So if the reporting got this right there's no judicial process, just the decision of a politician?
"Citizenship is a privilege, not a right, and the Home Secretary will remove British citizenship from individuals where she feels it is conducive to the public good to do so"
You guys are all being conducive to the public good, aren't you?
I thought it was the case that citizenship can only be withdrawn if you had dual citizenship. Home Secretaries can't go around making people stateless.
I think my favourite bet of the year I've made is for Chris Froome to win 5 or more TdF's at odds of 20-1.
Of course cyclists can have good and bad years but anyone who watched his dominance at this year's TdF and stated ambitions will realise what value this is.
There is of course always the normal threats to cycling bets.
Well after several years on this site I placed my first political bet with Tim about whether the deficit will be lower or higher this year than it was last. Personally, I regarded this as a pretty sure thing and the Autumn statement has moved the government's forecast lower rather than the higher figure it was at the time the bet was made, albeit by a measly £4bn.
We shall see but I am optimistic despite some pretty ordinary figures last week.
BTW, remember that white stuff that was supposed to be a distant memory? It seems to be over my car and grass this morning.
If you didn't invite Nigella around may be you'd spill less flour?
I would be seriously disappointed if spilling flour was the extent of the fun if Nigella came around. Even my wife might forgive me that one.
I look forward to the Lawson family revenge in the New Year. Dominic came out firing in the ST yesterday. Mr Saatchi may come to regret this.
I must say I'm sick of hearing all the special pleading on behalf of Nigella. She was treated no differently to any other witness and whose credibility - as the trial judge pointed out - was relevant to the Grillo sisters' defence. The fact that they were acquitted may say something about the jury's view of Nigella's credibility. She - and her defenders - seem to take the view that she should be beyond criticism. But it was her and her husband's employees who were on trial and the case only came to court because they chose to make an issue of it.
I have been involved in lots of trials and in all of them the issue of the credibility of the witnesses is - to a greater or lesser extent - an issue, as it needs to be if the defendants are to have a fair trial. This last point seems to have been forgotten in all the brouhaha concocted by those who seem to think that grand people - or those who think themselves grand - should not be subject to the same laws as everyone else.
It may have been the most ill-advised legal action since Oscar Wilde sued for libel, or at least since the Huhne/Pryce kerfuffle. Nigella and Saatchi have both seen their own reputations trashed when it would have been easier and cheaper simply to cancel the credit cards.
If you didn't invite Nigella around may be you'd spill less flour?
I would be seriously disappointed if spilling flour was the extent of the fun if Nigella came around. Even my wife might forgive me that one.
I look forward to the Lawson family revenge in the New Year. Dominic came out firing in the ST yesterday. Mr Saatchi may come to regret this.
I must say I'm sick of hearing all the special pleading on behalf of Nigella. She was treated no differently to any other witness and whose credibility - as the trial judge pointed out - was relevant to the Grillo sisters' defence. The fact that they were acquitted may say something about the jury's view of Nigella's credibility. She - and her defenders - seem to take the view that she should be beyond criticism. But it was her and her husband's employees who were on trial and the case only came to court because they chose to make an issue of it.
I have been involved in lots of trials and in all of them the issue of the credibility of the witnesses is - to a greater or lesser extent - an issue, as it needs to be if the defendants are to have a fair trial. This last point seems to have been forgotten in all the brouhaha concocted by those who seem to think that grand people - or those who think themselves grand - should not be subject to the same laws as everyone else.
Cyclefree
The media interest in the case focussed almost solely on Nigella's alleged drug use.
But isn't it likely that the jury were more influenced by the lack of financial controls imposed on Nigella's employees over a period of years. If an extraordinarily rich and famous couple allow their employees to use 'company' credit cards for large amounts of personal expenditure and do nothing about it until the marriage breaks down and the family lawyers start wrestling over the financials, then it seems a little unfair to blame it on the employees.
And if a criminal trial then becomes a proxy for the warring couple to fight a PR battle, then most juries will conclude the employees are unfortunate to have been caught in the crossfire.
Drugs may have caught the headlines but I would be surprised if they influenced the jury unduly.
Another reason Northern Rock etc went bust while other banks didn't is those other banks got trillions in under the counter loans from the Fed (edit to stop them going bust.)
It's all in this - although pretty hard to read admittedly.
Bankster HQ created trillions of dollars out of thin air during the credit crunch (the real magic money tree) and passed it out in bundles of 100s of billions in secret* loans to the banks to stop them all collapsing.
*supposedly secret - Ron Paul managed to force them to admit it.
So if the reporting got this right there's no judicial process, just the decision of a politician?
"Citizenship is a privilege, not a right, and the Home Secretary will remove British citizenship from individuals where she feels it is conducive to the public good to do so"
You guys are all being conducive to the public good, aren't you?
An elected politician should have no right on, about or above the rights of an Englishman. Further; an Englishman is a soul who was born in England; born of England; or whose heart is England. All else is garbage Gaijin....
I have tried very hard, but I simply don't have the depths of emotion to have a view either way about Nigella Lawson. Clearly this is a deficiency on my part.
So if the reporting got this right there's no judicial process, just the decision of a politician?
"Citizenship is a privilege, not a right, and the Home Secretary will remove British citizenship from individuals where she feels it is conducive to the public good to do so"
You guys are all being conducive to the public good, aren't you?
I thought it was the case that citizenship can only be withdrawn if you had dual citizenship. Home Secretaries can't go around making people stateless.
Theresa likes making suitable headlines for her constituents - i.e. the Tory members. What happens afterwards doesn't matter. It's the impression she creates.
Which eejit came up with the idea of stripping an Englishman of his/her nationality?
The law seems to be from 2002, which would make it New Labour's eejit-in-chief, David Blunkett.
But it seems to have been Theresa May's innovation to start applying it to people fighting for a side that the Prime Minister tried to take the country to war to help.
So if the reporting got this right there's no judicial process, just the decision of a politician?
"Citizenship is a privilege, not a right, and the Home Secretary will remove British citizenship from individuals where she feels it is conducive to the public good to do so"
You guys are all being conducive to the public good, aren't you?
I thought it was the case that citizenship can only be withdrawn if you had dual citizenship. Home Secretaries can't go around making people stateless.
Mr. Tokyo, that's a simplistic view. The problem is that the opponents of Assad include pro-democracy freedom fighters, and Al-Qaeda. Going over there to fight might make someone a Jihadist lunatic, or not.
I think my favourite bet of the year I've made is for Chris Froome to win 5 or more TdF's at odds of 20-1.
Of course cyclists can have good and bad years but anyone who watched his dominance at this year's TdF and stated ambitions will realise what value this is.
There is of course always the normal threats to cycling bets.
Obviously if you get paid out before a negative test result then it doesn't matter - lots of people made money betting on Lance... (Edit: Not that I am suggesting anything about Froome - simply stating a betting fact)
One other advantage of playing at shorter odds is that you can get more on because the layers will stand up to you rather than limit your stakes. Partly this is due to shrewdies who got the 50/1 against Obama taking their profits by laying off or cashing out.
Has anyone ever tried adding up the odds available on political markets and finding out if there's any consistent bias for/against favourites/outsiders? This needs data not theories, but FWIW my hunch would be that: 1) People tend to be too generous to favourites a long way out, because they fail to see things coming in from left-field (things like George Galloway, for example). 2) People tend to throw money away on no-hopers at the last minute, especially if they were once in serious contention, because both sides will pretend the race is closer than it really is to try to motivate their supporters, and the media play along because nail-biters make a better story.
There's very definitely a bias in the odds against outsiders, and this is one reason that the over-round on political markets usually looks stingy. There'll often be a whole string of candidates at 50/1+ whose odds should be ten times that, so for example in the Next Labour leader odds, James Purnell is 33/1 with Ladbrokes, as is Tony Blair, while Vince Cable is 200/1. Nick Palmer is 500/1, though that's no doubt a pbc in-joke. Even so, there are six people listed at 33/1, three at 40/1, ten at 50/1, nine at 66/1, two at 80/1, twenty-eight at 100/1, ten at 200/1 and two at 500/1. Cumulatively, those implied odds amount to about 81%. Personally, I wouldn't bet on that whole group at less than 10/1.
On the other hand, as a rule of thumb, the favourite is often under-priced too, whether through name recognition, momentum of past events or whatever. The saying about many a slip twixt cup and lip is probably as true for politics - usually operating over long timescales - as anything. This is less inevitably true than the rule about outsiders (I staked a lot on Gordon Brown succeeding Blair at odds between 1/6 and 1/3 when I thought the true situation was nearer 1/20) but it is often the case.
And benefited the rebel factions indescriminately.
Just like "'da bankstas' bonuses" helped a lot of over-leveraged individuals* to hide their incompetent fiscal management, no? Please square-the-circle....
Which eejit came up with the idea of stripping an Englishman of his/her nationality?
The law seems to be from 2002, which would make it New Labour's eejit-in-chief, David Blunkett.
But it seems to have been Theresa May's innovation to start applying it to people fighting for a side that the Prime Minister tried to take the country to war to help.
And, the Prime Minister has actually written a letter condemning the Syrian government for murdering such a person.
The fact is even though he is a doctor, he went to Syria to help one side. There is no proof that he was helping the "pro-democracy" people, if there are any such grouping at all. They are all Sunni Islamists of different shades.
Which eejit came up with the idea of stripping an Englishman of his/her nationality?* Anyone betting on Tessa May becoming a leader of a party should consider the idiocy of such a policy....
* Anything prior to 'The Glorious Revolution' should be discounted....
So if the reporting got this right there's no judicial process, just the decision of a politician?
"Citizenship is a privilege, not a right, and the Home Secretary will remove British citizenship from individuals where she feels it is conducive to the public good to do so"
You guys are all being conducive to the public good, aren't you?
Hmm I wonder who bought in this law in 2006
Nationality and Asylum Act 2006 (Commencement No 1) Order 2006 came into force
The number of people impressed with dear old Mr Cable is a swiftly diminishing list.
Cable's recent stuff on immigration has had my eyes rolling. But then again I know that I'm not on natural Lib Dem turf with immigration. He's being backed up by Clegg on this one - A dividing line with the conservatives for next GE.
I can't read the article as I'm at the 20/mth rule and only really have 1 functioning browser here. But I can guess the tone...
I don't think its intended to appeal to a 'wider' segment just Lib Dems...
"Vince Cable should quit the coalition government after he "effectively compared his Conservative colleagues to Enoch Powell", a Tory MP has said.
Nigel Mills called the Business Secretary's comments "ridiculous".
The Lib Dem had accused Tories of being "in bit of a panic because of UKIP", citing Powell's rivers of blood speech as a previous panic over immigration.
Mr Mills said he thought it would be "very hard" for the business secretary "to sit around the cabinet table".
Asked whether he thought Mr Cable should be made to leave the Cabinet, Mr Mills, MP for Amber Valley said: "That's a decision above my pay grade, but it's a particularly strange way to work with partners.
"I think Mr Cable has always had a rather creative interpretation of what collective responsibility ought to look like.
"These comments - coming on the back of, I would say, some completely sensible policy announcements by the Prime Minister to restrict welfare to people who are newly arrived here, can't claim until they've paid in - I mean it just looks completely out of touch with the sentiments of most British people.
"I thought Mr Cable should have gone over his ridiculous remarks a couple of years ago, so I'm not going to change my mind now.""
Mr. Thoughts, being a chap of undoubted virtue I hardly ever drink. In case anyone was actually wondering, I've never commented on any BBC (news or F1) story.
Which eejit came up with the idea of stripping an Englishman of his/her nationality?* Anyone betting on Tessa May becoming a leader of a party should consider the idiocy of such a policy....
* Anything prior to 'The Glorious Revolution' should be discounted....
So if the reporting got this right there's no judicial process, just the decision of a politician?
"Citizenship is a privilege, not a right, and the Home Secretary will remove British citizenship from individuals where she feels it is conducive to the public good to do so"
You guys are all being conducive to the public good, aren't you?
Hmm I wonder who bought in this law in 2006
Nationality and Asylum Act 2006 (Commencement No 1) Order 2006 came into force
I was assuming it was the 2002 law (hence Blunkett) rather than 2006 (Clarke or Reid) but the latter wouldn't surprise me. All Blair's Home Secretaries were terrible. Theresa May is bad, but a lot of it's just talk. As far as actual legislation goes she's not remotely as bad as Blunkett.
"Vince Cable should quit the coalition government after he "effectively compared his Conservative colleagues to Enoch Powell", a Tory MP has said.
Nigel Mills called the Business Secretary's comments "ridiculous".
The Lib Dem had accused Tories of being "in bit of a panic because of UKIP", citing Powell's rivers of blood speech as a previous panic over immigration.
Mr Mills said he thought it would be "very hard" for the business secretary "to sit around the cabinet table".
Asked whether he thought Mr Cable should be made to leave the Cabinet, Mr Mills, MP for Amber Valley said: "That's a decision above my pay grade, but it's a particularly strange way to work with partners.
"I think Mr Cable has always had a rather creative interpretation of what collective responsibility ought to look like.
"These comments - coming on the back of, I would say, some completely sensible policy announcements by the Prime Minister to restrict welfare to people who are newly arrived here, can't claim until they've paid in - I mean it just looks completely out of touch with the sentiments of most British people.
"I thought Mr Cable should have gone over his ridiculous remarks a couple of years ago, so I'm not going to change my mind now.""
Cable is going to be backed up to the hilt by Clegg I think on this one... Potential end of coalition if he is out in 2014.
"Vince Cable should quit the coalition government after he "effectively compared his Conservative colleagues to Enoch Powell", a Tory MP has said.
Nigel Mills called the Business Secretary's comments "ridiculous".
The Lib Dem had accused Tories of being "in bit of a panic because of UKIP", citing Powell's rivers of blood speech as a previous panic over immigration.
Mr Mills said he thought it would be "very hard" for the business secretary "to sit around the cabinet table".
Asked whether he thought Mr Cable should be made to leave the Cabinet, Mr Mills, MP for Amber Valley said: "That's a decision above my pay grade, but it's a particularly strange way to work with partners.
"I think Mr Cable has always had a rather creative interpretation of what collective responsibility ought to look like.
"These comments - coming on the back of, I would say, some completely sensible policy announcements by the Prime Minister to restrict welfare to people who are newly arrived here, can't claim until they've paid in - I mean it just looks completely out of touch with the sentiments of most British people.
"I thought Mr Cable should have gone over his ridiculous remarks a couple of years ago, so I'm not going to change my mind now.""
Cable is going to be backed up to the hilt by Clegg I think on this one... Potential end of coalition if he is out in 2014.
Party lagging in the polls decides to back to the hilt hugely unpopular policy.
Not a problem for the banksters -- the taxpayers will bail them out.
More subtly, of course, you can also go broke even if your bet is value.
Banksters [sic] who did not pull the mortgages, consumer-debt and unfunded PFIs that Gormless and Bolleaux created from 2000 - 2007 (in their "Nae mah' boom andt boust" economic miracle)? How t'ick do you have to be to be a Labour mor0n...?
Leaving the insults to one side, and I'm not a member of the Labour Party, you might have missed that the global financial crisis was global and not a local event. The clue is in the name.
Northern Rock and B&B went bust because of dreadful lending policies and dreadful funding practices.
There are 2 golden rules in banking:
1. Look at the customer, not the asset 2. Borrow long and lend short
NR & B&B broke them both...
Actually, isn't it a feature of the mortgage market that rule 2 is almost necessarily broken?
If the contracts are written right, they are technically repayable on demand.
In practice, people tend to look at the maturity profile of the entire mortgage book vs individual loans.
The issue was that NR was hugely dependent on wholesale financing. It's a bit like having your nuts in a vice: it's fine until someone tightens the bolt...
Another reason Northern Rock etc went bust while other banks didn't is those other banks got trillions in under the counter loans from the Fed (edit to stop them going bust.)
Look at your dates before indulging in wild conspiracy theories, dahling.
"Vince Cable should quit the coalition government after he "effectively compared his Conservative colleagues to Enoch Powell", a Tory MP has said.
Nigel Mills called the Business Secretary's comments "ridiculous".
The Lib Dem had accused Tories of being "in bit of a panic because of UKIP", citing Powell's rivers of blood speech as a previous panic over immigration.
Mr Mills said he thought it would be "very hard" for the business secretary "to sit around the cabinet table".
Asked whether he thought Mr Cable should be made to leave the Cabinet, Mr Mills, MP for Amber Valley said: "That's a decision above my pay grade, but it's a particularly strange way to work with partners.
"I think Mr Cable has always had a rather creative interpretation of what collective responsibility ought to look like.
"These comments - coming on the back of, I would say, some completely sensible policy announcements by the Prime Minister to restrict welfare to people who are newly arrived here, can't claim until they've paid in - I mean it just looks completely out of touch with the sentiments of most British people.
"I thought Mr Cable should have gone over his ridiculous remarks a couple of years ago, so I'm not going to change my mind now.""
Cable is going to be backed up to the hilt by Clegg I think on this one... Potential end of coalition if he is out in 2014.
It seems like he's picking the kind of fights that it suits both sides to be picking...
Another reason Northern Rock etc went bust while other banks didn't is those other banks got trillions in under the counter loans from the Fed (edit to stop them going bust.)
Look at your dates before indulging in wild conspiracy theories, dahling.
You're saying the big banks didn't get billions in under the counter loans from the federal reserve?
"Vince Cable should quit the coalition government after he "effectively compared his Conservative colleagues to Enoch Powell", a Tory MP has said.
Nigel Mills called the Business Secretary's comments "ridiculous".
The Lib Dem had accused Tories of being "in bit of a panic because of UKIP", citing Powell's rivers of blood speech as a previous panic over immigration.
Mr Mills said he thought it would be "very hard" for the business secretary "to sit around the cabinet table".
Asked whether he thought Mr Cable should be made to leave the Cabinet, Mr Mills, MP for Amber Valley said: "That's a decision above my pay grade, but it's a particularly strange way to work with partners.
"I think Mr Cable has always had a rather creative interpretation of what collective responsibility ought to look like.
"These comments - coming on the back of, I would say, some completely sensible policy announcements by the Prime Minister to restrict welfare to people who are newly arrived here, can't claim until they've paid in - I mean it just looks completely out of touch with the sentiments of most British people.
"I thought Mr Cable should have gone over his ridiculous remarks a couple of years ago, so I'm not going to change my mind now.""
Cable is going to be backed up to the hilt by Clegg I think on this one... Potential end of coalition if he is out in 2014.
It seems like he's picking the kind of fights that it suits both sides to be picking...
I can see how it suits the blues - slightly unclear how it helps the LDs...
"Vince Cable should quit the coalition government after he "effectively compared his Conservative colleagues to Enoch Powell", a Tory MP has said.
Nigel Mills called the Business Secretary's comments "ridiculous".
The Lib Dem had accused Tories of being "in bit of a panic because of UKIP", citing Powell's rivers of blood speech as a previous panic over immigration.
Mr Mills said he thought it would be "very hard" for the business secretary "to sit around the cabinet table".
Asked whether he thought Mr Cable should be made to leave the Cabinet, Mr Mills, MP for Amber Valley said: "That's a decision above my pay grade, but it's a particularly strange way to work with partners.
"I think Mr Cable has always had a rather creative interpretation of what collective responsibility ought to look like.
"These comments - coming on the back of, I would say, some completely sensible policy announcements by the Prime Minister to restrict welfare to people who are newly arrived here, can't claim until they've paid in - I mean it just looks completely out of touch with the sentiments of most British people.
"I thought Mr Cable should have gone over his ridiculous remarks a couple of years ago, so I'm not going to change my mind now.""
Cable is going to be backed up to the hilt by Clegg I think on this one... Potential end of coalition if he is out in 2014.
It seems like he's picking the kind of fights that it suits both sides to be picking...
I can see how it suits the blues - slightly unclear how it helps the LDs...
They're down to their last four supporters, one of whom can't vote because it's a dog. To expand on that they don't need policies that everybody likes, they need policies that somebody likes, but nobody else is openly running on. Defending freedom of movement is one of those policies.
"Vince Cable should quit the coalition government after he "effectively compared his Conservative colleagues to Enoch Powell", a Tory MP has said.
Nigel Mills called the Business Secretary's comments "ridiculous".
The Lib Dem had accused Tories of being "in bit of a panic because of UKIP", citing Powell's rivers of blood speech as a previous panic over immigration.
Mr Mills said he thought it would be "very hard" for the business secretary "to sit around the cabinet table".
Asked whether he thought Mr Cable should be made to leave the Cabinet, Mr Mills, MP for Amber Valley said: "That's a decision above my pay grade, but it's a particularly strange way to work with partners.
"I think Mr Cable has always had a rather creative interpretation of what collective responsibility ought to look like.
"These comments - coming on the back of, I would say, some completely sensible policy announcements by the Prime Minister to restrict welfare to people who are newly arrived here, can't claim until they've paid in - I mean it just looks completely out of touch with the sentiments of most British people.
"I thought Mr Cable should have gone over his ridiculous remarks a couple of years ago, so I'm not going to change my mind now.""
Cable is going to be backed up to the hilt by Clegg I think on this one... Potential end of coalition if he is out in 2014.
It seems like he's picking the kind of fights that it suits both sides to be picking...
I can see how it suits the blues - slightly unclear how it helps the LDs...
They're down to their last four supporters, one of whom can't vote because it's a dog. To expand on that they don't need policies that everybody likes, they need policies that somebody likes, but nobody else is openly running on. Defending freedom of movement is one of those policies.
"Vince Cable should quit the coalition government after he "effectively compared his Conservative colleagues to Enoch Powell", a Tory MP has said.
Nigel Mills called the Business Secretary's comments "ridiculous".
The Lib Dem had accused Tories of being "in bit of a panic because of UKIP", citing Powell's rivers of blood speech as a previous panic over immigration.
Mr Mills said he thought it would be "very hard" for the business secretary "to sit around the cabinet table".
Asked whether he thought Mr Cable should be made to leave the Cabinet, Mr Mills, MP for Amber Valley said: "That's a decision above my pay grade, but it's a particularly strange way to work with partners.
"I think Mr Cable has always had a rather creative interpretation of what collective responsibility ought to look like.
"These comments - coming on the back of, I would say, some completely sensible policy announcements by the Prime Minister to restrict welfare to people who are newly arrived here, can't claim until they've paid in - I mean it just looks completely out of touch with the sentiments of most British people.
"I thought Mr Cable should have gone over his ridiculous remarks a couple of years ago, so I'm not going to change my mind now.""
Cable is going to be backed up to the hilt by Clegg I think on this one... Potential end of coalition if he is out in 2014.
Party lagging in the polls decides to back to the hilt hugely unpopular policy.
And the yellers wonder why they are on 9%...
The policy has more supporters than the current Lib Dem poll share. Given that Labour aren't defending the position, it makes sense for the Lib Dems to mark it as their own.
And it does have the huge benefit of being the correct policy position, which always helps.
As I say I am confident but I am also a little disappointed that growth more than 3 times forecast has produced such a modest reduction. It makes clear that our deficit troubles are largely structual and will not just melt away like the white stuff in my garden.
Its been clearly obvious for a while.
Britain has been living £100bn+ beyond its means for a decade irrespective of the then current state of the economy.
At some point that will become apparant to the financial markets and real austerity will be imposed.
Which is not going to be popular among an electorate who have been told that the government has been "paying off Britain's debts" and who have seen economic and social inequality grow.
As I say I am confident but I am also a little disappointed that growth more than 3 times forecast has produced such a modest reduction. It makes clear that our deficit troubles are largely structual and will not just melt away like the white stuff in my garden.
Its been clearly obvious for a while.
Britain has been living £100bn+ beyond its means for a decade irrespective of the then current state of the economy.
At some point that will become apparant to the financial markets and real austerity will be imposed.
Which is not going to be popular among an electorate who have been told that the government has been "paying off Britain's debts" and who have seen economic and social inequality grow.
And a merry Christmas to you too, another_richard.
Well after several years on this site I placed my first political bet with Tim about whether the deficit will be lower or higher this year than it was last. Personally, I regarded this as a pretty sure thing and the Autumn statement has moved the government's forecast lower rather than the higher figure it was at the time the bet was made, albeit by a measly £4bn.
We shall see but I am optimistic despite some pretty ordinary figures last week.
BTW, remember that white stuff that was supposed to be a distant memory? It seems to be over my car and grass this morning.
If you didn't invite Nigella around may be you'd spill less flour?
I would be seriously disappointed if spilling flour was the extent of the fun if Nigella came around. Even my wife might forgive me that one.
I look forward to the Lawson family revenge in the New Year. Dominic came out firing in the ST yesterday. Mr Saatchi may come to regret this.
I must say I'm sick of hearing all the special pleading on behalf of Nigella. She was treated no differently to any other witness and whose credibility - as the trial judge pointed out - was relevant to the Grillo sisters' defence. The fact that they were acquitted may say something about the jury's view of Nigella's credibility. She - and her defenders - seem to take the view that she should be beyond criticism. But it was her and her husband's employees who were on trial and the case only came to court because they chose to make an issue of it.
I have been involved in lots of trials and in all of them the issue of the credibility of the witnesses is - to a greater or lesser extent - an issue, as it needs to be if the defendants are to have a fair trial. This last point seems to have been forgotten in all the brouhaha concocted by those who seem to think that grand people - or those who think themselves grand - should not be subject to the same laws as everyone else.
Exactly , got exactly what she deserved. Time they were talking to her re illegal drugs as well. These cretins think because they are loaded they can do whatever they want.
Indeed, Mr. Richard. The conflation of deficit and debt is a rather damning one, for both politicians and the media. Then again, the facts are there for the electorate to see.
It is a criminal-offence in the UK to facilitate terrorism. Is it not also a criminal-offence to facilitate the crimes of paedophilia and fraud?
If so: Why does this government allow the continued funding of Al-Beeb? MacShame is another layer of scab that has protected the puss within our nation for too long...!
Foreign language study has halved in the past seven years across Wales' schools and colleges as growing numbers turn away from learning European languages, alarming figures have shown.
Figures uncovered by the Welsh Conservatives showed GCSE study of European languages had fallen across both colleges and schools, while college courses in non-European languages such as Arabic, Japanese and Chinese was no longer offered.
Numbers of further education students taking GCSEs (55%) and A-Levels (41%) in European languages plunged since 2005, while GCSE students in modern foreign languages fell by a third between 2005 and 2013 and more than half at A-Level standard. French saw a drop of two-thirds in the same period, according to the figures.
The Welsh Conservatives warned it was evidence Wales was “ill-equipped” to compete globally, while a Welsh education union said the trend was “disturbing”.
The party has previously called for foreign language teaching to begin younger in line with European counterparts, starting at Key Stage 2 when children are aged around seven. Modern foreign language (MFL) learning is currently only compulsory at Key Stage 3, meaning pupils begin study at 11 and can stop at 14.
It also claims the figures come after a rise in uptake of languages in England, with French GCSE entries up by 15.6% this year, with Spanish (26%) and German (9%) also up.
Foreign language study has halved in the past seven years across Wales' schools and colleges as growing numbers turn away from learning European languages, alarming figures have shown.
Figures uncovered by the Welsh Conservatives showed GCSE study of European languages had fallen across both colleges and schools, while college courses in non-European languages such as Arabic, Japanese and Chinese was no longer offered.
Numbers of further education students taking GCSEs (55%) and A-Levels (41%) in European languages plunged since 2005, while GCSE students in modern foreign languages fell by a third between 2005 and 2013 and more than half at A-Level standard. French saw a drop of two-thirds in the same period, according to the figures.
The Welsh Conservatives warned it was evidence Wales was “ill-equipped” to compete globally, while a Welsh education union said the trend was “disturbing”.
The party has previously called for foreign language teaching to begin younger in line with European counterparts, starting at Key Stage 2 when children are aged around seven. Modern foreign language (MFL) learning is currently only compulsory at Key Stage 3, meaning pupils begin study at 11 and can stop at 14.
It also claims the figures come after a rise in uptake of languages in England, with French GCSE entries up by 15.6% this year, with Spanish (26%) and German (9%) also up.
Which ought to give pause for thought -- how can this be the case if what we are told is true -- that learning any language (viz Welsh) benefits learning in other areas?
@DecrepitJohnL In Communist era Hungary, Russian was taught as a compulsory second language and pupils weren't allowed to learn a third language until they got sufficiently proficient in Russian. Predictably, all the cool kids refused to learn Russian, with the consequence that older Hungarians are atrocious at foreign languages. Even fewer Hungarians are proficient in a second language than Brits.
Incidentally, it is a long-term EU objective that every citizen has practical skills in at least two foreign languages. Wales seems not to have got with that programme.
@DecrepitJohnL In Communist era Hungary, Russian was taught as a compulsory second language and pupils weren't allowed to learn a third language until they got sufficiently proficient in Russian. Predictably, all the cool kids refused to learn Russian, with the consequence that older Hungarians are atrocious at foreign languages. Even fewer Hungarians are proficient in a second language than Brits.
Incidentally, it is a long-term EU objective that every citizen has practical skills in at least two foreign languages. Wales seems not to have got with that programme.
The point is that Welsh ought to help with other language acquisition, if what the langauge teachers lobby tells us is true. Since the evidence is that it does not, then what is the point in learning any language (aside from the traditional liberal arts justification of knowledge as its own reward)?
@DecrepitJohnL In Communist era Hungary, Russian was taught as a compulsory second language and pupils weren't allowed to learn a third language until they got sufficiently proficient in Russian. Predictably, all the cool kids refused to learn Russian, with the consequence that older Hungarians are atrocious at foreign languages. Even fewer Hungarians are proficient in a second language than Brits.
Incidentally, it is a long-term EU objective that every citizen has practical skills in at least two foreign languages. Wales seems not to have got with that programme.
"Hungarian" is a well-known notation that, for a time, emulated 'C'-type languages. Thankfully most moved to camelHumped. Though you may still find a few throw-backs....
@DecrepitJohnL In Communist era Hungary, Russian was taught as a compulsory second language and pupils weren't allowed to learn a third language until they got sufficiently proficient in Russian. Predictably, all the cool kids refused to learn Russian, with the consequence that older Hungarians are atrocious at foreign languages. Even fewer Hungarians are proficient in a second language than Brits.
Incidentally, it is a long-term EU objective that every citizen has practical skills in at least two foreign languages. Wales seems not to have got with that programme.
It's a while since I was there, post communism, but quite a few older Hungarians seemed to speak German.
On Welsh: I read somewhere (here, I think) that it's of no use learning other languages. This is probably because it's very complicated (at school I learnt it took much longer to learn basic Welsh than German, French or anything else). I'm also unsure if it's related to other languages. The German and French I learnt had some overlap with each another and with English. I suspect that would be less the case with Welsh.
On Welsh: I read somewhere (here, I think) that it's of no use learning other languages. This is probably because it's very complicated (at school I learnt it took much longer to learn basic Welsh than German, French or anything else). I'm also unsure if it's related to other languages. The German and French I learnt had some overlap with each another and with English. I suspect that would be less the case with Welsh.
Eelsh is an Indoeuropean language with inflections - like Latin and Greek, which I was made to learn at school in order that I might learn how to write English more properly . But German is also inflected, if not so much.
There is dual/primary language teaching in Gaelic in some schools in Scotland (Gaelic being fairly closely related to Welsh). I don't recall any reports of it causing problems, and the Scottish teaching unions are very quick to moan about any SNP policies - they were very quick to whine about being made to teach one (one) piece of Scottish literature in the English curriculum (at their choice, including anything from a single poem upwards).
I wonder if someone is comparing apples and oranges? The data given in the quote seem to refer to takeup of opportunities in languages (and indeed their existence) - not the actual progress with which pupils learn the languages, which is what one would expect the impact of Welsh to be if it helped.
I wonder also if it is even simpler - that (a) Welsh takes a timetable slot and (b) it's compulsory (if indeed it is - if it is not then it is a bit of a red herring) when in much of Wales it is not routinely used in daily life by many people (this is certainly not the case in the north, judging from the way the children chatter in Welsh on the trains to/from school on the railway line through Harlech).
The point about the structural nature of the deficit is one that Allister Heath has been making for a very long time. While supporters of Osborne may rightly be able to brush off the policy criticism from the likes of Ed Balls, the critique from the more free-market end of the economic spectrum is a lot harder to counter.
Those who idolise Osborne and elevate him to levels of near-sainthood may find such criticism trifling and groundless but those who actually think about these things are well aware that for all the fine words, it could well be argued the recovery has come out in spite rather than because of the Coalition's policies.
They're down to their last four supporters, one of whom can't vote because it's a dog. To expand on that they don't need policies that everybody likes, they need policies that somebody likes, but nobody else is openly running on. Defending freedom of movement is one of those policies.
Well, quite. They've definitely firmed up my second preference vote for when AV is introduced.
Those who idolise Osborne and elevate him to levels of near-sainthood may find such criticism trifling and groundless but those who actually think about these things are well aware that for all the fine words, it could well be argued the recovery has come out in spite rather than because of the Coalition's policies.
That is completely the wrong way round. Those of us who think Osborne has judged this correctly do so precisely because he has correctly judged the speed of getting the public finances back towards some semblance of sanity at the fastest rate which is commensurate with NOT impeding recovery of growth. In other words, he has steered the optimal course between the Scylla of ever-worsening public finances combined with a collapse in market confidence in government debt, and the Charybdis of growth collapsing completely, with the attendant very high unemployment.
Ed Balls, and the Blanchflower/Krugman tendency, have been proven spectacularly wrong by the fact of the recovery. They were predicting he'd crash into Charybdis, and advocating heading at full steam ahead towards Scylla. Instead, he's very skilfully piloted us between them.
Mr. Nabavi, a very nice literary reference (although it's worth recalling, if memory serves, that there was no third way, it was a choice between Scylla and Charybdis).
That's where the eurozone is with its stupid, unworkable currency. It can face Scylla now and take certain pain, or go for Charybdis and risk certain death for everybody and the total destruction of the ship. Which is what they'll do. Then they'll probably blame someone entirely unrelated to the misadventure (us) for it.
They're down to their last four supporters, one of whom can't vote because it's a dog. To expand on that they don't need policies that everybody likes, they need policies that somebody likes, but nobody else is openly running on. Defending freedom of movement is one of those policies.
Well, quite. They've definitely firmed up my second preference vote for when AV is introduced.
I can't help feeling that's not going to help them very much!
Those who idolise Osborne and elevate him to levels of near-sainthood may find such criticism trifling and groundless but those who actually think about these things are well aware that for all the fine words, it could well be argued the recovery has come out in spite rather than because of the Coalition's policies.
That is completely the wrong way round. Those of us who think Osborne has judged this correctly do so precisely because he has correctly judged the speed of getting the public finances back towards some semblance of sanity at the fastest rate which is commensurate with NOT impeding recovery of growth. In other words, he has steered the optimal course between the Scylla of ever-worsening public finances combined with a collapse in market confidence in government debt, and the Charybdis of growth collapsing completely, with the attendant very high unemployment.
Ed Balls, and the Blanchflower/Krugman tendency, have been proven spectacularly wrong by the fact of the recovery. They were predicting he'd crash into Charybdis, and advocating heading at full steam ahead towards Scylla. Instead, he's very skilfully piloted us between them.
I am quite in agreement that the Balls/Blanchflower line is thoroughly disctredited. There are however those who assert that Osborne could and should have done more to address the structural nature of the deficit at an earlier stage and that for example QE has gone on far too long and interest rates have been kept articicially low more for short-term electoral reasons than for sound economic reasons.
On Welsh: I read somewhere (here, I think) that it's of no use learning other languages. This is probably because it's very complicated (at school I learnt it took much longer to learn basic Welsh than German, French or anything else). I'm also unsure if it's related to other languages. The German and French I learnt had some overlap with each another and with English. I suspect that would be less the case with Welsh.
Any language, just about, is going to help with learning other languages. Concepts such as cases/gender/subjunctive (well mostly) are just about extinct or well hidden in English for instance, making the arrival of the "imperfect subjunctive", or "masculine accusative" a bit of a culture shock, when they make their inevitable arrival in many Indo-European language lessons.
This aid to learning is especially the case if the language learnt is then used as a stepping stone to other related languages viz French - Spanish/Italian/Portuguese etc or German - Dutch. Welsh of course, is limited in this respect as its only closely related extant cousin is Breton, which is not as commercially useful as Spanish to say the least. Welsh is related reasonably closely in structure at least to Irish/Scots Gaelic and indeed through vocabulary too though that needs a bit of careful looking at, compared to the Welsh/Breton relationship, viz Welsh blwyddyn/Irish bliana (year) and llwyd/liath (grey), compared to Welsh/Breton ty/ti (house) Ein Tad yn y nefoedd/Hon Tad c'whi hag a zo en nenv (Our father in (who art) in heaven). Interestingly given about 20% of Welsh kids are taught through the medium of Welsh there's quite a large recognisable Latin sprinkling amidst the Celtic from all that mixing with the Roman authorities 2000-1600 years ago for them to be familiar with in French lessons - pont/ffenestr/llyfr/ysgrifenu (think scribere), Dydd Llun/Mawrth/Mercher etc (all days of week) and indeed Nadolig (Christmas) are all Roman leftovers.
That said the apparent reduction of modern languages in Welsh schools is of great concern, and part of a real drift apart of Welsh and English educational trends and practice.
There are however those who assert that Osborne could and should have done more to address the structural nature of the deficit at an earlier stage and that for example QE has gone on far too long and interest rates have been kept articicially low more for short-term electoral reasons than for sound economic reasons.
Certainly that is a view which some people hold. Maybe they are right (although if they are, it's more the US than the UK which is the problem). However, if they were right, wouldn't we be seeing rapidly-increasing inflation? Instead, inflation is falling and within the long-term target range.
Of course, it is possible that they are going to be proved right in the future, i.e. that the inflationary effect of ultra-loose monetary policy is coming along later. Perhaps so, but I don't see any evidence as yet.
Those who idolise Osborne and elevate him to levels of near-sainthood may find such criticism trifling and groundless but those who actually think about these things are well aware that for all the fine words, it could well be argued the recovery has come out in spite rather than because of the Coalition's policies.
That is completely the wrong way round. Those of us who think Osborne has judged this correctly do so precisely because he has correctly judged the speed of getting the public finances back towards some semblance of sanity at the fastest rate which is commensurate with NOT impeding recovery of growth. In other words, he has steered the optimal course between the Scylla of ever-worsening public finances combined with a collapse in market confidence in government debt, and the Charybdis of growth collapsing completely, with the attendant very high unemployment.
Ed Balls, and the Blanchflower/Krugman tendency, have been proven spectacularly wrong by the fact of the recovery. They were predicting he'd crash into Charybdis, and advocating heading at full steam ahead towards Scylla. Instead, he's very skilfully piloted us between them.
I am quite in agreement that the Balls/Blanchflower line is thoroughly disctredited. There are however those who assert that Osborne could and should have done more to address the structural nature of the deficit at an earlier stage and that for example QE has gone on far too long and interest rates have been kept articicially low more for short-term electoral reasons than for sound economic reasons.
They've been kept artificially low everywhere not just the UK.
Are Clegg and Cable picking a fight over immigration as the first stage of breaking up the Coalition? After all, we're getting close to it's last full year now! I always thought it'd last until New Year 2015 but now I'm beginning to wonder.
Andrew Neil @afneil 29m FAZ reports that the EU to “fundamentally overhaul” its energy and climate change policies, with no new renewable energy target post-2020.
On Welsh: I read somewhere (here, I think) that it's of no use learning other languages. This is probably because it's very complicated (at school I learnt it took much longer to learn basic Welsh than German, French or anything else). I'm also unsure if it's related to other languages. The German and French I learnt had some overlap with each another and with English. I suspect that would be less the case with Welsh.
Any language, just about, is going to help with learning other languages. Concepts such as cases/gender/subjunctive (well mostly) are just about extinct or well hidden in English for instance, making the arrival of the "imperfect subjunctive", or "masculine accusative" a bit of a culture shock, when they make their inevitable arrival in many Indo-European language lessons.
This aid to learning is especially the case if the language learnt is then used as a stepping stone to other related languages viz French - Spanish/Italian/Portuguese etc or German - Dutch. Welsh of course, is limited in this respect as its only closely related extant cousin is Breton, which is not as commercially useful as Spanish to say the least. Welsh is related reasonably closely in structure at least to Irish/Scots Gaelic and indeed through vocabulary too though that needs a bit of careful looking at, compared to the Welsh/Breton relationship, viz Welsh blwyddyn/Irish bliana (year) and llwyd/liath (grey), compared to Welsh/Breton ty/ti (house) Ein Tad yn y nefoedd/Hon Tad c'whi hag a zo en nenv (Our father in (who art) in heaven). Interestingly given about 20% of Welsh kids are taught through the medium of Welsh there's quite a large recognisable Latin sprinkling amidst the Celtic from all that mixing with the Roman authorities 2000-1600 years ago for them to be familiar with in French lessons - pont/ffenestr/llyfr/ysgrifenu (think scribere), Dydd Llun/Mawrth/Mercher etc (all days of week) and indeed Nadolig (Christmas) are all Roman leftovers.
That said the apparent reduction of modern languages in Welsh schools is of great concern, and part of a real drift apart of Welsh and English educational trends and practice.
Mr Dancer, I was going to post what Welshowl said, but less intelligent or coherent.
The mutations at the front of welsh words always made me find it trickier (and I'd reckon the compulsory learning of Welsh does discourage students choosing to study a 3rd language).
Another reason Northern Rock etc went bust while other banks didn't is those other banks got trillions in under the counter loans from the Fed (edit to stop them going bust.)
Look at your dates before indulging in wild conspiracy theories, dahling.
You're saying the big banks didn't get billions in under the counter loans from the federal reserve?
They got them in 2008 and onwards, largely post Lehman, not before.
The Fed was also pretty flexible on the definition of a 'US bank" both Deutsche and RBS tapped the discount window, I believe through Bankers Trust and Citizens respectively. Northern Rock was a UK bank and completely outside the Fed's purview.
@DecrepitJohnL In Communist era Hungary, Russian was taught as a compulsory second language and pupils weren't allowed to learn a third language until they got sufficiently proficient in Russian. Predictably, all the cool kids refused to learn Russian, with the consequence that older Hungarians are atrocious at foreign languages. Even fewer Hungarians are proficient in a second language than Brits.
Incidentally, it is a long-term EU objective that every citizen has practical skills in at least two foreign languages. Wales seems not to have got with that programme.
The point is that Welsh ought to help with other language acquisition, if what the langauge teachers lobby tells us is true. Since the evidence is that it does not, then what is the point in learning any language (aside from the traditional liberal arts justification of knowledge as its own reward)?
Are you sure that is true?
I can see that learning one of the Roman languages would help with the others, while German/Scandi/Dutch are also closely related. Latin is a good base for most European languages. Are there any synergies between Welsh and other languages apart from Gaelic, Cornish and Breton?
Another reason Northern Rock etc went bust while other banks didn't is those other banks got trillions in under the counter loans from the Fed (edit to stop them going bust.)
Look at your dates before indulging in wild conspiracy theories, dahling.
You're saying the big banks didn't get billions in under the counter loans from the federal reserve?
They got them in 2008 and onwards, largely post Lehman, not before.
The Fed was also pretty flexible on the definition of a 'US bank" both Deutsche and RBS tapped the discount window, I believe through Bankers Trust and Citizens respectively. Northern Rock was a UK bank and completely outside the Fed's purview.
And the loans were publicly disclosed, not UTC.
Totally flexible - French banks, German banks, UK banks. 100s of billions to stop them going bust.
Are Clegg and Cable picking a fight over immigration as the first stage of breaking up the Coalition? After all, we're getting close to it's last full year now! I always thought it'd last until New Year 2015 but now I'm beginning to wonder.
An improving economy and the sunlight uplands in sight - you'd have to be mad to disassociate yourself from that...
On Welsh: I read somewhere (here, I think) that it's of no use learning other languages. This is probably because it's very complicated (at school I learnt it took much longer to learn basic Welsh than German, French or anything else). I'm also unsure if it's related to other languages. The German and French I learnt had some overlap with each another and with English. I suspect that would be less the case with Welsh.
Eelsh is an Indoeuropean language with inflections - like Latin and Greek, which I was made to learn at school in order that I might learn how to write English more properly . But German is also inflected, if not so much.
There is dual/primary language teaching in Gaelic in some schools in Scotland (Gaelic being fairly closely related to Welsh). I don't recall any reports of it causing problems, and the Scottish teaching unions are very quick to moan about any SNP policies - they were very quick to whine about being made to teach one (one) piece of Scottish literature in the English curriculum (at their choice, including anything from a single poem upwards).
I wonder if someone is comparing apples and oranges? The data given in the quote seem to refer to takeup of opportunities in languages (and indeed their existence) - not the actual progress with which pupils learn the languages, which is what one would expect the impact of Welsh to be if it helped.
I wonder also if it is even simpler - that (a) Welsh takes a timetable slot and (b) it's compulsory (if indeed it is - if it is not then it is a bit of a red herring) when in much of Wales it is not routinely used in daily life by many people (this is certainly not the case in the north, judging from the way the children chatter in Welsh on the trains to/from school on the railway line through Harlech).
It is compulsory. I was under GCSE rather than Welsh bac, but while learning Welsh and French at school I did find I tended to mix one into the other (often french subjects with Welsh conjunctives).
Mr. Nabavi, a very nice literary reference (although it's worth recalling, if memory serves, that there was no third way, it was a choice between Scylla and Charybdis).
That's where the eurozone is with its stupid, unworkable currency. It can face Scylla now and take certain pain, or go for Charybdis and risk certain death for everybody and the total destruction of the ship. Which is what they'll do. Then they'll probably blame someone entirely unrelated to the misadventure (us) for it.
It's a long time since I read any Greek myth, but I think that Odysseus piloted a course between them (unless I am muddling them up with Jason and the Clashing Rocks)
Mr. Nabavi, a very nice literary reference (although it's worth recalling, if memory serves, that there was no third way, it was a choice between Scylla and Charybdis).
That's where the eurozone is with its stupid, unworkable currency. It can face Scylla now and take certain pain, or go for Charybdis and risk certain death for everybody and the total destruction of the ship. Which is what they'll do. Then they'll probably blame someone entirely unrelated to the misadventure (us) for it.
It's a long time since I read any Greek myth, but I think that Odysseus piloted a course between them (unless I am muddling them up with Jason and the Clashing Rocks)
My memory is that there wasn't a gap, but he headed straight into the whirlpool Charybdis, so gaining momentum from the suction to break free on the other side (whereas most captains tried to steer around it and were dragged in from the edges).
Another reason Northern Rock etc went bust while other banks didn't is those other banks got trillions in under the counter loans from the Fed (edit to stop them going bust.)
Look at your dates before indulging in wild conspiracy theories, dahling.
You're saying the big banks didn't get billions in under the counter loans from the federal reserve?
They got them in 2008 and onwards, largely post Lehman, not before.
The Fed was also pretty flexible on the definition of a 'US bank" both Deutsche and RBS tapped the discount window, I believe through Bankers Trust and Citizens respectively. Northern Rock was a UK bank and completely outside the Fed's purview.
And the loans were publicly disclosed, not UTC.
Totally flexible - French banks, German banks, UK banks. 100s of billions to stop them going bust.
@DecrepitJohnL In Communist era Hungary, Russian was taught as a compulsory second language and pupils weren't allowed to learn a third language until they got sufficiently proficient in Russian. Predictably, all the cool kids refused to learn Russian, with the consequence that older Hungarians are atrocious at foreign languages. Even fewer Hungarians are proficient in a second language than Brits.
Incidentally, it is a long-term EU objective that every citizen has practical skills in at least two foreign languages. Wales seems not to have got with that programme.
The point is that Welsh ought to help with other language acquisition, if what the langauge teachers lobby tells us is true. Since the evidence is that it does not, then what is the point in learning any language (aside from the traditional liberal arts justification of knowledge as its own reward)?
Learning one language helps with learning related languages. For example Italian helps with Spanish. Certainly having studied Italian, French and Spanish, I can read other Romance languages I haven't studied such as Portuguese fairly well.
Latin and Greek can also help a lot with English. A surprising number of words derive from Greek such as helico-pter (flying wing) and rhodo-dendron (red tree). This also works the other way. If you just think about the -ologys you can easily get ancient Greek words like
φύσις (Physis) - body γυναίκα (Gynaika) - woman βίος (Bios) - life
The problem with Welsh is the only other languages it would really help with are Cornish and Breton.
Are Clegg and Cable picking a fight over immigration as the first stage of breaking up the Coalition? After all, we're getting close to it's last full year now! I always thought it'd last until New Year 2015 but now I'm beginning to wonder.
To be honest, immigration policy has always been a fault-line within the Coalition and also within the Conservative Party - wirness Boris Johnson's comments on immigration and the impact of curbs on the City and the rest of the London economy.
I may be in a small minority on here and elsewhere but I'm perfectly comfortable with the Clegg/Cable line on this. Nick did agree that tightening up the rules on access to benefits for migrants was necessary as a deterrent but this notion that somehow we can put some kind of limit on actual numbers doesn't add up for me either.
Of course, we need to ensure that people aren't coming to the UK in order to scounge off the welfare state and try to live off the benefits system but if people are here to work and contribute, that's different. I live in East Ham which is as cultural as it gets - the Romanians and Bulgarians are already here and having an impact.
"They then passed between the six-headed monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis, Odysseus losing six men to Scylla, and landed on the island of Thrinacia. Zeus caused a storm which prevented them leaving. While Odysseus was away praying, his men ignored the warnings of Tiresias and Circe and hunted down the sacred cattle of the sun god Helios as their food had run short. The Sun God insisted that Zeus punish the men for this sacrilege. They suffered a shipwreck as they were driven towards Charybdis. All but Odysseus were drowned; he clung to a fig tree above Charybdis. Washed ashore on the island of Calypso, he was compelled to remain there as her lover until she was ordered by Zeus via Hermes to release Odysseus."
Totally flexible - French banks, German banks, UK banks. 100s of billions to stop them going bust.
Many loans were promised, that is correct, but only a fraction of those loans were ever used. all the loans that were used have been paid back. The banks even paid loan arrangement fees, so the taxpayer made money on the loans they gave to banks.
The taxpayer made money on the first tranche of LLoyds shares sold and may make money on the remaining shares.
The only loss to the taxpayer from the banking crisis is the loss on RBS shares, which is more than outweighed by the amount the government reaps from taxes on banks and bankers in a single year.
And we have had five years since the banking crisis.
Another reason Northern Rock etc went bust while other banks didn't is those other banks got trillions in under the counter loans from the Fed (edit to stop them going bust.)
Look at your dates before indulging in wild conspiracy theories, dahling.
You're saying the big banks didn't get billions in under the counter loans from the federal reserve?
They got them in 2008 and onwards, largely post Lehman, not before.
The Fed was also pretty flexible on the definition of a 'US bank" both Deutsche and RBS tapped the discount window, I believe through Bankers Trust and Citizens respectively. Northern Rock was a UK bank and completely outside the Fed's purview.
And the loans were publicly disclosed, not UTC.
Totally flexible - French banks, German banks, UK banks. 100s of billions to stop them going bust.
Provided they had US operations.
And all above board and disclosed.
No conspiracy theory at all.
Then no need for the pretense ever since that only a few outliers like Northern Rock were in danger of going bust.
I think both Odysseus and Jason faced the Scylla/Charybdis choice. Aren't the Clashing Rocks a reference to the Bosphorus, the entrance to the Black Sea?
Totally flexible - French banks, German banks, UK banks. 100s of billions to stop them going bust.
Many loans were promised, that is correct, but only a fraction of those loans were ever used. all the loans that were used have been paid back. The banks even paid loan arrangement fees, so the taxpayer made money on the loans they gave to banks.
The taxpayer made money on the first tranche of LLoyds shares sold and may make money on the remaining shares.
The only loss to the taxpayer from the banking crisis is the loss on RBS shares, which is more than outweighed by the amount the government reaps from taxes on banks and bankers in a single year.
And we have had five years since the banking crisis.
@DecrepitJohnL In Communist era Hungary, Russian was taught as a compulsory second language and pupils weren't allowed to learn a third language until they got sufficiently proficient in Russian. Predictably, all the cool kids refused to learn Russian, with the consequence that older Hungarians are atrocious at foreign languages. Even fewer Hungarians are proficient in a second language than Brits.
Incidentally, it is a long-term EU objective that every citizen has practical skills in at least two foreign languages. Wales seems not to have got with that programme.
The point is that Welsh ought to help with other language acquisition, if what the langauge teachers lobby tells us is true. Since the evidence is that it does not, then what is the point in learning any language (aside from the traditional liberal arts justification of knowledge as its own reward)?
Are you sure that is true?
I can see that learning one of the Roman languages would help with the others, while German/Scandi/Dutch are also closely related. Latin is a good base for most European languages. Are there any synergies between Welsh and other languages apart from Gaelic, Cornish and Breton?
Well probably not directly, for sure, but you would learn the concept of masculine/feminine, including adjectival changes viz gwyn/gwen (white), and different structures of forming tenses very early on viz, dw'i wedi mynd - literally "I am after going" = I have gone, all of which helps unbend the Anglocentric ear. How many kids over the ages have puzzled early on in language learning why the French need three words for "the", and Germans 6 (in 16 "combinations"), and switched off pronto?
Mutations are of course the terror of dictionary users everywhere, but are essentially an aid to pronunciation I suppose. "Wales" = Cymru, but changes, for instance, following certain other words all of which actually make pronunciation a bit smoother viz Lloegr a Chymru -"England and Wales", yng Nghymru "in Wales", and the favourite one that makes many think it's misspelt on the border road signs (it's not, it's a mutation) Croeso i Gymru - "Welcome to Wales". If you actually try and say them fast without the mutation, it's harder.
I think both Odysseus and Jason faced the Scylla/Charybdis choice. Aren't the Clashing Rocks a reference to the Bosphorus, the entrance to the Black Sea?
Having recently read wiki (my generation's version of being genned up) Jason cheated by having help from Thetis, the clashing rocks are in the bosphorus.
Comments
I thought it was the case that citizenship can only be withdrawn if you had dual citizenship. Home Secretaries can't go around making people stateless.
Is it too early to nominate Miss Cyclefree as poster of the year?
Of course cyclists can have good and bad years but anyone who watched his dominance at this year's TdF and stated ambitions will realise what value this is.
There is of course always the normal threats to cycling bets.
The media interest in the case focussed almost solely on Nigella's alleged drug use.
But isn't it likely that the jury were more influenced by the lack of financial controls imposed on Nigella's employees over a period of years. If an extraordinarily rich and famous couple allow their employees to use 'company' credit cards for large amounts of personal expenditure and do nothing about it until the marriage breaks down and the family lawyers start wrestling over the financials, then it seems a little unfair to blame it on the employees.
And if a criminal trial then becomes a proxy for the warring couple to fight a PR battle, then most juries will conclude the employees are unfortunate to have been caught in the crossfire.
Drugs may have caught the headlines but I would be surprised if they influenced the jury unduly.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11696.pdf
Bankster HQ created trillions of dollars out of thin air during the credit crunch (the real magic money tree) and passed it out in bundles of 100s of billions in secret* loans to the banks to stop them all collapsing.
*supposedly secret - Ron Paul managed to force them to admit it.
An elected politician should have no right on, about or above the rights of an Englishman. Further; an Englishman is a soul who was born in England; born of England; or whose heart is England. All else is garbage Gaijin....
Theresa likes making suitable headlines for her constituents - i.e. the Tory members. What happens afterwards doesn't matter. It's the impression she creates.
But it seems to have been Theresa May's innovation to start applying it to people fighting for a side that the Prime Minister tried to take the country to war to help.
That looks right, judging by this:
http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/03/banished-a-british-solution-to-citizenship-due-process-and-us-drone-strikes/
I'm not sure if she's able to lean on another country to make you their national against your will...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10534029/A-new-low-in-the-immigration-debate.html
On the other hand, as a rule of thumb, the favourite is often under-priced too, whether through name recognition, momentum of past events or whatever. The saying about many a slip twixt cup and lip is probably as true for politics - usually operating over long timescales - as anything. This is less inevitably true than the rule about outsiders (I staked a lot on Gordon Brown succeeding Blair at odds between 1/6 and 1/3 when I thought the true situation was nearer 1/20) but it is often the case.
My hunch, absolutely nothing. Don't be surprised if you read there isn't enough proof.
* Individual: As defined in English-Law.
The fact is even though he is a doctor, he went to Syria to help one side. There is no proof that he was helping the "pro-democracy" people, if there are any such grouping at all. They are all Sunni Islamists of different shades.
Xmas-merriment....
Does Our Veritable Morris Dancer have a schadenfreude...? * **
* AIUI MD is not as familiar with the falling-down water as one-self....
** Apols': Torres is a failed Scouser: Alonso was the 'alcohol-fueled image. Hic! Maybe I deserve to be the butt of all jokes....
Hmm I wonder who bought in this law in 2006
Nationality and Asylum Act 2006 (Commencement No 1) Order 2006 came into force
I can't read the article as I'm at the 20/mth rule and only really have 1 functioning browser here. But I can guess the tone...
I don't think its intended to appeal to a 'wider' segment just Lib Dems...
"Vince Cable should quit the coalition government after he "effectively compared his Conservative colleagues to Enoch Powell", a Tory MP has said.
Nigel Mills called the Business Secretary's comments "ridiculous".
The Lib Dem had accused Tories of being "in bit of a panic because of UKIP", citing Powell's rivers of blood speech as a previous panic over immigration.
Mr Mills said he thought it would be "very hard" for the business secretary "to sit around the cabinet table".
Asked whether he thought Mr Cable should be made to leave the Cabinet, Mr Mills, MP for Amber Valley said: "That's a decision above my pay grade, but it's a particularly strange way to work with partners.
"I think Mr Cable has always had a rather creative interpretation of what collective responsibility ought to look like.
"These comments - coming on the back of, I would say, some completely sensible policy announcements by the Prime Minister to restrict welfare to people who are newly arrived here, can't claim until they've paid in - I mean it just looks completely out of touch with the sentiments of most British people.
"I thought Mr Cable should have gone over his ridiculous remarks a couple of years ago, so I'm not going to change my mind now.""
http://www.citywire.co.uk/new-model-adviser/sven-and-fergie-tax-plan-defeated-in-court/a725465?re=26842&ea=199352&utm_source=BulkEmail_NMA_Daily_PM&utm_medium=BulkEmail_NMA_Daily_PM&utm_campaign=BulkEmail_NMA_Daily_PM
Nationality and Asylum Act 2006 (Commencement No 1) Order 2006 came into force
I was assuming it was the 2002 law (hence Blunkett) rather than 2006 (Clarke or Reid) but the latter wouldn't surprise me. All Blair's Home Secretaries were terrible. Theresa May is bad, but a lot of it's just talk. As far as actual legislation goes she's not remotely as bad as Blunkett.
And the yellers wonder why they are on 9%...
In practice, people tend to look at the maturity profile of the entire mortgage book vs individual loans.
The issue was that NR was hugely dependent on wholesale financing. It's a bit like having your nuts in a vice: it's fine until someone tightens the bolt...
And it does have the huge benefit of being the correct policy position, which always helps.
Britain has been living £100bn+ beyond its means for a decade irrespective of the then current state of the economy.
At some point that will become apparant to the financial markets and real austerity will be imposed.
Which is not going to be popular among an electorate who have been told that the government has been "paying off Britain's debts" and who have seen economic and social inequality grow.
It is a criminal-offence in the UK to facilitate terrorism. Is it not also a criminal-offence to facilitate the crimes of paedophilia and fraud?
If so: Why does this government allow the continued funding of Al-Beeb? MacShame is another layer of scab that has protected the puss within our nation for too long...!
I managed to get 100 GBP on before they closed down that market. If I'd had more cash available that day then I'd have got at least 1000 GBP on that.
Great bet. Expect that one to pay out.
Foreign language study has halved in the past seven years across Wales' schools and colleges as growing numbers turn away from learning European languages, alarming figures have shown.
Figures uncovered by the Welsh Conservatives showed GCSE study of European languages had fallen across both colleges and schools, while college courses in non-European languages such as Arabic, Japanese and Chinese was no longer offered.
Numbers of further education students taking GCSEs (55%) and A-Levels (41%) in European languages plunged since 2005, while GCSE students in modern foreign languages fell by a third between 2005 and 2013 and more than half at A-Level standard. French saw a drop of two-thirds in the same period, according to the figures.
The Welsh Conservatives warned it was evidence Wales was “ill-equipped” to compete globally, while a Welsh education union said the trend was “disturbing”.
The party has previously called for foreign language teaching to begin younger in line with European counterparts, starting at Key Stage 2 when children are aged around seven. Modern foreign language (MFL) learning is currently only compulsory at Key Stage 3, meaning pupils begin study at 11 and can stop at 14.
It also claims the figures come after a rise in uptake of languages in England, with French GCSE entries up by 15.6% this year, with Spanish (26%) and German (9%) also up.
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/foreign-language-study-falls-half-6439462
Tim Shipman | MacShane muttered 'quelle surprise' as he was jailed. Like the good European he is........
Incidentally, it is a long-term EU objective that every citizen has practical skills in at least two foreign languages. Wales seems not to have got with that programme.
Al-Beeb publish a new look for 2014.* Apparently it sums up their ethos and core market (whilst trying to attract a few "token" WWC)....
* Dated, yes. A repeat from the past; yes. Sums everything up at Al-Beeb M0ng-lundt....
E.T.A.: Spoofable
There is dual/primary language teaching in Gaelic in some schools in Scotland (Gaelic being fairly closely related to Welsh). I don't recall any reports of it causing problems, and the Scottish teaching unions are very quick to moan about any SNP policies - they were very quick to whine about being made to teach one (one) piece of Scottish literature in the English curriculum (at their choice, including anything from a single poem upwards).
I wonder if someone is comparing apples and oranges? The data given in the quote seem to refer to takeup of opportunities in languages (and indeed their existence) - not the actual progress with which pupils learn the languages, which is what one would expect the impact of Welsh to be if it helped.
I wonder also if it is even simpler - that (a) Welsh takes a timetable slot and (b) it's compulsory (if indeed it is - if it is not then it is a bit of a red herring) when in much of Wales it is not routinely used in daily life by many people (this is certainly not the case in the north, judging from the way the children chatter in Welsh on the trains to/from school on the railway line through Harlech).
The point about the structural nature of the deficit is one that Allister Heath has been making for a very long time. While supporters of Osborne may rightly be able to brush off the policy criticism from the likes of Ed Balls, the critique from the more free-market end of the economic spectrum is a lot harder to counter.
Those who idolise Osborne and elevate him to levels of near-sainthood may find such criticism trifling and groundless but those who actually think about these things are well aware that for all the fine words, it could well be argued the recovery has come out in spite rather than because of the Coalition's policies.
Clegg won't let him.
Just as Clegg won;t allow more aggressive anti immigration measures.
Ed Balls, and the Blanchflower/Krugman tendency, have been proven spectacularly wrong by the fact of the recovery. They were predicting he'd crash into Charybdis, and advocating heading at full steam ahead towards Scylla. Instead, he's very skilfully piloted us between them.
That's where the eurozone is with its stupid, unworkable currency. It can face Scylla now and take certain pain, or go for Charybdis and risk certain death for everybody and the total destruction of the ship. Which is what they'll do. Then they'll probably blame someone entirely unrelated to the misadventure (us) for it.
Please can we have a New Year cartoon of OGH taking wads of cash to betting shops - perhaps in a furtive manner?
This aid to learning is especially the case if the language learnt is then used as a stepping stone to other related languages viz French - Spanish/Italian/Portuguese etc or German - Dutch. Welsh of course, is limited in this respect as its only closely related extant cousin is Breton, which is not as commercially useful as Spanish to say the least. Welsh is related reasonably closely in structure at least to Irish/Scots Gaelic and indeed through vocabulary too though that needs a bit of careful looking at, compared to the Welsh/Breton relationship, viz Welsh blwyddyn/Irish bliana (year) and llwyd/liath (grey), compared to Welsh/Breton ty/ti (house) Ein Tad yn y nefoedd/Hon Tad c'whi hag a zo en nenv (Our father in (who art) in heaven). Interestingly given about 20% of Welsh kids are taught through the medium of Welsh there's quite a large recognisable Latin sprinkling amidst the Celtic from all that mixing with the Roman authorities 2000-1600 years ago for them to be familiar with in French lessons - pont/ffenestr/llyfr/ysgrifenu (think scribere), Dydd Llun/Mawrth/Mercher etc (all days of week) and indeed Nadolig (Christmas) are all Roman leftovers.
That said the apparent reduction of modern languages in Welsh schools is of great concern, and part of a real drift apart of Welsh and English educational trends and practice.
Of course, it is possible that they are going to be proved right in the future, i.e. that the inflationary effect of ultra-loose monetary policy is coming along later. Perhaps so, but I don't see any evidence as yet.
Andrew Neil @afneil 29m
FAZ reports that the EU to “fundamentally overhaul” its energy and climate change policies, with no new renewable energy target post-2020.
The mutations at the front of welsh words always made me find it trickier (and I'd reckon the compulsory learning of Welsh does discourage students choosing to study a 3rd language).
The Fed was also pretty flexible on the definition of a 'US bank" both Deutsche and RBS tapped the discount window, I believe through Bankers Trust and Citizens respectively. Northern Rock was a UK bank and completely outside the Fed's purview.
And the loans were publicly disclosed, not UTC.
Perhaps the libs think a further year of decent growth and falling unemployment might be rather too good for the tories...
I can see that learning one of the Roman languages would help with the others, while German/Scandi/Dutch are also closely related. Latin is a good base for most European languages. Are there any synergies between Welsh and other languages apart from Gaelic, Cornish and Breton?
May we cordially wish all of PB community the very best of the festive season and all the joy of Christmas.
Mr & Mrs JackW
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/12/23/what-did-peter-mean/
"he (Mandy) was saying that the Labour leader does not understand economics, international finance and markets"
EDIT: Googling around tells my I'm utterly wrong.
And all above board and disclosed.
No conspiracy theory at all.
Latin and Greek can also help a lot with English. A surprising number of words derive from Greek such as helico-pter (flying wing) and rhodo-dendron (red tree). This also works the other way. If you just think about the -ologys you can easily get ancient Greek words like
φύσις (Physis) - body
γυναίκα (Gynaika) - woman
βίος (Bios) - life
The problem with Welsh is the only other languages it would really help with are Cornish and Breton.
I may be in a small minority on here and elsewhere but I'm perfectly comfortable with the Clegg/Cable line on this. Nick did agree that tightening up the rules on access to benefits for migrants was necessary as a deterrent but this notion that somehow we can put some kind of limit on actual numbers doesn't add up for me either.
Of course, we need to ensure that people aren't coming to the UK in order to scounge off the welfare state and try to live off the benefits system but if people are here to work and contribute, that's different. I live in East Ham which is as cultural as it gets - the Romanians and Bulgarians are already here and having an impact.
"They then passed between the six-headed monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis, Odysseus losing six men to Scylla, and landed on the island of Thrinacia. Zeus caused a storm which prevented them leaving. While Odysseus was away praying, his men ignored the warnings of Tiresias and Circe and hunted down the sacred cattle of the sun god Helios as their food had run short. The Sun God insisted that Zeus punish the men for this sacrilege. They suffered a shipwreck as they were driven towards Charybdis. All but Odysseus were drowned; he clung to a fig tree above Charybdis. Washed ashore on the island of Calypso, he was compelled to remain there as her lover until she was ordered by Zeus via Hermes to release Odysseus."
Many loans were promised, that is correct, but only a fraction of those loans were ever used. all the loans that were used have been paid back. The banks even paid loan arrangement fees, so the taxpayer made money on the loans they gave to banks.
The taxpayer made money on the first tranche of LLoyds shares sold and may make money on the remaining shares.
The only loss to the taxpayer from the banking crisis is the loss on RBS shares, which is more than outweighed by the amount the government reaps from taxes on banks and bankers in a single year.
And we have had five years since the banking crisis.
2. It's nowhere near over yet.
Mutations are of course the terror of dictionary users everywhere, but are essentially an aid to pronunciation I suppose. "Wales" = Cymru, but changes, for instance, following certain other words all of which actually make pronunciation a bit smoother viz Lloegr a Chymru -"England and Wales", yng Nghymru "in Wales", and the favourite one that makes many think it's misspelt on the border road signs (it's not, it's a mutation) Croeso i Gymru - "Welcome to Wales". If you actually try and say them fast without the mutation, it's harder.