|
Gonzo McFee posted:He got the job because he's friends with David Cameron. That's his entire qualification for the job. He could have snorted mountains of cocaine like a cartoon elephant for all I care, if he had the remotest shadow of the expertise or knowledge required for his position. I mean there's the obvious hypocrisy involved too, but it's hardly the most disturbing aspect of how he got the keys to the UK economy
|
#
¿
Aug 1, 2014 01:39
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 21:49 |
|
|
Beyond the M25 we just run naked into the bushes and catch our own chickens, then eat them raw (with peri-peri sauce of course)
|
|
#
¿
Aug 5, 2014 23:08
|
|
|
Web 2.0 news Wikipedia edits made by government sought to minimise high profile killings Articles pertaining to Jean Charles de Menezes and Damilola Taylor were edited using devices on government internet quote:Wikipedia articles about the killings of Damilola Taylor and Jean Charles de Menezes were among those edited using computers from inside government, it has emerged. I love that bold bit. There has been a public backlash against the innocent man who was shot dead, for his sheer audacity and attention-grabbing behaviour
|
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2014 02:30
|
|
|
gently caress that's an amazing first line. "A black flag with white Arabic writing, similar to those flown by jihadist groups, was flying at the entrance of an east London housing state near Canary Wharf." A black flag with some white writing on it we can't read. Send in the journalists! gently caress me
|
|
#
¿
Aug 8, 2014 13:46
|
|
|
HortonNash posted:Heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate, skin conductivity (sweatiness) are the main ones measured, but they also put sensors under your bum to make sure you're not clenching your anus (a trick to deceive the examiner is to clench your anal sphincter hard). Someone did a good post on this stuff in LF http://lfeffortposts.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/polygraph/ Also how was this not posted? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-28682102 quote:Police raid Crown Inn pub in Lea in 'Holy Grail' relic hunt 
|
|
#
¿
Aug 10, 2014 00:48
|
|
|
Tortuga posted:I would have thought that goes without menschning, but that particular version in that photo is specifically the flag of ISIS. (The photo she posted, not the Tower Hamlets phote where you cant even see the flag properly anyway) You could see the flag on the Tower Hamlets photo enough to tell it wasn't the same thing. The ISIS flag is pretty much a brand, it has a very specific design that makes it immediately recognisable even if you can't read the text, it's kind of the point! The TH flag was just white on black and that's about it. That said it did have an aura of evil power quote:The flag had intimidated Christian residents, a city banker admitted to being unnerved by its presence, and on Thursday night there were accusations of anti-semitic behaviour by a group of youths hanging around underneath it. Someone else makes the obvious point about flags that are associated with extremism quote:"They had no idea of the implications of the black flag being taken over by Isis fighting in Iraq, in the same way as the BNP appropriated the union jack and gave a bad feel to it," Frost later told the East London Advertiser.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 10, 2014 20:51
|
|
|
Ddraig posted:In this particular case but I'm guessing someone who lies like her wouldn't be particularly careful with her identification. ISIS has done plenty of terrible poo poo without making stuff up. Yeah if anything she's giving them cover and legitimacy, because blatantly making poo poo up (to push her own public profile) sure doesn't make them look bad, and it distracts from the valid criticisms. If anything it's like the strawman propaganda that groups secretly put out themselves, so they can blame it on their critics and use it to undermine them
|
|
#
¿
Aug 10, 2014 20:58
|
|
|
goddamnedtwisto posted:Will Crooks is probably rotating way faster in his grave because of city bankers living on the estate that bears his name than local youths protesting. Au contraire, a much-needed correction has been made! quote:This article was amended on 9 August 2014. It originally referred to city bankers being unnerved by the flag's presence. It was in fact one city banker. This has been corrected. Will Crooks is still spinning in his grave because the flag is using him to drill Terror Tunnels™ right into the estate
|
|
#
¿
Aug 10, 2014 22:29
|
|
|
notaspy posted:Part 2: Well it's really the reverse claim - immigration (boooo, right everyone?) is high because of people on welfare (hissssssss), so not only are scroungers to blame for all them foreigns, it's also proof that prospects here are so good (three cheers for the government!) that people are flocking here to enjoy the endless bounty of opportunity. Suffering and dying in poverty is merely a lifestyle choice! I don't know if it's a kipper thing, destroying the welfare state is a professional hobby for the Tories and this is just good cover for that. It's hit enough dogwhistle points and pitted carefully vilified groups against each other to ensure the coverage will be a complete mess. As a smokescreen it'll probably work really well
|
|
#
¿
Aug 11, 2014 13:01
|
|
|
LemonDrizzle posted:Five years of below-inflation wage growth: Not only is the average wage still below inflation (i.e. still declining in real terms, 0% 'growth' isn't equilibrium), it's trending downwards. Wages are falling in real terms and it's getting worse. As for the 'with bonuses' line, artifically boosting growth for one year shouldn't erode the entire growth for this year, unless there's barely any to begin with. Like here's the list of April-Junes' growth rates: 1.0 (2009 baseline), 1.1 (2010), 2.6 (2011), 1.6 (2012), 2.3 (2013), -0.2 (2014). If we're charitable and assume that without the shenanigans growth was a steady 1.6% after 2012, the total growth in 2013 and '14 would be 3.23%, which would still mean a 1% rise this year even from those heady bankers' bonus highs. Instead we're looking at a total of 2.1%, with a 0.2% fall. That's an average 1.04% growth per year. The only reason it still went down was because growth is so low in the first place, not because 2.3% was a particularly high number or anything. And coincidentally, normal-people pay growth (which is included in this) has been dropping over the same period, 2.2% -> 1.8% -> 1.2% to 0.6% this year. Point is the bonus tax avoidance thing doesn't explain the drop at all, it distracts from the actual reasons why the growth figures are dropping - ordinary people's wages are drifting towards negative nominal growth (they're already negative in reality). We just don't know how bad it actually was in 2013, that's all ~* Another thing *~ quote:•The number of employees increased by 447,000 to reach 25.77 million. Almost half of the employment increase is self-employment - that is to say, of the people who didn't have jobs last year, but do now, fully 48% of them have started their own businesses and are working for themselves. Dynamic entrepreneurs in waiting, shackled by the welfare system, and now realising their full potential in the free market? Or JSA claimants pushed into unviable and insecure situations so targets can be met? Who can say! That's now 15% of the entire working population of the UK 'being their own boss' baka kaba fucked around with this message at 00:12 on Aug 14, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Aug 14, 2014 00:08
|
|
|
winegums posted:"self-employed" conjurers images of tradesmen making decent livings It does, and that's sort of the point! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...d-suggests.html quote:“This country has a great history of entrepreneurship and small businesses are in many ways the backbone of the UK economy. The growth in self-employment is both a sign and a result of the economic recovery this Government is delivering. We should welcome this sign that the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in the UK.” It's a great bit of spin because not only does it lower the unemployment figures, it conjures up all this aspirational atmosphere, that what's being 'created' is actually better than a normal job. Work for yourself, follow your dreams, be your own boss and live your life the way you want! It fits exactly with this narrative of people being trapped on welfare, and that all these [strike]cuts[/strike]reforms are about helping people to escape and fulfil their potential. Of course what most unemployed people want is a job and some security so they can get on with building a life, and self-employment can be either desperation or - like you say - exploitative bullshit jobs that are basically zero-hour contracts, except you're 'freelancing' and you might not even get paid for the work you do
|
|
#
¿
Aug 14, 2014 02:22
|
|
|
HortonNash posted:The publication of the official horsemeat scandal report has been blocked by DEFRA. Publishing it would eat into those sweet sweet efficiency savings. You know how much printing costs these days??
|
|
#
¿
Aug 15, 2014 23:27
|
|
|
Silver Vision posted:We're probably coming from different positions on the left and different levels of cynicism but I think that the common elements of creating a fairer society are still in the Labour Party, repealing the bed room tax, banning zero hour contracts, reintroducing the top 50p tax rate ect. Those aren't exactly the common elements, more like the bare minimum you'd expect, and that's what people are worried about - that they're just going to sand the rough edges off the neoliberal status quo. Instead of fighting what the Tories are doing they're following along and trying to pick up some of the mess, so either way you're supporting a rightward march. I get the impression Miliband's trying to court more leftist voters with some of his statements and policies, but it's all so vague and 'let's hope he secretly intends to do X' that it comes off as more like trying to seem promising to everyone at once, rather than pragmatically playing the game so he can unleash the roboLenins on election night
|
|
#
¿
Aug 16, 2014 23:09
|
|
|
^^^ I honestly get the feeling Miliband has no idea what to do. His heart never seems like it's in any of it, like he's a politician built by committee. That doesn't mean he's about to flip out and go full socialist like he's always wanted, but at the very least he doesn't seem committed to any of the poo poo he does. Unlike a lot of the shadow cabinet, who seem real comfortable being Tory-litetdrules posted:The Tories had to present themselves as something they were not to get elected, a green friendly tree logo, drug liberalisation suggestions, a friendly face etc. Labour are merely doing the same but more to the right. How much of that was a factor in their success though? How many people who actually care about those things (issues especially) thought 'hey yeah these guys seem all right'. Don't forget they didn't even manage to secure a majority on their own, if anything it seems like it was Cleggmania wot won it Silver Vision posted:On the contrary, I'd consider removing regressive taxation, government intervention to protect consumers in privatised markets, and increasing the tax rate on the highest earners, to be common elements of left wing politics. I'll admit that whether you or I think Labour are going far enough is a different matter however. Those are very general terms though, but you're talking about very specific, narrow, isolated policies. Is rolling back the bedroom tax a good thing? Hell yes of course it is. But it doesn't represent a drive to make taxation more progressive, it's merely undoing one change that the Tories made. Same goes for the 50p rate. I'd argue that left wing politics covers these morsels as part of a broader sweep in the other direction, involving the bigger concepts you mentioned in their entirety, and that focus is what makes a party left wing. If we're happy being thrown a few bones, then you could easily call the Tories a left-wing party too, since they've done a few non-poo poo things here and there Is 'redwashing' a term? Feels like it should be Silver Vision posted:Neoliberalism as the status quo does suck but unfortunately is pretty popular with the public and (obviously) the media. You could argue that Labour should fall on its sword and go into the 2015 GE with massive spending and welfare plans but they would be torn apart and give the Tories the keys to 5 more years of poo poo. Yeahhhh that's what I meant, everyone's crossing their fingers and hoping it will all work out if you vote Labour. I mean it's a poo poo situation, it's by design, you're not supposed to have a choice and the power to influence things. When the Tories are allowed to set the narrative, it doesn't matter if you gently demonstrate to people that hey guys... like, maybe things will be ok if we do some welfare spending  ... the Tories are loving liars, their policies are built on lies, their evisceration of the welfare state is justified and shrouded by lies, and the media passes it all along. If there's no actual fighting, no challenge to any of it, nothing to at least put the Tories on the back foot, there'll only be one eventual outcome.And the sad thing is, there's an obvious leftist sentiment in the public - look at all the strikes that have been taking place, based on anti-austerity narratives, and the existence of public support for them. A large amount of people want this kind of action, but their natural and (especially with unions) political home is with Labour, and Labour doesn't represent them. It's like they want to have a completely different conversation baka kaba fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Aug 17, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Aug 17, 2014 03:18
|
|
|
ThomasPaine posted:But what possible motive would they have? Very few people are outright sadists/psychopaths. Yes, history has shown the human race to be capable of a lot of poo poo, but most examples of large scale violence like this are either found in a heavy ideological context or one in which the people involved are trying to save their own skin. Well are you saying the ideology reprograms previously harmless and good people, transforming them into something different entirely? Rather than, say, tapping into existing characteristics and circumstances and allowing them the space and justification to stop holding back? It's a complicated subject, but the point is it's easy to lay the blame entirely on ideas (which are part of a broader philosophy that gets tainted by association) and not the people acting under that banner. Any ideology has the power to move people in a unified direction, that's why you tend to see large-scale violence associated with it. Every group or state has a narrative for its people to latch onto. Truly terrible things happen in wars, when people are in extreme situations and the normal rules no longer have any power. It's why, for example, the US could wage terrible war on Vietnam in the name of 'freedom', and the massacres and torture that went on there weren't done because people identified with FREEDOM so heavily
|
|
#
¿
Aug 17, 2014 21:08
|
|
|
Lord Twisted posted:Extremism and intolerance, whatever its form - British nationalism, Islamism, etc, is extremely poisonous and flourishes in times of hardship for many like we're seeing right now. Cameron has a damned good point, although I expect it to be thoroughly obscured by 'muzzers go home'. Cameron is the point, it's massively hypocritical to stoke these sentiments and then turn around and say 'oh no British muslims are feeling excluded for some reason', and that hypocrisy isn't lost on those people. All this talk of 'winning hearts and minds' is just that, a lot of talk, meanwhile his education secretary is sending in counter-terrorism experts to investigate what muslims are up to in schools, etc. The government has traded on this and lots of other prejudices for a long time, in times of austerity-led hardship, precisely because it's so expedient - all the talk of 'we need to be inclusive and help people' is pure lip service while they carry out the exact opposite. What we should be doing is fostering a society of respect and inclusion, where your Britishness isn't qualified by your religion or your name or what you look like, where extremism is something extremists do and there isn't even a hint that this somehow implicates everyone else. So people are inherently Us instead of Us and Them. Not this bollocks. And working on a fairer society while we're at it, so people aren't ready to reject it and go on heroic crusades in the first place Cameron's point is going to be obscured alright, by the massive smokescreen he and the
|
|
#
¿
Aug 18, 2014 02:58
|
|
|
freebooter posted:I'm not trying to "get away" from the less well-off, I'm suggesting that the more well-off can afford to spend slightly more to lift the strain on the system. Maybe you don't realise it, but you are suggesting major reforms - the entire basis of the NHS is that it's publicly funded and free at the point of use (with a couple of exceptions like dental care), and that it meets the needs of everyone equally, no matter what their circumstances. Even if you're not advocating a two-tier system where people who can afford it get to express lane past everyone else, you're introducing a funding system where some people explicitly pay more than others at the point of use. It's dangerous because it allows poor and vulnerable people to be seen as a drain on the NHS, which is a political lever that can be used to move towards that two (or more)-tier system, pushing of the funding burden onto the patient and justifying 'more choice in how they spend their money', i.e. privatisation and the dismantling of the public system. Which is why everyone's bristling at the idea, it's not the first time it's been floated Plus it discourages people from getting things checked out, because of fear and guilt, or shame ('oh you don't have to pay then?'), or because they are meant to pay and they don't feel they can afford it. That hurts preventative care and leads to wider and costlier problems - the NHS has been repeatedly found to be the most efficient healthcare system in the world, y'know? The problem is not lack of funding by individuals
|
|
#
¿
Aug 19, 2014 18:32
|
|
|
Obliterati posted:Very few politicians will dare argue against such a grand scheme to "trust the people", and if the people decide to buy all their healthcare from private providers rather than the NHS, it'll be the cleverest Trojan horse to get private providers a slice of the NHS cake yet invented. Am I missing something with this? This is how privatisation of services like healthcare usually works, give people 'choice' and 'options' and the ability to spend 'their money', then wealthy business interests use the usual techniques (including running at a loss for a while so they're cheaper) to capture the market. It's less a clever Trojan horse and more of a  Let's not forget the head of NHS England, the guy actually chosen to lead the NHS with his 'international experience', was at the top level of UnitedHealth Group - owner of the largest private healthcare company in the U.S. His 'international experience' is in working against universal public healthcare
|
|
#
¿
Aug 19, 2014 19:36
|
|
|
Yeah I see what you mean about the readership - it's just the same kind of thing as say school vouchers where you're effectively taking some funding and saying 'well... you can have this if people want you to...' knowing full well that some people absolutely won't be going with the the public system anymore (if they even were in the first place), and other people can be won over with promises and glossy marketing. I guess I was giving the readers a bit too much credit maybe! But yeah, this needs bringing up at every opportunity, especially the Lords' involvement. I'm not sure it will matter though, there's a serious hatchet job going on with the NHS's reputation, it feels like a lot of people would go private if they had the opportunity. Also, what's the deal with the health lottery and postcode lottery? Seems a bit weird to name them both after negative things. "They're playing Russian Roulette, why aren't you!"
|
|
#
¿
Aug 19, 2014 20:08
|
|
|
Obliterati posted:Re: the Health Lottery, the gimmick is that a percentage of profits are supposed to be donated to health causes. However, to no-one's surprise - it's owned by Richard Desmond after all and is regularly plugged in the Express with no acknowledgement of the conflict of interest - it gives substantially less to charity than the National Lottery does, the difference being sucked up as profit, and it also refuses to pay duty on the proceeds in the same way the real Lottery does (for legal purposes it's not actually a lottery and thus exempt from the National Lottery Act 1993). Camelot took them to court but it got thrown out, quelle surprise. Oh nice. Ironic naming then. I was wondering how it was even allowed to run, but I guess that explains that! Cheers for the sources too
|
|
#
¿
Aug 19, 2014 20:59
|
|
|
^^^ He doesn't have to do it (in pretty much every sense) but he'll be getting plenty of appreciation from the right kind of people, don't worry!KKKlean Energy posted:It's terrible from a PR perspective but it's not like he's not doing some kind of work even when he is on holiday and it's not like all the UK's government work is piling up in his in-tray waiting for him to get back. Yeah he has a lot of conspicuously-logoed pints to drink while his official photographer captures the moment. I'm down with any amount of time Cameron's out of the office though, it's not like he's making the country a better place when he's at work. He's always going to look bad being on holiday because he's not exactly a dynamo on the job. Here's David Cameron, taking a break from making vague content-free statements
|
|
#
¿
Aug 20, 2014 17:02
|
|
|
^^^ How come it wasn't more popular this time round?big scary monsters posted:I can't tell if this is really a thing or not. There seem to be plenty of pictures of Cameron (and Farage) drinking from unbranded pint glasses or with the logo not showing, and I assume that they aren't sponsored by a particular brewery so what would be the purpose of making sure the brand is visible? It's not as though you can't tell an ale from a lager just by looking. People positively associate with brands, so they make it part of their own branding I guess. Sure there's lots of pictures of them drinking from unbranded pint glasses, but here's something interesting to try - see how many photos you can find where the glass is branded, but the logo isn't fully facing the camera, 'oh hi there' product placement style. If a normal person randomly lifts a glass there's a good chance the logo will only be partially directed at the nearest photographer, but Cameron's some kind of fuckin wizard!
|
|
#
¿
Aug 21, 2014 01:00
|
|
|
Prince John posted:Just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to post such a detailed response. UKIP has always been a MAH TAXES party, that £ isn't in the logo because there's a danger we'll be adopting the Euro or anything. So really, huge tax cuts for the rich, a few crumbs for the poor - with the personal allowance at £10,000, if you earn minimum wage you won't pay any income tax on your first 30.5 hours of work anyway. If you work 40 hours then sure that's £623 a year in your pocket, but there'll be cuts in services and other welfare to pay for it all, and you're probably not going to work out better off. If you were already earning less than that then too bad!
|
|
#
¿
Aug 21, 2014 23:23
|
|
|
kingturnip posted:ALAB status: still valid quote:Marom was issued with a prohibition order in February 2012 banning the use of the second floor room of the house. quote:The tenants, who paid £420 a month, could not stand upright to enter the room because of the low ceiling. So that's at least 18 months after bannage at 420/mo, seven and a half grand in rent, he gets a £1,500 fine? He'll have made that back by Christmas with whoever he gets in next. What the hell is a 'victim surcharge of £120'? Wear and tear on clothes from all the crawling? Also Aldi make some pretty decent sliced bread, but the way they seal the bag is poo poo!
|
|
#
¿
Aug 22, 2014 22:55
|
|
|
General China posted:more being an apprentice An apprenticeship that led to a trade and a job! You're practically labour aristocracy now
|
|
#
¿
Aug 23, 2014 04:39
|
|
|
Now I'm on a lasagna cat nostalgia kick, thanks a lot thanks!
|
|
#
¿
Aug 23, 2014 22:48
|
|
|
HortonNash posted:Can anyone explain why universal credit has been such a complete cock up? Is it down to ministerial incompetence, civil service incompetence, contractors bilking the taxpayer or all three? More detail than you'll probably ever need http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/editors-blog/2013/12/universal-credit-it-what-we-kn.html Also someone posted a story a while back that I can't find, but paraphrasing, there's a cross-party team working on the overall system, and they were explaining the issues and the lessons from previous implementation, and IDS was effectively ignoring everything they were saying and spouting inane ideas with no understanding or even interest of what would be required to make them work. There was a quote about them all looking at each other like he was mad. He's the absolute archetype of the worthless 'ideas guy' e- here we go quote:Labour politicians tell a story that captures both his vanity and his folly. A few years ago, Duncan Smith met Douglas Alexander, Rachel Reeves and Stephen Timms. He enthused about his belief in a universal credit that would merge taxes and benefits. He would free 6 million people from the poverty traps of welfare dependency and show them that work made them better off. baka kaba fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Aug 24, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Aug 24, 2014 23:06
|
|
|
Squalitude posted:Well, watch the first 30 seconds of the video, he categorically states he will NEVER talk to ANY police officer under ANY circumstances. He does later talk about suspects, but he's pretty adamant about never talking to police. Plus, you may not know you're a suspect before any rights are read. I wouldn't say it's "pretty clear", as his overall message contradicts his blanket statement. But you can probably work it out, if you ignore his actual words. Yeah his whole approach is basically that the police will gently caress you over, and that any interaction with them where you don't have legal representation present is inviting serious trouble. It may be fine, but if it's not for whatever reason, you're at serious risk of being dragged into something big, where what you said or implied is what the cops say you said or implied. So he's saying it's safest not to say or imply anything at all, without a lawyer present anyway I think his point is more about awareness than anything, he and the cop aren't there to say 'never call or help the police under any circumstances'
|
|
#
¿
Aug 26, 2014 19:49
|
|
|
Human beings are very often arses though 
|
|
#
¿
Aug 26, 2014 20:11
|
|
|
ronya posted:at this point it also seems relevant to remember the report earlier this year that girl gangs in London itself developed their own culture of institutionalized gang rape Uhhhhh where does it say that. All that report says is that girls who were members of gangs were raped and made to take part in institutionalised rape Also while we're on the subject, let's all take a minute to remember that the privatisation of children's homes has led to a concentration of them in areas with lower property values, meaning kids are taken out of their support networks and away from their social workers who know their case, and shipped across the country to where they're basically alone and vulnerable http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10304547/Breaking-the-wall-of-silence-map-shows-locations-of-childrens-care-homes.html Privatisation - it works 
baka kaba fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Aug 26, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Aug 26, 2014 21:44
|
|
|
ronya posted:oo, wrong report. I was mixing together some earlier reports that got passed around a bit: Those are the same thing though, every mention of rape and abuse is in relation to male gangs or male members of the same gang. The snitching part in that article heavily implies that it's one of the many examples of things the men do to keep women in line or to get to a rival. I mean if you've got something more concrete then fine, but this all adds to the mountain of evidence that women are increasingly drawn into these situations and exploited and abused by men
|
|
#
¿
Aug 26, 2014 22:47
|
|
|
tdrules posted:It's certainly opportunistic, but there's no harm in acknowledging how many people want to come here to do a terror on us. How many people? I need to know for my insurance The whole thing's meaningless propaganda bollocks that should be laughed off the airwaves. Instead you get the BBC reporting it with a straight face like it's Highly Important News. Oh hey, Scotland's independence postal ballots just went out too! What are the odds
|
|
#
¿
Aug 29, 2014 18:22
|
|
|
I was thinking more about spooking undecideds with THREATS of NEBULOUS TERROR we ALL MUST FACE TOGETHER. There's no meaning to it, like tdrules said the people who actually need to know what's going on don't check the news to see what the current Terror Threat™ is. It's purely there to make people uneasy and less willing to contest the UK government. Could be any number of reasons they've decided to toot the horn
|
|
#
¿
Aug 29, 2014 18:40
|
|
|
freebooter posted:We are talking about Cameron's specific choice of words etc in addressing it right? rather than the raising of the threat itself? Because my understanding was that the government (or at least the Downing St part of the government) doesn't set the threat level, the various intelligence agencies which are part of the public service do. And given that there have been actual, lethal terrorist bombings in this country you can't entirely write it off as a flight of fancy. Well someone might know more about the actual bureaucracy involved in how the reading on The Terrormeter is agreed and when it's adjusted, but the point is that its real value - if any - is to the intelligence agencies who actually deal with this stuff. Like you said, to the average person it's basically useless information, you can't act on it, it doesn't make any difference. But it's being publicly announced, by members of the government - so as far as we're concerned, it's a political tool being used to influence the public. It's propaganda, used to scare people and build consensus for the government's activities, and as a distraction so other news can be buried. I mean look at the actual announcements that have been made: quote:The Home Secretary today announced that the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre has changed the threat level from international terrorism from substantial to severe. So basically - according to the government at least - there's no intelligence suggesting that an attack is going to take place, just that there are 'plots', some of which are 'likely' to involve people who travelled there to fight. I'm sure there's a bit more to it than that, but as far as public messaging is concerned, this is what the government's chosen to announce, and use as justification for a raft of measures they're announcing. Whether you think the measures are justified or not, that's what this is about - banging a drum loudly. The timing might not be down to the government (who does decide though?), but they'll sure as hell run with it Also this was weird quote:Mr Cameron said the murder of Mr Foley was "clear evidence - not that any more was needed - that this is not some far-off [problem], thousands of miles away, that we can ignore".
|
|
#
¿
Aug 29, 2014 20:45
|
|
|
SelfOM posted:The immigration rate is too high. The people don't have a say. Even when the ruling coalition wants to restrict, it can't. There are a lot of reasons without having to resort to ad hominim. These are all tied into the politicised idea of an undefined, sinister mass of immigrants though. "There's too many and even the government can't stop them!!!"
|
|
#
¿
Aug 30, 2014 23:59
|
|
|
SelfOM posted:A larger population on finite resources makes it a lot harder to have children. It simply isn't affordable for a lot of people. 11-15% of the UK population is foreign born and this doesn't include their children. To say that immigration hasn't significantly increased the population size and density is an outright lie. What are these 'finite resources' exactly? Are you talking about some nebulous idea that there's a fixed amount of wealth in the country, that it's divided up between the people living here, and so More People means Less Pie? That's not how economies work - as an example, here's the rabidly left-wing Torygraph with a piece on how immigrants contribute more to the public purse than they consume in public services: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...ility-head.html What's true is that people are definitely feeling a financial squeeze, and I don't think you'll find anyone here who disagrees, but the actual causes are far more complex - austerity and cuts to public services and local funding, skyrocketing house prices, stagnant/cut wages and diminishing real incomes, an economy which hasn't even recovered to pre-crash levels, interest rates which weaken long-term savings... It's convenient for the government (and anyone who supports what they're doing to the country) to find an easy scapegoat, and that's what immigration is. Things are bad, how come - why it's all them immigrants, comin' over 'ere and taking our jobs and benefits, and the government pledges to take a firm line, how nice of them! e- SelfOM posted:So you're willing to admit it's an economic issue. If the current economy is not growing than an increase in GDP per capita decreases with an influx of people, short of large technological innovations. Setting the immigration level at the correct level is important to meet demand is thus important. Denying the right of people to have that as an important political issue is simply wrong, and calling them xenophobic is reductionist and stupid. You know that the people within an economy are the ones producing that GDP, right? It's not just fountaining out of the earth and then people come along and slurp it up baka kaba fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Aug 31, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Aug 31, 2014 00:39
|
|
|
Hey come on now, all he's saying is he'd prefer a Britain where white communities are united against the dirty foreigners and their languages
|
|
#
¿
Aug 31, 2014 01:32
|
|
|
nopantsjack posted:How about we fight ISIS by turning the church of england into the mosque of england but the kicker is its equally irrelevant? Pretty sure that already happened mate, have you had your head in the sand? These days all the bishops have to wear hijabs and all the hymn books are halal, and they turned all the churches to face west using Polish labourers and national lottery money
|
|
#
¿
Aug 31, 2014 04:00
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 21:49 |
|
|
Guavanaut posted:I have no problem with immigration, but any immigration or population argument that relies on the worship of growth over and above distribution of wealth is a bad one. Whose economic growth has been sustained the most over the past 5 years? I don't think anyone's really making that argument though - just countering this idea that immigrants are somehow an economic drain instead of net contributors. It's important because that's usually used to lay blame for the (very real) decline in ordinary people's living standards and prospects, so people don't look to the top. It's such an easy sell it's used for all kinds of bullshit distraction claims like HEALTH TOURISM being a prime cause of the massive funding hole imposed on the NHS Zeppelin Insanity posted:What about the bourgeoisie? Well you did say that 'in my country that attitude is quite common', which is exactly what Daily Mail readers here believe about the UK. You sure you're not buying into the same 'feckless lazy poors' narrative back home? I really doubt there's a notable difference between poor Polish people and poor British people
|
|
#
¿
Aug 31, 2014 18:52
|
|
