Brrrrrrrrr

Does anyone know how these cold weather payments work? I’m reading that the West Midlands is one of the parts of the country where the temperature as been below freezing for 9days in a row and this triggers off cold weather payments for pensioners. Well I’m a pensioner living in the West Mids freezing my nuts off. So how do I claim my cold weather payments or is this another of Gordon’s sneaky schemes where only those on pension credit gets them? Or is it so badly publicised and the form so complicated you need a degree in law to understand it? Does anyone know anyone who has actually received a cold weather payment? I’ll just go and put another jumper on. I’m starting to look like the Michelin Man.

Brown V Cameron

For the most out of touch award? I have been warming to Cameron over the last few weeks partly because of the barmy way Brown has been operating in respect to the reduction in VAT which is in my view totally crackers and a complete waste of money. Bigger reductions were being offered at the point of sale because of the competitive forces in the market place and I disagree with him borrowing so much money to continue what I see as a continuation of the policies that got us into this mess in the first place. He is now claiming he has a plan to create 100000 new jobs but don’t we need ten times that amount to stand still in this slump? (am I allowed to say that word?) Cameron comes out with a couple of equally potty policy initiatives. He would abolish tax on saving for all those people on standard rate tax. With savings earning nothing these days you would have to be pretty well off to be paying tax on savings. So this little scheme is a non starter. He then went on to say pensioners would be given an extra £2k personal allowance. This would only help those better off pensioners who are presumably Tory voters. On the plus side for David he is thinking about better off pensioners bless him, I always feel to get Brown to mention pensioners is almost like pulling teeth he loathes us.
The government have majority share holdings in national savings and I think four banks surely they could come up with a series of high interest accounts that would help savers. Cameron’s initiatives are not going to do it.
Are well I’ll sit back now and wait for the next thrilling instalment of “mirror mirror on the wall who is barmiest of them all”. Not much of a choice for us voters though is it Barmy Brown or Crazy Cameron.
At a time like this we need some real leadership where is that going to come from?

Black Country Gob

The following comment was received from fellow Black Country blogger Gobby over at Black Country Gob. http://www.blackcountrygob.com/ I thought it worth publishing in full :-
I just wanted to say Hi and to let you know whats been going on over at Black country Gob. Well back in November we had a visit from those nice hackers which caused severe damage to our database resulting in the loss of our site and over 850,000 page views. :(What did we do, well like true black country folk we stood up and fought and set up a brand new bigger and better forum. :)Although we lost the member list we have managed to get over 250 members back with us and almost 5000, posts since our launch in December.The site is now full of discussions,jokes,quizzzes,competitions,local history,and of course Black country Genealogy.Our Black country images section now has over 600 photos in it and is pretty impresive.Of course yourself and your readers are all welcome to pop in and say hi.Our new address ( you could update the link too now ;) )is simply www.blackcountrygob.com See you soon and hope your feeling better now Bob.
All the Best Gobby

Gobby! thanks for the new link I have updated my links, good to have you back up and running.

Irresponsibility

I was alarmed by a comment received on my last post “Labour shoots itself in the foot again. An ex Councillor was concerned that someone in her road was depositing used dirty nappies in the green recycling bin and if this practice occurs they have to send the whole load to land fill. I’m quite frankly appalled. The literature that came out at the time the scheme was introduced was very clear about what we could and could not dispose of via recycling so if this practise is happening it must be stopped. I’m not sure of the facts here but I will attempt to find out if it is true that whole load goes to land fill. For this to be general knowledge someone must have been made aware of what was going on. I wonder if this is a case for the enforcement officer? Not a pleasant duty to have to track down the culprit but the sooner they are named and shamed the better. They are either incredibly thick or downright malicious. I wonder of there are other cases of how the scheme is being misused?

Labour shoots itself in the foot again

Our local freebie newspaper had a story and picture this week concerning how well we had done locally with recycling of cans bottles and cardboard. Because we had been the highest contributor on the old scheme we had been chosen to pilot the new green bin scheme. The scheme has been in operation for about six months and of course very well subscribed to. Nothing wrong with that and well done us. Except the picture was of cabinet member responsible for rubbish Cll. Mahboob the head of green bin service and a couple of operatives. No mention of our labour councillor and his efforts to get our area selected as the pilot. If I was councillor Hosell I would feel like putting Cll. Mahboob in one of his wheelie bins and dumping him in Smethwick. This isn’t the first time something like this as happened but I do think it is wrong of cabinet members forgetting local councillors when they get photo ops like this. Time to start becoming team players.

Gongs

Fellow Sandwell blogger Bob Piper did a piece the other day on the New Years honours list. Sorry Sir Robert you didn’t get one. http://www.bobpiper.co.uk/2008/12/arise_sir_bobby.php
During our local election campaign I made it one of the priorities for our ward. As you would expect once again dear old Newton was completely overlooked. In fact West Bromwich seems to have been ignored unless the local paper missed someone in their report. It’s all very well giving honours to celebs and sports personalities but what about the real people? I’m thinking of people like blind Dave Heely and his mate Malcolm Carr who ran seven marathons in seven days on seven continents and raised half a million quid for guide dogs. The lady who is a stroke sufferer who has run our local stroke club for twenty five years and the guy who is leading the campaign to save our Park. I’m not sure how this gong system works but I suspect our MPs have a big part to play in making the nominations. So why did these people get overlooked? Dave Heely was just as high a publicity item as the Olympic swimmers or cyclists and just as good an athlete. So come on whoever is responsible for making these nominations let’s hear it for West Brom & Newton.

A New Year message for my MP

Well to all Labour MPs I suppose

GET RID OF GORDON

Because my message is quite terse,
I thought I’d add a little verse.
At the curry house you hatch your scheme,
get rid of Tone was the general theme.
Tony quits in a blaze of glory,
along comes Gordon, that’s another story.
He dithers and dallies can’t make up his mind,
an election date is hard to find.
Plague and pestilence across the land,
Gordon insists it’s his last stand.
I’m the one to get you out of this mess,
England becomes the land of distress.
Banks and businesses all going bust,
Gordon insists I’m the one you can trust.
He borrows money like it’s gone out of fashion,
Cries to the nation I lead with a passion.
So dear Gordon there’s something you should know,
For the good of the nation it’s time to go.
Back to the curry house Tom, oh yes please,
before he brings the nation to its knees.

You know it makes sense.