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So who took all the wealth?

by Adam Ramsay    
April 2, 2011 at 8:20 pm

If you want to know what’s happening in the economy, you can do worse than looking at which businesses are succeeding and failing. And so two stories leep out from the pages of this weekend’s Financial Times.

The first, on the front page, spells out the perfect storm hitting most British people. Retailers, we are told, are being hit by a combination of depressed spending and rising costs.
continue reading… »

The shiny new Yes2AV slogan has been unveiled: it’s awful

by Guest    
April 2, 2011 at 1:26 pm

contribution by Matt Wootton

How do you make a slogan? It might surprise you the key rule of slogans is the public need to already like your slogan even before they’ve heard it.

Unfortunately, that cannot be said for “Make it 50″, the cryptic slogan unveiled today by Yes to Fairer Votes.

continue reading… »

Why David Willetts isn’t using his two brains when blaming feminism

by Guest    
April 1, 2011 at 3:40 pm

contribution by Caroline Crampton

‘Two brains’ Willetts should try using one of them. The universities minister claims that the rise of feminism has ‘held back working class men’. Why exactly does he imagine this is a bad thing?

“Feminism trumped egalitarianism,” David Willetts told journalists during a briefing on the government’s new social mobility strategy. He’s supposed to be a bright chap. How has he got this so wrong?
continue reading… »

Why UKuncut need to distance themselves from violent protest

by Stuart White    
April 1, 2011 at 1:20 pm

There’s been a lot of blogospheric ink spilled of late about UKuncut. One criticism concerns UKuncut’s decision not to condemn violent direct action – its position being, as I understand it: ‘We do peaceful protest, but we do not condemn what others do.’

The non-violent and mildly civil disobedient protest of UKuncut is firmly in the tradition of the American civil rights movement to which Ed Miliband appealed on Saturday. It is precisely because I support UKuncut and want it to grow that I am concerned by the decision not to condemn violent direct action.
continue reading… »

Michael Moore speaks out for the NHS

by Sunny Hundal    
April 1, 2011 at 12:01 pm

Under the banner of ‘All Together for the NHS’, unions and campaigning groups are coming together today call on the Government to think again on its NHS reforms.

The key arguments behind the campaign are here (PDF).

Today, health workers and service users will be getting together to lobby key MPs in their constituencies and campaigning to raise the profile of the issue through events all over the country.

Sign up at the Facebook event page to follow the plans for the day and get in touch with other campaigners.

And if you’re a twitter person, the hashtag to use is #1AprilNHSday.

You can also ask your MP to vote against the Health and Social Care Bill using these simple online tools from Unison and the TUC.

Where is all this household debt going to come from?

by Richard Exell    
April 1, 2011 at 10:45 am

This week there have been plenty of indications that business, and especially consumer, confidence are at very low levels. This provokes the question: just how likely is it that households are going to borrow on the scale the Office for Budget Responsibility expects?

Last week I pointed to OBR’s forecast for household borrowing and debt, which show this rising from 160% of income last year to 173% by 2015.
continue reading… »

The government wants to control what you see online

by Guest    
April 1, 2011 at 9:02 am

contribution by Peter Bradwell

Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, this week confirmed that he is discussing a voluntary website blocking scheme with Internet Service Providers and copyright lobbyists.

There are plenty of reasons why so many people think this is a bad idea and why it won’t work.
continue reading… »

Exclusive: UKuncut to become a political party

by Guest    
April 1, 2011 at 2:18 am

contribution by Caroline Holding

Due to successive governments’ refusal to take action against corporate tax evasion, Liberal Conspiracy can reveal that UKuncut is looking to form a parliamentary political party.

Their immediate plans will focus on selecting a candidate for the forthcoming London Mayoral elections.

The campaign group plan to campaign on a variety of issues, ranging from combating rampant neo-liberalism to resisting the complete destruction of all public services.

Journalists will be invited to a press conference at Fortnum and Masons later this week. The theme of the press conference will be “Eat the rich” and each journalist will be given their own pheasant to eat, poached from the Duke of Westminster’s estate.

They will also get 100 special eco-kettles with the UKuncut logo and a photo of the candidate on the side.

Key policies will include:

» Nationalising Top Shop, Barclays Bank, Vodafone and Boots. So these shops can no longer be purely devoted to unscrupulous profit making and instead turned into creative performing art spaces, libraries and crèches.

» Offering free M&S vouchers to undercover police officers so they can look even more out of place on demos than they do already.

» Introducing new environmentally friendly buses and tube trains run on the hot air and bullshit spouted by Cameron, Osborne etc.

» Set up a new kind of tax haven in London where consumers can refuse to pay VAT and other regressive taxes designed to penalise the poorest in society.

» Campaigning to have the Mayday bank holiday will be reinstated with black bloc performing celebratory Morris dances around may poles throughout the country, waving their black bandanas and shaking ammonia filled light bulbs at passers by.

» Outsourcing the royal wedding to China as they can do it much cheaper over there.

» Proposing that people no longer burn effigies of Guy Fawkes on Nov 5th, suggesting that effigies of the economist Milton Friedman be torched instead.

UKuncut say their mayoral candidate will be chosen by consensus, through using hand signals.

—
This article was a collaborative effort

Charity April Fools: liposuction for Africans

by Sunny Hundal    
April 1, 2011 at 12:38 am

A PR company based in London is offering its clients an April Fools story on behalf of the charity Practical Action. (PS – this is not our April Fools story)

Fair enough, you might say – PR companies are in the business of trying to drum up attention for their clients.

Except the April Fools joke is that the charity is offering “reverse liposuction” to inject “unwanted fat” into “the bodies of starving people in Africa”.

The PR company – BBPR – even offer a spoof video (below) and a website to go with it.

Here’s the email someone from BBPR sent out:

On 30 March 2011 12:28, Michael Sheen wrote:
Not sure whether you guys are doing your own April Fools story this year or will be doing a round-up of others, but please find below a spoof news story for April Fools’ Day on behalf of charity Practical Action.

Harley St clinic the Klaxon Institute is pioneering a new cosmetic surgical procedure – reverse liposuction. This takes the unwanted fat from Western liposuction patients and injects it into the bodies of starving people in Africa, freeing them having to look after their own crops and livestock.

Klaxon has launched a promotional video that explains more here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmg2p3E_Guc

And you can visit their website, and register your interest in donating, here: http://klaxoninstitute.com/

However, it’s a spoof with a point, bringing to life the shortcomings of quick-fix, relief aid as opposed to the long-term, sustainable solutions Practical Action offers.

I hope this is of interest. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions or need anything else. I’m on 020 3451 9440.

Kind regards,
Michael

[Thanks to http://northbriton45.blogspot.com for the tip-off]

Here’s the video

Here’s the spoof story

KLAXON INSTITUTE LAUNCHES FREE REVERSE LIPOSUCTION TREATMENT
Look good and feel good for free with the Klaxon Institute

London, 1 April 2011: A revolutionary new cosmetic procedure that could simultaneously eradicate both UK’s obesity crisis and starvation in the third world is being offered to British patients for free by leading cosmetic surgery practice the Klaxon Institute.

For a limited period, patients of the Klaxon Institute, based in London’s Harley St, will be able to register their interest in a free course of reverse-liposuction.

This process, developed by Klaxon Institute founder Dr Herod Richards, involves the surgical removal of excess fatty tissue from patients, as with the standard liposuction process.

But this fat is then stored and flown to the third world, where it is injected into the bodies of people suffering from starvation, allowing them to survive for months without having to struggle to feed themselves.

And now with reserves of fat running low, for a short time we are offering the service for free. In these tough times, liposuction won’t cost you a penny – but it will change a life.

So, if one of your New Year’s resolutions is to shed some pounds, why not lose that weight and gain the appreciation of someone worse off than you, by signing up for the reverse-liposuction procedure?

Dr Richard H. Klaxon, the founder of the Klaxon Institute says of the offer:
“Our techniques here make liposuction an opportunity to change yourself and the world for the better. It is my hope the public will take up this unique free opportunity and help themselves and others.

“It is said that give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day. Well, I say that by skipping the actual fish, a man would not need to be fed for months – and nor would he need to be taught how to fish.”

If you would like to find out more information about the procedure or indeed sign up for a free reverse-liposuction, then please visit the website at www.klaxoninstitute.com

Do these people not have bad-taste detectors? WTF?

Updated: I’ve changed the story to focus on the charity itself – Practical Action. It turns out that they’ve tried the same spoof before. They’re just recycling the video as an April Fools story. (hat-tip Alice in the comments)

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