Jo Swinson was on TV last night defending the Governments want to monitor your emails, Facebook, Twitter, web history etc. This is a complete flip from her stance back in 2009 when she hadn't tasted power.
Please email Jo Swinson and David Cameron and let them know you feel this is an infringement of your civil liberties.
David Cameron's private email - privateoffice@no10.x.gsi.gov.uk
Contact Jo Swinson - http://www.writetothem.com/
Showing posts with label conservatives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conservatives. Show all posts
Monday, 2 April 2012
Saturday, 26 June 2010
Friday, 14 May 2010
Gleichschaltung - an update
Update on THIS ARTICLE - please read -
The Scottish Situation
I am concerned that the Con/Dem coalition are using the Scottish experience - ie. the 66% requirement of members supporting dissolution - out of context.
One Tory commentator on BBC News 24 this morning has stated that this 66% was brought in by the "Labour Party" last year. This, first of all, does not ring true, as any documentation I have managed to find seems to go back at least until 2001 and if it was only introduced last year, it would have been the SNP Government who would have done so.
This use of the Scottish requirement for 66% seems to be the only defence the ConDem coalition are using that will ensure continuance of a Tory minority Government if the Liberals walk away from any agreement. I feel any misinformation should be countered - and I feel it is imperative that MSP's explain the thinking behind 66% in Scotland. (It has to be remembered the Scottish Government elections are STV and have a term of only four years - so the ground is quite different from the 5 year term first past the post system in Westminster).
This is at the very least, an attack on the integrity of our Devolved Parliament.
If the 66% was debated and discussed cross party - and it was cross party agreement that had it implimented, then it differs greatly from this proposal of 55% by the Tories and Lib Dems in Westminster.
In effect this 55% will mean that regardless of the coalition, and regardless of a plethora of no-confidence motions the Tories will remain in power for five years and ensure the Scottish budget is decided by a tiny minority only representative of 15 % of the Scottish voting public.
I have not yet been able to find the debates/discussions that led to this figure of 66%.
I will update as I find more information on the Scottish situation.
The Scottish Situation
I am concerned that the Con/Dem coalition are using the Scottish experience - ie. the 66% requirement of members supporting dissolution - out of context.
One Tory commentator on BBC News 24 this morning has stated that this 66% was brought in by the "Labour Party" last year. This, first of all, does not ring true, as any documentation I have managed to find seems to go back at least until 2001 and if it was only introduced last year, it would have been the SNP Government who would have done so.
This use of the Scottish requirement for 66% seems to be the only defence the ConDem coalition are using that will ensure continuance of a Tory minority Government if the Liberals walk away from any agreement. I feel any misinformation should be countered - and I feel it is imperative that MSP's explain the thinking behind 66% in Scotland. (It has to be remembered the Scottish Government elections are STV and have a term of only four years - so the ground is quite different from the 5 year term first past the post system in Westminster).
This is at the very least, an attack on the integrity of our Devolved Parliament.
If the 66% was debated and discussed cross party - and it was cross party agreement that had it implimented, then it differs greatly from this proposal of 55% by the Tories and Lib Dems in Westminster.
In effect this 55% will mean that regardless of the coalition, and regardless of a plethora of no-confidence motions the Tories will remain in power for five years and ensure the Scottish budget is decided by a tiny minority only representative of 15 % of the Scottish voting public.
I have not yet been able to find the debates/discussions that led to this figure of 66%.
I will update as I find more information on the Scottish situation.
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
The ConDemNation
So there you have it. We have a Government none of us voted for. Most of those who voted Lib Dem in Scotland did so to keep the Tories out. 85% of people in Scotland voted anti-Tory, - 68% UK wide. Two Eton boys then sat down and carved out a Government made up of old Etonians, bosses, Lords and Ladies. Not one person who negotiated this ‘coalition of thieves’ had a working class accent – nor did they stand a chance of being hit by the austerity measures the so called “left of labour” Lib Dems and the Tories are about to mete out on the working and middle classes.
All of the negotiators were white, well shaven men. No women, single mothers, Union representatives – no-one with a modicum of empathy for working class people and our struggles were there. The public sector is – East Dunbartonshire is - about to be hit with a barrage of cuts that will see working families and the poor bleed to feed the markets and to pay off the rich man’s debt.
This is not what we voted for in the UK, neither in Scotland nor in East Dunbartonshire. Jo Swinson was buoyed up by a tactical vote both from SNP and Conservative supporters who gave her a 4000 vote margin between her and Labours John Lyons in 2005. This time, the tactical vote, for the most part, was seen to be unnecessary. The SNP vote gained, as did Labours. Swinson halved her majority.
Sally Magnusson hit the nail on the head in her recent TV programme, "Why didn't the Scots vote Tory?" She concluded that the electorate here do not vote out of the self interest promoted by the Tories - we think of others. Self interest sums up this squalid deal. Swinson and the Lib Dems delivered Tory majority rule – and the swingeing cuts and misery the Tories and Liberal Tories will mete out on us.
Let her know your thoughts and ensure the non-alternative – the lie of a “left of Labour” Liberal Democrat party is put to rest. Do not vote Tory/ Lib Dem again – they are unnecessary in East Dunbartonshire. The Tories can only win in this constituency with a leg up and the “looking in both directions” of the Lib Dems. This has been proved both here and country wide.
This is a coalition of cuts.
It has been strapped together in order to allow the worst cuts meted out on the working and middle class in history. Brought together by the ruling class and their media. The markets are not happy, we are told, and this means you should lose your job or take pay cuts.
Let’s unite against the rubbish they spin – the racism and the financial fairy tales that are forced down our TV sets that set working class against working class. The true enemy is not the immigrant, the true friend is not the “markets” and marketeers who are making you pay for their gambling.
We need a coalition of the electorate. - We need a vote for real – Scottish Left– alternatives.
The Scottish Socialist Party believe the rich bankers and corporations who got us into this economic mess should pay – not the health workers and bin men , education workers, small businesses, posties, rail workers or street cleaners in East Dunbartonshire. Ordinary people and their jobs should be protected from this greed induced crisis, not made to suffer to allow the rich to keep their millions/billions.
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Cameron, the rich, on Social Justice
Let’s be clear about something when David Cameron speaks about “broken Britain.” It was the Tories wot dun it.
What Cameron thinks of poor and working class who are being persuaded to vote for him by Sun, Times and Daily Mail - photo by photographer Michael Schofield
When was British society at its most “happiest” using measurable scales?
During the noughties?
No. During the ‘90s? No.
Ok. The ‘50s or 60’s?
Nope.
It surely can’t be the Thatcherite ‘80s?
Got that right.
The year in which various health indicators have shown that the UK was at it’s happiest was 1978. The year BEFORE the Thatcher victory. The year of the so called winter of discontent.
Why?
Because that is the year when the UK had reached its highest level of equality and social mobility.
Of course, this is something the Murdochracy ,the Tories and the New Labour project do not want you to know.
What happened in between then and now?
Well – Thatcher and her Government decimated our society; wrecked our manufacturing base; destroyed mining towns and villages; made no-go areas of our inner cities; created a society where rather than feeling safe and happy, people feel they need to walk on each other – and kick each other down - in order to succeed – or at least to feel they are succeeding.
Surely the Labour Party changed this?
Well, let’s be fair. The Labour Party, according to social and health indicators, did not destroy society on quite the same scale, but the fact is, they did little to address the gap between rich and poor. They continued the Thatcherite/ neo-liberal project that ensures the people on the bottom struggle and work the hardest to feed themselves and their children, but receive the most “jip” – being called lazy or worse, dismissed as some sort of genetic “underclass.” And all the “main” political parties are turning to the poor to pay off the rich bankers debt by cutting their services and their chance of a job.
Back in the early eighties when I started working, the Thatcher project was only beginning to show its teeth. There were still communities of council housing where the unskilled worker lived side by side with policemen, nurses, tradesmen and women, public service workers – REAL communities. People could decide how to spend their money – either on a mortgage or on renting a decent house. And every family who needed a house could get one without a wait or having to scrape deposits or risk 95% / 100% mortgages. The current housing system sees young people unable to get a house either from the council – or onto the “property ladder.”
Those of us who “failed” in school (failure being part of the educational language at the time – some good things have happened educationally in the meantime…) could find unskilled – well paid – jobs in factories. Education was not quite the market it has become where people with qualifications within a percentage point of each other compete for precious college or University places.
Nowadays “failure” is on the part of society – the UK Thatcherite/ neoliberal economy has meant our young people are failing to find jobs because, let’s face it, there are few of them. And there will be fewer as the Public Sector are made to pay in jobs and funding for the failure of the much vaunted private sector (the private sector – let’s face it – who caused the “crisis”).
What is a fair society? Is it this scrabble for the pieces the rich throw down from their table? 2% of the people in country benefit from the current system – the very rich – the Cameron’s, Murdoch’s and Rothermere’s who are telling the rest of us we must cut cut cut and live in austerity. When, apparently, times were good – before the “economic downturn” (or the rich rip-off to term it properly) we were told we needed cuts in our pensions/ public services/ pay. Now times are bad, we, the majority of this country are told we need to cut back even more. So when were these good times? For the majority of the country, it seems that the “good times” were just times when the rich were getting even more rich than they are now while shafting the rest of us(the rich in this country made over £300bn extra bucks in the last year, while the rest of us are asked to suffer for their greed).
Why do we not hear any of this in our press?
Well, our press is controlled by the very rich.
Lord Rothermere, whose Daily Mail daily attacks the poor and working class, and who supports the Tory “austerity” drive, ie. the drive to impoverish the poor even further in order to make them pay for the rich’s greed, pays NO TAX in this country.
Why? Because he makes his money here, but is “non-domiciled.” The man is worth nearly a reported billion pounds… yet pays nothing to our society only bile through his working class bashing rag.
Rupert Murdoch not only avoids tax in the UK on his incredible fortune, but has been cited in various tax avoidance cases in the US and Israel to name two. Murdoch is reportedly worth £7bn – but pays no tax here – in the country his Sun and Times target the poor for cuts – and the “austerity” Tories as their party of choice – the party that ruined towns and villages across the country in their “greed is good” philosophy.
As I have said in another article ( HERE ), Twitter and other outlets for real people’s opinion have turned the tables. But not completely.
The Tories and Labour – and the SNP in Scotland - all want one party rule – their party. So they, in their various ways, ensure the smaller parties – or the left - or the sensible – or those purely wanting fairness - have little exposure in societal debates and discussion. This not only happens through the billionaire supported and opinionated press ignoring the Lib Dems or the Scottish Socialist Party, but also in ignoring poverty charities such as Child Poverty Action Group, or damning reports about equality such as the Black Report or more recent work by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett ( see HERE and on the election HERE) and perhaps seemingly less important, the legislation against placarding streets during elections.
Look out for legislation against certain types of blogging or twittering or opinion pieces in the future as the greed driven Thatcherite poverty bashing parties and billionaires all panic.
And as far as Cameron’s “social justice" message this morning, in the words of the young woman who heckled him yesterday, “I don’t believe you.”
follow @sspcampsie on twitter
What Cameron thinks of poor and working class who are being persuaded to vote for him by Sun, Times and Daily Mail - photo by photographer Michael Schofield
When was British society at its most “happiest” using measurable scales?
During the noughties?
No. During the ‘90s? No.
Ok. The ‘50s or 60’s?
Nope.
It surely can’t be the Thatcherite ‘80s?
Got that right.
The year in which various health indicators have shown that the UK was at it’s happiest was 1978. The year BEFORE the Thatcher victory. The year of the so called winter of discontent.
Why?
Because that is the year when the UK had reached its highest level of equality and social mobility.
Of course, this is something the Murdochracy ,the Tories and the New Labour project do not want you to know.
What happened in between then and now?
Well – Thatcher and her Government decimated our society; wrecked our manufacturing base; destroyed mining towns and villages; made no-go areas of our inner cities; created a society where rather than feeling safe and happy, people feel they need to walk on each other – and kick each other down - in order to succeed – or at least to feel they are succeeding.
Surely the Labour Party changed this?
Well, let’s be fair. The Labour Party, according to social and health indicators, did not destroy society on quite the same scale, but the fact is, they did little to address the gap between rich and poor. They continued the Thatcherite/ neo-liberal project that ensures the people on the bottom struggle and work the hardest to feed themselves and their children, but receive the most “jip” – being called lazy or worse, dismissed as some sort of genetic “underclass.” And all the “main” political parties are turning to the poor to pay off the rich bankers debt by cutting their services and their chance of a job.
Back in the early eighties when I started working, the Thatcher project was only beginning to show its teeth. There were still communities of council housing where the unskilled worker lived side by side with policemen, nurses, tradesmen and women, public service workers – REAL communities. People could decide how to spend their money – either on a mortgage or on renting a decent house. And every family who needed a house could get one without a wait or having to scrape deposits or risk 95% / 100% mortgages. The current housing system sees young people unable to get a house either from the council – or onto the “property ladder.”
Those of us who “failed” in school (failure being part of the educational language at the time – some good things have happened educationally in the meantime…) could find unskilled – well paid – jobs in factories. Education was not quite the market it has become where people with qualifications within a percentage point of each other compete for precious college or University places.
Nowadays “failure” is on the part of society – the UK Thatcherite/ neoliberal economy has meant our young people are failing to find jobs because, let’s face it, there are few of them. And there will be fewer as the Public Sector are made to pay in jobs and funding for the failure of the much vaunted private sector (the private sector – let’s face it – who caused the “crisis”).
What is a fair society? Is it this scrabble for the pieces the rich throw down from their table? 2% of the people in country benefit from the current system – the very rich – the Cameron’s, Murdoch’s and Rothermere’s who are telling the rest of us we must cut cut cut and live in austerity. When, apparently, times were good – before the “economic downturn” (or the rich rip-off to term it properly) we were told we needed cuts in our pensions/ public services/ pay. Now times are bad, we, the majority of this country are told we need to cut back even more. So when were these good times? For the majority of the country, it seems that the “good times” were just times when the rich were getting even more rich than they are now while shafting the rest of us(the rich in this country made over £300bn extra bucks in the last year, while the rest of us are asked to suffer for their greed).
Why do we not hear any of this in our press?
Well, our press is controlled by the very rich.
Lord Rothermere, whose Daily Mail daily attacks the poor and working class, and who supports the Tory “austerity” drive, ie. the drive to impoverish the poor even further in order to make them pay for the rich’s greed, pays NO TAX in this country.
Why? Because he makes his money here, but is “non-domiciled.” The man is worth nearly a reported billion pounds… yet pays nothing to our society only bile through his working class bashing rag.
Rupert Murdoch not only avoids tax in the UK on his incredible fortune, but has been cited in various tax avoidance cases in the US and Israel to name two. Murdoch is reportedly worth £7bn – but pays no tax here – in the country his Sun and Times target the poor for cuts – and the “austerity” Tories as their party of choice – the party that ruined towns and villages across the country in their “greed is good” philosophy.
As I have said in another article ( HERE ), Twitter and other outlets for real people’s opinion have turned the tables. But not completely.
The Tories and Labour – and the SNP in Scotland - all want one party rule – their party. So they, in their various ways, ensure the smaller parties – or the left - or the sensible – or those purely wanting fairness - have little exposure in societal debates and discussion. This not only happens through the billionaire supported and opinionated press ignoring the Lib Dems or the Scottish Socialist Party, but also in ignoring poverty charities such as Child Poverty Action Group, or damning reports about equality such as the Black Report or more recent work by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett ( see HERE and on the election HERE) and perhaps seemingly less important, the legislation against placarding streets during elections.
Look out for legislation against certain types of blogging or twittering or opinion pieces in the future as the greed driven Thatcherite poverty bashing parties and billionaires all panic.
And as far as Cameron’s “social justice" message this morning, in the words of the young woman who heckled him yesterday, “I don’t believe you.”
follow @sspcampsie on twitter
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