Money Laundering

It is interesting to compare parliament's current difficulties over expenses with the much maligned un-regulated financial markets. This crisis didn't happen overnight - the chap in charge of the fees office told Michael Martin that there was a problem more than five years ago.
Whilst claiming these expenses isn't money laundering (its more like theft), the general case applies that in banking:

If you assist a money launderer – max 14 years’ imprisonment, a fine, or
Tipping off a money launderer – max 5 years’ imprisonment, a fine, or both;
Failure to Report a money launderer – max 5 years’ imprisonment, a fine, or both

Michael Martin has clearly failed to act upon reports of theft and fraud yet he faces no sanction. So much for bankers taking lessons from politicians.

Homophobic Conservative?

Nice to see that sly homophobic references are alive and well in the Tory blogosphere. Donal Blaney, that cuddly figure from YBF, has posted about MPs expenses and dropped in a not-so-subtle jibe at Alan Duncan's sexuality.
I'm no politically correct prude but why juxtaposition Alan Duncan's name with the phrase 'Uphill Gardener'
He has a track record of this kind of homophobia which isn't a nice thing to see.

Expenses

Its all very simple. If they know claiming all this money is wrong now, then surely they knew it was wrong when they spent ordinary people's taxes doing up, remortgaging and profiting from their second homes whilst literally getting fat at our expense. There should be criminal proceedings.

Hazel Blears is a cunt

Hazel Blears was on the news today trotting out the same line about her claims being in line with the rules of the house. She isn't the worst of them but since she has dared to show her stealing little ginger face, she can get my ire this morning. She redesignated her second home 3 times in a year in order to get money out of the taxpayer. She is a thieving cunt, if not in law, at least in the spirit of decency.
Then look at her own website: Lots of support for homeowners there!

Burning Books

Further to yesterday's post, it seems that Michael Savage is planning to sue Jaqui Smith for banning him. Reading what he is accused of, he doesn't seem to have said too much which marks him out from many thousands of people.
He famously described Autism as:

"a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out"

and called the Koran a "book of hate".
Its nothing that controversial really.
Are we going to ban Denis Leary, the popular comedian and Obama supporter who said

"There is a huge boom in autism right now because inattentive mothers and competitive dads want an explanation for why their dumb-ass kids can't compete academically, so they throw money into the happy laps of shrinks... to get back diagnoses that help explain away the deficiencies of their junior morons. I don't (care) what these crackerjack whack jobs tell you — your kid is not autistic. He's just stupid. Or lazy. Or both."

I don't particularly agree with him but where do we draw the line?

Nanny State

The BBC report today that a list has been published containing the names of all those people who are banned from entering the UK. On this list is the usual few oddballs and nutters but the language in the report does suggest a worrying trend.

Talk show host Michael Savage - real name Michael Weiner - is also excluded. His views on immigration, Islam, rape and autism have caused great offence in America.

I'm pretty sure there isn't a law here against causing offence. In a free society I don't want my government saying what I can or can't be offended by. This kind of thing does our country no favours.

Education

I posted a week or so ago about Universities and the expected rise in applications to Britain’s ‘New Universities’ caused by that cause-all, "The Credit Crunch". Since then I have been giving some more thought to the state of our education system and it isn’t too good I’m afraid.
This isn’t meant as a party political point but the Labour government has set itself a target of getting 50% of people into University, claiming that in the modern world economy we need an educated workforce. To some extent this is true since every day I study alongside students from China, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, Germany, France, Greece, Russia and a whole host of other countries which shows that Brits need to get their smarts up as well. However, the problem lies with how we do this and I believe that we are taking totally the wrong approach.

Sure we need brighter young people but there is no point trying to achieve this by creating more University places since this is way too late. Chinese students doing Maths or Physics at A-Level stage are doing a syllabus which is on a par with our undergrad courses in the same subjects. We are churning out thousands upon thousands of GCSE and A-Level graduates who don’t have the knowledge to compete with their global peers but in the UK we send them to University, give them a degree and tell them that they are the equal of any country’s graduates.

If more money was invested at GCSE and A-Level stage and people were allowed to fail here, then students would have higher expectations and gradually improve rather than the usual cycle of grade inflation we face each year.
Maybe in 10-15 years we will have 50% of young people able to go to University because they have the requisite abilities and possess the logical and reasoning skills to study at this higher level but we are deluding ourselves if we think we have loads of brainy grads just because we farm more people through Universities.