And bring forth the anti-smoker bile

Our local NHS Trust has something called a 'Patients Champion'. It comes in the form of a man who goes by the name of Russ McLean and looks like a cartoon mother-in-law. I'm not really sure why we have a patients champion or what he's supposed to do. He spends most of his time bleating about A and E waiting lists, without ever mentioning that most of the A and E delays are created by people who take their young kid to A and E because he's cut his toe nail
And these are the very people who usually complain about the waiting times

"I went to A and E four times last week and each time I had to wait at least three weeks to be seen by a doctor. Think of the children etc..."

I get the idea that the Patients Champion is there to put a sock in complaints from the public. He speaks for us, so we all have to shurrup. It's as though the Trust has employed someone to pretend to be the mouthpiece of the people, so they don't actually have to listen to the people

Personally, I think anyone who takes on a job with 'Champion' in the title, must be a bit of a twat. It's as bad as 'Diversity', or 'Equality'.

Russ 'Cartoon Mother-in-Law' McLean. Champion by day, full time fat bastard

And as it turns out, he is a bit of a twat. No, scratch that, he's a lot of a twat. He's a great big feathered, flying twat with bells on

Russ McLean, champion of the patients, has just made it clear that he only considers himself a champion to those patients who do not smoke

Call for cigarette butt litterers at Royal Blackburn Hospital to be fined

SMOKERS should be fined for dropping cigarette butts on a hospital site, according to a health campaigner.
Russ McLean said it was time to stop being nice and get tougher on those who discard their cigarettes on sites including Royal Blackburn Hospital.

Time to get tougher. If you're visiting a hospital, as a patient or a visitor, chances are things are already a bit tough. Russ McLean cares not though. He wants smokers to be punished even more than they already are, by fining them when they have a ciggy outside

What's that you say? They shouldn't be dropping their fag ends on the floor?

Well normally I would agree, but not in this case. You see there used to be a smoking shelter outside Blackburn hospital, with cigarette bins to put your fag ends in, but people like Russ McLean decided it would be a good idea to remove the shelter and the bins and ban smoking on the site altogether (Including vaping)

A site that is so big, you would need a motorised vehicle to get off it. No so easy if you're an inpatient

So the floor is the only place people have to leave their fag ends. That or don't smoke at all and I'm sorry, but nobody has any right to tell people not to smoke in the open air and any such attempts to do so should be met with a flat refusal

So here we have an anti-smoking bully, targeting the very people he's supposed to be championing, because smokers, as we all know, are fair game

Well I managed to get the first comment in on this article, and it didn't half bring forth some frothing, knuckle dragging, demented and downright deranged responses. Take a look at these

The raglefant 21st March 7:04 am
Stop smoking. Problem solved. Why should other people have to breath in your exhaled shogdit smelling smoke when they walk through the front door?. Stop smoking and live a bit longer an keep yourself off ward 9.

The raglefant 21st March 9:40 am
Typical dirty fag smoking, cancer stricken pig who couldn't care less about anyone else so long as you can get your nicotine fix.

Mr Spain 21st March 7:56 am
Itf you smell smoke you are breathing in toxins. It takes 24 hours to clear your lungs. It needs banning in all public places. If you want to kill yourself feel free to but do it at home. Smokers are disgusting selfish people.

ted01 21st March 9:09 am
I have even seen people smoking underneath the no-smoking signs. They obviously choose to do as they wish. Personally i would just turn the hosepipe on them

The Real Mr Angry 21st March 5:00 pm
I go to the Hospital regularly. The notices are ignored and I and others have to walk through a walkway of pig ignorant selfish people getting their Nicotine fix. No regard for anyone else. I watched someone sweeping fag bits up with a leaf blower and it was a bucket full. Stop being **** and fine these people. Once a few have paid the £75 the rest will stop. Our council enforce nothing. What's the point of a weekly visit by an officer that is not doing his job and enforcing the no smoking rule?

winnac01 21st March 8:44 pm
Who still smokes in 2019? apart from hard drugs its probably the most dangerous bad habit known to man, ban smoking from the hospital grounds completely it a filthy dirty dangerous way of life.

Needless to say, I didn't get much work done yesterday morning. Taking the piss out of these cry babies was much more fun

Begs Um Question

So she's been stripped of her citizenship. You all know who I mean

When I retire, I want to move to Greece. Greece will not grant citizenship to anyone who does not have Greek ancestry. As I have no Greek relatives now, or in my past, the best I will get is Residency. With Residency, I have to meet a few easy criteria and will be allowed to stay as long as I want, but if I were to do something they really didn't like, they could kick me straight back out again

So why are we so concerned about this one woman and if she be allowed back into the country? The question should surely be, why do we give out citizenship as though it's a free gift in a cereal box?

This girls family should never have been granted citizenship in the first place

But they were and that's our problem to deal with

International law says you cannot remove someones citizenship if they are not also a citizen of another country, rendering them stateless. This woman is a citizen of Britain alone. Her parents are of Bangladeshi origin, but she is not and the Bangladeshis don't seem to want to take her in

So removing her citizenship is simply a token gesture, one that will be challenged and overturned. It's an opportunity for a Government minister to be 'seen to be doing something' and when it fails, they can say, "Oh well, I tried"

It's not even a token gesture at fixing an error in the legal system, it's a gesture at people venting their anger on social media. There's a lot of that about these days; people who believe others should be tried and convicted in the court of Facebook and Twitter rather than a court of law. Allowing this to happen is a very dangerous precedent to set

There's also the possibility that with public opinion being so strong, after the decision to revoke her passport is overturned, British law could be changed to allow the Government to make people stateless autonomously, without the backing of international law. This is an even more dangerous place to be in, because the next Government could easily use such powers against you or I, if we did something they didn't like
And the people will demand this new law and cheer when it's brought in

So I think we should let her back in, if that's what she wants. When she gets here, arrest her and put her on trial, to see if she's committed a crime. If she has, put her in prison

I know the British taxpayer will need to fund all this and there are many things I object to my tax money being spent on, but putting criminals in prison is not one of them

Maybe next time someone sets up a petition with a quarter of a million signatures, maybe it shouldn't be about if we let in the next ISIS nutbag who wants to come back, but if we give these retards citizenship in the first place

That's the problem we need to sort out

The solution seems quite clear

It seems that once again, the Guardian is trying to convince us that poverty actually exists in England

‘Living in poverty’: workers at business ministry go on strike

Unfortunately these workers are unable to feed an clothe themselves and have no access to clean water or medical care...

Just kidding. This is 'poverty' in England we're talking about, not real poverty

Catering staff earning as little as £7.83 an hour danced and sang outside their work at the business department as they staged a 26-hour strike in protest at what they described as poverty pay.

The minimum wage is currently £7.38, so their 'as little as', is higher than employers are obliged to pay and certainly not poverty pay by a long haul

Many of the outsourced catering team at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) earn no more than the minimum wage, well below the £10.55 that the Living Wage Foundation calculates is necessary for an adequate life in the capital

Maybe if you're only capable of earning minimum wage and that is not enough for a life in the capital,you shouldn't be living in the capital? Yes I know, it's difficult to be able to move away from your place of birth sometimes, particularly if you don't have the means...

What?

Ana Joaquim, from Wood Green, who is originally from Portugal, earns £8.50 an hour as a barista at BEIS

“We are living in poverty in this company,” she said. “They pay the minimal national wage; we are not entitled to 28 days’ holiday.”

So you moved from a country with a much lower minimum wage and planted yourself right in the most expensive part of the UK. What exactly do you want? Yes, I know, money for nothing

Her colleague Novlette Hurd, from Wandsworth, who is originally from Jamaica, earns even less – £8.19 per hour...

Now I've no idea what the minimum wage is in Jamaica, or even if there is one, but surely if you purchase the plane ticket from Jamaica to the UK, it's probably a good idea to settle in a part of the country where you can live on the wage you are qualified to earn?

...despite 21 years’ service at the department. “We can’t live because, for starters, I’ve got dependent children and it’s just not going anywhere,” Hurd said.

So you've been earning the minimum wage for 21 years, without doing anything to better yourself or move to a more affordable part of the country and still chose to have children? Whose fucking fault is that?

Like, you think, why do I bother to work?

Like, some people actually have a moral code and would prefer to earn for themselves, even if it's not a lot, than scrounge from others who do go to work. If you can even ask that question, it says a lot about you as a person

The private contractors Aramark and Engie should be ashamed of themselves for not paying staff the London living wage.

The trouble is, the living / minimum wage is the problem, not the solution. If you artificially increase wages across the board, the cost of all the goods and services increases in line, making nobody better off in the long run

The only way to get more money is to improve your skills and experience and earn more, or cut your cloth and spend less. Part of that means not emigrating from a rather poor country and setting up camp in one of the most expensive places in the west, to live

The Right Reporter for the Right Article

It's very important in journalism, to select the right reporter for the right article

Take this article for instance:

You'll need this reporter:

Reminds me a little of this one from a while back

Of course, picking the right journalist for the right title isn't the whole story. You've got to come up with the ideal title in the first place:

It's a funny old world...



(*Update* The title of the Lancashire Telegraph story that prompted this blog post, has since been changed to, "Man made masturbation gesture...". Why? Because the hero of the hour himself, popped up in the comments and explained that he hadn't been tugging one off, he only pulled down his keks for a laugh. It really is a funny old world)

(*Update 2*. The headline has now been changed to, "Staff saw man masturbating..." and the comments have been closed)

Justice?

Or bad journalism? She hasn't just been sent down for life for a second time, as the title suggests, she had her conviction overturned on appeal, but was found guilty at her retrial

On reading that title I thought, 'she's not a cat', but then

Mr Justice King, sitting at Liverpool Crown Court, recommended that Rachel Tunstill, 26, should serve a minimum 17 years before being considered for parole

She's 26. She could easily be out in time to live another life. Or serve another 'life' sentence

Maybe she is a cat?

How not to Negotiate

Top government ministers pressure Theresa May to rule out 'no-deal' Brexit

Following reports a group of nearly 20 ministers have been meeting to discuss plans to stop a no-deal Brexit, the prime minister faced a series of interventions from members of her government.

Chancellor Philip Hammond repeated his warning that leaving the EU without a withdrawal agreement would be a "betrayal" of the 2016 referendum vote.

What an amazing negotiating position. Not

No deal should have been the position from the minute the referendum result came in. Article 50 should have been triggered within one week of the vote and 'no deal' should have been the default position for leaving

Two years later, the EU would have been begging for a good deal and by now, we would have left already and our position would be a strong one

But no. We've dithered for almost three years and now we're willing to tell the EU that the one thing they don't want us to do, we won't do. If there is any more negotiating to do, the EU can do it on their own terms now, as they know there is no fight left in Britain, if there ever was

And no Phillip Hammond, no deal is not a betrayal of the 2016 referendum vote, it is the 2016 referendum vote. I don't know if your ballot paper was different to mine, but mine had two options - Stay in the EU or leave the EU. There was no third option for some crappy deal that kept us half in, half out, but mostly in

No deal is exactly what we voted for. Anything else we can get, is a bonus

No crack on and get us out