GRIMLY FIENDISH

Peter Hitchins is a fascist re****... That is all..... -_-

Indeed.... And they dont seem to realise that "Jesus" would probably be down with the protesters and camping out with them... :rolleyes:

Very true in everything you say, but you're describing the actions of the Catholic Church more than the C of E... I'm trying not to blur the lines here...

Exclusive: Cover-up at St Paul's http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-...ls-2377923.html Clerics suppress report on bankers' greed to save church embarrassment A highly critical report into the moral standards of bankers has been suppressed by St Paul's Cathedral amid fears that it would inflame tensions over the Occupy London tent protest. The report, based on a survey of 500 City workers who were asked whether they thought they were worth their lucrative salaries and bonuses, was due to be published last Thursday, the day that the Canon Chancellor of St Paul's, Giles Fraser, resigned in protest at the church's tough stance. But publication of the report, by the St Paul's Institute, has been delayed in an apparent acknowledgement that it would leave the impression that the cathedral was on the side of the protesters. The Independent on Sunday understands that the decision has upset a number of clergy, who hoped that the report would prove that the church was not detached from a financial crisis that had its heart yards from the cathedral itself. The decision will fuel the impression that the wider established church is attempting to stifle debate about the tent protest, as leading members of the Church of England, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, have failed to comment publicly about Occupy London. A spokesman for St Paul's Cathedral said: "It has been decided to delay publishing this report until further notice as it wouldn't get the proper debate it deserves in light of the present circumstances." The spokesman refused to comment what the report's findings were, but it is understood it raised profound concerns about the banking sector's willingness to accept responsibility for the financial crisis. Such a critical analysis, coming from the institute which is described as part of St Paul's Cathedral's "wider mission", would be seen as highly inflammatory at a time when the church is going to the High Court to attempt to remove 200 tents from its land. The report was the most ambitious in a series of assessments on the banking industry commissioned by the institute, which was set up to provide "an informed Christian response to the most urgent ethical and spiritual issues of our times". Dr Fraser, who resigned on Thursday over St Paul's hardline position against the protesters, is the director of the institute. He was unavailable for comment. It is understood that the decision to delay publication was taken by the Cathedral Chapter, but it did not play a part in Dr Fraser's resignation. A spokesman for the Bishop of London said the diocese was not aware of the report, and there is no suggestion that anyone beyond St Paul's has been involved in delaying its publication. Yet the apparent cover-up is the latest damaging revelation in the saga which has dented the Church of England's PR image. At a time when few senior church people are willing to come off the fence about the St Paul's protest, there is a danger with the withholding of this report that the church will be seen to be actively suppressing the sort of debate that many of its critics favour. The St Paul's Institute survey was due to be published on 27 October to mark the 25th anniversary of the "Big Bang", when the financial markets were deregulated in 1986. The Rev Andrew Studdert-Kennedy, the Rector of Marlborough, who produced a series of reports on the financial industry during a sabbatical at the institute in the summer, said he had been asked to write a piece accompanying the launch of the survey results. He said last night: "I can see why they chose not to publish the report last week. It was going to get swallowed up by the other things that were happening. I watched it all with absolute dismay. The thing that really bothers me is when people say the church should be engaging in these issues, because that is precisely what the institute was set up to do. It has done an enormous amount of work." Mr Studdert-Kennedy, who refused to comment directly on the survey findings, said he had been "astonished" by the attitudes some City workers displayed towards the financial crisis. He said: "I did speak to many people about morality. I was amazed by how many banking crises there had been and how sanguine people were about them. A number of people said 'this is just what happens – it's the nature of banking, it's the nature of capitalism'. "It's one thing having a historical perspective, but I was astonished that people didn't try to learn a bit more. There is a recognition that there is something wrong, but a reluctance to admit that they are part of the problem. They can be good at criticism but not so good at self-reform. What we have got there is so much that is human nature, related to how they behave in groups." He conceded that the publicity surrounding the camp had been "awful". He added: "There may have been a very good reason to close the doors, but the way it was going to be seen by the outside world was terrible. It looks as if the church has come down on one side of the argument and the protesters on the other." Yesterday, pressure mounted on the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and leading Church of England bishops to speak out about the continuing battle over the Occupy London camp. Dr Williams wrote what is understood to be a "supportive" letter to Dr Fraser when the latter resigned, but has refused to comment publicly. Besides the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, only two others, the suffragan bishops of Buckingham, Alan Wilson, and of Sherborne, Graham Kings, have commented on the continuing crisis. Over the past three days, The IoS asked 80 Anglican bishops to comment on the protest. Besides these three, 16 gave a direct no comment or insisted it was a matter for the London diocese; 18 were away or unavailable for comment, and the remainder failed to respond. Dr Wilson has accused St Paul's of a "hysterical over-reaction" to the protest. Dr Kings told the IoS that the "the PR could have been handled much better" over the saga, adding: "I do question stratospheric bonuses but I am not against capitalism itself." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Typical fence-sitting from the Church really... And it absolutely reeks of hypocrisy... They call themselves "Christians", but seem to gloss over the fact that Christ, in the Bible (you know, that book that this lot are actually supposed to believe in) is pretty clear on what he thinks about greed and money-lenders and the rich.... And yet, there's no definite opinion from the Church, or the Catholic Church either... And they seem to see absolutely no contradiction between what Jesus said in the Bible and their own playing around in the stock exchange... I see no reason for suppressing the publication of this report, the people questioned said what they said, no one forced their hand and told them what to say.. All it would really do is to confirm what most of us think about City bankers anyway, let's be honest... That they're detached from the reality of their actions, that they've no real conscience about what they do, that they dont really think that they're part of the problem.... Wooo, major revelations there..... I guess the next report is going to tell us the Pope's a Catholic.... As the Duke of Wellington once remarked - "Publish and be damned".....

Just remember to invest your money in gold and silver, undermine the Fiat currency markets.... ;)

:lol: :lol: :lol:

How does an economic lefty end up working for bloody Price Waterhouse Coopers then....? :lol: :lol:

Economic Left/Right: -6.62 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.23 Leftist Libertarian actually... Stalin would be Leftist Authoritarian and would likely be the first to send in the army against the Occupy Wall St protesters and the campers in St Pauls, whereas I've been very anti the Police action against the protesters. In fact, my views tie in mostly with Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama.... I think that's good company.... http://www.politicalcompass.org/printableg...2&soc=-5.23

...And, we even let the f/uckers get away with paying their taxes..... UK Uncut targets Goldman Sachs's £10m tax http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/oc...P=FBCNETTXT9038 Campaign group launches legal action after leaked documents reveal investment bankers' secret deal with HMRC The first steps have been taken in an innovative legal action by campaigners to try to recoup £10m in tax from Goldman Sachs. It follows the leaking of internal tax documents to the Guardian revealing that the US investment bankers avoided interest payments thanks to a secret deal with the head of HM Revenue & Customs. The campaigning group UK Uncut, which a year ago occupied Vodafone offices in protest at a similar alleged "sweetheart" tax deal by the mobile phone company, want the Goldman deal quashed. HMRC's top official, Dave Hartnett, has admitted to a parliamentary committee that the tax concession was a "mistake". The London law firm Leigh Day & Co has taken the formal first steps to mount a legal challenge to HMRC over the Goldman Sachs deal. UK Uncut supporters claim it was contrary to HMRC's own policies and therefore unlawful. The secret settlement that was reached between HMRC and Goldman Sachs in December 2010 saved up to £10m in interest on unpaid national insurance charges. Goldman Sachs had been trying to operate an ultimately unsuccessful avoidance scheme by paying huge bankers' bonuses offshore into so-called employee benefit trusts. The legal action will put further pressure on Hartnett, permanent secretary for tax, following the leaking of documents to the Guardian and Private Eye detailing how Hartnett "shook hands" on the deal. Before the internal memos were leaked, Hartnett had exasperated MPs on the Treasury and public accounts committees by refusing to release information on secret deals made with giant transnational corporations. After the leaking led to him being cross-questioned by MPs, Hartnett said he had arranged for the global head of tax for Goldman Sachs to fly in from New York for a London meeting he presided over, to repair what he said was a bad relationship between Goldman Sachs and the UK tax authorities. Under judicial review proceedings, UK Uncut's lawyers will eventually be able to demand disclosure of all internal documents regarding the process by which the agreement was reached to waive the interest Goldman Sachs owed. Jesse Norman, a Tory member of the Treasury committee, said Hartnett should resign after telling parliament that he did not deal with Goldman Sachs's tax affairs, which turned out to be untrue. Hartnett said that when he said he did not deal with Goldman Sachs he meant that he did not deal with its tax affairs every day. Murray Worthy from UK Uncut Legal Action said: "The government's top taxman appears to have secretly agreed to let a global investment bank off millions in tax, while ordinary people are paying for the massive £850bn bank bailout with their jobs, welfare payments, pensions and public services." He said most people would see this as "incredibly unfair". Richard Stein from Leigh Day & Co said: "If this was an error by a junior official then that is fine and it can be rectified through quashing this settlement. It must not be swept under the carpet or buried within oak-panelled rooms. It is money which should be contributing to all aspects of the country."

Directors' pay rose 50% in past year, says IDS report http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15487866 Pay for the directors of the UK's top businesses rose 50% over the past year, a pay research company has said. Incomes Data Services (IDS) said this took the average pay for a director of a FTSE 100 company to just short of £2.7m. The rise, covering salary, benefits and bonuses, was higher than that recorded for the main person running the company, the chief executive. Their pay rose by 43% over the year, according to the study. Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking in Australia, said the report was "concerning" and called for big companies to be more transparent when they decide executive pay. Labour leader Ed Miliband said the pay increases were part of a "something for nothing" culture, since the stock market had not risen to match them. A statement from IDS said that that figure suggested that "executive largesse is evenly spread across the board". Base salaries rose by just 3.2%, although that was above the median rise recorded by IDS this week for average pay settlements of 2.6% for private sector workers. The latest consumer price inflation figures showed inflation at 5.2%. Directors' bonus payments, on average, rose by 23% from £737,000 in 2010 to £906,000 this year. The Unite union has called executive pay "obscene" and has called for shareholders to be given more power to hold directors accountable. The union's general secretary, Len McCluskey said: "The Government should strongly consider giving shareholders greater legal powers to question and curb these excessive remuneration packages. "Institutional shareholders need to exercise much greater scrutiny and control of directors' pay and bonuses. "It's obscene and it shows that the City has learnt nothing during the financial troubles of the last four years." Highest paid chief executives 2010/11 'Complex' packages "I think it is very hard to justify these sorts of pay increases," Deborah Hargreaves, chair of the High Pay Commission, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "When you think the average pay is going up 1% or 2%, it's not even meeting price rises. These pay packages have become so complex that executives don't even understand it themselves. "We have got a closed shop here and someone needs to break it open." Brendan Barber, the TUC's general secretary, said: "Top directors have used tough business conditions to impose real wage cuts, which have hit people's living standards and the wider economy, but have shown no such restraint with their own pay. "Reform should start with employee representation on remuneration committees, which would give directors a much-needed sense of reality." Steve Tatton, who edited the IDS report, said: "Britain's economy may be struggling to return to pre-recession levels of output, but the same cannot be said of FTSE 100 directors' remuneration." Mr Tatton said that while closer scrutiny of pay awards was expected in future, "remuneration committees will have to make sure that they are able to provide full and thorough justifications for the bonuses awarded." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But, remember, David Ca-MORON said "WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER".... Sorry for continually repeating this, but really, can there be a more utterly hollow and downright intelligence-insulting sound-bite than this.... It's even worse than "EDUCATION EDUCATION EDUCATION", or "NO MORE BOOM AND BUST".... :rolleyes: But, I digress.... in a time when the middle is being squeezed, when people are experiencing pay freezes, below inflation rate pay "rises", and are expected to pay more into their pension and get less out, this is really just insult to injury.... Seriously, what f/ucking planet are these people on...? Oh, but they claim that they "take risks"... Really...? Rubbish... If their strategies fail, they blame the "business environment", if they're a bank, they'll get a bail-out courtesy of muggins the tax-payer, and, quite the opposite to being charged with fraud or corporate malfeasance, they'll happily waltz off with their gold-plated pensions seemingly totally immune from the consequences of the law; and if they're, say the Director General of the BBC or another public body, then they'll say "well, I need to be paid this amount to keep up with what the private sector is paying out"... It's all a SCAM... It's a lie... These people DO NOT JUSTIFY THEIR MASSIVELY INFLATED WAGE PACKETS.... For the 1% it's all upside and no downside... It's Socialism/Corporatism for the rich and Capitalism/the dog-eat-dog of the Market for the rest of us.... This is exactly the reason why the "Occupy..." protests are going on.... Hopefully Ca-MORON's words will haunt him to this grave... You know, like Neville Chamberlain's "piece of paper" from Hitler, or Margaret Twatcher's "there's no such thing as society"... NEVER FORGIVE NEVER FORGET NEVER TRUST A TORY.... <_<

Indeed... So, if anyone thought that this lot are gonna be any better than Ghadafi and Sons... Think again.... In fact, considering the NTC and NATO backed rebels just imposed Sharia Law, I think it just got worse.....

So, do you need anymore proof that we're backing a bunch of crazed Islamist Fundie psychopaths who are responsible for cold-blooded murder and torture......? Well, strap yourselves in and watch this stuff (WARNING - CONTAINS PRETTY DISTURBING IMAGES)..... http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-201...-after-capture/ http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/re...-gaddafi-sodomy Evidently it wasn't enough to beat and murder Quaddafi as a POW - or to showcase his body as a grisly and sadistic spectacle for 5 days in a shopping center. New video has emerged that clearly shows NATO rebels SODOMIZING a screaming Ghadafi with a bayonette as they chant 'Allahu Akbar' and fire their guns in the air. Evidently the NATO rebels who tortured and murdered Quaddafi belong to the self-named 'Purge Black Skins, Slave' bridge from Misurata, who have been accused of systematic ethnic cleansing and genocide of entire towns of black Libyans and African migrant workers. These are the people that NATO has militarily enthroned in Libya. That should tell you something about their real motivations and intentions. It sends a clear message - this is the fate that awaits all those who resist US/Western Hegemony. Never forgive and never forget... -_- http://somalilandpress.com/libya-rebels-ex...ap-others-20586 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/08/29/...n20099014.shtml (the above is for the evidence of Libyan "rebels" executing and persecuting black immigrants...)

And, basically, this is why the West couldn't afford Ghadafi going on trial in the Hague... The Man Who Knew Too Much http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011..._much?page=full Libyans may be celebrating the killing of Muammar al-Qaddafi, but you'd better believe that Western governments are breathing a sigh of relief themselves Whether the NATO countries -- who had only a few years ago welcomed Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi back into the international fold in exchange for his renouncing his chemical and nuclear weapons programs and allowing U.S. and British experts to come and help dismantle them -- played any role in what certainly appeared in first reports from the scene to have been the summary execution of the Libyan dictator will probably never be known. What the video evidence does prove is that the Libyan revolutionary forces did not find him already dead or killed by a NATO airstrike; nor does the initial claim that he was killed in "crossfire" between insurgent forces and diehard regime loyalists stand up to even the most minimal scrutiny. NATO does acknowledge that its planes bombarded the convoy in which Qaddafi was fleeing the city of Sirte shortly before it was intercepted on the ground by the insurgents, but it has denied it even knew he was there. If that is true, and the French, British, and Americans did not try to make their own luck, then they certainly were very lucky indeed. Qaddafi was, quite simply, a man who knew too much. Taken alive, he would have almost certainly have been handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which had indicted him -- along with his son, Saif al-Islam, and brother-in-law and military intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi (whereabouts unknown) -- for crimes against humanity in late June. Imagine the stir he would have made in The Hague. There, along with any number of fantasies and false accusations, he would almost certainly have revealed the extent of his intimate relations with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the details of his government's collaboration with Western intelligence services in counterterrorism, with the European Union in limiting migration from Libyan shores, and in the granting of major contracts to big Western oil and construction firms. He would have had much to tell, for this cooperation was extensive. In the war against the jihadis -- a war to which Qaddafi regularly claimed to be as committed to prosecuting as Washington, Paris, or London -- links between Libyan intelligence and the CIA were particularly strong, as an archive of secret documents unearthed by Human Rights Watch researchers has revealed. If anything, the CIA's British counterpart, MI6, was even more involved with the Qaddafi family. As the Guardian reported in early September, it was Sir Mark Allen, then the director of the counterterrorism section of MI6, the British overseas spying agency, who was the key figure on the Western side in the secret negotiations to get Qaddafi to give up his WMD programs. The Guardian story further laid out how, after failing to become director of MI6 in 2004, Allen went into the private sector, becoming a senior advisor to the Monitor Group, a consulting firm that was paid huge fees by Qaddafi to burnish his image around the world, and, while they were at it, helped Saif (who had been his father's initial envoy to MI6) research his PhD thesis for the London School of Economics (LSE). Allen was also an advisor to BP, helping the oil giant secure major contracts in Libya from the Qaddafi regime. The idea that Allen was the only senior Western official to establish such close ties with the Libyan dictator and his family is ludicrous. To the contrary, both the British and French governments were soon falling all over themselves to curry favor with a newly "respectable" Qaddafi. The Daily Mail reproduced a facsimile of the letter that, while prime minister, Tony Blair wrote to Saif Qaddafi to help him with his research for his LSE doctorate. Both during Blair's premiership and that of his successor, Gordon Brown, Britain aggressively pursued sales of military equipment, up to and including warships, to the Libyan regime, and sent members of the elite Special Air Service (SAS, the equivalent of the U.S. Delta Force) to help train Qaddafi's forces in counterterrorism tactics. Not to be outdone, Sarkozy, to the consternation even of many members of his own cabinet, invited Qaddafi to Paris in Dec. 2007, for an official state visit, the upshot of which was billions of dollars in contracts from Libya won by French firms. To be sure, when the Libyan uprising began, it was Sarkozy who was the driving force behind the NATO intervention that -- though it was ostensibly carrying out United Nations Security Council resolutions to protect Libyan civilians from Qaddafi and his forces under the new doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) -- soon far exceeded its mandate. The Libya intervention revealed itself to be based on the premise that, in Libya at least, R2P and regime change could be one and the same. Moreover, from the beginning of the air campaign, NATO warplanes repeatedly targeted Qaddafi, his sons, and their families. As early as May, General Sir David Richards, the chief of the British defense staff (that is, the equivalent of our head of the Joint Chiefs), told the Daily Telegraph that while NATO was not targeting Qaddafi directly, "If it happened that he was in a command and control center that was hit by NATO and he was killed, then that is within the rules." Many outside observers were convinced even at the time that NATO was in fact desperately hoping to kill Qaddafi since it was clear by then -- especially during a period when the tide seemed to shift back and forth between Qaddafi's forces and the rebels -- that he would not relinquish power, no matter what offers were made to him in exchange for doing so. Their suspicions were confirmed when a member of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, Congressman Mike Turner (R-Ohio), revealed that he had been told by Admiral Samuel Locklear, the U.S. officer commanding NATO's Joint Operations Command in Naples, Italy, that NATO forces actually were actively targeting Qaddafi. Qaddafi's death in such a strike would have offered a neat ending then for the West and for the Libyan insurgency, many of whose leaders, it should be remembered, served Qaddafi long and faithfully, enjoying his favors for much of their careers. Qaddafi certainly knew enough about their sins to make the prospect of what he might say during a trial before the ICC a cause for anxiety. His death, coming as it seems to have done, at the hands of Libyans rather than NATO, makes an even neater ending now. Qaddafi is dead, the Arab Spring has one more jewel in its crown, and the doctrine of humanitarian military intervention, whose reputation has rather faded of late, seems to have acquired a whole new bloom. The Arab masses thirsting for democracy, the Western powers using their power in support of this morally irreproachable goal -- what could be more edifying? And so, ever since it became clear that Qaddafi's reign was over, the great and the good have been indulging themselves in an orgy of self-congratulation. Qaddafi alive would have been the ghost at that particular banquet, threatening at any moment to spoil the fun. Dead, he poses no such threat. It is unlikely that even the thorough investigation into the circumstances of his death that has been called for by Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and seconded by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, will change this fundamental equation. And even if Qaddafi was not targeted and, as Omran al-Oweib, the electrical engineer-turned-rebel leader who commanded the forces that finally caught up with Qaddafi in a tunnel just outside Sirte, continues to insist, really was killed in a crossfire, leaders like Sarkozy, Blair, Brown, and the Bush State Department must surely be sleeping better these last few nights. Whether they deserve to is another question entirely.

Agreed.... All the "Financial Services" lot have really done is leverage everything totally up the "schwinng schwinng" (as Max Keiser would say) and exposed the tax-payer to trillions worth of bad debt that they created making bad bets and toxic derivatives, and now they want to "leverage" the food out of peoples' mouths ..

Yeah, but that's the thing we're clearly NOT "all in it together" (that phrase will continue to haunt David Sca-Moron for the rest of his days..) :lol: :lol: , so IMO, your union was rather foolish to accept a below inflation rate pay deal.... You dont have a pay-rise, you have a real terms pay cut because your spending power is decreased... Anyway, pensions are not the same thing as a pay deal or wages, you cant compare the two... And when you consider that employees are going to be forced to pay in more and get less out and now this, then, sorry, it becomes a pretty clear case of taking the piss.....

The average American probably still thinks Saddam Hussein planned 9/11..... :rolleyes:

Unions go to high court over public sector pensions reform http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/oct/2...P=FBCNETTXT9038 Judges asked to rule on whether ministers broke the law when they switched uprating of pensions and benefits to CPI as opposed to historically higher RPI Unions representing public sector staff are going to the high court to challenge the government's decision to change the way their pensions are calculated – a move they say will be unfair to millions of workers. Two groups are asking judges to rule that ministers broke the law when they decided to uprate pensions and benefits according to the consumer prices index (CPI), which historically has risen by a smaller amount each year than the retail prices index (RPI). One group is made up of the Fire Brigades Union, teachers' union NASUWT, the Prison Officers Association, the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), Unison and Unite, while the other consists of Prospect, the FDA, GMB, the Police Federation, the National Association of Retired Police Officers, and the Civil Service Pensioners' Alliance. If successful the action, which comes ahead of a planned strike on 30 November, could cost the Treasury £6bn in lost savings by the end of this parliament and £200bn over the next 40 years. The groups are acting on behalf of millions of public sector workers who have guaranteed defined-benefit pensions that, until April, rose in line with RPI. Once they retire, those workers can now expect to see their pensions lose their value at a faster pace than they previously would. Last month, the CPI measure of inflation was 5.2% compared with 5.6% for RPI. The unions say that CPI is about 1.2% lower on average than RPI, and the loss to existing public sector pensioners will be about 15%, with the change already affecting staff currently paying into career average schemes. One union, Prospect, said the average civil service pensioner could lose between £15,000-£20,000. The chancellor George Osborne announced the change in the June 2010 budget, when he claimed CPI was the more appropriate measure. The general secretary of NASUWT, Chris Keates, said: "The question the court is being asked to answer is whether it is just and fair to arbitrarily change the basis on which pensions are calculated, reducing their value by thousands of pounds. "The government's actions are a breach of the contract with ordinary working people. We are looking to the court to make sure that millions of ordinary workers will not be left facing a bleak and uncertain future at a time when cost of living is soaring." Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS, said: "The switch from RPI to CPI is just another example of how this government wants public servants, pensioners and people entitled to benefits to pay the heaviest price for the recession. "For new entrants to the civil service it means an immediate cut in their pensions, ripping up an agreement we reached just a few years ago." Unison's general secretary Dave Prentis said his union was backing the judicial review "because we cannot allow the coalition to run roughshod over pensioners". "The way that a country treats its citizens when they retire is a mark of a decent and fair society," he said. "The government has stepped over that mark – the switch is nothing but a cynical, multi-million pound raid on pensioners to pay down a deficit they did nothing to cause. This flawed measure of inflation does not even include housing costs – a major expenditure for many retired people." The change will also affect hundreds of thousands of private sector workers who are tied to the downgrade by the rules of their own occupational pensions. The cost to private sector workers is estimated at £75bn over the next 40 years, the unions say. Dai Hudd, deputy general secretary of Prospect, said: "Although this action is predominantly being taken by public sector unions, we are also anxious to highlight that millions of private sector workers and pensioners will be affected by this change." Lawyers for the unions will argue that all negotiations in recent years over pensions were based on retention of the RPI link. They will also say that the switch to CPI is a retrospective cut in pension benefits, which is a breach of the Human Rights Act and social security rules, because it applies to past and future retirement income. Reforms up to now have been restricted to future benefits. A Treasury spokesman said: "Public service pensions will continue to provide protection against inflation and will remain among the very best available, providing a guaranteed pension level for all employees. "CPI is already used by the Bank of England to set its inflation target and, unlike RPI, is designed to take account of the fact that consumers tend to shop around, switching to cheaper alternatives when prices for similar goods change." The switch has also met with opposition from the Royal Statistical Society, which has complained that the CPI measure is a poor reflection of the cost increases faced by pensioners. It has complained to the UK Statistics Authority, which oversees the inflation indices, asking for officials to show to what extent it includes a basket of typical costs faced by pensioners. The case is expected to last three days. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- If the legal system was based upon what's morally right and what's actually just, then the unions will win this case hands down... Unfortunately, as we all know, the law is an ass, and there is a very wide gulf between justice and between law... I also dont expect them to win because the Child Poverty Action Group had their case thrown out last week concerning the changes to Social Housing provision and Housing Benefit... And it is still a very clear fact that the legal system in this country continues to be shot all the way through with cronie-ism, the "old boys network" and very much in the control of vested interests... The legal system only really looks out for the interests of the elites and the powerful, the 1% in other words..... So, like I say, dont hold your breath....

The fact that they actually sentenced her in the first place is surely bad enough though... I agree on Bharain though... We almost had the Crown Prince at Wills and Kate's wedding didn't we...? Lovely.... :rolleyes:

I'd say this was slightly worse than that (there's not much in it though), personally, but, yeah, I get what you mean....

Why leveraged soya beans are weird and wrong http://www.newint.org/blog/editors/2011/10...log-action-day/ By Hazel Healy Food isn’t the first thing that springs to mind when you think of the abstract world of high-finance. But over the last decade, as other markets dried up, investment banks and hedge funds have alighted on food derivatives as a new place to grow their money. Ever since, food prices have started to behave in strange ways. Wheat has shot up in price and crashed down again; the price of maize – the staple food for over 300 million of Africa’s most vulnerable citizens – has trebled since 2005. And so, while banks are busy encouraging investors to bet on derivatives based on everything from maize to ‘leveraged soya beans’, all of a sudden households in the developing world cannot afford to eat. Now it would be a mistake to name speculation as the only pressure on our stressed global food system. But it would be right to pinpoint it as one of the most odious – and, in theory at least – one of the easiest to put right, with tighter market regulation. The issue already has some traction in political circles. French premier Nicolas Sarkozy has made price volatility one of the cornerstones of his G20 presidency, and rails against speculation as ‘extorsion’ and ‘pillaging’. Last weekend, on 15 October, G20 finance ministers concluded a Paris meeting where they were charged with deciding what limits to impose on financial players in commodity markets, as well as articulating the more headline-grabbing G20 response to the euro-zone economic crisis. But Britain, the US and Brazil put up staunch opposition, and the ministers failed to commit to tough controls, according to campaigners at the World Development Movement. ‘From fire department to police department’ This week, all eyes will be on the US, which already allows for tighter restrictions than Europe. The besieged Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) (the top US regulatory authority) is due to set caps for traders’ holdings in commodity markets on Tuesday 18 October. One commissioner, Bart Chilton, has said he hopes the CFTC can go from being the ‘fire department’ to the ‘police department’. But the hugely powerful financial services lobby has piled on the pressure ever since the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act first introduced the proviso for limits on financial speculation. Commission chairman Gary Gensler has complained that the CFTC has held 1,000 meetings to hear comments relating to the rule, and that the ‘vast majority are from large financial institutions’. The combined forces of Republicans and financial lobbyists has already repeatedly delayed the final ruling. Next up is Europe. Two days after the US ruling, the European Commission is due to announce its review of MiFID (the ‘Markets in Financial Instruments Directive’), the EU’s answer to the Dodd-Frank Act. Michel Barnier, European Commissioner of the Internal Market, has described speculation in basic foodstuffs as ‘a scandal when there are a billion starving people in the world.’ It remains to be seen how much of this rhetoric will translate into regulation. Waiting in the wings for later in the year is a UN resolution against food speculation tabled by the Dominican Republic. Cat and mouse game Will any of these initiatives work? There can be no doubt that financial institutions are paying very close attention. All this push-back at least suggests the regulators – if they stand their ground – do have the power to shut down this particular income stream for the money managers. There are very valid fears that watered-down rules in the US and Europe will be too weak to have a major impact on food speculation, as financial players will find a way round them. But we should welcome these important first steps towards returning food to its primary function – that of feeding the hungry, not performing as a lucrative asset class for wealthy elites. This has got to be raw-edged capitalism at its worst. And with protests against greed and injustice springing up in financial districts across the world, there could not be a better moment to call time on the food speculators. The November edition of New Internationalist, ‘Banking on Hunger’ tackles food speculation head on, with analysis, facts and illustrated guides to the major players. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seriously, do these bast*rds have no shame.. Or any sense of morality....? Oh, hang on, what am I talking about, they're Banksters, Hedge funders and Speculators, of course they dont... What is WRONG with these people..? Do they have no inkling of the ramifications for their actions..? No, of course they don't, it's all just numbers on a screen to them, it doesn't really exist, they're detached from the reality on the ground, so of COURSE these scum can go around doing stuff like this... And people wonder why there are protestors in New York, London, Athens, Rome, etc, etc.... They're there because NO ONE IS DOING ANYTHING TO STOP THIS.... Not the regulators, not the SEC, not the FSA, certainly not Sca-moron and Barack O-bomber, who are too busy counting the filthy lucre these f**king viral parasites are contributing to their party funds.... So, I guess it's up to us.... Now, where did I put my pitchfork and torch.....?

I know, that's just classic isn't it...? :lol: :lol: But good on Ian Hislop for giving that excuse very short-shrift on Friday and making silly Tory Girl shift uncomfortably....

Pretty much.. I mean, it's fairly plausible, because the US and UK bombed Tripoli in 1986, killing one of Ghadafi's adopted children, what father wouldn't want some measure of revenge..? But the longer the narrative has gone on, the more holes appear... And, frankly, I just dont buy it anymore.... The Al-Megrahi affair was just a method of keeping everything going....

Well, considering that since Saddam was removed in 2003, about 1.5 million Iraqis have died as a direct result, then, you may actually regret that we removed Ghadafi, who was frankly nowhere near as big a murderer or tyrant as plenty of others that we happily support (eg, such as Saudi Arabia where they publically flog women for committing the terrible crime of *GASP* driving a car).... I was like you, I believed all the propaganda about Ghadafi, but then I woke up to the facts that I learned from far more trustworthy and independent sources than BBC, CNN, Fox or the mainstream western media.... Make no mistake, we WILL end up regretting this just as we regretted Iraq and Afghanistan... Given the choice between a Socialist dictator or a Crazed bunch of Religious Fundamentalists.... I'll take Socialism anyday....

Well, if the NTC have no control over them, what the fukk do you think is gonna happen now...? Like I say, Iraq Version 2.0. Like it or not, Ghadafi was a stabilizing influence over Libya, Libya was a functional state... In fact, it was one of the highest functioning states in Africa... A model, one could say, for the continent as a whole.... The WEST dont like him, because he wasn't going to let corporations come in and rape the oil wealth... Which, is now what they're doing with France getting a sweet deal for 35% of Libyan oil wealth... This is fukkin' carve-up.. Echoes of the 19th Century old Imperialist "Scramble for Africa"... And these NTC rats and traitors have basically fukked the Libyan people by allowing the French and other Western Capitalist looters to come in and take what they want.... This is not a time to celebrate in my view.... The Libyan people are not free, merely replaced one dictator (who was at least spreading the wealth as I have PROVEN with articles I have quoted) with another Western-Capitalist backed dictator or flunkie.. Do you actually think the Western Corporations are going to allow Ghadafi's rather Socialist-sounding re-distribution of wealth to continue...? In a pig's eye....

He certainly did, and frankly she came off as a typical arrogant Tory idiot just not willing to admit that anyone did anything wrong....