War on a class already taxed to the hilt

Good commentary from Peter Oborne. If you want a solution - look in the mirror.

State of Fear

Eerily reminiscent of Michael Crichton's State of Fear:

Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with the Climategate whitewash, says Christopher Booker.

How David Cameron gets around with his family

From Register of Members Interests:

CAMERON, Rt Hon David (Witney)

Gifts, benefits and hospitality

16 August 2008, private plane from Farnborough to Istanbul for my wife and two children. Then from Istanbul to Santorini, and return to Dalaman, for myself, my wife and two children; provided by Matthew Freud, of London. (Registered 15 September 2008)

Keeping it in the family

List of the large number of family members employed by UK MP's. To give you an idea, here's how it starts:

AINGER, Nick (Camarthen West and South Pembrokeshire)

I employ my wife, Sally Ainger, as Senior Caseworker.

AINSWORTH, Bob (Coventry North East)

I employ my wife, Gloria Ainsworth, as part-time Caseworker/Secretarial Assistant.

AMESS, David (Southend West)

I employ my wife, Julia Amess, as part-time Secretary/Caseworker.

ANDERSON, Janet (Rossendale and Darwen)

I employ my son, David Humphreys, as Research/Parliamentary Assistant.

ATKINS, Charlotte (Staffordshire Moorlands)

I employ my husband, Gus Brain, as part-time Senior Research/Parliamentary Assistant.

ATKINSON, Peter (Hexham)

I employ my wife, Brione Atkinson, as part-time Office Manager/Executive Secretary.

Etc.

Boom time for things that go BOOM!

Via Cryptogon/New York Times

Despite a recession that knocked down global arms sales last year, the United States expanded its role as the world’s leading weapons supplier, increasing its share to more than two-thirds of all foreign armaments deals, according to a new Congressional study.

Swine Flu Vaccine Linked to Paralysis

From Global Research

In other words, what we have with the new versions of H1N1 “swine flu” vaccine is an untested, potentially dangerous cocktail of chemicals and viral fragments that could plausibly be linked to a devastating neurological condition, or worse.

The future of UK education? A warning from the US

From Greg Palast:

This is educational eugenics: Identify the nation's loser class early on. Trap them, then train them cheap. Someone has to care for the privileged. No society can have winners without lots and lots of losers.

John Pilger speech on Obama

John Pilger on Obama

Where's your nearest mobile phone mast?

Find out here and what the jargon means here.

9/11 Investigation Still Required

Patriots Question 9/11:

41 U.S. Counter-Terrorism and Intelligence Agency Veterans Challenge the Official Account of 9/11

29 Structural & Civil Engineers Cite Evidence for Controlled Explosive Demolition in Collapses of All 3 WTC High-Rises on 9/11

Cellphones Cause Brain Tumors

Via Radiation Research

The exposé discusses research on cellphones and brain tumors and concludes:

• There is a risk of brain tumors from cellphone use;
• Telecom funded studies underestimate the risk of brain tumors, and;
• Children have larger risks than adults for brain tumors.

Baxter Sent Bird Flu Virus to European Labs by Error

Via Global Research

The following article published by Bloomberg in February confirms that Baxter was involved "unintentionally" in the contamination of flu vaccines. This happened barely two months after the outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu in Mexico in April.

Baxter contaminated vaccine samples with the H5N1 bird flu virus. Apart from the Bloomberg report, the matter was barely covered by the mainstream press.

This information is crucial, bearing in mind Baxter's central role in producing millions of doses of H1N1 vaccines for a number member countries of the WHO.

Auditors Bribe Tories

From Craig Murray:

The entire Western accounting system is based on the compliance of morally corrupt little pen pushers. The fact that it is the company which chooses its own accountants and auditors, who have a vested interest in keeping their mouths shut and are never prosecuted when a scheme folds (along with the hopes and savings of millions of investors), is a scandal.

Our jails should hold less desperate social security scammers, and a great many more accountants.

MMR - the case continues

Via JABS

Fresh fears for the safety of MMR vaccinations will be raised this week with a claim that more than 3,000 British babies could be at risk of autism and even death each year.

The claim centres on a condition that affects one in 200 people.

In a new edition of his book, The Truth About Vaccines, Dr Richard Halvorsen collates the latest studies that suggest children with the condition have developed autism after jabs.

The London-based doctor, who offers parents single jabs as an alternative to MMR, said: "If we could find susceptible children we could prevent them from being damaged by vaccines. At the moment we don't know how many children are at risk...It seems to me the establishment are just scared to utter any breath that vaccines can be a problem."

The condition, mitochondrial dysfunction, describes the failure of parts of the victim's cells which produce energy. A recent Newcastle University study found at least one in 200 people harbours a mitochondrial mutation.

It Felt Like a Kiss - The Film

New Adam Curtis film, live on the web. It's well worth a look.

HMRC tax collection teething troubles

HMRC let loose the hounds, but they bite the wrong people.

Via HMRC is shite

HMRC is to review its debt collector pilot scheme, after concerns were raised that many of the agents and revenue staff are following up on tax demands that were issued by mistake.

"Spurious" tax debt can arise when, eg, penalty notices for non filing of tax returns are issued to companies that are no longer trading or who do not employ any staff.

$23.7 Trillion Bailout

Plus or minus the odd trillion, it's enough to sink a battleship.

Via Blacklisted News/ABC

The staggering $23.7 trillion estimate elicited concern from members of Congress and a sharp rebuke from the Treasury Department after the report was leaked late Monday.

Soldier commits suicide after seeing coffins of eight soldiers killed in Afghanistan

More collateral damage... War still is a racket.

From Stop the War

Andrew Watson saluted the television as he watched the bodies of eight soldiers repatriated from Afghanistan. The 25-year-old, who was suffering from post traumatic stress after serving in Iraq war, jumped from the top of the building where he lived in South London last Friday.

During his time in Basra he saw two friends being blown up by landmines and even carried dead babies from wrecked buildings.

Afghan MP Malalai Joya calls for the international anti-war movement to demonstrate against the war in Afghanistan

Via Stop the War

She told the audience of the suffering of Afghans, and in particular women, at the hands of both occupation forces and the warlords who benefit from the occupation. If the war was ever about eradicating opium, 93% of global opium production now comes from Afghanistan, and £500m goes into the pockets of the Taliban every year because of the drug trade. Afghans have lost almost everything, she said, except that they have gained political knowledge. And they are against the occupation.

She holds little hope for the upcoming elections in August. She said the ballot box is controlled by a mafia of warlords and criminals, and that even if the democrats in Afghanistan could put up a candidate, they would inevitably become puppets of the US and NATO, or they wouldn't survive in office. NATO could not possibly provide a solution because the troops are despised for the carnage they have brought to the country.

As Malalai repeated a number of times in the meeting, no nation can liberate another nation, and only the oppressed can rise up against their oppressors. The only solution, she said, was for the anti-war movement internationally to speak out and demonstrate against the war in their own countries, "because our enemies are afraid of international solidarity." It will be a prolonged and risky struggle, she continued, but the Afghans must liberate themselves.

Swine Flu may have Escaped from a Laboratory ... And Tamiflu started off with bird poo

From Global Research:

Gibbs said he has no evidence that the swine-derived virus was a deliberate, man-made product.

“I don’t think it could be a malignant thing,” he said. “It’s much more likely that some random thing has put these two viruses together.”

Gibbs, who spent most of his academic career studying plant viruses, said his major contribution to the study of influenza occurred in 1975, while collaborating with scientists Graeme Laver and Robert Webster in research that led to the development of the anti-flu medicines Tamiflu and Relenza, made by GlaxoSmithKline Plc.

“We were out on one of the Barrier Reef islands, off Australia, catching birds for the flu in them, and I happened to be the guy who caught the best,” Gibbs said. The bird he got “yielded the poo from which was isolated the influenza isolate strain from which all the work on Tamiflu and Relenza started.”

Gibbs, who says he studies the evolution of flu viruses as a “retirement hobby,” expects his research to be challenged by other scientists.

“This is how science progresses,” he said. “Somebody comes up with a wild idea, and then they all pounce on it and kick you to death, and then you start off on another silly idea.”

VIDEO: 'Swine flu virus began life in lab'

Via: Global Research

Big Brother Amazon.com Deletes Books from Your Kindle Device

Those who start by deleting books, end up deleting people.

From Natural News

Virginia Tech Shooter's Psych Doctor Hid Mental Health Records

Answers please.

From Natural News:

What, exactly is in those mental health records that Dr. Miller hid in his home for two years? And why did he lie about hiding them in his home, only later to reveal them during the discovery phase of court proceedings?

And why was this same person allowed to serve as a substitute Incident Commander on the incident response team? Is it possible that Cho's fear of Dr. Miller was one of the reasons he lashed out by killing 30 other students and shooting himself? Could Dr. Miller now be somehow implicated in the death of all these students?

In the Virginia Tech shootings, there was no investigation whatsoever into Cho's psychiatric medication use, nor was there any toxicological analysis performed on his body to determine whether he was taking psychiatric medications. Is this the smoking gun that will be found in Cho's medical records -- that he was on antidepressant drugs at the time he shot and killed 30 people, then turned the gun on himself?"

Mass flu vaccination would be madness

From Dr Richard Halvorsen in The Times:

'Vaccinating a large proportion of the UK population with an “experimental” swine flu vaccine will be a huge gamble. It may save lives and, more likely, prevent healthy adults from having to take a few days off work. It may also cause serious side-effects and deaths. It is a gamble that the current threat of the virus does not justify.

There is a case for offering the vaccine to those at risk, but not without informing them of the uncertainty over the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness. To vaccinate the whole population would be a huge and foolhardy experiment for which there is currently no scientific rationale.'

The introduction of new vaccines

Room for any more?


From Dr Richard Halvorsen:

The introduction of new vaccines

Smallpox vaccination started in the early 19th century. It was over a hundred years before another vaccine was introduced for widespread use. This was diphtheria toxoid, that was used nationally from 1940. The dates of the introductions of the different vaccines into the routine UK childhood immunisation schedule are shown in the table below.

Disease Routine vaccination started Routine vaccination stopped

Smallpox Early 1800s 1971

Diphtheria 1941

Tuberculosis (TB) 1953 2005

Polio 1956

Pertussis (whooping cough) 1958

Tetanus 1961 (in new 3 in 1 DTP)

Measles 1968

Rubella (German measles) 1971 (for teenage girls only)

MMR 1988

Hib (Haemophilus Influenzae) 1992

MMR 1996 (2nd MMR at 4 years)

Men C (Meningitis C) 1999

Pneumococcus 2006

The increasing vaccine burden

The number of vaccines routinely given to every child in the UK over the last hundred years is shown graphically below.

There have been calls over recent years to introduce several new vaccines to the UK childhood immunisation schedule. These include hepatitis B, flu, chickenpox, rotavirus and hepatitis A. All these vaccines are given routinely in the USA.

If they were all given to babies in the UK over the coming years, the number of vaccines received by five years of age may be as many as 43, as shown below.

A WHO doctor has already described the 21st century as the “Century of the Vaccines.”[1] There appears to be endless enthusiasm for introducing a seemingly unlimited number of vaccines. But there is no discussion on the maximum number of vaccines that a child should be given. Indeed most vaccine experts appear unconcerned about the possibility that we may, at some stage, be giving some children too many vaccines. Instead they talk about children being able to handle “thousands” of vaccines at any one time. [2] [3]

[1] de Quadros CA. Roadmap for vaccinations in the new millennium. Lancet 1999; 354: 2006-7.

[2] Offit PA et al. Addressing parents' concerns: do multiple vaccines overwhelm or weaken the infant's immune system? Pediatrics 2002; 109(1): 124-9.

[3] Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer. February 2006.

Swine Flu in 1976

How the fear of Swine Flu was whipped up in 1976.

Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan...

Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, both profiting from the economic crash.

The Elephant in the Room

A very interesting film to watch online.

Dick Cheney's "Executive Assassination Ring". Was British Weapons Expert Dr. David Kelly a Target ?

From Global Research

"That an out-of-control agency like the CIA has the means, motives and opportunity to silence critics and that "no geographical limitations" were placed "on the agency's actions," should give pause to a society that considers itself a democracy."

The suppressed climate change report

Read it here. The key graph is on page 4, figure 1-2.

The banks win again

Meanwhile the rich continue to get richer and the poor...

From the Nation

Flu Shots Put Children in Hospital

From Natural News:

children who get the flu vaccine are more at risk for hospitalization than their peers who do not get the vaccine.

Nano-thermite took down the WTC?

From Russia Today:

Breaking the will: Vietnam then, Afghanistan now

A quote from the late Robert McNamara that is relevant to endless war in Afghanistan:

"Look, we dropped three to four times the tonnage on that tiny little area as were dropped by the Allies in all of the theaters in World War II over a period of five years. It was unbelievable. We killed--there were killed--3,200,000 Vietnamese, excluding the South Vietnamese military. My God! The killing, the tonnage--it was fantastic. The problem was that we were trying to do something that was militarily impossible--we were trying to break the will; I don't think we can break the will by bombing short of genocide."

Turn off TV

How easy is it to live in the UK and legally not pay the TV licence? One person's horror story of threatening letters over four years.

http://www.bbctvlicence.com/index.htm

Democracy UK style

From Craig Murray who is standing in a Rotten Borough By-Election:

Craig Murray Banned From Candidates' Education Debate, and From Hellesdon High School

It has realy started in earnest now. Before the election was called, we had booked halls for the meeting schedule which you have seen. One of these was Hellesdon High School this Friday, 10 July.

The school has now phoned to say the Governors have decided not to permit my meeting -despite Nick Clegg having already held a by-election meeting there.

This is not just unfair, it is illegal. The Electoral Commissions rules state:

6.1 Once an election is called, candidates are legally entitled to use publicly funded schools and other public meeting rooms for election meetings free of .charge.....

It is happening again exactly as it did in Blackburn, where I was never permitted my entitlement to public rooms. Exactly as in Blackburn, I have followed Electoral Commission guidance and complained to the Returning Officer, who has done nothing. Returning Officers, as with Colin Bland here, are usually the chief executive of the local authority, and as such are normally party loyalists of the governing party. In our current state of politics, I don't trust them at all.

Again, as in Blackburn, I am also being excluded from candidates' hustings. The first is a debate on the future of education. I am far more qualified on this than any other candidate. The debate is being organised by the Univerisities and Colleges Union (UCU). This time the excuse for banning me is that I did not score highly in a poll which was conducted before I was a candidate and in which my name was not mentioned!

Hi Craig,

Lisa tells me you are enquiring about our event this Thursday. I took the decision to invite only those candidates shown by our poll to have a chance of winning the seat.

It is nothing personal, or any reflection - either positive or negative - on your platform and I wish you all the best for your campaign.

Best

Matt
MWaddup@UCU.ORG.UK

I have really had enough.

Matt, That is not acceptable. Your poll was conducted before I declared my candidacy and as you know well, I was not included in your poll. As you also know well, at every bookmakers I am currently on shorter odds than the Lib Dems, just behind the Greens and overhauling them in the odds day by day. As you know, I am the Rector of the University of Dundee and I have a much higher profile on education issues than any of the other candidates in Norwich North. I am also an honorary fellow of the University of Lancaster. I have played a leading role in anti-cuts campaigns in Scotland's universities in close liaison with the UCU, and have defended UCU members in individual cases on University Court. For someone who has voluntarily given so much to UCU members, to be kicked in the teeth like this by the UCU over an education debate is completely outrageous. I will take direct action to take my rightful place in your debate, and you will need to call the police physically to prevent me. I think the UCU having one of their higher profile allies arrested should be a fascinating spectacle for all. It would be much better if you were prepared to speak to me. I am on 07979 691085. Craig

They will also need to ask the police to act illegally in stopping me from speaking at Hellesdon High. I have taken enough of this.

New Adam Curtis doc

The BBC pays for it and puts it only on the web incase the viewers brains explode and goo the 42" plasma screens. Oh well, watch the trail here

Journalist Files Charges against WHO and UN for Bioterrorism and Intent to Commit Mass Murder

(NaturalNews) As the anticipated July release date for Baxter's A/H1N1 flu pandemic vaccine approaches, an Austrian investigative journalist is warning the world that the greatest crime in the history of humanity is underway. Jane Burgermeister has recently filed criminal charges with the FBI against the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations (UN), and several of the highest ranking government and corporate officials concerning bioterrorism and attempts to commit mass murder. She has also prepared an injunction against forced vaccination which is being filed in America. These actions follow her charges filed in April against Baxter AG and Avir Green Hills Biotechnology of Austria for producing contaminated bird flu vaccine, alleging this was a deliberate act to cause and profit from a pandemic.

Damn right

From Craig Murray:

Purnell's instincts towards social security were precisely those of Norman Tebbit, only mingled with less compassion. He attempted in effect to reintroduce the Victorian distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor, opposition to which was one of the founding motives of the Labour Party. Like Blair, he had no left wing beliefs, but saw the takeover of a moribund Labour Party as a simple career opportunity.

I remember him being quoted in the FT a while ago saying, as far as the DWP was concerned 'everything is up for sale' in terms of private companies running whole parts of the state. There'll always be a place for him at the IMF.

Our Great Depression

The Great Depression isn't over. According to Gerald Celente.

Ryanair is horrible and other reasons not to fly

What is it about the man who owns Ryanair that makes me want to vomit every time he opens his mouth? Now it turns out he wants to tax passengers to pee so he can remove two toilets from his aeroplanes to make room for six extra passenger seats. Never mind the fact that when you queue for a toilet now on a plane, the cabin crew look poised to jump on you if you make any sudden moves that could be the beginning of a terrorist outrage at 35,000 ft.

A while ago, I vowed never to use this shyster airline because Lyin'air are so deceptive in their prices and destinations. eg. Fly to Oslo - well a two hour coach ride from Oslo. No thanks. Even though you've got to be the biggest airline in Europe, you make everyone who flies with you feel like a nuisance, with their bags and breathing.

More worryingly, I'm not getting on an Airbus 330, with their mysterious fly by wire computer software problems. I'd rather have a cable connecting the flight controls to the bits that make the plane dive than a computer. Computers crash, planes crash. That's it.

Funny Money

From Telegraph

In eight months, Sheikh Mansour has made a £1.45bn profit on a £2bn investment in Barclays.

Just think how useful it would be if the taxpayer had made that profit. All it would have taken was some funny money created by the Bank of England to buy Barclays shares. Of course, the shares may not have risen as much if the bank hadn't 'stood on it's own two feet' but every little penny helps.

Four-year-old failed for wanting his Daddy

Dulwich, leafy well-off south London enclave, for me is now associated with vainglorious attempts to frontally assault bastions of educational privilege. The first attempt, one cold January afternoon. Applying for a place at the heavily over-subscribed state primary school. Armed with birth certificate, multiple proofs of residence, knowing that the catchment area is the size of a coin. Unsurprisingly we don't get a place.

Now, trying to get our four-year-old into a 'chance' vacancy at a mostly girls private prep school which we can't afford. Welcome to Fantasy Island. A detached Victorian house just off the south circular, the school photographs in reception show a school body that is 95% white with a dash of light brown. Definitely not representative of south London.

The other parents arrive. Two dads in identikit grey suits, six mothers. All have little girls, most in uniforms of Dulwich College's kindergarten. Another part of the private school archipelago.

The receptionist has a nervy busy-ness about her and tells me that 'no, you won't be able to stay in the classroom during the assessment.' I'm to leave the school, have a coffee, then come back.

We take our children into the classroom. Three kids are upset at the thought of being left in unfamiliar surroundings. One girl was taken out of the room by her mother who I heard outside telling her repeatedly in a low voice to 'stop crying, you're in school'. The horse had refused to jump the fence.

Once he settles down in the classroom, I leave my son playing with Lego in the company of one of the five teachers doing the 'literacy, numeracy and sociability' assessment.

In total sixteen children are being assessed for one place in Year 1. Each parent pays £50 for the assessment, so the school, a charity like all independent schools, gets £800 for a few hours work. The chosen child gets a place for which her lucky parents will pay £10,000 per year.

Half an hour later I get a call from the receptionist saying that they weren't able to complete the assessment because my son got upset and wanted his daddy.

'It must be very disappointing for you,' says the receptionist when I arrive.

'Not at all,' I say, taken aback. 'I think testing at this age is invidious.' I'm angry that at the age of four, my son has been sorted into a box marked failure; chucked from the conveyor belt because he didn't comply. I'm annoyed that they take him out of the assessment seemingly at the first sign of distress and call it off. I'm angry that I'm complicit in a sorting exercise for children who maybe should be spending time playing rather than being measured.

My son brightens as soon as he sees me. His red face and tears go away and he's chatty as usual. The ordeal is over for now, but we still need to find a school.

The Political System Explained

Watch this:

The Queen to Dissolve Parliament and call a General Election

What an excellent idea. Add your signature here:

The Queen to Dissolve Parliament and call a General Election

Manners and money makyth man

Reading the Telegraph newspaper this week to find out the excesses of the the rotten political elite, I find the Court and Social pages excellent reading. How reassuring it is to see that amongst those awarded exhibitions to Winchester College is a young Amschel Nathaniel De Rothschild. It's comforting that in these troubled times the Rothschilds can still scrape together the fees.

The sky is falling in again

Professor Anthony Costello of UCL's Institute for Global Health was on the BBC Today programme this morning putting the willies up people about the 'full blown climate crisis' that we shouldn't forget about in the midst of a full blown economic crisis or a full blown political crisis. Heaven forbid that we should, or professors at the Ministry of Fear, Climate Section would suffer a funding cut and that would mean less trips to the Himalayas to watch glaciers melt. Something they're perfectly capable of doing on their own and have done periodically, as far as we know, throughout time. The glaciers, that is.

Such alarmist talk is fuelled by the listing of any adverse or unusual climate event as unquestionable being caused by man's CO2 emissions. The question has to be asked - what behavior of the climate system would contradict models of global warming?

Could it be that it's just the weather? And that people die from bad weather because 2 billion of them are living on less than a dollar a day?

This morning, Professor Costello tried to give us a sweetener at the end of his fear sell. 'Moving to a low carbon lifestyle will have many health benefits,' he said. 'Less stress, less diabetes, less obesity and heart disease.'

Less stress indeed. These promises at the end of the rainbow sound like Mao's three years of struggle to bring in a thousand years of prosperity which was partly responsible for a body count of 80 millions.

It also reminds me of the promise that nuclear-generated electricity that would be 'too cheap to meter'. When the hidden agenda was about producing weaponised plutonium to bring the world further to the edge.

If there are less of the above health conditions, it may be because there are fewer people around. An 80% reduction in C02 emissions by 2050 is easily achievable in this context:

JONATHON PORRITT, one of Gordon Brown’s leading green advisers, is to warn that Britain must drastically reduce its population if it is to build a sustainable society.

I have a vision of someone like Porritt popping up on TV telling people to take only one breath in every two to reduce CO2 emissions.

Now it's time to call for calm and quote Churchill.

“When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened”

So even the LibDems have had their snouts in the trough, as Ming Campbell has been putting beds and cushions on his Additional Costs Allowance. Today there was an appalling parade of Tory toffs and their allowances for moat cleaning, horse manure and helipad maintenance. Yes, this is what we'll get if Cameron gets in. They will be no different than they were the last time. Remember Hamilton, Aitken, 'Victorian Values' Major with his minor in a Currie. But lo, Tebbit speaks and says don't vote for any of the main political parties in the European elections.

Meanwhile, Stephen Fry decries all the fuss over MP's expenses. We all fiddle our expenses, he says, particularly venal journalists. His masochism and self-loathing cause him to find fault with himself in the midst of the biggest political loss of trust since the last one. I expect more from MPs. Never mind, that the sums are small compared to the banker bailouts. This lot of MPs work for us, and are supposed to account to us for how they spend billions of taxpayer revenue. So, yes, many journalists are scum and the old owner of the Telegraph is a convicted crook, but this is the best kind of chequebook journalism. The truth is out. Even if MPs tried to keep all of this secret.

A technological society cuts both ways. All of these misdemeanours were discretely downloaded onto disk and brought into the public domain. Prior to this they would have had to be photocopied like the Pentagon Papers. Hopefully this is a lesson to all of the control freaks in government that the truth will always get out there.

Smarter than the meter

Every house to have gas and electricity 'smart' meter by 2020... but homeowners will have to foot the bill

What a great idea to let a bunch of climate change believers control how hot your house is. Presumably this wonder technology will allow them to control your thermostat and remotely turn off your energy supply if you displease them or refuse to take an ID card or chip. A corporation or a government snooper will be able to see in real time how much energy you're using in your house. Maybe they'll have someone who can pop in and turn the TV off if you've left it on while you're in the bath.

Another example of the whole 'global warming' agenda is about. It's about corporations making money, in this case an estimated £7 bn, courtesy of the government who make you the taxpayer cough up for the new technology that will control you.

When did you vote for this one? Whose manifesto was it in? We should always be smarter than the meter.

My First Newspaper Article

Here is a link to the first national newspaper article I had published, 16 years ago. Someone at the Independent has been digitising all their archives. I wonder what it will be like for kids growing up now who will have a web log of every thing they ever wrote stored ad infinitum and accessible in a few keystrokes? All their Twitters and Facebook emissions like graffiti that cannot be removed.

When I had the above article published, it existed in the paper for one day and then it became chip paper. Now it's back. Presumably for ever. Strange. Imagine people reading this a hundred years from today. The lyrics of the old song no longer hold true:

Hey, don't save your kisses - just pass 'em around
You'll find my reason - is logically sound
Who's gonna know that you past them around
A hundred years from today?

On the death of the South Bank Show

The death of the South Bank Show after 30 years is another nail in the coffin for what used to be called, even a little over 10 years ago, arts TV. Yes, broadcasters even had arts departments that would commission and make arts programmes. But these are luxuries not fit for the new age of austerity. Furthermore, ITV has been paddled further up shit creek by Michael Grade who continues what he began at Channel 4 by chasing the money and audiences and finding neither. The BBC will continue to be salami sliced into obscurity. While Channel 4, created with a remit to be independent and different will likely soon merge with Five and the sad thing is, no one will notice any difference.

It's another sign of the death of television, an old medium, which like a fish rots from the head. Out go the arts series, the serious documentaries and news investigations until we're left with a smelly corpse of reality TV shows and the festering maggots of low-life celebs sliming around.

If you want culture – you've got the X Factor. In a sobering way this tells you all you need to know about our culture. No better now than when spectators in the arena cheered and mocked gladiators as they were torn apart. In a world where torture is the new rock n roll. We'll watch anything so long as it has victims and we can enjoy their suffering.

Our problem is that compassion is out of fashion. A generation of people have been weaned on television and learned their emotions from it, as we were warned in the 1976 film Network. We see but don't feel. Sensory learning has been mediated by the TV; the latex gloves around our minds. Watching a celebrity in the jungle with their head in a transparent box having bugs dropped on their head is entertainment. The same technique, authorised by lawyers, is used to torture suspects. No, 'I'm a celebrity ...' is not torture, it's harsh interrogation.

But we are all complicit in torture. Myself more than most. I have performed in these victim humiliation shows. I've poured poo on people's heads and humiliated people in the name of entertainment. I was a performer in television series like Balls of Steel and Experimental. The scary thing is, how happy people are to be put through it, so long as they get the chance to appear on the screen.

Shows like 24 and Spooks persuade us that torture works and we damn well need to do it to protect ourselves because there is a terrorist hiding with a dirty bomb in every suburb. The only safe thing to do is stay at home and watch TV. Worship the flat screen that has gotten bigger and higher in the smaller eco-homes we live in. When I was growing up people used to look down on the TV, physically - it was on a low corner table stand. Now they're on the bloody walls, above fireplaces, even on ceilings so you don't even have to rise up from your comfy slab. Hundreds of channels, 24 hours a day, so there's always something more distracting to find as you channel flick you attention span down to a microsecond.

The people who make TV don't watch it. How could they? It isn't about programmes, it's a money trench. It has always been a licence to print money. Very lucrative advertising revenues for one side, or a monopolistic household tax for the other. Now the dinosaurs of commercial TV shriek as they get a chill from declining ad revenues. They run around like headless chickens unable to do anything more creative than sack people.

The same free market that gave you hundreds of channels, reduced the ownership behind the media to a handful of international companies that couldn't give a fig about their effect of society. You're not only buying the cars and shampoos in the adverts, but you're buying into the bland lifestyles advertised in the programmes. The wreckless consumer culture that must continue at all costs. Lets face it. Television is the greatest form of social control ever invented second only to money.

Never mind that scientific studies have found that watching TV – and I'm summarising here – makes people violent, unhappy, fat and cretinous. You can read the research for yourself in the book 'Remote Controlled' by Aric Sigman.

So the demise of the South Bank Show is one less reason to have a TV. I stopped my satellite subscription exactly a year ago and from there it has been relatively easy to wean myself off the 4 ½ channels that remain.

I'd like to think the death of quality television does us a service. Further exposing that just as the emperor has no clothes; the channels have no programmes. It was the little boy in the story that pointed out the truth. But now children are raised in a TV wrapper. Cbeebies in the morning rising up like a shadow to meet them, replacing the parents as the font of knowledge. Their brains being wired by TV, entranced by the flicker refresh rate of the screen while learning that the characters on the TV have all the fun so that you don't have to. Switch it off before you self destruct.

War is a Racket

The latest move in off-loading responsibility for everything an elected and accountable government should do to the private sector becomes more horrific with the prospect of the Armed Forces being allowed to run state schools as military academies.

'Minsters believe that children in failing schools would particularly benefit from a military-style education,' according to the Daily Mail. This translates as letting the military directly target working class kids who, it has always and will always need to form the rump of obedient troops ready to lay down their lives for pieces of tin.

These schools will be taken out of public ownership and handed over to the military, which is responsible to the Crown. But wait, the whole basic training service of the armed forces is itself up for tender. Ready to be sold off to a mercenary, sorry security, company like the ones that have been so effective in shooting civilians in Iraq.

Why do politicians keep on down the road with the misguided belief that business can run a school better than professional teachers?

A lot of people think this is a good idea to combat the lack of discipline in schools. It may achieve that. But at what price? Limiting the choices to poor kids, directing them into the armed forces who are likely to send them on another aggressive war with poor equipment. Defending the country from direct attack is one thing. But being sent out to die in some forsaken land because it serves the bottom line of the energy business is another. When they come back with PTSD and broken bodies they'll be pushed out because they're no longer economical fighting units. More veterans of the Falklands War have subsequently committed suicide than died in the fighting. No one wins...

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.