Dr Who: can I bovvered?

Oh I say, what a jolly jape of an episode Dr Who was. Dastardly business, old chap, that Professor Peach getting whacked over the head with a lead piping in the library. Lucky that crime writer Agatha Christie was on board to solve it. Well, the baddie wasn’t a member of the proletariat, a trade unionist or a commie but a giant killer wasp. With lots of tea, and lashings of ginger beer the Famous Five were able to ….Opps confused Christie to Blyton (same class, same attitude to the proletariat, trade unionists and commies). The Scoobies …opps there I go again, confusing things, but I blame Russell T. Davies trying to do a Joss Whedon.. and failing.

Suffice to say I didn’t enjoy tonight’s episode. And I have to admit I have not been terribly impressed with the old shebang. The fourth series hasn’t been interesting or gripping and while series three was patchy there were some clever storylines and sparkly gems (good to see my favourite, Blink, win an award for writer Steven Moffat).

There are only so many ideas you can cut and paste, past and present popular cult sci-fi / horror you can raid to create a montage of disappointing scripts and sticky back plastic monsters. You end up indulging in the game ”Now where have I seen that before” …

We have seen the Adipose (the potato shaped aliens), Pompeii burning, the Ood, warmongering Sontaran versus pacifist Dr, ass kicking terraformed acrobatic Jenny, daughter of the Dr (the extra twist is that Jenny is played by Georgia Moffett who is, fifth Dr Who, Peter Davison’s real life daughter).

And the characters….. Well, the Dr is still manic and continuely does the wide eyed look. Donna still irritates and at least Martha appeared in a couple of the episodes. But maybe, maybe….the best is left to the last as we do keep seeing fleeting ghostly images of Rose. I’m trying to keep positive but I think there should be a brief hiatus where some original and imaginative stories can be developed (or just employ the real Joss Whedon).

Next week the Dr and Donna enter the largest library in the universe (not the British Library) and are surprised by the emptyness. Obviously they have never heard of intergalatic budget cuts….

Ok, the pic is of Tom Baker and my favourite Dr Who. Oh, the fond childhood memories of Saturday teatimes waiting for Grandstand to finish and settle down to watch Tom Baker offer baddies jellybabies.

Benefits and lies

It is estimated that around £1.5bn in means tested benefits are lost to fraud and error. But what the Tory-frothing-at-the mouth press will conveniently ignore is that £1bn is underpaid.

Statistics released by the DWP estimate that 5.1%, or £590m, of income support and JSA expenditure; around 5.1%, or £750m, of housing benefit expenditure; and around 5.3%, or £370m, of pension credit expenditure is estimated to have been overpaid.

It is also stated £1.0bn, of total benefit expenditure was underpaid. But how much is not claimed? Pension credit, for example, is notoriously under claimed.

And in March this year, the Local Government Association estimated that claimants are missing out on council tax benefit worth £1.8bn ‘cos the rules are complex and poorly advertised. And now with NL’s latest big nasty idea called voice risk analysis technology that surely will put even more people off claiming as they will be perceived as potential fraudsters (along with those awful oppressive benefit fraud adverts on telly). Well, NL wants to reduce the number of claimants and what a spiffing good idea of scaring them off!!

But this is all a drop in the financial when you consider the cost of tax avoidance. The TUC estimate that £25billion is lost annually from tax avoidance, which is made up of £13bn tax avoidance by individuals p.a. and £12bn p.a. from 700 largest corporations.

And of course not forgetting that the rich are getting richer under NL. Yet the spotlight falls on the poor in this society, the claimant who is trying to make ends meet by taking on some work whilst not disclosing it to the state and the rich and powerful who have the luxury of not having to worry about money but get away with tax avoidance cos they can.