Leatherhead Matters

 The Commission for Social Care Inspection says there were 275,000 people in need of social care who receive none, while another 450,000 suffered shortfalls in care due to funding cutbacks to Local Authorities. Their report says one of the consequences of this is that fewer frail pensioners & disabled citizens were receiving home care support in 2006 (358,000) - than in 1997 (479,000) when the Government came into power - despite the ageing population.

A sorry story of the warped priorities of a Labour Government which espouses concern for the vulnerable in our society. Read more on the Commission’s report -

BBC NEWS | Health | Needy ‘face social care struggle’

Britain is accused of becoming a surveillance state as authorities, including councils, launch bugging operations against 1,000 people a day. Councils, police and intelligence services are tapping and intercepting the phone calls, emails and letters of hundreds of thousands of people every year, an official report said. Read more HERE.

This report amplifies a post I made a couple of weeks ago UK Worst Nation in EU for Surveillance of Citizens

It appears that not all phone tapping is done by the state. There is obviously a high demand for domestic phone tapping equipment, judging by the new device Logitech plan to launch in Japan in June. Since Britain is officially the surveillance capitol of the western world, look out for an english version, in the stores before the end of the year!

New Labour was elected with the mantra of “Tough on Crime, Tough on the Causes of Crime”. We have now had a string of Home Secretaries who try to show how tough they are. As we know, after nearly 11 years of New Labour most of it has been hot air. Well we have a recently appointed Home Secretary who has an incentive to demonstrate she can be tougher than the men who preceded her.

But, is she tough enough to adopt the same approach as the Germans………..or, perhaps the Americans?

Somehow, I don’t think the nice Ms Smith will follow either of these examples. She will follow the well trodden  route of her predecessors ….talk tough! Which is probably why even more of the population will “not walk the streets after midnight“

It used to be that the grandees of the political class were independently wealthy. I’m sure there were still unsavoury financial scandals but, there appears to have been a sea change over the last 15 years or so. MPs now enter Parliament with no other prior experience…and the lure is not service to their country but, now it’s the dough, the dosh, the lolly  and spondoolicks. Perhaps in a reflection of society itself, MPs are also more brazen about the way the extract our cash for their own use.

Take the example of Tory MP Derek Conway who has extracted ₤50k of tax payer’s money to pay for a research assistant. Sound legitimate? It did to me. Except the allowance was claimed to pay his 19 year old son who was in full time education at University. There is no evidence any service or, work was provided by his son.

With recent serial revelations about dodgy donations, like Peter Hain’s (who appears to have had a money laundering scheme via a Trust which did nothing but launder undeclared money to Hain), I am left with a queezy feeling about the state of our democracy.

In what appears to be a personal feeding frenzy, ethical behaviour has gone out of the Parliamentary window. MPs, out to fill their boots, have realised that there are no effective sanctions. Mr Conway for example may simply be suspended for a week or two and then is free to resume his snuffling in the trough. I sincerely hope either David Cameron or the Old Bexley & Sidcup electorate apply the ultimate sanction.

Update: Noon 29.1.07

Mr Conway has form. It has just been reported that he first started paying his family for non existent research with his eldest son, between 2001 & 2004. The pressure is mounting on Dave to demonstrate leadership rather than let this one run.