The past definitely comes back to haunt! Reading this from the Liberal Democrat leader, Caroline Pidgeon, on the London Assembly took me back to my Assembly days. Bike hire didn’t start with Boris – but who cares – it’s still a very good move.
Lynne Featherstone
Lynne Featherstone 
Hi Lynne
I think it’s a really good idea…. you and your colleagues were the providers of a great many of the best ideas when in opposition and you continue to push in some areas, the areas like selected civil liberties where the Tories are in agreement.
However, supporting this new wave Thatcherism within government is what you’ll carry for the foreseeable future. Please try and differentiate yourselves – other minor coalition partners have and do in other countries (Germany where Frank-Walter Steinmeir was certainly anything but silent and Israel where Avigdor Lieberman seems to be most senior at times (thank god he’s not)).
Please remember that some of us are more ‘in it’ than others and it’s likely that you’ll see our numbers swell over the next few years.
Hi Lynne
I’ve just read Nick Clegg’s column in the Observer.
He claims that you can’t be judged on your first 100 days, however, your intent is perfectly clear…. new wave Thatcherism that is likely to devaste this country for years to come.
He claims that civil liberties are being returned although David Cameron has been talking about reducing the civil liberties of those that are unemployed for whatever reason it may be.
He hails the return of local democracy with ‘parents’ running schools and GPs spending the health budget but in both cases there’ll be less because these ‘parents’ have already been driven into the arms of private companies and GPs will be forced to have their budgets managed by remote private enterprises.
His talk of employing Alan Millburn to sort out social immobility is deranged – we know Alan Millburn and he doesn’t stand for social mobility. No doubt you’ll get a few more ultra-Blairite ex-ministers to come on board too, John Hutton maybe? You’ll carry on spinning your moderate credentials in spite of these people’s track records.
As for his allusion that you’re putting the banks in order, well, that’s just plain wrong – you’re changing the infrasture but not the system. You’re taxing them with one hand and giving them a Corporation Tax break with the other. There’s no real change to regulation and bonuses that often go offshore are here to stay.
I gave the LibDems my money in the past, albeit a small amount, but I knew something was wrong when Nick Clegg starting talking about a coalition with the Tories a year ago. I’m just staggered that you’re taking these punitive measures so far – I see no evidence of you fighting against the harshest measures. Even Boris Johnson has protested more loudly about housing benefit.
Sure, our judgement must be reserved because, as he says, there’s much worse to come but your intent seems totally clear and it keeps getting worse – even Swervin Mervin King was forced to downgrade growth and admit inflation will be high for the forseeable future. He seems very fond of George Osborne, it must have taken a lot for him to suggest things aren’t looking that good.
Oh, well done Lynne. It’s a pity you don’t advertise your lack opposition to the wanton and spiteful attack on the sick, disabled and dying with the same vigour. The ‘laissez-faire’ approach must be made much easier when you are a government oozing with inherited wealth and class-ridden values, and more especially when it is your ‘raison detre’ – your whole reason for being.
I hear that pension credits have far higher rates of fraud than any other benefit, but you predictably choose to unleash a cowardly attack by the dogs of war on the easy prey, the least advantaged and defenceless. That you have orchestrated a media ‘witch hunt’ to sectionise and vilify your targets beforehand is despicable, and to couple this with your weasel words makes it even more so.
When these empires have been built and the benefit system has been exhausted then who will they turn to next in order to survive and/or expand? We should be very carefull what we wish upon everyone else.
Today I responded to Damien Green’s statement on the blue blog about immigration controls and highlighted that only 2 weeks ago the UKBA had lifted restrictions on immigrants who have expired passports and not those who have right of abode (such persons are of British descent albeit of mixed background) such as half Australian/British, New Zealander/British, Indian/British and that they are being treated incorrectly and wrongly despite statutory rights and my comments were immediately censored off the blue blog. If we have reached the point of our liberty being removed and we cannot speak up then its time to have a very close look at what is going on!
This is the link to the home office site
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/newsarticles/2010/275292/09expired-passport-ilr
This is the link to our online petition
http://www.gopetition.co.uk/petitions/british-nationality.html
Jamal, I too have had two posts removed from the same blog. They were not derogatory, inflamatory, controversial and contained no expletives, they merely displayed a counter view to other posters. It’s shame that the Libdems chose to give their allegiance to such a narrow minded party.
@oldtimer. Worst yet for me. I not only voted for the Tories thinking they were going to be different then the Thatcherite years but actually believed that they would be centre right if not centrist in their policies. I really hope the lib dems have some influence over them others wise I fear the worst and I can’t see this lasting for long. Now I am seeing the disabled attacked and the poor and the weak of society being vilified and cutbacks at such a dramatic pace not to mention political spins that I am seeing its making me quiet sick to the stomach.
“You know the people I mean.
You walk down the road on your way to work and you see the curtains drawn in their house. You know they could work, but they choose not to.”
This is a direct quote from David Cameron on people who receive benefits. Well, actually, the pain keeps me awake so my curtains are probably open before his!
Is this really how people think? I didn’t ever think this on my way to work, I generally didn’t walk around judging people.
Lynne, our country is becoming more unequal by the week – why, as minister for equality, don’t you do anything about it? This government is more extreme than I could possibly imagine.
I think it’s a really good idea…. you and your colleagues were the providers of a great many of the best ideas when in opposition and you continue to push in some areas, the areas like selected civil liberties where the Tories are in agreement.
—————————–
-annsmtih
Judging from the comments on this blog you can see that people are not happy, some people have attended a programme on equality at work toeay and they are about to be made redundant, what is happening to us.
It is a shame that most of the posters on this forum fail to understand the following points.
1. The Government is NOT an organisation to run your life, take responsibility for yourself and stand proud of what you achieve in life.
2. Whilst the media keeping harping on about the countries borrowing levels (£1 in every £4 spent), the REAL ISSUE is the three (3) thousand billion pounds of debt the country has. (£3,000,000,000,000).
3. Public Sector Jobs are often jobs for jobs sake and provide in many cases no real benefit to the communities, council, quangos etc they are supposed to serve.
4. Public Sector Jobs are a NET LOSS to the economy, there is NO TAX INCOME to the Government as the wages are paid from the Taxes collected from the private sector employees and companies etc, although it shows tax as being paid on their wages, it is a paper exercise and doesn’t really exist.
5. If people think they are ‘hard done by’ maybe I can suggest you go and live and work in some of the ‘Third World’ Countries and find out what real hardship really is.
6. If this country is to survive as a strong nation, we the people need to learn to work harder for better, we need to learn to work together for the benefit of all of us instead of just ourselves.
I am fed up of reading how bad this NEW COALITION is, how bad their cuts are going to be…. if LABOUR had won the election, they would have still had to make the cuts and would have probably raised even more taxes. They lied to everyone from day 1 Gordon Brown became Chancellor and later as Prime Minister…..
I do not pay my taxes just so some one can sit there unemployed or working in a public sector job that is not required… if we were ALL prepared to take a little less in our wages, then we could compete against foreign manufacturers and import less goods and export more goods….
We as a Nation need to wake up to reality, as Charles Dickens once said, “If you earn two shillings a week and you are spending two shillings and tuppence, then there is something wrong!”
Lynne,
Given your position could you please advise what “equality” you have brought to disabled people like me?
I am an unemployed disabled person. The Labour government put me on a benefit and asked me to go away. Now your government doesn’t want to help me find suitable work either, just take my benefit away, leaving me literally penniless. This doesn’t seem like equity to me.
Furthermore, your coalition friends (George is the worst) keep telling the media and anyone who will listen that my Disability Living Allowance (DLA) is an out-of-work benefit and that because of this I am a leech on society; despite it not having anything to do with employment.
So, in my twenties I am on the scrapheap, with very little prospects. My good education and work experience simply going to waste.
With the above in mind, do you think you could arrange a one-way ticket to Australia for me? As I’m clearly not wanted or welcome in this country.
@Disabled Voter,
I’m sorry that you feel this way but I fully understand and empathise with you. I worked in the heavy chemical industry for nearly 40 years and paid my bit into the pot, however the nature of the work took its toll and I was forced to retire on ill-health grounds. It didn’t help that I was diagnosed Spina Bifida in 1959 but was not aware until I accessed my company medical records when I retired. C’est la vie.
What I do take umbrage at is being called idle by some office dweller who wouldn’t have a clue about manufacturing.
@ Disabled Voter and Oldtimer
I too am registered disabled, have been since the age of 15, however although I am entitled to the Mobility Allowance of the DLA and will be for life, I have never let my disability or others prejudices get in my way of working for a living.
Disabled Voter you have not said the type of disability you have or why it stops you from working, from a personal perspective and experience, the only thing that has ever stopped me from working is myself… I will not let my disability run or ruin my life.
Oldtimer, your situation is different and I agree with your sentiments, there are many ways a person may be disabled and the correct support needs to be there.
Again to you both, I believe that the media manipulate what has been said by George Osbourne as the issue is to route out the REAL SCROUNGERS and MALINGERERS from the system so that GENUINE disabled people get the help and the benefits needed and I give you my personal example.
In 1979 just as I was about to start my adult life and career prospects it was not looking good and the DLA had recently come into effect. I was required to attend a Doctors Surgery for examination to find out if I was ‘scamming’ the system or genuine.
I agreed wholeheartedly with the Doctor that I was more than able to carry out some types of work but not others and after examining my records and me, it was their Doctor that placed me on Mobility Allowance for Life as my condition will only worsen with age and no treatment or surgery will help.
GENUINE Disabled or Sick People have nothing to fear because you have nothing to hide.. only the scammers need to worry.
It is not true that genuinely disabled people have nothing to fear. That’s what the ConDems would like you to think. But given they keep wrongly describing Disability Living Allowance as an out-of-work benefit, I have no hope they will bother to be truthful about any of this. There is plenty of evidence that ‘simple’ medical tests do not root out scammers – they make it impossible for anyone to receive benefits for which they actually qualify. It must be nice living in your happy bubble where everything is fair, though.