THE MEMBERS WHO VOTED AGAINST TORY/LIBERAL/LABOUR AUSTERITY

I suppose most of us would agree that there has to be some cutting back.

But cutting back on social security, pensions and in general anything that benefits the poorer in our society is hardly fair, and exactly what we expect from the Westminster coalition of three parties. 

After all, we are in this situation because a succession of right of centre governments, Thatcher, Major, Blair and Brown adn Cameron, have wantonly spent money on stuff we couldn't afford and didn't need and have allowed the banks and insurance companies to play fast and loose with the financial services industry that served the country well enough until Thatcher started to deregulate.

If we need to save money, (we do), and if we really are all in this together (we're not), there are several things I'd like to see cut. 

Firstly, our nuclear weapons aren't needed. They are not even technically ours. They belong in every way (except paying for them), to America. America counts them as part of their weaponry. Whilst the French WOULD NEVER use their nukes without America's permission, the truth is that we COULDN'T even if we wanted to, because America holds the firing codes. So Cameron doesn't even have a red button!

In any case America has plenty of nukes of its own. Britain only has them for show, and to allow it to have a seat at the top table. It's a bit like the family whose main breadwinner just lost his job but they keep the Mercedes in the drive to impress the neighbour, even though they can't afford to put petrol in it adn sneak out the back to get the bus. 

So let's bin it.

A smaller saving, but one nonetheless that we could make is to rehouse all the royals into Buckingham Palace (it has over 500 rooms after all) and sell off the other palaces. Clarence House, St James's, Kensington Palace, Windsor Castle and all the other grace and favours in London would raise a fortune not to mention the vast treasures that are housed in them. And it's not like the royals would be falling over each others' corgis. They all have private houses to live in, and some of them have several. On the subject of the royals, we should slim them down to just the very top ones. The rest should go get jobs, or sign on just like other people do.

I read that the Westminster parliament buildings are falling into ruin. It seems that several billions are going to have to be spent on renovating them, and, in the meantime finding suitable accommodation for the UK parliament, both houses, including the preposterously large house of lords. 

I suggest a fairly simple building be constructed or perhaps even converted, preferably in one of the northern English towns and made available for them. I'd close their restaurants which are subsided to the hilt and they can do what most people do at lunch time and go to the shops for a sandwich... or bring it in with them and eat it at their desks. (Oh shock horror... but they really are just ordinary people with ordinary red blood. They won't die, unlike some of the people they've kicked out into the street, from queuing in a sandwich shop.)

In the interim they can use one of the vacated royal palaces with a large enough room for debates. let's be fair most of them don;t turn up most of the time anyway. (The lords will probably need beds because the old fellows/dears sleep a lot of the time.)
Then we should sell off the BBC. It's not necessary to have a state broadcaster. The BBC may have originally been meant to provide us with mind improving programmes but they long ago ceased to serve that purpose. The garbage they produce at enormous cost could easily be provided by the private sector. And let's be honest, the coalition of three parties in the UK LOVE privatizing things.

I'm going to stop there, but the list is endless...

I'd welcome any suggestions for what kind of austerity you would like to see in the 2015-2020 parliament.

Addendum:

Here's the list of New Tories that voted for £30 billion cuts. I wonder how many of them voted against their own pay rises!

List of Shame. The New Tories.
Sod the poor, we're getting 11%!

And again... you couldn't make this dame up...

And today she voted for another £30 b in cuts.
I can't think of any words for her.
Munguin can, but he's a very rude animal!

PREPARE TO MEET THINE END

The UK government announced a  little while ago that people will no longer be obliged to buy an annuity with the money they get from their pension funds.

This presumably means that they can blow the lot on a Porsche, a round-the-world cruise, or a regular good time with Fifi le Malmal (2nd floor left, knock twice).

The downside of that, of course is that when it's done, it's done... and you wouldn't want to have to exist on a British state pension, given that it is the lowest in the developed world after Mexico.

So the pensions minister, in a desperate bid to keep down with the rest of the Work and Pension low life in the Tory government, has decided to tell you when you can expect to die.

Yes, when you retire you will get your pension book, your bus pass and details of when you can expect to quit this life, Steve Webb, who used to be a Liberal, bless him, has announced.

So, although you will get a more accurate forecast on your retirement date, when Mystic Steve pops round to see you with his crystal balls, Munguin has thoughtfully provided you will a rough idea of when you can expect to pop your clogs, so that you can plan not to be a burden on Gidiot Osborne. 

As you can see people in Scotland don't do too terribly well out of this, but the good news is that they can spend all their money faster than those poor people in the South of England who are going to have to make the niggardly amount last longer.

Our worry is that people in Northern Ireland must be expected to die on their 65th birthday... In which case Munguin's advice to them is spend it all on your credit card and take out massive loans the year before you are due to retire, and leave someone else to sort it out.

I was wondering, If Mystic Steve gets it wrong, and you last another few weeks... will you be able to claim social security?

Joking aside... Have you ever heard of anything so crass?

NOW WE KNOW WHY THE TORIES AREN'T DOING SO WELL...

Clearly we peasants are revolting.
I wonder if Boris can explain why Labour is
doing so badly.

SCROUNGER MAINE

Click on picture for larger (readable) image. This is almost unbelievable, until you remember it's Westminster and she's a Tory MP.

BETTER TOGETHER...WITH THIS LOT... WHAT???

Heartbreaking stories...

...Reminiscent of the 1800s

While this sort of scumbag looks down from on high
Lord Ponse

Makes you proud. Can this be the same nation that hosted the best
Olympic Games in the history of the universe?

Thousands have died and thousands more will die. Who cares?

Incompetent moron

Oh you'll think of something, you bastard

Way to save money...

...which can be redistributed upwards

The white powder is erm chalk

Oh and sharing nuclear secrets...given that no one
else will build your power stations

Only the best  for people of his quality

You deserve it George, for just being born.

I think you already have it

How very generous

Well, you have to look after your family ...

Fancy that, a French Viscount

No use asking me. I'm not George Osborne...thank heavens

Priorities, dear boy, priorities

Britain is a scam if you ask me.

Think about it.  You go to uni; you have £40,000 debt; you get on your bike, get a job and move into your own place, then you get paid off and want to move back in with your mum, but she's had to downsize because of bedroom tax, so you're homeless.  That's modern Britain's offer of a future for young people

Way to go George. You know a thing of two about economics

Greedy spiv

That is just such an insult to the post and the turtle...
 and the bits of dead grass you can see

AND YET ANOTHER PIECE OF SCROUNGING DETRITUS...

LIBERAL FLIGHTS OF FANCY

It occurs to me yesterday's intervention by Michael Moore (or as Peter Bell calls him Mr Pointless), surpasses in stupidity all previous attempts by him to undermine the cause of independence.

He announced that border posts would be erected between Scotland and England and that even farm tracks and side roads would be manned by armed guards.

The notion has been raised before (perhaps by Captain Darling?) and, as I remember, it was put in its box at that time.

The British Isles is a common travel area. There are at present five different jurisdictions which enjoy freedom of travel sans passeport or other travel documentation  States of Jersey, States of Guernsey, The UK, The Republic of Ireland, The Isle of Man. 

Three of these jurisdictions are not even in the EU. 

During the years of "the troubles" in Ireland, there was still freedom of travel between the republic and the province.

Why on Earth would the UK want to have border posts between England and Scotland. It would inconvenience travellers and disrupt trade between the two nations. It would serve no useful purpose and it would cost a fortune. There is no guarantee that an independent scotland would agree to man their side of the border, deeming it unnecessary.

The only conclusion one can draw is that the Uk authorities would choose to be awkward with Scotland for the sake of being awkward with Scotland. In other words they would behave like a petulant child.

Either that, of course, or Mr Pointless is fibbing?

Ah, Project Fear's idea of positivity!
**********

I was intrigued to read in the Daily Telegraph that the government in London has suggested that pensioners will have to remain in their jobs until they are 70. Not this time because the   government can't afford to pay pensions (although it can't), but because the UK is running out of workers.

That's an interesting concept, given that there are millions of people who are unemployed and England is apparently overrun with "foreigners". But according to the Department for Work and Pensions' Steve Webb (so the usual warning apply and pinches of salt are available on request), employers will need to fill 13.5 million job vacancies over the next 10 years, but only 7 million young people will leave school and college during that time.

Webb tells us that this is not a plan to force people to work “into their seventies and beyond” but was aimed at preventing older workers dropping out, perhaps through treatable health problems. The article mentions that McDonalds have found it useful to have older and younger people working together.

“This isn't ‘work ‘til you drop,’” Webb lied, I mean, said. “This is actually enabling people to carry on, and in most cases that is good for their wellbeing as well.”

This translates into: "This is a plan to reduce people's uptake of pensions to save us money, because we are Tories (well, as good as) and we don't like paying out state money to ordinary people. Just because their health is deteriorating doesn't mean that they shouldn't be forced to work in McDonalds. It will be good for them. I myself shall continue 'working' from the red benches in the House of Lords until my state funeral and possibly after."

To think I once contemplated voting Liberal Democrat! Is there one 't' or two in prat?

THEY'RE COMING TO TAKE HER AWAY... or ... IS THIS WHAT WE PAY THEM FOR?

This was the display at Prime Minister's Questions yesterday in Westminster. This is Ann Marie Morris (Bryanston and Oxford), and Tory MP for Newton Abbot.


Now we have some half wits in Edinburgh, and some that are good for a laugh once they start... but none, as far as I can see, that require a straight jacket (well not now that LORD George ffoulkes has gone). 


No wonder her arm is in a sling! The rest of her should join it.

TORY POLICY ON PLANNING IN ENGLAND SEEMS CONFUSED

I’m glad that the Calman Commission rejected any calls from whichever quarters to repatriate Scottish Planning decisions to England.

I suspect that nuclear power stations were our biggest worry at the time. But now, of course, we would have reason to worry about the relaxation of planning regulations, and the instruction to local planning authorities that there should be a “presumption in favour of sustainable developments” when looking at building permits.

Well... of course, only if you don’t have a minister as your MP.

Because, unbeknownst to us, there are ministers who fight tooth and nail against developments in their own constituencies while advocating the laissez faire policy elsewhere.

The Telegraph, no less, that bastion of Torydom has blown the whistle on a few of them.

Eric Pickles criticised the previous government’s attempts to relax planning regulations, fearing “sprawling housing estates dumped by Whitehall on green land”. Clearly, as he is so closely involved with this project, these sprawling estates are now a good, rather than a bad thing.

Gideon signed a petition against the development of an energy plant in his constituency.

Joan Hanham, the ex Tory leader of Kensington & Chelsea Council, and now a junior minister in the Communities Dept, even objected to a memorial garden for Diana in her constituency, but is pushing this legislation from her place on the red benches.

Justine Greening (Putney) is a supporter of the Thames Super Sewer project, but she doesn't want it tunnelled from her own constituency. Michael Fabricant has objected to a development in his own constituency but, as a Whip will be pushing people through the lobby to support the government and Grant Shapps, the housing minister, has also opposed plans for thousands of new houses in his Welwyn Hatfield constituency.

But the pièce de résistance has to be the cities minister Greg Clark (above), the person responsible for the legislation, who fought a development in his own constituency warning that it would cause "yet more pressure on our precious green spaces". Clark has now, in an incredible volte face unbelievably accused those who criticise his legislation of displaying “nihilistic selfishness” for trying to stop people getting on the housing ladder.

Sheesh! You couldn’t make these people up.

With every day I am more relieved that this awful coalition have little remit in Scotland. Life must be getting day by day more impossible in England.

PS: I have a great idea for a massive housing estate of affordable houses and houses for rent. I'm going to propose it for the space right behind, at the side of and in front of this nice family mansion in Oxfordshire (top pic). I can see no reason why it should be turned down, and if it is I will go straight to the local MP.

CHRISTOPHER JOKE... NO SORRY THAT SHOULD READ CHOPE (OR SHOULD IT?)

The Employment Opportunities Bill, sponsored by Christopher Chope , is due to have its second reading today.

Basically, the bill seeks to make the minimum wage negotiable between the employee and employer. In other words, an employee can sign a piece of paper which absolves the employer from the responsibility of paying the minimum wage, rather like happens with the Working Time Directive at present. There is apparently nothing in the Bill to stop an employer making it clear at interview that the successful candidate will have taken that route, although clearly it is not compulsory.

The idea of the Bill then, is to start a race for the bottom wage-wise. If this Bill passes, we might expect to see people working for £4 or £3 an hour or even less.

Mr Chope (is that an English name?), who is pictured above (fine figure of a man) has form when it comes to illiberal, I’m all right policies.

In 1986, Chope was promoted by Thatcher to a junior post at the Department of the Environment where he steered through the poll tax legislation. Chope was chairman of the Thatcherite “Conservative Way Forward”, so that tells you what kind of a bloke he is.

According to Wikipedia, in February 2009, he called for the minimum wage to be abolished. His Employment Opportunities Bill, which “would have introduced more freedom to the job market and decrease unemployment” or so he said, was backed by ten other Conservative MPs at the first reading. If I remember rightly Niko highlighted this on his blog, with the names and email addresses of the said members, and asked people to email them. I did, and only one (Philip Davis) had the good manners to reply.

Later that year, in the expenses scandal, it emerged that Chope had claimed £136,992 in parliamentary expenses in 2007/08. This included claiming £881 to repair a sofa. So he is quite happy that the lower orders should earn less than you can live on, but he thinks that he should be able to claim that kind of money for repair to one of his sofas. An OAP has to live for 2 months on that money.

On 12 March 2010, he was responsible for the blocking of a bill to protect the world's poorest countries from debt sharks use of "vulture funds", despite the Tories’ support for the bill They were furious and embarrassed at its blocking. There were only three Tories in the Chamber at the time and all three hung their heads so no one could tell who had said “Object” which scuppered the Bill. Clearly a coward too.

Chope favours capital punishment, which is fine with me, because although I don’t support it, I’d happy make an exception for a scumbag like him. There’s a lamppost somewhere with his name on it.

He’s the kind of bloke you wouldn’t rush to help if he were on fire and you were passing with a spare bucket of water; an excuse for a human.

COALITION CANDIDATE CONTEMPT!

Do you remember last year there was a suggestion that at the next election the coalition might formalize its relationship (which is working so well after all); that the Lib Dems might not put up candidates against the Tories where the Tories were in second place and the Tories would do likewise.

The idea was of course that the Lib Dem candidate would hoover up the Tory votes and thus overtake their SNP or Labour rivals (or in England possibly UKIP) and that the Tories would do the same. Like a lot of the coalition it sounds great on paper, but as Nick Clegg and his party are finding it does not transfer so easily into practice .

Well the whole thing was roundly poo-pooed by the great and good in both parties. Cleggums and “Call me” were apparently horrified at the idea. After all we assumed that the Lib Dems would simply be subsumed by the larger party and wouldn’t that be bad for democracy as in it would reduce even further the limited choicer offered to British voters?

But it now seems that Tory and Lib Dem MPs will be able to stand as joint Coalition candidates at the next election under plans sneakily put in motion this week.

Ministers are to change the law to allow candidates standing for two parties at the same time to put a joint emblem on the ballot paper. This opens the way for an electoral pact between the Coalition partners at the next election.
It opens the door to Tory and Lib Dems agreeing local peace pacts with one candidate representing them both, perhaps under a logo combining the lesser-spotted yellow-bellied Liberal Democrat bird squatting in the English Oak of the Tories.

At the moment, a candidate standing for more than one party cannot put either party’s logo on the ballot paper, an anomaly that discriminates against coalition pacts.

Earlier this week the Government quietly pushed through a change in the law which allows those who stand for mayor or in local council elections to use a Coalition logo. Constitutional Affairs Minister Mark Harper wants the same rules for the general election.

So now Mr Harper has revealed that he will introduce primary legislation in the Commons to push through the same rules for the general elections. You guessed it, in in time for the next UK-wide poll in 2015.

Of course allowing them to field one candidate on a coalition ticket is one thing but actually getting people to vote for them is another. Do they really think the grass roots of each party are going to be happy to vote for a candidate hitherto opposed to them? So is this that hackneyed phrase trotted out so much of late, "a U-turn", it sure seems like it to me!

Get ready for coalition candidates coming to a polling station near you.

I have no objection at all to them having a formal coalition candidate on the polling slip and indeed think it will be to the benefit of the SNP, as they will get disgruntled voters from both sides. What I object to is the way they seem to think we are all so stupid that we wont remember that six months ago they were saying this was a totally outrageous notion, but now they are sneakily laying the groundwork for actually making it happen.

Do they thing we all, man, woman and child, zip up the back to treat us with such cavalier contempt? They have supposedly five years, so why don’t they wait for a decent amount of time before completely reversing course?

IT SEEMS WE SHOULD BREED FROM BETTER STOCK

I’d have a lot more time for the Tory foot in mouth approach, which is “only good humoured joshing” according to their supporters, if they were a little more adept at taking what they are happy to hand out.

But the sensitivity when they are portrayed as a bunch of chinless wonders who went straight from Eton up to Oxford and from there into a safe seat in the shires knows no bounds. ‘That doesn’t mean anything’, say Tory supporters. ‘Just because they are rich it doesn’t mean that they don’t understand the plight of the poor; just because they went to Eton it doesn’t mean they don’t understand what it is like to be at an inner city comprehensive’. But they can’t half dish it out.

I mean, I don’t hold with all this political correctness myself. I have no problem with the Prime Minister calling the Speaker a dwarf, as he apparently did for a cheap laugh, according to David Hughes (of the Telegraph). As a Scot I am not insulted in the least when as part of his speech he mocks Danny Alexander, his Chief Secretary for wearing a skirt. I frankly don’t give a thought to the fact that in discussing Ian Gilmour’s career his summation is “shit happens” (certainly does).

I’m not bothered that one of his rather dubious new appointees to the House of Endless Treasure has shown what he thinks about poor people “breeding”. After all, I doubt very much if there are a large number of people anywhere who give a stuff what Howard Flight thinks about anything at all, much less anything to do with breeding!! Even Michael Howard took steps to stop him from standing as an MP. And if Old Young (ha ha, I actually didn’t mean that) thinks that we’ve all had a great recession and doesn’t think that 500,000 redundancies adds up to a hill of beans, fine. Again, he’s just not important enough to bother much about. (Isn’t it lucky for him, though, that his resigning in disgrace means that he can still collect three hundred and odd quid a day, but this time for doing sod all!!?)

But they really have to accept that if they can say insensitive things about people, so can we lesser beings about them.

So wise up you bunch of toffee nosed posh Bullingdon boys and learn to take it like men... of course I said that with love, and I mean it in the nicest possible way.

Perhaps in the interests of fairness and balance it would be an apt time to point out that even the uber politically correct Harwoman thought herself above the rules when she called poor old Danny (he gets it from both sides... OK that’s enough!) a ginger rodent.

Politically incorrect pics: (1) Dave. I can see why he has his own photographer with his soft focus, and touch up facilities. He looks a bit rough and wrinkly and is that grey hair I see after only 6 months? (2) Howard is another one who could do with a face lift, now he’s got £300 a day coming in maybe he’ll at least get some botox. Too much breeding perhaps? (3) What untidy handwriting Howard. You’ll need to smarten up now you’re..bwa ha ha ...aristocracy... and thus must have (wait for it) BREEDING. (4) Ging: OK, I know it’s not a rodent. It was the best I could do. Wonder what he looks like in a skirt. (5) Well I’d say that Harry was looking drunk as a puggie here, but she’s only a girl and would probably cry.

In keeping with accepted political practice I now unreservedly apologise for any hurt I caused and withdraw my remarks completely.