It might, as you say, resonate with party members. What it will also do is reinforce the hostility the general public have for the LibDems and further hasten their demise as a political force.
Glencoe is beautiful bur overrated. If you want the best of Scotland, some places further up the west coast give the best scenery, best beaches and the hungriest midges.
(And that is saying something, given the number of bites campers at the Kingshouse in Glencoe get).
I might be getting a little off from the little 'un soon, and when I do I intend to go to the very northwest of Scotland. A fantastic place.
Edit: I'd also put in honourable mentions to Dumfies & Galloway, and the superb fishing villages along the north coast of Aberdeenshire. There is so much more to Scotland than mountains and lochs.
Sandwood Bay, just to the south of Cape Wrath, was Wainwright's favourite place in Britain, even over his love of the Lakes.
I went there at dusk in early July many years ago. Which was not far off midnight. It has a sea-stack off to the left, a broad sandy beach with dunes behind it, then a sheltered loch before the moors give way to the peaks of Sutherland.
The sun barely bounced along the horizon. It was a truly magical place in which to be alone. Or so I thought, until fireworks started and the skirl of the pipes filled the darkened sky. I subsequently found two guys sat in the dunes, one of whom had hiked there with his bagpipes, the other with a rucksack full of rockets..... Not to be missed. (Another of the reasons I think the west coast of Scotland is the finest place on Earth....and I have seen more of Earth than most, so better placed to judge!)
I feel the BBC are so behind the curve here. Charging for iPlayer is going to be like the leftovers no other network/Netflix et al want to buy the rights to by then.
And charging for iPlayer will I presume be linked to a TV licence in another form like giving the blind £5 off theirs. Which is the most insulting discount I've ever come across.
OT - The Times is reporting that the BBC is to be made to pay for free TV licences for over 75's. Saving £650 million. But for problem for Generation Internet is it will be allowed to charge for iPlayer. This has got to be good news since 'video recorders still exist (if you can programme them) and in any event there is nothing worth watching on the BBC anyway.
This seems an easy thing to fix initially. Just allow licence fee payers free access after they register. Then the internet people and worldwide folk can pay an access fee or subscription. (Like Nowtv and Netflix). Could even raise more money than the current arrangements.
Depending on the charge for iPlayer, I think the worry might be that fewer people bother with the licence fee, if the iPlayer fee includes live broadcasting. Perhaps it wouldn't, there might be a shift anyway.
If they go international it could be the making of the BBC.
I've made fun of the concept of the 'Anglosphere' on here before but in one sense it's true: There is a massive untapped global English-speaking media market and we should do more to become a dominant player.
Attendance at Silverstone given as 140,000 sellout. Is that the record crowd for any event in the UK this year?
didn't the stop the cuts campaign claim 250,000 at Charlotte Church's march?
Even with difficulty sometimes estimating the size of a crowd, I never really understand how those trying to impress settle on how ludicrous a number to claim, to decide what sounds good enough for their purposes. Why not just claim 500k?
@Peston 17m17 minutes ago Everyone I chat with in Athens thinks Greece will vote "no" today. Not scientific. Momentous if true #greecereferendum #Greece
Well, if it is no and, somehow, Syrizia's confused histrionics and insistence the other side would give in in that event proves true, it will have been one hell of a bluff from them.
Athens will vote No, but the conservative countryside won't. How the overall balance works out, who knows?
On topic, I think that Farron's stance will help him in the leadership election, though it'll be problematic when he's won, because of the questions of details that arise. There is I think a genuine majority in favour of Britain helping "genuine" refugees (though some finesse the issue by saying vaguely that there are too many fake refugees so we can't risk it). Enoch Powell was amiong those favouring the Ugandan Asian influx, mainly because we promised and our promise should be our bond. There's also a majority for taking in people who are genuinely expert at system we lack. It's good that someone prominent is putting the positive side of the argument.
Underlying all this is the fact that I remember pointing out 20 years ago when I first got into serious elective politics. We can't globalise the world economy without recognising that it imposes impossible strains to have people in Asia earning 5% of what people in the West do for much the same job. I didn't mean "shouldn't", I mean "can't". Either the jobs emigrate to the people, or the people emigrate to the jobs, or the gap narrows by fast wage growth in Asia and near-zero growth for low-skilled work in the West, all of which have happened.. All we can do is manage the flows.
Nick, the problem is that we have not yet felt the worst of 'impossible strains' as it would appear you did not factor in educational excellence and aspiration in Asia against UK/Europe educational decline and lack of aspiration. Also UK/Europe has large demotivating benefits in general for the unemployed, whilst such things are much more scarce in Asia.
Seemingly there is not much enthusiasm for people "to emirate to jobs" in the UK and to devour the low-skilled low pay jobs but they leave them for the immigrants to do, and just stay at home.
I think the welfare reforms and rapidly rising GDP per capitas in the likes of China will close the gap. China has also begun to introduce the basis of a welfare state, it now has a minimum income which includes the unemployed
Ahead of making his unsuccessful bid in a Commons debate last week to win Government aid for a doomed coalmine in his Doncaster constituency, Ed Miliband had a private meeting with Anna Soubry, the no-nonsense Tory Business Minister.
It did not go well. Sources whisper that Soubry, not exactly known for suffering fools gladly, emerged to say afterwards: ‘It was pitiful – like being lectured by a sixth-former on work experience. How did he ever get to be Opposition Leader?’ Ouch."
It's particularly funny as few people did more to harm the use of coal in this country than Miliband when he was at DECC. His decision that any new coal-fired power station had to use carbon capture - a technology almost totally untried at that scale - helped to destroy an industry. The Large Combustion Plant Directive did not help much either.
A fair point about Ed's muddled thinking and one he should be beaten with. I just do not like the tone of mockery from the (victor) Soubry.
Yes, quite a few move in and out of it. My grandfather was in it I think, I doubt I ever will be
It was quite low a few years ago. Now it seems that the top 1% have dramatically pulled away from the rest. For London based salaries, the top 5% level is unexceptional.
He was chairman of the Alliance and Leicester in the 80s, I work in archives and records management, which probably explains more of the difference. Inflation also has an effect. Although the fact London is now a global city and a rival to New York in a way it was not a few decades ago probably has had an impact too as you suggest
@Peston 17m17 minutes ago Everyone I chat with in Athens thinks Greece will vote "no" today. Not scientific. Momentous if true #greecereferendum #Greece
Oxipalyptic.
You know that they have an Oxi Day in Greece (October 28) to mark the day that they refused entry to the German tanks in 1940.
Perhaps "Oxi" has a resonance to voters that "No" doesn't...
The Oxi day (Oct 28th) was a refusal of Greece to allow Italian troops into Greece, not German. It led to the ill fated invasion of Greece by Italian forces in Albania.
These were defeated and thrown back in confusion. The shambolic defeat of the Italians led to the Spring 1941 invasion by the Germans through Yugoslavia. This was unwanted by Hitler and put back the invasion of the Soviet Union by six weeks, quite possible a critical delay.
You're right - the article I saw referred to Axis forces, and I interpreted that as Germans
That reminds me of the possibly apocryphal quote from a French general during WW1.
"If the Italians come in on our side, they'll get into trouble and we'll have to send ten divisions to save them. If they attack us, we'll have to send ten divisions to hold them off. Either way, ten divisions."
This made me smile: "Ed gets another caning Ahead of making his unsuccessful bid in a Commons debate last week to win Government aid for a doomed coalmine in his Doncaster constituency, Ed Miliband had a private meeting with Anna Soubry, the no-nonsense Tory Business Minister. It did not go well. Sources whisper that Soubry, not exactly known for suffering fools gladly, emerged to say afterwards: ‘It was pitiful – like being lectured by a sixth-former on work experience. How did he ever get to be Opposition Leader?’ Ouch." http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3149795/
Poor form by Soubry. Lady has no class.
In fairness to Soubry if what he said in person was as stupid as what he's saying in this tweet then she was doing well to be as polite about it as she was.
Funny! Was tempted on the last thread to pedant (nice verb) MBE for saying "these private colleges actually let in a serious amount of students into the London market". The better private colleges may teach the difference between "number" and "amount"...
Less and fewer ... Bugs me when people get that wrong.
Funny! Was tempted on the last thread to pedant (nice verb) MBE for saying "these private colleges actually let in a serious amount of students into the London market". The better private colleges may teach the difference between "number" and "amount"...
Unless he was making a sly point about the tonnage of pupils, rather than admitted on ability?
It was indeed intentional - I want trying to be as sly or cynical as you (and Charles) suggest but I was indeed trying to capture some of that sense of quantity that "number" doesn't reach.
Besides, I think all serious takes on grammar should be descriptive not prescriptive. Or at least that prescriptivism should be informed by history and usage. People have been using "amount" as a noun for 300 years, using it with countable nouns for 200 years but the countable/uncountable pedantry has only been around for about a century, so I don't pay much heed to it. Interesting blog: https://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/the-amount-of-complaints-are-substantial-but-off-the-mark/
But don't worry Nick, I love a bit of pedantry. And often stoop to it myself!
Funny! Was tempted on the last thread to pedant (nice verb) MBE for saying "these private colleges actually let in a serious amount of students into the London market". The better private colleges may teach the difference between "number" and "amount"...
Less and fewer ... Bugs me when people get that wrong.
I've got my seven year old daughter correcting her teacher on that one :-)
Attendance at Silverstone given as 140,000 sellout. Is that the record crowd for any event in the UK this year?
didn't the stop the cuts campaign claim 250,000 at Charlotte Church's march?
Even with difficulty sometimes estimating the size of a crowd, I never really understand how those trying to impress settle on how ludicrous a number to claim, to decide what sounds good enough for their purposes. Why not just claim 500k?
I thought every single person in the UK was at that march!
Clearly there are a bunch of rightwingers/UKIP tendency on this site who believe immigrants are all either criminals, scroungers or a drain on society. Sir Nicholas Winton died this week. If he had tried to bring in 669 children these days, you would have all been lined up with the rightwing press, demanding they be refused entry. And then there are the Ugandan Asians. And the whites who fled Rhodesia. Ashamed of the callousness, selfishness and inhumanity exhibited by a large number of people who seem to lack the ability to think "there but for the grace of God go I".
'All immigrants good! All people negatively affected by immigration who dare mention it racist!'
Repeat until feeling of smugness and moral virtue reaches 100%
Well said.
Extremist like Tim Fallon should be ridiculed with statements like this,these people haven't a clue about the housing shortage or what the majority in this country want is a cut in immigration.
I'm beginning to think these out of touch politicians like Fallon really think we have the land mass of the USA ,Canada or Australia,they don't think you take in Sixty thousand people and the word gets round the world just get to Europe and Britain will take you in eventually,then a couple of years later another sixty thousand waiting in Italy to be taken in.
Funny! Was tempted on the last thread to pedant (nice verb) MBE for saying "these private colleges actually let in a serious amount of students into the London market". The better private colleges may teach the difference between "number" and "amount"...
Less and fewer ... Bugs me when people get that wrong.
I do it deliberately as it seems one of the pointless distinctions (not totally, but I've rarely seen it further understanding when its used 'properly', and if people have always to some degree done it 'wrong' what's the point?), and we have enough arbitrary rules without adding to them. Plus pedants get really mad about it, so I boldly go on about it.
Farron needs to decide if he wants to take in women and children on purely humanitarian grounds, or if he means economic migrants who have no means of answering the questions I raise above.
He's talking about refugees. Men can be refugees as well though, not just women and children.
Of course, but the migrants at Calais aren't refugees. Farron has a problem, if he's trying to win over libs to win the leadership election he can say what he wants. If he's trying to win votes nationally for the libs he's misguided. Most people would happily take in vulnerable people from war zones, there is little appetite to take in the people in Calais who have paid smugglers, crossed Europe, destroyed their documents and are now storming the tunnel.
If I'm going to vote liberal I want him to clearly define who the 60,000 are.
I don't know why you'd assume none of the migrants at Calais are refugees. There will be a lot of different people there with all kinds of different circumstances.
However, based on the Guardian article Farron seems to be talking about people who have reported to, or been fished out of the water by, some EU government.
Closely related: the less than/fewer than debate. Countable "less" has been around since the Middle Ages or even Old English. The pedants started dissing on it in the late 18th century. But "less + countable noun" has continued in common usage even if it is looked down upon. I'm aware of the convention but have no problem breaking it. Might even appeal to my rebellious streak! https://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2008/09/30/10-items-or-less-is-just-fine/
Funny! Was tempted on the last thread to pedant (nice verb) MBE for saying "these private colleges actually let in a serious amount of students into the London market". The better private colleges may teach the difference between "number" and "amount"...
Less and fewer ... Bugs me when people get that wrong.
I do it deliberately as it seems one of the pointless distinctions (not totally, but I've rarely seen it further understanding when its used 'properly'), and we have enough arbitrary rules without adding to them. Plus pedants get really mad about it.
Farron needs to decide if he wants to take in women and children on purely humanitarian grounds, or if he means economic migrants who have no means of answering the questions I raise above.
He's talking about refugees. Men can be refugees as well though, not just women and children.
Of course, but the migrants at Calais aren't refugees. Farron has a problem, if he's trying to win over libs to win the leadership election he can say what he wants. If he's trying to win votes nationally for the libs he's misguided. Most people would happily take in vulnerable people from war zones, there is little appetite to take in the people in Calais who have paid smugglers, crossed Europe, destroyed their documents and are now storming the tunnel.
If I'm going to vote liberal I want him to clearly define who the 60,000 are.
I don't know why you'd assume none of the migrants at Calais are refugees. There will be a lot of different people there with all kinds of different circumstances.
However, based on the Guardian article Farron seems to be talking about people who have reported to, or been fished out of the water by, some EU government.
If they were genuine refugees then they should be claiming asylum in the first safe country they get to - not travelling across Europe to try and get into the UK.
My lowest ebb, being corrected wise, was not even grammer but enunciation, when my 4 year old nephew sternly told me off for not emphasising my T enough in 'water'.
Attendance at Silverstone given as 140,000 sellout. Is that the record crowd for any event in the UK this year?
didn't the stop the cuts campaign claim 250,000 at Charlotte Church's march?
Even with difficulty sometimes estimating the size of a crowd, I never really understand how those trying to impress settle on how ludicrous a number to claim, to decide what sounds good enough for their purposes. Why not just claim 500k?
I thought every single person in the UK was at that march!
They were there in spirit, even if for some reason on election days they vote for the wrong people.
The BBC deserves a budget cut as they are offering less than more. They have now lost most live sports and seem to be hopeless at procurement and doing more with less. Obviously they need help from HMG to declare that more national and international sports must have free-to-air broadcasting.
Also there appears to be a total lack of strategic and co-ordinating direction from the top and seem to allow the channel managers almost unlimited decision making.
Funny! Was tempted on the last thread to pedant (nice verb) MBE for saying "these private colleges actually let in a serious amount of students into the London market". The better private colleges may teach the difference between "number" and "amount"...
Less and fewer ... Bugs me when people get that wrong.
I've got my seven year old daughter correcting her teacher on that one :-)
My lowest ebb, being corrected wise, was not even grammer but enunciation, when my 4 year old nephew sternly told me off for not emphasising my T enough in 'water'.
Yes, quite a few move in and out of it. My grandfather was in it I think, I doubt I ever will be
Moving in and out is a good point. I would be in the top 2% for about a quarter of my adult life. It is a fairly fluid 2%.
Indeed, I would imagine most would be aged about 40-60 ie those at the peak of their careers
I was in the 1% in the late 90s/early naughties, then again for a couple of years this decade. Before,since and for the foreseeable future, abject penury .
My lowest ebb, being corrected wise, was not even grammar but enunciation, when my 4 year old nephew sternly told me off for not emphasising my T enough in 'water'.
How about reading lines aloud from a play in class at 12 years old, and the character you are reading has the direction 'makes noise of sexual approval' or some such? I don't even remember what the play was about now, but I hadn't been expecting it and wasn't sure what was an acceptable attempt in the circumstances.
According to the figures linked to by malcolmg below, £23 000 would be on about the 60th centile for after tax income in the UK. Can we really afford a more generous welfare system than that?
don't forget that the £23,000 should be compared to net income - on a gross basis it's the equivalent of a £29,000 salary
That's what they should do. Increase the amount to claimants. To 29k and then tax at the normal rates applicable immediately. Divide by 52 and then give them that amount weekly. At the same time they can point out to those actually working and earning the same or a lesser amount that part of their taxes go to financing many who could actually get a job if they could be arsed. This would increase support for reductions to those most in need free up cash to then increase payments to those really genuinely in need and even increase that support thus providing a true welfare safety net. You could use food coupons but that would just create a black market.
Finally any one on benefits that smokes or drinks white larger or owns a dog on a length of string loses all benefits. No one should be allowed to burn or piss up the wall anyone else's hard earned money if you are in such a situation. It would also improve their health at the same time.
Unless pollsters have mentioned that they are using a new methodology for Scottish indy polls I am mentally subtracting 3.5% from the Yes figure to get what it actually is given the eve of referendum polling back in September.
My lowest ebb, being corrected wise, was not even grammar but enunciation, when my 4 year old nephew sternly told me off for not emphasising my T enough in 'water'.
How about reading lines aloud from a play in class at 12 years old, and the character you are reading has the direction 'makes noise of sexual approval' or some such? I don't even remember what the play was about now, but I hadn't been expecting it and wasn't sure what was an acceptable attempt in the circumstances.
Funny! Was tempted on the last thread to pedant (nice verb) MBE for saying "these private colleges actually let in a serious amount of students into the London market". The better private colleges may teach the difference between "number" and "amount"...
Less and fewer ... Bugs me when people get that wrong.
I've got my seven year old daughter correcting her teacher on that one :-)
So what are your views on the Oxford Comma? :-)
Or putting two spaces after a period, not one? I have to scan a lot of reports in my day job, and I do sometimes delete that. For consistency's sake, of course. One person routinely had 3 spaces after a period, the barbarian.
My lowest ebb, being corrected wise, was not even grammar but enunciation, when my 4 year old nephew sternly told me off for not emphasising my T enough in 'water'.
How about reading lines aloud from a play in class at 12 years old, and the character you are reading has the direction 'makes noise of sexual approval' or some such? I don't even remember what the play was about now, but I hadn't been expecting it and wasn't sure what was an acceptable attempt in the circumstances.
You should be in line for some compensation for that experience.
Funny! Was tempted on the last thread to pedant (nice verb) MBE for saying "these private colleges actually let in a serious amount of students into the London market". The better private colleges may teach the difference between "number" and "amount"...
Less and fewer ... Bugs me when people get that wrong.
I've got my seven year old daughter correcting her teacher on that one :-)
Funny! Was tempted on the last thread to pedant (nice verb) MBE for saying "these private colleges actually let in a serious amount of students into the London market". The better private colleges may teach the difference between "number" and "amount"...
Less and fewer ... Bugs me when people get that wrong.
I've got my seven year old daughter correcting her teacher on that one :-)
Funny! Was tempted on the last thread to pedant (nice verb) MBE for saying "these private colleges actually let in a serious amount of students into the London market". The better private colleges may teach the difference between "number" and "amount"...
Less and fewer ... Bugs me when people get that wrong.
I've got my seven year old daughter correcting her teacher on that one :-)
Clearly there are a bunch of rightwingers/UKIP tendency on this site who believe immigrants are all either criminals, scroungers or a drain on society. Sir Nicholas Winton died this week. If he had tried to bring in 669 children these days, you would have all been lined up with the rightwing press, demanding they be refused entry. And then there are the Ugandan Asians. And the whites who fled Rhodesia. Ashamed of the callousness, selfishness and inhumanity exhibited by a large number of people who seem to lack the ability to think "there but for the grace of God go I".
'All immigrants good! All people negatively affected by immigration who dare mention it racist!'
Repeat until feeling of smugness and moral virtue reaches 100%
Well said.
Extremist like Tim Fallon should be ridiculed with statements like this,these people haven't a clue about the housing shortage or what the majority in this country want is a cut in immigration.
I'm beginning to think these out of touch politicians like Fallon really think we have the land mass of the USA ,Canada or Australia,they don't think you take in Sixty thousand people and the word gets round the world just get to Europe and Britain will take you in eventually,then a couple of years later another sixty thousand waiting in Italy to be taken in.
Farrons constituency is 99.2% White, lots of empty land in Cumbria as well, he should offer to resettle immigrants in his own constituency. Though more than likely, they will be resettled in areas where i live without any thoughts for the local community, or formal plans for integration and assimilation.
I was also in Italy recently for football, the vast majority, i would say over 75% of the immigrants knocking around Milano Centrale were 21-30 year old males, very few women and children.
My lowest ebb, being corrected wise, was not even grammer but enunciation, when my 4 year old nephew sternly told me off for not emphasising my T enough in 'water'.
My eldest Daughter is 23. She still cannot say the word "specifically"
''It still double what the average person would think reasonable to pay anyone working for a charity.''
Not sure that is true. This is a vote with your feet issue for me. Don't contribute to charities that pay people large sums.
Its also a transparency issue. Charities should be forced to publish who gets what (if they aren't already...??)
You think charities like Kidscape get their funds from tin rattling? They get it from public funds. That's what 'fundraising' is now, filling in grant application forms.
Clearly there are a bunch of rightwingers/UKIP tendency on this site who believe immigrants are all either criminals, scroungers or a drain on society. Sir Nicholas Winton died this week. If he had tried to bring in 669 children these days, you would have all been lined up with the rightwing press, demanding they be refused entry. And then there are the Ugandan Asians. And the whites who fled Rhodesia. Ashamed of the callousness, selfishness and inhumanity exhibited by a large number of people who seem to lack the ability to think "there but for the grace of God go I".
'All immigrants good! All people negatively affected by immigration who dare mention it racist!'
Repeat until feeling of smugness and moral virtue reaches 100%
Well said.
Extremist like Tim Fallon should be ridiculed with statements like this,these people haven't a clue about the housing shortage or what the majority in this country want is a cut in immigration.
I'm beginning to think these out of touch politicians like Fallon really think we have the land mass of the USA ,Canada or Australia,they don't think you take in Sixty thousand people and the word gets round the world just get to Europe and Britain will take you in eventually,then a couple of years later another sixty thousand waiting in Italy to be taken in.
Farrons constituency is 99.2% White, lots of empty land in Cumbria as well, he should offer to resettle immigrants in his own constituency. Though more than likely, they will be resettled in areas where i live without any thoughts for the local community, or formal plans for integration and assimilation.
I was also in Italy recently for football, the vast majority, i would say over 75% of the immigrants knocking around Milano Centrale were 21-30 year old males, very few women and children.
I think they simply get inured to large numbers. 60,000 people. Let's pretend that's 15,000 families. That's 15,000 homes needed. If you take the best recent figures, we're only completing around 120k homes per year.
It's estimated we need at least 240k new houses a year; more if you take into account the inability of successive governments to manage net migration.
As I have a degree in pointing out the bleedin' obvious, UK housing stock is a mess, and is showing zero signs of improving. Muppets like Farron may well feel good about expressing his point of view, but it just shows how innumerate he is.
Yes, quite a few move in and out of it. My grandfather was in it I think, I doubt I ever will be
Moving in and out is a good point. I would be in the top 2% for about a quarter of my adult life. It is a fairly fluid 2%.
Indeed, I would imagine most would be aged about 40-60 ie those at the peak of their careers
I was in the 1% in the late 90s/early naughties, then again for a couple of years this decade. Before,since and for the foreseeable future, abject penury .
Comments
I went there at dusk in early July many years ago. Which was not far off midnight. It has a sea-stack off to the left, a broad sandy beach with dunes behind it, then a sheltered loch before the moors give way to the peaks of Sutherland.
The sun barely bounced along the horizon. It was a truly magical place in which to be alone. Or so I thought, until fireworks started and the skirl of the pipes filled the darkened sky. I subsequently found two guys sat in the dunes, one of whom had hiked there with his bagpipes, the other with a rucksack full of rockets..... Not to be missed. (Another of the reasons I think the west coast of Scotland is the finest place on Earth....and I have seen more of Earth than most, so better placed to judge!)
I've made fun of the concept of the 'Anglosphere' on here before but in one sense it's true: There is a massive untapped global English-speaking media market and we should do more to become a dominant player.
"If the Italians come in on our side, they'll get into trouble and we'll have to send ten divisions to save them. If they attack us, we'll have to send ten divisions to hold them off. Either way, ten divisions."
I think Glastonbury festival was 120k. That's probably second to the GP.
On the money again!
https://twitter.com/Ed_Miliband/status/614062642924228608
Besides, I think all serious takes on grammar should be descriptive not prescriptive. Or at least that prescriptivism should be informed by history and usage. People have been using "amount" as a noun for 300 years, using it with countable nouns for 200 years but the countable/uncountable pedantry has only been around for about a century, so I don't pay much heed to it. Interesting blog: https://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/the-amount-of-complaints-are-substantial-but-off-the-mark/
But don't worry Nick, I love a bit of pedantry. And often stoop to it myself!
Extremist like Tim Fallon should be ridiculed with statements like this,these people haven't a clue about the housing shortage or what the majority in this country want is a cut in immigration.
I'm beginning to think these out of touch politicians like Fallon really think we have the land mass of the USA ,Canada or Australia,they don't think you take in Sixty thousand people and the word gets round the world just get to Europe and Britain will take you in eventually,then a couple of years later another sixty thousand waiting in Italy to be taken in.
However, based on the Guardian article Farron seems to be talking about people who have reported to, or been fished out of the water by, some EU government.
Also there appears to be a total lack of strategic and co-ordinating direction from the top and seem to allow the channel managers almost unlimited decision making.
The embarrassment still makes me wince as it was in front of our headteacher Mrs Winter. What a look of disappointment that got.
That's what they should do. Increase the amount to claimants. To 29k and then tax at the normal rates applicable immediately. Divide by 52 and then give them that amount weekly. At the same time they can point out to those actually working and earning the same or a lesser amount that part of their taxes go to financing many who could actually get a job if they could be arsed. This would increase support for reductions to those most in need free up cash to then increase payments to those really genuinely in need and even increase that support thus providing a true welfare safety net. You could use food coupons but that would just create a black market.
Finally any one on benefits that smokes or drinks white larger or owns a dog on a length of string loses all benefits. No one should be allowed to burn or piss up the wall anyone else's hard earned money if you are in such a situation. It would also improve their health at the same time.
I was also in Italy recently for football, the vast majority, i would say over 75% of the immigrants knocking around Milano Centrale were 21-30 year old males, very few women and children.
Whitehaven is not in Tim Farron's constituency.
It's estimated we need at least 240k new houses a year; more if you take into account the inability of successive governments to manage net migration.
As I have a degree in pointing out the bleedin' obvious, UK housing stock is a mess, and is showing zero signs of improving. Muppets like Farron may well feel good about expressing his point of view, but it just shows how innumerate he is.
My daughter used to point this one out ...
Fewer qualified people and less qualified people.
new thread