Terrorism is not an excuse for the loss of our liberties

Terrorism is not an excuse for the loss of our liberties

By Dark Politricks

The war on terror has been used by the UK government as a battering ram to the rights of the citizens of this country. New laws have been passed including 2 new terrorism acts (2000 and 2006) which have restricted free speech, the rights of demonstrators to protest and have given the police new powers of stop and search and lets not forget the 28 days detention and control orders.

Now you may say "well you have nothing to fear unless you have something to hide" which is a bend over attitude that leads to fascism. I am not a terrorist but nor are most people who have been affected by this new age of fighting terrorism.

Its the thin edge of the wedge which has taken advantage of peoples justifiable fears about terrorist attacks to introduce laws that if only applied to real terrorists would be fine however who can forget the 82 year old Walter Wolfgang who was dragged out of the Labour conference for heckling Jack Straw under the terrorism act in 2005. Or what about Gordon Brown invoking the terrorism act to freeze Iceland's bank accounts during 2008?

Just these two acts alone prove how our government intends to use these new powers for reasons other than fighting terrorism.

Once the public has been forced into a mindset that demands protection from unseen shadowy terrorists and that they must be dealt with severely it then allows the government to widen the scope of what actually constitutes terrorism.

One day you are a protester exercising your legal right of protest the next you are a terrorist trying to overthrow the state with subversive acts. Take a look over the pond to see how the US government is trying to class gun owners, ex servicemen and Ron Paul supporters as domestic terrorists.

It seems that the US constitution is slowly being eroded bit by bit. I never used to understand the Americans fascination with their right to bear guns however the more I have read up about Thomas Jefferson and the other founding fathers and their desire to protect the people against the tyranny of government it makes perfect sense. I especially love the following two quotes that Jefferson made:

"No man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

"And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not .warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

I have come to have a renewed respect for the founding fathers of America and the contemporary patriots who want the US government to return to the constitution. The world would be a quieter and probably safer place if it did.

Even though Jefferson and Washington kicked their British rulers out during the war of Independence us Brits must never forget that the father of the revolution was Thomas Paine an Englishman whose books the Age of Reasonand the Rights of Man had enormous influence on the Age of Enlightenment and the revolutions of France and America.

Two new republics were born that decreed that man had inalienable rights that could not be taken away by government. Therefore when people see their government treating their constitution as "just a piece of paper"as George Bush famously called it and trampling over their rights including the right to bear arms as if their inalienable rights were just an outdated idea that had no place in this century then I can see why they get so upset over the 2nd amendment.

Here in the UK its too late as we are currently a disarmed nation since the massacres of Dunblane and Hungerford took our guns away but then unlike the Americans we never had an inalienable right to bare arms anyway.

In fact although the UK passed the first ever bill of rights in 1689 it was never thought necessary for us to have a written constitution like the French and Americans.

I personally think it would be in our own best interests to draw up our own document as soon as possible. Yes we have the Human Rights act of 1998 which the right wing media decries and complains about almost every other day as something that has been imposed on us from Europe. However ridiculous the examples the Daily Mail and Express use to denigrate this act seem we should never feel that getting rid of that act would be in our best interest.

Civil rights have been hard fought and won through years of battle between state and its populace and any document that tries to enshrine our rights for future prosperity should be cherished and held in high esteem. We should also remember that it was British lawyers that drew up the Europen Convention on human rights in 1950, that the act is based on, after the horrors of the second world war. So we should view this act as yet another example of us Brits bringing civil rights to the world rather than Europe imposing some alien concept on us.

From the Magna Carta in 1215, through to John Lockes and Thomas Hobbes social contract between man and the state through to the first Bill of Rights and then the Human Rights act we Brits have been at the forefront of civil rights and we should not let the fear of terrorism allow any of these hard won rights to be taken away as once gone they will probably not come back unless a Liberal Democrat government gets in power which seems most unlikely.

We are slowly walking down the path to a place that I don't want to call home. When George Orwells 1984 starts to become a commentary on modern times then we must all stop and ask ourselves what the hell is going on.

By Dark Politricks

Why did the Unelectable Corbyn get elected again?

Why did the Unelectable Corbyn get elected again?

By Dark Politricks

Once again the satirist, Johnathan Pie hits the nail on the head with Jeremy Corbyn's 2nd leadership election victory in a year.

Uneletable?

Well he now has an even bigger mandate to run Labour than he did before. Plus the Labour party now is the biggest political party in Europe with half a million members.

At a time when other political parties are dying. We have witnessed something akin to a reverse takeover of the Labour party. It is incomplete and it is certainly contested, but it is real.

Also by invoking the victories of Sadiq Khan in London and Marvin Rees in Bristol, he was showing that a social movement can yield victory at the ballot box -  - theguardian.com.

Let's see what Johnathan Pie has to say about the unelectable Labour leader.



What do you think of Jeremy Corbyn's 2nd massive victory to stay Labour leader within a year?

Is he really unelectable or are you just falling for the Murdoch press media?

The Tory spin in the Daily Mail and Telegraph that spews out the lies that we cannot spend our money investing in the country but rather on wars, Trident and filling the holes in the Treasury caused by austerity measures?

View the original article at brexit-to-leave-or-stay.blogspot.co.uk.

Jeremy Corbyn wins another Labour victory but will it stop the Blairites?

Jeremy Corbyn wins another Labour victory but will it stop the Blairites?

By Dark Poltircks
Dark Politricks


Jeremy Corbyn wins yet another Labour election victory but will it stop the Blairites?

Guess what...

Jeremy Corbyn has won his Labour Leadership election battle against the unknown (to me at least until this content), Owen Smith.

I don't find it a surprise, I don't find it a shock I find it a waste of time and a stupid exercise by Blairites and their followers who they co-erced into joining their coup as a massive custard pie in the face. They have really wasted some important months when they should have been attacking the Tories on

• BREXIT and what's happening with it (I have no clue).
• Our new unelecte PM Theresa May and how she has gone back on many of David Cameron's policies, which should really trigger a general election, but as the Labour party were in no fit state to fight one they got away with it.
• Examples include the re-introduction of Grammar Schools.
• The possibility of Scotland holding another referendum to leave the UK.
• China building our nuclear power station and security issues around this.
• So many other items to mention.

This is what satirist Jonathan Pie thinks about the re-election of Jermey Corbyn.


This year he won with 61.8% of the vote to Smith’s 38.2%. Last year he won with 59.5% of the vote against the other 3 candidates.

This must tell you something. Maybe that the people and the Labour members want him as their leader no matter how much the press attack him all the time and try and portray him as unelectable?

Are the Blairites mad, do they not realise that the Labour party and the part of the country who are left wing actually WANT Jeremy Corbyn as the leader.

Not some air brushed, PR managed, speaker phone in a suit, controlled by HQ who says what he is told to, and has no real opinions or beliefs of his own like Tony Blair - except when it came to God telling him to fight Iraq with Bush as it might be Armagedom.

We don't want constant US led war, like a puppy on a lead.

"Lets go bomb this country now UK our Special Friend", and then afterwards whilst the people are all still fighting in a civil war, or forming new terrorist groups we can later control for our own ends, we can let all the US corporations get the oil rights such as Halliburton.

Plus all the contracts to rebuild the roads and hospitals that we bombed for no reason in the first place can go to US companies formed for exactly this reason. Got to keep the US war economy GDP rolling by passing tax payers money to US military contractors.

Special Friend? The only thing special about our relationship with the USA is that we get to sleep in the wet patch afterwards and have little say when the "special" part is about to start.

We don't want to to give banks money at 0% interest rates whilst we all have to suffer with 10%+ or if your stuck then WONGA or 1 of the hundreds of pay day loans that have sprung up much more.

Is that not a sign something is wrong?

When the public have to pay 1000s of % APR for their money? Do you know the pay day loans interest rates at the moment.

• WONGA - 1,177% APR
• Satsuma Loans - 1575% APR
• Sunny - 1,299% APR
• Square Today Short Term Loan - 1265% APR

I could go on, but that seems wrong to me, especially when all these payday banks are owned by the same main banks at the top anyway. It seems to be one of our only growth industries in the UK at the moment along with online Bingo, Poker and Gambling sites. That doesn't say much for our economy does it?

If your a normal person, I consider myself normal believe it or not, then we don't want our economy to built on services that milk the common person so that big banks get even richer and the poor poorer. No, we want to re-focus it so that we have a skilled manufacturing base, a decent job for university and apprentices to enter into after work not fill the shelves at Lidl.

We want high tech, high skilled people and a way for those who have fallen off the track due to ill health or long term joblessness to get back into those jobs through free training. Not punishment by taking away benefits because they have an extra room in their flat, or they don't have a computer so that have to spend their meager benefits on bus fares into town to use the library to search for jobs as they currently have to do.

Call me stupid but we don't want to privatize everything from education to the NHS. Privatising the National Railways when you think about it can't be competitive anyway due to not having the ability to have 2 trains running on the same line at the same time to the same place. Isn't that what competitiveness should all be about?

Unless you are going to allow each railyway company to build their own tracks through the country (which would take decades due to planning permission and all the rest) then you should make our railways a decent public transport option for the nation by making them fast, on time, reliable and cheap. If you did all that more people would leave their cars at home, help the environment and use the trains like they do in Spain and France.

Why is it in Spain I could travel overnight and back to a place the same distance as London for a couple of pounds on a clean railway when here it costs me the best part of twenty pounds, and more if it's overnight?

No it has to be all about money and putting it into the pockets of companies after we have sold the rights for a few billion. It's a stupid mentality only dreamt up by the Tories and Blairites.

The same goes for education. Education should be for life. People should be able to re-skill throughout their lives without forking out thousands in loan repayments. You should be able to go to University for free, another Blairite scheme that has just expanded the cost of education to those that can afford it again and again.

Cut the amount of money we spend on a useless Trident scheme that relies on US GPS (so they could turn it off if we went rogue), and the trillions we have spent on wars over the last decade and we could easily afford free education for all for life.

If you are unemployed you should be able to get onto any workplace training scheme or educational course you want for free. It costs a lot more to have a jobless person claiming benefits for their home, pocket and council tax for years on end than it would for a year or two at a college.

We also have to admit that some of the things Blair and his cronies and followers did were bad for the country and it's future e.g Iraq, and voting in the Tories time again won't sort that out.

PFI was a nightmare for a start, one that will cost over £200 billion in the next 35 years. This will lead to hospitals and schools going broke if not already due to these huge debts they are with debts for the next 20+ years. Yes we may have build a lot of new schools and hospitals due to PFI, but the one thing we didn't build was houses - why not?

Was that because we couldn't find a way to allow the private sector to milk the taxpayer as they do with the others. Currently schools and hospitals have to pay contractors up to £100 or more to change a single light bulb if it breaks in a classroom instead of just calling out their handy man to do the job for them.

I remember being at school with a handy man who did all the odd jobs around the place and we all loved him more than the teachers.

He did everything that needed to be done and he cost a hell of a lot less than what schools are currently paying for fixing anything broken at the moment. Just think of the waiting time for the private contractors to arrive for one, and then the inflated costs all to fill their pockets. What is the point apart from a one off payment from the private company to fill whatever gaping hole the treasury currently has and then face decades of debt?

Of course it doesn't worry the MP's who put it into action as they will be long gone by then. Probably working for the companies who are running the PFI schemes they helped push through parliament no doubt.

Also I don't want to bail out the banks without jailing the directors as Iceland did. The people who led us into the 2008 crisis in the first place should be punished like any other criminal. I want some justice for all this mess and austerity everyone is facing.

Why are we giving banks money at 0% when we could be making National Bonds for investments in house building that will return a nice profit for investors, much needed jobs flooding in and most of all provide the housing people need?

These are all things Jeremy Corbyn wants to do. I can't find a fault in it so please leave your comments to what is so stupid about these policies please.

From the Guardian

Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to “wipe the slate clean” after winning a convincing victory in Labour’s bitter leadership battle, securing 62% of the vote.

Speaking after the result was declared in Liverpool, Corbyn thanked his rival, Owen Smith, and urged the “Labour family” to unite after the summer-long contest.

“We have much more in common than that which divides us,” he said. “Let’s wipe that slate clean from today and get on with the work we’ve got to do as a party together.”

Corbyn secured 61.8% of the vote to Smith’s 38.2%. The victory strengthens his hold on a party that has expanded dramatically since the 2015 general election and now has more than 500,000 members. In last year’s contest, he won 59.5% of the vote.

Corbyn won a majority over Smith in every category – members (59%), registered supporters (70%) and trades union affiliates (60%).

 

View the original article at the main Dark Poltricks web site at Dark Politricks where you can get even more #altnews and daily politics away from the mainstream.

By Dark Poltircks



© 2016 By Dark Poltircks

Some alternate views on the EU and whether we should leave or stay

Some alternate views on the EU and whether we should leave or stay

You have heard from the politicians, the Euro MPs, reporters and even had propaganda leaflets through your door from both the BREXIT and Better In Together sides of the EU Referendum debate.

Now I am bringing you some alternative views on the question.

So enough of the politicians lets listen to some alternative points of view. If you do like your #altnews, and don't rely purely on state news like the BBC or papers owned by people with their own reasons for wanting you to vote a certain way, then you should know this person.

David Shayler is an ex MI5 spy who was jailed after breaking the official secrets act and passing information about how we funded al-Qaeda liked LIFG terrorists to kill Col. Gaddafi but screwed it up and killed innocent civilians instead.

He was also passing info to the Daily Mail about how the security forces were scared of Labour MPS and spied on Peter Mandelson, Jack Straw and Harriet Harman. Once they had got into power under Blair it became apparent that this was true and that many Labour MP's were under the spotlight of the establishment.

This is why I suppose Blair was brought into the fold to make Labour an "establishment" party. Removing all traces of nationalisation, war mongering and following the USA's lead, and allow privatisation started under Thatcher to continue whilst creating the biggest police state in the western world.

We have the most CCTV cameras, lost our right to be silent under caution without judgement being made in court, lost the right to protest near Parliament as well as many other draconian laws which were brought in by the supposedly left leaning, people's party, Labour (or New Labour - Tory Lite).

Therefore he may have been attacked at the time for what he claimed, but when the British embassy was overrun in the aftermath of the attack on Tripoli by rebel forces, many documents were found that backed up his claims of MI6 collusion with al-Qaeda and even how we allowed certain rebel leaders to be tortured as we stood by and asked questions.

One of the main leaders of the rebels, Abdul Hakim Belhaj, even won the right to sue Jack Straw and the head of the MI6 over his kidnap and rendition due to this evidence coming to light.

Therefore don't knock what you don't know.

Sit back and listen.

You may not agree with some of the things he says but remember he was jailed for telling the truth before. Plus it is always good to get points of view from all sides whether you believe them or not.



View the original article on www.darkpolitricks.com

We need a political revolution and a real People's Party

We need a political revolution  and a real People's Party

By Dark Politricks

It has been a good 5 years since the financial meltdown and what have we got done apart from creating an awakening in many people who know that "something just aint right"?

• We have had both the Tea Party and Occupy protest movements.
• Protests across Europe from Spain to Greece and the UK over "austerity" measures forced on them by the rich.
• Huge tax breaks for the rich and welfare cuts for the poor.
• Bailouts from tax payer money for the banks that were too big too fail and too big to jail. In fact the six of the largest institutions that we said were too big to fail are now actually 37%bigger than they were in 2008!
• Small fines or "Get out of jail free cards" by our bankster-owned governments for any bank engaged in criminal activities such as HSBC with their special banking facilities for drug dealers and terrorists. Or Goldman Sachs who were fined for selling dodgy mortgage investments.
• A world leader, President Obama, who was elected by liberals wanting the Police State being formed and lamented by them at the time in the aftermath of 9.11 who went back on all his promises. In fact he went on and continued the Bush policies making the USA a defacto Police State. When a leader of a country (and one who is supposed to be a constitutional lawyer) can declare himself above the Constitution and order the assassination of anyone at any time, American or not, without judicial oversight, then we have a major problem and the US is no longer a constitutional republic.

So the question is: what are we doing about all this apart from bitching and moaning and just putting up with all the cuts in our public services as money is siphoned off from the lower classes and sucked up to the top few percent of the nation?

Not a lot it seems otherwise we would have a few rich people's heads on sticks by now outside the Tower of London and along the bridge like we used to do. If only.

It seem's the only nation who has the balls to actually jail some of  the banksters who caused some of this mess are the people of Iceland. A nation of less than half a million people have jailed more bankers than the UK and the USA together it seems. They have jailed:

• Baldur Guðlaugsson, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, who was sentenced to two years probation by the District Court of Reykjavík for insider trading.
• Aron Karlsson was sentenced to 2 years in prison by the District Court of Reykjavík for defrauding Arion Bank in real estate dealings.
• Lárus Welding, CEO of Glitnir, and Guðmundur Hjaltason, Managing Director of Corporate Banking of Glitnir, were sentenced to 9 months in prison by the District Courtof Reykjavík for a major breach of trust.
• Friðfinnur Ragnar Sigurðsson, Glitnir employee, was sentenced to 1 year in prison by the District Court of Reykjanes for insider trading.
• Styrmi Þór Bragason, President of MP Bank, was sentenced to 1 year in prison by the Supreme Court for breach of trust.

So what is it going to take for the people, who are admittedly awakened and pissed, to actually remove the existing leading elites that are right of center (despite their names).

These are people who see nothing wrong with loading up future generations with so much debt that it won't be long until we see real Brazilian or South African shanty towns on the edge of cities like London and New York because it is just too expensive to rent let alone buy a house.

It looks like only people who already have money will survive in this new brave world and it's a lot easier to make money from money than the 50+ hour weeks of manual labour most of us have to put up with.

It certainly helps that when you are rich you can walk into a bank and get a huge loan to invest in shares or a new business staffed by zero hour contracted workers at a few percent.

The rest of  the masses are left with loan sharks such as Wonga who charge anything up to 5853% APR for a loan of £150 for 18 days (taken from the front page of their website).

Not only are we being priced out of getting money from the "normal banking system" (if normal is a word that can be applied to it then that's debatable) - but we are being denied any sense of equal distribution of wealth to help balance out the luck of the few who are born into money and the hardships of the many who only succeed through hard work and a huge dose of luck being applied to their lives.

One of the ways the elite are trying to keep their wealth and systems of control to themselves is by loading people up with debt at such an early age that it is considered normal to be in tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of debt throughout your life with little hope of ever being debt free.

In the olden days - by that I mean the 50's - people didn't buy something unless they had the money to afford it. They saved up the relevant money and only when they could walk into the shop and buy it outright would they even consider making a purchase such as a TV or Car.

Nowadays credit cards and student loans are normalizing debt and making young people believe it to be standard to live with multiple Credit Companies octopus tentacles all over their backs.

Not only are they normalizing debt enslavement from an early age they are making it so expensive to go to University that only rich people will be properly educated in the future. If you are expected to leave University with a £50k debt and little chance of a job apart from a menial non skilled job in the local pound store then why would you even bother to go to College?

It is only the wealthy and connected who know that "father knows someone in the City" that will be able to leave Oxbridge and walk into high paid jobs in the city that enable them to pay off any debt in no time at all.

Oh and don't forget the new plans by the Tories to make the unemployed work for their benefits. £70 a week a pitiful and humiliating amount of money to live on per week if you have just been made redundant from a £60,000 a year job because your boss realised it was much cheaper to outsource your position to India or China. Yet to make it even worse, if you can't get a job sharpish you are now going to be expected to work a full week for your £70.

Oh thank you Government for taking care of me in these hard times. Times you have made worse by letting banksters ruin our economy and strip, privatise and literally burgle the family jewels for themselves while you sat back and did nothing because you were promised a job in their company once you left Government.

How the Lib Dem's can let this happen I have no idea. Fuck the Lib Dem's you are never getting my vote again for what you have let the Tories do to this country. I doubt I will vote again until a party is formed that is actually FOR THE PEOPLE and RUN FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE MANY NOT THE FEW.

The young are the most Internet savvy and this is why the elite are so busy trying to crack down on Internet sites that disseminate knowledge that used to be only known by the elites and occult groups (occult = hidden knowledge).

Therefore the last 20 years of websites spreading information about fiat currency and how our money is debt based, or how wars are used to further geo-political purposes and even corporations balance sheets whilst being mis-sold to the public on "human rights" and "ethical grounds", are all reasons why the elite want to limit this knowledge to their own kind only.

Without the Internet many of us, including myself would never have found out how certain groups of people have always held power and the ways they use to keep it in their hands.

We would all still be little patriotic soldiers from the first World War thinking we were going to fight for freedom and justice if it weren't for the web spreading the ways the establishment do all they can to paint people who oppose their plans as "unpatriotic" or "domestic extremists".

So those are our problems but what do we do.

Well we know the NSA is monitoring anything we type and send to each other so a proper full-armed revolution will probably be cracked down on within a few days just by taking out the leaders and making certain agitators go "missing" as they used to do so well in South America.

Our phones we carry around everywhere are permanent monitoring devices that can be used to track our movements and if they wanted to even remotely turn on the camera and microphone and take photos or listen to us. Paranoid? Only if they aren't watching you and by the looks of things it seems the NSA and GCHQ are watching EVERYBODY.

Therefore if we are to overthrow this corrupt elite we need a de-centralised and compartmentalized movement - a bit like how terrorist organisations work. Basic technology, pencils n paper and low tech with whispers in the park and baseball caps pulled down low whenever a CCTV camera is approached.

However, this would rely on people having the balls to risk jail for acts of civil disobedience as well as being able to afford to take time off from their jobs at McDonalds and Starbucks to protest. And if they can't afford the time off work to form a revolution it will be left to the millions of unemployed to actually get cold and hungry enough to storm the barricades not giving a fuck about the consequences because their current existence is already worse than anything the POWER can do to them.

So a logical option would be to actually form a new political party and use social media, existing protest groups, trade unions, and other community groups to spread the word of its existence. We already have 3rd parties like the Greens, the Justice Party, Libertarians or UKIP but for a younger and more tech-savvy populace we need a Pirate Party that is concerned with more than just digital rights management and P2P downloading.

The Trade Unions are already pissed off with Labours abandonment of them, a political party they created. In reality, Labour have moved so far to the right that they are no longer relevant or even related in any conceptual way with the unions that created them.

Ed is trying to split the link even further by making each union member chose whether their fees are used for party donations and now would be the perfect time to get them to break the link completely and use their funds to help a new party that REALLY is for the benefit of the people.

We need a party that isn't formed of political apparatchiks who have only worked in the depths of party HQ since leaving University with a degree in politics. People such as Ed Milliband, David "call me Dave" Cameron and many of the others.

We need real people who have real knowledge of what it's like to live in the modern UK or the USA. We elect, jail and then re-elect crack-smoking mayors for God's sake so let's have no hypocrisy over past deeds and criminal histories.

We need people who have lived REAL lives, and in this day and age that means you have probably used drugs and maybe have a criminal record. As long as you don't claim to be a saint who preaches moralistic bullshit about God and Family only to be caught in an Airport bathroom stall trying to get some "strange" off the occupant in the next cubicle then I have no care about your sexual bias or history.

We need laws that prevent corruption of our politicians and stop lobbyists from highly funded arms companies, AIPAC and banks from getting their claws into the law makers. In fact it should be illegal and punishable by a stretch in prison for any potential politician to sign letters promising to "always put country X first" in every vote they take. The people of OUR countries should come first and these lobby groups should never forget that fact.

Any politician should be prevented from ever working for a company he or she has voted in favour for. Seeing politicians walk out of Congress and straight into the offices of JP Morgan after serving on certain finance committees should be seen as a sign of duplicitous self-interest and not whatever BS excuse that said politician comes out with. Breaking the link between the power of powerful interests and the politicians that SHOULD BE controlling them should be key on any agenda of a new political consensus.

Health Care, Education and Jobs should be seen as necessities and not rights for the preservation of those with enough money to afford them. We can do without the huge war machines we have funded for centuries and the half million pound missiles that we waste by firing them into Somalian and Yemen mud huts for no gain but massive backlash by the local population.

A nonmilitaristic foreign policy would not only bring benefits in terms of the world reversing their view of us as imperialists out to grab natural resources and geopolitical control, but it would also save money that could be used to ensure we can all get quality health care and education throughout our lives.

Only constant education to keep our skill sets up to date and our ability to be employable is the answer to the growing skill gap between East and West. When education becomes too expensive and only available to the rich it divides society and causes social unrest. We don't want to end up living in South African-style cities where the rich whites live in high-walled mini towns with private armed security guards and the poor blacks spend their time robbing and burgling them due to lack of opportunity and fair life chances.

Yes life isn't fair and no-one said it was.

However, as a civilized race we should be in the position to do our best to equal out random life opportunities as much as possible.

Just because I was lucky enough to be born in a rich western nation shouldn't mean that those people born in Bangladesh should have to go to work before the age of 8 pulling apart dangerous batteries or breaking up huge ships covered in dangerous chemicals. We should have enough moral fibre to realise that sending our shit to poor countries to sift through isn't ethical or humane.

So yes the web is monitoring everything we do but we can still use it to our own means. Maybe we need an open source website where we can all get together and help formulate policies and ideas for a new party. If we cannot beat them from the outside then the only other way will be from within their own walls.

The only problem will be the agent provocateurs and plants the establishment will install in any new movement such as Tony Blair whose role was to move Labour away from the people and into establishment hands. 4 wars Tony was and never was a socialist. If he claimed to be then he was lying through his teeth. We should be on the watch for smiling liars like Blair and a healthy stock of truth serum and lie detector machines might be a good first purchase.

To conclude, the problem is that however much we sit and moan about our plight nothing is really getting done and our supposed political parties that should represent us don't. Therefore we need a new political party that really does represent the people. The People's Party would be a good name.

It is only my own idea but I hope someone with more power than little old me can get a few balls moving.

By Dark Politricks

© 2013 Dark Politricks

Are the UK Government using PPI and Banks as a way to put money back into peoples pockets?

Are the UK Government using PPI and Banks as a way to put money back into peoples pockets?

By Dark Politricks

I just saw an advert on Channel 5 USA (a UK channel) in which a PPI Claims company said that if you had taken a loan out within 15 years and had added Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) then you could attempt to claim it back.

Now I had taken a load of loans out in my youth, with PPI, and when the first adverts started appearing the adverts were only saying that you could claim the money back if you had taken a loan out within the past 3 years. I didn't do anything because my loans were 10 years old.

However it seemed that the time length that you could claim for was extending and extending every few months. It seemed to coincide with the UK finances getting worse and our GDP going down and inflation going up.

First I started seeing adverts for 5 then 7 years and then when I first saw an advert earlier this year for 10 years I was straight on the phone. I shouldn't have gone through one of the "specialist PPI companies" however it was money I wouldn't have got back if I hadn't of attempted it in the first place - so in reality it was literally free cash in my pocket.

From an initial 3 years to 15 years is a long time and I have a feeling that the government is hoping that PPI payouts will help stimulate the economy by putting money back into people's pockets in a stealthy Keynesian method without any government minister having to  admit to it of course! Austerity, Austerity - that is the only way says our supposed economic wizard George Osborne.

It is Georgey boy who's claim that our deficit and debt would be reduced through his spending cuts and VAT tax rises would have started working by now. Anyone with half an eye can see they blatantly haven't done the job.

Their are no private jobs rushing in to fill all the public ones he is gutting. He is forcing people off disability allowance onto job-seekers (a much lower benefit) and making them look for jobs that don't exist.

He is introducing "bedroom" taxes  for the poor so that people with extra rooms have to give up more of their money or move across  the country to places where one bedroom flats exist. All the while he is cutting public services and yet at the same time he has reduced the top rate of tax for the richest people in the country. What happened to "We are all in this together"?

The politicians know the banks were mainly to blame for our current crisis and the UK is one of the most indebted nations on the planet.

This doesn't only include Government debt but personal debt as well. All through the later 90's, and the years of the Labour government, people were re-mortgaging their houses and spending the money or having loans literally thrown at them by the banks. I know for a fact I and many other people I know were.

After the first law suit over PPI was won by someone years ago the banks have had to set aside billions in case they had to pay out more to future customers who were mis sold PPI.

From The International Business Times

PPI has become the biggest mis-selling scandal to hit UK banks and they have repeatedly underestimated the scale of the problem.

Britain's biggest retail bank, Lloyds Banking Group Plc , has set aside 6.8 billion pounds for PPI compensation. Barclays Plc has set aside 2.6 billion and RBS has provisioned 2.2 billion.

So far the banks have set aside around £20 billion and the payouts so far amount to £8.9 billion.

Payment Protection Insurance was meant to protect borrowers against redundancy and sickness , but it was often sold to customers who didn't want or need it or who couldn't claim it even if they took it out. People such as those with certain medical conditions or people who were self employed. Often, like myself, I had PPI added to my loans or credit cards without my knowledge!

The worst thing, in my mind anyway, was that if you had to claim (as I did once) the money from the insurance only lasted for a year. Plus the amount the insurance cost you worked out exactly the same as if you had added an extra years worth of  loan to your original debt. It was a total con!

Because the UK finances are in such a state and recent news reports show customers are holding back from buying goods. I have a sneaky feeling that the government is secretly hoping that the PPI payouts will be a way of putting cash into potential shoppers pockets to stimulate the economy. The added benefit of course is that it's all at the cost of the banks who caused the mess in the first place.

To me it sounds like a good plan. The banksters are the ones who caused the mess and I am not joking when I said they used tot literally  throw loans at people.

For instance I was given a £5,000 loan when I left college with no job or way of paying it back. Then every year the same bank would give me an extra £5,000 - £7,000 loan and overdrafts up to £3,500 to pay back the outstanding amount and give me some more spending cash! It was truly a time when "debt was good" and people didn't think about the future.

As a young man who didn't really think he would have to pay back the money anyway (I had a bit of death wish back then, plus the money management skills of a frog) it seemed like free money and I grabbed whatever the banks would offer me. One of the things I often feel our schools let the population down with is real world lessons in living. How to manage money, how to look after yourself, how money works, how to use logic and reason and think for yourself.

Young men are worse than woman who are often taught these skills from their mothers so if the schools are not teaching the boys and they are not getting taught at home they are left to the mercy of the loan sharks and banksters. Shuffling money from one account to another to pay off monthly repayments and sticking to the minimum payment to keep them off your back is not exactly "good" money management!

Unlike other people I know who "went missing" for 5+ years and now have mortgages and are debt free. I honestly OR  stupidly (pick your own word) decided to pay off my debts. Even thought this took over 6 years I managed to do it. Therefore when I saw the opportunity to reclaim all the PPI which amounted to around £5,000 I took it.

Some credit cards I didn't even realise I had PPI on at the time and on other banks I had no details apart from the name of the bank but their customer service department returned a list of 6 loan accounts taken out within 7 years. I used one of these companies on TV but didn't realise they took a THIRD of the money as recompense for doing the job you could easily do yourself.

Luckily for me they forgot about one loan and I got £2,000 all to myself without deductions but I would recommend anyone who has ever taken a loan out in the last 15 years to check if they can reclaim the PPI on it.

The Government is not helping us and the banksters who caused the mess are still making billions therefore we should not feel sorry for them in the slightest.

Just remember if the EU can order the Cypriot government to just take 10% of any bank savings without your say then who is to say the UK government won't do the same?

I would expect the time you can claim for any PPI to continue to go up and up until either the banks have dolled out all the money they said they set aside years ago but haven't given out yet. Or until the UK GDP rises above a single percentage point for more than 3 months in a row!

To anyone thinking of claiming their PPI back I would definitely recommend everyone to do the work themselves. It is not hard.

You can just write t o the banks customer complaints department and ask for all your loan details that had PPI on them, then write a letter back saying you want your PPI money for any of the following reasons:

1. You were not informed that the PPI protection would only last a year.
2. The PPI was added without your consent.
3. You were self employed which meant the PPI wouldn't cover you.
4. You were depressed or had another medical complaint that would have meant the insurance would not be paid out.
5. You were not informed you wouldn't get the insurance if you were sacked.
6. The PPI insurance was not fully explained to you at the time. Most of the employees who sold the PPI will be long gone and those that remain won't remember what  they said when they sold it to you. Therefore this is probably the best one to use as they will not be able to re-call what they said when they sold the loan to you.

A good thing to do is to write off to one of these PPI companies, get a payment pack sent to you and see what sort of questions they ask you to answer. All they do is use the answers and send the paper work off to the same places you could easily do. Therefore use these packs as a guide and write to the same Financial Ombusdman yourself if  the Bank doesn't pay out after your first letter of complaint.

Remember - this could be your chance of getting out of any recent debt. If they are going back 15 years then I would guess that the majority of adults in this country would have had a credit card or loan within than time. Even if you don't think you took PPI out it is worth checking in-case the bank added it on without your knowledge.

View the original article "Are the UK Government using PPI and Banks as a way to put money back into peoples pockets?" at www.darkpolitricks.com

Are protest votes wasted votes

Are Protest Votes Wasted Or Necessary?

By Dark Politricks

Here in the UK we are gearing up for the general election which must be held by next June. The general perception of the outcome seems to be that the Tories will win but the size of the defeat is still up for debate. It could range from a very small majority to a massive swing to the right on the same magnitude as Labours historic win in 97. Therefore with the result of the election in all probability decided already is there any point in voting for anyone other than Tory at the next election?

The recent history of elections has shown that a large segment of British society is prepared to vote outside the main 3 parties in what can be termed by those who expect conformity and consistency in voting patterns “protest votes”. 

In the recent European elections UKIP, the BNP and the Greens all managed to win seats. History shows that elections to the European parliament have always been a way for the British public to vent frustration at the current UK government at the same time as not having to worry about the consequences of their actions due to the very limited power that the EU parliament can exert over EU policy.

In very basic terms a protest vote to the UK Independence Party (UKIP) tells Gordon Brown and co how unhappy you are about the rapidly expanding power of the EU, the broken promises about referendums on the Lisbon treaty and the general lack of democracy that the EU in its current form entails.

A vote to the racist British National Party shows the government that your concerned about uncontrolled immigration. Free flats to asylum seekers and long waiting lists for nationals. Overcrowded NHS services and jobs being taken by those willing to work for a much lower wage than the British worker is used to.

A large percentage of people voting for the BNP probably didn’t even consider themselves as racist or even agree with the majority that the party believes in, however the protest vote seems to have worked. Since the European election Labour has started to sound a lot tougher on immigration. At the last election when Michael Howard tried to make immigration an election topic he was deemed to have lurched to the right and it was considered as a major reason for him losing the election. However it seems times have changed and more importantly Labour is so far behind in the polls it doesn’t want to be losing votes to those parties that are willing to tackle the question of immigration.

Limits on the number of non EU immigrants have been brought in with a new point system. A system to ensure that newly advertised jobs must be offered to nationals first before going to foreign workers has been introduced. There is a new UK Border Agency to secure, monitor and control entry into the country. 

Asylum claims have been speeded up and more people are getting deported but more importantly than that the dialogue used by Labour politicians has changed from a purely “immigration is good for the UK” standpoint to one in which Gordon Brown can say in a speech that he wanted “British jobs for British workers”. In fact since the BNP started winning council and European seats numerous Labour ministers have spoken publicly about how Labour dropped the ball on immigration and have to tackle this topic if they are not to lose more ground to the BNP.

Therefore it seems that the threat of the BNP gaining support from disillusioned working class whites has had the effect of making Labour reconsider or at least re-market its policy on immigration in such a way as to reach out to this constituency which they used to consider their core supporters. However they haven’t moved to tackle the other and more importantly larger group of protest voters which are those people who voted for UKIP.

The Conservative party has always had a problem with its MP’s in that on the topic of Europe and they are split between Eurosceptics and Europhiles with both policy and rhetoric swinging between these two points of view. With David Cameron and William Hague as Foreign Secretary the Tories seem to be trying to reach out to UKIP supporters with their recent European policies. They have broken away from the major centre right group the in the EU parliament the EPP and created a new anti-federalist reformist group along with some other right wing parties from Eastern Europe.

They also tried to appeal to the majority of the British public who were outraged at Labours broken promise of a referendum on the Lisbon treaty by promising a referendum of their own on the treaty. However due to the fact that the treaty has now been implemented across Europe due to the Czech republic finally signing it they decided to drop this promise much to the outrage of public and MP’s alike. 

Both main parties have now broken promises to hold a referendum on Europe. This is a vote that the British electorate are itching to have seeing that the majority of people have never been asked their opinion on Britain’s role in Europe. 

Even those people that did vote in the last referendum in 1975 only voted for whether the UK should join the EEC which was at the time a free trade zone and not a political entity with federalist super-state trappings. Therefore a large proportion of the British people feel betrayed by this rail-roading of the country into a Euro-State something that right or wrong they feel they should be asked about.

Therefore a party like UKIP with the charismatic Nigel Farage as their leader has a good chance on capitalizing on this growing resentment and anger at broken promises. Add to this the public outrage with the recent MP expenses scandal which has tarred all the major parties at Westminster and it might just be the right point in time for people to consider making a protest vote at the next election and for it to actually count for once at a national level.

Nigel said in his recent conference speech that UKIP would be putting candidates up for every seat in the next election. This means that everyone has a chance of expressing their anger at the increasing lack of democracy within this country by voting for a party that would offer the country a chance to finally express their opinion on the matter. People might consider that UKIP is a one policy party and I would tend to agree however this one policy is one that matters to anyone who cares about democracy and our place within Europe.

The EU is a blatantly undemocratic entity which has just been proven by the recent installation of the new EU president Herman van Rompuy and Foreign Minister Baroness Catherine Ashton. Both of these people have been put into powerful positions without the consent of the people of Europe. There was no election which enabled the people of Europe to choose for themselves the right person for the job. Instead these two people, who have never won any kind of election on a national level, were chosen by our EU leaders for their own reasons.

Poll after poll has shown that the majority of British people want to belong to a Europe of nation states where each country has full control over its own economy, law and borders. They believe in free trade and movement of goods, services and people across Europe but they don’t want a federal super state. Although our politicians are very good at telling us that the EU is not turning into a federal super state it sure does seem that way.

The EU has given itself all the trappings of a country with a European national anthem, a flag, a president of Europe, soon to be embassies around the world and a seat at the UN as well as all the shared laws rules and regulations. 

Many people all across Europe see the formation of a single federal entity as desirable and I am someone who can definitely see the benefits that being part of Europe has brought to the UK. However on a point of principle the people of this country should have the chance to decide on what kind of relationship they want to have with Europe.

Therefore I am seriously considering using my vote at the next election to vote for UKIP. I live in a constituency that always unfortunately votes Tory and has done for time memorable. Therefore a vote for any other party is wasted anyway as there is no chance that Labour or the Liberals would manage to capture this seat. 

However even if UKIP doesn’t win many seats, if they can get enough votes to show the probably new Conservative government that the country considers the EU question important enough to vote for a single issue party like UKIP, then because the Tories are so split on this issue, there is a good chance the Tories will have to consider giving the people a vote on the matter.

Recent election results have shown that protest votes do work. Even if the party in question is not elected the large percentage of votes they collect means that the public’s decision has an effect on the behaviour and policies of the major parties, especially those parties who have shrinking support or small majorities in parliament. 

Every vote counts and these main parties require the votes of not only their core base but those people in the centre as well as those people who are considering changing their vote from another party. The good thing is that people who are concerned about the lack of democracy that our current position in Europe entails as well as the lack of democracy at home by not giving the people the right to choose their own destiny, exist on all sides of the political spectrum.

Probability theory states that UKIP will not win the next general election and the Tories will. A victorious Tory government with a large majority are less likely to be influenced by public unease over Europe than a small majority that is scared of losing every seat. 

Therefore if you are unhappy with the current state of British politics, angry at the greed shown up by the expenses scandal and concerned about Europe and the lack of democracy, then I would urge you to think about voting UKIP in the next election. 

Even if they do no win, we maybe able to influence government policy, by showing the level of support for a party that wants to give the British public a vote on their own future in Europe.

By Dark Politricks

© 2009 Dark Politricks