Posted on by Patrick Sudlow

The NHS was being run down by the previous Labour Government and with nurses and auxiliary staff wages being kept at a very basic level. Now this Conservative Government, is determined to destroy what is left and leave this country without a universal health care system fit for the 21st Century. Basically, our politicians are winding the clock back a 100 years.

SKWAWKBOX

Depending how the rest of the day goes, this may be my last post of 2012. So let me briefly take the opportunity to thank everyone who’s visited my blog this year, and especially those who’ve gone to the trouble of spreading the word on Twitter, Facebook. It’s been a tough year for the UK under its present excuse for a government, and 2013 is likely to be as bad or tougher – but if we stick together, keep fighting and keep raising awareness, the clock is ticking on the robber-barons in government and those who back them.

To all readers of good will, may you be healthy, happy and successful in the New Year and beyond. Now, on with the post.

On 27 Nov 2012, during Commons Health Questions, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt was challenged by Labour MP and former Shadow Health Minister Barbara Keeley about the impact…

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Shell Drill Rig Kulluk Breaks Tow Lines – Adrift Again Sunday Night | MyFDL

Posted on by Patrick Sudlow

As the oil and gas companies try to continue with ‘business as usual’, they will try to exploit any oil and gas reserves they believe exist.  As they are doing with Tar Sands and ‘fracking’.  It does not matter to them whether their activities will lead to environmental disaster, it is about maintaining their dominant position.  Unfortunately our politicians do as the oil and gas companies wish, as it is the oil and gas companies who have the money.

Shell Drill Rig Kulluk Breaks Tow Lines – Adrift Again Sunday Night | MyFDL.

Mad Cycle Lanes of Manchester: Where all the money went on cycling – part 2

Posted on by Patrick Sudlow

A blog about how, despite all Manchester City Council’s rhetoric, provisions for urban cyclist is just about non-existent.  Richard Leese, makes out he is a cyclist and uses public transport but I have not witnessed him on either.  But he is a car owner and fought to keep a chauffeured limousine on the councils’ books for him to use.  Also, Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) formerly Greater Manchester Public Transport Executive (GMPTE), does not employ non-drivers.  So, the very people who make decisions about pedestrian, cycling and public transport have no real experience of the issues of this large group of users.  Unless there is a major change in Manchester’s leadership, Manchester will never have a public transport system fir for the 21st Century, or be pedestrian and cycling friendly.

Mad Cycle Lanes of Manchester: Where all the money went on cycling – part 2.

RSA Animate – The Power of Outrospection

Posted on by Patrick Sudlow

This video: The Power of Outrospection, may help the environmental movement and the Green Party become more successful in getting their message out there.  It is no good stating you stand for Equality and Fairness, if you do not actively listen.  A paragraph in the Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, p.521, I was looking through recently, reminded of my experience of the Manchester Green Party:

Working people did not feel themselves to be alienated from the propertied classes but they did feel themselves different.  The Liberals reinforced this by their failure to adopt working men as candidates: however broad the agreement on policy matters the middle-class members of the Liberal Associations – the people who called the tune in the constituencies – would not adopt as candidates men whom they would expect to enter their houses by the servants door.

I get the same impression from the environmental movement, who seem to believe their are intellectually superior to the ordinary working person, so they know best.  Even though, it is they who are consuming far more than the average working person.

Posted on by Patrick Sudlow

Having had experience whilst serving on HMS Ark Royal, on how Channel 4 manipulate information to give a distorted view of events. And they have been caught out by others, distorting the truth. Channel 4 should not be granted a broadcasting license. Most of us, no longer trust the police and especially the Met, which has been a ferule police force sometime. But, this case highlights how Cameron and his cronies will try and protect one of their own. The are trying to blacken the reputation of the Special Protection force, their own bodyguards. How ludicrous is that, like an emperor turning on the Praetorian Guards, whom murdered Emperor Pertimax.

SKWAWKBOX

Out of a desire to be sure, to my own satisfaction, about the provenance and accuracy of the ‘Plebgate’ footage that Andrew Mitchell claims ‘exonerates’ him, and which Channel 4’s ‘Dispatches‘ programme claims casts serious doubt on the police logbook’s account of the incident, I have come to two conclusions. Firm ones.

Firstly, the exterior footage shown by Dispatches is genuine footage. Secondly, the footage – while genuine – is edited and cut in such a way as to give a false impression of:

– the point at which Mr Mitchell started his ‘altercation’ with the police officers
– the amount of time he had to utter the now-infamous phrases, ‘f***ing plebs’, ‘you don’t run this f***ing country’ and ‘you should know your f***ing place’
– the number of people outside the gates as the altercation took place

I’ve watched the footage as shown by two separate…

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Amid stiff opposition, Israel occupation profiteer Veolia abandons big London waste bid in final stage

Posted on by Patrick Sudlow

Student at Manchester Metropolitan University should continue there fight to have MMU cancel their contract with Veolia.  Failing that, it is time students started boycotting Manchester Metropolitan University.  Not only for their employment of Veolia but also because of the way they have treated the people of Hulme.  John Brooks the vice-chancellor, conducted secret deals with Manchester City Council, to build a campus on Birley Fields.  This is totally unacceptable behaviour from a Higher Education establishment which boast it serves the community.  It does not, it even tells it’s students, even those live in hall of residence in Hulme, not to go into Hulme.  They claim to be building a green campus when they have felled scores of trees and want to fell another 50.  And their energy plant is to be powered by natural gas, a finite resource, imported and emits CO2.  How is this green?

Amid stiff opposition, Israel occupation profiteer Veolia abandons big London waste bid in final stage.

Posted on by Patrick Sudlow

The continuing saga about the dismantling of our NHS. One think I would disagree with, is his statement about local authorities having to cut-back to protect essential services. This is not the case in ‘Labour’ run Manchester. They have cut funding to essential services and closed some down, to protect funding to their ‘ego’ projects, which are needless. They have spent money on a new Irish Heritage Centre, when there is nothing wrong with the present one. They are spending money on moving the Library Theatre and the Cornerhouse, needlessly, just so Ask Development can make money. The are covering Library Walk against the wishes of Manchester residents, as well as moving the Cenotaph. At a time of austerity, they should be ensuring the budgets of essential services is protected. But the only want to build more white elephant ivory towers, ’emperors clothes’. It is not just the Tories we need to get rid off, but also a Labour party which no longers represents the ordinary people.

SKWAWKBOX

What I’m about to write about isn’t a secret. It’s on the parliamentary record, and the occasional web or print news article has touched on it. But, as far as it possibly can, the government keeps it very much under the radar. So it may well be, esteemed visitor to this blog, that you’ve never heard about it.

If you’re a regular (esteemed) visitor, you’ll know that I’ve written frequently about the NHS and I’ve written at length about the government’s attacks, current and future, on it. I don’t work in the NHS, but I do recognise the enormous importance to our society of healthcare ‘free at the point of need’ and the doctors, nurses and other staff who provide it. I also recognise that it’s a prime target for the Tories’ state-stripping ideology.

In the course of my research for various articles over the past couple of weeks, I’ve…

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Posted on by Patrick Sudlow

An article going some way to explain why the UK has not really moved forward on climate change and not wholeheartedly embraced renewables and energy efficiency. Which would not only mitigate against climate change but reduce our consumption of finite resources.

Inside track

newspapers detailThis is a guest post by James Painter of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism

It’s nearly Christmas, so it must be the end of another round of UN climate talks.  One of the less reported aspects of this annual meet-up is that the 190-odd delegations often come from quite different backgrounds when it comes to popular views about climate change in their home countries.

For example, surveys show significant differences between countries as to how much people believe that mankind’s greenhouse gas emissions are the main driver of climate change.

At first this might seem odd. After all, reports from the IPCC and others are pretty good at laying out where there are core certainties and residual uncertainties.  And these reports get widespread coverage in most countries of the world.

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Posted on by Patrick Sudlow

A select few Moss Side residents are invited by Manchester City Council to put forward the reasons they are against the council’s decimation of 250 trees in Alexandra Park. As has, been pointed out to the council, they are failing in their duties to protect the natural environment. And it is time, academics stopped making the case in their writings, that Manchester City Council is ‘Green’.

manchester climate monthly

An interesting presentation about the concerns of local residents around the City Council’s basically unannounced plans to chop down a lot of trees in Alexandra Park. (We linked to the initial petition here, and published “another view” as well – the latter is probably our most commented upon post ever).  This Dilbert cartoon may be relevant…

engaged

Alexandra Park -­‐ restoration plan concerns — meeting with Manchester City Council.

Today we met with Manchester City Council to express our concerns about the Alexandra Park restoration plan. Present at this meeting (which was invitation only at request of Manchester City Council) was:
Rionne Avis, Nadine Andrews, Jenny Trigg – local residents
Richard Sharland, Manchester City Council
Eamonn O’Rourke, Manchester City Council
Eddie Flanagan, Manchester City Council
Eunice Long, Manchester City Council
Sara Hilton, Head of Heritage Lottery Fund NW
Ten members of our group collaborated to compile a presentation…

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