Bee Network launch turns into a damp squib!

 

Andy Burnham - Mayor of Greater Manchester

It's early days yet, but it sounds like Andy Burnham's launch of the Greater Manchester Bee Network new bus system, turned out be more of a damp squib than a 'Big Bang'. The public reported that Bee Network buses had arrived late or didn't turn up at all.

A passenger complained of being late for work and having to use a taxi. Even the Bee Network App was dysfunctional. It all sounds like business as usual on the buses in Greater Manchester, where the bus system is notorious for its unreliability.

Andy Burnham has apologised for the cock up but wants people to appreciate the vast scale of what his team have tried to do within the last 48-hours. This seems like a lame excuse to me and I'm sure it won't impress the public. Transport for Greater Manchester spent £23m of taxpayers' money on consultants' reports assessing franchising and Burnham's expert transport commissioner, Vernon Everitt, recruited from TfL, was appointed and paid £650 a day to get things up and running. Bus reform in Greater Manchester has been under discussion and planning for years now and yet they still can't get the buses to turn up on time, or even to turn up.

I support what Andy Burnham and Greater Manchester Transport are trying to do in reforming public transport in Greater Manchester. Bus deregulation, which was introduced in 1986, has been a complete failure. Bus passenger numbers fell, bus routes were cut, and bus fares increased. Many of the smaller bus operators went out of business and couldn't compete with the likes of Stagecoach and First, who dominate bus public transport in Greater Manchester. Anything has got to be better than what we've presently got in Greater Manchester.

I recently spoke to a woman who told me that she'd been sat waiting for one hour in a freezing cold bus shelter in Ashton-under-Lyne, because her 'one-an-hour' Stagecoach bus hadn't turned up to get her home.

Unless buses can turn up on time and are reliable, Andy Burnham is deluding himself if he thinks the public will abandon their cars for public transport has bad as this, or that the Bee Network will be a success. Let's hope that he can sort things out quickly.

Dan Wootton sacked by MailOnline after GB News suspension!

 

Laurence Fox - Dan Wootton & Ava Evans

The actor Laurence Fox, might be the son of the posh actor James Fox, but he's no English gentleman, even if he often portrays one on the big silver screen.

Fox has been suspended by GB News because of insulting and misogynistic remarks he made live on the Dan Wootton show about the reporter Ava Evans. He asked what "self-respecting man" would "climb into bed", with her, adding: "who would want to shag that." 

Wootton, who won't be climbing into bed with any woman, was suspended after he failed to intervene. He was seen to be smiling and laughing throughout Fox's remarks. He’s also had his MailOnline column terminated following his suspension by GB News. He was already under investigation for allegedly sending sexually explicit texts to colleagues using the pseudonym ‘Martin Branning’. Wootton denies the allegations and says he’s the victim of “dark forces.”

Fox, who is also a host on GB News along with a menagerie of other right-wing cranks, such as Lee Anderson, Esther McVey and Jacob Rees-Mogg, said he stood "by every word of what I said."

In his youth, Fox seems to have been something of addlepated malcontent. He was expelled from the public school Harrow, just before he took his A-Level exams and was unable to obtain a place at any university because of a report from Harrow. It seems his father and grandfather were also expelled from Harrow, so it could be a family tradition. After a short spell working as a gardener and in an office, he decided to follow his family into acting and entered RADA. Fox is married to the actress Billie Piper.

Rishi Sunak: the man who robs the poor to give to the rich!

 

Rishi Sunak and Akshata Murthy

Britain's unelected Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, is filthy rich and his Indian wife, Akshata Murthy, is one of the richest people living in Britain. So why should any of us be surprised that he wants to abolish inheritance tax that only the wealthy pay.

Little Rishi, wants to pay for this by not uprating state benefits in line with inflation. He's Robin Hood in reverse. He robs from the poor to give to the rich. He's believes in wealth redistribution for the rich.

He defends established privilege and vested interests and that's why he's a Tory. Most of the people in Rishi's government are multi-millionaires. Britain is governed by a plutocracy.

Will Labour scrap the 'triple-lock' if they come to power?

 

Angela Rayner MP

Angela Rayner, the Labour Member of Parliament for Ashton-under-Lyne, Droylsden, and Failsworth, says that she's fought for the interests of working people all her life. Yet, during a recent BBC Breakfast interview, she was repeatedly asked if the Labour Party would guarantee the 'triple-lock' on state pensions if they take power at the next general election.

Although Labour pledged to keep the triple-lock in 2019, Rayner wouldn't give a guarantee and evaded the question. She told the BBC that Labour wouldn't make unfunded spending commitments as the country is in "a very different place" now.

Since 2020, Angela Rayner has been the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and she describes herself has being on the "soft left." She's also the Labour shadow minister for "levelling up."

Jess Phillips: The MP who received 600 rape threats in one night!

 

Jess Phillips MP

I don't find Russell Brand very funny. While he's been condemned in some quarters as a sexual predator, I'm not aware that he's been found guilty of any of the allegations that have recently been levelled against him by a number of women.  Nevertheless, I'm curious why all these women have suddenly come forward with these allegations of sexual assault, and why they didn't speak out at the time.

I saw Jess Phillips, the MP for Birmingham Yardley, being interviewed on TV about Brand and she seemed certain that he was guilty even though Brand denies all the allegations. She stated that she wasn't surprised and had heard previous reports about him. However, she seems to think all men are serial gropers and sex pests, so all males are suspect to Jess. When the slightly eccentric Conservative MP, Sir Christopher Chope, blocked an "up skirting prevention bill" in the House of Commons in 2018, Jess said she was going to write his name in the gusset of her knickers.

Rape is a serious matter and so are false allegations of rape that can also ruin lives. For some career feminists, rape threats have almost become a rite of passage. Nowadays, no celebrity female's memoir or personal history, is complete without some reference to sexual abuse or a rape threat. Jess Phillips claims to have received "600 rape threats" in one single night. She blames it all on something called "patriarchal culture." It seems that for Jess, masculinity is to blame for everything.

The convicted murderer, Rose West, blamed all the murders on her husband Fred West. Myra Hindley blamed Ian Brady for the Moors Murders, and Ghislaine Maxwell, said she'd fallen under Epstein's spell, because of her 'overbearing, narcissistic, and demanding' father. Thankfully, none of this claptrap, seems to wash with juries. They generally hold people accountable for their own actions.

Jess Phillips, also claims to be "working-class" and once likened herself to a 'scullery maid' in the House of Commons. Yet, her father was a school teacher who taught English, and her mother was the deputy chief executive of the NHS Confederation and chair of South Birmingham Mental Health Trust.  Both her parents became company directors of their own business, 'HealthLink's Event Management Services', which gave Jess her first job. It's claimed that her net worth is around $5m dollars and most of her income comes from politics, journalism, and TV appearances. Her husband, Tom Phillips, a former lift engineer, now works as Jess Phillips's office manager. 

 

Life Below Zero.

 

I like watching National Geographic's TV program 'Life Below Zero; I'm watching it now. I like subsistence hunting and the independent lifestyle. However, I sometimes question how genuine it's portrayal of life in Alaska is.

I can well understand that Sue Aikens, a woman living alone in a remote part of Alaska called Kavik, feels vulnerable from attacks by wild animals. Women do feel preyed upon and she says she was once attacked by a bear. But why she should feel threated by a lone wolf or a wolverine, seems strange to me.

The name ‘Kavik’, is also the name of the river that runs through the area, but it literally means “Wolverine or demon dog.”

Although Sue Aikens shot the Wolverine for its fur, there's no evidence that wolverines have ever attacked a human because they generally avoid us like the plague and aren't interested in us. Likewise, a lone wolf is unlikely to be threat to Sue Aikens. Humans are more of a threat to wolverines and wolves, than they are a threat to us.

Wally of the Week: Dr Daniel Coventry.

 

Dr Daniel Coventry

Wally of the week. Educated idiot, Daniel Coventry, aged 33, was suspended from medical practice for 6 months after he was found guilty of serious professional misconduct by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in December 2019.

Coventry, a FY2 trainee junior doctor, had been reported to the General Medical Council because he'd been working while on sick leave from his £35,000-a-year job at Worthing Hospital in West Sussex.

It was discovered that Coventry had been undertaking private cosmetic surgery at the 'A New You' clinic in Brighton and at his own medical practice, 'DC Aesthetics', while pocketing paid sickness leave and being off work with a suspected virus infection.

 At the Tribunal, Coventry pleaded ignorance, insisting that he was unaware that there was any conflict of interest in doing private medical work while being off work with a sickness. He argued that he'd not knowingly been dishonest because he’d advertised his work on social media but accepted that he was naïve and had committed errors of judgement.

Before studying medicine at Oxford, Coventry had graduated with a first class degree in biology at the University of Brighton. Why the police weren’t brought in is a moot point. This looks suspiciously like fraud to me.

The failure of NHS dentistry.

 

At the moment I'm fortunate to have a dentist who dispenses dental treatment to NHS patients. I believe that in Cornwall, Devon and Dorset, it's almost impossible to find a dentist who will take on NHS patients.

Doesn't it seem strange that you can get a sex change operation on the NHS, but if you're in agony with toothache, you can't get NHS dental treatment in many areas of Britain and have to go private. Some people in Britain now have to borrow the money to pay for dental treatment or are pulling out their own teeth. It's what you'd expect in a third world country or some remote part of Appalachia in the U.S.A. where people walk about with no teeth.

When the NHS was introduced in 1948, dental care was free at the point of use, but charges were introduced in 1951. Although the British taxpayer pays for the training of dentists with a subsidy of "hundreds of thousands of pounds", many people can't access dental treatment as they live in "dental deserts", which don't offer NHS dental treatment.

After training, only one in three graduate dentists end up working for the NHS. Isn't it about time we stopped this racket for the middle classes, and made them pay for their own dental training unless they're prepared to work in NHS dentistry? Another alternative, is for dentistry to be made available at NHS centers.

Greater Manchester 'Bee Network' launches first phase next week.

 

This month (24 September) will see the launch of the first franchised routes of the Bee Network bus system in Greater Manchester. The plan is for the whole of the Greater Manchester bus network to be franchised and phased in by January 2025. The Bee Network app is also to be launched this month and should be joined up in a London-style contactless fares system by January 2025.

Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, said: "It's not 'big bang' - but in Wigan, Bolton, and bits of Salford and Bury, it will be very transformational."

The zero emission yellow buses of the Bee Network, are all electric. A year ago, Andy Burnham, introduced a £2 flat fare for buses across the region and has pledged to guarantee this until September 2024. Although the £2 bus fare cap is a step in the right direction, it is still expensive and higher than the bus fare cap in London of £1.75.

Under the TfL 'hopper' system, your standard bus fare in London, is transferable to other buses and trams within one hour of touching in. Although Burnham, has talked of introducing a London-style bus system in Greater Manchester, bus fares are not as yet transferrable and are much higher than in the capital, where the bus network was never deregulated.

Another thing that needs looking at urgently, is the frequency of bus services in Greater Manchester, during UK bank holidays and over the Christmas period. The Mayor of Greater Manchester isn't going to get people out of cars and onto buses, when everything in running on a limited Sunday service every time there's a bank holiday or you can't get a bus over the Christmas period to go to the boxing day sales or to socialise. It's a case of stop at home, Shanks's pony, or get a taxi, if you don't possess your own car.

Another issue is late night bus and tram services in Greater Manchester and what should be made available to the traveling public.

The tragic life of poet Sylvia Plath.

 

Ted Hughes & Sylvia Plath

I can't comment on the poetry of Ted Hughes or Sylvia Plath. I only know that I like poetry that rhymes or is at least, thought provoking.

I know of Sylvia Plath because of the number of times articles about her have appeared in the Guardian newspaper. The articles were not really about her poetry but about her troubled life. In death she seems to have become a feminist icon and many blame Hughes for her death. I believe that Hughes walked out on Plath and the children and that she later gassed herself, while both her children, aged one and two, slept. The poor woman had opened the windows and used masking tape to seal the doors so that the gas wouldn't reach the children. She'd even left food for them.

This is very sad and tragic, but she herself acknowledged publicly that she had made several suicide attempts before this, the first being in 1953, before she met Ted Hughes. She swallowed sleeping pills. I believe this is referred to in her novel ‘The Bell Jar’. There have been reports that Sylvia Plath tried to cut her throat at 10 and disfigure her face at 14. The suicide attempts tended to coincide with traumatic events such as the death of her father or the breakdown of a relationship.

One can never be certain why people take their own lives and it often comes as a tremendous shock to friends and family who weren't expecting it. It isn't always the case that it's due to mental health issues, some people just want to stop living; they become weary of life.

We all take life for granted, but one of the greatest things, is to have been given a life and I think we ought to try and make the most of it in spite of its trials and tribulations. Life has a lot to offer but it's not a dress rehearsal, you get one shot at it. I'm approaching 69 years of age, and my 21st birthday, seems like yesterday.

Are the public losing confidence in British policing?

 

A Tale of Two Cities (Forces).

By John Wilkins

For a long time, the London Metropolitan Police had a bad press whilst under the leadership of Cressida Dick and others. Her failure to censor the behaviour of officers behaving unprofessionally gave a 'green light' to others in the force to do likewise. Many cases involved racist and misogynistic attitudes of officers.

Although the murder of Stephen Lawrence was before Cressida Dick was in charge, she was when it was revealed that that undercover officers had spied on the family's campaign for jus-tice. Whistle-blower Peter Francis claimed he had been tasked with finding "dirt" on the Lawrences and their supporters.

In March 2021, Dick was criticised for the Met's handling of a vigil for Sarah Everard, who was abducted and murdered by an officer. Dick's advice to women worried at being approached by male police officers, was that if they felt unsafe they should resist arrest, run away, then "wave down a bus" or call 999!! In the 2021 report into the murder of Daniel Morgan, Dick was criticised for hampering efforts to access to important information, causing delays to the report's release.

Only six Met Police officers had been disciplined over the misuse of stop and search since 2014 despite 5,000 complaints. In July 2020 three officers were investigated for gross misconduct over the stop and search of Team GB athlete Bianca Williams. She and her partner, and baby son were in the car when the couple were handcuffed and separated from their son. They felt they had been racially profiled!

Whilst Cressida Dick 'brushed complaints under the carpet', a report was released by the Independent Office of Police Conduct accusing officers of misogyny, racial discrimination, bullying and sexual assault and suggesting these were not isolated cases within the force.

Now we have a 'new broom' in Sir Mark Rowley who wants to clear out, by his estimate, hundreds of officers who have been getting away with misconduct and even criminal behaviour. However, on BBC Radio 4 he said the MET were 'pretty much the only organisation where the leaders are not able to decide which people stay in the organisation or not'. He has asked the Prime Minister, Home Secretary and the London Mayor to look into this anomaly. See https://tinyurl.com/23dttuvw

Back in November 2022 Rowley admitted that he had shed a tear over a misconduct report led by Baroness Casey condemning the force. Writing to her he said "You uncover painful experiences from those within our ranks who have suffered discrimination and hate from col-leagues, only to have their suffering compounded by a weak response from the Met”. This cannot continue and he should be able to continue his reforms. What a contrast to the apathetic attitude of his predecessor!

Let me turn to Greater Manchester Police (GMP), whose reputation has fluctuated over the decades.

Having recently read GMP Deputy Chief Constable John Stalker's book I must confess I had already formed a poor opinion of James Anderton, the Chief Constable at the time. He showed lack of loyalty to Stalker, who had been given the difficult task of investigating the work of the Royal Ulster Constabulary in relation to alleged 'shoot to kill' policy of six suspected IRA members.

Stalker's removal from the case was perceived by many as a cover up. # He and his family suffered harassment for him doing his job though his work was vindicated later.

Anderton had strong views on morality, putting great emphasis on cleaning up prostitution, and a purge on 'gay' community. This found resonance with many residents and the Thatcher Government of the time. His closeness to the now disgraced politician Cyril Smith was a blot on his career (settling for only an informal warning to Smith). He openly championed corporal punishment, which he would not be against using himself.

Between Anderson and Watson there have been four other Chief Constables, some who have tried to improve the image of GMP.

Anderson's successor Sir David Wilmot appears to have been a decent man and I credit for him branding GMP as 'institutionally racist' in 1998.

He was followed by Mike Todd, who some regarded as the perfect modern police chief, intelligent, articulate, charming and with a burning desire to nail crooks. When he took 2002 when it was seen as one of the UK's worst forces. He appears to have been an inspirational leader, often personally on the front line.

Sir Peter Fahey took charge in 2008 during a time when police funding and numbers were reduced. Fahey expressed his dismay at the increase in 'red tape' for police officers. He wanted policing led by judgement rather than targets. He wanted more discretion to be given officers to enable them to deal with minor incidents in a more sensible way.

The next Chief Constable Ian Hopkins was mired in controversy and was removed from office by GM Mayor Andy Burnham in 2020 after a police inspectorate report revealed the force had failed to record an estimated 80,000 crimes in one year.

One of the greatest skeletons in GM Police's cupboard concerns the poor response over decades to sexual exploitation of young girls, first in Rusholme and then in Rochdale. Thanks to the hard work and bravery of retired detective Maggie Smith and Chief Prosecuting Council Nasir Afzal some offenders have been prosecuted. See https://tinyurl.com/rswp93fs

The latest scandal is the failure to use of DNA evidence in the prolonged incarceration of Andrew Malkinson. He has been cleared of a murder charge after 17 years now DNA has finally been accepted.

I am concerned that the new Chief Constable, Stephen Watson, is not going to be a 'new broom' sweeping out bad practice. Speaking at the funeral of James Anderton he said he had left "a lasting legacy in policing." I would suggest that legacy was not a good one!

Senior ranks who will be sent out to work on divisions 'will be expected to go out on patrol' as he would do also, he confirmed (echoes of Mike Todd).

He claimed the number of arrests was up by 61%, the number charged with crimes had risen by 19% and the number of complaints was down by 38%. This should be expected after the low level under his predecessor.

I feel Peter Fahey's approach of judgement rather than targets needs to be heeded. I speak as I am personally aware of three or four cases where lack of judgement and lack of empathy have been shown by police in North Manchester, in particular towards the black community.

When obsessed with targets whether in policing, health or education staff are human and will make mistakes or 'cut corners'.

The jury is out though I have heard from retired officers that the new Chief Constable is 'old school' like Cressida Dick and James Anderson.

I hope the new Chief Constable can take note of past errors and build a police force tough on real crime, but more empathetic in dealing with the public.

# Ken Livingstone was outspoken in Parliament accusing the Attorney General of a cover up and was ordered to leave the Chamber.

Be wary of the 'Physician Associate', the dilutees of the medical profession.

 

It's already difficult to get to see a GP as an NHS patient. The problem seems to stem from when the government imposed lockdown restrictions because of COVID in March 2020. Many GP practices stopped having walk-in surgeries and became reluctant to see patients face-to-face. They said this was to prevent the spread of the COVID virus. They introduced a system of triage and even when lockdown restrictions were relaxed or ended, many didn't reinstate the walk-in surgery.

At the time, you could see a dentist, optician, or a hospital doctor, but the GPs, were still reluctant to see patients face-to-face and that continues to this day. Many GP practices will now offer you a telephone or a Skype consultation with a GP, or an appointment with a physiotherapist, nursing practitioner, physician associate, or a nurse. What you get offered by the practice, is very much determined by what the practice receptionist writes down when they speak to you on the telephone, if you can make contact with them.  Although they're not medically qualified, they've become the gatekeepers to what medical treatment you might be offered or what services.

Those doctors who work in general practice complain about a lack of GPs, but the medical profession has a vested interest in limiting the number of qualified doctors, in order to maintain their bargaining power and status. Nevertheless, the doctors' union the British Medical Association (BMA), accuses the government of presiding over the 'managed decline' of the NHS, and there's certainly a lot of truth in this.

The Tory government of Rishi Sunak, are planning to introduce an army of de-skilled dilutee's into general medical practice and into NHS hospital A&E departments. Known as "physician associates", they spend less time in medical training than a GP - two years rather than six years for a qualified doctor - and are paid less money. They plan to have 10,000 on the payroll by 2036/37.

Some people, like the family of Emily Chesterton, have expressed concern about the use of less medically qualified people to treat and diagnose patients. Emily, an actress, from Salford, died last October from a blood clot on the lung at the age of 30. A physician associate at the Vale Practice surgery in north London, diagnosed her as suffering from 'anxiety'. This had fatal consequences for the actress who later suffered a cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital.  Emily thought she'd been seen by a GP. Her symptoms included calf pain and shortness of breath, which could have indicated a pulmonary embolism. The physician associate who she'd seen twice, prescribed anti-anxiety pills. The coroner ruled that if Emily had been properly diagnosed with a lung clot and sent to A&E, this would probably have saved her life.

What the Sunak government are proposing to do in de-skilling medicine, resembles what the French did in 1803, when they introduced the post of 'Officier de Sante' (health officer). The health officer spent just three years in medical training compared with six years for a physician. Yet, they were limited in their scope of practice to general medicine, prescribing medications, and minor surgical procedures. They were often deployed to work in medically underserved areas. The post was abolished in 1892.

One of the most famous health officer's in French literature, is the fictional character of Charles Bovary, who appears in Gustave Flaubert's novel 'Madame Bovary'. The husband of Emma Bovary', he's the local 'Officier de Sante'. He becomes convinced that he can cure the village stable boy's club foot with a simple tendon cutting operation. This he believes will enhance his medical status and that of the village. The boy, Hippolyte, nearly dies when his leg becomes infected with gangrene. Bovary has to summon a qualified consultant from another town, who has to amputate the stable boy's leg. The consultant, Monsieur Canivet, a real MD from Nuefchatel, tells Bovary that only a bloody fool would think that anyone could cure a club foot by cutting the patients Achilles tendon. He says people like Bovary ruin the reputation of doctors everywhere with their ridiculous procedures. I wonder what Flaubert would have made of the physician associate? Caveat emptor!

Is the 'Triple-Lock for the chop?

 

Neither the Labour Party or Conservative Party in Britain will give a commitment to guaranteeing the 'triple-lock' on the old age state retirement pension, after the next general election.

The triple-lock increases pensions by at least 2.5 %, the inflation rate, or average earnings, whichever is the greater. The Conservative government of Rishi Sunak, say that the triple-lock on pensions is not sustainable in the long run. Nor will they guarantee increasing the pension next April (2024), by 8.5% which is the current rate at which average earnings are rising. They say this figure has been skewed by bonus payments paid to workers.

In April 2022, the Conservative government also reneged on the triple-lock when they suspended it and increased the pension by 3.1%. It should have been increased by 8.3%, but the government argued then that this was skewed by workers being laid off because of the COVID lockdown and then returning to work.

The triple-lock system was introduced in 2010, to address the problem of a 30 years’ decline in the value of British pensions which were just linked to the rate of inflation. Not very long ago, the state retirement pension was increased by 0.75 pence.

We live in the fifth richest country on Earth and yet we have one of the least generous state retirement pensions in Western Europe. Pensioners don't even get the equivalent of the national minimum wage, yet we're told that the country can't afford it. Don't be fooled with this idea that there's only so much money in the money box, or that a country like Britain, can run out of money. Who gets what, and how the national cake is shared out, is very much a political decision and isn't necessarily determined by economics. Governments squander public money all the time, by incompetence or political corruption.

Many retired people, are inclined to vote Tory but I'm not one of them, as I despise the bastards. I've never voted Tory in my life, but one thing I do recognise, is that old age pensioners shouldn't be taken for granted because they can decide the outcomes of a general election. Neither should the old and young be played off against one another. Young people will eventually become pensioners and they deserve a decent retirement in old age. The Labour Party should pledge to guarantee the triple-lock in its manifesto if it wants to get elected.

How exact a science is medicine?

 

A major part of a doctor’s job is to make a diagnosis.

I woke up, one morning, to find I couldn't see clearly through my left eye. I immediately went to see my GP, who very quickly diagnosed conjunctivitis. He explained to me that because I had recently had a cold, the virus had infected my eye. A dose of antibiotics soon sorted it out.

Yet, in my experience, I have known of GP's, who couldn't diagnose the signs of diabetes, heart disease, TB, COVID, leukaemia, or pancreatic cancer. I know of one GP who standard refrain was to tell you to work it off. All these people were qualified doctors, yet they were unable to diagnose some ailments that are not that difficult to diagnose.

Although diabetes is known as a crafty disease because it can cause secondary infections, a blood or urine sample, can indicate the presence of it, and even asking someone to breathe on you can lead to a diagnosis. If a person's breath smells of pear drop (acetone), it can be an indication of diabetes.

This week, I watched a TV program called 'Monsters Inside Me'. One of the people who featured in the TV program, was a young teenage girl from Tennessee, called Kennedy Odom. Kennedy complained of fever and pain when chewing and swallowing. She had blisters on her mouth, felt debilitated, lost 30 pound in weight, and a scan revealed that she had an enlarged spleen. Initially, the doctors said she had strep throat and later they diagnosed leukaemia, but blood tests showed this wasn't the case. The doctors were completely baffled, until a relative of Kennedy's, asked the question, could it be something in her mouth that was the root of the problem. She was seen by a periodontist and tested for allergies. It was discovered that Kennedy had an allergic reaction to nickel and her dental braces, contained nickel. When these were removed, she immediately started to recover.

We often know when something is wrong with us, because we know our own bodies and know when things are wrong. This is what you should rely on, intuition and experience, and what your body is telling you. Medicine is not an exact science, and doctors often fail to diagnose the problem or overlook something.

Paul Robeson - the 'Left's Tragic Hero'.

 

Paul Robeson

Paul Leroy Robeson was the son of a runaway slave who was born in 1898 in Princeton, New Jersey, in the U.S.A.  He was an accomplished athlete, singer, political activists, and a qualified lawyer who attended Rutgers university. He was the only African-American student at Rutgers in 1915. He spoke more than 20 languages fluently.

 In 1950, the State Department revoked his passport and his right to travel freely and earn a living abroad. The FBI also urged people to ban and boycott his concerts. His annual income fell from $150,000 to less than $3,000 because of the blacklist. Robeson's passport wasn't restored until 1958. When Robeson asked the State Department officials why he'd been denied a passport, he was told that "his frequent criticism of treatment of blacks in the United States should not be aired in foreign countries." He'd spoken out about the lynching of black people in the U.S. and had urged President Truman to introduce an anti-lynching law, but Truman, refused to do so, because it would have been unpopular with Southern voters.

 In 1946, Paul Robeson appeared before the Tenney Committee and had been asked if he'd ever been a member of the Communist Party. He replied that he might as well have been asked whether he was a registered Democrat or Republican because in the United States, the Communist Party, was equally legal. On this occasion, he said he was not a Communist. When he appeared before the ridiculously named, 'House Committee on Un-American Activities' in 1956, he refused to answer if he'd ever been a member of the Communist Party because he believed it was an interference with his democratic rights as an American citizen. He also pointed out that some people had gone to prison for not answering that question and he was prepared to follow them. He also reminded the Committee that the Communist Party was not illegal in the United States.

 It was never proved that Paul Robeson had been a member of the Communist Party of America under his own name or an assumed name. He did visit the Soviet Union in 1949 to give a concert on the 150th anniversary celebration of Alexander Pushkin. He asked to see the Russian Jewish poet, Itzik Feffer, who he knew. The Soviet authorities said he was holidaying in the Crimea. Despite being an NKVD informer, Feffer was in fact in prison, accused of treason. When they did meet, Robeson asked how he was, and Feffer drew a finger across his throat. He told Robeson, "They're going to kill us. When you return to America you must speak out and save us." He also told Robeson that Solomon Mikohels, who he also knew, had already been murdered. Both Feffer and Mikohels, had wanted to establish an autonomous region for Jews in the Crimea. They were both victims of Stalin's antisemitic purges. When Robeson returned to the U.S. he organised a letter in defence of Feffer. Robeson's letter delayed Feffer's death by three years.

 In 1952, Paul Robeson received the Stalin International Peace Prize which he accepted in New York. He praised the dictator, as a "humanitarian and a peacemaker." Paul Robeson was decent and principled man, a great singer, who was treated abominably by the Americans. As a black American, he fought against injustice and discrimination all his life, a champion of black liberation. Yet, because of his attachment to Stalinism and the Soviet Union, it led him to ignore the brutality of Joseph Stalin's regime. The mass arrests, executions, and the Gulag. He told the 'Daily Worker', the paper of the Communist Party of America, that anybody who lifts his hand against the Soviet Government ought to be shot. Yet, much later, Robeson had to use his connections to help his brother-in-law, accused of terrorist conspiracy, to escape from Moscow. Today, many see Paul Robeson as the "Left's Tragic Hero."

 

Is Angela Rayner the authentic voice of the common people?

 

If Angela Rayner, the MP for Ashton-under-Lyne, thinks she's John Prescott in her skirt, then it doesn't bode well for her future.

Like Baron Prescott, Rayner is also deputy leader of the Labour Party and is also seen as the Labour politician who can win back the votes of the 'Red Wall', Tommy Atkins, voters. The former Notts miner, Lee Anderson, plays a similar role in the Conservative Party. But like John Prescott, she's seen as rather embarrassing to many middle-class Labour voters, who mock her northern accent, leopard skin trousers, and bad English grammar.

Rayner says that she didn't go to Eton but grew up on a council estate in Stockport. She was a single mother at 16 and living in a council house, and claims that her mother, who suffered from mental health issues, often fed her dog food, because she couldn't read the label on the tin.

As a working-class MP in Parliament, Rayner is something of a rarity. Most MP's, whether Labour or Tory, are not from a working-class background. Many have never done a proper job in their lives or have any real work experience. However, I doubt that Rayner, in spite of her backstory, can be seen as the authentic voice of the common people.

Most working-class women, if they think about it at all, wouldn't consider a 'trans women', to be a woman. Neither does Rosie Duffield, the Labour MP for Canterbury. When Duffield said that "only women have a cervix", Rayner called on her to reflect on her views. Rayner has also said that "trans rights" are not in conflict with "women's rights."

GMC puts sanitary products in men's toilets.

 

The General Medical Council (GMC), are putting women's sanitary products in men's lavatories because they say they're an "inclusive organisation." As a body that regulates doctors in the UK and provides training for doctors, they must realise that men don't menstruate but women do. This is a biological fact, but it should remind us of the dangers of misusing language.

The term 'woman', i.e. an adult female human being, is almost becoming unutterable in certain sections of society, something that dare not speak its name.  Sir Steer Calmer, who wants to be the next Labour Prime Minister, thinks that 99.9% of women don't have a penis. Most of us think it's 100%.

They now talk of 'people with uteruses/uteri', or 'people who menstruate'. This may in part, explain the confusion over basic biology. It should be noted that while bodies like the GMC and DEFRA, squander the taxpayer’s money on unnecessary sanitary products for men, many real women in this country, experience something called period poverty.

A poll by Action Aid, found that the number of women who are struggling to afford period products in the UK, has risen from 12% to 21% in one year. Many young girls, both in this country and the U.S., are known to have missed school because they couldn't afford to buy sanitary products.

Tony Blair's "dangerous liaisons" and dodgy friends.

 

My mother thought Tony Blair was the "Devil Incarnate." The writer, Tom Bower' in his autobiography on Tony Blair, called "Broken Vows", called Blair a "derided carpetbagger”. I think both of them are right.

The philosopher John Gray, thinks that Blair is too 'morally stunted' to be capable of falsehood and deceit, for which Blair is often accused. I take this to mean that Blair never really developed a moral conscience. That could be applied to many people in politics and business. But Blair must have known that he was taking Britain into a war with Iraq on false pretences and that Saddam Hussein didn't have WMDs - that was the whole point of the "dodgy dossier", to make things look sexier. The U.N. weapons inspectors were telling Blair that all the time and no WMD's were ever found.

John Gray, says that Blair thinks and acts on the premise that what he believes to be good must be true. When the Egyptian military officer Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, overthrew the democratically elected Mohammed Morsi in 2013, and installed himself as the President of Egypt, Blair backed the coup and the bloody crackdown on Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood supporters. He called on the international community to do the same, and he became an adviser to al-Sisi and made a lot of money out of him.

Blair was told that invading Iraq was fraught with potential problems, because it was a country divided by deep communal enmities and that destroying the Ba'athist regime, could create a vacuum and lead to a civil war. The Yanks sacked all the Ba'ath Party members who had been running the country and many of these joined the opposition fighting the Yanks after they lost their jobs.  The Americans didn't seem to realise that most people in Iraq, were Ba'ath Party members, because it was dangerous not to be a party member.

When the Americans invaded Afghanistan, once again, with the support of the British government and Tony Blair, they dropped peanut butter and Hershey bars as food aid for the Afghans. Blair thought he could turn Afghanistan into a pastoral Ambridge.

ISIS, was just one of many groups that benefitted from the Invasion of Iraq. The Americans might have got the oil, but it's the Shia Iranian's that have triumphed politically. Blair is often accused of having dodgy friends and of 'dangerous liaisons'. He's friendly with a number of wealthy dictators. One of these dodgy friends is the Ukrainian billionaire, Victor Pinchuk, who finances the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. The Ukrainians have accused Pinchuk of bribery and corruption.

Blair is a total egomaniac who sees himself as some kind of Messiah trying to rid the world of evil while at the same time, he fills his pockets with filthy lucre. The wanker has named both a faith foundation and a global institute after himself.  With Blair's reputation, I hardly think he's qualified to put the world to rights. Some are now speculating, that he will return to British politics if Sir Steer Calmer, becomes the next Labour PM. 

German court refuses to extradite Albanian to Britain because of prison conditions.

 

A German court has refused to extradite to Britain, an Albanian living in Germany, who is wanted by the British authorities for drug trafficking and money laundering. The man was arrested in Germany after an international arrest warrant (Interpol red notice), was issued by Westminster magistrates court.

The German court ruled that the conditions in Britain's prisons i.e. overcrowding, staff shortages, and violence, made the man’s extradition "currently inadmissible." Before making its decision, the German court, had sought guarantees that the UK was compliant with the minimum standards as laid down by the European convention on human rights, and asked the British authorities, to specify which prisons the Albanian man was going to be detained in and what his conditions of detention would be.

A police station in Manchester, responded to the first request on the final day of the deadline, saying a further 20,000 prison places were being built. A second request for reassurances about UK prison conditions received no response from the UK.

As the UK is no longer a member of the E U., the rules of the European arrest warrant no longer apply. As the Albanian man was not wanted for offences committed in Germany, and the German court had failed to receive assurances from the UK, he was released.

Britain's prison conditions are regarded as being extremely harsh, if not inhuman. Prisoners are often locked up 23-hours a day, and many prisoners, suffer from mental health issues. Violence, suicide, and drug taking, is also commonplace in Britain's prison system. Women prisoners, are known to have given birth to children while in their prison cells, and without medical attention.

Labour council erects plaque to IRA leader!

 

Islington Council erects plaque to IRA leader

I know that Michael Collins lived and worked in London but it's not altogether clear why Islington council erected a plaque to honour him in July 2023.

The Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), which Collins joined in 1909, were better known as the Fenians. During the 19th century, the Fenians conducted bomb attacks in London, that killed and injured Londoner's.

The 1867, Clerkenwell bombing, killed 12 and injured another 120. The Fenian Dynamite Campaign between 1881-1885, resulted in deaths and injuries of Londoner's. Some 80 people were injured and one boy killed when the Fenians bombed London Bridge in 1884. In October 1883, two bombs exploded in the underground at Paddington Station, injuring 70 people. In February 1884, a bomb went off at Victoria Station.  

Some people might find it rather curious that Labour controlled Islington Council, would want to honour a man who was a Fenian and a leader of the IRA, and advocated armed rebellion against Britain. Although Michael Collins, wasn't involved in these bombing campaigns, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have disavowed the actions of 'O'Dynamite' Rossa and the Fenian bombers that were killing and injuring Londoner's.

Not so long ago, Jeremy Corbyn, who was at the unveiling of this plaque, sought to become the Prime Minister of this country. Many British voters wouldn't vote for Labour because they believed that he was soft on terrorism and despised the West, and what it stood for. I suppose that if you want to lead this country, it helps if you can persuade the British people that you feel some affinity and patriotism towards a country that you wish to lead, and that you like the place. Unlike Corbyn, Michael Collins was certainly an Irish patriot.

Are cover ups par for the course within the NHS?

 

Anybody who has dealt with NHS hospital bureaucrats and knows anything about the various scandals that have taken place in British hospitals, would easily recognise similarities with how the case of the baby killer nurse, Lucy Letby, was dealt with at the Countess of Chester Hospital. Excuses on tap, whitewash by the bucketful, and plenty of spin. Hush things up and throw it into the long grass. This is the modus operandi for many NHS hospital managers. 

At one local hospital that I was involved with through a health campaign, in Greater Manchester, the medical staff, were terrified of the diminutive female Chief Executive, who had them quaking in their boots. They knew that if they did raise concerns about patient safety, and opened their mouths, they were likely to become a target and could lose their job. Yet, many medical staff and nurses at that hospital, were quite happy to take the side of the CEO and objected to any criticism of the hospital. A surgeon at the hospital who did go public with his concerns about patient safety, was treated like a social pariah, by many of his medical colleagues. 

It says a lot about the way the NHS is run, when they had to introduce a "duty of candour", (a quality of openness, frankness, and honesty), in the NHS, following the Francis report and the inquiry into Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust in February 2013. It was claimed that between 400 and 1,200 patients died as a result of poor care over the 50 months between January 2005 and March 2009, at Stafford district general hospital. It led to 290 recommendations on care standards.

Yet, in spite of that public inquiry, and other public inquiries into how British hospitals are managed, senior medical staff at the Countess of Chester, complained of being ignored and of feeling threatened and bullied and were told to apologise to Letby. The parents of the babies that were killed or injured by Letby, complained of being fobbed off by hospital management. If those seven pediatrician's at the hospital, had not persisted in raising concerns about Letby, it's likely there would never have been a police investigation which led to the arrest of Lucy Letby and her conviction for multiple murders.

What does Scottish independence really mean?

 

Scotland's First Minister - Humza Yousaf

I was never a supporter of Brexit. I always thought the British public were sold a pup with Brexit and that we were economically better off remaining as members of the E.U.

The people of Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain in the E.U. as did many millions of people in England. But a majority of people in England and Wales, voted to leave the E.U. Nevertheless, there seems to be a paradox that lies behind Scottish nationalism which I find baffling.

How can the Scottish National Party (SNP), campaign for independence and then advocate re-joining the E.U? As a remainer, even I acknowledge, that membership of the E.U. does come at price even when you're not part of E.U.'s monetary system or the Schengen Agreement. Look at what happened to two small countries like Greece and Cyprus.

Notwithstanding that, how can any country really call itself 'independent', when 'globalization', by its very nature, means that there is greater interconnection in the world between people and regions. Globalization also increases the foreign control over a nation’s economy. As they used to say, when America sneezes, Britain catches a cold.