Vocal Voices

Love Miliband, don't they....

That was thirty minutes of everyone’s life that no one will ever get back.

From the link I had to look at Toynbee's rant: "If they turn out, young voters can get Cameron out."

There is not much detail on how to go about it, but there is a lot about pensioners. They are rich, you see. Two million of them have assets valued at more than £1m. They make up one in every six voters. And on the attack goes: pensioner votes are being bought with money and perks they do not need.

It is only at the end that the truth comes out:

"Not all OAPs are off cruising. Care for the old is cut by 18%, with half a million fewer receiving any despite 10% more pensioners. Many of the old struggle unaided to care for others. And don’t they worry about their grandchildren? They helped build the welfare state: many still remember pre-NHS days, so surely they think of decent living wages for carers and NHS staff on whom they rely? Attitude surveys show the old are more collectivist and socially minded."

Ah and did they mention that 90% of that two million are equity locked into the vast majority of those assets. To realise the money they would have to sell. Even better, when they die, the government takes 40% of it. Of course if you make sensible tax arrangements to allocate that property to your family more than 7 years before you die, you are a scumbag tax dodging low life double dealer. Oh and if you do make that arrangement, then you don't have much money do you???

Sometimes I could pick politicians up and bash their heads together until they tell the truth. Or die. Might be die though knowing this lot, I don't even know if they know what the truth looks like. Let alone the horrific possibility of uttering it.

I started reading the Guardian online a few years back as an antidote to the Daily Mail, and the coverage, whilst obviously left-wing, was reasonably sound. And the fact that they will criticize Milliband and his ilk is indicative of that.

However, the pro-Moslem and pro-immigrant tenor of many of the articles by their commentators of late is disturbing, to put it mildly ......

Yes, very BBC apologist. They have turned me off. I prefer a broad spectrum of world press rather than a straight diet of what is being churned out in the UK.

In 2000 the Guardian was selling 400,000 copies. Now it is selling fewer than 200,000 copies. Yet it's journalists are regulars on BBC shows. On one Sunday Politics show 2 out of the 3 journalists were from the Guardian.