Bon, je sais que je parle tout seul, mais peut-être ce fil de discussion devrait-il être renommé pour parler de la Grande-Bretagne dans son ensemble (comme le Japon a son propre fil) ?
Je voulais faire part d'une actualité inquiétante ici. Pas de savoir si oui ou non on entendra la BO du Magicien d'Oz aux funérailles de la Dame de Fer, sujet qui occupe tous les journaux, cf. ici :
That's yer Thatcher Ding Dong ding-dong: I blame the BBC
Would the Iron Lady get the irony?
Charlie Brooker
The Guardian, Sunday 14 April 2013 15.00 EDT
Last Monday, one of the most iconic figures of the 1980s passed away. Whatever your viewpoint, in terms of strength, drive, and unrelenting sense of purpose, we're unlikely to see their like again. This was someone who knew what they wanted and saw it through to the bitter end, dammit, no matter how shrill the outraged screaming. To admirers, an anti-establishment hero; to detractors, a subhuman hate figure who heartlessly devastated entire communities: a monster to dress up as for your next Halloween party.
Yes, Richard Brooker, the former English stuntman who played the ice-hockey-masked killer Jason Vorhees in the Friday the 13th movies, died last Monday. Maggie Thatcher died the same day, triggering a nationwide outpouring of grief as the TV schedules filled with boring tribute shows. The homages weren't limited to TV screens however. Git-haired One Direction sex minnow Harry Styles hastily tweeted an RIP, prompting many of his fans to wonder aloud just who this "Thatcher" person was, much to the amusement of onlookers not quite smart enough to understand how time works. It's unfair to berate One Direction fans for their Maggie ignorance: for one thing, they're about 10 minutes old. They've only just learned to grasp objects. When I was their age I didn't know who Alec Douglas-Home was. Still don't, come to think of it. Just had to Google him. Woah – sexy!
Incidentally, Maggie herself was a huge One Direction fan – by which I mean she wasn't for turning!!!! LOL OMG HaHa #AceGag
Still, not everyone has shown as much respect as the Dickensian chimney-sweep pin-up Master Styles. Within hours of the news breaking, "celebration" parties were attended by people so utterly committed to humanitarian causes that they're compelled to dance in the street when an old lady dies. Throughout the 80s I hated Thatcher, partly for selfish reasons. I figured that, thanks to the likes of her, the planet was about to receive a mushroom-cloud makeover, and I've never been that keen on burning to death unexpectedly on a school day. I found her almost too frightening to watch on TV. She seemed to display such cold disregard for those crushed by the wheels of her personal brand of progress, it was hard to believe she fully understood what human beings are, let alone cared about them.
Maybe, being the first female prime minister, she was consciously subverting cliche by being as masculine as possible. It's like Barack Obama using flying robots to bomb brown folk overseas – critics chuckle and say: "Man, I didn't expect the first black president to do THAT!"
Millions sang for joy when the Tories themselves kicked Thatcher out of No 10 back in 1990. Breaking into song again 23 years later because she's died of a stroke following years of debilitating illness and seclusion strikes me as futile and a bit sad – not unlike dancing into the British Museum to shake your fist at a mummy. But any active celebrations seemed fairly isolated until the press noticed an online campaign to get Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead into the charts. They were so outraged that they decided to promote it on their front pages, thereby causing a further surge in sales, which they then pretended was a crisis for the BBC, on the basis that Radio 1's weekly chart show – a factual record of what music the British public has been buying – might be forced to play the tune.
Pardon me for swearing, but in the spirit of robust free speech, not to mention accuracy, what the papers have perpetrated there is what Viz magazine would describe as "a cunt's trick". I'd think of a less offensive description, but there isn't one. I simply can't believe they've forced me to use such vile language in an article about our late premier. And by "they", I mean the BBC: officially to blame for anything bad since the eradication of cholera. On last week's Question Time, Charles Moore berated the BBC for even mentioning the Ding Dong! campaign on air, apparently unaware that, by doing so, he was himself promoting it on the BBC, which means he either a) believes himself to be invisible and inaudible, or b) had missed a golden chance to take another opportunistic pop at them before drawing his next breath. (Mind you, he didn't look as dumb as David Blunkett – also on the panel – who gleefully recounted dialogue from a famous Spitting Image sketch starring the Thatcher puppet that he'd somehow mistaken for a real-life quote from the woman herself. He's lucky Dimbleby cut him off before he went on to claim she'd had someone's arm up her arse at the time.)
Many of the obituaries have noted that Thatcher had little sense of humour, although we don't know how advanced her sense of irony was (being made of iron, she was quite irony herself). So we don't know how she'd react to the loudest squabble in the aftermath of her death being a surreal fight over an old musical number repurposed as an anti-tribute to her memory – a protest people actually have to pay to take part in. She'd laugh at that aspect, at the very least. It's hard to believe she'd turn in her grave. After all, as she told us herself, the lady's not for turning!!!! LOL OMG haha #AceGag #WellDone #Legend #JobDone #SigningOff #SeeYa
Non, je voulais parler de la date "officielle" de la mort de l'État-Providence, à savoir le 1er avril 2013.
Pour commencer, la Sécu locale (NHS). Je vous laisse lire le texte de propagande officiel sur leur site :
http://www.bassetlawccg.nhs.uk/patient-information/nhs-changes-from-1st-april-2013?site_locale=enEt un petit décryptage par The Guardian (anticipé puisque la loi est en vigueur depuis le 1er avril) :
The Guardian, Thursday 15 March 2012 12.02 EDT1
100 NHS voices: what happens if the NHS bill passes?
Even professionals find the health and social care bill confusing. Below, as an introduction to this special series of interviews, Denis Campbell, the Guardian's health correspondent, explains what will happen if it goes through
• Explore what 100 people who work in or with the NHS think of the reforms in our interactive
• Tell us how concerned you are about the reforms and what the NHS means to you
• Primary care trusts (PCTs), which currently commission and fund patients' treatment, will be replaced by clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) – local groups of doctors, who are mainly GPs. They will gradually be handed responsibility for £60bn of NHS funds. They, rather than PCT managers, will be the ones who decide what care is right for patients, advise them where to go to get the best treatment and pay the bills. But many GPs are worried that this dramatic extension of their power could also damage their relationship of trust with patients because they will become responsible for rationing care, which will generate inevitable tensions.
• The new NHS Commissioning Board will manage the CCGs and try to drive up quality of care. It is meant to be handed much of ministers' day-to-day control of the NHS, to reduce political involvement. Critics fear, though, that the board's regional offices will be very similar to the strategic health authorities (SHAs) that will disappear next year. Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, has said he intends to streamline the NHS but the new system will contain many thousands of new bodies.
• Public health – tackling problems such as obesity, smoking and alcohol abuse – will transfer from the NHS to local councils. They will have a specific remit to narrow widening health inequalities between rich and poor.
• Any hospital which is not already a semi-independent foundation trust will have to become one, ideally by 2014. They will compete for treatment contracts from CCGs. Health policy experts predict that CCGs could over time force the closure of units, or even entire hospitals, if they do not rate the care given there.
The "cap" on how much hospitals can earn from private patients will rise from as little as 1.5% to 49%, prompting fears of a two-tier service in which NHS patients have to wait longer than those who pay.
• Competition will be extended, and non-NHS groups – charities and private healthcare firms – will be able to bid for increasing amounts of work currently done by NHS staff.
"Any qualified provider" will see nine NHS services, including treatment of neck and back pain, opened up to competition from next month, with other areas to follow later.
• Campaigners fear a "rush to the bottom" on quality of care as new providers of services put in unrealistically low bids to win contracts, leaving patients dissatisfied. Ministers deny they want to privatise the NHS but health leaders fear growing privatisation is inevitable.
Oui, désormais, les établissements de soin sont mis en concurrence avec le privé et la gestion des actes médicaux sera strictement budgétaire. On ne vise plus ce qui sera le mieux pour le patient, on vise ce qui sera le moins coûteux. Il semble acquis que la qualité des soins (déjà très discutable, croyez-moi !) ne risque pas d'être revue à la hausse, et que seuls les créneaux rentables ou demandant peu de qualifications seront soumis à une féroce concurrence. Les personnes âgées, la chirurgie, etc.,ça coûte cher et ce n'est pas rentable, on laisse ça au public dont les moyens fondent comme neige au soleil. Ou à du privé très privé.
Les hôpitaux devront accueillir pour moitié des patients privés sous peine de fermeture. Rien que ça !
Mais l'État-Providence est, comme chacun sait en ces temps de libéralisme triomphant, la source de tous les maux et de tous les abus ! Aussi, le Royaume-Uni est fier de vous présenter la réforme des allocations version hard ! Outre une tripotée de plafonds, elle introduit surtout la "bedroom tax", ou diminution des allocations si la surface habitée est jugée trop "luxueuse" par rapport au nombre d'habitants.
:shifty:'Bedroom tax' and welfare cuts protesters take to streets across UK
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 30 March 2013 11.51 EDT
Due to be introduced next month, the 'bedroom tax' entails a cut in housing benefit for claimants whose home has a spare room
Several hundred people gathered in London's Trafalgar Square on Saturday to protest against the government's welfare cuts and the controversial "bedroom tax".
Simultaneous protests were held in towns and cities across the UK ahead of the cuts scheduled to come into force in April. In Glasgow, around 2,500 people, including trade unionists and people from disabled groups, marched from Glasgow Green to George Square in the city centre.
The "bedroom tax", which is due to be introduced next month, will entail a cut in housing benefit for claimants whose home has a spare room. Pensioners, who have the highest number of spare rooms, are exempt, but critics say that a spare room is a necessity for many families, particularly those with ill or disabled members.
Noreen Aslam, 41, a working mother of four from Manchester was in London with her family. "We heard this was on and wanted to come. I think its a disgrace what they're doing, its the poll tax all over again. Homeless is Manchester used to be just the occassional person you'd see, now its the normality to see people sleeping on the streets. Its all over the place. I think its disgusting."
John MacDonald, 66, travelled from Norfolk. "I'd like to know if the second homes we pay for for MPs are all one bedroom. Its a disgrace. This government is dead in the water because we won't forget what they are doing to working class people," he said.
Sue Carter, 58, from Waltham Forest agreed: "They have just shut the soup kitchen in Waltham Forest despite having a real problem with homelessness. I'm a working single parent and now I've a tiny boxroom and now I'm faced with the choice between food, heat or paying the 'bedroom tax'.
"People have looked after their homes, improved them. Why should they be turfed out? An old widowed lady I know told the council she would be happy to move to a one-bedroom [home], but she would like to still have a little garden for her two dogs. They told her to get rid of her dogs."
Sans surprise, des campagnes de désobéissance civile sont lancées contre cette cure... à ce niveau, je n'ose plus dire austérité... Et ça défilait sérieusement ce week-end ! Et contre l'héritage de Lady T, et contre la réforme.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2013/apr/13/margaret-thatcher-protests-cuts-liveÉvidemment, les autorités sont bardées de statistiques pour prouver que le vilain peuple abuse des allocations et qu'il faut donc les limiter. Oui mais, et si ce n'était qu'une affreuse campagne de propagande mensongère... ?
Conservative claims about benefits are not just spin, they're making it up
Government ministers like Iain Duncan Smith and Grant Shapps are misrepresenting official statistics for political gain
Declan Gaffney and Jonathan Portes
guardian.co.uk, Monday 15 April 2013 10.32 EDT
In the past three weeks, readers of mainstream UK newspapers have learned a number of things about the UK social security system and those who rely on it. They have learned that 878,000 claimants have left employment and support allowance (ESA) to avoid a tough new medical assessment; that thousands have rushed to make claims for disability living allowance (DLA) before a new, more rigorous, assessment is put in place; and that one in four of those set to be affected by the government's benefit cap have moved into work in response to the policy. These stories have a number of things in common. Each is based on an official statistic. Each tells us about how claimants have responded to welfare policy changes. Each includes a statement from a member of the government. And each is demonstrably inaccurate.
When we say inaccurate, we are choosing our words carefully. Politicians are inevitably selective in the data they choose to publicise, picking the figures that best suit whatever story they want to tell. This can mean that stories that are technically accurate can nonetheless be potentially misleading. Within reasonable limits that is in itself neither improper nor unethical: indeed, it is virtually unavoidable. But here are some examples that are not just misleading: they assert that official government statistics say things they do not.
First, the claim that "more than a third [878,000] of people who were on incapacity benefit [who] dropped their claims rather than complete a medical assessment, according to government figures. A massive 878,300 chose not to be checked for their fitness to work [our italics]." For the Conservative party chairman, Grant Shapps, the figures "demonstrate how the welfare system was broken under Labour and why our reforms are so important".
In fact, every month, of the130,000 people who leave ESA, about 20,000 have not yet undergone a work capability assessment (WCA); a number that over four years or so adds up to the headline 878,000. There is no mystery about this: there is an inevitable gap between applying for the benefit and undertaking the WCA. During that time, many people will see an improvement in their condition and/or will return to work (whether or not their condition improves). DWP research has shown that overwhelmingly these factors explain why people drop their claims before the WCA; it also showed that it was extremely rare for claimants not to attend a WCA. In stating, in effect, that official figures showed the opposite of this, the story was simply wrong.
Iain Duncan Smith's assertion about a surge in DLA claims turns on the fact that DLA is being abolished for new claims and replaced with a new benefit, personal independence payment (PIP), for which most claimants will require a face-to-face assessment (for DLA, other forms of medical evidence could be used to support claims). He said: "We've seen a rise [in claims] in the run-up to PIP. And you know why? They know PIP has a health check. They want to get in early, get ahead of it. It's a case of 'get your claim in early'.''
Some very specific figures were cited: "In the north-east of England, where reforms to disability benefits are being introduced, there was an increase of 2,600 in claims over the last year, up from 1,700 the year before, the minister told the Daily Mail. In the north-west, there were 4,100 claims for the benefits over the past 12 months, more than double the 1,800 in the previous year, he said."
But these figures, to be found on DWP's website, in fact represent the change – successful new claims minus those leaving the benefit – in the total DLA caseload from August 2011 to August 2012, crucially including pensioners and children who are not affected by the change from DLA to PIP. They do not constitute even indicative evidence of a DLA "closing down sale". So what happens if we look at new claims, or indeed the total caseload, for those (between 16 and 64) who will be actually affected by the change? In fact, both fell, in both regions, between those two dates. These falls – well within the normal quarterly variation – tell us little, except to show conclusively that Duncan Smith's statements are supported by no evidence that he has offered whatsoever.
Finally, the coalition's flagship "benefit cap". On this occasion, not only did Duncan Smith misrepresent what his own department's statistics meant, but he chose to directly contradict his own statisticians, claiming: "Already we've seen 8,000 people who would have been affected by the cap move into jobs. This clearly demonstrates that the cap is having the desired impact."
But the official DWP analysis, from which the 8,000 figure is drawn, not only does not say this, it says the direct opposite: "The figures for those claimants moving into work cover all of those who were identified as potentially being affected by the benefit cap who entered work. It is not intended to show the additional numbers entering work as a direct result of the contact [their emphasis]."
As DWP analysts know only too well, people move off benefits into work all the time. Unless it is shown that these flows have increased for those affected, and by more for them than for other claimants – and no such analysis has yet been published, either by DWP or anybody else – we know nothing about whether the policy has had any impact (this claim is now being reviewed by the UK statistics authority).
None of this should be taken as comment on the merits of the policies in question. But these misrepresentations of official statistics cross a line between legitimate "spin", where a government selects the data that best supports its case, and outright inaccuracy.
Public cynicism about official statistics is often misplaced – the UK, like most democracies, strictly limits the ability of governments to influence the production and dissemination of official data, often, no doubt, to the frustration of ministers. These restrictions on what government can do with official data are an unsung but essential element in modern democratic governance. When government seeks to get around these limitations by, in effect, simply making things up, this is not just an issue for geeks, wonks and pedants – it's an issue for everyone.
Bref, la vie est belle en Albion ! Au moins, en France, on donne le temps au temps et l'on pondère chaque mot pour les sujets importants, comme le mariage pour tous.
:shifty:
