BE A WINNER: In Our “Why Did Rosie Winterton Need Her Bedroom Soundproofing?” Competition
May 30, 2009
Of all the dodgy claims to come to light over the past few weeks – from Duck Houses to Moat Cleaning, Toilet seats to £8,000 TVs – the one that we found most intriguing is that made by Doncaster’s very own Rosie Winterton, Minister for Health. It turns out that our Rosie made a claim to cover the costs of having her bedroom soundproofed! Is there something she doesn’t want to hear? Or perhaps there’s something she doesn’t want us to hear!
So we’re asking you; “Why Did Rosie Winterton Need Her Bedroom Soundproofing?”
We’re offering a copy of Ian Bone’s excellent autobiography, ‘Bash The Rich!’, as a prize for the best answer.
Winterton; bit of a screamer?
The BNP have no mojo!
May 27, 2009
Last night the British National Party (BNP) made a party political broadcast to try and drum up votes for their prospective Euro MP. A lot of people said that, as purveyors of hate, they should never be allowed air time, but we have always fallen on the side of free speech ourselves and think the more exposure these nutters get the better the general public will understand them. Talking to friends and colleagues this morning I don’t think we we’re wrong. There were plenty of criticisms…
Like all political parties the BNP think the general public are stupid and that they can just rewrite history. A lot of people we spoke to said things like “Surely we were fighting against the likes of them (meaning the nationalistic/racially-idealistic BNP who’s beliefs are more akin to Hitler’s than Churchill’s) in World War II?” and “We didn’t fight the bloody war on our own! There was every country and race you can imagine fighting alongside our troops.” And then there were statements like “What would they do about the Gurkha’s then?”
With unemployment pushing 4 million a lot of people were offended with Griffin’s language… “Did you here the little bastard go on about ’spongers’, I’m 50 years old and on the scrap heap; if I ever got my hands on the bastard he’d wish I WAS a fucking sponge!” and ” He sounded more like a posh fucking 1980’s tory twat than a man of the people.” To which somebody pointed out that he was in fact a posh twat who hates the poor and people from council estates.
But it wasn’t their lies, their sneery holier-than-thou attitude or even their ill-disguised contempt for their fellow man that stood out for us; it was their complete and utter lack of mojo. Party political broadcasts are always painfully bad, but this was made by some freak who had a camera, but no soul; Leni Rosenthal they were most definitely not. It looked hopelessly dated and tired, just like their ideology. They’re about as inspirational as the thieving bastards they claim to oppose.
We must always be on our guard against all forms of fascism, but we can also see that the old political attitudes are beginning to whither. There are huge changes in the air. The fastest growing political force in Europe is the Pirate Party, which shows how new socio-economic philosophies and practices are emerging to replace the – so last century! – ideologies of hatred and death. The BNP shows neither the willing nor the wherewithal to embrace these changes. The sooner they fuck off and die like the dinosaurs they are the better for us all!
Prick Griffin, just another greedy parasite.
Let’s hear it for the LORDS OF DISCORD!
May 26, 2009
A local motorcycle gang that we know has decided to take some time out from bar brawls, drinking and rock & roll – not to mention their graphic design work - to start a blog. We thought we’d give the Lords of Discord a plug to get ‘em going 
…become an MP!
Not only are we paying for our MP’s fraudulent ‘expenses’, it turns out we’re paying for them to take advice on how they can fleece us for even more money – you couldn’t make this shit up!
Alistair Darling is among nine cabinet members who used £11,000 of taxpayers’ money to pay for personal accountancy advice, the Daily Telegraph has said.
It says he, Jacqui Smith, Hazel Blears, David Miliband, James Purnell, Douglas Alexander, Geoff Hoon and Hilary Benn claimed for tax return processing.
For most people, this is not considered a legitimate business expense.
From the BBC news site.
They seem to forget that they need us more than we need them. We have the technology to do away with bureaucrats and the intelligence for self government. So the question now is do we have the balls to bring down government and finally stand on our own two feet?
MPs, your time is up!
A Bigot At Buckingham Palace? Surely Not!?!
May 23, 2009
There was outrage today as it was revealed that Prick Griffin, leader of the BNP, had been invited to a garden party at Buckingham Palace.
Nonce
Personally we don’t see what all the fuss is about. A posh, far right, racist bigot who shows open contempt for the working class and the democratic process should feel right at home…
Ponce
Dropped on his Bonce
Let’s hope none of the fuckers get given a dodgy prawn cocktail!
The Pirate Bay trial marked an important marker in the fight against knowledge enclosure. While some see this struggle as a protest for cheap/free music and video it actually signifies an important step towards a freer, libertarian minded society where ‘access’ is more important than ‘ownership’. The laws regarding Intellectual Property Rights exist to ensure that a privileged elite can profit from knowledge that was once the common property of all.
There is not one human skill or piece of knowledge – no technology, no music, no literature, no art, no medical/scientific discovery and certainly no DNA sequence – that was born out of a vacuum; all human activity is the product of millions of years of evolution. Therefore no single person, authority or corporation has the right to declare any exclusive rights or control over any form of property; all property is theft!
Danger Mouse, one half of Gnarls Barkley, is latest high profile artist to join the fight…
Danger Mouse’s EMI-killed CD will be released as a blank CD-R, just add download
EMI has told Danger Mouse that his latest CD won’t see the light of day due to “legal issues,” so he’s responding by releasing the disc as a blank CD-R in a jewel case with art and liner notes. Fans can just download the music off a P2P site and burn it to the CD-R.
Dark Night Of The Soul, a collaboration with rock group Sparklehorse, also features Iggy Pop and The Flaming Lips, along with artwork by David Lynch.It has already been streamed online, but Billboard magazine said a “legal dispute” with EMI derailed the project…“Danger Mouse remains hugely proud of Dark Night of the Soul and hopes that people lucky enough to hear the music, by whatever means, are as excited by it as he is.”
He added that the album, which comes with a limited edition, “100+ page book” of David Lynch photographs inspired by the music “will now come with a blank, recordable CD-R”.
“All copies will be clearly labelled: ‘For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.’”
Danger Mouse to release blank CD
Hear The Entire Album: ‘Dark Night Of The Soul’
(Image: Danger Mouse 2 – Gnarls Barkley, a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike image from Staxnet’s photostream: article culled from Boing Boing)
Not only should we offer our full support to dissenting artists (especially when they’ve got some seriously wicked tunes), we should ALL be exploring new ways to put ACCESS before OWNERSHIP.
WE’RE ALL THE PIRATE BAY
Who’s the greediest: Politicians or Bank Bosses?
May 17, 2009
After the long running hilarity of the MP’s expenses fiasco it has been revealed that Bank Bosses are still paying themselves salaries far in excess of other leading chief executives despite the economic downturn. The Guardian article says…
A report last week by the treasury select committee claimed that the bonus culture among banks had encouraged a “lethal combination of reckless and excessive risk-taking”. But according to a Channel 4 Dispatches programme to be screened tomorrow night, the basic pay of leading bankers has defied the economic downturn.
The programme claims that, historically, bank bosses have been paid the same as their FTSE 100 peers, but in the past 10 years their salaries have outstripped them. Research conducted for Dispatches reveals that, in 2008, bank bosses earned an average of £255,000 a year more than their FTSE 100 peers.
The programme shows the average salaries of leading bankers continued to rise between 2006-07 and 2007-08 – just when the banking sector was plunged into turmoil. In 2006 the basic pay of Sir Fred Goodwin, the Royal Bank of Scotland’s chief executive, was £1.19m, rising to £1.29m in 2007 and £1.297m last year. The bank’s new chief executive, Stephen Hester, earns a basic salary of £1.2m.
Andy Hornby, the former chief executive of HBOS, took home a basic salary of £787,000 in 2006, rising to £940,000 in 2007 and £1.025m last year.
Remuneration of the banks’ non-executive directors – who were paid to safeguard shareholders’ interests and rein in the banks’ executives – has also soared. Non-executives at HBOS were paid £30,000 a year in 2001, rising to £70,000 a year in 2008. The pay of RBS’s non-executives almost tripled, from £25,000 a year in 2000 to £73,000 in 2008. Northern Rock’s non-executive salaries rose by 33% to £60,000 last year – after the bank was nationalised! (emphasis added)
While we may be sickened and/or angered by such revelations, we should never be surprised. High ranking positions in all dominatory, hierarchical systems (be they economic, political or religious) attract exactly the same kinds of people – thieves, opportunists and bastards!
But we can learn something from these parasites. MPs and Bankers have shown that they can create immense wealth and power by expropriating public funds; therefore anarchists can dismantle the excesses of wealth and power by reversing the process – viva La Bande à Bonnot!*
On December 21, 1911 *The Bonnot Gang made the French national news when they robbed a messenger of the Société Générale Bank in broad daylight and then fled in a limousine (the first ever criminal use of a “get-away” car).
The following report from The Guardian helps to put ‘the terrorist threat’ into perspective. Could it be that the government is using fear to keep the general population in their place whilst the powers that be slowly whittle away liberties that we have enjoyed for the last 800 years? Surely not 
Two-thirds of UK terror suspects released without charge
Only 340 of 1,471 people arrested between 2001 and 2008 were charged with terrorism-related offences, Home Office says
Two-thirds of those people arrested for terrorism in Britain since 9/11 have later been released without charge, according to Home Office statistics published today .
The figures show that 1,471 people were arrested for terrorism between 11 September 2001 and 31 March last year, but only 340 were charged with terrorism-related offences. So far, the courts have convicted only 196 of those charged with such offences.
Home Office statisticians said the total of those arrested who had been charged or convicted was similar to that for other indictable criminal offences.
The statistics also show that as of March 2008 there were 125 people in prison in England and Wales for terrorist-related offences and a further 17 for domestic extremism or separatism, mainly for animal rights protests. Most of the terrorist prisoners – 75 – described themselves as British, with 111 declaring themselves to be Muslim.
Home Office ministers said the figures on terrorism arrests underlined the “considerable success” the police and security services had had in disrupting terrorist networks.
“Wherever possible, we seek to prosecute those involved with terrorism. Where we can’t prosecute, we seek to deport. And where we can’t deport, we seek to disrupt,” said the Home Office minister Vernon Coaker.
But a detailed breakdown of the figures shows a more complex picture. The figure of 1,471 arrests is for the number of people arrested under “section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and other legislation”, without any further breakdown as to whether they were suspected of actively plotting explosions or engaged in fundraising through credit card fraud.
The figures do give some breakdown at the stage of charging. A total of 521 out of the 1,471 people arrested under terrorism powers were eventually charged with some offence, while in 131 other cases some alternative action was taken, such as deportation.
The official breakdown of the 521 people charged shows 222 were charged under specific terrorism legislation. A further 118 were charged for other “terrorism-related offences”, such as attempted murder or conspiracy to cause explosions. The rest were charged with non-terrorist offences such as forgery, theft, misuse of drugs or other, unspecified criminal offences.
The Home Office said most of those arrested spend only a short time in custody, with nearly half held for less than one day in pre-charge detention and 66% for under two days. Only six people have been held for the maximum 28 days of pre-charge detention, and three of those were released without charge when the time limit was reached.
When convictions are considered, the success rate totals 7% for those found guilty under specific terrorist legislation, with 102 of the 222 charged convicted by the courts. But this conviction rate rises to nearly 14% when a further 94 convictions are included for terrorism-related offences such as conspiracy to cause explosions.
The Home Office added that the figures excluded a number of high-profile trials, such as the airline plot, where people were charged before 31 March 2008 but their trials had not yet been completed.
Both the rate of charging and of convictions has remained broadly stable now for each of the seven years since 9/11 covered by the Home Office figures.
Capitalism; just the way it is?
May 12, 2009
Regrettably we missed the following post when it was first published by A Woman Up North back in February. But we think that it an important – if painful – beautifully written piece that bears repeating. So here goes…
Capitalism; just the way it is?
I met a young man in Manchester called Dennon. His face was creased and stressed like an old leather satchel; he was as jumpy and wide-eyed as a rabbit before vivisection. He was also eighteen and homeless. He’d been stabbed in the head the week before for fifty pence. The night before, rats had eaten a hole in his leg. He’d been reduced to a piece of meat by his poverty; he’d become part of the city’s food-chain.
“It’s just the way it goes innit?” He said, when I asked him how he had ended up sleeping rough.
“I guess so” I said.
The police had given him a mobile phone to wear round his neck, like a modern day amulet, in case the man who stabbed him came back to finish the job. It was only capable of dialling 999 in case he was crafty enough to sell it for food. I took his number, passed him onto a friend of mine at Victim Support, and never forgot him. That’s the way our society is for some people. They are a product of its structure, churned up and spat out like some bitter chewing tobacco. Most people don’t like to think about it; it evokes feelings of sympathy and sadness. So why then do we put up with our fellow human-beings being treated so appallingly by a society we are all meant to have a say in creating? Surely none of us would agree with homelessness, so why do we actively support the political system which creates it?
It’s naive to think economics doesn’t drive our cultural ideals. Religion, politics, education, housing, our work-lives and all our personal relationships are tainted, influenced and animated by the harsh merciless hyper-capitalist culture we have long accepted as the proper natural order of a free society. Greedily we accept this way of living, desperately we protect it despite the fact we live in an openly cruel, unjust, & blatantly unequal society. Time and time again we fly in the face of anthropological reason & cling by the skin of our non-NHS dentures to capitalism only to be left wondering why we feel so disenfranchised, disillusioned, and not to mention fuckin’ miserable all the time.
Capitalism is like so many other ideologies; an illusion dressed up as common-sense logic. Just as a whore wears make-up to hide the scars of intolerable hardship, this country hid its blemishes with cheap credit, anti-working-class propaganda, and manic-consumerism. If you are wondering why your country has deserted you in the seventh circle of job-centre-plus, just know it’s the natural order of the political system which endorses the soulless new-age religion of over-consumption and glorification of tat and bullshit over substance and truth. If you are facing hardship it’s because of capitalism, not in spite of it, not due to the greed of a few, but due to the greed of entire nations. Your poverty is necessary to the rich. Boom and bust’s a must. You are expendable, obsolete, and easily silenced. Do you really think otherwise? Do you really think those in power care? And more to the point, who do you think has the power? The banks? The politicians? The media? The multi-national corporations?
It’s not even a question of which political party will fix things so we can all go back to spending money we don’t have on accumulating bits of plastic shit we don’t really need, made by oppressed slaves from far off lands we’ll never meet. It is a question of which political ideal do you want? Do we really want this weak phonie impression of democracy or the real deal? Do you want a fairer society with genuine re-distribution of wealth or to be party to a society where the richest 10% earn nine times more than the poorest 10%. Do you want real equality of the sexes or an economically driven divide? Do you want a fair education system where children’s growth and learning is dictated by their innate capacity rather than their parent’s occupation or heritage? Are you really happy that a third of M.P’s were privately educated? Do you think it’s fair we have a benefit-cheat hotline while the super-rich squirreling money away in off-shores? Are you happy 2 million families can’t meet their housing costs & 400,000 have fallen behind with rent or mortgage re-payments while a minority of others have second & third homes? Do you think the rich deserve their wealth, standing, and power? Do you really think they work harder; are naturally smarter? Perhaps you think they have superior genes? What responsibility do we the poor have to change things? Do we hold onto the status-quo in the hope of one day becoming part of the elite? Or do we all feel so de-moralized and powerless we don’t demand our right to a fair society?
I hope the credit-crunch sparks a change in society. As the middle-classes lose their jobs and become ‘benefit scroungers’, the working-class lose their homes and jobs, and the underclass becomes the majority class, I hold out for a movement of minds. Long held ideas of superiority and the idiotic beliefs that hard work and tenacity is enough to make it in the world will fall to ruins and our collective humanity will shine. We may starve as one nation – unless of course you have a wee bit stashed away in Swiss-account – but we can also rise as one by demanding change and forming a fairer society for all, not just the few.
Things have become so bad with regard to political corruption that the Torygraph has been forced to turn against it’s traditional ally…
Senior Conservatives have subsidised their country estates at taxpayers’ expense, with the upkeep of swimming pools, clearance of moats and even the salaries of domestic staff, all claimed on parliamentary expenses.
They even have a nice little video of Sir Micheal Spicer’s helipad expense claim.
The truth is that every level of government is corrupt. We’re from Doncaster where it is well known that anyone can get planning permission if you give the right colour envelope to the right person. The so called Donnygate scandal didn’t even begin to show the real picture, but Donny is far from unusual. The truth is that democracy no longer exists in the UK (if it ever did). National and local elections provide little more than a veneer of legitimacy to a system that works exclusively for the needs of a privileged minority at the expense of the expendable majority.
Government, in all forms, and any pretence at ‘democracy’ collapsed under the weight of decadence and greed a long time ago. For the past 30 years people have been forced to vote for the ‘lesser evil’ rather than vote for who they feel best repesents their interests (not that any political party even pretends to represent the interests of the poor). Reform is now a horse so dead that even Charles Saatchi would have trouble flogging it. But if we take a closer look at the mechanisms of government there is good reason for optimism.
The sole purpose of government is to keep the socio-economic machine running smoothly. All modern governments place emphasis on the economic at the expense of the social because they serve the purposes of the mercantile, capitalist machine. Capitalism is a faith based system which is more religious than scientific and, as such, it needs to rely on all of the coercive tools of government – schools, media/propaganda, wages/factories, law/prisons, etc. – in order to survive. The good news is that every carrot needs a stick and capitalism has also been forced to build a half-decent socio-economic network to help placate people.
Thanks mainly to advances in communications technology this network is largely self-sufficient – most fuck-ups are caused by managers and bureaucrats who are now largely obsolete, but the jobs are kept in place to keep the middle-class busy. Imagine if we take control of these systems to level the playing field. Imagine, for instance, if the dole offices and the nationlised banks were utilised for the control and supply of a social wage.
It’s not only bureaucrats and MPs who’s jobs are now obsolete thanks to technology; capitalism has provided us with the seeds of it’s own demise!
