Stop the Tories, stop them now...

It is sometimes suggested that trade unionism and politics are two separate activities and that they should remain so. Last November millions of public sector trade unionists struck in opposition to changes in their pensions the headline figure being a 3% increase in members contributions, basically a special income tax to pay levied on those workers to pay for bankers in need. 61% of the public backed the strikers against the government. The point being strikes change public opinion, the bigger and more significant the strikes the better the change.

 Since then various union leaderships have tried to abandon the struggle, other leaders have tried to downgrade it. They have been doing what union leaders always do without sufficient rank and file pressure put on them. Since then the NHS destruction bill has passed (without so much as a national demonstration, let alone ballot from any of the health unions). We've also seen Gideon Osborne's fuck you budget, complete with the abolition of the 50p tax rate, balanced by decreased tax allowances for pensioners, and working families. Michael Gove's nutty schemes have kept on coming. We've even had ministers advising us to store petrol in the event of a non-existent strike. Nuttiest of all we've seen goverment proposals to withdraw housing benefit from under 25s and Tory MPs suggesting prisoners should do litter picking in chain gangs, how that's supposed to make Britain's refuse collectors feel I don't know.

 The Tories only do these crazy things because they reckon they can get away with it. Trade unions are the core of the opposition in the country. They MUST fight.

Another fine mess

A plan by the education secretary, Michael Gove, to send a copy of the King James Bible to every school in the country – each including a personal inscription from him – has run into trouble after government sources reported he has been told to find private funding for the project.

Sources said David Cameron told Gove that while he supported the idea, the education secretary should avoid using taxpayers' money for it. But Gove has yet to find a private philanthropic sponsor for the enterprise, and some Whitehall sources said he has been told he cannot distribute the book until he does so, leaving thousands of copies in a warehouse abroad.

It's the idea of a personal inscription that really makes it funny... funny until you realise that this particular loony has taken over the asylum... This is what he occupies his time with, Michael Gove; yachts, bibles and Jamie Oliver novelty schools. This is, of course, lunacy with a purpose. The government are more than just upper-class twits. They are bent on destroying the Labour Party's base (that's you and me, folks, not the Labour Party itself) in the organised working class and the welfare state. By wrecking as much chaos, destruction and folly Michael Gove makes it that much harder for anyone to rebuild a progressive education system. The Tories, unopposed, will make lunacy the new logic.

But, let it not be said we are just bitter, carping critics. No. Let's run with this idea. Those books must be bought and brought to our chidren because... well... because! Let's get some sponsorship going. We (who's 'we'?) at TtSD have wracked our brains and can come up with no more appropriate sponsor than Quickquid.com, the online loanshark, bringing you religion and exploitative usery in a neat, post-modern package. Rejoice!

Burning questions of our time

The British Government wants to give the Queen a yacht. Yeah, yeah, it's not going to be paid for out of the public purse, but that only begs the question: what does it have to do with the government then? Maybe it's because the Tories just like discussing the finer things in life, like love, gay love and screwing the working class; but enough crudity, back to yachts.

You might be interested to know that Prince Charles and Princess Anne back the idea of a new Royal Yacht (you remember electing these two...? No...?). With that kind of backing the yacht's almost certain to go ahead:

Gove wrote to the prime minister on 12 September, again supporting the project: "I believe that approving this ship to become a royal yacht would be an excellent way to mark the Queen's diamond jubilee and to thank her as a nation for her long and untiring service to this country."

In this letter he stated: "No money should be made available from the public purse", but in a second letter dated 11 December he did not make this point writing instead: "My suggestion would be a gift from the nation to the Queen thinking about, for example, David Willetts' excellent suggestion for a royal yacht – and something tangible to commemorate this momentous occasion. If there is not sufficient public money available then we could surely look for a generous private donation, for example, to give every school child a lasting memento of the occasion or possibly to allow every school to buy a permanent reminder."

Another lasting memento to go with the abolition of EMA, £9,000 annual university fees and selective free schools. In other news there's a million young unemployed - but what can you do about that eh?

The Top Gear Defence

It's an almost unbeatable strategy, with practically limitless applications: why're you getting upset? It's all just a joke, like on Top Gear. Let's test it out:

Tory youth sing songs about the holocaust, but it's all just a joke... like on Top Gear.

Victims of Domestic Violence are to be charged commission on Child Maintenance payments, but it's all just a joke... like on Top Gear.

Cancer patients are to be subjected to welfare tests to see if they're sick enough, but it's all just a joke... like on Top Gear.

Public sector workers to face 16% pay cut to pay for bankers in need, but it's all just a joke... like on Top Gear.

Gideon Osborne's £5bn gamble to stave off recession

Really...? £5 billion to halt further economic recession...? It makes you wonder if Gideon Osborne realises the seriousness of the situation, the damage his government has been inflicting, on top of the damage caused by the banking system and stock market. What's he going to do, put it all on black? No, it seems:

Some of the £5bn extra capital investment over the next three years will go to a £600m schools programme to fund an extra 40,000 places by 2014.

Well, that's nice of him, but is this money going to Michael Gove's 'free' schools, or will comprehensives get some of the money? What else is there?

In what is rapidly turning into a full scale "game-changer" budget to stave off the impact of collapsing European economies, Osborne will also announce plans to:

• Help energy-intensive industries.

• Increase the bank levy to maintain an annual income from banks of £2.5bn.

• Place a cap on announced rail fare rises.

• Defer a 3p rise in fuel duty which was due to be introduced in January

• Remove health and safety bureaucracy from 1 million self-employed people as the next stage of labour market deregulation.

Does any of this apply to you? I suppose it would if you were a commuter or a small businessman/woman, i.e. Tory voting fodder. Also:

The chancellor may also be able to garner funds for the investment from overseas. China Investment Corporation is considering investing in the infrastructure of the UK, according to Lou Jiwei, the fund's chairman. The $410bn Chinese fund "is keen to team up with fund managers or participate through a public-private partnership in the UK infrastructure sector as an equity investor," Lou writes in today's Financial Times.

Britain's public works will be further tied up with private capital, the same kind of private capital New Labour used to fund projects that were late, badly made and expensive.

In other news, fewer and fewer people are satisfied with Tory shit served up as ice cream. There will be a public sector strike on Wednesday, not in France or Greece or Egypt but in Britain of all places, phew! What's more it has majority support: 61% of all polled, 67% of women and 79% of young people.

Profits and the labour theory of value - as explained by the Tories

See here:

With less then a week to go before the biggest walkout in decades, the ministers in charge of pensions negotiations, Francis Maude and Danny Alexander, said the strikes would impose a "significant hit to the economy at a very challenging time" as they urged public sector staff to go to defy their unions and turn up to work next Wednesday.

If 2.5m workers striking for a day costs the economy £500m, that's £200 per worker; compare that to how much they actually get paid per day. That's the source of profit, right there.

Never forget, folks, organised workers should not be allowed to hold the country to ransom, bring the economy and our society to its knees... Only the Tories and their banker chums are allowed to do that. Public sector workers are on strike in the first instant because a 3% across the board increase in worker pension contributions, which amounts to all but a day's wages each month. Hello? Anyone heard of effective demand? Who has got a day's wages going spare to donate to bankers in need? No one I know.

Brian Coleman is a fat piece of shit

In the Evening Standard of all papers:

Brian Coleman, a senior member of Boris Johnson's administration and leading Barnet councillor, responded to Sharada Osman's appeal for help by telling her that people in her situation should "deal with their own issues".

Ms Osman, 39, today accused him of "hypocrisy" and called for an apology. Part-time student Ms Osman has lived in North Finchley for six years with her six-year-old son Kylan, who has learning difficulties.

She wrote this month to Mr Coleman, who is said to earn almost £120,000 a year, asking for help after her private landlord increased the rent for her home from £950 to £1,100. In an emotional email, unemployed Ms Osman told the Tory Assembly member that she was writing to him "out of desperation in hope that someone can offer some help and guidance". Ms Osman told Mr Coleman that she wanted to avoid having to apply for a council house.

Mr Coleman, chairman of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, replied nine days later and suggested she turn to the private sector, saying: "There will never be enough council houses available."

Ms Osman, who made clear she was living in private, rented accommodation, replied and said: "I am in complete shock by your lack of empathy and regard for my situation."

One hour late Mr Coleman replied and said: "Lack of empathy?????? Councillors simply cannot conjure housing out of thin air and the private sector is your only option. That is a fact.

"I am afraid you have to live in the real world where the country has no money and residents will have to deal with their own issues rather than expecting 'the system' to sort their lives out. This correspondence is now closed."

It's the last line that's the most infuriating, I think; don't bother me again, peasant. I'd also like to point out a common Tory canard, it's been on my mind for a while: "there is no money". No money? Maybe Brian Coleman is paid in kind, perhaps £120,000 worth of pies. He looks jolly enough, like Father Christmas, but in reverse.

Roobin's extra note: as was pointed out in the comment section, thanks to Finchley Methodist Church, a charity, Brian Coleman's monthly rent is £546; half that of his constituent, Ms Osman. Link here. The peasants may not be living in the real world, but Mr Coleman's clearly living in the Land of Chocolate.

Hmm... How to express it... Are words even adequate any more?

Rents are going up. Wages are stagnating. Housing benefits have been capped. Now the Tories want to make it a crime to see an empty house and try to live in it.

Kenneth Clarke has moved to toughen up his controversial sentencing bill by criminalising squatting and strengthening the law of self-defence for those who confront intruders in their own homes.

The decision to ban squatting in residential buildings has been taken despite warnings that making trespass a criminal offence could also affect sit-ins and occupations and lead to an increase in the most vulnerable homeless people sleeping rough.

Kenneth Clarke, Secretary for 'Justice', was caught recently fobbing off half his council tax and claiming the mortgage on his second home as a parliamentary expense.

On 12 May 2009, The Daily Telegraph reported that Clarke had "flipped" his council tax. He had told the Parliamentary authorities that his main home was in his Rushcliffe constituency, enabling him to claim a second homes allowance on his London home and leaving the taxpayer to foot the bill for the council tax due on that property. However, he told Rushcliffe Borough Council in Nottinghamshire that he spent so little time at his constituency address that his wife Gillian should qualify for a 25% council tax (single person’s) discount, saving the former chancellor around £650 per year. Land registry records showed that Clarke did not have a mortgage on his home in Nottinghamshire, where he has lived since 1987. He instead held a mortgage on his London house, which he had most recently charged to the taxpayer at £480 per month

Would it be so bad if his two (no doubt luxurious) homes burned to the ground?

Thought Police Note: I am not saying anyone should do this. It would be a lot a time and effort wasted not affecting government policy in the slightest, not to mention risking a life or two. But wouldn't you savour the irony of Kenneth Clarke kipping on David Cameron's sofa while he got his life back together (as tens of thousands of people are having to do right now, thanks to the Tory government)?

Because everything looks bad if you remember it

Iain Duncan Smith is mad as hell, and he's not going to take it anymore:

Campaigners accused the welfare secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, of "losing his cool" after the cabinet minister launched an extraordinary attack against a charity for challenging the government's proposed housing benefit reforms in the courts, describing the action as "ridiculous … irresponsible behaviour (and) an ill-judged PR stunt" which resulted in "a massive waste of taxpayers' money and court time".

The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) had sought to overturn the government's cap on housing benefit, arguing in the high court that such a move would result in the "social cleansing" of expensive areas of the UK.

How dare anyone attempt to use the state and law to anyone's benefit...? Anyone except defence consultants and arms dealers... and Vodafone... and News Corporation... not forgetting the City of London... How dare they point out the likely shortfalls of my policies?

The caps mean that benefits paid to the poor to cover rents cannot exceed £250 a week for a one-bedroom property, £290 for two bedrooms, £340 for three bedrooms and £400 for four bedrooms. The government's own assessment shows that groups affected include people with disabilities, teenage mothers and ethnic minority families.

Charities had argued that the effect would be felt first in the capital, saying 9,000 London households facing would have to leave their homes as a result of the caps – and about 4,600 would be unable to find anywhere else to live "locally".

This could mean upwards of 20,000 children having to move, 14,000 out of their local area, resulting in disruption to education, health and social services.

Oh that's how. It could be argued that the way to reduce the housing benefit bill would be to tackle unemployment, poverty pay, introduce rent control and a building and renovation programme (it's not as if there isn't large unemployment in the construction sector, hey!). But that would involve siding with the poor against employers and landlords, and that would be wrong, wrong, WRONG!

Socialism for the rich...

According to David Cameron, under New Labour we had a casino economy and a welfare society. That may have been the case (it wasn't) but under David Cameron we've got a welfare economy and a casino society... and you can have that witticism for free.

Getting down to some serious work...

Best of all is serious work in local communities... Don't you just love this injunction? It's common on leftie websites; a phrase (with a few variations) that says everything yet means nothing. As if we were doing silly work up until that point, reeling about in clown outfits going honk-honk or somesuch.

Getting down to some serious/hard work/graft in the (local) community is usually contrasted to high-profile campaigning of various sorts (maybe even involving students - boo! boo!). When it comes down to it serious work can only mean doorknocking about local issues, bin-collections, pest control, meals on wheels, etc, the stuff of local government.

Back in the day it may have been possible to change the world, or at least believe you can change the world, though local government. The recent history of local government, from the abolition of rates up to the Chancellor George Osborne's recent council tax freeze, the role of local goverment has diminished to all but a rubber stamp... and then there's Barnet Council, a mere kitemark on a bundle of services.

What is left of getting down to serious work, other than a rhetorical flourish on Socialist Unity?

Cameron to Peasants: "don't worry, I've still got a job"

David Cameron will urge us all today to pull up our socks, pay up our debts and have a general can-do spirit about, I don't know, voting Tory or something. But, apparently:

...people want to know why the good times are so long coming.

"The answer is straightforward, but uncomfortable. This was no normal recession; we're in a debt crisis. It was caused by too much borrowing, by individuals, businesses, banks – and, most of all, governments."

It's almost like he's bothered having to explain. D'uh, it's obvious! Are they still asking about this?

But this is a gross elision of the truth. The crisis was not caused by government borrowing. The hike in government borrowing was preceded by the banking collapse in 2008. Only a fool or a liar would deny that. Which are you, David?

It is a fact the capitalist class went to the exchequer to be helped out of its crisis, a crisis it created, that is a fact. Let's not forget the Tories did not so much as put a peep of opposition at the time. Actually, the process amounted to was the public, us, you and me, taking on the sins of the elite, for we it is now being crucified... and there is no need, as UK Uncut continually demonstrate:

We are told that the only way to reduce the deficit is to cut public services. This is certainly not the case. There are alternatives, but the government chooses to ignore them, highlighting the fact that the cuts are based on ideology, not necessity.

One alternative is to clamp down on tax dodging by corporations and the rich, estimated to cost the state £95bn a year...

Another is to make the banks pay for free insurance provided to them by the taxpayer: a chief executive at the Bank of England put the cost of this subsidy at £100bn in a single year...

Either the tax avoided and evaded in a single year or the taxpayer subsidy to the banking industry could pay for all of the £81bn, four-year cuts programme.

No wonder you're grumpy. Even just judging by today's news you're stressed at work, the most fundamental cause being job insecurity; if you become ill long-term because of this you can now 'buy' treatment on the NHS with vouchers, and you thought you already bought it with taxes; you're cutting back on non-essential spending; why wouldn't you, what with seemingly permanent and overwhelming economic turmoil.

But, if you insist on feeling a little put out by the situation just remember 'our' best days are ahead of us... even if they're a long day ahead of us and, whatever you do don't strike. Workers cannot be allowed to shut down vital public services. Only the Tories are allowed to do that.

If I can shoot rabbits...

I think this every year, whenever the Tories meet - where's the IRA when you need them? Not because I think isolated terrorist acts are an effective vehicle for change (any Police or Secret Service reading this take note) but because at present there's no adequate way to express how much I hate them...

I mean, look at this, bootcamps for children Boris Johnson doesn't like (ugly, poor ones spoiling his Olympics). Why only bootcamps? These are supposedly 'feral', i.e. inhuman children we're talking about here. Go the whole hog, have sweatshops, slavelabour, get them stitching Nike trainers in 50 degree heat, that'll show 'em. Arbeit macht frei. Dachau on Thames. Proudly sponsored by Barclays Bank.

Remember how you used to pay a portion of income in the form of tax to go toward collective provision of things like health, education, pensions, rubbish collection, fire fighting? Forget that. George Osborne's going to give it to Barry the Bodger to prop up his ailing business. You're lending small businesses money so bankers don't have to.

And this is just day two.

News and Spews

Tory government to raise the motorway speed limit to 80 miles per hour. Now you can get go to hell in a handcart quicker.

Civil service occupations in Greece prevent EU, ECB and IMF delegates from meeting in public buildings. F-ing go for it!

The surprise sit-ins, which began with civil servants declaring that they had taken over six ministries at 7am, meant that Evangelos Venizelos, the finance minister, was forced to hold the talks on the 2012 budget elsewhere."The measures being pursued by the government are totally counter-productive. It is obvious to everyone that they have failed … all they have achieved is the impoverishment of Greeks," said a member of Adedy's [Greek equivalent of the PCS] executive board. "These occupations are symbolic but what is not is our determination to overturn policies that have driven us into deadlock. In the last two years 300,000 small and medium-sized businesses have closed and by December we estimate there will be one and a half million unemployed. That's one person per family."

Baharain doctors jailed for upholding the hippocratic oath (especially that bit about "I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures required...").

Twenty Bahraini medics who treated activists wounded during anti-government protests were jailed for between five and 15 years in sentences that were immediately denounced by medical bodies and human rights groups around the world.

The sentences were handed down by a military court set up to handle the trials, which stemmed from an Arab spring-inspired uprising in the country in February and March. It was crushed with the help of armies from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. Thirteen of the doctors and nurses received sentences of 15 years in prison, while another seven received terms of five to 10 years.

Elsewhere, Local government minister Eric Pickles has made a stunning breakthrough; people don't like rolling in their own filth (it's not, generally speaking, good for their physical and mental wellbeing), and it costs money to have it taken away.

And finally, The Onion, the original fake-news outlet, set up another fake news story (with more than a hint of dark irony). Some people forgot this fact and took it seriously.

Hard times

In times like these its hard not to cling to the flimsiest of hopes. The most ragged is surely the most persistent, that a Labour government will make it all better. Well Ed Balls is trying to shake that idea off.

The Shadow Cabinet has been banned by Ed Balls from promising to reverse any of the Coalition Government's spending cuts as part of Labour's attempt to regain credibility on the economy.

A mildly interesting notion; does Ed Balls run the Shadow Cabinet?

In an interview with The Independent, the shadow Chancellor said: "No matter how much we dislike particular Tory spending cuts or tax rises, we can't make promises now to reverse them. I'm clear that I won't do that and neither will any of my Shadow Cabinet colleagues."

It seems reasonable, anti-demagogic. The only problem is that pesky democratic deficit. If you are a student facing sky-high fees, if you are unemployed and facing the grisly prospect of 'the work programme', if you are a young parent watching Sure Start centres being closed, if you are a pensioner coping with mounting heating bills, if you are a public sector worker being forced to hand over a day's wages (in the form of increased pension contributions) to pay for bankers in need... if you are any of those people and more besides, who speaks for you, you stands up for you in parliament? At the moment no one does. What's wrong with the Labour Party standing up for them? What's wrong with the Labour Party standing up for them and even losing?

We have come to know the Labour Party is not an agent of change. It has accepted the broad political, ideological and economic consensus, however arrived at, whether it has been Keynesianism or Neo-Liberalism. The myth of Labour radicalism was built on the back of a general radicalisation during World War Two. The Attlee government, great as it was, merely received the movement's momentum.

What can change the situation? The proposed strike of 3 million workers on November 30th can start. Get the ballot on, win the ballot, prepare for picketing, organise a demo in town; if you are not being called out do your best to support those who are. There does need to be more action after this day however, a one-day strike of a few thousand people in particular sector is a token gesture, 3 million strikers is not a token, it's a declaration.

Public sector workers will fight and they will not be alone.

Banks given until 2019 to take what they can and run

But THEN they have to stop. Until then Britain wants as much Russian gangster cash as possible. Of course, by 2019 we'll all be fighting 8ft tall radioactive scorpions (probably stamped with the Barclays logo) for the last drops of potable water:

According to the IFS, the squeeze on living standards will be the result of earnings failing to keep pace with prices, as well as the tax and benefit changes announced by the government to tackle the UK's record peacetime budget deficit.

"Welfare cuts and tax rises will act to reduce household incomes, and those with the lowest incomes are clearly set to lose the most from these reforms as a percentage of income (with the important exception of those with the very highest incomes). This is likely to increase poverty, other things being equal, offsetting some of the falls in poverty over the past decade."

Of course it isn't a record peacetime deficit (there are high levels of government borrowing, but that's another matter). The national debt was many times greater in 1948, when the NHS was founded (see picture). What's interesting in the IFS report is the line highlighted:

The IFS analysis is included in The Great Recession and the Distribution of Income, published on Monday by the London School of Economics. Professor Stephen Jenkins of the LSE said: "We were surprised at how little household incomes changed in the years immediately after the Great Recession began. This has been the worst macroeconomic downturn in most OECD countries since the Great Depression of the 1930s when there were substantial increases in poverty rates and other significant changes to the income distribution."

A pay freeze relative to inflation is a pay cut. This has been the strategy for several decades; hold down wages to raise profits. With inflation at 4-5% that's a big cut. Of course, it only half-worked, all those years. The previous mini long-boom was driven by speculation. Low effective demand combined with large amounts surplus capital, encouraged a culture of widespread borrowing and lending (borrowing to lend sometimes). It was fitting then this global pyramid scheme foundered on subprime mortgages.

Warning that pain had been delayed but not avoided, the IFS said families with children would be hit harder by Osborne's tax and benefit changes than other family types on average, with the poorest 10th of households suffering income losses of more than 8% over the next three years. "Recent IFS modelling predicted that child poverty will rise in each of the three years between 2010-11 and 2013-14, and that it will be about two percentage points higher in 2013-14 as a result of the tax and benefit reforms planned by the current government."

If you can't forsake the god of capital accumulation you will have to sacrifice your children to appease him.

Ruled by loonies pt 2

David Cameron wants to make it even harder for unemployed people claiming benefits to refuse work. Now you may be thinking, with 2.5 million registered unemployed and some areas of the country where an average of 50 or so people apply for each vacant position, you may be thinking that work is refusing people, not the other way round.



But what kind of ideas are they actually weighing up...?

Ideas pushed by No 10 included measures that would force the unemployed and those claiming jobseeker's allowance to spend an entire working week in the pursuit of finding a job. But on Friday lunchtime the Department for Work and Pensions said that particular idea had been ruled out as "not workable". By Friday evening the department was instructed that the idea could be a possible candidate for tightening the welfare regime.

You hear that? You need to spend 36 hours a week, every week, looking for work and, presumably, be able to prove it as well. If you run out of jobs to apply for why not stand on a street corner with a sandwich board: "will vote Tory for food"?

Treasury officials had also been keen on a suggestion that would see those people without a history of national insurance contributions unable to turn down suggested employment opportunities.

So thats what young people are called these days!







But they're right folks. It's time to take on the workshy, make the feckless and decadent classes pay, egregious, idle, thieving, born with a grotesque sense of entitlement... after all they caused the recession.



Meanwhile, in totally unconnected, separate piece of news this is David (son of an investment banker) Cameron hanging out with the royal family (distant relatives) in Scotland on Saturday.

Ruled by loonies

Oh yes we are. Two more pieces of evidence. Millionaires to inspire the poor:

Emma Harrison is the founder of Action for Employment (A4E), and she is establishing Working Families Everywhere on Cameron's behalf. You may know her from Channel 4's The Secret Millionaire, where she gave £50,000 away in front of a TV camera in 2007, after the poor had proved their worthiness for her bounty. The scheme is being piloted in Hull, Blackpool and Kensington & Chelsea, and will roll out in the next four years. Volunteers with no prior experience of social work, creepily renamed "family champions" (FCs), will enter "never-worked" families with drug, crime and child protection issues, and turn them into "working" families. Once polished, these families will inspire others, like a game of Social Democratic dominoes, but backwards. "Family champions are going to stalk the streets, they are going to find the jobs," says Harrison, who is clearly, like Margaret Thatcher, a Nietzschean. They will get a small wage and priority access to all other services the family is using, and they will be handpicked by Harrison. They may also get badges, but this is not confirmed.



Why does this feel so dodgy? I called Harrison's PR and asked her what will happen if there are no jobs. What then? "Emma believes there are jobs," she replied. "There are hidden jobs." Oh yes, those hidden jobs, buried under trees and lying at the end of rainbows. All the unemployed need is the imagination to see the invisible, and maybe a magic shovel and a friendly elf to hug them on the way to Mordor. So a slab of government policy is being handed to a woman who is in denial about the scale and cause of joblessness. The statistics are nowhere in the Working Families Everywhere material. There are 2.49 million people unemployed today in the UK.

Haringey to be twinned with Greggs:

Retailers Asda and Sainsbury's are among businesses that have signed up to a charity initiative that will see senior store and project managers despatched to work in deprived areas such as Tottenham and Lambeth, which were badly hit by this month's riots.



Ten companies, including BT, Dairy Crest and Greggs, have signed up to the pilot scheme run by Business in the Community. So-called "business connectors" will be seconded to communities for at least six months to provide assistance to residents and groups trying to tackle issues such as youth unemployment, educational underachievement and a weak local enterprise culture. Its chief executive Stephen Howard said it was a "crucial time" for businesses to get involved in communities: "I believe healthy back streets create healthy high streets."

This sort of nonsense must be stopped. The organised working class has been off the scene since June 30th. The trouble is the Tory loonies are working day and night to transport us back to 1811. The TUC demo outside the Tory Party conference will be something - but far from enough.



Name the day for the next strike now.

The enduring evil at the heart of our civilisation...

X Factor is still here.

Teenage singer Frankie Cocozza set the tone for the show – and possibly the entire format – when he was asked by presenter Dermot O'Leary why he had turned up to the first London audition.



"I don't know ... I just want to be famous," said the 18-year-old from Brighton.

Quite. Note the Graun has filed this report under 'Culture'. Ugh!



Big Brother (also filed under Culture) is also still here.



The Tories, everybody hates them (except the Lib Dems, who hate themselves), but they're still around and lovin' it. Check out the quote:

One of the greatest inequalities in our society is the way so many resources go to the elderly, rather than the young...

Those old folks, bastard codgers trying to enjoy their retirement. It's almost as if they think a lifetime of work entitles them to it. It bet it was pensioners who caused the recession.



Will Smith is coming back... hide!



News International: it would be easier just to start from the assumption that everybody is guilty, we just have to work out if anyone's innocent.



Four years for organising a riot that never happened. C'mon, who's going to be stupid enough to go to a riot advertised on a public forum?



And finally, it's almost not news, as you could cut and paste this from any time in the last few years... unemployment is up, despite the government's best efforts to, um, drive it up.

Declaration of war

A statement from David Cameron in today's Guardian feed:

There are pockets of our society that are not just broken, but frankly sick...



For me the root cause of this mindless selfishness is the same thing I have spoken about for years: it is a complete lack of responsibility in parts of our society.



People allowed to feel that the world owes them something, that their rights outweigh their responsibilities and that their actions do not have consequences. Well they do have consequences.



We need to have a clearer code of values and standards that we expect people to live by and stronger penalties if they cross the line.

If David Cameron does not have a terminally stunted sense of irony then this must be a declaration of war. Less than a month ago he was exposed at the centre of a corrupt triangle of politicians, press barons, and senior coppers. Talking about actions having consequences is rich when you take into account the spark of this conflagration, the street execution of a man from Tottenham by the police. It is doubly rich considering he is the leader of a government that is gleefully ripping up the fabric of our society, destroying the basis of communities such as Tottenham, Peckham, Brixton and so on. The looting this week pales next to the looting of the public purse by British and International financial institutions.



For a few days the lid was taken off the cauldron of our society; we did not like what was inside. If Cameron feels in any way responsible for this mess he's sure not going to admit it, let alone take any practical steps to undo the harm his goverment is doing. David Cameron wants you to forget the taste of his witches brew. Tomorrow's session of parliament will, no doubt, rush through some horrible bill, filled with authoritarian prescriptions. None of the causes will be addressed. Anyone so much as mentioning them will be hounded down (as if there's anyone left in parliament clutching a shred of responsibility toward the people they are supposed to represent). The day after that... expect nazis.