THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO

It’s All Gone A Bit Tits Up Really!

We thought Donald Trump made America the laughing stock of the world, but now the United Kingdom is the laughing stock of the world because our politicians don’t appear to know what they’re doing.

The United Kingdom is a diverse place, and now people are saying that Brexit is an utter farce, and can you believe our government, with its incessant squabbling like children, and it’s become truly pitiful.

We’re a laughing stock and it’s truly disturbing, and people are losing their confidence in all politicians, and people that voted out are now regretting it because there was no strategy in place, and it’s all gone tits up really, and it’s given us a bad reputation, almost like we’re out of control.

The whole thing reminds me of a Tony Hancock sketch, and it actually astounds me that people talk about democracy dying, the UK democracy has been a sham for years, and the parties have disregarded, or taken for granted most of the people most of the time, and the billionaires who funded and pushed the Leave campaign have all fled to tax havens and stand to make an absolute fortune, the billionaires who funded and pushed the Leave campaign and have all retreated to tax havens, and stand to make an absolute fortune through disaster capitalism using the economic disaster they’ve masterminded all around this debacle, and is simply window dressing around the planned intention to undermine an economy for profit.

And why doesn’t the Queen step in over this Brexit thing, what does she think about all of this? After all, she is the Queen.

And now most people are in support of a Remain, and that’s why Leave voters don’t want another election, because they know British people are now largely Remain, but then who cares what the people want, with all of its promises and lies, and that’s a democracy, supposedly.

New Remainers would be those people who voted Leave, but have now obtained the facts and realised it’s not as easy as promised and are repelled from the lies from the Leave campaign. These are the people who chose Leave but have reassessed it in the light of all the evidence and have now realised their businesses are directly endangered by Brexit.

Then there are those people who voted Leave as a protest vote, not for a moment thinking Leave would win, then they were offended and appalled when the result came out, and then there were those people who were simply too fed up with the entire thing and now believe it’s all too much trouble to Leave, along with all the Brexit lethargy.

And there were all the people that couldn’t be bothered to vote at all because they simply couldn’t be bothered, or didn’t believe that it mattered, and have now concluded we should Remain and that they’ll vote if there’s another election.

But if it’s actually true what we’re being told that young people are more inclined to vote Remain and older people more predisposed to vote Leave, then the following of young people who have attained voting age will now vote Remain and the cohort of old people who have died or become too decrepit or infirm to vote will no longer vote Leave.

The problem is most young people are far too busy burying their heads in social media and thinking about trivia and end up assuming this herd mentality and then end up tailgating the media blindly to the ultimate downfall of this country because to be fair they’re too mesmerised by their smartphones.

But the irony of it all is that the people of the United Kingdom are not in control, and it’s giving the United Kingdom a bad reputation, and it now makes us look like a bunch of dafties, but then we’re hardly a master race!

What did the people who voted Leave think? Were they under the illusion that leaving would simply be a simple process of just packing up documents and potted plants, cleaning up cups and saucers, emptying the bins, with a swift hoover around, hand in the keys and then leave with a forwarding address? No, of course not because our government has made it far more complicated than it needed to be.

And those that didn’t vote probably didn’t understand the EU enough that they believed they couldn’t make an informed judgment on such a complex matter, and we should have more admiration for them for being honest with themselves than someone who reads lies on the side of a big red bus and voted because of that.

This really makes Britain look weak, and the EU don’t care about what happens to us, and they probably look at his like it’s a victory over the United Kingdom because at the moment we’re at war with ourselves, and the EU are our bemused spectators.

But now it doesn’t actually matter if you voted or not, it’s now up to the shysters in parliament as to what happens, and all the politicians supposedly know what they’re doing, the problem is, we don’t know what they’re doing, that’s the reason why we’re in this mess.

We read about it in the newspapers, we might follow it on TV, but actually, it’s a piss up in a brewery, and now everyone is saying that those who decided to Leave and now want to Remain are regretting what they voted for, well, that because we have an absolute flannel as a Prime Minister who was given the job on a technicality and now can’t seem to organise anything.

Medicinal Cannabis Is Legal

In the United Kingdom on the NHS medicinal Cannabis is now legal, and now the drug is accessible to patients across England, Wales and Scotland following a significant law reform.

Products that can now be prescribed contain cannabis, cannabis resin or cannabinol, but patients will only be prescribed the medication if their doctors believe they could benefit from it.

The government made the major change to legislation after facing pressure from campaigners, and high-profile cases included Charlotte Caldwell, whose son Billy suffers from severe epilepsy, politicians heard how she went to Canada to buy the cannabis oil which she says controls Billy’s seizures.

But after arriving back at Heathrow Airport, her supply was impounded, sparking anger.

Her son then fell ill before the government was obliged to step in after doctors made clear it was a “medical emergency,” and after the supply was returned, home secretary Sajid Javid began a policy review into the advantages of sanctioning medicinal cannabis.

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The primary review by chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies verified that there was enough proof to imply it could be of curative use, and the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), which carried out the second part of the review, further reinforced that doctors should be able to prescribe infused products so long as safety standards are satisfied.

The findings ended in a landmark law change that now sees medicinal cannabis become legal in Britain, but for Charlotte Caldwell, what began as a journey which was about the needs of her little boy actually transformed into something a lot bigger.

Medicinal cannabis gave her back her rights as a mother, but the most important thing medicinal cannabis has done is give Billy back his right to life.

But even though medical cannabis was made legal, there appears to be hazy guidelines and bumbledom that are leaving patients hanging.

In November last year, home secretary Sajid Javid introduced legislation which made it possible for people to legitimately obtain cannabis for medical reasons. At the time, campaigners welcomed it as a benchmark achievement.

The Conservative government had typically taken a hardline position on rescheduling drugs, and scientists and researchers embraced the move, and people throughout the United Kingdom, who had been self-medicating with cannabis for years, expected the legislation to ultimately make their lives easier.

Three months later campaigners said that only a few have actually received a medicinal cannabis prescription since November 2018, and that the few who did succeed in getting a prescription have not actually been able to obtain medical cannabis, owing to difficulties with persuading specialists that cannabis is the best choice, getting licenses for cannabis-based products, and even transporting them once they’re in the United Kingdom.

The difficulty isn’t necessarily the law, but the interim recommendations, devised by the Royal College of Physicians and the British Paediatric Neurology Association, were written with far less time than specialists are normally given.

The law makes no stipulations on the kinds of products that can be prescribed, except that they can’t be smoked, but experts are used to having large quantities of information from randomised controlled experiments when they’re formulating new guidelines.

The central difficulty with formulating those guidelines was that cannabis had been until recently identified as a Class A drug with no medicinal use, which made it hard to carry out experiments on its properties, and the range of psychoactive components within cannabis and derivatives products can further make scientific study complex, as some of the component parts of one cannabis product may behave differently in another dosage, or even if produced in a different way.

The principal problem here is two-fold, that specialists don’t value or trust foreign data, and that the old ways of studying medicines won’t necessarily work for cannabis, and there’s been a tremendous disinclination from doctors and pharmacies to jeopardise their licences by facilitating access, and the vast preponderance of people, except for those individual children who are still being forced to rely on the black market to source their medication.

Cannabis is currently treated as a Class B drug under the Misuse of Drugs Scheduling Act of 2001, but before the bill was amended in November, there was a series of high-profile cases of children who required medical cannabis products to survive such as Alfie Dingley and Billy Caldwell who were granted waivers by Sajid Javid.

These individuals still have access to specific products, but for everyone else who was hoping to use medical cannabis products, the path is still somewhat challenging, and in a recent report on the status of cannabis in Europe found that doctors in the United Kingdom didn’t know how to prescribe cannabis because they believed that they weren’t informed enough.

Currently, medical cannabis products aren’t licensed for distribution or prescription, and each prescription appears to happen because of one patient speaking to a specialist about medication that has previously worked for them and then attempting to access it through legitimate means.

In practice, these prescriptions won’t be accessible on the NHS, and these products are referred to as unlicenced specials, so there’s been confusion and hurdles with getting to grips with that regime, and doctors, for good reason, won’t prescribe specials except if there’s a particularly valid reason for them doing so.

The decision to prescribe medicinal cannabis is a clinical decision for specialist hospital doctors, made with patients and their families, to determine the most suitable medication or course of treatment for a particular patient, but an image circulating on Twitter, from the Royal Derby Hospital, said that pain consultants and associated staff will not be endorsing or prescribing medical cannabis for chronic pain patients, and that they follow national guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and NHS England to maintain good clinical practice and effective prescribing.

One patient, Jorja Emerson, who was two years old got a prescription on the NHS, but no pharmacies stocked it or were prepared to shoulder the responsibility themselves for importing it. Another, Carly Barton, is still waiting to actually receive her products. She went through a private pain specialist, and the medication itself will cost her approximately £2,500, even though the actual product itself is far less costly.

The prescription has to be written to a very specific level of detail, and then because it’s Schedule 2, it has to be written on pink paper, and the pharmacy that was going to import it required a special license, and then you have to get the package size, either 25 or 30 units exactly right, and then the delivery drivers, and the companies that are involved in delivering it, like shipping companies, need special licenses too.

Many of the products also have expiry dates, and even though the approved prescription dosage under these guidelines is roughly enough for a month, the current prescription and delivery process takes around eight to ten weeks, according to various estimations.

This is not expected to change until more people get prescriptions, and wholesale importers and pharmacies begin importing products in bulk which might bring down the costs and smooth the process over. It’s easier to prescribe in the private sector because money doesn’t come into it, for instance, some NHS trusts might not have wanted to open the floodgates to funding medical cannabis, there are fewer restrictions, but it’s a dilemma because effectively a lot of the population won’t be able to access it because of its cost.

Views are divided into potential solutions, and there are no facts available about who has been able to get a prescription on the NHS, and so far, campaigners are estimating three or four people as far as they’re aware, but the NHS has set up a monitoring unit, which will issue its first results in March 2019.

NICE will publish new guidelines towards the end of 2019, which should help doctors make more informed choices around cannabis prescription. In the hope that individual doctors will prescribe, and see that once they’ve done it, and it’s worked, and they realise it’s a beneficial medicine, then it will pick up. For instance, in Germany, it took two or three years for the medical profession to catch up.

As it stands, the current position around the prescription of medical cannabis could become a self-perpetuating cycle. Not enough scientific data could lead to restrictive guidelines, which leads to fewer prescriptions for people who need them, which means limited proof of their benefit, and so on.

But patients have been self-medicating for years, frequently seeking various products and soliciting help from online forums or communities, although that data isn’t formalised through studies.

The interest in medical cannabis prescriptions isn’t happening in a vacuum. The disparity between what users and specialist know will need significant endeavours to bridge, and for patients in the United Kingdom who are still fighting to access medical cannabis, it simply might not be enough.

Dangers Of The Internet

Shielding our children from cyberbullying and susceptibility to sexual predators has become extremely challenging. There appears to be loads of internet safety for children and women, but never men, why is that?

Today’s kids are able to access more information than any generation before, and thanks to the Internet we all now have a wealth of knowledge that can enhance our lives in a new and fascinating way. However, the Internet also has the potential to hurt us and the people we love.

Too often we read about companies falling a victim from cyberbullying or accounts being hacked or some sexual predator, and these dangers are real.

But looking deeper, are sites like Snapchat, Spotafriend, and Tinder actually safe? Sites like these ask for details on who the person is, their date of birth and where they’re located, but in fact anyone can put any age they want, they’re not required to verify this with something like a birth certificate, driving licence or passport, that can actually confirm how old that person really is.

And because of this numerous young men are being imprisoned for thinking that they’re chatting to someone of 16 or over, when in fact that person might only be 13, purporting to be a person who is 16 or over.

Young adults can only go by what is put on the person’s profile if that person has put 16 plus and looks 16 plus then we simply believe they’re telling the truth, but what if they’re not telling the truth, and some innocent young adult comes along, especially a young male and begins rendezvousing with that person believing what they have put on their profile as true, and then months down the line gets detained and indicted for a felony they had no idea they were committing and then gets tossed into prison.

There are many young girls that go onto apps like Snapchat, Tinder and Spotafriend that start conversations with young male adults, putting on their profile that they’re older than they actually are, coercing the male subject into a relationship, whether it is intimate or not.

We’re in a day and age of technology that although it’s great and really instructive, can be extremely dangerous to adolescent people, whether they be girls or pubescent boys.

These sites are supposed to be parental controlled, but most of the time they’re not, and the corporations that own the sites don’t appear to be particularly vigilant at keeping these youngsters safe, but clearly, they’re only concerned about getting their big bucks and not about the people who use these sites. After all, it’s all about money, and if a teenager gets raped or interfered with or a young boy gets arrested for something along the way, to these companies they’re simply a statistic and nothing more.

Spotafriend is an alternative to Tinder, which is a dating site, but Spotafriend is for teens between the ages 13-19. Teenagers can swipe through to accept people that they might be interested in conversing with, but unfortunately, it’s not only being used as a chat site, it’s also being used as a pickup site for teens.

And not only is it being used as a dating site, but youngsters are not being truthful about their ages and because of this their male counterparts are getting into serious trouble, either by being detained by the police, charged or being sent to prison because they genuinely thought that this site was a safe site.

What do we have to do to keep our teenagers safe on sites like this?

Well, the easy solution is that legislation on this should be changed and that if a site is accessible to youngsters, they should have to prove how old they are before they can join, and if they can’t they should be denied access, and this should go for all sites of social networking, such as Facebook and others.

Parents can teach their children about online safety, but kids are kids and most of them don’t take much regard, it’s the Internet, and all they want to do is surf it as they please, and we seem to actually welcome danger into our homes, why don’t we just open the door and invite it in?

However, companies like Snapchat, Spotafriend, Facebook to name a few should be made responsible for their sites, and what goes on, and if a site states that it’s for 13-19-year-olds, wouldn’t that start to ring some emergency signals for a parent? That’s if the parent or parents even have time to monitor, which many don’t because of work responsibilities and so forth.

But it shouldn’t only be down to the parent or parents, it should be down to the businesses that build these websites and apps, and if a youngster goes on to their site and looks old enough and states in their profile that they’re old enough, then the young man on the other side of the PC has to assume that they are because clearly, we don’t have a crystal ball dangling out of our backside telling us, “Hey, don’t talk to her, she’s not telling you the truth about her age. She might look older, she might have put on her profile that she’s older, but do me a favour, she’s only 13.”

The young man has now been arrested, charged and sent off to prison because he was gullible enough to believe the young girl and because her profile said so. Perhaps next time he should ask for her birth certificate, drivers licence or passport, but that’s not a statute, and would that actually be legal to ask for that sort of information? Wouldn’t that be an invasion of privacy? And if that is the case, then these sites should be locked down permanently because there are no procurements to keep our children safe.

Revoke Article 50 Petition

More than two million people have signed a petition demanding Article 50 is withdrawn as Theresa May was driven to urge EU leaders for a stay to Brexit, as penetration of the people surged to sign it following a night of political turmoil as the Prime Minister turned on MPs in a moving address to the country.

The 100,000-signature threshold for the petition to be discussed in Parliament was immediately surpassed and the phrase “revoke Article 50” became a worldwide trend on Twitter, as the petition collected 300,000 signatures, and it proceeded to grow and reach the one million mark, and then to two million.

The website for the petition temporarily appeared to crash, displaying an error message but was later reinstated.

The petition read: “The government repeatedly claims exiting the EU is ‘the will of the people’.

“We need to put a stop to this claim by proving the strength of public support now, for remaining in the EU. A People’s Vote may not happen – so vote now.”

The constituencies with the greatest number of signatures, above the threshold of 5,101, comprised Islington North, represented by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Edinburgh North and Leith, Bristol West, Cambridge, Hornsey and Wood Green and Brighton Pavilion.

Brexit did not go ahead on March 29, which Theresa May stated was a great personal regret for her, after she asked the EU for a delay, and she blamed MPs for failing to agree, and she criticised MPs for failing to agree on a means to realise the outcome of the 2016 election and stated she thought electors simply want this stage of the Brexit process to be over.

Theresa May urged the EU to allow the UK’s departure date to be delayed to June 30 and threatened to quit as Prime Minister if MPs demand a continued delay. The European Council President Donald Tusk then said the EU would give a short extension but only if MPs back the Prime Minister’s deal in the Commons during a third meaningful referendum.

And in the Commons, Theresa May set out proposals to block Speaker John Bercow preventing a third vote on her deal, which was rebuffed by MPs by 230 votes in January and 149 votes, but Westminster was in uproar with MPs, who were given an emergency debate in the Commons by Mr Bercow, frantic to hear Theresa May’s proposals as to how she would attempt to get the deal through following two unbelievable defeats.

Theresa May travelled to Brussels for the summit of the European Council, where she made her case for a three-month extension to the two-year Article 50 negotiation process, putting Brexit back from March 29 to June 30.

Theresa May is and has been acting like a tyrant, and the people’s opinion isn’t being listened to because Theresa May carelessly sweeps all forms of discord aside at the wave of a hand, and most of the people of the United Kingdom obviously want to remain, and the primary vote vaulted the country into exiting with false lights, smoke and mirrors.

The voice of the people should be listened to, and politicians and the Prime Minister are following their own personal agenda, and are being jostled into their actions by big business and not the people of the United Kingdom, and democracy is being exploited for Theresa May’s own ends and obsession with grand supremacy, in the face of public objection.

The United Kingdom doesn’t have a particularly sunny future, there will be custom tax increase prices of multiple products, immigrants from the EU will begin departing the United Kingdom, well, they already have. Benefits will become low, prices will go up but salaries will presumably not, and without cheap workers from the EU, the British people will have to go to work, but as many of them are on benefits, their skills are really poor.

The government will welcome new immigrants to the United Kingdom, but not from the EU, although we now have a different culture, with new religions et cetera, and ultimately, this country will be like a new England where there will be no United Kingdom, Ireland, Scotland, or any freedoms.

But we shouldn’t fret about it because Brexit is the primary issue here now with all our cheap workers and great profits, and our government are greedy and because of this, it will become the end of our culture here in the United Kingdom.

Thirst Class

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A school has forbidden children from drinking water in the classroom, maintaining it distracts them from learning, and the teachers complained students were misusing time messing about with water bottles.

But the kids have objected by smearing the word water on an external wall and water is bad on a nearby pedestrian crossing. Nonetheless, studies confirm that the regular consumption of water increases concentration and helps to study, so clearly, this should be regarded as advantageous in a place of learning? Not only that it prevents dehydration, not only that the dictate attacks a fundamental human right to drinking water.

But the headteacher said the embargo was due to extraneous distractions, and that it had created too many disturbances with students and teachers presenting their viewpoints on the matter rather than educating and studying.

Although in extremely warm spells the students are permitted to have their bottles of water out in lessons to ensure they were cool and hydrated, and that this practice did remain even after the warm weather, but now suddenly the presence of bottles on tables was jeopardising their education in lessons, but it didn’t appear to do this in the warm weather, and as a consequence have been ordered to keep their water bottles in their bags and that they can only have a drink between lessons to rehydrate if they want to.

Schools are not concentration camps and children aren’t there to be rounded up like sheep like it was done in Victorian times, although a lesson is only around an hour, so surely they can wait until the completion of the lesson?

Hydration in school is a great concept and it should be allowed without a problem, although those who went to school in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s were never permitted to drink water throughout lessons, and the class endured the desert for the entire hour, they must have been heroes, and it appears that they now consume more time drinking and going to the loo.

How did we ever survive at school? Oh, that’s right we all swigged from the same water fountain at class change or break time, but prohibitions on water bottles are frequently met with disapproval because of arguments that instant access to drinking water during the school day can keep pupils vigilant and observant, and even reinforce educational achievement.

When children are hydrated, they function better and concentrate better, and the amount of fluid each child needs diversifies depending on the height, weight, and level of physical exercise, but it usually wavers around 1.8 litres or approximately eight glasses of water or other fluids each day.

And the biggest selling point is that there is some documentation recorded that if children are hydrated, they do perform better, particularly on tests, and in addition to keeping pupils alert, ensuring that kids are hydrated can further lead to a healthier environment for both pupils and tutors, and could reduce a significant number of sick days in both pupils and tutors.

High schools are more likely than junior or middle schools to ban water bottles to stop pupils from sneaking alcohol into the classroom, but drinking water from bottles allows more fluid consumption than drinking from water fountains, which a lot of kids don’t like to drink from because the water is usually warm and the fountains are usually not clean.

Criminal Cuts To Our Legal System

Your right to justice should not be contingent on the size of your bank account, and for decades our legal system has been founded on the belief that anyone, wealthy or impoverished, is treated the same, and this entire premise is now under threat because of Tory cuts.

And fees have sunk so low that now innocent people are not able to get decent representation in court, while the rich can afford top-class defence lawyers to purchase their freedom, but the range of devastation that’s been created by this Tory government doesn’t end there.

Cuts to legal aid have locked people with housing difficulties or employment problems out of the justice system. Budget reductions mean fewer offences are examined by police, while a cash-strapped CPS is prosecuting fewer cases.

This is the legacy of Conservative austerity, criminals going free, the innocent punished with the rich being able to purchase special treatment, and the evidence is clear, ministers are guilty of bringing our justice system to its knees.

And the Tory’s should be in the dock for using public funds to buy or influence support from a pretty culpable political party, just so they can cling onto their jobs and power. Bribery is a crime, and this is an abuse of public funds.

But then why do ordinary people vote Tory, they must like being cheated and deceived because they keep on doing it? And maybe we should be condemning the Hyacinth Buckets out there that actually believe that voting Tory makes them a cut above their friends.

Officially we have the worst politicians in UK history, people are experiencing the severest austerity, and this has contributed to numerous deaths to the poor and disabled, with cuts to NHS, police, and banks and power companies who make more money, more profit and the wealthiest get wealthier.

Legal aid has ended for the needy, so they can’t argue back and get justice, so yes, of course, the Tories should be put in the dock for atrocities to humankind.

Where’s “Wolfie” and the Tooting Popular Front when we need him?

The justice system actually isn’t about justice, it’s never been fair and that’s exactly the way the privileged classes like it, they slam the poor for the smallest step off the straight and narrow, while they get away with the most outrageous atrocities owing to their connections.

So many people are being denied access to justice because of the cuts in Legal aid, and Legal aid cuts force parents to abandon their fight for their children because numerous parents can’t possibly afford solicitors fees and are now confronted with the likelihood of losing their children or financial rights on divorce or the especially formidable probability of representing themselves in an old-fashioned justice system that’s not designed with them in mind.

And it high points these Legal aid cuts, clearly demonstrating the harm caused to men, women and families without representation that are caught up in a totally one-sided legal fight against ruthless adversaries, and it’s cruel of the government to consign disadvantaged people to ill-treatment by ruthless landlords, employers, public authorities or retailers just because they can’t afford to employ a lawyer to enforce their rights.

We’re continually told how the Legal aid act has mounted to an unaffordable level, but it would be informative to know how far this is due to the enormous amounts doled out in high-profile commercial matters as opposed to the comparatively minor amounts needed to help people with genuine legal requirements, and I speculate that the voters would prefer to support the latter at the expense of the former.

We’re now seeing the appalling effects of legal underfunding, as people are forced to defend themselves with only the haziest notion of what they’re doing, and being a barrister has often been associated with allurement, intrigue and financial profit, but these imminent reforms that we’re seeing to our legal system now have lawyers fearing for their livelihoods, why? And who stands to suffer the most?

It really reveals the sad state of affairs when a barristers wig and gown were posted on eBay because some barrister had hung up their wig, gown and collar after five long years of slog and penury, but the life of a barrister used to be abundant with mystique, evoking Rumpole and Dickens, cobbled lanes, grand Inns of Court, dazzling rhetoric and exciting cases concerning murder, abduction, gangsters and drug lords.

But few people will shed a tear over the demise of the barrister, but if any of these people were in trouble, if their freedom was on the line or if they were the victim of a grave offence, then they would want a barrister with years of experience, rather than someone who had been sent by Tesco, not because they’re the best choice, but because they’re actually the cheapest.

The government claimed that it must cut £220 million from the £1 billion Legal aid budget, which funds criminal barristers and various small solicitors firms. To willow down the system, in 1994 solicitors were given the freedom to handle basic advocacy in the courts. This lead to a huge reduction in demand for the services of junior barristers who used to cut their teeth on simple cases.

Solicitors tended to adhere to the magistrate’s court, leaving the more pressing work such as murder and rape cases to barristers with years of training in speech and distinct details of the law, but with the modifications that have been launched following government pressure that has been executed, solicitors and in-house advocates, barristers acting only for big companies appear to be considered qualified enough to handle the most complex Crown Court cases after completing only a weekend quality assurance course.

But the government stated that the scheme was intended to guarantee that solicitors and barristers only handle cases in court where they’re qualified to do so and will be tiered so higher accreditation was needed for the most demanding cases, but barristers, however, believe it’s a smoke-screen to give any contributor of legal services a façade of propriety.

And to stand in court and thrive upon the many intellectual and psychological relationships between the judge, jury and client, and to keep all the balls in the air is quite a difficult thing to do, but I’m sure they’re used to it, it’s like second nature to them, but it also takes years to be able to do that, and the notion that you can master it in a £350 two-day course is ridiculous.

And the ultimate nail in the coffin came when Chris Grayling proposed best-value tendering, where firms tendered for Legal aid contracts, to be granted not on merit but to the lowest bidder, and agreements were given to multinational solicitors and firms such as Stobart’s, not to mention others such as the AA and Saga, both of which displayed an interest in expanding into this area.

And hundreds of small solicitors firms and barristers chambers that can’t afford to tender will feasibly go out of business overnight, and even before these squeezes on possible work and pay, numerous junior criminal barristers are struggling to survive, with most getting about £10,000 a year after tax, VAT and their various expenses for things such as travelling and chambers’ rent, which are typically 20 per cent of earnings which are taken into account, for the first five years of their careers.

Being a legal-aid barrister is no longer a job, it’s a hobby, and perhaps a nice one for those with an independent income, but you can’t make a living from it, at least not in the first four or five years, and it’s often pretty genuinely true that you’d seemingly be better off on benefits.

Will Camilla be Queen?

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The rules and customs of the British Royal Family might date back centuries, but they’ve also been adjusted as the monarchy has entered the 21st century, but one important topic is what will happen when Prince Charles ultimately becomes King, and whether his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, will then become Queen.

Camilla will technically become Queen Camilla once Charles takes the throne, rather than Princess Consort, the title Clarence House previously said she “intended to use” when she married Charles in 2005, and even though Camilla goes by the Duchess of Cornwall, she’s still technically the Princess of Wales, so by that reasoning she would be Queen when Charles ascends the throne.

We all know that in Common Law that at the moment Camilla is Princess of Wales, she is, she’s not just called that. Therefore, if she’s married to the King when he becomes King, she will be Queen, they may choose to name her something different but she will be Queen.

Camilla will be a ‘Queen’ in the restricted legal sense of being the wife of the king or Queen Consort, but she can’t be forced to be called Queen Consort, but her performance as the wife of the King is, by interpretation, that of Queen.

And even though Camilla will legally be a Queen she doesn’t have to take the title, but when Camilla Parker Bowles married Prince Charles in 2005, following his divorce from the defunct Princess Diana, she took the Duchess of Cornwall as her title instead of Princess of Wales.

Camilla was not popular or well-loved, although this has changed a lot since the marriage as Camilla has taken on a number of patronages and Charles is much happier. Still, it was concluded that Camilla would be mannered as the Duchess of Cornwall, even though, of course, she is the Princess of Wales.

Only a shift in the law would mean Camilla wouldn’t technically be Queen. She will be Queen unless Parliament orders differently, and Parliament can do what it likes, but can you really see Parliament enacting primary law to amend current legislation?

Parliament can at any time intervene, and a new act of parliament could decide the titles of the Royals and their functions in a different way, and nothing is set in stone about the monarchy under the United Kingdom’s flexible constitution.

In fact, there was a significant constitutional development relating to royal titles in 2013 when the Succession to the Crown Act was passed. Previous to its creation, men in the line of succession to the throne would take preference over women.

Nevertheless, the act declared, in determining the succession to the Crown, that any gender of a person born after 28 October 2011 does not give that person, or that person’s successor, preference over any other person whenever they’re born.

The Prince of Wales married Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005 and he will determine whether to give her the title Queen Camilla, although there is some debate around the position because Charles could be barred from handing his second wife the reputable title if he is hit with a legal challenge, and the legitimacy of Charles and Camilla’s marriage could be called into question, which could precipitate a legal dispute.

And without a public approval from Prince Charles’ mother, the Queen, Duchess Camilla has been left isolated and vulnerable.

The couple has seen off doubts as to the legitimacy of their marriage after some constitutional experts declared it was unlawful as critics contended that Charles should have been prevented from marrying in a register office by two statutes, the Marriage Act of 1836, which bans royals from marrying in register offices, and the 1949 Marriage Act.

However, nothing short of a debacle can stop Charles ascending the throne following his mother’s death, but a legal challenge to the legitimacy of his marriage might put a stop to Camilla being crowned.

Camilla, 71, has been left vulnerable because the Queen has so far declined to mediate and openly back the duchess as the next Queen of the country. One answer would be if the Queen were to make a public endorsement of Camilla, indicating that it’s her wish that she’s crowned alongside Charles.

However, there’s no indication of this at the moment, and of course, this leaves the Duchess in an isolated and exposed position, one that Charles finds it difficult to understand.

This is a continuing dilemma for Camilla which will not be properly established until Charles eventually supersedes the Queen, but Prince Charles is understood to want to make Camilla Queen Consort when he ascends to the throne despite earlier claims she will be known as Princess Consort when he is crowned.

Charles and Camilla have been married for 12 years, but the pair have a long and complex history, and even though the couple met when they were young, they both married other people. Camilla married Andrew Parker-Bowles, a retired military officer, but the couple divorced in 2005.

Charles married Princess Diana, the mother of Prince William and Prince Harry, but following Diana’s death in 1997, the couple brought their relationship out into the open, with Camilla attending a hunt with Charles and his two sons.

The pair were first photographed together as a couple in January 1999 as they left the Ritz Hotel after celebrating a party for Camilla’s sister, Annabel.
Charles eventually married Camilla in 2005 during a low key ceremony at Windsor Guildhall and the duchess was given an engagement ring that once belonged to his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.

The Queen and Prince Philip, as well as Camilla’s parents, did not attend the wedding, apparently because the couple had both previously been married.
But, they did attend the service of prayer and dedication that followed, led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, with the Queen saying later on that she was happy in the knowledge that her son was home and dry with the woman he loves.

Camilla has cemented her position in the Royal Family in recent years and the Queen even promoted her to the Privy Council in June 2016, and the Queen’s promotion of Camilla was regarded by many as a likely sign that her son and successor plans to make her Queen Camilla, but her title will not be formally established until his accession.

But there are numerous people out there that believe that Charles will be extremely lucky to become King, let alone dragging his baggage with him and that he should be circumvented, and if Charles survives the Queen, he will be King, despite any damage he’s done to himself, he appears to be pretty healthy.

As for Camilla, whether or not she also survives Queen Elizabeth is a debatable subject. Camilla’s mother died at the age of 72 of osteoporosis, a malady which Camilla’s brother, Mark was already starting to exhibit manifestations of when he died in 2014.

Camilla has already been a heavy smoker, which makes her more predisposed to ailments like lung cancer, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, which in turn leads to emphysema, so there’s even more chance that by the time Charles becomes King he will have become a widower twice.

Nevertheless, it appears that their marriage is a bit of a facade with Camilla and Charles having separate homes most of the time. Camilla caused a lot of sadness and people have long recollections about how Charles and Camilla treated Diana.

If Camilla has any dignity she will refuse the title of Queen because there are many out there who would never call her their Queen because they believe that she hasn’t earned it. Considering Camilla is an adulterer and a divorcee, according to Royal law, she should never be crowned Queen and Charles as King for that matter, and she will forever be memorialised as the hag that destroyed Princess Diana.

And if Camilla wants to show another side of herself and win the people over for the rest of her life, she should refuse the title of Queen out of regard to Diana and the British people. Hankering after a title is not a great look, and she should be happy that she managed to marry the man she was apparently in love with after Diana went to an early grave.

Furthermore, she should never be permitted to be Queen, because it makes a mockery out of the whole Edward and Mrs Simpson saga and Princess Margaret, and with the variations on the protocol in the royal family now, it appears to make the precepts to accommodate what they want.

Charles should have stood down to marry her and also Harry should have bowed out to marry his showgirl, they don’t have a part to play, and there are far too many on the freebie bandwagon now, once the rules are bent, it becomes broken.

And would Charles give up the throne for his beloved, as Edward did?

Furthermore, there have been divorce speculations about Prince Charles and Camilla divorcing, and a spokesperson for Clarence Hous, the official London home of The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall, has been pressed for comment on rumours the royal pair are in divorce proceedings.

And there have been claims from a royal source that Prince Charles is consulting with a divorce lawyer, and that he and Camilla plan to divorce shortly, and Clarence House was asked if the royal family would make a statement about the allegations but stated that it wasn’t something they would clarify, and there are presently stories that royal fans are outraged by the unsupported assertions.

It’s been reported that the royal couple are expected to announce that they plan to divorce imminently and that the Prince of Wales has now signed the papers, and that Fiona Shackleton is considered to be the leading divorce lawyer.

And a source has said that the couple have hardly seen each other in the past few months, and Her Majesty has stepped in to make sure there is no speculation, but Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, was not present at the Queen’s pre-Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace, due to being ill with a cold, and she further did not attend the Christmas Day church service at St Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham.

Camilla was also not present at Princess Eugenie’s wedding in October owing to prior engagements, and at the time, Clarence House said that the Duchess was visiting a local school harvest festival close by her home in Balmoral.

But while the entire world has been obsessed with Kate and Meghan’s dispute and William and Harry falling out, behind palace walls there’s been a much greater drama brewing, and despite happy public appearances, the revelation about Charles and Camilla’s relationship has been made apparent to everyone who’s in the royal clique.

And supposedly, the Queen has requested that the news is not made known until Meghan’s feud with Kate and William dies down, she simply can’t handle more rumours at this time, and as first in line to the throne, Prince Charles will automatically become King when the Queen dies as the throne is technically never vacant.

Yet, the accession council would need to be convened at St James’s Palace to formally name Charles the King, and he would be required to swear loyalty to Parliament and to the Church of England in front of the council.

In turn, the Houses of Parliament will be summoned to swear loyalty to him. The words to the National Anthem will be replaced and new postage stamps and currency designed to display Prince Charles’ ascension to the throne.

The only way Prince William would become king is if Prince Charles decides to renounce and relinquish the throne to him, but Charles has increased his workload since 2013 as the Queen has decreased in what seems to be a handover of the reins.

Charles is really keen on Green agendas, and it now seems like he’s recycling his wife too, but Charles never appears to get the message that the people don’t want two divorcees as leaders, both of who were unfaithful to their previous spouses.

And if they can’t be faithful to their spouses, how on earth could they possibly be true and loyal to Great Britain? Nevertheless, this Charles and Camilla thing is nothing in comparison to the capers and aversions of our royal predecessors, for many a Prince or King, anything in a skirt was fair game.

The Royal Family have become the laughing stock of the world and it should be abolished after the Queen passes away, the Royals are old fashioned with some pretty questionable social behaviour, these might have been acceptable in the 16th century, but not in the 21st century.

And Camilla should be thrilled that she’s treated like a Queen, so does she really require a title? And most of the people don’t like her, and William should be the real successor to the Queen, whether or not Charles makes it onto the throne for a bit or not.

And Charles and Camilla’s union is not in the realms of love because it’s contaminated with betrayal and the death of a wonderful much loved abused woman, and the tapes of a secret call between Camilla and Charles whilst he was married to Diana, is enough to make anyone barf with the image of Charles wishing he was the tampon that she was using.

Camilla’s great grandmother was a courtesan, so why aren’t we shocked that bedding Royalty continues in the family? People might have moved on and accepted this woman as a consort, life goes on, but memories never fade.

And there it was on tape, in his own words and voice, quite different from the distortions that were assigned to Diana, you really can’t look at Charles and Camilla without seeing a Tampax in your mind, and perhaps the Queen should skip a generation and instead of Charles becoming King, William and Kate should become King and Queen of England.

Rape Day!

Steam, a digital distribution platform, recently announced it would not ship a new computer game called “Rape Day”. This video game lets you play as a sociopathic rapist for thrills, and it’s now found its way onto the internet through other outlets globally.

A Squarespace website has since been created which highlights information about how and where to download the game for free, and US-based Squarespace which is one of the most popular website developers should disable this website immediately.

Rape Day lets you portray a serial killer rapist during a zombie apocalypse, and the author of the game describes it as a visual novel where the protagonist can literally harass, murder people and rape women as you choose to progress through the story.

Raping and killing women is not a game, and the creators of this video game should not be permitted to profit from extolling sexual brutality against women.

If played enough and by certain people, video games can affect people’s’ mental and physical well-being, and even if some believe that video games may not have real-world outcomes on the majority, is it worth the risk? And a game centred on raping and killing women is unacceptable and should be eliminated from the market.

And despite not appearing in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), there has been increasing concerns about people who seem to be fixated with video games and consume far too much time playing them.

Addiction to video games is being considered for upcoming editions of the DSM, but for now, it’s not seen as an approved clinical problem, and despite its unofficial status, there’s little question that some people, whether they are kids, teenagers, or adults who play video games excessively, that video game addiction can create problems in other critical sectors of their lives.

This doesn’t suggest that everyone who plays video games becomes addicted, in fact, only a small minority appear to develop significant problems. Millions of people play video games in moderation as a way to spend time with friends, unwind after a stressful day, and as a simple form of entertainment.

Still, keeping gaming habits under control is not something that comes easily to everyone. For some people, online computer gaming becomes the most important thing in their lives, and academic achievement slumps as little thought is given to studying or school grades.

Someone with an obsession with video games may miss work or neglect job-related duties due to an attraction with a preferred game, and relationships may suffer when one partner is overlooked in support of video games, and when video games are no longer a simple distraction from the real world but a compulsion that overtakes all other pursuits, this can point to many adverse consequences in the gamer’s life.

Obviously, not all video game enthusiasts will be affected in precisely the same way, but the list beneath features some of the more common consequences of an obsession to video games.

Some people dealing with an addiction to video games may further struggle with problems such as depression, low self-esteem, high-stress levels, and shyness or social anxiety, and if they see these difficulties that their extreme gaming is causing, yet are powerless to regulate it, they may also encounter feelings of guilt or a feeling of powerlessness.

And while video game addiction can almost certainly be made worse by other psychological problems, for example, depressed feelings, it may further add to these problems in a circular fashion, such as, depression boosting extreme gaming, which makes the depression more serious, which leads to more gaming.

Clearly, if one’s weekly activities are largely comprised of playing video games, health and occasionally personal cleanliness may be overlooked, and people with an addiction to video games may no longer take part in previously enjoyed physical activities or exercise, and may develop bad sleeping habits contingent on gaming schedules, and may frequently choose unhealthy diets that simply are convenient to snack on while gaming.

An addiction to video games can create difficulties within the family. For instance, the parents of a teen who is dependent to video games may permit extreme gaming for a while and pray that it goes away by itself, but if their child exhibits no signs of getting his gaming under control they will ultimately demand change.

The teen may then become outraged at his progenitors for interfering in his life, deny that it’s creating any problems, and maintain that it’s none of their business.

Parents with a child or teen who is addicted to video games frequently have regular arguments about time limits on games and the disregard of other responsibilities, and even for players who are not addicted, video games can be a pretty costly kind of entertainment.

It’s really easy to spend thousands of pounds on computer upgrades, new gaming consoles, subscriptions to online services, recently released games and the newest expansion packs, and occasionally, people with an addiction to video games may be dismissed owing to bad performance on the job, for instance, prioritising gaming over work obligations, playing games while at work, often showing up late, or missing work completely in support of gaming.

Academic achievement is usually one of the most visible causalities of video game addiction, and children, teens, and university scholars who employ all their unfettered time playing video games will almost certainly see their grades decline.

They may disregard forthcoming deadlines, promise to study “tomorrow”, deny that they have homework, and race through assignments so that they can continue playing, someone who’s addicted to video games will spend more time and more hours in front of a computer or television screen, and less time with other people, such as friends and family which decreases.

One to one in person contact with others is reduced and online or virtual contact is increased, and for those who seldom spend time with others in person, online only friends may not prevent the gaming addict from feeling socially isolated and detached from the world around them.

Some children will spend 16 hours a day on their Xbox, which will end up creating serious relationship problems among families, and can become a serious problem, even though the child will not feel the same.

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And for those parents who discover their child playing Xbox at 2.30am, the child’s defence will be that they didn’t realise the time. But your child comes out of his bedroom for about 15 minutes for meals, and then rushes their food so that they can get back to their Xbox, then the parents will scold them for doing this, but that only creates more arguments.

Brexit Turns Ugly

The Queen is to be evacuated if Brexit turns ugly. These contingency evacuation procedures have been in existence since the cold war but have now been repurposed in the case of civil disorder following a no-deal Brexit.

And now there are proposals to remove the royal family, including Queen Elizabeth, to secure locations away from London, but these plans show a needless frenzy by officials over a no-deal Brexit as senior royals remained in London throughout the bombardment in the second world war, so why so much alarm now?

What, is she leaving to go to the EU as well? Perhaps Theresa May could offer her a spare bedroom at number 10? And where would she be relocated to because all of Great Britain would be hit, not only London?

And why the Queen, why not the Prime Minister and her cabinet, they would need to go into hiding for messing everything up, and I’m sure Prince Philip would drive her to safety!

But we must make sure that the royal bloodline is protected, and bureaucrats, well don’t even get me started because Theresa May is now proving how incompetent she is and the Tories, well they’re so out of touch with the public that no wonder this country has become the laughing stock of the world.

And all of this non-stop Brexit must be constipating the hell out of the Queen, but what do the royal palace believe is going to happen, a revolution? Do they really believe that people will descend on the palace with pitchforks and canons like the French revolution? Britain is far too mild and reverent to do anything so brazen.

Although I think that they’ve overlooked the emergency scaffolding they’ll need across the entirety of the United Kingdom because it’s looking like Brexit is going to cause the sky to fall in, and of course, we should all make sure that the elite are provided for first.

It seems like the rich and mighty don’t appear to have to suffer the same adverse outcomes as everyone else in terms of civil unrest. She could always go and live with David Cameron, he’s rather apt at disappearing, but then they’re rather good at squirrelling away plenty of everything they need, and can stealthily ship anything else they want.

Monty Python couldn’t make this crap up, the Queen in danger from her own parliament’s choices, and her own people, well, perhaps the people might want to lynch her, after all, she knows everything that goes on, she’s not entirely blameless in all of this.

And why does everyone think that it’s terrible that the royal family is so thwarted by this, and surely the issue should be getting better attention to circumvent such a disturbance? All this talk about Brexit, but nobody appears to give a hoot about homelessness, and what about the Queen’s summer holidays because of course, she doesn’t have to apply for a passport or visa, she automatically gets one anyhow.

Perhaps she simply needs a bowel evacuation because look at the messes she’s presided over smilingly, while her country is being transformed into a toilet bowl, but Brexit is like divorce, of course, you can always get up and leave your spouse, but if you really want to divorce, you still have to go through all of the paperwork and have the courts distribute your assets if you can’t agree, and that can prove somewhat costly.

Unethical Firms

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Human rights violations, arms deals and use of child labour are merely some of the allegations that surfaced at companies backed by a £7 billion pension fund designed for local government workers in Essex, and the Essex Pension Fun is one of the biggest local government pension schemes in the United Kingdom making investments on behalf of thousands of workers including council workers, teachers and charity workers.

But an inquiry has disclosed the fund is supporting some companies cited of immoral practices.

The fund includes £24.7 million in Tata Consultancy and £5.9 million in Tata Power. Both are subsidiaries of an Indian multinational corporation called the Tata Group, which claimed in September last year of providing military transportations to Myanmar.

The statement was made only four days before the United Nations (UN) cited the country’s military leaders of the “gravest” atrocities against ethnic groups, including genocide. Tata Group was contacted for comment.

Around £600,000 has further been invested in BAE Systems. The British company provides fighter planes to Saudi Arabia which may have been used in Yemen, and the UN warned the bombardment has created the worst famine in the world in 100 years and BAE’s chairman has told shareholders he does not know if the company’s products were used in war atrocities.

BAE Systems provides defence equipment, training and support under government-to-government agreements between the United Kingdom and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As an international company, BAE Systems has operations in many countries, and that it complies with all appropriate export control requirements and regulations in the nations in which it operates.

Other investments include £560,341 in Glencore, previously cited of using child labour in mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but a spokesperson for the company called the claims entirely without merit, and that they prioritise regard for human rights everywhere that they operate, and that they uphold the human rights of their people and their communities, including vulnerable groups such as women, children, native people and victims of conflict.

An extra £155,316 had further been invested in British American Tobacco, and numerous observers would point at our history of delivering regular returns to shareholders as a basis on why our shares are deemed attractive, and a pension fund for the public sector workers rejected concerns about immoral investment, maintaining that their purpose was to secure the highest return.

But the principal duty of the Essex Pension Fund is to guarantee that it has adequate reserves free to pay pensions on behalf of more than 160,000 people, including workers at councils, schools, colleges, universities and the fire and rescue service.

However, do people really care about where they’re pension pots are invested? Perhaps not, as long as it makes them money, they don’t actually think about whether it’s going to fossil fuels, the arms trade or any other ethical deal, they work laboriously, earn it and spend it on what they want.

Most people don’t care about anyone else, as long as they’re alright, and as a pensioner, they obviously want the best possible return because it’s no good having emotional awareness and a small pension.

The only thing that matters is profit, and that’s profit at any price, but what should matter is your pensions, those pensions you’ve paid into for years, and of course, you don’t want some meddlesome troublemaker striving to diminish its value.

Councils should establish a criterion and guarantee that the Essex Pension Fund is invested positively and ethically because pension funds exist to provide a safe haven for pension savings and a good return.

They’re not there to make a statement, political or virtuous, and some people might get a warm blushing glow from a small pension, knowing that it was invested ethically or in keeping with the latest virtue signalling fad, but most people wouldn’t agree with this.

And when we’re discussing public money, councillors need to be clear and precise about its use or where it’s invested.

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