'Jeremy Corbyn asks about the destruction of the landing cards of "a generation of Commonwealth citizens". This was carried out by the Home Office in 2010, when Theresa May was home secretary.The prime minister says "the decision was taken in 2009 under a Labour government".'
Missing ballot papers in Labour leadership contest trigger call from one contender to delay the result by THREE daysThe Labour Party as incompetent as always.
EXCLUSIVE: Leadership campaign team furious at delays to ballot papers
Senior former Cabinet ministers among those still unable to vote
Ballot is due to close at noon on Thursday with the result out on Saturday
Call for voting to continue for 72 hours with leader named next Tuesday
'Voters rejected Labour because they perceived the Party as anti-austerity lite. 58% agree that, 'we must live within our means so cutting the deficit is the top priority'. Just 16% disagree. Almost all Tories and a majority of Lib Dems and Ukip voters agree.Amongst working class C2DE voters 54% agree and 15% disagree. Labour voters are evenly divided; 32% agree compared to 34% who disagree.'
'Gordon Brown - who employed Ed Miliband and Ed Balls as advisers during his years as chancellor - is often accused by opponents of selling off Britain's gold reserves far too cheaply.The article about today's PMQs is here. The whole truth is rarely to be found on the BBC anywhere.
He decided to dispose of almost 400 tonnes of gold between 1999 and 2002 - the majority of Britain's reserves - for between $256 and $296 an ounce, only to watch it soar up to $1,615 per ounce.'
'I have been "banging on" for some years now about the upcoming shortage in power generation in the UK and the resulting power cuts. My warnings, like those re houses being over valued, were met with the usual "oh it's NotaSheep being his usual pessimistic self". This morning The Telegraph reports that:
"Britain is facing the prospect of widespread power cuts for the first time since the 1970s, government projections show.The way that this Labour government delayed making any decisions on power generation and have still failed to replace old generating capacity with new reliable generating capacity - wind power is not a reliable source of power - is frankly not just disgraceful but criminal. One of the many investigations that an incoming Conservative government will have to hold, will be into this neglect of the nation's power generating capacity; charges may have to be laid against "responsible" ministers.
Demand for power from homes and businesses will exceed supply from the national grid within eight years, according to official figures.
...
The gap between Britain’s energy needs and demand throws fresh doubt on the Government’s assertion that renewable energy can make up for dwindling nuclear and coal capabilities.
Over the next 10 years, one third of Britain’s power-generating capacity needs to be replaced with cleaner fuels. But last night the Conservatives said that Labour had refused to face up to the problem.
The admission that Britain will face power-cuts is contained in a document that accompanied the Government’s Low Carbon Transition Plan, which was launched in July.
Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, outlined the plan amid much fanfare.
Under the plan, 40 per cent of the UK’s electricity will need to come from low-carbon energy sources including clean coal, nuclear and renewables.
Accompanying the report is an appendix, only published online, which warns of power shortages. It details supplies and expected demand between now and 2030.
It highlights the first short-fall in 2017. The “energy unserved” level reaches 3000 megawatt hours per year.
That is the equivalent of the whole of the Nottingham area being without electricity for a day.
By 2025 the situation worsens with the shortfall hitting 7000 megawatt hours per year. That is the equivalent to an hour-long power cut for half of Britain. "
In the meantime, as I advised you last October:"BUY A GENERATOR...
To paraphrase Sir Edward Grey "The lamps will be going out all over Britain; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."
This government's eco-stupidity seems to know no bounds, unless this is just another piece of scorched earth politics."'
'Your experiment with austerity economics has failed on living standards, jobs and growth and on deficit reduction too – and the British people are paying the price for this failure.'Today I note that that left wing economic commentator Paul Mason in The Guardian writes:
'The argument that fiscal austerity would lead to deep recession or permanent stagnation has proved false. In part, this is because the austerity is back-loaded, with the heaviest cuts starting now. But the economy has also refused to behave as the doomiest predicted. People have clung to jobs, even at the cost of tolerating zero-hours contracts, wage cuts, pension raids and unpaid overtime.Maybe the headline is the best summary:
It is true that GDP per head is stagnating. It is also true that if you measure GDP against the retail price index, instead of the government-preferred CPI, it is flat. It's also true that growth is patchy regionally – not just between regions but even within small towns, as Rochdale shows. However, the headline GDP figure is important. If, in the next few quarters, its growth is sustained, the narrative of the government's critics on the left will have to change.
But sustaining the recovery is where the second political problem begins. Our last mini-recovery was choked off by inflation: real spending power shrank and growth went into reverse. This time there is more government money flowing through the credit system, through Help To Buy, and the funding for lending scheme – where the government underwrites bank lending risks. So this time the recovery may be able survive renewed inflation.'
Ed Balls and reality, now those are strange bedfellows.The economic recovery may be patchy, but the left is wrong to ignore itIt's not the same across the country, but there are signs of growth. The challenge for Labour is how to make the most of the new reality
'Labour has "massively failed" to get its case across to the public this summer, the party's former deputy leader Lord Prescott says.'No shit Sherlock
'I am a relatively streetwise Mr NotaSheep, but I try not to walk alone or with Mrs NotaSheep at night on London's streets. To be honest a lot of London's streets are probably unsafe in broad daylight. The gangs of feral youths that "own" the streets now know that the chances of a policeman catching them in the act of mugging a passerby are almost zero, the chances of any CCTV actually working or producing a decent image or not being used to take photos of cars parked six inches onto a yellow line or one minute into a proscribed period are also nil and even if caught the chances of being charged let alone convicted are somewhat slim and as for having to go to prison for more than six months, the odds are infinitesimal.
...
This Labour government tell us the country is safer than 10 years ago and Ken Livingstone tells us that crime is down in London. The trouble is, we know the truth and the truth is that the streets are more dangerous than 10 years ago and law-abiding people feel unsafe to walk 400 yards across the West End on a Saturday night after a meal out or a visit to the theatre, let alone pop out to buy a kebab in Peckham.Well it looks as though I was right, just a bit previous!
This Labour government have all but destroyed that which holds the fabric of society together and as the economy collapses this year the results on the street will not be pretty.'
