MPs are due to receive a 10% pay rise.
Public sector works have had, and will continue to receive for the next 5 years, a 1% pay rise, because their wage comes from the public purse.
Who pays MPs?
We do. Their pay comes from the public purse.
So, aren’t MPs public sector workers?
Today, I am reminded once again how much of a smug prick David Cameron and his Tory cronies are.
Only the Tories would think that a policy of equal pay in a “generation” would be a headline grabbing policy.
It’s not that I’m against it. It’s the fact that apparently working women TODAY do not have equal pay and, apparently, they won’t have it tomorrow, or next year, or in five years. We have to wait a “generation” which, of course, is a weasel word that doesn’t mean anything. Exactly how long is a “generation”?
Unequal pay is illegal and immoral, today, tomorrow and in a generation. So why isn’t Cameron doing anything about it TODAY? How about forcing employers to do it today and backdating lost pay to the date every woman was employed by their current immoral employer? How about fining employers who don’t pay men and women equally? How about also ensuring the minority groups (based on ethnicity, sexuality, disability, etc.) are also getting equal pay?
Why is it that most people seem not to think about things like this because it doesn’t affect them, or only think of it once they or someone they know is being affected by something?
The decision by the Greek people to vote “No” to the current austerity package was a brave but right one.
Past austerity has not worked and it seems rather ridiculous to assume that doing a more severe version will work. Doing the same thing again and again expecting a different outcome is the sign of madness.
What it comes down to is this: a country will never recover economically while there is mass unemployment: mass long-term unemployment and mass youth unemployment. The tax revenue to benefits ratio is the wrong way round. A country can’t pay pensions, for example, while large amounts of tax payers are unemployed.
The longer you are unemployed the less likely you are to find work. In the UK long-term unemployed receive re-training and education because of this.
Greece doesn’t need more cuts it needs a recovery package to get its work force back into employment and paying tax. More austerity will mean more unemployment.
My gawd, will Edwina Currie shut her flippin’ cake hole!
She was reading the papers on BBC Breakfast this morning – right now, in fact – and she really is the embodiment of everything that people hate about politicians….and Tories.
When talking about her opponents or the misfortunes of her opponents she is SMUG. She revels in their misfortune and gloats about her own party’s fortunes.
This is the reason that I don’t like Cameron: he is smug.
We don’t want to see politicians acting like 5 year olds. One of the characteristics we hate in others is smugness and revelling in other’s misfortunes. And, it is 100 times worse when it is a politician – or your Prime Minister – who is doing it.
So, Edwina, your conduct today, as always, is putting people off voting Tory, and putting people of voting at all.
So, shut your mouth until you learn some manners and how to conduct yourself in public.
You are everything that a spokesperson should not be.
Judge over-rules previous decision that First Bus was legally required to give priority of wheelchair users over parents with buggies in accessing buses.
I think that says it all.
Another case of parents and kids coming out top, people with disabilities coming out bottom.
It’s strange. The bus driver can chuck you off for eating and drinking, smoking, causing mayhem. They can make you give you your seat to an older person or pregnant woman. But, if you are a wheelchair user?
No. You don’t count. Mams with prams can’t be made to shift themselves.
I wonder, though. What happens if the reverse situation occurs? Mam with pram can’t get on bus because a wheelchair user is already in the space?
However, I think it just highlights a major problem in this country when it comes round to equality for disabled users: Non-disabled people have to be forced to comply with the law otherwise they won’t. They scream Big Brother, they scream draconian laws, they scream bureaucracy, but when it comes down to it, for many people they have to be dragged kicking and screaming to comply.
Shame on the lot of them.
I don’t normally encourage this type of thinking, but disabled users should rise up en masse and sue every mother fucker that breaches their rights. The only thing that seems to change people’s way of thinking in this country is the thought of losing money. We should start using it against them.
As a Scot of English descent I feel that I have a more balanced perspective on the current issue concerning the English flag.
Having just watched an interview on BBC Breakfast about it, interviewing someone from a think tank on identity, it is clear that the English have missed part of the point. The chap from the identity centre – quite ironically – referred to “the people”, “we”, “us” and referenced a poll whereby only 10% of the population thought the flag had sinister connotations. The problem is that he failed to reference that in all these cases he was referring to the English’s view of their flag.
Ask citizens of the other three countries that make up the UK….yes, there are actually other nations, BBC, seen as you regularly forget this….and the English flag is a negative symbol. And it is not for the reasons that the interviewees on the BBC said. It is not because England is “the dominant country” in the UK, whatever that may mean.
English flag = conqueror, occupier.
It is as simple as that. England has spend nearly all of its history trying to conquer its neighbours. Centuries of tyranny, bullying, rampaging, destruction. Longshanks still sends shivers down our spines.
And that is why it is not recommended that you drive your car in Scotland with the English flag flying from it. You will get your windows broken.
I will argue against anti-Englishness that is racist, and will defend the English when appropriate. But until England excepts that UK does not equal England, and accepts the devastating effects that it had on the development of its neighbours, and that its neighbours actually have legitimate complaints, there will continue to be anti-English sentiment. And some of it is legitimate.
As someone who prefers dogs over people my heart breaks whenever I hear of a missing dog
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We have been in touch with rail networks, as well as Royal Mail to get word out to postal workers and drivers. An appeal was launched in local media shortly after Tess’s disappearance on 23 July and thousands of people have now got behind it on Facebook and Twitter. Guide Dogs volunteers and supporters have been playing a vital role in our appeal to help find Tess and we’d like to ask for your support too. Although she went missing in Scotland, Tess could now be in any part of the UK, so we really do need everyone’s help to find her. If you see a dog who looks like Tess for sale in your local area, or notice that someone has recently acquired a black curly coated retriever, or if you have any other concrete information which may help us, please get in touch with us immediately on 0800 688 8409. Please do not reply directly to this email. We are running a poster campaign to widen the appeal. Please download our new official poster and share it on Facebook or Twitter, or print it off and display it in your window (particularly if you live in Scotland). The more people who support our appeal, the better our chances of finding Tess and reuniting her with her owner.
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The downing of MH17 and the Israeli bombing of Gaza.
Why will no-one in power call them what they are.
Yes, they were disproportionate actions. Yes, they are disgraceful, disgusting, outrageous and unjustified.
But, they are more than this.
They are war crimes and someone must pay for them.
Charging people with war crimes is not just for developing or middle income countries. The same laws apply when you are a superpower or you are best buds with the US.
War crimes. It’s about time someone in power started calling them that.
I’ve blogged here before about how some products are becoming exceedingly difficult to open. Vitamin tablets are a prime one. I’ve been known to take a hammer to the tops of some of them.
Today I managed to break a jar of Douwe Egberts coffee! It required a knife to get it open and then the lid wouldn’t go back on. A bit of bruit force and the jar smashed spilling glass fragments into the coffee.
And, apparently, DE know about this problem and have “redesigned” the jars to make them easier to open although they look identical to how they have always been. They even have a “how to open the jar” guide on their website.
Here is a hint DE: If you require a how-to guide to open your product then it is badly designed.
Another hint: you shouldn’t require a strapping 18 year old guy to be on hand to open anything.
All of these products are in violation of the Equal Opps laws which state that something shouldn’t be a serious impediment to anyone with a disability in accessing something.
DE: get it sorted!
FlippinNora 