THE UK RAIL RIP-OFF: PART 3 – NEGATIVE REDISTRIBUTION RIDES THE RAILS

A Northern Rail Class 156 Sprinter, calls at Castleton Moor on the Esk Valley Railway with a Whitby to Middlesbrough service. This line was saved quite arbitrarily from the Beeching cuts of the 1960s, and yet for 20 years since privatisation has seen only a couple of trains per day in each direction. Unforgivably, none of these services are suitable for commuting to either of the line's termini. This railway awaits an imaginative and innovative operator who will maximise its undoubted potential at the heart of the North Yorkshire Moors National Park.

In last week's post Privatisation Profiteers Ride the Rails (at your expense), ANDY FLEMING examined the Tories'

half baked, inefficient, horrendously expensive and disastrous privatisation experiment with our railways. 

In the last post in this series he examines why Britain's rail network now the most fragmented and expensive in Western Europe to both passenger and tax payer alike, has become a cash cow to train operating companies who reap the profits, while you and I pay the losses.

Following the botched privatisation of British Rail in 1994, hopes were high that a change to a New Labour government in 1997 would see re-nationalisation of this strategic national asset in a country crying out for an affordable, reliable, safe and fully integrated environmentally-friendly public transport system.

But of course we didn’t see any such change. The key was in the word ‘New’. What we received was just a continuation of Major’s full-baked policies in railways and elsewhere, just different cronies enacting them. Sure there was the odd left winger full of bluster who was ready to drop all of their principals, in order to give the impression that there may be a little socialisation of the economy but of course it was a mirage. As would become clear following Tony Blair and George Bush’s illegal Iraq War of 2003, the petroleum industry was still pulling the strings despite the environmental rhetoric and run-ins with hard working truck drivers.

This phoney environmentalism was however a deceitful and duplicitous way of launching a full scale assault on the motorist with crippling petrol taxes, while simultaneously John Prescott was announcing an investment in railways so grand that the Victorians would have been jealous. It was of course all lies. Most of the £30 billion funding for the network announced in early 1999 wasn’t new money at all, just recycled promises from the last days of Major’s corrupt and sleazy administration. New Labour were of course masters of lies, dishonesty and deceit (these grotesque human traits were of course spun as ‘spin’ to the gullible).

It was brought home to me one night when BBC Look North carried a visit by Tony Blair to a primary school in Ferryhill, part of his Sedgefield constituency. One little girl asked the Prime Minister a fantastic question that deserved a fully honest answer.

“Please can you re-open Ferryhill station as there are a lot of people here who can’t afford cars”, she said.

His answer would be the reason why I wouldn’t vote Labour ever again,

“I’d love to be in a position to do it, but it would be just far too expensive”.

It was clear where this charlatan’s loyalties lay and they certainly weren’t with his constituents’ needs in a civilised society for even a basic public transport system. And he certainly couldn’t care less about the environment.

THE UK RAIL RIP-OFF: PART 2 – PRIVATISATION PROFITEERS RIDE THE RAILS (AT YOUR EXPENSE)

Rail privatisation was implemented in a way that made no economic sense whatsoever, but satisfied the Tory dogma of state equals bad; private equals good.

In last week’s UK Rail Rip-Off:Coming off the Rails,

ANDY FLEMING looked at how our once great national railway system that was the envy of the world, was butchered by politicians obsessed with imposing free market disciplines on a strategic national monopoly. In this post he takes a look at the Tories' half baked, inefficient, horrendously expensive and disastrous privatisation experiment with our railways.

You can always detect a political zealot. They are just like religious zealots and fundamentalists. The very last thing any of them can be bothered to do is learn any facts about the particular area they rant about. And I don't mind, I'm all for freedom of speech, just so long as they don't wreck our industries and economy or blow up aeroplanes. But that's just what's been happening to the British economy over the last four or five decades.

It has of course been an agenda dominated by right wing libertarian politics that has espoused an age old doctrine first propounded by Adam Smith and his "hidden hand" in his tome The Wealth of Nations. Like a hydra that keeps having its tentacles amputated, its philosophies of deregulation, "rolling back the state", and the wholesale privatisation of strategic state natural monopolistic industries just keep growing back.

The same old tired policies practiced right up to 1945 keep getting trotted out in every new generation of right wing politicians. They regard them as panaceas to every conceivable societal ill. It took an 'Old Labour' government led by Clement Attlee to civilise Britain, to legislate against children being sent up chimneys or down mines or becoming illiterate adults. Centuries of Adam Smith's free markets had failed to provide even a meagre standard of living for the majority of the population. The whole ideology was and still is just an excuse for individual greed masquerading as a political and economic ideology.

In just a few a few short years following VE day thanks to collective state intervention, Britain gained a socialised health care and education system, a Welfare State, socialised housing and the nationalisation of decrepit and rundown yet vital and strategic monopolistic industries including steel, coal and the railways. Such is the nature of global capitalism however, that even in the fifties a civilised society meant a society in which wage, safety and environmental protection costs were higher. Corporations and international capital always on the lookout for a workforce and a nation to exploit started to relocate their sweat shops run with slave labour to places such as Hong Kong and Japan.

It wasn’t long before the worsening balance of payments and trade deficits were being blamed on workforce laziness, unionisation, wages, infact everything under the sun as long as that didn’t include archaic British management practices or an early sixties Macmillan government led by a bunch of politicians like Profumo who epitomised the word sleaze.

Nationalised industries bore brunt of much of the blame and especially Britain’s railways. Nationalised in 1948 out of desperation resulting from decades of private company neglect, the “Big Four” railway companies (London Midland Scottish, Great Western Railway, London and North Eastern Railway and Southern Railways) became united and nationalised as British Railways.

It's April,1964 and even before Beeching swung his infamous axe, secondary but still important routes were being axed. Here is 34085 '501 Squadron' having to take a new route following the closure of the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway near Sway.

At the time, the railways were faced with special problems. Before the Second World War both goods and passenger traffic was being lost due to the private motor car and lorry, both of which offered flexibility, no intermodal changes during a journey, and freedom in days long before traffic congestion. Prestigious expresses and high speed steam trains with romantic names were instigated such as the Coronation Scot, the Pines Express and the Flying Scotsman were instigated to lure passengers back thanks to their luxurious accommodation and futuristic looking motive power.

By 1945, after six long years of war and starved of funds, Britain’s railways were literally falling to bits. There had been a handful of things that ensured Britain had not been invaded by Nazi Germany, and most people will be able to name the well-known ones: the RAF in the Battle of Britain, the USA’s hand being forced at Pearl Harbour, and the carnage inflicted on the Soviet forces and people in defending Stalingrad. Well also add our railways and railwaymen. Because without them the mass movement of goods and people for D-Day, the evacuation or for the war effort generally would not have been possible.

THE BRITISH BROADCASTING CONSPIRACY

It's April 14, 1976, and Metro Radio's James Whale presents the station's late night phone-in programme, Night Owls. Metro Radio was one of the first nineteen commercial radio stations to gain an IBA licence following the demise of the North Sea pirate station in the late sixties. It's on air date was July 15, 1974.

ANDY FLEMING analyses how over the past thirty years freedom of speech, innovation, personality, choice and

imagination have been sacrificed within Commercial Radio, in favour of maximising company shareholder value and franchise revenue streams for the government. And politicians are once again the culprits! Our airwaves have been sold to the highest bidder without a thought for local public service or quality content.

Do you have a long memory? Do you remember how after her General Election victory in May, 1979, Margaret Thatcher 'transformed' the economic landscape of Britain with her 'resolute approach'? It was a defining moment in the social, political and economic history of our country. Because until that date all previous governments whether Conservative or Labour subscribed to the so-called social democratic consensus. In other words the British economy would not be comprehensively exposed to the vagaries of the free market, and neither at the same time would it be a full blown command economy as per the Eastern Bloc with all the limitations in terms of individual freedom such collectivisation would entail. Capitalism was to be the economic system rather than socialism, but the worst excesses of the free market would be excluded by a collectively provided welfare state.

So the UK was dragged into the modern world with a National Health Service, a free education system for all, benefits for the elderly, disabled and those unfortunate enough to be unemployed, a properly integrated public transport system and of course, 'homes for those returning heroes' from fighting Nazi Germany. Britain was going to be a more pleasant, fairer society where opportunities were going to be accessible to everyone without the exploitation and poverty of the inter war years. The Gold Standard was dropped and this new social democratic consensus was to be underpinned with Keynesian economics. The government would regulate capitalism by stimulating the economy in a recession with capital projects and would restrict the money supply when the economy overheated in one capitalism's cyclical booms. That was the theory at least, and until the late sixties and an ever increasing balance of payments deficit the mixed economy model seemed to be a practical compromise.

Regulation seemed to work, whether it was in employment, unemployment, housing, transport, and telecommunications or as especially applicable here, the media. However with the devaluation of sterling crisis in 1967 and then a major world oil price shock in October 1973 as a direct result of an Arab-Israeli war western economies had been hit by an economic tsunami. And it was one from which Keynesianism was not to recover sparking as it did political and industrial strife including three day weeks and Winters of Discontent. With another oil shock in 1979 as a result of the Iranian revolution, the last government of the old social democratic order and the last true Labour government led by Jim Callaghan was swept away by a new Conservative Party in government led by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Her government was totally different to those of the preceding four decades, espousing as it did, a return to 'monetarism' to reduce inflation (restricting the money supply) as propounded by her economic guru Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek before him.

Thatcher's policies were socially brutal and divisive. Whole state industries were to be privatised and closed if not profitable irrespective of the country's strategic needs, or if the result led to mass unemployment. Inflation was to be reduced at all costs as was taxation; but just income tax and mainly the rates for top earners. VAT was doubled, and from the outset there was a re-distribution of wealth from the poor to the rich. Benefits were slashed in an effort to cut state spending and regulations across business, including in the media were cut to maximise profits. State 'red tape' to protect the consumer was apparently strangling private enterprise. Infact, Thatcher's whole philosophy could be summed up succinctly as state equals bad; private equals good. Period. But what would the effect of these gargantuan economic changes be on the media, and radio in particular?

THE UK RAIL RIP-OFF: PART 1 - COMING OFF THE RAILS

The end of the line? After decades of neglect and funding cuts, by the late eighties much of Britain's once great national railway network was starting to look like this. Even worse, a large proportion of route mileage was already gone thanks to the infamous Beeching Cuts of the sixties, most of which were executed by a Labour government.

In a regular series of posts ANDY

FLEMING takes a look at our non-integrated and not fit for purpose public transport system. He starts by taking a recent historical look at the UK’s railway system, one of the most expensive in Western Europe for both passengers and taxpayers. It isn’t long before corrupt politicians are seen to be taking the public for a ride along the rails.

They say that travel broadens the mind, and foreign travel especially. I was a late starter in getting “the bug” for it. In fact it was on our honeymoon in August 1989 in Paris that I first set foot on foreign soil. And as a graduate student of sociology with modules in transport and planning what a shock it was.

We arrived in Paris via train, to me the most civilised form of mass transport, at Gare du Nord. The journey had been a real eye opener. We had travelled all of the way by train from Darlington, enjoying an overnight stay in central London and then using the ferry for the short crossing to Boulogne (this was before the Channel Tunnel of course).

Nothing remarkable in this, but on a personal level, visiting France for the first time was a big event in my life. At the age of twenty nine I had previously developed the view that everything about our country was best. Its education, health care, welfare, and other state systems and infrastructure were at the apex of civilisation.

My first footsteps on to the Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français (SNCF) express train shattered this UK-centric worldview. Clearly, before I had even tested a word of my pigeon French out on an unsuspecting local person, this wasn’t just a journey of discovery in terms of culture, society and country; it was a tale of two completely different national railway systems, and it would be a comparison in which Britain would inevitably come out a very poor loser. Bear in mind too our journey was at the time TransManche Link (TML) were still excavating the Channel Tunnel, Eurostar trains were still a couple of years in the future.

On time we left Boulogne and travelled through the beautiful countryside of northern France at high speed on our way to the nation’s capital. We were seated inside a second class compartment, but it appeared to both my wife Gill and myself to be perfect luxury. In fact, we had initially inadvertently mistaken our coach as being first class and we might be reprimanded for sitting there. Our worries soon abated on a walk down the train to enjoy the delights and service of a fully stocked restaurant and buffet car. That’s because first class was even more luxurious. This was first class travel with a second class ticket. Through Amiens and on to Paris we were whisked to pull into Gare du Nord on time to the second. This was how rail travel should be, I thought.

VOTE LABOUR, TORY OR LIB DEMS. GET MORE OF THE SAME OLD SHIT

Britain's political landscape is a wasteland of so called 'centre ground' politics. Conservatives are the same nasty Tories they've always been but they pretend to have discovered compassion. New Labour are Tories with Red ties and a few quid from unions. The Lib Dems are just lying Tory bitches and the new kids on the block - UKIP - are merely a more racist, homophobic version of the Tories. Guest blogger PAUL SOUTHWOOD bemoans a lack of choice and explains that not voting should be seen as a positive action.

It's not apathy that stops people voting, it's the realisation that politicians are all the same.

VOTER APATHY. Already, the phrase has become enshrined in media-speak as a pocket-sized explanation for why so many people stay away from ballot boxes at elections. But it is a misnomer - like describing comets as falling stars or fossils as figured stones. Perhaps there are some apathetic non-voters out there; I haven't met any. I have on the other hand met angry non-voters. After some thought I have decided to join them as I am angry too.

Voters of course, are horrified. If you don't exercise your right to vote they say then you have no ability to effect changes nor any right to criticise the elected government. And the vote, they say is a right for which our forebears fought - at great cost to themselves.

Political parties of course feel no such tug of' historical heartstrings. This seems especially true of the present Labour Party; historically, nobody much can be said to have made any great sacrifice for the cause of Toryism.

Sadly, history can make a mockery of sacrifice, and it can do so In short order. 'If I die,' wrote many Red Army soldiers before battle was joined at Kursk "then count me a communist." Yet even if their sacrifice changed history, where now is their cause '? The Vietnam War cost one side millions of casualties, and scarified the conscience - and pride - of' the other. Yet now, increasingly, Vietnam is an aspiring Singapore.

History is littered with such lost causes - some deservedly lost. If British democracy is not to join them, then British politicians must manifest the one characteristic that makes voting in a multi-party state worthwhile - difference.

KNOWLEDGE OR CERTAINTY

It's July 16, 1969 and the start of the greatest voyage in our history: Apollo 11 is launched from Cape Kennedy atop a Saturn V booster (left). Four days and over 200,000 miles later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first people to set foot on another world (right). And all thanks to Newton's Laws of Universal Gravitation and Motion, exquisitely accurate at non-relativistic 'everyday' speeds.

Politicians and religious leaders invariably state with

certainty that their beliefs and preachings are the absolute truth. Guest blogger ANDY FLEMING investigates knowledge and certainty, and in the process reveals how a society that dispenses with true scientific scepticism inevitably ends in tragedy.

All of my life I've been fascinated by science, and although I'm not a scientist (I was however a laboratory analyst at ICI for many years, and I am an amateur astronomer) I still consider science to be the best human method for explaining how we, and the entire cosmos came to be. Unlike many other areas of human endeavour such as religion, our scientific theories, although still only approximate descriptions of reality, are testable, falsifiable and most importantly, can be verified by peer review. This cannot be said of many other academic disciplines, as instead of logical, rational thought, they rely on each individual's belief systems and their hypotheses are hence not testable in the real world.

Humankind's scientific theories are however, at best only approximations of reality, albeit often exquisitely accurate approximations. Over decades and centuries they have been developed and amended in the light of better data and evidence. For example Newton's Laws of Motion and Universal Gravitation were perfectly adequate up to 1915, and indeed are still used in determining a spacecraft's trajectory. Such an example is NASA/JPL's's New Horizons mission to Pluto, due to arrive with perfect accuracy to the nearest second at that distant dwarf planet in 2015. However, Sir Isaac Newton cannot be placed in the driver's seat in very strong gravitational fields or at relativistic velocities (speeds approaching that of light), due to effects including time dilation and Lorentz length contractions. And Newton’s speculative contention that time is a universal constant was proved incorrect by Einstein. It is the speed of light that is a universal constant.

A POLITICAL FOOTBALL

Coining it in: Wayne Rooney is paid £500,000 per day and is laughing all the way to the bank. James Campbell reveals an uncanny similarity between professional footballers and their bosses, and politicians. The solution: don't support professional football and in the political arena, don't vote.

Whether it’s voting or supporting, the solution is in our hands

Guest blogger JAMES CAMPBELL offers a solution to football supporters who are fed up being ripped off. He explains how direct action against the ills of football can also be applied to politics.

I WAS talking to a Newcastle United fan the other day and he was bemoaning the fact that money had ruined football.  In general terms he thought it was obscene that the likes of Wayne Rooney was getting paid £300,000 a week and that Mike Ashley was using Newcastle United to make money for himself and had no interest in the footballing success of the club beyond that.

I asked what he was doing about it. He didn’t have a clue what I was on about.  So I asked if he held a season ticket at Newcastle or a Sky Sports subscription to watch football.  Yes to both.

So I said OK, cancel both, don’t go to another game, buy another shirt or any other merchandise until things change.  Encourage others to do the same.  The response: “Ye cannot dee that, ye’ve gotta support ya team man.”

I asked if he’d protested in any way. He said they often chanted anti Ashley slogans at games and once turned their back on the field before a game….so he pays the man he hates his hard cash to shout abuse at him.

So I explained that he was as responsible for the ruin of the game as Rooney, Ashley and all of the others fleecing it.  He looked utterly scoobied.

So in really simple terms I went on.  What do you think would happen if everyone just refused to renew their tickets and cancelled their Sky Sports?

Blank look…..

REFLECTIONS ON ME, YOU, MANKIND AND A MOTE OF DUST

A voyage of discovery. It's September 5, 1977 and NASA/JPL's Voyage 1 spacecraft is launched atop a Titan IIIE/Centaur booster at Cape Canaveral's Launch Pad 41 (left). Thirteen years and 3.7 billion years later scientist Carl Sagan insists with NASA's Administrator Richard H Truly that for the benefit of public education the cameras of mankind's little robotic emissary are turned towards the inner solar system for a photograph of the Earth. At this distance, beyond the orbit of Neptune our planet is photographed as just 0.12 of a pixel (right).

As guest blogger, ANDY FLEMING in his own lifelong

voyage of consciousness-raising, makes the ultimate connection between our ancient and vast cosmos and the human spheres of politics, economics, and philosophy. In the process he deduces that our very survival depends on new economic institutions, caring for each other and cherishing our Pale Blue Dot, the Earth, the only home humanity has ever known.

I’m sure that all of us who share the same political, economic, sociological and philosophical perspective of this unique, revealing and informative blog arrive at this standpoint via a variety of routes. For some of us, our journeys may have been circuitous and lengthy, perhaps taking a lifetime. Meanwhile others may have been encouraged at an early age to foster a sense of equity, fairness, critical thinking, healthy scepticism and a disdain for greed and selfishness.

My own voyage of awareness, consciousness-raising, synchronicity and connection-forging has taken me from my college education in science, then my university education in sociology, my employment in youth work, the retail sector and the media and then on to my burning passion: marvelling at the vastness of the cosmos and our place in space. Anyone who knows me knows that my avid interest is mankind’s original science of astronomy, practised by generations of human beings, way back into the mists of antiquity.

Whatever subject we use as a vehicle in our individual journeys of discovery that reveal who we are and from where we came (both as individuals and collectively as a species), the road often includes a pivotal turning point or spiritual awakening. Our whole world view changes profoundly and with it our beliefs and aspirations.

Such profound personal development and change often arises through exposure to the works of great philosophers, sociologists, poets, authors or religious leaders. And yes, sometimes, as in the case of Nelson Mandela politicians too! Such progress may also not be without some personal discomfort and stress, and indeed to some people, change may be a psychological imperative as they battle their own personal demons.

Personal change within the political or religious spheres for example may lead to profound conflict with one’s peers, friends and family as one develops new ways of seeing society and the physical world. These new beliefs and new ways of thinking with healthy scepticism often place the person on a direct collision course with prevailing paradigms and the orthodox perspectives of the social and physical worlds. The invariable outcome however is a better, healthier human being at peace with oneself, the wide world and the cosmos.

POLICE PROTECTING PERVERTS

Just how far did the British Establishment and the police go in 'fixing it' for vile individuals such as Jimmy Savile so he could continue with his perverted activities?

How the police turn a blind eye to high level paedophile rings.

For decades the UK has been at the centre of paedophile rings that operate in the very highest echelons of British society. The establishment has worked overtime to cover up the wrong doing of these vile individuals.

Former Prime Minister Ted Heath was a paedophile who was very likely responsible for the deaths of a number of youngsters. The abuses of Liberal MP Cyril Smith are well documented but only came to light after his death.

Then we have Jimmy Savile who carried out hundreds of vile sexual assaults for decades. Savile moved in the highest circles and counted Prime Ministers and members of the Royal Family as his close friends.

But it was Savile's links to the police that explain how he 'got away with it for so long'. In short the police protected Savile and those he associated.

Here in a shocking exposé, former Liverpool police officer  SINDONA TAGLIONI explains how politicians and others wrong doers are protected by senior police officers. They are all in it together.

WHEN I first joined the Merseyside Police I could never have imagined in my worst nightmares that I would hear and experience something I am going to relate to you now.  It was so disturbing I feared making it public due to the fear of being labelled a crank. That does not mean that I was not continually working through and ultimately battling against the system to try and get it resolved.  The evil truth, and that is the only way I can put it, is that the system is purposely designed to allow it to continue.

Following my initial police training, I was pulled aside by an Inspector who had an unusual talent for summing individuals’ characters up.  He apparently saw in me someone who would be totally unprepared for some of the cultures that can be found inside Merseyside Police.  He was concerned I would be all too eager to challenge anything that I perceived to be unjust.  In short he gave me a warning.

“If you ever see or hear anything that you feel is wrong never make the mistake of approaching a Local MP or Councillor.  They strike deals with the Chiefs that if they hear anything negative about the Force they will not challenge it.  The Chief in return for this Manus Manum Lavat agreement do not look closely when reports come in of their conduct!  Always remember when an officer takes on the Force he is also taking on corrupt politicians!”

VOTE. BUT ONLY IF YOU WANT A POLITICIAN

byHARRY BLACKWOOD

More than ten years ago when I first started banging on about the not voting thing, virtually everyone thought I was bonkers.

Now, I'm in great company. Not only are millions of 'ordinary' people realising that we can't change the system unless we first smash the system, but people like Russell Brand are articulating perfectly what I've believed for ten years. Hell's teeth, even Jeremy Paxman has said he totally understands Brand's stance on not voting.

Sadly, there are people out there who just don't get it. They blabber on about voting being our democratic right and something that people fought in wars for, blah, blah, blah. Actually if they opened their eyes just a little, they'd see this "democracy" is a complete sham. Smoke and mirrors. Throwing a few crumbs to keep us plebs happy.

Well, I'm not happy. I'm absolutely seething.

Here's why.

* I don't want to live in a society where the weak, the vulnerable, the sick and the disadvantaged are picked on and picked off one by one. That is precisely what we have seen the Tories and their LibDem bitches do since they came to power. The sick. The disabled. Those with too many bedrooms. The long-term unemployed. All have been in the cross hairs of the nasty party and ace marksman Iain Duncan-Smith.

* I don't want to live in a country where young people are told they have to work in crap dead end jobs or they'll lose their few quid job seekers allowance. Or where bright young people work for three years at university to get a degree and then find they are £50,000 in debt and the only jobs available are part time supermarket positions. Or where people graft in Poundland for free to give them work experience. Imagine that: working in a shop where everything is worth a pound except you.

* I don't want to live in a country where obnoxious footballers are paid more in a week than a neuro surgeon or a heart consultant will earn in a year. We have nurses run ragged on £25,000 a year or less but Wayne Rooney and his mates are earning a million quid a month. From a moral, ethical and compassionate point of view there is simply no justification for this nonsense.

* I don't want to live in a country where corporations and wealthy individuals are allowed to find loopholes in tax laws to avoid billions in tax every year. Tax that would mean those poor bastards who are being made to suffer could actually have decent lives.

IS BIG GRAVY JUMPING ON THE GRAVY TRAIN?

It's June 2002, and Hartlepool's Labour MP, Peter Mandelson goes bananas upon hearing the news that a candidate whose main election manifesto proposal is free quantities of the nutritious fruit for all primary age schoolchildren, the town's first (and only) directly elected mayor. His name is Stuart Drummond, and one of the key skills he brings to this important role is his ability to perform in public. That's as H'Angus, the monkey mascot for Hartlepool United Football Club!

More monkey business in Hartlepool

byHARRY BLACKWOOD

Go anywhere in the world and you can't fail to find someone who is familiar with the Hartlepool monkey hanging legend. From Barcelona to Buenos Aries folk have heard how the good people of the town hung the poor animal thinking it was a French spy.

But there's another bit of monkey business that Hartlepool has become associated with. It was

Stuart Drummond, Mayor of Hartlepool
in 2002.

an event that totally changed the way I view politics and people. A turning point in my life.

The day that Hartlepool United's football mascot won the poll and became one of the very first directly elected mayors in the country, taught me how the political system can be used by people for their own selfish agendas. It also led to my sacking but we'll put that part of it on the back burner.

When H'Angus the Monkey decided to throw his banana into the ring and stand for election to the £60,000 a year post, it was done as a joke. The Hartlepool United football club chairman paid his election deposit and supporters of the club and a local rugby club threw themselves behind his campaign.

Stuart Drummond, the man in the monkey suit, promised free bananas for all school kids in the town and submitted an interesting curriculum vitae to the local newspaper of which I was editor, boasting of a degree and proficiency in a number of languages. It did make us wonder why he was working in a call centre on a pittance but hey, did it matter, he was a joke.

As it turned out it did matter. He won.

THE BRITISH BULLSHIT CORPORATION

Are you thinking that with so much Government propaganda and 'interference' now is the time to adjust your sets?

Proudly telling you what the government wants you to think.

ByHARRY BLACKWOOD

I'VE been a huge critic of the BBC for a long time, so it may surprise a lot of people to know that I worked for them for a while.

Considering the money they waste and how much the top brass are paid, working for the BBC in an 'ordinary' capacity isn't going to make you rich; in fact the pay is crap. But I'm really glad I spent some time working for 'auntie'. For starters I enjoyed the work and especially the interaction with listeners, but best of all it gave me a useful insight into a totally dysfunctional organisation that nowadays is nothing more than the mouthpiece of the Bullshit Factory aka The Establishment.

There are some good people working for the Beeb, but largely it's infested with middle class, posh people from privileged backgrounds and top universities who have no idea what it's like in the real world. Arse and elbow spring to mind.

A recent story that featured on BBC Breakfast illustrates my point perfectly. They reported on a survey that showed personal saving in the UK was at an all-time low and queried why.

Well, I'll tell them why: just about every working class person in the country is on the bones of their arse. They can barely put food on the table every month and pay for fuel and electricity without stashing a few hundred quid every month into a flaming ISA or a savings account.

The further down the pecking order you go, the worse it is. It's no wonder that pay day loan sharks like Wonga (big Tory donors) are reporting record profits. No wonder also that Food Banks are opening up across the nation at alarming rates.

BLAIR'S BIGGEST LIE CONDEMNS A GENERATION TO SLAVERY

Tony Blair's education policies represent the biggest con trick in political history.The gullible, who went along with his deceit are now realising just how cruel this charlatan's lies actually were. Because there are few jobs for graduates or anyone else, just unemployment and mountains of tuition fee debt.

byHARRY BLACKWOOD

WHENEVER I hear Labour Party supporters discussing Tony Blair, I always think of that fantastic scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian; "What have the Romans ever done for us?"

The man who Labour Party members thought of as a Messiah is now treated like a foul fart in a lift. So reviled is Blair that Labourites are pretty much trying to airbrush him from history. And no bloody wonder. The Labour imposter achieved less than zero and those who were taken in by him know it.

But it's not the Iraq war or the other heinous stuff that Blair did that I really take exception to. No, his big crime as far as I am concerned is when he mouthed those immortal three words: EDUCATION. EDUCATION. EDUCATION. The biggest con trick in political history.

Blair pressed all the right buttons and used all the right language. He wanted all kids to have access to good schools. He wanted all kids to go to university. He wanted kids from council estates to go to the top universities. He wanted working class kids to become barristers and surgeons and nuclear physicists. Everything was possible in his new Labour dream. It was all bullshit to hide the truth.

UNDEMOCRATIC STATE INTIMIDATION ENFORCES YOUR 'DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS'

ONE of the reasons I've taken to the intent with my blog Named, Blamed and Shamed, is to get people to think and to do their own research. In fact it's the main reason.

My thinking is quite straightforward. I know that when people do their own digging they'll come to the same conclusions as me.

So when I did my blog piece recently on the threatening letters sent out to people like me who refuse to register to vote, I was delighted that JAMES CAMPBELL not only read it but started thinking about it. Better than that, he's written a guest blog. Here you go . . .

MR WRIGHT IS MR WRONG

Hartlepool MP Ian Wright opening one of the town's food banks.

by HARRY BLACKWOOD

This smarmy character with the ill-fitting suit and a stupid grin on his face is cutting the ribbon to "officially" open Hartlepool's first food bank.

So who is he and why would he be smiling at the thought of people having to rely on food hand-outs to keep hunger at bay?

Well, the "gentlemen" in question is Iain Wright and he's the Labour MP for Hartlepool.

I have no idea why he has a moronic grin on his face considering what he's doing, but I'll hazard a guess. He's grinning at the thought that it's another photo opportunity for the sheepie in his Labour stronghold to be brainwashed by. Well, that and the fact that Mr Wright is never, ever, likely to need a food bank.

One of the reasons of course is that he has a very nice MPs salary. It gets better. Mr Wright has a second income as well. His wife Tiff is in the fortunate position to be earning more than £27,000 a year working part-time as a secretary.

THE ARCHBISHOP AND THE JOBCENTRE

The Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols.

by HARRY BLACKWOOD

Nothing changes. This week the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols laid into the government for its welfare reforms which he branded a disgrace.

Britain's most senior Catholic accused the coalition of removing even the most basic safety net, leaving society's most vulnerable facing hunger and destitution.

Now, I've got no time for the Catholic Church - or any organised religion - but having watched the Archbishop on BBC news, I was impressed with what he had to say and the way he said it.

I've been very fortunate with my career. I've never claimed a penny in unemployment benefit - or any benefit - but just over five years ago I had the audacity to try to make a claim when I went to my local Jobcentre for the one and only time

Here's how it went . . .

DON'T REGISTER TO VOTE AND WE'LL SCREW YOUR CREDIT RATING

By HARRY BLACKWOOD

I'm regularly told by those who oppose my DON'T VOTE stance that my vote is important. I'm told it's a hard-won democratic right that should be cherished and acted upon?

Well, let's just say for the purposes of debate, that's correct. If it is, the Powers That Be should be so comfortable that they occupy the moral high ground that they'd be happy to allow us to make a personal choice.

If you want to vote do so. Of you don't then it's your choice.

That is certainly not the case. For starters it's illegal not to complete the form you get to enter your details on the electoral register.

Here's the official bullshit:

DON'T VOTE. IT ONLY ENCOURAGES THEM

by HARRY BLACKWOOD

It's now more than 25 years since I voted in any sort of election and I've spent the past ten years actively campaigning to get people to follow suit.

You may have been told otherwise but voting is not actively taking part in democracy. It is actively taking part in an elaborate con trick. It's stupid and I know I can convince you that I'm right.

My politics can best be described as compassionate socialism. My leanings have always been left of centre. So, living in Hartlepool - a Labour stronghold in the North East of England - I should have been a happy bunny. Not a bit of it. I've always had a deep-seated mistrust of politicians and when, in 1991, Labour parachuted a smarmy, middle class spin doctor into constituency, I really began to think about how voting and democracy actually works.

That man was Peter Mandelson and his arrival in my home town not only changed my views of politics, democracy and voting, it changed the entire course of my life. But all that is for another day.

So, why was Mandelson handed the safe Labour seat of Hartlepool to fight in the 1992 election? Well, it certainly wasn't for his strong Northern roots or his working class background. Both were non-existent. And it wasn't because of any political achievements. It was a reward for favours done and favours expected.

When Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Stephen Byers, Alan Milburn, Mandelson and others plotted to hijack an ailing Labour Party, they weren't doing it for the good of the nation, the good of democracy or the good of the Labour Party. They were doing it for the good of themselves. Just like the Great Train Robbers divided up the spoils of their haul, so the architects of New Labour did for many years to come. Instead of getting a few mail sacks full of £20 notes, Mandy got the safe seat of Hartlepool as a launch pad to becoming a multi-millionaire Bilderberger and political power broker.

But don't think this scam is unique to New Labour. Far from it. The Tories do precisely the same; as do all political parties. It's the same grace and favour system operated by Royalty and rich landowners for generations.

But here's the rub. This is the bit where hopefully you wake up. They can only get away with it if
you go out and vote. They are desperate for your vote. They will do anything and say anything to get your vote. Without your vote they are finished. It has nothing to do with democracy or policies or principles. It's all about power and control.

Don't believe me? OK try this. At the last election the parties spent more than £30 million trying to get your vote. The Tories spent more than half the total amount. Do you honestly think they spend these vast sums of money to benefit democracy? Give your head a shake. They do it for power. Agreed?

So why do they want power? For power's sake. OK I'll give you that, they're a bunch of power mad psychopaths. So how about thinking further. Where did that £15 million that the Tories spent come from?