Beaker squeaks out

After the trouncing the Lib Dems got in last week's local elections - each Lib Dem has been taking it in turns to pop out and tell us all they're going to show us how different from the Tories they are - except they're also saying the coalition is still on - that it's going to last the course... *cough*

This is Danny Alexander's turn: "I'm not George Osborne's bodyguard"

It's the worst of them so far. But I think it's probably because he's the most Tory like of them all. I can see him being awarded with a Tory peerage a few years down the line.

‎"...But he refused to accept that the party's disastrous electoral showing last Thursday was a verdict on its commitment to cut the deficit so quickly, saying that "the case for backing the deficit programme is now ever stronger".

-No? Then he's a complete idiot. The negative growth figures and the flat-lining economy are screaming out loud that cutting the deficit so quickly and deeply isn't working. And oh look, what did Ireland do? Exactly what Osbourne is doing now -and ooops! didn't do them any good at all did it?

If the economy isn't growing then the markets are going to say the UK can't pay off it's debts as easily and will put down it's credit rating - they've rattled the sabres at the US already.

Oh god, no - help!

Is this the start of a long Conservative hegemony? - Poly Toynbee.

Apart from the Greens winning council seats in Brighton/Hove, and the SNP winning Scotland. (Yay! Glimmers of hope). I am now very depressed for the future. My only other hope is that the Lib Dems find where they've hidden their gonads and walk out of the coalition. But they won't - despite last night's thrashing they're still in love with the attention they getting. Cameron can piss on Clegg's head and tell him it's raining and Clegg will believe him.

Privatised Britain is not a fait accompli

We've had healthcare in the hands of the voluntary and private sector before – prior to the creation of the NHS – and the result was that thousands died unnecessarily from diseases such as diphtheria and polio and infant mortality rates were around one in 20. We've had education exclusively in the hands of the non-state sector before too – and the vast majority were denied a proper education. And anyone who travels regularly on the privatised railways in Britain and in the rest of Europe, where state-owned companies still dominate, won't need me to tell them that the continental railways are far superior – as well as being considerably cheaper.

You won't read about it in the Economist, or on the websites of "free market" thinktanks, but the extraordinary rise in living standards and improvements in healthcare, education and public transport – and the reductions in inequalities – which Britain enjoyed during the third quarter of the 20th century coincided with the increased role of the state. As the state's role has been reduced since 1979, so services have deteriorated and inequalities risen.

Neil Clark

3d stuffs

I haven't got a 3ds -yet, (I'm desperately poor at the moment so the price will have to come way down first) but when I do these links will be handy...

How To Put Non-3DS 3D Pictures On Your 3DS.

Adding thumbnails to Windows for MPO files

Fujifilm launches FinePix Real 3D W3 compact with 3D movies

Right-wing hate campaign clouds debate on benefits | Left Foot Forward

A must-read.

See how the right-wing press distort the truth.

Right-wing hate campaign clouds debate on benefits | Left Foot Forward

'We've lost a generation of supporters': Seven out of 10 Lib Dem voters desert party

And this surprises...?

'We've lost a generation of supporters': Seven out of 10 Lib Dem voters desert party | Mail Online

Cameron on Immigrants

Immigrants -eh, coming over here and not even learning the language - oh wait hang on, who's cutting heavily back on 'English for Speakers of Other Languages' ESOL courses?

The jerk.

Mmmm - Unemployment figures show a fall?

How?

Maybe because the whole scale Atos reassessment of those on disability and incapacity benefits has only just started - that's going to add a few extra thousand to the jobless queues.

and maybe tricking people out of benefits has been more successful than the DWP would ever admit to?

Otherwise I haven't seen any signs of new businesses and factories opening and taking on extra staff...

I smell something fishy going on.

Port Meirion on flickr

Flickr tag search

Flickr group.

The One True Roo

Simon and Joe

Rayand.

Doctor Who Series 6 linky-dinks

The Metro has a lot of Doctor Who stuffs

Doctor Who Series 6, Episodes 1 and 2 spoiler-free first review | Metro.co.uk

Six non spoilers.

Big fall in industrial production

Really? But only three months or so ago they were saying Industry and exports were doing surprisingly well. Oh wait. That's because they were still operating on the schemes Gordon Brown had put in place to keep the economy ticking over after the crash... Now we're seeing what's happening after Osbourne put his plans into operation. Not looking so good is it? Surprise surprise.

But with the benefits reform and many more Incapacity Benefit claimants now being forced into looking for work - things will soon turn around... Oh wait, something wrong with this picture - there's not the jobs there... er, er. er... Oh well Emma Harrison will sort it all out. She's got a positive attitude, big smiles and a big red coat. That's what we've been missing all this time.

Big fall in industrial production.

CiF trolls: a taxonomy | Nonsuch

CiF trolls: a taxonomy | Nonsuch

(I'm sort of vaguely working on something - a collection of the worst of the Tory comments on cif. There's a good number of tedious clichés such as:


"It's all Gordon Browns fault."

"The last 13 years have been the worst for the country -ever."

"How dare Polly Toynbee and the Guardian support the Lib Dems in the last election." (Like any one could predict how quickly they would sell out a and do 180 degree turn on nearly everything.)

This mini-project is taking me a while because it's kind of profoundly depressing to wade through so much vicious bile and flat out stupidity.

Tax the Super Rich now or face a revolution

Tax the Super Rich now or face a revolution Paul B. Farrell - MarketWatch

Emma Harrison creeps me out...

£1.4m-a-year welfare entrepreneur picked by Cameron to get Britons off benefits and into work

As Emma Harrison's company adds five new taxpayer-funded welfare contracts to its empire, unions attack 'obscene' public payouts

Today was the first time I'd ever heard of this woman - the smiley smiley smiley - ever optimistic, ever so slightly creepy, ever manically grinning Emma Harrison CBE... making her millions out of taxpayers money to run 'back to work'/work-for-welfare profit-making programmes for the unemployed.

Interview: Emma Harrison of A4e.

When A4E are not losing client's personal data - or being implicated in hiring ex-ministers for whatever reason... (absolutely nothing to do with him knowing how parliamentary procedures work so they can then make more successful bids for those very lucrative government contracts I'm sure. David Blunkett is a highly honourable man and would never abuse his position for personal gain.) It's just not in his nature.


Other links:
Watching A4E
a4e photogallery

Housing benefit changes - a disaster about to happen

The ‎1980s - the Tories take away the last of rent control laws - saying it will mean rents will fall. Instead they start shooting upwards. (Tories always get it wrong - because they can only think in simple terms - IE they aren't very bright. They also have a nasty mean streak to them.)

They then sold off council houses at knock down prices to renters and refuse to let councils build any new replacement houses with the income.

(A lot of the new home-owners start seeing themselves as middle-class now and start voting Tory. Wooo! Popular capitalism. The working class can own property and buy stocks and shares in the newly privatised utilities - electricity, gas, water, Telecom...)

The result of this is later down the line we have a dire 'affordable' housing shortage. D'uh. Shortages mean house prices start climbing. The start of the housing price bubble. Investors see the new 'buy to let' market - fed by the boom in cheap mortgages, and with no rent controls can get the renters to effectively pay off the mortgage and a bit of extra profit too. Rents sky rocket.

In case you haven't noticed, wages have been stagnating since the 1970s so more and more people have had to have top-ups in the form of Housing Benefit to pay these ever increasing rents.
(Stupid Labour Govt. should have seen this was unsustainabl and brought back rent controls - but at the time everything was booming and feeling good - so they rolled with it. BTW I consider Blair/Brown to be Tories too.)

This results in a massive Housing Benefit bill. Which the Tories are now tackling by cutting benefits and making poorer people move around the country in search of ever decreasing cheaper housing. This plainly is not going to work. Is going to needlessly disrupt many people's lives - fracture communities - put more pressure on already cash-strapped poorer councils as more people have to move to them, increase homelessness - and generally be a disaster all way round.

If only the Tories hadn't taken away rent controls and had let councils keep buying new houses...

Cuts protest: I'm a political prisoner now | Imogen Perry

"A very senior officer in my station admitted to my parents that he regretted having to charge the protesters on the orders of Scotland Yard: he said they all seemed like 'nice people', and that he suspected the charges were politically motivated. These sentiments were echoed by other officers who kept distinguishing us from 'proper criminals'. Another senior officer told me he suspected that it wasn't so much a case of legality, but that UK Uncut had upset people who were that little bit too rich; that little bit too powerful."

Imogen Perry

Jobs are not enough: it's the quality of work that counts

Nice comment, and it's true, despite Cameron having a whole new 'happiness index' or something, no one asks about the nature of some jobs. If the choice is being unemployed or a low paid job - where you have low status, or you might be bullied, or it's unsocial hours etc. -things that could well impact on your general well being and mental health - you could very well be better off staying unemployed (although the on-coming welfare 'reforms' look set to make the unemployed and disabled and old people's life as miserable as possible as a matter of course).



Jobs are not enough: it's the quality of work that counts | Stephen Overell

German universities face funding fears as states scrap fees

Well - that's interesting. Wonder if our coalition Government is taking notice of this. Probably not.

German universities face funding fears as states scrap fees | World news | The Guardian

Maurice Glasman, Labour peer

I caught the last few minutes of an interview with Maurice Glasman on BBC's Hard Talk tonight. He came across as very interesting - laying out what NuLabour had been doing wrong before it lost power (although I'd put forward that the one big reason Labour lost (among many other reasons) was down to Gordon Brown's hubris. The only person who wanted Gordon Brown as PM - was unfortunately, Gordon Brown himself)

anyway...

three links:

Maurice Glasman – the peer plotting Labour's new strategy from his flat.

The struggle against debt servitude

Bankers and politicians have failed to grasp how much distress debt can cause, which is why the anti-usury campaign matters.

and last but maybe far more interesting: Confronting the city.

Patients attack healthcare firm's doctors for claim clawback

THE HQ of a firm employed to weed out welfare claimants and slash benefits has been branded "Lourdes" because so many ill people are being told they're fit to work.

Patients attack healthcare firm's doctors for claim clawback - The Daily Record

I think it's beyond disgusting what the Tory party are inflicting on people too ill to work. The Nasty party are back and making up for lost time in their mean-spirited viciousness.

More from the Guardian:
'The medical was an absolute joke'

"At the protest outside Atos's headquarters last month, one young man, nervous and clearly not accustomed to addressing rallies, took the microphone to explain how his uncle, who had severe mental health problems, committed suicide after the test gave him zero points and found him fit to work.

Dismayed to find his benefit claim rejected, he had appealed against the decision, and won at tribunal. But shortly after that decision, he was called in for another assessment, and for a second time scored zero points and was told he did not qualify for the benefit. He began appealing against the decision again, but a few days before another tribunal date was set, he hanged himself.

When it comes to depressed and mentally ill people - what they put them through - well, they might as well have death camps, the results being the same.