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

guys that is weak performance ito overexplaining yerselves

i think we all know the rules by now like

as a hated Brit i try and watch my mouth over our glorious colonial heritage

greatest little island in the world at invading scribes TM cameron 2013

runner up at getting battered out of it by great great great great great great great great great great great grandons of scribes (judges special award)

dude we had a vision, you could've been another Canada

we weren't far enough away from ye

or idk, they were the child of yr dotage, indulged and coddled and free to be hippie liberal happy-go-luckies

we turned into bitter drunk accountants. go figure eh

of course we didn't find the white Canadians already in situ and then batter the fuck out of them for 500 years but still

A spokesman for the Irish Embassy in London recently said, "The British Isles has a dated ring to it, as if we are still part of the Empire. We are independent, we are not part of Britain, not even in geographical terms. We would discourage its usage .".[6]

No consensus on another name for the islands exists. In practice, the two Governments and the shared institutions of the archipelago avoid use of the term, frequently using the euphemism these islands in place of any term.

we've boiled it down to this, more or less. we'll have to agree to disagree. shake?

i've mentioned this book elsewhere this week but evil pomo historian Norman Davies uses "The Isles" in his book of the same name, after discussing what might be an acceptable term. of course, Britain ain't a country and the word British has plenty of pre-Anglo currency iirc

A disappointed google later, I realise I'd misread "evil porno historian" :(

blimey, me too

Me too and never thought twice tbh

Slave labour for unscrupulous businesses.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24327470
Hey rich bastard business owners! Fire all those pesky employees who have the temerity to demand minimum wage and replace them with unemployed people who are forced by the DWP to work for benefits at no cost to you!

Nothing like a bit of morning Tory hatefulness to remind you how deeply unpleasant the world is and dampen the vaguest semblance of life enthusiasm u may have irrationally held for a half-awake microsecond

hey now, we all know that the true culprits for the UK's financial woes are the people who are a negligible drain on the economy, and not multinationals refraining from paying their taxes. surely the best solution to get us out of this mess is to make the unemployed "look busy", rather than providing any meaningful answers to joblessness or, you know, making the rich pay their fair share.

This is spectacularly stupid really, it's a disincentive to create employment AND a drain on the time of people who could be actually looking for work.

the businesses won't be rushing to hire people you'd imagine, like pretty bad pr?

i find this to be political grandstanding of the worst kind. like... here's a thought, maybe people are long-term unemployed because there aren't enough fucking jobs.

No, it's worse than that. These fuckers consistently drop these horrible stories on a Sunday evening and all it achieves is a lot of anxiety for people who are underemployed, unemployed, sick or disabled. I'm sure, also, that most of the people who are angered will be 'of the Left' as well. It's state-sanctioned trolling of the poor by the rich, and it's making sick and anxious people more ill - physically and mentally. Companies will have every incentive to use (not employ) workfare drones, and none to pay proper wages for work that clearly needs to be done.

Does everyone remember when people kicked off at Philip Green that time he wanted praise for the NI contributions made by his business while evading any other meaningful form of business taxation? Apparently, a lot of multinationals (cough Google) have even cut deals re: their employer contributions - it's not just a swerve on corporation tax. Though I will say the person who told me this was an Amazon employee, in mitigation of his own company's behaviour...

To still qualify for jobseeker's allowance they will have three options - work placements, such as cleaning up litter; daily visits to a job centre; or taking part in compulsory training, for example, to improve their literacy.

People would have to remain on help-to-work until they found employment.

Those who breach the rules will lose four weeks' worth of benefits. Anyone who breaks the rules a second time faces losing three months' worth of benefits.

And then what? What do you do if you've lost your benefits because you
a) refused to do a council worker's job for him
b) refused to drag your kids to the "job" centre every fucking day (which, incidentally, costs money to get to)
c) refused to learn how to read because you already can and there's no-one to care for your kids while you go training

and your children are starving and your rent is overdue and you're out of credit on your electricity meter?

I'm sure, also, that most of the people who are angered will be 'of the Left' as well.

surveys on this kind of thing make for grim reading. people really support it.

Already had the chat this morning with some of the ladies in my office and they're all for it.

Admittedly we see an awful lot of dodgy claimants and career benefit fraudsters each day so their perception of the % of 'spongers' or w/e is probably extremely skewed, but even so, they're all cheering and laughing about how certain of our clients are gonna get by now. "About time if you ask me". I just don't get these people, so 'nice' and yet so hateful

He added: "They will do useful work to put something back into their community; making meals for the elderly, clearing up litter, working for a local charity."

THERE ARE PEOPLE DOING THOSE JOBS

Didn't this government STOP people working for local charities in order to do welfare to work schemes?

Yes. It's called "Taking the credit for placing people in unpaid charity work"

This is vile. If the unemployed are put to work to do a job that needs doing, pay them a living wage for it.

He added: "They will do useful work to put something back into their community; making meals for the elderly, clearing up litter, working for a local charity."

it's so close to criminalising unemployment.

On the BBC news this morning (6Music), the plans for workfare were described as being for “the stubbornly long-term unemployed” and “a sure vote-winner for the Tories.” Somebody please remind me why exactly we are paying the BBC a single penny of public money.

Hate the use of the term "something for nothing" as well, as if millions of unemployed people haven't been paying tax for years prior to losing their jobs.

How many millions did Osborne inherit without having done any actual work to earn it?

anybody familiar with how workhouses worked out re: undermining local industries?

cos it's pretty funny, and nobody in the Tory politburo appears to know.

Jesus wept.

I mean, is it just a matter of time before they start advocating Final Solution-type shit? Seems to be what most people in this country want.

this is why i say let them have their heads. the country is gonna get increasingly fucked anyway, at least we won't have to listen to subhumans whining about the welfare scroungers and the illegals, they can have everything they wish for and see what kind of beautiful Arcadian idyll we wind up with

I suspect it'll end up more like Atlantis, lost under flood water.

Theresa May is to tell the Conservative party conference that the appeals of thousands facing deportation can only be heard after they have been put on a plane home unless they face "a risk of irreversible harm".

is there another kind?

Those who breach the rules will lose four weeks' worth of benefits. Anyone who breaks the rules a second time faces losing three months' worth of benefits.

What happens if you only "breach" the rules a second time instead of breaking them? Get put in the stocks?

Westminster Council allegedly considering making it an offence to give food to the hungry.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/feeding-homeless-to-be-banned-by-tory-run-westminster-113433

Conservative Westminster council in Central London also wants to make it an offence to sleep rough – while slashing £5million of funding to hostels.

Astonishingly, town hall chiefs claimed soup kitchens only “encourage” people to sleep on the streets.

Westminster council, one of the richest in the land, wants to bring in a bylaw making it an offence to “give out food for free”, punishable by fines.

jesus wtf

time to start selling these again...

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8CrMfKfnjmg/TJykzLnatNI/AAAAAAAABQA/2Q7RtxQ3_3s/s320/frankiesay.jpg

Dharshini David ‏@DharshiniSky 38m
Osborne cites likes of workers at Warburton as beneficiaries of lower taxes - remember factory as a stop on Cameron's pre-election campaign

That'll be Tory donor Warburton.

I should really stop paying attention again.

A new Dickens will rise and condemn them all

'Arm the unemployed' will only give them ideas about compulsory conscription for NEETS aged 18-24.

Also any decent smartarse wanting to feed the poor in Westminster after this measure is implemented, pay them 1p when handing over their Hare Krishna/stale Pret meal, and watch a bunch of rich assholes blow a gasket. They're managing to make Shirley Porter look like a nice lady.

A new Dickens will rise and condemn them all

they'll be too busy watching downton abbey to notice

'Arm the unemployed' will only give them ideas about compulsory conscription for NEETS aged 18-24.

god yes, this is too true

If you look at the date on that Mirror piece about Westminster Council and soup runs, the story is from March 2011; the council subsequently did a U-turn: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/nov/02/westminster-council-homeless-soup

So it is.

Strange, I've heard people talking about it this past day or so, including my son - who has no interest whatsoever in the news.

look:
https://twitter.com/search?q=westminster%20homeless&src=typd&f=realtime

Frequent references to it all weekend, presumably *something* happened to resurrect the story?

Not necessarily – old things sometimes just resurface and snowball on social media.