What did you buy on holiday?

I was recently reading an article on how the poaching of wild animals such as elephants, rhinos, monkeys, apes and tigers to name just a few,  in Africa and Asia is on the increase. 

Live animals, body parts and skins are openly sold in markets and shops in the towns and cities although in many countries their killing and sale are banned but the authorities ignore such illegal activities often due to a financial agreement.

Today many people travel to exotic locations and may be unwittingly or knowingly buying animal skins or parts, ivory for example, that is from animals poached and killed illegally. There is also a growing trade in what is commonly known as the “Bush Meat” market where protected endangered species are killed for food often eaten as a delicacy and for prestige.

Often people think of this as a distant trade that occurs in far off places. The market is very large in Europe, and the U.S.A. is one of the largest markets in the area of illegal wildlife trade and products. Many Americans now travel to Asia and Africa and ignorantly buy skins and souvenirs from this illegal trade in protected and endangered animals.

The Global Financial Integrity, a non-profit organisation that looks at transnational crime, reports that the trade in the wildlife black market is estimated at $7.8 billion to $10 billion annually not far behind the black market arms trade and drugs. http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/seizure-highlights-widespread-illegal-wildlife-trading/?_r=0

So the next time you travel to an exotic location such as Thailand be watchful what is on sale and what you buy at the Chatuchak Market, Bangkok.

McTaggart    

No, wait - let us back the winner: Syria, the arms trade and the West

The United States of America, (U.S.A.) Congress has now agreed to supply arms to the Syrian rebels. There has been confusion as to whether the U.S.A. and the United Kingdom,(U.K.) would arm the rebels at all after France, the U.K. and the U.S.A. decided to arm the Syrian rebels.  It was recently announced: Telegraph.co.uk (blog) that the U.S.A. and the U.K. would not arm the Syrian rebels as they felt it was a lost cause.  

Recently France and the United Kingdom, (U.K.) voted and agreed that the anti-government troops in Syria may be supplied with military arms to aid their fight against the government of President Basher al-Assad.

This follows the decision by the United States of America, (U.S.A.), to supply the opposition rebels who are almost entirely Sunni Muslims with arms to aid their fight against President Assad’s Shiites Muslim government.

It can be no coincidence that the U.S.A., the U.K. and France are in the top six of world arms exporters. The U.S.A. being first, France 3^rd and the U.K. now sixth after dropping from fifth after China increased its arms exports.

It appears that once again money from the arms trade exceeds in importance to France, the U.K. and the U.S.A. in who they supply arms to. Have the ‘Big Three’ of the Western world arms suppliers not learnt from history how arming zealots can turn against you when they have accomplished or not what they aimed to achieve. Also how can they guarantee that the weapons do not fall into the hands of an extremist Islamic organisation or group of individuals who think nothing of killing and destroying any one, an establishment or a philosophy that differs from theirs?

Remember that they attempted to kill a 16 year old girl who was going to school and had the tenacity to speak out for her right to an education.  Fortunately she survived the assignation attempt and has recently spoken at the United Nations.

McTaggart

MPs ask for an alcohol price reduction...for themselves

I thought I had gone back a couple of months and it is April Fool’s day.

M.P.s. are calling for the price of alcohol to be reduced in the Palace of Westminster bars. The current price for a pint of Becks Lager is £3.20 and a pint of John Smiths bitter £2.60. At the moment the bar prices are linked to a Wetherspoons pub in Victoria, London. Wetherspoons are renowned for their cheap beer prices compared to other pubs in the local area.   Most prices for a pint of Becks lager in the Westminster area would be close to £4 a pint if not a wee bit more.

The M.P.s are suggesting that the bar prices should be linked to pubs outside central London to make them cheaper.  Do they not realise that anyone who works in Westminster and wants a pint in the area has to pay the going rate. Very few, if any, people have access to subsidies canteen never mind a reduced bar.

MAGGIE'S FUNERAL

So much for “We are all in it together”, “Times of austerity”, “We must all face cuts and tighten our belts”.

After spending millions of pounds of tax payers' money on the Queen’s jubilee, an event that was mostly held and benefited London, the Tory-led coalition has decided to spend around £10 million on a funeral for one of the most despised Prime Ministers since the introduction of The Six Acts in 1819.

£10 million is the estimate that is without the cost of the security measures surrounding the event. All Police leave has been cancelled in the London Metropolitan Police force. Snipers are been deployed on the roofs along and around the route of the funeral procession, which has been named “Code True Blue”.

The name “True Blue” I feel reflects how the Prime Minister and the Tories feel about the Late Prime Minister Thatcher and how she was for the business community the City of London and the rich. The workers and their communities were seen as an obstacle to be oppressed by her and her peers.

The Prime Minister Cameron, the Tory Party and many of the right wing press such as the Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph and The Sun are appalled at some of the vitriol being expressed in the social media, (twitter, etc.), and by public figures and M.Ps such as Glenda Jackson and Morrissey. (Also look up “Margaret on the Guillotine” by Morrissey on You Tube music).

The pro-Thatcherites are outraged at this and use the excuse that a dead person should not be vilified as Thatcher is.  An example. I did not hear anyone saying this after Gaddafi's death as he was abused by the same press and media that are now attempting to silence the people’s voice about protecting and tempering criticism of the dead. Before anyone rises I am not in anyway comparing the late Maggie Thatcher to Col. Gaddafi, it is only an example of the hypocrisy of the press.    

The Tory right wing media are always banging the drum about democracy, free speech and freedom of the press of course this only applies when the “Press Barons” such as Rupert Murdoch, agrees with what is being said and represented. If The Sun and The Daily Mail feel you are attacking what they believe in, the establishment, the City and /or its leaders they will attempt to discredit the messenger by looking at their past and present lifestyle and occupation and smearing the person and leading a campaign for them to be sacked from their job if it is in anyway connected to public service. Such as the Drama teacher Romany Blythe and the Police Sergeant Jeremy Scott who has since resigned after the Daily Mail vindictively mounted a campaign to have them both sacked.

Police Sergeant Jeremy Scott has resigned.  He had served over twenty years in the Metropolitan Police Force and was facing possible suspension and an investigation into his twitter account @thinbluespeck..

Thatcher’s Grave

Let the bonfires burn bright,

The trumpets gaily play,
The Drummers drill away,
Let the Bagpipes blaw,
To be heard far away,

The children gaily play,

As I Dance on Thatcher’s Grave,

Monday was a beautiful day.

by McTaggart

The Tory Nasty Party are back: Lord Freud and the Bedroom Tax

I could not believe what I was hearing on the B.B.C.  Radio Five Live Victoria Derbyshire morning programme in a discussion with Lord Freud and Radio Five listeners about the imminent new Under Occupancy Act, otherwise infamously known as the Bedroom Tax. This tax comes into effect on Monday 1^st April 2013.

The Bedroom Tax is where people who have a spare bedroom and are on a benefit will have their housing benefit cut.

Lord Freud was asked specific questions by listeners regarding how the tax would affect them.

One had a son in the army and wanted to keep his bedroom for when the son was on leave so he felt he had a home to come back to. Another had separated from his wife and the 3 children stayed with him at the weekend, the school holidays and at other times.  Another had disabilities that affected his breathing and he had to use an oxygen tank and other apparatus to help him breathe. He had to sleep with his head raised on the bed so he slept in a separate room from his wife so they could both sleep without him disturbing her from the noise of the oxygen and his sleeping position in the bed. Another had a daughter going to university.

Lord Freud did not answer the specific questions asked by people on the phone but choose to give the bog standard Government answer such as “difficult times, times of austerity” we need to reform the system to stop the scroungers, [my words], living in luxury (?) with too many rooms that they don’t need.

Here is the solution that Lord Freud gave to the tenants:

To the father who has his children stay at the weekends and various other nights Lord Freud said: “He should move to a one bedroom house then buy a sofa bed so the 3 children could sleep in the living room.”

To the parents of the student at university he said; “Why don’t you take in a lodger.” So what does the daughter do when she returns home for a weekend visit and during the holidays? Sleep with the lodger? Obviously he is not aware that as a student living in student accommodation it is classed as temporary accommodation. The man with breathing and other medical problems he ignored.

It beggars belief that this Lord of the realm, who is the Prime Minister David Cameron’s Under Secretary of State (Lords) for the Department of Work and Pensions, who between January 2008 and February 2009 acted as an advisor on welfare reform to the U.K. government, is ignorant of the tenancy law; that he does not know that under the tenancy agreement between a tenant and the local council or housing association it is illegal to sublet any part of the accommodation. Yet here he is happily telling people to break the conditions of their tenancy agreement.  

Apart from Lord Freud’s lack of knowledge regarding tenancy agreements, I feel it shows the arrogance of members of the Tory party to tell people to say “It is alright, just take in a lodger”. Problem solved, easy peasy. 

Say it did happen. First of all it would lead to complications on any welfare payment they receive whether they are working or not.  Probably any welfare benefit they get would be cut or stopped including their rent and council tax payments. Would the tax man have interest in this extra income?

What about insurance cover? Many insurance companies will not insure you or the house if you have a lodger, or the premium is very expensive. What happens when the offspring comes home from University and the Army? Do they sleep in the living room or the bathroom? Do you want a lodger in your house using all the facilities?

This is rich coming from a man who owns two large houses. One, a country mansion in Kent, which is believed to be one of the oldest in England, has eight bedrooms. The other is a £1.9 million four bedroom house in Highgate, London that he shares with his wife. So that is a total of 12 bedrooms for two people which of eight are only used at weekends, holidays or for entertaining on special occasions.

What a hypocrite Lord Freud is. A man who owns two homes with twelve bedrooms for two people is plunging over 100,000 people into poverty, causing them extreme anxiety and leading to their illnesses becoming acute. 

Is this not a form of “ethnic cleansing,” this time done on a socio-economic scale rather than a race or religious doctrine?

Just to show this multi-millionaire’s arrogance and lack of feeling for the working class communities, vulnerable and people with mental or physical problems, Lord Freud stated in an interview with The House magazine, "We've got the circumstances now where... people who are poorer should be prepared to take the biggest risks - they've got least to lose."

The Tory “Nasty Party” is back with a vengeance.

McTaggart

Happy New Year? It was until the Tory-led coalition once again began its attack on the poorly paid

It was until the Tory-led coalition once again began its attack on the poorly paid.

In fact the attack on the low wage earner and the people on benefits began just after Christmas with the right wing Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne demanding that the National State Welfare budget be cut by £10 billion. Where did that figure come from? Was it just plucked out of the air as a good “sound bite” figure to ensure the headlines would follow in the Daily Express and the Daily Mail?

I have not seen any figures to justify this claim that it is £10 billion that needs to be cut from the Welfare budget. It appears to tally with the Tory led coalition aim to cut the loan deficit.

I am also astonished, as far as I have seen/heard at the way the media such as the BBC television and radio channels, Channel 4 or the ITV news have never crossed examined the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne on how he came to this conclusion.  Just a thought, I find it a wee bit strange that you never see George Osborne give interviews. Is that due to his past performances in live interviews and gaffe blown comments?

On Tuesday 8^th January 2013 the House of Commons voted to restrict any rise of benefits of working age to 1% over the next 3 years. This included Working Tax Credits, a payment by the taxpayer to boost the pay of low-paid workers rather than have the worker being paid a living wage by the large companies who make billion of pounds profit to pay their shareholders a large dividend at the tax payer’s expense.

When I say shareholders I am not talking about the person in the street who may have a few shares in a company but the very large global companies listed on the London, New York and the Tokyo stock exchange which make billions of pounds/dollars profit every year.

--McTaggart

How Much Does Love Cost?

£20,000 says Theresa May, Home Secretary

From the 9th June 2012 a new rule came into force where anyone marrying a person from outside the U.K. or European Union will have to be earning at least £20,000 a year or emigrate. If the foreigner has a child then the earnings have to be at least £30,000 a year.

This is an attack once again on the low paid. 

The £20,000 a year figure works out at £9.62 per hour, which is £3.43 above the minimum wage for people aged 21 and over and £4.64 for an 18 to 20 year old.

The Tory-led coalition government wants to change the immigration rules to prevent lower-paid Britons from bringing in husbands or wives who they feel will be dependent on state benefits as soon as they arrive in the UK. Where is the evidence of this?

It again shows that the Tories feel that the people from the lower working class only live on state benefits and everything they do is aimed at claiming more money from state funds. How did the Prime Minister David Cameron, the Home Secretary Theresa May and the Coalition Cabinet decide on these figures?

The rules will particularly hit the low paid British workers such as nurses, cleaners, lower grade civil servants,  shop workers, office assistants and restaurant staff as well as part-time teachers and nurses who will no longer have the same right as their wealthier neighbours to choose whom they wish to marry, settle and have children with.

It is estimated that 46% of British workers earn less than £20,000 a year and 20% earn £10,000 a year or less:  

After years of working and paying taxes without ever claiming benefits people will find that they will be penalised because they have met a person, fallen in love and wish to marry but are deemed too poor to do so by the Eton-led millionaire coalition government.

Again the lower paid are an easy target for the Tories to strut, preen and crow that they are in control of lowering immigration to please the so called people of “Middle England” and the readers of the  Daily Mail and Daily Express.

So please remember the next time you go abroad or meet someone in this country from a country outside the U.K. or the European Union, do not fall in love unless you earn “lots o’ Lolly”.

McTaggart

Riddle: what do the police, the Olympics, a man with Parkinson's and 182 cyclists have in common?

The Police arrested the man and the cyclists during the Olympic games.

Arrested man with Parkinson's Disease

A man with Parkinson’s disease was arrested during the Olympic cycling road race because the Surrey Police thought he was not smiling and enjoying the event.

Mark Worsford, 54, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, was arrested for not smiling. The former soldier and martial arts instructor was sitting on a wall when the Surrey Police arrested him for breach of the peace. Mr Worsford was dragged from the 7ft wall, thrown to the ground, handcuffed in front of the watching crowd and bundled unceremoniously into a Police vehicle.

How were the Olympics for you? Video interviews

Unheard Holler's bloggers hit the streets of London during the Olympics to find out what Londoners thought about the Games.

Watch the video and check back soon for more footage at the Olympic Park.

Our blogger JJ describes here in his own words what they found:

My name is jj i do voluntary blogs for a charity called SHP Just before the Olympic  games were to finish i and another colleague did some video interviews with asking both Londoners tourists and commercial firms how their daily lives had been affected by the said Olympia. most people were quite  happy with the financing to the games and even condoned the said money spent.

My main opinion was that London tourists were content with everything was organised but truth was that retail outlets didn’t feel happy as takings were down but at the same time felt content that takings should go back to normal.  anybody interested in making on any comments please do so below.                       

The Olympics 2012 and Corporate Greed

I am not against the Olympic or the Paralympic Games. What I am against is the way the large corporate companies take over my and your lives.

These large capitalist companies believe just because they pay a few bob (which no-one asked them to, it is their choice to do this) then they can go against people’s rights and freedom with the implicit help of the Government and the local authorities, because they paid for it.

Did you or I ask for the disruption so the so-called V.I.P.s of the Olympic Mafia could drive by in their free limousines, digesting their sumptuous breakfast at the tax payer’s expense, whilst you, I and others are suffering the Tory-led coalition austerity cuts, and whilst the people who fuelled this are feeding us the nonsense that we live in free and democratic country?

Why are you and I being told that the corporate takeover of the streets of London by the so-called “Olympic Family “is for the benefit of the people who live and work in London every day?

People who have paid vast sums of money to have a family day at the Olympic stadium will have their food and drink confiscated so they are coerced into buying food and drink at extortionate prices because the greedy corporate companies such as McDonald’s feel they have bought the rights and therefore bought you, your friends and family. 

If you refuse to give up your food and drink you will be refused entry, with the help of the police which are paid for by the tax payer and not by McDonald’s or any of the corporate fat cats.

You will be treated as a criminal for trying to bring your own food into an Olympic event.

McTaggart