Why all the panic in the news about fathers taking leave to spend time with their newborn.? Most fathers are only too glad to get out of the house and back to work, and their wives delighted to wave them off at the door, after all its the mother the baby needs most, especially if they are getting breast fed. The child needs this connection with the mother in the early stages of its life, the father is the hunter, gatherer, who should stay as such. The few fathers who want time off with their newborn, should look to the past when this was never heard of, when men were men, and they got on with the job allocated to them, which was bringing in the money to keep the family. Its bad enough the amount of time women get off, but to jeopardise industry by including the men in this is getting beyond a joke. If couples want to have children it is them who should work around the system, not the system work around them.
I don't know why Peter Mandelson thinks he is an authority on the post office given the fact the only connection he has with it is spouting his mouth off on a subject he knows nothing about, but then again he is better known for that than anything else at the moment, other than the fact that he was bombed out of the labour party twice.
Recalled again without a vote, it shows the dire straights the present labour government are in when they have to fall back on a useless article such as him. The only input he ever has had on politics has been damaging, and nothing has changed, its a good thing for this country that after the coming elections he will once again be where he belongs. As far away as possible from the power that runs this country.
"Don't despair labour can still win" was his last war cry. Desperate words from a desperate bunch of has beens.
Having been self-employed most of my working life I never approved of strikes because I knew the damage it could cause to the business, and having spent ten years as a postman in my latter years, refused to come out on strike for trivial matters, but if the postal workers had a good cause for strike action I DID come out along with them. This recent threat of action is one occasion where I would have come out on strike as the postmen on the beat have been getting exploited more and more every year by being asked to do twice the work and cover twice the doors in the same time, before this load was placed on them. The Royal Mail is being run by managers who have no idea how the system works, and have no interest in customer satisfaction, putting profit before everything else. They have been employed to streamline the business at any cost, and it is their actions that are putting the Royal Mail at risk, not the postal workers on the street who have to face the public and bear the brunt of managerial stupidity. Government demands, and restrictions, also put a strain on this business, and the public are always kept in the dark about these matters, but if they knew the facts they would get a few eye-openers. The threat of TNT and other courier services taking over, or stealing business from the Royal Mail has been held over the Royal Mail workers since the monopoly has been taken away from them by the government, but what the public don't realise is that these less efficient companies charge their customers an extortionate amount to deliver their letters and parcels, and end up sending them through the Royal Mail, making a killing at the expense of the Royal Mail. Its only the high priced items that are specifically paid for to be delivered first class that are delivered by other couriers, the other second class items are dumped on the Royal Mail who, thanks to government rules have to deliver them at a lower rate, opening the door for the private couriers to abuse the system and their customers by pretending to deliver them by their own delivery men, while making a hefty profit.
The second delivery by the Royal Mail is being phased out, and delivery postmen only starting work,at a time when they used to have their first deliveries finished meaning businesses are not getting their mail until about dinner time unless they take the option of going to collect it at the nearest office. Most businesses need their mail first thing, but if they have to go and collect it does that not demean the whole postal system, as they are not delivering the items that were paid to be delivered to the door, not the nearest sorting office. Cutting the hours of the postman when new housing schemes are sprouting up all the time is stupid, and instead of trying to cut staff and turn the full time workers into part time as the management are trying to do is another hair brained scheme thought up by folk at the top who have come from other business sources and know nothing of the way Royal Mail should be run. Until something is done about them, there will always be unrest within the postal services, and if the government want this efficient service to remain, it's the idiots at the top who need to be looked at first, then the policies of government,who by giving the Royal Mail more freedom to compete would solve most of the problems occurring now, and avoid strikes in the future.
Here we go again the same old story, from the energy companies, winter approaching, and the threat of big rises announced. Ofgem announced today that the cost of gas and electricity could go up by as much as sixty percent in the next decade, the excuse being that British resources in gas are dwindling, and the big companies have to fork out for new sources like wind power etc. We import enough gas from Norway to feed the whole of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, and we import from other sources in Europe to meet our other needs, so why are they using this as an excuse? We have been selling electricity to other countries for years, but it never made it any cheaper for us, especially in Scotland where we have generated enough hydro power to sell to other countries, and still do. Its the same with the oil, it was never any cheaper here just another source of income for the government in two ways. One was the tremendous revenue it took directly from the oil companies, the other of course was the ridiculous tax charged at the pumps plus added VAT. If the energy companies want to progress into wind farms, solar power, or the waves the sea provides, they should be using the enormous profits they are making now to expand into other fields, not rip off the consumer to pay for their ambitions.
OFGEM is supposed to be working for the consumer, NOT the energy companies, but it was them and not the big companies who announced the usual rip off we have come to expect at this time of year, with a different excuse each time.
I have to ask the question, is OFGEM working for us or the energy companies? If they are working for us as they are supposed to be, then why are they not putting a stop to this rip off year after year, instead of helping the rip off merchants to announce their scam? It appears to me that they are doing more for the energy companies, so therefore they should be paying their wages instead of the taxpayer, after all they are absolutely of no service to us. Other businesses only branch out when they can afford to, so why are this lot being allowed to take liberties every year. Changing over to green energy is just an excuse to make money for nothing, and the government is as guilty as the rest, as they too are using it as an excuse to line their pockets. Its all very well thinking of the planet, of that I agree, but to go to the extremes this lot are going to just because they see an opening of backing from a percentage of the public who are genuinely concerned, there is no need to pretend that slapping tax on everything is the answer to the problem. That is the answer to every problem in the world today slap a tax on it, raise the price and put it out of reach of the poorest, and the most needy. Who do they think they are kidding, for every idea like these, they jump on the bandwagon, and rub their hands, thinking they have the backing of the population, and once again they can fleece us, this time with the very things that concern us.
Its time we were looking at solving the problems of the world in a realistic way, by getting to the root of it, NOT by extorting money. We have come to a point where all the money has BEEN extorted from us so they will HAVE to try something else, the power companies included, until we get on an even keel again. Every household in the land will have to tighten their belts, a favourite saying rammed down our throats by governments when things get tough, and a saying THEY will have to take heed of. WE will get by with thrift, and its about time they all did the same. The energy companies to expand when they can afford it, the government to cancel THE TRIDENT MISSILES, and IDENTITY CARDS to name but two items that would save billions. Go ahead when we can afford them, if they are wanted then, but forget about them now. Most of us think that both of these items are unnecessary but as usual we will be ignored by the people who we put in power to look after our interests, the same people who refused us the vote on the Lisbon Treaty, and the same people who dug this hole we now find ourselves in.
Whatever way we look at it the future is far from rosy, be it greenhouse gasses or the gasses spouted by our politicians, it will be a long while if ever before there are any green shoots of recovery for the working man.
So Ireland has finally been browbeaten into voting for the Lisbon Treaty, after two votes, coming under extreme pressure from the European Union, to tow the line. The choice of the Irish people should have been listened to in the first place, and I am sure they will live to regret not voting against it the second time around. This is supposed to be a democratic organization, but with this farce in Ireland, having to vote until the European Union get what they want, and Britain being refused the referendum it was promised, it stinks more of a dictatorship. They are running scared in case they don't get their own way, which tells you they have no faith in the treaty being passed without pressure being applied. Poland and the Czech Republic have still to decide, but you can be sure that they will have to conform to the wishes of the EU just like Ireland did. According to the European Union if this treaty does not go through it will put the whole concept under pressure, and if a small thing like this treaty puts it under pressure, then it is in a sticky wicket to begin with. The idea of a common market was fine, if they had stuck to the commercial side of things, but a union that tries to dictate every law, and every aspect of the running of other countries that have had their own rules, regulations, and traditions throughout their existence is wrong and is destined to fail. It is only a matter of time before some of the countries rebel against the stupid rules that are coming from this union, and when this Lisbon Treaty is forced through the impact of how demanding, and restricting to our own ways and traditions it is going to be, will bring a realization that instead of increasing its power, we should all be taking stock of the dangerous predicament we have put ourselves in. As I have said before other, unions similar to this have failed before, the USSR and Yugoslavia to name but two, and I see no reason to think that this one will be any different.
I have been so sick to the teeth, about all the ridiculous things happening here that I did not know which one to write about. So many choices of disgusting decisions by the people we depend on to serve justice on the perpetrators of this country that always seem to end up making a laughing stock of the system which was supposedly made to protect the innocent, and punish the criminal. Not so it seems,as we are paying out money (over two thousand pounds) to disruptive prisoners who were locked away separately from other more peaceful prisoners for the safety of the said more peaceful prisoners, and the prison officers. We have paid out thousands of pounds to pay off prisoners who claimed their human rights were being abused because they had to slop out. These offender knew what they were getting into when they committed their crimes, and knew what would happen to them if they were disruptive, so why are we paying them money when they should be getting punished, a punishment they knew they would get, and deserve?
We have a convicted murderer in Scotland,(Beggs, the limbs in the loch murderer) who had already killed once and through a technicality was released to kill again, which he did. In prison for the second murder he committed he has been trying to appeal against his conviction for the ten years we have managed to keep him behind bars, but now some fool has decided to allow him to appeal, on the slight technicality of the case being made too public before it went to court. Knowing the idiots that run our justice system (the Magrahi affair an example although there are many more) this double murderer is more than likely to be released by the system that calls itself justice. He only wants out to kill again, and make another laughing stock of our courts,as he obviously gets as many kicks out of that as he does when he takes a life, but then again, as it is so easy to make a fool of our justice system, maybe the kicks for that are getting less, and he will kill more people this time. The time of the courts and the money spent on this appeal should not have been wasted on this vermin, and if he does get out he might find he would have been safer in prison, because the people of this nation are so sick of what is happening here HIS life might be in danger, as a well meaning member of the public might just cut his throat, giving him the justice he deserved for the first murder he committed, not to mention the second, which would never have happened if it were not for the fools who let him go.
As for the payments to the poor wee souls in jail. Well, they will soon be coming out with more money than they earned from the crime they committed to put them in there, and with the lenient sentences that are handed out here, it might just be worth it if we all got in on the act.
Well why should our criminals have all the fun and profit when it is us that is paying for it?
When they are looking for the answer to the question of why there is so much crime in the country, they need look no further than our stupid human rights law and the idiots that enforce it. We are not allowed to punish mischievous children who, turn into bad teenagers, who, get sympathy rather than punishment, who turn into the murderers, and violent criminals that roam our streets waiting to be caught and make a fool of our policemen, and law lords who's hands are tied because of the human rights law. When are we going to see sense and scrap it?
Author based in Scotland.
After years spent at sea as a commercial fisherman I witnessed spectacular sights in the night sky while waiting for daylight to break.
After I retired I decided to write on the subject.
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