The Beast Within

As the dust finally settles on a week that has seen our Once Glorious Island humiliated & horrified, leaving our Government and its many Ministers poring over new policies & protocols that will aim to protect us from future “Self-harm” and disruption, we should not forget that the same Policy Makers & principal decision makers in this country have proved themselves time & time again to be as crooked, if not more so, than the swarm of rioters and looters that swept through our cities like a plague of locusts.

If we look at the actions of the rioters and the basic choice that they made,

The Choice to let “Greed” & “Desire” take the place of “Right” & “Wrong”

Then their actions are, in PRINCIPLE, no different too;

·         The M.P’s Expenses Uproar last year (had we all forgotten?) Ministers claiming for Gardening services. £16,000 for Curtains, Rent Holiday homes, I could go on…

·         Our Banking Bosses who plunged the country into financial chaos whilst pocketing HUGE bonuses for themselves, only to be bailed out by US, the taxpayer

·         The phone hacking scandal currently in question with regards to the press

·         The headlines & propaganda produced by the press and the tabloid coverage of the above subjects that all fuels anger at all levels of the social scale

·         The deep rooted corruption & bribery within the Police Force

When you add these to the latest scandal related to expenses, to hit our headlines, involving more than 140,000 public sector workers who, using government-issue, state funded credit cards, are running up an annual bill in excess of £1 BILLION on their Expenses, the complete picture is not a happy one. 

That same amount would have paid 50,000 nurses’ annual salary or would go towards preventing the proposed cuts to the Police Force at a time when the public mood is one of growing fear.

For a more detailed look at this, click the links below;

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1265743/Civil-servants-expenses-spree--1bn-charged-state-credit-cards.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2025760/Fury-taxpayer-gold-card-cover-Ministers-blame-head-Civil-Service-blocking-exposure-abuse.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

All smiles for Paul Leinster CBE, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency

 as he signs the £31,000 expenses claim he filed last year.

 On top of his £200,000 Salary  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10489120

As with the M.P scandal of last year, the list of payments made by the claimants would be laughable if the joke was not literally at our continued and growing expense

Paul Leinster CBE, chief executive of the Environment Agency, clocked up £31,181.59 from June 2008 to 

March 2009 - including more than £17,000 on hotel bills and £734 on a dinner for 13 agency staff.

Local councils also racked up huge claims

At Canterbury City Council alone, 91 corporate card holders spent £156,000 last year, of which £18,571 was on 'hotels and resorts', £1,052 on 'cruise liners' and £1,159 at 'toy shops'

Claims were also made for “entertainment”

Expensive wines for meetings

And one amateur dramatics fan even claimed for set design and sheet music for a production!

These allegations and revelations must surely be taken into account when we reflect upon & draw conclusions on the last week’s events. How can we hope that the most cut off, remote and lost parts of our society can 

reform themselves and heal, when their Moral leaders are so continually and publically exposed as at fault?

And the faults are not mishap,s they are equal to the raids on Dixons.…

Deliberate deception for reasons of greed and personal gain

 David Cameron himself stated in his address to Parliament,

“We will do whatever is necessary to restore law and order on to our streets”

Maybe we could just alter that Mr Cameron?

How about…

“We will ALL do whatever is necessary to restore law and order at ALL levels of our society”

We all have some form of responsibility in this. If we fail, then we will only witness Great Britain, what was once the largest and proudest empire on Earth, deteriorate further into a sad second rate state and our slow disappearance from the World Map

TheArtfulBlogger

Catch 22

As the barbaric and ridiculous chaos of the last few days winds down and as England wakes up from the destructive “night before”, nursing the mother of all hangovers,  our society has been plunged into a new age of unease and discord.

 The scenes that shocked & stunned us on the news have altered the nations psyche and how we view our fellow citizens in a way that cannot be undone.

 Sadly those same scenes have also served to humiliate us on the world stage…..

As the hideous realities of England’s “night before” become clearer and the 100’s of arrested & convicted rioters pass through our courts, which are working day and night to deal with the case load, only be sentenced to prison time that cannot be served in our crowded prisons or to rehabilitation that relies on organisations and support links that have seen massive funding cuts in recent months.

Jason white, convicted of theft, due for sentencing in October

What have these individuals really stolen, above the “Posh clobber” and swanky TV’s…(all at a massive cost to us, although most of these puerile minds seem to forget this!)

They have stolen the voice of a nation. The Right to freedom of expression and more importantly the right to protest. The final scraps of a National Identity are literally being razed to the ground before our very eyes.

We need to heal what David Cameron called “The Sick” amongst our society but what about the poison that caused it?

I believe that this is another demonstration of the “blame culture” that we live in today. For every accident or incident, for every grievance or complaint, someone is to blame.

Someone ELSE is to blame.

The rioters blame the Government, the Government blame the police, and the police blame the rioters. Catch 22.

This “New Modern Value” is a cancer that is rotting minds. Everyone feels isolated. Everyone feels they have been unfairly treated. Everyone feels they should be compensated or noticed. If this compensation does not materialise, the will clearly just take it.

To my mind, one word that should have proud place in the Dictionary seems slowly to be being eradicated from our minds.

“RESPONSIBILITY”

The deed of holding up our hands and saying “Yes I take ownership of this act or deed...I am accountable….  I will uphold my values!”

We must accept the fact that a core few members of our society feel so unjustly treated that they are happy to destroy the areas they live in and who have no sense of community. We must all take responsibility in curing the Prime Minister’s “sick”

So, as the clean-up begins and the cost of the destruction is totted up and added to our ever growing national debt

Surely, we are all left with some serious questions to answer?

For now my thoughts are with the families of those and who have lost their lives, the injured and bereft and with the lost souls of our country

TheArtfulBlogger

Chaos & a Girl Called Carol

International Countdown Legend, general Maths Boffin & The woman who thinks that the above look is acceptable “Red-Carpet” wear for a woman knocking 50, has been putting that famous IQ (which is almost as high as the hemline on that dress), to excellent use over the past 2 years it would seem.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14442094

The thinking man’s totty and the face of a million debt settlement agencies, has carried out an in depth study of our education system, focusing specifically on math’s, and has produced a candid list of recommendations.

These include;

· All learners continuing to study maths “in some form” until the age of 18

· For maths lessons at age 14 to be broken down further. To be made more practical and to meet modern needs more

· To include bill payment, mobile phone tariffs, day to day maths.

I have to say a huge bravo to Ms Vorderman. Yes, the report was commissioned by our present Government at a time when they were in opposition and so wasn’t an undertaking that the MILF felt driven to crusade for… she was asked to do it.

This fact does not however, in my eyes, weaken the study.

She was an inspired choice for the role and I my only hope is that the bureaucrat’s that instructed the study’s go-ahead now listen to the findings and take action.

It has long been my belief that the educational system in this country in its present state meets the need of only a few of those that pass through it.

I have always had an interest in education and more importantly “learning”, as a process…

This was only heightened by undertaking my Certificate or Education course at university, on the long and at times harsh road to teaching.

Gratuitous Shot of the day I graduated…

During the course and the research and personal development that it caused, I developed my own ideas, a set of personal teaching principles & theories of education that led to a more fully informed approach to the need for more “Individualized” teaching & learning in our schools and our society.

To break away from the current strategy of “this is what you must learn…” to the more holistic approach of “show me what you want to learn…”

In my own experience in the classroom, this approach served me well, with the students at least. Make the learner feel that they are in control of their own path and they feel much more ownership of that path and therefore more inclined to work at it and develop it. It is THEIRS!

There is, in my opinion, a problem with supply & demand in our schools. If Lord Sugar was involved in our education system at its present productivity it would have been fired long ago.

The National Curriculum supplies one thing. The modern generation of learner’s needs are quite another.

We have to take partial blame for this. The learner that passes through our schools in today’s age is a far cry from the one that passed through it even 20 years ago.

The age of the individual, the age of self expression is upon us. (Led most fabulously by the likes of Gaga, That Minaj thing, Jessie J. etc) The world is now at the touch of a mobile phone button or a website link. Our children have a clearer idea of self identity at a much younger age.

This must be addressed and factored into the approach that we have to learning and what we allow our generation of developing minds to focus upon. With the National Curriculum a dead dog in the water, we are letting our young minds focus on the plastic, throw away world of Jeremy Kyle, Katie Price and The Only Way Is Essex..A HIDEOUS prospect in the eyes of any rational person.

Maybe if our young minds felt that they mattered. Felt that they had been identified with or listened too. They wouldn’t feel the need to be burning our cities in the atrocious manner that they have in the past few days.

This is in no way to condone the actions of these Vigilantes. The opportunity for protest that is honest and is duly recognized has passed. Now the protests of a fractured few have been hijacked and the message has become a different one. One that is not tolerable any longer. This is now about chaos and self gain. The looting has spread to other cities around the country and the thoughts on the minds of these guerillas are only material gain and personal satisfaction.

So, as our country’s already stretched and tired resources are further drained by a spreading infestation of senselessness and greed as the ensuing disorder grows…

Someone. Somewhere. Surely has some questions to address…

TheArtfulBlogger

"The Fire Rages In Every Way"

Tottenham, London.

The title of today’s blog is a quote from the diary of Samuel Pepys, 1966 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Pepys). Pepys was a 17^th Century London M.P whose famous diary gives the reader a snapshot of the most colourful city on Earth at a time of great change and progress caused by the restoration of the monarchy after years of instability and unrest caused by civil war and the Interregnum, the posh name for the period when we were a republic & had no Royal family.. Bad times.

Anyway, I’m not intending to give you a history lesson but after watching today’s news and the coverage of the rioting, looting and general civil unrest that has been tearing Tottenham apart for the last 2 days (Link- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14442935) I couldn’t help but wonder what the famous diarist would have made of it all.

The weekend of chaos, where fires were started and stores such as Currys were looted, (if anyone hears of a flat screen going??? 42’’, mail me!) started after an initially peaceful protest was hijacked by angry young hardcore fanatics and developed into full on violence that has continued for 2 nights.

The protest or vigil was organised by the family of Mark Duggan, a 29 year old man who was accidentally killed by the gunshot of an officer from the Metropolitan Police’s “Operation Trident” unit, which focuses on black gun crime in the area.

The family of the victim felt the need to protest at the way the Metropolitan Police handled the case and at the level of information that was available and the level of contact that was offered during the days after. I feel for the family. The Met handled my mother’s case and they are incredibly tight lipped. The make YOU feel like the criminal with the approach that it is “Police Business, NOT your business!” not that easy to swallow when a loved one is involved.

The family of the man were not initially contacted for 48 hours after the initial incident where the shooting took place, a disgusting amount of time without even a call to acknowledge the loss, if nothing else.

 A complaint has reportedly been lodged with the Police Complaints Commission but sadly, this, in MY experience is a total waste of time. The Met does what it seems to do best, (well definitely better than catching criminals) they conceal, they deceive and they control all available information in matters that are deeply important for the family of the victim in order for them to come to terms and deal with their loss.

The result is a tangible disconnect between the police and the methods they use when handling delicate issues and situations that has (in my opinion) only ever served to antagonise and aggravate situations that could be quelled and calmed.

To whip up frenzy when it could be controlled.

 To fail where they SHOULD succeed.

The spokesman for the MET said that the police knew nothing of the fact that the rioting had been advertised on Facebook and other social networking sites.

 ADVERTISED?

These guys had rallied together from miles around but hadn’t worked undercover or in secret they had advertised their plans. And the police missed it. 

Surely this is another sign that our law enforcers are out of touch with a vast section of the society that they are aiming to police.

This is all only weeks after the allegation about deception with regards to the press, specifically The Murdoch Empire and “those tapped calls”, that sparked a flurry of resignations ( which all SCREAM of dodgy goings on to me)

All this said it’s not shaping up to be a great summer for the Metropolitan police, who now have “thousands of hours of CCTV footage…” to trawl through identifying and convicting 100’s of rioters who "stole tens of thousands of pounds worth of property…."

Maybe if they spent those hours identifying & correcting the problems within their own establishment they would be better in tune to cope with their task.

Which brings me nicely back to my headline…

 “The fire rages everywhere & nobody, to my sight, endeavouring to quench it…”

The fires in Tottenham will be put out and the damage repaired. How long will it be before the flames within our establishments will be quenched too?

TheArtfulBlogger