Pick a Job, George!

Tory MP, Investment advisor at Blackrock, after dinner speaker and now a newspaper editor too?

Four jobs is too much, and a conflict of interest is out of order. If you agree that George 'Pencils' Osborne should step down as MP for Tatton then please sign this petition. It's ridiculous to think this man has been banging on for ages about the White Elephant that is the 'Northern Powerhouse', taking power from London and giving Northerners a voice, and yet today says he's speaking for Londoners! And it's just sickening to consider how much money he's raking in from all these roles.

Do the decent thing, Gideon.

It's a Bit Rich, Lloyd Webber

Haunted gargoyle featured Andrew Lloyd Webber is in town, this time flogging his latest musical tripe, The School of Rock. It was genuinely sickening to see him on the sofa of The Graham Norton Show on Friday evening (and just repeated once again on BBC1) alongside Chris Martin, Rosamund Pike and that talentless tosser Michael McIntyre bemoaning how the Conservative government (of which he is a member, and a sitting Lord) isn't doing enough to fund the arts in this country.

I quite agree with him of course, but I felt genuinely angry as I watched him sit back and bask in the audience applause and the nodding, impressed heads of Martin, Pike, McIntyre and Norton, because this is a man who has got his priorities completely wrong and here's why;

Andrew Lloyd Webber's Beliefs:

Cutting funding to the arts - Bad.

Cutting funding to the most vulnerable in our society - Good. 

In fact, he'll fly in especially from New York to vote in favour of this, making it just the 30th occasion in fourteen years and 1,898 opportunities to vote in the House of Lords.

(Image and stats from the excellent Another Angry Voice blog)

So permit me to say that slagging off the government only for what they aren't doing for the industry you work in is a bit rich. Almost as rich as Lloyd Webber is himself.

Fighting Back : Petitions to Sign

In a week which saw the horrendous terrorist attacks on Belgium and the UK on high alert it might surprise you to learn (if you're not a cynical so-and-so like me) that our Prime Minister is on holiday in Lanzarote. So hey, if we all die at least he'll be spared.

These two petitions are hilarious - they're asking that he banned from re-entering the UK. Sign here and here

On a more serious note, 14 year old Christine Mustapha has shown she has more maturity and respect than our chancellor by asking that he apologise for his laughing at the disabled and checking Michael Gove's phone in the House last week. Disgraceful behaviour that should bot go unpunished.

Lots of anger at Osborne actually, with many petitions demanding his resignation. Sign here, here, here and here

IDS resigning was probably the best news to come from the Tory party since Thatcher's death, but we need to remember that resignation is not justice - IDS has blood on his hands

This petition calls for Labour to table a vote of no confidence in the Tory government, a sentiment shared by Disabled UK in the light of their horrendous abhorrent policies against the weak and vulnerable with this petition here

And why should we have confidence when MP's are repeatedly shown to be fast asleep whilst 'at work' ? Sign here to get these dozing MP's fined

This asks that the reassessment of young people with lifelong disabilities from DLA to PIP be stopped

A petition calling for three hours feminist education to be introduced to the school curriculum annually. Sign here

Whilst this petition demands that a teacher who used the N word to a black pupil be dismissed.

This calls for the protection of disabled people at work

Save Short Break Services at Autism Together - sign here

Save Manchester's Brian Hore Unit, Alcohol and Mental Health service, from being closed - sign here

Fighting Back : Petitions to Sign

Nicky Morgan's spectacular meltdown of Ben Swain proportions was a delight to watch on Question Time last night - declaring the Budget to only be 'a suggestion' as some of her fellow MP's are in protest over Osborne's proposed cuts to disabled benefit. But we can't just rely on a few protests and a gaffe from the Tories - we need to come together and make a statement regarding this government's stance on PIP and we can do that by signing this petition demanding Osborne thinks again. He's looking increasingly isolated and we need to force his hand. It's worked before - remember the tax credits cuts? - it will work again.

Please, sign it.

Fighting Back : Petitions to Sign

Naturally, today's post is focusing on the atrocities this government has announced just this past fortnight - namely the cuts to disabled benefit and the privatisation of our education system. We need to fight, we need to stop these things from happening!

Sign here to stop the privatisation, along with this one here. Whilst this petition requests Nicky Morgan works a week as a teaching assistant in a comprehensive.

This petition calls for Cameron to reverse the cuts made to the most disadvantaged in our society, namely the disabled. Whilst this one requests that Cameron and IDS are removed from their positions as patrons of motability on the grounds of it now being sheer hypocrisy to allow them to continue. 

Sign here to demand IDS's suspension from the cabinet on the grounds of psychological impairment - because if he isn't wilfully lying then he really must be deluded! Whilst signing here asks that George Osborne be reclassified as a 'non human entity with no soul'.

This petition calls for fewer cuts and a more concise explanation as to the state we are in in terms of debt. Lastly, this petition requests that the Labour Party form a combined and united national response to these austerity measures, allowing Labour councils and trade unions to actively oppose the cuts.

The Creeping Blairite Revival and Some Thoughts on Syria

Look at that image - sickening isn't it?

The only time I want to see Blair sans tie now is shortly after his arrest for war crimes, when a custody sergeant instructs its removal because he fears he'll use it as a makeshift noose in his cell during the long dark night of his poisonous duplicitous soul.

The joker on the left really is a joker too. It's Matt Forde, former Blair office boy, now stand up 'comedian' whose sweaty porcine fart features are currently pissing me off on Question Time as he dismisses the party he worked for, but has now left, as 'the loony left' with ineffectual aims and leadership, despite helping pressurise Osborne into a complete and utter U turn this week.

I hate this creeping revival of the Blair regime which sees media friendly whores getting a free pass at TV airtime to wax wistfully about 'the good old days' of Blair in the hope that he'll descend upon us once more like some Second Coming. 

It's actually insulting to start looking at the Blair years through rose tinted glasses when there is still so much about his dictatorship that remains unresolved and deeply contentious, specifically the fact that we still haven't got a clear verdict on his warmongering.

And war rears its ugly head on Question Time obviously, given the increasingly inevitable step towards air strikes in the vain hope that it may defeat Isil.  

It won't defeat Isil. 

It's an understandable move to do it. But it's a kneejerk reaction. Cameron himself once said that he was not someone who believed that he could "drop democracy out of an airplane at 40,000 feet" yet he's putting us on course for that right now, making the same mistakes that Blair did. And it's a dangerous course, and that's why Corbyn is arguing that there is no clear strategy. Bombing will only be a crap gesture at foreplay ahead of the inevitable call for 'boots on the ground'. Britain does not have the resources to go to war any longer. Thanks to MOD cuts that Cameron has overseen, our army is now the smallest it has been for centuries. 

It will be impossible and fatal to take this path now. You simply don't pick a fight with someone with your hands tied behind your back and that's exactly what this will be.

Worse, we'll inevitably hear that vital funding required for other areas in civilian life, such as the NHS will suffer. It's ridiculous that the NHS is now completely, critically ailing with the finger of blame being pointed at the poor economy when Cameron's government will happily spend 4 billion on the replacement for Trident. The Socialist Labour government of 1945, vowing to never agin endure anything like the war we have just come out of, set up the NHS and it did so when we were a completely bankrupt nation. So what really is Cameron's excuse?

Attlee's government made the commitment to look to our own after the shadow of war. I say that with terror looming over us, we should look to our own once more and focus more on surveillance, policing and prevention within our country.

Murdoch and the media may want a Blairite revival, but they really will be getting the very worst of it if we decide to make the same mistakes that warmonger gleefully led us into. 

Fighting Back : Petitions to Sign

SOS : Save Our Steel Industry

Hold the Chinese president to account over his despicable, poor record on human rights: Release this 16 yr old boy from house arrest

Stop Racism #Youwillbenext

In the middle of extreme hardship and austerity, IDS and Ros Altmann shell out 8.5 million pounds on their campaign featuring 'Workie' How is this right?

Osborne: Explain the  Tax Credit Cuts

Blair: War criminal - time to take him to account. Sign here and here

End Legal Highs

Stop criminalising Liverpool's homeless - STOP PSPO

Stop the Bedroom Tax

Give Homeless People a Home - this last one I have been banging on about for years. There's an abundance of abandoned, derelict houses in this country going to waste. The BBC programme DIY SOS brought this inconvenient truth into the public consciousness last week in a series of programmes that saw them turn a boarded up street back into hospitable living conditions for ex servicemen and women. And yet not once has anyone said why aren't the government paying for this, or why are people homeless in this country if so many houses are going spare? Please sign this petition but also please leave a comment distancing yourself from the petition starter's view that these homes should only be given over to our homeless population and not any Syrian refugees. That kind of xenophobic comment I cannot agree with - there is enough for all in this allegedly 'full up' island if we only force the government into action.

Fighting Back : Petitions to Sign

Inevitably after last week's Budget, much of the petitions are concerning themselves with challenging the heartless decisions from Osborne

National Living Wage: A demand for All Adults to be given it. A specific one to address it for the Under 25's. A demand for Extended Sunday Working Hours to be granted the living wage. Calls for the BBC to stop calling the new Nat Min Wage the Living Wage and lastly, on a similar tack, calls to take the govt to court for the disingenuous use of the phrase Living Wage

Student Maintenance Grants: Please sign the following to stop scraps to this grant - here, here, here and here

1% : Calls to reconsider the 1% pay rise for teachers here, and a campaign to get Cameron to follow his own rules and take a similar paltry increase here

Demands for a referendum here in the UK on the current Austerity Measures

No confidence in Cameron? The man wants to bring back fox hunting amongst other unpopular decisions. Call for him to resign

Excommunicate IDS!

The Opposition are meant to Oppose, right? Harriet Harman doesn't seem to know that, help remind her.

Greece is still the word: Sign these to support our Greek friends - here, here, here, here and here

Calls to close The Mayfair Loophole

Lastly, calls to increase funding for our Ambulance Service

Fighting Back : Petitions to Sign

Join The Women's Equality Party and be a part of a new political movement from the ground up. Why? Because women still suffer inequality today. Around 1.2 million suffer domestic abuse each year whilst 330,000+are sexually assaulted. Convictions rates remain low. Because it will take 70+ years to close the gender pay gap. Because women still aren't represented enough in the media, in parliament, in business or in law. Because things need to change!

Or alternatively join Labour to give your support to the only anti-Trident, and totally anti-austerity candidate for party leadership, Jeremy Corbyn. Info here. And ask your MP to sign EDM73 to ensure that your anti-Trident voice is heard.

George Osborne delivers his Budget tomorrow and in all likelihood he'll be hammering the most vulnerable families. Email the Treasury today to save Child Tax Credit and keep millions of children from sliding into poverty under Tory rule.

Stop the cut to CAMHS Services

Ask the UK government to write off UK Held Greek Debt and ask the UN to intervene and call an emergency conference.

Fighting Back : Petitions to Sign

Following the IPCC's Verdict Not To Investigate Orgreave announced on Friday, a petition has been started demanding an independent inquiry into the actions of the police during the miners strike of 84/85 which you can sign here. Please support, donate, buy merch to fund the fight from the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign site here

Want a man who thinks internal bleeding is caused by a full moon as the chair of the Health Select Committee? Of course you don't, but David Cameron does and that man is David Tredinnick, who also believes homeopathy and astronomy should be paid for by the NHS. Sign here to try and keep Tredinnick and his 'lunatic' views (quoting Prof Sir Robert Winston there) away from this role. Sanity must prevail!

Stoke NHS Join the fight to save beds at Longton Cottage Hospital

Change or expand the criteria for PIP to ensure no one suffers unnecessary hardship.

Welfare is being cut to the bone, and George Osborne wants to cut it even further. £12 billion to be precise. 

17 Weeks To Go : Start As You Mean To Go On

Disappointing scenes from the lacklustre Kraftwerk reunion concert today....

The election battle starts here. Today. For Labour leader Ed Miliband, we stand on the brink of a 'once in a generation election', for the Tories and that scream inducing line up of George Osborne, William Hague, Theresa May, Nicky Morgan and Sajid Javid it was the first chance at dirty tactics.

No sooner had Miliband, Nick Park's greatest creation, concluded his campaign launch speech in Salford, Osborne and his four cabinet colleagues stepped up to their podiums looking like the world's least favourite boy/girl band and hit Labour right in the weak spot; the economy with their document A Cost Analysis Of Labour Party Policy: The Scorecard for 2015/16

Yeah, I'd wait til the film comes out too.

They argue that their findings point to Labour borrowing up to £20.2 billion for 2015/16 alone whilst they will continue to take us safely and smoothly down the road of economic recovery. But it's worth pointing out that this document isn't offering up set in stone commitments from Labour and that what looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck....isn't actually always a duck.

This cost analysis looks like a Treasury document, but that doesn't make it a Treasury document and tellingly, Osborne won't let the figures within be properly analysed by the OBR because of a 'lack of resources'. What is printed within this tome is not spending commitments but rather a projected guesstimation based on implications from Labour, and implications are not commitments. 

Unfortunately though, on a day that should have been about the NHS, the public sector and the next 122 campaigning days for Labour, the Tories have cannily made it all about the economy, making Miliband and Ed Balls dance to their tune.

Help The Aged - Make Osborne See Sense

Right now, Chancellor George Osborne is deciding whether to carry on cutting care for the elderly and disabled people, or to give it the funding it deserves.

In the last three years, government spending in this area has gone down a shocking 20% even though there is a continuing and increasing need for it.

Please sign this petition from 38 Degrees and let Osborne know he needs to make the right decision and not do what Tories always do; shirk their responsibility in caring for the most vulnerable in our society.

Petition

And because it kind of fits the theme...