Tuesday 10th February 2015

[citizenJA]

Funny, I looked at that front page and all I saw was LOOK!A SQUIRREL

Yeah we had Queen joins Twitter recently too didn't we?

Are they back together? Who's vocals?

[RogerOThornhill]

Hancock really is an utterly useless politician.

Is it really too hard for someone to admit "Yep, with hindsight we shouldn't have made Green a peer and a government minister. We should have made some basic checks on what he was doing at HSBC and what he must have known"?

Trouble is that when things get worse, it makes them look even more shifty. The unravelling to day of the "Ed Balls knew everything" line to one of "Nobody knew anything" was hilarious.

[rebeccariots2]

Matthew Hancock being forced into a ridiculous argument by Evan Davis' question re what ministers should have known about HSBC being involved in potentially law breaking activity re helping clients with tax avoidance .... he's insisting very sanctimoniously - and with a nice little bit of added outrage - that he didn't know, and of course he shouldn't know about the dealings of private companies or individuals ... and how dreadful the attacks on Labour were about what ministers did or didn't know.

Pull the other one Matthew ... it's got even more bells on. What a pitifully transparently concocted defence. But very funny that in adopting it he's having to concede how stupid it is to expect that argument to stick against Labour.

[rebeccariots2]

Hancock really is an utterly useless politician.

Is it really too hard for someone to admit "Yep, with hindsight we shouldn't have made Green a peer and a government minister. We should have made some basic checks on what he was doing at HSBC and what he must have known"?

Trouble is that when things get worse, it makes them look even more shifty. The unravelling to day of the "Ed Balls knew everything" line to one of "Nobody knew anything" was hilarious.

Hancock really is a pompous prig. Or similar sounding words.

[danesclose]

Matthew Hancock - "I didn't know anything at all"

A truer word you never spoke...

That was what a car crash interview looks like. Probably telling that the Tories couldn't put up anyone more senior than Hancock - I bet that woman whom Dave made a Treasury Minister even though she knew nothing about economics was glad she got the sack

[rebeccariots2]

Matthew Hancock - "I didn't know anything at all"

A truer word you never spoke...

That was what a car crash interview looks like. Probably telling that the Tories couldn't put up anyone more senior than Hancock - I bet that woman whom Dave made a Treasury Minister even though she knew nothing about economics was glad she got the sack

Chloe Smith. Unforgettable.

[Eric_WLothian]

Don't recall this being mentioned today - apologies if it has been:

http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5469/ ... paedophile

[Tubby Isaacs]

To be fair, she'd been told "don't admit there's a problem", and duly didn't. Taking one for the team.

[ohsocynical]

Another thought. In the past if there had been a scandal like this so near a GE, whichever party was concerned would have brought out their big guns in defence.
Osbornes out of the country, and what do they do? Send a useless MP to Newsnight.

[rebeccariots2]

Another thought. In the past if there had been a scandal like this so near a GE, whichever party was concerned would have brought out their big guns in defence.
Osbornes out of the country, and what do they do? Send a useless MP to Newsnight.

They simply don't seem to care anymore Ohso. That's what I think I find so dispiriting. They know we all know they are stitching us up - that their stories don't stack up - but they've become blase about it. They don't bother to send the big guns as you put it ... they send us blather in a skin and suit ... and more or less tell us to shut up. And they expect to win the election. It's entitlement at it's most jaded.

[rebeccariots2]

Earley Tories ‏@EarleyTories 43m43 minutes ago
Labour failing #Reading children, Ofsted says Reading has too many inadequate schools

One of the election battlegrounds in your neck of the woods Ohso?

[citizenJA]

Another thought. In the past if there had been a scandal like this so near a GE, whichever party was concerned would have brought out their big guns in defence.
Osbornes out of the country, and what do they do? Send a useless MP to Newsnight.

See? Yes, now you're getting at what's gnawing at me, Ohso. Osborne was taken out of the country, dastard, not come back, coward. CallMe surrounds himself with children for protection purposes. Little people these government leaders. It's humiliating to be run around by these insignificantly schooled losers.

[citizenJA]

Another thought. In the past if there had been a scandal like this so near a GE, whichever party was concerned would have brought out their big guns in defence.
Osbornes out of the country, and what do they do? Send a useless MP to Newsnight.

They simply don't seem to care anymore Ohso. That's what I think I find so dispiriting. They know we all know they are stitching us up - that their stories don't stack up - but they've become blase about it. They don't bother to send the big guns as you put it ... they send us blather in a skin and suit ... and more or less tell us to shut up. And they expect to win the election. It's entitlement at it's most jaded.

You've just made me howl in protest, RR2. They may not take their lives seriously, but everyone I know is a vitally important part of life...and many of us are just surviving. It's unnecessary.

[HindleA]

Fully expect a created emergency where normal procedures are suspended to retain power,they get in,if not on wholly false pretences ,under a contrived threat of bankruptcy after all.

[rebeccariots2]

Don't recall this being mentioned today - apologies if it has been:

http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5469/ ... paedophile

Did you read the comment BTL? I'm wondering how long that will stay up - it certainly got my full attention.

[LadyCentauria]

http://may2015.com/featured/leaked-list ... marginals/

'This leak confirms what we have argued since launching in September: the Tories cannot win a majority – and are not trying to.

Yet the most interesting finding from the leak is how it shows the Tories aren’t competing in five potential marginals. These are:

Dudley South and Ribble South, which the party won by 10.1 and 10.8 points in 2010 but are projected to retain by just 0.6 and 1.2 points in May (holding off Labour). The party seems to be assuming it will win these seats easily.
Cannock Chase, which the Tories carried by 7 points in 2010 but May2015 forecasts they will lose to Labour by 3.4 per cent in May (Lord Ashcroft put Labour ahead by 2 in his poll of the seat in November). It’s unclear if the party is confident of retaining this seat or has already given up on it.
Rochester & Strood, which the Tories lost when Mark Reckless defected to Ukip in September. The Tories only lost the subsequent by-election by 7 points in November, and polls at the time suggested they could win the seat back in the general election, but the party seems to have already abandoned the seat.
Boston & Skegness, which the party is projected by May2015 to hold comfortably in May after winning easily in 2010, but which the bookies suggest will go Ukip in May.
The findings are most interesting for what they suggest about the wider Tory campaign. The party seems to have given up on contesting Ukip-friendly seats like Rochester and Boston & Skegness.'

Yep, that's the sign of a confident party expecting a surge back to them.

Here's the link to the list that was compiled before the 'leak' was fixed:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0

I tried searching within that page but even a search for Tooting turned nowt up – although Tooting is definitely on the list – so, unless it's just my browser failing to work (this version of Safari is no longer supported by Google docs) you might have to just scroll through the list to see whether or not your constituency is on it. Unfortunately, my constituency doesn't appear there and I'd have loved our Labour PPC to have an easy run.

[rebeccariots2]

Hadleigh Community Primary School headteacher, Neil Jackson, resigns over ‘faceless government’ education rules which leave teachers ‘stressed and exhausted’
http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/hadleigh_com ... _1_3949714

[Eric_WLothian]

Don't recall this being mentioned today - apologies if it has been:

http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5469/ ... paedophile

Did you read the comment BTL? I'm wondering how long that will stay up - it certainly got my full attention.

I thought the reference to a friend in MI6 made it dubious (it's unlikely to be of interest to them). Certainly an attention-getter though.

[citizenJA]

Everyone remember this?

3 Jan 2011

The 2.5% hike in VAT which comes into effect at midnight tonight will cost families almost £400 a year and put up to 250,000 jobs at risk, Labour leader Ed Miliband warned today.

He accused both of the parties in the ruling coalition of breaking election promises on tax...

"VAT is a powerful weapon to tackle debt and if we don't use it then the spending cuts would be over £13 billion pounds bigger," said the Chancellor.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 75047.html
Let's have a conversation, Jeffrey...just you & the electorate you've not yet had the opportunity of meeting.

[adam]

Following the discussion on Kinnock's old speech and Cameron's nonsense upthread, have a read of Jonathan Freedland writing immediately before the 2010 general election...

Remember 1983? I Warn You That A Cameron Victory Will Be Just As Bad

[rebeccariots2]

Capita accused of using major government contract to short-change small companies, driving some out of business
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 37349.html

Three years ago ministers hailed the £250m contract to provide all civil service learning and development training as a model of how to open up the public sector to small businesses and provide better value to the taxpayer.

Under the deal, Capita took over responsibility from individual government departments for procuring training while ensuring that the majority of the work was delivered through “an open and competitive supply chain” to allow small and medium enterprises (SMEs) access to government business.

But a group of 12 companies involved in the scheme have now formed a group to take their complaints to the Cabinet Office and the National Audit Office and demand an investigation into Capita.

The allegations of the practices employed by Capita are shocking ... or at least they should be ... but it's hard to be surprised by them after nearly 5 years of outsourcing shambles and malpractice under the coalition.

Also heard a terrible report on R4 tonight about the asylum seeker dispersal programme - now entirely outsourced to Serco - and the difficulties experienced by local authorities in the areas where most of them are being rehoused who now have no powers to properly plan, manage or resource the services required. Serco is having trouble meeting the targets required and is losing money on the contracts. The final comment from one of the advisors was that large companies like Serco have simply become experts in winning huge contracts but that doesn't mean they have the necessary knowledge and capability to actually implement and deliver the programmes ... in fact many smaller and more local organisations would probably have better skills and provide better value for money.

[rebeccariots2]

Following the discussion on Kinnock's old speech and Cameron's nonsense upthread, have a read of Jonathan Freedland writing immediately before the 2010 general election...

Remember 1983? I Warn You That A Cameron Victory Will Be Just As Bad

He really had Cameron nailed didn't he. He's done pretty much everything listed and more. He hasn't quite got away with the boundary reviews gerrymandering yet though ... the thought of this happening and the consequences ought to be a chilling wake up for everyone who hopes for something better, for real change - whether it's through a Labour govt next time around or a shake up in voting which upsets the status quo.

I warn you that a chance some have waited for all their adult lives will slip away, perhaps taking another generation to come around again: the chance to reform our rotten, broken electoral system. If Cameron wins, he will not only thwart any move to fairer voting, he will act fast to rig the system in his favour. Even neutrals agree that his plan to cut the number of MPs by 10% – presented as a mere cost-cutting measure – will be one of the grossest acts of gerrymandering in British political history. Cameron will redraw the boundaries so that his rivals lose seats and he gains them, locking in a semi-permanent Conservative majority. Reform of our absurd, unelected second chamber will be postponed indefinitely, enabling Cameron to pack the Lords with his mates and sugar daddies, including perhaps a few more of those businessmen who so obligingly sided with the Conservatives in condemning Labour's plans for national insurance.

[51A]

Can I just say, there are many, many things that really piss me off. Oddly, one of the ones at the forefront is that twonks call the queen "brenda". All in lower case all to call to your attention my misestimation both at the "brenda" tag and the notion that there is a family born to be greater than everyone else. It never was funny: There is liz, lizzy, betty, bette, bet, all at your disposal.

As someone whose parents could not settle on a name for me, am known to family and friends by a name that the bank, work, National Insurance et al will not recognise, it was never big nor clever.