Oberleutnant posted:

The police protect the nazis!

quote:

On economic governance, the draft Decision of the Heads sets out principles to ensure mutual respect between the Member States taking part in further deepening of the Economic and Monetary Union and those which do not. By doing that we can pave the way for the further integration within the euro area while safeguarding the rights and competences of non-participating Member States.

The respect for these principles is backed up by a draft Decision establishing a mechanism that while giving necessary reassurances on the concerns of non-euro area Member States, cannot constitute a veto nor delay urgent decisions. The exact conditions for triggering this mechanism remain to be further discussed.

On competitiveness, the draft Decision of the Heads, together with a more detailed European Council Declaration and a draft Commission Declaration, will set out our commitment to increase efforts to enhance competitiveness. We will regularly assess progress in simplifying legislation and reducing burden on business so that red tape is cut.

On sovereignty, the proposed Decision of the Heads recognises that in light of the United Kingdom's special situation under the Treaties, it is not committed to further political integration. It also reinforces respect for subsidiarity, and I propose that the Member States discontinue the consideration of a draft legislative act where a number of national parliaments object to it on the grounds of subsidiarity, unless the concerns raised can be accommodated. The importance of respecting the opt-out regime of Protocols 21 and 22, as well as national security responsibilities is also underlined.

On social benefits and free movement, we need to fully respect the current treaties, in particular the principles of freedom of movement and non-discrimination. Therefore the proposed solution to address the UK concerns builds on the clarification of the interpretation of current rules, including a draft Commission Declaration on a number of issues relating to better fighting abuse of free movement.

The draft Decision of the Heads notes, in particular, the Commission's intention to propose changes to EU legislation as regards the export of child benefits and the creation of a safeguard mechanism to respond to exceptional situations of inflow of workers from other Member States. A draft Commission Declaration also relates to this mechanism. This approach, as well as the exact duration of the application of such a mechanism need to be further discussed at our level.

Gruffalo Soldier posted:

Maybe all of the suggestions for the Tories are too obscene for inclusion.

serious gaylord posted:

Apologies for the mail link, but they found a rather interesting thing with google search regarding the tories

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...conspiracy.html

Literally nothing comes up to autocomplete for 'Tories are', which is really funny.

feedmegin posted:

Also, never not bash the fash. While also voting for someone that isn't them.

Jedit posted:

You should never seek out violence. Bashing the fash when they're not doing anything overt increases sympathy towards them. If, however, you should happen to be peacefully standing around when the fash kick it off, and if at that time you should happen to prepared to defend yourself if the need arises... well, nobody can say it's your fault. Except they won't kick it off, because they're not there to fight people who can fight back.

LemonDrizzle posted:

https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/694482097206091777
Moving towards Scandinavian social policies one step at a time...

Jedit posted:

We've already reached the point where someone has said "you should bash the fash because Hitler said so", so the argument has passed the point of any worth.

You should never seek out violence. Bashing the fash when they're not doing anything overt increases sympathy towards them. If, however, you should happen to be peacefully standing around when the fash kick it off, and if at that time you should happen to prepared to defend yourself if the need arises... well, nobody can say it's your fault. Except they won't kick it off, because they're not there to fight people who can fight back.

Jedit posted:

You should never seek out violence. Bashing the fash when they're not doing anything overt increases sympathy towards them. If, however, you should happen to be peacefully standing around when the fash kick it off, and if at that time you should happen to prepared to defend yourself if the need arises... well, nobody can say it's your fault. Except they won't kick it off, because they're not there to fight people who can fight back.

Pork Pie Hat posted:

I disagree that there'd be "be no point counterprotesting" if they were "just marching quietly with a couple of flags". They are still literally nazis, and even if they could organise themselves to walk around without punching someone they must always be opposed.

NO gently caress YOU DAD posted:

On the contrary, I think it gives them a gravitas they don't deserve. A group marching past a huge counter-protest gives them the illusion of being important, while a bunch of thumb-headed twats standing around in the drizzle being ignored by all and sundry is unmistakably pathetic. If they were capable of peaceful protest you'd do them more harm by leaving them to it.

This is an academic argument, of course, because they're bitter angry bullies who want to swing their fists and boots about, and so will always need fists and boots coming back at them.

XMNN posted:

For all his many faults, you have to concede Hitler had some expertise in running a violent racist street movement so he might have some idea what works against them.

Jedit posted:

We've already reached the point where someone has said "you should bash the fash because Hitler said so", so the argument has passed the point of any worth.

You should never seek out violence. Bashing the fash when they're not doing anything overt increases sympathy towards them. If, however, you should happen to be peacefully standing around when the fash kick it off, and if at that time you should happen to prepared to defend yourself if the need arises... well, nobody can say it's your fault. Except they won't kick it off, because they're not there to fight people who can fight back.

Jedit posted:

Please provide a list of groups that Hitler didn't think should be dealt with by crushing them before they got strong enough to organise.

LemonDrizzle posted:

https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/694482097206091777
Moving towards Scandinavian social policies one step at a time...

forkboy84 posted:

Well yes, Antifa don't actually go looking for a fight, they go to have a counter demonstration, fully prepared to retaliate to any fascist violence. Suggesting they do otherwise is dodgy liberal hand-wringing at its worst.

forkboy84 posted:

Otherwise normal appearing people seem to find it far too easy to fall in to far-right populism when things turn down, it needs to be made deeply unattractive.

Camrath posted:

quote:

If you own your home on a long lease (including a shared ownership lease) and the housing association is the freeholder, you can complain if it is not doing what the lease says. For example, you could complain if the housing association is not cleaning the common parts of the building or carrying out structural repairs.

quote:

You can also complain to the:

- council's environmental health department if there is a hazard to health or safety in your home and it is the housing association's fault. Use the Gov.uk council finder to find the contact details of your local council.
- health and safety executive if the housing association is your landlord and won't carry out gas safety checks

Camrath posted:

There’s been a bit of a sorry saga on my estate recently, and I’m sort of looking to both vent, ask for advice and get knowledge of this out there as far as I can.

So. I live on a Peabody Trust estate. I’m a leaseholder rather than a tenant (bought my property back in 2007), living in a maisonette which (while the estate is lovely) represents quite a lot of house for one’s money as far as north London goes.

We’ve had multiple ongoing issues with Peabody Trust over the years- from them demanding £14K from all residents for new windows that nobody needed or wanted, exorbitant service charges that aren’t applied fairly, one winter without heating or cooking gas at all (for which we had to pay 5k or so per household to get a new gas system put in- that was winter 07/08), a lack of parking (due to them using incorrect 20+ year old plans of the estate to calculate parking spaces) and a whole host of other issues that have made dealing with them a nightmare. But things now really have just reached a new low.

On December 15th one of the other residents on the estate noticed low gas pressure, and reported it to Peabody (who are supposed to handle our gas supply and maintenance through the service charge- we certainly pay for it!). Who then proceeded to do nothing about it (various people weren’t able to cook Christmas dinner due to low gas pressure- I was away over the time, so didn’t notice the problem.)

Fast forwards to a couple of weeks ago. Having heard nothing from Peabody, the same resident contacted the National Grid direct, who came on site to investigate and promptly panicked, stated that the gas meter was at severe risk of explosion due to lack of maintenance and shut down the entire supply. They had the gas meter repaired and replaced within 48 hours, but the gas supply remained switched off.

Since then, Peabody have first claimed that they couldn’t reconnect the gas supply till every house had been checked that ovens etc were off (which is reasonable I suppose), but they could only get contractors on the estate to check between 0900 and 1600- so when everyone was at work. This story they stuck with for a few days. Meanwhile the red cross and local churches have had to start running a feeding operation at our community centre as if we’d been hit by an earthquake or something.. Peabody then starting distributing Baby Belling cookers, while still prevaricating about the gas and when it’d be turned on.

Then last week they sent out another letter, claiming that because the gas supply was ‘irregular’ that they were going to cancel it completely and we would all have to switch to electic cookers. Given that most of us had paid out thousands to get the gas system installed less than a decade ago, couple with the massive increase in bills electric cookers would cause (and the fact that many of our flats don’t have the correct wiring to be able to take them, and would need major work to install them) we have collectively gone apeshit. Our resident’s association has been investigating and advocating for us as best as they can (and doing a sterling job of it); they’ve contacted the council (our local labour councillor has been providing direct support, despite looking like a chubby 12 year old), the National Grid (who maintain that the supply is fine- though the estate manager physically tried to prevent them from gaining access to the meter the last time they came to check) and the local press.

Oh, something I forgot. They offered us £250 towards the cost of a new cooker. Now, I have an 8-burner gas range that frankly I love to bits. To replace this with electric (even without considering the cost of increased power use) would cost more than £800. I yelled at them over twitter and immediately got an offer of £500 (which I told them to stick up their arse). Right now we’ve got ITV London coming over this afternoon to film the story, several articles in the local press and our council involved, but as you can imagine this is loving hellish to deal with. Both my partner and I suffer from anxiety issues at the best of times and this has been an insane trial- we’ve had no way of cooking for ages (though we now have one of their lovely portable stoves), no hot water or heating at various points and nothing but stonewalling and misdirection from Peabody. It seems now that they are aiming to get the whole estate switched over to electricity no matter what and are just using this as an excuse- note, this is supposed to be a ‘social housing’ estate, and is one of the top 1% deprived areas in the country (this despite being in the heart of Finchley, north London). How we and our fellow residents are expected to cover the massively increased cost of electric cooking I have no idea, nor why they think they can weasel out of their contract to make us do so. Its just been lie after lie after lie from them, and I’ll admit I’ve reached the point where I go along daily to scream at the smirking oval office who runs the estate office just to blow off a bit of steam (on the one hand I feel bad because he’s a low level functionary.. on the other he’s lied to my face repeatedly).

So yeah, just trying to spread awareness a bit, get this off my chest. If anyone has any advice on other avenues to take, I’d love to hear!

Pissflaps posted:

The same question asked in other countries...

https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/694508909017563136

Prince John posted:

Shelter has some advice here.


As you said you're the leaseholder, it will be worth digging out the terms of your lease and finding what their responsibilities are. It sounds like they've probably been neglecting their responsibilities to not allow the gas system to be explosive, amongst many other things.


Sounds like some of that might be relevant re the gas as well. I don't think you mentioned the HSE?

I'll throw out some general thoughts now - feel free to disregard as required, as I guess it's easier for me to type poo poo from my desk than it might be for you to carry things out in practice.

Maybe your Residents' Association has already done this, but you didn't mention anything about the formal complaints process. In order to complain to the Housing Ombudsman, you have to have gone through Peabody's complaints process first. Usual rules about 'document everything' apply. Get a statement from the National Grid person if you can, detailing how he was prevented from carrying out his inspection.

Catalogue, with timelines, all the various issues you've had so far. Agree them with the other residents, or via the RA. Try and estimate any costs to the residents as a result of their failings.

Club together as residents to hire an independent gas inspector to verify that the gas supply is safe and that therefore there is no justification for the forced switch to electric.

Estimate the extra cost of cooking with electric, both annually and the initial equipment cost. Take some average figures for take home pay in your area and equate the two - numbers will make it much easier to illustrate the hardship this will cause and therefore help you to block the policy. Do the same for the extra costs of heating, if gas heating is used anywhere on the estate already.

If your MP is already involved, that's fantastic, as he's a "designated person", as is your RA. If both of them make a submission to the ombudsman supporting you, I would expect you'd be in a good place.

The nuclear option - bring a group action against Peabody for some combination of breach of contract (for neglecting their obligations re maintenance etc.) and whatever else you can sling at them?

It sounds like they're pursuing their own agenda, but as they're a Housing Association, they're probably obliged by their constitution or your contract to act in the best interests of their residents. Find out what their constitution says about their behaviour and responsibilities and document their breaches of it.

I'd really suggest trying to get some legal advice from someone who is a specialist in housing. Some free routes are here but you may find that the costs are affordable when you split it between tons of residents, even if you can't access a free service. All you really want is for a court to block the forced electrification of the estate, but it sounds like there's been a load of economic hardship caused by their previous breaches of contract, so I don't think it would be unreasonable to try for compensation as well.

Finally, complaints to the Charity Commission about their conduct? If nothing else, it will create more publicity, focus the mind of the Execs in the organisation, and it sounds like they're really not acting as they should as a registered charity.

Sorry for the brain dump

Edit: Theirs nothing on their wikipedia page about this. Start a new 'controversy' section, put all this poo poo on there, with sources to the local newspaper articles you mentioned. That's bound to get someone's attention in the organisation.

Camrath posted:

Off my lunch break so I can't reply in detail yet, but thank you very much for this- I knew UKMT was a good place to go for advice.

Oberleutnant posted:

The police protect the nazis!

Renaissance Robot posted:

loving hell Germany.

serious gaylord posted:

Apologies for the mail link, but they found a rather interesting thing with google search regarding the tories

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...conspiracy.html

Literally nothing comes up to autocomplete for 'Tories are', which is really funny.

feedmegin posted:

Stick your head in the Europol thread sometime, it's full of Germans posting like it's 1933.

feedmegin posted:

Stick your head in the Europol thread sometime, it's full of Germans posting like it's 1933.

Jedit posted:

We've already reached the point where someone has said "you should bash the fash because Hitler said so", so the argument has passed the point of any worth.

You should never seek out violence. Bashing the fash when they're not doing anything overt increases sympathy towards them. If, however, you should happen to be peacefully standing around when the fash kick it off, and if at that time you should happen to prepared to defend yourself if the need arises... well, nobody can say it's your fault. Except they won't kick it off, because they're not there to fight people who can fight back.

LemonDrizzle posted:

The good news in European politics is that all possible non-fascist contenders would beat Marine Le Pen of the National Front for the presidency. The best socialist candidate would win by 54% to 46%, the better right wing candidate would win by 70% to 30%, and the worse right wing candidate would win by 56% to 44%. Isn't that reassuring?

Oberleutnant posted:

They also have a long and well documented history of savage and cowardly attacks on individual passers-by when not opposed by Antifa.