Mr. rkrkrk, and yet works fine in Northern Ireland (you also ignored the double-voting problem, and that's without considering postal voting). I have no problem with time being taken to iron out weak spots, but the idea we should wait until voter fraud is endemic before attempting to reduce it is plain daft.
Anyone whose interest was in reducing voter fraud would look at postal voting and probably proxy voting also. That the govt is not doing that - but instead is going for a problem which doesn't exist demonstrates what they are really doing.
Anyone who is against voter ID has something to hide .
Ban all postal voting too - lazy barstewards.
All but the sick and homebound should need to apply for a postal vote for each election, after its called. I’d also have an early vote ballot box the weekend before the election in each constituency, which would reduce the number of postal ballots still further.
I have only used a postal vote once, when work meant I had to be in Edinburgh overnight on election day, but I really don't see the problem with it. Is there any actual evidence of people going around nursing homes, etc farming the votes? Or of patriarchs requiring sight of their family completing the forms in front of them?
I do agree that allowing early voting, as some American States do, would be a good idea. Voting needs carrots, not sticks.
I think there was evidence that Lutfor in London was abusing postal votes for Labour.
Mr. rkrkrk, and yet works fine in Northern Ireland (you also ignored the double-voting problem, and that's without considering postal voting). I have no problem with time being taken to iron out weak spots, but the idea we should wait until voter fraud is endemic before attempting to reduce it is plain daft.
Anyone whose interest was in reducing voter fraud would look at postal voting and probably proxy voting also. That the govt is not doing that - but instead is going for a problem which doesn't exist demonstrates what they are really doing.
Anyone who is against voter ID has something to hide .
Ban all postal voting too - lazy barstewards.
All but the sick and homebound should need to apply for a postal vote for each election, after its called. I’d also have an early vote ballot box the weekend before the election in each constituency, which would reduce the number of postal ballots still further.
Mr. Jonathan, the two aren't mutually exclusive. Indeed, one might argue they're closely linked in the blue case.
Corbyn, however, is a good campaigner, but an absolutely horrendous politician.
But we never heard anything about him being a good campaigner until he got results. Maybe he'll turn out to be a good politician too. And on the whole campaigning is an activity requiring the same skills and judgements as other things that need to get done. So common sense suggests Corbyn might be pretty good.
Cameron was a pretty good campaigner and did a pretty good job of being PM. May was a bad campaigner and is cringe inducingly bad in her current job.
So if you ignore the partisans, the prejudiced and the politically slanted papers, any decent minded person would conclude that Corbyn was the best choice and would now be doing a better job. British fair play.
Campaigning and governing are very different skill-sets.
Not sure I would agree with that. May is proving to be much, much better at her job of being PM than she was a campaigner. She is approaching the giddy heights of adequate.
Corbyn, in contrast, is very poor at the day job. He seems incapable of organising a team, thinking on his feet in Parliament, avoiding causing unnecessary grief inside his party and to have a totally tin ear to the public mood on foreign affairs but he undoubtedly had a very good, if slightly fantastical, campaign motivating his supporters, bringing in the supporters of other parties and putting himself about in a way that May just didn't.
To be fair, David. you're a Conservative. You may not be as partisan as those who think any Conservative leader is better than any Labour leader but let's start from there.
Since the GE May has ridden her luck - events like Salisbury are manna from heaven for political leaders. All look good in such a crisis - they can look strong and in control and walk round showing empathy while anyone who dares to raise a question in defence is howled down by the patriotic mob as being "weak" or in league with the enemy or worse.
What was even better for May was that no one died - Brown had something similar in his first few weeks as PM and even some Conservatives on here had to confess through gritted teeth he was doing well.
On the A50 negotiations the storm clouds appear to be gathering and we'll just have to see how things develop and I'm not sure how the economic picture will look in 2020 or 2021 either. May will have a record in Government to defend at the next GE and legitimate and searching questions to answer.
As for Corbyn, I'm no fan of his either - his weakness in internal party management and over the issue of anti-Semitism has been laid bare. Conversely, I think he'd make a decent Prime Minister as long as he did nothing. Had Salisbury or Douma happened on his watch, the response would have been different but it's still a crisis and I expect it would have made him look reasonable and his critics, who no doubt would have been calling for much stronger measures against Moscow than would have happened, would have been berated by many for "unnecessary escalation" or worse.
If compulsory ID cards gave the right to vote, rather than having to be on the electoral register, then the Tories' disenfranchisement efforts would blow up in their faces.
Therefore this will never happen. Citizens who change address frequently will still be kept out of the polling station.
If you cannot articulate the harm you are avoiding, then you will have nothing to say to the otherwise legitimate voter who is turned away
For those here who like doom and disaster predictions Gardenwalker's is one worth noting:
' All cultural interactions are going to cease, and Stratford is going to be closed down.
Thats exactly what the article I posted some hours ago suggested, and what I’m predicting now. '
Aside from the previous Brexit related ones - the car factories will close down, the City will move to Frankfurt, the crops will not be harvested and we'll all starve - I wonder how many other doom and disaster predictions have been made during the last 50 years ?
Nuclear war will kill us all A new ice age will end civilisation Global warming will end civilisation The millenium bug will end civilisation The oil will run out by 2000 The rainforests / oceans will be destroyed All the birds / bees will die leading to crop failures We'll all die of AIDS / nvCJD / bird flu The banking system will collapse and with it the world economy Arab governments will be overthrown by supporters of Saddam Hussein / Osama bin Laden
Perhaps I'm getting old and cynical but has any doom and disaster prediction ever come true ?
I was being sarcastic. You’re even more stupid than I thought.
The Windrush fiasco hit the headlines around the same time as the anti-Semitism in Labour scandal. The Government, for all its flaws, is working to resolve the former. What's Corbyn done about the latter?
Then we've got foreign affairs. The UK, US, Canada, France, etc etc etc all agree Russia is overwhelmingly likely to be to blame for the poisoning of an ex-Russian spy on UK soil. Corbyn stands with almost no-one in disagreeing. On Question Time, his Shadow Foreign Secretary (Thornberry) preferred the Russian to the UN explanation for the OPCW not being in Douma[sp], that is to say the Russian claim it was UN red tape rather than the reality that the team was being prevented entry by the Russians/Syrians who control the ground.
I think you spend too much time watching the news. The anti-semitism thing is an obvious smear campaign. But the Windrush affair involves real people.
As to foreign affairs, I have no idea what is going on in detail in Syria. Neither do you.
But overall it is obviously a power play between Russia and the West. I feel sorry for people on the ground caught up in it but I don't see what I can do about it personally. I certainly don't think who I vote for will make much difference. We have chosen to pool our sovereignty in NATO and so we'll end up largely going along with the Americans regardless.
Mr. rkrkrk, and yet works fine in Northern Ireland (you also ignored the double-voting problem, and that's without considering postal voting). I have no problem with time being taken to iron out weak spots, but the idea we should wait until voter fraud is endemic before attempting to reduce it is plain daft.
Anyone whose interest was in reducing voter fraud would look at postal voting and probably proxy voting also. That the govt is not doing that - but instead is going for a problem which doesn't exist demonstrates what they are really doing.
Anyone who is against voter ID has something to hide .
Ban all postal voting too - lazy barstewards.
All but the sick and homebound should need to apply for a postal vote for each election, after its called. I’d also have an early vote ballot box the weekend before the election in each constituency, which would reduce the number of postal ballots still further.
I have only used a postal vote once, when work meant I had to be in Edinburgh overnight on election day, but I really don't see the problem with it. Is there any actual evidence of people going around nursing homes, etc farming the votes? Or of patriarchs requiring sight of their family completing the forms in front of them?
I do agree that allowing early voting, as some American States do, would be a good idea. Voting needs carrots, not sticks.
I think there was evidence that Lutfor in London was abusing postal votes for Labour.
That's true. Is that not the one where the Judge made some comment about the voting system not being worthy of a banana republic? (Which is quite a surprising thing to be allowed to say these days, when you think about it.) That case seems to have had a wholly disproportionate influence on policy ever since. Perhaps, like Northern Ireland, we need special rules for Tower Hamlets.
Mr. rkrkrk, and yet works fine in Northern Ireland (you also ignored the double-voting problem, and that's without considering postal voting). I have no problem with time being taken to iron out weak spots, but the idea we should wait until voter fraud is endemic before attempting to reduce it is plain daft.
Anyone whose interest was in reducing voter fraud would look at postal voting and probably proxy voting also. That the govt is not doing that - but instead is going for a problem which doesn't exist demonstrates what they are really doing.
Anyone who is against voter ID has something to hide .
Ban all postal voting too - lazy barstewards.
All but the sick and homebound should need to apply for a postal vote for each election, after its called. I’d also have an early vote ballot box the weekend before the election in each constituency, which would reduce the number of postal ballots still further.
I have only used a postal vote once, when work meant I had to be in Edinburgh overnight on election day, but I really don't see the problem with it. Is there any actual evidence of people going around nursing homes, etc farming the votes? Or of patriarchs requiring sight of their family completing the forms in front of them?
I do agree that allowing early voting, as some American States do, would be a good idea. Voting needs carrots, not sticks.
The problems with postal votes have mainly been within certain “communities” in places like Tower Hamlets, where small apartments had a dozen registered voters. Early voting would help with a lot of local businessmen who may be away on the Thursday, restricting the postal votes to the elderly sick and those out of the country.
Anyone who is against voter ID has something to hide .
Ban all postal voting too - lazy barstewards.
They have their privacy to hide - a cherished right that over powerful government wants to strip away. Voter fraud is so infinitesimal that one may only wonder whether the Conservatives are intent on replicating the GOP playbook on voter suppression.
Voters also have perfectly legitimate reasons for absence from in person voting. It is not the governments duty to make voter turnout lower, unless one again the Tories are intent on voter suppression.
We have no idea of how big a problem it is, because personation is almost impossible to detect when there is no requirement for ID.
What makes the U.K. so special? Are France, Spain, Mexico, India and Canada oppressive states for requiring that voters demonstrate their eligibility?
If you have to ask what makes the UK "so special" then I fear there is little hope for you.
Our nation is not a carbon copy of any other state. We have evolved our traditions, rights and responsibilities down the ages, much of it bought by the blood of our forebears.
You ask about the scale of the "problem". Are Returning Officers clawing at the Home Office door because John Smith of 34 Acacia Avenue voted twice ? Are our police forces burdened with cases of rampant voter fraud. What of the courts and the jails - are they teetering on the brink of collapse because John Smith and his like are undermining our democracy.
When the government wants more control of our lives our default position should be NO .. unless the bastards are able to conclusively prove their case. On voter ID they have failed totally.
Or, more succinctly, we’re exceptional, and I don’t like the idea of having to justify myself to authority, even when the process is trivial and harmless.
Mr. rkrkrk, and yet works fine in Northern Ireland (you also ignored the double-voting problem, and that's without considering postal voting). I have no problem with time being taken to iron out weak spots, but the idea we should wait until voter fraud is endemic before attempting to reduce it is plain daft.
Anyone whose interest was in reducing voter fraud would look at postal voting and probably proxy voting also. That the govt is not doing that - but instead is going for a problem which doesn't exist demonstrates what they are really doing.
Anyone who is against voter ID has something to hide .
Ban all postal voting too - lazy barstewards.
All but the sick and homebound should need to apply for a postal vote for each election, after its called. I’d also have an early vote ballot box the weekend before the election in each constituency, which would reduce the number of postal ballots still further.
Electronic voting for me
Except that I work in IT, and sadly every idea that’s been tried for electronic voting is seriously flawed.
Not sure I would agree with that. May is proving to be much, much better at her job of being PM than she was a campaigner. She is approaching the giddy heights of adequate.
Corbyn, in contrast, is very poor at the day job. He seems incapable of organising a team, thinking on his feet in Parliament, avoiding causing unnecessary grief inside his party and to have a totally tin ear to the public mood on foreign affairs but he undoubtedly had a very good, if slightly fantastical, campaign motivating his supporters, bringing in the supporters of other parties and putting himself about in a way that May just didn't.
To be fair, David. you're a Conservative. You may not be as partisan as those who think any Conservative leader is better than any Labour leader but let's start from there.
Since the GE May has ridden her luck - events like Salisbury are manna from heaven for political leaders. All look good in such a crisis - they can look strong and in control and walk round showing empathy while anyone who dares to raise a question in defence is howled down by the patriotic mob as being "weak" or in league with the enemy or worse.
What was even better for May was that no one died - Brown had something similar in his first few weeks as PM and even some Conservatives on here had to confess through gritted teeth he was doing well.
On the A50 negotiations the storm clouds appear to be gathering and we'll just have to see how things develop and I'm not sure how the economic picture will look in 2020 or 2021 either. May will have a record in Government to defend at the next GE and legitimate and searching questions to answer.
As for Corbyn, I'm no fan of his either - his weakness in internal party management and over the issue of anti-Semitism has been laid bare. Conversely, I think he'd make a decent Prime Minister as long as he did nothing. Had Salisbury or Douma happened on his watch, the response would have been different but it's still a crisis and I expect it would have made him look reasonable and his critics, who no doubt would have been calling for much stronger measures against Moscow than would have happened, would have been berated by many for "unnecessary escalation" or worse.
I accept I am biased. I might not have got to adequate otherwise. But, for me, the most impressive thing that May has done recently is reach agreements and move us towards a soft Brexit whilst keeping her entire party on board and together. The contrast with the revolving doors in the shadow cabinet (the first had to be replaced with a set after overuse) is there to see.
Take one dog of a campaign by the Tories, coupled with the hubris of a potential landslide and the crystallization of opposition around Corbyn and that would probably explain most of the results.
Corbyn could have (and I think he may have) promised the moon on a stick.
Mr. Recidivist, so those Jewish Labour MPs and MPs who support them, like John Mann, were making it up, in your view?
No idea. I haven't been following it. I remember lots of similar stories about how bad Labour politicians and activists are supposed to be, usually just before elections. I have just switched off that sort of thing.
I think you spend too much time watching the news. The anti-semitism thing is an obvious smear campaign. But the Windrush affair involves real people.
I agree completely.
The smear campaign by Momentum and their fellow travellers in the Labour party against Jewish MP's and their supporters has been a disgrace, matched by the pitiful response of Corbyn and his coterie of anti-Semitic acolytes.
Mr. rkrkrk, impersonation will be under-represented because it requires the impersonator to pick someone who votes (and we don't have 100% turnout).
There's also concern about postal voting, and about people voting in two places.
Why's it fine to ask for ID if you buy a shandy, but unacceptable if it's to vote?
Fine - so you can double those numbers of 44 cases, and you get 88. It's absolutely trivial. By contrast - 3.5m people in the UK don't have a valid ID.
It's an obvious attempt at voter suppression.
Nope - people should get a valid ID. It's the norm in most countries and those opposed to it have something to hide.
If anyone gives me an ID card that I can be called upon to present at any time I shall burn it.
Fine; that’s up to you. When ID cards were first suggested ...... in their most recent incarnation, anyway; think I still have my mothers WWII one........ I was opposed to the idea. However, given the way the world has moved on, I’m now not so sure. After all, I routinely carry a driving licence, which has my picture, and bus pass (ditto) plus several cards..... Railcard, credit cards, gym and co-op membership cards which don’t.
Just make everyone over 17 have a driving licence whether they drive or not. Bust as per Alastair I would be against anything compulsory as the cretins running UK would soon be rounding people up as we have seen. Why not just ban postal voting unless you can prove you are overseas/disabled.
Mr. Recidivist, if you're not listening to what Labour MPs (attacked for being Jewish or for standing up against anti-Semitism) are saying then how can you claim it's a smear? You've just stated you haven't heard what's been said or who said it.
It is a cracking photo. Brilliant use of focus. But why should conscript soldiers put up with people throwing stones at them? On one view the inherent underlying assumption is restraint on the part of the Israeli soldiers inconsistent with the accusations of brutality.
Always enjoyable to see the authoritarian Right showing its true colours on things like ID cards.
That's a bit of a reach. All sorts of countries have ID cards, both left and right. Having ID cards does not make a society either right wing or authoritarian. We are a bit of an anomally with our "it's not British" nonsense.
It's a fair point raised by many posters, how do so many other countries that aren't "authoritarian right" manage to have ID cards without becoming dystopias? Clearly having ID cards doesn't mean the country will go to the dogs, and a lot of other countries seem to find some benefits from having them. Why can't we do the same?
Personally I find it bloody ridiculous that on one hand I have the "freedom" of living without an ID card, but regularly have to prove my identity using all sorts of other official documents. It would be a hell of a lot easier for me to simply have an ID card that could be used in all circumstances where proving my identity is required.
Anyone who is against voter ID has something to hide .
Ban all postal voting too - lazy barstewards.
They have their privacy to hide - a cherished right that over powerful government wants to strip away. Voter fraud is so infinitesimal that one may only wonder whether the Conservatives are intent on replicating the GOP playbook on voter suppression.
Voters also have perfectly legitimate reasons for absence from in person voting. It is not the governments duty to make voter turnout lower, unless one again the Tories are intent on voter suppression.
We have no idea of how big a problem it is, because personation is almost impossible to detect when there is no requirement for ID.
What makes the U.K. so special? Are France, Spain, Mexico, India and Canada oppressive states for requiring that voters demonstrate their eligibility?
If you have to ask what makes the UK "so special" then I fear there is little hope for you.
Our nation is not a carbon copy of any other state. We have evolved our traditions, rights and responsibilities down the ages, much of it bought by the blood of our forebears.
You ask about the scale of the "problem". Are Returning Officers clawing at the Home Office door because John Smith of 34 Acacia Avenue voted twice ? Are our police forces burdened with cases of rampant voter fraud. What of the courts and the jails - are they teetering on the brink of collapse because John Smith and his like are undermining our democracy.
When the government wants more control of our lives our default position should be NO .. unless the bastards are able to conclusively prove their case. On voter ID they have failed totally.
Or, more succinctly, we’re exceptional, and I don’t like the idea of having to justify myself to authority, even when the process is trivial and harmless.
If the process is "trivial and harmless" (which it is not) then the government has no business changing what isn't broken and I'd venture to suggest that no Conservative should support it.
Mr. Jonathan, the two aren't mutually exclusive. Indeed, one might argue they're closely linked in the blue case.
Corbyn, however, is a good campaigner, but an absolutely horrendous politician.
But we never heard anything about him being a good campaigner until he got results. Maybe he'll turn out to be a good politician too. And on the whole campaigning is an activity requiring the same skills and judgements as other things that need to get done. So common sense suggests Corbyn might be pretty good.
Cameron was a pretty good campaigner and did a pretty good job of being PM. May was a bad campaigner and is cringe inducingly bad in her current job.
So if you ignore the partisans, the prejudiced and the politically slanted papers, any decent minded person would conclude that Corbyn was the best choice and would now be doing a better job. British fair play.
Not sure I would agree with that. May is proving to be much, much better at her job of being PM than she was a campaigner. She is approaching the giddy heights of adequate.
Corbyn, in contrast, is very poor at the day job. He seems incapable of organising a team, thinking on his feet in Parliament, avoiding causing unnecessary grief inside his party and to have a totally tin ear to the public mood on foreign affairs but he undoubtedly had a very good, if slightly fantastical, campaign motivating his supporters, bringing in the supporters of other parties and putting himself about in a way that May just didn't.
David, not like you to be so so wrong. May is useless and is proving to be even more useless than imagined. This debacle from her "supposed" triumph at the Home Office just reinforces that she was useless, is still useless and likely to go down in history as being worse than Brown.
One of the principal objectives of any government should to be to ensure the security of the ballot. It’s always a trade off between access, conveniece and security.
The government’s proposals don’t seem unreasonable but that’s why you do trials
Tory MP whose wife had their first child a week ago reveals 'horrific abuse' from left-wing trolls who targeted them after he clashed with Jeremy Corbyn in Parliament
Mr. Jonathan, the two aren't mutually exclusive. Indeed, one might argue they're closely linked in the blue case.
Corbyn, however, is a good campaigner, but an absolutely horrendous politician.
But we never heard anything about him being a good campaigner until he got results. Maybe he'll turn out to be a good politician too. And on the whole campaigning is an activity requiring the same skills and judgements as other things that need to get done. So common sense suggests Corbyn might be pretty good.
Cameron was a pretty good campaigner and did a pretty good job of being PM. May was a bad campaigner and is cringe inducingly bad in her current job.
So if you ignore the partisans, the prejudiced and the politically slanted papers, any decent minded person would conclude that Corbyn was the best choice and would now be doing a better job. British fair play.
Not sure I would agree with that. May is proving to be much, much better at her job of being PM than she was a campaigner. She is approaching the giddy heights of adequate.
Corbyn, in contrast, is very poor at the day job. He seems incapable of organising a team, thinking on his feet in Parliament, avoiding causing unnecessary grief inside his party and to have a totally tin ear to the public mood on foreign affairs but he undoubtedly had a very good, if slightly fantastical, campaign motivating his supporters, bringing in the supporters of other parties and putting himself about in a way that May just didn't.
David, not like you to be so so wrong. May is useless and is proving to be even more useless than imagined. This debacle from her "supposed" triumph at the Home Office just reinforces that she was useless, is still useless and likely to go down in history as being worse than Brown.
Morning Malc. Where did the sun go? In a fit of madness after being exposed to sunlight yesterday I cluttered our fridge with the makings for a BBQ. My wife put the CH back on this morning but I think she was just making a point. Maybe I have not fully recovered yet and am being overenthusiastic once again.
Mr. Jonathan, the two aren't mutually exclusive. Indeed, one might argue they're closely linked in the blue case.
Corbyn, however, is a good campaigner, but an absolutely horrendous politician.
But we never heard anything about him being a good campaigner until he got results. Maybe he'll turn out to be a good politician too. And on the whole campaigning is an activity requiring the same skills and judgements as other things that need to get done. So common sense suggests Corbyn might be pretty good.
Cameron was a pretty good campaigner and did a pretty good job of being PM. May was a bad campaigner and is cringe inducingly bad in her current job.
So if you ignore the partisans, the prejudiced and the politically slanted papers, any decent minded person would conclude that Corbyn was the best choice and would now be doing a better job. British fair play.
Not sure I would agree with that. May is proving to be much, much better at her job of being PM than she was a campaigner. She is approaching the giddy heights of adequate.
Corbyn, in contrast, is very poor at the day job. He seems incapable of organising a team, thinking on his feet in Parliament, avoiding causing unnecessary grief inside his party and to have a totally tin ear to the public mood on foreign affairs but he undoubtedly had a very good, if slightly fantastical, campaign motivating his supporters, bringing in the supporters of other parties and putting himself about in a way that May just didn't.
I agree with this. Corbyn's problem is not antisemitism, the IRA or a burning desire to spend taxpayers money. It's that he isn't a leader. That's what an election is about ultimately. May is deeply flawed both as an individual and a prime minister but she is capable of making decisions, devising a policy and getting people to execute it.
It is a cracking photo. Brilliant use of focus. But why should conscript soldiers put up with people throwing stones at them? On one view the inherent underlying assumption is restraint on the part of the Israeli soldiers inconsistent with the accusations of brutality.
Except , how many Israeli injured or dead compared with Palestinians. It shows Israel in a very poor light , given their history you would not expect them to be using these tactics of stealing people's land and killing unarmed people. Extremely poor indeed.
Mr. Recidivist, if you're not listening to what Labour MPs (attacked for being Jewish or for standing up against anti-Semitism) are saying then how can you claim it's a smear? You've just stated you haven't heard what's been said or who said it.
It doesn't matter whether it is true or not. It is being propagated as a way of denigrating the Labour Party. I know how these things are worked. An accusation is made. A scapegoat or two is found. Columns get written. New questions get asked. New and even worse information comes to light, just on cue for the Sunday papers. Yada, yada, yada. I don't need to waste time actually watching it play it out.
It is a cracking photo. Brilliant use of focus. But why should conscript soldiers put up with people throwing stones at them? On one view the inherent underlying assumption is restraint on the part of the Israeli soldiers inconsistent with the accusations of brutality.
Except , how many Israeli injured or dead compared with Palestinians. It shows Israel in a very poor light , given their history you would not expect them to be using these tactics of stealing people's land and killing unarmed people. Extremely poor indeed.
Oh, I agree. Israel's policies towards the occupied territories are indefensible. But what do you think would have happened to that woman in Chechnya, throwing stones at Russian troops? Or in Syria? Or the Yemen?
One of the principal objectives of any government should to be to ensure the security of the ballot. It’s always a trade off between access, conveniece and security.
The government’s proposals don’t seem unreasonable but that’s why you do trials
I'm confused as to why some PB Tories support this completely needless proposal, as I alluded to down thread. More red tape, more money wasted, more interference and more Home Office involvement .... what could possibly go wrong ?!?
Perchance the Home Office might turn their attention to problems that do require attention .... Windrush.
Tory MP whose wife had their first child a week ago reveals 'horrific abuse' from left-wing trolls who targeted them after he clashed with Jeremy Corbyn in Parliament
Here's a Labour activist who was indulging in "kinder, gentler politics" and has unfortunately had to pay Byron Davies legal fees and a donation to charity.
"I made defamatory statements about Byron Davies during last year’s election. I wanted him to lose and tweeted saying he was under investigation for electoral fraud. This was untrue & I’m sorry for my actions. I’d urge others not to repeat my unacceptable conduct. Please retweet"
Mr. Recidivist, if you're not listening to what Labour MPs (attacked for being Jewish or for standing up against anti-Semitism) are saying then how can you claim it's a smear? You've just stated you haven't heard what's been said or who said it.
It doesn't matter whether it is true or not.
Is that the calling card of Corbyn's Labour party and friends ?
It is a cracking photo. Brilliant use of focus. But why should conscript soldiers put up with people throwing stones at them? On one view the inherent underlying assumption is restraint on the part of the Israeli soldiers inconsistent with the accusations of brutality.
Because they are locked in behind an inpenetrable fence? A bit like shooting goldfish in a bowl.
Tory MP whose wife had their first child a week ago reveals 'horrific abuse' from left-wing trolls who targeted them after he clashed with Jeremy Corbyn in Parliament
Here's a Labour activist who was indulging in "kinder, gentler politics" and has unfortunately had to pay Byron Davies legal fees and a donation to charity.
"I made defamatory statements about Byron Davies during last year’s election. I wanted him to lose and tweeted saying he was under investigation for electoral fraud. This was untrue & I’m sorry for my actions. I’d urge others not to repeat my unacceptable conduct. Please retweet"
Always enjoyable to see the authoritarian Right showing its true colours on things like ID cards.
That's a bit of a reach. All sorts of countries have ID cards, both left and right. Having ID cards does not make a society either right wing or authoritarian. We are a bit of an anomally with our "it's not British" nonsense.
It's a fair point raised by many posters, how do so many other countries that aren't "authoritarian right" manage to have ID cards without becoming dystopias? Clearly having ID cards doesn't mean the country will go to the dogs, and a lot of other countries seem to find some benefits from having them. Why can't we do the same?
Personally I find it bloody ridiculous that on one hand I have the "freedom" of living without an ID card, but regularly have to prove my identity using all sorts of other official documents. It would be a hell of a lot easier for me to simply have an ID card that could be used in all circumstances where proving my identity is required.
The issue isn’t with ID cards, it’s with the requirement to produce them on demand.
It reversed the relationship between the citizen and the state. They work for us, not the other way round
It is a cracking photo. Brilliant use of focus. But why should conscript soldiers put up with people throwing stones at them? On one view the inherent underlying assumption is restraint on the part of the Israeli soldiers inconsistent with the accusations of brutality.
Because they are locked in behind an inpenetrable fence? A bit like shooting goldfish in a bowl.
That would be the fence that, according to the story, people were pulling bits off?
As I have said Israel's policies in the Occupied Territories are indefensible. They have indeed stolen land and water, forced people to live in appalling conditions, made it impossible for them to develop a viable economy and encouraged settlers to come to an overcrowded country to take yet more land. And yet...Israel remains a democracy surrounded by tyrannies, it is held to different standards and much of the time it does meet those standards and it is (rightly) criticised when they do not.
It is a cracking photo. Brilliant use of focus. But why should conscript soldiers put up with people throwing stones at them? On one view the inherent underlying assumption is restraint on the part of the Israeli soldiers inconsistent with the accusations of brutality.
Except , how many Israeli injured or dead compared with Palestinians. It shows Israel in a very poor light , given their history you would not expect them to be using these tactics of stealing people's land and killing unarmed people. Extremely poor indeed.
Oh, I agree. Israel's policies towards the occupied territories are indefensible. But what do you think would have happened to that woman in Chechnya, throwing stones at Russian troops? Or in Syria? Or the Yemen?
Fine David but that does not make it right what they are doing. I also cannot understand how the righteous UK can so quickly bomb Syria yet have no issue with Yemen , Myanmar, etc where the constant killing of women and children does not even rate a mention, the hypocrisy of the UK government is breathtaking and shameful.
It is a cracking photo. Brilliant use of focus. But why should conscript soldiers put up with people throwing stones at them? On one view the inherent underlying assumption is restraint on the part of the Israeli soldiers inconsistent with the accusations of brutality.
Except , how many Israeli injured or dead compared with Palestinians. It shows Israel in a very poor light , given their history you would not expect them to be using these tactics of stealing people's land and killing unarmed people. Extremely poor indeed.
Oh, I agree. Israel's policies towards the occupied territories are indefensible. But what do you think would have happened to that woman in Chechnya, throwing stones at Russian troops? Or in Syria? Or the Yemen?
Israel claims to be the only democracy in the Middle East. Shouldn't we be comparing their actions with what the response to stone-thowers would be in the UK, France or Germany?
Mr. Recidivist, if you're not listening to what Labour MPs (attacked for being Jewish or for standing up against anti-Semitism) are saying then how can you claim it's a smear? You've just stated you haven't heard what's been said or who said it.
It doesn't matter whether it is true or not.
Is that the calling card of Corbyn's Labour party and friends ?
No it is deploying critical thinking skills to minimise bias. I.e., the complete opposite of what you have just done by taking my sentence out of context. Just so you know, I am not a Labour Party member, and although I usually vote for them I keep an open mind and have voted for all the main parties apart from UKIP at some point or another. I take my vote seriously, and I respect the people who give up their time to keep the political parties going. I try to ignore the partisans, well represented on here, who prefer to snipe than debate.
Mr. Jonathan, the two aren't mutually exclusive. Indeed, one might argue they're closely linked in the blue case.
Corbyn, however, is a good campaigner, but an absolutely horrendous politician.
But we never heard anything about him being a good campaigner until he got results. Maybe he'll turn out to be a good politician too. And on the whole campaigning is an activity requiring the same skills and judgements as other things that need to get done. So common sense suggests Corbyn might be pretty good.
Cameron was a pretty good campaigner and did a pretty good job of being PM. May was a bad campaigner and is cringe inducingly bad in her current job.
So if you ignore the partisans, the prejudiced and the politically slanted papers, any decent minded person would conclude that Corbyn was the best choice and would now be doing a better job. British fair play.
Not sure I would agree with that. May is proving to be much, much better at her job of being PM than she was a campaigner. She is approaching the giddy heights of adequate.
Corbyn, in contrast, is very poor at the day job. He seems incapable of organising a team, thinking on his feet in Parliament, avoiding causing unnecessary grief inside his party and to have a totally tin ear to the public mood on foreign affairs but he undoubtedly had a very good, if slightly fantastical, campaign motivating his supporters, bringing in the supporters of other parties and putting himself about in a way that May just didn't.
I agree with this. Corbyn's problem is not antisemitism, the IRA or a burning desire to spend taxpayers money. It's that he isn't a leader. That's what an election is about ultimately. May is deeply flawed both as an individual and a prime minister but she is capable of making decisions, devising a policy and getting people to execute it.
Which is why Windrush is so horrible for Mrs May. There was no incompetence. The policy did what it was intended to in making people scared and making their lives hell. She just didn't realise that this might play badly with people whose opinions mattered (ie not the unfortunate targets of the policy)
Mr. Jonathan, the two aren't mutually exclusive. Indeed, one might argue they're closely linked in the blue case.
Corbyn, however, is a good campaigner, but an absolutely horrendous politician.
But we never heard anything about him being a good campaigner until he got results. Maybe he'll turn out to be a good politician too. And on the whole campaigning is an activity requiring the same skills and judgements as other things that need to get done. So common sense suggests Corbyn might be pretty good.
Cameron was a pretty good campaigner and did a pretty good job of being PM. May was a bad campaigner and is cringe inducingly bad in her current job.
So if you ignore the partisans, the prejudiced and the politically slanted papers, any decent minded person would conclude that Corbyn was the best choice and would now be doing a better job. British fair play.
Not sure I would agree with that. May is proving to be much, much better at her job of being PM than she was a campaigner. She is approaching the giddy heights of adequate.
Corbyn, in contrast, is very poor at the day job. He seems incapable of organising a team, thinking on his feet in Parliament, avoiding causing unnecessary grief inside his party and to have a totally tin ear to the public mood on foreign affairs but he undoubtedly had a very good, if slightly fantastical, campaign motivating his supporters, bringing in the supporters of other parties and putting himself about in a way that May just didn't.
David, not like you to be so so wrong. May is useless and is proving to be even more useless than imagined. This debacle from her "supposed" triumph at the Home Office just reinforces that she was useless, is still useless and likely to go down in history as being worse than Brown.
Morning Malc. Where did the sun go? In a fit of madness after being exposed to sunlight yesterday I cluttered our fridge with the makings for a BBQ. My wife put the CH back on this morning but I think she was just making a point. Maybe I have not fully recovered yet and am being overenthusiastic once again.
Morning David, yes back to rain here , luckily I got all the garden sorted out yesterday, initial clear up at least.
One of the principal objectives of any government should to be to ensure the security of the ballot. It’s always a trade off between access, conveniece and security.
The government’s proposals don’t seem unreasonable but that’s why you do trials
I'm confused as to why some PB Tories support this completely needless proposal, as I alluded to down thread. More red tape, more money wasted, more interference and more Home Office involvement .... what could possibly go wrong ?!?
Perchance the Home Office might turn their attention to problems that do require attention .... Windrush.
There's always been a liberal and an illiberal strand to conservative thought. A successful leader straddles them both. There's just something unBritish about endlessly having to prove who you are. Voter fraud is not common place across the country. It's a very specific problem in very specific areas. Concentrating on fixing the weak systems there is a better approach than having to carry ID to vote (I have done telling before, tallying people's electoral number off as they exercise their vote and many people ive encountered seem think they need to bring their polling cards already).
Mr. Jonathan, the two aren't mutually exclusive. Indeed, one might argue they're closely linked in the blue case.
Corbyn, however, is a good campaigner, but an absolutely horrendous politician.
But we never heard anything about him being a good campaigner until he got results. Maybe he'll turn out to be a good politician too. And on the whole campaigning is an activity requiring the same skills and judgements as other things that need to get done. So common sense suggests Corbyn might be pretty good.
Cameron was a pretty good campaigner and did a pretty good job of being PM. May was a bad campaigner and is cringe inducingly bad in her current job.
So if you ignore the partisans, the prejudiced and the politically slanted papers, any decent minded person would conclude that Corbyn was the best choice and would now be doing a better job. British fair play.
Not sure I would agree with that. May is proving to be much, much better at her job of being PM than she was a campaigner. She is approaching the giddy heights of adequate.
Corbyn, in contrast, is very poor at the day job. He seems incapable of organising a team, thinking on his feet in Parliament, avoiding causing unnecessary grief inside his party and to have a totally tin ear to the public mood on foreign affairs but he undoubtedly had a very good, if slightly fantastical, campaign motivating his supporters, bringing in the supporters of other parties and putting himself about in a way that May just didn't.
I agree with this. Corbyn's problem is not antisemitism, the IRA or a burning desire to spend taxpayers money. It's that he isn't a leader. That's what an election is about ultimately. May is deeply flawed both as an individual and a prime minister but she is capable of making decisions, devising a policy and getting people to execute it.
Which is why Windrush is so horrible for Mrs May. There was no incompetence. The policy did what it was intended to in making people scared and making their lives hell. She just didn't realise that this might play badly with people whose opinions counted (ie not the unfortunate targets of the policy)
It is a cracking photo. Brilliant use of focus. But why should conscript soldiers put up with people throwing stones at them? On one view the inherent underlying assumption is restraint on the part of the Israeli soldiers inconsistent with the accusations of brutality.
Except , how many Israeli injured or dead compared with Palestinians. It shows Israel in a very poor light , given their history you would not expect them to be using these tactics of stealing people's land and killing unarmed people. Extremely poor indeed.
Oh, I agree. Israel's policies towards the occupied territories are indefensible. But what do you think would have happened to that woman in Chechnya, throwing stones at Russian troops? Or in Syria? Or the Yemen?
Fine David but that does not make it right what they are doing. I also cannot understand how the righteous UK can so quickly bomb Syria yet have no issue with Yemen , Myanmar, etc where the constant killing of women and children does not even rate a mention, the hypocrisy of the UK government is breathtaking and shameful.
I suppose the cynical might say that we have not lifted a finger to stop Assad from murdering 400k of his own citizens either until he used chemical weapons. We are not the world's policeman but that does not mean that there are not some rules that we have an interest in enforcing.
The left hunting Amber Rudd is not surprising but they seem to be confusing the dreadful treatment of the Windrush children, comprehensively condemned across the political spectrum, with an attempt to widen it to immigration in general.
This is a mistake as immigration is still a very important subject and illegal immigration even more so. I very much doubt the public disagrees with the policy of hostility to illegal immigration first coined by Alan Johnson and endorsed by labour including Yvette Cooper and carried on by TM and now Amber Rudd.
Labour accusation of institutional racism from various spokespeople this morning, including Corbyn, just enforces the publics view that labour have no intention of taking a hard line on this subject and that will not help them with the working class which they need to be in with any chance of office
It is a cracking photo. Brilliant use of focus. But why should conscript soldiers put up with people throwing stones at them? On one view the inherent underlying assumption is restraint on the part of the Israeli soldiers inconsistent with the accusations of brutality.
Except , how many Israeli injured or dead compared with Palestinians. It shows Israel in a very poor light , given their history you would not expect them to be using these tactics of stealing people's land and killing unarmed people. Extremely poor indeed.
Oh, I agree. Israel's policies towards the occupied territories are indefensible. But what do you think would have happened to that woman in Chechnya, throwing stones at Russian troops? Or in Syria? Or the Yemen?
Israel claims to be the only democracy in the Middle East. Shouldn't we be comparing their actions with what the response to stone-thowers would be in the UK, France or Germany?
Community order would certainly be better than a bullet in the head for sure.
If ID cards are compulsory, will we have to have them on us at all times so that the authorities can ask to see them? What happens if you get stopped by the rozzers and you have left your card at home? Who is going to pay for them? If they have a cost (as I'm sure they will, like driving licences and passports), what happens if you can't afford to pay? What, exactly, is an ID card going to let you do that you can't do already? What problems will they solve? What will the sanctions be if you don't have one? What is the point of them?
Mr. Recidivist, if you're not listening to what Labour MPs (attacked for being Jewish or for standing up against anti-Semitism) are saying then how can you claim it's a smear? You've just stated you haven't heard what's been said or who said it.
It doesn't matter whether it is true or not. It is being propagated as a way of denigrating the Labour Party. I know how these things are worked. An accusation is made. A scapegoat or two is found. Columns get written. New questions get asked. New and even worse information comes to light, just on cue for the Sunday papers. Yada, yada, yada. I don't need to waste time actually watching it play it out.
In short, it’s just Jews causing trouble. Or something. Why would Jews do this, do you think?
It is a cracking photo. Brilliant use of focus. But why should conscript soldiers put up with people throwing stones at them? On one view the inherent underlying assumption is restraint on the part of the Israeli soldiers inconsistent with the accusations of brutality.
Except , how many Israeli injured or dead compared with Palestinians. It shows Israel in a very poor light , given their history you would not expect them to be using these tactics of stealing people's land and killing unarmed people. Extremely poor indeed.
Oh, I agree. Israel's policies towards the occupied territories are indefensible. But what do you think would have happened to that woman in Chechnya, throwing stones at Russian troops? Or in Syria? Or the Yemen?
Israel claims to be the only democracy in the Middle East. Shouldn't we be comparing their actions with what the response to stone-thowers would be in the UK, France or Germany?
Yes, we should and we do. But we should also recognise that there are many regimes that do not even aspire to those standards and have a total indifference to the loss of human life. Israel, for all its failings, is not one of them.
The left hunting Amber Rudd is not surprising but they seem to be confusing the dreadful treatment of the Windrush children, comprehensively condemned across the political spectrum, with an attempt to widen it to immigration in general.
This is a mistake as immigration is still a very important subject and illegal immigration even more so. I very much doubt the public disagrees with the policy of hostility to illegal immigration first coined by Alan Johnson and endorsed by labour including Yvette Cooper and carried on by TM and now Amber Rudd.
Labour accusation of institutional racism from various spokespeople this morning, including Corbyn, just enforces the publics view that labour have no intention of taking a hard line on this subject and that will not help them with the working class which they need to be in with any chance of office
Labour is reminding middle class BAME voters about the underlying realities of the Conservative Party.
"A new Emerson College ePoll has Democratic candidate Hiral Tipirneni in a statistical dead heat with her Republican opponent Debbie Lesko 46% to 45%, in a special election to be held on April 24. President Trump won the district 58% to 37% in 2016. "
You can get the Dems at 7/1, which seems too long.
Not sure I would agree with that. May is proving to be much, much better at her job of being PM than she was a campaigner. She is approaching the giddy heights of adequate.
Corbyn, in contrast, is very poor at the day job. He seems incapable of organising a team, thinking on his feet in Parliament, avoiding causing unnecessary grief inside his party and to have a totally tin ear to the public mood on foreign affairs but he undoubtedly had a very good, if slightly fantastical, campaign motivating his supporters, bringing in the supporters of other parties and putting himself about in a way that May just didn't.
Conversely, I think he'd make a decent Prime Minister as long as he did nothing..
The left hunting Amber Rudd is not surprising but they seem to be confusing the dreadful treatment of the Windrush children, comprehensively condemned across the political spectrum, with an attempt to widen it to immigration in general.
This is a mistake as immigration is still a very important subject and illegal immigration even more so. I very much doubt the public disagrees with the policy of hostility to illegal immigration first coined by Alan Johnson and endorsed by labour including Yvette Cooper and carried on by TM and now Amber Rudd.
Labour accusation of institutional racism from various spokespeople this morning, including Corbyn, just enforces the publics view that labour have no intention of taking a hard line on this subject and that will not help them with the working class which they need to be in with any chance of office
I don't know if I am just in a contrary mood this morning whilst I wonder what to do with my BBQ food but I see this the other way around.
The immigration policies are indeed the issue and the WIndrush children are no more than an example of the sort of problems that we have created by retrospectively imposing documentation standards on people which were not applicable at the time they came. We need some original, liberal and compassionate thinking about the consequences of what we do for those affected.
Mr. Recidivist, if you're not listening to what Labour MPs (attacked for being Jewish or for standing up against anti-Semitism) are saying then how can you claim it's a smear? You've just stated you haven't heard what's been said or who said it.
It doesn't matter whether it is true or not.
Is that the calling card of Corbyn's Labour party and friends ?
No it is deploying critical thinking skills to minimise bias. I.e., the complete opposite of what you have just done by taking my sentence out of context. Just so you know, I am not a Labour Party member, and although I usually vote for them I keep an open mind and have voted for all the main parties apart from UKIP at some point or another. I take my vote seriously, and I respect the people who give up their time to keep the political parties going. I try to ignore the partisans, well represented on here, who prefer to snipe than debate.
You seem to fail to see that online smears and antisemitic attacks put people off politics.
If you really did "respect people who give up their time to keep the political parties going.", you would see that.
People are put off entering politics if they feel they will be smeared, or subject to online attacks.
Not sure I would agree with that. May is proving to be much, much better at her job of being PM than she was a campaigner. She is approaching the giddy heights of adequate.
Corbyn, in contrast, is very poor at the day job. He seems incapable of organising a team, thinking on his feet in Parliament, avoiding causing unnecessary grief inside his party and to have a totally tin ear to the public mood on foreign affairs but he undoubtedly had a very good, if slightly fantastical, campaign motivating his supporters, bringing in the supporters of other parties and putting himself about in a way that May just didn't.
Conversely, I think he'd make a decent Prime Minister as long as he did nothing..
A ringing endorsement!
They're not planning on doing nothing. They'll do everything they possibly can and work on the assumption theyll be out of office in five years time. There'll be no pilot schemes or consultation. It will be hitting the ground running and carry out their agenda.
ID cards have the potential to be the thin end of the dystopian scifi wedge. Retinal scanners are an established technology, and the authoritarian dream must be to have everyone in the country on a retina database, and policemen and the like to have portable scanners. This'll be much easier to introduce if you can say, Come on, it's no different from the present system where you already have to have your ID on you at all times.
Mr. Recidivist, if you're not listening to what Labour MPs (attacked for being Jewish or for standing up against anti-Semitism) are saying then how can you claim it's a smear? You've just stated you haven't heard what's been said or who said it.
It doesn't matter whether it is true or not.
Is that the calling card of Corbyn's Labour party and friends ?
No it is deploying critical thinking skills to minimise bias. I.e., the complete opposite of what you have just done by taking my sentence out of context. Just so you know, I am not a Labour Party member, and although I usually vote for them I keep an open mind and have voted for all the main parties apart from UKIP at some point or another. I take my vote seriously, and I respect the people who give up their time to keep the political parties going. I try to ignore the partisans, well represented on here, who prefer to snipe than debate.
It's most difficult to "take out of context" your statement that the issue of anti-Semitism in the Labour "doesn't matter whether it is true or not."
All the rest of your comment is just so much verbiage.
Mr. Recidivist, "It doesn't matter whether it is true or not." That's an original and unorthodox approach to claims of anti-Semitism and threats of rape.
"A new Emerson College ePoll has Democratic candidate Hiral Tipirneni in a statistical dead heat with her Republican opponent Debbie Lesko 46% to 45%, in a special election to be held on April 24. President Trump won the district 58% to 37% in 2016. "
You can get the Dems at 7/1, which seems too long.
The left hunting Amber Rudd is not surprising but they seem to be confusing the dreadful treatment of the Windrush children, comprehensively condemned across the political spectrum, with an attempt to widen it to immigration in general.
This is a mistake as immigration is still a very important subject and illegal immigration even more so. I very much doubt the public disagrees with the policy of hostility to illegal immigration first coined by Alan Johnson and endorsed by labour including Yvette Cooper and carried on by TM and now Amber Rudd.
Labour accusation of institutional racism from various spokespeople this morning, including Corbyn, just enforces the publics view that labour have no intention of taking a hard line on this subject and that will not help them with the working class which they need to be in with any chance of office
Labour is reminding middle class BAME voters about the underlying realities of the Conservative Party.
The left hunting Amber Rudd is not surprising but they seem to be confusing the dreadful treatment of the Windrush children, comprehensively condemned across the political spectrum, with an attempt to widen it to immigration in general.
This is a mistake as immigration is still a very important subject and illegal immigration even more so. I very much doubt the public disagrees with the policy of hostility to illegal immigration first coined by Alan Johnson and endorsed by labour including Yvette Cooper and carried on by TM and now Amber Rudd.
Labour accusation of institutional racism from various spokespeople this morning, including Corbyn, just enforces the publics view that labour have no intention of taking a hard line on this subject and that will not help them with the working class which they need to be in with any chance of office
I don't know if I am just in a contrary mood this morning whilst I wonder what to do with my BBQ food but I see this the other way around.
The immigration policies are indeed the issue and the WIndrush children are no more than an example of the sort of problems that we have created by retrospectively imposing documentation standards on people which were not applicable at the time they came. We need some original, liberal and compassionate thinking about the consequences of what we do for those affected.
100% agree but there is a balance - going soft on illegal immigration would be very unpopular
The left hunting Amber Rudd is not surprising but they seem to be confusing the dreadful treatment of the Windrush children, comprehensively condemned across the political spectrum, with an attempt to widen it to immigration in general.
This is a mistake as immigration is still a very important subject and illegal immigration even more so. I very much doubt the public disagrees with the policy of hostility to illegal immigration first coined by Alan Johnson and endorsed by labour including Yvette Cooper and carried on by TM and now Amber Rudd.
Labour accusation of institutional racism from various spokespeople this morning, including Corbyn, just enforces the publics view that labour have no intention of taking a hard line on this subject and that will not help them with the working class which they need to be in with any chance of office
Labour is reminding middle class BAME voters about the underlying realities of the Conservative Party.
And distancing themselves even more from their working class roots?
The left hunting Amber Rudd is not surprising but they seem to be confusing the dreadful treatment of the Windrush children, comprehensively condemned across the political spectrum, with an attempt to widen it to immigration in general.
This is a mistake as immigration is still a very important subject and illegal immigration even more so. I very much doubt the public disagrees with the policy of hostility to illegal immigration first coined by Alan Johnson and endorsed by labour including Yvette Cooper and carried on by TM and now Amber Rudd.
Labour accusation of institutional racism from various spokespeople this morning, including Corbyn, just enforces the publics view that labour have no intention of taking a hard line on this subject and that will not help them with the working class which they need to be in with any chance of office
I don't know if I am just in a contrary mood this morning whilst I wonder what to do with my BBQ food but I see this the other way around.
The immigration policies are indeed the issue and the WIndrush children are no more than an example of the sort of problems that we have created by retrospectively imposing documentation standards on people which were not applicable at the time they came. We need some original, liberal and compassionate thinking about the consequences of what we do for those affected.
When you set blanket policies based on a presumption that whole groups of people are “bad” or expendable you will get bad policies. Zero tolerance on immigration, the Bedroom tax, the welfare cap, etc all show that. The moral of the story, of course, is focus on people not newspaper headlines. It will never catch on.
Mr. Recidivist, if you're not listening to what Labour MPs (attacked for being Jewish or for standing up against anti-Semitism) are saying then how can you claim it's a smear? You've just stated you haven't heard what's been said or who said it.
It doesn't matter whether it is true or not. It is being propagated as a way of denigrating the Labour Party. I know how these things are worked. An accusation is made. A scapegoat or two is found. Columns get written. New questions get asked. New and even worse information comes to light, just on cue for the Sunday papers. Yada, yada, yada. I don't need to waste time actually watching it play it out.
In short, it’s just Jews causing trouble. Or something. Why would Jews do this, do you think?
Where did I say that? I can't keep track of everything, but knowing human nature I would imagine that political parties attract all sorts of nutters and undesirables. Is this a story of Labour's organisation not being very effective at handling some of them? I've no idea. But it is pretty clear that Labour as a whole isn't antisemitic. Or is this just routine stuff that is going on all the time. And is it any worse than in other parties? I doubt it. Having a name that sounds Jewish, in my experience it is conservatives who are, albeit very rarely, bothered by that not liberals.
One thing I am sure of. There is absolutely nothing Mr Corbyn can do on this issue that his opponents won't criticise him for. If he does nothing he is ignoring anti-semitism. If he denies it he is condoning it (as SO has just done to me). If he takes action it is too limited and is a form of tacit anti-semitism. If he announces a root and branch campaign to drive anti-semites out of the party it will be, why did he take so long?
It's just the old 'have you stopped beating your wife' trick.
ID cards have the potential to be the thin end of the dystopian scifi wedge. Retinal scanners are an established technology, and the authoritarian dream must be to have everyone in the country on a retina database, and policemen and the like to have portable scanners. This'll be much easier to introduce if you can say, Come on, it's no different from the present system where you already have to have your ID on you at all times.
Didn't a Labour politician said a decade back that babies should be microchipped in the same way pets are ?
It is a cracking photo. Brilliant use of focus. But why should conscript soldiers put up with people throwing stones at them? On one view the inherent underlying assumption is restraint on the part of the Israeli soldiers inconsistent with the accusations of brutality.
Except , how many Israeli injured or dead compared with Palestinians. It shows Israel in a very poor light , given their history you would not expect them to be using these tactics of stealing people's land and killing unarmed people. Extremely poor indeed.
Oh, I agree. Israel's policies towards the occupied territories are indefensible. But what do you think would have happened to that woman in Chechnya, throwing stones at Russian troops? Or in Syria? Or the Yemen?
Fine David but that does not make it right what they are doing. I also cannot understand how the righteous UK can so quickly bomb Syria yet have no issue with Yemen , Myanmar, etc where the constant killing of women and children does not even rate a mention, the hypocrisy of the UK government is breathtaking and shameful.
I suppose the cynical might say that we have not lifted a finger to stop Assad from murdering 400k of his own citizens either until he used chemical weapons. We are not the world's policeman but that does not mean that there are not some rules that we have an interest in enforcing.
David, Agree but just would like some consistency and much less hypocrisy re them pretending they actually care about what a few of the despots do whilst just ignoring the majority or actually assist them in their tyranny. It is the two faced positioning that I dislike intensely, whilst they pat themselves on the backs for being righteous caring kind people.
The left hunting Amber Rudd is not surprising but they seem to be confusing the dreadful treatment of the Windrush children, comprehensively condemned across the political spectrum, with an attempt to widen it to immigration in general.
This is a mistake as immigration is still a very important subject and illegal immigration even more so. I very much doubt the public disagrees with the policy of hostility to illegal immigration first coined by Alan Johnson and endorsed by labour including Yvette Cooper and carried on by TM and now Amber Rudd.
Labour accusation of institutional racism from various spokespeople this morning, including Corbyn, just enforces the publics view that labour have no intention of taking a hard line on this subject and that will not help them with the working class which they need to be in with any chance of office
I don't know if I am just in a contrary mood this morning whilst I wonder what to do with my BBQ food but I see this the other way around.
The immigration policies are indeed the issue and the WIndrush children are no more than an example of the sort of problems that we have created by retrospectively imposing documentation standards on people which were not applicable at the time they came. We need some original, liberal and compassionate thinking about the consequences of what we do for those affected.
When you set blanket policies based on a presumption that whole groups of people are “bad” or expendable you will get bad policies. Zero tolerance on immigration, the Bedroom tax, the welfare cap, etc all show that. The moral of the story, of course, is focus on people not newspaper headlines. It will never catch on.
Considering that immigration has been running at over half a million a year how do you equate that with 'zero tolerance' ?
ID cards have the potential to be the thin end of the dystopian scifi wedge. Retinal scanners are an established technology, and the authoritarian dream must be to have everyone in the country on a retina database, and policemen and the like to have portable scanners. This'll be much easier to introduce if you can say, Come on, it's no different from the present system where you already have to have your ID on you at all times.
"A new Emerson College ePoll has Democratic candidate Hiral Tipirneni in a statistical dead heat with her Republican opponent Debbie Lesko 46% to 45%, in a special election to be held on April 24. President Trump won the district 58% to 37% in 2016. "
You can get the Dems at 7/1, which seems too long.
Thanks but where can you get the 7/1 ?
Last matched on BF - not available atm but I suspect you would get it
The left hunting Amber Rudd is not surprising but they seem to be confusing the dreadful treatment of the Windrush children, comprehensively condemned across the political spectrum, with an attempt to widen it to immigration in general.
This is a mistake as immigration is still a very important subject and illegal immigration even more so. I very much doubt the public disagrees with the policy of hostility to illegal immigration first coined by Alan Johnson and endorsed by labour including Yvette Cooper and carried on by TM and now Amber Rudd.
Labour accusation of institutional racism from various spokespeople this morning, including Corbyn, just enforces the publics view that labour have no intention of taking a hard line on this subject and that will not help them with the working class which they need to be in with any chance of office
I don't know if I am just in a contrary mood this morning whilst I wonder what to do with my BBQ food but I see this the other way around.
The immigration policies are indeed the issue and the WIndrush children are no more than an example of the sort of problems that we have created by retrospectively imposing documentation standards on people which were not applicable at the time they came. We need some original, liberal and compassionate thinking about the consequences of what we do for those affected.
100% agree but there is a balance - going soft on illegal immigration would be very unpopular
Well, let's go back to treating it as part of the civil law with a six year time limit in England and Wales (or sometimes 12 years with some contracts which I think only lawyers understand).
The media, well R4, have now publicised the case of a 80 year old lady who went to a family funeral in 2009 and was refused readmission to the UK. How utterly disgraceful. R4 reported that pre-1960 documents may be in the national archives. So if you're over 57 you might now be alright but those in early middle age may still be denied legal residency and the govt will be waiting for this to die down so that they can get nasty again and deport first, ask questions later.
ID cards have the potential to be the thin end of the dystopian scifi wedge. Retinal scanners are an established technology, and the authoritarian dream must be to have everyone in the country on a retina database, and policemen and the like to have portable scanners. This'll be much easier to introduce if you can say, Come on, it's no different from the present system where you already have to have your ID on you at all times.
The government already has access to thousands of ANPR cameras which track vehicle movement. It already has bulk access to mobile phone records which essentially allow the movement of most people to be tracked (and that's completely independent of any location service on the device). The government has bulk interception and data retention laws for communications. There are millions and millions of CCTV cameras. Almost any source of data is usable by the government in the name of fighting crime, or for national security; things like customs, borders, flight records, bank transactions and many more.
It's things like that these that have been used to identify the suspects for the attemted murder of the Skripals.
So if you are worried about potentially becoming a dystopia, the fact that we do not have a national ID card doesn't appear to be any impediment to such a thing happening.
ID cards have the potential to be the thin end of the dystopian scifi wedge. Retinal scanners are an established technology, and the authoritarian dream must be to have everyone in the country on a retina database, and policemen and the like to have portable scanners. This'll be much easier to introduce if you can say, Come on, it's no different from the present system where you already have to have your ID on you at all times.
Didn't a Labour politician said a decade back that babies should be microchipped in the same way pets are ?
If one did, it has escaped the notice of Google. There was a suggestion to microchip criminals, which is nearly as bad.
ID cards have the potential to be the thin end of the dystopian scifi wedge. Retinal scanners are an established technology, and the authoritarian dream must be to have everyone in the country on a retina database, and policemen and the like to have portable scanners. This'll be much easier to introduce if you can say, Come on, it's no different from the present system where you already have to have your ID on you at all times.
Do you have an issue with biometric passports?
No, because biometrics are in that case just making more secure a system which we have anyway. But the default case should be that I can tell anyone asking me who I am to mind their own f-cking business, except when I am voluntarily trying to, for example, access a bank account or cross a national border.
That's a bit of a reach. All sorts of countries have ID cards, both left and right. Having ID cards does not make a society either right wing or authoritarian. We are a bit of an anomally with our "it's not British" nonsense.
It's a fair point raised by many posters, how do so many other countries that aren't "authoritarian right" manage to have ID cards without becoming dystopias?
The point of restricting the ability of the government to control the citizens is to restrict what the government can do if an authoritarian right (or left) government manages to get itself in power for a while. You're only an election away from this, especially with FPTP.
Obviously having your non-authoritarian governments refrain from giving itself power like this is only a temporary solution; In this case, once an authoritarian government takes over, it can make everyone carry identity cards. But it's a useful defence to make them do the work rather than doing it for them in advance; This will slow them down and hopefully provide time to replace them before they undermine the mechanisms that we'd use to replace them.
I think Britain is actually at greater risk than most European democracies, because it hasn't had the experience of being run by a tyrannical government then overthrowing it or being liberated, so it's easier for a government to chip away at other checks and balances like human rights law without the voters getting mad at you.
This may all seem paranoid and hypothetical, but if you look at the way the Chinese government is able to use technology to track and control people - things like giving everyone a score for their behaviour so you can punish undesirable political comment by attacking access to credit and all kinds of other things - it isn't hard to see how a would-be tyrant could turn the machinery of government into something very oppressive in quite a short period of time.
ID cards have the potential to be the thin end of the dystopian scifi wedge. Retinal scanners are an established technology, and the authoritarian dream must be to have everyone in the country on a retina database, and policemen and the like to have portable scanners. This'll be much easier to introduce if you can say, Come on, it's no different from the present system where you already have to have your ID on you at all times.
Extend the diving license system to include non-drivers (may be a different colour).
No need to carry them at all times, but used as proof of age (as required) and to access government services/voting
The point of restricting the ability of the government to control the citizens is to restrict what the government can do if an authoritarian right (or left) government manages to get itself in power for a while. You're only an election away from this, especially with FPTP.
Obviously having your non-authoritarian governments refrain from giving itself power like this is only a temporary solution; In this case, once an authoritarian government takes over, it can make everyone carry identity cards. But it's a useful defence to make them do the work rather than doing it for them in advance; This will slow them down and hopefully provide time to replace them before they undermine the mechanisms that we'd use to replace them.
I think Britain is actually at greater risk than most European democracies, because it hasn't had the experience of being run by a tyrannical government then overthrowing it or being liberated, so it's easier for a government to chip away at other checks and balances like human rights law without the voters getting mad at you.
This may all seem paranoid and hypothetical, but if you look at the way the Chinese government is able to use technology to track and control people - things like giving everyone a score for their behaviour so you can punish undesirable political comment by attacking access to credit and all kinds of other things - it isn't hard to see how a would-be tyrant could turn the machinery of government into something very oppressive in quite a short period of time.
We literally do all the stuff people warn about, bar one little thing. The idea that not having an ID card is some great protection of freedom in Britain is laughable in a country where in just the last 24 hours we hear of a prosecution for posting song lyrics, and the health secretary is threatening to crack down on social media.
We crossed the Rubicon decades ago, and we kid ourselves that we are somehow freer than other comparable countries.
The point of restricting the ability of the government to control the citizens is to restrict what the government can do if an authoritarian right (or left) government manages to get itself in power for a while. You're only an election away from this, especially with FPTP.
Obviously having your non-authoritarian governments refrain from giving itself power like this is only a temporary solution; In this case, once an authoritarian government takes over, it can make everyone carry identity cards. But it's a useful defence to make them do the work rather than doing it for them in advance; This will slow them down and hopefully provide time to replace them before they undermine the mechanisms that we'd use to replace them.
I think Britain is actually at greater risk than most European democracies, because it hasn't had the experience of being run by a tyrannical government then overthrowing it or being liberated, so it's easier for a government to chip away at other checks and balances like human rights law without the voters getting mad at you.
This may all seem paranoid and hypothetical, but if you look at the way the Chinese government is able to use technology to track and control people - things like giving everyone a score for their behaviour so you can punish undesirable political comment by attacking access to credit and all kinds of other things - it isn't hard to see how a would-be tyrant could turn the machinery of government into something very oppressive in quite a short period of time.
We literally do all the stuff people warn about, bar one little thing. The idea that not having an ID card is some great protection of freedom in Britain is laughable in a country where in just the last 24 hours we hear of a prosecution for posting song lyrics, and the health secretary is threatening to crack down on social media.
We crossed the Rubicon decades ago, and we kid ourselves that we are somehow freer than other comparable countries.
The left hunting Amber Rudd is not surprising but they seem to be confusing the dreadful treatment of the Windrush children, comprehensively condemned across the political spectrum, with an attempt to widen it to immigration in general.
This is a mistake as immigration is still a very important subject and illegal immigration even more so. I very much doubt the public disagrees with the policy of hostility to illegal immigration first coined by Alan Johnson and endorsed by labour including Yvette Cooper and carried on by TM and now Amber Rudd.
Labour accusation of institutional racism from various spokespeople this morning, including Corbyn, just enforces the publics view that labour have no intention of taking a hard line on this subject and that will not help them with the working class which they need to be in with any chance of office
I don't know if I am just in a contrary mood this morning whilst I wonder what to do with my BBQ food but I see this the other way around.
The immigration policies are indeed the issue and the WIndrush children are no more than an example of the sort of problems that we have created by retrospectively imposing documentation standards on people which were not applicable at the time they came. We need some original, liberal and compassionate thinking about the consequences of what we do for those affected.
100% agree but there is a balance - going soft on illegal immigration would be very unpopular
Well, let's go back to treating it as part of the civil law with a six year time limit in England and Wales (or sometimes 12 years with some contracts which I think only lawyers understand).
The media, well R4, have now publicised the case of a 80 year old lady who went to a family funeral in 2009 and was refused readmission to the UK. How utterly disgraceful. R4 reported that pre-1960 documents may be in the national archives. So if you're over 57 you might now be alright but those in early middle age may still be denied legal residency and the govt will be waiting for this to die down so that they can get nasty again and deport first, ask questions later.
The point of restricting the ability of the government to control the citizens is to restrict what the government can do if an authoritarian right (or left) government manages to get itself in power for a while. You're only an election away from this, especially with FPTP.
Obviously having your non-authoritarian governments refrain from giving itself power like this is only a temporary solution; In this case, once an authoritarian government takes over, it can make everyone carry identity cards. But it's a useful defence to make them do the work rather than doing it for them in advance; This will slow them down and hopefully provide time to replace them before they undermine the mechanisms that we'd use to replace them.
I think Britain is actually at greater risk than most European democracies, because it hasn't had the experience of being run by a tyrannical government then overthrowing it or being liberated, so it's easier for a government to chip away at other checks and balances like human rights law without the voters getting mad at you.
This may all seem paranoid and hypothetical, but if you look at the way the Chinese government is able to use technology to track and control people - things like giving everyone a score for their behaviour so you can punish undesirable political comment by attacking access to credit and all kinds of other things - it isn't hard to see how a would-be tyrant could turn the machinery of government into something very oppressive in quite a short period of time.
We literally do all the stuff people warn about, bar one little thing. The idea that not having an ID card is some great protection of freedom in Britain is laughable in a country where in just the last 24 hours we hear of a prosecution for posting song lyrics, and the health secretary is threatening to crack down on social media.
We crossed the Rubicon decades ago, and we kid ourselves that we are somehow freer than other comparable countries.
The problem with the Rubicon analogy is that we can turn back, and certainly do not need to escalate matters, there is no inevitability to it. And even if there is a level of delusion as to how free we are, that perception could be important, because we must feel comfortable at least, and because of that perception perhaps others can work to make it a reality.
ID cards have the potential to be the thin end of the dystopian scifi wedge. Retinal scanners are an established technology, and the authoritarian dream must be to have everyone in the country on a retina database, and policemen and the like to have portable scanners. This'll be much easier to introduce if you can say, Come on, it's no different from the present system where you already have to have your ID on you at all times.
Didn't a Labour politician said a decade back that babies should be microchipped in the same way pets are ?
If one did, it has escaped the notice of Google. There was a suggestion to microchip criminals, which is nearly as bad.
The problem with the Rubicon analogy is that we can turn back, and certainly do not need to escalate matters, there is no inevitability to it. And even if there is a level of delusion as to how free we are, that perception could be important, because we must feel comfortable at least, and because of that perception perhaps others can work to make it a reality.
Britain is probably the most surveilled democracy in the world, and if it's not actually us we are right up at the front. This has been going on for a long time. We could reverse it I suppose, but I see little sign of any support for doing so.
There's even another news story today, about more powers for the security services and police to combat extremism.
The idea that Britain is a bastion of freedom is a bad joke, but hey at least we don't have to carry an ID card!
The problem with the Rubicon analogy is that we can turn back, and certainly do not need to escalate matters, there is no inevitability to it. And even if there is a level of delusion as to how free we are, that perception could be important, because we must feel comfortable at least, and because of that perception perhaps others can work to make it a reality.
Britain is probably the most surveilled democracy in the world, and if it's not actually us we are right up at the front. This has been going on for a long time. We could reverse it I suppose, but I see little sign of any support for doing so.
There's even another news story today, about more powers for the security services and police to combat extremism.
The idea that Britain is a bastion of freedom is a bad joke, but hey at least we don't have to carry an ID card!
Even if it is a joke to think it is as much a bastion as some think, I fail to see why that means we must make it worse with mandatory ID cards. Even if it is only a small thing, well, better a small thing than nothing.
The point of restricting the ability of the government to control the citizens is to restrict what the government can do if an authoritarian right (or left) government manages to get itself in power for a while. You're only an election away from this, especially with FPTP.
Obviously having your non-authoritarian governments refrain from giving itself power like this is only a temporary solution; In this case, once an authoritarian government takes over, it can make everyone carry identity cards. But it's a useful defence to make them do the work rather than doing it for them in advance; This will slow them down and hopefully provide time to replace them before they undermine the mechanisms that we'd use to replace them.
I think Britain is actually at greater risk than most European democracies, because it hasn't had the experience of being run by a tyrannical government then overthrowing it or being liberated, so it's easier for a government to chip away at other checks and balances like human rights law without the voters getting mad at you.
This may all seem paranoid and hypothetical, but if you look at the way the Chinese government is able to use technology to track and control people - things like giving everyone a score for their behaviour so you can punish undesirable political comment by attacking access to credit and all kinds of other things - it isn't hard to see how a would-be tyrant could turn the machinery of government into something very oppressive in quite a short period of time.
We literally do all the stuff people warn about, bar one little thing. The idea that not having an ID card is some great protection of freedom in Britain is laughable in a country where in just the last 24 hours we hear of a prosecution for posting song lyrics, and the health secretary is threatening to crack down on social media.
We crossed the Rubicon decades ago, and we kid ourselves that we are somehow freer than other comparable countries.
I don't think there's a fixed rubicon point at which everything is doomed if John McDonnell or whoever gets in power and decides they like having it; There are a lot of individual things that make you more or less secure. As you've said, Britain is already doing worse than most democracies in a lot of them, but that doesn't mean you should unilaterally disarm on the things where you're doing better.
People who think about technology and the security problem of bad governments are a minority, and we're losing nearly all the policy battles in Britain. However, there are a couple that we can win, namely the ones where our views coincide with the views of confused old people who dislike change. Britain has lots of these people, and they vote. One area where this alliance works is ID cards. Another more important one will be the War On Cash.
The left hunting Amber Rudd is not surprising but they seem to be confusing the dreadful treatment of the Windrush children, comprehensively condemned across the political spectrum, with an attempt to widen it to immigration in general.
This is a mistake as immigration is still a very important subject and illegal immigration even more so. I very much doubt the public disagrees with the policy of hostility to illegal immigration first coined by Alan Johnson and endorsed by labour including Yvette Cooper and carried on by TM and now Amber Rudd.
Labour accusation of institutional racism from various spokespeople this morning, including Corbyn, just enforces the publics view that labour have no intention of taking a hard line on this subject and that will not help them with the working class which they need to be in with any chance of office
I don't know if I am just in a contrary mood this morning whilst I wonder what to do with my BBQ food but I see this the other way around.
The immigration policies are indeed the issue and the WIndrush children are no more than an example of the sort of problems that we have created by retrospectively imposing documentation standards on people which were not applicable at the time they came. We need some original, liberal and compassionate thinking about the consequences of what we do for those affected.
When you set blanket policies based on a presumption that whole groups of people are “bad” or expendable you will get bad policies. Zero tolerance on immigration, the Bedroom tax, the welfare cap, etc all show that. The moral of the story, of course, is focus on people not newspaper headlines. It will never catch on.
Free speech is under serious threat here, but the idea that having countless government agencies able to demand where our papers are at any moment is a small matter is entirely wrong.
The point of restricting the ability of the government to control the citizens is to restrict what the government can do if an authoritarian right (or left) government manages to get itself in power for a while. You're only an election away from this, especially with FPTP
I think Britain is actually at greater risk than most European democracies, because it hasn't had the experience of being run by a tyrannical government then overthrowing it or being liberated, so it's easier for a government to chip away at other checks and balances like human rights law without the voters getting mad at you.
This may all seem paranoid and hypothetical, but if you look at the way the Chinese government is able to use technology to track and control people - things like giving everyone a score for their behaviour so you can punish undesirable political comment by attacking access to credit and all kinds of other things - it isn't hard to see how a would-be tyrant could turn the machinery of government into something very oppressive in quite a short period of time.
We literally do all the stuff people warn about, bar one little thing. The idea that not having an ID card is some great protection of freedom in Britain is laughable in a country where in just the last 24 hours we hear of a prosecution for posting song lyrics, and the health secretary is threatening to crack down on social media.
We crossed the Rubicon decades ago, and we kid ourselves that we are somehow freer than other comparable countries.
I don't think there's a fixed rubicon point at which everything is doomed if John McDonnell or whoever gets in power and decides they like having it; There are a lot of individual things that make you more or less secure. As you've said, Britain is already doing worse than most democracies in a lot of them, but that doesn't mean you should unilaterally disarm on the things where you're doing better.
People who think about technology and the security problem of bad governments are a minority, and we're losing nearly all the policy battles in Britain. However, there are a couple that we can win, namely the ones where our views coincide with the views of confused old people who dislike change. Britain has lots of these people, and they vote. One are where this alliance works is ID cards. Another more important one will be the War On Cash.
Even if it is a joke to think it is as much a bastion as some think, I fail to see why that means we must make it worse with mandatory ID cards. Even if it is only a small thing, well better a small thing than nothing.
Personally I don't think it would be a worse thing to have a good and robust national ID card, rather than use a hodge-podge of driving licenses, national insurance numbers, passports, birth certificates, gas bills and so on to prove identity.
I don't think it should be mandatory to carry an ID card at all times, but when we do need ID it would be nice to have a uniform system that can be used for all occasions.
The point of restricting the ability of the government to control the citizens is to restrict what the government can do if an authoritarian right (or left) government manages to get itself in power for a while. You're only an election away from this, especially with FPTP.
I think Britain is actually at greater risk than most European democracies, because it hasn't had the experience of being run by a tyrannical government then overthrowing it or being liberated, so it's easier for a government to chip away at other checks and balances like human rights law without the voters getting mad at you.
This may all seem paranoid and hypothetical, but if you look at the way the Chinese government is able to use technology to track and control people - things like giving everyone a score for their behaviour so you can punish undesirable political comment by attacking access to credit and all kinds of other things - it isn't hard to see how a would-be tyrant could turn the machinery of government into something very oppressive in quite a short period of time.
We literally do all the stuff people warn about, bar one little thing. The idea that not having an ID card is some great protection of freedom in Britain is laughable in a country where in just the last 24 hours we hear of a prosecution for posting song lyrics, and the health secretary is threatening to crack down on social media.
We crossed the Rubicon decades ago, and we kid ourselves that we are somehow freer than other comparable countries.
I don't think there's a fixed rubicon point at which everything is doomed if John McDonnell or whoever gets in power and decides they like having it; There are a lot of individual things that make you more or less secure. As you've said, Britain is already doing worse than most democracies in a lot of them, but that doesn't mean you should unilaterally disarm on the things where you're doing better.
People who think about technology and the security problem of bad governments are a minority, and we're losing nearly all the policy battles in Britain. However, there are a couple that we can win, namely the ones where our views coincide with the views of confused old people who dislike change. Britain has lots of these people, and they vote. One area where this alliance works is ID cards. Another more important one will be the War On Cash.
A very sensible attitude. Those who would abandon freedoms simply because we’ve gone some way dow that road are arguing a counsel of despair.
ID cards are a relatively minor issue, but that’s no reason to wave them through.
The departure of Carwyn is evidence of the tectonic plates shifting in Wales.
The resignation was a surprise. Carwyn was bullish about his future until a day or so ago. Eight years behind him, a few more to come. Carwyn always wanted "to do the Thatcher", to complete the 10 years.
It always pays to be suspicious when politicians depart suddenly, muttering about ‘family reasons’ and "having to put the kids first".
This suddenness is surely connected directly to the report on the death of Carl Sergeant which apparently cannot be released "for legal reasons".
More likely, it cannot be released as it will cause an absolute torrent of shit to flow.
The problem with the Rubicon analogy is that we can turn back, and certainly do not need to escalate matters, there is no inevitability to it. And even if there is a level of delusion as to how free we are, that perception could be important, because we must feel comfortable at least, and because of that perception perhaps others can work to make it a reality.
Britain is probably the most surveilled democracy in the world, and if it's not actually us we are right up at the front. This has been going on for a long time. We could reverse it I suppose, but I see little sign of any support for doing so.
There's even another news story today, about more powers for the security services and police to combat extremism.
The idea that Britain is a bastion of freedom is a bad joke, but hey at least we don't have to carry an ID card!
Just because things are bad - and i do agree with you on that - is no reason to make them worse. All of these things are small steps along the road and anything that can be done to slow that progress is a good thing. Moreover it keeps alive the possibility of rolling back some of this unnecessary police state apparatus.
It us funny. The reason of course that Governments are so annoyed with Facebook is not because they want up prevent the sort of data gathering that has been going on but because they want to control it for themselves and at the same time con people that their online data and activity is safe and anonymous. The more people become aware of companies like Facebook harvesting our data the more difficult it becomes for the Government to do so as we anonymize ourselves.
Comments
Corbyn as PM would be pretty alarming.
Since the GE May has ridden her luck - events like Salisbury are manna from heaven for political leaders. All look good in such a crisis - they can look strong and in control and walk round showing empathy while anyone who dares to raise a question in defence is howled down by the patriotic mob as being "weak" or in league with the enemy or worse.
What was even better for May was that no one died - Brown had something similar in his first few weeks as PM and even some Conservatives on here had to confess through gritted teeth he was doing well.
On the A50 negotiations the storm clouds appear to be gathering and we'll just have to see how things develop and I'm not sure how the economic picture will look in 2020 or 2021 either. May will have a record in Government to defend at the next GE and legitimate and searching questions to answer.
As for Corbyn, I'm no fan of his either - his weakness in internal party management and over the issue of anti-Semitism has been laid bare. Conversely, I think he'd make a decent Prime Minister as long as he did nothing. Had Salisbury or Douma happened on his watch, the response would have been different but it's still a crisis and I expect it would have made him look reasonable and his critics, who no doubt would have been calling for much stronger measures against Moscow than would have happened, would have been berated by many for "unnecessary escalation" or worse.
You’re even more stupid than I thought.
As to foreign affairs, I have no idea what is going on in detail in Syria. Neither do you.
But overall it is obviously a power play between Russia and the West. I feel sorry for people on the ground caught up in it but I don't see what I can do about it personally. I certainly don't think who I vote for will make much difference. We have chosen to pool our sovereignty in NATO and so we'll end up largely going along with the Americans regardless.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/women-protest-gaza-great-return-march-palestine-israel-ahed-tamimi-a8316256.html
Take one dog of a campaign by the Tories, coupled with the hubris of a potential landslide and the crystallization of opposition around Corbyn and that would probably explain most of the results.
Corbyn could have (and I think he may have) promised the moon on a stick.
The smear campaign by Momentum and their fellow travellers in the Labour party against Jewish MP's and their supporters has been a disgrace, matched by the pitiful response of Corbyn and his coterie of anti-Semitic acolytes.
Why not just ban postal voting unless you can prove you are overseas/disabled.
It's a fair point raised by many posters, how do so many other countries that aren't "authoritarian right" manage to have ID cards without becoming dystopias? Clearly having ID cards doesn't mean the country will go to the dogs, and a lot of other countries seem to find some benefits from having them. Why can't we do the same?
Personally I find it bloody ridiculous that on one hand I have the "freedom" of living without an ID card, but regularly have to prove my identity using all sorts of other official documents. It would be a hell of a lot easier for me to simply have an ID card that could be used in all circumstances where proving my identity is required.
One of the principal objectives of any government should to be to ensure the security of the ballot. It’s always a trade off between access, conveniece and security.
The government’s proposals don’t seem unreasonable but that’s why you do trials
Tory MP whose wife had their first child a week ago reveals 'horrific abuse' from left-wing trolls who targeted them after he clashed with Jeremy Corbyn in Parliament
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5642781/Tory-MP-wife-child-week-ago-reveals-horrific-abuse.html
Extremely poor indeed.
Perchance the Home Office might turn their attention to problems that do require attention .... Windrush.
"I made defamatory statements about Byron Davies during last year’s election. I wanted him to lose and tweeted saying he was under investigation for electoral fraud. This was untrue & I’m sorry for my actions. I’d urge others not to repeat my unacceptable conduct. Please retweet"
https://tinyurl.com/ya39bbqt
Another this one officially sanctioned. Ending up costing a sum of money.
It reversed the relationship between the citizen and the state. They work for us, not the other way round
As I have said Israel's policies in the Occupied Territories are indefensible. They have indeed stolen land and water, forced people to live in appalling conditions, made it impossible for them to develop a viable economy and encouraged settlers to come to an overcrowded country to take yet more land. And yet...Israel remains a democracy surrounded by tyrannies, it is held to different standards and much of the time it does meet those standards and it is (rightly) criticised when they do not.
This is a mistake as immigration is still a very important subject and illegal immigration even more so. I very much doubt the public disagrees with the policy of hostility to illegal immigration first coined by Alan Johnson and endorsed by labour including Yvette Cooper and carried on by TM and now Amber Rudd.
Labour accusation of institutional racism from various spokespeople this morning, including Corbyn, just enforces the publics view that labour have no intention of taking a hard line on this subject and that will not help them with the working class which they need to be in with any chance of office
What happens if you get stopped by the rozzers and you have left your card at home?
Who is going to pay for them?
If they have a cost (as I'm sure they will, like driving licences and passports), what happens if you can't afford to pay?
What, exactly, is an ID card going to let you do that you can't do already?
What problems will they solve?
What will the sanctions be if you don't have one?
What is the point of them?
dead heat with her Republican opponent Debbie Lesko 46% to 45%, in a special
election to be held on April 24. President Trump won the district 58% to 37% in 2016. "
You can get the Dems at 7/1, which seems too long.
The immigration policies are indeed the issue and the WIndrush children are no more than an example of the sort of problems that we have created by retrospectively imposing documentation standards on people which were not applicable at the time they came. We need some original, liberal and compassionate thinking about the consequences of what we do for those affected.
If you really did "respect people who give up their time to keep the political parties going.", you would see that.
People are put off entering politics if they feel they will be smeared, or subject to online attacks.
All the rest of your comment is just so much verbiage.
Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.
One thing I am sure of. There is absolutely nothing Mr Corbyn can do on this issue that his opponents won't criticise him for. If he does nothing he is ignoring anti-semitism. If he denies it he is condoning it (as SO has just done to me). If he takes action it is too limited and is a form of tacit anti-semitism. If he announces a root and branch campaign to drive anti-semites out of the party it will be, why did he take so long?
It's just the old 'have you stopped beating your wife' trick.
The media, well R4, have now publicised the case of a 80 year old lady who went to a family funeral in 2009 and was refused readmission to the UK. How utterly disgraceful. R4 reported that pre-1960 documents may be in the national archives. So if you're over 57 you might now be alright but those in early middle age may still be denied legal residency and the govt will be waiting for this to die down so that they can get nasty again and deport first, ask questions later.
It's things like that these that have been used to identify the suspects for the attemted murder of the Skripals.
So if you are worried about potentially becoming a dystopia, the fact that we do not have a national ID card doesn't appear to be any impediment to such a thing happening.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/prisoners-to-be-chipped-like-dogs-769977.html
Obviously having your non-authoritarian governments refrain from giving itself power like this is only a temporary solution; In this case, once an authoritarian government takes over, it can make everyone carry identity cards. But it's a useful defence to make them do the work rather than doing it for them in advance; This will slow them down and hopefully provide time to replace them before they undermine the mechanisms that we'd use to replace them.
I think Britain is actually at greater risk than most European democracies, because it hasn't had the experience of being run by a tyrannical government then overthrowing it or being liberated, so it's easier for a government to chip away at other checks and balances like human rights law without the voters getting mad at you.
This may all seem paranoid and hypothetical, but if you look at the way the Chinese government is able to use technology to track and control people - things like giving everyone a score for their behaviour so you can punish undesirable political comment by attacking access to credit and all kinds of other things - it isn't hard to see how a would-be tyrant could turn the machinery of government into something very oppressive in quite a short period of time.
No need to carry them at all times, but used as proof of age (as required) and to access government services/voting
The Windrushers are, thankfully, a small minority. We don’t need a national system in order to better manage the needs of the 0.01%
We crossed the Rubicon decades ago, and we kid ourselves that we are somehow freer than other comparable countries.
https://twitter.com/amdwaters/status/987752641274044422
There were quite a few repressive ideas which got suggested during the last Labour government - on the spot fines and 'gulags for slags' for example.
Even if we generally disagree with someone, we shouldn't just take it as read they're always wrong.
There's even another news story today, about more powers for the security services and police to combat extremism.
The idea that Britain is a bastion of freedom is a bad joke, but hey at least we don't have to carry an ID card!
People who think about technology and the security problem of bad governments are a minority, and we're losing nearly all the policy battles in Britain. However, there are a couple that we can win, namely the ones where our views coincide with the views of confused old people who dislike change. Britain has lots of these people, and they vote. One area where this alliance works is ID cards. Another more important one will be the War On Cash.
Free speech is under serious threat here, but the idea that having countless government agencies able to demand where our papers are at any moment is a small matter is entirely wrong.
I don't think it should be mandatory to carry an ID card at all times, but when we do need ID it would be nice to have a uniform system that can be used for all occasions.
Those who would abandon freedoms simply because we’ve gone some way dow that road are arguing a counsel of despair.
ID cards are a relatively minor issue, but that’s no reason to wave them through.
The departure of Carwyn is evidence of the tectonic plates shifting in Wales.
The resignation was a surprise. Carwyn was bullish about his future until a day or so ago. Eight years behind him, a few more to come. Carwyn always wanted "to do the Thatcher", to complete the 10 years.
It always pays to be suspicious when politicians depart suddenly, muttering about ‘family reasons’ and "having to put the kids first".
This suddenness is surely connected directly to the report on the death of Carl Sergeant which apparently cannot be released "for legal reasons".
More likely, it cannot be released as it will cause an absolute torrent of shit to flow.
It us funny. The reason of course that Governments are so annoyed with Facebook is not because they want up prevent the sort of data gathering that has been going on but because they want to control it for themselves and at the same time con people that their online data and activity is safe and anonymous. The more people become aware of companies like Facebook harvesting our data the more difficult it becomes for the Government to do so as we anonymize ourselves.