The Conservatives get 36.1% of the votes - and 306 seats.
Labour get 29.0% of the votes - and 258 seats... (not too shabby considering)
and the Liberal Democrats get 23.0% of the votes and get... 57 seats!?!? WTF.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Hung
yay! we're hung. But what nancy-pancy scaredy-cats the electorate are for not voting more for the lib-dems. And no doubt the Tories will be stamping their feet and belly-aching that they're the largest party now and deserve to win 'boo-hoo'. But they need to be reminded this is the electoral system they've stuck by and refused to change - mainly because it's usually served them well - at the expense of the other parties over the decades...
Tonight's results might finally nudge them into agreeing our system is nuts and needs a change. Can't see that happening any time soon though.
I hate that we've got a system that's effectively an elected dictatorship - 15 years of Tory excesses - followed by 13 years of Labour excesses hasn't done the UK much good at all... they just manage to foul things up in their own way...
Tonight's results might finally nudge them into agreeing our system is nuts and needs a change. Can't see that happening any time soon though.
I hate that we've got a system that's effectively an elected dictatorship - 15 years of Tory excesses - followed by 13 years of Labour excesses hasn't done the UK much good at all... they just manage to foul things up in their own way...
Gordon's Great Gaffe
As if you didn't know how mischievous the Murdoch news machine is, after all the Labour party sold a big part of soul when Blair was cosying up to Murdoch back in the late Nineties when the Conservative Party had done all it could to make itself totally unelectable. The price was to allow the Murdoch empire to plod on regardless, unchecked. You knew the gloves where already off months ago when the right wing press had already decided it was backing Cameron. We've already seen their risible attempts to sully Clegg. And just whose idea was it to run this election like a Presidential race? We don't have a President. We just get to vote for our own MP in our wards. It's also had the effect of reducing the debate down to personalities, and Gordon, hasn't anyone told you? (mind you, if they had done you'd probably just have shouted at them) your personality just doesn't come across very well. I've lost count of the times where I've read/heard someone say how different and actually likeable you are in person - but how that doesn't show on TV.
Oh dear , and there was I thinking 'oooh, it looks like this year, this election - for once, people aren't going to be fooled into voting who Murdoch wants to be in power.' But now look what you've done. If bloody Cameron wins this election - I won't be surprised if the Sun headline won't be 'It was the Sky mic wot won it!'
Vote Gay!
Latest news: In a bid to prove they're not homophobes any more the Tories sacrifice one of their own for making homophobic comments. Not that he had any chance of being elected against a safe Labour seat anyway. Pity they didn't get rid of him of him a couple of years ago when he was being embarrassing by saying one of his heroes was racist Rhodesian leader Ian Smith. *Eyeroll*
Meanwhile according to a Pink News poll - Gay Tory support is down 30 points.
[Aside: I think most Tories are weird enough anyway -but gay Tories... totally baffling.]
My gay vote has easy to understand pie charts on how the three main parties stand on gay related issues. Any surprise it's *only* the Tories that consistently vote against anything pro-equal rights?
Meanwhile according to a Pink News poll - Gay Tory support is down 30 points.
[Aside: I think most Tories are weird enough anyway -but gay Tories... totally baffling.]
My gay vote has easy to understand pie charts on how the three main parties stand on gay related issues. Any surprise it's *only* the Tories that consistently vote against anything pro-equal rights?
Democracy UK style - if voting changed anything...
Gee, it must be nice to live in a democracy. To know that when you go out to vote that it will actually mean something, that your vote gets counted and makes a difference. That you'll get someone in parliament who might represent your interests – rather than that of some dodgy lobbyist pushing their interests over the general public's. The funny thing is – I live in a country that while it lays claim to being a democracy - it isn't much. Not really. Nor will it ever be not with our current 'first-past-the-post' system -and moreover not when this system means there are only a handful of places in our country that really decide who runs the country. What they call 'key marginals' – unique little pockets of the country that have enough 'undecideds' wandering around that could tip the political balance of the country either way. That's where the real battle for hearts and minds is being fought. The rest us, well -to be honest, we needn't bother to turn up to vote on the day – it's all such a foregone conclusion.
(Which might help explain why three weeks into the election campaign I've only had one single solitary election leaflet pushed through my door... one from the Green party.)
I so happen to live in one of those areas that has a sitting MP – he's been sitting on his safe secure arse for the past 15 years or so. So any vote other than for him – is pretty much going to be wasted vote. He's a Tory – one of those who happens to be have voted against gay rights. So that alone means I can't ever expect him to represent my interests in parliament can I? Quite the opposite in fact. But there he is on 43% of the local vote. Meaning of course that 57% expressly didn't vote for him. (But then maybe you could say if he tried a bit harder he could have garnered the BNP votes. Got perhaps 44%?) But I'll take a stab in the dark and guess that most of the people who voted for him did so – because they've always voted Tory and their father voted Tory and their father before them voted Tory. It's more of a blind tribal lazy loyalty than a real participation in democracy. One where you might have to trouble your mind about thinking about issues and whatnot before making your cross.
That form of brand loyalty is just absurd as is voting for someone because they look good on TV or in posters (*cough* Cameron) – hell, instead of voting for a personality or a party we should have something more like the 'Who should you vote for?' website. That at least would produce a far fairer, more representative result of what people want. Because – let's face it, most people haven't much of a clue what they're really voting for.
The other joke in our democracy is that the argument is overly dominated by the three (– or should that be two and a half parties). Thanks to our mainly right wing press (the vast majority of our newspapers are owned by multimillionaires you know, and multimillionaires have their own special interests which both main parties are always bending over backwards to accommodate – and as newspapers have proven themselves to be very good at getting turkeys to vote for Christmas – (although interestingly enough that doesn't seem to be happening so readily this time round) both parties rely heavily on that support. Not that it's propaganda or anything. Oh no, wait it is. It actually is).
They are plenty other marginal parties– but they just get totally ignored – they don't even get air time so most people don't even know they exist. Plus the fact it takes such vast amounts of money to campaign for a place in the establishment – no one but a multimillionaire has the faintest ghost of a chance. Not that many multi-millionaires would bother to stand for parliament – it's far easier and cheaper to get one of the existing parties to do what you want. All it takes is a donation or two...
*despairing sigh*
So – democracy... yeah, to paraphrase Lisa Dolittle: '....oooooh wouldn't it be luverly...'
(Which might help explain why three weeks into the election campaign I've only had one single solitary election leaflet pushed through my door... one from the Green party.)
I so happen to live in one of those areas that has a sitting MP – he's been sitting on his safe secure arse for the past 15 years or so. So any vote other than for him – is pretty much going to be wasted vote. He's a Tory – one of those who happens to be have voted against gay rights. So that alone means I can't ever expect him to represent my interests in parliament can I? Quite the opposite in fact. But there he is on 43% of the local vote. Meaning of course that 57% expressly didn't vote for him. (But then maybe you could say if he tried a bit harder he could have garnered the BNP votes. Got perhaps 44%?) But I'll take a stab in the dark and guess that most of the people who voted for him did so – because they've always voted Tory and their father voted Tory and their father before them voted Tory. It's more of a blind tribal lazy loyalty than a real participation in democracy. One where you might have to trouble your mind about thinking about issues and whatnot before making your cross.
That form of brand loyalty is just absurd as is voting for someone because they look good on TV or in posters (*cough* Cameron) – hell, instead of voting for a personality or a party we should have something more like the 'Who should you vote for?' website. That at least would produce a far fairer, more representative result of what people want. Because – let's face it, most people haven't much of a clue what they're really voting for.
The other joke in our democracy is that the argument is overly dominated by the three (– or should that be two and a half parties). Thanks to our mainly right wing press (the vast majority of our newspapers are owned by multimillionaires you know, and multimillionaires have their own special interests which both main parties are always bending over backwards to accommodate – and as newspapers have proven themselves to be very good at getting turkeys to vote for Christmas – (although interestingly enough that doesn't seem to be happening so readily this time round) both parties rely heavily on that support. Not that it's propaganda or anything. Oh no, wait it is. It actually is).
They are plenty other marginal parties– but they just get totally ignored – they don't even get air time so most people don't even know they exist. Plus the fact it takes such vast amounts of money to campaign for a place in the establishment – no one but a multimillionaire has the faintest ghost of a chance. Not that many multi-millionaires would bother to stand for parliament – it's far easier and cheaper to get one of the existing parties to do what you want. All it takes is a donation or two...
*despairing sigh*
So – democracy... yeah, to paraphrase Lisa Dolittle: '....oooooh wouldn't it be luverly...'
why are we in Afghanstan ....
With the news full of how a few more British troops have died in duty in Afghanistan - Newsnight had tonight's whole program dedicated to asking 'what are we doing there...'
Throughout the whole program (and incidentally in the Prime Minister answers in Parliament's question time) not one person bothered to mention the real reason we're there, and why the US is there and why the Soviets where once there... it's all because duh the place is steeped in oil and gas. [But Gordon Brown couldn't say that - he just mumbled some nonsense about protecting us from terrorists. Which is the standard threadbare blanket excuse for everything these days.]
Which is all the more ironic considering that in the same question time the Prime Minister was patting himself on the back that the G20 where supposedly all pulling together to agree to maybe possibly vaguely do something about climate change... one day. Because yeah, if they ever do get to extract all that oil and gas - that won't increase carbon levels one jot will it. *eyeroll*
Throughout the whole program (and incidentally in the Prime Minister answers in Parliament's question time) not one person bothered to mention the real reason we're there, and why the US is there and why the Soviets where once there... it's all because duh the place is steeped in oil and gas. [But Gordon Brown couldn't say that - he just mumbled some nonsense about protecting us from terrorists. Which is the standard threadbare blanket excuse for everything these days.]
Which is all the more ironic considering that in the same question time the Prime Minister was patting himself on the back that the G20 where supposedly all pulling together to agree to maybe possibly vaguely do something about climate change... one day. Because yeah, if they ever do get to extract all that oil and gas - that won't increase carbon levels one jot will it. *eyeroll*
one law for the poor - another for the MPs
Mmmmm.
So when some poor sod fiddles the benefit system and they get caught out... they usually get sent to court and are usually either fined and sent to jail. [Leaving aside for the moment other issues that the benefits paid out are often way, way below anything anyone could be expected to even subsist on - which in itself could be said to encourage people to cheat... they do so only to survive.]
But when MPs do it - they first claim they're doing nothing (technically) wrong. Then some quickly pay back what they claimed (surely that in itself is an admission of guilt -hummm?), then they censor what should be a matter of public record - another admission of guilt -surely.
Now the police are getting involved - but what are the chances of any MP being sent to court - and fined - and sent to prison? I'd say minimal - how many Labour party members got away with the cash for peerages thing that was going on not so long ago?
Where are the TV adverts for tax-payer-cheating MPs - like they have for 'targeting benefit thieves'...
So when some poor sod fiddles the benefit system and they get caught out... they usually get sent to court and are usually either fined and sent to jail. [Leaving aside for the moment other issues that the benefits paid out are often way, way below anything anyone could be expected to even subsist on - which in itself could be said to encourage people to cheat... they do so only to survive.]
But when MPs do it - they first claim they're doing nothing (technically) wrong. Then some quickly pay back what they claimed (surely that in itself is an admission of guilt -hummm?), then they censor what should be a matter of public record - another admission of guilt -surely.
Now the police are getting involved - but what are the chances of any MP being sent to court - and fined - and sent to prison? I'd say minimal - how many Labour party members got away with the cash for peerages thing that was going on not so long ago?
Where are the TV adverts for tax-payer-cheating MPs - like they have for 'targeting benefit thieves'...
sigh - local election time
So I'm watching the various local election results come in on the news... and i'm depressed. Not because Labour is being trounced - since I believe they are only getting everything they deserve. But because this means the Tories are gaining - and that it's looking more and more like a foregone collection that the Tories will get into power at the next general election. It depresses me profoundly that the general public have such short memories - they've now totally forgotten just how wretchedly bad the Tories were when they were last in power. What's worse, no one seems to realise that NuLabour haven't done anything differently from what the Tories would have done the past 12 years. The whole two party political system we have here in the UK is insane and no way to run a country... each party just gets a shot at coming in and wrecking everything in their own way and when they wind down - usually dissolving in disarray and miring themselves in sleaze - then the opposition (who are always great at knowing how to run things and can fix everything when they're not in power - but always suddenly manage to completely lose that ability when they do gain power... funny that) get their turn to fuck everything up in their own way.
Groans.
There has got to be a better way than this.
Why wont people give the Lib-Dems a chance?
Groans.
There has got to be a better way than this.
Why wont people give the Lib-Dems a chance?
Mmmmm
Truthdig - Reports - Who Knew Bankers Were This Stupid?
I don't know about America - but for the life of me I don't understand why the streets haven't been filled with mobs of middle class people baying for banker's blood here. Maybe it's yet to come - as the recession bites and things get harder for everybody. After all the UK there's been a long standing disgruntlement about top executives of various companies awarding themselves massive bonuses and golden handshakes etc. when the companies they've resided over have actually fowled up and made masses of losses. Of course nothing was ever done about it. Maybe we're all just too soft and apathetic here.
Later:
Bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland bankers set for millions in bonuses.
So we can see here - even in extremis - there is STILL absolutely nothing being done about the situation. Mind you , even if the Govt. made the slightest noise about doing something -I bet if these people had a quick whip round among themselves and came up with a suitably-sized party donation out of those same bonus payments - then suddenly there still wouldn't be anything done about it... if this hasn't already happened, which could explain a lot.
[I mean - it's ever so curious that the former chief executive of RSB Frederick (Dick) Anderson Goodwin was presented with a knighthood before RSB nearly went belly up... I can't help but wonder if he made any contributions at any time? Is there any way of finding out?]
Meanwhile (as a taste of things to come - because the general population here are so pathetic and dim witted that it's pretty certain they're going to vote a Tory Govt. in next time):
The Times has learnt that the Conservative Party accepted £200,000 from a slot machine tycoon’s businesses shortly after calling for softer rules on arcade gambling.
Wow, that sounds familiar...
I don't know about America - but for the life of me I don't understand why the streets haven't been filled with mobs of middle class people baying for banker's blood here. Maybe it's yet to come - as the recession bites and things get harder for everybody. After all the UK there's been a long standing disgruntlement about top executives of various companies awarding themselves massive bonuses and golden handshakes etc. when the companies they've resided over have actually fowled up and made masses of losses. Of course nothing was ever done about it. Maybe we're all just too soft and apathetic here.
Later:
Bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland bankers set for millions in bonuses.
So we can see here - even in extremis - there is STILL absolutely nothing being done about the situation. Mind you , even if the Govt. made the slightest noise about doing something -I bet if these people had a quick whip round among themselves and came up with a suitably-sized party donation out of those same bonus payments - then suddenly there still wouldn't be anything done about it... if this hasn't already happened, which could explain a lot.
[I mean - it's ever so curious that the former chief executive of RSB Frederick (Dick) Anderson Goodwin was presented with a knighthood before RSB nearly went belly up... I can't help but wonder if he made any contributions at any time? Is there any way of finding out?]
Meanwhile (as a taste of things to come - because the general population here are so pathetic and dim witted that it's pretty certain they're going to vote a Tory Govt. in next time):
The Times has learnt that the Conservative Party accepted £200,000 from a slot machine tycoon’s businesses shortly after calling for softer rules on arcade gambling.
Wow, that sounds familiar...
So let me get this straight...
Now if memory serves - isn't the Labour Govt. recently all for bringing in new welfare plans to get the long term unemployed, lone parents and the sick back into work - and if the DSS decides they aren't trying hard enough - they'll get their benefits cut and/or be forced to do menial work for their benefits (which are considerably lower than minimum wage levels). Um. Well, OK. So how does that square with Gordon Brown now saying that Union Workers shouldn't be striking over the issue of Oil Refinery jobs going to foreign workers. Seems to me - if you're properly serious about creating jobs for the unemployed - you should well, be doing something to actually create real jobs for the unemployed and that should be for the people who need work in this country - not for those in Italy and Portugal.
[This of course should highlight another thing what's been going wrong for a long while in the UK - and that's just how much of the country's industry is now owned by foreign companies and interests. It should concern us mere mortals because these being foreign companies - the bulk of the money they're making is going abroad - and a lot of them don't pay taxes! And why do the politicians (it doesn't matter what 'side' any more - they've long become indistinguishable from each other now) let this happen? Oh, you just have to take a look at who's giving them contributions for their campaign funds etc. There's a clue or two right there.]
[This of course should highlight another thing what's been going wrong for a long while in the UK - and that's just how much of the country's industry is now owned by foreign companies and interests. It should concern us mere mortals because these being foreign companies - the bulk of the money they're making is going abroad - and a lot of them don't pay taxes! And why do the politicians (it doesn't matter what 'side' any more - they've long become indistinguishable from each other now) let this happen? Oh, you just have to take a look at who's giving them contributions for their campaign funds etc. There's a clue or two right there.]
just a quick mutter...
I was watching Newsnight last -erm night, and as part of the show they had one of their focus groups pieces. There they were showing speeches from Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg - then gauging the punter's opinions. So guess who everyone liked best? Oh, the Lib-Dems. You might think that'd give me a bit of hope for the future (since I so vehemently hate both Labour and the Tories) - but I've seen this time and time again over ... well, decades. The average punters always like what the Lib-Dems have to say - yet they never vote for them - why not? Because people say - 'oh, they haven't had the experience of being in power'. Why's that then? Oh, probably people won't come out of their comfort zones and even try something different. I'm guessing it's out of some sort of warped brand loyalty or something. The Labour party hadn't been in power for something like 18 long years before they got back in... the Tories will have been out of power for 10 years and more - but people will still vote either of those two in, rather than the third alternative. All this despite the fact the both have proved themselves pretty useless at running the country, and do so time and time again.
Sorry rant over. I might as well resign myself to the fact the Tories will almost inevitably get back in next election and set about fouling everything up in a most spectacular manner.
Sorry rant over. I might as well resign myself to the fact the Tories will almost inevitably get back in next election and set about fouling everything up in a most spectacular manner.
Trying to do some joined up thinking...
...because our politicians certainly can't be relied upon to do such a thing...
So the Govt. is going to 'reform' the welfare system (yet again). It effectively intends to punish the long term unemployed by making them do community service (much in the same way criminals are punished when they've done wrong) and intends to get a million or two off long term incapacity benefits and into work. (Like there aren't already more than enough socially dysfunctional mentally-ill, depressed people in all but name, already in work making life miserable for the rest of us. You know the sort I mean. Like Taxi-drivers, Traffic wardens...)
Except of course - no one is bothering to ask were these extra one or two million or even more jobs are going to magically appear from. For instance - local councils up and down the country are always pleading poverty (despite how they consistently raise council rate rates year in, year out) and when they're not currently laying off staff are suffering from strikes were many council workers are finding their wages just aren't enough for them to live on. So are they going to provide these extra jobs? Seems unlikely.
Not to mention we're at a point in time when the unemployment levels are already rising and look set to continue. There's a whole part of the equation being over looked - the bit where there is so much unemployment is because - there simply aren't enough jobs to go round. Duh.
As for the sorts of jobs available - that's changed so much over the past 30 or so years. There used to be mining - coal and steel - that's all but gone. Manufacturing - we used to make stuff and sell things to the world, but China and India does most of that now. For the past few years people have been selling each other their homes at ever increasing prices - but that's stalled now. I know many areas have been letting Land developers build more and more luxury houses and flats for millionaires to buy - but that's turned into a fiasco. I guess there's still a lot of people being on the phone selling 'consolidation loans', debt relief packages, insurance of one sort or another, to each other... but i don't know how long that can go on. I suppose there's always the NHS and care work looking after our increasingly elderly population... or even child care - that's looking after the children of the single mother who's been forced to get a job instead of staying home to look after the child herself she now has to go to work to earn the money she now needs to pay the child-minder... oh and working for the DSS, who'll soon be going mad trying to put these hare-brained reform schemes into operation.
(Job creation UK style.)
Of course another inconvenient, barely mentioned fact is that there are more people in working poverty than there are claiming benefits, and even this doesn't take in to account the millions of working families having to claim 'tax credits' to top up their meager wages - which effectively subsidizes employers and only encourages low pay. (I happen to believe if any company can't afford to pay it's employees a decent living wage then it simply has no business doing business and it deserves to close.) As for most casual 'benefit cheats' those who work and claim benefits - again this is more often due to dodgy businesses not paying their staff - for whatever reason a decent wage - so again the state ends up subsidizing poverty pay. However, when it's done legally - it's called 'tax credits' when illegally it's 'benefits cheating' - when it's a Department of Work and Pensions scheme - it's 'incentive payments' or something equally stupid sounding.
What's more no one is bothering to mention that maybe, just possibly maybe one of the reasons there are welfare cheats in the first place is that the benefits paid out are just way, way too low to actually live on. Gas and electricity prices have shot up the past couple of years - everyone knows food prices have gone up. Dole money hasn't though.
(There was a time when one working class man's wages could support a whole family - with the wife staying at home to do all the domestic stuff. A middle class man could do the same and keep servants. Nowadays it takes two people in full time employment to earn a living wage. Although a lot of domestic drudgery has been eased by things like washing machines, vacuum cleaners, microwave ovens etc.)
Whatever - it's become the dogma that having a job - any job, no matter how low-paid, miserable or totally useless seems to be the magic answer to all life's problems. Rather than it being the start of a lot of problems.
So I ask again where are these new jobs going to come from? - because no Government since the 1970s has had much luck with job creation schemes.
Maybe they have plans to split the unemployed into two groups have one where they employ them on short term contracts to oversee the other half doing these lame-ass community work schemes - and when their contracts run out - they'll employ the other half of the unemployed to oversee the newly-made unemployed when they end up having to do their work-for-dole jobs. That could work. It'd be the equivalent of hiring one person to dig a hole and then someone else to fill it in again... but that doesn't seem to matter. So long as the official figures look good and the next batch of politicians can stand up and read them out in Parliament - "double plus good - the chocolate ration is to be increased..."
(Come to think of it - being a Politician seems to be an enormously cushy job. It's all just wearing suits and talking utter rubbish. Couldn't there be a bit more room made for a few thousand more drawn from the long term jobless?)
...and this brings us to the real reason behind all this - it all boils down to trying to win votes. The same way through the late 70s and 80s the Conservatives managed to poach votes from the working class ('here, vote for us and we'll sell your the council home you're already renting - for cheap' etc.) - Labour is poaching the votes from the nasty, small minded, mean-spirited, cruel hearted, vicious, Daily Mail/Telegraph reading little Englander who usually votes Tory. Which is why our two main political parties are becoming indistinguishable from one another. There's no vision any more - just a pandering to the general public and cynical poll chasing.
Other people wot do write better about stuff than I do...
Polly Toynbee:
"Labour's sin-eater has now neutralised welfare reform"
Steve Richards:
A big step forward on the path to welfare reform, but there is difficult terrain ahead.
So the Govt. is going to 'reform' the welfare system (yet again). It effectively intends to punish the long term unemployed by making them do community service (much in the same way criminals are punished when they've done wrong) and intends to get a million or two off long term incapacity benefits and into work. (Like there aren't already more than enough socially dysfunctional mentally-ill, depressed people in all but name, already in work making life miserable for the rest of us. You know the sort I mean. Like Taxi-drivers, Traffic wardens...)
Except of course - no one is bothering to ask were these extra one or two million or even more jobs are going to magically appear from. For instance - local councils up and down the country are always pleading poverty (despite how they consistently raise council rate rates year in, year out) and when they're not currently laying off staff are suffering from strikes were many council workers are finding their wages just aren't enough for them to live on. So are they going to provide these extra jobs? Seems unlikely.
Not to mention we're at a point in time when the unemployment levels are already rising and look set to continue. There's a whole part of the equation being over looked - the bit where there is so much unemployment is because - there simply aren't enough jobs to go round. Duh.
As for the sorts of jobs available - that's changed so much over the past 30 or so years. There used to be mining - coal and steel - that's all but gone. Manufacturing - we used to make stuff and sell things to the world, but China and India does most of that now. For the past few years people have been selling each other their homes at ever increasing prices - but that's stalled now. I know many areas have been letting Land developers build more and more luxury houses and flats for millionaires to buy - but that's turned into a fiasco. I guess there's still a lot of people being on the phone selling 'consolidation loans', debt relief packages, insurance of one sort or another, to each other... but i don't know how long that can go on. I suppose there's always the NHS and care work looking after our increasingly elderly population... or even child care - that's looking after the children of the single mother who's been forced to get a job instead of staying home to look after the child herself she now has to go to work to earn the money she now needs to pay the child-minder... oh and working for the DSS, who'll soon be going mad trying to put these hare-brained reform schemes into operation.
(Job creation UK style.)
Of course another inconvenient, barely mentioned fact is that there are more people in working poverty than there are claiming benefits, and even this doesn't take in to account the millions of working families having to claim 'tax credits' to top up their meager wages - which effectively subsidizes employers and only encourages low pay. (I happen to believe if any company can't afford to pay it's employees a decent living wage then it simply has no business doing business and it deserves to close.) As for most casual 'benefit cheats' those who work and claim benefits - again this is more often due to dodgy businesses not paying their staff - for whatever reason a decent wage - so again the state ends up subsidizing poverty pay. However, when it's done legally - it's called 'tax credits' when illegally it's 'benefits cheating' - when it's a Department of Work and Pensions scheme - it's 'incentive payments' or something equally stupid sounding.
What's more no one is bothering to mention that maybe, just possibly maybe one of the reasons there are welfare cheats in the first place is that the benefits paid out are just way, way too low to actually live on. Gas and electricity prices have shot up the past couple of years - everyone knows food prices have gone up. Dole money hasn't though.
(There was a time when one working class man's wages could support a whole family - with the wife staying at home to do all the domestic stuff. A middle class man could do the same and keep servants. Nowadays it takes two people in full time employment to earn a living wage. Although a lot of domestic drudgery has been eased by things like washing machines, vacuum cleaners, microwave ovens etc.)
Whatever - it's become the dogma that having a job - any job, no matter how low-paid, miserable or totally useless seems to be the magic answer to all life's problems. Rather than it being the start of a lot of problems.
So I ask again where are these new jobs going to come from? - because no Government since the 1970s has had much luck with job creation schemes.
Maybe they have plans to split the unemployed into two groups have one where they employ them on short term contracts to oversee the other half doing these lame-ass community work schemes - and when their contracts run out - they'll employ the other half of the unemployed to oversee the newly-made unemployed when they end up having to do their work-for-dole jobs. That could work. It'd be the equivalent of hiring one person to dig a hole and then someone else to fill it in again... but that doesn't seem to matter. So long as the official figures look good and the next batch of politicians can stand up and read them out in Parliament - "double plus good - the chocolate ration is to be increased..."
(Come to think of it - being a Politician seems to be an enormously cushy job. It's all just wearing suits and talking utter rubbish. Couldn't there be a bit more room made for a few thousand more drawn from the long term jobless?)
...and this brings us to the real reason behind all this - it all boils down to trying to win votes. The same way through the late 70s and 80s the Conservatives managed to poach votes from the working class ('here, vote for us and we'll sell your the council home you're already renting - for cheap' etc.) - Labour is poaching the votes from the nasty, small minded, mean-spirited, cruel hearted, vicious, Daily Mail/Telegraph reading little Englander who usually votes Tory. Which is why our two main political parties are becoming indistinguishable from one another. There's no vision any more - just a pandering to the general public and cynical poll chasing.
Other people wot do write better about stuff than I do...
Polly Toynbee:
"Labour's sin-eater has now neutralised welfare reform"
Steve Richards:
A big step forward on the path to welfare reform, but there is difficult terrain ahead.
Food waste on 'staggering' scale
You know – this shouldn't surprise anyone. When you think about it – during the past few years with the rise and rise of the big mega-supermarkets hand in hand with car ownership – people have been driving out to these places and stocking up like they were feeding little armies – and wanting a large range of stuff to choose from when they dip into the fridge. Add to that the stupid Government campaign for us all to 'eat 5 a day' – which means good intentioned folk are buying more fresh fruit and veg only to throw it out because they can't eat it – because it simply doesn't last that long (tinned and frozen is just as good if you must insist on stocking up like that.) Part of the real answer is – people should ditch the car, so they can't load up with masses of food they're only going to throw out untouched, buy locally and often – (the mega-superstores are a massive mistake of the Eighties – they (the big 4) shouldn't be allowed to build any more - and they distort local economies in ways that are quite frightening.)
As for supermarkets throwing food out (it keeps their profit margins up) - that's just criminal - at the very least they should give it to local homeless shelters or whatever. It would help their image no end too.
As for supermarkets throwing food out (it keeps their profit margins up) - that's just criminal - at the very least they should give it to local homeless shelters or whatever. It would help their image no end too.
well - I'm appalled
So Gordon got his way did he? And it just points out to me what is wrong with the whole political system in this country. It annoys me because a whole raft of things - plain good old fashioned common sense, issues of human rights and civil liberties, even public relations, etc. etc. have been jettisoned all because Gordon Brown wanted to be seen as a tough leader. No - Mr Brown - error - you've only shown yourself up to be an stubborn thick-headed idiot - one who can't see when they're wrong - again! That's not what counts as good leadership skills. Moreover by continually fighting this on-going "war on terror" - against a fantasy villainous non-existent organisation - by demolishing civil rights laws and freedoms which where fought for by our ancestors is not a good path to be heading down. By going against a cross-party revolt to get your own petulant little way has sealed your fate. It's pretty much guaranteed you won't be re-elected at the next election - you may just as well have walked across the floor and handed over the keys to number 10 to Cameron.
BBC NEWS | Politics | Was victory worth it for Brown?
When I start agreeing with a Tory who has this to say:
David Davis' resignation speech.
There's something really wrong going on.
BBC NEWS | Politics | Was victory worth it for Brown?
When I start agreeing with a Tory who has this to say:
"This cannot go on. It must be stopped and for that reason today I feel it is incumbent on me to make a stand," he told reporters.
"At least my electorate and the nation as a whole will have had the opportunity to debate and consider one of the most fundamental issues of our day - the ever intrusive power of the state into our lives, the loss of privacy, the loss of freedom and the steady attrition undermining the rule of law."
David Davis' resignation speech.
There's something really wrong going on.
Compare and contrast
Fears of food shortage as rice prices keep climbing.
Haiti food protests.
meanwhile in the UK:
Fruit and vegetable waste clogs landfills.
(Although getting supermarkets not to sell fruit and veg at the ridiculously high mark-up prices they do - and then allowing them to just throw it away when they can't get those prices... That's a scandal.)
Haiti food protests.
meanwhile in the UK:
Fruit and vegetable waste clogs landfills.
Every year millions of tonnes of supermarket food ends up in landfill sites. At the same time there are still millions of people, including one in three children, living in poverty in the U.K.
(Although getting supermarkets not to sell fruit and veg at the ridiculously high mark-up prices they do - and then allowing them to just throw it away when they can't get those prices... That's a scandal.)
one law for the MP - another for the rest of us
Mmmmmm. And to think what an outcry the right-wingers are constantly making about 'dole scroungers', the sickness benefit claimants, the Pensioners - and yet - just look who's really got their fingers deep in the public purse...
MPs get paid a wage well in excess of the national average - yet they feel compelled to claim for petty things like a TV license, their council taxes, their mortgages, cleaners, - yet they so begrudge people on benefits the barest minimum they need to survive...
er... so it turns out that it's our politicians who are the real evil grasping twunts - the whole lot of them. [Like that was ever a surprise.]
I stand by my assertion that all MPs should get nothing more than minimum wage to live on. If they really think that's enough for a person to live on... then they can too. No extras. If they need a suit to go to work in - or for a state function they should be given a voucher - like they used to give to poor families so their children could get a school uniform. If they did that made being a politician into a vocation rather than a career - we'd get a lot less shady characters in there messing things up.
MPs get paid a wage well in excess of the national average - yet they feel compelled to claim for petty things like a TV license, their council taxes, their mortgages, cleaners, - yet they so begrudge people on benefits the barest minimum they need to survive...
er... so it turns out that it's our politicians who are the real evil grasping twunts - the whole lot of them. [Like that was ever a surprise.]
I stand by my assertion that all MPs should get nothing more than minimum wage to live on. If they really think that's enough for a person to live on... then they can too. No extras. If they need a suit to go to work in - or for a state function they should be given a voucher - like they used to give to poor families so their children could get a school uniform. If they did that made being a politician into a vocation rather than a career - we'd get a lot less shady characters in there messing things up.
oh Gordon...
My, how things have changed...
The old Labour party used to heavily tax the very wealthy to have the money to spend on public services... etc.
But these days the current Labour Party has had the totally fantastic idea of taxing the poor more to help pay for taxing the better off less...
In the link above - it doesn't mention that those who'll be affected are: Students who work evenings and weekends (way to go to make going to university even harder), pensioners, young people under 25 in their first jobs, part time workers, and basically anyone who doesn't qualify for Tax Credits.
I think we're looking at a party that's developing a death wish...
The old Labour party used to heavily tax the very wealthy to have the money to spend on public services... etc.
But these days the current Labour Party has had the totally fantastic idea of taxing the poor more to help pay for taxing the better off less...
In the link above - it doesn't mention that those who'll be affected are: Students who work evenings and weekends (way to go to make going to university even harder), pensioners, young people under 25 in their first jobs, part time workers, and basically anyone who doesn't qualify for Tax Credits.
I think we're looking at a party that's developing a death wish...
UK Govt. - Vote for us to punish the unemployed
There's something rather nasty going on Politics at the moment. Recently both main parties have been falling over themselves to put forward their new schemes for -well, what amounts to punishing the long term unemployed and people on incapacity benefits for being unemployed long term.
Two million 'wrongly get benefit'.
Wherein an investment banker (!!!) pulls figures out of his arse - to justify a reform of the system.
(I can't help but point out that if many people are indeed working illegally while claiming - then I wonder just how many have been forced to do so simply because the benefit rates are so low that they couldn't hope to pay their bills otherwise!
I also can't help but wonder what fee this banker got for this little job. I'll wager it was quite a bit over the minimum wage! And what does he know about things like benefit rates, social conditions, the localised economic situations, etc. etc. Surely all he knows is how to make money. [update: oh what a giveaway! "Today, on a visit to a job placement centre in Newham, I asked Purnell whether he was happy for people to get rich helping the unemployed. "Yes" he answered without so much as a blink."])
Tories plan 'work for benefits'.
Someone interviewed by the BBC site made a very good point - that they make criminals do hours of 'community service' as a punishment. What have the long term unemployed done exactly that means they should be treated in this way?
"Arbeit mach frei" anyone?
(There are already hundreds of these firms across the country and believe me, they're pretty much totally useless. I've had personal experience of them.)
To the last news piece - this is the response I wrote to the BBC website - I'll doubt they'll publish it - and even if they did it'll doubtless get buried under the massive amount of mentally-diseased comments they're bound to get from the 'Daily Mail' 'Daily Telegraph' readers calling for anyone who's been unemployed for longer than three months to be shot dead. Seriously fat people and the unemployed are seen as the last two groups in society it's acceptable to bash. So the venom really gets flowing on this issue.
Of course what is definitely going to happen shortly - is that there's going to be a massive serious economic downturn - if not an out and out recession - where many businesses are going to fail and unemployment rates are set to start going through the roof again. The only growth then will be in these private firms and they'll be bursting at the seams with new clients while the pool of jobs they try to push them into will be constantly shrinking. But no one's thought it through to start heading that one off. Tough times lie ahead.
Two million 'wrongly get benefit'.
Wherein an investment banker (!!!) pulls figures out of his arse - to justify a reform of the system.
(I can't help but point out that if many people are indeed working illegally while claiming - then I wonder just how many have been forced to do so simply because the benefit rates are so low that they couldn't hope to pay their bills otherwise!
I also can't help but wonder what fee this banker got for this little job. I'll wager it was quite a bit over the minimum wage! And what does he know about things like benefit rates, social conditions, the localised economic situations, etc. etc. Surely all he knows is how to make money. [update: oh what a giveaway! "Today, on a visit to a job placement centre in Newham, I asked Purnell whether he was happy for people to get rich helping the unemployed. "Yes" he answered without so much as a blink."])
Tories plan 'work for benefits'.
Someone interviewed by the BBC site made a very good point - that they make criminals do hours of 'community service' as a punishment. What have the long term unemployed done exactly that means they should be treated in this way?
"Arbeit mach frei" anyone?
Private firms to find people work.
(There are already hundreds of these firms across the country and believe me, they're pretty much totally useless. I've had personal experience of them.)
To the last news piece - this is the response I wrote to the BBC website - I'll doubt they'll publish it - and even if they did it'll doubtless get buried under the massive amount of mentally-diseased comments they're bound to get from the 'Daily Mail' 'Daily Telegraph' readers calling for anyone who's been unemployed for longer than three months to be shot dead. Seriously fat people and the unemployed are seen as the last two groups in society it's acceptable to bash. So the venom really gets flowing on this issue.
I've got a much better idea - rather than contract these Private firms to do anything. Let's simply not have them in the first place. Get rid of them altogether. In fact - what we should do is totally dismantle the entire DWP/DSS, sack every last person involved with it - break it up completely - sell off all it's assets, and then with the proceeds and the money saved - give every man woman and child in the this country their share of the money to do with what they want. It is, strictly speaking, our money anyway. The cannier ones will invest it and be able to live off the proceeds for the rest of their lives without having to work again. Others will be able to set up their own businesses and become self-employed. Or whatever. Sure, the less canny will probably fritter it away within a few years and we'll see a lot more people in the streets with begging bowls before long. (But given the useless and punitive schemes both the parties are proposing we'll likely to be seeing that anyway.) But it's obvious the system as it is broken, and hasn't worked for decades - it's extremely wasteful and costly in itself, and in many ways it actively, deliberately conspires to keeps people poor. (A big labour pool always means wage demands can kept low.) And every time - again and again - it totally ignores some blatantly obvious facts, such as: that there are far currently more people than there are jobs to be filled, that some locations have more industry than other areas, that too many businesses don't pay enough in wages, that in many cases the minimum wage is far, far too low to live on (which is why a great percentage of the population are now heavily reliant on 'tax credits', that the working population in this country work far longer hours than is good for them (whatever happened to the idea widely prevalent in the Sixties/Seventies that we would all be working only three to four hours a week by now?), that the education system is failing us, the whole live-to-work mentality in the UK is a form of mass insanity in itself, (another example: what exactly is the point of forcing single mothers into work just so that they are then forced to spend whatever money they earn on childcare costs?), the list goes on and on. No wonder the rates of mental illness are at an all time high...
There really needs to a be a commission studying the whole range of issues surrounding 'work' in the UK, because the various problems are a lot deeper rooted than anyone cares to admit. But instead we get the poor, the unemployed, the sick, the disabled being constantly demonised while wave after wave of half-baked private 'businesses' and 'charities' set themselves up - earning themselves nice fat commissions and nice wages patronising the disadvantaged. While giving the impression to the gullible types (the sort of person who reads the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail usually) that something is being done.
Of course what is definitely going to happen shortly - is that there's going to be a massive serious economic downturn - if not an out and out recession - where many businesses are going to fail and unemployment rates are set to start going through the roof again. The only growth then will be in these private firms and they'll be bursting at the seams with new clients while the pool of jobs they try to push them into will be constantly shrinking. But no one's thought it through to start heading that one off. Tough times lie ahead.
College Grad Succeeds With $25 And A Gym Bag
Let's rephrase this shall we?
A white, young, healthy, middle-class, male, college graduate plays at being 'poor' and 'destitute' for a few months as an 'experiment' - a bit of a game - with a credit card hidden in his back pocket he can use to bail him out in the case of any kind of emergency...
Mmmmm. Golly - I bet many of the people he shared the homeless shelter with and queued up for his food stamps alongside (btw is that even legal?) wished they had a emergency credit card and the knowledge they could go home to a loving supportive family when things got too tough and unbearable, or at the very least knew what they were living through was just for the one single year.
No doubt - he'll soon be writing a book, which he'll start making tv appearances to promote, which will be a best seller, then he'll probably go into politics as a republican and start lobbying that for what passes for a welfare system in the US should be totally dismantled - because, well, obviously no one needs to be poor and homeless if they've just got the right sort of can-do attitude and if they're just willing to work. He's living proof after all. *Cough-arrrogantasshole-cough*
Odd then, that if it's all that easy why isn't absolutely everyone doing it? Not to mention that - well, for a few people to be rich - there has to be an awful lot of poor people... but the Western world seems to like that way, so that won't be changing any time soon. Alas.
Now why does all this remind me of that little popular Britpop ditty that Jarvis Cocker used to sing?
Money: College Grad Succeeds With $25 And A Gym Bag
A white, young, healthy, middle-class, male, college graduate plays at being 'poor' and 'destitute' for a few months as an 'experiment' - a bit of a game - with a credit card hidden in his back pocket he can use to bail him out in the case of any kind of emergency...
Mmmmm. Golly - I bet many of the people he shared the homeless shelter with and queued up for his food stamps alongside (btw is that even legal?) wished they had a emergency credit card and the knowledge they could go home to a loving supportive family when things got too tough and unbearable, or at the very least knew what they were living through was just for the one single year.
No doubt - he'll soon be writing a book, which he'll start making tv appearances to promote, which will be a best seller, then he'll probably go into politics as a republican and start lobbying that for what passes for a welfare system in the US should be totally dismantled - because, well, obviously no one needs to be poor and homeless if they've just got the right sort of can-do attitude and if they're just willing to work. He's living proof after all. *Cough-arrrogantasshole-cough*
Odd then, that if it's all that easy why isn't absolutely everyone doing it? Not to mention that - well, for a few people to be rich - there has to be an awful lot of poor people... but the Western world seems to like that way, so that won't be changing any time soon. Alas.
Now why does all this remind me of that little popular Britpop ditty that Jarvis Cocker used to sing?
Rent a flat above a shop,
cut your hair and get a job.
Smoke some fags and play some pool,
pretend you never went to school.
But still you'll never get it right,
cos when you're laid in bed at night,
watching roaches climb the wall,
if you call your Dad he could stop it all.
You'll never live like common people,
you'll never do what common people do,
you'll never fail like common people,
you'll never watch your life slide out of view,
and dance and drink and screw,
because there's nothing else to do.
Sing along with the common people,
sing along and it might just get you through,
laugh along with the common people,
laugh along even though they're laughing at you,
and the stupid things that you do.
Because you think that poor is cool.
Money: College Grad Succeeds With $25 And A Gym Bag
WTF?
For a while now I've had this starter idea for a sci-fi story - where in the 'day-after-tomorrow' future - the country will be so over-crowded there would be state-imposed limits have been put on who can be out and about and who can't, and even how much time they're allowed outside. So every time someone wants to go out - they have to swipe their id card in a reader inside their front door - to be granted permission to go out - once outside their ID card starts a whole automatic process where their every last movement is tracked and recorded by CCTV and card readers etc.
This is based on already existing proposals for cars - so it's only a short hop from there to monitoring people.
Then I read this:
So now I'll have to update my idea and replace ID cards with chip implants.
Of course if they do get away with this for prisoners - next off they'll probably go on to the next step - the 'Fortress' concept - where the RFID chip will come with an explosive device and if any 'prisoner' strays anywhere they shouldn't. BOOM!
This'll all probably happen too - y'know, to keep us all safe from crime and terrorists and paedophiles and bird flu and global warming etc.
This is based on already existing proposals for cars - so it's only a short hop from there to monitoring people.
Then I read this:
Ministers are planning to implant "machine-readable" microchips under the skin of thousands of offenders as part of an expansion of the electronic tagging scheme that would create more space in British jails.
So now I'll have to update my idea and replace ID cards with chip implants.
Of course if they do get away with this for prisoners - next off they'll probably go on to the next step - the 'Fortress' concept - where the RFID chip will come with an explosive device and if any 'prisoner' strays anywhere they shouldn't. BOOM!
This'll all probably happen too - y'know, to keep us all safe from crime and terrorists and paedophiles and bird flu and global warming etc.
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