The Human Race Is Destined To Die Out Sooner Than We Think

This Disaster Will Continue.
Benefits for the poor, sick and disadvantaged are being dismantled.
Young people may never own homes.
An education system that boosted every child’s chances is undermined.
The world-admired BBC is being killed off.
A justice system that brought fairness to all is wrecked.
And, most shockingly, our treasured NHS is being destroyed.
The rich get richer while those at the bottom are reduced to even more desperate poverty.
This disaster will continue until Britain gets a different government.
And that means a Labour government, for no other party can win power.
( Sunday Mirror, 26.07.2015 )

A real leader uses every issue, no matter how serious and sensitive, to ensure that at the end of the debate we should emerge stronger and more united than ever before.
( Nelson Mandela )

When Are We Finally Going To Sort It?
Why all the fuss about Calais’ migrant situation in the past couple of weeks, when it’s been going on for years?
And it’s not because migrants want benefits – as returning big-bellied Brit holidaymakers, with their car boots stuffed with booze, would like to think.
Part of the problem lies with our less than glorious historical habit of marching into countries around the world, destabilising them and leaving gaps for the influx of brutal regimes, so that people living there are constantly in fear of their lives.
Most of them speak English because we stomped into their countries and claimed them as part of the British Empire.
A great deal are doctors, teachers, nurses and other professionals.
And a large number have family in the UK.
On Wednesday the Prime Minister stepped into the fray several years too late, said it was important to work with the French and that there was “no point either side trying to point the finger of blame”.
Yes. And?
We caused it.
When are we finally going to sort it?
Instead of maintaining, as the Government seems to be, a constant state of surprise.
( Fiona Phillips, 27.06.2015 )

To lead the people, walk behind them.
( Laozi )

The Referendum Bribe.
I keep having this dream about David Cameron being chinned by a European president over afternoon tea.
It’s not unrealistic, is it?
There are all these EU leaders, wrestling with real problems like millions of desperate refugees trying to reach their borders, Russian tanks on Ukrainian lawns and Greece falling into an economic abyss.
Only to be interrupted by an upper-class buffoon asking if they’d mind awfully letting Britain keep all the advantages of being in the EU while rejecting all the inconvenient, costly stuff.
All done to placate a band of swivel-eyed loonies with a pathological hatred for every Johnny Foreigner like them?
What’s not to chin?
Granted, the dream’s not likely to happen, even though some of those leaders would surely love to smack his shiny, pompous, ham face.
But now that Cameron is forced to act on the referendum bribe he made to stave off UKIP defections, a possible nightmare awaits us all.
( Brian Reade, 20.06.2015 )

The only alternative to war is peace and the only road to peace is negotiation.
( Golda Meir )

Just Assume That The Truth Is The Opposite To Everything He Says.
Project Cameron means more austerity for the working poor with a £12billion “reform of welfare”.
Tax breaks for the better-off.
Yet more curbs on the unions.
A sell-off of social housing, while millions wait years to be homed.
So-called “red tape” for business will be slashed, making it easier for private sector employers to sack workers.
As if it wasn’t easy enough already, with access to industrial tribunals available only to those with money.
For those with a job but on pay so low they can’t make ends meet, in-work benefits will be cut as part of a devastating raid on welfare spending.
Home services for the elderly and disabled will be hit.
The police budget will cop it.
Thousands more council staff face redundancy.
If this is – in Cameron’s words – a programme for “security and opportunity for everyone”, then I am the King of Bohemia.
Behind all the pathetic flummery of the state opening of Parliament – the shouting, the saluting, the stamping, the bowing and scraping, the humiliation of commoner MPs, the medieval velvet uniforms, the absurd rituals, the 16th-century carriages, the military pomp and ceremony, the wands, the train-bearers, the bands, the cavalry, the clunking rows of medals, the ceremonial Gold-Pillock-In-Waiting (I made that up) – lies the merciless reality of Tory rule.
If you want to crack the code of Cameronspeak, just assume that the truth is the opposite to everything he says.
( Paul Routledge, 29.05.2015 )

Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.
( John F. Kennedy )

The Tories Have Twisted The Truth.
How much of the welfare budget is spent on the unemployed?
On average people think it’s 41%.
It’s actually 3%.
Okay, so how much of the welfare budget is claimed fraudulently?
Most think it’s 27%.
It’s just 0.7%.
And the proportion of children now classified as poor who are from working families?
That’s 63%.
Nearly two thirds.
Like Labour being blamed for a global economic crash when it was actually down to greedy bankers, the Tories have twisted the truth to suit their agenda.
( John Prescott, 26.07.2015 )

Man is the most insane species.
He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature.
Unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is this God he’s worshiping.
( Hubert Reeves )

David Cameron Trousered His Pay Rise.
David Cameron trousered his £7,000 MPs pay rise, then condemned teachers, doctors and police to a decade of wages misery.
Before the election, millionaire Mr Cameron described the huge raise for politicians as ‘unacceptable’.
But in a shameless about-face, the Prime Minister confirmed he would pocket the extra cash.
He told ITV News, “I think the right thing to do is to be paid the rate for the job, and that’s what I will do”.
The MPs pay rise comes only a week after the Tories announced other public sector workers would get 1% extra per year until the end of the decade.
They have already suffered five years of real-term pay cuts.
( Jack Blanchard, 17.07.2015 )

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.
( Andrew Carnegie )

Their Rich Friends Can Never Be Seen As Scroungers.
In a fit of pomposity totally in keeping with his new Lord Chancellor’s fancy dress outfit, Michael Gove has issued language rules.
He’s told staff he doesn’t want them to use “impact” as a verb, to write “ensure” instead of “make sure”, “is not” instead of “isn’t”, “meets” not “meets with” and “I am sorry to read” as opposed to “I am sorry to hear”.
If I was one of those being patronised to within an inch of my P45, I’d walk into his grand office, grab an ornament, “make sure” it “isn’t” too light and “impact” it on his head so he “meets with” an accident.
Then tell him “I am sorry to hear” about his four-hour wait in A&E.
It is typical of this power-crazed Government which believes it now has total control over our money and laws – so why not our language.
Take the way they are twisting the most-used word in their vocabulary: Welfare.
As they look to slash another £12billion, they’ve decided the pain will be borne by jobless families on housing benefit and workers receiving tax credits.
That means, on average, taking £1,000-a-year from 12 million people who can’t afford it, because they say it’s right for the taxpayer.
Meanwhile one family will next year see its state aid rise by 6.7% to £43million.
And because one of their eight homes (the 52 bedroom London palace) has a bit of a leaky roof, the Government is willing to give them £150million to do it up.
So the Royals are deemed the family most in need of welfare handouts even though they’re one of the richest in the land.
That’s because, in a Tory world, only the poor can possibly be seen as a burden, and their rich friends can never be seen as scroungers.
( Brian Reade, 27.06.2015 )

The leader is a teacher who succeeds without taking credit.
And, because credit is not taken, credit is received.
( Laozi )

The Biggest Hypocrite Of All.
It’s no surprise that David Cameron changed his tune on a huge pay rise for MPs after the election.
When the Tory leader voiced outrage at the amount before the polls, we warned that it was just spin for gullible voters.
It gives us no pleasure that we’ve now been proved right.
How he must be laughing at those who feel betrayed.
But MPs who accept the money-spinning 10% aren’t off the hook if they back low pay limits for others, especially the Tory 1% cap on teachers, nurses, council workers, civil servants, police, firefighters and others.
What’s sauce for an MPs fat goose should be sauce for the public servant’s gander.
So any Westminster politician, of whatever party, who pockets 10% then lectures others on the need to accept a tenth of that is a prize hypocrite.
Deeds matter more than words and MPs should lead by example.
If 10% is good enough for them, the tens of millions of workers on less money deserve an increase at least as big.
Cameron is the biggest hypocrite of all for imposing lower living standards on staff in the NHS, education and other vital public services.
( Daily Mirror, 17.07.2015 )

Leadership is a privilege to better the lives of others.
It is not an opportunity to satisfy personal greed.
( Mwai Kibaki )

The Working Class Are The Backbone Of Our Country.
They fought two world wars and worked in our factories, and suddenly, when there were no more world wars and precious few factories, they were largely surplus to requirements.
But the working class are still capable of competing with the toffs and the privileged.
Because we have a free, meaningful education in this country without our parents having to pay for it.

The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things.
He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.
( Ronald Reagan )

The Tories Loathe Public Service Broadcasting.
Thatcher’s porky little pet, Culture Secretary John Whittingdale, is on a mission to destroy the BBC as we know and love it.
He’s asked his Beeb-hating mates to savage programming like The Voice and Strictly Come Dancing.
Like most Tories, he claims the BBC isn’t impartial.
What he means is that the world’s greatest broadcaster isn’t partial enough – in favour of a Conservative government.
The Tory idea of even-handedness is a right hook to the left.
They can’t stand honest, independent news coverage or hard-hitting documentaries that show contemporary Britain as it really is.
So they demand a poodle Beeb, on pain of scrapping the TV licence, imposing pay-as-you-go telly or outright privatisation.
But they’ll probably do that anyway, because they loathe public service broadcasting in the same way that they hate all other public services that haven’t yet been sold off to their rich pals.
( Paul Routledge, 17.07.2015 )

Success in politics demands that you must take your people into confidence about your views and state them very clearly, very politely, very calmly, but nevertheless, state them openly.
( Nelson Mandela )

Thatcher Declared That Greed Was Good.
I hope you heard the recording of the 1983 phone call between Reagan and Thatcher in which the old cowboy owned up to invading a Commonwealth country.
Because it showed the Iron Lady in an intriguing light.
Instead of lambasting him for sending troops into Grenada (head of state The Queen, national anthem God Save The Queen) without informing Britain, an action the UN condemned as “a flagrant violation of international law,” she fawned, forgave and asked, “How’s Nancy?”
Yet when Argentina invaded a Commonwealth country the year before, she was so apoplectic she sent our armed forces half way across the world on a killing spree.
So why did Argentina’s invasion of the Falklands make her declare war while Reagan’s gave her a wargasm?
Because Reagan was ‘us’, a fellow right-wing ideologue she was in thrall to, and the Argies just ‘them’.
She played a similar game at home.
Traditional industries with their dirty jobs and even dirtier trade unions, were ‘them’.
So they were eviscerated.
The free-marketeering City bankers were ‘us’.
So she liberated them with a Big Bang, turning London into the speculator’s world capital.
To the bonus-splurging winners she declared that greed was good.
To the jobless losers, that there was no such thing as society.
Look where it got us.
A devastated manufacturing base, an irreversible North/South divide, long-term social problems and a banking system which at first financed tax cuts for the rich then turned into the most corrupt mafia on earth.
And the British taxpayers, bullied into buying bent endowment mortgages and protection plans, saddled with bloated credit bills and a tab for the longest recession on record, were taken for a ride.
While we stumped up £850billion to keep the bankers in business they carried on dipping their hands in the till.
( Brian Reade, 15.11.2014 )

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.
( Mahatma Gandhi )

The Human Race Is Destined To Die Out Sooner Than We Think.
My husband asks me quite regularly to “stop going on about” how I think the greedy, selfish human race is destined to die out sooner than we think.
I do it in London traffic jams, which now last all day.
I do it on the packed-to-danger-levels Tube, when I’m hanging on a rail trying to avoid asphyxiation by a 6ft man’s arm pit.
I do it when I see increasing numbers of massive superstores under construction, ready to be filled to bursting with millions of slaughtered animals and tonnes of pesticide-doused fruit and veg.
I do it when I’m breathing in noxious nitrogen dioxide belched out of diesel engines.
I do it when I see the constant disruption of the Earth to erect huddled-together high-rise blocks with one-bed apartments destined to retail at a million pounds and more.
I do it when London’s nothing’s-too-big-or-brash-for-us brigade dig underground to accommodate an “essential” swimming pool.
I do it when I hear fracking proposed to eke shale gas out of the ground because we’re exhausting supplies with our selfishness and greed.
But most of all I do it when I see how far the human race has fallen in its lack of respect and empathy for other human beings.
( Fiona Phillips, 27.06.2015 )

The British went on fighting like lions against the Germans, the Italians, and the Japanese, but they couldn’t or wouldn’t stand up to the Arabs at all – though much of the Arab world was openly pro-Nazi.
( Golda Meir )

A Class System Propped Up By Inherited Wealth And Corporate Spivs.
How jolly decent of Gideon Osborne to call an emergency budget just as The Season gets into full swing.
You know.
The Season.
That summer-long sloth-fest played out in marquees at venues like Wimbledon, Royal Ascot, Henley, Cowes, Cowdray Park and Glyndebourne.
That Pimm’s-soaked celebration of what sets Britain apart from other nations: a class system propped up by inherited wealth and corporate spivs.
And now that their political wing is running the show again, how spiffing to see The Season stage an event in Westminster.
And what a hoot!
First up on Wednesday the Queen’s distant cousin and son-in-law of an 8th Baronet, David Cameron, let it be known he was addressing the most urgent issue of the day: the need to dress up in Lord Fauntleroy costumes and chase foxes on horseback across a friend’s estate until they die.
Then Master Gideon, a 17th Baronet’s son, announced that everyone in the land was to be rehoused in Downton Abbey.
The Good Old Days are back. Chin-chin.
From now on there’s no need to pay inheritance tax on the million-pound piles being handed down to you, because it penalises aspiration.
The wealthiest 8% of families deserve that £1billion tax break because it’s hard work waiting for a big cheque to drop in your lap.
What about austerity you say?
Well we’ve found the readies by taking maintenance grants off poor students who work hard to get into university and aspire to a better life, and from poor kids who now won’t inherit holidays and shoes because their parents have had their working tax credits stopped.
It’s called restoring proper order.
Then there are public servants.
All 5.3 million of them.
The teachers, nurses, firemen, police, council workers, lollipop women and the rest of the “in service” folk.
They kept the country going when the bankers drove the economy off a cliff, so now it’s growing again, it’s only cricket that we reward them.
So we’re freezing their pay rises at 1% until 2020, meaning they’ll have had no real increase for a decade.
( Brian Reade, 11.07.2015 )