Listen up ConDems, Parenting is the most important job in the world

I was thinking earlier that this God-forsaking coalition claims a hypocritical belief in Christian values, which is why of course, it is attacking the most vulnerable - Children through their parents, disabled men, women and children.

I wanted them to watch this video from Lorna Byrne and stop attacking mothers, beating them with an iron rod, chasing them into non existant jobs, or jobs that don't pay.

Then this morning, while in the coffee shop, I happen to glance the front page of The Times.

The coalition is going to offer tax breaks to mothers!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So afraid of losing the female vote, they're going to throw money our way!!!

Hang on; wealthy mothers. Only wealthy mothers.

Wealthy working mothers can get a tax break for their cleaners, babysitters, gardeners. They already get a tax break for their nannies. I'm told Council Leader in the playground can put his and his wife's childcare on expenses. Neither of them are fighting to keep our "it's not viable" after school club open.

ALL PARENTING IS THE MOST IMPORTANT JOB IN THE WORLD

HELP NEEDS TO GO TO THE MOST VULNERABLE, NOT BE TAKEN AWAY FROM THEM IN A "WELFARE REFORM" EXERCISE AND GIVEN TO THOSE WHO HAVE MORE THAN ENOUGH.

To just go back to dreamland a minute, I said to He Who Said I Was Hot, that the very job I'd love to outsource would be cleaning. It's a pipedream for a low earner after childcare, school dinners, music lessons, after school clubs. As it is, one of those will have to go...wish it was childcare, I can do that myself.

Help ALL mothers, don't hurt them.

Children feel everything.

Blogging in Two Directions

Instinctively I know that my writing will go in two directions before the end of week when Stiggers and I will take a break.

One is SEX (Oh stigs, love, love baby, let's stay and talk about that, explore that...we've never done that, not really, not positively, hopefully, beautifully, naturally, our confidence only just beginning, so fragile..)
The other is THE USUAL CRAP
I have to mention THE USUAL CRAP because if I am going to blame myself for what I am going through, I believe the cause is not SEX but THE USUAL CRAP.

THE USUAL CRAP is making us all ill and who can change things?
The Government
Who won't change things?
The Government
Who must therefore change things?
US

I will have to go and put Stiggers' words into action. All her words, be they SEX or THE USUAL CRAP, and do something positive with her/my knowledge.

Now I must go away and figure how to post it. Which should I focus on first? Oh dilemmas...they are the making of one's life, no?

Thank you for listening and have a good day.

Jump NHS queues!!

In my inbox the other day - Agreed for SUE DE NIM

Leapfrog the NHS Queues
Choose When, Where & Who Operates
Receive More Comfort & Convenience Drug Treatment

That's Right Private Medical Insurance for £20 a month!!! (My exclamation marks)

Scam of the fucking century isn't it?

I heard, from a reliable source, that with a medical insurance, if you go in for a heart problem,let's say, you can't use your insurance again if you get another heart problem.

Never mind that the average person cannot afford a medical insurance anyway. They're asked to get insurance for everything, dental insurance costs a bomb when you consider your treatment costs too.

It is the beginning of the end of the NHS, started by Labour, an ideological dream to be finished by the Conservatives.

No one should have to pay for care, especially with their lives. There should no queue jumping because you are lucky enough to be a millionaire, money left in trust for you, or perhaps like the Prime Minister, you married into it.

Doc said she'd schedule me for a scan - the pee results aren't back but the pain didn't go away when the antibiotic course finished, just getting worse actually...
Can they call today doc?
I don't want be rushed to A&E screaming in agony, because waiting times are longer for me, because I have no medical insurance, have only debt to pay for one with.


Do people have to wait to die because they cannot afford to live?
(I Don't Know Party Manifeato)

SAVE OUR NHS

(I post my problem under mental health because I don't want to start another label and I dunno, create a story I have no control over.)

FUNDING TO THE NHS NOT PRIVATE HEALTHCARE COMPANIES WHO USE NHS FACILITIES AND STAFF.

Time to ch ch ch change - Song

I still don't know what I am waiting for
And my time is running wild
A million dead-end streets
Every time I think I've got it made
It seems the taste is not so sweet
So I turn myself to face me
And I’ve caught a nasty glimpse
Of how the others don’t see a faker
Time to give the blog a rest

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
Turn and face the pain
Ch-ch-Change it
I want to be a richer mum
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
Turn and face the strains
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different mum
Time has changed me
Now I must trace time

I feel the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of cold impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And our children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
We're quite aware of what they're going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
Turn and face these pains
Ch-ch-Change 'em
Can't tell me to grow up and out of it
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
I must face this strain
Ch-ch-Changes
Where's your shame (coalition)
You've left us up to my neck in it
Time must change me
We all can change time

Strange fascination, fascinating me
Changes are taking the pace I'm going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
Turn and crush the strain
Ch-ch-Changes
Oh, look out we rock 'n rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
Rise and beat the strain
Ch-ch-Change it
Pretty soon we're gonna get a little wiser
Time may change me
And I must trace time
I know that I MUST change me
And I MUST find time

(David Bowie featuring Stigmum, my Pretty Thing; only a little messed up, not much!)

What the Dickens?!

Happy Birthday Charles Dickens!
200 years old today! Same as me!
Not much has changed ey? Social inequality still high and actually being legislated by this government to get worse! When you turn in your grave Charles me lad, WAKE UP these cockeyed clueless political classes.
On the plus side they stopped beating kids in school, ooh, 30 years ago. To my knowledge anyway (Nicolas Nickleby)
Thanks Charlie, for everything.

Sex in the 21st Century

Last Friday night I had a one night stand.

I'm telling you this because as I accepted the experience for what it was and felt no guilt or shame or anything I thought I might feel, yet nonetheless wondered how should I feel, because, well, I'm two hundred years old and I don't know, there happened to be quite a bit about sex in our mainstream media.

First, Nicola from Big Brother, who used to be a page three girl, told us all, while in the Diary Room with Twins who used to be Playboy Playmates, that she'd only ever slept with three people.
Why are you telling me that? I thought, as the playmates said nothing, which why would they?

Then, in the Daily Mirror, a woman who works on Loose Women, told us how she'd only ever slept with two men and married them both and now was a single mother who was "ashamed" her marriage had failed and had written a book: "Confessions of a Good Girl."

Eh? Good because you've only slept with two people and married them? Good is being a page three girl who has to justify a low number of shags for..what reason?

On Sunday I phone my mum who tells me the priest had given a sermon on sex a couple of sundays back! You have to know my mum to understand why it took her two weeks to tell me that and understand our relationship to understand why I didn't say "Really mum! Do you know I had sex just yesterday morning! With someone I didn't know! What a coincidence!" She couldn't really remember what he'd said however. Darn!

As my mind began to boggle, I fell upon Mariella Fostrups column in the Observer magazine where a 19 year old girl asks her if it's ok to shag the friend she does drama with, if she doesn't want a relationship with him, will he respect her ( 19! Shit, I'm 200 and feel younger than her! shit, I've got to go a lobbying, where's my mag for Mariella's quote??)

"I'm quite concerned this remains a concern for women 50 years after "free love" and the pill radically altered our sexual mores....In a society where sex is regarded as another currency, women should have the same right to squander it as men. If the female of the species still can't enjoy their lives without being judged by such Victorian values, then just what has changed in terms of gender equality?"

Hear Hear Mariella! She then goes on to say what we all know, that sex is much better, more enhanced with someone you love, but it's up to our own "personal predilection" (p52, Observer mag, 22/01)

What I find interesting from ALL of this and what I've been thinking is women are perceived as an anomaly, we are somehow, unknown and therefore dangerous. Is that why we have to say we haven't had sex/only had one partner/two/three don't think bad of me?

Single women are dangerous, single mothers are the most dangerous of all.

Are we really surprised therefore that the government has directed it's fiercest cuts to our children?

The Man Who Said I Was Hot was a Tory
"I bet you vote Labour," he said.
"I don't as it happens," I replied, "I am the leader of my own party. The I Don't Know Party!"
"What?" he laughs. "How can you have policies with I Don't Know?! ha ha ha!"
"I don't know, we don't have policies, just a manifesto, with questions like..."

The Tory party hates me. Hates Stigmums. Well, Lord Freud did say, didn't he, if there weren't children, there wouldn't be the need for cuts...

Fortunately not all Tories are the same, mustn't generalise too much; some are on our side.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/24/welfare-reform-revolt-tory-peers

As for me, I've always said, always

Good?
Don't call me Good

No chance of that now though is there?

Time for a Regime Change

Regime change is the replacement of one regime with another - usually understood within a political context, it would be nice to change the Tory coalition - they are all Tory, no libdems - Tory PM, Tory Chancellor, Tory Housing minister, Tory Work and Pensions guy, Tory Transport..oh every position Tory as our country goes from bad to worse...but I Don't Know what replace it with.

However, I am not talking of political regime change
I am talking Franglais
In French, regime means diet
I have to Change my Regime.

My son called me a liar this morning, moments before saying I was fat. Simply because I might have told him last night that I was thinking that when he gets up at 7.30 on the sound of his alarm, I might not hit my own snooze button but instead get up and do some 10 minute exercises.

This morning I hit the snooze button twice and he got really angry with me. I know! Called me a liar! "You said you'd get up and do exercise!" Then said that I was fat! "You're the same as those women in that book before they lost weight," he said. "What book???????" I asked. "That [Paul McKenna's] I Can Make You Thin book." "Where did you find that????? Oh never mind. I never said I would do it, just that I was thinking of doing it...I walk you to school don't I...?"

It's always tomorrow. I go to bed with great intentions for the next day then, somehow...

It's because I'm unhappy. It's comforting to stuff myself. I remembered a box of chocolates I was given for my birthday this morning and 3/4 of it is gone already.

You don't want it but still you eat. eat. eat. eat. eat. binge. eat. binge binge oh lovely oh no.

You've got all the books, all the meditiation cd's, all the free diet advice in newspapers which you read and makes you hungry even though you're not hungry, not for food anyway but for for for

Regime Change
It starts with YOU
Buy nuts don't be nuts

Oh do what you like.

It's your body/happiness/friendlife/lovelife/fitinjeanslife/internalorganslife/feelawakelife/feelawakelife?/feelawakeforwhatlife?/povertylife?/shittyjoblife?/runaroundintheparkplayingfootballlife?/passthebiscuits

REGIME CHANGE

NOW

No rest for the loopy

It's just an observation, that's all.
I had my mental breakdown thing when, November?
Less than a month later I received a questionnaire asking me to state why I wasn't fit for work.
Aaaargh, let me sort my head out please...
Then letters from Department of work and pensions saying 'your medical certificate is running out, get another,' and not being able to get an appointment in time then getting a sick note for two weeks then getting another letter saying 'your medical certificate is running out, get another one or your benefits will be affected..'
and you want to say 'go away go away go away'
"Send us another medical certificate (by the day after tomorrow) if you are still sick and cannot work."

I don't want to be sick ok. You are making me sick ok. Just leave me alone.

Then this morning Jobs in Mind phone to make an appointment and no, just go away
Then I read my emails and see a response from the House of Commons saying my job application has been unsuccessful and
actually that's quite funny
I applied to be a tour guide in the House of Commons
back when I was feeling so down about policy that comes out of that place
Me, showing your kids around, extolling the virtues and values of our political system
I find that quite funny
I do recall laughing when I showed my support worker the application form and being told I shouldn't write "Leader of the I Don't Know Party" under "Anything else you'd like to tell us"
Why not?!

Funniest job application I've ever filled in

Ha ha
ha ha ha

I can't go back on JSA, I can't
Politicians have the last laugh I know, oh and private enterprises who get the jobless for free

The perks were good with that job though
Part time, term time, paid...

Best go phone doc. I won't get the letter in time though...

Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep, let me sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Today's young people and protest

The young people are destroying your way of life. The young poeple have always done that. Your job is to encourage it, not discourage it.

It is not your young people who are destroying the rain forests. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are depleting the ozone layer. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are exploiting the poor in sweat shops all over the world. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are taxing you to death, then using the money for war and machines of war. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are ignoring the problems of the weak and the downtrodden, letting hundreds of people die of starvation every day on a planet with more than enough to feed everybody. They are asking you to stop it.

It is not your young people who are engaging in the politics of deception and manipulation. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are sexually repressed, ashamed and embarrassed about their own bodies and passing this shame and embarrassment to their offspring. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who have set up a value system which says that "might is right" and a world which solves problems with violence. They are asking you to stop it.

Nay, they are not asking you... they are begging you.

When the cries and pleas of young people to change the world are not heard and never heeded; when they see that their cause is lost - that you will have it your way no matter what - young people, who are not stupid, will do the next best thing. It they can't beat you, they will join you.

Your young people have joined you in your behaviours. If they are violent, is is because you are violent. If they are materialistic, it is because you are materialistic. If they are acting crazy, it is because you are acting crazy. If they are using sex manipulatively, irresponsibly, shamefully, it is because they see you doing the same. The only difference between young people and old people is that young people do what they do out in the open.

Older people hide their behaviours. Older people think that young people cannot see. Yet young people see everything. Nothing is hidden from them. They see the hypocrisy of their elders, and they try desperately to change it. Yet having tried and failed, they see no choice but to imitate it. In this they are wrong, yet they have never been taught differently. They have not been allowed to critically analyze what their elders have been doing. They have only been allowed to memorize it.

What you memorize, you memorialize.

(God, to Neale Donald Walsh in Conversations with God book 2 p.119/120)

Charlie Gilmour lost his appeal against his 16 month jail sentence for swinging against a cenotaph during a student protest and will spend christmas behind bars.
Hefty prison sentences have been doled out to those involved in the August riots.
Expenses claims, tax loopholes, tax dodging, war war war on the tv day after day...

We can change our planet for our children

Don't think you can't.

Clegg's response to my letter

I never told you, probably because the boredom drove me to...oh, nowhere special,no sunny, blue seas under a blue sky....

I got a reply to the letter I sent Clegg in May. OK, I got the answer back in July but like I said, it bored me into a pit of my own filth making.

What is funny I guess, and why I recall it now, is that the letter was from the Department for Communities and Local Government telling me it was sorry to hear about my housing difficulties but the matter was one for the local council.

Oh how Clegg had laughed when I told him I'd written to Brown. "Got an answer did you?!"
"Yes, yes," I'd stammered. "Yes I did actually and he told me it was up to the local authority to help me and the local authority is YOU."

Mind you, perhaps he remembers. This letter says "neither Ministers nor their officials are able to intervene in individual cases." I know, I allude to my failure in my letter do I not? Would I have failed if they had intervened? OH and hang on, why did Clegg ask for my details and get his Pal to meet me if they never had any intention to help me? Oh that's right, it was just before the election and they were scared I'd go to a Red Top.

"As you are aware," the letter says, which I am because my letter wasn't about my problem, "the Government is carrying out wide-ranging reforms to the social housing system. These are being taken forward through the Localism Bill which is currently before Parliament.."

It still is, it still is but not for long...

"Local Decisions: A Fairer Future for Social Housing.. can be viewed at
www.communities.gov.uk/publications/housing/socialhousingreform.

"It includes measures to improve mobility (Home swap to find jobs Shapps says) and under-occupation (only for council tenants though as the news about elderly homeowners underoccupying hit the headlines yesterday and the Tories saying that was 'bullying'). It also covers the introduction of a new 'affordable rent' tenancy (yes, keep that in inverted commas) and changes to the system of council housing finance (the government will ensure councils raise rents)

"I hope.,..that your housing situation will be resolved before too long"

When is "too long"?

Still an answer is better than no answer. Cameron's office said my letter to him had been passed on the Department of Communities too, but this here Clegg's response didn't mention that so I'll take it the letter to Dave was discarded in a public dustbin. Shall I?

Here's a good piece of writing on the housing crisis from Polly Toynbee. Some of the comments are interesting too. I'll be with like minded people this afternoon, so hopefully can pick myself up a bit and not feel so defeated, stuck in a pit of my own filth making. Chin up...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/14/cathy-come-home-lesson-rents-mortgages?CMP=twt_gu

Love hearts and aliens

An eztimated 2,700 people died from fuel poverty last year according to today's papers. Wasn't I saying just yesterday that I was paying to freeze to death? People are, pensioners especially vulnerable. I met an old lady yesterday who can't sleep in her bedroom at the moment so she and her dog share the sofa as the living room is warmer. Please sign the petition.

To beat the current cold that is living in my own uninsulated flat, and having more choices than a pensioner, I raced to Primark yesterday afternoon and bought a baby grow for grown ups. A fleecy one. They are all the rage. My son asked for one for his 9th birthday and I seriously thought he was regressing but no, at the time there weren't any for his age available, so popular these all in ones are becoming.I returned the size 7/8 football designed one yesterday and exchanged it for one with lots of little aliens.

Mine has love hearts all over it which my son disagrees and says is pink leopard print. No matter, we're beginning to resemble teletubbies the two of us.

My boy was warm last night but I wasn't. I must be more sensitive to the cold.

With this in mind I bought a copy of the Daily Mail because they are offering a "free" double duvet if you send 35 tokens and a fiver for postage.

I know I know...For over a month I have to buy the Mail just so I can get a 9 tog duvet.

Oh well, I take the view that reading a view you don't agree with helps consolidate your own point of view.

We disagree on alot me and the Mail. I mean, the Mail doesn't even like me and my sort and Mail readers take a dim view of me and my sort too but no matter.

On fleecing energy companies me and the Mail have the same view.

People have already died and more are going to be killed by cold related illnesses.

Please sign the petitions with yourself or old people in mind. These companies are going to make a £125 profit off each customer it was said on the news a couple of days ago. It's disgusting: http://www.foe.co.uk/what_we_do/final_demand2_32882.html

If you are still superloaded despite your energy bills you can build your own jimjams to be really really snugly cosy! I can but dream... Just a basic for my son with hood and feet cost over £35. For me I dread to discover: http://www.the-all-in-one-company.co.uk/

Otherwise, try not to think of the working conditions required to churn out the cheap and head to Primark. They've got some cool designs! I wore a t-shirt under mine last night.

Layer layer layer...

I'll switch on my heaters at some point. I just want to enjoy my "low" bill for a while...

Everyone's replacable, even Tories

So, the far Right Defence Secretary finally resigned over his best man being his personal advisor.
Quick as a flash he was replaced by the Transport Minsiter.
Similar job isn't it?

The ex Defence Secretary can still keep his job as a minister. Can sit on the back, as opposed to front, bench. Still collect a wage. Do you think he'll get a drop in pay?

What do you think'll happen to that Letbin bloke? Chucking away letters from his colleagues and constituents? Will he get to keep his job?

How people can bring themselves to vote for these people I have no idea. They're all put in "safe seats" so watch them get re-elected in the next round. Uurgh.

To think, I was fired for forgetting one shift. One iddly piddly three hour shift. Fired.
Well, I wasn't told exactly so I resigned, without actually telling.

Then jobs I do go for I'm told I don't have the relevant experience.

It's a problem facing over 1 million unemployed young people.

Different worlds isn't it, that of ministers and that of yours...

Love Thy Enemy

Forgiveness
Love your enemy
All very difficult things to do on the path of a happy contented life.
Love Ugly? I don't think so!

I might have found a trick to make this easier

If we all have guardian angels and let us assume for the sake of this argument that we do, then that means that our enemies also have guardian angels.

Angels, from what I am being told, are neutral beings (beings?), neither male nor female, can present themselves as either, and do not judge.

In her book, The Cosmic Ordering Service, Barbel Mohr says that we should say Peace Be With You to our enemies. The premise being if we send out good positive thoughts, good positive things come back to us.

My new trick then, if I find it hard to say Peace Be With You to Ugly, or even the Foca sometimes, or whoever, then I can say Peace Be With You to their angel instead! If Ugly knew she had an angel she might not be as Ugly as she is and me and my ugly thoughts might diminish if I don't give them so much of my time.

A tall order I know, especially as the Tory party are all smugly camped out in Manchester telling us life isn't going to be good for a few years as they quaff their champagne and gaffaw loudly with no thought for any of the vulnerable people they promised to protect. (http://www.monbiot.com/2011/10/03/more-cuts-please/)

Peace Be With You Grrrrrrrr

Stigmum, Peace Be With You.

and Peace Be With You reader

and All The Best Everyone (except cabinet millionaires and greedy bankers...aaaaargh, not easy, not easy this love your enemy lark!)

PEACE
PEACE
PEACE
be with
YOU!

Laying bets on BskyB takeover

It's the big question isn't it - Will News Corp take over BskyB?

Not next week of course, not even after the summer, but let this little Parliament/Police/Press scandal die down or better still die and.... well, will Murdoch get his prize of the lion's share of UK broadcasting?

He's flown in to the UK I'm told by each newspaper this morning and says his No 1 priority is Ms Brooks, she who was told to remain as 200 of her staff were given the chop.

She's quite integral to the whole deal isn't she?
She and Cameron are BFF's aren't they (Best Friend's Forever) in their Chipping Norton social set?
She's practically related to all the Murdoch siblings, being Daddy Murdoch's "fifth daughter"... a bridge between Dave and Jim therefore, a News International deal breaker (well, Big Chief actually)

There's so much to play for isn't there?

Amazing turn of events.

A question nagging me all weekend though was why the housing minister Shapps and not the Culture minister Hunt was rolled out onto Newsnight on Friday evening? Is it because a tory housing minister wouldn't be expected to know anything about the BskyB deal so less risk of being tripped up by probing broadcast journalists? Why are all the Tories who are rolled out Tories few people know?

You know, I love the plurality of the media. Yeah, you know I do.

I don't want to lose more of my favourite programmes though the way I lost Lost, just because I have freeview or go with Virgin or like now, have no-one boo hoo hoo, just bbc, itv (1), channel 4 and channel 5 and an aerial that never gives me a clear picture, but still, that's better than nothing I guess.

It's all I'll say on the matter for now, there are two enquiries that are going to begin; arrests, questionings (I know nofink guv)..and at the end of it all Dave's "judgement." You'd think it would be a no brainer ey this bsb lark

http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/speakout/time-to-stand-up-to-murdoch

Have I got News for You - I'm missing you. Will you be back in the autumn?

Hoping my idea's developing - a song

Once I believed that when ideas came to me
They would come with plans and answers quick(er)ly
But with homeless you
it just started quietly and grew
And believe it or not
Now there's something groovy and good
'Bout whatever I got

And it's getting better
Growing stronger warm and wiser
Getting better everyday, better every day?

I do feel quite turned on and starry eyed
And I feel a calm contentment deep inside
Holding dreams at night just seems kind of natural and right
If it works you will see
That it isn't half of what it's going to turn out to be

My idea’s getting better
Growing stronger, warm and wiser
Getting better everyday, better everyday?

Ba da da da da da da da da da da da

And I don't mind waitin', do I mind waitin?
'Cause no matter how long it takes
That deep down I know
My idea’s getting better
Growing stronger, warm and wiser
Getting better everyday, better everyday

I hope it's getting strong
I really hope it's getting strong
I hope it's getting strong
I really hope it's getting strong....

(Mama Cass featuring Stigmum)

and now with accompanying music you can hear....!

Bleed the Banks, not the NHS

Subsidy to the Banks: £100bn. Cuts to the NHS: £20bn. Sound fair to you?

UKuncut staged protests all over the UK today in an Emergency Operation against Andrew Lansleys proposed attack against the NHS.

In Camden the protests were staged outside the three main banks. A friend of mine had made a monopoly board, where we flippantly bought up a hospital for a couple of hundred pounds or picked a card from the 'No Community Chest' to be told that due to funding cuts the heart operation in desperate need would have to wait a further six months. Couldn't buy the railways because they were already sold.....

I was dressed like a corpse, in black, surrounded by people dressed as doctors, nurses and patients who were all drawing attention to the £100bn subsidy the government pays to banks.

I kept my flyer so I could share with you what I learnt:

A recent BBC investigation found HSBC used a tax loophole to divert millions of pounds of NHS money to a Guernsey tax have.

In 2010 a company set up by HSBC made more than £38m from its 33 PFI hospital building schemes and paid only £100,000 in UK tax - less than half of its 1% profits.

Stuart Gulliver, the new chief executive of HsBC, recently received a honus of £9m - which could pay the annual salary of 400 nurses.

"Lansley - Leave our NHS alone. It's the banks that are sick!"

Andrew Lansley's Health and Social Care Bill would open up health care to multi-national private companies.
Big business and banks get bail outs and evade paying £120 billion in tax each year but the government says public services have to pay for the crisis.

You know they aim to cut £20 billion from the NHS.

What does this mean in your area?
How many health workers will lose their jobs and hospitals close?

Here, have the full story and some pics:

My lovely Camden in the Sun - The Sun! Cuts kill: the dead lying on the monopoly board:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3606829/Sick-protests-over-NHS-cuts.html

And lots of pictures of my lovely Camden in the Mail:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1391822/Banks-siege-anti-cuts-protesters-rally-support-NHS.html

And some super ones here:
http://pcseuston.org.uk/photos-and-video-from-uk-uncuts-emergency-operation-in-camden/

The message is getting through. I very much hope it does so on all levels. I applaud UKuncut for their intelligent visual forms of "civil disobedience". I do not applaud government policies that require a need for it.

Stewart Lee is very funny!!

By chance last night I got a free ticket, courtesy of my friend Steve, to see the comedian Stewart Lee at the Royal Festival Hall.

"Are you a fan?" asked Steve, who'd left a message on facebook hours earlier saying he had a spare.
"Well, I don't know if I'm a fan of him, but I am a fan of comedy!" I replied. I really didn't know what to expect, but hey, entertainment + friend = happy stiggers, what can I say?

It was brilliant! It was so good! I was late, it was a three hour show he was performing, and I arrived just after the 1st interval.

He started making gags about charity. Working for charity, giving charity. Highlighting US figures that the wealthiest give 1% and the poorest over 3% of their salaries. I'd seen on twitter, which I retweeted the other day:

Poorest 10% households give 3.2% of income to charity, but richest 10% give only 0.8% (Cabinet Office figs)

The poor wouldn't be so poor if they didn't give so much! Of course I can't retell it. Lee said he wasn't altruistic, didn't give because he cared, gave because it made him feel good and then did excellent sketches on other comedians earning millions subtly, gently pointing out, that they are not altruistic either....

My favourite were the political sketches.

I may have been the only one who laughed when he compared David Cameron to the murdering Roahl Moat. But then I was high in the Gods and couldn't hear those below.

In the 80's, Lee said, the mood was anti tory, today is anti-electronic. I thought that would be it, no political satire but he delivered a sketch of Cameron's uni days which was right on the nail.
I can't recreate it for you, as Lee sat there on stage, with a guitar, which he said he wouldn't play, but was all part of his act, of course. He painted a picture of Cameron as what I can only describe as a smarmy character.

He is isn't he? Smarmy. Cameron? Don't you think so?

Top night. Top to see Steve who I haven't seen for ages, ages ages.

I was supposed to go see The Estimators play but I estimated the time all wrong. When I got home I realised the bar shut at 1.30am and I would have got there after Lee's show. Dancing to SKA music would've been the perfect end to a perfect evening.

As it was, I levelled my feelings with two slices of toast and marmite and a mug of tea. Lovely. Can't believe the Danes have banned our delicious spread from their shops.
No, I have no comic comeback for that - I wish! - it's just random thoughts that come to me in the quiet of a night.

Will anyone stop the Localism Bill?

"The localism bill seeks to absolve the state from any responsibility for housing provision, or for cleaning up the mess when the market fails to deliver the homes we need."

The last line of Glyn Robbins excellent article about the Housing Bill due to be read this week.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/18/localism-bill-social-housing

In my package to Clegg I wrote "It's not to late to reconsider the bill" on the article I sent him about capping landlords not tenants. Next to my viewpoint was a letter by someone else urging the Libdems to oppose housing policy. A voice added to mine. There are plenty of voices, they are just not being heard.

Only I was, for a short time, yesterday. I spoke, well wrote and I was answered during a live debate taking place on Guardian Online:
How can housing associations tackle unemployment?

Objectively, a great debate. Oh how do we help the helpless? It was also interesting, I'm sure, for the panelists. For me it was really too hard, many things are great in theory but I'm still reeling at the few that profit at the expense of the poor, all legislated by Government.

Anyway, work isn't really Stiggers domain, housing is!!
Housing and work are married of course and these new policies to up housing association rent to 80% of the market share coupled with fixed term leases.. well work is a frightening concept, I for one am so scared the impact will have on my family should I get affordable rent - I stay poor or risk eviction.

The panelists, largely housing association were having a grown up debate (FTT is a Fixed Term Tenancy - the bolding is all me, what I hear):

From the moderator: A quick question for the Panel,
How do you think the introduction of fixed term tenancies will affect social landlords' ability to engage with their tenants and make the most out of their support provisions?

Jo, not panellist, but professional I assume: I don't think there's any denying that they way things look there is a conflict between wanting to get residents into work and the lack of security introduced by FTTs, and this will make consistent engagement, advice and support very challenging. However, I am sure we will see some creative uses of FTTs to encourage people into work and training, I'm just not quite sure how yet!

Tim housing assoc panellist: Interesting question, we would not seek to let at the lower end of the fixed tenancy spectrum as we don't think this provides sufficient stability or opportunity to support them so that they have better choices at the end of the tenancy in terms of housing options.
I believe that if the positives of flexible tenancies are to be realised, we need to support these customers to give them these options otherwise the risks are either continual reissue of tenancies or poorer outcomes - there are clearly risks though and we need to have more active monitoirng and suport during the life of the tenancy.

Anne Marie HA Panel: Its very difficult to gauge but I guess it depends on the standard or avaliability of move-on accommodation. It may be more challenging to get tenants to engage as stability is key and we lose an element of this by offering fixed term tenancies. I guess it depends on how its managed when the tenant signs up to the property. Its needs to be a positive experience with obvious benefits to the tenant.

Andy not a panellist: A fixed term tenancy as short as two years could act as a disincentive to work, with the tenant, rightly or wrongly, concerned that getting a job means losing his or her home. In reality, it is likely that most fixed term tenancies will be for at least five years. Nevertheless, it will still be important for social landlords to engage with tenants throughout these tenancies to ensure tenants will continue to be adequately housed after the term is complete. This is partly about work, but also about changes in household size, health, and other factors. The changes to tenancy will have to be carefully managed.

when I screamed:

RE: Fixed term tenancies. My 8 yr old child and I have been evicted from each of his three homes on lease ends. Now HA, £350wk rent, 2 yr fixed tenancy. My £6 hr job doesn't pay the rent. I chase low rent but when I get it, if I get a "good" job, me and my boy out on our ear again on the fixed term lease? A total, utter, nightmare has been pointed at all future tenants.

And I was heard:

Steve Panellist:
@stigmum
Good points and shows the dilemma / situation that a policy allowing much higher housing association rents in England could make worse.
It does appear that social housing is yet again being seen as the home of last resort and for people on benefit
The lack of security that goes with private rents is a major problem and can be a cause of people losing their jobs if they cannot find a replacement tenancy close to their place of work.
I have had to help a family friend with four children ( one with special educational needs) after they lost their private tenancy through no fault of their own - they are now living in an overcrowded housing association house, but at least they were able to stay in the same school.
The changes to housing and other welfare benefits currently being brought in appear to be creating the ingredients for a perfect storm / mess

A storm yes, a mess absolutely and perfect for whom?

Any political party willing to oppose it?

No, the feckless arseholes are all too busy claiming expenses on their rents and mortgages, or else ey Cameron renting out their gaffes which doesn't fall into "the cheapest 30%" of the area.

Such noise, a terrific noise, not just by me here but no-one in Whitehall, even those Labour ministers who head the rallies I've been to, no-one it seems is willing to properly stand up to what is happening.

Never mind I Don't Know
I Do Not Understand

(My thoughts go out to all those in Joplin Missouri who lost friends and relatives, their homes and their communities in the devasting tornado that struck the town on Sunday Night)

Paper clips and envelopes

It's a 'coalition' paper clip that binds together the papers I sent Clegg today. Not a Yellow and Blue one that you might imagine I'd use on this, the Coalition's First Birthday. No, it's a Red and Yellow one.

(Coincidence that! That I send the letter on the coalition's first anniversary. I had no idea Monday when I dated the letter I had not written yet!)

The envelope is large A4 sized brown 'Do Not Bend' envelope to keep everything straight and in order. Two letters, two articles, one postcard (all copies bar one of the letters)

"Do you think he'll read it?" asked Mistress Ha Ha as we met outside a local primary school to give out Boot Camp flyers.
"I don't know. He might. It's very political."
"Are you trying to blackmail him?"
"No! I don't know what I'm doing but I know I'm doing something!"

I got a massive head ache after I posted my package with its coalition paperclip inside so I had to lie down.

Do you think they'll have a party tonight? Dave and Nick? Or do you think only one them will?

Do you even care?

Politics is deteriorating my language - f%*king f*^k f^*k

I didn't fall asleep watching Question Time last night but spent much of the programme shouting 'oh fuck off' at the television. No, not the television, get a really bad picture on the television even when the aerial's in prime position. I was saying "Oh fuck off" to my laptop (courtesy of Iplayer, thank you BBC).

The cut in corporation tax wasn't mentioned once.

Just the need to wipe out the deficit the last government left behind.

I'm sick of fucking hearing it.

Blue, Yellow and Red, on these cuts, seems to me they're all on the same fucking hymn sheet just trilling different fucking harmonies.

I'm sick of fucking hearing BOLLOCKS.

On Wednesday, I returned from a lovely morning distributing flyers for Zen Boot Camp and a coffee with a friend and a restful read of my book in the sunshine but picked up a copy of the Evening Standard when I did so.

"Worse off Wednesday" - Cuts Cuts Cuts. Slash Cut Families First

Couples with children will see their net income fall by £3,865
Lone parents will lose £2,142 a year

"Treasury minister Danny Alexander piinned blame for the economic crisis on Labour and insisted the cuts and tax hikes were fair. He said "We had a cataclysmic economic problem left by the previous government, with a huge budget deficit..." (p2, 6 April)

Oh fuck off, I'm fucking sick of fucking hearing it.

And then I read, to my own "OH FUCK OFF" crescendo:

"A treasury source said of the IFS report (that said "London is particularly hard hit by cuts to housing benefits"): "Do you think it's fair for a family to receive over £400 a week in housing benefit?"

Do you think it's fair? Do you?

Do you think it's fair that 1000's of families and individuals are going to be evicted and there are no fucking affordable homes to pour them into?

Do you think that's fair? Do you????

Right, enough f ing and blinding from me for one day.

Top tip over the Easter holldays, do not read or watch any media, any political media whatsover, not if you don't want to fucking swear infront of the children. Try and leave it all behind, enjoy the sunshine..

I will leave the subect with this pie chart though. You need to see it. You need to see how unfair this coalition is being. How this deficit doesn't have to be pared down simply by screwing the taxpayer.

And a bonus for you, I'm not sure Benefit Scrounger swears. There is objectivity in what she writes. It's very good:

http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-much-tax-is-paid-by-workers-and-how.html