Psychoactive Substances: Rolling UK Politics in The Neo-Con Era

This country.

Sunday trading vote looks set to be very tight

always been torn on this: it's shit for anyone who works in retail, but of course, f the established church &c. &c.

yeah exackly, letting people do what they want when they want = good but businesses isn't people, I guess in the end it becomes a minor sideshow, bomb a shopping mall imo

religion aside a day of rest is good for everybody imo

it's bad for little shops that do well on a sunday and there's no protection for pay, just this shamelessly disingenuous shite from grant shapps: “businesses who want to employ people on Sunday may find they have to pay a premium on a Sunday”

xp

yes this too but a specific day of rest is culturally awkward at best. I don't look back fondly on dry Sunday afternoons tbh

the whole question always comes down to the ridiculous unfettered power of large companies and this is a bad thing in lots of other ways than telling people when they can shop

Mr Shapps told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It's two decades since these rules were first set. The internet hadn't even been invented at the time.

Wrong. Maybe he means the web? Still wrong.

Who is Grant Shapps speaking for? He isn't a minister anymore.

he speaks for feckless exploitative robber barons everywhere, like all Tories

Mr Shapps told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It's two decades since these rules were first set. The internet hadn't even been invented at the time.

isn't "the internet" an argument for keeping the shops closed forever on a Sunday?

just pop down the internet and buy a loaf of bread, sure

ordering everyday foodstuff on the internet
it's the stuff of dreams

the Indian takeaway in my neighbourhood was run by the same family as the corner shop next door, so you could add e.g. bread, milk, beer to your Just Eat order, with a hefty surcharge over their corner shop price obv

they shut down, alas, though I don't mourn them for Sunday night bread-buying reasons: since more and more places started taking advantage of the small shop rule I haven't been inconvenienced by Sunday trading rules for some time

(this seemed to happen in the mid-'00s where I live(d) so I was surprised that the exemption dates from '94, according to the Beeb article)

no great feelings either way; if the current set-up is a boost for small shops or one day a week when shop staff don't get to be badgered into working all hours then I'll take the status quo, although Tesco manage to get round it easily enough already (and tbh I do sometimes buy stuff from the local Tesco Metro post-4pm on Sunday) so eh

I'm v pro Sunday hours. Scotland has them already, and it was great both when I needed cash and Sundays were really the only day I could work and also when I was working Mon-Sat and Sundays were the only days I could shop. Was really weird moving to England and finding everything shutting down at 5pm, it was like I'd moved to Harris and not London.

The SNP can fuck off for voting against this too.

just found out that im able to vote in the eu ref as uk emigrants are eligible

similar to general elections i suppose there's a restriction depending on how long you've been out of the country (it's 15 years after leaving before you become ineligible to vote in general elections)

Anyone against Sunday hours worked Sunday hours lately?

Never a shortage of demand to work these shifts ime. But if it's not an automatic premium then obv they can get fucked.

Also, "a day of rest" != "everyone, rest now" tbf

This really shouldn't be a party political issue at all but the SNP voting against it is the most transparent gameplaying I've seen for quite some time.

well, shit. defeated

take that sassanachs

another glorious victory for scotland ☓ ✊

Who needs Euro 2016?

on reflection I'm glad this was defeated. I used to hate working sundays. we weren't paid any extra and it meant you had about half as many free weekends so no one wanted to do it. one guy suddenly announced he was too christian to do it or w/e, which was blatant nonsense and meant more sundays for the rest of us which we resented, but he just wanted to spend the weekend with his kids. anyway apparently that's the first defeat for cameron this parliament

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/a-black-day-for-disabled-people-as-government-pushes-through-cuts-to-esa-a6918421.html

Pieces of shit

Nice work from the government of the 5th wealthiest country in the world

A survey of 500 people in the affected group found that 28 per cent of people had been unable to afford to eat while in receipt of the the benefit. Around 38 per cent of respondents said they had been unable to heat their homes and 52 per cent struggled to stay healthy.

I genuinely just don't understand the motivation or logic behind it. it doesn't seem high enough profile to be for media/signalling purposes, it's a small amount of money; it seems incredible that it could be anyone's priority

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35783651

Mock indignation at Livingstone's Savile jibe when the real story is their squared-jawed former armed forces golden boy is grubbing money from hedge fund managers.

"No regard for the victims, no regard for the pain and anger he will have caused,

LOLz x1000

http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2016/03/15/zac-goldsmith-warns-ethnic-minorities-that-sadiq-khan-will-p

Looks like Goldsmith is trying to mobilise the Indian / Sri Lankan communities against Khan. The Tories did quite a lot of this at the General Election too - pandering to right-wing Hindu groups and, in pockets, using Labour and the Liberal Democrats' willingness to support an end to caste-based discrimination against them.

The fact that Khan is a Muslim is an added bonus.

Zac Goldsmith really is a weapons-grade cunt, isn't he? Honestly can't believe how patronising that is.

Cameron in 'lacking empathy' shocker

Yorkshire post endorsed tories at the GE, so fuck them tbh

Fair enough Downing St knocked out a template article for the regional press cause that's all the regional press is worth

xp
fuck the YP indeed, the only reason they didn't run it was probably timing. The news of cuts to proposed flood defences in the region last year and the closure of 2 important A+Es means that this type of words in series stuff won't even cut it with tory voters in some parts.

A Downing Street spokesperson said 'we do not give one fuck' the Yorkshire Post was entitled to its opinions.

Reports coming through that Morgan is going to announce every school in the country is being taken out of local government control and made an academy.

what?!?

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/15/every-english-school-to-become-an-academy-ministers-to-announce

Back in October, David Cameron said he wanted "every school an academy… and yes - Local Authorities running schools a thing of the past"

LOL Grauniad:

"Draft leglislation, to be published possibly as early as Thursday..."

What happens to ownership of land and property attached to schools which are moved from local authority control?

well, this seems like it'll be a total shitshow

What happens to ownership of land and property attached to schools which are moved from local authority control?

lol I'm sure local authorities will be encouraged by central govt to drive a hard bargain

from what I can work out the "charity" (private trust running the academies) either a) gets everything for nothing or b) gets everything on a 125 year lease for minimal rent

there'll be a fucking revolution if they try this. one of the very few undisputed public policy successes of the last 10-15 years is the sudden, across-the-board improvement in primary education. for millions of parents there is nothing to fix and everything to lose.

Had to pick a secondary school for our lad this year and was utterly dismayed to find that there was nothing in feasible travel distance that wasn't already an academy. So we reluctantly resigned ourselves to putting him in one that was, the application process wrapped up at the start of this month...and the very first letter we got from them tried to sell us a fucking ipad.

there'll be a fucking revolution if they try this.

my fb feed is full of "If only we had a decent opposition/Of course Corbyn is the real villain" bollix. I need to stop reading it.

I thought most secondary schools in England were academies now anyway?

I think the number of people out there saying 'fuck yeah, local authority control of schools!' is likely to be quite limited. Parents at 'good schools' might be open to the idea of heads being given more control, parents at less good schools might be open to anything that could conceivably bring improvement. Academies are not a good way to do either in their current form but it will be interesting to see how much passion it generates.