Will Rishi ditch the triple-lock on pensions?

 

Rishi Sunak - The Yorkshire Maharaja

Calamity Liz Truss, is to pocket £19,000 in severance pay after being Prime Minister for just 45 days. That's in addition to the £115,000 a year, pension for life, that she's also entitled to after she trashed the British economy and sent the financial markets into turmoil.

As we've now got a huge financial black hole in the accounts, the Tory government are looking for ways to fill it by making financial cuts. Truss and her Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, promised to protect the triple lock on pensions and to increase pensions in line with inflation currently running at over 10%. The new Prime Minister, the Yorkshire Maharaja, Rishi Sunak, has refused to give such an undertaking before the budget announcement on 17 November.

When the Tories fuck-up, it's usually those who rely on state benefits and public services that pay the price. We can expect cuts in public spending and the freezing of public sector pay along with a crackdown on benefit claimants.

As we've now had three Tory Prime Minister's anointed by the Tory gerontocracy, in just over three months, some 71'ministers who have either been sacked or resigned, are now entitled to over £700,000 in severance payments. Britain's MP's are like pigs with their nose in the trough. They tell us that they can't afford to uprate pensions and benefits in line with inflation, and award themselves pensions and golden handshakes after being in a job two minutes.

If Sunak, wants to find ways to balance the books, he should start looking at increasing taxes on his wealthy friends. A windfall tax on energy companies would be a start. They're making huge profits and the tax could be used to help those in need to pay their fuel bills. Rishi could also look at cracking down on non-domiciled tax status for wealthy people like his wife, or offshore tax havens. In the U.S. Joe Biden as just introduced a 1% tax on shareholder buyback scams, where companies buy back their own shares to increase the share value. The pay of C.E.O.'s is also linked to raising shareholder value.

Pub landlady and homeless campaigner appeals for more customers.

 

Pauline Town outside the Station Pub in Ashton-under-Lyne

Pub landlady, Pauline Town, is well known in Ashton-under-Lyne and beyond, for her work with the homeless. In 2021, Pauline was awarded an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours for her tireless work with the homeless. Her pub, the Station, on Warrington Street, Ashton-under-Lyne, which she has owned and operated for the last 30-years, also doubles as the Tameside hub for the "We Shall Overcome" scheme. Pauline, recently posted a comment on Facebook - which we have posted below, appealing for more customers to keep her pub open. Please show solidarity with Pauline Town, if you're in a position to do so. 

"Well, today was a pretty epic fail....I've just closed half an hour early, because we've taken the grand total of 14-80 for a full day opening and it's just not worth me keeping the lights and the fridges on for any longer....and with a poorly sick PA to sort out this week, that's the last thing I needed to be honest.....thankfully Last Race Home pulled it in for us last night, but it's another week where I can't draw any wages and Mum and Dad are paying my council tax and feeding me again......

Still - we fed 92 people at the door - so at least the day has been productive!

The Station IS OPEN Friday, Saturday and Sunday this coming weekend - we've got a great band on Saturday night and WE NEED CUSTOMERS!!!

Please come and buy a pint if you can - I promise there's a free hug with everyone."

Jacob Rees-Mogg gets confronted by man with cerebral palsy!

Truss says sorry for balls up!

 

Liz Truss says sorry for the Balls Up!

Some are predicting that Dizzy Lizzie Truss, will be out of office by next week. Others think she won't survive the weekend.

Kamikwasi Kwarteng was her fall guy who's been sacked for carrying out her economic policies - which now lie in tatters - and to save her own skin. Economically, they were both joined at the hip, mouthpieces for the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Taxpayers Alliance.

In the City, Kwarteng was known as the 'useful idiot'. Her performance at the press conference was pathetic and it showed how much she's out of her depth. She walked away after eight minutes and after taking four questions.

Liz Truss has made more U-Turns than a boomerang and she's got form for it. Less than two weeks ago, days ago she announced that she wouldn't be cutting public spending but now says she will be. She was adamant that her government would be sticking to tax cuts and then abandoned the cut in both Corporation Tax and the top rate of income tax. She was once pro-E.U. and then turned pro-Brexit. As Foreign Secretary, she said she supported British people going to volunteer to fight in the Ukraine, and then she said she didn't, after being hauled over the coals by the Foreign Office, who said it was a disastrous idea.

As a young Liberal Democrat, Lizzie was even an anti-monarchist who later became pro-monarchy. Her days are now numbered and it's only question of time before she's replaced by a General Election or another Tory leader. Her position is known in chess, as 'Zugzwang', meaning that any move she's obliged to make, is likely to worsen her position.

Russian anti-war journalist flees Russia

 

Russian Journalist - Marina Ovsyannikova

The former Russian state television journalist, Marina Ovsyannikova (44), has fled Russia with her daughter and is now living in Europe. 

She was under house arrest, and placed on a wanted list, after denouncing Putin's invasion of the Ukraine, during a live television broadcast and after carrying out a lone-protest near the Kremlin. She displayed a placard that read: "Putin is a murderer. His soldiers are fascists." 

Although Ovsyannikova is said to be under the protection of an unnamed European state, the French President, Emmanuel Macron', had  already offered her asylum and consular protection.

Will Truss turn Britain into "Caracas-on-Thames?"

 

"Useful Idiot" - Kamikwasi Kwarteng

Among the hedge-fund dealers and City slickers in London, who short the pound and British stocks and shares, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kamikwasi Kwarteng, is known as the 'useful idiot'.

In the aftermath of his mini-budget, the pound fell below $1.09, its lowest rate since 1985 and borrowing rose by the most in a single day, for at least a decade. The Bank of England had to take emergency action by setting aside £65bn, to buy bonds (guilts), to halt a run on pension funds.

Mortgage costs are now rocketing and its become more difficult for would-be homeowners, to get a mortgage. Kwarteng's mini-budget, along with his decision to sack the permanent secretary of the Treasury on his first day in the job and to sideline the Office for Budget Responsibility (O.B.R.), spooked both the markets and investors.

Although Truss says she won't cut public spending to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, or reverse the mini-budget, the markets are curious as to where the money is coming from to pay for it.

It's now being predicted that Truss will scalp welfare spending and slash public spending to try and regain market confidence and to pay for her tax cuts for the wealthy. Simon Clarke, the Minister for levelling up, has said there will have to be significant cuts to public spending to pay for this cash bounty for the better off. Clarke says the UK's "very large welfare state" amounts to a "fools paradise", and needs to be trimmed back.

Some commentators like George Monbiot, believe that Truss and Kwarteng, are in the pockets of the hedge-fund dealers, the rich and powerful, and are just the mouthpiece in Parliament, for neo-liberal think-tanks like the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) and the Taxpayers Alliance.

The Economist magazine seems to think that unless Truss changes course, she could turn Britain into "Caracas-on-Thames." In the October issue of the magazine, they wrote: "In the first few weeks the new government has shredded its own reputation, unleashed higher inflation, forced emergency action from the central bank, and made growth harder. Just imagine what it can do in a month or two." (How Not To Run A Country - Liz Truss's government may already be dead in the water - Economist, 1st October to 7th October, 2022).

J.K. Rowling says Sturgeon is a "destroyer of women's rights."

 

Author - J.K. Rowling

The author J. K. Rowling, has accused the Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, of being a "destroyer of women's rights."

Last Thursday, women protestors, gathered outside the Scottish Parliament to object to a move by a Holyrood committee to make it easier for transgender people to be legally recognized by their preferred gender. Although legal gender recognition has been available for the last 18 years, some have complained that the procedure is intrusive, medicalized, and bureaucratic.

The Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, seeks to speed up the time it would take to obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), and lowers the age for obtaining one from 18 to 16. It also reduces the time that a person needs to have been living in their gender before they can apply, from two years to three months. Under the Bill, a psychiatric diagnosis of gender dysphoria would no longer be required and would remove the requirement for doctors' reports. It means that men can self-identity as women much earlier.

Some people fear that the reforms are open to abuse, particularly from predatory men. Others have expressed concern about the issue of single-sex safe spaces for women and girls such as female-only toilets, changing rooms, and women's prison's.

Critics have accused Rowling of being 'transphobic' - an allegation that she denies - because she believes that biological sex is immutable. In June 2020, Rowling tweeted: "my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it's hateful to say so." She caused outrage and received threats when she pointed out the only women menstruate. The Harry Potter, author, who's regarded as persona non grata by the 'woke', says she's been motivated to speak out because of her experience of domestic abuse and sexual assault.

Coffey ditches control plan on smoking!

 

Tory Health Minister - Therese Coffey

The health secretary, Theresa Coffey, has already decided not to publish Sajid Javid's white paper on health inequalities in the UK, despite a 19-year gap in life expectancy between rich and poor. She's also abandoned policies aimed at tackling obesity.

The corpulent cigar chomping health secretary, aged 51, who likes boozing and Karaoke, is now dropping the tobacco control plan aimed at tackling smoking. Coffey, who is also the deputy prime minister, is known to have accepted hospitality from the tobacco industry and has voted against an array of measures to restrict smoking. These include: banning smoking in enclosed public spaces; banning smoking in cars containing children and a requirement that cigarette's be sold in plain packs. She's also appointed former tobacco lobbyists as part of her team of Downing Street advisers.

In 2019, the government committed to becoming smoke-free by 2030. Smoking-related disease is one of the major causes of avoidable death in the world.

Reese-Mogg says he would be delighted to have his back garden fracked.

 

Business & Energy Secretary - Jacob Reese-Mogg

Many of Jacob Reese-Mogg's neighbours in East Somerset, don't share his enthusiasm for fracking. The business and energy secretary, who lives in a Grade 2 listed mansion called Gournay Court, in West Harptree, Somerset, said he would be "delighted" if his garden was fracked.

Although many of Reese-Mogg's neighbours don't share his delight for back garden fracking, some preferred to stay anonymous saying, "this is a small village and Reese-Mogg wields power." One of Reese-Mogg's neighbours who asked not to be named, said that when she thought about fracking it conjured up images of flames spurting from taps and earthquakes.

Chris Cornelious, the founder of Cuadrilla, has stated publicly that fracking in Britain is not commercially viable. He believes the geology is too challenging and the countryside too densely populated. He also believes that lifting the ban on fracking which was imposed after an earth tremor in Lancashire, is a political stunt.

Jacob Reese-Mogg has said that the British public must get used to earthquakes, which are believed to be a consequence of fracking, because it's in the national interest. I suppose they had better get used to plummeting house prices as well, which are also a consequence of fracking, along with environmental consequences. Reese-Mogg says that anti-fracking activists are disgruntled socialists who are being funded by Putin and the Kremlin.

Did Leeds man die because of remote GP appointments?

 

David Nash

David Nash had four remote GP appointments between October and November 2020, but doctors and nurses, failed to diagnose a middle-ear infection that proved to be fatal. The ear infection led to an abscess on his brainstem.

After ringing the NHS number 111, five times, David aged 26, was rushed to hospital where he died two days later. David was never offered an in-person face-to-face appointment, nor was he ever examined by a medical practitioner, despite complaining of lumps on his neck, blood in his urine and a fever. He'd also sent a photograph of the lumps on his neck to his GP practice in Leeds. David was diagnosed by remote consultations as having COVID or flu-like symptoms.

Referring to David's case, NHS England have said: "A face-to-face assessment should have been offered or organised to confirm the diagnosis and initiate definitive management." Andrews mother, Anne Nash, said: "It's been appalling care. I think they've completely let David down...at every single point." In June, the Nuffield Trust published a report in which it stated: "the clinical risk from remote consultations is not yet well understood." An inquest into David's death is to take place early next year.

In September 2021, Alison Mutch, the senior coroner for Greater Manchester South, wrote to the Department of Health, saying that remote GP consultations may have been a factor in the deaths of five patients and was affecting patient care.

Despite findings of this nature, and the deaths of patients like David Nash, many GP's say that face-to-face GP appointments are not necessary. To many people this might sound like quackery and humbug, and they may well ask how you can examine a person's chest or check their pulse or tongue, during a remote consultation. Nevertheless, there have been instances where GP's have asked patients to cough into the phone.

Although the Health Secretary, Therese Coffey, has said that patients should be able to get a non-urgent face-to-face GP appointment within two weeks of requesting it, the doctors union the British Medical Association (BMA), which curiously, also regulates the medical profession, have described this as "hot air", and they have told GP practices that they don't have to comply with this, because there's no contractual obligation to do so, and it is merely an "expectation."

Does trickle-down really work?

 

Clueless - Calamity Liz Truss

How low can Liz Truss stoop? She's scalping welfare to fund tax cuts for the rich and tells us that cutting taxes for the wealthy, is good for people on low incomes, because it "trickles down" to the rest of us.

The basic level of benefits is now £77 per week, for a single person - only 13% of average pay, the lowest level on record. Nevertheless, Truss has refused to confirm if state benefits like Universal Credit, will be uprated in line with inflation.

Since Kamikwasi Kwarteng's mini-budget just over a week ago, we've seen the markets in turmoil. The pound has fallen to an all-time low against the dollar. Citigroup is forecasting a 15% house price crash and mortgages are going through the roof, if you can now manage to get a mortgage. Britain has got high inflation, high interest rates, an unsustainable budget deficit, and could now be facing a full-blown currency crisis. The Bank of England have just had to step in to stop a run on pension funds that put people's pension schemes at risk.

Lizzie Truss, says: "lower taxes lead to economic growth, there's no doubt in my mind about that." Yet, a study of 16 developed countries by the London School of Economics (LSE), showed that over the past 50 years, the impact of tax cuts on growth across all these countries, was, "statistically indistinguishable from zero " If trickle-down economics did have any credence then you would expect to have seen evidence for this in the U.S. which spent forty years experimenting with it.

When tax rates go down, does growth go up, and vice versa? U.S. data from 1947 to to 2015, shows this isn't true. A study by the Rand Corporation showed that trickle-down policies redistribute income from working people to the wealthy leading to 'trickle-up'. In the U.S., trickle-down policies, redistributed about $50 million dollars in wage growth from the bottom 90% of earners to the top 1%.

The U.S. President, Joe Biden, says he's sick and tired of trickle-down economics, which has never worked. He told America, "We're building an economy from the bottom up and the middle out." In this economic model, it's people in the broad middle of the income distribution who are seen as generating the economic growth, who do the bulk of the work, saving, consuming, and innovating. It emphasizes the need to invest in working people, in education, healthcare, worker training, transport, elderly care, and affordable housing.

From the 1980s onwards, both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, pursued pro-rich policies. It was dubbed the 'Conservative Revolution'. Since then, what we have seen, in developed countries like the U.S. and Britain, is greater inequality in terms of wealth and income. Curiously, the period when capitalist economies grew fastest in history, 1945 to 1973, the so-called "Golden Age of Capitalism", was a period of high taxes and a lot of regulation.

Can't pay your energy bills? Cut your consumption or getter a better paid job, says Tory Chairman!

 Jake Berry - Conservative Party Chairman

When this dirty rat, Jake Berry, stood to be the Conservative MP for Rossendale and Darwen, did he tell the voters of Lancashire that he was on the side of the rich and wealthy?

He now cocks a snoop at hard-working Lancashire folk, and says if they can't afford to pay their energy bills, they should cut their energy consumption or get a better paid job. Some might call him a Scouse Git, but that would be unfair to Scouser's, who wouldn't piss on him, even if he was on fire.

Believe it or not, this former solicitor, is now the Chairman of the Tory Party. I bet he worked for a firm of solicitors called 'Dodson and Fogg'. Lancashire people are known as 'gradely folk, but If they've any sense whatsoever, they ought to boot this shithouse out as soon as possible, and send him packing.

Toxic ex-TV presenter to make a comeback!

 

Toxic- Jeremy Kyle

There has been speculation that the odious Jeremy Kyle, may be making a TV comeback. 

The Jeremy Kyle show was vile and disgusting. Kyle's hysterical rants, turned the show into a bear garden. Married three times, this former DJ, with OCD and no sense of humour, claims to have had a gambling addiction. 

One of his guests was the notorious scrote, Mick Philpott, who was jailed for life, along with his wife, for killing his six young children in an arson attack which he carried out to frame his ex-wife. Before the attack, Philpott had appeared on the Jeremy Kyle show for ritual humiliation as one of Britain's underclass. The show was taken off air after one guest later committed suicide. 

There was a time when Tony Blair and New Labour were talking about employing Jeremy Kyle to humiliate people who were in receipt of state benefits as part of a nudge theory program. They were going to launch a TV series called 'Jeremy Kyle Gets Britain Working'. This good-for-nothing menace, should certainly be kept off TV and compelled to undertake honest toil.