Fitness-for-work tests unfair on people with mental health problems

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/may/22/fitness-work-tests-mental-health-unfair?commentpage=3

Work capability assessments place those with mental health conditions at substantial disadvantage, judge concludes

 

The judge ruled that the Department for Work and Pensions had breached its duties to make 'reasonable adjustments' under the Equality Act to ensure that people with mental health problems were treated fairly.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan-Smith

 
No doubt that the Department for Work and Pensions led by the odious Iain Duncan-Smith will move swiftly to challenge this ruling or change the rules and the law,to plug this hole in their obnoxious plans.


Foot note:

The DWP said it would appeal against the ruling, and stated it did not intend to halt the assessment process.

The rewards for incompetence

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/05/21/nhs-boss-david-nicholson-to-quit_n_3312737.html?utm_hp_ref=uk


 The head of the NHS Sir David Nicholson is to step down from his role

Sir David Nicholson.

 

Jeremy Hunt: "Surprised" at decision.

 
Allowed to retire. Nice big "Pension Pot". Nicholson should have been sacked months ago.
If anyone failed in their job as much as this person has, any employer would have deemed it to be gross incompetence and summarily dismissed him without pension, pay or reference. He would then have had to argue his case for unfair dismissal at a tribunal. However, with this Tory government, inept and incompetent people in Public positions can retain "Downing Street's full confidence" and in this case the unqualified support of the Health secretary.
It seems that we reward failure and condone ineptitude.

The distortions of our voting system.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/poll-puts-ukip-just-two-points-behind-tories-8624626.html

Poll puts Ukip just two points behind Tories

If the results were repeated at a general election , Labour would have a majority of 104 seats.

 
Just goes to show what a grossly corrupt voting system First Past the Post actually is.
An overall majority of 104 seats on only 35% of people voting for them.

A fair system of Proportional Representation such as STV, (the referendum on AV was a farce. Alternative Vote is not PR.),would produce a result of:
Labour 227 seats
Conservative 156 seats
UKIP 143 seats
Liberal democrat 71 seats
Others 53 seats.

FPTP, is a recipe for producing distorted results which produces distorted governments.

Tory government "whips" ensure Labour support for Cameron.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/may/21/labour-cameron-gay-marriage-bill

Labour saves David Cameron again.

Gay marriage bill survives after Ed Miliband votes against amendment

What is happening to Labour? They abstain on a vote and help the Tories to retrospectively change the law on Welfare reforms following the Poundland fiasco, and now they vote with the Tories to prevent another  government defeat, this time on a gay marriage bill amendment. I would have thought that it is not the function of the Labour party to support and maintain a government who are every day, attacking working people with pernicious austerity measures, attacking the sick and disabled with vicious cuts to services and support, attacking benefit claimants with reductions in payments, and attacking people deemed to have spare bedrooms. I left the Labour Party some time ago as they had drifted away from the core values and principles that I supported. It now seems that they have become nothing more than "lobby fodder" to support an evil and corrupt Tory government.

They do not have any sympathy from me.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/05/19/stop-demonising-bankers_n_3302040.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

 'Stop Demonising Bankers Over The Financial Crash'

 

Sir Mervyn said bankers should not be made scapegoats

 

If this article is supposed to generate my sympathy for a load of rich, over paid bonus grabbing parasites, many of whom should actually now be serving time in prison for money laundering, tax evasion, rate fixing and other crimes, I am afraid that it has failed miserably.
Being "demonised" is a good word as is the phrase "being held in contempt".

When it comes to hypocrisy, MP's have few competitors.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/mps-in-line-for-20000-pay-rise-in-move-likely-to-spark-public-anger-8622556.html

 MPs are set to receive a pay rise of up to £20,000.

Just when you thought that you had heard everything, just when you thought that there were no other depths to which MP's could sink, just when you thought that the greed of demanding an increase in their expenses for lunch followed by another demand for an increase in their bar drinks allowance, could not be topped, comes this. Make no mistake about it, no matter how many times the MP's may bleat, plead poverty and trot out the well worn cliche that their salaries are set by an "independent review body", the levels of salary that these parasites pay themselves are set behind closed doors in smoke filled rooms and agreed long before any announcement is made in the media.
 

John Bercow, the Commons Speaker, is understood to be sympathetic to a pay rise after saying that MPs are paid an 'ordinary' amount of money.

 
Not that I am suggesting that all MP's are tarnished with the same brush. I know that there are a few who are as appalled at the latest example of the avarice within the House of Commons as,no doubt, are many of us in the country.However, the fact remains that there are enough MP's on both sides of the House, to ensure that their salaries are sufficiently inflated to insulate themselves from the reality of the every day life that the rest of us have to endure every day. Never mind about the sop proposing curbs to Members’ gold-plated pensions and personal expenses as that is only included for public consumption. At the end of the day, their current salary of £65,738 is to rise by as much as £20,000 per year. Even if the rise is set at a (modest ?) £10,000 per year, the actual value of the increase alone, is worth more than many families have as an annual income.
It is no less than a patronising insult to the people of this nation, that elected representatives can behave in a fashion more akin to some banana republic "politicians" stealing from their own treasury and growing rich and fat while their own people are ignored.
The very fabric of our society is being fragmented by the imposition of draconian austerity measures, the NHS is being systematically dismantled, Welfare "Reforms" are destroying whole communities and nearly one million people in Great Britain are reliant on Foodbanks to feed their families. Wages and salaries in both the public and private sectors are frozen or severely restricted whilst at the same time the costs of food, gas, electricity, water and everyday living continue to rise relentlessly. This against a sinister background of rising unemployment. How MP's can, at this time, demand an increase in their own salaries is a crass and immoral act of self serving hypocrisy and will be recognised as such by people everywhere. This is a situation which cannot and will not endure. The people of this country will soon wake up to the fact that they are the victims of a government which has over many years put its own interest above those of others. They essentially "got away with it" over the MP's expenses scandal. This time they will not be so fortunate. 

EU to ban olive oil jugs from restaurants

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10064787/EU-to-ban-olive-oil-jugs-from-restaurants.html

The small glass jugs filled with green or gold coloured extra virgin olive oil are familiar and traditional for restaurant goers across Europe but they will be banned from 1 January 2014

The European Union is to ban olive oil jugs and dipping bowls from restaurant tables.

"From next year olive oil "presented at a restaurant table" must be in pre-packaged, factory bottles with a tamper-proof dispensing nozzle and labelling in line with EU industrial standards."


 

Lunacy, sheer bloody lunacy. We should get out of this mad house of European ultra bureaucratic committees before we are all running around in circles screaming "Ban it ! Ban it !"  Unless of course running around in circles has been banned by some European ultra bureaucratic committee.