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Why I still think LAB will struggle to get a majority – politicalbetting.com

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  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,047
    RobD said:

    National grid, for the first time, is to fire up 2 coal plants to keep the lights on

    Cold weather often becalms wind power which I believe is an issue at present

    Amazing to believe they've managed with only one in the decades previous. :smiley:
    It is an excellent form of energy, we should use a lot more of it - dig for victory.
  • Carnyx said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    WillG said:

    Chris said:

    Westie said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ground-breaking-new-laws-to-stop-the-boats

    "Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: (...) We must stop the boats. (...) It is completely unfair that people who travel through a string of safe countries then come to the UK illegally and abuse our asylum laws to avoid removal."

    Human rights law is for wimps, libtards, whiners, and the "elite", right? It's for trade unionists, lefty lawyers, cultural Marxists, and Remoaners. We know their type. Give 'em a chance and they always go on about human rights. They want those boats to keep coming here. Well enough is enough. From NOW.

    To be honest I just wonder whether people like Suella Braverman (and for that matter Rishi Sunak) have thought things through completely, if they have decided it's a good strategy for them to appeal to the anti-immigrant vote.
    What is incorrect about what she is saying?
    I'm not sure I can make it any simpler.

    What I'm asking is whether it can be more likely than not incompatible with the ECHR, and yet for her to be confident it is compatible with international law.
    Potentially if the ECHR is itself incompatible with the Refugee Convention?
    You mean if the provisions of the ECHR were not considered to be part of international law?

    That does seem to be implied logically by what she is saying, but can she really be saying that?
    I'm thinking that it's a possible argument that the proposed Bill is compatible with the Refugee Convention and hence with "international law".

    This is probably a dubious argument, but it's the best I've come up with (not that I would pretend to be an expert).
    Well globally most people in civilised, western countries are not subject to the ECHR. EG Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply and all of them are subject to international laws and agreements.

    Meanwhile the ECHR is so robust it had Russia as a member at rhe start of 2022. Good job there, great job ensuring a free press, free speech and free elections and avoiding a fascist regime coming to power and everything else the convention was supposed to deal with.

    The ECHR is a failure and we could withdraw from it and still be an upstanding civilised nation subject to international law.

    However it is my understanding that unless and until we do, it is part of OUR international law even if its not a part of other nations international law.
    "Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply"

    Er, there's a rather different and more basic reason for that. They are not in Europe. The UK is.
    So what?

    Are human rights global and human? Or subject to an accident of geography?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,157

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    The Princess of Wales is now the most popular senior royal after the Queen's death according to a new RedfieldWilton poll.

    The Princess is on +52%, the Prince on +49%, the King on +27%, the Queen Consort on +1%, the Duke of Sussex on -22%, the Duchess of Sussex on -33% and the Duke of York on -53%

    https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1633105355797323777?t=L0OklURtvkVfr85_tnB2dg&s=19

    Nobody cares. Well I wish they didn't anyway. Vacuous nonsense.
    This wil interest you then?

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/23367199.king-invites-privileged-bodies-swear-loyalty-crown/

    ' LEADING cultural and educational institutions - including Scotland's ancient universities - have been invited by the King to swear loyalty to him.

    King Charles will received the so-called "privileged bodies” – a group of 27 organisations and corporations – which will present loyal addresses to the sovereign in person in the ballroom of Buckingham Palace on Thursday.

    Buckingham Palace said the privileged bodies are “culturally significant organisations and institutions that reflect the United Kingdom’s diverse society”.

    Drawn from the education, science, arts and religious sectors, those invited include the General Synod of the Church of England, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge as well as of Edinburgh, London, St Andrews, Glasgow and Aberdeen, the Bank of England, City of London Corporation, the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Military Knights of Windsor and the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales.

    The loyal addresses – in the form of a speech – serve to “emphasise and reaffirm their loyalty to the monarch”, the Palace said.'
    Funnily enough I don't find that too objectionable. It is a tradition that goes back centuries I suspect, including when the Stewarts ruled over us. What I object to is smarmy obsequiousness; the celebrity culture of the Daily Express applied to the monarchy. Euch.
    Couldn't give a damn for which dynasty it was. It's all formalised obsequiousness. Think of the time and resources wasted on this.
  • RobD said:

    National grid, for the first time, is to fire up 2 coal plants to keep the lights on

    Cold weather often becalms wind power which I believe is an issue at present

    Amazing to believe they've managed with only one in the decades previous. :smiley:
    It is an excellent form of energy, we should use a lot more of it - dig for victory.
    It is a terrible form of energy. Dirty, obsolete and expensive.

    There is a reason we don't use it much. Might as well say we should have more horse drawn carriages on the M6.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,157
    edited March 2023

    Carnyx said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    WillG said:

    Chris said:

    Westie said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ground-breaking-new-laws-to-stop-the-boats

    "Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: (...) We must stop the boats. (...) It is completely unfair that people who travel through a string of safe countries then come to the UK illegally and abuse our asylum laws to avoid removal."

    Human rights law is for wimps, libtards, whiners, and the "elite", right? It's for trade unionists, lefty lawyers, cultural Marxists, and Remoaners. We know their type. Give 'em a chance and they always go on about human rights. They want those boats to keep coming here. Well enough is enough. From NOW.

    To be honest I just wonder whether people like Suella Braverman (and for that matter Rishi Sunak) have thought things through completely, if they have decided it's a good strategy for them to appeal to the anti-immigrant vote.
    What is incorrect about what she is saying?
    I'm not sure I can make it any simpler.

    What I'm asking is whether it can be more likely than not incompatible with the ECHR, and yet for her to be confident it is compatible with international law.
    Potentially if the ECHR is itself incompatible with the Refugee Convention?
    You mean if the provisions of the ECHR were not considered to be part of international law?

    That does seem to be implied logically by what she is saying, but can she really be saying that?
    I'm thinking that it's a possible argument that the proposed Bill is compatible with the Refugee Convention and hence with "international law".

    This is probably a dubious argument, but it's the best I've come up with (not that I would pretend to be an expert).
    Well globally most people in civilised, western countries are not subject to the ECHR. EG Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply and all of them are subject to international laws and agreements.

    Meanwhile the ECHR is so robust it had Russia as a member at rhe start of 2022. Good job there, great job ensuring a free press, free speech and free elections and avoiding a fascist regime coming to power and everything else the convention was supposed to deal with.

    The ECHR is a failure and we could withdraw from it and still be an upstanding civilised nation subject to international law.

    However it is my understanding that unless and until we do, it is part of OUR international law even if its not a part of other nations international law.
    "Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply"

    Er, there's a rather different and more basic reason for that. They are not in Europe. The UK is.
    So what?

    Are human rights global and human? Or subject to an accident of geography?
    I was explaining to you *why* they were not subject to the ECHR. The result is a different matter.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,603
    edited March 2023
    HYUFD said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-64714201

    Interesting grammar school article, discussing how non grammar school kids perform worse than in areas without selection, while grammar schools remain the preserve of the middle class.

    Appalling article from the BBC there which I tweeted the journalist concerned to complain about.

    Completely ignored evidence from Bristol University that working class pupils get better GCSE results at grammar schools than pupils of similar ability do in comprehensive
    schools

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/working-class-pupils-do-better-at-grammars-phzzhwtj6vp
    I have not posted for a good few days now, and I didn't intend to for a while. However when @HYUFD dived in with his boots on to promote his idiotic Grammar School ideology, I bit.

    I don't know how many times I have engaged in a futile response to your demand for Grammar Schools, and it is a waste of my time and yours, so I really shouldn't bother, but when you attacked the BBC's Branwen Jeffries who is a genuine expert in the field of education and has been for decades, I decided I had to call you out. She provided decent evidence, which you ignored, and carefully selected your own (behind a paywall) evidence which didn't address her point.

    Her point was those failing the 11 plus in grammar school areas are left behind compared to those who attend schools in selective school areas.

    Over and out.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522
    Carnyx said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    WillG said:

    Chris said:

    Westie said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ground-breaking-new-laws-to-stop-the-boats

    "Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: (...) We must stop the boats. (...) It is completely unfair that people who travel through a string of safe countries then come to the UK illegally and abuse our asylum laws to avoid removal."

    Human rights law is for wimps, libtards, whiners, and the "elite", right? It's for trade unionists, lefty lawyers, cultural Marxists, and Remoaners. We know their type. Give 'em a chance and they always go on about human rights. They want those boats to keep coming here. Well enough is enough. From NOW.

    To be honest I just wonder whether people like Suella Braverman (and for that matter Rishi Sunak) have thought things through completely, if they have decided it's a good strategy for them to appeal to the anti-immigrant vote.
    What is incorrect about what she is saying?
    I'm not sure I can make it any simpler.

    What I'm asking is whether it can be more likely than not incompatible with the ECHR, and yet for her to be confident it is compatible with international law.
    Potentially if the ECHR is itself incompatible with the Refugee Convention?
    You mean if the provisions of the ECHR were not considered to be part of international law?

    That does seem to be implied logically by what she is saying, but can she really be saying that?
    I'm thinking that it's a possible argument that the proposed Bill is compatible with the Refugee Convention and hence with "international law".

    This is probably a dubious argument, but it's the best I've come up with (not that I would pretend to be an expert).
    Well globally most people in civilised, western countries are not subject to the ECHR. EG Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply and all of them are subject to international laws and agreements.

    Meanwhile the ECHR is so robust it had Russia as a member at rhe start of 2022. Good job there, great job ensuring a free press, free speech and free elections and avoiding a fascist regime coming to power and everything else the convention was supposed to deal with.

    The ECHR is a failure and we could withdraw from it and still be an upstanding civilised nation subject to international law.

    However it is my understanding that unless and until we do, it is part of OUR international law even if its not a part of other nations international law.
    "Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply"

    Er, there's a rather different and more basic reason for that. They are not in Europe. The UK is.
    Why are human rights in Europe special? On something like this shouldn't there be a global agreement?
  • Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    WillG said:

    Chris said:

    Westie said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ground-breaking-new-laws-to-stop-the-boats

    "Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: (...) We must stop the boats. (...) It is completely unfair that people who travel through a string of safe countries then come to the UK illegally and abuse our asylum laws to avoid removal."

    Human rights law is for wimps, libtards, whiners, and the "elite", right? It's for trade unionists, lefty lawyers, cultural Marxists, and Remoaners. We know their type. Give 'em a chance and they always go on about human rights. They want those boats to keep coming here. Well enough is enough. From NOW.

    To be honest I just wonder whether people like Suella Braverman (and for that matter Rishi Sunak) have thought things through completely, if they have decided it's a good strategy for them to appeal to the anti-immigrant vote.
    What is incorrect about what she is saying?
    I'm not sure I can make it any simpler.

    What I'm asking is whether it can be more likely than not incompatible with the ECHR, and yet for her to be confident it is compatible with international law.
    Potentially if the ECHR is itself incompatible with the Refugee Convention?
    You mean if the provisions of the ECHR were not considered to be part of international law?

    That does seem to be implied logically by what she is saying, but can she really be saying that?
    I'm thinking that it's a possible argument that the proposed Bill is compatible with the Refugee Convention and hence with "international law".

    This is probably a dubious argument, but it's the best I've come up with (not that I would pretend to be an expert).
    Well globally most people in civilised, western countries are not subject to the ECHR. EG Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply and all of them are subject to international laws and agreements.

    Meanwhile the ECHR is so robust it had Russia as a member at rhe start of 2022. Good job there, great job ensuring a free press, free speech and free elections and avoiding a fascist regime coming to power and everything else the convention was supposed to deal with.

    The ECHR is a failure and we could withdraw from it and still be an upstanding civilised nation subject to international law.

    However it is my understanding that unless and until we do, it is part of OUR international law even if its not a part of other nations international law.
    "Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply"

    Er, there's a rather different and more basic reason for that. They are not in Europe. The UK is.
    So what?

    Are human rights global and human? Or subject to an accident of geography?
    I was explaining to you *why* they were not subject to the ECHR. The result is immaterial.
    There is no good reason for human rights law to be settled on a European level so we are subject to the same rigorous standard as Moscow was at the start of 2022 but not the rest of the West's standard.

    The ECHR has failed in its duty and is superseded anyway by other global agreements on human rights. We shouldn't feel we need to be bound to it just because an accident of geography puts us on the same continental shelf as Moscow.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,169
    Driver said:

    WillG said:

    Scott_xP said:

    @guardian: Suella Braverman’s small boats crackdown is performative cruelty at its worst | Enver Solomon https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/07/suella-braverman-small-boats-crackdown-illegal-migrants-uk

    One paragraph in and the journalist is already lying. People are not fleeing persecution when they are coming from France.
    And the French say 'people are not fleeing persecution when they are coming from Italy'. And so on.
    France takes a lot more refugees/asylum seekers than we do.
    Which is why it would make sense to have an international agreement on sharing the burden/benefit. I consider myself very liberally minded on most matters, but logic tells me that if someone is fleeing persecution they should claim asylum in the first safe country they land in. Moving on from there they become economic migrants.

    If one were fleeing a gang of thugs one wouldn't pass several places of sanctuary in the desire to get to the one that had the most desirable armchair.
    Right, and that has to be the end-point, doesn't it, although one that's going to be difficult to reach with all the vested interests and voters' opinions getting in the way?

    Asylum must be claimed in the first safe country as a sign that the claim is legitimate, but all safe countries agree that would place an unfair burden on those that happen to be nearest to the countries that refugees are fleeing. There could even be a way in the sharing system for refugees who do have links to a particular country to request to be transferred there.
    And asylum seekers should be able to express a preference of country based on specific links such as family, religion or language. To take the analogy about running from thugs and stopping at the first house: yes, but you might well try to make it to your brother's house where you know you'll be looked after.

    Not to say that all preferences would always be granted - otherwise everyone arriving in Europe would end up in Germany. But it makes sense from an integration and support perspective that, for example, a native French speaker goes to France, someone with family in London comes to London, someone persecuted as a Yazidi ends up somewhere where there is a Yazidi community and so on.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766
    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    The Princess of Wales is now the most popular senior royal after the Queen's death according to a new RedfieldWilton poll.

    The Princess is on +52%, the Prince on +49%, the King on +27%, the Queen Consort on +1%, the Duke of Sussex on -22%, the Duchess of Sussex on -33% and the Duke of York on -53%

    https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1633105355797323777?t=L0OklURtvkVfr85_tnB2dg&s=19

    Nobody cares. Well I wish they didn't anyway. Vacuous nonsense.
    This wil interest you then?

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/23367199.king-invites-privileged-bodies-swear-loyalty-crown/

    ' LEADING cultural and educational institutions - including Scotland's ancient universities - have been invited by the King to swear loyalty to him.

    King Charles will received the so-called "privileged bodies” – a group of 27 organisations and corporations – which will present loyal addresses to the sovereign in person in the ballroom of Buckingham Palace on Thursday.

    Buckingham Palace said the privileged bodies are “culturally significant organisations and institutions that reflect the United Kingdom’s diverse society”.

    Drawn from the education, science, arts and religious sectors, those invited include the General Synod of the Church of England, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge as well as of Edinburgh, London, St Andrews, Glasgow and Aberdeen, the Bank of England, City of London Corporation, the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Military Knights of Windsor and the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales.

    The loyal addresses – in the form of a speech – serve to “emphasise and reaffirm their loyalty to the monarch”, the Palace said.'
    Funnily enough I don't find that too objectionable. It is a tradition that goes back centuries I suspect, including when the Stewarts ruled over us. What I object to is smarmy obsequiousness; the celebrity culture of the Daily Express applied to the monarchy. Euch.
    Couldn't give a damn for which dynasty it was. It's all formalised obsequiousness. Think of the time and resources wasted on this.
    The world devoid of arcane and sometimes absurd tradition would be a very dull one. Why do university professors troop into graduation ceremonies or formal dinners in the style of a black mass? Why do we have Black Rod? Why do Americans put their hand on their heart and swear allegiance to an inanimate object?

    Chairman Mao would have approved of your sentiment though, and probably Pol Pot, oh and that German chap with the poor hairdresser.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited March 2023

    HYUFD said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-64714201

    Interesting grammar school article, discussing how non grammar school kids perform worse than in areas without selection, while grammar schools remain the preserve of the middle class.

    Appalling article from the BBC there which I tweeted the journalist concerned to complain about.

    Completely ignored evidence from Bristol University that working class pupils get better GCSE results at grammar schools than pupils of similar ability do in comprehensive
    schools

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/working-class-pupils-do-better-at-grammars-phzzhwtj6vp
    I have not posted for a good few days now, and I didn't intend to for a while. However when @HYUFD dived in with his boots on to promote his idiotic Grammar School ideology, I bit.

    I don't know how many times I have engaged in a futile response to your demand for Grammar Schools, and it is a waste of my time and yours, so I really shouldn't bother, but when you attacked the BBC's Branwen Jeffries who is a genuine expert in the field of education and has been for decades, I decided I had to call you out. She provided decent evidence, which you ignored, and carefully selected your own (behind a paywall) evidence which didn't address her point.

    Her point was those failing the 11 plus in grammar school areas are left behind compared to those who attend schools in non-grammar school areas.

    Over and out.
    And her second point is that remarkably few children from lower income families get into Grammar schools because of the games that are played by others to get admitted.

    taking my old school

    Deprived pupils

    3% in the school
    14% in the local authority

    A problem created by the school allowing pupils to travel in from as far away as Harrow on the Hill (20 miles by train) instead of taking in local pupils.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766
    Carnyx said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    WillG said:

    Chris said:

    Westie said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ground-breaking-new-laws-to-stop-the-boats

    "Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: (...) We must stop the boats. (...) It is completely unfair that people who travel through a string of safe countries then come to the UK illegally and abuse our asylum laws to avoid removal."

    Human rights law is for wimps, libtards, whiners, and the "elite", right? It's for trade unionists, lefty lawyers, cultural Marxists, and Remoaners. We know their type. Give 'em a chance and they always go on about human rights. They want those boats to keep coming here. Well enough is enough. From NOW.

    To be honest I just wonder whether people like Suella Braverman (and for that matter Rishi Sunak) have thought things through completely, if they have decided it's a good strategy for them to appeal to the anti-immigrant vote.
    What is incorrect about what she is saying?
    I'm not sure I can make it any simpler.

    What I'm asking is whether it can be more likely than not incompatible with the ECHR, and yet for her to be confident it is compatible with international law.
    Potentially if the ECHR is itself incompatible with the Refugee Convention?
    You mean if the provisions of the ECHR were not considered to be part of international law?

    That does seem to be implied logically by what she is saying, but can she really be saying that?
    I'm thinking that it's a possible argument that the proposed Bill is compatible with the Refugee Convention and hence with "international law".

    This is probably a dubious argument, but it's the best I've come up with (not that I would pretend to be an expert).
    Well globally most people in civilised, western countries are not subject to the ECHR. EG Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply and all of them are subject to international laws and agreements.

    Meanwhile the ECHR is so robust it had Russia as a member at rhe start of 2022. Good job there, great job ensuring a free press, free speech and free elections and avoiding a fascist regime coming to power and everything else the convention was supposed to deal with.

    The ECHR is a failure and we could withdraw from it and still be an upstanding civilised nation subject to international law.

    However it is my understanding that unless and until we do, it is part of OUR international law even if its not a part of other nations international law.
    "Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply"

    Er, there's a rather different and more basic reason for that. They are not in Europe. The UK is.
    The UK was also one of the original architects of it and a signatory
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,169

    Carnyx said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    WillG said:

    Chris said:

    Westie said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ground-breaking-new-laws-to-stop-the-boats

    "Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: (...) We must stop the boats. (...) It is completely unfair that people who travel through a string of safe countries then come to the UK illegally and abuse our asylum laws to avoid removal."

    Human rights law is for wimps, libtards, whiners, and the "elite", right? It's for trade unionists, lefty lawyers, cultural Marxists, and Remoaners. We know their type. Give 'em a chance and they always go on about human rights. They want those boats to keep coming here. Well enough is enough. From NOW.

    To be honest I just wonder whether people like Suella Braverman (and for that matter Rishi Sunak) have thought things through completely, if they have decided it's a good strategy for them to appeal to the anti-immigrant vote.
    What is incorrect about what she is saying?
    I'm not sure I can make it any simpler.

    What I'm asking is whether it can be more likely than not incompatible with the ECHR, and yet for her to be confident it is compatible with international law.
    Potentially if the ECHR is itself incompatible with the Refugee Convention?
    You mean if the provisions of the ECHR were not considered to be part of international law?

    That does seem to be implied logically by what she is saying, but can she really be saying that?
    I'm thinking that it's a possible argument that the proposed Bill is compatible with the Refugee Convention and hence with "international law".

    This is probably a dubious argument, but it's the best I've come up with (not that I would pretend to be an expert).
    Well globally most people in civilised, western countries are not subject to the ECHR. EG Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply and all of them are subject to international laws and agreements.

    Meanwhile the ECHR is so robust it had Russia as a member at rhe start of 2022. Good job there, great job ensuring a free press, free speech and free elections and avoiding a fascist regime coming to power and everything else the convention was supposed to deal with.

    The ECHR is a failure and we could withdraw from it and still be an upstanding civilised nation subject to international law.

    However it is my understanding that unless and until we do, it is part of OUR international law even if its not a part of other nations international law.
    "Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply"

    Er, there's a rather different and more basic reason for that. They are not in Europe. The UK is.
    The UK was also one of the original architects of it and a signatory
    Thankfully I think we've moved on in recent weeks from the whole pointless gestures to own the Europeans thing. Ain't going to happen, hence why even Braverman isn't talking about pulling out anymore.
  • Carnyx said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    WillG said:

    Chris said:

    Westie said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ground-breaking-new-laws-to-stop-the-boats

    "Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: (...) We must stop the boats. (...) It is completely unfair that people who travel through a string of safe countries then come to the UK illegally and abuse our asylum laws to avoid removal."

    Human rights law is for wimps, libtards, whiners, and the "elite", right? It's for trade unionists, lefty lawyers, cultural Marxists, and Remoaners. We know their type. Give 'em a chance and they always go on about human rights. They want those boats to keep coming here. Well enough is enough. From NOW.

    To be honest I just wonder whether people like Suella Braverman (and for that matter Rishi Sunak) have thought things through completely, if they have decided it's a good strategy for them to appeal to the anti-immigrant vote.
    What is incorrect about what she is saying?
    I'm not sure I can make it any simpler.

    What I'm asking is whether it can be more likely than not incompatible with the ECHR, and yet for her to be confident it is compatible with international law.
    Potentially if the ECHR is itself incompatible with the Refugee Convention?
    You mean if the provisions of the ECHR were not considered to be part of international law?

    That does seem to be implied logically by what she is saying, but can she really be saying that?
    I'm thinking that it's a possible argument that the proposed Bill is compatible with the Refugee Convention and hence with "international law".

    This is probably a dubious argument, but it's the best I've come up with (not that I would pretend to be an expert).
    Well globally most people in civilised, western countries are not subject to the ECHR. EG Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply and all of them are subject to international laws and agreements.

    Meanwhile the ECHR is so robust it had Russia as a member at rhe start of 2022. Good job there, great job ensuring a free press, free speech and free elections and avoiding a fascist regime coming to power and everything else the convention was supposed to deal with.

    The ECHR is a failure and we could withdraw from it and still be an upstanding civilised nation subject to international law.

    However it is my understanding that unless and until we do, it is part of OUR international law even if its not a part of other nations international law.
    "Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply"

    Er, there's a rather different and more basic reason for that. They are not in Europe. The UK is.
    The UK was also one of the original architects of it and a signatory
    Indeed. And when it was originally designed it was originally supposed to be a Convention enforced domestically, not via an international Court that was so rigorous it had Russia as a full member 14 months ago.

    Personally I wouldn't have called the last Russian elections free and fair, or their free press, what about you? But the ECHR allowed them to be full members and degenerate like that on their watch, with their seal of approval.

    The ECHR is a failure and should not be relied upon.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,719
    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-64714201

    Interesting grammar school article, discussing how non grammar school kids perform worse than in areas without selection, while grammar schools remain the preserve of the middle class.

    Appalling article from the BBC there which I tweeted the journalist concerned to complain about.

    Completely ignored evidence from Bristol University that working class pupils get better GCSE results at grammar schools than pupils of similar ability do in comprehensive
    schools

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/working-class-pupils-do-better-at-grammars-phzzhwtj6vp
    I have not posted for a good few days now, and I didn't intend to for a while. However when @HYUFD dived in with his boots on to promote his idiotic Grammar School ideology, I bit.

    I don't know how many times I have engaged in a futile response to your demand for Grammar Schools, and it is a waste of my time and yours, so I really shouldn't bother, but when you attacked the BBC's Branwen Jeffries who is a genuine expert in the field of education and has been for decades, I decided I had to call you out. She provided decent evidence, which you ignored, and carefully selected your own (behind a paywall) evidence which didn't address her point.

    Her point was those failing the 11 plus in grammar school areas are left behind compared to those who attend schools in non-grammar school areas.

    Over and out.
    And her second point is that remarkably few children from lower income families get into Grammar schools because of the games that are played by others to get admitted.

    taking my old school

    Deprived pupils

    3% in the school
    14% in the local authority

    A problem created by the school allowing pupils to travel in from as far away as Harrow on the Hill (20 miles by train) instead of taking in local pupils.
    As even the article states the King Edward VI grammars in Birmingham take 25% from low income families
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,169

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    The Princess of Wales is now the most popular senior royal after the Queen's death according to a new RedfieldWilton poll.

    The Princess is on +52%, the Prince on +49%, the King on +27%, the Queen Consort on +1%, the Duke of Sussex on -22%, the Duchess of Sussex on -33% and the Duke of York on -53%

    https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1633105355797323777?t=L0OklURtvkVfr85_tnB2dg&s=19

    Nobody cares. Well I wish they didn't anyway. Vacuous nonsense.
    This wil interest you then?

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/23367199.king-invites-privileged-bodies-swear-loyalty-crown/

    ' LEADING cultural and educational institutions - including Scotland's ancient universities - have been invited by the King to swear loyalty to him.

    King Charles will received the so-called "privileged bodies” – a group of 27 organisations and corporations – which will present loyal addresses to the sovereign in person in the ballroom of Buckingham Palace on Thursday.

    Buckingham Palace said the privileged bodies are “culturally significant organisations and institutions that reflect the United Kingdom’s diverse society”.

    Drawn from the education, science, arts and religious sectors, those invited include the General Synod of the Church of England, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge as well as of Edinburgh, London, St Andrews, Glasgow and Aberdeen, the Bank of England, City of London Corporation, the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Military Knights of Windsor and the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales.

    The loyal addresses – in the form of a speech – serve to “emphasise and reaffirm their loyalty to the monarch”, the Palace said.'
    Funnily enough I don't find that too objectionable. It is a tradition that goes back centuries I suspect, including when the Stewarts ruled over us. What I object to is smarmy obsequiousness; the celebrity culture of the Daily Express applied to the monarchy. Euch.
    Couldn't give a damn for which dynasty it was. It's all formalised obsequiousness. Think of the time and resources wasted on this.
    The world devoid of arcane and sometimes absurd tradition would be a very dull one. Why do university professors troop into graduation ceremonies or formal dinners in the style of a black mass? Why do we have Black Rod? Why do Americans put their hand on their heart and swear allegiance to an inanimate object?

    Chairman Mao would have approved of your sentiment though, and probably Pol Pot, oh and that German chap with the poor hairdresser.
    I agree with that. I was at a very traditional dinner last week with one of those London "worshipful companies" - the first black tie event I've been to in many years. It was full of old fashioned traditions including lots of banging of hammers, archaic language and people with odd titles wearing funny badges. All with a pretty diverse and multicultural clientele. It was very fun and much more memorable than a sit down meal in smart casual in a comfortable restaurant would have been.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,725
    Latest red wall poll

    Lab 51
    Con 29

    Redfield W
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,719

    HYUFD said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-64714201

    Interesting grammar school article, discussing how non grammar school kids perform worse than in areas without selection, while grammar schools remain the preserve of the middle class.

    Appalling article from the BBC there which I tweeted the journalist concerned to complain about.

    Completely ignored evidence from Bristol University that working class pupils get better GCSE results at grammar schools than pupils of similar ability do in comprehensive
    schools

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/working-class-pupils-do-better-at-grammars-phzzhwtj6vp
    I have not posted for a good few days now, and I didn't intend to for a while. However when @HYUFD dived in with his boots on to promote his idiotic Grammar School ideology, I bit.

    I don't know how many times I have engaged in a futile response to your demand for Grammar Schools, and it is a waste of my time and yours, so I really shouldn't bother, but when you attacked the BBC's Branwen Jeffries who is a genuine expert in the field of education and has been for decades, I decided I had to call you out. She provided decent evidence, which you ignored, and carefully selected your own (behind a paywall) evidence which didn't address her point.

    Her point was those failing the 11 plus in grammar school areas are left behind compared to those who attend schools in selective school areas.

    Over and out.
    No she put together a largely anti grammar school article which ignored the Bristol University research bright working class pupils do better in grammars than comprehensives.

    I complained to her on twitter that as
    a Tory, grammar school supporter I did not expect my license fee to be used to fund leftwing, anti grammar propaganda. She then tweeted me back at least
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    RobD said:

    National grid, for the first time, is to fire up 2 coal plants to keep the lights on

    Cold weather often becalms wind power which I believe is an issue at present

    Amazing to believe they've managed with only one in the decades previous. :smiley:
    It is an excellent form of energy, we should use a lot more of it - dig for victory.
    One of the worst forms, I think only burning oil would be worse.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,725

    Latest red wall poll

    Lab 51
    Con 29

    Redfield W

    Lab wins all 40 seats included
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,590
    edited March 2023
    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-64714201

    Interesting grammar school article, discussing how non grammar school kids perform worse than in areas without selection, while grammar schools remain the preserve of the middle class.

    Appalling article from the BBC there which I tweeted the journalist concerned to complain about.

    Completely ignored evidence from Bristol University that working class pupils get better GCSE results at grammar schools than pupils of similar ability do in comprehensive
    schools

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/working-class-pupils-do-better-at-grammars-phzzhwtj6vp
    I have not posted for a good few days now, and I didn't intend to for a while. However when @HYUFD dived in with his boots on to promote his idiotic Grammar School ideology, I bit.

    I don't know how many times I have engaged in a futile response to your demand for Grammar Schools, and it is a waste of my time and yours, so I really shouldn't bother, but when you attacked the BBC's Branwen Jeffries who is a genuine expert in the field of education and has been for decades, I decided I had to call you out. She provided decent evidence, which you ignored, and carefully selected your own (behind a paywall) evidence which didn't address her point.

    Her point was those failing the 11 plus in grammar school areas are left behind compared to those who attend schools in non-grammar school areas.

    Over and out.
    And her second point is that remarkably few children from lower income families get into Grammar schools because of the games that are played by others to get admitted.

    taking my old school

    Deprived pupils

    3% in the school
    14% in the local authority

    A problem created by the school allowing pupils to travel in from as far away as Harrow on the Hill (20 miles by train) instead of taking in local pupils.
    As even the article states the King Edward VI grammars in Birmingham take 25% from low income families
    Unlike the great majority of grammar schools in the country.
    Only those, like KEGS, that have specific policies which make special provision for pupils from poorer backgrounds deviate from that pattern; most don't.

    As the article explains.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Eddie the Eagle slags off Jiří Malec.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,303

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kamski said:

    HYUFD said:

    kamski said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes:
    - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now
    - divorce went from 30% to 64%
    - casual sex from 12% to 42%
    - abortion from 20% to 48%




    https://twitter.com/bobbyduffykings/status/1633021565099966471?s=46

    So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.

    That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
    Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.

    We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
    Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
    Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.

    Figures available here:
    https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV7.jsp
    Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
    What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
    Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
    This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
    I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
    What is it about casual sex that you object to?

    Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?

    Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?

    I suspect the latter

    Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
    But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business

    It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
    Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
    This just gets weirder. What course of action “delivers most people happiness in the long term” - 3.4 sexual partners in a lifetime followed by a faithful marriage where the sex dies in your 40s but you still chat? Is that better? Better in what way? Better for whom?

    Any answer will sound mad, at best, because it is mad. Human life is infinitely various, thank god, big no thanks to the lefty Anti Sex league.

    Orwell skewered the Puritanism in the left superbly. The Khmer Rouge hated sex as well. Tried to stop it. Literally
    @Leon A man who spends a lot of his time travelling around the world for fancy food and lots of casual sex. Yet also spends a considerable amount of time telling random strangers on the internet just how much fun he has doing it. Why would someone spend so much time boasting about such trivialities?

    Perhaps to try and give meaning to things which are utterly meaningless. You quote Martin Amis, I'll quote Marcus from Bad Santa:

    "Your soul is dog sh*t. Every single thing about you is ugly."


    You are labouring under the severe misapprehension that “travelling around the world”
    eating “fancy food” and having “lots of casual sex” is a “triviality” when it comes to human happiness

    I sometimes hate saying LOL

    But LOL
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,468
    edited March 2023
    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-64714201

    Interesting grammar school article, discussing how non grammar school kids perform worse than in areas without selection, while grammar schools remain the preserve of the middle class.

    Appalling article from the BBC there which I tweeted the journalist concerned to complain about.

    Completely ignored evidence from Bristol University that working class pupils get better GCSE results at grammar schools than pupils of similar ability do in comprehensive
    schools

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/working-class-pupils-do-better-at-grammars-phzzhwtj6vp
    I have not posted for a good few days now, and I didn't intend to for a while. However when @HYUFD dived in with his boots on to promote his idiotic Grammar School ideology, I bit.

    I don't know how many times I have engaged in a futile response to your demand for Grammar Schools, and it is a waste of my time and yours, so I really shouldn't bother, but when you attacked the BBC's Branwen Jeffries who is a genuine expert in the field of education and has been for decades, I decided I had to call you out. She provided decent evidence, which you ignored, and carefully selected your own (behind a paywall) evidence which didn't address her point.

    Her point was those failing the 11 plus in grammar school areas are left behind compared to those who attend schools in non-grammar school areas.

    Over and out.
    And her second point is that remarkably few children from lower income families get into Grammar schools because of the games that are played by others to get admitted.

    taking my old school

    Deprived pupils

    3% in the school
    14% in the local authority

    A problem created by the school allowing pupils to travel in from as far away as Harrow on the Hill (20 miles by train) instead of taking in local pupils.
    Although it is going back donkey's years the same applied when I went to school. I lived in a much poorer area than most of the catchment for the Grammar school which had a lot of wealthy areas. Only 1 person went to the Grammar school from the ward I lived in, in my year, with many many going from the wealthier wards. Once we got to the 6th form and the bias of tutoring primary school pupils was no longer applicable about 10 of us transferred to the Grammar school from my ward. Many more from other poorer area. None from wealthy areas as far as I can remember.

    The sad thing is the damage done by this type of biased selection as well as not taking into account youngsters develop at different stages and different rates. Lots of the Grammar school kids dropped out with hardly any O levels who had been pushed beyond their capability and a lot of my friends who were quite capable didn't transfer with me to the Grammar school as they were indoctrinated by this point that they should leave school and go out to work. Many would have easily coped with the A levels and then University and several eventually did get Engineering degrees with BAC (later British Aerospace) the major local employer, but many must have missed out.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,789
    @Tsihanouskaya
    I admire @BorisJohnson's brave actions for Ukraine. Today I asked him to support Free Belarus too & shared how Belarusians help Ukraine. We discussed the recent partisan attack on a Russian aircraft & Belarusian fighters' bravery in Ukraine. We’ll work together to support them.


    https://twitter.com/Tsihanouskaya/status/1633149370315993089
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    Carnyx said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    WillG said:

    Chris said:

    Westie said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ground-breaking-new-laws-to-stop-the-boats

    "Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: (...) We must stop the boats. (...) It is completely unfair that people who travel through a string of safe countries then come to the UK illegally and abuse our asylum laws to avoid removal."

    Human rights law is for wimps, libtards, whiners, and the "elite", right? It's for trade unionists, lefty lawyers, cultural Marxists, and Remoaners. We know their type. Give 'em a chance and they always go on about human rights. They want those boats to keep coming here. Well enough is enough. From NOW.

    To be honest I just wonder whether people like Suella Braverman (and for that matter Rishi Sunak) have thought things through completely, if they have decided it's a good strategy for them to appeal to the anti-immigrant vote.
    What is incorrect about what she is saying?
    I'm not sure I can make it any simpler.

    What I'm asking is whether it can be more likely than not incompatible with the ECHR, and yet for her to be confident it is compatible with international law.
    Potentially if the ECHR is itself incompatible with the Refugee Convention?
    You mean if the provisions of the ECHR were not considered to be part of international law?

    That does seem to be implied logically by what she is saying, but can she really be saying that?
    I'm thinking that it's a possible argument that the proposed Bill is compatible with the Refugee Convention and hence with "international law".

    This is probably a dubious argument, but it's the best I've come up with (not that I would pretend to be an expert).
    Well globally most people in civilised, western countries are not subject to the ECHR. EG Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply and all of them are subject to international laws and agreements.

    Meanwhile the ECHR is so robust it had Russia as a member at rhe start of 2022. Good job there, great job ensuring a free press, free speech and free elections and avoiding a fascist regime coming to power and everything else the convention was supposed to deal with.

    The ECHR is a failure and we could withdraw from it and still be an upstanding civilised nation subject to international law.

    However it is my understanding that unless and until we do, it is part of OUR international law even if its not a part of other nations international law.
    "Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply"

    Er, there's a rather different and more basic reason for that. They are not in Europe. The UK is.
    The UK was also one of the original architects of it and a signatory
    Indeed. And when it was originally designed it was originally supposed to be a Convention enforced domestically, not via an international Court that was so rigorous it had Russia as a full member 14 months ago.

    Personally I wouldn't have called the last Russian elections free and fair, or their free press, what about you? But the ECHR allowed them to be full members and degenerate like that on their watch, with their seal of approval.

    The ECHR is a failure and should not be relied upon.
    The reason we joined, and drafted, the ECHR was to set an example to the rest of Europe that had recently succumbed to barbarism.

    However, given withdrawing from it will remove the unwarranted protections afforded to private property afforded by Protocol 1, Article 1 of the ECHR, allowing a future government to appropriate the land and property of the idle classes without compensation and redistribute it to the workers, then I would be in favour.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    Latest red wall poll

    Lab 51
    Con 29

    Redfield W

    Sure you've got that the right way round?
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kamski said:

    HYUFD said:

    kamski said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes:
    - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now
    - divorce went from 30% to 64%
    - casual sex from 12% to 42%
    - abortion from 20% to 48%




    https://twitter.com/bobbyduffykings/status/1633021565099966471?s=46

    So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.

    That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
    Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.

    We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
    Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
    Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.

    Figures available here:
    https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV7.jsp
    Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
    What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
    Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
    This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
    I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
    What is it about casual sex that you object to?

    Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?

    Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?

    I suspect the latter

    Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
    But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business

    It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
    Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
    This just gets weirder. What course of action “delivers most people happiness in the long term” - 3.4 sexual partners in a lifetime followed by a faithful marriage where the sex dies in your 40s but you still chat? Is that better? Better in what way? Better for whom?

    Any answer will sound mad, at best, because it is mad. Human life is infinitely various, thank god, big no thanks to the lefty Anti Sex league.

    Orwell skewered the Puritanism in the left superbly. The Khmer Rouge hated sex as well. Tried to stop it. Literally
    @Leon A man who spends a lot of his time travelling around the world for fancy food and lots of casual sex. Yet also spends a considerable amount of time telling random strangers on the internet just how much fun he has doing it. Why would someone spend so much time boasting about such trivialities?

    Perhaps to try and give meaning to things which are utterly meaningless. You quote Martin Amis, I'll quote Marcus from Bad Santa:

    "Your soul is dog sh*t. Every single thing about you is ugly."


    Post of the month.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,303

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kamski said:

    HYUFD said:

    kamski said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes:
    - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now
    - divorce went from 30% to 64%
    - casual sex from 12% to 42%
    - abortion from 20% to 48%




    https://twitter.com/bobbyduffykings/status/1633021565099966471?s=46

    So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.

    That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
    Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.

    We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
    Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
    Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.

    Figures available here:
    https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV7.jsp
    Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
    What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
    Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
    This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
    I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
    What is it about casual sex that you object to?

    Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?

    Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?

    I suspect the latter

    Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
    But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business

    It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
    Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
    This just gets weirder. What course of action “delivers most people happiness in the long term” - 3.4 sexual partners in a lifetime followed by a faithful marriage where the sex dies in your 40s but you still chat? Is that better? Better in what way? Better for whom?

    Any answer will sound mad, at best, because it is mad. Human life is infinitely various, thank god, big no thanks to the lefty Anti Sex league.

    Orwell skewered the Puritanism in the left superbly. The Khmer Rouge hated sex as well. Tried to stop it. Literally
    @Leon A man who spends a lot of his time travelling around the world for fancy food and lots of casual sex. Yet also spends a considerable amount of time telling random strangers on the internet just how much fun he has doing it. Why would someone spend so much time boasting about such trivialities?

    Perhaps to try and give meaning to things which are utterly meaningless. You quote Martin Amis, I'll quote Marcus from Bad Santa:

    "Your soul is dog sh*t. Every single thing about you is ugly."


    Post of the month.
    Mate. You’re in SWEDEN
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,631

    Carnyx said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    WillG said:

    Chris said:

    Westie said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ground-breaking-new-laws-to-stop-the-boats

    "Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: (...) We must stop the boats. (...) It is completely unfair that people who travel through a string of safe countries then come to the UK illegally and abuse our asylum laws to avoid removal."

    Human rights law is for wimps, libtards, whiners, and the "elite", right? It's for trade unionists, lefty lawyers, cultural Marxists, and Remoaners. We know their type. Give 'em a chance and they always go on about human rights. They want those boats to keep coming here. Well enough is enough. From NOW.

    To be honest I just wonder whether people like Suella Braverman (and for that matter Rishi Sunak) have thought things through completely, if they have decided it's a good strategy for them to appeal to the anti-immigrant vote.
    What is incorrect about what she is saying?
    I'm not sure I can make it any simpler.

    What I'm asking is whether it can be more likely than not incompatible with the ECHR, and yet for her to be confident it is compatible with international law.
    Potentially if the ECHR is itself incompatible with the Refugee Convention?
    You mean if the provisions of the ECHR were not considered to be part of international law?

    That does seem to be implied logically by what she is saying, but can she really be saying that?
    I'm thinking that it's a possible argument that the proposed Bill is compatible with the Refugee Convention and hence with "international law".

    This is probably a dubious argument, but it's the best I've come up with (not that I would pretend to be an expert).
    Well globally most people in civilised, western countries are not subject to the ECHR. EG Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply and all of them are subject to international laws and agreements.

    Meanwhile the ECHR is so robust it had Russia as a member at rhe start of 2022. Good job there, great job ensuring a free press, free speech and free elections and avoiding a fascist regime coming to power and everything else the convention was supposed to deal with.

    The ECHR is a failure and we could withdraw from it and still be an upstanding civilised nation subject to international law.

    However it is my understanding that unless and until we do, it is part of OUR international law even if its not a part of other nations international law.
    "Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply"

    Er, there's a rather different and more basic reason for that. They are not in Europe. The UK is.
    So what?

    Are human rights global and human? Or subject to an accident of geography?
    You forgot the option fiction which is exactly what they are and countries will drop them like any so called right like a hot potato when it becomes to inconvenient.

    In truth the only human right is the right to die....the one thing no government can take from you on a whim
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    TimS said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    The Princess of Wales is now the most popular senior royal after the Queen's death according to a new RedfieldWilton poll.

    The Princess is on +52%, the Prince on +49%, the King on +27%, the Queen Consort on +1%, the Duke of Sussex on -22%, the Duchess of Sussex on -33% and the Duke of York on -53%

    https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1633105355797323777?t=L0OklURtvkVfr85_tnB2dg&s=19

    Nobody cares. Well I wish they didn't anyway. Vacuous nonsense.
    This wil interest you then?

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/23367199.king-invites-privileged-bodies-swear-loyalty-crown/

    ' LEADING cultural and educational institutions - including Scotland's ancient universities - have been invited by the King to swear loyalty to him.

    King Charles will received the so-called "privileged bodies” – a group of 27 organisations and corporations – which will present loyal addresses to the sovereign in person in the ballroom of Buckingham Palace on Thursday.

    Buckingham Palace said the privileged bodies are “culturally significant organisations and institutions that reflect the United Kingdom’s diverse society”.

    Drawn from the education, science, arts and religious sectors, those invited include the General Synod of the Church of England, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge as well as of Edinburgh, London, St Andrews, Glasgow and Aberdeen, the Bank of England, City of London Corporation, the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Military Knights of Windsor and the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales.

    The loyal addresses – in the form of a speech – serve to “emphasise and reaffirm their loyalty to the monarch”, the Palace said.'
    Funnily enough I don't find that too objectionable. It is a tradition that goes back centuries I suspect, including when the Stewarts ruled over us. What I object to is smarmy obsequiousness; the celebrity culture of the Daily Express applied to the monarchy. Euch.
    Couldn't give a damn for which dynasty it was. It's all formalised obsequiousness. Think of the time and resources wasted on this.
    The world devoid of arcane and sometimes absurd tradition would be a very dull one. Why do university professors troop into graduation ceremonies or formal dinners in the style of a black mass? Why do we have Black Rod? Why do Americans put their hand on their heart and swear allegiance to an inanimate object?

    Chairman Mao would have approved of your sentiment though, and probably Pol Pot, oh and that German chap with the poor hairdresser.
    I agree with that. I was at a very traditional dinner last week with one of those London "worshipful companies" - the first black tie event I've been to in many years. It was full of old fashioned traditions including lots of banging of hammers, archaic language and people with odd titles wearing funny badges. All with a pretty diverse and multicultural clientele. It was very fun and much more memorable than a sit down meal in smart casual in a comfortable restaurant would have been.
    I joined the City Solicitors Company two years ago to attend just that sort of dinner but have not yet been able to make one ;(
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    Driver said:

    Carnyx said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    WillG said:

    Chris said:

    Westie said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ground-breaking-new-laws-to-stop-the-boats

    "Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: (...) We must stop the boats. (...) It is completely unfair that people who travel through a string of safe countries then come to the UK illegally and abuse our asylum laws to avoid removal."

    Human rights law is for wimps, libtards, whiners, and the "elite", right? It's for trade unionists, lefty lawyers, cultural Marxists, and Remoaners. We know their type. Give 'em a chance and they always go on about human rights. They want those boats to keep coming here. Well enough is enough. From NOW.

    To be honest I just wonder whether people like Suella Braverman (and for that matter Rishi Sunak) have thought things through completely, if they have decided it's a good strategy for them to appeal to the anti-immigrant vote.
    What is incorrect about what she is saying?
    I'm not sure I can make it any simpler.

    What I'm asking is whether it can be more likely than not incompatible with the ECHR, and yet for her to be confident it is compatible with international law.
    Potentially if the ECHR is itself incompatible with the Refugee Convention?
    You mean if the provisions of the ECHR were not considered to be part of international law?

    That does seem to be implied logically by what she is saying, but can she really be saying that?
    I'm thinking that it's a possible argument that the proposed Bill is compatible with the Refugee Convention and hence with "international law".

    This is probably a dubious argument, but it's the best I've come up with (not that I would pretend to be an expert).
    Well globally most people in civilised, western countries are not subject to the ECHR. EG Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply and all of them are subject to international laws and agreements.

    Meanwhile the ECHR is so robust it had Russia as a member at rhe start of 2022. Good job there, great job ensuring a free press, free speech and free elections and avoiding a fascist regime coming to power and everything else the convention was supposed to deal with.

    The ECHR is a failure and we could withdraw from it and still be an upstanding civilised nation subject to international law.

    However it is my understanding that unless and until we do, it is part of OUR international law even if its not a part of other nations international law.
    "Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply"

    Er, there's a rather different and more basic reason for that. They are not in Europe. The UK is.
    Why are human rights in Europe special? On something like this shouldn't there be a global agreement?
    It was introduced because Europe had very recently succumbed to barbarism and the majority of countries therein wanted a joint agreement to try and ensure that civilisation would never again leave our shared home.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    Eddie the Eagle slags off Jiří Malec.
    How does that analogy even begin to work. The Guardian is Eddie the Eagle? You're comparing a newspaper to a country? WTF?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,719
    kjh said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-64714201

    Interesting grammar school article, discussing how non grammar school kids perform worse than in areas without selection, while grammar schools remain the preserve of the middle class.

    Appalling article from the BBC there which I tweeted the journalist concerned to complain about.

    Completely ignored evidence from Bristol University that working class pupils get better GCSE results at grammar schools than pupils of similar ability do in comprehensive
    schools

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/working-class-pupils-do-better-at-grammars-phzzhwtj6vp
    I have not posted for a good few days now, and I didn't intend to for a while. However when @HYUFD dived in with his boots on to promote his idiotic Grammar School ideology, I bit.

    I don't know how many times I have engaged in a futile response to your demand for Grammar Schools, and it is a waste of my time and yours, so I really shouldn't bother, but when you attacked the BBC's Branwen Jeffries who is a genuine expert in the field of education and has been for decades, I decided I had to call you out. She provided decent evidence, which you ignored, and carefully selected your own (behind a paywall) evidence which didn't address her point.

    Her point was those failing the 11 plus in grammar school areas are left behind compared to those who attend schools in non-grammar school areas.

    Over and out.
    And her second point is that remarkably few children from lower income families get into Grammar schools because of the games that are played by others to get admitted.

    taking my old school

    Deprived pupils

    3% in the school
    14% in the local authority

    A problem created by the school allowing pupils to travel in from as far away as Harrow on the Hill (20 miles by train) instead of taking in local pupils.
    Although it is going back donkey's years the same applied when I went to school. I lived in a much poorer area than most of the catchment for the Grammar school which had a lot of wealthy areas. Only 1 person went to the Grammar school from the ward I lived in, in my year, with many many going from the wealthier wards. Once we got to the 6th form and the bias of tutoring primary school pupils was no longer applicable about 10 of us transferred to the Grammar school from my ward. Many more from other poorer area. None from wealthy areas as far as I can remember.

    The sad thing is the damage done by this type of biased selection as well as not taking into account youngsters develop at different stages and different rates. Lots of the Grammar school kids dropped out with hardly any O levels who had been pushed beyond their capability and a lot of my friends who were quite capable didn't transfer with me to the Grammar school as they were indoctrinated by this point that they should leave school and go out to work. Many would have easily coped with the A levels and then University and several eventually did get Engineering degrees with BAC (later British Aerospace) the major local employer, but many must have missed out.
    When we had more grammar schools we had more judges, PMs, senior army officers, CEOs, top professors, permanent secretaries and surgeons from state schools than we do now.

    The damage was done removing most of them, not the reverse
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,590
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Step by step, the people of the UK are being prepared for war.

    "Britain should engage directly in war against Russia ,we are at war in Europe, we need to move to martial law"

    -Tobias Ellwood, head of the British parliament's defence committee.


    https://twitter.com/ricwe123/status/1632870765115629568?s=46

    Duck and cover plebs!
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522
    edited March 2023
    DougSeal said:

    Latest red wall poll

    Lab 51
    Con 29

    Redfield W

    Sure you've got that the right way round?
    That makes the Red Wall about as Labour and about 5 points more Tory than the country as a whole based on that pollster's recent GB VI polls. Taking into account the S & W nationalists it probably makes it a point or two less Labour and maybe 4 points more Tory than England. [edited to add: I've just spotted that the constituencies selected include at least one in Wales]

    In 2019 the selected constituencies were about 4 points more Tory and about 6 points more Labour than the country as a whole, so it looks like insofar as the Red Wall is swinging differently to the country as a whole, it's Labour > others (Reform?). And if that's right it has some logical implications for when the electorate shifts from midterm mode into election mode.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,684

    malcolmg said:

    HYUFD said:

    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    https://news.sky.com/story/rishi-sunaks-small-boats-plan-to-push-boundaries-of-international-law-12827674

    How the fuck is this going to work? How are these people supposed to claim asylum when they are no safe, legal routes to do so???

    I think that's the point. They can't. The idea is to stop the flow completely.
    A year ago we were told that the mere threat of Rwanda would stop the boats, yet here we are again. It is just performative cruelty as policy.

    At the same time we are fast tracking asylum claims from places thought to be legitimate:

    https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/government-fast-track-asylum-seekers/
    The latter policy (fast track) is sensible. People from countries like Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, Eritrea and the like will almost inevitably succeed in their asylum claims so why clog up the system with them? Conversely, claims from the likes of Albania have very poor prospects and should again be brought to a swift conclusion with action taken on removal.
    Why should they succeed, though?

    Are we obliged to take in anyone from any really poor/crap country who makes it to our shores. There are hundreds of millions of such people.

    On this I think the fundamentals of the question hinge.
    We cannot house all our own people. Sooner or later the "We are full up" sign will have to go up.
    But why can't we house everyone?

    It's not lack of land and it's not lack of money to buy bricks or pay builders.

    It's just that we don't want to build stuff. And that works less well as an excuse.
    This.

    The policy of not building houses to match population is institutionally racist, incidentally.
    Everything is racist if you can find an excuse for it to be so. Its more likely to be racist against the wwc.
    The main issue is probably old vs. young. Older WWC people who bought their council houses under Maggie are sitting relatively prettily.

    Does the UK's racial mix look different for young and old people?
    I think that the intersection of age and racial demographics are an underappreciated source of some of the political dynamics in this country. In a lot of ways the defining difference between Baby Boomers and Millenials or Gen Z is how racially diverse the latter groups are compared to the former. I think this helps to explain the lack of understanding, perhaps even lack of empathy, between the generations. It probably helps to account for the intensified political polarisation by age for one thing, as well as the politics of housing.
    Since race is not a very polarising political issue in this country (unlike America) I still think its housing, not race, that's the key issue in the UK.

    Thank goodness we aren't like America where everything boils down to race.
    As I already posted the vast majority in the UK as in the US own property, only in inner London like inner New York City do most rent.

    The difference in the UK has historically been class more than race.

    Though increasingly there is more of an age difference in both
    The fact that most own their property, because property was affordable when old people were young, is utterly irrelevant and not the killer point you think it is.

    Most young people should be able to afford a house. They can't. That's a problem and it needs solving urgently.
    YOu really are dumb, young people have always struggled to buy houses, it was mainlky social housing till Thatcher sold them off dirt cheap and caused the boom for Tory toffs to build up BTL portfolios and rip off the public purse. Just a transfer of the value of eth public housing stock to a handful of Tories.
    Young people have not always struggled to buy houses, relative to today, that is factually incorrect and betrays your ignorance.

    The BTL buildup that happened under Blair/Brown onwards is very problematic and needs addressing whether it be via taxation or failing that via extending Right to Buy to BTL tenants.
    Turnip head I was there , I know how hard it was.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    Step by step, the people of the UK are being prepared for war.

    "Britain should engage directly in war against Russia ,we are at war in Europe, we need to move to martial law"

    -Tobias Ellwood, head of the British parliament's defence committee.


    https://twitter.com/ricwe123/status/1632870765115629568?s=46

    Duck and cover plebs!

    Ellwood doesn't use the phrase "martial law" once in the clip you post. The quote is made up. It's almost as if you trawl twitter all day looking for any prick who'll support your warped worldview. Are the grenade attacks depressing the tourist trade in Gothenberg? Fewer people to show around so more time to sit in your pants staring at a screen?
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,684

    HYUFD said:

    Driver said:

    .

    malcolmg said:

    HYUFD said:

    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    https://news.sky.com/story/rishi-sunaks-small-boats-plan-to-push-boundaries-of-international-law-12827674

    How the fuck is this going to work? How are these people supposed to claim asylum when they are no safe, legal routes to do so???

    I think that's the point. They can't. The idea is to stop the flow completely.
    A year ago we were told that the mere threat of Rwanda would stop the boats, yet here we are again. It is just performative cruelty as policy.

    At the same time we are fast tracking asylum claims from places thought to be legitimate:

    https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/government-fast-track-asylum-seekers/
    The latter policy (fast track) is sensible. People from countries like Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, Eritrea and the like will almost inevitably succeed in their asylum claims so why clog up the system with them? Conversely, claims from the likes of Albania have very poor prospects and should again be brought to a swift conclusion with action taken on removal.
    Why should they succeed, though?

    Are we obliged to take in anyone from any really poor/crap country who makes it to our shores. There are hundreds of millions of such people.

    On this I think the fundamentals of the question hinge.
    We cannot house all our own people. Sooner or later the "We are full up" sign will have to go up.
    But why can't we house everyone?

    It's not lack of land and it's not lack of money to buy bricks or pay builders.

    It's just that we don't want to build stuff. And that works less well as an excuse.
    This.

    The policy of not building houses to match population is institutionally racist, incidentally.
    Everything is racist if you can find an excuse for it to be so. Its more likely to be racist against the wwc.
    The main issue is probably old vs. young. Older WWC people who bought their council houses under Maggie are sitting relatively prettily.

    Does the UK's racial mix look different for young and old people?
    I think that the intersection of age and racial demographics are an underappreciated source of some of the political dynamics in this country. In a lot of ways the defining difference between Baby Boomers and Millenials or Gen Z is how racially diverse the latter groups are compared to the former. I think this helps to explain the lack of understanding, perhaps even lack of empathy, between the generations. It probably helps to account for the intensified political polarisation by age for one thing, as well as the politics of housing.
    Since race is not a very polarising political issue in this country (unlike America) I still think its housing, not race, that's the key issue in the UK.

    Thank goodness we aren't like America where everything boils down to race.
    As I already posted the vast majority in the UK as in the US own property, only in inner London like inner New York City do most rent.

    The difference in the UK has historically been class more than race.

    Though increasingly there is more of an age difference in both
    The fact that most own their property, because property was affordable when old people were young, is utterly irrelevant and not the killer point you think it is.

    Most young people should be able to afford a house. They can't. That's a problem and it needs solving urgently.
    YOu really are dumb, young people have always struggled to buy houses, it was mainlky social housing till Thatcher sold them off dirt cheap and caused the boom for Tory toffs to build up BTL portfolios and rip off the public purse. Just a transfer of the value of eth public housing stock to a handful of Tories.
    Young people have not always struggled to buy houses, relative to today, that is factually incorrect and betrays your ignorance.

    The BTL buildup that happened under Blair/Brown onwards is very problematic and needs addressing whether it be via taxation or failing that via extending Right to Buy to BTL tenants.
    The BTL build up isn't the problem. It' the price of housing.
    BTL is in part driving the price of housing, though, is it not?
    It's more a side effect of the increasing prices. The classic is "he bought a flat in London, back in the day, she did the same". They get married, buy a house by extracting value, and rent out the flats. Because the rises in house prices make keeping property forever the best plan.

    The problem isn't really people owning and renting flats. It's the prices and the constrained supply meaning that every shitbox can be rented out, no matter how bad, at a high price.

    Imagine if the price of renting a house in the London suburbs was, say £250 a month for a 3 bedroom house. No one would give a shit about house prices/rents. Or who owned them.

    Rent vs Ownership - it's just pushing the same pile of beans about. What we need is a lot more beans.
    Again this is mainly a London problem and to a lesser extent a Home counties problem.

    Go north of Watford and property prices and rents are far cheaper (though even in parts of Outer London and the Home counties like Dagenham or Bexley or East Kent or South Essex outside Brentwood and Epping Forest property prices are far cheaper)
    St Albans is north of Watford.

    A three bed semi towards the edge of the city in the catchment area of one of the best state secondary schools is on the market for £1,150,000.

    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/132193331



    You would get at least 3 nice 4 bed detached's for that in God's country.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,590

    Step by step, the people of the UK are being prepared for war.

    "Britain should engage directly in war against Russia ,we are at war in Europe, we need to move to martial law"

    -Tobias Ellwood, head of the British parliament's defence committee.


    https://twitter.com/ricwe123/status/1632870765115629568?s=46

    Duck and cover plebs!

    Load of chuff.
    Elwood was the one who'd have put troops into Ukraine a year ago.
    So nothing has changed.
  • Listening to Sunak he certainly knows his detail as he did with the NIP in such a contrast to Johnson
  • DougSeal said:

    Step by step, the people of the UK are being prepared for war.

    "Britain should engage directly in war against Russia ,we are at war in Europe, we need to move to martial law"

    -Tobias Ellwood, head of the British parliament's defence committee.


    https://twitter.com/ricwe123/status/1632870765115629568?s=46

    Duck and cover plebs!

    Ellwood doesn't use the phrase "martial law" once in the clip you post. The quote is made up. It's almost as if you trawl twitter all day looking for any prick who'll support your warped worldview. Are the grenade attacks depressing the tourist trade in Gothenberg? Fewer people to show around so more time to sit in your pants staring at a screen?
    *looking for any OTHER prick
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,684
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    The Princess of Wales is now the most popular senior royal after the Queen's death according to a new RedfieldWilton poll.

    The Princess is on +52%, the Prince on +49%, the King on +27%, the Queen Consort on +1%, the Duke of Sussex on -22%, the Duchess of Sussex on -33% and the Duke of York on -53%

    https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1633105355797323777?t=L0OklURtvkVfr85_tnB2dg&s=19

    Nobody cares. Well I wish they didn't anyway. Vacuous nonsense.
    This wil interest you then?

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/23367199.king-invites-privileged-bodies-swear-loyalty-crown/

    ' LEADING cultural and educational institutions - including Scotland's ancient universities - have been invited by the King to swear loyalty to him.

    King Charles will received the so-called "privileged bodies” – a group of 27 organisations and corporations – which will present loyal addresses to the sovereign in person in the ballroom of Buckingham Palace on Thursday.

    Buckingham Palace said the privileged bodies are “culturally significant organisations and institutions that reflect the United Kingdom’s diverse society”.

    Drawn from the education, science, arts and religious sectors, those invited include the General Synod of the Church of England, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge as well as of Edinburgh, London, St Andrews, Glasgow and Aberdeen, the Bank of England, City of London Corporation, the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Military Knights of Windsor and the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales.

    The loyal addresses – in the form of a speech – serve to “emphasise and reaffirm their loyalty to the monarch”, the Palace said.'
    Pass the vomit buckets
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,169
    edited March 2023
    Are the Southerners here all looking forward to the snow tomorrow?

    (And South Midlanders, South Welsh and any hermits living up on Dartmoor)
  • malcolmg said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    The Princess of Wales is now the most popular senior royal after the Queen's death according to a new RedfieldWilton poll.

    The Princess is on +52%, the Prince on +49%, the King on +27%, the Queen Consort on +1%, the Duke of Sussex on -22%, the Duchess of Sussex on -33% and the Duke of York on -53%

    https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1633105355797323777?t=L0OklURtvkVfr85_tnB2dg&s=19

    Nobody cares. Well I wish they didn't anyway. Vacuous nonsense.
    This wil interest you then?

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/23367199.king-invites-privileged-bodies-swear-loyalty-crown/

    ' LEADING cultural and educational institutions - including Scotland's ancient universities - have been invited by the King to swear loyalty to him.

    King Charles will received the so-called "privileged bodies” – a group of 27 organisations and corporations – which will present loyal addresses to the sovereign in person in the ballroom of Buckingham Palace on Thursday.

    Buckingham Palace said the privileged bodies are “culturally significant organisations and institutions that reflect the United Kingdom’s diverse society”.

    Drawn from the education, science, arts and religious sectors, those invited include the General Synod of the Church of England, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge as well as of Edinburgh, London, St Andrews, Glasgow and Aberdeen, the Bank of England, City of London Corporation, the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Military Knights of Windsor and the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales.

    The loyal addresses – in the form of a speech – serve to “emphasise and reaffirm their loyalty to the monarch”, the Palace said.'
    Pass the vomit buckets
    It is an anachronism and increasingly past its sell by date
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522
    TimS said:

    Are the Southerners here all looking forward to the snow tomorrow?

    (And South Midlanders, South Welsh and any hermits living up on Dartmoor)

    Would be nice, but the forecast for here is for rain.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,842
    TimS said:

    Are the Southerners here all looking forward to the snow tomorrow?

    (And South Midlanders, South Welsh and any hermits living up on Dartmoor)

    Snow all melted in the sunlight today here. Got that grubby look now.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,684
    Driver said:

    TimS said:

    Are the Southerners here all looking forward to the snow tomorrow?

    (And South Midlanders, South Welsh and any hermits living up on Dartmoor)

    Would be nice, but the forecast for here is for rain.
    Be sunny like today and the last week for us.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-64714201

    Interesting grammar school article, discussing how non grammar school kids perform worse than in areas without selection, while grammar schools remain the preserve of the middle class.

    Appalling article from the BBC there which I tweeted the journalist concerned to complain about.

    Completely ignored evidence from Bristol University that working class pupils get better GCSE results at grammar schools than pupils of similar ability do in comprehensive
    schools

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/working-class-pupils-do-better-at-grammars-phzzhwtj6vp
    I have not posted for a good few days now, and I didn't intend to for a while. However when @HYUFD dived in with his boots on to promote his idiotic Grammar School ideology, I bit.

    I don't know how many times I have engaged in a futile response to your demand for Grammar Schools, and it is a waste of my time and yours, so I really shouldn't bother, but when you attacked the BBC's Branwen Jeffries who is a genuine expert in the field of education and has been for decades, I decided I had to call you out. She provided decent evidence, which you ignored, and carefully selected your own (behind a paywall) evidence which didn't address her point.

    Her point was those failing the 11 plus in grammar school areas are left behind compared to those who attend schools in selective school areas.

    Over and out.
    No she put together a largely anti grammar school article which ignored the Bristol University research bright working class pupils do better in grammars than comprehensives.

    I complained to her on twitter that as
    a Tory, grammar school supporter I did not expect my license fee to be used to fund leftwing, anti grammar propaganda. She then tweeted me back at least
    So a few very lucky children do better while the rest miss out.

    Show me an academic paper that shows ALL lower income pupils do better (on average) in areas with grammar schools and I may accept they are a good idea.

    But I bet you can't because it isn't the case and some people have been trying to prove that very fact for 40 years...
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,468
    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-64714201

    Interesting grammar school article, discussing how non grammar school kids perform worse than in areas without selection, while grammar schools remain the preserve of the middle class.

    Appalling article from the BBC there which I tweeted the journalist concerned to complain about.

    Completely ignored evidence from Bristol University that working class pupils get better GCSE results at grammar schools than pupils of similar ability do in comprehensive
    schools

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/working-class-pupils-do-better-at-grammars-phzzhwtj6vp
    I have not posted for a good few days now, and I didn't intend to for a while. However when @HYUFD dived in with his boots on to promote his idiotic Grammar School ideology, I bit.

    I don't know how many times I have engaged in a futile response to your demand for Grammar Schools, and it is a waste of my time and yours, so I really shouldn't bother, but when you attacked the BBC's Branwen Jeffries who is a genuine expert in the field of education and has been for decades, I decided I had to call you out. She provided decent evidence, which you ignored, and carefully selected your own (behind a paywall) evidence which didn't address her point.

    Her point was those failing the 11 plus in grammar school areas are left behind compared to those who attend schools in non-grammar school areas.

    Over and out.
    And her second point is that remarkably few children from lower income families get into Grammar schools because of the games that are played by others to get admitted.

    taking my old school

    Deprived pupils

    3% in the school
    14% in the local authority

    A problem created by the school allowing pupils to travel in from as far away as Harrow on the Hill (20 miles by train) instead of taking in local pupils.
    Although it is going back donkey's years the same applied when I went to school. I lived in a much poorer area than most of the catchment for the Grammar school which had a lot of wealthy areas. Only 1 person went to the Grammar school from the ward I lived in, in my year, with many many going from the wealthier wards. Once we got to the 6th form and the bias of tutoring primary school pupils was no longer applicable about 10 of us transferred to the Grammar school from my ward. Many more from other poorer area. None from wealthy areas as far as I can remember.

    The sad thing is the damage done by this type of biased selection as well as not taking into account youngsters develop at different stages and different rates. Lots of the Grammar school kids dropped out with hardly any O levels who had been pushed beyond their capability and a lot of my friends who were quite capable didn't transfer with me to the Grammar school as they were indoctrinated by this point that they should leave school and go out to work. Many would have easily coped with the A levels and then University and several eventually did get Engineering degrees with BAC (later British Aerospace) the major local employer, but many must have missed out.
    When we had more grammar schools we had more judges, PMs, senior army officers, CEOs, top professors, permanent secretaries and surgeons from state schools than we do now.

    The damage was done removing most of them, not the reverse
    At the cost of the vast majority of the kids who got dumped in rotten secondary moderns, in particular the poor kids, but hey ho keep privileges for the privileged.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,842
    malcolmg said:

    HYUFD said:

    Driver said:

    .

    malcolmg said:

    HYUFD said:

    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    https://news.sky.com/story/rishi-sunaks-small-boats-plan-to-push-boundaries-of-international-law-12827674

    How the fuck is this going to work? How are these people supposed to claim asylum when they are no safe, legal routes to do so???

    I think that's the point. They can't. The idea is to stop the flow completely.
    A year ago we were told that the mere threat of Rwanda would stop the boats, yet here we are again. It is just performative cruelty as policy.

    At the same time we are fast tracking asylum claims from places thought to be legitimate:

    https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/government-fast-track-asylum-seekers/
    The latter policy (fast track) is sensible. People from countries like Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, Eritrea and the like will almost inevitably succeed in their asylum claims so why clog up the system with them? Conversely, claims from the likes of Albania have very poor prospects and should again be brought to a swift conclusion with action taken on removal.
    Why should they succeed, though?

    Are we obliged to take in anyone from any really poor/crap country who makes it to our shores. There are hundreds of millions of such people.

    On this I think the fundamentals of the question hinge.
    We cannot house all our own people. Sooner or later the "We are full up" sign will have to go up.
    But why can't we house everyone?

    It's not lack of land and it's not lack of money to buy bricks or pay builders.

    It's just that we don't want to build stuff. And that works less well as an excuse.
    This.

    The policy of not building houses to match population is institutionally racist, incidentally.
    Everything is racist if you can find an excuse for it to be so. Its more likely to be racist against the wwc.
    The main issue is probably old vs. young. Older WWC people who bought their council houses under Maggie are sitting relatively prettily.

    Does the UK's racial mix look different for young and old people?
    I think that the intersection of age and racial demographics are an underappreciated source of some of the political dynamics in this country. In a lot of ways the defining difference between Baby Boomers and Millenials or Gen Z is how racially diverse the latter groups are compared to the former. I think this helps to explain the lack of understanding, perhaps even lack of empathy, between the generations. It probably helps to account for the intensified political polarisation by age for one thing, as well as the politics of housing.
    Since race is not a very polarising political issue in this country (unlike America) I still think its housing, not race, that's the key issue in the UK.

    Thank goodness we aren't like America where everything boils down to race.
    As I already posted the vast majority in the UK as in the US own property, only in inner London like inner New York City do most rent.

    The difference in the UK has historically been class more than race.

    Though increasingly there is more of an age difference in both
    The fact that most own their property, because property was affordable when old people were young, is utterly irrelevant and not the killer point you think it is.

    Most young people should be able to afford a house. They can't. That's a problem and it needs solving urgently.
    YOu really are dumb, young people have always struggled to buy houses, it was mainlky social housing till Thatcher sold them off dirt cheap and caused the boom for Tory toffs to build up BTL portfolios and rip off the public purse. Just a transfer of the value of eth public housing stock to a handful of Tories.
    Young people have not always struggled to buy houses, relative to today, that is factually incorrect and betrays your ignorance.

    The BTL buildup that happened under Blair/Brown onwards is very problematic and needs addressing whether it be via taxation or failing that via extending Right to Buy to BTL tenants.
    The BTL build up isn't the problem. It' the price of housing.
    BTL is in part driving the price of housing, though, is it not?
    It's more a side effect of the increasing prices. The classic is "he bought a flat in London, back in the day, she did the same". They get married, buy a house by extracting value, and rent out the flats. Because the rises in house prices make keeping property forever the best plan.

    The problem isn't really people owning and renting flats. It's the prices and the constrained supply meaning that every shitbox can be rented out, no matter how bad, at a high price.

    Imagine if the price of renting a house in the London suburbs was, say £250 a month for a 3 bedroom house. No one would give a shit about house prices/rents. Or who owned them.

    Rent vs Ownership - it's just pushing the same pile of beans about. What we need is a lot more beans.
    Again this is mainly a London problem and to a lesser extent a Home counties problem.

    Go north of Watford and property prices and rents are far cheaper (though even in parts of Outer London and the Home counties like Dagenham or Bexley or East Kent or South Essex outside Brentwood and Epping Forest property prices are far cheaper)
    St Albans is north of Watford.

    A three bed semi towards the edge of the city in the catchment area of one of the best state secondary schools is on the market for £1,150,000.

    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/132193331



    You would get at least 3 nice 4 bed detached's for that in God's country.
    Get a bloody street round here. With change.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522
    DougSeal said:

    Driver said:

    Carnyx said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    WillG said:

    Chris said:

    Westie said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ground-breaking-new-laws-to-stop-the-boats

    "Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: (...) We must stop the boats. (...) It is completely unfair that people who travel through a string of safe countries then come to the UK illegally and abuse our asylum laws to avoid removal."

    Human rights law is for wimps, libtards, whiners, and the "elite", right? It's for trade unionists, lefty lawyers, cultural Marxists, and Remoaners. We know their type. Give 'em a chance and they always go on about human rights. They want those boats to keep coming here. Well enough is enough. From NOW.

    To be honest I just wonder whether people like Suella Braverman (and for that matter Rishi Sunak) have thought things through completely, if they have decided it's a good strategy for them to appeal to the anti-immigrant vote.
    What is incorrect about what she is saying?
    I'm not sure I can make it any simpler.

    What I'm asking is whether it can be more likely than not incompatible with the ECHR, and yet for her to be confident it is compatible with international law.
    Potentially if the ECHR is itself incompatible with the Refugee Convention?
    You mean if the provisions of the ECHR were not considered to be part of international law?

    That does seem to be implied logically by what she is saying, but can she really be saying that?
    I'm thinking that it's a possible argument that the proposed Bill is compatible with the Refugee Convention and hence with "international law".

    This is probably a dubious argument, but it's the best I've come up with (not that I would pretend to be an expert).
    Well globally most people in civilised, western countries are not subject to the ECHR. EG Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply and all of them are subject to international laws and agreements.

    Meanwhile the ECHR is so robust it had Russia as a member at rhe start of 2022. Good job there, great job ensuring a free press, free speech and free elections and avoiding a fascist regime coming to power and everything else the convention was supposed to deal with.

    The ECHR is a failure and we could withdraw from it and still be an upstanding civilised nation subject to international law.

    However it is my understanding that unless and until we do, it is part of OUR international law even if its not a part of other nations international law.
    "Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply"

    Er, there's a rather different and more basic reason for that. They are not in Europe. The UK is.
    Why are human rights in Europe special? On something like this shouldn't there be a global agreement?
    It was introduced because Europe had very recently succumbed to barbarism and the majority of countries therein wanted a joint agreement to try and ensure that civilisation would never again leave our shared home.
    That was a very long time ago, is it still relevant in 2023?
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    dixiedean said:

    malcolmg said:

    HYUFD said:

    Driver said:

    .

    malcolmg said:

    HYUFD said:

    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    https://news.sky.com/story/rishi-sunaks-small-boats-plan-to-push-boundaries-of-international-law-12827674

    How the fuck is this going to work? How are these people supposed to claim asylum when they are no safe, legal routes to do so???

    I think that's the point. They can't. The idea is to stop the flow completely.
    A year ago we were told that the mere threat of Rwanda would stop the boats, yet here we are again. It is just performative cruelty as policy.

    At the same time we are fast tracking asylum claims from places thought to be legitimate:

    https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/government-fast-track-asylum-seekers/
    The latter policy (fast track) is sensible. People from countries like Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, Eritrea and the like will almost inevitably succeed in their asylum claims so why clog up the system with them? Conversely, claims from the likes of Albania have very poor prospects and should again be brought to a swift conclusion with action taken on removal.
    Why should they succeed, though?

    Are we obliged to take in anyone from any really poor/crap country who makes it to our shores. There are hundreds of millions of such people.

    On this I think the fundamentals of the question hinge.
    We cannot house all our own people. Sooner or later the "We are full up" sign will have to go up.
    But why can't we house everyone?

    It's not lack of land and it's not lack of money to buy bricks or pay builders.

    It's just that we don't want to build stuff. And that works less well as an excuse.
    This.

    The policy of not building houses to match population is institutionally racist, incidentally.
    Everything is racist if you can find an excuse for it to be so. Its more likely to be racist against the wwc.
    The main issue is probably old vs. young. Older WWC people who bought their council houses under Maggie are sitting relatively prettily.

    Does the UK's racial mix look different for young and old people?
    I think that the intersection of age and racial demographics are an underappreciated source of some of the political dynamics in this country. In a lot of ways the defining difference between Baby Boomers and Millenials or Gen Z is how racially diverse the latter groups are compared to the former. I think this helps to explain the lack of understanding, perhaps even lack of empathy, between the generations. It probably helps to account for the intensified political polarisation by age for one thing, as well as the politics of housing.
    Since race is not a very polarising political issue in this country (unlike America) I still think its housing, not race, that's the key issue in the UK.

    Thank goodness we aren't like America where everything boils down to race.
    As I already posted the vast majority in the UK as in the US own property, only in inner London like inner New York City do most rent.

    The difference in the UK has historically been class more than race.

    Though increasingly there is more of an age difference in both
    The fact that most own their property, because property was affordable when old people were young, is utterly irrelevant and not the killer point you think it is.

    Most young people should be able to afford a house. They can't. That's a problem and it needs solving urgently.
    YOu really are dumb, young people have always struggled to buy houses, it was mainlky social housing till Thatcher sold them off dirt cheap and caused the boom for Tory toffs to build up BTL portfolios and rip off the public purse. Just a transfer of the value of eth public housing stock to a handful of Tories.
    Young people have not always struggled to buy houses, relative to today, that is factually incorrect and betrays your ignorance.

    The BTL buildup that happened under Blair/Brown onwards is very problematic and needs addressing whether it be via taxation or failing that via extending Right to Buy to BTL tenants.
    The BTL build up isn't the problem. It' the price of housing.
    BTL is in part driving the price of housing, though, is it not?
    It's more a side effect of the increasing prices. The classic is "he bought a flat in London, back in the day, she did the same". They get married, buy a house by extracting value, and rent out the flats. Because the rises in house prices make keeping property forever the best plan.

    The problem isn't really people owning and renting flats. It's the prices and the constrained supply meaning that every shitbox can be rented out, no matter how bad, at a high price.

    Imagine if the price of renting a house in the London suburbs was, say £250 a month for a 3 bedroom house. No one would give a shit about house prices/rents. Or who owned them.

    Rent vs Ownership - it's just pushing the same pile of beans about. What we need is a lot more beans.
    Again this is mainly a London problem and to a lesser extent a Home counties problem.

    Go north of Watford and property prices and rents are far cheaper (though even in parts of Outer London and the Home counties like Dagenham or Bexley or East Kent or South Essex outside Brentwood and Epping Forest property prices are far cheaper)
    St Albans is north of Watford.

    A three bed semi towards the edge of the city in the catchment area of one of the best state secondary schools is on the market for £1,150,000.

    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/132193331



    You would get at least 3 nice 4 bed detached's for that in God's country.
    Get a bloody street round here. With change.
    that would get you a semi detached in Amersham....
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,769

    HYUFD said:

    The Princess of Wales is now the most popular senior royal after the Queen's death according to a new RedfieldWilton poll.

    The Princess is on +52%, the Prince on +49%, the King on +27%, the Queen Consort on +1%, the Duke of Sussex on -22%, the Duchess of Sussex on -33% and the Duke of York on -53%

    https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1633105355797323777?t=L0OklURtvkVfr85_tnB2dg&s=19

    Nobody cares. Well I wish they didn't anyway. Vacuous nonsense.
    Silly thing to say, as that's a genuinely frightening poll.

    How on earth could nearly 25% of respondents have a positive view of Andrew?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,630
    dixiedean said:

    malcolmg said:

    HYUFD said:

    Driver said:

    .

    malcolmg said:

    HYUFD said:

    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    https://news.sky.com/story/rishi-sunaks-small-boats-plan-to-push-boundaries-of-international-law-12827674

    How the fuck is this going to work? How are these people supposed to claim asylum when they are no safe, legal routes to do so???

    I think that's the point. They can't. The idea is to stop the flow completely.
    A year ago we were told that the mere threat of Rwanda would stop the boats, yet here we are again. It is just performative cruelty as policy.

    At the same time we are fast tracking asylum claims from places thought to be legitimate:

    https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/government-fast-track-asylum-seekers/
    The latter policy (fast track) is sensible. People from countries like Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, Eritrea and the like will almost inevitably succeed in their asylum claims so why clog up the system with them? Conversely, claims from the likes of Albania have very poor prospects and should again be brought to a swift conclusion with action taken on removal.
    Why should they succeed, though?

    Are we obliged to take in anyone from any really poor/crap country who makes it to our shores. There are hundreds of millions of such people.

    On this I think the fundamentals of the question hinge.
    We cannot house all our own people. Sooner or later the "We are full up" sign will have to go up.
    But why can't we house everyone?

    It's not lack of land and it's not lack of money to buy bricks or pay builders.

    It's just that we don't want to build stuff. And that works less well as an excuse.
    This.

    The policy of not building houses to match population is institutionally racist, incidentally.
    Everything is racist if you can find an excuse for it to be so. Its more likely to be racist against the wwc.
    The main issue is probably old vs. young. Older WWC people who bought their council houses under Maggie are sitting relatively prettily.

    Does the UK's racial mix look different for young and old people?
    I think that the intersection of age and racial demographics are an underappreciated source of some of the political dynamics in this country. In a lot of ways the defining difference between Baby Boomers and Millenials or Gen Z is how racially diverse the latter groups are compared to the former. I think this helps to explain the lack of understanding, perhaps even lack of empathy, between the generations. It probably helps to account for the intensified political polarisation by age for one thing, as well as the politics of housing.
    Since race is not a very polarising political issue in this country (unlike America) I still think its housing, not race, that's the key issue in the UK.

    Thank goodness we aren't like America where everything boils down to race.
    As I already posted the vast majority in the UK as in the US own property, only in inner London like inner New York City do most rent.

    The difference in the UK has historically been class more than race.

    Though increasingly there is more of an age difference in both
    The fact that most own their property, because property was affordable when old people were young, is utterly irrelevant and not the killer point you think it is.

    Most young people should be able to afford a house. They can't. That's a problem and it needs solving urgently.
    YOu really are dumb, young people have always struggled to buy houses, it was mainlky social housing till Thatcher sold them off dirt cheap and caused the boom for Tory toffs to build up BTL portfolios and rip off the public purse. Just a transfer of the value of eth public housing stock to a handful of Tories.
    Young people have not always struggled to buy houses, relative to today, that is factually incorrect and betrays your ignorance.

    The BTL buildup that happened under Blair/Brown onwards is very problematic and needs addressing whether it be via taxation or failing that via extending Right to Buy to BTL tenants.
    The BTL build up isn't the problem. It' the price of housing.
    BTL is in part driving the price of housing, though, is it not?
    It's more a side effect of the increasing prices. The classic is "he bought a flat in London, back in the day, she did the same". They get married, buy a house by extracting value, and rent out the flats. Because the rises in house prices make keeping property forever the best plan.

    The problem isn't really people owning and renting flats. It's the prices and the constrained supply meaning that every shitbox can be rented out, no matter how bad, at a high price.

    Imagine if the price of renting a house in the London suburbs was, say £250 a month for a 3 bedroom house. No one would give a shit about house prices/rents. Or who owned them.

    Rent vs Ownership - it's just pushing the same pile of beans about. What we need is a lot more beans.
    Again this is mainly a London problem and to a lesser extent a Home counties problem.

    Go north of Watford and property prices and rents are far cheaper (though even in parts of Outer London and the Home counties like Dagenham or Bexley or East Kent or South Essex outside Brentwood and Epping Forest property prices are far cheaper)
    St Albans is north of Watford.

    A three bed semi towards the edge of the city in the catchment area of one of the best state secondary schools is on the market for £1,150,000.

    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/132193331



    You would get at least 3 nice 4 bed detached's for that in God's country.
    Get a bloody street round here. With change.
    Way back in the day, there were some house in a fun part of the country going for a pound. Some suggested that the purchase price should really include the cost of the armoured vehicle required to actually get to your property.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,719
    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-64714201

    Interesting grammar school article, discussing how non grammar school kids perform worse than in areas without selection, while grammar schools remain the preserve of the middle class.

    Appalling article from the BBC there which I tweeted the journalist concerned to complain about.

    Completely ignored evidence from Bristol University that working class pupils get better GCSE results at grammar schools than pupils of similar ability do in comprehensive
    schools

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/working-class-pupils-do-better-at-grammars-phzzhwtj6vp
    I have not posted for a good few days now, and I didn't intend to for a while. However when @HYUFD dived in with his boots on to promote his idiotic Grammar School ideology, I bit.

    I don't know how many times I have engaged in a futile response to your demand for Grammar Schools, and it is a waste of my time and yours, so I really shouldn't bother, but when you attacked the BBC's Branwen Jeffries who is a genuine expert in the field of education and has been for decades, I decided I had to call you out. She provided decent evidence, which you ignored, and carefully selected your own (behind a paywall) evidence which didn't address her point.

    Her point was those failing the 11 plus in grammar school areas are left behind compared to those who attend schools in non-grammar school areas.

    Over and out.
    And her second point is that remarkably few children from lower income families get into Grammar schools because of the games that are played by others to get admitted.

    taking my old school

    Deprived pupils

    3% in the school
    14% in the local authority

    A problem created by the school allowing pupils to travel in from as far away as Harrow on the Hill (20 miles by train) instead of taking in local pupils.
    Although it is going back donkey's years the same applied when I went to school. I lived in a much poorer area than most of the catchment for the Grammar school which had a lot of wealthy areas. Only 1 person went to the Grammar school from the ward I lived in, in my year, with many many going from the wealthier wards. Once we got to the 6th form and the bias of tutoring primary school pupils was no longer applicable about 10 of us transferred to the Grammar school from my ward. Many more from other poorer area. None from wealthy areas as far as I can remember.

    The sad thing is the damage done by this type of biased selection as well as not taking into account youngsters develop at different stages and different rates. Lots of the Grammar school kids dropped out with hardly any O levels who had been pushed beyond their capability and a lot of my friends who were quite capable didn't transfer with me to the Grammar school as they were indoctrinated by this point that they should leave school and go out to work. Many would have easily coped with the A levels and then University and several eventually did get Engineering degrees with BAC (later British Aerospace) the major local employer, but many must have missed out.
    When we had more grammar schools we had more judges, PMs, senior army officers, CEOs, top professors, permanent secretaries and surgeons from state schools than we do now.

    The damage was done removing most of them, not the reverse
    At the cost of the vast majority of the kids who got dumped in rotten secondary moderns, in particular the poor kids, but hey ho keep privileges for the privileged.
    Utter left liberal crap.

    Indeed in selective Buckinghamshire and Trafford they get above average GCSEs overall, while working class pupils who get into the grammars regularly get into Oxbridge and Russell Group universities and the top professions
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,769
    dixiedean said:

    malcolmg said:

    HYUFD said:

    Driver said:

    .

    malcolmg said:

    HYUFD said:

    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    https://news.sky.com/story/rishi-sunaks-small-boats-plan-to-push-boundaries-of-international-law-12827674

    How the fuck is this going to work? How are these people supposed to claim asylum when they are no safe, legal routes to do so???

    I think that's the point. They can't. The idea is to stop the flow completely.
    A year ago we were told that the mere threat of Rwanda would stop the boats, yet here we are again. It is just performative cruelty as policy.

    At the same time we are fast tracking asylum claims from places thought to be legitimate:

    https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/government-fast-track-asylum-seekers/
    The latter policy (fast track) is sensible. People from countries like Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, Eritrea and the like will almost inevitably succeed in their asylum claims so why clog up the system with them? Conversely, claims from the likes of Albania have very poor prospects and should again be brought to a swift conclusion with action taken on removal.
    Why should they succeed, though?

    Are we obliged to take in anyone from any really poor/crap country who makes it to our shores. There are hundreds of millions of such people.

    On this I think the fundamentals of the question hinge.
    We cannot house all our own people. Sooner or later the "We are full up" sign will have to go up.
    But why can't we house everyone?

    It's not lack of land and it's not lack of money to buy bricks or pay builders.

    It's just that we don't want to build stuff. And that works less well as an excuse.
    This.

    The policy of not building houses to match population is institutionally racist, incidentally.
    Everything is racist if you can find an excuse for it to be so. Its more likely to be racist against the wwc.
    The main issue is probably old vs. young. Older WWC people who bought their council houses under Maggie are sitting relatively prettily.

    Does the UK's racial mix look different for young and old people?
    I think that the intersection of age and racial demographics are an underappreciated source of some of the political dynamics in this country. In a lot of ways the defining difference between Baby Boomers and Millenials or Gen Z is how racially diverse the latter groups are compared to the former. I think this helps to explain the lack of understanding, perhaps even lack of empathy, between the generations. It probably helps to account for the intensified political polarisation by age for one thing, as well as the politics of housing.
    Since race is not a very polarising political issue in this country (unlike America) I still think its housing, not race, that's the key issue in the UK.

    Thank goodness we aren't like America where everything boils down to race.
    As I already posted the vast majority in the UK as in the US own property, only in inner London like inner New York City do most rent.

    The difference in the UK has historically been class more than race.

    Though increasingly there is more of an age difference in both
    The fact that most own their property, because property was affordable when old people were young, is utterly irrelevant and not the killer point you think it is.

    Most young people should be able to afford a house. They can't. That's a problem and it needs solving urgently.
    YOu really are dumb, young people have always struggled to buy houses, it was mainlky social housing till Thatcher sold them off dirt cheap and caused the boom for Tory toffs to build up BTL portfolios and rip off the public purse. Just a transfer of the value of eth public housing stock to a handful of Tories.
    Young people have not always struggled to buy houses, relative to today, that is factually incorrect and betrays your ignorance.

    The BTL buildup that happened under Blair/Brown onwards is very problematic and needs addressing whether it be via taxation or failing that via extending Right to Buy to BTL tenants.
    The BTL build up isn't the problem. It' the price of housing.
    BTL is in part driving the price of housing, though, is it not?
    It's more a side effect of the increasing prices. The classic is "he bought a flat in London, back in the day, she did the same". They get married, buy a house by extracting value, and rent out the flats. Because the rises in house prices make keeping property forever the best plan.

    The problem isn't really people owning and renting flats. It's the prices and the constrained supply meaning that every shitbox can be rented out, no matter how bad, at a high price.

    Imagine if the price of renting a house in the London suburbs was, say £250 a month for a 3 bedroom house. No one would give a shit about house prices/rents. Or who owned them.

    Rent vs Ownership - it's just pushing the same pile of beans about. What we need is a lot more beans.
    Again this is mainly a London problem and to a lesser extent a Home counties problem.

    Go north of Watford and property prices and rents are far cheaper (though even in parts of Outer London and the Home counties like Dagenham or Bexley or East Kent or South Essex outside Brentwood and Epping Forest property prices are far cheaper)
    St Albans is north of Watford.

    A three bed semi towards the edge of the city in the catchment area of one of the best state secondary schools is on the market for £1,150,000.

    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/132193331



    You would get at least 3 nice 4 bed detached's for that in God's country.
    Get a bloody street round here. With change.
    Not quite a street, but you would be able to buy eight houses for that in Chadsmoor.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,769

    dixiedean said:

    malcolmg said:

    HYUFD said:

    Driver said:

    .

    malcolmg said:

    HYUFD said:

    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    https://news.sky.com/story/rishi-sunaks-small-boats-plan-to-push-boundaries-of-international-law-12827674

    How the fuck is this going to work? How are these people supposed to claim asylum when they are no safe, legal routes to do so???

    I think that's the point. They can't. The idea is to stop the flow completely.
    A year ago we were told that the mere threat of Rwanda would stop the boats, yet here we are again. It is just performative cruelty as policy.

    At the same time we are fast tracking asylum claims from places thought to be legitimate:

    https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/government-fast-track-asylum-seekers/
    The latter policy (fast track) is sensible. People from countries like Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, Eritrea and the like will almost inevitably succeed in their asylum claims so why clog up the system with them? Conversely, claims from the likes of Albania have very poor prospects and should again be brought to a swift conclusion with action taken on removal.
    Why should they succeed, though?

    Are we obliged to take in anyone from any really poor/crap country who makes it to our shores. There are hundreds of millions of such people.

    On this I think the fundamentals of the question hinge.
    We cannot house all our own people. Sooner or later the "We are full up" sign will have to go up.
    But why can't we house everyone?

    It's not lack of land and it's not lack of money to buy bricks or pay builders.

    It's just that we don't want to build stuff. And that works less well as an excuse.
    This.

    The policy of not building houses to match population is institutionally racist, incidentally.
    Everything is racist if you can find an excuse for it to be so. Its more likely to be racist against the wwc.
    The main issue is probably old vs. young. Older WWC people who bought their council houses under Maggie are sitting relatively prettily.

    Does the UK's racial mix look different for young and old people?
    I think that the intersection of age and racial demographics are an underappreciated source of some of the political dynamics in this country. In a lot of ways the defining difference between Baby Boomers and Millenials or Gen Z is how racially diverse the latter groups are compared to the former. I think this helps to explain the lack of understanding, perhaps even lack of empathy, between the generations. It probably helps to account for the intensified political polarisation by age for one thing, as well as the politics of housing.
    Since race is not a very polarising political issue in this country (unlike America) I still think its housing, not race, that's the key issue in the UK.

    Thank goodness we aren't like America where everything boils down to race.
    As I already posted the vast majority in the UK as in the US own property, only in inner London like inner New York City do most rent.

    The difference in the UK has historically been class more than race.

    Though increasingly there is more of an age difference in both
    The fact that most own their property, because property was affordable when old people were young, is utterly irrelevant and not the killer point you think it is.

    Most young people should be able to afford a house. They can't. That's a problem and it needs solving urgently.
    YOu really are dumb, young people have always struggled to buy houses, it was mainlky social housing till Thatcher sold them off dirt cheap and caused the boom for Tory toffs to build up BTL portfolios and rip off the public purse. Just a transfer of the value of eth public housing stock to a handful of Tories.
    Young people have not always struggled to buy houses, relative to today, that is factually incorrect and betrays your ignorance.

    The BTL buildup that happened under Blair/Brown onwards is very problematic and needs addressing whether it be via taxation or failing that via extending Right to Buy to BTL tenants.
    The BTL build up isn't the problem. It' the price of housing.
    BTL is in part driving the price of housing, though, is it not?
    It's more a side effect of the increasing prices. The classic is "he bought a flat in London, back in the day, she did the same". They get married, buy a house by extracting value, and rent out the flats. Because the rises in house prices make keeping property forever the best plan.

    The problem isn't really people owning and renting flats. It's the prices and the constrained supply meaning that every shitbox can be rented out, no matter how bad, at a high price.

    Imagine if the price of renting a house in the London suburbs was, say £250 a month for a 3 bedroom house. No one would give a shit about house prices/rents. Or who owned them.

    Rent vs Ownership - it's just pushing the same pile of beans about. What we need is a lot more beans.
    Again this is mainly a London problem and to a lesser extent a Home counties problem.

    Go north of Watford and property prices and rents are far cheaper (though even in parts of Outer London and the Home counties like Dagenham or Bexley or East Kent or South Essex outside Brentwood and Epping Forest property prices are far cheaper)
    St Albans is north of Watford.

    A three bed semi towards the edge of the city in the catchment area of one of the best state secondary schools is on the market for £1,150,000.

    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/132193331



    You would get at least 3 nice 4 bed detached's for that in God's country.
    Get a bloody street round here. With change.
    Way back in the day, there were some house in a fun part of the country going for a pound. Some suggested that the purchase price should really include the cost of the armoured vehicle required to actually get to your property.
    Think it was Newcastle upon Tyne.

    In Stoke they sold houses for a fiver on condition you live in them for five years. Otherwise you forfeited the title.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,630
    ydoethur said:

    dixiedean said:

    malcolmg said:

    HYUFD said:

    Driver said:

    .

    malcolmg said:

    HYUFD said:

    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    https://news.sky.com/story/rishi-sunaks-small-boats-plan-to-push-boundaries-of-international-law-12827674

    How the fuck is this going to work? How are these people supposed to claim asylum when they are no safe, legal routes to do so???

    I think that's the point. They can't. The idea is to stop the flow completely.
    A year ago we were told that the mere threat of Rwanda would stop the boats, yet here we are again. It is just performative cruelty as policy.

    At the same time we are fast tracking asylum claims from places thought to be legitimate:

    https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/government-fast-track-asylum-seekers/
    The latter policy (fast track) is sensible. People from countries like Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, Eritrea and the like will almost inevitably succeed in their asylum claims so why clog up the system with them? Conversely, claims from the likes of Albania have very poor prospects and should again be brought to a swift conclusion with action taken on removal.
    Why should they succeed, though?

    Are we obliged to take in anyone from any really poor/crap country who makes it to our shores. There are hundreds of millions of such people.

    On this I think the fundamentals of the question hinge.
    We cannot house all our own people. Sooner or later the "We are full up" sign will have to go up.
    But why can't we house everyone?

    It's not lack of land and it's not lack of money to buy bricks or pay builders.

    It's just that we don't want to build stuff. And that works less well as an excuse.
    This.

    The policy of not building houses to match population is institutionally racist, incidentally.
    Everything is racist if you can find an excuse for it to be so. Its more likely to be racist against the wwc.
    The main issue is probably old vs. young. Older WWC people who bought their council houses under Maggie are sitting relatively prettily.

    Does the UK's racial mix look different for young and old people?
    I think that the intersection of age and racial demographics are an underappreciated source of some of the political dynamics in this country. In a lot of ways the defining difference between Baby Boomers and Millenials or Gen Z is how racially diverse the latter groups are compared to the former. I think this helps to explain the lack of understanding, perhaps even lack of empathy, between the generations. It probably helps to account for the intensified political polarisation by age for one thing, as well as the politics of housing.
    Since race is not a very polarising political issue in this country (unlike America) I still think its housing, not race, that's the key issue in the UK.

    Thank goodness we aren't like America where everything boils down to race.
    As I already posted the vast majority in the UK as in the US own property, only in inner London like inner New York City do most rent.

    The difference in the UK has historically been class more than race.

    Though increasingly there is more of an age difference in both
    The fact that most own their property, because property was affordable when old people were young, is utterly irrelevant and not the killer point you think it is.

    Most young people should be able to afford a house. They can't. That's a problem and it needs solving urgently.
    YOu really are dumb, young people have always struggled to buy houses, it was mainlky social housing till Thatcher sold them off dirt cheap and caused the boom for Tory toffs to build up BTL portfolios and rip off the public purse. Just a transfer of the value of eth public housing stock to a handful of Tories.
    Young people have not always struggled to buy houses, relative to today, that is factually incorrect and betrays your ignorance.

    The BTL buildup that happened under Blair/Brown onwards is very problematic and needs addressing whether it be via taxation or failing that via extending Right to Buy to BTL tenants.
    The BTL build up isn't the problem. It' the price of housing.
    BTL is in part driving the price of housing, though, is it not?
    It's more a side effect of the increasing prices. The classic is "he bought a flat in London, back in the day, she did the same". They get married, buy a house by extracting value, and rent out the flats. Because the rises in house prices make keeping property forever the best plan.

    The problem isn't really people owning and renting flats. It's the prices and the constrained supply meaning that every shitbox can be rented out, no matter how bad, at a high price.

    Imagine if the price of renting a house in the London suburbs was, say £250 a month for a 3 bedroom house. No one would give a shit about house prices/rents. Or who owned them.

    Rent vs Ownership - it's just pushing the same pile of beans about. What we need is a lot more beans.
    Again this is mainly a London problem and to a lesser extent a Home counties problem.

    Go north of Watford and property prices and rents are far cheaper (though even in parts of Outer London and the Home counties like Dagenham or Bexley or East Kent or South Essex outside Brentwood and Epping Forest property prices are far cheaper)
    St Albans is north of Watford.

    A three bed semi towards the edge of the city in the catchment area of one of the best state secondary schools is on the market for £1,150,000.

    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/132193331



    You would get at least 3 nice 4 bed detached's for that in God's country.
    Get a bloody street round here. With change.
    Way back in the day, there were some house in a fun part of the country going for a pound. Some suggested that the purchase price should really include the cost of the armoured vehicle required to actually get to your property.
    Think it was Newcastle upon Tyne.

    In Stoke they sold houses for a fiver on condition you live in them for five years. Otherwise you forfeited the title.
    I'd be up for that, provided local plod were OK with an Boyes 0.55 on the gun license.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,004
    edited March 2023
    Interesting that Sunak will put an annual cap on legal migration

    He also said the quotes of max 200 to be sent to Rwanda is untrue and there is no limit
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,631
    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-64714201

    Interesting grammar school article, discussing how non grammar school kids perform worse than in areas without selection, while grammar schools remain the preserve of the middle class.

    Appalling article from the BBC there which I tweeted the journalist concerned to complain about.

    Completely ignored evidence from Bristol University that working class pupils get better GCSE results at grammar schools than pupils of similar ability do in comprehensive
    schools

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/working-class-pupils-do-better-at-grammars-phzzhwtj6vp
    I have not posted for a good few days now, and I didn't intend to for a while. However when @HYUFD dived in with his boots on to promote his idiotic Grammar School ideology, I bit.

    I don't know how many times I have engaged in a futile response to your demand for Grammar Schools, and it is a waste of my time and yours, so I really shouldn't bother, but when you attacked the BBC's Branwen Jeffries who is a genuine expert in the field of education and has been for decades, I decided I had to call you out. She provided decent evidence, which you ignored, and carefully selected your own (behind a paywall) evidence which didn't address her point.

    Her point was those failing the 11 plus in grammar school areas are left behind compared to those who attend schools in non-grammar school areas.

    Over and out.
    And her second point is that remarkably few children from lower income families get into Grammar schools because of the games that are played by others to get admitted.

    taking my old school

    Deprived pupils

    3% in the school
    14% in the local authority

    A problem created by the school allowing pupils to travel in from as far away as Harrow on the Hill (20 miles by train) instead of taking in local pupils.
    Although it is going back donkey's years the same applied when I went to school. I lived in a much poorer area than most of the catchment for the Grammar school which had a lot of wealthy areas. Only 1 person went to the Grammar school from the ward I lived in, in my year, with many many going from the wealthier wards. Once we got to the 6th form and the bias of tutoring primary school pupils was no longer applicable about 10 of us transferred to the Grammar school from my ward. Many more from other poorer area. None from wealthy areas as far as I can remember.

    The sad thing is the damage done by this type of biased selection as well as not taking into account youngsters develop at different stages and different rates. Lots of the Grammar school kids dropped out with hardly any O levels who had been pushed beyond their capability and a lot of my friends who were quite capable didn't transfer with me to the Grammar school as they were indoctrinated by this point that they should leave school and go out to work. Many would have easily coped with the A levels and then University and several eventually did get Engineering degrees with BAC (later British Aerospace) the major local employer, but many must have missed out.
    When we had more grammar schools we had more judges, PMs, senior army officers, CEOs, top professors, permanent secretaries and surgeons from state schools than we do now.

    The damage was done removing most of them, not the reverse
    At the cost of the vast majority of the kids who got dumped in rotten secondary moderns, in particular the poor kids, but hey ho keep privileges for the privileged.
    There are no secondary moderns anymore, there are many failing comprehensives however
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891

    Latest red wall poll

    Lab 51
    Con 29

    Redfield W

    Lab wins all 40 seats included
    quelle catastrophe
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,620

    Latest red wall poll

    Lab 51
    Con 29

    Redfield W

    Lab wins all 40 seats included
    JBC fans please explain
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,620
    Scott_xP said:

    @SamCoatesSky: Sir Graham Brady becomes the 22nd Conservative MP (+Hancock) to announce they are standing down, compared to 12 Lab… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1633134905986105346

    The Old Lady retires early
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 4,339
    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Chris said:

    Nigelb said:

    Chris said:

    Strikes me that the Small Boats bill is about 75% calculated to give the Tories a line against the ECHR at the next GE and 25% towards helping Cruella’s 2024 leadership ambitions.

    If it were me, I would not be trusting this to Suella Braverman. Her ability is spectacularly limited.

    What does it mean that she thinks that there is a more than 50% chance it is incompatible with the ECHR but that she is confident that it is compatible with international law.

    Can any PB legal eagles suggest a way in which this is anything other than gibberish?
    Here's a clue.
    Having sat through 1 hour and 45 minutes of @SuellaBraverman statement on her new #IllegalMigrationBill we still don’t get to see the actual text of the Bill until later this afternoon. And apparently no impact assessment is available with the Bill today.
    https://mobile.twitter.com/DianaJohnsonMP/status/1633119075185446915
    I was asking a genuine question, though.

    Is there some way in which it can be incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights but still compatible with "international law"?
    I've no idea.

    Given it's Braverman, the statement has no substantive meaning. Let's wait for analysis of the actual legislation.
    Not sure how this bill works and I expect legal challenges

    I hope Sunak and Macron, who have a much improved relationship, are able to work together to address the issue
    Macron is under enormous pressure as he tries to raise the French retirement age to 64. Under these circumstances he's (sadly) likely to prefer a fight with les rosbif to drum up a bit of positive publicity.
    On balance, is it just in both of their interest for us to have a small war and declare a score draw a few weeks later?
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    Driver said:

    DougSeal said:

    Driver said:

    Carnyx said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    Driver said:

    Chris said:

    WillG said:

    Chris said:

    Westie said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ground-breaking-new-laws-to-stop-the-boats

    "Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: (...) We must stop the boats. (...) It is completely unfair that people who travel through a string of safe countries then come to the UK illegally and abuse our asylum laws to avoid removal."

    Human rights law is for wimps, libtards, whiners, and the "elite", right? It's for trade unionists, lefty lawyers, cultural Marxists, and Remoaners. We know their type. Give 'em a chance and they always go on about human rights. They want those boats to keep coming here. Well enough is enough. From NOW.

    To be honest I just wonder whether people like Suella Braverman (and for that matter Rishi Sunak) have thought things through completely, if they have decided it's a good strategy for them to appeal to the anti-immigrant vote.
    What is incorrect about what she is saying?
    I'm not sure I can make it any simpler.

    What I'm asking is whether it can be more likely than not incompatible with the ECHR, and yet for her to be confident it is compatible with international law.
    Potentially if the ECHR is itself incompatible with the Refugee Convention?
    You mean if the provisions of the ECHR were not considered to be part of international law?

    That does seem to be implied logically by what she is saying, but can she really be saying that?
    I'm thinking that it's a possible argument that the proposed Bill is compatible with the Refugee Convention and hence with "international law".

    This is probably a dubious argument, but it's the best I've come up with (not that I would pretend to be an expert).
    Well globally most people in civilised, western countries are not subject to the ECHR. EG Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply and all of them are subject to international laws and agreements.

    Meanwhile the ECHR is so robust it had Russia as a member at rhe start of 2022. Good job there, great job ensuring a free press, free speech and free elections and avoiding a fascist regime coming to power and everything else the convention was supposed to deal with.

    The ECHR is a failure and we could withdraw from it and still be an upstanding civilised nation subject to international law.

    However it is my understanding that unless and until we do, it is part of OUR international law even if its not a part of other nations international law.
    "Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, Japan etc none of them have the ECHR apply"

    Er, there's a rather different and more basic reason for that. They are not in Europe. The UK is.
    Why are human rights in Europe special? On something like this shouldn't there be a global agreement?
    It was introduced because Europe had very recently succumbed to barbarism and the majority of countries therein wanted a joint agreement to try and ensure that civilisation would never again leave our shared home.
    That was a very long time ago, is it still relevant in 2023?
    Europe has largely, with some admitted exceptions, avoided barbarism while it has been current. So yes. It is relevant.

    Which Human Right to you object to most of the ones listed? The right to a fair trial? The right to property? The right to family? What is it that irks you about these? Do you yearn for a time when the U.K. could commit genocide on its own shores with impunity?
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 4,785
    NEW THREAD
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,169
    dixiedean said:

    TimS said:

    Are the Southerners here all looking forward to the snow tomorrow?

    (And South Midlanders, South Welsh and any hermits living up on Dartmoor)

    Snow all melted in the sunlight today here. Got that grubby look now.
    Big snow event is tonight though. Probably rain on the South Coast. Inland, anything from a cm or so of slush in London to 5cm on the North and South downs, a bit more on the Chilterns, 4-5cm in the South Midlands and then some truly handy totals from Gloucs up through the Marches into central Wales. SSE winds so the best place for proper deep snow probably somewhere like the Southern and Eastern slopes of the Black Mountains.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,769
    TimS said:

    dixiedean said:

    TimS said:

    Are the Southerners here all looking forward to the snow tomorrow?

    (And South Midlanders, South Welsh and any hermits living up on Dartmoor)

    Snow all melted in the sunlight today here. Got that grubby look now.
    Big snow event is tonight though. Probably rain on the South Coast. Inland, anything from a cm or so of slush in London to 5cm on the North and South downs, a bit more on the Chilterns, 4-5cm in the South Midlands and then some truly handy totals from Gloucs up through the Marches into central Wales. SSE winds so the best place for proper deep snow probably somewhere like the Southern and Eastern slopes of the Black Mountains.
    Not forecast for here, although there's lots forecast for tomorrow evening.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,884
    TimS said:

    Driver said:

    WillG said:

    Scott_xP said:

    @guardian: Suella Braverman’s small boats crackdown is performative cruelty at its worst | Enver Solomon https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/07/suella-braverman-small-boats-crackdown-illegal-migrants-uk

    One paragraph in and the journalist is already lying. People are not fleeing persecution when they are coming from France.
    And the French say 'people are not fleeing persecution when they are coming from Italy'. And so on.
    France takes a lot more refugees/asylum seekers than we do.
    Which is why it would make sense to have an international agreement on sharing the burden/benefit. I consider myself very liberally minded on most matters, but logic tells me that if someone is fleeing persecution they should claim asylum in the first safe country they land in. Moving on from there they become economic migrants.

    If one were fleeing a gang of thugs one wouldn't pass several places of sanctuary in the desire to get to the one that had the most desirable armchair.
    Right, and that has to be the end-point, doesn't it, although one that's going to be difficult to reach with all the vested interests and voters' opinions getting in the way?

    Asylum must be claimed in the first safe country as a sign that the claim is legitimate, but all safe countries agree that would place an unfair burden on those that happen to be nearest to the countries that refugees are fleeing. There could even be a way in the sharing system for refugees who do have links to a particular country to request to be transferred there.
    And asylum seekers should be able to express a preference of country based on specific links such as family, religion or language. To take the analogy about running from thugs and stopping at the first house: yes, but you might well try to make it to your brother's house where you know you'll be looked after.

    Not to say that all preferences would always be granted - otherwise everyone arriving in Europe would end up in Germany. But it makes sense from an integration and support perspective that, for example, a native French speaker goes to France, someone with family in London comes to London, someone persecuted as a Yazidi ends up somewhere where there is a Yazidi community and so on.
    If everyone would end up in Germany, why are so many trying to cross the channel after presumably coming across Europe?
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 7,979
    eek said:

    dixiedean said:

    malcolmg said:

    HYUFD said:

    Driver said:

    .

    malcolmg said:

    HYUFD said:

    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    https://news.sky.com/story/rishi-sunaks-small-boats-plan-to-push-boundaries-of-international-law-12827674

    How the fuck is this going to work? How are these people supposed to claim asylum when they are no safe, legal routes to do so???

    I think that's the point. They can't. The idea is to stop the flow completely.
    A year ago we were told that the mere threat of Rwanda would stop the boats, yet here we are again. It is just performative cruelty as policy.

    At the same time we are fast tracking asylum claims from places thought to be legitimate:

    https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/government-fast-track-asylum-seekers/
    The latter policy (fast track) is sensible. People from countries like Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, Eritrea and the like will almost inevitably succeed in their asylum claims so why clog up the system with them? Conversely, claims from the likes of Albania have very poor prospects and should again be brought to a swift conclusion with action taken on removal.
    Why should they succeed, though?

    Are we obliged to take in anyone from any really poor/crap country who makes it to our shores. There are hundreds of millions of such people.

    On this I think the fundamentals of the question hinge.
    We cannot house all our own people. Sooner or later the "We are full up" sign will have to go up.
    But why can't we house everyone?

    It's not lack of land and it's not lack of money to buy bricks or pay builders.

    It's just that we don't want to build stuff. And that works less well as an excuse.
    This.

    The policy of not building houses to match population is institutionally racist, incidentally.
    Everything is racist if you can find an excuse for it to be so. Its more likely to be racist against the wwc.
    The main issue is probably old vs. young. Older WWC people who bought their council houses under Maggie are sitting relatively prettily.

    Does the UK's racial mix look different for young and old people?
    I think that the intersection of age and racial demographics are an underappreciated source of some of the political dynamics in this country. In a lot of ways the defining difference between Baby Boomers and Millenials or Gen Z is how racially diverse the latter groups are compared to the former. I think this helps to explain the lack of understanding, perhaps even lack of empathy, between the generations. It probably helps to account for the intensified political polarisation by age for one thing, as well as the politics of housing.
    Since race is not a very polarising political issue in this country (unlike America) I still think its housing, not race, that's the key issue in the UK.

    Thank goodness we aren't like America where everything boils down to race.
    As I already posted the vast majority in the UK as in the US own property, only in inner London like inner New York City do most rent.

    The difference in the UK has historically been class more than race.

    Though increasingly there is more of an age difference in both
    The fact that most own their property, because property was affordable when old people were young, is utterly irrelevant and not the killer point you think it is.

    Most young people should be able to afford a house. They can't. That's a problem and it needs solving urgently.
    YOu really are dumb, young people have always struggled to buy houses, it was mainlky social housing till Thatcher sold them off dirt cheap and caused the boom for Tory toffs to build up BTL portfolios and rip off the public purse. Just a transfer of the value of eth public housing stock to a handful of Tories.
    Young people have not always struggled to buy houses, relative to today, that is factually incorrect and betrays your ignorance.

    The BTL buildup that happened under Blair/Brown onwards is very problematic and needs addressing whether it be via taxation or failing that via extending Right to Buy to BTL tenants.
    The BTL build up isn't the problem. It' the price of housing.
    BTL is in part driving the price of housing, though, is it not?
    It's more a side effect of the increasing prices. The classic is "he bought a flat in London, back in the day, she did the same". They get married, buy a house by extracting value, and rent out the flats. Because the rises in house prices make keeping property forever the best plan.

    The problem isn't really people owning and renting flats. It's the prices and the constrained supply meaning that every shitbox can be rented out, no matter how bad, at a high price.

    Imagine if the price of renting a house in the London suburbs was, say £250 a month for a 3 bedroom house. No one would give a shit about house prices/rents. Or who owned them.

    Rent vs Ownership - it's just pushing the same pile of beans about. What we need is a lot more beans.
    Again this is mainly a London problem and to a lesser extent a Home counties problem.

    Go north of Watford and property prices and rents are far cheaper (though even in parts of Outer London and the Home counties like Dagenham or Bexley or East Kent or South Essex outside Brentwood and Epping Forest property prices are far cheaper)
    St Albans is north of Watford.

    A three bed semi towards the edge of the city in the catchment area of one of the best state secondary schools is on the market for £1,150,000.

    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/132193331



    You would get at least 3 nice 4 bed detached's for that in God's country.
    Get a bloody street round here. With change.
    that would get you a semi detached in Amersham....
    An ex council house in Barnes

  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-64714201

    Interesting grammar school article, discussing how non grammar school kids perform worse than in areas without selection, while grammar schools remain the preserve of the middle class.

    Appalling article from the BBC there which I tweeted the journalist concerned to complain about.

    Completely ignored evidence from Bristol University that working class pupils get better GCSE results at grammar schools than pupils of similar ability do in comprehensive
    schools

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/working-class-pupils-do-better-at-grammars-phzzhwtj6vp
    I have not posted for a good few days now, and I didn't intend to for a while. However when @HYUFD dived in with his boots on to promote his idiotic Grammar School ideology, I bit.

    I don't know how many times I have engaged in a futile response to your demand for Grammar Schools, and it is a waste of my time and yours, so I really shouldn't bother, but when you attacked the BBC's Branwen Jeffries who is a genuine expert in the field of education and has been for decades, I decided I had to call you out. She provided decent evidence, which you ignored, and carefully selected your own (behind a paywall) evidence which didn't address her point.

    Her point was those failing the 11 plus in grammar school areas are left behind compared to those who attend schools in non-grammar school areas.

    Over and out.
    And her second point is that remarkably few children from lower income families get into Grammar schools because of the games that are played by others to get admitted.

    taking my old school

    Deprived pupils

    3% in the school
    14% in the local authority

    A problem created by the school allowing pupils to travel in from as far away as Harrow on the Hill (20 miles by train) instead of taking in local pupils.
    Although it is going back donkey's years the same applied when I went to school. I lived in a much poorer area than most of the catchment for the Grammar school which had a lot of wealthy areas. Only 1 person went to the Grammar school from the ward I lived in, in my year, with many many going from the wealthier wards. Once we got to the 6th form and the bias of tutoring primary school pupils was no longer applicable about 10 of us transferred to the Grammar school from my ward. Many more from other poorer area. None from wealthy areas as far as I can remember.

    The sad thing is the damage done by this type of biased selection as well as not taking into account youngsters develop at different stages and different rates. Lots of the Grammar school kids dropped out with hardly any O levels who had been pushed beyond their capability and a lot of my friends who were quite capable didn't transfer with me to the Grammar school as they were indoctrinated by this point that they should leave school and go out to work. Many would have easily coped with the A levels and then University and several eventually did get Engineering degrees with BAC (later British Aerospace) the major local employer, but many must have missed out.
    When we had more grammar schools we had more judges, PMs, senior army officers, CEOs, top professors, permanent secretaries and surgeons from state schools than we do now.

    The damage was done removing most of them, not the reverse
    At the cost of the vast majority of the kids who got dumped in rotten secondary moderns, in particular the poor kids, but hey ho keep privileges for the privileged.
    Utter left liberal crap.

    Indeed in selective Buckinghamshire and Trafford they get above average GCSEs overall, while working class pupils who get into the grammars regularly get into Oxbridge and Russell Group universities and the top professions
    Do you have any academic paper to back that up?
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