Paddy is of course entitled to his view and has "form" on these matters. The response of some on here suggests they recognise the potential of organised tactical anti-Conservative voting in 2020 as the one thing that might bring the Tory house of cards crashing down.
We simply don't know where we will be in five months time let alone five years but it seems reasonable to assume those wishing to see the Conservatives out of office will be seeking to maximise that vote. The problem is of course the diversity of Opposition the Conservatives face but that didn't stop tactical voting in the past and it may just be there will be some people who don't regard the Conservative Government of 2015-20 as the emergent utopia some on here already seem to assume it will be.
The assumption the factors that aided the Conservatives in 2015 will still a) still exist and b) be of similar benefit in 2020 also needs to be tested.
"The Alliance must be formed soon. That does not mean an end to party politics meanwhil"e; policies must be formulated, proposals challenged, just as always. But alongside business as usual each party must have its own team, collaborating with the others’ teams, to get the Alliance standing by ready for action, and ready for surprise. We may not have four years."
So back to the old LDs - They're the men for the job, but they don't have the first clue what that might entail.
Presumably it's all gone wrong for Mr Lake anyway in that the Alliance that needed to be formed so quickly hasn't happened. No doubt all sorts of bad things are going on due to missing that deadline.
RIP - I got my first ABC book for my 5th birthday. "Diesel Locomotives, 1980".
I was never technically a trainspotter, so I don't think I got any of his loco books. But I have got a fair few other books produced by his company on other related topics.
I've met many people of a slightly older generation than myself whose lives he changed.
'I'm quite confident that I can 'rightly' talk about the LDs being a shower.'
I would put it more politely than that,completely irrelevant.
Paddy should be focused on trying to avoid a total wipe-out in 2020.
Why, oh why would they jump over the cliff though. Clegg and Alexander have provided a great example of what LD-ness is all about. We can conclude as we may about their wisdom and effectiveness, but they've sat in the driving seat and been proven capable.
Although he expresses it far more coarsely than I ever would, I broadly agree with Rod Liddle's thoughts on minute silences. It always ends up being semi-compulsory. And, far from being a demonstration of true public empathy, it ends up being artificial, self-indulgent, and hypocritical:
The deaths of our fellow nationals in Tunisia was both pointless and tragic. My heart goes out to the victims and their families. They are best remembered privately with appropriate funerals and memorials, covered in the newspapers and on national television for sure, and for those that wish to share in that grief the opportunity is there.
I will prefer to remember these victims as victims of war. I will commemorate them, along with the millions of others who died, on Remembrance Sunday on 11th November.
In the meantime, I would prefer Cameron to take real action with our security services and armed forces to secure us and our interests overseas, rather than make empty gestures like this.
Baffling stupidity from the LDs as pre-2010. The LDs worth listening to are those that were capable of being part of a coalition government. Ashdown wasn't man enough for that. "Lord Ashdown’s call for ‘progressive forces’ to collaborate before the next election does not go far enough, especially now there is talk about Labour never winning again. He rightly talks about Lib Dem collaboration with Labour and the Greens" I'm quite confident that I can 'rightly' talk about the LDs being a shower.
The author of that is a 'retired academic' who voted liberal in 1959. All of which marks him out as a typical and unreconstituted Liberal pillock who has learned nothing in the last 56 years. Once again all we get are demands for a coalition of opponents to to stand 'against' the tories but 'for' an electoral reform designed to perpetuate the LDs in coalition where they would alternately blame partners for everything unpalatable. As a commentator adroitly says, ''This just smells of desperation and a total lack of ideas. Why not just merge with Labour & or the Greens ?''
@JGForsyth: UK-wide minute of silence at noon Friday in memory of those killed in Tunisia, Cameron announces
I agree in principle, but in fairness, I'm sure a lot of people in many many other parts of the globe also died in horrible circumstances on the same day and we didn't see it on the news. It's fitting to consider these tragedies together, certainly, but we could so easily just have a moment of silence practically every day for victims somewhere.
I understand. One could be standing in silence forever. Too many victims. Too much evil. And I see why we focus on the be thinking of those grieving families as well.
I agree with you. I also think it is consistent with why Cameron is doing this. He wants to be clear that we are united and determined to address this threat and to get both the threat and the response up the news agenda. Putting our own losses in the context of other losses on that day is completely consistent with that.
I share your frustration at the West's reluctance to stand up and fight for its values. We have paid a terrible price for Blair's lies about Iraq. A terrible price.
We have paid a price for not paying proper attention when the Ayatollahs seized power in Iran in 1979, when we saw book burning on the streets of some of our Northern cities a few years later, for not listening to Ray Honeyford when he warned of segregated communities, for treating Abu Hamza at the Finsbury Park mosque as a bit of a joke. All these were signs to which we should have listened. But we preferred to ignore or believe what we hoped was true and point fingers at those who raised legitimate concerns and shout abuse and then - much later - came 9/11 and Iraq and the rest of it. But the seeds of Islamic extremism - both in the Middle East and within Muslim communities in the West - were sown earlier.
There is a lot of work to be done to unpick the wrong choices made earlier. Hard and difficult as it may be, we have to do it.
BTW I will scream if I hear another British politician talk about "tolerance" as a British virtue. Tolerance as in "live and let live": yes. Tolerance as in tolerating crime and barbarity: no. This is not a virtue. It is cowardice. It has never been a British virtue. Rather we stood up to those - like the book burners and cartoon killers - who tried to bully us. Standing up to bullies is a British virtue I'd like to see resurrected.
I can't believe Juncker has used the language he has today. Totally counterproductive IMO. Telling Greeks that leaving the Euro would be "suicide" for example.
I can't believe Juncker has used the language he has today. Totally counterproductive IMO. Telling Greeks that leaving the Euro would be "suicide" for example.
At least nobody can claim that they thought NO meant a better deal and another referendum.
I can't believe Juncker has used the language he has today. Totally counterproductive IMO. Telling Greeks that leaving the Euro would be "suicide" for example.
"Of the various eurozone leaders to react to the referendum call — Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi also joined the chorus on Twitter, saying it was not a choice of “euro vs drachma” — it was Mr Juncker who made the most impassioned and personal plea.
Officials said the choice was a conscious one, based on internal polling that showed Mr Juncker remains one of the most popular EU politicians inside Greece. He is credited for having fought on the country’s behalf — frequently against Wolfgang Schäuble, the hardline German finance minister — when he chaired the eurozone finance ministers’ committee in the early phases of the crisis."
Paddy is of course entitled to his view and has "form" on these matters. The response of some on here suggests they recognise the potential of organised tactical anti-Conservative voting in 2020 as the one thing that might bring the Tory house of cards crashing down.
We simply don't know where we will be in five months time let alone five years but it seems reasonable to assume those wishing to see the Conservatives out of office will be seeking to maximise that vote. The problem is of course the diversity of Opposition the Conservatives face but that didn't stop tactical voting in the past and it may just be there will be some people who don't regard the Conservative Government of 2015-20 as the emergent utopia some on here already seem to assume it will be.
The assumption the factors that aided the Conservatives in 2015 will still a) still exist and b) be of similar benefit in 2020 also needs to be tested.
Generally a mass outbreak of PB Tory allergy indicates a good idea for someone else to implement
Hmm, sounds nuts imho. Paddy has obviously forgotten how the LDs were shafted by Labour the last time they ‘collaborated’ together. - Perhaps he should be reminded of Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
No, well Paddy may be nuts but he is not nuts enough for Mr Lake. its Mr Lake who is calling for this 'mayday' alliance. Leaving aside May Day having a strong socialist and very little 'liberal' connotation, it is the electorate who have regularly rejected the lefty dominated 'progressiveness' that he bangs on about. The electorate massively rejected his party, massively rejected the labour party as well, but he thinks there is a clamour for them to be joined together. If he was an academic it was not one in mathematics. Labour and LD votes together amounted to 38% compared with the tories' 37. This as a definition of 2:1 that is new to me.
I realise I may be in a minority but Cameron's statement on Tunisia could have been Blair's after 7/7 - it's easy for a Prime Minister at a time like this. No criticism, no Opposition and no real questions asked.
A decade on from my very minor brush with terror and we seem to have advanced not a step. Successive Governments have wallowed in ever-tighter security, the remorseless erosion of civil liberties and the sacrifice of privacy on the altar of some notion called security and yet we are still here.
Are there any solutions ? All I have are two thoughts - one puts NATO forces into Libyan ports to try and control the flow of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and especially from the brutality of Eritrea and the second is that the only real solution to extremism is capitalism - the old adage is if people are too busy making money they've no time to make trouble. There is absurd wealth in the Arab world (Saudi, Kuwait, Qatar etc) yet none of it seems to find its way to Gaza, Syria, Libya or anywhere else it could be used to rebuild, restore and re-educate.
The only answer I have isn't force - it's investment, investment in people and places, the kind of investment that was supposed to go into Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya after their "liberation" from evil, the kind that provides adequate food, housing, education and jobs, the kind that we take for granted in the West.
It ain't cheap and it ain't easy but the alternatives are continuing migration and the accompanying terror until one day we are patrolling the Mediterranean with warships and forcible turning back any migrant ship trying to reach Gozo, Malta or Lampedusa.
@JGForsyth: UK-wide minute of silence at noon Friday in memory of those killed in Tunisia, Cameron announces
I agree in principle, but in fairness, I'm sure a lot of people in many many other parts of the globe also died in horrible circumstances on the same day and we didn't see it on the news. It's fitting to consider these tragedies together, certainly, but we could so easily just have a moment of silence practically every day for victims somewhere.
I understand. One could be standing in silence forever. Too many victims. Too much evil. And I see why we focus on the UK citizens murdered. But I was
I agree with you. I also think it is consistent with why Cameron is doing this. He wants to be clear that we are united and determined to address this threat and to get both the threat and the response up the news agenda. Putting our own losses in the context of other losses on that day is completely consistent with that.
I share your frustration at the West's reluctance to stand up and fight for its values. We have paid a terrible price for Blair's lies about Iraq. A terrible price.
We have paid a price for not paying proper attention when the Ayatollahs seized power in Iran in 1979, when we saw book burning on the streets of some of our Northern cities a few years later, for not listening to Ray Honeyford when he warned of segregated communities, for treating Abu Hamza at the Finsbury Park mosque as a bit of a joke. All these were signs to which we should have listened. But we preferred to ignore or believe what we hoped was true and point fingers at those who raised legitimate concerns and shout abuse and then - much later - came 9/11 and Iraq and the rest of it. But the seeds of Islamic extremism - both in the Middle East and within Muslim communities in the West - were sown earlier.
There is a lot of work to be done to unpick the wrong choices made earlier. Hard and difficult as it may be, we have to do it.
BTW I will scream if I hear another British politician talk about "tolerance" as a British virtue. Tolerance as in "live and let live": yes. Tolerance as in tolerating crime and barbarity: no. This is not a virtue. It is cowardice. It has never been a British virtue. Rather we stood up to those - like the book burners and cartoon killers - who tried to bully us. Standing up to bullies is a British virtue I'd like to see resurrected.
The overthrow of the Shah was an unmitigated disaster. Then we did the same with Saddam. Middle Eastern countries can only be ruled by brutes. Better to have a rational brute than loons.
@JGForsyth: UK-wide minute of silence at noon Friday in memory of those killed in Tunisia
I agree with you. I also think it is consistent with why Cameron is doing this. He wants to be clear that we are united and determined to address this threat and to get both the threat and the response up the news agenda. Putting our own losses in the context of other losses on that day is completely consistent with that.
I share your frustration at the West's reluctance to stand up and fight for its values. We have paid a terrible price for Blair's lies about Iraq. A terrible price.
We have paid a price for not paying proper attention when the Ayatollahs seized power in Iran in 1979, when we saw book burning on the streets of some of our Northern cities a few years later, for not listening to Ray Honeyford when he warned of segregated communities, for treating Abu Hamza at the Finsbury Park mosque as a bit of a joke. All these were signs to which we should have listened. But we preferred to ignore or believe what we hoped was true and point fingers at those who raised legitimate concerns and shout abuse and then - much later - came 9/11 and Iraq and the rest of it. But the seeds of Islamic extremism - both in the Middle East and within Muslim communities in the West - were sown earlier.
There is a lot of work to be done to unpick the wrong choices made earlier. Hard and difficult as it may be, we have to do it.
BTW I will scream if I hear another British politician talk about "tolerance" as a British virtue. Tolerance as in "live and let live": yes. Tolerance as in tolerating crime and barbarity: no. This is not a virtue. It is cowardice. It has never been a British virtue. Rather we stood up to those - like the book burners and cartoon killers - who tried to bully us. Standing up to bullies is a British virtue I'd like to see resurrected.
I realise I may be in a minority but Cameron's statement on Tunisia could have been Blair's after 7/7 - it's easy for a Prime Minister at a time like this. No criticism, no Opposition and no real questions asked.
A decade on from my very minor brush with terror and we seem to have advanced not a step. Successive Governments have wallowed in ever-tighter security, the remorseless erosion of civil liberties and the sacrifice of privacy on the altar of some notion called security and yet we are still here.
Are there any solutions ? All I have are two thoughts - one puts NATO forces into Libyan ports to try and control the flow of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and especially from the brutality of Eritrea and the second is that the only real solution to extremism is capitalism - the old adage is if people are too busy making money they've no time to make trouble. There is absurd wealth in the Arab world (Saudi, Kuwait, Qatar etc) yet none of it seems to find its way to Gaza, Syria, Libya or anywhere else it could be used to rebuild, restore and re-educate.
The only answer I have isn't force - it's investment, investment in people and places, the kind of investment that was supposed to go into Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya after their "liberation" from evil, the kind that provides adequate food, housing, education and jobs, the kind that we take for granted in the West.
It ain't cheap and it ain't easy but the alternatives are continuing migration and the accompanying terror until one day we are patrolling the Mediterranean with warships and forcible turning back any migrant ship trying to reach Gozo, Malta or Lampedusa.
Cameron is I think just making space though. Perhaps Blair was too. What I'm sure he wants to say, and what he can't say, is that Islam is the problem. He won't say that because its dynamite politically, but mainly because there's no solution.
I can't believe Juncker has used the language he has today. Totally counterproductive IMO. Telling Greeks that leaving the Euro would be "suicide" for example.
At least nobody can claim that they thought NO meant a better deal and another referendum.
They actually can be that stupid.
"Athens resident Ilia Iatrou says...The EU can't afford to let us fail so we should continue to say no and they will blink and give us a better deal."
All I have are two thoughts - one puts NATO forces into Libyan ports and the second is that the only real solution to extremism is capitalism - the old adage is if people are too busy making money they've no time to make trouble. There is absurd wealth in the Arab world (Saudi, Kuwait, Qatar etc) yet none of it seems to find its way to Gaza, Syria, Libya or anywhere else it could be used to rebuild, restore and re-educate.
The only answer I have isn't force - it's investment, investment in people and places, the kind of investment that was supposed to go into Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya after their "liberation" from evil, the kind that provides adequate food, housing, education and jobs, the kind that we take for granted in the West.
Of the countries you list, one of the wealthiest is Saudi Arabia. And it is notable for how many of those who perpetrate atrocities come from there, including - for instance - the suicide bomber who blew himself up in Kuwait a few days ago. It is also notable as being the country which has funded many of the madrassahs and other institutions which perpetuate the ideology behind IS, Al Qaeda and the rest. And there have been even more serious allegations made against some of its wealthiest citizens.
Many of the terrorists, far from being poor and hopeless, are well educated and wealthy and, apparently, integrated into a Western lifestyle.
While it is a good thing to make poor countries richer, if the effect of, say, an education system funded by the Saudis is to create people who despise the West, think that there should be no freedom of religion and that women are third class citizens, then spreading the wealth will do no good at all. What's more people want - and need - something more than money. It is necessary for a worthwhile life. It is not sufficient. There is more to life than getting and spending. Islam provides a belief system. It is a failing in Western analyses which see everything through economics and only that to fail to understand that people can have other drivers and motivations. Western analysis often forgets its own bloody religious history, indeed its own religion and tends, therefore, to underestimate or misunderstand completely the mindset of people who have a culture where religion is not some add-on but is central to everyday life.
Rather than encourage Saudi Arabia to spread its ideology I would be doing quite the opposite. I do not regard it as an ally in any meaningful sense. Its values are wholly antithetical to Western values and its role in spreading Wahabi-Islam has been utterly malign. To give a small example: IS has said that it wants to destroy all evidence of any cultures or civilizations other than Islam in the areas it controls. The chief Saudi cleric takes exactly the same view. One may do it with violence and the other only say it. But in essence they want the same thing.
I can't believe Juncker has used the language he has today. Totally counterproductive IMO. Telling Greeks that leaving the Euro would be "suicide" for example.
At least nobody can claim that they thought NO meant a better deal and another referendum.
They actually can be that stupid.
"Athens resident Ilia Iatrou says...The EU can't afford to let us fail so we should continue to say no and they will blink and give us a better deal."
Comments
'I'm quite confident that I can 'rightly' talk about the LDs being a shower.'
I would put it more politely than that,completely irrelevant.
Paddy should be focused on trying to avoid a total wipe-out in 2020.
Well if Paddy and Roger Lake are of one mind then
"The Alliance must be formed soon. That does not mean an end to party politics meanwhil"e; policies must be formulated, proposals challenged, just as always. But alongside business as usual each party must have its own team, collaborating with the others’ teams, to get the Alliance standing by ready for action, and ready for surprise. We may not have four years."
So back to the old LDs - They're the men for the job, but they don't have the first clue what that might entail.
Presumably it's all gone wrong for Mr Lake anyway in that the Alliance that needed to be formed so quickly hasn't happened. No doubt all sorts of bad things are going on due to missing that deadline.
I've met many people of a slightly older generation than myself whose lives he changed.
http://order-order.com/2015/06/29/ukip-homeless/
http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/rod-liddle/7792578/since-when-has-grief-meant-threats-and-vituperation/
The deaths of our fellow nationals in Tunisia was both pointless and tragic. My heart goes out to the victims and their families. They are best remembered privately with appropriate funerals and memorials, covered in the newspapers and on national television for sure, and for those that wish to share in that grief the opportunity is there.
I will prefer to remember these victims as victims of war. I will commemorate them, along with the millions of others who died, on Remembrance Sunday on 11th November.
In the meantime, I would prefer Cameron to take real action with our security services and armed forces to secure us and our interests overseas, rather than make empty gestures like this.
As a commentator adroitly says, ''This just smells of desperation and a total lack of ideas. Why not just merge with Labour & or the Greens ?''
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/995edce2-1e7a-11e5-ab0f-6bb9974f25d0.html?ftcamp=published_links/rss/brussels/feed//product#axzz3eSyrOdyD
Key point:
"Of the various eurozone leaders to react to the referendum call — Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi also joined the chorus on Twitter, saying it was not a choice of “euro vs drachma” — it was Mr Juncker who made the most impassioned and personal plea.
Officials said the choice was a conscious one, based on internal polling that showed Mr Juncker remains one of the most popular EU politicians inside Greece. He is credited for having fought on the country’s behalf — frequently against Wolfgang Schäuble, the hardline German finance minister — when he chaired the eurozone finance ministers’ committee in the early phases of the crisis."
If he was an academic it was not one in mathematics. Labour and LD votes together amounted to 38% compared with the tories' 37. This as a definition of 2:1 that is new to me.
A decade on from my very minor brush with terror and we seem to have advanced not a step. Successive Governments have wallowed in ever-tighter security, the remorseless erosion of civil liberties and the sacrifice of privacy on the altar of some notion called security and yet we are still here.
Are there any solutions ? All I have are two thoughts - one puts NATO forces into Libyan ports to try and control the flow of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and especially from the brutality of Eritrea and the second is that the only real solution to extremism is capitalism - the old adage is if people are too busy making money they've no time to make trouble. There is absurd wealth in the Arab world (Saudi, Kuwait, Qatar etc) yet none of it seems to find its way to Gaza, Syria, Libya or anywhere else it could be used to rebuild, restore and re-educate.
The only answer I have isn't force - it's investment, investment in people and places, the kind of investment that was supposed to go into Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya after their "liberation" from evil, the kind that provides adequate food, housing, education and jobs, the kind that we take for granted in the West.
It ain't cheap and it ain't easy but the alternatives are continuing migration and the accompanying terror until one day we are patrolling the Mediterranean with warships and forcible turning back any migrant ship trying to reach Gozo, Malta or Lampedusa.
"Athens resident Ilia Iatrou says...The EU can't afford to let us fail so we should continue to say no and they will blink and give us a better deal."
(see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33319917 )
Many of the terrorists, far from being poor and hopeless, are well educated and wealthy and, apparently, integrated into a Western lifestyle.
While it is a good thing to make poor countries richer, if the effect of, say, an education system funded by the Saudis is to create people who despise the West, think that there should be no freedom of religion and that women are third class citizens, then spreading the wealth will do no good at all. What's more people want - and need - something more than money. It is necessary for a worthwhile life. It is not sufficient. There is more to life than getting and spending. Islam provides a belief system. It is a failing in Western analyses which see everything through economics and only that to fail to understand that people can have other drivers and motivations. Western analysis often forgets its own bloody religious history, indeed its own religion and tends, therefore, to underestimate or misunderstand completely the mindset of people who have a culture where religion is not some add-on but is central to everyday life.
Rather than encourage Saudi Arabia to spread its ideology I would be doing quite the opposite. I do not regard it as an ally in any meaningful sense. Its values are wholly antithetical to Western values and its role in spreading Wahabi-Islam has been utterly malign. To give a small example: IS has said that it wants to destroy all evidence of any cultures or civilizations other than Islam in the areas it controls. The chief Saudi cleric takes exactly the same view. One may do it with violence and the other only say it. But in essence they want the same thing.
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