I wonder if the swivel-eyed, right wing loons who have had the BBC bias shtick down pat for years are beginning to realise how ridiculous they have looked and sounded to most people: https://twitter.com/ChriswMP/status/862922737903382528
MPs coming out with this rubbish is more despairing than when anonymous social media warriors do.
Remember, this dickhead hasn't been an MP since he lost in 2015
the MP in the twitter address isn't passing off, it stands for Major Prat, then?
[...] Stupid crap includes * lowering voting age to 16 (i.e. the Facebook vote)
[...]
I am in favour of lowering the voting age to 16.
Since the increase in the school leaving age and the massive expansion of tertiary education, there's more of an argument for raising the age to 21 than there is for reducing it to 16. 16-year-olds are not taxpayers (at least, not any more than five year-olds are); they are not responsible enough to buy a pint of beer, play GTAV, or watch Fifty Shades of Grey. They cannot drive HGVs, they cannot be sent to warzones, and they are not adults in the eyes of the law. They should not, therefore, be trusted to make decisions that affect the whole country.
There are many ways for them to get involved in the civic process already, most of which they appear supremely disinterested in. The idea of teachers trooping entire classes of children down to the polling stations may bring a tear to the eye of Labour voters, but not the rest of us.
OT but I am putting a small wager on Labour regaining Gower. The Green candidate has stood aside and the 1300 or so votes will be more than enough for Labour in the constituency with the smallest Tory majority. Ps UKIP are standing.
It was Labour for 105 years in a row so could reasonably switch back, however a couple of issues.
1: The MP is standing again and should get a first time incumbency bonus. 2: UKIP got 4,773 votes last time, if the Tory gets two-thirds of those as many polls show then that's 3,000 votes - which is more than the Green vote.
However: 3: No Plaid Cymru candidate either. That's another 3k votes in the mix.
The absence of the Green alone would likely not have been sufficient, the absence of PC too might be.
The Gower has been trending away from Labour for a while. It was why I tipped it as my long-shot last time.
The seat returning to Labour will partly depend on what other seats Labour feels it has to defend in Wales, rather than trying to recapture The Gower. My guess is they have enough on their plate trying to keep a raft of seats Labour.
[...] Stupid crap includes * lowering voting age to 16 (i.e. the Facebook vote)
[...]
I am in favour of lowering the voting age to 16. We have it in Scotland for local and Holyrood elections. It might originally have been a bit of posturing by Alex Salmond, but I see it as beneficial. It means students can participate in elections while at school, possibly as part of a civic studies lesson, and hopefully create a habit of voting when they leave school. There is no evidence that younger voters take their selections any less seriously than older folk.
Why not lower it to 12? 10? My three year old daughter has figured out to draw an X now can she vote?
There has to be a line at which you are an adult and that should be where you can vote. School lessons should be kept at school.
Maybe only people that don't indulge in thin ends of wedges fallacies should be allowed to vote. The proposal is for 16 year olds to vote, not three year olds.
Incidentally although I'm pro hunting I've no idea why its being discussed, I suspect that May has barely if ever mentioned it, its just a spurious stick to beat her with.
Most farmers and hunters aren't fussed, they still kill foxes they just don't have those moronic saboteurs to contend with.
It's a policy where the potential outcome, repealing the ban, is clearly unpopular with most of the public. Of course, therefore, it will be used to attack TMay as out of touch and focused on the wrong things.
I always wonder when foxhunting comes up how popular a ban on fishing would be.
I don't like foxhunting and I don't like fishing as I think they're cruel so not for me. However I do enjoy meat and simply don't like to think about what happened before it reaches me. So I'm not going to judge those who do enjoy their pursuits. But why ban fox hunting and not recreational fishing?
Is sticking a metal spike through an animals cheek for sport very different to setting a dog upon an animal for sport? Why?
G-live: The LibDems are due to pledge to legalise cannabis, according to BuzzFeed.
Tim Farron’s party will campaign in the general election with a pledge to completely upend the existing system of selling weed, making it the first time a major political party has fought an election on a platform of legalising the drug.
Under the Lib Dem proposals the sale of marijuana would be fully legalised, with the quality strictly regulated to reduce harmful chemicals and sales restricted to over-18s. Purchases would be allowed only through licensed cannabis shops, similar to the system used in several US states.
Former LibDem MP Julian Huppert, who is standing to retake his old marginal Cambridge seat from Labour, confirmed the plan.
[...] Stupid crap includes * lowering voting age to 16 (i.e. the Facebook vote)
[...]
I am in favour of lowering the voting age to 16. We have it in Scotland for local and Holyrood elections. It might originally have been a bit of posturing by Alex Salmond, but I see it as beneficial. It means students can participate in elections while at school, possibly as part of a civic studies lesson, and hopefully create a habit of voting when they leave school. There is no evidence that younger voters take their selections any less seriously than older folk.
Why not lower it to 12? 10? My three year old daughter has figured out to draw an X now can she vote?
There has to be a line at which you are an adult and that should be where you can vote. School lessons should be kept at school.
Setting the line at when you can leave home, work full time, get married and pay taxes seems pretty uncontroversial to me.
Indeed that is an infinitely better argument than "you can participate at school". In order to work full time you have to have had the option of leaving school.
I've been doing my own totting up from the SoPNs and twitter. So far I get to 339 standing, 241 not standing, 52 still unconfirmed. That's not counting seats in NI.
The 241 seats in which they are definitely not standing amounted to 1.2m votes, about 31% of their 2015 vote.
There are bound to be some errors in that, but then again there are some errors in that democracyclub total - for example they are definitely standing in Ynys Môn.
Probably a lot of upgrades which might shuffle the order a bit. Force India and Red Bull may be ones to watch.
And so we end up where we left off at the end of last year - with Ferrari and Red Bull scrapping over a distant second place and the Mercedes driving off into the distance. And Honda engines exploding.
My word is there anything that winds people up more than the trivial issue of fox hunting, I live in an area where country folk love animals but aren't sentimental about them. City dwellers need to understand that farmers kill foxes all the time, they don't read them a bedside story first. Foxes are essentially nice looking rats.
You seem to think city dwellers are unfamiliar with foxes. Urban foxes are endemic. I've seen them walking down my street in central London.
I never said they were unfamiliar, I said they don't understand that farmers kill them all the time, not for fun but because they are a nuisance.
That is what city dwellers don't understand, farmers kill things without sentiment but for good reason.
City dwellers are very well aware that foxes are a nuisance.
Yes, I am sure the turning over of rubbish bins can be a dreadful inconvenience. If they saw the results of a fox attack on a hen house, or in lambing season they might be a little less sentimental.
So why then choose to advocate such an inefficient means of pest control? Indeed, a means *so* inefficient that pro-hunt campaigners have made a virtue of how few foxes die?
Hunting with dogs is cruel and unnecessary and the ban should stay.
So done was claiming here the other day it is the most efficient method, therefore the dress up and fun of the event is irrelevant, but it does seem, as someone with no inside knowledge, very odd that it can really be the most efficient way. You need to kill pests, fine, I won't stop you, but anybfun should be sacrificed for efficiency if it is necessary.
G-live: The LibDems are due to pledge to legalise cannabis, according to BuzzFeed.
Tim Farron’s party will campaign in the general election with a pledge to completely upend the existing system of selling weed, making it the first time a major political party has fought an election on a platform of legalising the drug.
Under the Lib Dem proposals the sale of marijuana would be fully legalised, with the quality strictly regulated to reduce harmful chemicals and sales restricted to over-18s. Purchases would be allowed only through licensed cannabis shops, similar to the system used in several US states.
Former LibDem MP Julian Huppert, who is standing to retake his old marginal Cambridge seat from Labour, confirmed the plan.
Awesome.
Well pot isn't for me, but good to see the Lib Dems standing up for personal freedoms even if it might potentially cost a few votes in Lib/Tory marginals.
1: The MP is standing again and should get a first time incumbency bonus. .
Just a general question on 1st time incumbency bonus, and how it may apply in 2017.
As the election was only in 2015, two years ago, is this a long enough time for the incumbency bonus to mature?
Will it be bigger, smaller or the same due to the short life of the 2015 parliament?
Very good question. I suspect that simply being able to put the words "re-elect" on your leaflets and having things you have done (as opposed to things you want to do) to put on your leaflets is a factor for incumbency so I suspect that incumbency will already be an issue.
And without knowing the area if in a seat as marginal as Gower the MP hasn't been grafting hard trying to help people in order to get his incumbency bonus for next time then he doesn't deserve to be re-elected. So I'd assume he has been working hard - but have no evidence either way its just my logic.
My word is there anything that winds people up more than the trivial issue of fox hunting, I live in an area where country folk love animals but aren't sentimental about them. City dwellers need to understand that farmers kill foxes all the time, they don't read them a bedside story first. Foxes are essentially nice looking rats.
You seem to think city dwellers are unfamiliar with foxes. Urban foxes are endemic. I've seen them walking down my street in central London.
I never said they were unfamiliar, I said they don't understand that farmers kill them all the time, not for fun but because they are a nuisance.
That is what city dwellers don't understand, farmers kill things without sentiment but for good reason.
City dwellers are very well aware that foxes are a nuisance.
Yes, I am sure the turning over of rubbish bins can be a dreadful inconvenience. If they saw the results of a fox attack on a hen house, or in lambing season they might be a little less sentimental.
I used to live in an urban area on the outskirts of London in which there are many foxes. Every day, if you went out in the evening in my street you could guarantee that you would see foxes. About one day in two a fox would cross the garden. My next door neighbour kept chickens. She had them in a proper henhouse. None were ever killed by foxes. The cost of housing chickens properly is probably less than a couple of buttons on a redcoat's jacket. And blooding children, that's good for the little lambs too is it?
Foxhunters have been caught on numerous occasions putting out food for foxes. Foxhunters across the country were even exposed as breeding foxes in specially made artificial earths. They want to make sure they've got enough foxes for their dogs to tear apart and to provide blood that they can smear on children. The idea that foxhunting is for pest control is crap: it is a lie.
Of course it's always defended with the sneer that "we know the countryside and you dirty townies don't".
Most people do not put keeping the fox hunting ban as a major factor in how they vote apart from animal rights radicals who will already be voting Labour or LD or SNP or Green anyway. However supporters of foxhunting do put it at the top of their list and they do campaign and leaflet hard if required which would help the Tories in rural marginals, especially in Scotland. Many of them will be far from riffs, indeed in country areas a lot of working class people too are involved in fox hunting
The opposite also applies. Anti-hunt campaigners were active in the centre of Chester on numerous occasions on the run up to 2015. There were a number of letters in the local press attacking the then MPs pro-hunting stance. He was ousted by 96 votes.
In the areas where pro-hunting helps the Tories I suspect they would win without their assistance
I doubt hunting affects too many votes but it stands to reason that if opponents outnumber supporters by 4 to 1 any affect it does have is likely to be to the benefit of anti-hunting candidates.
Support by Theresa May and many other Tories for foxhunting is something that Labour should mention in their broadcasts. Foxhunting is not simply an issue produced by intellectial disagreement or a conflict of material interests. Enjoying killing animals is obscene. The vast majority of the British population know that. Come on, Corbyn! Put an image of a slaughtered fox on the Tory banner and show it on people's TV screens. Show the enemy in their true colours.
Man with a beard? Or a redcoat smearing a child with fox blood? People of Britain, it's your choice.
Yes, that's the only choice at play here. That would be an incredibly stupid and childish way of making the decision. Not least because we don't know it would pass, since plentbif Tories would vote no.
Unrestricted seemingly with Skybet on that one so I might have gone a bit bananas
I can well afford to lose it mind, with Macron's triumph...
Not that I think I'm on a particularly great bet at 1-7 here. Probably a fair price. Anyway Plaid not standing would definitely have made it a fair bit closer. In a weird way I'm almost glad UKIP are standing here - the variables to last time are kept closer that way...
Obviously, I'm in one of the UK's most hotly-contested seats so it's different here. But has the campaign really taken off in England? Or is the election a bit weird with Labour defending stoutly in central Birmingham and Leicester?
Not a lot of activity in Leicester. All three seats look safe for Labour to me, including Liz Kendall in West. Evens on Tories here is far too short, particularly with the kippers standing.
Posterwatch Leicester: 1 Lab poster in studenty Clarendon park. One Tory poster in largely Asian Evington Rd, both Leicester South. Keith Vaz has posters up, and a few orange diamonds in Oadby and Hinckley (Harborough and Bosworth respectively).
Is Cons for Leicester East worth a speculative punt? Can't imagine Keith Vaz's recent activities going down too well with the electorate?
As long as the imam says vote for him, then they'll vote for him.
I do resent the way the left have hijacked the word "progressive" and without any challenge in the MSM.
The word seems meaningless, and advocates of the progressive alliance should stop faffing about and just join one big party if stopping the tories is the only thing that matters, give up the pretence they believe their own party is best.
I think it is verging on negative.
The progressive alliance to stop Tories says (or may be interpreted as):
1 We hate Tories - I think that is off putting and negative to anyone progressive who should be expected have a disposition that is alien to hatred.
2 We can't win, we are different, weak don't agree and are generally tossers, but together we may be better tossers.
3 Come and virtue signal with us.
4 We aren't very popular individually, together maybe we can be popular, please, we are desperate.
5 We don't think much of 1st past the post - a reasonable view but one that get s lost.
[...] Stupid crap includes * lowering voting age to 16 (i.e. the Facebook vote)
[...]
I am in favour of lowering the voting age to 16. We have it in Scotland for local and Holyrood elections. It might originally have been a bit of posturing by Alex Salmond, but I see it as beneficial. It means students can participate in elections while at school, possibly as part of a civic studies lesson, and hopefully create a habit of voting when they leave school. There is no evidence that younger voters take their selections any less seriously than older folk.
Why not lower it to 12? 10? My three year old daughter has figured out to draw an X now can she vote?
There has to be a line at which you are an adult and that should be where you can vote. School lessons should be kept at school.
Maybe only people that don't indulge in thin ends of wedges fallacies should be allowed to vote. The proposal is for 16 year olds to vote, not three year olds.
Yes but why 16 year olds. Your argument that they can participate at school and in civic lessons could equally apply to 12 year olds or 10 year olds. If you change school to nursery it would apply to 3 year olds. Its not a fallacy it is reductio ad absurdum to rebuff your logic.
The logic that 16 year olds can work and pay taxes is an entirely different argument to your argument about getting children involved at school.
Obviously, I'm in one of the UK's most hotly-contested seats so it's different here. But has the campaign really taken off in England? Or is the election a bit weird with Labour defending stoutly in central Birmingham and Leicester?
Not a lot of activity in Leicester. All three seats look safe for Labour to me, including Liz Kendall in West. Evens on Tories here is far too short, particularly with the kippers standing.
Posterwatch Leicester: 1 Lab poster in studenty Clarendon park. One Tory poster in largely Asian Evington Rd, both Leicester South. Keith Vaz has posters up, and a few orange diamonds in Oadby and Hinckley (Harborough and Bosworth respectively).
Is Cons for Leicester East worth a speculative punt? Can't imagine Keith Vaz's recent activities going down too well with the electorate?
As long as the imam says vote for him, then they'll vote for him.
Leicester South is incredibly safe on my model (Tory seat 558 !)
As for Keith's seat, I have it at Tory seat 543 - so also quite safe.
[...] Stupid crap includes * lowering voting age to 16 (i.e. the Facebook vote)
[...]
I am in favour of lowering the voting age to 16. We have it in Scotland for local and Holyrood elections. It might originally have been a bit of posturing by Alex Salmond, but I see it as beneficial. It means students can participate in elections while at school, possibly as part of a civic studies lesson, and hopefully create a habit of voting when they leave school. There is no evidence that younger voters take their selections any less seriously than older folk.
Why not lower it to 12? 10? My three year old daughter has figured out to draw an X now can she vote?
There has to be a line at which you are an adult and that should be where you can vote.
I agree, and we have a confused sense of when you are an adult, but we don't let people drive, we don't let them drink, but they should vote (and join the army)?
However the ram has touched the wall. We allowed 16 year olds to vote in a very important election, so no reason they can't in all of them. Unfortunately.
But we should lower things like the drinking age. If you are an adult, you can vote get married and work full time, no reason to treat you like a child.
G-live: The LibDems are due to pledge to legalise cannabis, according to BuzzFeed.
Tim Farron’s party will campaign in the general election with a pledge to completely upend the existing system of selling weed, making it the first time a major political party has fought an election on a platform of legalising the drug.
Under the Lib Dem proposals the sale of marijuana would be fully legalised, with the quality strictly regulated to reduce harmful chemicals and sales restricted to over-18s. Purchases would be allowed only through licensed cannabis shops, similar to the system used in several US states.
Former LibDem MP Julian Huppert, who is standing to retake his old marginal Cambridge seat from Labour, confirmed the plan.
Awesome.
Well pot isn't for me, but good to see the Lib Dems standing up for personal freedoms even if it might potentially cost a few votes in Lib/Tory marginals.
An acquaintance of mine ended up in the mental unit of our local hospital having done pot for a few years. It totally f***** him up. I'd be interested to see the specifics of the Lib Dem policy - I wonder how many of them are au fait with the varieties of the stuff?
Foxes are pests and will be killed. We could all go out and shoot one tomorrow morning dressed in a dinner jacket or jeans and sneakers after singing the national anthem.
Some people like to wear funny clothes and make a palaver over it. So what? The foxes still get killed.
People are muddling up animal welfare with other issues. As I said to another PB poster yesterday, it's fine to think that hunting people are twats because they all would think you are a twat.
[...] Stupid crap includes * lowering voting age to 16 (i.e. the Facebook vote)
[...]
I am in favour of lowering the voting age to 16.
Since the increase in the school leaving age and the massive expansion of tertiary education, there's more of an argument for raising the age to 21 than there is for reducing it to 16. 16-year-olds are not taxpayers (at least, not any more than five year-olds are); they are not responsible enough to buy a pint of beer, play GTAV, or watch Fifty Shades of Grey. They cannot drive HGVs, they cannot be sent to warzones, and they are not adults in the eyes of the law. They should not, therefore, be trusted to make decisions that affect the whole country.
There are many ways for them to get involved in the civic process already, most of which they appear supremely disinterested in. The idea of teachers trooping entire classes of children down to the polling stations may bring a tear to the eye of Labour voters, but not the rest of us.
Equally, no-one is suggesting trooping school students down to the voting stations. It's simply a question of explaining the parliamentary system and how the parties and voting works and you can be part of the decisionmaking by using your vote.
There seems to be a very inconsistent position of at the one time berating young people for a lack of interest and at the same time saying they are not to be trusted anyway. Firstly there is no evidence of them being less responsible if they do vote and secondly there aren't enough 16-17 years to swing the decision one way or the other. The question is whether we want to bring them into the process. On balance and on the evidence in Scotland, I would say it's a good thing to do.
OT but I am putting a small wager on Labour regaining Gower. The Green candidate has stood aside and the 1300 or so votes will be more than enough for Labour in the constituency with the smallest Tory majority. Ps UKIP are standing.
It was Labour for 105 years in a row so could reasonably switch back, however a couple of issues.
1: The MP is standing again and should get a first time incumbency bonus. 2: UKIP got 4,773 votes last time, if the Tory gets two-thirds of those as many polls show then that's 3,000 votes - which is more than the Green vote.
However: 3: No Plaid Cymru candidate either. That's another 3k votes in the mix.
The absence of the Green alone would likely not have been sufficient, the absence of PC too might be.
G-live: The LibDems are due to pledge to legalise cannabis, according to BuzzFeed.
Tim Farron’s party will campaign in the general election with a pledge to completely upend the existing system of selling weed, making it the first time a major political party has fought an election on a platform of legalising the drug.
Under the Lib Dem proposals the sale of marijuana would be fully legalised, with the quality strictly regulated to reduce harmful chemicals and sales restricted to over-18s. Purchases would be allowed only through licensed cannabis shops, similar to the system used in several US states.
Former LibDem MP Julian Huppert, who is standing to retake his old marginal Cambridge seat from Labour, confirmed the plan.
Awesome.
Well pot isn't for me, but good to see the Lib Dems standing up for personal freedoms even if it might potentially cost a few votes in Lib/Tory marginals.
An acquaintance of mine ended up in the mental unit of our local hospital having done pot for a few years. It totally f***** him up. I'd be interested to see the specifics of the Lib Dem policy - I wonder how many of them are au fait with the varieties of the stuff?
I suspect offences of driving whilst high will increase exponentially were it to happen.
My position on foxhunting is simple: I believe hunting to be a perfectly normal and natural human activity that's deep within our DNA. We started as hunter-gatherers, and have been hunting for hundreds of thousands of years. Sometimes we did it with spears. Sometimes with the assistance of other animals, like Kestrels, Falcons and Dogs.
Those who do hunt find it thrilling and one of the most meaningful activities in their lives. The pageantry and spectacle is something they deeply love and enjoy. Meanwhile, no-one seriously argues that foxes shouldn't be controlled, so the question is whether hunting is morally/ethically wrong over other methods of killing. I argue it isn't: such forms of predatory hunting occur right across the natural world, and throughout the food chain, not least of which packs of wild wolves hunting elk and moose, today, in the Yukon, so the issue for me seems to be that some people find the issue of humans participating in it offensive.
I wouldn't dream of asking anyone who finds it deeply offensive to condone it, or support it, and that's a reasonable view to take.
But my view is that it should be the choice of the individual as to whether to partake and the choice of the landowner as to whether to permit it, rather than prohibited by statue.
OT but I am putting a small wager on Labour regaining Gower. The Green candidate has stood aside and the 1300 or so votes will be more than enough for Labour in the constituency with the smallest Tory majority. Ps UKIP are standing.
It was Labour for 105 years in a row so could reasonably switch back, however a couple of issues.
1: The MP is standing again and should get a first time incumbency bonus. 2: UKIP got 4,773 votes last time, if the Tory gets two-thirds of those as many polls show then that's 3,000 votes - which is more than the Green vote.
However: 3: No Plaid Cymru candidate either. That's another 3k votes in the mix.
The absence of the Green alone would likely not have been sufficient, the absence of PC too might be.
Obviously, I'm in one of the UK's most hotly-contested seats so it's different here. But has the campaign really taken off in England? Or is the election a bit weird with Labour defending stoutly in central Birmingham and Leicester?
Not a lot of activity in Leicester. All three seats look safe for Labour to me, including Liz Kendall in West. Evens on Tories here is far too short, particularly with the kippers standing.
Posterwatch Leicester: 1 Lab poster in studenty Clarendon park. One Tory poster in largely Asian Evington Rd, both Leicester South. Keith Vaz has posters up, and a few orange diamonds in Oadby and Hinckley (Harborough and Bosworth respectively).
Is Cons for Leicester East worth a speculative punt? Can't imagine Keith Vaz's recent activities going down too well with the electorate?
It doesn't seem to be an issue. Leicester is a "live and let live" place.
It is the most Asian of the 3 Leicester constituencies, largely Hindu around the Golden Mile, more Muslim around Evington, but Vaz has cultivated the constituency well. The Con candidate has a Chinese name, and Leicester has a pretty small Chinese community. There is an independent too.
OT but I am putting a small wager on Labour regaining Gower. The Green candidate has stood aside and the 1300 or so votes will be more than enough for Labour in the constituency with the smallest Tory majority. Ps UKIP are standing.
It was Labour for 105 years in a row so could reasonably switch back, however a couple of issues.
1: The MP is standing again and should get a first time incumbency bonus. 2: UKIP got 4,773 votes last time, if the Tory gets two-thirds of those as many polls show then that's 3,000 votes - which is more than the Green vote.
However: 3: No Plaid Cymru candidate either. That's another 3k votes in the mix.
The absence of the Green alone would likely not have been sufficient, the absence of PC too might be.
(As are the Pirates for what it's worth - I'll try and pass on any info if I get it)
Well there is a coast for the Pirates there, quite a nice one in fact. I suppose there is a 'sort of' coast in the Vauxhall constituency, can't say I'd consider it for a holiday though
Most people do not put keeping the fox hunting ban as a major factor in how they vote apart from animal rights radicals who will already be voting Labour or LD or SNP or Green anyway. However supporters of foxhunting do put it at the top of their list and they do campaign and leaflet hard if required which would help the Tories in rural marginals, especially in Scotland. Many of them will be far from riffs, indeed in country areas a lot of working class people too are involved in fox hunting
The opposite also applies. Anti-hunt campaigners were active in the centre of Chester on numerous occasions on the run up to 2015. There were a number of letters in the local press attacking the then MPs pro-hunting stance. He was ousted by 96 votes.
In the areas where pro-hunting helps the Tories I suspect they would win without their assistance
I doubt hunting affects too many votes but it stands to reason that if opponents outnumber supporters by 4 to 1 any affect it does have is likely to be to the benefit of anti-hunting candidates.
Support by Theresa May and many other Tories for foxhunting is something that Labour should mention in their broadcasts. Foxhunting is not simply an issue produced by intellectial disagreement or a conflict of material interests. Enjoying killing animals is obscene. The vast majority of the British population know that. Come on, Corbyn! Put an image of a slaughtered fox on the Tory banner and show it on people's TV screens. Show the enemy in their true colours.
Man with a beard? Or a redcoat smearing a child with fox blood? People of Britain, it's your choice.
Yes, that's the only choice at play here. That would be an incredibly stupid and childish way of making the decision. Not least because we don't know it would pass, since plentbif Tories would vote no.
Realpolitik, my friend.
When the Tories get down into the gutter, consider getting down there with them and fighting them. Personalise the attacks on Theresa May, just as they have personalised attacks on Jeremy Corbyn. This is a fight, not a debate. Force her to respond. Force her to say that everyone who complains about her support for foxhunting is ignorant, stupid, or sentimental - this woman who is saying that she represents the whole country and can unite it. See how well that goes down with voters who are considering swinging to the Tories.
And whilst some Tories do oppose foxhunting, it is nonetheless true that foxhunting epitomises the attitude towards others that is so dear to the members of the social strata that are represented by the Tory party.
Most voters probably don't even know the names of any of the candidates in the constituency they live in.
G-live: The LibDems are due to pledge to legalise cannabis, according to BuzzFeed.
Tim Farron’s party will campaign in the general election with a pledge to completely upend the existing system of selling weed, making it the first time a major political party has fought an election on a platform of legalising the drug.
Under the Lib Dem proposals the sale of marijuana would be fully legalised, with the quality strictly regulated to reduce harmful chemicals and sales restricted to over-18s. Purchases would be allowed only through licensed cannabis shops, similar to the system used in several US states.
Former LibDem MP Julian Huppert, who is standing to retake his old marginal Cambridge seat from Labour, confirmed the plan.
Good for the Lib Dems. There are some serious holes in the policy but it is a step in the right direction. Eventually something like it will become the policy of all three parties and it will happen.
Taking the monopoly of selling narcotics out of the hands of criminal gangs would be the fastest way of reducing violence on our streets and reducing corruption in private and public life.
Equally, no-one is suggesting trooping school students down to the voting stations. It's simply a question of explaining the parliamentary system and how the parties and voting works and you can be part of the decisionmaking by using your vote.
You can do all of that as part of a civics lesson anyway- indeed, they have been doing for generations. The only difference is whether those students then go immediately out and vote, with their heads filled with whatever the teacher has chosen to tell them.
Presumably you would not support the right of a teacher to have sex with a 16-year-old student, because the student is too impressionable to make an informed decision of their own. Why, then, would you support the right of the student to vote?
The fact that this is a proposal from the Labour party makes the whole thing even more ironic: apparently 17-year-olds are mature enough to elect MPs but not to sext them. Oh, and the SNP- who think that 16 year olds should vote, but that they should also have a state-appointed guardian.
There seems to be a very inconsistent position of at the one time berating young people for a lack of interest and at the same time saying they are not to be trusted anyway.
Not in the slightest. The reason they can't be trusted to vote is the same reason they're not treated as adults for sentencing purposes: at 16 your body, including your brain, is still developing. The fact that they're largely uninterested in the democratic process only compounds the fact that they haven't yet fully developed their decision-making skills.
[...] Stupid crap includes * lowering voting age to 16 (i.e. the Facebook vote)
[...]
I am in favour of lowering the voting age to 16. We have it in Scotland for local and Holyrood elections. It might originally have been a bit of posturing by Alex Salmond, but I see it as beneficial. It means students can participate in elections while at school, possibly as part of a civic studies lesson, and hopefully create a habit of voting when they leave school. There is no evidence that younger voters take their selections any less seriously than older folk.
Why not lower it to 12? 10? My three year old daughter has figured out to draw an X now can she vote?
There has to be a line at which you are an adult and that should be where you can vote. School lessons should be kept at school.
Maybe only people that don't indulge in thin ends of wedges fallacies should be allowed to vote. The proposal is for 16 year olds to vote, not three year olds.
Yes but why 16 year olds. Your argument that they can participate at school and in civic lessons could equally apply to 12 year olds or 10 year olds. If you change school to nursery it would apply to 3 year olds. Its not a fallacy it is reductio ad absurdum to rebuff your logic.
The logic that 16 year olds can work and pay taxes is an entirely different argument to your argument about getting children involved at school.
Because any age is arbitrary. 16 is no more arbitrary than 18. There is a chance of interesting people in the political process while they are still at school that will be lost if you wait until they are 18. At the same time, there is no real downside in terms of having the maturity to make a decision. Some 16 year olds will make stupid decisions, but no more than 76 year olds will. On the whole they will be better informed.
G-live: The LibDems are due to pledge to legalise cannabis, according to BuzzFeed.
Tim Farron’s party will campaign in the general election with a pledge to completely upend the existing system of selling weed, making it the first time a major political party has fought an election on a platform of legalising the drug.
Under the Lib Dem proposals the sale of marijuana would be fully legalised, with the quality strictly regulated to reduce harmful chemicals and sales restricted to over-18s. Purchases would be allowed only through licensed cannabis shops, similar to the system used in several US states.
Former LibDem MP Julian Huppert, who is standing to retake his old marginal Cambridge seat from Labour, confirmed the plan.
Awesome.
Well pot isn't for me, but good to see the Lib Dems standing up for personal freedoms even if it might potentially cost a few votes in Lib/Tory marginals.
An acquaintance of mine ended up in the mental unit of our local hospital having done pot for a few years. It totally f***** him up. I'd be interested to see the specifics of the Lib Dem policy - I wonder how many of them are au fait with the varieties of the stuff?
I suspect offences of driving whilst high will increase exponentially were it to happen.
Criminalisation of legal Highs has been a bit of a disaster for the Tories to be perfectly honest. I assume the LD policy is evidence based...
Supporting legalising weed in a university town? Quelle surprise.
Seriously though I feel like the law on weed is not well enforced. Maybe I just live in a tokers paradise, but I swear people walk around openly smoking the stuff without fear of being dobbed in.
Morning, Mr.D. Well, it is gloomy. The massive Mercedes update is likely to have dismayed Ferrari, and Red Bull's promised improvements look rather unexciting. The resources Mercedes seem to have committed are rather breathtaking. Barring the extraordinary, it looks like a fight between Hamilton and Bottas for the championship.
Mr. Mortimer, disagree. If Corbyn goes, Labour MPs will be relieved at being able to feel good about themselves being Labour again. If he stays, they'll (if they have any sense) split to form a non-crazy party.
G-live: The LibDems are due to pledge to legalise cannabis, according to BuzzFeed.
Tim Farron’s party will campaign in the general election with a pledge to completely upend the existing system of selling weed, making it the first time a major political party has fought an election on a platform of legalising the drug.
Under the Lib Dem proposals the sale of marijuana would be fully legalised, with the quality strictly regulated to reduce harmful chemicals and sales restricted to over-18s. Purchases would be allowed only through licensed cannabis shops, similar to the system used in several US states.
Former LibDem MP Julian Huppert, who is standing to retake his old marginal Cambridge seat from Labour, confirmed the plan.
Good for the Lib Dems. There are some serious holes in the policy but it is a step in the right direction. Eventually something like it will become the policy of all three parties and it will happen.
Taking the monopoly of selling narcotics out of the hands of criminal gangs would be the fastest way of reducing violence on our streets and reducing corruption in private and public life.
I would much rather the sale of all drugs was done in a controlled and legal way rather than the black market.
Legalise the lot with caveats on where the highly addictive ones can be used.
Mr. Mortimer, disagree. If Corbyn goes, Labour MPs will be relieved at being able to feel good about themselves being Labour again. If he stays, they'll (if they have any sense) split to form a non-crazy party.
Lab to Con defectors are pretty rare.
They won't split if he gets circa 200, he'll have outperformed expectations and they'll not risk it.
Supporting legalising weed in a university town? Quelle surprise.
Seriously though I feel like the law on weed is not well enforced. Maybe I just live in a tokers paradise, but I swear people walk around openly smoking the stuff without fear of being dobbed in.
If people want to break the law, that's fine. But it annoys me when they do it in public. One night, I was walking back to Waterloo Station, and there people smoking the stuff in the tunnel from the IMAX to the station which was particularly unpleasant to walk through.
G-live: The LibDems are due to pledge to legalise cannabis, according to BuzzFeed.
Tim Farron’s party will campaign in the general election with a pledge to completely upend the existing system of selling weed, making it the first time a major political party has fought an election on a platform of legalising the drug.
Under the Lib Dem proposals the sale of marijuana would be fully legalised, with the quality strictly regulated to reduce harmful chemicals and sales restricted to over-18s. Purchases would be allowed only through licensed cannabis shops, similar to the system used in several US states.
Former LibDem MP Julian Huppert, who is standing to retake his old marginal Cambridge seat from Labour, confirmed the plan.
Awesome.
Well pot isn't for me, but good to see the Lib Dems standing up for personal freedoms even if it might potentially cost a few votes in Lib/Tory marginals.
An acquaintance of mine ended up in the mental unit of our local hospital having done pot for a few years. It totally f***** him up. I'd be interested to see the specifics of the Lib Dem policy - I wonder how many of them are au fait with the varieties of the stuff?
I suspect offences of driving whilst high will increase exponentially were it to happen.
Criminalisation of legal Highs has been a bit of a disaster for the Tories to be perfectly honest. I assume the LD policy is evidence based...
My word is there anything that winds people up more than the trivial issue of fox hunting, I live in an area where country folk love animals but aren't sentimental about them. City dwellers need to understand that farmers kill foxes all the time, they don't read them a bedside story first. Foxes are essentially nice looking rats.
You seem to think city dwellers are unfamiliar with foxes. Urban foxes are endemic. I've seen them walking down my street in central London.
I never said they were unfamiliar, I said they don't understand that farmers kill them all the time, not for fun but because they are a nuisance.
That is what city dwellers don't understand, farmers kill things without sentiment but for good reason.
City dwellers are very well aware that foxes are a nuisance.
Yes, I am sure the turning over of rubbish bins can be a dreadful inconvenience. If they saw the results of a fox attack on a hen house, or in lambing season they might be a little less sentimental.
Foxhunting is for fun, it's cruel, and it's sick.
Foxhunting certainly is for fun. But it serves a subsidiary pest control purpose. And yes, it's sick in the modern urban vernacular.
But it is not cruel. Dare I say better brains than yours have considered the issue:
"Lord Burns, also stated that 'Naturally, people ask whether we were implying that hunting is cruel... The short answer to that question is no.' " The Burns Inquiry.
Supporting legalising weed in a university town? Quelle surprise.
Seriously though I feel like the law on weed is not well enforced. Maybe I just live in a tokers paradise, but I swear people walk around openly smoking the stuff without fear of being dobbed in.
If people want to break the law, that's fine. But it annoys me when they do it in public. One night, I was walking back to Waterloo Station, and there people smoking the stuff in the tunnel from the IMAX to the station which was particularly unpleasant to walk through.
I don't find the smell particularly unpleasant, but it's like cigarette smoke I still don't want it in my face.
I know too many people who used to smoke weed regularly to non hypocritically condemn the policy of legalisation though.
I always wonder when foxhunting comes up how popular a ban on fishing would be.
I don't like foxhunting and I don't like fishing as I think they're cruel so not for me. However I do enjoy meat and simply don't like to think about what happened before it reaches me. So I'm not going to judge those who do enjoy their pursuits. But why ban fox hunting and not recreational fishing?
Is sticking a metal spike through an animals cheek for sport very different to setting a dog upon an animal for sport? Why?
Nor do I really understand the rationale behind making it unlawful to use dogs to kill foxes, mink, and hares, while at the same time it is quite lawful to use dogs to kill rabbits, and rats. Are the former somehow, nobler animals than the latter?
G-live: The LibDems are due to pledge to legalise cannabis, according to BuzzFeed.
Tim Farron’s party will campaign in the general election with a pledge to completely upend the existing system of selling weed, making it the first time a major political party has fought an election on a platform of legalising the drug.
Under the Lib Dem proposals the sale of marijuana would be fully legalised, with the quality strictly regulated to reduce harmful chemicals and sales restricted to over-18s. Purchases would be allowed only through licensed cannabis shops, similar to the system used in several US states.
Former LibDem MP Julian Huppert, who is standing to retake his old marginal Cambridge seat from Labour, confirmed the plan.
Awesome.
Well pot isn't for me, but good to see the Lib Dems standing up for personal freedoms even if it might potentially cost a few votes in Lib/Tory marginals.
An acquaintance of mine ended up in the mental unit of our local hospital having done pot for a few years. It totally f***** him up. I'd be interested to see the specifics of the Lib Dem policy - I wonder how many of them are au fait with the varieties of the stuff?
I suspect offences of driving whilst high will increase exponentially were it to happen.
Why? It is already illegal and goodness knows the stuff isn't hard to get hold of now. So people who are of a mind to break the law already do so. What would change? Booze is on sale to adults and its quality in legal outlets is strictly controlled, yet drink-driving doesn't seem to be a big problem.
G-live: The LibDems are due to pledge to legalise cannabis, according to BuzzFeed.
Tim Farron’s party will campaign in the general election with a pledge to completely upend the existing system of selling weed, making it the first time a major political party has fought an election on a platform of legalising the drug.
Under the Lib Dem proposals the sale of marijuana would be fully legalised, with the quality strictly regulated to reduce harmful chemicals and sales restricted to over-18s. Purchases would be allowed only through licensed cannabis shops, similar to the system used in several US states.
Former LibDem MP Julian Huppert, who is standing to retake his old marginal Cambridge seat from Labour, confirmed the plan.
Awesome.
Well pot isn't for me, but good to see the Lib Dems standing up for personal freedoms even if it might potentially cost a few votes in Lib/Tory marginals.
An acquaintance of mine ended up in the mental unit of our local hospital having done pot for a few years. It totally f***** him up. I'd be interested to see the specifics of the Lib Dem policy - I wonder how many of them are au fait with the varieties of the stuff?
I suspect offences of driving whilst high will increase exponentially were it to happen.
Criminalisation of legal Highs has been a bit of a disaster for the Tories to be perfectly honest. I assume the LD policy is evidence based...
Agreed. While there are downsides of drugs, including mental health and high people doing stupid things, the legal position just turns the trade over to the gangs with little risk of getting caught.
I've long said that drug policy should go one of two ways, either the Netherlands/Portugal route or the Bangkok/Dubai route. The middle way of the UK and US is the worst policy of all.
I always wonder when foxhunting comes up how popular a ban on fishing would be.
I don't like foxhunting and I don't like fishing as I think they're cruel so not for me. However I do enjoy meat and simply don't like to think about what happened before it reaches me. So I'm not going to judge those who do enjoy their pursuits. But why ban fox hunting and not recreational fishing?
Is sticking a metal spike through an animals cheek for sport very different to setting a dog upon an animal for sport? Why?
Nor do I really understand the rationale behind making it unlawful to use dogs to kill foxes, mink, and hares, while at the same time it is quite lawful to use dogs to kill rabbits, and rats. Are the former somehow, nobler animals than the latter?
Well the hare, being a true Brit, is naturally nobler than the continental import that calls itself rabbit. Though your point is fair enough - and rats are almost certainly more intelligent than hares.
G-live: The LibDems are due to pledge to legalise cannabis, according to BuzzFeed.
Tim Farron’s party will campaign in the general election with a pledge to completely upend the existing system of selling weed, making it the first time a major political party has fought an election on a platform of legalising the drug.
Under the Lib Dem proposals the sale of marijuana would be fully legalised, with the quality strictly regulated to reduce harmful chemicals and sales restricted to over-18s. Purchases would be allowed only through licensed cannabis shops, similar to the system used in several US states.
Former LibDem MP Julian Huppert, who is standing to retake his old marginal Cambridge seat from Labour, confirmed the plan.
Awesome.
Well pot isn't for me, but good to see the Lib Dems standing up for personal freedoms even if it might potentially cost a few votes in Lib/Tory marginals.
An acquaintance of mine ended up in the mental unit of our local hospital having done pot for a few years. It totally f***** him up. I'd be interested to see the specifics of the Lib Dem policy - I wonder how many of them are au fait with the varieties of the stuff?
I suspect offences of driving whilst high will increase exponentially were it to happen.
Criminalisation of legal Highs has been a bit of a disaster for the Tories to be perfectly honest. I assume the LD policy is evidence based...
Agreed. While there are downsides of drugs, including mental health and high people doing stupid things, the legal position just turns the trade over to the gangs with little risk of getting caught.
I've long said that drug policy should go one of two ways, either the Netherlands/Portugal route or the Bangkok/Dubai route. The middle way of the UK and US is the worst policy of all.
Surely even worse in the us since its legal in some places and not others, and never mind the federal vs state question.
My word is there anything that winds people up more than the trivial issue of fox hunting, I live in an area where country folk love animals but aren't sentimental about them. City dwellers need to understand that farmers kill foxes all the time, they don't read them a bedside story first. Foxes are essentially nice looking rats.
You seem to think city dwellers are unfamiliar with foxes. Urban foxes are endemic. I've seen them walking down my street in central London.
I never said they were unfamiliar, I said they don't understand that farmers kill them all the time, not for fun but because they are a nuisance.
That is what city dwellers don't understand, farmers kill things without sentiment but for good reason.
City dwellers are very well aware that foxes are a nuisance.
Yes, I am sure the turning over of rubbish bins can be a dreadful inconvenience. If they saw the results of a fox attack on a hen house, or in lambing season they might be a little less sentimental.
Foxhunting is for fun, it's cruel, and it's sick.
Foxhunting certainly is for fun. But it serves a subsidiary pest control purpose. And yes, it's sick in the modern urban vernacular.
But it is not cruel. Dare I say better brains than yours have considered the issue:
"Lord Burns, also stated that 'Naturally, people ask whether we were implying that hunting is cruel... The short answer to that question is no.' " The Burns Inquiry.
Cruel or not expressing support for a group of freaks wearing tight white trousers and yelling tally ho before shagging the scullery maid and beating the footman is never going to be a vote winner.
Of course it's always defended with the sneer that "we know the countryside and you dirty townies don't".
Without going all four yorkshiremen, most people in the British countryside don't know it either. I recommend living in the rural areas of a third world country for a few years. Everyone does their own animal husbandry, their own slaughter, and their own butchery. Gives a whole new perspective on townies
[...] Stupid crap includes * lowering voting age to 16 (i.e. the Facebook vote)
[...]
I am in favour of lowering the voting age to 16. We have it in Scotland for local and Holyrood elections. It might originally have been a bit of posturing by Alex Salmond, but I see it as beneficial. It means students can participate in elections while at school, possibly as part of a civic studies lesson, and hopefully create a habit of voting when they leave school. There is no evidence that younger voters take their selections any less seriously than older folk.
Why not lower it to 12? 10? My three year old daughter has figured out to draw an X now can she vote?
There has to be a line at which you are an adult and that should be where you can vote. School lessons should be kept at school.
Maybe only people that don't indulge in thin ends of wedges fallacies should be allowed to vote. The proposal is for 16 year olds to vote, not three year olds.
Yes but why 16 year olds. Your argument that they can participate at school and in civic lessons could equally apply to 12 year olds or 10 year olds. If you change school to nursery it would apply to 3 year olds. Its not a fallacy it is reductio ad absurdum to rebuff your logic.
The logic that 16 year olds can work and pay taxes is an entirely different argument to your argument about getting children involved at school.
Because any age is arbitrary. 16 is no more arbitrary than 18. There is a chance of interesting people in the political process while they are still at school that will be lost if you wait until they are 18. At the same time, there is no real downside in terms of having the maturity to make a decision. Some 16 year olds will make stupid decisions, but no more than 76 year olds will. On the whole they will be better informed.
The Scottish case shows very well how 16- and 17-year-olds were more likely than their elders to vote for sunshine. It is good to get older children interested in some adult things, and becoming an adult is a process. The understanding of responsibility and what it means to take responsibility and consider consequences should be encouraged and grow. But legally there has to be a line and it's 18 for being competent to sign a contract and it should be the same age for voting. Children of 16 and 17 are more easily influenced by superficial considerations than their elders, even if given encouragement to be interested in matters of underlying importance.
(How moneylenders would love it if 16-year-olds could sign contracts.)
I always wonder when foxhunting comes up how popular a ban on fishing would be.
I don't like foxhunting and I don't like fishing as I think they're cruel so not for me. However I do enjoy meat and simply don't like to think about what happened before it reaches me. So I'm not going to judge those who do enjoy their pursuits. But why ban fox hunting and not recreational fishing?
Is sticking a metal spike through an animals cheek for sport very different to setting a dog upon an animal for sport? Why?
Nor do I really understand the rationale behind making it unlawful to use dogs to kill foxes, mink, and hares, while at the same time it is quite lawful to use dogs to kill rabbits, and rats. Are the former somehow, nobler animals than the latter?
Is a further salient point.
People get themselves into a frightful muddle about fox hunting and however much they might protest, it all comes down to not liking the people who do it (any of whom of course they will likely never have met).
The bit in Labour's manifesto about gay smokers is one of the funniest parts of this entire election imo.
Will homosexuals be banned from smoking, or will smokers be banned from homosexuality?
"Labour will implement a Tobacco Control Plan, focussing on issues of mental health and children smokers, along with groups in society, such as BAME and LGBT communities, with high prevalence of the use of tobacco products."
The bit in Labour's manifesto about gay smokers is one of the funniest parts of this entire election imo.
Will homosexuals be banned from smoking, or will smokers be banned from homosexuality?
"Labour will implement a Tobacco Control Plan, focussing on issues of mental health and children smokers, along with groups in society, such as BAME and LGBT communities, with high prevalence of the use of tobacco products."
[...] Stupid crap includes * lowering voting age to 16 (i.e. the Facebook vote)
[...]
I am in favour of lowering the voting age to 16. We have it in Scotland for local and Holyrood elections. It might originally have been a bit of posturing by Alex Salmond, but I see it as beneficial. It means students can participate in elections while at school, possibly as part of a civic studies lesson, and hopefully create a habit of voting when they leave school. There is no evidence that younger voters take their selections any less seriously than older folk.
Why not lower it to 12? 10? My three year old daughter has figured out to draw an X now can she vote?
There has to be a line at which you are an adult and that should be where you can vote. School lessons should be kept at school.
Maybe only people that don't indulge in thin ends of wedges fallacies should be allowed to vote. The proposal is for 16 year olds to vote, not three year olds.
Yes but why 16 year olds. Your argument that they can participate at school and in civic lessons could equally apply to 12 year olds or 10 year olds. If you change school to nursery it would apply to 3 year olds. Its not a fallacy it is reductio ad absurdum to rebuff your logic.
The logic that 16 year olds can work and pay taxes is an entirely different argument to your argument about getting children involved at school.
Because any age is arbitrary. 16 is no more arbitrary than 18. There is a chance of interesting people in the political process while they are still at school that will be lost if you wait until they are 18. At the same time, there is no real downside in terms of having the maturity to make a decision. Some 16 year olds will make stupid decisions, but no more than 76 year olds will. On the whole they will be better informed.
Fair go. So you will also support lowering the age at which someone can buy alcohol or tobacco, own a firearm, engage in a legally-binding contract, leave school, join HM forces or get married without parental consent. After all if children are old enough to make a mature decision about one thing then surely they are old enough to make mature decisions about all things.
G-live: The LibDems are due to pledge to legalise cannabis, according to BuzzFeed.
Former LibDem MP Julian Huppert, who is standing to retake his old marginal Cambridge seat from Labour, confirmed the plan.
Awesome.
Well pot isn't for me, but good to see the Lib Dems standing up for personal freedoms even if it might potentially cost a few votes in Lib/Tory marginals.
An acquaintance of mine ended up in the mental unit of our local hospital having done pot for a few years. It totally f***** him up. I'd be interested to see the specifics of the Lib Dem policy - I wonder how many of them are au fait with the varieties of the stuff?
I suspect offences of driving whilst high will increase exponentially were it to happen.
Criminalisation of legal Highs has been a bit of a disaster for the Tories to be perfectly honest. I assume the LD policy is evidence based...
Agreed. While there are downsides of drugs, including mental health and high people doing stupid things, the legal position just turns the trade over to the gangs with little risk of getting caught.
I've long said that drug policy should go one of two ways, either the Netherlands/Portugal route or the Bangkok/Dubai route. The middle way of the UK and US is the worst policy of all.
Surely even worse in the us since its legal in some places and not others, and never mind the federal vs state question.
Yes, some states in the US have liberalised cannabis, some places like Colorado now have licenced shops growing and selling the stuff. It's not all plain sailing for them through, as under federal law it's still banned so they find difficulty doing things like getting bank accounts and credit card machines. John Oliver did a piece on this a few months back, I'll have a look for it later. On the other hand, the confusion in the law does mean that the only people growing and selling are small local businesses, the large phama companies want nothing to do with it.
Of more concern in the US is addiction to prescribed opiates and amphetamines, one thing that always gets me when I visit there is the constant television advertising for prescription drugs.
The bit in Labour's manifesto about gay smokers is one of the funniest parts of this entire election imo.
Will homosexuals be banned from smoking, or will smokers be banned from homosexuality?
"Labour will implement a Tobacco Control Plan, focussing on issues of mental health and children smokers, along with groups in society, such as BAME and LGBT communities, with high prevalence of the use of tobacco products."
Tell me that is from the Daily Mash.
That's from the leaked draft of Labour's manifesto.
[...] Stupid crap includes * lowering voting age to 16 (i.e. the Facebook vote)
[...]
I am in favour of lowering the voting age to 16. We have it in Scotland for local and Holyrood elections. It might originally have been a bit of posturing by Alex Salmond, but I see it as beneficial. It means students can participate in elections while at school, possibly as part of a civic studies lesson, and hopefully create a habit of voting when they leave school. There is no evidence that younger voters take their selections any less seriously than older folk.
Why not lower it to 12? 10? My three year old daughter has figured out to draw an X now can she vote?
There has to be a line at which you are an adult and that should be where you can vote. School lessons should be kept at school.
Maybe only people that don't indulge in thin ends of wedges fallacies should be allowed to vote. The proposal is for 16 year olds to vote, not three year olds.
Yes but why 16 year olds. Your argument that they can participate at school and in civic lessons could equally apply to 12 year olds or 10 year olds. If you change school to nursery it would apply to 3 year olds. Its not a fallacy it is reductio ad absurdum to rebuff your logic.
The logic that 16 year olds can work and pay taxes is an entirely different argument to your argument about getting children involved at school.
Because any age is arbitrary. 16 is no more arbitrary than 18. There is a chance of interesting people in the political process while they are still at school that will be lost if you wait until they are 18. At the same time, there is no real downside in terms of having the maturity to make a decision. Some 16 year olds will make stupid decisions, but no more than 76 year olds will. On the whole they will be better informed.
Fair go. So you will also support lowering the age at which someone can buy alcohol or tobacco, own a firearm, engage in a legally-binding contract, leave school, join HM forces or get married without parental consent. After all if children are old enough to make a mature decision about one thing then surely they are old enough to make mature decisions about all things.
That's right. We show lower it for a whole lot of things, or raise it for a whole lot of things, at present its a muddle.
Mr. Putney, Yorkshire puddings get eaten, we don't throw away good food.
Mr. kle4, I'm sure they'll do their best to avoid taking necessary action.
Mr. B, let's not get carried away just yet, it's only one practice session. And even if Mercedes are far ahead in Spain, the season is a long one.
It's the rate of development that counts; looking at what the teams brought to Spain, the rest are nowhere. And as for McLaren, this is Alonso's free practice... https://www.instagram.com/p/BT_Lo0WFj9y/
There is one bet that was extremely popular amongst my ancestors,the Round Robin,containing the magic of the "up and down double",yet most of the youngsters in the betting shops think you have come from Mars when you mention it.There's a reason the bookies advertise Yankees etc because they are unprofitable for the punter. The Round Robin is my chosen way to tackle constituency betting,one for Tory gains,one for Lib Dem losses,one for LibDem gains and one for Labour holds with a single bet on all those at even money and above so a bank of 50 points will cover it.
Fair go. So you will also support lowering the age at which someone can buy alcohol or tobacco, own a firearm, engage in a legally-binding contract, leave school, join HM forces or get married without parental consent. After all if children are old enough to make a mature decision about one thing then surely they are old enough to make mature decisions about all things.
People can do lots of things at 16: work, live on your own, leave school, have sex, get married, claim benefits, join the army, rent accommodation. All those age restrictions are just as arbitrary as those that apply at 18, I am just focusing on one - the age at which you can vote. There is no need to create false equivalences. If you think 18 is a more appropriate, but equally arbitrary, age to be allowed to vote at - then fair enough.
The bit in Labour's manifesto about gay smokers is one of the funniest parts of this entire election imo.
Will homosexuals be banned from smoking, or will smokers be banned from homosexuality?
"Labour will implement a Tobacco Control Plan, focussing on issues of mental health and children smokers, along with groups in society, such as BAME and LGBT communities, with high prevalence of the use of tobacco products."
Tell me that is from the Daily Mash.
That's from the leaked draft of Labour's manifesto.
It struck me as an odd line which seemed to be squeezed into the draft copy for no apparent reason. Is there a higher proportion of smokers amongst the gay and ethnic minority groups that requires this extra attention?
G-live: The LibDems are due to pledge to legalise cannabis, according to BuzzFeed.
Tim Farron’s party will campaign in the general election with a pledge to completely upend the existing system of selling weed, making it the first time a major political party has fought an election on a platform of legalising the drug.
Under the Lib Dem proposals the sale of marijuana would be fully legalised, with the quality strictly regulated to reduce harmful chemicals and sales restricted to over-18s. Purchases would be allowed only through licensed cannabis shops, similar to the system used in several US states.
Former LibDem MP Julian Huppert, who is standing to retake his old marginal Cambridge seat from Labour, confirmed the plan.
Awesome.
Well pot isn't for me, but good to see the Lib Dems standing up for personal freedoms even if it might potentially cost a few votes in Lib/Tory marginals.
A very good policy idea. I would do it via legalizing people being to own x amount (probably about 6) plants of their own.
Fair go. So you will also support lowering the age at which someone can buy alcohol or tobacco, own a firearm, engage in a legally-binding contract, leave school, join HM forces or get married without parental consent. After all if children are old enough to make a mature decision about one thing then surely they are old enough to make mature decisions about all things.
A couple of years ago there was that case of that teacher having sex with a sixteen year old school girl. It was the one where the judge said that the girl had made all the running. Obviously that doesn't make it acceptable - and he'd have still been in trouble for having it away with an 18 year old in the Upper Sixth - but the judge's comments caused a bit of a stir.
That week's Question Time featured Sal Brinton, the president of the Lib Dems. She was outraged at the judge's comments and went on and on about how this girl was just a child and how awful it all was. Unfortunately no one pointed out to her that it is the policy of the Lib Dems to give that child the vote!
[...] Stupid crap includes * lowering voting age to 16 (i.e. the Facebook vote)
[...]
I am in favour of lowering the voting age to 16. We have it in Scotland for local and Holyrood elections. It might originally have been a bit of posturing by Alex Salmond, but I see it as beneficial. It means students can participate in elections while at school, possibly as part of a civic studies lesson, and hopefully create a habit of voting when they leave school. There is no evidence that younger voters take their selections any less seriously than older folk.
Why not lower it to 12? 10? My three year old daughter has figured out to draw an X now can she vote?
There has to be a line at which you are an adult and that should be where you can vote. School lessons should be kept at school.
Maybe only people that don't indulge in thin ends of wedges fallacies should be allowed to vote. The proposal is for 16 year olds to vote, not three year olds.
Yes but why 16 year olds. Your argument that they can participate at school and in civic lessons could equally apply to 12 year olds or 10 year olds. If you change school to nursery it would apply to 3 year olds. Its not a fallacy it is reductio ad absurdum to rebuff your logic.
The logic that 16 year olds can work and pay taxes is an entirely different argument to your argument about getting children involved at school.
Because any age is arbitrary. 16 is no more arbitrary than 18. There is a chance of interesting people in the political process while they are still at school that will be lost if you wait until they are 18. At the same time, there is no real downside in terms of having the maturity to make a decision. Some 16 year olds will make stupid decisions, but no more than 76 year olds will. On the whole they will be better informed.
Fair go. So you will also support lowering the age at which someone can buy alcohol or tobacco, own a firearm, engage in a legally-binding contract, leave school, join HM forces or get married without parental consent. After all if children are old enough to make a mature decision about one thing then surely they are old enough to make mature decisions about all things.
I believe May is pretty hardline on drugs though isnt she? So no changes for awhile.
I think she's also pretty hard-line when not on drugs too, to be fair.
Scandalous, sir.
I think it's well known that Tezza and George were on the same party circuit in the 90s. If you invited one, you'd get the other at no additional charge. ;-)
I always wonder when foxhunting comes up how popular a ban on fishing would be.
I don't like foxhunting and I don't like fishing as I think they're cruel so not for me. However I do enjoy meat and simply don't like to think about what happened before it reaches me. So I'm not going to judge those who do enjoy their pursuits. But why ban fox hunting and not recreational fishing?
Is sticking a metal spike through an animals cheek for sport very different to setting a dog upon an animal for sport? Why?
Nor do I really understand the rationale behind making it unlawful to use dogs to kill foxes, mink, and hares, while at the same time it is quite lawful to use dogs to kill rabbits, and rats. Are the former somehow, nobler animals than the latter?
Is a further salient point.
People get themselves into a frightful muddle about fox hunting and however much they might protest, it all comes down to not liking the people who do it (any of whom of course they will likely never have met).
Mink are a huge pest in some places, and using dogs to kill them is actually very efficient.
Two Cabinet ministers were today under fire over the Leave pledge to allow more chefs and waiters into Britain if the country backed Brexit.
Curry house bosses told how they felt “used”, “let down” and may have been given “false hope” by politicians that quitting the EU would allow more workers in from South Asia to address staff shortages.
Foxes are pests and will be killed. We could all go out and shoot one tomorrow morning dressed in a dinner jacket or jeans and sneakers after singing the national anthem.
Some people like to wear funny clothes and make a palaver over it. So what? The foxes still get killed.
People are muddling up animal welfare with other issues. As I said to another PB poster yesterday, it's fine to think that hunting people are twats because they all would think you are a twat.
Yes, it's very disappointing to see so many PB Tories parroting the lines of the Left on this issue as well.
Fair go. So you will also support lowering the age at which someone can buy alcohol or tobacco, own a firearm, engage in a legally-binding contract, leave school, join HM forces or get married without parental consent. After all if children are old enough to make a mature decision about one thing then surely they are old enough to make mature decisions about all things.
People can do lots of things at 16: work, live on your own, leave school, have sex, get married, claim benefits, join the army, rent accommodation. All those age restrictions are just as arbitrary as those that apply at 18, I am just focusing on one - the age at which you can vote. There is no need to create false equivalences. If you think 18 is a more appropriate, but equally arbitrary, age to be allowed to vote at - then fair enough.
I just think a bit of consistency would be good all around - if we're saying theres things children should not be able to do, we really need a firm legal measure for when someone is no longer a child. As it is we have a halfway house which must feel very infantilising for people trusted to do adult things in one area but not in another.
Comments
There are many ways for them to get involved in the civic process already, most of which they appear supremely disinterested in. The idea of teachers trooping entire classes of children down to the polling stations may bring a tear to the eye of Labour voters, but not the rest of us.
The seat returning to Labour will partly depend on what other seats Labour feels it has to defend in Wales, rather than trying to recapture The Gower. My guess is they have enough on their plate trying to keep a raft of seats Labour.
I don't like foxhunting and I don't like fishing as I think they're cruel so not for me. However I do enjoy meat and simply don't like to think about what happened before it reaches me. So I'm not going to judge those who do enjoy their pursuits. But why ban fox hunting and not recreational fishing?
Is sticking a metal spike through an animals cheek for sport very different to setting a dog upon an animal for sport? Why?
Tim Farron’s party will campaign in the general election with a pledge to completely upend the existing system of selling weed, making it the first time a major political party has fought an election on a platform of legalising the drug.
Under the Lib Dem proposals the sale of marijuana would be fully legalised, with the quality strictly regulated to reduce harmful chemicals and sales restricted to over-18s. Purchases would be allowed only through licensed cannabis shops, similar to the system used in several US states.
Former LibDem MP Julian Huppert, who is standing to retake his old marginal Cambridge seat from Labour, confirmed the plan.
As the election was only in 2015, two years ago, is this a long enough time for the incumbency bonus to mature?
Will it be bigger, smaller or the same due to the short life of the 2015 parliament?
The 241 seats in which they are definitely not standing amounted to 1.2m votes, about 31% of their 2015 vote.
There are bound to be some errors in that, but then again there are some errors in that democracyclub total - for example they are definitely standing in Ynys Môn.
http://www.swansea.gov.uk/PGE17Notices
Well pot isn't for me, but good to see the Lib Dems standing up for personal freedoms even if it might potentially cost a few votes in Lib/Tory marginals.
And without knowing the area if in a seat as marginal as Gower the MP hasn't been grafting hard trying to help people in order to get his incumbency bonus for next time then he doesn't deserve to be re-elected. So I'd assume he has been working hard - but have no evidence either way its just my logic.
Foxhunters have been caught on numerous occasions putting out food for foxes. Foxhunters across the country were even exposed as breeding foxes in specially made artificial earths. They want to make sure they've got enough foxes for their dogs to tear apart and to provide blood that they can smear on children. The idea that foxhunting is for pest control is crap: it is a lie.
Of course it's always defended with the sneer that "we know the countryside and you dirty townies don't".
Foxhunting is for fun, it's cruel, and it's sick.
I can well afford to lose it mind, with Macron's triumph...
Not that I think I'm on a particularly great bet at 1-7 here. Probably a fair price.
Anyway Plaid not standing would definitely have made it a fair bit closer. In a weird way I'm almost glad UKIP are standing here - the variables to last time are kept closer that way...
The progressive alliance to stop Tories says (or may be interpreted as):
1 We hate Tories - I think that is off putting and negative to anyone progressive who should be expected have a disposition that is alien to hatred.
2 We can't win, we are different, weak don't agree and are generally tossers, but together we may be better tossers.
3 Come and virtue signal with us.
4 We aren't very popular individually, together maybe we can be popular, please, we are desperate.
5 We don't think much of 1st past the post - a reasonable view but one that get s lost.
The logic that 16 year olds can work and pay taxes is an entirely different argument to your argument about getting children involved at school.
As for Keith's seat, I have it at Tory seat 543 - so also quite safe.
However the ram has touched the wall. We allowed 16 year olds to vote in a very important election, so no reason they can't in all of them. Unfortunately.
But we should lower things like the drinking age. If you are an adult, you can vote get married and work full time, no reason to treat you like a child.
Edit the age you can buy alcohol that is.
Foxes are pests and will be killed. We could all go out and shoot one tomorrow morning dressed in a dinner jacket or jeans and sneakers after singing the national anthem.
Some people like to wear funny clothes and make a palaver over it. So what? The foxes still get killed.
People are muddling up animal welfare with other issues. As I said to another PB poster yesterday, it's fine to think that hunting people are twats because they all would think you are a twat.
There seems to be a very inconsistent position of at the one time berating young people for a lack of interest and at the same time saying they are not to be trusted anyway. Firstly there is no evidence of them being less responsible if they do vote and secondly there aren't enough 16-17 years to swing the decision one way or the other. The question is whether we want to bring them into the process. On balance and on the evidence in Scotland, I would say it's a good thing to do.
(As are the Pirates for what it's worth - I'll try and pass on any info if I get it)
Those who do hunt find it thrilling and one of the most meaningful activities in their lives. The pageantry and spectacle is something they deeply love and enjoy. Meanwhile, no-one seriously argues that foxes shouldn't be controlled, so the question is whether hunting is morally/ethically wrong over other methods of killing. I argue it isn't: such forms of predatory hunting occur right across the natural world, and throughout the food chain, not least of which packs of wild wolves hunting elk and moose, today, in the Yukon, so the issue for me seems to be that some people find the issue of humans participating in it offensive.
I wouldn't dream of asking anyone who finds it deeply offensive to condone it, or support it, and that's a reasonable view to take.
But my view is that it should be the choice of the individual as to whether to partake and the choice of the landowner as to whether to permit it, rather than prohibited by statue.
Apologies. With PC standing, first time incumbency and UKIP to be squeezed then this seat looks like it *should* be safe. Though it may not be.
It is the most Asian of the 3 Leicester constituencies, largely Hindu around the Golden Mile, more Muslim around Evington, but Vaz has cultivated the constituency well. The Con candidate has a Chinese name, and Leicester has a pretty small Chinese community. There is an independent too.
Or perhaps after the landslide is secured.
When the Tories get down into the gutter, consider getting down there with them and fighting them. Personalise the attacks on Theresa May, just as they have personalised attacks on Jeremy Corbyn. This is a fight, not a debate. Force her to respond. Force her to say that everyone who complains about her support for foxhunting is ignorant, stupid, or sentimental - this woman who is saying that she represents the whole country and can unite it. See how well that goes down with voters who are considering swinging to the Tories.
And whilst some Tories do oppose foxhunting, it is nonetheless true that foxhunting epitomises the attitude towards others that is so dear to the members of the social strata that are represented by the Tory party.
Most voters probably don't even know the names of any of the candidates in the constituency they live in.
Taking the monopoly of selling narcotics out of the hands of criminal gangs would be the fastest way of reducing violence on our streets and reducing corruption in private and public life.
Presumably you would not support the right of a teacher to have sex with a 16-year-old student, because the student is too impressionable to make an informed decision of their own. Why, then, would you support the right of the student to vote?
The fact that this is a proposal from the Labour party makes the whole thing even more ironic: apparently 17-year-olds are mature enough to elect MPs but not to sext them. Oh, and the SNP- who think that 16 year olds should vote, but that they should also have a state-appointed guardian. Not in the slightest. The reason they can't be trusted to vote is the same reason they're not treated as adults for sentencing purposes: at 16 your body, including your brain, is still developing. The fact that they're largely uninterested in the democratic process only compounds the fact that they haven't yet fully developed their decision-making skills.
Seriously though I feel like the law on weed is not well enforced. Maybe I just live in a tokers paradise, but I swear people walk around openly smoking the stuff without fear of being dobbed in.
Well, it is gloomy. The massive Mercedes update is likely to have dismayed Ferrari, and Red Bull's promised improvements look rather unexciting. The resources Mercedes seem to have committed are rather breathtaking.
Barring the extraordinary, it looks like a fight between Hamilton and Bottas for the championship.
https://candidates.democracyclub.org.uk/numbers/election/parl.2017-06-08/parties
Lab to Con defectors are pretty rare.
Legalise the lot with caveats on where the highly addictive ones can be used.
Assure the quality and reduce the crime.
Edit: and raise some tax!
If you want to see detail behind our cannabis policy, read our full expert report at https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.clo
https://twitter.com/WingsScotland/status/862971864397869056
But it is not cruel. Dare I say better brains than yours have considered the issue:
"Lord Burns, also stated that 'Naturally, people ask whether we were implying that hunting is cruel... The short answer to that question is no.' "
The Burns Inquiry.
I know too many people who used to smoke weed regularly to non hypocritically condemn the policy of legalisation though.
Con 613
Lab 510
UKIP 118
LD 82
19.55% turnout
Convincing Conservative victory.
I've long said that drug policy should go one of two ways, either the Netherlands/Portugal route or the Bangkok/Dubai route. The middle way of the UK and US is the worst policy of all.
Con 1443/1317/1236
Lab 1431/1239/1167
UKIP 1168/839/739
LDem 337
(How moneylenders would love it if 16-year-olds could sign contracts.)
People get themselves into a frightful muddle about fox hunting and however much they might protest, it all comes down to not liking the people who do it (any of whom of course they will likely never have met).
Mr. kle4, I'm sure they'll do their best to avoid taking necessary action.
Mr. B, let's not get carried away just yet, it's only one practice session. And even if Mercedes are far ahead in Spain, the season is a long one.
http://www.rubbishwaste.co.uk/putney-SW15/
Of more concern in the US is addiction to prescribed opiates and amphetamines, one thing that always gets me when I visit there is the constant television advertising for prescription drugs.
Fairstead held by Labour with increased majority
And as for McLaren, this is Alonso's free practice...
https://www.instagram.com/p/BT_Lo0WFj9y/
The Round Robin is my chosen way to tackle constituency betting,one for Tory gains,one for Lib Dem losses,one for LibDem gains and one for Labour holds with a single bet on all those at even money and above so a bank of 50 points will cover it.
https://www.aceodds.com/bet-calculator/round-robin.html
I would do it via legalizing people being to own x amount (probably about 6) plants of their own.
Labour 254
Libs. 66
Con. 189
UKIP. 68
12.8% turnout
That week's Question Time featured Sal Brinton, the president of the Lib Dems. She was outraged at the judge's comments and went on and on about how this girl was just a child and how awful it all was. Unfortunately no one pointed out to her that it is the policy of the Lib Dems to give that child the vote!
Two Cabinet ministers were today under fire over the Leave pledge to allow more chefs and waiters into Britain if the country backed Brexit.
Curry house bosses told how they felt “used”, “let down” and may have been given “false hope” by politicians that quitting the EU would allow more workers in from South Asia to address staff shortages.