Britain's worst built school to be demolished!

 

Russell Scott School Denton

Government in the UK is said to be government by amateurs. This also applies to local authorities like Tameside Council, a local authority in Greater Manchester. During 2013-15, the council spent £2.7 million on the botched refurbishment by Carillion of the Russell Scott school in Denton. Now the school will have to be demolished and rebuilt.

Who, I wonder, was the buffoon at Tameside Council who signed this job off? Carillion had preferred bidder status within Tameside Council and was a "joint venture partner"' under the Building Schools for the Future project. In 2011, The council transferred all its facilities management to Carillion and the construction giant was contracted to build Tameside One, before it went bust in January 2018, almost taking the council with it. It was also contracted to provide school meals in the borough that turned out to be more costly than the money allocated by the government for each school meal. Tameside schools were made to pay the difference from their own budgets.

One of the people who didn't live long enough to see the demise of Carillion, was the Tameside Council Labour leader, and former postman, Kieran Quinn, who died suddenly on 23 December 2017, of a heart attack, aged 57, five months after Carillion issued a first profit warning in July 2017. Although Quinn didn't work for Carillion, he was one of the firms biggest promoters in spite of the companies dodgy history and its reputation for blacklisting union construction workers. It's known that many of the deals that were done by Carillion and Tameside Council, were done behind closed doors and only involved a small number of people.

John Bell, the Tory leader of the council at the time of Carillion's collapse, complained of a lack of scrutiny that made it difficult to know if Carillion was delivering efficiently or providing value for money. The same questions had been asked by the journalist, Nigel Pivaro, in the Tameside Reporter in August 2017. Pivaro asked if Tameside Council had put too many of its eggs in one basket in its relationship with Carillion, a company that it depended on, far too much. He referred to the problems at Russel Scott, Carillion's plummeting share price and its huge pension deficit. He posed the question that if Carillion went bust, could it take the council with it?

Although what has happened at Russell Scott is an absolute scandal, no one within Tameside Council, to my knowledge, seems to have been held accountable for this complete balls up. Indeed, many local contractors lost money by doing business with Carillion and Tameside Council incurred massive debts, yet no heads have ever rolled within the council nor did anyone finish up being prosecuted.

As far as Keiran Quinn is concerned, at the time of his death, he was hailed as a visionary, who had, according to the council's CEO, Steven Pleasant, a "brilliant, strategic and perceptive mind..." The day after it was announced that Carillion had gone bump, and that work had stopped on the Tameside One project, the council announced that it was "Business As Usual."

Ngozi Fulani's charity now under investigation.

 

Ngozi Fulani - Director of Sistah Space

According to reports, it seems that Ngozi Fulani's charity 'Sistah Space' is now under investigation. Fulani, who was originally called Marlene Headley, has also become the focus of much media scrutiny.

The charity organizer came to public attention when she divulged that one of the Queen's Ladies in Waiting, Lady Susan Hussey, quizzed her at a Bucking Palace reception about where she came from. This caused Fulani some embarrassment and it was suggested that racism played a part in the incident. Fulani claimed that she was "traumatised" by Lady Hussey, who later resigned and apologised for her actions. Its now transpired that Ngozi Fulani's heritage is not African but British/Barbadian, and she's now being accused of "cultural appropriation."

Its not clear to me if Ms Fulani has ever tried to pass herself off as being of African descent. When she was asked at the Bucking Palace reception where she was from, I understand that she said 'Hackney', which is borough of London. Moreover, Barbados is associated with slavery which was both white and Black. Black slaves were used to work on the sugar plantations and in the 17th century, Cromwell, had the Irish sent to Barbados as "indentured slaves." Many of the descendants of black slaves living in Barbados will not know with any degree of certainty where they actually originate from. But it's a fair guess that many of their ancestors originated from the African continent.

Sinn Fein leader denies IRA man was a Nazi collaborator.

 

Sinn Fein leader - Mary Lou McDonald

Did the IRA seriously believe that if Hitler and the Nazis had won WWII, he would have given them an independent Ireland?

The policy was one of Britain's difficulties are Ireland's opportunities. This led to some people like the IRA Chief of Staff, Sean Russell, collaborating with the Nazis. Although Russell trained with the Abwehr in Germany and died on a German submarine off the coast of Ireland in August 1940, (Operation Dove), Mary Lou McDonald, the President of Sinn Fein, denied that he was a Nazi collaborator. In May 2020, she said that Russell was a "militarist" and not a Nazi collaborator, despite his links with the Nazis. In 2003, she spoke at a commemoration event for Sean Russell.

The IRA man, Frank Ryan, was also involved with the Nazis, but I suspect that he was less enthusiastic about his involvement with the Nazis. He died in Dresden in 1944, of pleurisy and pneumonia. He'd been handed to the Germans as a prisoner, after fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39.

When Hitler died, the Irish Prime Minister, Eamon da Valera, sent condolences to the German government. Had Hitler won the war, I suspect that IRA men like Russell, would have been sent to the concentration camps and Ireland would have been put under the control of some Nazi sympathiser, like Oswald Moseley, or Lord Haw-Haw, the Irish American, William Joyce.

Following criticism, I believe that Mary Lou McDonald, admitted that Russell's involvement with the Nazis was "misguided."

Bailey and his 10,000 Dresses.

Should children aged between two and four years old, be used as guinea pigs in a social engineering experiment by the "gay rights" organisation Stonewall?

A transgender toddler, Bailey, is now the hero of a children's book published by Stonewall. In one chapter, entitled "10,000 Dresses", Bailey, dreams of dresses every night but his mother tells him that boys don't wear dresses. When Bailey says, "I don't feel like a boy" his mother replies, "well you are one, Bailey, and that's that." However, Bailey's dream does come true when he's shown living as a girl instead of a boy.

Academics like the Hungarian, Marxist sociologist, Frank Furedi, have warned that there's a danger in subjecting children to queer politics and dogma of this kind about transgenderism. Furedi, thinks it may well lead to children becoming very confused about themselves and having an "identity crisis' in later life. I think he makes a good point.

A grandmother told me recently that she was astonished by the encyclopedic knowledge her young granddaughter had about gender identities, which she'd mainly acquired from her school. I asked her what her maths and English were like, because I thought that was more useful to her than a headful of nonsense about multiple gender identities.

I no more believe in "transgenderism" than I do believe in the religious doctrine of "transubstantiation." Although I accept that some people do suffer from gender dysphoria or may be of indeterminate sex, and that gender is a social construct, I still think reality is worth defending and I have no intention of abandoning it, even if other choose to do so.

Trans women are not women i e. a biological female, an adult female human being. I also believe that we should be wary and sceptical when it comes to the ruinous nostrums peddled by either political, economic, or theological quacks.

Ayn Rand and McCarthyism!

 

AYN RAND 

The Russian emigre and author Ayn Rand, (Alisa Rozenbaum 1905- 1982), who wrote the pro-capitalist novels Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, also wrote the Hollywood screen guide for making good capitalist movies in 1947. She also helped the FBI "identity" the film 'It's a Wonderful Life', as a piece of communist propaganda.

Her screen guide was broken down into 13 Commandments: (1) Don't take politics lightly; (2) Don't smear the free enterprise system; (3) Don't smear industrialists; (4) Don't smear wealth; (5) Don't smear the profit motive; (6) Don't smear success; (7) Don't glorify failure; ( Don't glorify depravity; (9) Don't deify the 'common man'; (10) Don't glorify the collective; (11) Don't smear an independent man; (12) Don't use current events carelessly; (13) Don't smear American political institutions.

Although her novel The Fountainhead was adapted for film in 1949, and starred Gary Cooper, I doubt whether many films produced for the cinema have ever passed Rand's pro-capitalist test. But it did spell the end for an Hollywood actor like Charles Chaplin, who after returning to the UK after 21 years, was banned from re-entering the U.S. in 1952, because he was seen to have Communist sympathies which some felt, were reflected in his films, like Modern Times.

Rand did give evidence to the House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities in 1947, during the McCarthy era. Chaplin was called before the Committee but refused to co-operate. Chaplin was signaled out for refusing to cross a picket line during a strike in Hollywood during 1945-46. He was criticized for praising the efforts of the Soviet Union during WWII, and he was smeared by the FBI over a sex scandal involving young girls. The Hollywood gossip columnist, Hedda Hopper, was also know to be feeding dirt and scandal on Chaplin to the FBI.

Personally, I regard Charlie Chaplin as one of the greatest comic actors of all time. If there's such a thing as a comic genius it was him. Similarly, Frank Capra's film "It's a wonderful life", starring James Stewart, is one of my favourite films of all time. I've watched the film numerous times and love it.

Although Rand has been politically influential in America, where her book Atlas Shrugged is regarded as the Bible of the American Congress and the emblem of the Tea Party, she never quite lived up to her own ideals. Despite her loathing for government welfare systems, altruism, and the "common man", in later life, as her health failed her, she finished up claiming social security and state health care.

I doubt whether Rand's vision of a dog-eat-dog society based on unfettered capitalism, will ever have any popular appeal but it will appeal to the rich and successful, who she portrays as victims. In the 1959, interview with the American news presenter, and journalist, Mike Wallace, Rand's self made personal philosophy, was criticzsed for its lack of morality and compassion.

Rowling sets up woman only support services.

 

J.K. Rowling

Children's author, J.K. Rowling is to set up a women only support service in Edinburgh for female victims of sexual violence. Rowling says that some women are afraid to report sexual violence because they may be dealt with by a "trans woman." She says the Rape Crisis Centre in Edinburgh is run by a transgender woman who has said that victims will be confronted if they express "unacceptable beliefs" about gender.

Ms Rowling has accused Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, of being a "destroyer of women's rights." Next week, Sturgeon will ask MSP's to approve her plans to introduce a gender self-identification system for Scotland. Critics say the system could be exploited by male-bodied sexual predators to gain access to women's spaces.

Daughter of Jan Morris says he was a "lousy parent."

 Jan Morris (left) - James Morris (right)

I've managed to obtain a copy of this Sunday Times article, by Suki Morys, the daughter of the writer and journalist, James Morris, who underwent gender reassignment in the 1960s, and surgery, and become known as Jan Morris.

Suki Morys says that very little was ever written or said about the effect that Morris's transitioning from male to female had had on her family and her mother, Elizabeth. She describes her father as a "lousy parent who was 'neglectful, bullying, and sexist" and who damaged all four of his living children in one way or another."

Suki says that although Jan Morris believed in "gender fluidity" he/she held extremely sexist views about women. Apparently, he/she believed that women should train as a secretary, get married, have babies, and then look after the family. Morris, she says, wasn't in the least maternal, couldn't cook, clean, or hug his/her children, and disliked the very idea of "family."

Suki doesn't say who did his/her cooking and cleaning, bit I think we can have guess at that.

Baroness Bra takes indefinite leave from House of Lords.

 

"Baroness Bra" - Michelle Mone

What a racket! The government awarded two public contacts worth £203m to a firm called PPE Medpro, to purchase PPE, after a Tory Peer, Baroness Mone, aka Baroness Bra, lobbied government ministers. They paid the firm, which had no previous expertise of procuring PPE, £122m to provide 25 million surgical gowns and £80.8m for £210 million facemasks. The surgical gowns were bought in China for £46m and the facemasks, which were also sourced in China, were bought for £54.6m, leading to a 50% profit margin.

None of the surgical gowns were ever used by the NHS, because they weren't fit for purpose. It also transpired that Baroness Mone and her partner, Douglas Barrowman, had links to the firm and profited from the government contracts.

The National Crime Agency, are now investigating PPE Medpro, and Baroness Mone is under investigation by the Lords Commissioner for standards. According to the Guardian newspaper, Douglas Barrowman and his wife, Michelle Mone, received at least £65m of profit from PPE Medpro, and went on a spending spree.

Opposition parties at Westminster are now demanding full disclosure about Mone's dealings with four key ministers - Gove, Agnew, Bethell, and Hancock. The government say that minister's had no role in awarding contracts which was the job of civil servants. Yet, an official has told the Guardian, that Minister's had made it clear that "politically connected people", should be given special treatment.

The Guardian reported that the couple have declined to say if the purchase of a jet, yacht, properties, wedding and honeymoon, in a five-star resort in the Maldives, were paid for directly or indirectly out of PPE Medpro profits. The newspaper also reported that the couple now appear to be selling assets almost as quickly as they acquired them.

The Ballakew Estate on the Isle of Man and their Eaton Terrace London home are now up for sale, along with their yacht, the Lady M. There's also speculation that the couple are planning to leave the country and to relocate to southern Europe.

Methinks the lady protests too much.

 

Like many showbiz marriages, the marriage between Harry and Meghan is not likely to last. Personally, I get sick to death of hearing all the trivia about them and the British Royal Family. What both of them seem to have in common, is that they see themselves as both entitled and as victims.

Although the couple live a cloistered and wealthy existence that sets them apart from the hoi polloi, they share a passion for wanting to transform the world and to make it a better place in which to live. Both of them also admit to having had suicidal thoughts. Although she's extremely wealthy and lives in an $11 million dollar house in the rich ghetto, of Montecito, California, where there are no sidewalks (pavements), Meghan Markle, perceives herself as a victim of racism and discrimination. She also thinks her mixed race children are also victims of racial discrimination because they've been relegated in the Royal Pecking order. Pictures of her children are extremely rare.

I don't doubt that racism and discrimination are very real, but in the case of Meghan, if she's a victim of it, then she doesn't to seem have done too badly for herself, in spite of it. She was a successful wealthy American actress and she managed to ingratiate herself with an English Prince, become a Duchess, and marry into British Royal Family.

Prince Harry, who has no profession or trade like most of his otiose family, is no longer a working Royal, and he sees himself as a victim, because he's the 'Spare' - spare heir to the British Throne. He also thinks his wife and kids have been overlooked and not given the respect they deserve.

Both of them now seem to spend their time suing newspapers or dishing the dirt on that dysfunctional family called the Windsor's and making money out of it. Its been reported that they will be paid around $100 million (£88m), for their Netflix, "docusery. Methinks the lady protests too much.

Will Starmer do a U-turn on removing charitable status from public schools?

 

Pupils at Eton College

By no stretch of the imagination are public or private schools, 'charities'. Their sole purpose is to provide an education for an elite group of children whose parents are rich enough to send them there.

Sir Keir Starmer has stirred up an hornets nest by talking about removing the charitable status from private schools. I think that Starmer is right to raise this issue of charitable status for public schools, but I don't I think that Starmer, is ever likely to end this racket for the middle-classes, because he's Tory-lite and too much of an establishment man.

Nor do I think the issue resonates that much with working-class Labour voters. They don't really suffer from the politics of envy or begrudge people becoming filthy rich. You will offer hear them say, good luck to them, or wouldn't you do the same thing if you were in their boat.

What they're more concerned about, is their own reference group, people like themselves, who they can identify with. They're likely to be more envious of the neighbour over the road who has bought a new car or who has put new curtains up. You will also find an inclination to resent anyone from their own social class who gets on or makes a success of their lives. They will often say that person has got above themselves.

The author and Old Etonian, George Orwell, wrote in an essay called 'Boys Weeklies', about the fascination that working class kids had with the lives of public school boy. Perhaps, this explains why so many working-class Labour voters, were so enthralled with that public school buffoon, Boris Johnson, who resembled Billy Bunter in many ways. I think he also said that 'Tommy', Tommy Atkins, the archetypal English soldier, wouldn't follow any officer, who didn't speak with plumbs in his mouth. He also said there was a "pew renter" asleep in every English working man.

All these examples highlight the conservative instincts and deferential attitude of the English working- class, who seem to need someone to look up to.

Who is looking after the patients interests?

 

How are GPs getting away with this nonsense of remote GP appointments?

Despite reported cases of people dying because they couldn't get a face-to-face appointment with their GP, remote GP appointments are on the increase. Many GP practices no longer offer walk-in surgery appointments, and sometimes cannot offer an appointment.

There have been reports of GPs asking patients to cough into the phone. How do you take someone's blood pressure or examine their chest by a video link or telephone consultation? When they ask a patient to stick their tongue out, do they tell them it looks heavily pixelated?

It's unbelievable that the doctors union, the British Medical Association (BMA), are also the regulatory body for the medical profession. In effect, they mark their own homework and are the judge and jury of themselves. Surely, there's a conflict of interest here. Who is looking after the patients best interests? It certainly isn't the self-employed GP's who've basically thrown many of their patients under a bus. Many GPs are not offering patients adequate medical treatment.

Last week, I was told by somebody that I know, that his GP practice referred him to A&E with a suspected water infection because they couldn't offer him an appointment and he was told he would be seen quicker at the local hospital. After a 4 hour wait, he was seen by a doctor. This is putting the NHS under strain.

Why does Bocelli receive bad reviews but is so successful?

 

Andrea Bocelli

Andrea Bocelli is one of the most successful recording artists of today. His CD recordings sell by the million and he plays to packed audiences. But can this blind Italian man really sing?

I'm not a music critic, but when I first heard Andrea Bocelli sing, I thought he sounded bloody awful and I've never changed my view on that. He's certainly not up to operatic standards in my view. I didn't care much for the Salford tenor, Russell Watson, but of the two, he's potentially a far better singer than Bocelli, but commercially less successful. Compare Bocelli to singers like Placido Domingo, Joseph Calleja, Franco Corelli, Guiseppi Di Stefano, Beniamino Gigli, or even Mario Lanza, and you can tell how inferior his voice is.

In this 2006 review, by the music critic Bernard Holland, he says that Bocelli "sings mostly in tune..." and he writes: "The critics duty is to report that Mr Bocelli is not a very good singer. The tone is rasping, thin and, in general, poorly supported. Even the most modest upward movement thins it even more, signalling what appears to be the onset of strangulation."

So what does this tell us about the musical tastes or lack of it, of the millions of people who buy Bocelli's CD's, and who attend his concerts, and rate him as a good singer? Are they just a bunch of Classic FM cultural Philistines with bad taste?

By all accounts, the great Italian tenor, Franco Corelli, praised Bocelli's voice when he first heard it in a master class in Turin in 1986, and he gave Bocelli private singing lessons. Yet, Holland says, that studio recordings can be enhanced and blemishes minimized and that even though it's a risky business putting Bocelli in front of a full orchestra unamplified, there is something beyond music that draws people to Andrea Bocelli, and that is talent in itself.

Perhaps, it's Mr Bocelli's personality rather than his singing that's the key to his success. In 1998, Bocelli was named one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People. Yet, some do question, if he would have been as successful, if he hadn't have been a blind singer. Born with visual impairment and totally blind since the age of 12, Mr Bocelli is to be greatly admired for how he's overcome adversity and his disability to establish a successful recording career in music. Good luck to him.

Feminist protestor tells Sturgeon that women have been raped by 'Trans Women'!

 

At a recent Zero Tolerance conference in Edinburgh, on Tuesday, attendees were told not to discuss the "definition of a woman.'

Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, was attending the conference to speak about tackling male violence against women and girls. Despite the best efforts of the conference organizers to stage manage the event, Alexandra Darroch (pictured above), a feminist protestor, managed to land a punch on Sturgeon when she shouted at her, "shame on you" and then proceeded to accuse the First Minister of "allowing paedophiles, sex offenders and rapist to self ID" as women. Darroch told conference attendees that some women had been raped by trans women, yet didn't give examples. Most of the other faint-hearted feminists in the room, looked on with dismay and remained shtum, as Darroch launched her rant at the First Minister.

The Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, is designed to make it easier for people to undergo gender reassignment. Under the Bill, which is currently progressing through Holyrood, the minimum age of applicants would be dropped from 18 to 16 years of age. It also removes the requirement for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria as a condition for acquiring a gender recognition certificate. The qualifying period that applicants need to have lived in their acquired gender, is also reduced from 2 years to 3 months. Critic's say that the Bill is wide open to abuse and will make it easier for predatory males to enter women's safe spaces to sexually abuse women and girls.

The author, J.K. Rowling - who sent her congratulations and a crate of champagne to Alexandra Darroch - has accused Nicola Sturgeon of being a "destroyer of women's rights." After Darroch had been removed from the room, Sturgeon apologised, and said that the organisation 'Zero Tolerance Scotland', did not seek to close down anyone's right to freedom of speech.

Is social class still a barrier to many in English society?

 

I recently read an interesting article in the Guardian, about class barriers in English society, by the journalist Jamie Fahey. One might well ask how many Guardian editors went to comprehensive schools?

Yet, newspaper journalism, wasn't always a degree profession, nor were journalists required to have had a university education. Charles Dickens managed to break into journalism after a relative pulled strings for him to get a job as a roving reporter.

Harold Evans, from Daisy Nook, near Ashton-under-Lyne, left school and got a job on the Ashton Reporter, and worked his way up to be Editor of the Sunday Times. This sort of social mobility is almost unthinkable today in a society that boasts about equality, inclusivity, and diversity.