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grufty jim 1978 posts |
Edited Sep 30, 2014, 16:09
Sep 30, 2014, 01:53
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Watching the tory conference on the news this evening, it really feels like UKIP and the tories are dragging British politics waaaay to the right. Meanwhile Miliband rails from the wings against policies devised by the last Labour government. Is he aware, I wonder, that nobody can look at him any more without seeing that horrible photo of him grinning like a buffoon in a PR stunt for The Sun...? It's truly a measure of how far the spectrum of acceptable political opinion has shifted when that's the "left wing" alternative. Our mess over here in Ireland is largely down to our decision to put incompetent gombeens in charge of our finances. In Britain though, you get the feeling the tories would be slashing and burning the social welfare system no matter what the prevailing economic climate. They're waging an ideological war and I'm not sure that's really being stressed as much as it should be. You have Osborne announcing a freeze on disability* and unemployment benefits in the same speech he announces an end to inheritance tax. Seriously, if something like that happened in an episode of the West Wing you'd think "Christ, there goes Sorkin being all ham-fisted again! OK, we get the point, Aaron... this guy's evil". Meanwhile John Redwood is making no bones about the fact that the tory right will look very unfavourably on those within their ranks who oppose a withdrawal from the EU. And all the while the Mayor of London bides his time. Between him and Farage, things could get pretty bleak. ----------------------- * EDIT: Turns out 'Disability Benefit' is exempt. For now. The BBC's habit of publishing half-written stories that they then refine over the course of the day has caught me out again! Dagnabbit! I'd like to say that's good news, and it is (in the short-term at least) for many many people. Not like they don't already have it tough enough under this government. But does anyone really think Osborne, Johnson, Cameron and Co. will be happy until they've slashed every "non-productive" (to their definition) member of society into abject poverty?
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grufty jim 1978 posts |
Sep 30, 2014, 12:26
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And now Cameron has come out in favour of a return to teaching Imperial units in schools. Seriously. That's just bizarre... in the modern interconnected world, where damn near every manufactured item is assembled from parts made in multiple countries, the British Prime Minister wants to adopt an obsolescent system of measurements that nobody else uses. Wow. Along with the move to withdraw from Europe and the rise of UKIP, Britain is starting to appear scarily backward-looking and insular. And yet every single British person I know - to a person - is dismayed by this. Do I just know people from a small minority, I wonder? Does the mainstream of British public opinion support all this? And if not, why hasn't Labour staked out a distinct set of policies for itself instead of fighting over the same ground?
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sanshee 1080 posts |
Edited Sep 30, 2014, 14:40
Sep 30, 2014, 14:37
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grufty jim wrote: And now Cameron has come out in favour of a return to teaching Imperial units in schools. Seriously. That's just bizarre... in the modern interconnected world, where damn near every manufactured item is assembled from parts made in multiple countries, the British Prime Minister wants to adopt an obsolescent system of measurements that nobody else uses. Wow. Along with the move to withdraw from Europe and the rise of UKIP, Britain is starting to appear scarily backward-looking and insular. And yet every single British person I know - to a person - is dismayed by this. Do I just know people from a small minority, I wonder? Does the mainstream of British public opinion support all this? And if not, why hasn't Labour staked out a distinct set of policies for itself instead of fighting over the same ground? Hi, as someone who thanks to the democratic will of the majority can still call themselves British (or UK-ish, not as catchy though) I can say I utterly agree. It is scarily backward looking and insular to leave a union that for all its flaws and shenanigans has served everyone within it reasonably well, or at least as well as can be expected whilst 'the bastards' are still in charge. Now we could have of course left one union (and got a whole new fresh set of bastards) and joined another larger one instead but since the founding principles of that larger union is about 'reinforcing unity' I can't see how any newcomer would fit in round the table especially if forced to sit next to the one union it just basically told to 'sod off'. Now both the UK and the EU needs a fair bit of tweaking, probably, and since it's on the cards up here in Scotland with devo-whatever (BTW I was always voting 'no' regardless) I am sure the same will happen re the EU and Dave's proposed in/out ref which will no doubt be watered down as to not mean exactly what it says, just 'should we keep this, or that' etc. And anyways I can't see Dave making one of his chums unemployed any time soon, can you? http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/10/european-commission-tory-peer-economic-post x
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jshell 333 posts |
Sep 30, 2014, 15:15
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grufty jim wrote: Doesn't it say that disability benefits are exempt from the freeze?
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sanshee 1080 posts |
Sep 30, 2014, 15:19
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jshell wrote: grufty jim wrote: Doesn't it say that disability benefits are exempt from the freeze? **Mr Osborne said the proposed freeze, which would not include pensions, disability benefits and maternity pay, would save £3bn.** Yup, sure does. x
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grufty jim 1978 posts |
Sep 30, 2014, 16:05
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jshell wrote: Doesn't it say that disability benefits are exempt from the freeze? It does now. That story is much longer than when I first linked to it and has been substantially rewritten. Always annoys me a bit when news sites do that. It gets to the point where I resolve to take screengrabs, but really, who can be arsed? But hey ho. I'll edit my original post to take it into account. It's important to get the facts straight. Still, not sure there's much to be celebrating about the speech. After all, it's not like those receiving disability benefit are currently being treated well by the tories. Are we really reduced to "Hang on a second now, the guy is only talking about plunging millions of unemployed people and their children into further poverty; let's give him some credit for sparing the sick and elderly"? Well, sparing them for a little while at least. It's not like the tories don't have a track-record of imposing welfare cuts in stages.
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stray 2057 posts |
Oct 01, 2014, 06:48
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Found this recently, a map of countries not using the metric system http://cdn.zmescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/metric-system.png Yep.
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jshell 333 posts |
Oct 01, 2014, 14:58
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grufty jim wrote: jshell wrote: Doesn't it say that disability benefits are exempt from the freeze? It does now. That story is much longer than when I first linked to it and has been substantially rewritten. Always annoys me a bit when news sites do that. It gets to the point where I resolve to take screengrabs, but really, who can be arsed? But hey ho. I'll edit my original post to take it into account. It's important to get the facts straight. Still, not sure there's much to be celebrating about the speech. After all, it's not like those receiving disability benefit are currently being treated well by the tories. Are we really reduced to "Hang on a second now, the guy is only talking about plunging millions of unemployed people and their children into further poverty; let's give him some credit for sparing the sick and elderly"? Well, sparing them for a little while at least. It's not like the tories don't have a track-record of imposing welfare cuts in stages. To be honest, I just no longer trust the BBC's reporting. They're biased in many, many ways. On the benefits though, it was always on the cards for some 'reform', read: cuts. The pity is that the genuine, needy cases will suffer as a result of some necessary cuts and the attempt to stop people just relying on the dole to finance their holidays/SKY/fags for life. I'm not sure Labour would be doing anything different though, as as a nation we are feckd by spiralling debt. There is no doubt a need for social security safety net, but there are many, many people out there taking the absolute piss.
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