Someone once said that freedom is a by-product of economic surplus. I would go further and say that individuality is, too. In agrarian societies, you can only produce the next generation by putting the family ahead of the individual, and the traditional before the rational. We take it for granted that higher living standards are better than lower ones, but they too have a price - emotional disruption caused by the very natural fear of the new. Nor do we have any way to measure whether or not that price is worth paying in any given instance.
And often we don't even want to: plenty of Peebies this morning have denounced TU power in the 1970s without connecting its demise to the falling value of labour power in the years since then.
Good post. TBH I don’t remember the 70’s .... and in fact it was later 70’when most of the “trouble” happened .... as so bad. For someone who was then trying to keep a small business afloat ,the 80’s, with incredibly (to us now) high interest rates were far worse.
Most of the trouble was actually in the early and mid -70s under Ted Heath's Government. There was actually very little industrial disruption from 1974 to late 1978 - apart from a Firemen's strike in the winter of 77/78. It was only with the collapse of the Incomes Policy in late Autumn 1978 that things went 'tits up' culminating in the Winter of Discontent of Jan/Feb 1979. Looked at as a whole the second half of the 70s was much more peaceful than the first half! In my view Callaghan missed a trick re the WOD - he should have called in the army- which would have annoyed the unions but defused the electoral saliency of the issue.
I do know a couple of UKIP voters from 2015 who are (admittedly quite reluctant) "Inners". They voted UKIP because there was no socially conservative option on the ballot paper. Their view is that Con + Lab + LibDems all serve up the same socially liberal mush on marriage, and the like.
Which does point to what I have said in the past, that UKIP has simply morphed into BNP-lite. If 28% actually want to stay, them what % are totally ambivalent or marginal. It seems to me that Leave will get nowhere by peddling a UKIP inspired anti Muslim sentiment and trying to link it with the EU.
Someone once said that freedom is a by-product of economic surplus. I would go further and say that individuality is, too. In agrarian societies, you can only produce the next generation by putting the family ahead of the individual, and the traditional before the rational. We take it for granted that higher living standards are better than lower ones, but they too have a price - emotional disruption caused by the very natural fear of the new. Nor do we have any way to measure whether or not that price is worth paying in any given instance.
And often we don't even want to: plenty of Peebies this morning have denounced TU power in the 1970s without connecting its demise to the falling value of labour power in the years since then.
Good post. TBH I don’t remember the 70’s .... and in fact it was later 70’when most of the “trouble” happened .... as so bad. For someone who was then trying to keep a small business afloat ,the 80’s, with incredibly (to us now) high interest rates were far worse.
Most of the trouble was actually in the early and mid -70s under Ted Heath's Government. There was actually very little industrial disruption from 1974 to late 1978 - apart from a Firemen's strike in the winter of 77/78. It was only with the collapse of the Incomes Policy in late Autumn 1978 that things went 'tits up' culminating in the Winter of Discontent of Jan/Feb 1979. Looked at as a whole the second half of the 70s was much more peaceful than the first half! In my view Callaghan missed a trick re the WOD - he should have called in the army- which would have annoyed the unions but defused the electoral saliency of the issue.
Trade unions fermenting trouble under a Tory government? Well there's a surprise. And of course Callaghan was an arch apologist for unions - he scuppered Barbara Castle's In Place of Strife - fat chance of him being a strike breaker.
Any policy that gets "lol wat" as a standard reply is probably worth ditching.
I think there's a really good argument for a year zero approach to our armed forces. What do we want to be able to do, how much will it cost, get it done. But the new Trident proposal.
lol
wat
twitter.com/liontornado/status/688994045436280832
The link also shows Salmond. The SNP are also being disingenuous about defence, especially when you compare them to a similar sized Norway. Their proposed defence budget was about 50% too low. Their proposed air force about 500% too small.
Ah the usual disingenuous rubbish.
Norway have by far the highest military budget of similar sized nations. Norway have the luxury of spending whatever they want as being Independent and allowed to keep their own wealth, they became the richest country in the world (excluding micro-states).
Compared to Ireland, the SNP was proposing a spend of over 150% of the Irish level, on par, IIRC, with Denmark. Of course there is a great deal to be said for the Icelandic model of spending Zero on defence.
What a cry baby you are. Your last sentence shows you to be disingenuous. Your previous verbage shows you to be in denial. Scotland is part of the UK and has been for longer than Norway has been in existence and as such it has, unlike Norway been protected from invasion by the rest of the uk.
You didn't accidentally pick Norway,
Of course! What similarity has Scotland (15,500km coastline) to a Northern European country with a very long coastline (25,000km) and oil fields to defend?
The comparison is ludicrous!
Much better to compare with Denmark (7,300km).......
No sho without Scotland hating Punch , is there
A stunning engagement with the argument that tiny Denmark is a better comparotor for Defence spending than Norway!
Well done sir!
Long may the Nats continue to display this level of intellectual brilliance.
PS
$28........
Lovely , costs under 70 quid to fill up my gas guzzler now. Well done SNP , 30% drop in petrol costs, looking after the interests of the ordinary people. All that London lot have done is cut benefits and increase taxes.
Someone once said that freedom is a by-product of economic surplus. I would go further and say that individuality is, too. In agrarian societies, you can only produce the next generation by putting the family ahead of the individual, and the traditional before the rational. We take it for granted that higher living standards are better than lower ones, but they too have a price - emotional disruption caused by the very natural fear of the new. Nor do we have any way to measure whether or not that price is worth paying in any given instance.
And often we don't even want to: plenty of Peebies this morning have denounced TU power in the 1970s without connecting its demise to the falling value of labour power in the years since then.
Good post. TBH I don’t remember the 70’s .... and in fact it was later 70’when most of the “trouble” happened .... as so bad. For someone who was then trying to keep a small business afloat ,the 80’s, with incredibly (to us now) high interest rates were far worse.
Most of the trouble was actually in the early and mid -70s under Ted Heath's Government. There was actually very little industrial disruption from 1974 to late 1978 - apart from a Firemen's strike in the winter of 77/78. It was only with the collapse of the Incomes Policy in late Autumn 1978 that things went 'tits up' culminating in the Winter of Discontent of Jan/Feb 1979. Looked at as a whole the second half of the 70s was much more peaceful than the first half! In my view Callaghan missed a trick re the WOD - he should have called in the army- which would have annoyed the unions but defused the electoral saliency of the issue.
Trade unions fermenting trouble under a Tory government? Well there's a surprise. And of course Callaghan was an arch apologist for unions - he scuppered Barbara Castle's In Place of Strife - fat chance of him being a strike breaker.
To an extent I agree with you - Callaghan got his comeuppance for failing to support Barbara Castle and Harold Wilson 10 years earlier. Also often forgotten that it was the Labour Right - people like Roy Jenkins - who helped scupper In Place of Strife.
This so misses the point in regards to BBC problem on these kind of issues. It isn't that they insist on calling them ISIS or so called Islamic State etc, it is a) the reasoning behind how they come to this decision and b) there continued insistence in relation to calling terrorists anything but exactly. The mindset of those higher up is so warped it is unbelievable, it is just out of JJ playbook.
The BBC's reasoning would be defensible if they applied the same detachment to reporting on events closer to home.
I find Cameron's position more problematic here. His primary concern seems to be to prevent Muslims in this country from being confronted with the uncomfortable truth that vile acts are being committed in the name of their religion.
Would he have sought to ban the use of the name 'German Democratic Republic' to avoid causing offence to democrats?
I think you are wondering off into a distant tangent here.
I met him at the party conference (Goodman), i have rarely come across such a complete and utter tool.
This seems to be the problem with most Outers. No matter how good the arguments for leaving the EU are, the people fronting up the campaign seem to be the sort of political obsessives most normal people run a mile from.
The loss of BoJo as a figure head for leave is a big problem for them.
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The loss of BoJo as a figure head for leave is a big problem for them.