Sorry to come back again, but the revisionist view of history is tedious.
After WW2,Trueman put pressure on the UK government to end what he saw as the evil of empire. The pressure for Independence in India was already high, so Mountbatten was made Viceroy and told to deal with it. Attlee was at the other side of a world with absolutely none of the modern telecommunications systems - wireless was patchy, telegraph was still being repaired and as for sending mail by flying boat or plane taking anything up to 48 hours to travel one way, 24 hours for a response with another trip back which made an effective week.
No, I am not blaming Mountbatten, or Nehru or even Jinna for the massacres. I believe that they acted in good faith but the pressures from the masses for some form of resolution lead to a festering resentment from and between the different religious and ethnic groups for nearly 300 years.
Something had to pop, unfortunately the explosion was Krakatoan.
As for Palestine, the British ended up fighting the Hagganah underground with a large US Jewish and Zionist movement putting pressure on the US administration to get the British out.
I also believe that the British leaving Palestine as they did, indirectly lead to the insurgencies in Cyprus, Malaysia, Burma and Indonesia.
Partition could possibly have been avoided if Nehru agreed to a federation of the former Raj provinces and Princely States. A deal was almost in the offing as late as 1946.
One of the least useful election forecasting techniques going. If winning the poster war meant anything I'd never have been involved in a losing campaign in my life.
He is quite well regarded also, certainly higher than that of his party.
I should hope we want the same outcomes. But I suspect my view of the state as an enabler and guarantor is not one shared by even One Nation Tories. I want the state interfering in the market by, for example, insisting all companies that get money from the state for services provided pay a living wage; and much more tightly regulating privately-owned public utilities. I am also totally opposed to selling off housing association properties and in favour of higher taxes for the best off. But, that said, I am a capitalist and I believe strongly in the profit motive, so there's a bit of me - probably a significant bit - that sees the world in the same way many Tories do. Put it this way, I get where Conservatism comes from. It's a coherent philosophy, but I start from a pisition - born of experience, no doubt - that the state is a good thing and should not be rolled back as a matter of principle.
That's all fair enough, and as you imply I wouldn't put the balance in quite the same place as you. However, that is the kind of grown-up debate we don't have in UK politics - instead, we have anti-Conservative prejudice which attributes malice to those who disagree with you about the means - and it's a powerful force because a lot of people are motivated by it.
(I'm still struggling a bit to see what you don't like about Labour, other perhaps than the competence of the present leadership. Its policy platform seems to match yours pretty closely).
But Tories also need to accept that this anti-Tory sentiment, fuelled by class envy and hatred, is not going away.
The dislike may (or may not) be irrational (I think it has some basis, there are too many Tories who DO sneer); either way you can neutralise this significant problem quite easily by getting more ordinary people into top Tory positions, especially the leadership. Enough Etonians already.
Thatcher the grocer's daughter was, notably, your most successful leader in 100 years. Major the Brixton boy got the most votes. Rinse and repeat.
"It may be inverted snobbishness but I don't want old style, Old Etonian Tories of the old school to succeed me and go back to the old complacent, consensus ways. John Major is someone who has fought his way up from the bottom and is far more in tune with the skilled and ambitious and worthwhile working classes than Douglas Hurd is."
- Maggie talking to Woodrow Wyatt (23 November 1990). In Sarah Curtis (ed.), The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt. Volume Two (Pan, 2000), pp. 401-402.
It's not about logic. For historical reasons, those potentially harmful substances are legal, although the tendency now is for increasingly stricter control.
The fact they remain legal is not a ground to legalise yet more harmful substances.
Historically all the harmful substances scheduled to MDA 1971 were legal. The question is whether there was a principled basis for their criminalisation. In any event, when the exceptions are broad enough, few reasonable men slavishly adhere to the rule. The real issue is why should any responsibility, ethical, legal or otherwise, attach to someone who sells someone a dangerous product, when the decision to self-administer it is the free voluntary and informed decision of the vendee?
Because it may not be free, voluntary and informed. qv "addict". Because it is not in the public interest for people to experiment with dangerous substances, when it is the taxpayer who picks up the tab for those who miscalculate.
The second point doesn't make sense because criminalization is expensive, whereas taxation is lucrative.
I'd love to see an honest cost-benefit analysis. Maybe it hasn't been criminalized enough. A bullet in the head is very cheap. In any case, the first point stands.
One of the least useful election forecasting techniques going. If winning the poster war meant anything I'd never have been involved in a losing campaign in my life.
He is quite well regarded also, certainly higher than that of his party.
Oh, I agree and I wouldnt rule him out. I know the constituency quite well, if he hangs on it will be in large part due to his work on behalf of constituents (and squeezing the Tories). IOS of this parish (who lived in the constituency!) suggested he was on to such a loser he wouldnt even stand. Impressive to get a GE prediction so wrong before the GE even happens.
It's not about logic. For historical reasons, those potentially harmful substances are legal, although the tendency now is for increasingly stricter control.
The fact they remain legal is not a ground to legalise yet more harmful substances.
Historically all the harmful substances scheduled to MDA 1971 were legal. The question is whether there was a principled basis for their criminalisation. In any event, when the exceptions are broad enough, few reasonable men slavishly adhere to the rule. The real issue is why should any responsibility, ethical, legal or otherwise, attach to someone who sells someone a dangerous product, when the decision to self-administer it is the free voluntary and informed decision of the vendee?
Legalise all drugs except cocaine.
Use the income from duty for programs to educate people on the effects (social, physical, mental etc), of all harmful substances included those that would be class A drugs if invented today i.e alcohol and nicotine.
Stop bad people who would not think twice about taking another persons life from having the opportunity to become fabulously wealthy, prospering from a war on drugs that is not working.
The War on Drugs has clearly failed in its current form, it is costing billions of dollars yet there are still drugs everywhere. Surely now it would be better to go down the route of legalisation, taxation and education with most drugs, as we are starting to see in some states with marijuana.
On a related subject, there seems to be a huge problem with police relations in the US brewing under the surface, especially with regard to minorities. Can any of our Stateside commenters elaborate?
I will talk about the economy.Labour crashed it .The worst recession for 60years.No money left .The coalition took tough decisions and have started to put it right.The economy is not fixed yet as Osborne keeps pointing out.
At least the lower growth figures which may yet be revised up wards ,are concentrating people's minds to put the economy back at the top of their concerns.It is still fragile and people don't trust Labour with the economy.
I will talk about the economy.Labour crashed it .The worst recession for 60years.No money left .The coalition took tough decisions and have started to put it right.The economy is not fixed yet as Osborne keeps pointing out.
At least the lower growth figures which may yet be revised up wards ,are concentrating people's minds to put the economy back at the top of their concerns.It is still fragile and people don't trust Labour with the economy.
Comments
- Maggie talking to Woodrow Wyatt (23 November 1990). In Sarah Curtis (ed.), The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt. Volume Two (Pan, 2000), pp. 401-402.
Maybe it hasn't been criminalized enough. A bullet in the head is very cheap.
In any case, the first point stands.
On a related subject, there seems to be a huge problem with police relations in the US brewing under the surface, especially with regard to minorities. Can any of our Stateside commenters elaborate?
At least the lower growth figures which may yet be revised up wards ,are concentrating people's minds to put the economy back at the top of their concerns.It is still fragile and people don't trust Labour with the economy.
At least the lower growth figures which may yet be revised up wards ,are concentrating people's minds to put the economy back at the top of their concerns.It is still fragile and people don't trust Labour with the economy.