Shapps going is quite a big story. The question is whether it will soon be drowned out by Labour's problems, or whether it will drown them out.
At least he's done the honourable thing: taken responsibility, and fallen on his sword.
I was yet to clock any bow-wave of demands for him to resign (although perhaps they were about to come) so it's decent of him to do it.
Of course, none of that excuses the fact he brought Mark Clarke back inside the tent in the first place, but, to quote Richard Attenborough in Jurassic Park: "I don't blame people for their mistakes, but I do expect them to pay for them."
Dr. Ian Malcolm: God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs.
Dr. Ellie Sattler: Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth.
Although I'm usually not one to complain about a Tory in-house scandal, I'm a bit uncomfortable that this Tory activist is being solely blamed for this poor young man's suicide, on the basis of the chap's suicide note.
Someone in that state of mind would not be rationalising things well.
Mark Clarke sounds utterly vile. I think Shapps was guilty of misjudging Clark(e?). Responsibility goes up the chain as they say though.
On whaling a recent trip to Iceland left us somewhat puzzled. After the whale watching trip we bought we wwere given a short talk where the company asked us NOT to eat whale or patronise restuarants where whale meat was on the menu. However, that seemed to rule out many if not most of the restuarants!
Apparently whale is traditionally eaten there, but only as a result of whales becoming beached.
I thought they still caught them, but only in sustainable numbers. My favourite restaurant in Reykjavik was Thrir Frakkar, where the guillemot was rather good as well.
No, he is not. Not only did his 'leadership' lead to the civil war, but he used chemical weapons on his own populations, and according to some figures is killing far more civilians than ISIS.
If we decide to support him because of the concept of "the enemy of our enemy is our friend," we must at least be aware how often that concept leads to unforeseen long-term evil results.
You are constantly trying to cautiously morally equate the Assad government with ISIS' sick death cult. Thank goodness no-one here is remotely interested.
You pretend to know what people are 'interested' about on here in the same way you pretend to know the 'will' of the Syrian people.
I.e. you do not.
Your defence of Assad is repugnant. Assad has killed more of his own people than ISIS in Syria, caused the civil war, and used chemical weapons on his own people. He has only survived by being a puppet of Iran and Russia.
No wonder you worship him, however many people he kills.
You forgot to add barrel bombs in your list of meaningless sound-bites. - tut tut, you mustn't forget the barrel bombs.
What was the point of that comment? It's just imbecilic.
On whaling a recent trip to Iceland left us somewhat puzzled. After the whale watching trip we bought we wwere given a short talk where the company asked us NOT to eat whale or patronise restuarants where whale meat was on the menu. However, that seemed to rule out many if not most of the restuarants!
Apparently whale is traditionally eaten there, but only as a result of whales becoming beached.
I thought they still caught them, but only in sustainable numbers. My favourite restaurant in Reykjavik was Thrir Frakkar, where the guillemot was rather good as well.
Would also highly recommend Laekjarbrekka in an old merchant's house. The menu did leave the wife somewhat traumatised....especially Icelandic foal!
The amazing thing about it is that they altered their "research" plan rather than just leaving the IWC. They've been completely shafted: They joined what was supposed to be a conservation / fisheries (mammalaries?) management program designed to prevent species from becoming extinct and make sure there were enough to catch, and a bunch foreign governments, all of which engage in all kinds of animal cruelty but of animals other than whales, decided that they didn't want any whaling to happen at all and refused to agree to restore a reasonable quota in species whose numbers had recovered.
I have heard it said by Japanese that they consider Minke whales "the rats of the seas". I have a strange desire to use explosive-tipped harpoons on people who express such views.
They're quite tasty, though
Meat? Ugh!
It's what Ian Rush drinks!
Ian Rush?
Yeah, an' he says if I don't drink lots of meat, when I grow up I'm only gonna be good enough to play for Accrington Stanley!
The amazing thing about it is that they altered their "research" plan rather than just leaving the IWC. They've been completely shafted: They joined what was supposed to be a conservation / fisheries (mammalaries?) management program designed to prevent species from becoming extinct and make sure there were enough to catch, and a bunch foreign governments, all of which engage in all kinds of animal cruelty but of animals other than whales, decided that they didn't want any whaling to happen at all and refused to agree to restore a reasonable quota in species whose numbers had recovered.
I have heard it said by Japanese that they consider Minke whales "the rats of the seas". I have a strange desire to use explosive-tipped harpoons on people who express such views.
The amazing thing about it is that they altered their "research" plan rather than just leaving the IWC. They've been completely shafted: They joined what was supposed to be a conservation / fisheries (mammalaries?) management program designed to prevent species from becoming extinct and make sure there were enough to catch, and a bunch foreign governments, all of which engage in all kinds of animal cruelty but of animals other than whales, decided that they didn't want any whaling to happen at all and refused to agree to restore a reasonable quota in species whose numbers had recovered.
I have heard it said by Japanese that they consider Minke whales "the rats of the seas". I have a strange desire to use explosive-tipped harpoons on people who express such views.
Although I'm usually not one to complain about a Tory in-house scandal, I'm a bit uncomfortable that this Tory activist is being solely blamed for this poor young man's suicide, on the basis of the chap's suicide note. Someone in that state of mind would not be rationalising things well.
Mark Clarke sounds utterly vile. I think Shapps was guilty of misjudging Clark(e?). Responsibility goes up the chain as they say though.
There are more people involved that just Clarke and Shapps. Someone was leaking the names of those who complained about Clarke back to him. A token resignation is not enough. Corporate investigators need to be brought in to get to the bottom of this as emails and letters "cannot be located".
I find it very strange that Mr Cameron wants to take us into a complicated war in the Middle East, when he cannot even keep things under control within the Conservative Party itself.
The amazing thing about it is that they altered their "research" plan rather than just leaving the IWC. They've been completely shafted: They joined what was supposed to be a conservation / fisheries (mammalaries?) management program designed to prevent species from becoming extinct and make sure there were enough to catch, and a bunch foreign governments, all of which engage in all kinds of animal cruelty but of animals other than whales, decided that they didn't want any whaling to happen at all and refused to agree to restore a reasonable quota in species whose numbers had recovered.
I have heard it said by Japanese that they consider Minke whales "the rats of the seas". I have a strange desire to use explosive-tipped harpoons on people who express such views.
They're quite tasty, though
Meat? Ugh!
It's what Ian Rush drinks!
Ian Rush?
Yeah, an' he says if I don't drink lots of meat, when I grow up I'm only gonna be good enough to play for Accrington Stanley!
Accrington Stanley?! Who are they?!
Exactly!
bet he used dubbin on his boots tho, which i strongly suspect was mostly made of whale
Mr. Dugarbandier, because they're not farmed, so excessive consumption leads to driving a species to the brink of, or into, extinction, rather than large farms being built.
The amazing thing about it is that they altered their "research" plan rather than just leaving the IWC. They've been completely shafted: They joined what was supposed to be a conservation / fisheries (mammalaries?) management program designed to prevent species from becoming extinct and make sure there were enough to catch, and a bunch foreign governments, all of which engage in all kinds of animal cruelty but of animals other than whales, decided that they didn't want any whaling to happen at all and refused to agree to restore a reasonable quota in species whose numbers had recovered.
I have heard it said by Japanese that they consider Minke whales "the rats of the seas". I have a strange desire to use explosive-tipped harpoons on people who express such views.
if its fine to eat cows/pigs, why not whales?
Err I understand but maybe you don't know whales are endangered.. Lots of pigs and cows around...
The amazing thing about it is that they altered their "research" plan rather than just leaving the IWC. They've been completely shafted: They joined what was supposed to be a conservation / fisheries (mammalaries?) management program designed to prevent species from becoming extinct and make sure there were enough to catch, and a bunch foreign governments, all of which engage in all kinds of animal cruelty but of animals other than whales, decided that they didn't want any whaling to happen at all and refused to agree to restore a reasonable quota in species whose numbers had recovered.
I have heard it said by Japanese that they consider Minke whales "the rats of the seas". I have a strange desire to use explosive-tipped harpoons on people who express such views.
if its fine to eat cows/pigs, why not whales?
Err I understand but maybe you don't know whales are endangered.. Lots of pigs and cows around...
Mr. Dugarbandier, because they're not farmed, so excessive consumption leads to driving a species to the brink of, or into, extinction, rather than large farms being built.
the demand is not that big. 1 whale goes quite a long way
The amazing thing about it is that they altered their "research" plan rather than just leaving the IWC. They've been completely shafted: They joined what was supposed to be a conservation / fisheries (mammalaries?) management program designed to prevent species from becoming extinct and make sure there were enough to catch, and a bunch foreign governments, all of which engage in all kinds of animal cruelty but of animals other than whales, decided that they didn't want any whaling to happen at all and refused to agree to restore a reasonable quota in species whose numbers had recovered.
I have heard it said by Japanese that they consider Minke whales "the rats of the seas". I have a strange desire to use explosive-tipped harpoons on people who express such views.
if its fine to eat cows/pigs, why not whales?
Why not meat-eaters?
vegetarians are tastier (and contain fewer heavy metals etc)
The amazing thing about it is that they altered their "research" plan rather than just leaving the IWC. They've been completely shafted: They joined what was supposed to be a conservation / fisheries (mammalaries?) management program designed to prevent species from becoming extinct and make sure there were enough to catch, and a bunch foreign governments, all of which engage in all kinds of animal cruelty but of animals other than whales, decided that they didn't want any whaling to happen at all and refused to agree to restore a reasonable quota in species whose numbers had recovered.
I have heard it said by Japanese that they consider Minke whales "the rats of the seas". I have a strange desire to use explosive-tipped harpoons on people who express such views.
if its fine to eat cows/pigs, why not whales?
Why not meat-eaters?
vegetarians are tastier (and contain fewer heavy metals etc)
Why not eat meat-eaters, assuming they're raised, ah, "humanely"? You're supposed to be a meat-eater after all!
Someone posted the other day that Thatcher over her decade in office reduced the state as a proportion of GDP by 6.8% while Osborne after five years has reduced it by 6% already. At this rate I'd expect Osborne to beat Thatchers record without being seen as to the right of Thatcher.
Osborne has learnt the golden rule of cuts methinks:
Mr & Mrs Smith with their 3 kids currently receive 3 big bag of sweets courtesy of Gordon B.
Osborne wanted to take away 2 bags of sweets, but the Smiths kicked up such a rumpus to their local MP, Tory A (Whose vote Osborne needs to win the leadership election) that he decided it wasn't worth his while.
So Mr and Mrs Junior Jones who will be having 3 kids by 2019 will however be getting half a bag of sweets courtesy of IDS. They won't have splashed out on the 55" TV that Mr & Smith will have done.
Long term obviously there is far more Junior Jones than Smiths. Hence the finances get in order.
Out of interest.
What happens when Mr and Mrs Junior Jones and their do-gooder lawyer decide to sue the government over a policy whereby, despite identical situation, they get less support from the government.
I'm not sure the government can be so confident this plan will work.
You mentioned SPIN were considering putting up a few more OW&R markets a few days ago.
Just to say I'd be interested in a party %'age spread.
Even better would be a raw votes market, though. I'm not sure how the stakes would work on that - maybe votes/1000 or something? Trading the raw vote numbers would be awesome.
The amazing thing about it is that they altered their "research" plan rather than just leaving the IWC. They've been completely shafted: They joined what was supposed to be a conservation / fisheries (mammalaries?) management program designed to prevent species from becoming extinct and make sure there were enough to catch, and a bunch foreign governments, all of which engage in all kinds of animal cruelty but of animals other than whales, decided that they didn't want any whaling to happen at all and refused to agree to restore a reasonable quota in species whose numbers had recovered.
I have heard it said by Japanese that they consider Minke whales "the rats of the seas". I have a strange desire to use explosive-tipped harpoons on people who express such views.
The amazing thing about it is that they altered their "research" plan rather than just leaving the IWC. They've been completely shafted: They joined what was supposed to be a conservation / fisheries (mammalaries?) management program designed to prevent species from becoming extinct and make sure there were enough to catch, and a bunch foreign governments, all of which engage in all kinds of animal cruelty but of animals other than whales, decided that they didn't want any whaling to happen at all and refused to agree to restore a reasonable quota in species whose numbers had recovered.
I have heard it said by Japanese that they consider Minke whales "the rats of the seas". I have a strange desire to use explosive-tipped harpoons on people who express such views.
if its fine to eat cows/pigs, why not whales?
Why not meat-eaters?
vegetarians are tastier (and contain fewer heavy metals etc)
Why not eat meat-eaters, assuming they're raised, ah, "humanely"? You're supposed to be a meat-eater after all!
Someone posted the other day that Thatcher over her decade in office reduced the state as a proportion of GDP by 6.8% while Osborne after five years has reduced it by 6% already. At this rate I'd expect Osborne to beat Thatchers record without being seen as to the right of Thatcher.
Osborne has learnt the golden rule of cuts methinks:
Mr & Mrs Smith with their 3 kids currently receive 3 big bag of sweets courtesy of Gordon B.
Osborne wanted to take away 2 bags of sweets, but the Smiths kicked up such a rumpus to their local MP, Tory A (Whose vote Osborne needs to win the leadership election) that he decided it wasn't worth his while.
So Mr and Mrs Junior Jones who will be having 3 kids by 2019 will however be getting half a bag of sweets courtesy of IDS. They won't have splashed out on the 55" TV that Mr & Smith will have done.
Long term obviously there is far more Junior Jones than Smiths. Hence the finances get in order.
Out of interest.
What happens when Mr and Mrs Junior Jones and their do-gooder lawyer decide to sue the government over a policy whereby, despite identical situation, they get less support from the government.
I'm not sure the government can be so confident this plan will work.
'I find it very strange that Mr Cameron wants to take us into a complicated war in the Middle East, when he cannot even keep things under control within the Conservative Party itself.'
Do you think the Lib Dems will save their deposit next week ?
The amazing thing about it is that they altered their "research" plan rather than just leaving the IWC. They've been completely shafted: They joined what was supposed to be a conservation / fisheries (mammalaries?) management program designed to prevent species from becoming extinct and make sure there were enough to catch, and a bunch foreign governments, all of which engage in all kinds of animal cruelty but of animals other than whales, decided that they didn't want any whaling to happen at all and refused to agree to restore a reasonable quota in species whose numbers had recovered.
I have heard it said by Japanese that they consider Minke whales "the rats of the seas". I have a strange desire to use explosive-tipped harpoons on people who express such views.
if its fine to eat cows/pigs, why not whales?
Why not meat-eaters?
vegetarians are tastier (and contain fewer heavy metals etc)
Why not eat meat-eaters, assuming they're raised, ah, "humanely"? You're supposed to be a meat-eater after all!
I eat tuna, will that do?
What I'd love to know is whether you've been raised "humanely"
'I find it very strange that Mr Cameron wants to take us into a complicated war in the Middle East, when he cannot even keep things under control within the Conservative Party itself.'
Do you think the Lib Dems will save their deposit next week ?
They got a splendidly massive 0.9% at Rochester & Strood a year ago.
The amazing thing about it is that they altered their "research" plan rather than just leaving the IWC. They've been completely shafted: They joined what was supposed to be a conservation / fisheries (mammalaries?) management program designed to prevent species from becoming extinct and make sure there were enough to catch, and a bunch foreign governments, all of which engage in all kinds of animal cruelty but of animals other than whales, decided that they didn't want any whaling to happen at all and refused to agree to restore a reasonable quota in species whose numbers had recovered.
I have heard it said by Japanese that they consider Minke whales "the rats of the seas". I have a strange desire to use explosive-tipped harpoons on people who express such views.
if its fine to eat cows/pigs, why not whales?
Why not meat-eaters?
vegetarians are tastier (and contain fewer heavy metals etc)
Why not eat meat-eaters, assuming they're raised, ah, "humanely"? You're supposed to be a meat-eater after all!
I eat tuna, will that do?
What I'd love to know is whether you've been raised "humanely"
you'll be able to taste the free ranginess in my very sinews
Although I'm usually not one to complain about a Tory in-house scandal, I'm a bit uncomfortable that this Tory activist is being solely blamed for this poor young man's suicide, on the basis of the chap's suicide note.
Someone in that state of mind would not be rationalising things well.
Mark Clarke sounds utterly vile. I think Shapps was guilty of misjudging Clark(e?). Responsibility goes up the chain as they say though.
Comments
Dr. Ellie Sattler: Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth.
It's what Ian Rush drinks!
Ian Rush?
Yeah, an' he says if I don't drink lots of meat, when I grow up I'm only gonna be good enough to play for Accrington Stanley!
Accrington Stanley?! Who are they?!
Exactly!
Well good. Build as wide a base as possible.
Mr. Dugarbandier, because they're not farmed, so excessive consumption leads to driving a species to the brink of, or into, extinction, rather than large farms being built.
What happens when Mr and Mrs Junior Jones and their do-gooder lawyer decide to sue the government over a policy whereby, despite identical situation, they get less support from the government.
I'm not sure the government can be so confident this plan will work.
You mentioned SPIN were considering putting up a few more OW&R markets a few days ago.
Just to say I'd be interested in a party %'age spread.
Even better would be a raw votes market, though. I'm not sure how the stakes would work on that - maybe votes/1000 or something? Trading the raw vote numbers would be awesome.
I'll admit it, I'm a geek.
'I find it very strange that Mr Cameron wants to take us into a complicated war in the Middle East, when he cannot even keep things under control within the Conservative Party itself.'
Do you think the Lib Dems will save their deposit next week ?