Brick Lane Today: 01/25/12

Wednesday, 25 January 2012

Shelina Aktar joins Pola Uddin in the “flats of shame” “news”!

2350 HRS
GMT

What can it mean for Society when a Mick Jagger spurns a David Cameron? And a Boris Johnson, “to boot”?

2012 [2000] [1935] Hrs GMT London Wednesday 25 January 2012:

Editor© Muhammad Haque

AADHIKAR Media Foundation exclusive diagnostics on the state of ethics morality and political economics in the UK today

What can it mean for Society when a Mick Jagger spurns a David Cameron?

And a Boris Johnson, “to boot”?

As if to complete the statement, Jagger’s emphatic rejection of both the rivals in the current Con Gang says that at least the “aged” Rock Star is not impressed by either.

And coming as the news does in a week which still showing more pro-Con “op poll results” than anything the late Ralf Miliband’s surviving family may be celebrating, it is quite possible that Cameron’s over-confident tenure may indeed be coming to an end.

At least in terms of “electoral” propaganda and related brainwashing of the mass of “swinging voters”.

Whether this translates into a vigorous, sustained and genuinely pro-democratic, pro-justice revival in the psephological prospects for any Opposition grouping or movement in the UK is quite a different matter. Especially in a country that constitutionally speaking [like when the now fast discarded concept of “sovereignty” is invoked in relation to the “equation” across “the pond”] remains strangely prostrate at the feet of the mythical “most powerful Nation on earth”, the USA.

David Miliband’s itemised flaws do not include any doubt on his part about the “superiority of the USA”. So what could Miliband actually offer?

He could do a lot worse this week than really reflect on the comparative neatness with which someone like Mick Jagger has sent BOTH Cameron and Johnson packing!

It must be one of those occasions when Miliband must be wishing he had pursued at least in his formative years a career on some sort of stage so that he could use the collected "Pop artiste" image as a weapon to use against the inexplicably “dominant” CON poll presence!

Perhaps it isn’t who Mick Jagger is that has made the point. It is most likely the fact that unlike Miliband, Jagger has expressed a coherent contempt for the Nasty party duo!

And the fact that Jagger’s expressed contempt for the Con duo is something that has wider resonance with the public than is the case with a Miliband Opposition.

Miliband is identified as a pliant ramp that is earnestly engaged in showing how many things it agrees on with the Nasty party agenda-promoting CONDEM Collusion.

When most ordinary people are feeling the pinch, when most of the UK Society is being reduced to shades of the Dark ages before civilisation was recognised in the setting up institutions and agencies like the NHS and the semblance of social security denoting measures of civility, fairness and audit, David Miliband is not sinking in the public’s view because of his lack of knowledge. He is sinking because of his lack of identity.

Is he a Tory?

Or is he with the people suffering the brunt of the Tory onslaught being facilitated by a dying Lib Dems who must use the life raft of the Con-Dems Collusion?

[To be continued]

COUNCILLORS are wasting spaces all over England while they pocket £Millions from ordinary people

COUNCILLORS are wasting spaces all over England while they pocket £Millions from ordinary people
Barnet is not alone.
Barnet cannot be alone.
ALL known "elected councils" across England are made up [note that phrase] of "councillors" NOT doing the things they were elected to do.
We have a very serious crisis in Society. The evidence IS OVERWHELMING across all of England of "elected councillors pocketing huge sums in allowances" being expected to play it VERY SAFE which is to do nothing that will even slightly shake their applecart of "receipts" and perks.
Such complicit councillors cannot be expected to do anything that may change that arrangement.

Do you see?

That arrangement is institutionalised, mass bribery and corruption and thereby the sinking of what used to be called "local democratic say".

Comment on a Barnet, London-based blog at

0520 Hrs GMT
Wednesday
25 January 2012

UPDATING Our publishing law Disclaimer at 0530 GMT 25 January 2012

Brick Lane Today is a creation of AADHIKAR Media Foundation [established London Monday 19 December 1980]

Editor © Muhammad Haque. Brick Lane Today is published several times daily by AADHIKAR Media from London E1 UK. ALL originated items are the IPRs of the Editor and must only be published by anyone other than the Editor with express prior written consent and permission. This brief Publishing Law disclaimer updated at 0530GMT Wednesday 25 January 2012

How LOndon's ITV news programem has been hiding the truth and peddling the CON Agenda over London: Boris painted as a model of good manners abroad!

ITV London’s broadcast edition of 1800 Hrs Tuesday 24 January 2012 promoted Boris Johnson in a positive light...

The London TV news programme reported that it was doing so because an alleged recipient of Boris Johnson’s “Englishman” abroad “good manners” as apparently witnessed in relation to an Italian family, had paid public tributes to the occupant of the Onion on the South Bank of the river Thames.
What the ITV London programme SHOULD have reported but didn’t, was the fact that Boris Johnson was a participant and openly admitted practitioner of what was and remains a massively dishonest trait. That is of being party to what can only be a paid lobbying arrangement between the offices that Boris Johnson holds with the significant influence that those offices carry and the business interests of the London Daily Telegraph media group. .
Call it chicken feed or peanuts, the sum of £250,000.00 [or £200,000.00 if the “scholarships” he reportedly launched are taken into account] cannot be justified as being just “remuneration” for likes than 50 pieces of allegedly Boris-authored pieces for the TELEGRAPH.

It is unheard of that any “writer” for a newspaper can be paid that sum.
So outrageous is Boris’s paid links with the Daily Telegraph that many blogs have been written about this.
Including the one that is accessible via the UREL we have reproduced with this AADHIKAR Media REVIEW OF THE UK MEDIA dated 25 January 2012.
Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson's opponent at the scheduled poll on 03 May 2012, made a point of referring pejoratively to Boris’ paid links with the Telegraph Group. Livingstone made the remark at an event held in the East End of London on Monday evening. It was noted however that no-one from the audience at the Toynbee Hall, Commercial Street London E1, really came back on that remark. .
Does that absence of a response from an audience that was got together for a “TELL KEN” performance, proof that people had given up on telling Ken Livingstone about London?
Not so on other subjects.
So why the silence on Boris’s Peanuts pavements by the Telegraph, a known factor in the “movers and shakers” for the Right wing and for Big Business in Britain? [To be continued]

The London DAILY TELEGRAPH Group almost begins a confession about Big Biz scams eg HS2 [and Crossrail before it] are nothing but Big Lying scams

The London DAILY TELEGRAPH Group almost begins a confession about Big Biz scams eg HS2 [and Crossrail before it] are nothing but Big Lying scams

0300 Hrs GMT
London
Wednesday 25 January 2012.
By © Muhammad Haque.
KHOODEELAAR! the Campaign against “Big Business agenda scam Crossrail hole attacks on the East End of London....” has been telling the DAILY TELEGRAPH for years so! That BIG BUSINESS was LYING BUSINESS and that Big Schemes were big scams....The Telegraph has now allowed one f its regular writers to start the overdue confession about Big Infrastructure Projects being y nothing but calculated lying projects and scams, is a positive start. Will it last? We shall be watching the Telegraph...[To be continued]

DISHONEST BRITAIN is booming, says Essex University research report!

The British people are becoming less honest and their trust in government and business leaders has fallen to a new low amid fears that the nation is heading for an "integrity crisis".

Click HERE to view graphic

Lying, having an affair, driving while drunk, having underage sex and buying stolen goods are all more acceptable than they were a decade ago. But people are less tolerant of benefits fraud.

The portrait of a nation increasingly relaxed about "low-level dishonesty" emerges in a major study seen by The Independent. Carried out by the University of Essex, which will today launch Britain's first Centre for the Study of Integrity, it suggests that the "integrity problem" is likely to get worse because young people are more tolerant of dishonest behaviour than the older generation. The new centre will look at issues arising from recent scandals such as phone hacking, MPs' expenses and the banking crisis.

A separate "trust barometer", published by the PR company Edelman, shows that two out of three people do not trust politicians to tell the truth. Trust levels in MPs from all parties slumped by 36 points to 4 per cent after last summer's riots. People also lost confidence in the young and the police.

Only 29 per cent of people believe the Government is doing the right thing, while 38 per cent trust businesses and a surprisingly low 42 per cent trust non-governmental organisations. "There is a chasm between the public's expectations of government and what they think is actually being delivered," said Ed Williams, boss of Edelman. "The vast majority [68 per cent] think the country is on the wrong track."

The Essex University study found that in 2000, 70 per cent of people believed an extramarital affair could never be justified; today, the proportion is about 50 per cent. The proportion of people who say picking up money found in the street is never justified fell from 40 per cent to 20 per cent. Lying and breaking the speed limit have also become an accepted part of life. Fabricating a job application and having an affair are less acceptable, but many people do not rule them out.

According to the Essex study, women have slightly more integrity than men. There appears to be little variation in honesty according to social class, education or income. But there is a significant age factor: younger people are far more likely to tolerate dishonesty. Only 33 per cent of under-25s thinks lying on a job application is never justified, compared with 41 per cent of middle-aged people and 55 per cent of those over 65.

The report's author, Professor Paul Whiteley, who will direct the new centre, believes there might be a "life cycle" effect in which people become more honest as they age. However, he points out that other research suggests people learn honesty or dishonesty in their formative years and this will not change very much as they get older.

"There are reasons to be pessimistic about this, since people tend to acquire their basic political beliefs in adolescence and these do not change very much as they grow older," the report says. "If integrity is anything like political values, then it is likely to decline in future as the norms which sanction such behaviour weaken further. This will be more likely if new cohorts of young people learn to be even more dishonest than at present."

Comparing the latest findings with similar research in 2000, Professor Whiteley says: "It is apparent that large changes have occurred in sexual mores, attitudes to keeping money found in the street, and to smoking cannabis. These activities are much more sanctioned than they were 11 years ago."

There have been smaller but significant changes in attitudes towards failing to report damage to a parked car, buying stolen goods and drink-driving, which earn less disapproval than they did in 2000. The only transgression of which people are less tolerant is cheating on benefit claims. The proportion condemning the practice has risen from 78 per cent to 85 per cent. "This may reflect a growing hostility to welfare fraud at a time of economic austerity in comparison with the years of relative prosperity of the late 1990s," says Professor Whiteley. "It appears Britons are growing more and more tolerant of low-level dishonesty and less inclined to sanction activities which would have been heavily frowned on in the past."

There could be big implications for politics. Professor Whiteley, who has devised an "integrity test", see panel, said integrity levels mattered because there was a link between them and a sense of civic duty. If integrity continues to decline, he thinks it will be difficult to mobilise volunteers to support David Cameron's Big Society project.

"If social capital is low, and people are suspicious and don't work together, those communities have worse health, worse educational performance, they are less happy and they are less economically developed and entrepreneurial," Professor Whiteley said. "It really does have a profound effect."

The same trend could also deter people from voting, as a sense of civic duty is an important factor in explaining why people take part in elections.

"Individuals with a strong sense of integrity also feel they would be neglecting their duty if they did not vote," says the Essex study.

Vox pop: Do you consider yourself dishonest?

Paul Moriarty, 65, actor

Score in integrity test: 16

Recent example of dishonesty: I broke the speed limit.

How did you justify it? I did it because I could. If you know you're going to get away with it, you're going to do it.

How do you think things have changed in the past ten years? There's more hypocrisy at the top. Priests are up to no good, people haven't paid their taxes. We need the newspapers to put these people under pressure.

Ludivine Sorel, 28, waitress

Score: 22

Recent example of dishonesty: I have a nose piercing and my boss told me I had to remove the stud. I told him that I couldn't because the hole would seal up.

How did you justify it? It was a stupid rule, I should be able to wear what I want.

How do you think things have changed in the past ten years? I think things are getting worse. People don't respect each other any more.

Peter Jones, 42, newspaper vendor

Score: 22

Recent example of dishonesty: I broke the speed limit.

How did you justify it? It's no big deal, it didn't feel like I was breaking the law, not at all. I was fully confident of my ability to drive at that speed.

How do you think things have changed in the past ten years? I've definitely become more honest. I suppose maturity has a way of correcting that kind of thing.

Maria Moreno, 31, architect

Score: 18

Recent example of dishonesty: I stole a jacket not long ago. I was in a crowded shop. I realised I could get away with it.

How did you justify it? It was a well-known brand, so I thought they could afford it.

How do you think things have changed in the past ten years? I don't think things have changed.

Simon Young, 23, fundraiser

Score: 40

Recent example of dishonesty: I lied about putting the washing away to my girlfriend.

How did you justify it? What can I say? I'm a mean-spirited git.

How do you think things have changed in the past ten years? There's no such thing as dishonesty, it's contextual. If you have to steal £50 to stop someone blowing up a plane, it's justifiable.

Matt Willard, 24, recruitment consultant

Score: 19

Recent example of dishonesty: I told my girlfriend I was going to a friends for a quick drink, but then went out all night.

How did you justify it? I was lost in the moment. I did feel pretty guilty about it afterwards though.

How do you think things have changed in the past ten years? People are definitely less honest. Everyone is trying to take short cuts.

Vivian Williams, 26, product manager

Score: 14

Recent example of dishonesty: My friend was having a party. I was tired but I told her I couldn't go because I was ill.

How did you justify it? I was tired! I had to think about myself. If I'd told the truth she would have talked me into going.

How do you think things have changed in the past ten years? We're under a lot of economic pressure. When people feel squeezed, they're more likely to be dishonest. Then again, I don't think celebrity culture has helped, it has definitely led to a moral decline.

Interviews by Sam Judah