Sim-O

Labels: United Kingdom

Labels: United Kingdom

Bernard Matthews, the Don of all things turkey is going to be receiving nearly £600,000 compensation for the loss of the healthy birds the company had to cull after the H5N1 Avian Flu virus was found at its Suffolk Farm.

Bernard Matthews will be receiving the money, which is calculated according to the market value of the birds, from the government.
From the fucking government.
What? Didn’t he have any insurance? Is he a not-for-dividend company like Network Rail?
No. Bernard Matthews Limited is a private company that produces over 7 million turkeys a year, so is the 160,000 it had to cull going to make dent so big that the company is going to go to the wall if it isn’t recompensed for the loss? I fucking doubt it.

This £600k is designed to act as an incentive to do the right thing and report a disease early.
Well, how about not getting a big suitcase full of case as a sweetener to do what a company is obligated to do and have the chairman and maybe the whole board do a stint of porridge if they don’t raise the alarm in good time? That would save a bucket load of taxpayers cash going to companies that should and can stand up on their own or shouldn’t have any trouble persuading the bank to extend its overdraft and at the same time it is easier to send directors to gaol, it might make the Captains of Industry behave a bit better, but I doubt it. It’ll probably only make them more devious.

Labels: Capitalism

The Land Registry Online.

If you’re buying or selling a house or are just interested in property, you’ll be glad you visited Land Register Online

Oh. Why?

For properties you are interested in, you can download for only £3 each:

• a title plan defining the property

Do go on…

• a title register where you can find out who owns the house or land, price paid/value stated information if sold since April 2000 and any rights of way or restrictions on the land

Really! Anything else?

For properties you are interested in, you can also download:

• all leases relating to the property (if referred to in the Register and available electronically) for £10 each

• all other documents relating to the property (if referred to in the Register and available electronically) for a total of £5

That’s good isn’t it? For a few quid, anyone can find out all the details of a property.
On the Guide to Service we see what info it gives away:

What property details can I obtain?
The title register information will generally include:

* a description of the property
* who owns it
* mortgage Lender (if any)
* price paid/value stated (if registered since 1st April 2000)
* rights of way (not public rights of way) or other rights affecting the property
* restrictions or other conditions

But why should all this information be made publicly available? Call me paranoid, but the only reason I can think of, that is not a negative one, for someone to try and find out who owns a particular property is to buy it. But then if somebody wants to contact the owner of a property then write to the address. One doesn’t need to know the name of the owner to make an offer.
Whos business is it of what the property consists of, unless a dispute needs settling, like rights of way? If the property is involved in a dispute then the relevent people will have a copy of the registry details,or will be entitled to abtain a copy. If someone wants to buy it the they will find
The Land Register will TELL ANYBODY WHO YOUR MORTGAGE LENDER IS!! I am open to suggestions as to why various organisations would want to know (I can’t actually think of any right now, except maybe credit reference agencies(?)) but then if they have a valid reason, they can apply stating and proving why they need that info. But what use is this info to anybody? It is nothing to do with anybody.

But why would private information be made available for anybody?
Again on the Guide to Service link the reasons are given:

Why is this information useful to me?
Typically, you…

* want to look at the title register, title plan and/or a document referred to in the register of a property you own
* want to find out who owns a specific property
* want to discover the extent of a property
* are interested in buying an unoccupied property you have noticed and wish to approach the owner
* lease or rent a property and need to contact the landlord

Wouldn’t a better system, that keeps details private, be that the Land Register would forward the request to the owner?
Example of what you get for your money here.
I am all for freedom of information for the government and various departments of state, but would the NHS give out private details? No. Why are the details about a property one owns any less private?

Labels: Privacy

Labels: Israel, Palestine

Labels: Israel, Palestine

A UN human rights envoy has likened Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in occupied territory to “apartheid”, and said that failure to tackle the situation will make it hard to solve abuses elsewhere.

John Dugard, a UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, made his remarks to the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday.

Dugard, a South African lawyer, said restrictions on movement and separate residential areas gave a sense of “deja vu” to anyone with experience of apartheid, noting that apartheid was “contrary to international law”.

He said: “Of course there are similarities between the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territory] and apartheid South Africa.”

He also told the council that the situation “places in danger the whole international human rights enterprise”.

He said that Western states would never rally support among developing nations for effective action against perceived abuses elsewhere, such as Sudan’s Darfur, unless they tackled the plight of Palestinians.

Israel dismissed the statement and Dugard’s regular reports to the council as “one-sided, highly selective and unreservedly biased”.
…
Itzhak Levanon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, said such language was “inflammatory and inciteful” and would not contribute to a “process of constructive dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians”.
link

Well, Levanon does have a point. It could be construed as inflammatory and inciteful, but, it is also true.

Labels: Israel

Once again, heard this on Radio 4 in the car:

David Cameron has annouced the Conservatives first election promise, to lower the headline rate of corporate tax.

Thanx then Dave, the corporate tax burden too big is it?

Labels: Politix

Thinking about everything and nothing today, and my train of thought came to the middle east, to oil and then to this.

Viva La Revolution!!

Labels: Odds and Sods, Oil

An extra 1,000 train carriages are expected to be provided for Britain’s railways in a bid to tackle overcrowding, the BBC has learnt.
Ministers will announce that carriages will be used to lengthen trains on the most congested parts of the network.

Much of the extra rolling stock is likely to be used on the jammed network serving London and south-east England, where passenger increases are highest.

We have to pay for the equipment private companies need to provide the service they promised they would as part of the licence conditions.

The government will pay for them, to be leased to the train companies at a cost of about £130 million a year, he says.

I was listening to Radio 4 in the car on the way to work and I’m para phrasing here, ‘cos I was driving at the time:

Interviewer: So the government is paying for the new carriages?

Guest: Yes, because to lay on new carraiges for peak time is not profitable. The carriages will pay for themselves in 5 years or so/long term (remember I’m paraphrasing), but not in the first couple of years.

I: so this is a government subsidy?

G: Yes, repeat answer above.

Soooo, why aren’t the train companies paying for the carriages as a long term investment? Are they going to pay back the ‘subsidy’ once the carriages become profitable? If the train companies can’t turn a profit (which they can) or do not want to invest in essential equipment, tools of their trade, why are they running their franchise?

Why do stuff like this where there is no natural market have to be privatised? The only people that benefit are the directors of the companies?

What I do hate is half arsed privatisation, private companies running stuff, taking a profit and the government still ploughing money into them. If a companiy can’t support itself, then down it goes. If the government is paying for it, profits come back to the government. Simple.

Labels: Capitalism