Scotland's Opt Out

Scotland is to have an Opt Out of flying the Union Flag on it's public "executive" buildings However this does not extend to Northern Ireland (which won't please the republic parties) nor will it Wales. Both Northern Ireland and Wales have legitimate reasons not to want to fly the Union flag. Northern Ireland have obvious reasons, which everyone knows about.

Wales also has reasons why not to fly the Union flag, other then the arguements over Welsh independence, or sticking with the Union. Wales is not featured on the Union flag in any way shape, or form, it does not represent Wales, there is nothing of the Welsh Flag, nor the flag of Saint David on it.

Why then, should Welsh public buildings fly a flag that does not represent Wales? In fact why should any public building fly any national flag? To me it seems like an out of date practice, and does not suit the culture of Wales, Scotland, N.Ireland nor England, and is only being proposed to please the vile right wing tabliods like the Daily Mail and The Sun.

In any case this will be a victory for the SNP, if the public buildings were made to fly the flag by Westminister, the SNP would make a point about it and try to use it to drum up support for Indepence, and this will give the SNP a victory as it can claim that this has only happend because the SNP are in power in Scotland, and there is already a change.

The best thing Brown can do is scrap the idea altogether and quit trying to please vile right wing rags.

Domino's Pizza Guilty of exploation

On BBC's Newsnight they have a story about what is a terrible and horrific case of worker expolitation in the UK.

Acotrding to Newsnight, Domino's Pizza have been illegally deducting pay from workers, sometimes leaving them in with negitive pay (as in - £200), the deductions have never been explained to the workers, nor to the unions.

What makes the sitution more sickerning is that they have sacked eight workers, who they claim had no right to work in the UK, however this came shortly after the workers complained about the terrible pay and conditions that they have to endure.

What makes this sitution worse is that the workers have their accomindation tied to their job, so the sacked workers now face the prospect of being homeless, aswell as jobless.

I really hope that the government takes action so that situtions like this don't happen, they must ensure that accomination is not tied to job, and enforce the minimum wage and close any loop holes which allow for wages to go into the negitives and the workers to be in debt to the company.

The government must do more to promote and protect workers rights, to ensure that all workers get, and can take collective action for, good pay and conditions in their places of work, and ensure that our pay and conditions are not underminded by employers who expolit immigrants, and that immigrants know what rights they have as a employee in this country.

High Court Idioticy

The high courts descion to save Shambo, the cow infected with TB is absolutely idiotic, and clearly comes from someone who has no idea of rural life and the threat that an animal that has TB poses to other lifestock, wild life and humans.

The high court claiming that it is a "breach of human rights" is the most ridiculous thing that I've heard, this is a "kick in the teeth" to every hard working, law farmers, who have allowed their animals to be killed because they tested positive for TB.

This judgement is a disaster for the sensible and pragmatic policy persued by the government of tackling TB, which could actually do a great deal of damage to our farming industry, putting every single cattle in Wales at risk, especally in the hot spot of TB like Camthernshire.

I doubt that the EU convention on Human rights in regards to religion were meant to be used in such a daft way, religion freedom should not infringe on the freedom and safety of others, including our farming industry.

Hopefilly come Friday, the descion will be overturned.

Tories are still anti-single parents

The latest Tory Policy proposals (not an actually policy as that would mean Cameron actually having to make a descion)shows that the Tories are still anti-single parent.
The policy proposals are full of the anti-signle parent policies of the failed Tory past, dressed up in different clothes, but however will still not help the poorest, and this is coupled with more Thatcherite attempts to destory the welfare state.

The Tory policy proposal has a number of things in it including a £20 tax break from married couples, which not only discriminates against single parent families (who are already some of the poorest in Britain), but also could force people to either enter into, or stay in an unloving relationship, because they are better off married in such a relationship then not, and I don't think that a child growing up in an enviroment wherre there parents don't really love each other, and do not want to stay together will be a good enviroment for that child to grow up in. It could well happen, since the tax "incentive" is there for them to do so.

Another policy which is even worse, is the Tory policy proposal of them forcing single parents to return to work, 16 hours a week when their child reaches 5, and 30 hours a week once their child is 11. Not only does this discriminate against single parent families, many of who struggle in already difficult circumstances to raise their children right, and do what is best for their child, however forcing them to go to work will make this job 10 times more difficult, not that the Tories care about single parents, nor the children from single parent backgrounds.

This policy will also have another side effect too, if the single parent is at work when the child is 11, and cannot be their for them once they come home from school, the child will be bored, and at home alone, this could very well risk the child becoming anti-social, and it will be the fault of a Tory government led by David Cameron, if that happends, not of the parent, who would be forced to work by this policy proposal. During the teenage years a child would be very vunerble, and this policy would make them more so. Then their are other issues of child welfare which this backward policy proposal by the Tories ignores.

Children are in single parent families of no fault of their own, and the Tories should not punish them because of this, a single parent family could be a result of mutual ending by the couple, because of a death of one of the partners, escaping an abusive relationships, and other possiblities, none of which can be blamed on the child, and many of which cannot be blamed on the parents either, yet the Tories would cause this kind of family to again suffer if the Tories were to return to power. These two policies show that the Tories do not care about families living in poverty, do not care about the worse off children in our society, and this policy will definitly not lift them out of poverty, and will certainly not "mend the break society" as David Cameron claims it would.

A more sinster aspect to this, is the privatisation of aspects of the welfare state, ontracting out "welfare to work" schemes, which would not benifit anyone on such schemes, but would make it cheaper for the government to do such schemes. However, the welfare state is there to help people who need it, and doing it cheapily to save money is not helping anyone but the government. This is a throwback to Thatcherism, and a move which would help the corrosion of the welfare state started by Thatcher, which must be stopped at all costs, if we had a real leader of the Labour Party, that had a backbone.

The Tories haven't changed, if this is the sort of policies they are coming up with. They are still a party for the rich, and of out of date victorian values.