If you must deceive, deceive competently

Dennis Churchill

Deceive as in Neather?Deceive as in Operation Brace?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6907991.ece

Tim B

- what reason would anybody OVER 25 have for voting Labour?

Peter From Maidstone

Reason 1: They are receiving a benefit and know that Labour will do little or nothing to take them off it as long as they vote for them.

Reason 2: They are employed in the public sector in a job created by Labour for its clients and know that Labour will not sack them as long as they vote for them.

Those who work for the state or receive benefits from the state without working should only have 1/2 a vote to prevent the state from buying votes.

Nick

Why, when there is so much waste in the quangocracy, overpaid government advisers, and useless tiers of middle management and box tickers in most departments, does this useless government choose to make cut-backs in training for unemployed youngsters ? It truly beggars belief.

Andy

Dennis Churchill got there before me with the link to the article about the Home Office's policy of deliberately ignoring the risks involved in order to swamp the country with immigrants as per Neather. That they then lied about it surprises no one. Labour is incompetent and unable to tell the truth.

Moraymint

I hate to bang on about it, but all this economic and political mayhem is leading inexorably to civil unrest.

I just hope Dave is prepared for his first (and maybe only) parliamentary term. We're in a phoney war right now. As all of the unsustainable economic crutches and props are withdrawn over the coming weeks and months, the UK's economic crisis (now known to be the worst of all the nations of the developed world) will rapidly become a social crisis.

This is what happens 12 years after a bunch of political gangsters and shysters con their way into office and systematically set about creating a Marxist, soft totalitarian state. The Labour Party, with its now proven Soviet pedigree, has done a truly excellent job of utterly shafting the (dis)United Kingdom.

Sadly, things are now going to get ugly, of that I have no doubt.

stereodog

Peter From Maidstone,
Your comment about those on benefits only having half a vote is both patronising and dangerous. I am unemployed and am as mad as hell about the government that got me here and have no intention of voting for them. Regardless of this the idea that any group's right to vote should be curtailed because you don't like how they cast it is just evil.

Edward Sutherland

Re Dennis Churchill's link to the Sunday Times front page story today on the unravelling of Labour's immigration ploys, it rather puts the Spectator to shame that the best it could manage was Massie's article rubbishing the Neather revelations.

Peter From Maidstone

stereodog, why is it evil? There is no absolute form of democracy. It is quite clear that a large proportion of those on benefits, those employed in public services, and we could add immigrants, will be voting Labour and will always be voting Labour because they know what side their bread is buttered. It is not just or democratic that a Labour government can buy an election.

I would modify my previous point by saying that I have always thought that those recently unemployed should not have their vote discounted, nor those long term unemployed who engage in some sort of socially useful activities. I also think that serving members of the Armed Forces should get 2 votes. I do believe that participation in our democracy should be linked to the stake a person has in our society, and not be merely an accident of birth.

Should a person who has never worked, never intends to work, and expects to always live off the work of others be entitled to vote for a government that promises more of the same, with equal voting weight as those who have spent all their lives paying taxes to support the wider society? And why should those who are willing to put their very lives on the line for the rest of us not have 2 votes since their commitment to our national society is so much the greater.

In my opinion, I think these are reasonable modifications. I have been unemployed, but on both occasions I worked hard to find another job. In my proposal those who cannot find a job could still participate in society by giving their time and energy to social activities. I hardly think such an opinion could be considered evil. It could be criticised on many points but democracy is not absolute, it is always a matter of asking which democracy. The one we have at present is broken.

Blofeld's Cat

PfM - What if I work for the state and intend to vote Conservative, or UKIP or Green?

Do I get more than half a vote?

Or if I was a serving member of the armed forces in another recent conflict and now work for the state? How many votes then?

Oh, and state workers do pay tax too, so how is this idea going to work?

Actually, any chance to vote at all would be good from this spiteful, incompetent, self-interested government.

fasano

Just when we thought Brown could not go lower he did today.I was proud and felt humble to be at The Cenotaph this morning and could not believe the hapless Brown did not bow after laying his wreath.I doubt we shall receive an apology from this insensitive creep.

Michael

Of course it used to be like this, ratepayers only...

Peter From Maidstone

Blofeld's cat, I didn't say it was a complete idea with all the kinks ironed out. The issue of those supported by the state voting for the state seems to me to not be restricted to this Labour government but should apply to all. I would probably suggest that if you have done a tour of duty in the Armed Forces you get to keep your 2 votes. Likewise if you have worked a certain number of years (outside of the public sector) then you keep your 1 vote even if you are unemployed for a while. All democracies choose to restrict those who can vote - such was the case in Greece. And our democracy can hardly be called the most progressive, so the idea that it cannot be modified (for the better) doesn't hold a lot of water. State workers may well pay tax, but a surprisingly large number of their jobs are unnecessary and would be redundant in any private business, therefore they must be to some extent a means of buying votes.

The fact that up to 80% of immigrants vote Labour and that Labour has been exposed as deliberately increasing the rate of immigration suggest to me that simply giving one vote to everyone who lives here is not productive of genuine democracy if the ones who get the vote are either being packed into the country to skew the vote, or are using their mandate to force others to support them on benefits.

Do you think that a person who has never worked and never intends to work should have the same mandate as a soldier under fire, or a Englishman who has worked all his life and paid taxes for decades?

Peter From Maidstone

fasano, I didn't believe that Brown could have either failed to bow, or was the only one, so I watched the ceremony and it was so. Pretty poor behaviour.

Nicholas

fasano - just re-watched it on TV to confirm that no, indeed, Brown did not bow his head after laying his wreath. It was very noticeable because of the care with which the other leading politicians (including Milliband) made the gesture.

I had the strangest feeling that this time next year Brown may still be PM - or something else - Chairman, Leader or Big Brother.

Lola

Been in hospital for about 6 weeks. Talking to all clinical staff they are pretty well as universally fed up with Brown and New Labour as everyone else. I am not at all sure that he, Brown, can count on the client state any more.

BigG

They tend to be able to deceive journos far too easily IMO. Witness the way youfocussed on the (easily correctable) £20M training shortfall for the TA when there were many, many more, deeper, more savage cuts in RN/RAF front line funding going on. But you fell for the high profile feint didn't you, silly boys. Those who spend 12 years swallowing New Labour Press releases whole have no right to complain when the spin starts to unravel.
Point this out by all beans but for heaven's sake, see the bigger picture and up your game considerably, it's your job!

chris as usual

This is all about the demise of the Learning and Skills Council. Created by Labour about 10 years ago, it started off well by addressing the lack of basic skills in the population and supported lifelong learning for all, and was particularly supportive of those most in need.

In its final phase, having been interfered with regularly every 3 years, it effectively became a sub contractor to JobCentre Plus, and tied most of its funding to FE colleges, and to training providers for skilling people up for jobs. If you were a training provider you only got paid if you got people into work.

What started out as a genuine opportunity to enable people, often those who are excluded and most in need, to improve their lives by education, became another arm of social engineering by this dreadful government. They are now abandoned.

Fergus Pickering

Peter from Maidstone, let me say that I am self-employed and previous to that I worked for a private company. But you haven't really thought this through at all. Are you happy to give soldiers half a vote? They are willing to die for their country for half a vote. Are you happy that a schoolteacher who teaches at Eton (a bloody breeze) gets a full vote, but one who teaches children with 'behavioural probhlems', and I'm sure you know what that means, gets only half a vote. I hope when you are ill you don't waste the time of a doctor with only half a vote, but go to a private clinic where the chap works entirely privately (I'm not sure that is even possible. Then there are policemen... Who exactly did you have in mind? I was oncee, for a period of three months, unemployed. This was after the private company I worked forf went tits up in 1982 I think. During that time I did indeed receive £70 from the state, and lost half a vote by your reckoning. Why not come clean and say that you think everybody who votes Labour should have only half a vote retrospectively. By the way, I do not vote Labour. I did once in 1970 and have never repeated the dose.

mac

Nicholas,

If you're right then I imagine we'll be required to address him as "Comrade My Hero". His co-habiting colleague in the new ruling duumvirate will insist on nothing less. Perhaps instead of the destruction of the Berlin Wall we should all reflect on another 1989 event for instruction, that involving dear Nicolae and Elena . . .

.... .... ......

Blofelds cat.
State workers DO NOT PAY TAX.
Taxpayers pay tax.
State workers get paid from TAXPAYERS.
State workers would only be taxpayers if they also worked in the private sector.
It works like this,
I am the tax payer,you are the state worker.
I give you £1,200...your monthly gross pay.
You pay £200 of that in 'tax'...now did your state worker money pay that or did MY taxpayers money pay that? You did after all give me the whole £1,200.
So you see state workers DO NOT pay tax.Taxpayers pay tax.

Noa Zrk

Its one of the pleasures of blogging that a post on one subject can spark a likely and constructive debate on another.
Brown's disenfranchishment of the Uk's under 25s, and Labours immigrant vote gerrymandering has caused Peter FM to consider how this could be addressed by the allocation of votes on merit. Whhilst there are some issues this is clearly worth further detailed consideration.
So is structural reform of our Parliamentary system; affirming the sovereignty of Parliamentary government over its EU interloper, an elected second chamber to counter-act the power of the Commons, with the power of veto over its legislation, enshrining the independence of elected representatives from the Whips, and election to the post of PM.

TrevorsDen

"State workers DO NOT PAY TAX" - absurd.

Many years ago I worked in the NHS. My wife works in the NHS and long hours to boot. A tidy part of her wage goes in tax and NI.

Lets assume the NHS did not exist - just where would you get your health care from and what would it cost you. And if not you what about your parents and children (who we might presume are juvenile and pensioners)?

Public sector workers - like in the NHS - perform a service to you for which they get paid. You might think that such services could be better managed (easier said than done) which we all would agree (even private sector airline BA are realising that they are not well managed). But to say they are not workers, are not providing a service (are teachers not taxpayers or midwives) that is tom our benefit and to which we should pay is totally asinine.

Blofeld's Cat

... .... Or 'dotty' for short:
I really hope you're not as stupid as that!

By your logic, every NHS doctor, nurse, every dustman, soldier, every teacher, social worker. ........

Oh forget it, your comment is not worth dignifying.

Peter From Maidstone

Fergus Pickering, I certainly haven't thought it all through. :-) Since it is not likely to become a manifesto commitment of any of the main parties it does not seem urgent! But I never suggested a soldier should get half a vote - he or she should get two votes.

My main concern is not narrowly to reduce Labour votes - although there might be a case that anyone likely to vote Labour is certifiably insane and therefore does lose the vote in any case. My concern is that it does not seem democratic to allow the state to pay people to vote for it - which does seem to be the case in regard to public employees, the unemployed and immigrants (not universally of course, but by overwhelming %) I would wish to counter this tendency (which seems proved I think) by reducing the weight of these votes. That I have not thought it all through is clear, but that does not, I think, contradict my basic argument. We know that the Conservatives tried to essentially buy votes in Westminster under Dame Porter.

Even putting aside the details of working out who gets how many votes - do you think it reasonable that someone who has never worked and never plans to work and who brings up a family of children who do not plan to work should get the same vote as a soldier or tax payer? If you agree with me on this point then I will not oblige you to follow me elsewhere down this argument. (I would like your opinion on whether you think there are any expections to universal suffrage) But I really do not think that I believe in democracy without a voter taking responsibility for or participating in the duties of membership of our society.

Moraymint

As the good Archbishop Cranmer himself said today of our brave men and women fighting in Afghanistan (http://tinyurl.com/4acwxr):

"Why die to bring liberty and democracy to Afghanistan, when liberty and democracy are in peril in the United Kingdom?"

2trueblue

What a surprise that Brown has broken a promise? The whole of rown and Blair stewardship has been littered with initiatives that never came to anything. But to withdraw a scheme that lifts any under 25 out of the unemployment queue is madness. Not surprising, they are the KNOW NOTHING PARTY.
Peter from Madstone, I am disappointed you have lost the rights to vote, it ia as it should be, one man one vote.
Michael, it was in Northern Ireland that you had to be a ratepayer to get the vote.
There was a time when you had had a vote both in your area as a ratepayer and in the area where you had a business as a ratepayer.
That aside we are all entitledto our vote.

The Highlander

"If you must deceive, deceive competently"

You would struggle to name anything that Brown does 'competently' apart from bringing this country to the edge of ruin.

Peter From Maidstone

2trueblue, I am not trying to be difficult, so bear with me. But I cannot see that we are all entitled to vote, or that it should always be 'one person one vote'. It was not so in Greece, or in Switzerland, nor in England in the past. Unless we assume that the present form of democracy in Britain is the best possible - and I certainly don't - then it is possible to imagine a different form of democracy.

If we push things to extremes for a moment. Let us imagine an England where 60% of adults are unemployed and 40% are working and paying taxes. Would it be fair, would it be democratic, for the 60% who are not contributing to use the weight of their votes to insist that the 40% who are working pay even more of their money as taxes to support the 60% who do not work? It does not seem naturally just to me. If it is not naturally just then at what point should the 60% not working no longer be able to take money from the 40% who are working simply by the weight of their vote?

It seems to me, and I am willing to be convinced otherwise, that someone who will benefit from the wealth of others should be restricted in their ability to take the wealth of others for their own benefit by means of the ballot.

What those restrictions are I am willing to think harder about. But it seems unjust that one group of people, by being a majority, or by facilitating some sort of majority, should be able to take the goods of others for their own benefit under cover of a democratic process.

Fergus Pickering

People in prison should not have a vote. Children should not have a vote. Mad people should not have a vote. Non-citizens (I think) should not have a vote. Scotchmen should not have a vote. No, scrub that one. Everybody else should have a vote. I think that is what I think. John Stuart Mill thought university men should have two votes. Indeed they did, well into this century. That means two votes for Professor Nutt and Richard Dawkins. Good God no.

Amadeus Plonquer

Peter from Maidstone: While your motivation is unquestionable, perhaps your reasing is incomplete. How, for example, would you treat those new mothers who decide not to return to work but to take five or more years off in order to raise their children?

So to take your reasoning further, here's yet another suggestion. Why not have people be given a number of votes equivalent to their age? Older members of society would have considerable more weight in deciding where our society is going. As for immigrants they would be given the number (weight) of votes equivalent to the number of years they've been citizens.

Given the sophistication of modern information technology, all or a mixture of these measures are now possible.

Amadeus Plonquer

PfM: You've definitely started something useful. In particular you've managed to flush out some people who still believe that state workers actually pay tax. Next they'll claim they create wealth.

One way the government could save a tidy package would be for all state workers not to pay tax and have their salaries adjusted accordingly. The cost of first paying them taxpayer money and then using more taxpayer money to take some of it back off them is absurd. State workers are made to pay tax to foster the illusion that they are just like the rest of us. Sorry kids, you're not. ALL state workers are a burden to the taxpayer.

Having said that there is no doubt that many services provided by state workers are valuable. The issue should be whether these services are provided by the state (paid by the taxpayer) or privately (paid only by those who use the services).

In a perfect democracy the State would defend the country, catch the crooks and manage the development (not the operation) of a national infrastructure. The State should not be in control of the media (BBC), the railways or anything that requires any kind of management skill. Everything else - including health, education and rubbish collection should be left to the people who are capable of providing better services far more economically.

.... .... ......

Blofeld's cat/TrevorsDen,
Could you please enlighten me? Where does the money come from to pay the state workers?
Taxes!
Paid for by private sector workers.
Everything they 'earn' is paid for by the TAXPAYER!That includes the 'imaginary'
amount of 'tax' taken off their pay.
No matter how you look at it state workers DO NOT pay tax.
TAXPAYERS pay tax.
State workers are FUNDED by the TAXPAYER!
Alistair Darling uses £1,200 of taxpayers money to give to a state worker as a gross amount of pay.
He then keeps £200 of it for the state workers tax.Darling has in fact only paid the state worker £1,000, yet he has taken £1,200 from the taxpayer.
How has the state worker contributed to the 'tax' they paid?
State workers DO NOT PAY TAX!

twawki

Well look at K Rudd he is a work of spin and deception - oh and dont forget free speech or scientific questioning is also outlawed

see www.twawki.wordpress.com

Noa Zrk

All eligible citizens should start with a vote, but you can loose that right. There is no reason why people should be limited to one vote. If you work, pay tax, own property you could acquire additional rights based on you contribution to society.

Percy

Peter from Maidstone, in your exciting new voting system, how many votes do you get?

Rhoda Klapp

PofM, first, let me suggest getting a copy of In the Wet, by Neville Shute, which has a future Australia with a multiple vote system. Everybody gets a basic vote, you get extra for having a degree, being in the services, various other worthy things.
Written in about 1950.

On the other hand, if I had a thousand votes, I still couldn't find a party to vote for right now.

Peter From Maidstone

I guess in my system I would get one vote. I am a tax payer working in the private sector. I am happy to go with Noa Zrk and have higher multiples of votes rather than fractions.

Percy, why do you think that everyone is entitled to a vote? This has not been the case for most of British or world history. And it doesn't necessarily seem to work very well. Do you think criminals should get a vote, or the insane? (These are questions not digs at you. I mean do you think there are limits to the franchise? If so then we are expressing different view of where those limits are rather than whether or not they should exist).

It is interesting that everyone who condemns my idea won't actually say whether they think it just that someone who has never worked and never intends to work should be able to vote himself other people's money!

Peter From Maidstone

Hi Rhoda, I'll try to find it. Although you rpoint about having no-one to vote for is very apposite.

logdon

"On 15th September, Gordon Brown finally uttered the word ‘cuts’"

Are you sure he wasn't talking about the electorate, and you missed out the 'n'?

JohnBUK

PFM - You have a good point, however, we all need to get out of this habit of slating ALL State employees. Yes, their pay comes from the taxpayer but that doesn't make them different from the rest of us. After all the journalists on The Spectator are paid by the subscribers, who in turn are paid by others who "buy" their product or service ad infinitum; and so the money passes down the line as it were. It can certainly be said we have a choice whether or not to buy The Spectator but one cannot necessarily blame the State employees for working for the State (Doctors, nurses etc). If and when we have a private health system, for example, the chances are the vast majority of the existing front-line workers will be employed there. Yes, there are many non-jobs in the public sector but we (as taxpayers) need to vent our spleen at the people who provide the system for this - government. Perhaps when Mr Hannan's idea comes to fruition we will have a chance to vote for the "managers" locally, then we'll have a chance to truly influence policy for policing, health and education etc and at a price we're willing to pay.
BTW I am retired and have never worked in the public sector.
PS. enjoy your posts!

Peter From Maidstone

JohnBUK, I agree that there is no need to slate ALL state employees. My wife is a Nurse, my sisters-in-law all work for the State, my father-in-law works for the State. And in my years working in the private sector I have not been struck by any remarkable difference in character between private and public employees. Indeed a unionised factory from the 70s probably wasn't a very efficient place, just as many of the state run organisations I have become aware of are not always well run. Some business are, some state organisations are. My local Infant School seems very well run, my local Junior School not so well run. But I worked for 18 years for a private business that was not very well run.

But, I would suggest that it is not the individuals that I am concerned about, rather the principle that it is wrong in a democracy for the state to employ so large a percentage of the population since it does skew the voting intentions of the population.

If there was an election held between two private companies then we would expect the employees of company X to vote for their management and those of company Y to vote for theirs, especially if company Y had said that it would need to downsize the employees at company X if it won the election.

Now we have that exact situation in our democracy. We have an employer standing as one party, and a non-employer standing as the other. In a small state the effect might not be significant, but in our bloated public sector I suggest that the statistics show that it has a large effect.

One straw poll I saw on the net, that cannot be lent on very hard, but may show a trend, found that 85% of GPs were planning to vote Conservative while 75%+ of NHS Managers were planning to vote Labour. I don't believe those extreme figures but I do believe that the underlying trend is for GPs, who run a business after all, to vote Conservative, and NHS Managers, who work for the state, to vote Labour.

Unless we understand why state employees vote for their employer and determine if this needs modifying then there seems to me to be a breakdown of democracy.

HFC

I've just caught up with this discussion: did I miss it or has nobody yet suggested that the possession of a valid P60 entitles a body to a vote?

Forget half and multiple votes. The employed and recently employed - i.e.,taxpayers - should determine the future of this country. Those still in schooling, training, the black economy et al should not be so entitled.