3 posts from November 2007

..but I am firmly decided that I'm fed up with the cheerleaders and campaigners.

Both candidates have a lot of common and party policies, so it's only on the personality smaller/detailed issues that you can really tell them apart, and this is where the bloggers, campaigners etc just muddy the waters and put everybody off both.

I think that a lot of campaigners need to learn that actually it's how you play that is more important than winning sometimes - particularly in politics - you need to put constituents needs before your party, you need to ensure quality candidates rather than bums on seats in councils, you need to spend money researching policy and getting people involved not printing yet more flyers and leaflets full of fluff and photo ops.

Unfortunately although both candidates are far closer to who I want leading the country than anything offered by the other main parties, I'm still disappointed that they are very conservative in their policies - they haven't taken any major issue or new idea and really sold it or made it part of the news agenda, which they could have done with Drug Liberalisation, Sex Worker liberalisation, EU Reform, Iran, or Palestine.

Domestic flights in the UK used to be convenient, fairly priced and fast. Now they're hugely inconvenient, almost to the point that driving would be quicker and less hassle. Obviously if we had a reasonable Train service from Cornwall to London that would be preferably to flying for more than just the lack of environmental impact.

Anyway here I am at (nowhere near) Newquay Airport at 6 AM and I'm fed up within 10 minutes of getting here - I checked in (no queue, thank Krishna for small mercys), answered some pointless 'security' questions, threw away my obviously safe 500ml bottle of Coke after taking a few mouthfuls (because even if I drank 400ml, it wouldn't be safe because of all the dangerous "Air") of course I could have internally carried any high explosive (complete with anything required) internally and because I'm white and middle class would never (and have never) been fully searched - heck I could have had it strapped around my waist and nobody would have spotted it this morning.

Now I'm "airside" which means that I have no cold drink and the cafe that I asked about before checking in, is naturally unstaffed, I'm very tempted to just help myself to some breakfast and wedge a fiver in the till with a note saying what a pain in the arse they are.

At 7AM the cafe finally opens, and I'm able to get an overpriced vending machine coffee labelled as "Latte" (A Latte is foamed milk and espresso - there is no added water), it's instantly recognisable as the same mix of powdered milk, hot water, more hot water and coffee (certainly not espresso) that I drank huge ammounts of when we lived in the maternity / neonatal ward of Treliske Hospital for a few weeks.

I hate hate hate Travelling to london these days... ah the planes landed time to go.

On the return journey, I discovered even more inconvenience - God I hate gatwick - The 20 minute journey from Train Platforms to the other terminal, the inane posters about how neither 1L, 500ml or 250ml are less than 100ml, even if you remove 99% of the content and how they are a danger to aircraft, and how it's all for our 'security', the simply idiotic x-raying of shoes (Richard Reid had fuses visible on his shoes - if the security guards were doing their jobs he would never have got on the plane, what's more even if the fuse was hidden he was stopped by the people on the plane, 4 words Horse, Door, Bolted, After), the fuss caused when the lady in front of me passing through neglected to seperate her deadly lipstick and make up (not that it was inspected, it could easily have been 250g of C4). Then there was the 5 minute between being my gate being announced and it closing (the gate itself naturally being a 10 minute walk from the terminal), the overpriced food and drink - the way that it's impossible to actually eat a hot meal in any of the restaurants in the terminal if you are travelling on a domestic flight because you have 90 mins from checkin opening til gate closing in which to check in, get through security, find a restaurant, order your food, eat it, pay the bill, and walk 10 to 20 minutes to the gate.

grrrh hate hate hat

All the parties are talking about 'Empowerment and choice', shame none seem to walk the walk when it comes to actually reforming the benefits systems.

As it stands the benefit systems only benefits two sets of people, neither of whom are supposed to be served by it -- DWP Middle Management and Fraudsters, who both game the system for their own ends.

Unemployment benefit (or jobseekers allowance, or whatever name they choose this few years) and job centres are based around anybody who doesn't have job waiting, queuing, and dossing rather than doing anything useful with their time. Training is based on a limited choice of mickey mouse courses, designed to fill low paid and part time work in call centres or stacking shelves.

The whole system is in need of total reworking to suit the needs of people looking for or unable to work.

* unemployment benefit should be about actively seeking work not 'being available for work' - an afternoon a week applying for jobs is better than all week watching jeremy kyle and this morning - you should be able to spend a 'reasonable' ammount of time on education or care or voluntary work without being penalised instead of being limited to 8 hours a week.
* training should be about getting a good job, not call centres - graduates and other experienced or highly skilled jobseekers should be able to get appropriate training, not mickey mouse nvq courses, there are a wide range of fulltime and parttime courses, both onsite and from home - better to send people on the right course than have a hundred more people with the same useless handful of NVQs
* anybody with a disability applying for benefits should be provided with support and help in their application, everybody applying for benefits should receive help and support with their application, preventing fraud comes after delivering the service - not before!
* The job centre should take an active role in helping people who are unemployed, they should be scouting for voluntary work, courses, grants for businesses or projects, etc to help make people either more employable or more useful. Currently this isn't the case at all - I've never seen anybody in a job centre say "I found this that could help you" it's always "well you'll have to do this <insert mickey mouse course, or a job on the checkout in a supermarket>" regardless of qualifications, interests, skills, experience or age.