Do the Tories have anything to offer us other than myths and lies?

First topic message reminder :

We were warned two years ago that Cameron is an obnoxious and loathsome individual, but not enough people were listening:-
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/02/04/david-cameron-what-the-experts-say-115875-22017276/

IVAN I do not know if you listen to Radio 5 Thursday nights 10.00pm to 1.00am QT extra time, a man phoned in last Thursday night to tell of his experience at his local job centre plus, after 4 weeks on JSA he was sent back to college for English & Maths training he did not need either he has good GSCE in both subjects from his time at school.  What he did say was half of his class at college were sanctioned by JCP for no apparent reason, they were attending college doing what this Incompetent gov't told them, while a person is sanctioned they do not appear on the unemployment list, this is how Davy boy is getting his unemployment figures down so that he can "PULL THE WOOL OVER THE PUBLIC'S EYES" and boast to the voters he is the man for the job of sorting out the UKs problems.

In your earlier post Ivan you said it would make IBS blush, sorry but when you have a "SWINGING BRICK" in place of a heart I doubt you can blush. 

Just looking over the sources you have used, Ivan, it strikes me that perhaps the biggest scam perpetrated on the working class over the recent past is the dream of ''self employment'.
I often see people who have been subject of DWP propaganda about self employment and the many benefits of this - for most the reality is a marginal existence on very part-time hours, with increasing dependence on State financial support via Tax Credits and Housing Benefit, absolutely no employment rights or protections, and no accrual of contribution based benefits (JSA if it goes wrong, ESA if they are ill, State Pension when they are too old to work).
The win for the government of course is that the unemployment statistics are massaged - for the unfortunate person who decides to become a self employed 'one man band' the reality is often quite grim and the future increasingly bleak.

Friday's Radio 5Live reporting of the statistics row seemed suitably balanced to me - highlighting the fact that the Tories and Labour had each alighted on  data which suited their particular cause. No surprise there, then!

I don't see the BBC as universally biased, although there are clearly arguments that their challenge of Coalition policy and assertions is sometimes insufficiently searching. Ultimately , if Joe and Josephine Public are stupid enough to believe the fairy tales emanating from Downing Street and the Daily Mail and its comic cousin The Sun, there is little hope.

But, most significantly, the Labour Party has to start to become far more effective in getting across a contrary message and highlighting the lies and distortions for what they are.

Wake up, Ed - and get on with it, day in and day out...!

There is a lot of truth in your post also in boatladies post, just so you both know the other way they fiddle Unemployment figures is to SANCTION those on JSA, that is one of the ways this VILE NASTY BACKSTUDS hide the TRUE unemployment figures I got this information from radio 5 QT extra time by someone that phoned in to the program and the DWP had no good reason to sanction them they where doing what DWP had told them to do.

According to today's Independent editorial, they were not sent the Number 10 "Press Release" about only the rich being worse off.

Wonder why? Perhaps our Concerned Leaders thought it might be ridiculed.

The reason No10 did not send that "Press Release" OW its because they know it would be a "BLATANT LIE" that the public would not SWALLOW, as most people are starting to get the message that most of our public services are being handed to friends and donors of the Tory party so they can make even more PROFITS for their back pocket and the running down  of our public services, just take a look at gas electric trains and phone services that were sold off to the private sector they are making huge profits, at the time of the sell off Maggie said our gas and electric bills would be more or less FREE and the entire UK know prices have went up and up, and will go even higher in the years to come because the people that own these companies do not care all they're interested in is PROFIT 

Good to see Andrew Neil on his BBC Sunday Politics Show giving a uncomfortable time to the Transport Secretary 'Podgy' McLoughlin.

 The Beeb is still capable of not fawning over Tory politicians , however much those hateful animals may wish for it...

Suggested script from Tory Central Office for broadcast Interviewers:

"Now tell me, Minister. Is there anything you would like to say to the Nation?"

Most significantly, the Labour Party has to start to become far more effective in getting across a contrary message and highlighting the lies and distortions for what they are.

Phil Hornby. I guess you'll agree with these thoughts from the comedian Robert Webb:-
 
"The Tories are busy dismantling what’s left of the principle and practice of the NHS. They’ve got a large section of the electorate believing that the world recession was caused by Sure Start and the excessive number of public libraries. Their reform of the welfare budget and their attitude to the working poor show a cluelessness bordering on malice. They think everyone has a family home to fall back on. They think people earning more than £150,000 a year need a tax break.

These guys look human on TV because we’re pleasantly surprised when they don’t show up with two horns and a trident. In this context, the 'normal' reaction is not a diffident bunch of soundbites compiled by anaemic strategists and sack-me-now-so-I-can-go-back-to-teaching speechwriters. The normal reaction is outrage. Labour is at its best when it remembers its moral fury."
 
http://www.newstatesman.com/2014/01/robert-webb-ed-miliband-pear

At the moment Ivan the Labour party has lost its "Moral Fury" they are still allowing the Tories & Fib-Dems away with murder, I know there is only so much that the Labour party can do due to the numbers in the HOC but they are still not getting most of the voters to accept that the Labour party is on there side.   I am seeing this every day on the TV political shows newspapers (left leaning ones) and I am worried that Scotland may cut off her nose to spite her face on the 18th September. 

There is just so much to keep reminding the public about and Ed needs to learn how to hit Cameron & Co. where it hurts most - and ALL the time.

 Look how those Tories hate the term' bedroom tax' : it is probably a provocatively inaccurate description, but its use mimics the endless propaganda assault of Tory MPs and their tame Press friends.

 It's no good fighting a thug with 'sound reasoning' and 'intellectual arguments based on sound data' -  what is required is a dose of good old-fashioned 'tit-for-tat' and exposing the weakest points of the Tory
 opponent , including by use of their own favoured tactics of 'fact maximisation' where appropriate.

At present it is like Mother Teresa attacking Goebbels...

Meanwhile, the assault continues right here.

Leave teeth-marks on Coalition ankles !!

OW I would love to leave more than my teeth marks on this Tory gov'ts ankles, besides I may get "Foot & Mouth" desease from the rabid dog that calls itself the UK gov't  

There are lies, there are damned lies, and then there are Tory statistics.   
 
Coalition rebuked again by UK Statistics Authority - this time on flood defence spending
 
Extracts from an article by George Eaton:-
 
After entering office, Cameron promised to lead "the most open and transparent government in the world". But once again, the coalition has fallen foul of the number crunchers at the UK Statistics Authority. This time, the dispute centres over the Treasury's presentation of figures on infrastructure investment in the government's National Infrastructure Plan.  

This isn’t the first time that ministers have been rebuked for their statistical chicanery. In December 2012, Jeremy Hunt was ordered to correct his false claim that spending on the NHS had risen in real terms "in each of the last two years". A month later, Cameron was criticised for stating that the coalition "was paying down Britain’s debts" (the National Debt has risen from £828.7 billion, or 57.1% of GDP, to £1.25 trillion, or 75.7% of GDP, since May 2010) and then in May 2013, Duncan Smith was rebuked for claiming that 8,000 people moved into work as a result of the introduction of the benefit cap.

Chris Leslie, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said: “This government has a track record of trying to pull the wool over people's eyes. Cameron has now been rebuked several times for making false claims: on NHS spending, the rising national debt and the impact of his tax rises and spending cuts on economic growth. And only last month the Tories came up with more dodgy figures to claim people are better off, but which totally ignored the impact of things like the rise in VAT and cuts to tax credits.”
 
For the whole article:-
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/02/coalition-rebuked-again-uk-statistics-authority-time-flood-defence-spending

Fifty per cent of politicians are prone to lie habitually about data, and the remaining sixty per cent can also be persuaded to embellish the statistics... 

( source : The Hornby Institute, Pease Pottage)       

That is easy Davy boy you have done NOWT but tell LIES since May 2010, your telling LIES now without blushing that is the sign of a  HARDENED LIAR  

 
Don't they make you PUKE!

" Don't they make you PUKE!"

Incessantly, Penderyn- incessantly...        

Phil Hornby wrote:" Don't they make you PUKE!"

Incessantly, Penderyn- incessantly...        

And working to abolish the NHS, so that they won't be able to help us keep something down!

Cuts in spending at Defra:

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/crossparty-committee-blasts-environment-secretary-owen-paterson-for-terrible-morale-at-defra-9042396.html

2010 Flashback:

Funding for flood defence will be cut by £460 million over four years. Defra insist this is less than the cuts proposed by the last Government, but it will cause uproar in areas that have suffered flooding in recent years. Local authorities are also having to cut money for flooding defence.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/spending-review/8062504/Spending-Review-what-it-means-for-the-Environment-and-Climate-Change.html

If you’re answering the most recent message on a thread, there really is no need to copy/paste it, especially when it involves Cameron’s ugly mush. You quite put me off my cornflakes this morning!  
 
Just a few days ago, Labour was accused of making political capital out of the Somerset flooding by pointing out Owen Paterson’s lethargy over the past month or so. However, it’s okay when Cameron decides that the floods “are all Labour’s fault”:-
 

 
'The Guardian' reports that "Cameron made 'a carefully controlled lightning visit' to the flooded Somerset Levels and blamed the last Labour government for a pause in local river dredging in the late 1990s that he said had made the area more liable to flood. (Only hours before Cameron's visit Nick Clegg had said politicians should not get under the feet of the emergency services by visiting the area.)" 
 
Cameron - climate change, which many of your dinosaur MPs try to deny, has made some places more liable to flood. Furthermore, in many of our river valleys, the flood plains that would once have spread water coming from the hills over wetland soils are now covered with houses. Instead of spilling across grasslands, the water now lies in people's sitting rooms.
 
The Environment Agency came into existence in April 1996 under a Tory government, and one of its first decisions was to abandon the regular dredging of the four main rivers that for centuries have carried the floodwater, which hits the Somerset Levels every winter, safely away to the sea. Unlike the liar Cameron, who has tried to blame Labour for that change of policy, I’m not trying to score political points over it. The ‘experts’ at the Environment Agency decided that dredging is not always the best long term solution and wouldn’t reduce flood risk on all the rivers in Somerset because of their tidal nature. Even the RSPB has suggested different measures, such as providing for farmland upstream of the Levels to hold on to water for longer.
 
Funding, however, is a political point. Maria Eagle, the shadow education secretary, points out that Labour increased funding for flood protection from under £500 million before the 2007 floods to £670 million by 2010. She adds: "Immediately on taking office, David Cameron approved a £97 million cut in funding for flood protection, taking it back to £573 million in 2011/12 – a 17% real terms cut in one year."
 
EU funds are available to help with flooding, but Cameron won’t take them, no doubt because he’s scared of the Eurosceptics in his party. Instead of recognising that the EU offers many benefits for the UK and accepting the money, many Tories would rather redirect funds from foreign aid to domestic flood relief.
 
Sources used:-
 
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bf8wqWtCUAAH-38.png
 
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/feb/07/david-cameron-blames-labour-flooding-somerset
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25911391

There is no hope of Tories accepting responsibility for anything. It is in their DNA to look to off-load blame for any miscalculation they make or to simply lie through their teeth to avoid blame. There are no depths to which they will not sink in pursuit of seeking to take the attention from their own shortcomings.
 
Their slimy local MP was keen to pin blame on the  Environment Agency's Lord Smith yesterday, but avoided any suggestion that his beloved government could be to blame in any way. With regard to some flooding issue near my own neck of the woods a local Tory Councillor highlighted cuts made " by Parliament" for the difficulties. He could not quite bring himself to put his Westminster colleagues in the frame. Typically gutless cowardice from the cowardly and gutless party...

Lest we forget ... The Conservative Party manifesto in 2010:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7165000/conservative-manifesto.html

The dredging stopped in 1995 and if my memory serves me well that was under the Major's Tory gov't, at first Davy boy said that he would give the area £100M to get repairs done when it was safe THEN the truth came out, the Tories would only be giving the area £30M this year and since it is general election next year he will give them £100M.

The Tory BRASS NECK knows no bounds but the Labour party need to get the truth out there, and not allow the Tories to get away with SPINNING of the truth like they did in 2010 when the Tories blamed Labour party for the BANKERS NIGHT at the CASINO  

As the Somerset levels are substantially below sea-level, dredging the rivers will only have the desired effect at Low Tide.  Many parts of the River Parret are actually raised on an embankment above the surrounding farmland, so "draining" there would be as realistic as hoping to get on a train where there isn't a station.

Back to the drawing-board, and no more building on flood-plains ferchrissake.

It was disappointing this morning to see Andrew Marr constantly interrupt Rachel Reeves during her interview on the Marr Show. Marr didn't do the same to Eric ' Lardy' Pickles - possibly fearing that the fat freak would sit on him.

Ms Reeves did tend to over-elaborate a bit and needed to be hurried along a little , but Marr overdid it. Pickles seemed far less combative than usual - maybe he is under orders to try to convince the public prior to May 2015 that he is not the evil bastard we all know him to be. He still took full advantage of the opportunity given by Marr to do the dirty on the limp Lord Smith and the Environment Agency, so as to keep up the pretence that all the flood stuff isn't really anything to do with those Tory Heroes.

Hopefully, as a General Election approaches, TV journalists will get stuck into all these unconvincing and downright lying politicians with some gusto, to lay bare their frailties...

Phil Hornby said: Hopefully, as a General Election approaches, TV journalists will get stuck into all these unconvincing and downright lying politicians with some gusto, to lay bare their frailties...

Lets hope they do, because the Labour party certainly isn't

Cameron Visits Somerset Levels


(ft.com)

" So you see, Prime Minister, quite a bit of dredging might be called for..."

So before you give your friends and donors our tax money Dick Head, just remember it will be your Tory MPs and your nasty self that will lose your seats in the HOC which the people of the UK will bring out the BUNTING to celebrate your demise. 

A spiteful rumour is circulating that Cameron has volunteered the entire right wing of the Tory Party as sandbags to shore-up the lower Thames Valley around Windsor.

It would all be the fault of the Jews if they hadn't set up the Environment Agency with strict orders to take the blame. Jesus, aren't these buggers crap!

The enemy are behind us, so that's the way I'm going.

Shock and awe result from Tory minister telling the truth on Radio 4 "Today" programme:

Interviewer: Do you support the Chairman of the Environment Agency, Yes or No?

Philip Hammond: Politicians don't answer yes-or-no questions.

oftenwrong wrote:

"Now all this water is to be moved away from Conservative-held constituencies, and dumped all over UKIP supporters wherever they live!"

 

Sorry Davy boy we will move the water but it will go to Tory voting areas I think that is the same place where the economy is growing, so they can pay for their own flood defences