Sim-O

You may be aware that I’ve been asking Nadine Dorries a question via Twitter about whether she has dontated her MP’s salary for the period she was in the I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! jungle, as she promised she would.

I’ve been asking this question for sometime now, a couple of months. If you click the link, you’ll see that I’ve been perfectly reasonable and polite, no abuse, no swearing, just a reasonably worded question.

when I was getting the tweets together for this I realised Nadine had blocked me. I don’t know when as I don’t use Twitters web interface very often, but I do know that I wasn’t blocked when I started asking.

Dorries has seen the question and instead of engaging in anyway whatsoever, not even a ‘sod off’, she’s chosen to block me and ignore a valid question about her taxpayer funded salary, her integrity and whether she is as good as her word.

So, another approach is needed. I iwould write a letter or email to her, but as I’m not one of her constiuents, she is under no obligation to reply. Dorries will immediately bin and correspondence I have with her. Good or bad.

What I need is a little help.

I need someone who Dorries represents in Parliament to ask her directly whether she has kept her word and donated 12 days worth of her parliamentary salary to charity. Hopefully finding out how much and to which charities, but that bit is even more unlikely as the charities (i think) will be under no obligation to verify.

Anyone fancy writing a polite letter to their MP for me?

This is your MP, Mid Beds…

A woman that is so emotionally underdeveloped she can’t control herself when she sees puppies available to take home.

Just think about that and what it implies for her decision making abilities.

This is fucking depressing.

Only two out of the seven big national papers carried the story about Michael Gove having his arse handed to him on a plate about “survey after survey” show kids nowadays knowing fuck all about history.

You may see a pattern here, but the Telegraph, Mail, Express and the Sun have no sign of this story as expected.

You won’t be shocked to find the Guardian has it, as does the Independent which, by the way, gets’ a gold star for pointing out more of Goves’ bullshit at the end.

What surprised me, although may not surprise you as I don’t read the paper, is the Mirror doesn’t feature it. I was under the impression the Mirror was a bit of a lefty paper and would’ve been pissing themselves laughing at Gove being called out on his shit-speak.

This is a prime opportunity for the opposition to tear strips out of Gove and try and get him to justify the unsubstantiated bollocks he uses to push through what he calls education ‘reforms’, and what anybody with half a clue as to what actually goes in a class room calls A Fucking Nightmare For All Involved.

It won’t fucking happen though, and Gove will be free to fuck things up by reforming the education system back into the shape it was in the 1950’s.

This is un-fucking-believable.

From the Department of Work & Pension: Services and Benefits Online…

What do I need?

This page explains:

• what software you need to use this service
• how to print your transaction
• how the service uses cookies.

If you use Jaws or Supernova screen readers, we apologise for any problems you may experience. You may wish to claim in another way.

That’s not a good start. People with some disabilities may only be able to use screen readers. Screw them, eh?

Operating systems and browsers
The service does not work properly with Macs or other Unix-based systems even though you may be able to input information.

Oh. Windows only then. Well, they are the majority of computers out there, but still, Windows only? What were they thinking of?

You are likely to have problems if you use Internet Explorer 7, 8, 9 and 10, Windows Vista or a smartphone. Clearing temporary internet files may help but you may wish to claim in another way.

What? This just gets worse and worse. Be advised, You can’t use the last four incarnations of IE and Vista and smartphones will let you down here too. I’d better try a different browser, Chrome or Firefox then.

Wait…What?!

There is also a high risk that if you use browsers not listed below, including Chrome, Safari or Firefox, the service will not display all the questions you need to answer. This is likely to prevent you from successfully completing or submitting the form. You may wish to claim in another way.

So along with IE7, 8, 9 & 10, I can’t use the other three major browsers on my non-Mac, non-Unix, non-Vista computer. Claiming another way is beginning to look rather attractive. What the hell can I use?

What the service was designed to work with
The service was designed to work with the following operating systems and browsers. Many of these are no longer available.

Microsoft Windows 98:

• Internet Explorer versions 5.0.1, 5.5 and 6.0
• Netscape 7.2

Microsoft Windows ME

• Internet Explorer version 5.5 and 6.0
• Netscape 7.2

Microsoft Windows 2000

• Internet Explorer version 5.0.1, 5.5 and 6.0
• Netscape 7.2
• Firefox 1.0.3
• Mozilla 1.7.7

Microsoft Windows XP

• Internet Explorer 6.0
• Netscape 7.2
• Firefox1.0.3
• Mozilla 1.7.7

Microsoft stopped supporting the latest of that list of operating systems, XP, FIVE years ago! How the can a government develop an online system that is only usable on an operating system that old? Never mind the latest browser being IE6!

And they even bloody tell you that you are unlikely to have a fucking machine you can use this service with!

it’s almost as if they do don’t want you to claim.

Beyond words. Speechless. Completely.

(via @geeoharee

Margret Thatcher was a important leader. She won three general elections and completely changed the political, industrial, financial and, some may say the social, landscape of the country. She also had a big influence within international affairs too. Whether all that was for the good or otherwise depends entirely on what colour tint the spectacles you’re currently wearing have – rose or shit.

Because of this, I don’t really begrudge her a big flashy funeral. For the right or wrong reasons, she was important. For some reason though, this little nugget from The Speaker, John Bercow, has irked me. It’s trivial, doesn’t cost anything but is a step too far… for some unfathomable reason.

The Speaker told MPs: “I have received a number of representations, direct and indirect, formal and informal, concerning how the house and parliament as an institution might best mark this occasion. I have considered all of these, but concluded that the most appropriate means of indicating our sentiments would be for the chimes of Big Ben and for the chimes of the Great Clock to be silent for the duration of the funeral proceedings.

“I have therefore made the necessary arrangements to achieve this. I believe that there can be a profound dignity and deep respect expressed in and through silence and I’m sure that the house will agree.”

I think the house is showing profound enough dignity and respect by spending fuck-loads of cash on a ceremonial funeral, one step down from the state funeral the Queen will get, in a time when people with bugger all are being told they’re on their own because the state has no cash.

Which brings me on to this little turd of a man, Francis Maude…

Maude told Radio 4’s Any Questions programme on Friday that reports that the funeral will cost £10m had mistakenly included the costs of police and soldiers who would be working anyway. “There are costs which are people doing their ordinary jobs which are costs which are being borne in any event. We have not hired more soldiers, we haven’t hired more police. There is no one who has been hired who would not be doing their ordinary jobs which they would not be doing in any event. We are not hiring more police.”

Maude wouldn’t let on how much the funeral is costing as he didn’t know. Apparently nobody knew, which is unusual as there would’ve been at least a rough plan, and so cost, prepared before Mrs Thatchers death. y’know, just in case.

To say that the soldiers and police costs shouldn’t be included in the final figure is ridiculous. It is weasly words to try and not admit the full cost. And it’s a pretty shitty attempt to minimise the shock if I can spot it.

Of course there won’t be anymore police or military hired for the event. You can’t draft in and train coppers and soldiers to a proper standard to be able to call them coppers and soldiers in about a week, like you could for private security firms.

In the statement above is Maude saying that all the coppers that will be policing the route the coffin will take will only be policed by coppers that would be on duty that day anyway? OK, cancel a few copper’s leave and there may be enough police to do the job, but there’ll be sod all police anywhere else in London. Is Maude saying that there will be no overtime paid? And if they are policing Thatchers’ funeral they are not doing their ‘ordinary’ job, which is a cost. The cost of policing of this funeral is not going to be covered in the bill for an ordinary days policing. That’s just fantasy.

As usual, it’s not the event itself that’s starting to piss me off, it’s all the shit that people come out with.

Margaret Thatcher is dead. Some people are sad, some are happy. Very happy. I don’t particularly like Thatcher, I think the best thing she did was keep Neil Kinnock out of No10. What I also don’t like are the celebrations that have sprung up. I understand some people are going to more affected by her policies than I am. This, though, is a real old woman that has died. Any harm she could’ve done was either done a long time ago or started a long time ago. Dancing and cheering and generally partying about the death of an old woman strikes me as vindictive and nasty, everything Thatchers’ opponents see themselves as not being. The celebration of the death of a leader could be understood if they died whilst in power, justified by the celebration of the end of their reign or tyranny, but not after they left office over twenty years previous. Some might argue that Thatcher still had influence. In those passing twenty years, but she didn’t. Her ideas did. You can’t blame her for that, especially when thirteen of those twenty odd years were under Labour prime ministers, the very people that should’ve stamped out her ideology. Blame the people in power that succeeded her for letting her have a legacy, never mind such a long lasting one. An old woman dies. People party in the streets. Welcome to Broken Britain.

I read this and got that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach…

A new breed of company in which workers will be forced to lose some maternity rights and all access to unfair dismissal tribunals has been unveiled by George Osborne as he tried to introduce a big deregulation of the labour market through the back door.

People are steadily being turned into machines, to be turned on and off at the whim of businesses. All the time we’re being told the country’s workforce need to be flexible. Employers are scared to actually employ people.

Employers are scared, though, because they can’t treat workers how they want to – badly.

The flexibility we’re told we need is not the flexibility a workers will presume, the flexibility to start early or finish late sometimes or to be able to perform roles, on occasion, outside of that which they would normally perform. What businesses want, or at least the fucking massive businesses that have profit sheets as big as countries, is the flexibility to hire and fire at will. To turn people on and off, with no thought to workers need for stability and security, the need to feel that they can commit to long term financial contract, such as mortgages.

Osborne revealed that workers could be given shares by their employer worth between £2,000 and £50,000, and any gains in those shares would be exempt from capital gains tax.

In return they would be asked to give up their rights over unfair dismissal, redundancy and requests for flexible working and time off for training. They would also be required to provide twice as much notice of a firm date of return from maternity leave – 16 weeks instead of eight.

I tell you what, I would rather have the security of a job and my current set of meagre employment rights than a bunch of shares that could be worth jack shit, no possibility of requesting a slightly different working day (and it is only requesting, not demanding) or not being able to take a company to court for being sacked for some spurious reason. And why revoke time off for training? Surely that is crucial for a flexible workforce, a workforce that can improve itself make itself better? And 16 weeks for a firm return date after maternity is already too long. Most people, when they resign from their job need to give a months notice. That should be plenty for a return from maternity date too.

Osborne told the Conservative party conference in Birmingham that the new “employee-owner” status would be optional for existing employees but existing companies and new startups could choose to offer only this type of contract for new hires, making it a compulsory condition of employment. Fast-track legislation will be introduced so firms can use the new type of contract from April 2013.

This is just a smokescreen to strip the worker of their rights. The new “employee-owner” will get a few shares, but who decides how many? It’ll be the company, and it’ll be nearer the two thousand pound end of the scale, not the £50k end. The new “employee-owner” will still be sacked if he inadvertently fucks up in the slightest, rather than asked to resign with a shiny golden handshake, that includes shares, when the whole den comes tumbling down, like those at the top of business. Some employees are more owners than others.

Stuart Rose, former chief executive of Marks and Spencer, said: “This is a win-win for entrepreneurs and employers in small and medium-sized companies that need a flexible dedicated workforce focused on growth.”

How the fuckety fucking fuck can yo have a dedicated workforce that can be told to get to fuck at a moments notice? These cunts at the top of these fucking businesses what the fucking impossible: They want to be able to hire and fire at a moments fucking notice, but they want their employees to be dedicated and hardworking. If you don’t provide security, people will not give a fuck. You make dedicated employees by providing security and perks, and looking after your workers when times are tough. You cannot have a loyal workforce that can be fired on a whim.

And on benefits…

Osborne signalled that some of the cuts would come from holding down the level of benefits: “How can we justify the incomes of those out of work rising faster than the incomes of those in work? Where is the fairness, we ask, for the shift worker leaving home in the dark hours of early morning who looks up at the closed blinds of their next door neighbour sleeping off a life on benefits?”

Osborne is right to ask where is the fairness. Living on benefits, though, is not the luxury lifestyle politicians and the tabloids make it out to be. The question has to be, why doesn’t working provide a decent standard of living?

Instead of a race to the bottom by cutting fucking benefits, why not do something about getting paid work paid better, so first time buyers aren’t forty-somethings, some the people on benefits can get a job and not have to have some other fucking benefit fill in the gap?

How the fuck did we get into the situation where two people that work forty hours a week cannot afford even a modest home for themselves?

He also proposed cuts to child tax credits for families with more than three children and holding down the housing benefit budget by withdrawing benefits to those aged 25 or under.

Ah, nice social engineering project, you have there Mr Osborne. When do you plan to make ‘encourage’ people to only have two kids? And what the fuck is it with the age discrimination? It’s the fucking same with the minimum wage. People can get themselves sorted and stable and then it all go to shit before the age of 25. Is twenty five the age when a Tory becomes A Man, is it?

Fuck ’em.

Bring on the revolution.

Last night during BBCs’ Question Time, a tweet appeared from Boris Johnsons’ @MayorOfLondon account…

I love David Starkey. Wish he was my uncle. Few things better than #qt, wineand a good out shout at the TV.

source

…and subsequently, quickly deleted. Probably because Starkey was being rather batshit, boarish, rude and generally being a cunt. The BBC got what they were after from the cunt-chair that evening, then.

This morning a Boris backer tells me it wasn’t Boris/whoever does the MayorOfLondon tweets. He’d been probably been hacked.

Fair enough, although the speed with which it was deleted and no mention of it afterwards, and there being just the one ‘out of character’ tweet suggests someone suddenly thinking it wasn’t the best of tweets from the Mayor rather than someone nefariously gaining access to the account to cause mischief.

with an awful metaphor…

As it happens, the council prayers case was brought to the High Court by the National Secular Society, an organisation which is given a level of media attention completely out of proportion to its size or relevance. In fact, it was pointed out recently that the NSS has about as many members of the British Sausage Appreciation Society.

This is Edward Leigh, the Conservative member of parliament for Gainsborough, and if you hadn’t guessed he’s talking about ‘militant secularism’.

And the metaphor? I warn you, it’s fuck awful…

Unlike the National Secular Society, which wages a continual campaign against the public presence of religion, the British Sausage Appreciation Society does not see any need to bring court cases against the nefarious influence of sausage’s rivals – the nefarious influence exerted by eggs, buttered toast, or fried kippers. Indeed, one suspects the aficionados of the British sausage have discovered something the secularists have missed out on: all these can survive together and even get along well with each other without one affecting any other to its detriment. The secularists would have us break our fast on a tasteless God-free gruel, but I will always prefer the Full English.

See? Another supposedly intelligent person that sees anything and everything as an attack on the freedom of people to practice their religion.

Is it really that hard to understand the difference between secularism and wanting to stamp out religion? Do I really need to go over it again?