Be Excellent To Each Other

You want me to prove that your wife has no penis?!

Paraphrasing, obvs.

Quit hamming it up.

But no-one said that. At all. So you're not paraphrasing, you're "making things up".

Heh. Well, personally I think politicians of all colours and persuasions are fair game, so for the record, I don't have any problem with it. If it were Corbyn, I'd be having a field day.

@Jem - no idea what you're talking about or to whom, but I most certainly don't identify with anything you've said there and I'm pretty sure no-one else here does either.

Also it's not even the press or the opposition PR machine who've done this. It's one of his former backers who apparently thought he was buying a job in government, which is probably the only shred of positive spin Cameron can get out of it.

I believe it was Cavey (soz dude if not, don't tend to look at usernames as I flick through, at risk of biasing opinion otherwise) who was repeating the old "benefits budget spiralling out of control" line, cut it now because that's the only way etc etc (despite acknowledging that this was likely to do more damage to those on the lowest incomes?!)

And then two pages later demonstrating that he (and several others) didn't actually understand what tax credits were, how they worked or how much a single parent (e.g.) can actually get.

I'd picked out the example from the BBC website in an effort to try to understand it all. We then expressed surprise at the figures the bbc used and pondered upon their veracity.

I think that people are aware it could be an emotive topic and I think the comments were sensitive to this.

So, how do they work?

Considering it was entirely phrased as 'I don't understand this, please explain', I don't think that's all that unreasonable.

I'm not criticising his lack of understanding in itself - if anything I wish I were in his position, because having to understand tax credits (and regularly failing miserably) was one of the hardest parts about leaving my ex. I simply find it extraordinary that people who have no idea about tax credits can sit there and reiterate the definite need for them to be cut (and so sharply). I don't think its too much to ask for people to actually bother to educate themselves on the topic they're so loudly shouting about.

(Does that make sense?)

"Oh the Daily Mail? Anybody that reads and believes anything that's in it is clearly an idiot. *Scoff scoff* fancy anyone taking the stories from that paper seriously. We're so much smarter than that"

"Oh wait, the Daily Mail says Cameron fucked a dead pig? ROFL. INCOMING PIG PUNS. I'M SO FUNNY AND WITTY AND I DEFINITELY DIDN'T JUST STEAL THEM FROM TWITTER."

Hohoho! You're all so clever! Pat yourselves on the back for your ingenuity and originality.

You're all such giant fucking hypocrites it's amazing you feel empowered to comment on anything the Tory party does at all. This place, you pretend you're above it all except when you're not, but it's all fine and anyone that calls you out on it is just being a grump that's spoiling your fun.

In fairness, at least it wasn't a satsuma.

Oh, I got that far.

Seeing as there was a kerfuffle over it being cut I (wrongly, it turns out) assumed someone could bullet point out the system. As it was not forthcoming and the bbc had a worked example, running with that was a good do.

Where was the bbc example wrong?

It's not surprising that the BBC doesn't want to lower itself by covering this extremely crass and petty 'pig fucker' accusation, and very typical that a shit-rag would go with it as a headline. Says a lot about the people willing to wallow in that kind of mud (ho!).

It was Ashcroft's book that said that, though. The Mail has reported it because it's serialising the book, but that's not relevant to discussion of credibility of the source, as the Mail is not the source.

Excuse me Jem, but where did I say there was a definite need to sharply cut tax credits even at all, let alone "loudly shouting about it"?

Look, I get that that this is emotive - that's fine. As Mali said, I think we were all mindful about that in our collective comments and, for the most part, we all know each other well enough by now to be able to talk relatively respectfully about emotive stuff. I haven't re-read my comments but I recall saying repeatedly I am personally very queasy about all of this and there's many other things I would cut first before going for this, I'd hardly call that 'loudly shouting about it'.

I think expressing mild and respectful surprise about the level of benefits apparently paid to some people in some (non extreme) circumstances (just three kids isn't the proverbial 20-kids benefit shocker Daily Mail type crap example), seems fair comment. Quite a few were surprised at this I think you'll find, not just me.

In 10 years' time people will jsut plough through candidates' Twitter and sinsiter Facebook feeds for these kinds of scandals. I remember Ms Black getting some stick for some of her drunken student tweets before she was elected. But we must all remember that students are students, and not be surprised at youthful indiscretions.

Well, I could bullet point how the various elements add up but it's so bloody complex in how / why they add or take money off you I'm not sure my explanation would offer you much more. I wrote this a couple of years ago - http://wahmweb.co.uk/articles/money/wor ... x-credits/ (figures will be out of date now) - and even I still only understand the basics.

The BBC example is problematic in that it presents a "maximum" number you can earn, which would be virtually impossible to actually get. So just enough info to make the anti-benefits lot shout about the benefits lifestyle but not in any way representative of what people are actually getting.

Anyone can write any old shit for the promise of cash, and the paper can pay to serialise it or not, or make parts of it sensational or not, depending on how much of a bunch of cunts they are. And you can choose to ignore it and not joke about it or not depending on how credibly you hold to your high-minded principles on cheap school-yard politics and scandal. Can't you, Gaywood?

Regarding tax credits, the early years of the scheme are one of the blunders in the brilliant 'Blunders of our governments' book by King & Crewe. Are they still as complicated to obtain?

I agree there's an element of hypocrisy there mate, but come on. I mean, you've just got to laugh at this, even though it's totally cringe-worthy also.

I was the first to laugh at Miliband's bacon sandwich eating antics/photo. Perhaps he knew something we didn't...

Sorry dude, that wasn't clear - just to clarify the "sharply" was in reference to the reality of the cuts, not what you said. I could have worded that sentence better.


But it takes just a few minutes to pop a few figures into a benefits calculator and realise they're dramatically skewed in favour of sounding dramatic rather than being realistic.

But then, on the flip side even if we assume that the BBC figures are 100% accurate and there's a single woman getting £21k in tax credits and £5k in actual earnings, that's not a huge amount to feed and clothe 3 children, pay the bills, transport to and from work, childcare etc. Christ, with just 2 kids and a similar income level I found myself regularly in my overdraft if there was even the slightest emergency and I can budget with the best of them.

That's done the rounds on Twitter already. "Wait, this bacon came from WHERE...?!"

Yeah and I've seen that joke more than once today too.

The bacon sandwich mockery is an example of the worst kind of crap politics and shitty tabloid reporting, and everyone here said so and agreed at the time. This time though: fucking hilarious! Puns aplenty!

Anyone with a smidge of class won't be referencing this at all, and the real people to judge are those who join in with the childish jokes. New style of politics indeed.

Yeah but to be fair, I hadn't even made my mind up whether even those 'worst case' figures were expensive in my opinion, taking all into account (including all sorts of secondary stuff that people don't necessarily think of, like the need for children to have nursery time, interact and play with other kids, "keeping your hand in" with work etc.)

Being totally honest, the opinion that's forming in my mind, and I truly mean no offence, is it's "bloody expensive but far more worthwhile than plenty of shite we spend money on".

Well, I don't claim to have much class and am indeed childish in the extreme. Sorry man, I can tell you're genuinely angry about this - I don't seem to be doing very well today.

Could do. But he facefucked a pig. And it's fucking hilarious. You think it's reasonable that 'Corbyn doesn't sing along to God Save The Queen' gets wall to wall front pages, but papers should refrain from mentioning something as shocking and hilarious as Ashcroft saying that Cameron fucked a pig? That just says a whole lot about how partisan you are, to be honest.

This, for example, is hilarious:

https://twitter.com/thesundaysport/stat ... 3254886400

Jeremy Corbyn sex dwarf eaten by otters. Astonishing exclusive in tomorrow's @thesundaysport pic.twitter.com/XIwNzHF1yd

— Sunday Sport (@thesundaysport) September 19, 2015

(Jeremy Corbyn Sex Dwarf Eaten By Otters)

Likewise Cameron and the pig. It's in the public interest because it's just fucking funny. Who cares about politics when something like this comes up?

Haha I not angry Cavey, but if we're criticising the low-brow smears of political PR it would be jolly nice if we could agree to ignore those and focus on the actual politics. Particularly since those most vocal here are inconsistently castigating or laughing about it dependant on their own bias and leanings.

Obtaining tax credits is, in itself, relatively easy. Not ending up massively in debt to HMRC is another thing entirely.

You have to notify them of any change in circumstance that may affect your tax credits (fair enough) but to do so generally means sitting on the phone for 45+ minutes. Not only is this expensive, but is incredibly difficult to juggle around actually working and raising children.

If you notify them of a change, but they don't deem it significant enough to affect your tax credits, they don't do anything. BUT they then might turn around at the end of the year and go "oh, actually, you owe us X pounds because you earned 50p too much". This happened to me, and I ended up having to pay back hundreds of pounds (despite being completely anal about keeping things up to date with them).

This gets even more complicated when you're not in a job with fixed hours, e.g. self employed - when not only do your hours vary, but so does your income. At one point (the first time round) I basically over-estimated my income by 10 grand so that they'd pay me less tax credits because it was easier to struggle on barely any income than it was to face the stress of having to pay back at the end of the year (on top of tax bills, national insurance and everything else).

They were also brilliant at sending out multiple letters all saying very slightly different things, which again if you didn't catch (and I consider myself an intelligent woman) you ended up potentially in trouble / having to overpay: https://twitter.com/jemjabella/status/3 ... 0797377536

HMRC's latest batch of fan mail. Beats the previous 4 in one day... pic.twitter.com/Swot2AiFSe

— Jem (@jemjabella) September 4, 2013

They regularly make mistakes - https://twitter.com/jemjabella/status/5 ... 48/photo/1 - but if YOU cock up because of THEIR mistakes, you still have to pay back any over payments etc.

It's a horrific, horrific system and being able to ring up and cancel my tax credits was one of the best days of my life. I'm not really any better off, I still have a massive childcare bill to pay, but it's a whole lot less stressful getting by on less (thanks to Gaz's contributions to the bills) than it is having to juggle that every day.

BZZZZZZZZZZZT.

Total fail there Craster. I said I had no problem with Corbyn doing whatever he wanted with regard to singing the anthem. If you're going to try to take a pop at me get those facts straight first to avoid looking stupid.

Just realised there's half a sentence missing in that second tweet. Never noticed that before. Oh well, I take back what I said about being an intelligent woman

I didn't say you had a problem with what he did, I said you were fine with the reporting of it. Which, on reading back, you seemed to be. Apologies if that is not correct.

I 'seemed to be fine with it'? I said that he'd need to be consistent with his response to avoid it being a PR nightmare. Particularly relevant because he was being asked direct questions about it in interviews, so naturally he'd need to respond. It's cheap to accuse him of 'not loving the country' for not singing it and you won't ever see me defending that bollocks. So again, take a pop of me if you like but you'll need to scroll back much further if you hope to find a footing.

Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of criticisms of the tax credits system and recognise that it is a massive cost to the country, but IMO the alternatives - i.e. make the poor poorer and massively disadvantage scores of children who have no choice in where their parent's money comes from - is not going to do the country any favours.

Possibly even better than the alleged allegations is the completely factual and surprisingly earnest defense of face-fucking dead pigs from various people:

"Odd. I honestly thought piggate was the weird sort of s**t public schoolboys got up to all the time. Amazed people are amazed." -- https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/645926254449958912

Odd. I honestly thought piggate was the weird sort of s**t public schoolboys got up to all the time. Amazed people are amazed.

— (((Dan Hodges))) (@DPJHodges) September 21, 2015

(since deleted)

'Let's be clear that the story is rubbish, number one. And number two if it isn't, to quote the anti-nowhere league, "So f****** what?"' - https://twitter.com/LouiseMensch/status ... 9707025408

Mensch often says nonsense, but that's a perfectly reasonable tweet. Drunken uni lads doing stupid shit? National news more than 25 years later!

Also nobody has mentioned that Ashcroft himself has admitted he has an axe to grind against Cameron. Ordinarily people would be pointing that out as a straightforward way of denouncing anything claimed, but strangely it hasn't occurred to them here. Golly.

Don't you think it seems a bit unlikely that he would simply make something like that up and then have it printed in a book? I mean I'm not a lawyer but if that were the case then surely we would have seen denials and statement of Cameron's intent to sue by now.

You are correct that nobody has ever written anything untrue or exaggerated in a salacious book intended to make money.

This is a long, long, loooong way away from my idea of what constitutes your everyday stupid Uni lad shit, even from ex public schoolboys, and I went to Oxford so was more exposed to it than most. Do you really think flopping your todger into the mouth of a severed pig's head held in a mate's lap is unremarkable top bants m8?

Certainly nothing so flagrantly defamatory and easy to sue for if indeed it's made up, Gnomes.

The publisher would never have gone ahead with that if they weren't quite happy they'd eb able to defend it in court.

Also, come on chap, given the amount you'll do stuff like give slaggings to Sturgeon for her appearance it's a bit much you getting prissy about people laughing at a story about Cameron molesting a pig.

Oh yes? Does Oxford have some kind of authority on what constitutes stupid shit done by Uni lads? And you, thereby, have the call on where this qualifies? That's jolly handy. We're lucky to have you here to impart such wisdom.

No, it has more ex public schoolboys than most. I do not believe that to be a contentious statement. Let me quote myself again so you can maybe read it all this time:


Also I guess we can add you with Mensch and Hodges on the side of "this is no big deal, who hasn't done this?" Which I guess explains why you're so upset about this. I mean, hey, we're not here to judge you, Gnomes. Whatever you've stuck your junk into is between you and your conscience.

Oh wait, I forgot:

Even if it's true in some form, who cares? How is this remotely relevant to the politics of today? It's a cheap slur, the very kind that the lefties here denounce as beyond the pale. Basic hypocrisy by the folk here who are either hyper-sensitive or 'just having a laugh' depending on who the subject is.

Legal action isn't ruled out if it is untrue, or it might be considered best to ignore it entirely to avoid having to acknowledge and address bullshit printed in the Daily fucking Mail.

Second, while Nicola Sturgeon's face is a horror to me, I've always said it's a secondary observation to the nonsense that comes spilling out of it. I've also said that Cameron has a melting plasticine face but that's not relevant to Tory politics either.

Hey look, it's the esteemed Dr. Gaywood using dank meme gifs to argue on the internet. He went to Oxford, don'tcha know.

Low, cheap, stupid, and embarrassing comment Gaywood. It sums you up perfectly.

Who says it is? I've not seen a single person say 'Cameron put his dick in a pig, therefore he's unfit to govern', just an awful lot of 'Cameron put his dick in a pig, that's fucking hilarious'. And the latter is pretty undeniably true. Except for your good self, it appears. If it helps, we can colour code the 'political banter' and 'political debate' in this thread to provide more clarity

This is great. Please, keep going.

I bet the nation's assorted political cartoonists have never been woken up at home on a Sunday by their editors quite like they were last night. They must have thought war had been declared, or something. "GET OUT OF BED! YOU'VE NEVER BEEN NEEDED THIS MUCH IN YOUR ENTIRE CAREER"