… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Category: Ed Miliband

  • Politics news allsorts

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    Image of Jia Jem, a beautiful woman because it's SundayCommentary and analysis of recent UK (and US today) politics news.

    Socialist and former Occupy activist Kshama Sawant has been elected to Seattle council. It’s a big issue for a Socialist to be elected in the States.

    Miliband Accuses PM Of ‘Reaching A New Low’ over the Paul Flowers / Co-op issue. He’s only one man after all. The view from the bottom of the triange is that those at the peak are parasitic, don’t do much and have loads of advisors making reports and recommendations. Titular like. [later edit: I’m talking generally not specifically here.]

    There are now seven inquiries into the Co-op. That’s OTT.

    Ed Miliband was on Desert Island Discs today: Unchanged choices include “Take on Me” by A-Ha, which Mr Miliband admitted was “cheese”, as well as “Angels” by Robbie Williams which he dedicated to his wife, Justine.

    Update: Far too many Inquiries into the Co-op

    ■ The Co-op commissioned the Kelly review of its financial woes in July and it is due to report in May 2014.

    ■ After the Flowers allegations emerged, the Co-op announced a separate “root and branch” probe of its governance.

    ■ The Treasury has ordered an independent inquiry into the Co-op Bank dating back at least to 2008.

    ■ The Prudential Regulatory Authority and Financial Conduct Authority, which took over the FSA’s powers this year, are each considering separate inquiries into the bank’s affairs.

    ■ The Treasury select committee is looking into Lloyds’s botched attempt to sell a batch of branches, which collapsed when the Co-op pulled out.

    ■ The police are investigating Flowers in connection with the supply of drugs and have bailed the 63-year-old.

    ■ The Financial Reporting Council accounting watchdog is examining the Co-op’s financial reports and could mount a formal probe.

  • Continuing analysis of David Cameron’s web censorship

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    David Cameron spoke on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour at 4p.m. today. I didn’t listen to it although it will be on iplayer later. I’m commenting on this article instead.

    Cameron’s comments are more nuanced e.g. not confusing Tor’s “dark net” and peer-to-peer, and have advanced from earlier this week. While the original announcements on Monday were about preventing access to illegal, child pornography Cameron is now talking of preventing children “stumbling across hardcore legal pornography”. So which is it? Wasn’t it 100,000 “unambiguous” search terms which lead to illegal content? Now it’s about children happening across legal hardcore porn? It’s not the same.

    Cameron disagreed with the former head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop), Jim Gamble who said this would not have a big impact as paedophiles did not use search websites to find these images, but instead go to the “dark corners of the internet on peer-to-peer websites”.

    This part is alarming: Mr Cameron said GCHQ were helping the National Crime Agency (NCA) to find people who use the “dark net” – stand-alone networks that sit separate to the web but are accessible to those that run the right software.

    The problem is that it’s not illegal to use Tor and it has legitimate uses for political activists and dissidents and to evade censorship in oppressive regimes (as Cameron is intending for UK?). I use Tor and – as I have said before – I run a Tor relay.

    Being a Tor user is most definitely not the same as being a paedophile accessing child pornography – so why target Tor users? I personally don’t use it as much as I used to – what does it matter if Cameron, Clegg, Miliband et al have half an hour’s notice of what to expect? This blog is pretty predictable unless I’ve got an exclusive. I’ll use it if I’m researching something sensitive or to access Pirate Bay which is blocked by court order in UK. The majority of internet traffic is peer-to-peer, probably sharing copyrighted material. So what?

    “One of the things that came out of the meeting that gave me hope was that actually when people talk about these sites on the dark web where people are sharing revolting images, one of the experts said it’s not totally dissimilar to people downloading movies and music.”

    I think that Cameron is responding to my criticism that Tor is not peer-to-peer. It is exactly like downloading movies and movie clips from a normal webserver. The only practical difference is that it takes longer.

    “I’ve talked to parents who’ve had very direct experience of this happening, where the children were looking for something totally legitimate but ended up with, you know, some pretty horrible things in front of them …” I honestly don’t think that this happens.

    Cameron is welcome to check things with me first … I won’t charge much. I’m sure that he knows many people that have my email address …

  • Labour: We’ll scrap benefits for under 25s [unless they agree to be subjected to forced labour or some useless training course]

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    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10461175/Labour-Well-scrap-benefits-for-under-25s.html

    Only those in “purposeful” training or carrying out an “intensive” job search would be eligible for the allowance, under proposals being considered by the party

    People under the age of 25 would be barred from claiming unemployment benefits under proposals being considered by the Labour Party.

    The Institute for Public Policy Research will publish a paper later this week proposing a new means-tested “youth allowance” for 18 to 24-year olds who are not in work or education.

    Only those who prove they are in “purposeful” training or carrying out an “intensive” job search would be eligible for the allowance, the group will say.

    The allowance would be dependent on family income, with the children of parents earning more than £25,000 a year unable to claim it, the IPPR will suggest.

    The youth allowance would be set at £56.80, the same level as Job Seekers’ Allowance.

    Under-25s would be banned from claiming additional benefits including Employment Support Allowance and Income Support. Paying those two benefits to under-25s costs taxpayers almost £1.3 billion a year.

    It is understood that Rachel Reeves, the Labour shadow work and pensions secretary, is considering adopting the policy, though is undecided about applying a means test.

    Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, has also hinted at taking young people out of the benefits system.

    The Conservatives have also suggested stripping benefits from under-25s. David Cameron said last month that if he was re-elected in 2015, he would insist that young people would either “earn or learn”, without the option of claiming welfare.

    …

    George Eaton claims that Labour isn’t planning to scrap benefits for under-25s. That’s exactly what they’re planning.

    I find the continuous attacks on the young difficult to understand. Is it simply that they are relatively powerless and can’t fight back? It may have something to do with low voting rates.

    1.30pm update

    Shadow work and pensions secretary Rachel Reeves has denied that Labour is planning to strip young unemployed people of unemployment benefits.

    Previously: Labour will be tougher than Tories on benefits, promises new welfare chief

    “Nobody should be under any illusions that they are going to be able to live a life on benefits under a Labour government,” she said. “If you can work you should be working, and under our compulsory jobs guarantee if you refuse that job you forgo your benefits, and that is really important.”

    She added: “It is not an either/or question. We would be tougher [than the Conservatives]. If they don’t take it [the offer of a job] they will forfeit their benefit. But there will also be the opportunities there under a Labour government.

    “We have got some really great policies – particularly around the jobs guarantee and cancelling the bedroom tax – that show that we are tough and will not allow people to linger on benefits, but also that we are fair. Where there are pernicious policies like the bedroom tax, we will repeal them.”

  • Russell Brand on Revolution

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    Well worth reading and I will adopt and adapt some of his suggestions.

    http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/10/russell-brand-on-revolution

    …

    Cameron, Osborne, Boris, all of them lot, they went to the same schools and the same universities that have the same decor as the old buildings from which they now govern us. It’s not that they’re malevolent; it’s just that they’re irrelevant. Relics of an old notion, like Old Spice: it’s fine that it exists but no one should actually use it.

    We are still led by blithering chimps, in razor-sharp suits, with razor-sharp lines, pimped and crimped by spin doctors and speech-writers. Well-groomed ape-men, superficially altered by post-Clintonian trends.

    We are mammals on a planet, who now face a struggle for survival if our species is to avoid expiry. We can’t be led by people who have never struggled, who are a dusty oak-brown echo of a system dreamed up by Whigs and old Dutch racists.

    We now must live in reality, inner and outer. Consciousness itself must change. My optimism comes entirely from the knowledge that this total social shift is actually the shared responsibility of six billion individuals who ultimately have the same interests. Self-preservation and the survival of the planet. This is a better idea than the sustenance of an elite. The Indian teacher Yogananda said: “It doesn’t matter if a cave has been in darkness for 10,000 years or half an hour, once you light a match it is illuminated.” Like a tanker way off course due to an imperceptible navigational error at the offset we need only alter our inner longitude.

    Capitalism is not real; it is an idea. America is not real; it is an idea that someone had ages ago. Britain, Christianity, Islam, karate, Wednesdays are all just ideas that we choose to believe in and very nice ideas they are, too, when they serve a purpose. These concepts, though, cannot be served to the detriment of actual reality.

    The reality is we have a spherical ecosystem, suspended in, as far as we know, infinite space upon which there are billions of carbon-based life forms, of which we presume ourselves to be the most important, and a limited amount of resources.

    The only systems we can afford to employ are those that rationally serve the planet first, then all humanity. Not out of some woolly, bullshit tree-hugging piffle but because we live on it, currently without alternatives. This is why I believe we need a unifying and in – clusive spiritual ideology: atheism and materialism atomise us and anchor us to one frequency of consciousness and inhibit necessary co-operation.

    …

    [7.30pm edit: I don’t want anyone thinking that I intend to be some political or spiritual leader. There were suggestions of this in the Jerusalem Post articles of 7 & 8th July 2005 which were the script to be followed in the July 7 bombings and investigation.

    Brand acknowledges the role of materialism and self-interest in his article. From a personal perspective, many years ago I had a young man and a young woman presenting themselves to be used and I have the different odd nod of acknowledgment [1/11/13 and respect which is appreciated] every now and again. Apart from that it’s been a real pain and nothing but a real pain. Granted while I am occasionally successful in my endeavours, I don’t personally benefit from it and it does take some effort. ]

  • Socialist Revolution

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    Sounds like Russel Brand’s on the right lines there. [29/10/13 Apologies, that should be Russell Brand.]

    I used to call for revo ….

    I had considerations for democracy ~ and after contemplation decided that contemporary UK democracy is an illusion. There is the illusion of three main parties while they are all PPE scum.

    Edit: I should perhaps at least explain myself better. Let’s start with ~ There is absolutely no difference between the leaders of the three main UK political parties – David Cameron of the Conservatives, Nick Clegg of the Conservative Liberal Democrats and Ed Miliband of the Conservative Labour Party. There is no difference between them – they are all Tory Scum.

    Now I can fully understand and appreciate Russel Brand suggesting that voters should not participate in such a farce and even that a revo is called for.

    [Later edit: I used to have reservations about calling for revo – it was about the assumed democratic process. How could I call for revo when there was a democratic process? The answer – of course – is that there is not a democratic process.

    [Later later edit: Where is the democratic process in govenments’ spying? Where is the democratic process?

    I’ll answer you: It is absolutely absent. There is no democratic process here because democracy does not apply …

    The problem is that – isn’t democracy paramount? So who are these fakirs to say that they can spy on us? and that we shouldn’t know about it? and that nobody can report it? Where is democracy then?

    Apparently it’s democracy that I can vote for some siht or other that can then spy on whole populations without any reason but I shouldn’t know about it. And that’s demokracy?

    [Later tater edit: You’re full of siht, just like the full of sihter you so adore