Can we swap Aus for Scotland? When does the transfer window open?
I guess it would only require a minor adjustment of mindset to move from 'don't leave us, whinging, benefit junky, Jock bastards' to 'come and join us, cheating, convict, Aussie tossers'. A little UKOK charm goes a long way.
No sane person would want to be associated with them TUD, hence everyone but Trump running for shelter when the morons come peddling their FTA's. I lie, the Faroes Islands caved in.
malcomg peddling lies again. Who'd have thunk.....
Deals so far:
South Korea
Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama have signed the UK-Central America Association Agreement.
Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have signed the UK-Andean Countries Trade Agreement
Norway
Iceland
Barbados, Belize, The Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, The Republic of Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Christopher and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines have signed the CARIFORUM-UK Economic Partnership Agreement
Fiji and Papua New Guinea
Lichtenstein
Isreal
The Palestinian Authority
Switzerland
Chile
Madagascar
Mauritius
Seychelles
Zimbabwe
Oh, and the Faroe Islands.
That list must cover a very small percentage of UK trade surely? Only Korea and Switzerland are outside the margin of error on trade volumes?
There's enough there to keep us fed, tho.
Swiss cheese Madagascan vanilla Icelandic fish South sea spices Colombian coffee Zimbawean fruit and veg Korean pickles
and
Chilean wine
You have a strange and boring diet it seems
I'd be perfectly happy with just the pickles and the wine, tbh
I thought bananas were the thing as they taste the same coming back up as they did going down.
I wonder what proportion of private school kids are from abroad? Stereotypically they have educated many who have gone onto powerful roles in their home countries. I have a feeling like uni places, more than ever rich foreign parents want their kids educated at top English private schools.
I think a large part of the left's hate comes from the perception that private schools are all like Eton and Harrow. The vast majority are fairly mundane day schools that will be caught in the cross-fire for no real gain.
For whatever it's worth I'm state school educated, and think the proportion of senior politicians from the most elite public schools is a disgrace.
I'd also note that there are a *lot* of independent religious schools, including a chunk of independent Islamic schools, which is going to irritate some very influential "community leaders".
Let's say that the Labour Party wants what is best for the country. It is either a deal to leave the EU or it is not to leave. It can't be both.
I disagree. It's good government, if you have a referendum at all, to offer two options which you feel can be effected without disastrous results, especially if you're trying to deal with the consequences of an earlier referendum.
Labour thinks that a No Deal outcome would be disastrous, so cannot in conscience be offered. Both remaining and leaving with a Norway-style deal are outcomes that we could live with, and given that Britain has gone down the referendum path, it's reasonable to offer that choice.
They may be able to live with either as alternatives under current circumstances. But they want to be in government and in a position to decide for themselves. At that point they need to work out what is best for the country and pursue that.
What's best for the country *might* be to get consensus/validation/legitimacy through a 2nd referendum for one option, even if it isn't necessarily the optimal choice. On the other hand, it might re-open all the division from before. Hard to tell.
It would be hard for us to be MORE divided, but I guess we could have a bash
I hate the idea of a 2nd referendum, but it may be the best way out of this mess, if we can't secure a deal that parliament will accept.
Revoke and No Deal are both absurd, dangerous and crazy, in different ways.
And here are Caroline Lucas's scathing comments about the Liberals new undemocratic "Revoke" policy, in the midst of which she bemoans the lack of a commitment from other parties to reciprocal arrangements with the Greens:
"Asked whether it made it harder to form a Remain election pact with the Lib Dems - which would see the parties agree not to compete for particular seats - she demanded a greater commitment from her closest political rivals. Ms Lucas told Brand the Lib Dems and Labour both needed to show a genuine intent "to help some Green Party voices to get into Parliament" after she felt let down by her party's sacrifices in the 2017 election."
Which is fine, and I would agree, except where is that second Green Party seat going to be? The only two plausible candidates are the Isle of Wight and Sheffield Central, which are 38k Conservative/13k Green, and 33k Labour/4k Green, respectively. To call it a stretch is putting it politely. I do expect the Lib Dems to stand down in Sheffield Central (IoW less likely but possible), but it's a good-faith gesture rather than actually achieving anything.
OK, I accept your point about a Plaid-LD pact, but in practice it will only have any direct practical impact on the Conservatives in Brecon alone and I still consider them favourite to take the seat back based on the 1st August result as well as movements in polling since.
With the Greens, I think you have confirmed my point. Across the UK, it is indeed hard to see widespread standing down by the LDs in favour of the Greens. What would the Greens' response be? Lucas is clearly peed off by the prospects of a repeat of 2017 and so it is conceivable that we could see the Greens standing in more rather than less seats than then.
Put it like that, and it sounds almost reasonable. The trouble is it cannot be reduced to a cute sentence, and can be easily ridiculed: "Unlike the useless evil Tories will fight for a better deal in Brussels, and then campaign against our own deal because it will be shit! Vote for us!"
I mean, it's a tough sell, isn't it? And they still haven't found a way of rebutting this.
It's a tough sell, and what makes it worse is that they went through a bunch of previous positions that were genuinely ridiculous (referendum on your deal but not on mine etc) so people have got in the habit of laughing at their triangulation spaghetti.
OTOH their main job at the next election is to hold seats where they already have incumbents, and the current position has the benefit of: 1) Not unraveling under pressure - it initially sounds like a mess but it survives scrutiny 2) Allowing their incumbents to run on either the referendum part or the "here is the brexit we'll negotiate" part, depending which they need to hold their seat
As a Hard Left Social Democrat this is exactly the sort of policy I want from Labour.
It's what I go to school for. Not a private one obviously.
"John McDonnell said he supported a motion put forward by the campaign group Labour Against Private Schools calling for independent schools in England to be stripped of their charitable status, to have limits placed on their pupils’ entry to universities, and for their assets to be used by the state education sector."
So not abolishing them?
Stripped of charitable status - I would agree with that and you dont need to be hard left to do so, private schools are hardly charities in the sense most people understand the word
Limits placed on their pupils entry to university - Would prefer govt funding for universities to be tied to fairer access between state and private schools, think thats a better solution but agree there is a problem
Assets to be used by the state education sector - I dont understand what they mean in practice here - if they are taking all the assets the first two points above become completely irrelevant! I very much doubt I would agree with whatever the actual intent of that point is. This is where momentum really lose the part of the country that could support a left of centre govt, when they talk of just taking other peoples assets rather than finding ways to help redistribution over time.
No, what they mean (and I agree it's not clearly expressed) is that state schools should be able to share sports fields etc. that are owned by private schools. This is already seen as good practice by the private sector, but there are lots of private schools that don't actually bother. Clearly practical agreements would be needed to avoid double-booking of facilities, but the idea is not especially controversial - if a facility is not being used at 5pm on Saturday, why shouldn't it be used by a state school, subject to reasonable arrangements to leave it in good condition?
As usual, there's a concentration on the minority of Etons, and ignorance that many if not most private scholls are just private grammar schools because the state won't offer a grammar school education in most places in the UK.
In Oxbridge there is little it any "private school bias". Oxbridge is so vilified, it bends over backwards to admit state school pupils whilst doing its best to maintain standards.
When you take the proportions of A*A*A pupils leaving each type of school, the proportions at Oxbridge are correct.
If Labour's task was to move in as europhile a direction as possible while keeping open the option of still leaving the EU under a Labour government then its finalised policy offer delivers that. It's also non toxic to the more europhile opposition parties they would need in a hung parliament. Once you eliminate their first preferences Labour's policy is an attractive second preference. Other than anti second referendum ultras it also offers enough to keep nearly all Labour MPs on board for MV4.
It's the political fudge that Harrods would sell you.
Can we swap Aus for Scotland? When does the transfer window open?
I guess it would only require a minor adjustment of mindset to move from 'don't leave us, whinging, benefit junky, Jock bastards' to 'come and join us, cheating, convict, Aussie tossers'. A little UKOK charm goes a long way.
No sane person would want to be associated with them TUD, hence everyone but Trump running for shelter when the morons come peddling their FTA's. I lie, the Faroes Islands caved in.
malcomg peddling lies again. Who'd have thunk.....
Deals so far:
South Korea
Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama have signed the UK-Central America Association Agreement.
Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have signed the UK-Andean Countries Trade Agreement
Norway
Iceland
Barbados, Belize, The Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, The Republic of Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Christopher and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines have signed the CARIFORUM-UK Economic Partnership Agreement
Fiji and Papua New Guinea
Lichtenstein
Isreal
The Palestinian Authority
Switzerland
Chile
Madagascar
Mauritius
Seychelles
Zimbabwe
Oh, and the Faroe Islands.
That list must cover a very small percentage of UK trade surely? Only Korea and Switzerland are outside the margin of error on trade volumes?
There's enough there to keep us fed, tho.
Swiss cheese Madagascan vanilla Icelandic fish South sea spices Colombian coffee Zimbawean fruit and veg Korean pickles
and
Chilean wine
You have a strange and boring diet it seems
I'd be perfectly happy with just the pickles and the wine, tbh
I thought bananas were the thing as they taste the same coming back up as they did going down.
That's strawberries....
And Stinking Bishop cheese, for a slightly different reason.
An article in a magazine is not what I would call "a reception". I'm sure her hosts are being most hospitable to her, as she picks up her "M100 Media Award" in Potsdam.
If the PM of Luxembourg is there, Nicola, then Walk. Away. From. The. Podium......
If Labour's task was to move in as europhile a direction as possible while keeping open the option of still leaving the EU under a Labour government then its finalised policy offer delivers that. It's also non toxic to the more europhile opposition parties they would need in a hung parliament. Once you eliminate their first preferences Labour's policy is an attractive second preference. Other than anti second referendum ultras it also offers enough to keep nearly all Labour MPs on board for MV4.
It's the political fudge that Harrods would sell you.
Put it like that, and it sounds almost reasonable. The trouble is it cannot be reduced to a cute sentence, and can be easily ridiculed: "Unlike the useless evil Tories will fight for a better deal in Brussels, and then campaign against our own deal because it will be shit! Vote for us!"
I mean, it's a tough sell, isn't it? And they still haven't found a way of rebutting this.
"Having negotiated the best possible deal we can get on that house down the road I think on reflection it's better not to move."
"Having negotiated the best possible departure deal we can get with the EU we think on reflection that it's better not to leave."
Simple, perfectly understandable and very easy to relate to real life decisions.
lol.
"We're going to negotiate a much better deal on the house we want to buy, and we're going to do this by telling the seller we don't even WANT to buy their stupid smelly house, and even if they cut the price of their horrible house, we will go back and have a family vote in which we will decide not to buy this ridiculous house, anyway, hahahahahaha!!!!."
"Having negotiated the best possible deal we can get on that house down the road I think on reflection it's better not to move."
"Having negotiated the best possible departure deal we can get with the EU we think on reflection that it's better not to leave."
Simple, perfectly understandable and very easy to relate to real life decisions.
The trouble with that, as @Byronic implies, is that Labour have been so adamant that Theresa May (and no doubt Boris) have been useless as negotiating, and that they would do so much better. But if their 'so much better' is still worse than Remaining in the first place (and in practice no different from the WA which they cynically voted against), that undermines their whole position.
Can we swap Aus for Scotland? When does the transfer window open?
I guess it would only require a minor adjustment of mindset to move from 'don't leave us, whinging, benefit junky, Jock bastards' to 'come and join us, cheating, convict, Aussie tossers'. A little UKOK charm goes a long way.
No sane person would want to be associated with them TUD, hence everyone but Trump running for shelter when the morons come peddling their FTA's. I lie, the Faroes Islands caved in.
malcomg peddling lies again. Who'd have thunk.....
Deals so far:
South Korea
Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama have signed the UK-Central America Association Agreement.
Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have signed the UK-Andean Countries Trade Agreement
Norway
Iceland
Barbados, Belize, The Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, The Republic of Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Christopher and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines have signed the CARIFORUM-UK Economic Partnership Agreement
Fiji and Papua New Guinea
Lichtenstein
Isreal
The Palestinian Authority
Switzerland
Chile
Madagascar
Mauritius
Seychelles
Zimbabwe
Oh, and the Faroe Islands.
That list must cover a very small percentage of UK trade surely? Only Korea and Switzerland are outside the margin of error on trade volumes?
There's enough there to keep us fed, tho.
Swiss cheese Madagascan vanilla Icelandic fish South sea spices Colombian coffee Zimbawean fruit and veg Korean pickles
and
Chilean wine
You have a strange and boring diet it seems
I'd be perfectly happy with just the pickles and the wine, tbh
I thought bananas were the thing as they taste the same coming back up as they did going down.
That's strawberries....
And Stinking Bishop cheese, for a slightly different reason.
I'm seeing the beginnings of a rather nice menu for the cafe at the pb.com vomitorium.....
Let's say that the Labour Party wants what is best for the country. It is either a deal to leave the EU or it is not to leave. It can't be both.
I disagree. It's good government, if you have a referendum at all, to offer two options which you feel can be effected without disastrous results, especially if you're trying to deal with the consequences of an earlier referendum.
Labour thinks that a No Deal outcome would be disastrous, so cannot in conscience be offered. Both remaining and leaving with a Norway-style deal are outcomes that we could live with, and given that Britain has gone down the referendum path, it's reasonable to offer that choice.
Is it really a Norway style deal on offer ?
Norway has full access to the Single Market (not "a close single market relationship", which is little different from May's offering), and of course freedom of movement.
It is very unclear indeed if either of those things are being offered.
Labour's proposals might well be reasonable but the tweet retweeted by Clive Lewis reads as well as a "Citizens of nowhere" May speech to anyone who has ever studied/taught/sent kids a private school. The tweet is pure class war stuff.
Another one for the list of constitutional, erm, innovations we were supposed to fear happening under a Stalinist Jeremy Corbyn regime.
Possibly you could point to the areas of our constitution, such as it is, that deal with the hiring and firing of ministerial advisors ?
Perhaps you could point to that part of our unwritten constitution that says all government's staffing is run from a small office in Number 10, without reference to departmental ministers or civil servants. Or at least pledge to keep schtum when Seamus Milne gets in and slings out anyone who can't hum the Internationale.
On the Labour position of 'negotiate a shining new non-Tory jobs-first deal and then have most of the party campaign against it in a referendum' is, as others have said, rather curious. It certainly doesn't win any prizes for clarity.
There's also another problem with it. Why on earth would the EU waste time and political capital negotiating a new deal with a government which isn't committed to implementing it?
If the EU believes this is the way to get a consensus position within the UK, it would probably go for it. This far preferable from its PoV to negotiating something with Johnson that has near zero chance of agreement.
"Having negotiated the best possible deal we can get on that house down the road I think on reflection it's better not to move."
"Having negotiated the best possible departure deal we can get with the EU we think on reflection that it's better not to leave."
Simple, perfectly understandable and very easy to relate to real life decisions.
The trouble with that, as @Byronic implies, is that Labour have been so adamant that Theresa May (and no doubt Boris) have been useless as negotiating, and that they would do so much better. But if their 'so much better' is still worse than Remaining in the first place (and in practice no different from the WA which they cynically voted against), that undermines their whole position.
Why? It's perfectly possible for Labour to argue that their deal is better than May's but still not as good as remain.
Labour's proposals might well be reasonable but the tweet retweeted by Clive Lewis reads as well as a "Citizens of nowhere" May speech to anyone who has ever studied/taught/sent kids a private school. The tweet is pure class war stuff.
The next election is going to have a lot of culture/class war BS from all sides. Out politics is going in the wrong direction.
Put it like that, and it sounds almost reasonable. The trouble is it cannot be reduced to a cute sentence, and can be easily ridiculed: "Unlike the useless evil Tories will fight for a better deal in Brussels, and then campaign against our own deal because it will be shit! Vote for us!"
I mean, it's a tough sell, isn't it? And they still haven't found a way of rebutting this.
It's a tough sell, and what makes it worse is that they went through a bunch of previous positions that were genuinely ridiculous (referendum on your deal but not on mine etc) so people have got in the habit of laughing at their triangulation spaghetti.
OTOH their main job at the next election is to hold seats where they already have incumbents, and the current position has the benefit of: 1) Not unraveling under pressure - it initially sounds like a mess but it survives scrutiny 2) Allowing their incumbents to run on either the referendum part or the "here is the brexit we'll negotiate" part, depending which they need to hold their seat
Labour's problem isn't the Brexit stance itself, it's that they're helping to cement Brexit as the #1 issue of any election that comes soon. Unlike in the 2017 election, when they (IMO correctly) judged that Brexit was a no-win issue for them whatever stance they took, and so their best bet was changing the subject to austerity asap, since that was an issue that "Hampstead and Hull" both largely agreed with them on.
Maybe it's unavoidable, this time, that Brexit would be the top issue of an election. In which case Tom Watson might have been right for once when he suggested Labour should just try to get a referendum before an election, to get it all boxed off and hopefully have some focus on other, more Labour-friendly issues once the election comes.
"John McDonnell said he supported a motion put forward by the campaign group Labour Against Private Schools calling for independent schools in England to be stripped of their charitable status, to have limits placed on their pupils’ entry to universities, and for their assets to be used by the state education sector."
So not abolishing them?
Stripped of charitable status - I would agree with that and you dont need to be hard left to do so, private schools are hardly charities in the sense most people understand the word
Limits placed on their pupils entry to university - Would prefer govt funding for universities to be tied to fairer access between state and private schools, think thats a better solution but agree there is a problem
Assets to be used by the state education sector - I dont understand what they mean in practice here - if they are taking all the assets the first two points above become completely irrelevant! I very much doubt I would agree with whatever the actual intent of that point is. This is where momentum really lose the part of the country that could support a left of centre govt, when they talk of just taking other peoples assets rather than finding ways to help redistribution over time.
No, abolition would be too illiberal and possibly a contravention of civil liberties.
But, yes, measures such as the above which will slowly strangle.
The 'use assets' means being forced to open up facilities a lot more than now.
Labour's proposals might well be reasonable but the tweet retweeted by Clive Lewis reads as well as a "Citizens of nowhere" May speech to anyone who has ever studied/taught/sent kids a private school. The tweet is pure class war stuff.
Does Labour even WANT to win the next election? Sometimes I genuinely wonder if Corbyn and Co would be perfectly happy: running an Opposition party with pure socialist principles, a movement purged of all horrible Blairites.
That way, they would have their revenge, and they would feel morally superior, without the messy business of ruling, and disappointing people. Job done.
I was thinking the other day about what would be the impact on political discourse and dialogue of a No Deal Brexit?
I think for instance those opposed to Brexit may modify sloagans from the past. An obvious one is the LBJ chant about the vietnam war: "hey LBJ how many babies have you killed today" or words to that effect. In UK terms this could be changed to 'hey BJ, how many NHS patients has Brexit killed today'. Pretty powerful and can be changed to fit any type of Brexit!
Labour will just stick May's deal back with some fluff on the political declaration.
Remember, the deal itself has always been acceptable to plenty in parliament - particularly with a referendum attached. It's always been opposed for political advantage not anything to do with the substance of it. So it'll be May's deal rebadged.
I do love the way that simultaneously the NHS is "destroyed" and yet costs £115 billion a year.
Yes, that will convince all the patients and their relatives that there are no waiting lists. Although it did not work when Virginia Bottomley tried it in 1997 but I'm sure we've moved on since then. And we can soon tell patients that their GPs and pharmacists are lying if they cannot fill prescriptions owing to post-Brexit drug shortages.
Can we swap Aus for Scotland? When does the transfer window open?
I guess it would only require a minor adjustment of mindset to move from 'don't leave us, whinging, benefit junky, Jock bastards' to 'come and join us, cheating, convict, Aussie tossers'. A little UKOK charm goes a long way.
No sane person would want to be associated with them TUD, hence everyone but Trump running for shelter when the morons come peddling their FTA's. I lie, the Faroes Islands caved in.
malcomg peddling lies again. Who'd have thunk.....
Deals so far:
South Korea
Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama have signed the UK-Central America Association Agreement.
Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have signed the UK-Andean Countries Trade Agreement
Norway
Iceland
Barbados, Belize, The Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, The Republic of Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Christopher and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines have signed the CARIFORUM-UK Economic Partnership Agreement
Fiji and Papua New Guinea
Lichtenstein
Isreal
The Palestinian Authority
Switzerland
Chile
Madagascar
Mauritius
Seychelles
Zimbabwe
Oh, and the Faroe Islands.
That list must cover a very small percentage of UK trade surely? Only Korea and Switzerland are outside the margin of error on trade volumes?
There's enough there to keep us fed, tho.
Swiss cheese Madagascan vanilla Icelandic fish South sea spices Colombian coffee Zimbawean fruit and veg Korean pickles
and
Chilean wine
You have a strange and boring diet it seems
I'd be perfectly happy with just the pickles and the wine, tbh
I thought bananas were the thing as they taste the same coming back up as they did going down.
That's strawberries....
And Stinking Bishop cheese, for a slightly different reason.
I'm seeing the beginnings of a rather nice menu for the cafe at the pb.com vomitorium.....
As a Hard Left Social Democrat this is exactly the sort of policy I want from Labour.
It's what I go to school for. Not a private one obviously.
"John McDonnell said he supported a motion put forward by the campaign group Labour Against Private Schools calling for independent schools in England to be stripped of their charitable status, to have limits placed on their pupils’ entry to universities, and for their assets to be used by the state education sector."
So not abolishing them?
Stripped of charitable status - I would agree with that and you dont need to be hard left to do so, private schools are hardly charities in the sense most people understand the word
Limits placed on their pupils entry to university - Would prefer govt funding for universities to be tied to fairer access between state and private schools, think thats a better solution but agree there is a problem
Assets to be used by the state education sector - I dont understand what they mean in practice here - if they are taking all the assets the first two points above become completely irrelevant! I very much doubt I would agree with whatever the actual intent of that point is. This is where momentum really lose the part of the country that could support a left of centre govt, when they talk of just taking other peoples assets rather than finding ways to help redistribution over time.
No, what they mean (and I agree it's not clearly expressed) is that state schools should be able to share sports fields etc. that are owned by private schools. This is already seen as good practice by the private sector, but there are lots of private schools that don't actually bother. Clearly practical agreements would be needed to avoid double-booking of facilities, but the idea is not especially controversial - if a facility is not being used at 5pm on Saturday, why shouldn't it be used by a state school, subject to reasonable arrangements to leave it in good condition?
As usual, there's a concentration on the minority of Etons, and ignorance that many if not most private scholls are just private grammar schools because the state won't offer a grammar school education in most places in the UK.
No. These "just private grammar schools" are luring many good teachers away from the state sector, as the "just private grammar schools" pay the teachers a higher salary and provide better working facilities. The basic starting point should be, if we allow "just private grammar schools", they should be entirely self funded and not subsidised by public money.
Can we swap Aus for Scotland? When does the transfer window open?
I guess it would only require a minor adjustment of mindset to move from 'don't leave us, whinging, benefit junky, Jock bastards' to 'come and join us, cheating, convict, Aussie tossers'. A little UKOK charm goes a long way.
No sane person would want to be associated with them TUD, hence everyone but Trump running for shelter when the morons come peddling their FTA's. I lie, the Faroes Islands caved in.
malcomg peddling lies again. Who'd have thunk.....
Deals so far:
South Korea
Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama have signed the UK-Central America Association Agreement.
Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have signed the UK-Andean Countries Trade Agreement
Norway
Iceland
Barbados, Belize, The Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, The Republic of Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Christopher and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines have signed the CARIFORUM-UK Economic Partnership Agreement
Fiji and Papua New Guinea
Lichtenstein
Isreal
The Palestinian Authority
Switzerland
Chile
Madagascar
Mauritius
Seychelles
Zimbabwe
Oh, and the Faroe Islands.
That list must cover a very small percentage of UK trade surely? Only Korea and Switzerland are outside the margin of error on trade volumes?
There's enough there to keep us fed, tho.
Swiss cheese Madagascan vanilla Icelandic fish South sea spices Colombian coffee Zimbawean fruit and veg Korean pickles
and
Chilean wine
You have a strange and boring diet it seems
I'd be perfectly happy with just the pickles and the wine, tbh
I thought bananas were the thing as they taste the same coming back up as they did going down.
That's strawberries....
And Stinking Bishop cheese, for a slightly different reason.
I'm seeing the beginnings of a rather nice menu for the cafe at the pb.com vomitorium.....
*patiently awaits PB classical pedantry*
I know, it was a huge risk - but too good a gag to miss out on.....
On private education -- it's not just schools. A lot of (former) shops round here are now offering private tuition. Neither main party has caught up with recent developments.
I do love the way that simultaneously the NHS is "destroyed" and yet costs £115 billion a year.
Yes, that will convince all the patients and their relatives that there are no waiting lists. Although it did not work when Virginia Bottomley tried it in 1997 but I'm sure we've moved on since then. And we can soon tell patients that their GPs and pharmacists are lying if they cannot fill prescriptions owing to post-Brexit drug shortages.
Destroyed = £115 billion on NHS England alone, and £200 billion (~10% of GDP) on healthcare across the UK. Do you not think it's a tad hyperbolic to say that the NHS has been destroyed?
How much money is enough? To me £200 billion pound sounds like a lot of money, and it makes me wonder if the problem is not the level of resources, but where and how it is spent.
As a Hard Left Social Democrat this is exactly the sort of policy I want from Labour.
It's what I go to school for. Not a private one obviously.
No, what they mean (and I agree it's not clearly expressed) is that state schools should be able to share sports fields etc. that are owned by private schools. This is already seen as good practice by the private sector, but there are lots of private schools that don't actually bother. Clearly practical agreements would be needed to avoid double-booking of facilities, but the idea is not especially controversial - if a facility is not being used at 5pm on Saturday, why shouldn't it be used by a state school, subject to reasonable arrangements to leave it in good condition?
As usual, there's a concentration on the minority of Etons, and ignorance that many if not most private scholls are just private grammar schools because the state won't offer a grammar school education in most places in the UK.
No. These "just private grammar schools" are luring many good teachers away from the state sector, as the "just private grammar schools" pay the teachers a higher salary and provide better working facilities. The basic starting point should be, if we allow "just private grammar schools", they should be entirely self funded and not subsidised by public money.
Google Translate: Sturgeon is carved from the same wood as Boris Johnson and his Brexit brigade. She is the leader of a party that carries almost all the features of modern populism. Not only does the SNP have a questionable attitude to the freedom of the press, it also provides the Scots with a victimhood that explains any mishaps with the malignancy of English politics and promises everyone exactly what they want to hear. Ms. Sturgeon's nationalist ideology is so meaningless that she recently sincerely announced that the SNP is the party of every single Scotsman. If this is not an exclamation of a one-party state, what is it?
I note you ignored the ones praising her and giving her awards.
"John McDonnell said he supported a motion put forward by the campaign group Labour Against Private Schools calling for independent schools in England to be stripped of their charitable status, to have limits placed on their pupils’ entry to universities, and for their assets to be used by the state education sector."
So not abolishing them?
Stripped of charitable status - I would agree with that and you dont need to be hard left to do so, private schools are hardly charities in the sense most people understand the word
Limits placed on their pupils entry to university - Would prefer govt funding for universities to be tied to fairer access between state and private schools, think thats a better solution but agree there is a problem
Assets to be used by the state education sector - I dont understand what they mean in practice here - if they are taking all the assets the first two points above become completely irrelevant! I very much doubt I would agree with whatever the actual intent of that point is. This is where momentum really lose the part of the country that could support a left of centre govt, when they talk of just taking other peoples assets rather than finding ways to help redistribution over time.
No, abolition would be too illiberal and possibly a contravention of civil liberties.
But, yes, measures such as the above which will slowly strangle.
The 'use assets' means being forced to open up facilities a lot more than now.
Terrific policy.
Is there a written proposal on this, and how it would be different from what happens now, given that a Parliamentary Report two years ago identified that 10,000 State Schools currently benefit from partnerships?
Suspect McDonnell is creating an impossible to meet standard to justify an assassination.
Can we swap Aus for Scotland? When does the transfer window open?
I guess it would only require a minor adjustment of mindset to move from 'don't leave us, whinging, benefit junky, Jock bastards' to 'come and join us, cheating, convict, Aussie tossers'. A little UKOK charm goes a long way.
No sane person would want to be associated with them TUD, hence everyone but Trump running for shelter when the morons come peddling their FTA's. I lie, the Faroes Islands caved in.
malcomg peddling lies again. Who'd have thunk.....
Deals so far:
South Korea
Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama have signed the UK-Central America Association Agreement.
Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have signed the UK-Andean Countries Trade Agreement
Norway
Iceland
Barbados, Belize, The Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, The Republic of Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Christopher and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines have signed the CARIFORUM-UK Economic Partnership Agreement
Fiji and Papua New Guinea
Lichtenstein
Isreal
The Palestinian Authority
Switzerland
Chile
Madagascar
Mauritius
Seychelles
Zimbabwe
Oh, and the Faroe Islands.
That list must cover a very small percentage of UK trade surely? Only Korea and Switzerland are outside the margin of error on trade volumes?
There's enough there to keep us fed, tho.
Swiss cheese Madagascan vanilla Icelandic fish South sea spices Colombian coffee Zimbawean fruit and veg Korean pickles
and
Chilean wine
You have a strange and boring diet it seems
I'd be perfectly happy with just the pickles and the wine, tbh
I thought bananas were the thing as they taste the same coming back up as they did going down.
Labour's problem isn't the Brexit stance itself, it's that they're helping to cement Brexit as the #1 issue of any election that comes soon. Unlike in the 2017 election, when they (IMO correctly) judged that Brexit was a no-win issue for them whatever stance they took, and so their best bet was changing the subject to austerity asap, since that was an issue that "Hampstead and Hull" both largely agreed with them on.
Maybe it's unavoidable, this time, that Brexit would be the top issue of an election. In which case Tom Watson might have been right for once when he suggested Labour should just try to get a referendum before an election, to get it all boxed off and hopefully have some focus on other, more Labour-friendly issues once the election comes.
I don't think they can help Brexit being the #1 issue if it comes soon - there's no point in trying to talk about other stuff if the main decision you'll have to make is Brexit.
But I do agree that they'd be best if they could get it out of the way, and I still think they might be able to pull it off.
All the current non-Con MPs know the way through this thing: Rejig the PD to sound more Norway-ish and make it subject to a referendum. Between them they have a majority, and not a small one either. The only disagreement is who should lead it, but that problem shouldn't be too hard to solve if Corbyn will budge, in return for some other position that allows him to look serious and statesmanlike.
They just need another shoe to drop to give everyone political cover for working with each other when parliament returns, and between them Boris and Cummings seem to throw up a lot of footwear.
An article in a magazine is not what I would call "a reception". I'm sure her hosts are being most hospitable to her, as she picks up her "M100 Media Award" in Potsdam.
Just your usual green cheese from losers, Davidson miffed that she is a bystander, forced out on her arse.
Labour's proposals might well be reasonable but the tweet retweeted by Clive Lewis reads as well as a "Citizens of nowhere" May speech to anyone who has ever studied/taught/sent kids a private school. The tweet is pure class war stuff.
Does Labour even WANT to win the next election? Sometimes I genuinely wonder if Corbyn and Co would be perfectly happy: running an Opposition party with pure socialist principles, a movement purged of all horrible Blairites.
That way, they would have their revenge, and they would feel morally superior, without the messy business of ruling, and disappointing people. Job done.
What the left want to do is remove the Blairites and ensure they control ALL the levers of power in the party. They know that the public will tire of the Tories eventually and Labour will win by default. Then can then do what they like.
Put it like that, and it sounds almost reasonable. The trouble is it cannot be reduced to a cute sentence, and can be easily ridiculed: "Unlike the useless evil Tories will fight for a better deal in Brussels, and then campaign against our own deal because it will be shit! Vote for us!"
I mean, it's a tough sell, isn't it? And they still haven't found a way of rebutting this.
Anything can be easily ridiculed if the point is solely to attack the target. This is the essence of non-physical bullying.
Watch, I'll do it.
Saw Corbyn out shopping today. Yeah, I know. Anyway, what he does when he gets to the Veg section is he picks up a cabbage, peers intently at it, takes a fucking eternity doing this, and then he goes and puts it back and shuffles over to Fruit and he BUYS A BANANA! - lol.
I have a feeling many desperate for a free movement agreement / economy with Aus will find its rather one sided and they won’t be so keen.
The Australians have worked very hard to ensure a mixture of skills into their country.
Opening up to unskilled? labour and randoms from the uk will not go down well with many there - unlike the uk it’s still quite a high wage country, quite protectionist and regulated and the unions are incredibly strong relative to the uk.
The economy and the mindset are quite different.
I also think many Brits idea of what Australia is, is about 25 years out of date. The place as previous posters have said, has become increasingly Asian (partic Chinese and also India who both send loads more immigrants than Britain does and have done for years and have created a lot of wealth there. It’s influenced in both population mix and power and outlook.
Economic bonds to Europe and the uk are also virtually non existent, despite the wine, and the populations cultural outlook has also grown apart a lot over the years, despite the cricket. its hugely multicultural in the biggest cities and the general population many don’t have the same “family fondness” for the “mother country” once existed - that way of thinking is very much for the over 70s.
People look far more to the US or Asia, which is where most of their trade is.
There would be a lot of work to do to get to new, enduring and successful tie ups with Oz.
I visit Oz a lot, and know it well. Yes it is very multicultural now - but also recognisably "British" - Aussies would say they have more in common with Britain than any other nation, bar New Zealand. Yes it is itself, a proud young country - and yet it is still unsure whether it wants to get rid of the British monarchy.
If anything, the most striking thing about Australia is how parochial it is. Look at an Aussie website and all they want to read is stories about Australia, often stories about their own Australian city. This must be a product of their unique geography. Vast and isolated.
There won't be free movement between Oz and the UK. But I predict visa arrangements will be relaxed almost to the point of free movement. Because the two countries are a good fit. Young Aussies want to be able to live and work in the UK, especially London. Brits want to feel they can visit Antipodean rellies and enjoy the Aussie sun, without hassle.
When I was in Sydney most of the migrants seemed to be Vietnamese people who were almost all wearing western clothes. Nothing like London.
You are through the barrel rather than scraping it , how desperate are things with unionists.
Bit rich for Sturgeon to claim others are trying to “rig the question” while she’s legislating to exclude the Electoral Commission!
You do talk a lot of rubbish. They have already spent months and months on the question and agreed it was perfect , why do they need to do it again. Usual unionist skullduggery to try and rig it.
You are through the barrel rather than scraping it , how desperate are things with unionists.
Bit rich for Sturgeon to claim others are trying to “rig the question” while she’s legislating to exclude the Electoral Commission!
You do talk a lot of rubbish. They have already spent months and months on the question and agreed it was perfect , why do they need to do it again. Usual unionist skullduggery to try and rig it.
As I recall, the 2014 question was set by the Electoral Commission anyway, after testing and changing.
"Having negotiated the best possible deal we can get on that house down the road I think on reflection it's better not to move."
"Having negotiated the best possible departure deal we can get with the EU we think on reflection that it's better not to leave."
Simple, perfectly understandable and very easy to relate to real life decisions.
The trouble with that, as @Byronic implies, is that Labour have been so adamant that Theresa May (and no doubt Boris) have been useless as negotiating, and that they would do so much better. But if their 'so much better' is still worse than Remaining in the first place (and in practice no different from the WA which they cynically voted against), that undermines their whole position.
Why? It's perfectly possible for Labour to argue that their deal is better than May's but still not as good as remain.
They would be in government. Why spend time negotiating something that you think is inferior to another option you would have, given that you are in power.
At some point someone has to open the box to see how the cat's doing.
If Labour is in power they must choose between many options and then pursue that vigorously. The on the one hand strategy works only in opposition.
At what point will one of the lawyers advising Labour point out to them the provisions of Articles 8, 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights and article 2 of one of the protocols to the Convention?
Let's say that the Labour Party wants what is best for the country. It is either a deal to leave the EU or it is not to leave. It can't be both.
I disagree. It's good government, if you have a referendum at all, to offer two options which you feel can be effected without disastrous results, especially if you're trying to deal with the consequences of an earlier referendum.
Labour thinks that a No Deal outcome would be disastrous, so cannot in conscience be offered. Both remaining and leaving with a Norway-style deal are outcomes that we could live with, and given that Britain has gone down the referendum path, it's reasonable to offer that choice.
They may be able to live with either as alternatives under current circumstances. But they want to be in government and in a position to decide for themselves. At that point they need to work out what is best for the country and pursue that.
What's best for the country *might* be to get consensus/validation/legitimacy through a 2nd referendum for one option, even if it isn't necessarily the optimal choice. On the other hand, it might re-open all the division from before. Hard to tell.
It would be hard for us to be MORE divided, but I guess we could have a bash
I hate the idea of a 2nd referendum, but it may be the best way out of this mess, if we can't secure a deal that parliament will accept.
Revoke and No Deal are both absurd, dangerous and crazy, in different ways.
Agreed Sean. As a Remainer I would have been perfectly satisfied with an EEA solution. It would have honoured the referendum as we'd be out of the EU, whilst minimizing economic dislocation. On a 52-48 vote it should have been a no-brainer.
If I was a judge I would focus my questions on the legal argument I initially favoured. This way I would squeeze out any problems or short comings that might exist to enable a decision to be made, whether on the basis of that initial viewpoint or a revised decision given the answers provided.
Labour will just stick May's deal back with some fluff on the political declaration.
Remember, the deal itself has always been acceptable to plenty in parliament - particularly with a referendum attached. It's always been opposed for political advantage not anything to do with the substance of it. So it'll be May's deal rebadged.
This is right.
But the fluff will be the PD amended for CU and SM. So arguably that is not fluff.
The single biggest and simplest way if leveling the playing field for uni is post a-level result application.
It totally removes the nonsense predicted grades and then you can judge people on what they actually scored and then if you want make small adjustments to favour taking billy from a sink school and still got all A's vs Eton educated all A's but slightly higher marks.
Have I got enough time to get some popcorn in before Ydoethr (sorry for the spelling) comes back with his opinion on this?
The thing is, although teachers and lecturers complain about post-result application, it is increasingly what is happening on the ground.
Can we swap Aus for Scotland? When does the transfer window open?
I guess it would only require a minor adjustment of mindset to move from 'don't leave us, whinging, benefit junky, Jock bastards' to 'come and join us, cheating, convict, Aussie tossers'. A little UKOK charm goes a long way.
No sane person would want to be associated with them TUD, hence everyone but Trump running for shelter when the morons come peddling their FTA's. I lie, the Faroes Islands caved in.
malcomg peddling lies again. Who'd have thunk.....
Deals so far:
South Korea
Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama have signed the UK-Central America Association Agreement.
Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have signed the UK-Andean Countries Trade Agreement
Norway
Iceland
Barbados, Belize, The Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, The Republic of Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Christopher and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines have signed the CARIFORUM-UK Economic Partnership Agreement
Fiji and Papua New Guinea
Lichtenstein
Isreal
The Palestinian Authority
Switzerland
Chile
Madagascar
Mauritius
Seychelles
Zimbabwe
Oh, and the Faroe Islands.
That list must cover a very small percentage of UK trade surely? Only Korea and Switzerland are outside the margin of error on trade volumes?
There's enough there to keep us fed, tho.
Swiss cheese Madagascan vanilla Icelandic fish South sea spices Colombian coffee Zimbawean fruit and veg Korean pickles
and
Chilean wine
You have a strange and boring diet it seems
I'd be perfectly happy with just the pickles and the wine, tbh
I thought bananas were the thing as they taste the same coming back up as they did going down.
That's strawberries....
And Stinking Bishop cheese, for a slightly different reason.
Naah, a chicken korma and a garlic nan tastes great going down and, whilst a bit urgh obvs, at least tolerable coming back up.
OT Universities and minimum offers. These have recently fallen into disrepute so it was amusing to read this morning that Jacob Rees-Mogg got a 2Es offer from Oxford.
Labour will just stick May's deal back with some fluff on the political declaration.
Remember, the deal itself has always been acceptable to plenty in parliament - particularly with a referendum attached. It's always been opposed for political advantage not anything to do with the substance of it. So it'll be May's deal rebadged.
This is right.
But the fluff will be the PD amended for CU and SM. So arguably that is not fluff.
Why? It's perfectly possible for Labour to argue that their deal is better than May's but still not as good as remain.
Of course. But what is 'their deal' ?
Given the little detail on what they've so far promised to "renegotiate", it's seriously questionable the there's any real point to their proposed renegotiation other than window dressing (the "consumer rights, workers rights and environmental standards" would be entirely open to a Labour government under May's deal anyway).
Of course offering May's deal & referendum would look a little awkward...
I do love the way that simultaneously the NHS is "destroyed" and yet costs £115 billion a year.
Yes, that will convince all the patients and their relatives that there are no waiting lists. Although it did not work when Virginia Bottomley tried it in 1997 but I'm sure we've moved on since then. And we can soon tell patients that their GPs and pharmacists are lying if they cannot fill prescriptions owing to post-Brexit drug shortages.
Destroyed = £115 billion on NHS England alone, and £200 billion (~10% of GDP) on healthcare across the UK. Do you not think it's a tad hyperbolic to say that the NHS has been destroyed?
How much money is enough? To me £200 billion pound sounds like a lot of money, and it makes me wonder if the problem is not the level of resources, but where and how it is spent.
The Europeans spend more than we do. Fance is about 12% IIRC
£200bn is a lot, but it looks like more is needed.
Can we swap Aus for Scotland? When does the transfer window open?
I guess it would only require a minor adjustment of mindset to move from 'don't leave us, whinging, benefit junky, Jock bastards' to 'come and join us, cheating, convict, Aussie tossers'. A little UKOK charm goes a long way.
No sane person would want to be associated with them TUD, hence everyone but Trump running for shelter when the morons come peddling their FTA's. I lie, the Faroes Islands caved in.
malcomg peddling lies again. Who'd have thunk.....
Deals so far:
South Korea
Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama have signed the UK-Central America Association Agreement.
Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have signed the UK-Andean Countries Trade Agreement
Norway
Iceland
Barbados, Belize, The Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, The Republic of Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Christopher and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines have signed the CARIFORUM-UK Economic Partnership Agreement
Fiji and Papua New Guinea
Lichtenstein
Isreal
The Palestinian Authority
Switzerland
Chile
Madagascar
Mauritius
Seychelles
Zimbabwe
Oh, and the Faroe Islands.
That list must cover a very small percentage of UK trade surely? Only Korea and Switzerland are outside the margin of error on trade volumes?
There's enough there to keep us fed, tho.
Swiss cheese Madagascan vanilla Icelandic fish South sea spices Colombian coffee Zimbawean fruit and veg Korean pickles
and
Chilean wine
You have a strange and boring diet it seems
I'd be perfectly happy with just the pickles and the wine, tbh
I thought bananas were the thing as they taste the same coming back up as they did going down.
That's strawberries....
And Stinking Bishop cheese, for a slightly different reason.
I'm seeing the beginnings of a rather nice menu for the cafe at the pb.com vomitorium.....
I do love the way that simultaneously the NHS is "destroyed" and yet costs £115 billion a year.
It is tricky for politicians (or whatever type) to effectively deal with ranting members of the public.
They can produce facts but all that will do is enrage the low-information protester who will play a game of reduction until he they can tell a story about their great-aunt Gladys having to wait a couple of days for her spectacles to be adjusted.
Labour will just stick May's deal back with some fluff on the political declaration.
Remember, the deal itself has always been acceptable to plenty in parliament - particularly with a referendum attached. It's always been opposed for political advantage not anything to do with the substance of it. So it'll be May's deal rebadged.
This is right.
But the fluff will be the PD amended for CU and SM. So arguably that is not fluff.
Although the PD is not binding so arguably it is.
As I pointed out below, they do NOT appear to be committed to the Single Market, so it's fluffy fluff from Fluffy McFluffface.
If Labour's task was to move in as europhile a direction as possible while keeping open the option of still leaving the EU under a Labour government then its finalised policy offer delivers that. It's also non toxic to the more europhile opposition parties they would need in a hung parliament. Once you eliminate their first preferences Labour's policy is an attractive second preference. Other than anti second referendum ultras it also offers enough to keep nearly all Labour MPs on board for MV4.
It's the political fudge that Harrods would sell you.
Put it like that, and it sounds almost reasonable. The trouble is it cannot be reduced to a cute sentence, and can be easily ridiculed: "Unlike the useless evil Tories will fight for a better deal in Brussels, and then campaign against our own deal because it will be shit! Vote for us!"
I mean, it's a tough sell, isn't it? And they still haven't found a way of rebutting this.
"We're going to negotiate the best deal we can, based on Labour rather than Tory values, and then we're going to give the public the final say on whether to go ahead with it"
Why? It's perfectly possible for Labour to argue that their deal is better than May's but still not as good as remain.
Of course. But what is 'their deal' ?
Given the little detail on what they've so far promised to "renegotiate", it's seriously questionable the there's any real point to their proposed renegotiation other than window dressing (the "consumer rights, workers rights and environmental standards" would be entirely open to a Labour government under May's deal anyway).
Of course offering May's deal & referendum would look a little awkward...
I think they'd get away with just adding some fluff to the PD and calling it their own deal. The Leave side will almost definitely want to run against it with "this is a traitorous remainer betrayal" rather than "this is just TMay's deal with some extra fluff", and the Remain side won't care as long as they get their referendum.
You are through the barrel rather than scraping it , how desperate are things with unionists.
Bit rich for Sturgeon to claim others are trying to “rig the question” while she’s legislating to exclude the Electoral Commission!
You do talk a lot of rubbish. They have already spent months and months on the question and agreed it was perfect , why do they need to do it again. Usual unionist skullduggery to try and rig it.
They didn’t agree it was perfect - they made the SNP government remove agree from the original proposal.
Since then they’ve done further research which shows affirmative “Yes/No” questions bias the results in favour of “Yes” - hence the Brexit referendum was “Leave/Remain”.
I do love the way that simultaneously the NHS is "destroyed" and yet costs £115 billion a year.
It is tricky for politicians (or whatever type) to effectively deal with ranting members of the public.
They can produce facts but all that will do is enrage the low-information protester who will play a game of reduction until he they can tell a story about their great-aunt Gladys having to wait a couple of days for her spectacles to be adjusted.
Both sides use the NHS as a whipping boy. Tories say it is useless and inefficient and this is down to the Labour Party's constant championing of it whereas it should have been reformed years ago; Labour say the Tories are underfunding it and it would be perfect but for more money.
The single biggest and simplest way if leveling the playing field for uni is post a-level result application.
It totally removes the nonsense predicted grades and then you can judge people on what they actually scored and then if you want make small adjustments to favour taking billy from a sink school and still got all A's vs Eton educated all A's but slightly higher marks.
Have I got enough time to get some popcorn in before Ydoethr (sorry for the spelling) comes back with his opinion on this?
The thing is, although teachers and lecturers complain about post-result application, it is increasingly what is happening on the ground.
More students than ever are going straight into clearing, as Russell Group universities drastically drop their entry requirements to scoop up extra students.
Poland's ambassador to the UK has written to 800,000 Polish nationals, advising them to "seriously consider" leaving the country after Brexit. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49741175
Mr Rzegocki described the current number of applicants to the EU settlement scheme as "alarmingly low". He wrote: "To date, around 27% of Poles living in the British Isles have applied for settled status....
They would be in government. Why spend time negotiating something that you think is inferior to another option you would have, given that you are in power.
At some point someone has to open the box to see how the cat's doing.
If Labour is in power they must choose between many options and then pursue that vigorously. The on the one hand strategy works only in opposition.
No, with respect I think your view misunderstands how referendums are sensibly provided in a representative democracy. If you decide that an issue should be subject to referendum, you should try to give an honest choice between workable alternatives. You can then indicate a preference, or not. What you should not do is offer a choice between a satisfactory outcome and a catastrophe, however energetically you campaign for the former. That's what Cameron did.
Say the issue was the Boris bridge to Northern Ireland. You could say that realistically we expect it to cost £X billion, and if adopted you propose to increase taxation by Y% to finance it. You can live with the electorate deciding to do it or not do it, though you may advise that you think it'd be a poor use of resources. By contrast, offering a choice between doing it and not doing it without any clarity on what it would cost is a bad idea.
Labour's proposals might well be reasonable but the tweet retweeted by Clive Lewis reads as well as a "Citizens of nowhere" May speech to anyone who has ever studied/taught/sent kids a private school. The tweet is pure class war stuff.
Does Labour even WANT to win the next election? Sometimes I genuinely wonder if Corbyn and Co would be perfectly happy: running an Opposition party with pure socialist principles, a movement purged of all horrible Blairites.
That way, they would have their revenge, and they would feel morally superior, without the messy business of ruling, and disappointing people. Job done.
No party that thinks it has a future wants to win the next election and have to deliver Brexit. Look at the trouble Boris is going to in a vain attempt to make himself unpopular.
I'm still not convinced about Labour's Brexit offer.
It seems far too evasive to survive a GE campaign and will fool nobody about its true purpose of trying to hold together either end of their support.
It will get mullered from both sides by the LD's and BXP.
Yes, but on the other hand it's probably the least bad fudge available to them, given where they are.
Isn’t it, in essence, a rebadged version of what Wilson offered in 1975: a bit of renegotiation, members of the party free to campaign on either side, the leader staying above the fray?
If Labour's task was to move in as europhile a direction as possible while keeping open the option of still leaving the EU under a Labour government then its finalised policy offer delivers that. It's also non toxic to the more europhile opposition parties they would need in a hung parliament. Once you eliminate their first preferences Labour's policy is an attractive second preference. Other than anti second referendum ultras it also offers enough to keep nearly all Labour MPs on board for MV4.
It's the political fudge that Harrods would sell you.
Put it like that, and it sounds almost reasonable. The trouble is it cannot be reduced to a cute sentence, and can be easily ridiculed: "Unlike the useless evil Tories will fight for a better deal in Brussels, and then campaign against our own deal because it will be shit! Vote for us!"
I mean, it's a tough sell, isn't it? And they still haven't found a way of rebutting this.
"We're going to negotiate the best deal we can, based on Labour rather than Tory values, and then we're going to give the public the final say on whether to go ahead with it"
Doesn't seem that complex really.
It's not, except it begs the question why, if it is based on labour values, virtually no one in labour will back it? Indeed, why did most in labour not even wait to see if the deal on labour values was good enough, but decided it wasnt before they even started?
It's not complex or unclear, and there are ways to sell it as you have done. But there are also easy criticisms of it.
How much money is enough? To me £200 billion pound sounds like a lot of money, and it makes me wonder if the problem is not the level of resources, but where and how it is spent.
PPP-adjusted, we're slightly above the per-cap OECD average. Most of the countries below us are poorer though, Eastern Europe, Turkey, Mexico etc, with the exception of Italy/Spain (about 25% lower than us).
I'm still not convinced about Labour's Brexit offer.
It seems far too evasive to survive a GE campaign and will fool nobody about its true purpose of trying to hold together either end of their support.
It will get mullered from both sides by the LD's and BXP.
Yes, but on the other hand it's probably the least bad fudge available to them, given where they are.
I think they should just offer straight remain vs leave, rather than remain vs shiny new version of the WA. Though perhaps publish a white paper setting out their negotiation aims in the event of a 2nd vote to leave. Convincing people your deal to leave is a good one is a tough sell if you're campaigning against it, and many Brexiteers will just boycott the referendum if the version of leave being offered is "worse than remaining."
I'm still not convinced about Labour's Brexit offer.
It seems far too evasive to survive a GE campaign and will fool nobody about its true purpose of trying to hold together either end of their support.
It will get mullered from both sides by the LD's and BXP.
Yes, but on the other hand it's probably the least bad fudge available to them, given where they are.
Isn’t it, in essence, a rebadged version of what Wilson offered in 1975: a bit of renegotiation, members of the party free to campaign on either side, Wilson staying above the fray?
No quite, because Wilson did his 'renegotiation' and then recommended his new shiny Labour deal. In this case the PM would do his renegotiation and then not recommend it (and his party will campaign overwhelmingly against it).
It's such a transparent fudge that it will please no-one, but as I just said it may be the least bad fudge available.
"John McDonnell said he supported a motion put forward by the campaign group Labour Against Private Schools calling for independent schools in England to be stripped of their charitable status, to have limits placed on their pupils’ entry to universities, and for their assets to be used by the state education sector."
So not abolishing them?
Stripped of charitable status - I would agree with that and you dont need to be hard left to do so, private schools are hardly charities in the sense most people understand the word
Limits placed on their pupils entry to university - Would prefer govt funding for universities to be tied to fairer access between state and private schools, think thats a better solution but agree there is a problem
Assets to be used by the state education sector - I dont understand what they mean in practice here - if they are taking all the assets the first two points above become completely irrelevant! I very much doubt I would agree with whatever the actual intent of that point is. This is where momentum really lose the part of the country that could support a left of centre govt, when they talk of just taking other peoples assets rather than finding ways to help redistribution over time.
No, abolition would be too illiberal and possibly a contravention of civil liberties.
But, yes, measures such as the above which will slowly strangle.
The 'use assets' means being forced to open up facilities a lot more than now.
Terrific policy.
Why forced? Why not incentivize? Say yes you can be a charity if you give 25% of school places away for free, otherwise your a business? If you let the local schools use your sports facilities and libraries you can be exempt from business rates, otherwise you pay them?
I really dont understand the desire to use force when the same outcomes can be delivered through incentives. The desired outcomes would be much more likely to be delivered with incentives as they would have wider consent, are consistent with legal norms, and also are far more stable and long lasting than a brief period of Corbynism followed by a right wing nationalist government who would simply reverse anything that seems extreme.
They would be in government. Why spend time negotiating something that you think is inferior to another option you would have, given that you are in power.
At some point someone has to open the box to see how the cat's doing.
If Labour is in power they must choose between many options and then pursue that vigorously. The on the one hand strategy works only in opposition.
No, with respect I think your view misunderstands how referendums are sensibly provided in a representative democracy. If you decide that an issue should be subject to referendum, you should try to give an honest choice between workable alternatives. You can then indicate a preference, or not. What you should not do is offer a choice between a satisfactory outcome and a catastrophe, however energetically you campaign for the former. That's what Cameron did.
Say the issue was the Boris bridge to Northern Ireland. You could say that realistically we expect it to cost £X billion, and if adopted you propose to increase taxation by Y% to finance it. You can live with the electorate deciding to do it or not do it, though you may advise that you think it'd be a poor use of resources. By contrast, offering a choice between doing it and not doing it without any clarity on what it would cost is a bad idea.
With respect, your view misunderstands how a political party changes once it gets into power and that people want clarity and leadership.
Labour will formulate a manifesto which will tell us what they think is best for the country. I assume (big assumption) that they themselves know.
It could be to remain in the EU. Or to leave it for an EEA/EFTA-type arrangement. Or to join NAFTA. Or to merge with the Cayman Islands. People can then make a judgement as to whether that suits them or not.
What the manifesto, and the Party can't do is abnegate the responsibility of telling voters what it thinks is best for the country. Because the two outcomes currently suggested by Jeremy Corbyn (remain, soft-Brexit) are at odds with each other and would have significantly different outcomes for the country.
Edit: and that leaves aside the fantasy of how that soft-Brexit would look in practice.
I think they should just offer straight remain vs leave, rather than remain vs shiny new version of the WA. Though perhaps publish a white paper setting out their negotiation aims in the event of a 2nd vote to leave. Convincing people your deal to leave is a good one is a tough sell if you're campaigning against it, and many Brexiteers will just boycott the referendum if the version of leave being offered is "worse than remaining."
This is open to the charge of 'back to square one' - and it would not fly politically in a GE - but IMO it is not at all an unreasonable proposal.
Isn’t it, in essence, a rebadged version of what Wilson offered in 1975: a bit of renegotiation, members of the party free to campaign on either side, the leader staying above the fray?
Both sides use the NHS as a whipping boy. Tories say it is useless and inefficient and this is down to the Labour Party's constant championing of it whereas it should have been reformed years ago; Labour say the Tories are underfunding it and it would be perfect but for more money.
It's not useless but the NHS is inefficient. One of my standard rants is why do you get better communication* from Amazon when you order some cheap Chinese tat, than you do when dealing with the NHS for things like appointments, prescriptions, and referrals?
NHS processes appear a good couple of decades behind the way the private sector operates. Go into any hospital and look at the old computers and software, look at the sheer amount of paper pushing, and watch nurses hunting through cabinets for things because the inventory control is dismal. I see this every time I go into a hospital. They really do look badly run to me.
FWIW I think clinical care is pretty good, but the way the NHS operates could do with a complete overhaul.
* I mean the whole ordering, tracking, delivery, and return process. Which is very simple and delivered self-service, but also can be escalated to well informed operators.
I have to wonder, though... who will be actually leading the leave campaign in the Labour Brexit referendum? Presuming it is a version of leave with CU + SM. Caroline Flint? Stephen Kinnock? Possibly even Rory Stewart? I presume no one involved with the ERG or Brexit Party will have anything to do with it.
I do love the way that simultaneously the NHS is "destroyed" and yet costs £115 billion a year.
Yes, that will convince all the patients and their relatives that there are no waiting lists. Although it did not work when Virginia Bottomley tried it in 1997 but I'm sure we've moved on since then. And we can soon tell patients that their GPs and pharmacists are lying if they cannot fill prescriptions owing to post-Brexit drug shortages.
Destroyed = £115 billion on NHS England alone, and £200 billion (~10% of GDP) on healthcare across the UK. Do you not think it's a tad hyperbolic to say that the NHS has been destroyed?
How much money is enough? To me £200 billion pound sounds like a lot of money, and it makes me wonder if the problem is not the level of resources, but where and how it is spent.
The Europeans spend more than we do. Fance is about 12% IIRC
£200bn is a lot, but it looks like more is needed.
Partly it's underfunded (NHS is still very good value in international comparisons) but the main issues (I'm not in the NHS, but work with a lot of people who are) were the coalition's complete reorganisation of the NHS, wasting a lot of time and money when funds were tight and the squeeze on social care budgets in councils which has put extra strain on the NHS.
The NHS isn't detroyed. It could certainly use more money. But mostly it could be even better than it currently is for the money if politicians would quit meddling with it so much (and that includes some of the messing about under Laboour, too).
Both sides use the NHS as a whipping boy. Tories say it is useless and inefficient and this is down to the Labour Party's constant championing of it whereas it should have been reformed years ago; Labour say the Tories are underfunding it and it would be perfect but for more money.
It's not useless but the NHS is inefficient. One of my standard rants is why do you get better communication* from Amazon when you order some cheap Chinese tat, than you do when dealing with the NHS for things like appointments, prescriptions, and referrals?
NHS processes appear a good couple of decades behind the way the private sector operates. Go into any hospital and look at the old computers and software, look at the sheer amount of paper pushing, and watch nurses hunting through cabinets for things because the inventory control is dismal. I see this every time I go into a hospital. They really do look badly run to me.
FWIW I think clinical care is pretty good, but the way the NHS operates could do with a complete overhaul.
* I mean the whole ordering, tracking, delivery, and return process. Which is very simple and delivered self-service, but also can be escalated to well informed operators.
Yes I don't think it's useless and at times it's excellent. If you're wheeled into A&E needing urgent and immediate care it's excellent. If you have some kind of chronic condition which needs MDTs, cross-departmental liaison, and some kind of coordination, it's awful.
I do love the way that simultaneously the NHS is "destroyed" and yet costs £115 billion a year.
Yes, that will convince all the patients and their relatives that there are no waiting lists. Although it did not work when Virginia Bottomley tried it in 1997 but I'm sure we've moved on since then. And we can soon tell patients that their GPs and pharmacists are lying if they cannot fill prescriptions owing to post-Brexit drug shortages.
Destroyed = £115 billion on NHS England alone, and £200 billion (~10% of GDP) on healthcare across the UK. Do you not think it's a tad hyperbolic to say that the NHS has been destroyed?
How much money is enough? To me £200 billion pound sounds like a lot of money, and it makes me wonder if the problem is not the level of resources, but where and how it is spent.
The Europeans spend more than we do. Fance is about 12% IIRC
£200bn is a lot, but it looks like more is needed.
The ONS has recently published an analysis of UK healthcare spending compared with its international peers.
I have to wonder, though... who will be actually leading the leave campaign in the Labour Brexit referendum? Presuming it is a version of leave with CU + SM. Caroline Flint? Stephen Kinnock? Possibly even Rory Stewart? I presume no one involved with the ERG or Brexit Party will have nothing to do with it.
Itd be an exaggerated version of a referendum on may's deal has she tried it - she and a handful of Tories would back it, everyone else against or not involved. Here youd not even get the negotiators backing it so it's the same with even fewer backers.
I'm still not convinced about Labour's Brexit offer.
It seems far too evasive to survive a GE campaign and will fool nobody about its true purpose of trying to hold together either end of their support.
It will get mullered from both sides by the LD's and BXP.
Yes, but on the other hand it's probably the least bad fudge available to them, given where they are.
Isn’t it, in essence, a rebadged version of what Wilson offered in 1975: a bit of renegotiation, members of the party free to campaign on either side, Wilson staying above the fray?
No quite, because Wilson did his 'renegotiation' and then recommended his new shiny Labour deal. In this case the PM would do his renegotiation and then not recommend it (and his party will campaign overwhelmingly against it).
It's such a transparent fudge that it will please no-one, but as I just said it may be the least bad fudge available.
And Wilson made his offer in government. So it was WYSIWYG.
Interesting things happening in the Supreme Court. It seems the government is making it difficult for the court to take a compromise decision that prerogative powers are justiciable but no unlawful act took place this time. It's going very hard on the government having absolute discretion to do whatever it wants, now and in the future.
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Pet Planet ROCE 17%.
I hate the idea of a 2nd referendum, but it may be the best way out of this mess, if we can't secure a deal that parliament will accept.
Revoke and No Deal are both absurd, dangerous and crazy, in different ways.
OTOH their main job at the next election is to hold seats where they already have incumbents, and the current position has the benefit of:
1) Not unraveling under pressure - it initially sounds like a mess but it survives scrutiny
2) Allowing their incumbents to run on either the referendum part or the "here is the brexit we'll negotiate" part, depending which they need to hold their seat
In Oxbridge there is little it any "private school bias". Oxbridge is so vilified, it bends over backwards to admit state school pupils whilst doing its best to maintain standards.
When you take the proportions of A*A*A pupils leaving each type of school, the proportions at Oxbridge are correct.
https://twitter.com/HTScotPol/status/1174287598107451393
"We're going to negotiate a much better deal on the house we want to buy, and we're going to do this by telling the seller we don't even WANT to buy their stupid smelly house, and even if they cut the price of their horrible house, we will go back and have a family vote in which we will decide not to buy this ridiculous house, anyway, hahahahahaha!!!!."
But given it's you, I guess it can't be.
Norway has full access to the Single Market (not "a close single market relationship", which is little different from May's offering), and of course freedom of movement.
It is very unclear indeed if either of those things are being offered.
Because there was not any.
Maybe it's unavoidable, this time, that Brexit would be the top issue of an election. In which case Tom Watson might have been right for once when he suggested Labour should just try to get a referendum before an election, to get it all boxed off and hopefully have some focus on other, more Labour-friendly issues once the election comes.
But, yes, measures such as the above which will slowly strangle.
The 'use assets' means being forced to open up facilities a lot more than now.
Terrific policy.
That way, they would have their revenge, and they would feel morally superior, without the messy business of ruling, and disappointing people. Job done.
I think for instance those opposed to Brexit may modify sloagans from the past. An obvious one is the LBJ chant about the vietnam war: "hey LBJ how many babies have you killed today" or words to that effect. In UK terms this could be changed to 'hey BJ, how many NHS patients has Brexit killed today'. Pretty powerful and can be changed to fit any type of Brexit!
Remember, the deal itself has always been acceptable to plenty in parliament - particularly with a referendum attached. It's always been opposed for political advantage not anything to do with the substance of it. So it'll be May's deal rebadged.
How much money is enough? To me £200 billion pound sounds like a lot of money, and it makes me wonder if the problem is not the level of resources, but where and how it is spent.
Suspect McDonnell is creating an impossible to meet standard to justify an assassination.
But I do agree that they'd be best if they could get it out of the way, and I still think they might be able to pull it off.
All the current non-Con MPs know the way through this thing: Rejig the PD to sound more Norway-ish and make it subject to a referendum. Between them they have a majority, and not a small one either. The only disagreement is who should lead it, but that problem shouldn't be too hard to solve if Corbyn will budge, in return for some other position that allows him to look serious and statesmanlike.
They just need another shoe to drop to give everyone political cover for working with each other when parliament returns, and between them Boris and Cummings seem to throw up a lot of footwear.
Watch, I'll do it.
Saw Corbyn out shopping today. Yeah, I know. Anyway, what he does when he gets to the Veg section is he picks up a cabbage, peers intently at it, takes a fucking eternity doing this, and then he goes and puts it back and shuffles over to Fruit and he BUYS A BANANA! - lol.
At some point someone has to open the box to see how the cat's doing.
If Labour is in power they must choose between many options and then pursue that vigorously. The on the one hand strategy works only in opposition.
But the fluff will be the PD amended for CU and SM. So arguably that is not fluff.
Although the PD is not binding so arguably it is.
https://twitter.com/Haggis_UK/status/1174290785254199296
https://twitter.com/mc_hankins/status/1174295031294902272
But what is 'their deal' ?
Given the little detail on what they've so far promised to "renegotiate", it's seriously questionable the there's any real point to their proposed renegotiation other than window dressing (the "consumer rights, workers rights and environmental standards" would be entirely open to a Labour government under May's deal anyway).
Of course offering May's deal & referendum would look a little awkward...
£200bn is a lot, but it looks like more is needed.
Pause
For a change...
They can produce facts but all that will do is enrage the low-information protester who will play a game of reduction until he they can tell a story about their great-aunt Gladys having to wait a couple of days for her spectacles to be adjusted.
Doesn't seem that complex really.
It seems far too evasive to survive a GE campaign and will fool nobody about its true purpose of trying to hold together either end of their support.
It will get mullered from both sides by the LD's and BXP.
I do Shelter. Lump sum every 1st Jan. Hate the idea of people having no home.
But generally I do less than I should. One could not confuse me with Santa Claus.
Since then they’ve done further research which shows affirmative “Yes/No” questions bias the results in favour of “Yes” - hence the Brexit referendum was “Leave/Remain”.
And “Leave” won - so what are you afraid of?
Of course both are right. And wrong.
This year 12,410 students decided to wait until after their A-level results before looking for a university place, the highest number on record.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2019/08/15/students-go-straight-clearing-russell-group-universities-drop/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49741175
Mr Rzegocki described the current number of applicants to the EU settlement scheme as "alarmingly low".
He wrote: "To date, around 27% of Poles living in the British Isles have applied for settled status....
Say the issue was the Boris bridge to Northern Ireland. You could say that realistically we expect it to cost £X billion, and if adopted you propose to increase taxation by Y% to finance it. You can live with the electorate deciding to do it or not do it, though you may advise that you think it'd be a poor use of resources. By contrast, offering a choice between doing it and not doing it without any clarity on what it would cost is a bad idea.
Plenty of more worthy and effective homeless charities out there.
Edit: and you don't need to explain your redistribution activities to me.
Unless of course they have calculated the electoral impact of swinging behind remain or leave is worse than getting chewed up from both ends.
It's not complex or unclear, and there are ways to sell it as you have done. But there are also easy criticisms of it.
It's such a transparent fudge that it will please no-one, but as I just said it may be the least bad fudge available.
I really dont understand the desire to use force when the same outcomes can be delivered through incentives. The desired outcomes would be much more likely to be delivered with incentives as they would have wider consent, are consistent with legal norms, and also are far more stable and long lasting than a brief period of Corbynism followed by a right wing nationalist government who would simply reverse anything that seems extreme.
Labour will formulate a manifesto which will tell us what they think is best for the country. I assume (big assumption) that they themselves know.
It could be to remain in the EU. Or to leave it for an EEA/EFTA-type arrangement. Or to join NAFTA. Or to merge with the Cayman Islands. People can then make a judgement as to whether that suits them or not.
What the manifesto, and the Party can't do is abnegate the responsibility of telling voters what it thinks is best for the country. Because the two outcomes currently suggested by Jeremy Corbyn (remain, soft-Brexit) are at odds with each other and would have significantly different outcomes for the country.
Edit: and that leaves aside the fantasy of how that soft-Brexit would look in practice.
NHS processes appear a good couple of decades behind the way the private sector operates. Go into any hospital and look at the old computers and software, look at the sheer amount of paper pushing, and watch nurses hunting through cabinets for things because the inventory control is dismal. I see this every time I go into a hospital. They really do look badly run to me.
FWIW I think clinical care is pretty good, but the way the NHS operates could do with a complete overhaul.
* I mean the whole ordering, tracking, delivery, and return process. Which is very simple and delivered self-service, but also can be escalated to well informed operators.
The NHS isn't detroyed. It could certainly use more money. But mostly it could be even better than it currently is for the money if politicians would quit meddling with it so much (and that includes some of the messing about under Laboour, too).
Edit: Didn't need to but WANTED to. Buys me a nosey parker question to you one day.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthcaresystem/articles/howdoesukhealthcarespendingcomparewithothercountries/2019-08-29
France is £3737 per head whilst the UK is £2989.
The US is £7736.