Clegg

UK politics news review

Spread the love

 

Labour MP Michael Meacher asks why it is Nick Clegg rather than the Labour Party that is proposing taxing the filthy rich

…

The super-rich, roughly 1 per cent of the working population – around 300,000 individuals – with incomes in excess of £3,000 a week, rising to £92,000 a week for the average FTSE 100 chief executive and soaring into the stratosphere beyond that, have contributed virtually nothing additionally since 2008-9 to pay for the costs of the bank bailouts.

The very poorest are being made to pay £18 billion through benefit cuts and are expected to have a further £10bn cut imposed on them shortly because of the current shortfall in debt reduction.

The rest of the population, as well as the poorest, are being made to suffer the effects of £81bn cuts in public expenditure, mainly through 300,000 or more public-sector job losses.

The super-rich meanwhile sail on untroubled by the pains of austerity and, according to the available evidence, are doing very well, thank you.

So why isn’t Labour raising the roof about this? Thirty years ago Labour would have done so, but not in today’s parliamentary party.

I raised this very issue at the last PMQs before the summer recess on July 18.

I asked Cameron: “Since the richest 1,000 persons in the UK have increased their gains by £155bn over the last three years of austerity, why doesn’t he charge capital gains tax on those gains which would raise over £40bn, enough without any increase in public borrowing to fund the creation of 1-1.5 million jobs over the next two to three years – a much better way to cut the deficit than the Chancellor’s failed policies?”

So why isn’t Labour running with the ball instead of letting Clegg get some acclaim?

…

The UNISON union warns about further attacks on benefits by the UK Conservative – Liberal-Democrat Conservative coalition government.

UNISON, the UK’s largest union, has today written to Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, urging them to think again about stopping council tax benefits.

The union is warning that many low earners will be hit hard by the coalition’s decision to replace council tax benefit payments with a postcode lottery of local schemes at the same time as cutting councils’ budgets by 10%.

At a stroke the move will wipe out any gains the low paid would have received from the changes to personal tax allowances next April– a central part of the coalitions’ claims that it is helping working people on low wages.

Dave Prentis, UNISON General Secretary, said:

“It is time for the Government to put its money where its mouth is. We hear a lot from Cameron and Clegg about helping low paid workers, but actions speak louder than words. For many hardworking families the changes to council tax benefits will wipe out any gains from changes to the personal tax allowances next April.

“Only this week, Nick Clegg called for the wealthy to pay more tax. And the coalition has claimed that it has taken real action to help low and middle income earners by changing personal tax allowances. But what the government is giving with one hand, it is taking away with the other. It is also helping to take away the incentive for carrying on working when the financial benefit is being cut.”

…

Some Lib-Dem calls for Lib-Dem Conservative Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg to be dumped

Arrests related to Tommy Sheridan’s perjury trial

 

 

Continue ReadingUK politics news review

UK politics news review

Spread the love
Continue ReadingUK politics news review

UK political news review

Spread the love
  • UK Liberal-Democrat Conservative Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg suggests taxing the super-rich. The suggestion has unsurprisingly raised opposition from the Conservatives who are not afraid to call themselves Conservatives. This suggestion and Clegg’s opposition to a third runway at Heathrow should be considered in the context of Clegg’s recent and belated realization that he and the Liberal-Democrat Conservative party are hugely unpopular. A strange (and fawning) article that – suggesting that Clegg is after Bliar’s middle-class following. He’s even doing the right thing and employing driving analogies (although I have it on bad authority that he – similarly – can’t drive).
  • UK Liberal-Democrat Conservative Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and UK Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron  oppose a third runway at Heathrow consistent with their election manifesto pledges. Some Tory is pushing for a third runway and suggesting that Cameron should demonstrate if he is “a man or a mouse”. (eh?) Those of us that pay attention to UK politics no doubt suspect the influence of lobbying and money trousering.
  • It is claimed that Larry, the number 10 mouser has caught a mouse. The mouse was not UK Prime Minister David Cameron. Watch out for rats in number 10 Larry.
Continue ReadingUK political news review

News review

Spread the love
  • Craig Murray writes on UK threats to invade the Ecuadorian embassy for its insolence in granting asylum to Julian Assange. Of course UK Neo-Cons in support of US Neo-Cons have absolutely no right to invade the embassy. Assange has not even been charged with an offence FFS.
  • Former friend, Murdochist and spin doctor to Prime Minister David Cameron – Andy Coulsdon – appeared in court yesterday on phone hacking charges. Murdochist friend and associate to Prime Minister David Cameron – Rebekah Brooks – due to appear at seperate phone hacking hearings in September.
  • Louise Mensch’s seat of Corby to be lost to Labour
…

This will be, beyond any argument, a blatant breach of the Vienna Convention of 1961, to which the UK is one of the original parties and which encodes the centuries – arguably millennia – of practice which have enabled diplomatic relations to function. The Vienna Convention is the most subscribed single international treaty in the world.

The provisions of the Vienna Convention on the status of diplomatic premises are expressed in deliberately absolute terms. There is no modification or qualification elsewhere in the treaty.

Article 22

1.The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving State may not enter
them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.
2.The receiving State is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises
of the mission against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the
mission or impairment of its dignity.
3.The premises of the mission, their furnishings and other property thereon and the means of
transport of the mission shall be immune from search, requisition, attachment or execution.

Not even the Chinese government tried to enter the US Embassy to arrest the Chinese dissident Chen Guangchen. Even during the decades of the Cold War, defectors or dissidents were never seized from each other’s embassies. Murder in Samarkand relates in detail my attempts in the British Embassy to help Uzbek dissidents. This terrible breach of international law will result in British Embassies being subject to raids and harassment worldwide.

The government’s calculation is that, unlike Ecuador, Britain is a strong enough power to deter such intrusions. This is yet another symptom of the “might is right” principle in international relations, in the era of the neo-conservative abandonment of the idea of the rule of international law.

…

 

Dark day for Andy Coulson and Co as wheels of justice begin to turn

Andy Coulson, David Cameron’s former spin doctor, was among seven former News of the World employees who saw their normal roles reversed yesterday as they sat together behind a glass panel in Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

The veteran editors and reporters will have watched dozens of court cases in their long careers, but always from the press benches. Yesterday the six journalists, together with the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, were in the dock, being stared at by a huge, curious throng of members of their old profession.

The prosecutor said the six journalists were accused of conspiring to hack the phones of as many as 600 people. In addition to the general charge of conspiracy, Coulson, a former editor of the now defunct News of the World, is also accused of being implicated in targeting the phones of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, the former Labour Cabinet ministers David Blunkett and Charles Clarke, and the footballer George Best’s son Calum.

…

They spoke only to confirm their names and addresses, but what might have been a very brief court appearance became substantially longer when Westminster’s deputy chief magistrate, Daphne Wickham, decided that the full list of charges should be read out.

The list – so long that it took a clerk a full 20 minutes to get through it – was studded with famous names of alleged hacking targets, including four Cabinet ministers from the Tony Blair years – Mr Blunkett, Mr Clarke, Tessa Jowell and John Prescott – the fire brigade union leader Andy Gilchrist, the former Liberal Democrat MP Mark Oaten, as well as such household names as Jude Law, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Sir Paul McCartney, Heather Mills, Sven-Goran Eriksson, Wayne Rooney and Delia Smith.

Although none of the defendants is accused of hacking everyone on that list, each is accused of targeting some of them.

The defendants sat impassively through this litany, except for 72-year-old Stuart Kuttner, a News of the World journalist for more than 30 years, who shook his head repeatedly when the three charges against him were read.

The name of News International’s former chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, also cropped up in the indictment. She is due to appear at a separate hearing on 3 September. Coulson and his fellow defendants were bailed to appear at Southwark Crown Court on 26 September.

 

Tories facing heavy defeat in Mensch seat by-election poll by the party reveals

 

David Cameron is facing a resounding defeat by Labour in the Corby by-election, the Tories’ own polling revealed last night.

The seat is being fought after the sitting MP, Conservative A-lister Louise Mensch, decided to leave Northamptonshire for New York to spend more time with her American husband and three children.

Labour looks set to seize Corby in November after a survey commissioned by Tory tycoon Lord Ashcroft put Labour support at 52 per cent, the Conservatives at 37 per cent and the Lib Dems at 7 per cent.

Lord Ashcroft said Labour was set for a ‘comfortable win’ but added he was surprised that Labour’s lead was not bigger.

…

27/11/13 Having received a takedown notice from the Independent newspaper for a different posting, I have reviewed this article which links to an article at the Independent’s website in order to attempt to ensure conformance with copyright laws.

I consider this posting to comply with copyright laws since
a. Only a small portion of the original article has been quoted satisfying the fair use criteria, and / or
b. This posting satisfies the requirements of a derivative work.

Please be assured that this blog is a non-commercial blog (weblog) which does not feature advertising and has not ever produced any income.

dizzy

 

Continue ReadingNews review