Killing Fields of Myanmar 2017

It was a year in which we discovered that American voters are quite happy with a nut job for president. How on Earth, assuming Trump knows that he is on Earth, is a mad person, unable to grasp a can of Stella unassisted, going to make "America great again". Are there no advisors in the White House schooled in history, able to tell the halfwit that his election slogan is too verbose, the 'again' bit has to go, before the Democrats start shouting 'alternative facts', America was never great!

Kim Jong Un, “rocket man”, called Trump a “dotard” after Trump said he would unleash “fire and fury” on North Korea. We believe that Trump had just finished watching his favourite film, Avengers Assemble, at the time.

For the record, Kim launched 37 rockets in 2017 mainly pointed towards Japan.

Moving on to more important issues; in Myanmar (Burma) the army spent the whole year attempting to exterminate the Rohingya Muslims. Aung San Suu Kyi, the token leader of Burma, spent the year pretending that there was nothing to see, no problems, all was fine with Buddha and Burma was a great place for a holiday. The Rohingya took a different view and 600,000 thousand fled to Bangladesh. Bad idea! Bangladesh really don't want them and now Suu Kyi is doing a deal with Bangladesh to get the Rohingya to come back to Burma so that the army can get on with the killing.

A name to remember: Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, he's in charge of the killing!

Trump is President

20/01/17

Donald Trump, very wealthy, failed business man and reality TV character, became the 45th President of the United States. An estimated 300,000-600,000 people attended his inauguration but poor Donald imagined that half the world's population was in attendance. Trump predicted his inauguration having "an unbelievable, perhaps record-setting turnout." Sean Spicer, Trump's White House Press Secretary, stated that the crowd "was the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe". Total bollocks and that's all Trump has delivered thus far.

 

Trump finds replacement for White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bricklayers Required

For long term wall building project

Spicer resigned (July 21) when Trump appointed financier Anthony Scaramucci as communication director. Scaramucci only lasted one week in post.

 

 

Where's the bus gone?

Boris Johnson and Michael Gove stood in front of the bus when they were campaigning to leave the EU. After the UK voted to leave the EU, bonkers Boris and his short trousered chum disowned the bus. The Leave Campaign made an amateurish attempt to remove the bus from their website. And the media was unable to find anyone who knew where the £350m figure came from? David Cameron ran away and hid. Then, in another absurdist twist of fate, the new PM, Theresa May, made Bonkers Boris the Foreign Secretary. Could the world become more absurd? Yes, Americans' elected reality TV star Don Trump as their new President.

Hogan-Howe says ignorance is the secret of his success

03/02/17

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, aka, The Total Policeman, is retiring this year. Hogan-Howe will only be remembered for knowing less than someone from Barcelona and providing misleading evidence to inquiries and select committees. Hogan-Howe was once asked by a reporter why he seemed to know so little about the corruption at the Met before he arrived? He said: I never asked about it, so no one would ever ask me about it.

Justin Welby knows less than Hogan-Howe

The Archbishop of Canterbury issued an “unreserved and unequivocal” apology for the actions of an old chum of his, the sado-masochistic John Smyth QC, back in the day when they enjoyed the company of young boys from private schools at summer camps set up by Smyth. Welby says he didn't know that Smyth was thrashing the boys to purge them of their nasty thoughts. Well, someone in the Church knew and they ignored it!

Rise Up you dopes

17/02/17

Tony Blair has returned from his money grubbing life licking the toes of Stalinist tyrants to tell the 16.8 million citizens who advised the British government not to leave the European Union to" rise up". Then again, he may have been telling the 17.2 million citizens who voted to leave the EU they were duped and it is they who should "rise up"!

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Raising Malawi although only Madonna thinks it's sinking

07/02/17

Madonna was given permission to adopt two more Malawian children to add to her child collection. Having lost control of her eldest son, Rocco, who prefers the company of his Lock Stock father, the girl from Dunkin' Donuts decided it was time to purchase a few replacements, before daughter Lourdes, fathered by Carlos Leon, (sometime personal trainer,) decides she's had enough of Madonna's Kabbalah ravings about Raising Malawi.

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Proof that care in the community is simply not working.

 

 

 

 

If you see this woman do not approach her!

Call Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111

 

 

Scottish Independence - not in this universe

17/03/17

Scotland's first minister has told the BBC she wants to find a referendum date that both sides can agree on. Nicola Sturgeon is adamant that she will have a second referendum on independence from the the rest of the UK. If Mrs May had her wits about her she would give the Scots their referendum tomorrow and cut Scotland adrift as soon as possible, then England could redirect all it spends propping up the Scots towards social care here in England. Put simply, an independent Scotland would be like Sturgeon and Salmond playing Monopoly without a banker - and as every Greek now knows, it can't be done.

Update: 30/03/17 Scotland's first minister has signed a letter formally asking for powers to hold a second Scottish independence referendum. By December the letter still had not arrived, that's what happens when you let the private sector deliver the post.

Death comes to Westminster

22/03/17

On Wednesday 22 March, mental defective, Khalid Masood, one of his many names, drove a car over Westminster Bridge and killed and injured 50 people. He then entered the grounds of the Palace of Westminster and stabbed an unarmed policeman and was shot by an armed ministerial body guard.

The BBC said it was an attack on democracy, in fact they said it all night long on News 24, over and over again, an attack on democracy. One man with a car and a knife had attacked democracy. Meanwhile, the security services were knocking on No.10 with a shopping list of new demands: keeping us safe is an expensive business.

Masood was a killer plain and simple, born, bred and schooled here in Britain. All the experts, analysts and talking heads that the BBC managed to disinter for comment could never explain the madness of Masood and yet someone keeps paying their wages?

Stop Press 26/03/17: The media, dumbfounded by its inability to explain the madness of Masood, have now decided his journey into terror was "a mystery" and an "impenetrable puzzle".

Trump goes to Specsavers

6/04/17

Following a Sarin chemical attack on women and children by undead crazy Bashar al-Assad, Don Trump retaliated by sending 59 Cruise missiles into Shayrat airbase on Thursday night. The interesting point here is that only about 30 rockets hit anything - it seems like there's a job for Specsavers here.

None of the newspapers had the wit to ask why Trump's magic number was 59 missiles. A Nato insider has told Blast It that the low hit rate is probably explained by the fact that half of the missiles were duds and in fact what occurred was a sophisticated exercise in fly-tipping missiles which were past their sell buy date.

Russian mafia boss, Vlad the Impaler Putin has responded by closing the “deconfliction channel” - sounds painful.

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May calls June Election... because "APRIL is the cruellest month"

22/04/17

Prime Minister May surprised every one this week by calling for a snap general election on June 8th. All the surprised media pundits are wasting endless hours trying to discover why she did it. May herself said it was done to silence and crush the saboteurs, that is, the enemies of Brexit, the wreckers.

Little Timmy Farron says he's not forming any alliances with other parties, the poor man obviously believes that some other party may wish to link up with his small band of nine parliamentary warriors. The Green Party seems to be the only likely candidate and they would be most suitable because their band of one would be a formidable addition. UKIP nolonger has any warriors to offer, following the departure of the very confused Douglas Carswell. Although, to be fair to Carswell, would you stay in UKIP with Paul Nuttall leading the 'ban the burka' party. Corbyn's Labour Party are more confused than Carswell and Tom Watson's Labour Party are no more than Tory chai wallahs. And the SNP are just too silly for any other party to be associated with, not even the very nice Green person.

In sum, Timmy need not have worried about offers of help from elsewhere - there were none.

UP

A Garden Bridge too far

29/04/17

London mayor, Sadiq Khan pulled the plug the Johnson/Lumley Garden Bridge folly across the Thames. The Garden Bridge Trust was responsible for realising Thomas Heatherwick’s bridge design. Thus far, the Trust has managed to squander £37.4m, which appears to have vanished into the pockets of people with clipboards and calculators. An investigation carried out by MP Margaret Hodge found the bridge was likely to cost more than £200m.

The Garden Bridge idea won the support of Bonkers Boris Johnson and George Osborne and none less than eminent bridge campaigner Joanna Lumley, who had this to say about bus driver's son Sadiq's decision to ditch the bridge:

“There was so much negativity about this £60m of public money,” she said. “All we heard was £60m, £60m, £60m. But . . . it’ll work out at about 32p a person in the UK. It’s not as if we’re stealing bread from people.”

Joanna is perfectly correct because you cannot even buy a small white loaf for 32p. It's noticeable that she does not trouble herself over the process that put the Heatherwick crew ahead of the other bidders, with far more experience of bridge building. Surely she must be aware that other bidders were denied information about the project, small details like the fact there would be no need to allow for motor vehicles or bicycles in the design.

London Bridge Attack

03/06/17

A van left the road and struck a number of pedestrians on London Bridge. After the van crashed, its three occupants ran to the nearby Borough Market area and began stabbing people in and around restaurants and pubs. Allahu Akbar! they shouted midst the attack, this led police to surmise they were Islamist terrorists.

The Year's Biggest Mistake - Mrs May's General Election

08/06/17

Mrs May's decision to call a snap election must rank as one of the sillier decisions a prime minister has made, certainly on a par with Cameron's decision to hold a referendum on EU membership. She told the world that she needed the election to secure a larger majority for the Conservative Party in order to "strengthen her hand in the forthcoming Brexit negotiations”. This was of course hogwash, she (i.e. her advisors saw) the apparent disarray the Labour Party was in, she believed the polls that told her the Conservative party had a big lead over Labour.

The outcome was a disaster for May, she had a working majority of 17 seats and ended up with a net loss of 13 seats. Labour made a net gain of 30 seats. The other parties little or no progress, some went backwards. The Green Party retained its single seat in Brighton, but saw its share of the vote reduced. The Liberal Democrats made a net gain of four seats. The SNP, which won 56 of the 59 Scottish seats at the previous general election in 2015, lost 21 seats. UKIP, the third-largest party in 2015 by number of votes, saw its share reduced from 12.6% to 1.8%. The signs were that the UK was moving back towards a two-party state.

The Conservatives remained in power as a minority government, having secured a confidence and supply deal with the DUP. Nobody knew what a confidence and supply deal was?

Mrs May sacked her advisors.

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May orders a full public inquiry into Grenfell inferno

15/06/17

Grenfell Tower, now a blackened burnt out shell, was a 24 story storage unit for poor people in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Early indications suggest that the inferno, that began as a kitchen fire on the fourth floor, was assisted in its progress by cheap cladding on the exterior of the building, the lack of fire breaks between floors, the absence of sprinklers, no central alarm system, and a dubious new gas installation.

A planning document for the regeneration work on the Tower from 2014 reads: “The changes to the existing tower will improve its appearance especially when viewed from the surrounding area.”

Residents of the Tower are telling the media that was all the refurbishment was about, making the building look more presentable to its surrounding wealthy inhabitants.

 

Update: 23/06/17, the death toll has risen to 79.

 

 

KCTMO boss acquires the sword

30/06/17

Robert Black, who was chief executive of Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) has also fallen on the plastic sword. The KCTMO manages around 10,000 homes in the borough, taking on the responsibility from the council more than two decades ago.

Kensington and Chelsea council still owns the properties and retains responsibility for housing policy. The KCTMO is managed by a board of directors, which is resident-led and acts on behalf of all residents. That board comprises eight elected tenant and leaseholder members, four appointed councillor members and three independent appointed other members

Grenfell, the whitewash begins

The judge heading the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire says he is "doubtful" the process will be as wide-ranging as some residents hope.

Sir Martin Moore-Bick said the probe could be limited to the cause, how it spread, and preventing a future blaze.

We do not need a public inquiry - we need an inquest!

Pass the plastic sword

30/06/17

Kensington and Chelsea Council leader Nick Paget-Brown has resigned. It's been clear from day one after the fire at Grenfell Tower that Paget-Brown was out of his depth, quite hopeless, inept, weak, abject. Initially he hid from the public. When he did appear he made no sense. Now, the only question that remains is, who was actually following this clown's lead.

Rock Feilding-Mellen, deputy council leader and chairman of the housing committee also asked for the sword. It was he who was keen to keep cladding costs on the Tower's refurb' as low as possible. According to residents Feilding-Mellen was totally unresponsive to their concerns, he knew nothing of their world and had no desire to visit it.

Hasty rethink on school fire safety

25/06/17

Last week, in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire, the revised draft guidance on school fire safety had been removed from the DfE website. Amid signs of panic, officials tried to insist that there had never been any intention to change policy.

Last year the DfE watered down fire safety requirements in new schools as a cost cutting measure saying that “school buildings do not need to be sprinkler protected to achieve a reasonable standard of life safety”

Schools’ minister Nick Gibb took this action after being told by the London fire commissioner and the all-party parliamentary group on fire safety that his changes could have “potentially devastating consequences”.

Under the Tory government the proportion of new schools and academies fitted with sprinkler systems had already fallen from 70% (between 2007 and 2010, under Labour) to 35%.

Nick Gibb’s draft suggests sprinkler systems are unnecessary for new schools…. Gibb set out his position in October 2016:

“The department’s assessment is that the additional spending would significantly outweigh any relatively modest saving from preventing some damage to school buildings.” He said the number of fires in schools had declined and pointed out that “including sprinklers in new school buildings would add between 2% and 6% to the cost of works”.

28/06/17

Cladding on 120 high-rise blocks failed fire safety tests. Some councils are asking if tests have been made more rigorous since cladding was fitted. Why don't they know these things?

 

Learndirect found wanting by Ofsted

17/08/17

Learndirect, which is responsible for the training of almost 73,000 people was described as an “inadequate provider” by Ofsted. The company, which was privatised by David Cameron’s coalition government in 2011 and yet received £158m of Department for Education funding in the year to July 2017.

Learndirect blamed the government’s austerity programme for its failure to meet the education regulator’s minimum quality standards.Which is interesting when you learn that the company is 65%-owned by Lloyds Development Capital, the private equity arm of Lloyds Bank.

The Department for Educationhas said it will not grant Learndirect any new contracts and will cease funding the company by July 2018.

 

August: the month of hurricanes

In August Hurricane Harvey became the first major hurricane to make landfall in the US since 2005, floods displaced more than 30,000 people. Then along came Hurricane Irma, a category 5 storm which swept across the Caribbean and the Florida Keys. Irma caused catastrophic damage in Barbuda, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin, Anguilla, and the Virgin Islands, killing more than 100 people and sparking an international aid appeal. And then Hurricane Maria, became the worst natural disaster on record in Dominica and Puerto Rico, hundreds of people were killed.

SATs for seven-year-olds scrapped from 2023

15/09/17

The first question to ask is why schools have to wait until 2023 before they can forget about these educationally pointless tests. Their only purpose is to allow the government to assess schools, not the children in them. Justine Greening says the tests are being scrapped to “reduce workload and administration burdens on teachers”.

Believe that and you'll probably believe that the Nasa Cassini space mission to Saturn was a spectacular event - apparently it found water! We're sure this is great news for billionaires across the globe planning to board Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic and leave behind the mess they've made here behind them - tickets are a snip at $250,000 a pop. Elon Musk from SpaceX plans to set up on Mars and says he will undercut Branson.

 

Las Vegas shooting

01/10/17

Unaccountably, another nutter managed to acquire a machine gun and opened fire on concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas Strip, killing 58 people dead and injuring more than 500.

 

How useless is the General Medical Council

13/09/17

Victims of psychopathic surgeon Ian Paterson are to receive a share of £37m compensation, from private company Spire Heathcare and the Heart of England NHS Trust. Paterson performed hundred of unnecessary operation on women who supposedly had breast cancer and he deliberately made a mess of things. The BBC described his behaviour as "in breach of national guidelines." His methods were first investigated in 2003 but it wasn't until 2012 that he was suspended by the General Medical Council, after three reports had been written about behaviour.

The GMC must now instruct all surgeons to publish their outcome data, so that we may discover how many more Paterson's there are in the system.

SATs for seven-year-olds scrapped from 2023

15/09/17

The first question to ask is why schools have to wait until 2023 before they can forget about these educationally pointless tests. Their only purpose is to allow the government to assess schools, not the children in them. Justine Greening says the tests are being scrapped to “reduce workload and administration burdens on teachers”.

Believe that and you'll probably believe that the Nasa Cassini space mission to Saturn was a spectacular event - apparently it found water! We're sure this is great news for billionaires across the globe planning to board Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic and leave behind the mess they've made here behind them - tickets are a snip at $250,000 a pop. Elon Musk from SpaceX plans to set up on Mars and says he will undercut Branson.

Magnetic Failure at Tory Conference

07/10/17

The sign behind Mrs May as she delivered her conference speech on Wednesday started out spelling out the party's message - 'Building a Country That Works For Everyone'. First the F fell off and then as Mrs May coughed her way through the speech, other letters fell off in sympathy. The cough, the falling magnetic letters and then a clown handing Mrs May a P45, supposedly from the prince of clowns, Boris the Buffoon; currently masquerading as the Foreign Secretary. The media made much of the cough, the sign and the joker, telling us that it demonstrated that our leader was incompetent, just a caretaker, hanging on by her fingernails until the party managed to find someone a bit more competent. None of the news outlets reported that this was more a statement on the Tory party than Mrs May.

A party incapable of ensuring the wellbeing of their leader, incapable of employing someone to supply resilient props, incapable of providing security against uninvited guests and uncaring; who among Mrs May's front bench team leapt forward to protect her from the P45 joker - not one, they sat there like the stooges they are.

It took the mainstream media two days to mention some of the content from Mrs May's speech. In particular, they noticed that she talked about a British Dream that her party was in the midst of promoting. All very interesting but what was this British Dream, sadly, no one knew?

 

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The 2017 Nobel Prize for Economics goes to?

10/10/17

Relax, it wasn't George Osborne. It was in fact, US academic Richard Thaler and he picked up a cheque for £800,000 plus, for his work on Behavioural Economics. Thaler's ideas on 'nudging' have been much employed here by the Tory government's Behavoural Insight Team. This team was set up by David Cameron to nudge citizens in the direction that he thought they should be going.

Someone gave Cameron some lines to say that explains what the Team was up to:

‘Today we can’t escape the fact that many of our most severe health problems are caused, in part, by the wrong personal choices. Obesity, binge-drinking, smoking and drug addiction are putting millions of lives at risk and costing our health services billions a year. So getting to grips with them requires an altogether different approach to the one we have seen before. We need to promote more responsible behaviour and encourage people to make the right choices about what they eat, drink and do in their leisure time.’ (David Cameron, foreword, A Healthier Nation, Policy Green Paper No.12, Conservative Party.)

So, if you find yourself going in a direction not of your choosing, someone may well have nudged you. That's the thing about nudging, it works subtly, under the radar. The Nobel Prize judges certainly fell for it!

 

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