What a bunch of total bankers!

You have to wonder what the press are doing when they yet again, jump all over the banks when they announce massive bonuses.

Are the press in on the scam? The banks announce "massive" bonuses for a very good reason, it keeps the public irritated about piffling small change (and to the banks, a few million, maybe even the odd billion is small change).

They do it so that they can look good when they can then change their minds later.

Meanwhile they continue to owe the UK public hundreds of billions.

The death of ID cards

OK, score one for sanity, the coalition government take a step back from the stupidity that was ID cards (but lets be honest here, their reason isn't the right one, they only want to save money).

Oil and petrol

It seems that the price of oil has less and less to do with the price of petrol in the UK.
Recent falls in the price of oil have not only failed to be reflected in the price of petrol, but in fact seem to have pushed it higher!
And I am not talking about the ridiculous increases in "fuel duty" (read - tax), but the price charged by the petrol companies. Both before and after the recent fuel tax increase, it was noticeable that the base cost of petrol (before tax, fuel duty, what-have-you) increased despite falls in the price of oil.
I would really like to know how the big oil companies can justify this increase, as it seems to bear no relationship to a, the cost of oil and b, reality!

HELP!

I can't help but wonder at what point (if at all) the UK and US governments realised that they no longer had any real control over their economies.

It seems amazing to me that any government would think it a good idea to hand over control of something quite so important to people who are only interested in one thing, the bottom line, how much they can make for them selves and their clients (probably in that order too).

And now we all need help, but who else is there to ask for it?

Ah, of course, increase taxation to cover massive bailout plans that so far have done nothing other than to underline the fact that they can do nothing. Oh, and show to the stock markets around the world that they are panicking. Which of course, only induces further panic.

Would someone please stop the planet, I want to get off now.

42 is not the answer!

Desperate Brown scrapes through
Frankly I am appalled that anyone in their right mind would oversell the threat posed by terrorists to such an extent that they feel that one of the mainstays of the British legal system should be done away with totally.
The only people that feel that they need a whole 42 days to question people are the police themselves, and quite frankly they are wrong!
Personally I am disgusted by those politicians who allowed themselves to be swayed by the "sweetening" of the deal. You are morally bankrupt, and you should step down from your positions, you have no mandate to rule any more!

UK ID cards possibly put back two years.

The BBC are reporting that National ID cards could well be put back two years.
While this may seem like the government are finally listening to the public and taking our criticism in, I have another take on this.
Should they decide to out them back by two years as reported, I am sure that the only reason they are doing this is to give the UK public time to forget their appalling record on data security (see the "Nothing to fear?" article below). I am sure that by 2012, most people will have forgotten how useless the British government are at not loosing vital information.
Perhaps I am being cynical, but until I hear that they have given up on this pointless waste of taxpayers money, I won't rest easy.

Duplicated.

My fears about our data based society have hit home hard as at the end of 2007, someone was able to duplicate my debit card, and use it to buy goods totalling nearly £700 ($1400). I have determined to be even more careful about where and how I use my debit card from now on, but really it is just too easy to copy this kind of information.
With the encryption that will be used in the UK I.D. cards already cracked, how can the government even think of introducing a technology that will make I.D. theft even easier?!