Swine Flu up to Pandemic Phase 5

Seems the World Health Organisation is taking Swine Flu pretty seriously. Its now one step short of a pandemic.

The UK has already rushed out an advert to promote Flu health awareness. Hopefully there'll be one soon about staying at home when ill, rather than going out and spreading the virus.


Its time for all of us to start to take precautions, before the virus really takes a hold here. Be aware of ill people around you, be sensible and stay at home if ill, the usual. Oh, and panic-buy facemasks, that'll help the news agencies ramp up the climate of fear. I just hope it doesn't give Gordo the excuse to bring in his reserve powers.

Gordo's Summer Swansong?

Well, we all know by now the government was defeated in the commons regarding the Ghurkas's right to settle in the UK.

One major point is the Conservatives working with the Lib-Dems over the affair. Guido has already pointed out the fact that the two party leaders seems to be quite comfortable sharing the spotlight. Labour should rightly be scared, because if the next election ends up in a hung parliament (yeah right), then there is scope for the Tories and Liberals to work together in a majority government. The downside to this is it shows there is very little difference betwen the major parties.

I just wonder if this is a sign of things to come. Labour backbenchers have smelled blood and may vote against the government again, so they can distance themselves from central government policy before the next election.

Gordo is fast becoming a liability for Labour. Wherever he goes, he is either criticised, or embarrassed.

I just wonder if he can survive until the next election. My money is on him going some time during the summer.

Todays PMQs: Am I missing Something?

Watching todays Prime Minister's Questions was starangely odd. It was very subdued, with David Caneron and Gordon Brown refusing to battle it out despite Gordo being wide open for attack on several issues.

Now to me it looked like I had just tuned in and someone had died or something. Did I miss that? Has someone died?

There were several assaults on the Prime Minister about the Ghurka issue and quite rightly so, the government have behaved despicably over the affair. In fact the Liberal Democrat leader whatsisname had a really good go at Gordo over it. Pity that David Cameron had sort of taken the wind out of his sails.

The main topic of solemn debate between Brown and Cameron was on the subject of Swine Flu and how prepared we are for it. Why would they waste time on such an obvious subject? Is Swine Flu more deadly than they are letting on? Its not as if its a huge topic of debate in the wider population; its spreading, yeah, but the numbers of people dying from it are relatively low. Its not as if its a particularly nasty, virulent or infectious form of flu according to the news.
Unless thats not quite the truth.

So, back to the original topic. Why wasn't there more ripping into Gordo on Ghurkas, expenses, Gordo's kicking in Poland, sleaze, the budget figures or the petition for Gordon to resign on the No10 website?

Maybe Cameron thinks its better if he saves Gordo's skin and lets him suffer until the election? Who knows, but I really think he went down quite a few notches in most people's estimation today because of his lack of attack.

David Cameron isn't the leader to drag us out of the sorry mess we're in at the moment.

Phorm and the Home Office: Interesting.

The BBC have the story here.

It's unsuprising that the Home Office would be interested in giving Phorm a go, as it seems theres a culture in government that thinks its fine and dandy to go snooping around people without explicit permission.

No doubt (as the report alludes to) the Home Office had a vested interest in the Phorm technology, either to use for themselves, to cover up their own activity, or to justify the regime where its ok to snoop.

Police Arrest

Well, never let it be said that the Police don't catch criminals. Here's one they arrested and banged to rights.

Yes, I'm being sarcastic. What sort of world is it when you can be arrested for noisy sex?? FFS the Police should be out catching burglars and thieves (maybe do some arresting in Westminster eh?), not harrassing this poor couple just because they're a bit noisy during coitus.

I used to live in a two-up-two-down victorian house that only had a single layer of brick on the party walls. You could hear everything that went on next door. But did we reach for an ASBO? No, instead a sly wink and a nod was more in order. After all, with the best will in the world, no-one can keep it up all night, so the noise will eventually end.

I've said it more than once, ASBOs can under certain circumstances be a bully's charter, because all it needs are a few neighbours to take a dislike to someone and they can effectively manipulate the law to hound them out of their homes. Mob rule enforced by the Police. Its despicable.

If this is the law in 2009, then the law is an ass.

If Only...

If only the Government had put as much effort into running the country efficiently as they have in bullying and smearing colleagues and rivals.

If only the Government had put as much effort into running the country as they have maximising their expenses.

If only the Government had put as much effort into running the country as they did when being creative with the dodgy Iraq dossier.

If only the Government had put as much effort into running the country as they have in the past dreaming up new schemes to rip even more tax off people.

If only the Government had put as much effort into running the country as they did creating loads of public sector call centres and creating Northern (and therefore Labour-voting) jobs.

If only the Government had put as much effort into running the country as all that and more, we'd be in a damn site better state than we're in now.