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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » UKIP’s collapse gives huge boost to CON in Wales. Now 10% ahea

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    MyBurningEarsMyBurningEars Posts: 3,651
    I misclicked on the "archives" on the right, when I was trying to post a reply. I ended up on

    Labour up 14% in Scotland: Big boost for Blair north of border

    Huge changes in public opinion in Scotland in just 17 days are recorded in a Scottish Opinion Poll in today’s Daily Record. The figures are with changes on the last SOP reported here just over two weeks ago are:- LAB 52 (+14): CON 16 (+1): LD 12 (-11): SNP 17 (+1).

    In that last poll in mid-March SOP had the Lib Dems up a massive 12% and Labour down 10% so today’s figures are a bit of a reversal.

    These new figures have Labour at 9% higher than the party achieved north of the border in 2001 and would indicate even more gains for Tony Blair’s party on May 5th.
    We are a little sceptical of polls showing such massive swings in opinion.


    Care to guess the year before clicking through...

    O tempora! O mores!
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    dr_spyndr_spyn Posts: 11,291
    edited April 2017

    Fenster said:

    BTW, I spent three hours looking at photos of Macron's wife earlier.

    63! Bloody hell. She looks younger than I do, and I'm the same age as Macron.

    It's so weird to me that a 39 year old is with a 63 year old! Even weirder, is when they started dating....
    Sidebar of Shame in the Mail for sexual relations with a schoolboy.
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    ToryJimToryJim Posts: 3,494
    AndyJS said:
    It's a horrendous idea, it's just utterly disgraceful.
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    Apols for off-topicness and working-classness; this is not about the best bordeaux nor best restaurant to spunk 200 quid..

    As there is a lot of lawyers on here I would appreciate your advice. My eldest son - under 18 - I have just been told by my ex-wife had the plod over having been caught in possession of cannabis. They either gave him a caution or a reprimand - first time with rozzer bother - so guessing a reprimand.

    Questions - will this appear on an enhanced DBS check? He is keen to be an outdoors sporting instruction (sailing/canoeing) and will there be any issues with overseas visa (US/Canada especially).

    Any advice / thoughts greatly appreciated.

    If he's accepted a caution, that's formally a conviction, so yes. If he's had a stern talking to, no.
    PS "reprimands" are no longer given, abolished a few years ago. So it's either a caution or the officer has taken pity and not bothered with the paperwork.
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    Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,060
    Ishmael_Z said:

    kle4 said:

    Cyan said:

    Cyan said:

    This is about the Zionist lobby fighting the movement to "boycott, divest and sanction" (BDS) with any means necessary.
    No. It's about racism.

    If someone says something that you perceive as racist then it is racist: this is the definition of racism used in this country.
    I'm not quite clear whether you support that ridiculous definition, Fysics_Teacher, or whether you are mocking it. That's not the definition of racism used by any sensible person.
    y think it is?
    There has to be a reasonableness test. I could perceive many things as racist or offensive, but it might be because I am an idiot, and it would not be fair on society to curtail their free expression through official sanction because I am an idiot.
    The thing is, it works. (At least it seems to well enough at school).
    If people start to abuse it, accusing physics teachers of racism because they were talking about black-body radiation or similar then it will break down and we will have to find another one. But that will be difficult because it will involve you telling someone who is deeply upset at what they have been called that they are wrong.

    I am worried when I see stories like the one above about 'micro-aggressions' but most of those are people being offended on behalf of someone else.
    It "works" in the sense that it solves 100% of the cases it is meant to solve. I think you are naive if you think it only does that, and nothing else. Rotherham police officer: I am investigating allegations about you grooming young white girls". Suspect: "I perceive what you have just said as racist". The End.
    As @foxinsoxuk says above, it should be the starting point for an investigation, not the end. Police get complaints about their behaviour all the time, mostly by people trying to avoid being investigated. As a teacher I get training in this: I would hope a police officer has much more robust training than I do. Using accusations of racism as an excuse for not doing your job is not the fault of the definition but a much deeper one I suspect.
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    Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    Just catching up on the tables from the most recent YouGov.

    Tories have 52% support in England, and lead Labour 50:25 amongst C2DEs (also 47:25 amongst ABC1s - the class divide has vanished.)

    The Conservatives also have two-thirds of the entire pensioner vote, and two-thirds of all 2015 Ukip voters.

    44 days left of the campaign, and still looking good. Fingers crossed it doesn't go pear-shaped...
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    HurstLlamaHurstLlama Posts: 9,098

    Apols for off-topicness and working-classness; this is not about the best bordeaux nor best restaurant to spunk 200 quid..

    As there is a lot of lawyers on here I would appreciate your advice. My eldest son - under 18 - I have just been told by my ex-wife had the plod over having been caught in possession of cannabis. They either gave him a caution or a reprimand - first time with rozzer bother - so guessing a reprimand.

    Questions - will this appear on an enhanced DBS check? He is keen to be an outdoors sporting instruction (sailing/canoeing) and will there be any issues with overseas visa (US/Canada especially).

    Any advice / thoughts greatly appreciated.

    Mr. Child, I don't know about the reprimand, never heard of such a thing, but I can say for sure that a caution, even as a juvenile, will show up on a criminal record check and will lead to disbarment from certain occupations (a niece accepted a caution for shoplifting aged 14, five years later she was refused a place as a trainee nurse as a result).

    In general never accept any offer from the Filth without first consulting a proper criminal lawyer.
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    ProdicusProdicus Posts: 658
    Ishmael_Z said:

    Cyan said:

    Cyan said:

    This is about the Zionist lobby fighting the movement to "boycott, divest and sanction" (BDS) with any means necessary.
    No. It's about racism.

    If someone says something that you perceive as racist then it is racist: this is the definition of racism used in this country.
    I'm not quite clear whether you support that ridiculous definition, Fysics_Teacher, or whether you are mocking it. That's not the definition of racism used by any sensible person.
    Why not? How can you tell what effect your words are having? "It's just short for Pakistani, how can that be racist?" If you want to know if something is racist you ask the people or person who might be affected.

    The definition I used is a paraphrasing of "any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person" which is the definition of a racist incident from the Macpherson report. It has been adopted by most if not all public sector institutions in Britain: we use it at the school I teach at. Do I support it? I thought it was ridiculous at first but having lived with it for nearly 20 years I would say it works.

    What right do I to tell someone else that the name someone called them or the cartoon that some one has drawn in their book is not racist if they think it is?
    It certainly worked in Rotherham, by ensuring that the police accepted that they had no response to the racism card in any circumstances whatever.

    And consider the word "niggardly" over which a distinguished US academic lost his job. Happy about that?
    niggard (n.)
    "mean person, miser," late 14c., nygart, of uncertain origin. The suffix suggests French origin (see -ard), but the root word is possibly from earlier nig "stingy" (c. 1300), perhaps from a Scandinavian source related to Old Norse hnøggr "stingy," from Proto-Germanic *khnauwjaz (source of Swedish njugg "close, careful," German genau "precise, exact"), and to Old English hneaw "stingy, niggardly," which did not survive in Middle English.

    Etymonline.com
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    Jason said:

    'Quite what Labour does in the face of this impending disaster is hard to say.'

    There is nothing they can do apart from brace themselves for the result. They've already tried to get rid of Corbyn and it failed miserably. I'm not sure (to quote Dan Jarvis) what the repulsive Yvette Cooper would achieve anyway. It might be an even worse result with her at the helm.

    They have to take it on the chin and try again to shift Corbyn afterwards. And the only way that's even a possibility is if he resigns.

    I have no sympathy whatsoever for Labour - they have brought this calamity upon themselves. The humiliation awaiting them is richly deserved.

    Nor me, Jason. No sympathy at all. The current crisis has its roots as far back as the Blair/Brown wars but they are by no means the only culprits.

    But a democracy needs a decent opposition. The Tories went a.w.o.l. during the IDS period, and the country was all the worse for it. The Labour Government was simply not subjected to the type of scrutiny that was needed. The same is happening now with colors reversed.

    And you don't have to be especially charitable to feel some sympathy for the people Labour is supposed to represent. Who will speak for them if Labour doesn't?
    To answer your question from earlier, Peter, I thought my comment might be unwelcome from some Labour supporters, some of which still seem to think everything will be ok if Corbyn is ditched, particularly from a Tory during an election campaign.

    You have the intelligence and self-awareness to recognise that he's a symptom and not the cause, but I'm not sure how many others in the Labour membership do.
    Thank you, CR. (Everybody is being nice to me today. What am I doing right?)

    He's cause and consequence, but getting rid of him would only be a start of a Labour rehab programme, as you indicate. I don't think it matters too much now how much of a shellacking they take at ths GE. It would probably be best if they avoided total obliteration, but equally if they somehow get away with a half-decent result that may only defer any rebuilding, and that wouldn't be good either.

    Personally I'd settle for anything between 125 and 175 seats. Outside that range and I wouldn't rate the Party's chance of getting itself back together again quickly, if ever.
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    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,411
    I notice UKIP are also proposing ban the burka...now putting to one side the rights and wrongs of this, the Sky News presenter made a right fool of themselves banging on about what if somebody wears a big hat or sunglasses, would that be banned?

    Attempting to trivialize a complex issue.
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    TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,388

    The EU demands financial services be ring fenced from Brexit deal.

    https://twitter.com/brexit/status/856582290352332801

    Silly. If they want to avoid an offshore Singapore.
    "the bloc mustn’t accept financial services being part of any future trade agreement unless Britain is willing to accept the EU’s rules, according to an EU official."

    No idea what it means. Surely there will be a settlement for the financial services sector which sees Britain agree to certain harmonisation measures whilst gaining the free movement of capital.
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    Apols for off-topicness and working-classness; this is not about the best bordeaux nor best restaurant to spunk 200 quid..

    As there is a lot of lawyers on here I would appreciate your advice. My eldest son - under 18 - I have just been told by my ex-wife had the plod over having been caught in possession of cannabis. They either gave him a caution or a reprimand - first time with rozzer bother - so guessing a reprimand.

    Questions - will this appear on an enhanced DBS check? He is keen to be an outdoors sporting instruction (sailing/canoeing) and will there be any issues with overseas visa (US/Canada especially).

    Any advice / thoughts greatly appreciated.

    Mr. Child, I don't know about the reprimand, never heard of such a thing, but I can say for sure that a caution, even as a juvenile, will show up on a criminal record check and will lead to disbarment from certain occupations (a niece accepted a caution for shoplifting aged 14, five years later she was refused a place as a trainee nurse as a result).

    In general never accept any offer from the Filth without first consulting a proper criminal lawyer.
    Reprimands were a thing for under 18s, similar to a caution, but wouldn't appear on record. Abolished by Coalition #blamenickclegg
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    Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981
    ToryJim said:

    AndyJS said:
    It's a horrendous idea, it's just utterly disgraceful.
    Why?
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    calumcalum Posts: 3,046
    Looking like the Scotland polling for GE2015 could be more relevant for charting the likely path of the Tories et al UK support levels in GE2017:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_United_Kingdom_general_election,_2015#Scotland

    The other message to take from this table is never write off the SNP until the votes are counted. The SNP remain a formidable campaigning machine and unlike Labour learn from their mistakes - the Scottish Tories currently sit in much the same position as SLAB in the run up to GE2015.

    The SNP have around 2000 members per Scottish constiuency - so will not be having to bus in supporters like both SCON and sadly SLAB in GE2015 - who can forget that last poignant plea from Eddie Izzard to SLAB's lost core voters - with him bedecked in high heels, mini skirt, 1980s shoulder pad jacket and makeup - WTF were SLAB thinking - expect more of the same from Labour at a national level.
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    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    I misclicked on the "archives" on the right, when I was trying to post a reply. I ended up on

    Labour up 14% in Scotland: Big boost for Blair north of border

    Huge changes in public opinion in Scotland in just 17 days are recorded in a Scottish Opinion Poll in today’s Daily Record. The figures are with changes on the last SOP reported here just over two weeks ago are:- LAB 52 (+14): CON 16 (+1): LD 12 (-11): SNP 17 (+1).

    In that last poll in mid-March SOP had the Lib Dems up a massive 12% and Labour down 10% so today’s figures are a bit of a reversal.

    These new figures have Labour at 9% higher than the party achieved north of the border in 2001 and would indicate even more gains for Tony Blair’s party on May 5th.
    We are a little sceptical of polls showing such massive swings in opinion.


    Care to guess the year before clicking through...

    O tempora! O mores!

    SNP and Con almost spot on but in reality Lib Dems got 23% of the vote.
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    isamisam Posts: 41,118
    edited April 2017

    I notice UKIP are also proposing ban the burka...now putting to one side the rights and wrongs of this, the Sky News presenter made a right fool of themselves banging on about what if somebody wears a big hat or sunglasses, would that be banned?

    Attempting to trivialize a complex issue.

    Before we had mass immigration from the kind of countries where women wear Burqas and suffer FGM, if people had been able to show that's what we'd get, no politician would have allowed it. Now that it is here, people oppose any attempt to sort it out for partisan reasons

    A million Trump voting hicks come to live here, force their wives to wear veils and their daughters to be cut, and the same people horrified by UKIP would be demanding their deportation
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    ToryJimToryJim Posts: 3,494
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    bobajobPBbobajobPB Posts: 1,042
    How much weed did this young chap have on him? Can't have been much. Compromising his future travel etc for minor possession exposes the insanity of drug policy in the UK
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    The trouble with snap elections is that manifestos are, er, light.

    Chance to go to B&Q on a rainy day in March with Labour. Reheated Miliband energy policy with the Tories. Fashion advice and compulsory genital inspections for the kidz with UKIP.

    Would any of these have passed committee stage in a normal electoral cycle?
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    foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548

    I notice UKIP are also proposing ban the burka...now putting to one side the rights and wrongs of this, the Sky News presenter made a right fool of themselves banging on about what if somebody wears a big hat or sunglasses, would that be banned?

    Attempting to trivialize a complex issue.

    UKIP going full on Islamophobic? I suppose they have to, now that May has stolen their clothes.
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    kle4kle4 Posts: 92,139
    edited April 2017

    Apols for off-topicness and working-classness; this is not about the best bordeaux nor best restaurant to spunk 200 quid..

    As there is a lot of lawyers on here I would appreciate your advice. My eldest son - under 18 - I have just been told by my ex-wife had the plod over having been caught in possession of cannabis. They either gave him a caution or a reprimand - first time with rozzer bother - so guessing a reprimand.

    Questions - will this appear on an enhanced DBS check? He is keen to be an outdoors sporting instruction (sailing/canoeing) and will there be any issues with overseas visa (US/Canada especially).

    Any advice / thoughts greatly appreciated.

    A caution is an acceptance that the person did the acts complained of, and should not be accepted without qualified legal advice.
    I'd heard (from a real anti-police sort, admittedly) that cautions were basically just a way for the police to resolve a matter quickly and move on without people realising they had in effect admitted wrongdoing, as a means of using resources more efficiently.
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    ToryJimToryJim Posts: 3,494
    Ishmael_Z said:

    ToryJim said:

    AndyJS said:
    It's a horrendous idea, it's just utterly disgraceful.
    Why?
    Targeting ethnic and religious groups for invasive medical exams. Seriously, that is wrong in almost every way imaginable.
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    bobajobPBbobajobPB Posts: 1,042

    Jason said:

    'Quite what Labour does in the face of this impending disaster is hard to say.'

    There is nothing they can do apart from brace themselves for the result. They've already tried to get rid of Corbyn and it failed miserably. I'm not sure (to quote Dan Jarvis) what the repulsive Yvette Cooper would achieve anyway. It might be an even worse result with her at the helm.

    They have to take it on the chin and try again to shift Corbyn afterwards. And the only way that's even a possibility is if he resigns.

    I have no sympathy whatsoever for Labour - they have brought this calamity upon themselves. The humiliation awaiting them is richly deserved.

    Nor me, Jason. No sympathy at all. The current crisis has its roots as far back as the Blair/Brown wars but they are by no means the only culprits.

    But a democracy needs a decent opposition. The Tories went a.w.o.l. during the IDS period, and the country was all the worse for it. The Labour Government was simply not subjected to the type of scrutiny that was needed. The same is happening now with colors reversed.

    And you don't have to be especially charitable to feel some sympathy for the people Labour is supposed to represent. Who will speak for them if Labour doesn't?
    To answer your question from earlier, Peter, I thought my comment might be unwelcome from some Labour supporters, some of which still seem to think everything will be ok if Corbyn is ditched, particularly from a Tory during an election campaign.

    You have the intelligence and self-awareness to recognise that he's a symptom and not the cause, but I'm not sure how many others in the Labour membership do.
    Thank you, CR. (Everybody is being nice to me today. What am I doing right?)

    He's cause and consequence, but getting rid of him would only be a start of a Labour rehab programme, as you indicate. I don't think it matters too much now how much of a shellacking they take at ths GE. It would probably be best if they avoided total obliteration, but equally if they somehow get away with a half-decent result that may only defer any rebuilding, and that wouldn't be good either.

    Personally I'd settle for anything between 125 and 175 seats. Outside that range and I wouldn't rate the Party's chance of getting itself back together again quickly, if ever.
    He is very much cause and to a lesser degree consequence, and while his removal is but one step, it is a necessary and nontrivial one that should be effected immediately.
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    The next two weeks should confirm or otherwise the picture as canvassers face real voters and the 4th May result come in. If they are anything like now it must be all over

    Wonder if Burnham is sweating over his mayoral contest
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    Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981

    Ishmael_Z said:

    kle4 said:

    Cyan said:

    Cyan said:

    This is about the Zionist lobby fighting the movement to "boycott, divest and sanction" (BDS) with any means necessary.
    No. It's about racism.

    If someone says something that you perceive as racist then it is racist: this is the definition of racism used in this country.
    I'm not quite clear whether you support that ridiculous definition, Fysics_Teacher, or whether you are mocking it. That's not the definition of racism used by any sensible person.
    y think it is?
    There has to be a reasonableness test. I could perceive many things as racist or offensive, but it might be because I am an idiot, and it would not be fair on society to curtail their free expression through official sanction because I am an idiot.
    The thing is, it works. (At least it seems to well enough at school).
    If people start to abuse it, accusing physics teachers of racism because they were talking about black-body radiation or similar then it will break down and we will have to find another one. But that will be difficult because it will involve you telling someone who is deeply upset at what they have been called that they are wrong.

    I am worried when I see stories like the one above about 'micro-aggressions' but most of those are people being offended on behalf of someone else.
    It "works" in the sense that it solves 100% of the cases it is meant to solve. I think you are naive if you think it only does that, and nothing else. Rotherham police officer: I am investigating allegations about you grooming young white girls". Suspect: "I perceive what you have just said as racist". The End.
    As @foxinsoxuk says above, it should be the starting point for an investigation, not the end. Police get complaints about their behaviour all the time, mostly by people trying to avoid being investigated. As a teacher I get training in this: I would hope a police officer has much more robust training than I do. Using accusations of racism as an excuse for not doing your job is not the fault of the definition but a much deeper one I suspect.
    I don't understand your point. The police in Rotherham backed off from investigating crimes by Asian men, because of fear of accusations of racism which they rightly thought were irrebuttable, as they are under the "perception of the victim" test and which they would not have been under a sensible "would be perceived by a reasonable person as..." test.
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    ToryJimToryJim Posts: 3,494

    The next two weeks should confirm or otherwise the picture as canvassers face real voters and the 4th May result come in. If they are anything like now it must be all over

    Wonder if Burnham is sweating over his mayoral contest

    I hope so, I know the Conservative candidate and he is utterly awesome!
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    kle4kle4 Posts: 92,139
    ToryJim said:
    dr_spyn said:
    Retreating from fights you cannot win in order to preserve forces for another day when conditions are more positive sounds like something Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus Cunctator would approve of.
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    CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,899

    I notice UKIP are also proposing ban the burka...now putting to one side the rights and wrongs of this, the Sky News presenter made a right fool of themselves banging on about what if somebody wears a big hat or sunglasses, would that be banned?

    Attempting to trivialize a complex issue.

    I suppose they have to, now that May has stolen their clothes.
    I thought she was stealing Labour's?

    Make your minds up chaps.....
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    bobajobPBbobajobPB Posts: 1,042
    ToryJim said:
    No mention on that list of the safe seats they need to defend!
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    Sean_FSean_F Posts: 36,013
    ToryJim said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ToryJim said:

    AndyJS said:
    It's a horrendous idea, it's just utterly disgraceful.
    Why?
    Targeting ethnic and religious groups for invasive medical exams. Seriously, that is wrong in almost every way imaginable.
    What if there is a problem that is specific to a religious or ethnic group?
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    jayfdeejayfdee Posts: 618
    AndyJS said:

    jayfdee said:

    AndyJS said:

    jayfdee said:

    kle4 said:

    calum said:

    kle4 said:

    Christ

    Staff at Oxford University have been told avoiding eye contact with students could constitute "everyday racism".

    It is included in a list of "racial micro-aggressions" that has been published in a newsletter by Oxford's equality and diversity unit.


    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-39692673

    I'd be screwed - I regularly avoid eye contact because I'm so awkward.

    Making eye contact in Glasgow with the wrong person could be perceived by many as a threat - if ever you hear the phrase "who are you looking at" best ignore the Oxford guide and stop looking !!
    Noted!
    As a Scouser, "Are youse looking at me" was an invitation to a fight, the response ,if you were up for it was "So what if I am",
    Looking at someone in Liverpool was a serious breach of etiquette.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STIvNjWobzA
    The problem is it used to be just a few places that were like this. Now most of the country is. People always on the lookout for "offence".
    Yes true, but we Scousers invented the art form of taking offence, in my youth in Liverpool, it was a scary place in the pubs, I had my moments.
    You're not proud of it are you?
    No, not at all, I left Liverpool 50 years ago and will not go back. Rod Crosby may appreciate this, but the "Christian Brothers" did it for me, opening a whole new topic, but how such an Un Christian lot ever got involved in education is a scandal.
    If they still existed I would open a charge of sexual molestation, how they got away with what they did is far worse than a bit of aggro down the pub.
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    CyanCyan Posts: 1,262
    edited April 2017

    I notice UKIP are also proposing ban the burka...now putting to one side the rights and wrongs of this, the Sky News presenter made a right fool of themselves banging on about what if somebody wears a big hat or sunglasses, would that be banned?

    Attempting to trivialize a complex issue.

    Yes, and the "exemption" that UKIP would offer to beekeepers is now being headlined by the Mirror, the Independent, the Telegraph, and the Huffington Post. This is how some people think: they may believe they are being intelligent and trying to work out where the "edge" is, or they may want to appear intelligent in that way, but really they are just taking the piss out of what is indeed a complex and serious issue. They're not thinking about the feelings and rights of women who want to wear the burqa at all.

    Have they mentioned bridal veils yet?
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    JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 39,327

    And remaining wildly off-topic, here's NASA@s costing for a manned Mars mission: $450 billion for an austere mission over three decades.

    https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/the-journey-to-mars-has-a-price-tag-and-it-will-give-congress-sticker-shock/

    Ouch.

    How much did the US spend in Iraq over 8 years?

    #justasking
    I understand the point you're making, but I didn't know the answer.

    The Iraq war cost the US two trillion dollars. So yes, a Mars program would be cheaper. But it's still unaffordable given US priorities. Therefore the cost needs to come down, and that's what SpaceX and Blue Origin (mainly) are trying to do.

    As a further off-topic aside: throughout the Apollo program, only one opinion poll showed a majority of the US public in favour of it. That's a very different picture from the one painted nowadays.

    (I have no idea about how the poll was conducted).

    This is why NASA's post-Apollo Integrated Program Plan was madness. It was for a reusable shuttle to orbit (a version of which became the Shuttle), a nuclear space tug, a lunar base, a lunar orbital base, and a Mars base, all by the mid-1980s. This would have been on a massively increased budget.

    Congress was never, ever going to go for that if the public weren't even in favour of Apollo spending.

    https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19680009769.pdf + others
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    kle4kle4 Posts: 92,139

    I notice UKIP are also proposing ban the burka...now putting to one side the rights and wrongs of this, the Sky News presenter made a right fool of themselves banging on about what if somebody wears a big hat or sunglasses, would that be banned?

    Attempting to trivialize a complex issue.

    UKIP going full on Islamophobic?
    It would appear so. I don't know that, as the sole differentiation strategy, it is as big a winner as they might think, even among many who dislike Islam.
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    kle4kle4 Posts: 92,139

    I notice UKIP are also proposing ban the burka...now putting to one side the rights and wrongs of this, the Sky News presenter made a right fool of themselves banging on about what if somebody wears a big hat or sunglasses, would that be banned?

    Attempting to trivialize a complex issue.

    I suppose they have to, now that May has stolen their clothes.
    I thought she was stealing Labour's?

    Make your minds up chaps.....
    The woman is covered in clothes at this point, she can probably barely move.
    Wow, what a scoop.
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    Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981
    ToryJim said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ToryJim said:

    AndyJS said:
    It's a horrendous idea, it's just utterly disgraceful.
    Why?
    Targeting ethnic and religious groups for invasive medical exams. Seriously, that is wrong in almost every way imaginable.
    Well, in every way imaginable except that it would prevent a huge number of cases of sexist GBH crime. There would be no ethnic and religious "targeting", and you give yourself away as a very serious thought criminal by suggesting such a shocking thing. The exam would be of all girls of the relevant age group.

    Happy with that?
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    foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548
    isam said:

    I notice UKIP are also proposing ban the burka...now putting to one side the rights and wrongs of this, the Sky News presenter made a right fool of themselves banging on about what if somebody wears a big hat or sunglasses, would that be banned?

    Attempting to trivialize a complex issue.

    Before we had mass immigration from the kind of countries where women wear Burqas and suffer FGM, if people had been able to show that's what we'd get, no politician would have allowed it. Now that it is here, people oppose any attempt to sort it out for partisan reasons

    A million Trump voting hicks come to live here, force their wives to wear veils and their daughters to be cut, and the same people horrified by UKIP would be demanding their deportation
    FGM is like other forms of child abuse, not always best tackled by the adversarial nature of law. Often less hard edged methods by social work* are better.

    *Social work obviously has its failures spread across the press, but like the intelligence sevices their successes are hidden.
  • Options
    Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,869

    And remaining wildly off-topic, here's NASA@s costing for a manned Mars mission: $450 billion for an austere mission over three decades.

    https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/the-journey-to-mars-has-a-price-tag-and-it-will-give-congress-sticker-shock/

    Ouch.

    How much did the US spend in Iraq over 8 years?

    #justasking
    I understand the point you're making, but I didn't know the answer.

    The Iraq war cost the US two trillion dollars. So yes, a Mars program would be cheaper. But it's still unaffordable given US priorities. Therefore the cost needs to come down, and that's what SpaceX and Blue Origin (mainly) are trying to do.

    As a further off-topic aside: throughout the Apollo program, only one opinion poll showed a majority of the US public in favour of it. That's a very different picture from the one painted nowadays.

    (I have no idea about how the poll was conducted).

    This is why NASA's post-Apollo Integrated Program Plan was madness. It was for a reusable shuttle to orbit (a version of which became the Shuttle), a nuclear space tug, a lunar base, a lunar orbital base, and a Mars base, all by the mid-1980s. This would have been on a massively increased budget.

    Congress was never, ever going to go for that if the public weren't even in favour of Apollo spending.

    https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19680009769.pdf + others
    I was being a bit flippant.

    Funding it through NASA faces all the same problems all publicly funded and procured large scale programmes do.
  • Options
    isamisam Posts: 41,118

    isam said:

    I notice UKIP are also proposing ban the burka...now putting to one side the rights and wrongs of this, the Sky News presenter made a right fool of themselves banging on about what if somebody wears a big hat or sunglasses, would that be banned?

    Attempting to trivialize a complex issue.

    Before we had mass immigration from the kind of countries where women wear Burqas and suffer FGM, if people had been able to show that's what we'd get, no politician would have allowed it. Now that it is here, people oppose any attempt to sort it out for partisan reasons

    A million Trump voting hicks come to live here, force their wives to wear veils and their daughters to be cut, and the same people horrified by UKIP would be demanding their deportation
    FGM is like other forms of child abuse, not always best tackled by the adversarial nature of law. Often less hard edged methods by social work* are better.

    *Social work obviously has its failures spread across the press, but like the intelligence sevices their successes are hidden.
    One conviction ever in the UK vs hundreds in France doesn't seem to bear that out particularly well.

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/10/france-tough-stance-female-genital-mutilation-fgm
  • Options
    CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,899
    Nicola Sturgeon tries to decouple independence from election after polls show Tories taking SNP seats

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/24/nicola-sturgeon-tries-decouple-independence-election-polls-show/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

    Chortle.....
  • Options
    Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,869

    Jason said:

    'Quite what Labour does in the face of this impending disaster is hard to say.'

    There is nothing they can do apart from brace themselves for the result. They've already tried to get rid of Corbyn and it failed miserably. I'm not sure (to quote Dan Jarvis) what the repulsive Yvette Cooper would achieve anyway. It might be an even worse result with her at the helm.

    They have to take it on the chin and try again to shift Corbyn afterwards. And the only way that's even a possibility is if he resigns.

    I have no sympathy whatsoever for Labour - they have brought this calamity upon themselves. The humiliation awaiting them is richly deserved.

    Nor me, Jason. No sympathy at all. The current crisis has its roots as far back as the Blair/Brown wars but they are by no means the only culprits.

    But a democracy needs a decent opposition. The Tories went a.w.o.l. during the IDS period, and the country was all the worse for it. The Labour Government was simply not subjected to the type of scrutiny that was needed. The same is happening now with colors reversed.

    And you don't have to be especially charitable to feel some sympathy for the people Labour is supposed to represent. Who will speak for them if Labour doesn't?
    To answer your question from earlier, Peter, I thought my comment might be unwelcome from some Labour supporters, some of which still seem to think everything will be ok if Corbyn is ditched, particularly from a Tory during an election campaign.

    You have the intelligence and self-awareness to recognise that he's a symptom and not the cause, but I'm not sure how many others in the Labour membership do.
    Thank you, CR. (Everybody is being nice to me today. What am I doing right?)

    He's cause and consequence, but getting rid of him would only be a start of a Labour rehab programme, as you indicate. I don't think it matters too much now how much of a shellacking they take at ths GE. It would probably be best if they avoided total obliteration, but equally if they somehow get away with a half-decent result that may only defer any rebuilding, and that wouldn't be good either.

    Personally I'd settle for anything between 125 and 175 seats. Outside that range and I wouldn't rate the Party's chance of getting itself back together again quickly, if ever.
    FWIW, provided Labour does re-organise itself properly, this election should be something of a one-off for Brexit. A bit like GE1931.

    The next 5 years will be very difficult, and who knows what GE2022 may hold.
  • Options
    FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195

    Apols for off-topicness and working-classness; this is not about the best bordeaux nor best restaurant to spunk 200 quid..

    As there is a lot of lawyers on here I would appreciate your advice. My eldest son - under 18 - I have just been told by my ex-wife had the plod over having been caught in possession of cannabis. They either gave him a caution or a reprimand - first time with rozzer bother - so guessing a reprimand.

    Questions - will this appear on an enhanced DBS check? He is keen to be an outdoors sporting instruction (sailing/canoeing) and will there be any issues with overseas visa (US/Canada especially).

    Any advice / thoughts greatly appreciated.

    A caution is an acceptance that the person did the acts complained of, and should not be accepted without qualified legal advice.
    Yep - the police have been known to chance their arm with these
  • Options
    ToryJimToryJim Posts: 3,494
    Sean_F said:

    ToryJim said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ToryJim said:

    AndyJS said:
    It's a horrendous idea, it's just utterly disgraceful.
    Why?
    Targeting ethnic and religious groups for invasive medical exams. Seriously, that is wrong in almost every way imaginable.
    What if there is a problem that is specific to a religious or ethnic group?
    So we make an entire generation of girls from particular groups victims of the state to catch the occasional one who has been the victim of barbaric practices. It's an utter abomination of an idea.
  • Options
    llefllef Posts: 298

    Pulpstar said:

    llef said:

    Pulpstar said:

    isam said:

    Labour are 4/-6/1 in those Welsh constituencies now w Skybet... Newport East/West, Ceredigion, Delyn etc... over reaction?

    How much do you want on Labour at 6-1 in Ceredigion :D ?

    The Tories are near to 50% in the rest according to my model.

    The one to reback Labour at heavy odds against is Yns Mon.
    Don't think the Tories will win Ceredigion, the Tories there will (and have in past) vote liberal to ensure that Plaid does not win.
    I never said they would.

    It is a very safe Lib Dem seat.

    Ceredigion forecast:

    CON 17.48%
    LAB 7.35%
    L DEM 41.71%
    GREEN 4.54%
    UKIP 4.18%
    PLAID 24.73%
    Are you in Bosworth this Saturday?
    @Pulpstar - apologies, I misread your post as giving tories 50% chance in ceredigion.
  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 76,054
    llef said:

    Pulpstar said:

    llef said:

    Pulpstar said:

    isam said:

    Labour are 4/-6/1 in those Welsh constituencies now w Skybet... Newport East/West, Ceredigion, Delyn etc... over reaction?

    How much do you want on Labour at 6-1 in Ceredigion :D ?

    The Tories are near to 50% in the rest according to my model.

    The one to reback Labour at heavy odds against is Yns Mon.
    Don't think the Tories will win Ceredigion, the Tories there will (and have in past) vote liberal to ensure that Plaid does not win.
    I never said they would.

    It is a very safe Lib Dem seat.

    Ceredigion forecast:

    CON 17.48%
    LAB 7.35%
    L DEM 41.71%
    GREEN 4.54%
    UKIP 4.18%
    PLAID 24.73%
    Are you in Bosworth this Saturday?
    @Pulpstar - apologies, I misread your post as giving tories 50% chance in ceredigion.
    Heh No, Mark Williams is safe :)
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    isamisam Posts: 41,118
    "The Green Party’s Caroline Lucas has been quick off the mark to accuse Nuttall of ‘full throttled Islamaphobia’ — describing the proposed policies as ‘an assault on multiculturalism and an attack on Muslims’. Some of the outrage is misguided. In truth, Ukip are not the first to moot many of these policies. While a ban on face veils is something that was once on a BNP manifesto, it’s also the policy of the EU’s largest political party, the EPP. What’s more, it’s actually Labour’s Diane Abbott who was the first to call for mandatory FGM checks on schoolgirls. Her words were not met with the same hostility."

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/04/ukips-focus-burqa-shows-party-little-left-offer-brexit/
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    RobDRobD Posts: 59,036

    Nicola Sturgeon tries to decouple independence from election after polls show Tories taking SNP seats

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/24/nicola-sturgeon-tries-decouple-independence-election-polls-show/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

    Chortle.....

    As Scott pointed out earlier, this wouldn't be an issue if they hadn't start beating the indyref2 drum a few months ago.
  • Options
    FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    kle4 said:

    Apols for off-topicness and working-classness; this is not about the best bordeaux nor best restaurant to spunk 200 quid..

    As there is a lot of lawyers on here I would appreciate your advice. My eldest son - under 18 - I have just been told by my ex-wife had the plod over having been caught in possession of cannabis. They either gave him a caution or a reprimand - first time with rozzer bother - so guessing a reprimand.

    Questions - will this appear on an enhanced DBS check? He is keen to be an outdoors sporting instruction (sailing/canoeing) and will there be any issues with overseas visa (US/Canada especially).

    Any advice / thoughts greatly appreciated.

    A caution is an acceptance that the person did the acts complained of, and should not be accepted without qualified legal advice.
    I'd heard (from a real anti-police sort, admittedly) that cautions were basically just a way for the police to resolve a matter quickly and move on without people realising they had in effect admitted wrongdoing, as a means of using resources more efficiently.
    That is exactly how they can and have been used
  • Options
    justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    saddened said:

    justin124 said:

    I believe that Devolution in Wales has come back to bite Labour. I always strongly opposed it and would still like the Welsh Assembly disappear. So many years in control at Cardiff have built up grievances over the years which make it much more difficult to blame a Tory Government at Westminster for problems linked to core issues such as Health & Education.This cannot be pinned on Corbyn , but it is very much a self inflicted wound.

    So your problem is that the shower of shite that is a labour controlled assembly can't hide behind a tory government?
    The whole idea of Devolution was flawed and divisive.
  • Options
    JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 39,327

    And remaining wildly off-topic, here's NASA@s costing for a manned Mars mission: $450 billion for an austere mission over three decades.

    https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/the-journey-to-mars-has-a-price-tag-and-it-will-give-congress-sticker-shock/

    Ouch.

    How much did the US spend in Iraq over 8 years?

    #justasking
    I understand the point you're making, but I didn't know the answer.

    The Iraq war cost the US two trillion dollars. So yes, a Mars program would be cheaper. But it's still unaffordable given US priorities. Therefore the cost needs to come down, and that's what SpaceX and Blue Origin (mainly) are trying to do.

    As a further off-topic aside: throughout the Apollo program, only one opinion poll showed a majority of the US public in favour of it. That's a very different picture from the one painted nowadays.

    (I have no idea about how the poll was conducted).

    This is why NASA's post-Apollo Integrated Program Plan was madness. It was for a reusable shuttle to orbit (a version of which became the Shuttle), a nuclear space tug, a lunar base, a lunar orbital base, and a Mars base, all by the mid-1980s. This would have been on a massively increased budget.

    Congress was never, ever going to go for that if the public weren't even in favour of Apollo spending.

    https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19680009769.pdf + others
    I was being a bit flippant.

    Funding it through NASA faces all the same problems all publicly funded and procured large scale programmes do.
    I more or less agree with that. NASA should be an enabler.

    They should ideally get out of the rocket-defining game. Their old model is to use contractors to build rockets, and they are intimately involved with defining that rocket.

    Instead, they should say to ULA, SpaceX, BO or even ESA: "I want a rocket capable of launching 100 tonnes to LEO in five years, for a price of under $500 million per launch." or somesuch. This is the model they've moved half towards.

    Likewise: "I want a probe to study Venus's induced magnetosphere," and the contractors will look into it.

    If the contractors need help or research, then NASA might be able to do that for them; especially if the research is applicable to more than one project or contractor (e.g. facilities such as their massive environment chamber)
  • Options
    HaroldOHaroldO Posts: 1,185

    Nicola Sturgeon tries to decouple independence from election after polls show Tories taking SNP seats

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/24/nicola-sturgeon-tries-decouple-independence-election-polls-show/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

    Chortle.....

    They've avoided governing Scotland for a year, now it is all they want to talk about.....
  • Options
    MarkSeniorMarkSenior Posts: 4,699
    isam said:

    isam said:

    I notice UKIP are also proposing ban the burka...now putting to one side the rights and wrongs of this, the Sky News presenter made a right fool of themselves banging on about what if somebody wears a big hat or sunglasses, would that be banned?

    Attempting to trivialize a complex issue.

    Before we had mass immigration from the kind of countries where women wear Burqas and suffer FGM, if people had been able to show that's what we'd get, no politician would have allowed it. Now that it is here, people oppose any attempt to sort it out for partisan reasons

    A million Trump voting hicks come to live here, force their wives to wear veils and their daughters to be cut, and the same people horrified by UKIP would be demanding their deportation
    FGM is like other forms of child abuse, not always best tackled by the adversarial nature of law. Often less hard edged methods by social work* are better.

    *Social work obviously has its failures spread across the press, but like the intelligence sevices their successes are hidden.
    One conviction ever in the UK vs hundreds in France doesn't seem to bear that out particularly well.

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/10/france-tough-stance-female-genital-mutilation-fgm
    Have the hundreds of convictions in France reduced or eliminated FGM there ?
  • Options
    ToryJimToryJim Posts: 3,494
  • Options
    Sean_FSean_F Posts: 36,013
    ToryJim said:

    Sean_F said:

    ToryJim said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ToryJim said:

    AndyJS said:
    It's a horrendous idea, it's just utterly disgraceful.
    Why?
    Targeting ethnic and religious groups for invasive medical exams. Seriously, that is wrong in almost every way imaginable.
    What if there is a problem that is specific to a religious or ethnic group?
    So we make an entire generation of girls from particular groups victims of the state to catch the occasional one who has been the victim of barbaric practices. It's an utter abomination of an idea.
    It is more than "the occasional one."

    The current approach is simply to ignore the problem.
  • Options
    Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981
    ToryJim said:

    Sean_F said:

    ToryJim said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ToryJim said:

    AndyJS said:
    It's a horrendous idea, it's just utterly disgraceful.
    Why?
    Targeting ethnic and religious groups for invasive medical exams. Seriously, that is wrong in almost every way imaginable.
    What if there is a problem that is specific to a religious or ethnic group?
    So we make an entire generation of girls from particular groups victims of the state to catch the occasional one who has been the victim of barbaric practices. It's an utter abomination of an idea.
    5,700 cases of FGM in 2015-16 according to this bile-filled racist rag. So that's 5,700 "occasional" women a year to go through life without a, you know, clitoris thingy to preserve your right-on sensibilities? And there is no "particular groups" about it, Quakers and Buddhists have no more business than anyone else to be doing this, so we look at everybody. It may, I dunno, transpire that the practice is not uniformly distributed; it'll be interesting to see.
  • Options
    Even I concede there is more than 1 voter anti Theresa
  • Options
    JohnLilburneJohnLilburne Posts: 6,034
    ToryJim said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ToryJim said:

    AndyJS said:
    It's a horrendous idea, it's just utterly disgraceful.
    Why?
    Targeting ethnic and religious groups for invasive medical exams. Seriously, that is wrong in almost every way imaginable.
    It's evidence-based. Western, white women and most other ethnic groups e.g black (or Asian) Caribbean are not at risk of FGM. It's a cultural thing, rather than racial or religious. Is it any different to selecting particular ethnic groups for sickle-cell anaemia screening?
  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,411
    edited April 2017
    “I asked her why she was running the exact same campaign as David Cameron did with Lynton Crosby and employing the same scare tactics by suggesting Labour would form a coalition with the SNP, which she knows they wouldn’t. It is scare tactics."

    I somehow doubt he was a "maybe" Tory....sounds very informed knowing not only who Crosby is, but also that he is running the Tory campaign again this time.
  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 76,054

    And remaining wildly off-topic, here's NASA@s costing for a manned Mars mission: $450 billion for an austere mission over three decades.

    https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/the-journey-to-mars-has-a-price-tag-and-it-will-give-congress-sticker-shock/

    Ouch.

    How much did the US spend in Iraq over 8 years?

    #justasking
    I understand the point you're making, but I didn't know the answer.

    The Iraq war cost the US two trillion dollars. So yes, a Mars program would be cheaper. But it's still unaffordable given US priorities. Therefore the cost needs to come down, and that's what SpaceX and Blue Origin (mainly) are trying to do.

    As a further off-topic aside: throughout the Apollo program, only one opinion poll showed a majority of the US public in favour of it. That's a very different picture from the one painted nowadays.

    (I have no idea about how the poll was conducted).

    This is why NASA's post-Apollo Integrated Program Plan was madness. It was for a reusable shuttle to orbit (a version of which became the Shuttle), a nuclear space tug, a lunar base, a lunar orbital base, and a Mars base, all by the mid-1980s. This would have been on a massively increased budget.

    Congress was never, ever going to go for that if the public weren't even in favour of Apollo spending.

    https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19680009769.pdf + others
    I was being a bit flippant.

    Funding it through NASA faces all the same problems all publicly funded and procured large scale programmes do.
    I more or less agree with that. NASA should be an enabler.

    They should ideally get out of the rocket-defining game. Their old model is to use contractors to build rockets, and they are intimately involved with defining that rocket.

    Instead, they should say to ULA, SpaceX, BO or even ESA: "I want a rocket capable of launching 100 tonnes to LEO in five years, for a price of under $500 million per launch." or somesuch. This is the model they've moved half towards.

    Likewise: "I want a probe to study Venus's induced magnetosphere," and the contractors will look into it.

    If the contractors need help or research, then NASA might be able to do that for them; especially if the research is applicable to more than one project or contractor (e.g. facilities such as their massive environment chamber)
    Yes. This !

    But it needs to be a fair compo, several senators have distinctly unhealthy relationships with ULA in particular.

    Are you in Cambridge const btw ?
  • Options
    ToryJimToryJim Posts: 3,494
    Sean_F said:

    ToryJim said:

    Sean_F said:

    ToryJim said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ToryJim said:

    AndyJS said:
    It's a horrendous idea, it's just utterly disgraceful.
    Why?
    Targeting ethnic and religious groups for invasive medical exams. Seriously, that is wrong in almost every way imaginable.
    What if there is a problem that is specific to a religious or ethnic group?
    So we make an entire generation of girls from particular groups victims of the state to catch the occasional one who has been the victim of barbaric practices. It's an utter abomination of an idea.
    It is more than "the occasional one."

    The current approach is simply to ignore the problem.
    I'm not saying the current situation is good, but we ought to want to improve things rather than making them worse.
  • Options
    The_ApocalypseThe_Apocalypse Posts: 7,830
    edited April 2017
    My mum has told me she's voting Conservative in June....

    Last time she voted Conservative was twenty-five years ago.
  • Options
    peter_from_putneypeter_from_putney Posts: 6,875
    edited April 2017
    ***** Betting Post *****

    Never let it be said that there's next to no difference in the odds quoted by the various bookies.
    Disproving this in fairly spectacular fashion this evening is the over/under total seats markets for the two major parties for which all the bookies all offer odds of 5/6 either way, the difference between them being the striking price or fulcrum.

    For the Tories, SkyBet price their total seats as being +/- 393.5, implying a very brave Tory majority of 137 seats, whereas Ladbrokes and Hills are both 15 seats behind on 378.5, implying a skinnier Tory majority of 107.

    For Labour, Skybet price them as winning only 154.5 seats, a net loss of 77.5 on the number they won in 2015. Here Ladbrokes go 162.5 and Hills 164.5 seats.

    By comparison, Sporting Index's spread-betting mid price for the Tories is currently 383 and 168 for Labour whilst Spreadex go 381 for the Tories and 169 for Labour.

    Skybet are therefore very much the odd one out in relation to these markets, which doesn't of course mean that they're wrong.

    DYOR.
  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,411
    Tony and Mandy constantly popping up. It like the year 2000 all over again.
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    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,684

    isam said:

    I notice UKIP are also proposing ban the burka...now putting to one side the rights and wrongs of this, the Sky News presenter made a right fool of themselves banging on about what if somebody wears a big hat or sunglasses, would that be banned?

    Attempting to trivialize a complex issue.

    Before we had mass immigration from the kind of countries where women wear Burqas and suffer FGM, if people had been able to show that's what we'd get, no politician would have allowed it. Now that it is here, people oppose any attempt to sort it out for partisan reasons

    A million Trump voting hicks come to live here, force their wives to wear veils and their daughters to be cut, and the same people horrified by UKIP would be demanding their deportation
    FGM is like other forms of child abuse, not always best tackled by the adversarial nature of law. Often less hard edged methods by social work* are better.

    *Social work obviously has its failures spread across the press, but like the intelligence sevices their successes are hidden.
    Rubbish. Go in hard and go in often. Jail the parents and the doctors for life. No mercy.
  • Options

    Jason said:

    'Quite what Labour does in the face of this impending disaster is hard to say.'

    T
    Nor me, Jason. No sympathy at all. The current crisis has its roots as far back as the Blair/Brown wars but they are by no means the only culprits.

    But a democracy needs a decent opposition. The Tories went a.w.o.l. during the IDS period, and the country was all the worse for it. The Labour Government was simply not subjected to the type of scrutiny that was needed. The same is happening now with colors reversed.

    And you don't have to be especially charitable to feel some sympathy for the people Labour is supposed to represent. Who will speak for them if Labour doesn't?

    To answer your question from earlier, Peter, I thought my comment might be unwelcome from some Labour supporters, some of which still seem to think everything will be ok if Corbyn is ditched, particularly from a Tory during an election campaign.

    You have the intelligence and self-awareness to recognise that he's a symptom and not the cause, but I'm not sure how many others in the Labour membership do.
    Thank you, CR. (Everybody is being nice to me today. What am I doing right?)

    He's cause and consequence, but getting rid of him would only be a start of a Labour rehab programme, as you indicate. I don't think it matters too much now how much of a shellacking they take at ths GE. It would probably be best if they avoided total obliteration, but equally if they somehow get away with a half-decent result that may only defer any rebuilding, and that wouldn't be good either.

    Personally I'd settle for anything between 125 and 175 seats. Outside that range and I wouldn't rate the Party's chance of getting itself back together again quickly, if ever.
    FWIW, provided Labour does re-organise itself properly, this election should be something of a one-off for Brexit. A bit like GE1931.

    The next 5 years will be very difficult, and who knows what GE2022 may hold.
    Well, beyond the next GE it's very hard to assess how things will go. So much depends on how Brexit shakes out. Not sure I'll be here to witness it though. No, my health's fine, thank you, but increasingly I'm inclined to leave these shores.

    Won't stop me from posting on here though, you will be pleased to hear!
  • Options
    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,684
    ToryJim said:

    Sean_F said:

    ToryJim said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ToryJim said:

    AndyJS said:
    It's a horrendous idea, it's just utterly disgraceful.
    Why?
    Targeting ethnic and religious groups for invasive medical exams. Seriously, that is wrong in almost every way imaginable.
    What if there is a problem that is specific to a religious or ethnic group?
    So we make an entire generation of girls from particular groups victims of the state to catch the occasional one who has been the victim of barbaric practices. It's an utter abomination of an idea.
    Let's work in the real world please. How would you stop this abominable practice?
  • Options
    calumcalum Posts: 3,046

    Nicola Sturgeon tries to decouple independence from election after polls show Tories taking SNP seats

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/24/nicola-sturgeon-tries-decouple-independence-election-polls-show/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

    Chortle.....

    Interestingly the SNP are targeting the election expenses scandal for 2 reasons - it's a Tory Achilles heel and to put paid to any similar efforts to bus in support this time around - thereby keeping the GE2017 campaigns local - with around 2000 members per constituency the SNP are set to do well in the ground war.

    Labour & the Libdems are likely to be less critical of the Tories around the upcoming expenses scandal as they no doubt have a few skeletons in their own closets !!
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    williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 48,356

    I somehow doubt he was a "maybe" Tory....sounds very informed knowing not only who Crosby is, but also that he is running the Tory campaign again this time.
    No wonder he didn't want May on his lawn. She was probably trying to park a tank...
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    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 76,054

    ***** Betting Post *****

    Never let it be said that there's next to no difference in the odds quoted by the various bookies.
    Disproving this in fairly spectacular fashion this evening is the over/under total seats markets for the two major parties for which all the bookies all offer odds of 5/6 either way, the difference between them being the striking price or fulcrum.

    For the Tories, SkyBet price their total seats as being +/- 393.5, implying a very brave Tory majority of 137 seats, whereas Ladbrokes and Hills are both 15 seats behind on 378.5, implying a skinnier Tory majority of 107.

    For Labour, Skybet price them as winning only 154.5 seats, a net loss of 77.5 on the number they won in 2015. Here Ladbrokes go 162.5 and Hills 164.5 seats.

    By comparison, Sporting Index's spread-betting mid price for the Tories is currently 383 and 168 for Labour whilst Spreadex go 381 for the Tories and 169 for Labour.

    Skybet are therefore very much the odd one out in relation to these markets, which doesn't of course mean that they're wrong.

    DYOR.

    Whats the advice here ?

    Sell Tories at 393.5 ?
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    chestnutchestnut Posts: 7,341
    Dudley North?

    Labour have an 11 point lead, but 13 behind Con/UKIP combined.
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    RobDRobD Posts: 59,036
    Are we due any polls tonight? :smiley:
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    williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 48,356
    Meanwhile Russian state TV tells viewers that a lot can happen in the next two weeks of the French election. "Terrorism could still play a role and help Le Pen..."
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    Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,060
    edited April 2017
    Ishmael_Z said:





    I don't understand your point. The police in Rotherham backed off from investigating crimes by Asian men, because of fear of accusations of racism which they rightly thought were irrebuttable, as they are under the "perception of the victim" test and which they would not have been under a sensible "would be perceived by a reasonable person as..." test.

    If that were true then no member of an enthnic minority could ever be investigated for anything: they would just utter the magic words and that would be that.

    This thread started when accusations of anti-semitism were dismised as being on behalf of the Zionist lobby with no attempt to adress the concerns of the Jewish students who were offended. It seems to be a huge leap to go from (I'm paraphasing here) "we must be able to investigate crimes even if the suspects have accused us of racism" to "we don't care if you think this is racist because we get to decide that not you".

    Is this an easy topic with simple answers? No, and on reflection I may have over-simplified my original comments. But I get angry when I see those who under most other circumstances would be sensitive to all kinds of offensive language suddenly getting a tin-ear when it comes to anti-semitism. It seems to be the last socially acceptable form of racism and I have no idea why.
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    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,411

    I somehow doubt he was a "maybe" Tory....sounds very informed knowing not only who Crosby is, but also that he is running the Tory campaign again this time.
    No wonder he didn't want May on his lawn. She was probably trying to park a tank...
    Personally I wouldn't let her on my lawn....her choice of footwear would bloody ruin it.
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    RobDRobD Posts: 59,036

    My mum has told me she's voting Conservative in June....

    Last time she voted Conservative was twenty-five years ago.

    And on that bombshell......... :o
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    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,411
    RobD said:

    My mum has told me she's voting Conservative in June....

    Last time she voted Conservative was twenty-five years ago.

    And on that bombshell......... :o
    Top Gear is being cancelled? ;-)
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    ToryJimToryJim Posts: 3,494
    Ishmael_Z said:

    ToryJim said:

    Sean_F said:

    ToryJim said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ToryJim said:

    AndyJS said:
    It's a horrendous idea, it's just utterly disgraceful.
    Why?
    Targeting ethnic and religious groups for invasive medical exams. Seriously, that is wrong in almost every way imaginable.
    What if there is a problem that is specific to a religious or ethnic group?
    So we make an entire generation of girls from particular groups victims of the state to catch the occasional one who has been the victim of barbaric practices. It's an utter abomination of an idea.
    5,700 cases of FGM in 2015-16 according to this bile-filled racist rag. So that's 5,700 "occasional" women a year to go through life without a, you know, clitoris thingy to preserve your right-on sensibilities? And there is no "particular groups" about it, Quakers and Buddhists have no more business than anyone else to be doing this, so we look at everybody. It may, I dunno, transpire that the practice is not uniformly distributed; it'll be interesting to see.
    Im not saying we don't need a better approach but I don't think the mandatory invasive examination of girls with all the inherent psychological issues that would entail is the correct approach. I don't want any girl to be subject to mutilation, but I don't want the cure to be worse than the disease.
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    justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527

    Pong said:

    GIN1138 said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Anybody know what the poll's about that the Tele is quoting with the Tories set to win 67 Labour held marginal seats?

    Graudian / ICM poll from earlier.
    Thanks. :)
    https://twitter.com/election_data/status/856471766255927297
    That's a terrible poll for the LD's
    Why ?

    It is no different to yesterday's ICM poll for Peston .
    Except Labour is up 1%.
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    foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548
    isam said:

    isam said:

    I notice UKIP are also proposing ban the burka...now putting to one side the rights and wrongs of this, the Sky News presenter made a right fool of themselves banging on about what if somebody wears a big hat or sunglasses, would that be banned?

    Attempting to trivialize a complex issue.

    Before we had mass immigration from the kind of countries where women wear Burqas and suffer FGM, if people had been able to show that's what we'd get, no politician would have allowed it. Now that it is here, people oppose any attempt to sort it out for partisan reasons

    A million Trump voting hicks come to live here, force their wives to wear veils and their daughters to be cut, and the same people horrified by UKIP would be demanding their deportation
    FGM is like other forms of child abuse, not always best tackled by the adversarial nature of law. Often less hard edged methods by social work* are better.

    *Social work obviously has its failures spread across the press, but like the intelligence sevices their successes are hidden.
    One conviction ever in the UK vs hundreds in France doesn't seem to bear that out particularly well.

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/10/france-tough-stance-female-genital-mutilation-fgm
    FGM is mostly a North African issue, but we do not know what is the effect of each policy. I think our own governments policy of mandatory reporting to child safeguarding authorities is about right:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fgm-mandatory-reporting-in-healthcare

    Worth noting that the French Burqa, Burkini, Halal food bans etc have not notably reduced intercommunal tensions on the other side of the channel.
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    dr_spyndr_spyn Posts: 11,291
    LD in Bath copying Yeovil. So much for target marginals in the West.

    https://twitter.com/paulbarltrop/status/856603651900661761
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    kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 4,070
    ToryJim said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ToryJim said:

    Sean_F said:

    ToryJim said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ToryJim said:

    AndyJS said:
    It's a horrendous idea, it's just utterly disgraceful.
    Why?
    Targeting ethnic and religious groups for invasive medical exams. Seriously, that is wrong in almost every way imaginable.
    What if there is a problem that is specific to a religious or ethnic group?
    So we make an entire generation of girls from particular groups victims of the state to catch the occasional one who has been the victim of barbaric practices. It's an utter abomination of an idea.
    5,700 cases of FGM in 2015-16 according to this bile-filled racist rag. So that's 5,700 "occasional" women a year to go through life without a, you know, clitoris thingy to preserve your right-on sensibilities? And there is no "particular groups" about it, Quakers and Buddhists have no more business than anyone else to be doing this, so we look at everybody. It may, I dunno, transpire that the practice is not uniformly distributed; it'll be interesting to see.
    Im not saying we don't need a better approach but I don't think the mandatory invasive examination of girls with all the inherent psychological issues that would entail is the correct approach. I don't want any girl to be subject to mutilation, but I don't want the cure to be worse than the disease.
    How is having an occasional check up worse than the disease?
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    Thank you everyone who responded to my earlier post. Much appreciated- thank you.
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    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,411
    dr_spyn said:

    LD in Bath copying Yeovil. So much for target marginals in the West.

    https://twitter.com/paulbarltrop/status/856603651900661761

    Reasons? I would have thought LD stand a great chance in Bath.
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    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,684
    ToryJim said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ToryJim said:

    Sean_F said:

    ToryJim said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ToryJim said:

    AndyJS said:
    It's a horrendous idea, it's just utterly disgraceful.
    Why?
    Targeting ethnic and religious groups for invasive medical exams. Seriously, that is wrong in almost every way imaginable.
    What if there is a problem that is specific to a religious or ethnic group?
    So we make an entire generation of girls from particular groups victims of the state to catch the occasional one who has been the victim of barbaric practices. It's an utter abomination of an idea.
    5,700 cases of FGM in 2015-16 according to this bile-filled racist rag. So that's 5,700 "occasional" women a year to go through life without a, you know, clitoris thingy to preserve your right-on sensibilities? And there is no "particular groups" about it, Quakers and Buddhists have no more business than anyone else to be doing this, so we look at everybody. It may, I dunno, transpire that the practice is not uniformly distributed; it'll be interesting to see.
    Im not saying we don't need a better approach but I don't think the mandatory invasive examination of girls with all the inherent psychological issues that would entail is the correct approach. I don't want any girl to be subject to mutilation, but I don't want the cure to be worse than the disease.
    Nothing is worse than this disease. It is absolutely abominable and is used a tool of male domination in Islamic society. Convict the bastards and string them up in public to set an example, though that is reactive. I guess the UKIP solution is at least proactive, though not ideal.
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    Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    https://twitter.com/LabourUncut/status/856606732595978242

    "The starting pistol for the election has been fired but when it comes to candidate selection, Labour has been left on the blocks.

    "According to Labour’s selection timetable, Prospective Parliamentary Candidates in seats where the MP has stood down, are being chosen by the NEC between Sunday 23rd April and Friday 28th April and in seats without Labour MPs, between Sunday April 30th and Tuesday May 2nd. Sitting MPs have been automatically reselected.

    "Think about those dates for a moment.

    Six days to pick 14 candidates in seats Labour already holds where the MP is retiring, three days to pick 416 candidates, out of which just under 100 are the key seats needed to win a majority."


    The author essentially suggests, with good evidence to back the contention, that the Far Left aren't interested in fighting the general election at all. Instead, they want to concentrate on getting their own candidates parachuted into a handful of very safe Labour seats where current MPs are retiring.

    In that fashion, assuming that the party is smashed in the election, they might have enough MPs from their faction to meet the reduced threshold for nominating a new leader, even without implementing rule changes. Then an ideologically pure successor to Corbyn can be presented to the Far Left majority amongst the membership, consolidating their faction's control of the party.

    This is Labour in 2017, folks. No pretence of any interest in forming a Government, beyond the PR gloss. The only election the leadership is interested in is... the new leadership election. Just as most of us always suspected.
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    The irony cannot be lost but in the conservative party they found the right leader for the times and by the previous leader's actions (David Cameron) not only have they united the party but overseen the destruction of the labour party, decimated labour in Wales, and may just have saved the Union.

    David Cameron's legacy not looking at all bad for him if all this comes about
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    ToryJim said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ToryJim said:

    AndyJS said:
    It's a horrendous idea, it's just utterly disgraceful.
    Why?
    Targeting ethnic and religious groups for invasive medical exams. Seriously, that is wrong in almost every way imaginable.
    It's evidence-based. Western, white women and most other ethnic groups e.g black (or Asian) Caribbean are not at risk of FGM. It's a cultural thing, rather than racial or religious. Is it any different to selecting particular ethnic groups for sickle-cell anaemia screening?
    Is offering a blood test different from requiring a genital examination? Yes.
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    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 76,054
    edited April 2017


    In that fashion, assuming that the party is smashed in the election, they might have enough MPs from their faction to meet the reduced threshold for nominating a new leader, even without implementing rule changes. Then an ideologically pure successor to Corbyn can be presented to the Far Left majority amongst the membership, consolidating their faction's control of the party.

    This is Labour in 2017, folks. No pretence of any interest in forming a Government, beyond the PR gloss. The only election the leadership is interested in is... the new leadership election. Just as most of us always suspected.

    Lol, one to terrify the general backers in next Lab Leader on Betfair :D
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    Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,060
    isam said:

    "The Green Party’s Caroline Lucas has been quick off the mark to accuse Nuttall of ‘full throttled Islamaphobia’ — describing the proposed policies as ‘an assault on multiculturalism and an attack on Muslims’. Some of the outrage is misguided. In truth, Ukip are not the first to moot many of these policies. While a ban on face veils is something that was once on a BNP manifesto, it’s also the policy of the EU’s largest political party, the EPP. What’s more, it’s actually Labour’s Diane Abbott who was the first to call for mandatory FGM checks on schoolgirls. Her words were not met with the same hostility."

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/04/ukips-focus-burqa-shows-party-little-left-offer-brexit/

    I'm not sure I would use Diane Abbott as back-up for the wisdom of an idea.
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    RobDRobD Posts: 59,036
    New thread!
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    ToryJimToryJim Posts: 3,494
    MaxPB said:

    ToryJim said:

    Sean_F said:

    ToryJim said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ToryJim said:

    AndyJS said:
    It's a horrendous idea, it's just utterly disgraceful.
    Why?
    Targeting ethnic and religious groups for invasive medical exams. Seriously, that is wrong in almost every way imaginable.
    What if there is a problem that is specific to a religious or ethnic group?
    So we make an entire generation of girls from particular groups victims of the state to catch the occasional one who has been the victim of barbaric practices. It's an utter abomination of an idea.
    Let's work in the real world please. How would you stop this abominable practice?
    This proposal fails the smell test. We need to prevent FGM and I don't know how exactly to do this, I'm not an expert on this issue. I just have a big problem with the optics of the approach of subjecting young girls to invasive examinations in this way.
This discussion has been closed.