[Sloper]

New Labour, New same old Sleaze

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/21/david-cameron-calls-probe-lobbying-affair

No, it would be impossible to miss but Ashcroft is a 2 on the sleaze scale and Labour's recent sleaze is a 7 or 8.

Missed this one did you?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/19/lord-ashcroft-bbc-panorama

[Jaspersharpe]

Posted this on the IT thread but it's more than just geek news:

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/networking/2010/02/26/open-wi-fi-outlawed-by-digital-economy-bill-40057470/

Don't just sit there and let this disgrace happen. Write to your MP.

Email Harriet Harman and ask that the Digital Economy Bill be properly debated. This affects everyone.

[Sloper]

I thought this bill was due to die due to the lack of time so there was no reason to get upset.  Have I missed something?

[Tris]

Great way of getting to school

(I don't read the mail - found it by googling zip wire)

[Jaspersharpe]

I thought this bill was due to die due to the lack of time so there was no reason to get upset.  Have I missed something?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/22/digital-economy-bill

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/7497526/10000-protest-against-Digital-Economy-Bill.html

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2010/03/23/cma-warns-the-uk-digital-economy-bill-to-kill-public-wifi-internet-access.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/23/digital-economy-bill-commons-debate

etc etc etc......

[slackline]

Contact your MP about rushing through the DEB

[Tris]

World's hottest chilli to be used as weapon

[slackline]

World's hottest chilli to be used as weapon

Sounds rather like organic pepper-spray to me!

[slackline]

Taken for a ride!

I know lets come up with a plan that affects those who are poorest 

[Sloper]

I couldn't disagree more.

This will reduce binge drinking and anti social behaviour that arises from the same.

WRT to the Digital Economy Bill (or should that be BULL) I hadn't realised that they were planning on bringing forward the second reading. 

David Geffen must have really bent Lord Mandleson's ear . . .

[slackline]

Perhaps in the long term, in the short term it will just make the poorer poorer as heavy drinkers tend not to change their habits.

More fundamentally though I disagree with this approach.  They should be asking why people are drinking so much in the first place and address the root cause, not just trying to stop it now its happening by hiking up the price...oh wait hang on we don't live in a world where the right thing is done and problems are assessed objectively and attempts made to understand why things are as they are, but one where the state nannies us and tries to control our behavior through taxation and restrictive laws. 

[slackline]

Just realised I work with half of the co-authors of the original article!

I shall take it up with them!

[Sloper]

We tax to change behaviour in a number of fields, petrol, fags and booze.

We drink to much for a number of reasons, one is perhaps the fact that we have long dark winters, another is because brewing was used to 'purfiy' water and beer 'small beer' used to be consumed at breakfast and finally because mammals like the affects of alcohol.

If the minimum price is 50p per unit that will only affect the poor at the absolute margins, as I understand it about £25 per year.  Even on the lowest income leves that's a rounding error.

[slackline]

Perhaps another contributing factor is that we drink too much to forget about the high tax rates in this country? 

Besides, would you really drink less?

Most of the booze I and most others I know (and I suspect yourself  ) buy costs more than 50p a unit anyway, so why target those who for whatever reasons drink cheap booze, they've likely got bigger things to worry about than whether a reduction of 3.5% of their weekly alcohol consumption is going to have any serious impact on their health, longevity and quality of life.

But then I guess this isn't coming from the individuals perspective, but more likely how to fund the beleaguered health service (cause its going to be a loooong time before any supposed reduction in alcohol intake manifests itself in reduced disease rates).


  I'm learning bits here and there about Health Economics gradually, but was amazed to discover that many still use Excel to do their calculations despite its many numerical failings (basicailly it is a black box and returns some very dubious results to certain calculations) and also that little account is taken of the sample sizes on which estimates are based so are open to sampling issues.

[Jaspersharpe]

Perhaps another contributing factor is that we drink too much to forget about the high tax rates in this country? 

Funny everyone goes on about high tax rates here but I did some calculations recently comparing tax rates in the UK and US (where they assume we pay SO much more to fund the NHS etc). Someone on about £40k pays basically the same (give or take about a tenner a month) but of course they then have to pay health insurance.

It's actually even better for Companies as I've just done some accounts for a UK company that is the subsidiary of a US one. The profits are taxed here at the main rate of at 28% (companies with lower profits (under £1.5m with no associated companies) pay 21%)  but the profits we've shifted to the US via a management charge are charged at 35% (it's a bit more complicated than that with state taxes etc but the gist is correct).

Don't believe everything you hear.

[slackline]

Perhaps hike up the tax on profits then, would probably get more money into the coffers.  Obviously this has to be balanced against putting off investors blah blah blah.

[aLICErOBERTSfANkLUB]

How the Daily Express reported the story about the bloke who went back home to collect his fags [or something] to find a family of squatters had moved in in the 20 minutes he'd been out.


http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/164583/Romanians-steal-man-s-home

ROMANIANS STEAL MAN'S HOME


Monday March 22,2010
By Mark Reynolds

THE impact of Britain’s open-border policy on immigration was laid bare yesterday when it emerged how Romanian squatters moved into a man’s home while he was at work and attempted to claim it as their own.

…


Last night Mr Mooney, who is now back in his home, declined to comment.
But a neighbour said: “Whatever happened to the notion that an Englishman’s home is his castle?
“What sort of country has it become when someone goes to work and has to worry about whether he will find a family of immigrants living in his home when he returns?

“This is the sorry conclusion of allowing uncontrolled immigration.” Earlier this year, Romanian squatters broke into a house in Tottenham, north London, as it was being renovated.

Julian and Samantha Mosedale, both 45, had spent a fortune refurbishing the £285,000 house and were planning to move in soon.

But their dream turned into a nightmare when the unwanted guests arrived over Christmas and changed the locks. Police refused to take action and the couple claimed officers even accused them of being “racist” for questioning the squatters’ rights to live in Britain on benefits.

[aLICErOBERTSfANkLUB]

New Labour, New same old Sleaze

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/21/david-cameron-calls-probe-lobbying-affair

No, it would be impossible to miss but Ashcroft is a 2 on the sleaze scale and Labour's recent sleaze is a 7 or 8.

Missed this one did you?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/19/lord-ashcroft-bbc-panorama

The issue isn't about Ashcroft - it's about the Tories using influence to gag any debate about individual members of their party being involved in questionable practices.


The PLP have suspended the "gang of four".

[Sloper]

Really, and can you point to any evidence demonstrating that debate of the tax status and domicillary status of Lord Ashcroft has been gagged?

errr no, I thought not.

Or maybe I missed the wall to wall coverage on Today, TWAO, PM, The 6 O'clock News, TWT, The News Quiz and in the Gruniad?

If you want evidence of pressure being put on the media to stop debate about questionable practices of senior labour figures have a quick look at the coke snorting, alcoholic, whoring senior weegie with links to organised crime.

Or maybe the husband of a cabinet minister with questionable overseas interests (and I don't mean David Mills) as far as I know there's an injunction in force about this so 

Or indeed about several Labour PPC's and their questionable honesty in the means of securing nominations for safe Labour seats.

I'm quite happy to debate the failings of the Tories of which there are many but to suggest that Labour aren't sleazier, in either number of corrupt cvnts, the scale of the corruption or in serious personal wrong doing is just factually wrong.  I don't want to be rude, but do go away and do some basic research.

[aLICErOBERTSfANkLUB]

Really, and can you point to any evidence demonstrating that debate of the tax status and domicillary status of Lord Ashcroft has been gagged?

errr no, I thought not.

Let me know which of the words you don't understand


BBC shelves Panorama Lord Ashcroft investigation
Panorama programme on Lord Ashcroft unlikely to air before election after series of interventions by senior Tories

Lord Ashcroft's status as a non-dom has prompted a public outcry. Photograph: Chris Young/PA

Intense pressure from Conservative officials helped to force the BBC to quietly drop a lengthy investigation into Lord Ashcroft, the party's billionaire backer and deputy chairman. Panorama, the corporation's current affairs programme, was expected to focus on Ashcroft's business empire and his use of offshore entities.

[stone]

I believe Sloper about Labour being at least as corrupt as the Tories. I'll never vote Labour again after Tony Blair got the job with Lansdowne Partners. To me the Iraq war could be put down to a huge, tragic, stupid mistake but the Lansdowne Parners job seems unmitigated corruption that struggle as I might I can't come up with any excuse for. Are the Lib Dems the answer? They were against the Iraq war, predicted  the  banking crisis and generally seem less in the pockets of the Hedge fund/investment bank lobby. If you've got rot to expose about them please inform me.

[Jim]

power breeds corruption

[Sloper]

Alice etc, maybe you don't get the idea of political impartiallity being rather important viz a viz the BBC, I know it's more myth than reality (see recent question time, questions from Andrew Marr to Boris Johnson and so on) but I would not want to see a highly politicised documentary about any senior politician in the run up to an election.

Seeking to delay the documentary to maintain political neutrality of the BBC is not seeking to 'gag' debate.

Which bit of that don't you get?

[Jaspersharpe]

Pull the other one Sloper. I know you don't actually believe that utter bollocks.

stone - I agree. While Labour and the Tories seem content to play "who's the biggest cunt?" the Lib Dems actually have sound policies. Why can't everyone see this?
 

[Sloper]

Actually I do, if it was C4 I would be outraged that 'senior conservatives' sought to stop a broadcast by a commercial broadcaster. 

The fact is that it is the BBC, who are by Royal Charter supposed to be politically independent and they should not be broadcasting a documentary (particularly where it is only of interest because it is believed to be damaging to Ashcroft) which is highly political in the run up to a general election.

The BBC has always had a pro government bias (in favour of the Tories when they're in office) for example there's no mention of Darling's admission that Labour cuts will be deeper than Thatcher's on their front page http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/default.stm compared with the headline position in the Gruniad. http://www.guardian.co.uk/