Agenda 2019

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/brexit-bill-david-davis-tells-mps-to-reject-house-of-lords-changes-to-eu-exit-laws-a3487506.html David Davis tells MPs to reject House of Lords' changes to EU exit laws The Parliamentary Labour Party and the Labour party in the country must support the Lords amendments. The House of Lords amendment, guaranteeing the rights of EU citizens in the UK as part of Brexit Bill, quite rightly and properly, seeks to give Europeans who in many cases have been living and working in the United Kingdom for some years, contributing to the British economy, paying taxes and filling important and useful roles in society, a guarantee of their rights following Brexit. For Theresa May (and others) to give some vague assurances that these rights will be incorporated into the Brexit negotiations after Article 50 has been triggered, is simply not credible as we have heard such promises on many matters in the past, all of which have been discar...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39188042 Prime Minister Theresa May should call an early general election, former Tory leader Lord Hague has urged. When politicians from the government and parts of the media begin speculating and calling for an early election, history shows us that the speculation grows, spreads and quickly becomes irresistible. The pressure and temptation on Theresa May to go to the country this year will soon become compelling. We in the Labour party, must be prepared to fight a short General election campaign within months. The polls suggest that we have lost lost some support amongst the electorate which necessitates that we must concentrate on those issues which effect people in their everyday lives and their aspirations for the future, rather than the divisive and destructive attacks and deriding of our own leadership. The NHS, working peoples rights, housing, energy and transport are issues which we must bring to the front o...

http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/15129559.MP_Richard_Drax__The_House_of_Lords_seems_hell_bent_on_thwarting_the_will_of_the_people_over_Brexit/ The House of Lords appear hell-bent on thwarting the will of the people.(says Richard Drax) Richard Drax MP for South Dorset Another Conservative MP "hell-bent on" distorting fact to fit his warped view of reality. Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax (known as Richard Drax), is the Conservative Party MP for South Dorset, who says that he supports the Second Chamber. He qualifies such support however with the comment "but a rethink is needed", particularly it seems when the Second Chamber does not agree with his lemming like obsession to follow the Theresa May commandment of hard Brexit. The House of Lords amendment, guaranteeing the rights of EU citizens in the UK as part of Brexit Bill, is not " thwarting the will of the people", as Drax so dramatically and hysterically labels it. The realit...

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/03/npower-electricity-gas-price-rises-dual-fuel-bills#comment-92525414 Npower is to increase its electricity and gas prices for 1.4 million customers One of the greatest lies ever foisted upon the British people was that repeated almost daily during the 1980's by the Thatcher government. The deception, which gave proof to the theory that if you tell a big enough lie and repeat it often, people will accept it as truth. The great falsehood filling the media, being repeated at every opportunity by conservative politicians and being driven by those with their own, not very well hidden agendas, met the conditions for forceful propaganda, being short and easily remembered. "Privatisation introduces competition, drives down costs and improves services". The history of privatised industries since 1980 is littered with examples evidencing that far from being the great blessing for the consumers as promised by the hyp...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/14/mp-stands-to-make-15m-from-kurdistan-oil-company-sale MP stands to make £1.5m from Kurdistan oil company sale Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi, will receive a payout of nearly £1.5m if the sale completes of the Kurdistan-based oil company for which he has worked since July 2015. He has been the Member of Parliament for Stratford-on-Avon since 2010. Zahawi apologised for claiming expenses for electricity to his stables and a mobile home. Is anyone really surprised that another conservative millionaire MP, who claimed for 2012/13 a total of £170,234 in expenses, and in November 2013 "apologised unreserv edly" after claiming £5,822 expenses for electricity for his horse riding school stables and a yard manager's mobile home, and has a very checkered record of voting to cap welfare payments to families and cut benefit payments generally, should now be in line to pocket another £1.5 million from an overseas investment. ...

http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/14958152.Care_workers_sacked_because_they_won_t_agree_to_pay_cut_in_council_company_s__Project_Fear___union_claims/ Care workers sacked because they won't agree to pay cut in council company's 'Project Fear'  Council care staff face sack - because they won't sign a contract for less pay  How times have changed and not for the better. Some years ago, the thought of an employer being able to sack workers and then in the next second, re employing them on reduced pay and worse conditions, would have been dismissed as a fantasy existing only in the darkest recesses in the mind of the most unscrupulous employer, or in the dream world of some extreme right wing conservative politicians and their supporters, who would also welcome a return to sending children up into chimneys. Now, since the days of Thatcher and her compulsion to drive working people into submission and be thankful that they actually have a job, with he...

http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/741007/Article-50-MPs-approve-Government-amendment-begin-EU-divorce-end-March A very shabby climb down to avoid a telling defeat. It is difficult this morning to resist being overwhelmed and taken it by the euphoric nonsense spewing forth in the headlines on the front pages of certain of our national newspapers, who have have historically been less than enthusiastic on the question of the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union. The Mail, the Telegraph, the Express and the rest of the usual suspects scream out at us with such hysterical absurdities as, "Victory for PM. Commons back May on Brexit", or "Hooray. MP's say Yes to EU exit" or "MP's hand May a blank cheque for Brexit" and perhaps the most preposterous headline of them all screeching, "BREXIT VICTORY: Remoaner plot CRUSHED as MPs vote to APPROVE triggering of Article 50". The standards of British newspaper reportin...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/network-rail-lose-control-tracks-chris-grayling-a7458041.html Network Rail to lose complete control of tracks in Government shake-up Another half baked scheme from a government tinkering with the peripheries of a problem and coming up with yet another "opportunity  to secure private sector investment". In any other words, an opportunity for some private companies to have access to vast sums of taxpayers (that's us) money and milk off huge profits for the benefit of their share holders and of course that all important "bottom line".  The only solution solution to the growing difficulties of the railways, from the point of view of the travelling passengers and of the tax payers, is for the entire railway network, the rolling stock, the operators, the infrastructure the stations and everything else to be brought back into public ownership. For far too long, the private companies have enj...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/03/hard-brexit-lose-tories-next-election-warn-top-mps Top Tories warn: hard Brexit stance could lose us next election Close on the heels of my piece from yesterday (3rd December 2016), suggesting that the days of Theresa May are numbered, comes today’s story in the Guardian, reporting that a group of former Conservative ministers and MP's are urging the Prime Minister to spell out her EU strategy as the conservatives could lose the next general election if she alienates its core of moderate supporters by imitating UKIP and pushing through a hard Brexit. Dominic Grieve Alistair Burt Clair Perry This latest piece of "advice", coming from former cabinet minister Dominic Grieve, former Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt, former transport minister Claire Perry and MP's Neil Carmichael and MP Ben Howlett, will not have been very welcome for the Prime Minister who has been bombarded recentl...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/25/margaret-thatcher-pushed-for-breakup-of-welfare-state-despite-nhs-pledge Thatcher pushed for breakup of welfare state despite NHS pledge The duplicitous Thatcher together with Howe, Rifkind, Hurd, Tebbit and the other accomplices of the Thatcher governments, conspired in secret to destroy our Welfare sate and our National Health Service. As I have long argued, this has been the ambition and objective of the Conservative party since 1947 and has over those years, been surreptitiously advanced with piecemeal privatisations of numerous departments and functions of the welfare system and by closures of wards and hospitals where departments and departmental responsibilities have been gifted to the private sector, under the cloak of improving the service and saving money within our NHS. Today, this malevolent aspiration of the conservative party and their business supporters, circling like vultures waiting for their oppor...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/23/corbyn-attacks-may-over-divisive-and-impractical-nhs-passport-check-plans Jeremy Corbyn dominates Questions to the Prime Minister. There have been some pathetic performances from pathetic conservative Prime Ministers at PMQ's over the years. Theresa May rates as number 1 for pathetic performances which become even more pathetic each week. She is already, after less than 140 days occupying Number 10 as Prime Minister, receiving criticism and "advice" from cabinet and former cabinet ministers regarding her performance at the dispatch box and elsewhere and more importantly in respect of Brexit, Welfare reforms and the NHS to mention just three areas. The best advice that these ministers and former cabinet ministers can give to this increasing inept Prime Minister is to stand down, call for a General election and hold a conservative party leadership election. If only they had the backbone to...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/20/home-office-holds-30-secret-miners-strike-files#comments Home Office admits to secret files on miners’ strike and Orgreave clashes Home Secretary Amber Rudd Amber Rudd's justification for a continuing government conspiracy of cover up and evasion surrounding the outrageous events at Orgreave , crumbles with each new snippet of information emerging from the secret Home Office files. The evidence of police officers who were there at the time, including those wearing civilian clothes, involved in the violence coupled with the accounts from striking miners, clearly establish government involvement both before and after the event, colluding with police to inflict by whatever means necessary, physical assault upon the striking miners and to undermine in the public perception,and the issues involved in the dispute. The case for a judge led public inquiry into the circumstances of that day, the po...