Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Well flip me round the face and call me a democrat then!

I got an email today, from Number 10 if you please. It was one of those thanks but now do fuck off Mr Corder and stop bothering us emails.

I had had the temerity to sign a petition:
“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to grant the English people a referendum on independence forEngland.”

And it was a petition based on a pretty reasonable premise:
“68% of English people want an English Parliament. 59% of English people want Scotland to leave the UK. The will of the English people for self-rule within the United Kingdom is flagrantly ignored because, we are told, an English Parliament within a federal UK would break up the Union. Well maybe English people would prefer independence to being 3rd class citizens within a United Kingdom. Let’s ask them.”

In spite of the properly sourced and numerous opinion polls to the contrary, the response from Number 10 was,
"we do not believe that there is a groundswell of support for an English Parliament"

OK IGNORE the opinion polls, nameless Government-Wallah, but isn't that what actually asking the people is about?

And on.

The Government believes that it is not necessary to establish a separate English Parliament to balance the current devolution settlements in the United Kingdom as England is already the dominant partner and English interests are fully represented.


Not really, since the Scottish Labour MPs voted to penalise English constituents , voting for English student fees, English personal care for the elderly, no medication for English cancer sufferers; while their MSP colleagues (who actually DO represent the people of Scotland in their constituencies) vote in free personal care, free tertiary education, bags of drugs etc.

Far from being dominant, England in this Union is bullied by a bunch of Scots who don't even have a mandate to represent their OWN constituents on such matters and yet they presume to vote against the wishes of the English people. Who didn't elect them. At all.

An English Parliament would only be a fraction smaller than the existing UK Parliament.


So what? It would be a parliament without interference from devolved peoples who have no interest in England. The new governing body - the UK Overview Team - or old UK Parliament - would be slimline as a result. And what a result! It doesn't need to remain unwieldy as it now is.

It would be likely to become bureaucratic and difficult to pass legislation, particularly if there were a different party in Government at Westminster, than that of the suggested English Parliament.

Really? So remind me who is in power in Scotland? Umm. That would be the Scottish Nationalists. And who is in power in the United Kingdom, errr Labour. So what's good for the goose is not good for the gander? Come on who are these people kidding.
The Government is taking steps to increase regional accountability including through the introduction of Regional Ministers.

England doesn't want to be regions, England wants to be democratically free! And yes England commands more votes than Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Tough titty. That's democracy!

It is not palatable for the Labour Party to devolve England as it derives it's controlling votes from north of the border and in Wales. That is the point.

Forget the goose and the gander. To get equality we have to get the turkeys to vote for Christmas. Come on David Cameron, Nick Clegg, someone has to get the ball rolling. The English are a bit bloody pissed off! You guys can get yourselves elected to the UK Overview Team as well - then you have a MANDATE!

There IS a groundswell of support whether they like it or not.
There ARE more English who would kiss goodbye to the Scots if asked than Scots who want independence.

If this government and its successor which I must presume will be the Tories, won't grasp the nettle, (or to mix my metaphors, hold its tiny thumb on the lever), then as the pin is already out, (second analogy) then someone's really going to blow these Islands apart.

After that, what?

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

National Health is Filthy & Infested


Filthy NHS wards are being plagued by pests - with maggots found in slippers and rats in maternity units, reports the Daily Mail
Hospitals are so dirty that pest controllers were called out to 20,000 infestations in the past two years.

Experts warned that the appalling levels of hygiene added to the danger to patients from the deadly superbugs MRSA and C.diff, which multiply in the same environments as pests.

Well, what a pretty pass have we come to? While politicians of various colours throw seven shades of political shit at each other about who is to blame, and people try to weasel out of responsibility, may I give you the words of an expert.

"If a nurse declines to do these kinds of things for her patient because it is not her business I should say that nursing was not her calling.

I have seen surgical sisters women whose hands were worth to them two or three guineas a week down upon their knees scouring a room or hut because they thought it otherwise not fit for their patients to go into. I am far from wishing nurses to scour. It is a waste of power.

But I do say that these women had the true nurse calling the good of their sick first and second only the consideration what it was their place to do and that women who wait for the housemaid to do this or for the charwoman to do that when then patients are suffering have not the making of a nurse in them"


And who was the expert I quoted? Florence Nightingale, in Notes on Nursing: What it Is, and what it is Not, published 1860.

Time for nursing to get back to basics perhaps?