DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived Cleggeron era

millennium bug barely analogous because it wasn't potentially being made worse all the while no?

xposts

If the evidence is inconclusive there's a responsibility to keep gathering and analysing evidence and acting on what we find. If the balance of evidence suggests immediate action is necessary then by all means fuck the sceptics and get on with the job but "preparing for the worst" isn't scientific at all. Even the most ardent climate change (uh what's the opposite of sceptics?) activists disagree on what the worst actually is.

Yeah I'd agree with this, but that isn't what the Delingpoles of this world are arguing.

Barely analogous, agreed - point is preparing for the worst = keep throwing scarce resources at something. In the case of climate change I think "the worst" is something close to "we're all fucked and it's too late" so I dunno how we prepare for that.

I'm all for working to reduce the effects of climate change and preparing for what might come, I just think it needs to be more balanced and nuanced than taking a worst case scenario and throwing money at it.

xpost well there was some pointless typing :)

iirc there are some things the deniers don't deny, like the badness of burning rainforests...?

I think "the worst" is something close to "we're all fucked and it's too late" so I dunno how we prepare for that.

a big party !

In the case of climate change I think "the worst" is something close to "we're all fucked and it's too late" so I dunno how we prepare for that.

privatise the climate?

Can I buy a nice warm bit?

They'll put a fence round the nice bits and you'll have to pay to use them

this already happens i think

Words fail me

So yeah, after years of 'IMMIGRANTS MUST LEARN ENGLISH' and just a couple of weeks after Cameron's "oh hey Muslims you must adapt to our way of life" they're cutting their English lessons. FFS.

jesus christ the comments. yeah i know but seriously those people need punches in heads.

Punching them in the head = effectively no real injury; as you need a BRAIN to damage.

evening standard, what do you expect

they probably paid £100 for elbow tickets

There are plenty of other ways to learn the language. Websites, DVDs, free podcasts, etc.

- Eastender, London, 22/02/2011 15:58

i learned a lot from studying etc

etc.

sorry.

if you had listened to the free podcast you would have learnt about full stops.

the timing of Cameron's middle-east arms trade mission is just incredible. i'm amazed he didn't cancel it.

I'm hearing that he's continuing on to New Zealand with a plane full of tilers and roofers.

He just hoped no one would notice and everyone would think it was a "hey well done you guys!" democracy tour. The Daily Mail of all publications absolutely laid into him yesterday. It's not quite Blair bro-ing down with Gaddafi but it looks appallingly judged nonetheless.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/02/22/article-0-0D4F66DE000005DC-201_468x297.jpg

So I'll put you down for how many water cannons?

too much to hope somebody Sadat's him while he's there

I don't like the man and think he is toxic, but wishing for notional assassins is NAGL.

YMMV

might wanna get that cunt from the Telegraph to write a think-piece about this tho

The Daily Mail of all publications absolutely laid into him yesterday

daily mail commentariat tearing into him too

i read SAGAT and thought a tiger uppercut is highly acceptable and is a VGL
http://www.street.fighter.free.fr/sagat/tigeruppercut_b.jpg

i thought it was a sadat x references and yeah that punk can jump up to get beat down

Speaking in Kuwait, which is marking the 20th anniversary of the expulsion of Saddam Hussein's forces, Cameron said: "The idea that we should expect small and democratic countries like Kuwait to be able to manufacture all their means of defence seems to me completely at odds with reality."

Presumably he does know Kuwait is a dictatorship, too, doesn't he? It's got a National Assembly, but the prime minister is appointed by the emir, and all the assembly can do is ask awkward qustions. And political parties are illegal. No more democratic than Bahrain, really. But we've now banned arms sales there.

Obama's attitude of 'stfu and keep out of the way' is looking wiser and wiser.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/22/new-disability-test-is-a-complete-mess
During the preliminary roll-out of the test, people with terminal cancer, multiple sclerosis and serious mental illnesses have been found fit to work.

serious mental illness isn't an impediment to being in the Cabinet so fair enough really

Speaking in Kuwait, which is marking the 20th anniversary of the expulsion of Saddam Hussein's forces, Cameron said: "The idea that we should expect small and democratic countries like Kuwait to be able to manufacture all their means of defence seems to me completely at odds with reality."

Presumably he does know Kuwait is a dictatorship, too, doesn't he? It's got a National Assembly, but the prime minister is appointed by the emir, and all the assembly can do is ask awkward qustions. And political parties are illegal. No more democratic than Bahrain, really. But we've now banned arms sales there.

not to mention that this implies democratic countries are inherently less capable of manufacturing means of defence.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/22/new-disability-test-is-a-complete-mess
During the preliminary roll-out of the test, people with terminal cancer, multiple sclerosis and serious mental illnesses have been found fit to work.

I underwent this test last year, was scored zeroes for problems with standing, walking and carrying things, despite being 100% not able to stand, walk, or carry things. Viz. my mental health probs, they said, when I appealed (as had been signed off for a further month by my GP for severe anxiety & depression), that they work on the assumption that GP's are subject to pressure from patients and are therefore not fit to judge. So, um, that fits right on in with putting GPs in charge of the NHS, yes? Super.

I underwent this test last year, was scored zeroes for problems with standing, walking and carrying things, despite being 100% not able to stand, walk, or carry things. Viz. my mental health probs, they said, when I appealed (as had been signed off for a further month by my GP for severe anxiety & depression), that they work on the assumption that GP's are subject to pressure from patients and are therefore not fit to judge. So, um, that fits right on in with putting GPs in charge of the NHS, yes? Super.
― Also unknown as Zora (Surfing At Work), Wednesday, 23 February 2011 13:39 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

But the anecdote in your post supports that GPs are fit to judge, and so possibly fit to be in charge? So we're potentially going the right direction?

Atos is allowed to overrule the judgements of medical staff with better qualifications and superior knowledge of the patient, at additional cost to the taxpayer, for shareholder profit, all the while applying the tests incompetently, so that 40-70 per cent of claimants judged fit to work win appeals against the initial decision to reclassify. Sounds like an economy and simplicity drive to me!

OH BOY, also posting in Egypt thread...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/7908076/Palestinian-tycoons-with-Libya-links-behind-Tory-donations.html

But the anecdote in your post supports that GPs are fit to judge, and so possibly fit to be in charge? So we're potentially going the right direction?

Uh, I'm agnostic on whether GPs are up to being in charge of NHS budgets. I do think it's 'hilarious' that they are on the one hand competent enough to be in charge of NHS decision making but not, uhm, competent enough to tell if a patient is genuinely fit to work or not. Y'know. Money skills v. healthcare; what are GPs *supposed* to be good at?

Suzy OTM.

I think the NHS and DWP between them are perfectly able to determine fitness to work, and they work for the taxpayer already. That is why the fraud rate for incapacity bens and DLA is something like ONE per cent, which in any state or private org would normally be RESULT!.

Another way to deal with private companies submitting misleading or inaccurate info about you to a third party: remind them that doing so is actionable, and becomes 'malicious' if an individual deliberately concocts a thing they know will adversely affect you out of whole cloth.

Off topic for this thread a bit but... They sent me a 300-page document outlining the reasons they bounced my claim and invited me to go to court. I folded. I was depressed. Gawd love the people who had terminal cancer and had to deal with these twunts.

think in those circumstances a spree shooting would be a top idea

Yuck, that's just needlessly belligerent, Zora.

my mum went for one of these joke interviews (in 2009, sorry labour bros), got scored zero after explaining how she can't use her hands (chronic pain) and got thrown off incapacity benefit but not dla (which makes a lot of sense eh); examiner made some remark about having filled his quota for the day

appealed, appeal failed, awaiting tribunal date (not hopeful)

The same people do the work fitness assessments for those of us who are unfortunate to actually work for the Civil Service. We had one of them come in to give us a talk on our new sickness policy, which pretty much boiled down to: "I don't care how fucking sick you are, if you don't come into work you're a malingerer and we'll do our level best to get you fired..."

Presumably it's cheaper if we die in service than it is if we live long enough to collect our pension.

http://www.atoshealthcarejobs.com/

We aim to give people autonomy and dignity - and improve their quality of life.

DG, that is apalling. Best of luck to your mum with the tribunal.

How is it that we are an allegedly progressive democracy and yet this country is so disgusting? Time to set fire to something.

this scares the hell out of me for my mum, good luck dg.

thank you but yes, these people are sinister fuckers

People need to look up the US company Unum Provident, banned from several states and now sniffing around markets where class action suits aren't as easy to launch against their shit, like here. They are the generators of welfare-to-work bullshit and are involved with Atos.