Tele-bloody-coms - just give us your wallet

The chap from BT was most beguiling.  The package was irresistible, and we'd been specially chosen as loyal customers.  Free broadband, free phone calls, help with the mortgage and use of a private Lear jet whenever we wanted.  All we had to do was switch my broadband from Talk-talk to BT. 'Tell them you want a Big Mac code', said the nice Geordie. 'Get them to send it to your mobile. I''ll ring you back at 4:30.'


I wonder whether anybody from Oftel has ever donned disguise and tried to get a Big Mac code out of Talk-talk. They would be horrified. Talk-talk's response to a polite request for the code is a threat to cut you off instantly from your mobile and your broadband (illegal), followed by a sweetener - "oh - your loyalty compels us to offer you free calls for life and the free use of a Jumbo jet."


It is absolutely impossible, even for a reasonably intelligent punter who just wants to keep costs of landline and mobile phone calls and internet use down to a level which his pension can accommodate  comfortably, to choose between fish and cheese, because like is never compared to like.


Even last month's itemised bill from Talk-talk was unintelligible. I've no doubt the sums charged were correct, but the headings under which they were grouped were utterly meaningless to someone who doesn't speak fonejarg.


I had the Talk-talk bill yesterday for the mobile calls I made trying to make contact with them to request a Big Mac code.  It was over £8, waiting for a reply, and this is the dirty side of telecoms - the invisible charges.


Oftel is failing in its job.  Telecoms is now utterly obfuscatory to ordinary mortals.


I still haven't made a decision.  Since Talk-talk took over Tiscali the broadband service has tightened up, and  TT warn you when to expect a day or so of mild disruption, but they bully you with implied threats if you say you are thinking of migrating. BT owns the infrastructure and doesn't like intruders, and is marginally more persuasive, but it tries too hard when it's going for the kill, and doesn't like taking no for an answer, so it makes nuisance calls to people who've been on the telephone preference scheme for yonks.


And we, the people who fund the big players, are treated with contempt if we protest at their doorstep salesmanship.


That Thatcher woman, doyenne of the car-boot market-place, has a hell of a lot to answer for.

Rochdale Liberals & Oldham East & Saddleworth

I'm sorry for Phil Woolas, who has lost his seat in Oldham East & Saddleworth, but there's a background that never gets into the press.


Red and blue have always respected each other's political differences in Rochdale and in this new ungainly parliamentary constituency, to the extent that they had gentlemen's (and gentlewomen's) agreements not to queer each other's pitch at local or national elections when they went out on the knocker.  Neither party wanted to be involved in unseemly brawls in the street or on the doorstep.  Members of both main parties conducted themselves with dignity and with mutual respect.


That made them ripe for exploitation by the yellow brigade, whose strategists are recruited from St Trinian's and the Bash Street Kids, judging by their behaviour at the hustings (fundamentally juvenile).  It was the yellow brigade who dreamed up the bright idea of doing their last leaflet drop just before midnight on pre-election day, turning on all the security lights in sleeping households and causing every dog to bark, or shadowing other parties' door- knockers in the hope of engineering a punch-up.


The difficulty the two main parties have in this constituency is that there isn't just one yellow peril to contend with, but two - one hungry for power by adopting Conservative policies, the other by adopting Labour policies, and they squabble amongst themselves like children in the school playground. Power at any price - that is the unspoken slogan of the Liberal Party, and that is why they can't risk having a serious manifesto of their own: just opportunistic fluff to allow them to move either way when a  chance arises.


Ugh.

Human Rights Legislation & Alice in Wonderland

Isn't it fitting that it's in pantomime season that an illegal immigrant with a string of motoring offences gets protected by European human rights legislation despite having killed a 12-year-old child with the vehicle he was driving illegally?


This legislation is binding on our judicial system, but it is proving to be bad law because it is not balanced by a Human Obligations principle, which could take into account the circumstances  in which somebody sought protection for their human rights.  Bad law creates injustice and compounds the injury suffered by victims of crime.  Human rights are not absolutes - they are relatives,  which go hand in hand, as all rights do, with duties and obligations.


People who engage in criminal activity surrender their right to be treated equally with their victims or with the rest of society, and until legislators builds this principle of Human Obligations into Human Rights law we will continue to live in an Alice in Wonderland world of topsy-turvy.