cmnimo
02 November 2012 6:27 PMLink to this comment
3
Not sure either... but looks like a stressful day. Going by this Indy article it could be the official London 2012 lapel pin. Possibly Cameron felt the need to remind others of the Tories historic allegiances with this symbolic gesture as a result of Mitt's visit. Whatever the reason, Cameron's well groomed right hand man, Clegg, felt he also had to show support.
From the first evidence of the coalition's faux divisions stacked up to create one of the most regressive right-wing agendas ever unleashed in the UK's modern history...with some liberal sentiment sentiments sprinkled on the side.
And what a performance! It's probably on the back of this success the Tories have developed their own internal strategy too, enabling them to press for the neoliberal agenda even further while wrapping it up in the flag of nationalism. But whether eurosceptic or europhile, all are aiming for the same result under the banner of patriotism. For example the Torygraph's coverage of Heseltine's ''incestous backbiting'':
Get on a war footing - foreign countries are after our jobs and wealth
Carrying on with Bell's urban Jungle Boy theme of Tory sleight of hand and grandstanding; the article accompanying the link you provided picks up on yesterday's thread too.
Supporters of the A-list insist it has had a dramatic impact on the face of the modern Tory party by beginning to loosen the grip of middle-aged products of public schools and Oxbridge.
But the system has also had the unwelcome side-effect of bringing into Parliament new MPs who have done little but cause trouble for the Prime Minister.
Which was why the Victoria and Albert was a fitting venue for another member of Conservative's A-list to appear to stand one side of a divisive issue while fighting shy of the same old same-old.
A row has broken out after the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland was named Bigot of the Year by gay rights charity Stonewall.
Speaking at the award ceremony at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Ms Davidson said it was important for young people to see that politics, gender or sexuality should be no barrier to success.
She added: "But where I disagree with Stonewall in these awards is the need to call people names like 'bigot'.
Cardinal [O'Brien] wrote that the proposal for same-sex marriage represented a "grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right".
He also said same-sex partnerships were "harmful to the physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing of those involved".
Seems it is the Tories who are in need of lessons in both the English language and it's history.
Bigot:
a person who is bigoted:
religious bigots
he was a fanatical bigot, determined to crush heresy
13thDukeofWybourne
12 October 2012 2:58 AMLink to this comment
53
Dore's original portrait actually appears in Michael Gove's new Dictionary of Historical Terms which will be used in the History strand of the neo-Baccaluareate under:
-1834 Poor Law Amendment Act: The Victorian Big Society Speech. Dore's famous portrait shows a typical scene of the Big Society created by the reform act. In this scene, various community stakeholders take responsibility for themselves. By begging for alms. The munificence of the alms giver in the scene was typical of the 19th Century wealth creator and he is quite rightly lit up in angelic hues denoting the saintliness of the bourgeoisie.
Other random entries in the Dictionary of Historical Terms (as I leaf through it) are:
- Feudalism: Social responsibility
- James Keir Hardie: Luddite
- Serfdom: Internship
- Imperialism: The spread of democracy
- Empire: Sub-Provincial Special Economic Free Trade Zone
- Slavery: Labour recruitment scheme, the inefficiencies of which led its abolishment. By us.
- The NHS- a post-1945 Cold War Soviet fifth column funded brainwashing project. Overseen by the shadowy Blofeld figure of Aneurin Bevan, the deceptiveness and elaborateness of the project was so byzantine in its deviousness that only now can its final vestiges can be destroyed.
- Suffragettes: Over educated harridans, the ancestors of whom originated from the Greek Island of Lesbos. Probably.
- The Peasants Revolt: The Politics of Class Envy
- Enclosure: Private Finance Initiative
- Charles Dickens: Lord Haw-Haw
-The Chartist Movement: Class Hatred
-Clement Attlee: Stalin
cmnimo
06 June 2012 6:36 PMLink to this comment
5
2009
1. Liberty and Anti-Slavery International have suggested an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill, which has been tabled by Baroness Young and supported by others, in order to introduce clear, dissuasive and enforceable offences of servitude and forced labour.
This would give clear effect to Britain’s obligations under Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions on Forced Labour (Conventions 29 and 105).
2. It is not disputed that slavery and forced labour are still present in the United Kingdom and that the United Kingdom has obligations under international law to render the extraction of forced or compulsory labour punishable penal offences.
However, we are instructed that questions have been raised as to whether specific new offences of servitude and forced labour are required, or whether the elements of such offences are already contained in existing statutory or common law offences.
3. In our view, the existing criminal law offences pertaining to trafficking, the slave trade, false
imprisonment and kidnapping are not apt to cover all offences of servitude.
26. Some instances of servitude or forced labour may start with the victim willingly going to the place where they are intended to work, under the false impression that they will have a ‘legitimate job’. Others, indeed, may start with some legitimate employment in a situation which subsequently mutates into servitude or forced labour.
30. For the reasons set out above, we do not consider that the existing provisions of the English
criminal law provide effective protection and penalties for servitude and forced labour. The
introduction of such offences is necessary, both to protect the victims of serious abusive
crime, and in order avoid findings by the ECtHR against the United Kingdom of violations of
Article 4 ECHR.
(quickview)
A person is subjected to forced labour when the person does not voluntarily consent to perform work but does so because of threats made, either physical or psychological.
The State is under an obligation to ensure laws are in place to protect people from slavery, servitude and forced labour, including by having anti-trafficking legislation and making it an offence to subject someone to such practices.
State authorities are also obliged to protect victims or potential victims of Article 4 ill-treatment from real and immediate risks which are known, or ought to be known, by the authorities. There is also an obligation to investigate any allegations of slavery, servitude or forced or compulsory labour.
http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/human-rights/human-rights/the-human-rights-act/what-the-rights-mean/article-4-no-slavery-or-forced-labour.php
7 Sept 2011:
In August this year, we saw one of the first convictions under this new legislation that we campaigned so hard for. True to Wilberforce’s legacy, the Human Rights Act is making the end of slavery and forced labour in the UK today a reality.
http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/news/2011/article-4-no-slavery-or-forced-labour.php
Kerry McCarthy is the Labour MP for Bristol East and shadow foreign minister.
Fifty of them were on "apprenticeships" and would be paid £2.80 an hour. The rest were on the Government’s Work Programme, and they’d been led to believe by Close Protection UK, the company they were providing stewarding services for, that they’d be paid for the work. Some had even signed off in anticipation.
Over the coming days more will be revealed, no doubt. I hope this triggers a wider debate about the use of workfare and Work Programme participants on "work experience" as a substitute for paid labour, and the exploitation of the scheme by companies who could and should pay a decent wage instead. Not to mention the exploitation of the "volunteers" who live in fear of being sanctioned or refused paid work if they turn down such opportunities.
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/politics/2012/06/questions-must-be-answered-over-unpaid-stewards
ucic
23 May 2012 11:20 PMLink to this comment
55
Greece has not only been bled dry by a combination of neo-liberal politics and the wealthy feral elites who consistently refused to pay their fare share in taxation.
Seems the country was also Germany's best customer in the German weapons industry:
...yet there is an elephant in the room: the extent to which the German but also the French military industries rely on Greece.
The small, crisis-hit nation,... buys more German weapons than any other country. Some Greeks want to know why it is that France and Germany are demanding cuts in pensions, salaries and public services, but the buying of arms is allowed to continue unabated....
Greece is the highest military spender, in terms of percentage of GDP, in the EU.
Poor old Greece, first screwed by Goldman Sachs and then the rest of the neo-liberal vultures... Mind you, it's no wonder Merkel's panicking - who else is gonna be forced to buy their stuff?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/less-healthcare-but-greece-is-still-buying-guns-6257753.html
lightacandle
21 March 2012 7:21 AMLink to this comment
139
If ever there was a window waiting to be smashed - that has to be the one.
Not yours of course Steve - yours is fine by us...
And speaking of class - let's have a look at what The Guardian's golden boy of the moment. Tim Montgomerie, has to say about us all shall we in his latest Guardian article....
"The party.... needs more candidates born on the wrong side of the tracks".
Oh really Tim and pray do tell us just what is 'the wrong side of the tracks' because if there is anyone or anything standing on the wrong side of anywhere it those such as Mr Montgomerie and those he follows who are now destroying everything we held dear.
And look - don't The Guardian just love him as just to the right prominently displayed is Mr Montgomerie to the side of the cartoon, or was if you read this later. And don't forget to attend the Guardian Weekend people - that hotbed of 'progressive' thinking where you can pay £40 just to hear Mr Montgomerie speak - well we are so honoured. The Guardian - giving a platform to the the right day after day - who'd have thought? Not forgetting those newly enrolled fanatics of the right the Liberal Democrats and the Guardian's other new wonder boy, their leader in waiting, Tim Farron.
Yes the establishment and it's class system is alive and well people - and their private schools, and their jobs for the boys, and their Guardian weekends which won't allow any politician from the true left or any trade unionists speak don't you know - and now.... their newly privatised NHS .......which breaks my heart.
Want to do something about it - then we need to shout a bit louder and yes - perhaps break a few windows too - figuratively speaking of course - don't want to spend four years in jail now do we seeing as those fine figures of the establishment have now got the whole justice system sewn up too. But what's a pane of glass between friends - we're all in this together after all - or are we? Answer - no.
Class system alive and well, and as the masses tug their forelocks in the direction of the ever present Kate to remind us to know thine place, to the establishment's delight - then more fools them. And if we do nothing about it then more fool us and woe behold the future we are carving out for our children and future generations Hope lost? Maybe not.... up to us... and those figurative stones lying around just waiting to be picked up.
bighouse
13 March 2012 3:30 PMLink to this comment
11
Collossus in search of Arole...shouldn't that be Iran?
On Afghanistan, in the week Obama and cameron are claiming job done the Afghan courts declared it legal once more for a man to beat his wife and Kharzi sent his drug lord brothers to liaise with citizens concerned about rampaging NATO troops murdering their loved ones.
All the talk of girls being able to go to school now for the first time in Afghanistan is intensly irritating. I was there in the late 70's and Kabul was one of the most relaxing, civilsed cities I had ever visited, certainly of those in the east. That was before the Americans and the British started to arm the so called Mujahadin or Northern Alliance - local bandits and fundamentalist adventurers, most famously Osama Bin Laden, who set out to destroy a liberal, cosmopolitan, West leaning government. Later the Russians invaded and the restis a repeatof history.
I remember seeing hundreds of school children, girls included arriving at the British consulate for the weekls film show. It was surreal to say the least but very gratifying to see them all sitting on the lawn in their typically western uniforms giggling and screaming at Terry Thomas in 'Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines'. After 30-odd years, hundreds of thousands dead, billions wasted and goodwill in the region destoyed it seems that we will never return to that idyll.
BadDog
03 April 2012 3:54 PMLink to this comment
9
Response to cmnimo, 03 April 2012 11:59 AM
Thanks for the post. I can't see how they could possibly read every ones emails, but perhaps that is not the intention.
Your link to Police accessed BlackBerry messages to thwart planned riots does perhaps give more of a clue what they are up to. Encrypted Blackberry messages must be what they are on about when they talk about 'social networking sites', and not Twitter or Facebook.
Clegg said
"There's been a lot of scaremongering, a lot of myths about in the media over the last couple of days.
"Any measures will be proportionate. They will not sacrifice people's civil liberties, we will not create a new government database and we will not give police new powers to look into people's emails."
But (the bill)
would also reportedly allow intelligence officers to access emails, calls and texts as they happen, without a warrant, rather than retrospectively.
This is all a bit more sinister than I first thought.
I understand that the police may now be using equipment that logs the numbers of all mobile phones in a given area, and these can be fed into a database.
This apparently was used at the St Paul's camp. Technically, this isn't very difficult to do, as mobile phones have to keep telling the nearest cell mast what their number is, so the police just need to tap these messages.
The mobile phone companies have the name and address of the owners of most mobile phone SIMs, so if the authorities can get access without a warrant to mobile phone companies records, they get the name and address of the owners of most of the mobile phone owners at, say, a demonstration.
If the same mobile phone keeps turning up at different demonstrations, this will show up and they can target that phone, monitor its calls and text messages, all without a warrant.
If they also get your name and address they could search internet providers records for an internet account in that name. If they find your account they can see which sites you have visited and find out who your email provider is, possibly access that.
They can do most of this now, but they are supposed to get a warrant.
So perhaps the intention is not a infeasibly massive database of everyone's emails, but more powers without judicial oversight for the police and intelligence services.
Not all police are happy
Chris Fox, former head of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said the move would be "a massive intervention by the state into people's private lives".
"If you are investigating crime you have targets... it just seems to be overkill and intrusive for the 99.9% of the rest of us."
He said the idea was "fraught with danger for the innocent vast majority", not least that of misidentification, which could result from genuine criminals disguising their communications as those of law-abiding citizens.
Scaremongering' over internet monitoring plans - Nick Clegg
So if you go on a demonstration don't take your phone if you don't want to get onto their database.
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ephemerid
13 November 2012 11:50 AMLink to this comment
23
The individual who posted the clip of a burning poppy should not be arrested.
There is no crime in being an offensive little twerp.
Children in school are taught today, as I was many years ago, that the poppy symbolises remembrance of the millions who died in "the war to end all wars" and I was taught that part of its' poignancy derives from the fact that an unnecessary, badly-organised, politically-driven conflict did not end war. It continues all over the globe, and is invariably about power, politics, and the control of peoples and resources.
My father went up night after night in his Lancaster, knowing he was facing horrific conditions and he had a fifty-fifty chance of making it home, because he believed that this country was fighting fascism.
Whatever the rights or wrongs of WWII, he and his compatriots risked their lives so that we could have the right to free speech, the right to offend and support in equal measure.
My father always said - as many of his veteran friends did also - that the sacrifice his colleagues made gave me the right to be a pacifist, a left-winger, or whatever I like.
He also believed, in his later years, that remembering the fallen is very much a personal choice, and he disliked the idea that remembrance glorifies war. It doesn't - the idea is to remember, and many veterans hold the view that some of the pride they have in their service has nothing to do with the politics of it all but everything to do with their respect for their dead comrades.
My daughter serves with the RAF. She works in an area she can't tell me much about., but she spent a long time doing other things before she decided to join the Armed Forces.
She absolutely accepts that there may come a time when she has to kill or be killed as part of her job.
She is also, like many of her colleagues, perfectly well aware that some conflicts her service has been involved in are nothing more than political posturing.
Being in the Armed Forces is a job like no other, in that the military is a family of sorts. Politicians don't get this, unless they've served themselves.
Most current serving personnel will know someone who has been injured or killed, and that's why they wear their poppies with pride.
As do I - but that doesn't mean that I think people who object to the jingoism should be silenced, far from it. This is supposedly a free country, my father risked his life to keep it so - and I absolutely respect that many people will not share my views, and they must have the right to express theirs.
When I think of the things that are happening in this country now, the attacks on the vulnerable and poor, the corruption in our politics and media, I think some dipstick pratting about on Facebook is the least of our concerns.
This is a good cartoon - thank you Mr.Bell.
georgep76
26 December 2012 1:03 AMLink to this comment
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3
Bob Cratchit the horny feckless plebeian with more kids than he could afford and a wife who expected her husband's employer to pay him enough to feed them....
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if Jesus is
Christ then who
is God ? you know its not
that a relationship is expensive it
just costs me everything I have thats all ...
© Lizarikk
******************
The leopard is so strong and comfortable in trees that it often hauls its kills into the branches. By dragging the bodies of large animals aloft it hopes to keep them safe from scavengers such as hyenas. Leopards can also hunt from trees, where their spotted coats allow them to blend with the leaves until they spring with a deadly pounce. These nocturnal predators also stalk antelope, deer, and pigs by stealthy movements in the tall grass. When human settlements are present, leopards often attack dogs and, occasionally, people
23.30, 20.08.12.
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