Labour and the five empty pledges
http://ua.am/9bID

Labour let it be known yesterday that its election manifesto will contain a series of 'guarantees' on the economy, jobs, crime, health and education. Here, EDWARD HEATHCOAT AMORY examines the pledges and the reality behind them.

PLEDGE: Cut Britain's deficit in half in four years.
REALITY: Not only is this pledge extremely modest - it is merely a promise to halve the rate at which our national debt will be increasing, to £89billion a year in 2014 - but Labour won't explain how it will be achieved. Experts estimate that outside the protected areas of health, education and policing, all other departments face budget cuts of 17 per cent, but ministers won't say where the axe will fall. And the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies says a further £13billion of cuts or higher taxes will be needed.


PLEDGE: Neighbourhood police teams for all communities
REALITY: There are already neighbourhood-police teams throughout Britain; just not very visible ones, and nothing in this pledge is going to change that - certainly no new money is being allocated to delivering it. Half of the current neighbourhood teams are mere ' Blunkett's Bobbies', rather than real policemen. In fact, under Labour, the number of police stations in Britain has fallen by 500 - a 25 per cent drop. And beat police officers are so tied up in red tape that they spend only one hour in five on patrol. Labour has already spent £1billion on neighbourhood policing - with nothing to show for it.

PLEDGE: Any young person jobless for more than two years will be offered training or work.
REALITY: The current youth unemployment pledge - that anyone under 24 out of work for six months will be offered training or work - is expensive enough at £1.5billion. Promising to extend it to everyone out of work for more than two years would cost far more, depending on how ministers define 'unemployed'. 250,000 people are officially unemployed for more than two years, but the real figure, which includes 2million on incapacity benefit, is far higher. And since Labour spent £75billion on the New Deal since 1997, while the long-term youth unemployment rate actually rose, more spending might just waste more money.

PLEDGE: NHS treatment within 18 weeks or a legal right to go private
REALITY: These 'rights' - other pledges including a right to cancer care within two weeks, and a right to treatment by an NHS dentist - are not all they seem. The full consultation paper merely says that primary care trusts would have to take 'reasonable steps' to find an alternative hospital, and they would not be allowed to pay more than the NHS 'tariff' for that care. In some cases, where there is a 'limited capacity nationally', the so-called right would disappear altogether. Nor is it clear that tougher targets will help the NHS; up to 1,200 people in mid-Staffordshire lost their lives over the past few years because NHS managers put targets first and patient care second.

PLEDGE: Personal tuition for children falling behind
REALITY: Ministers are offering ten hours of one-to-one tuition for children not meeting key targets. They claim that £315million is set aside for this, but as well as being a hopelessly inadequate estimate of the true cost of one-to-one tuition the cash is already in the schools budget, so nothing will change. Pilot projects have failed because of a shortage of tutors; Labour has no idea how to find enough to deliver this pledge nationally. Nor do ministers address the issue raised by this pledge; that tuition is necessary because overall education standards have fallen; official figures show that half a million pupils have left school under Labour with no 'useful literacy' - unable to read or write.
 

Create the 2 faces of gordon brown:

http://londonlx.com/brown
 

Gordon's scorching the earth in his typical party political way, unlike PMs of the past:

http://ua.am/8Mq8
 

Seems we are top of the league!

.... of being the worst in the developed world:

http://burningourmoney.blogspot.com/2009/11/worst-in-world.html

full marks, brown, you twat.
 

BBC Gives BNP a Voice, but Not Climate Sceptics

It seems that the BBC are happy to give the highly controversial British National Party (BNP) a voice on Question Time, but didn't give a climate sceptic the chance to have a say on the previous week's Newsnight (15th October), which was laughingly billed as 'Greens on trial.' The idea was supposedly to ask tough questions on whether the Greens were blocking innovations vital to the fight against climate change. Any 'trial' without a witness for the prosecution is surely a sham.

The Newsnight discussion (30 minutes of it) was framed so that the introduction saw the return of BBC 'ethical man,' Justin Rowlatt, warning that we had only six years to act or else it would be too late, together with footage of world leaders speaking about the severity of the problem, plus footage of the US army on patrol and a voiceover saying that even they now see climate change as one of the biggest global threats.

In the studio defending the green movement for a good 20 minutes were Chairman and Director of the Ecologist and Tory candidate Zac Goldsmith, director of the film The Age of Stupid, Franny Armstrong, and co-founder of the green PR company Futerra, Solitaire Townsend. All of them got the opportunity to promote the climate disaster scenario. The questioning from presenter Emily Maitlis was pretty hopeless.

ABD Environment spokesman Paul Biggs commented: "Ex-newsreader Peter Sissons recently lifted the lid on what is effectively the BBC's policy of ignoring the legitimate arguments of climate sceptics. Clearly the BBC is impartial when it suits them, but this impartiality does not extend to the climate debate. Apparently climate sceptics rank below the BNP on the BBC's impartiality scale."
 

Whilst I still hope for a 2009 election, I'm expecting it's going to be 2010.

To that end I'm starting to build a wiki about it:

http://ge2010.co.uk

Now it's my expectation that it can be used to catalogue labour's failures so they can't get away with their usual lies, but it's open for all to edit so as long as it's all truthful then we can see how it'll turn out.
 

Go for a walk with OldHolborn on the 5th November

http://ua.am/8cVg


 

http://ua.am/8dms

£22,500 of debt for every child born in Britain
- 111 tax rises from a government that promised no tax rises at all
- The longest national tax code in the world
- 100,000 million pounds drained from British pension funds
- Gun crime up by 57%
- Violent crime up 70%
- The highest proportion of children living in workless households anywhere in Europe
- The number of pensioners living in poverty up by 100,000
- The lowest level of social mobility in the developed world
- The only G7 country with no growth this year
- One in six young people neither earning nor learning
- 5 million people on out-of –work benefits
- Missing the target of halving child poverty
- Ending up with child poverty rising in each of the last three years instead
- Cancer survival rates among the worst in Europe
- Hospital-acquired infections killing nearly three times as many people as are killed on the roads
- Falling from 4th to 13th in the world competitiveness league
- Falling from 8th to 24th in the world education rankings in maths
- Falling from 7th to 17th in the rankings in literacy
- The police spending more time on paperwork than on the beat
- Fatal stabbings at an all-time high
- Prisoners released without serving their sentences
- Foreign prisoners released and never deported
- 7 million people without an NHS dentist
- Small business taxes going up
- Business taxes raised from among the lowest to among the highest in Europe
- Tax rises for working people set for after the election
- The 10p tax rate abolished
- And the ludicrous promise to have ended boom and bust
- Our gold reserves sold for a quarter of their worth
- Our armed forces overstretched and under-supplied
- Profitable post offices closed against their will
- One of the highest rates of family breakdown in Europe
- The ‘Golden Rule’ on borrowing abandoned when it didn’t fit
- Police inspectors in 10,Downing Street
- Dossiers that were dodgy
- Mandelson resigning the first time
- Mandelson resigning the second time
- Mandelson coming back for a third time
- Bad news buried
- Personal details lost
- An election bottled
- A referendum denied

Hat tip Dizzy

And let me add:

-Ballot Boxes are interfered with
-Voting registers go missing
-The Police can kill innocent people and get away with it
-You can be put in prison for 42 days on pure suspicion
-You can be put in prison indefinitely without charge on the word of a politician
-The State can torture people
-Your children are monitored at School by Political Officers
-Their behaviour is logged on a State database for their entire lives
-Your innocent fingerprints, iris scans and biometrics are held by the State
-You do not have the right to remain silent
-You are watched on 4 million CCTV cameras
-You may not photograph the Police
-The media is controlled by the State
-You do not have the right to protest peacefully
-Curfews exist for entire communities
-Your travel movements are logged and monitored
-Who you vote for is logged and monitored
-Your shopping habits are studied and logged by the State
-Your emails and telephone conversations are recorded by the State
-Your passport can be withdrawn at the whim of the State
-Government agencies can use lie detector tests on you.

BASTARDS. Print this off and hand to any Labour "activists" who may canvass your vote in the next few months.
 

Dave Cameron's speech tomorrow.

I wonder what stunt gordon brown has planned?

Trip to Afganistan?
Call an election?
Stroke? - maybe not him though... is there a redshirt (like on startrek) that's become a minister recently?

As for DC's speech - I still think he needs to pull something out of the hat which can be used as the one retort to those that say that they don't like labour but don't quite want to vote for him yet.
 

PR620: Fixing the Fixed Cameras

news: for immediate release
==================
Claire from Safe Speed, says that,
"We are delighted with this news that the Conservative Party will stop the
installation of fixed speed cameras."

"We are encouraged that this is the first step towards a return to good
road
safety - after all, a safe speed is not measured in miles per hour."

She continues "The ongoing distraction that cameras have caused, have done
nothing to improve road safety."

"If this policy becomes a reality, we hope that a return to intelligent and
proper road safety messages, might begin to repair some of the last 17
years
of damage," and states that "Safe Speed calls for the removal of all speed
cameras. This 'quick fix' has not worked, there is no quick route to road
safety."

Claire continues. "Focusing on the wrong road safety policies and messages
prevent the correct ones from being implemented."

"We must ensure that road users understand the need to be responsible for
all their actions, and that they are encouraged to seek ways in which to
improve their abilities, skills, knowledge judgment and attitude."

"Promoting and encouraging good road user behaviours, attitudes and
responsibilities must be frequently encouraged along with all the
appropriate road safety messages."

She concludes, "there is never a time to drive at an inappropriate speed
for
the conditions."

<END>
=================
Notes to Editors:
Claire Armstrong,co- founder of the Safe Speed Road Safety Campaign
(www.safespeed.org.uk)

==================
Since Pauls tragic demise in Dec 2007, Claire Armstrong, Pauls partner,
continues Safe Speed. ================== safespeed.org.uk Contact Safe
Speed:co-founder Claire Armstrong -----------------------------------
description: Safe Speed road safety campaign web:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk email: carmstrong@safespeed.org.uk telephone:
01862 893030 mobile: 07799 045553 & 07721 331991

Location:
North Scotland

We are always available for further comment on your road safety story.

To be added to our PR distribution list send an email to
carmstrong@safespeed.org.uk or visit our press pages at:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/prindex.html

Recent press releases (since November 2004) are automatically and
immediately uploaded to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SafeSpeedPR

Notes for editors
=================

About Safe Speed
================

The Safe Speed road safety campaign is primarily the work of engineer-
turned
road safety analyst Paul Smith.

Since setting up Safe Speed in 2001, Paul Smith, 52, an advanced motorist
and road safety enthusiast, and a professional engineer of 25 years UK
experience, has carried out over 10,000 hours working on the campaign with
well over 5,000 of those hours researching the overall effects of speed
camera policy on UK road safety. In addition to those 10,000 hours, Paul
had
funded the campaign to the tune of £10,000.

We believe that this is more work in more detail than anything carried out
by any other organisation. Paul's surprising conclusion is that overall
speed cameras make our roads more dangerous. Paul has identified and
reported a number of major flaws and false assumptions in the claims made
for speed cameras, and the whole "speed kills" system of road safety.

The inescapable conclusion is that we should urgently return to the
excellent road safety policies that gave us in the UK the safest roads in
the World in the first place. Far from saving lives, speed cameras are a
dangerous distraction.

Safe Speed does not campaign against speed limits or appropriate
enforcement
of motoring laws, but argues vigorously that automated speed enforcement is
neither safe nor appropriate.

Safe Speed is very slimly funded by voluntary contributions to the web
site.
We are urgently seeking improved funding.

The Safe Speed web site contains more than 350,000 words of road safety
analysis and information. We are seeking publishers for 'the book of the
web
site'.

It has turned out to be quite an amazing story and there are opportunities
for journalists and broadcasters to explore how all this came about, what
it
means, and where road safety has gone so badly wrong.

------------------------------------

* To visit the Yahoo home page for this group, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SafeSpeedPR

* To visit the Safe Speed media home page, go to:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/prindex.html
 

Great article by Fraser Nelson in the Spectator:

http://ua.am/89Ca

That's why you should vote conservative and not just 'not labour'


what you need is thoughtful radicalism. Prepared radicalism. It needs to come from a solid and strong base. Compare Margaret Thatcher’s trade union reforms with Ted Heath’s. It wasn’t that Heath’s were unambitious, it was that actually he tried to do it all at once, it blew up in his face and he had to abandon it. Whereas Margaret Thatcher had what Ferdy Mount described as the “long runway” approach to change. You prepare the ground, and then the aeroplane can effectively take off.’

More on conhome too: http://ua.am/89CN
 

Comments: (Most recent first)

Brown's mad! http://ua.am/89WK
Norm	08:33 02/10/2009

Norm	12:27 01/10/2009

Labour.

Words: Cuts, Cuts, Cuts
Actions: over half a million advertising a scheme no-one wants: http://ua.am/88.O
 

methinks doris needs to have a mouth-guard to prevent her foot from entering it:

http://ua.am/87.H
Sorry, I can’t help myself. The fact that John Bercow has called for an end to the ‘12 week MPs holid