08Jun17 - snap UK General Election called by Mrs May

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Tory MPs face being prosecuted for electoral fraud while they are fighting the upcoming general election campaign

The CPS confirmed it must announce whether it will prosecute before 8 June
Jon Stone Political Correspondent @joncstone 19 hours ago
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tory-election-fraud-pros ecutions-cps-election-campaign-result-overturn-battle-bus-a7689801.htm l

David Cameron campaigning with the blue Tory battlebus LEON NEAL/AFP/Getty Images
Conservative MPs accused of breaking election spending rules at the last election face the possibility of being prosecuted by the Crown while they are in the middle of fighting their re-election campaigns at this year’s general election.

14 police forces have sent files to the Crown Prosecution Service relating to the Tory 2015 ‘battle bus’ scheme, which it has been alleged led to Tory candidates breaking strict spending limits on elections.

The CPS is currently reviewing the evidence and considering whether to charge the MPs with breaking the election spending limits, which are put in place to prevent those with wealthy backers from gaining an unfair advantage during general elections.

A spokesperson for the CPS confirmed to The Independent on Tuesday evening that any charges would have to be made before the date of the general election, which Theresa May wants to hold on 8 June subject to a vote in Parliament tomorrow.

This means the CPS's announcement must by law fall while the MPs are campaigning for re-election, before 8 June.

No charges have yet been made against any MP. All 14 police forces who sent files to the CPS last year applied for a 12 month extension to the prosecution deadline, which would have otherwise elapsed last summer.

Channel 4 News reported on Tuesday evening that the CPS is considering prosecution against over 30 individuals with regards to 2015 election expenses.

READ MORE
Tories say Electoral Commission risks looking biased over fraud probe
Tories moves to block police inquiry into alleged election fraud
Police called in to investigate Tory election letters as probe grows
Tories withheld key docs from election fraud probe, watchdog says

As a result, a decision has to be made by the CPS by late May or early June, meaning that any charges will land during at least the long election campaign period, and possibly even the short campaign.

Police forces who have sent files to the CPS relating to the spending allegations include Avon & Somerset, Cumbria, Derbyshire, Devon & Cornwall, Gloucestershire, Greater Manchester, Lincolnshire, the Metropolitan, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire and West Yorkshire.

Two dozen Conservatives are understood to be under investigation over claims that they did not include battle bus spending in their local campaign returns. The Electoral Commission is also investigating the allegations in parallel to the police.

The allegations centre on whether spending on hotels for visiting activists and certain campaign material was incorrectly registered as national spending rather than locally – potentially illegitimately taking advantage of a higher spending ceiling.

A Conservative spokesman said: “We are cooperating with the ongoing investigations.”

There have been suggestions that other parties may have failed to register similar spending in their local areas too.

In theory election results in individual seats could be declared invalid if laws are found to have been broken, though this is not an automatic process.

In recent weeks some Conservative MPs have hit out at party officials who they say have dodged blame for the fiasco at the expense of MPs’ reputation.

More about: Tory election fraudGeneral Election 2017election spendingReuse content

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Remembering this will be a confusing election - is it about Brexit or domestic policies?
Real reason it's been called.
Preempting Tory election fraud of 30 Tory MPs
Forcing reelection of Blairites (pro war voters) before they're deselected
Derailing Brexit

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Political pressure making BBC biased against Labour and Corbyn, says former BBC chair – Politics live
https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2016/may/12/eu-referend um-vote-leave-threatens-itv-after-farage-invited-to-debate-cameron-pol itics-live

[TonyGosling]

Monday, May 1, 2017
The Tory challenge
http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/the-tory-challenge.htm l

The rule of this game is very simple. If you've been sent a link to this article, all you have to do is pick five of these fifty things from the Tory track record in government and explicitly defend them to the person who sent you the link.

Election fraud
The Tory party committed electoral fraud in 2015. They've already paid the maximum fine the Electoral Commission could levy against them for election cheating, and 30 Tories are facing the prospect of criminal prosecution for financially doping their way to victory in a number of marginal constituencies.

A vote for Tories is a vote to empower electoral cheats

Longest fall in value of wages since records began
Under Tory rule British workers have suffered the longest sustained decline in the real value of their wages since records began. The fall is so bad that it's the joint worst wage collapse in the developed world with Greece. The difference of course is that Greece did that to their workers because they were forced to by the Troika, the Tories did that to British workers because they wanted to.

A vote for Tories is a vote for lower wages

Spectacularly missed economic targets
In 2010 the Tories promised to eliminate the deficit by 2015. In 2017 they're still nowhere near eliminating it, and they've openly admitted that they won't be doing it any time before 2021. Over 11 years to do what they promised to do in under 5, and more new public debt created in the process than every single Labour government in history combined? If that's "strong economic management", I'd hate to see what Tories would classify as chaotic, debt-soaring ineptitude.

A vote for Tories is a vote for more economic incompetence

The austerity con
After such spectacularly missed targets and George Osborne's departure from Westminster politics it's amazing that millions still believe in his austerity con, but Theresa May is still parroting the same kind of economically illiterate justifications for a blatantly unjustifiable economic agenda. The evidence is now absolutely clear that austerity only succeeded in transferring wealth from the majority to the super rich minority at the expense of the real economy.

A vote for Tories is a vote for the continuation of the Tory austerity con

NHS cuts
Between 2010 and 2015 the Tories slashed £20 billion off the NHS budget. Their current spending plans involve a further £22 billion in funding cuts between 2015 and 2020. Slashing the NHS budget, closing dozens of hospitals and other NHS facilities; reducing services; and laying off tens of thousands of staff would be bad enough in it's own right, but at a time of rapidly increasing demand on NHS services it's a recipe for disaster.

A vote for Tories is a vote for an underfunded NHS

The productivity crisis
The UK is suffering an extreme crisis in relative productivity. The UK lags 35% behind Germany and 30% behind the US. This means that the average UK worker has to work an hour to achieve the same economic output as a German can manage in 39 minutes. The problem is getting worse and worse, and it's easy to understand why. Unhappy and exploited workers don't work as hard as those who feel valued and well paid. Well educated workers are more effective workers than those who have suffered a poor education system. If the UK wants to resolve the productivity crisis it needs to improve wages and working conditions and invest in the education system. The Tories have been doing the polar opposite of that for seven years.

A vote for Tories is a vote against resolving the productivity crisis

Systematic abuse of disabled people
The amount of appalling schemes and degrading assessment regimes disabled people have to go through under this Tory government is absolutely shocking. There's so much of it I've written a full article detailing over a dozen of the worst things.

A vote for Tories is a vote for the continued abuse of disabled people

Huge rise in child poverty
Since 2010 the number of children growing up in poverty has risen by 400,000. The latest Tory cuts to the child welfare system and in-work benefits are set to plunge another 250,000 kids into lives of poverty.

A vote for Tories is a vote for child poverty

Railway chaos
As a result of the shambolic Tory privatisation of the railways the UK has the most expensive, most over-crowded and least reliable rail service of any comparable developed European nation. What's more is that the profiteering private companies who operate the services take more in government subsidies than it cost to run the entire system under British Rail!

A vote for Tories is a vote for nonsense, over-priced and over-crowded rail services

The harshest cuts of all on poor families with children
Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has revealed that under Tory spending plans the worst hit demographic of all will be poor families with children. The trend is absolutely clear. The poorer you are, the harsher the cuts you will be facing, and if you have kids you'll be hit harder than those without.

A vote for Tories is a vote to further impoverish the already poor (and their children)

Corporations paying less tax than their employees
Since 2010 the Tories have reduced the rate of corporation tax paid by the biggest multinationals from 28% to 20%. They plan to cut it even further to just 17% by 2020. This means that the UK has one of the lowest corporation tax rates in the developed world. The global average is 27% and the G7 average is 33.4%. Theresa May has threatened to reduce the corporation tax rate even further too. Labour would reverse the corporation tax cuts and bring the UK back into line with other advanced nations.

A vote for Tories is a vote for very low rates of corporation tax

Most unaffordable homes ever
Since 2010 the Tory government has overseen the lowest levels of housebuilding since the 1920s. When Theresa May was Home Secretary she increased demand on the nation's housing stock by overseeing the biggest surges of net migration in UK history. This combination of weak supply, very high demand and collapsing wages has pushed house prices to their most unaffordable level ever.

A vote for Tories is a vote for unaffordable housing

NHS recruitment crisis
One of Theresa May's first acts as Prime Minister was to scrap NHS bursaries, which caused an astonishing 10,000 decline in applications for nursing courses. Add into the mix the fact that NHS staff from EU countries are quitting the NHS in record numbers and there's a massive NHS recruitment crisis on the cards.

A vote for Tories is a vote for a massive NHS staff shortage

Contempt for private sector tenants
In 2016 Tory MPs (1/3 of whom are landlords) voted down an opposition amendment to their housing bill that would have required landlords to ensure that rented accommodation is "fit for human habitation".

A vote for Tories is a vote for slumlords renting * houses to people with nowhere else to turn

Biggest education funding cuts in decades
The Tories are planning the biggest education funding cuts in decades. Follow this link to find out how much they're planning to slash from the budget of your local school.

A vote for Tories is a vote for underfunded schools

Legal Aid cuts
Legal Aid was introduced in 1949 by Clement Attlee's Labour government. It serves to prevent the justice system just serving as a plaything of the rich. The point of it is to ensure equal justice and the right to a fair trial. Since 2010 the Tories have mercilessly slashed the Legal Aid budget creating a two-tier justice system where justice is available to those who can afford it, but out of the reach of the poorest and most vulnerable in society (especially in Legal Advice blackspots like the South West, the Midlands and the North). Legal experts are up in arms about these divisive and unfair cuts, but Theresa May has steadfastly refused to conduct an inquiry.

A vote for Tories is a vote for a two-tier justice system

The school privatisation agenda
An awful lot of people don't seem to have even noticed that the Tories have been privatising thousands of state owned schools, property and all, for free, into the hands of private sector pseudo-charities, many of which are owned by major Tory party donors (like Philip "Carpetright" Harris, Alan Lewis and John Nash). Read this article about the scandalous Perry Beeches academy chain to get an idea of the seriousness of this Tory vandalism of our education system.

A vote for Tories is a vote for unaccountable profiteers running the English education system

Rip-off tuition fees
With the assistance of their lying Lib-Dem sidekicks the Tories introduced £9,000 per year tuition fees for university students, meaning English students now face the highest fees in the world for study at public universities. The fees are so high that 2/3 of graduates will never be able to pay off their student debts, despite paying a 9% aspiration tax on their disposable incomes for their entire working lives.

A vote for Tories is a vote for lifetimes of unpayable student debt for millions of graduates

Huge rise in Food bank dependency
The Tories have seen a huge rise in food bank dependency since 2010. Over a million food parcels were handed out by the Trussell Trust last year, and they're just one of the food bank organisations. New research has shown that areas that have suffered the rollout of the Tories' hopelessly botched Universal Credit scheme have significantly higher rates of food bank dependency than areas where it hasn't been rolled out yet.

A vote for Tories is a vote for food poverty

The Hinkley Point C scandal
The Hinkley Point C deal is one of the most scandalous affairs in UK political history. The Tories have agreed to bribe the French and Chinese into building us a nuclear power station by promising to use taxpayers' cash to pay them double the market rate for electricity for 35 years, then cover the cleanup cost at the taxpayers' expense too. The reason we have to bribe foreign governments into building our nuclear infrastructure for us is that the Tories privatised the UK's nuclear expertise in the 1990s, and the private company was then allowed to be purchased by the French government.

A vote for Tories is a vote for the most expensive rip-off deal the UK has ever signed up to

Unqualified teachers
In 2010 the Tories changed the rules and scrapped the requirement that teachers actually be qualified to do the job. Since then the education system has been flooded with ever more unqualified teachers, rising to 22,500 by 2015. It's worth remembering that the education secretary who brought in the policy of flooding our schools with unqualified teachers was Michael Gove, you know, the guy who claimed that the UK has "had enough of experts" during the EU referendum campaign.

A vote for Tories is a vote for even more unqualified teachers in our schools

PFI
One of the worst things about New Labour was their reliance upon rip-off PFI economic alchemy scams designed to bribe private companies into building public infrastructure. The Treasury Select Committee found that PFI is "an extremely inefficient method of funding [public infrastructure] projects" yet the Tories have carried on using them, and are currently looking for hedge funds to sign up to another £10 billion worth of PFI deals. Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to scrap PFI.

A vote for Tories is a vote for even more rip-off PFI economic alchemy schemes

Secret courts
In 2013 the Tories (in coalition with the so-called Liberal Democrats) introduced a new law to create secret courts in which a person can have their fate decided in a courtroom they are not allowed to enter, on charges they are not allowed to know, based on evidence they are not allowed to see. In secret courts even the person's lawyer is barred from entering the courtroom or seeing the evidence. These shocking secrecy rules don't just apply to criminal courts or terrorism related offences, they can be used in civil cases too! Theresa May was the Home Office minister responsible for this attack on the concept of open justice.

A vote for Tories is a vote in favour of contempt for the concept of open justice

Privatisation
Since coming to power in 2010 the Tories have been privatising public assets at a faster rate than any government in UK history (even Thatcher). Many of their privatisation scams have been completely senseless and resulted in vast rip-offs for the British public; they sold Royal Mail off at over £1 billion below its real market value; they sold off the publicly owned banks at massive losses to the taxpayer; they've carved up and given away £billions worth of NHS services; they gave away thousands of publicly owned school properties, for free, to unaccountable private pseudo-charities; they've sold off the student loan books at a loss; and they sold off the UK government's stake in Eurostar for a tiny fraction of what it cost us to set it up.

A vote for Tories is a vote for more rip-off Tory privatisation scams

Foreign ownership of British rail franchises
One of the most ridiculous things about the Tory privatisation ideology is that the only country that is barred from bidding for UK rail franchises is ... err ... the UK! Vast swathes of our rail system are now operated by foreign governments like Germany, France, the Netherlands, Singapore and Hong Kong. These foreign governments then extract their taxpayer-subsidised profits back to their own countries to be used to improve their own rail systems. The Netherlands state rail operator Abellio now operates so many train services here that their UK network is two and a half times the size of the entire Netherlands state railway!

A vote for Tories is a vote for UK taxpayers and rail passengers subsidising foreign rail networks

Social care crisis
The Tories have slashed £4.6 billion from the social care budget at a time of rising demand due to the UK's ageing population demographics. This social care funding crisis has coincided with the biggest increase in the death rate since the 1960s, and is putting an immense amount of pressure on already overstretched NHS services and unpaid carers.

A vote for Tories is a vote a social care system in crisis

Scrapped NHS waiting time targets
Over the winter of 2016-17 it became clear that the underfunded overstretched NHS was incapable of meeting the 4 hour waiting time target at A&E departments. Instead of reversing their cuts and stopping their programme of hospital closures, the Tories simply scrapped the waiting time target! If the target can't be delivered then don't change your policy, scrap the target - that's the Tory approach to problem-solving!

A vote for Tories is a vote for longer hospital waits

Defunding of local government
The Tories have slashed local government budgets so harshly that the leader of David Cameron's own Tory council famously wrote to him to plead for him to stop. What's most disgusting about this assault on local government budgets is that the most savage local government cuts have been focused on the poorest areas, while some leafy Tory councils actually got increases in their budgets.

A vote for Tories is a vote for even more ruination of local government services

Tax-dodgers winning government contracts
The Tories have brought giant outsourcing corporations in to do all kinds of government functions. Huge numbers of these corporate leeches are now having their contracts renewed automatically with no cost-benefit analysis and no competitive tendering process. The Labour Party have proposed a new law to ban outsourcing companies from receiving government contracts if they're based in tax havens. The Tories are quite happy to continue using taxpayers' cash to pay tax-dodging corporate outsourcing companies to do the work the government should be doing itself.

A vote for Tories is a vote for tax-dodging corporate outsourcing parasitism

Filibustering
Filibustering is an incredibly cynical strategy politicians use to block proposed legislation by talking and talking until the debate runs out of time. Some of the proposed laws that have been derailed by Tory MPs deliberately blabbering on for hours to run the clock down include first aid lessons for school children, free hospital parking for carers, cheaper off-patent drugs for the NHS, and a bill to prevent revenge evictions by landlords who have been asked to maintain their properties. Several of these bills had cross-party support, but were deliberately wrecked by a handful of hard-right Tories like Philip Davies, Andrew Rosindell, Sam Gyimah, Alistair Burt and Cristopher Chope.

A vote for Tories is a vote for Tory debate wrecking tactics

Fire service cuts
Between 2010 and 2015 the Tories slashed 30% off the fire service budget resulting in the loss of 10,000 firefighter jobs and the closure of 39 fire stations. Between 2015 and 2020 they intend to slash another 20%. In 2015/16 the number of fire deaths increased by 17.4%.

A vote for Tories is a vote for more people dying in house fires

Prisons chaos
Violence, riots, widespread drug use, escapes, chronic understaffing and soaring suicide rates. The UK prison system is in chaos. One of the worst prisons of all is HMP Northumberland that was privatised by the Tories in 2014. It's supposed to be a training prison to give prisoners jobs skills so they're less likely to return to crime. At HMP Northumberland a private contractor Novus was giving prisoners pictures of Peppa Pig to colour in as their employability training, all at the taxpayers' expense of course.

A vote for Tories is a vote for absolute chaos in our prisons

Unfair dismissal fees
In 2013 the Tory led government introduced £1,200 fees in order for employees to seek unfair dismissal compensation from their employers. So now if your boss sacks you unfairly (for your age, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy, political orientation, trade union activities, or refusal to suck his c***) you have to find over a grand in order to go to an employment tribunal. The Tory presumption of course being that your boss is a great guy and all of his employees are worthless scum, and the fewer people who take him to tribunal the better. The person who came up with these fees is a major Tory party donor called Adrian Beecroft who also runs the payday loan company Wonga (which would obviously benefit from a significant increase in the number of people being unfairly dismissed and priced out of seeking compensation). Jeremy Corbyn has vowed to remove this economic barrier to justice by scrapping employment tribunal fees.

A vote for Tories is a vote for economic barriers to the justice system

Police cuts
Between 2010 and 2015 the Tories axed 34,000 police jobs. Between 2015 and 2020 they intend to axe tens of thousands more. The police have managed to juke the statistics by non-recording vast numbers of reported crimes, but the impact of these police cuts can't be hidden off the violent crime statistics, which have increased by 96% between 2012 and 2016.

A vote for Tories is a vote for fewer police on our streets and more violent crime

Flood defence spending
Of all of the Tory cuts their decision to slash the flood defence spending budget is one of the most stupid. For each £1 spent on flood defence spending the nation saves £8 in avoided damage and disruption. Several of the areas that had their flood defence schemes cancelled in 2010-11 ended up suffering severe flooding. As a departing gift after resigning in disgrace David Cameron handed a DBE to Caroline Spelman who was the Tory politician who oversaw this ideologically driven lunacy!

A vote for Tories is a vote for more damaging floods

Adult education
Adult education colleges had their budgets slashed by 24% between 2010 and 2015. The vocational training budget was slashed even more, by 40%. Over a million adult learning places have disappeared since 2010. It's beyond obvious that re-educating adult workers is absolutely vital in the modern era where the concept of jobs for life has been all but eradicated. Any government intent on developing a modern high-tech economy would invest in adult education in order to provide workers with the skills retraining they need to move between jobs. The Tories have been doing the exact opposite.

A vote for Tories is a vote for an inflexible low-skill economy

Forced closure of NHS services
During the 2010 General Election the Tories promised to stop the forced closure of NHS services. In 2012 the Tory government attempted to force the closure of Lewisham Hospital in South London. In 2014 the Tories introduced new legislation to make it much easier for them to force the closure of NHS services and facilities. Since 2015 the Tories have been working on a secret plan to shut down dozens of A&E departments, maternity wards, walk in centres and mental health facilities up and down the country.

A vote for Tories is a vote for the forced closure of even more NHS services

Sweetheart tax deals
One of the sickest things about the Tory government is the way they allowed HMRC to draw up sweetheart tax deals with massive corporations like Google, Starbucks and Vodafone. Why should Google get to negotiate a 3% tax deal when ordinary working people have to pay what they actually owe?

A vote for Tories is a vote for more sweetheart tax deals with multinational corporations

Armed services cuts
Between 2010 and 2015 the Tories slashed over 33,000 jobs in the armed services. The army has been pared back to its smallest size since the Napoleonic War! Meanwhile the Tories have been blasting money like it's going out of fashion on aircraft carriers with no aircraft, paying 40 Admirals and 260 Captains when we've only got 19 warships, and the 205 billion renewal of Britain's privatised supply of weapons of mass destruction.

A vote for Tories is a vote for weaker and less capable defence

Democracy under threat
The proposed Tory Great Repeal Bill is an astounding assault on the concept of democracy and accountability. If this bill passes it will give Tory government ministers the ability to rewrite tens of thousands of UK laws with no parliamentary scrutiny. If people supported Brexit because the EU is too undemocratic, it would take an astounding display of doublethink them to now be supporting Theresa May and the biggest anti-democratic assault on the UK in history that they're planning.

A vote for Tories is a vote against democracy

The Snoopers' Charter
Theresa May's Snoopers' Charter is the most extreme state surveillance law ever introduced in a developed nation. It allows over 20,000 government employees to trawl through the private communication data of innocent people (including loads of non-terrorism related organisations like the Food Standards Agency, the Health and Safety Executive and the Gambling Commission). It also allows the state to tell lies in court in order to secure convictions.

A vote for Tories is a vote for extreme surveillance and an end to the concept of privacy

Dictators and despots
Theresa May and the Tories love sucking up to dictators and despots like the Islamist tyrants in Saudi Arabia and the Turkish autocrat Recep Erdoğan. The disgraced Liam Fox was even in the Philippines to suck up to the brutal dictator Rodrigo Duterte and talk up our "shared values".

A vote for Tories is a vote for closer relations with dictators and despots

In-Work benefit cuts
The majority of people receiving non-pension benefits in Tory Britain are the working poor, not the unemployed. When the Tories slash things like housing benefit and tax credits, what they're actually doing is further impoverishing the working poor. Incredibly they have repeatedly introduced new welfare cuts to make working families poorer whilst simultaneously spouting the Orwellian propaganda that they're "making work pay" as they do it!

A vote for Tories is a vote to further impoverish the working poor

The trade deficit
The UK is suffering a massive problem with trade deficits. This means the UK imports far more than it exports. The problem has been going on for a long time, but since 2010 the problem has been getting a lot worse, with the record being smashed over and again. In the month of the Brexit referendum the trade deficit in goods swelled to an astonishing £12.5 billion, the highest ever recorded. The UK's terrible balance of payments deficit is offset a bit by financial services export and vehicle exports, but a Tory hard Brexit would throw a massive spanner in the works, especially if they go for the "no deal" cliff edge strop Theresa May has been threatening.

A vote for the Tories is a vote for massive trade deficits

Contempt for human rights
Theresa May has a burning contempt for your human rights. She has expressed her determination to tear up the European Convention on Human Rights on many occasions, and join Belarus as the only European nation that doesn't adhere to the human rights legislation that was bestowed on Europe by the British Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee.

A vote for Tories is a vote to scrap your own human rights

Mental health funding cuts
The Tories love talking up how much they care about mental health conditions, but their actual track record is disgraceful. Between 2010 and 2015 they slashed £600 million from mental health services. They're still slashing away now. In fact they even advised the corporate outsourcing companies carrying out their disability assessments to actively discriminate against disabled people.

A vote for Tories is a vote for mental health neglect

Taxpayer subsidised malice
One of the worst things about the Tory government is the fact that several of their malicious anti-welfare schemes actually cost more to administer in corporate outsourcing fees than they will ever save in reduced benefits payments. The Work Capacity Assessment regime for sick and disabled people and their draconian sanctions system are both examples of socially ruinous schemes that actually cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds to operate.

A vote for Tories is a vote for more money to be wasted on malicious Tory anti-welfare schemes

Rising inequality
While UK workers suffered the worst collapse in the value of their wages on record the tiny super rich minority literally doubled their wealth. There is an abundance of evidence showing that the more unequal a society is the less economically prosperous it is, and the unhappier the people are. Take from the poor to give to the rich, that's always been the Tory agenda. The worst thing is that these malicious reverse Robin Hoods even had the gall to tell us "we're all in this together" as they were deliberately rigging society even more in favour of the tiny super-rich minority than it already was!

A vote for Tories is a vote for an even more unequal Britain

U-turn after U-turn
Theresa May keeps repeating the phrase "strong and stable leadership" like a broken robot but she's not strong or stable. She's too much of a coward to face Jeremy Corbyn or the other party leaders in the TV debates, she's conducting her election campaign in "safe spaces" full of handpicked Tory sycophants bussed in from miles away, and she U-turns so often it's impossible to know which way she'll be facing in the morning. She's U-turned on supporting Remain during the EU referendum, on the National Insurance hike, on "now is not the time", on not calling a snap election ...

A vote for Tories is a vote for the lady who is for turning


Threat of a "no deal" Brexit strop
perhaps the most worrying thing of all is the way Theresa May has made the threat of a "no deal" Brexit strop the centrepiece of her diplomatically inept Brexit negotiating strategy. If the EU 27 call her bluff and she ends up walking the UK over a "no deal" Brexit cliff edge the social and economic consequences will be catastrophic. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has estimated that the imposition of WTO tariffs, the flight of businesses, border checks and all the other chaos that would come with a "no deal" flounce would wipe between 6.3% and 9.5% off the national GDP. To put that in perspective the recession that followed the 2007-08 global financial sector insolvency crisis (you know, the one we're still trying to recover from) wiped 4.8% off GDP.

A vote for Tories is a vote for the threat of an even bigger economic meltdown than the last one


A reminder of the rule

The rule of this game is very simple. If you've been sent a link to this article, all you have to do is pick five of these fifty things from the Tory track record in government and explicitly defend them to the person who sent you the link.


Explicit

Now I'm going to define what I mean when I use the word "explicitly" so that there is no confusion:
If you mention Jeremy Corbyn, Labour or any other political party or figure you're engaging in whataboutery deflection.
If you go off on a tangent about "strong and stable leadership", "living within our means" or repeat the ridiculous myth of Tory economic competence you're just parroting propaganda slogans.


If you fail to address the actual issue you claim to be defending, you're being misleading and evasive.
If you attack certain sectors of society (the unemployed, the working poor, young people, migrants, left-wingers, trade unionists, Muslims ...) you're playing the classic Tory divide and conquer games that they use to keep the majority of people fighting amongst themselves rather than fighting back against their appalling misrule.

If you use any of these fallacious arguments you obviously fail the challenge.


Running away

If you refuse to engage with the challenge you obviously fail too, and demonstrate beyond doubt that you have the same cowardly attitude to scrutiny as Theresa May.

If you run away from the challenge then you'd just be showing the person who challenged you that you imagine that you can just make difficult subjects go away simply by evading them and avoiding open and honest political discourse.

If you run away from the challenge then you'd actually be demonstrating exactly why politics in the UK is such a bloody mess.

You'd be showing that you're one of the people who wilfully ignore so much malice, incompetence and right-wing authoritarian scheming simply because you think it's all outweighed by whatever (probably imaginary) personal benefit you'll be getting from a Tory government.

It's bad enough having such a selfish "I'm alright Jack" attitude, but running away when challenged to defend it, well that would just be pathetic wouldn't it?

Register to vote

If you're horrified by this list of incompetence and malice, and had no idea how bad it was, you need to make sure that you are registered to vote so that you can vote against this disgraceful Tory government.

[TonyGosling]

Why should I not vote Conservative? 29 nasty policies you shouldn't forget in the 2017 general election
Theresa May is touring the country promising to make your life better on June 8. But what about the nasty or unfair cuts she'd rather you forgot about?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/should-not-vote-conservative-29- 10303180

BYMIKEY SMITHDAN BLOOM
16:46, 28 APR 2017UPDATED07:25, 30 APR 2017

Theresa May boasts about her 'strong leadership'. But what about Tory assaults on doctors and the disabled?

The 2017 general election is about "strong leadership" - at least, that's what Theresa May would have you believe.

The Tory leader is touring the country with slogans, pledges and 'bribes' honed by her well-paid army of spin doctors.

It might even be tempting you to vote Conservative.

But what about things they DON'T want you to think about in the polling booth?

What about the things they'd rather you forgot about entirely?

We've compiled a list of the cruelest, most unfair and downright nasty policies Conservative governments have brought in - nearly all of them in the last two years.

Everyone should remember these when they go to the ballot box on June 8.

UK general election 2017 poll tracker: All the latest results as Conservatives battle Labour
1. The Bedroom Tax


Jayson and Jacqueline Carmichael won a Supreme Court battle against the charge (Photo: Andy Stenning/Daily Mirror)
The cruel tax was launched by the Tories in April 2013 and increases the rent people have to pay if they have "extra" rooms.

Of course, the Tories don't like it being called a 'tax', so they've spun it as the "removal of the spare room subsidy." But critics point out there's a shortage of smaller flats for people to 'downsize' to - so they're stuck paying higher rates.

It hits working-age people who live in social housing and claim housing benefit .

Under the scheme social housing tenants have 14% less net rent covered by housing benefit if they have a "spare" room.

It means some victims having to find an extra £1,560 a year .

And it's prompted a string of legal battles by disabled people including Jayson and Jacqueline Carmichael, who need to sleep in separate rooms due to Jacqueline's spina bifida.

READ MORE
What is the Bedroom Tax and why is it a problem? Full guide as victims win court victory
2. Denying disability benefit to 165,000 people


0:00

Video thumbnail, Tory makes controversial comment about disability and people "taking pills at home for anxiety
CLICK TO PLAY
WATCH NEXT
Croydon protest sees hundreds of demonstrators cl
CONTROVERSIAL COMMENTS FROM TORY MEMBERS ON DISABILITY BENEFITS
Tory ministers rewrote the law earlier this year to deny increased benefit payments to 165,000 people.

Two tribunals had ruled Personal Independence Payment (PIP) - which helps disabled people fund their living costs - should be expanded.

But ministers blocked the rulings because implementing them would cost £3.7bn by 2022.

Disabled people are assessed for PIP using a 'points' system, where 8 points get a basic rate and 12 points an enhanced rate.

The main tribunal said more points should be available for people who suffer "overwhelming psychological distress" when travelling alone.

Jeremy Corbyn branded the decision to disregard it "nasty", and the government was accused of delaying a debate on the changes until it was too late to stop them.

READ MORE
Tory ministers have rewritten the law to deny increased disability benefit payments to more than 150,000 people
3. Scrapping housing benefit for 18-21 year olds

A homeless man on Stephen's Green in Dublin in May of this year (stock)
Charities have warned the change will leave thousands at risk of becoming homeless
Since April 2017, jobseekers aged 18 to 21 can no longer get Housing Benefit to help with their rent.

It is supposedly to stop them sliding onto a "life on benefits" and there are a number of exemptions.

But Centrepoint warns it could "force thousands of young people onto the streets" and cost more than it saves.

And the association for landlords - who are actually paid the money - says it will put landlords off letting to under-22s.

The government admits 10,000 young people a year are set to be hit, with research showing it could be as high as 18,000.

READ MORE
Tory plan to axe housing benefit for under-22s 'could force thousands onto the streets'
4. The benefit cap


0:00

Video thumbnail, The benefit cap explained: How the 'disgraceful' Tory cut will affect you
CLICK TO PLAY
WATCH NEXT
Croydon protest sees hundreds of demonstrators cl
The benefit cap is a limit on the total benefits a household can receive.

Ex-Chancellor George Osborne announced it in 2010 at a rate of £26,000 a year.

That was reduced last year to £20,000 a year (£384.62 a week) for couples and families outside Greater London.

Between its 2013 rollout and November 2015, 69,900 households lost some housing benefit due to the cap, the House of Commons Library says.

Critics say it fuels social cleansing, chasing families on low incomes out of large swathes of London up to 100 miles away.


READ MORE
What is the new benefit cap and will it affect me? The 'disgraceful' Tory cut explained
5. Massive hikes to tuition fees

Graduation
It costs more than three times more to study for a degree now than it did in 2010 (Photo: Rex)
University tuition fees were raised from a maximum of £3,000 a year to £9,000 under the Tory-Lib Dem Coalition.

Since then they have been raised again after universities won permission to lift the £9,000 cap with inflation.

That is set to raise fees as high as £11,697 by 2025 - tipping the price of a top degree over £35,000 without any living costs.

New Education Secretary Justine Greening said the move would pour £12billion of investment into universities.

But Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner warned the cash would come from poor students' pockets, saying: "Quite simply, it is a tax on aspiration."

READ MORE
Tory tuition fees hike passes first hurdle as Labour fails in bid to block it
6. Junior doctors' contracts

Junior doctors are marching from the picket line
Junior doctors spent months going on and off picket lines warning about patient safety (Photo: MEN)
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt forced through new contracts against doctors' will last year as part of his plan for a "seven-day NHS".

Doctors staged months of strikes while the maths he used to justify the changes was thrown into serious doubt.

He was accused of ignoring the BMA union's concerns and failing to engage in talks - an accusation he threw back at the BMA.

The new contract raises basic pay, but doctors say it slashes out of hours premiums and will endanger patients by leaving rota gaps.

Since the row cooled off, a report has shown record numbers of medics are leaving the NHS after their foundation training.

READ MORE
Fury as Jeremy Hunt rams through rejected contract in hammer blow to junior doctors
7. School cuts


Theresa May is pushing grammar schools - but cutting other school budgets by 3% (Photo: PA)
A consultation unveiled in early 2017 planned to slash funding at 5,000 schools in England by 3%.

The cuts were part of a new funding formula that claims to 'level out' inequality in the system.

But poorer urban areas are hit harder than Tory shires, and the EPI think tank warns once inflation is factored in, every school in England will see 'real terms' funding fall.

An open letter by 500 headteachers warned: "To make ends meet, head teachers will be forced to make staff redundant, cut subjects, increase class size and cut back on extracurricular activity."

Meanwhile, Theresa May is pouring more than £1billion into her pet project of free schools despite a report warning they're creating capacity where it's not needed.

Some of these will be grammar schools, which Labour brand a "ladder for the few" who pass a test aged 11.

READ MORE
500 school headteachers write open letter to Theresa May warning education system will collapse under £3bn cuts plan
8. £30-a-week cuts to the sick

Job Centre
The changes treat sick and disabled people as if they're jobseekers (Photo: PA)
A major plan to cut disability benefits took force in April 2017 despite repeated attempts to block it.

People claiming disability benefit Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) will get £29.05 less every week if they're deemed fit for 'work-related activity' (WRAG).

They will get £73.10, the same as jobseekers' allowance, instead of £102.15.

The plan has outraged charities, Labour and the House of Lords, who all say ESA claimants need more support than jobseekers.

Mind says the £1,500-a-year cut "will make their lives even more difficult and will do nothing to help them return to work".

Existing claimants are unaffected unless there is a break in their claims of 12 weeks or more.

READ MORE
The 5 Tory benefit cuts taking force this week that could affect YOU
9. Legal aid cuts


Some of the changes affected women who had suffered domestic violence (Photo: Rex)
The government brought in a raft of reforms in 2013 to slash legal aid, which helps poorer people get justice.

According to Chambers Student, the yearly budget was slashed by £320million - and several of the changes have been challenged in court.

Judges said a decision to block some prisoners from getting legal aid was unlawful.

And a rule that forced domestic violence victims to show evidence before getting a lawyer was declared flawed by the Court of Appeal.

READ MORE
Yet another prisons policy by Tory Chris Grayling could be scrapped after a humiliating court defeat
10. Making rape victims prove their ordeal


The 'rape clause' has attracted widespread anger from campaigners (Photo: Getty)
A rule grimly nicknamed the rape clause was introduced in April 2017 as part of cuts to tax credits.

Claimants can now only be paid tax credits for their first two children, with exceptions for twins or children born of rape.

However, rape victims must prove their ordeal by providing references and "evidence" in an 8-page government form.

That has prompted outrage, with the SNP leading protests against the policy and raising it in Parliament.

Yet Theresa May has said "fairness" underpins the policy and the government rejected a 25,000-strong petition to scrap it.

READ MORE
Victims now have to prove they've been raped to get child tax credit by filling in this 8-page Government form
11. Calling £450,000 homes 'affordable'


David Cameron and George Osborne launched the flagship scheme despite anger (Photo: Getty Images)
Last year David Cameron launched his flagship Starter Homes - offering first-time buyers a new property for £250,000 (£450,000 in London) after a 20% state-backed discount.

But these will count towards 'affordable home' quotas - meaning they will oust social housing for rent.

The government's former housing chief, Lord Kerslake, warned they would help people who can afford a deposit "at the expense of lower-income people in desperate need".

Tory MPs blocked a last-ditch attempt to stop the move in a bitter battle in Parliament.

READ MORE
New blow to social housing as Tory MPs wave through £450,000 'affordable' homes
12. Scrapping the Human Rights Act


Theresa May still has the Human Rights Act in her crosshairs after Brexit is finished (Photo: REUTERS)
The Tory plan to scrap the Human Rights Act and replace it with a so-called British Bill of Rights has been in Tory manifestos since 2010.

The plan has been shelved until after Brexit - but once we're out of the EU it'll be back with a vengeance.

The Act protects your right to life, freedom of expression and religion, and education - as well as protecting you from slavery, torture and unreasonable bosses.

Campaigners fear allowing the government of the day to pick and choose which rights they want to protect would let the Tories weaken rights if they become inconvenient.

READ MORE
Human Rights Act: Everything you need to know about YOUR rights - and how they will change
13. Scrapping nurses' bursaries

David Cameron speaks to matron Sandra Allen during a visit to Whitney Community Hospital
Cuts to nurses' bursaries have been pushed through - and applications have declined (Photo: Getty)
In his 2015 spending review, George Osborne unveiled “disastrous” plans to scrap £6,000-a-year grants for student nurses and midwives.

It was supposedly done to allow more training places to open up.

But hours after the policy was announced, unions warned us it could prompt a recruitment crisis.

And figures later showed a 23% drop in applications, according to former Labour health chief Andy Burnham.

Tory peers killed off a bid to block the change in their final act before the 2017 general election.

READ MORE
£6,000-a-year student nurse grants AXED in spending review prompting fears of an NHS recruitment crisis
14. Trying to bring back fox hunting

Anti-fox hunting protestors demonstrate outside Parliament
Protesters massed outside Parliament as they tried to stop the move in 2015 (Photo: Getty)
As one of his first acts after winning an outright majority in 2015, David Cameron tried to weaken the Hunting Act.

The law banning fox hunting was introduced under Labour and has huge public support, according to polls.

But ex-PM Mr Cameron wanted to weaken it so an unlimited number of dogs, not just two, could "flush" a fox from undergrowth.

Activists said that would render the law almost useless, because if hounds rip apart a fox it can be called an accident.

In the end the vote was ditched after the SNP went against convention to oppose it (the law applies only to England).

Theresa May has not put the issue at the top of her in-tray. But in 2009 she told the BBC she supported fox hunting and would scrap the Act.

READ MORE
Fox hunting: Furious David Cameron slams Nicola Sturgeon for saving bloodsport ban
15. Snooping on all your texts, e-mails and browsing records


Theresa May has defended the snoopers' charter to the hilt
The Investigatory Powers Bill - dubbed the snoopers' charter - hands the police and security services wide ranging powers to hack phones and snoop on the web-browsing histories of ordinary people.

Theresa May claimed the measures in the bill are essential to keep the British people safe from terrorists, paedophiles and serious criminals.

But critics say the powers it would grant to government, police and security agencies licence them to invade the privacy of anyone in the country with little oversight to whether the snooping is justified.

READ MORE
7 reasons you should be worried about Theresa May's snooper's charter
16. The great crackdown on unions


It's now harder for you to exercise your right to strike (Photo: PA)
Passed in summer 2016 after a bitter battle, the Trade Union Act was a wide-ranging crackdown on workers' rights.

It banned strikes unless 50% of all union members eligible to vote choose them - not 50% of those who vote, as before.

This meant the threshold to strike is now much higher than the threshold to run the country after a general election.

The law will also strangle funding to Labour by making union members 'opt-in' to political donations.

Slamming the changes to political funds, Jeremy Corbyn accused the Tories of trying to create a “Zombie democracy” built around a “one-party state”.

Union boss warns he could have to break the law to fight Tories' strike crackdown

17. Slashing green subsidies

Solar panels generated more electricity in the UK than coal plants over the past six months.
Solar panels may be the future, but funding for them has been slashed (Photo: Getty)
In 2015 the Tories slashed funding for small household solar panels by 64%.

A £500m drop in 'feed-in tariffs' was confirmed after critics said the scheme had benefited middle-class families.

But Labour's shadow energy secretary Lisa Nandy said the cuts would "cost jobs, hold back a growing industry and undermine progress on climate change."

New onshore wind farms were also excluded from a subsidy scheme from 2016.

And the sell-off of the Green Investment Bank was announced in April 2017, prompting fears from the Lib Dems and Green Party that its help for the environment could be weakened.

READ MORE
Tories slash solar panel funding by 64% - burying the bad news on last day before Christmas break
18. Only taking 480 child refugees

A young boy drinks tea outside the Jungle Books Cafe in the Jungle migrant camp
A child in the Calais Jungle camp - the sort Theresa May did not want to offer a home (Photo: Getty)
As the deadly refugee crisis of 2016 unfolded, Theresa May refused to accept any stranded children who had already made it into Europe.

She argued it would give Syrian refugees a reason to cross the Mediterranean in dangerous flimsy boats.

But Labour peer Alf Dubs, who fled the Nazis as a child, called on her to show humanity - including to children in the squalid Jungle camp in Calais.

Eventually the government backed down and accepted the 'Dubs amendment' on one condition.

They rejected his call to take 3,000 refugees and said they should set the number instead.

Only much later did it emerge that number is only 480 children.

READ MORE
Red-faced Tory ministers tear up their child refugees limit after getting the number wrong
19. Scrapping child poverty targets

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith leaves after a Cabinet meeting at 10 Downing Street, London, before Chancellor George Osborne delivers his first Tory-only Budget.
Iain Duncan Smith said "poverty" shouldn't be measured in terms of, er, "money" (Photo: PA)
Tory welfare slasher Iain Duncan Smith wanted to scrap child poverty targets being measured in terms of money .

Instead he planned to count the number of workless families and monitor levels of education alongside other social factors.

They were forced to keep measuring child poverty by Labour peers and campaigners - but they no longer have to let MPs scrutinise the figures in the House of Commons.

And have scrapped the targets for reducing child poverty in terms of household income - and chillingly erased the term ‘Child Poverty’ from the Child Poverty Act, renaming it the Life Chances Act.

READ MORE
Iain Duncan Smith is trying to erase the words 'child poverty' from the Child Poverty Act
20. Trying to impose fees for court cases


Magistrates' courts like the one at Teesside (pictured) are coming under pressure (Photo: Daily Mirror)
More than 50 magistrates quit in disgust at court fees, a charge on people who've been through the justice system.

They hit small-time criminals of flat fees of up to £1,000 - on top of any fines or compensation - which were five times lower if they pleaded guilty.

Critics warned that would encourage innocent people to plead guilty to end fears of a huge fee.

The fees were introduced in 2015 despite the outrage, and were eventually scrapped just a few months later.

READ MORE
Joy as Tories scrap criminal courts charge 'that made innocent people plead guilty'
21. Cutting inheritance tax for the rich

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne
George Osborne knows how to look after Britain's richest people (Photo: PA)
The Conservatives won the 2015 election promising to "fix the roof while the sun is shining".

But there was one way they were happy to loosen the purse strings - inheritance tax.

One of George Osborne's first acts when he returned as Chancellor was to let couples leave £350,000 more in property after they die .

That means a total of £1million can now be left inheritance-tax-free, benefiting just 22,000 families, according to estimates.

The move was set to cost nearly £1billion a year, cash Labour says should be spent on schools and hospitals.

22. Making people show passports in hospital


How much does health tourism cost the NHS compared to everything else?
In early 2017 it emerged new laws will make hospitals check patients' IDs to see if they are eligible for free NHS treatment, and charge up-front if they are not.

It's to crack down on health tourism, a favourite attack topic of right-wing politicians and commentators.

But how much of a problem is health tourism?

Research shows it is just a fraction of spending on other things in the NHS - agency contracts to plug staff gaps, for instance.

The total cost of foreigners using the NHS is £2billion, but only a small proportion of this is deliberate fraud or evasion.

23. Turning landlords into immigration enforcers

The new British passport design
Landlords are now having to act as an arm of immigration enforcement (Photo: PA)

Right to Rent was rolled out across England in 2016, and makes landlords establish their tenants have a right to be in the country by taking copies of passports or identity cards.

Failure to comply can lead to fines of up to £3,000 a tenant.

The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants warned the scheme was "clearly discriminatory" and "putting landlords in an impossible position".

Andy Burnham, shadow home secretary at the time, compared it to writing 'no dogs, no blacks, no Irish' in a 1950s guest house window.

READ MORE
Theresa May's landlord immigration checks 'like saying no dogs, no blacks, no Irish' claims Andy Burnham
24. Social care cuts

Elderly hand holds that of a newborn baby. Stock image
Don't forget the social care crisis - it's been coming down the pipe for years (Photo: Getty)
The first few months of 2017 were dominated by an issue that's been coming down the pipe for years - social care cuts.

Theresa May had boasted she was giving the NHS £10billion of extra cash.

But at the same time councils were having their funds slashed. This matters because they look after the over-burdened social care system for the elderly and infirm.

Experts said more than half the £10bn was being swallowed up by hospital beds filled with vulnerable people with nowhere to go.

Overall 'real terms' spending has plummeted 8.4% since the Tories took power, the House of Commons Library said.

Only after months of pressure did Chancellor Philip Hammond announce a £2bn fund in his 2017 Budget, but charities said it still wouldn't be enough.

READ MORE
Brutal Tory cuts slice £1bn off real spending on social care - despite Theresa May's boasts
25. The public sector pay freeze

Protesters march through Newcastle as part of a one day national strike against pension changes and funding cuts
Public sector workers have marched for more pay for years, but it hasn't worked (Photo: PA)
Public sector workers first had their pay frozen for two years thanks to Tory austerity in 2010.

From 2012, pay rises were then capped at 1% a year for an astonishing seven years to 2019/20.

It means civil servants, nurses, teachers, police, armed forces and the like who entered work on a good wage could well be worse off in real terms in their early 30s.

26. The benefit freeze

An elderly man holds cash in his hands
A massive range of benefits are frozen - so in reality, they're all being cut (Photo: Getty)
Nearly all working-age benefits are frozen at their 2015-16 rates for four years.

That means in reality, benefits are being slashed automatically because the pound in your pocket can buy less with each passing year.

This isn't just about being out of work - it includes benefits to help people on low incomes too.

A government impact assessment obtained by the Lib Dems says the average claimant will be £6 a week worse off.

And overall, it will slash £3.5billion from the welfare bill by 2020.

27. NHS 'efficiency savings'


0:00

Video thumbnail, Head of NHS slaps down PM's claim the health service is getting 'more than it asked for'
CLICK TO PLAY
WATCH NEXT
Worshippers flock to see weeping Virgin Mary stat
HEAD OF NHS SLAPS DOWN PM'S CLAIM THE NHS IS GETTING 'MORE THAN IT ASKED FOR'
The Tories baulk at any suggestion they're cutting the NHS - they say funding is at record levels.

But at the same time, hospital trusts are being asked to find "efficiency savings" of £22billion.

That has led several to draw up so-called Sustainability and Transformation Plans over spring 2017 that suggest closing down key services.

And with privatisation bringing big costs and more people living longer, health chiefs say we could be looking at the end of the service as we know it.

The last winter crisis in A&E was the worst on record, branded a "humanitarian crisis" by the Red Cross.

NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson told MPs in January: “We cannot carry on pretending that we can do everything on the financial envelope that we have. It's just not possible.”

READ MORE
NHS chief warns cash crisis may signal the end of the health service as we know it
28. Mental health bed numbers reduced

Unhappy Retired Senior Man Sitting On Sofa
There are stories of people in crisis travelling hundreds of miles for a bed (Photo: REX/Shutterstock)
More than half of mental health NHS trusts have cut their number of beds for patients in crisis, research found in late 2016.

There are stories of people in crisis travelling hundreds of miles for a bed.

And more than half of clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) - the bodies who control local health spending - said they would have to cut mental health funding in 2016/17.

Freedom of Information requests by Labour MP Luciana Berger found of 128 CCGs who responded, 73 (57%) planned to cut the amount they will spend on mental health.

The figures all came despite repeated commitments to improve care for the mentally ill.

29. Trying to hike council tenants' rents

View Of Estate From Approaching Street
Pay to Stay was eventually scrapped - but only after it was rammed into law (Photo: REX/Shutterstock)
There was outrage when the Tories forced councils to hike rents for high-income tenants in a policy called Pay to Stay.

Ministers defied Labour MPs and the House of Lords to pass the law in May 2016, despite being warned it would force 60,000 families out of their homes.

It raised rents for council and housing association households earning more than £30,000, or £40,000 in London.

Labour MPs branded it a "tax on aspiration" and warned it would trap couples on just £15,000 a year each.

Eventually the Tories ditched the scheme in November 2016, but only after introducing it despite the outrage.

[TonyGosling]

There’s a bit of panic among some Labour supporters who watched John McDonnell’s interview on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show this morning that McDonnell said he and Corbyn would resign if Labour lose the General Election.
What really happened was that the show was replaying some poorly-flagged old footage of McDonnell talking about what the pair might do if Labour lost an election in 2020.
What McDonnell said was that, as Labour are looking to win the election, it’s not relevant.
In fact, the SKWAWKBOX spoke to a highly-placed Labour source who told this blog that the issue was ‘decided within twelve hours’ of May calling the election on 18 April and Corbyn will stay.
https://skwawkbox.org/2017/05/07/exclusive-decided-within-12-hrs-of-el ection-called-corbyn-going-nowhere/

John McDonnell: ‘I will be the first socialist Labour Chancellor’
But Shadow Chancellor admits it is ‘inevitable’ Jeremy Corbyn will have to quit if he loses
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/john-mcdonnell-first-soc ialist-labour-chancellor-corbyn-quit-inevitable-a7722271.html

[TonyGosling]

UNITE AGAINST THE TORIES
Most constituencies can only be realistically contested by two parties.
This site shows which way you should vote on 8th June to prevent the Tories from getting into power again.
https://www.tactical2017.com/

Postcode Search
Press Enter to search or Use Current Location
Don't know your constituency? Find out here.

[TonyGosling]

Labour begins to poll higher under Jeremy Corbyn than it did under Ed Miliband
Gap with Conservatives narrows to 15 points, according to two new polls
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-corbyn-poll-lates t-higher-ed-miliband-election-2017-news-a7737511.html

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Probably the main reason for this snap general election
trigger ballots by 3rd May cancelled!

Labour MPs won't have to face members' re-selection ballots to stand again
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/general-election-uk-earl y-labour-mps-jeremy-corbyn-trigger-ballots-mandatory-reselection-a7689 916.html

The party is waiving requirements for 'trigger ballots', avoiding a potential internal row

Jon Stone, Joe Watts @joncstone Tuesday 18 April 2017 19:39 BST

Labour is set to give its MPs the automatic right to contest their existing seats in the upcoming general election without need for “re-selection” by members before they can stand, The Independent understands.

The party’s ruling executive is expected to waive requirements for “trigger ballots” with the blessing of Jeremy Corbyn – avoiding a potential scrap between the Parliamentary Labour Party and Mr Corbyn’s office weeks ahead of the general election.

The decision comes after a discussion at the top of the party about whether members should get a say about re-selecting its candidates for Theresa May’s snap election.

In ordinary circumstances Labour’s rulebook requires MPs to be re-selected by so-called “trigger ballots” – a vote of local party members and affiliates in the constituency.

However it is understood that given the short notice ahead of the election Mr Corbyn’s office has agreed that MPs should be automatically re-selected and that the focus should be on fighting the general election.

Sources say National Executive Committee officers today unanimously approved plans for automatic re-selection and the whole NEC is expected to back the plan tomorrow with the support of the leadership.

Local Labour parties would have had until a 3 May cut-off to hold trigger ballots on whether to re-select their MPs – the date the Royal proclamation for the June 8 election will by law be issued. After such a proclamation, Labour’s rules say sitting MPs should automatically be adopted as candidates anyway.

On Tuesday evening close Corbyn ally Diane Abbott dismissed the idea that the leader had been seeking trigger ballots as “a rumour”, telling Channel 4 News: “Sitting Members of Parliament will be nodded through.”

On selections, Labour’s rulebook states: “If the sitting MP wishes to stand for re-election, a trigger ballot will be carried out through Party units and affiliates according to NEC guidelines.

“If the MP wins the trigger ballot he/ she will, subject to NEC endorsement, be selected as the CLP’s prospective parliamentary candidate.

“If the MP fails to win the trigger ballot, he/ she shall be eligible for nomination for selection as the prospective parliamentary candidate, and s/he shall be included in the shortlist of candidates from whom the selection shall be made.”

Labour faces an uphill struggle in the coming general election with polls show the Conservatives at least 20 points ahead. At least two Labour MPs have said they will not contest their seats again.

[TonyGosling]

Jeremy Corbyn launches Labour's Manifesto | FULL SPEECH (16May17)

Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2cWG_tX0Aw

Theresa May Has Launched General Election Manifesto | FULL SPEECH (18May17)

Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzHMGdY-BLo

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Policies...
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/labour-party-manifesto-jeremy-co rbyn-10430883
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/lib-dem-party-manifesto-2017-104 39434
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/what-conservative-party-manifest o-policies-10436098

[TonyGosling]

Jeremy Bernard Corbyn What Was Done *HQ official* RepostLike
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5khzvv_jeremy-bernard-corbyn-what-wa s-done-hq-official_fun
5 812 views
Bonnie Prince Bob reflects on the political history that led to the appointment of England's greatest ever Prime Minister
'Jeremy Corbyn' If you enjoyed this production, and would like to support future work then please consider donating to Discontent/Bonnie Prince Bob here

[TonyGosling]

Theresa May faces disaster after new poll finds Corbyn slashing her majority to just 2 seats
http://uk.businessinsider.com/yougov-poll-general-election-theresa-may -jeremy-corbyn-labour-conservatives-majority-two-seats-2017-5

Shock poll finds Jeremy Corbyn closing in on Theresa May in the race for Downing Street.
Conservative lead down to five points compared to leads of more than 20 points at the start of the campaign.
Huge boost in Jeremy Corbyn's ratings could cost Conservatives an overall majority.
The election campaign resumes today with Corbyn speaking in central London.
LONDON — Theresa May risks being ousted from Downing Street after a shock new poll suggests Labour could be on course to cut her majority down to just two seats.

The YouGov poll for the Times found that the Conservatives are on 43%, just five points ahead of Labour on 38%.

At the start of the election campaign, some polls had the Tories with leads of more than 20 points.

The prime minister called the snap election last month in order to "strengthen my mandate" in Brexit negotiations.

However, if Friday's poll were repeated on election day, May would face the ignominy of having gone to the country, only to see her government's majority cut down to wafer-thin proportions.

New YouGov/Times poll:

Conservatives: 43%
Labour: 38%
Liberal Democrats: 10%
UKIP: 4%
Greens: 1%
If repeated on a universal swing on June 8th, today's poll would see Labour take eight seats from the Conservatives with May's party failing to gain any from Labour.

[TonyGosling]

Why Corbyn’s terrorism speech was a watershed moment
https://cultureandpolitics.org/2017/05/27/51009/
By Daniel Margrain

This is what Margaret Thatcher, of all people, said in 1985 during a speech to the American Bar Association in relation to terrorism:

“The terrorist uses force because he knows he will never get his way by democratic means…Through calculated savagery, his aim is to induce fear in the hearts of people. And weariness towards resistance……And we must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.”

Starving the terrorists of media publicity was clearly not what PM, Theresa May, had in mind on the steps of Downing Street in the aftermath of the Manchester bombing. In the hours that followed what was clearly a heavily rehearsed and scripted speech that lacked genuine emotion and empathy, May made the decision to present to the public the replacement of thousands of police by uniformed soldiers as part of an orchestrated display of defiance.

This was despite the fact that the reassuring threat level was subsequently reduced from “critical” to “severe” and troops will be taken off the streets. So why did May deploy the Army in the first place other than as a propaganda exercise? This is precisely the oxygen of publicity the terrorists thrive on. May provided them with it by creating an invented state of emergency.

Given that they also thrive on the disruption of the democratic process and feed on the oxygen of publicity generated by saturated media coverage, it was perhaps surprising that within hours of the Manchester bombing taking place, the decision was made to postpone the election campaign, albeit for a few days, against a backdrop of rolling 24 news coverage of the tragic events and its aftermath.

Heartfelt and genuine

In contrast to May’s robotic and staged performance which was low on substance and high on rhetoric, the leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, in what was a much more low-key approach, not only came across as far more heartfelt and genuine than May, but was also more substantive and practicable in terms of his intention to deal with the political causes of terrorism.

“An informed understanding of the causes of terrorism is an essential part of an effective response that will protect the security of our people, that fights rather than fuels terrorism”, argued Corbyn.

Continuing on this theme the Labour leader said:

“Protecting this country requires us to be both strong against terrorism and strong against the causes of terrorism. The blame is with the terrorists, but if we are to protect our people we must be honest about what threatens our security.

Those causes certainly cannot be reduced to foreign policy decisions alone. Over the past fifteen years or so, a sub-culture of often suicidal violence has developed amongst a tiny minority of, mainly young, men….

…No rationale based on the actions of any government can remotely excuse, or even adequately explain, outrages like this week’s massacre. But we must be brave enough to admit the war on terror is simply not working. We need a smarter way to reduce the threat from countries that nurture terrorists and generate terrorism.”

Courageous

This was a courageous speech that confronted head-on the underlying issues that all leading British political figures since the bogus war on terror began in 2003 have failed to address.

Predictably, the speech was followed by faux Tory outrage. Senior minister, James Cleverly, fell apart live on the BBC after journalist Emma Barnett confronted him over his false assertion that Corbyn “could make such an erroneous and casual connection between British foreign policy and international terrorism”.

Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson slammed the Labour leader for linking terror to foreign policy. But there was a problem. Johnson had already said something similar 12 years previously: “As the Butler report revealed, the JIC assessment in 2003 was that a war in Iraq would increase the terror threat to Britain”, he said.

Johnson was telling the truth. The link between foreign military interventions and terrorism is hardly a secret and is accepted as a given by the British establishment itself. Former director-general of M15, Eliza Manningham-Butler, for example, has admitted that “the invasion of Iraq undoubtedly increased the terrorist threat in Britain.”

In the Tories view of the world, ISIS popped out of thin air. The political vacuum left as a direct result of the chaotic US-UK interventions in Iraq and Libya are apparently inconsequential.

Question Time

The inability of anybody on Thursday evening’s edition of the BBCs Question Time programme (May 25, 2017) to even dare mention the causes in case they be accused of appeasing terrorists, was palpable. Instead, incoherent contributions from some members of the panel that totally ignored the ‘elephant in the room’ were preferred. This included talking endlessly about the widely discredited Prevent strategy (see below) which Craig Murray described on twitter as providing “a major source of income to various right wing cranks.”

In light of the spate of terror attacks elsewhere, it’s also worth reminding readers of a speech that former UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, made in Birmingham in July, 2015, which what could loosely be termed as a less than coherent strategy to tackle Islamist extremism.

Ignoring many of the causal factors that drive a small minority of mainly young Muslims to ISIS, such as the Wests endless wars in Muslim lands, Cameron outlined the Tory five-year vision to defeat home-grown extremism. The former PM set out four major areas that needed attention: countering the ‘warped’ extremist ideology, the process of radicalisation, the ‘drowning-out’ of moderate Muslim voices and the ‘identity crisis’ among some British-born Muslims.

Cameron then spoke about the need to enforce British values citing “equal rights regardless of race, sex, sexuality or faith” as a core aspect of these values despite the fact that he voted in support of the homophobic Clause 28 as recently as 2003.

Third, the former PM claimed that Islamic extremism can have nothing to do with Western intervention since the invasion of Iraq came after 9/11. He appears to be unaware of a century of imperial interventions before that. This canard was repeated by Michael Fallon in a recent car crash interview in which he pretended to be shocked by Corbyn’s truth-telling.

Pick and choose

The most hypocritical thing is how the establishment pick and choose their Muslims. A well-worn narrative is that the latter are incapable of coping with modern values. However, a succession of British Foreign Secretaries – including the pathological liar, Philip Hammond – are only too happy to be photographed and dined alongside the Saudi royal family who don’t accept any of the values the establishment call British. And when people like Theresa May talk about the British values we should accept, she’s not talking about the values her lot used to build an empire on.

In his 2015 speech, Cameron inferred what British values were not by referencing forced marriage and female genital mutilation. The implication being that these manifestations of ‘un-Britishness’ are unique to Muslim culture which of course they are not. “No more turning a blind eye on the basis of cultural sensitivities”, he said. Fine! on the basis of consistency, I’ll now wait in eager anticipation for a similar speech by Theresa May to the Jewish community in Stamford Hill.

Cameron continued, “I want to work with you to defeat this poison [of Islamist extremism].” Presumably, ‘defeating’ ISIS doesn’t involve the counterproductive action of bombing to smithereens yet more innocent civilians as the justification for mission creep or unconditionally supporting the Sunni authoritarian regimes, the ideology and funding of which helped spawn the likes of al-Qaeda and ISIS in the first place.

The one (unintended) positive that emerged from the Cameron speech was when he talked about the difference between Islamist extremism on the one hand, and the Islam religion, on the other. As such he brought into sharp focus the wider questions regarding the differing interpretations seemingly inherent to religious doctrine.

This issue was further highlighted by Jon Snow (Channel 4 News) who quoted the Muslim Council of Great Britain saying:

“We need to define tightly and closely what extremism is rather than perpetuate a deep misunderstanding of Islam and rhetoric which invariably facilitates extremists to thrive.”

Do we know what Islamic extremism is exactly? Is there a distinction between Islam and extremism peddled in the name of Islam? Can a distinction be made between the Wahabi version of Islam in Saudi Arabia and extremism? Surely the former is indistinguishable from the latter?

Missing

In order to tackle the problem associated with certain extremist interpretations of Islam, it makes sense to want to tackle the problem at source. But crucially, this was the aspect missing from Cameron’s speech. For if he was to highlight it, he would have been cutting off his nose to spite his face. That’s because Britain has a an extremely cozy relationship with the oppressive totalitarian states’ of the Arab Gulf Peninsula, all of whom without exception, adhere to the extremist theocratic Islamic ideologies described but nonetheless represent extremely good business for Great Britain PLC.

Is it the duty of Muslims living, in say, Birmingham to defend other Muslims living, in say, Baghdad? Conversely, can the killing of innocent people in Western liberal democracies’ ever be considered justifiable on the basis that theoretically the populations within these nations often elect governments’ who initiate wars of aggression against Muslims in their name? Can violent acts in these circumstances ever be justified? Does this, in the minds of extremists, justify Jihad against Westerners by Muslims irrespective of where either reside in the world?

Jihad

Some moderate Muslims like Baroness Warsi insist that Jihad is about “self-improvement, self-evaluation, questioning injustice and being prepared to raise your voice when you see injustice.” This contrasts with the more extreme interpretation of Jihad in which external factors like the taking of arms are seen as the precursor to the kind of self-evaluation Warsi outlined. How can these seemingly irreconcilable differences be reconciled?

One of the main problems that needs to be addressed, but tends to be evaded, relates to the contradictory aspect of religion itself. Christians, Jews and others of all religions and denominations will often claim piety with one hand but adopt the role of arm-chair generals holding a metaphorical grenade with the other.

Moreover, irrespective of whether one is a follower of ISIS, or whether one is a part of the vast majority of the wider Muslim community of Sunni or Shia, all groups and sects will self-identify with, and hence, claim accordingly they are the true representatives of Islam. All will justify their opposing positions by cherry-picking appropriate verses from their religious book.

These contradictory positions, in turn, are exploited politically by racists and Islamophobes. Islamophobia is not just a human reaction to cultural difference. It has been purposely perpetuated as a result of the politicisation of religion of which the creation of an Islamophobia industry is a reflection.

Prevent strategy

The Prevent Strategy and the policies of the Henry Jackson Society are integral to the functioning of this industry. Cage, the London-based advocacy organisation, wrote of the Prevent strategy:

“Prevents causal analysis and theory is fundamentally flawed. According to the strategy, the cause of violence in the Muslim world is rooted in ideology. Whereas in reality the cause is the political struggle of Muslims in response to unrepresentative regimes, often aided by Western policy and occupations.”

This assessment appears to be consistent with the analysis of Stephen Holmes, who in relation to the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, implied that the goal of ISIS and al-Qaeda is no different from other national liberation movements – to achieve independence by forcing the imperialist powers to retreat:

“The vast majority of Bin Laden’s public statements provide secular, not religious, rationales for 9/11. The principal purpose of the attack was to punish the ‘unjust and tyrannical America’. The casus belli he invokes over and over again is injustice not impiety. True, he occasionally remarks that the United States has declared war on god, but such statements would carry little conviction if not seconded by claims that the United States is tyrannising and exploiting Muslim people… Bin Laden almost never justified terrorism against the West as a means for subordinating Western unbelievers to the true faith. Instead, he almost always justified terrorism against the West as a form of legitimate self-defence.”

According to Holmes then, whilst political objectives may be expressed in religious terms, in essence, the goal of ISIS/al-Qaeda is the same as previous secular-nationalist movements in the Middle East—the defeat of US imperialism and its allies in the region.

Complex interplay

The claim that all instances of jihadist violence do not have religious rationales is misleading. The truth is, Islamist fanaticism is often the result of a complex interplay between the former and the quest for political and economic justice. This is what Corbyn was brave enough to acknowledge in his speech when he said the causes of terrorism “certainly cannot be reduced to foreign policy decisions alone.”

Nonetheless, the anti-Muslim ideology of the right-wing Henry Jackson Society, alongside the creation of the illiberal Prevent Strategy, has meant that the political establishment have been quick to exploit the media’s often sensationalist reporting as well as the fear and panic Muslim’s generate for their own narrow political propaganda purposes.

The former, for example, set up Student Rights which produced a report that manufactured panic around gender segregation on campuses. Cameron weighed in. Though strangely he never spoke about gender segregation at Eton. Catherine Heseltine of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK spoke of how growth in the fear of Islam has gone along with policies pushed by governments. She said:

“Immediately after 9/11 only 10 percent of people in Britain saw Islam as a religion as a threat…Since then that figure has just about tripled.”

According to Bob Ferguson, teacher and convener for Newham Stand Up Against Racism, since the passing of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act in February, 2015, Islamophobia has been taken to a new level. Teaching staff at universities and schools now have a statutory duty to report people who may be vulnerable to “Islamic non-violent extremism”. One clause that is particularly pernicious, requires teachers and lecturers to report discussions on ‘Grievances to which terrorist organisations claim to have a solution’. That one clause wipes out any possibility of discussing imperialism.

Ferguson adds:

“There was a minute’s silence for the victims of the beach attack in Tunisia. All the Muslims I know at my school thought those murders were a vile, reactionary crime. Many also regard the slaughter of three boys playing football on the beach in Gaza by Israel as a vile, reactionary crime. Expressing the first sentiment proves you are a good Muslim, but expressing the second could get you seen as an extremist.”

In conclusion, the issues are complex and multifaceted and not one aspect, in isolation, explains why some young people join up with groups like ISIS. Although many moderates would deny to their last breath the religious rationale that underpins the violence of groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda, these latter groups would make similar claims against them.

The call by moderate and peaceful Muslims (the vast majority) to condemn their violent and extremist counterparts (the small minority) on the basis that the latter are “not true Muslims” is moot since crucially all groups self-identify as Muslims and therefore justify their respective actions as Muslims based on the specific interpretation of passages contained within their holy book.

Some religious followers, cherry pick certain violent quotes from their religious books in order to justify to themselves their beliefs, mainly for political purposes. This is true of religious extremists whether they be Salafist Muslims, Zionist Jews or Christian fundamentalists.

The fact that the tragedy in Manchester meant that Jeremy Corbyn elevated the political dimension to the forefront of the debate on terrorism where figures like Blair, Cameron and now May have ignored it, is a testament to his bravery and commitment to taking on the vested economic interests and the hypocrisy of the establishment that give rise to the perpetuation of these interests.

I rely on the generosity of my readers. I don’t make any money from my work and I’m not funded. If you’ve enjoyed reading this or another posting, please consider making a donation, no matter how small. You can help continue my research and write independently..… Thanks!

[TonyGosling]

In a speech today Jeremy Corbyn will address "the connections between wars our government has supported or fought in other countries and terrorism here at home". Do you believe that wars that the UK has supported or fought are or are not in part responsible for terror attacks against the UK?
https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/88c1aff0-41f4-11e7-94 a8-2ab0a50a8b9c/question/a76fff10-41f4-11e7-aa59-c62e889b3830/toplines

Wars the UK has supported or fought ARE responsible, at least in part, for terror attacks against the UK 53%
Wars the UK has supported or fought ARE NOT responsible for terror attacks against the UK 24%
Don't know 23%

[TonyGosling]

Jeremy Paxman interviews Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May

Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KllymYee9AI


Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4ylIZJ8XyI

[outsider]

RE the Paxman super-biased questions, Paxman is a member of the ‘British-American Project’:
‘Friends in high places’:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/06/usa.politics1

The article is also very informative re the 'Bliarite' New Labour coup:

'...In the summer of 1997, a few weeks after New Labour won power, a striking article about the election appeared in a privately circulated newsletter. Under the cryptic headline Big Swing To BAP, the article began, "No less than four British-American Project fellows and one advisory board member have been appointed to ministerial posts in the new Labour government." A list of the names of these five people and of other New Labour appointees who were members of BAP followed: "Mo Mowlam ... Chris Smith ... Peter Mandelson ... Baroness Symons ... George Robertson ... Jonathan Powell ... Geoff Mulgan ... Matthew Taylor ..." The article ended with a self-congratulatory flourish and the names of two more notable BAP members: "James Naughtie and Jeremy Paxman gave them all a hard time on BBC radio and television. Other fellows, too numerous to list, popped up throughout the national media commenting, criticising and celebrating."
Guardian Today: the headlines, the analysis, the debate - sent direct to you
Read more

The British-American Project for the Successor Generation, to give it its full title, was founded in 1985 "to perpetuate the close relationship between the United States and Britain" in the words of BAP's slim official history, through "transatlantic friendships and professional contacts". It has a membership of "600 leaders and opinion formers", drawn equally from both countries. It holds an annual conference (the next starts this Friday in Chicago) to which journalists are not invited and at which everything said is, officially at least, not to be repeated to outsiders. It rarely features in the mainstream media - instead, it makes tantalisingly vague and fleeting appearances in those corners of the internet where conspiracy aficionados gather.

Here, BAP is portrayed as a Trojan horse for American foreign policy, recruiting Britons of liberal or left-of-centre inclinations and political talent and connections when they are young, indoctrinating them with propaganda about the virtues of American capitalism and America's role in the world, and then watching them approvingly as they steer British politics in an ever more pro-Washington direction. According to this analysis, the project's greatest success has been New Labour.....'

[TonyGosling]

A Tory "strong and stable" van blew over in the wind, causing a crash on the M6. Then a rainbow appeared over a Corbyn rally in Birmingham. pic.twitter.com/PA3ziDgtPB

— Pete Garrard (@LiverpoolPeteG) June 6, 2017

General election poll: Tories will fall 22 seats short of a majority, says latest YouGov model
Projection suggests Tories are on course to win 305 seats
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/general-election-poll-la test-tories-majority-seats-short-labour-votes-yougov-model-conservativ es-a7774961.html

[TonyGosling]

Inside the DUP: Domination by Free Presbyterian Church and Orange Order laid bare
Exclusive: The most definitive study of Northern Ireland’s most powerful political party ever undertaken
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/inside-the-dup-dominat ion-by-free-presbyterian-church-and-orange-order-laid-bare-30330698.ht ml

By Liam Clarke June 5 2014
The influence of the Orange Order and the Free Presbyterian Church within Northern Ireland’s biggest political party can today be laid bare.

The Belfast Telegraph begins a series revealing the details of the most extensive study ever carried out into the DUP.

The Democratic Unionist Party: From Protest To Power will be published by Oxford University Press later this month. Exclusive extracts show that Free Presbyterianism remains the largest faith among both DUP members and elected representatives. The Orange Order is even more dominant.
Orange influence grows, church’s grip slackens

Professor Jonathan Tonge surveyed 75% of the party's members in interviews carried out with the active support of the leadership. His findings reveal that Free Presbyterianism, the tiny denomination founded by Ian Paisley, still remains the largest faith among both DUP members and elected representatives.

The Orange Order is even more dominant, counting the majority of DUP elected representatives and more than a third of party members among its ranks.

According to the research, just under a third of DUP members (30.5%) are Free Presbyterians and slightly more (34.6%) are members of the Orange institution.

To put these figures in context, the 2011 census recorded that there were 10,068 Free Presbyterians in Northern Ireland – just 0.6% of our total population.

Like most political parties, the DUP does not disclose its membership, but it is believed to number around 1,100 people.

Overall, Free Presbyterians are more than 50 times more common in the DUP than they are in the population. Orangemen are 21 times more common in the party.

The prevalence of both bodies increases as you move up the ranks. Almost 40% of the 175 DUP councillors elected in 2011 were Free Presbyterian and more than half (54.2%) were members of the Orange Order. These proportions may have fallen a little in the council elections held last month.

Among the DUP's 38 MLAs over a third are Free Presbyterians and exactly half are Orangemen. The proportion increases further among the party's eight MPs.

Prof Tonge points out that the influence of the Free Presbyterian Church has declined over time, whereas the Orange Order membership appears to have increased.

This is partly due to an influx of new members between the signing of the Belfast, or Good Friday, Agreement in 1998, which it opposed, and 2006 when the DUP signed the St Andrews Agreement on power-sharing with Sinn Fein.

Many of these new recruits were members of the Ulster Unionist Party, which had links with the Orange Order but not with the Free Presbyterian Church.

Dr Tonge found that "prior to the signing of the 1998 Belfast Agreement, 56% of DUP members were Free Presbyterians. During the period of DUP opposition to the 1998 deal, Free Presbyterian membership still ran at one in five of new members (well down on the early days) but decline to a mere 13% after the 2006 St Andrews Agreement".

Other figures show, that particularly in the early days of the DUP, several converted to the Free Presbyterian Church when they joined the party. Some 29.8% of DUP members were born into the Church of Ireland but only 17.7% still belong to that denomination.

An unnamed former DUP mayor of Belfast told researchers that he was asked by a fellow DUP councillor what church he attended. When he replied: "Stormont Presbyterian", he was told: "You haven't found freedom yet."

Assessing the most active members of the party, Dr Tonge found: "It is the Orange contingent not, contrary to popular myth, the Free Presbyterians, who really count as the most active of all."

One gauge of support for the Orange Order was the view of DUP members on parading rights. A clear majority, 58%, think the Order should be able to march wherever it likes, but quite a high number, 31.6%, believe it should only be allowed through nationalist areas "if there is prior agreement with nationalist residents".

The Democratic Unionist Party: From Protest To Power by Jonathan Tonge, Maire Braniff, Thomas Hennessey, James W. McAuley, and Sophie Whiting; Oxford University Press, £55
What they said... voice from inside the party
DUP leader Peter Robinson

“I don’t think that the church should have any influence on it (DUP policy). People’s own faith will guide them in terms of their outlook on life and therefore, from a structural institutional point of view, it (the score) should be a zero, but from a personal point of view, it should be 10. Individuals are what they are because of the beliefs that they hold and nothing will be held more sincerely than whatever their religious beliefs are.”
MLA Paul Girvan

“Some people say religion and politics should never really mix. I am a total disbeliever in that aspect because I believe politics came about through religion. If you use the Ten Commandments, you can formulate almost every law that you need.”
Ballymena non-Free Presbyterian councillor

“On occasions I would be made to feel like an outsider . . . I would like to see a bit more openness in the members, who are there with strong beliefs, to the likes of me. I am not a disease coming in the midst of them.”
A UUP defector, now a North Belfast councillor

“I never got the sense being in the DUP that it is a political wing of the Free Ps . . . there was a disconnect between the two even before St Andrews and those who were Free P and DUP were starting to draw the distinction between the two.”

Belfast Telegraph

[TonyGosling]

Weak and unstable: Britain faces 'hung' parliament after Conservative poll disaster
Ruling Conservative Party fails to win a majority while Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party surpasses pre-election polls
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uk-conservative-party-set-lose-parli amentary-majority-exit-poll-722056007

So, who are the DUP?
ADAM RAMSAY 9 June 2017
The most likely coalition partners for a floundering Conservative party sit on the hard right fringe of British politics.
https://opendemocracy.net/uk/adam-ramsay/so-who-are-dup

Former DUP leader Peter Robinson (left) in paramilitary uniform, 1986.

The Democratic Unionist Party now look like the Tories preferred coalition partners. The DUP, which is the biggest Unionist (ie pro-UK) party in Northern Ireland, are often treated as though they are just the same as the other Unionist party they have essentially replaced – the Ulster Unionists. But while the UUP have a long running relationship with the Tories, and are a centre right party, the DUP are another thing entirely. The idea that they are near power in Westminster should worry us all. Here are some things you need to know.

Theresa May's new partners in government have strong historical links with Loyalist paramilitary groups. Specifically, the terrorist group Ulster Resistance was founded by a collection of people who went on to be prominent DUP politicians. Peter Robinson, for example, who was DUP leader and Northern Ireland’s first minister until last year, was an active member of Ulster Resistance. The group’s activities included collaborating with other terrorist groups including the Ulster Volunteer Force, to smuggle arms into the UK, such as RPG rocket launchers.

Of course, Northern Ireland has moved towards peace, and the DUP, like their opponents in Sinn Fein, have rescinded violence. As part of that normalisation, the fact that parties which include people who have abandoned civil war can be brought into the democratic process is a good thing. But for the Tories to end an election campaign which they spent attacking Corbyn for his alleged links to former Northern Irish terrorists by going into coalition with a party founded by former Northern Irish terrorists would be a deep irony.

It’s also important to know their politics. When Enoch Powell was expelled from the Tory party after his fascist turn, he moved to Northern Ireland. There, his campaign manager was a young man named Jeffrey Donaldson, who says on his website:

“I worked alongside two of the greatest names in Unionism in the 20th century. Between 1982 and 1984 I worked as Enoch Powell’s constituency agent, successfully spearheading Mr. Powell’s election campaigns of 1983 and 1986 when the South Down seat was retained despite the fact the constituency contained a natural ‘nationalist’ majority.”

Donaldson is now the longest serving of the DUP’s MPs.

The DUP also fights hard against women’s right to choose to have an abortion, making them the biggest pro-forced pregnancy party in the UK. The results in Northern Ireland are utterly grim for the many women each year who are in need of an abortion.

Despite being climate change deniers, they used their role in government in Northern Ireland to set up a subsidy scheme for biofuels, which gave those who bought into it more money than they had to pay out. The Northern Irish exchequer ended up paying out around half a billion pounds to those who knew about the scheme, leading to a scandal known as ‘cash for ash’, and a major investigation into whether DUP staff and supporters personally benefitted.

The DUP have fought to stop equal marriage, making Northern Ireland the only part of this archipelago without equal relationship rights. Last year, DUP MP Sammy Wilson was caught up in a scandal when a member of the public said that Northern Ireland ought to “get the ethnics out”, and he appeared to reply “you are absolutely right”.

The party backed Brexit, and as openDemocracy exposed earlier in the year, accepted a donation of £435,000 to pay for campaign materials across the UK. Under pressure, they admitted that the cash came from a shady group called the Constitutional Research Council, which is chaired by Scottish Tory Richard Cook. openDemocracy research showed that Cook founded a company in 2013 with the former head of the Saudi intelligence service, and a man who admitted to us that he was involved in a notorious incident in which hundreds of Kalashnikovs were flown to Hindu terrorists in West Bengal in 1995.

The DUP told us that the Constitutional Research Council’s chair’s surprising links with Saudi intelligence “aren’t a problem for us”.

We don’t know what the DUP will demand from the Tories in exchange for supporting them – perhaps just more cash for Northern Ireland, which would be no bad thing. But the idea of a government involving the DUP should worry us all, and the failure to ask any questions about their involvement during the BBC’s coverage last night was fairly astonishing.

You can donate to our investigations into the DUP here.

[TonyGosling]

Jeremy Corbyn increased Labour's vote share more than any of the party's leaders since 1945
Socialist achieves bigger swing than Tony Blair
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-election-r esult-vote-share-increased-1945-clement-attlee-a7781706.html

Harriet Agerholm, Louis Dore @HarrietAgerholm 19 hours ago164
Jeremy Corbyn has increased Labour's share of the vote by more than any other of the party's election leaders since 1945.

Labour's proportion of the vote grew 9.6 per cent in Thursday's poll — the biggest swing since Clement Attlee shortly after the Second World War.

After the shock election result, which saw the Conservative Party lose its majority, Mr Corbyn announced: "We are ready to serve this country."

Jeremy Corbyn has just increased Labour's share of the vote more than any other leader in any other election since Attlee in 1945
8:38 AM - 9 Jun 2017

Mr Attlee, who was instrumental in the creation of the welfare state, swept to victory with a 10.4 per cent vote share increase after a long period of wartime austerity.

Only Tony Blair has come close to achieving such a surge in support since when he won a landslide victory in 1997.

With one yet seat to be announced, 261 Labour MPs have been elected, increasing their number by 29.

[TonyGosling]

Theresa May’s former aide reveals ‘dysfunctional’ set-up at No 10 as PM relies on key adviser with ‘crazy ideas’
'We would sit there and hear Fiona come up with ideas that were, quite frankly, crazy - and we would say nothing'

Rob Merrick Deputy Political Editor @Rob_Merrick an hour ago166 comments
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-prime-minste r-downing-street-no-10-adviser-katie-perrior-fiona-hill-crazy-ideas-ca binet-a7783131.html

A former aide to Theresa May has revealed how she oversees a “toxic” operation at No 10 and relies on an adviser with “crazy ideas”.

Katie Perrior lifted the lid on a “dysfunctional” team surrounding the Prime Minister who bombarded Cabinet ministers with rude text messages.

The former Downing Street director of communications, until two months ago, pointed the finger at Ms May’s powerful joint chiefs of staff – Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy.

Both were allowed by the Prime Minister to carry out “rude, childish behaviour”, while Ms Hill put forward “crazy ideas” that were not dismissed.

“It was pretty dysfunctional,” Ms Perrior said. “The atmosphere would be great if the chiefs of staff weren’t there – and terrible if the chiefs of staff were there.”

She recounted one early morning meeting, discussing the chances of winning last year’s Copeland by-election, when everyone else was encouraging the Tory candidate.

“Fiona Hill was at the back of the room, bellowing out ‘Why aren’t you doing more?’ ‘Why haven’t you done this?’ ‘Why haven’t you done that?’ Ms Perrior told BBC Radio Four's Today programme.

That was one of the “rare times” when the Prime Minister stood up to Ms Hill, but, she added: “Most of the time we would sit there and hear Fiona come up with ideas that were, quite frankly, crazy - and we would say nothing.”

Describing the atmosphere as “pretty toxic”, Ms Perrior added: “They only really know one way to operate – and that is to have enemies.”

The comments are the starkest revelations yet about Ms May’s extraordinary reliance on Ms Hill and Mr Timothy, who both worked for her for many years at the Home Office.

And they follow calls from some Conservative MPs for them to be sacked to show that the Prime Minister has learned the lessons from her election night battering.

Dr Sarah Wollaston, the chairwoman of the Commons health select committee, said: “I cannot see how the inner circle of special advisers can continue in post. Needs to be far more inclusive in future.”

And former minister Anna Soubry, asked on Channel 4 News, if the pair should be dismissed, replied simply: “Yes.”

Rumours circulated yesterday that David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, was also pressing for Ms Hill and Mr Timothy to go.

In an article for The Times, Ms Perrior set out the problems at No 10 in greater detail, saying they ran far deeper than a “whiff of arrogance”. She wrote: “The place bloody well stank.

“Great leaders lead by bringing people with them, not alienating them before having even digested breakfast.

READ MORE
Ruth Davidson 'gets LGBT rights assurances' from May after DUP pact
Theresa May needs to face reality after the general election result
Heidi Allen says Theresa May 'will be gone in six months'
5 terrifying facts about the party now propping up Theresa May

“What I could never work out was whether Mrs May condoned their behaviour and turned a blind eye or didn’t understand how destructive they both were.

“For all the love of a hierarchy, the chiefs treated Cabinet members exactly the same - rude, abusive, childish behaviour.

“For two people who have never achieved elected office, I was staggered at the disrespect they showed on a daily basis.”

Ms Perrier said nothing appeared to have changed, on the evidence of Ms May’s speech outside No 10 yesterday which “ignored” her rejection by millions of voters. “We got more of the same,” she wrote.

In an interview, Ms May said “personnel changes” would be announced soon, a remark seen as a hint that she could be ready to sacrifice Ms Hill and Mr Timothy.

The two aides are not believed to have been in their usual place at her side in Downing Street last night.

[TonyGosling]

Almost 300,000 people sign petition against the Tory-DUP deal in just 12 hours
https://www.change.org/p/winston-no-coalition-with-the-dup-may-out-pos tmanpratt1
Theresa May has said she will try and strike a deal with the controversial Northern Irish party

Caroline Mortimer @cjmortimer 5 hours ago795 comments
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/election-results-dup-con servative-theresa-may-petition-deal-northern-ireland-a7783021.html

An online petition demanding that the Conservatives scrap plans to form a government with DUP support, gained nearly 300,000 signatures in just 12 hours.

Signed by 278,843 people at the time of writing, it also calls for Theresa May to resign after she lost her parliamentary majority.

Speaking outside No 10 after the result became clear, the prime minister said she would seek to form a minority government with a “confidence and supply” agreement with the Northern Irish party.

It would mean they would vote with the government on a case by case basis.

But the party is controversial for many of its illiberal stances on LGBT rights, abortion and climate change as well as its alleged links with unionist terrorists.

Many commentators have condemned the move saying it could potentially destabilise the peace process in the country which is already under strain following the collapse of the power sharing agreement earlier this year.

The UK and Irish governments are currently trying to mediate between the DUP and Irish nationalists to restore the Northern Irish government.

Under the terms of the power sharing deal if a unionist is First Minister, a nationalist must serve as Deputy First Minister.

It was suspended in January when Sinn Fein withdrew from the agreement and said would refuse to work with the DUP while First Minister Arlene Foster remained in her post.

Ms Foster has refused to resign over a scandal from her time as finance minister when it was found she had personally campaigned to keep a government backed renewable energy scheme opened despite it overspending by £400m.

Former New Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell, whose government got the Good Friday agreement signed in 1998, said Ms May was threatening the peace process by securing an alliance with one of the parties the Government is supposed to be mediating between.


READ MORE
Who are the DUP, that could hold the balance of power
Speaking on the BBC's Question Time, he said: "She is playing fast and loose, on Brexit, on Margaret Thatcher’s greatest achievement the single market and now Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s greatest achievement which is the peace in Northern Ireland.

"She is putting that at risk with a sordid, dangerous distasteful deal.

"We have a situation in the Northern Ireland right now where there has been a political crisis where the Government is the mediator with theIrish government between the DUP and Sinn Fein.

"How can our government be the mediator when the DUP are going to be part of our government?"

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

The writing's on the wall Top Tory MPs refusing to serve as Theresa May announces her 'Klingon cabinet' reshuffle
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/theresa-cabinet-reshuffle-live-u pdates-10604169#ICID=sharebar_twitter

[scienceplease 2]

Tory election fraud revealed after investigation into secret call centre just days before the general election

[outsider]

'The Spectator clocks the mounting Labour surge and goes beyond panic, into full meltdown' [IMAGE]:
https://www.thecanary.co/2017/06/19/spectator-clocks-mounting-labour-s urge-goes-beyond-panic-full-meltdown-image/

'... "Corbyn, 68, and Trump, 70, are both anti-establishment insurgents who have been married three times."

Aside from superficialities like age and marriage, the only way Jeremy Corbyn and Donald Trump are similar is they are both partly a product of a collapsing ideology – neoliberalism. But they are polar opposites in both personality and policy.
Trump ‘cuts out the middleman’

Trump only positioned himself as an anti-establishment candidate to win votes. This is all too clear. Since his election, Trump has only increased the power of the multinational corporations. Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, branded Trump’s administration a “corporate coup d’état”. She elaborated:

"Well, I think one of the things that’s remarkable about his appointees is just how many… CEOs are going into these positions, and just this process of kind of cutting out the middleman, right? Exxon running the State Department."

Trump appointed Rex Tillerson as his Secretary of State. Tillerson was literally CEO of oil giant ExxonMobil up until he took over one of the highest public offices in the US. But it doesn’t stop there. For example, Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin was a hedge fund manager. Former investment banker Wilbur Ross, meanwhile, is Trump’s Secretary for Commerce.

The US President challenged corporate hegemony in rhetoric, then only dramatically increased its power.

Corbyn actually ‘drains the swamp’

By contrast, Corbyn offers a real alternative to a political system dominated by big business. A Scandinavian social democracy where public services aren’t subordinated to profit. This is a concrete economic plan. Progressive Scandinavian governments – Sweden, Denmark and Norway – were running budget surpluses before the 2008 crash. Not after reckless cuts, but on the back of a robust public sector and welfare system. Services such as education, energy, transport and housing are the backbone of society – they facilitate economic growth. So they need our full attention. Rather than private companies like ExxonMobil making a killing off our need for energy, then, Corbyn pledges to roll out local, publicly run, renewable energy firms.

Despite the overwhelming contrast between the two candidates, The Spectator still sought to smear Corbyn with a far fetched association with Trump. As Labour surges in popularity, the desperation is almost palpable. As well as poll leads, membership reportedly surged by thousands after the election result. Although Labour does not provide a running commentary on its membership figures, the party is already the second largest in Europe thanks to Corbyn’s platform.

Since the election, Corbyn has polled neck and neck with Theresa May on ‘who would make the best Prime Minister’. Both are on 39%. No Labour leader has polled level or ahead of their Conservative counterpart since 2008.

So no wonder The Spectator is panicking and washing its credibility down the drain with baseless comparisons between Corbyn and Trump. The idea you can equate anti-racism with racism, or social democracy with turbo-charged crony capitalism, is insulting. The smear-by-association between Trump and Corbyn from the Labour leader’s opponents only shows they have nothing left to say.
Get Involved!

– Sign the petition of no confidence in a Conservative/ DUP coalition. Make your thoughts on the deal known.

– Contact your MP and be vocal on social media.

– Organise! Join (and participate in the activities of) a union, an activist group, and/or a political party.

– Want to contribute to the increasing democratisation of Britain’s media environment? Read and support independent news outlets that hold the powerful to account:

The Canary, Media Diversified, Novara Media, Corporate Watch, Another Angry Voice, Common Space, Media Lens, Bella Caledonia, Vox Political, Evolve Politics, Real Media, Reel News, STRIKE! magazine, The Bristol Cable, The Meteor, Salford Star, The Ferret.'

[TonyGosling]

ABC Insiders 'Theresa May and the Holy Grail'

Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luTHYeuFayI

[TonyGosling]