The boys in the bubble
The battle-cry of right-wing Labour apologists all this week has been “realism”. It’s all very well people like Jeremy Corbyn having crazy old principles about what Labour is supposed to stand for, runs the argument, but you can’t argue with public opinion and public opinion is desperate for Labour to become Tories with a slightly softer edge.
“Mental John” McTernan, for example, told the readers of the Telegraph yesterday that Labour’s disastrous, shambolic abstention on the welfare reform bill was the right thing to do because the party “had to show the public it got the message over welfare”.
But what actually IS the public’s message on welfare?
Luckily, we have some data on that.
YOUGOV POLL, JULY 2015
61% don’t want more welfare cuts, versus just 24% who do.
Voters strongly feel the budget was for the rich, not the poor.
Earlier we saw that 61% of people think that benefit cuts in the last five years have gone either too far or far enough already, while according to this question 45% think there’s too much money spent on benefits.
So a majority of people DON’T want any more cuts, while only a minority do.
Contrary to anything you’ll read in the press, more people actually think too LITTLE money is spent on benefits for every named group (except for wealthy pensioners and the unemployed) than think too MUCH money is spent on them.
By large margins, people want MORE money spent on benefits for low-paid workers, children, the disabled and retired people on state pension only.
And even in the case of the unemployed, barely over a quarter of respondents think too much money is spent on benefits. 55% say they’re getting the right amount or too little – TWICE as many as think unemployed people are getting too much.
YOUGOV POLL (LONDON RESPONDENTS ONLY), JULY 2015
London, remember, is where the benefits bill is highest.
49% of London residents think Osborne’s welfare cuts are too large, compared to 33% who think they’re not enough or about right. That’s closer than the result in the country as a whole (see above), but still a 3:2 margin against more welfare cuts.
London is quite coincidentally also where most of the UK’s rich people are. Yet only one in five respondents even in the capital wants income tax cut for the wealthy, and the largest number (36%) wants it raised.
YOUGOV POLL, LATE JUNE 2015
Polls can provide seemingly contradictory results, of course.
Just a few days earlier, the same polling company recorded a statistical tie (within the margin of error) on whether there should be more cuts, though the largest number of people were still opposed and only 40% were prepared to say they were in favour.
When asked about specific groups, the sample wanted restrictions on eligibility, rather than cuts to the benefits themselves, and even then majorities wanted tax credits, child tax credits and pensioner benefits protected, with only a very slim majority in favour of banning housing benefits to under-25s.
Finally, huge majorities were in favour of forcing – not encouraging – employers to pay the living wage. (The real one, not the Tories’ cynically rebadged minimum wage.)
This is a key piece of context – it’s not that the public hates welfare, but that the public wants employers to be paying decent wages so that benefits don’t have to be paid to people in work and can be redirected to those in need.
Until such times as that’s the case, the public wants MORE money spent on benefits for the low-paid, the disabled and those on the state pension. The idea that voters back ever more savage welfare cuts is simply a myth peddled by right-wing newspapers distorting (or outright making up) statistics.
Almost never is there a 50%+ majority for more welfare cuts, and most of the time the public is actively and clearly against them.
But the media commentariat, obsessed with gazing at its own navel and listening to nobody but other media commentators, colludes in this toxic lie – we presume mainly out of laziness – then yells furiously at any politician who dares break the (imaginary) “consensus”, hysterically accusing them of dooming Labour to eternal defeat if it dares stand up for the poor and vulnerable.
Until some of them start actually listening to what the public is telling them – clearly and explicitly – they’ll continue to do British politics a grave and shameful disservice.
I’ve just realised what it is Labour need to do to win the next election. They won in 1997 by renaming their party New Labour, so now all they need to do is become the New Conservatives. Job done, cheques made payable to Gordon Hay via Wings please.
So do all those think tanks and focus groups that form labour policy just pop out to the news agents for their data?
Excellent analysis. It beggars belief most in Labour can’t see such obvious stuff as most preferring people to be able to live – including housing – on full time wages, even the low paid. And that. The sick & disabled should be helped. And that taxpayers subsidising employers to pay low or no wages isn’t that popular.
Well what can I say, that there are those out there sending the politicians mixed messages, or that the politicians are ignoring them. Voting should be a serious matter but many use the stick the pin in method and whoops here we are.
But this is not Labour research. If it is not Labour research it will not get onto Scottish MSM or BBC.
BBC will only cover court cases and FAIs as rolling news because that is what happens in America to fill hours and keep the bothersome politics and the condition of the UK away from the masses.
No, wait, two cars caught fire in Shetland car park shocker…
On Mr McTernan’s quote ‘show the public…’?
For ‘public’ read well off demographic in key southern marginals. That’s pretty much the only ‘public’ which matters to both shades of Tories. Anyone north of those regions needn’t apply for the heady description of ‘the public’.
I’m sure they know this. They just don’t want to as it stops them pretending to be acting democratically and pursuing the policies the people want them to.
Instead, they are flat-out lying about what the public wants to do what their corporate masters want them to do instead.
My own take on the above, and this whole insane Labour “policy” right now of pissing on its own voters.
link to commentisntfree.com
It’s these kind of stats that convince me Corbyn is in with a chance of bringing Labour back to what it should be. Ignore the media and let the people decide.
So in summary even Lab Gov disagrees with Brit Labour Party and that on a no doubt heavily weighted set of figures and still they cant agree with the kamikaze pilots running Brit Labour Party.
Worth remembering that it’s not the poorest in society who are participating in these surveys either.
I imagine if they were that the numbers would be higher on the “no cuts” side.
How can “Don’t know” be an option in a poll where you have to pick at least one other option?
The problem is, is the way that the information on ‘benefits’ is portrayed. On one hand, people believe that the cuts will definitely hit the poorest, and yet in the same breath, believe that benefits should be slashed right across the board!
The media to a huge degree, have portrayed anyone on benefits as a scrounger. The problem here is that the media’s information, as well as the government, do not give the full picture.
What happens if you have someone who has worked all their life, never been unemployed, is aged 55 …and suddenly becomes unemployed. If you didn’t know the background to this persons working career, but instead, found out they were claiming various forms of benefit, you would assume the worst.
What if someone is working all the hours they can get; is on zero-hours contract, and needs those benefits to keep the lights on as well as putting food on the table for their family. Does that make them a scrounger? Of course, not!
However, this is the real story in what the Tories, Labour and the Media are not telling. Instead, they have portrayed anyone being on benefits as a complete scrounger.
Yes, there is a percentage out there that do milk the system, but it seems to the government and the media, that everyone should be tarnished with the brush of ‘money-sponging layabout’ if they dare claim a benefit.
So yep! This is the face of social democracy in the wonderful United Kingdom of 2015. For once these cuts bite deep within a year …really deep …you can expect to read terrible stories of suicides, broken families, shattered lives …and yet, meanwhile, IDS will still sup on £40 breakfasts each morning.
I think people would be more sympathetic towards those on JSA and in receipt of housing benefits if they realised that the VAST majority of claimants don’t get anything like £26,000 a year.
You only need to read some of the comment sections in the MSM (I know I shouldn’t) from people saying, “I’ve worked hard all my life and I don’t earn anything like that.”
[…] The perils of the bubble […]
I don’t understand why party hacks find this so difficult to comprehend. Not only is the data there in the polls, but – looking at the wider UK context – the SNP annihilation of Scottish Labour was a big fucking clue. Even taking Labour’s pathological and reality-distorting hatred of the SNP into account and the self-delusion therein leads to, the fact Nicola was polling higher in popularity than any other politician in ENGLAND on an anti-austerity platform was a massive signpost that the unionist parties had got it catastrophically wrong.
And then there’s the academic evidence. Virtually every economist not working for a bank has been literally screaming that austerity is, always has been, and always will be economically illiterate and an utter failure in every measurable way. But still the media continue to peddle the lie that the Tories have saved/are saving the economy. WAKE THE F**K UP!! Austerity is prolonging the damage and slowing recovery.
Welfare is a key spend because it puts money directly into the REAL economy; ordinary people who spend it on goods and services. If you take those benefits away, not only do those people suffer, but you give the economy a heart attack. Government expenditure on welfare and infrastructure is vital to growing our way out of the pit the bankers dug us. All the Tories are doing is digging deeper; under their watch, the national debt has doubled for no appreciable gain, except to those already in high-income jobs or with massive accumulated wealth.
The Tories have spun this enormous lie that the media have forced down everyone’s throats until they can think of nothing else but cutting deficit. Labour, like the incontinent lapdog puppies they are, are STILL going along with it.
When the politicians are owned body and soul by big corporations then don’t expect they will listen to the public.
Too much listening to spin doctors, think tanks and advisors and god forbid they would ever meet with the public. Nowadays they pretend to hold public rallies aided by the media to make it look real when in fact it’s a sham just like pretend democracy.
So the UK.public, US, are left and UK elite establishment and their pet media types, THEM, are right.
Well someone keeps voting for them.
Purr purr:-)
The public? Jesus, we live in a society where the ‘public’ are brainwashed into thinking rising house prices is actually a good thing. That their house is an asset.
Brainwashed to the extent that when we hit deflation it was unbelievably easy to trick them into thinking that that was a good thing to.
My point being, the ‘public’ are pretty much as thick as fuck, so the lads entitled to his opinion.
The sooner New New Labour start listening to instead of lecturing at the people the better.
The SNP tsunami occurred because of McTernan not despite him
Politicians in uk don’t need the public any more than banks need deposits.we have a coporatocracy dressed up as a two party democracy
Back to basics.
I think many in the Labour Party and especially some in the leadership are in the wrong party.
The following is from the Labour Party Rules and Constitution.
2 To these ends we work for:
(a) a dynamic economy, serving the public interest, in which the enterprise of the market and the rigour of competition are joined with the forces of partnership and co-operation to produce the wealth the nation needs and the opportunity for all to work and prosper with a thriving private sector and high-quality public services where those undertakings essential to the common good are either owned by the public or accountable to them
(b) a just society, which judges its strength by the condition of the weak as much as the strong, provides security against fear, and justice at work; which nurtures families, promotes equality of opportunity, and delivers people from the tyranny of poverty, prejudice and the abuse of power
(c) an open democracy, in which government is held to account by the people, decisions are taken as far as practicable by the communities they affect and where fundamental human rights are guaranteed
(d) a healthy environment, which we protect, enhance and hold in trust for future generations.
“government is held to account by the people, decisions are taken as far as practicable by the communities they affect and where fundamental human rights are guaranteed”
Is that what they fought for this week?
The British establishment are getting very nervous about the rising support for Corbyn. They are now attempting what they did in Scotland last year to get a No vote.
No dissent will be allowed.
The Bilderberg/Rothschild austerity programme WILL be fulfilled.
Western wages and lifestyles WILL be brought into line with those of India and China or we will not be able to compete commercially and the whole capitalist Ponzi scheme will come crashing down and then where would the bankers be, eh?
Sorry all for the double paste. God knows what I did.
OT: The Associated Press and British Movietone are uploading their extensive newsreel archive of digitized film footage to Youtube.
The collection (550,000 videos dating back to 1895) will cover a wide range of topics such as fashion, sports and politics etc.
There should be a few political gems amongst that little lot, eh!
link to archive.is
Don’t want to sound like a worn out record….BUT……. Am I the only person who thinks we should stop telling em how to think , analysing the situation Labour find them selves in. …. Or is the thinking that if Nats tell them to do something , that guarantees they’ll do the opposite.
Neo fascist Project Fear it on Corbyn with a hard core Tory boy Bpmber Bliar
link to archive.is
‘People who say their heart is with Corbyn, get a transplant’: Blair launches devastating attack on leftwinger who is on course to be Labour leader”
Even Bomber Bliar’s slams are nuts. But to be fair, red tory boy Crash Gordon Brown has still to make another Brownian “Important intervention!” Timing is all for the biggest liar that a Fife manse has ever farted into the world.
Ah proud Scot buts, to think one YES and we’d have been free of the whole UKOK creep show for ever…
Andy Nimmo, @3.34. If the SNP won because of McTernan and not despite him , that implies the SNP didn’t do anything right, and that’s simply wrong.
All any Labour MP seems to want is to retain their own seat, and be taxed less.
If I were a part of the British establishment I would be speaking now with Kendall and Cooper to pull out and back Burnham, to stop Corbyn.
I really hope they do. That would make my day.
Just when was it that social security became a “benefit”? Every worker paid for this social security through the National Insurance scheme.
National Insurance was a tax that ensured if you became ill you would receive treatment, if you became unemployed then you would have financial assistance until you found another job, when you retired, you would be paid a pension from the state.
The government taxed you in order to pay for these “benefits” in the future. It is not a “benefit” it has been paid for by already YOU and society in general.
The real problem has been that as Thatcher destroyed industry and manufacturing in this country, many of our less educated citizens found obtaining employment impossible in a country where 50% of our youth go on to further education.
The other 50% are left to scrap over the few apprenticeships or jobs in the public or service sector on minimum wage. Those that have for whatever reason failed to find employment have been abandoned and classed as scroungers and scum by the MSM who want to demonise them.
Tory ideology is responsible for producing the current situation and now they want to further punish those least able to fight back in order that the wealthiest are able to hold on to more of their cash pile.
Just what is the point in raising the inheritance tax threshold from £325,000 to £1,000,000 yet clawing that money back by reducing or scrapping tax credits for the poorest paid workers.
There is no point. There is no “benefit”.
It is simply Tory ideology in action, this time supported by the laughable opposition. The Labour Party. Disgusting
So the Govt listened to what the public were saying but only heard the first half of each message. For example:
“Why should I have to pay for these benefits… instead of those responsible?”
“Why should I have to pay for in-work benefits… instead of employers having to pay a living wage?”
“Why should I have to pay for housing benefit… instead of landlords having to limit their rent charges?”
Etc etc
Stu., iam getting a wee bit worried that all this info is helping our enemy no.1! After all Labour are probably our biggest stumbling block to winning. The beast may be severely wounded and prostrate but it’s not dead yet.
“Stu., iam getting a wee bit worried that all this info is helping our enemy no.1! After all Labour are probably our biggest stumbling block to winning. The beast may be severely wounded and prostrate but it’s not dead yet.”
If we’ve learned ANYTHING in the last three years, it’s that the best way to ensure Labour doesn’t do something is for us to urge them (in all sincerity and for their own good) to do it.
The big problem with the Labour party is that it has become riddled with tories. It will take years to weed them out, and the country (and indeed the party) just doesn’t have years left. The current leadership just don’t believe in socialism and equality anymore.
The only solution IMO is for Corbyn to win and for the socialists and the red tories to split and go their separate ways. The latter could consider joining what’s left of the LibDems, since they will be identical. The former could focus on former heartlands and learn to use social media to encourage a groundroots campaign. When you get the people on your side, you don’t need a few soft tories to get you over the line – you start winning everywhere! The SNP has demonstrated this in 2011 and 2015.
As the Rev has mentioned, chasing after soft tories in a few marginal is a loser’s game. Perhaps that can be left to the red tories and LibDems, whilst Corbyn and his supporters should start looking for those missing millions of voters.
@JLT
I agree with everything you said, but:
“Yes, there is a percentage out there that do milk the system”
Even if there is that percentage, it’s a small one. And nobody seems to ever ask why it exists. What leads to someone seeing their best long term option in ‘milking’ a pittance from the moribund welfare state? What does this say about the mismanagement of the educational system, at least since Thatcher’s time? What does it say about the active destruction of industries that provided meaningful work and decent wages, in favour of a ‘service economy’ kept afloat by property bubbles? What does it say about the depression, mental ill-health and despair caused by inter-generational poverty?
What young person would ever choose to subsist on JSA of £57.90 per week, if they weren’t somehow blocked from taking a better option?
The tories don’t come across as stupid (Labour, meh). They must know the benefits system was already gauged to barely prevent outright starvation, while leaving ample scope for malnutrition and anguish. I can only conclude that sadism prevails: IDS’s £40 breakfast tastes all the sweeter, knowing that thousands are holding off on opening their last tin of cold macaroni from a foodbank.
Somehow, I’ve come to hate ‘Labour’ more than the tories. A bully is despicable – the coward who stands behind him holding his coat is beneath contempt.
Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
22 July, 2015 at 4:32 pm
If we’ve learned ANYTHING in the last three years, it’s that the best way to ensure Labour doesn’t do something is for us to urge them (in all sincerity and for their own good) to do it.
LOL How true. It’s a sort of child of the Bain principle!
Politicians and journalists in this country are more interested in telling people what to think… rather than reflecting about what people actually think!
People have been fed an almost daily diet of bad news re benefits courtesy of the media. From tv programmes blaring out the message about scrounger families and benefits streets etc etc. It’s brain washing on a huge scale.
Let’s face it most people don’t take the time to find the truth.
Right now the media are frantic that a leftie might win the labour leadership and that does not fit with their bilderberg neo liberal scam. So the smears begin and I do wonder if there’s a Brown vow coming anytime soon.
Anyway some interesting information regarding unclaimed benefits
link to speye.wordpress.com
“If we’ve learned ANYTHING in the last three years, it’s “that the best way to ensure Labour doesn’t do something is for us to urge them (in all sincerity and for their own good) to do it.”
Any Slab member I’ve come across would hold their breath indefinitely rather than..
A. Ever read anything on here.
B. Ever admit it if they did. or
C. ever contemplate that there could ever be factual, useful information here, no matter how blindingly obvious or well referenced.
HOME»NEWS»POLITICS»LABOUR
“Tony Blair: Labour could spend 20 years out of power if Jeremy Corbyn wins
Labour party in disarray after leftwinger Jeremy Corbyn leads YouGov poll by 17 points”
Torygraph fraudsters pile on with Bliar. Why 20 years Bomber Bliar? why not 30, 40, a 10000 years of tory heaven.
Why are the Torygraph clowns attacking a Corbyn Labour for not being able to get elected until 2035 at the earliest anyway? Far right teamGB are difficult to work sometimes.
Corbyn’s not exactly a spring chicken so even if he does become Labour leader, isn’t this a v v good thing, if you’re rule Britannia non nationalist toryboys. Maybe its all the super rich City spivs for example just don’t want City spiving THAT easy, until 2035, at the earliest?
Even Bomber Bliar will probably be a bit dottled in his rest home for insane UKOK millionaires and mass murders, or as Snatcher Thatcher called it, The Ritz.
Martin Petrie says:
Politicians and journalists in this country are more interested in telling people what to think… rather than reflecting about what people actually think!
That’s the BBC Jackie & Eleanor show plus STV Aberdeen summed up.
@ Scunterbunnet 4.23
Two or three years ago, I was watching Question Time and the subject was something to do with Welfare and benefits. A few points had been discussed and then a woman in the audience was invited to make her point.
She explained that she was a single mother with two children under Five. She went on to say, something like, with the cost of child minding, the cost of travelling to work, buying lunch at work, etc, it wasn’t really worth her working.
She expected that the audience would cheer her. Instead though, the next member of the audience, politely explained that it shouldn’t matter whether she was not much better off going to work – she should still go to work and pay for her own life, her own rent and her own children – and not expect the tax payer to carry out her role for her – that did get support from the audience.
As a point of principle, I agree with the second member of the audience – and I find it difficult to understand the mindset of the first.
So there is also a group of people claiming welfare, not because they are “scroungers” or bad people, and not because they are unable or capable of finding work and earn enough money to look after themselves and their families. They choose, for the moment (until the kids start school perhaps?), that it is more “convenient”, whilst also being economically viable, for the time being, to get the state to pay.
“As a point of principle, I agree with the second member of the audience – and I find it difficult to understand the mindset of the first.”
Then you’re a fucking idiot with the imagination of a garden chair. Who WANTS to work for nothing?
link to en.wikipedia.org
Yep Corbyn’s 66 so in 20 years of Blue tory teamGB, he’ll be hitting 90. SO red and blue tory world does seem to be panicking over an 86 year old Labour PM in No.10 in two decades time.
Or maybe red and blue tory boys really have been paying attention to the SNP wipe out of the red tory boys in Scotland and wondering what a strong clever Sturgeon lefty leadership of Labour might actually achieve?
A couple of dozen toryboys for a majority is nothing if you’re on a mission to turn the UK into a far right shit hole where the rich get rich and keep having to buy stuff like German water cannon that can break spines and blind people protesting.
link to itv.com
Wonder what red and blue toryboy Alamo is, No.10, Buck Palace, Belize?
John McTernan has at least two significant objectives in what seems to be his last few weeks/months as Scottish Labour’s strategic genius:
1. Hammer home the message that Labour’s core voters are rubbish. Labour needs Tory-leaning swing voters. Make ridiculous claims that run counter to Labour principles to support this.
2. Maximise his pay off package.
Objective 2 is clearly maximised by success in objective 1. The worse you are the more they will be prepared to get rid of you.
He’s a clever spider.
Fear and loathing from biggest hypocrites around in red tory teamGB. Progressive liberal The Guardian, monsters progressive liberal Labour leader candidate with majority vote now, shock.
link to archive.is
Satire is dead.
Of course helping to perpetuate the ‘benefits scroungers’ p*sh, is the constant barrage of blatant neo liberalism propaganda ‘documentaries’ on channel 5 – a channel which coincidentally is now owned by one of the largest corporate entities in the USA – Viacom.
Cannot fathom what the red tories are playing at. Seems like they have lost the plot. It has to be asked though, why oh why do trade unions still support them?
Given their reaction to what we said about Jim Murphy becoming leader and the apparent belief that they lost because they weren’t right wing enough for voters, I’m pretty sure telling them Corbyn is their only chance will have the exact opposite effect on them.
“The Nats say Corbyn’s the best choice for leader – that means they think he’ll damage Labour’s chances!”
“The Nats are laughing at Jim Murphy being elected Scottish leader – that means they’re really scared of him!”
“The Nats say only independence can save Scottish Labour, and that a No vote would result in destruction for the party – they’re obviously lying!”
They’re thick. They’re just… thick. No other word for it.
Thick.
Hey heedtracker
Looks like the commentators on CIF are not happy with our Tony!
Wonder what’s happened, it’s inexplicable.
Re comment to Sensibledave—— well said Rev.
I’ve always thought any benefits bill is a spit in the ocean compared to the avoided tax by big business.
In fact there is a neighbour of mine a few years back – pure Tory voter. Always had a moan about benefits cheats or immigrants and what not but he always got a local guy to lay his slabs or do his shed roof who was on the brew. He paid him cash in hand and knew he was claiming benefits but it was ok as he was saving cash by this guy to lay his path on the cheap.
Then with in 5 mins of this guy headin off in his wee van the neighbour would start again goin on about folk on the brew and immigrants.
Sensible dave @ 4.23
The point I think you are missing is that we are all being led to believe the only solution is to cut social security,rather than raise wages.
Not forgetting that the quality of chid care affordable on low pay is a major factor,so it is also possible that if you consider well adjusted children to be a major contribution to society then that mothers choice makes sense.
When we have achieved a nation of high quality well paid child minders available for every child then we might just might be able to demand as a society that all mum’s join the workforce.
Thepnr says:
22 July, 2015 at 6:02 pm
Hey heedtracker
Looks like the commentators on CIF are not happy with our Tony!
Wonder what’s happened, it’s inexplicable.
Its a fascinating spectacle to watch is it not. BBC also detestation of Corbyn on display this evening. Just caught BBC teatime TV national news but thought it was ITV, it was so far right.
BBC r4 news call Corbyn “to the left of British politics” and wisest man alive Bliar says dont go left again, which they like very much in their trillion quid BBC offices of the centre.
The left of British politics is about to rise up and be a party, like we have in Scotland.
Repeating myself as per but this it Labour, get your shit together now.
Actually I am rather astonished that there are still enough people left in the Labour Party across the UK who consider Jeremy their best option – this bodes well. here in Scotland I would imagine that all his potential support has left and joined the SNP.
The Tories wish to dismantle the NHS, welfare state and state pension systems. “We will return public spending to levels last seen pre World War 2,” boasts Osborne, “Britain can no longer afford the welfare state,” he cries.
They have already announced a House of Lords enquiry into a pay-for NHS and today announced they are looking at abolishing National Insurance.
Labour seem uninterested in stopping them. Their unwillingness to oppose suggests that that they actually believe that the majority of voters in the UK want the NHS and welfare state dismantled. They think that quietly enabling Tory cuts will make the british public want to vote for them.
Well, I’ve got news for you, Labour: we want our NHS, state pensions and welfare state kept intact. Make a commitment to protecting them and people might vote for you.
I’m with sensibledave on these points of principle thing. The NHS was designed to patch people up so they could get back to work. If you had bad knees and went for a NHS op and it didn’t work, tough, you went back to your job as a gardener or you were on the broo. There weren’t the office jobs you can do from a wheelchair now in those days. Now with all the jobs in call centers I don’t see why people with bad knees should be classed sick. They should be called to an interview and moved onto JSA pdq.
I know, I know, all the empathy of a super sadist, that’s me 😀
“Ffs just send him a blank cheque“.
Impending instruction to Labour Treasurer regards John McTernan’s “exit” payment.
@ dwfuji says at 3:06 pm ”It’s these kind of stats that convince me Corbyn is in with a chance of bringing Labour back to what it should be. Ignore the media and let the people decide.
Dwfuji I don’t think that there’s anyone out there now that ‘can bring Labour back to what it should be”. The Party has attracted too many right wing individuals and those that advocate a more left wing ideology are totally confused resulting in an unstable Party that’s suffering more from a condition in line with multiple personality disorder rather than bi-polar.
The Labour Party is notorious for infighting and backstabbing and if Corbyn gets elected his many enemies will make his life an absolute misery and do their utmost to obstruct him at every turn. The Tories are well aware of this and will use it to full advantage.
I reckon that the Labour Party is finished and is now going through its death throes akin to the Liberals before them. The only hope they have now is for left leaning individuals to negotiate with the Unions, break away and form a totally new Keir Hardie type Labour Party.
O/T And just to give you a laugh if you haven’t seen it before. One of my favourite SNP MPs (when there was only six) in the Commons facing up to the now extinct smug Murphy (and Brown).
link to youtube.com
And this one. Pete Wishart trying to make a case for Independence against a bunch of ignorant morons including Laurel and Hardie.
link to youtube.com
Such hysteria over modest and necessary benefit cuts to the already bloated welfare state.
“The previous system was gauged just to prevent outright starvation and no more” (or something to that effect)
Okay, can we expect to see people dying of starvation then, in the next few weeks / months?
From what I can see, a good number of benefit claimants could do with going on a diet.
Then that will save the NHS money, freeing up that money to pay for other things – such as welfare payments to the genuinely needy.
Was going to make a serious point but just discovered ????????
Scunterbunnet
Even if there is that percentage, it’s a small one
In that I do agree, Scunterbunnet.
But the reason I said what I said, was because there was one case that angered people in my old street around 15 odd years ago. This wasn’t a case of guy who has gone through half of his life; never worked, because he didn’t have the qualifications or the will to look for work.
This was a person who once did work …but then decided not to, because they found out they could get by on a life made up entirely of benefits. I know definitely of one person who did this.
This to me, is more condemnable than someone who didn’t bother trying to find work. This is a case of ‘abusing the system’.
Now to me, that’s far worse than say, a guy who has gone through half of his life; never worked, because he didn’t have the qualifications or the will to look for work.
I would prefer if Jeremy Corbyn were not to become Labour leader.
Labour probably remain our biggest obstacle to independence. Clearly, there is still a large group of Scots who believe Labour will somehow look after their interests. We need to persuade some of them otherwise. Corbyn as leader will make that more difficult.
A hopeless Blairite will make the conversion of NOs easier.
No matter who wins the Labour leadership, they will not be PM for a long time, if ever. So someone who turns more Scots off, is ideal.
Just seen a few comments on SensibleDave’s point of view. I think I know what he is saying, and it ties in partly with my second post (in which I mentioned about a person in my old street quitting work because he openly admitted that he could get by on the same amount of money by just claiming on a variety of benefits (his main claim was that he had back seizures all the time that left him in agony. It fooled the authorities but at the same time, had admitted to his neighbours that his back was fine. He thought we were the idiots for not following his idea. This was why the neighbours (and my mum and dad) were angry with him.
The case that SensibleDave mentioned (the single mother with two kids), I believe we would need to have seen that mother’s story in greater context. Lots of questions arise from what Dave mentioned, and none are easily answered. Questions such as (now at this point …no jumping down my throat, Rev! I’m watching ye! LOL) …was she able to work? (…say once the kids finally hit school age. Could she go to work for a few hours a day?). Was she able to? (we have no idea of her overall situation with the children. Maybe one of the kids was continually ill. Maybe even she had an illness and therefore needed to be on benefits to support herself and her children) …or is there the possibility that like the case of like my old neighbour, she had absolutely no intention of ever seeking work (which is a possible answer).
Simply put …we have a social system that should be applauded because it is there for everyone, whether they are rich or poor. It is there for those who struggle to get by in life because circumstances have been unkind, or because possibly, an event has occurred that has forced them to look to the system. Most of us have paid into it, and would happily increase our payments if it meant a better life for all.
But not under this government. For this government and its nasty mouthpiece called the media …now it is thought-crime to even think of claiming benefits, irrespective of how desperate your circumstances are.
You can always tell when Labour is in danger of representing its membership – dinosaurs appear.
McTernan & Blair inside 24 hours probably means that its total panic.
Lovely 🙂
We need more Tony Blair on the telly
Get him to say more things like that he’s great,
Keep right on criticising the SNP Tony Boy we need politicians like you here in Scotland for to learn us how for to conduct wursels amungst oor betters (LOVE IT)
@ JLT in any version of a progressive society there will still be those who freeload – we cannot allow ourselves to be led astray by this tiny minority.
On the issue of those who opt out of society:
I’m of the opinion that as citizens we should be free to choose whether or not we want to be part of the ‘system’ and to assume a daily job.
If we choose not to be ’employed’, that is, to be under contract by an employer, there shoud be available if needed basic support but no more, whilst we are encouraged to contribute to society in some positive meaningful way.
Unless you have the skills to build your own log cabin in the Highlands and live off the land, our materialistic, capitalist society does not allow the individual freedom to opt out and survive without great hardship.
What ‘basic’ support should or ought to be is a matter for debate and agreement.
JSA £57.90 per week or £8.27 per day. What sane person would prefer that to a decent living wage paid job?
From this £8.27 this person if he has a roof over his head would have to pay his energy bills, for his clothing, TV licence if he has a TV. What about furniture or towels or simple things like a can opener for the beans when the meter has ran out?
Not to forget buying the beans in the first place.
All on £8.27 per day?
Oh and I forgot about the flat screen telly, the booze and the fags. Oh what’s a man supposed to do?
And yet again Labour “don’t get it”.
Mr Corbyn is the answer to Labours problems, but labour are too much like the tories, they will stab him in the back at the first chance.
If they truly believe in social justice and well being, there is only one candidate and that is Corbyn.
I am an SNP supporter so have no allegiance to the Labour party, but I feel Corbyn is one of the few in Labour who has any morals.
The Blue Tories coming out and saying they would vote for him, is just another form of project fear, as they know he is probably one of the last of the old school politicians in Westminster, and they are really shit scared he will win the leadership election.
I don’t give a toss about the labour party in reality, but I feel the size of the electorate in the rest of the UK, needs the labour party, the SNP can’t do it alone.
@Grouse Beater 07:28pm
What nonsense.
So if you choose not to work, you should be supported financially by the state?
Have you quantum leaped here from the Summer of Love & a hippy lifestyle?
What would be a meaningful contribution to society – making Batik T-shirts?
Where’s the personal responsibility?
If you choose not to work then you deserve to starve.
I’ll tell you what they do.
They rely on the charity of their family where possible, they borrow from their friends. What that doesn’t work they go to foodbanks or beg in the streets.
Sometimes they also sleep in the streets, some will steal others may turn to prostitution and other criminal activities, many will do “work on the side” for those that will pay them cash, no questions asked.
It is no quality of life yet it would seem there are many who believe that it is a “lifestyle choice”.
Living on the pittance doled out by the government is no choice at all. Giving people their dignity by ensuring full employment at decent wages is the only way to combat this shame on our country and government.
Full employment is possible, we had it before even “undeveloped” countries have this. In this country large number of unemployed and piss poor wages are a government choice.
They have their reasons and it is not for the benefit of the majority but for themselves and those they serve.
They are leeches that have been fattening themselves by sucking the blood of the ordinary man since well before the Union even began.
GAPs latest on the BBC:
link to newsnet.scot
I’m disgusted that people think the unemployed get too much.
I would like them to try living on £72 a week whilst jumping through all the hoops JobCentre Plus gets you to do under a constant threat of having your benefits stopped.
@JLT, 6:46
Hi again JLT, I don’t doubt there may have been the odd person who prefers not to work, and makes a deliberate choice to live on the dole. I don’t think there can be many of those now, given the stringencies of the current benefits regime. Saying that, you don’t really know the guy in question’s circumstances, unless you walk a mile in his shoes: loads of people have social anxiety disorder, and various other ailments that aren’t detectable on the surface, but wreck their confidence in seeking work.
______________
@sensibledave
Rev. Stu, the founder of our feast, gave you a full serving of reality there. But since I believe in (what’s the phrase again?), oh yeah “pooling and sharing”, here’s a second helping, free and gratis.
You insist that a single mother should lower her income by working for someone else’s profit, “on principle”.
What principle? I guess you mean the ‘right libertarian’ principle that the state shouldn’t tax working people’s income, to pay for others’ needs? Or the ‘principle’ that each person should put their own interests above those of others?
If so, have you looked down the track a bit? At some point, sooner than you hope, you’ll be alone in a nursing home – except for somebody on the minimum wage who will be wiping your arse, sponging your bedsores, and changing your catheter. Would you rather that person was somebody who’s primary caregiver was present when they were an infant (so they learned care and compassion), or somebody who’s mum was always stressed and rarely present, because society wouldn’t support her (so they learned neglect, anger and low self esteem)? You can’t persecute the vulnerable without consequences, everyone in society suffers from the existence of a desperate underclass, in the long run. Don’t have nightmares.
Seems appropriate to link to Ian Murray’s ‘explanation ‘ here.
link to ianmurraymp.co.uk
Sociopaths are masters of influence. Very little of what they say actually checks out as fact or reality. But they’re extremely skilful at making the things they say sound believable
They tend to do bizarre, sometimes erratic things that most regular people wouldn’t do they are unbounded by normal social contacts
Are incapable of feeling shame, guilt or remorse. Their brains simply lack the circuitry to process such emotions…
Seek to dominate others and win at all costs
Sociopaths are incapable of love and are entirely self serving
Sociopaths never apologise. They are never wrong. Even if someone shows them proof they are wrong they will refuse to apologise and instead go on the attack
Sociopaths are delusional and literally believe that what they say becomes truth
You cannot reason with a sociopath.
Sociopaths never answer facts. They just attack the messenger.
A sociopath is mainly identified by there being something wrong with their conscious.. 1, Having a conscious with holes in it. 2, They don’t seem to have one at all
Alienated sociopaths have an attention bottleneck that allows them to focus only on one activity or train of thought.
A sociopath suffers a lack of remorse or shame. Poor judgement and failure to learn by experience. Inadequately motivated with displays of anti social behaviour, pathological egocentricity and an incapacity for love. They have specific loss of insight and lack a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.
Oh FFS where are these legions of people who want to opt out of the society we strive to create?
Where’s the personal responsibility?
If you choose not to work then you deserve to starve.
IvMoz says:
22 July, 2015 at 7:39 pm
@Grouse Beater 07:28pm
What nonsense.
So whataboutery the City spivs that destroyed the world economy, took all the hundreds of bailout billions and kept up with their multi billion bonuses shyste?
The rich are different from us, socialism for the rich, austerity for the poor, its the rule Britannia way…
In a similar vain, I remember some right wing politician or other, say on Radio 4 a few years ago, that “the public wants to see a streamlined civil service” and, as a public servant myself, that I was completely unaware of such a desire. Maybe it was from the same source that shows the public want a reduced welfare bill.
Quite worryingly, Stephen Kinnock (yes he is) says he didn’t vote against the cuts because they are too worried what the Tories will think. He admits they can’t actually do anything until 2020 at the earliest and that whatever they do in opposition (not much) they will have one eye on 2020 (and not upsetting Tories whose vote they’ll want in 2020).
link to welshnotbritish.com
Here’s the direct link to his site and the ‘revelation’.
link to archive.is
Waldo.. Are you actually Tony Blair????
Who defines why we pay a particular tax and what its monies are used for?
Do we reflect the agenda and ideals of government and parliament or do we think that a government and parliament should reflect our ideals and that we should set the agenda for our society?
Goes back to the point of the thread, what do the public really want and why aren’t politicians actually listening?
I think you’ll find its because government and parliament set the agenda and decide our ideals, spend our taxes as they see fit to suit those agendas.
The spads job is to sell you the company line, to convince you that their party du jour knows best how to spend your taxes. That their idea of what turns society should take is the best one. Yet strangely when society baulks at their vision or when their governance has proven catastrophic, that is when they decide they need to listen to what the public are saying and this is how it has always been, near as I can tell. That’s worked out well so far then.
Perhaps just me, but representation should mean just what it says on the tin. Our parties and governments should represent and reflect our society’s wishes and aspirations. They should be driven by the need to follow our instruction having, y’know already listened and understood the clear instruction. This is what we want. We pay the bills and the wages. You work for us go do it or don’t let the door hit you on the arse on the way out.
Parliamentary sovereignty or popular sovereignty. Do you want government and parliament to determine your society and your future or would you rather a parliament and government worked toward the future and society you want?
Right now establishment parties, vested corporate interest and the media have done a bang up job of manipulating our perceptions for decades. Our system of government and society is pretty much what they’ve made of it. I think if we want a fairer society and successful small economy tailored to suit the needs of our electorate then there is no reason why cannot achieve it. We have all the tools to hand. All we require is the collective will to make it happen. The best way to make it happen?
Our public servants return to being just that public servants. They do as they are bid by the electorate from party through government. They don’t direct. They don’t manipulate. They listen and they represent.
I have a nice house, big telly, gadgets,hi tec smartphone, large malt whisky collection etc….but wait !
I get Employment support Allowance, so therefore i am obviously branded a “scrounger etc…
The problem is, i left school at 16 and immediately became an apprentice welder (the LAST year of REAL apprenticeships)
I became time served at 20 and worked a few more years welding before a career change after my wife got too stressed out after piper alpha.
Point being, from age 16 to age 47 i worked non stop. I have NEVER claimed social security in my life, i have all the nice things i mentioned at the start as a result of bloody hard work.
That came to a crashing halt after a very serious accident where i really should not have survived, yet i had to fight against the DWP for 5 months to get a penny of help.
I am now a scrounger in the eyes of the unionist parties in the uk, my past hard work ignored and forgotten it seems
How many people share my life experience, yet are judged by these bastards as worthless !!!
Anyone and everyone is entitled to help as and when help is required, that is why it is SOCIAL security, not a personal security investment fund.
Had a visit from a No voting client today who said she was delighted that Jeremy Corbyn may win Labour leadership.She is educated middle class Glasgow westender and thinks he is the real hope for Labour and Britain.
Conversation continued to Blair and mid-east when she opined that we can’t trust anything any Muslim country says and that the 2 Palestinian boys blown up on Gaza beach by Israeli navy last year were likely killed by their own side to blame Israel.
This in my unfortunately considerable experience of these types of people is typical of the champagne ‘leftie’Labour including Corbyn supporting types.They are BritNat bogus international socialists who like the feeling of voting liberal/socialist.It allows them to feel the moral high ground and is a badge of honour in their eyes.
Once prodded,their superficial socialism sheds and reveals the xenophobic,imperial unionist soul.
Whilst this is not Corbyn fault,it reveals the true soul of much of what is left of Labour.
The SNP find ways to protect Scotland and to protect the vulnerable. There is no doubt about how difficult that may be. They are doing it already, mitigating the Westminster cuts. There is plenty in Scotland to do. The SNP are caring for the vulnerable. Have mitigated the bedroom tax, offset the welfare cuts £100million a year = £300million and £300million nursery places.
They will find away to tax the wealthiest. Put in a 2 new council tax band for high value houses £700,00 to £1Million +. They have stopped people drinking so much – lower % breath tests They are reducing unemployment as much as they can. Large projects are going on that will bring growth to the Scottish economy and better transport links. The SNP Gov might have to allocate a payment 0-3 year olds. The most important years. A payment to offset child poverty
10%+ of pupils have additional needs. Teachers receive no training on additional needs (unless they specialise). Teacher should receive 10% of training on additional needs. It would help the teachers and the pupils.
Doctors do not receive training on drug/alcohol addiction (unless that specialise) 10% + of patients will have drug/alcohol problems. 10% of Doctors training should be on drug/alcohol/addiction problems.
The SNP are protecting Scotland from Tory/Unionist policies. There is news of the possibility of building vessels on the Clyde. Getting rid of Trident would be a great achievement. The Tories have ruined the Oil sector in Scotland. Totally mismanaged it. The SNP will have to deal with that and try and sort it out.
geeo point nail head and hammer xx
Between March and June of this year I was signing on at my local jobcentre. The first time I had been out of work for 15 years. It was a bit of an eye opener. I discovered that no longer do you go to the jobcentre to look for job vacancies, your there to be processed. Long gone are the white cards and the vacancy terminals. You are simply told to “go online” to find a job. They are not jobcentre’s. I call them “unemployed management centres” It was soul destroying and I was relieved when I got another job.
While I signed on I claimed contributions based Jobseeker’s Allowance. However I was warned by jobcentre staff that I would face benefit sanctions if I did not adhere to my “Jobseeker’s agreement”. These “threats” angered me and still do. Firstly, I was signing on due to redundancy, and secondly I had paid 15 years of N.I. Contributions. I have paid into the system, and so I was getting just a little of those contributions back. What is national insurance for FFS ?
To those Daily Mail readers who enjoy slagging off the welfare state and the unemployed I say this. Hard times come to us all, and it is reassuring to know that there is a welfare state to help us if we are unfortunate enough to be between jobs.
It’s interesting all this talk about entitlement.
Perhaps the greatest con in our history is the one about the scarcity of money.
We have a government which has the the sovereign right to create money (and they have done), yet refuse to exercise that right. In fact the issue of govt money by seniorage constitutes only 3% of our money supply (notes and coins) It was the process of seniorage which financed the Set up of the NHS.
The power over the creation of 97% of our money has been assigned to private institutions called banks. All of that money issued as debt such that we pay £192,000,000 per day in interest into the city of London.
as we are finding out, the debt based money system is a failure and favours only the people who have been handed the privilege to create it.
We could furnish everyone with a basic salary without cost. We created £375BN to buy up old debt with the benefits going to those who owned the most stocks. A free gift to the wealthy.
All money is fiat (based on belief), it is no longer based on precious metals yet we are encouraged to believe that. Indeed it was a scarcity of money which caused the American colonists to create their own debt free money and circulate it round, increasing trade and allowing people to eat. Abraham Lincoln created debt free fiat money to fight the American civil war – the banks would lend – but only at a high price. That’s where the ‘greenback’ came from.
We have a sysiphus style economy. We want more money in the economy, we have to have more debt. We want less debt, we reduce the money in the economy (money is destroyed when debt is repaid). The money supply, indeed the survival of the economy depends on us as individuals continuing to borrow.
Our beliefs and ideology about money is our undoing.
@geeo
Totally agree the MSM brainwashing though seems to have done its job with Joe Blogs and Mrs Blogs.
(the LAST year of REAL apprenticeships)
1975 by any chance which was the year the Thatcher government brought in the “Youth Oppertunity Scheme” YOPS?
Basic stigma-free citizen’s income for all. Decent jobs paying decent wages. Jail the bankers and other assorted bastards. Sorted.
Thepnr 9:04pm
Thatcher was elected as Tory leader in 1975 but was only allowed to ruin the country from 1979 as PM.
Yoppers started under the Callaghan government.
I think I caught McTiernan on Radio 4 tonight on Freedom of the Press. Is he really a prat or did I lose something in the translation?
Since we’re talking about welfare and where people think cuts should lie, I’d like to put in a small but heartfelt pitch for unpaid carers.
I feel like a one track record always punting this, but it is so woefully under-represented in the media, unless it’s, ahem, Carer’s Week, or in other parlance, when we are told what unsung heroes we are.
Carer’s Allowance has been on the go since 1976 when it was introduced by Labour at £7.90 per week, and married women were not eligible to claim for it until 10 years later.
Almost 40 years later, it is the lowest income replacement benefit in the UK at £62.10 per week, for caring for a minimum of 35 hours a week. There are a whole wheen of conditions attached, like not being able to be a full time student and care, nor if you’re a pensioner, nor claim more than one allowance regardless of the number of people you care for.
If you care and hold down paid employment and earn more than £110 pw the allowance is taken off you again, but you’ll still be doing two jobs of work.
If you are a young carer you cannot claim, an amendment to the Scotland Bill recently tried to address it, but was blocked by the Tories.
I am extremely lucky in that my husband has always held down paid work while I’ve been the full time carer since his birth for our son Jonathan, aka The Bold Joff, who will be 21 shortly.
In that timeframe my total earnings have just nudged over £50,000. The working hours I’ve put in are the equivalent of almost 4 full time jobs, as I care for a minimum of 133 hours a week.
For less than £2/hour/35hr/week.
If I walked out on the Bold Joff tonight and managed to pick up low skill work,(cos who the hell would employ me after 20 years away from the workplace?) I would earn three times more, have rights to time off, sick pay, be covered by the European Work Time Directive, have health and safety training and access to an occupational pension. At the minute, I have none of those.
When Joff and his big sister went into nursery/primary education, I did consider returning to work, but it was/is too damn exhausting to look after a young family, one of whom has multiple and profound learning, physical and sensory disabilities and complex health care needs, juggle the many hospital and therapy appointments and micromanage 2 sets of childcare at a rate far above what I could earn.
I consider this deliberate decision to remain a full time carer, as lonely and soul-destroying for the ego as it can be at times, as hard as it’s been on my husband to be the sole wage earner, as hard as it’s been to lose out on perhaps £200,000 in lost earnings as a science graduate, has been a huge part of why we are still together as a happy family unit.
And apart from having the short time ambition of earning £2/hour, I feel bloody guilty because I get the allowance and so many others don’t.
Thepnr
You asked about Corbyn’s disgruntled comments during a committee inquiry – I’ve tried to find but can’t locate the episode on YouTube, it was there!
I recall during Corbyn’s turn to question Sir Nicholas MacPherson about his ‘exceptional’ release of internal memos to undermine the independence referendum Corbyn kept getting derailed by the chair. He rebelled stating anymore interruptions the way the chair had interrupted the SNP and he would withdraw as it was anti-democratic.
I mentioned the incident in one of my essays because I was so impressed with a Labour politician taking a principled stand against bullying.
Seeing Corbyn lose his temper with a facile interviewer recently on television – “tabloid level questions” – I can see he’s a man who has long ago lost all patience with the way the MSM does propaganda work for the capitalist system.
Quietly points out that a citizens income has been a Green Party policy for some time.
Enjoy reading the comments on this site and sharing the anger and frustration of being ruled by the corrupt elite from the crumbling empire called Westminster, what will go first them or their buildings.In my opinion the key is returning the land to the people everything else is a distraction. The Diggers and the Levellers had it right.
Effie.. Hi again. I hope you and the family are well. The thing is you would never walk away. You have compassion and a nurturing nature..You also have a high sense of injustice and a perfectly aligned moral compass. I think most have on here which is what brings us together on forums such as this. We feel compelled to do the right thing by those we love. We’re passionate about it. It’s left wing ideology. The powers that be are doing everything in their power to remove this from us. Cleanse us. Cull us. But we shall prevail. My clan fought to the right of clan Stewart at culloden. I’d gladly stand to the right again.
@ Thepnr
link to archive.is
This is a Guardian article about Paul Flynn (Lab, Newport West; he also “rebelled” this week) walking out of a committee after being annoyed by MacPherson.
The YouTube is here: link to youtube.com
(I hope the link works; I just copied it from my google search and did not open it to check. It was uploaded by Peter Curran.)
Ivmoz: If you choose not to work then you deserve to starve.
Am always interested to see how designs for a genuine humane society with real freedoms is shot down.
We have the right to withdraw our labour and receive state support during that time, therefore should we have the right to opt out of the capitalist system but should not be allowed ‘to starve’.
If you reread my post you’ll see I did suggest the individual chose not to work. Building your own home, or growing your own food, or collecting abandoned tin cans for recycling, is not my idea of a lazy existence.
I said, individuals that choose not to be employed and instead to opt out of the capitalist system. We already offer support to some degree in a free health service. But I also stated society must encourage people to make a consistent contribution to it. Not owning a car is helpful.
Again, I did not say such people should live the luxurious life of the wealthy who stopped working years ago as soon as their wealth allowed them to be chauffeured everywhere, live abroad, and meet lawyer and accounts three times a year to check wealth acquisition.
They already get support – massive tax advantages, after all.
So will we soon see an elected Kezia say “I like our beloved leader proudly say no to Nukes and those daft neo-cap policies Old Saint Jim loved me spouting…now any macaroni pies going?”
@IvMoz
Yes apologies, shows what can happen when you don’t bother to look up the facts but instead rely on memory which at the best of times may not be reliable.
Dead and gone beyond justice! 🙁
link to archive.is
Heedtracker: What nonsense.
Ask questions.
Every freelancer has, essentially, opted out of the employer 9 to 5, two weeks a year holiday system. Musician, writer, painter, composer, entertainers, would be unhappy to be described as work shy. Traditionally, the arts are the first to get the chop when the economy tanks.
The conventional attitude is, who needs the arts when money is short? If we can’t sustain a society in which such people are given basic support – where everything is privatised – then it isn’t a society worth living in. And of course, illness causes some to opt out.
A few don’t want to live in a city, pay parking charges, our lose hours of their life travelling in crowded subway trains. They want to be self-sufficient.
A caring society can cater for all sorts, but by caring that usually means few want to opt out.
Currently, we are fighting a battle where the powerful want us all to work for low pay and long hours, to own nothing and rent all we need or want, and we might never attain or pensions because pensionable age keeps getting raised.
@Thepnr
Cool
Wasn’t sure of your age.
Regrettably I’ve lived through Thatcher & Blair.
Well said Geeo. Spot on.
There are all sorts of circumstances where an individual may find themselves in need of support.
None of us know what’s going to happen tomorrow, that’s why it’s in all our interests to create a society that looks after all it’s citizens.
Unless you’re Waldo, of course, who seems pretty sure that neither he or any of his will ever need state support.
All the best to you Geeo.
@crazycat
Wasn’t what I was looking for but brilliant all the same. Who would have thought that in May 2014 an English Labour MP would have been trying to nail the civil service for the deceit during the referendum campaign?
Independence is our goal, but I want more than that, I also want better governance and decent governance in all nations.
Paul Flynn seems to meet the bill, more power to his ilk. Well worth watching to the end.
link to youtube.com
I see this article has just appeared on the Guardian:
link to theguardian.com
There is a concerted, sustained, and costly to the public purse, attack on the welfare state taking place.
The excuse is, we cannot afford it.
A welfare state protects freedoms.
Reduce it, make it highly selective, or remove it entirely, and freedoms are removed.
@ Grouse Beater
I Still don’t get you.
“We have the right to withdraw our labour and receive state support during that time”
I believe in a collective supportive society.
Can’t work – we’ll support you.
Can’t get work – we’ll support you .
You however seem to be advocating a line of “Don’t want to work & we’ll support you.”
Why should people receive state support for deciding not to work?
Live any type of life you want, I do but I gladly pay my way for the greater good.
You however seem to think people should be allowed to choose not to work but be supported for doing feck all.
Why should people receive state support for deciding not to work?
Second try: I did not say such individuals do not want to work. To survive they will have to labour at something.
Unintentionally, you hit upon the issue of how free is the individual. In your society he is chained to the system or he is an outcast. No?
Finding that humane balance between incentives to contribute to the system, and being free not to if you dislike it, is the trick. Remove welfare and you have no escape route if the system is authoritarian or dictatorial.
Freedom and the individual in a system owned by the elite is the core question.
A McTernan angle to the Referendum,
link to tapnewswire.com
Hi Joe,
You make an interesting point about WoS possibly helping Labour.
But just to give you some reassurance…
I can give an example of two friends whom I recommended might like to read WoS. One was a Devo-Max-Waverer, the other a NO voter on 18th September 2014.
Because of much studious research and good, informative articles by Stuart Campbell (and many WoS contributions) both my friends became YES voters for GE2015 in May, and intend to vote YES for IndyRef2.
I would say that good honest debate, founded upon well researched articles here, help folk who class themselves as ordinary voters, rather than political party members, to reconsider whether to move their vote from “undecided” or “NO” neatly across and into the YES ballot box.
In other words, GOOD JOB WoS.
Joemcg says: 22 July, 2015 at 4:14 pm
Stu., iam getting a wee bit worried that all this info is helping our enemy no.1! After all Labour are probably our biggest stumbling block to winning. The beast may be severely wounded and prostrate but it’s not dead yet.
Agree with other people on here. I would not wish fortnightly soul destroying visits to the job centre on my worst enemy. Honestly it’s horrific. Filling in this pathetic booklet and the staff disbelieving you for 72 quid a week. Was stuck on JSA for 7 months and I have taken the crappiest job imaginable to avoid it. Sure it’s Tory tactics to put you off claiming yet I worked non stop for 27 years. Fucking joke.
I get the feeling folk are looking for answers to a load of newly formed questions.
link to books.google.co.uk
Yep Al, I told many sitting on the fencers to check this site out. Complete strangers too. I agree it definitely opens people’s eyes. Stu is right. Thinking about it, I doubt the Slabstainers would take heed anyway!
I would not wish fortnightly soul destroying visits to the job centre on my worst enemy
Seconded.
link to grousebeater.wordpress.com
Great report Rev.
It thankfully proves that the majority still have some semblance
of what fair and reasonable means in our society.
Why oh why are some many people gullible to the propaganda spewing out of UK media.
How can the majority think it unacceptable for the majority to take their rightful share of the nations wealth?
What kind of education have these people had if they think we only exist to fill the pockets of the filthy rich?
I’d like to see our schools teach kids just how untrustworthy our politicians, bankers, and large Corporations have been in the past, and how they must monitor their actions and take responsibility to ensure these corrupt institutions can no longer abuse their positions.
WoS would be good introduction to the tricks and machinations of these cancers that destroy our society and democracy itself.
New bbc political editor is daughter of wendy alexander donor. Good Labour connections do you no harm in the bbc
GallusEffie
Life can be harsh when the misfortune of illhealth strikes and that is when compassionate people/societies show their true colours.
I have great admiration for family carers and also the domestic/cordia carers who do not get the same level of pay and conditions as NHS employees.
Re the influence/brainwashing effect of MSM on the public’s opinions and outlook, I’m no longer sure that the media are entirely to blame.
I know too many intelligent well educated middle class people who harbour imperial xenophobic Brit nat views for them all to be brainwashed by the media.
I’m beginning to move towards thinking that there is a large enough body of British people who are hardwired to an imperial superiority complex,that the media are just part of.
After all,one doesn’t create the biggest empire the history of the planet has known from a relatively small pool of people without having the individuals to prosecute the enterprise.
The way the British people including Scots reelected Tony Blair (may have been an increased majority)after Iraq said as much about the people of the UK as it did about Tony Blair.
At least the Spanish got rid of Aznar ,not that I like what they are doing to Catalunya.
Moidart,
that was a smashing wee soapbox, in which I came off very well indeed!
Did you see my post the other day about the song Undefeated? You, amongst many here, are living examples of what it stands for.
link to youtube.com
Sorry if this all sounds a bit ‘Star-Trekkish’, but here’s rare footage, from the future, of ‘The Bubble’ taking care of a red-white-blue attired Tony Blair when he was still a funky youth, thus sparing the lives of hundreds of thousands of the as-yet unborn.
If only…
link to youtube.com
Apologies for my last post,I should have written 2 separate posts in acknowledgement of Galluseffie’s post.
OT
I see that the Church of England have appointed a new woman Bishop of Leicester.
I have no problem with that, but along with her appointment comes the right to a seat in the House of Lords with 26 other bishops who have the right to legislate throughout the UK.
What a crazy system, that unelected followers of a religious sect have power over you and me!
I also note that the dead paedophiles may now be outed,according to late news ( held back until the Westminster Parliament broke up for the summer recess.)
There seem to have been dozens.
We must get out of this corrupt and medieval system.
O/T
I heard today that Ian Gibson, till recently Labour MP for Norwich has joined the SNP. Anybody know if this is the case
@Ken500
There are none so blind as they who don’t wish to see.
Effie.. Again you humble me. Thank you. Yeah I did big you up a bit. Lol. Hope you’re well. The bold Joff and everyone else too. Thanks for the link. Brilliant. Will watch more on Friday after my sleepover. We’re not just fighting for us are we?? I just want my son to be part of a caring humane compassionate society with decent morals and no corruption or war or pollution. Shouldn’t we all???
As technology advances then less and less “meaningful” work will be available.
My neighbour of 90 can tell me of a time when 30-40 men would be engaged in harvesting a 50acre field when he was a young man. The 700 acres next to me is handled by one man now with sophisticated machinery.
I visited a gas turbine blade production plant recently – building after building with robotic manufacturing and not a human in sight.
At some point (a tipping point) will be reached and it will have to be accepted that it will be a society were the majority don’t work and those who do work will have very low hours. Will they be paupers? Will they be seen as wasters and a drain?
OR will we embrace it as freeing up people to enjoy life? To contribute in a different way
Look back a 100 years at the back breaking toil of people who died young working 6 days a week for very low wages.
How many great composers/ artists / Scientists / etc were lost due to a fixed class system were those born poor went to the Mill, the Land ,the Mine , the Shipyard , etc
I think we have to start thinking differently. Is the banker really worth more than the nurse. What does a footballer contribute to society? Is an unemployed musician a waster? Is the Duke of Edinburgh a waster.and if not why is he different from the musician. Is the junkie drawing dole any different from j.k.Rowling in her early years?
I read the comments of IvMoz and Grouse Beater and both arguments made me think. Although IvMoz may be right now (…and I’m not sure on that) he will be very, very wrong in another 100 years……so when do we start to change attitude?
Dakk… Well said my friend.
The Dude Abides!
@Ian Brotherhood
We are all prisoners now! Freedom hahahaha ya fud.
It just dawned on me why yes lost. Most folk that voted no could not extract themselves from the thing they were voting for.
If I heard “I have a wife kids and mortgage” once from no voters I heard it a thousand times. Thats why I maintain the no vote was a narrow,misguided selfish thing to do. Most could not extract their personal circumstances from the bigger picture, which was a vote to become a nation richer or poorer.
We live in a country where a work colleague thinks his circumstances are unique and more important than mine.
I find it really insulting and sad for them as they have no ambition for their nation.
call me dave says:
22 July, 2015 at 10:12 pm
“Dead and gone beyond justice! :-(”
link to archive.is
And dead men tell no tales. How convenient.
big Jock.. I agree. I had a family member in pre referendum. He’s recently started his own business and I wish him well. But he told me a yes vote would cost him a substantial sum. Enough for me to retire on. He borrowed 35 quid from me earlier. Not trying to belittle him. But his vote was based on financial gain. What price freedom and a future??
Labour MPs are saying that they will not allow Jeremy Corbyn to become leader of their Party.
As far as I know, they don’t have the authority to say that. It is now, one member, one vote.
So if the wider Labour Party membership vote for Jeremy Corbyn, then Jeremy Corbyn will be their new leader.
Have I got that right?
Big Jock @ 11.31.
My youngest son has a good job, a wife who works part-time in a good job and 2 children under 6 and they both voted Yes.
I am, fortunately, one of the well-off pensioners, although all of my income comes from the government, and I also voted Yes.
I also must say I have been pro Indy since Winnie Ewing won Hamilton in 1967.
Oh my, this place is a bit addictive…so many interesting and informative posts as well as being sharp and funny.
Thankyou Moidart and Dakk for your generosity. It means a lot to me that I’m seen as a contributor, despite not being paid enough to pay tax…as much as money/currency is a construct, knowing you get paid 3 grand a year does dent your confidence and sense of place and worth in society.
I’m grateful for being shown today how to post Youtube links. Success! Thanks to Nana Smith and CameronB for the wee tutorial.
Like Columbo, one last thing.
These poverty porn programmes that I just don’t go near – one on last night on BBC1 called Cashing In – about cash converters – was alerted to a woman and her disabled son because her son lives with Lowe, who are regular customers and were featured on the programme.
Knock me sideways, it’s only a family I know through a mad story*, never met them but talked to mum a few times on the phone. She has a 27 yo son with Lowe and lost her brother to Lowe a few years back in his early 20s. I’m stunned at the coincidence.
There’s a lovely wee family living almost hand to mouth, if Mr Effie lost his job, it wouldn’t take too long for us to be the same…
*won’t go into the story here, unless you are particularly interested… 😀
“You are awful but I like you” its the poll what done it!
link to archive.is
PS:
Got my new debit card Halifax replacement today and saw the ))) on it which allows you to swipe and go. Never requested ))) so got on the phone to get it changed to a standard pin type.
What a palaver! Anyhoo new one being sent.
link to conversation.which.co.uk
@ GallusEffie – yes please xx
Jock/moidart ditto heard the same loads of times, “what’s in it for me” attitude. I’m afraid many of our fellow men and women are inherently selfish and greedy and it’s a gigantic obstacle to overcome.
As I mentioned money in previous post:
All the UK countries are to be represented on our new notes it has been agreed by the various administrations.
Winston to be on the £5 note:
Other ‘dead’ nominations for future notes are:
link to bankofengland.co.uk
My old uncle George from Lumphinnans (fought from Tobruk to Italy), mentioned him last week, birling in Kirk O Beath cemetery no doubt.
Galluseffie
What is Lowe.googled it but nothing came up about illness
Joemcg
I’ve long thought that life would have to get considerably worse for most people before they would vote for independence/change.
A Tory acquaintance of mine jibed me about how they have done all the research and established that greed is the defining emotion that they have to appeal to in policy/campaign.
Don’t know if he’s right,but doesn’t look very wrong right now.
O/T, but perhaps our journo-detective Superintendent Stuart Campbell can investigate and produce one of his very readable, informative and incisive articles on whether there is a case here….
BBC QUOTE:
“At the end of May, the Oxford Union held a debate on the motion “This house believes Britain owes reparations to her former colonies”. Speakers included former Conservative MP Sir Richard Ottaway, Indian politician and writer Shashi Tharoor and British historian John Mackenzie.”
Source: link to bbc.co.uk
So would there not be a case for Westminster returning all of the plunder it has extracted/extorted from Scottish oilfields, whisky excise, VAT, Poll Tax, Crown Estates (Scotland has the majority of coastline) etc., etc., etc.
In other words…
If the Oxford Union held a debate on the motion “This house believes Britain owes reparations to her former colony of Scotland would this also be AGREED?”
Well, looks like alot of folk have no or little compassion or tolerance for those who havecno job. Being out of work is seen as the great crime of the 2000’s, and it’s all the fault of the people at the mercy of the rich boys and girls who just love to tout that fallacy as a divide and rule tactic.
We all know who the parasites are, and it is no one in this land, who is unfortunate enough to have to live on £72 a week, in total. The benefit cap is also a tactic, to pit worker against the jobless, it’s nothing short of immoral. 20k for a family, if you have adult children you are still scuppered if they are out if work. Add to that the problem of our young people unable to leave due to no help with paying rent when on a low wage, or no wage.
I really feel for the poorer young folk, their opportunities are being shrunk at every turn, instead of being given the chance to develop and build positive lives. The young are the future, society should be inclusive, not the exclusive club it is rapidly morphing into.
Who knows where things will be at in 5, 10 years time. Labour disgust me.
What does it say about a society when a Government and a set of bankers who robbed a Nation of it’s assets and finances
convinces that society that it’s their fault and that somehow we should turn on our fellow man and punish him for having less
What kind of fools are we allowing ourselves to become when we fall for the biggest modern day lie perpetrated on us by con men and thieves who hold allegiance to no country or people
Who’s sole goal is the acquisition of more for the sake of it
If there’s one thing Scotland of all nations should have learned by now is the powerful lie, and the more powerful lie more
There are folk in every society who will abuse any system you come up with, that percentage is, and always has been low
Most folk given the chance participate or can be shown how to join in
Alienation from society when one becomes poorer is common
That alienation in a civilised society should never be allowed to be used by Governments as an excuse to blind people to the wrongdoings of itself who hold the power of change for better
In other words don’t let the bastirts away with talking lying shite at us
@Dr Jim
I don’t need a second opinion on your post. You make some great points. I think more and more people are slowly waking up, thanks to sites like Wings highlighting on a daily basis how corrupt and useless the MSM is, but there are still so many that are sleeping.
How do you engage with them? How do you make them sit up and take notice and actually give a s##t about what is going on around them? How can so many people be so indifferent to what is going on in the world, only rising from their stupor long enough to condemn someone on benefits for whom they know next to nothing regarding their personal circumstances or worse have no desire to learn.
Take Aldo, please someone take him, who thinks that some benefit claimants could do with going on a diet. How dare anyone on benefits be fat! Clearly if they don’t look like a poor soul from Auschwitz or Jackie Bird then they must be at it! How dare they eat more than they need. Those scum!
call me Dave @12:35
the BoE link has misspelled Charles Renie Mackintosh name, could it be a ploy to keep the votes down, is it a conspiracy or just plain ignorance at the BoE
All people want to work. Where there are jobs there is full employment. In areas without jobs people are out of work. People are out of work because of demoraphics Not because people do not want work. People do not work because of sickness or drink/drug addiction etc. That can be helped with proper care. The areas in Britain with higher unemployment are the places with no jobs often because of Westminster fiscal policies. People want to work and sometimes need training etc to get a job. The unemployment payment should cover the first week in a job. More people would be able to make the transition into a job. Westminster are sanctioning vulnerable people and starving them to death. It is appalling.
Financial ‘journalists’ on 6 figure salaries will not pay £20 a week to stop people starving. It is appalling. They are a disgrace.
Blair is trying to stay out of prison. Where is the Chilcot Report? Blair does not believe in Democracy, civil rights or human rights. Blair ruined the world economy. Blair should be in jail forever. Another one who secretly and illegally took Scotand’s resources and squandered and wasted them.
#call me dave (@12:35)
If all the countries are to be represented on the new bank notes, the UK government should also take the opportunity to change the name to the Bank of the United Kingdom.
The public also want the railways renationalised, when asked.
Chomsky made this point in his 2014 talk on why you can’t have a capitalist democracy.
Polling consistently shows that people want a fair, egalitarian society with good public services. But if the Government is captured by international corporations and financiers, you can poll away till the cows come home. Only policies which suit the rich elite will be enacted.
youtu.be/8mxp_wgFWQo
The £20,000 benefit cap is another lie. The norm for people who need help receive much less than that. It is another Tory Con. Ie in areas of lack of affordable housing, payment will go to a landlord. Help has to be given to those in work but in low pay. Places where the higher housing benefit is paid are places of low unemployment e,g London S/E. (4%)
The amount that is in contention is £6Billion out of UK Gov spending of £466Billion + £90Billion (approx) borrowed = £556. £6Billion to stop people starrving. The social costs which will increase from homelessness, NHS and social care. The Tories are increasing the debt. Total fiscal incompetence.
Scotland raises more than it spends. It’s budget is decided by Westminster, Westminster complete fiscal incompetence.
#mr this #call me dave
Or perhaps the ‘Cental Bank of Sterling’ / ‘Sterling Central Bank’.
I am watching Odyssey on tv and I wish I hadn’t,
Its about a US special forces team who on attempting to grab the wife of a high ranking terrorist in the middle east hit paydirt and in spite of not expecting to find him there the leader of the terrorist organisation is actually at the house when the team enter, and of course kill him, RESULT, the team are cock-a-hoop and are dreaming of the publicity and the riches to follow on the American tv chat show circuit,
But on reporting their stunning success to their superiors in the pentagon and that they have killed the top man himself and captured the terrorists laptop with a whole breakdown of everything they organisation have been doing will do and how they are being financed, the works, the information is of course encrypted so the ramifications are not immediately apparent to the team, but the sinister reaction from their commanders in Washington sets the main protagonist (a sergent in the team) Anna Friel’s suspicion going, so in spite of being ordered to leave the evidence so another team (from a private company)can come in and take possession of the laptop and its secrets, she proceeds to take the information and download it to a dongle only seconds before the shadowy team dressed in paramilitary apparel and armed with more sophisticated weaponry that the seal team have,
On looking at the laptop the computer specialist from the team clearly recognises that the information in it has just been copied and looks suspiciously around the seal team who of them only Anna Freil senses danger and attempts to appear oblivious of the operative suspicious stare,
The are ordered to exit Libya? and go to a place in the desert in Mali and await extraction, but during the period the sergents suspicion that the team are being set up deepens and she grows more alarmed, so as they await their heroes welcome in Washington the team settle down for the night in the darkness of the desert, the sergent goes to relieve herself in a wadi at that point a drone pilot in Idaho has been tasked to “take out” a group of “Answar Dine” terrorists in… yes you’ve guessed it the Malian desert fires the drones weapons and just as the sergent has pulled up her pants (in the American sense of the word) the weapon explodes right in the middle of the group killing and wounding the group, she being slightly wounded herself by shrapnel recovering her senses scrambles to go to her wouded comrades aid, at which point a (silent) helicopter lands and the sergent sees the leader of the group who took the laptop shoot and kill the wounded,
she cowers back into the wadi knowing they are there to ensure the information taken from that laptop never makes it back to the “world”
she escapes but only to be captured by the Answar Dine and they themselves become target of this shadowy group who they believe to be US special forces coming for them but their only interest in in the now known to have survived sergent.
Switch to Washington, and a group of left wing activists come under scrutiny of the cia and assorted people from the IRS,Home Security, and just about everyone else with an agenda and a gun,
A wannabe activist who has a penchant for hacking though, makes a discovery that not only proves the sergent (who the pentagon released information to the public that the brave group were all killed) but it also shows the real killers were not as said by the pentagon but a private army of an American conglomerate who have (surprise surprise) many interests in the middle east such as defence contracts oil contracts and so on.
The wannabe is a person it is easy to dismiss as a paranoid conspiracy nut, so the immediate inclination is to dismiss his crazy theories, but people who (not immediately connected to him) start being killed brings into the plot a man who as a legal eagle in a major company who in a previous existence was in the US justice department starts to put the pieces together leading him into conflict with just about every one, his friends, his wife his company and finds himself and people
associated with him being marginalized or in his friends case jailed on trumped up charges.
I said I wish I hadn’t started watching this,
and I’m serious I can see parallels emerging (I suspect they have ALWAYS been there) in this country to the sinister events in that story where companies are in charge of the news the public are told to believe, and because in spite of the niggling suspicion that they/we are being lied to it is easier to just go along with the lie than to rock the boat.
I don’t believe for a minute that Scotland is the main focus for the “establishment” we are no more than a minor irritant that requires scratching like a flea on a dogs back, we only serve to keep a couple of whitehall lackeys occupied while the main focus is on far bigger concern,
I am starting to identify with the blinking twitching hacker in the story,
I have no doubt there are people in the security services who will look at sites like this and laugh at the poor deluded fools who think they have the answers when in fact we are only digging little holes when the the real truth requires deep mining.
“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”
Adolf Hitler
ps
Just because your paranoid doesn’t mean the bastards are not out to get you!
People living on unemployment allowances will be the poorest in society.The average unemployment payment will be under £6,000 ie £5,000 even with housing benefit it will be under £7,000. Along with OAP, students (relevant transitional) the unemployed will be taking hit for everyone else living on substantional more, The average wage is £21,000 in Scotland and £25,000 in the UK. Scotland pays the price of it’s taxes (raised) being diverted by and wasted by Westminster. The unemployed are used to boost the incomes of everyone in work. A postcode lottery depending where you live and the mismanagement of resources by Westminster. For Unionists to keep on using worldwide poverty and deprivation to make themselves wealthier. The unequal distribution of wealth and the poverty and deprivation of children. The Westminster (Unionist) constitution thrives on it.
BBC Scotland asking what memories you have of the Commonwealth Games last year in Glasgow.
No mention yet of the way BBC England came up and took over the whole show or spectators with YES flags getting thrown out of Stadiums.
The Red Arrows were barred from making the image of the Saltire, dickheed John Bannerman and Tunnocks taking over the opening ceremony.
The whole Games set-up had Vote NO wrote all over it.
So, I personally have a lot of bad memories of the Commonwealth Games.
I really need a proof reader, dammit
should have read
“A wannabe activist who has a penchant for hacking though, makes a discovery that not only proves the sergent is still alive”
G/Effie
You are making an excellent contribution here, glad you arrived.
Caz_m,Apparently it is not one member one vote, only for candidates. I asked this question on AAV the other day,so the explanation can be found there. Labour do not do democracy.
O/T links
link to economist.com
link to snp.org
link to marksimonfrankland.blogspot.pt
link to fergusewing.com
and a few more O/T links
link to voxpoliticalonline.com
link to politics.co.uk
link to metro.co.uk
Came across two interesting websites that I enjoyed reading.
The first is “IndependentScotland.org” which gives ten reasons why you would vote NO. It highlights some of the work we need to do to turn round No Voters.
link to independentscotland.org
Then there is the Yes Alliance group. They have continued on from their YES campaigns from the referendum.
link to facebook.com
Fraudcast News: How Bad Journalism Supports Our Bogus Democracies, ex-Reuters Patrick Chalmers
link to youtube.com
Yesterday on Sky tv news they gave a fair bit of time to the Elite pedo stuff in London.
However, I could not find it reported on BBC, main bulletins anyway. Maybe I am wrong, maybe it was mentioned somewhere at 5am or so.
Whatever, unlike Sky, no prominence given, go figure.
@ Cam-m
GMS on legacy of CGames
Gary Robertson ” …..so for those who live here and pay their Tax to Scottish Gvt …………”
Anyone hear a correction ?
Rev. Stuart Campbell 5:56 pm
“Then you’re a fucking idiot with the imagination of a garden chair. Who WANTS to work for nothing?”
… and good morning to you too Rev.
Based upon your somewhat surprising and “robust” response, I think we may have hit upon a key ideological difference between us.
The whole point sir, is that she would not be working for nothing. She would be earning a normal salary for going to work and earning, herself, enough money to take care of herself and her family – just like the rest of us – instead of the state having to do it –
Its about independence, self-reliance, pride, responsibility and duty. Individuals should be responsible for looking after themselves and their family if they can (the state should help if they can’t).
The Welfare Sate should be there to help people that can’t help themselves – not to offer a financially viable alternative to working – as a life style choice.
As was discussed on another thread, people working 40 hours a week to bring home £25k per annum are paying around £2k per annum in income tax. It takes all of the income tax from at least 10 people working for a whole year – to pay for our example lady to not have to bother herself by going to work and looking after herself and her own.
If your views on this issue are typical of left of centre thinking – then I now understand why so many people hate the right of centre thinking that is more popular in England.
I have to say I am somewhat shocked.
I see the Heralds updated site is none too keen on comment.
It leads with the atrocious drivelling of a war criminal with no comments allowed.
Mundell challenging Ms Sturgeon to ” come clean” on another indie referendum – no comments allowed.
I am now more than a tad interested in circulation figures.
They have to have plummeted to new depths.
Could it be that the Herald and the Scotsman are vying for bottom spot?
O/T links
Why are so many UK politicians influenced by Israel and seem all too willing to do their bidding.
link to whale.to
link to theinsider.org
link to caat.org.uk
link to middleeasteye.net
Remind me again who the scroungers are…
link to sunnation.co.uk
We here all this talk about ‘wealth creation’ from the Tories and labour. What they really mean is wealth transfer.
If you as an entity hold the power to create money and then issue that money as debt, then effectively you own the assets of those you lend to until the debt is paid. Of course if you inflate the asset prices so much that the debt can’t be repaid, then the asset is yours.
The past 30 years have seen a massive asset transfer from the people of the UK to the financial establishment.
Well at least it’s no longer open to debate and is now clear for everyone to see, Labour MPs are basically Tories who cant get into the Tory party because all the seats are taken.
I see arch-unionist Laura Kuenssberg has been appointed BBC’s Political Editor.
I remember how dismissive she was of the YES campaign and the SNP’s chances in the UKGE. She even predicted that tactical voting would prevent the SNP from winning a large number of seats.
Finger on the pulse there – NOT.
Helena 8.18am
Have a look at the way the Labour List website. It explains how the voting will work regarding the new Labour leader.
It says one member one vote. I am still confused.
link to labourlist.org
Do you have any links that says otherwise, Ta.
Morning Dave, have you dyspepsia cause you certainly have got annoyed at Stuart. If you read all the posts here you will find that we acknowledged that there will always be those who are willing to survive on the margins, but as with the law it is better that one guilty person go free than an innocent person suffers. Same with social security, I refuse point blank to call it welfare. We are a small country but U like to think we care, by all means stand on your feet but sometimes your feet get kicked away from you. Isn’t it time though that everyone got a fair shake in this world, not just those who have always had it. By the way the worst scrounger I ever knew did so for his single Mum daughter, he was an Agent for Malcolm Rifkind, who I seem to remember left in disgrace.
I see that the Guardian this morning has Theresa May going to change Britain’s police, good luck with that Theresa but your writ doesn’t run here yet.
Seriously no offence, but can you change your name. Every time I see it I just think trolling bellend and don’t even bother to read the crap you type.
If the Labour Party is the male sex of the political world and the Tories are the female sex of the political world,
does that make Ian Murray a political transvestite?
We need to know.
@Dorothy
“Mundell challenging Ms Sturgeon to ” come clean” on another indie referendum – no comments allowed.”
I think we can save Mundell some time on that one.
Its coming and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. In point of fact he’s one of the reasons that it will happen sooner rather than later.
As for ‘come clean’? Its not a plot or a conspiracy. Its a democratic right which can be exercised by the people of Scotland any time we feel the need. If this upsets Mr Mundell, then perhaps if he and his government felt more inclined to live up to their PR campaign as promoted during the referendum perhaps the electorate would feel less inclined to exercise said right. But he’s not a bright lad and his chain pullers are simply arrogant and ignorant.
Were I him I’d prioritise though. Memogate is far from finished and if he’s worried about conspiracies seeing the light of day some are closer to home than others.
gillie
I could be wrong, it could have been a nightmare, but I am sure I read that it is Wendy Alexanders daughter, or in law, who is now the bbc political editor, keeping it in the family.
@Nana Smith 8.35am
Great link thanks.
“Elsewhere in the debate, three of the leadership candidates admitted they had smoked cannabis at university, but Corbyn replied that he was “really boring” and that he had never done so.”
_____________
Is this now a standard question remembering that they asked this during the Scottish leaders debates with the artist formerly known as Jim, implying that he had sniffed glue.
Who cares and what is the point?
heedtracker says:
22 July, 2015 at 5:24 pm
link to en.wikipedia.org
Yep Corbyn’s 66 so in 20 years of Blue tory teamGB, he’ll be hitting 90. SO red and blue tory world does seem to be panicking over an 86 year old Labour PM in No.10 in two decades time.
He is a potential change of direction. A figurehead to try to get labour moving in the right direction. He will never lead a government. If the labour party elect him, they need a replacement sitting in the wings to take over before the next election.
This is either a not so subtle plot to keep the tories ruling indefinitely, or an attempt to actually change direction.
Who are the likely candidates to replace him as leader of a left leaning labour party?
Do they even have any youngish politicians in the labour party that haven’t been groomed in the New Labour/Blairite image?
It might mean a fresh start, or a parting of ways to form a left wing labour party, but splitting the party won’t bring success in the short term. Retaining it’s right wing will retain the current crisis that labour is in.
Meanwhile the tories are laughing either way.
If your views on this issue are typical of left of centre thinking – then I now understand why so many people hate the right of centre thinking that is more popular in England.
I have to say I am somewhat shocked.
Sensible, the whole construct behind state funded family allowances and benefits, or handouts as you toryboys call it, was to increase, raise, boost etc, and then maintain a falling UK population, or state planned parenthood, keeping a healthy workforce going. UKOK Population drop was a major concern post war teamGB. Who would do all the UKOK dirty work to pay for the rich? Etonians and Harrovians do not get their hands dirty.
Obviously now we are actually all toryboys in toryboy world, with net EU immigration too, there’s giant changes in teamGB population management.
More than two kids? teamGB says you moocher/scrounger/slag etc
Scotland has a much smaller population comparative to all other EU countries for its size and resources so again there’s another catastrophic UKOK mess in action. Coincidence?
@ ArtyHetty
Somebody said (yesterday?) on here that Laura K is the daughter of a donor to Wendy Alexander, not a relative of WA herself.
Dorothy Define @9.01 am
The Herald’s new site is a bit of a disaster and the closure of many stories to comments seems very odd given that the ability to comment on all articles under the previous site attracted a lot of people to the site and a lot of revenue.
The Herald published figures last week which showed that their digital editions and on-line web site were making a significant contribution to its income.
The change to its web site and preventing comments is likely to hit that income stream.
john king says:
23 July, 2015 at 7:48 am
I was going to watch it but you have spoilt it for me now 🙁
Macart 9:34a.m.
They are still not listening! Another Referendum is OUR choice NOT Nicolas (she has stated that point herself many times). Mundell still lives in the world were politicians TELL the people what to do and think. We have just had another example with Blair telling Labour Party membes how to vote.
O/T links
link to eventbrite.co.uk
Oh look the beeb wants to now how they can improve…
link to consultations.external.bbc.co.uk
link to middleeasteye.net
link to sunnation.co.uk
[…] The battle-cry of right-wing Labour apologists all this week has been “realism”. It’s all very well people like Jeremy Corbyn having crazy old principles about what Labour is supposed to stand for, runs the argument, but you can’t argue with public opinion and public opinion is desperate for Labour to become Tories with a slightly softer edge. […]
Dave.. I am of the belief that life experiences and social conditions are highly influential in how a person develops attitude and beliefs. They are the product of life experiences.. You’re an intelligent and informed guy. Anyone can see that.. But you were brought up in a totally different social spectrum from most on here i should imagine. The area i come from and was brought up in Glasgow is called cowlairs.. It was once at the centre of the industrial revolution with thousands of people employed in heavy industry and hydepark works regularly received visits from “royals “and dignitaries like Lawrence of Arabia. It’s now one of the most socially deprived areas in the UK and ten years ago was the most deprived. Lowest life expectancy in Europe. I’ve carried many coffins myself.these are the factors which contribute to an individuals political leanings. Where i live is a wasteland. Derelict. Spare ground everywhere. No industry.. No jobs.no hope for many.. Speaking for myself this is why I’m left wing and can’t relate to the right wing ideology becoming the norm down south. We’re a different species entirely when it comes to political issues and lateral thought. Fact. I’d genuinely be happy to show you around cowlairs sometime if you really want to understand the thinking behind my political opinions.
Re Kuenessburg, from wiki
The daughter of Scottish businessman Professor Nick Kuenssberg, OBE,[2] and his wife Sally Kuenssberg, CBE,[3] her paternal grandfather was German-born Dr. Ekke von Kuenssberg, a founder and president of the Royal College of General Practitioners. Her maternal grandfather was Lord Robertson who was a High Court of Justiciary judge who contributed greatly to Scots law. Her great-uncle was Sir James Robertson, the last colonial Governor-General of Nigeria.
Very worrying…
link to frack-off.org.uk
I actually wonder if people like Sensibledave truly believe that most people in low paid work do accrue enough in wages to lead a decent lifestyle.It seems to follow a philosophy that a job promotes a better lifestyle.
I know many people in low paid work who rely on the State for the things most of us take for granted.
They have no “luxuries “at all,and in fact have enormous difficulty making ends meet,especially when they have children.
I despair at the lack of true understanding of people like Dave .
Mr Gecko of Wall St fame espoused the philosophy “Greed is good”. It would appear that Labour and the Tories also sign up to this mantra,and people like Sensibledave find common purpose in the creed.
Thank God I am a Socialist.
Dakk
Lowe is my shorthand for Lowe Syndrome, which is an ultra-rare life threatening, life limiting sex linked genetic disorder that affects males. This is what my son lives with.
There is some info on my blog ( linked to my username ) and here is a post about us and indyref from last summer that was hosted on the excellent “To September and Beyond” blog by William Duguid.
bit.ly/XDZY3W or link to williamduguid.blogspot.co.uk
Les Wilson, thank you for that lovely comment. You’re a lovely bunch…
Paula Rose
Sorry I didn’t see your comment till this morning. Was away getting the Bold Joff ready for bed and after I went straight to my own bed for some “beauty sleep”
Didnae work.
Anyway.
In 2005 we were watching a programme on BBC Scotland, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Glasgow taxis taking disabled and disadvantaged children to Ayr for a day out. It was a lovely wee programme, and as they showed the parade setting off, there was a young man at the very front walking along, twirling a baton with obvious pride.
I looked at him and said to Mr Effie, look at that young laddie, he’s got Lowe Syndrome! At that point, it hadn’t been mentioned. We couldn’t believe the coincidence, as Lowe only affects one in 500,000 people, what were the chances of that?
The programme cut away from the parade to show a short piece about Mark’s everyday life, then 17, going clothes shopping in Asda, the fact that he was a drummer, and had even travelled abroad to Germany to drum with a band.
So I took a note of the programme makers and emailed them with a request to pass on our details to the family and ask if they could please get in touch. Mum Elaine phoned and we had a lovely chat about her family and Lowe syndrome. She had a brother also with Lowe who sadly died when he was in his early 20s, so she was understandably nervous about her own son reaching that age.
As Joff has such profound and multiple learning disabilities and is not remotely capable of doing the stuff Mark was doing, I loved hearing about Mark and what he was able to do, it tickled me pink.
Mum and I chatted every so often, I kept trying to get a meeting organised but it just never happened. I got her phone number but when I called it just said the number was unavailable, I just had to wait for her to be in touch again, but she never did. Perhaps she lost my number. I may email the BBC and ask to get back in touch in the same way. Elaine never joined the Lowe Syndrome Association so I didn’t have any other contact details. I urged her to join (for free) so she could benefit from other families support, but she never did.
I was so very glad to see them in the programme, put a face to Elaine’s voice, and know that Mark is still with us, though she said that he’s been on dialysis for the past 4 years and it looks like he’s lost mobility skills as he was using a wheelchair.
I’m so angry that a lovely wee family, like so many others, is living hand to mouth whilst coping with a family member with a complex long-term health condition.
Bless her, she was saying how there’s always someone less well off than yourself. Who the hell is the social security system supposed to be supporting if not a lone parent of two kids, one with profound disabilities?
But fancy meeting someone through seeing them on the telly!!
McBoxHeid says:
23 July, 2015 at 10:01 am
heedtracker says:
22 July, 2015 at 5:24 pm
If tories are laughing either way, go left Labour. SLab’s wipe out in Scotland was all
“Because the SNP’s tactics of grievance, victim mentality, division, ‘us v them’ and always blaming ‘others’ for everything that is wrong are very popular tactics with voters, particularly in a time of economic turmoil – as we also see with Ukip in England and Front National in France.”
Or maybe it’s progressive liberal left Scots voting for an actual Sturgeonesque led alternative and red/blue toryboy world have all of sudden filled their knickers at another real option for the UK heading their way.
Keep in mind just how hard BBC attack machine alone savaged the life out of the most dangerous woman in teamGB but all for nothing.
PS JIm Murphy’s quoted up there as he’s currently backpacking in Australia and the youth hostel has free wifi.
Its not, its a rancid The Graun btl cif Britnat troll, but it might be:D
Have a laugh “Who is McTernan?
link to twitter.com
Helena Brown 9:20 am
Morning Helena, I’m fine BTW, I appreciate your concern though!
Inadvertently, we have stumbled across a key differentiator. The issue at hand is not about “scrounging” it is about a system, and a way of thinking.
The Rev asked the question “why would she WANT to work for nothing”? That word “nothing” is the key ideological difference. I work, pay my rent (I don’t own a home), feed myself and wife, pay my bills and have, on average, about £150 a month disposable income. I wont bore you with all the details but, by the Rev’s definition, it means that I am working 19 days out of 20 – for “nothing”.
But I am not! I am taking care of me and mine – and not relying on a shed load of other average wage earners to work, and pay tax, so the State can pay my bills.
You make the point, and I agree with you, that there are always a few feckless individuals that will take advantage of the system fraudulently or through sheer laziness. We are not talking about those people. We are discussing perfectly respectable, capable people who find themselves in a position where they are choosing to work, or not work, based upon the effort/rewards available via either route. They do not consider themselves to be feckless or scroungers – they believe they have the right to choose as a completely neutral, sensible, financial decision.
The Rev is asking the question, “why would anyone go to work, run their kids to a childminder, pick their kids up from the childminder, buy dinner, get home, cook dinner, put their kids to bed, do washing and housework, etc – for nothing?”
… i.e. just like the rest of us.
I have no idea how many people in the UK fall into the category described above. Let me pick a number out of thin air – say 100,000? Lets say the total benefits and allowances per recipient is £20k pa. How many average wage earners (£2k per annum income tax) go to work just to pick up the tab for those 100,000 people (£2 Billion) Answer: ONE MILLION average wage earners earning around £26k per annum.
Fairness and compassion works both ways. Tax payers have every right to expect those that can look after themselves – to try to do so. But if they can’t – then we, as a country, should.
@Clootie
He’s a slow learner. 🙂
The SG will canvas and sample, and if there’s a popular demand then it will appear in the manifesto, its as simple as that. It will appear only if we want it there. If a question or motion does appear and the people vote for the SNP to remain a majority Scottish Government, then it will happen.
That being the case, not Mundell, Cameron or anyone else can stop it.
Moidart – after seeing your post about Cowlairs, I just had to send you this, so apt.
link to soundcloud.com
It is a song called “From here you can see Ben Lomond” by my very talented friend and singer/songwriter Steven Clark. I love singing it.
He has many of his fine songs online, just not this one, for some frustrating reason….but here are the lyrics.
link to stevenclarksongs.me.uk
Enjoy!
o/t
Here is an interesting social experiment that took place in New York,the result is rather appalling.
This is what neo liberalism does to a society,it destroys empathy.
link to rt.com
I hate to hark back to the Referendum but it’s like its stuck on a loop .
Funny enough an opinion poll comes out saying J Corbyn is in the lead , cue frantic spin , which enables everyone and their Granny hour after hour , to say how terrible it would be if he won .
line up a liar like Gordon Brown , sorry Tony Blair
Watch out for ‘ a vow ‘/pledge/promise Jeremy a couple of days before the vote.
This is the last time I make a comment to you Sensible Dave but in that same Referendum , the word whataboutery came to the fore.
A woman I knew smoked liked a lumb , lived til she was 96
A student I knew never studied ever got a first class degree
A man I knew lived off McDonald’s , won Olympic gold 100 metres.
There will always be an exception , there will always be the ah buts whit about ?
The point is is not about the odd exception who have loads of kids and whatever kind of house, the point is the ethos behind it.
Rebrand the word ‘ welfare’ , make the word itself a negative , toxic.Associate with any of the headline grabbers featured in the sun /Mail/Express/Mirror and make people ashamed to be linked to it and your PR exercise is a success.
The fact people have paid for years into their state pension is airbrushed and they are now in receipt of that wicked ‘welfare’ .
Just don’t stigmatise pensioners too much though , we need them to vote for us.
Next get the message across we cannot afford ‘Welfare’.
The financial system who destroyed the banking system with our money, the Govt who supported the banks with our money, the majority of journalists who are financially illiterate tell us we cannot afford this ‘welfare’ system .
This is exactly how mill owners , factory owners during the industrial revolution carried on.
The ‘welfare’ state was not set up to catch the ‘poor ‘ people , the welfare state was set up because despite the rose coloured BBC productions promoting a sun dappled England where all was well, the people of Britain were living in squalor.
Malnutrition, over cramped damp housing, TB , rickets , early death, bed lice, head lice were all common.
It was a chance to try to improve the outcomes for people and that message is being forgotten -deliberately.
It’s not about grudging someone £59 or £72 a week to live on , it’s not about judging them , it’s about looking to have a nation that is civilised enough to hope that for whatever reason , people have enough food to keep them relatively healthy , children able to grow up to be physically able to live and work and contribute , it’s about looking to the future of your fellow citizens.
Your support for either Tory/Labour Policy can only lead to a return of diseases we thought we’d eradicated and a mindset of the Victorians .
You live in the past …
Effie.. Good morning Effie. I hope you and yours are well today. I see you’re also becoming a hopeless wings addict!! You will be selling family heirlooms to pay for Internet coverage before you know it. Lol
Anna.. In a better fairer less crrupt world you would be programming director for the bbc. Lol Like so many others on here your contributions and links are outstanding. Thanks to you and others.
“David Mundell to open food bank in Dumfries”
_____________
What the heck; was he there with a scissors cutting a fucking ribbon?
Apparently A fifth of income tax goes straight to funding the benefits bill.
The rise of the socially engineered food bank means we now have people waiting at the front of supermarkets asking you to donate tinned and dried goods and the Government of the day keeps all the taxes.
Effie.. Thanks again. Unfortunately I can’t access the song right now. But I will tomorrow morning after my sleepover. I can’t see Ben lomond from mine but I can see the campsies and the hills to the moors around Eaglesham as well as cineworld. Lol
Bob Mack says:
23 July, 2015 at 10:32 am
I actually wonder if people like Sensibledave
I dont know if the public really buys into it. There is a strong media and English cultural theme of the “undeserving poor” and “skivers” that is used at attack the employed and unemployed poor. Its very Victorian.
It plays upon a social and psychological key which is that those with very little cling to being better off than someone. It draws support from those just above who then seem happy to vote right wing and keep those poorer than them in their place.
I do wonder if there is formal name for it.
Effie… I just read the lyrics.I actually had shivers. I was brought up in gourlay street. I was brought up by my grandparents. My granda was a train driver. Unfortunately a suicide victim at Woodilee forced him into early retirement. But the stories he told us were quite fantastic. Good days.
sensibledave says:
That word “nothing” is the key ideological difference
No the key mistake is that you equate disposable income as being the only difference to working and not working.
Not working does not pay the bills up to the level of a working person’s disposable income.
Not working plunges you into poverty. Loss of any savings, possible loss of home, loss of connections, loss of ability to travel, and even sufficient food. I suggest you try it sometime.
Moidart :
beyond eerie. You and my friend Steven would have a lot in common to talk about. Be weirder if you had mutual friends too…
@sensibledave
“Its about independence, self-reliance, pride, responsibility and duty. Individuals should be responsible for looking after themselves and their family if they can (the state should help if they can’t). “
RevStu is right; at least a garden chair doesn’t imagine it alone is responsible for all the grass in the garden just because it’s performing it’s “duty” to be sat upon.
Let’s deal with some basic facts, shall we? Every product that exists makes a profit. If it didn’t, this would be a communist system, but it’s not. A tin of beans? Selling that tin to the consumer makes a profit for the company that sold it. Whether it’s enough profit compared to the competition is another question, as is little things like loss-leaders to draw in associated sales etc… but anyone who is economically active is generating profit for someone.
It’s not about “self reliance”, the market doesn’t know and couldn’t care even if it wanted too about where the money comes from. The only difference to it is whether the money is spent again (investment is also spending), and generates more profit, or not.
But who spends more of their money as a percentage in their native land? The poor, because they don’t have financial security and aren’t able to tax dodge and offshore their income to hide it from the taxpayer. They go straight out and buy those beans, eat them, and buy more beans. Housing Benefit? It’s only lost to the country if the landlord owes more allegiance to his wallet than his Nation. If he spends it in the UK though, even on gold plated tins of beans, he’s generating profit for the country somewhere too.
The idea that there are economically negative people in the poor then, dare we say “Useless eaters”, is right wing nonsense. No one, no matter where their money comes from, is a drain upon the economy. Yes we pay tax to support them as the first step, the second is they spend that money and support business and raise their profits as the second.
Economic Depressions come when people don’t have enough money to spend, or won’t spend it through fear of banking/stock market runs etc. The reason Austerity doesn’t work, and can’t work is because Debt is largely irrelevant. The UK has run huge debts since (and to pay for) the Napoleonic Wars. Those Good Old Days of Nation you dream of were built on the backs of debts far worse than we run today; the difference was it was invested back in the country and created a consumer base for the Industrial Revolution.
It’s good though that you admit it’s a “moral” claim now, because your economics are bollocks. Of course, so is your morality, which is also based upon lies.
And it’s so easy to prove; simple question, even if someone got 26k in benefits, how much of that do they get to spend on actual living?
Because that’s what sets their standard of living, the experience they actually have. They have a family of 20 children, and are put up in a Mansion let’s say. Who gets the rent? What happens if they don’t pay it? They aren’t given Housing Benefit twice now are they? So where does it go?
So what income do they actually get to keep for themselves? It’s easy enough to check. JSA (which is now frozen for 4 years of inflation don’t forget) is;
“You’ll normally get the assessment rate for 13 weeks after your claim. This will be: up to £57.90 a week if you’re aged under 25. up to £73.10 a week if you’re aged 25 or over.”
So £73.10 a week to live on. That’s what people actually see. That stately Mansion, full of hundreds of rooms of luxury? You have to pay to heat that out of the £73.10 a week. Keep it clean too. Sure, you don’t have too, but your standard of living, even in a Mansion, soon drops if you don’t try and keep it clean. Is there public transport to your Mansion by the way? If it’s in a nice area, probably not much nearby. And so on.
So when it comes to Wages for Work, we need to phrase it in similar ways as well. What are people’s take home pay experiences of work. Because that’s what they’ll be judging their standard of living against. Can they do more with it, or less? And we already know what it has to be better than, don’t we? The only logical figure it must meet is £73.10 per week (at best).
Why then are people not willing to work for more than that? Because increasingly, thanks to “moral” liars like yourself, the pressure on wages and the devaluation of labour is such that £73.10 after rent is increasingly uncommon. You’ve moved the tax burden from the non-spending rich to the economically active poor so now the financials just don’t work out as often; If you can’t make 73 pounds and 11 pence look more than 10, it’s because you’re not really offering 11, are you?
Quick, and I know this will be hard as it involves Empathy, but what’s the major expense a mother getting Housing Benefit for a Mansion because she has so many children will have at work, that she doesn’t on Benefits?
Child Care. Because before then she’s providing that labour for free, isn’t she? Or it’s being subsidised by the state somewhere, isn’t it? And it is, in the form of Working Tax Credits.
You can complain about the “morality” of that, but the only way to make the economics work is if her wages allow the final sum, when all her expenditure is covered, to work out more than what it would from benefits. And the reality is… You’re not encouraging people into Work, you’re actually subsidising Employers not paying living wages any more, and making up the difference in taxpayer funded Tax Credits, because without the Tax Credits, work just doesn’t seem to pay.
Sure, there’s a minority who don’t want to work, who value time more than money due to personality conflicts with society; You can try and force them into an environment they hate, and make them a negative influence on business. You can cut off all their support and pay instead for the crime they’ll resort too, or if you can bully them enough maybe if you’re lucky you can get them to just starve to death quietly somewhere whilst still costing you the increased costs of authoritarianism. And we all know how “moral” that made Victorian England look.
But they aren’t the majority, are they? Go on, admit it. Unless you’re mad or prejudiced or just thick as a garden chair and think hardly anyone knows 11 is greater than 10, you know full well that wages are so depressed compared to living standards and so disconnected from historical productivity that increasingly work just doesn’t pay enough any more. Not without the Benefit system.
And anyway, as Norman Lamont famously said, unemployment is a price worth paying; It keeps those who do manage to get work terrified of losing it, and willing to put up with being squeezed even further, especially when roving bands of “moralists” will treat you like untermenschen if you don’t have it.
So go on then, tell us more about “pride, responsibility, duty”, SenSibleDave…
My father had two jobs,my mother three.They were both poorly paid,and needed the work just to make ends meet.We lived in a Glasgow tenement, and with my sister included there were four of us in two rooms (room and kitchen). We had a holiday to Rothesay once that I remember (THREE DAYS).
Clothes and other essentials were bought on the never never.
My parents were good people,but crushed by a life of “making do”.
People in the tenements were good people,but our living conditions were dreadful.
Today I see a Tory Government aided and abetted by Labour,trying to recreate those days for ordinary people.
I am long gone from those early days , and with hindsight I wish them on nobody.
ScottieDog @ 8:57 pm
ScottieDog I have spent a lot of time investigating the monetary history of the USA and the Federal Reserve.
I do not know wether you have seen the following three links.
1 Glenn Beck Exposes the private Federal Reserve System.
Maybe somebody will ask ‘but what has the US Federal Reserve got to do with the UK’?
The Federal Reserve was modelled on the Bank of England, in fact most, if not all, central banks around the globe are based on the same model, along with their attendant blood sucking private banks, some of which are global.
2 Alternative currencies with Duncan McCann
3 Bring Back The Bradbury!
.
Hi S Dave, glad your okay you certainly did not sound like it in your post. Well like you I did my time, at one point after I had taken redundancy/early retirement I actually went back to work and my travelling from Home to Work just about cleared out any surplus, but hey ho, we are not all made the same. I look back and wonder why I had bothered but then I would have got bored, aye right, bought my dog sooner, but that is the trouble brought up that if you do not work you do not eat.
Now here is the other problem. How ever poor people are they are not always stupid. How do you think it looks when our Legislators lie cheat and steal and so many have. They have use the old excuse that it is in the rules, those they make up themselves. They will not get out of bed for the miserable salary they certainly, on the whole do not earn, but they sit in judgement on the rest of us.
When did Social Security become Welfare, most people put money into the system and should expect to the protection that was offered. Those who did not put money in, and my Dad knew one man who was his age, well he was going to have a poor pension.
What has happened is that the Governments since Thatcher have allowed Employers the luxury of paying worse and worse pay and we the Tax Payers are picking up their bill. Money is going into Broon’s wee scheme in the form of Housing Benefit, well it offsets his robbery of Pension Schemes. I doubt the woman who spoke on Question Time is still enjoying her luxurious life style today, if she is something will have given like food for her kids.
I have lived what I like to think has been a productive life, no kids, never wanted them but today I thank that I do not have to worry about them.
OT slightly. Another prominent Labour person in a bit o bother with the locals.
From The Telegraph via MSN News.
JK Rowling,Cramond and Barnton, Edinburgh.
The multi millionaire author,49,had traffic lights erected while gardeners cut back her huge Leyland cypress hedge outside her luxury Edinburgh home.
Angry residents have said it has brought “chaos” as four-way traffic lights have caused major tailbacks.
link to msn.com
titler @ 12.41 I wish I had read your reply to my pal sensible Dave before I wrote my own.
Anagach (11.09) said, “I do wonder if there is formal name for it.”
I just call them working class Tories. They always need someone to look down on and stigmatise or blame.
It makes the Daily Mail’s world go around.
Galluseffie
Read the link and am truly humbled with that insight provided ,both with Josh’s suffering and your own tirelss dedication.
I know I wouldn’t have the stamina to last a month doing what you do,it would break me.
No doubt, most people lack a bit of empathy, some more than others,but this kind of insight should be spread far and wide.
Respect
[…] of the poll showing Corbyn with a large lead amongst Labour members, both the Independent and Wings Over Scotland published posts highlighting polling evidence showing support for many of his […]
Bob Mack… Uncanny!! I live in a tenement and took my son to beautiful Rothesay last week!!! Mad!!!
Effie….remember I’m between possil and Springburn.. Lots of good people there.. Good people like yourself. Unfortunately most of my friends don’t fall into that category. Lol
Dakk – thanks you for reading, I like sharing awareness of Lowe syndrome and the story of the Bold Joff.
As for not being able to do it, lots of people think so, but when it’s your wean, you just roll up your sleeves and get on with it. “the courage to endure”
If you had told me when he was born what was ahead of us, I might have run to the hills. If I was telling a newly diagnosed family about the syndrome, I would pull no punches and then say honestly what a privilege it is to have Joff in our lives. He brings riches I would never have anticipated in a million years.
Moidart: Small disclosure, I live in Dunfermline now, but I’m a Glaswegian brought up in Clydebank. As Steve says in another song:
I was brought up in Springburn, now most of it’s gone
The place where I live now will never be home
You can never forget, no, nor ever disown
For Glasgow is bred in your blood and your bone.
Beautiful words.
Bob @12.50
… Just for the record, but of little relevance, I was born on a council (Corporation actually) estate in Hull. My Gran, all my uncles and aunts and cousins lived within a mile in similar corporation, terraced houses. No cars, telephones, washing machines (dolly tub and mangle), etc. I wore hand-me-downs from older cousins throughout my growing up. I didn’t have a holiday until I was 6, and it comprised 5 days on a caravan site in Bridlington – by train. I suspect therefore our upbringings were not dissimilar. So lets cut the Monty Python Sketch out and cancel out our backgrounds as being the reason for any different current, political approaches, to the problems we face and credit each other with the will and desire to make things better?
I don’t want poverty Bob, and I don’t want it for anyone else.
The question is, how do you create enough money through taxes so that those that need it – get help? One way (and clearly not the only way) to increase the money available for those that need help is to not give it to those that don’t need it. That specific issue is the only thing I am discussing here.
I am not questioning the whole benefit system and I do not want to see people consigned to a life of poverty. I am questioning the specific part of the system that has created a situation where people choose between a lifestyle of staying at home and living on Welfare – or going to work, for not much more – because it is more convenient – and you know exactly what I mean.
It may not make a huge difference to their family finances whether they go to work or not – but it makes a huge difference to the country’s finances – and the country’s ability to help others that are unable to help themselves.
In addition, I am not questioning whether some people who are in work should also get help if they are not earning enough.
To some here, it suits their political stance to paint anyone else with a different political view to them, as rich bastards that don’t care about the poor. Just shouting about “caring more” does not create the solutions.
Reading above and on other threads, we seem to have reached the situation where many here believe that the SNP are the only major party that “cares”, and that SNP voters are the only people that want things to be better.
To many here, anyone that voted Tory, Labour, Liberal, etc are all uncaring bastards. Is it really possible that 4.7% of voters (SNP voters) in the UK are the only ones that care about the poor and the ill? Is there perhaps another explanation?
Other voters (a 90 odd % majority according to the blue/red Tory meme) care just as much I am sure, but happen to believe in a different strategy to address the problems.
forgot to say in my previous post, thanks and applause due to Titler for that wonderful analysis…
can’t believe the wealth of knowledge in here…real food for thought and great quotes for when the zoomers attack…
sensibledave
I get where you are coming from but I think you’ve been listening to a bit too much of the neo-liberal dogma being perpetuated by the MSM. Have you ever worked a 48 hour week, only to be paid 47pence per hour above the level of benefit entitlement?
Titler 12.41
I can’t respond to everything you wrote Titler, however I will pick up on the very tired old theory that suggests that it doesn’t matter where the money comes from (work or state) its just the same money swilling round.
The test of any theory is to stress it to an extreme to see what happens. If we all stay at home and the state pays us regardless, who serves us in the shop? Who grows our food, harvests it, delivers it. Where are the doctors, nurses, road sweepers? etc, etc, etc.
Ultimately, you are arguing for classic communism where everyone gets the same regardless of what they do or don’t do. That has been tried. They are still working on it in North Korea.
Get your head out of the theory books and listen to yourself
A left winger leading the Labour Party? How come that idea has become absurd?
Once again Rev Stu’s article is great in sparking off brilliant responses from “ordinary people”. The kind who might vote for Jeremy Corbyn.
Reading WoS real facts and comments and links is an education. The UK/English Establishment don’t want people to know. So everybody critical of the regime is potentially an “insurgent”.
Very, very far above Call me Dave linked to a story, interviews with Labour (UK/London) leader conteders.
” I would serve the Labour Party at any level it asked me to serve the Labour Party.” Said Andy Burnham.
WTF?
Serve the party? The PARTY??? Not odrinary people, but the party. No wonder English Labour folk are mad as hell and in their frustration vote UKIP, they have no efty alternative.
If these people are membedrs and vote for a real labour lefty, Jeremy Corbyn.
The brit-nat British Labour party will never win an election in Scotland while they try to be tory-lite. They’re shedding votes in Scotland and Wales as we speak. England, the “left” in England need to get the their act toghether. Scots can’t do it all. Leading light of democracy, thwarted at every opportunity.
The leadership of the Labour party is too entangled and enamoured with foreign money and global, rampant capitalism, so… Neo-lib policies, poor get poorer, rich get richer… But we might push some money towards the desrving poor, and we’re not like the tories, we’re nicer… But it’s totally horrible to elect a leader who actually believes in income redistibution. One of the first tenents of the Labour party.
All I want to say is AAAAARGH!
Effie.. Absolutely!! The words genuinely made my hair stand up. Days of old when we used to tan the trains to get money to buy ten consulate menthol aged ten. Lol ?
Sorry to go back on this thead but I’m nitpicking a bit here.
Heedtrcker @ 10.03 above wrote “Scotland has a much smaller population compared to all other EU countries for its size…”
Ehm. Finland is 338,424 square km. Scotland is 78,387 square km.
Population. Finland, about 5.7 million, Scotland about 5.4 million.
Scotland isn’t the only EU country with a sparse population. Within the EU, the Swedish and Finnish wildernesses up north (above the Arctic circle) are special areas. Non-EU Norway is the same as Finland and Sweden, we’re the Nordics. We berate each other but basically agree on social philosophy. The state should look after the weakest, The indigionous Sami people and their reindeer herding are given some help.
Reindeer meat is wonderful, tasty, and also very healthy. There are EU, Nordic and national subsidies to preserve the indiginous way of life, reindeer herding, above the Arctic Circle.
“Southron” Finns, Swedes or Norges might grumble a bit about the social security given to “northerners” who don’t work 9-5 but make their living off the land, the lakes and the fells in a traditional way.
In norther Finland/Sweden/Norway, it’s a great place for trekkinng and wild camping. “Everyman’s right”. Also not seeing another human being for a week.
The Scottish outdoor code is very much like the Nordic one. I and my frieds have not trekked in England & Wales because it’s too difficult. Scotland is like our home, the “everymans right” so we’ll trek and wild camp in Scotland, like we’d do at home in the Nordic country.
@lumi lumi
Hit the nail on the head lumi ‘serve the party’, and THAT is the difference. Labour parliamentarians serve the party. The SNP and their pro independence allies serve the people.
@sensibledave.
Yes we have similar backgrounds,but that is all the more reason to be appalled that a Government is creating the same situation for many families.
Perhaps our political view is different,but our humanity should be the same.
I was employed in the East end of Glasgow and have seen first hand the effects of multiple deprivation on ordinary people.It leaves them helpless,angry,and unable to cope.with a reduced sense of self worth.
Glasgow has always had a reputation for “loan sharks” as ordinary people try to get by on a daily basis.This often compounds their problems.These money lenders still exist even today,and are still used.I imagine they will grow in number.
It is very difficult to describe fully in words the effects of poverty,and would probably take a book to document them all.
People used to leave my office not knowing how they would survive the week.
That is wrong and needs to change. Not everyone wants something for nothing.
Not many (@ Bob Mack) want something for nothing, but those who inherit vast amounts of wealth do.
The concept of a universal wage is gaining traction (a green party policy) this will enable all to be economically active thereby (@ sensibledave) encouraging growth in the SME sector – the area of the economy that creates jobs.
The Scottish outdoor code is very much like the Nordic one. I and my frieds have not trekked in England & Wales because it’s too difficult.
England’s a fantastic country to hike in, all their national parks, their huge ancient cathedral cities, London, their beautiful empty coasts, all of it’s free to roam.
Its mostly because they’re all abroad on their hols, as far as possible from England means your posher and posher. The only real hazard, walking in England, is running into pompous blow off’s laying down the law, like me.
Dippydave: Just for the record, I was born on a council estate in Hull.
I’d never have guessed. Why did you leave? Did Hull suck?
Grousey 8.07
Morning Grousey – Thank you for your interest. My Dad joined the prison service and got a posting down south when I was about 10. Hull doesn’t have the greatest reputation but is a typical small city with the range of problems, issues and achievements you would expect – Oh and a slightly funny accent. John Prescott and Alan Johnson were MPs up there.
What about you Grousey? Given your Nom de plume, should we assume that you hang out on swanky estates, doffing your cap to the Laird, his toff friends and a few celebs? Subverting from within the inner circle perhaps?
IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR HEEDTRACKER!
Heedtracker, Someone has hacked your account on Wings and is writing comments in a reasonable style, with good English and not shouting at the English.
Dippydave: What about you Grousey
Careful. Your trolling pal has already been grounded. You’ve only lasted this long because demonstrating pig ignorance is not an abuse of the site, just risible.
One of the problems with these polls is that they fail to ask the important question – How much would YOU be prepared to pay to implement these wishes?
One of the characteristics of British polls is that support for extra spending gets good figures when someone/something else is paying but has less support when people are faced with a direct cost.
Phil: How much would YOU be prepared to pay to implement these wishes?
A fair amount fairly distributed among all taxpayers.
How much are we prepared to pay towards refurbishment of the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, and a fast train that only reaches Birmingham?
Grouse Beater 11:50 am
” Careful. Your trolling pal has already been grounded…”
I am not a troll, I don’t have any “pals” on here (I have noticed an “Aldo” and a “Will Podmore”) that occasionally appear here but, to be absolutely honest, I rarely find myself agreeing with whatever point they are trying to make. Please don’t assume that everyone that isn’t an SNP supporter is on the same side.
Dippydave: Please don’t assume that…
The site is owned and managed by a non-SNP member. Many here are socialists, or plain folks angry with capitalism as dished out by colonial England. Many who voted Yes are not SNP members. But then, you’re here to malign and smear, so what do you care? And on that issue…
What are you doing about the poor in your home town, Hull?