I suspect that there is a stronger possibility that Jeremy Corbyn has more static and entrenched views than Thatcher had, as she was a scientist and would, I assume, amend her views to changing evidence.
And nothing ever changes! Why do people insist on this stupidity of asserting what you thought in the circumstances of 1985 is applicable to and the same as you think in the circumstances of 2018?
Maybe they don't have the intellectual capacity to think or the senses to see. Change is all around you.
This is applicable to the above dumb Anna comment and to many comments made about, for example, Jeremy Corbyn.
I suspect that there is a stronger possibility that Jeremy Corbyn has more static and entrenched views than Thatcher had, as she was a scientist and would, I assume, amend her views to changing evidence.
The speech linked to shows her reasoning: good for business in a nutshell. Migration isn't mentioned. So, yes, things have changed. FoM has killed the single market, at least for enough of the British voters to get to the point that they want out.
Tax Credits - the most pernicious government policy of a generation? Discuss.
And nothing ever changes! Why do people insist on this stupidity of asserting what you thought in the circumstances of 1985 is applicable to and the same as you think in the circumstances of 2018?
Maybe they don't have the intellectual capacity to think or the senses to see. Change is all around you.
This is applicable to the above dumb Anna comment and to many comments made about, for example, Jeremy Corbyn.
I suspect that there is a stronger possibility that Jeremy Corbyn has more static and entrenched views than Thatcher had, as she was a scientist and would, I assume, amend her views to changing evidence.
The speech linked to shows her reasoning: good for business in a nutshell. Migration isn't mentioned. So, yes, things have changed. FoM has killed the single market, at least for enough of the British voters to get to the point that they want out.
Tax Credits - the most pernicious government policy of a generation? Discuss.
I think without tax credits we wouldn't have left the EU.
And nothing ever changes! Why do people insist on this stupidity of asserting what you thought in the circumstances of 1985 is applicable to and the same as you think in the circumstances of 2018?
Maybe they don't have the intellectual capacity to think or the senses to see. Change is all around you.
This is applicable to the above dumb Anna comment and to many comments made about, for example, Jeremy Corbyn.
I suspect that there is a stronger possibility that Jeremy Corbyn has more static and entrenched views than Thatcher had, as she was a scientist and would, I assume, amend her views to changing evidence.
The speech linked to shows her reasoning: good for business in a nutshell. Migration isn't mentioned. So, yes, things have changed. FoM has killed the single market, at least for enough of the British voters to get to the point that they want out.
Not just that change. Here are a few others that have altered significantly: Business mix, type and methods have changed. Euro has changed China has changed Technology, communications Transport Wealth, spending patterns, shopping methods War and displacement of peoples. EU enlargement
Nothing fundamental at all. The change in the last 30 or so years is significant. Enough to make a review of your thoughts a valid activity, unless you are a dumb point scoring luddite like Anna or some of the JC bashers.
And nothing ever changes! Why do people insist on this stupidity of asserting what you thought in the circumstances of 1985 is applicable to and the same as you think in the circumstances of 2018?
Maybe they don't have the intellectual capacity to think or the senses to see. Change is all around you.
This is applicable to the above dumb Anna comment and to many comments made about, for example, Jeremy Corbyn.
I suspect that there is a stronger possibility that Jeremy Corbyn has more static and entrenched views than Thatcher had, as she was a scientist and would, I assume, amend her views to changing evidence.
The speech linked to shows her reasoning: good for business in a nutshell. Migration isn't mentioned. So, yes, things have changed. FoM has killed the single market, at least for enough of the British voters to get to the point that they want out.
Tax Credits - the most pernicious government policy of a generation? Discuss.
I think without tax credits we wouldn't have left the EU.
And nothing ever changes! Why do people insist on this stupidity of asserting what you thought in the circumstances of 1985 is applicable to and the same as you think in the circumstances of 2018?
Maybe they don't have the intellectual capacity to think or the senses to see. Change is all around you.
This is applicable to the above dumb Anna comment and to many comments made about, for example, Jeremy Corbyn.
I suspect that there is a stronger possibility that Jeremy Corbyn has more static and entrenched views than Thatcher had, as she was a scientist and would, I assume, amend her views to changing evidence.
The speech linked to shows her reasoning: good for business in a nutshell. Migration isn't mentioned. So, yes, things have changed. FoM has killed the single market, at least for enough of the British voters to get to the point that they want out.
That's premature given the impressive catch up in the economic position of the eastern European members.
The Pritti quotes from the Sun article on Oxfam are great value
“Why was a government department not calling for prosecutions and taking money away from Oxfam”
“People need to go away and ask questions about why they didn’t do more at the time”
May be we should ask the former SoS?
Lol, she’s only mentioning it now the Times got the scoop. If she’s been brave she’d have run with it when she was in charge of the relevant department.
She says that her officials told her that she didn’t have sufficient evidence. (It was known that blue hats were doing it but not amid organisations)
So you don’t go public - but you ask the right questions of Oxfam
The Oxfam story is following exactly the same trajectory of all scandals and botched investigations in pretty much all fields, from banking to newspapers. They are memorably set out in my 10 Investigation Stages, from the initial stage - it is all down to 1 or 2 rotten apples - to the final stage when the organisation having, finally and painfully, cleaned up its act, finds that long after the events in question, its reputation is still adversely impacted by those events.
We are still at the beginning of this cycle.
Stage 11 of course is when all those with any knowledge and experience have left and the whole dismal cycle starts all over again when the newbies are in charge and think they have nothing to learn from the experience of their elders.
The Presidents Club debacle was extremely tacky. Drunken Toffs have a big bash and get to make tits of themselves. Vulnerable women - those who believed that they would be serving cucumber sandwiches to C of E vicars, and that the short skirts and black knickers were for hygiene reasons - were taken advantage of. Even the FT knew what would be going on and took advantage.
Tacky, yes. Illegal? No. Unexpected? Hardly.
Were these women locked in against their will, or was the alternative starving to death on the streets?
In Haiti, after a major disaster, we expect the real vulnerable women to looked after by a Charity with a reputation to uphold.
The Presidents Club debacle was extremely tacky. Drunken Toffs have a big bash and get to make tits of themselves. Vulnerable women - those who believed that they would be serving cucumber sandwiches to C of E vicars, and that the short skirts and black knickers were for hygiene reasons - were taken advantage of. Even the FT knew what would be going on and took advantage.
Tacky, yes. Illegal? No. Unexpected? Hardly.
Were these women locked in against their will, or was the alternative starving to death on the streets?
In Haiti, after a major disaster, we expect the real vulnerable women to looked after by a Charity with a reputation to uphold.
I can't see any flaw in logic whatsoever with this post.
Was it responding to someone who tried to compare the two events?
Edit: the issue of the general harm done to fundraising by the antics of TPC, together with the culture of treating women as playthings are separate issues to someone trying to conflate those events with Haiti.
And nothing ever changes! Why do people insist on this stupidity of asserting what you thought in the circumstances of 1985 is applicable to and the same as you think in the circumstances of 2018?
Maybe they don't have the intellectual capacity to think or the senses to see. Change is all around you.
This is applicable to the above dumb Anna comment and to many comments made about, for example, Jeremy Corbyn.
I suspect that there is a stronger possibility that Jeremy Corbyn has more static and entrenched views than Thatcher had, as she was a scientist and would, I assume, amend her views to changing evidence.
The speech linked to shows her reasoning: good for business in a nutshell. Migration isn't mentioned. So, yes, things have changed. FoM has killed the single market, at least for enough of the British voters to get to the point that they want out.
That's premature given the impressive catch up in the economic position of the eastern European members.
If you did it as % of EU - rather than % of Germany - it would probably show even more catch-up.
And nothing ever changes! Why do people insist on this stupidity of asserting what you thought in the circumstances of 1985 is applicable to and the same as you think in the circumstances of 2018?
Maybe they don't have the intellectual capacity to think or the senses to see. Change is all around you.
This is applicable to the above dumb Anna comment and to many comments made about, for example, Jeremy Corbyn.
I suspect that there is a stronger possibility that Jeremy Corbyn has more static and entrenched views than Thatcher had, as she was a scientist and would, I assume, amend her views to changing evidence.
The speech linked to shows her reasoning: good for business in a nutshell. Migration isn't mentioned. So, yes, things have changed. FoM has killed the single market, at least for enough of the British voters to get to the point that they want out.
It’s not FOM that has killed the single market so much as the concept of the EU citizen (and specifically the interplay between our welfare structure and the non discrimination principle) plus the extension of the EU to the East thereby bringing in large populations with significantly lower incomes and hence more of an incentive to move rn masse
None of the people mentioned in the poll are any good. Johnson has a higher profile but isnt popular.
I think if a similar poll had been held in 2005 (and one probably was) there would have been a similar result. I doubt if the vast majority had even heard of David Cameron. Parties often elect leaders and then they become well known rather than the other way round.
The Tories need to skip the "Big Beasts" when choosing their next leader.
Most people have almost certainly never heard of Dominic Raab. Yet he would be the perfect new leader for them.
Cameron did better in hypothetical head to heads against Brown than Davis and Fox during the 2005 leadership contest and such head to heads are of more use than just polls which pick the best leader
Earlier in the thread, the comparison was discussed. For example ... "The Presidents Club is now so beyond the pale that all donations received must be returned whereas with Oxfam its apparently a few rogue people and taxpayers money must continue to be donated."
I suspect that the Oxfam furore will settle down quickly. "Lessons have been learned" and all that. The Presidents Club will linger longer. Such is life.
Let's reconsider this time next year, and see who gets the name recognition.
And nothing ever changes! Why do people insist on this stupidity of asserting what you thought in the circumstances of 1985 is applicable to and the same as you think in the circumstances of 2018?
Maybe they don't have the intellectual capacity to think or the senses to see. Change is all around you.
This is applicable to the above dumb Anna comment and to many comments made about, for example, Jeremy Corbyn.
I suspect that there is a stronger possibility that Jeremy Corbyn has more static and entrenched views than Thatcher had, as she was a scientist and would, I assume, amend her views to changing evidence.
The speech linked to shows her reasoning: good for business in a nutshell. Migration isn't mentioned. So, yes, things have changed. FoM has killed the single market, at least for enough of the British voters to get to the point that they want out.
Or more to the point Blair's failure to impose transition controls on free movement from the new accession countries from 2004 to 2011 as almost every other EU and EEA nation did killed the single market for British voters in a way it did not for Dutch, French and German voters
And nothing ever changes! Why do people insist on this stupidity of asserting what you thought in the circumstances of 1985 is applicable to and the same as you think in the circumstances of 2018?
Maybe they don't have the intellectual capacity to think or the senses to see. Change is all around you.
This is applicable to the above dumb Anna comment and to many comments made about, for example, Jeremy Corbyn.
I suspect that there is a stronger possibility that Jeremy Corbyn has more static and entrenched views than Thatcher had, as she was a scientist and would, I assume, amend her views to changing evidence.
The speech linked to shows her reasoning: good for business in a nutshell. Migration isn't mentioned. So, yes, things have changed. FoM has killed the single market, at least for enough of the British voters to get to the point that they want out.
Or more to the point Blair's failure to impose transition controls on free movement from the new accession countries from 2004 to 2011 as almost every other EU and EEA nation did killed the single market for British voters in a way it did not for Dutch, French and German voters
With hindsight, it was a mistake. Even a spectacular mistake, given how pro-european Blair is. On the other hand, quite likely to just have delayed the matter. There still would have been five years of non-transition migration in run-up to the referendum.
And nothing ever changes! Why do people insist on this stupidity of asserting what you thought in the circumstances of 1985 is applicable to and the same as you think in the circumstances of 2018?
Maybe they don't have the intellectual capacity to think or the senses to see. Change is all around you.
This is applicable to the above dumb Anna comment and to many comments made about, for example, Jeremy Corbyn.
I suspect that there is a stronger possibility that Jeremy Corbyn has more static and entrenched views than Thatcher had, as she was a scientist and would, I assume, amend her views to changing evidence.
The speech linked to shows her reasoning: good for business in a nutshell. Migration isn't mentioned. So, yes, things have changed. FoM has killed the single market, at least for enough of the British voters to get to the point that they want out.
It’s not FOM that has killed the single market so much as the concept of the EU citizen (and specifically the interplay between our welfare structure and the non discrimination principle) plus the extension of the EU to the East thereby bringing in large populations with significantly lower incomes and hence more of an incentive to move rn masse
But the extension of the EU was driven by an understandable desire to try and lock these countries into Western Europe after communism.
And nothing ever changes! Why do people insist on this stupidity of asserting what you thought in the circumstances of 1985 is applicable to and the same as you think in the circumstances of 2018?
Maybe they don't have the intellectual capacity to think or the senses to see. Change is all around you.
This is applicable to the above dumb Anna comment and to many comments made about, for example, Jeremy Corbyn.
I suspect that there is a stronger possibility that Jeremy Corbyn has more static and entrenched views than Thatcher had, as she was a scientist and would, I assume, amend her views to changing evidence.
The speech linked to shows her reasoning: good for business in a nutshell. Migration isn't mentioned. So, yes, things have changed. FoM has killed the single market, at least for enough of the British voters to get to the point that they want out.
It’s not FOM that has killed the single market so much as the concept of the EU citizen (and specifically the interplay between our welfare structure and the non discrimination principle) plus the extension of the EU to the East thereby bringing in large populations with significantly lower incomes and hence more of an incentive to move rn masse
Yes, mainly tax credits and housing benefit. Hence all the Romanian Big Issue sellers in London, who are earning (by their own standards) a fortune in benefits paid for by British taxpayers.
And nothing ever changes! Why do people insist on this stupidity of asserting what you thought in the circumstances of 1985 is applicable to and the same as you think in the circumstances of 2018?
Maybe they don't have the intellectual capacity to think or the senses to see. Change is all around you.
This is applicable to the above dumb Anna comment and to many comments made about, for example, Jeremy Corbyn.
I suspect that there is a stronger possibility that Jeremy Corbyn has more static and entrenched views than Thatcher had, as she was a scientist and would, I assume, amend her views to changing evidence.
The speech linked to shows her reasoning: good for business in a nutshell. Migration isn't mentioned. So, yes, things have changed. FoM has killed the single market, at least for enough of the British voters to get to the point that they want out.
It’s not FOM that has killed the single market so much as the concept of the EU citizen (and specifically the interplay between our welfare structure and the non discrimination principle) plus the extension of the EU to the East thereby bringing in large populations with significantly lower incomes and hence more of an incentive to move rn masse
Yes, mainly tax credits and housing benefit. Hence all the Romanian Big Issue sellers in London, who are earning (by their own standards) a fortune in benefits paid for by British taxpayers.
Not sure how many of them actually keep the cash though. Many are in permanent hock to the gangs who bought them over. See Ben Judah's book.
And nothing ever changes! Why do people insist on this stupidity of asserting what you thought in the circumstances of 1985 is applicable to and the same as you think in the circumstances of 2018?
Maybe they don't have the intellectual capacity to think or the senses to see. Change is all around you.
This is applicable to the above dumb Anna comment and to many comments made about, for example, Jeremy Corbyn.
I suspect that there is a stronger possibility that Jeremy Corbyn has more static and entrenched views than Thatcher had, as she was a scientist and would, I assume, amend her views to changing evidence.
The speech linked to shows her reasoning: good for business in a nutshell. Migration isn't mentioned. So, yes, things have changed. FoM has killed the single market, at least for enough of the British voters to get to the point that they want out.
It’s not FOM that has killed the single market so much as the concept of the EU citizen (and specifically the interplay between our welfare structure and the non discrimination principle) plus the extension of the EU to the East thereby bringing in large populations with significantly lower incomes and hence more of an incentive to move rn masse
Yes, mainly tax credits and housing benefit. Hence all the Romanian Big Issue sellers in London, who are earning (by their own standards) a fortune in benefits paid for by British taxpayers.
Not sure how many of them actually keep the cash though. Many are in permanent hock to the gangs who bought them over. See Ben Judah's book.
Not read it (still only half way through All Out War) but aware of the premise. Millions Billions in British benefits going to Roma gangmasters in London isn’t a good look.
Leadsom has received death threat letter over Brexit, OrderOrder are reporting.
Not good. Why is it that polite political discourse appears to have completely broken down?
Can’t we argue against each other in public then shake hands afterwards any more?
It broke down when Leave decided to pander to xenophobia by lying to win a referendum. Everything flowed from that. No one on the Leave side seems the least bit interested in considering what to do about that.
The death threat, which seems to have been circulated to a substantial number of prominent Leave figures, is appalling, obviously.
I don't think that last sentence is entirely fair, though there is some truth in what you write.
There have been issues in the past with other aid agencies, notably the UN - there was a whole book written about it - abusing their power to take advantage of the locals, including trading food/goodies for sex. So Oxfam are not the first to find themselves being attacked. Even if the misbehaviour is only carried out by a minority, the concern is that the investigations were not thorough and that miscreants were not properly punished - either by being allowed to move to other jobs or by their alleged crimes not being referred to the authorities in the countries concerned or elsewhere. Any such abuses of power, especially of desperate people, mainly women, is utterly wrong and appalling.
People give generously to charities and want to know that their money is being well spent on those who really need it. Such stories risk - very probably unfairly - the reputation of other charities who do very good work. So it is important to get to the bottom of what went wrong and make sure that all possible steps are taken to try and prevent a repetition, regardless of whether some who are digging up this story are doing so for ulterior motives.
I agree that the suggestions of cover-up are actually the most serious aspects.
But I stick to the view that some of the critics have a wider anti-charity agenda, in particular anti-development aid charity. Witness yesterday's Mail - the front page targets the husband of Jo Cox for an alleged incident in a bar in the US some years ago which the complainant decided not to pursue. Why is the Mail so interested in someone who is only known to the public because his wife was murdered? Partly because, as far as I can make out, he too was a charity worker.
(Those who read the Hollywood gossip columns will be aware of stories of famous people travelling abroad to abuse children for money, this is just a continuation of this).
And nothing ever changes! Why do people insist on this stupidity of asserting what you thought in the circumstances of 1985 is applicable to and the same as you think in the circumstances of 2018?
Maybe they don't have the intellectual capacity to think or the senses to see. Change is all around you.
This is applicable to the above dumb Anna comment and to many comments made about, for example, Jeremy Corbyn.
I suspect that there is a stronger possibility that Jeremy Corbyn has more static and entrenched views than Thatcher had, as she was a scientist and would, I assume, amend her views to changing evidence.
The speech linked to shows her reasoning: good for business in a nutshell. Migration isn't mentioned. So, yes, things have changed. FoM has killed the single market, at least for enough of the British voters to get to the point that they want out.
It’s not FOM that has killed the single market so much as the concept of the EU citizen (and specifically the interplay between our welfare structure and the non discrimination principle) plus the extension of the EU to the East thereby bringing in large populations with significantly lower incomes and hence more of an incentive to move rn masse
But the extension of the EU was driven by an understandable desire to try and lock these countries into Western Europe after communism.
Yes, and it was a good thing. But the insistence that no structures could be amended to reflect the different economies (because that might be perceived as a retreat from Ever Closer Union) was a classic bureaucratic error
I am surprised a half ton bomb can be lurking in the Thames for seventy years without anyone spotting it. ttps://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/962994708783001602
It was happily sitting there for 70 years until those working on the airport expansion spotted it yesterday. So the Navy now have to deal with the problem, and the airport should be reopened once they have.
I don't think that last sentence is entirely fair, though there is some truth in what you write.
There have been issues in the past with other aid agencies, notably the UN - there was a whole book written about it - abusing their power to take advantage of the locals, including trading food/goodies for sex. So Oxfam are not the first to find themselves being attacked. Even if the misbehaviour is only carried out by a minority, the concern is that the investigations were not thorough and that miscreants were not properly punished - either by being allowed to move to other jobs or by their alleged crimes not being referred to the authorities in the countries concerned or elsewhere. Any such abuses of power, especially of desperate people, mainly women, is utterly wrong and appalling.
People give generously to charities and want to know that their money is being well spent on those who really need it. Such stories risk - very probably unfairly - the reputation of other charities who do very good work. So it is important to get to the bottom of what went wrong and make sure that all possible steps are taken to try and prevent a repetition, regardless of whether some who are digging up this story are doing so for ulterior motives.
I agree that the suggestions of cover-up are actually the most serious aspects.
But I stick to the view that some of the critics have a wider anti-charity agenda, in particular anti-development aid charity. Witness yesterday's Mail - the front page targets the husband of Jo Cox for an alleged incident in a bar in the US some years ago which the complainant decided not to pursue. Why is the Mail so interested in someone who is only known to the public because his wife was murdered? Partly because, as far as I can make out, he too was a charity worker.
The latest Two Minutes Hate for Oxfam and revival of interest in the 2011 case seems to be because of the recent Oxfam report on the causes of inequality. It reminds me of the Brazilian priest who remarked: "When I feed the poor, they call me a saint, When I ask why the poor are hungry, they call me a Communist"
And nothing ever changes! Why do people insist on this stupidity of asserting what you thought in the circumstances of 1985 is applicable to and the same as you think in the circumstances of 2018?
Maybe they don't have the intellectual capacity to think or the senses to see. Change is all around you.
This is applicable to the above dumb Anna comment and to many comments made about, for example, Jeremy Corbyn.
I suspect that there is a stronger possibility that Jeremy Corbyn has more static and entrenched views than Thatcher had, as she was a scientist and would, I assume, amend her views to changing evidence.
The speech linked to shows her reasoning: good for business in a nutshell. Migration isn't mentioned. So, yes, things have changed. FoM has killed the single market, at least for enough of the British voters to get to the point that they want out.
Or more to the point Blair's failure to impose transition controls on free movement from the new accession countries from 2004 to 2011 as almost every other EU and EEA nation did killed the single market for British voters in a way it did not for Dutch, French and German voters
With hindsight, it was a mistake. Even a spectacular mistake, given how pro-european Blair is. On the other hand, quite likely to just have delayed the matter. There still would have been five years of non-transition migration in run-up to the referendum.
It was almost certainly that decision which got Leave over 50%, without it it would probably have been 55 to 60% Remain 40 to 45% Leave similar to Scotland.
The 7 years where we were a large EU nation offering free movement to Eastern European workers without transition controls meant most Eastern European workers headed here rather than Spain, Italy, France and Germany which had transition controls. Transition controls which ended in 2011 would largely have been irrelevant as they ended at that date in the rest of the EU too
And nothing ever changes! Why do people insist on this stupidity of asserting what you thought in the circumstances of 1985 is applicable to and the same as you think in the circumstances of 2018?
Maybe they don't have the intellectual capacity to think or the senses to see. Change is all around you.
This is applicable to the above dumb Anna comment and to many comments made about, for example, Jeremy Corbyn.
I suspect that there is a stronger possibility that Jeremy Corbyn has more static and entrenched views than Thatcher had, as she was a scientist and would, I assume, amend her views to changing evidence.
The speech linked to shows her reasoning: good for business in a nutshell. Migration isn't mentioned. So, yes, things have changed. FoM has killed the single market, at least for enough of the British voters to get to the point that they want out.
Or more to the point Blair's failure to impose transition controls on free movement from the new accession countries from 2004 to 2011 as almost every other EU and EEA nation did killed the single market for British voters in a way it did not for Dutch, French and German voters
I’m sure transition controls were a factor, but I think Ireland and Sweden also didn’t impose them and their support for the EU is still strong.
Similarly - the level of foreign born people in the UK from the EU is lower than many countries including Germany, Sweden, Spain... So I think there must be other factors at work.
And nothing ever changes! Why do people insist on this stupidity of asserting what you thought in the circumstances of 1985 is applicable to and the same as you think in the circumstances of 2018?
Maybe they don't have the intellectual capacity to think or the senses to see. Change is all around you.
This is applicable to the above dumb Anna comment and to many comments made about, for example, Jeremy Corbyn.
I suspect that there is a stronger possibility that Jeremy Corbyn has more static and entrenched views than Thatcher had, as she was a scientist and would, I assume, amend her views to changing evidence.
The speech linked to shows her reasoning: good for business in a nutshell. Migration isn't mentioned. So, yes, things have changed. FoM has killed the single market, at least for enough of the British voters to get to the point that they want out.
Or more to the point Blair's failure to impose transition controls on free movement from the new accession countries from 2004 to 2011 as almost every other EU and EEA nation did killed the single market for British voters in a way it did not for Dutch, French and German voters
I’m sure transition controls were a factor, but I think Ireland and Sweden also didn’t impose them and their support for the EU is still strong.
Similarly - the level of foreign born people in the UK from the EU is lower than many countries including Germany, Sweden, Spain... So I think there must be other factors at work.
We've not always done brilliantly with foreigners.
And nothing ever changes! Why do people insist on this stupidity of asserting what you thought in the circumstances of 1985 is applicable to and the same as you think in the circumstances of 2018?
Maybe they don't have the intellectual capacity to think or the senses to see. Change is all around you.
This is applicable to the above dumb Anna comment and to many comments made about, for example, Jeremy Corbyn.
I suspect that there is a stronger possibility that Jeremy Corbyn has more static and entrenched views than Thatcher had, as she was a scientist and would, I assume, amend her views to changing evidence.
The speech linked to shows her reasoning: good for business in a nutshell. Migration isn't mentioned. So, yes, things have changed. FoM has killed the single market, at least for enough of the British voters to get to the point that they want out.
Or more to the point Blair's failure to impose transition controls on free movement from the new accession countries from 2004 to 2011 as almost every other EU and EEA nation did killed the single market for British voters in a way it did not for Dutch, French and German voters
I’m sure transition controls were a factor, but I think Ireland and Sweden also didn’t impose them and their support for the EU is still strong.
Similarly - the level of foreign born people in the UK from the EU is lower than many countries including Germany, Sweden, Spain... So I think there must be other factors at work.
That is because neither have an economy anywhere near the size of the UK and are both far less densely populated than we are so economic immigration is far less of an issue for them
Pity Matt d'Ancona. The poor man is in despair as the likes of Rees-Mogg - with much success - claw back the Tories' 'nasty party' tag.
In the era of Trump, Brexit and silken Rees-Moggery, the notion that prosperous nations have a moral and practical responsibility to the poorest is fading from fashion. The populist right is straining at the leash to take a wrecking ball to the Department for International Development; to caricature it as the paymaster of pimps and perverts. Those who believe in Britain’s enduring obligation to the desperate of the world face the fight of their lives.
It is though an interesting contrast with the Presidents Club.
The Presidents Club is now so beyond the pale that all donations received must be returned whereas with Oxfam its apparently a few rogue people and taxpayers money must continue to be donated.
There is a big difference. The Presidents Club's sin was not that abuse happened; it was that it seems almost set up to aid abuse by making the people working there second-class.
If Oxfam required the people it was helping to wear black panties, you might have a point ...
Don't be so utterly ridiculous. The headline incidents at the Presidents thing (that is, the two highlighted when interviewed on WATO by the ft reporter) were 1. that one bloke got his knob out to show to a waitress, 2. that a bloke said to a waitress "why don't you drink this glass of champagne and then dance on the table for us". In Haiti we are dealing with, reports suggest, full-on sexual intercourse with third world prostitutes in a disaster zone for whom it is likely that sums of money trivial to the payer, are lifer or death to the recipient. But being multiply fucked under financial duress by a lot of strange foreigners is to you morally level pegging with running an odds against chance of having an involuntary view of a stockbroker's todger, so we have to go to the black panties tiebreak? Are you sure?
I am not making that equivalence, and I am not being ridiculous.
But both are wrong. It doesn't matter that one is 'less' wrong than another, and both need to be dealt with accordingly.
The defenders of the Presidents Club on here should send their daughters to waitress at similar events, and risk them being groped and treated as lesser by a bunch of exploitative rich men ...
How many of the women at the Presidents Club were 'sent' there ?
Exactly. Apart from the journalist who got a job, most of them were professional “hostesses” (escorts) who knew exactly what they were doing and were probably happy to see their numbers in a few of the attendees’ phones at the end of the evening.
(snIP)
Do you have any evidence for your claim that 'most of them' were escorts ?
Because if not, you;d better consider the hole you've dug.
And nothing ever changes! Why do people insist on this stupidity of asserting what you thought in the circumstances of 1985 is applicable to and the same as you think in the circumstances of 2018?
Maybe they don't have the intellectual capacity to think or the senses to see. Change is all around you.
This is applicable to the above dumb Anna comment and to many comments made about, for example, Jeremy Corbyn.
I suspect that there is a stronger possibility that Jeremy Corbyn has more static and entrenched views than Thatcher had, as she was a scientist and would, I assume, amend her views to changing evidence.
The speech linked to shows her reasoning: good for business in a nutshell. Migration isn't mentioned. So, yes, things have changed. FoM has killed the single market, at least for enough of the British voters to get to the point that they want out.
Or more to the point Blair's failure to impose transition controls on free movement from the new accession countries from 2004 to 2011 as almost every other EU and EEA nation did killed the single market for British voters in a way it did not for Dutch, French and German voters
With hindsight, it was a mistake. Even a spectacular mistake, given how pro-european Blair is. On the other hand, quite likely to just have delayed the matter. There still would have been five years of non-transition migration in run-up to the referendum.
The crisis will come once a settlement is agreed and the EU tells us, you can't do that. As members we can avoid most of the things we really hate or at least get attention about it, because the other members are in the same boat. No-one will bother with what we think as non-members. The loss of influence on others, and therefore of control of our own circumstances, that comes with Brexit is real and not just an abstract discussion about sovereignty.
And nothing ever changes! Why do people insist on this stupidity of asserting what you thought in the circumstances of 1985 is applicable to and the same as you think in the circumstances of 2018?
Maybe they don't have the intellectual capacity to think or the senses to see. Change is all around you.
This is applicable to the above dumb Anna comment and to many comments made about, for example, Jeremy Corbyn.
I suspect that there is a stronger possibility that Jeremy Corbyn has more static and entrenched views than Thatcher had, as she was a scientist and would, I assume, amend her views to changing evidence.
The speech linked to shows her reasoning: good for business in a nutshell. Migration isn't mentioned. So, yes, things have changed. FoM has killed the single market, at least for enough of the British voters to get to the point that they want out.
Or more to the point Blair's failure to impose transition controls on free movement from the new accession countries from 2004 to 2011 as almost every other EU and EEA nation did killed the single market for British voters in a way it did not for Dutch, French and German voters
With hindsight, it was a mistake. Even a spectacular mistake, given how pro-european Blair is. On the other hand, quite likely to just have delayed the matter. There still would have been five years of non-transition migration in run-up to the referendum.
Blair owns Brexit as much as Cameron.
Both the Leave vote and the 2017 general election were a rejection of the pro immigration, pro corporation, pro neoliberalism, pro globalist, pro international intervention policies of both the Blair and Cameron governments which have dominated the agenda for the past two decades. With a pro Brexit and anti free movement and single market Tory Party and a leftwing Corbyn dominated Labour Party it will probably be at least a decade before those Blairite/Cameroon values get a chance at power again
The crisis will come once a settlement is agreed and the EU tells us, you can't do that. As members we can avoid most of the things we really hate or at least get attention about it, because the other members are in the same boat. No-one will bother with what we think as non-members. The loss of influence on others, and therefore of control of our own circumstances, that comes with Brexit is real and not just an abstract discussion about sovereignty.
FWIW I expect this is right, about the concessions at least. The question is who is she going to disappoint to get there?
This claim that the EU will be keen to start a trade/tariff spat with a nation they have a huge balance of trade surplus with is intriguing in its "optimism".
I don't think that last sentence is entirely fair, though there is some truth in what you write.
There have been issues in the past with other aid agencies, notably the UN - there was a whole book written about it - abusing their power to take advantage of the locals, including trading food/goodies for sex. So Oxfam are not the first to find themselves being attacked. Even if the misbehaviour is only carried out by a minority, the concern is that the investigations were not thorough and that miscreants were not properly punished - either by being allowed to move to other jobs or by their alleged crimes not being referred to the authorities in the countries concerned or elsewhere. Any such abuses of power, especially of desperate people, mainly women, is utterly wrong and appalling.
People give generously to charities and want to know that their money is being well spent on those who really need it. Such stories risk - very probably unfairly - the reputation of other charities who do very good work. So it is important to get to the bottom of what went wrong and make sure that all possible steps are taken to try and prevent a repetition, regardless of whether some who are digging up this story are doing so for ulterior motives.
I agree that the suggestions of cover-up are actually the most serious aspects.
But I stick to the view that some of the critics have a wider anti-charity agenda, in particular anti-development aid charity. Witness yesterday's Mail - the front page targets the husband of Jo Cox for an alleged incident in a bar in the US some years ago which the complainant decided not to pursue. Why is the Mail so interested in someone who is only known to the public because his wife was murdered? Partly because, as far as I can make out, he too was a charity worker.
Brendan Cox is a driving force behind `Stop Funding Hate` which is a totalitarian left group who are trying to get the Daily Mail voice closed down. He is also fanatical anti-Israel supporter and as such has like Corbyn built a career by turning a blind eye to anti-Semitism . In 2014 I had the unfortunate experience of walking past an anti-Israel rally.The obvious anti-Semitism was disgusting and left wing figures who appear on podiums at Anti-Israel rallies like Corbyn and Cox deserve the abuse they get
I don't think that last sentence is entirely fair, though there is some truth in what you write.
There have been issues in the past with other aid agencies, notably the UN - there was a whole book written about it - abusing their power to take advantage of the locals, including trading food/goodies for sex. So Oxfam are not the first to find themselves being attacked. Even if the misbehaviour is only carried out by a minority, the concern is that the investigations were not thorough and that miscreants were not properly punished - either by being allowed to move to other jobs or by their alleged crimes not being referred to the authorities in the countries concerned or elsewhere. Any such abuses of power, especially of desperate people, mainly women, is utterly wrong and appalling.
People give generously to charities and want to know that their money is being well spent on those who really need it. Such stories risk - very probably unfairly - the reputation of other charities who do very good work. So it is important to get to the bottom of what went wrong and make sure that all possible steps are taken to try and prevent a repetition, regardless of whether some who are digging up this story are doing so for ulterior motives.
I agree that the suggestions of cover-up are actually the most serious aspects.
But I stick to the view that some of the critics have a wider anti-charity agenda, in particular anti-development aid charity. Witness yesterday's Mail - the front page targets the husband of Jo Cox for an alleged incident in a bar in the US some years ago which the complainant decided not to pursue. Why is the Mail so interested in someone who is only known to the public because his wife was murdered? Partly because, as far as I can make out, he too was a charity worker.
I agree that some have ulterior motives. That obscures the issues. It is a pity. Still the allegations against Oxfam are serious enough without being diverted by chaff. That was my point. Not least because aid workers do some very good work on the ground and if that stops real poor people will suffer in ways that are unimaginable to us. That would be a very great pity indeed.
The crisis will come once a settlement is agreed and the EU tells us, you can't do that. As members we can avoid most of the things we really hate or at least get attention about it, because the other members are in the same boat. No-one will bother with what we think as non-members. The loss of influence on others, and therefore of control of our own circumstances, that comes with Brexit is real and not just an abstract discussion about sovereignty.
FWIW I expect this is right, about the concessions at least. The question is who is she going to disappoint to get there?
This claim that the EU will be keen to start a trade/tariff spat with a nation they have a huge balance of trade surplus with is intriguing in its "optimism".
They won’t need to. They will have a treaty they can enforce.
Do you have any evidence for your claim that 'most of them' were escorts ?
Because if not, you;d better consider the hole you've dug.
The ft journalist whose story this was said that many of them were returners from previous years, most of them were well aware what they were getting into, and the gravamen of her complaint was that there was a minority to whom it wasn't adequately explained in advance what the deal was. It is 57 years since the Lady Chatterley trial, and here you still are excoriating an event which you wouldn't send your daughter to.
The crisis will come once a settlement is agreed and the EU tells us, you can't do that. As members we can avoid most of the things we really hate or at least get attention about it, because the other members are in the same boat. No-one will bother with what we think as non-members. The loss of influence on others, and therefore of control of our own circumstances, that comes with Brexit is real and not just an abstract discussion about sovereignty.
FWIW I expect this is right, about the concessions at least. The question is who is she going to disappoint to get there?
This claim that the EU will be keen to start a trade/tariff spat with a nation they have a huge balance of trade surplus with is intriguing in its "optimism".
They won’t need to. They will have a treaty they can enforce.
The French and German breaches of Treaties demonstrates why the EU are worried: they might be used as an example to just ignore Treaties....
A few years back, a large unexploded bomb was found at ?Beckton? in London.
Inside a gas holder ...
(From memory, the bmb was known about during the war. When it did not explode, they covered it up, patched the holder and continued using it.)
We did a battlefields tour around Ypres a couple of years ago, the tonnage of WW1 munitions ploughed up by farmers (who are pretty much uninsurable) every year was astonishing. As we drove past the fields the guide was pointing out the stacks of shells against the stone walls sitting waiting for the daily army truck that came and picked them up.
I think he also said that one of the massive underground explosive caches that the allies placed under the German lines for one of the big offensives there, and which had failed to go off on the day, had still to be located
Do you have any evidence for your claim that 'most of them' were escorts ?
Because if not, you;d better consider the hole you've dug.
The ft journalist whose story this was said that many of them were returners from previous years, most of them were well aware what they were getting into, and the gravamen of her complaint was that there was a minority to whom it wasn't adequately explained in advance what the deal was. It is 57 years since the Lady Chatterley trial, and here you still are excoriating an event which you wouldn't send your daughter to.
That's very different from them being 'escorts'.
I don't have a daughter, but I still won't be sick enough to defend the event or the men who abused women at it.
And now we get the classic victim-blaming.
(And besides, have you considered the full impact of your phrase 'what the deal was'? The deal should have been nothing like that in the first place...)
Do you have any evidence for your claim that 'most of them' were escorts ?
Because if not, you;d better consider the hole you've dug.
The ft journalist whose story this was said that many of them were returners from previous years, most of them were well aware what they were getting into, and the gravamen of her complaint was that there was a minority to whom it wasn't adequately explained in advance what the deal was. It is 57 years since the Lady Chatterley trial, and here you still are excoriating an event which you wouldn't send your daughter to.
That's very different from them being 'escorts'.
I don't have a daughter, but I still won't be sick enough to defend the event or the men who abused women at it.
And now we get the classic victim-blaming.
(And besides, have you considered the full impact of your phrase 'what the deal was'? The deal should have been nothing like that in the first place...)
No we do not get to "classic victim blaming"; where are you getting the victimhood from, given that they are - on the face of it - morally autonomous adults voluntarily entering into a contract? You are simply deducing it from the fact that it's a contract of which you personally disapprove. They are victims of not having the benefit of a mansplanation from you of the rights and wrongs of the matter. I am not "sick", I am not defending the event, and I am allocating 100% of the blame to the organisers and the paying punters, all of whom (except those who genuinely didn't know what they were getting into) I unhesitatingly classify as wankers. There just isn't as much blame in circulation as you think there is.
And you miss the point about daughters: you said this:
"The defenders of the Presidents Club on here should send their daughters to waitress at similar events, and risk them being groped and treated as lesser by a bunch of exploitative rich men ..."
The more generally accepted view these days is that women make their own decisions, rather than being available to be "sent" to things by members of the phallocracy as part of a dubious moral experiment.
"(Have you considered the full impact of your phrase 'what the deal was'? The deal should have been nothing like that in the first place...)"
Very tacky but nothing illegal went on as far as I could see. At my age, I find many things tacky, but that's my subjective viewpoint.
Incidentally, I watched a black and white re-run of a 1965 'Top of the Pops' last week, and the first clip was Manfred Mann. Paul Jones was miming for his life on the raised catwalk that TOTP use and was being groped by two young girls. They grabbed at his thigh and on one occasion groped his bum cheek, He did his best to push them away and keep in sync with the tune but he struggled.
If he'd been my son, I'd never have allowed him to appear.
And to forestall the more sensitive, I'm not trying to belittle the degrading treatment those London women suffered. Had my daughter refused my veto, I'd have given her a pair of knuckledusters. I suspect she'd have used them.
The crisis will come once a settlement is agreed and the EU tells us, you can't do that. As members we can avoid most of the things we really hate or at least get attention about it, because the other members are in the same boat. No-one will bother with what we think as non-members. The loss of influence on others, and therefore of control of our own circumstances, that comes with Brexit is real and not just an abstract discussion about sovereignty.
FWIW I expect this is right, about the concessions at least. The question is who is she going to disappoint to get there?
This claim that the EU will be keen to start a trade/tariff spat with a nation they have a huge balance of trade surplus with is intriguing in its "optimism".
Unlikely that EU will "start a spat". Either we go against something we have already agreed or go against something the others have agreed but which affects us because we have signed up to their system. There's the making of one such argument with the working time directive changes the EU are planning for the period of "transition". There will be plenty more. There was a lot of outrage about EU sanctions for the transition period and people saying it was an act of bad faith but I think it is high likely we would take unilateral action.
Edit. As members we would have a say over those working time directive changes; as non-members we don't. As I say, the loss of influence is real.
No we do not get to "classic victim blaming"; where are you getting the victimhood from, given that they are - on the face of it - morally autonomous adults voluntarily entering into a contract? You are simply deducing it from the fact that it's a contract of which you personally disapprove. They are victims of not having the benefit of a mansplanation from you of the rights and wrongs of the matter. I am not "sick", I am not defending the event, and I am allocating 100% of the blame to the organisers and the paying punters, all of whom (except those who genuinely didn't know what they were getting into) I unhesitatingly classify as wankers. There just isn't as much blame in circulation as you think there is.
And you miss the point about daughters: you said this:
"The defenders of the Presidents Club on here should send their daughters to waitress at similar events, and risk them being groped and treated as lesser by a bunch of exploitative rich men ..."
The more generally accepted view these days is that women make their own decisions, rather than being available to be "sent" to things by members of the phallocracy as part of a dubious moral experiment.
And you miss my original point on concentrating on the 'send'.
Would these men abusing those women be happy if their daughters were treated the same? In the vast majority of cases, no. That's the point. The reason they abuse them is because of a power differential. And that's also what makes it similar to abuse in Rotherham, Rochdale or the various church scandals.
"That girl is not of my religion, so she is less worthy and I can do what I want to her." "That naughty boy is less faithful than me, so I can abuse him." "That waitress earns less than me, and so I can touch her up."
The fact it's rich white men doing the abusing makes f-all difference, however much the excusers such as yourself try to make it so.
The 'escorts' line is particularly poor, as that's the same line peddled out by some sick people excusing the events in ?Rotherham? (might have been Rochdale): "The girls were just prostitutes.".
"(Have you considered the full impact of your phrase 'what the deal was'? The deal should have been nothing like that in the first place...)"
Very tacky but nothing illegal went on as far as I could see. At my age, I find many things tacky, but that's my subjective viewpoint.
Incidentally, I watched a black and white re-run of a 1965 'Top of the Pops' last week, and the first clip was Manfred Mann. Paul Jones was miming for his life on the raised catwalk that TOTP use and was being groped by two young girls. They grabbed at his thigh and on one occasion groped his bum cheek, He did his best to push them away and keep in sync with the tune but he struggled.
If he'd been my son, I'd never have allowed him to appear.
And to forestall the more sensitive, I'm not trying to belittle the degrading treatment those London women suffered. Had my daughter refused my veto, I'd have given her a pair of knuckledusters. I suspect she'd have used them.
"Very tacky but nothing illegal went on as far as I could see"
IANAL, but if a woman was groped without 'permission', then surely that's a sexual assault?
"but if a woman was groped without 'permission', then surely that's a sexual assault?"
I have some sympathy with your view, even if it was somewhat old-fashioned. 'Was' because women may finally begin to realise they are vulnerable sometimes. Certainly the new feminists believe they are, and need protecting from the Patriachy.
I met up with some retired ex-colleagues in a Liverpool pub just before Christmas. As it was mixed-sex, I asked the men not to use a woman's knee to lever themselves up as it could be misinterpreted nowadays.
To my horror, one of the older ladies did precisely that to me a few minutes later. When I told her of her assault and my likely PTSD as a result, she told me not to be so daft. Sexist and ageist too.
"but if a woman was groped without 'permission', then surely that's a sexual assault?"
I have some sympathy with your view, even if it was somewhat old-fashioned. 'Was' because women may finally begin to realise they are vulnerable sometimes. Certainly the new feminists believe they are, and need protecting from the Patriachy.
(Snip)
Your view is the old-fashioned one. From talking to women, they are all too aware that they are vulnerable sometimes, and this knowledge may have largely led to the 'new feminism' you mention.
If women are to be groped and abused by the patriarchy, then it's clear they should need protecting from the rotten patriarchy.
The question is whether they should be vulnerable. And the answer is no. The 'she was wearing very little so I thought she was up for it" viewpoint should have died years ago.
Treat others as you would want yourself and your loved ones to be treated.
Comments
Business mix, type and methods have changed.
Euro has changed
China has changed
Technology, communications
Transport
Wealth, spending patterns, shopping methods
War and displacement of peoples.
EU enlargement
Nothing fundamental at all. The change in the last 30 or so years is significant. Enough to make a review of your thoughts a valid activity, unless you are a dumb point scoring luddite like Anna or some of the JC bashers.
Tacky, yes. Illegal? No. Unexpected? Hardly.
Were these women locked in against their will, or was the alternative starving to death on the streets?
In Haiti, after a major disaster, we expect the real vulnerable women to looked after by a Charity with a reputation to uphold.
Was it responding to someone who tried to compare the two events?
Edit: the issue of the general harm done to fundraising by the antics of TPC, together with the culture of treating women as playthings are separate issues to someone trying to conflate those events with Haiti.
Also pretending she would be a remainer isn't changing many minds.
Earlier in the thread, the comparison was discussed. For example ... "The Presidents Club is now so beyond the pale that all donations received must be returned whereas with Oxfam its apparently a few rogue people and taxpayers money must continue to be donated."
I suspect that the Oxfam furore will settle down quickly. "Lessons have been learned" and all that. The Presidents Club will linger longer. Such is life.
Let's reconsider this time next year, and see who gets the name recognition.
Can’t we argue against each other in public then shake hands afterwards any more?
MillionsBillions in British benefits going to Roma gangmasters in London isn’t a good look.The death threat, which seems to have been circulated to a substantial number of prominent Leave figures, is appalling, obviously.
But I stick to the view that some of the critics have a wider anti-charity agenda, in particular anti-development aid charity. Witness yesterday's Mail - the front page targets the husband of Jo Cox for an alleged incident in a bar in the US some years ago which the complainant decided not to pursue. Why is the Mail so interested in someone who is only known to the public because his wife was murdered? Partly because, as far as I can make out, he too was a charity worker.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/oxfam-aid-work-prostitutes-un-workers-child-sex-abuse-harassment-dfid-a8204526.html
Looks like this story isn’t going to be over any time soon.
(Those who read the Hollywood gossip columns will be aware of stories of famous people travelling abroad to abuse children for money, this is just a continuation of this).
https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/962994708783001602
https://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/reward-work-not-wealth-to-end-the-inequality-crisis-we-must-build-an-economy-fo-620396
The 7 years where we were a large EU nation offering free movement to Eastern European workers without transition controls meant most Eastern European workers headed here rather than Spain, Italy, France and Germany which had transition controls. Transition controls which ended in 2011 would largely have been irrelevant as they ended at that date in the rest of the EU too
https://twitter.com/bopanc/status/963029837299552256
FWIW I expect this is right, about the concessions at least. The question is who is she going to disappoint to get there?
Similarly - the level of foreign born people in the UK from the EU is lower than many countries including Germany, Sweden, Spain... So I think there must be other factors at work.
'Man opens sex-doll brothel in sleepy Scotland village'
https://tinyurl.com/yaxenfru
In the era of Trump, Brexit and silken Rees-Moggery, the notion that prosperous nations have a moral and practical responsibility to the poorest is fading from fashion. The populist right is straining at the leash to take a wrecking ball to the Department for International Development; to caricature it as the paymaster of pimps and perverts. Those who believe in Britain’s enduring obligation to the desperate of the world face the fight of their lives.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/11/oxfam-foreign-aid-jacob-rees-mogg
Because if not, you;d better consider the hole you've dug.
He is also fanatical anti-Israel supporter and as such has like Corbyn built a career by turning a blind eye to anti-Semitism .
In 2014 I had the unfortunate experience of walking past an anti-Israel rally.The obvious anti-Semitism was disgusting and left wing figures who appear on podiums at Anti-Israel rallies like Corbyn and Cox deserve the abuse they get
Inside a gas holder ...
(From memory, the bmb was known about during the war. When it did not explode, they covered it up, patched the holder and continued using it.)
I think he also said that one of the massive underground explosive caches that the allies placed under the German lines for one of the big offensives there, and which had failed to go off on the day, had still to be located
I don't have a daughter, but I still won't be sick enough to defend the event or the men who abused women at it.
And now we get the classic victim-blaming.
(And besides, have you considered the full impact of your phrase 'what the deal was'? The deal should have been nothing like that in the first place...)
I thought it said ... "Would you like to succeed Theresa May as next Con Leader?"
And you miss the point about daughters: you said this:
"The defenders of the Presidents Club on here should send their daughters to waitress at similar events, and risk them being groped and treated as lesser by a bunch of exploitative rich men ..."
The more generally accepted view these days is that women make their own decisions, rather than being available to be "sent" to things by members of the phallocracy as part of a dubious moral experiment.
"(Have you considered the full impact of your phrase 'what the deal was'? The deal should have been nothing like that in the first place...)"
Very tacky but nothing illegal went on as far as I could see. At my age, I find many things tacky, but that's my subjective viewpoint.
Incidentally, I watched a black and white re-run of a 1965 'Top of the Pops' last week, and the first clip was Manfred Mann. Paul Jones was miming for his life on the raised catwalk that TOTP use and was being groped by two young girls. They grabbed at his thigh and on one occasion groped his bum cheek, He did his best to push them away and keep in sync with the tune but he struggled.
If he'd been my son, I'd never have allowed him to appear.
And to forestall the more sensitive, I'm not trying to belittle the degrading treatment those London women suffered. Had my daughter refused my veto, I'd have given her a pair of knuckledusters. I suspect she'd have used them.
Edit. As members we would have a say over those working time directive changes; as non-members we don't. As I say, the loss of influence is real.
New Thread
Would these men abusing those women be happy if their daughters were treated the same? In the vast majority of cases, no. That's the point. The reason they abuse them is because of a power differential. And that's also what makes it similar to abuse in Rotherham, Rochdale or the various church scandals.
"That girl is not of my religion, so she is less worthy and I can do what I want to her."
"That naughty boy is less faithful than me, so I can abuse him."
"That waitress earns less than me, and so I can touch her up."
The fact it's rich white men doing the abusing makes f-all difference, however much the excusers such as yourself try to make it so.
The 'escorts' line is particularly poor, as that's the same line peddled out by some sick people excusing the events in ?Rotherham? (might have been Rochdale): "The girls were just prostitutes.".
IANAL, but if a woman was groped without 'permission', then surely that's a sexual assault?
"but if a woman was groped without 'permission', then surely that's a sexual assault?"
I have some sympathy with your view, even if it was somewhat old-fashioned. 'Was' because women may finally begin to realise they are vulnerable sometimes. Certainly the new feminists believe they are, and need protecting from the Patriachy.
I met up with some retired ex-colleagues in a Liverpool pub just before Christmas. As it was mixed-sex, I asked the men not to use a woman's knee to lever themselves up as it could be misinterpreted nowadays.
To my horror, one of the older ladies did precisely that to me a few minutes later. When I told her of her assault and my likely PTSD as a result, she told me not to be so daft. Sexist and ageist too.
If women are to be groped and abused by the patriarchy, then it's clear they should need protecting from the rotten patriarchy.
The question is whether they should be vulnerable. And the answer is no. The 'she was wearing very little so I thought she was up for it" viewpoint should have died years ago.
Treat others as you would want yourself and your loved ones to be treated.