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Showing posts with label waste. Show all posts

Rotten Boroughs : Gosport Borough Council

Apparently there is a little ray of light shining through for our cash strapped councils in their bid to cut costs without damaging front line services. Jollies are still on the cards!

In an effort to cut costs, Gosport Borough Council spent £7,350 on fact finding missions, including a trip to Madrid for a councillor and officials to investigate cutting the waste from...waste! Ironically, Urbaser, the waste management company they were visiting, has a base in the Isle of Wight - still overseas, but only a short ferry ride from Gosport.

LibDem leader Peter Chegwyn said: 'I think it's a shocking waste of public money - for a council that is considering millions in spending cuts, I am outraged that public money is being spent in this way. It's not the way public money should be spent.'

Quite right, Pete. Apparently the excuse was to blame - er - the European Union. The council said EU rules meant that it had to inspect the Spanish company in Madrid as well as its British rivals.

Mark Hook, Tory leader of Gosport, said that the visit to Spain cost about £1,000 and led to the awarding of a contract that would save the council £200,000 per year. Never heard that one before, Mark!

He said: 'These contracts are the biggest undertaking that the council has ever done. The services that Urbaser were tendering for were not being provided on the Isle of Wight and we needed a comparable service to look at. It's like buying a car - you wouldn't buy it without seeing it and talking to the seller.'

I would, however, like to point out that when I buy a Volkswagen I usually go to the local dealership not on a jolly to Germany...

Forest Chumps

Back in October, the government announced rather ill concieved plans to sell off vast tracts of forest under it's plans to 'substantially reform' the Forestry Commission.

This is a bloody silly idea because - as was discovered when the Scottish parliament came up with a similar plan - you might raise some capital initially but this all leaks back to the new owners. What is effectively happening is that the new owners have the right to chop down all the trees and profit from the timber whist at the same time having access to public funding in order to plant new ones! In fact we are likely to dish out more money to the new landowners than would ever be raised from the sales.

Just to prove the point, the Forestry Commission does occasionally sell off land. One such sale resulted in proceeds of £60,000. The new owner immediately applied for money under the English Woodlands Grant Scheme and was awarded £55,000 to plant new trees. And, of course, he can apply for further grants in the future...

The Forestry Commission is, in fact, a bargain. Last year it raised £75m from the sale of timber, thus costing the taxpayer a net £15m to provide miriad essential services such as tree sciences (e.g. research into potentially devasting diseases like Dutch Elm and Royal Oak), and regulation and licensing of the private forestry sector.

This idea was not thought through properly in the rush to cut the waste out of quangos, and makes no economic sense. It should be scrapped immediately.

Giving Aid to India

Over the next three years, we will give £825 million in aid to India.

Let's look at some statistics :

There are 203 recognised sovereign states in the world.

India has the 4th largest economy in terms of purchasing power whereas the UK is 6th.

The Indian economy has grown by 7.2% since the financial crisis, whereas the UK has managed 2.8%.

Economists predict that by 2020, India will be among the leading economies of the world, and they're pretty much on their way there now it seems.

In addition, it seems that India can afford a space program. It currently has 20 nuclear power stations and is building 4 more. It is a member of ITER - the project that is building an experimental fusion reactor. India has nuclear weapons and indigenous sources of uranium.

To sum up, it seems to be doing everything we are doing and in many areas it is doing more and performing better.

So why exactly, Mr. Cameron, are you giving them £825 million of our money when it seems that they ought to be giving it to us?

Autochugger has arrived...

Expect to see this soon on a cash point near you.

I heard on the BBC Breakfast News the other morning that some bright spark is suggesting a tie up between charities and Cash Point manufacturers which will 'give people the opportunity to make charitabe donations whenever they use a cash point'.

I can just see it now. 'This machine is sponsored by XYZ charity. Please make a donation in order to proceed further'. No donation, no money. Simples init?

Brilliant! So we spend a small fortune modifying all the cashpoint machine software to provide this 'opportunity' then we have to shop around the town to find the cash point that's sponsored by a charity we would actually be prepared to donate to.

This is a perfect example of wooly thinking that permeates throughout 21st century life - use the money that's collected in order to collect more money.

Here's a better idea - save the money and give that to the charity instead.

The Quango Song (What a Waste!)

Look - just 'cos I'm out flying somewhere over the ocean doesn't mean that I can't just interject the odd nugget...

Here's a song I did with my favourite backing group, the Blockheads, to commemorate, hopefully, burning (or in this case drowning) all those quangos - although I'll believe it when I see it

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Get ready for the winter of discontent

Apparently, Ed Miliband thinks it is OK for his party to support strikes to defend against the forthcoming budget cuts and privatisations.

Well that's fine, Ed. Except that it's easy to talk bollocks when you're in opposition.

Let's look at the one inalienable fact that no-one seems to be able to understand in your new Old Labour party : It is cheaper to outsource services than it is for local councils to do it themselves. Otherwise, they would not be doing it.

On the face of it, this is patent nonsense. How can it be cheaper to employ companies who build in profit margins? Surely, if the council uses it's own resources on a non profit making basis then it must be cheaper? But it isn't...

So why is this? Well, the simple fact is that council services are very inefficient because they are tied down by the restrictive practices that your marvellous Trade Union movement has saddled on local government.

So when you are standing out on the picket line protesting, remember - you brought it on yourselves...

Papal Quiz - The answers!

For those of you enthralled by the challenge I set you with my recent 'fake or real' Papal visit souvenirs, here are the answers :

Money Box : Real - available by mail order in the States!
Benedict-a-phone - I loved this one. Shame it's a fake.
USB Stick : Real. Honest.
Chef's Apron : Almost real - I changed the picture, but you can buy a Pope apron with the official visit logo on it.
Pope's Wine : Real - apart from the miracle bit of course. It's a genuine Californian winery.
Pope on a Rope : Real.
Papal Visits for Dummies : Fake - although there is a Roman Catholicism for Dummies so I only had to photoshop a bit of the title.
Talking Key Ring : Almost real. It doesn't talk but you really can get 'the power of the Pope in your pocket.'
Naked Pope Pen : OK - it's a complete fake!
3 Hail Marys Cocktail Shaker : Realish - the Pope Benedict cocktail shaker is real but I made the rest up!
I Love the Pope Knickers : 100% genuine.
Benedict Condoms : Also 100% genuine. On the other side of the packet to "I said NO!" is printed "But we say YES"
Pope's Special Ale : Real - but I doctored the picture on the beermat
Pope Candles : 100% genuine
Flashing Pope Cigarette Dispenser : What do you think? Of course it's a fake - but wouldn't it be great if it was real?

And the one that got away is pictured above. It's a board game called "Conclave - How men become Pope" and it's available via mail order from the official Vatican gift shop.

The prices are of course complete bollocks, but I'm sure the Vatican would charge this much for similar tacky tourist trash if they thought they could get away with it. Just look at the prices of their tour T-shirts!

So how many did you get right?...

Apeshit!

I'm off on holiday shortly (Yes! Again...), and have just recieved my tickets - along with a letter telling me about the latest invasion of our privacy and civil liberties.

APIS or Advaced Passenger Information System is yet another legacy from the bullshit Brown governmant foisted upon us because, of course, the Yanks have it so it must be essential for us!!

"Your airline is legally obliged to collect passenger information from all customers (including infants) who are travelling to, and in some cases from, those countries involved in your itinerary that require information, for electronic transmission to the relevant country's Customs and Immigration authorities prior to departure."

So I get a snotty letter from the tour operator telling me to go to a website and fill all this shit in. Apparently, this information will be "kept for no more than 10 years by the British Government." So now they are keeping a check on my movements in and out of the UK. I am, I might add, travelling to an EU country which, in theory, means that I don't need to use my passport (ha! ha!) so this new database gets around that one.

And if that's not bad enough, I am visitting the US for a couple of hours later in the year, so of course now I need to fill in their version - ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization). Even though I am eligible for visa waiver, I have to pay $15 to register that I am coming! I woudn't mind, but I am only changing terminals and flying straight out again.

Still, all this bullshit keeps the bureaucrats in a job and keeps track of all the plebs. Orwell would have loved it.

I'm getting a T-shirt printed : "I'm going APeshIt with ESTA" and on the back "Am I API? No - I ain't" which should impress immigration no end...

Papal Visit souvenirs [3]

As promissed, here are some more items from our Dioclese.co.uk papal visit souvenir range. Today we concentrate on our range of special sex aids :

Prove to the bad boys that you're a good girl with these I Love the Pope knickers! When it gets right down to it, you know that sex before marriage is a big no no for us catholics and he's going to think twice before trying to rip these off of you!

Protect your virginity for just £22.99

And if the previous item just didn't do it for you, then better safe than sorry with these Benedict Condoms.

Available in five fruity flavours, there's a reminder from his Holiness on each packet that this really isn't what you should be doing. But then we all give in to a little temptation now and again...

Packet of 5 just £12.99

And if you're feeling tired and worn out after all that illicit sex you shouldn't be having, what could be better than a nice cold beer?

Brewed especially to help you celebrate the papal vist, why not relax with a pint or two of Pope's Special Ale.

Available for a limited period on draught at selected churches or order a six pack from us for only £11.99 - Hmmmm. that's nice...

Let's face it, there's nothing worse than the lingering smell of sweat and beer.

So if you don't want your parents or even your kids or partner to know what you've been up to, just fire up these delightful hand moulded incense scented Pope Benedict Candles...

Cover up all your sins for only £19.99

There's nothing better after a shag than a fag and the Flashing Pope Cigarette Dispenser is guaranteed to satisfy.

Just pull down on the staff and the cassock spreads and lifts to reveal a nicotine erection down below - if you get my drift...

And that's not all! Flip back the head to reveal a cigarette lighter.

Raise your spirits for just £39.99

(PS. Here's a little competition for you : Which of these past three days' items are real and which are not? See how many you can get right! Answers on Friday.)

Papal Visit souvenirs [2]

Following on the recent launch of our Dioclese.co.uk special papal souvenirs, here's some more items from our Pope Benedict 'Kiss the Ring Tour' range :

Feeling unclean? Then try our Benedict brand Pope on a Roap soap!

Guaranteed to reach the parts that other soaps cannot reach, this papal soap will cleanse you of all your sins and leave you feeling totally pure.

Please note this product is not suitable for use on the genital areas of young children

Yours for the trifling sum of £14.99

Get the most out of Pope Benedict's UK tour with our new publication 'Papal Visits for Dummies'.

This updated book gives you the invaluable insights you need. Learn how to get the best seats at personal appearences; how to ensure that your name is included in the papal blessing; how to obtain direct absolution for all your sins.

These and many, many more for only £49.99

Get the power of the Pope in your pocket with your very own Pope Benedict talking key ring.

Made from high quality genuine polyurethane, you can always rely on this Pope to absolve you from the rigours of everyday sinning. Just give him a little squeeze and hear the Pope announce 'In Nomine Patre, Te Absolvo!

A bargain at £15.99 - batteries not required (runs on faith)

Here a little novelty item sure to please!
You've seen those pens where you turn the it upside down and the girl's clothes fall off? Well, here's a chance to own your very own 'Naked Pope Pen'. Just turn it upside down, and watch that cassock fall away.

Breaks the ice at any party for only £9.99

Still trying for that perfect cocktail? Well, the answer is in the timing!

Just throw your intoxicating mixture into our '3 Hail Marys Cocktail Shaker' and shake away. The speaker in the bottom recites 3 Hail Marys at the perfect pace to ensure your cocktail pours out just the right moment.

A perfect drink and absolution all at the same time for just £39.99

Just watch this space for more items from our exciting range coming soon...

Papal Visit souvenirs

To mark the visit of his Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to our shores in September, Dioclese.co.uk has launched a range of tasteful commerative merchandise.

Here's just a few items from our carefully chosen range :

Our limited edition Pope Money Box. Made from 100% authentic organic plastic, this very special box comes complete with two slots for your money so you can save one for yourself and another to give to God on Sunday!

Our price just £29.95

Made especially for us by our friends at Fanasonic, the Benedict-a-phone takes your messages while you are out and has the added benefit of giving all your callers a papal blessing personal recorded by the Pontif himself.

All this for a giveaway price of only £249.99!

Keep your sacred memories safe with this Pope Benedict USB memory stick.

Guaranteed to impress all your geeky mates, this state of the art devices stores an almost limitless number of prayers and blessings for a truly miraculous price of only £1.99

Worried about your soufflés going flat? Burnt the Sunday dinner? No rise in your yorkshire puddings? Never worry about these things again thanks to our Pope Benedict chef's apron.

Made from highest quality PVC and decorated with a tasteful portrait of his Holiness, your cooking worries will be a thing of the past. With the representative of God on Earth looking on, your cooking will become truly blessed!

Great meals guaranteed for only £75.99!

Looking to impress your guests at that all important dinner party? Here's your chance with our special reserve 'Pope's Winery' wine!

And here's the clever bit : You don't have to make a choice between white and red, because this very special vintage comes as clear water with detailed instructions for turning it into the wine of your choice as you pour.

Miraculous, or what!? And even more when you find it's only £499.99 a bottle.

(Each bottle comes with a certificate of authenticity signed by Pope Benedict himself)

The Living Wage

In a pathetic and feeble attempt to make headway in the Labour leadership race, nothing can be more calous, calculated and desperate than the recent attempt to jump on the bandwagon by Labour's own talking horse "Mr Ed" Miliband.

Blatently trying to drum up anti-Tory left-wing votes, Mr Ed has decided to send out a letter pledging his support for the 'Living Wage' campaign.

So, when you are living on the breadline, here's just a few suggestions as to how you can make your wage packet into something that enables you to make ends meet :

Don't go down the pub every night
Give up smoking
Make eating in the new eating out and learn to cook!
Dump your mobile phone contract and get a PAYG phone for incoming calls
Cancel your Sky telly subscription
Stop buying iTunes for your iPod
Buy non-designer label trainers
Cut up all your credit cards
Cancel that foreign holiday
You don't have to have the latest gadget
Don't run a car
Get some skills training and a better job

Drinking, smoking, telly, mobiles, iPods, designer trainers, holidays in the sun and motors are NOT - despite what Mr Ed would have you believe - part of your inalienable human rights. What should come top of your priority list is putting food on the table, clothes on your back and keeping a roof over your head.

And if you carry on as you are doing, then some nice eastern european person will come and take your job off you because they seem to manage quite nicely on less than you get paid. Sadly, people in this country have no idea what real poverty actually is.

You already have a 'living wage' but many of you are just too self centred and greedy to manage it properly...

Oh Shit! It's the 2018 World Cup!

Just when you thought is was all over for another four years and you were coming to terms with yet another boring football season being foisted upon us, news this week that the FIFA inspectors have arrived to inspect England's facilities in connection with their 2018 World Cup bid.

Frankly, I can't believe that having successfully bid for an Olympics that we have no money to pay for, that discreditted load of shitbags known as the Brown government has dropped us in it for another load of pretentious, unaffordable flag waving.

It's time this country came to terms with the fact that we don't actually have any money - something the coalition keeps ramming home. So where exactly is the money going to come from to pay for this load of gobshite!?

And if you want any more evidence that this was thought up by a load of fucking idiots, take a look at the picture above - 3 cunts for the price of one!

Jack Shit Gordon (The makework song)

I little while ago, I alluded to the fact that nobody works in the civil service. I got a bit of stick, but actually I think that there is so much makework in this country that it deserves to be laid down in song.

So here's a little number I did with the Blockheads that sums it all up. Enjoy!

Cutting the Police budget

Much has been said about budget cuts and how these will translate to cuts in front line services. It's an emotive subject - especially when it comes down to policing.

Which is why I was heartened the other day to listen to an interview on the BBC with a Yorkshire Chief Constable. He seems to think that cutting the budget by 12% would make no difference at all to the copper out there on the streets.

He went on to display admirable common sense by explain that we should be looking at rationalising thinks like HR services. Each service has it's own. Perhaps we could combine some or all of them?

He further explained that it is bad practice to used trained police officers in behind the scenes jobs that can be done by civilian staff. All good stuff...

But where will we get the rest of the savings from? Well, let's not forget the bonfire of stupid New Labour laws that the police and courts currenty have to deal with. By the time we have got rid of those, the load should be lightened a fair bit.

And then there's the paperwork. Simplifying that should even things out a bit too. Is 25% still looking unreasonable when you think about it?

No-one wants to see less coppers on the street - but I bet we'd all like to see less of them off the streets filling in forms?

Nobody works in the Civil Service

I have worked extensily in government departments over the years. It has definitely been an experience.

Take for example the man I sat next to in the Hydrographic Office who never said a word while the boss was in the office and then talked endlessly until the boss walked back in.

Or the man at the Property Services Agency who got me to do all the work and then put his mate's name on the paperwork.

There have been many other examples, but for the piece de resistance, I have to nominate the Rural Payments Agency. Here's why :

(1) There was an ex-contractor there I had worked with on another job. He was on a 12 month fixed term contract as a business analyst at £40,000 a year. He openly admitted to me that he had about enough work for two hours a week if he strung it out. He was counting the days until his contract ran out. I saw him on a bus six months later. He told me he had signed on for another 12 months because it was "easy money and just too good a deal to turn down".

(2) At the far end of the office was a manager who hardly ever seemed to be there. I asked my boss why. He told me that the guy had no work to do so he used to make up business trips for three days a week and come in for a few hours on the other two days "in between meetings".

(3) As contractors, we do all the work so the staff do as little possible. Because of this, I was doing the work of seven people who did nothing while I did it all. Their manager said to me one day "I don't like you and I don't want you here." "Never mind, " I replied. "You're a big girl and you'll get over it. And just think of all the credit you can take for my work after I've gone!" She thought about that and then left smiling.

(4) But the prize goes to the man two desks away who was remarkably similar to the above cartoon. I used to go home on the same park and ride bus most evenings. I asked him what he did. He replied "I'm a Civil Servant."
"Yes", I replied, "but what is it that you do?"
"I told you. I'm a civil servant. I've been a civil servant for thirty odd years."
I couldn't get past the barrier, so the next day I asked my boss what the bloke did. He told me that he did nothing, but he only had a few years to go until he retired and it was cheaper to let him sit there and pay him than it was to retire him early!

I can honestly tell you that from my vantage point in the corner of a huge open plan office, if you got rid of half the staff there would have been no appreciable difference.

My wife is an ex-civil servant. She is horrified at how things are these days. They certainly weren't like that when she was there....

Overseas Aid - again!

Yesterday, I gave you my views on how we could expand the aid budget to include our own people. But now I hear from the Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, that aid for Afghanistan is to be increased by 40%

"What!", I hear you say. "The aid budget is ring fenced."

Well, apparently in true political style we can get around that by redefining things.

It seems the total is ring fenced, but we can 'reprioritise' the order in which we give out the aid, presumably drawing a line when the money runs out?

Now don't get me wrong. If the increase in aid to Afghanistan means that we get the country in order more quickly and our troops come home sooner, then that's fair enough.

What I don't go along with is the principal that we can now apparently cut stuff off the bottom of the list to make room for this, but if we weren't doing this, then they would have stayed on the list. This makes no sense.

Why don't we just look at what we can afford - which, let's face it is sod all - and then take the things off the list that can be taken off and use the money to provide essential services for our own people and to pay off our debts?

I suggest, Messrs. Cleggeron, that you read this and yesterday's posts....

Charities - again!

I was appalled to hear on the breakfast news that councils are beginning to cut local charity contributions as part of our new austerity drive.

Apparently, council contributions to local charities such as community transport schemes account for as much as a third of their income.

And yet we continue to ring fence the foreign aid budget - putting people who live in other countries before our own citizens.

In a perfect world we could do all of this. But we do not live in a perfect world. We are in the shite...and, as they keep telling us, we are all in it together. Unless, of course, you live in a different country.

Some idiot the other day said we could cancel a couple of aircraft carriers and educate 4 million African primary school children for a year on the proceeds. But when we examine the statistics, we already apparently educate more overseas children in this group than our own.

Here's an idea for you, Cleggy. How about we redefine the aid budget which you insist on ring fencing to include funding for projects in this country as well - only let's put our own citizens at the top of the list.

After all, "charity begins at home"

Welsh is a dead language

Dear call me Dave,

If you are looking to shave a huge amount of money from the national budget, can I suggest that you need to look no further than the amounts spent by National and local government in translating everything into foreign languages?

It's ridiculous. If people want to live here in the UK, then they should learn to understand English. And if they can't read your literature, and let them get one of their mates to tell you what it says.

And while you're at it, you could also slash 50% off the money given to the Welsh assembly at a stroke!

I recently returned from a trip to Wales. Everything was written in two languages - first Welsh, and underneath in English. Except in the south, where it is the other way around. I wonder if there is a bit in the middle where it is side by side?

But I digress. The fact is that this costs hundreds of millions of pounds and is completely unecessary.

English is the official language of the UK not Welsh. There are 60 million people in the United Kingdom and some 600,000 people in Wales speak Welsh. That equates to 1% of the population overall and approximately 21% of the population of Wales.

The Welsh Language Society openly admits that there is less than 0.1% of the population who only speak Welsh - and those are preschool age children who are growing up in families that the speak Welsh as a first language.

Yet every street sign is in Welsh and English, Every shop sign is in Welsh and English. Every tourist leafet. every piece of official literature. I could go on, but you get the picture.

Think of the environmental cost! Bigger signs, more paint, more ink, more paper. And why? The people who read them all speak English!

The Welsh assembly has interpretors who sit in on its proceedings, translating live through members' headphones. I can understand this in the United Nations - but in Cardiff!?! It's ridiculous. Everyone present can speak English.

That is what happens when you give a tin pot little principality - note that I say "principality" not "country" - its own parliament. They piss money up the wall to make themselves look important and pass silly laws to make it happen.

And don't tell me that Welsh is still a live language - because they still speak Latin in the Vatican but that doesn't mean that every Italian street sign is in two languages.

Sorry, Taff, but the Welsh language is a quaint little anachronism and doesn't need to be plastered over everything in sight.

Get over it and move on...

Working for charity

Recently, I had a bit of a moan about charities and direct debits. I expected to get slagged for it. I was amazed to find pretty much universal agreement.

I was reminded of an experience I had a few years ago when I was offered an IT contract for a well known international charity who shall remain nameless for fear of being sued for telling the truth.

The charity in question, who for the sake of argument we shall refer to as "Oxfam", controlled a lot of projects to help the local communities out in Africa. This is a good thing and it also generated work for the locals in not only building the thing, but also in keeping track of what was being spent.

I am a great believer in helping people help themselves. It builds their self respect - so when this project was described to me, I was a bit taken aback.

The idea was to spend huge amounts of money on a laptop based computer system to enable the local project managers to keep their own records and then send them back to HQ via satellite links.

"What's wrong with that?" you ask. Well, I'll tell you :

(1) For every system that was being rolled out, we put three or four local clerks out of work thus depriving them of the opportunity to earn money and damaging the local economy.

(2) The money being spent on the system was depriving starving natives in Africa of food.

"That last one's a bit strong, isn't it?"

Well, no actually. The idiot interviewing me told me that for every £1 he knocked off my hourly rate, he could feed a starving family in Africa for a week. I asked him how many he could feed by scrapping this daft system.

"I think you're missing the point" was his reply.

Actually, I dont think I was...