dom.blog

There once was a Tory named Flight
Who let slip the cuts in sight
Howard got mad
But the voters are glad
The Conservatives are dead tonight

From BBC News:

The government says it will allow judges, not politicians, to decide on house arrest orders for terror suspects.

Well, it took the government a scarily long term to remember the basic principle of our entire legal system, but I’m glad they got there in the end. I’m still not very happy about the whole thing, whatever improvement on Belmarsh it may be.

They’ve also set themselves up a big problem – because at some point there is going to be a terrorist attack. It’s inevitable. And control orders, house arrests or ID cards will ‘fail’ because some people will always get through. A lot less than the number of people who kill on the roads each day, of course, and I don’t see any emergency powers coming in to deal with that.

And now for something completely different – PC4 is coming. Soon. We’re also going to be upgrading PC1 to Windows XP, which means a reformat obviously, which means last night I had to find a way of moving several thousand email messages from my dad’s long-defunct CompuServe CIS Mail system into Outlook Express. And for that I’d like to thank CS2Exchange Software. £14 for a wonderful bit of software – cheers!

Mmmm… this will give us a network of 4 PCs which means that with the TV there are 5 DVD players in the house, enough for each family member to watch a different DVD at once. Now that’s what I call an indulgent set-up

It may be a cynical electioneering ploy to distract us all from Iraq and the whole ‘detention without trial’ thing, but hey, a little manipulation is only to be expected during an election campaign

Minimum wage to increase to £5.05, and then most likely £5.35 in October 2006. One of New Labour’s most popular policies, it’s especially satisfying after all the shit spouted by the Tories in 1999. “Millions of jobs lost” whine whine whine, and this from the ‘economically challenged’ party which has a special, imaginary friend called £35bn. “Just cause no one else can see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist!”
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OK, so how’s this for an idea. Why don’t we break the entire NHS off from government to form an independent body – state funded but not state controlled?

As I see it, an independent NHS would have the following advantages:

– Less day to day interference from government, more cohesive long-term planning

– Continuity through elections, less chopping and changing of direction and leadership

– Could be run like the BBC, using the techniques of the private sector but as a public service

– Easier for people working in the NHS to rise through the system, they wouldn’t have to be politicians to reach the top and so successful ideas could flourish internally

– Still providing services free at the point of use

– Greater public support, they could see what proportion of their taxes went directly to funding the NHS instead of being ‘lost’ in general government spending.
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Nic has discovered a wonderful thing about these new Conservative posters – they’re incredibly easy to parody. I have my own suggestions…

“Who the hell decided to contract out NHS cleaners in the first place?”

“I’m bored of economic stability – let’s have some excitement with a recession!”

“Where the f**k did I put my keys?”

Conservatives – are you thinking what we’re thinking?

(Some people think this is all just irrelevant negative campaigning using nonsensical slogans to make irrational points. They claim that it would be better to discuss the real issues that affect this country, and even the whole of humanity, rather than dirty mudslinging. No one is going to listen to them until they think up a logo though.)