It genuinely feels like a 2 horse race with Yvette Cooper finishing strongly. If only she had found it within herself to begin like this in May. It may well be too little too late for her, but it seems to me that if there's any undecided voters (or those just getting their vote) and they don't want Corbyn then Cooper will be the main beneficiary now and not Andy Burnham.
That's my impression too. Personally I think it is indeed too late, mainly because the ABC message hasn't got through, not least due to the squabble between Cooper and Burnham camps a couple of weeks ago, which polarised non-Corbyn voters. Lots of people have voted for one ABC candidate but not the others on 2nd or 3rd preference.
It's an interesting question, though, what sort of reception Cooper will get if she does win. The media have set up a Corbyn win as a done deal, making her seem like a giant-killer. If she moved swiftly to be inclusive to Corbyn and acknowledge the depth of anti-austerity revulsion in the party, she might do rather well. Conversely, if Corbyn wins he should and probably will try to get Cooper and Burnham both on board.
(my bold)
That's to confuse party with country. There may be 'revulsion' at 'austerity' within the Labour party but the Conservatives just won a general election in large part because Labour looked incapable of controlling its spending habit. Until Labour's trusted on the economy then they won't win another election (note - this is an absolute rather than relative measure: they don't necessarily have to be better than the Tories but they do have to be credible).
I think Cooper deliberately held back at the start - in order to come through the middle. If Corbyn wasn't on the ballot she would be about to become leader (and I would be collecting my winnings). Hey ho. Let's hope TSE is correct in his analysis.
That would have been extremely stupid of her if so. Had she done that and had Burnham shown any spark about him, she'd have been pushed out of the race in favour of Corbyn vs Burnham. Momentum is usually all in these sort of elections (which is why Corbyn is strong favourite to win). Consciously denying yourself that momentum would be the an election-losing tactic so effective you could write it in stone.
Osborne: “I was very distressed when I saw it myself this morning, that poor boy lying dead on the beach… what you need to do is first of all tackle ISIS and the criminal gangs who killed that boy… Britain’s always been a home to real asylum seekers, genuine refugees, we’ve taken 5,000 people from the Syrian conflict, we’ll go on taking people and keep it under review…”
Seems a reasonable position.
Is Osborne now actually running the country full-time? Or is Cameron away on holiday? Doesn't seem like a Treasury issue.
He's not just Chancellor anymore, he's also First Secretary of State.
"We must above all be very clear with people who want to come from these countries that it’s not an Eldorado here, it’s not simply a question of turning up and receiving benefits. And I fear that if we don’t make this clear then we will create the conditions for migration to continue and increase." “Let us not forget that the fall of the Roman Empire was down to immigration. Massive movements of people in the end is not sustainable.”
Listened to the disgraceful radio 5 this morning,using the front pages of the papers to use emotional blackmail to try to get the government to change policy on bringing thousands of refugees to this country.
The programme with Nicky Campbell on had lost all control of neutrality reporting,it was pure emotional blackmailing,pulling on the listeners heartstrings.
The world has gone mad,why don't we just open our borders to everyone,be done with it,the BBC made me angry this morning,if we fall for that photo of that poor boy and change policy then why not a starving African woman carrying her malnourished dead child ?
Osborne: “I was very distressed when I saw it myself this morning, that poor boy lying dead on the beach… what you need to do is first of all tackle ISIS and the criminal gangs who killed that boy… Britain’s always been a home to real asylum seekers, genuine refugees, we’ve taken 5,000 people from the Syrian conflict, we’ll go on taking people and keep it under review…”
Seems a reasonable position.
Is Osborne now actually running the country full-time? Or is Cameron away on holiday? Doesn't seem like a Treasury issue.
He's not just Chancellor anymore, he's also First Secretary of State.
I'm reminded of Shoguns ruling in the name of the Emperor. And apparently there was a period where the Shogun was also a figurehead, so you had a figuruehead emperor, a figurehead shogun, and then the actually ruling regents!
It genuinely feels like a 2 horse race with Yvette Cooper finishing strongly. If only she had found it within herself to begin like this in May. It may well be too little too late for her, but it seems to me that if there's any undecided voters (or those just getting their vote) and they don't want Corbyn then Cooper will be the main beneficiary now and not Andy Burnham.
That's my impression too. Personally I think it is indeed too late, mainly because the ABC message hasn't got through, not least due to the squabble between Cooper and Burnham camps a couple of weeks ago, which polarised non-Corbyn voters. Lots of people have voted for one ABC candidate but not the others on 2nd or 3rd preference.
It's an interesting question, though, what sort of reception Cooper will get if she does win. The media have set up a Corbyn win as a done deal, making her seem like a giant-killer. If she moved swiftly to be inclusive to Corbyn and acknowledge the depth of anti-austerity revulsion in the party, she might do rather well. Conversely, if Corbyn wins he should and probably will try to get Cooper and Burnham both on board.
(my bold)
That's to confuse party with country. There may be 'revulsion' at 'austerity' within the Labour party but the Conservatives just won a general election in large part because Labour looked incapable of controlling its spending habit. Until Labour's trusted on the economy then they won't win another election (note - this is an absolute rather than relative measure: they don't necessarily have to be better than the Tories but they do have to be credible).
I think Cooper deliberately held back at the start - in order to come through the middle. If Corbyn wasn't on the ballot she would be about to become leader (and I would be collecting my winnings). Hey ho. Let's hope TSE is correct in his analysis.
That would have been extremely stupid of her if so. Had she done that and had Burnham shown any spark about him, she'd have been pushed out of the race in favour of Corbyn vs Burnham. Momentum is usually all in these sort of elections (which is why Corbyn is strong favourite to win). Consciously denying yourself that momentum would be the an election-losing tactic so effective you could write it in stone.
I get the impression many German politicians live in a bubble where they assume the rest of Europe shares their views on most issues. So when they decided to allow open door immigration they took it for granted the rest of Europe would broadly agree with the policy as a matter of course. Now they're very surprised to find that most other European countries don't think it's a good idea. Maybe they should have consulted with other EU governments first before announcing the policy?
surely all this stuff about multiverses just boils down to everything is happening everywhere at the same time? Neither universe not multiverse, but omniverse. So something can be both a wave and a particle and be both there and not there at the same time. And as we can't measure every aspect of everything (being limited to 4 dimensions mostly) we can't pin all the characteristics of anything down, so have to guess at some of them. Isn't that how quantum physics is supposed to work?
*assumes defensive position of arts graduate straying into scientific territory and awaiting correction*
(Apologies for the repost from the early hours of this morning, but I believe it is relevant.) --------------- I am starting from the assumption that we can, and will, take a suitable proportion of Syrian refugees. We need to do two things to enable this: 1) Clear up the political mess caused by Germany 2) Offer the Great British Public something in return
Germany has caused a political mess by its unilateral reactions to the refugee emergency. It has suspended standing EU rules (Dublin Convention) and attempted to dictate to other EU counties that they must accept a quota of immigrants. It has no authority to do this, and is an unwise heavy-handed move (especially coming so soon after bossing Greece around, regardless of whether you think that Greece deserved it or not)
The UK response should be to say that they will follow the German example and adopt temporary emergency measures in order to deal with the crisis. So that they can sell the deal to a British Public who are concerned about record immigration levels, in return for taking in a generous quota of Syrian refugees the UK will temporarily suspend free movement of labour from EU countries.
This does NOT mean that there will be no EU immigration to the UK, but merely that it will be placed on a similar managed basis to applications from the rest of the world (1)
We would stress that these are only temporary measures and would be dropped once we see that there was no need for them.
Of course we would make damn sure that we always needed the "temporary" measures from now on.
(1) This is so that skill shortages can be met, and any other required roles filled. "Good" immigration is great stuff!
Its what happens in politics. I'm just surprised more people on here do not recognize that.
Excellent post, Mr Flightpath, but the question remains. What will Cameron do? Mrs T. would have ridden this out. Will Dave?
Probably. he has been doing it for 10 years. In 6 months the press will be screaming on about the Roma and Bulgarians . If we take the right wing press to be anti EU and the left wing press to be simply anti Cameron then there will just be another diatribe from them soon enough. Mrs T could not ride out the Poll Tax.
@RaRaRasputin I get his point, but I don't see how being in an interracial relationship proves one thing or another. I've never been in a relationship with someone Asian, does that make me racist towards them? Most white people won't be in an interracial relationship....by that logic, are they racists too. Ultimately it's how you treat/think of people.
@RodCrosby I know, that's why I added that I didn't think PBers were racist. And those who you seem to be referring to in your post are economic migrants, not refugees. I'm suggesting helping refugees, not necessarily economic migrants.
@Indigo I already respond/addressed the point about aid in previous posts. While it's good that we are giving aid, I think at this stage we need a more extensive solution to the crisis than that. Secondly, is that clearly - even without much encouragement in these past few months, people have travelled to Europe from Syria. Therefore, people will be risking their lives coming here no matter what we say. This idea that if we say 'NO' people will stop coming, is futile. We haven't even said 'yes' and yet many refugees are in Europe. Secondly, those involved in immigration and asylum can decide whether they feel there are enough grounds to conclude someone is a genuine refugee. They've been able to do that before, I presume after all - when an economic migrant could have pretended to be a refugee. Public tolerance for immigration has never been high - even in the 1930s/40s, when Jewish people were seeking refuge here you had publications such as the Daily Mail who were against it. There has never been a time in this country where people have loved/liked immigration. If anything, some of the most strongest criticism of immigration I've seen has argued that most/all post WW2 immigration was wrong/a mistake/a disaster.
That said, I also think your idea is a viable solution to the crisis in the short and medium term, and if the government isn't going to entertain the idea of refugees coming here, then I'd like them to do something like that.
@kle4 I think you've misunderstood my point. I'm up for UK offering alternative solutions, that doesn't mean that I can't also like/support Merkel's idea. You can be open to anything which helps solve this crisis. And a leader can in response to Merkel declare that if he considers her option unacceptable (in which he clearly does) what could be done instead.
MarqueeMark makes an interesting point (FPT), that letting people in will affect how much young Middle Easterns/Syrians push for regime change. Personally, I don't agree. I think that looking at the aftermath of the Arab Spring you need much more than young Syrians protesting etc, to get significant regime change anyway. And often - looking at Egypt particularly - even if regimes are overthrown, often their successors are not that better than than predecessors.
surely all this stuff about multiverses just boils down to everything is happening everywhere at the same time? Neither universe not multiverse, but omniverse.
No. A multiverse is different to a universe, even if the universe is very big. If you had enough fuel[1] for your rocket and could go fast enough[2], you could travel to every part of the universe using the normal physical laws. But you can't travel to any other universe without some dodgy physics[3]
[1] There isn't enough fuel to do this [2] You can't go fast enough to do this [3] I don't care what Christopher Nolan or Stephen Baxter says, you can't go thru a singularity. And the first person to say "wormhole" gets slapped.
Theoretical physicist Kip Thorne was a scientific consultant for the film to ensure the depictions of wormholes and relativity were as accurate as possible. "For the depictions of the wormholes and the black hole," he said, "we discussed how to go about it, and then I worked on the equations that would enable tracing of light rays as they traveled through a wormhole or around a black hole—so what you see is based on Einstein's general relativity equations."[60]
In creating the wormhole and a supermassive rotating black hole (which possesses an ergosphere, as opposed to a non-rotating black hole), Thorne collaborated with visual effects supervisor Paul Franklin and a team of 30 people at Double Negative. Thorne would provide pages of deeply sourced theoretical equations to the artists, who then wrote new CGI rendering software based on these equations to create accurate computer simulations of the gravitational lensing caused by these phenomena. Some individual frames took up to 100 hours to render, and resulted in 800 terabytes of data. The resulting visual effect provided Thorne with new insight into the effects of gravitational lensing and accretion disks surrounding black holes, which led to the publication of two scientific papers.[61]
Christopher Nolan was initially concerned that a scientifically accurate depiction of a black hole would not be visually comprehensible to an audience and would require the effects team to unrealistically alter its appearance. The visual representation of the black hole in the movie doesn't account for the doppler effect, which when added by the visual effects team, resulted in an asymmetrically lit black and blue black hole. Nolan didn't like the asymmetry caused by the doppler effect and thought moviegoers wouldn't understand why it was asymmetrical, so the finished black hole ignored the doppler effect.[62] Nolan found the finished effect to be understandable, provided that he maintained consistent camera perspectives. "What we found was as long as we didn't change the point of view too much, the camera position, we could get something very understandable".[63]
The portrayal of what a wormhole would look like is considered scientifically correct. Rather than a two-dimensional hole in space, it is depicted as a sphere, showing a distorted view of the target galaxy.[64] The accretion disk of the black hole was described by Thorne as "anemic and at low temperature—about the temperature of the surface of the sun," allowing it to emit appreciable light, but not enough gamma radiation and X-rays to threaten nearby astronauts and planets.[65]
Bulgarian authorities near the Gyueshevo border checkpoint detained the five men, aged between 20 and 24, late on Wednesday, Bulgarian broadcaster NOVA TV reported.
The men were stopped by a border guard, who they attempted to bribe with a "wad of dollars." However, they were searched and Islamic State propaganda, specific Jihadists prayers and decapitation videos were found on their phones.
In a move that suggests how seriously authorities are taking the case, the Bulgarian State Agency for National Security (DANS) has now taken control of the investigation under the supervision of the regional prosecutor's office in Kyustendil.
Bulgarian authorities near the Gyueshevo border checkpoint detained the five men, aged between 20 and 24, late on Wednesday, Bulgarian broadcaster NOVA TV reported.
The men were stopped by a border guard, who they attempted to bribe with a "wad of dollars." However, they were searched and Islamic State propaganda, specific Jihadists prayers and decapitation videos were found on their phones.
In a move that suggests how seriously authorities are taking the case, the Bulgarian State Agency for National Security (DANS) has now taken control of the investigation under the supervision of the regional prosecutor's office in Kyustendil.
Comments
What's UKIP's policy on this, I wonder
"We must above all be very clear with people who want to come from these countries that it’s not an Eldorado here, it’s not simply a question of turning up and receiving benefits. And I fear that if we don’t make this clear then we will create the conditions for migration to continue and increase."
“Let us not forget that the fall of the Roman Empire was down to immigration. Massive movements of people in the end is not sustainable.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/11840822/EU-migrant-crisis-Syrian-refugee-Aylan-Kurdi-who-fled-Kobane-live.html
The programme with Nicky Campbell on had lost all control of neutrality reporting,it was pure emotional blackmailing,pulling on the listeners heartstrings.
The world has gone mad,why don't we just open our borders to everyone,be done with it,the BBC made me angry this morning,if we fall for that photo of that poor boy and change policy then why not a starving African woman carrying her malnourished dead child ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Civil_War
Quite a few Conservative MPs are coming forward now.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CN-qMTFWgAAjfdY.jpg
"Allure of Wealth Drives Deadly Trek
Young Men in Senegal Join Migrant Wave Despite Growing Prosperity at Home"
http://www.wsj.com/articles/young-men-in-senegal-join-migrant-wave-despite-growing-prosperity-at-home-1434127244
But God knows whats driving the movements...
So something can be both a wave and a particle and be both there and not there at the same time. And as we can't measure every aspect of everything (being limited to 4 dimensions mostly) we can't pin all the characteristics of anything down, so have to guess at some of them. Isn't that how quantum physics is supposed to work?
*assumes defensive position of arts graduate straying into scientific territory and awaiting correction*
---------------
I am starting from the assumption that we can, and will, take a suitable proportion of Syrian refugees.
We need to do two things to enable this:
1) Clear up the political mess caused by Germany
2) Offer the Great British Public something in return
Germany has caused a political mess by its unilateral reactions to the refugee emergency. It has suspended standing EU rules (Dublin Convention) and attempted to dictate to other EU counties that they must accept a quota of immigrants. It has no authority to do this, and is an unwise heavy-handed move (especially coming so soon after bossing Greece around, regardless of whether you think that Greece deserved it or not)
The UK response should be to say that they will follow the German example and adopt temporary emergency measures in order to deal with the crisis. So that they can sell the deal to a British Public who are concerned about record immigration levels, in return for taking in a generous quota of Syrian refugees the UK will temporarily suspend free movement of labour from EU countries.
This does NOT mean that there will be no EU immigration to the UK, but merely that it will be placed on a similar managed basis to applications from the rest of the world (1)
We would stress that these are only temporary measures and would be dropped once we see that there was no need for them.
Of course we would make damn sure that we always needed the "temporary" measures from now on.
(1) This is so that skill shortages can be met, and any other required roles filled. "Good" immigration is great stuff!
Hundreds of angry migrants on trains, thinking they were bound for Germany. A man threw his wife and baby on the track earlier...
Jeremy Lefroy — educated at Highgate School.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Lefroy
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/77/Failed_state_index_2013.svg/2000px-Failed_state_index_2013.svg.png
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failed_state
Mrs T could not ride out the Poll Tax.
@RaRaRasputin I get his point, but I don't see how being in an interracial relationship proves one thing or another. I've never been in a relationship with someone Asian, does that make me racist towards them? Most white people won't be in an interracial relationship....by that logic, are they racists too. Ultimately it's how you treat/think of people.
@RodCrosby I know, that's why I added that I didn't think PBers were racist. And those who you seem to be referring to in your post are economic migrants, not refugees. I'm suggesting helping refugees, not necessarily economic migrants.
@Indigo I already respond/addressed the point about aid in previous posts. While it's good that we are giving aid, I think at this stage we need a more extensive solution to the crisis than that. Secondly, is that clearly - even without much encouragement in these past few months, people have travelled to Europe from Syria. Therefore, people will be risking their lives coming here no matter what we say. This idea that if we say 'NO' people will stop coming, is futile. We haven't even said 'yes' and yet many refugees are in Europe. Secondly, those involved in immigration and asylum can decide whether they feel there are enough grounds to conclude someone is a genuine refugee. They've been able to do that before, I presume after all - when an economic migrant could have pretended to be a refugee. Public tolerance for immigration has never been high - even in the 1930s/40s, when Jewish people were seeking refuge here you had publications such as the Daily Mail who were against it. There has never been a time in this country where people have loved/liked immigration. If anything, some of the most strongest criticism of immigration I've seen has argued that most/all post WW2 immigration was wrong/a mistake/a disaster.
That said, I also think your idea is a viable solution to the crisis in the short and medium term, and if the government isn't going to entertain the idea of refugees coming here, then I'd like them to do something like that.
@kle4 I think you've misunderstood my point. I'm up for UK offering alternative solutions, that doesn't mean that I can't also like/support Merkel's idea. You can be open to anything which helps solve this crisis. And a leader can in response to Merkel declare that if he considers her option unacceptable (in which he clearly does) what could be done instead.
MarqueeMark makes an interesting point (FPT), that letting people in will affect how much young Middle Easterns/Syrians push for regime change. Personally, I don't agree. I think that looking at the aftermath of the Arab Spring you need much more than young Syrians protesting etc, to get significant regime change anyway. And often - looking at Egypt particularly - even if regimes are overthrown, often their successors are not that better than than predecessors.
Cameron may reflect that he is on the correct course if Sayeeda Warsi and Tim Montgomerie are screaming that he should change tack.
He won't be going anywhere if the Russians land though: http://debka.com/article/24858/Russia-gearing-up-to-be-first-world-power-to-insert-ground-forces-into-Syria
Which personally I hope they do - perhaps we'll see more than shadow-boxing against ISIS then.
[1] There isn't enough fuel to do this
[2] You can't go fast enough to do this
[3] I don't care what Christopher Nolan or Stephen Baxter says, you can't go thru a singularity. And the first person to say "wormhole" gets slapped.
New Thread New Thread
Theoretical physicist Kip Thorne was a scientific consultant for the film to ensure the depictions of wormholes and relativity were as accurate as possible. "For the depictions of the wormholes and the black hole," he said, "we discussed how to go about it, and then I worked on the equations that would enable tracing of light rays as they traveled through a wormhole or around a black hole—so what you see is based on Einstein's general relativity equations."[60]
In creating the wormhole and a supermassive rotating black hole (which possesses an ergosphere, as opposed to a non-rotating black hole), Thorne collaborated with visual effects supervisor Paul Franklin and a team of 30 people at Double Negative. Thorne would provide pages of deeply sourced theoretical equations to the artists, who then wrote new CGI rendering software based on these equations to create accurate computer simulations of the gravitational lensing caused by these phenomena. Some individual frames took up to 100 hours to render, and resulted in 800 terabytes of data. The resulting visual effect provided Thorne with new insight into the effects of gravitational lensing and accretion disks surrounding black holes, which led to the publication of two scientific papers.[61]
Christopher Nolan was initially concerned that a scientifically accurate depiction of a black hole would not be visually comprehensible to an audience and would require the effects team to unrealistically alter its appearance. The visual representation of the black hole in the movie doesn't account for the doppler effect, which when added by the visual effects team, resulted in an asymmetrically lit black and blue black hole. Nolan didn't like the asymmetry caused by the doppler effect and thought moviegoers wouldn't understand why it was asymmetrical, so the finished black hole ignored the doppler effect.[62] Nolan found the finished effect to be understandable, provided that he maintained consistent camera perspectives. "What we found was as long as we didn't change the point of view too much, the camera position, we could get something very understandable".[63]
The portrayal of what a wormhole would look like is considered scientifically correct. Rather than a two-dimensional hole in space, it is depicted as a sphere, showing a distorted view of the target galaxy.[64] The accretion disk of the black hole was described by Thorne as "anemic and at low temperature—about the temperature of the surface of the sun," allowing it to emit appreciable light, but not enough gamma radiation and X-rays to threaten nearby astronauts and planets.[65]
I notice they all have fancy mobile phones, which no doubt fuel their fantasies...
http://www.standartnews.com/english/read/posing_as_refugees_isis_terrorists_caught_crossing_into_bulgaria_and_then_europe-9486.html
Bulgarian authorities near the Gyueshevo border checkpoint detained the five men, aged between 20 and 24, late on Wednesday, Bulgarian broadcaster NOVA TV reported.
The men were stopped by a border guard, who they attempted to bribe with a "wad of dollars." However, they were searched and Islamic State propaganda, specific Jihadists prayers and decapitation videos were found on their phones.
In a move that suggests how seriously authorities are taking the case, the Bulgarian State Agency for National Security (DANS) has now taken control of the investigation under the supervision of the regional prosecutor's office in Kyustendil.