Elderly Careless

A colleague on fb writes about the following issue and I can't help but have mixed feelings about it, namely:

• Having had years to plan all this why have the elderly not been planning for retirement? I'm willing to believe this is down to innumerable socialist governments writing cheques with their mouth that the electorate refused to cash or that they simply felt they would be dead before they lived to need their arse wiping by someone else.
• Is this the last 2-fingered victory salute of the post-war babyboomers? Having picked the cupboard clean for future generations are they now trying to bloc-vote a government into sticking us for more cash? In which case I have little sympathy for their "plight".

But all that aside their is an element of sympathy; having paid in for years and had the rug pulled out from under them and the deal changed on retirement funding and resources I can't help but feel for their upset and that of future generations who won't be treated quite so well, given the young to old ratio is dropping, prices are rising and sympathy for the elderly is dropping. 

But why is elderly care so expensive?

My mother, after her divorce and not young herself (bad side of 50), got a job as an estate manager of a private, high-end retirement home; one where a small flat in sheltered accomadation went to rich southerners for £100k or more with top up "fees" for "care" services of around £10k a year, and that was before nursing costs and similar, which was all bought in externally.

These flats were state of the art; solar panelling, hyper-efficient ground boilers and similar to reduce the overall cost of these flats to practically nothing, at least in comparison to the other fees levied.

And this is what bothers me: the company that ran these flats went bust; about 18 months before my mother left they went into administration and were bought up by another company - the reason my mum left was because this company cut services to the bone (not prices though, of course) and tried to put her in charge of 3 sites across Leeds; a 50 year old woman traversing Leeds, putting site wheelie bins out because they've cut the janitorial staff and fixing blockages because the company plumber is on reduced hours resulted in her being injured and bounced out.

Myself I temped as an admin at a home management centre for people with learning and physical disabilities; my boss ran the centre and was nearly in tears by the end of it due to the complete ineptitude of staff and there complete lack of dedication, their constant calling in sick and complete lack of concern for their charges.

So this is what I know: care, no matter which way you play it, public or private, care is badly managed or badly resourced or both; you can't square this circle in this country for some reason and perhaps this is down to our panic at frailty and vulnerability. Who knows.

What to do? I have a cunning plan: outsource the whole lot; I reckon there would be an awful lot of money to be made and jobs to be offered just simply moving elderly care to Portugal, Greece or Spain in sheltered, guarded estates given how cheap properly and how high unemployment is currently; a few years on a med diet to see out your twilight years and happy relatives using the opportunity to get a few grappas and relax in the sun while visiting their granny. Heck I reckon you could leverage greek or spanish debt to annex a coastal island for them.

Addressing the constitutional clusterf**k to come

A friend on facebook decries a turkey objecting to Christmas:

Ed Miliband has rejected David Cameron’s call to prevent Scottish MPs voting on English-only issues in Parliament, despite appearing to accept that the current system is unfair.

That friend describes this call for an English parliament and the erosion of responsibilities to English-only MEPs as a thing we should celebrate as it will mean fewer Labour governments and that this is the means to that end.

On this point I disagree with the principle.

Elsewhere Norman Tebbit, a man who is coming into his credit more and and more each year in my opinion writes the following:

It is extraordinary that after 300 years of successful constitutional political development during which the United Kingdom achieved unparallelled military, scientific, industrial, social and political progress (including the world's finest civil service), it has almost all been vandalised in a few decades of "progressive" politics and modernisation.

Which, again, I disagree with on principle, for similar reasons.

Following 11 years of Margaret Thatcher and tory government we had the odious Major years which were, lets call it what is was, a generation-busting event for the Bory party, ultimately responsible for Blair's "popularity" - less Blair being popular (not as much as his ego led him to believe) but about the Bory's being more unpopular; the giant douche being a better option to an increasingly stinky and corn-filled turd sandwich as Southpark so expertly put it (I think any political cheerleader of any colour needs to watch this episode before making any kind of defence of the current establishment).

In the latter years of the Brown government we saw just how potent this effect was when a blair-lite Cameron failed to win a majority against the worst prime minister in history (couldn't win on "popular" terms, couldn't win on "cuddly-Bory" ones either).

Any constitutional convention can be bent to the will of the strongest political pressure or mob rule; what separates the better ones is how labile and flexible they are and how irresistibly even-handed they are; doing unto others as the constitution says you'd have done to yourself is difficult to argue against.

So no I don't believe this is a means to a Labour government-end in England - Lord knows the Major years and our current "Bory" lot are proof that it largely doesn't matter which turd is in charge; putting this down as a way of installing a conservative autocracy is wrong headed in the highest and will probably mean whatever constitutional convention we ultimately get will be skewed.

We need to reassert the kracy (power) of the demos (people) as a whole through this and that means ignoring such calls for Bory english rule.

Why not try pushing our representatives to adopt this?

And it comes to pass; the wife is back.

So the choice is made and the wife is back on her terms and the husband is left a hollow version of himself.

And the commentary is  palpably vitriolic.

" Gordon Brown, who has never ceased to regard himself as the rightful Prime Minister of Britain, scribbled a revolution on the back of a fag packet and decreed its implementation. How many people voted No because of the seductive dog's dinner of half-baked pledges offered as "The Vow"? Perhaps 100,000? Be generous and suppose it was 200,000. Possibly it was hardly anyone."

None of which I can disagree with; sadly, none of this matters and I'll tell you why.

We are a country served by minority government, returned on a minority mandate in league with a foreign invasionary force from Brussels; it does not care about the electorates thoughts or concerns, only for whatever its focus groups and the media tells it, insulated in its own little bubble and protected against a defanged and divided public by an increasingly unresponsive but violent police state.

And noone you select at the next GE will do anything about this state of affairs.

The choice is between:
- A turd with a blue rosette,
- A turd with a red rosette,
- A turd with a yellow rosette,
- The narky teaboy farage who couldn't find his are with both hands and will be establishmentised before the end of his first week in power.

Any way you play it you are voting for the continuity party of the civil service; an EU Corp. Puppet organisation with a now transparently thin veneer of democracy covering it.

Come the general election the only logical choice on the ballot is to spoil it; we won't get real change by selecting the anachronistic bubble dwellers repeatedly.

Then, with any luck, we can push for real change for the better.

Scotland, the Wife

Imagine your married.

You've been married for a long time; you cannot remember a time before it, though you have books and photos telling you such a time existed, and you can't imagine the situation ever changing.

Then one day you arrive home and your wife says she wants a separation, "to find herself". You reluctantly concede, and she moves out.

Years pass with occasional hopeful meetings, longing glances from both parties and even occasional brushes of affection.

Then she tells you she is considering a divorce, to go her own way wholeheartedly.

You, stricken, tell her you don't want that, that whatever your problems, your history, we can work it out.

Again she says she is considering divorce but hasn't made up her mind.

In despair you ask her has there been someone else; she tells you she has had several flings but nothing lasting

In desperation you tell her you don't care about the others, that you love her and want things to work.

She says she can't go on on what you give her to live on.

You promise her more.

That she wants to be free to see other people.

You eagerly agree.

That she wants to have a say on who you see and what you spend money on.

Confused, but hysterical with grief and anxiety you agree.

You both return home to separate rooms.

She's home, but somewhere on that road back you lost something important.

Your self respect.

And you can barely look your children, your friends or your colleagues in the eye.

Forget #indyref; what does this mean for the EU?

Why are people surprised at our political establishment and it's army of civil servants failing to create a Plan Y? Accounting for every eventuality and possible outcome requires a certain finesse and creativity that is sorely lacking in the Bubble.

Still it is fun to see this all play out, with an almost chronic failing of attention on the EU implications.

Taking the lead from this Breitbart article we see a potentially devastating vision presented on a scale of soviet disintegration - but this isn't just of the UK but of the EU.

Say Scotland does leave and immediately applies to join the EU; that whole process takes several years of worming through the bureaucratic miasma in Brussels.

Then in the interim we see Catalonia and Basque regions in Spain opt for independence.

Then parts of Germany.

And Hungary.

And Islamic State(tm) annexes part of Turkey, scuppering further integration completely.

Then it becomes necessary to set up border controls with a non-covered Shengen-agreement non-EU state on our northern border.

Then in the offshoot Spanish territories.

This all rolls into an even bigger trade miasma with non-EU or even EEC-recognised states within central Europe.

Let's assume Cameron is still there (ha!)- do you really think his "renegotiation" ploy will get very far?

Me neither.

Scotland marks the beginning of the end for the EU as is; events are rapidly out-competing procedure and crisis management for it to survive.

Interesting days.

Benefits Street

Will be making updates to this POS blog site in the coming days (maybe) and will no doubt come up with an excuse as to where I've been for over a year and a bit (potential answers can be found in the fourth list down here - not saying they're true or anything...)

I may even try to mutter cogently about the changes I've made, for good or ill.

Until then - Benefits Street.

I just finished watching 'Benefits Street: The Debate' and it's precursor aftermath ephemera; admittedly I only watched about half the episodes as I had assignments (more on that later) and note the following:

1. Nearly every single person pleading extreme poverty smoked; a habit I gave up because I preferred the alternative vice of getting laid which was severely impaired by said habit as Mrs. Jerubbaal wasn't a fan.

2. Several of the most hard up, at-evictions-(their own front?)-door seemed to have cash for widescreen tv's, sound systems, smartphones and sky, which is, you know, weird.

3. The education system of the past 3 decades has not covered itself in grace.

4. Smoggy deserves a medal; he's a modern Marks, making life a little more bearable for hundreds; as such he's likely to be chased down and bled over hot coals by Osborne the Clown as I find it hard to believe there wasn't a little tax dodging going on somewhere there.

All in all I liked it; it illustrated to me some of the main problems with the poorest in our nation being more closely linked to a failure to aspire to anything beyond the merry jig they did for they benefits which could be taken at a whim. The debate post show was especially interesting in that the following was pointed out:

a. The vast majority of the welfare bill does not get spent on a lazy, feckless underclass but on pensions for the elderly and the actual system itself; I'm not sure what the difference was from the perceived but it is of a rather embarrassing magnitude (and a point that was definitely conceded to Medhi Hasan and Owen Jones judging by the feeling in the audience.

b. The benefits system is largely about sustaining the benefits system; it is unbelievably pointed towards punishing anyone veering out of the predefined routes for welfare dependency or initiative (call it fraud if you will; I don't think its fair in the case of people like Smoggy with his entrepreneurialism or White Dee and her advocacy.

So with all that said here is my solution for when I become supreme ruler of the world/UK:

1. Make it easier to come on and off benefits: having known several people who have had to suffer through several weeks of no cash flow due to the sheer idiotic beuracracy of the whole welfare system, it is easy to see why so many fall prey to money lenders and fraud just to make ends meet. We should implement a zero base policy, firing everyone involved in its current asinine intransigence and building a system which puts people, not the state, first in queue for other peoples money.
2. Raise the income tax threshold, remove minimum wage requirements, introduce a negative income tax and link it inversely to corporation tax/business rates: simply put let people keep more of their money, let businesses hire more people for what they can attract them for and make business compete through higher wage allocations by lowering the burden on them; doesn't matter how this falls exactly but you could reduce the tax/NI take from SMEs and take out the inbuilt advantage for larger firms a national minimum wage gives them over smaller interlopers.
3. Taper benefits so the loss of them isn't as painful when someone does find work: joining the world of work is painful, never more so when you were just getting your beer vouchers for free - can we really not find a medium between the 2 administered by people rather than form?
4. Recognise the biggest welfare recipient is...the state: given government borrowing is by far the largest impasse for business growth in the UK we need Osbo the Clown to step up his plans for reducing the overspend and demand lower taxes/no taxes on the poorest - the best way to see money flooding the poorest is to increase the velocity of money which means we need less of the state sitting on it.

In any case this goes beyond the old libertarian tropes for benefits and we need an adult conversation as such.

Ok, Let's Try This All Again...

New Year #FacePalm

Good one to start the new year in this mornings Metro (apologies for resolution; trying to take a picture on a moving bus of a thin page is tricky). Moaning about MP salaries whilst you earn nearly 40% above the average wage in this country sucking on the exact same teat as the rest of us is a little presumptive of sympathy right.

FFS you earn twice what I do in the private sector.

My thoughts? Last year I said we should give MPs the ability to moot their own compensation to their constituents at the ballot box who would then be directly liable to pay for them via a council tax levy; stick your desired salary on the ballot paper then convince potential constituents at hustings and hitting the streets. Simples.

The Harrogate Agenda: The Wife Test

Many of us gathered yesterday at a conference centre in Leamington Spa for the follow up meeting to ratify The Harrogate Agenda; I need not cover the contents as it has been more than adequately covered by Autonomous Mind, what remains unsaid will be revealed in short enough a time to all.

It was 9.30 by the time I got back from the meeting and, with a young family waiting and a wife who had lost her husband for a third weekend in a row* there was obvious interest in why I had spent a lot of money and time travelling to random towns to sit in hotels and talk for hours on end.

So I showed her the draft pamphlet with our six demands.

And these are her observations:

Observation 1. My wife is a very clever lady - a science teacher of several years, but she will be the first to admit that she hates reading; beyond the bible and her text books when preparing or studying for lectures she avoids it like the plague, maybe managing 1 book a year if the mood takes her, so getting her to read a 30 page pamphlet was just not going to fly - will need to be shorter and punchier if it is to appeal to the "man in the pub". Probably more visual too.

Observation 2.

"So your grand idea is to let everyone do what they want regardless of the consequences?" "What?!?" "This but here: pt.1 talking all about sovereignty..."

pt1. deals with individual sovereignty and whilst I understand it to mean that we are ultimately the masters in our relationship with the state and that our demands make this implicit notion (well to most of us) explicit; for the record we are not inviting anarchy to reign, merely that the mechanisms in society be firmly in our grasp rather than a self-selecting elite.

Observation 3.

"ye gods you expect people to turn up to multiple referendum on every piece of legislation?" "No sweetheart that's not what pt.4 actually means and you can read about what it means on page..." "Sod that give me the abridged version." "Okay well [here follows a 5 minute dissertation on the difference in negative and positive ascension of laws, statutes and treaties in parliament and our proposed changes]" "sorry I kind of zoned out there, can I finish watching Transformers 2 now?

Definitely need to make this point visually and as simple as possible.

There would probably be more but sadly Optimus Prime had jus risen from the robot-dead and was kicking ass so had to leave it there.

But it is a good start to getting a view external to our talking shop.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Albert The Anaconda

So old Billy Hague has been given a monumental kick-in by the MSM and bloggers alike...over a stuffed snake; it's as if we have descended into an episode of Yes Minister.

As the FoI request shows this is a historic snake; it was given to Colonial Secretary in the 19th Century and represents a piece of history; I believe we need to preserve artefacts like this for all our benefits and wonder if the simplest solution to this embarassing problem is to ask for donations to Alberts upkeep? Am sure Billy can set up a Just Giving account?