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Why not relax, and converse into the night on the day’s events in PB NightHawks.
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I'm hopeful we will get the Ipsos-Mori tomorrow.
There's fairly robust neuroscientific research suggesting that full physical brain maturity isn't reached until about 25. This isn't just pie-in-sky either. The research is already having a real, practical effect on services. e.g. there's growing pressure to reconfigure child/adolescent mental health services to extend beyond 18, with some psychological services theoretically being asked to go right up to 25.
Of course, society as a whole doesn't need to use neuroscientific evidence to base its own decisions about when adulthood is reached, but the law at the moment has quite a few different cut-offs even within a single field of practice. That inconsistency could do with tidying up.
Personally, I would generally be in favour of raising thresholds (both the protective & restrictive ones) rather than reducing them. Given that the rate of brain development slows after 18, going all the way to 25 would be a step too far. I think harmonsing everything to either 18 or to 21 would be a reasonable balance.
Younger than that and it is arguable whether - on average - there is sufficient maturity to fully process decision-making in the way an adult would. Of course, some will indeed have that maturity, just as some adults don't. But on average, the younger you are below 25, and especially below 18, the less likely it is that you have it.
Scientific evidence aside, anyone who's taught 14, 16, 18, and 21+ year olds already knows there are vast differences in their ability to cognitively process. Selecting a government is almost the ultimate wicked problem.
Given that voting is (ostensibly) about something important enough to be given mature reflection, then voting younger than 18 is pushing credibility, and there's a not-insubstantial theoretical argument for going back to 21. It's strongly arguable that 16 year olds voting devalues the meaning of a vote rather than enhancing it.
I had a bunch of these in the 80s and can't find them anywhere/recall the style. Perhaps one of my odder crowd source queries.
No.11 on the tonight's list, also:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/11282327/Roger-Bird-text-messages-that-he-says-prove-relationship-with-Natasha-Bolter.html
And today the comment by Jon Snow yesterday about the case looks unfair:
Jon Snow @jonsnowC4 22h22 hours ago
The wheels begin to come off UKIP..mysogyny and racism bear their teeth: http://thetim.es/1sdNYin
There is more love story than misogyny and racism in it.
It is understood to be willing to "shore up" a future administration, but is not interested in a cabinet role.
The DUP is the largest party in Northern Ireland, and the fourth biggest in the UK Parliament.
It said it would consider supporting a government, dependent on securing the best deal for Northern Ireland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30396237
EDIT: also, trying Google Image searching all the Russian hats mentioned here: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/sitemap/free/1994/10/article/head-into-winter-with-russian-hat-couture/347191.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_headgear
I do love hats. Have about 40 of them. Funny how unfashionable they are generally.
EDIT Hell YES!!! Now that gets you an 11/10 for info! Thanxxxx t
They are planning to force this through on England with Scottish votes. English local elections will be decided by the whole UK parliament, while Scottish and Welsh local elections will be handled by devolved administrations.
I get my hats from www.villagehats.co.uk.....not sure what they have for women but may be worth a look
Sort of a reverse section 28
Edit: on the other hand, you have a point in that the Scots and Welsh could decide to say no thanks ...
"That would give the party 38 seats (important caveat – of which 11 are in Scotland). … [it is] quite plausible for the party to hope to end up with 40+ seats in the next Parliament and hence an almost inevitable share of power in another hung Parliament"
Is this really the LD's expectation to retain all their 11 seats in Scotland and score 40+ seats in May?
I think they're a very elegant look on a lady, generally. And it's easier for a lady to wear a hat than a guy these days.
As a man, I can wear a trilby with a proper overcoat & scarf on really cold or just drizzly day and not look too out of place, but it's touch & go. Summer straw hats are much easier, for both men & women. I wear a panama fairly regularly on sunny days. The real problem with hats is that it's extraordinarily difficult to get exactly the right shape/size for one's head...
Glad you found what you were looking for, by the way. Happy to help.
My father has an vintage genuine astrakhan fur russian hat hidden somewhere. I keep meaning to nick it each time I visit; we're around the same hat size I think. I'm pretty sure I can remember my mother having a more typical fur one like the one you're talking about but she never wore it in her later years and I've no idea where that one ended up . Probably hidden in the back of a wardrobe somewhere...
Kiran Moodley in item 7 sounds mildly depressed. He seems to be realising that the Labour party mainly exists now to enable Guardian readers to feel good about themselves. He's right. It sounds like it took him a while to notice.
Currently only have the three hats...all leather, top hat, stetson and tricorn though the latter gets me some funny looks at work
NEVER NEVER NEVER .... in ULSTER
Half a dozen or so. Waterproof Stetson is newest, very good, from the hat shop in Burnham Market, Norfolk which is outstanding. Two Tilley hats, they are very good, and an assortment of others.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/dec/09/liberal-democrats-face-bigger-wipeout-than-expected
I saw that UKIP were performing best in constituency polls in seats where Labour fell most in 2010, weeks ago. A large part of UKIP is made of ex-2005 Labour voters.
2. "Taxi for Lib's"
3. Say what you want about Mandy but he know's a thing or two about winning elections.
4. What's the point of a minority that can't do anything. It has to be a second coalition.
5. Viva La Coalition
6. The longer we can keep Labour away from power the better.
7. Is being white and middle class a barrier to power?
8. Is there a more absurd person in politics than Hattie H?
9. Is this La Toynbee's latest effort?
10. When did UKIP stop being about Europe?
11. UKIP has a wimin problem?
13. American's are crazy!
14. If Edward VIII hadn't abdicated we'd never have enjoy HMQ's glorious 62 year reign and long may she continue.
http://www.christys-hats.com/hatiquette
The best sun hat for the folicularlly challenged is the excellent Rogue range:
http://www.kendrickimports.com/rogue/hats.html?p=2
I particularly recommend the canvas airhead...
My mum gave me her white rabbit 3/4 length coat when I was about 13yrs old. I was in love. Eventually it got rather moth-eaten so I turned it into a muff, a handbag and a pencil case. This rather unnerved my classmates and they moulted all over my navy blue school uniform. LOL.
I'm very fond of taxidermy and just ordered my first DIY kit - if the mouse ends up looking like a mouse at the end of it rather than a zoologically improbable specimen that scares small children, I'll be chuffed...
At least when the parties adjust their platforms during horsetrading in negotiations they have an excuse of needing to compromise with other parties, rather than when a regular government does it and can really only rely on the changing circumstances argument, with varying amounts of reasonableness.
On the wig example, the reason wigs fell out of favour was nothing to with clean vs unclean hair, but because of a combination of fashion and fiscal policy. (it's probably true that the wig initially came into popularity due to lice, but lice hadn't gone away when it went out of fashion).
Pitt taxed hair powder heavily to help finance the war and this, combined with Beau Brummel eschewing the wig in his drive towards simplicity (and his influence on fashion via the Prince of Wales' court) led the wig into obscurity.
Another political connection... it's just coincidence, but one factor often cited as the cause of the steep decline in the popularity of the hat (for men) in the 60s was President Kennedy rarely wearing one. In fact, the trend to hatlessness had already begun, with Kennedy following rather than leading. But still, having the President rarely wear a hat probably cemented it.
I never thought I'd get to use obscure sartorial knowledge on this site...
#hatsbeforeumbrellas
I would suggest that any UK citizen should have the right to a vote, but this is weighted by their score in a test, so that some votes are upweighted and others down weighted.
Some simple questions such as being able to identify parties by their policies for example!:
http://voteforpolicies.org.uk/
Old film footage is crammed with them as you note. It's funny how fashions can change so much.
If the coalition had stood for election on that agreement they may have got a mandate, or maybe they wouldn't. However we will never know now. They would have lost votes like mine and gained votes like yours.
I know its probably silly of me but I would prefer my government to actually have a clear mandate rather than stitching us all up with something that possibly no one wanted. NOM in my mind should be a clear shout. Go away and rework your manifesto's till you can get a clear mandate
Anyway off to see the news, goodnight.
The Coalition agreement was a remarkable document that generations of schoolchildren are doomed to study, firstly in Modern Studies and then all too soon in History. Personally I greatly preferred it to the manifesto of either party.
I've a couple of straw Stetsons and my personal favourite is a leopard safari - it's a total conversation stopper and so chic with a trench coat. Currently only have the three hats...all leather, top hat, stetson and tricorn though the latter gets me some funny looks at work
In any case, any government after about the first year doesn't really have a mandate, it makes things up as it goes along.
He does great hat.
I think you are looking at this arse about face.
It is not the politicians telling the voters to go away and keep voting till they come up with something to the politicians taste. NOM means that the voters have said to the parties "your manifesto's are crap. Listen to us then go away and come up with something we can get behind then we will give you a mandate"
As to other countries? What do we care that is never how we have done things and I presume that is the will of the populace on the whole as we usually don't get coalitions.
The lib dems for example lost about half their voters almost immediately, I can only assume that was because they didn't like the way their votes had been used.
If she's got a 1st class PPE I'll eat my cashmere bobble hat.
Bolded a bit as I rambled so long best to highlight what amounts to a summary)
So the potential for years of gridlock as parties try to come up with new platforms which are put to the voters again and again and again until presumably we make the right choice and decisively pick someone? In practical terms it just seems unreasonable even if in theory it is better.
At the end of the day we are repeatedly told that we vote for individuals, not parties. Leaving aside momentarily that that is clearly not true, that would mean we chose our own personal representative, regardless of what their adherence to their party position might well be, and that we trust their judgement to represent us. If collectively they then decide the things their party stood for need to change in order to form a government, do we trust our MP to do that, having already chosen them, if not their party, to make the right choices for us.
It also seems like the argument of going back to the voters if nationally parties fail to succeed throws up some odd possibilities. There are MPs who are of a party but practically the enemy within as far as their leaders are concerned - if they get in and that leader leads the party to a majority based on their platform, are they duty bound to support that platform which overall the people voted on, even though the voters in their area voted for someone who did not support that platform (but who was still a member of a party that did)? If the people of east frokensershire pick a communist to fight to represent them, why should they have to vote again because everyone else was too indecisive.
We could have so much fun coming up with similarly silly scenarios, but I do think at its core the point is valid that the parties set out their stalls on what they would do in the event they won a majority (and personally, in the current climate, it would be helpful to know what their red lines would be in the event of coalition negotiations, even though they would not show their hand before the vote course), and if after 650 constituency elections no one party convinced a majority to back any of them, then they have the right to see if they can make a government work based upon the numbers for each that the public determined.
If they cannot figure something out, they have to ask us again and work harder to convince us, but it does not seem unreasonable to me for them to attempt to come to an agreement based upon our initial decision and the outcome we delivered. I don't think they should be obligated to automatically have another election. We never said we wanted that either. We said, by majority in each constituency, that we wanted Jo/Joanna Bloggs to represent us, regardless of national party outcome (in theory) and we got what we wanted. One shot for them to see if they can make it work is fair I think.
We get the governments we deserve.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/15/36/b5/1536b5772c930f337dcba87096f35c61.jpg
http://www.phantis.com/news/syriza-leads-31-over-nd-opinion-poll
Good.
His skill in 2010 with a PM who was bordering on disturbed was simply awesome and the further he is away from Ed in 2015 the better.
Random factoid: the Japanese don't "carry" umbrellas; they "point" or "stab" umbrellas (kasa o sasu rather than kasa o ageru). I think that's right, anyway, I'm only learning.
Here's a pix media2.onsugar.com/files/ons1/192/1922283/41_2009/VD105b_0103b.jpg
Personally I think representative democracy in any case has little relevance these days and we should be rebuilding our democracy from the ground up not just talking about tinkering with the voting system
I want to see a move away from universal sufferage and towards a system where to exercise a vote you need to actually contribute to society either by taxes or voluntary work of some sort
I want to see a system where we elect an executive on individual policies. For example we might decide a labour education policy is right and elect our education head on that, the conservative defence policy is right so we elect our defence secretary from their etc.
I want to see a system based more on decentralisation where decisions are made as locally as possible
I want to see a system that moves gradually to a more direct democracy model (whether for local or national issues)
The only reason to keep representatives in fact is to act on emergency area's where you haven't time to consult fully
To tie in with this I would make each policy area have to provide costing. For example "A free school meal for every child" this will cost x billion pounds and will mean a person of average wage pays £y a year towards it. If the costing is wrong then they have to ask people for a mandate for more money. This lets people know how much a policy costs them when they vote for it. People may well for example vote for free school meals if it costs them 30£ a year but refuse to vote for it if it will cost £300.
The tax would then be set each year according to the projected policy cost for all of these items added together.
The short list of 8 was announced today.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/11283188/TIME-Person-Of-The-Year-shortlist-in-pictures.html?frame=3132797
I have a bet with Ladbrokes at 25/1 that it will be Putin. I think I'm in with a good chance.
Notice from Hogarth that hats were often worn indoors - was that due to lack of heating? In fact probably most of us wear fewer layers of clothes than was worn 60-70 years ago - influence of central heating and traveling in cars with efficient heaters.?
If people can stomach the idea of coalition they will vote however they want even if that risks creating a hung parliament and politicking. If someone cannot stomach that, they cannot stomach the horsetrading and sense of betrayal they get as a result, they can vote in a manner best designed to prevent such a scenario, that's a fair choice for them to make.
But if the parliament we just chose is able to come up with some kind of majority, that does not strike me as anti-democratic. If people have a problem with representatives doing that, vote for someone who promises they will never support a coalition agreement. If they don't promise that, they have left the door open to making the best choice for us they feel they can, as we just told them they have the right to do by choosing them as our representative, even if nationally no majority is to be found.
On another topic entirely, I was amused that in the Moldova elections the pro-western parties were apparently the Liberals, the Democrats, and the Liberal Democrats. I'm sure there are some significant differences between them, but I like the wafer thin divisions between the names.
My understanding is that Bowlers and Derbies are the same, but an American is more likely to call it a Derby. Analogous to how we call closed quarter laced shoes Oxfords but the Americans would call them Balmorals.
Also - and this paragraph to totally from hazy memory, so very open to correction - bowlers, despite their City associations, started off as country hats. I think gameskeepers on some estate or other. They became city hats after people stopped wearing morning dress to work and so needed a more casual hat than a topper.