COMMENT: Happy Birthday, Gordon

Today is Gordon Brown's birthday, and on Twitter some people have been celebrating this with huge amounts of praise for Gordon and his political career.

Yes, really!

Gordon Brown, possibly the worst Prime Minister the UK has ever had, being praised and celebrated.

Not only did he miss several opportunities to reign in the bankers in the City of London, and sit back and do nothing about the bonus culture that is now being criticised from a sides of the political divide, but he oversaw one of the worst financial crises the world has ever seen, and simply buried his head in the sand and did little to solve the problem. Gordon has always been good at blaming others. It's never Gordon's fault. Except a lot of the problems in the UK today are his fault.

He and Blair did nothing about phone hacking back when the first rumours surfaced and, of course, he did nothing about accusations against Murdoch and News International because he risked losing the support of his nate Rupert and, therefore, his cushy job , benefits and salary.

Then, of course, there's the hundreds of thousands if deaths that he and Blair are responsible for in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The blood of many innocent civilians lies at the feet of Gordon Brown, and, sadly, while some call for Blair to be tried for war crimes they forget that the UK's involvement in illegal wars wouldn't have been possible with Gordon Brown's support and approval.
And now, having been rightly dumped by the UK electorate, he continues to screw the taxpayer by taking his MP salary while hardly ever turning up in Westminster, using rooms there to help get private work for himself and getting lots of bookings for talks, etc. Yes, in the past year he's found it hard to find time to turn up in the House of Commons but has had enough time to earn more than £1.5 million giving talks and making appearances. I wonder how his constituents haven't revolted at this.

Yes, I'd wish Gordon Brown a Happy Birthday too, but I'm sure he's perfectly happy laughing at how he's conned the UK public.

COMMENT: Fred Goodwin loses knighthood and 2 RBS bosses turn down bonuses. So what?

Tabloid politics has its victory. In fact, it has had two in a matter of days.

Firstly, the boss of RBS, and one of his underlings, were forced to turn down bonuses and, second, Fred Goodwin has been stripped of his knighthood.

The tabloids can't claim sole responsibility for these great victories; they were aided and abetted by sound bite politicians who saw that the bankers were damaged antelope on the Serengeti plain, an easy target for the lions of Westminster.

It's all such a nonsense. It's tokenistic politics lead by tawdry journalists with little or no grasp of the bigger picture.

Why do I say that?

Because, while a bonus isnt paid out or a bauble is taken back, this does nothing to change the mechanisms, systems and culture of banking - institutions that, recent events have shown, control more governments than elected officials.

Two senior executives turn down bonuses totalling less than £2m. These bonuses were in the form of shares and required the bank's value to increase before they kicked in. Whoops! And saving £2m is less than a drop in the ocean when you remember the banks were bailed out to the tune of £70+ BILLION!

As for Fred Goodwin's knighthood... do what?! I'm sure he doesn't give a flying fig whether he has a silly title given to him by discredited politicians and a parasitical monarch who costs the nation more than £200m per year (on a normsl year, liads more on a jubilee year) with very little return (and yet gets her close family to say the nation should buy her a new £70m yacht as a pressie for having shaken hands so well).

Politicians need to do something to change the banking system and withholding bonuses and taking back baubles does nothing to achieve this.

Politicians need to take back control of economies and actually run their countries for the benefit of the people.

Cameron and Miliband (and probably Clegg, though nobody cares what he says any more) will celebrate and bask in the glory that the tabloids will bestow on them but anyone with a brain will see through the veil of spin and realise that they have achieved absolutely nothing.

Cameron, Miliband and the tabloids are like Oceania in 1984 - celebrating victories for which there is no evidence. They tilt at windmills but fail to address the real issues.

It's time for politicians to do something about the banking system - it needs a root and branch review and overhaul - and no amount of victories over pantomime villains will do anything to improve the world.

Sadly, too many see bankers as evil. They are not evil, but the system that they, and politicians, work in is corrupted beyond repair. A new system, with new purpose, a social awareness and conscience is needed.

Cameron may as well give the RBS execs their bonuses, and give Fred Goodwin his title back. These will make no difference to the all-pervading culture of greed and self in which the banks have been allowed to operate.

Any politician who suggests this week's events will make a difference are lying to the public and deserve to lose their seat.

People need to stop being fooled by superficial politicians, and manipulative newspapers trying to push the blame onto another sector of the establishment. Sadly, when the history of the last 20 years are written it may well be called the age of tokenism.

OPINION: The Occupy movement - are they going for the right targets?

A few weeks ago, when the Occupy Wall Street protests began in New York, I felt a sympathy for their cause - the anger at corporate greed, the world financial crisis and, the increasingly pantomime villains, the bankers.

This weekend the movement has moved its protests beyond lower Manhattan and had "occupations" in many of the world's major cities - certainly in most of the world's financial centres. On the whole, these protests were peaceful and well organised (Rome being the main exception). In the City of London the protestors "occupied" the London Stock Exchange. well, no, they didn't they stood outside the London Stock Exchange to shout slogans and wave banners on a day that the Exchange is closed. Indeed, as is the case most Saturdays, very little of the Square Mile that makes up the City of London was open for business. The chances of a single banker hearing the chants or reading the banners was minimal unless they happened to watch the television news on Saturday evening.

So, having rather shot themselves in the foot with a silly and pointless attention-seeking protest, #OccupyLSX decided they need to camp out for the big, to continue their protest today. It wasn't long before the organisers announced on their Twitter account that they were now "occupying St. Paul's". There are many who, I'm sure, will consider this odd. maybe they were just seeking a safe haven, protection from the authorities, the sort of thing that the Christian church has done in the past for those who need a place of safety.

It made me wonder, though. Why protest at a closed Stock Exchange but only seek a pitch for your tent in a cathedral yard?

Then I realised, the protestors were actually attacking the wrong target.

The churches, of all denominations, are huge corporations. They have billions of pounds/dollars in real estate throughout the world. They have incredible investments in stocks and shares. In many pension funds some of the biggest investors are various churches.

Aren't the churches, in fact, the fat cats that we should be protesting about?

And, worse still, because they do some charitable work (and it is only some) they pay very little on nothing in taxation on huge swathes of their income. massive tax avoidance on a scale that would put most bankers to shame.

Take a look at the Salvation Army, just down towards the Millennium Bridge from St. Paul's overlooking the Thames towards the Tate Modern. I'm sure many see them as friendly, nice folks who wear slightly odd Toytown soldier outfits, play Christmas carols outside Tesco and rattle their tambourines. They are, though they cover it well, dangerous fundamentalists, loony creationists who believe the Bible word for word (and ignore the various nonsenses and contradictions that it contains). Their International HQ, built in recent years, wouldn't look out of place as the head office of a firm of accountants or an investment bank. It's on a piece of prime real estate and, in the open market, would have cost millions to build. It is plush and very comfortable. Some might say it was luxurious. I'm sure the hundreds of homeless they help each week are glad that so much was spent to make their pen pushers and senior churchmen work in such luxury. The Army get donations of billions of pounds/dollars each year - a small percentage is spent for anything most people would consider a good cause - most is spent on promotion, publications and indoctrination - but they pay little in tax despite being such a huge global corporation.

The Church of England and the Roman Catholic church also avoid tax on a major scale despite uh of the money donated for good causes gong into investments of stocks and shares.

Yes, those who camped outside St. Paul's cathedral last night needed somewhere to camp. Yes, they sought safe haven so the authorities couldn't round them up, arrest or move on - though there was no evidence that was happening. But, while they're there why not properly Occupy St. Paul's.

* We need an openness, currently not happening, about the funding of religious organisations.

* We need an openness about the tax paid by religious organisations.

* We need an openness about how donations to religious organisations is used and how much is in stocks and shares and bonds.

To my mind, the churches are corrupt international corporations that have been allowed to have a position above the law.

This must stop.

OCCUPY ST. PAUL'S!