Just before Christmas I caught sight that someone was setting up a twitter hashtag for people who felt lonely at that time of year. the hashtag that was set up was #notalone365, and the person behind it, @notalone365, needs a medal. I wasn’t actually feeling lonely, but was happy to spend some time being sociable and ‘being there’ for anyone who thought that no-one was there to listen to them. This went on through the whole Christmas and New Year period, and is now a year-round phenomenon.

Please don’t think, though, that the purpose of this blog is an exercise in some sort of self-aggrandisment, because I was happy to chat, because it’s not. Never before have I seen anyone set up anything that has caught on so quickly – it’s the community, the people, the person who actually had the idea in the first place.

I am grateful to #notalone365 because it has helped me make new friends, all over the country and, indeed, the world. I cannot guarantee being there all the time every single day, because no-one can, but as long as I am on Twitter and tweeting, I am always happy to chat.

So, the single purpose of this blog entry. If you ever get fed up and feel alone, follow @notalone365 or tweet with the hashtag #notalone365 and someone will be there to chat to you. If you just feel like a chat, there are lovely people there who will talk to you, whether you feel lonely or not. If you are lucky, you might not end up chatting to me!

Those ever so kind people at News International  have said that all proceeds from sales will go to charity.

What I don’t get is this: News International still shows no shame – it wants us to give it money that they will give to charity.

News International still doesn’t get it – any sane-minded person is so revulsed at what its employees have done in the name of what they laughingly ‘journalism’ that they won’t want anything to do with them.

The people at the top of News International have decided that we, the British people, can be fobbed off by the rushed redundancies of the News of the World’s staff (whose work I do not necessarily admire, but who did not all indulge in such underhand and illegal practices), while those at the top pay no actual price for their hand, or lack of hand if they were on holiday at the time, in being in charge of the paper at the time.

It’s simple, folks, and I hope you will agree. If Mr Murdoch and his henchpeople want to donate money to charity, let them do it out of their own pockets. Please, do not buy the News of the World tomorrow – do not even give them a hint that, just because the paper has gone, all is forgiven. Do not give them any breathing space or massage their egos – just say no.

Boycott the News of the World or, if you are feeling more daring like Renault UK, boycott News International altogether.

You know it makes sense

Yes, sometimes it is fit only for wiping our arses on.

But it is an established and venerable brand.

How many people would join me to buy the News of the World, to turn it back into a newspaper.

If enough people are up for it, we could make it a paper that is not afraid of attracting controversy, not afraid of asking uncomfortable questions, but does not sink to breaking the law

Are you with me brothers and sisters?

Some very worrying items remain:

The News of the World published a story years ago regarding a voicemail message left on Milly Dowler’s phone, and they passed this information to the police. This begs two questions:

1 – Does the editor of the News of the World not read the paper. If the answer is yes, why did she not ask about how this information was accessed?

2 – Didn’t the police ask how this information was accessed?

If a newspaper editor doesn’t know how vital information is accessed, they aren’t doing their job properly. If they did know, they are not telling the truth.

I live on a road that has a green space in front of my house, extending up the road. I walk across the green space to get to my car, which is parked on the side of the road.

Quite a few people use the road during the day, and the evening. People even walk their dogs…

I thought things had moved on. I thought people knew how to behave. Ok, I will state it plainly and clearly.

Who in the world still thinks it acceptable for their dog to take a huge dump and then not to clear up after them? My god, children run up and down the grass in the road. Not only is is foul (scuse the pun) and vile, it’s a bloody health hazard!

Come on people – if you have a pooch and walk it – do the decent thing!

I would though, like to add some facts into the argument:

1 – The government’s own data shows that the burden of public sector pensions is due to fall over the next 20 years – from 2% of GDP to 1.4%

2 – The only term of reference given by the government to the Hutton report was that the status quo was not an option – hardly a fair start

3 – For every £1 spent by taxpayers on public sector pensions, £2.50 is spent subsidising the pensions of the top 1% of earners (data from ;Decent Pensions for All (TUC) http://www.tuc.org.uk/extras/decentpensionsforall.pdf)

4 – The proposed increase in contributions is not going to pay for pensions, it is going to be used to pay the deficit, and therefore is a tax (in my case £150 extra per month taken from my wages)

MPs enjoy the very best public sector arrangements, yet they only indicate a ‘willingness’ to review their scheme, rather than leading by example

In one of its blogs, amongst a load of old tripe about pensions and blaming Gordon Brown for nearly everything bar the sinking of the Titanic, it clearly points out that, in spite of Messrs Osborne, Cameron and Alexander’s comments and scaremongering about the affordability of public sector pensions, the burden on the exchequer of these pensions is actually calculated to drop by 2060, from 2% of GDP to 1.4%.

Clearly, therefore, the review of public sector pensions is a politically driven exercise to denegrate those in the public sector by taxing them to pay off the deficit, as there can be no other reason.

This is a dangerous policy to follow, as public sector employees are perfectly within their rights to transfer to a private pension provider and take their existing contributions with them.

Imagine it – it would be a nightmare scenario for the posh boys in government. If we all did that there would be no contributions to pay off chunks of deficit, and there woudl be no contributions being paid in to pay existing pension payments to those who have retired.

How tempting would that be? I mean, they are counting on public sector employees laying down and playing dead, but we do have a ‘nuclear option’

One of these programmes is the BBC’s school-based drama, Waterloo Road. I do have issues with it, though…

Now, Auntie Beeb, do you want to have one of your ‘gritty’ dramas set in somewhere different from a police station or a hospital, or do you want to do the decent thing and actually try to set a realistic drama in a realistic school? The problem is, if you want to do the former, you are falling flat on your face.

The problem would appear to be that the scriptwriters appear to think that they need not do any research because they went to school once. There are so many things occuring in this school, which seems to have 40 pupils and 6 teachers and also a bottomless reserve of money with which to fund different projects upon which they can hang each week’s particular social angle .

There are other problems:

Apparently staff can resign immediately – as a teacher you cannot

Apparently you can train to be a teacher without being int he classroom – you cannot

Apparently child protection issues are common knowedge among the staff – they are not

Apparently the school teaches only English, Maths and Science – Technology, PE, Music, Languages, Art and RE have been frozen in time.

Now many might say that a realistic drama set in a school would be boring – believe me it wouldn’t – there are many things that crop up, from the seemingly mundane to the genuinely shocking, that could be dramatised. Pastoral matters would also be a good source of realistic drama, as would the financial struggles of ever-shrinking budgets.

I would like to offer my services to the BBC and the Waterloo Road production team as a consultant, so they can learn about what happens in schools and not look like an ever-more-ludicrous parody every week. I can offer guidelines on storyline and how things would happen – plus the odd cliffhanger wouldn’t go amiss.

Come on BBC – take me on and make it a realistic portrayal. Leave me a comment and I’m your man!

I am proud to say that I was the member who tabled the amendment to the NASUWT motion that added that phrase. It was about the policies, and not the people who make them.

I would like to share with you the speech that I made:

“Mr President, Conference.

I decided to add this amendment to the motion as I am of the opinion that it is what we think and it is about time that it was laid out in black and white that we have no confidence in coalition education policies.

Please note that this is not a vote of no confidence in the ministerial team, as I do not wish to hurl any insults in their direction, principally because they have never said anything nasty about me.

I am sure that the minsters at the Department for Education are perfectly nice, decent people. There is one problem: so is my milkman, but I don’t want my milkman telling me how I should be a teacher.

Over the last year the policies of the coalition government have made me feel like a second-class citizen purely because I am a teacher working in the public sector.

Well, and I feel this is my ‘Spartacus’ moment, I would like to say that I am proud to be a teacher working in the public sector.

There are many things that I do not like about education policies, including academies and free schools. Let us not forget that the idea of free schools was dreamt up by none other than Nick Clegg in 2008 in his first speech as Liberal Democrat leader.

I am now going to speak a little bit of French, mainly because I am eligible for the EBacc. I am going to deliberately misquote Albert Camus.

“Je refuserai jusqu’à la mort d’aimer cette création où les profs sont torturés”

I would like to translate that as ‘Until the day I die I will refuse to like the creators of a world in which teachers are vilified’

Please support this amendment”

It wasn’t a long speech, but it set out exactly how I feel.

Feel free to comment

It bangs on about the cost of the referendum. Frankly, I cannot believe that printing a ballot sheet for it, plus the counting of it, costs £91 million. Surely that is the cost of all elections on 5th May.

It says that AV will bring an end to equal votes. No, quite the opposite in fact. I have, for too many years, lived in constituencies where, quite frankly, it doesn’t matter if you paint a baboon blue, it will be elected. What is the point in having elections if the only constituencies that count are the marginals? Doesn’t that disenfranchise those who live in safe seats? What is all the fuss about?

Let’s look at 2 constituencies. Firstly, the one in which I live: Hereford and South Herefordshire

2010 Result:

Conservative          46.2%

Lib Dem                 41.1%

Labour                     7.2%

UKIP                        3.4%

BNP                         2%

If you assume that Labour second preferences go to the Lib Dems, and that UKIP and BNP preferences go to the Tories (not that I am drawing any inference or connection between the Conservatives and that vile bunch), that would give the following theoretical result:

Conservative   54.2%

Lib Dem          45.8%

It keeps the same result, and shows that a majority of those who voted had the Conservatives as their first or second choice.

Now, let’s go to Eastbourne, where I lived from 1994 to 1999

2010 Result:

Lib Dem 47.3%

Conservative 40.7%

Labour 4.8%

UKIP 2.5%

BNP 1.8%

Ind and Other 2.8%

If you make the same assumptions, that gives the following:

Lib Dems 52.1%

Conservative 45%

Others 2.9%

A decisive result is there, again, after second preferences are taken into account.

Now, let’s look at the literature again:

There is a photo of 4 runners. It shows, unsurprisingly, the one in blue coming first, but an arrow over the one coming fourth (who is wearing black, you spurious fear-mongering bunch in the NO2AV camp) saying ‘The Winner Under AV’. The one coming fourth does not win – he or she is the first one eliminated!

I now want to get to one of the most negative elements about the leaflet:

“AV leads to broken promises:

“Nick Clegg is unpopular because he broke his promises…that’s why he is pushing for AV to save his party

“The only vote that would count under Av would be Nick Clegg’s”

What a load of old tosh. It would appear that the ‘No’ campaign is deliberately trying to tie the refernedum into the popularity or otherwise of Nick Clegg. That is, in my view, negative campaigning of the lowest order.

I have one simple question:

If AV is so bad because it does not necessarily reward the person who comes first in a straight ballot, why on earth doe the Conservative and Labour parties use AV to elect their leaders.

Does that mean that, not only do we have a Prime Minister doing what the hell he wants to the country without a basic mandate to do so, he didn’t even deserve to be elected leader of his party?