All four trotters in the trough
These two stories from the BBC concerns a wider issue that has been bubbling away in British politics for a little while now, the issue of MP’s expenses.
Given that an MP currently earns just over £61,000 - and a Cabinet Minister earns an extra nearly £77,000 on top of that - it seems somewhat obscene that they can claim £23,000 for running a second home. There are those (and I would be one of them) who might think that if they need a second home then they should damn well pay for it themselves. After all, no-one forces them to take the job, so why should the taxpayer be forced to support a lifestyle that the majority of taxpayers cannot afford for themselves?
But the one that takes the cake (at least today - this one promises to run and run, so there’s bound to be one that beats it) is the Speakers wife claiming over £4,000 in taxi fares which were “mainly for shopping trips”. Apparently, these trips met the criteria for assisting the Speaker to carry out his official duties, which seems odd. If that is the case, then it’s time the criteria were changed!
Apparently “the House of Commons is fighting to avoid releasing the details of expenses claims under the allowance of 14 MPs and former MPs under the Freedom of Information Act.” Could that be because they don’t want the great British public to find out how much they’re being fleeced by their elected representatives?
Of course, this all comes on top of the fiasco that has been the scrapping of the 10p tax band, leaving several million taxpayers worse off than they’ve previously been. Alistair Darling’s hastily announced ’support’ package makes a mockery of the whole affair; rather than just re-instating the 10px tax band, he instead raises the personal allowance for everyone that earns less than £40,000 a year - even though it’s only those that earn up to £18,500 and who either are aged between 61 and 64 or who don’t have children that are affected.
I’m not sure I’d trust this lot to manage a piggy bank properly, let along the finances of the whole country!
Bass-ackwards once again
The BBC is a good source for all sorts of news - including the stuff that really makes my blood boil. This latest story deals with a statement from the National Association of Head Teachers, calling for good parents to be rewarded for looking after their children properly.
Sorry? You want to reward people for doing what they’re supposed to be doing anyway? You want to make it seem like it’s something special to look after your children properly? If it really is, if the standard is for people NOT to look after their children properly then as a society we’re fucked. Pure and simple.
In a similar vein, there’s this story about a planned 38% pay increase for prisoners that was pulled at the last minute. 38% pay rise for prisoners? Come ON! You’re kidding right? They’re PRISONERS! They BROKE THE LAW! Why are they being paid for the work they do? Isn’t it supposed to be part of their punishment? It’s apparently all part of the rehabilitation programme. Here’s an idea - instead of making prison so damn cushy, why not actually make it a proper penalty - so that people would far rather NOT commit a crime because they don’t want to be put in jail?
Facebook again
The BBC have discovered that it’s easy to write a Facebook application that will, when loaded on a users profile, harvest all sorts of information about that person and their contacts. If the BBC are the first people to think of doing this, I would be really surprised, yet there seems to be a level of indignation that I find hard to take. This is the internet; it is not anywhere near as secure as people would like us to believe and hacking goes on. If you don’t want anyone to find out enough information about you to commit identity fraud, don’t put it on a public forum - it’s as simple as that.
Until we all learn that our personal data is valuable - and that protecting it is OUR OWN RESPONSIBILITY - then identity theft will continue to increase.
And another one
After my post the other day about being requested to remove a post, I realise today from reading this story that perhaps I got off lightly. A blogger has been fined £150 and ordered to pay £364 costs for a blog post in which he “let off steam” about his treatment at the hands of the police and supposedly made comments that “any reasonable” person would find “menacing”.
The news article gives one quote from the post which seems to have been the line this whole thing hinged on, but it doesn’t seem particularly menacing to me. Unclearly written, perhaps, for the point he was trying to make but not menacing. Sadly, the post in question has been removed so I can’t go and check out the rest of it to see if, as claimed, “the context of the whole blog” makes that line more menacing or not.
What we seem to be moving towards though with this case and others is a that, far from being a place where you can have your say about the world around you, a blog is becoming a place where you have to make sure that you are towing the party line. Woe betide you if you cross that line.
It’ll get you buzzing…
… but only because it’s over 60% sugar!
On SocialSpark earlier, I came across a ‘Spark’ (read: things people want you to write about but they’re not prepared to pay you for it) about these lollipops that are supposed to be unique and give you lots of energy because of the nutrients they contain. Being involved in that sort of industry, I thought I’d take a look and see what they’re actually offering.
First of all I’m amazed at the amount of sugar these things contain. Each serving is 26g, with a 16g sugar content. So, that’ll be where most of the stimulation and revitalising energy is coming from then. Next, is the fact that it contains caffeine - another common stimulant. So far, you’re not getting anything that you couldn’t get from a cup of coffee. They do throw in a little bit of ginseng and guarana - but only 6mg of each; hardly significant values. Finally, they throw in some maltodextrin and corn syrup just to make sure it’s really sweet.
There’s no indication on the site where you can buy these things or how much they are - but you can buy some nice shirts and hats if you want, or enter a competition to win one of the really cheap iPods - but if you ever see them in a store I suggest you pass them by. Unless, that is, you have a very friendly dentist.
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