Category: Political
North Star Bulletin – 11 July 2015
Today’s posts round-up
As I’m moving operations over to the North Star forum, I shall from now on (excepting special circumstances) be posting a summary of daily posts with links instead of the posts themselves on this blog.
Readers can choose which ones, if any, they want to view, and it saves me time and extra work.
You can still repost stuff on your blog if desired, you’ll just have to cut & paste it. A link back to the forum would be nice.
You can also comment on most posts on the forum as a visitor. To start threads you need to sign up.
‘
Just take the fucking picture’ The charm of the royal family
Iain Duncan Smith Hints At Welfare Privatisation
Union support for Corbyn at Durham miners Gala
North Star Bulletin 05 July 2015
Today’s posts round-up –
As I’m moving operations over to the North Star forum, I shall from now on (excepting special circumstances) be posting a summary of daily posts with links instead of the posts themselves on this blog.
Readers can choose which ones, if any, they want to view, and it saves me time and extra work.
You can still repost stuff on your blog if desired, you’ll just have to cut & paste it. A link back to the forum would be nice.
You can also comment on most posts on the forum as a visitor. To start threads you need to sign up.
Mexican Demons attacked in covert operation
Higher Earners To Lose Thousands In Social Housing Subsidy
North East UKIP official who shared racist Facebook posts will keep his job
New homes for social rent falls to an all-time low in NE
North East can’t afford to pay council tax
Anti-Fascist Demo, Stockton, Sat 4th July
Iain Duncan Smith Had Expenses Credit Card Suspended
Iain Duncan Smith had his official credit card suspended after racking up more than £1,000 in expenses debt, it has been revealed.
The Work and Pensions Secretary is one of nineteen MPs subjected to action by the Commons watchdog, over potential invalid spending.
The revelation comes after Iain Duncan Smith had previously backed the introduction of prepaid cards for benefit claimants.
Details released in response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by the Press Association, reveal that the watchdog has suspended the credit cards of nineteen MPs since the beginning of 2015.
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) issue credit cards to MPs to use for expenses costs, such as travel and accommodation.
Politicians are required to prove that spending on the cards is legitimate within one month. Failure could result in a build-up of debt, which would be recovered by refusing further expenses payments made through the cards.
According to the FOI response, Iain Duncan Smith’s card was blocked after he owed £1,057.28. He is no longer owes any money.
Full story : http://northstar.boards.net/thread/165/duncan-smith-expenses-credit-suspended
EU proposal that could ban snaps of landmarks
Sightseers could be banned from taking snaps of North landmarks and uploading them to social media sites if proposals in Europe get the go-ahead… or maybe not – UKIP circulating scare stories again.
The law would change what is known in the UK as the ‘freedom of panorama’ exemption that lets people to take use photos of modern buildings and artworks such as Gateshead’s The Angel of the North or Bottle of Notes in Middlesbrough how they like.
Jonathan Arnott, UKIP MEP for the North East, said the law would be an attack on the country’s freedoms but his opponents accuse him of scaremongering over EU proposals.
He said: “This would end up being another example of unintended consequences which so often happens when the EU passes laws.
“It is idiotic and would mean that visitors would not be able to snap views of the Angel of the North and other famous works and use them commercially if they so wanted.
“This attempt to restrict the freedom of panorama, by allies of the Lib Dems in Brussels, strikes at the root of our liberties. It will destroy an explicit British freedom guaranteed in our copyright legislation for over 100 years.
“Art and photography are valuable because of their intrinsic freedom. Freedom is constantly undermined by the European Union as we have seen time and time again.”
Lib Dem councillor Greg Stone said the amendment has no connection to his party in Europe and accused the MEP of creating “scare stories”.
He said: “This proposal has had nothing whatsoever to do with the Liberal Democrats or the ALDE bloc of EU Liberal parties and it is frankly pretty desperate stuff from a party that trades exclusively on Euro myths and scare stories.”
RMT calls for EU withdrawal at AGM in Newcastle
One of the country’s leading unions called for Britain to leave the European Union at its Annual General Meeting in Newcastle.
The RMT said a vote to stay in the EU at the forthcoming referendum would “decimate” the health and education sectors because of “secret deals” it was doing with North America.
General secretary Mick Cash said:
“EU policies are at odds with the aspirations of this union as the various treaties and directives are demanding the privatisation of our rail and ferry industries.
“The EU is also secretly negotiating trade deals with the US and Canada which will decimate of health and education sectors and hand huge powers to transnational corporations over nation states and their governments.
“The Tories will be campaigning to stay in the EU come any referendum as they support this right wing, neo-liberal, anti-worker agenda,” he said.
Full story : http://northstar.boards.net/thread/131/rmt-calls-withdrawal-agm-newcastle
Some NE Labour support for Jeremy Corbyn
Labour’s Easington representative, Grahame Morris, and Blyth Valley’s Ronnie Campbell, were backing Andy Burnham in the Labour leadership race, but this week ditched him in favour of Jeremy Corbyn.
Newcastle Central MP Chi Onwurah, who is one of the last in the region to reveal her nomination, has also announced her support for Mr Corbyn.
The leadership race has so far seen Andy Burnham take the pole position with 53 nominations from MPs, with Yvette Cooper on 46, Liz Kendall on 37, Mary Creagh on seven, and Jeremy Corbyn on 13.
Mr Corbyn, 66, has a track record of rebellion against the Labour party, regularly defying the whip. In January he was among a number of MPs who wrote an open letter to Ed Miliband calling on the party to oppose further austerity.
Ronnie Campbell, who has represented Blyth Valley for Labour since 1987, said: “I’m making a point and Grahame is doing the same and the point is that there are still socialists.
Full story : http://northstar.boards.net/thread/91/ne-labour-support-jeremy-corbyn
Hotel advertises 6 jobs – more than 500 apply in 5 hours
Hotel chain Premier Inn advertised six jobs at a jobs fair in Middlesbrough today – and more than 500 people applied in under five hours.
Operations manager Mark Goldby said the level of interest for the vacancies at hotels around the North-east was “amazing“.
“We have literally received more applications than we can count.
“People have really made the effort today with their CVs and how they’ve dressed for the day as well – we’ve been very impressed.”
Full story: http://northstar.boards.net/thread/89/hotel-advertises-jobs-apply-hours
Harriet Harman joins Labour’s claimant hate campaign
Harriet Harman, the acting leader of the Labour party has joined a number of the leadership candidates in what is fast becoming a competition to see who can most blatantly encourage hatred of claimants. Harman complained that Labour was seen as supporting “people on benefits” but not those who “work hard.”
Last week, in Labour leadership hopefuls queued up to kick claimants – even in speech to tax avoidance auditors we reported that a number of Labour leadership candidates, including Andy Burnham and Caroline Flint had sought to distance themselves from any appearance of support for people on benefits.
Burnham talked about some people believing Labour wants ‘to be soft on people who want something for nothing’, whilst Flint said Labour ought to start attacking benefits scroungers as much as bankers and should give people choosing to live off benefits a “kick up the backside”.
The attempts to denigrate people claiming benefits appear to based on the idea that Labour lost the election because it wasn’t tough enough on claimants.
Now, in an interview in today’s Independent, Harriet Harman has joined in the attacks. The paper explained that:
“Ms Harman believes a common problem all over Britain was that voters felt the party “doesn’t talk about me”. Labour was seen as supporting “people on benefits” but not those who “work hard.” She said: “It doesn’t matter how many leaflets you deliver if the message is not right.””
Full article : http://northstar.boards.net/thread/36/labour-leadership-hopefuls-queue-claimants?page=1&scrollTo=80
Newcastle Lab & Lib Parties oppose repeal of Human Rights Act
Political parties in Newcastle have united to oppose the Government’s proposed repeal of the Human Rights Act.
The Liberal Democrats and Labour will come together on Wednesday night at a Newcastle City Council meeting and are likely to vote in favour of lobbying the Government to abandon plans.
They also plan to write to Home Secretary Theresa May, expressing concern.
Normally fierce political rivals, councillors from both parties say this move shows the strength of feeling against the proposed changes.
The new Government’s plans to scrap the Human Rights Act in favour of a British Bill of Rights has prompted outcry from politicians and legal rights groups as well as several celebrities. However those in favour believe severing the formal link between British court and the European Court of Human Rights would be welcomed.
The Conservatives believe the move would strengthen the powers of British supreme court with less deference to Strasbourg, however the plan was noticeably absent from the Queen’s Speech prompting concerns over a struggle within the Tory party to gain backbench support.
In line with the views of their national parties, both the Liberal Democrat and the Labour parties in Newcastle have submitted motions to the council with deputy Lib Dem councillor Dr Wendy Taylor asking members to reject any proposal made by the Government to repeal the act.
She wants other councillors to agree that these ‘fundamental rights and freedoms’ enshrined in the act ‘are crucial for a fair, free and democratic society.’
She said:
“At a time when we are honouring those who fought in the Second World War and the purpose for which so many lost their lives defending our liberty and freedoms, we reject the Government’s proposal to repeal the Human Rights Act and withdraw from the European court of human rights in Strasbourg.”
Read rest of story here :
http://northstar.boards.net/thread/43/newcastle-parties-oppose-repeal-rights
How The Benefit Lies Begin. Ludicrous Claims By Job’s Website Reported As Facts In Tory Press
It is astonishing how quickly an outright lie told as part of a shoddy marketing campaign can turn into real proper news when it suits the political objectives of the Tory press.
Both the Daily Mail and The Express have run the same triumphant story today claiming that the number of job vacancies has now outstripped the number of unemployed people. According to the Daily Mail there are now over one million job vacancies and just under 800,000 jobseekers. Even for the Mail this is a staggering untruth.
The latest Labour Force Survey, conducted by the Officie for National Statistics (ONS), revealed that there are currently 1.83 million officially unemployed people, over double the amount reported by the Daily Mail. In addition to this there are over 2 million people who are ‘economically inactive’ and want a job but do not meet the strict definition of unemployment set by…
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UNEMPLOYED IN TYNE & WEAR 