UK Politics Mega-thread - Page 10

On July 24 2013 21:02 hzflank wrote:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/it.htm#2

Actually looking at that, anyone earning £32k to £150k is worse off now than they were under labour.

The pornography filtering system praised by David Cameron is controlled by the controversial Chinese company Huawei, the BBC has learned.

UK-based employees at the firm are able to decide which sites TalkTalk's net filtering service blocks.

Politicians in both the UK and US have raised concerns about alleged close ties between Huawei and the Chinese government.

The company says the worries are without foundation and prejudiced.

On Monday the Prime Minister said TalkTalk had shown "great leadership" in setting up its system, Homesafe, which it has offered to customers since 2011.

TalkTalk told the BBC it was comfortable with its relationship with Huawei, and that the service was very popular.

Homesafe is a voluntary scheme which allows subscribers to select categories - including social media, gambling and pornography - that they want blocked.

Customers who do not want filtering still have their traffic routed through the system, but matches to Huawei's database are dismissed rather than acted upon.

On July 25 2013 20:37 Jockmcplop wrote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23433955

The Church of England of England plans to force Wonga (a contraversial 'payday loan' company) out of business.
The twist is they don't want to legislate against them, they want to compete against them.

I personally think this is a fantastic idea, i'm not a religious man but you have to give credit where credit is due (no pun), they have really hit the nail on the head here. If you are pissed off about a company's bad practices, compete with them, but without the bad practices. Simple. Lets hope this takes off and works well.

The Archbishop of Canterbury said he was "embarrassed" and "irritated" that the Church of England invested indirectly in online lender Wonga.

It comes after the Most Reverend Justin Welby told Wonga the Church would try to force it out of business by helping credit unions compete against the firm.

The United Kingdom's new internet filters promise to block much more than just pornography, according to a report by the digital advocacy organization Open Rights Group.

Last week, Prime Minister David Cameron announced online porn would soon become automatically blocked in order to "protect children and their innocence." The filters will be implemented by the UK's major internet service providers, which encompass 95% of British web users.

Based on conversations with several ISPs, Open Rights Group says the new "parental controls" will reach far beyond pornography. By default, the controls will block access to "violent material," "extremist and terrorist related content," "anorexia and eating disorder websites," and "suicide related websites."

In addition, the new settings will censor websites that mention alcohol or smoking. The filter will even block "web forums" and "esoteric material," though Open Rights Group does not specify what these categories would include.

The Independent notes the filters implemented by the four main private internet providers will be "default-on," meaning users must explicitly choose to turn them off. Users can decide to keep certain filters while turning others off.

Making the filters default means most people will keep them, according to Open Rights Group Executive Director Jim Killock. "We know that people stick with defaults: this is part of the idea behind 'nudge theory' and 'choice architecture' that is popular with Cameron."

In addition, the new settings will censor websites that mention alcohol or smoking.

The government has been accused of double standards for failing to respond to the murder of an 82-year-old Muslim man in the same way it did to the killing of Lee Rigby.

Pavlo Lapshyn,25, has been charged with the "terrorist-related" murder of Mohammed Saleem in Birmingham in April. The killing was followed by explosions at mosques in Walsall, Tipton and Wolverhampton.

However Labour has raised concerns that the attacks have not been examined by the extremism task-force set up by David Cameron in the wake of the Woolwich terrorist attack.

Labour's shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has written to Theresa May to ask that both Islamic extremism and anti-Muslim attacks are treated equally.

Cooper told The Independent: "These terrorist attacks, including the murder of Mr Saleem, are vile, appalling attempts to divide our communities. It is essential that there is serious engagement by government with the communities who have faced these threats.”

She added: “Like others, I had assumed the prime minister’s task force for tackling extremism would engage seriously with the West Midlands communities concerned. Its purpose was to ask questions about attacks, what more we can do to prevent extremism and to protect our communities.

"Clearly it needs to cover terror attacks on Muslim communities as well as Islamist extremism. So I think it’s really important the task force considers these attacks and engages with the community now."

The extremism task force is chaired by the prime minister and includes senior cabinet ministers including Nick Clegg, May and George Osborne as well as security chiefs.

Fracking should be carried out in the "desolate" north-east of England, a former Conservative energy adviser has said, prompting criticism and claims the remarks highlighted the party's "problem with the north".

Lord Howell, who advised William Hague on energy policy until April and is the father-in-law of the chancellor, George Osborne, drew gasps of astonishment in the House of Lords on Tuesday for suggesting that the controversial form of gas production could take place in the north-east without any impact on the surrounding environment.

During Lords questions, he asked: "Would [the minister] accept that it could be a mistake to think of and discuss fracking in terms of the whole of the United Kingdom in one go? I mean there obviously are, in beautiful natural areas, worries about not just the drilling and the fracking, which I think are exaggerated, but about the trucks, and the delivery, and the roads, and the disturbance."

The peer, who lives in southern England, said: "But there are large and uninhabited and desolate areas. Certainly in part of the north-east where there's plenty of room for fracking, well away from anybody's residence where we could conduct without any kind of threat to the rural environment." Howells later apologised for "any offence caused" by his comments and said he didn't believe the north-east was desolate.

Lady Verma, energy minister and a fellow Conservative, replied: "As members are aware, fracking is at its early stages of exploration and there will be areas of landscape that won't be suitable for fracking, as you rightly point out. But we are in its early stages and as the government is determined to ensure that we are not dependent on coal but more on gas, and low-carbon energy sources, I think you make some very important points."

Speaking later, Lord Beecham, a Labour peer who is also a councillor in Newcastle, said: "Neville Chamberlain spoke of pre-war Czechoslovakia as 'a faraway country of which we know nothing'. Lord Howell clearly has a similar view on the north-east and his comments once again highlight the Tories' problem with the north."

Nick Clegg has insisted there are no Liberal Democrat fingerprints on the notorious 'go home' vans aimed at illegal immigrants.

Clegg also distanced David Cameron from the campaign, branded #racistvan by critics on Twitter, and said it was not a "clever way of dealing with this issue".

Yesterday Downing Street insisted the vans, which were piloted in London last week, were working and said they had been signed of by the 'Home Office team', taken to include Lib Dem minister Jeremy Browne.

But on Tuesday, Clegg told BBC Radio 5 Live: "It's not something which requires the permission of the Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister, and didn't require or receive the consent of the Liberal Democrat in the Home Office."

Tory immigration minister Mark Harper used a Daily Mail article to defend the no-nonsense approach, criticising the "astonishing" reaction from what he called the "pro-immigration industry".

The Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia in September 1938. In March the following year, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) asked the Bank of England to switch £5.6m-worth of gold from an account for the Czech national bank to one belonging to the Reichsbank.

Much of the gold - nearly 2,000 gold bars - was then "disposed" of in Belgium, Holland and London. The BIS was chaired at the time by Bank of England director, German Otto Niemeyer.

The UK central bank also sold gold for the Nazis in June 1939, without waiting for approval from Westminster.

The history reveals: "There was a further gold transaction on the 1st June 1939 when there were sales of gold (£440,000) and gold shipments to New York (£420,000) from the No.19 account of the BIS.

"This represented gold which had been shipped to London by the Reichsbank.

"This time, before acting, the Bank of England referred the matter to the Chancellor, who said that he would like the opinion of the law officers of the Crown.

"On the BIS enquiring, however, what was causing delay and saying that inconvenience would be caused because of payments the next day, the Bank of England acted on the instructions referring to the Law Officers, who, however, subsequently upheld their action."

Just three months later the Government declared war on Germany, following its invasion of Poland.

Ukip tried to persuade David Cameron to give it more seats in the House of Lords by indicating they would vote with the government "most of the time".

On Thursday 14 Conservatives, 10 Liberal Democrats, five Labour supporters and one Green were given peerages. But no new Ukip peers were appointed.

Under the terms of the coalition agreement Cameron and Nick Clegg agreed to make the House of Lords "reflective of the share of the vote secured by the political parties in the last general election".

Ukip has acknowledged it polled a "paltry" 3% in 2010, but said that would still entitle it to 22 peers. It currently has just two.

In a letter to Cameron dated 9 May 2013, six days after his party's shock local election surge that saw it capture 25% of the vote, Ukip peer Lord Pearson said the result "strengthen the case for more Ukip representation" in the Lords.

In a hand written addition to the typed letter, Lord Peason attempted to sweeten the deal for the prime minister by pledging, "and they would support the government, most of the time".

Asked whether Mr Miliband was in touch with the concerns of backbenchers like him, Mr Mudie said the leader was "always cocooned by people round him and the basis they are around him is he trusts them".

The Labour leader should "just relax and be himself", he suggested.

"The bad side is, you know, the bunker mentality that gets round leaders.

"One of Ed's problems really is that he's young, and, of course, the way he came to power - the problem with his brother, the fact that the trade unions had a major say and I still think he's trying to find himself.

"And the trouble with that is that sometimes he's doing things that he thinks a leader should do, that he shouldn't do. He should use his own judgment and his own belief on how he should act and forget about how does a leader react."

While acknowledging he was a "bad tempered, cynical individual", Mr Mudie suggested other colleagues shared his concerns.

"We are not setting the agenda, we are responding to the Tories," he said. "Why would you vote Labour if we are not offering something different, they will stick with what they have got."

LONDON -- Britain's governing Conservatives have hired Jim Messina, President Barack Obama's former campaign manager, to advise them ahead of the 2015 general election.

Messina was Obama's national chief of staff for the 2008 presidential campaign and the president's campaign manager in 2012. His organizational flair and social media strategy have been credited for helping secure Obama's re-election.

Messina is now chairman of a nonprofit called Organizing for Action and head of consulting firm The Messina Group.

Messina said Friday that he had "long admired Prime Minister (David) Cameron" and would be offering the Conservatives "strategic campaign advice." He said he would remain based in the United States and would not manage day-to-day political operations.

The Conservatives currently govern in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, but hope to win a parliamentary majority in 2015. Their challenge is to gain re-election at a time when Britain's economy is only weakly recovering from the recession triggered by the 2008 global financial crisis.

Under Cameron, the party combines conservative economic policies such as privatization and spending cuts, with a liberal stance on issues like same-sex marriage, which Britain recently legalized.

The BBC reported Friday that Messina will advise Conservative chiefs and the party's campaign strategist, Lynton Crosby. Since hiring Crosby – a veteran Australian political operator nicknamed the "Wizard of Oz" – in November, the Conservatives have appeared to take a tough stance on issues such as immigration in order to win support away from rivals on the right.

Nick Clegg could face questions at the next Liberal Democrat conference over his latest choices to be Liberal Democrat peers, a leading Liberal Democrat has warned.

Lib Dem activist Gareth Epps, who is chair of the party’s Social Liberal Forum, told The Huffington Post UK: “There’s a complete stench over the way patronage is used in these appointments.”

Epps, a former Lib Dem parliamentary candidate, suggested the the deputy prime minister had failed to listen to the membership’s suggestions for the best potential peers, as would be put forward by the party members’ interim peers’ panel.

“A number of people have got CVs that demonstrate significant amount of service, but that contrasts very sharply with others who have come in without that.”

“We have a party leadership that is more or less content to go with the status quo and it doesn’t really reflect the new politics.”

“The leadership has seen fit to ignore the will of the party, this will surely come up at our next conference.”

According to Epps, the leadership picked up just one out of the 10 candidates suggested by the party membership, former London Mayoral candidate Brian Paddick.

The UK’s Trafalgar class submarines are experiencing mounting technical problems that could endanger sailors and the public as the government extends their lifespan in “string and sticky-tape stopgap measures”, according to the UK Navy’s nuclear watchdog.

Five Trafalgar class submarines, some of which are almost 30-years-old, are suffering reliability issues with their nuclear reactors, according to a report put online by the Ministry of Defense (MoD) that covers 2012-2013.

The UK’s Royal Navy nuclear safety watchdog, the Defense Nuclear Safety Regulator (DNSR), said that while at the moment problems are being dealt with, it issued an amber warning that “attention is required to ensure adequate safety performance.”

The hunter-killer submarines, which were launched between 1984 and 1991, are expected to operate for at least 33 years with the final sub in the class, HMS Triumph, not expected to be mothballed until 2022.

“As a result, the Trafalgar class are operating at the right hand end of their ‘bathtub’ reliability curves”, warns the DNSR. This means that the number of reliability problems experienced by the boats increases dramatically as they reach the ends of graphs shaped like bathtubs. All technical issues which have emerged in the last few years “can be directly attributed to the effects of aging,” the MoD states.

The Trafalgar class subs were already meant to have been in the knackers yard but have been forced into staying at sea longer because of prolonged delays with their replacement Astute class boats. After billion pound budget overruns on top of serious construction and teething problems, only two of the seven planned attack submarines are in service with the Navy.

There have been several accidents on board Trafalgar class submarines in recent years. HMS Tireless suffered a reactor coolant leak off the west coast of Scotland in February, which lasted 192 hours. In a separate incident, the same sub released radioactive air into the environment which the MoD insisted was “well within the normal permitted limits for discharges to the environment”.

In 2007, meanwhile, a small explosion which also occurred aboard Tireless resulted in the death of two sailors and the injury of another. The accident took place while the submarine was submerged under the Arctic icecap during a joint British-American exercise.