A question for the Labour Party
From a piece on Labour’s welfare shadow Rachel Reeves in today’s Guardian.
So… who DOES represent those people, then?
Almost 11 million UK adults are either unemployed or “economically inactive”, which is a catch-all term for the sick, the disabled, or other people not in work for one reason or another. That’s close to a quarter of the entire electorate, or well over a third of the number who actually voted at the last general election.
Rachel Reeves doesn’t specify which party should speak for them, except that it’s not hers. Frankly we doubt that the Tories or the Lib Dems are in a rush to step up to the plate either, which means that the UK’s poorest and most vulnerable people are apparently to be entirely abandoned and left voiceless in their country’s parliament.
Reeves, in fairness, is merely repeating a Labour policy line that’s been around for some time. We first recorded it three years ago, in the words of the Labour MP for Glasgow South, Tom Harris:
The simple arithmetic is that at any given moment, there are nowhere near enough jobs for the number of people who want them. However much someone wants to work, however many applications they send out, only a small fraction will ever be able to find employment at a given time.
But Labour now openly announce that they don’t give a damn for the unlucky ones who miss out in that lottery. They now proudly proclaim in public that 11 million adult British citizens – and the uncounted children dependent on them – deserve no political representation at all.
The party has washed its hands of the poor, the weak, the ill and the unfortunate.
With astonishing hypocrisy, Reeves goes on to claim that she “hoped to reverse a culture change in attitudes towards benefits claimants”. We’re not sure quite how you achieve that while treating them as second-class subhumans excluded from the political process and vowing to crack down even harder on welfare than the Tories.
People sometimes query this site’s unconcealed contempt for the modern Labour Party. It’s not something we were born with. We celebrated as enthusiastically as anyone in 1997. But when we see the party of Keir Hardie and Aneurin Bevan hijacked by the sort of careerist lowlife who would turn their back on 11 million of their fellow citizens when they needed help the most, it’s all we can do to moderate our language.
For that reason, we’re going to stop here and go and punch something.
And, I suppose me, a former’worker’ now retired.
That would also include those who have retired I would assume.
or should I say “exclude” in the case of Labour?
WOW!
I’m glad you found that Stu.
Being disabled I was swithering as to whether I should vote Labour in May. After all as oor Jim keeps telling us … the largest party gets the keys to Number 10 right? 🙂
Based on this analysis by oor Jim I was on the verge of openly admitting that I am now aconfirmed YES voter eager to do my bit to help save oor Jim his seat.
Now hewever, thanks to oor Jim’s mate, Rachael Reeves, I find out that Labour don’t want me cause I’m disabled, they only want my vote. Well guess what Labour! Me and my
shadowvote go hand in hand! You don’t want me cause I’m disabled then guess what … you aint getting my vote! 😛Stick THAT in yer pipe and smoke it Murphy. 😉
p.s. I am only kidding folks I never once had one iota of a thought about voting Labour, just my wee afternoon windy uppy thingy you understand. 😀
Words fail me!!!
Tom Harris is an odious shit. I really hope he is ejected despite his 10k+ majority. I almost wouldn’t care what happens with the rest of the election.
There are no words to express the contempt I have for the nu labour party. It is not just their enthusiastic support for a neoliberal narrative. It is not just their failure to argue for a different view of society. It is not even the inherent contradictions you point out with those two quotes.
It is the sheer fucking stupidity which fails to notice that those of working age who are on benefits are the very same people who are “hard working” when they get the chance
And those people will, I hope, include Rachel Reeves, quite soon. Though admittedly, describing her and her colleagues as “hard working” is a stretch
That’s one hell of a quote from my soon to be unemployed MP Tom Harris. Efforts redoubled – I’ll not be happy until he’s out of a job.
Well said Rev.
That’s 11 million who won’t be voting Labour then!
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/2008/04/making-history.html
“Late in 2002 Lady Thatcher came to Hampshire to speak at a dinner for me. Taking her round at the reception one of the guests asked her what was her greatest achievement. She replied, “Tony Blair and New Labour. We forced our opponents to change their minds.”
2015, we have red tory Blairites such as Jim Murphy, lying at Scotland day in, day out.
Obviously Labours attempt to woo middle class middle income voters from middle England.
I wonder how (or if) Murphy and co will spin that one up here?
FFS!
That’s appalling.
Just what are they for?
they aren’t worth skinning your knuckles over.
And remember, this is the party Katy “I’m really socialist, honest” Clark chooses to represent.
Step one – get them out of Scotland as MPs, MEPs, MSPs and local councillors.
So what is the message from Tom Harris and his comrades to the chronically ill, the widowed parent, and the industrially injured?
Seems to me it can be summed up in two words, the second of which is “OFF”.
The founder of the NHS, Aneurin Bevan, famously referred to the Tories as “lower than vermin”. I can only guess what he would have called Tom Harris and the rest of today’s so-called “Labour Party”.
And I say it again as I have before on this site…
I ripped up my membership for the Labour Party as it had dissolved and reformed as the mutton of new age pseudo-socialist politics.
Gone were principles of fairness for everyone…gone was Clause 4.
(And before anyone tries to contradict with some smart-arse comment about Clause 4 starting off in reference to “the workers”…I always interpreted “the workers” as everyone, especially those that can, do or would toil with their hands)
New Labour a left-wing socialist party…my arse!
Well said Stu…even if I am now chewing my hand because of it.
I didn’t celebrate in 1997. It was evident to me that Tony Blair et al were not interested in people then, collectively or individually. It’s been a long time since Labour embraced the idea of full employment for everyone being the appropriate goal, and tailoring policies towards that.
That’s outstanding Stu!
Best piece of the year so far and sums my feelings about Labour to a Tee. I don’t actually want to be involved in politics. I only am because the people in charge are screwing me.
What sickens me about Labour is the degree to which they are willing to traduce their own country. They are truly appalling people, and stupid.
Presumably housewives are personae non-gratae too.
So, they’ve managed to dump both me and my parents. My mum is disable, wheelchair bound and in constant pain. My dad has lung disease/emphysema and is a pensioner. I am a housewife. So that’s three of us in one family immediately.
Nice to know that they care about us.
Paul Kirkwood says:
17 March, 2015 at 3:35 pm
I didn’t celebrate in 1997. It was evident to me that Tony Blair et al were not interested in people then, collectively or individually. It’s been a long time since Labour embraced the idea of full employment for everyone being the appropriate goal, and tailoring policies towards that.
I agree: it was evident long before 1997 that these were the same tories who stole the conservative party in the late 1970’s. I am always puzzled why it has taken labour voters so long to notice
Has Tom Harris not burst yet? Have you sustained your curiosity Stu?
I wish my bike’s tubes were made of such stern stuff!
“11 million of their fellow citizens”
11 million human beings written off.
Surely the majority of those economically inactive people are pensioners. The preserve of the Tory party.
Oh! My God!
Thatcher’s children!!!!!!!!!!
As you sow………
It’s like that ancient horror film, ‘the brood’.
she is just pure evil.
After May 7th, former SLAB MPs will soon find that the Labour Party was set up to only support working people, the key word being working, and were not set up to be a charity to help the poorest in society -the long-term unemployable, the trough dependent, the expenses addicted,those without an House to go to.
It will certainly come as a shock that the party is not the party of the welfare state, and does not want to been seen as the party of the out of work. The poor Westminster scroungers will have their hearts broken when the money stops rolling in.
I do hope that their allowances are not sanctioned.
And that neatly explains why a lifelong socialist will never vote labour ever again.
Utterly appalling.
@ Arajag.
It is a dog whistle. Pensioners are expected to exclude themselves from the group referred to on grounds of “used to be hard working”. Not like those other lazy bastards, eh?
Well said Rev, I too remember being delighted in 1997 at getting rid of the Tories and, ashamed as I am now to say it, in my constituency that meant me voting for, and indeed celebrating, the election of our first ever Labour MP in Eastwood, one James Murphy Esq. .
In the years since then I have watched the Labour Party betray everything it stood for, engaging in dodgy dossiers, illegal wars, pursuit of money at the expense of people and generally being more right wing than Thatcher. I turned to the SNP, first in Holyrood after Labour’s disastrous first term, or should I say shambles, and then at Westminster after the Iraq war.
I will never vote Labour again, ever. There are hardly any of their MPs and MSPs I can watch or read about without sweary words forming in my brain. The SNP is far from perfect, they too have policies I disagree with but they stand for something, speak up for the less fortunate and, if nothing else, espouse a positivity and confidence about our country that seems to completely elude Labour.
Wipe Labour out, wipe them out completely, for it is the only way for a new opposition to form, which democracy requires to prevent a one party monopoly.
She actually said that? is there no self awareness? no diplomacy? no bloody sense?
It’s one thing thinking it (even though she shouldn’t) but being stupid enough to actually say it is alone a good enough reason not to be able to trust someone with contributing to running the country.
Surprised by any of this? I’m not. The writing was on the wall the day after Blair&Broon went into Downing St. in 1997 when Broon announced he was sticking with the Tory budget plans for the next 2 years. Betrayal stank even then, but too many of us were still spraying the champers around to notice it.
Its just the tip of a rather large iceberg, Labour are not Labour anymore they bring shame to the word labour. They are Tory lite, they aspire to be hard line Tory, which means they don’t talk for the “Hard working people” (hate that title).
The quicker we get his lot out of Scotland the better, they stink.
“Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I’ll piss on ’em
that’s what the Statue of Bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses, let’s club ’em to death
and get it over with and just dump ’em on the boulevard”
Lou Reed, ‘Dirty Boulevard’ from ‘New York’ album
New Labour – getting more like New York every day…
If all employees on tax credits due to low wages are included in”benefit recipient”, how many voters are they excluding? Politicians were meant to represent all their constituents.
New poll just out
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2015/feb/27/guardian-poll-projection
So thats 11 million slackers and around 2 million Scots ( give or take 1m in the cross set)
Looks like Labour are whittling down that UK target audience every day now!
There’s really no point in asking Labour any questions anymore. They no longer have any answers. This is the latest outrageous and despicable statement heralding the end of a once fine party. Should rename themselves the Chattering Classes Dinner Party.
Rachel Reeves is the very epitome of the modern Labour Party. As far from ordinary people as it is possible to get. They’re committing political suicide one stupid decision at a time. I, for one, won’t miss them when they go.
Now retired and economically torpid myself nowadays, they certainly don’t speak for me and I haven’t voted for them since mass-murderer Blair took the helm.
Is there a collective noun for arseholes I wonder? a “leakage” mebbes.
It’s the old secnairo.
Have and have not.
I’m all right jack **** you.
Labour a caring party
Oh look folks that super duper hyper intelligent individual otherwise known as Katie Hopkins has been at it … AGAIN! *YAWN*
https://archive.today/79HH5
You know what I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that this *ahem* person keeps doing the s***e that she does because she is jealousy personified! 😀
What irked me in that interview was Reeves saying she wanted to reduce the number of food banks. A good society should aim to have no food banks.
Are the “UK’s poorest and most vulnerable people” no longer UK citizens?
Who would want a party in charge that only makes policies that benefit the better off in our society?
Well the answer is both the Labour and Tory parties!
Where are the trade unions and others that profess to be “left wingers”? Charlatans the lot of them, the UK is sick, it’s government the cause and the media the means of transmission.
I would prescribe Wings Over Scotland for all, a means of slowing the poison infecting the country.
Not as dumb as it might seem Rev. Labour want to focus on those who can elect them into power.I am sure you will find that the figure for voting among the disadvantaged in Society,whether caused by ethnicity,unemployment or even low income,is generally a precursor to not voting or indeed very low turnout,
In other words ,Labour have taken the cynical decision to throw the most disadvantaged aside and focus on the Socio economic groupings who are proven to turn up at the ballot box.
This is todays Labour Party,and a sad indictment of what they have become
I have an acquaintance that I persuaded to vote Yes and to my surprise he joined the SNP on 19 Sept 2014. However he is still very much a “socialist” GMB shop steward at heart.
his mantra is “Socialism is for workers no for paying these lazy b******s to sit about the house aw day pumping out weans”
He really tries my patience at times 🙁
@Rev Stu
People sometimes query this site’s unconcealed contempt for the modern Labour Party. It’s not something we were born with. We celebrated as enthusiastically as anyone in 1997. But when we see the party of Keir Hardie and Aneurin Bevan hijacked by the sort of careerist lowlife who would turn their back on 11 million of their fellow citizens when they needed help the most, it’s all we can do to moderate our language.
A good summary of the modern Labour Party. The odious John McTernan also said that Labour were not the Dole Party in his own words. Therefore, if you are unlucky enough to suffer from a long term illness/health condition/disability, and/or you are unemployed (bearing in mind that there has not been full employment in the UK since the 1970s), then you can expect no support, representation or voice from the British Labour Party.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152695073290814&set=a.10151665843455814.1073741827.586900813&type=1&theater
A wee image for sharing
Does your 11 million include pensioners Stu or does their inclusion bump up the total even more?
Labour Party? What a misnomer, they don’t know the meaning of the word ‘labour’. Only the SNP will represent the poor and the vulnerable in Scotland. Listen to Nicola, she makes that so clear. And WE will represent the poor and the vulnerable against the cult of greed supported by the tory parties.
And where are the unions? They are conspicuous by their total absence. Do they also not care about the poor and vulnerable. Sadly they do not. In it together with their tory chums.
I view today’s Labour Party has essentially an employment racket. They only campaigned hard in the referendum campaign because they knew their jobs and status were on the line. Ditto with the general election. Taking away their elected representatives, their relations, and their associates, the Labour Party in Scotland must be down to its bare bones. They are fighting for themselves and nobody else, and quotes from the likes of Rachel Reeves, McTernan, and Bomber Harris demonstrate this clearly.
Ach whit tae say….
Hell mend them.
Like a lot of people here I remember when the Labour party stood for something. They are now part of the establishment – the Red Tories label says it all. They’ve slowly been picked off by the elite who, it would seem, have used money, bribery and child abuse scandals to lever compliance out of our so-called parliamentary representatives from all political persuasions.
Soon people will be asking how – and more importantly – WHY? And when that question is answered then I get the feeling a tipping point will be reached and who knows, the whole rotten establishment just might come crashing down.
Alienating the disabled, the unemployed, the retired, the housewives – not quite sure I understand the logic of this particular election winning strategy being followed here
And who would have thunk it – spare a thought for the Patronising Better Together Lady today! Labour dont want you any more – away and dinnae choke on your cornflakes
I bet I am included in that number as I don’t work. I retired early with a small private pension and have never claimed a penny in benefits. I won’t receive a state pension for a few years yet. What am I to them?
I wish I could say I will never vote Labour again – but I never have in the first place.
Sorry for O/T here but now I know why we are Better Together … or maybe not! 😉
http://news.stv.tv/scotland-decides/news/314192-scotland-could-face-145bn-of-spending-cuts-warns-john-swinney/
“It doesn’t stop there. Scotland’s cumulative share of the cuts to day-to-day public spending over the five years to 2019-20 is forecast to be worth around £14.5bn compared to 2014/15 levels.
I am at a loss as to whom the Labour Party do represent. They girn at universal benefits, so they do not like those who have as they see it, a bit of money. They do not wish to see the disadvantaged get any sort of assistance. This is rich from a Party set up to help those self same disadvantaged. The trouble is that Labour is stuffed fu of those very people it doesn’t need. The Rachel Reeves who look down their noses at people who for the most part are suffering the same things that caused the Labour Party to be set up for.
I am away to be sick to my stomach.
I had began to notice that they never mention the disadvantaged when they communicate. How many English and Welsh voters might that amount up to, and what would happen if they all voted Green?
I don’t know what to say…
It gives a whole new scope to the term “morally bankrupt”
Not even desperation can help them now to not look like the Torries they claim to be so different from.
The whole of the UK should kick their stupid buts right out of politics forever.
Meant to add that we in my household are now what would be termed economically inactive, if only that was true. Like many pensioners, still paying tax, still buying things, still going on holiday for now. We have a collective working life of 85 years. I bet there are no Labour MP’s who can say they have that.
What Bob Mack says – just honing their message to ensure it appeals to the group’s who look down on the slackers and wasters, the something for nothing hingers on.
I find nothing surprising about that quote, it’s only written confirmation of their direction. It’s ensuring those south of the Border understand Labour want nothing to do with the subsidy junkies in Scotchland.
It is the thing thing that is cleeving Labour into north and south messaging too. The north accounting unit can’t say these things. It’s why Dougie is reduced to blaming Facebook for the poor polls here.
They are ripping themselves in two. It’s why some diehard Labour wanted them to form a breakaway etc.
Day one of wings app on my tab.
There’s no stopping us now!
Labour free in 3 (’15,’16,’17)
New Wings App on the tablet today – certainly makes for quicker access, but not yet instant commenting as on the laptop.
Have a new logo for the new App:
Labour free in 3. (’15, ’16, ’17 )
Shocking.Having been unemployed recently and claiming JSA I can tell you I would not wish it on my worst enemy or even a no voter. It’s the most depressing demeaning soul destroying experience of my life.
Would you really trust these Red Tories with something as valuable as the NHS since it is manifestly welfare for all and not reliant on ability to pay?
Give these Thatcherite Labour careerists a few years in power and they will be limiting access to the NHS only to those they deem “hard working” and able to afford it. The red tories ongoing privatisation of care and welfare is absolute proof that the ability to pay is the only factor they care about.
Why else would so many Labour and Tory MPs and Lords be taking huge amounts of money from private healthcare firms?
We all remember Darling taking tens of thousands from a private healthcare firm. You think he did that because he gives a shit about scotland’s poor? Hardly. ^^
Scotland gets the chance to send these greedy sleazebags packing in May and to take their Thatcherite contempt for the poor, the vulnerable, the disabled, the welfare service and the NHS with them.
So, Labour no longer target as potential voters …
i) anyone who can use google
ii) anyone who is between jobs
iii) anyone too sick to work
iv) anyone with a serious disability
and
v) anyone who can spot a liar!
Well said. I supported them for thirty years in the hope that they stood for social justice, decency and inclusion. I thought they were the civilised option.
They might have been once, but they’re not now. Power for its own sake and to hell with principle. To hell with the empowerment of an independent Scottish consciousness that might bring real progress. To hell with the weak and marginalised. They just want to run the UK system that fails so many in this country.
How could any professed socialist support them?
I’ll never vote for them again. I’m out canvassing for the SNP tonight.
Labour, the party that cares. Cares for it’s self and f*** all else.
There is a party that does it’s best to represent those within the “constituency” that Labour now turn their back on: the Scottish Socialist Party will always stand up for and alongside the victims of capitalism. Labour’s careerists will naturally sneer away, but our members argue on principle rather than self-seeking greed that they have sold themselves to.
Thanks Stu.
Truly inspiring,the positive informed opinions on wings,keeps me going.
The air has been leaking from the Labour Party balloon (s),for some time now,sounds more and more like a death rattle,it time to end their suffering.
“Don,t give yourself to these unatural men,Machine men with Machine minds,Machine hearts…..”
That sounds very much like over two thirds of the electorate to me galamcennalath. 😀
Guardian also reports that Jack Monroe, former Labour poster girl and recipes for the breadline has joined the Greens.
Has tweeted that the knives have been out for her since.
Just testing connection
I’m sure you have noticed Millie hasn’t ventured into the frozen North to help the accounting unit? Let us see how much he cares and backs up his 40+ MPs? The polls don’t concern him enough to set aside PMQs this time?
Word of Labour’s slaughter up here, and no one comes to tell us how important we are in the birthplace Hardie?
If Miliband is invited to form a govt. and has to do a deal with SNP, then he already knows he will have to deal with a whole new load of people, why waste time on the Slabbers, who are dead men walking.
I wasn’t the only one to comment on Smurphs more than usual haggard appearance last night. The long knives are already sharpened.
Roll on the general ejection!
This just makes me want to weep.
I am appalled that ANYONE can think of excluding our most disadvantaged fellow citizens.
I am lost for words.
But I DO have a vote.
And the SNP will get my vote.
My wife had a fall the other day.
I’m glad Rachel Reeves does not decide
what happens next.
We vote SNP – we’d have to be very, very, stupid not to.
The right to work, training and education should be enshrined in the new Scottish constitution.
The unemployed are those who have been denied the right to work.
O.K. folks here is the plan … and it is a real stooshy of a plan I can tell you. 😉
Following a wee chit chat with someone on Twitter the best way forward for the biggest laugh in a generation is to tell any Labour pollsters at the exit polls that you all voted Labour. Then just sit back and wait … it won’t take too long … and watch as they all disintegrate.
Just make sure you are no where in the vicinity of any Labour polster or candidate when the first bite of reality takes a chunk out of them and the reality of their situation slowly begins to dawn upon them. 😀
I was off work for the best part of last year with a very serious illness and wondering if I’d be around for a while longer or not. This after working most of my adult life including 25 years with the firm I’m working for now. I was on sick pay, benefits and during which incidentally I sometimes thought I was useless and a burden on others.Thankfully a few months ago, I got remission.
It is a comfort to know that the Labour Party thought I was worthless and not worthy of representation. But for years I already knew that the Labour Party, particularly New Labour didn’t represent me. Thanks Mrs Moo for confirming it .
Bidge
It’s good but you need the date she said it for it to be any good for quoting/distribution otherwise it just gets lost because it becomes non attributable to her.
The date helps greatly-can you add it in.
Jeeez, one more reason why I go out leafleting, they just have to go and we have to get out of this madness.
Erm … Oops! 😀
https://archive.today/e3gFJ
I wonder who is going to be brave enough to tell RED Ed that they have lost one of his candidates. 😛
Rachel Reeves= Red Tory.
Can someone please take pity on a witless,
Wings App on a tablet user, who can’t figure out how to ‘refresh’ the page.
And I thought this was going to improve my life!
There but for the grace of God go I
We are a P45 from disaster, I thought the welfare state was a ‘safety net’ for us hard working families. And God forbid you should get injured or diagnosed with cancer
there are no second hand citizen as a labour would have us believe. Most that don’t work have in the past and paid there taxes and continue to pay many many taxes through VAT, fuel duty, and other many taxes. Where does any party get off saying ‘the tax payer’ and suggesting this means people in work. It’s not, working or not we all pay into the exchecker. We pay all this money to have an equal society, to help the poorer become more equal and live a better life, for our children to have the best we can as a country provide and to help the disabled and sick lead as good a life as possible. It’s not to fight wars, help the rich become richer and the bankers squander the huge bail out they received. The Labour Party should hang there heads in shame, they cannot see what we all see, they have turned blue and shortly, in Scotland, they will be gone.
They’re not red Tories any more. They’ve passed the final entrance exam and qualified as fully paid up true blue Tories.
Well done them.
O/T
Nicola is debating with Greens and Plaid on BBC 3 at 8 pm tonight
O.K. folks here is a wee visualisation of the *ahem* stooshy plan I mentioned earlier. 😉
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPr7cYLq3dk
I can’t even say that they’ve forgotten their roots. These ermine chasing careerists don’t have any roots or principles.(eg Jim Murphy)
I sincerely hope that forty one of them in Scotland find out in May what it feels like to be unemployed.
Reading that quote from Tom Harris doesn’t get any easier with the passing of time.
@ LA (5.38pm).
I know what she states as sealing her decision to jump ship but i can’t help but wonder how much influence our own First Minister might have played in sealing that decision, especially since this announcement is only just being made days after Nicola’s speech.
I’m getting an enormous feeling of satisfaction, with a massive cheesy grin, just thinking that that is truly the case.
🙂
Man and Boy
Mac tablet yes but Windows no.
Mac there is a wee curly arrow on the right end of the site address, Click that.
Valerie wrote:
“I’m sure you have noticed Millie hasn’t ventured into the frozen North to help the accounting unit? Let us see how much he cares..”
We may yet see a cameo appearance at some point.
Just for appearance sake. Then again, how desperate are they?
Any appearance would surely shatter Murphy’s myth of them not being a branch office, eh! They’re caught in a catch 22.
🙂
Rachel Reeves and the rest of them suggesting they represent ‘working’ people but not those on benefits, will be representing an ever reducing number of people.
Many people on benefits are working – so is she going to be in some representational superposition of states?
Zero hours contracts often means you’re not working – is she only representing those people when they’re working?
I work but I don’t get paid for it, yet neither do I claim benefits – is she prepared to represent me?
When you try and reduce your policies to soundbites, you’re going to end up in trouble and sound a lot like UKIP.
So sad that Labour has been reguced to this.
As a second-class subhuman who does not claim any form of benefits, you would think I could get a job somewhere above the level of bottom of the ladder. Alas no.
Even the ex-inmates get someone to say “he/she deserves a second chance”.
I haven’t even broken the law, and no one fights my corner…except me.
Poster alert!
Anyone driving along the M8 might want to keep an eye out fo a poster that says:
” Jim Murphy speaks with a forked tongue!”
Alexandra’s mum just texted her to say she had seen it, don’t where on M8 though. 😉
There is now a petition running to get Coburn kicked out of the E.U. parliament. Not sure if it will get anywhere anyone wanting to sign it here’s the link.
https://www.change.org/p/council-of-the-european-union-eject-david-coburn-from-the-european-parliament-for-being-racist-and-bigoted?recruiter=256804736&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=share_twitter_responsive
I’ve seen a few comments on Twitter etc to along the lines that it’s no wonder Labour don’t represent the unemployed because they don’t pay union subs.
Of course a lot of the time this is the case, however Unite has specific reduced membership for those who are out of work. I wonder how community branch members feel about the possibility their subs might be going towards a party that has explicitly stated it does not represent their interests.
They should be made aware (if they aren’t already) that they and everyone else who is a member of a Labour supporting union can retain the full benefits of union membership without paying a penny to Labour by opting out the political fund using this handy form
http://www.labour.plaidcymru.org/union-member/
To the best of my quick research, 3.4 million of those 11 million will be unpaid family carers (there are a further 3 million balancing unpaid care with paid employment and am also discounting the massive contribution of young carers/future voters because of their age)
Back sometime in 2005 when MP Anne McGuire became the minister for disabled people and carers, she was claiming an annual stationery allowance of £4k, whilst I was earning £2,386 per year for caring for our profoundly disabled son. I wrote to her at the time, asking why unpaid carers weren’t paid a wage – Carer’s Allowance is the only UK benefit with conditionality of caring for a minimum of 35 hours a week. She replied that unpaid carers weren’t working but “playing a role”.
I also asked why unpaid carers were exempt from the European Work Time directive. Well, if you’re not classed as working, that’s an easy one to avoid.
Like many unpaid carers, my working week, and it’s bloody hard work I can assure you, is 133 hours long.
Labour used to proudly talk about being the party of introducing Carer’s Allowance, formerly Invalid Carer’s Allowance back in 1976 when it was £7.90 per week. Nearly 40 years later, the rate is about to go up 2.1p per hour to £62.10 per week, lower than the rate of JSA. I can’t fully lay the blame at Labour’s feet, it’s been an accumulation of decades of governments taking advantage of service and love to their cared-for people. We’re never gonna strike and they know it. So that’s why they can get away with paying us less than £2 an hour for looking after another human being.
It’s worth knowing:
1. Unpaid care was valued as being worth £119 billion pounds to the UK economy 4 years ago in a joint study by Carer’s UK and the University of Leeds.
2. If just 3% of Scotland’s unpaid carers said, “that’s it, I’ve had my fill” we’d bankrupt the country in a week.
3. The number of UK unpaid and (un-unionised) carers is equivalent to a second NHS.
That 6.4 million people’s resourceful, unrelenting, unglamorous, arduous and essential work is discounted as being “economically inactive” absolutely fucking disgusts me.
A visual representation of the Scottish electorate and the Labour Party …
http://www.muchgames.com/games/slap-him
I have a friend who is unemployed having been in constant work for the last 40 years. This all came about because he was made redundant following a nasty workplace accident, and he has been advised, by doctors, that he is not fit for work the moment. He is now being reviewed by Atos and we all know where that will lead. He then falls into the category of the people he Labour party will not represent. Good job he’s a member of the Snp!!
O/T ah wee exercise fur the Wings ferrets.
Tom Goody the mouthpiece of Ineios,said today that the Grangemouth plant WASENT BUILT for North Sea Oil, but to extract SHALE GAS,Moneymen re-writing history.
I was made redundant a fortnight ago and I am now signing on. It’s a horrible feeling as I have been in continuous employment over the last fifteen years. If any labour canvasser asks me for my vote I will quote Rachael Reeves and say “no point voting labour, you don’t want to represent the likes of me”
Vote SNP on May 7th
I thought unemployed people were those who wanted employment but the capitalist system condemned them to penury in order to encourage les autres – I am disgusted.
Rancid Guardian usual vote SLab or Cameron will win grot today but tis all because NOT red tory SLAb “tarnished” themselves fighting Scottish independence with the blue tories style last year, in short.
In long, and with all the self awareness that sets apart BetterTogether media twits like Severin Carrell and co
“In reality, Cameron is the leader whose tactical interests are most aligned with Nicola Sturgeon’s. The damage that the SNP threatens to inflict on Labour boosts the prime minister’s chances of clinging on to his job far more than any lavishly funded Tory campaign. The crowning irony is that this electoral windfall is a perverse consequence of his party’s brand toxicity north of the border. The image is so bad that the pro-independence movement could campaign on pledges of emancipation from the “Tory” English. By sharing the pro-union platform with Cameron, Labour MPs found themselves tarnished as Westminster establishment collaborators: “Red Tories”, as the Nats now say.
Disaffection with Scottish Labour had a longer gestation, but it was the background of a Tory-baiting political culture that lulled the party into complacency. In private, Conservative MPs cannot help indulging in a spot of schadenfreude. As they see it, Miliband’s party is reaping the harvest of decades spent portraying the Tories as alien to Scotland, untouchable. Labour let the anti-politics cauldron simmer, never expecting its contents to be tipped over their own heads.”
Why do all these red and blue tory vote SLab stupid Scotland chaps never ever acknowledge that the SNP might be doing well simply by offering Scotland policies we actually want?
That’s my daily teamGB mystery of the day:D
Absolutely fg disgusting, I hate Labour more than even the tory gits. They deserve to rot in hell, literally if that is possible, I hope it is in this case.
I suppose someone in the Labour Party has to be truthful sometimes.
Re Ronnie Anderson Grangemouth was built to refine crude oil from the West Lothian shale mines early last century, this was the beginning of the worlds oil industry. A pipeline was later built between Grangemouth and the deep sea port of Finnart on the Clyde to supply the refinery with cheap crude oil from the middle east
Ronnie
OT. The Grangemouth works was built where it is by BP, as an exporting plant and extension of the Addiewell Shale Oil Works, which was built in the mid 19th Century by James “Paraffin” Young to exploit the shale rock underlying much of West Lothian. In fact it could be said that BP is the direct descendent of the Scottish shale oil industry.
Anyway, it is certain that the plant was built for the oil in the shale, not the gas, The Addiewell plant closed about the 1960s and the golf course on the site was subsidised by BP in an effort to landscape the site.
No doubt there is a lot of gas still there.
Ronnie Anderson 7.15
My understanding of the present oil price s that it is set at a level to allow the major producers to make a profit but totally shaft the “Frackers”.
Didn’t Ineios fork out more millions than you could wave a stick st for fracking licenses just recently?
I think Mr Goody is whistling in the dark as well as rewriting history, unless he is referring to the shale mining industry.
Even if we do decide to have shale gas the last thing we would want is to do it now and give tax revenues to Westminster
Wait until either Independence or FFA then we keep our own money for a change instead of pooling and sharing it all down to the Giant Sucking Maw of Westminster like they stole the oil revenues and wasted them
I’m not sure about the whole Fracking thing but i know one thing
Those B’stards urnae gettin it if ahm no
With Labour’s propensity to shoot itself in the foot and general ineptitude, we should all contact them on this…
Please write to your prospective Labour candidate and ask if this is official policy, quoting Rachel Reeves. There’s bound to be rich pickings for Stu in the replies, the more they are having to defend their colleagues’ ridiculous statements, the more they’ll fall out …
and if nothing else, it irritates them and ties them up in letter writing or emailing
O/T
I’ve just searched the BBC Radio schedules for the programme with Nicola, Natalie Bennett & Leanne Wood but can I find it? Can I hell!
No wonder England doesn’t know much about anything happening in Scotland. It would appear that the programme will not be broadcast here in England. We get to enjoy a Purcell evening instead.Oh joy 🙁 #BBC Fail Yet Again.
I’m so glad I don’t give them a single penny anymore 🙂
O/T Nicola on BBC three, on now. Great show.
I’m sure the Labour Party would be less interested in a return to their Victorian values if they relised MPs did not get paid then
It’s definitely got a whiff of Mitt Romney’s ‘ 47%’ comments.
@Lollysmum
Its on BBC 3 Television, Nicola just finished unfortunately.
@ Square Haggis. at 8:15
She did a splendid job, interacted well with the live and online audience, and got her points over clearly and concisely.
The question when asked again should be looked into at a much deeper context,
‘We were set up as the party to represent the values of working people, working being the key word’
So …what type of working person is it, that Labour are referring too? There is after all, different types of workers, and on very different payscales.
Are we talking those who are on minimum wage or close to it? Those who are Middle Class and have a fairly decent wage? Or are we including high-flyers here; not bosses or managers, but folk who earn a very good wage?
Personally, this is dangerous ground for Labour to try and answer. Someone who may have done well for themselves, and earns say …£40,000+ a year might not be the image type that one holds in their mind about a ‘worker’, but in that person’s heart, they may old traditional Labour values due to their upbringing. It doesn’t matter how much they get paid, because at the end of the day, if they are not management, then they can be considered to be a worker!
Which, then begs the question when someone who has worked away diligently for years, and then gets made redundant. Are Labour implying at that point, that the person is no longer considered ‘working class’ and therefore should be ignored?
Labour have to be careful here when they talk about the ‘Working Class’. It is a much larger and broader spectrum than the likes of Rachel Reeves, or any of her colleagues, might perceive.
AArgh-I thought she was on BBC Radio 3 -no wonder I couldn’t find it duhhh! Well, as its TV I’ll just have to wait for iplayer to post it
@fireproofjim Pumpherston got the golf course Addiewell got the Prison
Rachel Reeves is just Iain Duncan Smith in drag.
MPs got paid for the first time in 1911 £400, no perks, equivalent to £32,940pa now.
Today with pensions and redundancy money a 5 year MP gets about £77000 worth off the taxpayer. Only £10,000 more than the published figure of £67,000 that is not enough for a super trougher like Shaw or Rifkind to live on.
And there are 650 of them. Eugh!
Anyone want to join me in making this into a leaflet? The cost of printing goes down the more you get.
Can someone post this article to Torchil Chricton who on BBC News Review last night at 11.30 pm scoffed when it was suggested that the SNP were a more socially just Party than Labour.
BBC3 programme with a young audience was very good, refreshing.
Really important to note Leanne Wood said she wanted on the record, that she had never received the sexist treatment Nicola had by MSM, and thought it all disgusting.
Debate? What debate? I must have blinked and missed it.
https://archive.today/SLpra
The price of an old cow (mrs hatchet) was 5 magic beans,see,
hear,touch,taste and smell.
We still have a bit of climbing to do,but wer’e getting there.
Do not be ecstatic or dissapointed in the result of this GE
just be ready to move quickly when the time comes……..
and keep a sharp axe handy.
Are women on maternity leave economically inactive, or a drain on welfare?
Housewives are apparently economically inactive. Are they to be unrepresented by a party that claims that Family values are important. A housewife or househusband are instrumental in establishing core family values.
Slightly O/T but it looks like the selection process for a labour candidate may end up being a re-run of the Falkirk selection process with some of the same characters being involved.
http://blogs.channel4.com/michael-crick-on-politics/labour-blocks-mccluskey-friend-karie-murphy-selection/4833
O/T: I work in a fairly grim part of Glasgow and a Labour stronghold to boot and I am at a total loss as to what they have done to inspire such loyalty. I look around and see everything at best staying the same and still out they troop and vote Labour. Why? They stick with Labour no matter what mentality has done nothing but create career opportunities for tenth raters. If I had the time I’d put together a tactical voting site to unseat Labour in the May elections. They really are hopeless.
http://caltonjock.com/2014/12/07/renfrewshire-district-council-jobs-and-perks-for-the-chosen-ones-councillor-kelly-his-labour-party-associates/
@Lollysmum + others.
BBC three – Free speech (I know, I know)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05mw9gp
On i-player
Quite refreshing to see the female of the species putting on a show!
Thanks people again its the half truths that Mr Goody is projecting,its the BBc who complete the rest by referencing Paraffin Young,two differant methods of extraction,so their sowing the seeds of confusion,& useing bribery 6% to the Landowner, 2% to the community.
Sometimes it’s fun to play the Fountain Or Drain game. Choose a person and decide whether he or she is a Fountain Or Drain.
I’ll start you off.
Nicola Sturgeon…Fountain
Jim Murphy…Drain
They truely have become the red Tories!
Had Dame Anne Begg chapping at the door in Aberdeen south the other day. Unfortunately I was at work in the North Sea so I missed her.
Mrs K answered the door and told her we all planned to vote SNP.
Disappointed, Dame Anne Begg wanted to chat but, Mrs K just wanted her to beat it. Dame Anne Begg wanted to tell Mrs K about all the good things that she had done for women in the area and beyond.
I wish I was at home on that fateful day to hear all the lovely tales and selfless deeds that Dame Anne had done for women, especially the one about the woman and the foodbank and not forgetting the the woman and the zero hour contract job.
Maybe Dame Anne could of explained why a disabled MP would vote for a bedroom tax that clearly affected other disabled women. Or maybe Dame Anne could explain why sanctioning unemployed women and stopping their benefits is helpful.
So disappointed i missed Dame Anne Begg and her National Front entourage. Oh well maybe if I vote for her she will be re-elected again and she will chap at my door again in the future when she wants another vote.
God bless Dame Anne Begg and all she has done for women.
O/T – Apologies.
Further censorship by The Herald
http://www.scottcreighton.co.uk/GE2015/Hatey.jpg
The Labour Government were responsible for me becoming redundent 3 times, the Conservative Government were responsible twice.
So I laugh in the face of Labour and the Northern Branch lackies when they state that they are the workers party.
Ronnie Anderson
Ah keep tellin ye Ronnie, take yer mind aff a frackin, get the Bonanza Bonanza Channel on, Irish Country and Western Music.
Give yer self a well earned rest.
Kennedy-I got slated by fellow wingers for this but why does Begg (wheelchair bound) travel hundreds of miles to London to work when she could be an msp? I witnessed her once getting on to my flight and what a palaver it was. It must cost the taxpayer a fortune for travel expenses.It’s not because of the filthy lucre? Surely not.
If you have time read Prof Danny Dorling’s book Unequal health The Scandal of our Times- full of extremely useful information and Dorling’s reflections on New Labours dismal failure to tackle inequalities is very helpful. Minister for Work in 2007 Jim Murphy gets a special mention ( p164 )…
‘ I don’t agree that child poverty will get worse. We ‘re providing more help to families who need it most….aim of eradicating child poverty by 2020’
3 months later his dept admitted that child poverty rates had risen. They were rising under New Labour and the coalition ( with Labours implicit support) are escalating this process.Scottish Government have put inequalities and early years support at the heart of their policies. The child poverty rates were falling in Scotland but now all at risk because of a NO vote.
Why does this matter?the toxic effects of child poverty affects adult outcomes across the lifespan- but fortunately for our hollowed out WM political system children who are living in poverty make the perfect ideological out group- anonymous,homogenised and voiceless.
But the conundrum is for the first time work is no longer a route out of poverty and most of these children live in working households- very difficult to socially exclude the 99% as a party but it seems Labour is trying very hard to do just that.
I live in Wiltshire, just two junctions or 25 mins away from our Mr Campbell of Bath.
My MP is a Tory. He is from Perth. He is also a complete bell end. I was once featured on a local news programme stating that I couldn’t care less whether or not he had an affair with his co worker whilst his wife was ill with cancer as long as he did his job.
He’s not got a great record.
I have only ever voted Lib dem.( I know, there’s not much choice down here)
I am absolutely desperate for a local candidate to knock my door.
I will tell the Tories that I am a working class Scotsman from the North East. I will laugh at the Labour guy and shut the door. I will start shouting HELP HELP then shut the door if UKIP turn up and finally will greet the Greens warmly explaining that I was going to vote for them anyway before Nicola Sturgeon helped me along.
Glad to get all that off my chest.
I am absolutely desperate for
On Scotland Tonight, an expert, Prof A Trench?, has just qualified to John McKay that biggest party does not necessarily form government.
Explained very well. Are you watching KayE? Repeats at 11.30 on 33.
Before the Welfare State was set up people would starve to death, malnutrition and destitution were commonplace. The Labour Party were responsible for ending this inhumanity. Now they demonize and blame the victims. They have betrayed everyone who ever gave them their vote.
The best known scrounger in the past 2,000 years said, “(God) has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor… to set the oppressed free…”
It seems that His followers are not allowed to be members of the Labour Party, because we are called to be like our Teacher, thus to represent poor and oppressed people.
tartanarse – Funnily enough, I’m just east of you in West Berks and funnily enough I also have a bell end Tory MP
Suffice to say he is the archetypal land owning Tory twat.
Likewise here in West Berks not much of a choice (Tory or Libdem) Greens would seem to be an idea, but they really have some work to do to make their presence felt
Nicolas speech from LSE yesterday has now been posted on you tube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO5hSkqBqgU&feature=youtu.be
Absolutely brilliant article Rev
OT
George Osborne coining it…
https://archive.today/GKeQQ
Re Reeves:
From Wikipedia:
‘She and her husband have homes in Bramley, Leeds, and London.[54]’
The footnote ref is to a Telegraph link which is, apparently, dead.
Hey neighbour. Vote Green anyway. Or independent if you have one.
Last time I voted was 2009 Euros. I voted Mebyon Kernow. The nationalist in me I suppose. And I love Cornwall.
We’re both only a few hours away from both Cornwall and Scotland. Perfect.
@caz-m
What is this Bonanza Bonanza channel?
I need to find out about this!
🙂
This spiel suggests where Johann got her something for nothing rant from. It’s obviously been simmering for a long time but kept on the back burner. Now it’s boiling away nicely.
@ caz m 10.31 Bonanza Bonanza, If Big Hoss n Wee Joe Cartwright’s no playin am no watching,ah loved that wee Joe,s Pieball horse. lol
@Hoss Mackintosh
You’ll have to Ponderosa that one.
Since she dropped this clanger, has anyone asked her who she believes Labour does represent? Do we have to wait for John Humphries to ask her? (Is he still going btw? I honestly don’t know…)
Very refreshing open politics from Nicola, Leanne and Natalie.
What a difference from the dead hand of Labour, Lib-Dem and Tory politicians.
Watch the Free Speech program…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05mw9gp
Best thing to come out of BBC (filmed in Edinburgh, Scotland) in years and obviously not a BBC Scotland PQ program – no bias – amazing!
What a pleasant surprise.
Very poor from Kay Adams. To claim she doesn’t ‘get it’ is an easy ‘out’ designed not to address the issue.
Then to say discussing that issue is not helping, is frankly embarrassing.
The BBC and MSM are allowing SLAB to put across the completely wrong side of this on a daily basis. Stu puts across the truth and suddenly the issue should not be discussed. Laughable.
Kay Adams; Scotland has changed, people are politicised. You cannot get away with the sham anymore. Either change with us and find impartiality, or move over.
Just read that link from Author_Al @ 11.15pm – Re: New £1 coin.
https://archive.today/GKeQQ
(1) – I wonder if the laddie actually created the new design with the thistle taking centre stage with the leek or if there has been a wee bit of artistic licence applied by the powers that be.
(2) – The article in the link states that “The coin is being replaced for the first time in 30 years because of its vulnerability to counterfeiters.”
I’m not so sure we’ve had £1 coins for 30 years, have we?
Ref Rachel Reeves on nu Labour not a party for the unemployed:
Keir Hardie was Member for the Unemployed 1892 -95.
(Ch 4 Keir Hardie: Radical and Socialist. Kenneth Morgan 1975.)
My, how far the “Labour Party” have come…
Ronnie and Hoss,
Re: Bonanza Bonanza!
You two don’t know what you’re missin, LOL
Irish Country and Western Music until 11pm every night.
To be sure, to be sure!
Seems the present red Tory lot do not know their own party history. Their very first elected to government member, Keir Hardie, came from a background of the Scottish workers many of whom were indeed then out of woek.
Rachel Reeves is one of the “gilded youth” and is hardly distinguishable from her tory peers.
http://thosebigwords.forumcommunity.net/?t=52092046
It is fascinating to have a look at the careers of these people, given their high positions and their shameless assumption of superiority
The ones in the link were of interest to me because they wrote a book about lazy british workers. Rachel Reeves is another example of the type
She was born in February 1979. She had a very good academic career, and then worked as an economist for the bank of england and at the british embassy in Washington, from 2000 to 2006. You will note that did this straight from university and she was 21 when she started. Like the rest of this group she does not seem to have found her work very onerous, because she had time to stand for parliament in 2005, and again in a by election in 2006. I am always amazed by how much these people can fit into a normal working day. Shows how hard they work…or maybe that these jobs are money for old rope. You decide.
In 2006 she went to work for HBOS. Well we all know how well that worked out.
Like the others in the link she was elected to parliament in 2010. Labour must be a little short of talent, because this rookie became a shadow minister less than a year later.
She has at least had a couple of jobs, so she is better placed than some.
Margaret Curran used that same line years ago as well, must be worth a punt to try and find that video!
Talking as a member of Britain’s new class of ‘untouchables’, the economically inactive ‘under-class’, I think I may be unnecessarily vehement here. 😉
Labour’s problem is the fundamental ideological basis for their being, similarly discards a large swath of society. The “German Ideology” was published two years before the Communist Manifesto, purporting a new interpritation of the interaction between global capital and society. What it produced, IMO, was a blueprint for a ‘modernist caste-system’ which was designed to keep the wheels on the economic kart, through the same old same old social exploitation and division (though now morally acceptible as it conformed with ‘socialist principles’). We can all see from the condition of society, how inadequate this interpretation is if we are going to address the problems faced in a post-modern global economy.
What we get now is endless duckspeak and turd polishing, generating endless Fabian pish purporting ‘responsible capitalism’ and ‘fairer globilisation’.
@ the Fabian Society
If your looking for change, might a new approach not be worth considering after over a century of failure?
As an isside, I would imagine there is quite an extensive cross-over of Britain’s 11 million ‘new-untouchables’, with the 8 million reckoned to be excluded by the digital divide.
I am no fan of the Labour Party but to suggest – as you do – that any party that purports to represent “the working people” would somehow exclude the retired and unemployed is at best disingenuous. You are better than this.
@manandboy
if you scroll back up then click the title of the post again, in the list down the right hand side, the post will refresh. But as my posts now go into moderation, sometimes never to emerge, you may not get this message !
P.S. What we get now in relation to Scotland within the UK, is endless duckspeak and turd polishing purporting the Unionist delusion that one-size-fits-all and English Socialism is best.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingsoc
OT sorry but what’s happened to Newsnet and National Collective websites?
Jamie Arriere
New York was the world’s first ‘neo-liberal city’, after the municipality was bankrupted by Wall Street around 1973/74. 😉
The Man in the Jar
his mantra is “Socialism is for workers no for paying these lazy b******s to sit about the house aw day pumping out weans”
‘Brew Bunnies’ 🙂
@Stoker 11.58 I’m not so sure we’ve had £1 coins for 30 years, have we?
They were introduced in April 1983 https://archive.today/8LD5L
(Rare poster, addicted reader)
Ok. I’ve cooled down a wee bit.
What a vile wicked statement from Labour MP Reeves.
So…basically Reeves is telling 11,000,000 people to NOT vote Labour.
I am astonished that Labour can afford to THROW AWAY 11,000,000 votes!
Ironically, Miss Reeves and many of her Scottish colleagues are probably about to find themselves unemployed, economically inactive, subsidy junkies, of no interest to the Labour Party.
Will Ed Milliband apologise for Miss Reeve’s cruel crass statement? Will he sack her for LOSING 11,000,000 votes, a number that any pre-election advertising campaign would be cock a hoop to gain, NOT throw away!
Thank God there are still humane decent political parties who actually believe in representing EVERYONE to the best of their ability. For me, and I hope you, it’s the SNP.
Another section of society that will be at odds with this growing idea that The Workplace must be venerated and turned into some new kind of religion will be those artists, musicians and writers who live a very precarious existence away from the madness of Corporateland.
Is it any coincidence that many artists supported a Yes vote? Where was the NO side’s version of National Collective? The late Scottish poet Edwin Morgan bequeathed almost a million pounds to the SNP, such was his belief in self-determination for Scotland, but all we seemed to hear about during the referendum was Rowling’s big fat cheque to BT.
The Top-Down, elitist, hierarchical structure that is the Brit system of government is anathema to most artists, be they Scots or otherwise. The relentless drag to the Right makes for uncomfortable thoughts with regards to any kind of positive future if Independence remains out-of-reach for years to come.
Hats off to labour there – making not bones about just how right wing they’ve become.
Not even the tories have the balls to come out and be that blatantly right wing.
MUPPETS
P.P.S.
The “German Ideology” – Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels (1846)
@ Will Podmore
Brushed up on your Marx yet mate. 🙂
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_German_Ideology
WGD joins the national…about time too.
Very poor from Kay Adams. To claim she doesn’t ‘get it’
I heard her make that remark and I winced.
What a dumb remark. It is not about her.
What did she not ‘get’? Her role is to put herself in the place of the listener, the voter, if you like, and ask questions she thinks they would ask. What is she saying? BBC is not keen to ask questions SNP members would ask?
And what a weak response; in her view the whole debate about what constitutes the numerical right to govern is a side issue. Eh? An entire political party lying through its teeth is a side issue?
And then, in answer to Stuart suggesting the BBC is not robust or informed enough, I heard her say to Stuart she was ‘not the BBC.’
By that I understood her to mean she is a freelance on a contract, and is not spouting BBC orthodoxy. But she is, every minute that she presents the programme and cuts him off for daring to criticise the BBC.
What is government for?
What purpose does it serve?
Who does it serve?
Collectively a government is a group of people who, for the most part (see under HoL), in our democracy are elected to administrate, legislate and exercise authority over our state. They are there to secure our defence, steward our economy and resources, create and uphold our laws. In short they are elected by the people of a democracy to care for their needs, aspirations and future. Indeed in a democracy they are elected to care for ALL of the people sheltering within the borders of that state. Not some, but all of the people.
I don’t recall any clause, anywhere, which says I’m only governing for those who can afford it. Similarly I don’t recall any statute or legislation which says ‘I’m only looking after you, if you have two cars in the fucking driveway’, or if you are fit and able to work.
No, I believe the job of governance means that you take on responsibility for the care of all within your sphere of administration, be they rich or poor, able or disabled. Whether they voted for you or not. Whether they believe in your political ideology or not. Regardless of colour or faith, your job as a part of anyone wishing to govern, is the care of the people.
If you cannot or will not accept this charge, then you are singularly unfit to govern.
The more traditional Tories, to be fair, make no bones about where they come from. Dog eat dog, survival of the fittest, market driven, authoritarian and hierarchical. Nope, no beating about the bush there. They are however inclusive in that they fully realise what underpins an economy, a country… people. So in times of strife or hardship (see under ‘we’ve fucked up again’ TM), ‘we’re all in it together’, break out the bunting and get the flags dusted down for some street parties.
Labour though? The new Tories on the block? Nothing so half arsed for them, oh no. They’ve now decided to cross the Rubicon and actively hack away what they see as the dead weight in society.
Bracket the statement above the line however you will with meaningless, policy free platitudes on wanting to get people back to work, or wanting to end the food bank culture. That statement tells you all you need to know about where the current Labour party is coming from.
Unfit to govern.
I was in a shop yesterday and say something that brought a lump to my throat,
Next to my wife and I sitting in the shops restaurant having a cup of coffee was middle aged woman of about 50 with a young man I presume was her son of about 25 and he was profoundly disabled,he sat and played noisily with a toy car on the table, while we sat a couple came in with a child of about 4 who was in a motorized wheelchair,
The young man next to us promptly got up and went over to the child and attempted to give him his prized toy car, in spite of it being a precious toy (given how gleefully he played with it) he was prepared to give it to a child he saw as being more deserving than him.
So endeth the lesson Rachael Reeve
Sanctioning the most vulnerable and starving them to death is not the best policy. It costs more. Illegal wars, banking fraud and tax evasion. Westminster gets away with murder and is above the Law. They should be in jail.
Labour are a Party with no conscience.
Scotland loses £10Billion++ to Westminster governance. The 11% (£2Billlion) a year increased tax revenues in 2011 Budget, on the Oil sector (now up to 80%) cost Scotland £4Billion+ a year. Scotland could save £1Billion a year on a tax on ‘loss leading’ alcohol. Save £1Billlion a year on illegal wars/Trident = £6Billion. This would cut £4Billlion in loan repayments (on money Scotland doesn’t borrow or spend) = £10Billion. Cut tax evasion by (foreign) multinationals making vast profits (Whisky etc) would save more. An inheritance tax on non productive land would bring in more. People buy Scottish Estates to evade inheritance tax. A tax or tariff on exported fuel energy would mean Scottish consumers would pay less.
Scotland raises £54Billion in tax. The UK raises £466Billion. The rest of the UK raises £412Billion (borrows and spends £90Billion). Pro rata Scotland raises more tax. (Foreign) Multinationals tax evade through the City of London. The vulerable are being sanctioned and starved to death while the wealthy tax evade.
Geoff Huijer,
I think Labour are more like a syndicate than a party these days.
Thanks Stu; This is a red Tory pointing to the tin and saying they are what the label is. I am working poor. My bosses in the Bahamas/Knightsbridge get £m from the Govt; I for F/T work less than taxable pay. They earn so much thanks to Blair’s legislation. It may say “Labour” on the tin but inside are self-serving ("Tractor" - Ed)s to the poor working or not.
@ Capella
“if you scroll back up then click the title of the post again, in the list down the right hand side, the post will refresh. “
Thanks Capella, much appreciated.
Sadly, my tablet, by default, is not set up to post immediately onto the Wings site,
unlike my laptop which posts instantly.
Actually, that’s the reason I downloaded the App,
but disappointment soon followed.
Being able to post a comment in real time
makes such a difference
I only hope someone can find a way
which everyone can implement
to put everyone on the same ‘instant’ footing.
Cheers
Ok I confess to be one of the economically inactive – yet I work pretty hard 24/7 looking after a small person just for £0! Nice to know SLAB don’t value anyone without an income – says all you need to know about their priorities.
SLAB are quite correct, they do not represent me however they seem oblivious to the fact that I not only have a vote but also a very vested interest in the future of Scotland. Truly their stupidity knows no bounds 🙂
BBC R4/Westminster grinding on about bad UKOK worker productivity but these guys sure are working their nuts off selling and normalising tory boy teamGB. Vote Tory propaganda on a giant BBC scale with stuff like yes there is a deficit but don’t worry about the fact its even bigger now since tory boys lost the last election with NOT the Morphy biggest party, or that tory boys are borrowing even more trying to just pay off interest on their debt because its a tory world and thats the natural order of teamGB greatness.
No mention of ATOS or sanctioning or real world austerity or real unemployment number and another day of UKOK red and blue tory greatness propaganda BBC style widdles out the radio.
Haha – have a look at Russell Brand’s comment on Facebook on Labour – I think he got the cartoon from the Huffington Post? Speaks volumes 🙂
@John King.
Got a lump in my throat there mate! Misty eyes.Thanks
O/T whoever put the reflective SNP logo on the motorway bridge near Stirling – I like your work 🙂
Heedtracker – I noticed R4 said ‘even’ France has higher productivity than UK. That made me laugh- damned Frogs, what? ingrained xenophobia, they just cant help themselves 🙂
Re the labour attitude to welfare, this study is from 2010
New labour, the market state and the end of welfare.
http://www.midmoors.co.uk/Unum/unum_in_uk.pdf
Dougie blames the slump in labour support on savvy voters.
http://atrueindependentscotland.com/desperate-labour-blames-collapse-on-scots-conspiracy-theoristsseriously/
Forgot to add this to my last post.
http://dpac.uk.net/2015/03/videos-from-labour-conference-see-these-attempts-to-get-answers-on-disability-funding-cuts-2/
? test
Why do people like Rachel Reeves go into politics? Self interest.
A few O/T links
http://breakingdownthnews.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/david-cameron-unveils-plans-to-ban-free.html
http://theconversation.com/why-nicola-sturgeons-london-speech-deserves-to-be-taken-seriously-38878
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/the-snp-arent-going-to-ruin-britain-109
http://createsend.com/t/d-B543DA4E69B33CF8
https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/75860/english-firms-more-cost-effective-than-aberdeen-for-decommissioning-work/
I posted a reply elsewhere on Wings the other day about exactly this (together with a rather melodramatic quote from Macbeth) – the point being that Labour are now no longer a party of “the people” – they are not even a party of “working people”.
Labour are now a party of Labour people. They represent only themselves and their own self interest. They are a party of power and the getting of power – power for its own sake. there is no agenda other than that.
Thus they stand for nothing. Their policies have no coherence. Their words are empty and meaningless. Labour, as a movement is dead. This was Thatcher’s greatest act of sabotage upon the British State. She got the Labour party, the party of the people to destroy itself.
I am an SNP member but I take no pleasure in saying these things about the Labour party. Its is a national disgrace that they have come to this. It is extremely sad. Their forefathers would actually weep for the hollow, dying thing that the party has become.
O/T I see the Unionist press is making much of MSPs voting for a salary increase (not that I agree with this) which is 1% less than Westminster voted for but to claim that Sturgeon would be the highest paid politician in the UK is another blatant lie as Cameron is entitled to £193,000 and I assume that will increase by 10% from 8th May 2015 in line with the MPs increase to £77,000.
What should be increased is the Constituency MSPs staff allowance as MSPs expenses work out at roughly half that of Westminster MPs which in the case of Scottish oMPs post devolution is for the same amount of responsibilities / work load.
two billboards, side by side
First Billboard
Rachel Reeves, the real Labour Party’s Shadow Minister for welfare said
“We are not the party of people on benefits. We don’t want to be seen, and we’re not, the party to represent those who are out of work,” she said. “Labour are a party of working people, formed for and by working people.”
Second billboard
So, if you are unemployed, ill, incapable of working, looking after children or aged parents or handicapped family, Labour doesn’t want to represent you and your needs.
They just want you to give them your vote so they can get back to Westminster and get their noses back in the feeding trough.
Labour, the Red Tories.
Anne Begg, the Labour MP for Aberdeen, was attending a rally a couple of weeks ago regarding benefit cuts for people with disabilities and she said that it was not ATOS who were to blame, but the Tory Government.
I found that an astonishing thing to say.
She didn’t seem to have a problem with ATOS.
But then you remember why she would say such a thing, it was the Labour Party who introduced ATOS to the benefit system.
http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_piff_does_money_make_you_mean?language=en#t-979602
In a world in which the rich elite are busy
taking and making money from the poor,
and owning 90% of everything, including Scotland,
this video explains a lot.
Don’t miss it.
ATOS – call us if you want to screw the sick and disabled.
ATOS – enforcers to Her Majesty, The Queen. (It’s her Gov.)
ATOS – kick the sick – it’s what we do best.
It’s telling that the rest of the UK are under the impression that the BBC are pro-Conservative whereas we in Scotland see the BBC as pro-Labour.
In fact, what the BBC are is pro-establishment, irrespective of the colour of the rosette.
Reply to Gary
“Before the Welfare State was set up people would starve to death, malnutrition and destitution were commonplace. The Labour Party were responsible for ending this inhumanity. Now they demonize and blame the victims. They have betrayed everyone who ever gave them their vote.”
Naw they wurny. It was agreed by the wartime coalition, with minor differences. Lord Bevy, the Liberal Civil Servant who designed the plan resigned in disgust because (Viscount Earl) Atlee did not go far enough. Most of the industries and services were nationlised by Churchill during the war anyway. He nationalised Thomas Cook for fear of German spies. He also introduced free mild, et, as the Liberal Home Secretary. The Liberals nationalised the Ordnance factories during WWI and built State owned Ordnance towns, pubs shops, cafes, etc. They realised the British soldier was smaller, less fit and educated than the German soldier and it was purely a military led philophy, copying Bismarck in the 1870’s. The Romans, Greeks etc, had welfare states od sorts. Bismarck formed the first welfare state in industrial times. He was no liberal, nor socialist neither. In fact he imprisoned thousands of German socialists ad Karl German Socialist and Liebknecht wen to the firing squad singing, A man’s a man for a’ that.
On the rare occasion of Labour canvasser’s knocking my door I always tell them I am a socialist. When their wee faces light up I then tell them That is why I have never voted Labour in my life.
@Macart says:17 March, 2015 at 3:23 pm:
“That’s appalling. Just what are they for?
They stand for no one but themselves, their political career, their expenses and ultimately their,
elevationchance to wear a fancy robe with a skunk trimmed collar while getting £300 per day attendance money while eating and drinking publically subsidised fine foods and drink.Test android
For those who think that State propaganda
through TV, radio and the Press,
doesn’t make much difference to how people vote,
I recommend a visit to the United Kingdom or North Korea,
where it’s a crime to think for yourself.
McTernan and his glove puppet, Murphy,
are pinning all their hopes
on being on TV, the Radio and in the Press everyday,
telling lies.
NK today, UK in May.
The BBC and the DR, relieving millions
of the tedium of thinking for themselves.
All in the comfort of your own home.
Just like in the United Kingdom and in North Korea.
.
What?
@ Robert Peffers
That’s about the size of it Robert. I suppose by this point, we shouldn’t be surprised at what comes out of their mouths these days. They’ve done and said so much which has shocked and appalled over the past three years especially, but when a senior Labour parliamentarian effectively says ‘I don’t represent you’ to a sizeable chunk of their own electorate?
That simply takes the breath away.
By being pro conservative in England and pro Labour in Scotland the BBC can claim to be fair and balanced, just not in the same country. Unless of course they consider the UK to be a country, crafty eh? I wonder what they tell them in BBC NI, BBC Yorkshire, BBC North West, BBC NE and Cumbria etc. For sure one thing unifies all of those regions, SNP bah bah bahaad.
@ manandboy
My posts on the app don’t appear immediately either and I have to add my name and email each time. That is something to do with the cookies this site adds – or fails to add. Someone in a previous thread said that they retrieved old cookies and reinstalled to get the instant posting function to work. A step too complicated for me!
I’m hoping that these teething troubles wil be cleared up. That the app will automatically resize the page to fit, that a refresh button will appear and that the cookies will be sorted out.
Sigh!
Labour’s new slogan
“We are not a broad church”
New British flags promoting Uk on UK funded projects, collective national emblems on UK coins…what next?
UK Union flags to be tattooed on the foreheads of all babies born in the UK since Midnight Sept 18th, 2014…
I see Likud have won the Israeli election with a ‘surprise’ victory.
I wonder if they had assistance from the british government on how to ‘win’.
Still, probably means Teflon Tony will be guaranteed hugely lucrative work in the region.
Unfortunately I don’t think a continuation of the Likud government will do anything to help with peace in the Middle East.
HandandShrimp says:
18 March, 2015 at 9:51 am
Labour’s new slogan
“We are not a broad church”
Labour now known as The Church of Lather Days
Pass the Cutthroat Razor please
@Lesley-Anne says:17 March, 2015 at 4:15 pm:
“Oh look folks that super duper hyper intelligent individual otherwise known as Katie Hopkins has been at it … AGAIN! *YAWN*
Ach! Lesley-Anne, you must treat that person as the immature person she quite obviously is. Almost every human goes through a stage where they are compelled to demand attention. Most of us do so as little babies and as babies that is expected because of our helplessness.
Some, though, still demand attention as pre-teens and my old Granny described this as, “The spilt wean syndrome”. On rare occasions a human remains an attention seeker into adult life and these we call, “Pains in the Butt”, (a bit like piles but more messy).
This poor person is more an object of pity and really requires professional psychiatric help. They should not really be mocked. (but I just couldn’t resist the temptation).
;-))
@Bidge says:17 March, 2015 at 4:31 pm:
“https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152695073290814&set=a.10151665843455814.1073741827.586900813&type=1&theater
A wee image for sharing
It is a fact that MPs swear to represent everyone in the constituency that elects them whether the individual has voted for them or not. That includes those not yet old enough to have the vote.
Another fact is that parliament does not officially legally recognize political parties. Which is why an MP can leave, or be thrown out of a party and yet continue to represent their constituency.
It also applies to MPs who change to another party or even start new parties. Same thing applies when two or more parties amalgamate as a new party. The individual member has sworn to represent every constituent.
The law is that a candidate is elected to personally represent everyone in the constituency that elects them irrespective of any political party.
Glamaig says:
18 March, 2015 at 8:29 am
Heedtracker – I noticed R4 said ‘even’ France has higher productivity than UK. That made me laugh- damned Frogs, what? ingrained xenophobia, they just cant help themselves
I did not hear the report on R4, but I am always interested in the productivity mantra because for many decades UK productivity has been poor, and this is generally blamed on lazy workers.
In fact low productivity in the UK is largely accounted for by greedy shareholders and employers, because most of the difference arises from low capital intensity. That is, the uk worker has less to work with, because our elite refuse to invest. I seldom see that aspect in MSM, though it has been perfectly clear for decades
http://aalookup.bis.gov.uk/economics/sector/niesr200710/7370-BERR-Occasional%20Paper%20No1.pdf
Growth accounting estimates suggest that the main factors underpinning the US and French leads in ALP levels are higher levels of physical capital-intensity (average capital per hour worked) combined with higher levels of total factor productivity (TFP) – a measure which captures, among other things, intercountry
differences in the efficiency with which production inputs are utilised. By contrast, in the German-UK comparison, the German lead on ALP levels is almost wholly explained by higher physical capital-intensity with a smaller contribution made by higher skills in Germany. The UK is now ahead of Germany on TFP at aggregate market sectors level, suggesting that while Germany benefits
relative to the UK from its accumulated advantages in capital stocks and skills, the UK gains from more efficient use of its capital equipment and skilled labour. However, the UK still pays a penalty in ALP terms for having accumulated lower levels of physical capital and skills over time.
Reeves has let slip the true intentions of the Labour Party.
If you’re on benefits of any sort they’re not your Party.
But they still want your vote to keep their job.
However, they’re not prepared to pay for it.
That’s the definition of “something for nothing” politicians.
@caz-m (9:01 am)
She is correct.
ATOS did precisely what they were employed to do, and that was determined by government. They have been replaced by Maximus, and they will do exactly the same. To a large extent these companies are being paid to be a lightning rod for government
Course they should not do it: but it is not to be expected that such companies will turn down huge sums of money for doing dirty jobs. The real fault is that those dirty jobs are done at all.
I see no indication that a Labour government will make substantively different decisions, however.
“I am no fan of the Labour Party but to suggest – as you do – that any party that purports to represent “the working people” would somehow exclude the retired and unemployed is at best disingenuous. You are better than this.”
Um, I’m not the one who said it. Labour’s own shadow welfare minister is the person who said it. Try to keep up, Bob.
O/T
Very noticeable that the Herald’s letters page appears to have abandoned letters on the constitutional issue and the coming election. Instructions to the Letters editor perhaps?
No real Murphy presence in the much of the press either now. They seem to have decided he is a liability. They are so right -except an entirely risible piece from Gardham about the members of Solidarity (all four of them,perhaps) attacking Sheridan because Tommy has told folk to vote for the SNP.
Oh how I laughed (at Gardham)
Labour desperately needs to win over potential Conservative voters in England. Otherwise the largest party may get to form the government
@Martin D says: 17 March, 2015 at 4:47 pm :
” … It gives a whole new scope to the term “morally bankrupt”. Not even desperation can help them now to not look like the Torries they claim to be so different from.”
I’ve often said it before but I’m going to say it again. The truth about Westminster is that Westminster is just one more part of what is known as, “The Establishment”, and, “The Establishment”, first began with the Romans in South Britain as an immigrant ruling elite that virtually enslaved the aboriginal Britons. This ruling elite has remained in charge ever since and when one ruling elite left, or changed, it has then been replaced with yet another ruling elite.
There has always been an undercurrent of opposition to the sitting ruling elite, and the ruling elite has given ground when forced to do so by changing circumstance, but always then regained the lead by recruiting the incomers to join, “The Establishment”. Remember that old saw, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”?
For example, in 1688 the Kingdom of England parliament threw out the absolute ruling Royal personage, (James II), and replaced him with the imported King Billy & Queen Mary of Orange but crucially removed from them the Royal Veto over the English Parliament. Effectively thus making the parliament of the three country Kingdom of England sovereign over the three English Kingdom countries.
However, (and here comes the actual important facts of the matter), The Parliament of England then became the new ruling elite by claiming sovereignty over that kingdom but by retaining both the Monarchy and the aristocrats as, “The House of Lords”, they effectively retained, “The Establishment”, of an immigrant elite ruler. So today, upon retirement or being dumped by the electorate, they elevate themselves as members of the, “Upper Chamber”, of the Lords.
Furthermore, when any movement of the actual common people succeeded in electing a party to government that government soon became corrupted by the spoils available to them and they join, “The Establishment”. An Establishment that comprises far more than the political faction. It includes the Royals, the Aristocracy, the Media, the upper echelons of the Armed Forces, the Civil Service, the Established Church and the Higher Education system. It even includes the Financial Sector and Security Services.
Labour first came to power as the non-Establishment party of the common people. Who though can now doubt they no longer remain the people’s representatives? Labour have simply become part of the historic, “Establishment”, of Westminster and, as such, they represent themselves, i.e. “The Establishment”, (or a meringue)?
I know “Bomber”‘s views are at variance with his colleague Clive Soley.
Ergo; to give up on the Retired is worthy of a lead on Channel 4 news.
Talking of Labour MPs who no longer seem to adhere to the party’s founding principles, I can proudly announce that my own MP, Jimmy Hood, has Actually Spoken in The House, on the subject of criminal disclosure, no less.
And yesterday there was an eclipse…
End of days?
Apparently sales of AK47s and baked beans have soared in Montana.
@ Fiona says:
18 March, 2015 at 10:37 am
Glamaig says:
18 March, 2015 at 8:29 am
Heedtracker – I noticed R4 said ‘even’ France has higher productivity than UK. That made me laugh- damned Frogs, what? ingrained xenophobia, they just cant help themselves
“I did not hear the report on R4, but I am always interested in the productivity mantra because for many decades UK productivity has been poor, and this is generally blamed on lazy workers.”
Fiona, years ago I looked at the average age of plant and equipment in the then British Motor Company, It was over 60 years. That was just at the time when the Japanese were working in their new plants with an average of 2 years.
I also was asked to look at a small food manufacturing company in Scotland, part of a larger group of small Scottish companies, as it was going down the tubes.
Apart from the fact that their target market was disappearing like snow off a dyke, the written down book value of all the plant and equipment was one quarter the book value of the Manager’s Company Jaguar sitting at the front door.
You are right, productivity is inextricably linked to mechanisation and thus investment. What we have seen is that a number of companies have foresworn investment for wage reduction. In fact the UK Gov has pushed that objective as a way of keeping the “working classes” frightened and in their place. This is, at best a short term policy which can raise profits but at the detriment to long term viability and social cohesion. However mobile capital benefits as it just moves on after the company has collapsed.
However the Stock Exchange expects returns for shareholders at minimally 6 months intervals. That is how CEs are selected and have as their bonus qualification. It is a degrading spiral of long term waste.
Warren Buffet invests not for short term gain but long term value generation.
The Stock Exchange is what is the real problem but, that would take a few pints and maybe more of discussion next time in Glasgow.
BtP now Gone Tonto
@Tinto Chief
That is funny. 🙂
Heard my first ‘I dinny like Nicola Sturgeon’ in the cafe this morning. From an older 80+ year old woman regarding her wage rise.
‘Breaking up the country’ She was reading the Express. A Tory!
We had words…
Meanwhile Beattie’s budget bingo call in, is his theme today on BBC radio Scotland.
How was Kaye… Stopped listening to that?
Sorry Tinto Chiel I promoted you there 🙁
Labour’s sentiments are shocking, but explicable. They know that if they *do* portray themselves as the party of ‘the poor’ it will actually cost them votes – the ‘aspirational working class’ don’t really want to be associated with ‘the poor’ either, so a Labour Party which is seen to be the party of beneficiaries is not something they will vote for. This was what Thatcher and Tony Blair understood and which Neil Kinnock in 1992 did not.
George giving £1M to celecbrate 600th year since Battle of Agincourt. Worth it he says as it seen of the French and a rag tag collection of Scottish nationalists. They can’t help it! 🙂
However some money going to Ambulance helicopters (some money to Scotland)
Corporation Tax NI but only city deals to Scotland
Oil basically we can’t afford it.
Were better together he has said at least four times.
“only city deals to Scotland”
I think we will be seeing more of this sort of thing. Undermining Holyrood perhaps?
As if its behaviour during the indyref wasn’t bad enough, the Guardian has now come out in support of Rachel Reeves:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/18/rachel-reeves-right-labour-reduce-benefits
Although it shouldn’t really be a surprise given the Guardian Media Group’s (legal) efforts at tax avoidance:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/06/28/the-insufferable-hypocrisy-of-the-guardian-on-corporation-tax/
https://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2011/02/19/the-guardians-rank-hypocrisy-on-tax-avoidance/
Yet another formerly honourable newspaper has fallen to the barbarians – Wings and similar websites have never been more necessary.
Just for the interest of others. I have twice tried to post the quote from Reeves about Labour no longer representing to poor on the Herald. Both comments are “pending”. It seems that even quotes from Labours own people are not welcome on their pages if it distracts from the positive message they want to give.
I used to worry about not voting tactically, that worry disappeared the day my father left the Labour Party. That was when it elected Tory Bliar its leader. It seems that things have got worse and not better since they toppled him. I now suspect that even Bliar might actually be too ahem left wing for the present gangsters occupying that Party.
Decades of under-investment in Britain’s industrial plant and social infrastructure, is largely what brought about the conditions that enabled Thatcher to evolve from under her rock.
If there is one rule of nature, it’s that new species emerge to exploit new environmental conditions. Thatcher thrived on decay.
Stopped voting for labour long long time ago socialist my a–e,Springurn union mp M Martin flouncing about like a tart while the establishment mocked him,how low does one sink.
Context of Rachel Reeves comment here – one line in 45 min summary of Labour welfare policy https://twitter.com/ameliagentleman/status/578129511931383808
Full disclosure: Since January 2012, I have been reporting voluntarily to the UN’s human rights office, in Geneva, on the welfare crisis for Britain’s sick and disabled. [Fellow Canadian Leilani Farha (@leilanifarha) is the UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing; see http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Housing/Pages/LeilaniFarha.aspx. You can tweet her on UK housing issues or e-mail her at the UN’s human rights office: srhousing@ohchr.org; she does follow my Twitter account.]
(Montreal, Canada)
Reading this on St Joseph’s day. He is the patron saint of the worker.
The concern is that Rachel Reeve’s comment is not a hasty one from Twitter, but a carefully crafted one submitted to the Guardian.
We should wonder.
@ Samuel Miller
Not sure what your purpose is in posting that first link: it doesn’t change anything
The problem is that the Labour party are neoliberals, economically. That means, amongst other things, that they subscribe to the notion of NAIRU and they have no policies at all which suggest otherwise.
If you support NAIRU then you accept that full employment is not a policy goal: and that means that a great many people will be out of work as a direct consequence of your policy
In those circumstances Reeves’ comments mean precisely what they have been interpreted to mean. They intend that unemployment will remain high, that is that the unemployed are supporting the rest of us, and they intend to ensure that the unemployed are blamed for their situation despite that being the overt intent of government policy.
That is despicable.
@BtP,
Seems we agree, though you have more real world evidence for the proposition than I have 🙂