Politics OnLine UK

The week before the Toll came into being to control traffic in London, an MP on the BBC's question time said, people in Britain think they can get in their cars and go where they want. I am not sure what his point was, no one picked up on it. Why would he say such a thing and what is going on in the minds of politicians thinking we can't go where we want?

Within ten years we'll have identity cards, it'll cost each of us £40 though (Cheers Tony!). Once they are in place we will be unable to get medical treatment, dental treatment, any kind of social benefits, and so on, without them.

Labour have already tried to do away with trial by jury, and that one hasn't died yet.

HRT

Women are being warned off using Hormone Replacement Therapy because, Experts say, of increased risks of cancer and long term research suggests links to heart disease. Let's get this in perspective. One, Professor Stevenson, said, '...even in women taking HRT for ten years or more, the increase (in risk) is only around 0.5%, less than the increased risk associated with being overweight.' Have British women done their homework, checked the math's? Since August this year when the Million Women Study on HRT came out, something like 850,000 women have come off the treatment or are being weaned off it. What this whole scam is about is saving money, HRT is not cheap. The government is not looking after your health ladies, it's lying to you. They would rather you hot and cold sweated it out than have to spend money on a perfectly good treatment.

Gordon B.....

Today, I hear that the Poll tax is likely to increase by 8% next year (it increased by 13% this year), and Gordon Brown is so confident that we are now living in a recession-less world that we can afford to borrow £21bn over the next four years, £5bn more than expected. "What's happened really is two things," he told BBC Breakfast. "One is we had to spend more in Iraq and the war against terror. That was unexpected. "The second thing is, average earnings have not been rising as fast (as what?), that is partly a good thing for the economy but it cuts tax revenues."

Two questions, what war on terror? Is he still buying that myth? Are we? And if average earnings are not rising as fast as expected (?) why is he increasing the Poll tax? Why is he suggesting that taxing profits on selling our homes should be at a rate of 40%, or even at all? Doesn't he want us to be wealthier? If he does, why isn't he doing something about wages?

Dubya and Tone.

Following the visit by President Bush to these septic shores, he went off for a photo call to Baghdad of all places. The Chutzpah about the invasion of Iraq, now a war we can never win, goes on and on. Strange that in the weeks leading up to his visit Americans were getting frisky about the fact that Dubya hadn't attended one funeral of any service person killed in action in Iraq. Now some skeptics think that if he can avoid such events he can continue to pretend that this is a casualty free war. Hmm. However, what surprises me is the lack of noise about him visiting families over here who have lost loved ones in the war and telling them that America's prayers are with them. Really? I can't imagine that any who've lost loved ones in America are going to feel too good about that, other then sharing their grief, something that Bush knows nothing about.

I did note that Buckingham Palace, in keeping with Dubya's flash boy image got tarted up like an adolescent on Top of the Pops.

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