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Despite these uncertain and troubling times we live in - it's good to know that some people still want to have fun.

Illegal rave springs up in London

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/apr/12/rave-london-underground-tube-mc-harry-shotta

This has restored my faith in young people.

https://www.ft.com/content/a1d65e82-1ac1-11e7-bcac-6d03d067f81f

Meanwhile, business lobbies seeking to influence Downing Street would be wise to tread a careful line, expressing their concerns only in private meetings rather than through public campaigns.

Officials have made clear that any critical statements in the media about immigration, trade, or the rights of EU residents will be punished with an immediate cessation of access, according to one big business lobby.

This is the taking back control we've heard so much about then is it ?

reminds one a bit too much about disgraced minister Fox's dept already stipulated 'cultural fit' with regards to contracts.

.. oh yes :


flashback to 2013

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Despite these uncertain and troubling times we live in - it's good to know that some people still want to have fun.

Illegal rave springs up in London

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/apr/12/rave-london-underground-tube-mc-harry-shotta

This has restored my faith in young people.

Yep, why not. Got decades to worry about mortgages and all the other gak.

Tired of negative media and gak, scary, or just plain mean news stories? Try the http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org

That's fething stupid. If private businesses are trying to influence government policy I'd prefer they did it publicly and not behind closed doors.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
That's fething stupid. If private businesses and other lobbyists are trying to influence government policy I'd prefer they did it publicly and not behind closed doors.

The Govt only wants them to do it behind closed doors because they're afraid of how it'll make them look. Every business in the country is going to be agitating the Govt via lobbyists to put it's interests front and centre, every business. That's a lots of sectors who will be making a lot of noise, and it's going to look horrendous if that all start doing it out in the open.

I know, I just don't like the opaqueness of it. Doesn't make for transparent government.

Yep, you know things are not going great if you don't know what's going on because the Govt is not confident enough to let it's people know what it's upto.

But saying that, so much of Govt is opaque already, it's not really surprising when they do this sort of thing.

 r_squared wrote:
Yep, you know things are not going great if you don't know what's going on because the Govt is not confident enough to let it's people know what it's upto.

But saying that, so much of Govt is opaque already, it's not really surprising when they do this sort of thing.

The difference here is that it is actively telling companies/organisations that it wont deal with them if they put out any public criticism (which after all we have freedom of speech they are entitled to do). It basically forces a party line and doesn't allow any dissention which is a terrible things to do. Nodding dogs is not what we need right now especially when we have fools and clowns like Empress May, Bozo, Dumb Davis and "Give a tax break to myself" Hammond.

To be fair this is not just a Tory party issue. Trump does exactly the same thing and Corbyn is also doing it. It's a dangerous path forbidding arguments because it misses that the track has not yet been laid by the time the train gets there (which is exactly what the excrement that is the Tory party are doing right now).

The only thing I can recommend is that unless you are earning over £100k a year is not to vote Tories at any election ever and make sure your children, nieces, nephews know just how much they have been robbed of a better future so a few Tories can benefit. Hopefully then the Tories can be consigned to the deepest, darkest foulest sewer where they belong.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Despite these uncertain and troubling times we live in - it's good to know that some people still want to have fun.

Illegal rave springs up in London

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/apr/12/rave-london-underground-tube-mc-harry-shotta

This has restored my faith in young people.

They might not be raving when they see how much interest is on university loans and what they are paying isn't covering the cost of the interest they are accruing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-39577507

 Whirlwind wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
Yep, you know things are not going great if you don't know what's going on because the Govt is not confident enough to let it's people know what it's upto.

But saying that, so much of Govt is opaque already, it's not really surprising when they do this sort of thing.

The difference here is that it is actively telling companies/organisations that it wont deal with them if they put out any public criticism (which after all we have freedom of speech they are entitled to do). It basically forces a party line and doesn't allow any dissention which is a terrible things to do. Nodding dogs is not what we need right now especially when we have fools and clowns like Empress May, Bozo, Dumb Davis and "Give a tax break to myself" Hammond.

To be fair this is not just a Tory party issue. Trump does exactly the same thing and Corbyn is also doing it. It's a dangerous path forbidding arguments because it misses that the track has not yet been laid by the time the train gets there (which is exactly what the excrement that is the Tory party are doing right now).

The only thing I can recommend is that unless you are earning over £100k a year is not to vote Tories at any election ever and make sure your children, nieces, nephews know just how much they have been robbed of a better future so a few Tories can benefit. Hopefully then the Tories can be consigned to the deepest, darkest foulest sewer where they belong.

This policy started under the Blair years, and buy did they make a meal of it. Th Tories are following th road phoney Tony took, while that is a bad road the answer of singling out the Tories for doing it and unilaterally saying that people should not vote for them is tanatmount to saying that those who caused the problem to begin with should form the next government.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
I know, I just don't like the opaqueness of it. Doesn't make for transparent government.

I completely agree.

The big problem, judging by Radio 4, is that the majority of business is against Brexit because they see lots of downs and not much ups, and wants to stop or reverse Brexit's most important factors or stopping immigration and withdrawing from the free market. The government rightly doesn't want a constant rattle of complaints and lobbying about things which are being decided on political grounds rather than on practicality.

The problem of Brexit is that no matter what you do some people will be bitterly disappointed, and the #1 rule of current politics is that the UK has a selfish electorate and any controversial decision that effects people personally needs to drown out its opposition and that requires a large mandated majority because those who lose out on any issue will be far louder and more persistent than those who benefit.

Brexit has this in spades, on every issue either the 'Remainers' or the 'Brexitters' will be out in force complaining while those you are happy with that decision will overlook it in favour of things they didn't get or will just sink into a quiet "I'm alright jack" mentality.

Just want to to do the best for OWFS and JAMs Ms Greening? How about shoving Brexit up your arse?

That'll do the best for OWFS and JAMS. Getting fething sick of politicians turning real people into "squeezed middle" fething soundbites to support tory ideology.

Politics in the UK has turned into a fething joke, and I've had too much to drink.

It's disappointing that yet another lot of strategic shaking up of education is going to happen. It happens every few years, much like the major strategic plan changes in the NHS.

Nothing really changes except somehow less money goes to schools and hospitals while more money goes to private support services.

At the same time, it's notable and curious that the social care industry, largey privately run, is on the verge of collapse.

 Orlanth wrote:
The problem of Brexit is that no matter what you do some people will be bitterly disappointed, and the #1 rule of current politics is that the UK has a selfish electorate and any controversial decision that effects people personally needs to drown out its opposition and that requires a large mandated majority because those who lose out on any issue will be far louder and more persistent than those who benefit.

Brexit has this in spades, on every issue either the 'Remainers' or the 'Brexitters' will be out in force complaining while those you are happy with that decision will overlook it in favour of things they didn't get or will just sink into a quiet "I'm alright jack" mentality.

Suppose there will be no trade deal between EU and UK within two years.
Then we might see lots of traffic congestion at the borders. Some say, 100 km between Dover and London. Then neither remainers nor brexiteers will be happy. I guess this will be the time that mr. farragh moves to an EU country.

There isn't going to be a trade deal that does not involve the UK leaving the single market. Therefore whatever deal is done, there will need to be customs inspections of all goods between the EU and UK in both directions. This is possible to arrange without necessarily causing 100km tailbacks, however, to do so requires a lot of work to prepare and run the system for it.

I think we'll still get a deal that keeps us in the customs union. It's the only thing business will be happy with.

We'll have to compromise in pretty much everything else that was promised to the electorate in order to get it, though.

I don't think much of what was promised to the electorate was ever going to be possible.

The 100,000 immigration target was always obviously a load of crap, for example.

Very true, whatever happens, some large proportion of the 52% will be pretty upset.

Herzlos wrote:
Very true, whatever happens, some large proportion of the 52% will be pretty upset.

Despite being a leave voter, I never had a problem with immigration. In this globalised world, it's impossible to keep people put.

And as has been argued many a time, the housing shortage has been caused been 30 years of gak poor government policy.

I don't blame migrants for that.

And because of the weak pound, foreign spivs and speculators are snapping up cheaper London property, thus causing more housing problems and pricing people out.

Again, I don't blame your ordinary immigrant for that.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

The 100,000 immigration target was always obviously a load of crap, for example.

Pretty much most of what was said by politicians as part of the Brexit debate on both side was the same. The only difference was that Brexit politicians told people what they would do and then on day one turned round and told people that they effectively lied (or to put in IDS words "Possible Promises".

Brexit became about very right wing elements of the Tory party wanting to grasp control of the party so they could design a system so they could pocket the benefits whilst screwing over anyone earning less than £100k or so.

How anyone votes for Tories is beyond me, they lie through their back teeth and still people ignore. It's just a shame that the major opposition is in such a shambles that they can't arrange a piss up in a brewery never mind put a coherent argument together. The only large scale opposition (unfortunately LDs have too few MPs) is SNP. SNP are now the effective opposition party.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It's disappointing that yet another lot of strategic shaking up of education is going to happen. It happens every few years, much like the major strategic plan changes in the NHS.

Nothing really changes except somehow less money goes to schools and hospitals while more money goes to private support services.

At the same time, it's notable and curious that the social care industry, largey privately run, is on the verge of collapse.

The Tory party is all about moving money from the poor to the wealthy (an anti Robin Hood party if you want). Therefore stripping public services (which vastly help the poorer parts of the community) is what they want. That means the poor have to pay more and more to these private services whilst the wealthy vampires favoured by the Tories suck such people dry. I believe the Tory party has moved on from the obvious privatisation of yester year. Now they are taking the more subtle approach of ruining education/health/social care and forcing more and more to pay privately to have any sort of quality of life/education and so on, until eventually they will get to the point where they disband those services as they are no longer required. Education / NHS / social care are all in their sights.

 Whirlwind wrote:
The Tory party is all about moving money from the poor to the wealthy (an anti Robin Hood party if you want). Therefore stripping public services (which vastly help the poorer parts of the community) is what they want. That means the poor have to pay more and more to these private services whilst the wealthy vampires favoured by the Tories suck such people dry. I believe the Tory party has moved on from the obvious privatisation of yester year. Now they are taking the more subtle approach of ruining education/health/social care and forcing more and more to pay privately to have any sort of quality of life/education and so on, until eventually they will get to the point where they disband those services as they are no longer required. Education / NHS / social care are all in their sights.

Curse those evil Tories and their goal of privatising the country to sell off to their wealthy cronies. Their amazing organisational skills in pulling off such complex long term goals in secret despite changes in government and leadership only show just how much good they could truly do. If only they'd use those powers for the people instead of their nefarious, evil, incredibly wealthy, and good looking backers!

 Ketara wrote:

 Whirlwind wrote:
The Tory party is all about moving money from the poor to the wealthy (an anti Robin Hood party if you want). Therefore stripping public services (which vastly help the poorer parts of the community) is what they want. That means the poor have to pay more and more to these private services whilst the wealthy vampires favoured by the Tories suck such people dry. I believe the Tory party has moved on from the obvious privatisation of yester year. Now they are taking the more subtle approach of ruining education/health/social care and forcing more and more to pay privately to have any sort of quality of life/education and so on, until eventually they will get to the point where they disband those services as they are no longer required. Education / NHS / social care are all in their sights.

Curse those evil Tories and their goal of privatising the country to sell off to their wealthy cronies. Their amazing organisational skills in pulling off such complex long term goals in secret despite changes in government and leadership only show just how much good they could truly do. If only they'd use those powers for the people instead of their nefarious, evil, incredibly wealthy, and good looking backers!

Well, in my lifetime, if it wasn't nailed down, the Tory party would sell it. We were sold the dream that privitization for the cure for Britain's ills. Sitting on a delayed, overcrowded train, and not for the first time I may add, I question the idea that we got a good deal. Energy bills are sky high. Broadband sky high. Royal Mail flogged off and so on...

And now they're going to sell us out to the Chinese, the Arabs, and probably Trump as well.

The Tories are corrupt, incompetent, and it's high time they were swept away...

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Ketara wrote:

 Whirlwind wrote:
The Tory party is all about moving money from the poor to the wealthy (an anti Robin Hood party if you want). Therefore stripping public services (which vastly help the poorer parts of the community) is what they want. That means the poor have to pay more and more to these private services whilst the wealthy vampires favoured by the Tories suck such people dry. I believe the Tory party has moved on from the obvious privatisation of yester year. Now they are taking the more subtle approach of ruining education/health/social care and forcing more and more to pay privately to have any sort of quality of life/education and so on, until eventually they will get to the point where they disband those services as they are no longer required. Education / NHS / social care are all in their sights.

Curse those evil Tories and their goal of privatising the country to sell off to their wealthy cronies. Their amazing organisational skills in pulling off such complex long term goals in secret despite changes in government and leadership only show just how much good they could truly do. If only they'd use those powers for the people instead of their nefarious, evil, incredibly wealthy, and good looking backers!

Well, in my lifetime, if it wasn't nailed down, the Tory party would sell it. We were sold the dream that privitization for the cure for Britain's ills. Sitting on a delayed, overcrowded train, and not for the first time I may add, I question the idea that we got a good deal. Energy bills are sky high. Broadband sky high. Royal Mail flogged off and so on...

And now they're going to sell us out to the Chinese, the Arabs, and probably Trump as well.

The Tories are corrupt, incompetent, and it's high time they were swept away...

Everyone knows the Tories champion privatisation. It's just the insistence on the simplistic good/evil narrative that makes me laugh. Most politicians can't plan their way out of a paper bag, and the Tories are no different in that regard. They're reactionary short termists with an ideological bent towards small government, not criminal masterminds out to screw the country over for a profit. It's not the first time I've had to point this out, we had two pages of it a month back.

I know frothing vitriol about the Tories is great fun and all, but I have to weigh in occasionally with reality, lest the more impressionable young 'uns reading genuinely start to believe Theresa May is a dastardly lizardperson who survives by drinking the tears of the poor.

Whenever I read that sort of thing the phrase that always comes to my mind is.

"The Americanisation of British politics."

And we can all see the end result of that in the other thread.

 Ketara wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Ketara wrote:

 Whirlwind wrote:
The Tory party is all about moving money from the poor to the wealthy (an anti Robin Hood party if you want). Therefore stripping public services (which vastly help the poorer parts of the community) is what they want. That means the poor have to pay more and more to these private services whilst the wealthy vampires favoured by the Tories suck such people dry. I believe the Tory party has moved on from the obvious privatisation of yester year. Now they are taking the more subtle approach of ruining education/health/social care and forcing more and more to pay privately to have any sort of quality of life/education and so on, until eventually they will get to the point where they disband those services as they are no longer required. Education / NHS / social care are all in their sights.

Curse those evil Tories and their goal of privatising the country to sell off to their wealthy cronies. Their amazing organisational skills in pulling off such complex long term goals in secret despite changes in government and leadership only show just how much good they could truly do. If only they'd use those powers for the people instead of their nefarious, evil, incredibly wealthy, and good looking backers!

Well, in my lifetime, if it wasn't nailed down, the Tory party would sell it. We were sold the dream that privitization for the cure for Britain's ills. Sitting on a delayed, overcrowded train, and not for the first time I may add, I question the idea that we got a good deal. Energy bills are sky high. Broadband sky high. Royal Mail flogged off and so on...

And now they're going to sell us out to the Chinese, the Arabs, and probably Trump as well.

The Tories are corrupt, incompetent, and it's high time they were swept away...

Everyone knows the Tories champion privatisation. It's just the insistence on the simplistic good/evil narrative that makes me laugh. Most politicians can't plan their way out of a paper bag, and the Tories are no different in that regard. They're reactionary short termists with an ideological bent towards small government, not criminal masterminds out to screw the country over for a profit. It's not the first time I've had to point this out, we had two pages of it a month back.

I know frothing vitriol about the Tories is great fun and all, but I have to weigh in occasionally with reality, lest the more impressionable young 'uns reading genuinely start to believe Theresa May is a dastardly lizardperson who survives by drinking the tears of the poor.

Two things spring to mind:

1) They don't believe in small government anymore - that's a myth, otherwise, they would not support full scale state intrusion into our private lives with their numerous spying bills.

2) They are not, and will never be Tories ever again. They're Blairites, and have been for years now. The Tories haven't been Tories since the 1970s.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Compel wrote:
Whenever I read that sort of thing the phrase that always comes to my mind is.

"The Americanisation of British politics."

And we can all see the end result of that in the other thread.

Good point. I do get carried away from time to time. I will dial things down a bit.

It just makes my blood boil when I see things like flood affected areas of England, voting Tory, even though the Tories cut the funding for flood defences...

I cannot get my head around that...

I suppose in that example, you'd then have to look at the individual policies of the actual MPs and their candidates in those affected areas, what their stances were on any flood debates or discussions and so on.

I live in an area that is essentially a toss up between Lib Dem and Tory, and have voted for each in the past and will vote for either in the future, as the situation evolves.

One of the key battlegrounds, debates and arguments between the candidates was the closing of a nearby library. Naturally, the Lib Dem candidate pulled out all the stops to keep it open, Tories disagreed.

That time, the Lib Dem candidate won. The library stayed open, yay!

Right... Right?

It's a medium sized town, this library is a half hours walk away from the town center and the main, heavily invested, library of the town.

The library they fought so hard to save? It's poorly sited, never has anyone in it, has terrible opening hours, isn't open on weekends, is maybe 2 to 3 times the size of my flat (and I don't have a big flat), has maybe a dozen shelves of books in it, no reference books of note inside it for students. The only real redeeming quality of the library is the parent/child reading group it hosts.

The money used to secure, staff and keep this place running could very easily have been used in other ways, for a lot less. - For example, putting money towards having the activity groups in any of the 5 volunteer room / YMCA / public hall locations within a handful of minutes walk from there, partnering with the nearby schools to improve their libraries, maybe providing extended opening hours for the main town library and so on.

Library's tend to be quite an emotive subject, especially among older voters IMO. In a way I'm kind of jealous your in an area that genuinely gets fought over. Living in a "safe" Labour seat it often feels like the party's are just going through the motions.

 Ketara wrote:


Everyone knows the Tories champion privatisation. It's just the insistence on the simplistic good/evil narrative that makes me laugh. Most politicians can't plan their way out of a paper bag, and the Tories are no different in that regard. They're reactionary short termists with an ideological bent towards small government, not criminal masterminds out to screw the country over for a profit. It's not the first time I've had to point this out, we had two pages of it a month back.

I know frothing vitriol about the Tories is great fun and all, but I have to weigh in occasionally with reality, lest the more impressionable young 'uns reading genuinely start to believe Theresa May is a dastardly lizardperson who survives by drinking the tears of the poor.

If young'uns do start believing the Tories are dastardly lizardpeople that have taken a lot of potential from their future then with a bit of luck by the time they get to our age there won't be a Tory party and the UK will be a better place!

Realistically though, if they weren't taking from the poor then how do you explain the last budget? Where pretty much most of the publicly funded services like education/NHS/local government etc (apart from media) all had significant cuts in their budget compared to the previous years budget (and that's before you take into account that by then you are looking at a 12-16% increase in inflation) by 2019/20; whilst at the same time they bring more under the control of government so they can spend it where they can get the most votes compared to where it is most needed. This is at the same time that they are bare faced lying to the public saying they are increasing the budgets!

 Whirlwind wrote:

Realistically though, if they weren't taking from the poor then how do you explain the last budget?

Easy. We have no money? And they're gradually cutting back the operational deficit with the intent of making costs match the tax receipts? As they've been saying they're doing for the last 7 years? They haven't really hidden that fact.

But then, I know you know that. And at the same time as I've read you decrying the evils of the cuts, I've seen you point out three posts later how they still haven't balanced the budget and complain about the 'lie' of Tory debt (conveniently ignoring the difference between national deficit and operating deficit).

We both know that if they didn't make any cuts you'd be slating them for running up vast national debt, and if they cut straight back to what the government brings in, you'd shriek they were inhumane monsters. Right now, they're sitting in the middle, and you do nothing but complain about it. They literally can't win when it comes to people like yourself. You despise the Tories, and your perspective is completely coloured by that.

Hence all the absurd comments about evil Tories with their grand master plan to break the British Government and sell it off to their rich puppetmasters (couched in more subtle language to make it sound less daft).

This is at the same time that they are bare faced lying to the public saying they are increasing the budgets!

That's because politics. You can't run around saying 'Yeah, the NHS is going to be worse, but hey, at least the operational deficit is coming down from staggeringly high unsustainable levels!' because everyone will focus on the first part and ignore the second. So instead you say 'The NHS has never had a higher amount of funding' and ignore things like inflation, etc. People want to have their cake and eat it. So soundbytes have to be written with that in mind.

 Ketara wrote:

 Whirlwind wrote:

Realistically though, if they weren't taking from the poor then how do you explain the last budget?

Easy. We have no money? And they're gradually cutting back the operational deficit with the intent of making costs match the tax receipts? As they've been saying they're doing for the last 7 years? They haven't really hidden that fact.

But then, I know you know that. And at the same time as I've read you decrying the evils of the cuts, I've seen you point out three posts later how they still haven't balanced the budget and complain about the 'lie' of Tory debt (conveniently ignoring the difference between national deficit and operating deficit).

We both know that if they didn't make any cuts you'd be slating them for running up vast national debt, and if they cut straight back to what the government brings in, you'd shriek they were inhumane monsters. Right now, they're sitting in the middle, and you do nothing but complain about it. They literally can't win when it comes to people like yourself. You despise the Tories, and your perspective is completely coloured by that.

Hence all the absurd comments about evil Tories with their grand master plan to break the British Government and sell it off to their rich puppetmasters (couched in more subtle language to make it sound less daft).

What you are effectively advocating is that the poorest pay for the consequences of the rich and that's not something I'd ever support. Yes we have a large deficit (that the Tories effectively doubled during their current tenure), however the before the banking crisis this was running at 30 - 40 % and relatively stable. The Country bailed these companies out for their mismanagement, but its the poorest that are having to pay for those consequences. The wealthy (that made these decisions) will have the resources to pay for private education/health/social care/transport etc whereas those that cannot afford such things and that rely on the public services are the ones that have to pay with underfunded education/a health service that's bordering on collapse at peak times/barely acceptable social care/bus services being cut so access to work is significantly reduced and so on.

There are other methods for reducing the burden, such as recovering more taxes from the wealthiest and those that caused the large deficit in the first place (for example one of the first things done by the Tories was to cut the top band of tax, whilst asking the poorest to pay by reduced services). To ask the wealthiest to support the poorest is the basis of a social society.

Things they could implement to do this would be implement a means test on pensions. Everyone is guaranteed a minimum but if you pulling in a £100,000 private pension then you shouldn't be expected to get that and the state pension. This supports those that are poorest without benefiting the wealthy.

You could re-implement the higher tax bracket (and perhaps a super tax bracket for the ridiculously paid, e.g. footballers.).

You can change the tax system so that if better represents companies activities in the UK. When Google is paying tax amounting to approximately a 10th of one County Council's budget then something is horribly wrong with the system.

There are other ways to control the budget deficit than pummelling the public services/disability allowances/child allowances of the poorest that really need it the most.

And this is why I reiterate that the Tories are worse than excrement and will lie through the back teeth. They favour the wealthy and have no interest in supporting the poorest.

I also think that despite everything some in the Tory party are clever. Underestimating the Tory party now is tantamount to handing over the keys of anything valuable to a few wealthy few which the Tories are quite happy with as long as they keep getting their support. Make no mistake the Tories are interested in one thing only and that's money and keeping in power. Those controlling the party don't give a damn about the populace overall and the only thing they will do is persuade them with lies and the occasional perk to ensure things stay that way.

It's just a shame that Corbyn's Labour is so weak that they can't even get a well considered argument in to the public domain.