Archive for Boundlessness

How Labour and the Trade Unions Destroyed the Construction Industry’s Marxist Utopia

February 6, 2012 jonathanbishop 2 comments

Pre-2007 many workers in the construction industry of which I was part were de-facto Marxists – they were self-employed and could decide when they worked and when they didn’t, and how much they were willing to work for and which they wouldn’t.

But then at the request of the trade unions, the Labour Government forced nearly all these workers to become employed by the private firms. In effect, they were working against the Marxist ideal of the workers controlling their own lives without being dictated to by business owners, by forcing them onto employment contracts that meant private business owners had more say over their working terms and conditions than before! Whereas before they could take a holiday whenever they wanted, now they had to do it whenever it was best for the firm. They may have had more employment rights, but this was at the sacrifice of other perks, like having allowable expenses and paying a flat 20% tax. So, a Labour Government in effect, in order to please the unions and get a few more bucks for the tax man, took the dreams of its party’s founders, of an end to domination of people’s lives by big capitalist firms, and replaced it with further domination by capitalist firms by taking away the rights of workers to withdraw their labour on their terms without having to ballot a trade union for the right to do so.

Any Marxist sympathisers who would rather willingly work for someone else’s private firm than set up their own on either a self-employed or sole-shareholder limited company basis therefore, is too much talk and not enough action. How exactly do they expect capitalism and the state to fall if they are each day of their working lives sucking their metaphorical teet?!

Any socialist who willingly works for a private firm that they or their family don’t own are capitalist sell-outs also. If they truly believed in their ideology they would do what I have done:

Take control of the means of production, distribution and exchange by becoming self-employed and the sole shareholder of their own firm, while co-operating with others through mutually owned co-operatives.

It seems to me on most issues, the people who claim to believe that the workers should own the means of production, distribution an exchange, are all too happy  for the status quo of a government, trade union, and big business oligopoly to continue rather than take the risk of going it alone as Marx envisaged.

Bestowal, Boundlessness, Breadth, The Official Weblog of Jonathan Bishop

Policy on Women’s Rights

February 5, 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

It is my view that women should not seek to treated the same way as men but should assert their own identity and expect to be treated equally to them by their differences being taken into account.

Consider for a moment this jovial comment:

My wife is so funny – so typical of women. She always gets me to put the toilet seat down. Why doesn’t she put it up for me?!

Would you say this was sexist? If yes then you need to question your ethics. By not accepting that women have different needs to men, then people are being institutionally discriminatory on the grounds of sex. Treating women equally means treating them differently. One would treat women the same if they were made to use the same urinals as men – but they would not have equal access to relive themselves as men unless there were WC cubicles installed.

I set out below my policies in relation to women’s rights.

The Status Quo

These are a number policies that are currently law relating to women that I agree with:

  • All women-short-lists are a proportionate means to acheive a legitimate aim of increasing the number of women in public life.
  • In the case of interviewing people for employment, where there is a tie between a man and a woman, the woman should be treated more favourably, except if the man is disabled and she isn’t.
  • Women who have new born children should be allowed to bring them into the workplace and be able to breast feed them if they wish providing they are never left unsupervised, for their own protection as any.
  • Women with young children should be allowed to ask for flexible working in order that their job supports their family life rather than detract from it.
  • Women should have the right to abortion – It is inhuman and degrading treatment to expect her to carry a foetus she doesn’t want.

New Rights

These are a number of new rights I want women to have:

  • When a woman is the best person for the job, she should be given the right to request that the second best candidate be offered the chance to job share with her if she wants flexible working.
  • Women who are in self-employment should have the same access to maternity pay and other rights as women who are employed.
  • A woman should have a statutory right to have her embryos frozen so that she can have her career without the risk of sacrificing her chance to found a family afterwards.

These are the rights I want women and parents/guardians in general to have:

  • Where a parent has a child with behavioural difficulties they should immediately qualify for a Blue Badge and be able to park in disabled parking spaces.
  • All ‘accessible toilets’ currently for disabled people should be fitted with baby changing facilities and other essential features a mother (or other parent) and child might need.
Auto-Wiki, Boundlessness, Policies and Consultations

More powers for Wales’ interests

January 28, 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

I must contest F S Wusteman’s claim that an independent Wales would not have an independent voice in the EU (Letters, January 26).

If one were to look at the current EU Treaty (TFEU) there are 62 areas in which every EU country has to agree unanimously before that law can be passed – one of these is Article 113 relating to indirect taxation like VAT so no member state has to give up its tax regime as they suggested.

The problem Wales has is we are not properly represented in the EU Council of Ministers in which only David Cameron and his UK Ministers have a right to vote on behalf of the UK. This body must agree to every piece of EU legislation before it is made law – and in many cases it can completely overrule the European Parliament if it disagrees with them.

Wales has no right to veto EU law that could, for instance, affect our manufacturing – we are at the mercy of the UK Government.

Readers will recall me calling for a British Isles Customs Union of the four British nations, which while all independent, would agree to common laws which could include a common position on EU law (Letters, October 22, 2011). If England voted to leave the EU but join the EEA it would have to implement EU law but have no say in making it. But with the BICU Council of Ministers they could do both.

In the meantime, while the argument for independence is being won in principle even if not in detail, as looks likely in Scotland, there is a way all British nations can get an equal voice in the EU decision making processes without any new primary legislation from Westminster.

Section 109 of The Government of Wales Act 2006 gives the Welsh Government the power to ask for new powers from Westminster, which could include the right to direct the UK Prime Minister to veto any EU directive that does not meet Wales’s interests. Scotland and Northern Ireland could be granted the same power.

These provisions could lead to a more united British Isles, where each nation can represent its own citizens’ interests while co-operating where this is in the interest of all citizens in the British Isles.

Boundlessness, Law, Letters and other Op-Eds

Does the European Convention on Human Rights Protect Children from DNA Thieves?

January 9, 2012 jonathanbishop One comment

I will look at how the European Convention on Human Rights should protecto minors who have been abducted by a parent, who I shall call a DNA Thief, in order to stop them from associating with their other parent, who I shall call a Forced-Donor-Parent. On this basis, I shall call such a child a ‘Forced-Donation-Child’.

ARTICLE 3 – No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

If a Forced-Donation-Child is being told by a DNA Thief that their Forced-Donor-Parent is such that this would constitute defamation against the Forced-Donor-Parent then that is an abuse of the human rights of both the Forced-Donor-Parent and their Forced-Donation-Child.

ARTICLE 4 – No one shall be held in slavery or servitude.

If a Forced-Donation-Child is being denied access to the Forced-Donor-Parent and they want to associate with them, then this is an abuse of their human rights.

ARTICLE 5 – Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person.

This is except in this case: The lawful detention of persons for the prevention of the spreading of infectious diseases, of persons of unsound mind, alcoholics or drug addicts, or vagrants;

One could define a DNA Thief as a vagrant if they are always moving the Forced-Donation-Child from place to place, denying them a stable life, in order to prevent them for accessing the Forced-Donor-Parent.

ARTICLE 8 – Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

There is an exception to this: For the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. This means that if a DNA Thief is denying the Forced-Donation-Child access to the Forced-Donor-Parent and vice versa, they have no right to privacy.

ARTICLE 9 – Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion

If a DNA Thief tries to indoctrinate a Forced-Donation-Child with hatred for their Forced-Donor-Parent of that First-Donor-Parents beliefs, then this is an abuse of the Forced-Donation-Child’s human rights and that of the Forced-Donor-Parent.

ARTICLE 10 – Everyone has the right to freedom of expression

This is except where, among other reasons: for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or the rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence.

One can see many ways in which a DNA Thief can indoctrinate a Forced-Donation-Child against a Forced-Donor-Parent.

ARTICLE 11 -Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

A DNA Thief who keeps denying a Forced-Donation-Child access to their Forced-Donor-Parent is breaching both Forced persons’ human rights.

Taking Articles 12 to 14 together:

ARTICLE 12 – Men and women of marriageable age have the right to marry and to found a family, according to the national laws governing the exercise of this right.

ARTICLE 13 – Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in this Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority

ARTICLE 14 – The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground

A Forced-Donor-Parent has the right to access a fair hearing to regain access their Forced-Donation-Child. By the DNA Thief denying the Forced-Donor-Parent access to their Forced-Donation-Child which was created by virtue of Article 12 and that Forced-Donor-Parent has committed no crime, then they are breaching Article 5, as they are denying the Forced-Donor-Parent the liberty to access their Forced-Donation-Child that they gained under Article 12. If the reason for the Forced-Donor-Parent being denied access to the Forced-Donation-Child was on the grounds of sex, such as any ‘maternal’ relationship then this is discrimination. By a tribunal making such a decision, they are breaching the rights of the Forced-Donation-Child and Forced-Donor-Parent to impartiality of the judiciary.

An lonely on-looker's diary - The world through the eyes of an Aspie, Boundlessness, Law, Socio-legal, Uncategorized

Great idea for internet safety

December 24, 2011 jonathanbishop One comment

I WAS pleased to read the article in the South Wales Echo about the launch of a scheme to raise awareness of young people in internet safety issues (“New child safety DVDs and website”, December 12).

As a prize-winning author on trolling, the practice of posting messages on the internet to provoke or entertain, I know initiatives such as School Beat are important to raise awareness.

As those who attend my Trolling Academy (www.trollingacademy.org) know, online safety is something that is multi-faceted and needs to be explored from various angles.

The School Beat programme which involves schools is important.

At the Centre for Research into Online Communities and E-Learning Systems in Swansea, I am researching new computer systems that could make discipline in schools easier.

This would involve each student in a class having a laptop and accessing a tailored computer program which monitors them and assigns rewards if they act within the class’s behaviour contract.

I envisage a time in the future where, far from child poverty being tackled by giving parents handouts, that young people will receive vouchers to spend themselves if they show they can be disciplined in the classroom.

I know this works because it is what happened at the specialist private school I attended, and discipline was achieved without resorting to violence, which in SEN pupils like I was would only make things worse.

Acquisition, Application, Articulation, Bestowal, Boundlessness, Consideration, Economic, Info-scientific, Letters and other Op-Eds, Socio-legal

Policy on tax and welfare

December 11, 2011 jonathanbishop No comments

I think the market has a lot of virtues. For instance, competition drives up innovation and improves standards in customer service. But one thing is certain about the market, and that is, without intervention from the government it will fail to provide for everyone’s needs on the basis of equality opportunity. I therefore think that in order to have an equitable Adam Smith like market we need a Keynesian like tax system, but not just with macroeconomic intervention in the form of business and income taxes, but microeconomic as well, in the form of vouchers funded out of taxation for instance.

Ask any economist and they will agree that they will never agree on tax policy. So therefore as the market changes so will my ideas of what needs to be done with tax, but I will set out the basic premises of my tax ideas:

  • All people, whether rich or poor, will seek to maximise income and minimise tax burden;
  • The rich will be more effective at this through tax avoidance of direct taxes like income tax
  • In order that the poor do not face a disproportionate tax burden, then indirect taxes like VAT, Fuel tax and pensions tax should be used to make the rich pay their fair share of tax so it can be redistributed to the poor. Indirect taxes like VAT if made variable could also be used for fiscal management, such as to control supply/demand/inflation.
  • Progressive income tax and means-tested benefits discourage their poor from earning more as the risk of going from benefits to work and that work not working out so losing entitlement is often too high. Therefore health and education should be free at the point of ‘special need’, so when it is needed it is free and tailored to a person’s specific needs. This can be achieved through vouchers and greater access to medical records between health and education providers for instance.
  • Welfare benefits should be a safety-net not an alternative to work. They should take the form of loans (e.g. like student loans) and income tax should be levied on them at a higher rate than when it work, which should be used to pay the loan off when on welfare benefits.
  • Behaviour tax arrangements, like green taxes, speeding fines, alcohol/cigarette taxes should be more about encouraging responsible behaviour than raising revenue. So anything that ‘entraps’ tax payers into paying the tax should be outlawed, such as speed cameras put in places where people will naturally have difficulty slowing down or speeding up.
  • Employers take big risks taking on unskilled workers which many welfare claimants are. They should therefore be offered wage subsides to mitigate this risk. There should also be less obligations such as a tax free period for taking on long-term unemployed.
  • Welfare to work programmes should be about transferring disadvantaged people like those who are disabled people from out-of-work benefits to in-work-benefits. People who are disabled need more help when in work and not less.

 

Bestowal, Boundlessness, Consciousness, Economic, Notices and Announcements, Socio-legal

Policy on abortion

December 11, 2011 jonathanbishop One comment

The European Convention on Human Rights grants men/women the right to found a family. This includes the right not to found a family. Therefore I regard that abortion should be legal in all countries signed up to the ECHR.

I regard the ‘choice’ to abort to apply to not just women, but the men whose DNA is part of the embryo also. So in essence if one partner or the other wants to abort their potential child then it should happen otherwise they are being denied their human rights to not found a family.

Equally, the ECHR says everyone has the right to life, so I think if there is someone willing to adopt the child being aborted, then we should be working to a future where this would be possible. I suggest that scientists be funded to develop an artificial incubator that can grow foetuses as if they were in a woman’s womb.

Boundlessness, Notices and Announcements, Socio-legal

Why the Con Dems need to be more Thatcherite

December 1, 2011 jonathanbishop No comments

If Margaret Thatcher was still well enough to be a back seat driver in the Conservative Party, she would be screaming the hell out of David Cameron and his co-pilot George Osborne knowing they are heading for a huge crash.

Many people attack Thatcher, not knowing how great a statesperson and economist she actually was. She radically reformed the education system, so learners with special needs like me could get extra support and go to the best school for our needs, wherever in the country it was.

Many in the Labour Party criticise her economics policies. But without the monetarism that she created there would probably be no euro with a fixed interest rate and certainly no ‘quantitative easing’.

The essence of Monetarism, from my perspective, is that it is the top priority to keep inflation down, and to ensure that there is enough money in the economy to get growth, but not so much there is inefficiency which would further inflation and slow growth.

If you look at what the Con Dems are doing with their ‘deficit reduction’ policy – they are taking money out of the economy, so that the only thing that is bound to happen is a further recession.

The Con Dem Government wants to reduce public spending to cut the deficit and therefore its debt, arguing it costs so much in interest repayments to fund public spending and investment through borrowing. But what they don’t tell you is that most of that borrowing is from persons outside of the United Kingdom. So basically what the government is doing is taking money out of the UK economy and sending it to places like China! While that money is not in the pockets of the lenders, it is in our economy. Paying the money back means the UK economy can only shrink.

Thatcher knew this – she was the innovator of what led to quantitative easing, which is the PC term for a poor kind of Keynesian/Thatcherite hybrid (ff. Crass Keynesianism). Keynesian basically means increasing demand for goods and services through intervening in the market, and Thatcher’s Monetarianism basically means putting more money into the economy so it can grow and by varying interest rates the inflation can be kept under control.

Most people have credit cards. We know that when we borrow money on our credit card to pay for things like our children’s clothes or a new suit for a job we are investing in our and our family’s future. We will have to pay the credit card back again, but if we were to sacrifice essentials such as food and socialising in order to be debt free, then we will not grow as people, just as the economy can’t grow if there is less money going around it so we can’t fund essentials like healthcare and education. Reducing the size of our household budget to pay off our credit cards does not make our household grow in terms of prosperity, if anything the opposite.

The problem in Greece is lack of money in the economy. The eurozone want to tackle this with printing money (quantitative easing / crass Keynesianism). The only way to do without the high inflation that got Greece into trouble when it joined the euro, is to borrow money from other countries with surplus wealth, so their country can grow through interest payments and the eurozone can grow through without inflation due to there being real money in the economy. With the Con Dem management of the economy, we are heading for Greece like conditions where the only option for us to get out of it might be to join a much more interdependent eurozone with the European Central Bank as the lender of last resort.

 

Bestowal, Boundlessness, Economic, The Official Weblog of Jonathan Bishop, Writing and Opinion

Do European laws give pro-choice rights on abortions to fathers?

November 18, 2011 jonathanbishop One comment

It is a basic premise of both European Human Rights Law and European Union Law that a right to do something also includes the right not to do something.

Take the ECHR right to found a family. This also includes the right not to found a family. So should men, who have conceived a child, have equal rights to have their potential child aborted as the women they’ve impregnated? I think so.

The ECHR equally says that someone should not be deprived of their property without proper compensation. I think seeing as an absent father could be expected to pay child maintenance for a child for at least 16 years, then if he chooses not to found a family and the mother wants to keep the child, he should have to be compensated in some other way if he is being deprived of his financial property because his human right to not found a family is being broken.

European Union Law prescribes that there should be no discrimination on the grounds of sex. So by not giving men the right to abort their inseminated foetus they are being treated less favourably than women.

I think if women want the benefit of a natural man’s DNA without their full consent, then they should be responsible for the costs of maintaining the use of that DNA.

An lonely on-looker's diary - The world through the eyes of an Aspie, Bestowal, Boundlessness, Economic, Law, Socio-legal

Is Nick Robinson biased against Labour?

November 14, 2011 jonathanbishop No comments

In an almost thuggish way, Tom Watson said that Nick Robinson didn’t report the phone hacking scandal enough because he was ‘favouring the Conservatives’ to put it more delicately.

I know how he feels. It annoyed me that Ed Miliband was getting the headlines on the hacking scandal over true experts like myself who have published research on ‘data misuse’ laws. I made the BBC clear of this dissatisfaction when they basically ignored my expertise.

But let us look at the news articles since 1995 on claims of bias against Nick Robinson as evidence.

March 1995 – Claims of bias were made against Nick Robinson by Labour when he sent a memo, as they saw it, trying to cover up the preferential treatment where the BBC Panorama programme, which Robinson was deputy editor of, interviewed John Major as Prime Minister, but did not offer the same prominence to the other leaders.

August 1995 – The London Evening Standard publishes a story, titled, ‘Labour sees red over new BBC reporter’, which highlights the fact that since March 1995 the party felt that Nick Robinson’s presentation of facts on Panorama were biased in favour of the Tories.

March 2003 – In the Times Nick Robinson, who is currently the ITV political editor, notes in an article there might be a problem with Labour’s perception of him. Highlighting the times that Peter Mandelson would be complaining to the Director General of the BBC about his apparent bias.

May 2003 – For the first time on record ‘anti-Tory bias’ and ‘Nick Robinson’ come together. This time in it is in The Times, with him commenting on the pressure being on Greg Dyke at the BBC and not himself, as Robinson is still working for ITV.

This all builds up to a shock confession:

October 2003 – The Independent runs an article, ‘I do not regret my Tory past, Nick Robinson, ITV’s News’s Political Editor’ which shows that Robinson was once significantly involved with the Conservative movement. The article says he has received claims of bias from both sides, which I might expect having spoken with the editor of my local paper who received the same, but unless the Conservatives have a different word for ‘bias’ I see little evidence of this in my brief search!

I will not look further into the articles, as I became politically active around 2002 in the Labour Party, even speaking to Nick on the Radio 5 Live about how a speech by Tony Blair hit a cord with me, just before he went to ITV I think – On Radio 5 Live he and Brian Hayes were my favourite presenters of that era. On his move to ITV I did start to think he was biased against the Labour Government, but then I would expect no different, as the ITV News programmes that he was reporting for have always seemed to me to be the Tabloid Newspaper of Evening TV, changing the tone of the programme to try to capture the public mood regardless of accuracy.

As I am now a Professional, it is this revelation in October 2003 that strikes me the most salient, even above all the past claims of bias. It is unethical for any professional to take up any form of employment where there can be a ‘perception of bias’, whether they are a former government minister taking up a position in a publicly funded body in the same area afterwards, or a sports official who is refereeing a match where a first-line relative is of the same nationality as one of the competitors.

So, in essence, however much I like him, as someone who famously got insulted for holding an apparently undesirable physical characteristic, by George W Bush of all people, I think he should seriously consider his position.

Even if he is perfectly capable of, on most days, creating a perception of impartiality in line with BBC guidance, is it worth the constant claims of bias against him, and this the questioning of his professionalism, to be in an environment where he can be easily perceived to be biased?

Concluding the issue on the assumption of ‘good faith’ on the part of Robinson, I would say that the reason this perceived bias is so persistent is that Nick is likely to draw on the same social networks that took him into the Conservative Party in the first place, so therefore he is more likely to represent a ‘Tory perspective’ than a Labour one.

So I’d like the BBC and other media outlets to take steps to ensure that it is not the same people from the Old Boys’ Networks that get represented in the media, but many others who have expertise but might not normally make it into public life. If they were to do this then the perceptions of bias, whether ‘left-wing’, ‘liberal’, ‘all-White’, or whatever, would start to disappear.

 

 

 

 

 

An lonely on-looker's diary - The world through the eyes of an Aspie, Articulation, Boundlessness, Socio-legal, The Official Weblog of Jonathan Bishop
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