DocRichard

[open and play the Andrew Lansley greedy tosser rap in another tab will enhance your reading experience of this post] Andrew Lansley's Health and Social Care Bill (the NHS Bill) can and must be stopped. The latest blow to his ambitions to slice and dice the NHS and offer it to the corporate vultures as a carcass comes from the Health Select Committee of Parliament, which will report that Lansley's "reforms" will are interfering with the already demanding and damaging process of trying to make... Read Full Story

"Think Global, Act Local" is the time-honoured Green slogan. It is a good slogan, but it has tended to blind us to the necessity of acting globally at the same time as acting locally. Global action is necessary given that the world is ultimately a single system - an infinitely complex inter-relation of physical, biological, social and economic interacting parts. Each of the parts is local, but the localities summate into the single global system. "Globalisation" is an ugly, cumbersome word to... Read Full Story

The current news about PIP , the now-defunct silicone breast implant manufacturer who came up with the brilliant wheeze to use cheap industrial silicone in its implants, raises interesting questions about the relationship between private and NHS medicine. 30,000 French women will have their balloons removed, but the DoH is reassuring UK recipients that there is nothing to worry about, even though it seems the PIP device is more prone to rupture, which will present the immune system with a... Read Full Story

There is a world of trouble out there, global problems looking for global solutions. We have: Dictatorships  in North Korea, China, Burma, Zimbabwe,  Syria, Egypt, Bahrein, Saudi Arabia &c Wars and conflicts Global economic problems with debt, austerity and recession. Rich Poor Gap within nations and between nations Anthropogenic Global Warming and other man caused environmental degredation Human Population Growth and many other problems and difficulties. All these problems are capable of... Read Full Story

I have been discussing on Twitter with @V__Vendetta  who seems to be a libertarian and a "small stater".  These people intrigue me, as they can come on as real tory right winger authoritarians, which seems to contradict the idea of liberty. We began the debate on Twitter, but V came up using Twitlonger, and I copied it over here so we could debate in more than 140 characters. V says: Many people resent people "playing the benefits system" and it's destructive behaviour as it creates... Read Full Story

To you Whose head is red with stones I bring you peace To you Whose lungs are filled with foetid water I bring you peace To you Whose skin is licked with agonies of flame I bring you peace To you Whose limbs and flesh are torn by energetic lead I bring you peace To you, small one, Whose belly swells with lack of food I bring you light and blessing. To me Met with a universal fear, there is no peace, Just knowledge of the way things are. © Richard Lawson Read Full Story

Further to my piece here on Cameron's isolation,  it has to be said, to be fair, that it was a tough call for  Cameron to join in the Euro ship at this point. Since the inception of the Euro as a single currency, everyone has been pointing out  that a single currency only works if there is a single fiscal regime governing taxation and spending policies in all the participants. Commentators have pointed out that by being apart from the euro, we have ways of sorting out our financial problems... Read Full Story

Rudy runs the Nathaniel Turner website. He has kindly given me permission to print his poem here. i  mastery & security Whose gold is this? challenge the poets of the South, in that golden key that opens the golden door to Paradise that fruitful land closed to fairy tales of Science & Time. Its hollow ridges, roaring cataracts. No matter. Centuries, millennia are behind us, a sloping mellow shade, a swarm of fireflies. An alien, I’m moved to tears. Her cheek was thin & pale, her eyes hung... Read Full Story

Cameron's idiosyncratic decision to place being sent to Coventry at the heart of his European policy has two main motives, both based on party politics. He had to appease his right wingers, but also he was obliged to obey the wishes of the City of London, which has bankrolled the Conservative Party to the tune of £42million  (more than 50% of its income) since Dave has been leader. Central to rationalisiation of his decision was the argument that the EU intended to bring in a Financial... Read Full Story

The whole world financial setup is in severe danger of sinking in a quicksand of debt. Not surprising, given they way private financial corporations create money . The global economy are in a very dangerous position, but there is a relatively simple solution: tax the rich. Close off the channels that enable corporations to avoid tax, by requiring them to present their accounts in a transparent way. Impose a Financial Transaction Tax. Close the tax havens. There is one main reason that these... Read Full Story