Hunting Repeal

Commenting on the “The hunt vote hope for repeal”, I did think that apart from all the old rubbish about hunting being ever so more popular, that the usual photographs depicting the traditional hunting scenes could have easily come from last year. In fact I thought the newspaper could have saved some money by using last years photos again, who would have known the difference! and would the majority of us truly care I wonder.

I was in Chard town centre where the Cotley rode into town. They did not publish their meet, they have gone underground with even their web site being taken down, what have they got to hide! The numbers attending yesterday outside the Guildhall I felt were down considerably as were the riders; which incidentally costs around £8000 to maintain a hunter mount and hunt subscription; but where indeed does this 250,000 number come from? Perhaps the Countryside Alliance spin factory!

However I thought the main thrust of the debate would have been the mess that DEFRA has found itself in this last year. By this I mean Jim Paice’s boss Caroline Spelman and her shambles over the aborted sale of the nation’s forests, quickly followed by Jim Paice’s own mess when he failed to deliver the ban of performing wild animals in circuses. A ban so widely supported by the general public. He was ridiculed by his own party by his pathetic performance and feeble excuses in the Commons during the debate.

With the badger cull trials scheduled to start in the South West after the summer Olympics, I am sure many commentators will be surprised that to raise the prospects of a repeal on the Hunting Act, and summarily allow the Countryside Alliance a perverted victory would be the equivalent of shooting ones self in the foot with both barrels.

A repeal of the Hunting Act is as welcome as increased bonuses for bankers or tax relief for the wealthy.

If we end up with the situation that foxes, deer, hares and soon to be badgers are to be hunted or shot in the countryside and the NFU and others support these activities then they risk driving so many more people into becoming Vegetarians or Vegans and the farming industry like the traditional English countryside may never recover.

Next year the stakes are big!

Boxing Day 2011 Cruel Hunting

Destroy the Unions

Many right wing Tory MPs are now demanding an end to full-time union work in the public sector, an end to any employer costs for Union Reps and an end to the modest funds supporting union learning and modernization. So in response David Cameron and his Ministers are set to consult on cutting back paid time off for union work and ending the role of full time Union Rep a legal rights that have been in the workplace place for nearly 40 years.

It’s the same old tactic of divide and rule with the ‘sound byte’ taxpayers money should not be used for union work! But on the other hand it’s OK for many private companies to be supported by the taxpayer either during startup or the expansion phase; and many given National Insurance holidays for taking on staff.

No one likes to see taxpayers money  being used inappropriately and so one should cast our minds back a few years to the ‘Expenses Scandal’ when David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne were in opposition and acted with greed as both are fabulously rich with David Cameron having in excess of £30m, and George Osborne estimated worth is £4m and will inherit a great deal more as heir to the Osborne baronetcy. Yet these two men had structured their personal affairs so that British taxpayers financed mortgages on their second homes of about £300,000. Neither needed to have mortgages on their second home, and neither man needed to claim the second home allowance from the taxpayer, yet they both did. Again another shadow minster at the same time Frances Maude who is now the cabinet minster leading the attack on the Unions. Now famous for allegedly purchasing a flat in London, close to a house he already owned, before claiming on the flat and renting out the house he then attempted to claim the mortgage interest on his family home in Sussex. This arrangement was rejected by the Fees Office. But unperturbed two years later, Mr Maude bought a flat in London a few minutes walk from a house he already owned. He then rented out the other property and began claiming on the new flat: the taxpayer has since covered nearly £35,000 in mortgage interest payments and has a personal net wealth estimated at £3m. Was that good use of the taxpayers money?

There are around 200,000 people acting as Union Reps who are prepared to help their work colleagues by giving advice, formally representing them in grievance and disciplinary hearings and negotiating with managers. Many also have more specialist recognised roles improving workplace health and safety, training, equality and environmental considerations. It is reasonable to conclude that Union Reps may reduce staff turnover, deal with any disputes in an independent and swift fashion, increasing overall productivity an asset to both managers and employee and possibly even paying for themselves through the work they do. 

What the Tories are attempting to is throttle the trade unions at their roots in the workplace, as Unions rely on a sense of fairness and on the service these volunteer Union Reps give to help their work colleagues. No union will be able to survive if all support and services for members must be provided by full time union paid officials and paying the market rate of the on site support facilities.

These changes are being progressed by a Prime Minster born into a life so privileged and then goes on to employed Andy Coulson, the former disgraced News of the World editor, as his Director of Communications on entering Downing Street. This was following the cultivation of Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks of the media giant News International who holeheartly supported his party at the last election through its media enterprises.

One rule for the rich and privileged and another for those who seek to make life better for others.

The Rich Will Inherit the Earth if We do Nothing!

If anyone thought that the planned strikes were nothing more than an inconvenient regarding child care that day or just public sector workers crying ‘Wolf’ over their pension changes then they need to think again.

We have in this collation government a collection of millionaires, members of the aristocracy and wealthy business people waging an all out war on the British workers. David Cameron him self is worth £30M and George Osbourne £5M but he will inherit a lot more. Nick Clegg and his Spanish lawyer wife and simply loaded and so far removed from the day to day financial crisis most people face daily.

Now whether these workers are highway engineers, dustbin men, nurses, teachers or headmasters; they are being targeting for the mistakes of the bankers, hedge fund managers and others in the financial sector.

Good public sector pension are in the front line of the battlefield to be overrun then they will move on to the conditions in work place. 

As the Business Secretary Vince Cable and the Chancellor George Osborne announced that the Government intends to start the dismantling many of the hard fought and long-held employment rights won over many years so that companies could have a more ‘flexible’ and ‘dismissive’ approach towards their employees; i.e. to make it easier for bosses to sack there workers. If these measures gets on the statute books then every employer will be able to tear up their HR policies and replace them with the simple phrase:- "Do as you are told or you are fired". This is just another example of the government being paid by business and applying policy for business needs only. These changes will make it harder for hundreds of thousands of workers to bring cases of victimisation, unfairness and bullying at work and these changes will affect all of us today and our children and grandchildren tomorrow, with all the hard won advances in the working environment starting to evaporate as uncertainty and insecurity become the norm in the workplace.

The rich will get richer and the poor poorer and those in the middle will end up working harder and longer for less. But just to rub salt in the wound, no one voted for this and no one offered it at the last election. Cameron and Clegg have just decided that past mistakes must be paid for and by those who had no part in the making of the crisis!

These are the words of the Governor of the Bank of England and he’s probably a Tory too!

Cameron, Osbourne and Johnson but a few!

The Lib Dems - The New Tories

Continue reading the main story

Unfair dismissal: Vince Cable ponders new 

hire-and-fire rules

Ministers want views on whether firms with 10 or fewer employees should be

able to sack staff without risk of a tribunal if they pay compensation.

Staff who work for small businesses could lose their right to claim unfair

dismissal under plans being considered.

Business Secretary Vince Cable said he wanted the process for getting rid of

staff to be "simpler and quicker".

Unions oppose the idea. Labour called for measures to make it easier to hire

people rather than to fire them.

Announcing a consultation on changes to employment legislation, Mr Cable

said he wanted to help firms expand without making existing staff feel insecure.

If this package gets on the statute books then every employer will be able

to tear up their HR policies and replace them with the simple phrase:-

Do as you are told or you are fired". This is just another example of the 

government being paid by business and applying policy for business

needs only. These changes will make it harder for hundreds of

thousands of workers to bring cases of victimisation, unfairness and

bullying at work.

If anyone wants evidence that the Lib Dems are supping with the devil

this is it. As for the Lib Dems, well done Mr Vince Cable, just go and

join the Tory party and be done with it as no one will ever trust your

party ever again.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15844614

The Liberal Democrats - Supporting the Tories

Oliver Letwin - Dumping Paperwork in the Park!

Oliver Letwin is no stranger to controversy; he is reputedly the person who advised Margret Thatcher to introduce the poll tax, which caused riots in the 1980’s, and had to go into hiding during the 2001 general election campaign after advocating public spending cuts that went further than the Conservatives had announced. He is another Old Etonian Cabinet Minster in this government and is thought to be independently rich.

However this did not stop him claiming expenses, since 2004, he has claimed more than £80,000 of expenses for a cottage in Somerset close to his Dorset constituency. The property is in an isolated area and Mr Letwin claims for the cost of heating fuel and emptying the septic tank. The most controversial claim was made in September 2006. An invoice for £2,145 was submitted by Mr Letwin for works to lay a new 25mm pipeline to replace the existing leaking pipeline under the tennis court of his country home.

While in opposition he did make a claim that set the Tories aside as still the nasty party when he stated that he would rather beg on the streets than send his children to a state school!

I think the notion of dumping recyclable paper into a park bin sets him unfavourably apart from the average citizen, irrespective of the classification of the paperwork. Most people understand the need to recycle and not just dump in a park bin for someone else; a servant I suppose, to sort out.

Pure contempt for ordinary people.

The Cruel Season

Saturday the 29^th of October is the start of the new Fox Hunting season and perhaps we should perhaps pause and reflect as to what foxing hunting is today in the modern countryside. This is where vehicles, riders and hunters are all wired with salient navigation and robust mobile communication providing detailed terrain mapping and route management.

Guardians of countryside traditions you will often here the hunters call. But with all these modern trappings the terrier men, sometime called countrymen, will be out driving there Kawasaki Quad bikes adored with boxes of terriers, spades, metal rods and root cutters ready to unearth any fox who dares not to play ball with the hounds and seeks refuge underground. All these facilities together with dozens of dogs and human followers to persecute a defenseless wild animal in a one-sided ritual to titillate sadistic humans out for a days so called hunting. 

The Countryside Alliance will again be promoting hunting and all its positive attributes to the general public, media, politicians and rural communities. The spin will go along the lines of “Fox hunters are the true representatives of rural England, binding the countryside together as farmers and landowners unite in a common cause.” But in reality they are as representative of rural England as Eton and Harrow Colleges are of our education system.

Publicly the hunts will be saying that they meet 'with organizers laying a scent for the hounds to track. Monitors nationwide, however, testify that for most Hunts this is merely a charade, designed to thinly disguise the fact that they are carrying on hunting as if the ban didn't exist, with the same callous disregard for the welfare and feelings of their animal victims and with many individuals appearing to arrogantly consider themselves above the law. Time and time again reports emerge of the chaos caused as hounds riot and trespass, attack livestock and peoples pets, stamping over gardens and damaging property.

Journalists are apparently consensually beguiled by the Countryside Alliance, while the few Monitors beat desperately on the door of the media, which is rarely opened. 

The current Police Minster Nicholas Le Quesne Herbert (Nick Herbert) was a former Public Affairs Officer of the British Field Sport Society (BFSS) which is now the Countryside Alliance. This may explain why police forces up and down the country do little or nothing enforcing the Hunting Act. The same parallels exist between the Metropolitan police and the early days of the phone hacking scandal by News International; phone hacking, what phone hacking!

The ban on hunting; including stag, hare, fox and mink, or is it otter now, is overwhelmly supported by the general public, but the hunting traditions of the heredity privileged and landowning elite who have always acted outside the realms of any government seem to have played heavily on the police for any enforcement of the ban as the hunters riot around the countryside; the untouchables in full purist of the inedible.