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If you’re a lurker, why not delurk and Express Yourself? Delurking is the Vogue thing to do. Once you get, Into the Groove of posting, and you’ll stop feeling, Like a Virgin.
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Chilcot to Cameron. Absolutely spot on. We must know what promises were given in our name.
@Pulpstar Yes, I generally follow them and I think it might have even been at your suggestion. Very nicely I've done out of it too, cheers!
People do, and people are greedy and stupid.
People in favour of getting paid more. Who would have thought it?
http://www.khandapoppy.org/
It is to raise money for a Sikh memorial at the national Arboretum. Seems a good cause to me and one that deserves support.
This is a new one to me, and is an addition to the markers that are already made for a number of religions.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=sikh+poppy+khanda&espv=210&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=u6x6Ur3IB4Od0AXp-IHwDA&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=667#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=2xn10RAzz1HwqM:;RPMBR9VjP_-uKM;http%3A%2F%2Fp.twimg.com%2FAwyprTbCMAMxDsP.jpg%3Alarge;http%3A%2F%2Ftwicsy.com%2Fi%2Fdde3Rb;800;509
Death Stars are rubbish.
Both were destroyed.
One by a single x wing fighter the other in part by a small group of Teddy Bears.
"before being promoted to be the Principal Private Secretary to Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1999. He stayed in this position until 2003, when he left the civil service in the wake of the Hutton Inquiry where it emerged that Heywood claimed to have never minuted meetings in the Prime Ministerial offices about Dr David Kelly, a job he was required to do. He emerged to become the Managing Director of the UK Investment Banking Division at Morgan Stanley where he became embroiled in the Southern Cross Scandal that almost saw 30,000 elderly people being made homeless.[5] Upon Gordon Brown becoming Prime Minister in 2007, Heywood returned to government as Head of Domestic Policy and Strategy at the Cabinet Office. Political commentator Peter Oborne, in the wake of this appointment described Heywood as
"a perfect manifestation of everything that has gone so very wrong with the British civil service over the past 15 years.”[6]""
Isn't Morgan Stanley the bank Blair gets paid by?
He is still forecasting an increase in unemployment, just as he did 2 years ago when he forecast that unemployment would be 4m by now. The reality by which the private sector is creating 100K jobs a quarter seems to completely escape him.
Balls needs allies but with friends like this...
Yet they wouldnt do it. Thats the problem with the coalition, no ambition.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9fArMNddSA
The wider impact is the business of politicians. Unless the politician is so shallow and crass as to focus group test whether he's more popular with or without a jacket, and so shameless and unscrupulous as to base his policy on war and peace regarding intervention in Syria on party political advantage.
The GOP problem is the gap between their voters and the national leadership
Their voters
1) anti-immigration (most)
2) anti-banksta (some)
3) religious right (some)
4) middle-east wars (***used*** to be mostly pro, now few)
GOP national leadership (fully owned by Wall. St.)
1) pro immigration
2) pro banksta
3) anti religious right (but throws them a bone for their votes)
4) middle east wars (pro - at least when it was useful for getting votes from patriotic types)
The critical element is number 4 as that was the *only* thing keeping enough Republican voters onside over the last 12 years or so. Throwing bones to the religious right isn't enough.
As the hidden but raging deflationary spiral caused by mass immigration and off-shoring has now reached the middle-class and is rapidly burning them alive the current banksta-owned version of the GOP is doomed - which means there'll be a 3rd party movement of some kind either inside the GOP or outside. Given the nature of the US system and the importance of the states we should see a growing divergence between the state and national GOP. The bankstas will still own the national level process but those national level GOP candidates *most obviously* tainted by either pro-immigration or pro-banksta stances will get marked down nationally because of it i.e. they'll still all be banksta candidates but they won't all be as obviously so.
So people like Rubio and possibly Rand have marked their cards through their support for the amnesty for illegal immigration. Ryan is tainted for banksta rentboy reasons. This means that politicians who won't rock the boat but who aren't obviously just PR reps for the banks have the best chance e.g. people like Christie.
imo
I'm not sure that what you say is true. The power of the unions is based (in my view) on being able to fight for self interest in the disguise of someone who's a little bit less well off. (In the UK at least)
So if you ask people if they would be prepared to pay more tax then they will be equivocal. If you aske them whether their next-door-neighbour(economically) should pay more tax they'll say no, but if you ask them whether someone elses next-door-neighbour should pay more tax then they'll say yes.
We still have a village mentality, despite long ago having abandoned that as a way of actually living.
Naturally voters don't have as much knowledge (or interest) regarding wider financial implications, in the same way they don't know as much about foreign affairs as we would hope our politicians do. But what they do know about, for certain, is how changes would affect themselves and their immediate family/friends, so of course that has a great bearing on their thinking.
"If you are desperate, offer money. The old maxims are the best. But even the murky world of giveaway politics would see Ed Miliband's subsidised "living wage" as an odd gimmick. If poor people are short of money through no fault of their own, surely they should all be given money. Today Miliband offered just a lucky few the benefit of his Battersea speech, drenched in cliches about a "Wonga economy" and a "low-pay emergency
....Like his plan for an energy price freeze, Miliband's living wage subsidy is naive. It is unlikely to happen. A Labour leader should surely call on a labour economist before appeasing a focus group."
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/05/miliband-living-wage-naive-energy-freeze
Osborne/Carney's current monetary policy is predicated on getting the Conservatives elected as a majority Government in 2015 after which interest rates will be raised brutally and quickly but then of course we'll have five years to rue that policy.
I think the difference between minimum and living wage as apparently currently defined is about 21%. Few companies if they are now operating by paying minimum wage are going to voluntarily give a 21% hike in exchange for a one year tax break . If politicians force them to ( as is their democratic right if they want) watch the job losses. It's the delusional policy of a politician ( he 's not alone to be fair) bereft of real world job experience.
Are you implying that the bank of england is acting to a party political agenda?
China
supply & demand (as always)
The bankstas shifted a large chunk of the supply to China but not the demand. How can that work long-term?
It can't.
It could only work while the credit rating lasted and as the credit rating was based on the industrial capacity that was being off-shored it could only be temporary i.e the last 30 years or so since the looting of the industrial base started.
So it's not possible for China to keep growing through supplying western demand because that demand is past its peak and shrinking. If they carry on trying to do so then they will sink with the west.
The only way China can survive the banksta's destruction of the west now the supply has been shifted to China is to shift the demand to China also i.e.increase the standard of living there and sell their stuff to themselves.
This means floating their currency at some point in the not too distant future - at which time both Britain and America go up in flames.
Perhaps Formula 1 is more your thing, bores me to death personally.
Free everything for everybody. Would the public like such a policy (unless they had to provide said good/service)? Would they be wrong and stupid to like such a policy?
Many frankly cannot see into next week never mind join the bloody dots to next year's implications.
Oh wait, no they don't.
People are instinctively reacting to the problem which is that one of the consequences of the political class deliberately driving down wages (or keeping them stagnant while raising prices) is people don't have any money to spend.
(Mind this doesn't mean that the resulting instinctive solutions people are coming up with will work.)
However, I've seen a suggestion that in addition the Bill would allow Governments to ask for unlimited information from registered lobbying groups - for instance, the names of all whistle-blowers who contact a charity concerned with their walk of life, or all internal campaign planning documents of the Taxpaeyers' Alliance. That seems to me quite far-fetched - has anyone else come across this concern?
'How on earth Cameron put Lansley and IDS in charge of these two huge departments will remain a mystery to me.'
They will never compete with Labour's £36 billion MOD black hole or the £11 billion pissed away on failed NHS computer systems.
What is undoubtedly clear though is that less debt (all other things being equal) is better. Having seemingly forgotten this one of very few economic truths we probably should be paying attention to remembering it once again.
Most of the policies that will be announced ahead of election campaigns will actually be in the sound-good, work-badly category, because nobody wants to announce a policy that sounds bad, and policies that both sound good and work well have mostly already been done.
The government also implements policies that sound good to the voters but don't really have the effect they think. A good example is restricting immigration, where the government's policies will be many times more damaging than Ed Miliband's sound-good, work-badly energy price fix. I'm sure David Cameron knows this.
I suspect that price won't last long.
Edit: The 10/1 is with Shadsy, Publicity Shy Paddy Power have him at 12/1
' Brilliant Labour campaign video on the NHS: http://t.co/gzKxZlgutW'
Did it show patients drinking out of flower vases at mid Staffs?
Probably, in some cases, although I certainly wouldn't condemn him for that out of hand, as every politician to a greater or lesser extent pursues the policies necessary for them to survive, some of which are bound to be wrong and they know it (but presumably think can be mitigated by other good things they will do), and some of which they and the public will both just be dead wrong about. It's nothing new. Edmund seems to sum it up fairly well a few posts back.
Ed M does seem to have found a narrative to present to the public which is appealing at least though. I already thought he had the election in the bag for reasons nothing to do with him personally, so I won't say his new approach has won it for him, but much of it sounds good. If it works, and how the heck would I know if it will or not? We all know his political opponents will oppose pretty much anything he proposes, and vice-versa, so that's just white noise and I have to judge it myself. Scary.
As for the wider point, I happen to believe the public aren't as stupid as politicians and pundits assume. Polling regularly shows up counter-intuitive nuances about house prices, immigration, the believability / wisdom of price freezes or whatever.
Could be curtains for IDS but it also seems like the Tories are trying to push him out!
As you say the particular kind of stupidity is complicated. You can often get a sensible opinion out of someone if you guide them through the choices with the right kind of question. But I also think they'll sometimes support parties that are proposing things that they wouldn't actually support if they thought about them, just because they show the party agrees that something they're worried about is a problem, and wants to do something about it. I think this may also be true of things like May's immigration poster vans.
Come on, stop spoofing.
You're not seriously suggesting that you are surprised that a very complex government IT project is behind schedule, are you? Or that a minister is frustrated that the civil servants haven't delivered what they promised in the timescale they promised?
Lol
I'm struggling to think of a Tory in this Government, apart from May, that even comes close approaching competent.
But they are professionals, so they no doubt covered up as best they could for the 13 years.
Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn 24m
EXCL: GCHQ boss Sir Iain Lobban speaks for first time of his “fierce pride” in his spies after months of smears about them. See tmrw's Sun.
Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn 24m
EXCL: 28 MPs call on Guardian to come clean on how many UK spies their leaks have put at risk in letter to @arusbridger. See tmrw's Sun.
They pressured the president to delay the roll out of Obamacare. The events of yesterday in Virginia, where a double digit lead - 14 points at one stage - came down to a 2 point win, have them rattled.
The Republicans really need to get this Tea Party thing resolved. Their twin tenets are laudable - don't run deficits, and stick to the Constitution - but pursuing them to mindless extents like the shutdown, does not advance their cause. How anyone could think that shutting the government down (or 17% of it) helps defund Obamacare defies belief.
Christie won by a landslide in a deep blue state. Cuccinelli lost by 2 points in a purple state. One is a pragmatist, one is not so much. Republicans need to learn the lessons - and fast. It's difficult to win nationwide elections when you can't carry a state like Virginia.
One of the less publicized losers yesterday was the Houston Astrodome. It will probably be bulldozed soon.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2013/11/06/houston-astrodome-likely-to-be-demolished/3452349/
Nick Cohen @NickCohen4 1h
Not only is this funny it's also 100% accurate "22 Things Journalists Know To Be True" http://www.buzzfeed.com/samjparker/things-you-know-if-youre-a-journalist … … … via @BuzzFeedUK
How about this for shamelessly attempting to associate "paedophile" "guardian" "greenwald" and "miranda"
with a prominent photo of Greenwald and Miranda right underneath the headline about "paedophiles?
stay classy, Telegraph
"Mr Robbins’ nine-page statement did not go into detail about how paedophiles would benefit from the Guardian’s stories about the security services."
65% of Labour and 57% of 2010 Labour think EdM would make best PM.
The £1.5bn facility at Thurrock, Essex, is 20 miles (32km) down the River Thames from London.
It is owed by Dubai-based DP World, which says it will be able to handle 3.5 million containers a year.
It is forecast that the development will create 27,000 jobs in London and the South East and contribute £2.4bn a year to its economy.
But trade union Unite has previously held protests at the port as part of a row over union recognition.
The union claims that rather than creating jobs, London Gateway could suck business and jobs away from other UK ports, as well as undermine the pay and conditions of workers.
DP World has said that if a majority of workers wished to be recognised, it would enter talks with the relevant union.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-24844756
'The union's general secretary Len McCluskey has said he "will not countenance the establishment of a major non-union port in Britain".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-23509384
Will Ed demand an independent judge led enquiry......
"My first, despairing thought on seeing the Telegraph splash late last night was that it would revive calls for MPs to be banned from second jobs. Sure enough, within minutes, Twitter was filled with pledges from pushy parliamentary candidates to the effect that, if they were elected, they'd be full-time MPs. Today, cretinously and inexorably, Ed Miliband joined in.
Perhaps the single ugliest change in the nature of politics over the past century has been the professionalisation of its practitioners – first at Westminster and now, in practice, on local authorities. What used to be regarded as an honour – the extraordinary privilege of representing your community in the nation's counsels – is now treated as a job. Hence the anger when MPs are seen to be doing things which we can't do in other jobs, such as having long recesses or voting on their pay or combining their duties with outside employment... > http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100244721/full-time-mps-i-cant-think-of-anything-worse/