Re: The Bigger, Badder, Even More Serious Thread [5]

[Pettytyrant101]

Something which tends not to make our Western news-

'According to the UN, at least 120 attacks by Israeli settlers have been documented in the occupied West Bank since the start of 2015.'

The latest atrocity-

'An 18-month-old Palestinian boy has burned to death after settlers set fire to his family house in Duma village, south of Nablus city, in the occupied West Bank.
The parents of Ali Saad Dawabsheh and his four-year-old brother were also injured in the attack, sources told Al Jazeera on Friday morning.
Up to 75 percent of their bodies suffered burns...Two Palestinian houses were burned at the entrance of the village with graffiti left on the walls, reading in Hebrew "revenge" and "long live Messiah"'- Al Jazerra

The Israeli government put out a strongly worded response-

'This attack against civilians is nothing short of a barbaric act of terrorism. A comprehensive investigation is under way in order to find the terrorists and bring them to justice," Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said in the statement.
"The [Israeli army] strongly condemns this deplorable attack and has heightened its efforts in the field to locate those responsible."- Al Jazeera

Shame then everyone knows the Israeli government has been unofficially supporting these extreme settlers for years and like the over 100 other attacks on Palestinians by Jewish settlers just this year alone it will go unpunished and not investigated and the murders will be treated like heroes by their own. And the West will continue to pretend this is not happening, continue not reporting on it and continue pouring money onto Israel to continue its illegal expansionism.

[halfwise]

Most of this aid comes from the US: all we need is a president with enough spine to tell Israel that funding is linked to pulling settlers out. They'd be yanked out lickety-split. Of course that president would never be re-elected but who cares.

[halfwise]

Lord Sewel of Gilcomstoun, 69, is said to have been recorded branding Mr Cameron "the most facile, superficial prime minister there's ever been" during the session with two £200-a-night prostitutes at his Dolphin Square flat in Westminster.

You sure you're not missing a zero there, Figgs? Around these parts you're lucky if 200 pounds would get you an hour.

[Pettytyrant101]

all we need is a president with enough spine to tell Israel that funding is linked to pulling settlers out.- Halfy

That seems like a very sensible policy- and therefore never going to happen.
It is odd and a huge double-standard though to hear the US condemn Putin and Russia's expansionism into eastern Ukraine whilst at the same time they fund and approve Israeli expansionism into Palestine (what's left of it).

[Mrs Figg]

Lord Sewel of Gilcomstoun, 69, is said to have been recorded branding Mr Cameron "the most facile, superficial prime minister there's ever been" during the session with two £200-a-night prostitutes at his Dolphin Square flat in Westminster.

You sure you're not missing a zero there, Figgs?  Around these parts you're lucky if 200 pounds would get you an hour.  

maybe they weren't qualified eel wranglers?

[Pettytyrant101]

Specialists are hard to find- almost as hard as lasses willing to scrub a barrel

[Pettytyrant101]

Something else people might not approve of so our government (of both shades) do in secret instead (and just imagine what it would be like under UKIP if this is what Labour an Tory have been doing!)-

'...two Home Office charter flights were set to deport hundreds of men to West Africa, on the evening of the 28th...
...The people being deported are people who, for various reasons, have been denied the right to stay in the UK. They could be asylum seekers whose claims have been refused, people who were living and working in Britain without the correct documentation, or people with overseas citizenship who committed criminal offences and were being deported at the end of their sentence. The Home Office has run over 800 such flights since 2001...
....Between 2001 and March 2014, around 30,000 people were deported from the UK via secret flights....some will have been living in the UK since childhood. Others might never have set foot in the country to which they are being deported.... According to Glasgow Unity Centre, tonight's flight will be stopping in Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone & Gabon.....Some of the men on the flight are being made to leave behind partners and children. Women are deported, too.....It's also difficult to know if the deportees have been given due legal process. A key element of the government's immigration detention system was recently found by the High Court to be so "structurally unfair" as to be unlawful.....The deportees were escorted by guards employed by a private security company that is contracted by the Home Office to handle deportations. An inquest found a culture of "pervasive racism" among company employees.- The New Statesman

[Mrs Figg]

I don't get the problem. they are being sent home because they have been refused permission to stay, like all other countries do to illegal immigrants. At least they got to stay in a hotel with spending money and gym memberships beforehand.

[Pettytyrant101]

They are flown out in the dead of night in secret using a security firm with a record of racism after a legal process descried by the High Court as 'so "structurally unfair" as to be unlawful'.

I don't think this is a good thing- if its all above board why is it being done in secret? Since when did we become a people who think its ok for the government to sneak people out the country without proper due process and in secret?

[Mrs Figg]

whats the definition of secret? is it 'secret' because someone with an angle says it is. they also transport criminals in special flights because they cant be put on normal daytime flights because of security risks.

[Pettytyrant101]

Not telling anyone. It having to be uncovered by journalists. It not being discussed or debated in the Commons or any Committee Hearings. I'd say that's what makes it secret.

And if the legal process is as flawed as it sounds we cant be at all certain those people deserve to be deported and aren't just being thrown out to reduce the umbers behind the scenes and out the public eye- which is what it looks like.
We cant be splitting up families and the like unless we are certain its the right, legal and moral thing to do.

[Mrs Figg]

they don't need to tell anyone, this is non of anyones beeswax, its between the state and the illegal immigrants, its not something we are party to. other countries don't even let people over the border to start with and when they do find them send them to concentration camps on exotic islands. we don't do that, we send them home, the place of their birth, hardly a secret. while they are in the UK they have rights, I don't think this is a case of abuse of power.

[Pettytyrant101]

they don't need to tell anyone...this is non of anyones beeswax- Figg

Yes the do have to tell someone, the public, we are supposed to have an open democratic parliamentary chamber- the Commons, and a whole raft of Committees for scrutinising just this sort of thing- yet I've been searching Hansard and cant find a mention of it anywhere meaning it has never been debated, which means the legal representatives of the people, the MP's have not had any chance to challenge or have input on this practise.

And of course its our beeswax, they are human beings.
I dont care if other countries throw their immigrants off the end of the pier- its not what we should be doing.
I find Englands underlying racism troublesome enough, but I find this lack of empathy and compassion for migrants as fellow human beings even worse.

'the place of their birth'- Figg

Except some of them have never set foot there in their adult lives and have been living in the UK since childhoods illegally.
And we have no way of knowing if the right people are being sent, or even if they are guilty of anything as the highest legal authority in the UK, the High Court, has found the process so biased against immigrants it may be outright illegal- but as its done in secret with no debate we don't know- and when its peoples lives you are dealing with we cant be making those decisions on a flawed system and where we don't know.

'I don't think this is a case of abuse of power.'- Figg

I think its a clear abuse of power- done in secret, no oversight, a flawed legal system determining who it happens to, and a company hired with a proven history of racism to carry it out.

[azriel]

Yes, Petty, your right in my view BUT, Abuse of power will never fade away. Its like a virus that grows & there is no antibiotics for it, no cure. MAN is the cure. But who wants to be a latter day Robin Hood when there's no "merry men " to stand beside you ?? The system is grossly flawed, as is so many things in just this country alone.

[Mrs Figg]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8570639/102-foreign-criminals-and-illegal-immigrants-we-cant-deport.html

102 foreign criminals and illegal immigrants we can't deport

More than 100 foreign criminals and illegal immigrants have beaten deportation under controversial “right to family life” laws in the past year.
For the first time The Sunday Telegraph can disclose how scores of people the Government wanted to remove from the country have been able to stay by claiming that they had a “family life” here under Article Eight of the European Convention of Human Rights.


A total of 102 people defeated the Home Secretary in the courts in 2010 on family rights grounds, including violent criminals and illegal immigrants who had no other right to be in the country.

None claimed that they would be in danger of torture or abuse if they were sent home.

It can also be disclosed that one foreign criminal who used Article Eight was a violent thug and drug dealer who beat his girlfriend and failed to pay child maintenance – but was still allowed to stay in a ruling made by three senior judges. Last night the figures fuelled the row over the use of the European Convention, which was passed into British law by the previous Labour government, and particularly Article Eight – the “right to private and family life”. Dominic Raab, the Conservative MP who obtained the figures, said: “Before the Human Rights Act, no criminal had ever claimed a right to family life to frustrate a deportation order in this country.
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, had ordered that the violent drug dealer, known only as AP because his identity was kept secret by the judges, should be sent back to Trinidad. Article Eight is the number one reason criminals or immigrants, who either entered Britain illegally or breached their visa conditions, managed to defeat deportation, the figures from HM Courts Service show.

There were 233 appeals against deportation in 2010, of which 149 were successful under human rights laws – 102 of them solely citing Article Eight.

Thirty-five were under Article Three, which protects people from being killed or tortured if returned to an unsafe country, and the rest used a mix of Articles.

Sir Andrew Green, the chairman of MigrationWatch, said: “We must find a new balance between the rights of individuals and the rights of the community, which appear to have no weight at all
A Nepalese killer, Rocky Gurung, allowed to remain here even though he was a single adult with no children, who lived with his parents.

 A Sri Lankan robber allowed to remain here because he has a girlfriend in Britain.

 An Iraqi killer who, it was ruled, should not be deported because he would be a risk to people in his homeland.

 A Bolivian man who avoided deportation partly because he had bought a pet cat.

Last week this newspaper disclosed how tens of thousands of asylum applicants had been allowed to remain

in Britain under the Home Office’s backlog-clearing exercise because officials feared that challenging any case with “family life” factors would be overturned in the courts, and lead to expensive legal actions.
The latest case, involving AP, will again raise concern about how judges are applying the law. From north London, he has a five-year-old daughter and “did not provide care for her ... nor provide any funds for her maintenance”, according to the court, but still won his fight to stay in Britain because of his “right to family life”.

[azriel]

Too many loop holes, too much play on words, Its like catching fish with a hockey stick. I would not hesitate to send back, to deport convicted OR known crims to their land of origin. The Iraqi guy ? shame, hes yours, deal with it ! So its ok to have killers, rapists, pimps, child perverts etc remain in this country cos Tiddles will miss them ? or is it ok to over load our prisons at peoples expense with foul murderers & the rest ? Government are snowed under & floundering, theyve lost grip & lost control. And yes, to me, it feels like the Royal Clan have buried themselves in Holyrood or Windsor or Osborn, anywhere away from the muck slinging for far too long.

[Pettytyrant101]

Corbyn- what I think is going on.

I reckon Corbyn is to England what the SNP were to cottland.

First I should be clear this has nothing to do with nationalism, I am talking bout UK level politics and General elections to the Westminster Parliament.

In the last UK general election the English electorate was faced with a rather unpalatable set of choices- The Conservatives, New Labour with watered down conservative policies, The Lib-Dems betrayers of promises and backers of the Conservative government, the Greens most of whose policies are pie in the sky and are by definition a single interest party despite their attempts top pretend otherwise, and UKIP, who appealed to less than expected.

Now if you don't like the Tories, or you weren't happy with the austerity led program in England then the main three choices were automatically out. Tories for obvious reasons, lib-dems as part of the austerity government, and Labour for backing the Tory austerity plan. Vote for any of them and you get the same thing.
That just left out the main parties Ukip and the Greens. The Greens had a poor leader who did not come over well and was Australian, that might sound racist but at a general election for who will lead Britain having an Australian sounds odd to folk right or wrong. And many of their policies, particularly on the economy don't stack up well and most people are unaware what they even are.
That left UKIP- but then you have to be in favour of exiting the EU_ and in England that's a majority, but not that big a one, but you also have to go along with the unsavoury element that seems to haunt UKIP; its often barely concealed racism and sexism. They got the protest vote yes, but too many were put off by their other associations for them to get a huge swing that would make a difference.
The pollsters got the election result wrong not because people lied to them, they told them who they would like to vote for, its just on the day thats not who they did vote for because why vote for reluctant light blue Labour when you may as well have the committed full blue Tory.

Now in Scotland the situation was exactly the same, Scottish Labour don't come into it, disaster they were and are, as this was a national election and we Scots have got quite used to voting in different elections to different parliaments, the options among the main parties were exactly therefore the same as in England with one exception, the SNP.

And for the people of Scotland the SNP did not come with the baggage of UKIP, unlike any possible English protest option we knew how the SNP would act in government, we elected them twice to govern us. And with Sturgeon making it absolutely clear to all and sundry that the election was not about independence or a mandate for another referendum (and its testimony to folks trust here in the SNP that they believed her, and yet again the party has stuck to its word) the only remaining obstacle for some folk making their protest with the SNP was gone- the result was a landslide taking 40 of the 41 available seats and decimating Labours and Lib-Dem heartlands.

So, back to Corbyn. A Corbyn led Labour party might not be in quite the tried and tested position of the SNP, but he has removed many of the barriers for voting Labour by standing for something distinct and recognisably from the left of politics- in other words a plausible sounding alternative. Which at heart is what the SNP offered Scotland.

So what do I think is behind the Corbyn swing? The same thing behind the SNP swing. Before Corbyn all the options looked like different shades of the same blue colour, now they don't and England has a new option to vote for that is definitely not Tory and doesn't have the dark clouds hanging over its character that UKIP bears.
This is why Parliamentary Labour are having fits over the possibility he might win and cant believe it could happen, and the grass roots are turning out in droves to hear him speak. I've seen this before in town halls all across Scotland, people re-engaging with politics, using modern means and media to discuss, debate, promote ideas. I have a sneaky suspicion Corbyn will win and win clearly on the membership side of the vote, and if that happens and its as significant an effect as the SNP in Scotland, then the Parliamentary party cannot continue in their Blairism in the face of such a grassroots rebellion.

If Corbyn does win things could get very interesting in the UK.

[Mrs Figg]

I think it boils down to this. the other 3 candidates are boring grey urban nonentities. Corbyn stands out, people like eccentrics in jumpers who look like they live in garden sheds, Corbyn is a protest vote against all the plastic facile spineless prats in politics today.

[Pettytyrant101]

the other 3 candidates are boring grey urban nonentities.- Figg

That's what I said! Just with a ton more sentences than required apparently

[Eldorion]

I'll admit I didn't follow the campaign super closely and while I was pretty sure the "Red Ed" moniker was typical tabloid nonsense, I did kinda thing (after the chorus of Labour insiders and media commentators criticizing Miliband for being too left-wing for England) that maybe he was in the more left-leaning part of the party.  A lot of people seemed to insinuate that David Miliband would have been more centrist.  I was just reading up on this more and came across an interesting Guardian piece on the subject that I hadn't seen before.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/13/ed-miliband-leftwing-labour-not-paying-attention

I suppose this is more a testament to the extent to which politics (at least in the Anglosphere) have swung to the right over the last 30-35 years that Miliband-Labour's proposals are considered "left wing" these days. Either that or it was always just a slur that too few people bothered to challenge, possibly because Labour itself hoped the misconception would fire up its base.

[Mrs Figg]

the other 3 candidates are boring grey urban nonentities.- Figg

That's what I said! Just with a ton more sentences than required apparently  

[Pettytyrant101]

Good to see the SNP yet again doing exactly what they said they would- act as the official opposition in the Commons and work with other progressive parties.
Today the SNP had a full days debate where they could choose the agenda, instead of going on their planned agenda however they changed it for one on the refugee crisis and are working with all other opposition parties to do so-
T
he SNP is leading a further House of Commons debate on Britain's response to the refugee crisis in Europe.
They have the backing of Labour's front bench as they press a cross-party motion condemning the UK government's failure to provide more support.
It is the second debate in two days, but this one will place Tory ministers under more pressure, with the opposition parties united and the likelihood of a vote at the end.
The motion is signed by senior SNP and Labour frontbenchers as well as the leaders of the Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and the SDLP.
Ahead of the debate, Mr Robertson said: "It is great to have a cross-party effort for increasing support for refugees who are in such a position of total extremity.
"The message to the prime minister and his government colleagues is clear, the UK must do more to support those affected by this horrendous crisis."
Labour's shadow Scottish Secretary, Ian Murray MP, said: "The government's response to the refugee crisis has not gone far enough.
"The debate today gives us another opportunity, following Labour's emergency debate yesterday, to push the government to take further action to help refugees fleeing from war and persecution.
"The opposition in the House of Commons will speak with one voice on the refugee crisis, and Labour will support the SNP's motion."- BBC

This why the SNP keep getting elected in Scotland- they tell you what they will do and then the buggers only go and try and do it! Its not like politics at all.

[Mrs Figg]

Lets hope they argue for all the immigrants going to live in Scotland. you want em, you take em.

[Pettytyrant101]

You may not have noticed but the SNP position is backed by every other major UK parliamentary party- this is not a SNP debate, its a united opposition debate the SNP gave up their days debate to allow to happen.
And Sturgeon announced before Cameron had said anything that Scotland would take refugees, and since the announcement she has said Scotland can and should take more than Cameron is proposing.

The SNP called for, and also got days ago, a cross ministry-cross council committee set up to have coordinated response between government and local government about housing and taking care of and most importantly funding the refugee crisis.
These are not economic migrants, they are fleeing war, have lost everything they ever had and under the imminent threat of death, thousands upon thousands of them are war orphans travelling alone. We have to help, simple as that, we have to find a way or we are not worth shit.

[Mrs Figg]

its emotional knee-jerking. Yvette is on cynical electioneering mode and she would look more sincere if she hadn't spoken up a couple of days before the vote. ditto the SNP and their finger wagging meddling. as soon as the reality hits people they will change their tune.