cliffyboy

I know what you are saying, Wol, and I'd probably argue that it's nigh on impossible for any one to be objective anyway. Obviously, our own views, about whatever, have to be subjective but that does not necessarily mean they are all equal in weight, or all as valid/invalid as each other.

The creator of that diagram, for example, carries more wieght with me because they seem to be operating from a fairly neutral position, politically speaking, whereas your examples are all of people strongly commited to one or other side.

I wouldn't be at all surprised for a member of the Labour Party and a member of the Tory Party to disagree strongly with their respective places on that diagram. That translates for me, though, fundamentally, into the one in opposition arguing that it's his/her party's turn to get at the cake.

cliffyboy

Good morning, all.

Spoke yesterday to Jim Tilley, Chairman of BPIA (British Pensions in Australia), an organisation I'm sure many of you have heard of and of which some are probably members. Anxious to ensure our campaign continues and to bring as many expats as possible into the fight.

Jim also sent me this screamer of a quote from Gordon Brown, and it is a right royal pearler:

'What angers me and inspires me to act
is when people are treated unfairly.'
(September, 2008)

It is quite extraordianary to read such words when you consider the reality.

It is enough to make you vomit.

When you consider those words of his in terms of what they mean regarding human rights, and their linguistic connection with the great speeches of men like Martin Luther King, you have some idea of the utter paucity of principle in the reality of political life and politics generally.

What inspired this abject man to act against us, led him to fight tooth and nail, and with the highest of legal counsel possible, no matter the cost.

Always I am reminded by politicians of Orwell's superb novel 'Animal Farm'. It is spot on the money, is that little book, and with Brown here you have a graphic illustration of Napoleon's bringing out his savage dogs when needed.

NigelWaring

Haven't read every post in this thread so may be duplicating a comment. The exchange rate has wiped out about 50% of my UK OAP. But should we visit Europe for a holiday this year our spending money will be worth heaps more.

cliffyboy

Nigel, fear not. Gordon Brown will be so enraged by the injustice of your situation, given both the drop in the value of the pound and your pension not being indexed, that he will personally direct all British recipients of pensions to
have their pensions fully, fairly and properly indexed because:

Mr Gordon Brown is an honourable man,
So are they all, all honourable men.

tomar

Don't forget to claim for the increase due to you from the state pension while you are in UK. We would claim even if we were only there for 1 week!!!!! After all it's our money, we paid NI in good faith. The system of paying the increase changed last year, and we didn't receive the extra until we had returned to Australia, where as before it was increased all the time we were in UK. Obviously reverted to original amount when back here, but every penny helps.

Grayling

What's it got to do with Gordon Brown?

Why did the tories not index the pension all the times they were in power?

It is as much Thatcher or Ted heath's responsibility as Gordon Browns

cliffyboy

Grayling, with all due respect, it is not an either/or situation, the black and white of politics - for me, that is the stuff of gibberish and children. We don't all live in that nonsensical political world where if you are not for one side, you are automatically for the other. A plague on both their frigging houses is what I say.

It is ridiculous in the extreme to believe that this is a situation that the Tories would rectify if they were in power, ridiculous in the extreme. Anyone who believes that has rocks in their head. But why should the invective following this actual decision be directed against Thatcher, for example? I personally believe that Thatcherism is a cancer that today spreads across virtually all countries on the planet, like the plague, and I still can't work out why her diseased philosophies produced such a reaction, but surely even the most commited of Labour supporters would have to concede that Labour in power post-Thatcher has embraced much of that cancer. And not just in England at that.

Why at this moment in time should the Tories be similarly accused of the sort of base behaviour that Brown and his intellectual thugs in the Labour Party practice, if the former are in opposition? Believe you me, I have lived long enough on this planet to witness time and time again the appalling hypocrisies of opposition once they obtain power. Look here in Australia at Howard and his bullsXXX about a ministerial code of conduct and his linguistic, slippery, slyness on core promises.

I'm sorry but it is senseless, I say to you now, political bias or commitment to one side is, for me, to enter a world of pygmies and crutches.

I don't wish to be rude to you or anyone else but our battle and fight is against politicians per se, not the Labour Party. But at this moment in time, because they are in power, they could have called off their dogs in the European Court and recognised the huge injustice being done.

Brown's utter garbage, his fine-sounding words about what angers him and inspires him to action is when people are treated unfairly, is not just hollow rhetoric, it is sickening hypocritical clap-trap of the highest order when you consider how he would have ensured the most expensive and qualified legal counsel would have been appearing for the government against us. These be-wigged mercernaries are, quite simply, Napoleon's savage and rabid dogs from 'Animal Farm', and Brown had no qualms whatsoever about letting them loose on us.

When I look at the troughs and see the pigs swilling for all they are worth, they do not wear Labour or Conservative cloths and garments, oh no, they wear the marks of office - here is the proof, if proof you ever needed, of the corruption of power, and it applies equally to both sides, and the longer I live, the more I think there's not a country on the planet free of such pigs.

Jimclevs

Hi

For those of us with an interest, personal or otherwise, in this particular issue, can I direct you to the E-petition currently on the BPiA website, which will be forwarded to all candidates, of whatever political persuasion, before the upcoming UK general election. www.bpia.org.au

Can I also ask that you get your family and friends, both here and in UK, to sign if they also consider this to be a fair and worthwhile cause.

Thank you

Jim

cliffyboy

Thank you for that, Jim, because my wife, who is Australian, hasn't signed, and it is now around 5.05 p.m., Thursday. Can I do it for her? My membership of the BPIA is a family one, and obviously as my wife, she would be entitled to the widow's pension when I kick the bucket - I'm not talking pessimistically here - so she would sign it.

And to anyone else not bothering, I think petitions are laregly ignored by the fXXXXXX you're trying to reach - it's a bit like when Rimmer in Red Dwarf' wears that T-Shirt 'Give Quiche A Chance' - but with this issue, we just have to keep up the fight.

Wol

Resurrecting the thread, an article explicitly detailing Brown's attack on pension schemes:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-millions.html

OK, it's the Daily Mail, but that does not alter the facts.

cliffyboy

Thank you for that, Wol, an interesting and illuminating article. It should show, if brain cells have anything to do with it, just how devious politicians are. I do part company with that rag, though, on the idea that what happened there shows just what sort of person Brown is - his behaviour as outlined here is fimrly in the Thatcher mould. I mean, wasn't the editor of this same rag part of a group of people Thatcher similarly met secretly with prior to her taking on the miners and didn't he eventually - English, I think his name was - get knighted, though not, I think, for sycophantic and lick-spittling behaviour in the face of truth?

It is such an irony to see here how the Labour Party put its faith in absolute captalism, as if self-regualtion meant something instead of being the utter primeval bollocks that it is, and that, as the article stated, the stock market would rise for ever.

Wol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_E...8journalist%29

Don't foam at the mouth so much, Cliffy - you will dehydrate <g>.

cliffyboy

Oh, don't you worry about that happening, Wol, I haven't even begun yet.

Where politicians are concerned, I'm as cold and callous as the ice pick Stalin's gutless agents hammered into Trotsky's skull.

History teaches many lessons, if you choose to attend classes.