Since about 2005, and in almost every Western economy, something historically unprecedented and extremely alarming has been happening to energy consumption: it’s either flatlining or in decline. This remarkable but little discussed fact is jeopardising almost every aspect of our public policy, from climate change mitigation, through national security to societal progression itself. President Biden’s plans to vastly increase spending on renewables such as wind and solar through the Inflation Reduction Act are grabbing the headlines, and it’s not hard to see why, but they may actually be counterproductive, and in any case are overshadowed by the sweeping macroscopic trend of falling Western demand for energy.
According to data collected by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, total energy consumption in the UK, for example, is back at levels not seen since the 1950s; there has been a 30 percent decline from its peak in 2003, which is astonishing given that the population has increased by 12.5 percent, to 67 million, over the same period."
Why is using less energy bad? Am I being thick again?
It is your sacred duty to use more energy every year.
See Book of Armaments, chapter two, verses nine through twenty-one.
Sorry, your grace, for I have sinned. Those bloody low energy light bulbs were so tempting. And I just had to go and insulate the loft. And as for the car, we’ll I tried to buy a gas guzzler but then the wife made me buy an efficient hybrid…
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
No the Church of England is not the state, we are not a theocracy, the Church of England does not have a say in making our laws beyond having a miniscule presence in the House of Lords.
The Queen is Head of State and as part of that role signs what Parliament has passed into law. That is completely separate from her role ad Head of the Church of England preserving its role as our established Christian Church.
It was my right to refuse to get married in a registry office, if you wish to have a civil non religious marriage that is your affair. However we religious whether Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Jew consider our religious marriage more important than the legal one and now it is right that you can have a legal wedding at the same time as a religious one with a priest or Imam or Rabbi licensed to do so
Okay, so HMtQ's role as English Pope is pure coincidence, nothing at all to do, oh no dear me, all total coincidence, with her also being HMtQ?
Pull the other one. How many Tories react like you to the merest threat of disestablishment? Most of them.
The English State is allowing the most fundamental and serious discrimination in the conduct of its business. Because it is partly a theocracy.
The purpose of the establishment of the CoE is to prevent too much religion getting into the churches. Instead of vague niceness and cups of tea.
This is the church where a prospective head dude was vetoed on the grounds that he was a bit too strongly into Sky Fairies.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
Chatting to a pollster this evening, they think Starmer's cost of living policy proposal is just like Dave & George's IHT announcement in 2007.
Utter game changer and makes the government look like disinterested incompetents whilst making voters think the LOTO has my values.
2007 IHT proposals were an 'utter game changer'? How many voters were actually or potentially impacted by the IHT changes? A small minority, I'd guess.
How many voters would be impacted by freezing the energy price cap? Just about every one.
It turned double digit Labour leads into double digit Tory leads.
Labour MPs were publicly writing 'Shortly there will be an election, in which Labour will increase its majority'
Perhaps the magnitude of the moment we face is too great for us collectively to bear. Shortly there will be an election, in which Labour will increase its majority, and in so doing utterly shatter the glass paradigm of cyclical politics which has contained us for the century since 1906. This ought to herald another decade of strong, confident, consensual Labour government. Which will finally and irrevocably transform the nature of politics and civic life in Britain.
That is a frightening responsibility. The young princes who now stride the parade ground with the confidence born of aristocratic schooling can never be afraid. They never have been. Like latter day Pushkins drilled in the elite academy of Brownian blitzkrieg, they are bursting with their sense of destiny. It’s not the Milibands, the Ballses or the Burnhams who are unconsciously nervous. This is the moment for which they were created. They are ready.
But you're going to struggle to convince me that the change in polling fortunes was driven by Tory IHT proposals rather than Brown's election hesitancy.
My view would be, didn’t that announcement come at a conference, a successful “we are nice not nasty and incompetent, and we are back” conference for the Tories, during the barnstorming speech by fresh David Cameron. It could have been all that which contributed to the poll switch as well not just that announcement.
I also feel if Brown had gone ahead with that election, he could have won it, though the size of majority uncertain which is why they called it off, because Browns limitations as PM were not yet clear, nor his failures as Chancellor yet known, he still had a strong reputation and the Tories a weak one, an election at that time may have come too soon for the Tories under Dave and George.
I distinctly recall the IHT card being what stopped Brown going for the election. Now that may be a false memory, but that’s what I recall.
Then let me run this take passed you. As in my previous post, the whole conference moved the polls, not least Cameron’s succesfully received speech.
As for IHT card, if the election went ahead, that is largely neutralised by similar policy announcement and sidelined by more important things - best to run economy, NHS etc.
To go back to TSE original point, how Starmer’s freeze announcement is as momentous as the IHT card - neither were momentous - an awful lot else at play, then and today, Starmer’s freezer card could be trumped in a few weeks, so maybe not so epoch defining at all.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
O/T Liz Truss is unhinged. Nothing more, nothing less.
The right wing nutters who live on this blog seem to think she is something special. She is no Thatcher. She is likely to give Cameron and Johnson a good run for the worst PM ever.
Johnson I’ll give you but Cameron? Formed a coalition that worked well for 5 years then won a majority. Gave the nation a chance to vote on its political future over Europe, something all others denied since the 70’s. A decent man, and a decent PM. Your countrymen and women are the ones to blame for Brexit, not Cameron.
He didn’t think through the referendum. He was lazy and arrogant.
I really just do not understand this attitude
The question was put to the people who voted in a referendum the result of which you have not come to terms with along with many others
The remain supporters failed to win a very winnable case and seem to want to blame everyone but themselves
Furthermore, Starmer is not offering to re-join, indeed neither are the lib dems implicitly promising to do so, so little will change in the foreseeable though a better relationship with the EU while remaining outside would be welcome
The Remain campaign was shockingly poor and Cameron made it as difficult to win as he possibly could because he fully expected to walk it. Osborne told him it was an outrageous risk.
Yes Corbyn, and the entire Labour Party are probably even more culpable for their utter ineptitude than Cameron. I blame them, particularly Corbyn wholeheartedly. The LibDems on the other hand were superb, it's just they didn't have the networks to win over enough doubters.
Crucially no one had the vaguest idea of what they were voting for Leave and Remain, and both sides lied. Leave lied better and Boris was sublime, however like Cameron he expected Remain to win and like Cameron didn't know what to do when they didn't.
Still it's done now and it's going great ...maybe!
When I voted to Leave the European Union, my assumption was that I was voting to leave the European Union. Equally, when quite a lot of people voted to Remain in the European Union, I think they expected that meant we would remain in the European Union.
The problem was that leaving meant a lot of different things to different people, there was not a clear leave choice, plenty of people who voted to leave the European Union still wanted to stay in much of the economic agreements, including people like Dan Hannan who campaigned by saying that leaving the EU did not mean that we had to leave the single market.
A very commonly expressed view was we should leave the political and keep the economic. I disagreed, but I did accept that there was a case.
However, what has happened is a complete break down of all legal links between Britain and the EU, and that was the choice only of a small, extremist, faction. The small minority that still argues that hard Brexit was the only solution that counted as Leave, is either ignorant or dishonest. The compromise was obvious, but after May´s citizen of nowhere speech it was not taken, and the damage has already been immense.
Had that been made clear at the vote, that Leave would mean that there would be a complete end of all legal and economic ties Remain would probably have won and that is why a clear majority now believes that leaving was a bad idea. It is the failure to establish any compromise, and indeed to attempt to detach Britain even further from the EU, that will ultimately cause the end of the Conservatives. It is economically very damaging and in the end will be politically toxic.
The fact that the leadership of the Conservatives is utter abysmal is just a side show in the growing anger at the Tories.
It is wrong to lay that entirely at the foot of Leavers.
It really isn’t.
It really is.
It was primarily a civil war between loonies in the Tory Party.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
No the Church of England is not the state, we are not a theocracy, the Church of England does not have a say in making our laws beyond having a miniscule presence in the House of Lords.
The Queen is Head of State and as part of that role signs what Parliament has passed into law. That is completely separate from her role ad Head of the Church of England preserving its role as our established Christian Church.
It was my right to refuse to get married in a registry office, if you wish to have a civil non religious marriage that is your affair. However we religious whether Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Jew consider our religious marriage more important than the legal one and now it is right that you can have a legal wedding at the same time as a religious one with a priest or Imam or Rabbi licensed to do so
Okay, so HMtQ's role as English Pope is pure coincidence, nothing at all to do, oh no dear me, all total coincidence, with her also being HMtQ?
Pull the other one. How many Tories react like you to the merest threat of disestablishment? Most of them.
The English State is allowing the most fundamental and serious discrimination in the conduct of its business. Because it is partly a theocracy.
The purpose of the establishment of the CoE is to prevent too much religion getting into the churches. Instead of vague niceness and cups of tea.
This is the church where a prospective head dude was vetoed on the grounds that he was a bit too strongly into Sky Fairies.
Henry VIII liked cups of tea? Revolutionatry concept; must go away and think about it.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
Yes you can sign your contract in Church.
You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.
You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.
You can sign your contract in a Pub.
Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
I suppose it could be a series of extraordinary coincidences.
Not that extraordinary. If you take tens of thousands of pictures of one woman and compare them with tens of thousands of pictures of another that she looks vaguely similar to, you're bound to ultimately get some similarities. People have done these 'lookalike' comparisons for as long as the internet/Private Eye or others have existed.
Was George W Bush trying to look like a monkey?
She is a vapid, posturing windbag and as big a threat to world peace and stability as Putin. did George Bush get an Official Photographer to tag along everywhere he went and take those photos? Do you realise that the Truss photos are carefully curated (dread word) and posted on instagram by or on behalf of her, not her enemies?
Taking photos doesn't mean you're trying to be Thatcher, unless she curated the lookalikes and posted them side-by-side herself just as moonshine just did with Starmer and Boris.
see the footage of her landing? the 3 bods from the embassy, 2 women and a wallace-grade baldy, are HATLESS, it's only uniform guy wearing one cos he has to.
She was dressing up.
She wore a hat while visiting a notoriously cold country?
Oh well that changes everything, she must be only the second person in history to wear a hat while visiting Russia.
Although on your link there's 2 other people wearing hats. They're not women though, so I guess they don't count.
The particularly charming poster Ismael also misunderstands something. I don’t think there’s anyone here who is giving full throttled support to Truss. I’m certainly not, I have little idea whether she’ll be any good and I suspect neither does she until she starts the job. Big step up even from Foreign Sec.
But the reflexive hate for her before she’s even got going strikes me as quite bizarre, when there’s nothing obvious in her track record to justify it. Perhaps she’ll do enough for the Tories to earn my vote for the first time in 4 elections, perhaps not. But it would be good to see a more serious critique of her abilities and plans, rather than “oh look she’s wearing a blue jacket and a hat. What a f**** b***ch! Who does she think she is!”.
What? You can't claim the moral high ground on charm, and start making blanket accusations of "reflexive hate." One or the other.
And "before she's even got going." Many of us here have an informed and detailed knowledge of UK politics, and thanks for confirming you are not among us. She is Foreign Sec FFS. This is not an Emma Raducanu situation. She is also a terrible and deeply unserious person, despite your elderly penchant for her disciplinary reputation.
Her most telling contribution as Foreign Secretary, has been to firmly elucidate the position that “Russia must lose” and that that means their troops “leaving the whole of Ukraine including Crimea”. At the time I remember quite a lot of bed wetters in the guardian and elsewhere saying she was recklessly endangering the whole world for personal ambition. These days, it’s a pretty median position. Backed this week by Putin’s erstwhile ally Erdogan no less. Now it’s an exaggeration to say she has personally driven that narrative shift. She hasn’t. But she did play her part in driving it towards broad international acceptance.
Not that she drove the formation of Aukus, her appointment aligned with the announcement. But her department saw it over the line. As for her time as Trade Sec, sure there are those who moan about us getting cheaper food products from strategic allies. I’m not one of them but I am disappointed no progress was made with the US on a financial sector accord that would become the global standard.
I don’t know really what to do with her being a “terrible and deeply unserious person”. And I’m not elderly or into that particular niche. I just think that at a time of national peril, she deserves a chance and the nation’s goodwill. If she’s no good, she’ll be booted out!
Pushing the line that the war is not over until Crimea returns to Ukraine, by any assessment, prolongs the conflict, and prolongs UK involvement in it. If you hold the somewhat quaint view that foreign policy is a tool to promote the security and prosperity of the UK, that is taking a 12 boar and emptying both barrels into your own size 9s.
However, I give a pass to Truss for anything she says on Ukraine. Our foreign policy on this is decided by America. It will be a bold leader indeed who departs from the US line on anything. If she starts to forge the beginnings an independent foreign and defence policy, it will be a pleasant surprise.
Ensuring Ukraine's territory is returned to Ukraine ends the war, it doesn't prolong it.
If you want the war over, you should be pushing to do everything we can to ensure Russia leaves the entirety of Ukraine, which of course includes Crimea. If Vlad leaves Ukraine, the war is over, until he does, it isn't.
No, the war is over when the two sides stop fighting, not when an arbitrary set of preferred conditions transpire.
The two sides stop fighting when the invader leaves the nation they've invaded.
That means Russia out of Ukraine, including Crimea.
Dribbling garbage. Most of the world's countries sit on bits of territory once forcibly removed from other nations. Including our own.
Not since WWII at least whereby nations agreed not to seize bits of territory by war. The UK hasn't seized any territory since then.
If you genuinely want the war over, why aren't you demanding Russia leaves Crimea? If you genuinely want the war over, why aren't you demanding the UK applies maximum pressure to ensure Russia leaves Crimea, thus ending the war?
Seems to me that you don't genuinely want the war over. Instead you simply want Russia to win the war, then be able to launch its next war.
Three reasons. Firstly, because I am not sure that Russia leaving Crimea is the outcome desired by the people of Crimea. I would however be in favour of an internationally-observed plebiscite to establish whether this is the case. Secondly, because I think getting Russia out of Crimea would be a difficult, if not impossible military aim, so making an end to hostilities contingent on that, guarantees an almost permanent conflict, which is good for nobody. Thirdly, and possibly most importantly, nobody involved in the matter gives a flying fuck what I 'demand' (or even what you demand), so it would not make a blind bit of difference.
1. In the only free and fair vote in Crimea, Crimea voted to be independent of Russia and be a part of Ukraine. If its not clear that the people of Crimea want Russia to leave, then why don't we ask them after they've left? They already said they wanted them to leave once before.
2. No getting Russia out of Ukrainian Crimea will not be difficult or impossible, any more than Russia getting Ukraine to give up its independence or territory is going to be difficult or impossible.
3. Yet you keep proclaiming your supposed desire for the war to end, yet you oppose the one way we have to make the war end, which is aiding our allies to win the war and kick the invaders out of their territory.
If we aid Ukraine sufficiently to get Russians kicked out of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, as they've already been kicked out of Snake Island, then the war would be over. Do you want to see that happen, yes or no?
Since about 2005, and in almost every Western economy, something historically unprecedented and extremely alarming has been happening to energy consumption: it’s either flatlining or in decline. This remarkable but little discussed fact is jeopardising almost every aspect of our public policy, from climate change mitigation, through national security to societal progression itself. President Biden’s plans to vastly increase spending on renewables such as wind and solar through the Inflation Reduction Act are grabbing the headlines, and it’s not hard to see why, but they may actually be counterproductive, and in any case are overshadowed by the sweeping macroscopic trend of falling Western demand for energy.
According to data collected by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, total energy consumption in the UK, for example, is back at levels not seen since the 1950s; there has been a 30 percent decline from its peak in 2003, which is astonishing given that the population has increased by 12.5 percent, to 67 million, over the same period."
Why is using less energy bad? Am I being thick again?
It is your sacred duty to use more energy every year.
See Book of Armaments, chapter two, verses nine through twenty-one.
Sorry, your grace, for I have sinned. Those bloody low energy light bulbs were so tempting. And I just had to go and insulate the loft. And as for the car, we’ll I tried to buy a gas guzzler but then the wife made me buy an efficient hybrid…
Have you forgotten to eat orangoutangs with your anchovies?
Chatting to a pollster this evening, they think Starmer's cost of living policy proposal is just like Dave & George's IHT announcement in 2007.
Utter game changer and makes the government look like disinterested incompetents whilst making voters think the LOTO has my values.
2007 IHT proposals were an 'utter game changer'? How many voters were actually or potentially impacted by the IHT changes? A small minority, I'd guess.
How many voters would be impacted by freezing the energy price cap? Just about every one.
It turned double digit Labour leads into double digit Tory leads.
Labour MPs were publicly writing 'Shortly there will be an election, in which Labour will increase its majority'
Perhaps the magnitude of the moment we face is too great for us collectively to bear. Shortly there will be an election, in which Labour will increase its majority, and in so doing utterly shatter the glass paradigm of cyclical politics which has contained us for the century since 1906. This ought to herald another decade of strong, confident, consensual Labour government. Which will finally and irrevocably transform the nature of politics and civic life in Britain.
That is a frightening responsibility. The young princes who now stride the parade ground with the confidence born of aristocratic schooling can never be afraid. They never have been. Like latter day Pushkins drilled in the elite academy of Brownian blitzkrieg, they are bursting with their sense of destiny. It’s not the Milibands, the Ballses or the Burnhams who are unconsciously nervous. This is the moment for which they were created. They are ready.
But you're going to struggle to convince me that the change in polling fortunes was driven by Tory IHT proposals rather than Brown's election hesitancy.
My view would be, didn’t that announcement come at a conference, a successful “we are nice not nasty and incompetent, and we are back” conference for the Tories, during the barnstorming speech by fresh David Cameron. It could have been all that which contributed to the poll switch as well not just that announcement.
I also feel if Brown had gone ahead with that election, he could have won it, though the size of majority uncertain which is why they called it off, because Browns limitations as PM were not yet clear, nor his failures as Chancellor yet known, he still had a strong reputation and the Tories a weak one, an election at that time may have come too soon for the Tories under Dave and George.
I distinctly recall the IHT card being what stopped Brown going for the election. Now that may be a false memory, but that’s what I recall.
Then let me run this take passed you. As in my previous post, the whole conference moved the polls, not least Cameron’s succesfully received speech.
As for IHT card, if the election went ahead, that is largely neutralised by similar policy announcement and sidelined by more important things - best to run economy, NHS etc.
To go back to TSE original point, how Starmer’s freeze announcement is as momentous as the IHT card - neither were momentous - an awful lot else at play, then and today, Starmer’s freezer card could be trumped in a few weeks, so maybe not so epoch defining at all.
How old are you? As I said, my memory is that it was the IHT issue mainly. But memories are fallable.
Since about 2005, and in almost every Western economy, something historically unprecedented and extremely alarming has been happening to energy consumption: it’s either flatlining or in decline. This remarkable but little discussed fact is jeopardising almost every aspect of our public policy, from climate change mitigation, through national security to societal progression itself. President Biden’s plans to vastly increase spending on renewables such as wind and solar through the Inflation Reduction Act are grabbing the headlines, and it’s not hard to see why, but they may actually be counterproductive, and in any case are overshadowed by the sweeping macroscopic trend of falling Western demand for energy.
According to data collected by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, total energy consumption in the UK, for example, is back at levels not seen since the 1950s; there has been a 30 percent decline from its peak in 2003, which is astonishing given that the population has increased by 12.5 percent, to 67 million, over the same period."
Is it not possible that energy use is falling at least partially because of.. errr... Government attempts to reduce energy usage?
Lightbulbs. How many houses use to run 60W or 100W lightbulbs. Now mostly replaced with bulbs likely to be around 5W. Considering lights are on a lot in the winter that is a massive power saving when multiplied up across the country.
Everything from tellies to fridge freezers have become more efficient since 2003. Does this figure including oil products? Because cars have become more efficient per like too, notwithstanding the trend for cross overs / pickups.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Of course you don't think it is sacred as you take narcissistic libertarianism to the ultra extreme including abortion to birth and euthanasia on demand for the non terminally ill
What is so sacred about life that someone of sound mind who wishes to die should be denied that right to control their own life?
Is life so sacred that you're a vegan?
The government has no business killing anyone who is not severely terminally ill with no hope of recovery no, once you start to do so you are on a very tricky slope. No conservative could or should ever support such a proposition, though as you are no conservative hardly surprising you do.
Human life is entirely different to animal life, we are made to eat animals and God created animals in part for us to eat, as long as they are farmed humanely nothing wrong with that. We do not however eat or kill other humans
I know you believe in evolution, as we have discussed this before, and I assume you accept we evolved from apes so how do you distinguish between animals and humans? At what point in the evolution does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human and therefore can't be eaten?
You have also said you believe in the 10 commandments on this thread, yet you support Boris who has clearly lied. In the past you have justified such things as long as it is not illegal. Doesn't God set a higher standard? He appears to by the 10 commandments. Shouldn't you by not supporting Boris who is clearly breaking a commandment.
Do apes normally eat other apes? No. Even if you are not religious you don't believe in cannibalism and eating and killing your own species.
Boris is PM and a sinner as are most of us, I would not support him for Archbishop of Canterbury but he was not in contention for that
Humans eat chimpanzees and chimpanzees eat chimpanzees. Humans also used to eat humans. Not that any of that is relevant to the point which was you saying God distinguished between humans and animals. How if we evolved from them? When does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human?
O/T Liz Truss is unhinged. Nothing more, nothing less.
The right wing nutters who live on this blog seem to think she is something special. She is no Thatcher. She is likely to give Cameron and Johnson a good run for the worst PM ever.
Johnson I’ll give you but Cameron? Formed a coalition that worked well for 5 years then won a majority. Gave the nation a chance to vote on its political future over Europe, something all others denied since the 70’s. A decent man, and a decent PM. Your countrymen and women are the ones to blame for Brexit, not Cameron.
He didn’t think through the referendum. He was lazy and arrogant.
I really just do not understand this attitude
The question was put to the people who voted in a referendum the result of which you have not come to terms with along with many others
The remain supporters failed to win a very winnable case and seem to want to blame everyone but themselves
Furthermore, Starmer is not offering to re-join, indeed neither are the lib dems implicitly promising to do so, so little will change in the foreseeable though a better relationship with the EU while remaining outside would be welcome
The Remain campaign was shockingly poor and Cameron made it as difficult to win as he possibly could because he fully expected to walk it. Osborne told him it was an outrageous risk.
Yes Corbyn, and the entire Labour Party are probably even more culpable for their utter ineptitude than Cameron. I blame them, particularly Corbyn wholeheartedly. The LibDems on the other hand were superb, it's just they didn't have the networks to win over enough doubters.
Crucially no one had the vaguest idea of what they were voting for Leave and Remain, and both sides lied. Leave lied better and Boris was sublime, however like Cameron he expected Remain to win and like Cameron didn't know what to do when they didn't.
Still it's done now and it's going great ...maybe!
When I voted to Leave the European Union, my assumption was that I was voting to leave the European Union. Equally, when quite a lot of people voted to Remain in the European Union, I think they expected that meant we would remain in the European Union.
The problem was that leaving meant a lot of different things to different people, there was not a clear leave choice, plenty of people who voted to leave the European Union still wanted to stay in much of the economic agreements, including people like Dan Hannan who campaigned by saying that leaving the EU did not mean that we had to leave the single market.
A very commonly expressed view was we should leave the political and keep the economic. I disagreed, but I did accept that there was a case.
However, what has happened is a complete break down of all legal links between Britain and the EU, and that was the choice only of a small, extremist, faction. The small minority that still argues that hard Brexit was the only solution that counted as Leave, is either ignorant or dishonest. The compromise was obvious, but after May´s citizen of nowhere speech it was not taken, and the damage has already been immense.
Had that been made clear at the vote, that Leave would mean that there would be a complete end of all legal and economic ties Remain would probably have won and that is why a clear majority now believes that leaving was a bad idea. It is the failure to establish any compromise, and indeed to attempt to detach Britain even further from the EU, that will ultimately cause the end of the Conservatives. It is economically very damaging and in the end will be politically toxic.
The fact that the leadership of the Conservatives is utter abysmal is just a side show in the growing anger at the Tories.
It is wrong to lay that entirely at the foot of Leavers.
It really isn’t.
It really is.
It was primarily a civil war between loonies in the Tory Party.
The loonies like Soubry, Grieve et al that wanted to reject the democratic will of the British people got kicked out of Parliament by their voters which ended the civil war though.
Since about 2005, and in almost every Western economy, something historically unprecedented and extremely alarming has been happening to energy consumption: it’s either flatlining or in decline. This remarkable but little discussed fact is jeopardising almost every aspect of our public policy, from climate change mitigation, through national security to societal progression itself. President Biden’s plans to vastly increase spending on renewables such as wind and solar through the Inflation Reduction Act are grabbing the headlines, and it’s not hard to see why, but they may actually be counterproductive, and in any case are overshadowed by the sweeping macroscopic trend of falling Western demand for energy.
According to data collected by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, total energy consumption in the UK, for example, is back at levels not seen since the 1950s; there has been a 30 percent decline from its peak in 2003, which is astonishing given that the population has increased by 12.5 percent, to 67 million, over the same period."
Why is using less energy bad? Am I being thick again?
It is your sacred duty to use more energy every year.
See Book of Armaments, chapter two, verses nine through twenty-one.
Sorry, your grace, for I have sinned. Those bloody low energy light bulbs were so tempting. And I just had to go and insulate the loft. And as for the car, we’ll I tried to buy a gas guzzler but then the wife made me buy an efficient hybrid…
Have you forgotten to eat orangoutangs with your anchovies?
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
Yes you can sign your contract in Church.
You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.
You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.
You can sign your contract in a Pub.
Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
How anglocentric of you. That's certainly not the case in Scotland. Hence the complete incomprehension of southerners when they got to Scotland and found that making a contract before witnesses, but not in church, was sufficient to become married.
{The laws were changed - influential southerners were getting upset at what happened to their children and heirs.}
Featuring a whole spread of fantastic Boomerisms, ranging from "the house I bought for pennies in 1972 is now worth over a million because I worked so hard" to "I personally fought in The War (as a five year old) so shut the fuck up and wipe my ass" to "I didn't retire at 58 on a defined benefits pension, so I shouldn't need to listen to young parents whining about not being able to feed their kids"
The boomers haven’t exactly left us in a great position, have they.
Yet that’s exactly what the majority of them will believe aka. The whole Truss “lazy British workers” rubbish. The Tory manifesto has been built around this age group for a decade now, and here we are.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
Nonsense, what utter religious discrimination. You are demandingf that the state accept your beliefs.
"Pagans are not interested in religious marriage." Now that is a blatant piece of sectarianism and lying bilge. And I'm not a pagan.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
So the religious can get married in Church according to religious guidelines.
But marriage isn't a religious sacrament which is why I can get married. If it was only religious, I wouldn't be married, QED its not religious.
Keep your religion in your Church. And the law should stay out of your Church. It goes both ways.
“ marriage isn't a religious sacrament “
But it is 😇 There was marriage before Christianity, tribes who worshiped rocks or had no God but still had religion, still had the sanctity of marriage, ritual, ceremony, vows before others not just each other. It’s about building something stronger with others than you can build with just your partner, so a tribal thing so is very much religious sacrament.
The reason you sound so silly to HY and me is you are trying to get at Christianity on the grounds that it is a religion, not on it being a religion. But you probably don’t understand that?
I'm not trying to ban religion.
You can have a religious ceremony to the stylings of any deity you choose. Yahweh, Zeus, Norse Thor, Marvel Comics Thor ... Whatever you choose is your free will and I don't seek to deny you the right to practice your Medieval theology in any backwards, twisted, unenlightened way you choose.
All I ask in return is you don't try to shove your religious inventions down the rest of our throats. You leave us alone, I'm happy to leave you alone.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Well yes but others have made the same point before you, including Jesus of Nazareth. What the NT says is fuck the OT and the Pharisees who make a living out of it, let people do what they want to do and don't interfere. What I don't understand is why the likes of HYUFD don't take their curious antipathy to/fascination with men sticking it up each others botties and become Orthodox Jews.
Read Paul or indeed Jesus who was clear marriage was between a man and woman
Dearie me. That passage is not about that, at all. It is hugely telling that you cite the specific verse and not the chapter when the verse on its own makes no sense. You are reading it as God hates queers, it actually says Christ hates Pharisees, and Pharisees is you.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Of course you don't think it is sacred as you take narcissistic libertarianism to the ultra extreme including abortion to birth and euthanasia on demand for the non terminally ill
What is so sacred about life that someone of sound mind who wishes to die should be denied that right to control their own life?
Is life so sacred that you're a vegan?
The government has no business killing anyone who is not severely terminally ill with no hope of recovery no, once you start to do so you are on a very tricky slope. No conservative could or should ever support such a proposition, though as you are no conservative hardly surprising you do.
Human life is entirely different to animal life, we are made to eat animals and God created animals in part for us to eat, as long as they are farmed humanely nothing wrong with that. We do not however eat or kill other humans
I know you believe in evolution, as we have discussed this before, and I assume you accept we evolved from apes so how do you distinguish between animals and humans? At what point in the evolution does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human and therefore can't be eaten?
You have also said you believe in the 10 commandments on this thread, yet you support Boris who has clearly lied. In the past you have justified such things as long as it is not illegal. Doesn't God set a higher standard? He appears to by the 10 commandments. Shouldn't you by not supporting Boris who is clearly breaking a commandment.
Do apes normally eat other apes? No. Even if you are not religious you don't believe in cannibalism and eating and killing your own species.
Boris is PM and a sinner as are most of us, I would not support him for Archbishop of Canterbury but he was not in contention for that
Humans eat chimpanzees and chimpanzees eat chimpanzees. Humans also used to eat humans. Not that any of that is relevant to the point which was you saying God distinguished between humans and animals. How if we evolved from them? When does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human?
How many chimpanzees eat chimpanzees? Barely any. How many humans eat humans? Barely any. If you believe in evolution which many Christians don't then by definition humans now are no longer apes
"Industrial metals and oil are down by a quarter. Wheat prices have almost halved since day one of Putin's invasion, and are back to pre-war levels. This may surprise shoppers. The prices on the shelves are the legacy effect of past actions. Past is not prologue. We will be in outright deflation across much of the global goods market by mid-2023.
Putin has lost his gas war. Today’s crazy prices are caused by a global scramble to lock up supplies of LNG from Qatar, the US, and Australia before winter. East Asia and Europe are in a bidding war. Once the panic subsides, gas prices will fall, and perhaps faster than almost anybody imagines today.
German storage is 80 per cent, ahead of seasonal norms, and ahead of target. Germany has cut gas demand by 14 per cent. Its industry is learning to live with a lot less of it. Europe is a mixed bag but unless there is a polar vortex, it will muddle through this winter.
The world does not need Putin’s gas as much as we all thought, and he presumed. With a nip in Japan and Korea, a tuck in China and India, and three notches of the belt in Europe, the gas market is coming back into fundamental balance. Even if he cuts off all flows in October to try to force a settlement on his terms, it will not change much. The worst is already ‘in the price’.
Besides, Vladimir has taught us not to waste gas, nor to rely so heavily on weaponised hydrocarbons. He has shot his golden goose."
Interesting view. What do the PBers with a deeper knowledge of the energy market than mine (not hard) think?
Since about 2005, and in almost every Western economy, something historically unprecedented and extremely alarming has been happening to energy consumption: it’s either flatlining or in decline. This remarkable but little discussed fact is jeopardising almost every aspect of our public policy, from climate change mitigation, through national security to societal progression itself. President Biden’s plans to vastly increase spending on renewables such as wind and solar through the Inflation Reduction Act are grabbing the headlines, and it’s not hard to see why, but they may actually be counterproductive, and in any case are overshadowed by the sweeping macroscopic trend of falling Western demand for energy.
According to data collected by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, total energy consumption in the UK, for example, is back at levels not seen since the 1950s; there has been a 30 percent decline from its peak in 2003, which is astonishing given that the population has increased by 12.5 percent, to 67 million, over the same period."
Is it not possible that energy use is falling at least partially because of.. errr... Government attempts to reduce energy usage?
Lightbulbs. How many houses use to run 60W or 100W lightbulbs. Now mostly replaced with bulbs likely to be around 5W. Considering lights are on a lot in the winter that is a massive power saving when multiplied up across the country.
I glanced at the Quillette piece. The argument seems to be that, in the past, more efficient energy use led to other uses being economic, so total energy use went up. So, to take the light bulb example, lower energy bulbs means we should be using a lot more of them. That's not happening, and that's a bad thing.
Now, that has happened in the past. A single candle was replaced by a gas lamp was replaced by multiple light bulbs. But it also looks like we have maxed out on things we want to illuminate. The same probably goes for other energy uses. We can generally warm our houses to 20 degrees if we want to. 30 degrees would be possible but unpleasant.
I don't know what problems that causes economically, unless you derive money and power from selling energy.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
Wait a minute. Paganism is a religion. Though ill defined.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
Yes you can sign your contract in Church.
You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.
You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.
You can sign your contract in a Pub.
Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.
What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.
That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.
But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
Yes you can sign your contract in Church.
You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.
You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.
You can sign your contract in a Pub.
Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
So presumably you are in favour of Sharia Law and the Jewish courts?
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Of course you don't think it is sacred as you take narcissistic libertarianism to the ultra extreme including abortion to birth and euthanasia on demand for the non terminally ill
What is so sacred about life that someone of sound mind who wishes to die should be denied that right to control their own life?
Is life so sacred that you're a vegan?
The government has no business killing anyone who is not severely terminally ill with no hope of recovery no, once you start to do so you are on a very tricky slope. No conservative could or should ever support such a proposition, though as you are no conservative hardly surprising you do.
Human life is entirely different to animal life, we are made to eat animals and God created animals in part for us to eat, as long as they are farmed humanely nothing wrong with that. We do not however eat or kill other humans
I know you believe in evolution, as we have discussed this before, and I assume you accept we evolved from apes so how do you distinguish between animals and humans? At what point in the evolution does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human and therefore can't be eaten?
You have also said you believe in the 10 commandments on this thread, yet you support Boris who has clearly lied. In the past you have justified such things as long as it is not illegal. Doesn't God set a higher standard? He appears to by the 10 commandments. Shouldn't you by not supporting Boris who is clearly breaking a commandment.
Do apes normally eat other apes? No. Even if you are not religious you don't believe in cannibalism and eating and killing your own species.
Boris is PM and a sinner as are most of us, I would not support him for Archbishop of Canterbury but he was not in contention for that
Humans eat chimpanzees and chimpanzees eat chimpanzees. Humans also used to eat humans. Not that any of that is relevant to the point which was you saying God distinguished between humans and animals. How if we evolved from them? When does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human?
How many chimpanzees eat chimpanzees? Barely any. How many humans eat humans? Barely any. If you believe in evolution which many Christians don't then by definition humans now are no longer apes
Not true. Humans ARE apes, just as apes including humans are primates.
Basically pretty infantile and babyish chimps, with some extra bits and bobs.
I suppose it could be a series of extraordinary coincidences.
Not that extraordinary. If you take tens of thousands of pictures of one woman and compare them with tens of thousands of pictures of another that she looks vaguely similar to, you're bound to ultimately get some similarities. People have done these 'lookalike' comparisons for as long as the internet/Private Eye or others have existed.
Was George W Bush trying to look like a monkey?
She is a vapid, posturing windbag and as big a threat to world peace and stability as Putin. did George Bush get an Official Photographer to tag along everywhere he went and take those photos? Do you realise that the Truss photos are carefully curated (dread word) and posted on instagram by or on behalf of her, not her enemies?
Taking photos doesn't mean you're trying to be Thatcher, unless she curated the lookalikes and posted them side-by-side herself just as moonshine just did with Starmer and Boris.
see the footage of her landing? the 3 bods from the embassy, 2 women and a wallace-grade baldy, are HATLESS, it's only uniform guy wearing one cos he has to.
She was dressing up.
She wore a hat while visiting a notoriously cold country?
Oh well that changes everything, she must be only the second person in history to wear a hat while visiting Russia.
Although on your link there's 2 other people wearing hats. They're not women though, so I guess they don't count.
The particularly charming poster Ismael also misunderstands something. I don’t think there’s anyone here who is giving full throttled support to Truss. I’m certainly not, I have little idea whether she’ll be any good and I suspect neither does she until she starts the job. Big step up even from Foreign Sec.
But the reflexive hate for her before she’s even got going strikes me as quite bizarre, when there’s nothing obvious in her track record to justify it. Perhaps she’ll do enough for the Tories to earn my vote for the first time in 4 elections, perhaps not. But it would be good to see a more serious critique of her abilities and plans, rather than “oh look she’s wearing a blue jacket and a hat. What a f**** b***ch! Who does she think she is!”.
What? You can't claim the moral high ground on charm, and start making blanket accusations of "reflexive hate." One or the other.
And "before she's even got going." Many of us here have an informed and detailed knowledge of UK politics, and thanks for confirming you are not among us. She is Foreign Sec FFS. This is not an Emma Raducanu situation. She is also a terrible and deeply unserious person, despite your elderly penchant for her disciplinary reputation.
Her most telling contribution as Foreign Secretary, has been to firmly elucidate the position that “Russia must lose” and that that means their troops “leaving the whole of Ukraine including Crimea”. At the time I remember quite a lot of bed wetters in the guardian and elsewhere saying she was recklessly endangering the whole world for personal ambition. These days, it’s a pretty median position. Backed this week by Putin’s erstwhile ally Erdogan no less. Now it’s an exaggeration to say she has personally driven that narrative shift. She hasn’t. But she did play her part in driving it towards broad international acceptance.
Not that she drove the formation of Aukus, her appointment aligned with the announcement. But her department saw it over the line. As for her time as Trade Sec, sure there are those who moan about us getting cheaper food products from strategic allies. I’m not one of them but I am disappointed no progress was made with the US on a financial sector accord that would become the global standard.
I don’t know really what to do with her being a “terrible and deeply unserious person”. And I’m not elderly or into that particular niche. I just think that at a time of national peril, she deserves a chance and the nation’s goodwill. If she’s no good, she’ll be booted out!
Pushing the line that the war is not over until Crimea returns to Ukraine, by any assessment, prolongs the conflict, and prolongs UK involvement in it. If you hold the somewhat quaint view that foreign policy is a tool to promote the security and prosperity of the UK, that is taking a 12 boar and emptying both barrels into your own size 9s.
However, I give a pass to Truss for anything she says on Ukraine. Our foreign policy on this is decided by America. It will be a bold leader indeed who departs from the US line on anything. If she starts to forge the beginnings an independent foreign and defence policy, it will be a pleasant surprise.
Ensuring Ukraine's territory is returned to Ukraine ends the war, it doesn't prolong it.
If you want the war over, you should be pushing to do everything we can to ensure Russia leaves the entirety of Ukraine, which of course includes Crimea. If Vlad leaves Ukraine, the war is over, until he does, it isn't.
No, the war is over when the two sides stop fighting, not when an arbitrary set of preferred conditions transpire.
The two sides stop fighting when the invader leaves the nation they've invaded.
That means Russia out of Ukraine, including Crimea.
Dribbling garbage. Most of the world's countries sit on bits of territory once forcibly removed from other nations. Including our own.
Not since WWII at least whereby nations agreed not to seize bits of territory by war. The UK hasn't seized any territory since then.
If you genuinely want the war over, why aren't you demanding Russia leaves Crimea? If you genuinely want the war over, why aren't you demanding the UK applies maximum pressure to ensure Russia leaves Crimea, thus ending the war?
Seems to me that you don't genuinely want the war over. Instead you simply want Russia to win the war, then be able to launch its next war.
Three reasons. Firstly, because I am not sure that Russia leaving Crimea is the outcome desired by the people of Crimea. I would however be in favour of an internationally-observed plebiscite to establish whether this is the case. Secondly, because I think getting Russia out of Crimea would be a difficult, if not impossible military aim, so making an end to hostilities contingent on that, guarantees an almost permanent conflict, which is good for nobody. Thirdly, and possibly most importantly, nobody involved in the matter gives a flying fuck what I 'demand' (or even what you demand), so it would not make a blind bit of difference.
If Russia leaving Crimea isn't the outcome desired by the people of Crimea, then that is only because of the ethnic cleansing committed since the 2014 theft.
I don't know anything about that, but the numbers would be interesting.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
Yes you can sign your contract in Church.
You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.
You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.
You can sign your contract in a Pub.
Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.
What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.
That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.
But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
Well, look at the RC attitude to divorced people remarrying in a RC church. It's Ok if they weren';t in a RC marriage, ie not a proper one anyway.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
We religious like We Tories and We English. Belong to the in group, bully and hate and marginalise the out group. At all costs.
The gospels are primarily a sustained hymn of hatred of utterly horrible bigots like you.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
No the Church of England is not the state, we are not a theocracy, the Church of England does not have a say in making our laws beyond having a miniscule presence in the House of Lords.
The Queen is Head of State and as part of that role signs what Parliament has passed into law. That is completely separate from her role ad Head of the Church of England preserving its role as our established Christian Church.
It was my right to refuse to get married in a registry office, if you wish to have a civil non religious marriage that is your affair. However we religious whether Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Jew consider our religious marriage more important than the legal one and now it is right that you can have a legal wedding at the same time as a religious one with a priest or Imam or Rabbi licensed to do so
Okay, so HMtQ's role as English Pope is pure coincidence, nothing at all to do, oh no dear me, all total coincidence, with her also being HMtQ?
Pull the other one. How many Tories react like you to the merest threat of disestablishment? Most of them.
The English State is allowing the most fundamental and serious discrimination in the conduct of its business. Because it is partly a theocracy.
The purpose of the establishment of the CoE is to prevent too much religion getting into the churches. Instead of vague niceness and cups of tea.
This is the church where a prospective head dude was vetoed on the grounds that he was a bit too strongly into Sky Fairies.
Henry VIII liked cups of tea? Revolutionatry concept; must go away and think about it.
No no. That was Catherine Of Breganza.
The niceness and cups of tea thing appeared in the 18th cent when it was realised that if you let the God Bothering types bang on about God too much, the you got death and civil war. Vague niceness on the other had, and you get indifferent tea parties at the vicarage.
One of the many things I like about Tony Hillerman's Navajo detective stories is the tolerance of his two main detectives, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, is their tolerance for other people's religions. For example, although the Navajo and the Hopi were enemies historically (and still have legal conflicts now*), both Leaphorn, an agnostic, and Chee, a traditional Navajo, are respectful of those Hopi beliefs. And that respect sometimes helps them in their investigations.
In that, they are different from, for example, "Czar" Putin and "Emperor" Xi.
(One of the most curious conflicts between the Navajo and the Hopi resulted, years ago, in a truly oddly-shaped House district. At the time, Arizona 2nd was mostly in the northwest corner of the state. But, there was a long, skinny strip that attached it to a smaller section in the northeast corner of the state. That small section was the Hopi reservation, and is completely surrounded by the much larger Navajo reservation. The Hopis asked not to be in the same district as the Navajo -- and the state obliged them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AZ-districts-109-02.png )
O/T Liz Truss is unhinged. Nothing more, nothing less.
The right wing nutters who live on this blog seem to think she is something special. She is no Thatcher. She is likely to give Cameron and Johnson a good run for the worst PM ever.
Johnson I’ll give you but Cameron? Formed a coalition that worked well for 5 years then won a majority. Gave the nation a chance to vote on its political future over Europe, something all others denied since the 70’s. A decent man, and a decent PM. Your countrymen and women are the ones to blame for Brexit, not Cameron.
He didn’t think through the referendum. He was lazy and arrogant.
I really just do not understand this attitude
The question was put to the people who voted in a referendum the result of which you have not come to terms with along with many others
The remain supporters failed to win a very winnable case and seem to want to blame everyone but themselves
Furthermore, Starmer is not offering to re-join, indeed neither are the lib dems implicitly promising to do so, so little will change in the foreseeable though a better relationship with the EU while remaining outside would be welcome
The Remain campaign was shockingly poor and Cameron made it as difficult to win as he possibly could because he fully expected to walk it. Osborne told him it was an outrageous risk.
Yes Corbyn, and the entire Labour Party are probably even more culpable for their utter ineptitude than Cameron. I blame them, particularly Corbyn wholeheartedly. The LibDems on the other hand were superb, it's just they didn't have the networks to win over enough doubters.
Crucially no one had the vaguest idea of what they were voting for Leave and Remain, and both sides lied. Leave lied better and Boris was sublime, however like Cameron he expected Remain to win and like Cameron didn't know what to do when they didn't.
Still it's done now and it's going great ...maybe!
When I voted to Leave the European Union, my assumption was that I was voting to leave the European Union. Equally, when quite a lot of people voted to Remain in the European Union, I think they expected that meant we would remain in the European Union.
The problem was that leaving meant a lot of different things to different people, there was not a clear leave choice, plenty of people who voted to leave the European Union still wanted to stay in much of the economic agreements, including people like Dan Hannan who campaigned by saying that leaving the EU did not mean that we had to leave the single market.
A very commonly expressed view was we should leave the political and keep the economic. I disagreed, but I did accept that there was a case.
However, what has happened is a complete break down of all legal links between Britain and the EU, and that was the choice only of a small, extremist, faction. The small minority that still argues that hard Brexit was the only solution that counted as Leave, is either ignorant or dishonest. The compromise was obvious, but after May´s citizen of nowhere speech it was not taken, and the damage has already been immense.
Had that been made clear at the vote, that Leave would mean that there would be a complete end of all legal and economic ties Remain would probably have won and that is why a clear majority now believes that leaving was a bad idea. It is the failure to establish any compromise, and indeed to attempt to detach Britain even further from the EU, that will ultimately cause the end of the Conservatives. It is economically very damaging and in the end will be politically toxic.
The fact that the leadership of the Conservatives is utter abysmal is just a side show in the growing anger at the Tories.
May's Lancaster House speech was and is a cause of much of the problem. It solidified the idea that only a hard Brexit was an acceptable version of Brexit.
"Industrial metals and oil are down by a quarter. Wheat prices have almost halved since day one of Putin's invasion, and are back to pre-war levels. This may surprise shoppers. The prices on the shelves are the legacy effect of past actions. Past is not prologue. We will be in outright deflation across much of the global goods market by mid-2023.
Putin has lost his gas war. Today’s crazy prices are caused by a global scramble to lock up supplies of LNG from Qatar, the US, and Australia before winter. East Asia and Europe are in a bidding war. Once the panic subsides, gas prices will fall, and perhaps faster than almost anybody imagines today.
German storage is 80 per cent, ahead of seasonal norms, and ahead of target. Germany has cut gas demand by 14 per cent. Its industry is learning to live with a lot less of it. Europe is a mixed bag but unless there is a polar vortex, it will muddle through this winter.
The world does not need Putin’s gas as much as we all thought, and he presumed. With a nip in Japan and Korea, a tuck in China and India, and three notches of the belt in Europe, the gas market is coming back into fundamental balance. Even if he cuts off all flows in October to try to force a settlement on his terms, it will not change much. The worst is already ‘in the price’.
Besides, Vladimir has taught us not to waste gas, nor to rely so heavily on weaponised hydrocarbons. He has shot his golden goose."
Each energy price boom sows the seeds of its own destruction.
However... The issue right now is not lack of gas, but lack of LNG shipping to move gas around.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
Yes you can sign your contract in Church.
You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.
You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.
You can sign your contract in a Pub.
Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.
What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.
That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.
But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
Well, look at the RC attitude to divorced people remarrying in a RC church. It's Ok if they weren';t in a RC marriage, ie not a proper one anyway.
Indeed and if they want to follow that religious dogma in their own Church then people can pick and choose not to be a part of the Church.
But hate-filled bigoted extremists like HYUFD and Liam Fox weren't satisfied with having the Church being able to say no to non-religious marriages, they want/wanted the law to do so too. Even for couples, venues, religions and/or secular organisations that wanted to say yes to them.
If an Italian restaurant wants to refuse to serve pineapple on pizzas, that is their prerogative. If an RC Church doesn't want to have gay marriages, that is their prerogative. But if another pizzeria is prepared to be a venue of two gay men who want a pineapple pizza wedding breakfast, the law should not say no to that. Even if your personal tastes don't approve of it.
Since about 2005, and in almost every Western economy, something historically unprecedented and extremely alarming has been happening to energy consumption: it’s either flatlining or in decline. This remarkable but little discussed fact is jeopardising almost every aspect of our public policy, from climate change mitigation, through national security to societal progression itself. President Biden’s plans to vastly increase spending on renewables such as wind and solar through the Inflation Reduction Act are grabbing the headlines, and it’s not hard to see why, but they may actually be counterproductive, and in any case are overshadowed by the sweeping macroscopic trend of falling Western demand for energy.
According to data collected by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, total energy consumption in the UK, for example, is back at levels not seen since the 1950s; there has been a 30 percent decline from its peak in 2003, which is astonishing given that the population has increased by 12.5 percent, to 67 million, over the same period."
Is it not possible that energy use is falling at least partially because of.. errr... Government attempts to reduce energy usage?
Lightbulbs. How many houses use to run 60W or 100W lightbulbs. Now mostly replaced with bulbs likely to be around 5W. Considering lights are on a lot in the winter that is a massive power saving when multiplied up across the country.
I glanced at the Quillette piece. The argument seems to be that, in the past, more efficient energy use led to other uses being economic, so total energy use went up. So, to take the light bulb example, lower energy bulbs means we should be using a lot more of them. That's not happening, and that's a bad thing.
Now, that has happened in the past. A single candle was replaced by a gas lamp was replaced by multiple light bulbs. But it also looks like we have maxed out on things we want to illuminate. The same probably goes for other energy uses. We can generally warm our houses to 20 degrees if we want to. 30 degrees would be possible but unpleasant.
I don't know what problems that causes economically, unless you derive money and power from selling energy.
Yup - it is like complaining that you aren’t using more long tons of pig iron.
Whale oil usage per capita has collapsed as well….
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
Yes you can sign your contract in Church.
You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did. .
You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.
You can sign your contract in a Pub.
Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
I trust there is a watertight up the b*m exclusion clause in there. Can't be too careful.
"Industrial metals and oil are down by a quarter. Wheat prices have almost halved since day one of Putin's invasion, and are back to pre-war levels. This may surprise shoppers. The prices on the shelves are the legacy effect of past actions. Past is not prologue. We will be in outright deflation across much of the global goods market by mid-2023.
Putin has lost his gas war. Today’s crazy prices are caused by a global scramble to lock up supplies of LNG from Qatar, the US, and Australia before winter. East Asia and Europe are in a bidding war. Once the panic subsides, gas prices will fall, and perhaps faster than almost anybody imagines today.
German storage is 80 per cent, ahead of seasonal norms, and ahead of target. Germany has cut gas demand by 14 per cent. Its industry is learning to live with a lot less of it. Europe is a mixed bag but unless there is a polar vortex, it will muddle through this winter.
The world does not need Putin’s gas as much as we all thought, and he presumed. With a nip in Japan and Korea, a tuck in China and India, and three notches of the belt in Europe, the gas market is coming back into fundamental balance. Even if he cuts off all flows in October to try to force a settlement on his terms, it will not change much. The worst is already ‘in the price’.
Besides, Vladimir has taught us not to waste gas, nor to rely so heavily on weaponised hydrocarbons. He has shot his golden goose."
Each energy price boom sows the seeds of its own destruction.
However... The issue right now is not lack of gas, but lack of LNG shipping to move gas around.
I did wonder about a crash program to build LNG ships. Probably too much specialised tech to speed things up in the short term.
Chatting to a pollster this evening, they think Starmer's cost of living policy proposal is just like Dave & George's IHT announcement in 2007.
Utter game changer and makes the government look like disinterested incompetents whilst making voters think the LOTO has my values.
2007 IHT proposals were an 'utter game changer'? How many voters were actually or potentially impacted by the IHT changes? A small minority, I'd guess.
How many voters would be impacted by freezing the energy price cap? Just about every one.
It turned double digit Labour leads into double digit Tory leads.
Labour MPs were publicly writing 'Shortly there will be an election, in which Labour will increase its majority'
Perhaps the magnitude of the moment we face is too great for us collectively to bear. Shortly there will be an election, in which Labour will increase its majority, and in so doing utterly shatter the glass paradigm of cyclical politics which has contained us for the century since 1906. This ought to herald another decade of strong, confident, consensual Labour government. Which will finally and irrevocably transform the nature of politics and civic life in Britain.
That is a frightening responsibility. The young princes who now stride the parade ground with the confidence born of aristocratic schooling can never be afraid. They never have been. Like latter day Pushkins drilled in the elite academy of Brownian blitzkrieg, they are bursting with their sense of destiny. It’s not the Milibands, the Ballses or the Burnhams who are unconsciously nervous. This is the moment for which they were created. They are ready.
But you're going to struggle to convince me that the change in polling fortunes was driven by Tory IHT proposals rather than Brown's election hesitancy.
My view would be, didn’t that announcement come at a conference, a successful “we are nice not nasty and incompetent, and we are back” conference for the Tories, during the barnstorming speech by fresh David Cameron. It could have been all that which contributed to the poll switch as well not just that announcement.
I also feel if Brown had gone ahead with that election, he could have won it, though the size of majority uncertain which is why they called it off, because Browns limitations as PM were not yet clear, nor his failures as Chancellor yet known, he still had a strong reputation and the Tories a weak one, an election at that time may have come too soon for the Tories under Dave and George.
I distinctly recall the IHT card being what stopped Brown going for the election. Now that may be a false memory, but that’s what I recall.
Then let me run this take passed you. As in my previous post, the whole conference moved the polls, not least Cameron’s succesfully received speech.
As for IHT card, if the election went ahead, that is largely neutralised by similar policy announcement and sidelined by more important things - best to run economy, NHS etc.
To go back to TSE original point, how Starmer’s freeze announcement is as momentous as the IHT card - neither were momentous - an awful lot else at play, then and today, Starmer’s freezer card could be trumped in a few weeks, so maybe not so epoch defining at all.
How old are you? As I said, my memory is that it was the IHT issue mainly. But memories are fallable.
Mid twenties still for a matter of weeks 🎂
I remember it a bit, but view I have just given you must have come mostly from reading up on it in books more recently.
Why do I think Brown probably wins if he calls that election as Cameron goaded him? Because I have always believed that for a long time now.
HY has often posted why call an early election when you already have a working majority - in 2007 I suppose honeymoon polling might have made brown think he’d increase it, the great conference for the Tory’s showed the honeymoon wearing off, so the election plan abandoned not becuase they can’t win, but because they don’t get much better majority maybe worse one. The whole point of that election was to increase majority using honeymoon bounce, not shrink majority.
That’s how I have understood it a long time. I could be wrong. Posters often call me wrong 🙂
That Truss prizes loyalty is not surprising. She started with pretty low support from her fellow MPs and I think she is surely aware that most don’t really rate her, whatever they are saying now.
However, I don’t think she actively courts mediocrities and incompetents like Boris did. On a pretty primal level, Boris needed to be uncontested “number one”.
Sadly the history books will have him down as an unrivalled “number two”.
Chatting to a pollster this evening, they think Starmer's cost of living policy proposal is just like Dave & George's IHT announcement in 2007.
Utter game changer and makes the government look like disinterested incompetents whilst making voters think the LOTO has my values.
2007 IHT proposals were an 'utter game changer'? How many voters were actually or potentially impacted by the IHT changes? A small minority, I'd guess.
How many voters would be impacted by freezing the energy price cap? Just about every one.
It turned double digit Labour leads into double digit Tory leads.
Labour MPs were publicly writing 'Shortly there will be an election, in which Labour will increase its majority'
Perhaps the magnitude of the moment we face is too great for us collectively to bear. Shortly there will be an election, in which Labour will increase its majority, and in so doing utterly shatter the glass paradigm of cyclical politics which has contained us for the century since 1906. This ought to herald another decade of strong, confident, consensual Labour government. Which will finally and irrevocably transform the nature of politics and civic life in Britain.
That is a frightening responsibility. The young princes who now stride the parade ground with the confidence born of aristocratic schooling can never be afraid. They never have been. Like latter day Pushkins drilled in the elite academy of Brownian blitzkrieg, they are bursting with their sense of destiny. It’s not the Milibands, the Ballses or the Burnhams who are unconsciously nervous. This is the moment for which they were created. They are ready.
But you're going to struggle to convince me that the change in polling fortunes was driven by Tory IHT proposals rather than Brown's election hesitancy.
My view would be, didn’t that announcement come at a conference, a successful “we are nice not nasty and incompetent, and we are back” conference for the Tories, during the barnstorming speech by fresh David Cameron. It could have been all that which contributed to the poll switch as well not just that announcement.
I also feel if Brown had gone ahead with that election, he could have won it, though the size of majority uncertain which is why they called it off, because Browns limitations as PM were not yet clear, nor his failures as Chancellor yet known, he still had a strong reputation and the Tories a weak one, an election at that time may have come too soon for the Tories under Dave and George.
I distinctly recall the IHT card being what stopped Brown going for the election. Now that may be a false memory, but that’s what I recall.
Then let me run this take passed you. As in my previous post, the whole conference moved the polls, not least Cameron’s succesfully received speech.
As for IHT card, if the election went ahead, that is largely neutralised by similar policy announcement and sidelined by more important things - best to run economy, NHS etc.
To go back to TSE original point, how Starmer’s freeze announcement is as momentous as the IHT card - neither were momentous - an awful lot else at play, then and today, Starmer’s freezer card could be trumped in a few weeks, so maybe not so epoch defining at all.
How old are you? As I said, my memory is that it was the IHT issue mainly. But memories are fallable.
Mid twenties still for a matter of weeks 🎂
I remember it a bit, but view I have just given you must have come mostly from reading up on it in books more recently.
Why do I think Brown probably wins if he calls that election as Cameron goaded him? Because I have always believed that for a long time now.
HY has often posted why call an early election when you already have a working majority - in 2007 I suppose honeymoon polling might have made brown think he’d increase it, the great conference for the Tory’s showed the honeymoon wearing off, so the election plan abandoned not becuase they can’t win, but because they don’t get much better majority maybe worse one. The whole point of that election was to increase majority using honeymoon bounce, not shrink majority.
That’s how I have understood it a long time. I could be wrong. Posters often call me wrong 🙂
My take is the IHT was the main thing that shifted the polling that persuaded Brown NOT to call the planned election, that was then lied about after the fact. But I am sure the processes that Cameron had launched about detoxifying the brand played a part too.
Since about 2005, and in almost every Western economy, something historically unprecedented and extremely alarming has been happening to energy consumption: it’s either flatlining or in decline. This remarkable but little discussed fact is jeopardising almost every aspect of our public policy, from climate change mitigation, through national security to societal progression itself. President Biden’s plans to vastly increase spending on renewables such as wind and solar through the Inflation Reduction Act are grabbing the headlines, and it’s not hard to see why, but they may actually be counterproductive, and in any case are overshadowed by the sweeping macroscopic trend of falling Western demand for energy.
According to data collected by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, total energy consumption in the UK, for example, is back at levels not seen since the 1950s; there has been a 30 percent decline from its peak in 2003, which is astonishing given that the population has increased by 12.5 percent, to 67 million, over the same period."
Is it not possible that energy use is falling at least partially because of.. errr... Government attempts to reduce energy usage?
Lightbulbs. How many houses use to run 60W or 100W lightbulbs. Now mostly replaced with bulbs likely to be around 5W. Considering lights are on a lot in the winter that is a massive power saving when multiplied up across the country.
I glanced at the Quillette piece. The argument seems to be that, in the past, more efficient energy use led to other uses being economic, so total energy use went up. So, to take the light bulb example, lower energy bulbs means we should be using a lot more of them. That's not happening, and that's a bad thing.
Now, that has happened in the past. A single candle was replaced by a gas lamp was replaced by multiple light bulbs. But it also looks like we have maxed out on things we want to illuminate. The same probably goes for other energy uses. We can generally warm our houses to 20 degrees if we want to. 30 degrees would be possible but unpleasant.
I don't know what problems that causes economically, unless you derive money and power from selling energy.
Yup - it is like complaining that you aren’t using more long tons of pig iron.
Whale oil usage per capita has collapsed as well….
The herring barrel cooperage trade has also vanished, ditto the slave chains and gunpowder industries ...
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Of course you don't think it is sacred as you take narcissistic libertarianism to the ultra extreme including abortion to birth and euthanasia on demand for the non terminally ill
What is so sacred about life that someone of sound mind who wishes to die should be denied that right to control their own life?
Is life so sacred that you're a vegan?
The government has no business killing anyone who is not severely terminally ill with no hope of recovery no, once you start to do so you are on a very tricky slope. No conservative could or should ever support such a proposition, though as you are no conservative hardly surprising you do.
Human life is entirely different to animal life, we are made to eat animals and God created animals in part for us to eat, as long as they are farmed humanely nothing wrong with that. We do not however eat or kill other humans
I know you believe in evolution, as we have discussed this before, and I assume you accept we evolved from apes so how do you distinguish between animals and humans? At what point in the evolution does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human and therefore can't be eaten?
You have also said you believe in the 10 commandments on this thread, yet you support Boris who has clearly lied. In the past you have justified such things as long as it is not illegal. Doesn't God set a higher standard? He appears to by the 10 commandments. Shouldn't you by not supporting Boris who is clearly breaking a commandment.
Do apes eat other apes? No. Even if you are not religious you don't believe in cannibalism and eating and killing your own species.
Boris is PM and a sinner as are most of us, I would not support him for Archbishop of Canterbury but he was not in contention for that
Of course you don't support him for Archbish. He's a RC. Henry VIII would be *very* upset.
He'd be no worse than the current incumbent. There are few public figures of whom I have a lower opinion than Boris, but Justin Welby is one.
Since about 2005, and in almost every Western economy, something historically unprecedented and extremely alarming has been happening to energy consumption: it’s either flatlining or in decline. This remarkable but little discussed fact is jeopardising almost every aspect of our public policy, from climate change mitigation, through national security to societal progression itself. President Biden’s plans to vastly increase spending on renewables such as wind and solar through the Inflation Reduction Act are grabbing the headlines, and it’s not hard to see why, but they may actually be counterproductive, and in any case are overshadowed by the sweeping macroscopic trend of falling Western demand for energy.
According to data collected by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, total energy consumption in the UK, for example, is back at levels not seen since the 1950s; there has been a 30 percent decline from its peak in 2003, which is astonishing given that the population has increased by 12.5 percent, to 67 million, over the same period."
Is it not possible that energy use is falling at least partially because of.. errr... Government attempts to reduce energy usage?
Lightbulbs. How many houses use to run 60W or 100W lightbulbs. Now mostly replaced with bulbs likely to be around 5W. Considering lights are on a lot in the winter that is a massive power saving when multiplied up across the country.
I glanced at the Quillette piece. The argument seems to be that, in the past, more efficient energy use led to other uses being economic, so total energy use went up. So, to take the light bulb example, lower energy bulbs means we should be using a lot more of them. That's not happening, and that's a bad thing.
Now, that has happened in the past. A single candle was replaced by a gas lamp was replaced by multiple light bulbs. But it also looks like we have maxed out on things we want to illuminate. The same probably goes for other energy uses. We can generally warm our houses to 20 degrees if we want to. 30 degrees would be possible but unpleasant.
I don't know what problems that causes economically, unless you derive money and power from selling energy.
But we have switched from prior things that consumed energy to other ones.
Yes I only may only have a 5w bulb on my ceiling, but I now have a 60" TV that needs illuminating too.
Total global energy consumption has gone up, not done, as you'd expect - but our taxation being punitive on domestic fuel energy but zero-rated on imports has led us to us exporting our energy consumption and importing finished goods like that 60" TV instead.
Countries like China are producing and consuming more energy and we are buying from them goods produced by that energy. So we are still indirectly consuming energy, we've simply exported that consumption from a country that uses primarily clean fuels, to a country that still uses coal.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
Yes you can sign your contract in Church.
You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did. .
You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.
You can sign your contract in a Pub.
Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
That's your personal interpretation of what makes it a marriage.
The state has long played a part of what makes a marriage.
You've shown some growth though, as you actually correctly caveated your point with reference to 'proper religious marriage', making a distinction without suggesting your personal view is a universal truth, but I guess you couldn't help yourself with the finale.
O/T Liz Truss is unhinged. Nothing more, nothing less.
The right wing nutters who live on this blog seem to think she is something special. She is no Thatcher. She is likely to give Cameron and Johnson a good run for the worst PM ever.
Johnson I’ll give you but Cameron? Formed a coalition that worked well for 5 years then won a majority. Gave the nation a chance to vote on its political future over Europe, something all others denied since the 70’s. A decent man, and a decent PM. Your countrymen and women are the ones to blame for Brexit, not Cameron.
He didn’t think through the referendum. He was lazy and arrogant.
I really just do not understand this attitude
The question was put to the people who voted in a referendum the result of which you have not come to terms with along with many others
The remain supporters failed to win a very winnable case and seem to want to blame everyone but themselves
Furthermore, Starmer is not offering to re-join, indeed neither are the lib dems implicitly promising to do so, so little will change in the foreseeable though a better relationship with the EU while remaining outside would be welcome
The Remain campaign was shockingly poor and Cameron made it as difficult to win as he possibly could because he fully expected to walk it. Osborne told him it was an outrageous risk.
Yes Corbyn, and the entire Labour Party are probably even more culpable for their utter ineptitude than Cameron. I blame them, particularly Corbyn wholeheartedly. The LibDems on the other hand were superb, it's just they didn't have the networks to win over enough doubters.
Crucially no one had the vaguest idea of what they were voting for Leave and Remain, and both sides lied. Leave lied better and Boris was sublime, however like Cameron he expected Remain to win and like Cameron didn't know what to do when they didn't.
Still it's done now and it's going great ...maybe!
When I voted to Leave the European Union, my assumption was that I was voting to leave the European Union. Equally, when quite a lot of people voted to Remain in the European Union, I think they expected that meant we would remain in the European Union.
The problem was that leaving meant a lot of different things to different people, there was not a clear leave choice, plenty of people who voted to leave the European Union still wanted to stay in much of the economic agreements, including people like Dan Hannan who campaigned by saying that leaving the EU did not mean that we had to leave the single market.
A very commonly expressed view was we should leave the political and keep the economic. I disagreed, but I did accept that there was a case.
However, what has happened is a complete break down of all legal links between Britain and the EU, and that was the choice only of a small, extremist, faction. The small minority that still argues that hard Brexit was the only solution that counted as Leave, is either ignorant or dishonest. The compromise was obvious, but after May´s citizen of nowhere speech it was not taken, and the damage has already been immense.
Had that been made clear at the vote, that Leave would mean that there would be a complete end of all legal and economic ties Remain would probably have won and that is why a clear majority now believes that leaving was a bad idea. It is the failure to establish any compromise, and indeed to attempt to detach Britain even further from the EU, that will ultimately cause the end of the Conservatives. It is economically very damaging and in the end will be politically toxic.
The fact that the leadership of the Conservatives is utter abysmal is just a side show in the growing anger at the Tories.
It is wrong to lay that entirely at the foot of Leavers.
It really isn’t.
It really is.
It was primarily a civil war between loonies in the Tory Party.
The loonies like Soubry, Grieve et al that wanted to reject the democratic will of the British people got kicked out of Parliament by their voters which ended the civil war though.
No, I meant the hard Brexit loonies and the harder Brexit loonies.
Voters rejected Soubry and Grieve of course, but polling suggests the current mood is “Breget”.
Too late, though. Britain is quite fucked for the 2020s.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
Wait a minute. Paganism is a religion. Though ill defined.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
Wait a minute. Paganism is a religion. Though ill defined.
I presume the excuse would be it is spiritual, not religious, but I've never really bougth such a distinction. I recall in the otherwise excellent House of Island by Ed Husain he attempts very early on to claim Islam is not a religion in the sense understood in the West, but notably the persuasiveness of the rest of the book is not found on that point, since it comes across, like with the paganism comparison, as trying too hard to draw a dividing line.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
Yes you can sign your contract in Church.
You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.
You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.
You can sign your contract in a Pub.
Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
O/T Liz Truss is unhinged. Nothing more, nothing less.
The right wing nutters who live on this blog seem to think she is something special. She is no Thatcher. She is likely to give Cameron and Johnson a good run for the worst PM ever.
Johnson I’ll give you but Cameron? Formed a coalition that worked well for 5 years then won a majority. Gave the nation a chance to vote on its political future over Europe, something all others denied since the 70’s. A decent man, and a decent PM. Your countrymen and women are the ones to blame for Brexit, not Cameron.
He didn’t think through the referendum. He was lazy and arrogant.
I really just do not understand this attitude
The question was put to the people who voted in a referendum the result of which you have not come to terms with along with many others
The remain supporters failed to win a very winnable case and seem to want to blame everyone but themselves
Furthermore, Starmer is not offering to re-join, indeed neither are the lib dems implicitly promising to do so, so little will change in the foreseeable though a better relationship with the EU while remaining outside would be welcome
The Remain campaign was shockingly poor and Cameron made it as difficult to win as he possibly could because he fully expected to walk it. Osborne told him it was an outrageous risk.
Yes Corbyn, and the entire Labour Party are probably even more culpable for their utter ineptitude than Cameron. I blame them, particularly Corbyn wholeheartedly. The LibDems on the other hand were superb, it's just they didn't have the networks to win over enough doubters.
Crucially no one had the vaguest idea of what they were voting for Leave and Remain, and both sides lied. Leave lied better and Boris was sublime, however like Cameron he expected Remain to win and like Cameron didn't know what to do when they didn't.
Still it's done now and it's going great ...maybe!
When I voted to Leave the European Union, my assumption was that I was voting to leave the European Union. Equally, when quite a lot of people voted to Remain in the European Union, I think they expected that meant we would remain in the European Union.
The problem was that leaving meant a lot of different things to different people, there was not a clear leave choice, plenty of people who voted to leave the European Union still wanted to stay in much of the economic agreements, including people like Dan Hannan who campaigned by saying that leaving the EU did not mean that we had to leave the single market.
A very commonly expressed view was we should leave the political and keep the economic. I disagreed, but I did accept that there was a case.
However, what has happened is a complete break down of all legal links between Britain and the EU, and that was the choice only of a small, extremist, faction. The small minority that still argues that hard Brexit was the only solution that counted as Leave, is either ignorant or dishonest. The compromise was obvious, but after May´s citizen of nowhere speech it was not taken, and the damage has already been immense.
Had that been made clear at the vote, that Leave would mean that there would be a complete end of all legal and economic ties Remain would probably have won and that is why a clear majority now believes that leaving was a bad idea. It is the failure to establish any compromise, and indeed to attempt to detach Britain even further from the EU, that will ultimately cause the end of the Conservatives. It is economically very damaging and in the end will be politically toxic.
The fact that the leadership of the Conservatives is utter abysmal is just a side show in the growing anger at the Tories.
It is wrong to lay that entirely at the foot of Leavers.
It really isn’t.
It really is.
It was primarily a civil war between loonies in the Tory Party.
The loonies like Soubry, Grieve et al that wanted to reject the democratic will of the British people got kicked out of Parliament by their voters which ended the civil war though.
No, I meant the hard Brexit loonies and the harder Brexit loonies.
Voters rejected Soubry and Grieve of course, but polling suggests the current mood is “Breget”.
Too late, though. Britain is quite fucked for the 2020s.
The ability to feel "Bregret" is a good thing and a positive reason why Brexit is good.
We can take any decisions we want, we can even reverse them if we want. As a country (even if you didn't) the polls showed we regretted Brown et al signing the Lisbon Treaty against their Manifesto commitment not to do so without a referendum first. But since it was done, and we were part of the EU so Parliament wasn't sovereign over that, we couldn't reverse that. We had no choice but to lump it, or leave it by leaving the EU and reclaiming our sovereignty in full.
We chose the latter course of action. Now if we regret anything we do, we can reverse that in the future, if we choose to do so. That's healthy and democratic.
O/T Liz Truss is unhinged. Nothing more, nothing less.
The right wing nutters who live on this blog seem to think she is something special. She is no Thatcher. She is likely to give Cameron and Johnson a good run for the worst PM ever.
Johnson I’ll give you but Cameron? Formed a coalition that worked well for 5 years then won a majority. Gave the nation a chance to vote on its political future over Europe, something all others denied since the 70’s. A decent man, and a decent PM. Your countrymen and women are the ones to blame for Brexit, not Cameron.
He didn’t think through the referendum. He was lazy and arrogant.
I really just do not understand this attitude
The question was put to the people who voted in a referendum the result of which you have not come to terms with along with many others
The remain supporters failed to win a very winnable case and seem to want to blame everyone but themselves
Furthermore, Starmer is not offering to re-join, indeed neither are the lib dems implicitly promising to do so, so little will change in the foreseeable though a better relationship with the EU while remaining outside would be welcome
The Remain campaign was shockingly poor and Cameron made it as difficult to win as he possibly could because he fully expected to walk it. Osborne told him it was an outrageous risk.
Yes Corbyn, and the entire Labour Party are probably even more culpable for their utter ineptitude than Cameron. I blame them, particularly Corbyn wholeheartedly. The LibDems on the other hand were superb, it's just they didn't have the networks to win over enough doubters.
Crucially no one had the vaguest idea of what they were voting for Leave and Remain, and both sides lied. Leave lied better and Boris was sublime, however like Cameron he expected Remain to win and like Cameron didn't know what to do when they didn't.
Still it's done now and it's going great ...maybe!
When I voted to Leave the European Union, my assumption was that I was voting to leave the European Union. Equally, when quite a lot of people voted to Remain in the European Union, I think they expected that meant we would remain in the European Union.
The problem was that leaving meant a lot of different things to different people, there was not a clear leave choice, plenty of people who voted to leave the European Union still wanted to stay in much of the economic agreements, including people like Dan Hannan who campaigned by saying that leaving the EU did not mean that we had to leave the single market.
A very commonly expressed view was we should leave the political and keep the economic. I disagreed, but I did accept that there was a case.
However, what has happened is a complete break down of all legal links between Britain and the EU, and that was the choice only of a small, extremist, faction. The small minority that still argues that hard Brexit was the only solution that counted as Leave, is either ignorant or dishonest. The compromise was obvious, but after May´s citizen of nowhere speech it was not taken, and the damage has already been immense.
Had that been made clear at the vote, that Leave would mean that there would be a complete end of all legal and economic ties Remain would probably have won and that is why a clear majority now believes that leaving was a bad idea. It is the failure to establish any compromise, and indeed to attempt to detach Britain even further from the EU, that will ultimately cause the end of the Conservatives. It is economically very damaging and in the end will be politically toxic.
The fact that the leadership of the Conservatives is utter abysmal is just a side show in the growing anger at the Tories.
May's Lancaster House speech was and is a cause of much of the problem. It solidified the idea that only a hard Brexit was an acceptable version of Brexit.
The Lancaster House speech was one of a series of severe misjudgements, including throwing away about the only card UK had, ie threatening not to A50 and agreeing to the EU’s “sequence”.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
Yes you can sign your contract in Church.
You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.
You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.
You can sign your contract in a Pub.
Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
How anglocentric of you. That's certainly not the case in Scotland. Hence the complete incomprehension of southerners when they got to Scotland and found that making a contract before witnesses, but not in church, was sufficient to become married.
{The laws were changed - influential southerners were getting upset at what happened to their children and heirs.}
Ask the average Presbyterian if they consider the religious aspect of their marriage or the Scottish civil law aspect of their marriage more important. Their answer will almost certainly be the same as mine
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Of course you don't think it is sacred as you take narcissistic libertarianism to the ultra extreme including abortion to birth and euthanasia on demand for the non terminally ill
What is so sacred about life that someone of sound mind who wishes to die should be denied that right to control their own life?
Is life so sacred that you're a vegan?
The government has no business killing anyone who is not severely terminally ill with no hope of recovery no, once you start to do so you are on a very tricky slope. No conservative could or should ever support such a proposition, though as you are no conservative hardly surprising you do.
Human life is entirely different to animal life, we are made to eat animals and God created animals in part for us to eat, as long as they are farmed humanely nothing wrong with that. We do not however eat or kill other humans
I know you believe in evolution, as we have discussed this before, and I assume you accept we evolved from apes so how do you distinguish between animals and humans? At what point in the evolution does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human and therefore can't be eaten?
You have also said you believe in the 10 commandments on this thread, yet you support Boris who has clearly lied. In the past you have justified such things as long as it is not illegal. Doesn't God set a higher standard? He appears to by the 10 commandments. Shouldn't you by not supporting Boris who is clearly breaking a commandment.
Do apes normally eat other apes? No. Even if you are not religious you don't believe in cannibalism and eating and killing your own species.
Boris is PM and a sinner as are most of us, I would not support him for Archbishop of Canterbury but he was not in contention for that
Humans eat chimpanzees and chimpanzees eat chimpanzees. Humans also used to eat humans. Not that any of that is relevant to the point which was you saying God distinguished between humans and animals. How if we evolved from them? When does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human?
If you believe in evolution which many Christians don't then by definition humans now are no longer apes
I don't really follow that point. I'm not a taxonomist, but given the complex system of classification that exists it seems pretty likely that human beings are part of a different genus or species but still part of the ape family. Hominids. I don't think the dividing line is so stark scientifically.
I suppose it could be a series of extraordinary coincidences.
Not that extraordinary. If you take tens of thousands of pictures of one woman and compare them with tens of thousands of pictures of another that she looks vaguely similar to, you're bound to ultimately get some similarities. People have done these 'lookalike' comparisons for as long as the internet/Private Eye or others have existed.
Was George W Bush trying to look like a monkey?
She is a vapid, posturing windbag and as big a threat to world peace and stability as Putin. did George Bush get an Official Photographer to tag along everywhere he went and take those photos? Do you realise that the Truss photos are carefully curated (dread word) and posted on instagram by or on behalf of her, not her enemies?
Taking photos doesn't mean you're trying to be Thatcher, unless she curated the lookalikes and posted them side-by-side herself just as moonshine just did with Starmer and Boris.
see the footage of her landing? the 3 bods from the embassy, 2 women and a wallace-grade baldy, are HATLESS, it's only uniform guy wearing one cos he has to.
She was dressing up.
She wore a hat while visiting a notoriously cold country?
Oh well that changes everything, she must be only the second person in history to wear a hat while visiting Russia.
Although on your link there's 2 other people wearing hats. They're not women though, so I guess they don't count.
The particularly charming poster Ismael also misunderstands something. I don’t think there’s anyone here who is giving full throttled support to Truss. I’m certainly not, I have little idea whether she’ll be any good and I suspect neither does she until she starts the job. Big step up even from Foreign Sec.
But the reflexive hate for her before she’s even got going strikes me as quite bizarre, when there’s nothing obvious in her track record to justify it. Perhaps she’ll do enough for the Tories to earn my vote for the first time in 4 elections, perhaps not. But it would be good to see a more serious critique of her abilities and plans, rather than “oh look she’s wearing a blue jacket and a hat. What a f**** b***ch! Who does she think she is!”.
What? You can't claim the moral high ground on charm, and start making blanket accusations of "reflexive hate." One or the other.
And "before she's even got going." Many of us here have an informed and detailed knowledge of UK politics, and thanks for confirming you are not among us. She is Foreign Sec FFS. This is not an Emma Raducanu situation. She is also a terrible and deeply unserious person, despite your elderly penchant for her disciplinary reputation.
Her most telling contribution as Foreign Secretary, has been to firmly elucidate the position that “Russia must lose” and that that means their troops “leaving the whole of Ukraine including Crimea”. At the time I remember quite a lot of bed wetters in the guardian and elsewhere saying she was recklessly endangering the whole world for personal ambition. These days, it’s a pretty median position. Backed this week by Putin’s erstwhile ally Erdogan no less. Now it’s an exaggeration to say she has personally driven that narrative shift. She hasn’t. But she did play her part in driving it towards broad international acceptance.
Not that she drove the formation of Aukus, her appointment aligned with the announcement. But her department saw it over the line. As for her time as Trade Sec, sure there are those who moan about us getting cheaper food products from strategic allies. I’m not one of them but I am disappointed no progress was made with the US on a financial sector accord that would become the global standard.
I don’t know really what to do with her being a “terrible and deeply unserious person”. And I’m not elderly or into that particular niche. I just think that at a time of national peril, she deserves a chance and the nation’s goodwill. If she’s no good, she’ll be booted out!
Pushing the line that the war is not over until Crimea returns to Ukraine, by any assessment, prolongs the conflict, and prolongs UK involvement in it. If you hold the somewhat quaint view that foreign policy is a tool to promote the security and prosperity of the UK, that is taking a 12 boar and emptying both barrels into your own size 9s.
However, I give a pass to Truss for anything she says on Ukraine. Our foreign policy on this is decided by America. It will be a bold leader indeed who departs from the US line on anything. If she starts to forge the beginnings an independent foreign and defence policy, it will be a pleasant surprise.
Ensuring Ukraine's territory is returned to Ukraine ends the war, it doesn't prolong it.
If you want the war over, you should be pushing to do everything we can to ensure Russia leaves the entirety of Ukraine, which of course includes Crimea. If Vlad leaves Ukraine, the war is over, until he does, it isn't.
No, the war is over when the two sides stop fighting, not when an arbitrary set of preferred conditions transpire.
The two sides stop fighting when the invader leaves the nation they've invaded.
That means Russia out of Ukraine, including Crimea.
Dribbling garbage. Most of the world's countries sit on bits of territory once forcibly removed from other nations. Including our own.
Not since WWII at least whereby nations agreed not to seize bits of territory by war. The UK hasn't seized any territory since then.
If you genuinely want the war over, why aren't you demanding Russia leaves Crimea? If you genuinely want the war over, why aren't you demanding the UK applies maximum pressure to ensure Russia leaves Crimea, thus ending the war?
Seems to me that you don't genuinely want the war over. Instead you simply want Russia to win the war, then be able to launch its next war.
Three reasons. Firstly, because I am not sure that Russia leaving Crimea is the outcome desired by the people of Crimea. I would however be in favour of an internationally-observed plebiscite to establish whether this is the case. Secondly, because I think getting Russia out of Crimea would be a difficult, if not impossible military aim, so making an end to hostilities contingent on that, guarantees an almost permanent conflict, which is good for nobody. Thirdly, and possibly most importantly, nobody involved in the matter gives a flying fuck what I 'demand' (or even what you demand), so it would not make a blind bit of difference.
If Russia leaving Crimea isn't the outcome desired by the people of Crimea, then that is only because of the ethnic cleansing committed since the 2014 theft.
I don't know anything about that, but the numbers would be interesting.
The numbers are out there, they had a vote in 1991. They voted to leave Russia by 54.1%
There has not been a free and fair vote, pre-invasion, since then.
So unless you have any evidence that the Ukrainians in Crimea have changed their minds since then, their vote stands and Russia should leave Ukrainian Crimea.
Again I ask, you pretend you want the war over, rather than Russia to win the war as you transparently do, but if the UK and allies give enough aid to Ukraine to dislodge Russia from all of Ukraine then the war would be over. If that happened, would that be a good thing in your eyes?
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
Nonsense, what utter religious discrimination. You are demandingf that the state accept your beliefs.
"Pagans are not interested in religious marriage." Now that is a blatant piece of sectarianism and lying bilge. And I'm not a pagan.
Modern paganism is a spiritual movement not really a religion.
We have freedom of religion in this country and that includes the freedom to recognise our religious marriages as our primary form of union with the civil side added on at the same time
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
Wait a minute. Paganism is a religion. Though ill defined.
I presume the excuse would be it is spiritual, not religious, but I've never really bougth such a distinction. I recall in the otherwise excellent House of Island by Ed Husain he attempts very early on to claim Islam is not a religion in the sense understood in the West, but notably the persuasiveness of the rest of the book is not found on that point, since it comes across, like with the paganism comparison, as trying too hard to draw a dividing line.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Well yes but others have made the same point before you, including Jesus of Nazareth. What the NT says is fuck the OT and the Pharisees who make a living out of it, let people do what they want to do and don't interfere. What I don't understand is why the likes of HYUFD don't take their curious antipathy to/fascination with men sticking it up each others botties and become Orthodox Jews.
Read Paul or indeed Jesus who was clear marriage was between a man and woman
Dearie me. That passage is not about that, at all. It is hugely telling that you cite the specific verse and not the chapter when the verse on its own makes no sense. You are reading it as God hates queers, it actually says Christ hates Pharisees, and Pharisees is you.
Where did I say God hates queers? I did not advocate making homosexuality illegal again or even banning gay civil unions, just recognising marriage as a principally religious institution between a man and a woman
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
Nonsense, what utter religious discrimination. You are demandingf that the state accept your beliefs.
"Pagans are not interested in religious marriage." Now that is a blatant piece of sectarianism and lying bilge. And I'm not a pagan.
Modern paganism is a spiritual movement not really a religion.
We have freedom of religion in this country and that includes the freedom to recognise our religious marriages as our primary form of union with the civil side added on at the same time
And the freedom to not do so too.
But you want to deny the latter.
Nobody is seeking to deny you the right to a religious side to your marriage. You and other extremists like Liam Fox did want to deny others the civil side to theirs. Why?
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
Yes you can sign your contract in Church.
You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.
You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.
You can sign your contract in a Pub.
Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
How anglocentric of you. That's certainly not the case in Scotland. Hence the complete incomprehension of southerners when they got to Scotland and found that making a contract before witnesses, but not in church, was sufficient to become married.
{The laws were changed - influential southerners were getting upset at what happened to their children and heirs.}
Ask the average Presbyterian if they consider the religious aspect of their marriage or the Scottish civil law aspect of their marriage more important. Their answer will almost certainly be the same as mine
"Wah, wah, what I think is more important than the historical facts." And I have just given you the facts.
Another is that marriage is not a sacrament in the Presbyterian tradition. You do understand? Quite different.
Another is that the religious aspect was so downplayed that people didn't even get married in church. In the frontp arlour if it was OK. The minister might come along, as well. Or perhaps folk might ask to have the manse study for a few minutes.
I suppose it could be a series of extraordinary coincidences.
Not that extraordinary. If you take tens of thousands of pictures of one woman and compare them with tens of thousands of pictures of another that she looks vaguely similar to, you're bound to ultimately get some similarities. People have done these 'lookalike' comparisons for as long as the internet/Private Eye or others have existed.
Was George W Bush trying to look like a monkey?
She is a vapid, posturing windbag and as big a threat to world peace and stability as Putin. did George Bush get an Official Photographer to tag along everywhere he went and take those photos? Do you realise that the Truss photos are carefully curated (dread word) and posted on instagram by or on behalf of her, not her enemies?
Taking photos doesn't mean you're trying to be Thatcher, unless she curated the lookalikes and posted them side-by-side herself just as moonshine just did with Starmer and Boris.
see the footage of her landing? the 3 bods from the embassy, 2 women and a wallace-grade baldy, are HATLESS, it's only uniform guy wearing one cos he has to.
She was dressing up.
She wore a hat while visiting a notoriously cold country?
Oh well that changes everything, she must be only the second person in history to wear a hat while visiting Russia.
Although on your link there's 2 other people wearing hats. They're not women though, so I guess they don't count.
The particularly charming poster Ismael also misunderstands something. I don’t think there’s anyone here who is giving full throttled support to Truss. I’m certainly not, I have little idea whether she’ll be any good and I suspect neither does she until she starts the job. Big step up even from Foreign Sec.
But the reflexive hate for her before she’s even got going strikes me as quite bizarre, when there’s nothing obvious in her track record to justify it. Perhaps she’ll do enough for the Tories to earn my vote for the first time in 4 elections, perhaps not. But it would be good to see a more serious critique of her abilities and plans, rather than “oh look she’s wearing a blue jacket and a hat. What a f**** b***ch! Who does she think she is!”.
What? You can't claim the moral high ground on charm, and start making blanket accusations of "reflexive hate." One or the other.
And "before she's even got going." Many of us here have an informed and detailed knowledge of UK politics, and thanks for confirming you are not among us. She is Foreign Sec FFS. This is not an Emma Raducanu situation. She is also a terrible and deeply unserious person, despite your elderly penchant for her disciplinary reputation.
Her most telling contribution as Foreign Secretary, has been to firmly elucidate the position that “Russia must lose” and that that means their troops “leaving the whole of Ukraine including Crimea”. At the time I remember quite a lot of bed wetters in the guardian and elsewhere saying she was recklessly endangering the whole world for personal ambition. These days, it’s a pretty median position. Backed this week by Putin’s erstwhile ally Erdogan no less. Now it’s an exaggeration to say she has personally driven that narrative shift. She hasn’t. But she did play her part in driving it towards broad international acceptance.
Not that she drove the formation of Aukus, her appointment aligned with the announcement. But her department saw it over the line. As for her time as Trade Sec, sure there are those who moan about us getting cheaper food products from strategic allies. I’m not one of them but I am disappointed no progress was made with the US on a financial sector accord that would become the global standard.
I don’t know really what to do with her being a “terrible and deeply unserious person”. And I’m not elderly or into that particular niche. I just think that at a time of national peril, she deserves a chance and the nation’s goodwill. If she’s no good, she’ll be booted out!
Pushing the line that the war is not over until Crimea returns to Ukraine, by any assessment, prolongs the conflict, and prolongs UK involvement in it. If you hold the somewhat quaint view that foreign policy is a tool to promote the security and prosperity of the UK, that is taking a 12 boar and emptying both barrels into your own size 9s.
However, I give a pass to Truss for anything she says on Ukraine. Our foreign policy on this is decided by America. It will be a bold leader indeed who departs from the US line on anything. If she starts to forge the beginnings an independent foreign and defence policy, it will be a pleasant surprise.
Ensuring Ukraine's territory is returned to Ukraine ends the war, it doesn't prolong it.
If you want the war over, you should be pushing to do everything we can to ensure Russia leaves the entirety of Ukraine, which of course includes Crimea. If Vlad leaves Ukraine, the war is over, until he does, it isn't.
No, the war is over when the two sides stop fighting, not when an arbitrary set of preferred conditions transpire.
The two sides stop fighting when the invader leaves the nation they've invaded.
That means Russia out of Ukraine, including Crimea.
Dribbling garbage. Most of the world's countries sit on bits of territory once forcibly removed from other nations. Including our own.
Not since WWII at least whereby nations agreed not to seize bits of territory by war. The UK hasn't seized any territory since then.
If you genuinely want the war over, why aren't you demanding Russia leaves Crimea? If you genuinely want the war over, why aren't you demanding the UK applies maximum pressure to ensure Russia leaves Crimea, thus ending the war?
Seems to me that you don't genuinely want the war over. Instead you simply want Russia to win the war, then be able to launch its next war.
Three reasons. Firstly, because I am not sure that Russia leaving Crimea is the outcome desired by the people of Crimea. I would however be in favour of an internationally-observed plebiscite to establish whether this is the case. Secondly, because I think getting Russia out of Crimea would be a difficult, if not impossible military aim, so making an end to hostilities contingent on that, guarantees an almost permanent conflict, which is good for nobody. Thirdly, and possibly most importantly, nobody involved in the matter gives a flying fuck what I 'demand' (or even what you demand), so it would not make a blind bit of difference.
1. In the only free and fair vote in Crimea, Crimea voted to be independent of Russia and be a part of Ukraine. If its not clear that the people of Crimea want Russia to leave, then why don't we ask them after they've left? They already said they wanted them to leave once before.
2. No getting Russia out of Ukrainian Crimea will not be difficult or impossible, any more than Russia getting Ukraine to give up its independence or territory is going to be difficult or impossible.
3. Yet you keep proclaiming your supposed desire for the war to end, yet you oppose the one way we have to make the war end, which is aiding our allies to win the war and kick the invaders out of their territory.
If we aid Ukraine sufficiently to get Russians kicked out of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, as they've already been kicked out of Snake Island, then the war would be over. Do you want to see that happen, yes or no?
1. Just hold it now. It's gonna be held with one of the interested parties controlling the territory. Hence the international observers.
2. More utterly unsubstantiated bollocks which even the most enthisiastic supporter of Western involvement in the conflict wouldn't put their name to. I never brought Ukraine's willingness or otherwise to give up its independence into this - crappy straw man argument. However, on your second point, it has already been established that it was Western politicians like Truss, not Ukraine, that have pushed the Crimea angle.
3. As we've already established, your point about there being 'only one way' to end the conflict was garbage. And the points that you made to defend that point were shown to be garbage. Repetition of it isn't helping. Or are Turkey not still hanging on to chunks of Cyprus with the square root of fuck all consequences?
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Well yes but others have made the same point before you, including Jesus of Nazareth. What the NT says is fuck the OT and the Pharisees who make a living out of it, let people do what they want to do and don't interfere. What I don't understand is why the likes of HYUFD don't take their curious antipathy to/fascination with men sticking it up each others botties and become Orthodox Jews.
Read Paul or indeed Jesus who was clear marriage was between a man and woman
Dearie me. That passage is not about that, at all. It is hugely telling that you cite the specific verse and not the chapter when the verse on its own makes no sense. You are reading it as God hates queers, it actually says Christ hates Pharisees, and Pharisees is you.
Where did I say God hates queers? I did not advocate making homosexuality illegal again or even banning gay civil unions, just recognising marriage as a principally religious institution between a man and a woman
You hate gays by refusing to let them get married in your state church against the laws of the same state.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
Yes you can sign your contract in Church.
You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.
You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.
You can sign your contract in a Pub.
Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.
What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.
That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.
But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.
You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Well yes but others have made the same point before you, including Jesus of Nazareth. What the NT says is fuck the OT and the Pharisees who make a living out of it, let people do what they want to do and don't interfere. What I don't understand is why the likes of HYUFD don't take their curious antipathy to/fascination with men sticking it up each others botties and become Orthodox Jews.
Read Paul or indeed Jesus who was clear marriage was between a man and woman
Dearie me. That passage is not about that, at all. It is hugely telling that you cite the specific verse and not the chapter when the verse on its own makes no sense. You are reading it as God hates queers, it actually says Christ hates Pharisees, and Pharisees is you.
Where did I say God hates queers? I did not advocate making homosexuality illegal again or even banning gay civil unions, just recognising marriage as a principally religious institution between a man and a woman
Marriage in your Church may be a religious institution between a man and a woman.
Marriage in other Churches is not. Marriage in law, it is not.
Why do you want religious law being written in Parliamentary Civil Law rather than religious Canon Law? Set your religious codex in Canon Law and allow the rest of us to have civil laws set by Parliament. Which is precisely what Jesus advised, Mark 12:13-17, but you and Fox don't care about Jesus.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
Yes you can sign your contract in Church.
You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.
You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.
You can sign your contract in a Pub.
Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
While it's of no consequence to the matter in hand, this evening in my house has promted two laments: 1) During a family pile-on before bedtime, my television watching glasses managed to lose a lens and an arm. No telly for me for a few days. No telly in focus, anyway. 2) My ipod docking station has started missing a second or two of sound out of every 40. This is less a lament for the inevitable mortality of electronic goods, but for the obsolence which tech now has built in. 30 pin plugs are thinner and thinner on the ground. Technology was fine in about 2007. All my music is on my ipod and I don't want to pay £8 a month to get it all on Spotify, nor go through the sheer palaver of finding another platform to burn it all to. There's always ebay, which is the likely solution. But first I need to work out whether it is the ipod or the docking station at fault. Happily, I have two old fashioned ipods so an easy enough test. I genuinely think technology reached its apogee in 2007. Nothing since then has been necessary.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Well yes but others have made the same point before you, including Jesus of Nazareth. What the NT says is fuck the OT and the Pharisees who make a living out of it, let people do what they want to do and don't interfere. What I don't understand is why the likes of HYUFD don't take their curious antipathy to/fascination with men sticking it up each others botties and become Orthodox Jews.
Read Paul or indeed Jesus who was clear marriage was between a man and woman
Dearie me. That passage is not about that, at all. It is hugely telling that you cite the specific verse and not the chapter when the verse on its own makes no sense. You are reading it as God hates queers, it actually says Christ hates Pharisees, and Pharisees is you.
Where did I say God hates queers? I did not advocate making homosexuality illegal again or even banning gay civil unions, just recognising marriage as a principally religious institution between a man and a woman
Of course, maybe you know better than God.
God wishes He was as unbending as HYUFD. God has been persuaded to change course on occasion.
And judging by wildly differing interpretations of His will from the same text by the same religious institutions (turns out these days God is against slavery), He's a lot more willing to be flexible.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
Yes you can sign your contract in Church.
You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.
You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.
You can sign your contract in a Pub.
Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
So presumably you are in favour of Sharia Law and the Jewish courts?
Even the religious who get married still have to have a civil law union too.
Sharia law and the Jewish courts cannot go against UK law if the 2 are in conflict, if they aren't though yes they are fine
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
Yes you can sign your contract in Church.
You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.
You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.
You can sign your contract in a Pub.
Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.
What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.
That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.
But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.
You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
That's you told, piss off and go away with the pagans etc.
O/T Liz Truss is unhinged. Nothing more, nothing less.
The right wing nutters who live on this blog seem to think she is something special. She is no Thatcher. She is likely to give Cameron and Johnson a good run for the worst PM ever.
Johnson I’ll give you but Cameron? Formed a coalition that worked well for 5 years then won a majority. Gave the nation a chance to vote on its political future over Europe, something all others denied since the 70’s. A decent man, and a decent PM. Your countrymen and women are the ones to blame for Brexit, not Cameron.
He didn’t think through the referendum. He was lazy and arrogant.
I really just do not understand this attitude
The question was put to the people who voted in a referendum the result of which you have not come to terms with along with many others
The remain supporters failed to win a very winnable case and seem to want to blame everyone but themselves
Furthermore, Starmer is not offering to re-join, indeed neither are the lib dems implicitly promising to do so, so little will change in the foreseeable though a better relationship with the EU while remaining outside would be welcome
The Remain campaign was shockingly poor and Cameron made it as difficult to win as he possibly could because he fully expected to walk it. Osborne told him it was an outrageous risk.
Yes Corbyn, and the entire Labour Party are probably even more culpable for their utter ineptitude than Cameron. I blame them, particularly Corbyn wholeheartedly. The LibDems on the other hand were superb, it's just they didn't have the networks to win over enough doubters.
Crucially no one had the vaguest idea of what they were voting for Leave and Remain, and both sides lied. Leave lied better and Boris was sublime, however like Cameron he expected Remain to win and like Cameron didn't know what to do when they didn't.
Still it's done now and it's going great ...maybe!
When I voted to Leave the European Union, my assumption was that I was voting to leave the European Union. Equally, when quite a lot of people voted to Remain in the European Union, I think they expected that meant we would remain in the European Union.
The problem was that leaving meant a lot of different things to different people, there was not a clear leave choice, plenty of people who voted to leave the European Union still wanted to stay in much of the economic agreements, including people like Dan Hannan who campaigned by saying that leaving the EU did not mean that we had to leave the single market.
A very commonly expressed view was we should leave the political and keep the economic. I disagreed, but I did accept that there was a case.
However, what has happened is a complete break down of all legal links between Britain and the EU, and that was the choice only of a small, extremist, faction. The small minority that still argues that hard Brexit was the only solution that counted as Leave, is either ignorant or dishonest. The compromise was obvious, but after May´s citizen of nowhere speech it was not taken, and the damage has already been immense.
Had that been made clear at the vote, that Leave would mean that there would be a complete end of all legal and economic ties Remain would probably have won and that is why a clear majority now believes that leaving was a bad idea. It is the failure to establish any compromise, and indeed to attempt to detach Britain even further from the EU, that will ultimately cause the end of the Conservatives. It is economically very damaging and in the end will be politically toxic.
The fact that the leadership of the Conservatives is utter abysmal is just a side show in the growing anger at the Tories.
May's Lancaster House speech was and is a cause of much of the problem. It solidified the idea that only a hard Brexit was an acceptable version of Brexit.
The impact of that speech is greatly exaggerated. May had already made clear during the leadership election straight after the referendum that it would be unacceptable not to end free movement.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
Yes you can sign your contract in Church.
You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.
You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.
You can sign your contract in a Pub.
Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
So presumably you are in favour of Sharia Law and the Jewish courts?
Even the religious who get married still have to have a civil law union too.
Sharia law and the Jewish courts cannot go against UK law if the 2 are in conflict, if they aren't though yes they are fine
So why is the C of E permitted to be in conflict with English law?
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Well yes but others have made the same point before you, including Jesus of Nazareth. What the NT says is fuck the OT and the Pharisees who make a living out of it, let people do what they want to do and don't interfere. What I don't understand is why the likes of HYUFD don't take their curious antipathy to/fascination with men sticking it up each others botties and become Orthodox Jews.
Read Paul or indeed Jesus who was clear marriage was between a man and woman
Dearie me. That passage is not about that, at all. It is hugely telling that you cite the specific verse and not the chapter when the verse on its own makes no sense. You are reading it as God hates queers, it actually says Christ hates Pharisees, and Pharisees is you.
Where did I say God hates queers? I did not advocate making homosexuality illegal again or even banning gay civil unions, just recognising marriage as a principally religious institution between a man and a woman
You hate gays by refusing to let them get married in your state church against the laws of the same state.
Of course, maybe you know better than God.
Since when did not allowing someone not to do something equal hating them? Disappointing to see a usually sensible poster come out with such a silly post. HYUFD always seems to manage to get the worst out of you.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
Wait a minute. Paganism is a religion. Though ill defined.
I presume the excuse would be it is spiritual, not religious, but I've never really bougth such a distinction. I recall in the otherwise excellent House of Islam by Ed Husain he attempts very early on to claim Islam is not a religion in the sense understood in the West, but notably the persuasiveness of the rest of the book is not found on that point, since it comes across, like with the paganism comparison, as trying too hard to draw a dividing line.
I suppose it could be a series of extraordinary coincidences.
Not that extraordinary. If you take tens of thousands of pictures of one woman and compare them with tens of thousands of pictures of another that she looks vaguely similar to, you're bound to ultimately get some similarities. People have done these 'lookalike' comparisons for as long as the internet/Private Eye or others have existed.
Was George W Bush trying to look like a monkey?
She is a vapid, posturing windbag and as big a threat to world peace and stability as Putin. did George Bush get an Official Photographer to tag along everywhere he went and take those photos? Do you realise that the Truss photos are carefully curated (dread word) and posted on instagram by or on behalf of her, not her enemies?
Taking photos doesn't mean you're trying to be Thatcher, unless she curated the lookalikes and posted them side-by-side herself just as moonshine just did with Starmer and Boris.
see the footage of her landing? the 3 bods from the embassy, 2 women and a wallace-grade baldy, are HATLESS, it's only uniform guy wearing one cos he has to.
She was dressing up.
She wore a hat while visiting a notoriously cold country?
Oh well that changes everything, she must be only the second person in history to wear a hat while visiting Russia.
Although on your link there's 2 other people wearing hats. They're not women though, so I guess they don't count.
The particularly charming poster Ismael also misunderstands something. I don’t think there’s anyone here who is giving full throttled support to Truss. I’m certainly not, I have little idea whether she’ll be any good and I suspect neither does she until she starts the job. Big step up even from Foreign Sec.
But the reflexive hate for her before she’s even got going strikes me as quite bizarre, when there’s nothing obvious in her track record to justify it. Perhaps she’ll do enough for the Tories to earn my vote for the first time in 4 elections, perhaps not. But it would be good to see a more serious critique of her abilities and plans, rather than “oh look she’s wearing a blue jacket and a hat. What a f**** b***ch! Who does she think she is!”.
What? You can't claim the moral high ground on charm, and start making blanket accusations of "reflexive hate." One or the other.
And "before she's even got going." Many of us here have an informed and detailed knowledge of UK politics, and thanks for confirming you are not among us. She is Foreign Sec FFS. This is not an Emma Raducanu situation. She is also a terrible and deeply unserious person, despite your elderly penchant for her disciplinary reputation.
Her most telling contribution as Foreign Secretary, has been to firmly elucidate the position that “Russia must lose” and that that means their troops “leaving the whole of Ukraine including Crimea”. At the time I remember quite a lot of bed wetters in the guardian and elsewhere saying she was recklessly endangering the whole world for personal ambition. These days, it’s a pretty median position. Backed this week by Putin’s erstwhile ally Erdogan no less. Now it’s an exaggeration to say she has personally driven that narrative shift. She hasn’t. But she did play her part in driving it towards broad international acceptance.
Not that she drove the formation of Aukus, her appointment aligned with the announcement. But her department saw it over the line. As for her time as Trade Sec, sure there are those who moan about us getting cheaper food products from strategic allies. I’m not one of them but I am disappointed no progress was made with the US on a financial sector accord that would become the global standard.
I don’t know really what to do with her being a “terrible and deeply unserious person”. And I’m not elderly or into that particular niche. I just think that at a time of national peril, she deserves a chance and the nation’s goodwill. If she’s no good, she’ll be booted out!
Pushing the line that the war is not over until Crimea returns to Ukraine, by any assessment, prolongs the conflict, and prolongs UK involvement in it. If you hold the somewhat quaint view that foreign policy is a tool to promote the security and prosperity of the UK, that is taking a 12 boar and emptying both barrels into your own size 9s.
However, I give a pass to Truss for anything she says on Ukraine. Our foreign policy on this is decided by America. It will be a bold leader indeed who departs from the US line on anything. If she starts to forge the beginnings an independent foreign and defence policy, it will be a pleasant surprise.
Ensuring Ukraine's territory is returned to Ukraine ends the war, it doesn't prolong it.
If you want the war over, you should be pushing to do everything we can to ensure Russia leaves the entirety of Ukraine, which of course includes Crimea. If Vlad leaves Ukraine, the war is over, until he does, it isn't.
No, the war is over when the two sides stop fighting, not when an arbitrary set of preferred conditions transpire.
The two sides stop fighting when the invader leaves the nation they've invaded.
That means Russia out of Ukraine, including Crimea.
Dribbling garbage. Most of the world's countries sit on bits of territory once forcibly removed from other nations. Including our own.
Not since WWII at least whereby nations agreed not to seize bits of territory by war. The UK hasn't seized any territory since then.
If you genuinely want the war over, why aren't you demanding Russia leaves Crimea? If you genuinely want the war over, why aren't you demanding the UK applies maximum pressure to ensure Russia leaves Crimea, thus ending the war?
Seems to me that you don't genuinely want the war over. Instead you simply want Russia to win the war, then be able to launch its next war.
Three reasons. Firstly, because I am not sure that Russia leaving Crimea is the outcome desired by the people of Crimea. I would however be in favour of an internationally-observed plebiscite to establish whether this is the case. Secondly, because I think getting Russia out of Crimea would be a difficult, if not impossible military aim, so making an end to hostilities contingent on that, guarantees an almost permanent conflict, which is good for nobody. Thirdly, and possibly most importantly, nobody involved in the matter gives a flying fuck what I 'demand' (or even what you demand), so it would not make a blind bit of difference.
1. In the only free and fair vote in Crimea, Crimea voted to be independent of Russia and be a part of Ukraine. If its not clear that the people of Crimea want Russia to leave, then why don't we ask them after they've left? They already said they wanted them to leave once before.
2. No getting Russia out of Ukrainian Crimea will not be difficult or impossible, any more than Russia getting Ukraine to give up its independence or territory is going to be difficult or impossible.
3. Yet you keep proclaiming your supposed desire for the war to end, yet you oppose the one way we have to make the war end, which is aiding our allies to win the war and kick the invaders out of their territory.
If we aid Ukraine sufficiently to get Russians kicked out of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, as they've already been kicked out of Snake Island, then the war would be over. Do you want to see that happen, yes or no?
1. Just hold it now. It's gonna be held with one of the interested parties controlling the territory. Hence the international observers.
2. More utterly unsubstantiated bollocks which even the most enthisiastic supporter of Western involvement in the conflict wouldn't put their name to. I never brought Ukraine's willingness or otherwise to give up its independence into this - crappy straw man argument. However, on your second point, it has already been established that it was Western politicians like Truss, not Ukraine, that have pushed the Crimea angle.
3. As we've already established, your point about there being 'only one way' to end the conflict was garbage. And the points that you made to defend that point were shown to be garbage. Repetition of it isn't helping. Or are Turkey not still hanging on to chunks of Cyprus with the square root of fuck all consequences?
1. It can't be held now until the Russian guns leave which allows people to vote freely without reprisals, and the people displaced by Russian guns are allowed to return back to their homes. Your transparent agenda is showing.
2. You are either very ignorant, or a Putinist liar. The Ukrainian President has repeatedly said all of Ukraine must be liberated before the war is over, including Crimea. Why do you know better than the Ukrainian President?
3. Its the one way we have that we can aid the war to end, is to give the aid to Ukraine that they're begging for to end the war on their terms, liberation of their land. Its either that, or we aid Russia to end the war on their terms, defeat of Ukraine. Or we do nothing so prolonging the war as we aren't taking steps to bring it to a conclusion.
So which do you want us to do? Aid Ukraine to help them win the war on their terms? Aid Russia to help them win the war on their terms? Do nothing to help the war end?
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
Yes you can sign your contract in Church.
You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.
You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.
You can sign your contract in a Pub.
Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Well yes but others have made the same point before you, including Jesus of Nazareth. What the NT says is fuck the OT and the Pharisees who make a living out of it, let people do what they want to do and don't interfere. What I don't understand is why the likes of HYUFD don't take their curious antipathy to/fascination with men sticking it up each others botties and become Orthodox Jews.
Read Paul or indeed Jesus who was clear marriage was between a man and woman
Dearie me. That passage is not about that, at all. It is hugely telling that you cite the specific verse and not the chapter when the verse on its own makes no sense. You are reading it as God hates queers, it actually says Christ hates Pharisees, and Pharisees is you.
Where did I say God hates queers? I did not advocate making homosexuality illegal again or even banning gay civil unions, just recognising marriage as a principally religious institution between a man and a woman
You hate gays by refusing to let them get married in your state church against the laws of the same state.
Of course, maybe you know better than God.
Since when did not allowing someone not to do something equal hating them? Disappointing to see a usually sensible poster come out with such a silly post. HYUFD always seems to manage to get the worst out of you.
When it is actually very important to them. Treated as second class.
Since about 2005, and in almost every Western economy, something historically unprecedented and extremely alarming has been happening to energy consumption: it’s either flatlining or in decline. This remarkable but little discussed fact is jeopardising almost every aspect of our public policy, from climate change mitigation, through national security to societal progression itself. President Biden’s plans to vastly increase spending on renewables such as wind and solar through the Inflation Reduction Act are grabbing the headlines, and it’s not hard to see why, but they may actually be counterproductive, and in any case are overshadowed by the sweeping macroscopic trend of falling Western demand for energy.
According to data collected by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, total energy consumption in the UK, for example, is back at levels not seen since the 1950s; there has been a 30 percent decline from its peak in 2003, which is astonishing given that the population has increased by 12.5 percent, to 67 million, over the same period."
Is it not possible that energy use is falling at least partially because of.. errr... Government attempts to reduce energy usage?
Lightbulbs. How many houses use to run 60W or 100W lightbulbs. Now mostly replaced with bulbs likely to be around 5W. Considering lights are on a lot in the winter that is a massive power saving when multiplied up across the country.
I glanced at the Quillette piece. The argument seems to be that, in the past, more efficient energy use led to other uses being economic, so total energy use went up. So, to take the light bulb example, lower energy bulbs means we should be using a lot more of them. That's not happening, and that's a bad thing.
Now, that has happened in the past. A single candle was replaced by a gas lamp was replaced by multiple light bulbs. But it also looks like we have maxed out on things we want to illuminate. The same probably goes for other energy uses. We can generally warm our houses to 20 degrees if we want to. 30 degrees would be possible but unpleasant.
I don't know what problems that causes economically, unless you derive money and power from selling energy.
But we have switched from prior things that consumed energy to other ones.
Yes I only may only have a 5w bulb on my ceiling, but I now have a 60" TV that needs illuminating too.
Total global energy consumption has gone up, not done, as you'd expect - but our taxation being punitive on domestic fuel energy but zero-rated on imports has led us to us exporting our energy consumption and importing finished goods like that 60" TV instead.
Countries like China are producing and consuming more energy and we are buying from them goods produced by that energy. So we are still indirectly consuming energy, we've simply exported that consumption from a country that uses primarily clean fuels, to a country that still uses coal.
You may well have a large TV, but it likely uses similar-to-less energy than a smaller CRT set did. Accelerating electrons at a screen was pretty energy-inefficient (which is why the screen got staticy and the back of the set got warm and they used to tell people to unplug their sets lest they catch fire.)
Same thing with computers. Once everything goes solid-state, the power needed falls by an order of magnitude. So the laptop I'm typing on doesn't need a fan and the battery lasts all day.
Now the claim being made is that we should find an alternative use for all this saved energy. But TV screens have got about as big as they can usefully get. I wouldn't want my computer to be any bigger, and wouldn't really notice if it got any faster.
And whilst manufacturing is an issue, there are gains there because stuff generally breaks down less, so doesn't need to be replaced as often. The more use something gets, the lighter its environmental footprint.
I'm not surprised that global energy use is still going up- there is a lot of the world that is nowhere near the levels of "enough" that the West has reached. But we shouldn't feel that we have to use energy just because. And we should absolutely be thinking about the externalities and whether some of the things we do are dumb and wasteful.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
Yes you can sign your contract in Church.
You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.
You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.
You can sign your contract in a Pub.
Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.
What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.
That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.
But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.
You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
We had a marriage. We didn't need a change in the law. Marriage is a civil union and has been for thousands of years, since before your religion even existed.
What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.
But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to. It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch. Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.
In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
So let's never return to them.
And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.
Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…
Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.
There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.
Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.
As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.
(Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.
Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.
Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.
I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.
Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.
I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.
There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.
If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.
Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.
People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.
The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.
24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.
Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.
Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?
Quotation marks.
HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.
Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
I consider life runs from birth to death.
Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.
Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.
Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.
Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?
It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.
You can't have it both ways.
Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.
The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.
We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment. But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's. If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
Quite.
But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.
* In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
We religious like We Tories and We English. Belong to the in group, bully and hate and marginalise the out group. At all costs.
The gospels are primarily a sustained hymn of hatred of utterly horrible bigots like you.
No, if we really were that then homosexuality would be illegal again as would divorce and we would scrap Holyrood and expel Scottish MPs from Westminster and arrest Sturgeon and also expel all non English born from England.
The words of Christ are many things but words of hatred certainly not
Comments
This is the church where a prospective head dude was vetoed on the grounds that he was a bit too strongly into Sky Fairies.
FT
Welcome to the new boss, same as the old boss.
As for IHT card, if the election went ahead, that is largely neutralised by similar policy announcement and sidelined by more important things - best to run economy, NHS etc.
To go back to TSE original point, how Starmer’s freeze announcement is as momentous as the IHT card - neither were momentous - an awful lot else at play, then and today, Starmer’s freezer card could be trumped in a few weeks, so maybe not so epoch defining at all.
Disgraceful. Completely the same as every other PM….
2. No getting Russia out of Ukrainian Crimea will not be difficult or impossible, any more than Russia getting Ukraine to give up its independence or territory is going to be difficult or impossible.
3. Yet you keep proclaiming your supposed desire for the war to end, yet you oppose the one way we have to make the war end, which is aiding our allies to win the war and kick the invaders out of their territory.
If we aid Ukraine sufficiently to get Russians kicked out of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, as they've already been kicked out of Snake Island, then the war would be over. Do you want to see that happen, yes or no?
“I used Spotify to play music at a children's party. I am still getting recommendations for ‘Happy Birthday’ months later.”…
https://twitter.com/tedgioia/status/1562476981245333504
{The laws were changed - influential southerners were getting upset at what happened to their children and heirs.}
Yet that’s exactly what the majority of them will believe aka. The whole Truss “lazy British workers” rubbish. The Tory manifesto has been built around this age group for a decade now, and here we are.
"Pagans are not interested in religious marriage." Now that is a blatant piece of sectarianism and lying bilge. And I'm not a pagan.
Is it something we said?
Now, that has happened in the past. A single candle was replaced by a gas lamp was replaced by multiple light bulbs. But it also looks like we have maxed out on things we want to illuminate. The same probably goes for other energy uses. We can generally warm our houses to 20 degrees if we want to. 30 degrees would be possible but unpleasant.
I don't know what problems that causes economically, unless you derive money and power from selling energy.
Paganism is a religion. Though ill defined.
What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.
That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.
But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
Basically pretty infantile and babyish chimps, with some extra bits and bobs.
The gospels are primarily a sustained hymn of hatred of utterly horrible bigots like you.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11142307/Matt-Hancock-MP-join-Metaverse-shares-creepy-avatar.html
The niceness and cups of tea thing appeared in the 18th cent when it was realised that if you let the God Bothering types bang on about God too much, the you got death and civil war. Vague niceness on the other had, and you get indifferent tea parties at the vicarage.
In that, they are different from, for example, "Czar" Putin and "Emperor" Xi.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Hillerman
(One of the most curious conflicts between the Navajo and the Hopi resulted, years ago, in a truly oddly-shaped House district. At the time, Arizona 2nd was mostly in the northwest corner of the state. But, there was a long, skinny strip that attached it to a smaller section in the northeast corner of the state. That small section was the Hopi reservation, and is completely surrounded by the much larger Navajo reservation. The Hopis asked not to be in the same district as the Navajo -- and the state obliged them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AZ-districts-109-02.png )
However... The issue right now is not lack of gas, but lack of LNG shipping to move gas around.
Though not as much as poundshops should be.
But hate-filled bigoted extremists like HYUFD and Liam Fox weren't satisfied with having the Church being able to say no to non-religious marriages, they want/wanted the law to do so too. Even for couples, venues, religions and/or secular organisations that wanted to say yes to them.
If an Italian restaurant wants to refuse to serve pineapple on pizzas, that is their prerogative. If an RC Church doesn't want to have gay marriages, that is their prerogative. But if another pizzeria is prepared to be a venue of two gay men who want a pineapple pizza wedding breakfast, the law should not say no to that. Even if your personal tastes don't approve of it.
Whale oil usage per capita has collapsed as well….
We could call them the Pre-Thatcherite Movement. They might be quite popular across the country.
I remember it a bit, but view I have just given you must have come mostly from reading up on it in books more recently.
Why do I think Brown probably wins if he calls that election as Cameron goaded him? Because I have always believed that for a long time now.
HY has often posted why call an early election when you already have a working majority - in 2007 I suppose honeymoon polling might have made brown think he’d increase it, the great conference for the Tory’s showed the honeymoon wearing off, so the election plan abandoned not becuase they can’t win, but because they don’t get much better majority maybe worse one. The whole point of that election was to increase majority using honeymoon bounce, not shrink majority.
That’s how I have understood it a long time. I could be wrong. Posters often call me wrong 🙂
Allie Hodgkins-Brown
@AllieHBNews
·
17m
Thursday’s Daily TELEGRAPH: “Johnson: We’re paying higher bills, Ukraine is paying in blood” #TomorrowsPapersToday
She started with pretty low support from her fellow MPs and I think she is surely aware that most don’t really rate her, whatever they are saying now.
However, I don’t think she actively courts mediocrities and incompetents like Boris did.
On a pretty primal level, Boris needed to be uncontested “number one”.
Sadly the history books will have him down as an unrivalled “number two”.
Yes I only may only have a 5w bulb on my ceiling, but I now have a 60" TV that needs illuminating too.
Total global energy consumption has gone up, not done, as you'd expect - but our taxation being punitive on domestic fuel energy but zero-rated on imports has led us to us exporting our energy consumption and importing finished goods like that 60" TV instead.
Countries like China are producing and consuming more energy and we are buying from them goods produced by that energy. So we are still indirectly consuming energy, we've simply exported that consumption from a country that uses primarily clean fuels, to a country that still uses coal.
The state has long played a part of what makes a marriage.
You've shown some growth though, as you actually correctly caveated your point with reference to 'proper religious marriage', making a distinction without suggesting your personal view is a universal truth, but I guess you couldn't help yourself with the finale.
Voters rejected Soubry and Grieve of course, but polling suggests the current mood is “Breget”.
Too late, though. Britain is quite fucked for the 2020s.
"I pay in blood.
But not my own."
We can take any decisions we want, we can even reverse them if we want. As a country (even if you didn't) the polls showed we regretted Brown et al signing the Lisbon Treaty against their Manifesto commitment not to do so without a referendum first. But since it was done, and we were part of the EU so Parliament wasn't sovereign over that, we couldn't reverse that. We had no choice but to lump it, or leave it by leaving the EU and reclaiming our sovereignty in full.
We chose the latter course of action. Now if we regret anything we do, we can reverse that in the future, if we choose to do so. That's healthy and democratic.
There has not been a free and fair vote, pre-invasion, since then.
So unless you have any evidence that the Ukrainians in Crimea have changed their minds since then, their vote stands and Russia should leave Ukrainian Crimea.
Again I ask, you pretend you want the war over, rather than Russia to win the war as you transparently do, but if the UK and allies give enough aid to Ukraine to dislodge Russia from all of Ukraine then the war would be over. If that happened, would that be a good thing in your eyes?
We have freedom of religion in this country and that includes the freedom to recognise our religious marriages as our primary form of union with the civil side added on at the same time
I wonder how many of our politicians would be affected.
But you want to deny the latter.
Nobody is seeking to deny you the right to a religious side to your marriage. You and other extremists like Liam Fox did want to deny others the civil side to theirs. Why?
Another is that marriage is not a sacrament in the Presbyterian tradition. You do understand? Quite different.
Another is that the religious aspect was so downplayed that people didn't even get married in church. In the frontp arlour if it was OK. The minister might come along, as well. Or perhaps folk might ask to have the manse study for a few minutes.
2. More utterly unsubstantiated bollocks which even the most enthisiastic supporter of Western involvement in the conflict wouldn't put their name to. I never brought Ukraine's willingness or otherwise to give up its independence into this - crappy straw man argument. However, on your second point, it has already been established that it was Western politicians like Truss, not Ukraine, that have pushed the Crimea angle.
3. As we've already established, your point about there being 'only one way' to end the conflict was garbage. And the points that you made to defend that point were shown to be garbage. Repetition of it isn't helping. Or are Turkey not still hanging on to chunks of Cyprus with the square root of fuck all consequences?
Of course, maybe you know better than God.
You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
Marriage in other Churches is not. Marriage in law, it is not.
Why do you want religious law being written in Parliamentary Civil Law rather than religious Canon Law? Set your religious codex in Canon Law and allow the rest of us to have civil laws set by Parliament. Which is precisely what Jesus advised, Mark 12:13-17, but you and Fox don't care about Jesus.
1) During a family pile-on before bedtime, my television watching glasses managed to lose a lens and an arm. No telly for me for a few days. No telly in focus, anyway.
2) My ipod docking station has started missing a second or two of sound out of every 40. This is less a lament for the inevitable mortality of electronic goods, but for the obsolence which tech now has built in. 30 pin plugs are thinner and thinner on the ground. Technology was fine in about 2007. All my music is on my ipod and I don't want to pay £8 a month to get it all on Spotify, nor go through the sheer palaver of finding another platform to burn it all to.
There's always ebay, which is the likely solution. But first I need to work out whether it is the ipod or the docking station at fault. Happily, I have two old fashioned ipods so an easy enough test.
I genuinely think technology reached its apogee in 2007. Nothing since then has been necessary.
And judging by wildly differing interpretations of His will from the same text by the same religious institutions (turns out these days God is against slavery), He's a lot more willing to be flexible.
Sharia law and the Jewish courts cannot go against UK law if the 2 are in conflict, if they aren't though yes they are fine
Inflation.
2. You are either very ignorant, or a Putinist liar. The Ukrainian President has repeatedly said all of Ukraine must be liberated before the war is over, including Crimea. Why do you know better than the Ukrainian President?
3. Its the one way we have that we can aid the war to end, is to give the aid to Ukraine that they're begging for to end the war on their terms, liberation of their land. Its either that, or we aid Russia to end the war on their terms, defeat of Ukraine. Or we do nothing so prolonging the war as we aren't taking steps to bring it to a conclusion.
So which do you want us to do?
Aid Ukraine to help them win the war on their terms?
Aid Russia to help them win the war on their terms?
Do nothing to help the war end?
Why otherwise would one do that?
Same thing with computers. Once everything goes solid-state, the power needed falls by an order of magnitude. So the laptop I'm typing on doesn't need a fan and the battery lasts all day.
Now the claim being made is that we should find an alternative use for all this saved energy. But TV screens have got about as big as they can usefully get. I wouldn't want my computer to be any bigger, and wouldn't really notice if it got any faster.
And whilst manufacturing is an issue, there are gains there because stuff generally breaks down less, so doesn't need to be replaced as often. The more use something gets, the lighter its environmental footprint.
I'm not surprised that global energy use is still going up- there is a lot of the world that is nowhere near the levels of "enough" that the West has reached. But we shouldn't feel that we have to use energy just because. And we should absolutely be thinking about the externalities and whether some of the things we do are dumb and wasteful.
The words of Christ are many things but words of hatred certainly not
HYUFD