It's official, England, this green and pleasant land, now has more food banks than McDonalds outlets. Meanwhile, we will be forging on with HS2, whizzing past a nation in crisis, towards the Northern Powerhouse, the new Jerusalum, populated by Tory fantasists imagining a Levelling Up project, creating a convivial environment.
History - The pages here describe how our green and pleasant land became a wasteland.
Politics - Rotten to the core...
Economics - Scarcity in economic thinking is presented as a given, a constant fact, sent to perplex expert minds. Having swallowed such nonsense, the experts have failed to provide a solution to what they call the 'economic problem' - how to optimise the allocation of those scarce resources between competing ends. Better leave things to the market then!
Abuse- Wilful Neglect and Child Abuse - there may be a link? Back in early 2015, PM Cameron, identified child sexual abuse as a 'national threat'. It still is.
Education - In 1945 something magical happened, a government arrived and avowed that it was important to educate the whole population rather than just a small elite and then proceeded to make special selective arrangements for the small elite.
Housing - The housing crisis explained...
Land Ownership - The Duke of Wellington: back in 1872, is registered as owning 15,800 acres. Today the Land Registry has no record of his holding?
NHS - The murders, the management failures, the treatment failures, staff shortages, the drug rationing, amblances queuing, bed shortages, and ever longer waiting times.
Social Care - Three quarters of those in need will not be able to find a place in a care home. Half a million elderly people will be left in their own homes to rot quietly.
Welfare - Food banks are a common feature of the wasteland. The growth in the food bank sector does not signify growing poverty but rather growing awareness of food banks. On another planet such nonsense might have meaning but in the current circumstances its Tory drivel from Rees-Mogg.
Sleeping Watchdogs - British Regulators Are Just No Good at Regulating...
Water - Without it there would be no life - so why are we not looking after our water supplies - Capitalism, that's why. Privatised water companies polluting our rivers, streams, destroying fish stocks and in the process killing the wildlife in our countryside.
Policing - Perfect command of temper is indispensable.’ Police training should transform a ‘wild young fellow’ into ‘a machine, moving, thinking and speaking only as his instruction book directs… Stiff, calm and inexorable, an institution rather than a man’
If you encounter this policeman call Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111... He was last seen in the 19th century
Prisons - Staff shortages, government cuts, mental illness, self-harm, drugs, high re-offending rates, violence and disorder rising, prison education hopeless and rehabilitation a pipe dream. Probation service outsourced.
PFI - The Private Finance Initiative is a large example of government attempting to improve the social infrastructure now and pay for it later, a lot later, so far in the future in fact, that the debt doesn't appear on the books and we can only guess how much the next generations will have to pay.
Transport - A vibrant economy needs to move people and goods around the nation efficiently. Britain does not have a vibrant economy, neither does it have a transport policy. What Britain has is projects and cones.
Pensions - Everyone must work longer and contribute more to their pension pots and they must be satisfied to get less at the end of the day.
Food - Public Health and Profit in the Food Industry...
Tax Dodgers - "Only the little people pay taxes", tax evader Leona Helmsley. It's estimated by Tax Research UK the total tax gap between what's owed and collected is £120bn a year.
Looters - MP Frank Field asked what kind of a person would behave the way Sir Philip Green did in relation to the workers at BHS, the answer was simple - a callous, indifferent sociopath.
Snoopers - Apparently, we are at war, with terrorists, criminals and drug barons and in order to protect us the government needs to listen to all our conversations, read all our emails and track our web use.
