The right to set the minimum wage may be a wee thing to her, but for folk
that can’t keep warm in the winter, don't
eat for the last week of the month, or whose kids can't access a computer and go to school in rags it's a BIG thing. It's the wage itself that is a wee thing.
The
Bedroom tax seems only to be a wee thing when she isn't making political
capital out of it. But for folk worried about whether there will be an eviction letter in the morning mail, wee it is not.
Child care and making sure that kids get a hot meal at lunchtime is not a priority to ex teacher Lamont; she’s already made that clear. Just a wee matter of kids eating without the embarrassment of being labeled "poor" or "tinky" because their parents haven't the money to feed them, pffff! Wee indeed.
And nuclear weapons less than 40 miles away from the centre
of Glasgow may be a wee thing to her, but most folk think it's a great big fat
scary bugger of a thing, and so will she if there’s an accident.
Her officials said it was a slip of the tongue... Nah, it wasn't. She looked pleased with it. Clever Johann.
She’s an embarrassment to Labour. No
wonder they don’t let her out during the week.
Still one day she'll probably be Baroness Lamont, then she can have the last laugh at all us detractors from the vantage point of her £300 a day tax free old aristocrats' home.
You rang, my lady?
She really has to get new script writers.
ReplyDeleteIt would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
Be best for them if she just took a little time off... about 8 months should do.
DeleteShe one of our national treasures, and a big asset to the Yes Campaign, so let's hope she continues to erm... whatever it is she does.
Little things mean a lot Jo!
LOL, you're right enough Tris.
DeleteBut, that said, has she not had enough time off already?
Yep... but if I were them I'd give her some more.
DeleteHowever, I'm part of us and , as every time she opens her mouth she puts her foot in it, I'm voting she gets overtime!!!
Debate on live tv between her and Salmond on Independence. Why not. It's only a wee debate.
Just like the snp/nats make or attempt to with much
ReplyDeletesynthetic dismay to build a mountain of lies out of
a unsubstantial wee mole hill of a word.
If the snp/nats were to take every word Salmond
ever spoke and laid them end to end. They would
all add to one big lie...and it would still not reach
to an Independent Scortland,
Cos the people dont want it thats a big truth
Well Niko. The question is... are these little things, actually little?
DeleteThe trouble is that even working class MPs tend to forget how important some of these little things are when they don't suffer them.
None of these little things worry people like Ms Lamont, or indeed Nicola Sturgeon, as you never tire of pointing out.
They will never be unemployed; they will never need to go work in Tesco for nothing; they will never be told by Atos to get of their lazy cancerridden arses and get get some work done.
They could afford nannies if they had kids; their kids would have to bed for free food at school...
These little things are for little people to worry about. They are not little people.
The difference between Johann and Nicola is that Nicola seems to be able to see that even though none of it will ever worry her, it does worry a lot of people.
Johann seems to thing that WMDs and keeping the likes of George ffoulkes in waiter service is a better way to spend out taxes.
Niko,
ReplyDeleteHave you made your contribution to Jo's Cuts Commission? Will you be cutting WMD, HS2, London Cross-rail, London underground, the House of Lords, impotent Scottish MP, millions wasted by the MOD etc etc all of them make no contribution to Scotland or are you quite happy to carry on paying for them? If so vote No and tell us why?
Niko, why don't you write a guest post.
Delete"Why I am voting to stay in the UK and help America to run the world", or some variation on it?
Sorry for going off-topic, but this is really depressing:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-25945052
Three guys get arrested for doing part of the binmens' job.
They were raiding an Iceland's bin for food, wonderful "recovery" we're having here, right? If you're so poor that you need to scavange supermarket bins for food: you get arrested.
Maybe they'll get a decent meal in prision?
The Vagrancy Act of 1824. That says a lot.
DeletePeople with no home to live in and no food to eat. Cameron's 21st century Britain.
It makes me sick.
The only way it can be wrong to steal out of bins is that it's wrong that you should be forced to.
Maybe iceland should look at its policy of throwing good food away.
Are there no food banks in Highbury?
I'm not certain of the legalities here.
DeleteIceland probably can't give the food to a food bank, if it's past it's official best before date or otherwise "unfit for consumption" (which is nessecary to throw it out), the foodbank probably can't give it out legally.
The fact that some people are desperate enough to eat it even though it might have gone moldy won't matter to the foodbanks, which would probably be held liable if anyone got ill from eating bad food.
The sad thing is that Westminster can obviously afford to feed and house everyone who needs it, but they seem to prefer people homeless, destitute and starving so that they can go play royalty and pretend to be important.
Fair enough.
DeleteBut there must be a way of passing food to people before it gets to that stage. And of course frozen food should, I would thing, last for ever. (Although it may lose taste and colour). I certainly never pay any attention to the "freeze for 1 month only" instructions.! And I haven't died yet!
It's a scandal that in a country where kids go hungry, food is being thrown out.
I completely agree.
Delete"Best Before" dates are there so that shelf-stackers don't need to make judgements on whether something has gone off, and are set to avoid lawsuits, so are very conservative.
I wonder if, if companies could get away from the "must make money for shareholders at all costs" mentality, things would improve.
I don't know if any of the supermarkets have replaced their "Reduced to clear" shelves with "donated to a foodbank", but that might be a good start for sticking a bandaid on the problem.
Fixing the problem really has to start from the top, looking at minimum wage, social security, minimum working conditions, overtime regs, etc...
What's a sensible amount to live on? £20,000pa seems plenty to me (I don't make that much), but is a nice round number to work with. According to http://lordsoftheblog.net/2009/02/17/cost-of-the-house-of-lords/ the Lords cost £121,500,000pa (and lets be honest, they really don't need that money to live on), which means that scrapping *just* the house of lords would allow us to support ~10,000 people more than we do currently. Trident's replacement is in the Billions, and if we assume that it's over 25 years, that's still enough money to keep millions of people fed and housed.
Hell, now that I look at the numbers, there's absolutely no reason I can see not to make sure everyone in the UK gets at least £20,000pa from wages plus social security, regardless of what they are doing with their time. All it would take is killing Trident's replacement and the house of lords. (Feel free to double-check my maths for me, this is very back-of-the-envelope maths)
Why do we have homeless people and social security budget cuts again?
We're definitely on the same wavelength here.
DeleteWe live in a country where the government allow companies to wages that no one could live on, given the price of absolute necessities (food, shelter and heat).
That same government then demonises anyone who needs help from the government to look after themselves.
It's a horrible way to run a country.
But I suppose it's what you get when a bunch of elitists for whom feeling hungry is when nanny was 10 minutes late with afternoon tea in the nursery, or more recently when they come in from a good day's shooting ready for dinner, but have to dress before the butler rings the gong in running a country populated largely by people on minimum wage.
Your figures seem to me to stack up.
But there has to be a will, because wherever the poor get a little more, the rich get a little less.
And that seems to be utterly forbidden country.
I see that Tom Watson was wondering the same thing...
Deletehttp://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tom-watson-david-cameron-says-3093079#.UursJ_l_uCk
I watched it this morning. Johan Lamont is a disgrace to the Labour Party northern branch and a huge plus for the YES Campaign, she definately fits in with the Belter Together mob. However, I really believe that not only does this woman hate the SNP and Alex Salmond but also the poorest in Scotland. I can just picture her stepping over a begger in the street.
ReplyDeleteLabour have a real problem in their northern branch, do they replace her now and who with. My suspicion after yesterday is a wee reshuffle at the spring conference as they are quickly finding out that Darling and Lamont are real assets for the YES Camp. Miliband must have gotten a real telling off this morning from his boss David Cameron.
How dare she call things that cause misery to hundreds of thousands of Scots wee things, if she had added something about foodbanks, FREE health and english peoples money supporting us tinky Scots she would have had the set. Iain Grey was just not good but this woman has a spiteful, hateful attitude to Scotland and anyone who disagrees with her that it is astounding that the brainwashed members of the northern branch put up with it.
What a shameful woman but I so hope they keep her.
Bruce
I'm not convinced that she actually hates the poor, Bruce. I suspect that her visceral hatred for the SNP and the interruption of the existing order, only a few years before she was likely to profit from it, plus pressure from London, plus frankly not being up to the job, has affected her badly.
DeleteI think you are right. Gray was the worst of the bunch last time round and they picked him; Lamont probably was the worst this time and they picked her. They just aren't good at pickling leaders.
I wonder if they will get rid of her.
It's not politically advisable at the time 9 months from the referendum, but if they want a new leader for the general election, whatever way the referendum goes, they are going to have to act now.
On the basis that she has virtually no powers, (even her reshuffle in Holyrood was probably dictated from London) and she is a liability to Labour and No, they should get rid of her.
But they have a huge problem. Who will they put in her place?
Baroness Lamont? Some day? She's going to have to be helluva quick, that's all I can say.
ReplyDeleteWell, the London lot have said that after a yes vote Scots would still be British, so I suppose the seat in the HoL would still be available to her.
DeleteHow the English would react to Scots sitting in their parliament, I have no idea.
Well, if they want to pay her £300 a day, who are we to cavil?
DeleteI can think of no greater joy than watching UKIP having a fit.
tris
ReplyDeleteWhat would IDS say
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25965140
"Nokia has been - and is still today - a Finnish company and if you think about the Finnish psyche, it's a very fair culture," says Ari.
"When we do something we always want to see it through. You don't see Finns bailing out, that's not part of the culture so I think you would expect that from Nokia.
"For workers in America, if you worked at a company like General Electric it's more like you get the package - a month's salary - and go. They lock the doors on the day you are fired.
"At Nokia there were people who knew they were going to be laid off in six months and they were able to stay at Nokia with a Nokia email address with the Nokia laptop and spend time applying for new things and Nokia helped them. That's pretty fair."
Probably a few choice 4 letter words.
DeleteInteresting article. It seems to have been a great place to work (look at that photograph of its head office). Great culture, decent way of treating people.
Iain Druncan Smith wouldn't like it or the kind of atmosphere in Finland. They treat ordinary people with respect and there is no House of Blue Bloods to retire too.
New post is related to this and I'll put a link to this article. Thanks Niko.
My ex-boss was paid off a couple of years ago.
DeleteShe was told, escorted to her office where she was allowed half an hour, supervised, to take her personal; belongings. She didn't have access to her computer during this time.
She was then escorted to the door. She had done nothing wrong, but was, due to cuts, no longer required. Yet she was treated like a criminal.
I see JC+ sanctioned a man fro withdrawing from an ATOS assessment, after the nurse who was conducting the assessment told him he was having a heart attack and stopped the examination....presumably so he could be taken to hospital. Way to get your benefit claimant figures down.
Deletehttp://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sick-benefits-claimant-heart-attack-3098219#.UuwrmT1_sjE