Armchair Revolutionaries

Hi to everybody...here's a petition to try to stop Gary McKinnon from being extradited to the USA to stand trial for hacking into the military computers and pointing out the failures in their system and doing no harm to them whatsoever...He has Asperges Syndrome and would not survive a long jail sentence...He could get a full life sentence if found guilty...he would be used as an example. Many hackers, once caught, are then employed by major companies and the government to find flaws in their security systems...this man should not be made a scapegoat and used as an example to others.
http://www.gopetition.co.uk/petitions/stop-the-extradition-of-gary-mckinnon.html

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=6790&edition=1&ttl=20090724151258

It's an interesting moral question.

An unnamed lottery ticket is lost, then found by someone else.

The ticket becomes a winner £30,000.

The finder claims the prize.

Has the finder done anything wrong?

What if you found a £1 coin on the floor (the value of the ticket at the time it was found)?

Let me know what you think.

Link: http://rhondaforever.com/

Hi to everybody...the BBC have put the programme 'The Time of their Lives' online now so here it is...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lsz65

Hope you take the time to watch it...wonderful experience...

Hi to everybody...we've just sat and watched...this...It is a marvellous programme concentrating on the residents of Mary Feilding Guild Home...two of the women are 101 and 102 and active peacemakers and members of the old Labour Party and CND, and with all their marbles in tact and one is still active on Peace Marches at 102...I believe you will find this wonderful viewing...it is repeated, and the times are at the bottom of this post...I hope you will take the time to watch it...

The Time of their Lives
Watch:
Availability:

Sorry, this programme is not available to watch again.

Last broadcast today, 19:30 on BBC Four (see all broadcasts).
Next on:

Tomorrow, 01:00 on BBC Four
Synopsis

Set in a north London residential home for the active elderly, this documentary paints a portrait of life at the Mary Feilding Guild and of three of its oldest residents. With a combined age of almost 300, Rose, Hetty and Alison continue to be powerfully engaged in their individual brands of activism - from journalism to anti-war demonstrations - whilst quietly negotiating the final years of their lives.

Rose, Hetty and Alison are fervently concerned about the state of the wider world and work energetically to make it a better place, but their private lives and loves are equally important. Through their intimate and surprising revelations, we learn the truth about how very old people experience life and how they deal with the intense challenges, and the indignities, that old age brings.
Credits

Director
Jo Cammack

Broadcasts

1.
Mon 20 Jul 2009
19:30
BBC Four
2.
Tue 21 Jul 2009
01:00
BBC Four
3.
Tue 21 Jul 2009
03:00
BBC Four

Hi to everybody...the oldest man in the world died today. He was 113 years old and his name was Henry Allingham...a splendid old gentlemen...a veteran of the RAF in the lst World War and one who has honoured his fellow soldiers who died in it all his life and has shared his experiences of that terrible war so that their bravery will never be forgotten...
Henry Allingham, you will not be forgotten...and will be sadly missed...thank you for your life.
A bit more about his long life here...
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/world/AP/story/1147127.html

Video credit : Neil Hepburn

Hi to everybody...the world has gone frigging insane!!!
Authors boycott schools over sex-offence register

By Chris Green

Thursday, 16 July 2009

Respected British children's authors Anthony Horowitz, Philip Pullman and Michael Morpurgo object to a new government scheme that requires them to register their names on a database in case they pose a danger to children

Respected British children's authors Anthony Horowitz, Philip Pullman and Michael Morpurgo object to a new government scheme that requires them to register their names on a database in case they pose a danger to children.

A group of respected British children's authors and illustrators will stop visiting schools from the start of the next academic year, in protest at a new government scheme that requires them to register on a database in case they pose a danger to children.

Philip Pullman, Anne Fine, Anthony Horowitz, Michael Morpurgo and Quentin Blake all told The Independent that they object to having their names on the database – which is intended to protect children from paedophiles – and would not be visiting any schools as a consequence.

Pullman, author of the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials, described the Home Office policy as "corrosive and poisonous to every kind of healthy social interaction". He said: "I've been going into schools as an author for 20 years, and on no occasion have I ever been alone with a child. The idea that I have become more of a threat and I need to be vetted is both ludicrous and insulting. Children have never been in any danger from visiting authors or illustrators, and the idea that they should be is preposterous.
Related articles

"This reinforces the culture of suspicion, fear and mistrust that underlies a great deal of present-day society. It teaches children that they should regard every adult as a potential murderer or rapist."

The Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) is being managed by the Independent Safeguarding Authority, set up after the 2002 murders of Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells by Ian Huntley, a janitor at their school. All individuals who work with children from 12 October will be required to register with a national database for a fee of £64. The former Children's Laureate Anne Fine, the author of more than 50 books, said the scheme was "governmental idiocy" which would drive a wedge between children and adults.

"When it [the VBS] becomes essential, I shall continue to work only in foreign schools, where sanity prevails," she said. "The whole idea of vetting an adult who visits many schools, but each only for a day, and then always in the presence of other adults, is deeply offensive.

"Our children will become further impoverished by this tiresome and ill-considered scheme, and yet another gulf will be created between young people and the rest of society." Michael Morpurgo, another former Children's Laureate whose recent successes include the play War Horse, said the compulsory database of school visitors was "a nonsense" which would put writers off visiting pupils. "It's yet another example of the Government going way over the top," he said. "Writers don't go to schools for the money, they do it because they want to bring their stories to children and make readers of them.

"The notion that I should somehow have got myself tested or passed in order to do this is absurd. I know there has to be security in schools, and that's fine, but this is insulting and doesn't go any way to protecting children."

Anthony Horowitz, the author of the popular Alex Rider series of children's spy novels, said the £64 fee had "a nasty feeling of a stealth tax about it", and that, like Pullman and the others, the introduction of the database marked "the end of school visits" for him.

"Like so many of Labour's laws, it's just an ill-thought-out by-product of a general law to stop suspect people going into schools. And yet the Government doesn't seem to have either the courage or the sense to realise that they've got to make an exception here.

"A child who admires a writer has a great belief in that writer as a good human being. If you say that, actually, the guy who's writing this book could be a sick pervert and we've got to protect you from him, I think you're not exactly sending out the most positive message."

He added that the timing of the scheme was particularly baffling, as last year was the National Year of Reading, during which the Government heavily promoted the practice of authors visiting schools.

Quentin Blake, who rose to fame as Roald Dahl's illustrator and became the first ever Children's Laureate in 1999, said the Government was guilty of "grotesque misunderstanding" about what happens on school visits, and that he would refuse to pay the registration fee if he was asked.

"A lot of these people are asked to visit schools because they are known already," he said. "You don't ask Philip Pullman or Michael Morpurgo because you don't know who they are, and you don't go to the trouble of being the Children's Laureate to pay £64 to have permission to talk to children. That is bizarre."

A spokesman from the Home Office said: "The UK already has one of the most advanced systems in the world for carrying out checks on all those who work in positions of trust with children and vulnerable adults. From October this year the new Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) will ensure these regulations are even more rigorous.

"The new scheme means every individual working in a field that requires more than a tiny amount of contact with children and/or vulnerable adults will have to be vetted. If they are passed, they will be placed on a register that says they are allowed to work in a regulated field. If they are barred, they will go on a separate register and it will be a criminal offence for them to try and obtain work in a regulated field, carrying a penalty of up to five years in prison. It will also be illegal for anyone to employ them."

Un-bloody-believable...

Hi to everybody...am I the only one disturbed to discover that today our government nominated Tony 'there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq' Blair as the first President of the EU!!! What right had the government to put this man forward? Surely the British people should decide who they would like to put forward as the first President of the EU...Blair should be standing trial for lying to us and taking us into a financially crippling and huge loss of life for both Iraqis and our soldiers war and then resigning before the shit hit the fan...he must have known the financial crunch was on its way with his contacts in the world of high Finance...and left Brown to carry the can for it...and then he goes off to bring peace to the Middle East with Palestine and Israel his particular baby...and what happened...Israel went in and slaughtered as many Palestinians in Gaza as it could manage before the world exploded with anger and there's not the slightest chance of peace so Blair has been paid enormous sums to achieve absolutely nothing, and now he plans to be President of the EU!!! What has happened to this government??? He was bosom buddies with Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz and anybody else who had their fingers in the till exploiting Iraq and all of them should be up for war crimes, but have been granted immunity from charges by Bush before he left office, and this man is going to be our nominee....I'm outraged!

A fighting fund has been set up to bring a private prosecution of Jacqui Smith. The Sunlight Centre for Open Politics have hired Bark and Co solicitors to prepare the case against the former Home Secretary for fraud.

http://www.sunlight-cops.org.uk/donate/

More from the normally unreliable Daily Mail (Yes, I have been known to look there too):

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1199779/Whitehall-mole-prosecute-Jacqui-Smith-expenses.html

Hi to everybody...I've been listening to the News tonight on the proposals put forward by the government concerning caring for the elderly and disabled and was quite shocked to discover that if you have more than £23,900 in savings, you're not entitled to any care but must pay for it yourself??? So, if, as we have, been careful with our money and have not spent it on luxuries and other indulgent things, we are going to be penalized for this thrift as are many other elderly or disabled individuals when it comes to needing care and a place to live if unable to continue in our home...this means, that it is highly likely that any inheritance we hoped to leave to our son will go towards our future care while other people who have never saved a penny or have only a small amount of savings will get their care paid for by the government...this seems to me to be extraordinarily unfair...the government has been dragging its feet for ten years now and have still not resolved the issue, which is going to be a major problem in the future, and these proposals are probably not going to come into existence until after the election if at all...should the Conservatives win, they have no plans at all to tackle it...wonderful! Living in a care home now can cost up to and more than £2000 a month! And when the money runs out, the next of kin are expected to continue with the payments by having their old age pension docked by a third if they are elderly too, which a lot will be as life expectancy is increasing yearly...hmmm...I find all this very scary and very alarming...is anybody here disturbed by this news?

http://www.naturalnews.com/026503_pandemic_swine_flu_bioterrorism.html

Im unsure as to whether or not i believe any of this. But the fact that an official claim as audacious as this hasn't being covered in mainstream media is quite dodgy.

Hi to everybody...here's an interesting article from one of the members of the newly formed Forum of Confessing Anglicans...They did have as their acronym...FOCA...it didn't take them long to realize what that sounded like so dropped the O...LOL...1600 members and growing and certainly not a healthy sign for our state religion...
FCA threatens Church run by “Satan”
Monday, 6th July 2009. 5:17pm

By: Toby Cohen.

A new power in the Church of England is waiting to take control if the current leadership permit any further liberalization, warned the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) UK at its launch in London today.

Over 1,600 people turned up at Methodist Central Hall in Westminster, including leaders from around the Communion, to celebrate the fellowship which currently describes itself as a movement rather than an organization. However, Archbishop Bob Duncan, of the new Anglican Church in North America, made clear that FCA UK could follow the route of the North Americans in forming a new Church if they saw the Church of England stray too far from its traditional roots.

He said: “The American Church and the Canadian Church are radical churches. They are revolutionary Churches. Our hope is that that’s not what the Church of England will be. It really depends on- the ability for the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans to be a force within the Church of England depends on- the attitude of the leadership of the Church of England.”

That leadership was criticized in no uncertain terms by the Bishop of Fulham, the Rt Rev John Broadhurst, the Chairman of Forward in Faith International, who said: “Satan is alive and well and he’s residing in Church House.”

Consecrating women as bishops in the Church of England without proper provision for those opposed to the move would prompt FCA UK to challenge the current Church leadership. The Bishop of Lewes, the Rt Rev Wallace Benn, maintained that the fellowship was hopeful that this would not be necessary.

He said: “I think we are hopeful that the Church of England will see sense and provide properly for loyal Anglicans of both integrities. The Lambeth Conference talked about both integrities being loyal Anglicans and for a Church to want to push out one or the other is very unfortunate and should not be a Church dividing issue if proper action is taken. I think most of us are optimistic that some sort of solution will come out of that.

“If the Church of England was to be foolish and to drive people out of a conscientious issue then we would need to look for help and support from elsewhere. At the moment we’re not pessimistic.”

Archbishop Gregory Venables, Primate of the Southern Cone, underlined how serious the theological distance was between FCA and other parts of the Church, he said: “This is about the essentials of theology, and that’s where the division is coming. Those who say there is only one way; Jesus Christ, stand with us, stand with him, and those who say there are a lot of ways, Jesus is one of them. That is what this division is about and it’s not schism, it is real separation over Gospel truth.”

While speculation surrounded the retiring Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, as to whether he would be taking a leading role with FCA, he said: “I’m just a foot-soldier.”

They want the ordination of women stopped, homosexuality to be condemned and to get back to a narrow, ultra-orthodox interpretation of the bible...sometimes the alleged intelligence of religious men leaves me gasping with disbelief...where do churchmen keep it because it certainly isn't in their heads so I guess they must spend most of their lives talking out their arses...

Hi to everybody...before I begin this post, it's not an invitation for gay bashing. I want to know, along with other people, why gay men and women find it necessary to dress up in bizarre outfits and parade themselves in public? I don't understand why they should wish to do this, because I'm not wholly sure that it is doing them any favours amongst the heterosexual population who have fully accepted that they are part and parcel of our world now and perfectly entitled to live the way they wish...
Does anybody else feel this way or can explain to me why they feel the necessity to do this? It could be classified as fun, but I'm not sure it's having that effect on many people, and could be undoing many of the advances they have made in being accepted as having a life style of their choice.
I'm aware this post could open a can of worms, but I have stressed at the start of this post, it's not an invite to bash gays...it's a legitimate question as far as I am concerned and I hope to get some thoughtful responses.

So Dave Cameron wants to cut down on Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental
Organisations.

But how much money will that really save? -- possibly quite a lot.

I remembered and have dug out a TPA report that I read a while back.

There are 1,162 Quangos and Agencies costing £63 Billion in total.

yes, £63B apparently -- much more than I would have guessed at.

Quangos and Agencies employ 714,430 staff.

Here is the papaer: Unseen Government
http://tpa.typepad.com/home/files/080515_structure_of_government_1_unseen_government_amended.pdf

These details shamelessly pillaged from another blog:

http://eastkurd.blog.co.uk/2009/07/08/u-s-military-chief-says-clock-ticking-on-iran-nuke-6470859/">

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. military officer warned on Tuesday that time is running out for dialogue with Tehran to avoid either a nuclear-armed Iran or a possible military strike against the Islamic Republic...

Mullen noted that some forecasters believe Iran could be as little as a year away from developing a nuclear bomb...

Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview with ABC's "This Week" program on Sunday that Israel had a sovereign right to act in its best interest in dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions. The comment was seen by some as giving Israel a green light to attack"

This has all been building for some time now, but all the indications seem to be that Israel will shortly attack Iran, with American support.

The logic behind having Nukes has always been that it prevents people from attacking you. If you have a big stick then it's silly for someone to attack you with a little stick because you can use your big stick on them. Following this logic, if Iran had Nukes wouldn't that make future war less likely?

Of course, if Iran did have Nukes it would mean that the USA and Israel wouldn't be able to attack it or try and tell it what to do. They argue that the Iranian leaders are not to be trusted with Nukes because, after all, they are religious fundamendalists. Well excuse me, but couldn't you say that about both Israel and much of the USA too? And which is the only country that has ever Nuked another? Ah yes, it's the USA. Twice.

Tom.

By Gemma Meyer (Gemma Meyer is the pseudonym of a South African journalist. She and her husband, a former conservative member of parliament, still reside in South Africa.)

People used to say that South Africa was 20 years behind the rest of the Western world. Television, for example, came late to South Africa (but so did pornography and the gay rights movement).

Today, however, South Africa may be the grim model of the future Western world, for events in America reveal trends chillingly similar to those that destroyed our country.

America's structures are Western. Your Congress, your lobbying groups, your free speech, and the way ordinary Americans either get involved or ignore politics are peculiarly Western, not the way most of the world operates. But the fact that only about a third of Americans deem it important to vote is horrifying in light of how close you are to losing your Western character.

Writing letters to the press, manning stands at county fairs, hosting fund-raising dinners, attending rallies, setting up conferences, writing your Congressman - that is what you know, and what you are comfortable with. Those are the political methods you've created for yourselves to keep your country on track and to ensure political accountability.

But woe to you if - or more likely, when - the rules change. White Americans may soon find themselves unable or unwilling to stand up to challenge the new political methods that will be the inevitable result of the ethnic metamorphosis now taking place in America. Unable to cope with the new rules of the game - violence, mob riots, intimidation through accusations of racism, demands for proportionality based on racial numbers, and all the other social and political weapons used by the have-nots to bludgeon treasure and power from the haves - Americans, like others before them, will no doubt cave in. They will compromise away their independence and ultimately their way of life.

That is exactly what happened in South Africa. I know, because I was there and I saw it happen.

Faced with revolution in the streets, strikes, civil unrest and the sheer terror and murder practiced by Nelson Mandela's African National Congress (ANC), the white government simply capitulated in order to achieve "peace."

Westerners need peace. They need order and stability. They are builders and planners. But what we got was the peace of the grave for our society.

The Third World is different - different peoples with different pasts and different cultures. Yet Westerners continue to mistake the psychology of the Third World and its peoples. Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe are perfect examples of those mistakes. Sierra Leone is in perpetual civil war, and Zimbabwe - once the thriving, stable Rhodesia - is looting the very people (the white men) who feed the country. Yet Westerners do not admit that the same kind of savagery could come to America when enough immigrants of the right type assert themselves. The fact is, Americans are sitting ducks for Third World exploitation of the Western conscience of compassion.

Those in the West who forced South Africa to surrender to the ANC and its leaders did not consider Africa to be the dangerous, corrupt, and savage place it is now in Zimbabwe and South Africa. Those Western politicians now have a similar problem looming on their own doorsteps: the demand for power and treasure from the non-Western peoples inside the realm.

It is already too late for South Africa, but not for America if enough people strengthen their spine and take on the race terrorists, the armies of the "politically correct" and, most dangerous of all, the craven politicians who believe "compassionate conservatism" will buy them a few more votes, a few more days of peace.

White South Africans, you should remember, have been in that part of Africa for the same amount of time whites have inhabited North America; yet ultimately South Africans voted for their own suicide. We are not so very different from you.

We lost our country through skillful propaganda, pressure from abroad (not least from the U.S.A.), unrelenting charges of "oppression" and "racism," and the shrewd assessment by African tyrants that the white man has many Achilles' heels, the most significant of which are his compassion, his belief in the "equality of man," and his "love your neighbor" philosophy - none of which are part of the Third World's history.

The mainline churches played a big role in the demise of Western influence throughout Africa, too; especially in South Africa. Today's tyrants were yesterday's mission-school proteges. Many dictators in Africa were men of the cloth. They knew their clerical collars would deflect criticism and obfuscate their real aims, which had nothing whatever to do with the "brotherhood of man."

Other tyrants, like the infamous Idi Amin, were trained and schooled by the whites themselves, at Oxford, Cambridge, and Harvard. After receiving the best from the West, they unleashed a resentful bloodlust against their benefactors.

From what I have seen and read thus far, I fear Americans will capitulate just as we did. Americans are, generally, a soft lot. They don't want to quarrel or obstruct the claims of those who believe they were wronged. They like peace and quiet, and they want to compromise and be nice.

A television program that aired in South Africa showed a town meeting somewhere in Southern California where people met to complain about falling standards in the schools. Whites who politely spoke at the meeting clearly resented the influx of Mexican immigrants into their community. When a handful of Chicanos at the back of the hall shouted and waved their hands at them, the whites simply shrunk back into their seats rather than tell the noisemakers to shut up. They didn't want to quarrel.

In America, the courts are still the final arbiters of society's laws. But what will happen when your future majority refuses to abide by court rulings - as in Zimbabwe. What will happen when the new majority says the judges are racists, and that they refuse to acknowledge "white man's justice"? What will happen when the courts are filled with their people, or their sympathizers? In California, Proposition 187 has already been overturned.

What will you do when the future non-white majority decides to change the names of streets and cities? What will you do when they no longer want to use money that carries the portraits of old, dead white "racists" and slave owners? Will you cave in, like you did on flying the Confederate flag? What about the national anthem? Your official language?

Don't laugh. When the "majority" took over in South Africa, the first targets were our national symbols.

In another generation, America may well face what Africa is now experiencing - invasions of private land by the "have-nots;" the decline in health care quality; roads and buildings in disrepair; the banishment of your history from the education of the young; the revolutionization of your justice system.

In South Africa today, only 9 percent of murderers end up in jail. Court dockets are regularly purchased and simply disappear. Magistrates can be bribed as can the prison authorities, making escapes commonplace. Vehicle and airplane licenses are regularly purchased, and forged school and university certificates are routine.

What would you think of the ritual slaughter of animals in your neighbor's backyard? How do you clean up the blood and entrails that litter your suburban streets? How do you feel about the practice of witchcraft, in which the parts of young girls and boys are needed for "medicinal" purposes? How do you react to the burning of witches?

Don't laugh. All that is quite common in South Africa today.

Don't imagine that government officials caught with their fingers in the till will be punished. Excuses - like the need to overcome generations of white racism - will be found to exonerate the guilty.

In fact, known criminals will be voted into office because of a racial solidarity among the majority that doesn't exist among the whites. When Ian Smith of the old Rhodesia tried to stand up to the world, white South African politicians were among the Westerners pressuring him to surrender.

When Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe murders his political opponents, ignores unfavorable court decisions, terrorizes the population and siphons off millions from the state treasury for himself and his friends, South Africa's new President Thabo Mbeki holds his hand and declares his support. That just happened a few weeks ago.

Your tax dollars will go to those who don't earn and don't pay. In South Africa, organizations that used to have access to state funds such as old age homes, the arts, and veterans' services, are simply abandoned.

What will happen is that Western structures in America will be either destroyed from without, or transformed from within, used to suit the goals of the new rulers. And they will reign either through terror, as in Zimbabwe today, or exert other corrupt pressures to obtain, or buy votes. Once power is in the hands of aliens, don't expect loyalty or devotion to principle from those whose jobs are at stake. One of the most surprising and tragic components of the disaster in South Africa is how many previously anti-ANC whites simply moved to the other side.

Once you lose social, cultural, and political dominance, there is no getting it back again.

Unfortunately, your habits and values work against you. You cannot fight terror and street mobs with letters to your Congressmen. You cannot fight accusations of racism with prayer meetings. You cannot appeal to the goodness of your fellow man when the fellow man despises you for your weaknesses and hacks off the arms and legs of his political opponents.

To survive, Americans must never lose the power they now enjoy to people from alien cultures. Above all, don't put yourselves to the test of fighting only when your backs are against the wall. You will probably fail.

Millions around the world want your good life. But make no mistake: They care not for the high-minded ideals of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, and your Constitution. What they want are your posessions, your power, and your status.

And they already know that their allies among you, the "human rights activists," the skillful lawyers and the left-wing politicians will fight for them, and not for you. They will exploit your compassion and your Christian charity, and your good will.

They have studied you, Mr. and Mrs. America, and they know your weaknesses well.
They know what to do. Do you?

I have just watched the Tyne, Tees and Border News. One item was particularly interesting. A group of Iranians in Middlesborough were protesting about the unknown number of people killed in the last few weeks in Iran after the recent election. The protest was peaceful they asked for freedom. There was a similar protest in Newcastle last week.

Our democracy is far from perfect I am very critical of many things this government has done or not done in the case of affordable housing for everyone.

But I felt a sense of pride in British democracy that peaceful demonstrations against our own government or in this case a foreign government are part of the system. We can all take pride in something that took hundreds of years to achieve and the lives of many brave trade unionists and suffragettes, politicians and awkward characters like Tom Paine, who wrote ," The Rights of Man ". A famous man once said the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. There is a great need to keep ourselves well informed. The internet is one way that I have very recently discovered.

I just read the good news on the Guardian web site.

Bliar's friend Mandelson won't be getting richer by arranging the sale of part of the Post Office, and then joining the company that got it cheap. That's good for all those of us who use the Post Office, which is everyone except rich sods like Mandy, who uses couriers, I expect.

The article mentions the hole in the Post Office pension scheme.

As part of the deal, the government had been planning to take on the £10bn pension fund deficit, as well as to change regulation.

But now Mandelson has put himself on a collision course with Royal Mail, its pension trustees and unions by refusing to bail out the postal company's estimated pension deficit.

The trustees are expected to revise their estimate of the shortfall from the current figure of £3.3bn to at least £10bn in the next few weeks. This would require Royal Mail to more than double its annual payments to plug the deficit, which would bankrupt the company.

In case you don't know, and most people probably don't, the PO pension fund had a huge surplus, so the Tory government of the day allowed the Post Office to stop paying into the fund, although those of us working there still had to contribute. The Tory government helped themselves to all that money, and were directly to blame for the resulting shortfall that came about when stock values plummeted.

You will notice that "Call me Dave" Cameron is very very quiet about this theft, and he hopes we will all forget it, or just die, and let his mob of crooks back in.

You can't trust the Tories. You can't trust NuLabour. Folks, there's a lot of us out here who think a Democratic and Liberal third way would be a good way to get rid of Bliar's mob and keep the Tory thieves out.