that is the sound of Labour Education policies spinning faster than than a top.
Even the Grauniad call is a "reversal" - but as TSE pointed out last night it's not a "u" turn - more of an "n" turn, first they were for it, then Gove championed it, so they were against it, now they are for it again......
So Education & Welfare, two down.....what's next?
I don't think this can be true. Surely the Blairites have been purged, Labour has lurched to the left, and Miliband is a pupppet of Unite? I'm pretty sure I've read all that here.
Indeed. The most interesting thing about PB Tories right now is their effort to impersonate headless chickens. They just cannot find the right message to chant, but instead of having a good long think about it they just cannot resist chanting away anyway, with conflicting messages every day. And this has the unfortunate effect of making them look like they haven't got the faintest idea how to deal with Labour.
The oddest thing about this is that the Tories are starting to behave as though they are the opposition rather than the government. And PM Miliband must be grinning like a Cheshire cat.
So the Labour lurch to the left, purging of the Blairites meme seems to have been killed stone dead by Hunt and Reeves. Of course, anyone with half a brain understood the Hodges line was nonsense anyway.
that is the sound of Labour Education policies spinning faster than than a top.
Even the Grauniad call is a "reversal" - but as TSE pointed out last night it's not a "u" turn - more of an "n" turn, first they were for it, then Gove championed it, so they were against it, now they are for it again......
So Education & Welfare, two down.....what's next?
It's a strategic retreat to previously prepared positions...there are no American tanks in Baghdad...it's a smear, it's a mistype, squeal....in other news Oozelum Bird sighted. Trust in police moves southwards says Andrew from West Midlands.
that is the sound of Labour Education policies spinning faster than than a top.
Even the Grauniad call is a "reversal" - but as TSE pointed out last night it's not a "u" turn - more of an "n" turn, first they were for it, then Gove championed it, so they were against it, now they are for it again......
So Education & Welfare, two down.....what's next?
I don't think this can be true. Surely the Blairites have been purged, Labour has lurched to the left, and Miliband is a pupppet of Unite? I'm pretty sure I've read all that here.
No, all it illustrates is that Miliband is a [pragmatic/opportunist] (choose as appropriate) who [listens to voters/will say anything to get elected] of the [traditional/far] left rather than [neo-con/new] Labour.
The plebgate story just confirms what anyone independently-minded knew: it was a stitch-up.
I'm glad I backed the right horse on this from the beginning. There was something about the story that just didn't quite add up. As time went on, it started to unravel - the genius bit being the secret recording the meeting with the police federation, which stitched them up.
Does anyone (aside from the increasingly ludicrous Roger) still believe the original story?
Edit: my money was on it not being an organised conspiracy. I thought something happened, a lie was told by officer(s), and that lie was extended by others without central control. If it had been organised then Mitchell wouldn't have stood a chance. This story may have to make me change my mind on that, depending on the detail.
that is the sound of Labour Education policies spinning faster than than a top.
Even the Grauniad call is a "reversal" - but as TSE pointed out last night it's not a "u" turn - more of an "n" turn, first they were for it, then Gove championed it, so they were against it, now they are for it again......
So Education & Welfare, two down.....what's next?
I don't think this can be true. Surely the Blairites have been purged, Labour has lurched to the left, and Miliband is a pupppet of Unite? I'm pretty sure I've read all that here.
Indeed. The most interesting thing about PB Tories right now is their effort to impersonate headless chickens.
Which party has performed two U turns in 24 hours?
'Meanwhile the USSR’s economy had achieved staggering success in the same period, including a significant improvement in working class living standards, despite the Stalin’s terror’.
In the same article, he wrote warmly of the Berlin Wall: ‘If we set to one side the issue of personal liberty, the [Berlin] wall was a great success.’
'Meanwhile the USSR’s economy had achieved staggering success in the same period, including a significant improvement in working class living standards, despite the Stalin’s terror’.
In the same article, he wrote warmly of the Berlin Wall: ‘If we set to one side the issue of personal liberty, the [Berlin] wall was a great success.’
All parties suffer from this sort of thing. There are some "interesting" candidates about.
that is the sound of Labour Education policies spinning faster than than a top.
Even the Grauniad call is a "reversal" - but as TSE pointed out last night it's not a "u" turn - more of an "n" turn, first they were for it, then Gove championed it, so they were against it, now they are for it again......
So Education & Welfare, two down.....what's next?
I don't think this can be true. Surely the Blairites have been purged, Labour has lurched to the left, and Miliband is a pupppet of Unite? I'm pretty sure I've read all that here.
Indeed. The most interesting thing about PB Tories right now is their effort to impersonate headless chickens.
Which party has performed two U turns in 24 hours?
I'm going to play Spot The Difference between what Gove is already doing and Tristram's Parent Led Academies - I think I may be gone some time...
Apologies if already noted but on logging on this morning it is the previous thread that is shown as the leading thread and only on clicking comments does one note a newer thread.
that is the sound of Labour Education policies spinning faster than than a top.
Even the Grauniad call is a "reversal" - but as TSE pointed out last night it's not a "u" turn - more of an "n" turn, first they were for it, then Gove championed it, so they were against it, now they are for it again......
So Education & Welfare, two down.....what's next?
I don't think this can be true. Surely the Blairites have been purged, Labour has lurched to the left, and Miliband is a pupppet of Unite? I'm pretty sure I've read all that here.
Indeed. The most interesting thing about PB Tories right now is their effort to impersonate headless chickens.
Which party has performed two U turns in 24 hours?
The one which was supposed to have lurched to the left and gone back to the 80s! Looks like we must already have a Marxist government. Actually, given its imposition of price controls on private sector companies and its support for compulsory land purchases, we clearly do.
Conference season is not over - we have the SNP to look forward to:
"‘WE ARE going to reach Pyongyang levels of unity and happiness. It is going to be a love-in of unprecedented proportions,” declares one senior SNP figure."
'Meanwhile the USSR’s economy had achieved staggering success in the same period, including a significant improvement in working class living standards, despite the Stalin’s terror’.
In the same article, he wrote warmly of the Berlin Wall: ‘If we set to one side the issue of personal liberty, the [Berlin] wall was a great success.’
Hmmmm -"if we set to one side the issue of 'press freedom the Royal Charter will be' a great success"
In fact, thinking more about Labour's Chippenham candidate, it would be interesting to see the profiles of Labour people selected to stand in LD seats where the Tories are the main challengers. It is, of course, in Labour's interests that the LDs lose as few of these as possible.
'Meanwhile the USSR’s economy had achieved staggering success in the same period, including a significant improvement in working class living standards, despite the Stalin’s terror’.
In the same article, he wrote warmly of the Berlin Wall: ‘If we set to one side the issue of personal liberty, the [Berlin] wall was a great success.’
Hmmmm -"if we set to one side the issue of 'press freedom the Royal Charter will be' a great success"
It reminds of Hitler was really nice to puppies, if you put aside the genocide thingy.
I don't have much faith in current polling for predicting future results but if I was, I'd say the LDs look to be in the most perilous position and the least likely to be able to do much about it.
Apart from the random acts of violence, the arbitrary arrests, rigged show trials, hiring Beria, Yazhov, the NKVD troika courts, the Ukrainian famine, the massacre of Polish officers, the pact with Hitler, the Gulags; Stalin was a misunderstood man who loved his daughter, appreciated the arts and music, & cultivated mimosas whilst he raised living standards of the oppressed.
In fact, thinking more about Labour's Chippenham candidate, it would be interesting to see the profiles of Labour people selected to stand in LD seats where the Tories are the main challengers. It is, of course, in Labour's interests that the LDs lose as few of these as possible.
Apart from the random acts of violence, the arbitrary arrests, rigged show trials, hiring Beria, Yazhov, the NKVD troika courts, the Ukrainian famine, the massacre of Polish officers, the pact with Hitler, the Gulags; Stalin was a misunderstood man who loved his daughter, appreciated the arts and music, & cultivated mimosas whilst he raised living standards of the oppressed.
Apart from the random acts of violence, the arbitrary arrests, rigged show trials, hiring Beria, Yazhov, the NKVD troika courts, the Ukrainian famine, the massacre of Polish officers, the pact with Hitler, the Gulags; Stalin was a misunderstood man who loved his daughter, appreciated the arts and music, & cultivated mimosas whilst he raised living standards of the oppressed.
Apart from the random acts of violence, the arbitrary arrests, rigged show trials, hiring Beria, Yazhov, the NKVD troika courts, the Ukrainian famine, the massacre of Polish officers, the pact with Hitler, the Gulags; Stalin was a misunderstood man who loved his daughter, appreciated the arts and music, & cultivated mimosas whilst he raised living standards of the oppressed.
Barbed and razor wire sales increases were pointed, and land mines were a booming industry. Companies manufacturing high-powered searchlights had shining bright incomes.
Indeed, it must have been a glorious place to live.
If you were making the argument that living standards improved pre-war in the Soviet Union you might actually have a point - the industrialisation plans increased production of industrial goods massively, with living standards improving in the second 5 year plan after a drop in the first. Even agriculture, despite Stalin's cruel insanity of collectivisation had returned to levels seen under Lenin's more free-market New Economic Policy by 1940. Add that to mass-immunisation and the granting of rights to women and you may have a case.
That's of course if you're making a counterpoint in an academic paper alongside the fact that collectivisation killed millions indirectly through famine and at least hundreds of thousands through outright murder. You'd use it to argue that in the context of the times - Great Depression, Nazis running a rapidly militarising command economy, Russia being a backward agrarian society, the policies weren't as totally crazy as they appear today, even if they were horrifically cruel in their execution.
Looking at this Newman chap though, he does seem to have a habit of saying rather silly things: His comments on the Dalai Lama, the US and Japan and the Berlin Wall are far more stupid, so probably best not for Ed to give him the benefit of the doubt.
"Nick Clegg shuffled his pack last week – but he didn’t end up with the top team he wanted. The Lib Dem leader had hoped Nick Harvey would be his Chief Whip. But, to Clegg’s surprise, Harvey turned down the job. ‘Clegg was gobsmacked,’ one Lib Dem tells me. The Deputy Prime Minister didn’t expect him to reject an invitation to join his inner circle."
So the Labour lurch to the left, purging of the Blairites meme seems to have been killed stone dead by Hunt and Reeves. Of course, anyone with half a brain understood the Hodges line was nonsense anyway.
The PB Tories have less than half a brain? Is that individually or between them, Hodges is their seer.
First post and straight on to the personal insults. Clearly nothing of any interest to say.
Labour embraces Free Schools ! Hooray for the educational reformer Sir Toby Young!
I would be surprised if the current lack of transparency about funding and admissions that currently characterises free schools would continue under Labour, the party which devised them.
Owen Jones spluttering into his corn flakes muesli on twitter.....
It's a disaster for Ed, this lurch to the left.
And two u turns in one morning an unqualified success......
Not sure the schools stuff is much of a U-turn. The welfare move is a good one, so certainly not a disaster. Neither, of course, is a lurch to the left.
that is the sound of Labour Education policies spinning faster than than a top.
Even the Grauniad call is a "reversal" - but as TSE pointed out last night it's not a "u" turn - more of an "n" turn, first they were for it, then Gove championed it, so they were against it, now they are for it again......
So Education & Welfare, two down.....what's next?
I don't think this can be true. Surely the Blairites have been purged, Labour has lurched to the left, and Miliband is a pupppet of Unite? I'm pretty sure I've read all that here.
Indeed. The most interesting thing about PB Tories right now is their effort to impersonate headless chickens.
Which party has performed two U turns in 24 hours?
I'm going to play Spot The Difference between what Gove is already doing and Tristram's Parent Led Academies - I think I may be gone some time...
The issue will be "democratic accountability"
If Labour really believed in that, they would bring in elected school boards.
Instead they are more likely (I haven't read the detail of their proposal) to have LEAs or LAs represented somehow on the "Parent Led Academy" boards. As with putting hospital representatives on the GP commissioning boards this undermines much of the point of difference in practice.
that is the sound of Labour Education policies spinning faster than than a top.
Even the Grauniad call is a "reversal" - but as TSE pointed out last night it's not a "u" turn - more of an "n" turn, first they were for it, then Gove championed it, so they were against it, now they are for it again......
So Education & Welfare, two down.....what's next?
I don't think this can be true. Surely the Blairites have been purged, Labour has lurched to the left, and Miliband is a pupppet of Unite? I'm pretty sure I've read all that here.
Indeed. The most interesting thing about PB Tories right now is their effort to impersonate headless chickens.
Which party has performed two U turns in 24 hours?
I'm going to play Spot The Difference between what Gove is already doing and Tristram's Parent Led Academies - I think I may be gone some time...
The issue will be "democratic accountability"
If Labour really believed in that, they would bring in elected school boards.
Instead they are more likely (I haven't read the detail of their proposal) to have LEAs or LAs represented somehow on the "Parent Led Academy" boards. As with putting hospital representatives on the GP commissioning boards this undermines much of the point of difference in practice.
Labour might start with transparency. It would be nice to know how much funding free schools get and how some of them end up with demographics that do not reflect the areas in which they are situated. A level of planning would also be good, so that taxpayers are not funding their establishment in areas where there are already sufficient school places.
I would have thought, for that sort of job, a rational person would be a slightly better fit.
Not sure your analysis follows?
If she is ordered to drop her support (but presumably still believes in the placebo effect) doesn't that make her a frustrated wally rather than a rational person?
(Why don't we just replace all homeopathy treatments on the NHS with sugar pills. It would work just as well and be far cheaper)
Very good race today. Well, from what I saw anyway (slept in and missed the first 12-13 laps or so). Bit sleepy but I'll see about getting the post-race thingummyjig up in the next hour or so.
Labour might start with transparency. It would be nice to know how much funding free schools get and how some of them end up with demographics that do not reflect the areas in which they are situated. A level of planning would also be good, so that taxpayers are not funding their establishment in areas where there are already sufficient school places.
The "planning" point is the only one I fundamentally disagree with you on.
It's only by allowing the opening of a new school, ParentLedLovelySchool, even if there are surplus places in ReallyBadSchool that you can improve the system.
If you force children to go to ReallyBadSchool against their parents' wishes then you are basically saying that their education doesn't matter because it is more important that the system is "efficient"
(On the others, I'm a fan of transparency generally. And on demographics, provided they are keeping to the rules set down by the government then I don't really care. If there is a really egregious case you may want to check they are keeping to the rules, but unless there is a systemic problem then it isn't a major issue.)
Labour has always supported free schools, homeopathy and a clampdown on welfare. We have always been allied with East Asia, the reports that we are at war with East Asia are circulated by wreckers.
Now, back to the Berlin wall job creation scheme...
I would have thought, for that sort of job, a rational person would be a slightly better fit.
I don't believe in homoeopathy. It's a fake, sham 'science'.
However, as someone who suffered many years of sometimes intense pain due to nerve damage, I have a slightly different angle on this. I never tried homoeopathy, although I was recommended acupuncture, which did absolutely no good. I was told my 'mental attitude' was all wrong - I did not expect it to work. That was about the only thing the acupuncturist got right.
But healing is about the mental as well as the physical. The sheer hope that something *may* work - however unlikely - sometimes made me feel more positive about the problem. The hope helped me fight the pain.
Intense pain is hard to live with. In some cases, anything that gives a sufferer hope of pain relief and/or recovery may be worth trying. But these occasions will be few and limited, and only used *in conjunction with* mainstream treatments, not instead of.
I got most of such help from walking. If I was able, I'd walk the seven miles along the Grand Union canal from Mile End to Paddington. It caused me a little more pain, but the feeling of having achieved it *despite of* the pain trumped everything. I had beaten the problem, if only for a few hours.
Never underestimate the way that long-term intense pain effects the sufferer. Anything that helps relieve that pain, even if placebo, can be positive.
That does not mean it should be offered on the NHS. But I can see why it may have some uses if someone chooses to believe in it.
Labour has always supported free schools, homeopathy and a clampdown on welfare. We have always been allied with East Asia, the reports that we are at war with East Asia are circulated by wreckers.
Now, back to the Berlin wall job creation scheme...
"The scheme, which will be paid for by reinstating a tax on bankers' bonuses, would, Reeves said, take 230,000 long-term unemployed people off benefits and be a more effective in returning people to work and cutting benefits than anything the Tories were offering."
As everything changes some things remain constant. The bankers' bonus tax will pay for all.
In large part the reason for this is that Conservative governments (and this coalition one) take power after Labour governments have wrecked the economy and driven up unemployment. Every Labour government has increased unemployment.
And the turnaround takes time, just as it takes a few years for Labour to trash the economy again.
I think the *science* of homoeopathy is non-existent - but I knew a friend who smoked 40 a day and had tried everything from patches to hypnosis to no avail. Then he gave a bottle of Boots Stop Smoking pills a go and stopped in 2 days and never relapsed.
I had crippling [and I mean that literally] pain from sciatica and nothing touched it - every painkiller was ineffective, I was given anti-depressants as a final resort and that made not a jot of difference. I couldn't sit down for more than 2 mins at a time and spent most of my life on my hands and knees or shuffling about. I spent a fortune on physiotherapy and that barely touched it.
This went for a year and I finally went to India to try something different - and it worked totally for several hours at a time - ayervedic massage = basically being pulled/stood on and smothered in oil whilst starkers.
I still vividly recall the first evening of sitting down in a restaurant and eating dinner totally pain free and able to have a dance about. I'd never ever have believed it. I'd been in so much pain on the flight over I'd been white-faced and sick in the loos for most of the journey and stood up bar landing and take-off.
So - if ever something opened my mind it was this experience. I wonder what it'd do for other sciatica sufferers here in the UK if it was available.
Labour might start with transparency. It would be nice to know how much funding free schools get and how some of them end up with demographics that do not reflect the areas in which they are situated. A level of planning would also be good, so that taxpayers are not funding their establishment in areas where there are already sufficient school places.
The "planning" point is the only one I fundamentally disagree with you on.
It's only by allowing the opening of a new school, ParentLedLovelySchool, even if there are surplus places in ReallyBadSchool that you can improve the system.
If you force children to go to ReallyBadSchool against their parents' wishes then you are basically saying that their education doesn't matter because it is more important that the system is "efficient"
(On the others, I'm a fan of transparency generally. And on demographics, provided they are keeping to the rules set down by the government then I don't really care. If there is a really egregious case you may want to check they are keeping to the rules, but unless there is a systemic problem then it isn't a major issue.)
One of the problems is that many of the schools are not being opened in opposition to ReallyBadSchool. If there are no options but appalling schools in an area, then the best thing to do is to shut them down and to start again. Throwing millions at a new school just because some parents would like their kids to learn Latin is not an efficient use of a finite resource. But we would learn a lot more if there were a level of transparency in the system, which currently there is not.
Nicholas Watt @nicholaswatt Really painful for modest chap like @TristramHuntMP to have to boast of Cambridge phd as a way of attacking Michael Gove #marrshow
Labour govts always spend less on welfare than Tory govts and always will.
Because Labour inherit improving economies and the Tories inherit deteriorating ones......
This government inherited a growing economy and falling unemployment.
Are you seriously arguing that the economy was in a better state in 2010 than 1997?
No, I am stating as a matter of fact that contrary to the assertion you previously made this government did not inherit a declining economy. It inherited a growing one.
Oh that is right, you don't believe I am Scottish or a Tory voter. The Conservatives just won a local by election in Scotland last Thursday, increasing their vote by 18%. In the other local by election in Govan, they trailed well behind, but they did increase their vote share by 1.4%. And believe me, that is real progress in Govan!
Every last one - your number is A Made Up Number. There are no Scottish Tories and all of those zero are on here tonight. Extraordinary.
It's the number who voted Tory in Scotland in 2010.
Given turnout was 63.8% , the actual number of Scottish Tories is likely to be ~ 650,000
Nonsense - there are the square root of zero Scottish Tories and every last one of those are on here tonight.
A preposterous suggestion. There are precisely 0.00 Tories in Caledonia, and the full complement of those reside on PB.com every last zero of them.
In 2010 there were 412,855 Tory voters in Scotland an increase of 1% on 2005. That was 50,000 fewer than the LibDems and 80,000 fewer than the SNP. There are a great many Tories in Scotland and they are finally starting to stand up and be counted once more.
"So Labour only supports new free schools in areas with a shortage of school places. This means that Hunt has not had a conversion: the Labour Party still doesn’t believe in school choice. ....... Hunt doesn’t seem to have even embarked on the road to Damascus, let alone being converted on it."
Oh that is right, you don't believe I am Scottish or a Tory voter. The Conservatives just won a local by election in Scotland last Thursday, increasing their vote by 18%. In the other local by election in Govan, they trailed well behind, but they did increase their vote share by 1.4%. And believe me, that is real progress in Govan!
Every last one - your number is A Made Up Number. There are no Scottish Tories and all of those zero are on here tonight. Extraordinary.
It's the number who voted Tory in Scotland in 2010.
Given turnout was 63.8% , the actual number of Scottish Tories is likely to be ~ 650,000
Nonsense - there are the square root of zero Scottish Tories and every last one of those are on here tonight.
A preposterous suggestion. There are precisely 0.00 Tories in Caledonia, and the full complement of those reside on PB.com every last zero of them.
In 2010 there were 412,855 Tory voters in Scotland an increase of 1% on 2005. That was 50,000 fewer than the LibDems and 80,000 fewer than the SNP. There are a great many Tories in Scotland and they are finally starting to stand up and be counted once more.
It is ridiculous that our voting system means that those Scottish Tories return just one MP. It totally skews political conversation and debate, as well as perceptions of Scotland externally.
Labour govts always spend less on welfare than Tory govts and always will.
Because Labour inherit improving economies and the Tories inherit deteriorating ones......
This government inherited a growing economy and falling unemployment.
Are you seriously arguing that the economy was in a better state in 2010 than 1997?
No, I am stating as a matter of fact that contrary to the assertion you previously made this government did not inherit a declining economy. It inherited a growing one.
I didn't say 'declining' -I said 'deteriorating' - the public finances were a disaster, and getting worse.....like 1979.......
"So Labour only supports new free schools in areas with a shortage of school places. This means that Hunt has not had a conversion: the Labour Party still doesn’t believe in school choice. ....... Hunt doesn’t seem to have even embarked on the road to Damascus, let alone being converted on it."
This was why Labour developed the free schools idea in the first place. It seems that Labour, unlike the Tories, understands there is no magic money tree. But then we do have a far left Marxist government in charge in the UK right now; one which imposes price controls on private sector companies and oversees a system for the compulsory seizure of privately-owned land and property.
Labour govts always spend less on welfare than Tory govts and always will.
Because Labour inherit improving economies and the Tories inherit deteriorating ones......
This government inherited a growing economy and falling unemployment.
Are you seriously arguing that the economy was in a better state in 2010 than 1997?
No, I am stating as a matter of fact that contrary to the assertion you previously made this government did not inherit a declining economy. It inherited a growing one.
I didn't say 'declining' -I said 'deteriorating' - the public finances were a disaster, and getting worse.....like 1979.......
The economy was not deteriorating as you claimed, it was growing.
I thought Dr The Honourable Tristram Hunt performed quite well on Marr.
Yes - lively - and great as it is to see Marr back, he isn't quite as forensic as he used to be (which, to be fair, wasn't much) - Andrew Neil is the toughest test on TV today. And thank you for pointing out Dr The Honourable Tristram Hunt's correct form of address....
I'm finding this Free School business endlessly amusing.
It was Blair's idea that Gordon blocked
And then Gove pinched it and Labour's Twigg also liked it but could say so
And now Tristram is saying he likes them - but only if they're called another acronym
And somehow he's going to oppose Gove...
And he's the antithesis of a Labour voter - a Baron's son, who went to an Eton circle school and off to Cambridge and parachuted into a safe Northern seat as a metro media luvvie!
Labour govts always spend less on welfare than Tory govts and always will.
Because Labour inherit improving economies and the Tories inherit deteriorating ones......
This government inherited a growing economy and falling unemployment.
Are you seriously arguing that the economy was in a better state in 2010 than 1997?
No, I am stating as a matter of fact that contrary to the assertion you previously made this government did not inherit a declining economy. It inherited a growing one.
I didn't say 'declining' -I said 'deteriorating' - the public finances were a disaster, and getting worse.....like 1979.......
The economy was not deteriorating as you claimed, it was growing.
It was a bubble which deflated as soon as the taps were turned off.....the finances were unsustainable....
I'm finding this Free School business endlessly amusing.
It was Blair's idea that Gordon blocked
And then Gove pinched it and Labour's Twigg also liked it but could say so
And now Tristram is saying he likes them - but only if they're called another acronym
And somehow he's going to oppose Gove...
And he's the antithesis of a Labour voter - a Baron's son, who went to an Eton circle school and off to Cambridge and parachuted into a safe Northern seat as a metro media luvvie!
Labour govts always spend less on welfare than Tory govts and always will.
Because Labour inherit improving economies and the Tories inherit deteriorating ones......
This government inherited a growing economy and falling unemployment.
Are you seriously arguing that the economy was in a better state in 2010 than 1997?
No, I am stating as a matter of fact that contrary to the assertion you previously made this government did not inherit a declining economy. It inherited a growing one.
I didn't say 'declining' -I said 'deteriorating' - the public finances were a disaster, and getting worse.....like 1979.......
The economy was not deteriorating as you claimed, it was growing.
It was a bubble which deflated as soon as the taps were turned off.....the finances were unsustainable....
Good. So we now agree the economy was growing in May 2010.
Labour govts always spend less on welfare than Tory govts and always will.
Because Labour inherit improving economies and the Tories inherit deteriorating ones......
This government inherited a growing economy and falling unemployment.
Are you seriously arguing that the economy was in a better state in 2010 than 1997?
No, I am stating as a matter of fact that contrary to the assertion you previously made this government did not inherit a declining economy. It inherited a growing one.
I didn't say 'declining' -I said 'deteriorating' - the public finances were a disaster, and getting worse.....like 1979.......
The economy was not deteriorating as you claimed, it was growing.
Ah another single data point analysis - thought you were better than that SO.
I would have thought, for that sort of job, a rational person would be a slightly better fit.
Not sure your analysis follows?
If she is ordered to drop her support (but presumably still believes in the placebo effect) doesn't that make her a frustrated wally rather than a rational person?
(Why don't we just replace all homeopathy treatments on the NHS with sugar pills. It would work just as well and be far cheaper)
Sugar pills only work if you have illiterate patients you can lie to. if the NHS starts prescribing bolus saccharinus the internet is going to disclose what it really is. Homeopathy shouldn't cost much more, it uses vanishingly small quantities of natural substances, and water. Prescribing would cost the same, your sugar pills won't work without a doctor doing the appropriate charade to the patient. I don't know how much incussation costs these days, but that's the only difference. Probably the NHS makes a profit on homeopathic prescriptions.
Hahnemann was a fraud, obviously, but a clever one. The problem is if you want to prescribe a placebo, it must be inert or it isn't a placebo, but it must also not be inert because the patient will find out it's inert and the placebo effect will fail. You and I are good little Aristotelians and believe that for any given predicate A, everything which exists must be either A or not-A. Hahnemann made quite a clever attempt to invent substances which are both inert and not-inert.
Why isn't Malala in school? What is it with the meejah that has to big-up her globe-trotting visits when the teenage-campaigner should be continuing her education...?
If she wishes to make a political impact surely it is best she does it at a later age; let her enjoy her youth and the learning-process, no? William and Harry were given their chance so why can't our political-media elite give the young lass some breathing-space...?
Good to know that if I spent everything I could up to my overdraft, maxed my credit cards, borrowed from friends and family until they turned me away, that SO considers my finances would be in an admirable position.
To be serious - Labour are sending a lot of mixed messages at the moment - and it's only a matter of time before they start to clash and clatter. They are 'lurching'all over the place.
Comments
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/oct/13/tristram-hunt-labour-free-schools?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
The oddest thing about this is that the Tories are starting to behave as though they are the opposition rather than the government. And PM Miliband must be grinning like a Cheshire cat.
I'm glad I backed the right horse on this from the beginning. There was something about the story that just didn't quite add up. As time went on, it started to unravel - the genius bit being the secret recording the meeting with the police federation, which stitched them up.
Does anyone (aside from the increasingly ludicrous Roger) still believe the original story?
Edit: my money was on it not being an organised conspiracy. I thought something happened, a lie was told by officer(s), and that lie was extended by others without central control. If it had been organised then Mitchell wouldn't have stood a chance. This story may have to make me change my mind on that, depending on the detail.
'Meanwhile the USSR’s economy had achieved staggering success in the same period, including a significant improvement in working class living standards, despite the Stalin’s terror’.
In the same article, he wrote warmly of the Berlin Wall: ‘If we set to one side the issue of personal liberty, the [Berlin] wall was a great success.’
"Educated at a private school and Oxford University, Mr Newman’s CV bears the hallmarks of a modern Labour politician."
"‘WE ARE going to reach Pyongyang levels of unity and happiness. It is going to be a love-in of unprecedented proportions,” declares one senior SNP figure."
http://www.scotsman.com/news/insight-snp-gets-set-to-look-forward-at-conference-1-3139487
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timwigmore/100240154/jeremy-browne-is-sacked-could-the-tories-poach-him/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2456843/MI5-concerns-The-Guardian-sending-secret-files--Fedex-Newspaper-used-public-courier-firm-post-data-country.html
The Berlin wall was a great success at stimulating the DDR concrete industry, and in giving a canvas to Berlins street artists.
Hooray for the educational reformer Sir Toby Young!
http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Data-Tables-MOS-13102013.pdf
Particularly poignant, polling on "Labour's opposition to free schools"....
Indeed, it must have been a glorious place to live.
That's of course if you're making a counterpoint in an academic paper alongside the fact that collectivisation killed millions indirectly through famine and at least hundreds of thousands through outright murder. You'd use it to argue that in the context of the times - Great Depression, Nazis running a rapidly militarising command economy, Russia being a backward agrarian society, the policies weren't as totally crazy as they appear today, even if they were horrifically cruel in their execution.
Looking at this Newman chap though, he does seem to have a habit of saying rather silly things: His comments on the Dalai Lama, the US and Japan and the Berlin Wall are far more stupid, so probably best not for Ed to give him the benefit of the doubt.
The Lib Dem leader had hoped Nick Harvey would be his Chief Whip. But, to Clegg’s surprise, Harvey turned down the job.
‘Clegg was gobsmacked,’ one Lib Dem tells me. The Deputy Prime Minister didn’t expect him to reject an invitation to join his inner circle."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2457091/JAMES-FORSYTH-A-meagre-slice-cake-birthday-boy-Dave--prezzie-Nick.html#ixzz2haObIZWE
Labour: 18/57
Con: 35/29
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/labour-tells-new-health-spokeswoman-to-drop-her-support-for-homeopathy-8876469.html
I would have thought, for that sort of job, a rational person would be a slightly better fit.
......or not......
If Labour really believed in that, they would bring in elected school boards.
Instead they are more likely (I haven't read the detail of their proposal) to have LEAs or LAs represented somehow on the "Parent Led Academy" boards. As with putting hospital representatives on the GP commissioning boards this undermines much of the point of difference in practice.
If she is ordered to drop her support (but presumably still believes in the placebo effect) doesn't that make her a frustrated wally rather than a rational person?
(Why don't we just replace all homeopathy treatments on the NHS with sugar pills. It would work just as well and be far cheaper)
Very good race today. Well, from what I saw anyway (slept in and missed the first 12-13 laps or so). Bit sleepy but I'll see about getting the post-race thingummyjig up in the next hour or so.
It's only by allowing the opening of a new school, ParentLedLovelySchool, even if there are surplus places in ReallyBadSchool that you can improve the system.
If you force children to go to ReallyBadSchool against their parents' wishes then you are basically saying that their education doesn't matter because it is more important that the system is "efficient"
(On the others, I'm a fan of transparency generally. And on demographics, provided they are keeping to the rules set down by the government then I don't really care. If there is a really egregious case you may want to check they are keeping to the rules, but unless there is a systemic problem then it isn't a major issue.)
Now, back to the Berlin wall job creation scheme...
However, as someone who suffered many years of sometimes intense pain due to nerve damage, I have a slightly different angle on this. I never tried homoeopathy, although I was recommended acupuncture, which did absolutely no good. I was told my 'mental attitude' was all wrong - I did not expect it to work. That was about the only thing the acupuncturist got right.
But healing is about the mental as well as the physical. The sheer hope that something *may* work - however unlikely - sometimes made me feel more positive about the problem. The hope helped me fight the pain.
Intense pain is hard to live with. In some cases, anything that gives a sufferer hope of pain relief and/or recovery may be worth trying. But these occasions will be few and limited, and only used *in conjunction with* mainstream treatments, not instead of.
I got most of such help from walking. If I was able, I'd walk the seven miles along the Grand Union canal from Mile End to Paddington. It caused me a little more pain, but the feeling of having achieved it *despite of* the pain trumped everything. I had beaten the problem, if only for a few hours.
Never underestimate the way that long-term intense pain effects the sufferer. Anything that helps relieve that pain, even if placebo, can be positive.
That does not mean it should be offered on the NHS. But I can see why it may have some uses if someone chooses to believe in it.
I support the False Consciousness Policy Unit
"The scheme, which will be paid for by reinstating a tax on bankers' bonuses, would, Reeves said, take 230,000 long-term unemployed people off benefits and be a more effective in returning people to work and cutting benefits than anything the Tories were offering."
As everything changes some things remain constant. The bankers' bonus tax will pay for all.
And the turnaround takes time, just as it takes a few years for Labour to trash the economy again.
I had crippling [and I mean that literally] pain from sciatica and nothing touched it - every painkiller was ineffective, I was given anti-depressants as a final resort and that made not a jot of difference. I couldn't sit down for more than 2 mins at a time and spent most of my life on my hands and knees or shuffling about. I spent a fortune on physiotherapy and that barely touched it.
This went for a year and I finally went to India to try something different - and it worked totally for several hours at a time - ayervedic massage = basically being pulled/stood on and smothered in oil whilst starkers.
I still vividly recall the first evening of sitting down in a restaurant and eating dinner totally pain free and able to have a dance about. I'd never ever have believed it. I'd been in so much pain on the flight over I'd been white-faced and sick in the loos for most of the journey and stood up bar landing and take-off.
So - if ever something opened my mind it was this experience. I wonder what it'd do for other sciatica sufferers here in the UK if it was available.
Whats is the next Labour surrender policy area ?
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/japan-post-race-analysis.html
http://www.badscience.net/2007/09/homeopathy-gives-you-aids/
Meanwhile, LibDem voice poll on LibDem Cabinet Members:
http://stephentall.org/2013/10/12/whos-up-whos-down-how-party-members-rate-the-performances-of-leading-lib-dems-10/?wt=3
I have a Cambridge PhD, I don't need to be told about standards, says tieless Tristram Hunt on #Marr. Hmmm
RT @Labourpaul: Pleased to see @TristramHuntMP has at least done one button up #marr
Really painful for modest chap like @TristramHuntMP to have to boast of Cambridge phd as a way of attacking Michael Gove #marrshow
"So Labour only supports new free schools in areas with a shortage of school places. This means that Hunt has not had a conversion: the Labour Party still doesn’t believe in school choice. ....... Hunt doesn’t seem to have even embarked on the road to Damascus, let alone being converted on it."
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/10/the-truth-about-tristram-hunts-conversion-on-free-schools/
Confusibg old u turn this..
It was Blair's idea that Gordon blocked
And then Gove pinched it and Labour's Twigg also liked it but could say so
And now Tristram is saying he likes them - but only if they're called another acronym
And somehow he's going to oppose Gove...
And he's the antithesis of a Labour voter - a Baron's son, who went to an Eton circle school and off to Cambridge and parachuted into a safe Northern seat as a metro media luvvie!
Fantastic - I just love it.
Hahnemann was a fraud, obviously, but a clever one. The problem is if you want to prescribe a placebo, it must be inert or it isn't a placebo, but it must also not be inert because the patient will find out it's inert and the placebo effect will fail. You and I are good little Aristotelians and believe that for any given predicate A, everything which exists must be either A or not-A. Hahnemann made quite a clever attempt to invent substances which are both inert and not-inert.
Why isn't Malala in school? What is it with the meejah that has to big-up her globe-trotting visits when the teenage-campaigner should be continuing her education...?
If she wishes to make a political impact surely it is best she does it at a later age; let her enjoy her youth and the learning-process, no? William and Harry were given their chance so why can't our political-media elite give the young lass some breathing-space...?
Labour fecked the economy. End of.
But surely that's wrong - I think Labour have already picked billions and billlions from their banking levy and it's gonna pay for everything........