Bolitics The New Condem Government

[MakemineVanilla]

Last week David Cameron told us climate change was a subject at the forefront of his mind as he stood in some poor souls flooded house in his wellies. This week he's bribing councils to accept fracking. Very clever.

 

Anthropogenic climate change seems likely to be true but the assumptions we are encouraged to assume follow that conclusion are probably false: the assumption being that the UK investing in renewable energy generation and being more energy efficient can do something about it.

 

While the likes of China, America and India continue to be the top CO2 producers, everything which the UK does to cut its own CO2 production is futile.

 

While we are encouraged to drive energy efficient cars with dinky engines and America's best-selling range of cars (Ford F-series pick-up 2013) has a 6.1 litre engine option, it seems certain that the efforts we make are just pissing in the wind.

 

We have to presume that our Government and all rival parties know this perfectly well and it seems certain that the reason all parties have Green policies and we are constantly bombarded with propaganda meant to convince us that the planet depends on what the UK does, are driven by another reason entirely.

 

Setting aside the attractiveness of Green taxes for confiscating more of UK citizens' money, the other reason seems likely to be as a way of building obsolescence into products to increase demand and to create another sector in the economy which they hope will create economic growth.

 

This seems the only explanation when a government simultaneously continues to pay lip-service to the claims of the Green lobby while clearly seeking to increase hydrocarbon use by giving the go-ahead for fracking development, a policy which seems very unlikely to be reversed by any other future government.

 

So it would seem that the UK's supposed virtuous Green stance is nothing more than a function of Capitalism's demand for never ending economic growth, which is presented to us, as the exact opposite.

 

It is just not conceivable that the Green policies are in place for the reasons they tell us.

[Kingfisher]

We can't stop climate change alone, but we can do our bit. I don't think the idea that we can is one that's being sold to us. We can and should build a green economy. We can be a leading example. It's about doing what we all should do as human beings, the right thing.

[mockingbird_franklin]

article supposedly written by a 21 year old graduate six months out of university, in support of Gove's criticism of the "lefty biased" teaching of History, written by an executive working for of a Tory Pr company. MIP http://mippr.co.uk/team/nick-wood/

 

here is the article

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/10565264/Left-wing-thinking-still-prevails-in-schools.html

[Kingfisher]

"When the war ended, I don't know if I was more relieved that we'd won or that I didn't have to go back. Passchendaele was a disastrous battle – thousands and thousands of young lives were lost. It makes me angry. Earlier this year, I went back to Ypres to shake the hand of Charles Kuentz, Germany's only surviving veteran from the war. It was emotional. He is 107. We've had 87 years to think what war is. To me, it's a licence to go out and murder. Why should the British government call me up and take me out to a battlefield to shoot a man I never knew, whose language I couldn't speak? All those lives lost for a war finished over a table. Now what is the sense in that?"

Harry Patch.

Perhaps Michael Gove might have wanted to correct Mr Patch for those blinkered lefty comments. I'm sure Gove knows best.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

We can't stop climate change alone, but we can do our bit.

 

False, it's too late to stop it now.

[MakemineVanilla]

It seems that any benefits which might accrue from fracking will go the same way as North Sea oil.

 

No lower gas prices because the gas will be sold into the European gas market to maximise profits.

 

Which basically means the gains will go to government and the shareholders of privately-owned companies.

 

In America, whether it is shale oil or well-oil in Alaska, money is paid directly to every citizen of the state.

 

In this country the benefits will go to the state, which Labour will spend on benefits and a bloated public sector, while Tories will give tax cuts to the rich.

 

While ordinary people live with the risks and the inconvenience and get nothing.

Edited January 13, 2014 by MakemineVanilla

[snowychap]

article supposedly written by a 21 year old graduate six months out of university, in support of Gove's criticism of the "lefty biased" teaching of History, written by an executive working for of a Tory Pr company. MIP http://mippr.co.uk/team/nick-wood/

 

here is the article

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/10565264/Left-wing-thinking-still-prevails-in-schools.html

Tbf, though it obviously comes from a very biased source (in favour of Gove and the Tories - and echoes very closely what his boss has also said), it would appear that Jago Pearson is, indeed, a recent history graduate.

[mockingbird_franklin]

 

article supposedly written by a 21 year old graduate six months out of university, in support of Gove's criticism of the "lefty biased" teaching of History, written by an executive working for of a Tory Pr company. MIP http://mippr.co.uk/team/nick-wood/

 

here is the article

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/10565264/Left-wing-thinking-still-prevails-in-schools.html

Tbf, though it obviously comes from a very biased source (in favour of Gove and the Tories - and echoes very closely what his boss has also said), it would appear that Jago Pearson is, indeed, a recent history graduate.

 

Tbf it comes across as a job application for later endorsement of a constituency candidacy presented as journalistic comment

Edited January 13, 2014 by mockingbird_franklin

[snowychap]

Tbf it comes across as a job application for later endorsement of a constituency candidacy presented as journalistic comment

Quite possibly.

In which case it's likely that he wrote it, then, no?

[mockingbird_franklin]

 

Tbf it comes across as a job application for later endorsement of a constituency candidacy presented as journalistic comment

Quite possibly.

In which case it's likely that he wrote it, then, no?

 

unless he indeed wrote exactly what he was required to write by third parties such as his employers. MIP that equally doesn't mean he doesn't believe it, people believe all sorts of misguided rubbish. I blame right wing indoctrination through the media pumped into fragile immature minds.

[MakemineVanilla]

A good article in the Guardian http://tinyurl.com/lrwalen on how every citizen of Norway is now a millionaire (Krona) because their government saved their oil money in a national fund.

 

So their government has £100k for every man, woman, and child, in a national fund.

 

Compared to the UK where we have virtually nothing to show from the North Sea oil bonanza.

 

The Tory's gave the money away in tax-cuts which meant it was squandered on consumer durables.

 

This must truly have been the most egregious example of not putting anything aside for a rainy day in economic history, which makes Brown's spending seem rather miserly by comparison.

 

The Tory's act of profligacy challenges their customary accusation that it is Labour who wastes national resources.

 

What we actually find, whether it was Reginald Maudling's 'dash for growth' (1963) which created such a trade imbalance that Labour were forced to devalue the pound, or Anthony Barber deregulating the banking system (1970), which produced a property bubble and another bout of stop-go budgets, is that the Tory record on finance is far worse than Labour's.

 

But the way the oil revenue was handed mostly to the rich in the form of tax-cuts, reveals the true nature of Tory values and the origins of the massively unequal society we see today.

 

When it comes to confiscating national assets and handing them to the rich, both British and foreign, the Tories take the biscuit and of course, everyone else's.

 

All too often the truth in politics is the exact opposite to what we are told it is.

Edited January 14, 2014 by MakemineVanilla

[drat01]

But surely we keep getting told it was Gordon Brown selling off Gold  .........

[Risso]

Every government that I can remember (and I'm 42) which is basically from Thatcher onwards has put short term gain at the expense of long term well-being.  Every single one.  I don't know anything about Norway's political system, but ours encourages short-term, populist policies.

[colhint]

So you are comparing a country that produces almost twice the oil than we do and and a population almost 13 times smaller, hmmm that's about equal then

[Kingfisher]

So you are comparing a country that produces almost twice the oil than we do and and a population almost 13 times smaller, hmmm that's about equal then

That point is addressed in the article, it's worth a read.

[AVFCforever1991]

[mockingbird_franklin]

So you are comparing a country that produces almost twice the oil than we do and and a population almost 13 times smaller, hmmm that's about equal then

And the prize for missing the point goes to.....

 

the point is the majority of wealth from north sea oil generated was gifted to the richest in society, though not directly, Instead of creating a sovereign trust fund, which, with investment could have left Britain with a nice nest egg for continued future investment.maybe if we'd have done that we could have bought other countries wealth creating monopolies (water and power) whilst keeping control of our own rather than flogging them so that they eventually are owned by other countries sovereign trust funds.

 

it a bit like how people can't see how ludicrous and ultimately disastrous for the economy  the situation regarding our money creation is, just because self interested bankers say that's how it needs to be.

Edited January 15, 2014 by mockingbird_franklin

[colhint]

So which of the Major Oil producing countries have followed this line other than Norway. 

[Kingfisher]

Didn't Tony Benn want to do what the Norwegians did? Margaret Thatchers incoming government had other ideas. So here we are, 34 years on, 34 years of Thatcherism and trillions of pounds in debt. Norway have no debt.

[mockingbird_franklin]

So which of the Major Oil producing countries have followed this line other than Norway. 

Ah criticism isn't valid if others made the same mistake, But i would hazard a guess you could find plenty of examples of states that managed the revenue from oil production better than the UK government of the 80's did. considering the government that gave away all that revenue which could have benefited everyone to a few already wealthy people painted themselves as the party that saved Britain and the only ones fit to govern, you'd think they would have avoided the succession of serious 'mistakes' they made, obviously it's a coincidence that all these mistakes by the 'natural party of leadership' benefited the already wealthy at the expense of nearly all the rest of society, after all the only other conclusions are

 

1) they were a bunch of incompetent fucktards who were lying about their government credentials,

or

2)that was the plan all along and they lied about their reasons for the decisions they made

or

3) a combination of 1 & 2.

 

My money is on reason 3. so very similar to where we find ourselves today with the 'party of natural leadership'