No, no, you don't understand, it's there to serve me, not you.

The problem with things being sacred is that they can never be attacked, and will always be used to suit those who have the sacred thing under their control. So, when we see. . .

The Patients Association is calling for an end to the "geographical strait jacket" of having to register with a GP near to where you live. 

My response is to say, 'well, yes. The tax taken from an individual funds the service across the nation, not just the service within 3 miles of the taxpayer's house, so that seems fair enough.'

However, whilst. . .

An official consultation has found 77% of those who replied back change. . .

and let's face facts, 77% is a margin that most market researchers would kill for, it makes their job very easy.

. . . 70% of health-care staff were against.

I couldn't give a tupenny fig if you're against it. You see, I'm funding this bloody thing whether I want it or not. Having handed over my cash, I don't think it is an unreasonable expectation that the service I get is the service I want, rather than the service the provider can actually be arsed to give, if they're not too busy and we ask very nicely.

Whatever next? Bus drivers taking the bus wherever they feel like? So you buy a single from Elephant & Castle to Charing Cross but end up in Newlyn because the driver fancied a day by the sea and a pasty?

Look, chum, you're paid to do a job, why not try getting on with it rather than whinging about the nasty people you're paid to treat having ideas you don't agree with?

While we're on the subject of bloody things I'm funding whether I want to or not. . .

The European Parliament has clashed with the UK government over the EU's budget, with one leading Euro MP scorning a UK "provocation to Europe".

Oh, you think that's provocative, do you?

Guy Verhofstadt, head of the liberal group (ALDE), accused the UK of "continuing the policies of the past".

Liberal? Liberal? You don't know the meaning of the word. Liberal does not mean peope doing what you say or else.

Anyhow, if you want provocative, try this on for size:

Go fuck yourself, you corrupt, greedy, corrupt, specky, corrupt, authoritarian, corrput, anti-democratic, corrupt fuckwit, go roll that blue and yellow rag you call a flag up, put it in the freezer and when it's frozen solid, take it out and ram it straight up your Chatham pocket.

Provocative enough for you?

For the people.

Twitter was alive last night with talk of events down at the council chamber where Lambeth council do their business. There have been a number of demonstrations against the cuts to public spending which are planned by the council and things came to a head last night when, well, I'll let 'uncutter' at Indymedia London take over:

Lambeth town hall in Brixton was taken over and occupied by protestors as the council met to vote through budget cuts of tens of millions of pounds. Hundreds of people gathered outside the town hall (as they'd done previously two weeks ago) and at around 7pm took over the chamber chanting "This is what democracy looks like" and "No ifs, no buts, no public services cuts!", before holding a people's assembly.

After withdrawing the council members met under a police guard to vote through the cuts. The occupation ended at around 9pm as people marched out after 2 hours of discussions and speeches at the 'people's council'.

This sort of thing chills me to the bone. I always get very uneasy when activists and politicians talk about 'the people'. I'm afraid that in a population of 272,000, a group of hundreds does not represent democracy, it does not even represent double figures of the population in terms of percentage. To try and pass it off as democracy is misleading.

I'm not going to get into the whole Keynsian discussion again, but I will state that I do support public spending cuts, because there is so much that goverment is involved in. that it has no business doing. I do not trust the politicians and civil servants to cut where the fat is, though. They will always protect their own empires and pet projects.

A 'people's council' (sic) does not represent the people. It never can, even the most representative, even handed and well regarded assembly cannot represent the people, it can only represent the majority. I am not convinced that a hastily convened peoples' council in Lambeth is representative of the majority. This is a term used to marginalise and stigmatise people. What we saw last night was a trailer of things to come, or things that have happened elsewhere. A group of people, through force and violence, establish themselves and then claim to speak for 'the people' as if the population is one homogenous mass with identical wishes, desires and aspirations.

This is always a mistake made by authoritarian (mainly left-wing) regimes, people are individuals. What you are doing is trying to project your view of what you think the people should be onto that population. You believe that your ideas and policies are right. Well, I think the same of mine, of course I do, otherwise I wouldn't hold them, the same holds true for you. The difference between us, is that I do not seek to impose my vision on others. What happens when people do not share you views, do not want your vision? We've seen it time and time again, Stalin, Hoxha, Pot, Mao, all ruled in the name of 'the people'. How many of them were the wrong sort of people? How many of them were imprisoned, executed and subjected to horrific treatment as a result? Kim Jong-Il rules in the name of the people. I didn't see any election, he was annointed. What do the people think of him? I'm sure his approval rates are through the roof, his population wouldn't dare express anything but satisfaction. What about Gaddafi? Ask him this morning, he'll still tell you he's ruling in the name of the people, it is the enemies of the people who are stirring up trouble, the real people love him. So much do they love him, he would submit, that they are happy that 10,000 lie dead on the streets of Libya. This is what rule in the name of the people looks like.

Let us not kid ourselves here. When you claim you are acting for the people, you are using it as a crutch to prop up your own crumbling credibility. Oh, you know that the majority follow you. You know you have the support of tens of thousands in your borough. You know that everyone is up in arms at the cuts.

Everyone? He asks with eyebrow raised in a questioning fashion.

Well, everyone that counts.

Ah, there we go. No. Not everyone, otherwise in the recent general election your lot would have found themselves with an increased majority. That, no matter how flawed, how un-representative, is the closest we have to democracy in this country. And when people stop counting, that is where the trouble begins.

I'm not suggesting that we're about to see RAF air strikes on the population of Brixton, but unelected, unaccountable people make odd decisions and have, what appears to me, a skewed view of the world. I'll give you an example.

I was watching the first episode of Heston's Mission Impossible on C4 the other night. (The link is to the 4od player) I like Heston, he is imaginative, passionate and practical. His series on the overhaul of the Little Chef menu was very good. In this, the first episode of his new series where he does the same to different sectors of the catering industry, he was working his magic at Alder Hey hospital. No hectoring and lecturing in the style of Jamie Wotsisname here, just getting on with the job.

Notes from a hospital bed is an established critique of the terrible food on offer in our hospitals, so head over there, and you'll see the form guide. Needless to say, the food given to the kids in the hospital was terrible. Without wanting to come over all lisping and mockney, surely, kids in hospital need decent scran to aid their recovery? Yet they were served dross and plates were returned, untouched. Parents, who have paid for this food, without the option to opt-out, in the form of their taxes, were having to bring in grub for their kids. It is a story reproduced throughout the NHS.

In the first portion of the show, Heston went to the kitchens to investigate and was shown a menu, it looked alright, it transpired it was for the staff canteen, public restaurant and (I really couldn't believe this) outside functions. The head of catering stated that 90% of food prepared in the hozzie kitchens was fresh, from scratch. The 10% excluded? Yes, the children. The group that is the hospital's enitre reason for being. Out of a cooking staff of 14, only two were making the childrens' food. 'Welcome to the NHS' was the response from the head of catering.

He would maintain that he is absolutely acting in the best interest of the children. However, there was no communication between the kids and the kitchens.

Gaddafi, Kim and the Lambeth Peoples' Council would maintain that they are absolutely acting in the best interest of the people. However, there is no communication between the people and the government.

Of course, those occupying Lambeth council chamber last night would say they were different, just as every unelected, unaccountable, dictatorial regime that has gone before is different. This time it will be different, this time we're not the same as all the others, we care, we know what is wrong, we know the answers. Every time the end result is the same.

When you invoke the name of the people, you are hiding behind a legend, in the same way that Westboro Baptist Church invoke the name of God when they indulge in their revolting homophobic activities. When the Islamic fundamentalists bomb innocent people, or beat, maim and execute people, they do it whilst hiding behind the shield of an unspeaking God, you would no doubt condemn their actions, yet from where I'm sitting, you don't look so different when you hide behind the shield of a silent supposed majority.

No, you'll get no support from this quarter.

Pay up! Pay up! And pay up again!

Just image the scene. It is Sunday morning and from your bed you hear the letterbox opening and then the floor cracking as the behemoth of a Sunday paper hits the ground and shakes the house to its very foundations. You take the publication upstairs and prepare to immerse yourself in the six colour magazines and countless niche supplements, or, if you're anything like Mrs. Snowolf, to half complete the crossword and sit the whole pile of papers on the shelf of the coffee table where in contravention of pretty much every physical law it will increase in mass and surface area for the next seven days.

I deviate. As you are about to sit down and enjoy your paper, the doorbell goes. It is the little scamp of a paperboy who has delivered the paper to you this morning (but not before 7am, see below), he is now explaining that the £1.20, £2.00, £2.50 or whatever you've paid is just for the delivery. As you have now chosen to read said paper, you have to pay again.

What would you do? Well, one of the first things you'd probably do would be to change your newspaper supplier.

But what if you couldn't change? What if you HAD to buy your newspaper from this shop? What would you do then? Oh, you'd be free to purchase another paper from another outlet, but that wouldn't absolve you of your obligation to buy your newspaper from this shop.

It would be an intolerable situation.

Yet. . .

My attention has been drawn to this old chestnut which is being wheeled out for the umpteenth time today:

Drunk people should pay for the treatment they receive at accident and emergency units, a patients' group has said.

But they already HAVE paid for the treatment. There is no such thing as free healthcare, these people are obliged to pay for the service. You want to charge them again?

'Ah, but Wolfers, these people are drunk', I hear you say.

Right then, define drunk.

What the patients' group wants to conjure up in your mind is an image of young men, Ben Sherman shirts, black slip on shoes, shaven headed or heavily gelled hair, brawling in the gutter. Let's just suppose you've been out for the evening with your friends to a nice restaurant. You're on foot, miss your step and break your ankle. You've had too much to drink to drive legally, but you're not drunk as you would see it. Are you drunk then? Whose definition of 'drunk' is important? What is the test? Incoherence? Evidential breath test? Blood test? Opinion of the triage nurse?

The Scotland Patients Association said nurses and doctors were often abused by those who had overindulged in alcohol, particularly at weekends.

So, prosecute them for common assault then. If they break that little bit of law, which has served us well for, oooh, about a thousand years, then prosecute them. Give the magistrate the power to hand out a proper sentence, it doesn't have to be custodial, but it does have to teach that abusing those who are trying to help you is the act of a clot, and this is what happens to clots.

They said the time had now come for such people to pay for services.

They HAVE!

Ms Watt said: "Anyone who has been abusing alcohol and can't stand on their feet and is admitted to hospital at the weekend should pay towards their treatment.

They HAVE!

Ms Watt said drunk people should be charged for using ambulances and for the time of staff who treated them.

Oh for crying out loud, HELLO? HELLO? THEY ALREADY HAVE PAID.

Hang on. . .

can't stand on their feet and is admitted to hospital at the weekend 

At the weekend? Of course, the hardened drinker will out necking it every night, do they not end up in the hospital during the week, or are they members of some loyalty card club?

If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes truth, it doesn't matter if it is based in fact or not. The fact seems to have been forgotten that we all pay for the NHS, it is not, and never has been free.

By perpetuating the myth that it is run on fairy dust and sunny mornings it makes it easy to demonise people, and drinkers and smokers and the fat are easy prey. What next? A pursed mouth saying 'Well, you chose to grow old'? An NHS that will offer treatment as long as you promise to never be ill?

Because people are told that the NHS is free they feel as if their health becomes the property of the state, or other 'well meaning' people (read: 'bloody nosy interfering busybodies'). It results in rubbish like this:

Burgers and sausages have been banned from being sold to fans at Forest Green Rovers football club.

The move was introduced for players at the Blue Square Bet Premier club a few weeks ago but now the policy has been extended to the whole stadium.

What? Eh? Why? How? *Boggle*

The Gloucestershire club is owned by Dale Vince who is a vegan who runs green electricity company Ecotricity.

Oh, right. There's an old joke in catering about how do you know when a vegan enters your restaurant? Don't worry, he'll let everyone know, very loudly, every five minutes. It's a joke I like because it plays on the level of having a little crack at the self importance of the Righteous, whilst also working on the level of a fart gag.

Free-range poultry and fish from sustainable stocks will continue to be served.

Great, the Devizies Tree Hugging Display Team will also be giving a half time demonstration.

"We appreciate some will miss their burgers and sausages, but our catering staff are working hard on a range of tasty and interesting products to replace those that are no longer available.

Oh, joy. Thank you very much, Dale.

"We're a country now where apparently chicken tikka masala is the most popular national dish. I think the old sausage bap won't be much lamented."

I think you're about to learn a valuable lesson about market demand. Oh, there are those who will follow the club whoever is running it, this is how football survives, but you WILL lose supporters over this, and you will certainly lose revenue in the tea bar, revenue which no doubt helps bankroll the playing staff.

"Anybody that really needs it can bring a ham sandwich or something if they wish - that's no problem."

Can they? That's bloody good of you, old chap. No pat downs at the turnstiles for meat and dairy produce then? Does this mean you won't be coming around to inspect the contents of my fridge with a disapproving look on your puss?

Forest Green Rovers, enjoy the mocking from opposition fans. You deserve it.

Jeez, what is wrong with these people that they think they have the right to decide what your money is spent on, what access you are permitted to have to services the money you provided paid for and what you should and shouldn't be eating? 

Just take it.

I don't have any horses. Not one. Therefore, for me to pay for a stable, hay, oats and a stable lad would be a ridiculous waste of money. Thus I do not pay for these.

I am thankful that my health has always been good, however the time may come when I need to make use of the National Insurance contributions that are taken from me, without so much as a by your leave, every month. I'd be very annoyed if I needed the service having paid all this money, only to be told that I was prohibited from using it.

Dick Puddlecote has highlighted the following:

It's been coming for a while, but NHS West Kent have become the first health authority to actively pursue a comprehensive policy of restricting treatment based on social criteria.

The policy document states that:

From this month, patients who smoke and need planned surgery will have to complete a NHS Stop Smoking course before their operation.
  
Patients who are clinically obese or with a BMI (body mass index) of more than 30 will also have their surgery delayed and will have to carry out a weight loss programme. Health bosses said that losing the weight would reduce the length of hospital stay and lessen the risk of complication.

It's a good job I don't live in Kent. . .

Oh, bugger.

That's alright, though, there's no way that anyone else in the county would do the same. It isn't as if savings have to be made to accommodate the legions of non-surgical management and outreach diversity equality community bollock juggling officers is there?

Oh, bugger.


I would raise merry hell if he were denied treatment. Leave aside the anti-smoking dog whistle for a moment. I pay my NI contributions because I am forced to. If I were not forced to, I would take out a cheaper, better, private healthcare package. I would pay a premium for this as I would declare my smoking.

As a smoker I also pay a premium on top of the NI contributions to cover my NHS treatment in the form of the duty on the tobacco I buy.

So I pay for a service, and am then told that even though I pay for it, I am to be denied treatment? There's a word for that, it'll come to me in a moment. . .

Ah yes. Fraud. That's it.

Oh don't worry, I am but a filthy smoker, I deserve everything I get, I am untermensch. If you drink alcohol, or eat food that does not fit the dictated standard, they'll do the same to you, too.

Yeah, OK, snort with derision. Don't believe me, I really couldn't care less. When they go after the drinkers, they don't mean you, you who sit there with your glass of Chianti classico riserva with your dinner, they mean the chavs who get dosed up on slut petrol before hitting the vertical drinking establishments on a Friday night. When they go after the fatty food eaters, they don't mean you, you who eat your filet mignon with duck fat chips, they mean the pram faced single mums who serve up fat and salt ridden microwave meals to their multi-coloured offspring in the estate on the other side of town seven nights a week.

Sail on, it has nothing to do with you, you're a good boy or girl, you do what you're told. I am evil, I deserve to be turned away. I should probably be chained to the hospital gates to act as a warning to the others like me.

Scum, scum, scum. I'm scum.

Fine. Well, Leg-Iron has hit a nerve with me, and I'll act like fucking scum. You'll not like it, but then I couldn't give a toss.

Don't take my money, eject me from the game and still expect to play nicely. It ain't gonna happen, chum.