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Why not relax, and converse into the night on the day’s events in PB NightHawks.
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Re poverty, as a kid in Malta and Cyprus, the family had a fridge, but when we were in the UK we did not until 1972. We did not think of ourselves as poor. I remember schoolmates in Exmouth who had outside loos. And of course, no-one but no-one had central heating.
I agree with you that we should aspire for our poorest to do better than Mali by a long shot. But poverty should not simply be relative - there should be some link to meeting the basic needs of life - food, shelter, health - rather than just x% of y. And we should never forget what real poverty is. I am a firm believer that a Westerner's education is not complete until they have been to a Mali or Yemen, etc...
Unless we set meaningful metrics, programmes will always miss the mark as we'll have the wrong measure of progress.
A lot of the southern towns where Labour are doing badly are really quite poor. I really can't see the logic in saying that Labour would do better in those places if they pledged to cut public services more and been nicer to millionaires and big businesses.
But, people running small businesses got the impression that Labour hated them. And Metropolitan concerns about race and gender don't go down well.
16. Well that's no surprise. Hell, really there should be no problems, as we have enough sci-fi stories about the dangers to our humanity to avoid them.
12. It's not me that needs convincing, but however much it is needed or not, it ain't happening. Will enough parties next time who support it win enough seats under the current system to then want to change it?
" The leak was so amateur (can this be Carmichael’s first time?) it took only a few phone records to trace it. "
I agree with his analysis, but it does beg the question why it took 7 weeks to investigate. It would be interesting to know exactly when the Cabinet Office identified who was responsible, particularly as anyone with a passing interest in this sorry affair had worked out it was a LibDem leak by 6th April.
I heard a collective groan from the London MSM as Malcolm Bruce broke out his golden spade and started digging for Australia, having tried their level best to ignore the story these guys have finally woken up - see below for a summary of the headlines:
http://wingsoverscotland.com/pouring-oil-on-troubled-waters/
An interesting quote below from Mr Bruce about the Oldham verdict:
" Oldham verdict price of lying
The court ruling which, subject to a judicial review, has cost Phil Woolas his parliamentary career, shows that lying about an opponent to win a seat has potentially devastating consequences.Mr Woolas defeated his Liberal Democrat opponent by just 103 votes and it seems highly likely the damagingly untruthful publications he put out made the difference. "
In all seriousness, I detect some in UKIP feel like they have to win the right way, or at least fight the right way, rather than being willing to try anything to win, funnily enough.
12 degrees, heavy showers, 16 mph winds:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2644688
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/constituencies/E14000931
“Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?”
No2AV won the AV ref, No won the Indyref, can the outers make it a hat trick for no?
I agree with all your points - really what it comes down to is saying what we mean, not just lazily saying "poverty". A healthy society IMO needs to avoid absolute destitution altogether (even for people who do nothing whatever - we just don't want anyone starving in the street), and beyond that provide a reasonable number of chances to people to make their way to success. My main quarrel with the "People should look after themselves" mantra is that it underestimates just how much luck there is in life - birth, parents, environment, etc. - so we need to give not just support at the bottom but a chance to recover from bad turnings. (America in some ways does that bit better than we do.)
And yes, I've known several people whose outlook on life was utterly transformed by a year in Africa. One elderly woman who I know is famously equable - she says that after seeing Malawi 40 years ago she decided to never grumble again, and just quietly try to help.
Awaiting news regarding a special forces raid well inside Syria last night, in a North East region where ISIS have a firm grip. Nothing has really come out yet but it wasn't to have a sniff around. This is perhaps the highest tempo of actual assault penetration ops seen yet, a massive 2 in a couple of weeks.....
The US always has decent comms & distance intelligence, are they finding ways to get Mark 1 eyeball intelligence as well?
Q: Do you want to be a narrow little nationalist like the SNP and whinge and blame somebody else for all your ills and become an economic basket case by leaving the EU?
The prime minister has delayed the introduction of a British Bill of Rights, which will not be in the first wave of bills introduced into the Commons after the Queen’s Speech today.
The bill, which seeks to limit abuse of human rights laws, has faced a backlash from Conservative backbenchers and the judiciary......
However, despite detailed legislation drawn up by Conservative lawyers during the last parliament, a government source said it was now more important to get the bill “right, rather than quickly”, adding that it would be “odd if we did not consult widely”.
This could mean that a full bill is not introduced into the Commons in the first year of this parliament, putting it on a slower timetable than more urgent legislation, such as the EU referendum bill, which will be among the first to be debated by MPs.
I cannot believe what you posted was honest and truthful, given you said you never posted anything you knew to be untrue... If it was indeed entirely truthful.. Broxtowe Labour Party should never have selected you.
Just how desperate are you?
While I don't think negotiations will go well at all, it doesn't seem implausible that scrapping the HRA was going to be a bauble dropped in coalition negotiations - given the Tories singularly failed to convince on why it was so necessary to do so, vs the aggravation that would certainly be thrown at them for it, fair or not, and the certainty of at least a few rebels on the issue, it did seem more trouble than it was worth.
Anyone know how to fix NI (or how it can fix itself)? I cannot be the only one so thoroughly defeated by how factional the rhetoric always seems to be, despite a veneer of working togetherness (and knowing how much directly worse things used to be).
I've half written one of the Sunday thread's on how OUT can win the referendum.
it's a tricky balance. While the self-helpers down-play luck, the bleeding hearts tend to downplay motivational factors, and bizarrely to discount the extra value to society resulting from the self-esteem employment brings to citizens (and the obverse of that same coin, the destructive effect welfare can have on self-esteem and hence society). How to make sure no-one falls through the safety net without undermining them in the process? I don't have a clean cut answer to that one.
Anyone know how to fix NI (or how it can fix itself)? I cannot be the only one so thoroughly defeated by how factional the rhetoric always seems to be, despite a veneer of working togetherness (and knowing how much directly worse things used to be).
Easy, stop having a political structure where everyone is rewarded and everything is based on sectarian blocs. You cant stop people voting for their blocs but you sure as hell can ensure your political structures don't effectively entrench it.
http://viewnh.typepad.com/.a/6a01157055b657970b0133f068e232970b-320wi
Nick will come back dressed all in black with a beard, speaking Pennsylvania Dutch, and with an oil lamp for those long winter evenings of board games
I wonder if he knows that a couple of town names there include Bird in Hand, and the inimitable Intercourse.
I used to live in southern NJ near Philly, so knew Lancaster county quite well.
I'm sceptical of that Times front page. Sounds like a classic government decoy manoeuvre - get Nige to march his troops to the top of the hill only to march them down again when honest Dave sticks to his promise.
NI is not a good standard bearer for devolution, power without responsibility. Voting by sectarian block is not particularly good, but it's a lot better than killing by them. The Arabs will probably work that out eventually.
Also. David Ford said SF and SDLP need to prove that they can be responsible on budget matters in hard times. I don't see that happening any time soon, either.
Also. David Ford said SF and SDLP need to prove that they can be responsible on budget matters in hard times. I don't see that happening any time soon, either.
The base system needs breaking, one way or another.
I await the day politicians have the balls to try to change the system there again.
And I wanted UKIP to do well at the GE, the more MPs the better (except in purely financial terms, as I had a bet they would get less than 5MPs, but that was expectation not desire).
@MrHarryCole: Mary Creagh. Cooked.
@BBCNewsnight: That interview with Labour leadership candidate Mary Creagh up on Youtube here: http://t.co/cSp6qxEUno
Why should they? It suits them fine.
...questioned whether globalisation was really achieving more "pluralistic" societies...A Muslim is first and foremost identified as a Muslim, rather than simply a human being.
"Whether they are Pakistani, Malaysian, Senegalese, or even British born, their multiple identities are levelled under a constructed monolith of Islam,"
... it was a failure of "our collective responsibility" not to admit that the violence of groups such as the so-called Islamic State were the result of our own modern era.
"Isis is as modern as Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. They are all products of our age."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32887820
I await, but do not anticipate it I should have said, for just that reason.
But it’s not always their fault. We force politicians to lie. We insist they tell us that things can only get better, and that we can spend more and more on public services while we all pay less and less tax. If we want our politicians to be honest with us, then we will have to stop punishing them at the ballot box for being brave enough to tell us the truth.
While still clarifying in this specific case.
Sometimes it is entirely their own fault. After all, no one forced Alistair Carmichael to do what he did.
Whatever the specifics in this instance, the general hysteria about our political classes does get get overblown I fear, and I'm as guilty of that as anyone at times, as at the end of the day they act in the way they do because that's what works, if it didn't they would act in other ways. We get the politicians we deserve, by and large.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/politics-blog/11629927/Politicians-lie.-Get-over-it.html
3. Creagh may be great, and an endorsement will be by its very nature in part a fluff piece, but that reads like a lot of empty words between worthy points.
And I would know, it's my own default style.
.@NIOPressOffice "Reflect carefully" is diplomatic speak for "how do we get these tossers out of yet another hole of their own digging."
Good night all.
P.S What has Theresa Villiers done to deserve not being moved away from the Northern Ireland Office? Poor woman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCNG5UeKMZw
Going on to Las Vegas and San Franciso afterwards, so sonme bright lights too. Your concern for Broxtowe Labour Party is touching, old chap. I think it's you that needs to get over the election, not me (and considering you won your charity bet you're not being especially magnaminous). Your team won, enjoy it!
As for me, I've always done my best for the cause, but in most ways at a personal level my life is pretty good. Would you really wish it otherwise?
I have found the quotation I was looking for. I had thought that it was by Mao Zedong on the subject of imperialism, then I thought it was a reference to the Vietnam War. But it actually refers to World War 2.
"The German Army in fighting Russia will be like an elephant attacking an army of ants. The elephant will kill thousands, even millions of ants, but he will in the end be overcome by their numbers and be eaten to the bone."
from the diary of General Berndt von Kleist, 1941.
In finding the origin of the quotation I also thus remembered where I first heard it - not from a book or a website, but from the TV series "The World At War".
The feeling of having the time to do this stuff instead of knocking on doors or trying to solve people's problems is odd, but growing on me. I've got a work trip to China first, though.
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Blue+Ball,+PA/Paradise,+PA/@40.0615794,-76.1650315,12z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x89c66a84e3cc1793:0x643f08cf141e27c6!2m2!1d-76.0482087!2d40.1183438!1m5!1m1!1s0x89c6386a259fad6b:0x7eb079ccc0090ec3!2m2!1d-76.1285654!2d40.0098226!3e0
Its entertaining when 'protest' parties are finally confronted with the hard choices of governing.
Just ask the Lib Dems.
If you can find one.....
Bloody Hell, big cajones on the Swiss police and US FBI
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/11631966/Swiss-police-arrest-Fifa-executives-as-part-of-US-corruption-investigation.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/27/sports/soccer/fifa-officials-face-corruption-charges-in-us.html?_r=0
"Scotland's voice" really is a wailing, spoilt child.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/27/sports/soccer/fifa-officials-face-corruption-charges-in-us.html?_r=0
Good article, NYT obviously well briefed; looks like the new AG in the US is keen to make her mark.
It would be great to see Jack Warner and his ilk end up in prison, what level of corruption is needed to give the World Cup to Russia and then Qatar of all places?