Scottish Independence and the UK State

[Morty]

[AhabsOtherLeg]

This is old news now, but I wanted to thank the folk here that posted back then about the possibility of electoral fraud, even if I do not personally believe that it occurred in this case (to a large enough extent) to sway the result.

I still wanted to know which companies supplied the electronic electoral services for the referendum. It was a hard thing to find out. Turns out the answer was a beauty:

A TORY MP is a director of a company that has become a major player in how elections are managed in Scotland, it has emerged.

Concerns have been raised with the Electoral Commission about the involvement with Idox of former Tory Cabinet minister Peter Lilley, who is a senior non-executive director.

Idox has had a hand in providing count software, including postal vote management support, among other services, for elections since at least 2012.

In a statement to shareholders, the firm said it also successfully provided “the majority of electoral services” for the 2014 Scottish referendum, saying that its systems managed the highest turnout in recent years for a major UK election.

Montreal-based CGI and Idox won the £6.5 million contract to provide an electronic vote counting system for the 2017 local government elections in Scotland.

Objectors have questioned the rationale of awarding contracts to Idox when it has links to one political party, and about the “creeping privatisation” of elections.

Lilley, who served as trade and industry secretary from July 1990 to April 1992, has been a paid non-executive director for 14 years, and received £35,000 in 2015 for his services.

He holds 533,000 shares: 111,300 are in a self-invested pension plan and 59,250 are held through various members of his family.

The former social security secretary is chairman of Idox’s nomination and remuneration committee, which makes recommendations over how much executives are paid. He is also a member of its audit committee.

When appointed as a director, during the infancy of the firm, executives told shareholders he “brings with him a wealth of experience of central and local government, which we believe will be of considerable benefit to the group, especially as it seeks to achieve an increasingly strategic role with both local and central government”.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/1447 ... ount_firm/

This is Peter Lilley. An unbiased man:

[MacCruiskeen]

Ahab has returned! Moladh go deo le Dia!



He will restore this board to its former glory! [Starts assembling troops.]

It's good to know you're alive, Lord Sotherleg. I think I still owe you a PM or an email, from sometime earlier this century. This is because I am a knut.

[conniption]

Ahab has returned! Moladh go deo le Dia!



He will restore this board to its former glory! [Starts assembling troops.]

...

Ahhhh...if only...

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Ahab has returned! Moladh go deo le Dia!



He will restore this board to its former glory! [Starts assembling troops.]

Heheh, Hiya Mac! You been nicking pics out of my Facebook photo albums again? That's a familiar scene. It was a great wee holiday as I recall.

Don't think I'm capable of restoring anything to it's former glory these days, sadly. I mostly just come here to drink.

It's good to know you're alive, Lord Sotherleg.

Only just. My body is a temple, of course, but it was built in the stone age by a neolithic tribe that barely had opposable thumbs. The roof fell in a while back.

I think I still owe you a PM or an email, from sometime earlier this century. This is because I am a knut.

I assumed my last message was so knunty that you'd decided to cut your losses. You were right about the oil btw. Force majeure, right enough. I guess you will have heard.

ON-TOPIC: -

[seemslikeadream]

Saudi Arabia has declared an end to its oil war with the US

http://qz.com/714622/saudi-arabia-has-d ... th-the-us/

[MacCruiskeen]

Another world is possible, and it doesn't take a fucking rocket scientist to work out a way to get us there. Disabling these evil profteering bastards is a huge, obvious, necessary and easy step in the right direction.

Weeks before the general election, Scotland sends an almighty f*ck you to the Tories

April 28th, 2017 Carlyn Harvey

https://www.thecanary.co/2017/04/28/wee ... ou-tories/



The Scottish government has just essentially fired all the private companies involved in benefit assessments. And coming weeks before the general election, the timing couldn’t be worse for the UK government.

Jog on

Holyrood is banning companies like Atos, Capita and Maximus from carrying out Scotland’s benefit assessments. Instead, the Scottish government will carry out assessments through its new Social Security agency. The Scotland Act, drawn up following the country’s 2014 referendum, gives Holyrood a new raft of powers. And the Scottish government is setting up the Social Security agency as part of those reforms.

Speaking about the ban on private companies, Social Security Minister Jeane Freeman said:

One of our fundamental principles is that profit should never be a motive nor play any part in assessing or making decisions on people’s health and eligibility for benefits…

We are building a system based on dignity and respect – this means an assessment process which isn’t demeaning or deliberately difficult.

I am very clear that assessments should not be carried out by the private sector and I want to give people in Scotland this assurance as we take forward our new social security agency.

Pauline McNeill, social justice spokeswoman for Scottish Labour, applauded the plans. She said:

People across Scotland have often suffered humiliating and damaging treatment at the hands of profit-driven companies – and it is absolutely right that will be brought to an end.

Good riddance

Private companies’ involvement with the benefit assessment system and the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) is controversial. Initially administered by Atos, and later Maximus, the WCA decides the fate of benefit claimants. And private companies have raked in millions for carrying them out.

In 2011, however, the Department of Work and Pensions’ (DWP) own figures showed that, during an 11-month period, 10,600 people died within or during a six-week period of undergoing the WCA. Studies have linked the test to hundreds of suicides, and thousands of cases of mental illness.

Meanwhile, stories of how the DWP and these companies treat and assess claimants are shocking. Such as the DWP informing a dead woman she was too healthy for payments. Or interrogating a 7/7 survivor for ‘proof’ he had disabilities. Or declaring a woman ‘fit for work’ who can’t read, write, walk or talk. And assessors asking people why they haven’t killed themelves yet during assessments. The list goes on and on.

Overhaul, not tweaks

Of course, private companies’ involvement in the system isn’t the only issue. The UK currently has a government that has chosen for the system to work this way. But getting the profit motive out of assessments is a very productive step. It’s not one, however, that the Conservative government is likely to take.

So if people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland agree with this decision, they need to vote for a party on 8 June that is sure to take note.

Get Involved

– Register to vote in the 8 June general election. If you don’t have a national insurance number, a 5 minute phone call on 0300 200 3500 will get it sent to you in ten days.

– Discuss the key policy issues with family members, colleagues and neighbours. And organise! Join (and participate in the activities of) a union, an activist group, and/or a political party.

https://www.thecanary.co/2017/04/28/wee ... ou-tories/

[Elvis]

The Scottish government has just essentially fired all the private companies involved in benefit assessments. And coming weeks before the general election, the timing couldn’t be worse for the UK government.

That's the ticket, the first leg of the trip.