A Disgraceful Political Swindle

UK MPs Accept Expensive Treats From Bookies.
Bookies and sports organisations top the list of donors treating MPs to gifts and hospitality.
The revelation has fuelled claims that the gambling industry is trying to influence Parliament.
Ladbrokes Coral Group treated 15 MPs to trips to Ascot, Doncaster and Cheltenham races, football at Wembley and dinner at the Tory Party conference.
( Sunday Mirror, 03.09.2017 )

Poverty, Depression And Suicide.
Margaret Thatcher was determined to break the miners and engineered their crippling defeat.
The Ridley plan detailed how they would fight, and defeat, a major strike in a nationalised industry.
In 1984, The National Union of Mine Workers went out on strike for a year over planned pit closures and their defeat marked the end of serious union might.
The coal industry was sold off and gradually shut down.
Communities had their hearts ripped out when the pits closed and many have still not recovered.
High unemployment still haunts many former pit villages along with poverty, depression and suicide.

Leader Of ISIS Terrorist Group Admits To Be Working For Mossad, The Israeli National Intelligence Agency.
Libya arrested a prayer leader and preacher of the ISIS terrorist group who later confessed to be an officer working for the Israeli national intelligence agency, Mossad.
According to the Libyan authorities, the real name of ISIS preacher Abu Hafs was Benjamin Efraim, an Israeli national operating in one of Mossad’s special units which conduct espionage operations in Arab and Islamic countries.
The Libyan authorities said the Mossad spy had started his career in Libya by leading a 200-member ISIS-affiliated group and moved to Benghazi in disguise as a preacher.
According to them, Abu Hafs had attempted to infiltrate into Egypt, adding that the group, under his command, is among the most barbaric terrorist groups which had threatened to export war to Egypt.
( Iran Front Page, 29.08.2017 )  ..  ifpnews.com

Are The Ministry Of Defence Covering Up Rape?
A rape is reported by female soldiers once every fortnight in the Army.
Ministry of Defence figures show there were 130 sexual assault claims by women against male colleagues in the past five years, including 31 in 2016.
Out of 55 allegations of rape in the past two years, 32 soldiers were prosecuted but just three were found guilty.
A serving Army lawyer fears the number of rapes may be higher as victims do not press charges due to low conviction rates.
Women Against Rape said there was a “concerted cover-up” by the Ministry of Defence.
( Sunday Mirror, 24.09.2017 )

Bankers Plundered Our Country.
Gordon Brown is not widely adored, but he is respected, admired and trusted.
When the world economy went into meltdown, our way of life was on its knees.
As the bankers plundered our country, capitalism itself seemed a spent force.
This country, and the developed world, were close to catastrophe.
That the banks stayed open and the cash machines kept working, and that salaries kept getting paid was down to Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling and Labour.
They brought a sinking ship into shore.
Everyone followed their example of part, nationalising the banks, even the Americans.
It was the only solution if we were going to survive.
Does anyone seriously think that the chinless Conservatives could have handled the collapse of our economy?
The Tory toffs continually opposed what Labour were doing but didn’t offer an alternative solution.
If left to them, the banks would have closed, the cash machines would be empty, millions of people would have lost their savings, their investments and their homes, and our country would have ground to a halt.
It was the greed of the bankers, needless to say mostly all Tories, who almost destroyed our economy, and our lives.

Lowest Number Of Public Sector Workers Since 1947.
Nearly a million public sector jobs have been axed since 2010, official figures show.
Seven years ago 6.4 million people worked in the public sector.
Under Tory PMs David Cameron and Theresa May that number has fallen to 5.44 million.
Among the losses are 164,000 posts in education, 44,000 in the police force and 41,000 in the Armed Forces.
The NHS workforce has grown by 4%, but 134,000 posts have gone in other health and social work, and 186,000 in public admin.
Office for National Statistics figures show public sector workers now make up just 16.9% of the labour force.
That’s the lowest proportion since 1947, the year before the NHS was founded.
( Nicola Small, 17.09.2017 )

Britain Changed Forever.
The roots of the financial chaos can be traced directly back to October 27, 1986, when the biggest revolution in the financial markets took place.
Margaret Thatcher saw London being over-taken as the centre of world finance by New York and she decided that it’s problem was over-regulation.
The big bang saw an overhaul of the system with a ‘light touch’ approach to regulating banks and trading bonuses went through the roof as “greed is good” became the mantra and the markets became a casino.
Weak banking regulations led to the irresponsible lending that triggered the crisis.
On May 4, 1979, Margaret Thatcher strode into number 10 and Britain changed forever.
She will never be forgiven for crushing millions under her heels.
She set out to destroy entire industries in an appalling act of political and social vandalism.
Thatcher’s legacy is the drug abuse and crime in communities deliberately stripped of work and dignity.

East-West Economy Change.
In 1411, Western Europe was a backward periphery far from the fabulous riches of East Asia, the world’s centre of economic and cultural gravity.
Now fast-forward 500 years to 1911:  Western Europe and its overseas colonies have humbled Asians and bestride the world like a Colossus.
Now go another 100 years or so: The West is staggering under a crushing burden of debt and is looking to the East to revive its flagging economy.
What has happened? Is it because our leaders in business and in government have been greedy and selfish?

A Disgraceful Political Swindle.
On 10 July 1958 in Grosvenor Square, London, the first 625 parking meters in the the UK commenced operations.
Charges were 6d for an hour and 1s for two hours.
Overstaying by less than two hours incurred a 10s penalty, rising to £2 for a four hour transgression.
Parking there today costs a minimum of £4 per hour, with a penalty of up to £120 for outlasting the welcome.
The first person to appear in court for a parking meter offence was 19 year-old Elizabeth O’Dwyer on 25 October 1958.
She couldn’t drive and did not own a car.
She was the secretary to a local businessman who had parked his car at a meter.
Realising that he was likely to overstay, he asked Elizabeth to put some more money into the meter for him.
This was not permitted by the by-laws, which forbade replenishment.
You had to vacate the space for at least an hour before bringing your car back.
Elizabeth was spotted putting her pennies in the slot by a meter attendant – not then known as traffic wardens.
The Westminster Council meter attendant had no powers to directly issue a summons and called for the police.
Two constables arrived and Elizabeth was arrested and subsequently summoned to appear in court.
The presiding magistrate thought the whole issue a waste of time and discharged her, but not without ordering her to pay 2s court costs.
Traffic wardens first appeared in September 1960.
There were 40 of them and 344 tickets were issued on day one.
The then chairman of the RAC was the volatile Wilfred Andrews, who loudly decried the whole practise as, “A disgraceful political swindle”.
Residents’ parking zones first appeared in Kensington and Chelsea in 1966.
The 1984 Road Traffic Act determined that henceforth parking offences were to be treated as civil, rather than criminal, cases.
( An extract from an article by Martin Handley, January 2016 )