Documentary. I got on this train at 7.56am at Hebden Bridge. A few minutes later I got off it again, at Todmorden (where this shot is taken), thanks to it being, as you can hopefully tell,. a stupidly overcrowded two-carriage cattle truck, and waited for the next one. On Monday I have to spend about 10.5 hours on a train…. what we do for our kicks, eh?
I didn’t go out today, and alongside the poor weather, here is a good reason why. I don’t normally do this kind of thing on here, but observations must be made, in photo form, of the ‘helpful’ information currently available on the Northern Rail web site. Nobody in ‘Authority’ really gives a toss one way or the other, so here we are. Twelve and a half years in power and this bunch of idiots can’t even provide a working railway. Or is it the unions’ fault, somehow? For what though, expecting that all that rubbish spoken in 2020 about how important ‘keyworkers’ are might actually translate into an ability, two years later, to at least sustain their rewards in the face of the rising cost of living? (See also nurses, postal workers, etc.)
So be it. The two trips I have to make before the (ostensible) resumption of ‘the usual service’ on 9th Jan. could have been done on the trains, instead I am obliged to use less environmentally sustainable means. Sadly I don’t expect 2023 to be much different, throughout.
On 30th January 1972, not more than a hundred yards from the Bed & Breakfast where we are staying in Derry, the British Army killed 14 citizens of its own country, and wounded 14 more. It took decades, but in 2010 it finally came out how the Estalishment massacred these innocent people, as this quote from a radio conversation between a soldier and his officer reveals: “This chap is clearly unarmed, but can I shoot him anyway?” (The answer was yes.)
The Museum of Free Derry now stands more-or-less on the spot where this atrocity took place, and I’m glad it’s there, and doesn’t depend on state funding. The present bunch of ruling morons are as likely to encourage moves towards a united Ireland as they are anything else. Sadly, I’m English, and can’t secede with them.
The Conservative Party Conference continues to provide a rich seam. I’m almost sorry I’m not going in tomorrow. Some fundamentalists wield biblical slogans, others manifestos and soundbites. But they’re all basically the same: they lay blame for the world’s problems on anything and everything other than themselves.
35,000 people marched in Manchester yesterday against the policies of the government. PM David Cameron said, bluntly, in the Manchester Evening News today: ‘You are all wrong’. This presumably means, he thinks he is right.
OK, let us look at just one salient story for a moment. On 14th March 2007, the incumbent Labour-led government voted on whether or not to spend at least (that’s ‘at least’ – it will inevitably rise) £20billion on upgrading the UK’s Trident nuclear missile system: something that has never been used, and probably never will be. At this point the government’s majority was 62. 85 Labour MPs voted against the plan. Therefore, had the Opposition done what it does as a matter of course with most other votes, and opposed it, it would not have gone through, and that £20bn would not now be on the public spending bill.
However, virtually every Tory MP voted for the proposal. This £20bn of public spending (no mention of public-private partnerships here) has been specifically said by Mr Cameron to be ‘ring fenced’ and not open to being cut.
All this is fact, a matter of public record. Therefore, the only conclusion to draw is that the Conservative party, and the Liberal Democrats who are the pimps in this particular transaction, are actually not all that interested in cutting government spending per se. Rather, it shows that they are far keener to redirect money which could go on education, welfare, health and other things that citizens might actually directly benefit from, and spend it on bombs.
And I bet the citizens of Manchester are paying to police the party conference, too: despite facing local government public spending cuts as big as any in the country. Paying for the privilege of having a chunk of their city centre turned into a fortress. Inclusive government? Democracy? Yeah, we’ve heard of it. Christ, I’m pissed off.
Being 42 