What happened whilst Blair was distracting you?

The media frenzy over the arrival of Tony Blair at the Chilcott enquiry yesterday served the government and press an opportunity to hide some of its bad or controversial news.

The more seasoned bloggers are more than aware that government uses such high profile occasions in this manner, and true to form, never wishing to miss opportunities like this when they present themselves a couple of stories were overlooked.

Apart from the daily assault by government on our children, using them as surrogate spies, this item struck me as being a classic piece of scope creep from those who use and maintain the Contact Point children’s big brother database.

Children as young as five are being told to fill in Big Brother-style forms which let councils snoop on intimate details about their home lives.

The questions – which have been attacked as exploitative – ask about junk food, television habits, family time and even whether the youngsters ‘like themselves’.

Results are stored on a database, allowing families deemed to be ‘at risk’ to be referred to social services or doctors.

The story highlights the recurring theme of Child Abuse by this government, especially those quangos such as NICE acting in classic East German style,  and reinforces the need for parents to warn their children never to speak to strangers, especially when they say “I’m from the Government, I’m here to help”….

The unsurprising thing of course is that Erewash council (who conducted the pilot scheme) is a Conservative controlled council, so don’t expect any changes after a general election in policy in this area. Conservative run councils have a history of abusing the powers granted them under the database state.

Number 2 on the list of missed stories, is one broken by blogger Iain Dale yesterday, true to form, the Department of Health tried to bury bad news.

Iain explains:

At 10.06am an email dropped into my Inbox with the alluring headline

STATISTICAL PRESS NOTICE – NHS INPATIENT AND OUTPATIENT WAITING TIMES FIGURES – 31st December 2009

I nearly didn’t bother to look, but suspicion got the better of me. It turns out that patient waiting times have increased dramatically in 2009.

• The number of inpatients, for whom English commissioners are responsible, waiting over 13 weeks at the end of December 2009 was 57,600, an increase of 12,300 (27.3%) from November 2009, and a rise of 18,000 (45.3%) from December 2008.
• The number of outpatients, for whom English commissioners are responsible, waiting over 8 weeks at the end of December 2009 was 74,100, an increase of 11,700 (18.8%) from November 2009, but a rise of 26,900 (57.0%) from December 2008.

Shouldn’t the press release have been headlined…

Labour Increases NHS Waiting Times by 50%?

The figures speak for themselves really….

Now to number 3, and the most important story to be missed of all.

A story that should have been splashed right across the front page of every newspaper in the country was reported in the Telegraph by its Deputy Political Editor, Robert Winnett. Everyone else I assume was assembled at the QEII building hanging on every word from Tony Blair, but the importance of this story cannot be underestimated.

Britain’s Banks downgraded by Standard & Poor’s.

The Telegraph makes clear the impact of that downgrading:

The international creditworthiness of the country’s banking system is now on a level which is equivalent to poorer countries such as Chile and Portugal.

It could now cost banks more to borrow money on the wholesale financial markets – with consumers facing higher prices for mortgages and loans as a result.

That’s right, with Gordon Brown (Britain is best placed to weather the financial storm) at the helm, he and his globalist chums have managed to cripple Britain’s flagship industry. An industry that our economy absolutely relies on after the EU destroyed our fishing, farming, steel, mining and industrial/manufacturing base.

They go on to tell us:

Earlier this week, official figures showed that the economy grew by just 0.1 per cent during the final three months of 2009 – compared to expected growth of 0.4 per cent or more.

The downgrading of Britain’s banks could be followed by the entire country’s credit-rating being reduced. The credit-rating determines the cost of borrowing on international financial markets.

In a statement released yesterday, Standard & Poor’s said: “We no longer classify the United Kingdom among the most stable and low-risk banking systems globally.

The Euro federalists must be rubbing their hands in glee at the though that the UK and Sterling may have to take flight and join the EURO in order to save itself from total ruin.

Steve Barrow, head of Group-of-10 currency strategy at Standard Bank said:

“Sterling has come off aggressively in the wake of the Standard & Poor’s statement,” he continued “The pound is vulnerable, especially against the dollar and the yen.”

In light of all the above, I don’t really give two hoots what Blair had to say yesterday, there are far more important things to concentrate on, such as getting our country back from the clutches of the EU, having it run by politicians who believe in the UK and are willing to put the public need in front of party loyalty, civil servants who serve the public rather than expect to be served by the public, these are things that are important to me, and I suggest most of the population.

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