UK Politics: Crisis For Doomed [Insert Name]

[Slick Mongoose]

Too young for this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42qMebiJCCE

(It's honestly hard to exaggerate how culturally huge that episode was. I didn't know anyone who didn't watch it.)

I was 1 year old.

[mormont]

I was 1 year old.

Whippersnapper! :fencing:

[VarysTheSpider]

Lord Freud. Eurgh. What a moron. If a disabled person can do the job that a person without such disabilities can then I don't see why they shouldn't be paid the same wage.

I think the reaction to his comments - while clumsily worded - have been quite over the top. All he was really saying was that a financial incentive for companies might be a good way reducing the very high unemployment rate among severely disabled people, with their wages then be topped up by the state somehow. Seems to me a very difficult problem with no sure-fire solutions. Even Mencap have struggled with this, as they were in favour of people with severe learning disabilities being excluded from the minimum wage when it was first introduced. :dunno:

[Gneisenau]

Is it really a minimum wage, when you start staying it doesn't apply to certain gorups ?

[VarysTheSpider]

Well, different groups have a different rate, and some people aren't entitled to it at all, so there is already flexibility in the system.

[mormont]

Continuing yesterday's theme of 'unexpected political interventions from washed-up celebs':

Brian Harvey turns up at No 10 with ring-binder, demands to see David Cameron.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/brian-harvey-turns-up-at-downing-street-and-demands-to-speak-to-prime-minister-9806882.html

[polishgenius]

So Mike Read has come out to deny that the UKIP Calypso can be racist. What are his grounds, I hear you cry? Because he has friends in the Caribbean.

Seriously. I think even the Tories have moved past that defence.

[Alex.]

hahahaha ffs

[Alex.]

There's a new "humanitarian" campaign to protect people living in houses worth "probably £4million" if anyone wants to join up. These people honestly seem to think they're the victims in life. Fucking mental.

[Pebble thats Stubby]

I do have a potential issue with the mansion tax. My problem is will the mansion tax threshold be reduced in future years and what happens with general house price rises and inflation? £2 million sounds like a lot for a house, but there may well come a day when the average house price in London is near £2 million.

There is also the argument that the mansion tax unfairly targets those living in the South East. If you live further north and in a mansion you won’t have to pay. – I am not so sure this is a good argument since there are other advantages from living in and around London not available in other locations.

That said, that’s no reason not to introduce a mansion tax, but I think it should be linked to house prices and move as house prices increase / decrease in value.

There may be an argument to say that the very elderly should be able to defer payment until they die or move if they also happen to be on a low income. – Don’t really think this will affect many if any. Also not sure what age to set the very elderly bar maybe at 80?

[Alex.]

I do have a potential issue with the mansion tax. My problem is will the mansion tax threshold be reduced in future years and what happens with general house price rises and inflation? £2 million sounds like a lot for a house, but there may well come a day when the average house price in London is near £2 million.

There is also the argument that the mansion tax unfairly targets those living in the South East. If you live further north and in a mansion you won’t have to pay. – I am not so sure this is a good argument since there are other advantages from living in and around London not available in other locations.

That said, that’s no reason not to introduce a mansion tax, but I think it should be linked to house prices and move as house prices increase / decrease in value.

There may be an argument to say that the very elderly should be able to defer payment until they die or move if they also happen to be on a low income. – Don’t really think this will affect many if any. Also not sure what age to set the very elderly bar maybe at 80?

Agree with all of that. Interesting idea that instead of saying "anything over £XXX" it should be "the top X% by value of homes"

[mormont]

Apropos of nothing, I feel that I should mention I got my electric bill today. Turns out the company underestimated my bill and now want me to settle up the account.

I have, of course, reacted by going on TV, saying how angry I am, denouncing the electric company for making this 'demand', and announcing that I won't be paying it.

[paddington]

Apropos of nothing, I feel that I should mention I got my electric bill today. Turns out the company underestimated my bill and now want me to settle up the account.

I have, of course, reacted by going on TV, saying how angry I am, denouncing the electric company for making this 'demand', and announcing that I won't be paying it.

I find a stiff letter and angry phonecall helps, of course I pay up but it is nice to vent.

I also tend to check the meter against the bill and phone them up if their estimates are badly out.

edit:- Using estimates from the black economy however I feel is a little on the naughty side. How can that be accurately gauged, or checked and does strike me as a bit like pulling a number out of thin air. Billing Italy, Latvia, Greece, Cyprus to rebate Germany and France would also seem a touch politically insenstive.

[john]

Apropos of nothing, I feel that I should mention I got my electric bill today. Turns out the company underestimated my bill and now want me to settle up the account.

I have, of course, reacted by going on TV, saying how angry I am, denouncing the electric company for making this 'demand', and announcing that I won't be paying it.

Serves you right for having all those prostitutes over. Those red lightbulbs just eat electricity.

edit:- Using estimates from the black economy however I feel is a little on the naughty side. How can that be accurately gauged, or checked and does strike me as a bit like pulling a number out of thin air. Billing Italy, Latvia, Greece, Cyprus to rebate Germany and France would also seem a touch politically insenstive.

It's the member state's that come up with the figure though, which means the real scenario is even more ridiculous than mormont's example since it was us that came up with the disparity in the first place, not the EU or even Eurostat.

[ljkeane]

Refusing to pay an electricity bill worked out pretty well for me once.

Apparently the electricity company had forgotten to charge the house I was living in during my second year of uni for several years. They eventually noticed and sent us a bill for about five grand, we just turned around and said there's no way we're paying that. So they thought about it and charged us £21 each for the year instead.

[Alex.]

The UK has stopped supporting Mediterranean migrant rescue as apparently rescuing people simply encourages more people to attempt the crossing.

The people in charge of our country are real scum. I fucking hate them. Saving people's lives leads to more deaths. What kind of weird world are we living in.

[polishgenius]

You can see how well they understand the mindset of desperate people living on the edge, can't you?

[Pebble thats Stubby]

I'm sure they see this as a win-win for them.

1. They want to save money, I'm betting supporting the Rescue cost money.

2. Migrants are the enemy - See Immigration, benefit spongers, job thieves, and asylum seekers.

3. if they cut something else then hard working the undeserving poor voters will complain, this policy does not hurt anyone currently entiltled to vote.

4. They think this might win them some of the UKIP vote. They think it should be a popular policy.

In case its not clear, I do not support this, but I can see why the government can see this a tempting policy.

edit. I stand corrected. Its not that we are pulling out of something we were previously suporting/paying. Its the EU thats taking over the program from solely Italy. the UK has said hey Speak for yourself, The EU can but without us.

so they get extra points 5. Not being frivolous by spending extra money we don't have on something new. and 6. Being tough on the EU and saying NO.

[Alex.]

Dan Hodges nails it in the Telegraph

[Alex.]

Tory MP accuses people who opened a clothes bank as "highly political". Apparently opening one this close to the election is "shameful" and somehow part of a vicious smear campaign by 'the unions'.

Stockton’s Tory MP James Wharton has become embroiled in a row with organisers of a clothes bank - outside his constituency.

Mr Wharton, MP for Stockton South, said there was “more than a hint of party politics” about the launch of the County Durham Socialist Clothes Bank “six months before an election”.

“This is as much about making statements about politics as it is about doing good things,” he told a local TV news station.

“I welcome one, I’m not convinced about the other.”

But his comments have landed him in trouble with the Durham Unite Community, whose members coordinate the clothes bank.

Unite Community is a non-industrial section of the Unite union “created to empower people outside the labour market to use the trade union values of solidarity and collective action to improve their own and others’ situations”.

Members said Mr Wharton had “shamed himself” with his comments.

Said a spokesperson: “To seek to undermine the huge amount of voluntary effort spent by our members getting the clothes bank up and running in order to score cheap political points is unacceptable.

“Helping out fellow human beings in times of need, as our members are doing through the clothes bank, is something that politicians of all parties should be applauding rather than cynically trying to denigrate their efforts in the way James Wharton MP has done.”

Mr Wharton told the Gazette he did “support all well intended community efforts”, but said he wondered why “they also need to issue highly political press releases to go with them”.

He hit back: “There are six months to go until the election and sadly it appears the unions are going to be fighting a particularly nasty and personal campaign.

“Hijacking good causes to launch their attacks is particularly shameful.

“All I can ask is that if any of the left wing unions issue statements about me which concern or worry anyone in Stockton South then people who read them consider contacting me for the truth before drawing conclusions.

They've lost the fucking plot. This is well into the realms of insane behaviour