UK Politics Thread X: Boris party report released

[Chan Island]

People who aren't UK citizens and have never lived in the UK get to vote on the next PM when the rest of us don't



I feel like there ought to be some question about who these people are, and in what countries.

So when I tell you that Labour and the Lib Dems have similar party arms (maybe others too) your response is?

I don't know about the Lib Dems, but in the Labour Party, you must be either a British citizen or have residency for at least a year in the UK to become a member. Labour abroad is for when your address is not in the UK, but you must still be a British (or Irish) citizen to be eligible.

Similar, for sure, and not how I'd design it myself, but does clear up the very thing the article is criticising.

[Fartsniffage]

[Emotional Support Crocodile]

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Well done that man for coming up with that

[Ifreann]

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Instead of paying, you say?

[The Free Joy State]

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Bravo.

And it's a solution the Conservatives should be proud to endorse, after all, they started paying the whole "paying in positive feeling rather than money".

Actually, I'd like to see a strict price-cap on the wholesale price of North Sea oil, and a strict price-cap on how much profit companies can make per customer (say £10 per year¹), to be renegotiated after the cost-of-living crisis.

1. Don't weep for them too much. British Gas serve 9 million homes, EON serve 3.8 million UK customers, and even smaller customers like Octopus Energy serve 3.1 million customers (though, from a principles perspective, I feel bad for the more ethical companies). They would survive.

[The Huskar Social Union]

Current talk is if the NI Executive is not formed soon we could have another NI assembly election sometime between November (at the earliest) to February. Smack dab right in Winter whenever is gona get fucked by rising costs. What a juicy and infuriating election that would be.

Will be another Lucidtalk poll out some point in the next few weeks which will also include polling for United Ireland voting intention, national identity and a few other things.

[Emotional Support Crocodile]

Current talk is if the NI Executive is not formed soon we could have another NI assembly election sometime between November (at the earliest) to February. Smack dab right in Winter whenever is gona get fucked by rising costs. What a juicy and infuriating election that would be.

Will be another Lucidtalk poll out some point in the next few weeks which will also include polling for United Ireland voting intention, national identity and a few other things.

Have either Truss or Sunak said anything about NI in their campaigning so far?

[The Huskar Social Union]

Current talk is if the NI Executive is not formed soon we could have another NI assembly election sometime between November (at the earliest) to February. Smack dab right in Winter whenever is gona get fucked by rising costs. What a juicy and infuriating election that would be.

Will be another Lucidtalk poll out some point in the next few weeks which will also include polling for United Ireland voting intention, national identity and a few other things.

Have either Truss or Sunak said anything about NI in their campaigning so far?

Yeah but i cant remember the specifics, honestly both of them fucking annoy me so ive stopped paying attention to them a lot. Just gona wait until the leadership contest ends. I remember they did pay tribute to Trimble in one of the debates when he died.

[Emotional Support Crocodile]

Have either Truss or Sunak said anything about NI in their campaigning so far?

Yeah but i cant remember the specifics, honestly both of them fucking annoy me so ive stopped paying attention to them a lot. Just gona wait until the leadership contest ends. I remember they did pay tribute to Trimble in one of the debates when he died.

Shame there is still around three weeks of this contest left. A ridiculously long winded process.

[The Huskar Social Union]

Keir Starmer demands ban on raising energy prices

Exclusive: Labour calls for the price cap to remain at £1,971 as charities warn Tory leadership candidates of catastrophic impact on the cost of living

The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, is to call for a ban on crippling energy price rises this autumn in a move that would save the average household more than £2,000 a year on gas and electricity bills, the Observer can reveal.

The demand to freeze the energy price cap at the current £1,971 level – blocking the regulator Ofgem from allowing a huge anticipated rise to around £3,600 in October – will place intense pressure on the Tory leadership candidates Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak to follow suit when one becomes prime minister.

Starmer’s plan, to be announced on Monday, comes as 70 of the country’s biggest charities and organisations across health, mental health, education, care and other sectors, today warn Truss and Sunak in a joint letter of dire consequences throughout British society unless they take more drastic action to address the energy and wider cost of living crises.

Paul Kissack, the chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), which co-ordinated the letter, said the UK faces a “national emergency” while the government is “asleep at the wheel”.

Demanding urgent help for the most vulnerable, in the form of a doubling of the £1,200 that was committed earlier this year to households on means-tested benefits, Kissack said: “Without it, vulnerable people will face a catastrophe on a vast scale when winter sets in. The consequences of sitting idly by are unthinkable.”

Starmer, who returned from holiday at the end of last week, has come under pressure to say more on energy prices after former Labour leader Gordon Brown made the running with a series of major interventions.

In the Observer last weekend, Brown called for an emergency budget. He has also demanded the freezing of the price cap, as well as the temporary nationalisation of energy companies which refuse to offer lower bills.

In a pointed remark which some saw as a glancing reference to Starmer, Brown wrote in the Guardian last week: “Time and tide wait for no one. Neither do crises. They don’t take holidays and politely hang fire.”

=CONTINUES=

[The Free Joy State]

Therese Coffey has been accused of trying to hide multiple reports on the effects of Tory welfare cuts, leading to accusations of a "wall of secrecy" at the DWP:

Thérèse Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, said she would not publish five reports or research on the benefit cap, deaths of benefits claimants, the impact of universal credit (UC), and benefit sanctions, and that she had no plans to publish two further reports on unpaid carers and work capability assessments.

Her Conservative predecessors as secretary of state had promised to publish several of the reports.

“Thérèse Coffey has set out to minimise the evidence published by the department and a consequence of this is that public trust in the department has been badly damaged,” said Stephen Timms, the chairman of the Commons work and pensions select committee. “You understand why ministers are inclined to do this because it avoids them having to answer potentially embarrassing or difficult questions. But avoiding that short-term pain has a long-term impact, I think, badly undermining confidence in the department.”

Ken Butler, a policy adviser at Disability Rights UK, said: “We’re not talking about just one report and one subject. We’re talking about a whole swathe of reports about important aspects of the system. The DWP are operating behind a wall of secrecy.”

Coffey laid out her refusal to publish the information in a letter to the select committee. The reports are as follows. First, an evaluation of the reduction in the benefit cap, which has been at the same rate since 2016 and ranges from £13,400 for individuals outside London to £23,000 for families in the capital. About 1.3 million children in the cap have parents who struggle to buy basics such as food and nappies.

Second, monthly reports on how accessible the Department for Work and Pensions websites and apps are. These are used for claiming and receiving benefits – accessibility is a major issue for some disabled people.

Third, internal reports on the deaths of benefit claimants. The DWP has started 140 internal process reviews since July 2019 into claimants whose deaths may be linked to benefits. In 2018, Errol Graham died of starvation after benefits were cut off.

Fourth, cabinet office research into the effectiveness of support for vulnerable claimants of universal credit. Charities are concerned that people moving on to UC from other forms of benefit such as disability benefits may lose out.

Fifth, a DWP report evaluating the impact of benefit sanctions in persuading people into work. Academic research suggests that sanctions only make people ill and has been described as a “war on families”.

CONT'D

Not surprising, considering this is the woman who sang, "I Had the Time of My Life" as benefit cuts were coming into force.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

And how many taxpayer pounds has this coffey woman got in tax havens?

[Emotional Support Crocodile]

The trouble with freezing the energy cap is that energy companies will then have to sell gas at a price lower than they paid for it. This will lead to the smaller firms going bust, and their customers being forced into the clutches of the big companies. No doubt the big companies will not be letting anyone have a fixed price deal at the moment.

I don't have a solution, but I'm not sure freezing the price cap is one. Clearly the windfall tax that Truss has ruled out is the most obvious thing to do. Perhaps also force the companies to agree to a fixing the price at the current level for the customers they get from smaller firms going bust.

[The Huskar Social Union]

Liz Truss accuses Sinn Fein of trying to drive a wedge between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

She.... she does know Sinn Fein is an Irish Republican party right?

[Emotional Support Crocodile]

I'm sure there is a good reworking possible of the lyrics to Stairway to heaven to make it about Liz Truss... but I'm tired and it's too damned hot to think.

[Celritannia]

The management of railway companies are truly a massive failure to the UK.

[The Free Joy State]

Liz Truss accuses Sinn Fein of trying to drive a wedge between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

She.... she does know Sinn Fein is an Irish Republican party right?

She's pitching herself as the candidate for the Union. Having previously "talked tough" on Scotland (if "ignoring Nicola Sturgeon and effectively acting like she doesn't exist" constitutes tough talking), it seems she's now taking aim at Northern Ireland.

She's also attacked the Welsh government and said Wales should "stop playing political games":

“We are not four separate nations in an agreement of convenience, as some would have us believe. We are one great country which shares a history and institutions, but also family and friends, memories and values.

[Celritannia]

Liz Truss accuses Sinn Fein of trying to drive a wedge between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

She.... she does know Sinn Fein is an Irish Republican party right?

Tories don't remember what NI is the majority of the time.

[The Free Joy State]

Liz Truss accuses Sinn Fein of trying to drive a wedge between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

She.... she does know Sinn Fein is an Irish Republican party right?

Tories don't remember what NI is the majority of the time.

Nonsense. I'm sure, if you asked Truss, she'd tell you she loves Riverdance and has seen Brigadoon at least twice.

EDIT: BTW, I do know and I'm sorry, Huskar. On both counts.

[The Huskar Social Union]

Liz Truss accuses Sinn Fein of trying to drive a wedge between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

She.... she does know Sinn Fein is an Irish Republican party right?

She's pitching herself as the candidate for the Union. Having previously "talked tough" on Scotland (if "ignoring Nicola Sturgeon and effectively acting like she doesn't exist" constitutes tough talking), it seems she's now taking aim at Northern Ireland.

She's also attacked the Welsh government and said Wales should "stop playing political games":

“We are not four separate nations in an agreement of convenience, as some would have us believe. We are one great country which shares a history and institutions, but also family and friends, memories and values.

Please for the love of fuck let Starmer wipe the floor with her in an election.

Tories don't remember what NI is the majority of the time.

Nonsense. I'm sure, if you asked Truss, she'd tell you she loves Riverdance and has seen Brigadoon at least twice.

EDIT: BTW, I do know and I'm sorry, Huskar. On both counts.

Wat

[The Free Joy State]

She's pitching herself as the candidate for the Union. Having previously "talked tough" on Scotland (if "ignoring Nicola Sturgeon and effectively acting like she doesn't exist" constitutes tough talking), it seems she's now taking aim at Northern Ireland.

She's also attacked the Welsh government and said Wales should "stop playing political games":

Please for the love of fuck let Starmer wipe the floor with her in an election.

I'm still hoping we don't have to suffer her as PM at all (not that Sunak's such a prize). But, her getting is looking fairly likely, so that's the second-best thing to hope for.

Nonsense. I'm sure, if you asked Truss, she'd tell you she loves Riverdance and has seen Brigadoon at least twice.

EDIT: BTW, I do know and I'm sorry, Huskar. On both counts.

Wat

Brigadoon's in set in Scotland and Riverdance -- in addition to the authenticity of some of the dancing being disputed, as I recall -- has name recognition to the point that, if that's all someone knows about Ireland, it might be slightly insulting.

Hence why I was sorry.

[The Huskar Social Union]

Please for the love of fuck let Starmer wipe the floor with her in an election.

I'm still hoping we don't have to suffer her as PM at all (not that Sunak's such a prize). But, her getting is looking fairly likely, so that's the second-best thing to hope for.

Wat

Brigadoon's in set in Scotland and Riverdance -- in addition to the authenticity of some of the dancing being disputed, as I recall -- has name recognition to the point that, if that's all someone knows about Ireland, it might be slightly insulting.

Hence why I was sorry.

Oh okay no worries lol

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-62323048
Very civilised of these very mentally balanced humans to hurl abuse at others for merely reporting what was going on

especially this shit?

Yeah um...
Drought is now back in Britain.

I've lived in this village for more than 40 years and I can't remember the last time a drought was as bad as this year's. Even the local pond has dried out, which had water in it even during the 1976 record drought according to my memories.

[The Huskar Social Union]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-62323048
Very civilised of these very mentally balanced humans to hurl abuse at others for merely reporting what was going on

especially this shit?

Yeah um...
Drought is now back in Britain.

I've lived in this village for more than 40 years and I can't remember the last time a drought was as bad as this year's. Even the local pond has dried out, which had water in it even during the 1976 record drought according to my memories.

Hey! That article text was written by the Journalist i was interviewed by a few years ago, neat.

[Forsher]

Hey! That article text was written by the Journalist i was interviewed by a few years ago, neat.

You were interviewed by Erik de la Reguera? The Paris (and also Great Britain) correspondent of the Swedish language... newspaper? Dagens Nyheter?