Tuesday 12 July 2011
Carte Blanche
This lump of shite claims to be the latest Bond novel. Aside from having all the literary style of the Daily Sport the research is dire - handgun ammunition still contains gunpowder and the Yorkshire-Bradford University (what?) is based in York ... Don't waste your money.
Friday 8 July 2011
The smell from Murdoch
The on going News of the World scandal is a huge mess and rightly looked on as an example of the abysmal standards in parts of British journalism, what is being largely ignored is the evidence it also provides of the almost universal criminal conduct of the police. Obviously you have the payments to police for information but what seems to have been glossed over is that all the private detectives used by the journalists were ex police.
It is always better to speak from personal experience and as it so happens I have some such coincidently also involving papers from the Murdoch stable. Those of you old enough and based in the UK will remember the Hillsborough football disaster and the Sun newspaper's loss of readership in Liverpool that arose when it carried a front page accusation that Liverpool fans had urinated on their dead fellow supporters and stolen valuables from the dead and injured. There was a public enquiry into the police conduct and the police employed solicitors the assist in their presentation of evidence to that enquiry. Years later there was also an enquiry into the first enquiry. I happened to review the solicitor's files. Shortly after the disaster senior officiers in South Yorkshire police received reports of canteen boasts being made by some officiers of items they had acquired from the dead and injured. Somewhere within SYP a decision was made that something should be done to preempt any difficult questions that might arise - this was done by leaking to journalists the completely untrue allegations that other fans had been seen by police stealing from the dead and injured. The theory been that victims of the thefts would be less likley to make official complaints if they thought this would blacken the reputations of Liverpool fans in general. On the advise of the solicitor the statements regarding canteen boasts weren't even presented to the enquiry (the grounds being that they were hearsay and would thus be inadmissable in a criminal court case). Other statements that contained more helpful (to the theory the police were responsible for the deaths) evidence were shown to the enquiry but only after heavy editing to remove any comments regarding the conduct of the police. When the second enquiry came along there was a frenzy of shredding at the solicitors - only items that were actually presented to the first enquiry were retained on the basis that the only remit of the second enquiry was to look at distortions in the evidence actually presented to the first and that showing them evidence that hadn't even been seen by the first would only confuse matters.
Sadly the Sun reported the lies of the police and angered the population of Liverpool and badly damaged it's reputation. The policeman most involved? Well his save of SYP (who from the evidence I saw on their own solicitor's file before much was shredded before the second enquiry) helped his career greatly and he duly became Chief Constable of Merseyside (a real slap in the face the the city) and made a little speech about his inolvement in the events at Hillsborough that was interesting given what I knew. This fine upstanding man took the usual route for senior officiers of retiring on full pension to work in one of the civilianised bodies supporting the police on a fully salary. In a little twist he was so hopeless at organising police training the government ended his appointment early by merging the body with another and making clear he could not apply for a job in the new body. Somehow the idiots on the West Yorkshire Police Committee decided he should be appointed Chief Constable of West Yorkshire where he fraudulently continued to claim his pension from Merseyside - oddly when this was spotted it was all resolved without him being arrested for the fraud he had committed.
The solicitors? Well they, Hammonds, did less well and had to be rescued from near bankrupcy by an American firm. Interestingly Hammonds were oddly treated very kindly by the police enquiry into the Hinchcliffe fraud - especially when one of the crimes Hinchcliffe was convicted of was backdating authority foor transfers of money between companies. These authorities were forced upon him by Hammonds who had been told that they had to pay back to subsidiaries of Hinchcliffe's (and hence to people he had defrauded) and recover that money from his holding company - instead they twisted his arm into signing the authorities they should have had in place before paying money out from subsidiaries to by him a yellow ferrari and many similar goodies to the tune of a few tens of millions. They are also been treated with similar leniency regarding their defrauding of clients, creditors, employees and banks in relation to their bulk conveyancing offshoot which went tits-up to the tune of ten million early in 2009.
So to cover up the average cops unofficial bonus scheme of nicking valuables from suspects, accident victims etc the police in the guise of the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire lie to and mislead two enquries, shred inconvenient evidence and allow both dear old Norman (who incidently claims to be Oxford educated when infact his first degree was from some sheffield polytechnic) get away with fraudulently claiming a police pension while working as a police officer and cover up the inolvement of their solicitors in multi-million pound frauds.
While the smell from the News of the World is bad we should not lose sight of where it really comes from - our institutionally criminal and corrupt police forces compared with which journalists smell of roses.
It is always better to speak from personal experience and as it so happens I have some such coincidently also involving papers from the Murdoch stable. Those of you old enough and based in the UK will remember the Hillsborough football disaster and the Sun newspaper's loss of readership in Liverpool that arose when it carried a front page accusation that Liverpool fans had urinated on their dead fellow supporters and stolen valuables from the dead and injured. There was a public enquiry into the police conduct and the police employed solicitors the assist in their presentation of evidence to that enquiry. Years later there was also an enquiry into the first enquiry. I happened to review the solicitor's files. Shortly after the disaster senior officiers in South Yorkshire police received reports of canteen boasts being made by some officiers of items they had acquired from the dead and injured. Somewhere within SYP a decision was made that something should be done to preempt any difficult questions that might arise - this was done by leaking to journalists the completely untrue allegations that other fans had been seen by police stealing from the dead and injured. The theory been that victims of the thefts would be less likley to make official complaints if they thought this would blacken the reputations of Liverpool fans in general. On the advise of the solicitor the statements regarding canteen boasts weren't even presented to the enquiry (the grounds being that they were hearsay and would thus be inadmissable in a criminal court case). Other statements that contained more helpful (to the theory the police were responsible for the deaths) evidence were shown to the enquiry but only after heavy editing to remove any comments regarding the conduct of the police. When the second enquiry came along there was a frenzy of shredding at the solicitors - only items that were actually presented to the first enquiry were retained on the basis that the only remit of the second enquiry was to look at distortions in the evidence actually presented to the first and that showing them evidence that hadn't even been seen by the first would only confuse matters.
Sadly the Sun reported the lies of the police and angered the population of Liverpool and badly damaged it's reputation. The policeman most involved? Well his save of SYP (who from the evidence I saw on their own solicitor's file before much was shredded before the second enquiry) helped his career greatly and he duly became Chief Constable of Merseyside (a real slap in the face the the city) and made a little speech about his inolvement in the events at Hillsborough that was interesting given what I knew. This fine upstanding man took the usual route for senior officiers of retiring on full pension to work in one of the civilianised bodies supporting the police on a fully salary. In a little twist he was so hopeless at organising police training the government ended his appointment early by merging the body with another and making clear he could not apply for a job in the new body. Somehow the idiots on the West Yorkshire Police Committee decided he should be appointed Chief Constable of West Yorkshire where he fraudulently continued to claim his pension from Merseyside - oddly when this was spotted it was all resolved without him being arrested for the fraud he had committed.
The solicitors? Well they, Hammonds, did less well and had to be rescued from near bankrupcy by an American firm. Interestingly Hammonds were oddly treated very kindly by the police enquiry into the Hinchcliffe fraud - especially when one of the crimes Hinchcliffe was convicted of was backdating authority foor transfers of money between companies. These authorities were forced upon him by Hammonds who had been told that they had to pay back to subsidiaries of Hinchcliffe's (and hence to people he had defrauded) and recover that money from his holding company - instead they twisted his arm into signing the authorities they should have had in place before paying money out from subsidiaries to by him a yellow ferrari and many similar goodies to the tune of a few tens of millions. They are also been treated with similar leniency regarding their defrauding of clients, creditors, employees and banks in relation to their bulk conveyancing offshoot which went tits-up to the tune of ten million early in 2009.
So to cover up the average cops unofficial bonus scheme of nicking valuables from suspects, accident victims etc the police in the guise of the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire lie to and mislead two enquries, shred inconvenient evidence and allow both dear old Norman (who incidently claims to be Oxford educated when infact his first degree was from some sheffield polytechnic) get away with fraudulently claiming a police pension while working as a police officer and cover up the inolvement of their solicitors in multi-million pound frauds.
While the smell from the News of the World is bad we should not lose sight of where it really comes from - our institutionally criminal and corrupt police forces compared with which journalists smell of roses.
Monday 4 July 2011
Removed Comments
Any comments longer than my original blog post will probably get removed as fatuous waffle. Especially if they are of the "I'm impotent (crushed balls innit) so could you shag my girlfriend so I can watch type that some idiot psts"
Wednesday 29 June 2011
My inner book is about to hatch
Well it seems that way in that I keep fiddling with the Timeline and adding to the plot nuggets and character pile for the provisionally titled "Commonwealth of the Second Raj" .... a future history featuring the grossly obese post-sentient devolved Homo Yankicunti as the succulent but vaguely cannibalistic signature dish of the multi-stellar Britannia Balti Burger franchise ("the uberburger americans die for"
Lying Politicians - No.1 the chancellor ... slimeball Osbourne
Now this greasy etonian oik will have you believe that the basic rate of tax is 20% (that sounds lowish and reasonable yes?) And the top rate 50% (two and a half times the basic so a reasonable premium for his fat bastard friends it seems).
However he lies, just suppose someone pays your employer £100 - the first slice from that is VAT 20% leaving £83.33, next e'ers NI at 13.8% which leaves your employer £73.23 to pass to you. If you are a basic rate tax payer then you have to pay tax at 20% and NI at 12% which leaves you £49.80 which equates to a tax rate of 50.2% on the £100 originally paid. For a 40% tax payer the NI is 2% so he would be left with £42.50, ie a tax rate of 57.5%. One of his fat bastard friends on 50% tax again has NI of 2%, leaving him with £35.15 ie a tax rate of 64.85%.
So instead of 20, 40 and 50 which almost looks fair with a rich swine paying 2.5 times a pauper the reality is 50.2, 57.5 and 64.85 with a well heeled old etonian paying just 29% more than a busker on the underground.
It's obviously unfair that people being paid less than enough to live on should get less than 50% of the amount paid for their work, 80% would be fairer and if that means the middle classes and conservative fat cats have to get less so be it.
Sadly until the downtrodden start decorating lampposts with politicians this won't happen so go grab some hemp and let's party. Baggsie a tory for my contribution.
Another way to look at it is to realise how much more employment there would be if employers didn't have to pay twice for each employee, once a barely adequate wage to the employee and then the same again to the government to spend on whatever damn fool project Micheal Gove comes up with to pay religious nutters to indoctrinate children in his so called free schools or to Seb Coe to waste on an Olypmics where only Sepp Blatter can get tickets for the decent events (he gets them free, with luxury accommodation and transport by limo on roads closed to the public whereas we have to pay through the nose and are only allowed into the restricted view seats for sports we haven't even heard of).
Then again you have to despair at a population that suffers a tax rate in excess of 50% because they are more interested in who Ryan Giggs is shagging (anything with a pulse it seems) than who's royally fucking them.
However he lies, just suppose someone pays your employer £100 - the first slice from that is VAT 20% leaving £83.33, next e'ers NI at 13.8% which leaves your employer £73.23 to pass to you. If you are a basic rate tax payer then you have to pay tax at 20% and NI at 12% which leaves you £49.80 which equates to a tax rate of 50.2% on the £100 originally paid. For a 40% tax payer the NI is 2% so he would be left with £42.50, ie a tax rate of 57.5%. One of his fat bastard friends on 50% tax again has NI of 2%, leaving him with £35.15 ie a tax rate of 64.85%.
So instead of 20, 40 and 50 which almost looks fair with a rich swine paying 2.5 times a pauper the reality is 50.2, 57.5 and 64.85 with a well heeled old etonian paying just 29% more than a busker on the underground.
It's obviously unfair that people being paid less than enough to live on should get less than 50% of the amount paid for their work, 80% would be fairer and if that means the middle classes and conservative fat cats have to get less so be it.
Sadly until the downtrodden start decorating lampposts with politicians this won't happen so go grab some hemp and let's party. Baggsie a tory for my contribution.
Another way to look at it is to realise how much more employment there would be if employers didn't have to pay twice for each employee, once a barely adequate wage to the employee and then the same again to the government to spend on whatever damn fool project Micheal Gove comes up with to pay religious nutters to indoctrinate children in his so called free schools or to Seb Coe to waste on an Olypmics where only Sepp Blatter can get tickets for the decent events (he gets them free, with luxury accommodation and transport by limo on roads closed to the public whereas we have to pay through the nose and are only allowed into the restricted view seats for sports we haven't even heard of).
Then again you have to despair at a population that suffers a tax rate in excess of 50% because they are more interested in who Ryan Giggs is shagging (anything with a pulse it seems) than who's royally fucking them.
Tuesday 28 June 2011
Kicking off
Having been away from blogging for about a year now is the time to dip my toe in the murky stream of citizen journalism and general ranting once again. Recurrent themes will be the corruption pervading society steming from politics and professionalism and the naivety of the herd that permits this.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)