Month: January 2015

Hillsborough and Transparency: why I know something of how the relatives feel about not getting the truth (until now)

[Originally published Sep 12, 2012]

I understand something of the frustration and anger of the relatives of the Hillsborough victims because I had a similar experience – albeit on a much smaller scale. British officialdom has a cult of secrecy and cover-up that is still with us, even if is has gotten slightly better.

In 1982 my younger brother Gary, 21, was killed. He was beaten up and died of a heart attack. Officialdom made this horrible situation worse by acts of secrecy. Continue reading “Hillsborough and Transparency: why I know something of how the relatives feel about not getting the truth (until now)” →

In the run-up to GE15, the parties’ public finance policies are opaque…

The most challenging election of modern times lies ahead, but the main parties are not spelling out what their policies mean to voters

Everyone seems to agree that we are heading for one of the least predictable general elections of modern times (although that seems to stop few pundits trying to call it). But are we also heading for one of the least democratic?

Democracy is a lot more than merely voting every four or five years. It involves many things, not least that the parties standing for election give us a reasonably clear idea of what our choices are. On this front, things do not look good.

– See more at: http://opinion.publicfinance.co.uk/2015/01/parties-public-finance-policies-are-opaque/#sthash.s1NZ2foj.dpuf

Black Like Me (Flash SciFi – stories in 150 words or less)

She stared into the mirror, shocked. She’d turned black! Locked in her room for with a horrible fever, curtains drawn and lights off because her eyes hurt, she hadn’t seen herself for 48 hours. It had never occurred to her that her sickness was the so-called ’BLM Virus’. She thought it was ’flu!
Unleashed by an AQ-Nation of Islam fusion group, it was a retrovirus that rewrote part of the victims gene sequence, changing their skin colour, permanently. She’d had a briefing. She sobbed quietly to herself, ”God help me”. He wasn’t listening.
It wasn’t the change, she told herself, she could cope with that, she hoped. She was a good Catholic and really not a racist, despite her politics. But the virus was supposed to be an STD. ”Converting the white Devils through their own sins” said their website. How was the country’s most famous virgin going to explain that?