Interested in literature, arts, history, books illustration, photography, nature, politics, people, travelling, cinema all supplemented by a copious quantity of music.
A GP demonstrates outside St Paul's Way medical centre. Photograph: Jon Enoch
ATOS Again
Also interesting how a difficult practice was given to a private company with no experience of primary healthcare. And how the private company walked out after 3 years. And they want to run the entire NHS in the same way?
According to a whistleblower this is what happens now in the jobcentres:
"Suddenly you're not helping somebody into sustainable employment, which is what you're employed to do," he said. "You're looking for ways to trick your customers into 'not looking for work'. You come up with many ways. I've seen dyslexic customers given written job searches, and when they don't produce them – what a surprise – they're sanctioned. The only target that anyone seems to care about is stopping people's money.
"'Saving the public purse' is the catchphrase that is used in our office … It is drummed home all the time – you're saving the public purse. Feel good about stopping someone's money, you've just saved your own pocket. Its a joke."s
I am very happy for the people involved if their lives have improved because of a campaign run by a newspaper. My question is why there are so many people, with many of them actually working, in poverty in a city like London. Should not they be allowed opportunities and a living wage instead of charity money from their fellow Londoners?
If anyone had any doubt, the snow in the past few weeks has shown us what a mess our privatised railway companies are. BAA has not done particularly well too and it turns out that Gatwick is now part of another company and not always in good terms with Heathrow (and of course it makes sense to have two major airports not really talking to each other during a crisis).
We were promised better train services and more choice as consumers. What we ended up with is the most expensive and worst train service in Europe. When times are good they keep all profit when times are bad they still ask for more money form the government because you know essential services etc. It is a win-win situation for them. They want to play Monopoly but they want to have Park Lane and Mayfair before they start.
And because we like to give more opportunities to fat cats and tax avoiders so much, we need to do the same to the NHS. Break it all up, give it all away, ensure that several dodgy companies make lot of money out of it.
"Nick Clegg was warned to get out of his pact with the Conservatives before it was too late as his partnership with David Cameron was compared to the troubled marriage of Cheryl and Ashley Cole."
I don't find many reasons to support this coalition and I agree that the Lib Dems have lost credibility but what other options did Nick Clegg actually have?
Support a coalition with Labour which would have had most of the media against ? The "Coalition of the losers" would have been unpopular, it would have lasted a short time and would have eventually given a clear majority to the Tories at the following election. And the LibDems would have lost credibility.
Not supporting the Tories well it would have proven that there cannot be a role for a third party and no point of any electoral reform etc. And he would have been blamed for letting the country down during a crisis, putting party interests before the country's etc. And the LibDems would have lost credibility.
Can the Coalition succeed? A response to David Marquand
I can take all this on board but I still do not think that the coalition will succeed and it is not doing anything that revolutionary, I don't see many big ideas just a lot of populism, jingoism and scapegoating. I don't think that anything like the Big Society can work when at the same time people are encouraged to grass on their neighbours if suspected of benefits fraud. I also don't think that a Prime Minister who calls part of the population "scroungers" can then advocate for an all inclusive society. I read comments around the internet and many people do not seem to be able to distinguish between a fraudster and a terminally ill person, as many shout that they do not want to pay tax for people who fall ill without being able to provide for themselves (as if that could be called a career choice). If this climate is the consequence of three months of coalition (Labour was not much better with the ESA/ATOS fiasco and its eagerness to please the readers of the Daily Mail) I do worry a lot as it is not the type of society I want to be living in, with people thinking only what do I get? before doing anything and full of double standards. I am not even going to mention tax evasion and tax avoidance (I know the latter is legal but if we are so much in debt and all together in this, at least some loopholes could be closed).At least 20% of the five million people in England who act as a carer for an elderly, disabled or sick person put in more than 50 hours a week, the NHS says.
This is when things get really confusing. According to the media and some politicians we have the so called Broken Britain and people don't care anymore and we have no family values whatsoever. Some say that families have to do more and the state less. Some others even say that families should do everything and the state nothing so that we can pay even less tax. England has a bit more than 40 millions adults so we are talking of 1 every 8 adults who is a carer.
