This is a dictator's charter. Nixon's silent majority gets to ban any protests that right-wingers don't like. Two fingers to that.
Is there a difference between banning protest, and not incentivising campaiging groups with government money? Or putting specific restrictions on some types of activity? That's already the case, see those chaps who went up a bridge, so where's the right line? Should very minority pressure groups get to derail projects which have mass support or mass neutrality?
I think we have to err on the side of protestors and lobbiers, we don't want to empower governments to just stop people saying things they do not like. But is there not a some capacity to rebalance structures and rules to not make decision making at least prohibitively long and costly?
It doesn't make it impossible just more difficult and does anybody really care who controls the North Carolina state house outside North Carolina anyway?
I would think Trump will if the presidential vote is close.
And of course it affects Congressional elections.
'Just makes it more difficult' - you don't really believe in democracy, do you ?
Trump won North Carolina even in 2020 when he lost the Presidential vote nationwide.
Republicans also won most congressional seats in NC even when they were in the minority from 2018-2022
'We all know that the world is in turmoil, but a strong America is good for the entire world," Johnson said.
"We are the beacon of freedom and we must preserve this grand experiment of self governance."
He says one of the first bills he brings forward will be in defence of Israel.'
Which immediately puts him in conflict with both the Senate and Presidency as they want a combined Israel and Ukraine financing.
And an Israel only bill causes problems for the Democrats who have support from both a large majority of Jewish voters and a large majority of voters that hate Israel.
So we immediately get more argument and division in DC.
But I am here. On the chic side of Ortygia under a mildly dramatic moon
I have a related question for well travelled PB-ers. I’ve got six more nights in Sicily then I must be back in Blighty. I’ve got two more here in Siracusa but then I’m wondering… maybe move on? But where? I’ve seen Palermo and the north coast and all that
I’ve not seen the interior. Is it worth it? The valley of the temples? Corleone?!
It doesn't make it impossible just more difficult and does anybody really care who controls the North Carolina state house outside North Carolina anyway?
I would think Trump will if the presidential vote is close.
And of course it affects Congressional elections.
'Just makes it more difficult' - you don't really believe in democracy, do you ?
Trump won North Carolina even in 2020 when he lost the Presidential vote nationwide.
Republicans also won most congressional seats in NC even when they were in the minority from 2018-2022
Not sure any of this makes a gerrymander even remotely ok @HYUFD
It doesn't make it impossible just more difficult and does anybody really care who controls the North Carolina state house outside North Carolina anyway?
I would think Trump will if the presidential vote is close.
And of course it affects Congressional elections.
'Just makes it more difficult' - you don't really believe in democracy, do you ?
Trump won North Carolina even in 2020 when he lost the Presidential vote nationwide.
Republicans also won most congressional seats in NC even when they were in the minority from 2018-2022
Not sure any of this makes a gerrymander even remotely ok @HYUFD
Well Democrats can and often do in their stronger states too. If they want to stop it they need to have a Federal election commission draw seat boundaries like we have
But I am here. On the chic side of Ortygia under a mildly dramatic moon
I have a related question for well travelled PB-ers. I’ve got six more nights in Sicily then I must be back in Blighty. I’ve got two more here in Siracusa but then I’m wondering… maybe move on? But where? I’ve seen Palermo and the north coast and all that
I’ve not seen the interior. Is it worth it? The valley of the temples? Corleone?!
Ferry to Malta, if you've never been. Cheapish luxury hotels. Neolithic stuff to see. And subsaharan boat people to interview. Mediocre food, though.
Some things get unnecessarily conflated. People have a right to protest, they do not have a right to break the law.
If people choose to break the law, in the name of protest, then they can do so - we live in a free society, obeying the law is optional not mandatory.
But anyone who breaks the law can face consequences for doing so.
There is a noble tradition of people breaking the law, getting sent to prison, and getting awareness of their campaign from prison. Today some seem to think "the right to protest" equals "the right to break any law I please, without facing the consequences for doing so". It never has done, nor should it.
It doesn't make it impossible just more difficult and does anybody really care who controls the North Carolina state house outside North Carolina anyway?
I would think Trump will if the presidential vote is close.
And of course it affects Congressional elections.
'Just makes it more difficult' - you don't really believe in democracy, do you ?
Trump won North Carolina even in 2020 when he lost the Presidential vote nationwide.
Republicans also won most congressional seats in NC even when they were in the minority from 2018-2022
Not sure any of this makes a gerrymander even remotely ok @HYUFD
Well Democrats can and often do in their states too. If they want to stop it they need to have a Federal election commission draw seat boundaries like we have
Oh I agree this needs sorted at a federal level so that the right to vote is protected. Unfortunately, my application to sit on the US Supreme Court seems to have been misplaced and I am not confident that the current majority agree.
This is a dictator's charter. Nixon's silent majority gets to ban any protests that right-wingers don't like. Two fingers to that.
Is there a difference between banning protest, and not incentivising campaiging groups with government money? Or putting specific restrictions on some types of activity? That's already the case, see those chaps who went up a bridge, so where's the right line? Should very minority pressure groups get to derail projects which have mass support or mass neutrality?
I think we have to err on the side of protestors and lobbiers, we don't want to empower governments to just stop people saying things they do not like. But is there not a some capacity to rebalance structures and rules to not make decision making at least prohibitively long and costly?
It's the amount of times that things can go through the courts which frustrate me. For Example...
there is one man, an ex green councillor, who has successfully held up the upgrading of 3 stretches of the A47 in Norfolk. The council wants it and the people of Norfolk want it but he has 'crowdfunded' a legal battle because he thinks that the government 'hasn't taken into account the cumulative CO2 emissions'. The parts of the road in question are not safe and significant upgrade is needed but this one man crusade has been through the high count and is going to the court of appeal. I suspect he'd take it to the supreme count and ECHR if he had the opportunity. There's no prospect of significant changes to the schemes as a result of the lawsuits.
in this case, if he wins it throws into question all roadbuilding projects in the UK.
But I am here. On the chic side of Ortygia under a mildly dramatic moon
I have a related question for well travelled PB-ers. I’ve got six more nights in Sicily then I must be back in Blighty. I’ve got two more here in Siracusa but then I’m wondering… maybe move on? But where? I’ve seen Palermo and the north coast and all that
I’ve not seen the interior. Is it worth it? The valley of the temples? Corleone?!
If you can download books, James Holland Sicily 43 had some interesting locations and John Julius Norwich Sicily also explains some of the uniquesness of the place and its history.
It doesn't make it impossible just more difficult and does anybody really care who controls the North Carolina state house outside North Carolina anyway?
I would think Trump will if the presidential vote is close.
And of course it affects Congressional elections.
'Just makes it more difficult' - you don't really believe in democracy, do you ?
Trump won North Carolina even in 2020 when he lost the Presidential vote nationwide.
Republicans also won most congressional seats in NC even when they were in the minority from 2018-2022
Not sure any of this makes a gerrymander even remotely ok @HYUFD
Its effectively legal though unless its too closely aligned on racial grounds.
Perhaps the worse thing about the gerrymandering is that it allows majorities to create even bigger majorities for themselves.
But I am here. On the chic side of Ortygia under a mildly dramatic moon
I have a related question for well travelled PB-ers. I’ve got six more nights in Sicily then I must be back in Blighty. I’ve got two more here in Siracusa but then I’m wondering… maybe move on? But where? I’ve seen Palermo and the north coast and all that
I’ve not seen the interior. Is it worth it? The valley of the temples? Corleone?!
Ferry to Malta, if you've never been. Cheapish luxury hotels. Neolithic stuff to see. And subsaharan boat people to interview. Mediocre food, though.
We went to Malta for our honeymoon 38 years ago. Had a great time but the food was mainly French toast made in the apartment because we had no money! Sounds like we didn’t miss too much.
This is a dictator's charter. Nixon's silent majority gets to ban any protests that right-wingers don't like. Two fingers to that.
Is there a difference between banning protest, and not incentivising campaiging groups with government money? Or putting specific restrictions on some types of activity? That's already the case, see those chaps who went up a bridge, so where's the right line? Should very minority pressure groups get to derail projects which have mass support or mass neutrality?
I think we have to err on the side of protestors and lobbiers, we don't want to empower governments to just stop people saying things they do not like. But is there not a some capacity to rebalance structures and rules to not make decision making at least prohibitively long and costly?
It's the amount of times that things can go through the courts which frustrate me. For Example...
there is one man, an ex green councillor, who has successfully held up the upgrading of 3 stretches of the A47 in Norfolk. The council wants it and the people of Norfolk want it but he has 'crowdfunded' a legal battle because he thinks that the government 'hasn't taken into account the cumulative CO2 emissions'. The parts of the road in question are not safe and significant upgrade is needed but this one man crusade has been through the high count and is going to the court of appeal. I suspect he'd take it to the supreme count and ECHR if he had the opportunity. There's no prospect of significant changes to the schemes as a result of the lawsuits.
in this case, if he wins it throws into question all roadbuilding projects in the UK.
Its bad laws that enable him to do so, the law needs changing.
He should be able to campaign or protest all he wants, but once the decision has been made it should go ahead, no ifs or buts.
Want your politicians to do something different, then campaign for different candidates with different policies.
Unfortunately our politicians love to pass bad laws, in the virtue of being seen to do something, which then allows people to abuse those laws to further their agenda.
There was no reason to pass a bill committing to net zero by 2050, which is the bill that has I believe been the backbone of many of these reviews. It should be policy, but not law. By making policy into bad law, it allows bad faith actors to act like this.
Keep law and policy separate. Enact policies to get us to net zero, don't pass an ill thought through bad law anyone can abuse to further their own agenda.
But I am here. On the chic side of Ortygia under a mildly dramatic moon
I have a related question for well travelled PB-ers. I’ve got six more nights in Sicily then I must be back in Blighty. I’ve got two more here in Siracusa but then I’m wondering… maybe move on? But where? I’ve seen Palermo and the north coast and all that
I’ve not seen the interior. Is it worth it? The valley of the temples? Corleone?!
Ferry to Malta, if you've never been. Cheapish luxury hotels. Neolithic stuff to see. And subsaharan boat people to interview. Mediocre food, though.
We went to Malta for our honeymoon 38 years ago. Had a great time but the food was mainly French toast made in the apartment because we had no money! Sounds like we didn’t miss too much.
The Sicilian Restaurant on the Gozo end of the ferry was very good indeed. Sensational Seacucumber pasta like nothing else that I have ever eaten.
Ah, the Tenth Doctor having left, the Fourteenth Doctor has arrived. Welcome (back) @Alanbrooke .
As for the article it has a logical problem. If you consider the present herd of special interest groups to have too much power and you wish to empower the silent majority, and you try to create a body to represent them...well now you have another special interest group.
However, if as your article suggests you have some concrete ideas, I look forward to reading it. Your next article perhaps?
Ah, the Tenth Doctor having left, the Fourteenth Doctor has arrived. Welcome (back) @Alanbrooke .
As for the article it has a logical problem. If you consider the present herd of special interest groups to have too much power and you wish to empower the silent majority, and you try to create a body to represent them...well now you have another special interest group.
However, if as your article suggests you have some concrete ideas, I look forward to reading it. Your next article perhaps?
I dont intend to start a body we already have one it is called Parliament and Im saying they should stop funding and empowering activists. Let the activists raise their own money and stop giving them legal privileges.
But I am here. On the chic side of Ortygia under a mildly dramatic moon
I have a related question for well travelled PB-ers. I’ve got six more nights in Sicily then I must be back in Blighty. I’ve got two more here in Siracusa but then I’m wondering… maybe move on? But where? I’ve seen Palermo and the north coast and all that
I’ve not seen the interior. Is it worth it? The valley of the temples? Corleone?!
Ferry to Malta, if you've never been. Cheapish luxury hotels. Neolithic stuff to see. And subsaharan boat people to interview. Mediocre food, though.
We went to Malta for our honeymoon 38 years ago. Had a great time but the food was mainly French toast made in the apartment because we had no money!
It doesn't make it impossible just more difficult and does anybody really care who controls the North Carolina state house outside North Carolina anyway?
I would think Trump will if the presidential vote is close.
And of course it affects Congressional elections.
'Just makes it more difficult' - you don't really believe in democracy, do you ?
Trump won North Carolina even in 2020 when he lost the Presidential vote nationwide.
Republicans also won most congressional seats in NC even when they were in the minority from 2018-2022
Not sure any of this makes a gerrymander even remotely ok @HYUFD
Its effectively legal though unless its too closely aligned on racial grounds.
Perhaps the worse thing about the gerrymandering is that it allows majorities to create even bigger majorities for themselves.
But I am here. On the chic side of Ortygia under a mildly dramatic moon
I have a related question for well travelled PB-ers. I’ve got six more nights in Sicily then I must be back in Blighty. I’ve got two more here in Siracusa but then I’m wondering… maybe move on? But where? I’ve seen Palermo and the north coast and all that
I’ve not seen the interior. Is it worth it? The valley of the temples? Corleone?!
Ferry to Malta, if you've never been. Cheapish luxury hotels. Neolithic stuff to see. And subsaharan boat people to interview. Mediocre food, though.
We went to Malta for our honeymoon 38 years ago. Had a great time but the food was mainly French toast made in the apartment because we had no money! Sounds like we didn’t miss too much.
The Sicilian Restaurant on the Gozo end of the ferry was very good indeed. Sensational Seacucumber pasta like nothing else that I have ever eaten.
We had a fantastic day out in Gozo having splashed out to go by speed boat. When the driver found out that we were on our honeymoon we got invited to a party at his villa which was probably the best food we had during the entire fortnight.
I'm confused. Has this thread risen from the dead?
Well we are near Halloween. But it was originally put up this morning and a SNAFU meant it got cut unfairly short. @TSE promised it would be reposted and rightly so.
Ah, the Tenth Doctor having left, the Fourteenth Doctor has arrived. Welcome (back) @Alanbrooke .
As for the article it has a logical problem. If you consider the present herd of special interest groups to have too much power and you wish to empower the silent majority, and you try to create a body to represent them...well now you have another special interest group.
However, if as your article suggests you have some concrete ideas, I look forward to reading it. Your next article perhaps?
I dont intend to start a body we already have one it is called Parliament and Im saying they should stop funding and empowering activists. Let the activists raise their own money and stop giving them legal privileges.
Parliament empowers activists (currently members of the Conservative Party) to choose the Prime Minister. And another bunch of activists the LOTO.
If only the single issue monomaniacs of Brexit had shut up...
Except they weren't out blocking streets or undertaking civil disorder. Instead they used the political system to get what they wanted. Which is what we are all supposed to do isn't it?
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government" sounds kind of mafia-like - "you don't want to take us to court, shame if anything happened to your funding...". A bit like how the government is banning people who disagree with it on anything from speaking to civil servants. Illiberal, cancel-culture behaviour in my view. If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
Ah, the Tenth Doctor having left, the Fourteenth Doctor has arrived. Welcome (back) @Alanbrooke .
As for the article it has a logical problem. If you consider the present herd of special interest groups to have too much power and you wish to empower the silent majority, and you try to create a body to represent them...well now you have another special interest group.
However, if as your article suggests you have some concrete ideas, I look forward to reading it. Your next article perhaps?
I dont intend to start a body we already have one it is called Parliament and Im saying they should stop funding and empowering activists. Let the activists raise their own money and stop giving them legal privileges.
Including (often right-wing) thinktanks pretending to be charities?
Including political parties' donors given IHT relief if they donate to only certain political parties?
But I am here. On the chic side of Ortygia under a mildly dramatic moon
I have a related question for well travelled PB-ers. I’ve got six more nights in Sicily then I must be back in Blighty. I’ve got two more here in Siracusa but then I’m wondering… maybe move on? But where? I’ve seen Palermo and the north coast and all that
I’ve not seen the interior. Is it worth it? The valley of the temples? Corleone?!
Ferry to Malta, if you've never been. Cheapish luxury hotels. Neolithic stuff to see. And subsaharan boat people to interview. Mediocre food, though.
What’s TSE’s position on rabbit as a pizza topping?
Ah, the Tenth Doctor having left, the Fourteenth Doctor has arrived. Welcome (back) @Alanbrooke .
As for the article it has a logical problem. If you consider the present herd of special interest groups to have too much power and you wish to empower the silent majority, and you try to create a body to represent them...well now you have another special interest group.
However, if as your article suggests you have some concrete ideas, I look forward to reading it. Your next article perhaps?
I dont intend to start a body we already have one it is called Parliament and Im saying they should stop funding and empowering activists. Let the activists raise their own money and stop giving them legal privileges.
Parliament empowers activists (currently members of the Conservative Party) to choose the Prime Minister. And another bunch of activists the LOTO.
Ah, the Tenth Doctor having left, the Fourteenth Doctor has arrived. Welcome (back) @Alanbrooke .
As for the article it has a logical problem. If you consider the present herd of special interest groups to have too much power and you wish to empower the silent majority, and you try to create a body to represent them...well now you have another special interest group.
However, if as your article suggests you have some concrete ideas, I look forward to reading it. Your next article perhaps?
I dont intend to start a body we already have one it is called Parliament and Im saying they should stop funding and empowering activists. Let the activists raise their own money and stop giving them legal privileges.
Including (often right-wing) thinktanks pretending to be charities?
Including political parties' donors given IHT relief if they donate to only certain political parties?
Ah, the Tenth Doctor having left, the Fourteenth Doctor has arrived. Welcome (back) @Alanbrooke .
As for the article it has a logical problem. If you consider the present herd of special interest groups to have too much power and you wish to empower the silent majority, and you try to create a body to represent them...well now you have another special interest group.
However, if as your article suggests you have some concrete ideas, I look forward to reading it. Your next article perhaps?
I dont intend to start a body we already have one it is called Parliament and Im saying they should stop funding and empowering activists. Let the activists raise their own money and stop giving them legal privileges.
Including (often right-wing) thinktanks pretending to be charities?
Including political parties' donors given IHT relief if they donate to only certain political parties?
There’s a lot of sense in this article but it’s coming at it from a partisan point of view. All the examples given are left wing / “woke”, with the single exception of the reference to NIMBYism which crosses the left-right divide.
The scourge of single interest political pressure groups exists on the right as well as the left. The players are different - it’s usually expressed via noisy think tanks like the IEA or rabble rousing politicians like Farage - and the means can be more insidious, but the effect is the same: to stop necessary things being done and cause unnecessary things to be done.
It’s difficult to regulate the influence of single issue campaigners precisely because it’s usually about influence through speech and action rather than money (as is the case in more corrupt countries). The best prophylactic is politicians with brains in their heads and a press that exercises due scepticism.
And of course some single issue campaigns are absolutely vital, be they from business or environmentalists or rights activists. Without them we’d live in a much more authoritarian, more polluted, more bureaucratic world.
So you get to decide which are 'absolutely vital' and which are 'noisy think tanks'?
I suspect our views on which groups fall into the two catagories would be very different.
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government" sounds kind of mafia-like - "you don't want to take us to court, shame if anything happened to your funding...". A bit like how the government is banning people who disagree with it on anything from speaking to civil servants. Illiberal, cancel-culture behaviour in my view. If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
It should be no government money for any group that is lobbying the government, let alone taking them to court.
The Government should have a fiduciary duty to look after our taxes reasonably. If our taxes are getting spent on lobbying etc that's not a good use of our taxes.
Our taxes should go to provide goods and services. If an organisation wants to provide goods and services, then fine, if its competitive it should be a productive use of those taxes. If an organisation is lobby, then fine, but it should raise its funds for lobbying privately and not from taxes.
Le Pen's score there would be the highest first round score for any French presidential candidate since Sarkozy's 31% in 2007 when he won the Presidency.
Looks like it could well be President Le Pen in 4 years unless Renaissance find a decent candidate to replace Macron or Les Republicains can find a serious contender. Some of Melenchon's vote would also go to Le Pen in a second round
Ah, the Tenth Doctor having left, the Fourteenth Doctor has arrived. Welcome (back) @Alanbrooke .
As for the article it has a logical problem. If you consider the present herd of special interest groups to have too much power and you wish to empower the silent majority, and you try to create a body to represent them...well now you have another special interest group.
However, if as your article suggests you have some concrete ideas, I look forward to reading it. Your next article perhaps?
I dont intend to start a body we already have one it is called Parliament and Im saying they should stop funding and empowering activists. Let the activists raise their own money and stop giving them legal privileges.
I hope I am right, Alanbrooke, in summarising what you have to say thus: No-one, but no-one can do parliament's job except parliament; at the moment it isn't working well. Only parliament can sort it. End.
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government" sounds kind of mafia-like - "you don't want to take us to court, shame if anything happened to your funding...". A bit like how the government is banning people who disagree with it on anything from speaking to civil servants. Illiberal, cancel-culture behaviour in my view. If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
That is the problem with that proposal but, certainly in Scotland, we have the opposite problem that @Alanbrooke refers to. We have a series of “charities” that survive almost exclusively on government funding and which campaign and promulgate policies that our government wants on the back of public money. These groups have a wildly disproportionate influence on public policy.
Ah, the Tenth Doctor having left, the Fourteenth Doctor has arrived. Welcome (back) @Alanbrooke .
As for the article it has a logical problem. If you consider the present herd of special interest groups to have too much power and you wish to empower the silent majority, and you try to create a body to represent them...well now you have another special interest group.
However, if as your article suggests you have some concrete ideas, I look forward to reading it. Your next article perhaps?
I dont intend to start a body we already have one it is called Parliament and Im saying they should stop funding and empowering activists. Let the activists raise their own money and stop giving them legal privileges.
I hope I am right, Alanbrooke, in summarising what you have to say thus: No-one, but no-one can do parliament's job except parliament; at the moment it isn't working well. Only parliament can sort it. End.
I agree.
The problem is that Parliament has spent years offshoring its responsibilities to other groups, in an attempt to either curry favour, or dodge unpopularity.
With a few law changes, this could be readily fixed. The court cases are spawning from bad laws. But Parliament needs to take responsibility, and it may lose some popularity by doing so.
That would be the highest first round score for any French presidential candidate since Sarkozy's 31% in 2007 when he won the Presidency.
Looks like it could well be President Le Pen in 4 years unless Renaissance find a decent candidate to replace Macron or Les Republicains can find a serious contender. Some of Melenchon's vote would also go to Le Pen in a second round
Hard to know how Melenchon's vote will go. He's currently having the same Gaza problem as Starmer with a split right down the Left. The moderates want to avoid supporting Hamas and the Ultras are doing parachute training.
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government" sounds kind of mafia-like - "you don't want to take us to court, shame if anything happened to your funding...". A bit like how the government is banning people who disagree with it on anything from speaking to civil servants. Illiberal, cancel-culture behaviour in my view. If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
That is the problem with that proposal but, certainly in Scotland, we have the opposite problem that @Alanbrooke refers to. We have a series of “charities” that survive almost exclusively on government funding and which campaign and promulgate policies that our government wants on the back of public money. These groups have a wildly disproportionate influence on public policy.
Its corrupt.
No group lobbying for policy changes should ever be entitled to a single penny of taxpayers money. If you want to lobby, then great, but raise it privately.
The government giving favoured "charities" taxpayers money is an attempt to tilt the field in favour of certain viewpoints. Its a disgrace and not what taxes should be there for.
Its an interesting piece but I think it misses the golden question - why?
Why do we have so many agitated and organised protests? The author of course only fingers the protests he politically disapproves of - which in part explains the why. Why do so many people feel so disconnected from our polity that their only recourse is disobedience?
The reason - surely - is the failure of politics. Our political parties have become narrowly defined cults who select morons. Hello Richard Burgon and Scott Benton. Hello to the "fuck off" abusive MPs like Lee Anderson and nearly that Tory candidate in Tamworth. Hello the authors of Britannia Unchained who think their constituents are feckless lazy scum. Hello the people who deliberately create a system where public services are ground down to dust whilst literal billions of pounds is lost in tax dodging and PPE contracts and Spiv middlemen "management".
The author fingers the protestors he doesn't like - almost nobody likes them btw - but seems nonplussed by any of the reasons behind it. They protest because politics has failed them in a country which is visibly broken and no longer works.
Read the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report of this week. Understand the depths of depravity we have brought this country down to. Understand that work doesn't pay the bills, there is no safety net, and the right still want to blame the millions reduced to destitution.
We have an epidemic of shoplifters. People utterly desperate, being organised by criminal gangs. Knowing that in many towns there is no police presence. Even if they get caught the chances of actually getting prosecuted are low, or of eventually going to court, and the prisons are so full that rapists can't be sent there. The Tories have created Britain as Gotham. Yet we're told not to protest?
An election would help. Removing the criminally corrupt and incompetent Tory government would help. But its not a fix because things are so broken. You want to empower people so that protest is less of an issue? Make politics work. PR - vote for what you actually want. In a refounded country where we actually have public services and a social fabric fit for purpose. Then we can put the placards down.
It seems there was just as much protest, between 1974 to 1979, and 1997-2010, as now.
Was there ever a time when we had such public services and social fabric?
The author is right, IMHO, to object to pressure groups that are largely financed by government to lobby government?
Ah, the Tenth Doctor having left, the Fourteenth Doctor has arrived. Welcome (back) @Alanbrooke .
As for the article it has a logical problem. If you consider the present herd of special interest groups to have too much power and you wish to empower the silent majority, and you try to create a body to represent them...well now you have another special interest group.
However, if as your article suggests you have some concrete ideas, I look forward to reading it. Your next article perhaps?
I dont intend to start a body we already have one it is called Parliament and Im saying they should stop funding and empowering activists. Let the activists raise their own money and stop giving them legal privileges.
I hope I am right, Alanbrooke, in summarising what you have to say thus: No-one, but no-one can do parliament's job except parliament; at the moment it isn't working well. Only parliament can sort it. End.
This is a dictator's charter. Nixon's silent majority gets to ban any protests that right-wingers don't like. Two fingers to that.
Is there a difference between banning protest, and not incentivising campaiging groups with government money? Or putting specific restrictions on some types of activity? That's already the case, see those chaps who went up a bridge, so where's the right line? Should very minority pressure groups get to derail projects which have mass support or mass neutrality?
I think we have to err on the side of protestors and lobbiers, we don't want to empower governments to just stop people saying things they do not like. But is there not a some capacity to rebalance structures and rules to not make decision making at least prohibitively long and costly?
It's the amount of times that things can go through the courts which frustrate me...
Is there a reason that the legal process of challenges and appeals can't be done and dusted within a couple of months?
Legal challenge is an important recourse, but I'd think we'd want to have the process complete as quickly as possible
Ah, the Tenth Doctor having left, the Fourteenth Doctor has arrived. Welcome (back) @Alanbrooke .
As for the article it has a logical problem. If you consider the present herd of special interest groups to have too much power and you wish to empower the silent majority, and you try to create a body to represent them...well now you have another special interest group.
However, if as your article suggests you have some concrete ideas, I look forward to reading it. Your next article perhaps?
I dont intend to start a body we already have one it is called Parliament and Im saying they should stop funding and empowering activists. Let the activists raise their own money and stop giving them legal privileges.
Parliament empowers activists (currently members of the Conservative Party) to choose the Prime Minister. And another bunch of activists the LOTO.
Not quite. How a party appoints a leader of that party is, very obviously a matter for that party's rules. They can do it any way they like.
The prime minister is the leader of whatever group can command a majority in the house. Parliament can veto any PM at any time by a vote of confidence.
There’s a lot of sense in this article but it’s coming at it from a partisan point of view. All the examples given are left wing / “woke”, with the single exception of the reference to NIMBYism which crosses the left-right divide.
The scourge of single interest political pressure groups exists on the right as well as the left. The players are different - it’s usually expressed via noisy think tanks like the IEA or rabble rousing politicians like Farage - and the means can be more insidious, but the effect is the same: to stop necessary things being done and cause unnecessary things to be done.
It’s difficult to regulate the influence of single issue campaigners precisely because it’s usually about influence through speech and action rather than money (as is the case in more corrupt countries). The best prophylactic is politicians with brains in their heads and a press that exercises due scepticism.
And of course some single issue campaigns are absolutely vital, be they from business or environmentalists or rights activists. Without them we’d live in a much more authoritarian, more polluted, more bureaucratic world.
So you get to decide which are 'absolutely vital' and which are 'noisy think tanks'?
I suspect our views on which groups fall into the two catagories would be very different.
Nah - trivial to work out which is which
Field Marshal Haig is most anxious to eliminate all these German spies.
Filthy Hun weasels fighting their dirty underhand war!
And, fortunately, one of our spies...
Splendid fellows, brave heroes, risking life and limb for Blighty...
...has discovered that the leak Is coming from the field hospital.
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government" sounds kind of mafia-like - "you don't want to take us to court, shame if anything happened to your funding...". A bit like how the government is banning people who disagree with it on anything from speaking to civil servants. Illiberal, cancel-culture behaviour in my view. If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
It should be no government money for any group that is lobbying the government, let alone taking them to court.
The Government should have a fiduciary duty to look after our taxes reasonably. If our taxes are getting spent on lobbying etc that's not a good use of our taxes.
Our taxes should go to provide goods and services. If an organisation wants to provide goods and services, then fine, if its competitive it should be a productive use of those taxes. If an organisation is lobby, then fine, but it should raise its funds for lobbying privately and not from taxes.
OLB is making a different point to you (and Alanbrooke), though. Say the Government decides to outsource some of its functions to a charity - e.g. Shelter for housing or the RSPCA for prosecutions for cruelty. They pay a market rate for this service, which is often ring-fenced. It's convenient for the Government not to have to employ civil servants for everything (and I don't think you or Alanbrooke are big fans of a large civil service) if there is an exprert service available.
If Shelter or the RSPCA then decide to lobby or indeed sue the Government, the money for that comes "entirely" from private donations. That is already the case, contrary to the impression that you may have. What you and Alanbrooke seem to be saying is that the price of Shelter lobbying the Government is that they lose the agreed contracts, disrupting the service while the Government looks round for someone else to do it. (In practice, all that would happen would be that the charity wouold set up a separate arm for lobbying.)
(Declaration of non-interest - I work for a charity, and we do lobbying, but we don't get any Government money for anything. Literally NOBODY gets Government money for lobbying.)
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government" sounds kind of mafia-like - "you don't want to take us to court, shame if anything happened to your funding...". A bit like how the government is banning people who disagree with it on anything from speaking to civil servants. Illiberal, cancel-culture behaviour in my view. If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
That is the problem with that proposal but, certainly in Scotland, we have the opposite problem that @Alanbrooke refers to. We have a series of “charities” that survive almost exclusively on government funding and which campaign and promulgate policies that our government wants on the back of public money. These groups have a wildly disproportionate influence on public policy.
Its corrupt.
No group lobbying for policy changes should ever be entitled to a single penny of taxpayers money. If you want to lobby, then great, but raise it privately.
The government giving favoured "charities" taxpayers money is an attempt to tilt the field in favour of certain viewpoints. Its a disgrace and not what taxes should be there for.
Yep I agree. But it gets tricky when third sector groups get involved in the provision of services. So Shelter provide state funded legal representatives to help people in the Housing court and Rape Scotland provide “supporters” to accompany rape complainers to court. Who is the dog and who is the tail is not always obvious in such scenarios.
I think for instance the Gaza weekend protest is neither here nor there in terms of actually influencing the money in terms of government. Every MP between Brum and the Smoke wanting a tunnel through their constituency for HS2 🫷ING the cost up chronically OTOH...
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government" sounds kind of mafia-like - "you don't want to take us to court, shame if anything happened to your funding...". A bit like how the government is banning people who disagree with it on anything from speaking to civil servants. Illiberal, cancel-culture behaviour in my view. If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
It should be no government money for any group that is lobbying the government, let alone taking them to court.
The Government should have a fiduciary duty to look after our taxes reasonably. If our taxes are getting spent on lobbying etc that's not a good use of our taxes.
Our taxes should go to provide goods and services. If an organisation wants to provide goods and services, then fine, if its competitive it should be a productive use of those taxes. If an organisation is lobby, then fine, but it should raise its funds for lobbying privately and not from taxes.
OLB is making a different point to you (and Alanbrooke), though. Say the Government decides to outsource some of its functions to a charity - e.g. Shelter for housing or the RSPCA for prosecutions for cruelty. They pay a market rate for this service, which is often ring-fenced. It's convenient for the Government not to have to employ civil servants for everything (and I don't think you or Alanbrooke are big fans of a large civil service) if there is an exprert service available.
If Shelter or the RSPCA then decide to lobby or indeed sue the Government, the money for that comes "entirely" from private donations. That is already the case, contrary to the impression that you may have. What you and Alanbrooke seem to be saying is that the price of Shelter lobbying the Government is that they lose the agreed contracts, disrupting the service while the Government looks round for someone else to do it. (In practice, all that would happen would be that the charity wouold set up a separate arm for lobbying.)
(Declaration of non-interest - I work for a charity, and we do lobbying, but we don't get any Government money for anything.)
I am saying the Government should be forbidden to pay taxpayers money to Shelter or the RSPCA if they are lobbying.
And that if Shelter or the RSPCA are providing a service, then a condition of the contract should be that the charity can not engage in any lobbying for the duration of the contract plus a reasonable cooling down period afterwards.
Yes, there is a conflict of interest in both receiving taxpayers money for a "service" and lobbying the government, so it should be one or the other, never both. And if they've been doing either they should be forbidden from doing the other within a reasonable cooling down period afterwards either.
Le Pen's score there would be the highest first round score for any French presidential candidate since Sarkozy's 31% in 2007 when he won the Presidency.
Looks like it could well be President Le Pen in 4 years unless Renaissance find a decent candidate to replace Macron or Les Republicains can find a serious contender. Some of Melenchon's vote would also go to Le Pen in a second round
That poll also has Zemmour on 6.5% so if he doesn’t run next time she could be in the 30s.
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government" sounds kind of mafia-like - "you don't want to take us to court, shame if anything happened to your funding...". A bit like how the government is banning people who disagree with it on anything from speaking to civil servants. Illiberal, cancel-culture behaviour in my view. If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
That is the problem with that proposal but, certainly in Scotland, we have the opposite problem that @Alanbrooke refers to. We have a series of “charities” that survive almost exclusively on government funding and which campaign and promulgate policies that our government wants on the back of public money. These groups have a wildly disproportionate influence on public policy.
But a lot of the charities have actually been tasked with doing ogvernment's work in various areas - central and local, UKG, WG and SG. Remember Mr Cameron's Big Society. You can't suddenly write them out.
Remember, also, many government arms are now charities for the legal and fiscal advantages. To take one example, the British Museum in Bloomsbury, once in the Civill Service, and then IIRC a NDPB, then devolved under Trustees, is now a charity.
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government" sounds kind of mafia-like - "you don't want to take us to court, shame if anything happened to your funding...". A bit like how the government is banning people who disagree with it on anything from speaking to civil servants. Illiberal, cancel-culture behaviour in my view. If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
That is the problem with that proposal but, certainly in Scotland, we have the opposite problem that @Alanbrooke refers to. We have a series of “charities” that survive almost exclusively on government funding and which campaign and promulgate policies that our government wants on the back of public money. These groups have a wildly disproportionate influence on public policy.
Its corrupt.
No group lobbying for policy changes should ever be entitled to a single penny of taxpayers money. If you want to lobby, then great, but raise it privately.
The government giving favoured "charities" taxpayers money is an attempt to tilt the field in favour of certain viewpoints. Its a disgrace and not what taxes should be there for.
Yep I agree. But it gets tricky when third sector groups get involved in the provision of services. So Shelter provide state funded legal representatives to help people in the Housing court and Rape Scotland provide “supporters” to accompany rape complainers to court. Who is the dog and who is the tail is not always obvious in such scenarios.
In my ideal world Shelter and every other charity would have to choose - do they want to be a service provider, or a lobby group?
If lobbyists, then find another service provider to take the taxpayers money. One that doesn't have a conflict of interest.
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government" sounds kind of mafia-like - "you don't want to take us to court, shame if anything happened to your funding...". A bit like how the government is banning people who disagree with it on anything from speaking to civil servants. Illiberal, cancel-culture behaviour in my view. If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
It should be no government money for any group that is lobbying the government, let alone taking them to court.
The Government should have a fiduciary duty to look after our taxes reasonably. If our taxes are getting spent on lobbying etc that's not a good use of our taxes.
Our taxes should go to provide goods and services. If an organisation wants to provide goods and services, then fine, if its competitive it should be a productive use of those taxes. If an organisation is lobby, then fine, but it should raise its funds for lobbying privately and not from taxes.
OLB is making a different point to you (and Alanbrooke), though. Say the Government decides to outsource some of its functions to a charity - e.g. Shelter for housing or the RSPCA for prosecutions for cruelty. They pay a market rate for this service, which is often ring-fenced. It's convenient for the Government not to have to employ civil servants for everything (and I don't think you or Alanbrooke are big fans of a large civil service) if there is an exprert service available.
If Shelter or the RSPCA then decide to lobby or indeed sue the Government, the money for that comes "entirely" from private donations. That is already the case, contrary to the impression that you may have. What you and Alanbrooke seem to be saying is that the price of Shelter lobbying the Government is that they lose the agreed contracts, disrupting the service while the Government looks round for someone else to do it. (In practice, all that would happen would be that the charity wouold set up a separate arm for lobbying.)
(Declaration of non-interest - I work for a charity, and we do lobbying, but we don't get any Government money for anything. Literally NOBODY gets Government money for lobbying.)
The RSPCA lost its way at the beginning of the century when it decided to go down the route of animal rights rather than animal welfare. This led to money being spent of lawyers rather than animals. At that point I stopped giving them any money.
The point I am making is that charities too have to decide what they are about. If a charity wishes to be a lobby group then fair enough but its shouldnt be funded by taxpayers. If a charity is an actual charity then it doesnt have the conflicts of interest.
This is a dictator's charter. Nixon's silent majority gets to ban any protests that right-wingers don't like. Two fingers to that.
Is there a difference between banning protest, and not incentivising campaiging groups with government money? Or putting specific restrictions on some types of activity? That's already the case, see those chaps who went up a bridge, so where's the right line? Should very minority pressure groups get to derail projects which have mass support or mass neutrality?
I think we have to err on the side of protestors and lobbiers, we don't want to empower governments to just stop people saying things they do not like. But is there not a some capacity to rebalance structures and rules to not make decision making at least prohibitively long and costly?
It's the amount of times that things can go through the courts which frustrate me. For Example...
there is one man, an ex green councillor, who has successfully held up the upgrading of 3 stretches of the A47 in Norfolk. The council wants it and the people of Norfolk want it but he has 'crowdfunded' a legal battle because he thinks that the government 'hasn't taken into account the cumulative CO2 emissions'. The parts of the road in question are not safe and significant upgrade is needed but this one man crusade has been through the high count and is going to the court of appeal. I suspect he'd take it to the supreme count and ECHR if he had the opportunity. There's no prospect of significant changes to the schemes as a result of the lawsuits.
in this case, if he wins it throws into question all roadbuilding projects in the UK.
Its bad laws that enable him to do so, the law needs changing.
He should be able to campaign or protest all he wants, but once the decision has been made it should go ahead, no ifs or buts.
Want your politicians to do something different, then campaign for different candidates with different policies.
Unfortunately our politicians love to pass bad laws, in the virtue of being seen to do something, which then allows people to abuse those laws to further their agenda.
There was no reason to pass a bill committing to net zero by 2050, which is the bill that has I believe been the backbone of many of these reviews. It should be policy, but not law. By making policy into bad law, it allows bad faith actors to act like this.
Keep law and policy separate. Enact policies to get us to net zero, don't pass an ill thought through bad law anyone can abuse to further their own agenda.
Policy without law isn't worth the paper it's written on. There is widespread support and was a political consensus, including in manifestos, for net zero - the purpose of the law is to prevent cases like this undermining a national objective.
I'm surprised at your objection to this - on housebuilding you have no patience for people who get in the way of a national objective of more affordable homes.
If the Tories want to change the law and abandon their manifesto commitment to net zero, call a GE and let's see how they get on.
Thanks everyone for the advice on my brief onwards travels. I reckon I’m gonna go Catania airport, hire a tiny Fiat 500, then go see Agrigento, Corleone, and a couple of the weird towns around Etna
Coz I’ve been to Malta and Gozo a lot. I had a grand love affair with a girl whose family owned a lovely villa on Gozo
So. Eheu. Agenbite of inwit. Life is SHORT, especially when confronted with WW3, so one should seize every moment and see everything. Ortygia is fabulous, but four nights is enuff. To the temples!
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government" sounds kind of mafia-like - "you don't want to take us to court, shame if anything happened to your funding...". A bit like how the government is banning people who disagree with it on anything from speaking to civil servants. Illiberal, cancel-culture behaviour in my view. If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
It should be no government money for any group that is lobbying the government, let alone taking them to court.
The Government should have a fiduciary duty to look after our taxes reasonably. If our taxes are getting spent on lobbying etc that's not a good use of our taxes.
Our taxes should go to provide goods and services. If an organisation wants to provide goods and services, then fine, if its competitive it should be a productive use of those taxes. If an organisation is lobby, then fine, but it should raise its funds for lobbying privately and not from taxes.
OLB is making a different point to you (and Alanbrooke), though. Say the Government decides to outsource some of its functions to a charity - e.g. Shelter for housing or the RSPCA for prosecutions for cruelty. They pay a market rate for this service, which is often ring-fenced. It's convenient for the Government not to have to employ civil servants for everything (and I don't think you or Alanbrooke are big fans of a large civil service) if there is an exprert service available.
If Shelter or the RSPCA then decide to lobby or indeed sue the Government, the money for that comes "entirely" from private donations. That is already the case, contrary to the impression that you may have. What you and Alanbrooke seem to be saying is that the price of Shelter lobbying the Government is that they lose the agreed contracts, disrupting the service while the Government looks round for someone else to do it. (In practice, all that would happen would be that the charity wouold set up a separate arm for lobbying.)
(Declaration of non-interest - I work for a charity, and we do lobbying, but we don't get any Government money for anything. Literally NOBODY gets Government money for lobbying.)
Quite. It's all right-wing fantasy.
And as I have just pointed out, HMG *itself* uses the charity option to deal with its own statutory jobs. Such as Historic England/English Heritage.
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government" sounds kind of mafia-like - "you don't want to take us to court, shame if anything happened to your funding...". A bit like how the government is banning people who disagree with it on anything from speaking to civil servants. Illiberal, cancel-culture behaviour in my view. If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
That is the problem with that proposal but, certainly in Scotland, we have the opposite problem that @Alanbrooke refers to. We have a series of “charities” that survive almost exclusively on government funding and which campaign and promulgate policies that our government wants on the back of public money. These groups have a wildly disproportionate influence on public policy.
But a lot of the charities have actually been tasked with doing ogvernment's work in various areas - central and local, UKG, WG and SG. Remember Mr Cameron's Big Society. You can't suddenly write them out.
Remember, also, many government arms are now charities for the legal and fiscal advantages. To take one example, the British Museum in Bloomsbury, once in the Civill Service, and then IIRC a NDPB, then devolved under Trustees, is now a charity.
If the British Museum is a genuine charity, then fine, it can take money.
But it shouldn't be lobbying. If it wants to lobby, then it should have to raise its money privately.
Take the conflict of interests out of the equation.
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government" sounds kind of mafia-like - "you don't want to take us to court, shame if anything happened to your funding...". A bit like how the government is banning people who disagree with it on anything from speaking to civil servants. Illiberal, cancel-culture behaviour in my view. If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
That is the problem with that proposal but, certainly in Scotland, we have the opposite problem that @Alanbrooke refers to. We have a series of “charities” that survive almost exclusively on government funding and which campaign and promulgate policies that our government wants on the back of public money. These groups have a wildly disproportionate influence on public policy.
But a lot of the charities have actually been tasked with doing ogvernment's work in various areas - central and local, UKG, WG and SG. Remember Mr Cameron's Big Society. You can't suddenly write them out.
Remember, also, many government arms are now charities for the legal and fiscal advantages. To take one example, the British Museum in Bloomsbury, once in the Civill Service, and then IIRC a NDPB, then devolved under Trustees, is now a charity.
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government" sounds kind of mafia-like - "you don't want to take us to court, shame if anything happened to your funding...". A bit like how the government is banning people who disagree with it on anything from speaking to civil servants. Illiberal, cancel-culture behaviour in my view. If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
It should be no government money for any group that is lobbying the government, let alone taking them to court.
The Government should have a fiduciary duty to look after our taxes reasonably. If our taxes are getting spent on lobbying etc that's not a good use of our taxes.
Our taxes should go to provide goods and services. If an organisation wants to provide goods and services, then fine, if its competitive it should be a productive use of those taxes. If an organisation is lobby, then fine, but it should raise its funds for lobbying privately and not from taxes.
OLB is making a different point to you (and Alanbrooke), though. Say the Government decides to outsource some of its functions to a charity - e.g. Shelter for housing or the RSPCA for prosecutions for cruelty. They pay a market rate for this service, which is often ring-fenced. It's convenient for the Government not to have to employ civil servants for everything (and I don't think you or Alanbrooke are big fans of a large civil service) if there is an exprert service available.
If Shelter or the RSPCA then decide to lobby or indeed sue the Government, the money for that comes "entirely" from private donations. That is already the case, contrary to the impression that you may have. What you and Alanbrooke seem to be saying is that the price of Shelter lobbying the Government is that they lose the agreed contracts, disrupting the service while the Government looks round for someone else to do it. (In practice, all that would happen would be that the charity wouold set up a separate arm for lobbying.)
(Declaration of non-interest - I work for a charity, and we do lobbying, but we don't get any Government money for anything. Literally NOBODY gets Government money for lobbying.)
Yes, as a Trustee of a charity, we are very careful that our money is spent exclusively on charitable purposes. Anyone who thinks a charity is not using its funds properly should complain to its Trustees, and if no joy, to the Charity Commission.
This is a dictator's charter. Nixon's silent majority gets to ban any protests that right-wingers don't like. Two fingers to that.
Is there a difference between banning protest, and not incentivising campaiging groups with government money? Or putting specific restrictions on some types of activity? That's already the case, see those chaps who went up a bridge, so where's the right line? Should very minority pressure groups get to derail projects which have mass support or mass neutrality?
I think we have to err on the side of protestors and lobbiers, we don't want to empower governments to just stop people saying things they do not like. But is there not a some capacity to rebalance structures and rules to not make decision making at least prohibitively long and costly?
It's the amount of times that things can go through the courts which frustrate me. For Example...
there is one man, an ex green councillor, who has successfully held up the upgrading of 3 stretches of the A47 in Norfolk. The council wants it and the people of Norfolk want it but he has 'crowdfunded' a legal battle because he thinks that the government 'hasn't taken into account the cumulative CO2 emissions'. The parts of the road in question are not safe and significant upgrade is needed but this one man crusade has been through the high count and is going to the court of appeal. I suspect he'd take it to the supreme count and ECHR if he had the opportunity. There's no prospect of significant changes to the schemes as a result of the lawsuits.
in this case, if he wins it throws into question all roadbuilding projects in the UK.
Just explain to the old judges what EVs are, and tell him to bugger off.
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government" sounds kind of mafia-like - "you don't want to take us to court, shame if anything happened to your funding...". A bit like how the government is banning people who disagree with it on anything from speaking to civil servants. Illiberal, cancel-culture behaviour in my view. If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
That is the problem with that proposal but, certainly in Scotland, we have the opposite problem that @Alanbrooke refers to. We have a series of “charities” that survive almost exclusively on government funding and which campaign and promulgate policies that our government wants on the back of public money. These groups have a wildly disproportionate influence on public policy.
But a lot of the charities have actually been tasked with doing ogvernment's work in various areas - central and local, UKG, WG and SG. Remember Mr Cameron's Big Society. You can't suddenly write them out.
Remember, also, many government arms are now charities for the legal and fiscal advantages. To take one example, the British Museum in Bloomsbury, once in the Civill Service, and then IIRC a NDPB, then devolved under Trustees, is now a charity.
If the British Museum is a genuine charity, then fine, it can take money.
But it shouldn't be lobbying. If it wants to lobby, then it should have to raise its money privately.
Take the conflict of interests out of the equation.
But it can't lobby, any more than any other part of the civil service can.
I listened to almost all of Mike Johnson’s speech and I was struck by what was there — and what wasn’t there. Unless I missed something at the very beginning, he made no mention of the 2020 election, and even more importantly, no mention of the Big Loser.
Some may consider those omissions a bit weaselly. But there are times when leaders need to be a bit weaselly, and this may be one of them.
(Our journalists will, of course, try to keep the spotlight on the Big Loser, and it will be interesting to see how Johnson handles them.)
And here's a bit from the Wikipedia biography: Johnson is married to Kelly Lary, a licensed pastoral counselor, a lecturer on family-related issues, and a former school teacher. They have four children. Johnson formerly resided in Shreveport, Baton Rouge, and in Allen, Collin County, Texas.[89]
Johnson has stated that early in his married life he and his wife took in a 14-year-old African American boy and consider him a part of their family.[90] "Many of my colleagues in this committee may not be aware, in addition to our four children at home, my wife and I have a much older son who happens to be African American," Johnson said. "We took custody of Michael and made him part of our family 22 years ago when we were just newlyweds and Michael just 14 and out on the streets and on a dangerous path."
This is a dictator's charter. Nixon's silent majority gets to ban any protests that right-wingers don't like. Two fingers to that.
Is there a difference between banning protest, and not incentivising campaiging groups with government money? Or putting specific restrictions on some types of activity? That's already the case, see those chaps who went up a bridge, so where's the right line? Should very minority pressure groups get to derail projects which have mass support or mass neutrality?
I think we have to err on the side of protestors and lobbiers, we don't want to empower governments to just stop people saying things they do not like. But is there not a some capacity to rebalance structures and rules to not make decision making at least prohibitively long and costly?
It's the amount of times that things can go through the courts which frustrate me. For Example...
there is one man, an ex green councillor, who has successfully held up the upgrading of 3 stretches of the A47 in Norfolk. The council wants it and the people of Norfolk want it but he has 'crowdfunded' a legal battle because he thinks that the government 'hasn't taken into account the cumulative CO2 emissions'. The parts of the road in question are not safe and significant upgrade is needed but this one man crusade has been through the high count and is going to the court of appeal. I suspect he'd take it to the supreme count and ECHR if he had the opportunity. There's no prospect of significant changes to the schemes as a result of the lawsuits.
in this case, if he wins it throws into question all roadbuilding projects in the UK.
Its bad laws that enable him to do so, the law needs changing.
He should be able to campaign or protest all he wants, but once the decision has been made it should go ahead, no ifs or buts.
Want your politicians to do something different, then campaign for different candidates with different policies.
Unfortunately our politicians love to pass bad laws, in the virtue of being seen to do something, which then allows people to abuse those laws to further their agenda.
There was no reason to pass a bill committing to net zero by 2050, which is the bill that has I believe been the backbone of many of these reviews. It should be policy, but not law. By making policy into bad law, it allows bad faith actors to act like this.
Keep law and policy separate. Enact policies to get us to net zero, don't pass an ill thought through bad law anyone can abuse to further their own agenda.
Policy without law isn't worth the paper it's written on. There is widespread support and was a political consensus, including in manifestos, for net zero - the purpose of the law is to prevent cases like this undermining a national objective.
I'm surprised at your objection to this - on housebuilding you have no patience for people who get in the way of a national objective of more affordable homes.
If the Tories want to change the law and abandon their manifesto commitment to net zero, call a GE and let's see how they get on.
Policy without law absolutely is worth the paper its written on. There should be a plan to get to net zero, but individual cases should have nothing to do with that plan. Take roads for instance, if the plan is to get to net zero by having zero emission vehicles driving on the roads, then the courts should have no say whatsoever on the emissions of vehicles driving on the roads as anything time zero equals zero. That's just a fundamental law of mathematics and it trumps laws of the land.
Stuff needs to be done, make a decision on what you're doing and do it. The steps you take are the policies and the law, the objective is not and should not be.
"We will be at net zero" should not be the law, the law should be "[in order to get to net zero] we are doing x, y and z" and x, y and z should be debated and potentially changed democratically.
I don't want a law saying "homes should be affordable", that's preposterous. I want concrete steps taken (like reforming planning) to get us there. Laws with meat on them, to get to the policy objective, not setting the policy objective as law and then doing sod all.
Anyway, off thread, big day out in Perthshire today. First to the Falls of Bruar. "Park at the House of Bruar." I assumed this would be some sort of outdoor activities lodge, but it turns out to be the Harrods of the Highlands. And I'm not one for opulent shops, but this was well worth a gawp. There was nothing really in the clothing section for my needs or budget - though part of me lamented that I would never need three piece hunting tweeds, in which I think a younger me at least would have cut quite a dash - but the food sections were, if pricey, superb. Everything an indulgent fat boy could want. I was particularly taken that the chippy there offered lobster and chips. The whole thing was a slice of life I was largely unaware existed. There is clearly a lot of money sloshing around the Highlands. Anyway, the Falls of Bruar: the Falls of Bruar walk is everything you want the Highlands in Autumn to be. You cannot feel uncheered. Utter beauty. You're done and dusted in an hour, but that hour is perfection. Then on to Pitlochry, where the shops and teashops are a wee bit more accessible, before getting on the bus to the Enchanted Forest (thanks again, @Luckyguy1983). Trippy and wonderful. Again, done and dusted in just over an hour but what a very happy and peculiar hour that is. This was my favourite bit:
Debates always happen first and foremost by opinion formers, whether that is a politician, activist, celebrity or journalist.
The general public will pick a side and then we either reach a general consensus (see gay rights) or a long intractable battle of ideas (see Israel/Palestine). Even when consensus is met there will be people who oppose it, and sometimes they can build momentum to overturn it (e.g. Brexit).
Politicians are important as elected representatives but it's be wrong to leave the entire debate to them. But protesters and activists have an important role to play in shaping public opinion. Politicians will ultimately not move too far away from the views of the disinterested masses for fear of losing their jobs.
And for those who want a retro 70s style story of a nationalised shipyard and a nationalised ferry company:
The wrong type of steel, which is more prone to corrosion, was installed on an already delayed and over-budget ferry, the boss of Ferguson Marine has admitted.
David Tydeman, the chief executive, highlighted the error as one of a number of “mistakes” that have been made during the building process.
A mild steel was used on the hydraulic systems for the MV Glen Sannox’s clamshell doors rather than stainless steel.
Tydeman told MSPs on the net zero, energy and transport committee that the bungle had been recognised but acknowledged that there were several other similar mistakes, such as the wrong type of pipes being installed, which had contributed to the delays and rising costs.
Tydeman had outlined recently how the price of delivering the two ferries was likely to be £360 million, although he had priced in a further £30 million for contingencies.
The initial contract was awarded in 2015 for £97 million and both vessels should have been delivered in 2018.
Appreciate this is rather alarmist, but I've previously pondered whether these ferries will ever join the CalMac fleet. The number of errors is something else, and the heady mix of politics, business and subsidy is an enormous red flag.
Getting the steel wrong on the doors... It was the bow door on MS Estonia that cost 850 lives. The regulator will be watching like a hawk.
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government" sounds kind of mafia-like - "you don't want to take us to court, shame if anything happened to your funding...". A bit like how the government is banning people who disagree with it on anything from speaking to civil servants. Illiberal, cancel-culture behaviour in my view. If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
That is the problem with that proposal but, certainly in Scotland, we have the opposite problem that @Alanbrooke refers to. We have a series of “charities” that survive almost exclusively on government funding and which campaign and promulgate policies that our government wants on the back of public money. These groups have a wildly disproportionate influence on public policy.
But a lot of the charities have actually been tasked with doing ogvernment's work in various areas - central and local, UKG, WG and SG. Remember Mr Cameron's Big Society. You can't suddenly write them out.
Remember, also, many government arms are now charities for the legal and fiscal advantages. To take one example, the British Museum in Bloomsbury, once in the Civill Service, and then IIRC a NDPB, then devolved under Trustees, is now a charity.
If the British Museum is a genuine charity, then fine, it can take money.
But it shouldn't be lobbying. If it wants to lobby, then it should have to raise its money privately.
Take the conflict of interests out of the equation.
But it can't lobby, any more than any other part of the civil service can.
Then what's the problem?
Same should be the case for any charities taking a penny of taxpayers money. Pick what side of the conflict of interest you want to be on, do you want to take money, or be a lobbyist? You shouldn't be both.
Anyway, off thread, big day out in Perthshire today. First to the Falls of Bruar. "Park at the House of Bruar." I assumed this would be some sort of outdoor activities lodge, but it turns out to be the Harrods of the Highlands. And I'm not one for opulent shops, but this was well worth a gawp. There was nothing really in the clothing section for my needs or budget - though part of me lamented that I would never need three piece hunting tweeds, in which I think a younger me at least would have cut quite a dash - but the food sections were, if pricey, superb. Everything an indulgent fat boy could want. I was particularly taken that the chippy there offered lobster and chips. The whole thing was a slice of life I was largely unaware existed. There is clearly a lot of money sloshing around the Highlands. Anyway, the Falls of Bruar: the Falls of Bruar walk is everything you want the Highlands in Autumn to be. You cannot feel uncheered. Utter beauty. You're done and dusted in an hour, but that hour is perfection. Then on to Pitlochry, where the shops and teashops are a wee bit more accessible, before getting on the bus to the Enchanted Forest (thanks again, @Luckyguy1983). Trippy and wonderful. Again, done and dusted in just over an hour but what a very happy and peculiar hour that is. This was my favourite bit:
I have a gorgeous moleskin jacket by Bruar. I even bough the waistcoat to go with
But I am here. On the chic side of Ortygia under a mildly dramatic moon
I have a related question for well travelled PB-ers. I’ve got six more nights in Sicily then I must be back in Blighty. I’ve got two more here in Siracusa but then I’m wondering… maybe move on? But where? I’ve seen Palermo and the north coast and all that
I’ve not seen the interior. Is it worth it? The valley of the temples? Corleone?!
Ferry to Malta, if you've never been. Cheapish luxury hotels. Neolithic stuff to see. And subsaharan boat people to interview. Mediocre food, though.
We went to Malta for our honeymoon 38 years ago. Had a great time but the food was mainly French toast made in the apartment because we had no money! Sounds like we didn’t miss too much.
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government" sounds kind of mafia-like - "you don't want to take us to court, shame if anything happened to your funding...". A bit like how the government is banning people who disagree with it on anything from speaking to civil servants. Illiberal, cancel-culture behaviour in my view. If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
That is the problem with that proposal but, certainly in Scotland, we have the opposite problem that @Alanbrooke refers to. We have a series of “charities” that survive almost exclusively on government funding and which campaign and promulgate policies that our government wants on the back of public money. These groups have a wildly disproportionate influence on public policy.
But a lot of the charities have actually been tasked with doing ogvernment's work in various areas - central and local, UKG, WG and SG. Remember Mr Cameron's Big Society. You can't suddenly write them out.
Remember, also, many government arms are now charities for the legal and fiscal advantages. To take one example, the British Museum in Bloomsbury, once in the Civill Service, and then IIRC a NDPB, then devolved under Trustees, is now a charity.
If the British Museum is a genuine charity, then fine, it can take money.
But it shouldn't be lobbying. If it wants to lobby, then it should have to raise its money privately.
Take the conflict of interests out of the equation.
But it can't lobby, any more than any other part of the civil service can.
Then what's the problem?
Same should be the case for any charities taking a penny of taxpayers money. Pick what side of the conflict of interest you want to be on, do you want to take money, or be a lobbyist? You shouldn't be both.
This is a dictator's charter. Nixon's silent majority gets to ban any protests that right-wingers don't like. Two fingers to that.
Is there a difference between banning protest, and not incentivising campaiging groups with government money? Or putting specific restrictions on some types of activity? That's already the case, see those chaps who went up a bridge, so where's the right line? Should very minority pressure groups get to derail projects which have mass support or mass neutrality?
I think we have to err on the side of protestors and lobbiers, we don't want to empower governments to just stop people saying things they do not like. But is there not a some capacity to rebalance structures and rules to not make decision making at least prohibitively long and costly?
It's the amount of times that things can go through the courts which frustrate me. For Example...
there is one man, an ex green councillor, who has successfully held up the upgrading of 3 stretches of the A47 in Norfolk. The council wants it and the people of Norfolk want it but he has 'crowdfunded' a legal battle because he thinks that the government 'hasn't taken into account the cumulative CO2 emissions'. The parts of the road in question are not safe and significant upgrade is needed but this one man crusade has been through the high count and is going to the court of appeal. I suspect he'd take it to the supreme count and ECHR if he had the opportunity. There's no prospect of significant changes to the schemes as a result of the lawsuits.
in this case, if he wins it throws into question all roadbuilding projects in the UK.
Its bad laws that enable him to do so, the law needs changing.
He should be able to campaign or protest all he wants, but once the decision has been made it should go ahead, no ifs or buts.
Want your politicians to do something different, then campaign for different candidates with different policies.
Unfortunately our politicians love to pass bad laws, in the virtue of being seen to do something, which then allows people to abuse those laws to further their agenda.
There was no reason to pass a bill committing to net zero by 2050, which is the bill that has I believe been the backbone of many of these reviews. It should be policy, but not law. By making policy into bad law, it allows bad faith actors to act like this.
Keep law and policy separate. Enact policies to get us to net zero, don't pass an ill thought through bad law anyone can abuse to further their own agenda.
Policy without law isn't worth the paper it's written on. There is widespread support and was a political consensus, including in manifestos, for net zero - the purpose of the law is to prevent cases like this undermining a national objective.
I'm surprised at your objection to this - on housebuilding you have no patience for people who get in the way of a national objective of more affordable homes.
If the Tories want to change the law and abandon their manifesto commitment to net zero, call a GE and let's see how they get on.
Policy without law absolutely is worth the paper its written on. There should be a plan to get to net zero, but individual cases should have nothing to do with that plan. Take roads for instance, if the plan is to get to net zero by having zero emission vehicles driving on the roads, then the courts should have no say whatsoever on the emissions of vehicles driving on the roads as anything time zero equals zero. That's just a fundamental law of mathematics and it trumps laws of the land.
Stuff needs to be done, make a decision on what you're doing and do it. The steps you take are the policies and the law, the objective is not and should not be.
"We will be at net zero" should not be the law, the law should be "[in order to get to net zero] we are doing x, y and z" and x, y and z should be debated and potentially changed democratically.
I don't want a law saying "homes should be affordable", that's preposterous. I want concrete steps taken (like reforming planning) to get us there. Laws with meat on them, to get to the policy objective, not setting the policy objective as law and then doing sod all.
Well, bad luck. It is the law, and precisely because of cases like this where local plans undermine a national objective. Perhaps that's where the housing crisis had stemmed from - a lack of obligation?
And it's not doing "sod all". Why would you complain about it otherwise? If it is used to block the building of the road it's been highly effective.
Anyway, off thread, big day out in Perthshire today. First to the Falls of Bruar. "Park at the House of Bruar." I assumed this would be some sort of outdoor activities lodge, but it turns out to be the Harrods of the Highlands. And I'm not one for opulent shops, but this was well worth a gawp. There was nothing really in the clothing section for my needs or budget - though part of me lamented that I would never need three piece hunting tweeds, in which I think a younger me at least would have cut quite a dash - but the food sections were, if pricey, superb. Everything an indulgent fat boy could want. I was particularly taken that the chippy there offered lobster and chips. The whole thing was a slice of life I was largely unaware existed. There is clearly a lot of money sloshing around the Highlands. Anyway, the Falls of Bruar: the Falls of Bruar walk is everything you want the Highlands in Autumn to be. You cannot feel uncheered. Utter beauty. You're done and dusted in an hour, but that hour is perfection. Then on to Pitlochry, where the shops and teashops are a wee bit more accessible, before getting on the bus to the Enchanted Forest (thanks again, @Luckyguy1983). Trippy and wonderful. Again, done and dusted in just over an hour but what a very happy and peculiar hour that is. This was my favourite bit:
I have a gorgeous moleskin jacket by Bruar. I even bough the waistcoat to go with
House of Bruar is the perfect stop for me on the way back up north. A pie, chips, and the best toilets on the A9.
Particularly fun if you're covered head to toe in mud after a day on the hill.
Anyway, off thread, big day out in Perthshire today. First to the Falls of Bruar. "Park at the House of Bruar." I assumed this would be some sort of outdoor activities lodge, but it turns out to be the Harrods of the Highlands. And I'm not one for opulent shops, but this was well worth a gawp. There was nothing really in the clothing section for my needs or budget - though part of me lamented that I would never need three piece hunting tweeds, in which I think a younger me at least would have cut quite a dash - but the food sections were, if pricey, superb. Everything an indulgent fat boy could want. I was particularly taken that the chippy there offered lobster and chips. The whole thing was a slice of life I was largely unaware existed. There is clearly a lot of money sloshing around the Highlands. Anyway, the Falls of Bruar: the Falls of Bruar walk is everything you want the Highlands in Autumn to be. You cannot feel uncheered. Utter beauty. You're done and dusted in an hour, but that hour is perfection. Then on to Pitlochry, where the shops and teashops are a wee bit more accessible, before getting on the bus to the Enchanted Forest (thanks again, @Luckyguy1983). Trippy and wonderful. Again, done and dusted in just over an hour but what a very happy and peculiar hour that is. This was my favourite bit:
I have a gorgeous moleskin jacket by Bruar. I even bough the waistcoat to go with
Would that I had a) the money, and b) any circumstance in which I would wear such a thing. I scratched my sartorial itch with a £50 hoody from Mountain Warehouse in Pitlochry. It is like wearing a hug. It may not be a thing of such splendour as you might find in Bruar - though I look as good as a fat balding man in his 40scan in it - but I will wear it more than 50 times over winter.
I listened to almost all of Mike Johnson’s speech and I was struck by what was there — and what wasn’t there. Unless I missed something at the very beginning, he made no mention of the 2020 election, and even more importantly, no mention of the Big Loser.
Some may consider those omissions a bit weaselly. But there are times when leaders need to be a bit weaselly, and this may be one of them.
(Our journalists will, of course, try to keep the spotlight on the Big Loser, and it will be interesting to see how Johnson handles them.)
And here's a bit from the Wikipedia biography: Johnson is married to Kelly Lary, a licensed pastoral counselor, a lecturer on family-related issues, and a former school teacher. They have four children. Johnson formerly resided in Shreveport, Baton Rouge, and in Allen, Collin County, Texas.[89]
Johnson has stated that early in his married life he and his wife took in a 14-year-old African American boy and consider him a part of their family.[90] "Many of my colleagues in this committee may not be aware, in addition to our four children at home, my wife and I have a much older son who happens to be African American," Johnson said. "We took custody of Michael and made him part of our family 22 years ago when we were just newlyweds and Michael just 14 and out on the streets and on a dangerous path."
But I am here. On the chic side of Ortygia under a mildly dramatic moon
I have a related question for well travelled PB-ers. I’ve got six more nights in Sicily then I must be back in Blighty. I’ve got two more here in Siracusa but then I’m wondering… maybe move on? But where? I’ve seen Palermo and the north coast and all that
I’ve not seen the interior. Is it worth it? The valley of the temples? Corleone?!
If you can download books, James Holland Sicily 43 had some interesting locations and John Julius Norwich Sicily also explains some of the uniquesness of the place and its history.
And then you still have 28 of Camilleri's Montalbano novels of Sicily to go.
But I am here. On the chic side of Ortygia under a mildly dramatic moon
I have a related question for well travelled PB-ers. I’ve got six more nights in Sicily then I must be back in Blighty. I’ve got two more here in Siracusa but then I’m wondering… maybe move on? But where? I’ve seen Palermo and the north coast and all that
I’ve not seen the interior. Is it worth it? The valley of the temples? Corleone?!
Ferry to Malta, if you've never been. Cheapish luxury hotels. Neolithic stuff to see. And subsaharan boat people to interview. Mediocre food, though.
What’s TSE’s position on rabbit as a pizza topping?
Incidentally if nobody spotted the background to @Jim_Miller 's post, please be advised that Mike Johnson is now Speaker. The GOP decided to be momentarily less shit for a change and voted him in.
I am saying the Government should be forbidden to pay taxpayers money to Shelter or the RSPCA if they are lobbying.
And that if Shelter or the RSPCA are providing a service, then a condition of the contract should be that the charity can not engage in any lobbying for the duration of the contract plus a reasonable cooling down period afterwards.
Yes, there is a conflict of interest in both receiving taxpayers money for a "service" and lobbying the government, so it should be one or the other, never both. And if they've been doing either they should be forbidden from doing the other within a reasonable cooling down period afterwards either.
Something like what you are saying applies already to partisan political lobbying - charities aren't allowed to say "party X is doing what we want, please vote for them", even if X is totally supportive and Y is totally hostile. So politically-minded charities can set up separate arms, legally distinct but closely allied (and even run by the same people). If your proposal was adopted, they'd do the same for any non-service work, so you'd have Shelter Charitable Services and Shelter Campaigns, the former selling services to the Government and the latter campaigning. I'm not sure it'd make any difference in practice, except perhaps to reassure you of what already happens - charities simply don't lobby using public money.
This is a dictator's charter. Nixon's silent majority gets to ban any protests that right-wingers don't like. Two fingers to that.
Is there a difference between banning protest, and not incentivising campaiging groups with government money? Or putting specific restrictions on some types of activity? That's already the case, see those chaps who went up a bridge, so where's the right line? Should very minority pressure groups get to derail projects which have mass support or mass neutrality?
I think we have to err on the side of protestors and lobbiers, we don't want to empower governments to just stop people saying things they do not like. But is there not a some capacity to rebalance structures and rules to not make decision making at least prohibitively long and costly?
It's the amount of times that things can go through the courts which frustrate me. For Example...
there is one man, an ex green councillor, who has successfully held up the upgrading of 3 stretches of the A47 in Norfolk. The council wants it and the people of Norfolk want it but he has 'crowdfunded' a legal battle because he thinks that the government 'hasn't taken into account the cumulative CO2 emissions'. The parts of the road in question are not safe and significant upgrade is needed but this one man crusade has been through the high count and is going to the court of appeal. I suspect he'd take it to the supreme count and ECHR if he had the opportunity. There's no prospect of significant changes to the schemes as a result of the lawsuits.
in this case, if he wins it throws into question all roadbuilding projects in the UK.
Its bad laws that enable him to do so, the law needs changing.
He should be able to campaign or protest all he wants, but once the decision has been made it should go ahead, no ifs or buts.
Want your politicians to do something different, then campaign for different candidates with different policies.
Unfortunately our politicians love to pass bad laws, in the virtue of being seen to do something, which then allows people to abuse those laws to further their agenda.
There was no reason to pass a bill committing to net zero by 2050, which is the bill that has I believe been the backbone of many of these reviews. It should be policy, but not law. By making policy into bad law, it allows bad faith actors to act like this.
Keep law and policy separate. Enact policies to get us to net zero, don't pass an ill thought through bad law anyone can abuse to further their own agenda.
Policy without law isn't worth the paper it's written on. There is widespread support and was a political consensus, including in manifestos, for net zero - the purpose of the law is to prevent cases like this undermining a national objective.
I'm surprised at your objection to this - on housebuilding you have no patience for people who get in the way of a national objective of more affordable homes.
If the Tories want to change the law and abandon their manifesto commitment to net zero, call a GE and let's see how they get on.
Policy without law absolutely is worth the paper its written on. There should be a plan to get to net zero, but individual cases should have nothing to do with that plan. Take roads for instance, if the plan is to get to net zero by having zero emission vehicles driving on the roads, then the courts should have no say whatsoever on the emissions of vehicles driving on the roads as anything time zero equals zero. That's just a fundamental law of mathematics and it trumps laws of the land.
Stuff needs to be done, make a decision on what you're doing and do it. The steps you take are the policies and the law, the objective is not and should not be.
"We will be at net zero" should not be the law, the law should be "[in order to get to net zero] we are doing x, y and z" and x, y and z should be debated and potentially changed democratically.
I don't want a law saying "homes should be affordable", that's preposterous. I want concrete steps taken (like reforming planning) to get us there. Laws with meat on them, to get to the policy objective, not setting the policy objective as law and then doing sod all.
Well, bad luck. It is the law, and precisely because of cases like this where local plans undermine a national objective. Perhaps that's where the housing crisis had stemmed from - a lack of obligation?
And it's not doing "sod all". Why would you complain about it otherwise? If it is used to block the building of the road it's been highly effective.
If its being used to block anything, then sod all is happening. That's the problem.
Our housing crisis is similar yes, in that it comes from NIMBYs being given too much say in whether development happens when they should not have a voice at all. Same here with transportation. Pick a policy and do it.
This is a dictator's charter. Nixon's silent majority gets to ban any protests that right-wingers don't like. Two fingers to that.
Is there a difference between banning protest, and not incentivising campaiging groups with government money? Or putting specific restrictions on some types of activity? That's already the case, see those chaps who went up a bridge, so where's the right line? Should very minority pressure groups get to derail projects which have mass support or mass neutrality?
I think we have to err on the side of protestors and lobbiers, we don't want to empower governments to just stop people saying things they do not like. But is there not a some capacity to rebalance structures and rules to not make decision making at least prohibitively long and costly?
It's the amount of times that things can go through the courts which frustrate me. For Example...
there is one man, an ex green councillor, who has successfully held up the upgrading of 3 stretches of the A47 in Norfolk. The council wants it and the people of Norfolk want it but he has 'crowdfunded' a legal battle because he thinks that the government 'hasn't taken into account the cumulative CO2 emissions'. The parts of the road in question are not safe and significant upgrade is needed but this one man crusade has been through the high count and is going to the court of appeal. I suspect he'd take it to the supreme count and ECHR if he had the opportunity. There's no prospect of significant changes to the schemes as a result of the lawsuits.
in this case, if he wins it throws into question all roadbuilding projects in the UK.
Its bad laws that enable him to do so, the law needs changing.
He should be able to campaign or protest all he wants, but once the decision has been made it should go ahead, no ifs or buts.
Want your politicians to do something different, then campaign for different candidates with different policies.
Unfortunately our politicians love to pass bad laws, in the virtue of being seen to do something, which then allows people to abuse those laws to further their agenda.
There was no reason to pass a bill committing to net zero by 2050, which is the bill that has I believe been the backbone of many of these reviews. It should be policy, but not law. By making policy into bad law, it allows bad faith actors to act like this.
Keep law and policy separate. Enact policies to get us to net zero, don't pass an ill thought through bad law anyone can abuse to further their own agenda.
Policy without law isn't worth the paper it's written on. There is widespread support and was a political consensus, including in manifestos, for net zero - the purpose of the law is to prevent cases like this undermining a national objective.
I'm surprised at your objection to this - on housebuilding you have no patience for people who get in the way of a national objective of more affordable homes.
If the Tories want to change the law and abandon their manifesto commitment to net zero, call a GE and let's see how they get on.
Policy without law absolutely is worth the paper its written on. There should be a plan to get to net zero, but individual cases should have nothing to do with that plan. Take roads for instance, if the plan is to get to net zero by having zero emission vehicles driving on the roads, then the courts should have no say whatsoever on the emissions of vehicles driving on the roads as anything time zero equals zero. That's just a fundamental law of mathematics and it trumps laws of the land.
Stuff needs to be done, make a decision on what you're doing and do it. The steps you take are the policies and the law, the objective is not and should not be.
"We will be at net zero" should not be the law, the law should be "[in order to get to net zero] we are doing x, y and z" and x, y and z should be debated and potentially changed democratically.
I don't want a law saying "homes should be affordable", that's preposterous. I want concrete steps taken (like reforming planning) to get us there. Laws with meat on them, to get to the policy objective, not setting the policy objective as law and then doing sod all.
Well, bad luck. It is the law, and precisely because of cases like this where local plans undermine a national objective. Perhaps that's where the housing crisis had stemmed from - a lack of obligation?
And it's not doing "sod all". Why would you complain about it otherwise? If it is used to block the building of the road it's been highly effective.
If its being used to block anything, then sod all is happening. That's the problem.
This is a dictator's charter. Nixon's silent majority gets to ban any protests that right-wingers don't like. Two fingers to that.
Is there a difference between banning protest, and not incentivising campaiging groups with government money? Or putting specific restrictions on some types of activity? That's already the case, see those chaps who went up a bridge, so where's the right line? Should very minority pressure groups get to derail projects which have mass support or mass neutrality?
I think we have to err on the side of protestors and lobbiers, we don't want to empower governments to just stop people saying things they do not like. But is there not a some capacity to rebalance structures and rules to not make decision making at least prohibitively long and costly?
It's the amount of times that things can go through the courts which frustrate me. For Example...
there is one man, an ex green councillor, who has successfully held up the upgrading of 3 stretches of the A47 in Norfolk. The council wants it and the people of Norfolk want it but he has 'crowdfunded' a legal battle because he thinks that the government 'hasn't taken into account the cumulative CO2 emissions'. The parts of the road in question are not safe and significant upgrade is needed but this one man crusade has been through the high count and is going to the court of appeal. I suspect he'd take it to the supreme count and ECHR if he had the opportunity. There's no prospect of significant changes to the schemes as a result of the lawsuits.
in this case, if he wins it throws into question all roadbuilding projects in the UK.
Its bad laws that enable him to do so, the law needs changing.
He should be able to campaign or protest all he wants, but once the decision has been made it should go ahead, no ifs or buts.
Want your politicians to do something different, then campaign for different candidates with different policies.
Unfortunately our politicians love to pass bad laws, in the virtue of being seen to do something, which then allows people to abuse those laws to further their agenda.
There was no reason to pass a bill committing to net zero by 2050, which is the bill that has I believe been the backbone of many of these reviews. It should be policy, but not law. By making policy into bad law, it allows bad faith actors to act like this.
Keep law and policy separate. Enact policies to get us to net zero, don't pass an ill thought through bad law anyone can abuse to further their own agenda.
Policy without law isn't worth the paper it's written on. There is widespread support and was a political consensus, including in manifestos, for net zero - the purpose of the law is to prevent cases like this undermining a national objective.
I'm surprised at your objection to this - on housebuilding you have no patience for people who get in the way of a national objective of more affordable homes.
If the Tories want to change the law and abandon their manifesto commitment to net zero, call a GE and let's see how they get on.
Policy without law absolutely is worth the paper its written on. There should be a plan to get to net zero, but individual cases should have nothing to do with that plan. Take roads for instance, if the plan is to get to net zero by having zero emission vehicles driving on the roads, then the courts should have no say whatsoever on the emissions of vehicles driving on the roads as anything time zero equals zero. That's just a fundamental law of mathematics and it trumps laws of the land.
Stuff needs to be done, make a decision on what you're doing and do it. The steps you take are the policies and the law, the objective is not and should not be.
"We will be at net zero" should not be the law, the law should be "[in order to get to net zero] we are doing x, y and z" and x, y and z should be debated and potentially changed democratically.
I don't want a law saying "homes should be affordable", that's preposterous. I want concrete steps taken (like reforming planning) to get us there. Laws with meat on them, to get to the policy objective, not setting the policy objective as law and then doing sod all.
Well, bad luck. It is the law, and precisely because of cases like this where local plans undermine a national objective. Perhaps that's where the housing crisis had stemmed from - a lack of obligation?
And it's not doing "sod all". Why would you complain about it otherwise? If it is used to block the building of the road it's been highly effective.
If its being used to block anything, then sod all is happening. That's the problem.
In the US Congress one of the most important jobs is "oversight", checking to see whether the various parts of the federal government are doing what they should be doing, efficiently. It gets little attention from our press, unless a big scandal is turned up in an investigation.
One of the best at it, in modern Congresses, is Iowa's Chuck Grassley. (He has been married to his wife since 1954, which shows a constancy we all should admire. Fun fact: At 90, he is in suprisingly good physical condition, and likes to challenge other men to push-up contests. He would beat the Big Loser easily, in spite of the difference in ages.)
For the record: I suspect that the US Congressional oversight practices would not fit in the House of Commons, but think the problem deserves your attention.
And for those who want a retro 70s style story of a nationalised shipyard and a nationalised ferry company:
The wrong type of steel, which is more prone to corrosion, was installed on an already delayed and over-budget ferry, the boss of Ferguson Marine has admitted.
David Tydeman, the chief executive, highlighted the error as one of a number of “mistakes” that have been made during the building process.
A mild steel was used on the hydraulic systems for the MV Glen Sannox’s clamshell doors rather than stainless steel.
Tydeman told MSPs on the net zero, energy and transport committee that the bungle had been recognised but acknowledged that there were several other similar mistakes, such as the wrong type of pipes being installed, which had contributed to the delays and rising costs.
Tydeman had outlined recently how the price of delivering the two ferries was likely to be £360 million, although he had priced in a further £30 million for contingencies.
The initial contract was awarded in 2015 for £97 million and both vessels should have been delivered in 2018.
Appreciate this is rather alarmist, but I've previously pondered whether these ferries will ever join the CalMac fleet. The number of errors is something else, and the heady mix of politics, business and subsidy is an enormous red flag.
Getting the steel wrong on the doors... It was the bow door on MS Estonia that cost 850 lives. The regulator will be watching like a hawk.
Changing from stainless to mild to save money….. I caught a mistake like that back in the day, which would have killed.
Mind you stainless by itself isn’t a perfect cure. Quite a lot of stainless corrodes horribly when seawater is involved.
This is a dictator's charter. Nixon's silent majority gets to ban any protests that right-wingers don't like. Two fingers to that.
Is there a difference between banning protest, and not incentivising campaiging groups with government money? Or putting specific restrictions on some types of activity? That's already the case, see those chaps who went up a bridge, so where's the right line? Should very minority pressure groups get to derail projects which have mass support or mass neutrality?
I think we have to err on the side of protestors and lobbiers, we don't want to empower governments to just stop people saying things they do not like. But is there not a some capacity to rebalance structures and rules to not make decision making at least prohibitively long and costly?
It's the amount of times that things can go through the courts which frustrate me. For Example...
there is one man, an ex green councillor, who has successfully held up the upgrading of 3 stretches of the A47 in Norfolk. The council wants it and the people of Norfolk want it but he has 'crowdfunded' a legal battle because he thinks that the government 'hasn't taken into account the cumulative CO2 emissions'. The parts of the road in question are not safe and significant upgrade is needed but this one man crusade has been through the high count and is going to the court of appeal. I suspect he'd take it to the supreme count and ECHR if he had the opportunity. There's no prospect of significant changes to the schemes as a result of the lawsuits.
in this case, if he wins it throws into question all roadbuilding projects in the UK.
Its bad laws that enable him to do so, the law needs changing.
He should be able to campaign or protest all he wants, but once the decision has been made it should go ahead, no ifs or buts.
Want your politicians to do something different, then campaign for different candidates with different policies.
Unfortunately our politicians love to pass bad laws, in the virtue of being seen to do something, which then allows people to abuse those laws to further their agenda.
There was no reason to pass a bill committing to net zero by 2050, which is the bill that has I believe been the backbone of many of these reviews. It should be policy, but not law. By making policy into bad law, it allows bad faith actors to act like this.
Keep law and policy separate. Enact policies to get us to net zero, don't pass an ill thought through bad law anyone can abuse to further their own agenda.
Policy without law isn't worth the paper it's written on. There is widespread support and was a political consensus, including in manifestos, for net zero - the purpose of the law is to prevent cases like this undermining a national objective.
I'm surprised at your objection to this - on housebuilding you have no patience for people who get in the way of a national objective of more affordable homes.
If the Tories want to change the law and abandon their manifesto commitment to net zero, call a GE and let's see how they get on.
Policy without law absolutely is worth the paper its written on. There should be a plan to get to net zero, but individual cases should have nothing to do with that plan. Take roads for instance, if the plan is to get to net zero by having zero emission vehicles driving on the roads, then the courts should have no say whatsoever on the emissions of vehicles driving on the roads as anything time zero equals zero. That's just a fundamental law of mathematics and it trumps laws of the land.
Stuff needs to be done, make a decision on what you're doing and do it. The steps you take are the policies and the law, the objective is not and should not be.
"We will be at net zero" should not be the law, the law should be "[in order to get to net zero] we are doing x, y and z" and x, y and z should be debated and potentially changed democratically.
I don't want a law saying "homes should be affordable", that's preposterous. I want concrete steps taken (like reforming planning) to get us there. Laws with meat on them, to get to the policy objective, not setting the policy objective as law and then doing sod all.
Well, bad luck. It is the law, and precisely because of cases like this where local plans undermine a national objective. Perhaps that's where the housing crisis had stemmed from - a lack of obligation?
And it's not doing "sod all". Why would you complain about it otherwise? If it is used to block the building of the road it's been highly effective.
If its being used to block anything, then sod all is happening. That's the problem.
That's the...point?
No, its not.
The point is to have development, not block it.
If you're so concerned about Net Zero getting in the way of road building, you'll be delighted to hear that the Tories (after 13 years) have u-turned and have abandoned it.
Transformed their electoral chances too. Hang on...
Laws such as net zero which empower activists to stop whatever they fancy are against the national interest.
Ok boomer.
*sigh*
Its the problem. People are abusing the badly written net zero law to stymie projects by taking them to judicial review. The law should be repealed/amended, but the net zero objective should not be.
The way to get to net zero on our roads is to ensure construction, maintenance and transportation is by 2050 being done via zero emission methods. Any infinite amount of construction, maintenance or transportation times zero is still zero emissions then.
Blocking development you dislike, "because net zero" should not be an option. Its making net zero an excuse and bringing it into disrepute, not helping the environment.
This is a dictator's charter. Nixon's silent majority gets to ban any protests that right-wingers don't like. Two fingers to that.
Is there a difference between banning protest, and not incentivising campaiging groups with government money? Or putting specific restrictions on some types of activity? That's already the case, see those chaps who went up a bridge, so where's the right line? Should very minority pressure groups get to derail projects which have mass support or mass neutrality?
I think we have to err on the side of protestors and lobbiers, we don't want to empower governments to just stop people saying things they do not like. But is there not a some capacity to rebalance structures and rules to not make decision making at least prohibitively long and costly?
It's the amount of times that things can go through the courts which frustrate me. For Example...
there is one man, an ex green councillor, who has successfully held up the upgrading of 3 stretches of the A47 in Norfolk. The council wants it and the people of Norfolk want it but he has 'crowdfunded' a legal battle because he thinks that the government 'hasn't taken into account the cumulative CO2 emissions'. The parts of the road in question are not safe and significant upgrade is needed but this one man crusade has been through the high count and is going to the court of appeal. I suspect he'd take it to the supreme count and ECHR if he had the opportunity. There's no prospect of significant changes to the schemes as a result of the lawsuits.
in this case, if he wins it throws into question all roadbuilding projects in the UK.
Its bad laws that enable him to do so, the law needs changing.
He should be able to campaign or protest all he wants, but once the decision has been made it should go ahead, no ifs or buts.
Want your politicians to do something different, then campaign for different candidates with different policies.
Unfortunately our politicians love to pass bad laws, in the virtue of being seen to do something, which then allows people to abuse those laws to further their agenda.
There was no reason to pass a bill committing to net zero by 2050, which is the bill that has I believe been the backbone of many of these reviews. It should be policy, but not law. By making policy into bad law, it allows bad faith actors to act like this.
Keep law and policy separate. Enact policies to get us to net zero, don't pass an ill thought through bad law anyone can abuse to further their own agenda.
Policy without law isn't worth the paper it's written on. There is widespread support and was a political consensus, including in manifestos, for net zero - the purpose of the law is to prevent cases like this undermining a national objective.
I'm surprised at your objection to this - on housebuilding you have no patience for people who get in the way of a national objective of more affordable homes.
If the Tories want to change the law and abandon their manifesto commitment to net zero, call a GE and let's see how they get on.
Policy without law absolutely is worth the paper its written on. There should be a plan to get to net zero, but individual cases should have nothing to do with that plan. Take roads for instance, if the plan is to get to net zero by having zero emission vehicles driving on the roads, then the courts should have no say whatsoever on the emissions of vehicles driving on the roads as anything time zero equals zero. That's just a fundamental law of mathematics and it trumps laws of the land.
Stuff needs to be done, make a decision on what you're doing and do it. The steps you take are the policies and the law, the objective is not and should not be.
"We will be at net zero" should not be the law, the law should be "[in order to get to net zero] we are doing x, y and z" and x, y and z should be debated and potentially changed democratically.
I don't want a law saying "homes should be affordable", that's preposterous. I want concrete steps taken (like reforming planning) to get us there. Laws with meat on them, to get to the policy objective, not setting the policy objective as law and then doing sod all.
Well, bad luck. It is the law, and precisely because of cases like this where local plans undermine a national objective. Perhaps that's where the housing crisis had stemmed from - a lack of obligation?
And it's not doing "sod all". Why would you complain about it otherwise? If it is used to block the building of the road it's been highly effective.
If its being used to block anything, then sod all is happening. That's the problem.
That's the...point?
No, its not.
The point is to have development, not block it.
If you're so concerned about Net Zero getting in the way of road building, you'll be delighted to hear that the Tories (after 13 years) have u-turned and have abandoned it.
Transformed their electoral chances too. Hang on...
There is no Net Zero reason to get in the way of road building.
What there is, is badly written laws that get in the way. Laws the Tories have passed some of.
This is a dictator's charter. Nixon's silent majority gets to ban any protests that right-wingers don't like. Two fingers to that.
Is there a difference between banning protest, and not incentivising campaiging groups with government money? Or putting specific restrictions on some types of activity? That's already the case, see those chaps who went up a bridge, so where's the right line? Should very minority pressure groups get to derail projects which have mass support or mass neutrality?
I think we have to err on the side of protestors and lobbiers, we don't want to empower governments to just stop people saying things they do not like. But is there not a some capacity to rebalance structures and rules to not make decision making at least prohibitively long and costly?
It's the amount of times that things can go through the courts which frustrate me. For Example...
there is one man, an ex green councillor, who has successfully held up the upgrading of 3 stretches of the A47 in Norfolk. The council wants it and the people of Norfolk want it but he has 'crowdfunded' a legal battle because he thinks that the government 'hasn't taken into account the cumulative CO2 emissions'. The parts of the road in question are not safe and significant upgrade is needed but this one man crusade has been through the high count and is going to the court of appeal. I suspect he'd take it to the supreme count and ECHR if he had the opportunity. There's no prospect of significant changes to the schemes as a result of the lawsuits.
in this case, if he wins it throws into question all roadbuilding projects in the UK.
Its bad laws that enable him to do so, the law needs changing.
He should be able to campaign or protest all he wants, but once the decision has been made it should go ahead, no ifs or buts.
Want your politicians to do something different, then campaign for different candidates with different policies.
Unfortunately our politicians love to pass bad laws, in the virtue of being seen to do something, which then allows people to abuse those laws to further their agenda.
There was no reason to pass a bill committing to net zero by 2050, which is the bill that has I believe been the backbone of many of these reviews. It should be policy, but not law. By making policy into bad law, it allows bad faith actors to act like this.
Keep law and policy separate. Enact policies to get us to net zero, don't pass an ill thought through bad law anyone can abuse to further their own agenda.
Policy without law isn't worth the paper it's written on. There is widespread support and was a political consensus, including in manifestos, for net zero - the purpose of the law is to prevent cases like this undermining a national objective.
I'm surprised at your objection to this - on housebuilding you have no patience for people who get in the way of a national objective of more affordable homes.
If the Tories want to change the law and abandon their manifesto commitment to net zero, call a GE and let's see how they get on.
Policy without law absolutely is worth the paper its written on. There should be a plan to get to net zero, but individual cases should have nothing to do with that plan. Take roads for instance, if the plan is to get to net zero by having zero emission vehicles driving on the roads, then the courts should have no say whatsoever on the emissions of vehicles driving on the roads as anything time zero equals zero. That's just a fundamental law of mathematics and it trumps laws of the land.
Stuff needs to be done, make a decision on what you're doing and do it. The steps you take are the policies and the law, the objective is not and should not be.
"We will be at net zero" should not be the law, the law should be "[in order to get to net zero] we are doing x, y and z" and x, y and z should be debated and potentially changed democratically.
I don't want a law saying "homes should be affordable", that's preposterous. I want concrete steps taken (like reforming planning) to get us there. Laws with meat on them, to get to the policy objective, not setting the policy objective as law and then doing sod all.
Well, bad luck. It is the law, and precisely because of cases like this where local plans undermine a national objective. Perhaps that's where the housing crisis had stemmed from - a lack of obligation?
And it's not doing "sod all". Why would you complain about it otherwise? If it is used to block the building of the road it's been highly effective.
If its being used to block anything, then sod all is happening. That's the problem.
That's the...point?
No, its not.
The point is to have development, not block it.
If you're so concerned about Net Zero getting in the way of road building, you'll be delighted to hear that the Tories (after 13 years) have u-turned and have abandoned it.
Transformed their electoral chances too. Hang on...
There is no Net Zero reason to get in the way of road building.
What there is, is badly written laws that get in the way. Laws the Tories have passed some of.
It's a lot of concrete to facilitate vehicles that are a long way from being carbon neutral (even EV ones). The road will never be Net Zero.
This is a dictator's charter. Nixon's silent majority gets to ban any protests that right-wingers don't like. Two fingers to that.
Is there a difference between banning protest, and not incentivising campaiging groups with government money? Or putting specific restrictions on some types of activity? That's already the case, see those chaps who went up a bridge, so where's the right line? Should very minority pressure groups get to derail projects which have mass support or mass neutrality?
I think we have to err on the side of protestors and lobbiers, we don't want to empower governments to just stop people saying things they do not like. But is there not a some capacity to rebalance structures and rules to not make decision making at least prohibitively long and costly?
It's the amount of times that things can go through the courts which frustrate me. For Example...
there is one man, an ex green councillor, who has successfully held up the upgrading of 3 stretches of the A47 in Norfolk. The council wants it and the people of Norfolk want it but he has 'crowdfunded' a legal battle because he thinks that the government 'hasn't taken into account the cumulative CO2 emissions'. The parts of the road in question are not safe and significant upgrade is needed but this one man crusade has been through the high count and is going to the court of appeal. I suspect he'd take it to the supreme count and ECHR if he had the opportunity. There's no prospect of significant changes to the schemes as a result of the lawsuits.
in this case, if he wins it throws into question all roadbuilding projects in the UK.
Its bad laws that enable him to do so, the law needs changing.
He should be able to campaign or protest all he wants, but once the decision has been made it should go ahead, no ifs or buts.
Want your politicians to do something different, then campaign for different candidates with different policies.
Unfortunately our politicians love to pass bad laws, in the virtue of being seen to do something, which then allows people to abuse those laws to further their agenda.
There was no reason to pass a bill committing to net zero by 2050, which is the bill that has I believe been the backbone of many of these reviews. It should be policy, but not law. By making policy into bad law, it allows bad faith actors to act like this.
Keep law and policy separate. Enact policies to get us to net zero, don't pass an ill thought through bad law anyone can abuse to further their own agenda.
Policy without law isn't worth the paper it's written on. There is widespread support and was a political consensus, including in manifestos, for net zero - the purpose of the law is to prevent cases like this undermining a national objective.
I'm surprised at your objection to this - on housebuilding you have no patience for people who get in the way of a national objective of more affordable homes.
If the Tories want to change the law and abandon their manifesto commitment to net zero, call a GE and let's see how they get on.
Policy without law absolutely is worth the paper its written on. There should be a plan to get to net zero, but individual cases should have nothing to do with that plan. Take roads for instance, if the plan is to get to net zero by having zero emission vehicles driving on the roads, then the courts should have no say whatsoever on the emissions of vehicles driving on the roads as anything time zero equals zero. That's just a fundamental law of mathematics and it trumps laws of the land.
Stuff needs to be done, make a decision on what you're doing and do it. The steps you take are the policies and the law, the objective is not and should not be.
"We will be at net zero" should not be the law, the law should be "[in order to get to net zero] we are doing x, y and z" and x, y and z should be debated and potentially changed democratically.
I don't want a law saying "homes should be affordable", that's preposterous. I want concrete steps taken (like reforming planning) to get us there. Laws with meat on them, to get to the policy objective, not setting the policy objective as law and then doing sod all.
Well, bad luck. It is the law, and precisely because of cases like this where local plans undermine a national objective. Perhaps that's where the housing crisis had stemmed from - a lack of obligation?
And it's not doing "sod all". Why would you complain about it otherwise? If it is used to block the building of the road it's been highly effective.
If its being used to block anything, then sod all is happening. That's the problem.
That's the...point?
No, its not.
The point is to have development, not block it.
If you're so concerned about Net Zero getting in the way of road building, you'll be delighted to hear that the Tories (after 13 years) have u-turned and have abandoned it.
Transformed their electoral chances too. Hang on...
There is no Net Zero reason to get in the way of road building.
What there is, is badly written laws that get in the way. Laws the Tories have passed some of.
It's a lot of concrete to facilitate vehicles that are a long way from being carbon neutral (even EV ones). The road will never be Net Zero.
So once again you're just against any and all development, quelle surprise!
There's no reason by 2050 we can't have net zero vehicles, and net zero concrete, that is the only way we're going to get to net zero. If you're saying that's impossible, then lets spend our money on adaptation rather than prevention.
But I am here. On the chic side of Ortygia under a mildly dramatic moon
I have a related question for well travelled PB-ers. I’ve got six more nights in Sicily then I must be back in Blighty. I’ve got two more here in Siracusa but then I’m wondering… maybe move on? But where? I’ve seen Palermo and the north coast and all that
I’ve not seen the interior. Is it worth it? The valley of the temples? Corleone?!
If you can download books, James Holland Sicily 43 had some interesting locations and John Julius Norwich Sicily also explains some of the uniquesness of the place and its history.
Or go have a look at ‘new’ Noto - a complete baroque town, built from scratch when the previous settlement was destroyed by earthquake, and pretty much untouched by history ever since. The best ice cream shop in Italy used to be there, but the old guy who ran it has surely passed on by now, but maybe he had family to continue the tradition.
On topic - I agree about public money for activists, though this is blurred in many cases. For example, the RSPB and Sustrans are both campaigning organisations, but also happen to be experts in their fields. If a government/people decides to be pro-wildlife or pro-active travel, then I'd want them to consult with the experts.
On individual activism - you would have to careful not to stymie the kind of people who actually get things done. There is one man in Edinburgh, for example, who campaigned for decades to open up the old railway lines for cycling and walking, and immeasurably improved the lives of his neighbours. Do not underestimate the achievements of the energetic few.
If the state is serious about getting to net zero, it should be putting its effort into facilitating and ensuring zero emission technologies are used by 2050. Not blocking development in an impotent goal to cut emissions, which can never result in zero.
Comments
I think we have to err on the side of protestors and lobbiers, we don't want to empower governments to just stop people saying things they do not like. But is there not a some capacity to rebalance structures and rules to not make decision making at least prohibitively long and costly?
Republicans also won most congressional seats in NC even when they were in the minority from 2018-2022
And an Israel only bill causes problems for the Democrats who have support from both a large majority of Jewish voters and a large majority of voters that hate Israel.
So we immediately get more argument and division in DC.
If people choose to break the law, in the name of protest, then they can do so - we live in a free society, obeying the law is optional not mandatory.
But anyone who breaks the law can face consequences for doing so.
There is a noble tradition of people breaking the law, getting sent to prison, and getting awareness of their campaign from prison. Today some seem to think "the right to protest" equals "the right to break any law I please, without facing the consequences for doing so". It never has done, nor should it.
there is one man, an ex green councillor, who has successfully held up the upgrading of 3 stretches of the A47 in Norfolk. The council wants it and the people of Norfolk want it but he has 'crowdfunded' a legal battle because he thinks that the government 'hasn't taken into account the cumulative CO2 emissions'. The parts of the road in question are not safe and significant upgrade is needed but this one man crusade has been through the high count and is going to the court of appeal. I suspect he'd take it to the supreme count and ECHR if he had the opportunity. There's no prospect of significant changes to the schemes as a result of the lawsuits.
in this case, if he wins it throws into question all roadbuilding projects in the UK.
Le Pen 29,5 %
Macron 24,5 %
Mélenchon 17,5 %
https://www.lepoint.fr/politique/presidentielle-marine-le-pen-arriverait-en-tete-si-le-scrutin-avait-lieu-dimanche-25-10-2023-2540740_20.php
Perhaps the worse thing about the gerrymandering is that it allows majorities to create even bigger majorities for themselves.
He should be able to campaign or protest all he wants, but once the decision has been made it should go ahead, no ifs or buts.
Want your politicians to do something different, then campaign for different candidates with different policies.
Unfortunately our politicians love to pass bad laws, in the virtue of being seen to do something, which then allows people to abuse those laws to further their agenda.
There was no reason to pass a bill committing to net zero by 2050, which is the bill that has I believe been the backbone of many of these reviews. It should be policy, but not law. By making policy into bad law, it allows bad faith actors to act like this.
Keep law and policy separate. Enact policies to get us to net zero, don't pass an ill thought through bad law anyone can abuse to further their own agenda.
Has this thread risen from the dead?
As for the article it has a logical problem. If you consider the present herd of special interest groups to have too much power and you wish to empower the silent majority, and you try to create a body to represent them...well now you have another special interest group.
However, if as your article suggests you have some concrete ideas, I look forward to reading it. Your next article perhaps?
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/standards.png
She looks and sounds increasingly presidential:
https://x.com/mlp_officiel/status/1716494045042606451
And another bunch of activists the LOTO.
If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
Including political parties' donors given IHT relief if they donate to only certain political parties?
I suspect our views on which groups fall into the two catagories would be very different.
The Government should have a fiduciary duty to look after our taxes reasonably. If our taxes are getting spent on lobbying etc that's not a good use of our taxes.
Our taxes should go to provide goods and services. If an organisation wants to provide goods and services, then fine, if its competitive it should be a productive use of those taxes. If an organisation is lobby, then fine, but it should raise its funds for lobbying privately and not from taxes.
Looks like it could well be President Le Pen in 4 years unless Renaissance find a decent candidate to replace Macron or Les Republicains can find a serious contender. Some of Melenchon's vote would also go to Le Pen in a second round
I agree.
That is the problem with that proposal but, certainly in Scotland, we have the opposite problem that @Alanbrooke refers to. We have a series of “charities” that survive almost exclusively on government funding and which campaign and promulgate policies that our government wants on the back of public money. These groups have a wildly disproportionate influence on public policy.
With a few law changes, this could be readily fixed. The court cases are spawning from bad laws. But Parliament needs to take responsibility, and it may lose some popularity by doing so.
No group lobbying for policy changes should ever be entitled to a single penny of taxpayers money. If you want to lobby, then great, but raise it privately.
The government giving favoured "charities" taxpayers money is an attempt to tilt the field in favour of certain viewpoints. Its a disgrace and not what taxes should be there for.
Was there ever a time when we had such public services and social fabric?
The author is right, IMHO, to object to pressure groups that are largely financed by government to lobby government?
Legal challenge is an important recourse, but I'd think we'd want to have the process complete as quickly as possible
The prime minister is the leader of whatever group can command a majority in the house. Parliament can veto any PM at any time by a vote of confidence.
Field Marshal Haig is most anxious to eliminate all these German spies.
Filthy Hun weasels fighting
their dirty underhand war!
And, fortunately, one of our spies...
Splendid fellows, brave heroes,
risking life and limb for Blighty...
...has discovered that the leak
Is coming from the field hospital.
If Shelter or the RSPCA then decide to lobby or indeed sue the Government, the money for that comes "entirely" from private donations. That is already the case, contrary to the impression that you may have. What you and Alanbrooke seem to be saying is that the price of Shelter lobbying the Government is that they lose the agreed contracts, disrupting the service while the Government looks round for someone else to do it. (In practice, all that would happen would be that the charity wouold set up a separate arm for lobbying.)
(Declaration of non-interest - I work for a charity, and we do lobbying, but we don't get any Government money for anything. Literally NOBODY gets Government money for lobbying.)
The rest of the time theyre just getting on with life and are probably calling it better than us political anoraks
Yep I agree. But it gets tricky when third sector groups get involved in the provision of services. So Shelter provide state funded legal representatives to help people in the Housing court and Rape Scotland provide “supporters” to accompany rape complainers to court. Who is the dog and who is the tail is not always obvious in such scenarios.
And that if Shelter or the RSPCA are providing a service, then a condition of the contract should be that the charity can not engage in any lobbying for the duration of the contract plus a reasonable cooling down period afterwards.
Yes, there is a conflict of interest in both receiving taxpayers money for a "service" and lobbying the government, so it should be one or the other, never both. And if they've been doing either they should be forbidden from doing the other within a reasonable cooling down period afterwards either.
Remember, also, many government arms are now charities for the legal and fiscal advantages. To take one example, the British Museum in Bloomsbury, once in the Civill Service, and then IIRC a NDPB, then devolved under Trustees, is now a charity.
If lobbyists, then find another service provider to take the taxpayers money. One that doesn't have a conflict of interest.
The point I am making is that charities too have to decide what they are about. If a charity wishes to be a lobby group then fair enough but its shouldnt be funded by taxpayers. If a charity is an actual charity then it doesnt have the conflicts of interest.
I'm surprised at your objection to this - on housebuilding you have no patience for people who get in the way of a national objective of more affordable homes.
If the Tories want to change the law and abandon their manifesto commitment to net zero, call a GE and let's see how they get on.
Coz I’ve been to Malta and Gozo a lot. I had a grand love affair with a girl whose family owned a lovely villa on Gozo
So. Eheu. Agenbite of inwit. Life is SHORT, especially when confronted with WW3, so one should seize every moment and see everything. Ortygia is fabulous, but four nights is enuff. To the temples!
And as I have just pointed out, HMG *itself* uses the charity option to deal with its own statutory jobs. Such as Historic England/English Heritage.
But it shouldn't be lobbying. If it wants to lobby, then it should have to raise its money privately.
Take the conflict of interests out of the equation.
I listened to almost all of Mike Johnson’s speech and I was struck by what was there — and what wasn’t there. Unless I missed something at the very beginning, he made no mention of the 2020 election, and even more importantly, no mention of the Big Loser.
Some may consider those omissions a bit weaselly. But there are times when leaders need to be a bit weaselly, and this may be one of them.
(Our journalists will, of course, try to keep the spotlight on the Big Loser, and it will be interesting to see how Johnson handles them.)
And here's a bit from the Wikipedia biography:
Johnson is married to Kelly Lary, a licensed pastoral counselor, a lecturer on family-related issues, and a former school teacher. They have four children. Johnson formerly resided in Shreveport, Baton Rouge, and in Allen, Collin County, Texas.[89]
Johnson has stated that early in his married life he and his wife took in a 14-year-old African American boy and consider him a part of their family.[90] "Many of my colleagues in this committee may not be aware, in addition to our four children at home, my wife and I have a much older son who happens to be African American," Johnson said. "We took custody of Michael and made him part of our family 22 years ago when we were just newlyweds and Michael just 14 and out on the streets and on a dangerous path."
Stuff needs to be done, make a decision on what you're doing and do it. The steps you take are the policies and the law, the objective is not and should not be.
"We will be at net zero" should not be the law, the law should be "[in order to get to net zero] we are doing x, y and z" and x, y and z should be debated and potentially changed democratically.
I don't want a law saying "homes should be affordable", that's preposterous. I want concrete steps taken (like reforming planning) to get us there. Laws with meat on them, to get to the policy objective, not setting the policy objective as law and then doing sod all.
Anyway, the Falls of Bruar: the Falls of Bruar walk is everything you want the Highlands in Autumn to be. You cannot feel uncheered. Utter beauty. You're done and dusted in an hour, but that hour is perfection.
Then on to Pitlochry, where the shops and teashops are a wee bit more accessible, before getting on the bus to the Enchanted Forest (thanks again, @Luckyguy1983). Trippy and wonderful. Again, done and dusted in just over an hour but what a very happy and peculiar hour that is. This was my favourite bit:
The general public will pick a side and then we either reach a general consensus (see gay rights) or a long intractable battle of ideas (see Israel/Palestine). Even when consensus is met there will be people who oppose it, and sometimes they can build momentum to overturn it (e.g. Brexit).
Politicians are important as elected representatives but it's be wrong to leave the entire debate to them. But protesters and activists have an important role to play in shaping public opinion. Politicians will ultimately not move too far away from the views of the disinterested masses for fear of losing their jobs.
Getting the steel wrong on the doors... It was the bow door on MS Estonia that cost 850 lives. The regulator will be watching like a hawk.
Same should be the case for any charities taking a penny of taxpayers money. Pick what side of the conflict of interest you want to be on, do you want to take money, or be a lobbyist? You shouldn't be both.
How did you choose it ?
And it's not doing "sod all". Why would you complain about it otherwise? If it is used to block the building of the road it's been highly effective.
Particularly fun if you're covered head to toe in mud after a day on the hill.
I scratched my sartorial itch with a £50 hoody from Mountain Warehouse in Pitlochry. It is like wearing a hug. It may not be a thing of such splendour as you might find in Bruar - though I look as good as a fat balding man in his 40scan in it - but I will wear it more than 50 times over winter.
Our housing crisis is similar yes, in that it comes from NIMBYs being given too much say in whether development happens when they should not have a voice at all. Same here with transportation. Pick a policy and do it.
The point is to have development, not block it.
One of the best at it, in modern Congresses, is Iowa's Chuck Grassley. (He has been married to his wife since 1954, which shows a constancy we all should admire. Fun fact: At 90, he is in suprisingly good physical condition, and likes to challenge other men to push-up contests. He would beat the Big Loser easily, in spite of the difference in ages.)
For the record: I suspect that the US Congressional oversight practices would not fit in the House of Commons, but think the problem deserves your attention.
Mind you stainless by itself isn’t a perfect cure. Quite a lot of stainless corrodes horribly when seawater is involved.
Ok boomer.
*sigh*
Transformed their electoral chances too. Hang on...
The way to get to net zero on our roads is to ensure construction, maintenance and transportation is by 2050 being done via zero emission methods. Any infinite amount of construction, maintenance or transportation times zero is still zero emissions then.
Blocking development you dislike, "because net zero" should not be an option. Its making net zero an excuse and bringing it into disrepute, not helping the environment.
What there is, is badly written laws that get in the way. Laws the Tories have passed some of.
There's no reason by 2050 we can't have net zero vehicles, and net zero concrete, that is the only way we're going to get to net zero. If you're saying that's impossible, then lets spend our money on adaptation rather than prevention.
On individual activism - you would have to careful not to stymie the kind of people who actually get things done. There is one man in Edinburgh, for example, who campaigned for decades to open up the old railway lines for cycling and walking, and immeasurably improved the lives of his neighbours. Do not underestimate the achievements of the energetic few.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00758-4
https://www.theclimategroup.org/concretezero
https://www.sustainableconcrete.org.uk/Sustainable-Concrete/Our-Strategy/Our-Roadmap-to-Beyond-Net-Zero.aspx#:~:text=Net zero can be met,as advanced carbon capture technology.
If the state is serious about getting to net zero, it should be putting its effort into facilitating and ensuring zero emission technologies are used by 2050. Not blocking development in an impotent goal to cut emissions, which can never result in zero.