I think Lamb would be an ok choice. He's solid, is a reasonable media performer and well liked. However the LibDems need exposure and I think Lamb will get crowded out in the upcoming bun fights.
St. Vince of the Cable is a big hitter, former cabinet minister with gravitas. Difficult to ignore (like him or not). Age is an issue but Jezza, although younger, is hardly in the first flush of youth. The yellow peril need to be noticed - IMO Cable would do that.
Jo Swinson would make an admirable deputy - leader in waiting.
Exactly why I am currently leaning to Cable despite Lamb being my preferred choice. I don't buy the age argument against him. Without offending any of our older posters here, I'm pretty sure that anyone over 60 in politics gets lumped into one 'old' basket. I really don't see much difference in Cable, Corbyn, or May leading their parties.
I think Swinson is very capable and a potential future leader, but I get the impression right now that she is being talked up more due to being a young and female MP, rather than due to any particular achievement.
Age should not be an undue barrier but it is not 'age now' rather than 'age at the next GE' which should be the relevant consideration for a potential party leader. Vince will be nearly 80 if the parliament runs to full term.
Gladstone was 84 when he retired
True - but the norms of the day ore somewhat different!
I think Lamb would be an ok choice. He's solid, is a reasonable media performer and well liked. However the LibDems need exposure and I think Lamb will get crowded out in the upcoming bun fights.
St. Vince of the Cable is a big hitter, former cabinet minister with gravitas. Difficult to ignore (like him or not). Age is an issue but Jezza, although younger, is hardly in the first flush of youth. The yellow peril need to be noticed - IMO Cable would do that.
Jo Swinson would make an admirable deputy - leader in waiting.
Exactly why I am currently leaning to Cable despite Lamb being my preferred choice. I don't buy the age argument against him. Without offending any of our older posters here, I'm pretty sure that anyone over 60 in politics gets lumped into one 'old' basket. I really don't see much difference in Cable, Corbyn, or May leading their parties.
I think Swinson is very capable and a potential future leader, but I get the impression right now that she is being talked up more due to being a young and female MP, rather than due to any particular achievement.
There is one other interesting factor. Cable is a Privy Counsellor. Farron was never made one and to my knowledge is unique in not having had that status conferred on him as Liberal/LibDem leader. Grimond and Thorpe had that distinction despite having fewer MP's.
Hammond would be John Major 2. Of course Major won in 1992 a 4th general election victory for the Tories against the odds against a Labour leader who had made gains in the previous election by holding the Tory voteshare and after taking over from a female PM. So no parallels to now then!
Yes, Hammond would be good.
Yes though Hammond only took over 3 years into the Parliament
I think Lamb would be an ok choice. He's solid, is a reasonable media performer and well liked. However the LibDems need exposure and I think Lamb will get crowded out in the upcoming bun fights.
St. Vince of the Cable is a big hitter, former cabinet minister with gravitas. Difficult to ignore (like him or not). Age is an issue but Jezza, although younger, is hardly in the first flush of youth. The yellow peril need to be noticed - IMO Cable would do that.
Jo Swinson would make an admirable deputy - leader in waiting.
Exactly why I am currently leaning to Cable despite Lamb being my preferred choice. I don't buy the age argument against him. Without offending any of our older posters here, I'm pretty sure that anyone over 60 in politics gets lumped into one 'old' basket. I really don't see much difference in Cable, Corbyn, or May leading their parties.
I think Swinson is very capable and a potential future leader, but I get the impression right now that she is being talked up more due to being a young and female MP, rather than due to any particular achievement.
Age should not be an undue barrier but it is not 'age now' rather than 'age at the next GE' which should be the relevant consideration for a potential party leader. Vince will be nearly 80 if the parliament runs to full term.
Gladstone was 84 when he retired
True - but the norms of the day ore somewhat different!
Reagan and Mitterand were almost 80 when they went and Berlusconi is still a party leader in his late 70s
Britain's Greatest Invention is on BBC2 tonight. We can keep score of Milton Friedman's adage discussed earlier in the thread that inventions do not come from central government.
The list: Antiobiotics Concrete The fridge The jet engine The mobile phone (with mention of Acorn Computers - wahey!) The steam engine The television
None of these came from central government. Central government may have helped development - e.g. the jet engine - but even in that case they hindered development for many years before finally embracing it. At one point they even gave jet development to Rover!
IMO where central government does play a role is in standardisation and regulation. Europe's mobile phone market managed to expand into the world because of the EU reserving frequencies and adopting a common standard, instead of the US's three battling standards.
We can be sure buildings will not fall down not because government developed concrete, but because they developed and adopted standards for concrete (e.g. BS 8500) that everyone should work to.
We can buy electric fridges that plug into the mains in our homes because they standardised home electricity supply voltages and sockets.
Governments are best as enablers, not as choosers of winners.
I would elect sewerage systems. But as that isn't on the list, I vote antibiotics. For the first time in history we can have some confidence of surviving a whole raft of diseases to live to old age.
This conversation has been had on here before, but I would put John Snow and the discovery of the necessity of a clean water supply above antibiotics. It fits in well with your mention of sewerage systems.
Britain's Greatest Invention is on BBC2 tonight. We can keep score of Milton Friedman's adage discussed earlier in the thread that inventions do not come from central government.
The list: Antiobiotics Concrete The fridge The jet engine The mobile phone (with mention of Acorn Computers - wahey!) The steam engine The television
None of these came from central government. Central government may have helped development - e.g. the jet engine - but even in that case they hindered development for many years before finally embracing it. At one point they even gave jet development to Rover!
IMO where central government does play a role is in standardisation and regulation. Europe's mobile phone market managed to expand into the world because of the EU reserving frequencies and adopting a common standard, instead of the US's three battling standards.
We can be sure buildings will not fall down not because government developed concrete, but because they developed and adopted standards for concrete (e.g. BS 8500) that everyone should work to.
We can buy electric fridges that plug into the mains in our homes because they standardised home electricity supply voltages and sockets.
Governments are best as enablers, not as choosers of winners.
I would elect sewerage systems. But as that isn't on the list, I vote antibiotics. For the first time in history we can have some confidence of surviving a whole raft of diseases to live to old age.
This conversation has been had on here before, but I would put John Snow and the discovery of the necessity of a clean water supply above antibiotics. It fits in well with your mention of sewerage systems.
I was going to say clean water supplies but wasn't sure whether it was a British invention. It doesn't really matter does it? It's the effect that counts.
Hammond would be John Major 2. Of course Major won in 1992 a 4th general election victory for the Tories against the odds against a Labour leader who had made gains in the previous election by holding the Tory voteshare and after taking over from a female PM. So no parallels to now then!
Yes, Hammond would be good.
He is the only defence against a Boris coronation.
I'm coming to the conclusion the Tories should let Corbyn become PM.
Let him and Labour deal with the difficulties of the next few years.
Corbyn failed to win for a reason ie he would be a disaster for the country, the Tories should not accept a Corbyn premiership until the country votes for it
I think Lamb would be an ok choice. He's solid, is a reasonable media performer and well liked. However the LibDems need exposure and I think Lamb will get crowded out in the upcoming bun fights.
St. Vince of the Cable is a big hitter, former cabinet minister with gravitas. Difficult to ignore (like him or not). Age is an issue but Jezza, although younger, is hardly in the first flush of youth. The yellow peril need to be noticed - IMO Cable would do that.
Jo Swinson would make an admirable deputy - leader in waiting.
Exactly why I am currently leaning to Cable despite Lamb being my preferred choice. I don't buy the age argument against him. Without offending any of our older posters here, I'm pretty sure that anyone over 60 in politics gets lumped into one 'old' basket. I really don't see much difference in Cable, Corbyn, or May leading their parties.
I think Swinson is very capable and a potential future leader, but I get the impression right now that she is being talked up more due to being a young and female MP, rather than due to any particular achievement.
Age should not be an undue barrier but it is not 'age now' rather than 'age at the next GE' which should be the relevant consideration for a potential party leader. Vince will be nearly 80 if the parliament runs to full term.
Gladstone was 84 when he retired
True - but the norms of the day ore somewhat different!
Reagan and Mitterand were almost 80 when they went and Berlusconi is still a party leader in his late 70s
I think Lamb would be an ok choice. He's solid, is a reasonable media performer and well liked. However the LibDems need exposure and I think Lamb will get crowded out in the upcoming bun fights.
St. Vince of the Cable is a big hitter, former cabinet minister with gravitas. Difficult to ignore (like him or not). Age is an issue but Jezza, although younger, is hardly in the first flush of youth. The yellow peril need to be noticed - IMO Cable would do that.
Jo Swinson would make an admirable deputy - leader in waiting.
Exactly why I am currently leaning to Cable despite Lamb being my preferred choice. I don't buy the age argument against him. Without offending any of our older posters here, I'm pretty sure that anyone over 60 in politics gets lumped into one 'old' basket. I really don't see much difference in Cable, Corbyn, or May leading their parties.
I think Swinson is very capable and a potential future leader, but I get the impression right now that she is being talked up more due to being a young and female MP, rather than due to any particular achievement.
Age should not be an undue barrier but it is not 'age now' rather than 'age at the next GE' which should be the relevant consideration for a potential party leader. Vince will be nearly 80 if the parliament runs to full term.
Gladstone was 84 when he retired
And that is 84 in old money, when 84 meant having dodged every bullet of disease and famine and war.
Yes he was the titan of 19th century British politics
Britain's Greatest Invention is on BBC2 tonight. We can keep score of Milton Friedman's adage discussed earlier in the thread that inventions do not come from central government.
The list: Antiobiotics Concrete The fridge The jet engine The mobile phone (with mention of Acorn Computers - wahey!) The steam engine The television
None of these came from central government. Central government may have helped development - e.g. the jet engine - but even in that case they hindered development for many years before finally embracing it. At one point they even gave jet development to Rover!
IMO where central government does play a role is in standardisation and regulation. Europe's mobile phone market managed to expand into the world because of the EU reserving frequencies and adopting a common standard, instead of the US's three battling standards.
We can be sure buildings will not fall down not because government developed concrete, but because they developed and adopted standards for concrete (e.g. BS 8500) that everyone should work to.
We can buy electric fridges that plug into the mains in our homes because they standardised home electricity supply voltages and sockets.
Governments are best as enablers, not as choosers of winners.
I would elect sewerage systems. But as that isn't on the list, I vote antibiotics. For the first time in history we can have some confidence of surviving a whole raft of diseases to live to old age.
You see I thought antibiotics as well. But then I started thinking about how they are starting to fail and how we have abused them. Now I am not so sure.
Oh and someone has already pointed out we didn't invent concrete, the Romans did. And theirs is much better than ours.
The article specifically mentions Portland Cement: the basic material that is used n the vast majority of mortars and concretes around the world.
Hydraulic and non-hydraulic(lime-based) roman cements are very different beasts.
And roman concrete it is not 'much better' than ours: it has different properties that work well in some circumstances. For one thing, availability of it is much lower due to its constituent parts.
The debate on inventions is, perhaps, looking through the wrong end of the telescope (Hans Lippershey, Dutch eyeglass maker). As the old adage says, "necessity is the mother of invention" and so the question becomes: what gave rise to the necessity that drove the invention, government or others?
If we define government loosely as collective endeavour under some political process, then one could argue that it is responsible for military and colonial necessities that drove invention.
One account of the invention of the light bulb suggests that it came about as a result of trying to reduce corrosion on dock gates in the West Country. The relationship between necessity and invention is not always simple.
I think Lamb would be an ok choice. He's solid, is a reasonable media performer and well liked. However the LibDems need exposure and I think Lamb will get crowded out in the upcoming bun fights.
St. Vince of the Cable is a big hitter, former cabinet minister with gravitas. Difficult to ignore (like him or not). Age is an issue but Jezza, although younger, is hardly in the first flush of youth. The yellow peril need to be noticed - IMO Cable would do that.
Jo Swinson would make an admirable deputy - leader in waiting.
Exactly why I am currently leaning to Cable despite Lamb being my preferred choice. I don't buy the age argument against him. Without offending any of our older posters here, I'm pretty sure that anyone over 60 in politics gets lumped into one 'old' basket. I really don't see much difference in Cable, Corbyn, or May leading their parties.
I think Swinson is very capable and a potential future leader, but I get the impression right now that she is being talked up more due to being a young and female MP, rather than due to any particular achievement.
Age should not be an undue barrier but it is not 'age now' rather than 'age at the next GE' which should be the relevant consideration for a potential party leader. Vince will be nearly 80 if the parliament runs to full term.
Gladstone was 84 when he retired
And that is 84 in old money, when 84 meant having dodged every bullet of disease and famine and war.
Yes he was the titan of 19th century British politics
I'm coming to the conclusion the Tories should let Corbyn become PM.
Let him and Labour deal with the difficulties of the next few years.
Corbyn failed to win for a reason ie he would be a disaster for the country, the Tories should not accept a Corbyn premiership until the country votes for it
If it was just Brexit to deal with fine, it's all the dangers in the other areas which are not worth thinking about.
Britain's Greatest Invention is on BBC2 tonight. We can keep score of Milton Friedman's adage discussed earlier in the thread that inventions do not come from central government.
The list: Antiobiotics Concrete The fridge The jet engine The mobile phone (with mention of Acorn Computers - wahey!) The steam engine The television
None of these came from central government. Central government may have helped development - e.g. the jet engine - but even in that case they hindered development for many years before finally embracing it. At one point they even gave jet development to Rover!
IMO where central government does play a role is in standardisation and regulation. Europe's mobile phone market managed to expand into the world because of the EU reserving frequencies and adopting a common standard, instead of the US's three battling standards.
We can be sure buildings will not fall down not because government developed concrete, but because they developed and adopted standards for concrete (e.g. BS 8500) that everyone should work to.
We can buy electric fridges that plug into the mains in our homes because they standardised home electricity supply voltages and sockets.
Governments are best as enablers, not as choosers of winners.
Practical antibiotics would not have been developed at all without large scale funding from both the UK and US governments.
Britain's Greatest Invention is on BBC2 tonight. We can keep score of Milton Friedman's adage discussed earlier in the thread that inventions do not come from central government.
The list: Antiobiotics Concrete The fridge The jet engine The mobile phone (with mention of Acorn Computers - wahey!) The steam engine The television
None of these came from central government. Central government may have helped development - e.g. the jet engine - but even in that case they hindered development for many years before finally embracing it. At one point they even gave jet development to Rover!
IMO where central government does play a role is in standardisation and regulation. Europe's mobile phone market managed to expand into the world because of the EU reserving frequencies and adopting a common standard, instead of the US's three battling standards.
We can be sure buildings will not fall down not because government developed concrete, but because they developed and adopted standards for concrete (e.g. BS 8500) that everyone should work to.
We can buy electric fridges that plug into the mains in our homes because they standardised home electricity supply voltages and sockets.
Governments are best as enablers, not as choosers of winners.
Not just standardisation but also funding, and not just in obvious cases like space exploration. Our government should do more to encourage and subsidise innovation, both indirectly through tax breaks for R&D, and directly by paid commissions.
What seems odd about that list for the programme is that computers are not included, where arguably government moved to ensure Britain did not have a leading role, by suppressing development of first Colossus and then public key encryption that underlies ecommerce (discovered at GCHQ before it was a twinkle in RSAs' eyes) but it does include television. Half the United Nations claims to have invented television, and our man, Logie Baird, led us to a dead end.
My vote before seeing the programme would be the steam engine, I think.
For me it would be a toss-up between Portland Cement and the steam engine. And yes, computers should be in there as an honourable mention. Or the ARM chip.
Governments play another role: for infrastructure to support innovation, and for things that individual businesses cannot afford. E.g. the Diamond Light Source, or some of the aerospace work NASA does.
Britain's Greatest Invention is on BBC2 tonight. We can keep score of Milton Friedman's adage discussed earlier in the thread that inventions do not come from central government.
The list: Antiobiotics Concrete The fridge The jet engine The mobile phone (with mention of Acorn Computers - wahey!) The steam engine The television
None of these came from central government. Central government may have helped development - e.g. the jet engine - but even in that case they hindered development for many years before finally embracing it. At one point they even gave jet development to Rover!
IMO where central government does play a role is in standardisation and regulation. Europe's mobile phone market managed to expand into the world because of the EU reserving frequencies and adopting a common standard, instead of the US's three battling standards.
We can be sure buildings will not fall down not because government developed concrete, but because they developed and adopted standards for concrete (e.g. BS 8500) that everyone should work to.
We can buy electric fridges that plug into the mains in our homes because they standardised home electricity supply voltages and sockets.
Governments are best as enablers, not as choosers of winners.
I would elect sewerage systems. But as that isn't on the list, I vote antibiotics. For the first time in history we can have some confidence of surviving a whole raft of diseases to live to old age.
This conversation has been had on here before, but I would put John Snow and the discovery of the necessity of a clean water supply above antibiotics. It fits in well with your mention of sewerage systems.
This is the killer line It may be years before the Tories grasp just how cheaply their intrinsic advantageous edge — of economic deference, of that firm handshake with the bank manager — was squandered on the side of a bus.
"We live in a society of liberal intolerance, where only certain world views are deemed acceptable by people who often refuse to accept that they themselves have a worldview that also deserves interrogating. Such intolerance is often born of a sincere desire to make life better for those who have been persecuted in the past, including gay people, women who have abortions, and those who divorce. But it becomes a form of persecution in itself, just focused on a newly unpopular group"
Slightly surprised to see people blaming the voters for the situation - I'm not delusional about the amount of thought most people put into their votes, but everyone who bothered will have been expressing a clear preference, not voting for a total mess. Nobody is to blame for the result working out pretty much evenly, and politicians should get on with dealing with it, not blame the people.
It's clear that May will carry on into the summer, and switching horses in mid-Brexit talks seems a silly idea, so the main question is whether to quit during the summer. The risks of not doing it are
(a) it might be forced by events anyway - several adverse by-elections/defections, a big revolt, or some other black swan
(b) a deal with the EU agreed by a weak government could well be seen as not really ratified, and May's eventual successor could be tempted to try to tinker with any unclear aspects or even to reopen the whole thing.
The risks of quitting are
(c) the successor will still be in a weak position with similar problems (d) the successor may need another election, with unpredictable results.
On the whole, it seems to me that the national interest is a new election that really DOES focus on Brexit terms. But as we've just seen, it's not in the Government's power to dictate what people actually vote about.
Slightly surprised to see people blaming the voters for the situation - I'm not delusional about the amount of thought most people put into their votes, but everyone who bothered will have been expressing a clear preference, not voting for a total mess. Nobody is to blame for the result working out pretty much evenly, and politicians should get on with dealing with it, not blame the people.
It's clear that May will carry on into the summer, and switching horses in mid-Brexit talks seems a silly idea, so the main question is whether to quit during the summer. The risks of not doing it are
(a) it might be forced by events anyway - several adverse by-elections/defections, a big revolt, or some other black swan
(b) a deal with the EU agreed by a weak government could well be seen as not really ratified, and May's eventual successor could be tempted to try to tinker with any unclear aspects or even to reopen the whole thing.
The risks of quitting are
(c) the successor will still be in a weak position with similar problems (d) the successor may need another election, with unpredictable results.
On the whole, it seems to me that the national interest is a new election that really DOES focus on Brexit terms. But as we've just seen, it's not in the Government's power to dictate what people actually vote about.
The election basically decided voters still want Brexit but a softer Brexit than May was pushing for. There is no point having another election on Brexit terms until the negotiations have concluded
I think Lamb would be an ok choice. He's solid, is a reasonable media performer and well liked. However the LibDems need exposure and I think Lamb will get crowded out in the upcoming bun fights.
St. Vince of the Cable is a big hitter, former cabinet minister with gravitas. Difficult to ignore (like him or not). Age is an issue but Jezza, although younger, is hardly in the first flush of youth. The yellow peril need to be noticed - IMO Cable would do that.
Jo Swinson would make an admirable deputy - leader in waiting.
Exactly why I am currently leaning to Cable despite Lamb being my preferred choice. I don't buy the age argument against him. Without offending any of our older posters here, I'm pretty sure that anyone over 60 in politics gets lumped into one 'old' basket. I really don't see much difference in Cable, Corbyn, or May leading their parties.
I think Swinson is very capable and a potential future leader, but I get the impression right now that she is being talked up more due to being a young and female MP, rather than due to any particular achievement.
Age should not be an undue barrier but it is not 'age now' rather than 'age at the next GE' which should be the relevant consideration for a potential party leader. Vince will be nearly 80 if the parliament runs to full term.
Gladstone was 84 when he retired
And that is 84 in old money, when 84 meant having dodged every bullet of disease and famine and war.
Yes he was the titan of 19th century British politics
You do realise the titans were the youngsters.
Though Tim Farron as Uranus is amusing.
I rather suspect 19th century politics was not quite as full-on as today's 24/7 culture.
Good morning all. Had an interesting chat with my father last night. Aside from deciding I've lurched to the left of his parents who were Dyed in the wool trade unionist labourites, he has concluded the answer is means testing. Of everything. Pensions, pensioner benefits, NHS care for those with private health insurance, welfare, child benefits etc etc etc. His Quote - insurance like NI is to protect against an outcome, not a savings account. State help only for the needy. He acknowledged it's old goats like him that won't vote for it though. I proposed universal income. He gave me the look.
Britain's Greatest Invention is on BBC2 tonight. We can keep score of Milton Friedman's adage discussed earlier in the thread that inventions do not come from central government.
The list: Antiobiotics Concrete The fridge The jet engine The mobile phone (with mention of Acorn Computers - wahey!) The steam engine The television
None of these came from central government. Central government may have helped development - e.g. the jet engine - but even in that case they hindered development for many years before finally embracing it. At one point they even gave jet development to Rover!
IMO where central government does play a role is in standardisation and regulation. Europe's mobile phone market managed to expand into the world because of the EU reserving frequencies and adopting a common standard, instead of the US's three battling standards.
We can be sure buildings will not fall down not because government developed concrete, but because they developed and adopted standards for concrete (e.g. BS 8500) that everyone should work to.
We can buy electric fridges that plug into the mains in our homes because they standardised home electricity supply voltages and sockets.
Governments are best as enablers, not as choosers of winners.
Practical antibiotics would not have been developed at all without large scale funding from both the UK and US governments.
Concrete was a Roman invention, I think.
Again: the article is about Portland cement, not Roman concrete made from hydraulic of non-hydraulic cements. They are very different beasts.
(I'm actually unsure if Romans made mass concrete out of non-hydraulic cements. I thought they did, but a quick Google has confusled me.)
I think Lamb would be an ok choice. He's solid, is a reasonable media performer and well liked. However the LibDems need exposure and I think Lamb will get crowded out in the upcoming bun fights.
St. Vince of the Cable is a big hitter, former cabinet minister with gravitas. Difficult to ignore (like him or not). Age is an issue but Jezza, although younger, is hardly in the first flush of youth. The yellow peril need to be noticed - IMO Cable would do that.
Jo Swinson would make an admirable deputy - leader in waiting.
Exactly why I am currently leaning to Cable despite Lamb being my preferred choice. I don't buy the age argument against him. Without offending any of our older posters here, I'm pretty sure that anyone over 60 in politics gets lumped into one 'old' basket. I really don't see much difference in Cable, Corbyn, or May leading their parties.
I think Swinson is very capable and a potential future leader, but I get the impression right now that she is being talked up more due to being a young and female MP, rather than due to any particular achievement.
Age should not be an undue barrier but it is not 'age now' rather than 'age at the next GE' which should be the relevant consideration for a potential party leader. Vince will be nearly 80 if the parliament runs to full term.
Gladstone was 84 when he retired
And that is 84 in old money, when 84 meant having dodged every bullet of disease and famine and war.
Yes he was the titan of 19th century British politics
I'm coming to the conclusion the Tories should let Corbyn become PM.
Let him and Labour deal with the difficulties of the next few years.
Corbyn failed to win for a reason ie he would be a disaster for the country, the Tories should not accept a Corbyn premiership until the country votes for it
If it was just Brexit to deal with fine, it's all the dangers in the other areas which are not worth thinking about.
The debate on inventions is, perhaps, looking through the wrong end of the telescope (Hans Lippershey, Dutch eyeglass maker). As the old adage says, "necessity is the mother of invention" and so the question becomes: what gave rise to the necessity that drove the invention, government or others?
If we define government loosely as collective endeavour under some political process, then one could argue that it is responsible for military and colonial necessities that drove invention.
One account of the invention of the light bulb suggests that it came about as a result of trying to reduce corrosion on dock gates in the West Country. The relationship between necessity and invention is not always simple.
A lot of inventions and innovations come about because someone was really really pissed off with the way that something previously worked.
This is the killer line It may be years before the Tories grasp just how cheaply their intrinsic advantageous edge — of economic deference, of that firm handshake with the bank manager — was squandered on the side of a bus.
Britain's Greatest Invention is on BBC2 tonight. We can keep score of Milton Friedman's adage discussed earlier in the thread that inventions do not come from central government.
The list: Antiobiotics Concrete The fridge The jet engine The mobile phone (with mention of Acorn Computers - wahey!) The steam engine The television
None of these came from central government. Central government may have helped development - e.g. the jet engine - but even in that case they hindered development for many years before finally embracing it. At one point they even gave jet development to Rover!
IMO where central government does play a role is in standardisation and regulation. Europe's mobile phone market managed to expand into the world because of the EU reserving frequencies and adopting a common standard, instead of the US's three battling standards.
We can be sure buildings will not fall down not because government developed concrete, but because they developed and adopted standards for concrete (e.g. BS 8500) that everyone should work to.
We can buy electric fridges that plug into the mains in our homes because they standardised home electricity supply voltages and sockets.
Governments are best as enablers, not as choosers of winners.
Practical antibiotics would not have been developed at all without large scale funding from both the UK and US governments.
Concrete was a Roman invention, I think.
The first practical jet engine was German. The Frank Whittle design was particularly well developed but it wasn't the first conceptual design.
Britain's Greatest Invention is on BBC2 tonight. We can keep score of Milton Friedman's adage discussed earlier in the thread that inventions do not come from central government.
The list: Antiobiotics Concrete The fridge The jet engine The mobile phone (with mention of Acorn Computers - wahey!) The steam engine The television
None of these came from central government. Central government may have helped development - e.g. the jet engine - but even in that case they hindered development for many years before finally embracing it. At one point they even gave jet development to Rover!
IMO where central government does play a role is in standardisation and regulation. Europe's mobile phone market managed to expand into the world because of the EU reserving frequencies and adopting a common standard, instead of the US's three battling standards.
We can be sure buildings will not fall down not because government developed concrete, but because they developed and adopted standards for concrete (e.g. BS 8500) that everyone should work to.
We can buy electric fridges that plug into the mains in our homes because they standardised home electricity supply voltages and sockets.
Governments are best as enablers, not as choosers of winners.
Practical antibiotics would not have been developed at all without large scale funding from both the UK and US governments.
Concrete was a Roman invention, I think.
The first practical jet engine was German. The Frank Whittle design was particularly well developed but it wasn't the first conceptual design.
Britain's Greatest Invention is on BBC2 tonight. We can keep score of Milton Friedman's adage discussed earlier in the thread that inventions do not come from central government.
The list: Antiobiotics Concrete The fridge The jet engine The mobile phone (with mention of Acorn Computers - wahey!) The steam engine The television
None of these came from central government. Central government may have helped development - e.g. the jet engine - but even in that case they hindered development for many years before finally embracing it. At one point they even gave jet development to Rover!
IMO where central government does play a role is in standardisation and regulation. Europe's mobile phone market managed to expand into the world because of the EU reserving frequencies and adopting a common standard, instead of the US's three battling standards.
We can be sure buildings will not fall down not because government developed concrete, but because they developed and adopted standards for concrete (e.g. BS 8500) that everyone should work to.
We can buy electric fridges that plug into the mains in our homes because they standardised home electricity supply voltages and sockets.
Governments are best as enablers, not as choosers of winners.
I would elect sewerage systems. But as that isn't on the list, I vote antibiotics. For the first time in history we can have some confidence of surviving a whole raft of diseases to live to old age.
This conversation has been had on here before, but I would put John Snow and the discovery of the necessity of a clean water supply above antibiotics. It fits in well with your mention of sewerage systems.
This is the killer line It may be years before the Tories grasp just how cheaply their intrinsic advantageous edge — of economic deference, of that firm handshake with the bank manager — was squandered on the side of a bus.
OK, it was a lie (or 'mistake' if you're Nigel Farage) and ok it meant one Tory PM resigned and another is on the way out and OK Britain is losing out on prosperity and jobs but say the Leavers "It was worth it".
Britain's Greatest Invention is on BBC2 tonight. We can keep score of Milton Friedman's adage discussed earlier in the thread that inventions do not come from central government.
The list: Antiobiotics Concrete The fridge The jet engine The mobile phone (with mention of Acorn Computers - wahey!) The steam engine The television
None of these came from central government. Central government may have helped development - e.g. the jet engine - but even in that case they hindered development for many years before finally embracing it. At one point they even gave jet development to Rover!
IMO where central government does play a role is in standardisation and regulation. Europe's mobile phone market managed to expand into the world because of the EU reserving frequencies and adopting a common standard, instead of the US's three battling standards.
We can be sure buildings will not fall down not because government developed concrete, but because they developed and adopted standards for concrete (e.g. BS 8500) that everyone should work to.
We can buy electric fridges that plug into the mains in our homes because they standardised home electricity supply voltages and sockets.
Governments are best as enablers, not as choosers of winners.
Practical antibiotics would not have been developed at all without large scale funding from both the UK and US governments.
Concrete was a Roman invention, I think.
Again: the article is about Portland cement, not Roman concrete made from hydraulic of non-hydraulic cements. They are very different beasts.
(I'm actually unsure if Romans made mass concrete out of non-hydraulic cements. I thought they did, but a quick Google has confusled me.)
Yes, I noticed that, but too late to edit. From wikipedia, though: John Grant of the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1859 set out requirements for cement to be used in the London sewer project. This became a specification for Portland cement. The next development with the manufacture of Portland cement was the introduction of the rotary kiln, patented by German Friedrich Hoffmann... ... So, government involvement, and a partly German invention.
I feel sorry for Farron. How many other religious politicans are asked about their beliefs in the same way?
he made it clear he wasn't imposing his view on anyone else.
Proof, were it ever needed, that religious faith and politics are incompatible. We need to be much less apologetic about faith based intolerance in general. It's a deficiency in humanity, not a strength.
He's made his choice. To be faithful to Christ. Implies that supercedes his faithfulness to humanity. Good riddance.
Disclaimer - my views on faith make Richard Dawkins look like a pious bishop.
I think Lamb would be an ok choice. He's solid, is a reasonable media performer and well liked. However the LibDems need exposure and I think Lamb will get crowded out in the upcoming bun fights.
St. Vince of the Cable is a big hitter, former cabinet minister with gravitas. Difficult to ignore (like him or not). Age is an issue but Jezza, although younger, is hardly in the first flush of youth. The yellow peril need to be noticed - IMO Cable would do that.
Jo Swinson would make an admirable deputy - leader in waiting.
Exactly why I am currently leaning to Cable despite Lamb being my preferred choice. I don't buy the age argument against him. Without offending any of our older posters here, I'm pretty sure that anyone over 60 in politics gets lumped into one 'old' basket. I really don't see much difference in Cable, Corbyn, or May leading their parties.
I think Swinson is very capable and a potential future leader, but I get the impression right now that she is being talked up more due to being a young and female MP, rather than due to any particular achievement.
There is one other interesting factor. Cable is a Privy Counsellor. Farron was never made one and to my knowledge is unique in not having had that status conferred on him as Liberal/LibDem leader. Grimond and Thorpe had that distinction despite having fewer MP's.
I believe that is because the LibDems are not the third largest party in the Commons. That is the SNP, so Angus Robertson is a Privy Counsellor and presumably Ian Blackford, as the new leader of the SNP in the Commons, will also become one.
I think Lamb would be an ok choice. He's solid, is a reasonable media performer and well liked. However the LibDems need exposure and I think Lamb will get crowded out in the upcoming bun fights.
St. Vince of the Cable is a big hitter, former cabinet minister with gravitas. Difficult to ignore (like him or not). Age is an issue but Jezza, although younger, is hardly in the first flush of youth. The yellow peril need to be noticed - IMO Cable would do that.
Jo Swinson would make an admirable deputy - leader in waiting.
Exactly why I am currently leaning to Cable despite Lamb being my preferred choice. I don't buy the age argument against him. Without offending any of our older posters here, I'm pretty sure that anyone over 60 in politics gets lumped into one 'old' basket. I really don't see much difference in Cable, Corbyn, or May leading their parties.
I think Swinson is very capable and a potential future leader, but I get the impression right now that she is being talked up more due to being a young and female MP, rather than due to any particular achievement.
Age should not be an undue barrier but it is not 'age now' rather than 'age at the next GE' which should be the relevant consideration for a potential party leader. Vince will be nearly 80 if the parliament runs to full term.
Gladstone was 84 when he retired
And that is 84 in old money, when 84 meant having dodged every bullet of disease and famine and war.
Yes he was the titan of 19th century British politics
You do realise the titans were the youngsters.
Though Tim Farron as Uranus is amusing.
I rather suspect 19th century politics was not quite as full-on as today's 24/7 culture.
I think Gladstone's work with fallen women, ahem, would keep the media entertained today.
The first practical jet engine was German. The Frank Whittle design was particularly well developed but it wasn't the first conceptual design.
Whittle got his first patent for a jet engine in 1932 (applied for two years earlier); according to Wiki, Hans von Ohain started work on his engine in 1935. Yet a Frenchman had a patent for a jet-powered plane before Whittle, and another Englishman was working on the concept.
However, Whittle was the inventor of the workable jet engine. It was an idea that had to wait for materials technology to catch up (a problem the Germans failed to fully solve until after the war). So the jet engine itself relied on other inventions.
I believe the same is true for the diesel engine: it had been proposed several times before in Victorian times, but no-one could make one with the materials then available.
So inventions are very often reliant on other inventions, even if the idea itself is old. This is why sometimes inventions are discovered by several people at roughly the same time: an old idea has only just become feasible.
Slightly surprised to see people blaming the voters for the situation...
...On the whole, it seems to me that the national interest is a new election that really DOES focus on Brexit terms. But as we've just seen, it's not in the Government's power to dictate what people actually vote about.
Britain's Greatest Invention is on BBC2 tonight. We can keep score of Milton Friedman's adage discussed earlier in the thread that inventions do not come from central government.
The list: Antiobiotics Concrete The fridge The jet engine The mobile phone (with mention of Acorn Computers - wahey!) The steam engine The television
None of these came from central government. Central government may have helped development - e.g. the jet engine - but even in that case they hindered development for many years before finally embracing it. At one point they even gave jet development to Rover!
IMO where central government does play a role is in standardisation and regulation. Europe's mobile phone market managed to expand into the world because of the EU reserving frequencies and adopting a common standard, instead of the US's three battling standards.
We can be sure buildings will not fall down not because government developed concrete, but because they developed and adopted standards for concrete (e.g. BS 8500) that everyone should work to.
We can buy electric fridges that plug into the mains in our homes because they standardised home electricity supply voltages and sockets.
Governments are best as enablers, not as choosers of winners.
Practical antibiotics would not have been developed at all without large scale funding from both the UK and US governments.
Concrete was a Roman invention, I think.
Again: the article is about Portland cement, not Roman concrete made from hydraulic of non-hydraulic cements. They are very different beasts.
(I'm actually unsure if Romans made mass concrete out of non-hydraulic cements. I thought they did, but a quick Google has confusled me.)
Yes, I noticed that, but too late to edit. From wikipedia, though: John Grant of the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1859 set out requirements for cement to be used in the London sewer project. This became a specification for Portland cement. The next development with the manufacture of Portland cement was the introduction of the rotary kiln, patented by German Friedrich Hoffmann... ... So, government involvement, and a partly German invention.
But John Aspdin had invented Portland cement 30 years earlier. What the government did was develop a specification 'requirement' for it. As I say below, that's where governments can be very useful.
The relationship between necessity and invention is not always simple.
There was a BBC series in the 80s called "Connections" by James Burke that dealt with that exact premise. You can watch them on Youtube
One of the finest TV series I've watched! It also fitted in marvelously with an O level I studied - Social and Economic History of the Industrial Revolution 1762- 1945 an incredible subject.
I feel sorry for Farron. How many other religious politicans are asked about their beliefs in the same way?
he made it clear he wasn't imposing his view on anyone else.
Proof, were it ever needed, that religious faith and politics are incompatible. We need to be much less apologetic about faith based intolerance in general. It's a deficiency in humanity, not a strength.
He's made his choice. To be faithful to Christ. Implies that supercedes his faithfulness to humanity. Good riddance.
Disclaimer - my views on faith make Richard Dawkins look like a pious bishop.
And yet, Nick Clegg was castigated after answering a question and saying he was an atheist. It seems that being non practising 'CofE' is the best choice for a British politician.
Barnett formula really is a pile of crap isn't it...
True English paternalism, subsiding the rest of the United Kingdom
I assume that c.90% of that £35 would be spent in England?
I'm sure there are loads of marginals that could be pork barreled.
The money will be spent on people, Why do you have to bring your ethno-nationalist grudge into everything ? Sad.
I'm heartened to see that you've come out in support of the overseas aid budget. Perhaps an increase next year?
I fear that money sent overseas is often wasted or stolen What really makes a difference is opening up hearth and home to desperate refugees. How many has Nicola taken in to her various luxurious residences as she so movingly promised to do ?
I know it is the case, but I'm honestly struggling with the fact that Tim's main problem seems to be his views on gay sex rather than being so ultra-remain that getting close in old strongholds like Yeovil was always going to be impossible... & not heading on the single market centre-ground which has been abandoned by both the Tories and Labour (Or well Labour's position is a complete muddle on this)
Slightly surprised to see people blaming the voters for the situation...
...On the whole, it seems to me that the national interest is a new election that really DOES focus on Brexit terms. But as we've just seen, it's not in the Government's power to dictate what people actually vote about.
So the voters ARE to blame ?
Yes. Except for me. I voted responsib........ errrr....
I'm coming to the conclusion the Tories should let Corbyn become PM.
Let him and Labour deal with the difficulties of the next few years.
That would be a dereliction of duty on a par with your mate Dave.
I'm always amused by the sheer number of Leavers that want Cameron to fix their mess.
You Brexit it, you fix it.
Don't count me among them, he showed his negotiation skills with the crap deal he brought back from Brussels. I'm just referring to the promises he made before the referendum and his actions afterwards.
For what it is worth despite my having voted to come out of the EU since the early days of the Referendum Party, even I am softening my stance and would settle for EEA.
Quite possible now we will see briefings about the intransigence and unreasonableness of the European negotiating team to precipitate public support for crashing out and blaming the wicked folk over the water. The xenophobic cloak of iron to Lance the boil of economic chaos.
We are all a mass of competing prejudices. I have a dislike of paunchy middle-aged male cyclists in lycra, young women walking down the street staring rapt at their mobile phones, trad jazz fans and Ipswich Town football club. These prejudices are deep-seated. The list is a long way from exhaustive.
I would never let any of these prejudices affect my judgements or actions, or prevent any of these people from indulging their personal preferences to the extent they don't harm others (in the case of trad jazz, that's questionable but I'm a liberal kind of guy). That's all I ask of others.
I don't ask anyone to like me or what I do. I'm not looking for approval. I ask merely that others let me do what I want to do without interfering in my life choices or holding me back because of them.
Slightly surprised to see people blaming the voters for the situation - I'm not delusional about the amount of thought most people put into their votes, but everyone who bothered will have been expressing a clear preference, not voting for a total mess. Nobody is to blame for the result working out pretty much evenly, and politicians should get on with dealing with it, not blame the people.
It's clear that May will carry on into the summer, and switching horses in mid-Brexit talks seems a silly idea, so the main question is whether to quit during the summer. The risks of not doing it are
(a) it might be forced by events anyway - several adverse by-elections/defections, a big revolt, or some other black swan
(b) a deal with the EU agreed by a weak government could well be seen as not really ratified, and May's eventual successor could be tempted to try to tinker with any unclear aspects or even to reopen the whole thing.
The risks of quitting are
(c) the successor will still be in a weak position with similar problems (d) the successor may need another election, with unpredictable results.
On the whole, it seems to me that the national interest is a new election that really DOES focus on Brexit terms. But as we've just seen, it's not in the Government's power to dictate what people actually vote about.
Agreed, doesn't really matter how much butter the Tories spread, they're still toast. Far better to deal with it quickly, get David Davis as interim, lose an election and rebuild (if they can) for the next election.
I feel sorry for Farron. How many other religious politicans are asked about their beliefs in the same way?
he made it clear he wasn't imposing his view on anyone else.
Proof, were it ever needed, that religious faith and politics are incompatible. We need to be much less apologetic about faith based intolerance in general. It's a deficiency in humanity, not a strength.
He's made his choice. To be faithful to Christ. Implies that supercedes his faithfulness to humanity. Good riddance.
Disclaimer - my views on faith make Richard Dawkins look like a pious bishop.
I know what you mean. I had faith burned out of me thanks to Paisley's preachers. If there is a hell it will be packed out with those bigots.
I feel sorry for Farron. How many other religious politicans are asked about their beliefs in the same way?
he made it clear he wasn't imposing his view on anyone else.
Proof, were it ever needed, that religious faith and politics are incompatible. We need to be much less apologetic about faith based intolerance in general. It's a deficiency in humanity, not a strength.
He's made his choice. To be faithful to Christ. Implies that supercedes his faithfulness to humanity. Good riddance.
Disclaimer - my views on faith make Richard Dawkins look like a pious bishop.
I agree with Slackbladder here.
As a committed atheist I struggle with religious views generally. If you believe in a god what else do you believe in.
BUT TF was very clear in is liberal views. He did not want to impose his views on others and strongly believed in the individuals right to believe different things to him. Quote 'I am passionate about defending the rights and liberties of people who believe different things to me. There are Christians in politics who take the view that they should impose the tenets of faith on society, but I have not taken that approach because I disagree with it - it's not liberal"
"The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government."
When I read this site I'm constantly amazed how and why adults put faith in politicians. OK at some stage we all have to make a choice, but the sycophantic idolatry from some is weird.
The point is regardless of who is in govt and by what majority we all just get on with our lives, some will thrive and others not, and all at different times. Politicians have a negative effect on us all.
Well he was simply wrong. Civilisation itself only exists thanks to the development of government. Expecting politicians to be architects, painters or scientists is rather missing the point.
No, civilisation exists because of architects, painters or scientists. Brunel and Pasteur for example made a far more positive contribution than any politician.
I thought civilised meant 'having civic institutions'. Colloquially it means having a choice of polenta or olive oil brands in Waitrose and not having to rub shoulders with any ghastly oiks. But originally it meant that you had courts and what not.
The Zulus, the Aztecs and the Romans were all civilised. Colloquially, the Zulus' habit of burying dead kings' concubines alive with all their limbs broken so they couldn't dig themselves out, the Aztecs' liking for infanticidal religious ceremonies, and the Romans' inventiveness in thinking up hideous ways of executing people slowly, makes them less civilised than us, but only colloquially, I'd think, because those were all civic procedures.
I feel sorry for Farron. How many other religious politicans are asked about their beliefs in the same way?
he made it clear he wasn't imposing his view on anyone else.
Proof, were it ever needed, that religious faith and politics are incompatible. We need to be much less apologetic about faith based intolerance in general. It's a deficiency in humanity, not a strength.
He's made his choice. To be faithful to Christ. Implies that supercedes his faithfulness to humanity. Good riddance.
Disclaimer - my views on faith make Richard Dawkins look like a pious bishop.
I know what you mean. I had faith burned out of me thanks to Paisley's preachers. If there is a hell it will be packed out with those bigots.
I had religion pumped into my system every morning for 4 years at cathedral school. I learned to loathe the very concept of faith, of hateful and judgemental preachers and the control wielded by those who claim to speak for their God. I truly despise religious faith.
Yes, the Tories are now buying each day in office for two days of future opposition.
I don't see May having the negotiating skill to manage a minority government for very long at all, even in ideal circumstances, and these are far from ideal.
How are her negotiations going with the DUP I wonder. It will be interesting to see how much she has to give them.
The problem is that whatever she gives to the DUP she has to give also to SF.
And what she gives to NI, she also has to give to Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the NE, Merseyside, Manchester, Harpenden North etc etc.
The Barnett formula seems to be the problem. The Treasury is kicking up a fuss because every extra £1 sent to NI means £2 for Wales and £5 for Scotland, so every £1 the DUP wins costs the Treasury eight times as much.
The current state of Brexit is, we must remove our own head (to respect the referendum vote), but do so in a manner that maximises the sustenance of life.
If the Brexiteers are really as cynical as I believe them to be (trashing decades of reputation on the side of a bus), then they will collapse this government and allow Jezza to take the full brunt of Brexit's failure
I feel sorry for Farron. How many other religious politicans are asked about their beliefs in the same way?
he made it clear he wasn't imposing his view on anyone else.
Proof, were it ever needed, that religious faith and politics are incompatible. We need to be much less apologetic about faith based intolerance in general. It's a deficiency in humanity, not a strength.
He's made his choice. To be faithful to Christ. Implies that supercedes his faithfulness to humanity. Good riddance.
Disclaimer - my views on faith make Richard Dawkins look like a pious bishop.
I agree with Slackbladder here.
As a committed atheist I struggle with religious views generally. If you believe in a god what else do you believe in.
BUT TF was very clear in is liberal views. He did not want to impose his views on others and strongly believed in the individuals right to believe different things to him. Quote 'I am passionate about defending the rights and liberties of people who believe different things to me. There are Christians in politics who take the view that they should impose the tenets of faith on society, but I have not taken that approach because I disagree with it - it's not liberal"
This seems too complicated for the media!
Put it this way.If you ask a gay politician, Ruth Davidson say, what they think of gay sex, you would get a strange look and be told to mind your own business. The question is the problem, not the answer.
I feel sorry for Farron. How many other religious politicans are asked about their beliefs in the same way?
he made it clear he wasn't imposing his view on anyone else.
Proof, were it ever needed, that religious faith and politics are incompatible. We need to be much less apologetic about faith based intolerance in general. It's a deficiency in humanity, not a strength.
He's made his choice. To be faithful to Christ. Implies that supercedes his faithfulness to humanity. Good riddance.
Disclaimer - my views on faith make Richard Dawkins look like a pious bishop.
I agree with Slackbladder here.
As a committed atheist I struggle with religious views generally. If you believe in a god what else do you believe in.
BUT TF was very clear in is liberal views. He did not want to impose his views on others and strongly believed in the individuals right to believe different things to him. Quote 'I am passionate about defending the rights and liberties of people who believe different things to me. There are Christians in politics who take the view that they should impose the tenets of faith on society, but I have not taken that approach because I disagree with it - it's not liberal"
Britain's Greatest Invention is on BBC2 tonight. We can keep score of Milton Friedman's adage discussed earlier in the thread that inventions do not come from central government.
The list: Antiobiotics Concrete The fridge The jet engine The mobile phone (with mention of Acorn Computers - wahey!) The steam engine The television
None of these came from central government. Central government may have helped development - e.g. the jet engine - but even in that case they hindered development for many years before finally embracing it. At one point they even gave jet development to Rover!
IMO where central government does play a role is in standardisation and regulation. Europe's mobile phone market managed to expand into the world because of the EU reserving frequencies and adopting a common standard, instead of the US's three battling standards.
We can be sure buildings will not fall down not because government developed concrete, but because they developed and adopted standards for concrete (e.g. BS 8500) that everyone should work to.
We can buy electric fridges that plug into the mains in our homes because they standardised home electricity supply voltages and sockets.
Governments are best as enablers, not as choosers of winners.
I would elect sewerage systems. But as that isn't on the list, I vote antibiotics. For the first time in history we can have some confidence of surviving a whole raft of diseases to live to old age.
You see I thought antibiotics as well. But then I started thinking about how they are starting to fail and how we have abused them. Now I am not so sure.
Oh and someone has already pointed out we didn't invent concrete, the Romans did. And theirs is much better than ours.
The article specifically mentions Portland Cement: the basic material that is used n the vast majority of mortars and concretes around the world.
Hydraulic and non-hydraulic(lime-based) roman cements are very different beasts.
And roman concrete it is not 'much better' than ours: it has different properties that work well in some circumstances. For one thing, availability of it is much lower due to its constituent parts.
This discussion is a like a 'Worst of QI' special.
I feel sorry for Farron. How many other religious politicans are asked about their beliefs in the same way?
he made it clear he wasn't imposing his view on anyone else.
Proof, were it ever needed, that religious faith and politics are incompatible. We need to be much less apologetic about faith based intolerance in general. It's a deficiency in humanity, not a strength.
He's made his choice. To be faithful to Christ. Implies that supercedes his faithfulness to humanity. Good riddance.
Disclaimer - my views on faith make Richard Dawkins look like a pious bishop.
Yes, the Tories are now buying each day in office for two days of future opposition.
I don't see May having the negotiating skill to manage a minority government for very long at all, even in ideal circumstances, and these are far from ideal.
How are her negotiations going with the DUP I wonder. It will be interesting to see how much she has to give them.
The problem is that whatever she gives to the DUP she has to give also to SF.
And what she gives to NI, she also has to give to Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the NE, Merseyside, Manchester, Harpenden North etc etc.
The Barnett formula seems to be the problem. The Treasury is kicking up a fuss because every extra £1 sent to NI means £2 for Wales and £5 for Scotland, so every £1 the DUP wins costs the Treasury eight times as much.
Springtime for Scotland, Winter for all the Tories in the Southwest.
I feel sorry for Farron. How many other religious politicans are asked about their beliefs in the same way?
he made it clear he wasn't imposing his view on anyone else.
Proof, were it ever needed, that religious faith and politics are incompatible. We need to be much less apologetic about faith based intolerance in general. It's a deficiency in humanity, not a strength.
He's made his choice. To be faithful to Christ. Implies that supercedes his faithfulness to humanity. Good riddance.
Disclaimer - my views on faith make Richard Dawkins look like a pious bishop.
I agree with Slackbladder here.
As a committed atheist I struggle with religious views generally. If you believe in a god what else do you believe in.
BUT TF was very clear in is liberal views. He did not want to impose his views on others and strongly believed in the individuals right to believe different things to him. Quote 'I am passionate about defending the rights and liberties of people who believe different things to me. There are Christians in politics who take the view that they should impose the tenets of faith on society, but I have not taken that approach because I disagree with it - it's not liberal"
This seems too complicated for the media!
TFs problem was that he had been rather less clear on those liberal views before he became leader. Political views can change but faith is a cancer that tends to eat away at its victims.
"The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government."
When I read this site I'm constantly amazed how and why adults put faith in politicians. OK at some stage we all have to make a choice, but the sycophantic idolatry from some is weird.
The point is regardless of who is in govt and by what majority we all just get on with our lives, some will thrive and others not, and all at different times. Politicians have a negative effect on us all.
It's a ludicrous quote. It was only through government that the activities of subsistence became sufficiently collectivised to allow architecture, painting, science, literature, etc. in large degree.
I would suggest that putting faith in economic ideologues is our main problem.
The invention of government might well have led to a fall in living standards for most people. It seems to have coincided with the switch from hunter-gathering to agriculture. Royalty, nobles, priests, civil servants, armies all had to be sustained by the peasants. But, it did enable bigger populations, protection from enemies, and innovation through patronage of artists, architects etc.
Didn't our very own SeanT explore that idea in one of his novels? That Eden was a memory of being free hunter gatherers rather than collectivised farm workers?
BUT TF was very clear in is liberal views. He did not want to impose his views on others and strongly believed in the individuals right to believe different things to him. Quote 'I am passionate about defending the rights and liberties of people who believe different things to me. There are Christians in politics who take the view that they should impose the tenets of faith on society, but I have not taken that approach because I disagree with it - it's not liberal"
Perhaps my memory is defective, but I thought one reason why Farron faced all these problems was because his voting record in the Commons did not match the high ideals of his liberal words. My impression was that they leaned somewhat towards "imposing the tenets of faith on society".
I know it is the case, but I'm honestly struggling with the fact that Tim's main problem seems to be his views on gay sex rather than being so ultra-remain that getting close in old strongholds like Yeovil was always going to be impossible... & not heading on the single market centre-ground which has been abandoned by both the Tories and Labour (Or well Labour's position is a complete muddle on this)
Actually Labour played a bit of a blinder here - their Brexit position was officially anti single market - enough to reassure Leavers, but it was clearly not taken seriously by the majority of their voters, who (correctly, in my view) realised that whatever was in that manifesto, Labour was not going to prioritise controlling immigration over jobs etc.
But yes, generally I think advocating single market membership was a better policy (although being Remain Ultra gets more publicity, which is also valuable).
I feel sorry for Farron. How many other religious politicans are asked about their beliefs in the same way?
he made it clear he wasn't imposing his view on anyone else.
Proof, were it ever needed, that religious faith and politics are incompatible. We need to be much less apologetic about faith based intolerance in general. It's a deficiency in humanity, not a strength.
He's made his choice. To be faithful to Christ. Implies that supercedes his faithfulness to humanity. Good riddance.
Disclaimer - my views on faith make Richard Dawkins look like a pious bishop.
Keir Hardie would probably not agree.
He's very dead however so it's not a debate I anticipate having with him.
I'm coming to the conclusion the Tories should let Corbyn become PM.
Let him and Labour deal with the difficulties of the next few years.
That would be a dereliction of duty on a par with your mate Dave.
I'm always amused by the sheer number of Leavers that want Cameron to fix their mess.
You Brexit it, you fix it.
Leavers are caricatured. But not all Leavers are the same, and not all think in the same way, or to the same degree. Just as is the case for Remainers. WilliamGlenn is very different to Richard Nabavi, for example.
I don't blame Cameron for quitting - despite saying he would respect the result, not resign, and implement whatever we decided in the GE2015 - because I recognise he had to take responsibility for his failure to secure support for his renegotiation.
I maintain that his 2013 Bloomberg Speech was one of the best I've ever seen (possibly *the* best) by a Conservative leader on the EU and, had he seriously pursued all of this through the EU with treaty change, I would have backed him to the hilt: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/eu-speech-at-bloomberg
Unfortunately, I came to the conclusion that Cameron mainly viewed the EU as a political problem, the speech largely as rhetoric, and the EU was insufficiently interested in any real reform anyway.
So, we took the nuclear option. And I still don't think either side has learnt from this.
I have to say that some of the commentary on here about a hung Parliament is wildly overdone. Sure, it's not an overall majority. But look around the rest of Europe and overall majorities aren't the norm, and government formation takes some time and is extensively brokered. Why shouldn't Britain have a spin of that wheel for once?
The Dutch still haven't got a new government after the elections three months ago:
Yes, the Tories are now buying each day in office for two days of future opposition.
I don't see May having the negotiating skill to manage a minority government for very long at all, even in ideal circumstances, and these are far from ideal.
How are her negotiations going with the DUP I wonder. It will be interesting to see how much she has to give them.
The problem is that whatever she gives to the DUP she has to give also to SF.
And what she gives to NI, she also has to give to Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the NE, Merseyside, Manchester, Harpenden North etc etc.
The Barnett formula seems to be the problem. The Treasury is kicking up a fuss because every extra £1 sent to NI means £2 for Wales and £5 for Scotland, so every £1 the DUP wins costs the Treasury eight times as much.
Springtime for Scotland, Winter for all the Tories in the Southwest.
Ruth will be after economic regeneration bacon for Scotland as well !
The current state of Brexit is, we must remove our own head (to respect the referendum vote), but do so in a manner that maximises the sustenance of life.
If the Brexiteers are really as cynical as I believe them to be (trashing decades of reputation on the side of a bus), then they will collapse this government and allow Jezza to take the full brunt of Brexit's failure
I have no idea how cynical they are, but they seem hell-bent on destruction. I believe it enough that the "For Sale" sign went in my garden this morning.
I have to say that some of the commentary on here about a hung Parliament is wildly overdone. Sure, it's not an overall majority. But look around the rest of Europe and overall majorities aren't the norm, and government formation takes some time and is extensively brokered. Why shouldn't Britain have a spin of that wheel for once?
The Dutch still haven't got a new government after the elections three months ago:
I have to say that some of the commentary on here about a hung Parliament is wildly overdone. Sure, it's not an overall majority. But look around the rest of Europe and overall majorities aren't the norm, and government formation takes some time and is extensively brokered. Why shouldn't Britain have a spin of that wheel for once?
The Dutch still haven't got a new government after the elections three months ago:
The Dutch are not trying to undo 40 years of legislation in the next 18 months
I have to say that some of the commentary on here about a hung Parliament is wildly overdone. Sure, it's not an overall majority. But look around the rest of Europe and overall majorities aren't the norm, and government formation takes some time and is extensively brokered. Why shouldn't Britain have a spin of that wheel for once?
The Dutch still haven't got a new government after the elections three months ago:
Yes, the Tories are now buying each day in office for two days of future opposition.
I don't see May having the negotiating skill to manage a minority government for very long at all, even in ideal circumstances, and these are far from ideal.
How are her negotiations going with the DUP I wonder. It will be interesting to see how much she has to give them.
The problem is that whatever she gives to the DUP she has to give also to SF.
And what she gives to NI, she also has to give to Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the NE, Merseyside, Manchester, Harpenden North etc etc.
The Barnett formula seems to be the problem. The Treasury is kicking up a fuss because every extra £1 sent to NI means £2 for Wales and £5 for Scotland, so every £1 the DUP wins costs the Treasury eight times as much.
Springtime for Scotland, Winter for all the Tories in the Southwest.
Ruth will be after economic regeneration bacon for Scotland as well !
Things that bad after years of SNP rule? I suppose secret legal advice doesn't come cheap...
Surely the lessons of the last year or so show there are no certainties any more and that historical precedents give precious few clues either. The only certainty I can see looking at the UK from afar is that the country's mess is only exceeded by the lamentable quality of its politicians.
Yep, dreadful. While these twerps squabble and pontificate 99% of us get on with our lives.
Its why there won't be an election in years, its one big yawn to the electorate.
Turnout was up nationally.
... and apparently another election in the Autumn would be popular.
Britain Elects @britainelects Jun 13 On another general election this autumn:
Survation had voters opposing another general election this autumn by 49% to 40% and Survation were closest to the final election result
Old poll. Much chaos and backroom bargaining with a bunch of regionalist bigots has ensued since then.
Call it.
You seem much exercised with the supposed bigotry of others. You support a party which has much answer concerning anti-semitic bigotry.
Moats and beams.
Indeed. I can't be bothered to do it myself, but it would be interesting to look at geographical distribution of Jewish voters to see how many it takes per constituency for the seat to become unwinnable for Labour.
I know it is the case, but I'm honestly struggling with the fact that Tim's main problem seems to be his views on gay sex rather than being so ultra-remain that getting close in old strongholds like Yeovil was always going to be impossible... & not heading on the single market centre-ground which has been abandoned by both the Tories and Labour (Or well Labour's position is a complete muddle on this)
I don't think it actually is the case that the main problem was Tim's Christian views. He cited it in his resignation statement, of course, but people cite a lot of things in resignation statements ("more time with my family" being the cliched one).
The key question is this. Had Norman Lamb, a non-religious chap, got the leadership in 2015, and had he taken the national vote share slightly back from its very low base, would he also be under serious pressure to consider his position? The answer has to be yes, particularly if he'd made some questionable strategic decisions and had a fairly poor approval rating such that his name was a net negative rather than positive on the doorstep.
For me, Farron was exactly what Lamb supporters feared he would be in 2015. On the plus side, he energised the activists, made a grab for a minority of hardcore remainers in 2016 (increasing membership etc), won a by-election and slightly increased the Parliamentary representation through better targeting. On the negative, simply having somebody who was always lukewarm about the Coalition was never going to be sufficient to detoxify the brand enough (for a start, nobody in the public knows about the internal debates 2010-15) and, crucially, he was always a tactician, never a strategist, with no big picture view of where to position the party in the post-Corbyn landscape.
Farron's problem was not his views on homosexuality - it was his uncomfortable answer that made most people think he was lying.
The correct answer was "Yes I do, but I lead the Liberal fucking Democrats so I'm not going to let my personal view impinge on any individuals' liberty"
The first practical jet engine was German. The Frank Whittle design was particularly well developed but it wasn't the first conceptual design.
That's true for almost all inventions. Virtually nothing is invented out of thin air. When we say someone invented something, what we normally mean is that someone was the creator of the first practical or successful form of something. There is usually a whole host of early claimants to having the idea first, or a general concept, or an impractical form of the idea.
Computing for example has numerous "inventors" like Babbage, Bush, Zuse, Eckert and Mauchly, Turning and Flowers, on to the teams at Manchester and Cambridge that built the first computers as we would recognise them now. Who invented the computer? Well you either say so and so was the inventor of a particular form of computer, or you say computing as we think of it today had dozens of co-inventors.
Comments
Let him and Labour deal with the difficulties of the next few years.
Hydraulic and non-hydraulic(lime-based) roman cements are very different beasts.
And roman concrete it is not 'much better' than ours: it has different properties that work well in some circumstances. For one thing, availability of it is much lower due to its constituent parts.
If we define government loosely as collective endeavour under some political process, then one could argue that it is responsible for military and colonial necessities that drove invention.
One account of the invention of the light bulb suggests that it came about as a result of trying to reduce corrosion on dock gates in the West Country. The relationship between necessity and invention is not always simple.
Though Tim Farron as Uranus is amusing.
Concrete was a Roman invention, I think.
I'm sure there are loads of marginals that could be pork barreled.
Governments play another role: for infrastructure to support innovation, and for things that individual businesses cannot afford. E.g. the Diamond Light Source, or some of the aerospace work NASA does.
This is the killer line
It may be years before the Tories grasp just how cheaply their intrinsic advantageous edge — of economic deference, of that firm handshake with the bank manager — was squandered on the side of a bus.
Think thats the way to do it #politicalbetting
"We live in a society of liberal intolerance, where only certain world views are deemed acceptable by people who often refuse to accept that they themselves have a worldview that also deserves interrogating. Such intolerance is often born of a sincere desire to make life better for those who have been persecuted in the past, including gay people, women who have abortions, and those who divorce. But it becomes a form of persecution in itself, just focused on a newly unpopular group"
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/06/not-tim-farron-illiberal-society/
It's clear that May will carry on into the summer, and switching horses in mid-Brexit talks seems a silly idea, so the main question is whether to quit during the summer. The risks of not doing it are
(a) it might be forced by events anyway - several adverse by-elections/defections, a big revolt, or some other black swan
(b) a deal with the EU agreed by a weak government could well be seen as not really ratified, and May's eventual successor could be tempted to try to tinker with any unclear aspects or even to reopen the whole thing.
The risks of quitting are
(c) the successor will still be in a weak position with similar problems
(d) the successor may need another election, with unpredictable results.
On the whole, it seems to me that the national interest is a new election that really DOES focus on Brexit terms. But as we've just seen, it's not in the Government's power to dictate what people actually vote about.
His Quote - insurance like NI is to protect against an outcome, not a savings account. State help only for the needy. He acknowledged it's old goats like him that won't vote for it though.
I proposed universal income. He gave me the look.
(I'm actually unsure if Romans made mass concrete out of non-hydraulic cements. I thought they did, but a quick Google has confusled me.)
'Strong and Stable' and
'Coalition of Chaos' ?
he made it clear he wasn't imposing his view on anyone else.
https://twitter.com/isabelhardman/status/875078128510619648
https://twitter.com/johnrentoul/status/875074765471526916
From wikipedia, though:
John Grant of the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1859 set out requirements for cement to be used in the London sewer project. This became a specification for Portland cement. The next development with the manufacture of Portland cement was the introduction of the rotary kiln, patented by German Friedrich Hoffmann...
... So, government involvement, and a partly German invention.
He's made his choice. To be faithful to Christ. Implies that supercedes his faithfulness to humanity. Good riddance.
Disclaimer - my views on faith make Richard Dawkins look like a pious bishop.
However, Whittle was the inventor of the workable jet engine. It was an idea that had to wait for materials technology to catch up (a problem the Germans failed to fully solve until after the war). So the jet engine itself relied on other inventions.
I believe the same is true for the diesel engine: it had been proposed several times before in Victorian times, but no-one could make one with the materials then available.
So inventions are very often reliant on other inventions, even if the idea itself is old. This is why sometimes inventions are discovered by several people at roughly the same time: an old idea has only just become feasible.
You Brexit it, you fix it.
& not heading on the single market centre-ground which has been abandoned by both the Tories and Labour (Or well Labour's position is a complete muddle on this)
Yes. All voters are to blame
For what it is worth despite my having voted to come out of the EU since the early days of the Referendum Party, even I am softening my stance and would settle for EEA.
I would never let any of these prejudices affect my judgements or actions, or prevent any of these people from indulging their personal preferences to the extent they don't harm others (in the case of trad jazz, that's questionable but I'm a liberal kind of guy). That's all I ask of others.
I don't ask anyone to like me or what I do. I'm not looking for approval. I ask merely that others let me do what I want to do without interfering in my life choices or holding me back because of them.
I have one bought for £2 from a car boot sale. I snapped it up as soon as I saw it and it provided many happy hours of reading.
As a committed atheist I struggle with religious views generally. If you believe in a god what else do you believe in.
BUT TF was very clear in is liberal views. He did not want to impose his views on others and strongly believed in the individuals right to believe different things to him. Quote 'I am passionate about defending the rights and liberties of people who believe different things to me. There are Christians in politics who take the view that they should impose the tenets of faith on society, but I have not taken that approach because I disagree with it - it's not liberal"
This seems too complicated for the media!
The Zulus, the Aztecs and the Romans were all civilised. Colloquially, the Zulus' habit of burying dead kings' concubines alive with all their limbs broken so they couldn't dig themselves out, the Aztecs' liking for infanticidal religious ceremonies, and the Romans' inventiveness in thinking up hideous ways of executing people slowly, makes them less civilised than us, but only colloquially, I'd think, because those were all civic procedures.
The current state of Brexit is, we must remove our own head (to respect the referendum vote), but do so in a manner that maximises the sustenance of life.
If the Brexiteers are really as cynical as I believe them to be (trashing decades of reputation on the side of a bus), then they will collapse this government and allow Jezza to take the full brunt of Brexit's failure
Winter for all the Tories in the Southwest.
But yes, generally I think advocating single market membership was a better policy (although being Remain Ultra gets more publicity, which is also valuable).
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/civilisation
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/civilised
LibDem 11
DUP 11
Meanwhile it looks like Hammond is now calling the shots on Brexit.
I don't blame Cameron for quitting - despite saying he would respect the result, not resign, and implement whatever we decided in the GE2015 - because I recognise he had to take responsibility for his failure to secure support for his renegotiation.
I maintain that his 2013 Bloomberg Speech was one of the best I've ever seen (possibly *the* best) by a Conservative leader on the EU and, had he seriously pursued all of this through the EU with treaty change, I would have backed him to the hilt: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/eu-speech-at-bloomberg
Unfortunately, I came to the conclusion that Cameron mainly viewed the EU as a political problem, the speech largely as rhetoric, and the EU was insufficiently interested in any real reform anyway.
So, we took the nuclear option. And I still don't think either side has learnt from this.
Shame.
The Dutch still haven't got a new government after the elections three months ago:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-06/14/c_136365525.htm
Ruth will be after economic regeneration bacon for Scotland as well !
They aren't about to crash out of Europe on a timer.
The key question is this. Had Norman Lamb, a non-religious chap, got the leadership in 2015, and had he taken the national vote share slightly back from its very low base, would he also be under serious pressure to consider his position? The answer has to be yes, particularly if he'd made some questionable strategic decisions and had a fairly poor approval rating such that his name was a net negative rather than positive on the doorstep.
For me, Farron was exactly what Lamb supporters feared he would be in 2015. On the plus side, he energised the activists, made a grab for a minority of hardcore remainers in 2016 (increasing membership etc), won a by-election and slightly increased the Parliamentary representation through better targeting. On the negative, simply having somebody who was always lukewarm about the Coalition was never going to be sufficient to detoxify the brand enough (for a start, nobody in the public knows about the internal debates 2010-15) and, crucially, he was always a tactician, never a strategist, with no big picture view of where to position the party in the post-Corbyn landscape.
The religion thing is a total sideshow.
The correct answer was "Yes I do, but I lead the Liberal fucking Democrats so I'm not going to let my personal view impinge on any individuals' liberty"
Computing for example has numerous "inventors" like Babbage, Bush, Zuse, Eckert and Mauchly, Turning and Flowers, on to the teams at Manchester and Cambridge that built the first computers as we would recognise them now. Who invented the computer? Well you either say so and so was the inventor of a particular form of computer, or you say computing as we think of it today had dozens of co-inventors.