GRIMLY FIENDISH

Landlords 'evicting tenants' to make Olympic profit http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-17986383 Tenants in east London are being evicted from their homes as landlords attempt to cash in on the Olympics, BBC News has learned. The housing charity Shelter says it has seen more evidence of landlords acting unscrupulously and evicting people illegally. One estate agent said properties typically rented for £350 per week were being marketed for £6,000 per week. Shelter fear the problem will get worse as the Games approach. The BBC's Michael Buchanan says: "The potential profits are leading to some private landlords telling their tenants they have to leave their homes, with little notice. One woman told the BBC she and her four housemates had been given two weeks to leave; another couple had been given three weeks. All said their landlords were seeking to capitalise on the Olympics. Shelter says it has seen increasing evidence of landlords giving tenants little time to leave or increasing rents hugely during the Olympics and it worries the situation will get worse as the Games approach. Housing Minister Grant Shapps said: "Landlords should be under no doubt that it is a criminal offence for them to evict a tenant without giving proper notice, and that anyone found guilty of doing this - or of harassing a tenant - could lead to a custodial sentence of up to two years. "While we have yet to see hard evidence that landlords are acting in this way we are sure that the relevant local authorities will want to hear from organisations like Shelter so that the appropriate action can be taken against anyone who tries to do this." The National Landlords Association condemned the practice, saying it was more beneficial to landlords to have a good, long-term tenant in their property. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is another reason to despise the Olympics.... <_< Yeah, it's all very well to say "oh, let's not bring politics into the Olympic Games", but, frankly, that's impossible when you see this sort of thing going on.. This IS political, let's not kid ourselves...

Fukk off Chris..... <_<

Sorry, but I have to totally disagree with this.. The Olympics will do nothing but benefit a very small amount of very big Corporations, it will NOT benefit the ordinary Londoner. It really makes me laugh when you see these bast*rds who call themselves "Olympic Sponsors", yeah, right, the biggest "sponsors" were the bloody tax-payers of London.... Corporate execs and politicians get free tickets, where are our free tickets....? <_< Secondly, you have to look into how land and property was procured for this, it was done very unfairly and lot of local businesses in the Stratford area were destroyed, those that are left will almost certainly be destroyed by the Westfields monstrosity next to Stratford Station, just as the other Westfields has decimated local traders in Shepherds Bush Market, not to mention the potentially illegal evictions of tenants around the area of the site so landlords can make more money off of yuppies and tourists... <_< Going back to the "sponsors" as well, you've got people like ATOS ffs (surely some kind of sick joke, right, what with the Paralympics and everything) and Dow Chemicals (you know, the guys who created napalm and agent orange, and their subsidiary Union Carbide was responsible for the Bhopal disaster) being part of it.... The Olympics to me are an utter white elephant, we wont gain out of it in the long-run... I curse Ken for saddling us with a huge bill of over £10 bn for it, and I see very few benefits.. If you wanna improve transport infrastructure, then improve transport infrastructure, why does it need to be done on the back of something like this...? Boris/Ken, both utter w*n**rs as I see it, I voted Jenny Jones, with Brian Paddick as my second choice... Yeah, Paddick is a Lib Dem, but he's a good man in a bad party and if he'd been running as an Independent, he probably would have been my first pick...

Indeed... The thing that always gets my goat with regards to this is all the people who think they're clever by saying "Globabl warming..?? Global cooling more like" and then laughing at their own pathetic "joke".... -_- They dont seem to realise that CLIMATE CHANGE is far more complex an issue than that... TBH, I curse the person who came up with the phrase "Global Warming", they made it far too easy for the deniers to argue their case.... I think we need to look at who's behind the Deniers, and what interests they serve.. More than likely it's the big oil companies and the energy companies who want to go around "Fracking" and potentially completely fukking up our drinking water supplies.... <_<

Not strictly true. There's no actual procedure in place to stop an incumbent Mayor from running for a seat in Parliament, Boris and his people had been discussing the logistics of it, and it was reckoned he could theoretically wear both caps for 12 months maximum... So, it's not entirely outwith the realms of possibility...

Oh, and just as a post-script, here's an interesting bit of Number Crunching.... 50% - the percentile that Boris set as the standard by which union strike ballots should be considered legitimate 38% - the percentile of eligible Londoners who actually turned out to vote on Thursday's elections... COUGH...COUGH....AHEM..... -_-

Boris Johnson to tell PM he has winning Tory formula London mayor to say his 'compassionate cosmopolitan Conservatism' provides best chance for party after dismal results elsewhere http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/ma...ng-tory-formula Boris Johnson is to tell David Cameron that his brand of "compassionate cosmopolitan Conservatism" provides the best chance for the party to rejuvenate itself across Britain and secure an overall parliamentary majority at the next general election. In a clear signal that he will continue to differentiate himself from his fellow Etonian, Johnson will say that "bone-dry" Tory economics can triumph if the party appeals beyond its traditional base on social issues. "Boris has championed a cosmopolitan and compassionate Conservatism which he has combined with a bone-dry approach on the economy," one source close to the London mayor said. "If Boris had been seen as a straightforward Conservative, he would have been massacred." In his victory, finally announced at City Hall late on Friday night, Johnson showed his personal appeal by performing more strongly in the mayoral contest than Tory candidates standing in the parallel elections for the London assembly. While his win was far narrower than expected, it provided one of the few bright spots for the Tories amid poor results across Britain. But the personal success of Johnson, who relishes the opportunity to embarrass Cameron and George Osborne, is a mixed blessing for Downing Street. Friends of Johnson, who will be 48 next month, regard him as the most ambitious member of his generation at Oxford, and determined to become prime minister. Cabinet ministers have long assumed that Johnson would return to parliament at the next general election in 2015, a year before the next mayoral election in 2016, even if he won a second term as London mayor this year. There was speculation that the safe Tory seat of Reigate, held by the justice minister Crispin Blunt, is being lined up for Johnson. A triumphant return to parliament in 2015 – seven years after he stood down as MP for Henley after his election as London mayor in 2008 – would place Johnson in pole position to replace Cameron as Tory leader. The prime minister, regarded by Johnson as intellectually inferior, is expected to stand down in 2017 or 2018 if he wins the next election. But Johnson said on Friday that he would remain as mayor for a full four-year term until 2016. "If I am fortunate enough to win I'll need four years to deliver what I've promised," he told the London Evening Standard. "And having put trust at the heart of this election, I would serve out that term in full. "I made a solemn vow to Londoners to lead them out of recession, bring down crime and deliver the growth, investment and jobs that this city so desperately needs. Keeping that promise cannot be combined with any other political capacity." It is understood that Johnson is not closing off the opportunity of returning to parliament after 2016. "Who knows what the future will hold," one source said. For the moment, Downing Street will have to tolerate a free-thinking Johnson who seems to have overcome a weakness that is causing continuing grief for the prime minister: his privileged background. "Boris has shown that you can be an old Etonian who went to Balliol [Oxford] and that need not prevent you succeeding," one source said. Johnson's friends say that his stance on social issues and economics is the only model that can ensure success for the party nationally. On the economic side, they cite Johnson's campaign to cut the 50p tax rate as he fought for the City of London. "Boris has shown that you can stand up for the City of London and call for tax cuts if you are grounded in the right principles. Boris built more affordable homes in four years than Ken Livingstone ever did. He has halved the number of rough sleepers in London and he has extended the living wage to 10 times as many people as Ken Livingstone ever did. Boris also led on socially liberal issues by proposing an amnesty for illegal immigrants. He also spoke out against the housing benefit cap by saying there would be no Kosovo-style social cleansing in London." Johnson's friends admit that his personality was a key factor in his campaign. "The character of Boris was at the heart of his campaign – he does not pretend to be something he is not, unlike Ken Livingstone. Yes, he is funny. But you need more than that to do well in a recession. Boris has delivered on 90% of his pledges." One senior Tory at Westminster said the prime minister was bracing himself for jibes from Johnson. "Boris will now be saying, 'I am the man who has won twice, unlike you, David Cameron, who has yet to win an election'," the Tory said. Osborne, seen as the "under the bus" candidate to replace Cameron, will have to watch out. "Boris's star has risen and George's has fallen," the Tory said. "But politics is more snakes and ladders than an escalator." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- He claims to have "ruled out" running for Parliament in 2015, but the fact is, he's very clearly just seeing his position as Mayor of London as being a stepping stone to further his own ambtions, he's a careerist politician, and Careerist Politicians are this country's whole problem as I see it, they only look to furthering their own ambition and dont have any interest in actually serving the people. Boris Johnson is very ambitious, that's the first thing people seem to say about him... But, it's self-centred ambtition and not an ambition to improve the lot of ordinary Londoners.. Londoners need Social Housing, they need rents to be capped. For all Johnson's talk about how he's against a kind of "Social Cleansing" of the working classes out of London due to the Tory's policies on housing benefits, what's he actually going to do about it...? How can ordinary Londoners trust him given the fact that he wants to be a Tory MP in Westminster at some point, how much opposition is he actually going to put up..? His "housing policy"? Well, he doesn't have one... In four years, less than 50 affordable homes have been built in London, London needs tens of THOUSANDS, and it's not as if there isn't the existing brownfield sites or derelict properties to achieve this... Policing numbers have fallen due to cuts, and more than likely more to come, fares on public transport are likely to rise steeply as well under Boris... Ken Livingstone, like him or loathe him, was committed to London, I dont think Boris has that commitment.. How on earth can he when he was considering a jump to a safe Tory seat in SURREY.... One million Londoners are idiots... End of story.....

Well, given their policies on the disabled, the sick, and, well, poor people in general, I'd say this lot are more "National" Socialism than any kind that Marx or Castro would recognise... :rolleyes:

Indeed. Cameron thought he was "clever" when he made that joke about Nadine Dorries being "frustrated". She absolutely pasted him and Osborne the other week and did far more damage to them than they could possibly do to her.. Hell Hath No Fury... and all that.... :lol: :lol:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17900567 And, yet again, David Sca-Moron resorts to a cheap age-ist jibe against Dennis Skinner instead of actually answering a straight question regarding Jeremy Hunt..... I dunno about you, but I am sick to the back teeth of this "arrogant Posh Boy" in Nadine Dorries' absolutely accurate words..... He thinks he's being clever, but he's not, he's just showing himself up to be a pathetic juvenile brat who cant handle a bit of hard politics from one of the few genuinely "Honourable Members" in the House of Commons... I cant wait until George Galloway gets his teeth into him....

On a related note to that, Jack Straw and Tory (sic) Blair could find themselves in very hot water over the whole Abdel Hakim Belhadj affair... Belhadj is suing Straw and possibly Blair as well, so I reckon a LOT could potentially come out in the wash here... :rolleyes:

It isn't just Hunt who should go, it's David Cameron.. They're both in this shit up to their necks... We still dont really know the real nature of the relationship with Coulson, Brooks, etc, and it turns out Camerons had about five meetings with the Murdochs that he never told anyone about... What were they discussing..? The weather...? Governments are very quick to lecture us "if you've nothing to hide....", etc, etc... Well, if Cameron and Co has nothing to hide, then they should be doing what Simon Hughes and Diane Abbott suggested on Question Time and set up an internal independent investigation to see if the Minesterial Code has been breached by Hunt or others.... If they've "nothing to hide", what's the problem...? -_-

Again, perfectly balanced scripting, excellent attention to detail, faultless direction and acting... Everything a good series or film should be.. Second series is shaping up to be a corker now that we've gone "Beyond The Wall".... Lots of stuff going on though, so it requires patience and attention.

Colin Farrell is a complete f**king muppet, shite actor and honestly, what the FECK do women see in him?? The only reason why In Bruges manages to be good is because of Brendan Gleeson... And "Rafe" Fiennes.....

Hmmmm... It can only be made by Ridley Scott though... No one else is allowed to touch it...... Well, maybe Christopher Nolan. But that's IT....

Yeah, cos the other two direct-to-DVD sequels were such a success I totally forgot about this one..... :lol: :lol:

Kristen Stewart has shown a few acting chops in one or two things (she did pretty well as Joan Jett in The Runaways, as did Dakota Fanning, they were unfortunately let down by a pretty awful script though...), unfortunately, I've seen nothing from Pattinson as yet.... Wasn't The Woman in Black similar though, lots of things happened at and to Radcliffe's character, he didn't seem as though he was in any kind of control of the events at all...

I'm sorry, but is there actually a point to this....? And replacing Arnie with Colin Farrell????? :lol: :lol: :lol: Yes, the trailer looks all nice and slick and all that, but, sorry, Paul Verhoeven's film is legendary and rightly cited as a Sci-Fi/Action classic, whereas this will be a diversion at best.. A remake of Robocop is also in the pipeline, what's coming along next I wonder, a remake of Flesh and Blood maybe...? Oh, dear, it's really not a good time to be Paul Verhoeven, is it....?

Well, howabout our very own Jamie Bell then...? Fantastic young actor and can frankly act Pattinson off the screen... I've seen Pattinson in other things, wasn't impressed.. To me, he's as wooden as Daniel Radcliffe, who almost managed to ruin The Woman in Black (thankfully the general lack of lines of dialogue and the fact that experienced old hands like Ciaran Hinds were on hand to cover for him saved the enterprise) I only mentioned Viggo because he seems to crop up in a lot of Cronenberg's films these days....

Best Metal festival on the planet as far as I'm concerned... Alternative/Metal/Gothic types seriously start needing to look beyond these shores for quality festivals IMO.. Download..? Sonisphere...? Totale Scheisse.... Wacken, M'era Luna, Wave Gotik Treffen and the umpteen other Alt/Metal festivals that go on around in Continental Europe is where it's at these days.. UK fests are f***ing rip-off....

Little wonder really, when you have absolute has-beens as your headline acts and keep all the interesting bands further down the bill. I dont imagine the current economic climate's exactly helped either... I think the organisers of Sonisphere seriously need to take a leaf out of Wacken's book in how to organise a Metal festival... http://www.wacken.com/en/woa2012/main-bands/billing-20120/

Gawd, why on earth is Cronenberg lowering himself to work with the talent-free zone that is Robert Pattinson...? I take it Viggo Mortensen was too busy this time..?

And do you imagine that being a petrol tanker driver is some 9-5 job where the drivers get to go home every night...? Nope, it's not.. These guys are lucky if they get to see their families at the weekends, it's just like being away on the rigs in a lot of ways.. Seriously, people need to be looking up some facts here into the nature of the job and then slag off the unions for doing right by their members. At the end of the day Unions are a hell of a lot more democratically accountable than CEOs or Boards of Directors. If union members aren't happy with their leaders or shop stewards, they vote them out... When was the last time RBS, Tesco or Barclays employees got to vote out the company directors...?

Yeah, you see Phil, the reason why the "health and safety argument" is convincing is mainly because you have 10 ton tanker trucks hurtling down the motorway at 70mph loaded with fuel and, well, I think that if I were in a car or a coach behind one of those things I'd want to be sure the guy driving the thing hadn't had his f***ing bosses cut corners on training... But, hey, that's just me... If these guys want more pay for doing a potentially very dangerous job, I'm thinking they can have it tbh.... I'd rather these guys have a decent bonus than the scumbag bankers who f*** up our economy... Anyway, the argument has kind of developed way beyond this and now we're onto the Tories stage-managing a situation where people are acting like lemmings and panic buying for no reason to try and deflect attention away from their own disastrous policies and onto trying to paint the "big bad unions" in an incredibly negative light.... I know who I trust more... And it aint the Government...

Oh, LORDI LORDI, the Tories have been royally RUMBLED...... :lol: :lol: :lol: Petrol crisis 'is our Thatcher moment', Tory MPs reportedly tell party members http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/mar/31/p...P=FBCNETTXT9038 Tory MPs have compared the panic over fuel supplies to the 1980s miners' strike and urged party members to "humiliate" the unions by stockpiling petrol, it has been reported. In a private message from MPs to constituency associations, seen by the Daily Telegraph's Charles Moore, members were told: "This is our Thatcher moment." The message reportedly continues: "In order to defeat the coming miners' strike, [Thatcher] stockpiled coal. When the strike came, she weathered it, and the Labour party, tarred by the strike, was humiliated. In order to defeat the coming fuel drivers' strike, we want supplies of petrol stockpiled. Then, if the strike comes, we will weather it, and Labour, in hock to the Unite union, will be blamed." Labour immediately demanded an apology from the government. Maria Eagle, the shadow transport secretary, said: "These allegations are outrageous. It is unacceptable that the Tory-led government have attempted to play politics with fuel supplies. "People will be angry that David Cameron has inconvenienced millions in an attempt to create his own 'Thatcher moment'. The prime minister should apologise to the country for the chaos his government have created this week." Number 10 described the claim as a matter for the Conservative party. A Conservative party spokesman did not deny the existence of the memo and added: "The government has always been clear this is about doing everything possible to protect the country from a potentially crippling strike, and not about playing politics. "We urge Unite to negotiate with the employers, and to make clear there will be no strike." In his blog, Moore comments: "There is a key difference which ministers have not spotted. When Mrs Thatcher piled up the coal at power stations until the strike began in 1984, she was not inconveniencing the public. "In 2012, the coalition is trying to press-gang the public, without saying so, into its political battles. All those people queuing on the forecourts were pawns in a government-organised blame-game." He added: "No doubt many people reading this column are happy that Ed Miliband's and Ed Balls's dependence on a large trade union should be exposed, but very few, I suspect, appreciate being made into mugs. (And the political effect, of course, is the opposite of that intended: Unite now looks virtuous, and is much better placed to win its demands.)" Len McCluskey, the general secretary of Unite, said the government's "posturing" was scuppering chances for an end to the tanker drivers' dispute, which has caused motorists to queues at petrol pumps across the UK and stockpile fuel in order to pre-empt any strike that could lead to a fuel shortage. "We call on the government to come clean on its whole approach to this dispute," said McCluskey. "Is it acting as an honest broker, or is it spoiling for a fight in order to get itself out of the political hole its class-focused economic mismanagement has put it in? (I think we all know the answer to that particular question... :rolleyes: ) "Over the last few days its every move has been designed to whip up unnecessary tension at the expense of the public. Ministers knew all along that a strike could not possibly be less than seven days away even were it to be called – that is the law. Yet they panicked the nation all the way to the petrol pumps because they imagined it would boost them in the polls. "The British people know that this posturing and positioning is poisoning the prospects for an early resolution to the dispute." The government stands accused of mishandling the crisis by Labour MPs, who called for the resignation of Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude, who has faced a barrage of criticism from fire experts ever since advising motorists earlier this week to store jerry cans of fuel in their garages. Calls for his resignation came after a woman suffered serious burns while transferring petrol into a jerry can in her kitchen. The government has since changed its advice to motorists after Unite, the union representing 2,000 fuel tanker drivers, ruled out the threat of strikes over Easter. After days of urging motorists to fill up if their tanks dropped below two-thirds full, the Department for Energy and Climate Change said there was no need to queue on petrol forecourts. "There is no urgency to top up your tank, a strike will not happen over Easter," it said. But with Unite stressing it retained the right to call industrial action if talks, expected to start next week, break down, No 10 stressed the threat was not yet over. "It remains vital we take the necessary steps to keep the country safe in case there is a strike," a spokesman said. The move followed more panic-buying at garages across the country on Friday, with petrol sales rising by almost 172% on Thursday and diesel sales up by 77%. David Cameron said his heart went out to the woman in York who was burnt, describing it as a "desperate" incident. Speaking at No 10 shortly after he chaired another meeting of the Cobra emergency contingencies committee, the prime minister welcomed Unite's decision and called on the union to engage constructively in talks expected to start next week at the conciliation service Acas. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ So, the Tories have deliberately stage-managed this whole invented "fuel crisis" it would appear. Mind you, they couldn't have done so really without the Sheep-like actions of a lot of the "great British Public" who seemed to think that we were back in the 70s and the OPEC crisis was at its peak... The moral of this story is - NEVER TRUST A TORY AND USE YOUR COMMON SENSE.... :rolleyes: