There's an interesting post from Scott Adams on a similar subject
"One of the most underrated qualities of Republicans is that they police their own ranks. If you have a problem with a violent Republican racist, call some Republicans. They’ll solve it for you.
Is he talking about the Northern Irish variety or the American?
Yes, definitely. I saw a version of this on Ace of Spades the other week and every sentence of it is true - everything from the Saul Alinsky playbook Rules for Radicals.
It's a shame but there it is. In this country Blair got the ball rolling by politicising everything. Every appointment, every honour, every job, every policy was politically driven. (By Alastair Campbell - spit). Every little thing that is not in tune with progressive ideology gets labelled Nazi. Those of us not indoctrinated in the lefty religion find the thought process frankly weird. Remember Hattie hateperson trying to bully everyone into wearing 'This is what a feminist looks likje' T-shirts. Just deranged. Worship at the EU altar is likewise hard to fathom. And thus the rest of us - the majority of the population - are starting to move from weary or bemused acceptance of this shit to a more self confident outright rejection. I know I have. Those who been on PB for a while will note the angrier tone of my posting in recent months. I have become intolerant of the intolerance of the left. I'm happy for lefties to be lefties but they must stop trying to make everyone else into lefties. Stop dressing up as vaginas and blocking runways and tweeting your lives away and accept that most people ain't 'right on'. And STFU for a while.
It is true that you cannot move around the streets of London these days for people dressed up as vaginas.
Yes, definitely. I saw a version of this on Ace of Spades the other week and every sentence of it is true - everything from the Saul Alinsky playbook Rules for Radicals.
It's a shame but there it is. In this country Blair got the ball rolling by politicising everything. Every appointment, every honour, every job, every policy was politically driven. (By Alastair Campbell - spit). Every little thing that is not in tune with progressive ideology gets labelled Nazi. Those of us not indoctrinated in the lefty religion find the thought process frankly weird. Remember Hattie hateperson trying to bully everyone into wearing 'This is what a feminist looks likje' T-shirts. Just deranged. Worship at the EU altar is likewise hard to fathom. And thus the rest of us - the majority of the population - are starting to move from weary or bemused acceptance of this shit to a more self confident outright rejection. I know I have. Those who been on PB for a while will note the angrier tone of my posting in recent months. I have become intolerant of the intolerance of the left. I'm happy for lefties to be lefties but they must stop trying to make everyone else into lefties. Stop dressing up as vaginas and blocking runways and tweeting your lives away and accept that most people ain't 'right on'. And STFU for a while.
It is true that you cannot move around the streets of London these days for people dressed up as vaginas.
Yes, definitely. I saw a version of this on Ace of Spades the other week and every sentence of it is true - everything from the Saul Alinsky playbook Rules for Radicals.
It's a shame but there it is. In this country Blair got the ball rolling by politicising everything. Every appointment, every honour, every job, every policy was politically driven. (By Alastair Campbell - spit). Every little thing that is not in tune with progressive ideology gets labelled Nazi. Those of us not indoctrinated in the lefty religion find the thought process frankly weird. Remember Hattie hateperson trying to bully everyone into wearing 'This is what a feminist looks likje' T-shirts. Just deranged. Worship at the EU altar is likewise hard to fathom. And thus the rest of us - the majority of the population - are starting to move from weary or bemused acceptance of this shit to a more self confident outright rejection. I know I have. Those who been on PB for a while will note the angrier tone of my posting in recent months. I have become intolerant of the intolerance of the left. I'm happy for lefties to be lefties but they must stop trying to make everyone else into lefties. Stop dressing up as vaginas and blocking runways and tweeting your lives away and accept that most people ain't 'right on'. And STFU for a while.
It is true that you cannot move around the streets of London these days for people dressed up as vaginas.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, Patrick and his ilk are at least as scared as they are angry. For an Old Bailey jury convicted a man of murdering Jo Cox - Patrick no doubt thought it was justifiable homicide.
Up yer bum! Cox's murder was awful. The fact you assume I think otherwise says alot more about how lefties see righties than it does about how I view the violent murder by a lunatic of a popular and well-intentioned MP. You make my point for me.
There's an interesting post from Scott Adams on a similar subject
"One of the most underrated qualities of Republicans is that they police their own ranks. If you have a problem with a violent Republican racist, call some Republicans. They’ll solve it for you.
But don’t call a Republican if you are simply offended by another person’s opinion. In that situation you want to call some Democrats to ridicule and physically attack the person with the objectionable opinion.
By the way, I’m not a Republican. This is just an observation. I’ve been watching Democrats not police their own ranks – after the Berkeley violence for example – and it occurred to me that you don’t see that on the Republican side. Republicans generally appreciate free speech, but if someone attacks your family, your country, or your freedom in some physical form, keep some Republicans on speed dial.
Actually I'm not sure I do want lefties to STFU. But I do want righties to punch back just as hard and with just as much energy and cunning. Lefties have been trying to close down discussion of many subjects for too long. Alternative views should be heard. So...I expect our politics to become more confrontational, unmentionables to get mentioned. The left nastified politics. OK. Happy to play by those rules. Don't like it - but the alternative of returning to reasoned debate and no bullying/shaming/no-platforming/closedown doesn't appear to be on offer.
Except that it has to start somewhere with someone or someones agreeing to tone down the rhetoric and the insults and to try a bit of reasoned debate.
Oddly enough, PB was like that once - back in 2005-6, when there were fewer of us, the standard of debate was much better, the insults, jibes and sneers fewer.
The global financial crash changed the tone of the debate - almost from the moment Lehmann failed, PB became much sharper and more adversarial. I think 2008 scared a lot of people at a fundamental level - it represented a challenge to our economic security and identity which many had never experienced and after years of relative calm, it was like a storm.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, Patrick and his ilk are at least as scared as they are angry. For an Old Bailey jury convicted a man of murdering Jo Cox - Patrick no doubt thought it was justifiable homicide.
Up yer bum! Cox's murder was awful. The fact you assume I think otherwise says alot more about how lefties see righties than it does about how I view the violent murder by a lunatic of a popular and well-intentioned MP. You make my point for me.
There's an interesting post from Scott Adams on a similar subject
"One of the most underrated qualities of Republicans is that they police their own ranks. If you have a problem with a violent Republican racist, call some Republicans. They’ll solve it for you.
But don’t call a Republican if you are simply offended by another person’s opinion. In that situation you want to call some Democrats to ridicule and physically attack the person with the objectionable opinion.
By the way, I’m not a Republican. This is just an observation. I’ve been watching Democrats not police their own ranks – after the Berkeley violence for example – and it occurred to me that you don’t see that on the Republican side. Republicans generally appreciate free speech, but if someone attacks your family, your country, or your freedom in some physical form, keep some Republicans on speed dial.
That's very Timothy McVeigh. Having been called every name under the sun by right wingers on here and been accused of every kind of treachery, I am inclined to see things in a more nuanced light than the author of the article. I note that there are very few left wing militias in the US, and that left wing psycopaths rarely carry out mass shootings of black churchgoers or bombings of federal buildings.
In the US maybe. Still Stalin and Mao were left-wing psychopaths and their body counts leave pretty much everyone else in the far distance. And they were and, in some cases, still are admired by many in the West.
Probably safe to say that those who are obsessed with creating a utopia on earth - or their version of it - are none too squeamish about creating hell on earth first for anyone and everyone who gets in their way.
That's why the Founding Fathers established a system which sought to limit the powers which any one man had in US government. I dare say other Presidents railed in private at uppity judges applying the law and frustrating the President's wishes. Twitter makes Trump's thoughts rather more immediately public.
Still, let's hope that the US Constitution works as it was intended to, eh!
On that note, I'm off for a bit.
It's my birthday. I appear to have developed a spot which, I assume, is Nature's way of telling me that I am really a young teenager. I will in any case be spending the day with the man I love drinking champagne and eating cake.
Let me "throw a curveball" as our American friends would say - what's wrong with hypocrisy ?
We all suffer from hypocrisy in some degree on some subject. What matters is how we deal with it when we discover ourselves indulging it.
We do and for the record I think Bercow has been foolish. To be fair, a lot of Conservatives have never liked him and some may be trying to use this as a way of getting rid.
I suppose it could be argued an impartial man is doing his job well if he is annoying everybody equally just as much as if he was liked or respected equally.
That seems a plausible summary, though of course that's not the same as saying it's right! (With the exeption of Farage's comment - Labour can't be caught off-guard if they're throwing huge resources in). The Heywood comparison might be more the result?
However, if Labour is giving it this much effort then (1) they should be a good bit shorter than evens, and (2) does it mean they've written Copeland off for practical purposes of resource allocation?
I'd expect Labour to hold both - and then to draw the false conclusion that they aren't as unpopular as polls imply.
Let me "throw a curveball" as our American friends would say - what's wrong with hypocrisy ? Why does everyone have to be ruthlessly consistent about everything all the time ? People aren't in "real life" so why are politicians ruthlessly pilloried if they veer off some imagined path of principle ?
The indignation when a Labour politician condemned private schools yet sent their own child to such a school or when Boris Johnson, having one day supported Cameron, then fronted up to the LEAVE campaign and now this...
If democracy has shown us anything, it's that electorates will vote for any idiot who promises them biscuits and gravy (another Americanism). Unlike the Emir of Kuwait or the President of China who don't have to go through the democratic ritual and dance the populist dance, Trump is somehow "better" than them and more deserving of the right to pontificate before Parliament.
The line seems to be that some people over here don't like Trump and his policies but the American people voted him into office and that makes them right and the anti-Trump crowd wrong and let's have a jolly good gloat at the fact a person disliked by some prominent people won because it's good to see the "metropolitan lefty-liberal elite" (or some permutation thereof, which has apparently enslaved Britain for the past 40 years and prevented us thinking for ourselves until the day of Glorious Liberation last June) coming unstuck and being made to look foolish.
Please.
The curiosity for me is all those who claimed Trump and the vote to LEAVE were a message from the "angry people" seem unwilling or unable to understand that their anger has been replaced by a new anger from those who voted Clinton or REMAIN. The pro-Brexit pro-Trump crowd (and variations thereof) now have to recognise they didn't and don't have a monopoly on being angry and perhaps this new anger will prove more powerful than their old anger.
We'll see.
Parties have problems because people do not fit ideologies exactly, there will be inconsistencies. They also arise when circumstances mean you change your mind. It's only hypocrisy if you refuse to acknowledge the inconsistency or adequately explain it, surely?
Yes, definitely. I saw a version of this on Ace of Spades the other week and every sentence of it is true - everything from the Saul Alinsky playbook Rules for Radicals.
It's a shame but there it is. In this country Blair got the ball rolling by politicising everything. Every appointment, every honour, every job, every policy was politically driven. (By Alastair Campbell - spit). Every little thing that is not in tune with progressive ideology gets labelled Nazi. Those of us not indoctrinated in the lefty religion find the thought process frankly weird. Remember Hattie hateperson trying to bully everyone into wearing 'This is what a feminist looks likje' T-shirts. Just deranged. Worship at the EU altar is likewise hard to fathom. And thus the rest of us - the majority of the population - are starting to move from weary or bemused acceptance of this shit to a more self confident outright rejection. I know I have. Those who been on PB for a while will note the angrier tone of my posting in recent months. I have become intolerant of the intolerance of the left. I'm happy for lefties to be lefties but they must stop trying to make everyone else into lefties. Stop dressing up as vaginas and blocking runways and tweeting your lives away and accept that most people ain't 'right on'. And STFU for a while.
It is true that you cannot move around the streets of London these days for people dressed up as vaginas.
Yes, definitely. I saw a version of this on Ace of Spades the other week and every sentence of it is true - everything from the Saul Alinsky playbook Rules for Radicals.
It's a shame but there it is. In this country Blair got the ball rolling by politicising everything. Every appointment, every honour, every job, every policy was politically driven. (By Alastair Campbell - spit). Every little thing that is not in tune with progressive ideology gets labelled Nazi. Those of us not indoctrinated in the lefty religion find the thought process frankly weird. Remember Hattie hateperson trying to bully everyone into wearing 'This is what a feminist looks likje' T-shirts. Just deranged. Worship at the EU altar is likewise hard to fathom. And thus the rest of us - the majority of the population - are starting to move from weary or bemused acceptance of this shit to a more self confident outright rejection. I know I have. Those who been on PB for a while will note the angrier tone of my posting in recent months. I have become intolerant of the intolerance of the left. I'm happy for lefties to be lefties but they must stop trying to make everyone else into lefties. Stop dressing up as vaginas and blocking runways and tweeting your lives away and accept that most people ain't 'right on'. And STFU for a while.
I've really noticed Righties getting a lot more assertive on social media - inc myself. I don't get much abuse - probably because I rarely throw it about, but I've seen a fair number of soft-left/liberals being pushed rightwards because of the OTT SJWers.
I did LOL when Penny Red was called a Nazi by some crazy vagina.
You seem to be slightly obsessed with the word 'Nazi'. You appear to be using it much more than any other poster?
Trump lost the popular vote. Their system is designedly undemocratic, i.e. a rural vote is of more value than an urban one.
Aside from the minor detail that the people do not elect the President of the United States, the states do.
Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution states:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
That's very Timothy McVeigh. Having been called every name under the sun by right wingers on here and been accused of every kind of treachery, I am inclined to see things in a more nuanced light than the author of the article. I note that there are very few left wing militias in the US, and that left wing psycopaths rarely carry out mass shootings of black churchgoers or bombings of federal buildings.
In the US maybe. Still Stalin and Mao were left-wing psychopaths and their body counts leave pretty much everyone else in the far distance. And they were and, in some cases, still are admired by many in the West.
Probably safe to say that those who are obsessed with creating a utopia on earth - or their version of it - are none too squeamish about creating hell on earth first for anyone and everyone who gets in their way.
That's why the Founding Fathers established a system which sought to limit the powers which any one man had in US government. I dare say other Presidents railed in private at uppity judges applying the law and frustrating the President's wishes. Twitter makes Trump's thoughts rather more immediately public.
Still, let's hope that the US Constitution works as it was intended to, eh!
On that note, I'm off for a bit.
It's my birthday. I appear to have developed a spot which, I assume, is Nature's way of telling me that I am really a young teenager. I will in any case be spending the day with the man I love drinking champagne and eating cake.
Trump lost the popular vote. Their system is designedly undemocratic, i.e. a rural vote is of more value than an urban one.
Aside from the minor detail that the people do not elect the President of the United States, the states do.
Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution states:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
Indeed the bias to rural States was entirely deliberate by including representatives (based on population) plus a fixed 2 (senators) smaller States get disproportionately more say in the electoral college. This is BY DESIGN so that a few big States can't outvote many more small States.
Trump won 60% of the States. If the Democrats had won less votes in California but taken more States then they would have won.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, Patrick and his ilk are at least as scared as they are angry. For an Old Bailey jury convicted a man of murdering Jo Cox - Patrick no doubt thought it was justifiable homicide.
Up yer bum! Cox's murder was awful. The fact you assume I think otherwise says alot more about how lefties see righties than it does about how I view the violent murder by a lunatic of a popular and well-intentioned MP. You make my point for me.
There's an interesting post from Scott Adams on a similar subject
"One of the most underrated qualities of Republicans is that they police their own ranks. If you have a problem with a violent Republican racist, call some Republicans. They’ll solve it for you.
But don’t call a Republican if you are simply offended by another person’s opinion. In that situation you want to call some Democrats to ridicule and physically attack the person with the objectionable opinion.
By the way, I’m not a Republican. This is just an observation. I’ve been watching Democrats not police their own ranks – after the Berkeley violence for example – and it occurred to me that you don’t see that on the Republican side. Republicans generally appreciate free speech, but if someone attacks your family, your country, or your freedom in some physical form, keep some Republicans on speed dial.
Parties have problems because people do not fit ideologies exactly, there will be inconsistencies. They also arise when circumstances mean you change your mind. It's only hypocrisy if you refuse to acknowledge the inconsistency or adequately explain it, surely?
The problem is your opponents attack you even if you do acknowledge the inconsistency or try to explain it and as a result your explanation, apology or whatever gets lost.
Is there a difference between "hypocrisy" and "changing your mind" in modern politics ? Does the fear of looking like or being branded a hypocrite prevent a politician taking the right decision ?
As an example, the Iraq imbroglio left the successor politicians, Cameron and Obama, saying they would not send British or American troops into another country on another intervention. When Libya came along, they were hamstrung by that line and therefore unable to intervene - Sarkozy, who had never got involved with Iraq, didn't have that problem and was happy for French troops to get involved.
Was the Cameron/Obama line correct in 2011 or should we have intervened militarily, deposed Gaddafi and formed a new Government ? Could we ? Should we ? The point is the previous experience and the political messages of those who had inherited the mess meant we couldn't.
Trump lost the popular vote. Their system is designedly undemocratic, i.e. a rural vote is of more value than an urban one.
Aside from the minor detail that the people do not elect the President of the United States, the states do.
Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution states:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
Indeed the bias to rural States was entirely deliberate by including representatives (based on population) plus a fixed 2 (senators) smaller States get disproportionately more say in the electoral college. This is BY DESIGN so that a few big States can't outvote many more small States.
Trump won 60% of the States. If the Democrats had won less votes in California but taken more States then they would have won.
The Democrats have won Statewide contests in rural States in recent times, so the system is not rigged against them. They made a deliberate choice to ignore them, in favour of the Ascendant, and they chose wrong.
Is it just me, or has the BBC News website had loads of stories about the problems facing the NHS over the last few days?
I'm sure a credible and skilled opposition leader would be able to capitalise on these.
Oh ...
Beeb are doing a special series of news items and other programmes on the NHS this week.
Labour don't have an answer to NHS issue either, not in the medium term anyway. How will we fund the kind of care needed to cope with demographic change? We are talking billions - year on year real term increases. Germany, for example, spends iirc, 30% more on health care. Where are we going to get this from?
Someone has to grasp the nettle and level with the public.
Parties have problems because people do not fit ideologies exactly, there will be inconsistencies. They also arise when circumstances mean you change your mind. It's only hypocrisy if you refuse to acknowledge the inconsistency or adequately explain it, surely?
The problem is your opponents attack you even if you do acknowledge the inconsistency or try to explain it and as a result your explanation, apology or whatever gets lost.
Is there a difference between "hypocrisy" and "changing your mind" in modern politics ? Does the fear of looking like or being branded a hypocrite prevent a politician taking the right decision ?
As an example, the Iraq imbroglio left the successor politicians, Cameron and Obama, saying they would not send British or American troops into another country on another intervention. When Libya came along, they were hamstrung by that line and therefore unable to intervene - Sarkozy, who had never got involved with Iraq, didn't have that problem and was happy for French troops to get involved.
Was the Cameron/Obama line correct in 2011 or should we have intervened militarily, deposed Gaddafi and formed a new Government ? Could we ? Should we ? The point is the previous experience and the political messages of those who had inherited the mess meant we couldn't.
You are right opponents will attack regardless, but such partisans are easily dismissed - but the public may be kinder to an acknowledged and justified change in position. One would hope.
I would say there is a difference in politics between changing your mind and hypocrisy though. Attacking a policy as crap then later adopting it and pretending it is not the same is hypocritical. Saying you will or wont do something then deciding you have to and explaining it is not hypocritical.
Is it just me, or has the BBC News website had loads of stories about the problems facing the NHS over the last few days?
I'm sure a credible and skilled opposition leader would be able to capitalise on these.
Oh ...
Beeb are doing a special series of news items and other programmes on the NHS this week.
Labour don't have an answer to NHS issue either, not in the medium term anyway. How will we fund the kind of care needed to cope with demographic change? We are talking billions - year on year real term increases. Germany, for example, spends iirc, 30% more on health care. Where are we going to get this from?
Someone has to grasp the nettle and level with the public.
Ah, thanks. I hadn't realised there was a deliberate series.
At one point yesterday it seemed like it was the NHS News service.
(Not that I'm denying the fact that this needs to be talked about)
Trump lost the popular vote. Their system is designedly undemocratic, i.e. a rural vote is of more value than an urban one.
But the Democrats sign up to it all the same.
If Clinton had lost the popular vote (not that that is a thing in the US system) but won the electoral college exactly ZERO Democrats and their left wing pals in the UK would be complaining about the system.
Complaining about the rules only after you lost the game simply means you are a sore loser.
Is it just me, or has the BBC News website had loads of stories about the problems facing the NHS over the last few days?
I'm sure a credible and skilled opposition leader would be able to capitalise on these.
Oh ...
Beeb are doing a special series of news items and other programmes on the NHS this week.
Labour don't have an answer to NHS issue either, not in the medium term anyway. How will we fund the kind of care needed to cope with demographic change? We are talking billions - year on year real term increases. Germany, for example, spends iirc, 30% more on health care. Where are we going to get this from?
Someone has to grasp the nettle and level with the public.
Ah, thanks. I hadn't realised there was a deliberate series.
At one point yesterday it seemed like it was the NHS News service.
(Not that I'm denying the fact that this needs to be talked about)
Personally I'm not sure what the point is. Is there a voter left in the country who doesn't know that the NHS is struggling? I suppose some may have bought the 'its just the usual winter crisis' line and need the Beeb to explain that it isn't.
As Rentoul pointed out the other day, when asked what could be done about funding the NHS properly for the long term, the answer was: tax other people (but not me), tax foreigners, tax stupid people.
Quentin Letts on why Speaker Bercow may have been itching after the limelight:
This is a Speaker who aches to be the centre of attention. The past week or so, when MPs have been grabbing headlines with their Brexit and Trump agitations, has not been easy for him. He has felt upstaged. Yesterday he also had to endure the rare spectacle of Theresa May raising merriment when she snotted Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry.
The details are wearisome but the exchange ended with Mrs May calling chi-chi socialist Miss Thornberry by her married name, ‘Lady Nugee’ (her husband is a judicial knight). Miss Thornberry became comically indignant – Hattie Jacques stung on the rump by a horsefly. She went stomping up to Bercow and made a point of order to complain, all meaty forearms and juddering chins, that ‘I have never been a Lady!’
Mrs May amiably said she was sorry if she had upset the old baggage by uttering her married name but she, May, had always been happy to use her husband’s surname.
This brought another cascade of cheers from the Tories. All this Bercow watched, swishing his tail, desperate to become involved and hating the way the Conservatives were prospering.
A lot of amateur psychoanalysis to cover up that Bercow is a Tory.
He's a prat. Responding to this will not be easy for the government but it is necessary.
He's a prat covers it pretty well...
The problem is that if you do go ahead with The speech I can see various leftie MPs not turning up or keckling or something equally asinine
I can see MPs of all parties not turning up or would the Tories three line whip it. Bercow should not have done what he did - it was genuinely shocking. Parliamentarians, though, have every right not to attend a speech given by a lying narcissist who they believe degrades the office of the President of the United States. Their constituents can then choose to deliver a verdict at the ballot box, if they so wish.
You miss my point - I was thinking it would be embarrassing for parliament and embarrassing for the country if we had a churlish or poor turnout for a keynote speech by POTUS. If that is a real risk then better to find another option. Unfortunately Bercow has made it much more difficult. Self-important prat that he is.
Is it just me, or has the BBC News website had loads of stories about the problems facing the NHS over the last few days?
I'm sure a credible and skilled opposition leader would be able to capitalise on these.
Oh ...
The Beeb is merely following Ed Milliband's presentation to them. They are attempting to "weaponise" the problems of the NHS.
The problem is that they have overplayed their hand and are now in 'switch channel' mode with viewers.
As I say, is there a voter left (at least those who ever watch the news) who doesn't know the NHS is really struggling and social care is a total clu*******k?
Trump lost the popular vote. Their system is designedly undemocratic, i.e. a rural vote is of more value than an urban one.
But the Democrats sign up to it all the same.
If Clinton had lost the popular vote (not that that is a thing in the US system) but won the electoral college exactly ZERO Democrats and their left wing pals in the UK would be complaining about the system.
Complaining about the rules only after you lost the game simply means you are a sore loser.
It wouldn't be zero, but it wouldn't be many. Whether those few who would complain would then try to change things if they'd won is even less certain - see Trudeau in Canada.
< The problem is that they have overplayed their hand and are now in 'switch channel' mode with viewers.
There are a series of complex and interconnected issues here including adult social care and the NHS and these force us to ask some searching and difficult questions about the kind of society we are and want to be and how, for instance, we want the elderly to be treated and perhaps asking the elderly how they see their place in society and how they want to be treated.
Talk to people who deal with dementia on a daily basis, whether in specialist care homes or at home.
That's the difficult stuff and the things we ought to be debating - not Bercow, Trump or how crap Corbyn is.
< The problem is that they have overplayed their hand and are now in 'switch channel' mode with viewers.
There are a series of complex and interconnected issues here including adult social care and the NHS and these force us to ask some searching and difficult questions about the kind of society we are and want to be and how, for instance, we want the elderly to be treated and perhaps asking the elderly how they see their place in society and how they want to be treated.
Talk to people who deal with dementia on a daily basis, whether in specialist care homes or at home.
That's the difficult stuff and the things we ought to be debating - not Bercow, Trump or how crap Corbyn is.
Good points. Where is the Labour thinking on this? Do they have a proper policy review on-going on funding? All I hear is Corbyn mouthing student-protest slogans about privatisation.
Nicola Sturgeon’s poverty adviser deleted criticism of flagship SNP policies from a major report after showing a draft version to the first minister, The Times has learnt.
Naomi Eisenstadt admitted that she had complied with some requests from officials to change the wording of her findings before they were released to the public — despite ministers’ claims that she was entirely independent........ The early draft versions were released after ministers lost a year-long fight to keep them secret.
The Democrats have won Statewide contests in rural States in recent times, so the system is not rigged against them. They made a deliberate choice to ignore them, in favour of the Ascendant, and they chose wrong.
Clinton was too busy campaigning in states that she was unlikely to win that she let several closer states slip through her fingers. Of course when you see the Presidency as your turn, and victory as all but inevitable you are likely to make those sort of mistakes.
Apart from the hyperbole, this is a description of a lot of Marxist/Trotskyist methodologies. The Left Is Right, anything else is evil and any means to suppress it is allowed. We've seen it display across this country many times before.
and there aren't a dozen posters on PB who take the exact opposite position? Everything it says about the hard left could equally be said about the alt-right.
Quentin Letts on why Speaker Bercow may have been itching after the limelight:
This is a Speaker who aches to be the centre of attention. The past week or so, when MPs have been grabbing headlines with their Brexit and Trump agitations, has not been easy for him. He has felt upstaged. Yesterday he also had to endure the rare spectacle of Theresa May raising merriment when she snotted Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry.
The details are wearisome but the exchange ended with Mrs May calling chi-chi socialist Miss Thornberry by her married name, ‘Lady Nugee’ (her husband is a judicial knight). Miss Thornberry became comically indignant – Hattie Jacques stung on the rump by a horsefly. She went stomping up to Bercow and made a point of order to complain, all meaty forearms and juddering chins, that ‘I have never been a Lady!’
Mrs May amiably said she was sorry if she had upset the old baggage by uttering her married name but she, May, had always been happy to use her husband’s surname.
This brought another cascade of cheers from the Tories. All this Bercow watched, swishing his tail, desperate to become involved and hating the way the Conservatives were prospering.
A lot of amateur psychoanalysis to cover up that Bercow is a Tory.
He's a prat. Responding to this will not be easy for the government but it is necessary.
He's a prat covers it pretty well...
The problem is that if you do go ahead with The speech I can see various leftie MPs not turning up or keckling or something equally asinine
I can see MPs of all parties not turning up or would the Tories three line whip it. Bercow should not have done what he did - it was genuinely shocking. Parliamentarians, though, have every right not to attend a speech given by a lying narcissist who they believe degrades the office of the President of the United States. Their constituents can then choose to deliver a verdict at the ballot box, if they so wish.
You miss my point - I was thinking it would be embarrassing for parliament and embarrassing for the country if we had a churlish or poor turnout for a keynote speech by POTUS. If that is a real risk then better to find another option. Unfortunately Bercow has made it much more difficult. Self-important prat that he is.
This suggestion by 'his people' that he's allowed to be partisan in international affairs is extraordinary....
Lord Speaker Lord Fowler is expected to make his own statement on the issue at 2.30pm.
A source close to Lord Fowler told the Telegraph he will "express his disappointment that John Bercow did not consult him before he made a statement in the House."
"No one has had a request for Trump to speak and he believes that it is not their role to take a view before that has come in.
Lord Speaker Lord Fowler is expected to make his own statement on the issue at 2.30pm.
A source close to Lord Fowler told the Telegraph he will "express his disappointment that John Bercow did not consult him before he made a statement in the House."
"No one has had a request for Trump to speak and he believes that it is not their role to take a view before that has come in.
Report that the visit had no intention of an address to Parliament but that there is to be an audience within Windsor Castle hosted by the Queen with an invited guest list. Awkward either way for Bercow, either he goes and is called out for hypocrisy or he doesn't go and he looks petulant. He will be the loser in this.
In all thinks 'Speaker' the guiding light should be as to how Betty Boothroyd would have dealt with the issue
Lord Speaker Lord Fowler is expected to make his own statement on the issue at 2.30pm.
A source close to Lord Fowler told the Telegraph he will "express his disappointment that John Bercow did not consult him before he made a statement in the House."
"No one has had a request for Trump to speak and he believes that it is not their role to take a view before that has come in.
Lack of a heads up at least is very poor form by bercow, even if he would have pressed ahead regardless, even if people feel he had a right to do so. 'Normally there's consensus but this time I won't even bother to try for consensus' basically.
Thatcher was technically Lady Margaret Thatcher between when Denis was given a baronetcy (which must have been a proxy for the hereditory peerage she turned down), and her taking her life peerage. She didn't use the 'Lady' title, preferring to remain Mrs T.
Not so David. From Feb 1991 as wife of a baronet Margaret Thatcher became Lady Thatcher. Lady Margaret Thatcher would imply she was the daughter of a hereditary peer of the rank of Earl and above. If she had not become life peer in 1992 she would on her husbands death in 2003 have become Margaret, Lady Thatcher or the Dowager Lady Thatcher to distinguish herself from the wife of Sir Mark Thatcher Bt.
My apologies.
Though it doesn't detract from my main point that as with Lady Nugee, the Iron Lady chose to maintain her professional name rather than use the more senior style to which she was entitled (if you'll excuse the pun).
< The problem is that they have overplayed their hand and are now in 'switch channel' mode with viewers.
There are a series of complex and interconnected issues here including adult social care and the NHS and these force us to ask some searching and difficult questions about the kind of society we are and want to be and how, for instance, we want the elderly to be treated and perhaps asking the elderly how they see their place in society and how they want to be treated.
Talk to people who deal with dementia on a daily basis, whether in specialist care homes or at home.
That's the difficult stuff and the things we ought to be debating - not Bercow, Trump or how crap Corbyn is.
I listened to a R4 program on Saturday I think it was where care home owners/workers told how frustrating the process of moving people out of beds into more suitable (And cheaper to the taxpayer for that patient) resi homes was. Health and social care does require more money I think, it also requires an end to the petty empire building that seems to go on that blocks progress.
I do love it when someone has a hereditary peerage, but they are also granted a life peerage to get back into the Lords (which I think has happened with Hailsham?).
Viscount Thurso on the other hand, IIRC, was in the Lords, became an MP when the reforms came in, and is now back in as a heritary peer having one that glorious election with 7 candidates and 3 eligible voters for LD heritary peerage.
Both Hailsham 2 and Hailsham 3 had both hereditary and life peerages:
Viscount Hailsham of Hurstmonceaux Baron Hailsham of St. Marylebone (Hailsham 2) Baron Hailsham of Kettlethorpe (Hailsham 3)
Let me "throw a curveball" as our American friends would say - what's wrong with hypocrisy ? Why does everyone have to be ruthlessly consistent about everything all the time ? People aren't in "real life" so why are politicians ruthlessly pilloried if they veer off some imagined path of principle ?
The indignation when a Labour politician condemned private schools yet sent their own child to such a school or when Boris Johnson, having one day supported Cameron, then fronted up to the LEAVE campaign and now this...
If democracy has shown us anything, it's that electorates will vote for any idiot who promises them biscuits and gravy (another Americanism). Unlike the Emir of Kuwait or the President of China who don't have to go through the democratic ritual and dance the populist dance, Trump is somehow "better" than them and more deserving of the right to pontificate before Parliament.
The line seems to be that some people over here don't like Trump and his policies but the American people voted him into office and that makes them right and the anti-Trump crowd wrong and let's have a jolly good gloat at the fact a person disliked by some prominent people won because it's good to see the "metropolitan lefty-liberal elite" (or some permutation thereof, which has apparently enslaved Britain for the past 40 years and prevented us thinking for ourselves until the day of Glorious Liberation last June) coming unstuck and being made to look foolish.
Please.
The curiosity for me is all those who claimed Trump and the vote to LEAVE were a message from the "angry people" seem unwilling or unable to understand that their anger has been replaced by a new anger from those who voted Clinton or REMAIN. The pro-Brexit pro-Trump crowd (and variations thereof) now have to recognise they didn't and don't have a monopoly on being angry and perhaps this new anger will prove more powerful than their old anger.
Lord Speaker Lord Fowler is expected to make his own statement on the issue at 2.30pm.
A source close to Lord Fowler told the Telegraph he will "express his disappointment that John Bercow did not consult him before he made a statement in the House."
"No one has had a request for Trump to speak and he believes that it is not their role to take a view before that has come in.
In all thinks 'Speaker' the guiding light should be as to how Betty Boothroyd would have dealt with the issue
Or indeed Speaker Lenthall:
May it please your majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as this house is pleased to direct me whose servant I am here; and humbly beg your majesty's pardon that I cannot give any other answer than this is to what your majesty is pleased to demand of me.
Apart from the hyperbole, this is a description of a lot of Marxist/Trotskyist methodologies. The Left Is Right, anything else is evil and any means to suppress it is allowed. We've seen it display across this country many times before.
and there aren't a dozen posters on PB who take the exact opposite position? Everything it says about the hard left could equally be said about the alt-right.
Not sure if I correctly understand your point. If you mean a dozen right wing posters on PB taking the same position as I mentioned, then I'd hope there were none! As far as I'm concerned the ends do not justify the means, especially inciting hatred to stimulate a response, or trying to drown out debate by violent protest.
Morning all, especially to Ms @Cyclefree, hope you have a great day!
On topic, I still can't see past my original view that Stoke is going to be a clear Labour hold, with an almighty bunfight between three other parties for second place. Copeland should be a lot closer, that's where the story of the night will be.
Oh, and John Bercow is a pompous prat who loves to hear the sound of his own voice far too much. But we knew that anyway.
< The problem is that they have overplayed their hand and are now in 'switch channel' mode with viewers.
There are a series of complex and interconnected issues here including adult social care and the NHS and these force us to ask some searching and difficult questions about the kind of society we are and want to be and how, for instance, we want the elderly to be treated and perhaps asking the elderly how they see their place in society and how they want to be treated.
Talk to people who deal with dementia on a daily basis, whether in specialist care homes or at home.
That's the difficult stuff and the things we ought to be debating - not Bercow, Trump or how crap Corbyn is.
I agree but the problem is that all the MSM are switching people off with their daily dose of adverse NHS stories. The problems are the same in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, indeed Wales is much worse than England. It needs cross party support to come to a policy that merges the NHS with Social Care but I doubt it will happen sadly.
However I do not agree with you about Trump and Corbyn as they are both impacting on UK politics and with Brexit, the NHS is not going to be top of the agenda for some time
Let me "throw a curveball" as our American friends would say - what's wrong with hypocrisy ? Why does everyone have to be ruthlessly consistent about everything all the time ? People aren't in "real life" so why are politicians ruthlessly pilloried if they veer off some imagined path of principle ?
The indignation when a Labour politician condemned private schools yet sent their own child to such a school or when Boris Johnson, having one day supported Cameron, then fronted up to the LEAVE campaign and now this...
If democracy has shown us anything, it's that electorates will vote for any idiot who promises them biscuits and gravy (another Americanism). Unlike the Emir of Kuwait or the President of China who don't have to go through the democratic ritual and dance the populist dance, Trump is somehow "better" than them and more deserving of the right to pontificate before Parliament.
The line seems to be that some people over here don't like Trump and his policies but the American people voted him into office and that makes them right and the anti-Trump crowd wrong and let's have a jolly good gloat at the fact a person disliked by some prominent people won because it's good to see the "metropolitan lefty-liberal elite" (or some permutation thereof, which has apparently enslaved Britain for the past 40 years and prevented us thinking for ourselves until the day of Glorious Liberation last June) coming unstuck and being made to look foolish.
Please.
The curiosity for me is all those who claimed Trump and the vote to LEAVE were a message from the "angry people" seem unwilling or unable to understand that their anger has been replaced by a new anger from those who voted Clinton or REMAIN. The pro-Brexit pro-Trump crowd (and variations thereof) now have to recognise they didn't and don't have a monopoly on being angry and perhaps this new anger will prove more powerful than their old anger.
We'll see.
Trump lost the popular vote. Their system is designedly undemocratic, i.e. a rural vote is of more value than an urban one.
Nonsense - votes in Philadelphia, Milwaukee or Detroit are worth far more than those in rural Wyoming, Nebraska or Vermont.
Rubbish - each state gets an electoral vote based on the number of congressional seats and senators the states have. Whilst congressional seats are broadly proportional to population senate seats aren't. So Wyoming gets 2 EC votes for its senators as does California with 30-odd times the population. In total this gives low population (generally rural) states more representation in the EC per head of population than larger states.
Lord Speaker Lord Fowler is expected to make his own statement on the issue at 2.30pm.
A source close to Lord Fowler told the Telegraph he will "express his disappointment that John Bercow did not consult him before he made a statement in the House."
"No one has had a request for Trump to speak and he believes that it is not their role to take a view before that has come in.
In all thinks 'Speaker' the guiding light should be as to how Betty Boothroyd would have dealt with the issue
Or indeed Speaker Lenthall:
May it please your majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as this house is pleased to direct me whose servant I am here; and humbly beg your majesty's pardon that I cannot give any other answer than this is to what your majesty is pleased to demand of me.
I listened to a R4 program on Saturday I think it was where care home owners/workers told how frustrating the process of moving people out of beds into more suitable (And cheaper to the taxpayer for that patient) resi homes was. Health and social care does require more money I think, it also requires an end to the petty empire building that seems to go on that blocks progress.
Indeed, and I agree with every word. What I've heard described as the "network of care" needs to be radically overhauled and re-thought. Part of the investment in new residential property should be geared toward an ageing society with suitably equipped domiciles aimed at maximising independence and accentuating mobility.
The "network of care" doesn't start with local authorities, GPs or the NHS but with individuals, families and with carers who perform heroics often sacrificing their own lives and individuality to care for an elderly relative. These people need much more recognition and support.
Employers need to be far more understanding about the role of carers - it's not just about financial support either. It's not for the State to define how families can and should function - there's a balance between the responsibility and capacity of individuals who want to do their best for their relatives and the State who has a role to support everyone who deserves and needs it.
Lord Speaker Lord Fowler is expected to make his own statement on the issue at 2.30pm.
A source close to Lord Fowler told the Telegraph he will "express his disappointment that John Bercow did not consult him before he made a statement in the House."
"No one has had a request for Trump to speak and he believes that it is not their role to take a view before that has come in.
Lack of a heads up at least is very poor form by bercow, even if he would have pressed ahead regardless, even if people feel he had a right to do so. 'Normally there's consensus but this time I won't even bother to try for consensus' basically.
I don't think Bercow had planned this - it was an opportunity to grandstand which proved too tempting - he should have replied to the question along the lines 'No request has been made and if one is made I shall make enquiries as to the views of members' and left it at that, but oh no, we had to have this:
I must say to the hon. Gentleman, to all who have signed his early-day motion and to others with strong views about this matter on either side of the argument that before the imposition of the migrant ban, I would myself have been strongly opposed to an address by President Trump in Westminster Hall, but after the imposition of the migrant ban by President Trump, I am even more strongly opposed to an address by President Trump in Westminster Hall.
Let me "throw a curveball" as our American friends would say - what's wrong with hypocrisy ? Why does everyone have to be ruthlessly consistent about everything all the time ? People aren't in "real life" so why are politicians ruthlessly pilloried if they veer off some imagined path of principle ?
The indignation when a Labour politician condemned private schools yet sent their own child to such a school or when Boris Johnson, having one day supported Cameron, then fronted up to the LEAVE campaign and now this...
If democracy has shown us anything, it's that electorates will vote for any idiot who promises them biscuits and gravy (another Americanism). Unlike the Emir of Kuwait or the President of China who don't have to go through the democratic ritual and dance the populist dance, Trump is somehow "better" than them and more deserving of the right to pontificate before Parliament.
The line seems to be that some people over here don't like Trump and his policies but the American people voted him into office and that makes them right and the anti-Trump crowd wrong and let's have a jolly good gloat at the fact a person disliked by some prominent people won because it's good to see the "metropolitan lefty-liberal elite" (or some permutation thereof, which has apparently enslaved Britain for the past 40 years and prevented us thinking for ourselves until the day of Glorious Liberation last June) coming unstuck and being made to look foolish.
Please.
The curiosity for me is all those who claimed Trump and the vote to LEAVE were a message from the "angry people" seem unwilling or unable to understand that their anger has been replaced by a new anger from those who voted Clinton or REMAIN. The pro-Brexit pro-Trump crowd (and variations thereof) now have to recognise they didn't and don't have a monopoly on being angry and perhaps this new anger will prove more powerful than their old anger.
We'll see.
Trump lost the popular vote. Their system is designedly undemocratic, i.e. a rural vote is of more value than an urban one.
Nonsense - votes in Philadelphia, Milwaukee or Detroit are worth far more than those in rural Wyoming, Nebraska or Vermont.
Rubbish - each state gets an electoral vote based on the number of congressional seats and senators the states have. Whilst congressional seats are broadly proportional to population senate seats aren't. So Wyoming gets 2 EC votes for its senators as does California with 30-odd times the population. In total this gives low population (generally rural) states more representation in the EC per head of population than larger states.
The Telegraph reporting the IFS: "The level of tax in Britain has reached the highest level as proportion of national income for 30 years, a respected think tank has found. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that taxes are on course to rise by £17billion over the course of this Parliament, taking that the proportion of national income raised in taxes to 37 per cent for the first time since 1986."
Yet.... "Spending on public services has fallen by 10 per cent since 2009/10, after taking inflation into account - already "by far" the longest and biggest fall on record. Further cuts of 4 per cent over the next three years are due to bring the total real-terms reduction to 13 per cent between 2010/11 and 2019/20. To meet his target of eliminating the deficit during the next parliament - which ends in 2025 - Mr Hammond will probably have to find a further £34 billion in tax rises and spending cuts, extending austerity "well into the 2020s", found the IFS."
Pay much more, get much. In normal times you would expect any government to be 15% behind in such circumstances, not 15% ahead. Testament to an utter failure of the opposition parties, all of them.
< The problem is that they have overplayed their hand and are now in 'switch channel' mode with viewers.
There are a series of complex and interconnected issues here including adult social care and the NHS and these force us to ask some searching and difficult questions about the kind of society we are and want to be and how, for instance, we want the elderly to be treated and perhaps asking the elderly how they see their place in society and how they want to be treated.
Talk to people who deal with dementia on a daily basis, whether in specialist care homes or at home.
That's the difficult stuff and the things we ought to be debating - not Bercow, Trump or how crap Corbyn is.
I listened to a R4 program on Saturday I think it was where care home owners/workers told how frustrating the process of moving people out of beds into more suitable (And cheaper to the taxpayer for that patient) resi homes was. Health and social care does require more money I think, it also requires an end to the petty empire building that seems to go on that blocks progress.
@NickPalmer made a good case here yesterday for a Royal Commission on health, social care and pensions, he and I don't agree on much but I think it's a great idea.
As I see it the problem is that it would require that politicians on all sides be adult about it, which unfortunately I can't see happening any time soon. I think it's clear that any new system will look radically different from what we have now, which will be difficult for those who worship the status quo as religion to accept.
Lord Speaker Lord Fowler is expected to make his own statement on the issue at 2.30pm.
A source close to Lord Fowler told the Telegraph he will "express his disappointment that John Bercow did not consult him before he made a statement in the House."
"No one has had a request for Trump to speak and he believes that it is not their role to take a view before that has come in.
In all thinks 'Speaker' the guiding light should be as to how Betty Boothroyd would have dealt with the issue
Or indeed Speaker Lenthall:
May it please your majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as this house is pleased to direct me whose servant I am here; and humbly beg your majesty's pardon that I cannot give any other answer than this is to what your majesty is pleased to demand of me.
Rubbish - each state gets an electoral vote based on the number of congressional seats and senators the states have. Whilst congressional seats are broadly proportional to population senate seats aren't. So Wyoming gets 2 EC votes for its senators as does California with 30-odd times the population. In total this gives low population (generally rural) states more representation in the EC per head of population than larger states.
Indeed. There's also a bias in the presidential electoral college. Although it is far less extreme. smaller states still get disproportionately more votes per head of population than the likes of California.
Is it just me, or has the BBC News website had loads of stories about the problems facing the NHS over the last few days?
I'm sure a credible and skilled opposition leader would be able to capitalise on these.
Oh ...
Beeb are doing a special series of news items and other programmes on the NHS this week.
Labour don't have an answer to NHS issue either, not in the medium term anyway. How will we fund the kind of care needed to cope with demographic change? We are talking billions - year on year real term increases. Germany, for example, spends iirc, 30% more on health care. Where are we going to get this from?
Someone has to grasp the nettle and level with the public.
Is Germany's spending all public? What is the private/public split?
Vermont, DC, Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii all have relatively "too much" power for their populations; Texas has less voter power than California even !
< The problem is that they have overplayed their hand and are now in 'switch channel' mode with viewers.
There are a series of complex and interconnected issues here including adult social care and the NHS and these force us to ask some searching and difficult questions about the kind of society we are and want to be and how, for instance, we want the elderly to be treated and perhaps asking the elderly how they see their place in society and how they want to be treated.
Talk to people who deal with dementia on a daily basis, whether in specialist care homes or at home.
That's the difficult stuff and the things we ought to be debating - not Bercow, Trump or how crap Corbyn is.
I listened to a R4 program on Saturday I think it was where care home owners/workers told how frustrating the process of moving people out of beds into more suitable (And cheaper to the taxpayer for that patient) resi homes was. Health and social care does require more money I think, it also requires an end to the petty empire building that seems to go on that blocks progress.
@NickPalmer made a good case here yesterday for a Royal Commission on health, social care and pensions, he and I don't agree on much but I think it's a great idea.
As I see it the problem is that it would require that politicians on all sides be adult about it, which unfortunately I can't see happening any time soon. I think it's clear that any new system will look radically different from what we have now, which will be difficult for those who worship the status quo as religion to accept.
Have to say I agree with the view that Bercow is an arse. I hold no candle for Trump and would personally be disappointed were he to be invited to spout his hateful rubbish in Parliament but it is not the Speaker's job to make such a public comment.
The Telegraph reporting the IFS: "The level of tax in Britain has reached the highest level as proportion of national income for 30 years, a respected think tank has found. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that taxes are on course to rise by £17billion over the course of this Parliament, taking that the proportion of national income raised in taxes to 37 per cent for the first time since 1986."
Yet.... "Spending on public services has fallen by 10 per cent since 2009/10, after taking inflation into account - already "by far" the longest and biggest fall on record. Further cuts of 4 per cent over the next three years are due to bring the total real-terms reduction to 13 per cent between 2010/11 and 2019/20. To meet his target of eliminating the deficit during the next parliament - which ends in 2025 - Mr Hammond will probably have to find a further £34 billion in tax rises and spending cuts, extending austerity "well into the 2020s", found the IFS."
Pay much more, get much. In normal times you would expect any government to be 15% behind in such circumstances, not 15% ahead. Testament to an utter failure of the opposition parties, all of them.
Or an acknowledgement of where we came from in 2010?
That's very Timothy McVeigh. Having been called every name under the sun by right wingers on here and been accused of every kind of treachery, I am inclined to see things in a more nuanced light than the author of the article. I note that there are very few left wing militias in the US, and that left wing psycopaths rarely carry out mass shootings of black churchgoers or bombings of federal buildings.
In the US maybe. Still Stalin and Mao were left-wing psychopaths and their body counts leave pretty much everyone else in the far distance. And they were and, in some cases, still are admired by many in the West.
Probably safe to say that those who are obsessed with creating a utopia on earth - or their version of it - are none too squeamish about creating hell on earth first for anyone and everyone who gets in their way.
That's why the Founding Fathers established a system which sought to limit the powers which any one man had in US government. I dare say other Presidents railed in private at uppity judges applying the law and frustrating the President's wishes. Twitter makes Trump's thoughts rather more immediately public.
Still, let's hope that the US Constitution works as it was intended to, eh!
On that note, I'm off for a bit.
It's my birthday. I appear to have developed a spot which, I assume, is Nature's way of telling me that I am really a young teenager. I will in any case be spending the day with the man I love drinking champagne and eating cake.
The Telegraph reporting the IFS: "The level of tax in Britain has reached the highest level as proportion of national income for 30 years, a respected think tank has found. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that taxes are on course to rise by £17billion over the course of this Parliament, taking that the proportion of national income raised in taxes to 37 per cent for the first time since 1986."
Yet.... "Spending on public services has fallen by 10 per cent since 2009/10, after taking inflation into account - already "by far" the longest and biggest fall on record. Further cuts of 4 per cent over the next three years are due to bring the total real-terms reduction to 13 per cent between 2010/11 and 2019/20. To meet his target of eliminating the deficit during the next parliament - which ends in 2025 - Mr Hammond will probably have to find a further £34 billion in tax rises and spending cuts, extending austerity "well into the 2020s", found the IFS."
Pay much more, get much. In normal times you would expect any government to be 15% behind in such circumstances, not 15% ahead. Testament to an utter failure of the opposition parties, all of them.
Yes, even with record tax receipts we are still having to borrow money to fund government spending. George Osborne should have taken the bull by the horns as happened in Ireland, the UK's finances are woefully unprepared for the next recession.
Lord Speaker Lord Fowler is expected to make his own statement on the issue at 2.30pm.
A source close to Lord Fowler told the Telegraph he will "express his disappointment that John Bercow did not consult him before he made a statement in the House."
"No one has had a request for Trump to speak and he believes that it is not their role to take a view before that has come in.
In all thinks 'Speaker' the guiding light should be as to how Betty Boothroyd would have dealt with the issue
Or indeed Speaker Lenthall:
May it please your majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as this house is pleased to direct me whose servant I am here; and humbly beg your majesty's pardon that I cannot give any other answer than this is to what your majesty is pleased to demand of me.
Have to say I agree with the view that Bercow is an arse. I hold no candle for Trump and would personally be disappointed were he to be invited to spout his hateful rubbish in Parliament but it is not the Speaker's job to make such a public comment.
Quite.
"I may disagree with your point of view but will defend to the death your right to express it"
I'm interested in Sebastian Payne's first tweet "Labour still has v mean campaigning operation. Lots of volunteers/union support"
He has been to Stoke, and I have not (not for a long time) - So he has seen more than me. Nonetheless, I can recall one PB commentator who managed to delude himself, in the past, about the "awesome power of Labour's ground game". Of course, the fact that he was wrong then, doesn't mean that Labour's ground game is now irrelevant.
Rubbish - each state gets an electoral vote based on the number of congressional seats and senators the states have. Whilst congressional seats are broadly proportional to population senate seats aren't. So Wyoming gets 2 EC votes for its senators as does California with 30-odd times the population. In total this gives low population (generally rural) states more representation in the EC per head of population than larger states.
Indeed. There's also a bias in the presidential electoral college. Although it is far less extreme. smaller states still get disproportionately more votes per head of population than the likes of California.
Which is entirely by design, otherwise candidates would campaign in California Chicago and New York and largely ignore the rest of the country.
What I didn't get about Bercow's speech is the way he appeared on the surface at least to be talking in a personal capacity. Also he noted "by convention" that the 'three keyholders' should agree, yet he doesn't appear to have discussed anything with the HoL speaker or the Lord Chamberlain I think it was.
Nonsense - votes in Philadelphia, Milwaukee or Detroit are worth far more than those in rural Wyoming, Nebraska or Vermont.
Rubbish - each state gets an electoral vote based on the number of congressional seats and senators the states have. Whilst congressional seats are broadly proportional to population senate seats aren't. So Wyoming gets 2 EC votes for its senators as does California with 30-odd times the population. In total this gives low population (generally rural) states more representation in the EC per head of population than larger states.
Tell me more about that bastion of rurality, DC.
DC isn''t a state and doesn't have any senators so what exactly is your point.? You might what to check the real facts before posting your alternative ones. Giving every state 2 EC votes for their senators regardless of population over represents smaller states in Presidential elections. I honestly don't see how you can dispute that but then again we are now living in a Trumpian-world where black is white and white is black.
The Telegraph reporting the IFS: "The level of tax in Britain has reached the highest level as proportion of national income for 30 years, a respected think tank has found. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that taxes are on course to rise by £17billion over the course of this Parliament, taking that the proportion of national income raised in taxes to 37 per cent for the first time since 1986."
Yet.... "Spending on public services has fallen by 10 per cent since 2009/10, after taking inflation into account - already "by far" the longest and biggest fall on record. Further cuts of 4 per cent over the next three years are due to bring the total real-terms reduction to 13 per cent between 2010/11 and 2019/20. To meet his target of eliminating the deficit during the next parliament - which ends in 2025 - Mr Hammond will probably have to find a further £34 billion in tax rises and spending cuts, extending austerity "well into the 2020s", found the IFS."
Pay much more, get much. In normal times you would expect any government to be 15% behind in such circumstances, not 15% ahead. Testament to an utter failure of the opposition parties, all of them.
Yes, even with record tax receipts we are still having to borrow money to fund government spending. George Osborne should have taken the bull by the horns as happened in Ireland, the UK's finances are woefully unprepared for the next recession.
DC isn''t a state and doesn't have any senators so what exactly is your point.? You might what to check the real facts before posting your alternative ones. Giving every state 2 EC votes for their senators regardless of population over represents smaller states in Presidential elections. I honestly don't see how you can dispute that but then again we are now living in a Trumpian-world where black is white and white is black.
DC has 3 electoral college votes.
Both Florida and Texas have less power per person per electoral college vote than California.
The issue is NOT the fact that smaller states have a higher baseline of power so to speak, it is that Texas and Florida (particularly) are somewhat more competitive than California.
I'll post a list with Electoral college votes hypothecated on ACTUAL votes in a bit.
Rubbish - each state gets an electoral vote based on the number of congressional seats and senators the states have. Whilst congressional seats are broadly proportional to population senate seats aren't. So Wyoming gets 2 EC votes for its senators as does California with 30-odd times the population. In total this gives low population (generally rural) states more representation in the EC per head of population than larger states.
Indeed. There's also a bias in the presidential electoral college. Although it is far less extreme. smaller states still get disproportionately more votes per head of population than the likes of California.
Which is entirely by design, otherwise candidates would campaign in California Chicago and New York and largely ignore the rest of the country.
Whereas now they totally ignore California, Chigago and New York.
I'm interested in Sebastian Payne's first tweet "Labour still has v mean campaigning operation. Lots of volunteers/union support"
He has been to Stoke, and I have not (not for a long time) - So he has seen more than me. Nonetheless, I can recall one PB commentator who managed to delude himself, in the past, about the "awesome power of Labour's ground game". Of course, the fact that he was wrong then, doesn't mean that Labour's ground game is now irrelevant.
There's also a difference between a by-election and a general election. It appears to me that both labour and the lib-dems can depend on a good number of committed people which will work single seats, but its much tougher to do this in a general election.
What I didn't get about Bercow's speech is the way he appeared on the surface at least to be talking in a personal capacity. Also he noted "by convention" that the 'three keyholders' should agree, yet he doesn't appear to have discussed anything with the HoL speaker or the Lord Chamberlain I think it was.
It was a most odd speech I thought.
The only thing you can say is that 'he lost it' and probably has done serious damage to himself
The Telegraph reporting the IFS: "The level of tax in Britain has reached the highest level as proportion of national income for 30 years, a respected think tank has found. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that taxes are on course to rise by £17billion over the course of this Parliament, taking that the proportion of national income raised in taxes to 37 per cent for the first time since 1986."
Yet.... "Spending on public services has fallen by 10 per cent since 2009/10, after taking inflation into account - already "by far" the longest and biggest fall on record. Further cuts of 4 per cent over the next three years are due to bring the total real-terms reduction to 13 per cent between 2010/11 and 2019/20. To meet his target of eliminating the deficit during the next parliament - which ends in 2025 - Mr Hammond will probably have to find a further £34 billion in tax rises and spending cuts, extending austerity "well into the 2020s", found the IFS."
Pay much more, get much. In normal times you would expect any government to be 15% behind in such circumstances, not 15% ahead. Testament to an utter failure of the opposition parties, all of them.
Yes, even with record tax receipts we are still having to borrow money to fund government spending. George Osborne should have taken the bull by the horns as happened in Ireland, the UK's finances are woefully unprepared for the next recession.
Osborne had no chance of getting real terms cuts though with the coalition.
The model should be 1994 Canada under Jean Chretien.
But to win its budget wars, Canada first had to realize how dire its situation was and then dramatically shrink the size of government rather than just limit the pace of spending growth.
The government shouldn't be talking about spending less on things, it should be talking about doing less things altogether.
The irony is that Chretien was sorting out the mess he inherited from PM Trudeau, father of the current PM Trudeau, and now under the watch of the later the Canadian economy is going down the pan once more.
The Telegraph reporting the IFS: "The level of tax in Britain has reached the highest level as proportion of national income for 30 years, a respected think tank has found. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that taxes are on course to rise by £17billion over the course of this Parliament, taking that the proportion of national income raised in taxes to 37 per cent for the first time since 1986."
Yet.... "Spending on public services has fallen by 10 per cent since 2009/10, after taking inflation into account - already "by far" the longest and biggest fall on record. Further cuts of 4 per cent over the next three years are due to bring the total real-terms reduction to 13 per cent between 2010/11 and 2019/20. To meet his target of eliminating the deficit during the next parliament - which ends in 2025 - Mr Hammond will probably have to find a further £34 billion in tax rises and spending cuts, extending austerity "well into the 2020s", found the IFS."
Pay much more, get much. In normal times you would expect any government to be 15% behind in such circumstances, not 15% ahead. Testament to an utter failure of the opposition parties, all of them.
Or an acknowledgement of where we came from in 2010?
Where we came from in 2008 was that until then the Conservative opposition had endorsed the Labour government's borrowing plans.
Lord Speaker Lord Fowler is expected to make his own statement on the issue at 2.30pm.
A source close to Lord Fowler told the Telegraph he will "express his disappointment that John Bercow did not consult him before he made a statement in the House."
"No one has had a request for Trump to speak and he believes that it is not their role to take a view before that has come in.
In all thinks 'Speaker' the guiding light should be as to how Betty Boothroyd would have dealt with the issue
Or indeed Speaker Lenthall:
May it please your majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as this house is pleased to direct me whose servant I am here; and humbly beg your majesty's pardon that I cannot give any other answer than this is to what your majesty is pleased to demand of me.
Would that May were so keen to avoid lèse-majesté. The dignity of the Queen is nothing when set against the malignancy of Brexit.
Lenthall wasn't avoiding Lese Majeste (can't be arsed with accents this morning). He was very elegantly telling the King to sod off.
Indeed (couldn't be bothered to explain it) - and it worked - no monarch has entered the House of Commons since......
Actually George VI did, once. It was after it had been hit by a bomb and he wanted to inspect the damage. Technically he was flouting convention but in the circumstances nobody objected.
Clearly Thornberry had got under Mrs May's skin to elicit such a response. It was much more David Cameron JCR than Mrs Thatcher Iron Lady. A Daily Mail crowd-pleaser which shows just how brittle the PM is.
I think it simply shows that Theresa May (unlike Cameron) is not terribly good at cracking jokes, but feels it's part of the job. She'd be better advised not to bother.
Nonsense - votes in Philadelphia, Milwaukee or Detroit are worth far more than those in rural Wyoming, Nebraska or Vermont.
Rubbish - each state gets an electoral vote based on the number of congressional seats and senators the states have. Whilst congressional seats are broadly proportional to population senate seats aren't. So Wyoming gets 2 EC votes for its senators as does California with 30-odd times the population. In total this gives low population (generally rural) states more representation in the EC per head of population than larger states.
Tell me more about that bastion of rurality, DC.
DC isn''t a state and doesn't have any senators so what exactly is your point.? You might what to check the real facts before posting your alternative ones. Giving every state 2 EC votes for their senators regardless of population over represents smaller states in Presidential elections. I honestly don't see how you can dispute that but then again we are now living in a Trumpian-world where black is white and white is black.
No, we are in the sore loser world of people being quite happy with the rules when they elected Obama and looked like electing Hillary Clinton, but when they unexpectedly elect Donald Trump they are suddenly bad rules after all. It's pathetic.
In amongst all the reporting of the BBC, their Ipsos polling on the NHS tells us:
a) People do not want to pay more tax for it; b) People think foreign patients should be charged; c) People think those whose problems are self induced should be charged; d) People think those who waste the NHS' time by missing appointments etc should be charged;
I wonder which politician is actually listening rather than engaging in NHS ideology.
The public are moving the same way with healthcare that they did with immigration and welfare. They are in 'enough is enough' mode.
That's very Timothy McVeigh. Having been called every name under the sun by right wingers on here and been accused of every kind of treachery, I am inclined to see things in a more nuanced light than the author of the article. I note that there are very few left wing militias in the US, and that left wing psycopaths rarely carry out mass shootings of black churchgoers or bombings of federal buildings.
In the US maybe. Still Stalin and Mao were left-wing psychopaths and their body counts leave pretty much everyone else in the far distance. And they were and, in some cases, still are admired by many in the West.
Probably safe to say that those who are obsessed with creating a utopia on earth - or their version of it - are none too squeamish about creating hell on earth first for anyone and everyone who gets in their way.
That's why the Founding Fathers established a system which sought to limit the powers which any one man had in US government. I dare say other Presidents railed in private at uppity judges applying the law and frustrating the President's wishes. Twitter makes Trump's thoughts rather more immediately public.
Still, let's hope that the US Constitution works as it was intended to, eh!
On that note, I'm off for a bit.
It's my birthday. I appear to have developed a spot which, I assume, is Nature's way of telling me that I am really a young teenager. I will in any case be spending the day with the man I love drinking champagne and eating cake.
Yes, an assumed rate of £50-70ph seems extraordinarily low. Is that what you were looking for?
Are you London based ?
Criminal law in the provinces isn't the gilded golden ticket that commercial law is in London. Especially with regards to legal aid cases. The figures are probably correct.
Rubbish - each state gets an electoral vote based on the number of congressional seats and senators the states have. Whilst congressional seats are broadly proportional to population senate seats aren't. So Wyoming gets 2 EC votes for its senators as does California with 30-odd times the population. In total this gives low population (generally rural) states more representation in the EC per head of population than larger states.
Indeed. There's also a bias in the presidential electoral college. Although it is far less extreme. smaller states still get disproportionately more votes per head of population than the likes of California.
Which is entirely by design, otherwise candidates would campaign in California Chicago and New York and largely ignore the rest of the country.
Whereas now they totally ignore California, Chigago and New York.
Why would Clinton campaign in California when she would win it with her eyes closed. She campaigned extensively in New York and Chicago.
DC isn''t a state and doesn't have any senators so what exactly is your point.? You might what to check the real facts before posting your alternative ones. Giving every state 2 EC votes for their senators regardless of population over represents smaller states in Presidential elections. I honestly don't see how you can dispute that but then again we are now living in a Trumpian-world where black is white and white is black.
No, we are in the sore loser world of people being quite happy with the rules when they elected Obama and looked like electing Hillary Clinton, but when they unexpectedly elect Donald Trump they are suddenly bad rules after all. It's pathetic.
I am just fascinated to watch the lengths people will go to justify why the person that didn't get the most votes should be President and people complained about the system when Bush was elected with less votes than Gore. No wonder righties love it it's stolen them two Presidencies in the last 20 years!
Have to say I agree with the view that Bercow is an arse. I hold no candle for Trump and would personally be disappointed were he to be invited to spout his hateful rubbish in Parliament but it is not the Speaker's job to make such a public comment.
Plus he is POTUS and any treatment of him equates to the treatment of and attitude towards the people of the US. It's impossible to distinguish between the two and hence even your "spout his hateful rubbish" is offensive as it offends those who voted for him. Of course if that was the intention then your position is coherent.
Comments
Labour: 27% (up 1)
Ukip: 12% (down 1)
Lib Dems: 10% (no change)
Greens: 4% (down 1)
Conservative lead: 15 points (down 1).
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2017/feb/07/only-a-third-of-voters-think-labour-will-win-an-election-by-2025-poll-suggests-politics-live?page=with:block-58998684e4b09739e65f4fb9#block-58998684e4b09739e65f4fb9
Oddly enough, PB was like that once - back in 2005-6, when there were fewer of us, the standard of debate was much better, the insults, jibes and sneers fewer.
The global financial crash changed the tone of the debate - almost from the moment Lehmann failed, PB became much sharper and more adversarial. I think 2008 scared a lot of people at a fundamental level - it represented a challenge to our economic security and identity which many had never experienced and after years of relative calm, it was like a storm.
You have 5 seasons of brilliant television ahead of you. Enjoy.
:-)
Probably safe to say that those who are obsessed with creating a utopia on earth - or their version of it - are none too squeamish about creating hell on earth first for anyone and everyone who gets in their way.
That's why the Founding Fathers established a system which sought to limit the powers which any one man had in US government. I dare say other Presidents railed in private at uppity judges applying the law and frustrating the President's wishes. Twitter makes Trump's thoughts rather more immediately public.
Still, let's hope that the US Constitution works as it was intended to, eh!
On that note, I'm off for a bit.
It's my birthday. I appear to have developed a spot which, I assume, is Nature's way of telling me that I am really a young teenager. I will in any case be spending the day with the man I love drinking champagne and eating cake.
I suppose it could be argued an impartial man is doing his job well if he is annoying everybody equally just as much as if he was liked or respected equally.
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/156677059691/hypnotists-flips-pro-choicers-to-pro-life-in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y2KsU_dhwI
Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution states:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
https://twitter.com/catherinegee/status/828901922069413888
Trump won 60% of the States. If the Democrats had won less votes in California but taken more States then they would have won.
I'm sure a credible and skilled opposition leader would be able to capitalise on these.
Oh ...
Is there a difference between "hypocrisy" and "changing your mind" in modern politics ? Does the fear of looking like or being branded a hypocrite prevent a politician taking the right decision ?
As an example, the Iraq imbroglio left the successor politicians, Cameron and Obama, saying they would not send British or American troops into another country on another intervention. When Libya came along, they were hamstrung by that line and therefore unable to intervene - Sarkozy, who had never got involved with Iraq, didn't have that problem and was happy for French troops to get involved.
Was the Cameron/Obama line correct in 2011 or should we have intervened militarily, deposed Gaddafi and formed a new Government ? Could we ? Should we ? The point is the previous experience and the political messages of those who had inherited the mess meant we couldn't.
Labour don't have an answer to NHS issue either, not in the medium term anyway. How will we fund the kind of care needed to cope with demographic change? We are talking billions - year on year real term increases. Germany, for example, spends iirc, 30% more on health care. Where are we going to get this from?
Someone has to grasp the nettle and level with the public.
I would say there is a difference in politics between changing your mind and hypocrisy though. Attacking a policy as crap then later adopting it and pretending it is not the same is hypocritical. Saying you will or wont do something then deciding you have to and explaining it is not hypocritical.
At one point yesterday it seemed like it was the NHS News service.
(Not that I'm denying the fact that this needs to be talked about)
Complaining about the rules only after you lost the game simply means you are a sore loser.
As Rentoul pointed out the other day, when asked what could be done about funding the NHS properly for the long term, the answer was: tax other people (but not me), tax foreigners, tax stupid people.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/pound-price-movements-tuesday-february-7-2017-2?r=US&IR=T
Talk to people who deal with dementia on a daily basis, whether in specialist care homes or at home.
That's the difficult stuff and the things we ought to be debating - not Bercow, Trump or how crap Corbyn is.
Naomi Eisenstadt admitted that she had complied with some requests from officials to change the wording of her findings before they were released to the public — despite ministers’ claims that she was entirely independent........ The early draft versions were released after ministers lost a year-long fight to keep them secret.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a34fb1dc-ecc2-11e6-b160-fe23d6a9b5dd
A source close to Lord Fowler told the Telegraph he will "express his disappointment that John Bercow did not consult him before he made a statement in the House."
"No one has had a request for Trump to speak and he believes that it is not their role to take a view before that has come in.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/07/john-bercow-faces-calls-think-position-bid-silence-donald-trump
In all thinks 'Speaker' the guiding light should be as to how Betty Boothroyd would have dealt with the issue
'Normally there's consensus but this time I won't even bother to try for consensus' basically.
Though it doesn't detract from my main point that as with Lady Nugee, the Iron Lady chose to maintain her professional name rather than use the more senior style to which she was entitled (if you'll excuse the pun).
Health and social care does require more money I think, it also requires an end to the petty empire building that seems to go on that blocks progress.
Viscount Hailsham of Hurstmonceaux
Baron Hailsham of St. Marylebone (Hailsham 2)
Baron Hailsham of Kettlethorpe (Hailsham 3)
May it please your majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as this house is pleased to direct me whose servant I am here; and humbly beg your majesty's pardon that I cannot give any other answer than this is to what your majesty is pleased to demand of me.
https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/parliamentary-archives/explore-guides-to-documentary-archive-/archives-highlights/archives-speakerlenthall/
On topic, I still can't see past my original view that Stoke is going to be a clear Labour hold, with an almighty bunfight between three other parties for second place. Copeland should be a lot closer, that's where the story of the night will be.
Oh, and John Bercow is a pompous prat who loves to hear the sound of his own voice far too much. But we knew that anyway.
However I do not agree with you about Trump and Corbyn as they are both impacting on UK politics and with Brexit, the NHS is not going to be top of the agenda for some time
The "network of care" doesn't start with local authorities, GPs or the NHS but with individuals, families and with carers who perform heroics often sacrificing their own lives and individuality to care for an elderly relative. These people need much more recognition and support.
Employers need to be far more understanding about the role of carers - it's not just about financial support either. It's not for the State to define how families can and should function - there's a balance between the responsibility and capacity of individuals who want to do their best for their relatives and the State who has a role to support everyone who deserves and needs it.
I must say to the hon. Gentleman, to all who have signed his early-day motion and to others with strong views about this matter on either side of the argument that before the imposition of the migrant ban, I would myself have been strongly opposed to an address by President Trump in Westminster Hall, but after the imposition of the migrant ban by President Trump, I am even more strongly opposed to an address by President Trump in Westminster Hall.
"The level of tax in Britain has reached the highest level as proportion of national income for 30 years, a respected think tank has found. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that taxes are on course to rise by £17billion over the course of this Parliament, taking that the proportion of national income raised in taxes to 37 per cent for the first time since 1986."
Yet....
"Spending on public services has fallen by 10 per cent since 2009/10, after taking inflation into account - already "by far" the longest and biggest fall on record. Further cuts of 4 per cent over the next three years are due to bring the total real-terms reduction to 13 per cent between 2010/11 and 2019/20. To meet his target of eliminating the deficit during the next parliament - which ends in 2025 - Mr Hammond will probably have to find a further £34 billion in tax rises and spending cuts, extending austerity "well into the 2020s", found the IFS."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/07/uk-tax-burden-will-rise-highest-level-30-years-ifs-warns/
Pay much more, get much. In normal times you would expect any government to be 15% behind in such circumstances, not 15% ahead. Testament to an utter failure of the opposition parties, all of them.
As I see it the problem is that it would require that politicians on all sides be adult about it, which unfortunately I can't see happening any time soon. I think it's clear that any new system will look radically different from what we have now, which will be difficult for those who worship the status quo as religion to accept.
http://theweek.com/articles/665750/which-states-got-screwed-worst-by-electoral-college-2016
Vermont, DC, Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii all have relatively "too much" power for their populations; Texas has less voter power than California even !
Cake......
"I may disagree with your point of view but will defend to the death your right to express it"
"Labour still has v mean campaigning operation. Lots of volunteers/union support"
He has been to Stoke, and I have not (not for a long time) - So he has seen more than me.
Nonetheless, I can recall one PB commentator who managed to delude himself, in the past, about the "awesome power of Labour's ground game".
Of course, the fact that he was wrong then, doesn't mean that Labour's ground game is now irrelevant.
Also he noted "by convention" that the 'three keyholders' should agree, yet he doesn't appear to have discussed anything with the HoL speaker or the Lord Chamberlain I think it was.
It was a most odd speech I thought.
Both Florida and Texas have less power per person per electoral college vote than California.
The issue is NOT the fact that smaller states have a higher baseline of power so to speak, it is that Texas and Florida (particularly) are somewhat more competitive than California.
I'll post a list with Electoral college votes hypothecated on ACTUAL votes in a bit.
https://twitter.com/telegraph/status/827992912164225024
The model should be 1994 Canada under Jean Chretien.
But to win its budget wars, Canada first had to realize how dire its situation was and then dramatically shrink the size of government rather than just limit the pace of spending growth.
http://business.financialpost.com/uncategorized/lessons-from-canadas-basket-case-moment
The government shouldn't be talking about spending less on things, it should be talking about doing less things altogether.
The irony is that Chretien was sorting out the mess he inherited from PM Trudeau, father of the current PM Trudeau, and now under the watch of the later the Canadian economy is going down the pan once more.
Electoral College based on actual votes having equal theoretical power :
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dEwTzRca1tHFuClBeqW9yEJdPuButr0Ra6_F0CNMg_s/edit?usp=sharing
Trump wins 303.7 to 234.3
Which rounds to 304 to 234.
a) People do not want to pay more tax for it;
b) People think foreign patients should be charged;
c) People think those whose problems are self induced should be charged;
d) People think those who waste the NHS' time by missing appointments etc should be charged;
I wonder which politician is actually listening rather than engaging in NHS ideology.
The public are moving the same way with healthcare that they did with immigration and welfare. They are in 'enough is enough' mode.
On the subject of Cake - every episode of BrassEye is now on All4 on demand for free.
Criminal law in the provinces isn't the gilded golden ticket that commercial law is in London. Especially with regards to legal aid cases. The figures are probably correct.
Bercow told it like it is. Good for him, he'll gain immense respect from this in the country. Who cares what "Senior Tory" supposedly thinks?