UK Un-Cunts

There were protests yesterday outside banks by members of UK Uncut dressed as doctors, protesting about "tax evasion" by the banks, and their role in the credit crunch, and hence their perceived role in the (non-existient) cuts to the NHS [Link]. First of all, like I've said before, the NHS is a Stalinist organisation which puts money before patients all the time, and fails in patient healthcare compared to the systems in most other developed countries, and thus needs to be euthanized, but I've already talked about it here. 

The protesters do have a point, in saying that big businesses tend to pay less tax than small ones, due to offshore 

accounts in tax havens and so on. However, the argument isn't to make them pay more tax, but for the small 

businesses to pay less. The government knows that without these tax "loopholes", the places like Topshop, 

Vodafone etc. wouldn't do business in the UK at all, so they would get more tax revenue if they allow these

companies to exploit these loopholes. This however makes it harder for the small business to compete, so it would

be fair to lower taxes to smaller businesses as well. However, I'm sure this has more to do with big business 

"lobbying", and less to do with the economic ineptness of politicians. The point is that instead of defending stupid,

inept public organisations like the NHS, they should be defending tax cuts for small businesses, which will then 

increase employment, increase tax revenue, and make us all better off as a result

Superinjunctions still suck

It's kinda worrying these days when even the Daily Mail is championing free speech, but here we are. The main argument for superinjunctions, especially in the Ryan Giggs case, is that it's "not in the public interest". This is the type of snobbery we have come to expect from the so called "liberal elite" (ironic as they're not liberal, and they're not elite), who look down their noses at the millions of people who read The Sun etc. The idea that we should scrutinize every story and determine whether the public have a "right to know" about it is something that would happen in communist China, not in the UK, the birthplace of the enlightenment. If that were to happen, The Sun would just be printed on a sheet of A4, with the weather, a crossword and a page 3 girl. I understand the "right to privacy", but in my view (and the view of the Irish courts as well, which are also bound by the ECHR), injunctions can only occur when somebody has hacked your phone, email, bank accounts etc. Only when the law has been broken then should you have to justify "public interest". Of course defending the right to publish kiss-and-tell stories about footballers won't get many people riled up, but when we have cases like this http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1391918/New-gagging-order-row-erupts-Court-hear-sensitive-sex-case-secret.html, Fred the Shred raping the taxpayers and having an affair at the same time, Trafigura, and Gordon Ramsay firing two people from his company, then it's obvious the law is an ass.
  Also good on Lib Dem MP John Hemming for naming Ryan Giggs. He named him not because of the kiss-and-tell story, but because he was trying to sue people on Twitter for mentioning him (which is in the public interest), who might not even know the injunction exists. Also Giles Coren is under legal action for saying Gareth Barry has cheated on his wife, but the courts would not be allowed to name Coren, because it would break Barry's injunction. Hence we have the farcical situation where we wouldn't know who was being prosecuted, and nor would we know what he was prosecuted for. This is not open justice, and hence this is the real reason why injunctions suck.

Money-grabbing Councils #1

There is an article in the Daily Mail about a street in Camden which has so many roadsigns it confuses motorists (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1392006/Revealed-The-5m-raised-camera-Britain-s-baffling-road.html). The really annoying thing about this story is that before all the roadsigns, there was a bollard and traffic lights, which seemed to work fine. Now they've removed them and put up so many restriction signs, that it catches out on average 800 motorists per month (over 25 per day). The council even have the cheek to say "The signs stating the restrictions are clear to motorists". Well obviously they're not, if 1 person an hour is caught out by them. If they actually cared about traffic management, they would think "Obviously this isn't working, well have to simplify the system". However, the fact that they haven't shows that they are motivated not by serving the people, but by greed.

Libraries suck

Hello trolls,

I was walking through Birmingham the other day and walked past the construction site for the new "Library of Birmingham". The design of the proposed building does look impressive, but I wonder will anybody actually use it? The only library I've used in the past 5 years is the one at University, and I don't really see the point in spending £193 million on a library. Especially now I think the classic version of a library will soon become obsolete, with the internet providing the information we need for research, which is more up to date and more readily available. If you're going to make the point that "how can poor kids afford to read books without a library?", then that's what school libraries are for. And anyway, with £193million, you  could buy almost 1.75million Kindles. It would be more cost effective, and more fun and practical, to give every school child in Birmingham a Kindle then to invest it in this stupid building. And anyway, why should government fund libraries anyway? If there was a public demand to rent books, then a private company would have done it, and probably much better (like a LOVEfilm for books). These companies might even exist if the government stops it monopoly on book lending.  And if we cared about the poor so much, why doesn't the government instead not take £190 from every man, woman and child who lives in Birmingham, and allows them to instead spend it on things they actually want. Like food.

Ken Clarke is not evil

Ken Clarke, the justice secretary, today has been brandished a "danger to women", and is under pressure to resign, after he suggested that some rapes were worse than others, and that he was considering halfing jail time for rapists who admitted guilt. (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3588801/Sex-attack-victim-demands-Ken-Clarke-sacking-for-endangering-women.html)

First of all, all rapes are bad, whether they're committed by your boyfriend when he's drunk, to being committed by a family member, to being ambushed by someone in a dark alley. All are crimes. However, in our legal system, rightly or wrongly, some rapes would be considered more serious than others, as different rapists would get different jail sentences, depending on the circumstances/likelihood to re-offend. It doesn't mean some of them aren't serious. However, if you think all rapes, whatever the circumstances, should get the same jail sentence, it's unfair to criticise Ken Clarke, your critisisms should be going to the judges instead.

It is very opportunistic for Jack Straw to criticize Clarke for his comments, saying that "The exact circumstances may have varied, but the profound emotional damage, the violation, was the same.", basically saying that all rapes should be treated equally. If he really felt that way when he was justice secretary, he would have put in minimum sentences for rapists. As it turns out he isn't, so he is nothing more than a hypocrite. 

Clarke was also criticized for suggesting that sentences should be cut by half for those who plead guilty at the first opportunity. Again, he was referring to all crimes not just rapes. I don't agree with it personally, but I understand his logic when it comes to rape crimes. There is something like 6% of reported rapes lead to a conviction. (However, 60% of those charged are convicted (http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/8319/). Rape crimes, due to their nature, are hard to convict for as it is hard to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty. That means there are a lot more rapists out there, and I understand the reasoning that it is better for those to be in prison (even for half the time) compared to not being in prison at all. Although, I would still suggest that it probably wouldn't make a difference, as only those with the most evidence against them would plead guilty, as again rapes are very hard to prove.

But anyway, again he is critised by Labour, even though pleading guilty will reduce your sentence by a third anyway under the current rules, which were inherited from Labour. Even before the Clarke situation,  Sadiq Khan the shadow justice secretary said that we should be "jailing fewer people", and Ed Milliband said that we should have shorter sentences (http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/dan-hodges/2011/05/ken-clarke-labour-policy). Again, I don't think Ken Clarke has done much wrong personally, he was only stating what the courts have done for years, when it came to different sentences for different rapes (although the way he said it wasn't voter-friendly), and whilst I don't agree with it, reducing the jail term by half instead of a third (16% less jail time), I don't think matters that much anyway. It just exposes, again, how much of a slimeball Ed Milliband and his hypocrites "R" us Labour crew are.

Lets make homeowners very poor, and destroy the greenbelt at the same time

The price of housing has gone up roughly 3 fold in the last 15 years (adjusted for inflation). The reason why this is not because bricks have become really expensive, it's because there us a shortage of supply. The low supply is not because our island is "full", but because planning permission is really expensive an hard to get, hence making it harder to build houses than what it should be. The consequences of this action is that it made homeowners really rich, especially at the higher end of the scale. It also meant only te middle-classes could pit down deposits before the age of 30, putting those homeowners on the lower end of the scale in a lifetime of debt, increasing rents (hence making it harder to save for a deposit), and therefore creating less of an incentive for those in council housing to move out, hence decreasing the supply of council houses for those who need it. Overall this has reduced social mobility, and it's all the fault of the "fights of the working class", New labour.

Because of this the government do token schemes, like "part rent/part buy", but the biggest help would be if they got rid of all the planning permission, taxes and energy assessment which stop houses being made. I could accept house prices going up due to increased prices of materials etc, but when it is being done Artificially, by the direct actions of a mainly pretend "progressive" government (although the coalition have not done anything different) just to win the votes of the "squeezed middle" (read: the voters which labour/conservatives need to win elections), then these people can fuck
Off. Let's build more houses on the green belt. It's better to have more people in affordable homes, than for a rich people to have a nice view from their estate (only 5% of the country live in rural areas anyway, and it's mainly the roh)

The truth about tuition fees

There is an article today in the Guardian with the headline "Richest students to pay for extra places at Universities"(http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/may/09/universities-extra-places-richest-students). Invariably when somebody reads this headline they'll probably think 'Robbing bastards, now only the rich can afford to go to University, Tory scum". However, once you read the article, you realize that it is actually the poorest students that will benefit the most, as I will explain.


Currently each Uni course has to fill a quota of about 50-60% I think on average for "UK" students. These students pay NOTHING up front, and they get a stipend/loan to pay for living costs as well, but may have to pay up to 9k per year plus their living costs back if they have enough money after graduation, which is still heavily subsidized and taken out of their wages just like any other tax. If you can't pay it eventually it is written off. The rest is formed of EU (which pay 9k upfront) and non-EU students, who can pay from 12k-28k per year depending on the course. The scheme which the government are announcing is that the UK students who can afford the full fees (that is 12-28k per year) upfront, can apply for places outside the UK quota system, that is apply like an international student. This will help the poorest UK students for 3 reasons:

1.   This will free up places in the quota system, therefore allowing some students to study a course they would not otherwise had the opportunity to study

2. The Uni will make more money from these rich UK students, hence more money will be invested in the course overall, and therefore more places will be available as a result (even for the normal UK students, as there is a quota system).

3. UK students funded by charities and businesses will now be able to register as "international", rather than UK like they did before, and pay the full fees. As these charities/businesses tend to fund the poorer students, the amount of poorer students at university will increase anyway. This will also free up places in the quota for more students.

Therefore don't believe what the headline says. This government proposal will undoubtedly increase social mobility, not decrease it.

Why the Lib Dems got their arse kicked

The results for the local elections are in, and basically the British public gave a big middle-finger to the Lib Dems, whilst Labour made gains, and the Conservatives roughly stayed the same. What is interesting is that the Tories did quite well, even though their coalition partners did very poorly. I am going to examine why.

1. Lib Dems are actually in power

Before, the Lib Dems had no chance of getting in to government, so basically they could come up with any policy they wanted, and have no reprocussions. Infact, it's actually hard to understand what the Lib Dems stand for in the first place. The Lib Dems themselves are split. Clegg and Cable represent the "market liberal" wing of the party, which advocate the role of the free market in healthcare and schools, and generally want lower taxation, especially for lower income earners. Whilst the "social liberal" side, which compose of Kennedy, Ashdown etc., call for "progressive taxation", and are generally for an increased role of the state in public services. There are views on civil liberties however, like no ID cards, gay marriage etc., which unite the two sides, as well as a generally pro-EU stance.

As it is mainly this "market liberal" wing in power with the government, it is of no surprise that the "social liberal" supporters of the party feel alienated, and thus it is of little surprise that these supporters are turning to Labour.

2. They just agree with the Tories all the time

This would seem like an obvious point to make. However, what people don't understand is that the Tories got the most votes, whilst the Lib Dems came third, so they should get more influence in terms of policy, as that's how a fair democracy works. Also, truth is we don't  know how much the Lib Dems influence policy, the cuts could have been a lot more harsh. And anyway, Clegg and Cameron generally align with each other anyway on free market policies, which many people probably didn't know about before the election.

3. Their policies are unpopular

To my mind there are two policies that are unpopular with Lib Dem supporters, Tuition fees and NHS reforms. Although on the face of it this policies might seem controversial, when you actually examine them they are actually fair. It just the harsh reality of politics. The policies might be sound, but if you can't sell them then you haven't got a chance.

Why Tuition fees are a good thing

Nobody likes paying more for stuff, especially education. However, more people are going to University these days, and thus the government can't afford to subsidise it as much as they have done in the past. I could write another blog about tuition fees, but in short, the new system is fairer than the old one because you only start paying back when you earn over £21K. Also, nobody pays upfront, and there is more student financial support whilst you're at Uni then before. Hence it is actually better for poorer students, as financial support whilst your at Uni would be a greater consideration about whether to go into higher education, rather than how much of your paycheck goes when you're working after graduation. The NUS and Labour actually proposed a "finite graduate tax", which means you pay nothing upfront, and an amount of your paycheck is taken out when you graduate. In essence, there is NO DIFFERENCE between the coalition policy and NUS/Labour policy. It's again just a public relations thing. The policy might be good once it is examined, but its as much about the selling as it is the policy itself. "Finite tax" sounds better than "debt", even though it is essentially the same thing in this case.

One argument against tuition fees is that is dimishes social mobility. However, when Labour raised tuition fees, they found that students from poor or rich households which got the same grades generally both went to university at the same rate. However, rich students are more likely to get better grades than poorer students. The point is  if you want to improve social mobility, its got less to do with tuition fees, and more to do with the 18 years prior. The Lib Dems actually implemented their "pupil premium" policy to improve schooling for poorer students. However, it's success will be determined long after the coalition government ends, in which case if it is a success  the Tory/Labour government at the time will take the credit, rather than the Lib Dems. Again good long-term policy, but it's not so good on winning votes.

NHS reforms

A lot of people are against NHS reforms which have been proposed. But to be honest, I don't think many people understand them. I don't really understand them that much. I think it involes taking power away from primary care trusts to GPs. There are arguments for/against this but I don't really why the public care so much about it, as these arguments are not obvious to the layman. The other part involves private sector companies providing NHS services. Again, scaremongering by Labour seems to suggest that somehow this would lead to a profit-driven NHS. However, again once you examine the policy, I don't really see why it is the case. Basically, if a GP decides that a private hospital could do the same operation better or cheaper than an NHS hospital, then you could go there. The argument against is that cheaper providers might not be better, but again I'm going to trust a GPs judgment on that. The NHS likes saving money everywhere they can anyway, and at least the private company has the risk of going out of business if they give a crap service, unlike the NHS, hence private companies have more to lose out from poor service. To deny patients the right to better healthcare if it is available is a damn disgrace, no matter who provides it.

Again it comes down to public relations. "Privatisation" together with "healthcare" are dirty words, and give an image of the failed US healthcare system, which the public have every right to be against. But the reforms proposed, once examined, doesn't anywhere suggest that healthcare will go down the US insurance route. Many doctors have come out against the reforms, but of course they would. If you knew somebody has the opportunity to give a better service than you, then you would do everything in your power to stop them. It more to do with doctors protecting their jobs, and less to do with patient care.

So to conclude, I don't think Lib Dem policy is that bad, and have infact made many improvements over Labour. Also, I think the public would generally agree if they actually examined them. Their public relations department is very poor though, and good policies do not necessarily equal votes.

The problem with politicians

I have just finished reading an e-book on my phone, called The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford. It is a good read and I throughly recommend it. In it he basically explains how economics works in everyday life. After reading this I've decided that economist's would run the country much better than any politician would.

To give an example, he talks about import taxes. Let's say that the UK textile industry is losing ground big-time to the sweatshops in Indonesia and Vietnam. A politician would say this is a bad thing, as people in the UK are losing jobs in the textile industry, and the conditions in sweatshops are very poor compared to western standards. Therefore to solve this problem we'll impose a tax on imported goods. You might say that this makes sense, it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do, and might be popular with the public. However, to an economist it makes as much sense as taxing exports out of the UK.

First lets talk about comparative advantage. For example, David Beckham could be better at plumbing than my local plumber. However, David Beckham doesn't make money from plumbing, as its much better at football, therefore my local plumber will get more money from plumbing than David Beckham, even though David Beckham is better. In this situation Vietnam's strongest industry is textiles. We could be better at producing clothes than Vietnam, but the UK is better in other industries (e.g. pharmaceuticals) than textiles, so it's better to import our textiles from Vietnam. Obviously I have over-simplified the situation, but I hope you understand the general point.

Next it has to do with sweatshops. Obviously these are horrible places, but people work there voluntarily, with a low staff turnover. This is because the alternative is more horrible, like sorting out rubbish in a rubbish tip for recycling, or drug dealing/prostitution. If we imposed import taxes, the sweatshops would disappear, leaving the workers no choice to go into more horrible jobs. Also we deprive the Vietnam workers the chance to make money, which in turn could be used to buy British exports.

You could say that import taxes protect British jobs, but the Undercover Economist will tell you that on balance it will cost more jobs than it saves. It stops other countries making money, hence stopping them buying British exports in industries which we are good at (e.g pharmaceuticals), which in turn costs jobs in the UK pharmaceutical industry, even though our pharmaceutical industry is better than our textile industry.Hence we might as well have an export tax on medicines.

The worrying thing is that most economists agree protectionism is bad for the UK economy. But it still goes on. The EU is very protectonist of agriculture, with its common agriculture policy. This policy means that effectively pay twice for our food, via the prices in the supermarkets and our taxes. It also increases the price of food, by preventing competition from agriculture from outside countries, like Africa. It also directly hurts developing countries, as these countries cannot make money by selling their produce competitively to Europe, so it affects the poorest in the world the most. This shows why we need more economists in our governments, and less self-serving retard politicians whose sole purpose in life is to keep the lobby groups happy.

Cameron is Gordon Browns long lost twin

I saw a poster today for Unison. It said "Stop having children" as the public sector cuts are so dramatic that there will be a shortage of midwives. It also said to "vote for the party for public services". Well I dont know what that party is, but it certainly isn't Labour.

Despite labour and the Tories claims. Tories are not actually cutting any more than labour. Osbourne is cutting £8 for every £7 that Alistair "eyebrows" Darling proposed before the election. The coalition is only cutting public services by 0.6% this year, and 3.6% in four years. And also, it is predicted by the OBR that there will be more than enough increase in private sector jobs to make up for these lost jobs (source: http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/6899298/camerons-new-cuts-narrative.thtml)

So to conclude, the coalition is not cutting public services by anything like what has been publicised by labour/the unions. And the conclusion that the cuts are more for "ideological" reasons rather than for financial ones is just plain bullshit. The cuts are only very slighty more than what labour proposed a year ago. If anybody is doing anything for purely "ideological" reasons it's the greedy public service unions, indirectly using taxpayer money to spread their bullshit propaganda, which has no factual basis whatsoever.

What happened to freedom of speech? #2

Superinjunctions.

There's been a lot of debate in the past few weeks about gagging orders which prevent the press saying that Ryan Giggs cheated on his wife with Imogen Thomas, Ewan McGreggor Hugh Bonneville (EDIT 28/4/11, heres a funny link from the telegraph: http://tinyurl.com/6hf7rq8) slept with the same prostitute who had a threesome with Wayne Rooney, and that Alan Shearer and Gaby Logan have been seeing each other. This is because of the Human Rights Act, which allows the right to privacy.

To be honest, there are many human rights to be fought for. Democracy, free speech, fair and open trials, freedom of religion, freedom of association etc. When I think of the right to privacy, It means that the government has no right to go through your personal records or your property without first obtaining a warrant. I don't think that constitutes the same right as stopping the Sun from telling the public what sort of sleasebag you are to protect your sponsorship deals.

This law is certainly for the rich. Most people can't afford to take superinjunctions. Also, you can't stop people gossiping. Imagine if everybody took an superinjunction every time there was an embarrassing photo on Facebook? Mark Zuckerberg would be in the dole queue by now. Privacy laws are useful in instances such as rape cases, or military secrets. Where the line between privacy and free speech should not be determined by unelected judges, but by the scrutiny of the public. The MPs expenses scandal is a case in point. That was technically an invasion of privacy, but was totally justified because it exposed the MPs to be lying bastards. To be honest, these celebrities have probably shot themselves in the foot, as you can just find out about them on twitter anyway, and the story has got infinitely  more press attention as it would otherwise get.,

Bullshit about AV/FPTP

There as been a lot of bullshit being scattered about by both sides about the AV referendum. And I am now going to debunk all of them.

From the NO side:

AV is costly

First of all, its not going to cost £250 million pounds to switch to AV. And all elections cost money. If we want to save money, lets just not have any more elections and make David Cameron PM for life.

AV is complex and unfair

Ranking people from 1-5 is not complex. And if it is unfair is entirely a matter of opinion as I will explain:

Imagine there are three parties, A (right wing), B and C (both left wing). (You could argue that right/left wing is very simplistic, but for the sake of the argument I'll use these terms.)

Say 40% vote A, 31% vote B and 29% vote C.

Under FPTP, party A would win, but under AV, if we assume all the 2nd choice votes for C went to B, then party B would win. You could say that FPTP is fairer, as the party with the most 1st pref votes wins, however, most people voted for a left-wing, not right-wing party. Hence you could argue that AV is fairer. 

AV is a politician's fix

Australia had more hung parliaments under FPTP than AV. Also, I don't think hung parliaments are a bad thing. Negotiations between parties for a middle ground seems fair to me, if in the result that no party gets an absolute majority. And anyway, we got a hung parliament now under FPTP.

AV means some people get two votes

Wrong. Everybody fills in one form. Just that if your first preference gets knocked out, your second preference counts. I think this example explains it best.

 "If you go to the chip shop, and order cod and chips but they are out of cod, and you choose pie and chips instead, you have still only had one meal."

AV forces you to give a second preference

Wrong. You can vote for one or all of the candidates. You can always just put a "1" like you did before.

And now from the YES camp.

MPs working harder to earn - and keep - our support

Tackling the ‘jobs for life' culture

I suppose in "swing seats" the difference in voting system will make a difference. But in about 200 of the 650 odd seats the winner got over 50% of the vote anyway. At the end of the day inner cities will probably still vote Labour, and rural affluent areas will still vote Tory

AV is proportional

From the Electroral reform society (who fund the YEStoAV campaign)

AV is thus not a proportional system, and can in fact be more disproportional than FPTP... It does very little to improve the voice of traditionally under-represented groups in parliament, strengthening the dominance of the 'central' viewpoint.

AV will give roughly the same amount of seats to Labour/Tories as FPTP does. The smaller parties will still be screwed as it keeps the "Constituency link", so parties like BNP, UKIP and the Green party will still have fuck-all seats in parliament. I don't even see the Lib Dems getting significantly more seats, as their support is more uniform geographically and in socio-economic status, whilst Tories are for the rich in the country, and Labour are for the poor in the cities. It is the constituency model (Which AV keeps) which means even when Lib Dems gets 23% of the vote they get <10% of the seats, whilst Tories get 36% of the vote and 47% of the seats.

The party that will probably benefit most under AV is Labour, as they generally get more votes than the Lib Dems anyway, and Lib Dems are more likely to vote Labour than Tory. I don't really see how the Lib Dems benefit more under AV. 

At the end of the day I'll probably vote "yes", because I think it AV is fairer than the current system, (see my second point). To be honest, I understand why some people would vote FPTP, but its usually for all of the bullshit reasons which are explained above. The only real difference between them are explained in my second point, and it is for that reason people should vote Yes/No, rather than because they don't like Nick Clegg.

Alternative voting

I read in the news the other day that Tory peer baroness warsi is campaigning against AV, as she says it will "give oxygen to extremist parties", and her comments were soon picked up by the anti-AV Sun newspaper.This is because she says AV is one step towards PR, which was a system which the BNP won seats in the euro elections. First of all what does baroness warsi know about elections? If she actually won one in her life she might have an opinion worth listening to. Second of all, who the hell does she thunk she is? She is basically implying that the public are too stupid to not vote for the BNP etc, and thus cannot be trusted with a fairer voting system. First of all, the BNP are campaigning for a no vote, as AV doesn't promote extremist parties. And secondly, even if it did, if enough people vote for a party, they should have their voices heard, even if they are extremist. FPTP is flawed as it is biased toward Tory and labour, and thus these parties are less accountable to the people. I would much rather have a system which allows the extremist parties (however bonkers they are) to allow the "mainstream" parties to have a kick in the balls once in a while, than the Labour-Tory duopoly we have now.

21,000 addicts on incapacity benefit for 10 years

Theres an interesting article on the BBC today (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13152349) about how 80,000 addicts are claiming incapacity benefit, whilst 22,000 of those have been on it for 10 years. With each person earning up to £4,700 per year, it adds up to quite a lot. However, what figure was more shocking to me was that out of the 2 million people on incapacity benefit (thats roughly 3% of the total population), over 900,000 haven't worked in ten years. For those 900,000 people the welfare bill adds up to over 4 BILLION pounds per year. (To put that into context, thats roughly £100 for every person over 16 in work in the UK) Now I'm not suggesting that all of these people are hypochondriacs or anything like that, but lets not forget that who is ultimately paying for all of these benefits, the taxpayer. Obviously many of these people will have serious illnesses, but I find it hard to believe that 1/60 people in the total UK population can't do any work at all. IB should be a "safety net", not a lifestyle. The incentive should be on what jobs you can do, not those which you can't. And if anybody dares to say thats the government crackdown is for "ideological" purposes, they should start giving a considerable proportion of their wages to charity, before they make everybody else pay for these benefits.

What happened to free speech?

There is a story in the Sun today about a former squaddie-turned-EDL member Andrew Ryan, who has been jailed for 70 days for burning a Koran which he stole from the local library. Comparisons have been made between this incident and the infamous "Poppy-burner", who got fined £60 for burning poppies on Armistice day, (although in the interest of fairness it does mention that Ryan does have previous convictions of "indecent and racially aggravated language".

My take on the situation is firstly, its a disgrace that the poppy-burner got fined £60. He shouldn't have been fined at all. Yes his opinions were offensive to many, but the whole point of freedom of speech/expression is that it protects UNPOPULAR opinions. You cannot fine somebody for simply having an opinion.  And before anybody says 'I believe in freedom of speech...... but you shouldn't offend anybody", there is not right not to be offended. If you're so thin skinned that one nutcase burns a symbolic poppy somewhere causes you to be offended, then you're the one who has a problem. There are many things to get worked up in the world, a poppy burner should be far down the list. Infact, those soldiers who dies in the war were supposedly doing so for our freedoms, like freedom of speech.

And so I go on to Mr. Ryan. First of all, I think this sentence has less to do with public morality, and probably more to do with the fact that if the extremists in Afghanistan get to hear about it, they could use it as propaganda for Taliban recruitment against our Forces in Afghanistan. And anyway, if were not allowed to criticize the Koran, which if taken literally encourages homophobia and sexism, then what can we criticize? Religion is (or at least should be) a personal choice, nobody is "born" into a religion, and thus that choice should be open to debate.

And lastly, censoring anybody (however much of a nutcase) is more likely to turn them into a martyr, instead of exposing them for the nutcases that they really are. A case in point is the BNP. The BNP were regularly censored for their views on immigration. However, many people, rightly or wrongly, were upset with the Labour governments policies on immigration, and were wrongly branded "racists" by self-important Islington liberals, and thus leading a semi-censorship of their opinions. Hence, BNP support increases, and they won seats in the EU parliament. This lead to them appearing on Question Time, which lead to Nick Griffin making a fool out of himself, and thus the BNP did really badly in the 2010 elections.

Therefore, censoring unpopular opinions is firstly immoral, and secondly is self-defeating. The best way to combat extremist views is by open debates, not by "No Platform" policies. And lastly, freedom of speech is a right that is all-or-nothing. Either you let everybody have the right, or there is no freedom of speech. If you truly care for freedom of speech, you should defend the rights of holocaust deniers, Islamic extremists, and for all those with opinions you find repulsive, otherwise you're basically saying "Only I have the right to an opinion because I'm right, and you're wrong", which is possibly the most bigoted opinion of all

Why the NHS sucks

It has been said that the NHS is one of the greatest British institutions, and was one of the greatest successes of the post-war labour government. However, there has been much opposition to the reforms which have been proposed by the coalition government, saying it would lead to privatization of the NHS (like it's a bad thing). Basically, I think social healthcare in general is a bad thing, and actually brings about WORSE healthcare for the working classes, rather than better healthcare.

Myth 1: It would make healthcare unaffordable for the poor.

There are many basic things that humans need to survive, which are arguably more important than healthcare. Food, clothing, electricity and housing for example. However, there are no calls for the government to nationalise Tesco's, or to take money out of everybody's salary to pay for Primark clothes. If you can't afford it, the government pays for it via welfare and benefits, not by nationalising the whole company. And as for housing, the amount of council houses there are are very limited (but thats for another day), and the government are more likely to pay the rent for you now than to put you in social housing.

Myth 2: Private healthcare put profits before people

This is a complete myth. According to WHO, France have the best healthcare system in the world, which is a combination of Private and public healthcare. Basically, if you cant afford it, the government will pay for it, but it doesn't mean that the government actually run the hospitals. Yes there should be some government intervention for the very poor, but privatisation means competition, and nobody is going to spend their hard earned cash on a healthcare system which doesn't care for people.

Fact: NHS deprives patients of choice, and is nothing more than a glorified cartel.

Only the very rich can afford private healthcare like BUPA, and if you're lucky then you're employer might offer "top-up" healthcare. For the rest of us, we have to take what we're given and, and the quality of care that we get largely depends on our postcodes. The fact that there is only one system allows drug companies to charge extortionate prices for drugs, allows for poor quality care without any reprocussions (think stafford hospital) and allows to the NHS to be stupidly expensive and overstaffed (it is the biggest employer in the UK). Many of the fears about a private healthcare system have been scaremongered by greedy GP's who are afraid that people might wake up to this gravy train. Just think what would happen if Tesco's was the only supermarket available? Would there be any motivation to have the cheapest prices and the best customer service if they knew their customers didn't have a choice?

To conclude, I'm not against the government paying for healthcare, especially to those who can't afford it. But the NHS is one big monopolistic dinosaur. For good quality healthcare, we need competition, and that includes some sort of privatisation. If it works for Gas, Electricity, food and clothing, then why not healthcare?