OK, you got me. I do love a bit of Sunday evening hyperbole.

I also love a bit of Sunday evening hyperbole. I love it more than oxygen.

Ah yes, the Sunday evening hyper Bolly

 

So for months, some Labour activists have been banging on about the Conservatives failing to declare their proper expenses during their election campaign and claiming that the election in those seats should be re-run. Some of them even asked for journalists to look into the expenses filed during the campaign for proof of overspending.

 

Well, those journalists went away, did their research, and...well, this is awkward...

 

Labour have been fined £20,000 for failing to declare over £100k worth of expenses during the 2015 election campaign, including the infamous "Ed Stone". I'm sure that those same Labour activists, in the spirit of fairness, will now demand that all Labour MPs resign so that the elections can be run on a level playing field.

 

(I should add that there are legitimate questions to be raised regarding the Conservatives' expenses. However, I do think it's funny to see the hypocrisy in action. Matthew 7:3 is springing to mind)

97K of that was wine expenses for Tyron.

 

20K seems a bit of a paltry penalty, but then it isn't the “knowingly or recklessly” illegitimate returns that 20 Conservative MPs are under investigation for. There is a likelihood of prison sentences for those Conservatives. *Bays for blood*

So for months, some Labour activists have been banging on about the Conservatives failing to declare their proper expenses during their election campaign and claiming that the election in those seats should be re-run. Some of them even asked for journalists to look into the expenses filed during the campaign for proof of overspending.

 

Well, those journalists went away, did their research, and...well, this is awkward...

 

Labour have been fined £20,000 for failing to declare over £100k worth of expenses during the 2015 election campaign, including the infamous "Ed Stone". I'm sure that those same Labour activists, in the spirit of fairness, will now demand that all Labour MPs resign so that the elections can be run on a level playing field.

 

(I should add that there are legitimate questions to be raised regarding the Conservatives' expenses. However, I do think it's funny to see the hypocrisy in action. Matthew 7:3 is springing to mind)

The £20K was on the national campaign. The accusations against the Tories involve spending at constituency level and, in some cases, would take them over the spending limit. That is a far more serious matter than Labour's offence.

A few questions for the Labour Party to answer from the Independent....

 

...cos if they don't they come over like lying hypocrites.

 

 

"Shami Chakrabarti and Jeremy Corbyn were the loudest critics of the Snooper’s Charter – but now theyre in power, they’ve gone quiet

Theresa May’s first attempt to spy on us began in 2012. Four years on, it looks as though she has finally ground Parliament into submission. No wonder voters are so cynical

 

Just six months ago, Shami Chakrabarti said the Government must ‘return to the drawing board’ on the Investigatory Powers Bill Getty

If you’re concerned there will be no opposition to Brexit, or that the Tories will abandon the Human Rights Act, or we face a militarised police by stealth, then frankly you should be very worried indeed. Britain is now a one party state and the people you expected to stand up for our fundamental liberties are absent on duty.

 

In the coming fortnight, the illiberal Investigatory Powers Bill will pass through Parliament, making it easier for the British Government to spy on citizens entirely innocent of any crime.

 

The bill will allow the Government to hand UK tech firms top-secret notices to hack their customers; the police will be able to look at your internet browsing history, and your personal data will be tied together so the state can find out if you’ve attended a protest, who your friends are, and where you live. The most authoritarian piece of spying legislation any democratic government has ever proposed has sped through Parliament with only a whimper of opposition.

 

What makes this all the more incredible is that some of the most prominent and respected voices for liberty will abstain from voting this draconian legislation down. The Investigatory Powers Bill, a Snooper’s Charter, is the canary in the coal mine for our diseased democracy.

 

 

What is the ‘Snoopers Charter’?

Shami Chakrabarti spent 13 years as Britain’s most prominent human rights defender. Just six months ago, she told the media that the Government “must return to the drawing board” with its illiberal Investigatory Powers Bill, because to do anything else would show “dangerous contempt for parliament, democracy and our country’s security”.

 

Jeremy Corbyn, in his column for the Morning Star, denounced the extension of state surveillance rushed through parliament two years ago, describing it as a “travesty of parliamentary democracy” and praising Liberty (then run by Shami Chakrabarti) for lobbying MPs to oppose it. Diane Abbott agreed, writing in June this year that this “Snoopers’ Charter will target minorities – and do nothing to make us safer”.

 

The Queen's Speech was the most illiberal for a generation

Abbott added: “My own privacy has been violated because of the political whims of unknown state officials, when they decided to monitor my emails, calls, texts, browsing history for years.”

 

Jeremy Corbyn was also put under surveillance, as was his fellow Labour politician Baroness Doreen Lawrence, who was spied on by the Metropolitan Police as she grieved for her son who had lost his life in a racist attack.

 

Shami Chakrabarti is now the shadow Attorney General, the law officer for Her Majesty’s Opposition. The two politicians who had been spied on, Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott, are now the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition and shadow Home Secretary, respectively.

 

You would think that given three of the most high-profile figures to oppose state snooping were now at the very top of the Labour Party, the opposition would be tearing the Government apart.

 

Not quite. Instead, it was announced yesterday that Labour would neither be tabling major amendments to the legislation in the House of Lords to make it fit for purpose, but – worse – nor would the party be voting against the new powers contained in the bill.

 

Chakrabarti is Labour’s law officer. Just months ago, the human rights group she ran argued that the “proposed new law breaches our human rights”. If this is the case, how on earth can she stay quiet while Labour abstains?

 

Theresa May is about to get away with the largest expansion of state surveillance powers in peacetime, and no one can quite explain why Labour politicians who have been spied upon still sit on the fence.

 

Across the Western world, faith in politicians from across the political spectrum is ebbing away. Instead, populists such as Donald Trump tell us the elites are lying and that politicians say one thing and do another. Yet when politicians who do genuinely oppose intrusive surveillance powers stay quiet in the face of draconian legislation, it feeds conspiracy theories that democracy is a fix.

 

If social democrats are too frightened to stand up for what they believe in, then why bother voting for them? Jeremy Corbyn was re-elected by Labour members who wanted to see the party change direction. It’s hard to see how giving the Tories a free pass to give the state unjustified powers is part of that mandate.

 

Labour has just weeks to get this legislation right. Chakrabarti, Corbyn and Abbott can with no good reason abstain – they must work with the Liberal Democrats, the SNP and independent members of the House of Lords to make amendments to remove some of the worst elements of this bill; from police access to our web browsing history through to the request filter (which is like a powerful search engine, except it can trawl through the data of innocent citizens). If they fail, it will embolden the Mayist Tories to continue their permanent revolution against liberty and liberals.

 

Theresa May’s first attempt at the Snooper’s Charter began in 2012. Four years on, it looks as though she has finally ground parliament into submission. If she wins this battle unopposed, you wonder which other freedoms we shall lose.

 

Mike Harris is the founder and director of 89up and the former head of advocacy at Index on Censorship"

just to underline how useless Corbyn is, official Labour Party policy is now to accept the sovereignty of Parliament is dead and buried and give the government a green light to do whatever they want to with regard to Brexit, no matter how much it harms the country, or voters.

 

The only English Party leader with decency and integrity and respect for the British Constitution and the wellbeing of the UK is Tim Farron.

 

Corbyn. Worst. Labour. Party. Leader. Ever. Clueless, harmful to our health, lazy, charmless, myopic, small-minded, hypocritical, waste of space. In his own way equally as bad as Theresa May, albeit for different reasons.

 

Democracy is really f***ed up in 2016....

 

 

 

 

http://speri.dept.shef.ac.uk/2016/12/01/th...g-labour-party/

 

This is interesting.

 

Every Labour shadow chancellor winds up with the same policy, one way or another. At least Balls actually believed it.

yes, interesting piece. It comes over as quite accurate in assessment...

Even Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn says the BBC are fake news.

 

 

Lefties turning on each other and the slow death of the BBC and Labour is a beautiful thing to see. New world order folks, :cheer:

Edited February 17, 20178 yr by PeaceMob

You'll lose eventually.

Pretty sure he'll be resigning in the next few months, once the rumours begin it's usually for a reason.

 

Also @PeaceMob, why are you cheering the slow death of the BBC? It's a tragedy what the Tories have done to it.

Even Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn says the BBC are fake news.

 

 

Lefties turning on each other and the slow death of the BBC and Labour is a beautiful thing to see. New world order folks, :cheer:

Aside from about a million other things, he didn't even accuse them of being fake news.

Pretty sure he'll be resigning in the next few months, once the rumours begin it's usually for a reason.

 

Also @PeaceMob, why are you cheering the slow death of the BBC? It's a tragedy what the Tories have done to it.

 

I actually didn't mind the BBC... until Brexit. Now they've shown their true colours, tbh I should have known really after the Savile scandal just how messed up the BBC really is. There's a growing development now from the British public to boycott paying their tv licence, even if that doesn't eventually happen then the rapid growth in people choosing to watch on media streaming instead like Netflix and Amazon Prime will finish off the BBC anyway.

I actually didn't mind the BBC... until Brexit. Now they've shown their true colours, tbh I should have known really after the Savile scandal just how messed up the BBC really is. There's a growing development now from the British public to boycott paying their tv licence, even if that doesn't eventually happen then the rapid growth in people choosing to watch on media streaming instead like Netflix and Amazon Prime will finish off the BBC anyway.

Yes, the BBC's reporting of the Leave campaign's lies without any comment was very frustrating.

Without the BBC, we'd be stuck with Sky News as the main platform in the UK which would be awful. I seriously hope the government blocks the purchase of Sky by 21st Century Fox. We do not need to be giving Rupert Murdoch more power over the media.

The government is in his pocket! No way that gets blocked, not without Vince Cable standing in the way.

Jeremy Corbyn has released his tax return, in an attempt to encourage other politicians to be more open about their own financial dealings.

 

However, it appears that the return has omitted the salary he earns for being Leader of The Opposition.

 

It looks like someone's sacking their accountant in the morning.

 

(Another interesting point that isn't mentioned in the story but I noticed on the tax return is that he's used his charitable donations to give himself a more generous lower tax band).

So yesterday Labour launched its campaign for the local elections ahead of next month's vote. Now you'd think that the best time to launch the campaign is when the press doesn't have anything else to concentrate on your party so that their full undivided attention is on you.

 

Well, you'd be wrong, because for reasons known only to themselves, they decided to launch their campaign the same day that the decision over Ken Livingstone's membership of Labour was to be made, meaning it was heavily overshadowed.

 

On top of this, Ken Livingstone, who was suspended for Labour for two years (one year of which he'd already served), went ahead and repeated his claim that Hitler was a Zionist straight afterwards, and a new investigation is to be opened into that. By this point you'd have thought that someone would take him to the side and say to him to stop talking about the whole Nazi thing, as it really doesn't reflect well upon himself.

 

In other news, there was this interesting article looking at the failure of Labour's social media usage. I guess it could be worse - they could have "Dr" Eoin in charge of it.