Scarlett’s Seven on Sunday – 30th August 2009
Hello lovelies, welcome to Miss Scarlett’s Sunday blog emporium. What we’re going to do today is this morning I’ll be posting four articles from across the week – and this afternoon we’ll have a look at the to-and-fro between Agent Orange and Duncan Borrowman.
Ollie Cromwell over at the Red Rag is not impressed with Sarah Teather this week: “Housing benefit should be just that and nothing more. However, under changes implemented by this government in 2008 new housing benefit claimants have been entitled to get up to £15 a week back if they find accommodation at a lower rent than the level of housing allowance set by their local authority. So far 300,000 people have latched onto this scam and are claiming back up to £780 per year for rent they have not paid. That is up to one quarter of a billion pounds of YOUR money!
So basically if you are on benefits find yourself a cheaper flat and the taxpayer will buy your beer and fags for you. Not surprisingly now the coffers are empty the government is looking at closing this insane redistribution of wealth from hard working families to the benefits culture recipients.”
A few tactical musings from Political Betting: “… A total of 56% of Lib Dems voters said they would rather see the Tories in power, against 36% who want Labour.
The critical thing here is what these voters do in specific seats when they are fully appraised of local electoral situations. If enough of them vote tactically for the Tories then Labour will suffer disproportionate losses on top of the swing predictions.”
Iain Dale’s reaction to Irfan Ahmed’s suggestion that President Obama should meet Nick Clegg: President of Pakistan meets Nick Clegg. President of Pakistan is important person. Obama is important person too. Ergo, he should hold talks with Nick Clegg. Only right, innit?
ROFL and LMAO all in one.
And Daniel Hannan concurs that hackery will get us nowhere: For most of our history, it was understood that MPs sat in their own right and were answerable chiefly to their local electorate. This meant that, in order to get their programme through, ministers had to humour and cajole the House of Commons, which in turn meant that the legislature was an effective check on the executive. True, all members of the Cabinet were bound by collective responsibility. But the notion that such responsibility should extend to their backbenchers would have seemed outrageous: the whole purpose of Parliament was to hold the administration to account.
And if you’ve seen any posts you think should feature on “Scarlett’s Seven on Sunday” – then send me the link at sara.scarlett@liberal-vision.org. I’m not looking for “the best” posts but anything eclectic which may go under the radar otherwise. It’s not a bad way to get your Wikio rankings up – nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Have a lovely week my honeys…!!
