Xann Posted November 16, 2018 Share Posted November 16, 2018 Quote The United Nations has condemned the British government's "punitive, mean-spirited and often callous" treatment of the country's poorest and most vulnerable, in a damning report. The UN's special rapporteur said policies and drastic cuts to social support were entrenching high levels of poverty and inflicting unnecessary misery in one of the richest countries in the world, adding that Brexit was exacerbating the problem. “The United Kingdom’s impending exit from the European Union poses particular risks for people in poverty, but the Government appears to be treating this as an afterthought,” said the UN's expert on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, at the end of a 12-day visit to the country. The report goes on to document a series of findings which combine to present a withering assessment of Britain's approach to its poorest citizens, detailing a predicted 7 per cent rise in child poverty, a 60 per cent increase in homelessness since 2010 and exponential growth in the number of food banks. “During my visit I have spoken with people who depend on food banks and charities for their next meal, who are sleeping on friends’ couches because they are homeless and don’t have a safe place for their children to sleep, who have sold sex for money or shelter, children who are growing up in poverty unsure of their future,” Mr Alston said. “I’ve also met young people who feel gangs are the only way out of destitution, and people with disabilities who are being told they need to go back to work or lose benefits, against their doctor’s orders." He said successive governments had overseen a systematic dismantling of the social safety net, suggesting the introduction of universal credit and significant reductions to support had undermined the capacity of benefits to relieve poverty. “British compassion for those who are suffering has been replaced by a punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous approach,” he said. Independent 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hippo Posted November 16, 2018 Share Posted November 16, 2018 1 minute ago, snowychap said: The claim was that all the whips were called back. Probably in order to bully, I'm sorry I meant persuade, some of the waverers not to send in their letters in order for the 48 not to be arrived at. Gotcha - makes sense. BJ would obviously stand in such an election - but who would oppose him ? - somebody more from the centre of the Tory Party ? - Hammond ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ml1dch Posted November 16, 2018 Share Posted November 16, 2018 4 minutes ago, hippo said: Gotcha - makes sense. BJ would obviously stand in such an election - but who would oppose him ? - somebody more from the centre of the Tory Party ? - Hammond ? There will be loads of them. Raab, Hunt, Javid, Mourdant, I'd guess Leadsom again, Gove... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted November 16, 2018 Share Posted November 16, 2018 Quote The men who gave us Brexit will never pay its price – Joyce McMillan ... It is clearly true that many of them are now trying to unseat their own party leader for not delivering on a fantasy of painless, glorious Brexit that they themselves have failed to turn into political reality, since the task is impossible. And as for concealing their true aims – well, who can say what strange brew of midlife psychosis and outright political dishonesty has motivated the bizarre wave of retro-imperial fantasy and anti-European rhetoric that has swept through parts of the Tory Party at Westminster in recent years; although investigations into the funding and management of the Leave campaign suggest that there are, at the very least, very serious questions to be asked about the sources of its funds, and its shadowy political connections. The men who have given us Brexit, in other words, are deluded and incompetent at best, and at worst contemptible political opportunists who decided to deploy the language of narrow-minded xenophobia, and pie-in-the-sky anti-EU rhetoric, to mislead British voters into a decision beset with desperately negative consequences, economic, personal and social. And to make matters worse, all of them are wealthy men playing with the future of 60 million British citizens as if it were a Westminster chess game; while knowing, with the profound confidence of privilege, that they will never feel on their own skins the human cost of their Brexit gamble, or see it impoverish and blight the lives of their own children. “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy,” wrote F Scott Fitzgerald of two wealthy characters in The Great Gatsby. “They smashed up things and creatures, and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” For Tom and Daisy read David Cameron and Boris Johnson, and you have a strangely accurate account of the situation in which Britain now finds itself; and for us here in Scotland, the only remaining question is whether we hang around waiting for the clean-up to begin, or finally decide to walk away and try to shape our own future, beyond the long shadow of Westminster. Scotsman 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted November 16, 2018 Share Posted November 16, 2018 7 minutes ago, hippo said: Gotcha - makes sense. BJ would obviously stand in such an election - but who would oppose him ? - somebody more from the centre of the Tory Party ? - Hammond ? I don't know but if there were to be one then it's often not the most obvious candidate or direct challenger who wins. Having had a look back at the Thatch ousting, I had forgotten that she used a cricket metaphor herself shortly before getting the heave ho (I obviously remember Geoffrey Howe's cricket comment in his speech the following day). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted November 16, 2018 VT Supporter Share Posted November 16, 2018 21 minutes ago, Xann said: Independent **** damning. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hippo Posted November 16, 2018 Share Posted November 16, 2018 15 minutes ago, ml1dch said: There will be loads of them. Raab, Hunt, Javid, Mourdant, I'd guess Leadsom again, Gove... Id knock the back out of that Penny Mourdant though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wainy316 Posted November 16, 2018 Share Posted November 16, 2018 24 minutes ago, Xann said: Independent Yeah but Corbyn wore a hood on his jacket when laying a wreath so it's the lesser of two evils I'm afraid. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post mjmooney Posted November 16, 2018 VT Supporter Popular Post Share Posted November 16, 2018 Surely the Conservative Party have already had a vote for a leader when they elected May. Why should they be allowed a second vote? 11 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hippo Posted November 16, 2018 Share Posted November 16, 2018 2 minutes ago, mjmooney said: Surely the Conservative Party have already had a vote for a leader when they elected May. Why should they be allowed a second vote? Genuis ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted November 16, 2018 Share Posted November 16, 2018 44 minutes ago, mjmooney said: Surely the Conservative Party have already had a vote for a leader when they elected May. Why should they be allowed a second vote? pedant but technically they didn't , she was unopposed when Leadsom withdrew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted November 16, 2018 Share Posted November 16, 2018 I think we should start a letter-writing campaign, asking Peter Bone to put his name forward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NurembergVillan Posted November 16, 2018 Moderator Share Posted November 16, 2018 Ruddy hell! Amber's back as Workplace and Pensions Secretary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted November 16, 2018 Moderator Share Posted November 16, 2018 Just now, NurembergVillan said: Ruddy hell! Amber's back as Workplace and Pensions Secretary. One off the rebels list Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted November 16, 2018 Share Posted November 16, 2018 (edited) Welcomed back into the fold only 6 months after resigning for lying to the select committee. Is that a new record? You've got to sympathise with the appointment though, how can May possibly find a dozen or so people that haven't resigned in disgrace when she has to pick from the shower of bastards that is the conservative party? Edited November 16, 2018 by Davkaus 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meregreen Posted November 16, 2018 Share Posted November 16, 2018 2 hours ago, Chindie said: **** damning. Let this report be this dreadful Governments epitaph. Truly shocking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted November 16, 2018 Share Posted November 16, 2018 1 hour ago, Davkaus said: Welcomed back into the fold only 6 months after resigning for lying to the select committee. Is that a new record? To be fair, although she's a useless arse who enthusiastically enforced the racist hostile environment policy, on the narrow grounds of the specific wrong information she gave the committee, it seems she was wrongly briefed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted November 16, 2018 Share Posted November 16, 2018 Gove and Fox. What a pair of slimeballs. Sit there and let May get ripped to shreds for a whole day, then say they are supporting her, trying to get credit for "loyalty" while also seeing her significantly and probably irreperably damaged. Scum. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sid4ever Posted November 16, 2018 Share Posted November 16, 2018 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ml1dch Posted November 16, 2018 Share Posted November 16, 2018 (edited) 6 hours ago, tonyh29 said: pedant but technically they didn't , she was unopposed when Leadsom withdrew I'd half-composed a similar post earlier, but thought that if one wanted to be more pedantic she convincingly won two rounds of voting before Leadsom withdrew. So "the Conservative Party have already had a vote for a leader when they elected May" would comfortably stand up to cross-examination. Edited November 16, 2018 by ml1dch 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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