Sad to see Labour's big guns turning in on themselves. It is the symptom of a defeated party.
Get to the end of the long Watson rant and you find he has taken forsaken the tank turret for a sniper's rifle. Andy Burnham is in the crosshairs.
[Watson] blamed other colleagues for making the shadow cabinet disunited and ineffective. "They certainly need to behave more collectively and back each other up more." He said some, such as Andy Burnham, were "motoring in their brief", but others were "certainly not".
As it is rumoured a Shadow Cabinet reshuffle is imminent, it would be interesting to ask Nick Palmer and tim as to whom they would like to see as the new Shadow Secretary for Health.
I agree with tim on one thing,I wish Cameron would stop promoting his chums.
Religion is an irrational belief. Like many irrational beliefs it can bring happiness and comfort. Those that can sustain their irrational beliefs may well have happier lives as a result. I am not really sure what that proves.
Atheism is also an irrational belief as it is founded on a certainty that is inappropriate for almost anything in this Universe. To that extent it does share some similarities with a religion even if it does not have as many good tunes. Again such certitude no doubt gives some comfort to some.
Agnosticism is a cop out. That will do me fine thanks.
What's that old American marine saying? "There are no aetheists in a fox-hole".
That's probably very true.
Although I am not at all religious, despite my hypocrisy of getting married in a church, I am very reluctant to call myself an aetheist or a non-believer because I want there to be a God, and I am hopeful that there is something out there. Something that did create the beauty of the peacock feathers and our wondrous Goldilocksian position in the universe.
It's difficult to *think* your way to faith (though, unless I'm reading him incorrectly the great Tory philosopher Roger Scruton seems to have done that)
Faith is either something you're born with (though it is, sadly, often beaten out of kids by over-religious educations) or something you are gifted by a theophany - a conversion experience.
Conversion experiences are fascinating. Dostoevsky had his as he was about to be shot by firing squad in prison. Bruce Chatwin (previously a massive atheist) had his while staring at a cross in the monastic "republic" of Mount Athos in Greece - I've seen the same cross myself. W H Auden had his in a back garden in Malvern (been there too). Stravinsky was at a church in Italy when he was struck. John Coltrane just gave up smack and bingo: belief.
For what it is worth, in this exalted company, I had my conversion via two tabs of acid, a gram of speed, and a late night walk in Regent's Park, aged 22.
Very well put.
I have to add, that the first time I got hit properly by ecstasy (I thought I'd taken one, but my mate dropped another two into my pint, and the three hit me at once) I had such an inspiring, awesome epiphany that it was very close to what must be a religious awakening. I've since advocated the use of ecstasy - everyone should try it.
Also, I'm sure you are an avid reader, so if you haven't already go read Jon Krakauer's Under The Banner of Heaven. Krakauer is a great writer (he did Into the Wild and Into Thin Air, both fab books) and a fascinating man. The book is about the history of Mormonism and the religious conversion that drove two hitherto harmless and hardworking family men to slice the throat of their niece, an infant child. All because God told them to do it.
I think you'd like it.
Anyway, I'm off now to watch the Oscar Pistorious docu I recorded earlier. It should be full of good ideas.
Environment minister Richard Benyon condemns 'ghastly' parts of Brussels http://tgr.ph/16tLXrW
“Vast hubristic buildings are surrounded by derelict land, boarded up buildings and litter. If it aspires to be an international city, it ought to get its act together.”
When I was last visiting my Belgian cousins there were large parts of Brussels that were absolutely derelict. There was even a tree growing through the window of a building next to the opera house.
I believe in "God", but I have no holy book, no priest, and no church which I attend.
Next.
I don't know why I'm doing this....
Is yours a personal God, Sean? Does she care about you and your deeds?
Yes, and Yes. But don't ask me to explain. Faith is unsusceptible to logic, which is of course THE WHOLE F*CKING POINT.
"My heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing" - Pascal
I don't want or especially need you to explain your particular personal myths. I'm just curious as to what you actually believe in.
What bothers me slightly more ( though not all that much ) is why my lack of belief bothers you enough to brand be mentally ill.
"Mentally ill" was a provocative phrase to get people talking - and put in the title, in that form, by my editor. He knows what he's doing.
My preferred description, I guess, is to say that atheists are "cognitively deficient", "spiritually autistic" or "mentally handicapped". Hope that assuages you.
And atheism, per se, doesn't bother me, at all - no more than blindness or deafness and similar deficiencies. They invoke pity, inasmuch as I think about them.
What does bother me is atheist smugness, and absurd claims to greater intelligence by the same sneering fools.
I quite like "spiritually autistic". I may get that on a t-shirt.
I thought you might've. A man of your eclectic tastes and all that.
Into Thin Air is one of my top five books. Wow. I like how bitchy he is about people too - fascinating really that such a fine writer should be atop Everest the moment it's worst tragedy hit.
Mr. L, it doesn't need to prove the negative. If something (ie God) has no evidence whatsoever for it then it's rational to not believe in it. I also don't believe in the Chocolate Giant of Doom.
Mr. T, I believe the Syrian Christians (probably some sort of Orthodox) early on expressed fears about what would happen if Assad was toppled. He's a dictator, but a secular one, and even terrible leaders can be replaced by worse ones.
Fracking campaigners like MMR scaremongers, says Church of England
The Church of England has likened vocal opponents of fracking to scaremongers who spread misinformation about the MMR vaccine, leaving children at risk of a measles epidemic.
Absolutely cracking article on shale gas - and Ayn Rand's prescience
"...Rand doesn’t actually use the phrase “the precautionary principle.” But this is exactly what she is describing in the book when various vested interests – the corporatists in bed with big government, the politicised junk-scientists at the Institute of Science (aka, in our world, the National Academy of Sciences or the Royal Society), the unions – try to close down the nascent technology using the flimsiest of excuses.
Here's an excerpt from the book. (The story so far: in an ailing economy brought low by the sclerotic regulation of the bloated state, a dwindling band of entrepreneurs try to stick up for free enterprise. One of them is Hank Rearden who forges a new kind of metal, stronger and lighter than steel. But his rivals don't like it, and unlike Rearden, they have friends in DC. Soon an unhelpful report is produced by a special committee of the National Council of Metal Industries…)
They said Rearden Metal is a threat to public safety. They said its chemical composition is unsound, it's brittle, it's decomposing molecularly, and it will crack suddenly without warning [.....] They're experts, though, the men on that committee. Top experts. Chief metallurgists for the biggest corporations, with a string of degrees from universities all over the country." >> http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100231459/shale-gas-is-reardon-metal/
Sussex Police @sussex_police Balcombe policing costs approach £750,000: As Sussex Police gears up to meet the extra demand o... bit.ly/1acNIeI #sussexpolice
Mr. L, it doesn't need to prove the negative. If something (ie God) has no evidence whatsoever for it then it's rational to not believe in it. I also don't believe in the Chocolate Giant of Doom.
Mr. T, I believe the Syrian Christians (probably some sort of Orthodox) early on expressed fears about what would happen if Assad was toppled. He's a dictator, but a secular one, and even terrible leaders can be replaced by worse ones.
I maybe misread your comment. Not believing in something is not the same as saying it does not exist. The former is agnosticism, the latter atheism. There is not a certain basis for the latter. I am happy not to believe in things for which there is no evidence either but this does not mean that god does not exist.
I'm not normally a fan of Stephen Fry, but I happened to catch a bit of a QI this week, where he detailed the reproductive behaviour of the jewel wasp, which use "zombie" cockroaches to perpetuate its species. He argued that something so nasty could not possibly have been the design of a benign creator, and thus proved the case for evolution.
I've commented before that I just don't understand religion. God has never made him/her/itself known to me, even at low points in my life when I really could have done with something to cleanse my soul. I can't understand the zeal, the sheer uplifting jolt that religious folk seem to get from it. On the other hand, the idea of atheism as religion is also weird. I just can't get energised by religion, or the lack of it. As long as they all leave me alone.
All this talk about extracting fuels / gas. Surely there's only one true green energy source, the most naturally occurring in the universe: nuclear.
The french sussed that and it now provides 39% of their power to our 19%.
Actually, uranium ore is quite rare, and wouldn't last that long if everyone decided to build fission reactors. Fusion is the way to go -- significantly higher energy density than wind/solar, and we have enough sea-water to fuel fusion reactors for literally (the correct usage of the word) millions of years.
Fracking campaigners like MMR scaremongers, says Church of England
The Church of England has likened vocal opponents of fracking to scaremongers who spread misinformation about the MMR vaccine, leaving children at risk of a measles epidemic.
All this talk about extracting fuels / gas. Surely there's only one true green energy source, the most naturally occurring in the universe: nuclear.
The french sussed that and it now provides 39% of their power to our 19%.
Actually, uranium ore is quite rare, and wouldn't last that long if everyone decided to build fission reactors. Fusion is the way to go -- significantly higher energy density than wind/solar, and we have enough sea-water to fuel fusion reactors for literally (the correct usage of the word) millions of years.
Indeed: and fusion is the most naturally occurring energy source in the universe is it not?
Nuclear power is so green. Well, providing there are no mishaps.
All this talk about extracting fuels / gas. Surely there's only one true green energy source, the most naturally occurring in the universe: nuclear.
The french sussed that and it now provides 39% of their power to our 19%.
Actually, uranium ore is quite rare, and wouldn't last that long if everyone decided to build fission reactors. Fusion is the way to go -- significantly higher energy density than wind/solar, and we have enough sea-water to fuel fusion reactors for literally (the correct usage of the word) millions of years.
Indeed: and fusion is the most naturally occurring energy source in the universe is it not?
Nuclear power is so green. Well, providing there are no mishaps.
Indeed: and fusion is the most naturally occurring energy source in the universe is it not?
Nuclear power is so green. Well, providing there are no mishaps.
You were talking about fission originally ;-)
Nuclear fusion reactors can't suffer the same catastrophic meltdowns that you see in fission reactors. There is no way to stop a fission reaction, except by inserting control rods to slow the reaction down. For fusion, you just turn off the magnetic field, and the reaction stops almost instantaneously.
The only big problem with fusion is the contamination of the reactor bulkheads due to neutron bombardment, but the half-life is significantly less than for fission (on the order of ~100 years)
5. When the Daily Mail runs an online poll called “Is Caitlin Moran’s #twittersilence the action of an attention-seeking egotist?”, don’t click the ‘No’ button on the poll. Don’t do that 17 times. That is a classic trap, dude.
6. Don’t get so sad about the backlash – six Telegraph blogs in six days, Toby Young calling you a hypocrite on Channel 4 News, thousands of abusive Tweets – that you start bidding on weird things on eBay, at 1am, to comfort yourself. When, three days later, the £7.99 viscose sky-blue jumper covered in horses arrives, you will be unable to wear it – as it will essentially be the ‘Massive Bad Memory-Trigger’ jumper. You put it in the bin, thinking, dolorously, “In the bin – like my idea.” ..."
We can control it -- there have been numerous successful demonstrations of fusion in the past -- it just hasn't produced any net power. The ITER project currently under construction will be the first reactor which generators more power than is used to run it.
I'm not normally a fan of Stephen Fry, but I happened to catch a bit of a QI this week, where he detailed the reproductive behaviour of the jewel wasp, which use "zombie" cockroaches to perpetuate its species. He argued that something so nasty could not possibly have been the design of a benign creator, and thus proved the case for evolution.
The parasitism of the emerald jewel wasp is crucial to the denouement of my latest thriller, The Deceit!
The idea that the existence of an insect with an unusual reproductive cycle *disproves* the existence of a Purposive Universe is so inane, childish and wankily anthropocentric it puts my daughter's belief in her Personal Easter Bunny quite to shame.
We can control it -- there have been numerous successful demonstrations of fusion in the past -- it just hasn't produced any net power. The ITER project currently under construction will be the first reactor which generators more power than is used to run it.
There have been indeed been numerous demos of fusion. But far fewer since the test ban treaty. Cases of controlled fusion are rarer than you imply and generally last for less than a second.
I notice tim has kept suspiciously quiet on the fracking debate now that Dave has said frack the south and the north...
Great blog post from Matt Ridley. Honestly it should be required reading for every media outlet which is going to interview frack off, as should the papers he cites. The BBC especially have a duty to do it because the idiots at frack off (just like those from the anti-Heathrow alliances) are given too much time and their "facts" are not challenged properly by the interviewers and their agenda is shown on national TV.
I notice tim has kept suspiciously quiet on the fracking debate now that Dave has said frack the south and the north...
Great blog post from Matt Ridley. Honestly it should be required reading for every media outlet which is going to interview frack off, as should the papers he cites. The BBC especially have a duty to do it because the idiots at frack off (just like those from the anti-Heathrow alliances) are given too much time and their "facts" are not challenged properly by the interviewers and their agenda is shown on national TV.
Personally I think it is a poor article. The man just really, really doesn't like windmills. He misses the big argument that shale gas just kicks the problem of escaping finite fossil fuel dependence down the road.
I'm not normally a fan of Stephen Fry, but I happened to catch a bit of a QI this week, where he detailed the reproductive behaviour of the jewel wasp, which use "zombie" cockroaches to perpetuate its species. He argued that something so nasty could not possibly have been the design of a benign creator, and thus proved the case for evolution.
The parasitism of the emerald jewel wasp is crucial to the denouement of my latest thriller, The Deceit!
The idea that the existence of an insect with an unusual reproductive cycle *disproves* the existence of a Purposive Universe is so inane, childish and wankily anthropocentric it puts my daughter's belief in her Personal Easter Bunny quite to shame.
F*ck me yes, that might be even worse than the emerald jewel wasp. Wow.
I wonder if atheism is a form of cerebral parasite, which eats out the God spot present in normal human brains, and transforms it into a non-believing lobe of wanky smugness, which shortens life and decreases fertility but induces irrational feelings of Dawkinsian superiority.
Ooooooooh, thrrrrrrrriller idea!
I note that Friedrich "God is Dead" Nietzsche died, of tertiary syphilis - OR SO THEY SAID.
Only twats believe in God. Non-believers may actually be twats, but they aren't twats because they believe in God.
I notice tim has kept suspiciously quiet on the fracking debate now that Dave has said frack the south and the north...
Great blog post from Matt Ridley. Honestly it should be required reading for every media outlet which is going to interview frack off, as should the papers he cites. The BBC especially have a duty to do it because the idiots at frack off (just like those from the anti-Heathrow alliances) are given too much time and their "facts" are not challenged properly by the interviewers and their agenda is shown on national TV.
Personally I think it is a poor article. The man just really, really doesn't like windmills. He misses the big argument that shale gas just kicks the problem of escaping finite fossil fuel dependence down the road.
You stupid, pathetic moron. The "road" may be 100 years long. Fracking gas could give us a century of breathing space in which to work out a new, clean way of energizing human civilisation. Fracking gas - which is much much much cleaner than burning coal, and arguably much safer (and certainly more versatile) than nuclear energy - is an amazing stroke of luck for homo sapiens which has arrived at just the right time.
Not the least of its benefits is that it means we can finally - finally - tell all the crazies in the Middle East to bugger off, as they will have zero influence. Big big plus for all the world.
And stupid halfwits like you want to stop us doing it, and rely instead on...what.... windmills? Which we can't afford? Russian gas? What? What? What????
Just stop commenting.
I suspect you think it cures cancer as well. Grow up.
I'm not normally a fan of Stephen Fry, but I happened to catch a bit of a QI this week, where he detailed the reproductive behaviour of the jewel wasp, which use "zombie" cockroaches to perpetuate its species. He argued that something so nasty could not possibly have been the design of a benign creator, and thus proved the case for evolution.
The parasitism of the emerald jewel wasp is crucial to the denouement of my latest thriller, The Deceit!
The idea that the existence of an insect with an unusual reproductive cycle *disproves* the existence of a Purposive Universe is so inane, childish and wankily anthropocentric it puts my daughter's belief in her Personal Easter Bunny quite to shame.
F*ck me yes, that might be even worse than the emerald jewel wasp. Wow.
I wonder if atheism is a form of cerebral parasite, which eats out the God spot present in normal human brains, and transforms it into a non-believing lobe of wanky smugness, which shortens life and decreases fertility but induces irrational feelings of Dawkinsian superiority.
Ooooooooh, thrrrrrrrriller idea!
I note that Friedrich "God is Dead" Nietzsche died, of tertiary syphilis - OR SO THEY SAID.
Only twats believe in God. Non-believers may actually be twats, but they aren't twats because they believe in God.
I agree with tim on one thing,I wish Cameron would stop promoting his chums.
You need to distinguish between fact and myth.
Cameron has promoted very few "chums" to office even in an advisory capacity. If you are using chum in the sense of old school or family friends, Cameron's cabinet has fewer Etonians in it than Margaret Thatcher's did.
Take for example the myth of Cameron and Osborne. They were neither contemporaries at school nor university, nor did they know each other before working together. Their first meeting was when both were working for the Conservative party. Their friendship developed from shared ideology and work.
Both Cameron and Osborne came to the fore because of their work for former party leaders, Howard and Hague respectively. Once 'shortlisted', with Osborne standing down to manage Cameron's leadership campaign, Cameron was elected leader by MPs and party members.
Remember that Cameron appointed David Davis as Shadow Home Secretary after becoming Leader. It was Davis not Cameron that chose to leave.
The only Cabinet Minister who was a contemporary of Cameron's at Oxford was Jeremy Hunt, who had already advanced 'in the party' before Cameron by becoming President of the OU Conservative Association, an office which Quintin Hogg , Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher, Dominic Grieve and William Hague, among many others, all held early in their political careers.
Boris Johnson was a school and university contemporary and famously a fellow Bullingdon Club Member. But there are few who would argue that Boris's election as Mayor of London or his support within the party is due to Cameron's patronage.
There is undoubtedly an inner circle of Cameroons - Osborne, Boles, Gove, Herbert etc - who are of similar age and came together under the umbrella of Policy Exchange, but similar groups exist in all parties and tend to rise and fall with their leader. What binds them together is shared political identity and orientation and policy rather than prior friendship..
If your criticism is that Cameron's main appointees are Oxbridge graduates with a life of party work, then this applies to all the main parties.
Miliband (both), Balls, Cooper, Burnham, Twigg, Eagle (both) are all Oxbridge educated sons and daughters of metropolitan professionals. What is more there are two brothers, two sisters and a married couple.
Moral of the story: don't believe everything you are told by tim.
I'm not normally a fan of Stephen Fry, but I happened to catch a bit of a QI this week, where he detailed the reproductive behaviour of the jewel wasp, which use "zombie" cockroaches to perpetuate its species. He argued that something so nasty could not possibly have been the design of a benign creator, and thus proved the case for evolution.
The parasitism of the emerald jewel wasp is crucial to the denouement of my latest thriller, The Deceit!
The idea that the existence of an insect with an unusual reproductive cycle *disproves* the existence of a Purposive Universe is so inane, childish and wankily anthropocentric it puts my daughter's belief in her Personal Easter Bunny quite to shame.
F*ck me yes, that might be even worse than the emerald jewel wasp. Wow.
I wonder if atheism is a form of cerebral parasite, which eats out the God spot present in normal human brains, and transforms it into a non-believing lobe of wanky smugness, which shortens life and decreases fertility but induces irrational feelings of Dawkinsian superiority.
Ooooooooh, thrrrrrrrriller idea!
I note that Friedrich "God is Dead" Nietzsche died, of tertiary syphilis - OR SO THEY SAID.
Or a cerebral parasite that attacks the leftie/rightie lobes of politicians, leaving them pointlessly flailing and floundering about in Middle Ground. Zombie politics.
Whatever happens with fracking the idea that your average joe will benefit from lower prices is laughable. Landowners will get rich, shareholders will get rich, we'll subsidise it with our taxes and still pay huge bills. We'll just get shafted like always.
Whitehall departments are picking up the tax bills for perks such as official cars, first-class rail travel and rent-free accommodation.
The arrangements, which were described by tax advisers as “highly unusual”, were made between government departments and the taxman as part of a deal agreed more than a decade ago.
The effect of the deal is to increase the value of officials’ pay packages by up to £30,000 a year at the expense of taxpayers. Those who benefited from the scheme include Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary; Sir David Nicholson, the head of NHS England; and Phillippa Williamson, the former head of the Serious Fraud Office.
Richard Bacon, a Conservative member of the public accounts committee, said he was “concerned” that officials are being given tax-free benefits while members of the public have to pay the taxman for theirs.
Whatever happens with fracking the idea that your average joe will benefit from lower prices is laughable. Landowners will get rich, shareholders will get rich, we'll subsidise it with our taxes and still pay huge bills. We'll just get shafted like always.
Whatever happens with fracking the idea that your average joe will benefit from lower prices is laughable. Landowners will get rich, shareholders will get rich, we'll subsidise it with our taxes and still pay huge bills. We'll just get shafted like always.
Whatever happens with fracking the idea that your average joe will benefit from lower prices is laughable. Landowners will get rich, shareholders will get rich, we'll subsidise it with our taxes and still pay huge bills. We'll just get shafted like always.
Lord Browne will get rich too. Or to be fair, richer. The chumocracy in action.
I notice tim has kept suspiciously quiet on the fracking debate now that Dave has said frack the south and the north...
Great blog post from Matt Ridley. Honestly it should be required reading for every media outlet which is going to interview frack off, as should the papers he cites. The BBC especially have a duty to do it because the idiots at frack off (just like those from the anti-Heathrow alliances) are given too much time and their "facts" are not challenged properly by the interviewers and their agenda is shown on national TV.
Personally I think it is a poor article. The man just really, really doesn't like windmills. He misses the big argument that shale gas just kicks the problem of escaping finite fossil fuel dependence down the road.
You stupid, pathetic moron. The "road" may be 100 years long. Fracking gas could give us a century of breathing space in which to work out a new, clean way of energizing human civilisation. Fracking gas - which is much much much cleaner than burning coal, and arguably much safer (and certainly more versatile) than nuclear energy - is an amazing stroke of luck for homo sapiens which has arrived at just the right time.
Not the least of its benefits is that it means we can finally - finally - tell all the crazies in the Middle East to bugger off, as they will have zero influence. Big big plus for all the world.
And stupid halfwits like you want to stop us doing it, and rely instead on...what.... windmills? Which we can't afford? Russian gas? What? What? What????
Just stop commenting.
I suspect you think it cures cancer as well. Grow up.
I said you're a halfwit. I was, as you know, being generous thereby. Don't provoke me into greater candour.
If I am a halfwit, I have half a wit more than you.
At least your blind faith in the magical, mystical, "something for nothing" Shale gas is consistent with your religiosity.
Jeremy Brasenose Chum, Health Secretary Despite having no political ability whatsoever
When even Richard Nabavi can't justify a chinless promotion you know Dave is erring on the chum network over ability side.
Never mind, Sam has told him to promote more women He's lining them up in order of ability
Mother of four, mother of three, mother of two....
The point I made, tim, was that Jeremy Hunt, showed 'political ability' at an earlier age in his career than Cameron. The same 'ability' shown by Heath, Thatcher and Hague before him.
Now you might not like Jeremy Hunt, nor his policies or personality, but it is difficult to argue that he is 'not qualified' for ministerial office nor that he was appointed to office on any other grounds than his political ability.
The point about Cameron is that he promotes people who he's comfortable with who are like him, and given that he's not that interested in politics he promotes from his class
Preposterous!
How PM gave his Oxford chum top job (and a peerage)
He had never been an MP or a councillor, but is Cameron's closet friend
He is the first Tory chairman to be given office space in 10 Downing Street
He is one of the most influential men in the Conservative Party.
Yet he never gives interviews, has never stood for elected office, and is virtually unknown outside Westminster.
There has never been a Tory Party chairman like Andrew Simon Feldman.
He was given the job after the general election by David Cameron not because he has long political pedigree in the Conservative Party but for one reason only: he is Cameron’s closest friend.
This perhaps explains why he is known among his increasing number of detractors on the Tory benches – detractors who want him sacked for his role in the cash-for-access scandal – as the ‘crony chairman’.
When he was appointed there were inevitably arched eyebrows among the Tory faithful.
It was not just that he had never been an MP or even a councillor but he also had none of the clout of his more illustrious predecessors such as Cecil Parkinson and Norman Tebbit. Trusted: Andrew Feldman is the first Tory chairman to be given office space in 10 Downing Street
Trusted: Andrew Feldman is the first Tory chairman to be given office space in 10 Downing Street
There was further unease when Cameron rewarded his friend with a peerage at the end of 2010. ‘What was it for, other than being Dave’s mate?’ asked one senior Tory figure pointedly last night.
But, most controversially, he is the first Tory chairman to be given office space in 10 Downing Street.
Jeremy Brasenose Chum, Health Secretary Despite having no political ability whatsoever
When even Richard Nabavi can't justify a chinless promotion you know Dave is erring on the chum network over ability side.
Never mind, Sam has told him to promote more women He's lining them up in order of ability
Mother of four, mother of three, mother of two....
The point I made, tim, was that Jeremy Hunt, showed 'political ability' at an earlier age in his career than Cameron. The same 'ability' shown by Heath, Thatcher and Hague before him.
Now you might not like Jeremy Hunt, nor his policies or personality, but it is difficult to argue that he is 'not qualified' for ministerial office nor that he was appointed to office on any other grounds than his political ability.
The point about Cameron is that he promotes people who he's comfortable with who are like him, and given that he's not that interested in politics he promotes from his class
So two Eagle sisters in the Shadow Cabinet, a husband and wife, two brothers (pre-fratricide) and son of a former icon of the left. Is there really any wider social catchment area for Labour than the Conservatives?
There is certainly more Balliol in Labour than Brasenose in the Tories.
I posted this morning a out the precedent being set by the cave in to NIMBY'S and Eco warriors Lets see what Dave does with his NIMBY'S in the south if UKIP make a fuss
You've been a bit silent on Osbornes house price madness recently
I posted about the housing bubble recently. I don't agree with the current policies, I think I've made that perfectly clear. Plus the timing is very suspect and the economy will boom just in time for a 2015 election with peak growth in the second half of 2014.
However, if it helps keep Labour out then I suppose it's a price worth paying. Also, I'm going to take advantage of the essentially free money on offer so I can't complain too much.
Like Tony Blair and Lord Levy: "A long-standing friend of former Prime Minister, Tony Blair".
Deputy Party Chairmen with responsibility for fund-raising are not usually active in the political affairs of the party and have often been drawn from the personal friends, or more properly supporters, of the Leader.
They often cause controversy too when they do stray into the political arena.
Some are so controversial that they can't even be given a party office.
Do I need to remind you of Alex Salmond's good friend supporter, Sir Brian Souter?
MP for #Balcombe is Francis Maude. who appointed Lord Browne, a director of Cuadrilla Resource Holdings Ltd, to Cabinet Office June 2010.
*chortle*
That female Tory on Newsnight has strange logic. Another member of the local association who needs to be weeded out I suspect. No wonder Cameron does not appear to love all his members.
Whatever happens with fracking the idea that your average joe will benefit from lower prices is laughable. Landowners will get rich, shareholders will get rich, we'll subsidise it with our taxes and still pay huge bills. We'll just get shafted like always.
So vote UKIP for a sane future.
Voting ukip will result in a less sane government.
The list caused controversy as a small number of recipients were wealthy businessmen whose principles were considered antipathetic to those held by the Labour party at the time. One businessman on the list, Lord Kagan, was convicted of fraud in 1980; Sir Eric Miller, committed suicide while under investigation for fraud in 1977. Another beneficiary was the buccaneering financier James Goldsmith. Other names on the list such as actor John Mills were, however, uncontroversial.
Despite the notoriety of the name, both of Wilson's academic biographers, Professor Ben Pimlott and Philip Ziegler, stress there was never any question at the time or subsequently of financial impropriety in the drawing up of the list.
The origin of the name was the claim made by Joe Haines that the head of Wilson's political office, Marcia Williams, had written the original draft on lavender-coloured notepaper. No documentary evidence has been proferred to support this claim and Wilson and Williams denied it.
I posted this morning a out the precedent being set by the cave in to NIMBY'S and Eco warriors Lets see what Dave does with his NIMBY'S in the south if UKIP make a fuss
You've been a bit silent on Osbornes house price madness recently
I posted about the housing bubble recently. I don't agree with the current policies, I think I've made that perfectly clear. Plus the timing is very suspect and the economy will boom just in time for a 2015 election with peak growth in the second half of 2014.
However, if it helps keep Labour out then I suppose it's a price worth paying. Also, I'm going to take advantage of the essentially free money on offer so I can't complain too much.
I posted this morning a out the precedent being set by the cave in to NIMBY'S and Eco warriors Lets see what Dave does with his NIMBY'S in the south if UKIP make a fuss
You've been a bit silent on Osbornes house price madness recently
I posted about the housing bubble recently. I don't agree with the current policies, I think I've made that perfectly clear. Plus the timing is very suspect and the economy will boom just in time for a 2015 election with peak growth in the second half of 2014.
However, if it helps keep Labour out then I suppose it's a price worth paying. Also, I'm going to take advantage of the essentially free money on offer so I can't complain too much.
Another Tory benefit junky recruited.
How long have you been unemployed, tim?
The hours I put in full time remedial politics teacher Sunil, I haven't got time to be unemployed.
If you're working, how come you have time to post 7824 times to PB since the Vanilla changeover?
"One woman protested:....... I paid my money to hear Willie McIlvanney, not Alex Salmond. King Alec doesn't really interest me but the work of William McIlvanney does."
Just going back to L&N for a moment, their model has two components:-
i) a second order autoregressive component based simply on the results of the past two elections, pointing to a periodicity of about 5 elections. In other words, a full electoral cycle is 5 elections, and a party may expect to enjoy 2-3 victories before being turfed out, the Opposition replacing them for a similar period before the cycle comes full circle and starts again.
ii) the PM approval component, which may disturb the periodicity noted in i). A crap PM may result in his party losing office after 1 term (closest analogy Heath in 1974, although he was unlucky, too, having won the popular vote), or a great PM (or strategic change of PM) leading to an unexpected fourth election victory (example Major in 1992, and L&N believe Brown would have pulled it off had he called an election in 2007)
L&N point out that just taking component i) in isolation can generate a forecast of the next election on the day after the last one, although it's not a very accurate one, leaving out as it does the important component ii).
but anyhow, as a matter of interest, taking i) alone the forecast for 2015 taken on May 7th 2010 is:-
8.1% Tory lead
Put another way, if Cameron doesn't muck it up badly, in the ordinary course of events he should enjoy a comfortable vote lead in 2015...
So far, his PM approval ratings are pretty solid and improving.
If the L&N model is right, Labour don't have a prayer...
I posted this morning a out the precedent being set by the cave in to NIMBY'S and Eco warriors Lets see what Dave does with his NIMBY'S in the south if UKIP make a fuss
You've been a bit silent on Osbornes house price madness recently
I posted about the housing bubble recently. I don't agree with the current policies, I think I've made that perfectly clear. Plus the timing is very suspect and the economy will boom just in time for a 2015 election with peak growth in the second half of 2014.
However, if it helps keep Labour out then I suppose it's a price worth paying. Also, I'm going to take advantage of the essentially free money on offer so I can't complain too much.
The main thing that tempers my criticism of the policy to reinflate the housing bubble is the sure knowledge that Labour would be seeking to do the same - so how is it that much of an advantage to keep one team of identikit politicians in charge rather than the other?
Osborne talked a good talk in the early stages of the Parliament about rebalancing the economy and having everyone in it together, but his actions have strayed further from those ideals as the Parliament has progressed.
Just like Brown - who made such a show of talking about the importance of Prudence, but then completely lost control of the public finances, allowed a housing bubble to spiral out of control and binged on PFI.
Electoral Calculus +8 UKPR +7 Wisdom Index +1 Lebo & Norpoth -6
hint: it can be shown that voters lie in their VIs this far out from an election. The crafty thing is to discover a proxy question which gets them to reveal their true intentions. Such as the WI or PM approval...
Instead of the usual blockheads trying to shoot the messenger, more receptive minds might care to keep a tally of the above figures, all the way to the election in 2015.
Then with correlation and regression we may obtain an answer as to which data gives a better forecast of the final result at any point in time....
Just going back to L&N for a moment, their model has two components:-
i) a second order autoregressive component based simply on the results of the past two elections, pointing to a periodicity of about 5 elections. In other words, a full electoral cycle is 5 elections, and a party may expect to enjoy 2-3 victories before being turfed out, the Opposition replacing them for a similar period before the cycle comes full circle and starts again.
ii) the PM approval component, which may disturb the periodicity noted in i). A crap PM may result in his party losing office after 1 term (closest analogy Heath in 1974, although he was unlucky, too, having won the popular vote), or a great PM (or strategic change of PM) leading to an unexpected fourth election victory (example Major in 1992, and L&N believe Brown would have pulled it off had he called an election in 2007)
L&N point out that just taking component i) in isolation can generate a forecast of the next election on the day after the last one, although it's not a very accurate one, leaving out as it does the important component ii).
but anyhow, as a matter of interest, taking i) alone the forecast for 2015 taken on May 7th 2010 is:-
8.1% Tory lead
Put another way, if Cameron doesn't muck it up badly, in the ordinary course of events he should enjoy a comfortable vote lead in 2015...
So far, his PM approval ratings are pretty solid and improving.
If the L&N model is right, Labour don't have a prayer...
Out of interest, leaving aside the question of how useful this is this far out, how far back has this pattern been observed? One of the problems with these theories is that you only get one data point every four or five years, during which the environment may be changing under your feet in relevant ways (number of viable parties, strength of party affiliation, ways voters get information, etc) so it's hard to get enough data to get meaningful correlations from. If the theory then includes a five-election cycle, that obviously reduces the number of times you can have observed it repeating...
I think L&N say since 1929, which coincides with the first plurality Labour government, more or less the completion of the extension of the franchise, and a minimization of the number of uncontested seats. Prior to that, for the same reasons, prediction is more uncertain - or perhaps fits another model, no longer appropriate...
Comments
Telegraph Politics ✔ @TelePolitics
Environment minister Richard Benyon condemns 'ghastly' parts of Brussels http://tgr.ph/16tLXrW
Atheism is also an irrational belief as it is founded on a certainty that is inappropriate for almost anything in this Universe. To that extent it does share some similarities with a religion even if it does not have as many good tunes. Again such certitude no doubt gives some comfort to some.
Agnosticism is a cop out. That will do me fine thanks.
I have to add, that the first time I got hit properly by ecstasy (I thought I'd taken one, but my mate dropped another two into my pint, and the three hit me at once) I had such an inspiring, awesome epiphany that it was very close to what must be a religious awakening. I've since advocated the use of ecstasy - everyone should try it.
Also, I'm sure you are an avid reader, so if you haven't already go read Jon Krakauer's Under The Banner of Heaven. Krakauer is a great writer (he did Into the Wild and Into Thin Air, both fab books) and a fascinating man. The book is about the history of Mormonism and the religious conversion that drove two hitherto harmless and hardworking family men to slice the throat of their niece, an infant child. All because God told them to do it.
I think you'd like it.
Anyway, I'm off now to watch the Oscar Pistorious docu I recorded earlier. It should be full of good ideas.
So Richard Benyon isn't actually wrong
I thought you might've. A man of your eclectic tastes and all that.
Into Thin Air is one of my top five books. Wow. I like how bitchy he is about people too - fascinating really that such a fine writer should be atop Everest the moment it's worst tragedy hit.
Anyway, good night!
Mr. T, I believe the Syrian Christians (probably some sort of Orthodox) early on expressed fears about what would happen if Assad was toppled. He's a dictator, but a secular one, and even terrible leaders can be replaced by worse ones.
The Church of England has likened vocal opponents of fracking to scaremongers who spread misinformation about the MMR vaccine, leaving children at risk of a measles epidemic.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10248468/Fracking-campaigners-like-MMR-scaremongers-says-Church-of-England.html
"...Rand doesn’t actually use the phrase “the precautionary principle.” But this is exactly what she is describing in the book when various vested interests – the corporatists in bed with big government, the politicised junk-scientists at the Institute of Science (aka, in our world, the National Academy of Sciences or the Royal Society), the unions – try to close down the nascent technology using the flimsiest of excuses.
Here's an excerpt from the book. (The story so far: in an ailing economy brought low by the sclerotic regulation of the bloated state, a dwindling band of entrepreneurs try to stick up for free enterprise. One of them is Hank Rearden who forges a new kind of metal, stronger and lighter than steel. But his rivals don't like it, and unlike Rearden, they have friends in DC. Soon an unhelpful report is produced by a special committee of the National Council of Metal Industries…)
They said Rearden Metal is a threat to public safety. They said its chemical composition is unsound, it's brittle, it's decomposing molecularly, and it will crack suddenly without warning [.....] They're experts, though, the men on that committee. Top experts. Chief metallurgists for the biggest corporations, with a string of degrees from universities all over the country." >> http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100231459/shale-gas-is-reardon-metal/
Balcombe policing costs approach £750,000:
As Sussex Police gears up to meet the extra demand o... bit.ly/1acNIeI #sussexpolice
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/the-five-myths-about-fracking-(1).aspx
He argued that something so nasty could not possibly have been the design of a benign creator, and thus proved the case for evolution.
The french sussed that and it now provides 39% of their power to our 19%.
Nuclear power is so green. Well, providing there are no mishaps.
Nuclear fusion reactors can't suffer the same catastrophic meltdowns that you see in fission reactors. There is no way to stop a fission reaction, except by inserting control rods to slow the reaction down. For fusion, you just turn off the magnetic field, and the reaction stops almost instantaneously.
The only big problem with fusion is the contamination of the reactor bulkheads due to neutron bombardment, but the half-life is significantly less than for fission (on the order of ~100 years)
"How (not) to start a Twitter campaign...
5. When the Daily Mail runs an online poll called “Is Caitlin Moran’s #twittersilence the action of an attention-seeking egotist?”, don’t click the ‘No’ button on the poll. Don’t do that 17 times. That is a classic trap, dude.
6. Don’t get so sad about the backlash – six Telegraph blogs in six days, Toby Young calling you a hypocrite on Channel 4 News, thousands of abusive Tweets – that you start bidding on weird things on eBay, at 1am, to comfort yourself. When, three days later, the £7.99 viscose sky-blue jumper covered in horses arrives, you will be unable to wear it – as it will essentially be the ‘Massive Bad Memory-Trigger’ jumper. You put it in the bin, thinking, dolorously, “In the bin – like my idea.” ..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leucochloridium_paradoxum
Great blog post from Matt Ridley. Honestly it should be required reading for every media outlet which is going to interview frack off, as should the papers he cites. The BBC especially have a duty to do it because the idiots at frack off (just like those from the anti-Heathrow alliances) are given too much time and their "facts" are not challenged properly by the interviewers and their agenda is shown on national TV. 50 years away for the last 50 years...
Still waiting to be arrested for copyright infringment...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoLoEw8D0Bg&
1. Let's be a credit union rival to kill off Wonga!!!
2. Let's invest in firms that back Wonga and porn errrr
3. Fracking is damaging God's creation and our countryside!!
4. But we're claiming the mineral rights if you find any on our land holdings
5. Oh becoming a credit union is a bit hard and maybe we got that wrong to let's say we can't do it for 10yrs and hope Welby's retired by then
6. Fracking is GREAT! In fact you're a dangerous Luddite if you're against it. Stupid greenies.
I agree with tim on one thing,I wish Cameron would stop promoting his chums.
You need to distinguish between fact and myth.
Cameron has promoted very few "chums" to office even in an advisory capacity. If you are using chum in the sense of old school or family friends, Cameron's cabinet has fewer Etonians in it than Margaret Thatcher's did.
Take for example the myth of Cameron and Osborne. They were neither contemporaries at school nor university, nor did they know each other before working together. Their first meeting was when both were working for the Conservative party. Their friendship developed from shared ideology and work.
Both Cameron and Osborne came to the fore because of their work for former party leaders, Howard and Hague respectively. Once 'shortlisted', with Osborne standing down to manage Cameron's leadership campaign, Cameron was elected leader by MPs and party members.
Remember that Cameron appointed David Davis as Shadow Home Secretary after becoming Leader. It was Davis not Cameron that chose to leave.
The only Cabinet Minister who was a contemporary of Cameron's at Oxford was Jeremy Hunt, who had already advanced 'in the party' before Cameron by becoming President of the OU Conservative Association, an office which Quintin Hogg , Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher, Dominic Grieve and William Hague, among many others, all held early in their political careers.
Boris Johnson was a school and university contemporary and famously a fellow Bullingdon Club Member. But there are few who would argue that Boris's election as Mayor of London or his support within the party is due to Cameron's patronage.
There is undoubtedly an inner circle of Cameroons - Osborne, Boles, Gove, Herbert etc - who are of similar age and came together under the umbrella of Policy Exchange, but similar groups exist in all parties and tend to rise and fall with their leader. What binds them together is shared political identity and orientation and policy rather than prior friendship..
If your criticism is that Cameron's main appointees are Oxbridge graduates with a life of party work, then this applies to all the main parties.
Miliband (both), Balls, Cooper, Burnham, Twigg, Eagle (both) are all Oxbridge educated sons and daughters of metropolitan professionals. What is more there are two brothers, two sisters and a married couple.
Moral of the story: don't believe everything you are told by tim.
.
Whitehall departments are picking up the tax bills for perks such as official cars, first-class rail travel and rent-free accommodation.
The arrangements, which were described by tax advisers as “highly unusual”, were made between government departments and the taxman as part of a deal agreed more than a decade ago.
The effect of the deal is to increase the value of officials’ pay packages by up to £30,000 a year at the expense of taxpayers. Those who benefited from the scheme include Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary; Sir David Nicholson, the head of NHS England; and Phillippa Williamson, the former head of the Serious Fraud Office.
Richard Bacon, a Conservative member of the public accounts committee, said he was “concerned” that officials are being given tax-free benefits while members of the public have to pay the taxman for theirs.
At least your blind faith in the magical, mystical, "something for nothing" Shale gas is consistent with your religiosity.
Wonder what god/fad you will worship next week.
How many *shares* has he had? I'm not sure he's told us enough times...errr.
And one person was a bit rude in the DT comments - well blow me down - how often has he tweeted about not being arrested yet?
It's wearing a little thin.
Now you might not like Jeremy Hunt, nor his policies or personality, but it is difficult to argue that he is 'not qualified' for ministerial office nor that he was appointed to office on any other grounds than his political ability.
Nite.
https://twitter.com/History_Pics/status/368505210940825602/photo/1
Preposterous! ;^ )
There is certainly more Balliol in Labour than Brasenose in the Tories.
However, if it helps keep Labour out then I suppose it's a price worth paying. Also, I'm going to take advantage of the essentially free money on offer so I can't complain too much.
Preposterous!
Yes, Pork.
Like Tony Blair and Lord Levy: "A long-standing friend of former Prime Minister, Tony Blair".
Deputy Party Chairmen with responsibility for fund-raising are not usually active in the political affairs of the party and have often been drawn from the personal friends, or more properly supporters, of the Leader.
They often cause controversy too when they do stray into the political arena.
Some are so controversial that they can't even be given a party office.
Do I need to remind you of Alex Salmond's good friend supporter, Sir Brian Souter?
That female Tory on Newsnight has strange logic. Another member of the local association who needs to be weeded out I suspect. No wonder Cameron does not appear to love all his members.
I don't want to start any Blasphemous Rumours
But I think that God's got a sick sense of humour
And when I die
I expect to find him laughing
- Depeche Mode, 1984
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZRGPg5laDU
May?
Hammond?
Gove?
Pickles?
Greening?
McLoughlin?
The list caused controversy as a small number of recipients were wealthy businessmen whose principles were considered antipathetic to those held by the Labour party at the time. One businessman on the list, Lord Kagan, was convicted of fraud in 1980; Sir Eric Miller, committed suicide while under investigation for fraud in 1977. Another beneficiary was the buccaneering financier James Goldsmith. Other names on the list such as actor John Mills were, however, uncontroversial.
Despite the notoriety of the name, both of Wilson's academic biographers, Professor Ben Pimlott and Philip Ziegler, stress there was never any question at the time or subsequently of financial impropriety in the drawing up of the list.
The origin of the name was the claim made by Joe Haines that the head of Wilson's political office, Marcia Williams, had written the original draft on lavender-coloured notepaper. No documentary evidence has been proferred to support this claim and Wilson and Williams denied it.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/aug/17/william-mcilvanney-independence-manifesto?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
It's all going so terribly well
i) a second order autoregressive component based simply on the results of the past two elections, pointing to a periodicity of about 5 elections. In other words, a full electoral cycle is 5 elections, and a party may expect to enjoy 2-3 victories before being turfed out, the Opposition replacing them for a similar period before the cycle comes full circle and starts again.
ii) the PM approval component, which may disturb the periodicity noted in i). A crap PM may result in his party losing office after 1 term (closest analogy Heath in 1974, although he was unlucky, too, having won the popular vote), or a great PM (or strategic change of PM) leading to an unexpected fourth election victory (example Major in 1992, and L&N believe Brown would have pulled it off had he called an election in 2007)
L&N point out that just taking component i) in isolation can generate a forecast of the next election on the day after the last one, although it's not a very accurate one, leaving out as it does the important component ii).
but anyhow, as a matter of interest, taking i) alone the forecast for 2015 taken on May 7th 2010 is:-
8.1% Tory lead
Put another way, if Cameron doesn't muck it up badly, in the ordinary course of events he should enjoy a comfortable vote lead in 2015...
So far, his PM approval ratings are pretty solid and improving.
If the L&N model is right, Labour don't have a prayer...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeqtAB1WgEw
Osborne talked a good talk in the early stages of the Parliament about rebalancing the economy and having everyone in it together, but his actions have strayed further from those ideals as the Parliament has progressed.
Just like Brown - who made such a show of talking about the importance of Prudence, but then completely lost control of the public finances, allowed a housing bubble to spiral out of control and binged on PFI.
Then with correlation and regression we may obtain an answer as to which data gives a better forecast of the final result at any point in time....