His welfare is my concern, no burden is he.

The coveted Christmas number one has been won five times in the last six years by a contestant of The X factor. Some of those artists have never been heard of since and were manufactured, fake and not all that good at best. Shayne Ward started the trend in 2005 with That's my goal, before fading into obscurity. Only 2009's Rage against the machine interrupted the run after an online campaign to upset Simon Cowell's fame machine.
This year looked to be heading the same way with the latest X factor winner, the interesting and undoubtedly talented  James Authur. We are of course, yet to see if he has the longevity to survive longer than his predecessors. I suspect he will. That talent and the X factor machine was not enough to get Mr Authur to number 1.
That went to a song that was first a hit over 40 years ago. He aint heavy (he's my brother), first recorded by Manchester band The Hollies in 1969 was rehashed and recorded by a group of ex footballers and singers including Robbie Williams and the ever annoying Paul Mcartney under the name The justice collective, with proceeds going to the families of the 96 men women and children that perished in the Hillsborough disaster.
Recently cleared of all blame on the day, the families are now seeking new inquest verdicts after the original verdicts were quashed. The government is to pay all legal costs and have ordered a new enquiry so that what happened in 1989 may be re examined.
The government, transparently desperate to show themselves as the friendly, nice party, announced they would also waive VAT on the charity single.
Now, this may be quite an unfashionable opinion, and one that may indeed cause offence to some band waggon ambushing, holier than thou, police hating idiots, but I thought the last enquiry with its  trumpet blowing fanfare finale meant justice at last.
The truth is that we will never know what actually happened on that day. No matter how much money we throw at endless investigations and enquiry's, we will not get to the truth because the screeching U turns of the media and the government, who once crucified the Liverpool fans, have enshrined Liverpool football club as one beyond criticism. But there will be no smoking gun. Police officers on duty that day, the medical staff on duty that day, retired politicians and disgraced newspaper editors have all been blamed rather than acknowledge the public's perception of Liverpool fans in 1989.
Is it possible that the reason those 96 football fans died was simply a massive group of coincidences amounting to a massive slice of horrifically bad luck ? In a time when health and safety was far less enforced than today, is surprising that the state of the stadium contributed to the disaster?
 In a time when the Police of South Yorkshire were sadly oh too familiar with facing highly charged situations after years of picket lines and striking Coalminers, is it impossible to imagine how they might possibly have misread the carnage on that day and assumed that Liverpool fans, who at that time enjoyed a certain notoriety, after helping English clubs get banned from Europe with their involvement in the Heysel stadium. 
Surely, we are not surprised that some over zealous newspaper editors filled their boots at the chance to point the finger. The appalling Kelvin Mckenzie should be absolutely ashamed of himself for the lies he printed and yet, he appears to be simply untouched by the pain he caused to so many already devastated families. That said, the recent Leveson debacle should have made us unshockable by the depths that newspapers will stoop to sell copies.

There have been calls for verdicts of manslaughter being returned against the police officers on duty that day, and hope David Cameron is brave enough to resist that avenue. The events of that day were a compilation of misjudgements of biblical proportions that will inevitably, eventually result in huge compensation payments to the families from our kind caring government.

I feel there are some more pertinent issues that need the immediate attention of the home secretary, the chancellor and the Prime Minister.
Not least of all the lack of growth, the increasing poverty and general unhappiness being experienced by thousands of families up and down the country due entirely to decisions made by the government. It is ironic that one of the lines of Xmas number 1, He aint heavy reads "his welfare is my concern, no burden is he to bear" .
We are not falling for it Mr Cameron. No matter how much money and good will you throw at 96 Liverpudlian families , the rest of the country knows that the Tory party party is the nasty party.
Where Labour tried to get rid of poorness, the Tory lead government seems intent on getting rid of the poor.

                                                              Christmas Yule Blog

'Twas the week before Christmas and all across the land, members of Parliament were voting on whether to sell hard fought for employment rights down the river in exchange for for a few pieces of silver,..
No, this isn't Victorian England, it is modern day.
Ebenezer Osbourne announced in his Autumn statement plans to surge ahead with his attack on working people.
His idea is that businesses can offer potential employees as little as £2000 worth of shares in exchange for certain rights such as maternity pay or the right to appeal if unfairly dismissed. This Osbourn claims is fair, and will help the economy. It clearly is not. It is a direct attack on the rights of working people. Something that the Tory government is hell bent on doing. They want businesses to be able to sack workers easily to maximise profits for business owners, many of whom are donors to the Conservative party.
The Tory lead government want to enable companies to not recruit people who refuse to give up their rights.
If they get their way employers will be free to fire any one who doesn't play ball. Anyone who voices concern about health and safety or working conditions will simply be released paving the way for bullying , harassment and a return to Victorian work house conditions. Is this progress?
Osbourne also announced in his statement that benefits increases will be capped at 1%. As inflation is at 2.7% this in real terms a cut of more than 1%. The Tory's claim is that this also is fair , attempting to paint a picture of strivers going out to work in the dark in a morning while benefits claimants wallow in bed until lunch time then get up to watch Jeremy Kyle on their massive Televisions. Again, this claim is simply not true. We have all heard these stories but the reality is that they are the exception not the norm and 60% of the people affected by the cut in benefits will be the strivers on low pay going out to work. The government lies to the electorate in the hope that we are stupid enough to believe the propaganda of the very rich. It is a blatant attempt to divide the nations working people and none working. They want to divide the north ans south of the country. they want to divide private sector and public sector . They want to divide us so we are vulnerable because they know together they will not get back in power.
The coalition is cutting housing benefit, cutting working tax credit cutting police numbers and cutting services across the board that the very poorest rely on while cutting tax for the very richest.
These cuts are not in the interest of the country and will not stimulate growth. They have no real plans to help our economy recover but instead are determined to forge ahead with ideological plans that were designed in the halls of Eton . If they are allowed to do it they will ruin the future of a generation.
They intend to rob workers of any protection and rob the unemployed of any dignity.
Luckily, Saint Nick is on hand to save us. Deputy PM Nick Clegg described the benefits assault as draconian. I would go further than that. They are the spiteful, arrogant plans of men who were born to lead in their view, even though barely any of them have ever had an actual job. this why they do not understand the real world. It is easy for someone who has never been employed to say we don't need employment rights. it is easy for someone who has never been on a council estate to say those people don't deserve services. it is easy for someone who has never been without money to say that shirkers don't deserve any.
They are out of touch with the rest of us to such an extent that their policies seem bewildering to people who are directly affected those policies. Us the voters, the public, the strivers and the shirkers. The public sector , the private sector the poor and the very poor. we must all stand together and never allow the Tories to wreak havoc on society again

This week showed once again just how out of touch the government is, not just with the public but with itself. David Cameron and Nick Clegg failed to agree with each other about the long anticipated Leveson report. The year long enquiry, which cost a reported £3million, called for statutory underpinning. Earlier, Cameron said he would follow any suggestions from Judge Leveson, as long they were not bonkers.. He went on to acknowledge and accept everything he said, except the need to legislate. Deputy Prime minister, Nick Clegg said he agreed that we need legislation as did Labour leader Ed Miliband.
The lack of action from Cameron has left many people wondering what was the point in having the enquiry at all? Month after month we saw celebrity victims turning up to the enquiry. Stars of TV, film and music as well as politicians and newspaper editors gave evidence. Some of the people who gave evidence are now more well known for the hacking scandal than their chosen professions.  One might say that the press and the enquiry have done a lot to raise awareness of certain people rather than damaging them.
Clearly we need laws that protect innocent members of the public from being falsely accused and hounded by the press . Those laws already exist.  A stricter more robust governing body needs to be in control of the press and the newspaper owners. Mr Murdoch, News international and some of the other News papers have had far too much power to wield for far too long. This needs to be addressed immediately before the next general election so that politicians can get on with what they are paid to do rather than having to worry about cosying up to the papers. Self regulation is not an option but nor should be the option of government regulating the only people that can really hold them to accountability. The people to regulate the press and media generally should be us the tax payers, the licence fee payers, subscription fee payers and paper buyers. It may take a little bit of statute to ensure the governing body had the necessary powers or the press could simply chose to ignore. How hard can it be to set up. We have public bodies that govern schools, we have 12 members of the public deciding the fate of people in court when they sit on a jury. We should in my view use similar models to govern the press.
Prime minister David Cameron seems to be adopting the strategy of doing nothing quite a lot lately. Last week, when the church decided it would not allow women to become bishops, Cameron said its not for government to tell the church what to do.
Yes it is! If the church breaks the law it should not be exempt. Equality laws exist to protect everybody and every institution that employs people has to abide by those laws. Every institution except the church apparently. What message does Mr Cameron think it sends to other religions, if we say oh its fine, their religious beliefs conflict with that law so they don't have to obey? If we allow religions to not obey some laws where do we draw the line? There have been child molestation accusations covered up by  religion. There have been murders and torture in the name of religion.
Mr Cameron should have said to the church, if you want the right to practise your religion in our country then you abide by the laws of this country. Comply or die.
The head of the church is the Queen of England. How arrogant is it of Bishops, who incidentally sit in the house of Lords passing judgement on the laws of this country, to say we don't have to follow those rules.
The Bishops should be barred from the house of Lords and the church should be fined until it falls in line with modern society.  It is so far out of date that they probably think we should have ducking stools for suspected witches. If God in heaven created us all equal who the hell do the bishops think they are to say women are not worthy of the top jobs.