Libertarian dreams up in smoke along with house
Political bloggers are frequently harassed by libertarians who claim the best kind of society is one without taxes, where people opt-in to pay for whatever service they want.
Well, this is what libertarian-land gets you:
Firefighters watch as home burns to the ground
OBION COUNTY, Tenn. – Imagine your home catches fire but the local fire department won’t respond, then watches it burn. That’s exactly what happened to a local family tonight. A local neighborhood is furious after firefighters watched as an Obion County, Tennessee, home burned to the ground.
The homeowner, Gene Cranick, said he offered to pay whatever it would take for firefighters to put out the flames, but was told it was too late. They wouldn’t do anything to stop his house from burning. Each year, Obion County residents must pay $75 if they want fire protection from the city of South Fulton. But the Cranicks did not pay.
…
Friends and neighbors said it’s a cruel and dangerous city policy but the Cranicks don’t blame the firefighters themselves. They blame the people in charge. “They’re doing their job,” Paulette Cranick said of the firefighters. “They’re doing what they are told to do. It’s not their fault.”
To give you an idea of just how intense the feelings got in this situation, soon after the fire department returned to the station, the Obion County Sheriff’s Department said someone went there and assaulted one of the firefighters.
Ouch. I expect the fire-fighters subscription service won’t stay like that for long.
Update, now with video coverage! (hat-tip Paul Canning)
Why Boris Johnson’s 50% rule against strike action won’t work
Boris Johnson was elected Mayor of London in an election where the turn out was 45.3 per cent.
But he wants industrial action ballots to be valid only if the turn out is greater than 50 per cent.
As well as the obvious whiff of double standards, it’s a bizarre proposal when you examine the detail.
continue reading… »
Attacking ‘Thatcherite’ Cameron over child benefits should be easy for Labour
Osborne’s big announcement yesterday is potentially a big win for Labour, as long as they get their message coordinated and aggressively pushed out there.
The trick will be to use the child benefits cut as a precusor to frame their opposition to the Coalition’s cuts more broadly. There are several charges that could stick.
It’s hypocritical
By targeting child benefits, Cameron fundamentally undermines one of his key policy planks before the election: that Labour was against ‘the family’ and didn’t do enough to help kids grow up in stable homes.
And then there’s their own statements.
continue reading… »
Councils to take legal action on school cuts
Councils are challenging a decision to scrap Labour’s £55bn school building programme.
Nottingham City Council said it was prepared to take “whatever actions are necessary” as it started a legal challenge to the Government’s decision to halt the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) initiative, which meant funding to refurbish two of the city’s schools was cut.
Waltham Forest Council, in north-east London, also started legal action, saying the decision to pull the funding would have a “catastrophic effect” on pupils.
The Education Secretary, Michael Gove, axed the scheme in July – cancelling projects at more than 700 schools.
A Department for Education spokesman said: “We understand people’s disappointment but the BSF programme was wasteful, needlessly bureaucratic and behind schedule.”
[issued by the Press Association last night]
New evidence puts Coulson in the dock
In a short interview with Tweetminster today, political commentator Peter Oborne says tonight’s Dispatches (8pm) on Andy Coulson highlights “shocking” stories of intimidation of MPs.
In a short audio-boo interview he says:
Basically we’re presenting very strong new evidence that the account by Andy Coulson that, as editor of the News of the World, he had no idea that phone-hacking was going on under his watch, is false. And that’s the first major revelation.
The second thing we’re saying…very shocking, is evidence.. stories of intimidation of Parliamentarians who sought to.. erm threats made against Parliamentarians who sought to investigate the phone-hacking.
Listen below to the full interview
From Tweetminster
The attack on Child Benefit is an attack on women
George Osborne’s announcement today that from 2013 Child Benefit payments will be axed for any family with a parent earning enough to put them in the 40-50% income tax bracket is neither “fair” nor “right” as some commentators would have us believe: it’s actually an attack on the basic principles of the welfare state, and it’s an attack on women.
Before I get into how and why that is this though I just want to make something clear.
continue reading… »
Lutfur Rahman: Bangladeshis are the new boilermakers
Lutfur Rahman is an Islamist entrist who rigged his selection as Labour candidate for mayor of Tower Hamlets by signing up 200 predominantly Muslim members from outside the borough. That’s how his detractors see things, anyway.
The alternative take is that Lutfur Rahman is simply a politically committed Muslim with widespread support among the local Bangladeshi community, which he legitimately sought to mobilise so that he can represent their aspirations at town hall level. The National Executive’s decision to overturn his fair and square victory is blatant racism.
continue reading… »
Lazy BBC hacks repeat Mail ‘elf n safety’ myths
The bloggers at Angry Mob quite rightly take apart this ludicrous BBC article which repeats several ‘elf n safety’ myths that have been peddled over the past few years by tabloid newspapers.
The article refers to Conservative party claims they want to reduce the “health and safety burden” on society generally.
The BBC not only breathlessly reports on the claims but also helpfully repeats some of the myths peddled in the media and by Cameron.
1. BBC article:
It follows a number of well-publicised cases – such as the cancellation of a 200-year-old cheese-rolling event in Gloucestershire, due to safety concerns.
Except that the event was cancelled, not axed (as reported by the Mail) by organisers because there were far too many people there. The attendance at the event had “far outgrown” the location and they were going to change location.
2. The BBC picture caption states: ‘David Cameron said children had been told to wear goggles while playing the game of conkers’
This was actually debunked by the Health and Safety Executive as far back as 2007, and was never an actual recommendation.
3. The BBC reports Cameron as saying: “…restaurants being banned from handing out toothpicks…”
Again, debunked and dismissed by the HSE. But you wouldn’t know that if you were reading the BBC site – their job is to simply repeat Mr Cameron not challenge it or pretend to be investigative journalists. Why would anyone want to spend any time investigating claims made by the PM?
The HSE state:
We’ve said it all before, but there are still too many reports that HSE and health and safety law are responsible for all sorts of bans – cheese-rolling events, knitting in hospitals and even toothpicks! In reality HSE has banned very little outright, apart from a few high-risk exceptions like asbestos, which kills around 4000 people a year.
Too often health and safety is used as a convenient excuse, but it’s time to challenge this and remind people to focus on the real risks – those that are still causing people to be killed, injured or made ill at work. Challenge the myths, tackle real risks!
But challenging the myths would require some real journalism!
The BBC later use the issue for a Have Your Say discussion, adding: “However, unions say the Tories are distorting facts about health and safety legislation for political ends.” Great job, guys.
You can complain from here, and let us know if you get anything back.
[Hat-tip Angry Mob]
Why I’m supporting the London tube strikes
There’s a strike on on the London tube at the moment.
I know anything that causes mild inconvenience is always treated as a gross affront to our human rights and anyone exercising their actual human rights is to be automatically denounced as selfish and evil -but I still support the strike.
Is it because I’m a godless communist? Well, yes and no. Certainly being a godless communist helps if you’re going to oppose the press, the government, the Mayor of London and just downright, globally accepted, common sense. However, there is some common sense on my side too.
continue reading… »
Tory MP earned £300k since May on 2nd job
Conservative MP Stephen Phillips – a QC – has earned nearly £300,000 for legal work in just five months since the election.
He is among 87% of MPs who are raking in money in second jobs while claiming to work hard for their constituents.
The earnings were revealed in the first register of MPs’ interests of the new Parliament.
Other notable cases:
- Tory MP Tony Baldry has earned £133,067 from directorships and legal work, in some cases billing clients more than £1,000-an-hour.
- Tim Yeo and John Redwood earned more than £10,000 a month
- Tory MP Jonathan Evans is paid £12,500 a month by a pensions firm
- Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg gets £10,000 a month from an investment firm.
- Former Tory ministers Nicholas Soames and Sir Malcolm Rifkind each pocketed more than £17,500 a month from a series of directorships.
A few didn’t rake it in quite so much. Tory MP Robert Goodwill earned £100 for 10 hours’ work as a tractor driver.
MPs are paid £64,766 plus expenses a year for their work.
via the NotW blog.
Update: in the comments, ukliberty and others point out that the work by Stephen Phillips may have been done before the election. If that is the case, then he would be fully justified in earning the money and I would have no complaints with it.
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