General politics discussion thread

[stumobir]

So does anyone fancy trading in their workers' rights for a few measly shares? Noone really needs the right against unfair dismissal or paternity pay, do we? Seems like Boy George and Cammy are doing exactly the opposite of what their supposed intentions are and are creating more of a class divide. I suppose it would be silly to expect anything less from them though.

[mikey]

Cameron in "Says one thing, does another" shocker. David Cameron is more like a woman that Thatcher ever was.

[Van Dammer]

In light of the recent Starbucks avoiding tax story, I was wondering if anybody has ever published a sort of blacklist of companies that operate in the UK but avoid paying either corporation tax, income tax or generally go to great lengths to avoid paying their taxes in Britain? Anybody have an idea?

[Loki]

Private Eye, every month. Vodafone are serial offenders.

[stumobir]

Private Eye, every month. Vodafone are serial offenders.

 

Pisses me off that stuff like this largely goes unreported and is left to the more obscure media to try and draw attention to it. Meanwhile, our beloved Government and oh-so-trustworthy media big-hitters are busy tarring everyone on benefits with the same brush and claiming that they're the reason the countries is going/has gone to the pits.

Edited October 17, 2012 by stumobir

[The King Of Swing]

Well "Plebgate" Andrew Mitchell is gone.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/polit...ed-8218881.html

 

This time he did swear but didn't call them plebs.

[Up Chuck]

The guy who's replacing him once described homeless people as "what you step over when you come out of the opera". The tories are on a proper old-school kick lately. They'll be busting out those "If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour" posters again soon.

[David]

I see uncle Nick is back in the media spotlight again, fighting the good fight and all that;

 

Police in Cambridgeshire have said they are investigating complaints made after the leader of the far-right British National party, Nick Griffin, posted the address of a gay couple on the internet and appeared to urge his supporters to demonstrate outside their home.

 

Michael Black, 64, and John Morgan, 59, a couple from Brampton, Cambridgeshire, had found out earlier on Thursday that they had won their highly-publicised civil case against a Christian bed and breakfast owner who had told them they could not stay in one of her double rooms due to her religious convictions.

 

Black, a writer and exams consultant, had told the Guardian he and his partner were delighted by the ruling from Reading crown court, which found that Susanne Wilkinson, owner of the Swiss Bed and Breakfast in Cookham, Berkshire, had been directly discriminatory in her treatment of the couple. She was ordered to pay

[The King Of Swing]

Bullies are always cowards!

 

Big Nick really is the least self aware person in Britain

 

EDIT

 

Now that "Plebgate" is out of the way it's onto the "Great Train Snobbery" with George Osborne.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/oc...or-train-ticket

 

 

The chancellor, George Osborne, has refused to comment on reports that he tried to sit in the first-class compartment on board a Virgin train from Cheshire despite only having paid for a standard ticket.

 

As he disembarked at London's Euston station and found himself greeted by a small posse of reporters and photographers, Osborne smiled grimly and declined to answer questions fired at him by journalists and Labour party and student activists.

 

Asked if reports suggesting he had bought a standard-class ticket but had sat in first class were correct, he replied: "I'm sure it will be, um … "

 

The chancellor appeared increasingly awkward as his minders and members of Network Rail staff ushered him through a security gate and in the direction of a government car.

 

Osborne found himself at the centre of a Twitter storm after his apparently innocuous arrival on the 15.11 from Wilmslow was spotted by an ITV journalist also on board. Rachel Townsend posted reports on Twitter that, despite having a standard ticket, the chancellor had gone directly to sit in a first-class carriage.

 

A stream of Townsend's messages reported that an aide for Osborne had approached a ticket inspector and informed him that "Osborne couldn't possibly" sit in standard class.

 

She later said: "George Osborne got on the train with aides at Wilmslow and went straight to first class. Then his aide approached the ticket collector right next to me. He said he is travelling with George and he has a standard ticket but can he remain in first class? The guard said no. The aide said Osborne couldn't possibly sit in standard class. The guard replied saying if he wants to stay it's

Edited October 20, 2012 by The King Of Swing

[PowerButchi]

Went on the Hyde Park march today, just got home. Favourite thing about it? Someone had a picture of Nicolai Volkoff on their banner. I'll upload pic in morning.

[Loki]

I've done a 180 on this issue over the past few years. The more I read and learn about the situation, the less defensible I find Israel's position to be. If you step aside from the questions of whose God may or may not have given them inalienable rights to the land, and also put aside understandable questions over "security", from a purely legal perspective the Israelis are still in violation of the UN Security Council Resolution 242 (1967), which set out the fundamental requirements for lasting peace between the two parties, which were:

 

(i) Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;

(ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force."

 

The Israeli government agreed to this resolution, but has never withdrawn as requested, instead they've spend the intervening years building fortified settlements on Palestinian land that they illegally occupy.

 

It was a fundamental principle of the oh-so-close ending of the conflict with the Oslo accord in 1993, which primarily failed because the then-Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Rabin, who signed up to the agreement, was assassinated by right-wing Israelis.

 

Whenever the building stops, the heat comes out of the conflict. Whenever building accelerates (as it is right now), anger grows amongst the Palestinians. We're very close to another intafada right now. The vast majority of Palestinians desperately want peace, security, and access to basics like water and food, but as long as their friends and families continue to be kicked off their ancestral land to make way for a new settlement, they'll reach for the gun.

 

As would I, in their position.

 

So, with the Israeli elections in the spring, the government has decided it's time to start up the war again, and yesterday assassinated one of the most senior Hamas guys in Gaza. They continued to rocket Gaza overnight, and of course this morning the Palestinians have started their counter-attack, which basically means lobbing rockets over the border.

 

Considering things have been relatively quiet for the last couple of years, this is a sad development, and will lead to many casualties. What it won't lead to, I suspect, is any public condemnation of Israel for this cynical escalation.

[The King Of Swing]

It's a sad fact that the Israeli Government can do virtually anything they want and I have pretty much given up hope of there ever being peace.

[The King Of Swing]

Foster Parents have children taken away for belonging to UKIP.

 

http://news.sky.com/story/1015851/ukip-fos...gation-launched

 

Rotherham Council has launched an investigation into the decision to remove three foster children from a couple because of their membership of the UK Independence Party.

 

Councillor Paul Lakin, Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Family Services, made the announcement following criticism from across the political spectrum.

 

"This was a decision taken by social services professionals and I have ordered an immediate investigation to establish the full facts of this decision and asked for the report to be on my desk on Monday morning," he said.

 

UKIP leader Nigel Farage condemned the case as "outrageous", while Education Secretary Michael Gove, who was himself adopted as a child, said the Labour-controlled council's decision was "plain wrong" and "indefensible".

 

The three children were removed from the care of an unnamed couple from South Yorkshire, who have been fostering for seven years.

 

They had taken on a baby girl, a boy and an older girl from an non-indigenous white British and troubled family background in September.

 

Less than eight weeks into the placement they were visited by a Rotherham social worker and foster agency official, who accused them of belonging to a party with "racist policies" and unsuitable to look after the children.

 

The husband and wife told The Daily Telegraph they were left "dumbfounded" and "offended".

 

The visit followed an anonymous tip-off about the couple's party membership.

 

Rotherham Council had earlier said it needed to consider the children's "cultural and ethnic needs" and highlighted UKIP's policy on multiculturalism.

 

Mr Gove told Sky News: "I think it's quite, quite wrong for Rotherham Council, or indeed for any other local authority, to say that people should not be foster or adoptive parents on these grounds."

 

But Downing Street rejected reports that Prime Minister David Cameron had retracted a previous statement made on LBC radio in 2006 where he referred to Ukip members as "fruit cakes and loonies and closet racists mostly".

 

A spokesman said: "We haven't retracted anything. The Prime Minister never said that every single member of Ukip is a racist and the point about adoption cases is parents need to be judged on their merits, not affiliation to a political party."

 

Joyce Thacker, Strategic Director of Children and Young People's services at the council, said the children had been placed with the couple as an emergency and it was never going to be a long-term arrangement.

 

However, Mr Farage demanded an apology from the council for the "concern and the upset they have caused".

 

He told Sky News he had spoken to the couple, who were "very upset and distressed" by what had happened.

 

He insisted: "UKIP is a non-racist, non-sectarian political party. I mean, for goodness sake, we have got the Croydon North by-election going on at the moment where Jamaican-born Winston McKenzie is our candidate, so there are absolutely no grounds for this at all."

 

Labour leader Ed Milband told Sky News: "Being a member of UKIP should not be a bar to adopting or fostering children."

 

The Daily Telegraph said the couple had denied they were racist and told the officials they would not have taken them on if they were.

 

The wife said: "I was dumbfounded. Then my question to both of them was, 'What has UKIP got to do with having the children removed?'

 

"Then one of them said, 'Well, UKIP have got racist policies'. The implication was that we were racist."

 

She said she was left "bereft", adding: "We felt like we were criminals. From having a little baby in my arms, suddenly there was an empty cot."

 

The woman also said the council feared the couple could not meet the children's cultural needs in the long term - a claim the family denied.

 

"We were actively encouraging these children to speak their own language and to teach us their language," she was quoted as saying by the Sheffield-based Star newspaper.

 

"We enjoyed singing one of their folk songs in their native language, and having been told of the religious denomination of these children, we took steps to ensure that a school of their denomination was found."

 

I'm not a big fan of UKIP but heads need to roll over this fiasco.

[Loki]

Re: Leveson. Would someone like to explain to me why the print media is SO different to the broadcast media that any sort of statute-based oversight (as OFCOM is to tv and radio) would destroy its integrity? BBC, C4 and Sky News seem infinitely freer in their editorial policy than any of the newspapers.I'm still open-minded on this issue, but so far none of the arguments against Leveson's recommendations hold make any real sense.

[JNLister]

The theory is that broadcast was always inherently limited in variety (because there was only room for a few stations) while there can be unlimited newspapers. Clearly that's not the case today.