Because I am old and slow and there were other replies ahead of you in the queue. Our posts have though crossed so my reply is below.
2. Chance of litigation
You know what exists 'out there', It is a tinderbox waiting to be ignited. And a year ago you could have asked the same rhetorical question about Lord MacAlpine. We don't know the facts, Nigel (or at least are very unlikely to) so it is much better to err on the side of caution. It is Mike's money and reputation you would be putting at risk However low you might consider that risk to be why subject Mike to it? Most of us know where such names and allegations can be openly discussed. Why not go there?
Most of us know where such names and allegations can be openly discussed. Why not go there?
Personally I can't see Nigel joining the Labour Party.
Another corking set of results from RBS Mr Pole. So how's getting that £46bn back for the taxpayer going ?
Their new Chief Exec gave an excruciating interview on the Today programme. Opening guff about how they need to turn things around, then played a crp of his predecessor saying things would be OK by now, to which the response was they aren't but he was right anyway. Then moved onto not denying that he would apply for permission to pay large bonuses to reward the £8bn loss.
Will Cameron condemn bonuses in RBS? There isn't a lot of understanding out there about bankers and large bonuses, especially when they run up huge losses. Ordinary not a political issue, but the government will have to sign it off. I remember the furore about a certain pension being signed off by Labour which the Tories didn't like - I'm sure they won't have changed their mind on the subject....
Immigration has the potential to force the UK out of the EU, whatever politicians want, say, or do.
What if net EU migration goes up to 300,000, or 500,000 or 800,000 annually?
At some point things would snap, and if we could not opt out of free movement, we'd quit the EU. Simple as that. No country can sustain limitless immigration.
The trouble is there's a disconnect between the two (so people will put immigration at the top of their list of salient worries, and EU membership bottom.)
Same with the Indyref: the punters rank "currency" absolutely nowhere (according to Pork) but presumably rank "money and jobs" rather high.
@guyadams: Hewitt's grovelling apology comes a mere ten weeks after I first emailed her asking for comment on NCCL's relationship with PIE
@guyadams: Reads to me very much like an ex-politician falling on their sword to protect a couple if serving politicians. We'll see whether that works.
Another corking set of results from RBS Mr Pole. So how's getting that £46bn back for the taxpayer going ?
Their new Chief Exec gave an excruciating interview on the Today programme. Opening guff about how they need to turn things around, then played a crp of his predecessor saying things would be OK by now, to which the response was they aren't but he was right anyway. Then moved onto not denying that he would apply for permission to pay large bonuses to reward the £8bn loss.
Will Cameron condemn bonuses in RBS? There isn't a lot of understanding out there about bankers and large bonuses, especially when they run up huge losses. Ordinary not a political issue, but the government will have to sign it off. I remember the furore about a certain pension being signed off by Labour which the Tories didn't like - I'm sure they won't have changed their mind on the subject....
Our money's gone, just break it up and give us some competition in the banking system to help keep the rest of them relatively honest.
@ianpatterson99: Who should run the country? The multilingual DPM, the less experienced Mili, or someone who can't work headphones? http://t.co/ALT9vsgGws
Can anyone point me to where/when Cameron promised to cut overall net immigration to sub-100k, rather than non-EU net immigration?
I have a feeling this may become another Lisbon-treaty-partial-quote-"scandal" from the lefties & UKIP.
AFAIK the target always included EU migration. It was the immigration cap that only applied to non-EU. Can you provide a link where he stated it only applied to non-EU immigration?
Is the Conservatives' official website good enough?
We are restoring order to our immigration system to bring annual net migration down to the tens of thousands – rather than the hundreds of thousands we saw under Labour – by the end of this Parliament. We have capped economic migration, reformed the student visa system, and we're changing the family visa rules. We have made reforms at our borders, to ensure they are safe and secure.
Hewitt: 'NCCL "naive and wrong" to accept PIE in the 1970s'
Notice the helpful use of the third-party.
And who was running the NCCL at the time, Patricia?
Sir Roderick
Not just being contrarian, I don't believe it was wrong, in principle, for the NCCL to accept PIE as an affiliate in the mid 1970s.
Civil rights (if not necessarily liberties) should be made available to all citizens good and bad, Indeed an argument can be put that it is the 'bad' who have more need of organised advocacy support than the 'good'.
Where PIE went wrong was not in advocating rights and protection for paedophiles nor in lobbying for changes in the criminal law on, for example, ages of consent. However unacceptable such views may be to the vast majority of people, it doesn't follow that a civilised society should deny minorities the right to organise and lobby for (unacceptable) change.
PIE's unacceptability arose from its officers personally committing criminal acts (for which they were charged, convicted and imprisoned) and from the scope of its activities becoming extended to promoting illegal activity. Simplifying what happened it became more a dating and supply agency for paedophiles rather than a civil rights and support group.
I doubt though those arguing this line will win many friends or much support, but my guess is that it represents the true thinking of those involved in the NCCL in the 1970s.
Patricia Hewitt is right to claim that she and her colleagues were "naive" and "wrong" but it does not follow that these errors were fundamentally ones of principle. It is more a statement of "knowing what we know about how PIE turned out today and, recognising the almost universal contempt in which paedophiles are held by society today, we recognise that our youthful support for PIE is incompatible with the high offices we were later to hold in government".
A braver response would have been to defend the principles and condemn the actual outcomes.
I agree that people should have the right to set up an organisation to campaign for the legalisation of sex between adults and children. And to make that case.
It certainly doesn't follow that any decent or sensible organisation should accept the former as an affiliate.
It is a difficult ethical issue, Sean.
As a solicitor would you refuse to represent an individual charged with paedophile offences?
Immigration has the potential to force the UK out of the EU, whatever politicians want, say, or do.
What if net EU migration goes up to 300,000, or 500,000 or 800,000 annually?
At some point things would snap, and if we could not opt out of free movement, we'd quit the EU. Simple as that. No country can sustain limitless immigration.
I think there's a good chance UKIP will enjoy another perfect storm.
To defend the rights of PIE does fall within the remit of a civil rights union. Popular causes do not need their rights defending, it is unpopular ones that need the liberty to speak. Illegal sexual acts are. punishible, but discussing the law on these should not be. Remember in those days the age of consent for homosexuals was 21, so a relationship between a 22 year old and a 20 year old would have neen illegal in England, and illegal at any age in Scotland or NI.
Sure, but so what? Are you saying that, because the police have made wrongful arrests in the past, or have lied, or have shot an innocent man without any good reason, that therefore they should not have powers of arrest, or ever be allowed to used armed force even if (say) a gunman were rampaging around Oxford Street?
No-one is claiming that there should be powers without democratic oversight and without a legal framework, which if necessary can be tested in the courts.
You are supporting the state taking new powers over the population to prevent terrorism and saying we should just trust them to do the right thing, they're all honourable people. My point is that at all levels from front line police officers up to PM they cannot be relied upon in this way, as has been shown many times. Their powers should therefore be strictly limited, in a way that you don't seem to recognise. And adding on an ever increasing number of secret mass surveillance programs does not fit the idea of limits. It is may all be legal, but that is just another layer of problem.
Tories should remember the words of the founder of modern Conservatism Edmund Burke:
The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.
Poor old gullible tory Eurosceptics, what a shame.
They're really not that gullible, as I thought the whole point was the proper euroskeptics never believed it in the first place.
'Proper' Eurosceptics are BOOers these days. Anything less is usually met with complete scorn by Farage and the kippers. It's the softer 'IN' tory Eurosceptics who keep setting themselves up for a fall that are most gullible and usually most angry since the hardcore never expect anything different from Cammie.
Anything other than exit from the EU is pointless from a eurosceptic point of view.
@ianpatterson99: Who should run the country? The multilingual DPM, the less experienced Mili, or someone who can't work headphones? http://t.co/ALT9vsgGws
Maybe Mr C just happens to know his foreign languages? (Caveat: I don't know the context of the photo.)
Another corking set of results from RBS Mr Pole. So how's getting that £46bn back for the taxpayer going ?
Mr. Brooke
I have been trying very hard to avoid answering your comment but the queue seems to have disappeared and I can only see a Warwickshire malcontent glowering.
I don't think we need to get too excited by the RBS results. Underlying profitablility is sound and the additional (non-cash flow) impairment provisions are necessary to further prepare the bank for flotation and division.
You should note that even the greatest managers have to take such hard decisions. Even St George has felt it necessary to take a £13.9 billion net provision in this year's UK National Accounts to reflect a mark down to market prices of the assets purchased by the Bank of England as part of the Quantitative Easing programme.
The legacy left by Labour is costly, Mr. Brooke and the costs, though reducing in aggregate, are still with us.
Another corking set of results from RBS Mr Pole. So how's getting that £46bn back for the taxpayer going ?
Mr. Brooke
I have been trying very hard to avoid answering your comment but the queue seems to have disappeared and I can only see a Warwickshire malcontent glowering.
I don't think we need to get too excited by the RBS results. Underlying profitablility is sound and the additional (non-cash flow) impairment provisions are necessary to further prepare the bank for flotation and division.
You should note that even the greatest managers have to take such hard decisions. Even St George has felt it necessary to take a £13.9 billion net provision in this year's UK National Accounts to reflect a mark down to market prices of the assets purchased by the Bank of England as part of the Quantitative Easing programme.
The legacy left by Labour is costly, Mr. Brooke and the costs, though reducing in aggregate, are still with us.
How is this meant to persuade anyone of their cause?
See, there's your basic miscomprehension in a nutshell. No one on here, least of all you, needs to be persuaded of anything.
Personally PB is a vivid and motivating reminder of precisely the sort of politics I want to escape. A steady whine of hypocritical outrage from those whose 'standards' stop at their own output is just a bonus.
That's not really an answer to my question: why you guys come here to rant and swear. I do not believe this ridiculous piffle about your needing a "daily reminder of what you are trying to escape".
Coming on here must serve you, and your ludicrous Natty friends, some psychic purpose. My guess is that it allows you to vent your hatred of others, a hatred which becomes evermore obvious by the day.
You are a good example. You used to be quite civilised, and even witty. Now it is just dismal exhalations of sourness and resentment.
Intriguing.
SeanT, may I suggest PMQ's as a comparison for PB conversation?
It's about the battle rather than recruiting.
Yes, possibly. Hmm.
Either way I can feel a blog coming on, centred on the psyche of cyberNats - I shall use some of the crazier examples on here. I have a feeling some of them are really quite old - like Mick Pork - hence the Alzheimery repetitiveness:
"People with Alzheimer's disease often act as if their minds are caught in an endless tape loop. They may ask the same question 20 times in an afternoon, pace a stretch of floor for hours, or hum a tune that never seems to run out of verses."
I mean, that's Mick Pork and malcomg right there, isn't it?
Comments
Personally I can't see Nigel joining the Labour Party.
What would immigration from the EU go up to if Turkey joined? It's rather odd that David Cameron supports their ultimate membership...
Will Cameron condemn bonuses in RBS? There isn't a lot of understanding out there about bankers and large bonuses, especially when they run up huge losses. Ordinary not a political issue, but the government will have to sign it off. I remember the furore about a certain pension being signed off by Labour which the Tories didn't like - I'm sure they won't have changed their mind on the subject....
Same with the Indyref: the punters rank "currency" absolutely nowhere (according to Pork)
but presumably rank "money and jobs" rather high.
@guyadams: Reads to me very much like an ex-politician falling on their sword to protect a couple if serving politicians. We'll see whether that works.
We are restoring order to our immigration system to bring annual net migration down to the tens of thousands – rather than the hundreds of thousands we saw under Labour – by the end of this Parliament. We have capped economic migration, reformed the student visa system, and we're changing the family visa rules. We have made reforms at our borders, to ensure they are safe and secure.
http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/Immigration.aspx
As a solicitor would you refuse to represent an individual charged with paedophile offences?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/26/britain-possibility-joining-euro-labour-frontbencher
To defend the rights of PIE does fall within the remit of a civil rights union. Popular causes do not need their rights defending, it is unpopular ones that need the liberty to speak. Illegal sexual acts are. punishible, but discussing the law on these should not be. Remember in those days the age of consent for homosexuals was 21, so a relationship between a 22 year old and a 20 year old would have neen illegal in England, and illegal at any age in Scotland or NI.
The German greens took a similar position :
http://m.spiegel.de/international/germany/a-922442.html#spRedirectedFrom=www&referrrer=http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en-GB&redir_esc=&client=ms-android-samsung&source=android-browser-type&v=133247963&qsubts=1393533144640&q=german+greens+paedophilia&v=133247963
and the American Civil Liberties Union still speaks for the rights of paedophiles:
http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/07/awkward-aclu-defends-pedophiles-to-preserve-anonymous-free-speech/
I have been trying very hard to avoid answering your comment but the queue seems to have disappeared and I can only see a Warwickshire malcontent glowering.
I don't think we need to get too excited by the RBS results. Underlying profitablility is sound and the additional (non-cash flow) impairment provisions are necessary to further prepare the bank for flotation and division.
You should note that even the greatest managers have to take such hard decisions. Even St George has felt it necessary to take a £13.9 billion net provision in this year's UK National Accounts to reflect a mark down to market prices of the assets purchased by the Bank of England as part of the Quantitative Easing programme.
The legacy left by Labour is costly, Mr. Brooke and the costs, though reducing in aggregate, are still with us.
You want Ed to manage RBS?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Liddle
I wouldn't have bothered even clicking on the link then.....