Funny how none of the Tories on here who go all metrosexual whenever they think UKIP might have crossed a line haven't criticised this..
Bit cheap to mention a rival's Muslim sounding name when criticising Muslim terrorists and go all
*innocent face*
about it
"Tories resort to ‘cheap tactics’ by calling Ukip’s Tim Aker by Turkish name Timür
Attack on MEP in Thurrock byelection leaflet is placed beside photos of extremist preachers Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza
Aker, whose father is Turkish, told the Guardian: “I think they are just getting desperate. They will find anything. It is incredibly cheap of them. But freedom of speech is what it is and the public will judge them on it.
“I am not calling on them to stop using the leaflet. They can carry on doing what they do. I am not going to try and stifle their rights to freedom of speech. But they have got to bear the responsibility for it.”
As a basic matter of politeness, anyone should be addressed by the name that they choose to go by. Gordon Brown and George Osborne are entitled to the same politeness.
This particular case is particularly distasteful, in the same way that a certain type of poster referring to Barack Hussain Obama was distasteful. You don't need sensitive high pitch hearing to hear this dog whistle.
On the day this leaflet was published, the Tory MP was tweeting this from a Jim Davidson gig
Jackie Doyle-PriceVerified account @JackieDP Great show by @JimDOfficial no thanks to the Dartford crossing. A crusader against political correctness, I salute you
I say it again, pause for thought and imagine this was UKIP doing this not the Tories...
Thread after thread would be dominated by faux outrage... (I am sure OGH would have written one of his "bad for UKIP" headers on it) and the reason we can be sure it is "faux" is the lack of criticism in this case.
Proof that people on here are motivated by partisan point scoring rather than sincere feelings on any subject
The porn master generals can go fuck themselves if they're listening.
That's probably not allowed anymore...
;-)
They're banning depictions of spanking, caning, aggressive whipping, penetration by any object "associated with violence", strangulation and fisting. How are the broadcasters supposed to cover the next election, "The Liberal Democrats had a disappointing night"?
When considering Brown's legacy all one needs to do is think about the consequences had the two jokers currently stuffing things up had been in place in 2008.
"Question for JackW - you been on the 'juice' bro?"
The problem with Jack's technique of emitting wind and describing his findings as an indicator of future election results is that it spawns lots of imitators. Just this morning I heard of one calling itself OPLE (only poofters like Ed). It actually had the Greens taking Bootle and UKIP taking everything else
Funny how none of the Tories on here who go all metrosexual whenever they think UKIP might have crossed a line haven't criticised this..
Bit cheap to mention a rival's Muslim sounding name when criticising Muslim terrorists and go all
*innocent face*
about it
"Tories resort to ‘cheap tactics’ by calling Ukip’s Tim Aker by Turkish name Timür
Attack on MEP in Thurrock byelection leaflet is placed beside photos of extremist preachers Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza
Aker, whose father is Turkish, told the Guardian: “I think they are just getting desperate. They will find anything. It is incredibly cheap of them. But freedom of speech is what it is and the public will judge them on it.
“I am not calling on them to stop using the leaflet. They can carry on doing what they do. I am not going to try and stifle their rights to freedom of speech. But they have got to bear the responsibility for it.”
As a basic matter of politeness, anyone should be addressed by the name that they choose to go by. Gordon Brown and George Osborne are entitled to the same politeness.
This particular case is particularly distasteful, in the same way that a certain type of poster referring to Barack Hussain Obama was distasteful. You don't need sensitive high pitch hearing to hear this dog whistle.
On the day this leaflet was published, the Tory MP was tweeting this from a Jim Davidson gig
Jackie Doyle-PriceVerified account @JackieDP Great show by @JimDOfficial no thanks to the Dartford crossing. A crusader against political correctness, I salute you
I say it again, pause for thought and imagine this was UKIP doing this not the Tories...
Thread after thread would be dominated by faux outrage... (I am sure OGH would have written one of his "bad for UKIP" headers on it) and the reason we can be sure it is "faux" is the lack of criticism in this case.
Proof that people on here are motivated by partisan point scoring rather than sincere feelings on any subject
I've changed my profile picture in tribute to your tireless repeated posting on this fascinating topic of major importance.
Funny how none of the Tories on here who go all metrosexual whenever they think UKIP might have crossed a line haven't criticised this..
Bit cheap to mention a rival's Muslim sounding name when criticising Muslim terrorists and go all
*innocent face*
about it
"Tories resort to ‘cheap tactics’ by calling Ukip’s Tim Aker by Turkish name Timür
Attack on MEP in Thurrock byelection leaflet is placed beside photos of extremist preachers Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza
Aker, whose father is Turkish, told the Guardian: “I think they are just getting desperate. They will find anything. It is incredibly cheap of them. But freedom of speech is what it is and the public will judge them on it.
“I am not calling on them to stop using the leaflet. They can carry on doing what they do. I am not going to try and stifle their rights to freedom of speech. But they have got to bear the responsibility for it.”
As a basic matter of politeness, anyone should be addressed by the name that they choose to go by. Gordon Brown and George Osborne are entitled to the same politeness.
This particular case is particularly distasteful, in the same way that a certain type of poster referring to Barack Hussain Obama was distasteful. You don't need sensitive high pitch hearing to hear this dog whistle.
On the day this leaflet was published, the Tory MP was tweeting this from a Jim Davidson gig
Jackie Doyle-PriceVerified account @JackieDP Great show by @JimDOfficial no thanks to the Dartford crossing. A crusader against political correctness, I salute you
I say it again, pause for thought and imagine this was UKIP doing this not the Tories...
Thread after thread would be dominated by faux outrage... (I am sure OGH would have written one of his "bad for UKIP" headers on it) and the reason we can be sure it is "faux" is the lack of criticism in this case.
Proof that people on here are motivated by partisan point scoring rather than sincere feelings on any subject
I've changed my profile picture in tribute to your tireless repeated posting on this fascinating topic of major importance.
To be fair I think he has posted that a few less times that certain PB Tories have harped on about ting-tongs and brown skinned people in respect to UKIP.
The problem with Jack's technique of emitting wind and describing his findings as an indicator of future election results is that it spawns lots of imitators. Just this morning I heard of one calling itself OPLE (only poofters like Ed). It actually had the Greens taking Bootle and UKIP taking everything else
Funny how none of the Tories on here who go all metrosexual whenever they think UKIP might have crossed a line haven't criticised this..
Bit cheap to mention a rival's Muslim sounding name when criticising Muslim terrorists and go all
*innocent face*
about it
"Tories resort to ‘cheap tactics’ by calling Ukip’s Tim Aker by Turkish name Timür
Attack on MEP in Thurrock byelection leaflet is placed beside photos of extremist preachers Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza
Aker, whose father is Turkish, told the Guardian: “I think they are just getting desperate. They will find anything. It is incredibly cheap of them. But freedom of speech is what it is and the public will judge them on it.
“I am not calling on them to stop using the leaflet. They can carry on doing what they do. I am not going to try and stifle their rights to freedom of speech. But they have got to bear the responsibility for it.”
As a basic matter of politeness, anyone should be addressed by the name that they choose to go by. Gordon Brown and George Osborne are entitled to the same politeness.
This particular case is particularly distasteful, in the same way that a certain type of poster referring to Barack Hussain Obama was distasteful. You don't need sensitive high pitch hearing to hear this dog whistle.
On the day this leaflet was published, the Tory MP was tweeting this from a Jim Davidson gig
Jackie Doyle-PriceVerified account @JackieDP Great show by @JimDOfficial no thanks to the Dartford crossing. A crusader against political correctness, I salute you
I say it again, pause for thought and imagine this was UKIP doing this not the Tories...
Thread after thread would be dominated by faux outrage... (I am sure OGH would have written one of his "bad for UKIP" headers on it) and the reason we can be sure it is "faux" is the lack of criticism in this case.
Proof that people on here are motivated by partisan point scoring rather than sincere feelings on any subject
I've changed my profile picture in tribute to your tireless repeated posting on this fascinating topic of major importance.
Shows what a complete idiot you are, you have made my point for me
You pick and choose whether to be offended or moan about people mentioning it depending on who said it not what was said.
Funny how none of the Tories on here who go all metrosexual whenever they think UKIP might have crossed a line haven't criticised this..
Bit cheap to mention a rival's Muslim sounding name when criticising Muslim terrorists and go all
*innocent face*
about it
"Tories resort to ‘cheap tactics’ by calling Ukip’s Tim Aker by Turkish name Timür
Attack on MEP in Thurrock byelection leaflet is placed beside photos of extremist preachers Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza
Aker, whose father is Turkish, told the Guardian: “I think they are just getting desperate. They will find anything. It is incredibly cheap of them. But freedom of speech is what it is and the public will judge them on it.
“I am not calling on them to stop using the leaflet. They can carry on doing what they do. I am not going to try and stifle their rights to freedom of speech. But they have got to bear the responsibility for it.”
As a basic matter of politeness, anyone should be addressed by the name that they choose to go by. Gordon Brown and George Osborne are entitled to the same politeness.
This particular case is particularly distasteful, in the same way that a certain type of poster referring to Barack Hussain Obama was distasteful. You don't need sensitive high pitch hearing to hear this dog whistle.
On the day this leaflet was published, the Tory MP was tweeting this from a Jim Davidson gig
Jackie Doyle-PriceVerified account @JackieDP Great show by @JimDOfficial no thanks to the Dartford crossing. A crusader against political correctness, I salute you
I say it again, pause for thought and imagine this was UKIP doing this not the Tories...
Thread after thread would be dominated by faux outrage... (I am sure OGH would have written one of his "bad for UKIP" headers on it) and the reason we can be sure it is "faux" is the lack of criticism in this case.
Proof that people on here are motivated by partisan point scoring rather than sincere feelings on any subject
I've changed my profile picture in tribute to your tireless repeated posting on this fascinating topic of major importance.
To be fair I think he has posted that a few less times that certain PB Tories have harped on about ting-tongs and brown skinned people in respect to UKIP.
The ghost of Owen jones/will self picks and chooses when he is offended
The problem with Jack's technique of emitting wind and describing his findings as an indicator of future election results is that it spawns lots of imitators. Just this morning I heard of one calling itself OPLE (only poofters like Ed). It actually had the Greens taking Bootle and UKIP taking everything else
- did not take us into Eurozone despite huge pressure from Blair. He created the 5 tests knowing that it would fail
- he saved the world banking system in early 2009. Acknowledged more abroad than in Britain.
- saved the United Kingdom.
I think that is a reasonably good record.
Out of your ones:
- BoE independence had been broadly agreed as a good idea by most monetary experts. He deserves credit for it, but it was hardly extraordinary foresight - Not taking us into a disaster also isn't an achievement. It's the people that drove straight into the iceberg that deserve condemnation, not the people that obeyed normal economic sanity - Saved the world banking system? Please. What's your evidence for this? - Saved the UK. Well, let's see how long that lasts with SNP sweeping the board at the next election.
He also:
- Set up the FSA-based regulatory system that entirely failed in bank regulation - Has massive deficit-led spending during an economic boom - Oversaw a huge explosion in unsustainable private credit - Forced Lloyd's to purchase HBOS, which ended up bringing down both banks
The porn master generals can go fuck themselves if they're listening.
That's probably not allowed anymore...
;-)
They're banning depictions of spanking, caning, aggressive whipping, penetration by any object "associated with violence", strangulation and fisting. How are the broadcasters supposed to cover the next election, "The Liberal Democrats had a disappointing night"?
"Labour’s “cost of living crisis” narrative has been dealt a blow today, as a new poll reveals that more people think their family’s finances would be more secure with the Tories than Labour. The Tories also poll better on who people think will make better decisions on handling the economy.
The ComRes poll for The Independent shows that, despite people’s lack of confidence in David Cameron and George Osborne on economic matters, they are still more trusted than Ed Miliband and Ed Balls."
Funny how none of the Tories on here who go all metrosexual whenever they think UKIP might have crossed a line haven't criticised this..
Bit cheap to mention a rival's Muslim sounding name when criticising Muslim terrorists and go all
*innocent face*
about it
"Tories resort to ‘cheap tactics’ by calling Ukip’s Tim Aker by Turkish name Timür
Attack on MEP in Thurrock byelection leaflet is placed beside photos of extremist preachers Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza
Aker, whose father is Turkish, told the Guardian: “I think they are just getting desperate. They will find anything. It is incredibly cheap of them. But freedom of speech is what it is and the public will judge them on it.
“I am not calling on them to stop using the leaflet. They can carry on doing what they do. I am not going to try and stifle their rights to freedom of speech. But they have got to bear the responsibility for it.”
As a basic matter of politeness, anyone should be addressed by the name that they choose to go by. Gordon Brown and George Osborne are entitled to the same politeness.
This particular case is particularly distasteful, in the same way that a certain type of poster referring to Barack Hussain Obama was distasteful. You don't need sensitive high pitch hearing to hear this dog whistle.
On the day this leaflet was published, the Tory MP was tweeting this from a Jim Davidson gig
Jackie Doyle-PriceVerified account @JackieDP Great show by @JimDOfficial no thanks to the Dartford crossing. A crusader against political correctness, I salute you
I say it again, pause for thought and imagine this was UKIP doing this not the Tories...
Thread after thread would be dominated by faux outrage... (I am sure OGH would have written one of his "bad for UKIP" headers on it) and the reason we can be sure it is "faux" is the lack of criticism in this case.
Proof that people on here are motivated by partisan point scoring rather than sincere feelings on any subject
I've changed my profile picture in tribute to your tireless repeated posting on this fascinating topic of major importance.
Shows what a complete idiot you are, you have made my point for me
You pick and choose whether to be offended or moan about people mentioning it depending on who said it not what was said.
Now you have proved it, thanks x
I am rarely offended - but often bored by single poster memes "Jim Davidson Jim Davidson" morning noon and night - it's like a jet engine that never runs out of fuel.
Good to read some positive comments about Gordon Brown, not least from Roger below.
He is and will remain a controversial figure, with few friends outside his own party. Much like Thatcher in that respect.
He clearly had a remarkable political career. Has anyone been resident longer in Downing street? Personally I enjoyed his oratory and respected his dedication.
Brown was a poor leader of the Labour party and a terrible PM. But I suspect that history will be a lot kinder to him than those on the right are currently. Thank God it was him and Darling in charge when the crash occurred and not Osborne and Cameron; and thank God he got active during the closing stages of the Scottish independence referendum campaign.
Saving the global economy and the Union are not inconsiderable achievements.
SO: I'm professsionally limited in what I can say on this but suffice to say that, if anyone deserves credit for rescuing the banks in autumn 2008 it is Darling. Brown dithered and dithered and refused to face up to what people were telling him and it took an ultimatum from Darling and the fact that we were hours from the closure of every bank in the country before Brown saw sense. He deserves little credit for being rescued by others from his own failure to manage risks which were well known to the Treasury and others months and months beforehand.
Far from saving the world he did not even save Britain. Darling did that - Brown's achievement was to let him do it and finally stand behind him.
Gordon Brown: - gave the Bank of England independence - did not take us into Eurozone despite huge pressure from Blair. He created the 5 tests knowing that it would fail - he saved the world banking system in early 2009. Acknowledged more abroad than in Britain. - saved the United Kingdom. I think that is a reasonably good record.
For a start he did not give the BoE independence. He neutered it. Ever heard of the FSA and the Monetary Policy Committee? Having neutered the BoE he did not want to hand over all his power to the ECB. From Blairs point of view joining the Euro would have neutered Brown. He did not save the world. The combined efforts of the G8 did and it merely involved a vast expense of taxpayers money and vast borrowing. He did not save the UK. He was one of many UK politicians that did.
From the very start of his political career in a tiny office in Edinburgh University, Brown has had an appalling record of wrong headed misjudgements and has been disastrous for the UK.
Let's humour ourselves and suppose Brown did indeed "save the world". Had he also succeeded in sacking Darling, how long do you suppose before the world (or at least the UK) would've needed saving all over again?
In other news: violence is prohibited in UK-produced pornography and yet the documentary 'Sick', in which a terminally-ill masochist hammers a nail through his todger in unflinching close-up, remains available totally uncut (pardon the pun) on DVD.
In other news: violence is prohibited in UK-produced pornography and yet the documentary 'Sick', in which a terminally-ill masochist hammers a nail through his todger in unflinching close-up, remains available totally uncut (pardon the pun) on DVD.
The Scotsman online is virtually unreadable with all those ads. I don't know what they're thinking.
They presumably need the money. The newspaper is not doing well. I'm surprised it has survived till indyref. Ciculation going down, closing their posh offices next to the Parliament and moving into an outer Edinbrgh office block, merging with the local evening newspaper.
By contrast, the new National was a howling success in its pilot week and is now permanent. Makes you wonder how the Scotsman would be doing if it had stayed as the excellent middle of the road newspaper which it used to be.
In other news: violence is prohibited in UK-produced pornography and yet the documentary 'Sick', in which a terminally-ill masochist hammers a nail through his todger in unflinching close-up, remains available totally uncut (pardon the pun) on DVD.
Instead of using his dick to nail someone he nails his own dick.
- did not take us into Eurozone despite huge pressure from Blair. He created the 5 tests knowing that it would fail
- he saved the world banking system in early 2009. Acknowledged more abroad than in Britain.
- saved the United Kingdom.
I think that is a reasonably good record.
Out of your ones:
- BoE independence had been broadly agreed as a good idea by most monetary experts. He deserves credit for it, but it was hardly extraordinary foresight - Not taking us into a disaster also isn't an achievement. It's the people that drove straight into the iceberg that deserve condemnation, not the people that obeyed normal economic sanity - Saved the world banking system? Please. What's your evidence for this? - Saved the UK. Well, let's see how long that lasts with SNP sweeping the board at the next election.
He also:
- Set up the FSA-based regulatory system that entirely failed in bank regulation - Has massive deficit-led spending during an economic boom - Oversaw a huge explosion in unsustainable private credit - Forced Lloyd's to purchase HBOS, which ended up bringing down both banks
Personally I think the jury is out on BOE 'independence' -which in practise means giving up direct democratic control over interest rates. They have been and continue to be kept artificially low.
"Prof Stephen Hawking, one of Britain's pre-eminent scientists, has said that efforts to create thinking machines pose a threat to our very existence.
He told the BBC:"The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race."
.Prof Hawking says the primitive forms of artificial intelligence developed so far have already proved very useful, but he fears the consequences of creating something that can match or surpass humans.
"It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate," he said.
"Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete, and would be superseded.".....
In the short term, there are concerns that clever machines capable of undertaking tasks done by humans until now will swiftly destroy millions of jobs.
In the longer term, the technology entrepreneur Elon Musk has warned that AI is "our biggest existential threat".
In his BBC interview, Prof Hawking also talks of the benefits and dangers of the internet.
He quotes the director of GCHQ's warning about the net becoming the command centre for terrorists: "More must be done by the internet companies to counter the threat, but the difficulty is to do this without sacrificing freedom and privacy."
Perhaps a good and controlled form of artificial intelligence would be preferable and more effective than most of our politicians. Make them all redundant!
The Scotsman online is virtually unreadable with all those ads. I don't know what they're thinking.
They presumably need the money. The newspaper is not doing well. I'm surprised it has survived till indyref. Ciculation going down, closing their posh offices next to the Parliament and moving into an outer Edinbrgh office block, merging with the local evening newspaper.
By contrast, the new National was a howling success in its pilot week and is now permanent. Makes you wonder how the Scotsman would be doing if it had stayed as the excellent middle of the road newspaper which it used to be.
"Roger has some very unreconstructed views on the role of women in society. It appears that he believes should be secretaries and "pretty young things" in short skirts whose primary function is to be the sexual playthings of their older (male) bosses"
Interesting. When I got my first job as assistant to one of the top female photographers in London the head of the studio asked me how I felt assisting a woman? I said fine and from that day to your post no one has ever implied that I am in any way sexist because of course nothing could be further from the truth.
There will be no one on these boards who works more often with women gays straights transvestites and everything in between than I do. Having spent a large part of my life as a fashion photographer it couldn't be any other way. I am curious though what I could have implied that made you say that?
Re the Scotsman piece linked downthread, I noted on the links a quote from Nicola Sturgeon, being:
“I’ve said very clearly that an SNP group of MPs in the House of Commons will never put the Conservatives into government; we would never be part of a government with the Conservatives. If Labour was dependent on the votes of SNP MPs, then it would have to seriously up its game in terms of the powers that it was promising to the Scottish people."
Now as a negotiating strategy, articulating two options and saying "we will never ever do the first one" hardly sounds like a great strategy for extracting whatever you want from those behind the second option does it?
Isn't Sturgeon supposed to be good? She needs to up her wileyness to compete with the old fox Salmond....
Aker, whose father is Turkish, told the Guardian: “I think they are just getting desperate. They will find anything. It is incredibly cheap of them. But freedom of speech is what it is and the public will judge them on it.
“I am not calling on them to stop using the leaflet. They can carry on doing what they do. I am not going to try and stifle their rights to freedom of speech. But they have got to bear the responsibility for it.”
The Scotsman online is virtually unreadable with all those ads. I don't know what they're thinking.
They presumably need the money. The newspaper is not doing well. I'm surprised it has survived till indyref. Ciculation going down, closing their posh offices next to the Parliament and moving into an outer Edinbrgh office block, merging with the local evening newspaper.
By contrast, the new National was a howling success in its pilot week and is now permanent. Makes you wonder how the Scotsman would be doing if it had stayed as the excellent middle of the road newspaper which it used to be.
The office thing just sounds sensible to me, and the merger. The website is simply horrendous; they should realise it's unusable.
As for that other excrescence, it's current popularity does not surprise me in the slightest. Nationalism will continue to rise whilst the UK lies dormant. Sadly, people are easily misled. However, I don't anticipate that situation continuing long enough for a second go.
- did not take us into Eurozone despite huge pressure from Blair. He created the 5 tests knowing that it would fail
- he saved the world banking system in early 2009. Acknowledged more abroad than in Britain.
- saved the United Kingdom.
I think that is a reasonably good record.
Out of your ones:
- BoE independence had been broadly agreed as a good idea by most monetary experts. He deserves credit for it, but it was hardly extraordinary foresight - Not taking us into a disaster also isn't an achievement. It's the people that drove straight into the iceberg that deserve condemnation, not the people that obeyed normal economic sanity - Saved the world banking system? Please. What's your evidence for this? - Saved the UK. Well, let's see how long that lasts with SNP sweeping the board at the next election.
He also:
- Set up the FSA-based regulatory system that entirely failed in bank regulation - Has massive deficit-led spending during an economic boom - Oversaw a huge explosion in unsustainable private credit - Forced Lloyd's to purchase HBOS, which ended up bringing down both banks
Personally I think the jury is out on BOE 'independence' -which in practise means giving up direct democratic control over interest rates. They have been and continue to be kept artificially low.
I don't really think the "artificially low" makes logical sense when you're talking about currency. The existence of currency in the first place means you're doing something artificial, so it can't exactly be set "naturally" anyway. The big issue with interest rate setting is that it's only done on consumer price inflation, where I think it should be set more towards the GDP deflator, or even targeting debt directly.
I still remember watching an interview on Newsnight with the then French Finance Minister Christine Legarde whereby she blew the Brown as the saviour of the world meme out of the water and gave Darling the credit for Britain's role instead. IIRC, it was Darling who stayed up into the wee hours in the Treasury brokering a deal to rescue the banks, he then went and woke Brown up to get his agreement for the rescue package.
Good to read some positive comments about Gordon Brown, not least from Roger below.
He is and will remain a controversial figure, with few friends outside his own party. Much like Thatcher in that respect.
He clearly had a remarkable political career. Has anyone been resident longer in Downing street? Personally I enjoyed his oratory and respected his dedication.
Brown was a poor leader of the Labour party and a terrible PM. But I suspect that history will be a lot kinder to him than those on the right are currently. Thank God it was him and Darling in charge when the crash occurred and not Osborne and Cameron; and thank God he got active during the closing stages of the Scottish independence referendum campaign.
Saving the global economy and the Union are not inconsiderable achievements.
SO: I'm professsionally limited in what I can say on this but suffice to say that, if anyone deserves credit for rescuing the banks in autumn 2008 it is Darling. Brown dithered and dithered and refused to face up to what people were telling him and it took an ultimatum from Darling and the fact that we were hours from the closure of every bank in the country before Brown saw sense. He deserves little credit for being rescued by others from his own failure to manage risks which were well known to the Treasury and others months and months beforehand.
Far from saving the world he did not even save Britain. Darling did that - Brown's achievement was to let him do it and finally stand behind him.
On the topic of Europe I was deeply impressed by a tweet from a Czech politician today to the effect that Czech fighter pilots did not have to be here four years before they fought and died in the battle of Britain.
Has Sturgeon made the SNP a hostage to fortune with that pledge? She better hope that the SNP don't need the support of the Scottish Conservatives at Holyrood AGAIN after the 2016 Holyrood elections.
Re the Scotsman piece linked downthread, I noted on the links a quote from Nicola Sturgeon, being:
“I’ve said very clearly that an SNP group of MPs in the House of Commons will never put the Conservatives into government; we would never be part of a government with the Conservatives. If Labour was dependent on the votes of SNP MPs, then it would have to seriously up its game in terms of the powers that it was promising to the Scottish people."
Now as a negotiating strategy, articulating two options and saying "we will never ever do the first one" hardly sounds like a great strategy for extracting whatever you want from those behind the second option does it?
Isn't Sturgeon supposed to be good? She needs to up her wileyness to compete with the old fox Salmond....
The Scotsman online is virtually unreadable with all those ads. I don't know what they're thinking.
They presumably need the money. The newspaper is not doing well. I'm surprised it has survived till indyref. Ciculation going down, closing their posh offices next to the Parliament and moving into an outer Edinbrgh office block, merging with the local evening newspaper.
By contrast, the new National was a howling success in its pilot week and is now permanent. Makes you wonder how the Scotsman would be doing if it had stayed as the excellent middle of the road newspaper which it used to be.
The office thing just sounds sensible to me, and the merger. The website is simply horrendous; they should realise it's unusable.
As for that other excrescence, it's current popularity does not surprise me in the slightest. Nationalism will continue to rise whilst the UK lies dormant. Sadly, people are easily misled. However, I don't anticipate that situation continuing long enough for a second go.
Re the Scotsman piece linked downthread, I noted on the links a quote from Nicola Sturgeon, being:
“I’ve said very clearly that an SNP group of MPs in the House of Commons will never put the Conservatives into government; we would never be part of a government with the Conservatives. If Labour was dependent on the votes of SNP MPs, then it would have to seriously up its game in terms of the powers that it was promising to the Scottish people."
Now as a negotiating strategy, articulating two options and saying "we will never ever do the first one" hardly sounds like a great strategy for extracting whatever you want from those behind the second option does it?
Isn't Sturgeon supposed to be good? She needs to up her wileyness to compete with the old fox Salmond....
They do have two options though: form a government with Labour, or not form a government at all. Why do they give a toss about the UK?
On the topic of Europe I was deeply impressed by a tweet from a Czech politician today to the effect that Czech fighter pilots did not have to be here four years before they fought and died in the battle of Britain.
Hmnn.
Seems to me that what you need is a points system, where you give out additional points for people that fought for us.
On the topic of Europe I was deeply impressed by a tweet from a Czech politician today to the effect that Czech fighter pilots did not have to be here four years before they fought and died in the battle of Britain.
Hmnn.
Seems to me that what you need is a points system, where you give out additional points for people that fought for us.
The Czech pilots had not fought for us before they came and fought for us, so would have been pointless.
On the topic of Europe I was deeply impressed by a tweet from a Czech politician today to the effect that Czech fighter pilots did not have to be here four years before they fought and died in the battle of Britain.
Hmnn.
They were fighting for their own country just, unlike the first world war where they fought against us, they happened be on our side this time. Fighting for their own interests again now, the interference of these Eastern European politicians in our internal affairs these past few days has been disgraceful. Immigration policy must be determined by us in our own self interest.
On the topic of Europe I was deeply impressed by a tweet from a Czech politician today to the effect that Czech fighter pilots did not have to be here four years before they fought and died in the battle of Britain.
Hmnn.
Seems to me that what you need is a points system, where you give out additional points for people that fought for us.
Isn't that what Tebbit was suggesting the other day? Double points for anyone who passes the War Test and the Cricket Test.
And ditto the Poles as well who settled around Hanwell and in other parts of west London.
As for Brown, Cyclefree is correct inasmuch as it is Alastair Darling who deserves huge credit for his actions during the near meltdown of RBS and the international financial rescue package (Tim Geithner also deserves a mention).
None of that negates the huge flaws in Labour's spending policy after 1999 yet at the time there was general agreement that money needed to be put into public services. Indeed, the Conservatives argued they would put even more money in and manage it better than Labour. The problem was the provision was akin to force-feeding a starving man. Money was thrown at atrophied institutions which simply could not manage it, absorb it or use it so much of it was wasted.
A more gradual drip-feed of funds over a prolonged period would have been so much better. Perversely, it's the reverse argument as to how to manage the deficit - do you suddenly reduce a glutton to starvation to make them lose weight - all the evidence shows crash-dieting doesn't work. In the same way, it's possible to argue the gradualist approach to deficit reduction is easier for the public sector to manage than a massive single cut of say 50%.
The £50 billion or so we have to pay to service the debt every year (which is money that has to be raised but which can't be spent on services) is, I suppose, a lasting legacy of Brown.
It's all part of a step by step approach to put laws in place where the government's enemies can be threatened with having their lives and reputations ruined with an "extreme porn" court case even if they are found innocent.
On the topic of Europe I was deeply impressed by a tweet from a Czech politician today to the effect that Czech fighter pilots did not have to be here four years before they fought and died in the battle of Britain.
Hmnn.
Seems to me that what you need is a points system, where you give out additional points for people that fought for us.
Your points system is getting more complex than Duckworth-Lewis.
On the topic of Europe I was deeply impressed by a tweet from a Czech politician today to the effect that Czech fighter pilots did not have to be here four years before they fought and died in the battle of Britain.
Hmnn.
They were fighting for their own country just, unlike the first world war where they fought against us, they happened be on our side this time. Fighting for their own interests again now, the interference of these Eastern European politicians in our internal affairs these past few days has been disgraceful. Immigration policy must be determined by us in our own self interest.
Our only immigration policy should be "able to support self without help from the state".
Re the Scotsman piece linked downthread, I noted on the links a quote from Nicola Sturgeon, being:
“I’ve said very clearly that an SNP group of MPs in the House of Commons will never put the Conservatives into government; we would never be part of a government with the Conservatives. If Labour was dependent on the votes of SNP MPs, then it would have to seriously up its game in terms of the powers that it was promising to the Scottish people."
Now as a negotiating strategy, articulating two options and saying "we will never ever do the first one" hardly sounds like a great strategy for extracting whatever you want from those behind the second option does it?
Isn't Sturgeon supposed to be good? She needs to up her wileyness to compete with the old fox Salmond....
They do have two options though: form a government with Labour, or not form a government at all. Why do they give a toss about the UK?
Because Scotland is still part of the UK, pending a second referendum.
But you are right about not forming part of a government.
And (to answer Mr Sykes's earlier point) Ms Sturgeon's excluding a coalition with the Tories was very specifically aimed at Scottish voters, and above all those whom Labour has taught over the years to fear and hate Tories as the spawn of evil, like something from the Chtulhu Mythos [NB: I'm not saying this is true, or a sensible belief, but merely observing its existence as a third party]. Any party which allies publicly with the Tories is therefore presumably going to do very badly in Scotland, as the LDs and Labour seem to be finding out.
This no- coalition policy (a) does not rule out negotiations issue by issue (which was the limit of Tory-SNP interaction, in any case); and (b) is in part, aimed at the Labour claim that if you vote SNP you get Tory rule - which is ironic coming from a party which has done its best for the last few years to maintain Tory hegemony over Scotland (and in so doing looks as if it has destroyed its own chances at Westminster).
It's worth bearing in mind that this government has now done more on banning spanking in porn than it has on the street grooming and sexual torture of thousands of children across the country.
On the topic of Europe I was deeply impressed by a tweet from a Czech politician today to the effect that Czech fighter pilots did not have to be here four years before they fought and died in the battle of Britain.
Hmnn.
Seems to me that what you need is a points system, where you give out additional points for people that fought for us.
Your points system is getting more complex than Duckworth-Lewis.
At least it would be a system where you could control the numbers here so young British people could afford a house. Not like the "housing security only for the rich" system you prefer.
The Scotsman online is virtually unreadable with all those ads. I don't know what they're thinking.
They presumably need the money. The newspaper is not doing well. I'm surprised it has survived till indyref. Ciculation going down, closing their posh offices next to the Parliament and moving into an outer Edinbrgh office block, merging with the local evening newspaper.
By contrast, the new National was a howling success in its pilot week and is now permanent. Makes you wonder how the Scotsman would be doing if it had stayed as the excellent middle of the road newspaper which it used to be.
The office thing just sounds sensible to me, and the merger. The website is simply horrendous; they should realise it's unusable.
As for that other excrescence, it's current popularity does not surprise me in the slightest. Nationalism will continue to rise whilst the UK lies dormant. Sadly, people are easily misled. However, I don't anticipate that situation continuing long enough for a second go.
The problem is that the two newspapers (three with the Sunday) are so different in audience, circulation, and timing - one being a purely local evening newspaper - that to merge then and sack staff simply overworks the remaining staff and/or causes a decline of some sort in content.
As for the rest - we'll see. But, out of (real) interest, might I inquire what your political affiliation is? No need to reply of course. But I ask, in part, because so much of the indyref debate was based on the invocation of British nationalism (or unionism if you prefer): e.g. Mr Cameron adducing the dead of the Somme as a reason to stay in the UK.
The £50 billion or so we have to pay to service the debt every year (which is money that has to be raised but which can't be spent on services) is, I suppose, a lasting legacy of Brown.
Not just Mr Brown. The current administration made a conscious decision to increase debt rather than address excessive government spending.
“I’ve said very clearly that an SNP group of MPs in the House of Commons will never put the Conservatives into government; we would never be part of a government with the Conservatives. "
I think I detect a little weaselly bit of wriggle room there. OK, they wouldn't be part of a coalition (not that they would be invited to be, I imagine), and they wouldn't put the Conservatives into government, but has not she not left open the possibility that they might not put the Conservatives out of government?
"He hung on so he could screw Scotland yet again , hopefully he will not be allowed near anything in future."
Sorry Malc but to criticize Brown who was a giant among world politicians while supporting Sturgeon a very minor fish in a very small pond (if you'll excuse the pun) whose only claim to fame is that like Cameron she wanted the glory of leading her party from the age of fourteen.
Brown by contrast spent his teenage years supporting soup kitchens and later helping students at Edinburgh University for which many-by all accounts-are still grateful .....Nicola of course spent her student years trying out lipsticks to see which she could match with her favourite tartan.....
Roger, Dear Dear , Brown spent all his efforts on his own self aggrandisement. He used every dubious and underhand tactic in the book to wreck opponents lives and careers to ensure he got what he wanted, and as we know he was crap at it. Still a self important useless windbag , full of wind and piss and useless.
Comments
Jackie Doyle-PriceVerified account
@JackieDP Great show by @JimDOfficial no thanks to the Dartford crossing. A crusader against political correctness, I salute you
I say it again, pause for thought and imagine this was UKIP doing this not the Tories...
Thread after thread would be dominated by faux outrage... (I am sure OGH would have written one of his "bad for UKIP" headers on it) and the reason we can be sure it is "faux" is the lack of criticism in this case.
Proof that people on here are motivated by partisan point scoring rather than sincere feelings on any subject
"Question for JackW - you been on the 'juice' bro?"
The problem with Jack's technique of emitting wind and describing his findings as an indicator of future election results is that it spawns lots of imitators. Just this morning I heard of one calling itself OPLE (only poofters like Ed). It actually had the Greens taking Bootle and UKIP taking everything else
I think they should all be banned
Whilst imitation is mildly flattering there is of course only one true ARSE on PB.
You pick and choose whether to be offended or moan about people mentioning it depending on who said it not what was said.
Now you have proved it, thanks x
- gave the Bank of England independence
- did not take us into Eurozone despite huge pressure from Blair. He created the 5 tests knowing that it would fail
- he saved the world banking system in early 2009. Acknowledged more abroad than in Britain.
- saved the United Kingdom.
I think that is a reasonably good record.
- BoE independence had been broadly agreed as a good idea by most monetary experts. He deserves credit for it, but it was hardly extraordinary foresight
- Not taking us into a disaster also isn't an achievement. It's the people that drove straight into the iceberg that deserve condemnation, not the people that obeyed normal economic sanity
- Saved the world banking system? Please. What's your evidence for this?
- Saved the UK. Well, let's see how long that lasts with SNP sweeping the board at the next election.
He also:
- Set up the FSA-based regulatory system that entirely failed in bank regulation
- Has massive deficit-led spending during an economic boom
- Oversaw a huge explosion in unsustainable private credit
- Forced Lloyd's to purchase HBOS, which ended up bringing down both banks
"Labour’s “cost of living crisis” narrative has been dealt a blow today, as a new poll reveals that more people think their family’s finances would be more secure with the Tories than Labour. The Tories also poll better on who people think will make better decisions on handling the economy.
The ComRes poll for The Independent shows that, despite people’s lack of confidence in David Cameron and George Osborne on economic matters, they are still more trusted than Ed Miliband and Ed Balls."
http://greenparty.org.uk/news/2014/12/02/green-party-membership-up-100-since-january-1-2014/
Far from saving the world he did not even save Britain. Darling did that - Brown's achievement was to let him do it and finally stand behind him.
Having neutered the BoE he did not want to hand over all his power to the ECB. From Blairs point of view joining the Euro would have neutered Brown.
He did not save the world. The combined efforts of the G8 did and it merely involved a vast expense of taxpayers money and vast borrowing.
He did not save the UK. He was one of many UK politicians that did.
From the very start of his political career in a tiny office in Edinburgh University, Brown has had an appalling record of wrong headed misjudgements and has been disastrous for the UK.
Asking for a friend.
By contrast, the new National was a howling success in its pilot week and is now permanent. Makes you wonder how the Scotsman would be doing if it had stayed as the excellent middle of the road newspaper which it used to be.
I hope all he felt was a little prick.
"Prof Stephen Hawking, one of Britain's pre-eminent scientists, has said that efforts to create thinking machines pose a threat to our very existence.
He told the BBC:"The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race."
.Prof Hawking says the primitive forms of artificial intelligence developed so far have already proved very useful, but he fears the consequences of creating something that can match or surpass humans.
"It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate," he said.
"Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete, and would be superseded.".....
In the short term, there are concerns that clever machines capable of undertaking tasks done by humans until now will swiftly destroy millions of jobs.
In the longer term, the technology entrepreneur Elon Musk has warned that AI is "our biggest existential threat".
In his BBC interview, Prof Hawking also talks of the benefits and dangers of the internet.
He quotes the director of GCHQ's warning about the net becoming the command centre for terrorists: "More must be done by the internet companies to counter the threat, but the difficulty is to do this without sacrificing freedom and privacy."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30290540
Perhaps a good and controlled form of artificial intelligence would be preferable and more effective than most of our politicians. Make them all redundant!
"Roger has some very unreconstructed views on the role of women in society. It appears that he believes should be secretaries and "pretty young things" in short skirts whose primary function is to be the sexual playthings of their older (male) bosses"
Interesting. When I got my first job as assistant to one of the top female photographers in London the head of the studio asked me how I felt assisting a woman? I said fine and from that day to your post no one has ever implied that I am in any way sexist because of course nothing could be further from the truth.
There will be no one on these boards who works more often with women gays straights transvestites and everything in between than I do. Having spent a large part of my life as a fashion photographer it couldn't be any other way. I am curious though what I could have implied that made you say that?
“I’ve said very clearly that an SNP group of MPs in the House of Commons will never put the Conservatives into government; we would never be part of a government with the Conservatives. If Labour was dependent on the votes of SNP MPs, then it would have to seriously up its game in terms of the powers that it was promising to the Scottish people."
Now as a negotiating strategy, articulating two options and saying "we will never ever do the first one" hardly sounds like a great strategy for extracting whatever you want from those behind the second option does it?
Isn't Sturgeon supposed to be good? She needs to up her wileyness to compete with the old fox Salmond....
As for that other excrescence, it's current popularity does not surprise me in the slightest. Nationalism will continue to rise whilst the UK lies dormant. Sadly, people are easily misled. However, I don't anticipate that situation continuing long enough for a second go.
Hmnn.
And ditto the Poles as well who settled around Hanwell and in other parts of west London.
As for Brown, Cyclefree is correct inasmuch as it is Alastair Darling who deserves huge credit for his actions during the near meltdown of RBS and the international financial rescue package (Tim Geithner also deserves a mention).
None of that negates the huge flaws in Labour's spending policy after 1999 yet at the time there was general agreement that money needed to be put into public services. Indeed, the Conservatives argued they would put even more money in and manage it better than Labour.
The problem was the provision was akin to force-feeding a starving man. Money was thrown at atrophied institutions which simply could not manage it, absorb it or use it so much of it was wasted.
A more gradual drip-feed of funds over a prolonged period would have been so much better. Perversely, it's the reverse argument as to how to manage the deficit - do you suddenly reduce a glutton to starvation to make them lose weight - all the evidence shows crash-dieting doesn't work. In the same way, it's possible to argue the gradualist approach to deficit reduction is easier for the public sector to manage than a massive single cut of say 50%.
The £50 billion or so we have to pay to service the debt every year (which is money that has to be raised but which can't be spent on services) is, I suppose, a lasting legacy of Brown.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/10/why-woman-having-sex-fake-tiger-shows-extreme-pornography-act-must-be-repealed
It's all part of a step by step approach to put laws in place where the government's enemies can be threatened with having their lives and reputations ruined with an "extreme porn" court case even if they are found innocent.
What an ugly government this is.
But you are right about not forming part of a government.
And (to answer Mr Sykes's earlier point) Ms Sturgeon's excluding a coalition with the Tories was very specifically aimed at Scottish voters, and above all those whom Labour has taught over the years to fear and hate Tories as the spawn of evil, like something from the Chtulhu Mythos [NB: I'm not saying this is true, or a sensible belief, but merely observing its existence as a third party]. Any party which allies publicly with the Tories is therefore presumably going to do very badly in Scotland, as the LDs and Labour seem to be finding out.
This no- coalition policy (a) does not rule out negotiations issue by issue (which was the limit of Tory-SNP interaction, in any case); and (b) is in part, aimed at the Labour claim that if you vote SNP you get Tory rule - which is ironic coming from a party which has done its best for the last few years to maintain Tory hegemony over Scotland (and in so doing looks as if it has destroyed its own chances at Westminster).
As for the rest - we'll see. But, out of (real) interest, might I inquire what your political affiliation is? No need to reply of course. But I ask, in part, because so much of the indyref debate was based on the invocation of British nationalism (or unionism if you prefer): e.g. Mr Cameron adducing the dead of the Somme as a reason to stay in the UK.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/12/in-graphs-george-osborne-fought-the-debt-and-the-debt-won/
new thread