Cameron: "Cuts will change our way of life"

[xerxes]

A others have said, Boris is no fool.

 

He is also likely to be the standard bearer for those who want an EU exit, which cleverly neutralises Farage.

[lifetime fan]

Get rid of the fucking lot.

 

You either have a fully elected second chamber or nothing.

 

Any excuse to get rid of the religious fruit loops, hereditary cunts (sorry I mean peers) and gravy train suckers like Prescott is a great incentive to me.

[lifetime fan]

Only after you've got rid of the biggest bunch of parasitic cunts in this country, the monarchy.

[Strontium]

Just seen the headline there on the BBC sidebar, "Brady and Rose among new life peers".

 

Treatment of murderers just keeps getting cushier and cushier, doesn't it?

[Dr Nowt]

Hahaha!

[lifetime fan]

Just seen the headline there on the BBC sidebar, "Brady and Rose among new life peers".

 

Treatment of murderers just keeps getting cushier and cushier, doesn't it?

Bloody liberals.

[Bobby Hundreds]

This House of Lords.... It's gotta go. All titles this whole bloody system of aristocracy, the royal family the ruling class, it's got to go. Fuck tradition fuck the idea "but it attracts tourist" we don't need to knock down the buildings just get the fuckers that inhabit them out. None of this Etonian Oxbridge shite constantly making lives better for their own interests whilst smashing the shit out of services and people that don't enter their realm of reality.

 

They see tax payers money and like farmers of old using irrigation to direct the water to nourish the crop, they want that money directed in every way possible towards their own interests and goals. Their decisions aren't made to help a country they are made to help a minority and they use the media they own to tell us it's in our interest. Fuck them. Fuck the people they decide to give peerages too to keep a foothold. Britain is as corrupt as any nation on earth they are just so much better at hiding it using the media to convince us that people have to live in poverty otherwise we wouldn't be able to attract all these billionaires woo hoo.

 

It's entirely about money when these Tory politician fucks see sick children they don't think how can we help they think there's money to be made here.

[KopOut]

I read somewhere that The Queen costs the British taxpayer about 60 pence a head. Thats not bad for a Head Of State.

 

You dont want a fucking President, surely?

[Section_31]

We should have an emperor but he should have to work for his money, maybe one day a week doing plumbing on social housing. He could arrive with a full honour guard the put his arm down your bog and you could get a selfie with him.

[VladimirIlyich]

I read somewhere that The Queen costs the British taxpayer about 60 pence a head. Thats not bad for a Head Of State.

 

You dont want a fucking President, surely?

Why do we need either?

[Stu Monty]

I read somewhere that The Queen costs the British taxpayer about 60 pence a head. Thats not bad for a Head Of State.

 

You dont want a fucking President, surely?

Was it a post by Rico?

 

The school of breaking things down until you get a big number to sound like lots of little numbers.

[Skidfingers McGonical]

We should have an emperor but he should have to work for his money, maybe one day a week doing plumbing on social housing. He could arrive with a full honour guard the put his arm down your bog and you could get a selfie with him.

Well the future king gets himself a job but decided to donate all his money to charity. Could have stopped sponging of the state and paid his way like.

[Jairzinho]

Can't post the article as the computer I'm on is a bad spaz and won't let me copy and paste anything.

 

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/09/former-nhs-carers-intensify-strike-over-pay

[Sugar Ape]

Fifty carers for the disabled are staging one of the longest strikes in the history of the health service to secure a living wage for staff working in privatised services formerly run by the NHS.

 

In a crucial vote on Monday, the support workers are expected to back plans to "extend and intensify" action that has already seen them withdraw their labour and sacrifice their salaries for nearly seven weeks.

 

Care UK, whose former chairman Lord Nash is now a government minister, took over services for people with severe learning disabilities in Doncaster, south Yorkshire, this year, cutting wages of staff who had been on NHS terms by up to 35% while bringing in 100 new workers on £7 an hour.

 

In an attempt to rewind a national trend for the de-skilling and the imposition of low wages in social care, the strikers, a majority of whom were transferred from the NHS to Care UK, are demanding a living wage of £7.65 for their poorest-paid colleagues.

 

They are also asking for a basic wage rise for better-paid experienced staff, whom they say have been left in dire financial straits by Care UK's decision to cut their hourly rates for working weekends, bank holidays and nights. The standoff between the workers and Care UK, which took over the contract from the NHS last September, is likely to become a rallying point for growing concerns about the outsourcing of health and social care.

 

In 1993 only 5% of publicly-funded social care given to people in their own homes was provided by the private sector. Today that has grown to 89%, as local authorities seek to cut costs. Ray James, deputy director of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, agreed that the public sector struggled to compete with the lower labour costs of the private sector.

 

Care UK reports in its latest accounts that public funds accounted for 88% of the company's revenues in the year ending September 2013. Yet it also admits to using "tax-efficient" financial structures involving the Channel Islands. Its sister company, Silver Sea, is domiciled in low-tax Luxembourg.

 

Care UK has not paid a penny in corporation tax since it was bought by the private equity firm Bridgepoint Capital in 2010.

 

Dave Prentis, general secretary at Unison, the public sector union organising the strike, said: "Damaging government policies are starving local councils of the funding needed to deliver vital local services. The dispute with Care UK is a result of Doncaster council's cost-cutting contract and private-sector greed. The result is damaging the service to vulnerable people and hitting the pay and conditions of the workforce, leaving them struggling to make ends meet."

 

Care UK won the supported living contract from the council after telling officials that it could deliver it for £6.7m over three years. Yet the wage bill alone for the service was £7m.

 

Richard Murphy, a chartered accountant and anti-poverty campaigner who has analysed Care UK's business model for another union, Unite, said he recognised similarities with all the major private equity-backed care firms.

 

He said: "They often win contracts on the basis of making losses or small profits. At the same time they are putting in place what look to be tax-driven structures that are designed to mitigate taxes on profits. I believe that what a lot of these companies are trying to do is to undermine any chance that an NHS organisation can win contracts.

 

"Once they have squeezed out the state sector, and the third sector, we will then see prices rise; then we will see profits; then we will see these tax-efficient structures working."

 

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said he was concerned that the privatisation of social care would be copied in the wider health service following the government's reforms to encourage competition between health providers. He said: "Since the government's health act came in to force, 70% of health services put out to tender have gone to the private sector."

 

A spokesman for Bridgepoint said that Care UK paid its due tax in the UK and that the domicility of Silver Sea was "a structure used for the vast majority of real estate transactions in the UK".

 

Chris Hindle, director of learning disability services at Care UK, said it was untrue to claim that his company was offering cut-price contracts to undermine the NHS. He said that Doncaster council set the budget ceiling and that it had only beaten the offer of the previous NHS service provider by a small margin.

 

The previous longest strike in the health service was 80 days by 600 ancillary workers in hospitals in Dudley, West Midlands, protesting against plans to transfer them from the NHS to a PFI scheme.

[lifetime fan]

Doncaster care workers set to intensify strike in fight for living wage

Fifty carers for disabled began action nearly seven weeks ago after firm took over NHS service and reduced pay by up to 35%

 

Fifty carers for the disabled are staging one of the longest strikes in the history of the health service to secure a living wage for staff working in privatised services formerly run by the NHS.

 

In a crucial vote on Monday, the support workers are expected to back plans to "extend and intensify" action that has already seen them withdraw their labour and sacrifice their salaries for nearly seven weeks.

 

Care UK, whose former chairman Lord Nash is now a government minister, took over services for people with severe learning disabilities in Doncaster, south Yorkshire, this year, cutting wages of staff who had been on NHS terms by up to 35% while bringing in 100 new workers on £7 an hour.

 

In an attempt to rewind a national trend for the de-skilling and the imposition of low wages in social care, the strikers, a majority of whom were transferred from the NHS to Care UK, are demanding a living wage of £7.65 for their poorest-paid colleagues.

 

They are also asking for a basic wage rise for better-paid experienced staff, whom they say have been left in dire financial straits by Care UK's decision to cut their hourly rates for working weekends, bank holidays and nights. The standoff between the workers and Care UK, which took over the contract from the NHS last September, is likely to become a rallying point for growing concerns about the outsourcing of health and social care.

 

In 1993 only 5% of publicly-funded social care given to people in their own homes was provided by the private sector. Today that has grown to 89%, as local authorities seek to cut costs. Ray James, deputy director of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, agreed that the public sector struggled to compete with the lower labour costs of the private sector.

 

Care UK reports in its latest accounts that public funds accounted for 88% of the company's revenues in the year ending September 2013. Yet it also admits to using "tax-efficient" financial structures involving the Channel Islands. Its sister company, Silver Sea, is domiciled in low-tax Luxembourg.

 

Care UK has not paid a penny in corporation tax since it was bought by the private equity firm Bridgepoint Capital in 2010.

 

Dave Prentis, general secretary at Unison, the public sector union organising the strike, said: "Damaging government policies are starving local councils of the funding needed to deliver vital local services. The dispute with Care UK is a result of Doncaster council's cost-cutting contract and private-sector greed. The result is damaging the service to vulnerable people and hitting the pay and conditions of the workforce, leaving them struggling to make ends meet."

 

Care UK won the supported living contract from the council after telling officials that it could deliver it for £6.7m over three years. Yet the wage bill alone for the service was £7m.

 

Richard Murphy, a chartered accountant and anti-poverty campaigner who has analysed Care UK's business model for another union, Unite, said he recognised similarities with all the major private equity-backed care firms.

 

He said: "They often win contracts on the basis of making losses or small profits. At the same time they are putting in place what look to be tax-driven structures that are designed to mitigate taxes on profits. I believe that what a lot of these companies are trying to do is to undermine any chance that an NHS organisation can win contracts.

 

"Once they have squeezed out the state sector, and the third sector, we will then see prices rise; then we will see profits; then we will see these tax-efficient structures working."

 

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said he was concerned that the privatisation of social care would be copied in the wider health service following the government's reforms to encourage competition between health providers. He said: "Since the government's health act came in to force, 70% of health services put out to tender have gone to the private sector."

 

A spokesman for Bridgepoint said that Care UK paid its due tax in the UK and that the domicility of Silver Sea was "a structure used for the vast majority of real estate transactions in the UK".

 

Chris Hindle, director of learning disability services at Care UK, said it was untrue to claim that his company was offering cut-price contracts to undermine the NHS. He said that Doncaster council set the budget ceiling and that it had only beaten the offer of the previous NHS service provider by a small margin.

 

The previous longest strike in the health service was 80 days by 600 ancillary workers in hospitals in Dudley, West Midlands, protesting against plans to transfer them from the NHS to a PFI scheme.

[Jairzinho]

Ta, lads.

[Sugar Ape]

Fucking cunts. You can expect to see a lot more of this.

[Jairzinho]

There was a good comment on that article where someone had listed all the donations to the Tory party from various private firms. As if by magic these same people were then getting contracts for the bits of the NHS that are being privatised.

 

Democracy.

[Strontium]

Care UK won the supported living contract from the council after telling officials that it could deliver it for £6.7m over three years. Yet the wage bill alone for the service was £7m.

 

So it's Doncaster Council's fault, then, for choosing the wrong option.

 

This is why council elections matter.

[dennis tooth]

So it's Doncaster Council's fault, then, for choosing the wrong option.

 

This is why council elections matter.

 

But you are in favour of devolving more of the NHS work out to private bidders. Your post however suggests you are aware that the majority of people would not have voted for devolving more work out to the private sector had they been arsed. Which for someone who claims to believe in democracy, knowing something is not wanted by people but being in favour of it is extremely hypocritical but its ok as we all know you demonstrate one thing consistently no matter how much you disagree you dont believe in democracy at all, you think democracies should be bombed and all that vote in it, and that if its not voted for the government should implement it with no mandate from the people or warning, if it suits the banks, Isreal, the USA, keeping the oil flowing, getting the LIb dems in power or any other powerful interest then you are categorically against democracy.

[Ginny]

I read somewhere that The Queen costs the British taxpayer about 60 pence a head. Thats not bad for a Head Of State.

 

You dont want a fucking President, surely?

 

I would at least like to have an elected Head of State were anyone can be eligible for the post and just through bloodline. The whole royal family has got to go. I couldn't give a fuck how much money it brings into the country. Get rid now. Wearing robes and crown and driving around in horse drawn carriages - i can't believe that we still have a monarchy. They must be pissing themselves laughing at us that they've managed to get away with it for so long. We are slaves - they are rulers. We are ruled in this country whether you choose to believe it or not. 

[Scooby Dudek]

Taken from one of the replies;

 

Alan Milburn was Labour Health Secretary whose mantra was privatise privatise privatise and guess what ... he is on the Board of Bridgepoint Capital.

 

http://www.bridgepoint.eu/en/our-team/alan-milburn/

 

 

 

The dice really are loaded. 

 

I found this quote from Fran Lebowitz before;

 

In the Soviet Union, capitalism triumphed over communism. In this country, capitalism triumphed over democracy.
 

[Skidfingers McGonical]

There was a good comment on that article where someone had listed all the donations to the Tory party from various private firms. As if by magic these same people were then getting contracts for the bits of the NHS that are being privatised.

 

Democracy.

Been banging this drum for ages. It's never about the best provider of a service anymore.

[Jairzinho]

The amount of lobbying from the private sector renders our "democracy" utterly meaningless. When Ladbrokes, Betfred, and William Hill give thousands to the Tory party and call for a reduction in their tax (not that many of them pay much in this country), despite the fact the presence of these cunts on every fucking street in the country, and their shift from traditional sports betting towards FOBTs (financial rapists of the poor), is already having enormously detrimental effect on the lives of hundreds of thousands, probably millions of people, I wonder what the outcome will be?

 

The Tory party took over six and a half million quid in donations for the first quarter of this year. Most of it from hedge fund managers. That's just the party, it doesn't include what has been paid to the top gimps. The financial sector, the NHS, education, food, energy, the essential aspects of the population controlled by the few, for the few, prioritising irrelevant extra riches (once you're a billionaire does it fucking matter if you become one million richer or poorer in a month), over the majority's ability to live any sort of life worth living.

[Bobby Hundreds]

An article in the daily mail mentioned that great peter finch scene "I'm as mad as hell" unfortunately it was mentioned because some daft cow thinks we should have an uprising over the inconvenience of dealing with utilities over the phone. The world can't get mad at horror its rage is confined to message boards and comments sections. I'm guilty as hell. People want change but no one will vote for it, it will be labour or the Tories. I could mention politics to my mates and family and I reckon 80 percent of them don't give two shits, they won't vote they live pay check to paycheck in a self contained bubble and all that matters its whats inside that bubble until its popped. People react or take notice when its too late, the signs could be every 10 metres and they will still ride head first into disaster. Its scary what we allow to happen, its scary how protected we have made people of power and how much power we let them have. Its scary how unaccountable they are and how they mps can make mistakes that cost billions, ruin the quality of life for millions and even cause death on a large scale and all they have to say is lessons will be learnt and carry on regardless always protected, future secure, safe in the knowledge every decision they made was made in their own interest. They will be looked after.

 

With all the lobbying, with all the vested interests of those in politics and those with titles, when decision after decision is made against the will of the people how can we call this a democracy, its been taken over, its as corrupted as any other. Will there be a breaking a point, a day when people say enough is enough of this shit, you have manipulated and twisted society for too long, you have taken the great and defaced it for profit above all. I'm sick of this country I'm sick of it because its as close and as capable of any at being so much more. Im sick of the news.