A post on the Tories. It’s starts quite well, but quickly degenerates

October 9th, 2012 § 0 comments § permalink

I read this and got that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach…

A new breed of company in which workers will be forced to lose some maternity rights and all access to unfair dismissal tribunals has been unveiled by George Osborne as he tried to introduce a big deregulation of the labour market through the back door.

People are steadily being turned into machines, to be turned on and off at the whim of businesses. All the time we’re being told the country’s workforce need to be flexible. Employers are scared to actually employ people.

Employers are scared, though, because they can’t treat workers how they want to – badly.

The flexibility we’re told we need is not the flexibility a workers will presume, the flexibility to start early or finish late sometimes or to be able to perform roles, on occasion, outside of that which they would normally perform. What businesses want, or at least the fucking massive businesses that have profit sheets as big as countries, is the flexibility to hire and fire at will. To turn people on and off, with no thought to workers need for stability and security, the need to feel that they can commit to long term financial contract, such as mortgages.

Osborne revealed that workers could be given shares by their employer worth between £2,000 and £50,000, and any gains in those shares would be exempt from capital gains tax.

In return they would be asked to give up their rights over unfair dismissal, redundancy and requests for flexible working and time off for training. They would also be required to provide twice as much notice of a firm date of return from maternity leave – 16 weeks instead of eight.

I tell you what, I would rather have the security of a job and my current set of meagre employment rights than a bunch of shares that could be worth jack shit, no possibility of requesting a slightly different working day (and it is only requesting, not demanding) or not being able to take a company to court for being sacked for some spurious reason. And why revoke time off for training? Surely that is crucial for a flexible workforce, a workforce that can improve itself make itself better? And 16 weeks for a firm return date after maternity is already too long. Most people, when they resign from their job need to give a months notice. That should be plenty for a return from maternity date too.

Osborne told the Conservative party conference in Birmingham that the new “employee-owner” status would be optional for existing employees but existing companies and new startups could choose to offer only this type of contract for new hires, making it a compulsory condition of employment. Fast-track legislation will be introduced so firms can use the new type of contract from April 2013.

This is just a smokescreen to strip the worker of their rights. The new “employee-owner” will get a few shares, but who decides how many? It’ll be the company, and it’ll be nearer the two thousand pound end of the scale, not the £50k end. The new “employee-owner” will still be sacked if he inadvertently fucks up in the slightest, rather than asked to resign with a shiny golden handshake, that includes shares, when the whole den comes tumbling down, like those at the top of business. Some employees are more owners than others.

Stuart Rose, former chief executive of Marks and Spencer, said: “This is a win-win for entrepreneurs and employers in small and medium-sized companies that need a flexible dedicated workforce focused on growth.”

How the fuckety fucking fuck can yo have a dedicated workforce that can be told to get to fuck at a moments notice? These cunts at the top of these fucking businesses what the fucking impossible: They want to be able to hire and fire at a moments fucking notice, but they want their employees to be dedicated and hardworking. If you don’t provide security, people will not give a fuck. You make dedicated employees by providing security and perks, and looking after your workers when times are tough. You cannot have a loyal workforce that can be fired on a whim.

And on benefits…

Osborne signalled that some of the cuts would come from holding down the level of benefits: “How can we justify the incomes of those out of work rising faster than the incomes of those in work? Where is the fairness, we ask, for the shift worker leaving home in the dark hours of early morning who looks up at the closed blinds of their next door neighbour sleeping off a life on benefits?”

Osborne is right to ask where is the fairness. Living on benefits, though, is not the luxury lifestyle politicians and the tabloids make it out to be. The question has to be, why doesn’t working provide a decent standard of living?

Instead of a race to the bottom by cutting fucking benefits, why not do something about getting paid work paid better, so first time buyers aren’t forty-somethings, some the people on benefits can get a job and not have to have some other fucking benefit fill in the gap?

How the fuck did we get into the situation where two people that work forty hours a week cannot afford even a modest home for themselves?

He also proposed cuts to child tax credits for families with more than three children and holding down the housing benefit budget by withdrawing benefits to those aged 25 or under.

Ah, nice social engineering project, you have there Mr Osborne. When do you plan to make ‘encourage’ people to only have two kids? And what the fuck is it with the age discrimination? It’s the fucking same with the minimum wage. People can get themselves sorted and stable and then it all go to shit before the age of 25. Is twenty five the age when a Tory becomes A Man, is it?

Fuck ’em.

Bring on the revolution.

Harry Cole (AKA @torybear) is…

November 24th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink

… a cunt.

What? You didn’t expect me to say he’s a nice bloke, did you?

h/t D-Notice

The disabled: not worthless, just worth less

June 17th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink

So this is why there should be an opt-out of the minimum wage, is it?…

[Phillip Davies MP] claimed the most vulnerable, including those with learning disabilities and mental health problems, were disadvantaged in their search for work because they had to compete with candidates without disabilities and could not offer to accept lower pay.

He claims he was told this on a visit to Mind. Another Tory challenged Davies…

Mr Davies was challenged over his remarks by fellow Tory MP Edward Leigh who told him: “Forget the fact there is a minimum wage for a moment. Why actually should a disabled person work for less than £5.93 an hour. It is not a lot of money, is it?”

Mr Davies replied that, irrespective of whether it was “right or wrong”, that was “just the real world that we operate in”.

So fuck right or wrong, eh? So instead of saying just get on with it, how about Davies doing something to right the wrong rather than letting, again vulnerable people get fucking shafted?

Update:

Mind have issued a statement

Today, Conservative MP Philip Davies suggested that disabled people should offer to work below minimum wage so they get a job when competing with able-bodied people. He quoted a visit to a Mind association in his statement.

Mind’s Director of External Relations Sophie Corlett said:
It is a preposterous suggestion that someone who has a mental health problem should be prepared to accept less than minimum wage to get their foot in the door with an employer. People with mental health problems should not be considered a source of cheap labour and should be paid appropriately for the jobs they do.

It is simply unacceptable that fewer than 4 in 10 employers will currently consider employing someone with a mental health problem. We should be trying be educate employers and challenge negative attitudes towards mental health problems rather than forcing people with mental health problems to undercut their way in to the workforce.

Mind has found that over 50 per cent of people with mental health problems are living on a weekly household income of less than £200 – what the Government defines as ‘living on the poverty line.’ Paying people with mental health problems less money than non-disabled people will not help them into work it will just widen the poverty gap.

(via DailyQuail & Unslugged

Minimum wage op-out

June 16th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink

Why should employees have an opt-out of the minimum wage (.pdf)? What does it achieve?

It just makes the vulnerable even more vulnerable by enabling unscrupulous employers to put pressure on an employee to waiver the’re right to it.

You can say there will be sanctions for employers that will do this, just as there are employers that don’t play by the rules already. This just gives them something else to fuck people with and, realisticaly, if people are getting fucked over now when everyone has to be paid a certain amount this is not going to make the system more robust, is it?

(via TheNatFantastic)

Dorries defenders – never addressing the issue

November 2nd, 2010 § 3 comments § permalink

In what seems to be fairly typical of someone trying to defend Nadine Dorries Tory Tottie has, well, been fairly typical.

As the Anti-Nads bandwagon rolls into town once again, those on the collective witch-hunt have been well and truly buoyed up this week, by a piece in the (surprise surprise) New Statesman. entitled:

“Is Nadine Dorries MP using social media to both mislead and attack constituents?

The answer is, of course, no.

The ‘Anti-Nads’ bandwagon is not so much on a witch-hunt, more like sat on the porch watching a car crash happen extremely slowly… and the answer to the question is not, of course, no but yes.

My blog is 70 per cent fiction and 30 per cent fact. It is written as a tool to enable my constituents to know me better and to reassure them of my commitment to Mid Bedfordshire. I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place name/event/fact with another.

Reassuring constituents that spends more time in her constituency than she actually did. Oh, no. That’s not misleading at all, is it?
This little show (followed by this) wasn’t orchestrated at all, oh no.

The behaviour by certain people on Twitter is more akin to a scene from Mississippi Burning than a civilised social media site.

Twitter? Civilised? I must’ve missed that sign on the way in.

And David Allen Green of the Statesman delights in throwing another burning canister of gasoline onto the flames.

Referring to Nadine as someone who has engaged in

“the astonishing abuse by an elected Member of Parliament of her blog”

he calls her behaviour ‘weird’ and ‘worrying’.

Read. Davids’. Post…

I used to admire her blogging in her early days: see my comment here. Accordingly, what I have now to report cannot be dismissed as the smears of some long-time opponent. Instead, it is accompanied by the sadness one has when witnessing any decline and fall.

There is no hint of maliciousness or glee or any show of delight in it. It is worrying that an elected representative can throw around the sort of accusations that Dorries has been doing without showing any sort of evidence or proof to back it up. It is weird when someone who previously may have just been disagreeable starts showing signs of some sort of paranoia.

Decline and fall? Of what exactly. Nadine isn’t declining, or falling for that matter. The strength she’s shown in the face of the perpetual, random and hateful abuse on Twitter has been stellar. And her blog continues to go from strength to strength.

The decline and fall of an MP. What else? The perpetual, random (perceived) abuse Dorries encounters on Twitter may seem perpetual, because she never give a straight answer to any questions. The questions aren’t exactly random, about expenses, her attacks on constituents and claims of being stalked as well as constituents asking other questions. From what I’ve seen, almost without exception, any questions Dorries has received has been polite – there isn’t much room to ask a question and call someone a cunt in 140 characters. I’m not saying Dorries doesn’t receive any abuse on Twitter, everyone does at some time or other and being an MP Dorries will get her fair share, but the people asking the pertinent questions have not been abusive because that would be the one way *not* to get an answer.

She may have blocked a few people here and there, but then wouldn’t you if people persisted in engaging in what constitutes nothing less than cyber-bullying on a daily basis.

Asking questions? Cyber-bullying? oh, come on.

Allen goes on the allude to:

“Other serious allegations about Dorries’ use of her blog”

“A pattern of wayward – almost random – behaviour has been apparent for many months now.

“For example, she recently resorted to a blogpost to raise implicit allegations of impropriety against a constituent who had been engaging with her on Twitter; and then, only last week, she made direct allegations of criminal activity against a critical blogger.”

If the posts I’m thinking of are the ones on this page, Nadine has simply laid bare a few home truths, turned over a few rocks and exposed the crustacea underneath.

Yes, they are the posts, David is thinking of. I have linked to the individual ones earlier in this post, but there is also this one, which incidentally was edited twice before becoming the version left on Dorries’ site.
As far as home truths are concerned, well, that’s what this is all about, isn’t it? And as far as Dorries is concerned it’s the truth because she says so. Everyone else can back up what they say, but Dorries’ word is gospel and doesn’t need such inconveniences.

And that’s the problem.

I bet it’s not.

Outrageous left-wing political correctness is at the heart of this. Not Nadine’s behaviour.

Hahahaha! Fucking Lefties! Nothing to do with ‘70%’ fiction or accusing a constituent of claiming disability benefits or accusing a blogger of stalking with no evidence. What. So. Ever.

The kind of political-correctness that breeds the disdainful double-standards adopted by an entire generation of ‘Nu Labour’ since 1997.

Lovingly crafted by Harriet ‘Ginger Rodent’ Harman, in her ridiculous pursuit of some kind of high-brow idealogical concept of equality that doesn’t exist.

The Left jump up and down like rabid oompa-loompas the minute there’s a sniff of challenge to their politically correct utopia, where everyone’s equal, we all live on pink fluffy clouds and just love everybody ‘so hard man’.

So in a society where disabled people are referred to as ‘PWD’s, where prostitutes are now known as ‘sex care providers’, where boring is ‘charm-free’ and BO is ‘non discretionary fragrance,’ it’s hardly surprising that one cannot air one’s own opinions on one’s own blog, without being hunted down by hysterical socialist lunatics!

And that’s what’s happened.

It’s political-correctness-gorn-mad-it-is!

Nadine has dared to voice her own opinions on her own blog.

God forbid.

Once again Tory Totty has completely missed the point. No one gives a fuck about Nadines’ opinion any more than they do any other politician. It’s the fact that these opinions are being presented as fact that is the problem.

If Nadine, tomorrow, said here are the incident/crime numbers of the complaints she has supposedly made against Tim Ireland, you would hear a massive ‘crack’ as a fuck load of people snap their necks turning to look at Tim. Scrutiny would then be on Tim and everything else Dorries has said would gain a bucket load of credibility.

But that’s not going to happen, is it.

It’s not just ‘lefties’ that are challenging Dorries, as David Allen Green says himself in the comments…

I am actually a Coalition supporter, having voted Lib Dem. And I am opposed to socialism and the Labour Party.

and he’s not alone from *that* side of the fence.

*Cue quotes which prove nothing.*

So after all that, what was Tory Tottys’ defence of Nadine Dorries? In amongst all her waffle I think it was something like ‘leave her alone, a woman, speaking her mind. You horrible socialist commies’.

Never mind the evidence, eh?

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