House of Lords

I have always believed that it was just a retirement home for old Tories and recent events have convinced me that it is time to get rid of it. Why what has just happened to reinforce my prejudices. Well can I recall an occasion when they have rejected Tory legislation. No, they vote loyally for the Tories and they always get their legislation through.

The recent bote on the education bill was the recent event that convinced me. We had silly old war horses like Lady Williams, she can always talk the talk BUT has never in her life done anything right. She was incompetent as a Minister of Education under Callaghan and she has got everything wrong ever since but she stills sits in the House of Lords and votes with this Tory government. She used to be against fees and academies but she manages to vote for them.

How long did it take the previous government to get he fox hunting bill through and that was in the manifesto. The nature of the house of lords is conservative. This is because people are appointed for life and many older people don't like change. They still somehow thing that the Tories represent a return to the old values which they were brought up with.

That is the trouble with the House of Lords, the idea is that because they are their for life they can vote for what they believe in but no they follow some party line. And they get older and older and as someone who is also getting older, many just think things were better before.

If we are going to have an appointed house like this then the least we could do is to only allow limited terms with no reelection. It shouldn't just be a gravy train with a title. Some of us recognize that there is a time to slow up and stop taking the Queen's shilling. Seven years would be quite long enough AND they should lose their titles afterwards.

Localism

It is wonderful, Mr Pickles the man Bradford rejected preaches localism. What does he actually do! Denies Norwich the right to local government, we are now ruled by people from 50 miles away. Then he says councils can save money by sharing services, so we will be ruled by people from 100 miles away.

Back at the ranch, his erstwhile colleague, Ken Clarke, is closing local magistrates courts. So , in this area, Thetford, Swaffham and Cromer courts will go. That will make people feel that decisions are much closer to home, much more local.

Let us be clear localism only applies where it saves money, there is no great principle at stake, just the usual Tory philosophy, when you have an excuse cut, cut and cut again. What is interesting is that the Lib Dems back all these policies. The only difference seems to be that the Lib dems claim to support Europe.

The police & demonstrations

The met are up to their tricks again, attacking people, klettling thenm & then baming the demonstrators.

The trouble goes back to Thatcher. this might seem an odd claim but many actions have long-term consequences, something that politicians never think about. During the miners' strike the police were politicised. It was no longer their job to protect the people but to attack them to defend those in power. Thgat is the stance that Paul Stephenson takes. remember he was appointed by that well-known nutter Boris Johnson.

You can tell Stephenson is exaggerating & lying to protect his position and those of his more thuggish allies in the police. He manaaged to say that some of those arrested were horrified at the damage they had caused, after they had been shown film of their actions. This does not sound like people going along to demonstrations to cause trouble BUT people caught up in the moment and probably very frustrated by the irresponsible behaviour of the police.

Of course for either the police commissioner or the mayor to admit this would be accepting their own incompetence. This hows the danger of elected police commissioners, they would behave in the same way, any admission of getting things wrong would be disastrous to their chances of re-election so the standards of policing will go downhill, quite slowly but steadily.

The police screwed up badly in London but the media will protect them. You can see all the fuss about the buffoon Charles. The BBC kept referring not to him, but the heir to the throne. Somehow this ought to make it more serious but of course heirs to the throne are two a penny. I am sure that those who know the rules can probably tell who is 25th in line. So there is no shortage op candidates for the throne.

How does it help?

Student fees are a big topic at the moment, the LibDems are going back on their pledge. but lying to try to save their bacon.

They keep claiming that there system is fairer but how. OK you won't pay anything back till you earn over £21000, they don't make clear at what money, now or then.

But the true inconsistency of their argument is that since you only pay it back once you are earning it should not put anyone going to University. But now they are saying the poorest, and it will be the poorest, won't have to pay for the first year and that if they go to an expensive university they will get another one free. So two people with the same education, same job and earning the same will have to pay back different amounts depending on the wealth of the person's parents. The LibDems strike again.

Then we have the problem of bureaucracy, which they claim to be against. How will the scheme operate, what happens if your parental income is above the threshold when you start or below it when you finish. Will it depend on whether you had free school meals, the for the whole time you were at school or just in your last year. What about people who could have had free school meals but didn't.

If they really wanted to help those on low incomes there are two things they could do, keep the education maintenance allowance and increase for students in higher education.

But no they really are only concerned with making sure that the wealthy stay wealthy but have to provide a sop to those suckers who thought they were mildly left of centre to find that they are well to the right.

It is quite clear from this, as was well understood by those who have seen them in action in local elections, they will say anything to get elected. Normally they don't so they don't have to do anything about it