their own countries; many of them have previously been kicked out of office in their own countries, but been rescued by their polictical friends and sent to Brussels. These self-serving and irrelevant people represent no one but themselves, in pursuit of a goal that no one outside of a political elite wants.

£107,000,000,000 is a huge amount of money. For many years, the accounts of this organisation have been subject to severe qualification by their auditors and yet no one has done anything about it. When one Chief Accountant refused to sign off the accounts on the grounds that there was insufficient supporting evidence for much of the expenditure and she could not vouch for their accuracy, she was suspended by her boss, Neil Kinnock, and subsequently sacked. That she was entirely justified in her behaviour was subsequently accepted by a tribunal, but the accounts were not changed.

£107,000,000,000 : simply remember this number and be under no illusions. The budget will expand, the corruption, waste and inefficiency will not be tackled, and we will become increasingly subservient to this organisation. The EU has little or nor real use. It is vastly expensive and grossly inefficient. It is utterly corrupt. It is entirely unnecessary.

Is it not time that this ISGO was gone ?

KEEP TAKING THE TABLETS ?

Former Minister Bob Ainsworth wants to legalise all drugs as he believes existing policies have failed and this is the only way to introduce control in this area. Various organisations already put enormous pressure on Government aimed at making alcohol and nicotine less accessible, not more; Mr Ainsworth's approach seems to fly in the face of this pressure.

At first glance, part of Mr Ainsworth's thesis may look to be at least partly valid. He believes that legalisation will rid us of the criminal gangs who currently rule the drugs underworld and there could be some truth in this,

however, will it rid us of the mindless morons who take to using drugs in the first place ? Would the drugs be provided free of charge ? What would be the cost to the nation of this policy ? If 'drugs on prescription' is made dependent on users embarking on a course of treatment designed to wean them away from their substance of choice, what will be done if they stop the treatment or simply fail to respond ? Would drugs such as ecstasy be available under the scheme and, if so, on what basis and for what reasons ?

The more I think about this, the more I am forced to the conclusion that Ainsworth is well-meaning, but naive and muddled. Those who control the current drugs' trade are far too unpleasant and devious to allow a little thing like legalisation to stand in their way. New and more exciting drugs will be manufactured; vicious punishments will be meted out to those who try to move to legal channels; many of those already 'hooked' will be unable or unwilling to stop; there will always be a new trade of younger people to be enticed, and so on. Will we be dishing out drugs, willy-nilly, to prisoners, all paid for by the State ?

The real way to deal with this problem is to crack down very hard on both dealers and users. In the same way that traffic accidents considered to have been aggravated by drug or alcohol use attract harsher penalties, so should other crimes that are similarly induced. Possession of hard drugs, should, once again, be treated as a serious offence, and dealers and suppliers should be imprisoned for lengthy periods.

It is only by making the trade sufficiently unattractive to all of those involved that it will be curtailed, not by namby-pamby, socially conscious and, effectively, defeatest actions such as suggested by Mr Ainsworth.

BOAT PEOPLE

Having read that a boat load of potential asylum seekers has foundered off Christmas Island, I have to wonder what it was doing there. As I understand it, the people were refugees from Iran and Iraq; what on earth were they doing near Christmas Island ?

Under international law, asylum seekers are required to seek help in the first available safe haven, so what was going on ? These people have caused a huge amount of trouble to residents of Christmas Island, many of whom risked their lives in order to try to save passengers from the sea. Their irresponsible behaviour should be condemned and they should be returned from whence they came in order to deter similar lunacy in the future.

Of course, I don't expect many people to agree with me, but then the modern world has become so soft and fluffy that we're all expected to express nothing but caring words. Well, I think it's time we woke up and got real so don't expect caring words from me.

NHS WILL GO TO HELL

When it was founded in 1948, the National Health Service was intended to be exactly that - a Service that improved the health of the Nation to such an extent that costs would actually fall as the people became healthier. Oh, how stupidly naive were those who started the ball rolling !

What is now obvious is that, given an ageing population, a widening of what is considered to come under the remit of the Service and ever more rapid advances in medical knowledge and technology, costs will rise ever more swiftly. Of course, every Government wants to have close control over this enormous element of public spending but no Government wants to be the one that ultimately cries 'Enough !'. One of the results is that there has been an exponential growth in the number of administrators involved in monitoring roles of every type, and frequent reorganisations designed to convince the populace that something is being done while, in fact, the Service is actually completely out of control; add to this the increasing penchant for litigation over every possible injustice and the amount of time and money wasted by unnecessary administration has also grown disproportionately.

Handing financial control to GPs, the latest Government wheeze and, essentially, a throw-back to the days of GP Fundholding in the early 1990s, is ludicrous. All those employed in the NHS have their own roles to fill and trying to pretend that doctors have some magical ability to manage an organisation this complex is so daft as to make one shudder in disbelief. Doctors know about medicine and, of course, they should make the medical decisions about their patients without interference from others, but managing large and complex organisations is also a professional skill, and it requires professional managers to do it. Doctors must have a strong voice in this process but they should not be the final arbiters; they do not have the management expertise.

The population has come to expect the NHS to solve all of its medical issues, whether ones of real health or more of social desire. This is a major part of the funding problem that now exists and the Government should resolve the problem by returning the NHS to its original function - dealing with illness and debility. There are many conditions and procedures that the NHS should not involve itself with and these should be dropped from the canon. I refer to procedures and services that are essentially life-style choices, such as abortion, the provision of free contraceptive services, including male and female sterilizations (and their reversals), cosmetic surgery including trans-gender procedures, so-called 'alternative therapies' except where they are of genuinely proven worth, the enormous array of psychological and other counselling services that didn't exist a few years ago, and so on and so on. At the same time, the administrative burden that has appeared over the last 30 years must be removed; there are many staff now engaged in all manner of duties that have been invented in recent times but that are essentially pointless. This is not to say that these staff are not working hard and to the best of their abilities, but the problem is that their jobs are unnecessary or, at least, an unnecessary adornment in these times of financial stringency.  

Once reformed in this way, services outside the scope of the 'new' NHS should be funded from personal resources, insurance or charitable sources, they should not be a charge on the taxpayer. We also have to come terms with the concept of old age and death. We do not have any divine right to pass on our accumulated wealth, if we have any, to our children and the State should not be expected to provide for us in our old age except for when there is genuine medical need; we have to accept that we will all become less able as we grow older and we should make our own provision for this. The notion that the State should pay for us all to spend our last years in residential or nursing homes is entirely unsustainable and wrong-headed. It is also wrong that immigrants arriving in this country, who have never contributed anything to the State, are automatically entitled to the same level of NHS care as long-standing residents; as the number of immigrants has risen, the burden placed on various parts of the Service has also risen, again disproportionately, and this must be addressed.

The NHS has to return to its roots and go back to dealing with illness and debility. It cannot continue to be a cure-all for every perceived bodily malfunction and anyone who turns up; there has already been movement in this direction with charges for some optical and dental services and for prescriptions, but now is the time to take this approach much further. If we do not address and resolve these issues quickly, the NHS WILL, indeed, GO TO HELL.