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  • Options
    TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 114,766
    edited February 2017
    You need to click on the tweet itself to enjoy its full majesty.

    https://twitter.com/CashsteinJ/status/831020866926424064
  • Options
    MTimTMTimT Posts: 7,034



    Automation has increased for a couple of centuries, yet more people are employed than ever in the UK, and in a vastly increased range of jobs. Whilst some occupations have died out, many more have been created..

    Even Obama did not get this basic point about progress. He lamented the loss of bank tellers. Do we really want a world where we daily rely on wainwrights, and cartwrights and farriers and blacksmiths, and a good job is considered to be a coal miner? Not me. Give me a job in nano tech or IT or synthetic biology any day.

    And for those who argue that I am comparing physical labour to knowledge-based, I'd suggest they try shoeing a horse without knowledge, or making a barrel or a cartwheel, or mining a deep shaft. All of the lost professions required knowledge, both explicit and tacit.
  • Options
    DavidL said:

    felix said:

    DavidL said:

    felix said:

    PlatoSaid said:

    Stephen Hawkes
    Jeremy Corbyn on his way to Stoke apparently - time to send in the big guns

    Must have been told about Stoke's famous Man-hole Covers Museum....
    In truth it means that Labour reckon they are safe to win.
    Would you say the same about May going to Copeland? I still think Labour will win both but there is increasingly little doubt about which one is at risk.
    No - I don't think Copeland is a must-win for the Tories - arguably ok to be close and allow JCs position to be strengthened.
    Not suggesting that. Just suggesting that putting the PM up there suggests the Tories think that they are at least in with a shout and, just possibly, something better than that.
    I have more faith in the Conservatives getting this one right than Labour. But it's less important on this occasion for the Conservatives to get this right than it is for Labour.

    Tony Blair's honeymoon didn't end when the voters of Uxbridge rebuffed him in the summer of 1997.
  • Options

    Mr. Thompson, one cafe (I think, Deets, or suchlike) has said it won't take cash any more, payment will only be permitted via apps etc.

    That's barking mad.

    That's the future.

    For businesses cash has a lot of major problems. It is the biggest risk as far as theft is concerned (from both external and internal causes). Mistakes made in giving out change can lead to major cash shortages. The cost, safety and security implications of getting the cash from the business to the bank.

    Electronic transactions are so much simpler. You do the transaction and the money is in your bank. Since businesses likely make virtually all their payments via bank transfer eliminating cash as an issue is cleaner and easier.

    One day cash will be as obsolete as a check book.
  • Options
    CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,267
    Jobabob said:

    Jobabob said:



    A Scottish pound pegged to Sterling.

    Which is what they currently have. We exist in a currency union - the English Pound, the Scottish pound, the NI pound, the Manx pound and the pounds of the Bailiwicks.
    No there's only one pound sterling - as backed by the Bank of England.

    The Scots banks are entitled to print their own Mickey Mouse money by having enough real money to back it up
    Yes that's right. In fact I believe Scottish notes are not even legal tender, merely legal currency.

    Legal tender is a bank of England £5, £10 & £20 note, but not a £50 note from memory.
    Legal tender is a fairly meaningless term in this country. It is simply what is legally accepted by courts - there is no requirement for businesses or other private individuals to accept legal tender. So a business can refuse to accept £50 notes (and many do) but they can just as easily refuse to accept £10 notes too, just not many do.
    That's true. Lots of myths about currency and money. Another one you regularly encounter is that if a good is displayed at a certain price in a shop, the shop has to sell you it at that price. That's false. The vendor can sell it the product at any price they choose, regardless of what is shown on the ticket. They can also choose not to sell it at all.
    That's not quite correct. If the shop owner makes an offer and it is accepted by the customer i.e. I will buy those nails you are selling me for 20 pence each then they have entered into a contract.

    For a contract to exist, there must be an intention to enter into legal relations, sufficient consideration and the terms must be clear.

    The first is present when a shopkeeper sets out a good with a price attached. So is the second: the price the customer pays. And so is the third. See the famous Carbolic Smoke Ball Company case.



  • Options
    rural_voterrural_voter Posts: 2,038

    He always, and quite rightly, said that the EU needed to reform itself.

    And he was right. The EU does need reform. It could start with being honest about where it is heading and dare to use the "Federal" word openly.
    to the best of my recollection it has been honest, it's UK politicans who have not been honest with the electorate as to where they are taking us.
    I think the EU needs to admit that becoming a Federal state is its ultimate goal with nations being reduced to states within the Federal structure rather than edging on a bit with "ever closer union".

    Proper external borders properly policed would be a good idea too
    I think the Eurocrats have tacitly acknowledged the rights of peripheral northern states to be awkward since Denmark and the UK each attained four opt-outs. No-one else has more than one, i.e. suggests the other 26 don't object as strongly to the EU's general direction.

    The reason the UK may end up half in/half out is that from where we now are the two other alternatives are so problematic. Below is an e-mail from an Irish friend who lives and works in Scotland on the recent link http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-38949539

    "I predict big trouble. Where there is a 500km border with a huge amount of traffic crossing and recrossing, and a 20% tariff chargeable on goods crossing it, there will be a huge amount of money to be made from smuggling. So there will be corruption and delegitimisation of the police and security forces. And Irish nationalists who never wanted the border and who have had their case strengthened by Northern Irleand having voted to remain in the EC, will have something concrete to start attacking, something disliked by the local community because of the unwanted inconvenience it causes, and will have access to lots of smuggling money. And once the rot starts...

    There are similar problems in Moldova and Transnistria:
    http://www.ponarseurasia.org/sites/default/files/policy-memos-pdf/Pepm_307_Gavrilis_Jan2014.pdf"

    So, it's Moldova here we come ... unless someone comes to their senses and ensures a tariff-free border.
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    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 76,051
    (((Sjöfn)))
    @CashsteinJ
    Zionist,arch-Blairite,European,Deep House Junkie,don't do the 52, trumpsters,corborg or antisemites

    Proof that loons don't just inhabit the far left and far right.
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    williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 48,338

    It was the most he could get when we might vote to Leave. Why on earth should there have been any further reform if we had voted to Remain?

    Because, quite rightly, he didn't propose his suggested reforms as being something just in the UK's interests, but in the wider EU's interests. It was always going to be a long, slow process - the EU doesn't turn on a sixpence.
    The EU doesn't turn. At all. We only suspected that before Cameron's "negotiation"; we know it for certain now.
    So this organisation that you think has surreptitiously evolved from a coal and steel community to a quasi-federal state is incapable of transforming itself? Sounds like cognitive dissonance.
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    felixfelix Posts: 15,125
    DavidL said:

    felix said:

    DavidL said:

    felix said:

    PlatoSaid said:

    Stephen Hawkes
    Jeremy Corbyn on his way to Stoke apparently - time to send in the big guns

    Must have been told about Stoke's famous Man-hole Covers Museum....
    In truth it means that Labour reckon they are safe to win.
    Would you say the same about May going to Copeland? I still think Labour will win both but there is increasingly little doubt about which one is at risk.
    No - I don't think Copeland is a must-win for the Tories - arguably ok to be close and allow JCs position to be strengthened.
    Not suggesting that. Just suggesting that putting the PM up there suggests the Tories think that they are at least in with a shout and, just possibly, something better than that.
    Indeed - but no-one anywhere seems to be saying all that much about Copeland. Suggests it could be really close....or a non-event.
  • Options
    Mr. Thompson, a nightmarish and dystopian future, then.

    The bank would be able to charge on every transaction. Your movements would be logged. Those without mobile telephones would be denied the right to, er, spend their own damned money.

    Get your phone hacked and you can't pay for anything. Get mugged and you won't be able to get a taxi home or pay for a train ticket. If we have virtual train tickets you'd lose that too.

    People get carried away with the capabilities of technology that they fail to consider the drawbacks.
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    Cyclefree said:

    See the famous Carbolic Smoke Ball Company case.

    Thank you for that! I hadn't come across it before, but I love those Victorian court cases.
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    Miss Plato, wouldn't that make everyone who isn't bisexual a sexist?

    Still, accusing someone of bigotry saves having to actually think of an argument against them.

    Mr. Eagles, indeed. AV should've been voted against because it's a demented cocktail of failure and remorse, not to kick Clegg.

    AV leads to loneliness, depression, and Ed Miliband.

    Didn't someone publish a study on here the other day that showed that had the 2015 election been run under AV, there'd have been virtually no change from FPTP, but that the Tories would have had a marginally larger majority? (Presumably because most people inclined to vote tactically have pre-transferred their votes in seats where it'd make a difference)
    But there would have been fewer wasted votes, less people feeling disenfranchised.
    Would it? I doubt that there are that many who feel 'disenfranchised' anyway, and of those who do, I'm not sure that having their third- or fourth-choice elected will do much about it.

    If you want to resolve that problem then PR or STV is what you need.
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    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 76,051
    MTimT said:



    Automation has increased for a couple of centuries, yet more people are employed than ever in the UK, and in a vastly increased range of jobs. Whilst some occupations have died out, many more have been created..

    Even Obama did not get this basic point about progress. He lamented the loss of bank tellers. Do we really want a world where we daily rely on wainwrights, and cartwrights and farriers and blacksmiths, and a good job is considered to be a coal miner? Not me. Give me a job in nano tech or IT or synthetic biology any day.

    And for those who argue that I am comparing physical labour to knowledge-based, I'd suggest they try shoeing a horse without knowledge, or making a barrel or a cartwheel, or mining a deep shaft. All of the lost professions required knowledge, both explicit and tacit.
    Can you point me to this post farrier world ?
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    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,573

    I think our EU friends thought they'd bent over backwards to help. They badly misjudged it, and (in their own interests) should have listened much more carefully to what Cameron said in his Bloomberg speech. They still should, for that matter.

    But yes, I agree the campaign wasn't great. Having said that, it was greatly hobbled by Labour being AWOL.
    The fundamental problem for remain was the disconnect between what the EU is and what British politicians of all stripes have been claiming it is for the last 40 years. That disconnect was highlighted and exposed by the feeble package of reforms Cameron was able to extract. There was no inclination in the majority of the EU to change direction from the quasi-state that they have created and they either did not understand or were not willing to accept that the British populace wanted no part of it.

    Their problem may prove to be that the British people are not the only populace who have been unwittingly led in that direction but it may not. It may be that despite the noise the majority in the other countries do favour such a direction in which case good luck to them and it is as well that the UK left now.
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    foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548

    PlatoSaid said:

    Stephen Hawkes
    Jeremy Corbyn on his way to Stoke apparently - time to send in the big guns

    Or - Labour think it may be in the bag and think Corbyn can be risked so that he can claim it as a personal victory.

    I wouldn't read so much into it. Jezza likes grass roots campaigning and has already appeared alongside both byelection candidates in their twitter.

    Lib Dems in second place to Labour in Stoke would be a nail in the coffin of the purple pestilence, I do hope Conhome is accurate. Is there a second place market up?
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    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 42,260

    PlatoSaid said:

    PlatoSaid said:


    They can continue to wail about boys prevented from using girls toilets. Nothing makes me think the Left has lost their marbles more than this. Most think it's just creepy.

    That is not what it is about. That is just dog-whistling.
    It's not, it's an example of how far the liberals have shifted from average views.
    So you would be happy if this person (born female, XX chromosomes, etc) shared the toilet with you?

    image
    Do people share toilets, I must lead a sheltered life.
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    MTimTMTimT Posts: 7,034
    Patrick said:

    TOPPING said:



    Maybe so. And look what happened to him. An ex-prime minister. See how it works?

    Was Cameron:

    a) the only person in the UK who thought he wouldn't have to resign if he lost the Referendum, or

    b) a lying git who knew he'd resign if he lost the Referendum - but said he wouldn't?
    He had to lie.

    He needed to ensure the referendum wasn't about him.

    It would have encouraged non Tories to vote Leave to get rid of Dave.

    He did the same during the Indyref
    In the same way Osborne lied when he said he was 'Eurosceptic'?
    Eurosceptic isn't synonymous with being a Leaver/BOOer
    Unless the only options being available are Brexit vs Superstate.
    Both Dave AND the EU fucked up big time.
    The EU for being so utterly inflexible and intransigent - did they really want to make being in the EU something so annoying that the majority of its 2nd economy and contributor could no longer stomach? Do the Brussels apparatchiks prefer Superstate without us to 2-speed and us still in? Who knows. Maybe the French wanted us out and blocked all reform. Can't blame them!
    Dave for failing to sniff the zeitgeist and making a serious effort to get reform or persuade the EU that we would otherwise actually have to leave. He came to a gunfight with a knife and failed to represent the pre-existing will of the people.
    Dave's tactics made a lot of sense if his intention all along was to justify Leave. But it wasn't, so his approach was just a total farce. Negotation 101 failure big time. And if Sir Ivan was advising, good riddance ahead of the serious negotiations.
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    It was the most he could get when we might vote to Leave. Why on earth should there have been any further reform if we had voted to Remain?

    Because, quite rightly, he didn't propose his suggested reforms as being something just in the UK's interests, but in the wider EU's interests. It was always going to be a long, slow process - the EU doesn't turn on a sixpence.
    The EU doesn't turn. At all. We only suspected that before Cameron's "negotiation"; we know it for certain now.
    It does and it has - but rarely. It turned under Delors, when it seriously embraced both the federalist project (which it had paid lip-service to before while making fairly glacial progress - it took 35 years before it even got close to completing the Single Market), and also the social agenda.

    At some point, it will need to address the concerns that Cameron raised because at present, both the politics and the economics are failing - or it will collapse in tears.
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    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 42,260

    Jobabob said:

    I note @CarlottaVance still hasn't answered my question.

    She has probably put you on ignore like I am about to :)
    When beaten , retreat to your cave
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    Beverley_CBeverley_C Posts: 6,256

    Below is an e-mail from an Irish friend who lives and works in Scotland on the recent link http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-38949539

    Previously it was cattle and livestock scams, creaming subsidies off on one side of the border and then sending the same animals back over a quiet road and re-importing them. Carousel Fraud with cattle :-)

    There is also this issue to muddy the waters further (from downthread)


    The situation in Ireland has some nuances. For example everybody born there (north OR south) is a citizen of the Republic and thus is an EU citizen too.

    Anyone born on the "island of Ireland" before 2005 is an Irish Citizen. Anyone in the North and born to Irish parents or grandparents is also an Irish citizen. That means that almost everyone in the north is an EU citizen.

    That makes for an interesting border situation... :)


  • Options
    JobabobJobabob Posts: 3,807
    Cyclefree said:

    Jobabob said:

    Jobabob said:



    A Scottish pound pegged to Sterling.

    Which is what they currently have. We exist in a currency union - the English Pound, the Scottish pound, the NI pound, the Manx pound and the pounds of the Bailiwicks.
    No there's only one pound sterling - as backed by the Bank of England.

    The Scots banks are entitled to print their own Mickey Mouse money by having enough real money to back it up
    Yes that's right. In fact I believe Scottish notes are not even legal tender, merely legal currency.

    Legal tender is a bank of England £5, £10 & £20 note, but not a £50 note from memory.
    Legal tender is a fairly meaningless term in this country. It is simply what is legally accepted by courts - there is no requirement for businesses or other private individuals to accept legal tender. So a business can refuse to accept £50 notes (and many do) but they can just as easily refuse to accept £10 notes too, just not many do.
    That's true. Lots of myths about currency and money. Another one you regularly encounter is that if a good is displayed at a certain price in a shop, the shop has to sell you it at that price. That's false. The vendor can sell it the product at any price they choose, regardless of what is shown on the ticket. They can also choose not to sell it at all.
    That's not quite correct. If the shop owner makes an offer and it is accepted by the customer i.e. I will buy those nails you are selling me for 20 pence each then they have entered into a contract.

    For a contract to exist, there must be an intention to enter into legal relations, sufficient consideration and the terms must be clear.

    The first is present when a shopkeeper sets out a good with a price attached. So is the second: the price the customer pays. And so is the third. See the famous Carbolic Smoke Ball Company case.



    If they have made an agreement, of course. But if no conversation has taken place then the price on the ticket can be ignored.
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 42,260

    scotslass said:

    CarlottaVance

    The question will be exactly the same as 2014 as will the franchise - only the result will change.

    Both are subject to agreement by Westminster. As circumstances have changed there may be changes to both the question and the franchise.
    One circumstance is that any reference to "independence" being gained rather than lost by a vote to secede would post Brexit be highly misleading, when the argument for a second referendum in short succession rests on transferring national independence back to the EU.

    The UK government should this time put a robust case to the Electoral Commission that the question should be put in terms of Scotland leaving the UK.

    In any case the UK might be a tiny bit resistant to the SNP being allowed to roll the dice again and again in short succession, EU style, until they get the answer they want.
    Keep polishing those Jackboots, we will obey you.
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    MTimTMTimT Posts: 7,034

    It was the most he could get when we might vote to Leave. Why on earth should there have been any further reform if we had voted to Remain?

    Because, quite rightly, he didn't propose his suggested reforms as being something just in the UK's interests, but in the wider EU's interests. It was always going to be a long, slow process - the EU doesn't turn on a sixpence.
    The EU doesn't turn. At all. We only suspected that before Cameron's "negotiation"; we know it for certain now.
    So this organisation that you think has surreptitiously evolved from a coal and steel community to a quasi-federal state is incapable of transforming itself? Sounds like cognitive dissonance.

    Turning and transforming are two totally different things. Both entail change. But in this case, one requires acknowledging reality and adapting to it, whereas the other entails continuing down the same, predetermined path blindly, willfully ignoring all the evidence as the evidence is so loud it cannot be otherwise unnoticed.
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,573

    DavidL said:

    felix said:

    DavidL said:

    felix said:

    PlatoSaid said:

    Stephen Hawkes
    Jeremy Corbyn on his way to Stoke apparently - time to send in the big guns

    Must have been told about Stoke's famous Man-hole Covers Museum....
    In truth it means that Labour reckon they are safe to win.
    Would you say the same about May going to Copeland? I still think Labour will win both but there is increasingly little doubt about which one is at risk.
    No - I don't think Copeland is a must-win for the Tories - arguably ok to be close and allow JCs position to be strengthened.
    Not suggesting that. Just suggesting that putting the PM up there suggests the Tories think that they are at least in with a shout and, just possibly, something better than that.
    I have more faith in the Conservatives getting this one right than Labour. But it's less important on this occasion for the Conservatives to get this right than it is for Labour.

    Tony Blair's honeymoon didn't end when the voters of Uxbridge rebuffed him in the summer of 1997.
    I agree that they have a lot less at stake. To win a bye election from Labour in government would be a very unusual event. I just don't think that May would have been taking time out of what is a very, very busy schedule at the moment as some sort of a gesture unless there was a good chance of it coming up Trumps (so to speak). It suggests to me that the Tories are perhaps a tad underpriced.
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    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 76,051
    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    felix said:

    DavidL said:

    felix said:

    PlatoSaid said:

    Stephen Hawkes
    Jeremy Corbyn on his way to Stoke apparently - time to send in the big guns

    Must have been told about Stoke's famous Man-hole Covers Museum....
    In truth it means that Labour reckon they are safe to win.
    Would you say the same about May going to Copeland? I still think Labour will win both but there is increasingly little doubt about which one is at risk.
    No - I don't think Copeland is a must-win for the Tories - arguably ok to be close and allow JCs position to be strengthened.
    Not suggesting that. Just suggesting that putting the PM up there suggests the Tories think that they are at least in with a shout and, just possibly, something better than that.
    I have more faith in the Conservatives getting this one right than Labour. But it's less important on this occasion for the Conservatives to get this right than it is for Labour.

    Tony Blair's honeymoon didn't end when the voters of Uxbridge rebuffed him in the summer of 1997.
    I agree that they have a lot less at stake. To win a bye election from Labour in government would be a very unusual event. I just don't think that May would have been taking time out of what is a very, very busy schedule at the moment as some sort of a gesture unless there was a good chance of it coming up Trumps (so to speak). It suggests to me that the Tories are perhaps a tad underpriced.
    At 1-2 on ?????

    Are you having a giraffe ?
  • Options
    Mr. G, the Romans had communal lavatories.
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    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 42,260

    Mr. Thompson, one cafe (I think, Deets, or suchlike) has said it won't take cash any more, payment will only be permitted via apps etc.

    That's barking mad.

    That's the future.

    For businesses cash has a lot of major problems. It is the biggest risk as far as theft is concerned (from both external and internal causes). Mistakes made in giving out change can lead to major cash shortages. The cost, safety and security implications of getting the cash from the business to the bank.

    Electronic transactions are so much simpler. You do the transaction and the money is in your bank. Since businesses likely make virtually all their payments via bank transfer eliminating cash as an issue is cleaner and easier.

    One day cash will be as obsolete as a check book.
    Perchance do you mean "cheque"
  • Options
    MTimTMTimT Posts: 7,034
    Pulpstar said:

    MTimT said:



    Automation has increased for a couple of centuries, yet more people are employed than ever in the UK, and in a vastly increased range of jobs. Whilst some occupations have died out, many more have been created..

    Even Obama did not get this basic point about progress. He lamented the loss of bank tellers. Do we really want a world where we daily rely on wainwrights, and cartwrights and farriers and blacksmiths, and a good job is considered to be a coal miner? Not me. Give me a job in nano tech or IT or synthetic biology any day.

    And for those who argue that I am comparing physical labour to knowledge-based, I'd suggest they try shoeing a horse without knowledge, or making a barrel or a cartwheel, or mining a deep shaft. All of the lost professions required knowledge, both explicit and tacit.
    Can you point me to this post farrier world ?
    I was talking about daily life reliance. Now we could not cope without farriers here on the farm. But I doubt most city dwellers even know what a farrier is.
  • Options
    Carolus_RexCarolus_Rex Posts: 1,414

    Cyclefree said:

    See the famous Carbolic Smoke Ball Company case.

    Thank you for that! I hadn't come across it before, but I love those Victorian court cases.
    Carlill v the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company.

    It's the only case whose name any lawyer can remember 5 minutes after sitting their last law exam.
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    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,573
    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    felix said:

    DavidL said:

    felix said:

    PlatoSaid said:

    Stephen Hawkes
    Jeremy Corbyn on his way to Stoke apparently - time to send in the big guns

    Must have been told about Stoke's famous Man-hole Covers Museum....
    In truth it means that Labour reckon they are safe to win.
    Would you say the same about May going to Copeland? I still think Labour will win both but there is increasingly little doubt about which one is at risk.
    No - I don't think Copeland is a must-win for the Tories - arguably ok to be close and allow JCs position to be strengthened.
    Not suggesting that. Just suggesting that putting the PM up there suggests the Tories think that they are at least in with a shout and, just possibly, something better than that.
    I have more faith in the Conservatives getting this one right than Labour. But it's less important on this occasion for the Conservatives to get this right than it is for Labour.

    Tony Blair's honeymoon didn't end when the voters of Uxbridge rebuffed him in the summer of 1997.
    I agree that they have a lot less at stake. To win a bye election from Labour in government would be a very unusual event. I just don't think that May would have been taking time out of what is a very, very busy schedule at the moment as some sort of a gesture unless there was a good chance of it coming up Trumps (so to speak). It suggests to me that the Tories are perhaps a tad underpriced.
    At 1-2 on ?????

    Are you having a giraffe ?
    That's not a bad price if it is a pretty sure thing.
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,573

    Cyclefree said:

    See the famous Carbolic Smoke Ball Company case.

    Thank you for that! I hadn't come across it before, but I love those Victorian court cases.
    Carlill v the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company.

    It's the only case whose name any lawyer can remember 5 minutes after sitting their last law exam.
    Donaghue-v-Stevenson?
  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 76,051
    DavidL said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    felix said:

    DavidL said:

    felix said:

    PlatoSaid said:

    Stephen Hawkes
    Jeremy Corbyn on his way to Stoke apparently - time to send in the big guns

    Must have been told about Stoke's famous Man-hole Covers Museum....
    In truth it means that Labour reckon they are safe to win.
    Would you say the same about May going to Copeland? I still think Labour will win both but there is increasingly little doubt about which one is at risk.
    No - I don't think Copeland is a must-win for the Tories - arguably ok to be close and allow JCs position to be strengthened.
    Not suggesting that. Just suggesting that putting the PM up there suggests the Tories think that they are at least in with a shout and, just possibly, something better than that.
    I have more faith in the Conservatives getting this one right than Labour. But it's less important on this occasion for the Conservatives to get this right than it is for Labour.

    Tony Blair's honeymoon didn't end when the voters of Uxbridge rebuffed him in the summer of 1997.
    I agree that they have a lot less at stake. To win a bye election from Labour in government would be a very unusual event. I just don't think that May would have been taking time out of what is a very, very busy schedule at the moment as some sort of a gesture unless there was a good chance of it coming up Trumps (so to speak). It suggests to me that the Tories are perhaps a tad underpriced.
    At 1-2 on ?????

    Are you having a giraffe ?
    That's not a bad price if it is a pretty sure thing.
    It is definitely not a sure thing though is it ?

    At best it is a 50-50 shot.
  • Options
    foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548

    Mr. G, the Romans had communal lavatories.

    UEA does too, albeit with stalls, in their SU. Seemed fine to me.
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    ArtistArtist Posts: 1,883
    edited February 2017
    One Westminster insider said: “The Tories have got Copeland in the bag. Everyone in the Cabinet has been up there. They’re throwing everything at it.”

    http://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2854120/theresa-may-set-for-first-by-election-victory-after-disastrous-poll-reveals-third-of-labour-voters-in-copeland-are-deserting-jeremy-corbyn/

    Could be Labour expectation management.
  • Options
    AlsoIndigoAlsoIndigo Posts: 1,852

    Patrick said:

    He got his job as leader on a false prospectus - as a Eurosceptic. His emergent Europhilia completely reversed my view of him.

    I've no idea where this bizarre myth comes from. He was completely consistent. He never claimed to be a BOOer. He always, and quite rightly, said that the EU needed to reform itself.

    It is fascinating watching history being reinvented in real time right in front of you, especially since the internet makes it trivially easy to debunk the myths people create.
    He said the EU needed to reform. he gave an excellent speech at Bloomberg outlining what needed to be done. He opened negotiations and then got virtually nothing that he previously argued for.

    That was the point at which he should have either said (1) look, the negotiation's failed but you know what, the EU's a good thing in its own right and we should be members anyway; we'll keep fighting for reform. Or, (2), if the EU won't reform then I'm going to have to back Leave.

    Instead, he ran a middle course which failed to satisfy either side and, probably in consequence, lost.
    That analysis is valid only if you think that the renegotiation was the end of the reform process. It wasn't, it was the beginning.

    In any case, if you don't get everything you want, you sometimes have to accept that, if the alternative appears worse.

    We'll find out in around three years whether the alternative is worse, at least in the short-term.
    Quite right. Dave got it in writing that we need not submit to any further integration. He essentially secured agreement for a two-speed Europe - something once unthinkable amongst EU fundamentalists. With that victory in his back pocket, who knows what other goodies he could have wrangled for us at a later date.
    Except it was worthless.

    This is Denmark's deal with the Council of Europe because they rejected Maastricht, following exactly the same ratifications and agreements as the deal Dave was offered.

    http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:41992X1231:EN:HTML

    This is the same deal being struck down by the ECJ

    http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1443963656228&uri=CELEX:61999CJ0184

    Treaties > Backroom deals by the Council of Europe
  • Options
    DavidL said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    felix said:

    DavidL said:

    felix said:

    PlatoSaid said:

    Stephen Hawkes
    Jeremy Corbyn on his way to Stoke apparently - time to send in the big guns

    Must have been told about Stoke's famous Man-hole Covers Museum....
    In truth it means that Labour reckon they are safe to win.
    Would you say the same about May going to Copeland? I still think Labour will win both but there is increasingly little doubt about which one is at risk.
    No - I don't think Copeland is a must-win for the Tories - arguably ok to be close and allow JCs position to be strengthened.
    Not suggesting that. Just suggesting that putting the PM up there suggests the Tories think that they are at least in with a shout and, just possibly, something better than that.
    I have more faith in the Conservatives getting this one right than Labour. But it's less important on this occasion for the Conservatives to get this right than it is for Labour.

    Tony Blair's honeymoon didn't end when the voters of Uxbridge rebuffed him in the summer of 1997.
    I agree that they have a lot less at stake. To win a bye election from Labour in government would be a very unusual event. I just don't think that May would have been taking time out of what is a very, very busy schedule at the moment as some sort of a gesture unless there was a good chance of it coming up Trumps (so to speak). It suggests to me that the Tories are perhaps a tad underpriced.
    At 1-2 on ?????

    Are you having a giraffe ?
    That's not a bad price if it is a pretty sure thing.
    To put that in context, I think that the last time the Conservatives increased their vote share while in government was in Beaconsfield in 1982 (where they did so by 0.1%). They were 7% behind Labour at the general election, so to take the seat they will either need to break this 35 year streak or they will need to see Labour's share drop by more than their own.

    Either is possible but neither sounds like a pretty sure thing to me.

    Put another way, a Conservative win in Copeland would be an exceptionally good result for them (and appalling for Labour).
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,573
    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    felix said:

    DavidL said:

    felix said:

    PlatoSaid said:

    Stephen Hawkes
    Jeremy Corbyn on his way to Stoke apparently - time to send in the big guns

    Must have been told about Stoke's famous Man-hole Covers Museum....
    In truth it means that Labour reckon they are safe to win.
    Would you say the same about May going to Copeland? I still think Labour will win both but there is increasingly little doubt about which one is at risk.
    No - I don't think Copeland is a must-win for the Tories - arguably ok to be close and allow JCs position to be strengthened.
    Not suggesting that. Just suggesting that putting the PM up there suggests the Tories think that they are at least in with a shout and, just possibly, something better than that.
    I have more faith in the Conservatives getting this one right than Labour. But it's less important on this occasion for the Conservatives to get this right than it is for Labour.

    Tony Blair's honeymoon didn't end when the voters of Uxbridge rebuffed him in the summer of 1997.
    I agree that they have a lot less at stake. To win a bye election from Labour in government would be a very unusual event. I just don't think that May would have been taking time out of what is a very, very busy schedule at the moment as some sort of a gesture unless there was a good chance of it coming up Trumps (so to speak). It suggests to me that the Tories are perhaps a tad underpriced.
    At 1-2 on ?????

    Are you having a giraffe ?
    That's not a bad price if it is a pretty sure thing.
    It is definitely not a sure thing though is it ?

    At best it is a 50-50 shot.
    What we know recently (ignoring the Sun for the moment) is that Corbyn is going to Stoke and not to Copeland. May is going to Copeland and not to Stoke. I agree with the comments downthread that where the leaders were going in 2015 was, not entirely with the benefit of hindsight, pretty good evidence of how the campaigns thought things were going.
  • Options
    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,193
    Artist said:

    One Westminster insider said: “The Tories have got Copeland in the bag. Everyone in the Cabinet has been up there. They’re throwing everything at it.”

    http://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2854120/theresa-may-set-for-first-by-election-victory-after-disastrous-poll-reveals-third-of-labour-voters-in-copeland-are-deserting-jeremy-corbyn/

    Could be Labour expectation management.

    No, THIS was expectation management!

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2668829/copeland-by-election-labour-ukip-paul-nuttall/
  • Options
    Mr. Indigo, quite.

    I don't think the deal was worth much, but when the other side can't be trusted, a deal is worth nothing.

  • Options
    Carolus_RexCarolus_Rex Posts: 1,414
    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    See the famous Carbolic Smoke Ball Company case.

    Thank you for that! I hadn't come across it before, but I love those Victorian court cases.
    Carlill v the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company.

    It's the only case whose name any lawyer can remember 5 minutes after sitting their last law exam.
    Donaghue-v-Stevenson?
    Oh, all right. That one too.

    Oh, and R v Dudley and Stephens - now there's one for Mr Nabavi to chew over... as it were...
  • Options
    stodgestodge Posts: 12,948


    It does and it has - but rarely. It turned under Delors, when it seriously embraced both the federalist project (which it had paid lip-service to before while making fairly glacial progress - it took 35 years before it even got close to completing the Single Market), and also the social agenda.

    At some point, it will need to address the concerns that Cameron raised because at present, both the politics and the economics are failing - or it will collapse in tears.

    I think the Monnet ideal was always there primarily as a Franco-German axis to replace the rivalry which had torn Europe apart from 1870 to 1945. The logic of western European integration as a bulwark to the advance of Communism was also ever present.

    The British could have shaped the future EU much more strongly had we got more involved at Messina but our stand-offish approach meant Paris and Bonn built the "Common Market" without much involvement from London.
  • Options
    mattmatt Posts: 3,789
    edited February 2017

    Cyclefree said:

    See the famous Carbolic Smoke Ball Company case.

    Thank you for that! I hadn't come across it before, but I love those Victorian court cases.
    It's up there with Donoguhue's snail in his ginger beer as foundations of English commercial and tort law.
  • Options
    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,193
    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    See the famous Carbolic Smoke Ball Company case.

    Thank you for that! I hadn't come across it before, but I love those Victorian court cases.
    Carlill v the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company.

    It's the only case whose name any lawyer can remember 5 minutes after sitting their last law exam.
    Donaghue-v-Stevenson?
    R v Collins

    http://www.e-lawresources.co.uk/R-v-Collins.php
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    Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981
    matt said:

    Cyclefree said:

    See the famous Carbolic Smoke Ball Company case.

    Thank you for that! I hadn't come across it before, but I love those Victorian court cases.
    It's up there with Donoguhue's snail in his ginger beer as foundations of English commercial and tort law.
    Her ginger beer, I think.
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    foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548
    Artist said:

    One Westminster insider said: “The Tories have got Copeland in the bag. Everyone in the Cabinet has been up there. They’re throwing everything at it.”

    http://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2854120/theresa-may-set-for-first-by-election-victory-after-disastrous-poll-reveals-third-of-labour-voters-in-copeland-are-deserting-jeremy-corbyn/

    Could be Labour expectation management.

    The idea that Labour have abandoned Copeland is nonsense.

    https://twitter.com/GillTroughton/status/830812892052209665?s=09

    https://twitter.com/JimfromOldham/status/830492022956052480
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    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,604
    MTimT said:

    Pulpstar said:

    MTimT said:



    Automation has increased for a couple of centuries, yet more people are employed than ever in the UK, and in a vastly increased range of jobs. Whilst some occupations have died out, many more have been created..

    Even Obama did not get this basic point about progress. He lamented the loss of bank tellers. Do we really want a world where we daily rely on wainwrights, and cartwrights and farriers and blacksmiths, and a good job is considered to be a coal miner? Not me. Give me a job in nano tech or IT or synthetic biology any day.

    And for those who argue that I am comparing physical labour to knowledge-based, I'd suggest they try shoeing a horse without knowledge, or making a barrel or a cartwheel, or mining a deep shaft. All of the lost professions required knowledge, both explicit and tacit.
    Can you point me to this post farrier world ?
    I was talking about daily life reliance. Now we could not cope without farriers here on the farm. But I doubt most city dwellers even know what a farrier is.
    Farriers are rarely seen in the countryside. Because they are all on holiday in the Caribbean.
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    mattmatt Posts: 3,789
    Jobabob said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Jobabob said:

    Jobabob said:



    A Scottish pound pegged to Sterling.

    Which is what they currently have. We exist in a currency union - the English Pound, the Scottish pound, the NI pound, the Manx pound and the pounds of the Bailiwicks.
    No there's only one pound sterling - as backed by the Bank of England.

    The Scots banks are entitled to print their own Mickey Mouse money by having enough real money to back it up
    Yes that's right. In fact I believe Scottish notes are not even legal tender, merely legal currency.

    Legal tender is a bank of England £5, £10 & £20 note, but not a £50 note from memory.
    Legal tender is a fairly meaningless term in this country. It is simply what is legally accepted by courts - there is no requirement for businesses or other private individuals to accept legal tender. So a business can refuse to accept £50 notes (and many do) but they can just as easily refuse to accept £10 notes too, just not many do.
    That's true. Lots of myths about currency and money. Another one you regularly encounter is that if a good is displayed at a certain price in a shop, the shop has to sell you it at that price. That's false. The vendor can sell it the product at any price they choose, regardless of what is shown on the ticket. They can also choose not to sell it at all.
    That's not quite correct. If the shop owner makes an offer and it is accepted by the customer i.e. I will buy those nails you are selling me for 20 pence each then they have entered into a contract.

    For a contract to exist, there must be an intention to enter into legal relations, sufficient consideration and the terms must be clear.

    The first is present when a shopkeeper sets out a good with a price attached. So is the second: the price the customer pays. And so is the third. See the famous Carbolic Smoke Ball Company case.



    If they have made an agreement, of course. But if no conversation has taken place then the price on the ticket can be ignored.
    The ticket's the offer. The taking to the counter is acceptance. Putting forward payment is consideration.
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    sarissasarissa Posts: 1,807

    glw said:

    scotslass said:

    Sturgeon is about to light the taratan touch paper.

    So, what's the currency?
    The Euro. That's the only one that makes any sense, unless they really are mad and intend to use the pound without any BoE support for Scottish banks.
    They can't adopt the Euro without first having their own currency and going through the stages of Economic and Monetary Union. One of those is a deficit of less than 3%. Even with the help of those creative people at Goldman Sachs, they'd be miles off that target.

    A further problem is that a Scottish Pound would probably be a very weak currency. Pegging it to the pound would simply invite speculators to try to break the peg (a one-way bet). The speculators would win.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_convergence_criteria
    Like they won against Denmark?

    https://www.ft.com/content/24f43be7-ea08-389d-bb3a-b404bf8e4d54
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    MTimTMTimT Posts: 7,034
    Don't you just love headline writers. According to the EU, the UK's economy is about to slump while the EU on average will see growth pick up.

    The growth rates after slump and pick up? 1.5% and 1.8%.
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    Carolus_RexCarolus_Rex Posts: 1,414

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    See the famous Carbolic Smoke Ball Company case.

    Thank you for that! I hadn't come across it before, but I love those Victorian court cases.
    Carlill v the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company.

    It's the only case whose name any lawyer can remember 5 minutes after sitting their last law exam.
    Donaghue-v-Stevenson?
    R v Collins

    http://www.e-lawresources.co.uk/R-v-Collins.php
    Ha! The socks maniac case, as my criminal law lecturer insisted on calling it.
  • Options
    matt said:

    Cyclefree said:

    See the famous Carbolic Smoke Ball Company case.

    Thank you for that! I hadn't come across it before, but I love those Victorian court cases.
    It's up there with Donoguhue's snail in his ginger beer as foundations of English commercial and tort law.
    The snail might never have been there. History does not relate.
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    PAWPAW Posts: 1,074
    Zerohedge believes the drive to cashless is to enable substantial negative interest rates, and prevent people from removing money from the country.
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    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 42,260

    Mr. G, the Romans had communal lavatories.

    MD , that may be so , luckily we have progressed. Cannot say I would like to share with most of the great unwashed.
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    matt said:

    Cyclefree said:

    See the famous Carbolic Smoke Ball Company case.

    Thank you for that! I hadn't come across it before, but I love those Victorian court cases.
    It's up there with Donoguhue's snail in his ginger beer as foundations of English commercial and tort law.
    As a company director, I have a particular fondness for Foss vs Harbottle.
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    DanSmithDanSmith Posts: 1,215

    Artist said:

    One Westminster insider said: “The Tories have got Copeland in the bag. Everyone in the Cabinet has been up there. They’re throwing everything at it.”

    http://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2854120/theresa-may-set-for-first-by-election-victory-after-disastrous-poll-reveals-third-of-labour-voters-in-copeland-are-deserting-jeremy-corbyn/

    Could be Labour expectation management.

    The idea that Labour have abandoned Copeland is nonsense.

    https://twitter.com/GillTroughton/status/830812892052209665?s=09

    https://twitter.com/JimfromOldham/status/830492022956052480
    MacMahon and Prescott, big guns ! (not).
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    AlsoIndigoAlsoIndigo Posts: 1,852

    One day cash will be as obsolete as a check book.

    Might be a while in some parts of the world. I dont possess a cheque book, and the only time I use a credit card is buying airline tickets!

  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 76,051
    The Conservatives with Coral, Sky Bet and some others are now 2-5.

    That is the same price as they were in 'Somerton and Frome' last GE with Ladbrokes. That is the sort of constituency bet that I like to take at 2-5, not this one.
    If the Conservatives win Copeland by the same margin at this BE that Somerton and Frome was taken at the last GE (53 - 19) then Labour might as well pack up. I'll pack up political betting too.
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    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,573

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    See the famous Carbolic Smoke Ball Company case.

    Thank you for that! I hadn't come across it before, but I love those Victorian court cases.
    Carlill v the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company.

    It's the only case whose name any lawyer can remember 5 minutes after sitting their last law exam.
    Donaghue-v-Stevenson?
    R v Collins

    http://www.e-lawresources.co.uk/R-v-Collins.php
    I can see why the facts of that might have appealed but we didn't cover that in Scotland.
  • Options
    Worth recalling technology can curtail freedom and impose restrictions as much as it can free people.

    We need only look at social media's shenanigans in this regard. Getting drunk on technology leads to The Machine Stops [which I still need to read...].
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    MTimTMTimT Posts: 7,034

    One day cash will be as obsolete as a check book.

    Might be a while in some parts of the world. I dont possess a cheque book, and the only time I use a credit card is buying airline tickets!

    I don't used credit cards at all. It's nearly all on the debit card now. Just visited the UK, UAE and Pakistan for a total of 3 weeks. Used no cash (didn't even have local bank notes) or credit.
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    matt said:

    Cyclefree said:

    See the famous Carbolic Smoke Ball Company case.

    Thank you for that! I hadn't come across it before, but I love those Victorian court cases.
    It's up there with Donoguhue's snail in his ginger beer as foundations of English commercial and tort law.
    As a company director, I have a particular fondness for Foss vs Harbottle.
    Foss vs Harbottle is a pile of tosh!! I mean, ushered in a period of utter and needless complexity which is yet to be fully resolved.
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    rural_voterrural_voter Posts: 2,038
    stodge said:


    It does and it has - but rarely. It turned under Delors, when it seriously embraced both the federalist project (which it had paid lip-service to before while making fairly glacial progress - it took 35 years before it even got close to completing the Single Market), and also the social agenda.

    At some point, it will need to address the concerns that Cameron raised because at present, both the politics and the economics are failing - or it will collapse in tears.

    I think the Monnet ideal was always there primarily as a Franco-German axis to replace the rivalry which had torn Europe apart from 1870 to 1945. The logic of western European integration as a bulwark to the advance of Communism was also ever present.

    The British could have shaped the future EU much more strongly had we got more involved at Messina but our stand-offish approach meant Paris and Bonn built the "Common Market" without much involvement from London.
    A lot of countries could have got more involved, including all seven members of EFTA - probably six, Switzerland wouldn't have wanted to join such a close alliance.

    However, the UK set EFTA up as a rival to the EEC and then ... left it.

    The reason the economics are failing is trying to have a currency union before a political union. I actually agree with John Redwood on that - it's insane! The US of A got it the right way round.
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,573

    matt said:

    Cyclefree said:

    See the famous Carbolic Smoke Ball Company case.

    Thank you for that! I hadn't come across it before, but I love those Victorian court cases.
    It's up there with Donoguhue's snail in his ginger beer as foundations of English commercial and tort law.
    The snail might never have been there. History does not relate.
    Pretty sure there was something there because she died, allegedly of poisoning. You are right that the case never went to trial and the facts were never established.
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    foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548
    DanSmith said:

    Artist said:

    One Westminster insider said: “The Tories have got Copeland in the bag. Everyone in the Cabinet has been up there. They’re throwing everything at it.”

    http://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2854120/theresa-may-set-for-first-by-election-victory-after-disastrous-poll-reveals-third-of-labour-voters-in-copeland-are-deserting-jeremy-corbyn/

    Could be Labour expectation management.

    The idea that Labour have abandoned Copeland is nonsense.

    https://twitter.com/GillTroughton/status/830812892052209665?s=09

    https://twitter.com/JimfromOldham/status/830492022956052480
    MacMahon and Prescott, big guns ! (not).
    Richard Burgon and Andy MacDonald, both from the Shadow Cabinet have been there the last couple of days too. You may not like them, or think much of them, but it is certainly evidence of effort.

    Though it is Gill Troughton's long history of local campaigning that will see her over the line.
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    GeoffMGeoffM Posts: 6,071

    One day cash will be as obsolete as a check book.

    Might be a while in some parts of the world. I dont possess a cheque book, and the only time I use a credit card is buying airline tickets!

    On my invoices I say that I accept cash/transfer/paypal and bitcoin.
    I have a note respectfully saying that I don't take cheques. Nobody has ever mentioned that limitation, let alone had a problem with it.
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    FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    MTimT said:

    Don't you just love headline writers. According to the EU, the UK's economy is about to slump while the EU on average will see growth pick up.

    The growth rates after slump and pick up? 1.5% and 1.8%.

    Err even the 1.5% for the uk is a 50% increase in what they claimed it would be in November.

  • Options
    MTimTMTimT Posts: 7,034
    TOPPING said:

    MTimT said:

    Pulpstar said:

    MTimT said:



    Automation has increased for a couple of centuries, yet more people are employed than ever in the UK, and in a vastly increased range of jobs. Whilst some occupations have died out, many more have been created..

    Even Obama did not get this basic point about progress. He lamented the loss of bank tellers. Do we really want a world where we daily rely on wainwrights, and cartwrights and farriers and blacksmiths, and a good job is considered to be a coal miner? Not me. Give me a job in nano tech or IT or synthetic biology any day.

    And for those who argue that I am comparing physical labour to knowledge-based, I'd suggest they try shoeing a horse without knowledge, or making a barrel or a cartwheel, or mining a deep shaft. All of the lost professions required knowledge, both explicit and tacit.
    Can you point me to this post farrier world ?
    I was talking about daily life reliance. Now we could not cope without farriers here on the farm. But I doubt most city dwellers even know what a farrier is.
    Farriers are rarely seen in the countryside. Because they are all on holiday in the Caribbean.
    LOL. Ours certainly charges an hourly rate that is higher than I get consulting or my wife gets as a physician.
  • Options
    isamisam Posts: 41,118
    edited February 2017
    Something Nuttall mentions that I think is relevant, a lot of 2015 Conservative/UKIP waverers stayed Con as there was a decent chance that Labour would be in power w the SNP if they voted UKIP. That isn't the case now.
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    AlsoIndigoAlsoIndigo Posts: 1,852
    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    See the famous Carbolic Smoke Ball Company case.

    Thank you for that! I hadn't come across it before, but I love those Victorian court cases.
    Carlill v the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company.

    It's the only case whose name any lawyer can remember 5 minutes after sitting their last law exam.
    Donaghue-v-Stevenson?
    Kadi-v-Commission ? :smirk:
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    On the subject of by-election visits, I'll be going to Copeland this weekend, which will probably mean no Saturday piece from me but I will aim to write something for monday.
  • Options
    JobabobJobabob Posts: 3,807
    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    See the famous Carbolic Smoke Ball Company case.

    Thank you for that! I hadn't come across it before, but I love those Victorian court cases.
    Carlill v the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company.

    It's the only case whose name any lawyer can remember 5 minutes after sitting their last law exam.
    Donaghue-v-Stevenson?
    R v Collins

    http://www.e-lawresources.co.uk/R-v-Collins.php
    I can see why the facts of that might have appealed but we didn't cover that in Scotland.
    I can only assume it would have been too cold in Scotland for the incident to occur, David.
  • Options

    stodge said:


    It does and it has - but rarely. It turned under Delors, when it seriously embraced both the federalist project (which it had paid lip-service to before while making fairly glacial progress - it took 35 years before it even got close to completing the Single Market), and also the social agenda.

    At some point, it will need to address the concerns that Cameron raised because at present, both the politics and the economics are failing - or it will collapse in tears.

    I think the Monnet ideal was always there primarily as a Franco-German axis to replace the rivalry which had torn Europe apart from 1870 to 1945. The logic of western European integration as a bulwark to the advance of Communism was also ever present.

    The British could have shaped the future EU much more strongly had we got more involved at Messina but our stand-offish approach meant Paris and Bonn built the "Common Market" without much involvement from London.
    A lot of countries could have got more involved, including all seven members of EFTA - probably six, Switzerland wouldn't have wanted to join such a close alliance.

    However, the UK set EFTA up as a rival to the EEC and then ... left it.

    The reason the economics are failing is trying to have a currency union before a political union. I actually agree with John Redwood on that - it's insane! The US of A got it the right way round.
    No they didn't. They declared independence in 1776 and didn't form a political union until 1789. The problems with federal debt and paper money in the interim were a prime driver to union.
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    justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    An appalling poll for Labour - though the fieldwork is a week old and overlapped with ICM which had Labour on 27% last week. Comres is more recent and has Labour on 26% - despite a very odd Scotland subsample. Over the last five months Yougov has pretty consistently been giving the lowest Labour voting share - a bit like Angus Reid before the 2010 election. What I find puzzling is that since mid-September Yougov shows Labour dropping 6 points from 30% to 24%. No other pollster is showing any meanigful change in the Labour share over that period - indeed some have them now a bit higher. ICM had Labour on 26% in mid September - Mori had them on 29% compared with their most recent finding of 31% - in late July Opinium had Labour on 31% little changed from its last finding of 30%. I have no explanation to offer but something about Yougov's surveys in recent months just does not smell right. It sticks out like a sore thumb when compared with the other pollsters. Moreover, as recently as last March/April it was producing the most favourable Labour ratings - including three consecutive Labour leads! Very strange.
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    williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 48,338
    stodge said:


    It does and it has - but rarely. It turned under Delors, when it seriously embraced both the federalist project (which it had paid lip-service to before while making fairly glacial progress - it took 35 years before it even got close to completing the Single Market), and also the social agenda.

    At some point, it will need to address the concerns that Cameron raised because at present, both the politics and the economics are failing - or it will collapse in tears.

    I think the Monnet ideal was always there primarily as a Franco-German axis to replace the rivalry which had torn Europe apart from 1870 to 1945. The logic of western European integration as a bulwark to the advance of Communism was also ever present.

    The British could have shaped the future EU much more strongly had we got more involved at Messina but our stand-offish approach meant Paris and Bonn built the "Common Market" without much involvement from London.
    Monnet's genius wasn't in articulating an ideal but in designing a practical mechanism for setting it in motion. The idea of a peaceful federal Europe had been around for a long time before then, not least in Aristide Briand's plan in the late 20s.
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    AlsoIndigoAlsoIndigo Posts: 1,852
    edited February 2017
    MTimT said:

    One day cash will be as obsolete as a check book.

    Might be a while in some parts of the world. I dont possess a cheque book, and the only time I use a credit card is buying airline tickets!

    I don't used credit cards at all. It's nearly all on the debit card now. Just visited the UK, UAE and Pakistan for a total of 3 weeks. Used no cash (didn't even have local bank notes) or credit.
    My world is almost entirely cash. The ATM on the island I live on isn't even connected to the international network, so I use a passbook. Once every 6-8 weeks I fly to the city to see my bank manager, attorney etc, and use the debit card a bit.
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    MarkSeniorMarkSenior Posts: 4,699
    Pulpstar said:

    The Conservatives with Coral, Sky Bet and some others are now 2-5.

    That is the same price as they were in 'Somerton and Frome' last GE with Ladbrokes. That is the sort of constituency bet that I like to take at 2-5, not this one.
    If the Conservatives win Copeland by the same margin at this BE that Somerton and Frome was taken at the last GE (53 - 19) then Labour might as well pack up. I'll pack up political betting too.

    Is Not that a similar price to the Conservatives ( Zac ) at Richmond ?
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    Pulpstar said:

    The Conservatives with Coral, Sky Bet and some others are now 2-5.

    That is the same price as they were in 'Somerton and Frome' last GE with Ladbrokes. That is the sort of constituency bet that I like to take at 2-5, not this one.
    If the Conservatives win Copeland by the same margin at this BE that Somerton and Frome was taken at the last GE (53 - 19) then Labour might as well pack up. I'll pack up political betting too.

    Is Not that a similar price to the Conservatives ( Zac ) at Richmond ?
    Not 10 days before the poll, I don't think?
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    isamisam Posts: 41,118

    Pulpstar said:

    The Conservatives with Coral, Sky Bet and some others are now 2-5.

    That is the same price as they were in 'Somerton and Frome' last GE with Ladbrokes. That is the sort of constituency bet that I like to take at 2-5, not this one.
    If the Conservatives win Copeland by the same margin at this BE that Somerton and Frome was taken at the last GE (53 - 19) then Labour might as well pack up. I'll pack up political betting too.

    Is Not that a similar price to the Conservatives ( Zac ) at Richmond ?
    Not 10 days before the poll, I don't think?
    The Lib Dems were about 2.7ish on the day of the poll I think, so pretty plausible Zac was 2/5, esp as the opinion pol had him walking it
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    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,193
    isam said:

    Something Nuttall mentions that I think is relevant, a lot of 2015 Conservative/UKIP waverers stayed Con as there was a decent chance that Labour would be in power w the SNP if they voted UKIP. That isn't the case now.
    Set against that, the Conservatives are getting on with Leaving the EU.

    UKIP fox, meet bullet....
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    MarkSeniorMarkSenior Posts: 4,699

    Pulpstar said:

    The Conservatives with Coral, Sky Bet and some others are now 2-5.

    That is the same price as they were in 'Somerton and Frome' last GE with Ladbrokes. That is the sort of constituency bet that I like to take at 2-5, not this one.
    If the Conservatives win Copeland by the same margin at this BE that Somerton and Frome was taken at the last GE (53 - 19) then Labour might as well pack up. I'll pack up political betting too.

    Is Not that a similar price to the Conservatives ( Zac ) at Richmond ?
    Not 10 days before the poll, I don't think?
    10 days before the poll Zac was around 1/3 on .
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    RoyalBlueRoyalBlue Posts: 3,223

    stodge said:


    It does and it has - but rarely. It turned under Delors, when it seriously embraced both the federalist project (which it had paid lip-service to before while making fairly glacial progress - it took 35 years before it even got close to completing the Single Market), and also the social agenda.

    At some point, it will need to address the concerns that Cameron raised because at present, both the politics and the economics are failing - or it will collapse in tears.

    I think the Monnet ideal was always there primarily as a Franco-German axis to replace the rivalry which had torn Europe apart from 1870 to 1945. The logic of western European integration as a bulwark to the advance of Communism was also ever present.

    The British could have shaped the future EU much more strongly had we got more involved at Messina but our stand-offish approach meant Paris and Bonn built the "Common Market" without much involvement from London.
    Monnet's genius wasn't in articulating an ideal but in designing a practical mechanism for setting it in motion. The idea of a peaceful federal Europe had been around for a long time before then, not least in Aristide Briand's plan in the late 20s.
    Jean Monnet manoeuvred to exclude the U.K. from certain deliberations in the 50s because he knew we would never sign up to supranationalism.

    It's all set out in Booker and North's brilliant book, 'The Great Deception'.

    The real villains in the UK's relationship with the EU are Macmillan and Heath for not being honest about the long-term implications of membership.
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    Mr. T, if it sells well there, that might outweigh all your other sales everywhere else :p
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    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,193
    SeanT said:

    Got an unexpected item in the post this morning. The mainland Mandarin Chinese edition of THE ICE TWINS.

    Absolutely beautiful. Delicate and haunting. It is by a distance the best of all the foreign covers of my book, and somehow symbolic, in its tiny way, of China's ascent.

    https://twitter.com/thomasknox/status/831177614740054017

    That really is a thing of beauty. Good luck with sales there.
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    isamisam Posts: 41,118

    isam said:

    Something Nuttall mentions that I think is relevant, a lot of 2015 Conservative/UKIP waverers stayed Con as there was a decent chance that Labour would be in power w the SNP if they voted UKIP. That isn't the case now.
    Set against that, the Conservatives are getting on with Leaving the EU.

    UKIP fox, meet bullet....
    Possibly, although it seems the Cons aren't really trying too hard in Stoke, and the picked a Remainer.
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    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 76,051

    Pulpstar said:

    The Conservatives with Coral, Sky Bet and some others are now 2-5.

    That is the same price as they were in 'Somerton and Frome' last GE with Ladbrokes. That is the sort of constituency bet that I like to take at 2-5, not this one.
    If the Conservatives win Copeland by the same margin at this BE that Somerton and Frome was taken at the last GE (53 - 19) then Labour might as well pack up. I'll pack up political betting too.

    Is Not that a similar price to the Conservatives ( Zac ) at Richmond ?
    Not 10 days before the poll, I don't think?
    10 days before the poll Zac was around 1/3 on .
    That was a genuine surprise, I don't think anyone suggested that Olney ought to have been odds on there !
    I think the 1-3, 3-1 pricing was correct there though.

    Somerton and Frome at the GE was more like 1-10, I think this by-election is surely more Lab 5-6, Tories 6-5 though ?

    Note in Richmond the pseudo Conservative candidate underperformed.
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    A beautiful cover.
    I'm interested to note that the girls are beautiful westerners - I suppose that adds to the allure for a Chinese market - and that they have transliterated Lydia and Kirsty as the names rather than Sinofying them - also makes sense. Also interested that you went with a Sichuan publisher rather than Beijing. There is life and art beyond the capital!
    Good luck with it.
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    Miss Vance, could be poor expectations management. A government taking an opposition seat is a damned rare thing.
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    SquareRootSquareRoot Posts: 7,095
    justin124 said:

    An appalling poll for Labour - though the fieldwork is a week old and overlapped with ICM which had Labour on 27% last week. Comres is more recent and has Labour on 26% - despite a very odd Scotland subsample. Over the last five months Yougov has pretty consistently been giving the lowest Labour voting share - a bit like Angus Reid before the 2010 election. What I find puzzling is that since mid-September Yougov shows Labour dropping 6 points from 30% to 24%. No other pollster is showing any meanigful change in the Labour share over that period - indeed some have them now a bit higher. ICM had Labour on 26% in mid September - Mori had them on 29% compared with their most recent finding of 31% - in late July Opinium had Labour on 31% little changed from its last finding of 30%. I have no explanation to offer but something about Yougov's surveys in recent months just does not smell right. It sticks out like a sore thumb when compared with the other pollsters. Moreover, as recently as last March/April it was producing the most favourable Labour ratings - including three consecutive Labour leads! Very strange.

    All of them overstate Labour polling when the time comes for people to actually vote. Labour will be 19/20% if Corbyn is in charge. People just wont vote for Corbyn, end of.
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    Carolus_RexCarolus_Rex Posts: 1,414

    Worth recalling technology can curtail freedom and impose restrictions as much as it can free people.

    We need only look at social media's shenanigans in this regard. Getting drunk on technology leads to The Machine Stops [which I still need to read...].

    You absolutely do need to read it. Possibly the greatest SF story ever written.

    Read it and then reflect on the fact that E M Forster predicted all the downsides of the internet... in 1909!
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    Carolus_RexCarolus_Rex Posts: 1,414

    Mr. T, if it sells well there, that might outweigh all your other sales everywhere else :p

    Mind you, it'll be pirated to buggery.
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    PlatoSaid said:

    Stephen Hawkes
    Jeremy Corbyn on his way to Stoke apparently - time to send in the big guns

    Or - Labour think it may be in the bag and think Corbyn can be risked so that he can claim it as a personal victory.

    I wouldn't read so much into it. Jezza likes grass roots campaigning and has already appeared alongside both byelection candidates in their twitter.

    Lib Dems in second place to Labour in Stoke would be a nail in the coffin of the purple pestilence, I do hope Conhome is accurate. Is there a second place market up?

    If UKIP cannot win in Stoke they are basically finished as a party with Parliamentary ambitions - unless the Tories totally cave on the Brexit negotiations, which is highly unlikely. What they will do, though, is help the Tories win Labour marginals.

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    Miss Vance, could be poor expectations management. A government taking an opposition seat is a damned rare thing.

    Yes, that struck me too. Hello, Tories, time to meet Mr Hubris. Mr Gravity will be along shortly.....
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    Mr. T, interesting stats. Surprised China is behind America given they have roughly four times as many people.

    I'm not surprised by South Korea, to be honest, a little more so by Brazil.

    Anyway, best of luck (not that you need it).
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    malcolmg said:

    Mr. Thompson, one cafe (I think, Deets, or suchlike) has said it won't take cash any more, payment will only be permitted via apps etc.

    That's barking mad.

    That's the future.

    For businesses cash has a lot of major problems. It is the biggest risk as far as theft is concerned (from both external and internal causes). Mistakes made in giving out change can lead to major cash shortages. The cost, safety and security implications of getting the cash from the business to the bank.

    Electronic transactions are so much simpler. You do the transaction and the money is in your bank. Since businesses likely make virtually all their payments via bank transfer eliminating cash as an issue is cleaner and easier.

    One day cash will be as obsolete as a check book.
    Perchance do you mean "cheque"
    No I mean "obsolete", however you choose your ye olde spelling that you want to use on something that doesn't exist anymore
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    Mr. Rex, that's a big problem, especially in an age of e-books. Hard to do much about it, though.
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    Mr. Patrick, it's a while ago now, but when I was in China there was a piece on the news about the most popular cosmetic surgery being double eyelids (which Westerners have).
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    isamisam Posts: 41,118
    dr_spyn said:
    Snell in 2014 "We will have to look at why Labour voters are turning to Ukip."
    Snell post referendum "patriotism is a competition won by seeing who is the most inward looking”
This discussion has been closed.