Wigan Council Chief Exec calls cops for no crime!

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post about how the Council's Chief Executive, Donna Hall, had used tax payers money for political and personal vendetta's. Here is that story if you missed it.

What follows could only be classed as a pantomime or a scene out of a movie. Many residents went on to  a Facebook page that they belong to and were outraged at this and started their thread. One person posted on there a picture of Donna Hall with a pencil moustache.

Within 2 hours the police where at his door telling him he had committed an offence and to remove the post straight away otherwise he would be arrested. He tried to explain that it was satire but the cops were having none of it and told him again. Worried about being arrested and thrown into jail for this he removed it. 

More outrage came. How on earth does someone get the police to come out that fast and especially for a none crime, in their mind. So the gentleman asked if he put a complaint in for the same offence what action would the police take? Answer none. Below is the question and answer.

So here is the issue why would the police go out to one person for a so called crime and not to another?

I asked GMP for a comment. At first they couldn't even find that officers had even gone out. Surely police officers wouldn't do a favour for someone off the books? I provided more info so they could try harder and again I got no response. Once I had heard and seen the post above in the picture I tried again and asked why would an officer not go out for this gentleman had he reported it.

Response........

A GMP spokesperson said: “We were made aware of an offensive image concerning a public figure that had been posted online which had the potential to cause distress to anyone who viewed it.

“Although the image did not constitute a criminal offence, a decision was made that the sensible course of action would be to request that the person who posted the picture remove it to prevent any potential distress being caused.

“At the request of GMP the poster removed the image.”

Back Benchers held Government to account.....

Last month we spoke about why the Prime Minister may have called a General Election It seems more now that because of the very slim majority that she had was a worry because she couldn't get what she wanted through with out the back benchers of the Tory Party.

Also because of one of her U-Turns on NI for self employed she needed to amend that so the Tories could change their 2015 manifesto and raise taxes.

If the polls are to be believed, which this time I agree with at this time, it seems the Tories will get a huge majority and therefore the few back benchers that held the Government to account would be watered down as it seems Conservatives HQ are putting their people in. One target seat has so far put out 15,000 leaflets and not one of them tells the people in that constituency who the Tory candidate is. Shocking!

So with the back benchers having a good position to hold the Government to account was a good thing for the UK as no Government should have such a hold that they cannot be held to account. With the massive predicted majority that Theresa May may have after the General Election if no one holds them to account, or can't for another 5 Yrs then that would be bad for the UK because the Government of the day can get away with anything.

So I understand that the PM wants her own mandate, fair enough, but having so much control - which all Governments would want - is not good for the Country,

Who is holding us to Ransom?

After last week's Cyber attack on It systems around the world people are asking who are these people that do this? Obviously criminals that are only interested in scamming people out of their money. However, another important question is why did this happen?

PC's have to use an operating system. typically like Windows. This product has a number of versions like XP, Windows 7 and now Windows 10. So every few years they bring new ones out. OK no problem with that. These have new features and more security. These cost 00's of pounds for each one so if you are like the NHS then it would cost millions to update every few years.

The issue it seems is the computers that crashed where running things like XP is that just like all other operating systems Microsoft run updates and support these products But a few years ago Microsoft stopped supporting Microsoft XP. The NHS paid millions for a one year extension. Then Microsoft would expect them to pay millions of pounds for organisations like the NHS to pay for new operating systems.

Why should this be? Yes business should be free to operate in a commercial environment but IT and computers are now part of our infrastructure , just like utilities. So when they stop a product they should not be allowed to just stop supporting these products and holding people and companies to ransom to buy their new software. There should be a law that says if Microsoft, or other such companies on these platform, stop making their products they have to support them for a number of yrs, like 35 yrs. That way they simply cannot hold us to ransom!

Labour refuse to press the button.

The first priority of any Government is to protect it's citizens. As a Country we have a nuclear deterrent. However, Labour Leader has said he wouldn't use them and when pressed on TV today Labour Diane Abbott refused to answer would they press the button? She kept refusing to answer and said they are more important matters.

Sorry if we where about to be wiped off the planet there is nothing else more important.

Surely if anyone wants to be Prime Minister they should have to commit to protecting us and if they were not going to press the button then they shouldn't be qualified to be Prime Minister.

Have the Tories gone Liberal?

In recent days Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May has said that if elected again the Tories would cap high and unfair energy prices. A pledge that Ed Milliband once said.

However, principles of conservatism is not to meddle with the markets and to encourage competition to drive down prices. Given that it was the Torys that broken up the national energy companies in the first place. They claimed at that time that by breaking up the national energy company that would bring in private enterprise and would drive down prices by competition. This hasn't happened and in fact rather than lots of competition it is clear that there is an Oligopoly in terms of energy companies out there.

So Labour which promote socialist views and would like to renationalise would energy and other companies. So the the other view is the Liberal view and one to not go as far as renationalise but don't want an Oligopoly  so they would sit on the fence and try and meddle with the markets and try and cap how much some one can earn.

With Theresa May now coming out with this Liberal view on energy companies are the Tories now turning to Liberal policies to win? Why have they dropped their view of free enterprise? If the Tories are now meddling with Energy markets what market would be next? Or is it all hot air?