Why Are Fat-Cats Allowed To Cheat?

Tory Activist Alleges Rape By Party Employee.
A former Tory activist who alleged she was raped by a party employee claims senior Conservatives have repeatedly ignored a culture of sex abuse and harassment within the party.
Lisa Wade claimed she was so violently attacked she was left with whiplash-style injuries, but the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to take her case to court.
She reveals that, by then, she had already made an official complaint to the party about drunk young girls being targeted by sex pests while campaigning on the Tories’ infamous ‘battle bus’ before the 2015 election.
But Lisa, in her twenties, claims she was hounded out for what she did, and says many of the worst offenders still hold senior roles in the party.
( Geraldine McKelvie, 12.11.2017 )

I Have Since Learned That The Jews Were Never Slaves In Egypt And That The Entire Story Of Exodus Is Fiction.
When I first heard that there was not a shred of evidence discovered in the Sinai Desert that a large number of Jews had wandered for 40 years, I thought that wasn’t such a big deal.
I mean, it’s a desert, right?
Sand storms probably just swallowed up all the evidence.
The more I looked into the story, however, the more I realised that the lack of evidence was actually a pretty big problem.
According to the book of Exodus, a lot of Jews were wandering this desert, and it seems extremely unlikely (bordering on impossible) for this many people to leave absolutely no trace, especially when traces have been found for smaller groups of people which predated the Exodus in that same desert.
( Staks Rosch, 06.12.2017 )  ..  huffpost.com

A 30-Year Low On Home Ownership.
Nothing exposes how useless this Tory government has been more than housing.
The Tories have produced 11 government housing statements and two White Papers – proposed government plans – in their seven years in power.
The last White Paper promised to mend the housing market. But they bloody broke it!
Rough sleeping has doubled, home ownership has decreased to a 30-year low and they have built the lowest amount of social housing on record.
Thanks to Osborne’s ‘Help To Buy’, YOU subsidise peoples’ deposits to buy homes costing up to £650,000.
And thanks to Philip Hammond, YOU are subsidising a £3.2 billion Stamp Duty giveaway to people buying homes for up to £300,000.
( Fred O. Wilson )

Tory housing policies have always been about the cash-strapped many paying for the lucky few.
The £3.2 billion Stamp Duty cut over six years could have built more than 30,000 new council homes.
Instead it will end up in the back pockets of house sellers, estate agents and property developers.
In fact, it’s been suggested by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility that it will help only 3,500 first-time buyers a year.
It would be cheaper to buy them houses.
( John Prescott, 26.11.2017 )

Ten Thousand Died In Tiananmen Square Protest.
The Chinese army crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests killed 10,000, dwarfing estimates, a document claims.
Wounded girl students were bayoneted, human remains were hosed down drains and a mother was shot as she tried to help her injured tot, it is alleged.
The detail, said to be from a member of China’s cabinet, was in a cable from Alan Donald, then UK ambassador to China.
China said 200 civilians and dozens of security staff died.
( Keith Perry, 24.12.2017 )

Fat-Cats Squealing Because They Might Lose Their Cream.
It is accepted across the political spectrum that certain public services should not be privatised, the NHS, the police, the fire service and the BBC.
Yet if you want to get a Tory frothing at the mouth suggest that transport and public utilities should be renationalised.
These are also essential public services.
We need to move around the place, and water, gas and electricity are some of life’s most valuable commodities.

That’s why this newspaper believes they should be in public ownership.
That they are not is the lasting legacy of Thatcherism. Margaret Thatcher believed that these industries would perform better in the private sector.
This was based on the fact that they could not perform any worse.
But what may have been true decades ago no longer holds today.
Just ask Southern rail passengers, or those who use Southeastern, Thameslink or Great Northern.

Water firms have paid £13billion to shareholders since 2010 while receiving more in tax breaks than they paid in tax.
They fund reports by right-wing think tanks to rubbish Labour’s nationalisation plans.
That sound you can hear is fat-cats squealing because they fear they might lose their cream.
The ability of an industry to serve its customers has nothing to do with whether it is private or public, only that it has good management.
And the principle must be right that a public service is there first and foremost to serve the public, not to make a fat profit out of it.

The Tories say Labour must borrow to take industries back into public control.
They are right.
But it is no different from borrowing to buy a house.
You own the house which becomes an asset which, all being well, will grow in value.
The Tory Party argument against nationalisation is rooted in a past long since gone.
Labour’s refreshing new thinking shows it is the party of the future.
( Sunday Mirror, 11.02.2018 ) 

The Big Con Trick.
Austerity was David Cameron’s and George Osborne’s big con trick, a way to slash budgets for public services and councils so they could give £60billion in tax breaks to their mates running big businesses.
They blamed the 2008 global financial crisis on Gordon Brown and Labour.
They claimed we’d spent too much and austerity would restore the economy.
The Tories promised to eradicate the deficit by 2015, then 2016, then 2017, then 2020.
Now it looks like it won’t be until 2030 at the earliest.
( John Prescott, 26.11.2017 )

So What Do We Have Now?
We used to have an economy that was less virtual and depended more on making and selling real, actual, physical things.
During World War 2, the Clydeside yards built more ships than the United States of America.
We had an economy based on manufacturing. But that’s gone now.
The Tory government of Mrs Thatcher destroyed our industrial and manufacturing base.
So what do we have now?
We have an economy that depends on delivering pizzas to each other, and doing up our homes in the hope that we can sell them at a profit.
The banks lent all our savings to dodgy borrowers, and paid themselves huge salaries and obscene bonuses.
Can a nation have an economy worth the name if it doesn’t actually make anything.
( Rose Winfold )