Conservative


The government is reading your Facebook and Twitter feeds. Tell them what you think.

The Government is extending its market research spend to track trends on social media and get feedback from it faster.

Some people see this as spying and worry about its effects on free speech, eg- The government is about to start spying on your Facebook and Twitter feeds a lot more | Vox Political

I’m not so paranoid (about this particular announcement, anyway). I save my worries for the Snoopers’ Charter and other measures the Tories want to bring in. This sounds more like paying someone to see what’s trending, so they can have a better idea of what’s likely to become a talking point.

Vocal opposition makes a difference. Even this government will change (or, at least, water down) policies if it realises they are hated. So, the more people declaring their anger at stupid policies, the better. The paranoid types who see this as a reason to clam up in the feeds are going to have the opposite effect to the one they want.


Theresa May’s plan to censor TV shows condemned by Tory cabinet colleague | World news | The Guardian

Former culture secretary Sajid Javid told prime minister he was unable to support home secretary’s proposals as they infringed freedom of speech

It’s not just that the plan would give censorship powers to the Government, it’s that “extremism” is such a vaguely defined thing. Based on past experience, any speech that runs counter to the Government’s chosen narrative can be labelled extreme.

Source: Theresa May’s plan to censor TV shows condemned by Tory cabinet colleague | World news | The Guardian


The 14 Worst Human Rights Myths – RightsInfo

This myth-busting visualization will take news-making human rights stories and explain the reality behind the headline

Prepare to hear the false columns from this repeated over an over for months or years as Gove gets the crayons out and tries to scrawl all over the Human Rights Act.

Source: The 14 Worst Human Rights Myths – RightsInfo


The arguments against the Human Rights Act are coming. They will be false | Keir Starmer | Comment is free | The Guardian

the HRA has heralded a new approach to the protection of the most vulnerable in our society, including child victims of trafficking, women subject to domestic and sexual violence, those with disabilities and victims of crime. After many years of struggling to be heard, these individuals now have not only a voice, but a right to be protected. The Tory plans to repeal the HRA, together with the restricted access to our courts already brought about by the restriction on judicial review introduced by Gove’s predecessor, Chris Grayling, will silence the vulnerable and leave great swaths of executive action unchecked and unaccountable.

Maybe someone should print up Human Rights Act lies bingo cards to check all anti-HRA statements against.

Source: The arguments against the Human Rights Act are coming. They will be false | Keir Starmer | Comment is free | The Guardian


11 reasons the poor are worried that Iain Duncan Smith is back in charge of benefits cuts

I reckon “Reasons this government are shit and dangerous” could become a daily feature. Some repeats in this article, but it also gives a bunch of pointers for bad decisions that are likely to come our way in the next few years.

Source: 11 reasons the poor are worried that Iain Duncan Smith is back in charge of benefits cuts – General Election 2015 – UK Politics – The Independent


And so it begins

A couple of years ago, I noted how the coalition government seemed to be rolling appalling ideas out the door on a regular basis, as if to overwhelm and confound attempts to hold them to account. Well, the new Conservative government has got straight down to continuing the policy.

Within hours of the result, it was announced that payments to help disabled people in work are likely going to be cut.

There are plans to bring in the “Snoopers’ Charter”, so that we can all be spied on by the security services.

And, yesterday, Michael Gove, one of the most hated people in UK politics, was made Justice Secretary, where he will be working to scrap the Human Rights Act and bring in a “British Bill of Rights”. Previous blather about a British Bill of Rights have suggested that you forfeit rights if you don’t uphold certain responsibilities. Given the last government’s form, one of those responsibilities could be not being poor or disabled.

As other people have done, I’m going to list the rights and freedoms set out in the Human Rights Act below, and ask- which ones to the Tories want to do away with?

Right to life

Freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment

Right to liberty and security

Freedom from slavery and forced labour

Right to a fair trial

No punishment without law

Respect for your private and family life, home and correspondence

Freedom of thought, belief and religion

Freedom of expression

Freedom of assembly and association

Right to marry and start a family

Protection from discrimination in respect of these rights and freedoms

Right to peaceful enjoyment of your property

Right to education

Right to participate in free elections

The Snoopers’ Charter and removal of benefits from vulnerable people act against two of those rights, for a start. There are bound to be others.

Unlike 2013, I’m better prepared to argue and campaign against the coming disasters of another five years of the Tories. One of the ways I’m going to do this is by not dwelling too much on all the idiotic ideas they come out with. I’ll report on them here, so that more people know about them, but mostly I’ll concentrate on positive alternatives and actions. I’m a member of the local Green Party, and I’ll be campaigning with them on issues, as well as trying to find ways for folks to help themselves.

And I’m going to keep on writing. I’m going to entertain and inform in ways that are going to make them want to remove the freedom of expression from whatever mess Gove comes up with.


The austerity delusion | Paul Krugman | Business | The Guardian

A long read, with economics related stuff in it, but worth working through.

Short, angry version- austerity is bullshit and held back economic recovery. The Conservatives are either economically illiterate or only imposed it because of pressure from big business and their rich friends. And Labour are a bunch of pathetic cowards because they’ve been bullied into promising to stick with a failed policy.

Source: The austerity delusion | Paul Krugman | Business | The Guardian


Vote for Policies

Unlike the polls that the papers and TV news always report on, Vote for Policies is an assessment of what policies the people of Britain would vote for. It’s possible I’m biased- because Green policies are much more popular than the polls would have you believe*- but I think the site’s results should be part of the wider media coverage of the election. Rather than seeing what today’s message failure has done to Ed or Dave’s popularity, how about seeing what people think of their policies.

Take the test, it could be enlightening. Also, it has now been brought up to date with all the released manifestos.

*As I write this, the Green Party is third, after Labour and the Lib Dems. Add the Scottish Greens to their rating and they edge, just, into second place.


Perhaps Tory MPs should just keep their mouths shut

Oh look, another Tory MP has said something stupid.

A Tory MP told an autistic man not to comment on public affairs due to his mental health issues.

Insensitive Guto Bebb also dismissed Dylan Barlow’s Asperger’s syndrome as a “sob story” in a series of emails after his constituent raised questions on foreign matters.

The MP for Aberconwy, North Wales, wrote: “If you have mental health issues then you should possibly refrain from commenting in the public domain since it might create problems for you.”

Mr Barlow, 27, later said the MP was living “in the dark ages” and fumed: “We live in an age of free speech and for a politician to believe otherwise, goes to show the problems we face in our daily struggles.”

Mary Wimbury, Labour’s general election candidate for Aberconwy, urged her rival to “think long and hard about his future behaviour”.

But Mr Bebb denied his comments were derogatory and insisted he was giving “a generous piece of advice”.

Tory MP tells autistic man not to comment on public affairs due to his mental health issues – Mirror Online.


Shameless star Maxine Peake attacks Tory ‘untruths’ over leftwing library | Culture | The Observer

Shameless star Maxine Peake attacks Tory 'untruths' over leftwing library | Culture | The Observer.

I walk past the Working Class Movement Library on the way to and from work. I really should drop in and have a look around.

The surprising thing about this report isn’t that Tories would make such dumb statements about it, but that Salford actually has any Conservative councillors in the first place.


The Cost of Cameron: 100 Worst Failures of David Cameron’s Government from May 2010 to Dec 2013

The Cost of Cameron, by Éoin Clarke
The 100 worst failures of David Cameron’s Government from May 2010 to December 2013. (note all 100 points are evidenced. Click on the word “evidence” at the end of each point to reveal the proof of the claim made therein.)

via The Green Benches: The Cost of Cameron: 100 Worst Failures of David Cameron's Government from May 2010 to Dec 2013.


This government is so bad I don’t even know where to start

I want to direct some justified anger at the government. They seem intent on destroying everything good about this country and leaving behind a wasteland which only benefits billionaire tax evaders, incompetent bankers and Paul Dacre.

The problem is, almost every week they do something else appalling and the anger gets diverted and redirected. It’s almost as if their survival policy is to keep wrong-footing decent people by throwing up a smokescreen of ever changing petty, sociopathic, shit ideas so that we’re too confused about what we should be aiming at. Anyone who tried to confront Cameron, Osborne or Clegg with even a small list of the things they’re fucking up would run the risk of looking like a babbling, incoherent weirdo.

Having said all that, here’s another five reasons to hate these scum.

It used to be that when politicians wanted to bury bad news they’d orchestrate its release to time with a distracting event. Seeing Iain Duncan Smith publicly criticized for wasting at least £140 million of public money over Universal Credit at the start of this month, it struck me how we’ve slowly reached another level. “Unmitigated disaster”? “Alarmingly weak”? These words were used to describe Universal Credit but could easily have been levelled at a number of largely unreported changes to the benefit system. Nowadays, bad news is buried by even worse news. The sheer volume of inefficient and unethical changes to social security this Government has enacted means some of it doesn’t even get noticed. Which, for a set of politicians hacking at vulnerable people’s support systems, is worryingly convenient.

So, here’s five benefit changes the government doesn’t want you to know about.

5 benefit changes the government don't want you to know about.


Plan A is to destroy everything of any value, isn’t it?

Funding cuts have lead to Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry, the National Media Museum in Bradford and the National Rail Museum in York facing closure.

The cuts were part of this moronic “austerity” plan the Government is so keen on, despite the fact it’s not only not working but making things worse. Sneakily privatising the NHS (something almost everyone in the cabinet will benefit from financially) and bringing in policies that kill people are far worse than the closure of a few museums, but it gives us a taste of the wasteland that’s going to be left behind by this bunch of morons.


…and this is why people think the Tories are scum

Allegedly, the victim-blaming, bullying, poor people killing changes to the Social Security, the NHS and anything else the Tories feel like destroying are all about helping decent, hard working types. People who “who get up in the morning and work hard” in Osborne’s own words. Except that, as their wrong-headed policies continue to be useless, they’ll need to find another bunch of people to blame, and those scapegoats will be the low-paid.

Minimum wage could be frozen or cut if it starts to cost jobs or damage economy, Government suggests – Telegraph.

Cameron, Osborne and co. will shaft anyone less powerful than them in the name of their dogmatic, greedy and useless policies. If they really wanted to bring the benefits bill down, they’d raise the minimum wage, because lowering it is just using taxpayers’ money to subsidise unscrupulous companies. Introduce the Living Wage and you reduce the number of working people who are still so poor they need benefits (80% of benefits claimants, I read somewhere) and stimulate the economy in numerous ways.

But the Tories won’t do that, because they’re scum.


“How many poor people can we kill with this policy?” 3

If there’s one thing the eighties should have taught us, it’s that the the Tories are scum. They’re a bunch of chancers who care more about their, and their cronies’, wealth than the nation’s health. They’ll take anything that benefits us all equally and find a way, preferably by stealth, to take it off us and give it to a rich, tax avoiding chums. If they can then find a way to have those of us on low to middle incomes pay for the dodgy deal, all the better.

The current government keep coming out with policies designed to kill people. They can’t be so stupid that they don’t see the damage they’re doing, so the only conclusion is that they’re a bunch of evil little sociopaths. So long as the ones who suffer are the little people who can’t afford to lobby then they don’t really care.

Assessment to Disability Living Allowance has been effectively privatised, turned into a box ticking exercise with incentives to fail as many people as possible and discourage those who could be helped from even applying. The changes have already killed people*.

Coming soon, we have the Bedroom Tax, which, you’ll be shocked to discover, is going to hurt poor parents and the disabled. Because someone who is already down can’t fight back as well and is easier to kick some more.

From April, Legal Aid is changing so that it no longer covers Family Law. People aren’t going to be able to settle custody battles, they’ll lose contact with their children and- without a doubt- some will be trapped in abusive relationships that see them being killed.

But, because they haven’t squeezed anyone enough, the Tories are now hoping to use the cover of the almost non-existent threat of “welfare tourism” to try to make changes which will make it even harder for anyone to access state aid they’re entitled to.

If the Tory government is bad, then the party is worse. The policy that has the party members up in arms isn’t any of the ones that will hurt people and destroy the country, but a rare example of Cameron and co. doing something humane and decent. Starve the sick and the poor, steal our money and give it to your pals to filter offshore and privatise the NHS all you want, they say, but don’t you dare let two people of the same sex call their union a marriage. That’s beyond the pale.

I want to believe we can get away from these people, but I don’t see who would take over. The Libdems are probably going to be relegated back to their previous status of novelty act at the next election** and Labour still carry the stink of Blair. The “new force” in British politics is UKIP, apparently, but they have undertones of racism and overtones of incompetence. I’m going to investigate the Green Party and, failing that, secession.

*When even the Daily Mail- the go-to newspaper for victim blaming- can bring itself to say there’s a problem, you know something is horribly wrong.

**I held out such great hopes for the Liberal Democrats at the last election, and I voted for them. To say I’m disappointed in them would be a massive understatement.


The video THEY don’t want you to see

Don’t worry, I haven’t gone all conspiracy theory loony on you. The video in question will only really be of interest to a small number of people, but the information in it will be very important to them and reassuring at a time when they’ll need to know that not all of the system is against them.

The Ministry of Justice put the video online in March. Then took it down a week later. According to Liberal Conspiracy

Independent benefits expert Neil Bateman discovered that the video was taken down after employment minister Chris Grayling emailed the ministry complaining about, amongst other things, the fact that it told claimants:

-that they are twice as likely to win their appeal if they appear in person rather than having a paper hearing;
-that the DWP doesn’t normally send a representative to the hearing;
-to send additional evidence to the tribunal, when Grayling wants it sent to the DWP.

The video went up again earlier this week, and started receiving hits out of proportion to other MoJ productions. So it was taken down again.

It’s such a shame that people can copy videos and upload them themselves, isn’t it.

If you find this information useful don’t forget to send a little thank you note to the Ministry of Justice for producing it.