The banker loving, baby-eating Tory party thread (regenerated)

[bickster]

28 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

They did on possession stats. 

Tories had more successful crosses though

[TrentVilla]

37 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

They did on possession stats. 

Unless there is a heat map I’m not listening.

[chrisp65]

 

Huff

Tories ask voters to rate Grenfell Tower deaths from 0 to 10 and compare with rubbish collection.

The **** is wrong with these people?

 

[TrentVilla]

Big clue at the top of the above image.

[NurembergVillan]

Jeremy Hunt called out Ralf Little on Twitter, after the actor had questioned the credibility of some of Hunt's stats and claims.

Want to read Little's response to, and step by step destruction of, the Health Secretary?  Yeah, I thought you might.

 

[peterms]

 

[snowychap]

There's a debate today on the Universal Credit roll-out and a report produced by the Work and Pensions committee .

The opening two Tory speeches were a maiden speech by the new MP for Banff and Buchan which I don't think mentioned UC once (it was a typically jocular maiden speech telling people how great the constituency was) and the second which seemed to be an attempt to say 'make work pay' as many times as possible in six minutes.

Congratulations to Andrew Bowie (the third Tory contributor and a member of the committee) for actually talking about the report and the issues that have been raised with the UC roll-out.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

On 14/11/2017 at 23:36, chrisp65 said:

 

Huff

Tories ask voters to rate Grenfell Tower deaths from 0 to 10 and compare with rubbish collection.

The **** is wrong with these people?

The letter itself is horrific but imagine the answers and comments they will get back.

I don't suppose we can see the replies can we?

 

 

[snowychap]

2 hours ago, snowychap said:

There's a debate today on the Universal Credit roll-out and a report produced by the Work and Pensions committee .

Many good contributions on this (from all sides) with a general consensus from the Tory side of asking the government to make changes but not pause and other sides to pause whilst they make the necessary changes.

The government response via Damian Hinds (Minister for Employment)? 'The reason all of these things are like they are is...' and things are all going largely as intended, i.e. no pause and (little or) no change.

Edited November 16, 2017 by snowychap

[markavfc40]

1 hour ago, snowychap said:

 

The government response via Damian Hinds (Minister for Employment)? 'The reason all of these things are like they are is...' and things are all going largely as intended, i.e. no pause and (little or) no change.

They don"t care. Poor people and/ or disabled people suffering is just seen as collateral damage to these bastards even if it means people dieing. 

[snowychap]

1 hour ago, markavfc40 said:

They don"t care. Poor people and/ or disabled people suffering is just seen as collateral damage to these bastards even if it means people dieing. 

One would have thought that they'd care about themselves, though. There were specific criticisms from a number of their own side on specific points and it didn't seem like there was any intention to budge (on 7 waiting days, for example).

Perhaps they're hoping that something can be cobbled together so they can claim to be reducing the minimum statutory waiting time from 6 weeks and that this will pacify these bods.

[peterms]

Chris Dillow: The politics of death

Quote

Austerity kills. That’s the message of new research in the BMJ:

    Spending constraints between 2010 and 2014 were associated with an estimated 45 368 (95% CI 34 530 to 56 206) higher than expected number of deaths compared with pre-2010 trends…. Projections to 2020 based on 2009-2014 trend was cumulatively linked to an estimated 152 141 (95% CI 134 597 and 169 685) additional deaths.

This is consistent with a point made recently by Danny Dorling:

    For the first time in well over a century the health of people in England and Wales as measured by the most basic feature – life – has stopped improving…The most plausible explanation would blame the politics of austerity, which has had an excessive impact on the poor and the elderly; the withdrawal of care support to half a million elderly people that had taken place by 2013; the effect of a million fewer social care visits being carried out every year; the cuts to NHS budgets and its reorganisation as a result of the 2012 Health and Social Care Act; increased rates of bankruptcy and general decline in the quality of care homes; the rise in fuel poverty among the old; cuts to or removal of disability benefits. The stalling of life expectancy was the result of political choice.

It's also consistent with international evidence gathered by David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu; with Sarah O’Connor’s report of a “quietly unfolding health crisis” in deprived seaside towns such as Blackpool, and with the fact that benefit sanctions have driven people to suicide.

It’s obvious what the left’s reaction to this should be. But what about the right and centre’s?

There is an intelligent response. You could argue that all this is only part of the story. Christopher Ruhm, for example, has shown that austerity can improve health in other ways. If we’re not building houses, for example, fewer men die in accidents on building sites. Hard-up people can’t afford to smoke or drink themselves to death. And if we’re under-employed we’re less likely to suffer stress-related illnesses.

Alternatively, you could invoke the trolley problem. Maybe deaths from austerity are the lesser of two evils. If the alternative to austerity is higher taxes or higher debt, it could lead to lower future growth and hence less heath spending and more death in the long run. (I don’t believe this, but some Tories sincerely do).

Neither response, though, is what we get. Instead, when Aditya Chakrabortty said on Question Time last week that the government is “send[ing] disabled people to their deaths” the reaction was as if he’d spat in the church’s collection plate (9 mins in).

Which in a sense he had. Aditya had the bad manners to point out that politics is a matter of life and death - at least for the poor - thereby puncturing his audience’s illusion that it is just a cosy little debating game in which the only costs are that a few MPs move down the career ladder. I had hoped that the Grenfell disaster would destroy this illusion, but it seems the imbecilities of posh folk don’t die as quickly as do the poor.

Here, though, is the thing. The supposedly impartial BBC is complicit in this. Its politics coverage too often carries a matey undertone broken only when confronted by someone who has the temerity to challenge the privilege of the rich or to enter politics without being posh. And it gives disproportionate weight to inconsequential tittle-tattle. Priti Patel’s flight from Uganda last week was given the sort of coverage due to Churchill’s return from Yalta. I very much doubt if the BMJ’s report will get so much attention.

What we have here are two competing conceptions of politics: one which sees it as a serious matter of life and death, the other as a game among careerists. The BBC is not impartial between these, and therefore not impartial at all. 

The article has links to underpinnning references, which don't appear in this copied version, if you're interested.

[darrenm]

I just can't believe the 120,000 austerity deaths hasn't been all over the BBC.

Oh, sorry, yes I can.

[TrentVilla]

 

I cant help but feel some in this thread are giving the Tories unfair criticism.

I mean, you can’t trust Labour with the economy. We know this because the Tories tell us this all the time and have done a simply brilliant job of getting rid of the deficit in line with their promises but I digress....

The point is austerity has clearly worked.

- It’s degraded public services

- It’s opened the door for privatisation and the enriching of their budies

- It’s stopped tax rises for the rich and even reduced the tax bill for some high earners

- It’s killed off the sick, disabled and poor reducing the benefit bill and Labour voters

Above all that those clever Tories are killing people before they get old which will reduce the state pension liability! Genius.

At this rate of the Tories keep going I figure I will only have to work until I’m 82 to claim my full state pension of £32 a month which I’m really counting on for when the NHS has gone.

You can count on the Tories to look after us so who cares if they and their mates get rich in the process.

[hippo]

2 hours ago, TrentVilla said:

 

I cant help but feel some in this thread are giving the Tories unfair criticism.

I mean, you can’t trust Labour with the economy. We know this because the Tories tell us this all the time and have done a simply brilliant job of getting rid of the deficit in line with their promises but I digress....

The point is austerity has clearly worked.

- It’s degraded public services

- It’s opened the door for privatisation and the enriching of their budies

- It’s stopped tax rises for the rich and even reduced the tax bill for some high earners

- It’s killed of the sick, disabled and poor reducing the benefit bill and Labour voters

Above all that those clever Tories are killing people before they get old which will reduce the state pension liability! Genius.

At this rate of the Tories keep going I figure I will only have to work until I’m 82 to claim my full state pension of £32 a month which I’m really counting on for when the NHS has gone.

You can count on the Tories to look after us so who cares if they and their mates get rich in the process.

Bad economics - but great politics - if you're a tory.

[Straggler]

3 hours ago, TrentVilla said:

 

I cant help but feel some in this thread are giving the Tories unfair criticism.

I mean, you can’t trust Labour with the economy. We know this because the Tories tell us this all the time and have done a simply brilliant job of getting rid of the deficit in line with their promises but I digress....

The point is austerity has clearly worked.

- It’s degraded public services

- It’s opened the door for privatisation and the enriching of their budies

- It’s stopped tax rises for the rich and even reduced the tax bill for some high earners

- It’s killed of the sick, disabled and poor reducing the benefit bill and Labour voters

Above all that those clever Tories are killing people before they get old which will reduce the state pension liability! Genius.

At this rate of the Tories keep going I figure I will only have to work until I’m 82 to claim my full state pension of £32 a month which I’m really counting on for when the NHS has gone.

You can count on the Tories to look after us so who cares if they and their mates get rich in the process.

There are some people who say that sarcasm doesn't work on the internet as it is easily misinterpreted.  This post is a case study for the opposition opinion.

[hippo]

Ive never really liked the tories - but this current batch seem like the worst. I don't particularly agree with them - and they don't seem very good at what they do....

[StefanAVFC]

19 minutes ago, hippo said:

Ive never really liked the tories - but this current batch seem like the worst. I don't particularly agree with them - and they don't seem very good at what they do....

I think that hits the nail on the head. They're not only loathsome, but incompetent to boot.

[lapal_fan]

It's a dying party.  They're in the throes of last ditch power grabs and money grabs. 

Certainly of the "old style" tories anyway. 

I was blindfolded in 2010 with the economy stuff - until they change significantly, I'll never go down that road again.  

[Xann]

A Green government could have wrought chaos too, but something positive might have come from it.

Galling.