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Every few days, a twitter account run by the Guardian called @thecounted tweets the cumulative total of deaths at the hands of the police. The number is shocking. As at 10 December, the total stood at 1061 for the calendar year 2015. As often as not Guardian News retweets this information to its predominantly UK-based followers. The impression given, presumably deliberately, is of a police for…
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Let's hope a few read this whole thread and up their game.
I agree with Mike and Guido. Osborne definitely comes across as a bit weird, although more in a John Redwood way than an Ed Miliband way. The Tories will always win against a Corbyn led Labour party, but post-Corbyn Labour would be much more competitive with George as Tory leader. I could also see them getting rid of Corbyn faster as Osborne could easily become a Thatcher-style hate figure for the left, making them more intent on knocking him out of power.
Counting this stuff is pretty complicated. Bearing in mind that a substantial % of British people have zero or negative financial net worth. even someone with just £1000 in their bank account is "wealthier" than a substantial percentage of the population combined!
But we often don't account as "wealth" things like the value of future state pension rights, or the discounted present value of the cash flow from someone's stream of benefits, or what their right to free NHS treatment is worth... which makes international comparisons about how wealthy we are very misleading, but also messes up "percentage of national wealth" wealth comparisons internally (since it muddies the issue of what a "true zero" for wealth would be).
I saw some figures highlighted by Tim Worstall today that pension and health rights accounted for perhaps more than total private wealth. USA figures :-).
Here:
http://www.realdailybuzz.com/rdb.nsf/DocView?Open&UNID=44c18bf20ee25a5405257f1b000b20fc
I would believe, rightly or wrongly, that the top 20% own 80%. To "prove" that about - if the 1st % owned 23% , the 2nd % owned 12%, say, the 3rd % 6% and so on - the top 20% could easily own 80%.
Of course, that means the bottom 1% [ 640,000 people ] own probably a carrier bag full of "stuff". Pathetic !
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CWOBIWQW4AEFegi.jpg
Tim Worstall frequently blogs about the issues in my penultimate paragraph, and in fairness about quite a lot of the issues in Alastair's header (e.g. the irrelevance of US statistics for the UK, poor reporting or reasoning about the scale of various issues). [EDIT: Hah! I replied before your edit to your post, I see you thought of Timmy too.]
But I can think of barely any blog/dead tree press coverage of the issues in my final paragraph - or at least, seriously quantitative coverage. (Though I'm aware that as a general rule, quantitative coverage of pretty much any issue in any field is often found wanting.) Perhaps this is relegated to academic discussion but that'd be a shame. It'd be nice to have at least some ball-park figures to play with.
This is a man who thinks the Taliban are great, who associated and called some well known Islamic extremists and terrorists as friends and rejects claims that they are either of those. To him, so of the most widely known dangerous Islamists are just misunderstood.
Probably don't want them on duty anyway while they recover.
The EU will punish the UK, hard. It will not be pretty.
I believe when I first started work, I really "owned" less than £100 worth. I have never had an overdraft.
Your capital is at risk.
I'd say it's entirely appropriate for the officer involved to be "suspended", pending a thorough enquiry into what happened. Taking a life will have taken it's toll on the man, and he'll need some time and space to get his head straight. Hopefully the officer's actions will be entirely vindicated, and he can resume his duties.
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/676526771483885568
According to today’s poll of 2,053 voters, when “don’t knows” are included 42 per cent of people would vote to stay in the EU, with 41 per cent voting to leave.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12050477/UK-exit-from-European-Union-on-a-knife-edge-as-poll-shows-British-public-are-now-5050-over-leaving.html
On topic I don't think even many Guardian readers seriously believe that British police have directly killed 1061 people in 2015. @thecounted clearly states at the top of its Twittter page that it is the "@GuardianUS's project to document people killed by police in the US". Presumably this is part of the Guardian's efforts to become more international in its reach.
I don't see how the situation has changed, nor how it will be allowed to change given that the only way they can maintain that their many weakly supported positions are viable is by relying on fantasy maths.
And we now have a columnist establishment, parts of academe, many leading charities, the police (sex trafficking, for example) and heaven knows how many politicians in the same quicksand. Recall Jeremy Corbyn swallowing Richard Murphy's £120bn Tax Gap gibberish without it touching the sides.
@britainelects: EU referendum poll:
Remain: 40% (-2)
Leave: 42% (+2)
(via Survation / early Dec)
10k person sample size.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-35098572
Jesus wept....again this wasn't just bloke walking down the street and was gunned down. It was a armed gang trying to break out well known gangsters. Which bit of that should concern "communities".
And 7500 comments so far!!!
Anyone who suggests otherwise is firing up Project Fear.
That is "leave" problem.
Won't stop Dave getting the heebie jeebies over the polling though.
That owned home brings along so many spirals of wealth and it cascades down, areas of high home ownership tend to me prosperous, tend to have better schools, tend to have lower crime, tend to have less family breakdown etc.
That 'something' is the hardest to get, and it feeds down through the generations. There are nice middle class families with children who went to good schools and then to university who have since set foot on the property ladder who began that first step with buying a council house in the eighties, and then selling it on and buying another a decade later.
Personally, I think both the EU and the UK would be stronger for Brexit.
We are a reluctant member of the club. It makes us unhappy, it makes our friends on the continent unhappy. If we leave, we're happier.
And the Euro-philes (as in lovers of the Euro...) will be happier too. Eurozone integration will be a lot easier without us around. And it will force EU institutions to realise that countries can and will leave if they are not happy. I am a big believer that you need crises (Britain in the 1970s, Germany post-unification) to force difficult but necessary change through. Brexit is the crisis that the EU needs.
And for us: we'll no longer be in an unhappy marriage.
We'll compromise and get 18 months
David Cameron faces compromise over plans for EU migrants' welfare access
EU commissioner proposes block on claims for first six months, far cry from prime minister’s hopes for four-year exclusion
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/14/david-cameron-faces-compromise-over-plans-for-eu-migrants-welfare-access
Basically the renegotiation is a farce because everything is already agreed.
So any newspaper articles you're reading that suggest that the UK has been rebuffed and there is no agreement is simply wrong.
They were still behind Mail Online.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/115875
More seriously: the big issue with leaving the EU is not the ultimate destination, but a period - say 12-48 months - when it is unclear what the relationship will be between the UK and the EU.
If you are - say - an executive at Mondalez deciding on where to consolidate your European plants, making a choice while the UK's position is unclear, then you will probably choose to go somewhere else.
Of course, once everything is settled on the far side, it will be OK, but the lack of a decided view on the UK's relationship with the EU post-Brexit will have an inevitable impact on invesmtent in the UK.
It is hardly Cameron's fault that the Labour hegemony in Scotland has collapsed any more than it was Cameron's fault that Labour gave away devolution in the first place and that tory votes collapsed way before his time.
I regard people making their mind up by means of pretending they know what the result would be way before it is announced as pretty pathetic.
There is no deal, because the EU is 27 countries. And every change needs to be agreed with all 27.
Ultimately, we do have one thing "up our sleeves" and that is that the UK, along with the Germans and the Dutch, bankrolls the EU project. But it only takes one country saying "No", or demanding certain other changes in return for agreement to derail any renegotiation.
As I said last night, that would push me from leaning "In" to being a firm "Out": I don't wish to stay in the EU so much that I'm willing to deny unlucky British young people benefits for it.
Wait till the ONS figures come out in late January. Don't read the CIPS surveys. They are crap !
Would you deny that 18-year-old benefits?
Eurozone
+
EEA, non-Eurozone
Essentially, those European countries who are not Eurozone members would leave the EU. All competences over the Eurozone would then go to the EU. This would enable them to make the steps they need to make to solve their problems.
The EEA would remain a part of the single market, and would retain the "four freedoms", but would not be bound by labour laws, and governments would be allowed to discriminate in favour of their own citizens.
The EEA would be allowed to veto EU legislation, but not legislation that only affected the Eurozone.
A year ago I was a committed Europhile, now I'm leaning towards Leave.
Just waiting for the EU referendum so I can do threads entitled
Europe: The Final Countdown
Interesting idea, thanks for the thoughts,
Not certain how/if it would work in practice.
Interesting
http://factcheckingpollyanna.blogspot.co.uk/2006/12/my-top-ten-favourite-toynbee-errors.html
But you can be sure if we leave it will be BAAAAD for the kippers according to the wise owls on here, and a triumph for Dave
I am merely pointing out that as the UK has not decided on what relationship it would like with the EU post-exit, there will be consequences from a period of uncertainty. You should also be aware that FDI flows into the UK have totalled more than 150bn in the last five years, so they are not that small.
Most people see it as this sprawling mass, just like your local council but bigger. A few are big fans and a few detest it, but it is difficult one way or another to rally around, for example, Directive 2004/39/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 April 2004 amending Council Directives 85/611/EEC and 93/6/EEC and Directive 000/12/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and repealing Council Directive 93/22/EEC (OJ L 145, 30.4.2004, p. 1).
For example.
Definite keeper that one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH1biQdyiQI
I sold some things today, I didn't need anybody's approval, the bloke wanted to buy the stuff.