Rich people defend other rich people getting richer

So, the vice chairman of Goldman Sachs and (surprise, surprise) former adviser to Thatcher and now conservative peer Lord Griffiths has said that the public must learn to 'tolerate the inequality' of bonuses

Well, excuse me if I thought that there should be some kind of reform after excessive risk taking fuelled by the lust for bonuses caused a recession. Excuse me Lord Griffiths for thinking that we should take a more prudent approach to banking and take steps to stop us inflating another debt bubble that will burst again in ten to twenty years time. This time it really has to be an end to boom and bust.

Griffiths seems to be promoting the idea of ‘trickle down’ economics, a theory which is dubious at best. Even through the Blair years, where wages steadily increased, the gap between rich and poor continued to rise. There is no evidence whatsoever that exorbitant bankers bonuses are good for society as a whole and the poorest people in society.

Even worse is his pathetic patronising idea that because his father and grandfather were miners he knows what inequality is like.

His reasoning for not stopping bonuses is that companies would move to low tax countries such as Switzerland. Well why haven’t they so far? Britain already taxes far higher than countries like that, so the must be something else keeping big corporations here.

There have been some very good ideas about how to deal with bonuses including, taxing them heavily – I suggest 95%; a global tax on financial transactions that goes to help the poor (far too utilitarian to ever be taken seriously, mores the pity); banning bonuses over a certain amount, or as my dad suggested “Make bank payouts over a certain percentage of salary non tax deductible for the bank.” I’m not quite sure what that means, but he used to be an accountant so I’ll trust him.

What is clear though is that reform is needed, and radical reform at that. What Lord Griffiths is proposing is that we all turn a blind eye to what the banking industry is doing and has done for the last 20 years and wait for the next recession.

The Jan Moir saga... it gets worse

The pathetic attempt at an apology from Moir is almost as offensive as the original article. The full statement reads...

"Some people, particularly in the gay community, have been upset by my article about the sad death of Boyzone member Stephen Gately. This was never my intention. Stephen, as I pointed out in the article was a charming and sweet man who entertained millions. However, the point of my column -which, complaining have fully read - was to suggest that, in my honest opinion, his death raises many unanswered questions. That was all. 

"Yes, anyone can die at anytime of anything. However, it seems unlikely to me that what took place in the hours immediately preceding Gately’s death - out all evening at a nightclub, taking illegal substances, bringing a stranger back to the flat, getting intimate with that stranger - did not have a bearing on his death. At the very least, it could have exacerbated an underlying medical condition. 

"The entire matter of his sudden death seemed to have been handled with undue haste when lessons could have been learned.

This just makes it worse, what was previously just insinuated in the original article has now become painfully explicit, Jan Moir thinks that being "intimate with that stranger" i.e. in a homosexual way has in some way caused his death.  

This vile homophobic rubbish is supposed to be an apology? She didn't take back any of her offensive comments and didn't even express regret that she offended people. That, combined with her suggestion that gay sex killed Stephen Gately is only going to make things worse.

A couple of stupid Mail things

The story about the ‘supercop’ making 1000 arrests in 18 months brings to mind the phrase ‘quality not quantity.’ Maybe the Mail should look up which police officer brought most people to trial or had the most successful convictions. Unfortunately that wouldn’t fit with the Mail’s tub-thumping anthem about the bravery of this police officer.

A new BBC ‘row’ which is complete rubbish. A new 50p coin design was chosen from entries to a competition which closed in March, in May the finalists were chosen, in June the winner was chosen, and in July the winner’s father was appointed as the new boss of the BBC Natural History Unit, Andrew Jackson. The Daily Mail have construed this as the father using his influence at the Natural History Unit to choose the winner of a Blue Peter competition a month before he was appointed. That takes some doing.  

Britain is in danger of going bust. Where to start? We are about mid table in the percentage of debt to GDP and the budget deficit being one of the highest in Europe for this year is not going to change this hugely. The article shows that our budget deficit is quite high but fails to explain in any way how we are in danger of going bust. More tabloid fear-mongering I’m afraid.

Watch Cameron Squirm

I did enjoy today's Andew Marr show, a week on from asking ridiculous questions of Brown, he has asked the right questions of Cameron and got the Tory leader to squirm uncomfortably

After he tied him up in knots over Europe and the proposed Lisbon Treaty Refurendum, the question of economic policy came up and Cameron got himself into a circular argument over how many jobs he would cut in the public sector, he seemed to propose cutting public sector jobs, to reduce the deficit, improve the economy and create more jobs. In the meantime, all these people would need unemployment benefit, so Marr asked: Have you factored in the cost of unemployment benefit for all the people you will put out of work? It seemed he hadn't and it seems he doesn't care one jot about the human cost.

Later on Marr pulled out a quote from 2006, relating to the financial crisis. Cameron had revelled in criticising Brown for deregulating the banks and the part this played in the financial crisis. I always found this funny, coming from a conservative leader, and this quotes shows that in the years before he had been calling for even less regulation.

"Too often regulation is the first resort. The message from the city is that they should have less regulation and that the centre right should stand aside and let business get on with it"


"Government claims that all this regulation is necessary, they seem to believe that without it the banks could steal our money"

 To end, a  quote from the show that sums up Cameron's approach to politics

"What did you hear last week in terms of specifics about deficit reduction, nothing, from us you will hear specific points, I'm not going to go into them today, because I belive George Osbourne is the right person to set them out" 

Startling hypocrisy.

It's so easy to make the BNP look stupid

Almost every time they are quoted there is a chance to expose the racism, hypocrisy, and downright idiocy that the party was founded on.


Lancaster Unity does this better than most, scurrying information from all corners of the internet to expose this foul group of people. Most of what is found will make you want to cry, but some of it just make you laugh.


Take this quote from a story about BNP members trying to break an unwritten rule about getting on a school board of governers:

"I attended a Mitchell High School governors' meeting where we were told there are now over 104 languages spoken in Stoke-on-Trent schools. This has caused chaos, cost a vast amount of money and it needs someone with the backbone to tackle it."

Where to start? Maybe with the fact that they don't teach or specifically cater for all those languages, the vast majority of those pupils will speak English as well to a pretty good standard, with many speaking other languages as secondary languages with English as their mother tounge. I could continue... what chaos has it caused? The cost can't be calculated as schools don't calculate specific costs relating to language, it will get put in with the schools entire SEN budget. 


So in conclustion, Mr Batkin, you're completely wrong.  

Debunking all the tories promises

Starting, as is customary, from the beginning, with pledge number one:

We will work with councils to freeze council tax for two years - saving £200 for the typical family

Firstly, this has already been promised by all Labour's London councils and secondly, some brilliant calculations by Unity at Liberal Conspiracy have shown that Cameron's idea of the typical family is one earning in excess of £67,000 and with a house valued at over £260,000. Given that typical is synonymous with average, this is way above the national average of £35,000 and £155,000.

Next, moving onto their pledge about reassessing 2.6 million people on incapacity benefit, good idea, shame the incumbent government is currently doing it. Did Cameron not watch Benefit Busters on C4?
Replacing the universal human rights act with a British bill of rights can be described as, at best pointless and at worst downright dangerous. How would this 'strengthen traditional British liberties'? What are these liberties? Traditionally British law was stacked against homosexual people, homosexuality was only decriminalised in 1967. Doesn't this mean that this new bill of rights would re-criminalise homosexuality? Who's to say they won't? Section 28 was only introduced in the 80s and the current Tory party associate with some extreme homophobes in Europe. The tories can't call themselves the true progressives then bleat on about 'traditional British liberties.'

Cutting the number of MPs by 10% would surely increase the workload on those left, leaving some MPs having to sit on more than one select committee without saving a huge amount of money. Purely a populist vote winning idea, with little real benefits.

Cutting ministers pay by 5% will again, not save too much money but is an obvious populist policy, after the expenses scandal.

Cutting Quangos, a policy for Littlejohn to spunk over, but I'm sure one that will have little implications, considering all they will do (and have to do) is move the quangos functions to another department. Also Cameron is going to set up 17 new quangos anyway, just to give the Mail something to moan about.

The Military Covenent, as far as I can see... actually... A GOOD IDEA. Pity it was thought up by Labour MP John Cruddas. It's astonishing that Labour doesn't listen to the left of the party more often.

That concludes Part 1, I haven't got time to debunk all the policies at once...

Startling Naivety

When you look back over your life, most people are bound to recall moments of startling naivety, usually from several years before. Looking back over the first two months of this blog I can recall some brilliant moments of naivety from this young blogger.

1) My endorsement of Mike Gapes for Ilford South, before even checking his voting record (not good)
2) My idea that Labour and the Lib Dems being equal in the polls would gain them equal seats in Parliament (not with FPTP)
3) The idea that the Daily Mail could ever change (this blogger doesn't have any influence)

Still, onwards and upwards... you've got to be able to laugh at yourself