Recent Articles

Is the Left really in retreat across Europe?

by Leo Barasi     January 30, 2012 at 10:40 am

The Left is retreating around the world. The Great Recession has produced a landscape so favourable for right-wing parties, their opponents can only feel sorry for themselves as they watch support drain away from them. At least, so goes the popular narrative.

At the last Labour Conference, Douglas Alexander said: “for a decade around 1997, the centre left was defeating the right. Now the centre right is beating the left”. Matthew D’Ancona agreed, with the assertion “across Europe centre-Left parties are in electoral retreat”.

But the last 12 months don’t bear out the argument that the Left is on a losing streak.
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New poll: most Britons want higher taxes

by Newswire     January 30, 2012 at 9:31 am

Most Britons would support a Mansion Tax on wealthy estates – a poll by YouGov found yesterday.

When asked: “Would you support or oppose a new tax upon people with houses worth more than £2 million?” – the question was supported by 66% of respondents, including a majority of Tories.

19% opposed such a tax and 15% chose “Don’t know”.

What about cheaper Mansions?

Asked if they’d support a Mansion Tax on houses worth more than £1 million, 50% still said they would support such a tax.

The lower figure was opposed by 35%, while 15% said they didn’t know.

Respondents were also asked: More generally, do you think the taxes on the wealthiest people in the UK should be increased, should be decreased, or kept at their current levels?

An eye-popping 62% of respondents, including 50% of Conservatives, said taxes on the wealthiest should be increased.

Only 5% said taxes should be decreased, and 26% said current levels were fine. 7% were unsure.

The poll suggests the public would respond favourably if Ed Miliband called on the government to plug the deficit with a Mansion Tax instead targeting the disabled.

What child-smacking ban? Why Mail was wrong on the law

by Ellie Cumbo     January 30, 2012 at 8:45 am

“Smacking ban led to riots”, said yesterday’s Mail on Sunday in response to comments by Tottenham MP David Lammy. Despite the outrage, the question virtually absent from the debate was: ‘what smacking ban’?

The MoS goes on helpfully to explain: “previously parents could use ‘reasonable chastisement’, while the new definition prohibits any force that causes ‘reddening of the skin’.”

This is inexcusably wrong on the law: reddening of the skin is in fact the very example provided by the CPS of what is covered by the defence now called “reasonable punishment”.
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Ed Miliband starts campaign on UK union

by Newswire     January 30, 2012 at 8:00 am

Ed Miliband will today signal that the entire Labour party will strongly campaign to preserve the union, with a key-note speech in Scotland this morning.

He will say that he comes there with “humility about the scale of challenge for Labour” after losing the Scottish elections nine months ago.

Rather than take Osborne’s approach of threatening Scotland, Miliband’s main argument will be that the goals of fairness and justice are best delivered within the United Kingdom.

He is expected to say:

I say lets confront the real divide in our society.

Not between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom.

But between the haves and the have-nots.

So I am not here to tell Scots that Scotland cannot survive outside the United Kingdom.

But I am here to tell you that we need to make Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, a fairer, more just, place to live.

And we can do this best together.

While he won’t draw a direct contrast, the phrase “not here to tell Scots” may be interpreted as criticising Osborne’s approach to preventing a break-up of the Union.

Why we should stay with the “madness” of European human rights court

by Septicisle     January 29, 2012 at 1:12 pm

Despite the briefing it received in advance, David Cameron’s speech to the Council of Europe on reforming the European Court of Human Rights was fairly tame stuff.

With the exception of his promotion of a “sunset clause”, which it has been rightly pointed out could result in a denial of justice, the exact thing the ECHR is meant to prevent, it certainly wasn’t the “savaging” the Sun described it as, nor did the elite seethe.

The real problem we have is the insistence of the tabloids that we should have the right to send anyone back to wherever they came from if they’re considered a threat – even if that means depositing them in a country in the middle of a civil war. Or in the case of Abu Qatada, to face a trial where the evidence against him was in the ECHR’s opinion overwhelmingly the product of torture.
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David Lammy has a point on the racial divide on smacking ban

by Sunny Hundal     January 29, 2012 at 9:12 am

David Lammy says in today’s Mail on Sunday:

Many of my constituents came up to me after the riots and blamed the Labour Government, saying, “You guys stopped us being able to smack our children.”

He isn’t spelling it out but we’ve talked on this issue before; when referring to “my constituents” I strongly suspects he’s referring mostly to black families. That doesn’t surprise me. And I suspect that Asian families would overwhelmingly say the same.
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Tory cllr: “unwashed” disabled should “move to North Korea”

by Sunny Hundal     January 28, 2012 at 10:48 pm

A Conservative councillor from Basildon, Essex has sparked outrage after posting on Twitter that disabled protesters in London today should “move to North Korea” if they didn’t like government plans.

Councillor Luke Mackenzie then changed his profile biog after his tweet was widely circulated online and attracted outrage.

At noon today he Tweeted:

I hear there are a bunch of unwashed people at Oxford and Regent Street, if you don’t like capitalism move to North Korea #UKUNCUT

— Luke (@CllrMackenzie) January 28, 2012

At the time his Twitter biog stated:

25. Basildon Councillor. Assistant Member to the Leader. Work for an MP. Small State Conservative, Economic Liberal. Views expressed in my tweets are my own.

Mackenzie works for Stephen Metcalfe, MP for Basildon. He is also on The Essex County Council NHS Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

After questioned about his tweet repeatedly, the Tory councillor changed his biog simply to:

Economic Liberal. Views expressed in my tweets are my own.

He also changed his Twitter picture to wipe any signs of his employer.

He then also tweeted this to ‘clarify’ his remarks:

Comments aimed at their tactics and idoitology of UK Uncut, I am aware that comments may have been interrupted, however was not the case

— Luke (@CllrMackenzie) January 28, 2012

In addition to a missing a brain, Mackenzie seems to need English classes too.

And then there’s this:

Yo #UKUncut peeps – just to inform y’all that @CllrMackenzie was one of the Cllrs who voted to evict the travelers at Dale Farm…

— Shelly Asquith (@ShellyAsquith) January 28, 2012

Rather ironically, he has also attacked Labourites in the past for changing their profile.

Luke Mackenzie is yet to apologise for his remark.

(hat-tip to @mrsnickyclarke and via @adrianshort and @Sezla)

“I was only joking!” Freedom of speech and rape jokes

by Guest     January 28, 2012 at 3:23 pm

contribution by Jennifer

Defining what we consider ‘comedy’ is impossible in terms of jokes; everyone has a different set of standards to how amused or offended they are by something. Almost every joke made is at the expense of offending somebody somewhere. Some jokes are just engrained in our culture to the point that many of us laugh without really examining what it is that makes the joke funny.

Many argue that you can’t pick and choose where to draw the lines and that anything is up for grabs when it comes to comedy.

I consider myself firmly in the ‘against’ camp when it comes to jokes alluding to rape or sexual violence, not because I’m easily offended, and not because I’ve necessarily been affected first-hand by either, but because I genuinely don’t see how such a topic can be funny.
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Disabled block central London in protest

by Newswire     January 28, 2012 at 2:51 pm

Oxford Circus was completely blocked today as a group of people from Disabled People Against Cuts, Disabled People’s Direct Action Network and UKUncut came together to protest against the government’s Welfare Reform Bill.

At 12 o’clock, a group of 15 wheelchair users chained themselves together in the middle of Regent Street using handcuffs, causing a backlog of traffic to build up and bringing Oxford Circus and the surrounding area to a complete standstill.

They were joined by over 100 more people who had responded to a call by UK Uncut to meet at Holborn station to ‘shame the government into withdrawing the bill completely’.

A crowd of people, including a samba band, gathered there and marched together towards the target, which had been a secret until the wheelchairs were chained in place.

Some people said they had travelled from as far as Manchester, Cornwall and Edinburgh to take part in the action, which was called by disabled activists and others directly affected by the bill.

The protest comes after a week in which the bill stalled on its progress through Parliament, with many aspects rejected by the House of Lords.

Opposition has been mounting following publication of the ‘spartacus report’ which was written, researched and funded by disabled campaigners, and which claims that the government misled the public and ‘broke its own code of consultation’.

Nearly half a million people would lose their Disability Living Allowance, including disabled children.

From a press release

Boris wasted a month of campaigning on a fantasy

by Adam Bienkov     January 28, 2012 at 9:36 am

I wrote two weeks ago about Boris Johnson’s fake campaign for an inevitable council tax freeze. Thousands of Boris’s supporters have been encouraged to spam London Assembly Members in favour of something that will happen anyway.

The freeze, which is being implemented by almost every other local authority in the country, is supported by both Labour and the Lib Dems (who actually want to cut council tax).

Nobody wants to stop it. The freeze will take place, and Londoners will storm City Hall in gratitude at the literally handful of pounds it will save them this year.
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