It's noted that Iain Duncan Smith seems to be amused and smirks though the speech like the pompous, unthinking, unfeeling monster he is.
Also noted that most of Ms Jackson's colleagues seem to spend their time on their phones.
In a place where a member can be told to leave the chamber for not wearing a tie, would not it be an idea for the deputy speaker to ask members there to pay attention to the debate and leave their emails and Twitter accounts, or whatever else they are doing, to a time more suitable.
As Glenda was pointing out, we are talking about real people's lives here.
**********
While we are on the subject of Twitter, after a Labour candidate in Angus tweeted this picture about some kids singing songs at the BBC protest at the weekend...
...the SNP office there was vandalised like this...
I wonder if there could possibly be a connection.
Perhaps Ms Wiles would care to comment?
The matter is in the hands of Police Scotland. It is yet to be seen whether there will be screams of outrage from Labour, as there were when someone stuck a small YES sticker on a Labour MPs office window.
It seems too that she thinks that independence supporter are benefit scroungers, which is a bit of a generalisation in honesty Ms Wiles, don't you think.
It's also pretty insulting to the many pro-independence people who are working, some I know in two different jobs to make ends meet, and looking after families or elderly relatives. (Click to enlarge this picture and read the text).
My advice to her would be to go easy on Tweeting of Facebooking. It's not your own supporters you have to impress; rather it's those who are against you whose minds you have to try to change, and you won't do it by calling them lazy scroungers or Nazis.
Methinks on the basis of these two issues, which I came upon within minutes of one another, she's not much of an asset to the Labour Party.
Update: I've just read Stuart's piece on this. Almost undoubtedly you will have as well, but just incase, here it is.
Update July 1: Wiles has apologised for the Nazi tweet. When Tom Harris associated Alex Salmond with Hitler he lost his job with Labour. Will Wiles now be told to stand down?
**********
I've just see this, and thought I should add it.
Miliband has just been attacking the SNP for wanting to reduce Corporation Tax. Anas has said that Labour never has reduced corporation tax (even though they did, twice). But having got back home to England, and not realising that we in Scotland can read and write and actually have internet, Ed's Labour party has announced that it's new policy will be.... yep... you guessed it... to reduce Corporation Tax.
I know it's an overworked cliché but sometimes you just have to say: "You really couldn't make this Balls up".
You really, really have to question the mentality of this Kathy Wiles. I mean what the hell was she thinking?
ReplyDeleteIs not even slightly possible that the kids in question would have actually wanted to go to the protest. Oh wait a minute they DID! How do we know this? Well because the mother of one of the kids actually wrote to Stu directly and told him so!
This supposedly Labour candidate has absolutely NO idea about how to behave in public office. Thank goodness she is standing in an area where her best shot is coming THIRD behind the SNP and the Tories! There again this of no surprise I suppose. I'm guessing Labour are using this election as a training run for her before sliding her into a REAL seat in Glasgow in 2020. Only one small itsy bitsy teeny weeny little problem with this plan...There will be NO Westminster General Election in Scotland in 2020. LOL
You're bang on there, Arbroath. No proper candidate would want to stand for Labour in the Angus countryside.
DeleteStill I imagine it's all over the papers this morning, just how these kids have been abused by her.
And how the SNP offices have been scored with a swastika!
Hmmmmm
She is one of the worst of the worst examples of the current crop of Labour *ahem* hopefuls. I'm thinking that she must have had that lovely Mr. Kelly as her tutor at Labour's *cough* finishing school. Well as far as I'm concerned she may have gone to their finishing school of that there is no doubt because she is well and truly FINISHED! LOL
DeleteThe thing is that they set a bad example. Clearly she wouldn't have scratched the swastika on the SNP's door, but her comments may well have "inspired" some brainless booby with scant understanding of what the Nazis stood for or what the SNP stands for.
DeleteIt can cause untold damage when people with some sort of position (at least in some people's eyes) are plain stupid.
This is not the preserve of labour of course. All parties have people who can be that irresponsible.
I see her reign as Labour's *ahem* candidate for Angus has lasted quite a long time Tris, erm she's sort of resigned! LOL
Deletehttp://tinyurl.com/nylq47w
I don't know if you noticed in the linked article Tris but apparently the protest on Sunday was NOT a protest at all but it was in fact a pro independence rally. Now call me mad if you want to, YOU'RE MAD, but I could have sworn I saw a great many anti BBC banners at the event. Surely if you're on a pro independence demo the LAST thing you'd want to take to the rally was anything to do with the BBC! LOL
Good old UKIP Channel, sorry BBC, twisting the TRUTH to suit their own agenda.
Q. When is the TRUTH not the TRUTH?
A. When the *ahem* TRUTH is reported by the UKIP Channel!
Someone on Wings said that the BBC have now changed their wording and described the demonstration accurately. I haven't checked though. Good to see that we will not have a Jackie Baillie mark 2 though.
DeleteAye they have Helena. Just a pity they could not have done what a professional and upstanding organisation would have done... printed the TRUTH right from the outset!
DeleteDon't worry about getting a Jackie Baillie mark 2 this excuse of an individual will probably pop back up again in the near future as a UKIP candidate. To be honest what she has been says on her numerous Facebook pages, all apparently now deleted, I wonder why, would tend to suggest that that is where she is more suited.
Jackson once said that it was impossible for the Welsh language to fulfil all the requirements of modern life.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly off topic, but none the less fascinating point.
DeleteIn fact all languages have to adapt to fulfil the requirements of modern life.
There was no word in English, or French or Icelandic, or any language, for a box that sat in the corner of your room and beamed rubbish and propaganda from the state, so people invented one from a mixture of Greek and Latin's "far" and "sight"...
In the Vatican, on the other hand, where they speak latin in certain administrative departments, they had to adapt words to cover modern day stuff and so they came up with manducatione gummi and lotis apparatus.
I am sure that Welsh is equally capable of such adaptations as is Manx, Cornish, Gaelic and Bréton!
Unfortunately, I'm going to agree (with a pile of caveats).
DeleteThere are several specialist jargons where *everyone* uses the english words, even when speaking their own language. Computer science is the one I know.
This is basically the same reason that we use Latin for biology, one set of terms that are the same, no matter the language, to allow people to communicate.
Look up "Lingua franca" for more examples. This isn't new, or contreversial, as far as I know.
Exactly.
DeleteThe point being that as new objects or processes come along words have to be found for them.
No one would deny that there are many things that the Welsh have had to find a new word for, adn in many cases it has been the American/English word. Of course lots of young people raised on American films/computer applications and or games use English words and they are interjected into another language.
I remember hearing someone describe Serge Gainsbourg's house in Paris (all the interior was painted in black) as "un peu spookie!!"
As the world gets smaller and smaller and people travel more and more, I'm pretty sure this will happen more and more.
In computers Illy, I am guessing that most people use the English terms (American), but in France they seem to have invented their own! The don't have computers; the have ordinateurs. They don't download; the télécharge... If I remember rightly their software is logiciel ...
Funny lot!!! Bless them.
What horrifies me most is seeing how FEW mps are in the chamber, listening or not to this important topic. Mind I suppose it's only Important to us electorate and no to those moneygrubbing carpetbaggers who are supposed to stand-up for us in parliament, he he that'll be the day when it snows blue lol. Many thanks tris, I do follow your blog and enjoy your slant on Indy.
ReplyDeleteAmazing how few peopl manage to make it to debates. This is, as Gleda pointed out, a matter that must affect most MPs' constituents. I expect that Malcolm Rifkind won';t have many problems, nor David Cameron... but most of the rest must come into contact every week with people who have been messed around, left with no money, sanctioned for getting cancer and having to go into hospital, etc.
DeleteBut it seems very few wanted to take the opportunity to berate Mr Duncan Smith about it, so the little worm got an easy ride.
Thanks for your kind words M. It really does make it worthwhile doing when you know that people enjoy it.
:)
Tris
ReplyDeleteGlenda Jackson makes good points for a change, a pity hardly anyone bothered to turn up to listen and her labour chums are more interested looking at the wine menu for their tax funded cafe within westminster.
It is just a shameful fact that we now live in a right wing nightmare, sadly supported by many in the three tory parties but it is Labour who deserve our disgust more. Our politicians have truly lost the plot and while a YES vote would be a start to make amends but if it's a no I fear that the only thing that will reform our politics of greed will be riots on the streets or people just not voting at all.
This is one of these days when your very informative, well written blog (jealousy) gets me very very angry. I dispair at how people manage to survive in this country any more. I find it a struggle each month earning the average wage and putting two through uni, how someone on benefit gets through the week is beyond me. No one on benefit is eating well or their five a day, unlike the pigs trough that is westminster and our spoilt, useless MPs. Add in the House of the Dead(Lords) and we can all see that our country is broken, probably beyond repair now.
The Angus candidate and people like Hothersall , who still blocks me (my badge of honour) are the Labour Party now and they get it from people like something for nothing Lamont and the abusive Murphy. They are very afraid that their time is coming to an end, again whatever the result in September, Labour in Scotland are on the way out unless the decent members grow a pair and throw the Tories like Lamont, Murphy out. Labour are on verge of death, the GE next year which they will lose might just be the final nail in their coffin, along with the Liberals. It will be interesting to see what rises from the ashes, will it be some decent parties or will it just be more of the same but with UKip in the mix. Really we do appear f*****.
Bruce
Thanks for YOUR kind words too Bruce... I fear it is not always well written though . :)
DeleteBut yeah.. you made me laugh about the wine menu.
I've no idea how people manage. I am lucky to not have expensive tastes in anything. I'm not fussed about so many things and I don't too much worry about having second best...
But you see some people in the supermarket, and they have a sad array of cheap, knocked down stuff in their baskets.
People come to the door, wearing hats and gloves and scarves.. and as for the poor souls who depend on the DWP and their depleted staff, struggling with new systems that don't work, mismanaged by that bloody smug self satisfied idiot ... being left without money, hungry, having the indignity of having to beg for food and then being accused of being wastrels who spash their money on luxury and get free food... it makes my blood boil.
All this in a country where people dodge their taxes; princes are funded with helicopters so that they can put their son to bed, and we can afford to be sat at Obamas left hand like some sort of Camergoon anti-christ.
I shudder to think what will happen if we lose this referendum.
Life will get worse. 60% of the cuts still have to come, and still we have a £1.5 trillion debt that can never be repaid. pensions will have to be reduced; health privatised and we may have to go back to a time when only the rich can have an education.
Dreadful place... getting worse by the day.
The DWP is in a state of chaos, under IDS I'm surprised it hasn't collapsed yet, here's the proof.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.insidehousing.co.uk/care/labour-loses-motion-on-dwp-chaos/7004457.article
Thanks anon... I've put the article here, because you have to join that site to get at it.
DeleteThe Labour Party lost a motion yesterday urging the prime minister to take control of the ‘chaotic’ Department for Work and Pensions.
The opposition day debate led by Rachel Reeves, shadow work and pensions secretary, lasted for five hours with 41 speakers. It was defeated by 310 votes to 225.
Iain Duncan Smith, secretary for work and pensions, was challenged to answer a range of questions around the timescale of universal credit, the ATOS contract for personal independence payments and the waiting times for PIP and ESA.
Speaking ahead of the debate, Ms Reeves said: ‘David Cameron’s failure to get a grip of the chaos within the Department for Work and Pensions has led to huge distress and hardship for hundreds of thousands of people and threatens to land taxpayers with a huge bill.
‘Last week the government admitted serious failings in its Department for Work and Pensions annual report on benefit fraud, universal credit and personal independence payments, but ministers refuse to act.’
She said that the debate’s aim was to ‘demand Iain Duncan Smith gets a grip of his failing department starting by setting a time limit for making disability benefit assessment decisions’.
Answering this question in the main chamber, Mr Duncan Smith said by the end of the year those on PIP ‘will not be waiting for longer than 16 weeks’. He also confirmed that the DWP are going through the competition process for the firm to take over from ATOS and said the companies would be announced in ‘due course’.
During the debate, Ms Reeves asked ‘when will the prime minister learn and take responsibility for the slow-motion car crash he has allowed to unfold? The DWP has the highest spending of any government department, and the responsibility for handling some of the most sensitive situations and some of the most vulnerable people in our country’.
She also asked for ‘ministers to publish their assessments about risks to the universal credit programme’.
Mr Duncan Smith said universal credit is ‘on track to roll out safely and securely, against the plan set out last year’.
There was a debate over the cost of universal credit, with Ms Reeves quoting £12.8 billion, whereas Ms Duncan Smith stating the total budget for the project is £2 billion and the department ‘will not overspend’.
He added: ‘Universal credit will roll out on time, and it will deliver what we have said it will deliver—at least £38 billion in net benefit to the exchequer.’
7PM, RIC Gorbals Public Meeting, Great Panel!
ReplyDeleteAbout
RIC Gorbals Public meeting, St Francis Community Centre 19:00 PANEL: Jim Sillars Jeane Freeman - Woman for Independence Allan Grogan - Labour for Independence Victoria Heaney - Radical Independence Campaign
Good panel indeed.
DeleteArbroath... I'm sorry, I didn't see your last comment above.
ReplyDeleteLOL @ the BBC... An independence rally?
Their little carpark wouldn't have held an independence rally, silly lying gits.