Ha! Gotta give you and Bletch sumink to do…
May as well. They’ve obviously given up on the emoticons.
Originally posted by @Barry-Sanchez
Originally posted by @pap
How long will it be before Chertsey learns to post a fucking link?
That is the real question
How the fuck do you post a link?
Like this
Edit : OMG wouldn’t like to run into Tom Watson in a dark alley at night…
I’ve been watching the debate about the trade union bill that the Tories are proposing. There’s a wee bit of repetition, but it’s nice to see the party having a full throated go at obviously malign legislation., More power to business, you say? Less power to those unions you hate?
FWIW, I think the member from Newark best defended the bill from the Conservative bench, but I wasn’t that taken in enough with the emotive stories of a low paid worker trudging through a rainy London to notice all the bits he’d missed.
I’m one of the majority of working people that doesn’t belong to a union, but their organisational capacity is something I admire, especially at demonstrations and at conferences I have been to. That’s obviously taken a different dimension since Corbyn’s win, but really, this is a bill that is two birds with one stone. Ingratiate yourself with your corporate mates, have a go at the hated and somewhat dangerous unions.
Certainly not sensing a defeat yet, but the Conservatives are defending this rather meekly.
By far the best attack on the TU bill I’ve heard was one that called it ‘Franco-ist’, especially, for example, in demands that if a union wants to campaign on social media it has to notify the police first.
Who did that damning criticism come from? The decidedly right-wing Tory, David Davies. Thank goodness for Tory dissidents. We’re going to need them in this new one-party state.
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I like Davies. I was also very impressed with your fave Alan Johnson today.
Davis (not Davies, sorry) has always been a reliable defender of citizens’ rights. He has a long history for example of opposing ID cards.
Johnson was indeed good - but it was a self-interested argument, albeit well expressed, because he was attacking the clause that would effectively rob Labour of its union funding (the appalling union-member-voting turnout in the leadership elections demonstrates how bad this will be if it becomes law.).
Baa, I’m such a sheep, blindly taking that Davies bait. I’ve never had a problem with the idea of a Davis-led Conservative Party. There is a case to be made for a smaller or smarter state, particularly in some areas of legislation, and particularly with a lot of the precedents the Blair government managed to set. I can’t imagine that he would be on board with May’s internet snooping bills.
To expand on what I liked about Johnson; principled, dealt with the hecklers effortlessly, and has the personal magnetism to charm the electorate.
I want to see what Corbyn will do first. I have seen that there has been some concern about his choice of shadow chancellor, but why not? First, Corbyn has the mandate to do it. Voters clearly wanted a left-wing choice. Yes, he’s a spiky character but that might be exactly what is needed when countering the Tories, who’ve basically turned “spiky” into their entire election strategy.
I don’t think he’s put a foot wrong yet. His authenticity has a great deal to do with his mandate. I think he was very brave to do the refugee gig immediately after getting his leadership confirmed. Anyone reading social media recently will have gauged that it won’t be a universally popuiar decision.
I can’t speak for the not-Corbyns because I’m not a voter for them. In any case, I thought I HAD said what the basis for a radical alternative was. That’s why I repeat-posted the link to my colleague’s estimate of cororate welfare (£93 billion pa).
Without boring people to death, the point is this. £93 billion is an awful lot of leverage - leverage which at the moment is simply not exercised, whether it’s flogging off state assets at a pittance (banking shares - or even the small but telling example of West Ham’s stadium), or doling out billions to incompetent (eg G4S) state-dependant ‘privatisers’.
This leverage could have many aspects. It includes fixing the maximum ratio between the highest and lowest paid employee (including directors) of any bidding contractor; employing ‘living wage’ criteria rather than minimum wages; precluding contracts on worse terms to employees; liabilities for cost overruns to be borne entirely by the contractor or face penalties including exclusion from bidding; union recognition; transparency in the bidding process itself; and so on.
This is one tool available of quite a few. It’s actually quite an old idea in the philosophical sense: the idea of the benevolent state, working in tandem with (not subsumed under) the private sector. This was around in the 1930s and is neatly expressed in this classic film:
It looks like new shadow chancellor doesn’t plan to ignore the 93 billion.
I’m confused 
Who is SWDP?
Anyone else listen to Dennis Skinner on Jeremy Vine earlier? Terrifying interview.
The amount of times I heard ‘well we borrowed money after the second world war and it worked then’…
Just for you, Bletch. And no, I didn’t put him up to it.
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Labour have taken on 28K new members since Saturday.
He’s still welcome in Tolpuddle and with anyone trying to dig a level whole*
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Thats is pretty impressive
The interesting number will be how many won’t renew this time next year
And five millilion+ fewer voters. Trebles all round!
For some reason, I pictured you cackling maniacally as you cracked this one out. The uncharacteristically sloppy spelling is a giveaway 
This is quite an amusing response to the Sun’s big headline today 
Despite the sensationalist headline, the source of the story buried in a feature on page four turns out to be an off the cuff remark three years ago in which Corbyn said “it would be wonderful if we could abolish the Army”.
A further bit of digging leads us to The Sun’s website, which is the only place to find the full quote:
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every politician around the world instead of taking pride in the size of their armed forces did what the people of Costa Rica have done and abolished the army and took pride in the fact that they don’t have an army, and that their country is near the top of the global peace index. Surely that is the way we should be going forward.”
This one is nice and subtle
This one? Not so much.
Originally posted by @pap
This is quite an amusing response to the Sun’s big headline today
Despite the sensationalist headline, the source of the story buried in a feature on page four turns out to be an off the cuff remark three years ago in which Corbyn said “it would be wonderful if we could abolish the Army”.
A further bit of digging leads us to The Sun’s website, which is the only place to find the full quote:
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every politician around the world instead of taking pride in the size of their armed forces did what the people of Costa Rica have done and abolished the army and took pride in the fact that they don’t have an army, and that their country is near the top of the global peace index. Surely that is the way we should be going forward.”
This one is nice and subtle
This one? Not so much.
Sorry Pap, got totally distracted by the thought that Mylene Klass might be taking another shower in the jungle
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