Saudi Prince 'paid' by BAE

BBC

A Saudi prince received secret payments from the UK's biggest arms dealer, a BBC investigation has revealed.

BAE Systems made regular payments of hundreds of millions of pounds to Prince Bandar bin Sultan for more than a decade.

The payments were made with the full knowledge of the Ministry of Defence.

Prince Bandar would not comment and BAE systems said they acted lawfully at all times. The MoD said information about the Al Yamamah deal was confidential.

Well there's a surprise, eh?!

And what did our corrupt government do? Scuppered the investigation.

Why does nobody get angry about this? Why do we let it happen?

Comic Relief

I've just got back from work.

Last year, we used some of our resources to get staff taking calls for Sports Relief.

This year we decided that it went well so we would again field calls for the event.

Was a thoroughly enjoyable evening and we raised a small fortune in a short period of time.

More than that, having taken many calls myself, it was great to find out that there are so many generous, compassionate people in this country. Not just those donating but people like us, giving up our time to help out.

Its easily forgotten when we look at the depressing stories in the media just how good the people in this country are when we want to be.

That said, I think its only right to pass some form of comment on the subject matter itself.

I think last nights episode of The Apprentice showed where things are wrong:

People were making casual decisions about spending £25,000 or £150,000 on tickets for a fairground as if it were equivalent to spending 50p on a newspaper. At the same time, billions of people around the world are in desperate need of medical treatment, food, shelter, clean water, protection from violence etc.

The inequality in the distribution of wealth at every level should be tackled. But no rich country will ever intentionally make itself poor to help raise the standards of life in another.

Its things like this which make me question the value of capitalism. It seems greedy and selfish. Thats because it is.

Ok, thats my Bono bit over. I think i'll call it a night!

Patientline: Parasitic capitalism

Most of us are familiar with the disgusting Patientline service enforced on those in NHS hospitals.

This greedy parasitic company is now facing up to the consequences of its extortionate costs.

In addition, the NHS is about to finally allow patients and visitors to use their mobile phones.

Its always been well known in the telecoms industry that the impact of these devices on equipment is minimal.

I've had cause to try and contact people in hospital over the last few years and have been charged a small fortune just to see how they were doing.

I'm sure others have too.

They also charge at least 3 x the standard rates for outgoing calls from hospital.

Of course, staff have (by and large) been totally brainwashed into believing quite the opposite.

Shows what happens when you allow people without a clue to dictate policy.

Finally, just take a look at the performance of the shares for Patientline (below):

Sir Hayden Phillips - Hang your head in shame

How dare you.

How dare you attempt to force me as a taxpayer to fund party politics in this country.

On every level and for every possible reason I oppose this.

Put simply Phillips, because it is not the role of the taxpayer to ensure the survival of political parties.

If they cannot fund themselves from their supporters, they do not deserve to exist.

They spend so much money campaigning because they DO NOT deal with the electorate any more, its all soundbites and billboards.

It costs NOTHING to stand on a soapbox in a town centre. It costs nothing to visit town halls or other venues.

It costs MILLIONS to put up billboards or pay for adverts to attack your opponents.

If the parties want to do this, fine, let them - out of their pockets - not ours.

You miss the fundamental points and are working to help out the corrupt institutions are the heart of our "democracy". I'm sure you would say you were working within "limited terms of reference" - how convenient.

More on this here

Please do feel free to contact him via review@partyfundingreview.gsi.gov.uk

Check out the No Public Funding website for more specifics on why this shouldn't be allowed.