A General Election Poll

We thought we would engage in a little exercise to see what people's views are regarding the upcoming General Election slated for 6th May.

The poll can now be found at the top right of the site and it consists of the main runners and riders cialis. Obviously there are others who will run in certain locations, such as the LPUK, but as they will only be in limited amounts and in places that are largely unknown (in addition to there being a lot of them that) you can simply choose 'other'.

What we're after is the general views of how people plan to vote. It will be up for two weeks, it may get a lot of input, it may not online pharmacy.

A lot of discussion has gone on here about voting recently, spoiling the papers etc, so I think it will be interesting to see how this pans out.

EDIT: In a bid to understand people's thoughts and reasons please feel free to email us in addition to your vote (link found under the header). In addition if you vote 'other', send as a quick line about who it would be for. Privacy will of course be respected cialis.

We will then include these views when we do a piece rounding this up generic viagra. We welcome your emails anyway of course, so if you have a view on something then get in touch generic viagra.

How Much Does The State Spend Telling You What To Do?

I recently commented that I was becoming sick and tired of being told I was about to die, to leave this coil, kick the bucket, to become deceased. Every time I turn on the TV or the radio I get an earful of how if I simply carry on being a good tax provider I will simply die. Sorry, DIE !

This all started with those adverts 'Would you start the night like this?' a while back, to which many, yours truly included, responded 'Yes, if I sodding well felt like it'. The state, it could be argued, was trying to educate young people about the dangers of excessive drinking on a night out. What it actually did was target adverts at people who weren't out getting bungalowed.

Which is me, since Gordon takes all my drinking money and the rest goes towards my gulag provision (or pension as it likes to be known).

It has now been cranked up since the state (sorry again, it was the bankers wasn't it, I forget. Remember, not Tony or Gordon) decided to borrow an awful lot of money trying to re-float the economy. More and more adverts are coming out telling me what I should do, but more precisely that I am about to 'DIE!!!!'

Yes, speeding will kill me. Drinking is a given. Smoking of course is in there. Drugs will kill me, if the NHS will let me have them of course. All the vices are included in a huge overdrive of state sponsored moralising. Join the Army, the Navy, the RAF, give blood, give organs (do that actually, they're important), choose life, look at me ma I'm top of the world!

When I was a wee lad these were fairly normal although you would have to say pretty standard. We had the awesome Charlie telling us that strangers were bad people and where would we have gotten the rave classic 'Charlie Says' without it? We had the Green Cross Code that gave Darth Vader some extra buntz, not to mention Kevin Keegan and some nifty squirrels.

In the 'Olden Days', which I think was just after 'Yore' and just before me as a wee lad, although much later than 'Ye Olde' and nowhere near 'Auld', the State often put out helpful little films which were usually about public policy. These are quite good though and I think healthy, you know, stuff like 'This year we have spent this much money on roads', or 'We plan to do this next year'. An odd idea isn't it, the state telling you what they are doing.

Not to mention the very handy 'If the Soviets drop the A-Bomb on 27 Sunnyside View, get under the stairs quickly', which sums up British attitudes to all out total destruction of the human race very well I think. And keeps the streets tidy. It always reminds of the bit in Blackadder when George, on retrieving his forgotten officer's stick, says 'Wouldn't want to face a machine gun without this'.

Indeed.

The modern versions are, however, altogether more direct. They are not informing you of things, they are not warning children about safety, they are telling you what you shouldn't do and if you do then you will die.

And the grand prize for your pay packets for all this telling? £540 million. Up 43% on last year. How much was it in 1997? Glad you asked, it was £230 million.

I will pause to let you digest that startling figure. No, not the girl from accounts, the number above. Done? Good (just ask her out, what's the harm?).

And who are the little fellows that spend that £540 million? You couldn't make this up: the Central Office of Information. Together with the Ministry of Justice that means we just need the Ministry of Truth to get the full set and a trip to Broadstairs.

On top of that, they are now the UK's single biggest spender on advertising and are credited with propping up the entire industry, mainly because most of the industry has slashed its spending.

Funnily enough the Tories have vowed to slash this huge budget back to that 1997 level, or 40%, whereas Labour have said they will maybe possibly cut it by maybe 20%. Well, when you are about to be decimated the advertising budget is not really on the list is it.

The 2008 anti-smoking campaign? About £28 million to you. But it's okay, because that apparently saw 171,000 people give up and saved the NHS £113 million. Great! Just let me work this out, so that's 171,000 times the duty, that's about £4 say, so that's one weeks worth so times that at let's say five packs a week..... oh look, that meant the revenue was down about £177 million a year!

Can you see the slight issue there? People have improved their health at a net tax loss of £92 million. Brilliant.

At least that's spreading the love around the firms though. No, no it's not as it goes. They have actually stopped using lots of advertising firms to do what they want and have selected M4C, part of WPP, as the stand alone provider. WPP it run by Sir Martin Sorrell. In 2008, WPP technically re-incorporated itself as offshore entity in Jersey in order to reduce an annual tax bill of more than £200million. So WPP are earning this money tax free. Lovely.

Sorrell himself was made an Ambassador for British Business in 1997, in 1999 he was appointed to the Council for Excellence in Management and Leadership. He was knighted in 2000.

Eric Salama is Group Director of Strategy at WPP. Salama worked as an adviser and speech-writer for the Labour Party front bench team for 3 years and Tony Blair appointed him to the Board of the British Museum.

I do like it when people get justly rewarded for their efforts, don't you?

So, not only do you get to have a 24/7 propaganda campaign telling you that you going to die and that you are an evil horrible person, but you get to pay £540 million a year to a group run by Labour party stooges that relocated offshore so they don't pay any taxes and in turn actually reduce the amount of tax brought in to pay off the debt mountain.

Have a nice day.

Ali Dizaei is Tony Montana

Do you think this is what Waad Al-Baghdadi meant when he said Ali Dizaei was like 'Tony Montana' from Scarface?

I hope they serve good Octopus behind bars.

Enjoy your time, Ali. Or as Montana would say...

"So long Mel. Have a good trip."

Not so cocky now, are you Ali?

In the words of the Sun: Gotcha!

Not so cocky now are you, Mr Montana?

And now that Ali Dizzy Rascal has been put away for 4 years (sorry, did I say 4 years? I forgot, we live in Britain. I meant 19 months) can we finally put to rest the sacred cow that is racial identity politics?

I'm being serious. If I hear the word 'community' suffixed to any given racial grouping (usually devised by people in bland London offices) once more, I will probably go on a random kill frenzy. I'm sick and fucking tired of it.

Dizzy Rascal was alleged to have been a representative of the London 'Iranian community'. Do you think Iranians in London really care about Dizzy, or that they ever wanted him to represent them in the first instance?

I am of Greek Cypriot lineage (from one parent) and I would lose my rag if someone arrogantly decided that, if something happened to a Greek Cypriot somewhere in London, I must therefore be affected as I am of the 'Greek Cypriot community'.

Fuck. Off. Cunt.

There is no 'community'. This is something pale skinned white people from certain London postcodes believe in. A bit like Santa. 'Communities', almost 99% of the time, don't fucking exist. It is an arrogant figment of a Liberal's over-excited, wank-festing imagination.

Just because I, or anyone out there, is of a certain background, and their genetics sort of merge with those of people from a vague general part of the globe, doesn't mean that we share intrinsic, cultural links and are bound by blood loyalty.

What the fuck is it with people these days, that they have to talk like this?

It's like where I live in the North. White liberals can't wait to ram this stuff down our throats about 'Muslim community' this, 'Muslim community' that. Eh? Does a Muslim from number 15 Acacia Road really care if something unfortunate happens to a Muslim person from number 86 Bellend Avenue?

No. He doesn't. Mr Muslim from number 15 cares about:

a) himself
b) his family
and
c) people that are close to him and represent his immediate interests.

That is fucking all, you cunts. What the fuck!

Multiculturalism, eh? You can't beat it. Well, it did alright for Dizzy for the best part of 20 years so he shouldn't complain that much. The greedy bent cunt.

Tiger Woods, Nike and Slave Labour In Thailand. Your Actions, Their Freedom

How much do you value your employment rights? Pretty highly would be my guess. You have a contract of employment and you get paid each week/month. Even if you are in the lowest bracket for income, you will still have enough money to live on and you will still have basic employment rights.

You get a lunch break, you get a tea break, you have hours of work. If your employer breaks these rules you can take them to court. All of this is due to the employment law that western countries enjoy. These laws create a basic framework that ensure your basic freedoms from your employer, unlike a hundred or so years ago when you were the worker and you boss was god.

Many of the reasons for these laws are quite simple: unions. The collectivisation of workers to form a body that represents their interests as a whole. As a larger body that would usually represent whole sectors, rights and practices were established to create security and freedom. Some unions may well go beyond this and become political, but fundamentally they are about getting a better deal for the employee from the employer.

Now imagine a country where none of these rights exist. It's not hard, because Thailand is just one example.

The link to Tiger 'Eldrick' Woods struck me this morning. He is a quarter Thai through his mother and has a huge contract with Nike, which has made him the richest sportsman in the world. Nike employ an estimated 70,000 people in Thailand at practically slave labour levels. Tiger Woods, therefore, is a very rich man because, in effect, his own relatives work for almost nothing with no rights to give the huge mark ups that allow Nike to make huge profits. Woods earns $55,000 a day from his deal with Nike.

Workers are actively stopped from organising, that is, forming a union. In fact production is being put through a series of subcontractors that do not allow unions.

That $55,000 a day is estimated to be worth the daily wage of 14,000 Thai Nike workers. To make that easy for you that means they are earning about $4 a day. But that isn't all, the factories are being closed and moved to more rural locations with even lower pay that results in earnings being more like $7 a week.

There you are, working away with no breaks and no social contact hoping your practically powerless union can help, then one day that's it. Factory closed, moved a few hundred miles away and your job given to a person that will do it for even less money and even worse conditions with zero union representation. You now have nothing and the person who now has your job is utterly powerless.

But a survey by the Global Alliance for Workers Communities covered 3,800 Nike workers in Vietnam and Thailand and that found that Nike workers in foreign factories feel safe and believe they are paid fairly though they want better health care and more training.

Nike paid for the study.

Here is a site that covers a series of cases about Nike in Thailand. Workers are not allowed to talk, conditions are poor. If a woman becomes pregnant she can be fired, something that is resolved in the Honduras plants by giving them contraceptive jabs.

The only reason these conditions exist is because companies like Nike allow it to and people like Tiger Woods sit back and take the cash without thinking about how that cash is generated. Of course, wages are going to be relative, but conditions don't have to be. Why is it okay for a 12 year old in Thailand or Vietnam to work 14 hour days in a locked windowless room with no ventilation, sitting on a block and churning out endless numbers of trainers and if they talk they get fired, but not in the West?

Freedom may be under threat in western countries with an ever expanding state and restrictions being placed upon what people can do, but in places like Thailand that freedom can only be dreamed of.

A huge amount is made of Woods' recent private problems, which when all is said and done has no effect on anyone other than his family, yet nobody raises the question of why he is so prepared to sit back and accept the dollars without standing up for the people that create them, many of which are from the same country as his mother.

It is when conditions like this are considered that the value of unions becomes clear. When you remove the rights of people to come together and broker better pay and conditions, the results can be disgraceful. Which is why unions were formed here in the first place.

People who argue that if better pay and conditions were allowed in these countries the prices in the West would become higher are deluding themselves. This isn't just Nike and other sportswear companies, it is the entire clothing industry, from Wal-Mart to LVMH.

The high street price is set at the profit they want to make, not the production cost. That pair of £100 trainers has probably cost no more that £1 to make, with research and development and publicity costs added on top. If the production cost were to be £3, the price of the trainers would still come out at £100.

In turn these corporations are propping up ruthless states. It is the employment of the masses at slave rates that produces the economic power of countries like China. It is what gives the poor of Vietnam and Thailand employment, without which they would probably rise up in revolt. In short, those jobs are creating a false society.

The campaign for greater freedom is not limited to our own borders. The goods hat we consume and the companies that make them operate far outside of them in places that have no freedoms at all. We can help those that cannot help themselves by fighting their fight as part of our own.

Think about what you are buying and by doing so what you are propping up. Because it is hypocritical to demand freedom here when your own economic activity ensures the removal of liberty for others.