It now appears that the Clintons are cashing in on UK foreign aid!
The fact we are spending more and more on aid when we are massively in debt is bad enough, but when it is being tossed away for vanity reasons to ingratiate UK politicians with the rich and powerful in the US … I think most people would find that distasteful and unacceptable.
Tory backbenchers say the revelation is symptomatic of the fact that the DfID [Department for International Development] has so much money to spend that large amounts have to be simply handed to global charities, often leading to huge amounts of waste.
The Daily Mail has been investigating this story that some of the UK Foreign Aid budget has filtered through certain charities that the Clintons control and were employees are accepting over the top salaries of six figures, not to forget the management fees. The charity mentioned is Clinton Health Access Initiative, however DfID has said it does not fund the Clinton Foundation but it does fund the Clinton Health Access Initiative!
I am sure if the government were asked about this they would sweep any criticism away with a remark like 'we have great faith in the Clintons, I am sure there is nothing untoward going on here!'
Monday, 27 July 2015
Sunday, 26 July 2015
Infiltrated is the new black
Comrade Corbyn seems to have attracted Trotskyites who haven’t been involved in the party for years but appear to be mobilising into a highly organised force with the specific aim of getting Jeremy elected as the next Labour leader.
Of course part of this new influx of members, reported to be over 140,000 now, are conservatives who have forked out the mighty sum of £3.00 to ensure that they too support Comrade Corbyn. There are probably others who could not be classed as left now supporting Comrade Corbyn to squeeze out the middle of the roaders who can be seem to be clones.
The media seem to be transfixed on hard line lefties but what if there are people who are just fed up with Labour trying to hold the centre ground, which does not seem to have worked.
Also we cannot forget the near complete wipe out in Scotland where Labour lost 99% of their holding in one election. Have they held a Post-Mortem of May and if so why are they continuing with rhetoric that failed! Then there are the unions which are very good at moving large crowds in one direction.
Of course part of this new influx of members, reported to be over 140,000 now, are conservatives who have forked out the mighty sum of £3.00 to ensure that they too support Comrade Corbyn. There are probably others who could not be classed as left now supporting Comrade Corbyn to squeeze out the middle of the roaders who can be seem to be clones.
The media seem to be transfixed on hard line lefties but what if there are people who are just fed up with Labour trying to hold the centre ground, which does not seem to have worked.
Also we cannot forget the near complete wipe out in Scotland where Labour lost 99% of their holding in one election. Have they held a Post-Mortem of May and if so why are they continuing with rhetoric that failed! Then there are the unions which are very good at moving large crowds in one direction.
Saturday, 25 July 2015
Civil Service filing
Extraordinary documents found in the Cabinet Office clear out of files connected with historic child abuse cases has been found. The memos, found in a storeroom of “assorted and unstructured papers”, reveals one key paper from November 1986 from Sir Antony Duff, then director-general of MI5.
Writing to Sir Robert Armstrong, the cabinet secretary, about inquiries into an MP said to have “a penchant for small boys”, he says the spookmeister accepts the MP’s denial and adds: “At the present stage . . . the risks of political embarrassment to the government is rather greater than the security danger”.
Was that just the Establishment believing one of its own, combined with a now outdated attitude to child abuse?
Or was it part of a cover-up of the truth?
The cache of documents and correspondence also relates to senior Westminster figures such as Leon Brittan.
All will be handed over to Justice Lowell Goddard, who has ordered the whole of Whitehall against shredding or hiding any documents she may need for her new overarching inquiry.
Writing to Sir Robert Armstrong, the cabinet secretary, about inquiries into an MP said to have “a penchant for small boys”, he says the spookmeister accepts the MP’s denial and adds: “At the present stage . . . the risks of political embarrassment to the government is rather greater than the security danger”.
Was that just the Establishment believing one of its own, combined with a now outdated attitude to child abuse?
Or was it part of a cover-up of the truth?
The cache of documents and correspondence also relates to senior Westminster figures such as Leon Brittan.
All will be handed over to Justice Lowell Goddard, who has ordered the whole of Whitehall against shredding or hiding any documents she may need for her new overarching inquiry.
Thursday, 23 July 2015
English Votes For English Laws
Yesterday's Government defeat in the Lords showed this is still a tricky area. But why should it be?
Why is this not automatic anyway in that all four countries in the UK can identify individual laws specific to one of the four countries and then be the only members to vote on it.
If this was not such a big issue I would have presumed that this was the norm, so I was surprised when this story started to gather pace last year during the Scottish referendum.
I realise that Scotland has a lesser parliament, but it is still a parliament and the Welsh and Irish have an assembly, however, they should still be able to be the only ones voting on their countries laws.
This whole point raises issues for me as I have said, if it was not mainstream news I would have assumed that it was happening anyway. Is the current system completely out of touch with every day business, or am I just naïve?
Why is this not automatic anyway in that all four countries in the UK can identify individual laws specific to one of the four countries and then be the only members to vote on it.
If this was not such a big issue I would have presumed that this was the norm, so I was surprised when this story started to gather pace last year during the Scottish referendum.
I realise that Scotland has a lesser parliament, but it is still a parliament and the Welsh and Irish have an assembly, however, they should still be able to be the only ones voting on their countries laws.
This whole point raises issues for me as I have said, if it was not mainstream news I would have assumed that it was happening anyway. Is the current system completely out of touch with every day business, or am I just naïve?
Wednesday, 22 July 2015
Labour leadership race
As each day passes it becomes clearer that Jeremy Corbyn [at the beginning the outsider, the invitee to make up the numbers and fill in the left space] is taking an immense lead over the other three.
Now is this a flook brought about by the numbers, or a protest, or a deliberate manipulation of the situation, or is this just what the Labour members want?
If the rumours are true there is already a plan to force a coup if Jeremy Corbyn wins. Unbelievable!
Sometimes bookies can be more accurate that the polls and the bookies are most definitely favouring Jeremy Corbyn at the moment. I must admit the vote will not happen until September so we have 6-8 weeks to go, but at the moment it seems quite clear.
On Newsnight last night [Tuesday 21st July] John McTernan [Labour Party political adviser] said "the Labour members who nominated Jeremy Corbyn are Morons". Now did he say this because of what was happening, i.e., Jeremy Corbyn in the lead, or did he mean it in the sense that there are a group of members who are desperate for the party to return to it's more left of centre roots? Perhaps over the coming days, this situation will become clearer.
Now is this a flook brought about by the numbers, or a protest, or a deliberate manipulation of the situation, or is this just what the Labour members want?
If the rumours are true there is already a plan to force a coup if Jeremy Corbyn wins. Unbelievable!
Sometimes bookies can be more accurate that the polls and the bookies are most definitely favouring Jeremy Corbyn at the moment. I must admit the vote will not happen until September so we have 6-8 weeks to go, but at the moment it seems quite clear.
On Newsnight last night [Tuesday 21st July] John McTernan [Labour Party political adviser] said "the Labour members who nominated Jeremy Corbyn are Morons". Now did he say this because of what was happening, i.e., Jeremy Corbyn in the lead, or did he mean it in the sense that there are a group of members who are desperate for the party to return to it's more left of centre roots? Perhaps over the coming days, this situation will become clearer.
Tuesday, 21 July 2015
Salary remark
They still do not get it, even though the PM David Cameron stood up in parliament and said "We get it."
Fair enough the comment was made after parliament had just voted 'no' to bombing Syria, even though the RAF today is helping in Syria, but that is a different story.
Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood a foreign office minister on £90k a year has now apologised for his "watch the pennies" remark when responding to the announced 10% pay rise for MPs by the independent watchdog IPSA [Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority].
IPSA are still going ahead with this increase which will go into every pay packet and it is still unclear how many will or will not forward the increase to worthy charities. I suspect that Tobias Ellwood will not be extending the hand of friendship.
Last week Susie Boniface aka @fleetstreetfox took the bull by the horns and started a trend that was a huge success in getting followers to petition their MPs with the simple question "will you be accepting the 10% pay rise, or donating it to charity/local places in need?".
The response was very slow to start and then after a wile one or started to reply back that they would pass on the extra to charities. After a few days it was clear that very few would do the decent thing and pass on the pay rise.
Fair enough the comment was made after parliament had just voted 'no' to bombing Syria, even though the RAF today is helping in Syria, but that is a different story.
Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood a foreign office minister on £90k a year has now apologised for his "watch the pennies" remark when responding to the announced 10% pay rise for MPs by the independent watchdog IPSA [Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority].
IPSA are still going ahead with this increase which will go into every pay packet and it is still unclear how many will or will not forward the increase to worthy charities. I suspect that Tobias Ellwood will not be extending the hand of friendship.
Last week Susie Boniface aka @fleetstreetfox took the bull by the horns and started a trend that was a huge success in getting followers to petition their MPs with the simple question "will you be accepting the 10% pay rise, or donating it to charity/local places in need?".
The response was very slow to start and then after a wile one or started to reply back that they would pass on the extra to charities. After a few days it was clear that very few would do the decent thing and pass on the pay rise.
Monday, 20 July 2015
Pluto's designation
My thoughts on Pluto started at school in science and whether it was one of the Solar System's planets. At that time there was not one side or the other that carried the argument and my biggest sticking point at the time was Pluto's trajectory.
The peculiarity of Pluto's trajectory is that both its eccentricity and inclination to the ecliptic, the approximate plane in which the orbits of the other planets lie, are extremely high.
As far as size is concerned I could say that Pluto is smaller than our moon, also Callisto, Europa, Ganymede, Io, Titan and Triton but that has never sat well with me.
It was mainly due to how people described the other eight planets, they always seem to come together and Pluto appeared to be left out, for example:-
there are four inner and four outer
there are four smaller and four larger
there are four solid and four gas
This type of rhetoric was constant at the time and Pluto always got the short straw. Then it was demoted to Dwarf planet and I thought no more about it until recently, now I seemed to have changed my mind and have decided that Pluto is one of the nine solar system planets.
The peculiarity of Pluto's trajectory is that both its eccentricity and inclination to the ecliptic, the approximate plane in which the orbits of the other planets lie, are extremely high.
As far as size is concerned I could say that Pluto is smaller than our moon, also Callisto, Europa, Ganymede, Io, Titan and Triton but that has never sat well with me.
It was mainly due to how people described the other eight planets, they always seem to come together and Pluto appeared to be left out, for example:-
there are four inner and four outer
there are four smaller and four larger
there are four solid and four gas
This type of rhetoric was constant at the time and Pluto always got the short straw. Then it was demoted to Dwarf planet and I thought no more about it until recently, now I seemed to have changed my mind and have decided that Pluto is one of the nine solar system planets.
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