Child Benefit Whine Unites The Political Tribes

Nothing, it seems, unites the political tribes like a good whine. In the run up to all the evil Tory cuts, this is particularly evident in the reaction to the proposals on child benefit.

Tax breaks for the wealthy are EVIL! Scream the Guardianistas. Cut benefits! Shout the suburban high Tory cliques.

How apposite then, that this sort of cockwaffle should appear in the Graun

Amanda Foley in Pottery Corner, a paint-your-own pottery studio, calculated that her family would lose £35,000 over 16 years, “which when you add it up is an awful lot of money”.

She has three sons: Samuel, three, Joseph, two, and three-week-old Oliver. Foley, a former teacher, said: “I do not work but my husband is a contractor and is well-paid so he will be above the threshold for claiming child benefit. But because I have three very young children it will have a knock-on effect on me.”

She believes the government must rethink its decision. “It is my pocket money and it will affect me because I don’t have any other income – I regarded it as being paid to look after the children. But it does feel that it is my money that is being taken away.“

You’d think, really, that axing a universal benefit for the well off would satisy both camps. Less tax breaks, lower benefit bill.

But no, you see, when they were all screaming about the unfairness of tax breaks for the well off, the Guardianistas meant other well of people, not them.

And when the well off blues called for benefit cuts, they meant other people’s benefits, not theirs!

Surely the single best indicator of the fairness of axing an iniquitous universal benefit – cak handed as the implementation may be – is that self entitled pompous dickwads across the entire political spectrum are joined in unity in a plain chant whinge of “That’s not fair!”.

Pay for your own brats, you whiny douchebags.

And as if by magic …

In my previous post I ranted on incoherently and at length about the Tribal Fuckmuppetry involved in British politics, which demands loyalty to the party and nothing else, to the exclusion of other things like rational thought.

And then, as if by magic, I came across a perfect example in the form of everyone’s favourite tory media whore and prima facie tribal fuckmuppet Iain Dale’s comment on the hillarious spectacle of a Labour PPC calling Brown “The worst prime minister ever” which received quite wide coverage this morning.

Naturally, Iain agrees that Brown is a fucking disaster as PM, but then he goes on to rather neatly illustrate my point about tribal fuckmuppets and their effect on democracy like this

Sood has blasted the Labour leader and surely now faces suspension, even though he has spokenn the truth. What I don’t understand is that if he really thinks this, why did he ever stand as a Labour candidate

It hasn’t occurred to Iain that the chap could be loyal to the ideology that the Labour party was founded to represent and finds that Brown is not, as many Labour voters have also noticed. It hasn’t occurred to him that perhaps not everyone in the Labour party agrees with Gordon on everything, which is a curious oversight, because Iain likes to write about division in the Labour party.

No, at the sight of open division in the ranks, Dale’s first instinct is that the man should be suspended and he should never have joined Labour if he disagreed with the Great Leader.

And Iain Dale is a Tory tribal fuckmuppet.

NB that as I say, Iain is aware, and writes about, divisions in all of the parties, so either his “obey the tribe” instinct kicked in very strongly and overrode his rational thought processes, or it’s OK to have bitter divisions as long as they’re behind closed doors where the plebs won’t see them, and only the tribal elders, Iains blog, the Daily Mail and the Telegraph are aware of them.

Either way, I rest my case, and I fucking weep, really I do.

Tribal Fuckmuppets and the Dearth of Democracy

Dearth

–noun

1.

an inadequate supply; scarcity; lack: There is a dearth of good engineers.

2.

scarcity and dearness of food; famine.

Blue Rinse And Pearls

I live in the North East, although I didn’t always. I grew up in Cheshire. Poles apart you might say. Or even ‘polls’ apart in fact. I didn’t live in the leafy poshtown ‘footballers wives’ bit of Cheshire, but I did go to school there. Indeed I used to live (just) in what is now George Osborne’s constituency and was once that of Neil Hamilton – a man I met on many occasions and who contributed greatly to my image of politics as being a hive of desperate, self interested, sleazy, grasping cunts.

Often along with the gurning fuckmuppet Winterton, he was a fixture at all sorts of fetes, fairs and charity bashes that I attended – my parents being tireless workers for charridee – as well as perpetrating several school visits – the last of which, as I recall, caused a mass exodus of pupils via a window, this being the preferable option to spending time with him.

Hamilton – and indeed Winterton – were the sort of MPs that would – as the saying goes – attend the opening of a bus shelter. They were personally well known to many of their constituents. As a whippersnapper, my impression of them was very much as stated above. Hamilton in particular practically sweats sleaze, and shaking hands with him could make you feel like you needed to take a shower. The less said about Winterton the better, quite frankly.

The point, of course, is that I was by no means alone in feeling this way. You didn’t have to spend much time around Hamilton to realise that he was – as the saying goes – a complete and utter cunt.

And yet the Tatton constituency remained – and remains – resolutely blue. barring the one protest vote for Martin Bell when Hamilton was finally documented in behaving like a desperate, self interested, sleazy, grasping cunt. The interesting thing about that vote, of course, is that Al ‘axe wound’ Campbell convinced the Lib Dems that it would be a huge laugh if both they and Labour withdrew their candidates. Crucially this left the Cheshire set with a candidate they could vote for who – while not a Conservative – was not a Labour or LibDem candidate either.

Manic Miners

Now I live in the North East. In most of the constituencies I spend time in, despite several having predominantly LibDem councils, it is a mystery to most people why the Conservatives or LibDems even bother to field candidates for general (or by-) elections.

I don’t move in such exalted circles any more, and while I have corresponded with my local MP, I have never met him or any of those from neighbouring constituency. That hardly matters, as Labour’s record of the last 13 years speaks volumes about how it regards the loyal reds of the North East. With contempt. This is not something which has gone unnoticed, either. The many mining villages ravaged by the attempts of the trade unions to violently overthrow democracy and install a ginger trot junta (or ‘Thatcher’ as they abbreviate it round here) are still, despite 13 years of a Labour government who you might reasonably have expected to do something about it, shit holes. Characterised by poverty, domestic violence, teenage parents, crime and ignorance.

And yet the North East remains – and is likely to remain – resolutely red.

Tribal Fuckmuppets

The now infamous Mrs Gillian Duffy rather neatly summed up this situation when she described how her Grandfather and Father had been ‘Labour men’. You hear it all the time from nasty smug Labour drones “labour is in my blood”, “my family has voted labour for generations”. These deluded fucktards were indoctrinated with their parent’s voting habits – at the expense of rational thought – from birth. No matter what the Labour party do – illegal wars, taxing the poor, trampling all over the long held tenets of the justice system, conniving at torture, hypocritically ignoring or weasling out of their responsibilities under the very Human Rights that they themselves are so proud of codifying into UK law, breaches of electoral law, candidates arrested for drink driving after piling their car into roundabouts, a minister convicted of driving while on his mobile – they aren’t the Tories and so can never be as bad.

This is not limited to the North East by any means. Nor, in fact, is is it limited to the Labour party. In Cheshire, people bring their kids up Tory. When I lived there the local Young Conservative group was large and active. And stocked out with people whose mummies and daddies were Conservative to the core and had indoctrinated their children to be the same. Most of them were also glassy eyed automatons, devoid of rational thought, repeating the same Tory screeds their parents and local party reps had taught them by wrote. Ad nauseum, in many cases, and in a memorable few, ad punching hard in the face by children who hadn’t been so programmed.

The Now Obligatory BNP Reference

In a remarkably similar way were racist attitudes passed from father to son, many were the playground discussions regarding why some racial group or other should be taunted that started with the phrase “My dad says all [insert racist epithet here] are [insert some kind of slur here, dirty, thieves, whatever]”. It shouldn’t be surprising really, because what all these indoctrinated attitudes amount to is a taught intolerance to some group or other, be it evil tories, ruinous socialists, or thieving gypsies.

This doesn’t account for all the tribal fuckmuppets, some people who fall heavily into this category have picked their team based on pressure from their peers, or just because they needed to pick someone to support and now they must offer unquestioning loyalty. Much in the same way as people choose to support football teams, I suppose.

A Dearth Of Democracy

The problem with this – aside from the fact that crippling your child’s or your own critical faculties in such a manner is butt clenchingly stupid – is that it leads to a situation where a large proportion of the UK electorate, despite being otherwise sensible, intelligent, compassionate and rational people will not go to the polls on Thursday and place their cross in a box based on either substance or style, nor even based on their subscription to a particular ideology , but based on tribal loyalty and an indoctrinated hatred of some other tribe.

By outsourcing some portion of their critical faculties to whatever bunch of conniving shitweasels are sporting the appropriately coloured rosette, the tribal fuckmuppets have, willingly or otherwise, conspired to keep the amount of democracy to an absolute minimum. Every five years, the 25,000 or so voters who aren’t tribal fuckmuppets get to decide which bunch of liars and thieves have the best posters. And that’s it. You can – and I have – get access to your local MP and if s/he is a good constituency MP they might even help to represent your views. Unless they conflict with those of the MPs party of course, in which case you are shit out of luck.

The conniving shitweasels, of course, know this, which is why they don’t want to change it. This is why, despite having 13 years of legislative opportunity, Labour have never reformed the electoral system. This why the Conservatives prefer the first past the post system and have pledged to keep it all costs.

The conniving shitweasels will tell you that we need ‘strong government’, which is politician speak for an administration that can ram whatever shitty legislation it wants down the country’s throat because no one can stop them. You might canvass your MP against such legislation, but it won’t matter because their party will whip them until they toe the line.

The conniving shitweasels fear a hung parliament or a slim majority because they do not like democracy at all. They know best, and they mean to have their way. Democracy would actively prevent this, because they’d have to get consent from others. This would mean reaching a consensus, like proper grown ups, and reaching a consensus is nowhere near as much fun as wielding power.

This Is All Your Fault

If you are one of those tribal fuckmuppets, if you have always voted the same way, if you have unquestioningly pledged your loyalty to one bunch of conniving shitweasels, if you do it because your dad did it, or your gran, if you are Labour for Life, or Tory forever, or a tedious tubthumper for any other party here is a message for you.

You are the enemy of democracy. Grow the fuck up. It is because of you that we are ruled, not served. It is because of you that we are subjects, not citizens. It is because of you that we have no referenda, the conniving shitweasels know they can count on your support whatever they do, so they don’t need to ask the rest of us.

It is because of you that there has been no electoral reform, it is because of you that the party system and the whip system still exist, because your unquestioning loyalty to a shower of bastards has allowed it to be so.

In the immortal words of Paul Wicker “May the lord have mercy on your souls, you ignorant snivelling fuckpigs.” Because whatever is about to happen, and it is likely to be unremittingly unpleasant, it is your fault.

Tories in a PR Pickle over Spotify ?

There was a story going around last week about the Conservative party buying up ads on Spotify.

For the uninitiated, Spotify is a streaming internet music service funded by advertising. The user selects a play list or a type of music that they would like to listen to to and hits play. Periodically the user hears some advertising, or they can pay for an ad free service.

Here’s an example of some of the coverage it garnered at the time, mainly from the tech and music media. A story from PC Pro

Tories to campaign on Spotify

The Conservatives are to campaign on Spotify, as the party reaches out to tech-savvy voters.

The ad will feature Tory party chairman, Eric Pickles, lambasting the Government’s handling of the recent economic crisis, and urging listeners to vote Conservative at the next General Election.

It resurfaced again yesterday, this time the coverage was of a somewhat different tone. Here’s auntie beeb :

Tories stop music to woo voters

Conservative chairman Eric Pickles will apologise to music lovers later – as he interrupts their favourite tunes to ask for their vote.

…

Mr Pickles’ distinctive Yorkshire tones will interrupt music to attack the government over the economy.

Somewhat harsher, I think you’ll agree. Now, instead of ‘buying ads’ Pickles will ‘interrupt music’. Damn you, you Evil Tory fun spoiler !

Some folks have suggested that the article displays the BBC’s bias against the tories. Let’s see what the Times has to say

A 45-second message from the Conservative Party chairman, in which he interrupts listening pleasures to attack Gordon Brown’s ‘reckless spending’, is the latest attempt by politicians to get their messages across to the digital generation.

Hmm, spookily similar. Looks like we have a fine example of cut’n’paste journalism, which means there should be a press release a couple of clicks away. Yup.

The Conservatives are launching a bid to woo young, internet-savvy voters by advertising on digital music service Spotify.

A 45-second message from party chairman Eric Pickles will interrupt listeners’ choice of tracks to criticise Gordon Brown’s “reckless spending”.

Ouchies. Possibly time to sack the PR firm who wrote that. “interrupting” is a much poorer choice of words than “advertising”

Possibly also time to sack whoever came up with the idea in the first place, here’s a sample of Spoitfy users response to hearing repeated ads :

The ‘alcohol-know your limits’ one is so smug it makes me want to punch my monitor. I have to turn the volume down fully, and this is from someone who doesn’t even drink!

Joanathan was such a ****. If he’d hung around longer, I would to have had to construct some sort of effigy of him, then savagely beat him to alleviate my anger whenever an ad came on.

I can’t wait to see how they react to Pickles.

Whining Widdecombe’s nasty spin bitchslapped

Vodpod videos no longer available.

On the face of it, a reasonable argument.

“These were the rules, you stuck fastidiously by them, every line of your expenses shows you stuck by them”

If that had been the case, and if we were of a mind to be reasonable about this, which I think we can all agree we’re not, Anne might even have point.

Let’s briefly remind ourselves of what some of those rules were :

“The fundamental principles required MPs personally to ensure that their use of the ACA was: (a) necessary for the performance of their Parliamentary duties; (b) not extravagant or luxurious; (c) in accordance with the Nolan principles of selflessness, accountability, honesty and leadership; (d) strictly in accordance with the rules governing the allowance; (e) above reproach; (f) took account of the need to obtain value for money; and (g) avoided any appearance of benefit, or a subsidy from public funds, or diversion of public money for the benefit of a political organisation. These principles together amount to a general requirement of propriety.”

Not looking so good now, is it ? just off the top of my head I can see at the very least that a,b,c,e and f have in fact been violated with arrogant impunity by any number of MPs.

Any other group of employees who had been found to be committing such widespread breaches of the rules(MPs), along with whoever was supposed to be operating the internal controls, but wasn’t (the fees office), thereby being complicit in enabling the breaches, would indeed find themselves in a court. But not for an employment tribunal, Anne, for a fraud hearing.

Shortly after which they would most likely find themselves in prison.

Moran, Kirkbride, Vomit

Moran’s statement, reported by the BBC, contains the usual “all within the rules” rubbish

“However, it is very important that I make it absolutely clear that I have done nothing wrong or dishonest in relation to my claim for expenses and have at all times acted on advice from the House of Commons Fees Office in relation to my family home in Southampton”

And so that’s not why she’s going, oh no, it’s because

“The understandable anger in the media and amongst the public over the issue of my Parliamentary expenses has had a bruising effect upon my friends, my family and my health”

And Krikbride is just as bad

“I understand people are angry about the way MPs’ expenses operate, it is very hard to defend “

Will that stop her from trying though ?

“But until this week’s furore, it didn’t cross my mind that I had done anything wrong.”

No, apparently not.

“I also must take into account the effects on my family.”

Oh, puke.

It gets worse though, in the Telegraph, drawn to my attention by Tom Paine she claims that her having to stand down for being a liar and a thief will discourage mothers from becoming MPs

“Just before this story broke, I spoke to a woman journalist thinking of entering Parliament. Her main concern was the effect it would have on her children. I assured her it was possible to combine an MP’s life with being a good mother, as long as she organised her support structure well. That must continue to be the case – or Parliament risks taking a step backwards.”

I’ve got news for you dearie, most working mothers that I know would bite your arms off just for your base salary without the fraudulent expenses. Don’t you dare try to justify your lying and theft because you have a child to support while millions of others manage just fine. Some people chose to sacrifice their careers for their children, since your allows you to get sixty K to build “an extension” I can see why you thought it was better not to.

Sickening. No apology, no admission of guilt despite being found out in deception and fraud, no understanding that the avarice at others expense is wrong at all. No remorse except at the loss of gravy train privileges. Just a continuing plaintive whine about being persecuted, in these cases because they happen to be females with family responsibilities.

As Tim Worstall pointed out when Jacqui Smith tried the same trick back in April, telling the Daily Mail

that she was the victim of a smear campaign over her expenses because she is a woman with no independent wealth.

No love, we´re not picking on you because you have a twat but because you are a twat.

Quite.

ICO to really stare quite hard at Home Office

From The Telegraph via El Reg, and H/T to Landed Underclass who covers this also.

David Smith, the deputy Information Commissioner, is demanding tighter controls amid concerns the police are pressuring businesses to install closed circuit television because it helps gather intelligence.

This would be in response to events such as this one where the Met effectively made it a condition of a publicans licence that he

“installed CCTV capturing the head and shoulders of everyone coming into the pub, to be made available to them upon request. “

Or this one, where

“police requested a licensing condition that in future, “all persons entering the premises must supply verifiable identification details that are passed through a digital scanning and recording system such as Club Scan, Idvista or similar computerised system”

The tendency of the state to treat people as it’s chattels, and the wrong-headedness of it’s faith in technology as a means of controling them is something I will no doubt harp on about at some length later, but for now let us fisk David Smith a little.

To start with, he absolutely isn’t ‘demanding’ anything. The last time the Home Office, or any other part of government listened to ICO was never. Let’s be clear about this, ICO has zero power to compel the Home Office to do anything at all.

Even if it did, no doubt Jackboots Jacqui or some other incumbent authoritarian blowhard would simply change the law to make what they wanted to do all nice and legal. The way her and that ass-hat Jack ‘Justice’ Straw did with the Coroners and Justice Bill, introducing a clause that would allow the Home Secretary to suspend or repeal by statutory instrument any law that was an obstacle to information sharing between government departments. They nearly got away with it too, and they haven’t given up. Bastards.

Mr Smith said: “”What we are worried about is that businesses are being forced into gathering information for police and the law enforcement agencies.

“The question is whether we are going too far and is this surveillance at a level that is unacceptable that doesn’t justify the benefits.

No, you odious cretin, that is absolutely not the question. ‘We’ most certainly are going to far, and this most certainly is “surveillance at a level that is unacceptable.”

The question is “What are you going to do about it ?” or more aptly, What are we going to do about it ? ICO is the most useless of all the regulators. The Data Protection Act was passed in 1984 by a Conservative government who were so keen it not apply to them in that they headquartered the regulator responsible for enforcing it in Cheshire (map)

Neither they nor the current mob want ICO any where near their business. In theory ICO has the power to bring prosecutions under the Data Protection Act, this rarely happens. This is a typical example of what does happen

“I have now in writing from the bank that she was not given their permission to give this information and the Information Commissioner’s Office has admitted she has committed a criminal offence under the DPA, although they are writing to this person, they will not be prosecuting.”

Successive governments have resolutely failed to give ICO any bigger teeth, in case it bites them, and ICO is afraid to use the ones it has in case government notices and pulls them out.

So David Smith is free to demand things from Jackboots Jacqui all he likes. He’ll be lucky to even get a response, but if does, it will undoubtedly be a resounding ‘fuck off’.