Government

Swine flu 1
A very fair article here from Ross Clark. As is best with these things, the way of the MSM, Clark concentrates on a few things, to maximise the effect of his comments under his title,

One of the recurring themes of this blog is the yawning gulf between our government and ourselves. So an immediate and relevant question is:" are MPs "our elected representatives"? Most voters would say no. There is a strong feeling that MPs represent 'Westminster' and not the constituency in which the ballot took place. And what about political parties? Following the MPs expenses fiasco we can see that party played a small part here.

Miss Piggy holds up ID card

1 Peers who get cash for influence are not even charged and MPs who are imaginative with their expenses show no shame.

2 It takes on average 2 years and 8 months to arrange adoption for a child and costs £26,000.

3 Members of the armed forces receive paltry compensation for injuries and little respect from the government.

4 We fight an illegal war in Iraq and leave behind a theocratic state with sharia enshrined in the constitution.

5 We discriminate against married couples or partners by giving more money to single parents.

sensible option

Journalists and politicians are talking about our broken society but are blaming the wrong people. Even a year ago, saying that a baby was a method of ensuring a home and income was considered a far right sentiment, yet the population at large knew this long ago. Who can blame a girl with no qualifications choosing this 'career' path? Even if she has a steady partner it is financially better to live apart and claim the giro drop. This would seem the sensible if not the morally righteous path. When things go wrong, as they tend to do, then social workers are at hand to chat and be morally neutral.

biofuels

It's hard to please everyone. The world could be heading for another Great Depression and people and countries are getting into more and more debt. Whilst all this is happening there seems to be some confusion in our government's mind, or what is left of it.

On the one hand EU pollution curbs are being weakened in order to allow Heathrow airport to expand. Official papers show that civil servants are working to delay for five years a Brussels air quality directive due to come into force in 2010 specifically to avoid harming the airport's growth.

.
Belatedly the mainstream media seem to have realised that there is something wrong in the state of GB. We have a discussion on immigration in the Spectator here which tells us, something we had all known- namely that we have a huge hidden unemployment figures,( using a technique copied and refined from Mrs Thatcher), that most of the 3 million new jobs created under Nulabour have gone to immigrants and foreign workers and that the cost benefit ratio is minimal if not negative. The article says that the taboo on discussing immigration is only just being lifted.