‘Occupy London Stock Exchange’ this Saturday

by Sunny Hundal    
October 12, 2011 at 10:06 am

Londoners set to launch occupation in the heart of the city’s financial centre on Saturday 15th October, as part of a global movement for real democracy

Supported by UK Uncut, the London-based Assembly of the Spanish 15M movement, the People’s Assemblies Network Global Day of Action and others, the movement aims to highlight the social and economic injustice in the UK and beyond.

In little over a week, the OccupyLSX Facebook page has already attracted more than 9000 followers with over 3500 confirmed attendees.

Laura Taylor, a supporter of OccupyLSX, asked:

Why are we paying for a crisis the banks caused? More than a million people have lost their jobs and tens of thousands of homes have been repossessed, while small businesses are struggling to survive. Yet bankers continue to make billions in profit and pay themselves enormous bonuses, even after we bailed them out with £850bn.

The occupation on Saturday will see assemblies, workshops and discussions being held as people come to participate in a real form of democracy.

OccupyLSX intends to lead by example, putting real democracy in practice from the bottom up.

Following the model pioneered in Spain earlier this year, decision making and action planing during the occupation will be administered by a General Assembly, open to the public.

The occupation in London comes at the same time that hundreds of cities around the world are protesting under the banner of “United For Global Change” calling for true democracy.

It aims to open a dialogue on reforming finance and government so that each better serve and protect the interests and well being of the 99%.

From a press release

Cameron’s barking plan to restrict porn would entrap people

by Guest    
October 12, 2011 at 9:10 am

contribution by Adam Wilcox

Early on Tuesday morning, David Cameron announced that internet connections provided by the biggest four ISPs – BT, TalkTalk, Virgin and Sky, would require customers to “opt in” if they wanted to view sexually explicit websites.

ISPs responded to state that the proposal does not require them to do anything technical, and that this is about “consumer education”. This is being sold as a “choice” for concerned parents.

Obviously this is a barking mad proposal.
continue reading… »

35% of women say Cameron a ‘chauvinist’

by Sunny Hundal    
October 12, 2011 at 8:50 am

A YouGov poll for the Sunday Times found that 35% of women regarded David Cameron as the greatest male chauvinist of the three party leaders.

Only 5% applied that label to Ed Miliband and 2% to Nick Clegg.

More surprisingly, for a party that touts itself as the “family friendly party”, only 18% thought that applied to the Conservatives while 25% felt it applied to Labour. Libdems only got 8% support, while 49% said neither or didn’t know.

Yougov also asked women about their thoughts on the economy and cuts.

Two in three women thought both sexes have been equally hit by the recession and public spending cuts; while a third thought women have been hit harder.

But there is a gender gap in response to cuts.

YouGov asked “Thinking about the way the Government is cutting spending to reduce the Government’s deficit, do you think this is being done fairly or unfairly”.
Men replied: fairly, 35%, unfairly 55%; women said: fairly 24%, unfairly 59%

YouGov also pointed out that most jobs being lost in the public sector are women’s jobs, while women are also more likely to notice any reduction in front-line services as mothers and carers.

Revealed: Liam Fox and Werrity’s links to the Tea Party

by Sunny Hundal    
October 11, 2011 at 4:56 pm

In July last year, trustees of Atlantic Bridge, a charity founded by defence secretary Liam Fox, agreed to cease all their current activities immediately.

The charity was founded to promote closer ties between senior Conservatives and their US allies, and was found by the Charity Commission of promoting party-political activity.

Liam Fox’s close friend Adam Werrity was the executive director and sole employee of Atlantic Bridge.

This week the trustees finally agreed to dissolve Atlantic Bridge after agreeing that it could not continue its operations in any other way.

But as Labour MP Kevan Jones says:

We need to know who funded this organisation and exactly what Liam Fox and Adam Werritty’s roles were.

This raises yet more questions about the connection between Fox and Werritty and people will expect full answers sooner rather than later. We need to be clear that the activities of the Atlantic Bridge had nothing to do with Liam Fox’s activities as secretary of state for defence.

Here is where it gets interesting.

Atlantic Bridge closely worked with a US group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). According to ALEC:

The project aims to foster positive relationships between conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic, so that they may further the ideals exemplified by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

So what is ALEC all about? The group is mostly funded by the backers of the Tea Party – the Koch Foundation – to the tune of $608,858 between 1997 and 2009.

Two US organisations – AlecExposed and Alecwatch – track its activities and accuse it of being a front group for corporate lobbyists.

But ALEC is mostly a front for the Koch foundation, is well known for lobbying on behalf of the tobacco industry, fighting Obama’s healthcare reforms and promoting climate change denialism.

ALEC has also paid for flights for Daniel Hannan MEP to the United States, just before he started getting very complimentary about the Tea Party movement.

Atlantic Bridge should come clean over who was funding its activities.

Taxpayers’ Alliance launch vicious, unfounded attack on disabled

by Tim Fenton    
October 11, 2011 at 3:01 pm

The propensity of the mean-spirited to pick on the vulnerable in society, epitomised by Richard Littlejohn’s dishonest attack on the Motability scheme, is now matched by an equally vicious tirade from the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA).

The TPA piece takes the Mail rant as data, and so cars obtained under the Motability scheme are deemed to be “free”, which they are not.

It also talks of “3,000 cars given to ADHD families”, but had he been bothered to research his work, would know that the number eligible is nearer 100.
continue reading… »

Why poverty is rising, and how this can be prevented

by Don Paskini    
October 11, 2011 at 1:52 pm

The shocking findings of IFS research about rising levels of poverty is a prediction about how things will get worse in the future. But it is not inevitable that poverty has to rise over the next decade.

The IFS found that rising poverty is a direct result of policy changes which are planned by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. There is an alternative, which is fully costed and which draws only on policies supported by these parties, which would mean that government policies do not lead to any rise in levels of poverty.

Here it is.
continue reading… »

Watch: How life was before the NHS

by Sunny Hundal    
October 11, 2011 at 11:40 am

Blogger and Tweeter Rick has managed to obtain the BBC documentary titled ‘The NHS: A Difficult Beginning’, which exposed conditions before the NHS was set up.

He adds:

At this crucial time with the Lords vote I think this film could really remind people what a treasure the NHS is and what could happen if it is destroyed.

It’s very stirring stuff and really reminds the viewer about the achievement of that post war period and the deprivation that existed in the previous era. In short it kind of blows the TINA rhetoric completely out of the water and even for someone like me who is not a fan of patriotism it does rather make you swell with pride at what was achieved and what could be achieved again by left/progressives.

Watch

Why a second recession is now more likely than not

by Richard Exell    
October 11, 2011 at 11:10 am

Yesterday, the GMB pointed out that the number of jobs lost in local authorities since May 2010 passed the 100,000 mark.

The CIPD reported that 610,000 public sector jobs are likely to be lost by 2016 – two hundred thousand more than the forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Last week, I reported that two-thirds of managers think a double-dip recession is likely and now a survey of finance directors finds 43% of them thinking along the same lines.
continue reading… »

Sri Lankan paper says Werrity organised Fox’s Sri Lanka trip

by Sunny Hundal    
October 11, 2011 at 9:20 am

A comment piece published by the Sunday Leader in Sri Lanka suggests Liam Fox’s friend Adam Werrity was much more involved with the trip than has been previously implied.

The article was published on December 26th, 2010, after Fox and Werrity’s trip on 2nd December 2010.

It states that Werrity was closely involved in organising the trip:

On the 16th of December, Adam Werrity, the personal aide to British Secretary of Defence Liam Fox arrived in Sri Lanka. He arrived in advance to vet the arrangements that were being made for Liam Fox’s visit when he was expected to make the keynote speech at the Lakshman Kadirgamar commemoration. He first met with Mrs Suganthi Kadirgamar to go over the arrangements.

Werrity received an urgent message early next morning from England where he was informed that the visit to Sri Lanka by Liam Fox was suspended and that he should keep the Sri Lankan government advised. Adam Werrity then met with External Affairs Minister G.L Peiris and Sachin Waas Gunawardene, Monitor, External Affairs, the next morning to pass on this information.

He also changed his travel arrangements and was to leave Sri Lanka later that day. Minister G.L Peiris and Sachin Waas Gunawardene had then requested him to change the status of the cancellation of Liam Fox’s visit to Sri Lanka into a ‘postponement’ in order to prevent embarrassment to the government of Sri Lanka.

Accordingly Adam Weritty kept Liam Fox informed and the official version was changed to ‘postponed’.

A video report of the trip

The article goes on to say that Liam Fox’s trip was a “private visit” at the invitation and cost of the Sri Lankan government.

It also says the Sri Lankan government had “used” Liam Fox and the PR firm Bell Pottinger to “smoothen relationships” between the two countries.

A look at how far Osborne’s projections have fallen over 16 months

by Duncan Weldon    
October 11, 2011 at 8:55 am

It’s now been 16 months since George Osborne first set out his strategy to eliminate the structural deficit by the end of this Parliament at his first budget in June 2010.

Over those 16 months a lot has changed – the domestic economy has been much weaker than anticipated by the OBR whilst the international outlook has recently become much, much darker.

Since first revealing the OBR’s forecasts for growth George Osborne has been forced to announce downgrades to them twice – once in November last year and then again in March this year.
continue reading… »

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