(Brit) SocialMedia: Alliance of Labour, UKIP and Occupy Members Attempt to Reform City of London

"Ahead of elections this month to the City of London Corporation, an unlikely political alliance is pressing for radical reform and greater accountability from an institution where many ancient traditions continue to hold sway"

From Guardian Feeds »

(Brit) SocialMedia: Brussels plot

SHAMEFUL MEPs are already plotting to torpedo the historic EU budget cut.

The Euro politicians want a secret ballot on the issue so they can vote for a rise anonymously and escape their national leaders’ fury.

Tories warned the sinister plot, unveiled yesterday by the MEPs’ German president Martin Schulz, would “almost certainly” succeed...

« Read the Rest @ The Sun »

History of Global Banking Crisis

Global Banking Crisis, 

A Brief History...

The current global banking crisis began with an escalation in foreclosure rates among homeowners during 2006–2007, leading to a critical juncture in August 2008.

The way that the nation's mortgage markets are structured mean that a decline in the housing market hits other things: home builders, real estate, home supply, retail outlets, money markets, hedge funds (held by large institutional investors), and foreign banks. All of which increase the risk of a nationwide recession.

By 2007-2008 we were in the worst financial emergency since 1930s Great Depression. Large fiscal institutions were threatened by financial breakdown; then bailed out by national governments. Causing a downturn in the world's stock markets.

The backwash resulted in troubles in the housing market - leading to foreclosures and evictions - with lengthened and increased unemployment.

"The crisis played a significant role in the failure of key businesses, declines in consumer wealth estimated in trillions of US dollars, and a downturn in economic activity leading to the 2008–2012 global recession and contributing to the European sovereign-debt crisis."

Financial crisis of 2007–2008 @ Wikipedia »

The global credit crisis nearly destroyed the world's banking systems.

"Could the current financial crisis have been predicted from historians knowledge of past down turns and depressions globally?

Dr David Chambers, University Lecturer in Finance and Deputy Director of the School’s Master of Finance programme, thinks so.

An analysis of what happened in the crash of the 1930s may prove a good way to predict how long it may take us to get out of the current financial difficulties.

Structural problems, Dr Chambers says, need to be faced up to before a recovery is likely, and there could well be a few false dawns along that road to recovery.

Lessons From History by Dr David Chambers

(Brit) SocialMedia: 'U-turn' over scrapping of GCSEs

Planned switch from GCSEs to Baccalaureate in England 'abandoned'

Plans to scrap GCSEs in key subjects in England and replace them with English Baccalaureate Certificates are being abandoned by the government.

The reversal was announced by the education secretary in the Commons, alongside curriculum changes.

Michael Gove said plans for the new exams had been "a bridge too far".

« Read the Rest @ BBC News »

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See also: « Michael Gove: Labour think poor children should stick to their station »

A Reinvention of British Politics

« Reblogged from: ProjectGetElected »

All I see around me is heartache and pain. Idiots and morons.


Does anyone care?

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.

There was a reason why we cared; we had a pride in our nation. We had pride because this was a great nation. Great Britain. Not because we ruled other countries (which Britain was infamous for in the past), but because British citizens were outstanding. We had great politicians, great painters, great photographers, great designers, great entrepreneurs, great industrialists, a great banking system, and a great respect for the monarchy.


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 in their own private jets (using fossil fuel and emitting CO2 gasses like mad). Other than these wannabees, no one 'really' cares.

We don't care about our 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. The sodding degenerates that pretend to be students don't really care about education either. (They just want to drink cheep larger and loaf about, saying pretentious crap like 'in my opinion' - then quoting some facile entry in an outdated tome, they haven't even bothered to read properly. "In my opinion, Einstein got it right when he said, Go Go!" All 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.)

We don't even 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 than 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?

With all this, its not surprising that Britain is no longer 'Great'. Most people don’t care. Britain isn't a place of tolerance and pluralism, its a hive of prejudice from the head to its underbelly.


The problem is … I care!

I care about human rights, and civil liberties. I care about freedom of speech and the political climate. I care about education and child poverty. I care about immigration, intolerance and prejudice. I care about the unemployed, the unemployable and the under-paid under-employed. I care about businesses, finance, banks and bankruptcy. I even care about British and European politics, and political lies and deception. I care enough to want to change things …


A reinvention of British politics.

It has become time for a reinvention of British politics; a reform of Parliament. I am not a defender of the status quo. Neither am I a rebel, just for the sake of it. (Even though I'm a punk, I'm a Parliamentarian at heart.) The present structure and formation of Parliament is an obstacle to the reform of that Parliament, and its government.


As Nick Clegg stated at the 2009 Lib Dem party conference (in Bournemouth) the "choice before people is the choice between fake, phoney change from David Cameron's Conservatives, and real change..." (He then offered the Lib Dems as that change; but, as hindsight has proved, they are more of the same.) So now it is time for a change - every nook and cranny of the British political system must be reformed.

"I will build a reputation for being honest and straightforward. I am a socialist by upbringing, a mediator by instinct and a realist by temperament."

(British) Social Media Party

The (British) Social Media Party are the true "progressives" in UK politics.

It's time for the people to retake power. We don't want change, we demand it!


This is Project Get Elected. Put A Punk in Parliament and change British politics forever...

(Brit) SocialMedia: MoD Overspends Equipment Budget By £6.5bn

The Ministry of Defence has overspent its equipment budget by £6.5bn and some of its major orders are likely to be delivered 39 years late.

The 16 most costly projects should have taken 159 years to deliver between them and cost a total of £56.5bn ... But the National Audit Office (NAO), in its latest report into the MoD's spending, reveals they are now set to take a total of 195 years and cost £61.1bn.

« Read the Rest @ Sky News »

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This is typical of how British Government spends. Leaving a deficit which the poorest in society have to fund through benefit cuts.

The Olympics was a drain on resources and now the MoD overspend resources. Leaving us cash-strapped Britain.

Still proud to be British??

See also: « Why The Nuclear Deterrent Has Had Its Day »

Project Get Elected (2)

« Blogged from: ProjectGetElected »

Intro:

The initial decision...

Two weeks before my 47th Birthday I decided I'd like to be an MP. But things are not always as they seem...

Is politics on the decline?

In 1945 72.8% of the electorate voted in the General Election - by 2001 that had dropped to just 59.4% - but in the last General Election, of 2010, only 65.1% of electorate bothered to turn out. (Figures from http://www.ukpolitical.info/ Turnout45.htm and exclude votes deliberately or accidentally spoiled.)

UK Political Info (2012)
Image: ukpolitical info

This general decline in political interest is caused by an apathy in the general electorate of the United Kingdom. The reason is, people are not engaging with political parties any longer. As the Guardian warned in a recent article (of 06/07/2012) British Democracy is in "long-term terminal decline... and disillusioned citizens [have] stop[ped] voting". We feel let down by the sleaze and the lies and want (even expect) more...


A state of mind can't easily be changed

As I said, things are not always as they seem. We all say "I'm too old to change now" or "its too late for me". But it isn't, you know. While ever your alive, it's never too late!

So I made a decision to change things!

The thing is, I'm a punk. I may have blue hair, but I'm no young Conservative. I'm a working man, but Labour isn't my colours either. I'm a socialist and democrat, but I'm no Liberal Democrat. Neither the Greens nor UKIP appeal, and the fanatics (BNP, SNP, etc) don't interest me in the slightest.

So what's a punk supposed to do?


Taking a stand

At first, it was one of those throw-away ideas. You know, the sort that we have from time to time; when we think "Ooh, that seems like a good idea". And that's usually as far as it goes. We make a random decision to do something, that disappears just as quickly as it comes.

But it didn't go. It lingered on, and on, and on.

By morning, the 10th of September 2012, it was clear in my mind - a need, an urge, a must...


When, if not now?

It had to be now ... or never!

So I sat down and decided to form my own party: the (British) Social Media Party was born.

But who sets off on a journey without first deciding where they are going to end up? I had one place in mind, and that was Westminster. I decided I'd become A Punk in Parliament.


Project Get Elected

As I set off down this road to Westminster I decided to document my life experiences here and on several of my blogs:

Project Get Elected is an integral part of that process. If not my actual road map, it shall become my compass - pointing me in the right direction.

i-thorts' i-Views: Is it in society's interest to keep drugs and prostitution illegal?

Reblogged from i-thorts' i-Views.

 Should Drugs & Prostitution 

Be Illegal?

That's the question that any politician should ask; but not many ever do.

The law of this land is drugs are bad keep away from them (but alcohol and tobacco is okay so long as tax is being paid on them) and prostitution is immoral therefore bad; so both are equally illegal.

The thing is 'immoral' isn't the same as dangerous and 'bad' isn't the same as harmful.

Anything taken to excess is 'bad for you' - from sugar and fat to alcohol and cigarettes - but that doesn't necessarily stop their sale to the public.

Is it immoral to sell ones body for money? It's worst to sell it to feed a drug habit (for something that could be anything masquerading as the 'real deal').

Drugs and prostitution go hand-in-hand and feed each other.

Statue to honor the sex workers of the world. March 2007, Amsterdam.

Prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s proves that if something is forbidden it takes on a coolness to some; an irresistability one found say. One that lures in the young and the foolhardy. And by making a commodity (alcohol, drugs or prostitution) illegal it makes that product even more profitable.

Desirable and profitable are the two words that make any business-man or -woman sit-up and take notice. But when you add illegal to this mix the business goes underground and the gangster takes over.

Crime and profit are bed-fellows. If the is a profit to be made the criminal faternity will find a way. That's how so many young and venerable women are dragged into a life of forced-prostitution - and kept there by an induction of drug addiction.

Legalize drugs and that half the battle solved. Legalize prostitution too and that most of it solved.

At what cost, I hear you state. That's simple. Make the sale of drugs a licenced affair (like alcohol and cigarettes). Prohibit their sale to minors and tax them in the same way.

Make prostitution a job. Tax their earning and make it licenced to easy prosecution of offenders. Get the girls off the streets and into safer environments with health and safety regulations in the same way that any service industry would have in place.

A plumber wouldn't ply his/her trade from a streets corner, so why should a prostitute? Safety for any venerable individual is paramount these days. So why do we have this antiquated attitude to the sex-trade.

Morality doesn't come into selling cigarettes and alcohol, so why should it be used to justify outlawing prostitution!

Drugs are freely sold from businesses 24-7. We just call them beer, wine, spirits, cider, cigarettes, and tobacco. Is there that much difference between someone legally addicted to painkillers and someone with an illegal recreational drug habit? Why this duel standard exists is taxation.

Tax all drugs for recreational and tax prostitute's earnings and make both legal; that removes the dilemma and reduces crime overnight.

i-Politics: More Austerity For Britain

reblogged from i-thorts' i-Politics

An Extra Of Austerity 

Foreseen For Britain

Alongside the statement on Wednesday, the Chancellor's Autumn Statement on Wednesday, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR - the independent fiscal watchdog) are set to tell George Osborne that the Government's efforts to reduce borrowing are in danger.

The OBR are expected to warn this week that the Chancellor looks set to miss his target for bringing down Britain's debt mountain; raising the prospect of more austerity measures.

Unless the Chancellor puts forward further hardship measures, Economists - alarmed by just how difficult it seems for the debt-ratio to begin decreasing in the foretold timescale of 2014-15 and 2015-16 (which Mr Osborne set to reduce GDP) - warn that Mr Osborne's goal for reductions to the gross domestic product were totally underestimated. This means the Chancellor's duel debt-reducing targets are more at risk because of the low growth-estimates and their knock-on impact on the Treasury's revenues.

"When the OBR was established in 2010 I said that the evidence of its success would come when a Chancellor of the Exchequer wished it had never been set up. I think that moment is approaching..."

Sir Alan Budd, chairman of the interim OBR, Sunday Telegraph 02/12/12

As if things aren't bad enough! The outcome being an extra year of hardship is foreseen for British citizens .