Rowson on ISIS and...

...and I don't know where CiF is currently, but the more mystery the better figuring this shit out.  Love Rowson.

Steve Bell on Osborne's Defeat on Tax Credit Cuts

Way too early to count Gid. out, but great to see him taken down, if only temporarily.

This Seems About Right

Love that Gideon haz a sad.

Dave Brown on Xi Jinping's Visit to the UK*

* Sorry, make that the overseas province of the PRC formerly known as America's Bitch.  Sorry, The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Let This Be the Last Word on PigGate

Took me a moment...

Not Funny

Forget Corbyn.  This is truly terrifying

Suddenly, the prospect of Boris as PM seems strangely re-assuring by comparison.  And in the meantime, perhaps spare a prayer for Cameron's health...  Because there sure are some scary fascist fucks waiting in the wings.

Brian Adcock on Osborne's RBS Giveaway

Got to put the taxpayers' money back into the hands of (bailed out) private banks and billionaires, where it rightfully belongs after all.  Meanwhile, about that allowance of yours...

Genesis: Dancing with the Moonlit Knight (Selling England by the Pound)

For Gideon (George) Osborne, asshole that he may well be/most likely is:

Interviews with the band, regarding the album of the same name:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8Kzk20WL3k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aSkZyxMS8c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFjuVihKZcY


* No references to the Grocer intended.  I'd make that explicit if I wanted to reference said individual.

Funny 'cos it's True

Don't care that often for the Indie's cartoons, but...  Assuming this to be the work of Dave Brown, based on the signature.  Not sure why the Independent doesn't properly attribute its 'toons online.

Martin Rowson: Homes of the Future!!

Ostensible context here.*  But a great opportunity for dystopian brilliance from Rowson regardless.


* Actually, I'm not sure Osborne's entirely wrong on that issue.

Well Played Gideon, Well Played

Hopes that people will fall for it, rather.  And no doubt...they will.

George Osborne sought to outflank Labour and soften the blow from a £12bn cut to Britain’s welfare bill when he made a big rise in the minimum wage the centrepiece of the first Conservative budget in almost two decades.

In a move that went further than Labour was planning at the general election, the chancellor said employers would be forced to pay staff a minimum of £7.20 an hour from next April and raise wages by 6% a year on average to around £9 an hour by the end of the parliament.

And oh how the right-wing press would have savaged Labour for going through with even a £8 minimum'living wage' as anti-business radical extremists.

Relishing the freedom to deliver his latest budget unfettered by coalition, the chancellor eased up on the pace of deficit reduction and reduced the size of the cuts that Whitehall departments will face in the coming years.

What, suddenly, reducing the deficit isn't so critical any more ?  But still going to do your damnedest to defund and destroy the BBC, aren't you ?

On the assumption that the economy grows steadily at around 2.5% a year, the Treasury is now expecting a £10bn surplus in the final year of the parliament – a sizeable war chest for the 2020 election. The improvement in public finances will come partly through a tougher tax regime for buy-to-let landlords, restricting non-dom tax status and by increased dividend taxation.

'Non-dom', 'non-dom'...Sounds familiar.  Wasn't there some politician banging on about that in the last election ?

Declaring “Britain needs a pay rise” – once the campaign slogan of the TUC – Osborne said he was directly boosting the national minimum wage of 2.7 million workers aged over 25. The increase, accompanied by substantial welfare cuts over three years, was designed to engineer a rebalancing between the individual and the state – a political intervention to shift responsibility for low incomes from the state to employers.

...

The announcement was greeted by the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, punching the air in triumph, but the shadow chancellor, Chris Leslie, said: “This minimum wage increase is just a rebrand of the minimum wage – trying to call it something different. It doesn’t actually compensate in any way for this massive take away from tax credits. The changes amount to a work penalty that he has introduced into the tax credit system. It hit very, very hard.”

The whole thing was brilliantly well-played, really*.  Theresa and Boris will no doubt be standing beside him in the wings with knives out come 2020-ish, but underestimate this man at your peril.  As a ruthless politician that is.  As an economist or as a human, he's shit.


* Well, other than Iain Duncan Smith's buffoonery.

Because the Finances of Government(s) are totes like a Kitchen Table Budget

I just...No, not even gonna.  I don't trust myself.  No.  Are you still speaking, Liz ?

Inspector Osborne

Nah.  Didn't care that much for Series 1.  I'll give it a miss.

Tradition, Tradition, Tradition for Us; Austerity for Ye

So, the Houses of Parliament, are crumbling, and in order to save the British taxpayers a few billion (not to mention several decades) on the repairs, an independent committee has suggested, that either both Houses, or Commons & Lords in turns should temporarily relocate...

...which has inevitably brought about/renewed the question: Why couldn't parliament be relocated...permanently.


But ministers don't want to consider even a temporary move, of course.

Leader of the House Mr Grayling said he was "not warm" to the idea of relocating."My very clear view is this building is an important part of our national heritage and our democracy, and it must remain as such," he said during Business Questions in the Commons.

Can't have change now, can we ?  National heritage !

There must be no “self-indulgent” reforms to parliamentary procedures as part of the expected refurbishment plan for the Palace of Westminster, Sir Alan Duncan has said.

The Conservative former minister told the Times: “What would be catastrophic is if self-indulgent people who know little about parliament say ‘let’s have electronic voting’ or ‘let’s have a semi-circular chamber’. I’m absolutely with Churchill after the place was bombed who said ‘let’s keep the traditions’. The institution is bigger than anybody in it.”

 A report and accompanying statement from the House of Commons Commission will be published tomorrow laying out the options to renovate Parliament.

Tradition is the all-important thing in British government isn't it ?  I mean, sure, there have been some changes over the centuries, but only ever incremental change, and nothing too recent, because, well of the importance of tradition.

---

The function of highest court of appeal now performed by the recently-created 'Supreme Court' traditionally rested with the House of Lords.  But you changed that in 2005.

Membership in the House of Lords was traditionally via hereditary peerage, but, in your desire to further weaken the House and increase the power of the Commons and the Prime Minister, you reformed that in 1999, and brought in mostly political appointees for the Lords.*

The traditional right to Habeas corpus is many centuries old, but you did away with that in the name of 'Terror' back in 2005.

The tradition of fixed-term elections has been around less than four years, dating to the Act in 2011.

The traditional central rule of Scotland from Westminster dates back to 1707, and that of Wales to the 1500's, but you re-established the Scottish parliament and established a National Assembly for Wales in 1998.

---

And these are just some of the changes that come to me off the top of my head.


And for a lot of people, the traditions of the Houses look, frankly, silly, embarrassing even.  See for example the row over the SNP clapping, versus the traditional braying and shouting and jeering.  Never mind how the British people see the daily antics in Parliament, how do you think it looks to people in other countries ?

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/queens-speech-snp-told-clapping-5772809

And as for the actual buildings themselves, they only date back to the 1840's, which is nothing in the context of British history.  The fact of which wouldn't hurt their repurposing as a tourist-attraction, given the gothic design, and the common assumption that they are far older.

And frankly, I don't see any more reason for Parliament necessarily having to be based in London, than the BBC, large parts of which have been banished to other regions of the country, especially Manchester.  Television Centre is arguably as iconic as the Houses of Parliament (albeit rather newer and a little less well known, especially outside the UK), but you sold that in 2012.  At least you held on to Broadcasting House...

And you keep talking about the fact that the other regions of England, including in the North, are under-represented.  What better way to do something about that than relocating Parliament to Birmingham or Manchester ?  It'll also help with Gideon's notion of a 'Northern Powerhouse'.


In fact, I'm not sure there are any good arguments against relocating Parliament, whether simply to a newer more modern facility more 'fit for purpose' (to use a horrible hackneyed phrase so beloved of British MP's) or to also move the body out of London altogether.  Other than...it's tradition.

Good arguments, that is, as opposed to the self-interest of politicians, who might be inconvenienced by having to move, and who might feel their status diminished by having to work out of Birmingham or Leeds say.  Forcing BBC staff to relocate to Manchester, no problem.  Allowing British jobs to be outsourced to the likes of India, who cares ?  But MP's, Never !  How dare we suggest that they not be allowed to continue to shout and bray in the traditional chamber with 'its magic quality' ?  How dare we deny them their taxpayer-funded second homes in desirable London postcodes ?.  How dare we threaten bringing them into the twenty-first century, one where so many jobs have done away with physical offices and desks altogether ?


In the end, they won't move.  Not permanently at any rate.  And refurbishing the creaky old Victorian edifice will probably cost a lot more than seven billion pounds.  But the more we can have these sorts of conversations the better; and the more chance there may be for some actual change, and change that benefits the people, rather than just the powers that be at that.


* And note that as a result of this, and David Cameron's attempts to stuff the House with so many new peers, that it is now so physically overcrowded that it 'risks the House being unable to do its job'.

** Yes, I am well aware that most of the (fairly radical & questionable) constitutional changes mentioned above happened under Tony Blair's watch.  And ?

*** When I say 'you'  or 'your' above, I am referring to Parliament generally, not specifically to Mister Grayling or Sir Duncan, or even to that fascist fuck Blair.

**** Oh, and 'forty years' !!!  WTF ?!

Bah, What do Economists Know Anyway ?

And no, I'm certainly not one.

George Osborne’s plan to enshrine permanent budget surpluses in law is a political gimmick that ignores “basic economics”, a group of academic economists has warned.

Responding to the chancellor’s Mansion House speech earlier this week, they said a law forcing the government to cut spending or raise taxes every year to generate a budget surplus, characterised as Micawber economics, would suck the economy dry and within a few years could trigger another credit crunch.

 In a letter to the Guardian, coordinated by the Centre for Labour and Social Studies, 77 of the best-known academic economists, including French economist Thomas Piketty and Cambridge professor Ha-Joon Chang, said the chancellor was turning a blind eye to the complexities of a 21st-century economy that demanded governments remain flexible and responsive to changing global events.

... 

And George Osborne's background is what exactly I wonder ?  <Checks, ineveitably, Wikipedia>  Okay, nothing wrong with a degree in Modern History is there ?  And tried his hand at 'journalism' for...The Telegraph...okay.  What's that about a flat tax ?  When was that ?   When he was back at public school perhaps ?...

2005.  Oh G-d...



* BTW, Grauniad, who the hell chooses the pictures for your articles ?  Why would you choose that crop other than to fill the damn space with text ?  And what is the choice of picture meant to convey ?  That Osborne is a privileged Toff ?  Or that he's James Bond ?...

Godda Speak Down to the 'Ard-Workin' Briddish People

So, 'parently affer Ed Miliband met wiv that Russell Brand bloke, Dave Cameron wuz all like e's a goon, inn'e ?  Makin' 'iself out like 'e's some Cockney geezer ?  It's embarassin' that when these posh politicians try-a talk down to the workin' classes like they weren't all Eton-educa'ed like:

Look at me, I ain't posh ad all.  I represent the ord'n'ry 'ard-workin' Briddish people.  I like 'avin beers down at the pub with the or'd'nry folks like youse.  I listen to Bastille.

It's embarassin', innit ?