DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived post-Murdoch era

BBC: "1948: Away from the capital, there are reports of a standoff between police and youths outside Birmingham's Pallasades Shopping Centre. That's close to the city's New Street railway station."

First spill over to other cities?

Just keep your "unrest" away from Manchester please.

Bunch of would be looters got to Tesco Mile End Rd a few seconds before me. Got my adrenaline going. Hoping for a quiet night but now not sure.

burning greggs in peckham, tv images of youths climbing over roofs

― lex pretend, Monday, 8 August 2011 19:23 (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Daily Express front page random generator

Shooting in Leeds according to the BBC and a lot of people swarming round the scene.

xpost
Apparently a guy's been shot in Chapeltown area of Leeds. Don't know who did it but a crowd of 'about a hundred' youths at scene.

London's Burning: Rolling thread for the 2011 summer protests, riots and general unrest

"I did some damage to some plants. I am not proud of it. I think we all have blemishes in our past."

How did I not know that Nick Clegg has a conviction for setting fire to a rare collection of cacti?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7003100.stm

what a twat

http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lpnqb96a521r197xzo1_400.png

http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=4029

Unemployed people are being sent to work without pay in multinational corporations, including Tesco, Asda, Primark and Hilton Hotels, by Jobcentres and companies administering the government's welfare reforms. Some are working for up to six months while receiving unemployment benefit of £67.50 a week or less.

Currently 3000 unpaid workers at Tesco.

The sheer level of cynicism in this is unbelievable.

This is such unbelievable bullshit. When I was last unemployed I worked in Oxfam and the Jobcentre would have cut my benefit if I worked over 16 hours because it would hinder me looking for another job. So now you have to work 30 hours for Tesco and that's not only acceptable but mandatory.

Okay, this neoliberal conscription into state-mandated slavery can basically fuck right off. Where is the impetus for companies to provide stable, non-casual employment if the government is undermining its own wage laws?

So is this this "non-military conscription" they were mentioning this morning?

I mean, Military NatServ is a non-runner, mainly because the forces don't want a bunch of uncommitted and less-than-happy conscriptees to 'look after'..

So, what is it?

Internships for council estate scum

But where?

http://www.workprogramme.org.uk/201106141494/mandatory-work-activity-unenforceable.html

Is the government paying businesses to take these guys on?

WTF

This is totally beyond the pale

No one should get something for nothing in this new society.

(Except employers obviously)

I don't think the UK is going to get its economy moving again by training people how to stock shelves at ASDA. Though at least if those people got paid there would be some money moving through the economy.

Well, if there are 'opportunities' for the unemployed at any private company they need to be paid for, in line with the law. So these people working for 30 hours a week should receive around £180 for that. If Tesco have work that needs doing, they can pay for it. Personally, I would make sure I 'accidentally' spoiled enough goods every day to make 'my' store Loss central.

In law, an unemployed person cannot be compelled to unwaged work for a private company and the amounts for JSA are, by law, the *minimum* that must be provided. No individual can be sanctioned without due process. The word of a benefits advisor against a claimant is not 'due process'.

wonder if they'll try this nonsense on my mum as she won her tribunal, probably on some blacklist now

Personally, I would make sure I 'accidentally' spoiled enough goods every day to make 'my' store Loss central.

Just giving £££s of shit away to good looking people is also an acceptable substitute.

Fuck, let's loot it instead

this isn't a new thing, I know someone who was carted off to Borders to work a 35 hour week for <£50/week (the under-25 JSA rate) in 2009. Got a job out of it too. THAT ENDED WELL.

After my year of 'unemployment' they tried to send me on some full-time training scheme too, at which point I said I'M STARTING A PHD AH FUCK YEEEEEEZ.

thanks dave for yet more society mending.

what employment "rights" do these unpaid slaves have?

and another situation: if you stack the shelves so shittily you get sacked by tesco does that mean you lose your employment benefit too?

And still unemployment has gone up.

An idea: the union Unite is offering 50p memberships to service industry workers, students and the unemployed as a kind of gateway to organised labour. This may create an obligation for Unite to lobby for the rights of both the unemployed and the waged, because this forced work thing will only continue to undermine wage levels for all low-paid workers if allowed to progress any further.

xp Wonder who's responsible for briefing otherwise - http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/aug/17/unemployment-figures-claimant-count

More likely they'll just refuse to employ Unite members, sadly.

Loony Left Union Leaders Launch Sick Recruitment Drive

LOL Matt, are you waiting for Cameron to ban union membership as 'gang-related activity'?

unemployed tried to join unite coupla months ago was told I could be an unemployed member but only if I'd signed up while in employment

This is a new initiative, I guess? Try again.

yep

xp Wonder who's responsible for briefing otherwise - http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/aug/17/unemployment-figures-claimant-count

― James Mitchell, Wednesday, August 17, 2011 9:08 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

lol at the first comment there. Really should have waiting an hour or so.

waited

30,000 'new' jobs are going to be created in the new Enterprise Zones though, doubles all round!

Pickles all round!

"Enterprise zones" sounds suspiciously like those "free trade zones" off the coast of like, Taiwan, where existing labor and safety regulations don't apply

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_trade_zone

or indeed those "special economic zones" like the Kaesong industrial region:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaesong_Industrial_Region

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/mar/23/budget-2011-enterprise-zones-designed-to-encourage-new-investment

Doesn't actually sound like an inherently terrible idea.

"Godwin's Law" should be renamed "Heffer's Law":
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2026840/European-debt-summit-Germany-using-financial-crisis-conquer-Europe.html

I read a book about such UK zones that I remember being okay. Can't remember the author or title though...it'll turn up.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2027278/I-am-a-moron-clinging-to-a-nineteenth-century-model-of-the-education-system-claims-education-minister.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

shd be shot in both brains imo

Prime Minister David Cameron pitched in to help build a barrel raft with youngsters in Cumbria on a tour of an Outdoor Bound centre.

Mr Cameron met a group of 10 young people at the centre on the shores of Ullswater, in the Lake District.

The prime minister changed from a navy blue suit into jeans and a t-shirt before helping the group make the raft.

Camp leaders said the exercise was about teaching young people the value of hard work, trust and responsibility.