The end of irony
Posted on
July 20, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The government’s brutal, monstrous welfare reform bill passed its second reading in the Commons tonight by 308 votes to 124, meaning that somewhere in the region of 80% of Labour MPs abstained on it.
Half an hour earlier the party tweeted this:
Presumably as a joke.
Ladies and gentlemen, the opposition.
Labour party really are just pointless now.
That’s it, then. This really is the day the Labour Party died. Yes, there will still be MPs who call themselves Labour MPs, yes, there will still be people who say that they support the Labour Party. But, in reality, there is no longer a Labour Party.
Realists will have to come up with another title for what remains. My own suggestion is that it should be called the Nothing-We-Say-Or-Do-Is-Ever-Going-To-Matter-A-Stuff Party.
Smashed to pieces by a bunch of smug careerists. A sad end.
Shameful. Beyond comprehension.
Missing the mark. Like being more angry at the Establishment for the cover-up than the paedophiles for their buggery (and worse).
Blame the Torys!
So how is a tweet from a registered, verified twitter account not real life? What if I print it out?
With a chocolate fire guard, at least you could sit and dunk marshmallows in the molten chocolate.
As Labour melts down … it really serves no useful purpose whatsoever.
Well done Labour. Do you actually have any purpose at all.
God help all the pour souls who are really going to suffer under this monstrous bill.
Sheesh!
“It won’t make any difference cos we lost the election” Well fcuk off for good then and let actual opposition do your job.
Duncan Hothersall reminding folk that its ok to abstain when everyone thinks you’re a loser. Wow…my irony meter just imploded. To think these clowns want to be in charge at holyrood.
I am unable to express appropriate levels of contempt or disdain for these people. They have literally gone beyond the reach of reasoned critical analysis and satire.
No insult…indeed, no expression of anger or outrage can reach these people. They are utterly shameless. A coward dies a thousand times before his death. That is what we are watching in the end. The bizarre and wretched death of UK labour.
Yes, Duncan, it ‘won’t make any difference’ besides showing people with Labour MPs that abstained that their representative has no SPINE or any will to oppose government policy.
It may be an odd notion but you’re meant to be trying to impress voters between now and the next election in the hope of winning them back. Good luck with that with that sort of attitude.
Let’s hope the remaining Labour voters abstain next year, good riddance.
Labour are a complete disgrace of a political party.
They are not even trying now and appear happy to go along with decades of Tory austerity because they are simply clueless on how to oppose it.
Absolutely Pathetic!
I really wonder how many of their members and supporters would have seen this coming before the indyref and would change their mind now?
All the Indy parties must have Indyref2 in their SE16 manifestos – time to get shot of this corrupt Westminster madhouse.
So if there was no point in any of this because the government was going to win no matter how Labour voted, why not vote against anyway? I totally don’t get it. Do they think abstaining makes them look good and if so, in what way?
There is no irony in the Labour parallel universe.
They are obsessed with their electability and bugger the rest of it.
I know we all know it on here, but it’s clearly a no brainer the only way Scotland can save herself is through Independence.
Lets hope the rest of them realise this sooner rather than later.
Hothersall – the epitome of stupidity
Stu, why do you refer to this as a reform bill, rather than a “reform” bill?
To reform something means to sweep away the obsolete, the crufty, the corrupt, etc, replacing it by the vigorous, the relevant, the modern.
By using the Tories’ term reform without quotation marks, you’re implicitly recognising their point of view, that a generous and adequate welfare state is corrupt. I don’t think this is your point of view.
Have not posted for a while.
Sat and watched that debate tonight.Chamber almost empty for most of the night.Then all of a sudden Tory’s everywhere.
Democracy my arse.
I think that perhaps the only things Labour don’t abstain on are their expenses, subsidise food and subsidised booze provide by the people of this obviously not all, “Better Together”, that we are certainly NOT, “All in together”.
No, it won’t make any difference, will it?
Abstain away to oblivion, Labour. And a fairer country means the folks are too glaikit it to know you’re selling them out. Not even The Tories are as cynical.
Join us on our slide down the razor blade of politics, suckers.
Cheeriebythenoo!
Lab won 232 MPs at GE. 48 voted, 184 abstained. Tories won by 184. So with a tie I believe the Speaker votes for the Government. I assume Bercow would have, but who knows?
Even a tie would have shown a commitment to some principles. Labour MPs have abdicated their responsibility to their constituents tonight – adding to their other recent abstentions. Unfit for opposition, never mind government.
I hope the next polls show the countries disgust at these chancers and spivs.
Holyrood 2016 and a SNP tsunami followed by IndyRef2 can not come soon enough.
Taken from twitter.
Surely Ian Smart’s Twitter account must be a parody. No person can be that dumb…
Big Dunc needs to realise that even if you’re not going to win a vote, you have to be seen to be doing the right thing. Why would anyone vote for them if they’re so unprincipled as to ignore a vote that will adversely affect so many of the poorer people in society? Labour are going the way of the dodo.
Labour clearly wanted to show Britain that they are no longer the party to help the poor and working class.
Frankly unbelievable. Even if the “opposition” had lost a close vote with all the Labour lobby fodder taking part, it would still remind the Tories of their fragile majority.
I find much in the referendum result to annoy me … but perhaps most is that I can’t get my head round why 55% voted to have the Tories rule over us sooner or later and often. As it turned out, sooner.
BUT here’s the twist, a lot of the 55% thought that Labour would ‘stick up for them’ … how astonishly deluded was that!?
308 is less than a majority isn’t it?
Could it have been voted down?
Its really just the birth of the English red tory party tonight.
They’re 2020 campaigning and beyond, reaching out to the middle England that might be marginal when the Cameron creep show does go too far even for that vote block, and the Gordon Brown debacle is forgiven and forgotten hopefully.
Old Labour is dead, long live the red tory party. Rejoice.
Excuse my “it” after “glaikit.”
Meant to say: Marco McGinty, do you still believe in Labour, as you argued on a previous thread?
Socialist reboot necessary. Leave The Labour Party out of it.
The DUP voted against this. The DUP. When a bunch of knuckle dragging fundamentalists care more about their constituents than that Labour Party. It’s clear the Labour have a problem
The speech today by Cameron regarding Muslims and ISIL was nothing more than a smoke screen. It was meant to take our eyes away from the welfare debate tonight and BBC Scotland joined in on the scam.
And how did the Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland vote tonight?
Absolutely beelin and this shower of reprobates.
Seriously, if Scotland votes ‘No’ in the next referendum, then we really are ‘too stupid’.
Proof if ever it was needed that British politics has been completely and totally infiltrated by Neo-Liberal placemen.
The EU in it’s treatment of Greece is exactly the same, over around the last forty years and certainly since the time of Thatcher and Reagan, it would appear that the “centre ground” has actually moved further and further to the right. Placemen doing their job.
The grand plan appears now to have been realised. Yet it is true, that the majority of ordinary voters have failed to recognise this move to the right.
Can this be due to the relentless propaganda from the Neoliberal owned MSM against immigrants, scroungers and idiotic left-wingers like Mhari Black and Jeremy Corbyn?
I wish it was possible to reverse all this brainwashing but we can only start by taking care of the brainwashing and propaganda happening in our own backyard.
Thankfully the Referendum has left us with some of the tools, Wings and it’s commentators are a good start. So too are the “new media” such as iScot and Indy Live.
The wicked witches legacy lives on. Spread the message, I believe decency and honest argument will win this.
[…] The end of irony […]
I watched a lot of the debate today and there were some eloquent speeches from the Labour benches by MPs, mainly in the North of England and in Wales, on how it would negatively affect their constituents – guess they were the 20% who voted.
I particularly liked Pete Wishart’s Point of Order after the vote: asking if the Speaker could “move the furniture so we [the SNP] could be the official opposition?” The Speaker replied that it was “tendentious” and PW knew it.
Tendentious: having an underlying purpose. Other meanings too but I think this is the one the Speaker meant.
They came they saw they concurred.
Labour in fighting spirit.
You have to sympathise with these dinosaurs, they mostly come from a pre Internet era. They could eat their subsidised meals paid for by some sycophantic hack and wether they voted or had another bottle of that nice claret would only get as far as Hansard.
Not now, it must be jolly annoying, an invasion of privilege and privacy even. The house isn’t what it used to be… You can hardly groom a teenager without the public getting into a lather about it. Don’t the public know rank has its wee privileges.
The Labour Party stopped fighting for anything a long time ago.
It is now a self-serving and self-centred Party who have no sense of shame after totally abandoning those members of society whom they pledged to support long, long ago in the halcyon days of its birth and of stalwarts such as the great Tony Benn.
The present charlatons have generally morphed into Tories, with a few brave exceptions.
Chtterinlicht is correct, there is absolutely no point to them now, especially the Scottish branch office, who are totally bereft of any quality, integrity and honesty.
I’m guessing that neither Duncan or Ian Smart are actually happy with the decision to abstain. The problem they have is that the SNP didn’t and they hate the SNP more so they can’t actually bring themselves to break ranks.
Harman is General Custer and her cry is “This looks like a good place to make a stand”.
I’ll bet that BBC Scotland will still talk them up as much as ever. Another bunch totally without principles.
So did Ian Murray abstain or vote against?
To abstain, is to tell Cameron that you agree with what he is saying but can’t openly vote with you, so we will stand aside and watch you destroy the hopes of millions of families.
How will the Daily Record report on this?
How will Dugdale explain this mess away?
What purpose does lily livered Labour serve now?
They’ve abandoned the poor/disabled/vulnerable but still expect their support and votes.
Abstaining is their norm. For this they get paid handsomely plus expenses. They’re a waste of space.
Pete Wishart is right. The SNP should be occupying the Opposition benches. Labour don’t deserve the title “Opposition”.
its not the end of irony.
It’s not even the death of the Labour Party.
That was ushered in byTony Blair changing clause 4.
The end of irony will be when they try to defend their actions.
Well Ian Smart really showing his contempt for the electorate there then .
C’mon folks, what did you expect?
If nothing else, Labour are consistently living down to our expectations.
Seriously, anyone that keeps watching this party, hoping for something that looks like a Left Wing gesture is deluded.
I have no idea why Corbyn is wasting his time in that party, if he truly believes in Left Wing principles.
The Labour party in Scotland has a new undercover leader well done Ruth Davidson.
@Hoss Mackintosh says: at 10:51 pm
Labour are a complete disgrace of a political party.
I agree!
BBC:
The scale of the Labour rebellion will not be known until details of the Commons divisions are published later.
However, there are reports that just under 50 MPs may have defied the leadership, more than 20% of the parliamentary party.
Among those expected to vote against was leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn.
His three rivals, Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall, are thought to have followed Ms Harman’s lead and abstained.
Reacting to the vote, Labour MP Diane Abbott tweeted: “Just voted against Tory welfare bill. Sorry for colleagues who knew it was wrong but abstained. We weren’t sent to Parliament to abstain.”
That sound you hear is the door slamming behind Scotland’s only remaining Labour MP. Hopefully his constituents now know why they shouldn’t have wasted their votes.
He should do the honourable thing and resign.
Oh, I forgot, he doesn’t know what honourable means.
Join us, Red Labour, and let us abstain on your behalf,
Well provided you don’t have a Disability, or are Unemployed, or your Ill, or in a low paid job that needs subsidies, or want independence, or want to bring Corporate Tax Dodgers to book,
or want to bring pedophiles to justice, or –
Never mind! Just vote Blue Tory! It’ll be easier for everyone?
True to his word eh
link to news.stv.tv
I think Labour are shifting to the right to fit in with a new,American future.Scarey.
Wonder if Mr Morningside Murray abstained?
Valerie 11.28
Anyone who believes in what used to be considered centre politics should leave the Labour Party.We’re getting to the stage where believing in any welfare state at all makes you a loony leftie.
Not quite OT, if you scroll down to the bottom of this article, there’s a map created by the German Federal Institute of Urban Affairs showing predicted indexes of poverty in Europe in 2020.
Red means poorer, blue means less poor. The UK including Scotland is pink, like Estonia and Poland. France and Germany, half of Spain (including Catalonia) and the rest of northern Europe are blue.
If true, something should be done. Clearly at least in this study, Labour isn’t expected to do anything much up to 2020 at least. As tonight’s vote seems to indicate.
link to lavanguardia.com
Just when you think living in the UK can’t get any shitter, they create a new level.
Ian Murray abstained, for those of you who were asking.
Joemcg 11.36,
The red rinse brigade would expect nothing else of him
Brave, Brave Sir Labour boldly sat on his hands and did nothing.
Will this be reported in the Media tomorrow?
It’s a horribly long way from SLabour’s Project Fearing emotional blackmail, don’t be so greedy and selfish, vote NO, stay in the UK to fight the tories, égalité, fraternité, we’re all in it UKOK together.
link to labourlist.org
Morningside’s Ian Murray’s not on the list either.
The tories believe in this, its their ideology, labour on the other hand know deep in them this is wrong, for 80% of them not to at least make a public stand is dreadful.
They wiped themselves out as far as scotland is concerned, well they have just lost the ones who voted in england for them!
Better TogetherVerified account
?@UK_Together
A vote for Scotland to stay in the UK is a vote to protect Scotland & the welfare of Scottish people – John Reid link to better.tg
Hothersall continues to excel with his sophistry.
On Twitter earlier, he was attempting a pisspoor justification for Labour’s vote because of the way the Tories had ‘packaged’ the Bill : some parts Labour supported, others they didn’t. Cos, y’know, that’s just how parliamentary politics works.
He reminds me of a tobacco company executive who steadfastly denies the link between smoking and cancer.
Morag
Cheers for letting us know that Ian Murray abstained.
Now it’s over to you Mr Murray, please explain to the Scottish electorate why you abstained in a vote that will cut £12Billion pounds from the welfare budget.
@Tinto Chiel
“Meant to say: Marco McGinty, do you still believe in Labour, as you argued on a previous thread?
Socialist reboot necessary. Leave The Labour Party out of it.”
I’ve replied to the other post, which you may or may not want to look at, but I think you’ve grasped the wrong end of the stick.
I don’t know if you are deliberately misinterpreting my comments, but just to clarify things, I don’t believe in the Labour Party, and never have in all of my voting life. However, you clearly have the opinion that “I believe in Labour”, so please alert me to any comment where I have stated as such.
Being of socialist principles, I know and understand that without a left-leaning Labour Party, the Tories will rule for decades, so it’s not so much a belief in the Labour Party, but a hope that they can find it within their party to lurch to the left, giving some hope to those that otherwise will be hit by the Tories, budget after budget, year after year.
How’s this for really mixing it right up within the Labour Party.
Start the rumour that Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott are about to set up a breakaway Party. Reason being, they are sick and tired of being labelled “Red Tories”.
I don’t think that it is as far fetched as it sounds.
The English Socialist Party.
England is now in the dirty hands of the far right in the form of the Tories, Ukip, and EDL.
55% of people in Scotland voted for that. Did they realise they were punishing themselves, us, and the English too?
This is a Labour/Tory alliance by abstention.
So Mr Hothersall, it doesn’t matter because we lost the election?
That is really your logic?
Well another we won the election and it still doesn’t matter in terms of the result.
That that other we, albeit one you do not recognise, has no right to national expression is down to you and your like.
Think about it.
Oh, and you might consider that things might just matter because they matter, end of.
Spineless Ian Murray Scotlands surviving Labour MP abstained. Watch for him next voting to renew Trident.
Bet there are a few people in his constituency thinking he was elected on a false manifesto.
ErneKid it’s becoming bleeding obvious on Westminister votes that the DUP are way to the left of Labour, and the DUP have barely moved. Unbelievably given my background I have more respect fro the DUP than the mainstream of the Parliamentary Labour Party
The LP nowadays is pure astroturf. Wake up and smell the plastic
Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott and the 46 other Labour MPs who followed the lead given by the SNP should be proud of sticking to the principles on which they were elected.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Parliamentary Labour Party will no doubt be congratulating themselves on their new self appointed role as Cameron’s C***suckers.
Sorry for the language, but I dread to think what Aneurin Bevan would have called the likes of them.
Monstrous? Brutal? No. Sensible, just and fair. The welfare state in this country is bloated and hugely expensive and a luxury we can simply no longer afford. Welfare needs to exist but it needs to be bare bones / only what is NECESSARY i.e. sick and genuinely jobless people and that’s it. When a huge proportion of your country is in receipt of welfare you have a problem and that problem needs addressing. Congratulations to the government for finally making inroads into this and well done the labour party for dragging itself into the post 2008 world. The SNP are a far left anachronism.
Labour, Tory and Lib-Dems are one party – they have all signed up to full-on neo-liberalism.
link to grousebeater.wordpress.com
O/T
link to caltonjock.com
Labour continuing to excel at labouring the point that Labour are pointless.
Utter disgrace. 5 years of this? I really don’t think so.
I expected nothing less; this is the Party that is ‘not the Party of people on benefits’ remember?
Just how many times can a Party die though?
Zyklon B Aldo ^
caz-m @ 12:11
I think your suggestion is not weird at all, except the initials ESP! 😀
Just dumbstruck at the hundreds of thousands of jobless and vulnerable people continuing to live in fear, stress and poverty, chosen by people, who if *they* fall on hard times can apply to a hardship fund.
Them. And. Us.
Aldo
Here’s hoping that ego of yours that tells you that you’re invincible doesn’t have to take the hit of illness or infirmity.
I really don’t think you could handle it.
Abstention is acceptance.
It’s nice to see people practising the ‘Rythm Method’ and pulling out at the last moment before having to commit themselves to anything.
Just a thought… 🙂
Aldo
In 2011/12 -46% of the Welfare budget was spent on the state pension .
What bit of that is ‘bloated and a luxury’?
@ Aldo
so Aldo what do you think you pay taxation for to bail out private companies/banks who have been scamming people?,to keep the political elite in pocket money?,to prop up a ponzy housing bubble scheme in London?,or to pay for services the people of this UK need and want? one of them is right do you know which one hmmm ?
And when they are handing billions of public money in welfare to the top corporations ,you have the temerity to question if people on low wages should get help,if those companies were made to pay a descent wage that did not drop people out of taxation,or to pay their dues we would not be in this mess to start with.
Thats the problem with all you idiots you actually believe they are telling you the truth even after all the times they have been caught red handed telling lies to you,and you wonder why us Scots have had enough.
Maybe they actually still believe elderly voters won’t find out coz they don’t have thon Twittery Machines that do that Interwebby stuff
Anyway enough time’s passed so the younger voters won’t have noticed either
They Think (Scratch that) Hope (Scratch that) Don’t know (Scratch that) Best just Abstain (From the rest of their self respect)
@aldo.
The Uk is not in the financial mire because of the welfare ‘bill’, it may however be more to do with tens of billions of tax dodging by mega rich multinationals and individuals.
Have you folks seen the way the BBC are reporting this story on their website?
“Welfare cuts backed amid Labour revolt”.
What bloody revolt? 48 out of 200-odd MP’s is not a revolt. That headline gives way more credibility than these shysters deserve.
The only thing I hate more than Labour is the BBC. A fucking disgrace!
Looking forward to BBC Scotland and the Daily Record ignoring the fact that the SNP voted against this bill and disguising the fact that Labour didn’t oppose it.
A few “Labour launches fight against Tory welfare bill” headlines ought to do it.
I guess they might also try to spin the fact that SNP didn’t vote for Labour’s shitty “we approve of it, reluctantly” amendment into somehow implying that Labour opposed the bill but the SNP didn’t.
It would be journalism in the spirit of McCarthyism. But I honestly wouldn’t put it past them.
Ian Murray is a disgrace. No surprise there.
So, are we going to whittle them down to one MSP as well?
Perhaps I am being over generous.
Grand Coalition in action.
Still no mention of the paedophile cover up.
Wonder why?
Aww, what’s the use? <— New Labour Party slogan. (courtesy of Dunky AKA Quitter)
Ian Smart & co were quite happy to self-serve for all those years safe in the knowledge that few people knew what they were up to. Changed days.
Lab, (particularly SLab) are finished. Just a waste of the oxygen provided by their life support system of the BBC and MSM.
Let’s deprive them, and the Union they wasted themselves defending, of oxygen.
http://www.inform-scotland.org
… saying that, I hope they have enough decent members left to get Corbyn elected as leader. England’s poor won’t be able to live on hope alone, but it’s better than abject despair.
You know how some big organisations have additional leisure interests for their employees.. like football teams, rugby teams, pipe bands, choirs etc.
Well, the UK red party formed a musical band a while back.. they’re called ‘Labour and The Abstainers‘. One of their most ‘infamous’ abstainers is a chap called Anas Sarwar.
The thing is, nobody’s ever seen them play live? At every gig they’re due to play, they fail to turn up. No advance warnings, no apologies, no refunds.
As an educational consequence the ‘fans’ stop going to their gigs and try listening to other bands instead, who DO perform and rock the stage!
Voters DO want to vote, so there should be an ‘ABSTAIN’ option on future ballot papers for currently-thinking labour voters. Going with their ‘party comes first’ philosophy.. like party, like voter.
Wear it proudly as a badge of honour (or find yourself a better band.)
I’d like to see ‘Aldo’ live on 72 quid a week, in total, bills, food, council tax, travel to job centre, if you need to replace your towels, or clothes ir shoes, forget it mate.
Go on Aldo, or is that Aldi? Stop fg insulting the poorest in our society and do something useful.
I haven’t read all the comments and this has probably been said already but it’s time to get this out of the cupboard and give it a polish.
“A shiver ran along the Labour benches looking for a spine to run up”
Aye the old ones are the best!
This stupid, infantile, insane behaviour, along with many other reasons, is why I have never been able to bring myself to vote Labour.
I never understood why folk couldn’t see through them.
For abstain see under ‘support’.
Our recovering economy is a sham. Tenuous growth built on the same finacial sector and criteria which brought us the 2008 crash. Anyone remembering Balls and Osborne sharing a sofa during the referendum, Miliband’s statements on austerity measures equally if not even more harsh than that of the Conservatives, can tell you exactly what state of affairs the state’s finances are in.
Deficit reduction? With a climbing structural debt? And underwritten with what? Us.
That’s all, just us. People’s future, our taxes, some resources. No manufacturing base to speak of, no huge balance on exports, just a massive financial sector peddling perceptions. Vast wealth concentrated in a small percentage of hands who have absolutely no fucking intention of trickling anything downward. Grippy doesn’t begin to describe the nature of that beast. Their nature is to take, take, take and then take some more. Oh and if they screw up? Someone else pays the bill.
As a unitary state the UK is pretty much in the crapper big time. So what to do? Slash and burn, go back to the bank of UK public PLC. Trim the state you don’t want, abandon care where you can.Abandon people who don’t matter and who you don’t want to pay for. Sticking plasters.
It doesn’t make the debt go away. It doesn’t bring those in your charge together. It doesn’t tackle the root cause of your problem. There is certainly no intention to tackle that root problem, those people are quite comfy thanks. No, it simply puts off the awful day when that next screw up hits and the bank of UK public PLC are asked to foot the bill again. But what happens when the bank is empty?
All of the original ‘fat’ has been trimmed. The poor and dispossessed can’t become any more poor or dispossessed. The pain travels up the societal food chain and on and on it goes. One party stripped the UKs ability to support itself in favour of a new and lucrative economic model as they saw it, financial sector gambling and resource management, trickle down economics. The other instead of reversing this damage bought into what they saw as an easy money.I suppose they reckoned they could use their opposition’s model to fund their programmes, their idea of how the country should be run. They were wrong and the rest is current history.
They didn’t use the system, it used them. In pursuit of power, they bought into it willingly and it rewrote them into a more favourable and manageable entity. Now? You couldn’t tell red from blue on a bet, the corporate world gets the government it wants in place regardless and we get to pay for it.
@ Aldo
I am not known for insulting commenters, but, truly, your post displays unthinking idiocy.
The country overspends (borrows) by up to 100 billion pounds per year yet people still believe the state should subsidise wages, pay people to have children and pay out welfare to families in excess of 20,000 pounds a year? I’m sorry but it’s a fantasy to think we can continue to afford this approach to welfare either financially or socially. The cost of welfarism isn’t simply economic – every child brought into the world as a meal ticket represents a drag on the education system and increased crime and welfare dependency in the future. This stuff is all pretty well established. The flat earthers in the SNP can cry foul all they want but most people are aware that welfare needs reform. This government is finally getting round to it and cutting out the fat in a way that labour / SNP would never be able to.
Instead of the Labour party they should be called the Abstainers. Well it is a lot better than some of the other names I have for them.
I still cannot believe how the vote turned out yesterday. An absolute f##king disgrace. Labour is basically agreeing with the tories in doing something that should be totally antithetical to them. Those people in Labour who abstained should cross over to the other side of the house where they belong to join the rest of the heartless tories. They have betrayed the very people they are supposed to protect and look after. No doubt we can expect the MSM to gloss over what Labour have done but they should be crucified for this. I feel sick to my stomach. The tories do not care about the poor and the sick and the vulnerable, nothing new there and at least they are consistent in that, but for a large portion of Labour to show they think the same as those tories is something I never thought I would see. Labour died yesterday and all those members who had the decency to vote should leave that rotting corpse or else they will come to be seen as just as bad for staying with a party that has well and truly sold out.
As for you Aldo you monumental bellend, crawling back out from under your rock, one can only hope that you will one day wake up and have your Jacob Marley moment before it is too late. Hurting the vulnerable in society is like cutting your own throat. Their fate is bound with yours. When are people like you going to get it through your thick heads?
Aldo: I’m sorry but it’s a fantasy to think we can continue to afford this approach to welfare either financially or socially.
Your ‘government’ is spending billions on wars, and losing trillions in taxation because of its love of banksters and financiers. They stole your money to give to crooks and now steal it again so that the same crooks can retain power. You are well and truly brain washed, and craven too, to post middle of the night when you think no will can laugh at you.
How can the media portray the vote as a Labour revolt, when the vast majority did what was politically and morally wrong, and did it as a matter of policy?
The headline is:
Labour caves in to neo-liberal consensus and votes Tory.
Molly says@11.28
“Well Ian Smart really showing his contempt for the electorate there then .”
twas ever thus.
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One Scot says
“Just when you think living in the UK can’t get any shitter, they create a new level.”
I hate people who make up new wordles, 🙂
true though true.
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Joemcg says
“Wonder if Mr Morningside Murray abstained?”
Does a bear wear a funny hat…?
link to tinyurl.com
It would appear he does.
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Heedtracker
“Morningside’s Ian Murray’s not on the list either.”
Harman probably told him if he votes against she’ll burst the wee balloon.
_________________________________________________________
Democracy Reborn
“Hothersall continues to excel with his sophistry.”
He probably thinks sophistry is the study of which fork and knife to use first
link to tinyurl.com
___________________________________________________________
Thomas william Dunlop
“The LP nowadays is pure astroturf. Wake up and smell the plastic”
My favourite quote by a mile, thanks Tam. 🙂
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Aldo says
“Monstrous? Brutal? No. Sensible, just and fair.”
I was going to just walk on by, but I just cant,
Ok Aldo lets dance,
so what would you describe as subsistence?
forcing people to rake through bins for food?
scouring waste tips for anything sellable like the poor of India and the sub continent?
maybe separating dog shit from horse shit like the Victorian poor?
send ten malnorished eight year olds up chimneys
heres the thing ALDO
Britain has the lowest level of support in all of the developed European countries, and about to cut it to even lower levels, they have come in for criticism from the UN for their parsimonious treatment of the poor, meanwhile treating the mega rich to even more tax cuts, why dont you go and read something? (like this) link to economicshelp.org ANYTHING and get a real grasp of this country and not the one your sensei Alan Cochrane teaches you from his hermits cave
Ive been disgusted by many things on here but that comment has just reached the bottom of the primordial sludge,
Oh except for, I knew an Aldo once, he was an idiot as well
its not you Aldo is it?
____________________________________________________________
OH MY GOD
Just when I thought it couldnt get any worse, it just did
after your first post Aldo I thought of you as a thoroughly unlikable person with no redeeming qualities but after that last incredible post I suddenly was overwhelmed with sympathy for you,
You my friend are in desperate need of help.
Ian Murray didn’t vote either. Which is particularly galling, given that he milked his “lone parent / Wester Hailes” background for all it was worth during the election as “proof” that he understands the struggles of the less well-off.
He also made a song and dance about his “green” credentials… but didn’t vote (absent) on 14th July on the Climate Change Levy.
Another big campaign message was his alleged “anti-Trident” stance – but it turns out he’s never voted on that either.
So that’s the next one to watch.
Meanwhile, there’s a petition over at change.org called “Ian Murray: Stand up against Trident”
(not sure how to link without breaking the page)
High time it got a few more signatures… and comments!
Joemcg @12.36
Theres a line dude!
From ‘Labour List’
The full list of the 48 rebel MPs are here:
Diane Abbott
Debbie Abrahams
David Anderson
Richard Burgon
Dawn Butler
Ann Clwyd
Jeremy Corbyn
Geraint Davies
Peter Dowd
Paul Flynn
Mary Glindon
Roger Godsiff
Helen Goodman
Margaret Greenwood
Louise Haigh
Carolyn Harris
Sue Hayman
Imran Hussain
Gerald Jones
Helen Jones
Sir Gerald Kaufman
Sadiq Khan
David Lammy
Ian Lavery
Clive Lewis
Rebecca Long Bailey
Andy McDonald
John McDonnell
Liz McInnes
Rob Marris
Rachael Maskell
Michael Meacher
Ian Mearns
Madeleine Moon
Grahame Morris
Kate Osamor
Teresa Pearce
Marie Rimmer
Paula Sherriff
Tulip Siddiq
Dennis Skinner
Cat Smith
Jo Stevens
Graham Stringer
David Winnick
Iain Wright
Daniel Zeichner
Kelvin Hopkins (Teller)
Aldo, give it up. You’re not talking to brainwashed Tory voters who lap up anything you tell them. Everything you’ve come out with is a reworked soundbite; each and every soundbite has been soundly debunked.
I’m not really sure why you think that bleating Tory platitudes on here will win you any favours. You know you’re talking rubbish, we know you’re talking rubbish.
I notice the BBC in Scotland have decided to omit from the news how Scotland’s political parties voted on the Welfare Bill. I watched the Scottish news section of BBC Breakfast and there was not a peep.
Not only did most of them abstain but many also abstained from their own amendment to derail the legislation.
Shades of the Scottish Parliament there, which has worked out so well for them.
I notice the BBC in Scotland have decided to omit from the news how Scotland’s political parties voted on the Welfare Bill
That would have been discussed in the morning’s briefing among news staff – what is our view on the vote?: led by the night’s editor, collectively they will have decided the story is a Labour ‘revolt.’
And BBC will continue to argue it is NOT biased in the way it reports Scottish affairs.
Once again painted out as a heartless piece of she-ite for opposing, not welfare per se, but welfarISM. There’s a difference. Welfare helps those in need and assists them back to a position of self reliance, if possible, and keeps them in a decent standard of living if that isn’t possible. Welfare is a good thing. The NHS is a good thing. Free education is a good thing. Social housing is a good thing. Welfarism is NOT a good thing. It is not acceptable to effectively pay people to reproduce. It is not acceptable to pay out of work benefits to people who refuse en masse to do service industry and unskilled jobs meaning that immigration has to be increased to fill the gap – with its own cost implications to the state. It is not acceptable to pay disability benefits to someone who claims to be agoraphobic but goes out partying at every opportunity (a real life case I have actually encountered!). And if you do believe in welfare then you should want to see welfarism stopped as at least some of the unnecessary welfare spend can be redirected to the people who actually need help.
The Tories :- increased inheriance threshold for £Millionaire houses, stole the Royal Mail Pension Fund now a deficit, lowered the top rate of tax for Millionaires from 50% to 45%, those who don’t tax evade. Cut taxes raised by raising the threshold from £5000 to £11000?
In 2010 when the Tories came to power £600Billion was raised in tax now it is £466. A loss of £134Billion a year. Over five years more than enough to pay off the deficit, cut the debt and not sanction the vulnerable and starve them to death. They are still allowing (foeign) multinationals making vast profits to illegally tax evade £Billions through the City of London to enrich themselves and their associates and harm British business, through unfair competition
If everyone on average earning or over paid £20 a week the NHSvwould be protected and the vulnerable would not be sanctioned or starved to death and the debt would be reducing. Westminster intends to spend £100Billion on Trident endangering Scotland against the majority wishes. Spending £70Billion+ on HS2, a White elephant with no business case, which is unaffordable. They have cut £38Billion from the especially electrifying of the rail lines in the North (and Scotland) which would do more to stimulate the economy.
Westminster is still taxing the Oil sector in Scotland 55%, while the industry is struggling and people are losing jobs. The Tories have damaged the Oil sector in Scotland ever since they were elected in the rest of the UK. Westminster is a disgrace. The Tories have lied to win an election again. The recovery? is an illusion. In collusion with the BoE they are printing money and increasing the debt. Shortly they are going to put up interest rates to try and recover the debt. Instead of balancing the books and stop sanctioning the vulnerable and impoverishing children. This will lead to more debt. The need for increased spending on the NHS, education, police/fire and social care. Cold, worried, sleepless, starving vulnerable people get sick.
The gap between rich and poor is increasing by illegally not enforcing the tax laws, for themselves and their associates. Squandering and wasting £Billions of public money. Voters will not be happy, especially in Scotland. Having been lied to time and time and time again by Unionist Parties.
Aldo: Welfarism is NOT a good thing.
Aldi: I like that Labour policy, and I like this Labour policy. You have no idea what your arguing against. Take a hike!
(Why does Wings attract the most pig-ignorant trolling right-wing rant merchants? Last time it was Michael White.)
Labour/LibDems are useless.The less said about UKIP the better.
What on earth are the US doing giving Iran access to nuclear and increasing weaponry for Israel. Are they trying to incite 111WW to line their greedy pockets. Iran has more than enough Oil, Gas and sun for fuel and energy and Israel has 122 nuclear warheads already. Both apartheid States. The death, destruction, poverty and deprivation the US/UK and France has caused for over 100 years in the Middle East is appalling. US/UK and France regimes have broken International Law and supported apartheid States.
I’m astonished, well not really.
[…] The government’s brutal, monstrous welfare reform bill passed its second reading in the Commons tonight by 308 votes to 124, meaning that somewhere in the region of 80% of Labour MPs abstained on it. […]
Shameful, utterly shameful. Labour are dead to me now.
What is the point of a labour MP, they should change their name to Abstain and as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike
Jim: I’m astonished, well not really.
🙂 Yes, the honest response. It’s not as if Labour have kept their right-wing affiliations a secret!
Labour could have actually brought down the Tories or come very near to it. They are more than pathetic they are criminals, breaking the Law and Parliamentary standards at every opportunity. Westminster Tories are trying to cut Doctors/NHS staff wages and conditions in England while giving themselves 10% wage rises. Total hypocrites. Mr Tumbles gets £120,000 plus expenses. 1/4 of a £Million? trying to damage the Scottish economy. A useless lying idiot.
The Unionist Parties who were secretly and illegally taking the equivalent of £Billions of Scottish resources and squandering and wasting it on Illegal wars, banking fraud and tax evasion, making 1 in 39 people in London $Millionaires.
Where’s the Chilcot Report?
I suppose it could be worse, imagine what you’d feel like if you had actually voted for Ian Murary.
MolliBlum says at 6.23:
Good old BBC Radio Scotland yet to mention that Ian Murray the voice of Labour in Scotland abstained rather than oppose draconian Tory attack on the most vulnerable in society.
It does make you think though, is there really any point to anything any more.
Stewart fae Stoney, you do ashtrays on motorbikes a disservice – they are far more useful than most Labour MPs.
I am truly sorry I wasted some of my life reading Kevin McKenna piece in the Guardian – I will now refer to him as Eleanor Bradford.
I am equally sorry that I paused my life to read the splutterings of David Torrance .
I am assuming that the Herald shareholders have so much money they care not if their shares plummet and/or that the Herald has a death wish.
In that they pay both young Torrance and Mrs Cochrane to write ” we hate the SNP ” stories , perhaps the shareholders could demand only one a month be employed?
NHS Grampian is the only Health Authority in Scotland which does not fund primary care for drink/drug addicts leading to a need for more disability, healthcare, more liver transplants and early death. A tax on ‘loss leading’ cheap drink and fags and ‘one chance’ total abstinence proper rehab would help sort it. A cut in sugar in processed food and drink would help reduce obesity, and more healthcare. Swimming and steam room cure asthma.
Labour are finished. What happened to Scottish Labour in Scotland should have been the severest of wake up calls for the main party. Instead, delusion and apathy reign supreme from within.
Cameron, Osborne and IDS must sit there and wonder about the long game. Seriously …who is to oppose them in England?
GMS this morning venomous tone implying the 48 MPs were totally in the wrong .
O dear me they took a view and voted against the Tory cuts . They just stopped short of saying
“48 Labour MPs vote with the SNP ”
Ian Murray abstain , not a cheap .
If they had voted against they could have voted the cuts down. Not a cheap .
GMS & BBC Scotland still fail to understand how many folk in Scotland are up to speed Politically and already know what’s going on before they Report it , eh if it wasn’t so serious we would be pissing our selves and falling about laughing at them .
One minor sadness in these things now, is that we don’t get one of those big long lists of scumbag Scottish Labour MPs failing to defend their constituents.
It now reads:
Ian Murray
Is it just me or does BBC Scotland’s David Henderson talk as if he is reading “Little Red Riding Hood” to a classroom full of primary one children?
The bar doesn’t seem to be set too high in getting a job at Pacific Quay. You just need to be a total dickhead and do as you are told.
You are not employed as a reporter or a journalist. You are employed as a messenger of bullshit.
It was mentioned above, but it looks to me that had labour voted against there is a slim chance this could have been defeated: or at least the fact that it is supported only be a very narrow margin could have been demonstrated. As it is it looks as if it has wide support. Which is no more than the truth because labour do actually support it.
Yet on the BBC this morning Osborne is reported as saying that the “rebels” demonstrate that “labour has not changed”. Like that would have been a bad thing, if it happened to be true.
Dear Labour
You cant spell opposition without N,O
Defeatist, did this all start under Gordon Broon? They only know about spin, how to paint gloss of sh!te
@Grouse Beater
“Your ‘government’ is spending billions on wars, and losing trillions in taxation because of its love of banksters and financiers. They stole your money to give to crooks and now steal it again so that the same crooks can retain power. You are well and truly brain washed, and craven too, to post middle of the night when you think no will can laugh at you.”
Never a truer word Grouse and who foots the bill? Who foots the bill in cash and misery?
This little island chain has vast wealth. There is no excuse for the pain people are going through, absolutely none. There is only greed, incompetence, mismanagement, self interest and intolerance pure and simple. The apologists ATL for this state of affairs should go and take a long hard fucking look in the mirror, but from what I’ve heard of those two examples somehow I doubt they’d see a problem.
As for the party itself? I think we’re beyond being surprised or shocked at this point.
Bought and paid for.
Anyone here the remark made by John McDonnell MP that he would swim through vomit to vote against, and as he listens to people talking in support, this might be necessary. So there are some decent people in the Labour party, they just have to get rid of the dead-heads who are at the top.
The “rebels” label given to those Labour MPs who voted against the welfare reform bill, implies that the Bill was put forward by the Labour Party.
It was put forward by the TORY Party.
Labour was bought over in the 90s or rather sold it’s soul to the city of london with John Smith’s prawn cocktail offensive..
link to taxjustice.blogspot.co.uk
The uk is effectively lead by the city of london corporation.
The people of the uk need to wake up.
Ian Murray has only done what was expected of him from the “real” Tory voters in his constituency, who voted tactically for “that horrible little man” to keep out the SNP.
That was the pay-off for gaining their support.
It wouldn’t have been a painful decision for him – he knows where his critical votes came from.
You could not make this shiote up, even if you firkin tried to.
The Welfare bill: Andy Burnham says ‘we can not simply abstain on this bill’ (after abstaining on the bill)
.
Marco McGinty said,”Being of socialist principles, I know and understand that without a left-leaning Labour Party, the Tories will rule for decades, so it’s not so much a belief in the Labour Party, but a hope that they can find it within their party to lurch to the left, giving some hope to those that otherwise will be hit by the Tories, budget after budget, year after year.”
On the evidence of last night, there is very little hope of this. And thanks for your reply on the other thread. I fail to see how you think this party can have any useful function in delivering socialism.
Perhaps it’s time to make MPs work for a living. I know if I didn’t turn up and put in the hours then I’d have my wages docked at a minimum. If these fuckers want a 10% wage increase then it’s time to lay it on the line to them that if they only turn up for half the debates they only get paid for half the part of their salary you can reasonably attribute to that part of their job.
That’s what’s most shocking about this. The Government only has a slim majorty. All it takes is 7 of them to be persuaded to vote for an amendment and it’ll pass. Of course that assumes those on the government benches will actually turn up but I harbour a delusional belief that some of those who do so will be open to persuasion.
One thing that does strike me about all this is that the money these cuts are supposed to save has already been spent on tax cuts. Not only does that rely on them happening but it misses the possibility that the majority of the money being cut is fairly rapidly recouped by the government through taxation. Increase VAT from local businesses where those relying on those “credits” by food and clothing for example. Fuel, water, public transport and so on. Even if we accept these cuts as being necessary in the long term their immediate and abrupt introduction is going to cause some small businesses in deprived areas to fail. The luck to save even half of what it assumes.
Two things to say to Aldo:-
1. In September 2012. Wonga made representation to the Tory Party Conference followed by a six figure donation.
In October 2012 Benefit Sanctions were introduced.
At least begin to question the motive behind these Draconian measures.
2. Using your logic, drink driving is a problem. So let’s fine every driver in UK every time someone fails the Breathalyzer.
Meanwhile back in the real world – I take it all these abstaining MPS must hold constituency surgeries.
What in the name of the wee man do they say to their supporters who appear begging for help?
Andy Nimmo, An excellent point, isn’t it time they were all held to account for their actions. I mean the SNP have our unbiased press to answer for the very smallest infraction, nobody seems to hold Labour to account, therefore the people must.
@Aldo
I’m counting to ten before posting. Yes welfarism is alive and well in the uk and still going. Welfarism is..
The use of the tax payer to underwrite 0.5 trillion pounds in city of london liabilities;
Tax payer guarantees of nearly 1 trillion in derivatives;
An unregulated banking system which allows banks to create money from nothing and pump up ponzi schemes (underwritten by tax payer)
Hundreds of millions of pounds paid to wealthy landowners in grants and tax savings;
The something for nothing culture is alive and well.
Hardly any of that national debt was built up bailing out the poor, it was fighting wars over resources and propping up the rich.
I listened to BBC Radio Scotland GMS from 7 am to 9 am and not a mention that Labour in Scotland in its entirety abstained on Tory welfare plans.
67,000 disabled people in Scotland will lose up to £1500 a year under the Tory benefit caps.
Yet Ian Murray doesn’t risk his shadow ministerial salary by voting against these draconian measures.
Waldo… You’re nothing more than a voyeur. The modern day equivalent of the beast of Dusseldorf. You’re only on here at night while the social security grass line is closed. Did you get fifty quid for grassing up your pal with agoraphobia?? Or is that stopped?? And were you not on here posting as sensible Dave too?? Your pseudo intellectual rants are very similar in vein to his. You’re only on here for a reaction aren’t you? It excites you doesn’t it?? Recognition is what you crave. And you shall have no more from me my friend. Every response to you is a response wasted. A response that represents time wasted. Time that could have been spent discussing something valid. Something important. Something relevant. Good luck with the dossier. Enjoy your Pimms.
Wont make a difference? Like the the hunting bill?
The difference between Labour and the Titanic is, The Titanic didn’t keep backing up for another pop at the iceberg.
@andy nimmo
I often wonder what the demographic is for each of the parties’ MP surgery attendees. I’ve visions of only wealthy landowners complaining about low EU grant amounts in Tory ones, all the rest having genuinely needy folks trying to survive. If that’s even halfway correct, the majority of Labour MPs must be sitting with their iPod headphones in, listening to Bliar’s greatest speeches while their moaning constituents are in tears in front of them.
What a useless bunch of moneygrabbibg, careerist arseholes.
I watched the vote on TV last night and, have to say, not even a hint of surprise – just overwhelming anger.
@Aldo says: 21 July, 2015 at 12:25 am:
“Monstrous? Brutal? No. Sensible, just and fair …”
Pure Tory idiocy, Waldo.
The United Kingdom is a rich country and the riches are mainly falsely stuffed into the pockets of many undeserving illegal, greedy, b******s. One needs only read the news on any given day to discover obscene incidences that emphasise that as fact.
A pair of Queen Victoria’s knickers, dated as from the late 1890s, fetched an obscene record-breaking price at auction a few days ago. They had been preserved in tissue paper in a temperature controlled room. They were bought by an English collector for £12,090. The person also bought replica Crown Jewels. The cost of just preserving those drawers could have fed starving children.
This in a United Kingdom where today children will die as a result of hunger and some sick, or disabled person, will take their own life due to government cruelly imposed poverty. This by a government, and abstaining opposition, run my the rich for the rich and who have just awarded themselves a massive pay rise.
A new Labour Anthem
Oh yes I’m the great abstainer
abstain when I should cast my vote
abstaining away, when they inrease my pay
I’m wearing my greed like a crown
To the tune of Great Pretender
Feel free to add the next verse
You wonder how many of the approximate 80% of Labour MP’s (who abstained) were actually present and available to vote, compared to how many were conveniently ‘out of office?’
Howsabout something simple like this for the billboard poster campaign, using their own wording:
“So this is Better Together.. No Thanks!“
…I just don’t get it!
How on Earth can you be a member of parliament for the Labour Party and abstain on this Bill.
…I just don’t get it.
🙁
Which leads to:
How do they sleep at night?
Why do people still vote for them?
Grouse Beater 12:12 am
You wrote; “England is now in the dirty hands of the far right in the form of the Tories, Ukip, and EDL. 55% of people in Scotland voted for that. Did they realise they were punishing themselves, us, and the English too?”
I will take some comfort in knowing that I have finally got the message through to you that England voted right of centre. Its taken a few months but you have finally got there (i’ll let the EDL comment go because that is just you being you).
My next mission (albeit a tough one methinks) is to help you to understand that this isn’t because 55% of the population in England are nazi monsters – but because they believe in a different way of achieving the same goals as you (I’m not talking about Independence for once here Grousey).
As an example, people in England love the NHS and want it to continue to be brilliant. So the question of how the NHS is funded in the short, medium and long term is a very important issue. The average centre right voter believes that the country should create wealth – to pay tax revenues – to fund the NHS.
Other parties have a different view of how to raise the funding – but want to achieve the same goal.
Choices made by different parties on different issues are often about political manoeuvring rather than financial prudence or fairness. In England, if you are working, generally speaking, you have to pay for prescriptions. So, in a way, free prescriptions are sort of means tested.
In Scotland, prescriptions are free to all. Clearly therefore, the Scottish government have decided that free prescriptions for all are more important than having that cash to spend elsewhere in the NHS in Scotland.
There is nothing wrong with that and, I assume, it is what the voters in Scotland want and that is what you have through Holyrood.
In England, the average voter clearly takes a different view. Its got nothing to do lack of care or compassion – it is everything to do with an attitude that says, on this subject, those that can should pay, those that can’t shouldn’t.
Oddly, and we have been her before, there are many universal benefits in Scotland that we don’t have in England. In Scotland, and yes, I am being provocative on this point, the Scottish government chooses to prioritise free university education for the wealthy, free prescriptions for the wealthy, free care for the elderly for the wealthy, etc – over spending that cash in other areas that we in England think are more deserving.
Again, I don’t have a problem with that if that is what the voters in Scotland want. Why can’t you accept that the average voter in England wants to prioritise spending in different ways to you and just leave it at that – rather than spouting your normal invective?
Independence works two ways Grousey.
Was our sole Scottish Labour MP, representing Red Morningside, one of those brave rebels last night?
Nope, didn’t think so.
Ah well, Mr Murray, there’s always Trident. I’ll be watching.
I wonder if Mundell and Murray came to one of those cosy wee Westminster agreements that we found out about last year, where you can cancel out your opposite numbers vote, by both of you agreeing not to turn up and vote. I will need to find out if Mundell actually voted.
I can’t remember the exact wording of it, but it did show up how close the two Parties really are.
I think Sarwar used it last year so he could visit some school in Pakistan.
Can anyone explain to me how exactly 80% of the Labour MPs and most of the Tory MPs for that matter, earn their £60,000odd to £70,000odd salaries? Because the VAST majority of them were not in the chamber paying due attention to the debate deciding the fate of their constituents.
And that seems to be the norm!
I cannot think of any other ‘profession’ where such public and blatent dereliction of duty would be overlooked.
Time to sanction unengaged and absentee MPs?
It’s almost as if they want a revolution. Criminals and paedophiles running down the state with help from the corrupt msm.
£20billion MORE Tory cuts will be announced in November
link to archive.is
link to welfareweekly.com
link to rt.com
ChunkyMark talks to Chris Law
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
Ronnie in Santa Ponsa.
I,ve met a few heiland dancers
every wan ah bunch of chancers
thet didna hear the pipers calling
now their Scotland the Knave.
Onwards & Upwards Wingers,am in conversion mode here lol.
Next verse
Oh yes I’m the great abstainer
abstain when I should vote it down
the whip told me to
‘cos I don’t have a clue
and I’m scared of his cold nasty frown
Was Ian Murray wearing his union jack suit when he sat on his hands last night? I now reget voting Labour even once in my life. That was in 1979 in a vain attempt to keep Thatcher out. Now, her children are proving to be even more vile than she was.
The last 24 hours have been extremely depressing, with the establishment proving again that they regard the rest of us as some kind of sub-species, and our children merely toys, to be used and cast aside.
Roll on IndyRef 2.
Lesson for Labour in general – and Ian Murray in particular.
Abstainance does not make the heart grow fonder
Caz-m,
Mundell voted so there was no pairing with Murray.
I think Murray’s missed a trick here. He should have resigned from the shadow cabinet so as not to be bound by collective responsibility & voted against. Kudos for him, Brownie points & one less stick for him to be beat with.
But he didn’t.
Whoever becomes the next Labour leader would have had to re-instate Murray as shadow Scottish Secretary. To do otherwise would be even more electoral suicide.
It would have been win-win for him.
Anybody know whether Alistair Carmichael turned up? Couldn’t see him anywhere in the video footage. Given that the LibDems were meant to be voting against, it would be very telling indeed if he had been hiding in the toilet. Don’t want to cast aspersions, though.
You’re going to beat me so there’s no point in even fighting you.
Twits.
“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” – Mark Twain
#Pairing
Cosy criminals. Major called them ‘bastards’. He lied, ‘greedy lying Bastards’. May the roof fall in and they rot in hell.
Come the next referendum when the unionists are telling Scotland to vote ‘No’ because things will be much better if we stay together, why would anyone believe them, who in their right mind is going to believe them.
@Waldo
Words fail me. You represent everything I despise in self centred attitudes. Enjoy your miserable selfish existence.
Life rather than existence is the ability to share and help each other even though that is sometimes detrimental to yourself. You are the epitomy of modern Gt Britain,and the reason I wish to be separate from that entity.
its called pairing caz-m
Independence works two ways Grousey.
Its an odd kind of triumphalist bleh today sensibleDave. “In England, the average voter clearly takes a different view. Its got nothing to do lack of care or compassion – it is everything to do with an attitude that says, on this subject, those that can should pay, those that can’t shouldn’t.”
So why is red/blue tory UK in £1.5+ trillion debt, with a deficit only bumped up by Osborne and only the worst off have to made responsible for etc
Socialism for the rich, austerity for the poor. Its the UKOK way.
Dear oh dear, England and the right eh?
I have been telling my kids to try hard at everything they do. If it is hard, give it your best shot. If you will come up short, so what. Practise makes perfect. If you lose, there’s always next time.
The Hothersall method? Don’t bother trying. You will lose anyway. Just give in and hope someone will eventually give you what you want. Don’t try hard, dignity is for winners. You are a loser.
How is that a message of hope for the future? I know that it has been said ” pick your battles” but this was the one to pick. This was the one where Labour could have said that they cannot sit idle while the tories destroy lives. MP’s are sent to the HOC to voice the opinions of their constituents. Constituents can abstain for themselves by not electing an MP. The fact they did means that they expect someone to vote for them. Could shout all day about this but only those in the know are listening.
Aldo wrote:
“The country overspends (borrows) by up to 100 billion pounds per year yet people still believe the state should subsidise wages, pay people to have children and pay out welfare to families in excess of 20,000 pounds a year?”
May i ask – What country overspends? That’s yer starter for 10.
Meanwhile, yer Monarchy possesses an estimated £32 BILLION in Crown Jewels, not to mention all their other assets they’ve acquired. Care tae share? Thought not!
Elsewhere – The BBC in Scotland is nothing more than London’s filthy mouthpiece. You can bet anything you like, if it was the SNP who abstained the BBC in Scotland would be continuously reminding us every 5 minutes on a running loop for at least a week.
Hola Santa Ponsa
El esta bieno. Que tel. Una esta dos euros por el internet. World grande web. Hola para Eccose. El solier esta oot e el temps este bien.
And now the far right UKOK propaganda machine revs up. In what parliament is Labour abstention “Welfare cuts backed amid Labour revolt” headline from BBC lying propagandists.
Abstention is not revolt in any parliament and any country, except red and blue tory England, that currently owns Scotland. Huzzah.
Could Andy ban the Union jack suits and the howling hooligan drummers from Glasgow. It puts folk off the tennis. A few kilted pipers and a bit of tartan would be appropriate.
Cactus,
All of them. They have to actually make the effort to be there in order to abstain. Otherwise they are absent.
All you need to know about the current state of Labour …. Those who did their job as the opposition by voting against the Tories are called rebels!
Thank God Scotland voted ‘No’, because if this is the best of both worlds, can you imagine how shit it would have been living in potentially one of the richest independent countries in the world.
IvMoz
Cheers,
yes “pairing” is the word I was looking for. It will be one to watch. No doubt Murray and Mundell will put it to good use in the not too distant future.
I wish Murray would just “come out of the closet”. How long can this go on for. For God’s sake man, just admit that you are a Tory.
There, I done it for you, now does that not feel good Ian.
Another new word for the Oxford English dictionary;
Labstain.
You can fill in your own definition, so many come to mind!
Can you imagine the next referendum being a ‘No’ vote, how seriously suspect would that result be.
galamcenallath.. Could not have put it better myself… Alternatively you could propose that the ones who voted against the Tories were called Labour. Lol
I hope the person who did the “They Live” Tory parody now does a Labour one.
One by one the masks fall and they show their true faces.
Feel sick to my stomach over the state of the UK, any tiny nod to Britishness I may have harboured has flown out the window.
I pity any Labour canvasser for SP16, how do you defend the indefensible?
I knew losing the Indyref would have grim consequences, but this grim this quickly is shite.
Sorry, I’m rambling, but it’s so upsetting to think that these people could look me in the eye and tell me my son, the Bold Joff’s faulty DNA, that affects every area of his life, is a “lifestyle choice”.
I keep thinking of the words of the song “Undefeated” by Robb Johnson. You can hear it on Youtube.
It’s hard to feel “Undefeated” today.
____________________________________________
What will they say of us, one hundred years from now,
When they look back on these unhappy days?
They’ll shake their heads at how so many swallowed lies;
That dog eat dog so long went undefeated
Will they curse us then, that so much death crept in?
There was so little left to build again.
Or will their smiles salute, and like a song recall
The ones who through it all, went undefeated?
I’m tired of wearing thin these same old words of rage
Some days the bad guys win, but nothing’s changed
For though the language fail and the nerves of love grow numb
Somehow we carry on, undefeated.
Holding all peoples’ lives to be of equal worth
More dear than the money talk, or the tricks of the state
The hands that work no wrong, the breath that lifts the song
The hearts that hold each other, undefeated.
The hands that work no wrong, the breath that lifts the song
The hearts that hold each other
The hearts that hold each other
The hearts that hold each other, undefeated.
___________________________________________________
We must assume that if Labour didn’t vote against it then they must be for it.
If Labour’s leadership ordered their MPs to abstain from voting against the Tory’s Welfare Bill it would appear that they were happy to see go through.
I note that Scotland’s only Labour MP was content enough to abstain.
MPs who voted against the bill
Abbott, Diane – Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington
Abrahams, Debbie – Labour MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth
Ahmed-Sheikh, Tasmina – SNP MP for Ochil and South Perthshire
Anderson, David – Labour MP for Blaydon
Arkless, Richard – SNP MP for Dumfries and Galloway
Bardell, Hannah – SNP MP for Livingston
Black, Mhairi – SNP MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South
Blackford, Ian – SNP MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber
Blackman, Kirsty – SNP MP for Aberdeen North
Boswell, Philip – SNP MP for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill
Brake, Tom – Lib Dem MP for Carshalton and Wallington
Brock, Deidre – SNP MP for Edinburgh North and Leith
Brown, Alan – SNP MP for Kilmarnock and Loudoun
Burgon, Richard – Labour MP for Leeds East
Butler, Dawn – Labour MP for Brent Central
Cameron, Dr Lisa – SNP MP for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow
Campbell, Gregory – DUP MP for East Londonderry
Carmichael, Alistair – Lib Dem MP for Orkney and Shetland
Chapman, Douglas – SNP MP for Dunfermline and West Fife
Cherry, Joanna – SNP MP for Edinburgh South West
Clegg, Nick – Lib Dem MP for Sheffield Hallam
Clwyd, Ann – Labour MP for Cynon Valley
Corbyn, Jeremy – Labour MP for Islington North
Cowan, Ronnie – SNP MP for Inverclyde
Crawley, Angela – SNP MP for Lanark and Hamilton East
Davies, Geraint – Labour MP for Swansea West
Day, Martyn – SNP MP for Linlithgow and East Falkirk
Docherty, Martin John – SNP MP for West Dunbartonshire
Dodds, Nigel – DUP MP for Belfast North
Donaldson, Jeffrey M – DUP MP for Lagan Valley
Donaldson, Stuart – SNP MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine
Dowd, Peter – Labour MP for Bootle
Durkan, Mark – SDLP MP for Foyle
Edwards, Jonathan – Plaid Cymru MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr
Farron, Tim – Lib Dem MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale
Fellows, Marion – SNP MP for Motherwell and Wishaw
Ferrier, Margaret – SNP MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West
Flynn, Paul – Labour MP for Newport West
Gethins, Stephen – SNP MP for North East Fife
Gibson, Patricia – SNP MP for North Ayrshire and Arran
Glindon, Mary – Labour MP for North Tyneside
Godsiff, Roger – Labour MP for Birmingham, Hall Green
Goodman, Helen – Labour MP for Bishop Auckland
Grady, Patrick – SNP MP for Glasgow North
Grant, Peter – SNP MP for Glenrothes
Gray, Neil – SNP MP for Airdrie and Shotts
Greenwood, Margaret – Labour MP for Wirral West
Haigh, Louise – Labour MP for Sheffield, Heeley
Harris, Carolyn – Labour MP for Swansea East
Hayman, Sue – Labour MP for Workington
Hendry, Drew – SNP MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey
Hosie, Stewart – SNP MP for Dundee East
Hussain, Imran – Labour MP for Bradford East
Jones, Gerald – Labour MP for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney
Jones, Helen – Labour MP for Warrington North
Kaufman, Sir Gerald – Labour MP for Manchester Gorton
Kerevan, George – SNP MP for East Lothian
Kerr, Calum – SNP MP for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk
Khan, Sadiq – Labour MP for Tooting
Kinahan, Danny – UUP MP for South Antrim
Lamb, Norman – Lib Dem MP for North Norfolk
Lammy, David – Labour MP for Tottenham
Lavery, Ian – Labour MP for Wansbeck
Law, Chris – SNP MP for Dundee West
Lewis, Clive – Labour MP for Norwich South
Long Bailey, Rebecca – Labour MP for Salford and Eccles
Lucas, Caroline – Green MP for Brighton, Pavilion
MacNeil, Angus Brendan – SNP MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar
Marris, Rob – Labour MP for Wolverhampton South West
Maskell, Rachael – Labour MP for York Central
Mc Nally, John – SNP MP for Falkirk
McCaig, Callum – SNP MP for Aberdeen South
McDonald, Andy – Labour MP for Middlesbrough
McDonald, Stewart – SNP MP for Glasgow South
McDonald, Stuart C – SNP MP for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East
McDonnell, Dr Alasdair – SDLP MP for Belfast South
McDonnell, John – Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington
McGarry, Natalie – SNP MP for Glasgow East
McInnes, Liz – Labour MP for Heywood and Middleton
McLaughlin, Anne – SNP MP for Glasgow North East
Meacher, Michael – Labour MP for Oldham West and Royton
Mearns, Ian – Labour MP for Gateshead
Monaghan, Carol – SNP MP for Glasgow North West
Monaghan, Dr Paul – SNP MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross
Moon, Madeleine – Labour MP for Bridgend
Morris, Grahame M – Labour MP for Easington
Mulholland, Greg – Lib Dem MP for Leeds North West
Mullin, Roger – SNP MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath
Newlands, Gavin – SNP MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North
Nicolson, John – SNP MP for East Dunbartonshire
O’Hara, Brendan – SNP MP for Argyll and Bute
Osamor, Kate – Labour MP for Edmonton
Oswald, Kirsten – SNP MP for East Renfrewshire
Paisley, Ian – DUP MP for North Antrim
Paterson, Steven – SNP MP for Stirling
Pearce, Teresa – Labour MP for Erith and Thamesmead
Pugh, John – Lib Dem MP for Southport
Rimmer, Marie – Labour MP for St Helens South and Whiston
Ritchie, Margaret – SDLP MP for South Down
Robertson, Angus – SNP MP for Moray
Salmond, Alex – SNP MP for Gordon
Saville Roberts, Liz – Plaid Cymru MP for Dwyfor Meirionnydd
Shannon, Jim – DUP MP for Strangford
Sheppard, Tommy – SNP MP for Edinburgh East
Sherriff, Paula – Labour MP for Dewsbury
Siddiq, Tulip – Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn
Skinner, Dennis – Labour MP for Bolsover
Smith, Cat – Labour MP for Lancaster and Fleetwood
Stephens, Chris – SNP MP for Glasgow South West
Stevens, Jo – Labour MP for Cardiff Central
Stringer, Graham – Labour MP for Blackley and Broughton
Thewliss, Alison – SNP MP for Glasgow Central
Thomson, Michelle – SNP MP for Edinburgh West
Weir, Mike – SNP MP for Angus
Whiteford, Dr Eilidh – SNP MP for Banff and Buchan
Whitford, Dr Philippa – SNP MP for Central Ayrshire
Williams, Hywel – Plaid Cymru MP for Argon
Williams, Mr Mark – Lib Dem MP for Ceredigion
Wilson, Corri – SNP MP for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock
Wilson, Sammy – DUP MP for East Antrim
Winnick, David – Labour MP for Walsall North
Wishart, Pete – SNP MP for Perth and North Perthshire
Wright, Iain – Labour MP for Hartlepool
Zeichner, Daniel – Labour MP for Cambridge
link to bbc.co.uk
heedtracker 10:21 am
You wrote “Socialism for the rich, austerity for the poor. Its the UKOK way.”
… I guess your reading skills have gone the same way as your writing skills Heedy.
One might reasonably argue that exactly the opposite is the case.
In Scotland the superich get Free University education, free prescriptions, free care for the elderly, a freeze on council tax, etc, etc – all paid for by the working classes (of which I am one) paying their income tax.
How many people earning £20k per annum have to pay all their income tax – just so that the Laird’s son gets a free University education (£30k?). I reckon it takes around 10 workers working full time.
How very Socialist Heedy – and, once again, so damned hypocritical!
Aldo, if you can explain to me how a sovereign, fiat currency issuing state (such as the UK) can be forced to default on debts issued in its own currency I’d be more inclined to believe that running a fiscal deficit is unsustainable.
The biggest mistake labour made post 2010 was allowing the myth to take hold that excessive public spending was the cause of the crash. The tories successfully equated government finances to those of a private household/individual in the minds of the electorate. It’s an easy lie to push as it sounds rational. Labour had no retort. In fact, if anything they’ve only reinforced it.
The neoliberal ideology that dominates today puts blind faith in the idea that surpluses are good, deficits are bad while totally ignoring the macro economic reality.
Taxation and government spending are merely tools that can be used to control demand (*caveat – taxation is required to create demand for a fiat currency). Tax more, spend less and demand decreases..tax less, spend more and demand increases etc etc. The neoliberals have the equation entirely the wrong way round. Full employment and stable inflation should always be the target. The deficit that produces the desired result is optimal, whatever number or percentage that may be.
In other words, the current policies pursed by the tory government are entirely ideological. Their hands are not tied. They are not ‘tough choices that have to be made’. The fact that labour are entirely unable to counter them shows how totally enthralled with right wing neoliberal dogma they have become.
If any of this sounds at all interesting to anyone I would suggest having a look into Abba Lerner, Hyman Minsky and (a bit more current) Prof Bill Mitchell who has an excellent blog on Modern Monetary Theory to get you going.
There are no words just rage
link to youtube.com
@ Mollliblum,
Carmichael voted against the Welfare Bill, as did Farron & Lamb.
Okay, so no one here believes the welfare state requires some pruning. The tories don’t have a point or purpose in anything they are doing – they are just evil dooers being evil for the fun of it. Everyone’s a tory – apart from the SNP – but blue tories are the most offensive.
I obviously don’t buy into this world view which I believe to be childlike at best. But all of you do – and that’s your right in a free country.
But tell me this – why is this the only view espoused by Scottish nationalism? Scotland, being a country (I don’t really see it as such but the SNP certainly want it to be a country), is by definition a very broad church. There are over 5 million people living here and they aren’t all hard left, Stalin was actually a nice guy once you got to know him, Maggie Thatcher is responsible for toilet seats being cold when you first sit on them types. Where are these people in your grand vision? Where do they fit in? Have they even been considered at all? The movement should probably try and accomodate some of their concerns rather than just screaming “(prefix colour of choice) tories!” Chances are these people will be the ones paying the bills – the doers, the wealth generators, the net contributors. And they can always vote with their feet.
Ken500.. I was going to say it could never happen as wearing tartan would result in any offenders being transported to serve in one of her majesties plantations beyond the seas in conjunction with the Olition and prosecution of the Highlands dress act implemented on the first of august 1747… But it’s fine. That only covered that part Of Great Britain called Scotland and those within it. Lol
John H. says:
21 July, 2015 at 10:07 am
Was Ian Murray wearing his union jack suit when he sat on his hands last night?
Well, he’s certainly wearing his constituents’ patience thin… that’s for sure.
They don’t all live in leafy Morningside… I bet a lot of folks in places like Moredun, Gracemount and Burdiehouse fell for his “ahm jist a puir lad fae Wester Hailes mysel” solidarity guff… thinking, like the trees in the forest when the woodsman strode in with his axe: “no worries: the handle is one of us”.
Funding reforms mean ‘substantially higher debt for poorest students’
Institute for Fiscal Studies says chancellor’s changes to maintenance grants will ‘increase cost of higher education’
Graun grinching away today.
Its the UKOK way. Or as the blue tory spokesman up there sez
“Choices made by different parties on different issues are often about political manoeuvring rather than financial prudence or fairness.”
Huzaah!
Morning Effie.. Hope you and the family are well. How is the bold Joff??
I really don’t want to encourage trolls.
Please Aldo (sensibledave?) explain how a very rich country like the UK cannot afford the welfare bill.
Keep in mind almost half of that is pensions to people who thought they had contributed already.
Roland Smith says:
21 July, 2015 at 12:19 am
Watch for him next voting to renew Trident.
Luigi says:
21 July, 2015 at 9:54 am
Ah well, Mr Murray, there’s always Trident. I’ll be watching
—-
I agree. He probably will abstain. After all, in spite of making a big noise about being “anti-Trident” during GE2015 he has never actually voted on the issue. But you can let him know what you think about that (and spread the word):
link to change.org
@soutron
Well put. It’s incredible how ideology prevents people from looking at hard logic, that includes neo-liberal economists. Steve keen refers to it as theory induced blindness.
We also have to extend that to the ruinous behaviour of banks. Too much private debt was the cause of the 2008 recession. The govt believes we should have to suffer for it.
Sensibledave
The people in England may well ‘ love the NHS’ but theyre 10-15 years too late.
The name NHS in England is being used as a massive sticking plaster , to try to give the impression the services now provided somehow relate to the original ethos.
for example labs where the training of the staff was paid for by you
For the buildings which was paid for by you
For the running of the service paid for by you
Now run by Circle or Serco or Branson’s daughter whoever , now paid for by you – for a service you already have paid for -by you .
How long until those same services cherry pick ?
One of the reasons private healthcare companies can treat so many patients quickly is because they take the healthy ones . Underlying problems, cardiac , respiratory , complications ?
And do you what happens if there are complications?
They are sent to the NHS.
The same NHS that the Daily Mail etc say is failing because it does treat everyone , complications or not. It does cost time, it does cost money and ultimately and again guess who pays , that’ll be you
Now you say different parties have different views on how to raise the funding – there is only one way . You pay for it all !!
It may be via a trust, a private provider or the NHS but don’t kid yourself – you pay , you fund it whatever system .
This didn’t start last week or last year but 10-15 years ago , don’t you remember?
That is why TTIP has to be opposed.
The NHS in Scotland budget is ring fenced because of Scotlands record of health. It should not be used as a baton to beat the people over the head with but encouraged because the problems have been recognised and the first tiny steps being taken to address long long standing problems.
Explain this one Labour!!
Tommy Sheppard MP – Verified account ?@TommySheppard
So just to be clear – Tories had 308 for their welfare bill. If Labour had all voted against Govt it would have been defeated #welfarebill
Waldo – I suggest you read Noam Chomsky,How the World Works which proves that big business is subsidised by the state both here and in the USA.
But somehow I think you already know that.
That comment to waldo is also for @senselessdave
O/T
Good Morning Moidart,
Thanks for asking after us.
The Bold Joff is doing away, he’s getting over a cold that forced him into metabolic acidosis 2 weekends ago. We’ve discovered that this changes his breathing pattern into something called Cheyne-Stokes and had involuntary leg twitching too. Wee bit scary to watch but we eventually managed to get bicarb into him and correct the acidosis without having to go to hospital for IV fluids.
Lowe syndrome is a complex and lonely disorder to live with and care for but he’s such a legend that he makes it worth all my grey hairs…
How are you today, my friend?
I’m ashamed to say I was one of the 45% who voted for independence. Equally ashamed to say I also voted Snp. I done so through sheer ignorance! I now totally regret voting for a party who would wish to implement free education. Free prescriptions. Free care for the elderly. A freeze on council tax. How naive and stupid we all were. Thanks Dave. You have totally convinced me.you’re a star. Lol
sensibledave says:
21 July, 2015 at 10:54 am
heedtracker 10:21 am
You wrote “Socialism for the rich, austerity for the poor. Its the UKOK way.”
Socialism for the rich, austerity for the poor is exactly whats happened sensible. But ok, even if like you, you’re a brilliant blue tory economist…
extracting several more billion quid from the worst off and handing it to the rich is only going to pull money out of the UKOK economy, slow growth down even more, higher unemployment, create even more debt, consumer and state, or to put it as simple as even you can understand sensible, the poor don’t save.
link to bbc.co.uk
You have all the usual propagandists protecting your UKOK sensible as in yesterday, Woman’s Hour posh twits were thrilled their polling had found the UK to be the happiest country in the world, under Brenda too.
Today, after last nights vote and the biggest attack on family benefits and planning since family allowance was created, not a peep out of posh twits at Womans Hour. Its funny as youd think the vote last night was worth at least a mention, to er, women.
It’s only the BBC? A sneaky, creepy, seriously dangerous red and blue tory road to march down sensible, purr purr, sieg heil.
Robert Kerr wrote:
“Please Aldo..explain how a very rich country like the UK cannot afford the welfare bill.”
Oh Robert, you better hope Mr.Peffers doesn’t see that.
He’ll have your guts for garters!
btw, Robert, yer photo/avatar has keeled over.
Well to be charitable, they are only following the example of their alienated (ex) supporters who also think there’s no point in voting any more.
From Ian Murray’s website:
“I won’t let you down and will stand up for all my constituents”
Aye as long as they’re millionaires.
Heedtracker 11.09
HaHa! I note that you have absolutely nothing of substance to say other than to cut and paste your same waffling nonsense Heedy.
Come on Heedy, tell me, how many £20k a year workers are working, and paying tax, so that the £36k fees (Edinburgh), so the Superich student can do a degree for free.
Oh, and by the way, that Super rich student might be from Germany, France, Greece, etc.
Scotland, free University education to the EU’s elite (except the English) – paid for by workers flogging their guts out at Maccy Ds 40 hours a week!
Come on Heedy – tell me it ain’t so!
One_Scot says:
21 July, 2015 at 10:44 am
“Can you imagine the next referendum being a ‘No’ vote, how seriously suspect would that result be.”
The result of the last one looks more and more suspect every day anyway. If they are willing to treat ordinary people (the poor) in the way that they have been doing, and use our children as sex toys, then rigging a referendum would be easy.
Principles don’t come in to it with these people.
Stop feeding the troll!
Sensibledave is probably a reservist in the 77th. Brigade.
He doesn’t want educated. He doesn’t want to debate. He wants to distract and get a reaction – ignore him.
Hi Effie. I’m very well thank you. Off today and tomorrow so just me and the little un. Good grief. What a nightmare!! Has Joff made a full recovery from the metabolic acidosis now??
Labour’s abstention on the Tory welfare reform bill comes as no surprise to me.
Because there is very little policy difference between the Tories and Labour over policies and that’s particularly true in regard to welfare reform.
As people will now find themselves further impoverished as they lose anything between £260-£1,500 a year as due to cuts in working tax credits etc
We need to constantly remind those people that instead of standing up to protect them from those harsh Tory policies.
Labour instead preferred to abandon them by abstaining rather than voting against the Tory Welfare reform bill
which will impoverish so may families.
Interesting list of those who voted against the Bill.
The DUP, the Lib-Dems, the SNP, DUP, UUP and SDLP, Plaid Cymru and the Green MP all opposed the Tories.
Of the 48 Labour MPs who also voted No – some: Diane Abbot, Dennis Skinner, Sir Gerald Kaufmann, Anne Clwyd etc are either never going to be promoted – too left-wing, or, having had their turn in government or as an Opposition spokesperson, are now free to vote as their conscience tells them.
The majority of the abstainers are either too-new or too-feart, or more-likely still have hopes of promotion. Self-interest is a heady factor around Westminster, but, the fact cannot be denied – if you think a Bill is a bad Bill, it is your duty to oppose it and the majority of the Labour Party failed in that duty last night.
Sigh
I used to think the defining moment would be the passing of the older generation that still held onto the wartime “Britain” ideal.
Now im thinking it will be the passing of the “oh for a return of ye olde Labour” generation ( not so old ) who hanker on about Labour as if they used to be the Greatest party ever. Im 47, as long as ive known them, theyve been questionable.
How many times is it going to take for people to say “Hold on..this idea I have of a lovely loving Labour Party is total fiction!”
Thank God todays kids are oblivious to red rose tinted glass blindness.
Hoots mon!! I near peed ma kilt and spilled ma porridge!! Did I just read Waldo /Dave /Adolf refer to Scotland as a free d country?? I never realised we had the Internet over 300 years ago!! Because that was the last time Scotland was a free country to my knowledge.
@Aldo
“The welfare state in this country is bloated and hugely expensive and a luxury we can simply no longer afford.”
Utter nonsense. Our Welfare state is actually bang in the middle in terms of public spending across comparable OECD nations. And by far the the biggest part of that is of course pensions and housing benefit rather than JSA or ESA etc themselves.
link to ftalphaville.ft.com
link to capx.co
How to succeed in UKOK politics without actually getting majorities
“The Tory total was 308 last night. You may notice something about that number. It is smaller than 330, the total number of Tory MPs. So where were they?
There was not a Tory rebellion; it looks rather obviously as though there was some pairing in operation last night. This is standard practice, by which MPs of rival parties agree to not turn out, cancelling out each other’s votes”
So far right teamGB boosted by Labour and all with a spring their British step today, SNP bad, it’s a toryboy UKOK. purr purr.
Aldo says:
“Scotland, being a country (I don’t really see it as such but the SNP certainly want it to be a country)”
Spoken like a true Unionist. What do you see it as then? An English region? I assume that you are one of these types who thinks that Eire should not be an independent country either and should also have a London government running their affairs? Or perhaps your ‘cringe’ only extends as far as the Scots.
“Chances are these people will be the ones paying the bills – the doers, the wealth generators, the net contributors. And they can always vote with their feet.”
Spoken like a true neo-liberal. My heart bleeds for the generous rich people who have been shown to prop up the rest of us (link to theguardian.com).
Heedtracker
You wrote “Today, after last night’s vote and the biggest attack on family benefits and planning since family allowance was created, not a peep out of posh twits at Womans Hour. Its funny as you’d think the vote last night was worth at least a mention, to er, women.’
What on earth are you arguing Heedy? I don’t listen to Woman’s Hour and I don’t care what guests they have on and I don’t care what they said. Furthermore, whatever views the guests on the programme may have – has got absolutely nothing to do with me, the Tories, or the average voter in England.
Is that the sort of stuff that your personal politics are based upon i.e. your opposition to what some “nobody” said on Woman’s Hour?
As you asked, and with regards to the Welfare Bill, I do have concerns. I do think, that to have ended up where so many people are receiving tax credits whilst in full time work, means that something has gone badly wrong with the policy. It was never the intention of the tax credit system.
I believe the policy has lead to a ridiculous situation where rich and profitable companies are paying low wages because they can get away with it – because the recipients are getting “topped up” by the state through tax credits. That cannot be right and needs to be addressed.
Increasing the minimum wage is a way of tackling that situation, however, and I suspect we might agree on this, in my view, reductions in Tax credits should be phased carefully so that they occur at the same time as the increase in the minimum wage.
So, I agree with the policy in principal but I am wary about the consequences of the implementation for some.
Now, Heedy, just for once, try and write something sensible in response. I have opened my heart to you and shared my vulnerability in a caring way – now its your turn.
I can’t wait.
On a lighter note here’s how the BBC reports on something the SNP did good
The Scottish Government has for the first time since records began hit it’s
A&E Waitng times
It’s the way they tell em Boom Boom
Nicola and Shona must have put in the overtime themselves healing people (nothing to do with the NHS of course)
Robert Unwin @ 11.53am
Your link is behind a paywall.
This one isn’t – Welfare spending across the OECD
Are laugh with joy or hysterics sensible?
Come on Heedy, tell me, how many £20k a year workers are working, and paying tax, so that the £36k fees (Edinburgh), so the Superich student can do a degree for free.
Try not be so such a parochial Britnat rule Britannia tory sensible and ask yourself simple questions,
like why is it only in the UKOK and under red and blue right wing economics, people have to pay for uni and college Dave?
No other EU member charges much at all for uni Dave, even Germany’s dropped their 1000 euro a year charge. Maybe its because virtually every country in the EU sees uni education as investment and not like in England, UKOK profit taking opportunities.
Sensible, regressive taxation, socialism for the rich, make the poor poorer etc isn’t going to make you better off and it’s not going to make teamGB a nice place to be, no matter how hard BBC creep show farts out endlessly, red and blue tory world is the only way to rule Britannia.
@ScottieDog Aye, absolutely. One thing I’d say for the tories is they don’t miss a trick, they saw the credit crunch as an opportunity and seized it with both hands. We’re all (upper echelons of society aside) going to be paying the price for at least the next 5 years.
@Aldo *pedantic point but I think the SNP would say their goal is to see Scotland become an independent state, I imagine most SNP members already view Scotland as a country. The fact that you view the SNP as hard-left shows how far right the centre ground in British politics has moved. The point of my last post was indeed intended to imply that current policies are not being adopted out of necessity. They are based on ideology. I don’t know if the current government finds fun in this or not.
Another point was that MMT is essentially left/right neutral. It can be applied in either direction i.e. high spend to public or private sector (depending on your leanings) to increase demand in the economy with full employment as the goal. While my preference would always be a left wing option, I would welcome a centre right party in an independent Scotland (with independent currency) who based their thinking on MMT.
Frankly, regarding the ‘wealth creators’, ‘movers and shakers’ etc, if they want to fuck off that’s fine by me. With control of our immigration we can make up the numbers with some hard working people from overseas. Our natural resources and our workers/thinkers are our real wealth.
@sautron
Yes I was very much in favour of a sovereign Scottish currency too.
Not sure if you’ve read his book?…
http://www.scottishmonetaryreform.org.uk
O/T
Moidart:
Glad you’re getting some time off, wish the weather was a bit perkier if you’re out and about with the wee yin.
(How wee?)
Joff’s kidneys have a condition called Fanconi’s syndrome, a part of Lowe, which is also known as renal tubular acidosis. His normal state is to excrete bicarbonate into his urine instead of conserving it like you and I, making his blood and tissues acidic. Acute deficiency can cause coma or death, chronic deficiency causes osteoporosis due to also wasting phosphate to the urine. Phosphorus is hugely important in bone density.
In order to keep his pH as normal as possible he takes 3 doses of bicarbonate a day. All his meds are liquids and on that day he hadn’t drunk much at all. After 5 hours of not having bicarb medication, he went into acidosis. Not a huge window of safety.
In the end I spoonfed bicarb mixed with squash, a teaspoon at a time until his breathing settled. He was crabbit as hell cos he just wanted to sleep. But giving someone like Joff IV fluids and meds is to be avoided as much as possible.
He is a complicated fellow!
@Roll_On_2015
Cheers! 🙂
Cheers @ScottieDog, I haven’t but I’ll give it a look!
@ Socrates MacSporran
You are, of course, right about the majority of the abstainers, but I was interested to see that the list of those who did vote included several new MPs and some by-election victors from the last parliament. So perhaps a few still remain who are prepared to stick to their principles. Not enough to save their party, though.
@ Ken500, you’ve obviously never seen the Howling Hooligan Drummers, as casual observation indicates that Glasgow is where they don’t come from, we just have to put up with this nonsense.
The Irish boat would be packed last week for the 12th, leaving every village in Lanarkshire & West Lothian devoid its village idiot!
Effie.. Good grief!! It just highlights the complexity of these conditions doesn’t it?? That things we take for granted like fluid intake can have such a profound effect on young men like the bold joff. I can only speculate as to how difficult it can be to retain the vital balance. Your level of knowledge on the subject is outstanding. Amazing. My wee yin isn’t quite at the Kevin and Perry stage yet… He’s ten. So it’s hair gel and trainers. Lol
@Aldo
Merely trying to get you to understand that the macro-economy is a feedback system. If you take money out of it (unless it is overheating) you deplete even more the already weak demand in the system. It’s not ideological it’s really just common sense and perhaps a bit of mathematics.
We have successive govts in Westminster who believe you can grow an economy by increasing private debt levels whilst salaries stagnate, even though this is what caused the last recession. This type of ‘growth’ doesn’t export anything, it merely reduces people’s purchasing power.
They actually condone the use of tax payers money to inflate house prices, making them less affordable, insuring max profits to the banks.
We export less and less each year and have a huge balance of trade deficit, due in large part to 30 years of economic policy which favoured printing fiat money as debt over investing in the growth of new industry
Businesses struggle just now due lack of demand. If most of your salary is paying down debts to the banking sector, you have less money to consume and therefore less to stimulate demand.
The trouble is if you are beholden to the phoney economics written in MSM you will believe in thatcher’s simplified (and completely incorrect) statement that the economy behaves just like a household. It’s nice it’s simple, yet it is wrong.
Where is your logic? Please explain?
So yes former lib-dem voters like me look to support politicians who actually understand economics.
Anent BBC(so called)Scotland’s dumbing down of Westminster events, Jackie Bird is either permitted or encouraged to push her own political agenda or she just does what she’s telt. The Beeb isn’t supposed to have a political agenda so can we assume therefore that Jackie just prostitutes her talents for cash and is so completely devoid of character & principles that she’s prepared to shite on anybody’s aspirations, particularly on the latest issue of Mhairi Black speaking up for the poor & disadvantaged.
Nothing less attractive than a prostitute that’s well past her sell-by date.
Meanwhile, when so many families are struggling to keep the wolf from the door, and a Tory wolf at that. Carolyn Leckie has lost the plot completely in the National and advocates re-introducing real wolves into the Highlands.
Had he taken a bit of trouble & effort on Highland history she would discover that for the past 200 years the most endangered species there were people. Will she be getting my second vote? will she f—.
Waldo
If Scotland isnt a Country then neither is England.
@Tinto Chiel
“On the evidence of last night, there is very little hope of this. And thanks for your reply on the other thread. I fail to see how you think this party can have any useful function in delivering socialism.”
Aye, yet another shameful episode of the Labour Party, which comes as no surprise. I don’t think they will change, but there is a part of me that hopes they will respond and represent those sections of society that they used to.
It didn’t take them long to go from a left-wing outfit to the far-right, so for the sake of those that need saving from savage Tory attacks, I can only hope that Corbyn can win the leadership contest, and make that move back to the left.
It is just hope, perhaps a blind faith that they will see the error of their ways, because for many, hope is all they have left.
In which case, Marco, I salute your hopeful indefatigability. I have no faith Labour will ever return to its roots.
Why can’t the UK afford its welfare bill? I’d have thought the deficit was the most obvious answer to that one.
As for replacing people who leave Scotland post independence with immigration – doesn’t that kind of miss the point of the whole thing? You get an independent state of Scotland just to chase the Scots away and replace them with Poles / Indians / Pakistanis?
The mind of the left wing Scottish yesser really is a strange place where logic gets turned inside out.
Okay, so you get the immigrants here to plug the gaps in the economy. What’s keeping them here? They’ll head south in their droves because that’s where the action is – and no doubt a low tax regime relative to indy Scotland, making England even more attractive. Are you sure we’re going to be able to properly police a 96 mile land border? We can TRY but that will only disadvantage people on legitimate business who will have to go through checkpoints when, at the moment, we enjoy complete freedom of movement.
Back to the drawing board. Again.
Scotland isn’t a country. Neither is England. Both were countries historically which then merged to form the UK.
When I said we are a free country I mean we are free as individuals to do what we please within reason. The UK is one of the most free and liberal nations on the planet. The fact Alex Salmond isn’t in a dungeon somewhere is, in itself, proof of this.
Maybe we’re a bit too liberal.
Waldo… 0300 999 1212
I can only assume Aldo is some sort of UKOK parody.
Me earlier ~
“You wonder how many of the approximate 80% of Labour MP’s (who abstained) were actually present and available to vote, compared to how many were conveniently ‘out of office?’
Howsabout something simple like this for the billboard poster campaign, using their own wording:
“So this is Better Together.. No Thanks!“”
Hey cearc, thanks for the clarification. That makes it even more irresponsible of them.. so they don’t even have to mark/sign their abstention down on paper, they just do as others have mentioned above and ‘sit on their hands’ or do a runner to the toilet, strewth!
See you Saturday lil lady 🙂
Whatever happened to Yoda? I actually think he talked more sense than Aldo.
Dumbassdave shows how easy it is to pretend you care:
I agree with the policy in principal but I am wary about the consequences of the implementation for some.
Aldolittle: Both were countries historically which then merged to form the UK.
Wrong. England was merged with the tiny island of Sark under the banner ‘No foreigners, Scots or cars’.
O/T
Moidart
Hair gel & trainers….aww so sweet.
They whizz into & out of teen years so quickly. My baby is 14, she’s going into 3rd year.
Oh boy…
Labour: We’re abstaining!That will jolly well serve you all right for not voting us into power. How dare you!