Cameron congratulates Juncker, covers him in coconut butter and licks him all over

Pride's Purge

(not satire – it’s David Cameron!)

Just days after David Cameron denounced Jean-Claude Juncker’s nomination for the top job in Brussels as a “bad day for Europe”, the UK prime minister has personally called the incoming EU Commission to congratulate him and assure him that he can “can do business with” him:

Just in case there are any journalists struggling to find words to explain this extraordinary backtracking on Cameron’s part – here’s a little list of nouns and verbs I’ve compiled to help them out:

brownnoser (noun)
sycophant, toady, ass-kisser, backscratcher, backslapper, bootlicker, brownnose, doter, fawner, flunky, kowtower, lackey, minion, yes-man

bootlick (verb)
coax; flatter, beguile, brownnose, butter up, crawl, entice, fawn, grovel, inveigle, kowtow, make up to, oil, rub the right way, soft-soap, stroke, suck up to, sweet-talk, sweeten up, toady, wheedle

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Hope that helps.

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Related articles by Tom Pride:

Cameron denies biting Juncker: “I lost my balance and accidentally fell on him”

A handy detailed guide…

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Nestle to pay Living Wage to all contractors – but does it work?

Mike Sivier's blog

The occasionally-controversial food giant Nestle has become the first major manufacturer to agree to pay the Living Wage to all of its staff, including all contractors.

Apparently it already pays the Living Wage to all 8,000 people who are directly employed by the company; now it is extending the policy to its 800 contractors – to be in place by the end of 2017.

This presents us with an opportunity. The Living Wage is set at £8.80 an hour in London and £7.65 an hour elsewhere in the UK – but does it live up to its label?

Vox Political wants to hear from anybody who receives the Living Wage. If you get it, does it allow you to pay your way without having to claim any state benefits at all, as intended?

Tell us your experiences, using the Comment column below.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join…

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Why I Changed My Mind from NO to YES for Scottish Independence

Campaigners occupy grounds of Westminster Abbey to protest against closure of ILF

Mike Sivier's blog

Users of the Independent Living Fund (ILF), along with members of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), UK Uncut and Occupy London, have set up a protest camp in the grounds of Westminster Abbey.

Disabled activists chained themselves to the gates while the camp was being set up.

The ILF was originally set up in 1988 as a national resource to fund support for disabled people with high support needs, enabling them to live in the community rather than move into residential care. It allowed them to be active in society – in education and employment, as volunteers and trustees, as employers, and as carers for family and friends.

According to Independent Living Fightback, “Currently 17,500 disabled people with the highest levels of need receive essential support through the ILF enabling them to enjoy fulfilling lives and contribute to their communities. The closure of the fund will have a devastating…

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Art attack on Coalition policies that drive people to their deaths

Mike Sivier's blog

A UK artist has created an art installation as a memorial to the suicide victims of welfare reform.

Melanie Cutler contacted Vox Political regarding her piece – ‘Stewardship’ – a few weeks ago, asking, “Do you think I’ll be arrested?”

The response was that it should be unlikely if she informed the media. The artworks have been displayed at the Northampton Degree Show and are currently at the Free Range Exhibition at the Old Truman Brewery building in Brick Lane, London, which ends tomorrow (June 30).

Entry is free and the installation will be located in F Block, B5.

“I have become an artist later on in life,” Melanie told Vox Political. “I was a carer for my son and, a few decades later, my father. I have worked most of my life too, raising three children.

“Only recently, while studying fine art at University I found my health…

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Why stubborn Iain Duncan Smith is no statesman

The lovely wibbly wobbly old lady

Reposted from the Observer

Now I know I may seem as if I am IDS bashing of late *slaps self on wrist* but all I would say is that he’s in the News so much because everything he touches turns to caccapoopoo (welsh word for faeces 🙂 ) 

P.S He’s still got a face I want to slap!

‘A neurotic authoritarian who wants to be powerful and expects to be obeyed’: Iain Duncan Smith at last year’s Conservative party conference. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

At a time of miserable conditions for the poor, sick and disabled people, the administration of the welfare state is a disaster. The grand projects the Department for Work and Pensions has launched since the general election have been bureaucratic fantasies and practical catastrophes. Ministers have wasted hundreds of millions of pounds of public money – Tory ministers, mark you, who pose as the defenders of hard-working taxpayers. For…

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ATVOD Begins Internet Censorship

Beastrabban\'s Weblog

Amnesiaclinic, one of the commenters over on Vox Political, posted this video from Not UK Column News as a comment to Mike’s article on the conviction of Cameron’s aide for possessing paedophile material. The video is by the two or three leaders of UK Column, a website which includes videos, critically examining and reporting current events. It seems to be part of the British Constitution Group, an organisation which believes that the British constitution has been undermined and corrupted by the rich and powerful. I really don’t know who British Constitution Group are, nor what, if any, their political affiliation is. A casual glance at their website shows that they are concerned with the destruction of the NHS, and also with the apparent theft and kidnapping of children by NATO officials. If this is the case, then they’re really similar to organisations like Index on Censorship, which report…

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Iain Duncan Smith and the Monsters of Folklore

Beastrabban\'s Weblog

I’ve previously written a number of posts comparing Iain Duncan Smith to a serial killer, specifically Andrei Chikatilo, the ‘Russian Ripper’, who raped, killed and ate about 54 children and men before the Soviet Union’s finest caught and shot him. This is because of the immense death toll caused by his welfare reforms, amounting to an estimated three every four hours, coupled with his absolute absence of any remorse or willingness to concede that his actions are responsible for any kind of suffering and death. Indeed, he insists that they are right, merely based on his own ‘beliefs’. Worse, he is actually proud of them, absurdly comparing them to William Wilberforce’s campaign against slavery.

Well, if he wants to make that comparison, then the folklore of the various colonial peoples brutalised and exploited by their European conquerors, as well as the lower class European victims of forced transportation to the…

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Latest legal aid figures. Social welfare – it’s a wipe out!

Benefit tales

Latest legal aid figures. Social welfare – it’s a wipe out!

by nickd (Mylegal), ilegal team

It’s a wipe out!
The Ministry of Justice has today released the latest legal aid statistics. Remember these cuts were once promoted by the Coalition as one of their ‘top achievements’. I can’t help but feel today’s release couldn’t have been timed any better, the breaking news over the Brooks aquittal and Coulson conviction provides the MOJ with the ideal opportunity to slip these statistics out in silence – very much as per their usual transparency agenda….
I’m sure these will be analysed in detail over the weeks to come but for now I just want to draw your attention to the areas of social welfare law once well served by legal aid which helped advice agencies & law centres assist thousands of vulnerable individuals battle for their benefits – no easy task when…

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Educating Dr Litchfield – a few facts about the Work Capability Assessment

Mike Sivier's blog

Dr Paul Litchfield.

Ignorance is most definitely not bliss for Dr Paul Litchfield.

The man was hand-picked by the Coalition government to review its hated Work Capability Assessment system of handling Employment and Support Allowance claims, amid rumours that previous incumbent Professor Malcolm Harrington had been unhappy with political decisions that ran against his findings. But he delivered a woeful performance to the House of Commons’ Work and Pensions committee last month.

He claimed to have no information about the staggering number of people who have died after going through the assessment system he is being paid to review, totalling 10,600 between January and November 2011 – that’s 220 per week or three every four hours. “I don’t have any information of that type; I haven’t seen numbers on that. Clearly every case would be a tragedy,” he said.

Clearly this expert has yet to gain access to some very…

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