Greedy banks

At a time when Banks are soon to no longer offer free banking it seems ironic that the Halifax can offer £100 to anyone who uses their current account switching service to move their account to them.

Quite clearly it can’t cost that much to maintain a bank account. In this day and age with computers doing most of the work, the costs of an account must be coming down.

So clearly the only reason to no longer offer free banking is for banks to boost their profits at a time when they are already announcing billion pound figures.

Foreign Secretary loses her memory?

The Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett in response to her apparent setting up by Rory Bremnar has claimed she does not remember such a conversation taking place.

Yet she then says "If he has done as he suggests, it is both an unprincipled and unpleasant breach of privacy." Well the one person besides Rory Bremnar who would know if such a conversation took place is Margaret Beckett herself.

Surely the conversation took place or it didn’t. It can’t be both.

No.10 Petitions, the real reason

This week we found out the real reason for E-Petitions on the Downing Street website, one massive propaganda machine.

The 1.8 million signatures to the anti road pricing petition all received an email this week from the PM spelling out exactly why we need road pricing. Hardly recognition of the opposition to the scheme.

The ideal way to build a database of email addresses in which to ignore the views of the voters and try to bring them around to the Government’s way of thinking.

Is Blair lining up his new job?

The News of The World today is reporting that Blair is to sign the resurrected European Constitution without going to the country for a referendum, like he promised the last time it was attempted to be introduced.

The Constitution will set up a European President and a Foreign Minister, two jobs which Blair is bound to be interested in. These two positions will be key to international relations for Europe and therefore whoever holds them will hold quite a bit of power and in true European style be unaccountable to the people, ideal for Blair then!

Perfect timing for Blair then in the year he will step down, that one of his last acts as Prime Minister will be to sign a treaty creating a position ideal for him, which will allow him to continue in a position above Brown.

That 1million figure

It doesn’t seem to matter to this Government what the views of the people who elected them are. Even if one million people are against what they plan, the Government carries on regardless. The first case came with the Iraq war, and now it appears the same is going to happen with road charging.

More than one million people have signed a petition against planned vehicle and road charging on 10 Downing Street’s own website, but this is going to be ignored.

It does prove just what a gimmick this website is as the Government clearly has no intention of acting upon the petitions.

DWP favour to ID fraudsters

At a time when the Government is encouoraging people to take care over their personal data due to identity fraud, the Deparment for Work and Pensions has done its best to help out fraudsters by sending 26’000 letters containing personal and bank account details to the wrong addresses.

The DWP has said it launched an investigation as soon as it found out about the problem. Not really going to help all those whos details have been sent to the wrong house. The problem is made worse by the fact it is pensioners details, a group who are more vunerable than most.

The problem occurred because two letters were put into the same envelope, throwing the whole process out. The simple solution to ensure this problem doesn’t happen again? Use windowed envelopes!

3 arrests in C4H?

Depending on whether you believe what is printed in the News of the World (the fact its been given such a prominent position says there must be something backing it up) 3 people are to be charged in the Cash for Honours investigation and Tony Blair will be questioned for a third time, under caution.

Things could yet get very interesting. I would be surprised if Lord Levy, Ruth Turner and Sir Christopher Evans don’t bring Blair down with them, if he is indeed involved.

New boundaries will cost Labour

Research from the University of Plymouth (my very own lecturers I should add) has shown that Labour stand to lose 7 seven seats and the Conservatives gain 12, just because of boundary changes.

This of course assumes people vote the same way as they did at the last election. Even so, had these boundaries been in place at the last election, Labour would have a majority of just 28.

The bounderies are yet to be confirmed for England, which adds support for an early General Election, as it would be held under the current boundaries, benefiting Labour.

Jump Up and Down!

The Government has provided us with the answer to tackling anti social behaviour. Jump up and down. I’m serious, that was confirmed as one thing you could do to distract criminals, whilst waiting for the police to arrive.

Anybody think that will actually help? Nope, didn’t think so. To be fair to Home Office Minister, Tony McNulty, he suggested distracting people and it was Jeremy Vine (the interviewer) who suggested by jumping up and down. But even so, it appears quite clear from the interview that Mr McNulty has no idea what you should do if you see a crime happening in the street.

Here’s the text from BBC One’s Panorama,

Jeremy Vine: You see something happening in the street. Do you step in?

Tony McNulty: I think the general line must be to get in touch with the authorities straight and make sure that if things are as bad as you paint the police will be there as quickly as they can.

Jeremy: You see a young man looking aggressive, shouting at an old woman, what do you do? You retreat and ring the police?

Tony McNulty: I think you should in the first instance. It may well be the simply shouting at them, blowing your horn or whatever else deters them and they go away.

Jeremy: He's now hitting her and the police haven't come, what do you do then?

Tony McNulty: The same the same, you must always ...

Jeremy: Still wait?

Tony McNulty: Get back to the police, try some distractive activities whatever else.

Jeremy: What jump up and down?

Tony McNulty: But I would say you know sometimes that that may well work.

Clearly a sign the Government has run out of ideas. Bring in the next lot.

The programme is being shown Monday 5th Feb at 8:30 on BBC 1.

Blair interviewed again!

Tony Blair’s second interview in the Cash for Peerages investigation, suggests Blair is not in the clear yet. He was only interviewed as a witness, but this shows the investigation is not moving away from Blair’s door.

Will it lead to Blair being charged? I expect not. I still think the best we can hope for, is Blair being called as a witness against one of his own aides. Unless of course, they bring him down with them.

Here we go again...

John Reid, the Home Secretary is going to try to extend the time limit for detention without trial beyond the current 28 day limit.

Nothing like ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again’. So here we go.

I probably would be in favour of an extension in time, if it could be proven it was needed. Even John Reid has admitted that the police have not encountered a time when they needed more than 28 days. So why is there really such a need for it? I think this question will need to be answered if John Reid is to get his way.

Olympic games funding solution

All fears over funding of the Olympic games can be easily put to rest with a very simple solution. The Government can sort out all the money it wastes every year. I know never going to happen, but it just puts into perspective how much money is wasted each year.

A Government report from the Department for Work and Pensions has estimated that £2.6bn was overpaid last year in benefits due to errors and fraud. To stage the Olympic games themselves will cost £2bn, so that would be that bit paid for.

This estimate is just for benefits, so if the whole of Government spending was taken into account, I imagine the Olympics could be paid for several times over without the tax payer having to pay anything.

We can only dream….

Time to finally sort the House of Lords?

House of Lords reform, which has been a controversial and difficult reform process for the Government is to go before the House of Commons for a free vote.

MPs will get to vote on the percentage of Lords that are elected to the House of Lords. The minimum being 10% and the maximum 100%

Now I’m not in favour of an elected House of Lords of any proportion. The issue I have is over when to hold the elections. If they are held on the same day as a General Election, people are likely to vote the same way for the Commons and the Lords, so the Lords would just become a rubber stamp for Government legislation. On the other hand, if elections took place mid way through a Parliament, the Lords is likely to reflect the Opposition as Governments are most unpopular midterm. Resulting in a stale mate over legislation.

Hence the reason I still think the Lords should continue to be appointed. It seems to be doing the job alright to my. I do agree with getting rid of Hereditary Peers though.