Why cuts to local councils will be much worse than Tories suggest
Tories up and down the country have been arguing that the cuts to local government amount to an average of 4.4%.
They do not.
They are much higher than that.
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Tory MP defends UKuncut demos on BBC
The Conservative MP Patrick Mercer robustly defends peaceful protests last night on Newsnight, while next to Daniel Garvin from UKuncut.
Good to see some Tories still standing up for liberal values. Good performance by both.
Left unity and the bid to oust Aaron Porter
A few months ago I was invited to a meeting of Labour lefties to talk about how internal party democracy needed reform. After agreeing that some recommendations could be presented to the new leader at party conference, I asked who from the Labour-right needed to be on board. I got a blank look.
If we want to push the party to change, I said, surely we need all parts of the party to sign up? More blank looks; some shuffling of feet.
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IFS destroys Coalition claims for cutting EMA
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has today come out strongly against Coalition arguments to cut the Educational Maintenance Allowance.
In a report posted on their site tonight they dismiss many of the arguments made by the Coalition. The IFS also says that if the government wanted to be consistent, it would also drop payments of Child Benefit to households with children over 16 who are in full-time education, as it had a similar impact. But they haven’t.
The Government defends its intention to scrap EMA – and replace it with a smaller payment – on the grounds that the EMA is expensive and fails to deliver enough bang for its buck.
What does the IFS study find? (their statements turned into points)
1. Previous work by IFS researchers found that the EMA significantly increased participation rates in post-16 education among young adults who were eligible to receive it.
2. The costs of providing EMA were likely to be exceeded in the long run by the higher wages that its recipients would go to enjoy in future.
3. A simple cost-benefit analysis mentioned above suggests that even taking into account the level of “wastage” (i.e. people who would have gone into education anyway even if not receiving EMAs), the costs of EMA are completely offset.
4. The key assumption behind the Government’s methodology for calculating the “deadweight” is that the impact on participation is the only outcome that matters. But the EMA may have other benefits: … for example through better attendance, or more study time as a result of not having to take on a part-time job.
5. Even if the EMA had no impact on educational outcomes it would still represent a transfer of resources to low-income households with children, which may in its own right represent a valuable policy objective.
The IFS also points out that several other Coalition policies, such as the temporary relief of Employer National Insurance Contributions (NICs) for new businesses located outside the South East and Eastern England, had more “wastage” but were put in place anyway.
To that extent, they say, the Educational Maintenance Allowance represented good value for money.
Another key claim by the Coalition completely destroyed.
The true horror of NHS privatisation is slowly coming out
It seems the BBC has started to cotton on to what those of us on the left have known for a while: that there will be no dancing in the streets when the NHS is finally liberated from something-or-other.
Au contraire: the NHS reforms are likely to be shambolic at best; damaging at worst.
A news story focuses on the Commons Health Select Committee’s response to the obligation of the NHS to make 4% savings year on year for four years, as outlined in Lansley’s white paper.
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Littlejohn & Tories attack Jody McIntyre
I feel slightly unclean after posting the image – but here it is in its disgusting entirety.
(via @JonathanHayes)
Update: Tories have now joined the fray.
Ealing Councillor Phil Taylor implies that Jody McIntyre is lying about his disability:
McIntyre is not being particularly honest though. Although he presents himself as a cerebral palsy victim in a wheelchair he does not mention that by his own account he walked up the 9 stories of stairs of the 30 Millbank building during the student riots of 10th November.
Right-wing blogger Guido Fawkes has similarly weighed in.
Of course, neither know how long it took for JM to walk up those stairs, and that too with help from friends as well as having a stairs railing for support.
The point here isn’t about whether he can walk or not, but about the callous way in which the police manhandled him off his wheelchair and dragged him to the pavement (clearly visible in the video).
Phil Taylor adds:
The police are entitled I think to start pushing and shoving when hostile and potentially violent protestors will not move out of their way. McIntyre is using his disability as a stick to beat the police with.
And this is an Ealing Councillor we’re talking about here.
Why these protests are more dangerous than politicians realise
contribution by Matt Bolton
Soon after seeming to congratulate police for not shooting protestors, Boris Johnson told this morning’s Today programme that he hoped the student fees protests would soon be at an end. No doubt Nick Clegg was hoping for too when he begged Lib Dem MPs to ‘walk through the fire’ with him earlier last week.
But from what I’ve seen, they have sorely misjudged the situation. This is categorically NOT just another political movement. In fact, I’m not sure that it is political at all – certainly not in any way that has been previously thought of in this country.
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Poll: 90% of parents want Lads’ Mags covered
Nine out of ten respondents to a survey by the site Mumsnet said that they do not want their children to see magazines and newspapers that carry adult sexual images on their front covers.
82% had seen sexually explicit covers displayed where children could see them, often on the lower shelves of newsprint displays.
Mumsnet will now be asking retailers to ensure that adult material is not displayed where children can see it, either by placing it on the top shelf or by using opaque covers to conceal the images.
The worst offenders were local newsagents (cited by 76%), motorway service stations and petrol garages (52%), and WHSmith (31%). 68% said that it affected their overall perception of the stores in question.
“I once had to explain to my eight-year-old daughter why there were two naked ladies (doing Lord only knows what) on a magazine cover placed right by the queue for the till. I’d only gone in to the shop to buy some milk!” (Survey respondent)
“I believe that sexual images should be for people who want to see them and who are old enough to consent. Anyone can do anything with other consenting adults.” (Survey respondent)
They want retailers to take responsibility for their products, rather than offering prescriptive solutions. Mumsnet say that head offices of retail chains should issue clear instructions on this, rather than leaving it to the discretion of individual store managers.
When asked which publications regularly use cover images that are inappropriate for children, 81% cited Nuts; 76% cited Zoo; 65% cited Loaded; 62% cited the Daily Sport and 59% the Sunday Sport.
The campaign page Let Girls Be Girls includes a list of retailers that have signed up to their pledges.
From a press release
Nearly half of Britons think Assange was setup
A poll by YouGovr for the Sunday Times found that 43% of Britons thought the allegations against him were probably trumped up to try and silence Wikileaks. Only 18% thought they were probably genuine.
Nevertheless, 52% thought he should be extradited to Sweden to face up to the allegations made against him.
26% of respondents also through Assange was “a traitor to the West”, while 28% saw him as a champion of freedom of information. 31% did not share either view.
On WikiLeaks itself, 46% of people thought the release of the diplomatic cables was wrong, while 36% supported the release.
42% did think it Cables posed a threat to Western security though.
The full results are here.
(via UK Polling Report)
How the police and then the BBC tried to humiliate Jody McIntyre
The story of Jody McIntyre has been referred to a few times across blogs and news reports since the last demo, but not enough to do it proper justice.
Late yesterday, as the full story came out once videos were uploaded to YouTube, the tactics of the Met Police and sneering BBC presenters was in full display.
20yr old Jody has cerebral palsy and went to the demo on a wheelchair. He was twice dragged out of his wheelchair by police officers.
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