Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

If Cameron gets in, the UK will be a banana republic.

We participate in International Human rights negotiations at the end of WW2, Cameron and his bunch of school boys are infantile.

The relief in the more Cameron and cohorts twist and turn up to the next election the less likely that they will get into power.

More likely to be decimated.

With Russia behaving like a mongrel and the M.E. erupting and Sunni uniting the more necessary it is to have a united Europe.

An Excelent Lunch Time read.......

Think the political parties are not partisan enough for you? Watch the food banks debate and think again

July 17, 2014 Comments: 5

You know how we all know the media lies and excludes anything important, and that it’s under authoritarian Tory control, right? That Iain Duncan Smith “monitors” the BBC for “left wing bias”, that the Guardian’s occasional forays into truth are stifled by jackbooted officials marching in and smashing hard drives. So do you really imagine that such a government spokes-media will do any justice to reporting about the positive intentions and actions of its opposition? Not one bit.

Yet I see people commenting with bitter politico-gossip gusto with the cherry-picked, distorted media spun sound-bites, as if the media is somehow suddenly credible when it talks about the opposition, and when we actually read what was said and proposed at the un-spun source, it bears no resemblance at all to the media tales of the unexpected.

If we trouble ourselves to investigate these things, the rubbish being published and broadcast via the mainstream media doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. We accept that the “news” about the government is positive spin, lies, distortions and propaganda, it’s a curious thing that some people also think that the media may suddenly yield tangible evidence of some deep and absolute truth about the Labour Party.

And when the media resort to personal smears – like they did last year about Ralph Miliband – you just KNOW they are very worried about being defeated by the Labour Party.

This is a crucial time when we need to make sure we know the difference between truth and propaganda, fact from fiction. It’s up to you to discern – so please do. We are each responsible for what happens next. It cannot be 5 more years of the same brutal neo-feudalist tyrants.

The right are engaged in an all out propaganda war, and we need to be prepared for it.

Firstly the Tories know that Ed Miliband has edited their script, abandoning the free-market fundamentalist consensus established by Thatcherism in favour of social democracy.

Secondly, the right-wing media barons who set the terms of debate – they establish the agenda, and tell you not what to think, exactly, but what to think about: they establish what is deemed politically palatable in Britain – have never forgiven Ed Miliband for his endorsement of Leveson, which they believe is an unacceptable threat to their established power.

Thirdly, they know and fear Labour under Ed Miliband may very well actually win the 2015 election.

So there are a LOT of false claims about labour around at the moment.

This is some clarification about the welfare cap. There has certainly been a lot of confusion over this particular issue. There’s a difference between a budget cap – as is the case here, and benefit cap – which isnt the same thing and not what this was about. Rachel Reeves knew that Iain Duncan Smith would overspend and not stay within the budget cap, because of his failures like Universal Credit. This is entirely about HOW THAT BUDGET IS SPENT and Reeves does not want private contractors profiting on failures that penalise the poor. She says:

“A Labour government would take a completely different approach, focusing on the things that drive increased social security spending – such as low pay, long-term unemployment and the inadequate supply of housing.

Labour would tackle low pay by strengthening the minimum wage and encouraging more employers to pay a living wage. We would get 200,000 homes a year built by 2020 to help bring down the cost of rents and tackle the housing crisis. And we would tackle the £330 million cost of long-term youth unemployment with a Compulsory Jobs Guarantee. Ministers are having to spend more because of the cost of their failing policies, waste and the cost-of-living crisis which has left working people an average of £1,600 a year worse off.

The levels of overspending and waste under this government are staggering. £1 billion has been spent on the government’s flagship Work Programme, but people who use the scheme are more likely to return to the Jobcentre than gain a job. An astonishing £2.4 billion of taxpayers money has been overpaid in benefits by the government due to ‘official error’ since 2010.

Long-term youth unemployment has doubled since 2010, costing £330 million a year. The housing benefit bill has risen since 2010, and figures in the Budget pointed to a further increase of £100 million in 2014-15, and £300 million in 2015-16. Universal Credit is now costing a staggering £161,000 per claimant according to figures released last week.

So, despite tough talking from ministers, the Budget well and truly confirmed their failure to control welfare costs.

A Labour government would take a completely different approach, focusing on the things that drive increased social security spending – such as low pay, long-term unemployment and the inadequate supply of housing”.

Another area of confusion is the austerity myth. To clarify, Milband is and always has been AGAINST austerity. He has NEVER supported it.

The “allthesame” lie came straight from Lynton Crosby at Tory HQ. It’s purpose is to divide the left. The BBC’s Tory correspondent Nick Robinson admitted live on air, that Cameron’s best chance of winning the next election is if people believe politicians are “all the same”. That is very clearly not the case. One major ploy has been to use propaganda based on an exclusively class-based identity politics, aimed at the “working class”. This has involved carefully seeded discontent to factionalise, and to undermine support of the Labour Party.

Such propaganda purposefully excludes other social groups and also sets them against each other, such as the working class unemployed attacking migrants – it’s really is divisive, anti-democratic, and quite deliberately flies in the face of Labour’s equality and diversity principles.

That’s the problem with identity politics: it tends to enhance a further sense of social segregation and fragmentation and it isn’t remotely inclusive. Of course it also enhances the myth of “out of touch”/ “allthesame” politicians very well. (See also “when the oppressed are oppressive too“.)

It’s a clever strategy, because it attacks Labour’s fundamental equality and inclusion principles – the very reason why the Labour movement happened in the first place – and it places restriction on who ought to be “included”.

Think of that divisive strategy 1) in terms of equality. 2) in terms of appealing to the electorate 3) in terms of policy. Note how it imposes limits and is very reductive.

The Tories set this strategy up in the media, and UKIP have extended it further, the minority rival parties, including the Anarchists, the far left, N (“narxists”), NOTA, the Green Party, the SNP, TUSC and groups like Left Unity have also utilised the same rhetoric tools. Yet we KNOW right wing parties have no interest in the working class. Nor is it in the working class’ interest to divide up their vote amongst parties unlikely to gain mainstream electorate approval and votes.

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The Labour campaign has focused on inequality, Miliband knows that Britain is not divided by race and culture, it’s divided by massive wealth inequalities fuelled by the Tory-led Coalition’s “austerity” policies. Blaming the unemployed, the sick and disabled and immigrants for the failings of the government has fuelled misperceptions that drive support for the far right. Miliband’s campaign is positive campaigning, promoting policies that benefit the majority of citizensm with some, such as the bedroom tax repeal, being aimed at the most vulnerable minority. Quite properly so.

Lynton Crosby, who has declared that his role is to destroy the Labour Party, rather than promote the Conservatives, based on any notion of merit, is all about such a targeted “divide and rule” strategy. This is a right-wing tactic of cultivating and manipulating apostasy amongst support for the opposition.

Such negative campaigning is a very evident ploy in the media, too, with articles about Labour screaming headlines that don’t match content, and the Sun and Telegraph blatantly lying about Labour’s policy intentions regularly. Propaganda isn’t obvious, and that’s how it works. We really do need to be mindful of this.



This is a propaganda war, and the Tories think that chucking an avalanche of crap at the opposition is enough. It isn’t. Where are their positive, supportive, life-enhancing policies for the citizens of the UK? The Tories have NOTHING but increasing poverty and pain to offer most of us, and no amount of smearing Labour and telling lies will hide that fact. And they will do all they can to make sure Labour don’t get space in the media to tell you about their own positive social democracy program, based on tackling the inequality and poverty that Tories always create.

Cameron needs to learn that politics isn’t soap opera or about just providing handouts of OUR money to the very parasitic wealthy Tory donors: it has real consequences for real people. As a society we cannot tolerate another 5 years of the terrible and real consequences of this government. The only viable alternative is to vote Labour on May 7, 2015.

More lefty lunacy!

blah blah blah blah blah snook blah blah blah.

Fred.


Why do you support a law that bends over backwards to favour the wrongdoer, whilst disregarding the victim's "human rights"?

gf
Yes! The lefties do talk

"blah blah blah blah blah snook blah blah blah."

the pendulum in many similar areas has swung far too far
for example,
if you get injured at work - eg falling over on a wet floor - it has to be the employer's fault instead of your own for not paying attention
if you comfort some child you find crying in the street, you're likely to find yourself in front of the beak for molestation or somesuch

Very much agree with Cyners post above. Totaly barmy and as gone far too far.

I blame the wet libs.

LOL looks like Hays was a little rattled. blah blah blah err blah blah.

Anyway I think that article (so called lefty by Hays) is spot on. It shows how Lynton Crosby is running the Tory party and the country.

You do realise it was him that really carried out the Cabinet reshuffle.

Alberto Nardelli @AlbertoNardelli · 4h
World’s 25 largest economies in 2025:

1. China
2. US
3. India
4. Japan
5. Germany



WOW Gringos bigger than us.

YouGov/Sun – CON 33, LAB 36, LD 9, UKIP 13

The TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady, said: “Serious questions must be asked about the quality of jobs being created in Britain today.

"If all the recovery can deliver is low-paid, low-productivity jobs – many of which don’t offer enough hours to get by – then it will pass most working people by and Britain’s long-term economic prospects will be seriously diminished.”

He pointed to recently released figures......

pay growth at a record low of 0.3 per cent, less than a quarter of the current 1.9 per cent inflation rate.

re: #43942


The UK isn't too badly placed...look to the population size of the countries quoted.

gf
That post is really funny.

"He pointed to recently released figures......"

Frances O'Grady, the TUC general secretary is a woman. Don't you ever watch the news?

She has been on QT a few times and is often on the news. You should also try and remember that Francis is the male version of the name.

Hays no I didnt notice, I just raced through the post.

10 brownie points for spotting it.

Is the kithen finished?. What type......any photos.

Where did you get it from??.

Hays I get mine here, I get a good discount and free delivery.

Send for a free catologue.

http://www.moores.co.uk/

It is an insurance job. There was a flood. The insurance is paying for the base units, flooring and tiling. I am putting in wall units, work surfaces, oven, hob, sink, cooker hood, papering, painting and redoing the electrics etc.

Hood

Old Nick looks after his own......




Silvio Berlusconi acquitted on appeal in prostitution case

Italian appeals court ruling also throws out seven-year prison sentence and lifetime ban on holding political office



Associated Press in Milan


theguardian.com, Friday 18 July 2014 12.49 BST


http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/silvio-berlusconi-acquitted-appeal-prostitution-case

as innocent as 'arry!

He is still very popular in Italy and with Italians here.