A con a day

 Total of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan = 348

There was tut-tutting from New Tory MPs at revelations about the Labour Government's use of spin. A senior civil servant told a select committee that they were told by Labour to produce 'good news' stories during a parliamentary recess.

Nothing changes. On Monday this week, the hapless Government Minister Lord Freud announced the 'Fraud Abroad' initiative. When pressed he confessed that the only solutions he has for this piddling problem were measures introduced by Labour in 2008.

On Tuesday we heard about new cuddly petitions that could produce a parliamentary debate. Not a change of policy or a new law, just a debate. It's a con. If a couple of million signatures were collected to bring back hanging or come out of the EU, the Government would not change their minds. There are historic precedents for this when Parliament took no notice of multi-million signature Chartist petitions.

Today's cash-point charity giving gimmick was ruined because people do not want their generosity to be used to justify Government's cuts. Many who happily do voluntary work now are determined that their efforts and not used to shore up the cuts and myths of the Big Society. 

P.S. The Daily Mail poll shows a 93% rejection of cashpoint charity.

Tut. Tut.

 

Comments

[Kay Tie]

"Many who happily do voluntary work now are determined that their efforts and not used to shore up the cuts and myths of the Big Society/"

That's funny: I did the reverse. As soon as Gordon was giving away presents to people (books, swimming sessions, fuel payments people don't need) I stopped giving to UK charity. After all, if the Government reckons that free swimming is worthy of funding then nothing more important can be left to charity, right? And I'm definitely not paying anything towards hospital scanners, since they can't be needed or else Gordon would have bought them.

All my charitable donations go overseas. Through microfinance. You should see what truly needy people have done with it!

[John]

This has always been so Paul, The Government of the day only ever takes notice of Public opinion when it falls into line with what they were going to do anyway.
I remember the Labour Governments Drugs. Your Community Your Say. A publicly Fan fared,very expensive so called Public consultation on drug policy. Even before the results were in so to speak Gordon Brown had already signaled his intention to move Cannabis back to B . This was one of the leading questions it asked in the light of stronger "skunk" being more widely available whether Cannabis should be moved back upto B. Over 40% said it was fine as it was at C. Then an almost equal amount in the low 20's said that they would like it legalised or moved up to B.
SO we have almost 60% of the public declaring that they would like cannabis legalised or retained at C. What followed was the debacle of the Government not only ignoring the Public but also the ACMD.
Politicians wonder why we the Public are not engaged with politics. The simple answer is that Politicians refuse to be engaged with the public unless they want what the Government was going to do anyway.
Recently Bob Ainsworth admitted that the move of Cannabis from C to B was a mistake yet while in power he probably voted for it to go back to B.
This seems to be a recurring problem as soon as any politician gets power all his commonsense, integrity and empathy with you and I in the street seems to disappear until he loses that power then it seems to miraculously come back.

[Paul Flynn]

It's a question of exchanging scripts. When oppositions become Governments they trot out the same mantras as previous Governments - and vice versa.