Showing posts with label Col Roi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Col Roi. Show all posts

Monday, May 30, 2011

Remembering Welsh Revolutionaires and Fusiliers


Former Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price giving the Harvard Graduate "English" address reminiscing (amongst over things) on George Washington's Revolutionary Army in 1775, Adam's ancestors  in the Royal Welch Fusilier's who opposed them as well as the 14 Welsh signatories on the United States Declaration of Independence.
Hat tip Col. Roi

Monday, May 02, 2011

Tax Payers Alliance take on death of Bin Laden...

"Greedy Public Sector Workers with their Gold Plated Pensions, Kill Prominent Saudi Tax Paying Millionaire"

BBC Picture of USA troops watching President Obama's TV announcement while in Afghanistan.

Hat tip Col Roi.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

BA strike back on!

I got a text from one of our shop stewards this afternoon about this great victory for industrial democracy.

Even if you do not “agree” with the rights or wrongs of this particular strike you should accept it was fundamentally wrong of the High Court to have banned a strike which had such overwhelming support by union members in a free and fair secret ballot. As even Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge is (Evening Standard) said “it seems curious that BA should use a law introduced to protect union members from irresponsible and undemocratic actions by union leaders to circumvent the democratic wishes of the workers”.

Check out Brutish Airways and hat-tip for photo to Col. Roi.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

“UNISON, the big public service union that doesn’t have many strikes but knows how to win them”


Some recent posts on Labour movement issues that I have found interesting. The headline is from the “Despot David Cameron a stranger to the dignity of Labour” article found here by Daily Mirror reporter Paul Routeledge.

David Cameron has never had a proper job in his life, and it shows. The son of a City stockbroker, he glided effortlessly through Eton, Oxford and Conservative Central Office to become a spin doctor for a TV company”.... I reckon Cameron has in his sights Unison, the big public service union that doesn’t have many strikes but knows how to win them – like the binmen’s dispute in Leeds – and gives strong support to Labour...

Hat-tip thingy to UNISONactive for this story and for their coverage of another UNISON smart victory over the international services company Sodexo who tried to cheat hospital workers in Devon out of back pay and other contractual benefits.

I like also the post here on Socialist DisUnity (whose RSS feed is my very guilty secret – please don’t tell anyone) by Labour Party MP, Colin Burgon, who I met this year at the UNISON international conference. I have copied the information on “Cuts are not the Answer” for future use and would suggest that grown up progressives of all shapes and sizes do so as well.

Labour affiliates “Unions Together” sent me yesterday an email pointing out that “There's nothing that would make David Cameron happier than destroying your rights at work.

Just a few days ago, Cameron praised Margaret Thatcher's anti-union laws and said he would be "very happy" to go even further to stop unions protecting their members' rights. For once, I believe he's telling the truth.

If the Tories want to get elected so they can roll back our
 hard-won rights, we need to let our friends and colleagues know just what the Tories stand for. Co-sign our letter to David Cameron, 
demanding he tell us why he thinks we don't deserve the same rights at work as everyone else in Europe.

http://www.unionstogether.org.uk/lettertoCameron

While Col Roi helpfully reports that the Torygraph had an interesting article today on “If Cameron was a supermarket he would be a Somerfield”. The author thinks Cameron should be more like “Waitrose” - that well known workers co-operative? Hmmm... can't wait for this stuff to be in Tory manifesto.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

The 150,000 Death Health Care Plan

After all the fuss and nonsense about "NHS death panels" this is a estimate of the number of Americans who have died due to the lack of medical insurance.

The figures I think speak for themselves.

Thank God for the NHS (or rather Nye Bevan)

BTW - Who really doesn't think that the Tories will dismantle the NHS and bring in medical insurance if they could? It is their key bit of unfinished business.

Check out Washington Post

Hat-tip thingy Col. Roi.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Fighters and Believers - Queens Speech PPB

I've just seen this live on ITV1. It's an excellent Party Political Broadcast. I saw the original version at this year's Labour Party conference. I must admit that I prefer that one. The music in the original version here is more haunting and soulful. There is also a greater emphasis on Party history as well. I suppose the audience and the message is different. By co-incidence I was listening to a Radio 4 documentary today about the European space agency and they had the same background music.

The speech itself and the debate afterwards was I think was very successful. I was pleased about the commitments on equality for agency workers, the End Child poverty commitment, the Equality Bill, Financial Services Bill (nothing mind on shareholders governance) and the Personal Care at Home Bill.

BTW - check out the GMB report on the Privileged background of Conservative Candidates here

Tory candidates standing in the General Election are still wholly unrepresentative of the UK workforce new study from the GMB general union shows. The vast majority - 96% of candidates are still from the top three occupational groups according to an analysis of the 537 candidates and existing MP selected to stand. Of the selected candidates no less than 63 are drawn from the banking and finance industries.

Less than 1% are from the six lower occupational groups employing 56% of the UK workforce
.

Tories still dominated by unrepresentative toffs it seems? Hat-tip thingy unionreps.

...and this report in The Times about the private medical clinic suspended from their contract by the London NHS after two deaths. Hat-tip Col. Roi.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

TPA director does not even pay any tax

We find out here and here that a director of the so-called Tax Payers Alliance (better known as the Higher Rate Taxpayers Avoidance Alliance) does not pay any British Tax. How can any group comment on crucial citizen issues such as levels of taxation when its director doesn’t even pay any?

Hat-tip thingy Col. Roi