Quoting from Guido...if there were two posters who I thought had too much class it was you and Avery
As for young Prescott going into the same profession as his father...I don't find that surprising particularly when it's full of glamour and girls and pouting secretaries
Oh really Roger as a prime reader of the Daily mail down Soho way who are you to stand in judgement ? We're all allowed a bit of rough now and then. As for the matter in hand well I suppose it's red noblesse oblige these days, one shouldn't talk about the family business in front of outsiders. Though may I suggest you start producing genealogy trees or the risk of in breeding might mean you'll all end up in the house of Lords. I hope Charles is laughing his bollocks off at this after all the gip he's taken over the years from the "progressive" side of PB. Fking incredible.
Tim: it wasn't that long ago that you made disobliging comments about Nick Hurd MP on the grounds that he was (a) Tory; (b) educated at Eton; an (c) a 4th generation MP.
Now - to me - having 4 generations from one family going into public service seems to be a good thing. It feels rather public spirited - though there is a real issue if people without that family tradition are or feel themselves to be excluded.
But if N Hurd is to be criticised by you then on the "sauce for the goose" principle surely the Prescott / Straw / Blair juniors are also to be criticised?
Or maybe we could take the rather more grown up view that what a person's parents or grandparents did is irrelevant unless there is some actual evidence of them using their influence to give their children a leg-up not available to others.
Personally I feel there are far too few outsiders in the Commons - in both parties - which is why MPs are - with a few exceptions - interchangeable and dull and lacking in original thought
Hear hear to Morris and others about TSE's excellent stewardship - in particular, the thread leads are always interesting. People who want to have a blog which always features their favourite subjects have an obvious option. (I'd probably sub to a "politics and cat videos" blog.)
Once again, I'm forced back onto the backfoot of my ignorance. The reading I've done suggests that the shale oil produced from fracking needs a lot of refining before it can be used for much more than heating oil. I appreciate the possibilities and potential for gas from shale but usable crude from shale still seems some way off.
Good of you to admit your ignorance. But you are only halfway there. What do you think a huge glut of new cheap hydrocarbon energy is going to do to the price of similar hydrocarbons?
Yes, crude might still be the preferred fuel source for cars - shale oil will take time and it's dirty - however there may be a switch to hybrid cars that use gas and petrol, or cars that use gas entirely, as it will be cheaper.
What is inevitable is that many of the other myriad ways where oil is now used - heating, power stations, chemicals - will be replaced by cheaper gas, if at all possible. This will dampen down global demand OVERALL for conventional oil (and coal), especially as wealthy populations age (as the Saudi prince notes, older people *use* less oil)
Hitherto expectations had been for the price of oil to go nuts. This now looks unlikely. The FT guy probably gets it right: prices of oil will plateau, OPEC's position will therefore, relatively, weaken, as their reserves run down. The Arab chokehold on our fuel resources is nearly at an end. Hooray!
Now REAL work. REALLY.
maybe you can do us a DT blog on Labour nepotism, the party where the swingers sleep with their other sister. Explain how the causes of egalitarianism and human progress are advanced by having your relatives put in key sinecures like medieval bishops used to do.
Your proposal would be counterproductive imho. How many refugees do you propose Britain takes in to make it ‘cost affective’ (which was your initial reasoning)
Presumably cost per-person wouldn't vary much, so the number is independent of the cost-effectiveness. Note that by allowing these people to work and pay taxes, it may be possible to make this number negative.
Hard to say, but let's throw some numbers around. Say you have 1,000,000 needing somewhere to go, spread per population among relatively rich countries with a total population of 1,000 million, you get 1,000 per million population, or 64,000 for the UK. To the extent that there are more or less people needing refuge (probably more), that other countries have more or less ability to take more people, and that refugees have more or less ability to function in the UK compared to other possible places, that number would be higher or lower.
But mainly, why do you think Syrians would wish to be relocated thousands of miles, rather than to a neighbouring country?
If you can't figure out what kind of problems you might face relocating to an already war-torn country that's had to take hundreds of refugees at short notice, I don't really know what to say to you.
I'm sure the young unemployed of this country agree with your reasoning, and those on housing lists as well....
So when it came to risking British lives, and many Syrian ones, dropping bombs in an effort to help these people, even with a strong possibility of back-firing and doing damage, it was an urgent humanitarian necessity. But when the cost turns out to be explaining the lump of labour fallacy to somebody or building a house that might spoil somebody's view, it turns out not to be very important after all.
So much easier doing that from an expensive Tokyo apartment, and in a well paid job though, don't ya think?
All those thickos without jobs.... if only they were as smart as you, and had the facts eh..
Skipping over the snark, policy should be based on the actual likely results based on evidence, not what the voters (or non-voters) assume is true without knowing the evidence. Especially when the politicians making these decisions are hoping to be though brave and strong for making them, and are hoping to persuade the voters to agree to something they have reservations about on the grounds that something has to be done to help vulnerable people.
I'm not saying these people shouldn't be helped (far from it). But that it would be in the best interests of the region if those people were helped in a way in which they could 'go home' in the medium to longer term. They should be supported in the region in a safe controlled environment where the help can be directly targeted in a much more efficient and helpful manner.
If Syria wants to ever not be a failed state, it need those people, and those people to be able to return home, not to become some diaspora which fatally undermines the region.
Cyclefree and others - [politics is now a deeply unfashionable profession. People who see it close up see its practitioners working 14-hour days and getting mud thrown at them. People are don't see it close up tend to think it's vaguely weird, sleazy and unpleasant. So you get a small intake of people willing to have a go, and most of them have been encouraged by a relative or friend. It's a problem, though not a sign of nepotism or corruption.
Cyclefree and others - [politics is now a deeply unfashionable profession. People who see it close up see its practitioners working 14-hour days and getting mud thrown at them. People are don't see it close up tend to think it's vaguely weird, sleazy and unpleasant. So you get a small intake of people willing to have a go, and most of them have been encouraged by a relative or friend. It's a problem, though not a sign of nepotism or corruption.
It's a closed shop, and a political party of any shade should have the common sense to see that sticking in loads or relatives doesn't look good to the outside world.
Cyclefree and others - [politics is now a deeply unfashionable profession. People who see it close up see its practitioners working 14-hour days and getting mud thrown at them. People are don't see it close up tend to think it's vaguely weird, sleazy and unpleasant. So you get a small intake of people willing to have a go, and most of them have been encouraged by a relative or friend. It's a problem, though not a sign of nepotism or corruption.
Both those close up and those not close up are probably correct.
Tim: it wasn't that long ago that you made disobliging comments about Nick Hurd MP on the grounds that he was (a) Tory; (b) educated at Eton; an (c) a 4th generation MP.
Now - to me - having 4 generations from one family going into public service seems to be a good thing. It feels rather public spirited - though there is a real issue if people without that family tradition are or feel themselves to be excluded.
But if N Hurd is to be criticised by you then on the "sauce for the goose" principle surely the Prescott / Straw / Blair juniors are also to be criticised?
Or maybe we could take the rather more grown up view that what a person's parents or grandparents did is irrelevant unless there is some actual evidence of them using their influence to give their children a leg-up not available to others.
Personally I feel there are far too few outsiders in the Commons - in both parties - which is why MPs are - with a few exceptions - interchangeable and dull and lacking in original thought
To avoid confusion Labour scions should be enumerated or given nicknames ;
Blair II Straw II Prescott II Benn III Miliband the Usurper Kinnock of Denmark Dromey II out of Harman
Once again, I'm forced back onto the backfoot of my ignorance. The reading I've done suggests that the shale oil produced from fracking needs a lot of refining before it can be used for much more than heating oil. I appreciate the possibilities and potential for gas from shale but usable crude from shale still seems some way off.
Good of you to admit your ignorance. But you are only halfway there. What do you think a huge glut of new cheap hydrocarbon energy is going to do to the price of similar hydrocarbons?
Yes, crude might still be the preferred fuel source for cars - shale oil will take time and it's dirty - however there may be a switch to hybrid cars that use gas and petrol, or cars that use gas entirely, as it will be cheaper.
What is inevitable is that many of the other myriad ways where oil is now used - heating, power stations, chemicals - will be replaced by cheaper gas, if at all possible. This will dampen down global demand OVERALL for conventional oil (and coal), especially as wealthy populations age (as the Saudi prince notes, older people *use* less oil)
Hitherto expectations had been for the price of oil to go nuts. This now looks unlikely. The FT guy probably gets it right: prices of oil will plateau, OPEC's position will therefore, relatively, weaken, as their reserves run down. The Arab chokehold on our fuel resources is nearly at an end. Hooray!
Now REAL work. REALLY.
Fracking, both conventional and unconventional (primary fraking as we are now seeing used in gas) has been used in the oil industry for at least 80 years. It is a major secondary recovery technique in conventional oil fields and is also used to a lesser extent as a primary form particularly in north and south America.
The problem with it - and the one very big thing that Sean forgets - is that it is very very expensive. Gas is great for fraking from shales as it is a small molecule. Oil is not and the recovery from shales is still hugely difficult and not showing any signs fo getting easier.
With the oil price at around 100 dollars a barrel of course oil from shale becomes attractive. But at the same time Statoil are running their whole conventional Norway oil operation at an average cost of a lot less than 10 dollars a barrel. As long as the discrepancy exists between the costs of extracting oil conventionally and oil shales then I am afraid Sean's dream of oil shales changing the world are just fantasy.
That said he is right on one thing. Fracking gas plus the huge increase in conventional oil recovery in the US is going to make them energy independent in a very short time - I believe 2016 is the current estimate for them to start exporting oil. At the same time the Japanese developments with Methane Condensates is going to change their whole economic energy outlook completely.
So yes, I agree with Sean that (for different reasons) the days of Middle Eastern energy hegemony are numbered.
Comments
Labour will blame IDS for yet another failed reform they don;t intend to scrap.
Now - to me - having 4 generations from one family going into public service seems to be a good thing. It feels rather public spirited - though there is a real issue if people without that family tradition are or feel themselves to be excluded.
But if N Hurd is to be criticised by you then on the "sauce for the goose" principle surely the Prescott / Straw / Blair juniors are also to be criticised?
Or maybe we could take the rather more grown up view that what a person's parents or grandparents did is irrelevant unless there is some actual evidence of them using their influence to give their children a leg-up not available to others.
Personally I feel there are far too few outsiders in the Commons - in both parties - which is why MPs are - with a few exceptions - interchangeable and dull and lacking in original thought
Tim's one of the best posters on here but I was talking about class.....He's more a bare knuckle fighter
If Syria wants to ever not be a failed state, it need those people, and those people to be able to return home, not to become some diaspora which fatally undermines the region.
It's never a good idea to mention the Hurds to tim. It sets him off.
There's an opening there for a TV channel to do a fly on the wall documentary.
Maybe it would rescue the public perception a bit...
Blair II
Straw II
Prescott II
Benn III
Miliband the Usurper
Kinnock of Denmark
Dromey II out of Harman
The problem with it - and the one very big thing that Sean forgets - is that it is very very expensive. Gas is great for fraking from shales as it is a small molecule. Oil is not and the recovery from shales is still hugely difficult and not showing any signs fo getting easier.
With the oil price at around 100 dollars a barrel of course oil from shale becomes attractive. But at the same time Statoil are running their whole conventional Norway oil operation at an average cost of a lot less than 10 dollars a barrel. As long as the discrepancy exists between the costs of extracting oil conventionally and oil shales then I am afraid Sean's dream of oil shales changing the world are just fantasy.
That said he is right on one thing. Fracking gas plus the huge increase in conventional oil recovery in the US is going to make them energy independent in a very short time - I believe 2016 is the current estimate for them to start exporting oil. At the same time the Japanese developments with Methane Condensates is going to change their whole economic energy outlook completely.
So yes, I agree with Sean that (for different reasons) the days of Middle Eastern energy hegemony are numbered.