Child poverty action

Action on UK child poverty? Don’t make me laugh.

There isn’t any focus on it in the UK; poor people are irrelevant to each iteration of the nasty party government since… I was going to say since 2010, but I’m old enough to know better.

In more recent times, we had nationwide SureStart Centres introduced before Bliar examiner his conscience and consequently took the world to the brink of war. Funding cuts and a lack of protection for future funding meant hundreds of centres had to close; they’re not in ‘nice’ areas so irrelevant, right?

Today’s article is worth reading:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-49131685

Now, assuming a period of 7 years’ EU funding, and it’s not exactly an eye-wateringly huge sum of money is it, but it could have made a huge difference to some of the intended recipients, if used responsibly.

But no, that’s not how the government managed things; they delayed to the point of forfeiting the rights to use the cash. £580,000 has already been returned.

The 2010 reference is quite apt, marking the span to the present day during which civil service pay has been frozen, an effective cut of 20%-25% as the official inflation numbers and other costs bit.

Bearing in mind we’ve not yet hit the end of the funding term and a team of just 3 paid £30,000 a year (low grade civil service pay is low and I haven’t a clue how many people worked on it) that’s £630,000. Honestly though, it’s likely to be fewer than that, surely we’re not that inept. Surely.

So 7 years of attempting to once (yes once!) use the funding on a project forbidden by the terms of the EU’s donation, with the pitiful excuse that the UK has no-one in government of sufficient calibre to formulate a plan to distribute aid to those who most need it because of those onerous EU terms… pitiful.

And what’s Al’s very first funding announcement after assuming office? Is it NHS (am I being too controversial there?) or homelessness or child poverty or to close the food banks (benignly!)?

No, no it’s not. We’re funding police recruitment.

Police numbers will rise by 20,000 over the next 3 years. Disregarding the ability of each force to recruit and receive funding to do so at rates compatible with the government’s vision, it’s actually more than the 22,000 jobs lost due to government funding cuts.

Honestly, I’m predicting most nasty party members and supporters, and not forgetting gammons will have assumed it’ll be bobbies on the streets combating knife crime and Islamic extremism, and in 3 years time will have forgotten about the early pronouncement, despite law and order being their highest priority after leaving the EU.

Why? Well, they’ve forgotten about poor people.

Yanis Varoufakis recently used a word I prayed I’d never hear in the UK. We’ve been brainwashed, undergone conditioning to just accept things are as they are. Sure it’s been insidious but, in the main, it’s worked. It’s nothing new of course but the assault has been ramped up in the last few years.

I’d be remiss in not mentioning 1984.

So, 1984.

Or is it Animal Farm?

It’s Animal Farm, but with real authoritarians.

Or is it a pretty grim future?

Pretty grim.

We need a diversion. Are at war with Iran yet?

Al (aw bollocks)

Not happy.

It’s been a poor week for me politically. First, my choice of LibDem candidate wasn’t elected by a wide margin, beaten by someone who cannot bring themselves to expose the nasty party for what they were in coalition, and remain: nasty. And now the nasty party’s floppy haired twat in search of a combover is elected Prime Minister by default, becoming potentially the most powerful person in the UK after Farage, Trump and Putin.

There’s a certain inevitability about the UK’s slide into the doldrums, isn’t there.


Previous words: https://blog.bt3.com/wp/2019/07/22/al-the-second-sequel/

Words before that: https://blog.bt3.com/wp/2019/07/21/al-the-first-sequel/

CBA posting more links.

Al (the first sequel)

Journalists are currently writing that Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson[efn_note]Al to his family, but that name didn’t stand out quite enough at university so he rebranded.[/efn_note] will not be allowed to continue with the irresponsible behaviour exhibited throughout all of his past, apparently the team assembled around him will not allow it. I’m totally unconvinced, the nasty party-led juggernaut is unstoppable now.

And, don’t ever forget come the mid-week inauguration, who’s assembling the team, who’s boss.

Whilst I misread the ‘Boris‘ situation back in 2016 (Foreign Secretary‽) I’m pretty confident I haven’t this time around.

Oh yes, if Al’s thinking of David Davis as a potential Foreign Secretary or Chancellor (!!!!) he’s having a laugh; in any other world he’d be described even by himself as the very definition of the ‘anti-details man’.


17 seconds

Ruby dog and I achieved a new world record today: 5 headers of the partially-deflated blue kids football won by my youngest daughter at last year’s school fair.

Yeah, of course I looked for YouTube videos but, tempted as I am to make one, I’d rather play!

The following video is something different; it seems people cannot simply say how great something is any more[efn_note]I read the comments!!!2!¡[/efn_note], they cannot resist the urge to tell the world how far to step into the video to find the interesting bit.

This is not Ruby dog:


Loquacious

"Indistinctly loquacious": to which UK politician am I imprecisely referring?

Describe them without a name or the attributes/characteristics commonly used in the media. Or don't bother wasting your time.

Educated

Last week daughter 1 had a sex education lesson, or at least one on the specifics of the human male reproductive system. No problem there. She mentioned the teacher had used a couple of words veering more towards the colloquial than the technical. I became intrigued, because yeah!

The first, describing the male organ, began with a ‘W’, she said. It was easy to simply say ‘willy’, though my wife and I know quite a few more.

The second word up proved to be somewhat problematic, at least to me. It begins with an ‘S’ and is something that emits from the above appendage.

So I did it, I went there, with “…is it a movement of rebellion which started in the late seventies, one characterised by people with spiky hairstyles and outlandish make-up who jumped up and down, spat at each other, and sang songs of disillusionment and hate of the establishment? Is it ‘punks’, rearranged?”

“…?”

My wife jumped to the rescue way too late to stop my squirming. The speed of her response was surely intentional, throwing in the simple phrase “…is it men who go to sea?”

Yes, yes it was indeed that one.

VE Day 2020

Next year, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of hostilities against the Axis powers in Europe during World War 2, the UK government has announced that VE Day (Victory in Europe) will replace the early May Bank Holiday for most.

In 2020 it’s on Friday May 8th, after the Monday of the Jedi’s annual celebration on what would have been the UK Bank Holiday. I can feel a distu… need for a 3 day working week!

More here (it’s the first link I found, please don’t judge me):

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bank-holiday-monday-moving-friday-16479438

Incompetents (Tories)

The Nasty Party has, in my eyes, sunk to a new low point of incompetence. Faced with a small number of party leadership candidates they’re whining it’s too many, it’s unmanageable.

This is a group of people democratically elected by a majority to govern a country and to deal with matters on an international stage, and they simply can’t comprehend how to deal with 13 hopefuls (may increase to >17 during the week.) One proposed solution: change the rules to stop this frankly appalling scenario in future; another: change the number of triaging votes per week to get it over as quickly as possible.

Did they think that offering up the Prime Minister’s job would not generate massive interest, especially as there is for the second time no need to win a General Election to get it? My view, they thought no-one would want the poisoned chalice apart from the expected incompetents.

…and voters trust them to lead the country through these turbulent times? That’s not a question, it’s a statement. We’ve gone from a country of characteristic political apathy and a deep mistrust of every politician, to one which believes KNOWS things will be better after March 29 April 12 October 31… over three effing years after we should have had a plan in place!

And if that’s not the case, that there’s an element of trust, then the prevailing mood is “let’s get it over with as fast as we can”, without any thought of the future or even immediate impact across every facet of our lives.

I for one shall welcome our American overlords with an open wallet; I’m looking forward to: eating salmonella-free chicken and larger-than-life steaks, relishing the thought of reduced-cocoa chocolate that smells of sick, selling off the loss-making NHS in favour of an honestly capitalist free market in health insurance and looser rules on medicine pricing and, for my daughters’ sake, a relaxation of gun controls that’ll surely eradicate the knife crime epidemic sweeping our once-great nation… oh yeah baby, bring it on!