Home visit action* to check you are being treated appropriately*

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account, action, aktion, allowance, bank, benefit, building society, Conservative, Democrat, Department, duelling scar, DWP, employment, ESA, ethnic, euphemism, gay, Godwin's Law, government, hb, home visit, homosexual, housing benefit, in-work, Income Support, is, Jew, Jobseeker's Allowance, JSA, Lib Dem, Liberal, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, minority, Nazi, payslip, pension, pension credit, Pensions, people, performance measurement review, political, politics, Post Office, rent book, social security, support, tax credit, tenancy agreement, Tories, Tory, Vox Political, welfare, work

Too much for you? But Iain Duncan Smith’s DWP is adopting tactics that are ever-closer to those of the Nazis. Now they want to force their way into people’s homes, unannounced, presumably in attempts to catch out benefit cheats. What other reason could they possibly have..?

You may get a visit from a government officer to check that you are being treated appropriately* for your status.

A review officer may visit you if you are:

• Jewish
• Homosexual
• A member of an ethnic minority
• A member of a political party other than the Conservatives or Liberal Democrats

Your name is selected at random to be checked. You won’t always get a letter in advance telling you about the visit.

What to expect

The officer will interview you in your home and will want to see two forms of identification.

They’ll also ask to see documents about your ethnic origin, religion, and political or sexual history, including but not limited to:

• Birth certificate
• Synagogue at which you worship and the name of your rabbi
• Passport/details of your country of origin
• Political party membership card
• Medical records

Visits usually last up to an hour but may be longer.

You may be asked to accompany our officer and be conveyed to special measures* if a more detailed interview is required. You will be treated appropriately*.

Check their identity

You can check the identity of the review officer by:

• Asking to see their photo identity card and then checking their face to see if the duelling scars match.

Of course there would be outcry if the government released a press release in this form – except that’s exactly what has happened, and nobody batted an eyelid because the victims are people on state benefits.

If you are reading this and think that’s all right, ask yourself what you’ll do when they come for you. This government already has its eye on pensioners, and people who claim in-work benefits will not be far behind.

By the way, words and phrases marked * are euphemisms from an academic website and may be translated as follows:

• Action – Mission to seek out (in this case, Jews) and kill them
• Treated appropriately – Murdered
• Conveyed to special measures – Killed

What’s that you’re saying? “It couldn’t happen here”?

Oh. Well, that’s all right then.

You can go back to sleep.

(Anyone invoking Godwin’s Law will receive special treatment* for doing so inappropriately.)

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UKIP and the Conservatives – more similarities than differences?

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all in this together, anti, BBC, benefit, campaign, Conservative, council, David Bishop, David Cameron, divide, divisive, election, Europe, gay, go home, Harry Perry, Islam, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Nigel Farage, one nation, pension, people, politics, racism, scrounger, skiver, Theresa May, Tories, Tory, UKIP, Unite, Vox Political

No control: Nigel Farage in front of one of his party’s anti-immigration posters. He says he doesn’t hate foreigners; judge for yourself. [Image: BBC]

Isn’t it interesting that the first of the large political organisations to descend into UKIP-style racism is the Conservative Party?

The BBC has reported that both have lost council candidates after they made anti-Islamic comments on the social media.

From UKIP, Harry Perry (candidate in the Offerton Ward, Stockport) was suspended after calling for Pakistan to be “nuked”, saying David Cameron was a “gay-loving nutcase”, Muslims were “devil’s kids” and homosexuality an “abomination before God”.

UKIP’s official line is that it has started disciplinary proceedings against this man and did not condone his “crackpot” views.

Nigel Farage has admitted his party contains “some idiots”, but added that the reporting of such problems within UKIP was “disproportionate”.

Then along came David Bishop (candidate in Brentwood South, Essex) to prove that the Tories have these problems too.

This man has resigned from the party after passing messages including one that said Islam was “the religion of… rape” and another that read “How CAN a gay guy keep a straight face?”

In a statement, he said, “I recognise that someone standing for public office should show leadership and seek to unite communities, not divide them.”

Isn’t dividing communities what both the Conservatives and UKIP are best at?

Self-preservation society: The Tory “all in it together” attitude, clarified here by Conservative poster-boy Michael Caine.

The Conservatives want you to believe that “We are all in this together”, but it seems clear that some of us are more “in this” than others – are we all “in this” with the “scroungers”, or “skivers” (the Tory label for people their policies have forced out of work and onto the state benefits for which they have paid all their lives)? Are we all “in this” with our fellow citizens who were unfortunate enough not to “sound British” (like those who were stop-checked during Theresa May’s ‘Go Home’ van campaign last summer)? They were encouraging people to accuse their neighbours; how divisive can they get?

What about the changes to pensions? Are the MPs who have “transitional” protection that will allow them to draw their extremely large, taxpayer-funded pensions at the same time as they always expected “in this” with those of us who are now having to work six years longer than we planned?

Of course not.

As for UKIP, try this comment from a UKIP supporter on the Vox Political Facebook page: “Britain is now full of multiregional people from other countries, by winning their vote he can sort out the rubbish later & give Britain back to the English!”

(English? I wonder how the Welsh, Northern Irish, and particularly the referendum-bound Scottish react to that.)

This person continued: “Not racist, just plain common sense!!!! The British want their Britain back.”

I asked then – and I ask now: “Does that include the Afro-Caribbean British, the Indian-British, the Pakistani-British, the southeast-Asian-British, the Polish-British (including both recent arrivals and those who stayed after World War II), British people whose racial origins are from any other part of the former British Empire or current Commonwealth – or just white Anglo-Saxon Britons like you and me, who are in fact descended from people of French and German origin?”

(Even this omits another foreign-descended group – those with Viking blood.)

I could never use my vote to support anyone who put forward such vile opinions; they are not “common sense” and the people spouting them are those who have no place here.

It doesn’t matter where our ancestors were born – we are all One Nation now.

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Facebook campaign to make ‘It’s Raining Men’ No. 1 after UKIP blame floods on gay rights

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David Cameron, David Sylvester, equal, Facebook, flood, gay, Gospel, Henley, homosexual, it's raining men, marriage, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Nigel Farage, number 1, Scriptonite Daily, Thames, UKIP, Vox Political

I can’t reblog Scriptonite Daily articles, but this one will really beat the midweek blues so I’ll give you a taste and a link to the rest.

“UKIP Leader Nigel Farage’s headaches this week did not stop at being whacked over the head with a placard by protesters in Kent. A UKIP Councillor blaming recent flooding across the country on divine retribution for Equal Marriage laws transformed the party from a concern, to a laughing stock – and now a Facebook campaign is under way to make ‘Its Raining Men’ number 1 to celebrate.

“Henley on Thames Councillor David Sylvester wrote to his local paper to argue the nation was “beset by storms” because of David Cameron’s decision to act “arrogantly against the Gospel” in changing marriage laws. UKIP stood behind the comments until Sylvester went on to BBC Radio to defend them, at which point the party used emergency measures to suspend him.

“Since the show, UKIP and David Sylvester have been the butt of a million jokes, which show no sign of abating anytime soon.”

The full story is on Scriptonite Daily.

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First Mail/Miliband, now Mail/Mehdi – don’t they know two wrongs won’t make them right?

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application, BBC, Belgium, Daily Mail, Danny Boyle, debase, Ed Miliband, evil legacy, gay, Guido Fawkes blog, Hitler, Huffington Post, immigrant, Islam, Jew, Joseph Goebbels, Labour, letter, Lord Rothermere, Marine Le Pen, Mehdi Hasan, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, mixed race, Mo Farah, Muslim, National Front, Nazi, News of the World, NHS, Olympic, plastic Brit, Quentin Letts, Question Time, Ralph Miliband, Royal Navy, scrounger, shirker, skiver, smear, Sonia Poulton, Stephen Gately, The man who hated Britain, Vox Political, women, World War II

It was a virtuoso performance, and one that earned Mehdi Hasan congratulations from Vox Political, just as soon as I could get to a keyboard.

For those who missed it, the panel on BBC Question Time was discussing the Daily Mail‘s veiled attack on Ed Miliband, which cast suspicion on the Labour leader’s motives by questioning those of his late father. It’s about the lowest kind of attack a newspaper could possibly launch – the kind that one might have expected from the News of the World in its latter days.

The piece in question was headlined The man who hated Britain and referred to Ralph Miliband’s “evil legacy”.

Mehdi Hasan, political editor of the Huffington Post‘s UK edition, tussled with Quentin Letts, a political sketch-writer for the Mail – winning the argument (and thunderous applause) with the following:

“Let me ask you a question,” he said. “When you talk about ‘Who hates Britain’ or ‘Who has an evil legacy’, who do you think has an evil legacy? A man who sucked up to the Nazis, who made friends with Joseph Goebbels and praised Hitler in the run-up to World War II – the owner and founder of the Daily Mail, Lord Rothermere – or a man who served in the Royal Navy, risked his life for his adopted homeland – Ralph Miliband. Who do you think hated Britain more?

“And this isn’t just about Ralph Miliband actually, because this has actually opened up a whole debate about the Daily Mail – if you want to talk about who hates Britain.

“This is a paper that, in recent years, said that there was nothing natural about the death of the gay pop star Stephen Gately, who said that the French people should vote for Marine Le Pen and the National Front, who attacked Danny Boyle for having a mixed race couple in his Olympics opening ceremony, who called Mo Farah “a plastic Brit”.

“So let’s have the debate about ‘Who hates Britain more’, because it isn’t a dead Jewish refugee from Belgium who served in the Royal Navy, it’s the immigrant-bashing, woman-hating, Muslim-smearing, NHS-undermining, gay-baiting Daily Mail.”

It did my heart a lot of good, typing that up – not just because of the Mail-bashing at its centre but because it was a speech that brings a few other groups together. Here was a Muslim praising the character of a Jew (for all those out there who think that adherents of Islam have nothing but hate to offer the rest of the world). He was also speaking up for homosexuals, mixed race couples, immigrants, women, the health service and anyone who opposes political extremism – especially of the right-wing variety.

Apart from the very last group, none of these include yr obdt srvt in their number, but I don’t think I’m alone in believing that anyone who agrees it is right to fight prejudice would support Mehdi’s opinion.

It seems the powers-that-be at the newspaper in question were listening carefully, and were keen to enter the next stage of the debate about the Daily Mail – by demonstrating just how much further they were prepared to debase themselves, just to smear the reputation of anybody who dared to stand up to them.

It seems clear that somebody in a high-ranking position at the Daily Mail went to their files and dug out a letter Mehdi had written in 2010, applying to become a writer for the newspaper. That letter then mysteriously made its way to those in charge of the Guido Fawkes blog, where it was published in full. It seems the intention was to prove that Mehdi was a hypocrite – how could this man apply for work at the Mail at one point, and then attack it so viciously only a few short years later?

Silly, silly mistake.

It seems that they didn’t read the letter very well at all.

“I am on the left of the political spectrum, and disagree with the Mail’s editorial line on a range of issues,” Mehdi2010 wrote.

“I could be a fresh and passionate, not to mention polemical and contrarian, voice on the comment and feature pages.”

In case the editors and proprietors of the Daily Mail are reading this: You seem to have mislaid your lexicons. A polemic is a passionate argument, against an established viewpoint (such as, perhaps, that put forward by yourselves) – and a contrarian is a person who always takes an opposing side.

Mehdi’s application letter was saying that he did not agree with the Daily Mail‘s opinions but he admired the forthright way it stood behind them and believed the paper would be strengthened by contributions from a writer with a different point of view to put forward.

This practice is not alien to the Daily Mail. One of the very earliest Vox Political articles praised the Mail for printing a piece by a columnist called Sonia Poulton, attacking the Coalition government’s treatment of the disabled in direct opposition to the paper’s established skivers/scroungers/shirkers rhetoric.

So it seems that, by ensuring that all journalists working in the UK now know that their confidential correspondence is likely to become public property the instant they upset the Mail‘s proprietors, by overreacting to fair, balanced and reasonable criticism of an extremely unreasonable article published in that newspaper, and by doing all this in defence of a piece intended to undermine support for one of Britain’s largest political parties – in line with its support for the most right-wing government in recent UK history, the Daily Mail has managed to destroy its own credibility (such as it was), render itself a no-go area for reputable journalists, and tarnish its readership by guilt-through-association.

Meanwhile, it has already boosted public support for Labour and the leader it hoped to harm and, if there is any justice, the current attack on Mehdi Hasan should bolster his career considerably as well.

That’s what happens when people who think a little too much of themselves overreact to criticism.

Daily Mail? It might as well be called the Daily Flail.

Why is David Cameron tarring gay people with the same brush as paedophiles?

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child abuse, communism, Conservative, crime, David Cameron, gay, Holly Willoughby, homosexual, homosexuality, hunt, Jimmy Savile, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, paedophile, paedophilia, Philip Schofield, Prime Minister, Schofe, This Morning, Tories, Tory, trial, Vox Political, witch, witchcraft

Controversial: Philip Schofield prepares to hand his list of alleged Tory paedophiles to David Cameron on today’s This Morning, watched by co-presenter Holly Willoughby. Concerns over whether he should have done it are totally outweighed by the Prime Minister’s inappropriate reference to “gay people”.

It’s what they say when they’re caught off-guard that really defines a politician.

Today, comedy Prime Minister David Cameron was caught off-guard by Philip Schofield (of all people) – and the result was not funny at all. In a This Morning interview, Schofe handed over a piece of paper with three names on it, of Conservatives accused of being involved in child abuse.

The presenter said there were many allegations online about people who might have carried out abuse, and he had been able to find the names on the list after searching for about three minutes. He said they were people Mr Cameron knew, and asked if the PM would be talking to them.

Cameron’s response: “There is a danger that this could turn into a sort of witch-hunt, particularly against people who are gay.”

Gay? What, gay in general? Everyone else is talking about paedophiles, David; why did you just broaden it into a debate about homosexuality?

We don’t want to know about your prejudices, David. Paedophiles do not have to be, by definition, gay.

If a responsible adult wants to engage in a same-sex relationship with another consenting adult, that is none of my business, nor yours, nor the State’s.

It is a world away from what is under discussion. Paedophilia is the action of an irresponsible adult, engaging in an inappropriate physical relationship with a minor – of either sex – who is therefore legally unable to give consent to it. That is our business, and I suggest you concentrate on it, starting with the allegations against the members of your party.

Mr Cameron went on with a personal warning to Schofe: “I’m worred about the sort of thing you are doing right now – giving me a list of names that you’ve taken off the internet.”

On one level, that was never going to work. Public sympathy will always be on the side of Philip Schofield when a politician tries to intimidate him (as I think Mr Cameron was trying to do). And there is an argument that it is in the public interest for Schofe to put evidence before the Prime Minister that accusations are being made in a public forum and that he needs to do something about it.

Having said that, I should add a few words of caution, because the PM was absolutely right to warn against a witch-hunt.

Back in 17th century America, witchcraft was the taboo; in 1950s America, it was Communism. Now, here, it’s paedophilia. The link between them is that an accusation automatically led to the belief that the named person was guilty of the crime, whether they had committed it or not.

I know a man who is in prison at the moment after being convicted of abusing a child. I was at the trial and heard all the evidence and I am convinced that he did not do it. It’s my opinion that the accusation was enough to sway the jury. The gentleman concerned won an appeal against an intial conviction, at which the presiding judge overturned the verdict after asking for the factual evidence on which the defendant had been convicted and being told there was none. He sent it back for retrial and the jury convicted him again – as I say – because in my opinion he was accused of the modern version of witchcraft. Or Communism.

No organisation exists to represent the interests of a person who has been wrongly convicted of paedophilia. Once a person has been tarred with that brush, it sticks to them for life.

The whole issue of paedophilia is therefore surrounded by abuse. Abuse of children. Abuse of the system by people who accuse the innocent (for purposes of their own). Abuse of the system by police officers who refuse to investigate legitimate allegations (as we’ve heard in the Jimmy Savile affair). Abuse of the system by politicians who want to cover up the involvement of their colleagues in a scandal (as it has been alleged).

But, Mr Cameron, you can’t judge that a person is a paedophile according to whether or not they are gay.