‘Tories should join us in the real world’
The Libdems today issued a stinging response to Conservative’s mistaken claim that 54% of teenagers in deprived areas fall pregnant before their 18th birthday.
The party released a 20-page document yesterday detailing what it called “Labour’s Two Nations” and the disparity between the life chances of rich and poor. But the strategy was set back when it emerged that figures on teenage pregnancy in the poorest areas were vastly exaggerated.
It claimed that the conception rate among under-18 girls in the 10 most disadvantaged areas was 54%. The real figure was 54 per 1,000.
Nick Clegg’s chief of staff Danny Alexander today poured ridicule on Conservatives:
The Tories seem to think that half our teenagers are pregnant, our cities are like The Wire and that people will get married for a few extra quid.
If they really believe Britain is like this, it’s remarkable that Conservative MPs can pluck up the courage to leave their houses.
They should lower their drawbridges, spend less time tending their moats and duck houses, and join the rest of us in the real world.
Bizarrely enough, none of the ‘heavyweight’ Tory blogs: ConservativeHome, Iain Dale or Guido Fawkes, bothered to say anything about the massive blunder.
Tories, Labour compete on #ivenevervotetory ads
It’s barely been hours but the new Conservative ad campaign has already been mercilessly parodied across various blogs and website.
The ivenevervotetory hashtag on Twitter has now become the 4th most popular topic worldwide after people started posting parodies.
@NeverVotedTory #IveNeverVotedTory before, but married people are just better http://twitpic.com/13e85s
@jamesgraham #ivenevervotedtory Because I don’t believe in rule by aristocracy and selfishness.
@CathElliott #ivenevervotedtory because I believe in a woman’s right to choose #prochoice
Scalded_Bollock #ivenevervotedtory because Jim Davidson does. And you don’t want to be associated with that cunt.
Not to be outdone, Tories on Twitter started furiously tweeting why #ivenevervotedlabour.
@maxrhino #ivenevervotedlabour Because I conduct all my affairs from Belize.
@VANTERHEYDEN: #ivenevervotedLabour because Labour introduced Tuition Fees effectively destroying a generation with debt. Do Labour ever not lie?
Some top parodies of the new Tory poster
by Beau Bo D’Or
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More posters were put up on the MyDavidCameron site.
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A new blog #IveNeverVotedTory has also been launched to collate more posters.
A Facebook group titled ‘Never Voted Tory, Never Will‘ has also been started up.
Economists’ letter supporting Osborne says not much at all
Yesterday a group of economists published a letter in The Sunday Times about the deficit, which the newspaper claimed was an endorsement of Tory policy on public spending.
The newspaper is not wrong. Given that Conservative policy on public spending changes close on every hour and given that this letter says just about every contradictory thing one can say on the deficit, they are indeed very closely aligned.
This paragraph, which is the crux of the letter, is the most multi-faceted (to put it politely):
The exact timing of measures should be sensitive to developments in the economy, particularly the fragility of the recovery. However, in order to be credible, the government’s goal should be to eliminate the structural current budget deficit over the course of a parliament, and there is a compelling case, all else being equal, for the first measures beginning to take effect in the 2010-11 fiscal year.
The bulk of this fiscal consolidation should be borne by reductions in government spending, but that process should be mindful of its impact on society’s more vulnerable groups.
What precisely is this saying?
continue reading… »
Sunday Times promotes climate change denier
A couple of weeks ago, Ben Goldacre bashed out a quick piece for the Guardian’s news desk on the subject of the General Medical Council’s damning verdict on the conduct of Andrew Wakefield, in which he said:
As the years passed by, media coverage deteriorated further. Claims by researchers who never published scientific papers to back up their claims were reported in the newspapers as important new scientific breakthroughs, while at the very same time, evidence showing no link between MMR and autism, fully published in peer reviewed academic journals, was simply ignored. This was cynical, and unforgivable.
That last paragraph is particularly important because it shows one of the more common ways in which mainstream media outlets consistently distorts the truth by selectively highlighting particular claims and/or research on the basis of whether it conforms to an established narrative. Take, for example, yesterday’s Sunday Times, which devoted several hundred words to the uncritical promotion of the latest effluvial outpourings of TV weatherman and all-round climate crock, Anthony Watts.
continue reading… »
Compass calls for ban on ads in public spaces
A ban on advertising in all public spaces and limits on shopfront marketing will be proposed tomorrow by the leftwing thinktank Compass in what could be a rare alliance between the left and rightwing moralists.
Compass also proposes a complete ban on all advertising aimed at children under 12 and an open debate about tighter regulations on alcohol marketing.
David Cameron has already called for restraints on “creepy and harmful” sexualised advertising aimed at children, and in some ways Compass, from a left wing perspective, is joining the same debate about childhood, and the growing impact of advertising. Cameron said he opposed the advertising industry’s effort to undermine the family through concepts such as “Kids Growing Older Younger”.
The leftwing group, with which the potential Labour leader Jon Cruddas is closely linked, says: “Advertising encourages us to go faster on the treadmill of modern consumer life so contributing to growing consumer debt, social problems and an ever greater risk of climate change.”
The hateful bile of Melanie Phillips
Melanie Phillips has been foaming at the mouth again over ‘Neathergate’:
A covert policy to subvert the makeup of the country and change its national identity, an abuse of democracy, a stupendous swindle of the British people — more, an act of collective treachery to the nation: an enormous story, you might think? You would be wrong. Other than in the Daily Mail, I cannot find any reference to this anywhere else.
Tabloid Watch has done already done a good job debunking the assertion that Migration Watch’s latest ’revelations’ are only being covered in the Daily Mail, by pointing out that they’ve been covered in The Sun, The Express and the Telegraph.
A bit of background. Andrew Neather was previously a government advisor who last year wrote a comment piece claiming New Labour’s immigration policy was: “intended – even if this wasn’t its main purpose – to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date”. He later clarified his point, but it was too late – by that time the right had assumed a huge conspiracy.
continue reading… »
Nick Cohen’s selective standards on human rights
If further example were needed of how Nick Cohen is completely the wrong person to lecture others on human rights – his column today in the Observer is the perfect example.
He starts by telling us that, “virtually everyone involved pretends that we can enjoy [liberties] without paying a price,” before regurgitating White House bluster about how there would be hell to pay over the Binyam Mohammed revelations.
Oh, you mean we should defend liberties and human rights except when US national security officials don’t like it? Yes, I can see how people might think that Nick Cohen doesn’t really believe in universal human rights except when it suits him.
continue reading… »
The younger Cameron was less of a control-freak
Want to see David Cameron looking really miserable on General Election night?
Here he is, looking quite incredibly glum on losing the Tory-held seat of Stafford to make him one of the less well remembered victims of 1997′s Labour landslide. It was an image turned up by Peter Hitchens’s investigation into the enigma who would be PM.
Which I mention in order to wonder what young Dave would make of the latest command and control edicts from his older self, the self-styled great decentraliser of British politics.
The Mail on Sunday reports Tory MPs fury at Cameron’s “control freak” approach whereby which all candidate communications with the voters must be signed off as on message b CCHQ.
continue reading… »
A model for Christian atheism
Sigmund Freud, that ever-controversial figure, is more known for his views on the unconscious and the Oedipus complex than for his theological work, but indeed, as time spent in his house, now museum, in North West London will reveal, a lot of his efforts and interests were devoted to religious symbols, figurines, artworks and texts.
From as early as childhood Freud viewed religion as merely a fantasy based entirely upon a childish wish fulfilment, this view most explicitly stated in his work of 1927 entitled The Future of an Illusion where he made clear that though many childhood wishes were unlikely, they were not impossible.
Freud held this particularly negative view of religion up until 1935 when an evident sea-change became apparent in his manner. In private correspondence Freud started to acknowledge the intellectual qualities of God on thought and enquiry, after all the speculation of an absent property had immense benefits for abstract contemplation.
Freud’s understanding of the concept of God changed from illusion to promoting sapience. Rather than bogging one down with idle introspection, the concept permitted investigation.
continue reading… »
Will Goldman Sachs debate Robin Hood tax?
Sunder Katwala has a letter in today’s Guardian offering Goldman Sachs a platform to debate the Robin Hood campaigners.
Also covered on Next Left.
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Goldman Sachs will no doubt recognise that it scored an own goal with the crude attempt to rig an online poll about the new Robin Hood tax campaign (Clicking in the votes, 12 February). The investment bank has said it is investigating the incident: no doubt the stunt may well have been unauthorised.
Yet the episode does highlight the need for those involved in international finance to engage seriously with the charities, pressure groups and churches who are campaigning for a financial transactions tax – as well as with those governments, including Britain, France and Germany, which are looking seriously at how such a tax might be practicable.
The principle is an increasingly attractive one at a time of acute fiscal pressure after a public bailout saved the financial system from the consequences of excessive risk- taking, though Dr Neil McCulloch (Letters, 12 February) identifies that important issues would need to be addressed.
The challenge for Goldman Sachs is to come out from behind the computers serving up anonymous spam votes and engage seriously on the merits of the issue. The Fabian Society would be delighted to offer Goldman Sachs a platform to debate with the Robin Hood tax campaigners on this important public policy debate.
Sunder Katwala
General secretary, Fabian Society
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