Lib Dems Tax Unearned Wealth

reblogged from i-thorts' i-Politics

LIB DEMs TAX
Unearned
Wealth  

Wealth TaxNick Clegg was revising an 'old Liberal' idea when he put forth Liberal Demercrat's intentions to tax the wealthy: by rewarding 'hard work' but levying unearend wealth.

This bombshell of the Deputy PM's temporary wealth tax has shook Westminster; upsetting both Tories and Labour MPs into from their summer hiatus. Both parties have poured critisism on Mr Glegg's plans for a "time limited contribution" from society's rich.

Liberals have for decades believed in focusing tax on wealth. In his interview he spoke of "an old Liberal idea that you should be rewarding initiative and hard work but you should be making people who have unearned wealth make a contribution".
   - Nick Clegg puts space between Lib Dems and Tories with tax bombshell - Guardian Politics 29/08/12

Differences?
Mid-way through the coalition's parliment, and as all political parties gear up for the 2015 general election, Nick Clegg's trying desperately to distance Lib Dems from their Tory coalition partners. Clegg wants his party to "start spreading ... wings more ... unencumbered and unrestrained by coalition."

Further cuts
Chancellor, George Osborne, is planning to target the poor with an extra £10bn in welfare cuts (to come into inergration 2016) which were introduced in the budget. Mr Clegg -although he accepts some cuts to welfare- would rather target the top echelon "than starts at the bottom."

However, it seem unlikely that the Chanellor will be swayed by Mr Clegg's proposal.

.: George Osborne's reply to Clegg's proposal? :.

Age of Concern

reblogged from i-thorts' i-Politics

Age of
Consent?

This morning my daughter of almost sixteen dropped a bomb on me. She said she’d ‘Googled it’ and they were thinking of dropping the age of having sex to 14.

I thought I must be hearing things. So I ‘Googled it’ and discovered what she’d read.

On February 16th of this year (2012) the Telegraph ran this headline:

Drop Age Of Consent To 14, Says Academic
    -Sarah Womack, Social Affairs Correspondent, Telegraph Newspapers
    -16 February 2007.

She goes on to state what this academic report suggests dropping the age of consent to 14 with restrictions so that the 40% of 15-year-olds who admit to having had sex (not oral sex but full intercourse) would not be breaking the law. This is a good but radical article.

I look at my daughter -who is just over three months away from her sweet sixteenth- and wonder how I’d feel for her to be having sex now (legally), and it sends me cold. This is such an alien concept to my usually-rational parental mind that it screams out “NO!!!” in disgust.

It seems so long since I was a horny teenager, that I’ve buried those emotional realities by my parental concerns. As a dad I’m applaud by the thought of my teenage daughter being sexually active...

We’ve done the talks about safe sex and contraception -so I’m aware of what is expected of parents today.

The problem is, as a realist, I ‘know’ that the chances of her staying ‘virginal’ are almost none existent. She will meet someone that she wants to ‘sleep with’, (possibly) marry, and (eventually) have kids of her own to worry about. All of that above doesn’t make the any easier to accept. I suppose it’s just hard for a dad to let his little girl grow-up into a young woman.

Having said that, I would urge any parent to read the Telegraph’s article; it’s an eye-opener and a reality check for any mum or dad.

I love both my daughters and my son, and I know they’ll have to go through these concerns themselves what their time comes.

I just wonder if lowering the age of concern will make children more responsible than they currently aren’t (or than we were at their ages).
I seriously doubt it!

What Price Gold Medals

reblogged from i-thorts' i-Politics

Surely
Not!  

I must be going mad, because I'm sure that this morning (21/08/12) I read that the Government want to hand-out Honours to Team GB winners!

The Price of a Gold?

Of the 412 grams that a London 2012 gold medal weighs roughly 6 grams are gold, 381 are silver and the remaining 25 copper. Giving a market price today of about $700.
       -Futures Magazine | Monday 6th August 2012

So that's the price of Olympic Gold!

It may surprise you to discover that it costs £9billion to host an Olympic Games.

So, forget the cost of policing (including bringing in the Army, Navy and Air Force)... Forget the national debt from hosting the 2012 Games... Forget even the cost of giving out all 302 Gold Medals (not to mention all the Silver and Bronze Medals also)... Forget how many starving children in Britain alone this would feed for a whole year! London is now certainly pathed with Gold -as it was renowned to be back in Dick Whittington's day.
A gong for every Gold Medal winner?

DAVID Cameron insisted yesterday that Britain’s Olympic heroes should be honoured by the Queen.
       -David Cameron, Prime Minister, in EXPRESS.co.uk | Tuesday 21st August 2012

The article above goes on to explain that Downing Street are cautiously advising that there are a limited amount of honours that the Queen can hand out per year, but Boris Johnson is pushing for each Gold Medal winner to be awarded an honour for their Olympic achievement.

However, stringent new rules this year have put pay to such things, so achieving Gold at the Olympics is not enough to ensure a place on the Queen's New Year Honours list it would seem! Four years ago, the GB Gold Medalists in Beigin were all awarded MBEs at least.

"It’s a shame we can’t recognise all of Team GB for what they did for the country. It’s what the public wants."
       -Clive Efford, Labour sports spokesman, in EXPRESS.co.uk | Tuesday 21st August 2012

Number Ten have been quoted as saying that honours are 'awarded on merit, not according to quotas'. So we will have to see!


Also this morning

"EUROPE is secretly preparing for the break-up of the single currency, a top Finnish politician let slip yesterday."
       -The Sun | Monday 20th August 2012

The Sun article tells of how Erkki Tuomioja, Finland’s foreign minister, let it out that it was now nearly impossible to keep the euro. This has come at a time when Greece is at a 'make or break' stage (whether they'd be the first country forced out of the euro). The Sun says that the "New Greek Premier Antonis Samaras is flying to Berlin and Paris this week to beg for two years’ more grace to repay the EU’s bailout money."

But things for Greece, and the euro, are not looking good -because Greek debts have not got smaller since the elections, but larger.


Putting this in context...
The Futures Magazine's article reported this information: (using the value of Gold Medals as a currency) to get the European countries out of (euro) debt, they would each have to win millions of Gold Medals.

To put it another way, every single person in Greece would have to win 56 Gold Medals to get the country out of its debt (that's 627,153,707 medals in total). That doesn't cover anyone's debt other that Greece's.

For 302 Golds per Olympics, that's equivalent of Greece winning Gold at every single event for well over two million Olympic Games (2,076,668 Olympics)! At that rate, it would take Greece 8,306,672 years!!

Now you know the price of Olympic Gold. Was it really worth all the cost?

What on earth?

reblogged from i-thorts' i-Politics

What is
This World
 coming
to?

When did it become okay to loot and steal, and riot and cause disorder on British streets?

Last year’s riots cost taxpayers, insurance companies, businesses, and London in general, a fortune in losses. Have the culprits been adequately punished?

It wouldn’t seem so! As, of the 1,292 criminal sentences handed out, one in five of these offenders have been released early… (according to a Mail Online article). Tagged and let out of prison. They are on Home Detention Curfew, or HDC as it is often termed. (HDC is only available for ‘low risk’ offenders who have served at least three months of their sentence -but less than four years- and ‘deemed appropriate’.)

If it seems a stretch to class looters and rioters as ‘low risk’, then let me put it another way: Of those released, there are 162 burglars, 44 thieves, 26 violent offenders, and 2 robbers! These individuals are classed by the system as low risk -offenders who are ‘free of reoffening’ while out on HDC. The fact that there offence was actually ‘civil disorder’ (rioting) should have made it obvious to all that they have little or no comprehension of adhering the rules.

I did an article, which touched on this (British Shame to Olympic Gold) and, which stated that there were rumours of riots to come after the end of the Games in London. 

If I have heard these rumours, you would have to assume so have the authorities. If this is the case, why have these rioters been let out so soon? Why are we putting potential ring-leaders back on the street to repeat offend this year? Surely it would seem more sensible to keep these individuals out of society until they have severed their sentences?

However, today it all seems to revolve around economics. The cost is too high to keep these individuals in detention. We have to pay for the Olympic Games spectacular. And then there’s the cost of security and policing. Not to mention how much it will cost for Cameron’s feed the hungry initiative. (Forget the poor children of Britain, let’s feed the hungry of other nations!)

Feeding children in your own country doesn’t earn you a Nobel Prize, after all!


Is this justice? Or is this bureaucratic madness?

I lean towards madness. But what is your view?


CyberPunk65

Tory Titan

reblogged from i-thorts' i-Politics

Boris: 
Tory
Titan  

Next Premier? 
Is Boris Johnson heading for the Tory's top seat?

The other day David Cameron called Boris a 'Tory Titan' and stated that he had no wish to hold back anyone's ambitions.

"David Cameron has described Mayor of London Boris Johnson as a 'titan' of the Conservative Party who has 'a lot more to give the country'."
-- BBC News Politics 10 August 2012

That said, is Boris really a candidate for the Premier-ship? He isn't even an MP at the moment (although, his brother currently is) and he used to be the MP for Hackney prior to being Mayor of London.

He has turned into a very strong candidate in the last few weeks (with all the Olympic hype). And has handled the media with a strength of character that is almost statesman-like. (Almost! Except for the zip wire incident which made him look a complete prat.)


Tory Titan?
But is he a titan?

The Encarta Dictionary (English edition) defines a titan as:
(noun) a powerful person; somebody whose power, achievement, intellect, or physical size is extraordinarily impressive.

.: Boris gets stuck on zip wire carrying two flags 01 Aug 2012 :.

It's hard to view this man on the zip-wire (video above) or the guy on a bicycle seriously. His hair has a mind of its own -and there seems to be a madness to it that's perversely odd. Could you describe 'this' Boris as a 'titan' of anything other than blunders?

However, you can't sign Johnson off so easily. 

"Several Conservative MPs and donors have talked up the possibility of Mr Johnson being a future party leader."
-- BBC News Politics 10 August 2012

That means that they want him to be one. They have designs on him taking the lead chair. It's not unprecedented with the Tories. After Maggie was slung out by her party -knives sticking firmly from her shoulder blades- they elected a grey suit, John Major. He too was a long shot. But the long shot took Maggie's place all the same!


Boris the PM?
How could Johnson do it?

"A recent poll of Conservative activists found that he was the top choice to replace Mr Cameron, despite not being a serving MP and with four more years to run before his term of office as London Mayor comes to an end."
--By Rosa Prince, The Telegraph 10 August 2012

For Boris to become a giant-killer and take the king's crown, he's got a lot of work to do. His term as Mayor needs to come to an end; then he needs a seat to sit in Parliament; and then he has to stand for party leader and win. And all that without putting a single foot out of place.

(The Blunderer of Old London Town must stay out of trouble for more than four years!)

Personally, I can't see it myself. Then again... stranger things have happened!

Not a midlife crisis!

reblogged from i-thorts' i-Politics

Not A
Mid-life
Crisis! 

The world has become obsessed with age. Too young, too old, almost past it!

But who says that age is so important? And why?

What's the right age to start having sex? And when is it too old to want it? And how come you can never get enough between the two points?

Have we become obsessed by youth? Look around and tell me the average age of the Ad-Girls and -Boys. Or their models. Where are the older representatives?

No one wants to see where they're going, only where they've been. That's the thing.

I'm as bad as all the others. (Are you?) When I was young-er, I was quite vane. My hair teeth and complexion were all more important to me than anything. Smart suits, good shoes, impressive ties, sensible hair. That's who I was: Mr GQ. A god in a silk shirt.

Even my politics had a brand: true-blue Conservatism. (I aspired to be The New Statesman -the right honourable Alan B'stard MP -played by Rik Mayall.) My arrogance didn't quite reach the levels that Rik's alta ego reached, but I came close.
 

.: New Statesman title card :.
by @  Wikipedia.

However, life has a way of kicking you in the pants when you get too arrogant. And so it knocked me on my ass and out of my GQ phase.

I grew my hair long, sported an unkempt beard and lost all my self confidence. And as a result went looking for God. (And me being me, I didn't just find one, I found several.)

I'm compulsive and obsessive by nature and add that to a search for spirituality, and naturally I had to take it too far. My search put me on a path to the church -I wanted to serve the big G. I took courses at a local Methodist college on Pastoral Care and Islam and fell-out with the Christian faith.

I turned to Judaism, considered Islam and finally fell for Paganism. (Only because the latter didn't restrict my growing compulsion for anarchy.)

The arrogance of youth has been tempered by age but not fully extinguished. My arrogance these days connect to speaking my mind and looking how I please.

Over the past two years my hair has been all the colours of the colours of the rainbow and a few others: I was Goth with half-black and half-white. I hit emo with spiked pastel and vibrant hues. And finally, went retro with a punk half-Mohawk (which I currently sport), that changes colour once a month.

I do like to grab attention! Lol !!

Then, the other day someone asked me if I was having a mid-life crisis. I'm not having a mid-life anything! (I don't class almost 47 as mid-life.) Inside I’m still 18.

After I expounded how wrong she was, she walked awake nodding and muttering, "Thought as much!"

I don't care what anyone says, I'm not having a mid-life crisis. Inside I'm still young, arrogant and vane!

A Coalition Collapse?

reblogged from i-thorts' i-Politics

Is There About to be
a Coalition Collapse?

According to a Guardian ICM poll only 16% of voters expect the coalition government (Tory/Lib Dems) to survive to 2015. Due to dissention in the ranks. (Tories failed to support House of Lords Reform bill, causing Nick Clegg to acuse Tories of breaking coalition contract.) This is as the coalition government prepare for a mid-term policy review (in October).

BBC News quotes the PM as saying that there isn't a problem between Conservatives and Lib Dems, that they're just different parties who don't always agree but "work well together".

David Cameron claims that they'll be stronger in the autumn.

However, "Olympic effect on UK economy may not last long," warns Sir Mervyn King in the Mail on Sunday, "...ultimately the Games cannot alter the underlying economic situation we face."

i-thorts R instant thorts

2xRecession

reblogged from i-thorts' i-Politics

Double-Dip Recession -
Britain's Not Working

This morning (12/08/12) SkyNews headlines

MP Hosts World Hunger Summit.
"David Cameron is to host a summit aimed at tackling world hunger in the years before the next Olympic Games in Brazil."

While the Mail Online runs the headline:

Children as young as 8 are lending money to their parents as they worry about family finances

.: A Child's Perspective on World Hunger :.
(Feeding Starving Children)

From these two headlines you can see things are clearly not working in Britain.

When young children are having to bailout cash-strapped parents with their pocket money (Mail Online) Britain has hit an all-time low! (The piece goes on to explain that 85% of eight to fifteen-year-olds claim to be worried about their family's finances.) While the MP is lost in the Olympic headlights (SkyNews) of closing the Games. Things are definitely not good! 

When thing at home are so bad that Boris Johnson (Reuters UK‎ article) looks like a contender to the MPs job - due to all the positive press coverage since the opening ceremony.

"In the UK-wide survey conducted for Ladbrokes bookmakers, 71 percent of respondents said they would like him to become premier."
Reuters UK‎ article

(It feels a bit like Cameron is being sidelined by the Major's aggressive media campaign. He appears concerned that Boris is getting too many Olympic headlines - which puts Johnson foot in Number Ten's door - more than any other Tory politician.) I'm certainly asking, Has Cameron lost the plot? 

Homeland Britain is sufferings: We spent a wealth on the Games, so the world thinks we're not a Third World Country - when we clearly are. And although they were more than impressive as far as Start (opening ceremony), Games (massive Gold haul), and End (closing ceremony - that is said to be a match for the opening extravaganza) we have a country on the edge of poverty.

"PM pledges millions for Team GB at Rio"

says Independent article. (They go on to quote he's pledging lottery money to team GB - which could have been targeted at underprivileged children at home.) We all are proud of our team, but when millions of British taxpayers are funding waste and avarice (Banking Crisis), there has to be a time to say woah... And this is that time.

It was only back in May that The Sun Headlined with:

Charity launched to help feed starving UK kids
"A CHARITY has launched the first-ever appeal to feed starving children – in the UK."

Have the the starving children in Britain all been fed in the last few months? I think not! And yet we are spending millions on sports while our children starve.  It these Games so important for Britain, that children have to suffer?

I declare! Please Mr Cameron, stop wasting funds on making the country look good!

What is the point of a great shop window if the shelves are empty inside?

I ask you, is this right?

Tell Me I'm Wrong!

reblogged from i-thorts' i-Politics

Tell Me
I'm Wrong! 

I'm getting old. I must be. All I see around me is heartache and pain. Idiots and morons.

Does no one care anymore?

When I was a lad we cared. We cared about music and girls... we cared about politics and fashion... we cared about life and death... we cared about freedom and justice... we simply cared.

Today... No one cares.

We don't care about the environment. At least, most of us don't. There are a few overbearing pop stars (like Sting) that bleat on about saving the planet while schlepping from continent to continent by their own private jet (using fossil fuel and emitting CO2 gasses like a madman). Other than these wannabees, no one 'really' cares.

We don't care about an over populated world. We have children younger and live longer. Teen can't spell condoms, let alone use them. We have the likes of Jeremy Kyle blaring on about sticking 'something on the end of it' and making a living from talking to these horny juveniles as though they care. They don't. Neither do we. What's it matter to the average Britain if some snotty-nosed brat is the father, or the other five possibles? I ask you, do you care? Really?

We don't care about education. Even those sodding degenerates that repose to be students don't really care about education. They just want to drink cheep larger and loaf about, saying pretentious crap like 'in my opinion' - then quoting some facile trollop's entry in an outdated tome, they haven't even bothered to read properly. "In my opinion, Einstein got it right hen he said, Go Go!" Bollocks. Total crap. They don't have the experience to have an opinion. What does someone know that's just got out of nappies? Bugger all.
 

.: Speakers' Corner, Hyde Park in London, England :.
by swisstrock on Picasa.

 Education is about learning, it's about informing. It's not about telling the student which bit of their learning will be on the test. We learn to discover, not to be marked on it. The pen-pushers have taken over our schools, colleges, and uni's - they want results, not education. It's all about pass rates, not whether Billy understands how algebra works - A+B=C (or A Boy is a Child, as we used to say) makes not the slightest sense to the average pleb.

We don't care about politics either. Or the country wouldn't have voted in a load of Tory twits and wet wallies from the Lib Dems. Nick Clegg promised to be better then he's being, and the country swallowed it! If we were fishes we'd be wrapped in paper and smothered in salt and vinegar. This was once a great nation. Now we're a third-world nation, with too many children living in poverty and squalor. Half the country's unemployed, most of the rest's under-employed and under-paid. What's this world coming too?

Now tell me I'm wrong? Go on, surprise me if you dare. Tell me I'm wrong?

British Shame to Olympic Gold

reblogged from i-thorts' i-Politics

Will Olympic Gold Untarnish London's Image a Year after the UK riots?

With London Olympics 2012 in the spotlight, has the country forgotten the last years's riots?

1. The UK might me in an Olympic gold-rush, but it's only a year ago that London was in the spotlight because of rioters burning shops and using social media to wage a campaign of devastation across British TV screens.
   

   
   

   But why did it happen and will it reemerge this summer as predicted by British youths.
   
2. Summer Riots Could Be Repeated, Survey Warns
   

   2 days ago ... Summer Riots Could Be Repeated, Survey Warns ... 8:32am UK, Friday 03 August 2012. One year on ... Gallery: One Year On ...

   

   Sky
3. That was the question on my mind, as I watched the spectacular opening ceremonies on 28th July. It completely blew me away how London had re-vamped its image within just 12 months.
4. 

   This time last year was the riots all over the UK - A year on everyone loves London / GB cos we win some medals.. Moral of the story if trouble kicks off award medals and calm is restored !!

   
   
   

   Stephanie Usher Maddox

   
   
   

   14 hours ago
5. 

   Today is a year to the day since the London Riots and look how far we've come. From being completely ashamed of the future of the UK with scenes of greed, violence and utter pandemonium, to just experiencing a day of immense pride and patriotism for our little island of Great Britain. These Olympic Games have brought us back a sense of national unity and I hope it will have a positive effect on and teach all those kids I've spoken to at work about the Olympics, to be determined and strive to be the best you can be.

   
   
   

   Charlotte Anne Brady

   
   
   

   12 hours ago
6. We have become a proud nation, suddenly. And it doesn't seem to sit well with those who witnessed the devastation last summer.
7. A year on, Tottenham still struggles to shake off the legacy ... - inagist
   

   21 hours ago ... A year on, Tottenham still struggles to shake off the legacy of the riots http://t.co/ FkrKFia2 by guardian 23173182833...

   

   Inagist
8. That said, can it happen again as predicted?
9. 

   England Riots: One In Four Young People Believe Last Summer's Disorder Could Happen Againhuff.to/OMSYJN via @HuffPostUK

   
   
   

   stephen matthews

   
   
   

   13 hours ago

   ReplyRetweet
10. From the apathy that the youth of today show towards everything, it seems more than possible.
11. 

    The riots are inevitable and we can all feel them brewing already, I only hope this time people don't loot shops or burn businesses because that's what was wrong with the last riots and turned the people against each other.

    
    
    

    Patrick Brett

    
    
    

    3 days ago
12. With a reduction in police, and an influx of visitors to the country, and the trials of the looters in the news, and the world watching London (because of the Olympics), it would seem more than inevitable. It seemed absolute.
13. Get Ready For Riots As Police Warn About Cutbacks

    
    
    

    truthtube451

    
    
    

    a month ago
14. 

    Reading the Riots: 'I have no doubt the riots will happen again': youtu.be/IF_AC0n_zjk via @youtube

    
    
    

    Mohamed Sharaf

    
    
    

    an hour ago

    ReplyRetweet
15. However, we're now a week into the Games and not a peep from the dissatisfied youths. This could mean we are in the clear. But I hesitate to accept this wave of euphoria that is sweeping GB.
    

    
    

    But when the Olympics end, will we return to apathetic Britain once more? 
16. BBC to broadcast banned riots documentaries after Olympic Games ...
    

    1 day ago ... BBC to broadcast banned riots documentaries after Olympic Games ... The BBC will broadcast its two-part series on the Eng...

    

    Wn
17. Will the post-Games euphoria (over gold) wear-off? With the BBC planning to broadcast this documentary once the Games ends, will this euphoria spin into a media-fueled revamp of last years' riots? And if it does, will we once more see riots taking advantage of this media attention and notoriety?
18. 

    'Young people predict riots this year' if only cos '1 in 3 think sentences given to rioters last year were too "soft"'! t.co/krYoP0oE

    
    
    

    Patrick Ainley

    
    
    

    2 days ago

    ReplyRetweet
19. The 'soft' sentences handed out to 2011 rioters won't provide a deterrent for those so bore that the thought of a riot seems entertainment.
20. 

    You know last year riots was the most entertaining thing that happened that summer

    
    
    

    Chocolate breadstick

    
    
    

    11 hours ago

    ReplyRetweet
21. The question still remains... WIll we see riots in the UK this year?

from: Storify.com: cyberpunk65's Riot Article

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