Kingfisher Posted June 10, 2014 Share Posted June 10, 2014 Tories talking about cultural plurality, what next a Gary Glitter sex education video. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted June 10, 2014 Share Posted June 10, 2014 Two contrasting views on poverty: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingfisher Posted June 10, 2014 Share Posted June 10, 2014 Conor Burns, the Conservative MP for Bournemouth West is said to be 'shocked' by an Oxfam campaign poster which highlights rising poverty and its causes in the UK. ...of course not shocked by the content, but rather their audacity to highlight it. It's your party's doing mate, stop trying to censor the truth and start dealing with the problems. Idiot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingfisher Posted June 11, 2014 Share Posted June 11, 2014 The cost of living crisis deepens as wages rose just 0.4% in year to April (single month figs). Apparently the lowest annual rate on record. ONS. Well below inflation whichever way you cut it. Recovery, what recovery? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted June 11, 2014 Share Posted June 11, 2014 The cost of living crisis deepens as wages rose just 0.4% in year to April (single month figs). Apparently the lowest annual rate on record. ONS. Well below inflation whichever way you cut it. Recovery, what recovery? You are Ed Miliband and I claim my £5. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingfisher Posted June 11, 2014 Share Posted June 11, 2014 David Cameron asked about his support of TTIP deal being done behind closed doors by corporate lobbyists at PMQ's. No answer. (Does anything ever come out of this form of debating at PMQ's?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted June 11, 2014 Share Posted June 11, 2014 PMQs is a joke, they take it in turns to read out their one-liners in a bid to one-up each other to try to get in to the next day's papers, and never discuss anything of substance. It's symbolic of everything that's wrong with politics, the emphasis is on what will make a headline. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted June 11, 2014 Share Posted June 11, 2014 PMQs is a joke, they take it in turns to read out their one-liners in a bid to one-up each other to try to get in to the next day's papers, and never discuss anything of substance. It's symbolic of everything that's wrong with politics, the emphasis is on what will make a headline. our chance to see genuine democracy in action and they hire in gag writers and rehearse scripts whilst being coached on body language and the best colour tie to wear Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted June 11, 2014 Share Posted June 11, 2014 Does anything ever come out of this form of debating at PMQ's?Debating?It's just a window to trot out and repeat vapid, scripted soundbites that are passed off as political opinion and repeated ad nauseam by acolytes and idiots.I don't know what would drive anyone interested in politics to do that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingfisher Posted June 11, 2014 Share Posted June 11, 2014 It was a rhetorical question. Quite obvious we need radical changes in voting, debating, accountability, transparency, methods...So many areas of our democracy are out of date and not fit for purpose anymore. It's really quite embarrassing. But we have a load of greedy businessmen within (MP's) and around (Lobbyists) the political system who know it works for them and they're milking it. With help from the Rothemere, Murdoch machine they'll do their damnedest to make sure it stays that way. Tory, Labour, Lib Dem ..now UKIP too, all cut from the same cloth. There's no choice there. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarewsEyebrowDesigner Posted June 11, 2014 Share Posted June 11, 2014 So should the UK also have an audit into public debt? The French have found it rather useful, showing that 60% of theirs is 'illegitimate'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mockingbird_franklin Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 So should the UK also have an audit into public debt? The French have found it rather useful, showing that 60% of theirs is 'illegitimate'. Would be interesting to expand on why it was deemed illegitimate? I have my own theories on why but it would be interesting to know the auditors reasons for their conclusions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 So should the UK also have an audit into public debt? The French have found it rather useful, showing that 60% of theirs is 'illegitimate'. Would be interesting to expand on why it was deemed illegitimate? I have my own theories on why but it would be interesting to know the auditors reasons for their conclusions. I presume the source is an article in the Guardian http://tinyurl.com/qz8flqx. To be honest it didn't make much sense to me. When some third-world dictator borrows money to build palaces and private jets it would seem pretty easy to identify and declare such debt illegitimate but it would seem difficult, if not impossible, in either France or the UK. Especially when you want to carry on borrowing from the same sources. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mockingbird_franklin Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 So should the UK also have an audit into public debt? The French have found it rather useful, showing that 60% of theirs is 'illegitimate'. Would be interesting to expand on why it was deemed illegitimate? I have my own theories on why but it would be interesting to know the auditors reasons for their conclusions. I presume the source is an article in the Guardian http://tinyurl.com/qz8flqx. To be honest it didn't make much sense to me. When some third-world dictator borrows money to build palaces and private jets it would seem pretty easy to identify and declare such debt illegitimate but it would seem difficult, if not impossible, in either France or the UK. Especially when you want to carry on borrowing from the same sources. Cheers, i found the source myself. not quite the simple explanation of national debt and the reason it is unnecessary and illegitimate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 I do like this graphic: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingfisher Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 (edited) Threaten to shut down or censor charities who dare to say anything that might make the government look bad. This must be one of Michael Gove's 'British values'? TBH censorship of this kind is more akin to Putin's Russia. http://www.civilsociety.co.uk/governance/news/content/17632/trussell_trust_chair_told_the_government_might_try_to_shut_you_down The chair of the Trussell Trust has said that the charity made a decision to tone down its criticisms of the benefit system after someone in power warned them that they could get shut down. Chris Mould, chair of the Trussell Trust, was giving evidence to the Panel on the Independence of the Voluntary Sector yesterday when he said that the charity, which aims to tackle poverty, had been criticised by the government for raising awareness of the need for food banks. He said that he had seen several examples of how “people in power do pretty inappropriate things at times to try and curb and curtail independence of a voluntary organisation when it proves to be inconvenient to them”. Mould, who made it clear that the charity was not a campaigning organisation, told the panel that most of these examples had arisen in private conversations with those in power. 'Government might try to shut you down' He said that in a face-to-face conversation in March 2013 with "someone in power", he was told that he must think more carefully otherwise “the government might try to shut you down”. Mould said: “This was spoken in anger, but is the kind of dialogue that can occur. It exposes the way people think in the political world about their relationship with the voluntary sector when things are getting difficult. What can we do?” The charity then took the decision to tone down its criticisms so that the government would maintain its contact. Mould said that this decision was a response of a “positive nature”. He also spoke of another example of when the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions' office contacted him in 2011 in response to publication of the Trussell Trust’s concerns about the benefits system. Mould said he received a phone call on his day off “from someone in the Secretary of State’s office which was basically to tell me that the boss was very angry with us because we were publicising the concerns we have over the rising number of people who were struggling as a consequence of delays and inefficiencies in the benefits system”. However Mould, who spoke of “ongoing efforts to belittle the organisation” by the government, said that a decision made by the charity’s trustees in 2005 that they would avoid seeking government funding meant that they were in a better position to resist government pressure. Mould also spoke of how the charity's commitment to professionalism, including its expanding trustee board which attempts to cover all areas of expertise, and the quality of the statistics it produces, gave the charity more capacity to resist pressure. Earlier this year, a criticial article by the Daily Mail about the Trussell Trust led to the charity's appeal raising more than £50,000 in two days. Blanche Jones, campaigns director at 38 degrees, also spoke to the panel yesterday about the reception the organisation receives from politicians. The campaigning organisation received criticism last year from Conservative MP Peter Bottomley who said that 38 Degrees was one of several organisations whose members were spamming the inboxes of MPs causing them “chaos”. Jones said that she wished government would see this engagement as a more positive thing, as such comments from MPs contribute to a “growing feeling of disengagement and disempowerment”. Oxfam reported to Charity Commission A new political attack on charities was seen yesterday when a Tory MP revealed that he is reporting Oxfam to the Charity Commission for its “perfect storm” promotional campaign on austerity. Conor Burns, Conservative MP for Bournemouth West, said the campaign was "overtly political and aimed at the policies of the current government". Edited June 12, 2014 by Kingfisher Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarewsEyebrowDesigner Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 So I guess they don't need the Scouse vote, then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingfisher Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 Sums him up perfectly really doesn't it, holding a sun newspaper. Part of the 'establishment'. Just like the Sun he has nothing interesting or enlightening to say, he'll happily be xenophobic if it suits his agenda and his cabinet, just like the paper, is full of tits. Caroline Lucas wore a ban page 3 t-shirt and got told to 'cover up'... 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 So I guess they don't need the Scouse vote, then? prize prick probably doesn't even know what it is 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villaajax Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 Did anyone else get that through the letterbox today? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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