FlyTheNest

HindleA wrote:I've lost a year.Damn backlog.

HindleA wrote:Morning.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ia ... ar_twitter" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Iain Duncan Smith's new fit-to-work firm is doing even worse than Atos reveals spending watchdog


https://www.nao.org.uk/report/contracte ... sessments/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

RobertSnozers wrote:Apparently Doughty was only 'considering' resigning when the BBC gave him a platform

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

'we knew his resignation just before the PMQs would be a dramatic moment with a big political impact'

Jeremy Hunt accused of politicising Paris attacks in doctors dispute
Health secretary’s officials helped ‘toughen up’ a letter from NHS chief medic concerning a doctors’ strike coinciding with a terrorist attack
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... is-attacks" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

DWP fit-to-work assessments cost more than they save, report reveals
Government will pay £1.6bn in next three years to private contractors who carry out controversial assessments
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 01636.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The study by the National Audit Office (NAO) found that the Department for Work and Pensions is handing over £1.6bn over the next three years to private contractors who carry out the controversial health and disability assessments.

But at the same time, the Government’s own financial watchdog has warned that savings in benefits payments are likely to be less than a billion pounds by 2020 as a result of the new tests.

rebeccariots2 wrote:This Indy story on the DWP report is damning. (The G doesn't seem to have anything on it yet).

DWP fit-to-work assessments cost more than they save, report reveals
Government will pay £1.6bn in next three years to private contractors who carry out controversial assessments
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 01636.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The study by the National Audit Office (NAO) found that the Department for Work and Pensions is handing over £1.6bn over the next three years to private contractors who carry out the controversial health and disability assessments.

But at the same time, the Government’s own financial watchdog has warned that savings in benefits payments are likely to be less than a billion pounds by 2020 as a result of the new tests.

RogerOThornhill wrote:Re the resignation/BBC kerfuffle...

People out there citing Alistair Campbell not thinking it was an issue as if that makes it right - of course, he'd say that - he's a spin doctor!

He would have loved a gift like that when he was in No 10 - I could imagine Craig Oliver phoning his old mates and saying "thanks. I owe you one"

Meanwhile, media ‘manipulation’ means even Simon Danczuk’s friends must be despairing of his latest conduct. The Sun reports him texting Sophena Houlihan to arrange a “funny” meeting, and suggesting a media agency will “pay you a fee etc take photos”. Senior Labour sources suggest his initial offer to work for him is what will really matter in expelling him from the party.

It’s simply flat inconsistent to say (as Cameron does) one wants to be able to deter the free movement of labour and at the same time to stay in the EU. Neither do I agree that stopping benefits would make much difference to inflows of EU migrant workers to the UK when our job opportunities are so much better than elsewhere in the EU.

The identifiable sycophants of David Cameron in the media are dedicated to attacks on Mr Corbyn, attacks so relentless that you would think there was nothing else to write about, that the economy was fine (rather than poised on a precipice) that the NHS was perfect (rather than in increasingly deep difficulties) and that the Prime Minister’s attempts to escape his EU referendum pledge (a hopeless, illogical tangle) were going well. Not to mention disasters visible to me daily such as the hopeless delay on the electrification of the Great Western mainline, miles behind timetable and mountains of money over budget. Let’s forget HS2 and the Heathrow expansion, or the relentless slither towards a Scottish secession, and the utter failure of all attempts to control our borders.

No, the most important thing in politics turns out to be whether Mike Who swaps jobs with Brenda What, and if Stan Nobody has quit his non-job as deputy minister for Tramways and Fine Arts, in protest at the easing out of Albert Whatsit from his non-job as Shadow Secretary of State for Wind Farms.

Billed for weeks as the ‘revenge reshuffle’, it was supposed to be a sort of Westminster version of the Red Wedding in ‘Game of Thrones’, with the Shadow Cabinet corridor knee-deep in blood and littered with grotesque political corpses and the weltering, obscene figures of the dying, crying ‘treachery!’ and ‘murder!’ What, I wonder, was the source for this fantasy? I don’t think Mr Corbyn talks much to the Parliamentary Lobby, who he rightly recognises are not his friends.

The actual event (in which great crowds of reporters hung about stairwells and lift-shafts trying to find something, anything interesting to write about) involved Jeremy Corbyn boring a few colleagues half to death with conciliatory, polite conversations, and getting rid of a few people from (unpaid, unimportant) jobs because they disagree with him about major policy issues. Well, I never. A party leader who wants allies in his Shadow Cabinet.

Well, I never, a party leader whose authority comes from the old-fashioned left-wing party membership clashing with a new-fashioned left-wing Parliamentary Party whose authority comes from their endorsement by the media and the money men who decide who’s top in politics.

For the first time in my life, this country is actually coming to resemble the Marxist caricature of crude money and power, concentrated in a power elite, versus the disdained people – a caricature that has never hitherto been true at all and which does not prove that the Marxists were right.

Speaking at the Newspaper Conference’s annual lunch in Westminster, [Mr Corbyn] said he was disappointed Labour had failed to gain both the Norwich North and Great Yarmouth seats from the Conservatives in last May’s election.

But he said an increase in Labour membership in the east of England since his election as leader left him hopeful.

“In Norwich and further out in Cambridge we did gain,” he said. “We are doing a lot of campaigning in the area - you will see me cycling around Norfolk from vote to vote.”

Mr Corbyn praised Norfolk’s only Labour MP Clive Lewis, who holds the Norwich South seat - and who, on Wednesday, gifted the leader three bottles of so-called Corbyn Ale from a Norwich microbrewery as a belated Christmas present.

Mr Lewis’ maiden speech in the House of Commons on the future of the Hewett School, where he criticised academy chain the Inspiration Trust was praised by Mr Corbyn.

“Clive is a great friend of mine and he’s doing very well,” he said. “I was really impressed with the way he dealt with the education issues when he first came in here in May.

“I talk to Clive a lot and I have learnt a lot from him.”

HindleA wrote:http://press.labour.org.uk/post/1368722 ... the-tories

Labour Press
This report highlights the shambles the Tories have made of outsourcing health and disability assessments - Debbie Abrahams

Debbie Abrahams MP, Shadow Minister for Disabled People, commenting on the report from the National Audit Office showing that the DWPs outsourced health and disability assessments are in a ‘cycle of optimistic targets, contractual underperformance and costly recovery’, said:

“This report highlights the shambles the Tories have made of outsourcing health and disability assessments. The independent experts at the NAO have rightly shown that under this government the system, like so many other projects, is stuck in a cycle of underperformance.

“Too many disabled people have been badly let down by these assessments and this research shows that it’s not only been costly for those who’ve been mistreated, but all taxpayers. It’s yet another example of incompetence from the DWP and a thorough overhaul of the systems is desperately needed.”

It comes only weeks after another analysis revealed between 2010 and 2013, the Work Capability Assessment was independently associated with an additional 590 suicides. How much more evidence does the Government need before they get that the system is not fit for purpose and needs a complete overhaul?’

StephenDolan wrote:

HindleA wrote:http://press.labour.org.uk/post/1368722 ... the-tories

Labour Press
This report highlights the shambles the Tories have made of outsourcing health and disability assessments - Debbie Abrahams

Debbie Abrahams MP, Shadow Minister for Disabled People, commenting on the report from the National Audit Office showing that the DWPs outsourced health and disability assessments are in a ‘cycle of optimistic targets, contractual underperformance and costly recovery’, said:

“This report highlights the shambles the Tories have made of outsourcing health and disability assessments. The independent experts at the NAO have rightly shown that under this government the system, like so many other projects, is stuck in a cycle of underperformance.

“Too many disabled people have been badly let down by these assessments and this research shows that it’s not only been costly for those who’ve been mistreated, but all taxpayers. It’s yet another example of incompetence from the DWP and a thorough overhaul of the systems is desperately needed.”

It comes only weeks after another analysis revealed between 2010 and 2013, the Work Capability Assessment was independently associated with an additional 590 suicides. How much more evidence does the Government need before they get that the system is not fit for purpose and needs a complete overhaul?’

Pfft, boring, what can we moan about Corbyn with? Get Austin or Woodcock on the phone. Sigh.

Willow904 wrote:Re political bias at the BBC.

When I watch local BBC news, such as Points West, I've not noticed any particular change in the way political stories are covered, or any of the bias apparent in the main BBC political team's reporting. When a political issue has been debated on local news, representatives of different parties appear to be treated the same and are allowed to debate with each other with pretty neutral chairing by the presenters. As the bias in national coverage has become worse, the balance in local reporting has become more apparent. I have also been similarly struck when watching studio debates on youtube, such as debates between MEPs on TTIP, for instance. I guess what I'm saying is that the accusation of BBC bias in favour of the Tories on Newsnight and national news etc can't be easily dismissed, when the way in which it is presented is so noticeably different from other political coverage which is expected to conform to the same standards of impartiality.

As for Kuenssberg, she is attracting more accusations of bias than her predecessors, I think, because she seems to lack the cynicism that, say Paxman or Neill, seem to have for all politics and politicians. That's to say, being harder on Labour while being hard on all parties is much less noticeable than being hard on Labour while swooning over Cameron and generally licking the Tories' butts. She really is shredding the BBC's reputation at the moment, all whilst unattractively appearing to be chewing a wasp much of the time. I honestly can't see her lasting, if only in the interests of watchable television.

(Oh b******s...there's that tin-foil hat again )

rebeccariots2 wrote:This Indy story on the DWP report is damning. (The G doesn't seem to have anything on it yet).

DWP fit-to-work assessments cost more than they save, report reveals
Government will pay £1.6bn in next three years to private contractors who carry out controversial assessments
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 01636.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The study by the National Audit Office (NAO) found that the Department for Work and Pensions is handing over £1.6bn over the next three years to private contractors who carry out the controversial health and disability assessments.

But at the same time, the Government’s own financial watchdog has warned that savings in benefits payments are likely to be less than a billion pounds by 2020 as a result of the new tests.

nickyinnorfolk wrote:Peter Hitchens in the Mail. Hitchens can sometimes be eccentric in his views (for example he regards Cameron, despite all the evidence pointing to him being a dogmatic and far right Thatcherite, as a closet leftist) but here he hits the nail on the head.

The identifiable sycophants of David Cameron in the media are dedicated to attacks on Mr Corbyn, attacks so relentless that you would think there was nothing else to write about, that the economy was fine (rather than poised on a precipice) that the NHS was perfect (rather than in increasingly deep difficulties) and that the Prime Minister’s attempts to escape his EU referendum pledge (a hopeless, illogical tangle) were going well. Not to mention disasters visible to me daily such as the hopeless delay on the electrification of the Great Western mainline, miles behind timetable and mountains of money over budget. Let’s forget HS2 and the Heathrow expansion, or the relentless slither towards a Scottish secession, and the utter failure of all attempts to control our borders.

No, the most important thing in politics turns out to be whether Mike Who swaps jobs with Brenda What, and if Stan Nobody has quit his non-job as deputy minister for Tramways and Fine Arts, in protest at the easing out of Albert Whatsit from his non-job as Shadow Secretary of State for Wind Farms.

Billed for weeks as the ‘revenge reshuffle’, it was supposed to be a sort of Westminster version of the Red Wedding in ‘Game of Thrones’, with the Shadow Cabinet corridor knee-deep in blood and littered with grotesque political corpses and the weltering, obscene figures of the dying, crying ‘treachery!’ and ‘murder!’ What, I wonder, was the source for this fantasy? I don’t think Mr Corbyn talks much to the Parliamentary Lobby, who he rightly recognises are not his friends.

The actual event (in which great crowds of reporters hung about stairwells and lift-shafts trying to find something, anything interesting to write about) involved Jeremy Corbyn boring a few colleagues half to death with conciliatory, polite conversations, and getting rid of a few people from (unpaid, unimportant) jobs because they disagree with him about major policy issues. Well, I never. A party leader who wants allies in his Shadow Cabinet.

Well, I never, a party leader whose authority comes from the old-fashioned left-wing party membership clashing with a new-fashioned left-wing Parliamentary Party whose authority comes from their endorsement by the media and the money men who decide who’s top in politics.

For the first time in my life, this country is actually coming to resemble the Marxist caricature of crude money and power, concentrated in a power elite, versus the disdained people – a caricature that has never hitherto been true at all and which does not prove that the Marxists were right.

The timing of the Syria debate, in retrospect, looks rather suspicious. There was no special military or diplomatic reason, as is quite obvious now, for holding it that night. The only reason for hurry was the Oldham poll. There was nothing else on the grid that couldn’t be altered. A humiliation for |Mr Corbyn on Wednesday night at Westminster and another one on Thursday night in Oldham Town Hall, and the brave boys of New Labour would have acted.

Alas for Blairism, the people of Oldham didn’t do as the Blairites wanted. This, of course was immediately said to be in spite of Jeremy Corbyn, and not to his credit. If it had gone the other way, it would (I promise you) have been entirely his fault, and the people’s verdict on Corbynism.

RobertSnozers wrote:

nickyinnorfolk wrote:Peter Hitchens in the Mail. Hitchens can sometimes be eccentric in his views (for example he regards Cameron, despite all the evidence pointing to him being a dogmatic and far right Thatcherite, as a closet leftist) but here he hits the nail on the head.

The identifiable sycophants of David Cameron in the media are dedicated to attacks on Mr Corbyn, attacks so relentless that you would think there was nothing else to write about, that the economy was fine (rather than poised on a precipice) that the NHS was perfect (rather than in increasingly deep difficulties) and that the Prime Minister’s attempts to escape his EU referendum pledge (a hopeless, illogical tangle) were going well. Not to mention disasters visible to me daily such as the hopeless delay on the electrification of the Great Western mainline, miles behind timetable and mountains of money over budget. Let’s forget HS2 and the Heathrow expansion, or the relentless slither towards a Scottish secession, and the utter failure of all attempts to control our borders.

No, the most important thing in politics turns out to be whether Mike Who swaps jobs with Brenda What, and if Stan Nobody has quit his non-job as deputy minister for Tramways and Fine Arts, in protest at the easing out of Albert Whatsit from his non-job as Shadow Secretary of State for Wind Farms.

Billed for weeks as the ‘revenge reshuffle’, it was supposed to be a sort of Westminster version of the Red Wedding in ‘Game of Thrones’, with the Shadow Cabinet corridor knee-deep in blood and littered with grotesque political corpses and the weltering, obscene figures of the dying, crying ‘treachery!’ and ‘murder!’ What, I wonder, was the source for this fantasy? I don’t think Mr Corbyn talks much to the Parliamentary Lobby, who he rightly recognises are not his friends.

The actual event (in which great crowds of reporters hung about stairwells and lift-shafts trying to find something, anything interesting to write about) involved Jeremy Corbyn boring a few colleagues half to death with conciliatory, polite conversations, and getting rid of a few people from (unpaid, unimportant) jobs because they disagree with him about major policy issues. Well, I never. A party leader who wants allies in his Shadow Cabinet.

Well, I never, a party leader whose authority comes from the old-fashioned left-wing party membership clashing with a new-fashioned left-wing Parliamentary Party whose authority comes from their endorsement by the media and the money men who decide who’s top in politics.

For the first time in my life, this country is actually coming to resemble the Marxist caricature of crude money and power, concentrated in a power elite, versus the disdained people – a caricature that has never hitherto been true at all and which does not prove that the Marxists were right.

This is so on-the-money that it's depressing. I think what the more independent-minded right-wing commentators are beginning to realise is that the increasing domination of the right in public life will only allow one version of the true faith, much as it seems is happening on the left. I can imagine the dismay among people like Peter Oborne when they see people in the same political colours as them so obviously twisting the truth and the way the truth is reported or ignored to suit their own ends. It is not, after all, cricket. I think some right-wingers believe they can win the arguments without the spin and cant. The difference between the right and left, though, is that the battle for the 'true faith' was largely fought and lost/won years ago. The establishment, the media, big business etc all knitted together by cosy networks forged in the old schools and at Oxbridge dining clubs, has reached a consensus of a particular sort of semi-free market orthodoxy. Politicians are allowed to get away with incompetence and failure as long as they give plenty of opportunities for business to get hold of public money and the media are allowed to say more or less what they like.

As far as Hitchens' view of Cameron is concerned, I think people tend to define politicians they don't like according to the things they don't like about them, hence the ease with which people can accuse people like Liz Kendall of being more or less a Tory, while ignoring the views they agree with. I dare say Hitchens sees Cameron in terms of his relative social liberalism with support for things like same-sex marriage, and possibly his earlier green ideals, which to a social conservative might look like leftism. Perhaps it's that he's not looking terribly closely - Cameron likes to appear centrist while actually doing pretty right wing things.

RobertSnozers wrote:

AnatolyKasparov wrote:That is not good, I agree.......

Not good? It's bloody horrifying.

Peter Jukes, no friend of Corbyn's, thinks this might be a nail in the BBC's coffin.

Willow904 wrote: I think you've hit the nail on the head there. The real question is what more do the media need before they get off their asses and hold the government to account for clear and ongoing failures. Are there no journalists with a conscience any more? Exactly whose interests does protecting IDS serve? It will be worse for the Tory party as a whole if his shambles is allowed to rumble on til it explodes, rather than being quietly shelved because of rising costs etc. Osborne's insane if he thinks UC can handle the amount of claims necessary to claw back the tax credit savings he's moved there.

nickyinnorfolk wrote:Peter Hitchens in the Mail. Hitchens can sometimes be eccentric in his views (for example he regards Cameron, despite all the evidence pointing to him being a dogmatic and far right Thatcherite, as a closet leftist) but here he hits the nail on the head.

The identifiable sycophants of David Cameron in the media are dedicated to attacks on Mr Corbyn, attacks so relentless that you would think there was nothing else to write about, that the economy was fine (rather than poised on a precipice) that the NHS was perfect (rather than in increasingly deep difficulties) and that the Prime Minister’s attempts to escape his EU referendum pledge (a hopeless, illogical tangle) were going well. Not to mention disasters visible to me daily such as the hopeless delay on the electrification of the Great Western mainline, miles behind timetable and mountains of money over budget. Let’s forget HS2 and the Heathrow expansion, or the relentless slither towards a Scottish secession, and the utter failure of all attempts to control our borders.

No, the most important thing in politics turns out to be whether Mike Who swaps jobs with Brenda What, and if Stan Nobody has quit his non-job as deputy minister for Tramways and Fine Arts, in protest at the easing out of Albert Whatsit from his non-job as Shadow Secretary of State for Wind Farms.

Billed for weeks as the ‘revenge reshuffle’, it was supposed to be a sort of Westminster version of the Red Wedding in ‘Game of Thrones’, with the Shadow Cabinet corridor knee-deep in blood and littered with grotesque political corpses and the weltering, obscene figures of the dying, crying ‘treachery!’ and ‘murder!’ What, I wonder, was the source for this fantasy? I don’t think Mr Corbyn talks much to the Parliamentary Lobby, who he rightly recognises are not his friends.

The actual event (in which great crowds of reporters hung about stairwells and lift-shafts trying to find something, anything interesting to write about) involved Jeremy Corbyn boring a few colleagues half to death with conciliatory, polite conversations, and getting rid of a few people from (unpaid, unimportant) jobs because they disagree with him about major policy issues. Well, I never. A party leader who wants allies in his Shadow Cabinet.

Well, I never, a party leader whose authority comes from the old-fashioned left-wing party membership clashing with a new-fashioned left-wing Parliamentary Party whose authority comes from their endorsement by the media and the money men who decide who’s top in politics.

For the first time in my life, this country is actually coming to resemble the Marxist caricature of crude money and power, concentrated in a power elite, versus the disdained people – a caricature that has never hitherto been true at all and which does not prove that the Marxists were right.

Montreal traffic camera captures stunning images of snowy owl in flight

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... -in-flight" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A traffic camera above a Montreal freeway has taken stunning images of a snowy owl in flight.
The bird was captured mid-air by the CCTV camera at the intersection of Autoroute 40 and the
Boulevard des Sources, in the West Island of Montreal, on the morning of 3 January.

ScarletGas wrote: So the defence from the BBC is also flawed when it states that the reshuffle was the biggest story of the week. In whose eyes? To most I would suggest the reshuffle was a pretty way down a long list of important stories (unless you never got your backside out of Westminster)

There’s drama in the City -- high street retailer Sports Direct has issued a profits warning.

The company admitted that it could miss its target of £420m profits by up to £40m, following weak sales since its last financial results on 10 December.

It blamed:

“a deterioration of trading conditions on the high street and a continuation of the unseasonal weather over the key Christmas period”.

River Swale at Kirby Wiske
Latest Information

The current level at Kirby Wiske is 2.5m and is still rising in response to Thursday’s rainfall.
Levels are likely to remain high in the catchment over the coming days as further showers
are forecast over the weekend. The York Incident Room is on 24 hour duty and we will
continue to monitor the situation and update this message as new information is available.

Scotland hit by further flooding and travel disruption

Transport network in Aberdeen and surrounding area
disrupted as water levels reach record highs, while
parts of northern England brace for more rain

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016 ... n-aberdeen" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

gilsey wrote:

There’s drama in the City -- high street retailer Sports Direct has issued a profits warning.

The company admitted that it could miss its target of £420m profits by up to £40m, following weak sales since its last financial results on 10 December.

It blamed:

“a deterioration of trading conditions on the high street and a continuation of the unseasonal weather over the key Christmas period”.

RobertSnozers wrote:

AnatolyKasparov wrote:

RobertSnozers wrote: Not good? It's bloody horrifying.

Peter Jukes, no friend of Corbyn's, thinks this might be a nail in the BBC's coffin.

If proved beyond reasonable doubt it might be the end of, if not the Beeb, then at least Kuenssberg? Though admittedly I am not holding my breath there.

Nah. The producer will get fired if anyone does.