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OneWingedBird Great Old One Joined: 19 Nov 2012 Total posts: 542 Location: Attice of blinkey lights Age: 44 Gender: Female |
 Posted: 05-08-2013 19:26 Post subject: |
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That's quite funny, sadly, human fallibility being what it is, he'd probably forget it was there one day.
Which would suck. |
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| jimv1 Great Old One Joined: 10 Aug 2005 Total posts: 2734 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 25-08-2013 09:52 Post subject: |
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This week's Private Eye reveals that an All-Party Group on Unconventional Oil and Gas set up to get to the truth about fracking is entirely funded by the fracking industry and lobbyists.
The funding of 25,000 comes from Cuadrilla, petrochemical firm INEOS and Ove Arup, the engineering firm which assessed fracking around Blackpool.
| Quote: | | But the MPs on the fracking committee need not overtax themselves by actually running it: happily for all concerned, its 'secretariat' is provided free by Edelman - a lobbying firm which represents Cuadrilla and other frackers! |
Let's cast our minds back to 2010, when...
| Quote: | David Cameron will introduce measures to curb the lobbying industry to ensure that attempts by business to seek influence on Government policy does not become the next big political scandal.
He promised a Conservative government would stop the lobbying industry’s attempts through former ministers to access and influence policy.
His attack on “crony capitalism” came in a speech in which he attempted to tackle Britain’s “broken politics.”
He said: “Now we all know that expenses has dominated politics for the last year. But if anyone thinks that cleaning up politics means dealing with this alone and then forgetting about it, they are wrong. Because there is another big issue that we can no longer ignore.
“It is the next big scandal waiting to happen. It’s an issue that crosses party lines and has tainted our politics for too long, an issue that exposes the far-too-cosy relationship between politics, government, business and money.”
....David Miller of the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency welcomed Mr Cameron’s admission that something needs to be done about lobbying.
But he added: “If they are serious about listening to ordinary people, the Conservative Party must pledge to introduce a mandatory register of lobbyists as soon as possible so that the public can see who is lobbying whom, and the extent to which national policies are being influenced by commercial forces.”
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Ah...if only Cameron were in a position where he could do something about this. |
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| jimv1 Great Old One Joined: 10 Aug 2005 Total posts: 2734 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 14-09-2013 17:44 Post subject: |
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Michael Gove is giving Iain Duncan Smith a run for his money as Tory Twat of the Year here....
| Quote: | Michael Gove 'insulted' food-bank users, says LabourMichael Gove said some food banks users were failing to manage their finances.
Opposition MPs have accused Education Secretary Michael Gove of "insulting" people who use food banks by suggesting they were often responsible for their own predicaments.
"They are not best able to manage their finances," he explained.
Mr Gove said that the government would provide both financial aid and support to help them make better decisions.
But Labour's Steve McCabe said the remarks, made on Monday in the Commons, showed that Mr Gove was "out of touch.
Mr Gove had said during his departmental question session with MPs: "I had the opportunity to visit a food bank in my constituency only on Friday and I appreciate that there are families who do face considerable pressures.
"It's often as a result of some decisions that have been taken by those families which mean that they are not best able to manage their finances.
"What we need to do is to ensure the support is there not just financially but also to make sure that the right decisions are made."
Mr McCabe said: "Michael Gove has managed to be both insulting and out of touch.
"Families forced to go to food banks should not be stigmatised by secretaries of state. The spiralling number of food banks across Britain should be a mark of shame for this government."
The education secretary had been responding to a question from Labour's Luciana Berger, who raised concerns about food banks distributing school uniforms to parents.
She said on Tuesday that she was "appalled" by his response.
"I have visited several food banks and I have spoken to many service users," she said.
"There are many parents both in and out of work who are struggling to get by because they have been hit by this government's cost-of-living crisis.
"People I have met are ashamed to have to turn to food banks. I vehemently disagree it is because they have mismanaged their finances.
"This government has got no answer to the millions of parents that are really struggling to get by."
Oxfam has said the rising number of people using food banks is due to low wages, rising prices and failings in the welfare system that are dragging people into poverty.
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Gove is missing the point that it's difficult to manage finances when you haven't got any. It's demonstrably always the same. Tories get in and prioritise making things tougher and more miserable for the poor. While the rich get richer the traditional Tory stance is to blame the poor for being poor. And he, according to himself, is one of 'the compassionate Tories'. |
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| Cochise Great Old One Joined: 17 Jun 2011 Total posts: 1104 Location: Gwynedd, Wales Age: 58 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 15-09-2013 08:58 Post subject: |
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I'm trying not to just be contrarian, Jimv1, so let me first say that it comes rich from a government (this one or the several previous ones) to advise people about managing their finances when clearly they can't manage the country's finances.
But, at the end of the day, the welfare state is coming to an end unless there is a sea change in our ruling classes. So it really only raises the blood pressure needlessly to get upset by comments like the above, which are in essence totally true - yes of course some users of food banks are incapable of managing their finances. So are some company CEO's, or no-one would ever go bankrupt.
People do not need 'government aid ' to help them manage their finances. Some people can't be helped anyway. Unless we are to turn the whole country into a nursery we have got to remind ourselves that some people will 'fail', if you accept 'failing' as being 'not living your life as the government want you to'.
People do also need to be aware - some of them are not - that if you are on welfare luxuries others have - such as wide screen TV's - may be unavailable to you. Your kids may have to go to school without the latest name brand trainers. Similarly, the NHS is about getting people well, not about having carpets and wifi. If you want that stuff and can afford it, then get yourself a private room. As long as the standard of actual health care is the same I can't see a problem.
Understand, I am not critical of the welfare state. I am in fact wholly in favour of the concept. In favour of unemployment benefit, assistance for those on low wages, child benefit (up to say three children, anyway) council houses and state pensions. And of the NHS. No-one, however non-existent their work ethic, should starve to death or even be homeless in a civilised country. But it does have to be understood that the vast majority of people need to work and compete, or they cannot supply the safety net for those who are unable or unsuited to doing so.
The real problem is successive governments have bought the welfare state and the NHS to the brink of destruction, due to failure to tackle the above blindingly obvious point - the welfare state can only function if enough people are working (profitably) to support it. Indeed, they have made the situation much more critical by in effect extending the apparatus of the state to conceal the extent of unemployment. (From making people stay on in education longer to creating essentially pointless departments and quangos - the poor old NHS is dragged down by the sheer weight of unproductive numpties it has been saddled with).
They have also connived at spreading the idea that we are all 'equal' - I'm talking _actually_ equal, not equal before the law - and that there should be no winners and losers. In fact, if there are no winners, we _all_ lose, because the incentive to create wealth to support the infrastructure we want is lost. And the true effect of this on education bears this out- it is now (again!) almost entirely the privileged who can avoid state education that rise to positions of power, whereas 40 year ago a percentage of us born in poor families could at least make a break for it via Grammar schools.
Coupled with the fact that they - all three main parties - seem incapable of tackling tax evasion / avoidance - or even downright fraud, monopolistic behaviour or trading cartels - by major corporates. Coupled also with the fact that there is a relatively finite number of real jobs now that the rest of the world is industrialising fast (It was easy to create jobs when we were the only fully industrialised nation in a vast empire). Coupled again with a rapidly increasing population (I don't care where from) then the current situation is not sustainable. Seizing the assets of the rich is only a very temporary solution, equivalent to eating the cow that is giving you milk.
What to do about it? B****d if I know. Basically I wouldn't try to get there from here. But I do know our current politicos deserve a huge kick up the a**e for repeatedly concealing the actual facts, and for indulging in all sorts of ego trip wars and the like while failing to address any of the real problems , so I would encourage anyone and everyone to vote for anybody but the main parties at the next election. It may not make anything better, but it'll wipe the smug expression off their faces. And its better than violence and revolution, which hardly ever actually benefits the PBI who do the fighting. (American Revolution a notable exception, but not comparable with European revolutions). |
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| jimv1 Great Old One Joined: 10 Aug 2005 Total posts: 2734 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 15-09-2013 10:53 Post subject: |
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It's probably the case that successive governments have manipulated the figures so much, the true scale of the problems we face is unclear. Advisory bodies will always justify themselves by putting a positive spin and a rosy glow on their findings but a shrewd politician should see beyond this. We've just seen the National Audit Office drag Iain Duncan Smith over the coals on his pet project of welfare reform.
| Quote: | The National Audit Office said the Universal Credit programme suffered from “weak management, ineffective control and poor governance” and could miss its 2017 deadline for implementation.
The Department for Work and Pensions “has lacked a detailed view of how Universal Credit is meant to work”, the NAO said, accusing the Coalition of failing to act on repeated warnings about the programme.
The Department for Work and Pensions failed to act on those problems fully until earlier this year, when “serious concerns” forced ministers to go back to the drawing board. That “reset” has seen £34 million of spending on new computer systems written off, with more such losses expected.
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Continually blustering that everything is on track and hugely successful is the politician's stock line, whatever the party - which is getting us nowhere. But believing it is another thing. It may be that Gove's comments are timed to propel himself to a more centre stage role as the conferences start and Cameron's grip on the leadership becomes more dodgy with each incident and that is mainly the problem. If Gove is playing to the gallery then it's a platitude for the vindictive and perverse.
Of course it's obvious that a social contract like the welfare system can only exist where a large working majority can prop up those who are less fortunate and yes, the inevitable number who attempt to dodge the system and get something for nothing. The problem is, there aren't the jobs. And where the jobs exist, we have minimum wages and zero hours contracts which barely provide for the basics, nevermind the luxuries. Predictably, Gove's home life documented by his reporter wife Sarah Vine shows a great contrast to that of the hungry people he's criticising and offers an interesting alternative example of how to put food on the table....
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The Ocado order, for example. Normally this is my sole and exclusive domain.
During the holidays, however, my son and husband suddenly developed an interest. Our house was, they claimed, woefully lacking in Doritos, Coca-Cola and Dairylea Dunkers.
And so one afternoon, while I was out, they seized their chance. The following day, I opened the front door to a tide of contraband comestibles. Giant multi-packs of crisps; fizzy drinks; luxury coleslaw; an insane amount of sugary cereal.
It was as if my account had been hacked by a teenager high on Haribos.
The fridge was stuffed with repulsive over-packaged processed junk. Meanwhile, the quinoa and chia seeds cowered in the cupboard behind a family pack of value custard creams.
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And this is the nub of it. They clearly aren't aware of their lives in context to the less well-off. They never learn that the more they criticize the less-advantaged, the more they themselves come under a different sort of scrutiny which often sees a weaking of the government's position generally. The arguments about managing one's financial affairs become less meaningful and hold less weight when it comes from someone who married into a millionaire lifestyle or fiddled the expenses so they didn't have to pay for things like the rest of us do. To me, that lack of self-awareness is a trait that shows they're not in a mature state mentally and shouldn't be running anything. |
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| Mythopoeika Boring petty conservative
Joined: 18 Sep 2001 Total posts: 9109 Location: Not far from Bedford Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 15-09-2013 11:14 Post subject: |
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| Once again - you are right! |
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| Cochise Great Old One Joined: 17 Jun 2011 Total posts: 1104 Location: Gwynedd, Wales Age: 58 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 16-09-2013 06:50 Post subject: |
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So what should concentrate the mind of the Government - of whatever colour - is 'How do we create more jobs'. And more well paid quality jobs as well as the menial ones (we do need both).
That isn't really happening. You have to wonder why not. We can understand they are needed or it all falls apart - do they? Or do they simply not believe it is possible and have resolved to disguise the looming disaster as long as they can? Which of course will make it worse when the money - or rather the credit - is finally exhausted. |
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| Quake42 Warrior Princess
Great Old One Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Total posts: 5310 Location: Over Silbury Hill, through the Solar field Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 16-09-2013 09:52 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | So what should concentrate the mind of the Government - of whatever colour - is 'How do we create more jobs'. And more well paid quality jobs as well as the menial ones (we do need both).
That isn't really happening. You have to wonder why not. We can understand they are needed or it all falls apart - do they? |
I don't think it's a matter of "them" not understanding. I think there is a structural problem in that automation has removed a lot of middle-income jobs. There are still plenty of jobs being created but they tend to be either (a) highly skilled and highly paid roles aimed at the most educated 20% or so of the workforce or (b) unskilled minimum wage or just above, often casual, precarious work.
No government wants to admit to this structural problem because it may be impossible to correct. So we have a lot of froth about "skivers vs strivers" and similar divisive nonsense.
I do think the last Labour government did two specific things which have made the problem worse. Firstly, dropping the ball badly on immigration with the resulting downward pressure on already low wages. Secondly, the introduction of tax credits, whilst done with the best of intentions, simply created a subsidy for employers who could continue to pay poverty wages safe in the knowledge that the government would top them up. |
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| jimv1 Great Old One Joined: 10 Aug 2005 Total posts: 2734 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 16-09-2013 10:45 Post subject: |
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| Cochise wrote: | So what should concentrate the mind of the Government - of whatever colour - is 'How do we create more jobs'. And more well paid quality jobs as well as the menial ones (we do need both).
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Simple answer? You don't. What you do is further demonise those on welfare until you exorcise them from society and they just disappear.
| Quote: | Benefit fraudsters face increased sentences of up to 10 years in jail. Director of public prosecutions sets out tougher guidelines, including use of the Fraud Act, which carries longer sentences.
Benefit cheats will face increased jail terms of up to 10 years in a crackdown on those who "flout the system", Britain's most senior prosecutor has said.
Keir Starmer QC warned it was time for a "tough stance" against the perpetrators of benefit and tax credit fraud as he set out new guidelines for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
The director of public prosecutions said the £1.9bn annual cost of the crime to the taxpayer should be at the "forefront of lawyers' minds" when considering whether a prosecution was in the public interest.
Suspects can now be charged under the Fraud Act, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, the CPS said. In the past, benefit cheats have often been pursued under specific social security legislation which carries a maximum term of seven years.
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I suspect there's as much thought gone into this as other pronouncements we get these days. It just doesn't seem to have been thought through.
Say for example the head of a family on benefits defrauds the system of 20k and is sentenced to a few years.....
| Quote: | | It costs £65,000 to imprison a person in this country once police, court costs and all the other steps are taken into account. After that it costs a further £40,000 for each year they spend incarcerated. If the growth in the prison population is not reversed then more prisons will have to be built, at a huge expense. This is without taking into account the effect on the economy which would be made by having another person in the working population, contributing to taxes rather than being a drain on them. |
http://www.fpe.org.uk/the-cost-of-prisons/
So, a hundred grand. That's the cost for one individual. Then take into account what happens to the rest of the family and you're looking at the cost to the taxpayer skyrocketing. It's a simplistic yet logical argument so how can they come out with stuff like this? Are they just held in isolation tanks shitting out their thoughts through a loudspeaker?
Where are the prison places? Perhaps G4S and Serco could supervise the building and running of all the new prisons for these offenders who'll receive longer sentences than paedophiles and those guilty of manslaughter.
And as I said just a post up there, statements like this bring more scrutiny to the government expenses fiddlers, bankers and corporate tax avoidance. |
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| Mythopoeika Boring petty conservative
Joined: 18 Sep 2001 Total posts: 9109 Location: Not far from Bedford Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 16-09-2013 22:37 Post subject: |
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As time goes by, the owners of the capital can reap the rewards of increased automation and by using mass immigration as a tool to undercut the wages of the indigenous population. The longer this goes on, the more wealth can be sucked from the pockets of the ordinary working people until they have nothing left.
At some point in the future, the majority of the population will be out of work and unable to claim welfare. In past eras, the general populace could fight back by starting a revolution - but now we are so controlled that it doesn't seem possible.
People have talked about a future where nobody has to work - but in real life, that socialist utopia isn't going to happen. Who'd pay for it? This is why successive governments have put in place systems to control us. It's about herding cattle and managing decline that will inevitably happen. In the future, only people with a high IQ and rare skills will be able to guarantee a steady work career - the great mass of people will become casual labour (if they're lucky). They will become the precariat, not the proletariat. |
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| Cavynaut Skoumed!
Usually tired. Joined: 10 Apr 2003 Total posts: 1976 Location: Crouch Wailing. UK. Age: 56 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 17-09-2013 02:04 Post subject: |
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| Mythopoeika wrote: | As time goes by, the owners of the capital can reap the rewards of increased automation and by using mass immigration as a tool to undercut the wages of the indigenous population. The longer this goes on, the more wealth can be sucked from the pockets of the ordinary working people until they have nothing left.
At some point in the future, the majority of the population will be out of work and unable to claim welfare. In past eras, the general populace could fight back by starting a revolution - but now we are so controlled that it doesn't seem possible.
People have talked about a future where nobody has to work - but in real life, that socialist utopia isn't going to happen. Who'd pay for it? This is why successive governments have put in place systems to control us. It's about herding cattle and managing decline that will inevitably happen. In the future, only people with a high IQ and rare skills will be able to guarantee a steady work career - the great mass of people will become casual labour (if they're lucky). They will become the precariat, not the proletariat. |
I love it when people talk like this. Whip me with your HDMI to DVI digital lead. |
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| jimv1 Great Old One Joined: 10 Aug 2005 Total posts: 2734 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 17-09-2013 11:51 Post subject: |
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Good post Myth.
My views may be seen as naive and simplistic in terms of the muddy moral world of politics but I believe in doing the right thing. That's why, when I entered the working world, I started paying taxes and contributing to the welfare state. I thought it fair that society should protect those worse off - the poor, the disabled and vulnerable. It was more than just a social contract which would help me when things got tough, it was being part of society that held those values as being fundamental.
The rot set in through the eighties when the Tories declared war on the 'Enemy Within'. Good hard-working people and communities contributing fuel, goods and lots of tax had the police turned on them and were so devastated, they've never really recovered to this day. Having crushed their pride, the government are returning their attention to these communities and seek to demonise the welfare subsistence culture forced upon them with no alternative put in place while silently condoning the actions of greedy bankers, tax-dodging companies and their own expense-grabbing fraudsters.
It's not only cowardly to bully the weakest and most vulnerable members of society in favour of punishing those who have caused true economic damage, it's just plain wrong and everyone can see it unless they're blinded by dogma.
Now we've moved on and all MPs went to the same school, have the same message without much in the way of an ideology to the extent we think they're all the same. There's no point in voting to the right or left anymore and protest votes going to the ineffectual or independents who get swamped in the process.
So here's a new ideology for them. Not Right or Left but RIGHT and WRONG. Is it right to fiddle the expenses and rob the taxpayer? Is it right to turn a blind eye to the corporations and their tax affairs? Is it right to side with companies and force job seekers to stack shelves for a minimum wage, providing that company with a virtual slave workforce? Is it right to continue to demonise those on welfare because you can't do anything to solve the problem? Clearly some MPs think it is.
If there was a crisscrossing of members across the floor according to those who wanted to do the right thing and those who wanted to do the wrong thing, it would end the party system and we could all see where we stand come election time. |
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| Spookdaddy Cuckoo Joined: 24 May 2006 Total posts: 3924 Location: Midwich Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 17-09-2013 12:59 Post subject: |
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| Mythopoeika wrote: | | ...In past eras, the general populace could fight back by starting a revolution - but now we are so controlled that it doesn't seem possible... |
Revolutions are relatively rare - control is not, in fact it's ubiquitous in all organised political systems. You make it sound as if revolution was a common automatic response which kicked in whenever political oppression got too much, never allowing those in power to over-reach themselves - which is quite simply nonsense.
The idea that we are now more 'controlled' (whatever that really means - and it does seem to mean different things to different people) than we have been in the past only makes sense if you completely ignore a little thing called history. One of the major reasons we (and I'm talking about those of us in the developed world) tend not to revolt because in many, many ways we are infinitely better off than our forebears - not because we are more bovine. |
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| Quake42 Warrior Princess
Great Old One Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Total posts: 5310 Location: Over Silbury Hill, through the Solar field Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 17-09-2013 13:18 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | One of the major reasons we (and I'm talking about those of us in the developed world) tend not to revolt because in many, many ways we are infinitely better off than our forebears - not because we are more bovine.
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I don't think we're any more bovine but I do think that the lack of resistance to some of the events and policies of the last few years is significant and not simply down to us being "infinitely better off than our forebears". People in the 50s, 60s, 70s also lived better than medieval kings and queens but were quick to protest when something happened whih they didn't like. I think the real reason for the passive acceptance of globalisation and austerity is the decline of organised labour within the private sector.
*Edit: I think that linked to the decline in organised labour is a loss of solidarity and class consciousness more generally. People can and do get excited about campaigns on specific issues but no one is really tying them altogether into a coherent ideology. Online activism as well makes it easy for people to click to sign a petition or tweet their views on something but lessinclined to spend hours sitting in dreary meetings in the backrooms of pubs. |
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| Spookdaddy Cuckoo Joined: 24 May 2006 Total posts: 3924 Location: Midwich Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 17-09-2013 13:42 Post subject: |
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| Quake42 wrote: | | I don't think we're any more bovine but I do think that the lack of resistance to some of the events and policies of the last few years is significant and not simply down to us being "infinitely better off than our forebears"... |
I did qualify that as being 'one of' the reasons - not 'simply'.
| Quote: | | People in the 50s, 60s, 70s also lived better than medieval kings and queens but were quick to protest when something happened whih they didn't like. |
They may have been quick to protest about certain things but I'd argue that those 'revolutions' mentioned by Myth were still as rare as hens teeth, and that the tendency to conformity was as powerful, and in in some ways much more powerful, than it is now. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that the norms to which you were supposed to conform were more limited than they are now.
I'd agree with the stuff about organised labour and online activism. |
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