End of the road for Human Rights in the UK

Scary Big Sister that wants to watch and monitor our every conversation, Home Sectary, Theresa May will get her long dream fulfilled if the Conservatives get into power again after the next general election, the scraping of the powers of the European Court of Human Rights. Today Justice Secretary Chris Grayling announced that the Conservatives would introduce it own bill of rights to replace European Convention on Human Rights, a convention that British Lawyers had a major hand in crafting to protect and define the rights of the people of every nation in Europe.

Under Conservatives proposals, after the next election, it would introduce a British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities that would allow them to be ultimate source of legal authority in the United Kingdom. In effect this would allow them to make up there own rules on what is and what isn't a human right and define how the bill is used, for example there are limitations on the use of the new bill meaning that not everyone will be able bring cases to protect their rights. It is clear that the purposed bill will do little to protect Human Rights in the same way as the European Convention on Human Rights, it would water done our rights and given Theresa May's surveillance state go on to threaten the people liberty and  freedom of speech.

The propaganda put out by the Conservative party makes it sound like the European Court of Human Rights is deliberately doing all it can to undermine British law and thwat the Governance of the country by sighting cases where the Conservatives disagreed with judgements against them but the truth is they have righted many wrongs. These include:

• Held the police to account for failing to investigate rape and human trafficking.
• Compensation for minors who were abused but ignored by social services.
• Upheld the rights of children to express their religious faith.
• Supported families fleeing domestic violence.
• Ensured the right to access to life-saving drugs on the NHS.
• Held hospitals to account when lapses in mental-health treatment have resulted in suicide.
• Given same-sex partners the equivalent rights and status as heterosexuals. 
• Ensured that inquiries into civilian deaths in Iraq at the hands of British troops have been independent. 
• Used to establish that failure to properly to equip British soldiers is a breach of their rights. 
• Stopped councils from misusing CCTV surveillance.
• Used against councils who have closed libraries.
• Stopped Councils that  have bypassed the rights of the disabled and the elderly.

These are some of the many things that the European Convention on Human Rights done to improve the country we live in, protect the rights of the individual and hold local and national Government account. They provide an outside body that the British citizen can turn to protect their rights. It isn't just the foreigners that the Conservative party would have you believe that are the people that benefit from European Court of Human Rights. 

Think before you believe the lies of political parties, any of them, and find out the truth for yourself. Not everything is black and white in this world even if some people think they are. Politicians of one country can be trusted with our Human Rights because they will abuse the powers as surely as night comes after day.

Last Day of Summer

I know officially we have pasted the last day of summer, by any measure, weeks ago the weather in Rutland has thought otherwise, but something tells me this will be the last day of summer this year as the strange but welcome spell of weather comes to an end. Soon the temperatures will start dropping the wind will pick up and the rain will fall together with the remaining leaves on the tree.

In many ways we have been very lucky to have such a lovely summer this year, but one I think many would agree that we were due after the wet summers of recent years. The weather really has been good and I hope we have more of the same. It was neither too hot or too wet, it just seemed about right when it got under way. You could ask more of the weather it has really been kind.

The summer, like the last, as been a strange one, despite the weather, in other ways that has often spoilt the enjoyment of the sun. Something is missing right now and I don't know what to do with it and how to put things right again. It is something that has been bothering for a while and something I feel helpless to do anything about. In my heart I hope things will improve and my head says the same too, but how is the one remaining questions I just can't work out. Until it does something will always be missing.

Gutter Press love the Tories

The gutter press the Tories as proved by the headline in the worst of the papers the right wing Sun newspaper that hailed the Conservatives moves to make the rich richer and the poor poorer as a success for their own campaigns . They went as far as say that the posh git, Prime Minister David Cameron is following their manifesto and polices.

On their front page they list the polices that the Conservative party is following that they have purposed, and it wouldn't surprise me if this was the case, with level of thinking of the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer who remind me of Tweedledum and Tweedledee from Alice in Wonderland. Here is a list of the Sun Newspapers polices:

• Income tax help for 30m
• Cut back on welfare benefits
• Create jobs for everyone
• Axe hated Human Rights Act
• Safeguard Britain's free NHS
• English votes for own laws
• Draw red line on EU immigration

On the front page all but the last one has a nice big red tick by it and at the bottom the words "and we'll make sure you keep your promises, Dave", like they are some of his posh chums from Eton. Of course it doesn't take much thought to realise that the hated Human Rights Act is the same one that Newspaper themselves have used as a defence to justify the publication of some of their stories and I'm sure to protect their sources.

Having looked through today's copy of the paper  I must say it a rather disgusting piece of work. It is best sensationalist and at worse exploitive. You can see why they would support the extreme right wing of the Conservative party.    

Books - The Crow Road

I never seem to have the time to read at the moment, it not like I watch loads of telly or radio, it is just life is too busy and I spend a lot of time travelling, so it was nice to find an unabridged book in MP3 format that I been wanting to read for an age. The book in question is "The Crow Road" by Iain Banks which I first came across as a BBC television drama many years ago. 

It is a book that many argue is the best opening line of modern times "It was the day my grandmother exploded", so simple but instantly grabs your attention and takes you into the story to the point that you don't want to put it down. It is the writing of someone that has a skill and talent that most of us could only aspire to. The writer is the late Iain Banks who died recently and thankfully we are fortunate enough to be left with some of his wonderful writing to take into the mists of time.

The book follows the quest of Prentice McHoan as he tries to find out what happened to his Uncle Rory who disappeared eight years ago after finding some papers concerning a book he was writing called the "The Crow Road". This leads he attempt to solve the mystery the of the disappearance of his uncle. Along the way he must cope with estrangement from his father, unrequited love, sibling rivalry, and failure at his studies. Prentice's efforts to piece together Uncle Rory's fragmentary notes and the minimal clues surrounding his disappearance mirror his efforts to make sense of the world, love, and life in general.

It is a wonderful story and having seen the abridged BBC television drama I am really looking forward to listening to a reading of the work that inspired it, in the full. Personally I hope one day that many more good novels will be presented this way or that some device can be made that can read any book with feeling and understanding. Often peoples lives are to busy to read and there are so many distractions that being able plug yourself into a book and listen to a good story is the only way to enjoy a novel without the effort and time of reading, an art they is dying in the modern world.

Robbing David - Hero of the Rich

The headlines in tomorrows papers will be full of stories that leader of the game of poor robbers, David Cameron, is going to make everyone rich in six years time by giving the working man and woman a tax cut by increasing personal allowances. The stories will also go on to say how the rich will see the point at at which they start paying tax at a higher rate also being moved to give the rich an additional tax cut. Now it all makes good headlines but none of this is coming in to 2018 some four years away, assuming they manage to balance the books. Of course a cynic would say this is attract the Conservative vote at the next election and they would be right.   

Already it has been pointed the amount of the extra money the people on the basic rate will get won't be in real terms what the headlining figures suggested and it is highly probable that it will amount to an extra £250 appearing in people wage packets from what they received the year before. It has also be speculated  to where the Conservatives are going to get the money to pay for their increase in personal allowances and changing the point at the rich start paying tax, especially when they are going have to make other savage cuts to produce the surplus they are promising to reduce the counties debt.

Well I think I have worked it out, it from the freezing of the benefits of working adults and the unemployed which which £3bn within the first two years of being in effect and will continue to save money year on year even when the freeze is over. This money combined with forecasts of higher employment and the corresponding increase in tax take will pay for the his tax cutting pledge. 

The problem is the people the press will he is helping by taking the earners of minimum wage out of paying tax will probably also see the value of the benefits they receive going down, relativity to what they would have been without the freeze in benefits. Probably to the tune of around the £250 per year. This will result in a net gain of zero. In fact before the increase of the personal allowance the effects of the benefit freeze will mean they are actually worse off up until 2020.

The same saving from the benefits freeze will also be passed on to the rich in the raising the threshold that they start paying the top rate of tax. This will give them an additional saving in tax over that of the people of lower incomes while the poor have had to suffer for years by living on the breadline because their tax credits and other benefits have been falling  in real terms. In effect he will be taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich, but that should come as no surprise to anyone that has worked out that the Conservatives only ever look out for their own. 

If the Conservative Party win the next election may be the song the poor hard working people on the breadline will be singing has this as the chorus:

Robbing Dave, Robbing Dave, driving through the city

Robbing Dave, Robbing Dave, with his band of merry men

Feared by the poor, loved by the rich

Robbing Dave, Robbing Dave, Robbing Dave

I just hope they lose, because having listened to them for the last few days they are starting to lose the plot in every sense of the word. Good Governance is looking after the country, the people and protecting it for the future and that something they have failed to do and will continue to fail to do. The poor in this country will continue to get poorer while the rich continue to get richer with the posh boys and their mates in charge.