Full of a Cold

I feel like shit today. My head is blocked, my nose is blocked and my chest feels tighter than a Sumo’s jock strap. I’ve conscientiously upped my Vitamin C intake this year, it’s not saved me from getting a cold but I was hoping it would help me get over it quicker.

I’ve been online and checked the NHS website and one or two other reputable health websites and it seems most of the evidence points to the fact Vitamin C doesn’t really help with colds at all. It certainly doesn’t help once you’ve got the cold. If you have the RDA of Vitamin C everyday over a long period and then catch a cold it might help you get better a little bit quicker but only fractionally.

So where does this widely held belief that Vitamin C helps prevent colds come from? The American Chemist Linus Pauling was one of the first to argue that Vitamin C can help reduce the risk of catching a cold and reduce its severity but it looks like he was wrong.

In defence of Vitamin C it is a great anti-oxidant and it also prevents Scurvy but as a cold cure it isn’t very good. I’ll have to rely on the age old remedies like a hot toddy, sticking my head over a bowl of steaming hot water or having a soak in a piping hot bath.

No jokes about man-flu please!! lol

Lib Dems Commit Suicide

I’m very disappointed that the bill to increase tuition fees has been successful. The Lib Dems should be ashamed of themselves. They signed a pre-election pledge to vote against any increase. In the end only 21 of them had the balls to vote against the bill with 8 of them abstaining.

Nick Clegg has spent the last few days insulting the public and the students by saying the policy isn’t bad it’s just that people don’t understand it. We do understand the policy Nick and it’s disgraceful. He keeps trying to tell us that it’s not that bad because students won’t have to pay anything back until they are reaping the benefits of their education and earning £21,000 or more. Well let me tell you Nick, £21,000 isn’t very much these days. A great deal of non-graduate jobs (including mine) pay that much.

Imagine a student who has to pay £9,000 on tuition fess and takes out a £4,000 student loan each year of a 3 year course. Total debt £21,000. If the student marries another student or graduate with a similar debt they are staring adult life with a combined debt of £42,000. If they want to buy a small house in the town where I live (one of the cheapest places in the country for property prices) they are going to need a mortgage of at least £75,000.

That means before they have even considered having any children and raising a family they have a combined debt of over £117,000.

This whole episode is going to be very damaging for the Lib Dems:

How are they going to campaign at the next election?
Nobody will believe a word they say.

How will they be able to campaign against the Tory party on the doorsteps?
They can’t as they are the Tories partners in crime.

Well done Nick! You and Vince have destroyed the Lib Dems as a political force. I would be amazed if the party gets more 10% – 12% of the vote at the next election.

John Lennon

As I’m sure you are all aware today marks the 30th anniversary of the murder of John Lennon. I was only 5 when he was murdered but I vaguely remember the day. I was playing at a friend’s house when his Mum came running into the room in tears and told his Dad the news. My little friend and I had no idea who John Lennon was and after his Mum had calmed down we carried on playing with our toy cars. Other than that I have no real recollection of the day.

Anyone reading my Blog won’t be surprised to hear that Lennon is one of my heroes. Lennon wasn’t perfect, he had problems with Heroin addiction and he can also be criticised for the way Julian Lennon was treated (it would be unfair to say it’s all Yoko’s fault) but his music both as a solo artist and with the Beatles is remarkable. Lennon wrote some of the most inspiring music ever recorded. Imagine, Give Peace a Chance and Working Class Hero are personal favourites from his solo career. I also admire him as a peace campaigner and political activist. It is easy to mock the ‘bed-in’ and ‘bag-in’ protests but they did garner massive publicity for the peace movement.

The Beatles changed music and popular culture forever. The impact their music has had on millions of people across the world has never been matched. McCartney may have been the Beatles’ musical brain but Lennon was its musical heart.

John Lennon - “I'm not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I've always been a freak. So I've been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I'm one of those people.”

Bloody Freezing

It was bloody freezing this morning when I was driving to work. It took me ages to clear the ice from my car. We haven't had that much snow where I live but what snow we have had has now turned to ice and the pavements and roads are very slippy.

If you have to travel today please be very careful and drive slowly. Give yourself plenty of time and take some provisions with you just in case you get stuck. Make sure you have got some warm clothes or a blanket in your car. Ensure that your phone is fully charged so you can make a call in an emergency. It's all about being sensible.

Live Music

I went to see Madness at the Manchester Apollo on Tuesday night. They did all the classic hits like ‘Our House’ and ‘Baggy Trousers’. It was great fun. I’ve been to see quite a lot of live music this year. I’ve seen Blondie, The Manic Street Preachers and Gorillaz to name but a few and I’m going to see Paul Weller tomorrow night at the MEN arena.

What gets me annoyed is the ticket prices and how far in advance the tickets come out. I booked tickets yesterday to see The Specials at the Apollo. The gig is not until next October and the tickets cost £45 each! I don’t know if this ticketmaster’s fault, the promoters fault or the bands fault but the tickets are far too expensive and making people book almost a full 12 months in advance is crazy.

I'm Rich!!!!!

Well it’s Friday for me and it’s my last day before joining a new team at work on Thursday. My working life is going to dramatically change. In many ways I’m taking a backward step but I’m going to look on it as a new opportunity.

I’ve had a very tough couple of years and it’s not easy when times are hard but I always try and count my blessings. It’s not as important as family, friends and health but one of the things I always remind myself is just how disgustingly wealthy I am. When I say this to people who know me they laugh. My wage is slightly below the UK average. I don’t live in a mansion; I live in a 2 bed terrace. I don’t drive a sports car; I drive a 10 year old Astra. Despite all this I am actually very very rich:


• The average person in India has to survive on less than $2 per day. In Africa it’s less than $1 per day. The average global annual income is thought to be about $5300 (£3385).

• I live in my own house and I have central heating, running water, electricity and piped gas. Many in people in the world will never have these things.

• I’ve got televisions, DVD players, an iPhone and a laptop.

• I can take holidays abroad and stay in nice hotels.

• I can afford to buy foods that are a luxury and a treat. Many people buy food to survive.

I know wealth is relevant to the society we live in but when I look at the facts I’m very lucky, in a financial sense, to have been born in one of the richest nations on Earth.

As we are one of the richest nations on Earth surely we can afford to provide a first class socialised health service, free education, decent residential care for our elderly and all the other things that make a society civilised.

Maybe, we could do even more!

If every country in the world stopped spending money on weapons to kill each other with we could afford to educate every child on the planet, provide a decent level of healthcare for everyone and still have enough money left to develop new types of energy so we can end our destructive reliance on Oil.

Christmas Shopping

I know this is unusual but I saw an interesting item on Sky News yesterday. It was about the first big Saturday for Christmas shopping. The guy from Sky was at a department store reporting on how the current financial situation is impacting sales. He was interviewing the manager of the store (a funny looking orange coloured woman) who explained that sales of lower priced products were poor, but the sales of high end items like Champagne, expensive jewellery and luxury food items were doing very well indeed.

What further proof is needed that we are not all in this together? The recession, banking crises and subsequent government cuts are having a far heavier impact on low and middle income families than the high earners.

According to Sky News the average person earning average wages expects to spend £490 on presents and entertainment this Christmas, down from £548 in 2009. There are so many people living in fear of losing their jobs over the next 12 months that they are terrified of spending cash and even more scared of using credit cards.

So while Nick, George, Dave and all their upper class and rich banking friends enjoy an opulent Christmas the rest of us will have to try and do it on the cheap.

At least the young people in our society are waking up and fighting back. The students are setting the example and it’s high time the rest of us followed their lead.

New Job

I’ve managed to get a new roll at work and it’s on my current grade. I’m pleased even though it’s not exactly the sort of roll I wanted. I must confess that I’m a little bit nervous. It’s always a bit frightening starting a new job with new people.

After what the banks have done to the economy I’m just happy to have a job. The thought of being unemployed, even with a redundancy payment, was terrifying. Cameron and Osborne have announced cuts which are so severe that an estimated 1.5m people across both the public and private sector are going to lose their jobs. My heart goes out to all those people facing a very uncertain future.

Student Demonstrations

I don’t condone the violence but I can understand it. The whole principle of education being a right not a privilege is at risk. All 3 of the main political parties are in favour of charging for university education but education should be free of charge. It should be paid for through taxation.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that there would have to be huge rises in income tax. If the government forced big business to pay the billions of pounds of corporate tax that is owed to the British people there would be more than enough to keep education free. There would also be plenty left to reduce the severity of the cuts needed to bail us out of the mess the banks have caused.

Dangerous Driving

I was driving to work this morning when a car came flying past at high speed overtaking me and the car in front of me. The driver then tried to overtake the next car but had to bail at the last minute as a bus was coming the other way. He had to break hard so I had to hit the breaks as did the car behind me and so on.

As soon as there was a space he overtook the car. Further up the road I found myself behind him again and watched as he went through a set of lights just after they had turned red. A little further on in my journey I hit some traffic and noticed that the same car was a little further down the road. He was back to his old trick of overtaking and in the process of doing so nearly hit a car coming the other way. He was causing chaos and people were breaking and beeping their horns at him.

Well it turned out that this moron works in the same building as me. He nearly killed himself and other roads users and all it achieved was getting him to work 2mins quicker than if he had driven more sensibly. I know he only saved 2mins because he had just finished parking his car as I arrived at the entrance barrier.

I parked my car and then walked over and told him exactly what I thought of his driving. I would never resort to violence but I’m a big bloke and he looked more than a little concerned that he was about to find himself at the business end of my right fist. He is a typical example of a kid who is cocky and ‘hard as nails’ when driving his car but then whimpers like a frightened little boy when standing toe to toe with someone older and bigger. I honestly thought he was going to start crying.

If I see him driving like that again I’m going to take a note of his number plate and then report him to the Police.

The Celtic Tiger

The Celtic Tiger has turned into a Celtic kitten. Over the last 3 years The Irish economy has imploded. The growth in the boom years was based on the property market but this has subsequently collapsed. Property prices in Ireland have fallen by around 50%. This has left the Irish banks with a problem as they lent huge sums to property developers and to the public in the form of unaffordable mortgages. As a result of this the banks needed a bail out by the Irish government of £39bn. This has subsequently resulted in an Irish budget deficit equal to 32% of its GDP.

So why has the UK agreed to ‘loan’ Ireland £7bn at a time that our economy is a mess and we are making huge cuts to our public services?

RBS has loaned £53bn to Northern Ireland. As RBS is a semi-nationalised bank the loan is insured by UK tax payers. If the economy of the Republic of Ireland goes under it’ll end up costing the UK a lot more than the £7bn we’re ‘loaning’ them. This is all due to the fact that the Northern Ireland economy is so heavily reliant on trade with the Republic.

So we are bailing out badly run banks using tax payer’s money at the expense of public services again. This time it isn’t even our own banks! I don’t want us to ‘loan’ Ireland more money than the entire amount Osborne wants to save by destroying the benefits system but we haven’t got much choice. We can’t afford to let Ireland go under but we can’t afford to save it either.

This is just another example in a long line of Capitalist created economic disasters. Our democracy has yet again been hijacked by a small group of highly influential bankers. They have a power over their fellow men and women that few governments have yet they are unelected and unrepresentative.

We need a voice again. It’s time for people to stand up and demand some self control over their own economic futures. The economy should be run by the people for the people.

Elmander & Coyle

Johan Elmander came to Bolton at a cost somewhere in the region of £10m. He is Bolton’s most expensive ever signing. We all had high hopes that we had purchased a player who could score 15 – 20 goals a season.

Well things didn’t work out for Elmander and he struggled to score goals. He looked unhappy, he had no confidence and seemed to be a complete waste if money. Suddenly this season he has regained his confidence, he is playing with a smile on his face and he is scoring some wonderful goals. At the time of writing he is the joint top scorer in the Premier league.

When Owen Coyle took over as Bolton manager he inherited a record signing who was a flop but he has used his man management skills to turn Elmander from Zero to Hero. The difference to the dark days of the Megson era is palpable. Elmander himself has criticised Megson’s style of management. He said, “It doesn’t help to stare and scream at me. I got tired the more of it I heard. Owen Coyle is a great coach, who I really enjoy working with. As soon as he came to the club I started to play well, even though the goals didn’t come right away.” Well the goals are coming now and I for one owe Elmander an apology. After witnessing his performances under Megson I just presumed he was a bad signing who would never make it in the Premier League. Happily, I have been proved wrong.

Owen Coyle has completely changed the way Bolton play. He has turned a team of long ball strugglers into one which plays exciting attacking football. The atmosphere at the Reebok has improved 100% and the feel good factor has returned.

Thank God for Owen Coyle!

Never had it so good

It’s been a difficult month for me. The team I was on at work was disbanded and we were offered voluntary redundancy. The redundancy package wasn’t as much as I had hoped for so I have decided to stay and I’m looking for a new role. The company have protected my wages for 6 months but if I can’t find anything on my current pay grade I’m facing a massive pay cut. I’m keeping my fingers crossed because I’ve got a mortgage to pay.

During his spending review speech in Parliament George Osborne stood at the dispatch box and accused people of getting into more debt than they can afford. He thinks people should learn to live within their means. Well I did borrow within my needs and got a mortgage based my current wages. I now face a 20% pay cut so, like thousands of others, I’m in danger of having my ‘means’ taken away from me.

The banks have spent the last 15 years lending vast amounts of money to businesses which had virtually no chance of ever making enough money to repay the loans. They have lent money to people looking to buy homes in a vastly overpriced property market. Overpriced due to the 100%+ mortgages the banks were offering people in the first place.

I would just like to say to Mr Osborne that the banks must take some responsibility. Many of the people who have taken these huge mortgages are young couples who did so because they needed a home. A large number of them now face losing their job due to the cuts and the economic disaster caused by the very same banks that landed them in unmanageable debt.

During the same period the credit card companies (owned by the same banks) were constantly increasing card credit limits. Many people will say that just because the credit is available you aren’t forced to use it. If the fridge stops working, the car breaks down, the kids need new clothes etc. but you’ve no money it’s very difficult not to use a credit card.

Most of us live in the real world not the wealthy Tory bubble. We haven’t all got rich parents to bail us out when times are hard. Unlike Mr Osborne most of us aren’t the heir to a baronetcy or have a personal fortune of at least £4m. Unlike David and Samantha Cameron most of us don’t have a combined wealth of over £30m and parents that own half of Yorkshire. These people don’t know what it’s like to make ends meet, to live on minimum wage or to face losing their home when made redundant. Even Nick Clegg comes from a rich family of Bankers (his father is chairman of United Trust Bank, and is a trustee of The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation).

When they tell us we are all in this together they are lying. They have not introduced any huge changes to the banking system, they haven’t forced corporations to pay the £40billion owed in unpaid taxes, they haven’t dealt with the ‘non-dom’ tax status of people like Lord Ashcroft and they are still hitting the poorest people hardest.

The new Tory party is just as bad as the old Tory party. They steal from the poor and look after their own kind.

“Never had it so good”, don’t make me laugh!!

A Better Society Not A Bigger Society

David Cameron’s calls for a bigger society are complete nonsense. It was his party that killed British society. Thatcher even proudly declared, “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families”.

One of Cameron’s plans is for a kind of voluntary National Service where young people do work in their neighbourhoods. He thinks it will get kids off the streets and away from petty crime and drugs. The simple fact of the matter is that the kids who will volunteer are not the ones we need to target. The kids who volunteer will be the Girl Guides and Boy Scouts. It will be the kids from white and blue collar families whose Mum and Dad will drop them off in the car. The teenagers who hang about outside my local Co-op drinking cider won’t volunteer. The smack-heads who commit 90% of the burglaries where I live won’t volunteer. The kids who are constantly in trouble at school won’t volunteer; it will be the well behaved kids.

I know I’ve got a cynical attitude and I wish I could more positive about it but I live in a run-down Northern town with high unemployment and high crime rates. I see what is going on with my own eyes. A 17 year old boy was stabbed to death yesterday on a road less than a 5min drive from my house. I don’t want to harp on about his privileged background but Cameron has absolutely no idea about what it is like in the real world. The big society plan will not solve the problems in the huge, run down and crime ridden council estates where I live. It will not solve problems in the inner-cities.

The only way to tackle the social problems in Britain is to tackle the poverty in Britain. It has been proven time and again that if you reduce poverty you reduce crime. The places with the highest crime rates are almost always the places with the highest unemployment rates. The schools with the worst attendance records and lowest exam results are also almost always in the areas with high unemployment rates.

We can improve our society by ensuring we give young people some hope. We need to show them that there are rewards for hard work and good qualifications. We need to show them that they can expect more than a life of unemployment, crime and gangs. We need to invest in their future and we can do this by increasing taxes for the rich, forcing non-doms to pay tax and introducing the Robin-Hood tax on the banks. We should then pump the money into job creation and improve wages for nurses, teachers, the police and fire fighters. Show young people that the jobs that benefit society the most are the best paid because they are the most important.

We don’t need a bigger society. We need a better society. Get people out of poverty and into fairly paid work and we will get the better society we seek.

The media attack on Nick Clegg

Today is another sad day for the British media. The right-wing press have gone into full attack Nick Clegg mode. It is clearly a fully organised smear campaign as it can be no accident that all these stories have been published on the day of the 2nd leader’s debate.

Some of the headlines, especially in the loveable Daily Mail, show just how desperate they are. There is the Clegg in Nazi slur headline, the Clegg and dodgy donations headline, the Clegg in pro-Europe disgrace headline and the Clegg is a baby killer headline. Okay the baby killer headline is a joke but you get my point.

If I was Nick Clegg I would be quietly pleased about the media campaign against him. It is further proof, if any was needed, that the Tories are more than a little rattled by his surge in popularity.

Shine Manchester

It was the ‘Shine Manchester’ midnight walking marathon on Saturday night / Sunday morning. Over 7500 people walked the streets of Manchester raising money for cancer research. A friend from work and I were volunteer marshals on the night based at the Old Trafford pit stop.

The start and finish lines were at Manchester Central (formerly G-Mex) and live music from Blake kept everyone entertained whilst waiting for the walk to begin. It was a fantastic night and everyone had a great time. Some of the walkers were in fancy dress and others had the names of loved ones suffering with or lost to cancer stitched to their clothes.

The organisers hope the event will raise £1m for cancer research. You can still support cancer research by visiting the cancer research website:

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/

Pictures from the ‘Shine Manchester’ walk can be found by clicking the following link:

http://shine.cancerresearchuk.org/

National Insurance

A number of influential business leaders are backing Cameron and Osborne by saying that the proposed increase in National Insurance is going to create unemployment and force SME’s to close. They claim the increase will stifle growth and investment which could lead us back into recession. These business leaders are in charge of some of most respected companies in the UK so when they speak we should listen.

Or should we?

Aren’t these are the same business leaders who claimed in 1997 that the National Minimum Wage would destroy jobs and reduce economic competitiveness? They said small companies would have to close, large companies would lay off huge numbers of staff and that it could even lead Britain into a recession. The NMW has had no significant effect on employment. Neither has it had any significant effect on productivity. In light of this the Conservatives admitted they were wrong and in Feb 2000 decided to reverse their policy of abolishing the NMW.

I think the Conservatives and the business leaders backing them are wrong again. I believe the increase in National Insurance is the correct decision. The money will be pumped back into the economy and means that the cuts we need in public spending can be put off until we are certain we are completely out of recession. That extra £6billion will give us the breathing space so that when the time comes for the cuts they might not have to be as savage as we fear.

Cameron and Osborne looked clueless when the Subprime mortgage system in the US collapsed and the world was plunged into recession. They were wrong about the bank bailouts, they were wrong about nationalising Northern Rock etc and they were wrong when they said Labour shouldn’t pump Billions of pounds into the economy during the recession. Governments across the world, including the US, all said the Tory position was wrong. They were the do nothing party and it is lucky they weren’t in power when the proverbial hit the fan.

Rooney Injury

The Rooney injury that has got all of England in a pickle could turn out to be a blessing in disguise. It is only a few weeks back that my friends and I were saying it would be great if Fergie rested him for a few games. We knew this would never happen as United need their best player for the big end of season fixtures. So, as long as it isn’t bad enough to keep him out the World Cup, I’m rather pleased he has picked up this injury.

There is no secret that as a proud Bolton Wanderers supporter I have no love for United. So I’m happy that Rooney will miss the big match against Chelsea, the return leg against Munich and a few other Premier League games. The best thing about it is that if he isn’t playing he can’t pick-up an injury bad enough to stop him going to South Africa.

English players have usually played that many games during our domestic season that they are already knackered when they get to the World Cup. Rooney now has plenty of time to rest but should be back in time to play a few games before the end of the season in order to get match fit.

In an ideal world United will get knocked out of the Champions League and finish 2nd or 3rd in the Premier League. Rooney will come back just in time to go to South Africa, score a bag full of goals and inspire England to ultimate victory.

Cameron, BA strike and unions

The Tory party has traditionally had the attitude that trade unions are the enemy. They believed the unions were representatives for a working class that needed to be ruled not governed. It seems such an old fashioned attitude these days that it’s laughable.

The Tory party of today has tried very hard to move the agenda away from issues of class. They advertise and promote themselves as the new caring middle England party. They claim to be 100% in favour of the NHS. They want us to hug a hoodie. They play the environment card. David “call me Dave” Cameron tries desperately to show himself as an everyman rather than a privileged old Etonion.

Then suddenly we have the BA strike. Suddenly David Cameron is showing his true colours. The classic Tory response to a strike is to take a stance of non-negotiation and encourage strike breaking. This is exactly the position Cameron is taking in relation to BA. I have no doubt he will be the same with the railway workers.

Gordon Brown does has a conflict of interest, due to the financial support Labour gets from Unite, but he has taken the proper stance. The only way the BA strike will get resolved is through negotiation.

Over the next few years the government are going to have to save money. At some point there will be cuts to public services and minimal pay rises for public sector workers. There is also a high chance of protracted disputes in the private sector. This will undoubtedly lead to industrial unrest and possible strike action. We will need a government who will sit with the unions and the management in order to try and reach resolutions through compromise. Our economy is so precarious that large scale industrial unrest could be catastrophic. It would be a disaster for Britain to have a government who refuse to mediate and negotiate because of an outdated ideology.

Cameron may think Union bashing is a vote winner. He may love the thought of showing how tough he is by standing up to bullying “Union Neanderthals”. I think he will lead Britain into an economic whirlwind that will make the winter of discontent seem like a warm summer breeze.

Check out the link below that leads to a brilliant cartoon in the Guardian on this subject:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cartoon/2010/mar/20/david-cameron-british-airways-strike

Time for a change...

I really think it’s time we opened our eyes to the way the global economy is structured. I think it’s time for a change.

We currently live under a dangerous system of corporatism. This system lets a small number of private individuals control just about every aspect of the global economy. These people are bankers, business men and lawyers and they are unaccountable and secretive in their dealings. They have a legal duty to put profit before all other considerations. If they screw things up we can’t get rid of them because we didn’t elect them and most of us are not shareholders in their corporations.

Take the IMF as an example. The IMF is in my opinion a criminal organisation that crushes developing countries by forcing them to develop economies that benefit foreign corporations rather than their own citizens. The IMF is paid for with tax payer money but the tax payers have no say on how it is run. You can’t un-elect a bunch of bankers who are accountable to nobody. The IMF, which is based in Washington DC, still resists calls for it to be open to public scrutiny by an independent body. When a developing country requires IMF assistance (usually needed as a direct result of western economic dominance) it is forced to privatise its utilities and sell them to foreign corporations.

Look at Haiti. ‘Global Exchange’ claim the IMF forced Haiti to open its market to imported, highly subsidized U.S. rice at the same time it prohibited Haiti from subsidizing its own farmers. A US corporation called Early Rice now sells nearly 50% of the rice consumed in Haiti. Haitian farmers have been forced off their land to seek work in sweatshops, and people are poorer than ever. I have no reason to doubt this as I have seen evidence of the same thing happening across Africa.

In 2008 Bill Clinton made a speech to the UN in which he criticized the World Bank and IMF for their policies on food and agriculture. At one point he said the following:

“We need the World Bank, the IMF, all the big foundations, and all the governments to admit that, for 30 years, we all blew it, including me when I was President. We were wrong to believe that food was like some other product in international trade, and we all have to go back to a more responsible and sustainable form of agriculture.”

Also in 2008 a study completed jointly by analysts from Cambridge and Yale claimed that strict conditions on the international loans by the IMF resulted in thousands of deaths in Eastern Europe by tuberculosis as public health care had to be weakened. In the 21 countries to which the IMF had given loans, tuberculosis deaths rose by 16.6%.

I think it is time to restrict the power of the corporations, the IMF and the World Bank etc. We need to get away from the ongoing issues of us and them. I think we need to nationalise our utilities and encourage co-ownership through co-operatives in other areas of industry and retail. It’s time to rebalance the global economy and roll back the laws protecting corporate power. Some people think it’s too late and that we can’t change the course of international finance. They say we can’t do it. I think they are wrong. I say, YES WE CAN.

EDL Bolton

Police say officers had suffered "unwarranted attacks" by UAF supporters, resulting in injuries during yesterday’s incident in Bolton. According to independent media sources, including The Bolton News, just 2 police officers were injured. One was taken to hospital with a fractured finger and another for treatment to a dog bite. The only dogs at the protest were police dogs so that officer wasn’t injured by a demonstrator. As for the other officer, whilst I’m sure a fractured finger is painful, it can hardly be put down to him being attacked by a mob of angry left-wing extremists.

There was disorder at the event and I’m not defending anyone who caused trouble from the EDL, UAF or GMP. On the whole I think the police handled a very difficult situation quite well. I’m just saying that the injuries the two officers suffered should be put into their proper context.