The future for the BBC

I am no hater of the BBC for sure it puts out some questionable political lines and is in all in tenses and purposes a state broadcaster for the government of the day due to its connection with its government funding which is huge. But this week and a few weeks before have seen a debate erupt on the current role of the BBC and its possible future roll in society and beyond. At present the BBC is run as a public body funded partly by government but mostly through license fee payers who most if not everyone has to pay to watch TV in the United Kingdom. This for many years has been seen as a poll tax comparison where no matter how much you earnt you will always have to pay for the TV license and if not you would face a big fine and even jail if it came to it. For years many have seen this as an out of date system where the BBC tries to compete with the likes of SKY TV run by Rupert Murdoch who can go out and get the best programmes first before anyone else due to their independence from anyone and their shear buying power. But what about the future of the BBC. This week there has been talk of decriminalising the non payment of the TV license. I see this as a big step forward in all honesty. Whilst I am a fan of the BBC having been one of its big users in recent times with its excellent I player and its fantastic local radio services including local radio commentary of all football league games including my local side Stevenage FC which for a blind person is very useful indeed. But do the BBC loose out in this sense in not being able to legally chase non payers of the TV license. I am not so sure I do think there are many untapped funding resources the BBC could explore before having to change its own running model as it is at current. Many have said this may see the BBC loose much needed funding but I do not agree I think this is a well over due change to things and hopefully this can give the BBc the kick up the backside many and even me feel it needs. On a media and journalistic basis the BBC is falling behind the others out there offering a similar service it is slow to react to news and often is left trailing its competitors. For example Sky news hosted the first live TV debate on the EU between UKIP leader Nigel Farage and Nick Clegg leader of the Lib Dems in the past the BBc would have been the only game in town for this sort of political discussion but no longer the likes of SKY have beaten them to it and this wont be the last time unless the BBC buck up their ideas I suggest. The BBC is seen as a bloated bureaucratic monster paying way over the odds to directors and managers this must change for it to survive. In this age of austerity the BBC must be seen to be keeping in line as best it can. I do hope the BBC stays around for many more years to come and is not privatised as some in the last week are suggesting is its only way of surviving. I do not agree there is a place for public broadcasting but it does certainly need to freshen up its act without a doubt to keep not only relevant but up to speed in this ever changing society of ours.

Capitalism is corruption

Capitalism wasn’t always like this it did play a progressive role for a time. Yet today it is hard to imagine a progressive era for this parasitical system which is more and more becoming a drag on society and our development as a human race. Corruption is everywhere we look in society now. Any falsehood of democracy is quickly fading away as bourgeois democracy crashes from crisis to crisis. In the last decade we had the expenses scandal which rocked trust in MP’s to their very foundation. The lies and deceit publically displayed by all politicians be them Labour, Tory Lib dem and now Greens who tried to pose as anti cuts and radical only to push through the cuts in Brighton City Council this year shamefully. From all parts of the establishment there is distrust and often contempt from the media to the police to our parliament and undemocratic House’s of Parliament including the unelected lords. It is no wonder society is divided with an establishment which is tearing itself apart too. With a ruling class split as explained in a previous blog post is causing a huge discourse in society where many are dies interested in politics and have good reason to be. Many think politics is not for them and it’s something that those in suits do. This is not true politics is everything and for everyone. A new workers party will have huge challenges to deal with most notably apathy and dies trust of all parties telling them they can help them. I think the point is to agree with people who tell us they hate all politicians. We do too and we are on their side one of you ordinary workers wanting to change society. Capitalism while in one of its biggest downturns possibly ever is finding it difficult to remain true to democracy. Democracy is a means to a end not a end in itself and for the ruling class is something they can do away with if need be but it is the cheapest form of control on the mass’s as the illusions of democracy hold some back from drawing the conclusions for a time. Capitalism is rooted in corruption from the labour theory of value onwards its the suction of surplus value from wage labourers that starts it all off. Corruption has grown to huge huge levels from that stage. Its time it all ends. Everywhere we look the dangers of a breakup in society is clear corruption whilst built in to the capitalist system can seep through into the labour movement and certainly this has been true in parts of the tops of the trade unions. Change needs to happen from the bottom up. Starting with the fight for the highest form of democracy at all levels starting at the bottom sweeping aside the rotten paracitical capitalist system as we go.

American school shooting more questions for society

With the tragic gunning down of 27 odd people many children in America last Friday the media has gone into over drive looking to blame the gunman for being unhinged unstable or worse. Yet the facts many commentators are missing and the elephant in the room is the figure of 300 million Americans own a fire arm in the United States this is a huge market for profit making and any laws or tighter controls on gun laws will be met with resistance by gun manufactures. Charlie Wolf an out spoken right wing journalist from America but now working over here and regularly appears on BBC 5 live on the paper review session in the evenings was quick to get his voice out saying this massacre was nothing to do with Americas gun culture and the right to bear arms. I beg to differ I’d point towards the untold social situation the system which drives people to mental illness and desperation the system of capitalism which mess’s with your mind day in day out the constant drive to conform to be a wage labourer and sell your labour power just to exist. It puts lots of untold pressures on individuals. I don’t know much about the gun man he may well have had under lying issues Just like with the poor nurse who took her life last week at the hospital who was looking after the Duchess of Cambridge who apparently took her life after taking a prank call from two Australian DJ’s we don’t know if she had underlying issues either whether that be down to stress of work family life or social issues including poor pay and Christmas coming up all could have lead to a breaking point. Capitalism is a system which looks to drive down workers wages force you to crave work just to live and yet it greets you with poor pay and awful working conditions more often than not. Gun laws are something I have always thought are dangerous allowing mass’s to own guns always means they could end up in the wrong hands. Gun shootings although rare when do happen are tragic and we must as Marxists understand the under currents of what drives situations such as these to appear. It is not as simple as capitalist commentators would have you believe it is just down to one sick minded individual or someone who has just lost it. They may well have but we have to ask ourselves why this is and what society is failing them on. SO let’s not jump to conclusions blame individuals but look at their social circumstances and look to rehabilitate people who do have genuine troubles not just lock them up and forget about them. For me prison does not work. Locking people up then hoping they’ll behave and not reoffend are hopeful at best stupid at worst. I believe in fully funding rehabilitation projects are introducing people who have committed crimes to the community. But we also have to think why crime exists and who it benefits. Crime can pay as much as we don’t like to think so drug money can be lucrative for those who own the means of production yet those n the sharp end get punished for falling into a trap of poverty and desperation. It’s time to end this ill system of capitalism and plan a future to meet people needs so crime and gun crime is no longer an issue.

What can we expect from the Leveson report this week?

This week Lord Justice Leveson concludes his report and will announce his findings and recommendations this Thursday. After months of intense interviewing where we have all enjoyed watching the likes of Rupert Murdoch and our good friendly Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair squirm under the questioning from the committees appointed to question these media sorts. With the charging of Andy Coulson and Rebecca Brooks we look to be finally seeing some justice in terms of big names getting outed as criminals as they rightly are they may well protest their innocence till the time the door on their cell is slammed shut but there can be no doubt of what they knew. Andy Coulson who played a huge part in seeing well known socialist Tommy Sheridan jailed for perjury will hopefully see that sentence quashed and over turned in place of Andy coulson going to jail. But one of the big questions will be will the report by Leveson change the way the press report and behave. I don’t think it will in any major way we live under capitalism where the press is still owned despite all the bad headlines for our press it’s still a law to itself in many ways. The political establishment are especially keen to see the press remain unregulated and all the rumours are that David Cameron will give the press a ticking off but go easy on them and give them one last chance. This will be interesting given the backlash from the public after the phone hacking scandals and if Cameron is seen to ignore the findings or simply just pay lip service to the report this could play very badly for the prime minister. I don’t think full regulation is what people want but the public do want to see a fully accountable press in terms of privacy and invasions of this. I don’t think we will get this for as long as the press is not under democratic control of the masses. But Leveson has left his mark on the press and any eventualities that come out this week will be big news without a doubt. The press has had a big warning will it listen? I doubt it but people’s attitudes have changed slightly. The outrage when a dead young girl’s phone was hacked was huge people were rightly angry and wanted revenge will Levisohn take account of the public’s mood on this and make recommendations that fit 2012 and beyond. Whatever happens three will still be a unregulated press of some description who will still try and push the boundaries as much as they can apteral we’d still wish to know if our thieving MP’s are on the fiddle still and exposing their lies where they can. Only a publically funded democratic system of socialism where the media will be under the control of the workers deciding how much media coverage each story gets and ensuring its fairness and unbiased representing the views of the many not just the narrow interests of a few rich individuals can be called anything near a free press until then the idea we have a free press is a simple pipe dream.

Why are working class crimes demonised more ?

There is a part of society which is out of touch completely it is not the working class it is the MP's. It is nothing new i am well aware but working class crimes and punishments are far more excessive than MP's and teh ruling class's crimes and punishments. They simply do not fit.
For example just this week people rioting were getting jail sentances not fitting their crime. We have seen a sharp rise in politically motivated arresting and jailing of the working class. I do sense this is down to the fact we as workers are becoming more politisised and becoming more of a threat to the ruling class so the hardest line must be taken on us. This i'm afraid will not work as you can only keep the working class down for so long. There will be more of us and more angry and annoyed and frustrated at the lack of a working class representation on a mainstream scale.

In the past you used to have left wing labour MP's. Proper ones not the trendy ones you have today ones who stood up for working class people and offered an alternative to the tories and their class war on the working class. This is no more and ordinary working people are feeling cut off from society and teh world around them as they are facing increased job cuts and cuts in living standards. How can we expect MP's and labour MP's in particular when they themselves have been dabbling in the expenses tin claiming what the hell they can get their hands on. It is a break down in society that has failed us all from the top to the lower regions. This is another consequence of a greedy capitalist system which simply encourages greed and individualism.

Swansea West Labour MP, Geraint Davies, commenting on the rioting in Croydon, an area he used to represent in parliament, stated: "...it is clear what we have seen is just opportunist criminality."

He should know. In 2004-05, when Davies was MP for Croydon Central he claimed the highest expenses of any MP in the country, a staggering £176,026.

Despite Croydon being only 12 miles or a 20-minute commute from London Victoria, this included overnight cost allowance and £4,000 renovating his designated second home, a flat in Westminster.

The difference is that, unlike looting electrical goods, MPs' opportunism isn't considered criminal. It just feels that way to us, the victims.


Expense which have become the norm in the Westminster bubble of out of touch from reality careerist polititians racked up expenses totally huge amounts year on year at our expense.

A former MP jailed for expenses fraud claimed the second highest amount of parliamentary allowances last year, records have revealed.

Eric Illsley, the former Barnsley Central Labour MP, received £151,245 in 2010-11.

In January he admitted falsely claiming £14,500 of expenses between 2005 and 2008, and was jailed for 12 months, but was released in May. Illsley clung on to his parliamentary seat until nearly a month after pleading guilty.

The new figures, released by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa), show Illsley's allowances claims included £38,690 in winding-up costs. They also included £3,905 for accommodation and £5,224 for travel and food.

MPs claimed a total of £70.6m in parliamentary expenses over the financial year, down from £98m in 2009-10, when the system was still operated by the Commons Fees Office.

The prime minister, David Cameron, received £106,056, almost all of which went on staffing, although he claimed £272 to cover travel and subsistence.

The records show that the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, who claimed £74,357, was given a £4,000 advance on his expenses. After criticism from MPs that payments were taking too long, the Ipsa chairman, Sir Ian Kennedy, agreed last May to give some money upfront to cover office and travel costs.

The deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, claimed a total of £110,878, including £13,411 to cover accommodation and £1,592 for travel and subsistence.

David Lammy, the Labour MP for Tottenham, received the highest payment. His claims totalled £173,922.

Dan Jarvis, who succeeded Illsley as Labour MP for Barnsley Central following a byelection in March, had the lowest total payment. He received just £520, which covered travel and food costs.


Hundreds of MPs were ordered to repay a total of more than 1 million pounds in the wake of the expenses scandal which caused widespread anger and an overhaul of the system.

Newspaper revelations showed MPs had made claims for items ranging from toilet paper to dog food, moat cleaning and ornamental duck houses, tainting members of all major parties.

David Chaytor, 61, who had been an MP in northern England, admitted at an earlier hearing to fraudulently claiming more than 20,000 pounds in taxpayer-funded expenses.

The judge, Justice John Saunders, said Chaytor had breached the trust placed in MPs by the public and had subsequently been vilified and humiliated.

"That is an inevitable consequence for people who aspire to and achieve important public positions together with the influence which goes with those positions and who then defraud the public who elected them," he said.

"The public understandably feel cheated by what has happened."

The former Labour Party MP had claimed 22,650 pounds for rent for houses owned by himself and by his mother, and also for IT services that he had received free of change.

As a result, he was paid 18,350 pounds from the public purse, all of which he has now repaid.

Following the sentencing, Chaytor was expelled from the Labour Party, the Press Association reported.

Chaytor, who had previously denied the charges, faced a maximum of seven years in jail, but had been expected to receive a more lenient sentence because of his eventual guilty plea.

He will also have to foot the legal bill for both his defence and the costs of bringing the prosecution against him.

At the time the expenses row broke, Chaytor, apologised "unreservedly" for what he called an "unforgivable error in my accounting procedures."

Three other former MPs and two members of the House of Lords, the upper chamber of parliament, were also charged by police in relation to their expenses and are due to face trial.




So when we see people lower down the class ladder commiting crimes and thinking they can get away with it why should they think twice when they see MP's and bankers taking liberties and helping themselves to the pot having the hand and grabbing waht they can. What sort of example does this set. I would suggest all MP's and elected representitives including councillors should only take the average skilled workers wage. Just like Dave Nellist and Terry Fields did in the 80's when the yrepresented Covernty and Liverpool as Militant MP's. Not taking anymore than they needed to do their job of representing their voters who had placed trust in them to represent them and their views.

Maybe the distrust of MP's and polititians has been encouraged by the fact they are just as greedy as the bankers and in affect are no better than a banker. The media, polititians and the police are all entangled in a vicious greed bubble which they cannot escape from and to make matters worse they do not wish to. They are the have's and we are the have not's and they do not wish this to change. Be under no illusions who the real criminals in society are.

The dirty tactics of our modern day media

I've been wanting to blog about this topic for some time now but this last week has urged me into it with the resignation of one Andy Coulson as David Camerons communications chief whatever one of those is these days. I think from how i understand it is so out of touch tories can stay in touch with what the everyday person on the street thinks so they dont have to enter out of their ivory towers.

Cynical i know but no more cynical than a lot of newspapers and our press in this country. Andy coulson was forced to resign in the end for reported phone tapping to famous members of the celebrity world and important polititians. While i do think polititians do want things both ways sometimes their right to privacey yet the headlines when they want them i do think phone tapping is a step too far in all this.

In Britain we have one of the most intrusive medias in the modern world you can argue it is due to us wanting to know this apparently is why they do this, in our interests. Well i'm not interested and find a lot of their tactics they use to gain a story and a scandel is downright rude and intrusive sometimes.

Newspapers in this country are turning into being nothing more than being worth the paper they are written on. All they focus on now is celebrity scandels big shocks and big headlines that will grab the imagination.

Gone are the days of great investigative journalism and well researched stories on factual information. Oh no its got to be a scoup or a scandel for you to wake up on a sunday morning to read about.

Recently it has been the football world which has been shamed with a lot of these sex scandels that come up very often now. England footballers playing away from home being photographed and caught with their pants down is all we seem to read these days.

So i make two points do we rally want to be reading this ? and if not why do we continue to buy this tosh and secondly how are these various media sources the press for a want of a better word allowed to get away with such crude dodgy often dirty tactics to get their story.

Why cant we have the news reported that we actually want to know not what they think we should know.

The media and their relentless attacks on benifit cheats

This article i had to blog about
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/public-accounts/2010/10/anti-benefits-160-media

it hits the name on the head when it comes to how i feel. I am not for one moment suggesting benifit cheats should not be gone after, they should. But

and this is a big but.. i'm registered blind as many of you may or may not know. Registered as disabled, i claim disability living allowance fiarly and squarly. I dont claim for anything i shouldnt. I have just paid back over £1000 in over claiment, in a purely honest mistake of being at a resedential college whilst still claiming. I found out just as i was leaving college that i was not meant to be getting this extra money. I was never told of this and i'm sure many others have made the same mistake.

The issue was the care part of my DLA was meantt o go to the college, as i was in residential college and got all things paid for whilst i was there. This was fair enough and i notified the DWP who set me up repaying the money over time.

I have no issue with this at all. But i cannot stand how the media and certain political bloggers like to group us disabled people, most of whom are totally honest and up front with their claiments as benifit cheats. I find this unfair and often offensive. I understand the deficit needs to be cut but why do the disabled and less well off have to suffer at the expense of wealthy tax dodgers and over paid and risk taking bankers.

Is it because the disabled and the less well off are easy target ? are we less likely to kick up a fuss?

well let me tell you Mr Osbourne, Myself and many others this wednesday will be taking to the streets of Westminster to protest against proposed cuts in disabled benifits which could ultimatly cost lives.

Murdochs media empire

After watching dispatchs tonight on channel 4, i was horrified to hear how much power Rupert murdoch actually whelds now. To have murdoch within a earshot of the most powerful man in britian, the Prime minister. I for one am very worried about where this will eventually lead to.

I afor one am really worried how the right wing media - news corp can influence the government at quitea high up level.This is not healthy for a democratic country i feel.

I think the communications advisor to david cameron is in a really dodgey position now and now this documentary has aired people will be more aware of the shadey world of the media in this country now.

The most worrying party is the role of the police in all this, they sem to have their hands tied in waht they can do. i think their reputation is on the line here if they are not careful.

How much do newspapers really influence us ?

After reading over the weekend that David Milliband, one of the potential labour leaders has now gained the backing of the Times to add to his collection of the Observer and the Daily Mirror.

i would like to ask you does having the backing of a paper really matter that much. Ultimatly the voters decide- the Labour members in this situation. Would people vote for a particular party or polititian based on the support o a newspaper.

What similarities are there to a Union reccomending its members vote for a particular candidate. Should a newspaper even be allowed to endorse a candidate. Is it unfair to the other contenders.

During the last election one of Britains biggest newspapers the Sun chose to back the conservatives, although didnt actually win out right as much as they would dispute this i feel this did have a big influence and the story of them backing the tories was big at the time.

SO does it matter if a paper backs someone and if so, how much influence do the media and the papers in particular have over its readers these days ?