Nicholas Winterton - Wanker

Sir Nicholas Winterton, showing all the charm and sophistication that has made him one of our most hated MPs:

Sir Nicholas Winterton has angrily denounced plans to reduce first-class travel by MPs - telling the BBC he needs "quiet" and privacy to work.

Oh my, this is going to be a good one. Let's see dig down and examine exactly why Winterton doesn't want to travel the way the vast majority of people travel in this country:

The veteran Tory MP said there was a "totally different type of people" in standard-class train carriages.

Yes, there is a totally different type of person, Nicky boy. The people you represent - or, at least, supposed to represent. And God forbid that an MP might have to interact or spend time with ordinary people. That would be fucking terrible. But it isn't just a general snobbery that is stopping Winterton from sharing a train carriage with those that Alan B'stard might refer to as the ordinaries. No, he also needs to work:

"If I was in standard class I would not do work because people would be looking over your shoulder the entire time, there would be noise, there would be distraction."

Yes, yes there would be distraction. Which is why most people either learn to manage their workload so they don't have to work on the train. Or they learn to get over the distractions on the train.

But Nicholas still doesn't think that a train is necessarily a nice environment. And you know what? He'd be right:

"There's lots of children, there's noise, there's activity. I like to have peace and quiet when I'm travelling."

I like to have peace and quiet when I am traveling - unfortunately, I know that if I am on a train, that is not likely to happen. I also know that the option of first class is available to me. I choose not to take it because I am too cheap to upgrade. And this is the option open to Winterton - he could upgrade too. But the idea that the taxpayer should pay for him and his idiotic, odious ilk is repugnant. Why should Winterton - or any other fucking MP, for that matter - be able to enjoy luxury traveller at the expense of those very people he/they are supposed to be serving.

Frankly, Winterton can travel in any style he wishes - on a gold-plated unicorn for all I fucking care. But I'll be damned if I - or any other taxpayer in this country - is going to pay for him to do so.

Wanker. Absolute wanker.

An Apologist for Totalitarianism

What better way to commorate the fall of the Berlin Wall than by putting on the rose-tinted specs and pretending that life in the former East Germany was actually something to be celebrated? From The Guardian:

Since the demise of the GDR, many have come to recognise and regret that the genuine "social achievements" they enjoyed were dismantled: social and gender equality, full employment and lack of existential fears, as well as subsidised rents, public transport, culture and sports facilities. Unfortunately, the collapse of the GDR and "state socialism" came shortly before the collapse of the "free market" system in the west.

It is particularly bold to state that there were genuine "social achievements" under the brutal, utterly oppressive totalitarian regime that was the GDR. What with it being the sort of nightmare dystopia that people literally died trying to escape from. If one was so inclined then one could probably find the genuine social achievements of the Nazi regime. Of course, any such social achievements would not stop the Nazi regime being one of the most hideous administrations in twentieth century history. Just as subsidised rent doesn't change the fact that the GDR was a brutal dictatorship that rendered its people as something less than human.

And to talk of a "lack of existential fears", as well as being deeply subjective, is also taking a very limited view on fear. Because even if there were no "existential fears" in the GDR, there was the constant, practical fear of imprisonment for lengthy period for "crimes" such as not agreeing with the state. If it is a choice between having freedom of speech and having subsidised sports facilities, I'll probably pay a bit more to go swimming and go for the former. Except, of course, I won't have to make that choice since most governments in liberal democracies subsidise sports facilities any-fucking-way.

Also, it is worth pointing out that the collapse of state socialism was completely comprehensive - it was rejected both as a political and economic model. The GDR - and the Soviet Union - collapsed under the weight of maintaining their own terrible hypocrisies. By contrast, the "free market" system in the West has never actually been tried; and the mixed economy model favoured in the West is still going strong, despite a major wobble with the latest dip into recession. Neither free market capitalism or a mixed economy is perfect; however, they are not based on a web of paper thin lies and do at least allow the people to critique those systems. Whereas in the GDR, you'd go to prison for doing such a thing.

It is telling that the writer laments the "demonisation of the country I lived in and helped shape." Because, and make no mistake about this, she is an apologist for a disgusting, totalitarian regime. She is defending the indefensible. Imagine if this article had instead appeared in The Daily Telegraph and defended apartheid. There would be a national outcry, with the like of The Guardian screaming about how terrible the article was. Yet there is very little difference between the old regime in East Germany and the former racist regime in South Africa. Both were about the suppression of the people. And the author of this article is no different from the South African who bitterly complains that life was better under apartheid. The only reason why the demise of the GDR is perceived as a bad thing is because it was bad for the author herself. But that doesn't change the fact that, just as the South African lamenting the end of apartheid comes across as a racist reactionary, so the person shedding tears of the death of the GDR is a communist apologist mourning the end of a sickening, totalitarian regime.

Royal Mail Wasters: The Plan

From the BBC:

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has announced two nationwide strikes.

It said earlier on Thursday that the 24-hour strikes will begin on 22 October. On the first day, mail centre staff and drivers will strike. The next day it will be delivery and collection staff.

Is it wrong to say that I can't wait until these fuckers bankrupt the Royal Mail and are all on the dole queue? Is it really wrong to say that? Because that is what I am thinking. And that is what I'm thinking they deserve. But I'll stop short of calling them work-shy, money hungry wankers. Again, they might deserve such a comment, but I wouldn't dignify them with that level of burning rage.

Guardian Questions on Royal Mail Wasters

The Guardian asks some topical questions:

But the postal workers have some public backing - almost 5,000 Facebook users have signed up to a group called I support the postal workers.

Do you? Or do you have more sympathy with Royal Mail? And whatever your views, how has the dispute affected you?

Let's take those questions one at a time.

No, I don't support any postal worker who has gone on strike. I do support those who have gone on working. If such people actually exist.

I do have more sympathy for Royal Mail - this will bury their already moribund business.

And this has affected me in two ways: I have had to wait up to several weeks to get first class letters and don't really get parcels delivered any more. Instead I have to pick them up from the delivery depot. The postman himself is perhaps the most prickly, lazy, self-important and arsey person it has ever been my misfortune to encounter. And that is saying something. I used to work in the recruitment industry, so have encountered more than my fair share of wankers in my time.

If I had the time, I'd form a Facebook Group myself. One called "Striking Royal Mail Postal Workers Are Total Fucking Cunts." And I'll bet you it would get more than 5,000 people signing up to it.