Question Time from 1979 on BBC Parliament Tonight

BBC Parliament are running the very first edition of Question Time tonight at 9pm.

It should be interesting, especially for those that have a political interest and weren't around at the time. Especially as Michael Foot is one of the panelists. Watch gobsmacked and wonder how fucked up the Labour party must have been to elect him as their leader. Which is suprisingly similar to today, although the question is how fucked up is the Labour party to keep their current leader.....

The host is the entertaining Robin Day.

Dismissed Dinner Lady Saga Continues

A mysterious donor has offered to pay the legal costs.

The retired businessman donor said "I've become disenchanted with the modern trend for really odd decisions being made by bureaucrats. And one of the joys of getting older is that you can do something about it."

Good on him.

I wish them both luck.

Dangerous Idiots in charge of Education and Health

Further to the story I covered a few days ago about the dinner lady thats was sacked for breaching confidentiality, comes more information.

First, the information she gave to the parents of the girl who was attacked didn't name the bullies, only that she had been attacked, which they would eventually have got from the girl. So no real breach of confidentiality.

It beggars belief that the school didn't think to mention the incident in detail to the parents, only sending them a generic "an incident ocurred" letter. You'd hope that the school would do something more substantial if a girl was tied to a fence and beaten with a rope.

Not only that, but in these days of enhanced CRB checks and other checks needed while working with children, this dismissal could effectively end the dinner lady's days of working with kids. Thats just what we want eh? A woman that clearly cares about the kids in her charge ever working with them again.

But wait, more information has come to light: One of the bullies was a child of one of the school governors.

An interesting note is the cowards in charge at the school took legal representation into the meeting to dismiss the dinner lady, but didn't allow her the same priviledge.

I'm sure this story is going to run and run mainly because the other parents at the school have quite rightly sided against the school governors and the head teacher, want the dinner lady reinstated and are threatening if necessary to pull kids out of the school.

The dinner lady has also decided to take legal action and I hope for her sake and the sake of the school, she wins.

I'm remined by this case of the Nurse who was a whistleblower for Panorama. She took a camera into a hospital to highlight neglect of patients. She was eventually struck off.

There really needs to be a crackdown on people abusing their positions and trying to cover up their incompetance.

Gordon the Stalker?

I just wonder if, with all the reports of Gordon Brown's stalker-like activity around President Obama, whether he'll be reported to the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre. After all it was set up to protect VIPs from people with mental health problems and President Obama is a Very Important Person.....

Gordon No-Mates

Seems the Sainted Obama didn't want the curse of Gordo to afflict him.

Even when Gordon's flunkies said pretty please.....

Then they go and try and big things up:

"A spokesman said the men had had a "wide-ranging discussion following last night's climate change dinner".

It has emerged this was a few minutes of conversation in a kitchen at the United Nations."

HaHaHaHa, just the tonic I need to start the day.

UPDATE:

Nick Robinson has the story as well on his blog, but tries to redeem things in the last paragraph: "It is thought likely that in response to these headlines, the White House will now move publicly to reassure the British about the continuing strength of the special relationship."

Don't hold your breath. Britain has shown what an unreliable ally it is in Iraq and now Afghanistan. We no longer compete as equals on the world stage where it counts: in means. Words count for very little when you have no resources to back them up with. The old saying "Talk softly and carry a big stick" has been turned on its head by Labour. Instead they insist on "Shouting loudly whilst offering empty promises". Thats why the so called "special relationship" is no more than an illusion in the eyes of the media these days.

To be serious for a minute, this story is an indication of how Britain is being sidelined by the other major powers of the world. Over a decade of Labour rule has bankrupted us and left us impotent on the world stage. We have been shuffled off to the wings to joint the ranks of bit players.

What Labour have done to this country is nothing short of criminal.

UPDATE2:

I see Shaun Woodward gives the PM a backhanded compliment here

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8272000/8272264.stm

So the PM has talked to President Obama more than 5 times and less than 10. Someone should tell him that shouting "I love you! You're my idol! Please be my friend!" across a room isn't a conversation....

More and More and More......

So, Stephen Timms wants the "Broadband Tax" to be made law before the next election.

I just wonder what right the government have to demand this extortion for having a phone line. In an age where people are questioning the TV licence fee, isn't having something similar for telephones just a wee bit obtuse?

Anyway, we all know the money raised will go into central funding and won't be ring-fenced for broadband use and to be honest, how the hell is this money supposed to magic up a broadband line in every house anyway? Are the government going to nationalise a cable company? If not, then just how is the money going to be spent? How will we measure value for money? How will the poor destitute currently non-broadband-owning person suddenly come up with the money to keep using the broadband connection once its in their homes.

To be honest, its another fucking tax. More and more and more fucking tax. Just because they can. Bastards.

Baroness Scotland: Far Worse than a Hypocrite

So, Baroness Scotland has accepted her £5000 fine for employing an illegal worker. Handy word that; "accepted". Does that mean she had a choice? Does that mean the rest of us have a choice when it comes to fixed penalty notices?

Shes made much of the fact that by accepting the fixed penalty, its a civil rather than a criminal offence. However, its now come to light she DOES have a criminal offence to her name, for careless driving. As an aside, I love at the end how the spokesperson is quoted as saying “It was over 20 years ago, it is just ridiculous.”. If the offence was in 1991, thats not quite 20 years ago yet. Maths obviously isn't a requisite for joining the civil service.

Put these together and you get a feel for the hypocritical nature of a person that makes laws but can't follow them herself, who applied for and got the highest legal position, despite having a criminal conviction. Add to that, the allegations she wrongfully pocketed £170,000 in expenses, and you really get a flavour of her real character.

Do I think she should stay in her position? No I don't. Someone in the highest legal position in the land should not be seen to just follow the spirit of the law, they should follow the law to the letter, crossing every "t" and dotting every "i" as they go. If its not good enough for the rest of us to plead ignorance of the law, its absolutely not good enough for someone who was involved in making that law to plead it.
Someone in the highest legal position in the land should not have a criminal conviction either, whatever the circumstances are of how they gained it. The fact is they have fallen foul of the law at some point and therefore have no regard for it.
They can argue until they are blue in the face about how minor the offences were, but the rest of us suffer the consequences of these "minor offences" for years after the fact: just ask anyone that has had a CRB check, or has applied for an insurance policy.

For Baroness Scotland to shrug these transgressions off as nothing, shows she is woefully out of touch about how the laws SHE is making affect the rest of us.

If she shows that level of hypocrisy for the law and the public she supposedly serves, she should not be her position and should have either resigned or have been sacked.

This is the State of British Education Today

A dinner lady who told a girl's father she had been attacked during break time has been dismissed because she breached confidentiality.

Fuck me sideways, the idiots really are in charge aren't they? Its a typical reaction we've seen over and over again when incompetants run something: if someone blows the whistle, lets close ranks and dismiss them.

Obviously the right of the parent to know what happens to their child in school is secondary to the good name of the school. Well, hopefully the school and the fuckwits in charge will have their reputation dragged down into the gutter where it belongs.

There is no excuse for behaviour like this. Public services including schools must be transparent and honest with their service users.

I've seen with my own eyes how a school can go down the nick when a righteous numpty is in charge... my daughter was at such a school. She's now at a completely different school and doing miles better.

C64 Laptop

Extremely geeky I know, but people of a certain age have an affinity for the old C64 and old computers in general.

I used to have a C64 (one of the first in the country and fearsomely expensive) that my dad bought me to learn about computers on.

It brings a tear of joy to my eye to see one in action again.

Don't Say We Didn't Tell You....

Its reported that all the political parties are secretly planning cuts in public spending of about 30%, rather than the 10% being bandied about in public.

Well, thats no suprise to the blogosphere, who have been detailing the appalling amount of money that has been squandered this year, borrowing billions to prop up public finances.

The blogosphere said it was unsustainable, the blogosphere said huge cuts would have to come, the blogosphere said redemption would be painful. The blogosphere said all of this, but no-one in the mainstream listened.

Well hopefully, now they're listening. Hopefully, now they'll understand that accepting the status quo isn't good enough. If the government isn't challenged on every point of order, questioned about every action, we get to the stage we are at now.

Government has to account for its actions. Not only in the moral sense, but the financial sense too. Our current government has been bankrupt in both senses for years now.