… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Category: politics

  • The Royal Mail sale is grotesquely illogical

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    Guardian source

    Image of post office van next to postbox…

    “There’s no way we will sell Royal Mail ‘on the cheap,’” promised the government in its “myth-busters” factsheet. Yet this is precisely what it is doing; the valuation is believed by many experts to be on the embarrassingly low side. Experts from Panmure Gordon say that its lower value estimate of £2.6bn could be undervalued by up to £1.9bn pounds, or over 40%. Labour points out that the valuation does not seem to include up to £1bn of property assets – such as the Mount Pleasant or Nine Elms sites in London. Add to this that Royal Mail has an accumulated backlog of tax credits of about £2.8bn, which means that it is expected not to pay any tax for between five and 10 years. And here is the kicker – not only is this government selling the service significantly under any sensible valuation, it is retaining its biggest liability – pensions. Why wouldn’t there be frenzy for its undervalued, no-strings-attached shares?

    “But anyone can buy shares,” point out the sale’s proponents. Indeed, provided that “anyone” has between £750 and £10,000 to spare and access to a broker or enough savvy to buy privately. Even then, one would be paying for a tiny amount of shares in something that we all jointly own already and end up not really owning it. The government itself forecasts that seven out of 10 shares will be bought “by big institutions in the City and overseas”. The apotheosis of the cockamamie logic surrounding the sale, is the idea that some of the City institutions set to make a killing may own our pensions. This, apparently, makes everything alright. The state is selling a valuable, profit-making asset, substantially below market value, in the vague hope that some of the corporate entities who buy it may happen to hold your pension.

    “Look,” explained James Max on Sky News, “let’s get it off the balance sheet and reduce national debt,” echoing the sentiments of those in support. This is where the rationale of this fire sale really crumbles. Royal Mail is profitable. During the last financial year it showed an operating profit of over £400m. According to the government’s own literature, “the company is on the road to sustained profitability”. It is in a position to make a positive contribution to state coffers. Selling it does not decrease the budget deficit, it increases it.

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  • I’ve been wondering … and the problem is that

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    I’ve been wondering what it takes to start an investigation by the police into a crime. I would expect that it would just be reasonableness that a crime has been committed. I wouldn’t expect much interest in trivial crimes like shoplifting or minor criminal damage but I would expect more interest in more serious issues like murder, incitement to murder, terrorism, etc.

    and the problem is that it’s not normal criminals that are doing this. Instead it’s governments, police chiefs and international criminals protected by privy council above-governmental dictat according to some above-law divine protocol.

    Don’t look at this the protocol says … this is above justice …

    Instead the privy council dictat says everyone invited to G8 2005 are above UK laws. They can’t even be arrested or questioned. They are above the law. These Neo-Con cnuts can do what they like without any legal recourse …

    They can’t even be arrested or questioned

    They can commit murder or mass-murder without even being arrested or questioned

    If these b’stards did the 7 July 2005 bombings they could not be arrested or even questioned because of a privy council dictat made by Tony Blair

    next post

    Later edit: I’m very pleased that at least some journalists are better informed now. I’m not really sure that that makes any difference since I’ve been warned of journalists being carp.

    I wonder if journalists were so carp that they weren’t even aware of this coded bs

    Isn’t it there every day on the sun?

  • While my toung is looser …

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    There’s been a lot of talk about British values recently in political circles.

    I am very proud to be Welsh and of Welsh culture, tradition and history. I also identify with a Celtic identity. I very much like living in Bristol which is great. I do not consider that by being Welsh that I am in any way better or superior to anyone else or to anyone of any other nationality or identity. I’ve said – probably repeatedly – that I respect all.

    It may have been said in different terms. Isn’t that British values? Shall I clarify? It’s not nationality or belief system …  Actually I have to refine it much more than that … I am not prejudiced according to nationality or belief system but perhaps allow people to show themselves to be nasty.

    To return to the idea of British values. I would hope that the concept of British values would include the idea of coming to the aid of those unfairly persecuted, of gross injustices, to oppose – previous – corrupt governments, etc. Doesn’t the concept of British values include standing up to and holding corruption – whatever the scale – to account?

    Edit: Shouldn’t we try to get it out of the way now?

    Later Edit: Probably should have said more about the democratic right of criticising politicians especially since I was so good and spot on about it.

     

     

  • About Tor, allsorts and my story

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    I was thinking of deciphering this article on Tor for my readers. While it’s an interesting article it’s quite difficult to follow even if  you’re familiar with Tor.

    There are a few interesting points like it’s never been possible to identify a tor user from a specific request and the way to go is to compromise (hack into) the user’s computer e.g. by luring them to a dodgy website. What the not possible to identify a user means is that it’s not been possible to go in reverse through tor from the e.g. website viewed. I was aware of government-funded sites that host malware – my previous blog was blacklisted with search engines because of comments with links (probably) to them.

    Infection through a browser is a standard practice not necessarily involving the use of Tor. A possible attack vector would be to compromise (hack into) a cheap webhost and wait until the target webhost client connects to make a post. Cheap webhosts are not going to have good security: they’re cheap through cutting corners on everything. They’re certainly not going to be any match to government agencies.

    Chances are that the software will not work straight away and the victim could notice some strange effects e.g. the keyboard not working properly until the spy software was tinkered with and tweaked. Somebody could very easily notice that their keyboard was playing up, especially when it returned to normal because that’s strange and unusual.

    Anyway, in the prism and related documents that the article refers to there are many references to terrorists. It’s much easier to spy on perfectly law-abiding and respectable people if you first assign them to that category called suspected terrorist. I don’t like that label and I don’t like being spied on.

    It seems to me that I may have to help to get rid of this label, so I’ll start by saying that it should be quite obvious that I have had an issue with alcohol. That’s a start. I’m likely to say far more which involves telling my story and also – by extension – involves identifying the real terrorists. They are former Home Secretaries, Prime Ministers and police chiefs. I am firmly of the opinion that there are very few real terrorists outside of government agencies because that is what my research and experience is telling me. Interested?

    Edit: Can we have some relevant leaks please?

     

  • Daily Mail

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    The Daily Mail has been almost universally condemned for attacking Ed Miliband through attacking his long-dead father. Ralph Miliband was a Marxist academic and activist, a Jewish immigrant to evade the Nazis and served in the British Royal Navy during the Second World War. He was accused by the Daily Mail of hating Britain when he actually hated many aspects of bigoted right-wing ideology in Britain.

    There are similarities between the Daily Mail and this blog. We both have a huge online readership and influence and we both attack politicians. The Daily Mail is traditionally more open to conspiracy theories which I find refreshing.

    The differences are ideological and that I often attack people who have already attacked me e.g. Tony Blair, David Blunkett and all the has-been old New Labour Home Secretaries and of course Ian Blair. My attacks on family members have probably only extended to Cherry and she was very closely associated with Tonee. I could very easily hint at obvious, acknowledged issues about the Blair ‘family’ as I’m doing right now. I very occasionally get the wrong target but I do apologise for it.

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