In a previous case a teaching assistant lost her appeal for unfair dismissal for wearing the Niqab - for grounds that sound pretty similar to the Camden High School case:
1. The election was closer than we thought and the SNP blew it. In Kinnock fashion Salmond's attitude in the last 2 weeks wound up enough people to ensure a massive turnout by his opponents.
2. Labour's election team need new leadership. They were frankly hopeless in Scotland. If this carries onto the general election they may well lose it.
3. Facebook elections are hear to stay. Much of this campaign was fought on Facebook. People were targeted, pushed and harangued with a big impact on the young vote. My son who is both of strong mind and a No supporter was hit with a torrent of abuse for suggesting that some of Salmond's ideas were not well thought out. Many of his friends in Glasgow who were not convinced about the Yes campaign just stayed at home. In Glasgow and Dundee some of the lower turnouts may have been caused by this.
4. SNP took a gamble and deserted some of its old supporters to pick up the Labour voters. This will reshape the party. No longer is their core vote rural but instead the inner city poor.
5. The Tory decline in Scotland has probably reached the bottom. Ruth Davidson was impressive and the Tories are regaining strength in the countryside and the wealthy suburbs.
Th reported doubling of SNP membership over the last week or so will have interesting effects, as most will be ex SLAB in places like Glasgow. It should see off the Tartan Tories tag, but what is gained from Labour may well be lost elsewhere...
That is my feeling. One of the untold stories of the referendum is how they lost the North East.
Picked up the Irish Catholic vote but lost the Protestant?
Labour clearly have no idea how they will actually set the "mansion tax" up and actually identify houses that are worth £2m or more.
Yesterday Burnham made a complete idiot of himself in all interviews claiming they would use the Land Registry system, which of course only covers sold prices. Andrew Neil found it pretty hard not to laugh at his lack of knowledge.
Now today Miliband is talking about using the same system that the government uses when properties are put into company shells. Once again this based upon a sale and purchase process. There may well be 70,000 properties worth more than £2m across the UK, but the number where there's a real recorded actual value Labour can tax is tiny.
Labour have no economic credibility already. This policy makes it worse.
So say 100k houses need appraised to see if they pass the limit.
A surveyor with his finger out could do say 5 a day.
20,000 man days to assess them every year.
80 surveyors working for a year..
Plus support and appeals ?
But it is not 100k houses - it would require a whole revaluation of a massive range of properties just to make sure you aren't missing any homes that look like £1.9 million on the outside and have a stunning kitchen that makes them worth £2.1 million once you look inside. (Frivolous example but you get the point)
The Mansion tax is not a workable policy without a complete revaluation of the UK housing stock - and that is something that any politician would run a mile from. It would take huge political courage to go down that road - and Miliband doesn't have the Balls for it.
It is all about the politics of envy and not about a credible plan for raising regular income that can be used to good effect.
Oh and whilst I am at it - £2.5 billion to save the NHS? That will go nowhere. And is particularly rich from a party that squandered £10 billion of NHS cash on an IT system that didn't work.
Mr. Observer, if we stopped saying things when we kept being wrong I would've stopped mentioning F1 after the first half of 2013!
Mr. Corporeal, indeed, Clegg's ill-considered and desperate bid to earn himself brownie points with the Cornish by granting them the unasked-for status of minority will increase the chances of England being carved up.
Mr. Dave, whilst I still disagree with you whole-heartedly (you may not be shocked to read that ), at least your position is consistent. Completely wrong, of course, and madder than a mongoose wearing a fez, but consistent.
Mr Dancer, I wouldn't call it unasked for, there's been campaigns running around for a while, getting Cornish added as a protect minority language for example. How widespread support was is open to question, but same is true of an English parliament.
SO-Interesting your mother is against EU immigration. How about Third World immigration. She probably is but would fear the thought police would come and arrest her if she said so.
No - my Mum does not really have an opinion on EU immigration, that I know about anyway. Her issue is a cultural one. It's about the tolerance of what she believes are unacceptable cultural practices and behaviours.
PB is at its absolute worst when discussing complex child abuse cases. Ill-informed people making I intemperate, unguarded and sometimes libellous comments about a desperately sensitive subject they know too little about.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing indeed.
There's a clear effort by those on the left to use every excuse they can to try to clamp down on people raising awareness on this issue. It's almost like there's a massive vested interest in keeping the facts suppressed. The discussions here about child abuse are no more ill-informed, intemperate or unguarded than those about economics, or foreign policy, or a dozen other issues.
Of course there is. Connect the dots: Labour-political correctness-ethnic minorities-child abuse
Are you being sarcastic or are you suggesting a causal link between ethnicity and child abuse?
I'm not saying it, the Rotherham Report said it.
I must have missed that bit... Which paragraph states that ones ethnicity makes one more or less likely to be a child abuser and that this would be the case regardless of other contributory factors?
Leave it out - you're making a fool of yourself in your PC-mad worldview.
Unless, maybe you read the report where the vast majority of abusers in Rotherham were white and victims were overwhelmingly Pakistani. Probably the report that would have been authorised by the Labour party.
So you can't point to any paragraph that states ethnicity is a causal factor in child abuse.... If you believe that it is, perhaps you could list the ethnic groups that are predisposed to child abuse...
Mr. Corporeal, I believe polling during the Scottish referendum debate indicated far more people want an English Parliament than city regions or regional assemblies (more than half had it as their preferred devolution option, if I remember correctly).
1. The election was closer than we thought and the SNP blew it. In Kinnock fashion Salmond's attitude in the last 2 weeks wound up enough people to ensure a massive turnout by his opponents.
2. Labour's election team need new leadership. They were frankly hopeless in Scotland. If this carries onto the general election they may well lose it.
3. Facebook elections are hear to stay. Much of this campaign was fought on Facebook. People were targeted, pushed and harangued with a big impact on the young vote. My son who is both of strong mind and a No supporter was hit with a torrent of abuse for suggesting that some of Salmond's ideas were not well thought out. Many of his friends in Glasgow who were not convinced about the Yes campaign just stayed at home. In Glasgow and Dundee some of the lower turnouts may have been caused by this.
4. SNP took a gamble and deserted some of its old supporters to pick up the Labour voters. This will reshape the party. No longer is their core vote rural but instead the inner city poor.
5. The Tory decline in Scotland has probably reached the bottom. Ruth Davidson was impressive and the Tories are regaining strength in the countryside and the wealthy suburbs.
Th reported doubling of SNP membership over the last week or so will have interesting effects, as most will be ex SLAB in places like Glasgow. It should see off the Tartan Tories tag, but what is gained from Labour may well be lost elsewhere...
That is my feeling. One of the untold stories of the referendum is how they lost the North East.
Picked up the Irish Catholic vote but lost the Protestant?
Labour clearly have no idea how they will actually set the "mansion tax" up and actually identify houses that are worth £2m or more.
Yesterday Burnham made a complete idiot of himself in all interviews claiming they would use the Land Registry system, which of course only covers sold prices. Andrew Neil found it pretty hard not to laugh at his lack of knowledge.
Now today Miliband is talking about using the same system that the government uses when properties are put into company shells. Once again this based upon a sale and purchase process. There may well be 70,000 properties worth more than £2m across the UK, but the number where there's a real recorded actual value Labour can tax is tiny.
Labour have no economic credibility already. This policy makes it worse.
So say 100k houses need appraised to see if they pass the limit.
A surveyor with his finger out could do say 5 a day.
20,000 man days to assess them every year.
80 surveyors working for a year..
Plus support and appeals ?
How does a surveyor know how many bedrooms/rooms/etc are in each house?
5 a day is one an hour...good luck with that.
I was trying to be kind.
I'm assuming he could turn up outside a few pads in London and be confident within 5 mins it was worth over £2M given registered sales for the same street.
Problem is more collating a list of properties for these 80 (or 150) chaps to go and look at.
In rural areas they might stuggle to do 2 per day and yes in borderline cases they may have to do an internal inspection.
Suspect they wont - they will just tax all new sales over £2M - which is horrible and brings in naff all - but has the nasty envy box ticked.
Interesting that women not wearing a headscarf when outside would be assumed to be loose and immoral as late as the 50's/60's in Britain. Of course, in that case, it was cultural and not religious.
Given that the majority of Islamic scholars can find no Koranic basis for imposing the niqab or similar restrictions on women, I think we can say that it is also a cultural issue as it is not something required by faith.
Yes, some women make a positive choice to wear it - but many are forced by the men in their family/community.
Labour clearly have no idea how they will actually set the "mansion tax" up and actually identify houses that are worth £2m or more.
Yesterday Burnham made a complete idiot of himself in all interviews claiming they would use the Land Registry system, which of course only covers sold prices. Andrew Neil found it pretty hard not to laugh at his lack of knowledge.
Now today Miliband is talking about using the same system that the government uses when properties are put into company shells. Once again this based upon a sale and purchase process. There may well be 70,000 properties worth more than £2m across the UK, but the number where there's a real recorded actual value Labour can tax is tiny.
Labour have no economic credibility already. This policy makes it worse.
So say 100k houses need appraised to see if they pass the limit.
A surveyor with his finger out could do say 5 a day.
20,000 man days to assess them every year.
80 surveyors working for a year..
Plus support and appeals ?
But it is not 100k houses - it would require a whole revaluation of a massive range of properties just to make sure you aren't missing any homes that look like £1.9 million on the outside and have a stunning kitchen that makes them worth £2.1 million once you look inside. (Frivolous example but you get the point)
The Mansion tax is not a workable policy without a complete revaluation of the UK housing stock - and that is something that any politician would run a mile from. It would take huge political courage to go down that road - and Miliband doesn't have the Balls for it.
It is all about the politics of envy and not about a credible plan for raising regular income that can be used to good effect.
Oh and whilst I am at it - £2.5 billion to save the NHS? That will go nowhere. And is particularly rich from a party that squandered £10 billion of NHS cash on an IT system that didn't work.
We already have a tax system based on a building's value (i.e. council tax). Of course politicians have been avoiding re-valuing that for years (when they probably should have).
I suppose the cop out would be to run if off council tax evaluations in some way (perhaps with an adjustment for modern times).
1. The election was closer than we thought and the SNP blew it. In Kinnock fashion Salmond's attitude in the last 2 weeks wound up enough people to ensure a massive turnout by his opponents.
2. Labour's election team need new leadership. They were frankly hopeless in Scotland. If this carries onto the general election they may well lose it.
3. Facebook elections are hear to stay. Much of this campaign was fought on Facebook. People were targeted, pushed and harangued with a big impact on the young vote. My son who is both of strong mind and a No supporter was hit with a torrent of abuse for suggesting that some of Salmond's ideas were not well thought out. Many of his friends in Glasgow who were not convinced about the Yes campaign just stayed at home. In Glasgow and Dundee some of the lower turnouts may have been caused by this.
4. SNP took a gamble and deserted some of its old supporters to pick up the Labour voters. This will reshape the party. No longer is their core vote rural but instead the inner city poor.
5. The Tory decline in Scotland has probably reached the bottom. Ruth Davidson was impressive and the Tories are regaining strength in the countryside and the wealthy suburbs.
Th reported doubling of SNP membership over the last week or so will have interesting effects, as most will be ex SLAB in places like Glasgow. It should see off the Tartan Tories tag, but what is gained from Labour may well be lost elsewhere...
That is my feeling. One of the untold stories of the referendum is how they lost the North East.
Picked up the Irish Catholic vote but lost the Protestant?
"I heard last week from a pupil at the largest Catholic secondary school in Scotland, Holyrood in Glasgow, that many teachers were completely open with pupils about their pro-independence views."
"On Thursday I am firmly convinced that most Catholics flocked to support a cause which viewed Britain in the most negative and demeaning terms. It was a poor way to repay a country which helped them to journey from the margins to the mainstream of society. Their Church in particular showed little statesmanship or even common sense"
Aren't there some council properties in London occupied by well known Labour politicians that are worth more than £2million. Will the council be paying?
@oxfordsimon The fact remains that we also have cultural rules, and in our fairly recent history, we have had several that would seem very strange to us in the present day.
Labour clearly have no idea how they will actually set the "mansion tax" up and actually identify houses that are worth £2m or more.
Yesterday Burnham made a complete idiot of himself in all interviews claiming they would use the Land Registry system, which of course only covers sold prices. Andrew Neil found it pretty hard not to laugh at his lack of knowledge.
Now today Miliband is talking about using the same system that the government uses when properties are put into company shells. Once again this based upon a sale and purchase process. There may well be 70,000 properties worth more than £2m across the UK, but the number where there's a real recorded actual value Labour can tax is tiny.
Labour have no economic credibility already. This policy makes it worse.
So say 100k houses need appraised to see if they pass the limit.
A surveyor with his finger out could do say 5 a day.
20,000 man days to assess them every year.
80 surveyors working for a year..
Plus support and appeals ?
How does a surveyor know how many bedrooms/rooms/etc are in each house?
5 a day is one an hour...good luck with that.
I was trying to be kind.
I'm assuming he could turn up outside a few pads in London and be confident within 5 mins it was worth over £2M given registered sales for the same street.
Problem is more collating a list of properties for these 80 (or 150) chaps to go and look at.
In rural areas they might stuggle to do 2 per day and yes in borderline cases they may have to do an internal inspection.
Suspect they wont - they will just tax all new sales over £2M - which is horrible and brings in naff all - but has the nasty envy box ticked.
I would have thought they would have to do an internal inspection in all cases. You can't tell from 'looking' if a house has 5 bedrooms, or 7, or has 3 bathrooms and a swimming pool out back....
Remember when we're dealing with expensive houses, they are a lot more individual than the average house. You can make mostly a good ballpark figure on what a 2 or 3 bed-semi is worth, not so much a individually build home which may have been added to, or adjusted internally etc etc.
Labour clearly have no idea how they will actually set the "mansion tax" up and actually identify houses that are worth £2m or more.
Yesterday Burnham made a complete idiot of himself in all interviews claiming they would use the Land Registry system, which of course only covers sold prices. Andrew Neil found it pretty hard not to laugh at his lack of knowledge.
Now today Miliband is talking about using the same system that the government uses when properties are put into company shells. Once again this based upon a sale and purchase process. There may well be 70,000 properties worth more than £2m across the UK, but the number where there's a real recorded actual value Labour can tax is tiny.
Labour have no economic credibility already. This policy makes it worse.
So say 100k houses need appraised to see if they pass the limit.
A surveyor with his finger out could do say 5 a day.
20,000 man days to assess them every year.
80 surveyors working for a year..
Plus support and appeals ?
How does a surveyor know how many bedrooms/rooms/etc are in each house?
5 a day is one an hour...good luck with that.
I was trying to be kind.
I'm assuming he could turn up outside a few pads in London and be confident within 5 mins it was worth over £2M given registered sales for the same street.
A surveyor would need to have internal access to those properties. (Good luck with that - "You want to tax me more? Come on in!"). Otherwise how would one know whether there were basement pools, diamond studded kitchens and bedrooms lined with swan feathers or whatever else evil, filthy rich people use to drive up property values.
Many people will never forget Neil "Awwwright!" Kinnock, Hague's baseball cap, the "something of the night" about Michael Howard, the "Quiet Man" IDS, or "I saved the world" Gordon BeanBrown.
It did seem that Ed Miliband might be most remembered for not being called David, but the leader who much of the country mistook for his brother may have trumped that image by forgetting the passages in his speech that dealt with the deficit and immigration. No doubt the dog ate his notes.
Ridicule is surely fatal for any politician. Today Miliband's career teeters on the brink. The mocking Cameron received over the airbrushed posters never quite reached the critical mass necessary to prevent him becoming PM. I fear for Miliband that the Press are going to be more keen on remembering his forgetfulness. Oh dear.
I thought this cleared it up nicely. A bit of straight talking always helps
‘You can have politicians reading out a speech, but I think you’ve got to change the way politics works. I think people want people to come along and tell them what they think, and that’s what I did yesterday. I’m sure I would do it differently. You know, if I did the speech again today I’d do it differently.’
Yes. Fair play. Kinda neutralises the issue.
He (and you) wish:
This is interesting, because Ed clearly sees himself as some kind of political prophet of alienated voters, someone who understands them and speaks for them. But even his argument here shows why forgetting those passages was such a problem. If voters want a politician to tell them what he or she thinks, and that politician doesn’t think enough of an issue that comes in at number one for most of those voters, then how is the political prophet really speaking for those voters?
@oxfordsimon The fact remains that we also have cultural rules, and in our fairly recent history, we have had several that would seem very strange to us in the present day.
The point I was trying to make is that we should not allow people to use religion as an excuse for oppression.
We can challenge and should challenge cultural norms that are damaging to society as a whole.
Is not the "mansion tax", with supreme irony, going to inspire a posh version of the accommodation subdivision that I understand has gone on (e.g. the S Wales valleys), to avoid the "bedroom tax". With the latter, "ex bedrooms" have, I hear, had a piece of plasterboard put down the middle to create two "store rooms" so creating "no spare bedroom". With the former, surely sub division of your rambling pile in Highgate (or wherever) into a "couple of £1M flats so definitely not a £2M house" is a possibility?
" Slapping a 1pc levy on homes worth more than £2m (or even just on the value above the threshold) is clearly idiotic: somebody with a £1.9m mortgage and a home worth just over £2m would be hit; someone who owns outright 100 £1m homes wouldn’t be affected. "
Good piece on the dangerous nature of the proposed tax, shows again that Miliband and Labour just don't get the English.
Only complaint is again the media claiming the underlying cause is planning laws rather than immigration.
"My main problem with it is I just don't like it when you can't share a smile/say hello to someone you pass in the street"
Actually, you can, and I have done so, without difficulty or contrivance - but I don't like them. They're a bit medieval and I prefer to see people's faces.
But then I don't like all sorts of things - Nuns' habits, tatoos and piercings, for example. I'd stop short of banning them in public though.
Then again it's a different matter in schools and workplaces, where the staff and owners should be free to operate their own rules - but sensibly and fairly, one hopes.
This valuation debate seems very thin grounds on which to challenge the Mansion Tax... A couple of days playing with Land Registry data and a list of properties could be created to which to send a letter: "We believe your poetry to be worth £2m on the open market and will be taxing it as such from next year... If you wish to appeal..."
Interesting that women not wearing a headscarf when outside would be assumed to be loose and immoral as late as the 50's/60's in Britain. Of course, in that case, it was cultural and not religious.
Given that the majority of Islamic scholars can find no Koranic basis for imposing the niqab or similar restrictions on women, I think we can say that it is also a cultural issue as it is not something required by faith.
Yes, some women make a positive choice to wear it - but many are forced by the men in their family/community.
Culture not religion.
I think my Mum would say that choosing to cover your face in situations that involve interactions with others - such as those that inevitably occur in schools and other public places - is an imposition on those with whom you are going to interact.
Interesting that women not wearing a headscarf when outside would be assumed to be loose and immoral as late as the 50's/60's in Britain. Of course, in that case, it was cultural and not religious.
Given that the majority of Islamic scholars can find no Koranic basis for imposing the niqab or similar restrictions on women, I think we can say that it is also a cultural issue as it is not something required by faith.
Yes, some women make a positive choice to wear it - but many are forced by the men in their family/community.
Culture not religion.
I think my Mum would say that choosing to cover your face in situations that involve interactions with others - such as those that inevitably occur in schools and other public places - is an imposition on those with whom you are going to interact.
I don't disagree with your mother - and it is hard to distinguish the cases where someone makes a positive choice to adopt a certain form of dress and where that is imposed on them.
The French blanket ban (for want of a better term) does seem to be the fair way forward.
Interesting that women not wearing a headscarf when outside would be assumed to be loose and immoral as late as the 50's/60's in Britain. Of course, in that case, it was cultural and not religious.
This valuation debate seems very thin grounds on which to challenge the Mansion Tax... A couple of days playing with Land Registry data and a list of properties could be created to which to send a letter: "We believe your poetry to be worth £2m on the open market and will be taxing it as such from next year... If you wish to appeal..."
Well you have to get the data upon which you base that valuation.. you can't just get some doofus to pull it out of the air. Otherwise you would have suddenly 100.000 appeals and the system would buckle.
Which is why taxation based on valuations (be it capital gains, IHT, or any form of proposed wealth tax) are so difficult and expensive to administer.
PB is at its absolute worst when discussing complex child abuse cases. Ill-informed people making I intemperate, unguarded and sometimes libellous comments about a desperately sensitive subject they know too little about.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing indeed.
There's a clear effort by those on the left to use every excuse they can to try to clamp down on people raising awareness on this issue. It's almost like there's a massive vested interest in keeping the facts suppressed. The discussions here about child abuse are no more ill-informed, intemperate or unguarded than those about economics, or foreign policy, or a dozen other issues.
Of course there is. Connect the dots: Labour-political correctness-ethnic minorities-child abuse
Are you being sarcastic or are you suggesting a causal link between ethnicity and child abuse?
Rexel, no-one is interested in your PC mad world any longer, just grow up and admit that multiculturalism has failed. Not only that, but that it has failed through no fault of the British public, apart from those obsessed with PC.
Or are you another that thinks the ONE THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED victims of Rotherham are collateral damage.
This valuation debate seems very thin grounds on which to challenge the Mansion Tax... A couple of days playing with Land Registry data and a list of properties could be created to which to send a letter: "We believe your poetry to be worth £2m on the open market and will be taxing it as such from next year... If you wish to appeal..."
Well, if you really believe that is a fair way to run a taxation system, you have some very strange ideas.
The state cannot and should not make assumptions and use them as the basis for taxation.
A Mansion Tax - whilst manifestly a bad and unfair idea - can only work with proper valuation - and regular re-valuations.
If you are basing a taxation system on current market values, you have to ensure your records reflect the value of the properties at any one time.
@oxfordsimon In the case of Islam, it can be seen as a religious obligation. While the original teachings are beyond question to it's adherents, there are different interpretations of them. It is the same for people who study early Christian, and Old Testament scripts. The "looseness" of the language and forms of writing, lead to them being open to interpretation depending on the bias of the translator.
"My main problem with it is I just don't like it when you can't share a smile/say hello to someone you pass in the street"
Actually, you can, and I have done so, without difficulty or contrivance - but I don't like them. They're a bit medieval and I prefer to see people's faces.
But then I don't like all sorts of things - Nuns' habits, tatoos and piercings, for example. I'd stop short of banning them in public though.
Then again it's a different matter in schools and workplaces, where the staff and owners should be free to operate their own rules - but sensibly and fairly, one hopes.
You can share a smile with someone whose mouth is covered? Obv I mean they smile back before we go into nitpicking territory!
I fînd them quite sinister, but I wouldn't ban them from the streets. I just wish I lived where there weren't any
Interesting that women not wearing a headscarf when outside would be assumed to be loose and immoral as late as the 50's/60's in Britain. Of course, in that case, it was cultural and not religious.
I think it was in one of the Thatcher dramas where she had to be told not to wear a hat as it was no longer seen as the done thing. We like to think that the 60s ushered in an age of liberal free expression, but it sometimes feels like we merely exchanged one set of restrictive social rules for another.
In that sense the wearing of the burqa is interesting, because it challenges the prevailing social norm that identifies women as being frumpy or frigid if they don't wear revealing clothes. There's an interesting song that touches on this restrictiveness of existing social norms:
"And now I'm in this clothing store, and the signs say less is more More that's tight means more to see, more for them, not more for me"
However, having said all that, and while still believing that it would be wrong to make it illegal to wear a niqab, it is certainly true that seeing people wearing a complete face-covering does make me feel uncomfortable, and I don't think it's something I could ever get used to.
1. The election was closer than we thought and the SNP blew it. In Kinnock fashion Salmond's attitude in the last 2 weeks wound up enough people to ensure a massive turnout by his opponents.
2. Labour's election team need new leadership. They were frankly hopeless in Scotland. If this carries onto the general election they may well lose it.
3. Facebook elections are hear to stay. Much of this campaign was fought on Facebook. People were targeted, pushed and harangued with a big impact on the young vote. My son who is both of strong mind and a No supporter was hit with a torrent of abuse for suggesting that some of Salmond's ideas were not well thought out. Many of his friends in Glasgow who were not convinced about the Yes campaign just stayed at home. In Glasgow and Dundee some of the lower turnouts may have been caused by this.
4. SNP took a gamble and deserted some of its old supporters to pick up the Labour voters. This will reshape the party. No longer is their core vote rural but instead the inner city poor.
5. The Tory decline in Scotland has probably reached the bottom. Ruth Davidson was impressive and the Tories are regaining strength in the countryside and the wealthy suburbs.
What I found most interesting is that the areas where the Tories used to have seats, in Perthshire, Aberdeenshire , Angus, the borders and the posh parts of Edinburgh were all strongly no. Most of the local populations in these areas have not voted Tory for a long time but they were against independence and, I think, disconcerted by the leftward swing of the SNP, something that is likely to accelerate under Sturgeon. There is an opportunity for the Tories here but whether an ossified and very old party can seize it is another issue. They need to start with the activist data base of BT.
Yes we could see a major realignment in Scotland with a few more Conservative seats gained through the tartan tories YES voters wakening up to the left wing independence of the SNP and the SNP gaining many more seats from Labour through left wing voters wakening up to the left wing independence of the SNP.
Mr. Dave, I think that's an indefensible position. You're arguing for devolution for all Scotland, for all Wales, but for England to be carved into pieces. I don't care about decentralisation or regional authorities, I do not want my country to be cut into little shitty regions.
How can you defend a single Scottish Parliament and oppose the same for England?
Iirc the Cornish want their own separate assembly (and a chunk of them claim themselves as a nation).
But the main reason is the idea of a destabilizing dominance. That you'd end up with an English parliament dictating everything.
How practically would this happen? We would have set powers for the UK and home national levels. On devolved matters like education, England couldn't dominate anyone else, because it would be devolved. On UK matters like economic policy and foreign policy, it would be exactly the same as now. This idea of England dominating if it had its own parliament just isn't thought through.
It is very honest of RedEd to admit that he has nothing to say on tackling the defecit or immigration levels. Lab supporting John Rentoul was blunter in listing Ed's positive points.
" I thought it was lamentable, weak, clichéd, embarrassing, uninspiring, stylistically inept, vacuous, unambitious, grandiose, cringeworthy, patronising, foolish, an unappetising blend of impossiblism and incrementalism, and a complete and final disaster for the Labour Party."
Many people will never forget Neil "Awwwright!" Kinnock, Hague's baseball cap, the "something of the night" about Michael Howard, the "Quiet Man" IDS, or "I saved the world" Gordon BeanBrown.
It did seem that Ed Miliband might be most remembered for not being called David, but the leader who much of the country mistook for his brother may have trumped that image by forgetting the passages in his speech that dealt with the deficit and immigration. No doubt the dog ate his notes.
Ridicule is surely fatal for any politician. Today Miliband's career teeters on the brink. The mocking Cameron received over the airbrushed posters never quite reached the critical mass necessary to prevent him becoming PM. I fear for Miliband that the Press are going to be more keen on remembering his forgetfulness. Oh dear.
I thought this cleared it up nicely. A bit of straight talking always helps
‘You can have politicians reading out a speech, but I think you’ve got to change the way politics works. I think people want people to come along and tell them what they think, and that’s what I did yesterday. I’m sure I would do it differently. You know, if I did the speech again today I’d do it differently.’
Yes. Fair play. Kinda neutralises the issue.
He (and you) wish:
This is interesting, because Ed clearly sees himself as some kind of political prophet of alienated voters, someone who understands them and speaks for them. But even his argument here shows why forgetting those passages was such a problem. If voters want a politician to tell them what he or she thinks, and that politician doesn’t think enough of an issue that comes in at number one for most of those voters, then how is the political prophet really speaking for those voters?
"You can share a smile with someone whose mouth is covered? "
Absolutely. It's in the eyes.
I held open a door for a lady in a niqab. I smiled, she smiled, so did her husband. It wasn't a big deal but it shows you can communicate ok.
As I said, I don't like them. They look out of place most of the time and have the kind of overtones I don't like. But I really do feel much the same about Nuns' habits, and similar religious garb.
Maybe they make me feel guilty about not having been to Church for a while.
After Obama's announcement, Tesco's woes and Miliband's together tomorrow stuff, MGM thought it was a good day to bury bad news. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29339756 Hacked off seem very quiet today for some reason.
Odd that RedEd attacked Murdoch over this yet Trinitymirror actually used it more according to the police findings released through the Grauniad. Just remind me who Trinitymirror support politically?
Interesting that women not wearing a headscarf when outside would be assumed to be loose and immoral as late as the 50's/60's in Britain. Of course, in that case, it was cultural and not religious.
Women have to wear a headscarf to enter Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.
Rebuilt by public conscription despite mass destitution in the 90s after the Commies demolished it. Our current media political elite instead celebrates the 'Pussy Riot' actions there rather than the rebuilding.
It is very honest of RedEd to admit that he has nothing to say on tackling the defecit or immigration levels. Lab supporting John Rentoul was blunter in listing Ed's positive points.
" I thought it was lamentable, weak, clichéd, embarrassing, uninspiring, stylistically inept, vacuous, unambitious, grandiose, cringeworthy, patronising, foolish, an unappetising blend of impossiblism and incrementalism, and a complete and final disaster for the Labour Party."
Left wing politicians seem to make the same mistake home and abroad. Believing we Brits are somehow better than foreigners and they are desperate to be just like us
They think they are doing good by imposing our values on far flung regions which don't either want them or share them ie Iraq wars
They think that immigrants are desperate to embrace our values here for the same reason. Not everyone is embarrassed of their history. We are, they aren't. That's the fundamental problem.
It's like we have declared an amnesty for all our past wrongdoings, and promised to live together as a secular, equal society,and just assumed that people from imported from vastly different cultures were so pleased that we let them in that they'd do the same.
After Obama's announcement, Tesco's woes and Miliband's together tomorrow stuff, MGM thought it was a good day to bury bad news. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29339756 Hacked off seem very quiet today for some reason.
Odd that RedEd attacked Murdoch over this yet Trinitymirror actually used it more according to the police findings released through the Grauniad. Just remind me who Trinitymirror support politically?
After Obama's announcement, Tesco's woes and Miliband's together tomorrow stuff, MGM thought it was a good day to bury bad news. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29339756 Hacked off seem very quiet today for some reason.
Odd that RedEd attacked Murdoch over this yet Trinitymirror actually used it more according to the police findings released through the Grauniad. Just remind me who Trinitymirror support politically?
"This brings the claims to 10 with a further 19 still to be settled" BBC News
This valuation debate seems very thin grounds on which to challenge the Mansion Tax... A couple of days playing with Land Registry data and a list of properties could be created to which to send a letter: "We believe your poetry to be worth £2m on the open market and will be taxing it as such from next year... If you wish to appeal..."
Well, if you really believe that is a fair way to run a taxation system, you have some very strange ideas.
The state cannot and should not make assumptions and use them as the basis for taxation.
A Mansion Tax - whilst manifestly a bad and unfair idea - can only work with proper valuation - and regular re-valuations.
If you are basing a taxation system on current market values, you have to ensure your records reflect the value of the properties at any one time.
And that is expensive. Very expensive.
Not to mention mostly all other areas of taxation. income tax, capital gains, IHT, VAT are covered by self-assessment.
So really the only way it would work is to ask house owners to have a yearly valuation of their house value themselves...which could work, but again, how and who you ask to provide the valuation is the tricky area, and not least you bet that tax advisors would be working ways of reducing the valuation and the liabilities.
@FalseFlag It is also common for women to be veiled on the way to their wedding as a sign of chastity and purity, and for widows to do the same out of respect for their deceased. Vestigial remnants of the same idea?
After Obama's announcement, Tesco's woes and Miliband's together tomorrow stuff, MGM thought it was a good day to bury bad news. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29339756 Hacked off seem very quiet today for some reason.
Odd that RedEd attacked Murdoch over this yet Trinitymirror actually used it more according to the police findings released through the Grauniad. Just remind me who Trinitymirror support politically?
Yes, but that was Good Hacking.
Sorry I missed the fact that anything leftwing is justified journalism done without knowledge of the owner according to the lefties at the Guardian, BBC and Labour.... Poor old Dirty Digger backed the wrong party at GE2010. This all could have been avoided. Anyone see this as a disturbing protection racket?
PB is at its absolute worst when discussing complex child abuse cases. Ill-informed people making I intemperate, unguarded and sometimes libellous comments about a desperately sensitive subject they know too little about.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing indeed.
There's a clear effort by those on the left to use every excuse they can to try to clamp down on people raising awareness on this issue. It's almost like there's a massive vested interest in keeping the facts suppressed. The discussions here about child abuse are no more ill-informed, intemperate or unguarded than those about economics, or foreign policy, or a dozen other issues.
Of course there is. Connect the dots: Labour-political correctness-ethnic minorities-child abuse
Are you being sarcastic or are you suggesting a causal link between ethnicity and child abuse?
Rexel, no-one is interested in your PC mad world any longer, just grow up and admit that multiculturalism has failed. Not only that, but that it has failed through no fault of the British public, apart from those obsessed with PC.
Or are you another that thinks the ONE THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED victims of Rotherham are collateral damage.
I can readily accept a causal relationship between "political correctness" and the failure to stop child abuse in Rotherham. Some in position to decide whether to investigate and prosecute valued their careers above the victims and not wishing to offend the explicit or implicit expectations of their bosses they did nothing. The offenders then realised they could offend without fear and the problem spiralled. Whether it was "political correctness" per se or a more specific intent not to antagonise a bloc vote of voters is worth debate.
I also think that the ethnicity of the great majority of the offenders is unarguable in the Rotherham case. But that is not the same as saying a given ethnic group is predisposed to abuse children - the shame of Rotherham is that so many are now doing exactly what the authorities did: seeing the problem solely in racial terms. Projecting the behaviour of a group of lawless men in Rotherham onto a whole ethnic group is as nonsensical as projecting the behaviour of ISIS into every adherent of Islam
Interesting that women not wearing a headscarf when outside would be assumed to be loose and immoral as late as the 50's/60's in Britain. Of course, in that case, it was cultural and not religious.
I think it was in one of the Thatcher dramas where she had to be told not to wear a hat as it was no longer seen as the done thing. We like to think that the 60s ushered in an age of liberal free expression, but it sometimes feels like we merely exchanged one set of restrictive social rules for another.
In that sense the wearing of the burqa is interesting, because it challenges the prevailing social norm that identifies women as being frumpy or frigid if they don't wear revealing clothes. There's an interesting song that touches on this restrictiveness of existing social norms:
"And now I'm in this clothing store, and the signs say less is more More that's tight means more to see, more for them, not more for me"
However, having said all that, and while still believing that it would be wrong to make it illegal to wear a niqab, it is certainly true that seeing people wearing a complete face-covering does make me feel uncomfortable, and I don't think it's something I could ever get used to.
Our new left wing establishment has proven itself to be far more intolerant and authoritarian than the pre 60s one it replaced.
"You can share a smile with someone whose mouth is covered? "
Absolutely. It's in the eyes.
I held open a door for a lady in a niqab. I smiled, she smiled, so did her husband. It wasn't a big deal but it shows you can communicate ok.
As I said, I don't like them. They look out of place most of the time and have the kind of overtones I don't like. But I really do feel much the same about Nuns' habits, and similar religious garb.
Maybe they make me feel guilty about not having been to Church for a while.
I collared a woman in a niqab on the 100 bus years ago and asked her about it all... My main question was how the kids recognised her at the school gates if all the other mums wore the same gear... She was really nice, and said she took it off at home it was just so other men couldn't eye her up
I said what would your husband say if a bloke commented on your eyes... She said it wouldn't happen... I made my excuses and left
Organised religion of all kinds weirds me out a bit to be honest, but at least were allowed to take the piss out of the Church of England
Is Mr. Corporeal still about? If so, I've got a question or two (pretty simple) about Welsh language stuff (adding a place name and want to see if it fits).
Mr. Corporeal, I believe polling during the Scottish referendum debate indicated far more people want an English Parliament than city regions or regional assemblies (more than half had it as their preferred devolution option, if I remember correctly).
Mr. Corporeal, I believe polling during the Scottish referendum debate indicated far more people want an English Parliament than city regions or regional assemblies (more than half had it as their preferred devolution option, if I remember correctly).
I dislike either option but if pressed would prefer an English Parliament. But the devolution within England is a matter for the English as a whole. It is their decision about the principle and about the detail. Centuries of history have told us the boundaries of Scotland but who is to decide on the 'north west'? or 'south central'.
Furthermore - 'city regions' can hardly be expected to cover the level of devolution being given to Scotland.
Is Mr. Corporeal still about? If so, I've got a question or two (pretty simple) about Welsh language stuff (adding a place name and want to see if it fits).
I am (although a bit in and out, will help as soon I can).
Can TSE put a small update with the findings of the ICM Wales poll? http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-29331475 LD's ending with just a single seat in Wales, plus only 3% support welsh independence, is interesting.
Slight risk of no Welsh seats for the LDs! The land of Lloyd George.... Also Plaid not gaining from Lab's woeful governaance (Welsh NHS etc) - is that due to having a non-Welsh speaking Leader*?
PB is at its absolute worst when discussing complex child abuse cases. Ill-informed people making I intemperate, unguarded and sometimes libellous comments about a desperately sensitive subject they know too little about.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing indeed.
SNIP.
Of course there is. Connect the dots: Labour-political correctness-ethnic minorities-child abuse
Are you being sarcastic or are you suggesting a causal link between ethnicity and child abuse?
SNIP
I can readily accept a causal relationship between "political correctness" and the failure to stop child abuse in Rotherham. Some in position to decide whether to investigate and prosecute valued their careers above the victims and not wishing to offend the explicit or implicit expectations of their bosses they did nothing. The offenders then realised they could offend without fear and the problem spiralled. Whether it was "political correctness" per se or a more specific intent not to antagonise a bloc vote of voters is worth debate.
I also think that the ethnicity of the great majority of the offenders is unarguable in the Rotherham case. But that is not the same as saying a given ethnic group is predisposed to abuse children - the shame of Rotherham is that so many are now doing exactly what the authorities did: seeing the problem solely in racial terms. Projecting the behaviour of a group of lawless men in Rotherham onto a whole ethnic group is as nonsensical as projecting the behaviour of ISIS into every adherent of Islam
Other than a few fringe idiots in the BNP, no-one is projecting it on the whole ethnic group. There are vast numbers of decent, integrated Britons of Pakistani descent. However, that doesn't mean there's no cultural link to the crime. That's why even lefties like Jack Straw say there are parts of the Muslim community that see white girls as "easy meat", or like Yasmin Alibhai-Brown as saying that large numbers of Muslim men think "white women in particular deserve no respect and can be used with impunity". Just like at how women are treated in much of Pakistan and Afghanistan to see how their culture is far more misogynistic than mainstream British culture. Many men of Pakistani/Afghan descent in our society have maintained those views, despite often being born and bred here.
So it looks like we might have to add Timpson's name to this list:
1) Why hasn't Home Secretary Teresa May taken no action against a police force which collaberates with child rapists ?
2) How much did the locally well connected Communites Minister Sayeeda Warsi know about what was happening in Rotherham and why did she take no action ?
3) Why has Prime Minister David Cameron allowed at least three government departments to take no action ?
Interesting that women not wearing a headscarf when outside would be assumed to be loose and immoral as late as the 50's/60's in Britain. Of course, in that case, it was cultural and not religious.
Women in the 1950s weren't expected to cover themselves from head to foot in black, showing only their eyes.
1. The election was closer than we thought and the SNP blew it. In Kinnock fashion Salmond's attitude in the last 2 weeks wound up enough people to ensure a massive turnout by his opponents.
2. Labour's election team need new leadership. They were frankly hopeless in Scotland. If this carries onto the general election they may well lose it.
3. Facebook elections are hear to stay. Much of this campaign was fought on Facebook. People were targeted, pushed and harangued with a big impact on the young vote. My son who is both of strong mind and a No supporter was hit with a torrent of abuse for suggesting that some of Salmond's ideas were not well thought out. Many of his friends in Glasgow who were not convinced about the Yes campaign just stayed at home. In Glasgow and Dundee some of the lower turnouts may have been caused by this.
4. SNP took a gamble and deserted some of its old supporters to pick up the Labour voters. This will reshape the party. No longer is their core vote rural but instead the inner city poor.
5. The Tory decline in Scotland has probably reached the bottom. Ruth Davidson was impressive and the Tories are regaining strength in the countryside and the wealthy suburbs.
What I found most interesting is that the areas where the Tories used to have seats, in Perthshire, Aberdeenshire , Angus, the borders and the posh parts of Edinburgh were all strongly no. Most of the local populations in these areas have not voted Tory for a long time but they were against independence and, I think, disconcerted by the leftward swing of the SNP, something that is likely to accelerate under Sturgeon. There is an opportunity for the Tories here but whether an ossified and very old party can seize it is another issue. They need to start with the activist data base of BT.
Cameron will be pressured into dealing with the English question which I suspect will leave many Scots disillusioned. They expected to be the centre of attention after the the vows pre-referendum but that won't happen now.
"You can share a smile with someone whose mouth is covered? "
Absolutely. It's in the eyes.
I held open a door for a lady in a niqab. I smiled, she smiled, so did her husband. It wasn't a big deal but it shows you can communicate ok.
I'm surprised they only laughed ....
It's not every day you have a door held open by a cross dressing pensioner adorned by cerise boas, ascot hat and "Nick Palmer for Broxtowe" lapel badge ?!?
"You can share a smile with someone whose mouth is covered? "
Absolutely. It's in the eyes.
I held open a door for a lady in a niqab. I smiled, she smiled, so did her husband. It wasn't a big deal but it shows you can communicate ok.
As I said, I don't like them. They look out of place most of the time and have the kind of overtones I don't like. But I really do feel much the same about Nuns' habits, and similar religious garb.
Maybe they make me feel guilty about not having been to Church for a while.
I collared a woman in a niqab on the 100 bus years ago and asked her about it all... My main question was how the kids recognised her at the school gates if all the other mums wore the same gear... She was really nice, and said she took it off at home it was just so other men couldn't eye her up
I said what would your husband say if a bloke commented on your eyes... She said it wouldn't happen... I made my excuses and left
Organised religion of all kinds weirds me out a bit to be honest, but at least were allowed to take the piss out of the Church of England
I think your last comment hits the proverbial nail on the head... Should the UK be a truly secular state in which religion is not accounted for in the constitution, law etc.? And should this extend to Human Rights charters and treaties? Personally I think so... Post-enlightenment there's no need to pander to those who insist on a faith when that faith is, by definition, irrational... Exempting the CofE from Gay Marriage legislation is a no sense
"You can share a smile with someone whose mouth is covered? "
Absolutely. It's in the eyes.
I held open a door for a lady in a niqab. I smiled, she smiled, so did her husband. It wasn't a big deal but it shows you can communicate ok.
As I said, I don't like them. They look out of place most of the time and have the kind of overtones I don't like. But I really do feel much the same about Nuns' habits, and similar religious garb.
Maybe they make me feel guilty about not having been to Church for a while.
I collared a woman in a niqab on the 100 bus years ago and asked her about it all... My main question was how the kids recognised her at the school gates if all the other mums wore the same gear... She was really nice, and said she took it off at home it was just so other men couldn't eye her up
I said what would your husband say if a bloke commented on your eyes... She said it wouldn't happen... I made my excuses and left
Organised religion of all kinds weirds me out a bit to be honest, but at least were allowed to take the piss out of the Church of England
Oh, we take the piss out of them all, Isam.
I was fortunate in that I went to a school where about 55% of the boys were Jewish. Most of my mates were Jewish and they took the piss out of the local 'Kosher Cowboys' endlessly.
Jewish humour - you can't beat it. (Or is that a racist remark these days?)
1. The election was closer than we thought and the SNP blew it. In Kinnock fashion Salmond's attitude in the last 2 weeks wound up enough people to ensure a massive turnout by his opponents.
2. Labour's election team need new leadership. They were frankly hopeless in Scotland. If this carries onto the general election they may well lose it.
3. Facebook elections are hear to stay. Much of this campaign was fought on Facebook. People were targeted, pushed and harangued with a big impact on the young vote. My son who is both of strong mind and a No supporter was hit with a torrent of abuse for suggesting that some of Salmond's ideas were not well thought out. Many of his friends in Glasgow who were not convinced about the Yes campaign just stayed at home. In Glasgow and Dundee some of the lower turnouts may have been caused by this.
4. SNP took a gamble and deserted some of its old supporters to pick up the Labour voters. This will reshape the party. No longer is their core vote rural but instead the inner city poor.
5. The Tory decline in Scotland has probably reached the bottom. Ruth Davidson was impressive and the Tories are regaining strength in the countryside and the wealthy suburbs.
Th reported doubling of SNP membership over the last week or so will have interesting effects, as most will be ex SLAB in places like Glasgow. It should see off the Tartan Tories tag, but what is gained from Labour may well be lost elsewhere...
That is my feeling. One of the untold stories of the referendum is how they lost the North East.
Picked up the Irish Catholic vote but lost the Protestant?
"I heard last week from a pupil at the largest Catholic secondary school in Scotland, Holyrood in Glasgow, that many teachers were completely open with pupils about their pro-independence views."
"On Thursday I am firmly convinced that most Catholics flocked to support a cause which viewed Britain in the most negative and demeaning terms. It was a poor way to repay a country which helped them to journey from the margins to the mainstream of society. Their Church in particular showed little statesmanship or even common sense"
I should think that in Glasgow, at any rate, there was a strong correlation between religious affiliation and voting.
Jack (not Jeremy) Clarkson for UKIP PCC candidate for South Yorkshire.
BBC Look North @BBCLookNorth 11m UKIP say former Rotherham Police Inspector, Jack Clarkson, will stand as the party’s candidate in PCCC by-election in South Yorkshire.
Is there a political problem putting someone from Rotherham police as a candidate for that post?
"You can share a smile with someone whose mouth is covered? "
Absolutely. It's in the eyes.
I held open a door for a lady in a niqab. I smiled, she smiled, so did her husband. It wasn't a big deal but it shows you can communicate ok.
As I said, I don't like them. They look out of place most of the time and have the kind of overtones I don't like. But I really do feel much the same about Nuns' habits, and similar religious garb.
Maybe they make me feel guilty about not having been to Church for a while.
I collared a woman in a niqab on the 100 bus years ago and asked her about it all... My main question was how the kids recognised her at the school gates if all the other mums wore the same gear... She was really nice, and said she took it off at home it was just so other men couldn't eye her up
I said what would your husband say if a bloke commented on your eyes... She said it wouldn't happen... I made my excuses and left
Organised religion of all kinds weirds me out a bit to be honest, but at least were allowed to take the piss out of the Church of England
I think your last comment hits the proverbial nail on the head... Should the UK be a truly secular state in which religion is not accounted for in the constitution, law etc.? And should this extend to Human Rights charters and treaties? Personally I think so... Post-enlightenment there's no need to pander to those who insist on a faith when that faith is, by definition, irrational... Exempting the CofE from Gay Marriage legislation is a no sense
It seems to me that even a secular state should allow religious freedom. The United States separates church and state both to protect the state from the church, and to protect the church from the state.
"It's not every day you have a door held open by a cross dressing pensioner adorned by cerise boas, ascot hat and "Nick Palmer for Broxtowe" lapel badge ?!?"
The sartorial standard for shopping in Stratford, young Jack.
Can TSE put a small update with the findings of the ICM Wales poll? http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-29331475 LD's ending with just a single seat in Wales, plus only 3% support welsh independence, is interesting.
Slight risk of no Welsh seats for the LDs! The land of Lloyd George.... Also Plaid not gaining from Lab's woeful governaance (Welsh NHS etc) - is that due to having a non-Welsh speaking Leader*?
* ( but is currently learning the language)
From the poll it looks as if UKIP have switched places with the LD's in Wales. As for the non-Welsh speaking Leader, it matters only if you campaign against PC in the NW part of Wales, and PC are going nowhere with just 3% for independence.
Mr. Dave, I think that's an indefensible position. You're arguing for devolution for all Scotland, for all Wales, but for England to be carved into pieces. I don't care about decentralisation or regional authorities, I do not want my country to be cut into little shitty regions.
How can you defend a single Scottish Parliament and oppose the same for England?
Iirc the Cornish want their own separate assembly (and a chunk of them claim themselves as a nation).
But the main reason is the idea of a destabilizing dominance. That you'd end up with an English parliament dictating everything.
How practically would this happen? We would have set powers for the UK and home national levels. On devolved matters like education, England couldn't dominate anyone else, because it would be devolved. On UK matters like economic policy and foreign policy, it would be exactly the same as now. This idea of England dominating if it had its own parliament just isn't thought through.
SeanF - Labour's apparent pandering to Scotland may not be helping it in Wales. In some ways England and Wales may be converging politically but economically much of Wales is very different to the wealthier parts of England. The age profile in Wales may be helping the Tories and Ukip.
Mr. Dave, I think that's an indefensible position. You're arguing for devolution for all Scotland, for all Wales, but for England to be carved into pieces. I don't care about decentralisation or regional authorities, I do not want my country to be cut into little shitty regions.
How can you defend a single Scottish Parliament and oppose the same for England?
Iirc the Cornish want their own separate assembly (and a chunk of them claim themselves as a nation).
But the main reason is the idea of a destabilizing dominance. That you'd end up with an English parliament dictating everything.
How practically would this happen? We would have set powers for the UK and home national levels. On devolved matters like education, England couldn't dominate anyone else, because it would be devolved. On UK matters like economic policy and foreign policy, it would be exactly the same as now. This idea of England dominating if it had its own parliament just isn't thought through.
It really is disappointing that Labour's policies, which pretty much all amount to the state damaging the economic framework of the country, and then spending the ill-gotten proceeds poorly are so popular. I suppose we'll be back to targeting tractor stats. Hopefully the ongoing lessons to be had from France will lead to more sober assessments before the GE.
Interesting that women not wearing a headscarf when outside would be assumed to be loose and immoral as late as the 50's/60's in Britain. Of course, in that case, it was cultural and not religious.
Women in the 1950s weren't expected to cover themselves from head to foot in black, showing only their eyes.
They also didn't wear headscarves to cover themselves up or for morality reasons. They wore them to stop their hair getting blown about and looking unkempt.
"You can share a smile with someone whose mouth is covered? "
Absolutely. It's in the eyes.
I held open a door for a lady in a niqab. I smiled, she smiled, so did her husband. It wasn't a big deal but it shows you can communicate ok.
As I said, I don't like them. They look out of place most of the time and have the kind of overtones I don't like. But I really do feel much the same about Nuns' habits, and similar religious garb.
Maybe they make me feel guilty about not having been to Church for a while.
I collared a woman in a niqab on the 100 bus years ago and asked her about it all... My main question was how the kids recognised her at the school gates if all the other mums wore the same gear... She was really nice, and said she took it off at home it was just so other men couldn't eye her up
I said what would your husband say if a bloke commented on your eyes... She said it wouldn't happen... I made my excuses and left
Organised religion of all kinds weirds me out a bit to be honest, but at least were allowed to take the piss out of the Church of England
I think your last comment hits the proverbial nail on the head... Should the UK be a truly secular state in which religion is not accounted for in the constitution, law etc.? And should this extend to Human Rights charters and treaties? Personally I think so... Post-enlightenment there's no need to pander to those who insist on a faith when that faith is, by definition, irrational... Exempting the CofE from Gay Marriage legislation is a no sense
It seems to me that even a secular state should allow religious freedom. The United States separates church and state both to protect the state from the church, and to protect the church from the state.
I think citing the US as an example of separation of church and state is a mistake. If ever there was an case of a country where the lines are very, very blurred it is the US.
Freedom for an individual to follow a religion of their own choosing is fine - allowing any religion a special place in society is not.
And the US really doesn't seem to understand the idea of separation.
Labour clearly have no idea how they will actually set the "mansion tax" up and actually identify houses that are worth £2m or more.
Yesterday Burnham made a complete idiot of himself in all interviews claiming they would use the Land Registry system, which of course only covers sold prices. Andrew Neil found it pretty hard not to laugh at his lack of knowledge.
Now today Miliband is talking about using the same system that the government uses when properties are put into company shells. Once again this based upon a sale and purchase process. There may well be 70,000 properties worth more than £2m across the UK, but the number where there's a real recorded actual value Labour can tax is tiny.
They don't really believe that they will be implementing this policy, do they? And it's not just this policy. As many people have remarked, Labour don't look like a government-in-waiting. They look like an opposition, or a minor party, making random populist noises safe in the knowledge that they'll never have to implement any of them.
I don't think I've ever seen this before in the case where an opposition looked as though it might be in power in a few months' time.
SeanF - Labour's apparent pandering to Scotland may not be helping it in Wales. In some ways England and Wales may be converging politically but economically much of Wales is very different to the wealthier parts of England. The age profile in Wales may be helping the Tories and Ukip.
I should have been clearer. The fact that Wales is poorer than England gives it a left-wing slant. But, that left-wing slant is far less pronounced than it was in the days when Wales was dominated first by the Liberals, and then by Labour.
Jack (not Jeremy) Clarkson for UKIP PCC candidate for South Yorkshire.
BBC Look North @BBCLookNorth 11m UKIP say former Rotherham Police Inspector, Jack Clarkson, will stand as the party’s candidate in PCCC by-election in South Yorkshire.
Is there a political problem putting someone from Rotherham police as a candidate for that post?
"It's not every day you have a door held open by a cross dressing pensioner adorned by cerise boas, ascot hat and "Nick Palmer for Broxtowe" lapel badge ?!?"
The sartorial standard for shopping in Stratford, young Jack.
Welcome back.
Clearly ... "PeterP Haute Couture - Paris .. New York .. Tokyo .. Stratford.
"You can share a smile with someone whose mouth is covered? "
Absolutely. It's in the eyes.
I held open a door for a lady in a niqab. I smiled, she smiled, so did her husband. It wasn't a big deal but it shows you can communicate ok.
As I said, I don't like them. They look out of place most of the time and have the kind of overtones I don't like. But I really do feel much the same about Nuns' habits, and similar religious garb.
Maybe they make me feel guilty about not having been to Church for a while.
I collared a woman in a niqab on the 100 bus years ago and asked her about it all... My main question was how the kids recognised her at the school gates if all the other mums wore the same gear... She was really nice, and said she took it off at home it was just so other men couldn't eye her up
I said what would your husband say if a bloke commented on your eyes... She said it wouldn't happen... I made my excuses and left
Organised religion of all kinds weirds me out a bit to be honest, but at least were allowed to take the piss out of the Church of England
I think your last comment hits the proverbial nail on the head... Should the UK be a truly secular state in which religion is not accounted for in the constitution, law etc.? And should this extend to Human Rights charters and treaties? Personally I think so... Post-enlightenment there's no need to pander to those who insist on a faith when that faith is, by definition, irrational... Exempting the CofE from Gay Marriage legislation is a no sense
It seems to me that even a secular state should allow religious freedom. The United States separates church and state both to protect the state from the church, and to protect the church from the state.
I think citing the US as an example of separation of church and state is a mistake. If ever there was an case of a country where the lines are very, very blurred it is the US.
Freedom for an individual to follow a religion of their own choosing is fine - allowing any religion a special place in society is not.
And the US really doesn't seem to understand the idea of separation.
'In God We Trust'....
The US is a country in which the vast majority of people believe in God, but I think it strikes the balance pretty well in terms of separating church and state.
@Sean_F No, they weren't, but societies construct social mores all the time without realising it. The problem you and many others come up against, is the conservatism of some branches of Islam, and you have my deepest sympathy. An irrational belief that only our particular way of thinking is right, blinds us to to the future and ties us to a static past.
@Sean_F No, the weren't, but societies construct social mores all the time without realising it. The problem you and many others come up against, is the conservatism of some branches of Islam, and you have my deepest sympathy. An irrational belief that only our particular way of thinking is right, blinds us to to the future and ties us to a static past.
Certainly, I think one should be prepared to learn from other cultures, and to criticise one's own.
The more fanatical forms of Islam just seem deliberately spiteful to me.
Strategically, Labour now have the advantage. It just seems like are hungrier for power- united and now with a policy platform that is politically non threatening- tax a few millionaires, and do sod all else. Hardly scaring the children. On the downside there are the two Ed's of course- ergo poor leadership and economy polling.
The Tories however are desperate. Realistically, with their charismatic leader, and much better economy ratings, the election should be in the bag. But no. They are the Tories- now with an inbuilt craving for self harm. Instead of uniting and developing a broadly popular, centre ground policy framework as Labour (and Merkel has proved) which would doubtless secure them an easy victory, they are fixated with division, Europe, UKIP and now EVEL. I'm sure Cameron loathes the ground that Redwood, Fox, Patterson, Brady et al walk on. The loons are destroying any hope for a Tory victory. The Tories are the mirror image of Labour in the 70's and 80's- a desperate, relatively sensible leadership undermined by it's militants.
Comments
http://www.personneltoday.com/hr/teaching-assistants-appeal-fails-in-veil-dispute/
The Mansion tax is not a workable policy without a complete revaluation of the UK housing stock - and that is something that any politician would run a mile from. It would take huge political courage to go down that road - and Miliband doesn't have the Balls for it.
It is all about the politics of envy and not about a credible plan for raising regular income that can be used to good effect.
Oh and whilst I am at it - £2.5 billion to save the NHS? That will go nowhere. And is particularly rich from a party that squandered £10 billion of NHS cash on an IT system that didn't work.
Must change the odds for next President...
I'm assuming he could turn up outside a few pads in London and be confident within 5 mins it was worth over £2M given registered sales for the same street.
Problem is more collating a list of properties for these 80 (or 150) chaps to go and look at.
In rural areas they might stuggle to do 2 per day and yes in borderline cases they may have to do an internal inspection.
Suspect they wont - they will just tax all new sales over £2M - which is horrible and brings in naff all - but has the nasty envy box ticked.
Yes, some women make a positive choice to wear it - but many are forced by the men in their family/community.
Culture not religion.
Coalition NHS reorganisation = Man the barricades, Brothers and Sisters!
Proposed Labour NHS reorganisation = Not A Squeak.
I suppose the cop out would be to run if off council tax evaluations in some way (perhaps with an adjustment for modern times).
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/09/the-scottish-church-showed-little-statesmanship-or-even-common-sense-during-the-referendum/
"I heard last week from a pupil at the largest Catholic secondary school in Scotland, Holyrood in Glasgow, that many teachers were completely open with pupils about their pro-independence views."
"On Thursday I am firmly convinced that most Catholics flocked to support a cause which viewed Britain in the most negative and demeaning terms. It was a poor way to repay a country which helped them to journey from the margins to the mainstream of society. Their Church in particular showed little statesmanship or even common sense"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29339756
Hacked off seem very quiet today for some reason.
The fact remains that we also have cultural rules, and in our fairly recent history, we have had several that would seem very strange to us in the present day.
Remember when we're dealing with expensive houses, they are a lot more individual than the average house. You can make mostly a good ballpark figure on what a 2 or 3 bed-semi is worth, not so much a individually build home which may have been added to, or adjusted internally etc etc.
There seems to be some confusion over this - but then it is a Labour policy.
For practical purposes, the idea's a dud.
We can challenge and should challenge cultural norms that are damaging to society as a whole.
A massively unfair proposal just got even worse.
Stamp duty is devolved to Scotland from next March..
Trebles all round for the lawyers?
Only complaint is again the media claiming the underlying cause is planning laws rather than immigration.
"My main problem with it is I just don't like it when you can't share a smile/say hello to someone you pass in the street"
Actually, you can, and I have done so, without difficulty or contrivance - but I don't like them. They're a bit medieval and I prefer to see people's faces.
But then I don't like all sorts of things - Nuns' habits, tatoos and piercings, for example. I'd stop short of banning them in public though.
Then again it's a different matter in schools and workplaces, where the staff and owners should be free to operate their own rules - but sensibly and fairly, one hopes.
The French blanket ban (for want of a better term) does seem to be the fair way forward.
Which is why taxation based on valuations (be it capital gains, IHT, or any form of proposed wealth tax) are so difficult and expensive to administer.
http://cdnpix.com/show/imgs/acd44d69193fe06ad8e26aedbe6a8a72.jpg
Presumably the whole nation was appalled at how loose and immoral she was?
Or are you another that thinks the ONE THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED victims of Rotherham are collateral damage.
The state cannot and should not make assumptions and use them as the basis for taxation.
A Mansion Tax - whilst manifestly a bad and unfair idea - can only work with proper valuation - and regular re-valuations.
If you are basing a taxation system on current market values, you have to ensure your records reflect the value of the properties at any one time.
And that is expensive. Very expensive.
In the case of Islam, it can be seen as a religious obligation.
While the original teachings are beyond question to it's adherents, there are different interpretations of them. It is the same for people who study early Christian, and Old Testament scripts.
The "looseness" of the language and forms of writing, lead to them being open to interpretation depending on the bias of the translator.
I fînd them quite sinister, but I wouldn't ban them from the streets. I just wish I lived where there weren't any
Actually, I do! And long may it continue
In that sense the wearing of the burqa is interesting, because it challenges the prevailing social norm that identifies women as being frumpy or frigid if they don't wear revealing clothes. There's an interesting song that touches on this restrictiveness of existing social norms:
"And now I'm in this clothing store, and the signs say less is more
More that's tight means more to see, more for them, not more for me"
However, having said all that, and while still believing that it would be wrong to make it illegal to wear a niqab, it is certainly true that seeing people wearing a complete face-covering does make me feel uncomfortable, and I don't think it's something I could ever get used to.
" I thought it was lamentable, weak, clichéd, embarrassing, uninspiring, stylistically inept, vacuous, unambitious, grandiose, cringeworthy, patronising, foolish, an unappetising blend of impossiblism and incrementalism, and a complete and final disaster for the Labour Party."
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/let-me-list-everything-and-anything-that-was-positive-about-ed-milibands-speech-9751433.html
She does however have her head covered by a hat?
And I have reason to believe that headscarfs and crowns are not a good fashion combination.
Absolutely. It's in the eyes.
I held open a door for a lady in a niqab. I smiled, she smiled, so did her husband. It wasn't a big deal but it shows you can communicate ok.
As I said, I don't like them. They look out of place most of the time and have the kind of overtones I don't like. But I really do feel much the same about Nuns' habits, and similar religious garb.
Maybe they make me feel guilty about not having been to Church for a while.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-29331475
LD's ending with just a single seat in Wales, plus only 3% support welsh independence, is interesting.
Rebuilt by public conscription despite mass destitution in the 90s after the Commies demolished it. Our current media political elite instead celebrates the 'Pussy Riot' actions there rather than the rebuilding.
They think they are doing good by imposing our values on far flung regions which don't either want them or share them ie Iraq wars
They think that immigrants are desperate to embrace our values here for the same reason. Not everyone is embarrassed of their history. We are, they aren't. That's the fundamental problem.
It's like we have declared an amnesty for all our past wrongdoings, and promised to live together as a secular, equal society,and just assumed that people from imported from vastly different cultures were so pleased that we let them in that they'd do the same.
So really the only way it would work is to ask house owners to have a yearly valuation of their house value themselves...which could work, but again, how and who you ask to provide the valuation is the tricky area, and not least you bet that tax advisors would be working ways of reducing the valuation and the liabilities.
It is also common for women to be veiled on the way to their wedding as a sign of chastity and purity, and for widows to do the same out of respect for their deceased.
Vestigial remnants of the same idea?
I also think that the ethnicity of the great majority of the offenders is unarguable in the Rotherham case. But that is not the same as saying a given ethnic group is predisposed to abuse children - the shame of Rotherham is that so many are now doing exactly what the authorities did: seeing the problem solely in racial terms. Projecting the behaviour of a group of lawless men in Rotherham onto a whole ethnic group is as nonsensical as projecting the behaviour of ISIS into every adherent of Islam
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/sep/24/phone-hacking-trinity-mirror-admits-liability-four-individuals
Will there be a grim visaged, BBC newsreader leading with this today at One O'Clock?
"Our new left wing establishment has proven itself to be far more intolerant and authoritarian than the pre 60s one it replaced. "
Our new Right wing has the same problem, but they have different monsters to vilify.
I said what would your husband say if a bloke commented on your eyes... She said it wouldn't happen... I made my excuses and left
Organised religion of all kinds weirds me out a bit to be honest, but at least were allowed to take the piss out of the Church of England
But the devolution within England is a matter for the English as a whole. It is their decision about the principle and about the detail. Centuries of history have told us the boundaries of Scotland but who is to decide on the 'north west'? or 'south central'.
Furthermore - 'city regions' can hardly be expected to cover the level of devolution being given to Scotland.
* ( but is currently learning the language)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11071148/Institutional-political-correctness-probe-ordered-by-Theresa-May-into-Rotherham-child-abuse-scandal.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-29031397
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/05/18/baroness-warsi-pakistani-sex-abuse-white_n_1526854.html
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/may/18/baroness-warsi-pakistan-men-fair-game
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100284156/rotherham-sex-abuse-scandal-we-cannot-ignore-that-race-played-a-part-in-these-crimes/
It's not every day you have a door held open by a cross dressing pensioner adorned by cerise boas, ascot hat and "Nick Palmer for Broxtowe" lapel badge ?!?
http://www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/tackling_climate_change/how_we_re_tackling_climate_change/our_climate_work_in_the_uk/the_value_of_a_low_carbon_britain/#
Mr. Betting, read a headline about Welsh desire for independence at a historic low. AH, here it is:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-29331475
Oh, we take the piss out of them all, Isam.
I was fortunate in that I went to a school where about 55% of the boys were Jewish. Most of my mates were Jewish and they took the piss out of the local 'Kosher Cowboys' endlessly.
Jewish humour - you can't beat it. (Or is that a racist remark these days?)
BBC Look North @BBCLookNorth 11m
UKIP say former Rotherham Police Inspector, Jack Clarkson, will stand as the party’s candidate in PCCC by-election in South Yorkshire.
Is there a political problem putting someone from Rotherham police as a candidate for that post?
Do you have a view on any pick-ups for May 2015? My view is that only D,C&T (hold) and B,R&S (gain) and WA&K (gain) are likely.
"It's not every day you have a door held open by a cross dressing pensioner adorned by cerise boas, ascot hat and "Nick Palmer for Broxtowe" lapel badge ?!?"
The sartorial standard for shopping in Stratford, young Jack.
Welcome back.
As for the non-Welsh speaking Leader, it matters only if you campaign against PC in the NW part of Wales, and PC are going nowhere with just 3% for independence.
Quite extraordinary. I'm trying to recall the last time a leader took such a panning for their conference speech?
Freedom for an individual to follow a religion of their own choosing is fine - allowing any religion a special place in society is not.
And the US really doesn't seem to understand the idea of separation.
'In God We Trust'....
I don't think I've ever seen this before in the case where an opposition looked as though it might be in power in a few months' time.
http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/jack-clarkson/51/669/481
http://www.bloggers4ukip.org.uk/2013/01/stocksbridge-town-councillor-jack.html
Perhaps he can present himself as a previous generation of policeman, who would not wilfully ignore the sexual exploitation of children?.
Thanks, but I'm off on a months hols from Friday.
No, they weren't, but societies construct social mores all the time without realising it.
The problem you and many others come up against, is the conservatism of some branches of Islam, and you have my deepest sympathy.
An irrational belief that only our particular way of thinking is right, blinds us to to the future and ties us to a static past.
The more fanatical forms of Islam just seem deliberately spiteful to me.
The Tories however are desperate. Realistically, with their charismatic leader, and much better economy ratings, the election should be in the bag. But no. They are the Tories- now with an inbuilt craving for self harm. Instead of uniting and developing a broadly popular, centre ground policy framework as Labour (and Merkel has proved) which would doubtless secure them an easy victory, they are fixated with division, Europe, UKIP and now EVEL. I'm sure Cameron loathes the ground that Redwood, Fox, Patterson, Brady et al walk on. The loons are destroying any hope for a Tory victory. The Tories are the mirror image of Labour in the 70's and 80's- a desperate, relatively sensible leadership undermined by it's militants.