Nick Clegg... why is he considered of any importance rather than an abject failure?
He came across well on telly for an hour in Spring 2010, ok...
In 2011 he sold out his voters by reneging on his party's flagship policy, in 2014 he was bested by Nigel Farage in the Euro debate, in 2015 he led his party to near wipeout, in 2016 he played a prominent role in losing the referendum, then in 2017 he got booted out of Sheffield by the least impressive MP ever to take a seat in the HofC
He was deputy Prime Minister for five years. Whether you like him or not, he is of importance.
He had the courage to put the nation's interests first at a time of tremendous economic dislocation at a considerable cost to himself and his party.
Considerable cost to himself?
He was elevated from obscure third party politician who only gets attention when the media needs to show the third party to being the most meaningful deputy Prime Minister that post has ever had, key part of the 'quad' that authorised all government actions, member of the cabinet, ministerial limo, pay increase and attention that has allowed him to generate personal wealth from public speaking etc afterwards.
He may have cost his party, he may have cost his colleagues their jobs, but not himself.
By forming a coalition with the Conservatives, the Lib Dems (led by Clegg) steered the UK out of economic collapse so that we have the full employment and manageable deficit we have today. Of course the electorate normally fails to show gratitude (eg Churchchill kicked out post the war).
I agree. I think the Cameron/Clegg government was easily the best government of my adult life (2000 onwards).
But it wasn't formed at a considerable cost to Clegg.
Paddington Station closed since early this morning until at least lunchtime. No trains in or out including the Heathrow Express and passenger chaos and anger. Overhead line failures. Time to nationalise.
But , the fault is the nationalised Network Rail, not the train companies.
It may not be Network Rail's fault. It was an Hitachi Class 802, and Hitachi are having trouble with all their new trains in the UK. From brake and window problems with the 385's in Scotland, to the fact that the Azuma units on the ECML cannot operate due to signalling issues and physical safety issues (though the signalling issues are common with new stock).
Nick Clegg... why is he considered of any importance rather than an abject failure?
He came across well on telly for an hour in Spring 2010, ok...
In 2011 he sold out his voters by reneging on his party's flagship policy, in 2014 he was bested by Nigel Farage in the Euro debate, in 2015 he led his party to near wipeout, in 2016 he played a prominent role in losing the referendum, then in 2017 he got booted out of Sheffield by the least impressive MP ever to take a seat in the HofC
He was deputy Prime Minister for five years. Whether you like him or not, he is of importance.
He had the courage to put the nation's interests first at a time of tremendous economic dislocation at a considerable cost to himself and his party.
Considerable cost to himself?
He was elevated from obscure third party politician who only gets attention when the media needs to show the third party to being the most meaningful deputy Prime Minister that post has ever had, key part of the 'quad' that authorised all government actions, member of the cabinet, ministerial limo, pay increase and attention that has allowed him to generate personal wealth from public speaking etc afterwards.
He may have cost his party, he may have cost his colleagues their jobs, but not himself.
By forming a coalition with the Conservatives, the Lib Dems (led by Clegg) steered the UK out of economic collapse so that we have the full employment and manageable deficit we have today. Of course the electorate normally fails to show gratitude (eg Churchchill kicked out post the war).
I agree. I think the Cameron/Clegg government was easily the best government of my adult life (2000 onwards).
But it wasn't formed at a considerable cost to Clegg.
Very true. First most of his councillors then most of his MPs picked up the tab.
If only he had had the sense to insist on STV for local elections rather than that dumb AV referendum
Amusing, but there's nothing impossible about Brexit, only Brexit without any cost, which of course too many unwisely promised and too many unwisely believed. But Brexit itself is not impossible, even if a deal is very hard (on current parliamentary numbers at least - a moderate majority would likely have only small problems getting something through, but that is not the world we live in)
I think it's been obvious to everybody (modulo Tessie M) that the most the UK government can possibly offer is nowhere near the minimum the EU will accept.
That's true, but it doesn't make Brexit impossible.
By Brexit I mean the cake Brexit. The "all the benefits, zero cost" magic Brexit.
It's not magic. Besides we had the debate at the time and were warned (very vocally) by the government, opposition, grandees like Blair et al, business groups etc that Brexit would come at a cost. So what's new?
Yes, and pity Hammond wbo has to budget for 65,000,000 free unicorns.
If Hammond were to stand up at the budget and promise 65,000,000 free unicorns Corbyn would consider it an outrage that we are only getting one free unicorn each and pledge 3 free unicorns to everyone.
Then after the election we would find it meant sharing our unicorn with over 20 million others....
May did better vs Corbyn this week - he really shouldn't take her on on a subject she's on top of - she knows Brexit back to front - rural buses, not so much.
Ada Lovelace is the face of a campaign about women in STEM - she's probably better known now than she has been in a long time
Whether or not she ought to be known as “the first computer programmer,” her program was specified with a degree of rigor that far surpassed anything that came before.
In many ways her insight was utterly remarkable:
She foresaw that a computing machine's fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations and therefore should be also be manipulable by adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the machine. She was the first person to use branches, loops and subroutines in a program. She was the first person to realise the full scope of what might be computable, given the necessary resources.
In that sense she stumbled across the idea of the universal Turing machine a whole *century* before Turing did.
May did better vs Corbyn this week - he really shouldn't take her on on a subject she's on top of - she knows Brexit back to front - rural buses, not so much.
Err yes whatever one thinks of her (impossible) plan, she's on top of the brief.
Paddington Station closed since early this morning until at least lunchtime. No trains in or out including the Heathrow Express and passenger chaos and anger. Overhead line failures. Time to nationalise.
But , the fault is the nationalised Network Rail, not the train companies.
It may not be Network Rail's fault. It was an Hitachi Class 802, and Hitachi are having trouble with all their new trains in the UK. From brake and window problems with the 385's in Scotland, to the fact that the Azuma units on the ECML cannot operate due to signalling issues and physical safety issues (though the signalling issues are common with new stock).
He was deputy Prime Minister for five years. Whether you like him or not, he is of importance.
He had the courage to put the nation's interests first at a time of tremendous economic dislocation at a considerable cost to himself and his party.
Considerable cost to himself?
He was elevated from obscure third party politician who only gets attention when the media needs to show the third party to being the most meaningful deputy Prime Minister that post has ever had, key part of the 'quad' that authorised all government actions, member of the cabinet, ministerial limo, pay increase and attention that has allowed him to generate personal wealth from public speaking etc afterwards.
He may have cost his party, he may have cost his colleagues their jobs, but not himself.
By forming a coalition with the Conservatives, the Lib Dems (led by Clegg) steered the UK out of economic collapse so that we have the full employment and manageable deficit we have today. Of course the electorate normally fails to show gratitude (eg Churchchill kicked out post the war).
I agree. I think the Cameron/Clegg government was easily the best government of my adult life (2000 onwards).
But it wasn't formed at a considerable cost to Clegg.
Very true. First most of his councillors then most of his MPs picked up the tab.
If only he had had the sense to insist on STV for local elections rather than that dumb AV referendum
That wouldn't have saved the Lib Dems and might have made it worse. The Lib Dems have a poor record in PR elections, from the EP through to devolved assemblies, taking less of the share than they tend to under FPTP.
STV, in wards of c5 members would put a threshold at around 15% - well above the LD average since 2010, so in most wards they still wouldn't be elected. Worse, a lot of that localism work would be lost as you move from electorates of, say, 10000 to ones of 50000. Only in areas where the LDs have a strong enough presence to be winning 2+ wards out of 5 would they do OK under STV - but then in those areas they wouldn't be making gains either.
The Lib Dems might genuinely favour STV for ideological / principled reasons but you can't help notice that it would have been by far the most favourable PR (or PR-like; STV isn't really PR) system to them. But that was when they were a third party with 15-30% of the vote. That's changed; their thinking hasn't.
Incidentally, The Witcher 3's paid DLCs are, I think, half price in the UK until the end of today. Discovered by chance yesterday (not getting them myself, due to time constraints).
If there is anyone out there who has played The Witcher 3 and not played Blood and Wine, get it. It’s hugely enjoyable and a great end to the whole saga.
Comments
But it wasn't formed at a considerable cost to Clegg.
They've been state-owned since about 1900.
https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1052516994925367296
If only he had had the sense to insist on STV for local elections rather than that dumb AV referendum
In many ways her insight was utterly remarkable:
She foresaw that a computing machine's fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations and therefore should be also be manipulable by adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the machine. She was the first person to use branches, loops and subroutines in a program. She was the first person to realise the full scope of what might be computable, given the necessary resources.
In that sense she stumbled across the idea of the universal Turing machine a whole *century* before Turing did.
That has got to be worth commemorating.
NEW THREAD
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/unternehmen/donald-trump-nimmt-siemens-wohl-milliardenauftrag-weg-15842644.html
STV, in wards of c5 members would put a threshold at around 15% - well above the LD average since 2010, so in most wards they still wouldn't be elected. Worse, a lot of that localism work would be lost as you move from electorates of, say, 10000 to ones of 50000. Only in areas where the LDs have a strong enough presence to be winning 2+ wards out of 5 would they do OK under STV - but then in those areas they wouldn't be making gains either.
The Lib Dems might genuinely favour STV for ideological / principled reasons but you can't help notice that it would have been by far the most favourable PR (or PR-like; STV isn't really PR) system to them. But that was when they were a third party with 15-30% of the vote. That's changed; their thinking hasn't.