As pilot schemes go, this one has kamikaze written all over it

Tories, UK politics
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So says one witty commenter about the news that Barnet council spent 1.5 million pounds getting 1.4 million in savings:

The Conservative-controlled north London council has committed to spending £1.5m this financial year on a much-hyped reform programme to help close a yawning budget gap, but it is on course to recoup just £1.4m in savings in the year.

The council’s funding shortfall is set to hit £15m next year, and the borough has tried to innovate through its “One Barnet” programme. This includes paying to develop a system of “life coaches” to persuade residents to reduce dependence on the state, appointing business consultants to help town hall officials and even opening a library in a branch of Starbucks in a pilot which could result in the closure of some library buildings.

The programme is budgeted to deliver savings of £13m a year by 2014, about a third of the total cuts planned by the council. It had been projected to save £3m by the end of the financial year, but Lynne Hillan, council leader, has now admitted the savings will be less than half of that.

Typical faux cost cutting scheme, which all seem to go a little bit like this:

  1. We must cut costs!
  2. Hire overpaid consultants
  3. ????
  4. Profit!

I mustn’t be too outraged; if it weren’t for dubious governmental cost cutting campaigns like this, think how tight the job market for IT consultants would be… One interesting detail, as Jamie noticed the guy most responsible for this scheme also managed to invest quite a lot of council money in Icelandic banks — aren’t you glad the party of business is in government now?

Doin’ the Rand Paul Curb Stomp

fascists, US politics, Wingnuts
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I could never watch American History X because some kind soul spoilered the horrific curb stomp scene in it, in which a skinhead forces a victim to lie prone on the ground biting the curb, then kicks him hard in the back of the head. Now, thanks to the Rand Paul campaign, we can finally watch a pg-13 version of that scene:



The victim in this case is Move-On volunteer Lauren Valle who was leafletting in front of a Rand Paul campaign meeting, while the perp is “the Rand Paul for Senate Bourbon County coordinator Tim Profftt“. Apparantly Valle’s shocking display of political disagreement and blatant liberal propaganda activities made this guy and his friends see red. Rand Paul is supposed to be on the libertarian end of the Republican spectrum, but based on his supporters’ behaviour straight out fascism is a more accurate description.

Tea Party morality

US politics, Wingnuts
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Matt Taibbi gets to the core of it:

This whole concept of “good welfare” and “bad welfare” is at the heart of the Tea Party ideology, and it’s something that is believed implicitly across the line. It’s why so many of their political champions, like Miller, and sniveling Kentucky rich kid Rand Paul (a doctor whose patient base is 50% state insured), and Nevada “crazy juice” Senate candidate Sharron Angle (who’s covered by husband Ted’s Federal Employee Health Plan insurance), are so completely unapologetic about taking state aid with one hand and jacking off angry pseudo-libertarian mobs with the other.

They genuinely don’t see the contradiction, much in the same way that some Wall Street people genuinely can’t see the problem with their company, say, taking $13 billion in bonuses in the same year that they accepted $13 billion in state bailouts. You wave a pitchfork at them with little post-its of the relevant figures taped to the ends, and ask them to confess – and they can’t, because they literally don’t see your point.

The politics of envy indeed.

Birmingham council wants to axe 26,000 jobs

Life under Capitalism, Tories, UK politics
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Birmingham council wants people to take pay cuts or get fired:

The council wants to abolish allowances—additional payments workers receive for working unsociable hours and difficult shifts, including weekend working.

Allowances can make up a third of an employee’s take home pay.

A worker who currently earns £15,233 a year could see their wages slashed to £11,794—a loss of £3,439 or 23 percent.

Someone who now earns £19,027 could drop to £13,125—a loss of £5,902 or 31 percent.

There is of course no intention of allowing workers to refuse working on difficult shifts… This is a direct assault on the council’s workers and hits those workers who are already doing what are often difficult jobs for low wages. For many of them those allowances are needed to pay the bills; they can’t survive on just the base salary. And Birmingham isn’t the only council to play this game, just the first. According to Socialist Worker the following councils have also issued letters:

  • 8,500 in Sheffield
  • All 11,000 council workers in Barnsley
  • 8,500 in Sheffield
  • 8,000 in Walsall
  • 4,000 in Croydon
  • 800 in Oldham
  • 500 in Havering

This is the way in which the Tories want to solve Britain’s “debt crisis”.

Proud of the BBC

BBC Bias, Video
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Mitch Benn tells it like it is about the BBC — grumble as we may at it and annoyed as we are by it from time to time no other broadcaster anywhere in the world has such a record of quality behind it and best, it’s not owned by the state nor by the likes of Murdoch, but by the people. I wish we had any public broadcaster here with even ten percent of the quality of auntie Beeb.

(And I thought I recognised at least one face in this clip — Adrian Ogden, good on ya.)

And oh yeah: buy the t-shirt.