kayevcee
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Post by kayevcee on Mar 27, 2013 23:06:01 GMT
Heckled in Edinburgh? Lucky for him he wasn't speaking in Glasgow. I was about to imply that he would have been in physical danger but I don't know how things are going to go at the weekend and I don't want to incriminate myself if we all get kettled and carried away.
-Nick
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Post by The Doctor on Mar 28, 2013 7:28:59 GMT
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kayevcee
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Post by kayevcee on Mar 28, 2013 13:21:07 GMT
At least we caught them out this time and forced them onto the defensive. Boy, when they said "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance" they weren't exaggerating.
That government ministers are seriously discussing taking away the rights of children to an education in defiance of both international law and basic morality, it just shows how terrified the Tories and Lib Dems are of UKIP's insidious brand of pandering racism. Labour's silence or even tacit agreement with a lot of these policies shows how scared they are. Now everybody's looking to court the intolerance vote. Are there really so many people who don't question the word of the Sun and the Mail that no party thinks they can win without them?
-Nick
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Post by karla on Mar 28, 2013 16:34:44 GMT
Well thats what civil servants get for throwing strange ideas around in email!
I do like the "migrant checks" on small children, guess they will test them for fleas too?
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kayevcee
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Post by kayevcee on Mar 28, 2013 18:33:55 GMT
I saw something encouraging at the gym today. There are newspapers spread across the desk for folks to read while they wait for their pals to finish changing or stretching or freestyle kickboxing or whatever it is that causes people to start or finish their workouts at different times. One of them had on its front page the guy who hurled abuse at Ian Duncan Smith in Edinburgh yesterday, along with a headline based on his interview where he said that executing the disabled would simply be faster than the current (death by a thousand) cuts. That was the Daily Record. The other paper was something unexpected. A huge image of a man, a woman, a dog and two cats sleeping in a car with an outraged article about an immigrant couple who had been denied a council house because they refused to get rid of their pets. Where did this outpouring of rage at the indignities heaped upon two Eastern Europeans come from? The f***-mothering Sun.Front page. -Nick |
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Post by The Doctor on Mar 29, 2013 21:01:18 GMT
Jings!
-Ralph
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Post by The Doctor on Apr 3, 2013 6:34:59 GMT
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kayevcee
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Post by kayevcee on Apr 3, 2013 11:27:51 GMT
Wow. I worked part time all the time I was employed at the Evil Empire of Geoffrey- I think only the managers and supervisors (those not on maternity leave) were on full time. I can honestly say that, unless I had a holiday booked or an interview or a university thing going on I worked every hour they could offer me and regularly came in to cover unscheduled shifts when someone called in sick. Managers were always pushing for more hours so they could get more done each day, but they were restricted by limited budgets from head office- more limited than ever during These Tough Economic Times.
I don't see how folks reporting to a job centre once a week to get hassled would have expanded the shop's staff budget.
If you'll forgive my saying so Ralph, I think "evil" is the wrong word for our current administration. "Sociopathic" or "unempathic" might fit, but I think the kindest term would be "oblivious". The front benches are composed almost entirely of Bullingdon Club types and career politicians who not only have never experienced poverty but who don't know anyone who has ever experienced poverty. From their life experience they literally cannot conceive of the plight of those they condemn, and most likely they actually believe their own "skiver" rhetoric. That's why they penalise people for living in houses with extra rooms even though no smaller houses are available and rehousing would split up families, and they can cut legal aid to shreds and still sleep at night because they cannot imagine how someone could get into difficulty and not be able to afford a lawyer.
I'm not convinced that their policies are outright malicious- they're just bumping up against the limitations of the human brain. The unemployed, the working poor, the disabled, the vulnerable, the homeless, migrants and the children of migrants- they don't hate them. They just don't care. They don't care because they don't know. These people are literally just points on a graph. Their job is to make the graphs go down, so that's what they busy themselves with, to the exclusion of all other concerns.
The stealth-privatisation of the NHS and introduction of new loopholes that essentially make corporation tax optional for international companies, however- there's no empathy gap there. Just pure self-interest at the expense of the people they were elected to serve.
-Nick
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Post by The Doctor on Apr 3, 2013 18:18:53 GMT
I think you've made some very valid observations there. Bear in mind from my perspective that my working life has been spent working with the unemployed or low paid. It's very hard to see these 'reforms' as anything other than evil when I see the people affected more often than I see my own family. And now many of the tools I could use to make people's lives a bit better have been taken away by faceless grey men and women in power far, far above.
-Ralph
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kayevcee
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Post by kayevcee on Apr 4, 2013 14:28:06 GMT
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Post by Philip Ayres on Apr 4, 2013 21:37:45 GMT
The front page of tomorrow's Mirror:
/photo/1
Speaks volumes for the man that he'd do it but I hope there's some fall out to him getting caught.
Remind me which of them was nicked for trying to travel first class on a standard class rail ticket?
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Post by Philip Ayres on Apr 4, 2013 21:39:33 GMT
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kayevcee
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Post by kayevcee on Apr 5, 2013 8:37:26 GMT
Stay classy, George.
Maybe he has a disability that's not immediately obvious, like a lot of disabled folk who've been found fit for work by ATOS. Maybe he hates himself for his disability and punishes others because of that hatred, in the same way that American conservatives make vitriolic speeches condemning the evils of homosexuality then get spotted heading into a hotel room with half a dozen Brazillian rent boys.
-Nick
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Post by Philip Ayres on Apr 5, 2013 10:14:29 GMT
In the old days that would be that for a ministerial career for a cock up like that.
Sadly using disabled parking "just for five minutes"/"because there were no parent and child spaces left" has become all to acceptable now.
**** has my badge reapplication gone in the post yet?
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Post by Benn on Apr 5, 2013 10:19:22 GMT
Wait, he has gotten away with parking there? Really?
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Post by Philip Ayres on Apr 5, 2013 10:39:50 GMT
People do all the time!
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kayevcee
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Post by kayevcee on Apr 5, 2013 15:47:53 GMT
I went to uni with someone whose entire family had counterfeit disabled badges on their cars. She spoke about it quite openly and didn't see it as a moral issue at all. People seem quite blase about it now. Maybe it's not rigidly enough enforced.
-Nick
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kayevcee
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Post by kayevcee on Apr 7, 2013 11:53:36 GMT
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Post by The Doctor on Apr 7, 2013 12:32:26 GMT
I will never understand the hatred those in positions of power sometimes have towards the disabled. We all of us can have an accident at any time and require help. We don't become non-humans because of a disability. It's not infectious!!!
-Ralph
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kayevcee
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Post by kayevcee on Apr 10, 2013 20:48:35 GMT
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Post by Philip Ayres on Apr 10, 2013 20:54:13 GMT
Frighteningly increasingly common.
I saw a graph on % of benefit spending today..... one of the commentors kept hammering on about wanting to see how much of that was on people from the UK and how much wasn't.....
V V frightening and worrying
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Post by Philip Ayres on Apr 10, 2013 21:40:21 GMT
A thought..... what if people ever discover we have an overseas aid budget which is ring fenced?
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kayevcee
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Post by kayevcee on Apr 10, 2013 23:07:35 GMT
Oh, that's already in hand. David Cameron wants to expand the definition of "aid" to include weapons we send to our friendly neighbourhood dictatorships to help maintain order. Same thing the US does, so they can say they have a $20Bn international "aid" budget when half of it is handing over military surplus to Israel. -Nick
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Post by The Doctor on Apr 14, 2013 11:51:26 GMT
Well, there's a shock: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22112965But never mind! We've apparently had ten million in public funds the whole time! Let's spend it on Thatcher's funeral! Fuck the poor! She would be very proud. -Ralph |
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kayevcee
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Post by kayevcee on Apr 14, 2013 13:54:38 GMT
Wednesday will not be a good day to be out and about in the centre of London. God knows what's going to happen at that procession.
-Nick
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Post by blueshift on Apr 14, 2013 16:32:01 GMT
Well, there's a shock: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22112965But never mind! We've apparently had ten million in public funds the whole time! Let's spend it on Thatcher's funeral! Fuck the poor! She would be very proud. -Ralph Ten million does seem an awful lot. It makes me wonder how they actually worked it out. Part of me thinks that is the 'cost' as that is the time spent by all these paid public officials (ie policemen) who would be working anyway but are on funeral duty, and so it's not literally £10 million being spent extra. |
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kayevcee
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Post by kayevcee on Apr 15, 2013 22:12:37 GMT
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Post by The Doctor on May 2, 2013 6:58:24 GMT
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kayevcee
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Post by kayevcee on May 2, 2013 8:21:33 GMT
"Haringey council says it is "astonished by the premature threat" of eviction – which raised the possibility that scores of families may end up on the streets. It has 660 households who face an average £50-a-week loss because of the cap – and is spending £1.5m over three months to offer them homes within 1.5 miles of the borough."
All that matters is that the graphs go down. It doesn't matter if it winds up costing more money. If innocent families suffer, all the better.
-Nick
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Post by legios on May 2, 2013 20:54:52 GMT
That is truly awful stuff. As someone who works in that line of work I am quite shocked by what Genesis seem to have done there. It does underline just how awful these measures are going to be for people. I'm starting to see some of this stuff having an impact in my professional sphere - a distinctly negative one.
Karl
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