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Friday, February 5th

Labour party running scared of the public!

hats off to Graham Jones, prospective labour party candidate for the may 6th general election, for not only revealing the date of the general election weeks ahead of any official notice to the public, but now it would appear he is not a fan of debate.

many posts he has posted regarding "the tories" and every paper that puts out a negative story of opinion about the opposition parties, seems to be linked to and headlined on his blog.

first it was the odd comment that was deleted as he saw fit, but on visiting his site tonight, to see his reply to a comment from a member of the electorate he is asking to vote him into office as an MP, is significant by its absence!

graham jones has turned all comments off on his blog

im hoping it is a mistake or an oversight on his part, or could it be that he doesnt like hearing what his would be constituents think?
Posted on 05-02-10 @ 12:24 AM CST [link to post] [No Comments] Share on Facebook




Thursday, February 4th

are the BBC hiding bad news for gordon brown?

i was searching for something that was said at the chilcott inquiry yesterday, regarding gordon brown's defence budget cuts, just 12 months into the iraq war, which was equivelent to £1 BILLION pounds.

amongst the things that were cut from the defence's budget were orders for helicopters, which would have been in service and is widely acknowledged, would have been a life saver for our brave troops who have had to drive around in modified landrovers in afghanistan instead, throughout 2009.

anyhow, i hit goggle and searched, all the tabloid websites had it as a headline, but strangely the bbc didnt have it.... so i hit the bbc website, put in their search about the chilcott enquiry... then i put in about the iraq inquiry.... again nothing about gordon brown being slammed for defence cuts in 2003 that contributed to helicopter shortages in 2008/2009 in afghanistan!

now i know from various friends online that when post anti government or gordon brown posts on their have your say section, they are held in a moderator queue for days and are only published once the debate has been closed to other posts or "recommended" clicks from other users.

it is also common knowledge that various reports and figures from the past 10 years have mysteriously vanished from the internet or been compared to paper records from back when the reports came out, and been found to be different... one friend i know was doing research and took a report from the net and printed it out for reference.
when he checked his reference against the report as it appears on the net today... it had been changed!
several damaging figures to the government were missing from what we can view on the net today!

paranoid or not, i know media manipulation takes place on opinion boards open to the public, i know of figures being changed on internet reports that have been online for ages - i am amazed at the lack of bbc coverage and search findings regarding the chilcott inquiry from 24 hours ago whereby a top defence person reveals that gordon brown cut £1 Billion from the 2003 defence budget which has led to helicopters missing from last years mission to afghanistan

how many more bad news gordon brown stories are the BBC hiding away in the background?


Posted on 04-02-10 @ 09:00 PM CST [link to post] [No Comments] Share on Facebook




Saturday, January 9th

CONFIRMED: The general election will be on May 6th 2010

LATEST NEWS: I can confirm that the 2010 UK general election will take place on May 6th 2010

poorest kept secret and subject of constant speculation i know, but after Jack Straw's (labour MP for blackburn) gaff on national television, speaking about geoff hoon's infamous text, stating that "we only have 16 weeks to go before a general election" - which he later tried to backtrack from at the end of the interview, i can confirm another source.

Prospective labour candidate for the Hyndburn and Haslingden seat, Graham Jones, has revealed in a general discussion on his blog, that the date of the general election will be 6th May 2010

"Graham Jones said...
Well it takes a few weeks to select, then take off 6 weeks before to get your name on the ballot paper. Add a fortnight to get organised and 2 more weeks to get printed material done. That's 13 weeks and there are 15 weeks before May 6.

That's shambolic in my book.

9 January 2010 12:24"


the date of may 6th was not mentioned in any post or comment on the blog, although the candidate for the conservatives for the general election was being discussed.

Posted on 09-01-10 @ 05:21 PM CST [link to post] [No Comments] Share on Facebook




Wednesday, January 6th

labour control freaks

in my last post i quoted from greg pope's (labour MP for hyndburn) website/blog, from a post he put on there arguing about gordon brown's manipulation and smearing of opponents within his own party, to secure the leadership for himself.

after the events of the last 24 hours, that i have experienced, i would surmise that its not just the labour leadership that are control freaks!

greg pope's son also posts to his blog, and one such post, on equality, in which he makes the - all too common - sweeping statement "since May 1997 the poorest in society have grown more affluent.
to be fair he was specifically refering to people's finances and not material goods, so i posted a comment that pointed out a few inaccuracies with this view and pointed out the vast numbers of people are being subsidised in some form by the taxpayer. i also asked how any increase in wages or money given is often ofset, in the case of the poorest in society, by a reduction in their housing or council tax benefit, so they of course are financially unchanged, but now have to work xx amount of hours per week to do this. i highlighted also other aspects of inequality that are on the increase, such as the way the courts are being manipulated and influenced indirectly by the government he supports, when making decisions that affect thousands of people, such as the supreme court and the overdraft fees ruling.
(the new goverment bonus tax came not 2 weeks after the supreme court ruled against all other courts verdicts on oft v banks on overdraft charges, and by an amazing coincidence, raises almost the exact same revenue for the government, that the banks would have had to refund to customers who had been charged incorrectly!)

i posted the comment, it showed up on the blog, then i did something else.
today whilst having a quick brew, i log in to the blog to see if there is any reply to my comment, to find it has magically been deleted from the post!

oh well, i thought, why have a blog and post stuff at all, if, when you get an alternative opinion backed up with facts, you simply dont argue with it, but delete it instead? - if you dont want comments, then turn them off!

so off over to the bbc's website and see what the people are talking about there. on my log in i find that despite more than 100 comments being added to the thread "what should political parties focus on?" mine are still held in its "moderating queue" - of course it attacks the broken promises of the labour government, no student loans then brought them in, etc.
i check on another post i made 2 days ago, regarding "how should food policy be changed" - again this post attacked the government for putting the onus on the public and not doing anything to reign in supermarkets, who receive preferential treatment to independant retailers, etc. - once again it was held in a moderating queue for days, no doubt to go the way of many other posts against this labour government on a whole variety of issues, only published after the debate has been closed to comments and then disappears off the website within 12 hours!

so we have a labour mp blog that comments arguing a point they themselves have raised, mysteriously vanish, without explanation - then we have the bbc website forums being "moderated" to stop any opinions that oppose the government from being published and voted for.

the labour party must be in trouble, they now wont even debate with facts, any position they state they take on any issue, they have proved they just want to control the uk public.... no wonder the uk public cannot get any answers about whats happening in todays britain!


Posted on 06-01-10 @ 03:03 AM CST [link to post] [No Comments] Share on Facebook




Tuesday, January 5th

labour people spout waffle as the UK burns

im guessing that the scenario i am about to describe, is not isolated to my area of the UK.

Much like the farce of the nhs dentist failures that labour mp greg pope described as "an isolated pocket" - which turned out to be country wide and be affecting more than 2 million people - whilst costing the taxpayer record amounts of money to bring about - the following is a clear example of just why the labour party, quite rightly in my view, are seen by some as not having a clue about what they are doing.

in my area the sitting MP greg pope will not be attempting re election at the general election to come, so it was with interest that i received a card through our door, from the prospective labour party candidate, graham jones.
graham tells us how he is councillor in our neighbouring town and the county council labour party leader for east lancs, a council they lost control of this year to the conservatives.

all seems fine with that, until i read the short statement from outgoing MP greg pope on the reverse of the information card:
"... graham has my full support and i look forward to working with him in the coming months"

a quick look at graham's own blog site and greg pope MP's blog site and its clear that whilst they both portray an image of support for the labour party (which in effect employs them) they are completely at odds with each other about the direction of the party they both represent, they are total opposites when it comes to whom should lead the labour party and make side swiping remarks contradicting each others view, whilst claiming to "understand" the others differing point of view!

on graham's blog, his twitter updates show:
"Lab public attacks on GB [gordon brown]. R we establishing the principle that public hostility is good? If u lose in pvte then winning in public is next?"
- yes graham, public hostility is good, its called accountability, when an MP faces hostile questioning from the public and the MP that stands for a party has to defend his/her own record and the record of decisions that the party has taken, then hostility is good.

on greg popes blog we have this post:
"Labour has been appallingly ill-served by a cabal surrounding Gordon Brown. First they destabilised Tony Blair's leadership, an act of shocking disloyalty to someone who had won us an unprecedented three election victories in a row; then they ensured that Gordon was crowned leader rather than elected (along with others I spent some time in early 2007 seeing if we could get enough Labour MPs to nominate any serious contender to take on Gordon. We got just about the requisite number of names but we couldn't find a member of the cabinet who dared take on Gordon's people for fear of what they would do - is that the kind of leadership that we really want?); which leads us to the next dirty trick of Gordon's cabal: the smearing of opponents. As one Minister said at the time, the really shocking thing about the McBride fiasco wasn't that they were attempting to trash the personality of an opponent but that it was someone of a different party for a change. We deserve better."
this is from an MP that works for the labour government at westminster!

whilst labour fanny around in committees and discuss issues on forums and other talking shops, that bare no relevance to the british public, the country crumbles.
a far cry from what graham and greg state on graham's labour party information flyer that was pushed through my front door!

why has greg pope Labour MP taken so long to reveal what has been going on at westminster?
was he protecting his own job and only revealed what was happening once it became apparent that he would not be returning to westminster after the next general election?
he has held his views in secret for years whilst we have been lumbered with an incompetant baffoon of a prime minister and been hung out to dry, greg pope (and no doubt other labour mps) sat on their hands and did absolutely nothing about it!

this begs the question, why on post office closures did greg pope campaign in the local paper with our local post office counter staff, to keep it open, then goto westminster and vote in a policy that he knew would close it down?
why is he "looking forward to working with graham" the prospective candidate, at the same time as calling for a different set of policies, different direction and aims and a different leader for the labour party?

and the labour party have the sheer audacity to criticise opposition parties and tell the people of britain that no other party but labour, can be trusted on ever issue under the sun!
labour people just do not get it at all..... an MP ( of any party) is there to represent the people of his/her constituency - not as greg pope/graham jones believe and do, to represent the labour party or sit on their hands and keep quiet when something is being forced on the british people that is not in the people's interest!


Posted on 05-01-10 @ 12:52 AM CST [link to post] [No Comments] Share on Facebook




Thursday, December 31st

... and that was 2009

an up and down year for me, with some tremendous luck...

HEALTH:
the year started with much to look forward to, after mother nature decided that it was not our time to have another little sprog in the family, i was just relieved that hoovergerl had come out of 2008 fit and well.
2009 started with a big surprise, which would worry the crap out of us all for the next 9 months... within days, it was confirmed that hoover was again with child
after the recent ups and downs, this would be a worrying time... mother nature was kind to us, so much so, that by easter, as parents go we were considered "low risk" of any complications.

as easter came and went, fate would deal us a tough card and for my dad, an even tougher one.
a very active and healthy parent as dad was, his trip to bath was the start of a roller coaster that would affect us all at hoover towers.
suffering mild chest pains which went as quick as they came, but started reoccuring, ended up with angina being diagnosed, on to the waiting list he went for treadmill tests, etc.
whilst out in town one afternoon, unable to walk and suffering from pains and not being able to catch his breath, dad found the strength to get himself into a pharmacists and ask for help.
an ambulance ride later he was in hospital as an urgent case, and transferred to blackpool hospital, who specialise in heart problems.
after getting a text message then phoning through to find out where he was, we ventured out to blackpool to see him.

he was not in a good way at all... lying down all day with just a sip of water whist tubes and balloons were put inside him as they tried to stabilise him and make him comfortable.
after yet more tests and results, he was told he would have to have open heart surgery.
he was placed on a short waiting list behind another patient, and we were informed that his operation would be the next day, in the afternoon.
what started as a single heart bypass, was changed to a double, then a triple bypass, in the end he was to have a quadruple bypass.
we rang the next morning to see how he was, and in the night he had gotten worse, so been rushed in for his operation earlier than expected as he couldnt be stabilised.

i remember leaving work that day, in a blind panic, wondering what if, etc. god knows what state myra (my step mum) was in. within about two weeks of a holiday, he was diagnosed with angina and now he was in blackpool having open heart surgery!

all we could do was drive over to see them everyday, try to lighten the mood and make sure myra got to her hotel safely each night.
after hours in theatre, out came pops, all done and dusted, the surgeon was pleased with how it all went.
i cannot imagine going through any of that, a non smoking, only occasional drinker who had always been very active was now rushed in with major heart problems... i dont think i want to!
within a week or so dad was allowed to go home and recouperate. what a relief!
... a new member of the family arrives!!!
by august, tammy was doing well we were told and she was due to arrive late august/early september
what seemed like an eternity - the calm before the storm - we had three weeks where we just waited for labour to start.
i drove the car over blubberhouses dips and hills, we drove over bumpy lanes, in the end we walked around the res in the pouring rain - so sick of waiting were we, i just had to do something!
that evening the pains started coming, and hoovergerl hung on at home for a good 4 hours or so (whilst in touch with the hospital by phone every hour) before the pain got so bad she had to be taken into hospital.
theo and i packed up the stuff, and off we went.
we arrived at 4.30am and at 8.46am we welcomed a beautiful baby girl!
theo cut the cord and we had a new family member, weighing in at 6lb 10 ounces, within 24 hours they were allowed to come home!

the sheer volume of messages of goodwill and cards we got was mindblowing, all the gang over at chatgames.com sent parcels of baby presents from all over the world, each one arrived on different days, lighting up hoovergerl's mush, the generousity shown, from all corners of the world was truly staggering!
little Annie pants continues to dictate life at hoover towers with her routine and her actions, just as it should be.

WORK:
around june, unusually (for a school) where i worked, was to close down.
the gang i had annoyed for over a year were to be split up and would be no more after the summer.
with an informal interview at the end of term, i was told that the school unit was moving to another school nearby, and unfortunately there was no place available for me. nobody's fault, just the way it was.
within three days i received a phone call, the gang that was moving to the new unit, had stuck their necks out for me, and the top boss offered me a place there with increased hours!
at the beginning of september, after two days training at the new unit, i was to become a fully fledged member of the gang.... not bad for a dinner lady/man!

the last day of the school year was very strange, as i hadnt been there as long as the qualified gang, but i had grown very attached to each and every one of them, from helen, the boss, right down to chris who cleaned up the mess i left hehe. they never lost their rag with my constant questions and asking for help, which was quite rare for anyone who knows me.
when it came to the end of the last day, i tried to hide away and keep busy, i dont like major change and i dont like saying goodbyes etc.
most of the gang would be going to the new unit, but a couple of them would be moving on to other things.
one of the gang in particular, would leave a big hole (if thats the correct term for it hehe) - on a daily basis im sure i had annoyed her more than the kids did!
i wont mention names as they know who they are... but i soon recognised that she is a teacher of the highest quality!
i love people watching, i can normally suss out a person within a few hours, after just a couple of hours working in the classroom with her, it was clear to me (as it still is) that this person will go far in life and has a heart as big as a house!
i had filled out an application for a dinner time position, but had heard nothing back, so i took it that the position had gone.

in september i started my two days training at the new school, for working in the new unit.
the staff were very friendly and instantly made me very welcome. although things were not set up immediately, all the signs were good.
within the space of a couple of days, everything was about to turn upside down!

the first problem was finance - after enquiring into child tax etc, as hoovergerl was on reduced maternity pay after just six weeks from when the baby was born, after doing my sums it worked out that we would be worse off as a family by £37 per week if i was to work my new hours.
i rang them to check this and went through it step by step with the people there.... i had not made a mistake, my figures were correct to the penny!
so my first dilemma was - do i work and gain experience for less money in the pot? or do i stand aside and let the position goto someone with more experience than me and find something else?

as those who know me well can state, i do not like punching above my weight. i was told that i would need luck in my new role, being in a classroom for 30 odd hours a week is very different from standing in for a few hours each week and being responsible for dinnertime play... how right they were!
i decided to sleep on it before making my mind up.
within 24 hours a brand new opportunity opened up, thanks to a good friend!

i decided that being in a classroom for my entire working day was not for me, not in the capacity i would be employed as anyways, i needed fresh air, i needed space and some flexibility, i needed some control. it was also unfair to remove money from my family's pocket at the same time. i decided to stand down.
i went in to explain as best i could, sad that i was not going to be working with a great team who had stood up for me and recommended me for the job, helped me so much at the old school, but in a way also relieved.

within 48 hours i was setting off for an interview for another job, in much the same role as my previous job, a dinner lady!
luckily for me and thanks to my good friend (who will only start bragging if i give her credit) giving me a good reference, i got the job!
fresh air, variation, a little bit of control, and an opportunity, i consider myself extremely lucky.
already, in a short time up to now, it has proved to be a godsend.
great fun and everyone has looked after me. i am on trial for 3 months i think, so hopefully i have worked hard enough to be kept on, we shall see.

... in other work
driving jobs continue to come along, my first week off at half term, i had two driving jobs before the first day was out. the van is out of action but should be back on the road in the new year, no doubt more lifting of heavy things awaits... there are rewiring and plumbing jobs to do around hoover towers, with plastering and ceilings to be done after that, but its a work in progress.
as for the websites, i am still struggling with inputting data into a database and then setting up website templates to call the info, but im reading lots of geeky books and trying things out, with hoovergerl returning to work in the coming months, i need to get them up and running as soon as possible.

PENNY PINCHERS:
not convinced it is doing well at the moment. had the database hacked into and all my shopping centre links wiped off, and it is being bombarded with spammers and members who just want a back link and want to sell stuff through it from their own websites.
its not really in the spirit of why it was set up.
Frugal ways has been set up and is being updated with quite a lot of information, but there is much more to be done there, at the moment it is done on an as and when basis.
we managed to save friends of the site over £2000 this year - lets hope we can save even more money in 2010!

GARDENING:
after getting the recycled greenhouse from a contact who was out on the road, then getting it back here and building it, laying flags and gritsand etc, last year was a late effort, the tomatoes came up in october!
going into december we still had tadpoles in the pond, but in early december, the habitat was thriving with some wild animal visiting it in the snow and squirrels burying food around the edges of it!
i have 6 bays and a greenhouse to run with in 2010, so it will be a bit more organised if nothing else.
i also have a few days set aside to help dad with his double allottment over in barrow, that way he wont over do it and i can get some free comfry... bonus!
as for the front garden, well much earlier seed planting plus the added bonus of plants started in the greenhouse should help. 3000 seeds last year planted in july didnt come through very well.

an eventful year all in all, which had some major worries but luckily everything turned out well in the end... lots of work to do in 2010, but its work that i can do on my time as and when i want to.

good health and happiness to all my friends for 2010 - see you all on the otherside for 2011!


Posted on 31-12-09 @ 03:17 AM CST [link to post] [No Comments] Share on Facebook




Wednesday, December 9th

pre budget report

the chancellor gives us "his vision" for the public finances today... here is what i am expecting:

- all the leaks his office has given to the media and press since sunday will be true and accurate
- all the information that gordon brown has leaked and given away in speeches will be announced
- our taxes will rise
- we will have less flexibility in our finances than we have now (whats left of them)
- ghost opposition policies will be announced as labour's own policies.

by "ghost" i mean it will look and sound like a policy an opposition party wants to implement, but it will have lots of extra costs behind the scenes and only be part of what the opposition party have in mind - so they can tell the public that they have already got the policy that the opposition party wants to bring in and it doesnt work or has created problems.

so far labour have leaked that they will bring in 2 BNP policies, a few token policies which vary slightly from libdem policies and the major policies that the conservatives propose.
labour are even going to include a fringe policies that the green party want bringing in.

on the whole - nothing new or original from this band of jokers, who treat the british public as if they are as thick as two short planks!


Posted on 09-12-09 @ 10:50 AM CST [link to post] [No Comments] Share on Facebook



public service rating website goes live

a new website goes live today, which, the audit commission tells us, will allow people to view the standard of public services in their area and in other areas and compare, etc.

Read the full story here

Communities Secretary John Denham said: "It is just the start of our efforts to give local people far better access to information held by local public organisations so they can challenge, compare or scrutinise their local services in order to drive up standards in their area."

just three problems with this:

1 - who is paying for all these assessments and to collect this information? a lot of manpower will be needed to put it all together - it wouldn't be the taxpayer would it?

2 - funding is being used from other areas to build and maintain this website is it? - or is this "new" or "extra" money?

3 - its all very well for Communities Secretary John Denham, to state that the government are giving people better access to information, but when that information is costing vast amounts of money to collect, put together and present, it will acheive nothing!

its funny that the government are only keen for us to have information now, when they control virtually no councils in england and few in scotland and wales.
what a shame as they came into office in 1997, and subsequant years since then, where they have held local and county councils, they have told us all precisely nothing and clearly hidden information from us - just look at the number of freedom of information requests that have had to be made to get any official figures from this joke of a government!
Posted on 09-12-09 @ 10:10 AM CST [link to post] [No Comments] Share on Facebook




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