A Neoliberal Attack…

Religious people are far more likely to engage in conversation about religion with me, after I mention that I have studied Philosophy and take an interest in Theology. I think they presume I will agree with their thoughts and perhaps provide reasoning to their illogical beliefs. I think they imagine that one can only speak with conviction on matters of religion, if one is religious in an academic sense. The same is true of many walks of life, not least the public sector in England. Because Tory MPs are essentially a part of the public sector, they seem to believe they have the right to talk of all public sector workers, as if they’re the official spokespeople for the public sector.

On Question Time last week, John Redwood, Tory MP for Wokingham appeared delighted as he informed the audience that as a public sector worker, he would be working longer and putting more money into his pension pot as a result of his Government’s reforms, and he was proud of it. The reason John Redwood can seem so pleased with himself that he is accepting the changes to his pension and retirement age, is because on top of the £65,000 a year he earns as an MP, he also claimed a hell of a lot of money, that regular public sector workers could only dream of. Yet, Mr Redwood seems to think his claims were perfectly reasonable, as suggested on his own personal blog:

In 2007-8 I claimed a total of £105,917. This made me the 19th cheapest MP, claiming around £40,000 less than the average. One fifth of that claim was the mortgage interest costs, the Council Tax and service charge and maintenance on a bedsit flat in Pimlico. It is entirely used to enable me to work longer days in London when there is important Parliamentary business. During my ownership it has only been slept in by myself. I do not need it for any other purpose. The deposit and repayments of capital are of course paid for out of my taxed income.

- We should be thanking him, for claiming in one year, more than a teacher is likely to earn in five years. We should be happy that tax payers money is going to fund the “maintenance” on his Pimlico flat. We should be grateful that the money spent on his mortgage interest (tax payers money) will go to buying a flat he can then sell when he retires, making a handsome profit, and giving nothing back to the public, whilst his party continue to force harsh austerity. One does wonder what the purpose of his 2004/5 claim of £13,305 for his luxurious house in Berkshire (a £1,000,000 estate which he fully owns), including £168 and £112 for his lawn to be reseeded, and how that is “entirely used to enable me to work longer days in London when there is important Parliamentary business” was needed for, but nevertheless, i’m sure it’s just as noble as the necessity of “maintenance” claims on the MILLIONAIRE’S flat in London. Thank you John “Jesus Christ” Redwood. You are a hero.

A man in the audience pointed out that the Private Sector has forced through harsh pension reforms, and so the Public Sector should do the same and “modernise”. The audience were alive with cheer! But it got me thinking; why is it always the public sector that is made to look as though it is in the wrong, like a Soviet leftover, trailing behind the private sector. People seem happy to accept the notion that if the private sector is screwing people over, then so should the public sector! Why is no one arguing that the private sector should be actively forced to lift itself up to the level of the public sector? As far as I can discern, over the past twenty five years it has been an out of control short-term wealth obsessed private sector that has been so majestically out of control, that when the bubble finally cracked, the public sector had to take the hit.

Let’s look at examples of the private sector providing a “modernising” model that the public sector ought to apparently follow:

Lloyds TSB is currently 43.4% owned by the taxpayer. Yet, its new Chief Executive, Antonio Horta-Osorio received a signing on fee of £4.1mn in shares, £516,000 in money, and an annual salary of £1.6mn with a yearly bonus of £2.5mn.

A wonderful company named Trafigura, in 2010 leased a ship called the Probo Koala to a company called Compagnie Tommy, with the intent to dump toxic waste at a waste disposal sight in Amsterdam. The site raised their prices by 20 times that quoted, because the toxic waste was deemed to be far more dangerous that Compagnie Tommy and Trafigura first suggested. So, a new company set up on the Ivory Coast agreed to take the waste, for a very cheap sum. Trafigura did not investigate just why this new company was offering to take the waste for such a cheap price. After the waste was dumped, ten people died from poisoning, and over 100,000 became ill. Trafigura said they’d tested the waste, and it wasn’t toxic, and that they had no idea why so many people became ill. The Dutch tested the waste and found it contained two tonnes of Hydrogen Sulfide. A killer gas. Trafigura spent three years publicly denying the waste they dumped in a poverty stricken area of Africa, was not enough to kill people. Suddenly, Trafigura offered to pay a massive amount of compensation of Euro152,000,000 to the Ivory Coast (which didn’t go to the victims) with the instruction that on acceptance of the compensation, they couldn’t be prosecuted or causing death in the courts. The reason they did this, is because The Guardian obtained – through Wikileaks – private company emails from Trafigura in which they quite plainly accept, as early as 2006 before they’d even chosen the Ivory Coast to dump the waste, that the waste was indeed dangerous.

According to the Guardian, Diageo PLC, the company that makes Guiness, in 2009 paid as little as 2% tax on its profits, despite racking in £2bn in profits. Diageo pays its Chief Executive £3.6mn salary. To fill this gap, it takes 20,000 ordinary British households per year.

The term “Modernising” has come to mean subtle privatising of key services in recent years. An economic laissez faire that apparently promised to solve all of our problems. The outsourcing of cleaning from NHS to private companies with £94mn worth of contacts, led to such declining standards between ’83-’00, that an extra emergency £31mn was injected into cleaning in the NHS, with the a Patient Environment Action Team (PEAT), set up to visit hospitals to ensure standards were being met; the Private sector had failed. By 2000, only 20% of NHS Trusts had achieved an acceptable level of cleanliness.

The banks aren’t the only sector that have required government bail outs in recent history. In 2002, British Energy (privatised under the Tories) had to approach the government for a £410mn bail out to finance its debts.

News of the World. I believe this doesn’t need elaborating on.

Private sector bonuses and high CEO pay, is more harmful to you and I, than highly paid private sector bosses. When money accumulates in the hands of very few people within the private sector (we spend more in the private sector, than on taxes), the cost gets passed on to us. The Bush tax cuts, along with the deregulation of the financial sector didn’t go toward greater investment, it went to increasing the pay and bonuses of those at the top, and the cost was passed on to us, through the creation of a very easy credit system. We all know how that turned out.

British Airways, under the incompetent management of Willie Walsh faced massive fines (record breaking fine actually) for price fixing, long drawn out industrial disputes with the cabin crew which the media helped by describing the cabin crew as greedy, despite 2000 of their workmates being laid off, the company making huge losses, and Willie Walsh taking in a 6% inflation busting pay rise, taking it to £743,000 and £1.1mn in deferred share bonuses. Enough to keep at least ten people on at BA, who otherwise lost their job. The media will never paint the boss as the greedy incompetent bastard in this kind of dispute. It will always find a child at Heathrow, crying, because the cabin crew strike means he wont see his mummy this Christmas. The media do not tend to side with the unions, they never will, and so neither will the ill-informed public.

Do we need to even mention the banking system? A particularly ironic take on this whole new “private good public bad” era of austerity we are living in.

Thankfully we have the Government’s new corporate team, who will help him “stand up to business”. On the panel, inevitably, is Philip Green, Topshop mogul who owns Taveta Investments, which he put in his wife’s name, who happens to live in Monaco, thus avoiding £285mn in tax. He also paid his family £1.2bn, taken from a loan in the name of his company, thus cutting Corporation tax because the loan’s interest charges were offset against profit. Oh and he also uses sweatshops in Mauritius, whilst claiming his obscene bonuses are justified because he “takes risks”. Another on the panel, is Justin King, Chairman of Sainsbury’s. In his first year, he received free shares worth over £500,000, whilst axing the £120 christmas bonus for his staff. After his staff didn’t receive their christmas bonus, King awarded his wealthy finance director £357,000 worth of shares. King was also offered 1,000,000 free shares, if he met specific targets the year before. He didn’t meet the targets, the company’s profits fell 2.9% and yet he still took home 86% of the promised shares. He will be given the same year on year, on top of his £500,000+ a year salary.

We all know that the private sector has the potential to deliver fantastic opportunities, despite the fact that its raison d’etre is unjustifiable power and wealth in the hands of people who simply injected the first dose of capital required to kick start the specific business, as if that initial injection of capital somehow creates a universal, unbreakable law, like gravity, that requires the majority of the subsequent profit and the decisions required to move the business forward, be placed in the hands of the person who injected that capital. It’s a bit of a flawed and odd concept that people just tend to accept. But, it does create opportunity (though it doesn’t necessarily have to be the only way of creating opportunity). The downside, is unregulated greed. The public sector is a constant target of abuse from the source of that greed, and the politicians that the greed of the private sector can buy. Corportocracy at its finest and most dangerous.

Isn’t it about time a Politician had the balls to stand up and say the Private Sector over the past thirty years has spiraled disastrously out of control, and perhaps needs to be able to pay people a decent living wage, as opposed to bringing the public sector down to the unacceptable level of the private sector?

Support the strike

Teamstar, the US Union said it hadn’t ruled out banning it’s members from handling BA baggage, in a show of solidarity with the strikers. BA said that action by a secondary union was against US law. This amazes me. Why does a law like that exist? Why do companies have more rights than people? Why aren’t workers allowed to show solidarity against a corrupt regime? Afterall, Americans think it’s okay to own guns in the knowledge that they may need to overthrow a corrupt Government, so why are corrupt businesses given such protection? Why is there a bill of rights for the abstract concept of “company“? If that isn’t proof that the protection of the rights of those at the top is more important than the majority, i’m not sure what is.

BA said it was sad to see overseas Unions support:

“unjustified strikes against an iconic British brand”

If all else fails, if incompetent and a bully style of management, and scandal after scandal is starting to make management look like the wolves in sheep’s clothing……….. appeal to Nationalism. It never fails in the realm of the idiots.

The Tories, reminiscent of 1979 today announced they would fight the power of the Unions. Members of the Unite Union working for British Airways voted in favour of strike action, and are today on strike.

Let’s get one thing straight from the start, BA is not at risk. The strikers, are not putting BA at risk. BA is the British market leader in international flights. It started to lose it’s top spot, before recession hit. The cabin crew on strike, were not responsible for that. Bad management, was responsible for that. The Tories who are now criticising Brown for being weak with the unions, are far weaker in their unwavering support for unbelievably incompetent management.

The Union offered 60 million in cuts, with a 2 year pay freeze on it’s staff. The staff were ready to accept it. Walsh didn’t think it went far enough. To him, the only way this is over, is if the Union is totally broken, so he can bully as much as he damn well pleases. I hope he fails.

There is something fundamentally wrong with a system that rewards incompetence and greed and punishes those who simply wish to protect their livelihood. Obviously i’m going to be incredibly bias, because just looking at BA Chief Exec. Willie Walsh’s smug face, on the left, makes me want to convert to fundamental Christianity and stone him to death.

The Sun reading British public, owing to it’s great sense of idiocy and selfishness is largely against the strike action. Regardless of how poorly management of BA has been, and regardless of how many jobs are on the line, the public seem to hate the strikers, simply because it might put a few holidays at risk. The death of brotherhood, and the ongoing nightmare World of the narcissistic consumer.

So why the anger at the striking cabin crew?

It wasn’t the Cabin crew who created the huge pension deficit. It was Willie Walsh’s management.

It wasn’t the Cabin crew who were fined £270,000,000 for price fixing. It was Willie Walsh’s management (this resulted in huge job losses, to pay for it.) He tried to manipulate costs. And yet, he wasn’t sacked.

It wasn’t the Cabin crew who fucked up over Terminal 5. It was Willie Walsh’s management.

It wasn’t the Cabin crew who ran the company so far into the ground, that 30,000 workers whose livelihoods depend on their wage packet, were asked to work for nothing. It was because of Willie Walsh’s management. The union actually called for better management, instead of workers working for free, surely that makes more sense?

The distrust of BA because of it’s dirty tricks economically, is not the Cabin crew’s fault. It was Willie Walsh’s management.

It wasn’t the Cabin crew who went to the Supreme Court to block industrial action. It was Willie Walsh.
In short, the head of BA, Willie Walsh is a crook. An appalling manager. 13,500 people don’t just decide to strike because they want to ruin your holiday, or they want a bit of a break, or they’re “greedy”. They have a reason. And that reason, is still in charge of a company he damn near destroyed. The strikers don’t hate BA. The strikers want to save BA.

Overpaid arrogant bankers and managers have screwed the entire system over, for the past thirty years. Lehman Brothers, and Goldman is testament to that. Walsh is just another one of the same breed of greedy bastards who have somehow convinced a generation that they are indispensable. They are not indispensable. They should be dispensed of as soon as possible. The Tories, quite clearly support ruthless Capitalism. Because whilst jobs and livelihoods at BA are threatened by management who bully their staff…….. BA stock price is at the highest it’s been in over six months. Which suggests that whilst staff are being threatened daily with cuts in the wages they rely on to survive, the shareholders, who quite clearly have a bit of money anyway given that they have shares in BA……… are making more money.

If a President or Prime Minister were to run a Country as badly and with bullying tactics as Willie Walsh has ran BA, the public would be supremely outraged. When a company does it, the public don’t seem to care. The way of Capitalism. Greed and selfishness wins every time.

What a wondrous system this is.

David Cameron said:

“The BA strike threatens the future of one of Britain’s greatest companies along with thousands of jobs. But will the Prime Minister come out in support of the people who cross the picket line? No – because the Unite union is bankrolling the Labour Party”

Firstly, why are the strikers threatening BA? I don’t think they are. Why hasn’t Cameron mentioned the bad management, the scandals, the threats, the bullying? This leads me on to my second point…
Cameron will never mention poor management and a need to curve excessive and rather fascist business tactics, because big business donated almost £5.9million to the Conservative Party last year. Big business is the Conservative Party. Anything that slightly threatens big business, is going to be called socialist, destructive, terrible for Britain.

What Cameron means is, those like Willie Walsh should be allowed to bully their staff all they want and there should be nothing anyone can do about it.
Let’s not forget that it is thanks to a brotherhood of workers, that those of us who complain about unions, have a minimum wage to fall back on, and a universal healthcare system to look after us when we’re ill, and better working conditions in so much as we’re not choking on deadly gases in our workplaces, or our kids being sent down mines.

Kenneth Clarke suggested that we’re heading back to the 1970s and allowing the Unions to take over England. So, the polar opposite of the Unions taking control, is big business. As an example, i’ll use Lloyds Group.

Lloyds today announced it has made profits of £3.5bn. They seem over joyed. The reason they were overjoyed is because recently, the took over HBOS, which had a plethora of toxic debts, which were then transfered to Lloyds, who miscalculated the risk. Lloyds shareholders decided to take over HBOS. The workers didn’t have any say, obviously, because that would be EVIL SOCIALISM!!!! So thankfully, those wondrous Capitalists were on hand to save the day………….. by having to appeal to Socialism to bail it out. The Government then took 43% of Lloyds over. The wondrous Capitalists who were going to save the day from EVIL SOCIALISM!!!! then announced they were taking on Andy Hornby as a consultant on £60,000 a month; the very same Andy Hornby who was at the top of HBOS and drove it into the ground. So whilst Lloyds needed desperately a government bail out because they’d made a huge mistake buying HBOS, they could still afford to pay an incompetent lunatic £60,000 as a consultant. A man who drove his bank into the ground, was now earning £60,000 advising another Bank how to run it’s business. But wait, those wondrous Capitalists weren’t finished saving the day yet. After making mistake after mistake, they then cut 15000 jobs. Lloyds, the largest employer in Aylesbury had effectively shut down the town by cutting 300+ jobs, because of supremely incompetent management. At what point does the Chancellor, who represents our 43% share in the business, step in and tell the management that we don’t want our money back as a Country, if it means 15000 lose their jobs. We’re not a Tory country. We don’t believe that sort of thing is perfectly acceptable.
And these are the people who should be running the show as opposed to Unions?

For those of you who believe the Unions have too much power, and deplore the BA strike…….. you are simply fighting in favour of protecting a system that allows mindless management thugs to control the lives of the very people who fund their luxurious lifestyles.
BUT AS LONG AS YOUR HOLIDAY ISN’T AFFECTED!
The idea that they should be happy to even have a job, amazes me, and doesn’t even warrant a response.

I fully support Unions, in all their attempts to advance workers rights and curve the oppression of selfish incompetent fatcats.

Big Business rules the World

“We are not hostile to Corporations; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good.” – Theodore Roosevelt

I’m 1902, President Teddy Roosevelt and his Attorney General at the time, shocked both the Republican Party and the Country on the whole by announcing it’s intention to sue J.P.Morgan’s Northern Securities Company for breaching the Sherman Anti-Trust act. President Roosevelt did not particularly care about the actual breaching of a largely pointless act, he wanted instead to show the Country that the office of President was more powerful than the Office of a banker. He wanted to show that power of the public could not be bought or sold. It was a symbol against the power of private companies, even more so because Morgan ha contributed to campaigns Roosevelt had run in the past. It was an ingenious way of letting big business know “You can contribute all you want, but you do not own power over the public.”

Lately, whenever I turn the TV on, I see an advert, warning people that “we’re coming to get to you”. This is aimed at benefit cheats, it features a neighbour of a lady cheating benefits, calling the office. My instant reaction was “wow, much like when the Nazis asked people to inform them if they lived next door to a Jew.” I simply do not get upset and annoyed by benefit cheats. It doesn’t affect me. In fact, whenever I hear of a single mum struggling on the income she has, to feed her family, I would advise her to cheat the system a bit. Perhaps it’s a little controversial. My stance on this will also annoy people. But I refuse to let any take the moral high ground on the issue of scrounging a little extra cash to feed a poor family, when the tax payer has paid for a mass of Corporate bonuses over the past year, through Governments that metaphorically masturbate the big business men.

John Thain, the last Chairman of Merrill Lynch, who after destroying the company, begged for a $10million bonus, managed to secure $15million from the Bank of America bail out fund; taxpayers money. Within a month, he had offered employees of Merrill Lynch bonuses as much as $4million. He then spent $1.2million of tax payers money on redecorating his office. Thain is working at The Bank of America. Why aren’t the Governments of the World “coming to get” Thain? Surely using $1.2million of public money is a hell of lot worse than a single mum needing the extra £20 she’s “stolen” to feed her kids? Businessmen are exempt from the law.

Fox News, in particular Bill O’Reilly in 2005 began a campaign for America to boycott France, for no other reason than the fact that France are not America’s bitches. O’Reilly claimed that France had damaged America a considerable amount. And so all Americans should boycott French products. In comparison, O’Reilly doesn’t seem to have a problem with America’s destructive relationship with those great proponents of Democracy, the Saudi Royal Family. Could this be anything to do with business deals? If France had a decent supply of Oil reserves, O’Reilly would be inviting us all to his French themed birthday party in celebration of how wonderful France is.

The UK Government has strong ties to the aviation industry. They are, in essence, in the pockets of BAA and Virgin. Misleading figures and the decrediting of leading scientists who disagree and have the evidence to back it up, in order to advance their own agenda, aviation gets billions of pounds of taxpayers money, to keep prices low. BA has claimed to be taking steps to be pro-green in the future, and yet it keeps demanding extra terminals and runways. The BA website claims “Introducing a third runway at Heathrow won’t increase the overall level of carbon emissions in the atmosphere.” Clearly, that’s a lie, and impossible. There is no way that they are helping the environment rather than maximising profits. And the Government gave into them on Heathrow’s third runway.

Recently, the house of Lords has been the subject of much publicity. Four Labour Lords are accused of agreeing to accept £120,000 in exchange for changing to law to suit the person paying the money. Public policy influenced by the money of outside “donors”? No shit! The only difference between the four Lords at the centre of this scandal, and most other politicians, is that these four happened to get caught.

David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party claimed that Lords who misbehaved should be punished. Cameron himself refused to criticise the bosses of Bradford and Bingley after they systematically destroyed the company and can be partly held accountable for the mess our finance system is in today. Cameron told the BBC… “What you won’t hear from me this week is the sort of easy cheap lines beating up on the market system, bashing financiers.” So he’s quite happy to cycle to work, to prove he’s dedicated to climate change whilst his work suit is chauffeur driven in the Mercedes behind him for cheap publicity, but he wont criticise people who have destroyed the banking system? There must be a reason….. ah yes…. The bosses over at Bradford and Bingley are among the chief contributors to the Conservative Party since Cameron took over as leader. What a beautiful coincidence.

The BBC reported a story in 2003 regarding Coca Cola, poisoning a water supply in India. Coca Cola have not been prosecuted for human rights violations, which they should be. Nor has anything been made out of the story that Coke have been draining a water supply from a village in India to fuel their prosperity, whilst living hundreds of local villagers without water. Coke tried to make up for it by sending a truck to the village with the bare minimum amount of water. To me, that’s a disgrace. Local farming had to be abandoned, even though it was thriving up until Coca Cola decided it would impose it’s will and steal the water. Coca Cola is accused of even more…. dumping it’s waste in riverbed, containing lead and cadmium, which can cause cancer, and attacks the nervous system of children. When will someone stand up and say that the disgusting chase for profit, is not worth this? When will a Politician stand up to these disgusting people? They wont…. because big business like Coca Cola are much more powerful than the Governments of our Countries.

I have a deep problem with the Party funding system itself. No body donates a huge amount of money to a political party, out of the good will of their heart. More often than not, they want something in return. The government should not be privately run. It inevitably leads to scandals like the Cash for honours debaucle that plagued the end of the Blair administration.

Where have the Roosevelts of the World disappeared? Why have our governments been hijacked by weak men dedicated to the promotion of Big Business. Big Business runs the World.
Nobody seems to care that business is allowed to profit from war. Shouldn’t that be regulated? No one should be allowed to make money out of death and misery in the perverse way that Halliburton and KBR have. Dick Cheney received $36million in compensation when he left Halliburton in 2000. An extra $1million in deferred compensation followed. In 2004, he’d been awarded an extra $398,000 from Halliburton. KBR, affiliated with Halliburton, has made over $33million from the war on terror, and built Guantanamo Bay detention centre. It all stinks horribly corrupt. Both companies, have strong ties to Dick Cheney, the Vice President in the Bush Administration. Conflict of interest, between an Oil company, and the American public, during a war with a nation rife with Oil rich lands? It isn’t a conspiracy, it’s Modern Politics. It’s just how it is.

It will be of no shock to you, that I believe those like Dick Cheney and John Thain among others, should have a very long prison sentence ahead of them, not a lovely big pay packet to see them through the rest of their lives. They are criminals. Nothing more.

If Capitalists truly want the Government to keep out of Private affairs, then big business should take it’s own advice and stay out of public affairs. Big business, as we’ve seen with the War for Oil in Iraq, seeks only to maximise profit at the expense of animals, the environment, the future of the planet, and humanity. It should be Governments job to stop the trial of destruction big business leaves, before it gets out of hand. This cannot happen whilst those who need to destroy the planet in order to be able to afford a new yaht at the end of the quarter, pay for candidates to be elected officials on their behalf. The government is private.

“Wherever in any business the prosperity of the businessman is obtained by lowering the wages of his workmen and charging an excessive price to the consumers we wish to interfere and stop such practices. We will not submit to that kind of prosperity.” – Theodore Roosevelt

Heathrow

As you walk down toward Parliament, from Trafalgar Square, whilst Lord Nelson looms proudly overhead, you enter Whitehall; Civil Service Paradise. On the right hand side of the street you can expect to be greeted by miserable police men standing guard over a huge cast iron fence; the entrance to Downing Street. Time ago, the public could freely walk down Downing Street, but now it’s blocked off. What do they fear? An unhappy British public backlash against broken promises and devious lies?

Perhaps blocking off Downing Street should be extended to the small town of Sipson in West London, the site of the proposed Third Runway at Heathrow. The entire village is being knocked down. The residents who live there have no say. The Government hasn’t apologised. The residents have to move. And yet, this hardly gets a mention. The focus of the Nations attention both in opposition to the plans and in support of the plans, revolve around the Environment, no one appears to want to mention the 700 people displaced by this announcement. One lady living in the village talked of how horrible she felt, telling her young daughter that their school was to be demolished and that they’d have to move away from her friends. No doubt she’s wondering why a Labour Government could be so much of a suck up to Big Business. What do I think of the situation?

The Environment?
It’s disastrously rich of the government to be asking the public to cut down on Carbon Emissions, to tell us that higher taxes on bigger cars is tough but needed, that we’re all guilty, and then decide to build the third runway at Heathrow. According to BBC News last week, emissions on the third runway at Heathrow, in a year, would be twice as high as the entire nation of Kenya. Surely a third runway is encouraging Air Travel? Thus increasing emissions? Thus encouraging Global Warming?
The Government has pledged to only allow new technology with low emission rating aircraft to be using the Third Runway come 2020. The only flaw in this ingenious plan is that we don’t have any low emission rating aircraft, nor have any been designed. The entire fate of 700 villagers in Sipson, rests on the concept that by 2020 we might have better aircraft. In 2020, we might have flying cars, so i’d quite like to build a landing pad where Number 10 Downing Street is.
The Gov said that by 2050, they want carbon emissions from Heathrow to have dropped by 80% to below 2005 levels. Which in laymans terms means that for the next 21 years at least, emissions will rise over 80% from 2005. What about the 700 homes?

The Economy:
This week the widening of the M1 between Junction 21 and Junction 31 was cancelled, putting hundreds out of work, South West Trains cut 480 jobs earlier this week. Woolworths bust, MFI bust, B&Q look close to failure, banks not lending but sucking up public funds, all this despite a huge injection of the wealth of the nation into the private sector to save the economy and jobs. A better financial infrastructure complete with an overhaul of the entirely useless FSA, better public transport including a better bus system, cheaper train pricing (It cost for £42 today to travel from London to Leicester…… it’d cost £10 petrol to drive it….. where’s the incentive to catch the train?) and investment in new, clean public transport… perhaps a ‘greener’ tram system like the one running Nottingham. Stop taxing drivers heavily! We need incentive to ditch our cars. The answer is not building a new runway. Those jobs at the new Heathrow runway do not exist, they aren’t affecting anyone’s lives like the jobs lost at Woolworths or the road building scheme. No jobs would be lost if this project was cancelled because none have been created so far. But still……What about the 700 homes?

The Expansion?
The expansion of Heathrow is supposedly going to deal with the fact that Heathrow is jam packed already. Even though, Heathrow is not jam packed. The only people i’ve heard say that Heathrow is struggling to keep up with growing demand, are the Chief Exec. of BAA, the Financial Director of Virgin and Geoff Hoon. As if that’s a surprise. Most people see Heathrow, notice that prices are falling rapidly, and we wonder, if demand was that high, surely prices would soar? Isn’t that the backbone and fundamental idea of the free market system?
What happens when Heathrow’s third runway reaches full capacity (assuming of course these new low emission aircraft save the day)? Will we need to build a fourth runway to keep up with Rome and Paris too? Or will the Government of that future date say “Woah woah woah, we have five fucking airports in London already!!! Heathrow, Luton, Kent, Gatwick and Stanstead, let’s improve facilities first!” I hope so. And still, What about the 700 homes?

Sipson?
Ah onto the 700 homes that the Government does not care for.
As well as the obscene notion that a Government has the right to decide the fate of the lives of 700 residents, by having no second thought in planning the demolition of their homes, there are also those to be taken into consideration who will live next to the new runway. The Gov appears to be of the opinion that people who live north of Sipson will be more than happy to allow a new runway to disrupt their lives with noise pollution, and carbon emissions. If we take those people into consideration, along with the 700 residents of Sipson, we have a total of over 2000 residents affected by this.
Heathrow Primary school, one of the best in the region will be gone, William Byrd Primary School would be just past the runway, meaning low flying aircraft every few minutes taking off and landing. Harmondsworth Primary school would sit in between Runway two and the new Runway three. Perfect place for a Primary School i’m sure you’d agree.

Labour?
It is not the policy of a left of centre Government to be so heavily influenced by the demands of big Business. As the Guardian pointed out yesterday, many of New Labour’s senior members have strong connections to the Aviation industry.
How does a Labour government allow big bankers to “speculate” so much so that millions of people lose their jobs and their savings to these crooks who inevitably get away with it, yet 700 innocent lives are destroyed by the introduction of runway at an airport, designed to ease the travel woes of such cretinous bankers.
Labour, are born out of Socialist ideals. A socialist ideal does not involve the destruction of 700 homes and the lies that try to justify it. Nor does it involve blatant disregard of their past, to concentrate on business ties. It appears to be another stab in the back of Humanitarian beliefs and fuel in the furnaces of the speeding money money money train.
I’d agree that the difference between a left wing government and a right winged Conservative counterpart, is the left wing’s appetite for progression, both socially and economically, but the proposed expansion of Heathrow is beyond wrong. It cannot be allowed to go ahead.
Labour MP John McDonnell was suspended by Labour this week for his strong opposition to the Heathrow proposal. Punishing those who disagree with you? We’re not Zimbabwe for Christ’s sake. We’re a leading Democratic Nation. And yet, our MPs are not allowed to disagree with the destructive nature of this current Government without fear of suspension. They appear scared to put it to a House of Commons vote too. Because, they’d lose. Much like the EU “Treaty”.

The plans need to be scrapped, but here exists the problem. For the plans to be scrapped, the Tories would have to win the next election for the plans to be abolished, and that’s a risk not worth taking.

Perhaps we could build a third runway over Downing Street.