The government has been sent a "warning shot" by voters over planning reforms for England and the HS2 rail link, the co-chairman of the Tories has said. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Amanda Milling said voters' concerns were "loud and clear" after the Lib Dems won the Chesham and Amersham by-election...
Local opposition to the HS2 high-speed rail line being built through the constituency and the government's proposed changes to the planning system, which could see more homes being built in rural areas, were major factors in the poll.
Seems that Home-Owner-Ism is reasserting itself at the dominant ideology in the UK. Who cares about jobs, pollution, equality, balance of trade and all that peripheral stuff?
This also goes to show, that if you want something to happen, the best tactic is to vote for a single-issue party and nudge the government in your direction. The Lib Dems perform well at by-elections because they will jump on any old local bandwagon or champion whatever single issue bothers local voters. They aren't bogged down with anything like coherent, national issues or having to worry about what they'd do if they were actually in charge.
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As a contrast to this, it looks like the Tories are going to win the by-election in the former Labour constituency, Batley and Spen:
Johnson went to Batley to campaign with Ryan Stephenson, Tory candidate in the Batley and Spen by-election... Mr Johnson said: "That means looking at all the issues that matter, whether that's people's education, improving skills in this area, working with Kirklees to improve skills, putting more money into apprenticeships.
"Opportunity isn't equally distributed and the objective of levelling up is to work with great people in West Yorkshire, in Batley, to give young people growing up in the area the chances they deserve."
Of course, the Tories have no intention of doing anything of the sort - can anybody point to any single 'levelling up' measure they have implemented since December 2019? - but the propaganda seems to be working for now. And if they win, they won't need to worry about voters trying to nudge the government in any particular direction, they can just cheerfully ignore them and continue plundering the taxpayer.
Jill Stein, the Green Party's candidate did well in the 2016 Presidential Election, from Wiki: "Stein finished in 4th with over 1,457,216 votes (more than the previous three Green tickets combined) and 1.07% of the popular vote".
In the 2020 election, the Green Party candidate only got 339,000 votes. An apparent failure, but actually nothing of the sort. The Democrat strategists knew that losing votes to the Green candidate probably cost Hillary Clinton the 2016 election, so their 2020 candidate Joe Biden said he was in a favour of a Green New Deal (whatever that is) and clawed most of those votes back. Given how tight the margins were in swing states, that was a very sensible tactic. This is called "shifting the Overton Window", and now the Greens just have to hope he actually implements it.
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A similar thing happened to the Libertarian Party, their vote share went down from a very respectable 4.5 milion to 1.5 million votes (as far as I can make out), presumably because Trump (the very antithesis of actual libertarianism) took back most of the votes from right wing nutters who otherwise might have voted Libertarian.
But fair play to the 2020 Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgenson, she is realistic about all this and understand how it works. From the BBC:
"The Libertarian Party's baseline votes will continue to grow [sic]," Ms Jorgensen said in a statement. "The only way Democrats and Republicans can keep us down is by adopting our libertarian policies."
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To cut a long story short, the lesson for small parties is - if your policies and principles become widely accepted and politically palatable, the larger parties adopt them (or at least pretend to) and you lose votes.
Meanwhile, the start of Labour’s leadership contest has revolved around winning back Northern voters, with candidates scuttling to distance themselves from ties to the capital.
Frontrunner, and Holborn and St Pancras MP, Sir Keir Starmer was quick to point out in a recent interview that while he was born in London, that he in fact grew up in Surrey.
The moment came when the 10 participants were asked, by a show of hands, who would dispense entirely with private health insurance. Only New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Warren signaled “yes.”
That's when former Rep. John Delaney, one of the least visible of the 24 announced candidates, weighed in. After pushing back on the idea of taking something away from Americans that most are reasonably happy with, Delaney said this:
“Also it’s bad policy. If you go to every hospital in this country and you ask them one question, which is how would it have been for you last year if every one of your bills were paid at the Medicare rate? Every single hospital administrator said they would close. And the Medicare for All bill requires payments to stay at current Medicare rates. So to some extent we’re basically supporting a bill that will have every hospital closed.”
The writer reckons that the Republican candidate (i.e. Donald Trump) will repeat this endlessly during the next campaign - "Even Democrats admit that their plan will have every hospital closed."
The problem is that the claim is nonsense to start with. Delaney is presumably in the pay of the US healthcare lobby, a massive rent-seeking enterprise, which charges about three or four times as much for treatment as the nationalised/regulated systems in Europe, and 'hospital administrators' are hardly going to admit they have been price gouging for decades, are they?
European healthcare works fine and there are plenty of hospitals, so assuming Medicare payments are at European levels, nothing terrible will happen. They'll just make normal profits and earn normal salaries instead of making super-profits and earning inflated salaries. Coverage will improve and the US economy will grow by ten or fifteen percent; the US healthcare lobby is currently soaking up about ten or fifteen per cent of US GDP in super-profits.
That said, trying to ban private health insurance is a daft idea and entirely unnecessary, as the European example shows. If you have private insurance, you get much the same treatment as under the default system, just at double or treble the cost. Which is why most people don't bother.
Labour says it would scrap laws allowing private landlords to evict tenants without giving a reason. The law, in force since 1988, is thought to be the biggest cause of homelessness.
Labour's shadow housing minister John Healey announced the policy at the party's conference in Liverpool. Mr Healey also unveiled plans for a £20m fund to set up "renters' unions" to support tenants in disputes with landlords.
So-called "no-fault" evictions - when landlords throw people out of their home without saying why - have been growing in recent years.
Private landlords will no longer be able to evict tenants at short notice without good reason under new government plans.
The change is intended to protect renters from "unethical" landlords and give them more long-term security...
Housing Secretary James Brokenshire said that evidence showed so-called Section 21 evictions were one of the biggest causes of family homelessness.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the changes would offer more "stability" to the growing number of families renting and mean people would not be afraid to make a complaint "because they may be concerned through a no-fault eviction that they may be thrown out".
The "statement" on the official website of the SevenEight Dwarves is a masterpiece in waffle, it just goes on and on an on until you lose the will to live:
Our values
We believe:
* Ours is a great country of which people are rightly proud, where the first duty of government must be to defend its people and do whatever it takes to safeguard Britain’s national security.
* Britain works best as a diverse, mixed social market economy, in which well-regulated private enterprise can reward aspiration and drive economic progress and where government has the responsibility to ensure the sound stewardship of taxpayer’s money and a stable, fair and balanced economy.
* A strong economy means we can invest in our public services. We believe the collective provision of public services and the NHS can be delivered through government action, improving health and educational life chances, protecting the public, safeguarding the vulnerable, ensuring dignity at every stage of life and placing individuals at the heart of decision-making.
* The people of this country have the ability to create fairer, more prosperous communities for present and future generations. We believe that this creativity is best realised in a society which fosters individual freedom and supports all families.
* The barriers of poverty, prejudice and discrimination facing individuals should be removed and advancement occur on the basis of merit, with inequalities reduced through the extension of opportunity, giving individuals the skills and means to open new doors and fulfil their ambitions. * Etcetera etcetera etcetera.
Their official colour seems to be grey, but the whole thing is just... beige, with taupe highlights.
The only thing of mild interest is (are?) the boxes next to each statement which you can tick to say "I agree". There aren't any for "I disagree".
The results from last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:
Which is the better strategy for influencing Labour or Tory policies?
Join the party and agitate from the inside - 11%
Vote for another party whose policies you agree with - 89%
Which is what I have observed. I'm relieved that so many agree. Thanks to all who took part.
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I know that it is silly to match receipts from particular taxes with particular items of government expenditure, but it's sometimes useful to do so to put things into perspective.
Last week, the Transport Secretary insisted that the white elephant vanity HS2 railway line would come in on time and on budget at £55.7 billion.
Most are agreed it is a waste of taxpayers' money, of benefit only to a very few (the construction companies and some landowners) and nobody in his right mind believes it will be on time and on budget. In fact, we know it won't, because the original budget set in 2010 was £32.7 billion.
The Tories then went on the offensive and claimed that it would "cost" £100 billion to write off student debts, forcing the innumerate Labour education spokeswoman into an embarrassing and unnecessary climb down. That's the nominal amount of the outstanding loans, but they will be collected via a graduate tax and lots will be written off, so what's relevant here is the net present value of the tax receipts, let's call it £60 billion in round figures.
So you could argue, future graduates are paying 9% extra income tax on income above the £21,000 allowance in order to fund HS2.
Which I hope most would agree is completely bonkers.
The results to last week's Online Poll were as follows:
If it were up to you, would you allow Charlie Gard's parents to take him to the USA for treatment?
Yes - 80%
No - 20%
I was with the majority on this. I'm not a doctor or a priest, I'm not related to Charlie and I don't have to pay for it. Last time I looked, paying for expensive and probably futile medical care is not a crime in this country and most people have no moral objection to it. It'd be a different matter if parents wanted to take a daughter abroad to have her fanny mutilated, or some religious wierdos deliberately withheld medical treatment from a child, then it's fine if 'the state' steps in...
Phil: Yes they have that right, but they fund it themselves. There has to be a limit on what 'everyone' will pay for - there's the flaw in the NHS, eventually it's expected to cure everything for everyone...
Bill: I'm with Phil. There has to be a limit or the NHS ends up paying for fringe stuff like cryogenics. If it isn't an immediate health issue or involves non-essential cosmetic treatments, then fine, pay for it privately. Go where you like for treatment if the NHS doesn't provide it in the UK.
Well yes of course, the NHS has to do its own cost-benefit analysis, and it would appear that enough is enough in this case. But value to the taxpayer is quite different to value to the parents.
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This week's Fun Online Poll goes back to a comment by Mike W here
Given the theoretical framework and arguments have been worked through here, the point is to carry the fight where you stand and how you see fit.
I support everyone here that is prepared to carry the HG/LVT/CI cause into the Tories, the Liberals, even UKIP. It is just not something I could do myself with passion or conviction. I'm sure your point of view is just the political 'mirror' to mine. Good Luck.
I support the thinking behind the YPP too. It's just I think this has to be done within a major party or LVT will seem too marginal/ technocratic. This is simply a strategic choice and nothing to get too worked up about.
Mike W seems to think that being a Labour party member and agitating for it there is our best bet. Maybe it is, but as I responded:
I know plenty of people in various political parties large and small who have spent years or decades agitating for Georgism and achieved nothing. I wasted a few years in UKIP (I learned a lot about day to day politics, but that's another story) and achieved nothing.
My view is, only the Tories or Labour will ever be in government so those are the ones you have to influence. As the last couple of elections showed, if you want to influence them, what you do is vote for somebody else with a clearer manifesto and they will shape their policies accordingly.
Which is why we set up YPP. Whether a YPP candidate ever gets elected is nigh on irrelevant. As the Greens and UKIP have shown, once enough people are voting for you - 5% to 10% - the Tories and Labour will adjust their policies to suit and so [the Greens and UKIP] have achieved a lot, even if only indirectly, and right now that'll do me.
So that's this week's Fun Online Poll:
Which is the better strategy for influencing Labour or Tory policies?
I was very busy at work this week; Mrs W was abroad on holiday all week so I was on single-parent duty (which is not that difficult once your kids are school-age) and the weather was nice so sitting in the garden was always the obvious thing to do.
YOUNG families are being milked by councils who are now charging to take away nappies as part of their household rubbish.
The charges – for either big bins or special plastic bags – have been slammed as being unfair on families and could cause fly-tipping.
It is complete nonsense.
- The cost of emptying household bins (and those of most businesses) is surprisingly small, average £100 to £200 per year per household/business.
- If they are going to charge extra for nappies, why not charge extra for everything that people throw away?
- If they are going to levy specific amounts for what people put in the bin, the most efficient way of doing it would be to levy the charge when they buy it new. I covered all that years ago. That largely solves the fly tipping and enforcement issues.
If you want to simplify it and put a number on it, a flat tax of 1% of the value of all the products which households and businesses buy would cover the cost of refuse collection. Seeing as VAT is already 20% on most things, people buying e.g. disposable nappies have already paid for the cost twenty times over.
2. My view is that each election is actually a referendum in which everybody can choose their own question.
So while the Greens and UKIP have had little electoral success (apart from in meaningless EU Parliament elections), they did manage to shift the terms of debate in their favour and the two big parties adjusted their policies accordingly.
That being so, the Tories messed up the election because Labour nearly outflanked them with their two main vote grabbing proposals - "an end to austerity" and "reducing tuition fees". Lots of people voted for the former and they got an extra few million younger people who'd like to see the end of tuition fees.
One of the key architects of David Cameron’s austerity programme has suggested the government must consider tax rises and increased spending on public services to respond to overwhelming pressure on social care, schools and the NHS.
The Conservatives must "change hard" to win over young voters who backed Labour in June's general election, Theresa May's most senior minister has warned.
Damian Green told Tories to modernise after losing their majority in the general election and trailing behind Labour by 30% among voters aged 18-35... Speaking at the Bright Blue liberal conservative think-tank's conference in central London, Mr Green said a new "city Conservativism" would woo young, metropolitan voters... Mr Green also suggested there was a "national debate that we need to have" about university tuition fees.
This is all tokenism of course, there is no sincerity on either side, but it confirms my suspicion that there is no need for - or any real prospect of - any YPP candidate with Georgist policies to be - or being - elected. As soon as we are getting a few per cent of the vote, the big two parties will modify their policies accordingly to try and put us out of business.
(The most successful UK movement of recent years doesn't even bother having their own party - it's the old age pensioners. They push out simplistic and inherently contradictory slogans i.e. "We have worked hard and paid taxes and saved hard all our lives". The "worked hard and paid taxes" justifies higher old age pensions, plus all the extra NHS spending. The "paid taxes and saved hard" bit is the argument against taxing land values i.e. clawing back inflated house prices. Hang about here - if they really have saved so hard, how come they need hand outs and subsidies? A century of deficit spending suggests they weren't paying enough taxes, doesn't it? But they get what they want because they bother to go out and vote, that's it, one tick every few years, job done, don't bother with silly protest marches, get on with more important things - a winning strategy.)
3. EU v Google.
Disclaimer - I am big fan of Google: their search engine, gmail, Blogger, Google maps, Google translate, Chrome are all free to use, work very well and make the world a better place. I am no fan of the EU for various reasons. But every now and then the EU get it right.
As I said last year, we all now that these supra-national corporations take the piss on corporation tax, which is not actually that important, because they get stung for VAT, PAYE and Business Rates which are more difficult to evade. National governments know this but find it difficult to draw up and enforce rules which would make them pay "the right amount" of corporation tax in any country.
So the EU doesn't bother with all that, it just invents some trumped up anti-competitive practices and fines them a few billion every few years.
The European Union has fined Google €2.42bn (£2.14bn) after a seven-year investigation into claims the technology giant abused its internet search monopoly.
The penalty is the biggest ever competition fine from the European Commission, doubling the previous record handed to Intel in 2009. The EU said Google had broken EU competition law by exploiting the power of its search engine to promote its online shopping service, at the expense of other price comparison sites.
Which doesn't make sense on their terms - it's Google's search engine and they can use it to advertise what they like, surely? You wouldn't expect the Tesco website to carry advertising for competitors.
The real point, which the EU seem to have missed is not just that Google have a competitive advantage that amounts to a monopoly, it is that what they are charging their advertisers is rent. As with land rent, the value arises from agglomeration benefits (same as Air BNB or Uber), consumers use it because so many sellers use it and vice versa. It is surely more efficient for everybody to use the same marketplace for buying and selling, that's fine, what is not so fine is for a third party, to siphon off part of the producer and consumer surplus.
4. On the topic of Google, Microsoft etc, Benjamin' emailed me a link to a splendid lecture by a succesful Silicon Valley insider/investor called "Competition is for losers".
It's fifty minutes long but I watched it all the way through. I gritted my teeth at the appalling typo at 25 minutes 14 seconds; applauded at 31 minutes when he points out that the main beneficiares of the British Industrial Revolution were landowners ("The workers didn't make that much, the capitalists didn't make that much either"). The most telling bit is where he cheerfully admits that competition and free markets are good for society as a whole, but promptly dismisses it as a way for an individual businessman to make money (I didn't make a note of when he says it).
5. Right, I'm off back into the garden, shame to waste the sunshine.
A major Tory donor who backs Boris Johnson to be the next Prime Minister has demanded Theresa May overhaul the party agenda and slash tuition fees.
Ukrainian-born Alexander Temerko said the party faced losing the youth vote for good against a Labour Party committed to scrapping university charges.
The comments section is full of the usual bile, all the Boomers who had 'free' higher education and student grants; who bought their houses back in the day when UK government policy was to keep prices down and are now getting taxpayer-funded house price increases most years, all the pensioners who are getting far more out of the welfare state than they ever paid in etc.
As I have been saying for ages, the key is to get out and vote. Pensioners are treated so favourably because they all go out and vote for whichever party they think is likely to give them higher pensions and subsidise their house prices etc. A million votes once every five years achieves far more than a million people attending a protest march and is a lot less effort. But you have to have something to vote for.
That's why we set up YPP five years ago. We're into Georgism (lite or otherwise) for its own sake, but it is easiest to sell to the non-Homeys, non-Boomers and non-pensioners (i.e. the under-40s) because they would benefit most immediately, hence the tongue-in-cheek name.
The lesson to learn from the Greens and UKIP is that it doesn't matter too much if you never get (m)any MPs. Once they hit a certain threshold, the major parties started merrily nicking Green/UKIP policies to try and shore up their own vote, thus doing (some of) the Greens'/UKIP's work for them.
So while YPP doesn't seriously expect to have any elected representatives any time soon, that doesn't matter (I personally wouldn't want to be an MP, I've got a perfectly interesting and well paid job, thanks).
Problem is that Labour has drawn similar electoral calculations and decided to grab the under-40s vote by nicking one of YPP's less important policies - reducing tuition fees/student loan repayments. In reality, there are no student loans, it's a graduate tax on higher earners but for some reason they don't call it that - didn't Labour say they were in favour of higher taxes on higher earners?
And some more cynical Tories now want to adopt this in retaliation, entirely as expected.
Labour also appear to have stumbled across our main policies and mumbled something along the lines of shifting taxes to Land Value Tax and reducing VAT, but they appear to have done this on general principles without realising that these are The Big Ones, do it properly and this would save the under-40s five times as much as diddling about with tuition fees/student loan repayments.
Ah well.
Hopefully the under-40s will realise that Labour are trying to buy them off with token concessions and that there is a real alternative to the socialist/neo-liberal/Home-Owner-Ist see-saw.
We could debate exactly when the onset of the 'Global Financial Crisis' actually was, but let's just all agree it started in 2007, making this year the 10th anniversary. So have we had a 'lost decade'? Exhibit A is a 10 year chart, but who can guess what the Y axis represents?
Chart 1:
EDIT: Here's some more charts. What are they?
Chart 2:
Chart 3:
Chart 4:
Chart 5:
EDIT 2: All the above charts are the Nationwide House Price Index, but expressed in the following currencies:
1) US Dollars
2) Euros
3) Swiss Francs
4) Japanese Yen
5) Pounds Sterling
According to Nationwide, UK house prices appear to have fallen when measured in every major currency except the pound. These charts do not take into account rental income (or imputed rental income for owner occupiers) but nor do they take into account any return on the foreign currencies. The US stock market is (for example) 55% higher than it's 2007 peak in USD terms and 150% up in sterling terms. Safe as houses? It's safe to say UK housing has been a lacklustre investment for the last decade.
If you live in Buckhurst Hill West ward, you can vote for me in the locals. I did.
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From City AM (print edition):
"Polish prince" John Zylinski is an outsider with odds of 100/1 to win today's [London Mayor] election, but he's already planning to run in 2020 and tells us he's forming his own political party.
The property developer is critical of Sadiq Khan's proposed rent controls, but last night he let slip he has an ulterior motive for going into politics.
"It's every developer's dream to become mayor. You can grant your own planning permission."
Too honest for his own good, the rent seeking twat.
Should we be concerned about the welfare of the people made redundant at Tata Steel? Sure, absolutely. But I don't remember people talking about recalling parliament when Burberry closed its factory in Treorchy a few years ago at the loss of 300 jobs. And I'd much rather take my chances with redundancy in Port Talbot than Rhondda. No-one talked about intervention when Comet went out of business, destroying 7000 jobs, or the 27000 Woolworth employees being put on the scrap heap.
The important thing about the Tata Steel story is that it has many angles that mean that the media can run numerous stories about it. These include things like:-
union involvement, so conflict between political parties
romanticised nostalgia about heavy industry
single place, so "damaged community"
a vague sense among the public that producing steel is strategically important
Because of all those factors, it becomes a media narrative, in a way that a clothing factory or an electronics chain doesn't. The media see it as an investment to pursue it because of how much can be milked from it.
In reality, there is no difference between this and a clothing factory in the valleys closing. It's cheaper to make raincoats in Bangladesh or China, so production moves to China or Bangladesh.
What are the practical things we can do? Well, we generally disapprove of tariffs, so we shouldn't do that. I'd suggest two things: a) reducing taxes in poorer areas, and the efficient way to do that is to switch more tax to LVT and b) getting serious about retraining.
The failure of pollsters to forecast the outcome of the general election was largely due to "unrepresentative" poll samples, an inquiry has found. The polling industry came under fire for predicting a virtual dead heat when the Conservatives ultimately went on to outpoll Labour by 36.9% to 30.4%. A panel of experts has concluded this was due to Tory voters being under-represented in phone and online polls. But it said it was impossible to say whether "late swing" was also a factor.
One of the problems I think with polling is how do you know when you have a cross-section of the population? You can probably write down some criteria, but are those right? And even within those criteria, what is the effect of the sort of people that do surveys vs the sort of people who don't? I don't do them for once simple reason: they don't pay me enough. I'm not going to talk to someone on the phone for 20 minutes for the chance of winning £250 of M&S vouchers where they won't tell me how many other people go into that draw. If it's 50 people, I'd be interested. But if it was an average £5 outcome, they'd just send me a voucher. So I think it's probably more like £1. Does it mean people who understand the psychology of competitions and probability don't do surveys, and what effect does that have?
As for "late swing", it's not "late swing". It's about stated vs received preference (virtue signalling) and people thinking harder about something when it has a cost. I've organised work trips to things and everyone's really enthusiastic until you ask for payment, then some people get a bit sheepish. The money forces them to go from "would this be awesome" to "and is it worth the money". The polling industry thought they had this nailed after 97, but I think it was more that the public didn't really see Blair as much of a socialist, much of a cost, so there wasn't much of a difference.
Bit of a personal post, but I'm looking at all my options, and here's my current thinking:-
Greens: right out. completely hatstand (except CI and a couple of other things)
UKIP: out. A complete mess of policies including things like anti-Greenbelt building and turnover tax. They've even softened their views on smoking in pubs to "smoking rooms".
Lib Dems: Mostly, not too bad. Bit too much of the state expansion, bit too pro-European for my liking. Bit not much chance in my seat.
Labour: In many ways, a competent manifesto. Good on house building, mansion tax, but all this "bankers bonuses" and "tobacco levy" is nonsense. Plus, I'm not at all keen on 16 year olds voting (especially at the same time that we have put restrictions on the choices that 16 year olds can make regarding work).
Conservative: Generally think they may be more competent than any party on economy, but too pro-homey and spending.
I'm almost tempted not to vote, the choices are so weak. So, it's really coming down to the SNP. Labour will have to deal with them, and they won't be that much of a junior partner. If this means they get another referendum and I thought the Scots would do the right thing, I'll vote Labour. But I think they'll still vote to stay in the union, and we'll have a bunch of even higher spending types pushing Labour leftwards.
Please nominate your favourite stupid manifesto pledge in the comments and I'll sort out the Poll this evening.
Don't worry so much about whether any of these are worthwhile or make economic sense; focus on whether there is the slightest chance that the party proposing it actually means it (or is just saying to try and grab a few extra votes) and would actually make happen on a practical/administrative level were they to get into government - remembering always that the next government is almost certain to be a coalition anyway.
My favourites so far are:
Lib Dems - £1,500 loans for tenants' deposits
UKIP - reduce VAT on 'women's sanitary products' to zero per cent.
Tories - three days a year paid leave for volunteering.
Labour - The 'Budget responsibility lock'.
Greens - Increase minimum wage to £10 an hour.
SNP - keep retirement age in Scotland at 65.
But that's just off the top of my head and I'm sure there's worse.
Pensioners over the age of 75 will be guaranteed same-day access to a family doctor under Conservative plans for a “total revolution” of GP services in Britain. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, said that the Tories will deliver better care for the elderly population by committing to a minimum of £8billion of extra funding for the NHS every year by 2020. The money will pay for at least 5,000 new GPs to ensure that pensioners who require care will be able to see a doctor within hours.
Leaving aside that I think GPs are something that should be scrapped and everyone should just go to specialists for most things, the idea that over 75 year olds should specifically get a guarantee on seeing a GP is frankly nuts.
The people who should get immediate access to a GP are working people and school children. 75 year olds have had their working life, have plenty of spare time and aren't the people who are earning the money that keeps the NHS going. We want kids to be getting back to school or being able to go out and play and working people to be getting back to work or look after their children.
And the only reason this is happening is because 75 year olds vote in such huge numbers and like most people, vote for themselves. Most of them seem to even lack an enlightened perspective that their children and grandchildren are paying for the splurging of government money on them.
So, if you're young and wondering why you can't get a home of your own, it's because you don't vote, and that's all the parties care about. They disregard those who think that they're making a point. If you have a YPP candidate in your area, vote for them, if not, find the least worst option. But for god's sake, vote.
This headline was crying out for a re-write, but then I read the article and decided it was not necessary:
Nick Clegg has warned "a lot of mud" will be thrown in the run-up to May's election and said the Lib Dems will stand up for "optimism, not division" in the face of attacks from rivals.
In his New Year message, the deputy prime minister said his party deserved credit for "stepping up to the plate" in 2010 to form a stable government. Labour, he said, was still "in denial" about its economic legacy. And the Conservatives, he claimed, had "swerved off to the right".
President Barack Obama has vowed a US response after North Korea's alleged cyber-attack on Sony Pictures. The US leader also said the studio "made a mistake" in cancelling the Christmas release of The Interview, a satire depicting the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
...
Earlier on Friday, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation officially tied North Korea to the cyber-attack, linking the country to malware used in the incident. Hackers had earlier issued a warning referring to the 11 September 2001 terror attacks, saying "the world will be full of fear" if the film was screened. THIS WILL BE A LONG POST. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED Timeline
Let's try and get this story straight, going right back to the beginning. In fact, just before the beginning on 21st November, when an email was sent to various Sony executives demanding money. Nothing about North Korea, nothing about The Interview. Just money.
3 days later on the 24th November, across Sony screens, a message appears telling whoever is reading that "We've already warned you". Along with this, a number of files were released around the internet, mostly via bittorrent containing movies.
By the 28th, a new theory had arisen with "unknown sources" that this was the work of North Korea as one of the movies involved was The Interview, a comedy about two celebrity reporters who get an interview with Kim Jong-Un, but before they do, the CIA tries to rope them in for an assassination.
Various shocking revelations were leaked - film stars have egos, black actors bring in smaller audiences than white ones, actresses earn less than actors.
On the 16th December, a hacker group then release more files from Sony's servers, along with a threat regarding The Interview suggesting 9/11 level violence near cinemas showing it.
On 17th December, the majority of cinema chains pulled the film. At this point, Sony figured it was best to cancel the premiere and withdraw the film.
On the 19th December, the FBI announce that North Korea is responsible for the actions.
Analysing Motives
It may be that this is an attack by North Korea on Sony. But if it is, why did they start off talking about money? Yes, North Korea went to the UN to complain about The Interview back in May, but North Korea always go to the UN to complain about this sort of thing. They got pissed off about Team America: World Police, but did nothing about it.
There are various links being made in various places, such as the FBI referring to tools used in an attack on South Korean banks, which they declare as being caused by the North Koreans, despite that only being a suspicion because it was routed via Chinese IP addresses. The problem with things like routing is that if you can create an infected machine in China, the attack could have come from almost anywhere.
The focus on North Korea began after the media made it so. It's a better story to be talking about international cyber terrorism than to be talking about cyber blackmail. The media started the stoking, the hacker group then delivered on the threat.
The story was then that the theaters dropped the film. There was some puzzlement by authorities such as the Department of Homeland Security because there was "no credible threat". So, why did cinema chains cancel the film? Well, some people are going to get nervous anyway. And in a multiplex, they won't just get nervous if they're going to see The Interview, but also if they're going to see The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and the Interview is playing at the same multiplex. Bear in mind, this is not expected to be a huge film, and has some pretty lousy reviews. Are those multiplex companies going to risk losing Hunger Games and Hobbit money for the sake of a low income film.
Sony then cancelled the film. You don't want to run a huge marketing campaign for a few small theaters. They might even be thinking that they could release it another time, so let it all blow over.
The FBI then wanted in on it, writing an email about how they were certain it was North Korea, even though their links are very tenuous, and using that email to promote how they could help businesses, like an advertorial for their services.
Finally, Obama did his "standing up for rights" speech, blaming Sony for being chickens, promising to take action, but being completely non-specific about what he would do.
The whole thing is lies built on lies. In my opinion, it's a simple blackmail and shakedown job.
Tony "Tone" Blair has said that Bazzer and Dave should listen, "just *listen*, yeah, because we can farkin' 'ave these boys from the ISIS Crew. I'm telling you, I've got into scuffles with them before, and they ain't as tough as they seem." The former member of the New Labour Firm said "OK, oh-kay, a load of us got the shit kicked out of us" but added that he "knew how to get 'em this time". His comments came as Graeme Lamb, landlord of the Dog and Duck in Peckham and former firm member said that "it ain't worth it, Tone, just leave 'em. " The former New Labour ringleader said that fisticuffs would not be enough to defeat the crew, and that this time, knuckledusters and baseball bats shouldn't be ruled out.
