Super-rich on rise as number of £1m-plus earners doubles
▻http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jun/01/top-earners-millionaires-inequality-city-finance
The number of taxpayers earning more than £1m a year has almost doubled in the past two years, prompting economists to claim that the highest-earning section of the population has bounced back from the financial crash. Source: The Observer
Billy Bragg: Margaret Thatcher Made Me A Socialist
▻http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jLI35_jbK4
Glenda Jackson : En plus de la force du discours, quel anglais !
un député s’étrangle et jette : "We can’t take it !! [all what you say]
Glenda Jackson qui termine par un : [thatcher ? A woman ? not on my terms !]
Les conservateurs se sont offusqués, mais rapidement mouchés par le président de séance.
Très très fort. Total respect Glenda. Et vous aurez remarqué que c’est [encore] une femme qui parle comme ça.
Sur Youtube, le speech de Glenda Jackson vu plus d’un million de fois en trois jours, c’est aussi le signe de quelque chose, non ?
et The Economist :
pour mémoire :
In a policy which became known as the Reagan Doctrine, [Ronald Reagan’s] administration funded “freedom fighters” such as the Contras in Nicaragua, the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, RENAMO in Mozambique, and UNITA in Angola.
(la citation n’est pas, comme tu l’as deviné, de The Economist, mais rapidement tirée de vikipedia)
Glenda Jackson’s speech (repris du lien de @denisb ci-dessous) :
Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab): It is hardly a surprise that Baroness Thatcher was careless over the soup being poured over Lord Howe, given that she was perfectly prepared to send him out to the wicket with a broken bat.
When I made my maiden speech in this Chamber, a little over two decades ago, Margaret Thatcher had been elevated to the other place but Thatcherism was still wreaking, and had wrought for the previous decade, the most heinous social, economic and spiritual damage upon this country, upon my constituency and upon my constituents. Our local hospitals were running on empty. Patients were staying on trolleys in corridors. I tremble to think what the death rate among pensioners would have been this winter if that version of Thatcherism had been fully up and running this year. Our schools, parents, teachers, governors, even pupils, seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time fundraising in order to be able to provide basic materials such as paper and pencils. The plaster on our classroom walls was kept in place by pupils’ art work and miles and miles of sellotape. Our school libraries were dominated by empty shelves and very few books; the books that were there were held together by the ubiquitous sellotape and off-cuts from teachers’ wallpaper were used to bind those volumes so that they could at least hang together.
By far the most dramatic and heinous demonstration of Thatcherism was certainly seen not only in London, but across the whole country in metropolitan areas where every single night, every single shop doorway became the bedroom, the living room and the bathroom for the homeless. They grew in their thousands, and many of those homeless people had been thrown out on to the streets as a result of the closure of the long-term mental hospitals. We were told it was going to be called —it was called—“care in the community”, but what it was in effect was no care in the community at all.
I was interested to hear about Baroness Thatcher’s willingness to invite those who had nowhere to go for Christmas; it is a pity that she did not start building more and more social housing, after she entered into the right to buy, so that there might have been fewer homeless people than there were. As a friend of mine said, during her era, London became a city that Hogarth would have recognised—and, indeed, he would.
In coming to the basis of Thatcherism, I come to the spiritual part of what I regard as the desperately wrong track down which Thatcherism took this country. We were told that everything I had been taught to regard as a vice—and I still regard them as vices—was, in fact, under Thatcherism, a virtue: greed, selfishness, no care for the weaker, sharp elbows, sharp knees, all these were the way forward. We have heard much, and will continue to hear over next week, about the barriers that were broken down by Thatcherism, the establishment that was destroyed.
What we have heard, with the words circling around like stars, is that Thatcher created an aspirational society. It aspired for things. One former Prime Minister who had himself been elevated to the House of Lords, spoke about selling off the family silver and people knowing in those years the price of everything and the value of nothing. What concerns me is that I am beginning to see what might be the re-emergence of that total traducing of what I regard as the spiritual basis of this country where we do care about society, where we do believe in communities, where we do not leave people and walk by on the other side. That is not happening now, but if we go back to the heyday of that era, I fear that we will see replicated yet again the extraordinary human damage from which we as a nation have suffered and the talent that has been totally wasted because of the inability genuinely to see the individual value of every single human being.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) referred to the fact that although she had differed from Lady Thatcher in her policies, she felt duty bound to come here to pay tribute to the first woman Prime Minister this country had produced. I am of a generation that was raised by women, as the men had all gone to war to defend our freedoms. They did not just run a Government; they ran a country. The women whom I knew, who raised me and millions of people like me, who ran our factories and our businesses, and who put out the fires when the bombs dropped, would not have recognised their definition of womanliness as incorporating an iconic model of Margaret Thatcher. To pay tribute to the first Prime Minister denoted by female gender, okay; but a woman? Not on my terms.
Sir Tony Baldry: On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The conventions of the House in respect of those rare occasions on which the House chooses to make tributes to a person who has been deceased are well established. This is not, and has never been, a general debate on the memory of the person who has been deceased, but an opportunity for tributes. It is not an opportunity for hon. Members to denigrate the memory of the person who has been deceased.
Mr Speaker : The hon. Gentleman will resume his seat. I am grateful to him for his—I use the term advisedly —attempted point of order. Let me be explicit for the benefit both of the hon. Gentleman and of the House.
All hon. and right hon. Members take responsibility for what they say in this place. The responsibility of the Chair is to ensure that nothing unparliamentary occurs. Let me assure the hon. Gentleman, for the avoidance of doubt, that nothing unparliamentary has occurred. We are debating a motion that says that this House has considered the matter of tributes to the Baroness Thatcher. That is what we are doing, and nothing has got in the way of that.
C’est dommage, c’est incomplet, il manque des passages très forts et très importants, toute la fin par exemple. Quelle est ta source ?
Et ce que dit le conservateur et le président de séance après, c’est aussi très intéressant. Peut-être trouvera-t-on le transcript sur le site du parlement.
LA FABRICATION DE LA DAME DE FER
▻http://www.pauljorion.com/blog/?p=52484
En dépit de ce que suggèrent les lazzi des parlementaires conservateurs présents dans la salle, Jackson a soigneusement respecté les convenances, ne critiquant celle que l’on qualifie de « méchante sorcière » ou de « dame de fer » selon le souvenir plus ou moins cuisant qu’on en garde, que sur ses positions politiques, lui reprochant sa brutalité ainsi que son apologie du comportement sociopathe où, comme chez Mandeville (1670 – 1733), les vertus sont présentées comme des vices et les vices, comme des vertus, vantant la cupidité et prônant le matérialisme à outrance. Jackson, fille de maçon, a rappelé l’Angleterre de son enfance : une société soucieuse de l’autre, protégée de la clochardisation que l’on observe aujourd’hui, société entièrement réglée par les femmes, les hommes étant alors mobilisés sur d’autres fronts, soulignant le rôle joué par Thatcher de femme politique à l’usage exclusif des hommes politiques. « Une femme sans doute, a-t-elle conclu, mais pas selon la définition que j’en donnerais moi ».
Il est d’autant plus intéressant de rapprocher la critique à fleurets relativement mouchetés de Glenda Jackson de la manière dont Germaine Greer avait choisi elle de critiquer Margaret Thatcher dans un article paru dans le quotidien The Guardian en avril 2009. Germaine Greer, personnage-clé de la révolution féministe, auteur en 1970 de « The Female Eunuch » : l’eunuque femelle, avait adopté un tout autre angle d’attaque, décrivant l’ancien premier ministre britannique, non pas comme une idéologue mais beaucoup plus banalement comme une personnalité corrompue, qui avait construit une image du monde favorisant ses propres intérêts immédiats et beaucoup plus souvent encore, ceux de son fils Mark Thatcher (« vérité » lisible en surface de sa mère, selon Greer), personnage à la moralité extrêmement souple qui, à une époque, fit carrière d’usurier en Afrique du Sud et fut condamné en 2004 à une amende d’un demi-million de dollars pour une tentative de coup d’État en Guinée Équatoriale.
Margaret Thatcher ’gave her approval’ to her son Mark’s failed coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea | Politics | The Observer
▻http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/14/thatcher-knew-of-equatorial-giunea-coup-attempt
Unpublished version of memoir by former SAS officer Simon Mann records Baroness Thatcher’s endorsement of plan to depose oil-rich country’s president
A Grantham fairytale by Posy Simmonds – interactive | Politics | guardian.co.uk
▻http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/interactive/2013/apr/13/grantham-fairytale-posy-simmonds-interactive
Grantham, la ville natale de Maggie Th. Façon vieux livre d’historiettes pour enfants, les années Maggie.
Une merveille !
#illustration #politique #Royaume-Uni
Margaret Thatcher and misapplied death etiquette- ▻http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-death-etiquette
The dictate that one ’not speak ill of the dead’ is (at best) appropriate for private individuals, not influential public figures
Margaret Thatcher’s death greeted with little sympathy by Orgreave veterans | Politics | The Guardian
▻http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-death-orgreave-coal-miners
“I’m not a hypocrite,” said Mansell, who is from the nearby pit village of Swallownest and worked underground for 22 years. “I spoke ill of her when she was alive and I’ll speak ill of her now she’s dead. She doesn’t mean two iotas to me.”
Oh.My.God, j’ai vraiment la main noire : encore un #les_acteurs_que_je_sais_jamais_leur_nom, à peine j’entre son nom dans Google, à peine il est mort : Pete Postlethwaite (†2011)
▻http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2009/mar/25/john-prescott-brassed-off-coalfields
John Prescott reveals Pete Postlethwaite’s role in policy-making
The former deputy PM claims that the film Brassed Off inspired him to launch a regeneration programme for coalfield communities
Personne n’a jamais su comment il s’appelle, pour la bonne raison qu’avant les suggestions « Did you mean… » de Google, il était rigoureusement impossible de retrouver la bonne orthographe de « Postlethwaite ».
#google_suggest Les virtuoses voilà / #film_que_je_sais_plus_non_plus
Figure-toi que j’ai retenu son nom, pas l’orthographe exacte tout de même, mais je le fais toujours façon « patate ds la bouche ».
Only 3.5% of people referred to Work Programme find long-term jobs
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/nov/27/work-programme-long-term-jobs
An analysis by the Guardian reveals that none of the 18 Work Programme contractors – 15 of which are private companies – managed to get 5.5% of unemployed people referred to the scheme a job for half a year in the 14 months until July 2012, despite the government having spent £435m on the scheme so far. Providers are paid for taking on a jobless person, finding them a job and then ensuring they keep it.
La France, narco-Etat ?
►http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/laurent-joffrin/20121014.OBS5664/la-france-narco-etat.html
Le pouvoir des trafiquants de drogues s’accroît de manière inquiétante dans notre pays. Il faut agir dès maintenant avant qu’il ne soit trop tard.
Le fait qu’un mec capable de pondre des éditos aussi indigents et farcis de poncifs ait un tel statut journalistico-social en dit long sur la qualité des médias.
Je tiens souvent des propos de bistrot mais je ne suis pas payé et encore moins subventionné pour ça.
#bouffon
Pendant ce temps là :
Decriminalise drug use, say experts after six-year study
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/oct/15/decriminalise-drug-use-say-experts
Article qui ceci dit ne résout pas la contradiction qu’il y a à décriminaliser l’usage sans autorises la production et la commercialisation.
Une tradition française ?
►https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Connection
En 1898, alors que le Viet Nam fait partie de l’empire français, le futur président de la république, Paul Doumer, alors gouverneur général de l’Indochine, décide de créer un monopole d’état dans l’opium dans le sud sous forme de régie générale. C’est donc l’administration qui achète, fait préparer et vend l’opium. Ce qui représente, à l’époque, un tiers des recettes du budget du gouvernement général. À Saïgon, Doumer fait construire une raffinerie d’opium à haut rendement. Cette politique axée sur l’opium fit que le gouvernement enregistra un excédent dans son budget. En 1912, la première Convention Internationale est signée à La Haye, en vue d’éradiquer le trafic d’opium. Malgré cela, les autorités françaises indochinoises continuèrent leurs productions alors qu’officiellement le gouvernement métropolitain menait des actions contre le trafic de l’opium.
puis :
►https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Connection
The French Connection was a scheme through which heroin was smuggled from Turkey to France and then to the United States. The operation reached its peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and was responsible for providing the vast majority of the illicit heroin used in the United States. It was headed by the Corsican criminals François Spirito, Paul Carbone and Antoine Guérini, and also involved Auguste Ricord, Paul Mondoloni, Salvatore Greco,[citation needed] and Meyer Lansky.[citation needed] Most of its starting capital came from assets that Ricord had stolen during World War II when he worked for Henri Lafont, one of the heads of the Carlingue (French Gestapo) during the German occupation in World War II.
Macmillan backed Syria assassination plot | Politics | The Guardian
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/sep/27/uk.syria1?INTCMP=SRCH
Although historians know that intelligence services had sought to topple the Syrian regime in the autumn of 1957, this is the first time any document has been found showing that the assassination of three leading figures was at the heart of the scheme. In the document drawn up by a top secret and high-level working group that met in Washington in September 1957, Mr Macmillan and President Eisenhower were left in no doubt about the need to assassinate the top men in Damascus.
L’histoire continue
The plan called for funding of a “Free Syria Committee”, and the arming of “political factions with paramilitary or other actionist capabilities” within Syria. The CIA and MI6 would instigate internal uprisings, for instance by the Druze in the south, help to free political prisoners held in the Mezze prison, and stir up the Muslim Brotherhood in Damascus.
Ils ont de la suite dans les idées
Bien vu !
Petite erreur à la fin de l’article :
The following year, the Ba’athists moved against their Communist former allies and took Syria into a federation with Gen Nasser’s Egypt, which lasted until 1963.
La R.A.U. n’a duré que jusqu’en 1961 et non 63.
En 63 c’est le coup d’Etat du Baath contre le régime mis en place à la suite de la fin de la RAU.
More than 2,000 public sector officials are paid off the government payroll
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/may/02/2000-public-sector-officials-paid-private-companies
More than 2,000 senior public sector officials are being paid through private companies rather than the government’s payroll in an attempt to minimise their tax bill, according to a leaked Treasury document.
NHS shake-up leaves some private health firms turning to tax havens
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/17/nhs-shakeup-health-firms-tax-havens
Report exposes how four of five biggest health companies that lobbied in favour of health bill can keep taxes to a minimum
►http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=4251
While in public they have been presenting themselves as the future of the NHS, a Corporate Watch investigation into the accounts and finances of five of the major private healthcare companies has found widespread use of tax havens,* including the British Virgin Islands, Luxembourg, Jersey, Guernsey and the Cayman Islands, and tax avoidance schemes Barclays or Vodafone accountants would be proud of.
Leak reveals benefits cap will hit 100,000 children | Politics | The Observer
One hundred thousand children will be pushed into poverty by the benefits cap, according to a leaked government analysis of the impact of the coalition’s flagship reform.
The Lords will vote tomorrow on the £500-a-week limit on benefits, a measure ministers say will encourage people back into work. However, figures produced for internal use by the Department for Work and Pensions reveal that thousands of children in families on benefits will be pushed into poverty, defined as homes where the income is below 60% of the median household income for families of a similar size.
Enver Solomon, director of policy at the Children’s Society, said: “These figures show the government has clear evidence that the cap on out-of-work benefits, which affects three times as many children as adults, will be devastating, punishing children for decisions they have no control over.”
Last night the government claimed the leaked figures were not “safe” for publication but the revelation will inevitably fuel the row over the reform. Peers debating the cap having already inflicted a series of defeats on the government’s welfare bill in recent weeks and it will be a major embarrassment if there are further setbacks. One of the key amendments that is believed to be gathering support in the Lords, put down by the bishop of Ripon and Leeds, would exclude child benefit from the overall cap on benefits.
Solomon told the Observer: “Child benefit which is paid to parents but provided specifically for children must be excluded from the cap. Peers must now make a stand to protect the plight of the country’s disadvantaged children.”
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jan/22/housing-crisis-benefit-cuts
Question de « Jon Snow, broadcaster » à David Cameron. Des fois que quelqu’un comprenne la réponse…
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/nov/25/david-cameron-answers-questions
Given Britain’s historic links with Israel, is it not time the UK took a more assertive role in bringing about a two-state solution. Why did you abstain in the vote to give the Palestinian state status at Unesco?
“The reason for the abstention is that I don’t believe you create a state by making declarations. I believe you create a state by bringing together the two relevant parties – Israel and Palestine, and hammering out an agreement. Britain is doing everything it can to put the pressure on. The problem is, we can’t want this more than they want it, and the frustration I have is that it’s so clearly in Israel’s interest to reach an agreement and we need to persuade them of that.”
Il n’y a pas que Sarkozy et Obama qui ont une mauvaise idée de Netanyahu. Déjà en janvier dernier, on apprenait que le menteur est, en anglais, un bullshitter.
Britain believes Israeli PM Netanyahu is an ’armour-plated bullshitter’ – Alastair Campbell | Politics | guardian.co.uk
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/wintour-and-watt/2011/jan/20/alastaircampbell-binyamin-netanyahu
1) Britain believes that Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is an “armour-plated bullshitter”. [...]
2) Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister who recently left the Labour party to strengthen his coalition with Netanyahu, also believes the Israeli prime minister is a bullshitter. [...]
3) Tony Blair thought the Israelis bugged him during his first visit to the country.
One in five staff passholders in the House of Lords linked to lobbying
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/nov/08/house-of-lords-passholders-lobbying
Peers have given parliamentary passes, allowing the wearer to walk the corridors of Westminster, to 125 individuals who are paid to promote outside organisations. Companies represented in peers’ offices include BP, the National Farmers’ Union and at least eight lobbying organisations.
100 leading economists tell George Osborne: we must turn to Plan B | Politics | The Observer
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/29/george-osborne-plan-b-economy
– An immediate halt to cuts, to protect jobs in the public sector.
– A new round of quantitative easing to finance a “Green New Deal” to create thousands of new jobs.
– Benefit increases to put money into the pockets of those on lower and middle incomes and give a boost to spending.
– A financial transaction tax to raise funds from the City to pay for investment in transport, energy and house building.
Où l’on (ne) reparle (pas) du Mossad
Depuis trois jours, l’enquête des journaux anglais sur la démission du ministre britannique de la défense Liam Fox prend une tournure explosive, tournure que les médias français évitent de rapporter avec un professionnalisme qui force le respect.
Le 14 octobre, Patrick Wintour, Rupert Neate et Richard Norton-Taylor évoquent dans le Guardian les craintes d’« officiels » britanniques, qui seraient préoccupés par le fait que Fox et Werrity puissent avoir eu des liens avec les services de renseignement israéliens ;
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/13/rightwing-tories-rally-liam-fox
Officials expressed concern that Fox and Werritty might even have been in freelance discussions with Israeli intelligence agencies.
Le 16 octobre, toujours dans le Guardian, Jamie Doward détaille les liens de l’organisation « Atlantic Bridge » avec le big business américain, les néoconservateurs et le « tea party » :
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/15/liam-fox-atlantic-bridge
The huge rise in income, which dwarfed that of its UK sister organisation, coincided with a significant expansion in the charity’s advisers and directors. By 2009 Werritty, whom the US accounts list as the (unpaid) UK executive director of the Atlantic Bridge, found himself reporting to a new chief executive officer, Amanda Bowman, the former New York director for the Centre for Security Policy, the neocon think-tank that opposed the planned Park 51 Muslim community centre close to the site of Ground Zero.
L’article rappelle les liens entre Werritty et Israël :
By 2009 a powerful lobby group, Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (Bicom), was covering the cost of Werritty’s trip to an important security seminar in Israel. The trip was arranged by Bicom’s former deputy chairman, Michael Lewis, who donated to Atlantic Bridge and to Fox’s Tory leadership campaign in 2005. Bicom’s former communications director, Lee Petar, who runs a lobbying firm, Tetra Strategy, put Werritty in touch with the Dubai businessman, Harvey Boulter, whose meeting with Fox triggered the initial furore that triggered his demise.
Jane Merrick and James Hanning, dans The Independant ce dimanche, vont plus loin, et affirment qu’Adam Werrity a été « débriefé » par le contre-espionnage anglais spécifiquement au sujet de ses liens supposés avec le Mossad :
►http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/revealed-foxs-best-man-and-his-ties-to-irans-opposition-2371352.html
Adam Werritty, the man at the centre of the Liam Fox cash-for-access scandal, has been involved in an audacious plot to topple Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it was claimed last night.
[...]
Mr Werritty, 33, has been debriefed by MI6 about his travels and is so highly regarded by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad – who thought he was Mr Fox’s chief of staff – that he was able to arrange meetings at the highest levels of the Israeli government, multiple sources have told The IoS.
Le quotidien fait carrément sa Une avec ce titre :
Le même jour, l’ancien diplomate Craig Murray va plus loin dans le Daily Mail :
►http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2049642/Was-Mossad-using-Fox-Werritty-useful-idiots-Ex-Ambassador-reveals-links
But my source told me that what really was worrying senior officials in the MOD, FCO and Cabinet Office was the possibility that Fox could be being used as a ‘useful idiot’ by Mossad, Israel’s far-reaching and extremely effective intelligence service.
Key funding sources for Werritty were from the Israeli lobby and a rather obscure commercial intelligence agency.
Might Mossad be pulling Werritty’s strings, with or without his knowledge?
On Friday, two senior Fleet Street journalists also reported hearing similar concerns from other Whitehall officials about possible Israeli intelligence service involvement with Fox and Werritty.
By working closely with an unofficial aide with extraordinary access but no security vetting and murky funding sources, Fox had potentially compromised national security. That is the real story here.
L’information du Independent est reprise par Haaretz :
►http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/report-ex-u-k-defense-secretary-adviser-involved-in-plot-to-topple-iran-pre
Adam Werritty, the adviser and close friend of Britain’s recently resigned Defense Secretary Liam Fox, was accused Sunday of involvement in a plot to bring down Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and of having links to the Mossad.
À connaissance, aucun média français n’a repris aujourd’hui ces informations, alors qu’il existe déjà une dépêche AFP datée de hier après-midi :
►http://www.romandie.com/news/n/_GBex_ministre_de_la_Defense_l_opposition_reclame_une_enquete_plus_large16
Les médias, loin de s’arrêter avec la démission vendredi du ministre, ont continué dimanche de publier des révélations, remontant le fil des dons et spéculant sur l’influence des deux hommes sur la politique étrangère britannique.
[...]
The Independent croit savoir que M. Werritty complotait pour renverser le régime iranien et était si bien considéré par le Mossad qu’il avait pu arranger des rencontres avec de hauts responsables israéliens.
Liam Fox’s Atlantic Bridge linked top Tories and Tea Party activists
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/15/liam-fox-atlantic-bridge
Officially it was a charity; in fact, Fox’s thinktank was a meeting place for the movers and shakers of the right wing
Libya conflict may cost UK £1.75bn | Politics | The Guardian
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/sep/25/libya-conflict-uk-defence-bill?CMP=twt_gu
The true cost of the UK’s involvement in the Libya conflict could be as high as £1.75bn – almost seven times more than government estimates, according to a new study. Research by a respected defence analyst suggests that the government has given a misleading picture of the costs of supporting the military operation, now in its seventh month, leading to demands for a proper spending breakdown.
Ed Miliband links riots to banking and expenses scandals | guardian.co.uk #ukriots
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/aug/12/ed-miliband-links-riots-scandals?CMP=twt_gu
Ed Miliband has said Labour failed to “rebuild the ethic of our country” in its 13 years in government as he linked the looting and rioting of recent days to the “irresponsibility” of MPs’ expenses, the banking crisis and phone hacking.
Attacking a “me-first” culture in which people had lost their sense of right and wrong, the Labour leader said: "There is an issue which went to all our souls – this is an issue not just about the responsibility and irresponsibility we saw on the streets of Tottenham. It’s about irresponsibility wherever we find it in our society.
“We’ve seen in the past few years MPs’ expenses, what happened in the banks, what happened with phone hacking.”