Proportional representation -- yea or nay?

[Spanky Longhorn]

Free Spirit I notice you are deliberately ignoring the links Sihhi posted showing the Libdems support for Sodexho, didn't you used to be a No Borders activist? I wouldn't have marked you down as an apologist for asylum profiteers.

It doesn't take much for you to abandon your principles does it?

 

[butchersapron]

no spinning, just correcting

Amazing you support a party you don't agree with or are undecided about on such central issues.

 

[free spirit]

It's true and very well known. Whatever the local council overseeing body found them guilty - but not the BNP oddly enough.

it's still one example from one local branch of the party from 20 years ago

 

[sihhi]

Lib Dem 'civil liberties' are for the rich.
There's little there for the poor.

Legal aid policies
As far as the legal aid budget is concerned, practitioners could expect little comfort from a Liberal Democrat administration. The 3,000 new police officers they want to create would, they predict, lead to an extra 27,500 arrests and the solving of more than 24,500 extra crimes a year in England and Wales, but it seems that these cases will somehow have to be funded out of the existing hard-pressed budget. ‘I do not think anybody in the current financial circumstances can promise that the legal aid budget is going to rise from its present £2.1bn,’ says David Howarth.

 

[butchersapron]

it's still one example from one local branch of the party from 20 years ago

Yep, and they've consistently behaved in the same way (albeit without the overt racism) ever since.

 

[the button]

Lib Dem 'civil liberties' are for the rich.
There's little there for the poor.

Civil liberties for purple-clad placard-waving pricks. Who presumably wouldn't want their au pairs being able to up sticks and get a betterpaid job elsewhere.

 

[cesare]

one example from one council from an article written by the socialist review in 1993... how could I possibly argue with such powerful evidence

It's just one of many such examples, but what they did here was probably the worst of their slash and burn* techniques at local level. You're deluded if you think that their local politics don't translate nationally.






* © spanky longthorn

 

[free spirit]

No they wouldn't - you said so yourself:

yes they would, the restriction would be on where they worked, not where they could go, or where they could live.

obviously where they can work would effect where they could live, but if they chose to they could do blocks of work somewhere then live somewhere else, or whatever they wanted really beyond actually working somewhere they weren't allowed to work.

 

[cesare]

Yep, and they've consistently behaved in the same way (albeit without the overt racism) ever since.

Yeah, the racism shit is now covert: e.g. pass laws

 

[Proper Tidy]

obviously where they can work would effect where they could live, but if they chose to they could do blocks of work somewhere then live somewhere else, or whatever they wanted really beyond actually working somewhere they weren't allowed to work.

Clutching at straws this, innit.

I do enjoy watching 'progressives' tie themselves up in knots trying to defend the yellow tories

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

but if they chose to they could do blocks of work somewhere then live somewhere else, or whatever they wanted really beyond actually working somewhere they weren't allowed to work.

Fucking hell, talk about twisting - how many working class people let alone migrant workers could earn enough to have the luxury of doing that?

We're not all freelance webdesigners!

 

[butchersapron]

yes they would, the restriction would be on where they worked, not where they could go, or where they could live.

obviously where they can work would effect where they could live, but if they chose to they could do blocks of work somewhere then live somewhere else, or whatever they wanted really beyond actually working somewhere they weren't allowed to work.

You're supposed to be working in west yorks what you doing in the west mids? We have regional laws to stop this.

Don't be so naive. What the fuck are regional restrictions if not regional restrictions? Oh you work in catterick but you're here in totness. OK, carry on.

 

[cesare]

yes they would, the restriction would be on where they worked, not where they could go, or where they could live.

obviously where they can work would effect where they could live, but if they chose to they could do blocks of work somewhere then live somewhere else, or whatever they wanted really beyond actually working somewhere they weren't allowed to work.

I'm just loving the thought of non EU immigrants being turned away from the Medway to London commuter bus.

 

[Proper Tidy]

How are we going to spot which of the swarthy buggers are from outside of the EU though?

The liberal radical revolutionaries have missed a trick here. They should be advocating some sort of branding, or perhaps a cow bell. You know, just so we know which ones are forinn spongers and which one's aren't.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

What I don't get is this: Why would an immigrant stay somewhere there is no work?

Unskilled non-EU immigrants aren't going to be allowed at all (love that – now then, you, get yourself skilled up at some other country's expense before you even think about coming over here). So why would a skilled worker stay somewhere they could only get unskilled work? Where are these hordes of skilled workers who want to descend on Rhondda?

It's genius really, to come up with a repressive authoritarian solution to a problem that doesn't exist. And call yourself 'liberal' while doing it.

 

[discokermit]

It doesn't take much for you to abandon your principles does it?

sums up the lib dems. if they have any principles.

 

[free spirit]

Of course they don't, their councils only pump money into companies which move us towards a police state.

http://uk.sodexo.com/uken/media-centre/2007/richmond.asp

http://www.antimetrix.org/2009/02/sodexo-meals-support-deportation-and.html

ffs, can you find a party that is in power somewhere in the UK and hasn't dealt with sodexo in one form or another?

btw, do you realise that council contracting rules are set by national government, and councils are bound by law to take the best contract on offer, and don't actually have the right to boycott a company because they don't like them?

 

[sihhi]

The civil liberties of religious control over public services:

Charles Kennedy, in a lecture to the religious group Faithworks (3 February 2005), said that he was in favour of faith-based welfare and thought that religious bodies should play a larger role in public life.
Kennedy added, in an with Muslim News (21 January 2005), that the Lib Dems would come up with a “package” of measures in which they would consider giving further privileges to religion. He also said that he would not oppose a growth in the number of state-funded Muslim schools. Meanwhile, in a to the Catholic Association of Teachers, Schools and Colleges (2 February 2005), the party’s education spokesman Phil Willis assured his audience that, “We have no proposals whatsoever to close Church schools or to prevent the establishment of others – indeed it is a Liberal Democrat Council in Islington that has jointly sponsored the St Mary Magdalene Academy, the first Church of England Academy in the country.”

 

[free spirit]

Fucking hell, talk about twisting - how many working class people let alone migrant workers could earn enough to have the luxury of doing that?

We're not all freelance webdesigners!

most of the people this would apply to are people like migrant farm workers who do blocks of work from farm to farm through the summer, but in winter work's much scarcer, so they may well go off and live somewhere else in the country for a bit, or return home etc.

 

[butchersapron]

The civil liberties of religious control over public services:

Basically privatisation a la Obama/Clinton. And Kennedy is the good one!

 

[free spirit]

You're supposed to be working in west yorks what you doing in the west mids? We have regional laws to stop this.

Don't be so naive. What the fuck are regional restrictions if not regional restrictions? Oh you work in catterick but you're here in totness. OK, carry on.

if they're not working, how would anyone know where they were, being as the only way of checking would be via their employer

 

[sihhi]

ffs, can you find a party that is in power somewhere in the UK and hasn't dealt with sodexo in one form or another?

btw, do you realise that council contracting rules are set by national government, and councils are bound by law to take the best contract on offer, and don't actually have the right to boycott a company because they don't like them?

a. If the pressure of business was curbed by struggle outside the electoral arena services could be provided in-house.

b. The fact that they're not and you can't find "a party that is in power somewhere in the UK and hasn't dealt with sodexo in one form or another" suggests that giving any 'party' 'power' - including the lib dems - is either a mistake or a distraction.

 

[butchersapron]

if they're not working, how would anyone know where they were, being as the only way of checking would be via their employer

Who mentioned not working? Wtf?

 

[sihhi]

if they're not working, how would anyone know where they were, being as the only way of checking would be via their employer

Many work permits have the employer's name and address on them.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

most of the people this would apply to are people like migrant farm workers who do blocks of work from farm to farm through the summer, but in winter work's much scarcer, so they may well go off and live somewhere else in the country for a bit, or return home etc.

Not true. The lib dems, as other parties, wish to stop all non-EU unskilled immigration. They only want immigrants who have been pre-trained elsewhere. We're putting a sign up saying "Send us your middle-classes."

 

[CyberRose]

I've said yes, but only in the House of Lords (which obviously will have a new name under my proposal!)

I'd keep the commons as it is now to ensure we keep our local MP, but in the House of Lords I'd have, say, 100 members, and every % in the elections gets a party one member. It would then act as a counter weight to the Commons (rejecting or accepting legislation)

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I'd keep the commons as it is now to ensure we keep our local MP, but in the House of Lords I'd have, say, 100 members, and every % in the elections gets a party one member. It would then act as a counter weight to the Commons (rejecting or accepting legislation)

Can't see that working. The upper chamber would rightly be able to claim greater legitimacy than the lower chamber. Yet it is the lower chamber that is supposed to govern. We'd be having elections twice a year.

If anything it would make more sense to do it the other way round.

 

[free spirit]

What I don't get is this: Why would an immigrant stay somewhere there is no work?

Unskilled non-EU immigrants aren't going to be allowed at all (love that – now then, you, get yourself skilled up at some other country's expense before you even think about coming over here). So why would a skilled worker stay somewhere they could only get unskilled work? Where are these hordes of skilled workers who want to descend on Rhondda?

It's genius really, to come up with a repressive authoritarian solution to a problem that doesn't exist. And call yourself 'liberal' while doing it.

I'm pretty sure that's not right, the regional thing is mostly a response to the problems a lot of farmers have been having in getting enough unskilled temporary workers to work for them at harvest time in various parts of the country where there either isn't enough of a suitable workforce available locally, and/or the short term nature of the work makes it not worth it for locals to go through the hastle of signing off.

it would also mean that workers would not be tied to one sponsoring employer, thereby reducing the power of employers to exploit their migrant workers.

also, problem that doesn't exist... yeah right

 

[butchersapron]

What would be the thresholds for this referendum?

 

[free spirit]

Many work permits have the employer's name and address on them.

so, there'd still not be any additional rights for the police to stop and demand to see anyone's papers outside of the work place, so it's irrelevant what's on the papers.