In the news

I reserve the right to lie, you handsome devil you.

What is this a reference to? Who has said you must not engage with people's beliefs or "treat ignorance and superstition with meek silence."

I was replying to winnifred1849. Click on the 'in reply to' bit and it'll take you to the post I was replying to.

What a charmer you are. However, you may want to note that I wrote "reference." It's a different word. But don't worry about it. Discussing things on the internet is more about winning then discussing for most people, and I can't be bothered. So you win.

You appear to be conducting an epic flounce, although I'm not sure why. The discussion between me and @winnifred1849 is there for all to see, and I'm not sure it really needs explaining or commentary. If you've got anything to add to it, maybe you should say what you've got to say rather than asking passive-aggressive questions and then flouncing when you don't get a bite.

Edit: forgot where I was, casual sexism removed.

That's sexist! I can't believe you!

You're a mangina.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jan/15/green-party-membership-surge-leaders-debates

A realistic alternative?

Nope

Why?

Most of their candidates are forrun....

Alternative to what?

Yes they could be a force for good in constituency politics but not on the national scale.

Not sure if serious...
http://london.greenparty.org.uk/elections/2015-general-election.html

Well, Peter Underwood is clearly from Middle Earth.

An alternative to the right-of-centre thinking that dominates current politics and policy.

I think pretty much the opposite with local vs national... As in an MP from any party can be good (or bad) on a local level and work for their constituents but nationally things need to be done differently.

Hah!

Caroline Lucas from Brighton is probably the best MP in parliament at the moment. Why wouldn't more like her be better than what we have at the moment?

Oh no, more 'good' people in parliament can only be a good thing, I just don't think that the Greens or Ukip have enough momentum to make the required dent to affect national policy.

A lot of people in Brighton beg to differ:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9342592/brighton-has-become-an-object-lesson-in-why-it-is-a-disaster-to-vote-green/

(I'm not suggesting that this article is indicative, but many of my Brighton based - or ex-pat - friends bemoan what's become of Brighton over the years.]

I thought they were all antipodean.

Ah, The Spectator... No political axe to grind there then!?!
/chevrons/

A riposte to that (copy and pasted from facebook, not my words):

"It’s not a “Green Controlled Council” in Brighton and Hove, it’s a coalition. The Greens are not in full control despite having the most seats, as Labour and Conservative combined have more seats than the Greens. This makes many things hard work in itself, as they have no overall control of the council. It's also worth noting that Caroline Lucas is an MP, and not head of the council. But then as it's not a council where the Green Party have overall control, it's irrelevant anyway. And there are actually three MP's that are in Brighton and Hove, and two of them are Conservative!

The story of the current situation actually starts back in 1997 with a merger of Brighton and Hove councils. And after the merger many people doing the same job were paid different amounts and had different allowances depending on what council they originally worked for. It was in fact Labour that allowed this problem to get worse - they ran the council between 1996 and 2003 and did very little more than they were forced to, to sort the problem. We now have a situation where although pay is fairly equal among specific jobs, additional allowances for say working a Saturday are not.

This in short means that (for example) a carer (majority are women) looking after the elderly and disabled, gets less of an allowance than a bin man (majority are men) for working a Saturday. This in itself is something the Green party do not believe in. However on top of this you have the various court cases that are currently underway to decide whether or not this is legal – likely outcome is that it’ll found to be illegal, and compensation will be owed to those on less money/allowances.

As a result, the Council (with no overall Green control) are looking to sort the issue out, and try to ensure that such allowances are paid equally and fairly across the 8,000 council employed staff.
Unfortunately that does mean that some “incomes” will fall as other rise. And as a guide it’s roughly 550 people that will have a small increase (mostly women – e.g carers etc) and less than 400 will lose out (mostly men –e.g bin men etc). Unfortunately due to limited funding from the central government, the council cannot raise everyone’s allowances to that of the highest. Not unless they increased council tax. So the council are having to try and compromise. The changes have absolutely nothing to do with saving money.

GMB and Unison were fully involved in negotiations with the council and the councils original offer was significantly amended as a result of the discussions, feedback and a consultation exercise with the staff involved. The new allowances package meant that pay would be fair, affordable, consistently paid across the council, and would comply with their legal obligations as an employer. All staff, whether they were affected by the changes or not, were sent a letter to fully explain the changes. But unfortunately there were a number of staff that didn’t/wouldn’t accept the changes. This is where the problems started and let’s face it, no one likes having money taken away from them.

From what I’ve read in various places, the majority of the (less than) 400 will lose out by around £20 per week. Much less than the Labour propaganda will have you believe. Whilst roughly 550 other staff will benefit from the changes. It's very worrying that equal rights and equal pay are the problem, but Labour are capitalising on the issue for political gain. It's quite frankly (in my opinion) disgusting, and shows Labours true colours. Also disgusting is the fact those residents that are better informed than most and know the reasons behind everything, have been “terrorised” by union staff and had the bags of rubbish they’ve collected from outside their homes ripped open and poured back on the streets. Not all residents have been taken in by the lies surrounding these strikes – but they are being bullied by union staff…

What I have also found extremely frustrating, is the obvious misleading articles written by both the Labour supporting and Conservative supporting media. The "facts" presented are about as true as saying every man in Guantanamo is a terrorist. The real fact is that this should have been dealt with long ago by Labour and the Conservatives – but they chose to ignore the issue. It’s also a fact that it does need sorting, but as a result of the squeeze from central government, they cannot raise the lowest allowances to match the highest.

I just hope people think paying a carer of a dementia patient less of an allowance for working a Saturday, than would be paid to someone collecting bins is perfectly acceptable. Because when it comes to the nitty gritty - this is what it's all about. And unless the government are going to give Brighton council more funding or raise the council tax, some people (less than 400 out of 8000!) are going to lose out.

But it is 100% not the fault of the Green Party. Anyone who says otherwise (in my opinion) needs to do some more research.

I hope the above sheds some light on the truth behind why the bins are overflowing. And stops the lies and propaganda Labour are spreading to try and discredit the good work the Greens are trying to do for the less fortunate of Brighton. We all know carers etc are taken for granted and badly paid. It seems Labour and the Conservatives and about 400 council employed staff think it should stay this way…"

Hey, thanks for that. Can't remember where, but I read someone recently saying that (American) journalism is no longer journalism, it's become an exercise in PR.

Don't Believe The Hype.

As mentioned above, Caroline Lucas is MP for Brighton Pavilion, so doesn't have a lot to do with running Brighton council.

And it's not an excuse, but I'm sure lots of councils have struggled with ~30% cuts to their budgets. Brighton has been under intense scrutiny by both Labour and Conservatives as it is the first Green run council.

Would neg rep. That article has been posted before, even if it were factually correct (which it appears isn't the case - who would have thought it?), it's just terribly written. You can't just assert something is a terrible idea without explaining your reasoning.