Wow I didn’t know hell had frozen over in the past week. Somebody actually decided to open up criminal investigations over the recent banking scandal and Andy Murray didn’t continue to be a massive disappointment by being knocked out of a Wimbledon Semi-Final, yet again. Maybe I’ll actually have nothing to talk about this week as everything is all right and well with the world? Nah just joking, apart from that stuff nothing has really changed. George Osborne is still a slime ball, Nick Clegg is still spineless, and we are still fighting a worthless conflict in Afghanistan. Ho-hum!
Political Oops of the Week
Some of you may not have heard about this as it wasn’t something that made the news in the face of Bob Diamond and his antics. But George Osborne is expected to defend the banks’ rights to provide multi-million pound bonuses for its employees. This is in the face of EU proposals that are proposing that bonuses should be kept down to a 1:1 salary to bonus ratio. Now tell me how is this right?
Ok, let’s look at the main argument for it. If we stop paying the bankers those big bonuses then they will simply move to somewhere like Switzerland or Monaco and thus cause financial destruction of the UK. I agree with him, but only if it wasn’t the whole of Europe doing that. If we did it on our own then it would be a genuine concern, however it’s everybody who is considering this. If it happens on an international basis then it doesn’t matter what the banks do because they won’t get more money if they simply move to another country. And it’s not as if they will ever completely leave Europe, so there’s no threat there.
What gets me is that George Osborne looks like a guy who would stab you in the back, and now he obviously has done that. And this is just days after he claimed that he was going to take the bankers to the cleaners with all that new legislation too. Poor show, George!
The Painful…
When people get desperate they can do really silly things. One of those situations happened this week when a man set himself on fire outside of a job centre in Birmingham. He came in at about 9:00am that morning and started threatening people with a can of petrol over a benefit payment that hadn’t been made. The building was evacuated and he tied himself to the railings outside. He then dropped his trousers, doused himself in petrol, and set himself on fire. But since the police had already been called he was put out quite quickly.
Now I can empathise with the fact that going to a job centre in Birmingham must be one of the most degrading experiences known to man, but talk about an extreme reaction. I’m not sure whether this shows he was just nuts or whether we have really driven people that far. I’m siding with the latter as the cuts made by the government and the fact that there are few jobs means that many people now have no hope at all. In an effort to either get attention or find a way out they are committing very public acts like this.
But we all know that nothing will change as the government couldn’t care less about these people. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if you all forget about this within five minutes.
…And the Pointless
Does anyone remember the story of King Midas who gained the power to turn anything he wanted into gold by just touching it? Well Barak Obama evidently decided to gain the power to do something similar because after he hugged one of his supporters who served him breakfast she fell over and died.
70-year-old Josephine Harris who served the president in Ohio during a campaign trail felt strange, apparently, when serving the president. But she apparently ignored the symptoms, according to her daughter. And yet a few hours later she died of natural causes. Either this was due to over excitement or Barak Obama now has the power to kill old people by hugging them. I’d like to think that it isn’t the latter, but if he can become the first black president then who said that he can’t have some extra tricks up his sleeve?
The So Outrageous that it’s Borderline Hilarious
A man called Stephen Birch is the subject of this part of the News in Briefs column this week. All you need to know is that he’s a South African property developer. This week he shocked the world by going public with the view that he had found the grave of Madeline McCann. Yes, we are back to that old chestnut again (sigh).
Anyway, whilst he was carrying out scans on an area of land he owned he claimed that a grave was present with human bones. Ok, that’s believable as finding a grave site on derelict land is not unheard of. But what gets me is that even before digging them up he’s already claiming that it must be Madeline McCann. Really, Stephen? Of all the people who have died since humanity began you are assuming that this grave has to be of a specific person? To me it sounds like somebody just wants lots of rewards and a chance to get on TV. Well he might manage the latter, but it certainly won’t be as heroic as he’s wishing it to be.
Anyway, enough of that, maybe next week won’t be as bleak and irritating after all…