Absolutely heroin and cocaine should be a matter for taxes and education, not the Police and drug dealers.
I used to think that. I think having looked at Canada I've changed my mind. Probably. I think there's a case for state management of it rather than criminalisation. But out and out legality has too many negative consequences for my liking.
Out of curiosity, why?
Canada haven't legalised all drugs have they? Just cannabis I thought?
Canada certainly handles drugs better than the USA in my eyes.
The BBC say the SG wants drug possession to be legal and you fell for it. The SG wants personal drug possession to be decriminalised, along with consumption rooms to be made legal.
Stupid policy.
Decriminalisation lacks the advantages of legalisation, and lacks the advantages of criminalisation.
Don't decriminalise. Legalise and tax.
It’s all entirely academic since HMG holds all powers of legislation over drugs law in the UK including consumption rooms, apparently without any responsibility for drug deaths. Kind of a prerogative of the hoor through the ages thing.
Another Spanish poll shows the PP lead grow slightly with some signs that Box may be being squeezed. Still unlikely that any one party will reach the magic 176 but equally the left parties remain behind the right parties!
Box or Vox? My son's father-in-law explained that b and v are indistinguishable in pronunciation - baca/vaca . . . bienes/vienes etc
Oops yes I mean Vox but you're right about b & v. A good example is Pais Vasco otherwise known as the Basque country! My mistake was just a typo!
"‘There’s nothing like face to face’: Darlington reacts to ticket office closures In Darlington, a town steeped in rail history, teenage and elderly rail passengers agree nothing beats talking to a human"
Buying train tickets is so complicated these days that it is easier to queue for five minutes to speak to an actual human, at least until the AI ticket bots get going.
Yep.
Unless this is done very carefully, the Govt will get spanked by the Judicial Review.
For example, wheelchair users are entitled to a 50% discount on normal tickets, which is not available via the machines.
Be careful what you wish for
The easiest way to resolve that is to withdraw the discount for wheelchair users
(Why do they have one out of interest? They are using the same service (getting from A to B at a moreorless scheduled time) and taking up approximately the same capacity.
So what is the justification for that spending decision?
Another Spanish poll shows the PP lead grow slightly with some signs that Box may be being squeezed. Still unlikely that any one party will reach the magic 176 but equally the left parties remain behind the right parties!
Nearly every opinion poll shows PP + Vox with an overall majority.
Absolutely heroin and cocaine should be a matter for taxes and education, not the Police and drug dealers.
I used to think that. I think having looked at Canada I've changed my mind. Probably. I think there's a case for state management of it rather than criminalisation. But out and out legality has too many negative consequences for my liking.
Out of curiosity, why?
Canada haven't legalised all drugs have they? Just cannabis I thought?
Canada certainly handles drugs better than the USA in my eyes.
I don't really know - hence my vagueness above! What I think is the case is that Canada have legalised all drug use. Or they may just have decriminalised hard drugs. Either way, it has been good news for those who like to see druggies and junkies hanging around pleasant downtown areas and introducing a vague air of menace. Vancouver isn't San Francisco yet, but it's looking a lot more like it than it was fifteen years ago. The impression I get is that drug use has increased, the visibility of drug use has increased a lot, and criminal organisations are still doing very well out of it - any losses they are making to legal sources are more than outweighed by the overall market increasing.
BUT I should stress that I haven't been to Canada since 2005 and this is very much second hand information! So please feel free to contradict.
The BBC say the SG wants drug possession to be legal and you fell for it. The SG wants personal drug possession to be decriminalised, along with consumption rooms to be made legal.
Stupid policy.
Decriminalisation lacks the advantages of legalisation, and lacks the advantages of criminalisation.
Another Spanish poll shows the PP lead grow slightly with some signs that Box may be being squeezed. Still unlikely that any one party will reach the magic 176 but equally the left parties remain behind the right parties!
Box or Vox? My son's father-in-law explained that b and v are indistinguishable in pronunciation - baca/vaca . . . bienes/vienes etc
Oops yes I mean Vox but you're right about b & v. A good example is Pais Vasco otherwise known as the Basque country! My mistake was just a typo!
"‘There’s nothing like face to face’: Darlington reacts to ticket office closures In Darlington, a town steeped in rail history, teenage and elderly rail passengers agree nothing beats talking to a human"
Most of the time, the machine is quicker, easier, more efficient for many people. I always find it bizarre when I have to talk to someone who then types into a machine something I could more quickly have put in myself.
But, there are those (many elderly, others) who hate the machines and find them hard to use. And the occasions when the rail network is in chaos and talking to someone is much quicker/more effective than trying to google the answer as to "in this circumstance is my ticket still valid on a different service and what about my connection". Sometimes, of course, that requires local knowledge too, so a call centre would not be a good replacement.
Maybe some more creative thinking is needed, where station booking staff instead become local information staff - able to book trains for you and help with your ticket, but also to give tourist advice, direct you to the right bus, book a taxi, sell you tickets to local attractions and maybe gifts too. Not everywhere would need such a thing, but for anywhere with a local tourist information office the two could perhaps be combined. The difficulty then perhaps being in how the cost is divided up.
Have to say that SKS was presumably grateful for the interruption of his speech by protesters yesterday as it broke the tedium and made it vaguely newsworthy. He didn’t have that advantage on R4 in the morning and boy that was grim. Platitudes and generalities piled high with not a detail in sight. He’s going to be poor in the election campaign, possibly even worse than Sunak if you can imagine such a thing.
Though when he broke from the script to engage with the protestors he came over well. That bodes well for the unpredictability of a campaign.
I am no Starmer fan, and he is still rather an enigma to me. What does he actually want to do as PM? He seems to be both over-prepared and over timid.
On the other hand, he is wise not to interrupt a government bent on self destruction.
What does Sir K want to do? I think something like this: 1) Win the election from the social democrat centre left 2) Under promise both before and after the election 3) Blame the Tories (not hard) 4) See what can be done about the EU in a Swiss sort of way 5) Try to be a government with some integrity, honesty and competence, no quick fixes 6) See if a 10-15 year programme can engender a bit of hope and a sense of direction 7) Use the current mood to further regulate water, banks, rail etc 8) Stop some rich people's loopholes and rebalance the tax system.
He can't spend any money much because there isn't any. The above 8 items is enough when all your money is going on debt interest, pensions and NHS.
(5) seems wildly aspirational to me. When did we last have a government like that?
I think May tried to be a government with some integrity, honesty and competence, no quick fixes. At least as far as that's possible.
She failed fairly dismally- partly by not really being up to the job, partly because of the people in the tent pissing in, partly because the country rather likes quick fixes
The big question for Starmer is whether the UK is ready to accept that quick fixes aren't on the menu. I hope we are, but I'm not sure.
Looking back, May's position was impossible from the beginning, and then her own 2017 election campaign made it worse.
As a remainer PM after Brexit it was politically impossible to do a sane Brexit (a Swiss or Norway approach) because her own party would not let her, and Labour was too self interested to help. So she had to try to find a middle way, pleasing no-one. It is notable that the faction that made life impossible for her has nothing worthwhile to offer now.
May would be OK in OK times; Brexit made it impossible.
May had a majority in spring 2017, but what she wanted was a big enough majority in h
Have to say that SKS was presumably grateful for the interruption of his speech by protesters yesterday as it broke the tedium and made it vaguely newsworthy. He didn’t have that advantage on R4 in the morning and boy that was grim. Platitudes and generalities piled high with not a detail in sight. He’s going to be poor in the election campaign, possibly even worse than Sunak if you can imagine such a thing.
Though when he broke from the script to engage with the protestors he came over well. That bodes well for the unpredictability of a campaign.
I am no Starmer fan, and he is still rather an enigma to me. What does he actually want to do as PM? He seems to be both over-prepared and over timid.
On the other hand, he is wise not to interrupt a government bent on self destruction.
Starmer can think on his feet better than Sunak, which isn't surprising given his CV and how poor Sunak is at thinking on his feet. But unlike Blair in 1997 and for that matter even Trump in 2016 he's got practically no element of a new dawn in his offering, and practically no charisma. He doesn't even measure up to Kinnock.
All the Tories need to do is introduce a bit of new and tough in conflict into their presentation. That may well mean binning Sunak, and there may be a bit of a trouble there with him hanging onto the doorframe because he's rich - so get yer popcorn ready - but they seem to have managed OK in removing the last three prime ministers when they wanted to. And it doesn't even necessarily mean getting rid of Sunak. He is young, he is not bright but he's better than his three predecessors at listening to advice, and he can be repackaged. The Tories' biggest card is Rwanda, and they will play it when they think the time is right, which isn't yet. Labour haven't really got a card to play in response, other than to say be nice and hey this is a distraction, oh please please, listen to us. Too many pundits keep comparing with 1992 and 1997, but 2024 will probably be more like 2019.
I really don't think "Rwanda" is going to pull the Tories nuts out of the fire. All it does is remind voters of another failed soundbite policy of the government that didn't work.
If there isn’t an actual daily flight to Rwanda, full of boat arrivals, by the time of the election, then the policy is going to be seen as a failure by the electorate.
Nailed on then, as the policy is limited to 120. Not even half a plane full.
There is nothing preventing that 120 being lifted.
Its far from unprecedented when starting a new system to trial with a small number, then once the kinks are out to lift that number or even remove the cap altogether.
All you have to do is massively increase the capacity of the Rwandan legal system to process a planeful of asylum cases a day. Because the UK is going to process those cases properly, isn't it?
Oh, and you have to do it as a temporary surge. You will need all those assylum lawyers for a few weeks, but then the flow of boat people is going to fall to a trickle and they won't be needed any more.
The whole thing is a blag, and as Sandpit has pointed out, a number of right wing voters are going to be awfully unhappy when the blaginess of the scheme becomes clear.
Saying it's a policy drawn in crayon is an insult to toddlers who draw in crayon. They usually manage to get the number of arms and legs right. Sometimes the nose is even in roughly the right place.
Why would you need Rwanda to process them in a day? The UK doesn't process them in a day.
All you need is Rwanda to agree to house them and process them eventually, which is what the UK does already. No need for them to be processed within 24 hours of arrival.
That's a completely different matter. And as you say, then the flow will fall to a trickle and the planes won't be needed anymore.
Think of the asylum system as a pipeline. At the moment, people are entering that pipe at the rate of about 100 a day. Unless the flow through the narrowest part of the pipeline is about 100 a day, a backlog will build up and keep building. It's one of the reasons that the UK asylum system is in a mess and frantically looking for places to dump people; were not managing to get as many decisions made every day as we need to.
Now, in theory, we could just fly people to Rwanda, a jetload a day or a week, and try to forget about them. If it takes ages for their claims to be processed, and they spill out from those lovely flats the Home Secretary went to visit, it's not our problem.
But that's not the story we are telling ourselves- is it?
But that's exactly what's happened in the UK. At the moment people are entering the pipeline faster that they can be processed so a backlog has built up and keeps building.
Yes, you're right, we could fly a jetload a day or a week to Rwanda and wait for them to be processed there. So long as Rwanda is OK with that (read: so long as we write them a big enough cheque), then that is entirely possible.
Yes a backlog will build up, but that's no different to having a backlog in this country that already exists today.
And as you said, the flow of boats across the Channel would stop if they knew they absolutely definitely would be sent to Rwanda, no ifs, no buts, no equivocation.
The policy works on its merits so long as its actually implemented. Not so long as the throughput is met, since the throughput already isn't met today so that's not new.
What you are describing is not the policy. The policy is not that absolutely definitely everyone is sent to Rwanda. The policy is that a small number of people are sent to Rwanda.
Which brings us back full circle to what I said at the start.
It is perfectly normal when starting a new policy to start a trial with a small number of people.
If that trial and its legal issues can be navigated successfully, then the trial can be changed eventually to have that policy applied to everyone. Which would require of course a new budget attached to it that is different to the original trial budget.
The Rwanda policy can work if it it applies to everyone, and it can be applied to everyone if the legal issues are resolved and Rwanda agrees to it (read: is given a big enough cheque).
Whether its humane, a good idea, or the right thing to do is a completely different question. Many policies which can be done, should not be done. As Jeff Goldblum famously put it in that nature documentary from 1993, people "were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."
It is perfectly normal when starting a new policy to start a trial with a small number of people. In such a case, you say this is a trial with a small number of people, but the plan is to apply it to X people if the trial is successful. The Government has not, as far as I understand it, said this. It’s policy is that “some” people will be sent to Rwanda.
Until people are being sent and the legal issues have been resolved, what's the point in saying any more yet? The cap has not become an issue yet.
When Australia implemented the same policy, they underwent the same path. It was initially a policy for some, the legal issues were resolved, then once the policy was running it was changed to say "this applies to everyone now" (with commensurate payment to the recipient nation) at which point the boats stopped.
There's no reason the UK can't follow the same path. Whether it should is another matter, but claiming the policy can't work is just nonsense. It can work, whether it should is another matter.
There is a lot of point in saying more, in saying what your end goal is, now. It impresses the voters. It puts off more people trying to cross the Channel. This Government has not been shy of discussing end goals before the details have been worked out (viz. any of Sunak’s 5 pledges).
There are many reasons why the UK can’t follow the same path. First off, I’d note that the Conservative government has been talking about this for years and still hasn’t gotten anywhere! The policy is clearly beyond the abilities of the Home Secretaries the Conservatives keep picking.
It is not clear that Rwanda, for any size cheque, would take everyone. The numbers in question are twice those in the Australia case, and the power relationship between Australia and the other countries involved is different to that of the UK and Rwanda.
It is highly unlikely that the UK authorities could intercept all the boats at sea in the way Australia did because of the very different geography.
As I said in my edit if you want it to apply to more, you'd need Rwanda's consent for that, and there's no point paying for that consent today.
The voters he wants to appeal to already think its the intention to apply to people and its the lack of flights that is the issue, not that the flights are theoretically capped at 120.
It won't be clear that Rwanda would take everyone until a cheque big enough to convince them to do so is written, which is why there's no point saying that's the plan until you know that you need that capacity, and are so willing to write that cheque.
Australia didn't intercept many boats, the number of boats attempting the journey dropped by about 99% which meant interceptions were miniscule.
Australia was intercepting all the boats, and then the number of boats coming dropped.
Your belief that Rwanda would take any number of people if the cheque is large enough is not founded in evidence. More to the point, if we know anything about the Conservative Government, it’s that they don’t like solutions where they have to pay. Successive Conservative Governments could have invested in more staff to tackle backlogs in the system and increase deportations under the current rules. They haven’t.
The UK could theoretically adopt a policy of sending everyone crossing the Channel in small boats to Rwanda, but that is not their stated policy, it is not Rwanda’s stated policy and the money for such a policy is not forthcoming. I suggest we judge policies on their intention and their actual achievement. It seems pointless to me to talk about some other approach that no-one is saying they will do and that it seems unlikely that they could do.
You can't send everyone crossing the Channel in small boats to Rwanda because Rwanda is landlocked.
"‘There’s nothing like face to face’: Darlington reacts to ticket office closures In Darlington, a town steeped in rail history, teenage and elderly rail passengers agree nothing beats talking to a human"
Most of the time, the machine is quicker, easier, more efficient for many people. I always find it bizarre when I have to talk to someone who then types into a machine something I could more quickly have put in myself.
But, there are those (many elderly, others) who hate the machines and find them hard to use. And the occasions when the rail network is in chaos and talking to someone is much quicker/more effective than trying to google the answer as to "in this circumstance is my ticket still valid on a different service and what about my connection". Sometimes, of course, that requires local knowledge too, so a call centre would not be a good replacement.
Maybe some more creative thinking is needed, where station booking staff instead become local information staff - able to book trains for you and help with your ticket, but also to give tourist advice, direct you to the right bus, book a taxi, sell you tickets to local attractions and maybe gifts too. Not everywhere would need such a thing, but for anywhere with a local tourist information office the two could perhaps be combined. The difficulty then perhaps being in how the cost is divided up.
My local station has no ticket office or ticket machine. The ticket is bought on the train, except when the ticket examiner spends the entire journey in the back cab and I have to join a long queue at the terminus to buy a ticket to get through the automatic barrier.
@patrickkmaguire Labour lead at 25 points in latest YouGov poll for The Times
CON 22 (-2) LAB 47 (+1) LIB DEM 9 (-1) REF UK 9 (+1) GREEN 7 (=)
Fieldwork 5-6 July
Big 9% for Reform there for Sunak to squeeze by reducing the boats across the Channel in particular.
Indeed Reform now tied with the LDs for 3rd party on voteshare and ahead of the Greens
Do you seriously think that Sunak has *anything* to offer someone who says 'Refuk' in a poll?
I hope not. He should tell them to ReFuk themselves. It is the vote that has shifted to LD that he needs to focus on. He should make it clear that closets racists and homophobes do not share the values of modern politics.
Oh really, and how much progress has he shown in attracting such dickless social democrat remoaners so far - and when should we expect such an electoral strategy to bear fruit? Or are you perhaps just recommending that everyone should 'agree with me'?
On Topic - If he wishes to foster a LESS welcoming environment for pint-sized asylum-seekrs, the Minister for Immigration ought to order that his official portrait be posted prominently and frequently in all juvenile alien detention centres?
Terrified, traumatized tots will soon be clamoring for deportation.
@patrickkmaguire Labour lead at 25 points in latest YouGov poll for The Times
CON 22 (-2) LAB 47 (+1) LIB DEM 9 (-1) REF UK 9 (+1) GREEN 7 (=)
Fieldwork 5-6 July
Big 9% for Reform there for Sunak to squeeze by reducing the boats across the Channel in particular.
Indeed Reform now tied with the LDs for 3rd party on voteshare and ahead of the Greens
Do you seriously think that Sunak has *anything* to offer someone who says 'Refuk' in a poll?
I hope not. He should tell them to ReFuk themselves. It is the vote that has shifted to LD that he needs to focus on. He should make it clear that closets racists and homophobes do not share the values of modern politics.
Oh really, and how much progress has he shown in attracting such dickless social democrat remoaners so far - and when should we expect such an electoral strategy to bear fruit? Or are you perhaps just recommending that everyone should 'agree with me'?
Also the LDs are on just 9% on this poll, down 2% on 2019.
RefUK on 9% are 7% up on the 2% the Brexit Party got in 2019 however
Comments
Canada haven't legalised all drugs have they? Just cannabis I thought?
Canada certainly handles drugs better than the USA in my eyes.
Kind of a prerogative of the hoor through the ages thing.
The easiest way to resolve that is to withdraw the discount for wheelchair users
(Why do they have one out of interest? They are using the same service (getting from A to B at a moreorless scheduled time) and taking up approximately the same capacity.
So what is the justification for that spending decision?
What I think is the case is that Canada have legalised all drug use. Or they may just have decriminalised hard drugs. Either way, it has been good news for those who like to see druggies and junkies hanging around pleasant downtown areas and introducing a vague air of menace. Vancouver isn't San Francisco yet, but it's looking a lot more like it than it was fifteen years ago. The impression I get is that drug use has increased, the visibility of drug use has increased a lot, and criminal organisations are still doing very well out of it - any losses they are making to legal sources are more than outweighed by the overall market increasing.
BUT I should stress that I haven't been to Canada since 2005 and this is very much second hand information! So please feel free to contradict.
But, there are those (many elderly, others) who hate the machines and find them hard to use. And the occasions when the rail network is in chaos and talking to someone is much quicker/more effective than trying to google the answer as to "in this circumstance is my ticket still valid on a different service and what about my connection". Sometimes, of course, that requires local knowledge too, so a call centre would not be a good replacement.
Maybe some more creative thinking is needed, where station booking staff instead become local information staff - able to book trains for you and help with your ticket, but also to give tourist advice, direct you to the right bus, book a taxi, sell you tickets to local attractions and maybe gifts too. Not everywhere would need such a thing, but for anywhere with a local tourist information office the two could perhaps be combined. The difficulty then perhaps being in how the cost is divided up.
Terrified, traumatized tots will soon be clamoring for deportation.
RefUK on 9% are 7% up on the 2% the Brexit Party got in 2019 however