"Both vaccines are supposed to be administered in two doses, a prime and a booster, 21 days apart for Pfizer and 28 days for Moderna. However, in data provided to the F.D.A., there are clues for a tantalizing possibility: that even a single dose may provide significant levels of protection against the disease.
If that’s shown to be the case, this would be a game changer, allowing us to vaccinate up to twice the number of people and greatly alleviating the suffering not just in the United States, but also in countries where vaccine shortages may take years to resolve."
FYI, Sean Thomas's father has now also had the vaccine.
I called my parents today for a chat and they were keen to get off the phone because they wanted it free for the vax call from the surgery. That's how keen they are to get it.
They do usually want to talk to me, honest.
Have you told them that the best place to reach you is on pb?
- Actually that's food for thought. I ought to rein it back on the digital and do more flesh & blood. I will try.
For those raving about Liz Truss, I do recommend reading her full speech on equalities. I'll bet few have; only soundbites hit the airwaves.
The speech is shallow, intellectually incoherent, simply wrong in places, and riddled with a fair few contradictions. It is, at best, worth a grade D at A level. Is this the stuff of a future PM? I don't think so. If one were to compare it with, say, some of Macron's speeches where he is grappling with the issues currently facing French society, Truss's remarks reveal her for the lightweight she is.
Edit: so she's probably in with a very good chance of being next Tory leader.
The key is in your second sentence. Few have, few ever will. It is irrelevant for a 2020s politician whether they are coherent, shallow, accurate or consistent. The questions are will it play well with social media, will it motivate the faithful, annoy the enemy and generate publicity?
You're right, of course, but isn't that utterly depressing and rather dangerous? Government by soundbite and tabloid headline? I'm no elitist, but we need people at the top who are profoundly intelligent and can think deeply about the issues we all face. I'm sure we used to take serious speeches more seriously than we do now.
And I guess a part of me was hoping that the intelligentsia who post on here would take the trouble to read the speech properly - especially those gushing in praise for it.
I'm not an LD, I'm a liberal. That's why I'm in the Conservative Party.
The thing is, a lot of people seem happy to describe themselves as "liberal" and all seem to have different interpretations of what the term "liberal" actually means.
I've encountered liberals in the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties in my time and I suppose the real schism in 20th century politics was within liberalism. The emergence of social democracy in the 1930s and notions of the Welfare State, begun under Asquith and continued by Beveridge, have defined or re-defined liberalism and moved it away from the Gladstonian notion or, as it is sometimes termed, "classical liberalism".
Despite that, the superficial synergies between liberalism and social democracy masked some strong philosophical divergences . In the same way, Cameron's notion of "liberal conservatism", for all it appeared similar to Orange Book Liberalism, wasn't and the divergence after 2010 was rapid.
Looking at it now from the outside, it's not something over which to lose sleep. How political thought responds to growing environmental concerns, notions of AI and the place of the individual, not so much via-a-vis the State but in terms of the notion of individuality in the Information Age is the kind of areas of debate for liberals, conservatives and socialists alike.
Yes to that. But you can`t get away from ideological underpinnings completely: that the unit of importance for liberalism is the individual/liberty, for collectivists it is groups/communities and for conservatives it is family unit/nation.
Given that the LibDems are supposed to be representing the former, it is regrettable that people like PT (and Truss for that matter) are not LibDems.
You've hit the nail on the head about individualism v collectivism v family/nationalism.
I believe firmly in individualism/liberty first and foremost. Can you say the same about LDs? Clegg, Davey, Alexander maybe which is why they worked well in the Coalition.
But not the Cable, Farron, Swinson wing who are more collectivists.
You have a massive Nation State thing going on too. This is clear.
Actually I have a small Nation State thing going on. It's why I support Sindy etc.
Smaller is better. Closer to the people.
Ha. Very good. But you know what I mean, I think. You're quite nationalistic.
It depends upon how you define nationalism.
I think citizens of a nation should vote for that nations laws absolutely. But that's democracy not nationalism.
I also believe people should be able (within reason) to choose which nation they want to be their nation.
I despise things like birtherism. I like relatively open borders globally. Let people who want to come and become citizens of this nation.
Spot on. My personal view - which seems to be unpopular with both sides of the Brexit debate and is certainly a minority view - is that we should not be restricting those who want to come to this country if their intent is to become a citizen. I would not even say they need to adopt all of our traditions and customs and certainly not our religions even though I have a deep love for our customs and traditions (if not for religion in any form). There is room enough for different customs and traditions living side by side.
They would however have to adopt some of the fundamental principles and ethical positions that underlie our democracy. Belief in democracy, adherence to the law which can only be changed by the traditional means of the democratic process, acceptance of equality of gender, race, sexuality and any other equalities passed by our Parliament. Our judicial and Governmental principles (although the practices are open to debate and reform). Also absolute acceptance of freedom of speech and association and the laws and customs that underpin all these things.
This is just a list off the top of my head and I am sure there would be others. But if people are willing to accept these things and wish to become British/English/Scottish etc then I would be welcoming them.
For concrete examples I would be encouraging EU nationals to stay and be welcome. I would also welcome any from Hong Kong who wish to come here.
You`re not concerned about overall population size?
Not at the moment no. And it will to some extent be self regulating. Of course at some point in the future it might become an issue but at that point you change policy. Right now in the UK the issue is a demographic timebomb where by we have an aging population and a falling birthrate. Nice if you are independently wealthy but for anyone else it means more likelihood of being poor in old age when the state can no longer afford to look after you.
Yes I get you. And the vast majority of humans will agree. GDP is all. But what about the planet and its other species and habitats?
I would love to see the population stabilise or fall overall in the world. But the only way to make that happen short of something nasty is to increase the wealth of the developing world. It is only at that point that populations stabilise.
The UK is not contributing to the increase in population. This is a function of a developed society and is the same across much of the first world. Stopping people coming here will not save the environment overall. Only making people rich enough and secure enough that they no longer need to have large families will do that.
But they use more resources.
I`ve come to agree with Monbiot`s comment, made over ten years ago, that the only way is some form of global governance run on non-democratic lines and led by scientists, philosophers and naturalists charged with the job of reducing homo sapiens population worldwide and protecting remaining habitats. Again, I realise that I`m in a tiny minority on this. Which is why the planet is doomed for so many non-human species (and eventually humans too).
That's rather pessimistic. On current trends, medium projections are for the global population to hit a peak of about 11-12 billion at around the end of the century before starting to fall again. This is primarily due to the rapidly falling birth rates as countries develop and women gain working and reproductive rights. So long as this process continues (foreign aid helps here), we can reasonably expect not to completely overrun the planet before the pressure starts to ease.
We`re completely overrunning the planet already! 11-12 billion of us. Using and destroying everything.
How can you not be pessimistic about the appallingness of our strain of the species?
It all went wrong from the agricultural revolution, but I accept that mine is a minority view.
I blame grass. It came up with a cunning plan to breed a species that would plant it everywhere.
Actually we should probably blame bacteria. There are more bacterial cells in human bodies than human cells.
The Valencia region has realized at the last minute that their relaxation of the rules was too great. They have now effectively locked the whole community in, no border crossing, visiting family not a good enough reason, no residents certificate, no entry. Bar closes and curfew 11 and only 12 on Xmas and New Year’s Eve so no grapes and mass cuddles in the square. Brought in today not sure how it’s going down yet.
The Valencia region has realized at the last minute that their relaxation of the rules was too great. They have now effectively locked the whole community in, no border crossing, visiting family not a good enough reason, no residents certificate, no entry. Bar closes and curfew 11 and only 12 on Xmas and New Year’s Eve so no grapes and mass cuddles in the square. Brought in today not sure how it’s going down yet.
Well, if there’s no mass cuddling I suppose quite a lot of things will be going down.
I'm not an LD, I'm a liberal. That's why I'm in the Conservative Party.
The thing is, a lot of people seem happy to describe themselves as "liberal" and all seem to have different interpretations of what the term "liberal" actually means.
I've encountered liberals in the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties in my time and I suppose the real schism in 20th century politics was within liberalism. The emergence of social democracy in the 1930s and notions of the Welfare State, begun under Asquith and continued by Beveridge, have defined or re-defined liberalism and moved it away from the Gladstonian notion or, as it is sometimes termed, "classical liberalism".
Despite that, the superficial synergies between liberalism and social democracy masked some strong philosophical divergences . In the same way, Cameron's notion of "liberal conservatism", for all it appeared similar to Orange Book Liberalism, wasn't and the divergence after 2010 was rapid.
Looking at it now from the outside, it's not something over which to lose sleep. How political thought responds to growing environmental concerns, notions of AI and the place of the individual, not so much via-a-vis the State but in terms of the notion of individuality in the Information Age is the kind of areas of debate for liberals, conservatives and socialists alike.
Yes to that. But you can`t get away from ideological underpinnings completely: that the unit of importance for liberalism is the individual/liberty, for collectivists it is groups/communities and for conservatives it is family unit/nation.
Given that the LibDems are supposed to be representing the former, it is regrettable that people like PT (and Truss for that matter) are not LibDems.
You've hit the nail on the head about individualism v collectivism v family/nationalism.
I believe firmly in individualism/liberty first and foremost. Can you say the same about LDs? Clegg, Davey, Alexander maybe which is why they worked well in the Coalition.
But not the Cable, Farron, Swinson wing who are more collectivists.
You have a massive Nation State thing going on too. This is clear.
Actually I have a small Nation State thing going on. It's why I support Sindy etc.
Smaller is better. Closer to the people.
Ha. Very good. But you know what I mean, I think. You're quite nationalistic.
It depends upon how you define nationalism.
I think citizens of a nation should vote for that nations laws absolutely. But that's democracy not nationalism.
I also believe people should be able (within reason) to choose which nation they want to be their nation.
I despise things like birtherism. I like relatively open borders globally. Let people who want to come and become citizens of this nation.
Spot on. My personal view - which seems to be unpopular with both sides of the Brexit debate and is certainly a minority view - is that we should not be restricting those who want to come to this country if their intent is to become a citizen. I would not even say they need to adopt all of our traditions and customs and certainly not our religions even though I have a deep love for our customs and traditions (if not for religion in any form). There is room enough for different customs and traditions living side by side.
They would however have to adopt some of the fundamental principles and ethical positions that underlie our democracy. Belief in democracy, adherence to the law which can only be changed by the traditional means of the democratic process, acceptance of equality of gender, race, sexuality and any other equalities passed by our Parliament. Our judicial and Governmental principles (although the practices are open to debate and reform). Also absolute acceptance of freedom of speech and association and the laws and customs that underpin all these things.
This is just a list off the top of my head and I am sure there would be others. But if people are willing to accept these things and wish to become British/English/Scottish etc then I would be welcoming them.
For concrete examples I would be encouraging EU nationals to stay and be welcome. I would also welcome any from Hong Kong who wish to come here.
You`re not concerned about overall population size?
One thing that is interesting in the immigration debate is the refusal of a number of people to engage with the idea of what population size is optimal for the country.
Yet, the same people argue for planning (for decades in advance) for schools, hospitals, roads, railways, airports, house building, reservoir, electricity generation etc etc.
All of which depend on the size of the population.
I personally prefer the frankness of one Deep Green of my acquaintance - she was quite clear that she expected the population to be ever increasing, with a steady reduction in allowed housing space per person.
Your acquaintance laments this trend, presumably?
Personally, I believe that the government should have population target which is lower than now for environmental reasons, with incentives to reduce birth rate and a ban on building on green field sites. I realise that we deep ecologists are in a small minority on this. Most of us have given up, as it sounds like your acquaintance has.
The problem with that is that - unless you're a fan of euthanasia - then you end up with an increasingly small number of people of working age supporting a lot of old people.
I want to put this in context for a second. When Tony Blair became Prime Minister, pensions and health care accounted for less than a quarter of UK government expenditure. They now account for 40%.
Our ageing population - and the triple lock - means that 40% of the UK government budget is going to grow much faster than the overall economy.
Austerity is the crowding out of spending on the young, by the old.
Good post, but I doubt that non-human animal species are too concerned about the economic issues of the species that is responsible for their plight. You need to take off your human lens.
I'll take off my "human lens" when my wife's dog stops trying to kill me.
So as an excuse for chopping down the Amazon you want to claim self-defence?
Let me get this right, white people in the UK are allowed to exploit their natural resources, but brown people in Brazil should think of the bigger picture and just stay poor.
Do I have that right?
Err. No. I`m on the side of nature. I don`t care about human skin colour.
The economy number is much, much better than I anticipated. All down to Rishi's free money.
Just 80% approval for the vaccine? To be fair to Johnson that is ingratious. Probably more by accident than design he has done well with vaccines.
There are 20% of the population like TSE and Scott_P who will never, ever be gracious enough to acknowledge that Boris could ever do anything even grudgingly worth acknowledging. Even protecting them from a killer pandemic.
I'm not an LD, I'm a liberal. That's why I'm in the Conservative Party.
The thing is, a lot of people seem happy to describe themselves as "liberal" and all seem to have different interpretations of what the term "liberal" actually means.
I've encountered liberals in the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties in my time and I suppose the real schism in 20th century politics was within liberalism. The emergence of social democracy in the 1930s and notions of the Welfare State, begun under Asquith and continued by Beveridge, have defined or re-defined liberalism and moved it away from the Gladstonian notion or, as it is sometimes termed, "classical liberalism".
Despite that, the superficial synergies between liberalism and social democracy masked some strong philosophical divergences . In the same way, Cameron's notion of "liberal conservatism", for all it appeared similar to Orange Book Liberalism, wasn't and the divergence after 2010 was rapid.
Looking at it now from the outside, it's not something over which to lose sleep. How political thought responds to growing environmental concerns, notions of AI and the place of the individual, not so much via-a-vis the State but in terms of the notion of individuality in the Information Age is the kind of areas of debate for liberals, conservatives and socialists alike.
Yes to that. But you can`t get away from ideological underpinnings completely: that the unit of importance for liberalism is the individual/liberty, for collectivists it is groups/communities and for conservatives it is family unit/nation.
Given that the LibDems are supposed to be representing the former, it is regrettable that people like PT (and Truss for that matter) are not LibDems.
You've hit the nail on the head about individualism v collectivism v family/nationalism.
I believe firmly in individualism/liberty first and foremost. Can you say the same about LDs? Clegg, Davey, Alexander maybe which is why they worked well in the Coalition.
But not the Cable, Farron, Swinson wing who are more collectivists.
You have a massive Nation State thing going on too. This is clear.
Actually I have a small Nation State thing going on. It's why I support Sindy etc.
Smaller is better. Closer to the people.
Ha. Very good. But you know what I mean, I think. You're quite nationalistic.
It depends upon how you define nationalism.
I think citizens of a nation should vote for that nations laws absolutely. But that's democracy not nationalism.
I also believe people should be able (within reason) to choose which nation they want to be their nation.
I despise things like birtherism. I like relatively open borders globally. Let people who want to come and become citizens of this nation.
Spot on. My personal view - which seems to be unpopular with both sides of the Brexit debate and is certainly a minority view - is that we should not be restricting those who want to come to this country if their intent is to become a citizen. I would not even say they need to adopt all of our traditions and customs and certainly not our religions even though I have a deep love for our customs and traditions (if not for religion in any form). There is room enough for different customs and traditions living side by side.
They would however have to adopt some of the fundamental principles and ethical positions that underlie our democracy. Belief in democracy, adherence to the law which can only be changed by the traditional means of the democratic process, acceptance of equality of gender, race, sexuality and any other equalities passed by our Parliament. Our judicial and Governmental principles (although the practices are open to debate and reform). Also absolute acceptance of freedom of speech and association and the laws and customs that underpin all these things.
This is just a list off the top of my head and I am sure there would be others. But if people are willing to accept these things and wish to become British/English/Scottish etc then I would be welcoming them.
For concrete examples I would be encouraging EU nationals to stay and be welcome. I would also welcome any from Hong Kong who wish to come here.
You`re not concerned about overall population size?
One thing that is interesting in the immigration debate is the refusal of a number of people to engage with the idea of what population size is optimal for the country.
Yet, the same people argue for planning (for decades in advance) for schools, hospitals, roads, railways, airports, house building, reservoir, electricity generation etc etc.
All of which depend on the size of the population.
I personally prefer the frankness of one Deep Green of my acquaintance - she was quite clear that she expected the population to be ever increasing, with a steady reduction in allowed housing space per person.
Your acquaintance laments this trend, presumably?
Personally, I believe that the government should have population target which is lower than now for environmental reasons, with incentives to reduce birth rate and a ban on building on green field sites. I realise that we deep ecologists are in a small minority on this. Most of us have given up, as it sounds like your acquaintance has.
The problem with that is that - unless you're a fan of euthanasia - then you end up with an increasingly small number of people of working age supporting a lot of old people.
I want to put this in context for a second. When Tony Blair became Prime Minister, pensions and health care accounted for less than a quarter of UK government expenditure. They now account for 40%.
Our ageing population - and the triple lock - means that 40% of the UK government budget is going to grow much faster than the overall economy.
Austerity is the crowding out of spending on the young, by the old.
The other issues that the ongoing Biological revolution (combination of compute capability multiplied by biological techniques) is going to deliver some interesting things in the next 20 years.
The idea of 50 years of relative activity followed by another 50 of being a drag on everyone else may well come to end. Rather fast....
I've always been a fan of the legalisation (and subsidisation) of hard drugs for the over 60s. Plus, free hang gliding and paragliding if they're up for it.
You missed out spelunking and free climbing.
Cave diving or base jumping would be the "best" pastimes statistically. Or riding a motorbike at 95mph in first gear in the rain.
I always think it would be better to be "last seen heading strongly for the summit". Count me in for the paragliding and the climbing.
I'm not an LD, I'm a liberal. That's why I'm in the Conservative Party.
The thing is, a lot of people seem happy to describe themselves as "liberal" and all seem to have different interpretations of what the term "liberal" actually means.
I've encountered liberals in the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties in my time and I suppose the real schism in 20th century politics was within liberalism. The emergence of social democracy in the 1930s and notions of the Welfare State, begun under Asquith and continued by Beveridge, have defined or re-defined liberalism and moved it away from the Gladstonian notion or, as it is sometimes termed, "classical liberalism".
Despite that, the superficial synergies between liberalism and social democracy masked some strong philosophical divergences . In the same way, Cameron's notion of "liberal conservatism", for all it appeared similar to Orange Book Liberalism, wasn't and the divergence after 2010 was rapid.
Looking at it now from the outside, it's not something over which to lose sleep. How political thought responds to growing environmental concerns, notions of AI and the place of the individual, not so much via-a-vis the State but in terms of the notion of individuality in the Information Age is the kind of areas of debate for liberals, conservatives and socialists alike.
Yes to that. But you can`t get away from ideological underpinnings completely: that the unit of importance for liberalism is the individual/liberty, for collectivists it is groups/communities and for conservatives it is family unit/nation.
Given that the LibDems are supposed to be representing the former, it is regrettable that people like PT (and Truss for that matter) are not LibDems.
You've hit the nail on the head about individualism v collectivism v family/nationalism.
I believe firmly in individualism/liberty first and foremost. Can you say the same about LDs? Clegg, Davey, Alexander maybe which is why they worked well in the Coalition.
But not the Cable, Farron, Swinson wing who are more collectivists.
You have a massive Nation State thing going on too. This is clear.
Actually I have a small Nation State thing going on. It's why I support Sindy etc.
Smaller is better. Closer to the people.
Ha. Very good. But you know what I mean, I think. You're quite nationalistic.
It depends upon how you define nationalism.
I think citizens of a nation should vote for that nations laws absolutely. But that's democracy not nationalism.
I also believe people should be able (within reason) to choose which nation they want to be their nation.
I despise things like birtherism. I like relatively open borders globally. Let people who want to come and become citizens of this nation.
Spot on. My personal view - which seems to be unpopular with both sides of the Brexit debate and is certainly a minority view - is that we should not be restricting those who want to come to this country if their intent is to become a citizen. I would not even say they need to adopt all of our traditions and customs and certainly not our religions even though I have a deep love for our customs and traditions (if not for religion in any form). There is room enough for different customs and traditions living side by side.
They would however have to adopt some of the fundamental principles and ethical positions that underlie our democracy. Belief in democracy, adherence to the law which can only be changed by the traditional means of the democratic process, acceptance of equality of gender, race, sexuality and any other equalities passed by our Parliament. Our judicial and Governmental principles (although the practices are open to debate and reform). Also absolute acceptance of freedom of speech and association and the laws and customs that underpin all these things.
This is just a list off the top of my head and I am sure there would be others. But if people are willing to accept these things and wish to become British/English/Scottish etc then I would be welcoming them.
For concrete examples I would be encouraging EU nationals to stay and be welcome. I would also welcome any from Hong Kong who wish to come here.
You`re not concerned about overall population size?
One thing that is interesting in the immigration debate is the refusal of a number of people to engage with the idea of what population size is optimal for the country.
Yet, the same people argue for planning (for decades in advance) for schools, hospitals, roads, railways, airports, house building, reservoir, electricity generation etc etc.
All of which depend on the size of the population.
I personally prefer the frankness of one Deep Green of my acquaintance - she was quite clear that she expected the population to be ever increasing, with a steady reduction in allowed housing space per person.
Your acquaintance laments this trend, presumably?
Personally, I believe that the government should have population target which is lower than now for environmental reasons, with incentives to reduce birth rate and a ban on building on green field sites. I realise that we deep ecologists are in a small minority on this. Most of us have given up, as it sounds like your acquaintance has.
The problem with that is that - unless you're a fan of euthanasia - then you end up with an increasingly small number of people of working age supporting a lot of old people.
I want to put this in context for a second. When Tony Blair became Prime Minister, pensions and health care accounted for less than a quarter of UK government expenditure. They now account for 40%.
Our ageing population - and the triple lock - means that 40% of the UK government budget is going to grow much faster than the overall economy.
Austerity is the crowding out of spending on the young, by the old.
The other issues that the ongoing Biological revolution (combination of compute capability multiplied by biological techniques) is going to deliver some interesting things in the next 20 years.
The idea of 50 years of relative activity followed by another 50 of being a drag on everyone else may well come to end. Rather fast....
I've always been a fan of the legalisation (and subsidisation) of hard drugs for the over 60s. Plus, free hang gliding and paragliding if they're up for it.
You missed out spelunking and free climbing.
Cave diving or base jumping would be the "best" pastimes statistically. Or riding a motorbike at 95mph in first gear in the rain.
I always think it would be better to be "last seen heading strongly for the summit". Count me in for the paragliding and the climbing.
Wingsuits for me. youtube them to see what I mean.
I'm not an LD, I'm a liberal. That's why I'm in the Conservative Party.
The thing is, a lot of people seem happy to describe themselves as "liberal" and all seem to have different interpretations of what the term "liberal" actually means.
I've encountered liberals in the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties in my time and I suppose the real schism in 20th century politics was within liberalism. The emergence of social democracy in the 1930s and notions of the Welfare State, begun under Asquith and continued by Beveridge, have defined or re-defined liberalism and moved it away from the Gladstonian notion or, as it is sometimes termed, "classical liberalism".
Despite that, the superficial synergies between liberalism and social democracy masked some strong philosophical divergences . In the same way, Cameron's notion of "liberal conservatism", for all it appeared similar to Orange Book Liberalism, wasn't and the divergence after 2010 was rapid.
Looking at it now from the outside, it's not something over which to lose sleep. How political thought responds to growing environmental concerns, notions of AI and the place of the individual, not so much via-a-vis the State but in terms of the notion of individuality in the Information Age is the kind of areas of debate for liberals, conservatives and socialists alike.
Yes to that. But you can`t get away from ideological underpinnings completely: that the unit of importance for liberalism is the individual/liberty, for collectivists it is groups/communities and for conservatives it is family unit/nation.
Given that the LibDems are supposed to be representing the former, it is regrettable that people like PT (and Truss for that matter) are not LibDems.
You've hit the nail on the head about individualism v collectivism v family/nationalism.
I believe firmly in individualism/liberty first and foremost. Can you say the same about LDs? Clegg, Davey, Alexander maybe which is why they worked well in the Coalition.
But not the Cable, Farron, Swinson wing who are more collectivists.
You have a massive Nation State thing going on too. This is clear.
Actually I have a small Nation State thing going on. It's why I support Sindy etc.
Smaller is better. Closer to the people.
Ha. Very good. But you know what I mean, I think. You're quite nationalistic.
It depends upon how you define nationalism.
I think citizens of a nation should vote for that nations laws absolutely. But that's democracy not nationalism.
I also believe people should be able (within reason) to choose which nation they want to be their nation.
I despise things like birtherism. I like relatively open borders globally. Let people who want to come and become citizens of this nation.
Spot on. My personal view - which seems to be unpopular with both sides of the Brexit debate and is certainly a minority view - is that we should not be restricting those who want to come to this country if their intent is to become a citizen. I would not even say they need to adopt all of our traditions and customs and certainly not our religions even though I have a deep love for our customs and traditions (if not for religion in any form). There is room enough for different customs and traditions living side by side.
They would however have to adopt some of the fundamental principles and ethical positions that underlie our democracy. Belief in democracy, adherence to the law which can only be changed by the traditional means of the democratic process, acceptance of equality of gender, race, sexuality and any other equalities passed by our Parliament. Our judicial and Governmental principles (although the practices are open to debate and reform). Also absolute acceptance of freedom of speech and association and the laws and customs that underpin all these things.
This is just a list off the top of my head and I am sure there would be others. But if people are willing to accept these things and wish to become British/English/Scottish etc then I would be welcoming them.
For concrete examples I would be encouraging EU nationals to stay and be welcome. I would also welcome any from Hong Kong who wish to come here.
You`re not concerned about overall population size?
One thing that is interesting in the immigration debate is the refusal of a number of people to engage with the idea of what population size is optimal for the country.
Yet, the same people argue for planning (for decades in advance) for schools, hospitals, roads, railways, airports, house building, reservoir, electricity generation etc etc.
All of which depend on the size of the population.
I personally prefer the frankness of one Deep Green of my acquaintance - she was quite clear that she expected the population to be ever increasing, with a steady reduction in allowed housing space per person.
Your acquaintance laments this trend, presumably?
Personally, I believe that the government should have population target which is lower than now for environmental reasons, with incentives to reduce birth rate and a ban on building on green field sites. I realise that we deep ecologists are in a small minority on this. Most of us have given up, as it sounds like your acquaintance has.
The problem with that is that - unless you're a fan of euthanasia - then you end up with an increasingly small number of people of working age supporting a lot of old people.
I want to put this in context for a second. When Tony Blair became Prime Minister, pensions and health care accounted for less than a quarter of UK government expenditure. They now account for 40%.
Our ageing population - and the triple lock - means that 40% of the UK government budget is going to grow much faster than the overall economy.
Austerity is the crowding out of spending on the young, by the old.
The other issues that the ongoing Biological revolution (combination of compute capability multiplied by biological techniques) is going to deliver some interesting things in the next 20 years.
The idea of 50 years of relative activity followed by another 50 of being a drag on everyone else may well come to end. Rather fast....
I'm not an LD, I'm a liberal. That's why I'm in the Conservative Party.
The thing is, a lot of people seem happy to describe themselves as "liberal" and all seem to have different interpretations of what the term "liberal" actually means.
I've encountered liberals in the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties in my time and I suppose the real schism in 20th century politics was within liberalism. The emergence of social democracy in the 1930s and notions of the Welfare State, begun under Asquith and continued by Beveridge, have defined or re-defined liberalism and moved it away from the Gladstonian notion or, as it is sometimes termed, "classical liberalism".
Despite that, the superficial synergies between liberalism and social democracy masked some strong philosophical divergences . In the same way, Cameron's notion of "liberal conservatism", for all it appeared similar to Orange Book Liberalism, wasn't and the divergence after 2010 was rapid.
Looking at it now from the outside, it's not something over which to lose sleep. How political thought responds to growing environmental concerns, notions of AI and the place of the individual, not so much via-a-vis the State but in terms of the notion of individuality in the Information Age is the kind of areas of debate for liberals, conservatives and socialists alike.
Yes to that. But you can`t get away from ideological underpinnings completely: that the unit of importance for liberalism is the individual/liberty, for collectivists it is groups/communities and for conservatives it is family unit/nation.
Given that the LibDems are supposed to be representing the former, it is regrettable that people like PT (and Truss for that matter) are not LibDems.
You've hit the nail on the head about individualism v collectivism v family/nationalism.
I believe firmly in individualism/liberty first and foremost. Can you say the same about LDs? Clegg, Davey, Alexander maybe which is why they worked well in the Coalition.
But not the Cable, Farron, Swinson wing who are more collectivists.
You have a massive Nation State thing going on too. This is clear.
Actually I have a small Nation State thing going on. It's why I support Sindy etc.
Smaller is better. Closer to the people.
Ha. Very good. But you know what I mean, I think. You're quite nationalistic.
It depends upon how you define nationalism.
I think citizens of a nation should vote for that nations laws absolutely. But that's democracy not nationalism.
I also believe people should be able (within reason) to choose which nation they want to be their nation.
I despise things like birtherism. I like relatively open borders globally. Let people who want to come and become citizens of this nation.
Spot on. My personal view - which seems to be unpopular with both sides of the Brexit debate and is certainly a minority view - is that we should not be restricting those who want to come to this country if their intent is to become a citizen. I would not even say they need to adopt all of our traditions and customs and certainly not our religions even though I have a deep love for our customs and traditions (if not for religion in any form). There is room enough for different customs and traditions living side by side.
They would however have to adopt some of the fundamental principles and ethical positions that underlie our democracy. Belief in democracy, adherence to the law which can only be changed by the traditional means of the democratic process, acceptance of equality of gender, race, sexuality and any other equalities passed by our Parliament. Our judicial and Governmental principles (although the practices are open to debate and reform). Also absolute acceptance of freedom of speech and association and the laws and customs that underpin all these things.
This is just a list off the top of my head and I am sure there would be others. But if people are willing to accept these things and wish to become British/English/Scottish etc then I would be welcoming them.
For concrete examples I would be encouraging EU nationals to stay and be welcome. I would also welcome any from Hong Kong who wish to come here.
You`re not concerned about overall population size?
Not at the moment no. And it will to some extent be self regulating. Of course at some point in the future it might become an issue but at that point you change policy. Right now in the UK the issue is a demographic timebomb where by we have an aging population and a falling birthrate. Nice if you are independently wealthy but for anyone else it means more likelihood of being poor in old age when the state can no longer afford to look after you.
Yes I get you. And the vast majority of humans will agree. GDP is all. But what about the planet and its other species and habitats?
I would love to see the population stabilise or fall overall in the world. But the only way to make that happen short of something nasty is to increase the wealth of the developing world. It is only at that point that populations stabilise.
The UK is not contributing to the increase in population. This is a function of a developed society and is the same across much of the first world. Stopping people coming here will not save the environment overall. Only making people rich enough and secure enough that they no longer need to have large families will do that.
But they use more resources.
I`ve come to agree with Monbiot`s comment, made over ten years ago, that the only way is some form of global governance run on non-democratic lines and led by scientists, philosophers and naturalists charged with the job of reducing homo sapiens population worldwide and protecting remaining habitats. Again, I realise that I`m in a tiny minority on this. Which is why the planet is doomed for so many non-human species (and eventually humans too).
That's rather pessimistic. On current trends, medium projections are for the global population to hit a peak of about 11-12 billion at around the end of the century before starting to fall again. This is primarily due to the rapidly falling birth rates as countries develop and women gain working and reproductive rights. So long as this process continues (foreign aid helps here), we can reasonably expect not to completely overrun the planet before the pressure starts to ease.
We`re completely overrunning the planet already! 11-12 billion of us. Using and destroying everything.
How can you not be pessimistic about the appallingness of our strain of the species?
It all went wrong from the agricultural revolution, but I accept that mine is a minority view.
I blame grass. It came up with a cunning plan to breed a species that would plant it everywhere.
Actually we should probably blame bacteria. There are more bacterial cells in human bodies than human cells.
True. There's a bacteria in every human cell too - passed down the maternal line.
I'm not an LD, I'm a liberal. That's why I'm in the Conservative Party.
The thing is, a lot of people seem happy to describe themselves as "liberal" and all seem to have different interpretations of what the term "liberal" actually means.
I've encountered liberals in the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties in my time and I suppose the real schism in 20th century politics was within liberalism. The emergence of social democracy in the 1930s and notions of the Welfare State, begun under Asquith and continued by Beveridge, have defined or re-defined liberalism and moved it away from the Gladstonian notion or, as it is sometimes termed, "classical liberalism".
Despite that, the superficial synergies between liberalism and social democracy masked some strong philosophical divergences . In the same way, Cameron's notion of "liberal conservatism", for all it appeared similar to Orange Book Liberalism, wasn't and the divergence after 2010 was rapid.
Looking at it now from the outside, it's not something over which to lose sleep. How political thought responds to growing environmental concerns, notions of AI and the place of the individual, not so much via-a-vis the State but in terms of the notion of individuality in the Information Age is the kind of areas of debate for liberals, conservatives and socialists alike.
Yes to that. But you can`t get away from ideological underpinnings completely: that the unit of importance for liberalism is the individual/liberty, for collectivists it is groups/communities and for conservatives it is family unit/nation.
Given that the LibDems are supposed to be representing the former, it is regrettable that people like PT (and Truss for that matter) are not LibDems.
You've hit the nail on the head about individualism v collectivism v family/nationalism.
I believe firmly in individualism/liberty first and foremost. Can you say the same about LDs? Clegg, Davey, Alexander maybe which is why they worked well in the Coalition.
But not the Cable, Farron, Swinson wing who are more collectivists.
You have a massive Nation State thing going on too. This is clear.
Actually I have a small Nation State thing going on. It's why I support Sindy etc.
Smaller is better. Closer to the people.
Ha. Very good. But you know what I mean, I think. You're quite nationalistic.
It depends upon how you define nationalism.
I think citizens of a nation should vote for that nations laws absolutely. But that's democracy not nationalism.
I also believe people should be able (within reason) to choose which nation they want to be their nation.
I despise things like birtherism. I like relatively open borders globally. Let people who want to come and become citizens of this nation.
Spot on. My personal view - which seems to be unpopular with both sides of the Brexit debate and is certainly a minority view - is that we should not be restricting those who want to come to this country if their intent is to become a citizen. I would not even say they need to adopt all of our traditions and customs and certainly not our religions even though I have a deep love for our customs and traditions (if not for religion in any form). There is room enough for different customs and traditions living side by side.
They would however have to adopt some of the fundamental principles and ethical positions that underlie our democracy. Belief in democracy, adherence to the law which can only be changed by the traditional means of the democratic process, acceptance of equality of gender, race, sexuality and any other equalities passed by our Parliament. Our judicial and Governmental principles (although the practices are open to debate and reform). Also absolute acceptance of freedom of speech and association and the laws and customs that underpin all these things.
This is just a list off the top of my head and I am sure there would be others. But if people are willing to accept these things and wish to become British/English/Scottish etc then I would be welcoming them.
For concrete examples I would be encouraging EU nationals to stay and be welcome. I would also welcome any from Hong Kong who wish to come here.
You`re not concerned about overall population size?
One thing that is interesting in the immigration debate is the refusal of a number of people to engage with the idea of what population size is optimal for the country.
Yet, the same people argue for planning (for decades in advance) for schools, hospitals, roads, railways, airports, house building, reservoir, electricity generation etc etc.
All of which depend on the size of the population.
I personally prefer the frankness of one Deep Green of my acquaintance - she was quite clear that she expected the population to be ever increasing, with a steady reduction in allowed housing space per person.
Your acquaintance laments this trend, presumably?
Personally, I believe that the government should have population target which is lower than now for environmental reasons, with incentives to reduce birth rate and a ban on building on green field sites. I realise that we deep ecologists are in a small minority on this. Most of us have given up, as it sounds like your acquaintance has.
The problem with that is that - unless you're a fan of euthanasia - then you end up with an increasingly small number of people of working age supporting a lot of old people.
I want to put this in context for a second. When Tony Blair became Prime Minister, pensions and health care accounted for less than a quarter of UK government expenditure. They now account for 40%.
Our ageing population - and the triple lock - means that 40% of the UK government budget is going to grow much faster than the overall economy.
Austerity is the crowding out of spending on the young, by the old.
The other issues that the ongoing Biological revolution (combination of compute capability multiplied by biological techniques) is going to deliver some interesting things in the next 20 years.
The idea of 50 years of relative activity followed by another 50 of being a drag on everyone else may well come to end. Rather fast....
I've always been a fan of the legalisation (and subsidisation) of hard drugs for the over 60s. Plus, free hang gliding and paragliding if they're up for it.
You missed out spelunking and free climbing.
Cave diving or base jumping would be the "best" pastimes statistically. Or riding a motorbike at 95mph in first gear in the rain.
I always think it would be better to be "last seen heading strongly for the summit". Count me in for the paragliding and the climbing.
I was, in my younger days, both a diver and a caver. But I drew the line at combining the two. Having helped out with the logistics train on some cave diving expeditions and think it is very much a step too far.
I don’t think polls for Westminster are much use right now. Quite apart from the situation, we’re a long way from an election.
What I would love to see is more proper polling for Scotland, London and Wales.
Especially the last, as we all know roughly what the result will be in the first two (so no value there) but there might be value in Wales in some surprising ways.
I'm not an LD, I'm a liberal. That's why I'm in the Conservative Party.
The thing is, a lot of people seem happy to describe themselves as "liberal" and all seem to have different interpretations of what the term "liberal" actually means.
I've encountered liberals in the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties in my time and I suppose the real schism in 20th century politics was within liberalism. The emergence of social democracy in the 1930s and notions of the Welfare State, begun under Asquith and continued by Beveridge, have defined or re-defined liberalism and moved it away from the Gladstonian notion or, as it is sometimes termed, "classical liberalism".
Despite that, the superficial synergies between liberalism and social democracy masked some strong philosophical divergences . In the same way, Cameron's notion of "liberal conservatism", for all it appeared similar to Orange Book Liberalism, wasn't and the divergence after 2010 was rapid.
Looking at it now from the outside, it's not something over which to lose sleep. How political thought responds to growing environmental concerns, notions of AI and the place of the individual, not so much via-a-vis the State but in terms of the notion of individuality in the Information Age is the kind of areas of debate for liberals, conservatives and socialists alike.
Yes to that. But you can`t get away from ideological underpinnings completely: that the unit of importance for liberalism is the individual/liberty, for collectivists it is groups/communities and for conservatives it is family unit/nation.
Given that the LibDems are supposed to be representing the former, it is regrettable that people like PT (and Truss for that matter) are not LibDems.
You've hit the nail on the head about individualism v collectivism v family/nationalism.
I believe firmly in individualism/liberty first and foremost. Can you say the same about LDs? Clegg, Davey, Alexander maybe which is why they worked well in the Coalition.
But not the Cable, Farron, Swinson wing who are more collectivists.
You have a massive Nation State thing going on too. This is clear.
Actually I have a small Nation State thing going on. It's why I support Sindy etc.
Smaller is better. Closer to the people.
Ha. Very good. But you know what I mean, I think. You're quite nationalistic.
It depends upon how you define nationalism.
I think citizens of a nation should vote for that nations laws absolutely. But that's democracy not nationalism.
I also believe people should be able (within reason) to choose which nation they want to be their nation.
I despise things like birtherism. I like relatively open borders globally. Let people who want to come and become citizens of this nation.
Spot on. My personal view - which seems to be unpopular with both sides of the Brexit debate and is certainly a minority view - is that we should not be restricting those who want to come to this country if their intent is to become a citizen. I would not even say they need to adopt all of our traditions and customs and certainly not our religions even though I have a deep love for our customs and traditions (if not for religion in any form). There is room enough for different customs and traditions living side by side.
They would however have to adopt some of the fundamental principles and ethical positions that underlie our democracy. Belief in democracy, adherence to the law which can only be changed by the traditional means of the democratic process, acceptance of equality of gender, race, sexuality and any other equalities passed by our Parliament. Our judicial and Governmental principles (although the practices are open to debate and reform). Also absolute acceptance of freedom of speech and association and the laws and customs that underpin all these things.
This is just a list off the top of my head and I am sure there would be others. But if people are willing to accept these things and wish to become British/English/Scottish etc then I would be welcoming them.
For concrete examples I would be encouraging EU nationals to stay and be welcome. I would also welcome any from Hong Kong who wish to come here.
You`re not concerned about overall population size?
Not at the moment no. And it will to some extent be self regulating. Of course at some point in the future it might become an issue but at that point you change policy. Right now in the UK the issue is a demographic timebomb where by we have an aging population and a falling birthrate. Nice if you are independently wealthy but for anyone else it means more likelihood of being poor in old age when the state can no longer afford to look after you.
Yes I get you. And the vast majority of humans will agree. GDP is all. But what about the planet and its other species and habitats?
Well, there is always....
Megacity 1!
Could be Brit-Cit?
Fair point. Can anyone spot a bent Judge? That would tell us.
I'm not surprised she's moved in, she's excellent. Really done a tremendous job this year and is a standout star performer.
I considered submitting a piece recommending a bet on her at 100/1 but then Casino and OGH said it first and I missed placing one myself. But yes it was an excellent tip Casino and OGH well done.
And a blast from the past but well done bunnco too for tipping her over a decade ago.
I'm not an LD, I'm a liberal. That's why I'm in the Conservative Party.
The thing is, a lot of people seem happy to describe themselves as "liberal" and all seem to have different interpretations of what the term "liberal" actually means.
I've encountered liberals in the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties in my time and I suppose the real schism in 20th century politics was within liberalism. The emergence of social democracy in the 1930s and notions of the Welfare State, begun under Asquith and continued by Beveridge, have defined or re-defined liberalism and moved it away from the Gladstonian notion or, as it is sometimes termed, "classical liberalism".
Despite that, the superficial synergies between liberalism and social democracy masked some strong philosophical divergences . In the same way, Cameron's notion of "liberal conservatism", for all it appeared similar to Orange Book Liberalism, wasn't and the divergence after 2010 was rapid.
Looking at it now from the outside, it's not something over which to lose sleep. How political thought responds to growing environmental concerns, notions of AI and the place of the individual, not so much via-a-vis the State but in terms of the notion of individuality in the Information Age is the kind of areas of debate for liberals, conservatives and socialists alike.
Yes to that. But you can`t get away from ideological underpinnings completely: that the unit of importance for liberalism is the individual/liberty, for collectivists it is groups/communities and for conservatives it is family unit/nation.
Given that the LibDems are supposed to be representing the former, it is regrettable that people like PT (and Truss for that matter) are not LibDems.
You've hit the nail on the head about individualism v collectivism v family/nationalism.
I believe firmly in individualism/liberty first and foremost. Can you say the same about LDs? Clegg, Davey, Alexander maybe which is why they worked well in the Coalition.
But not the Cable, Farron, Swinson wing who are more collectivists.
You have a massive Nation State thing going on too. This is clear.
Actually I have a small Nation State thing going on. It's why I support Sindy etc.
Smaller is better. Closer to the people.
Ha. Very good. But you know what I mean, I think. You're quite nationalistic.
It depends upon how you define nationalism.
I think citizens of a nation should vote for that nations laws absolutely. But that's democracy not nationalism.
I also believe people should be able (within reason) to choose which nation they want to be their nation.
I despise things like birtherism. I like relatively open borders globally. Let people who want to come and become citizens of this nation.
Spot on. My personal view - which seems to be unpopular with both sides of the Brexit debate and is certainly a minority view - is that we should not be restricting those who want to come to this country if their intent is to become a citizen. I would not even say they need to adopt all of our traditions and customs and certainly not our religions even though I have a deep love for our customs and traditions (if not for religion in any form). There is room enough for different customs and traditions living side by side.
They would however have to adopt some of the fundamental principles and ethical positions that underlie our democracy. Belief in democracy, adherence to the law which can only be changed by the traditional means of the democratic process, acceptance of equality of gender, race, sexuality and any other equalities passed by our Parliament. Our judicial and Governmental principles (although the practices are open to debate and reform). Also absolute acceptance of freedom of speech and association and the laws and customs that underpin all these things.
This is just a list off the top of my head and I am sure there would be others. But if people are willing to accept these things and wish to become British/English/Scottish etc then I would be welcoming them.
For concrete examples I would be encouraging EU nationals to stay and be welcome. I would also welcome any from Hong Kong who wish to come here.
You`re not concerned about overall population size?
One thing that is interesting in the immigration debate is the refusal of a number of people to engage with the idea of what population size is optimal for the country.
Yet, the same people argue for planning (for decades in advance) for schools, hospitals, roads, railways, airports, house building, reservoir, electricity generation etc etc.
All of which depend on the size of the population.
I personally prefer the frankness of one Deep Green of my acquaintance - she was quite clear that she expected the population to be ever increasing, with a steady reduction in allowed housing space per person.
Your acquaintance laments this trend, presumably?
Personally, I believe that the government should have population target which is lower than now for environmental reasons, with incentives to reduce birth rate and a ban on building on green field sites. I realise that we deep ecologists are in a small minority on this. Most of us have given up, as it sounds like your acquaintance has.
The problem with that is that - unless you're a fan of euthanasia - then you end up with an increasingly small number of people of working age supporting a lot of old people.
I want to put this in context for a second. When Tony Blair became Prime Minister, pensions and health care accounted for less than a quarter of UK government expenditure. They now account for 40%.
Our ageing population - and the triple lock - means that 40% of the UK government budget is going to grow much faster than the overall economy.
Austerity is the crowding out of spending on the young, by the old.
The other issues that the ongoing Biological revolution (combination of compute capability multiplied by biological techniques) is going to deliver some interesting things in the next 20 years.
The idea of 50 years of relative activity followed by another 50 of being a drag on everyone else may well come to end. Rather fast....
I've always been a fan of the legalisation (and subsidisation) of hard drugs for the over 60s. Plus, free hang gliding and paragliding if they're up for it.
You missed out spelunking and free climbing.
Cave diving or base jumping would be the "best" pastimes statistically. Or riding a motorbike at 95mph in first gear in the rain.
I always think it would be better to be "last seen heading strongly for the summit". Count me in for the paragliding and the climbing.
Wingsuits for me. youtube them to see what I mean.
Given that Z-list celebs seem to have discovered being broken on The Jump wasn't the greatest career move, perhaps we could get Channel 4 to sign up crumblies instead?
I'm not an LD, I'm a liberal. That's why I'm in the Conservative Party.
The thing is, a lot of people seem happy to describe themselves as "liberal" and all seem to have different interpretations of what the term "liberal" actually means.
I've encountered liberals in the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties in my time and I suppose the real schism in 20th century politics was within liberalism. The emergence of social democracy in the 1930s and notions of the Welfare State, begun under Asquith and continued by Beveridge, have defined or re-defined liberalism and moved it away from the Gladstonian notion or, as it is sometimes termed, "classical liberalism".
Despite that, the superficial synergies between liberalism and social democracy masked some strong philosophical divergences . In the same way, Cameron's notion of "liberal conservatism", for all it appeared similar to Orange Book Liberalism, wasn't and the divergence after 2010 was rapid.
Looking at it now from the outside, it's not something over which to lose sleep. How political thought responds to growing environmental concerns, notions of AI and the place of the individual, not so much via-a-vis the State but in terms of the notion of individuality in the Information Age is the kind of areas of debate for liberals, conservatives and socialists alike.
Yes to that. But you can`t get away from ideological underpinnings completely: that the unit of importance for liberalism is the individual/liberty, for collectivists it is groups/communities and for conservatives it is family unit/nation.
Given that the LibDems are supposed to be representing the former, it is regrettable that people like PT (and Truss for that matter) are not LibDems.
You've hit the nail on the head about individualism v collectivism v family/nationalism.
I believe firmly in individualism/liberty first and foremost. Can you say the same about LDs? Clegg, Davey, Alexander maybe which is why they worked well in the Coalition.
But not the Cable, Farron, Swinson wing who are more collectivists.
You have a massive Nation State thing going on too. This is clear.
Actually I have a small Nation State thing going on. It's why I support Sindy etc.
Smaller is better. Closer to the people.
Ha. Very good. But you know what I mean, I think. You're quite nationalistic.
It depends upon how you define nationalism.
I think citizens of a nation should vote for that nations laws absolutely. But that's democracy not nationalism.
I also believe people should be able (within reason) to choose which nation they want to be their nation.
I despise things like birtherism. I like relatively open borders globally. Let people who want to come and become citizens of this nation.
Spot on. My personal view - which seems to be unpopular with both sides of the Brexit debate and is certainly a minority view - is that we should not be restricting those who want to come to this country if their intent is to become a citizen. I would not even say they need to adopt all of our traditions and customs and certainly not our religions even though I have a deep love for our customs and traditions (if not for religion in any form). There is room enough for different customs and traditions living side by side.
They would however have to adopt some of the fundamental principles and ethical positions that underlie our democracy. Belief in democracy, adherence to the law which can only be changed by the traditional means of the democratic process, acceptance of equality of gender, race, sexuality and any other equalities passed by our Parliament. Our judicial and Governmental principles (although the practices are open to debate and reform). Also absolute acceptance of freedom of speech and association and the laws and customs that underpin all these things.
This is just a list off the top of my head and I am sure there would be others. But if people are willing to accept these things and wish to become British/English/Scottish etc then I would be welcoming them.
For concrete examples I would be encouraging EU nationals to stay and be welcome. I would also welcome any from Hong Kong who wish to come here.
You`re not concerned about overall population size?
Not at the moment no. And it will to some extent be self regulating. Of course at some point in the future it might become an issue but at that point you change policy. Right now in the UK the issue is a demographic timebomb where by we have an aging population and a falling birthrate. Nice if you are independently wealthy but for anyone else it means more likelihood of being poor in old age when the state can no longer afford to look after you.
Yes I get you. And the vast majority of humans will agree. GDP is all. But what about the planet and its other species and habitats?
I would love to see the population stabilise or fall overall in the world. But the only way to make that happen short of something nasty is to increase the wealth of the developing world. It is only at that point that populations stabilise.
The UK is not contributing to the increase in population. This is a function of a developed society and is the same across much of the first world. Stopping people coming here will not save the environment overall. Only making people rich enough and secure enough that they no longer need to have large families will do that.
But they use more resources.
I`ve come to agree with Monbiot`s comment, made over ten years ago, that the only way is some form of global governance run on non-democratic lines and led by scientists, philosophers and naturalists charged with the job of reducing homo sapiens population worldwide and protecting remaining habitats. Again, I realise that I`m in a tiny minority on this. Which is why the planet is doomed for so many non-human species (and eventually humans too).
That's rather pessimistic. On current trends, medium projections are for the global population to hit a peak of about 11-12 billion at around the end of the century before starting to fall again. This is primarily due to the rapidly falling birth rates as countries develop and women gain working and reproductive rights. So long as this process continues (foreign aid helps here), we can reasonably expect not to completely overrun the planet before the pressure starts to ease.
We`re completely overrunning the planet already! 11-12 billion of us. Using and destroying everything.
How can you not be pessimistic about the appallingness of our strain of the species?
It all went wrong from the agricultural revolution, but I accept that mine is a minority view.
I blame grass. It came up with a cunning plan to breed a species that would plant it everywhere.
Actually we should probably blame bacteria. There are more bacterial cells in human bodies than human cells.
True. There's a bacteria in every human cell too - passed down the maternal line.
I presume you are talking about mitochondria. Hope you have more than one per cell.
I'm not surprised she's moved in, she's excellent. Really done a tremendous job this year and is a standout star performer.
I considered submitting a piece recommending a bet on her at 100/1 but then Casino and OGH said it first and I missed placing one myself. But yes it was an excellent tip Casino and OGH well done.
And a blast from the past but well done bunnco too for tipping her over a decade ago.
It is said that humans should live to about 120. You live a full life, keep your marbles, and at around 120, white haired and bearded (not the ladies!), you get very thoughtful and spiritual for a few days, and then at some point just quietly depart physical existence. That's the ideal.
It's very noticeable that In almost every poll since the Corbyn trouble, Labour have failed to get back to that 39-40 area they were approaching.
i expect that the Tories will be down to at least 34-35 by later in January though, if not a lot more than that, so Starmer will probably still be ahead even without that.
It is said that humans should live to about 120. You live a full life, keep your marbles, and at around 120, white haired and bearded (not the ladies!), you get very thoughtful and spiritual for a few days, and then at some point just quietly depart physical existence. That's the ideal.
It's very noticeable that In almost every poll since the Corbyn trouble, Labour have failed to get back to that 39-40 area they were approaching.
i expect that the Tories will be down to at least 34-35 by later in January though, if not a lot more than that, so Starmer will probably still be ahead even without that.
Too early I believe. Conservatives really struggling by Autumn unless we have won back the Falklands again.
It is said that humans should live to about 120. You live a full life, keep your marbles, and at around 120, white haired and bearded (not the ladies!), you get very thoughtful and spiritual for a few days, and then at some point just quietly depart physical existence. That's the ideal.
A truly nice vision. I have always fancied toppling off a Cornish clifftop at a great age but I bet if I were to reach that great age I would change my mind. I'd keep putting it off. I probably wouldn't even risk going to Cornwall.
I'm not an LD, I'm a liberal. That's why I'm in the Conservative Party.
The thing is, a lot of people seem happy to describe themselves as "liberal" and all seem to have different interpretations of what the term "liberal" actually means.
I've encountered liberals in the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties in my time and I suppose the real schism in 20th century politics was within liberalism. The emergence of social democracy in the 1930s and notions of the Welfare State, begun under Asquith and continued by Beveridge, have defined or re-defined liberalism and moved it away from the Gladstonian notion or, as it is sometimes termed, "classical liberalism".
Despite that, the superficial synergies between liberalism and social democracy masked some strong philosophical divergences . In the same way, Cameron's notion of "liberal conservatism", for all it appeared similar to Orange Book Liberalism, wasn't and the divergence after 2010 was rapid.
Looking at it now from the outside, it's not something over which to lose sleep. How political thought responds to growing environmental concerns, notions of AI and the place of the individual, not so much via-a-vis the State but in terms of the notion of individuality in the Information Age is the kind of areas of debate for liberals, conservatives and socialists alike.
Yes to that. But you can`t get away from ideological underpinnings completely: that the unit of importance for liberalism is the individual/liberty, for collectivists it is groups/communities and for conservatives it is family unit/nation.
Given that the LibDems are supposed to be representing the former, it is regrettable that people like PT (and Truss for that matter) are not LibDems.
You've hit the nail on the head about individualism v collectivism v family/nationalism.
I believe firmly in individualism/liberty first and foremost. Can you say the same about LDs? Clegg, Davey, Alexander maybe which is why they worked well in the Coalition.
But not the Cable, Farron, Swinson wing who are more collectivists.
You have a massive Nation State thing going on too. This is clear.
Actually I have a small Nation State thing going on. It's why I support Sindy etc.
Smaller is better. Closer to the people.
Ha. Very good. But you know what I mean, I think. You're quite nationalistic.
It depends upon how you define nationalism.
I think citizens of a nation should vote for that nations laws absolutely. But that's democracy not nationalism.
I also believe people should be able (within reason) to choose which nation they want to be their nation.
I despise things like birtherism. I like relatively open borders globally. Let people who want to come and become citizens of this nation.
Spot on. My personal view - which seems to be unpopular with both sides of the Brexit debate and is certainly a minority view - is that we should not be restricting those who want to come to this country if their intent is to become a citizen. I would not even say they need to adopt all of our traditions and customs and certainly not our religions even though I have a deep love for our customs and traditions (if not for religion in any form). There is room enough for different customs and traditions living side by side.
They would however have to adopt some of the fundamental principles and ethical positions that underlie our democracy. Belief in democracy, adherence to the law which can only be changed by the traditional means of the democratic process, acceptance of equality of gender, race, sexuality and any other equalities passed by our Parliament. Our judicial and Governmental principles (although the practices are open to debate and reform). Also absolute acceptance of freedom of speech and association and the laws and customs that underpin all these things.
This is just a list off the top of my head and I am sure there would be others. But if people are willing to accept these things and wish to become British/English/Scottish etc then I would be welcoming them.
For concrete examples I would be encouraging EU nationals to stay and be welcome. I would also welcome any from Hong Kong who wish to come here.
You`re not concerned about overall population size?
Not at the moment no. And it will to some extent be self regulating. Of course at some point in the future it might become an issue but at that point you change policy. Right now in the UK the issue is a demographic timebomb where by we have an aging population and a falling birthrate. Nice if you are independently wealthy but for anyone else it means more likelihood of being poor in old age when the state can no longer afford to look after you.
Yes I get you. And the vast majority of humans will agree. GDP is all. But what about the planet and its other species and habitats?
I would love to see the population stabilise or fall overall in the world. But the only way to make that happen short of something nasty is to increase the wealth of the developing world. It is only at that point that populations stabilise.
The UK is not contributing to the increase in population. This is a function of a developed society and is the same across much of the first world. Stopping people coming here will not save the environment overall. Only making people rich enough and secure enough that they no longer need to have large families will do that.
But they use more resources.
I`ve come to agree with Monbiot`s comment, made over ten years ago, that the only way is some form of global governance run on non-democratic lines and led by scientists, philosophers and naturalists charged with the job of reducing homo sapiens population worldwide and protecting remaining habitats. Again, I realise that I`m in a tiny minority on this. Which is why the planet is doomed for so many non-human species (and eventually humans too).
That's rather pessimistic. On current trends, medium projections are for the global population to hit a peak of about 11-12 billion at around the end of the century before starting to fall again. This is primarily due to the rapidly falling birth rates as countries develop and women gain working and reproductive rights. So long as this process continues (foreign aid helps here), we can reasonably expect not to completely overrun the planet before the pressure starts to ease.
We`re completely overrunning the planet already! 11-12 billion of us. Using and destroying everything.
How can you not be pessimistic about the appallingness of our strain of the species?
It all went wrong from the agricultural revolution, but I accept that mine is a minority view.
I blame grass. It came up with a cunning plan to breed a species that would plant it everywhere.
Actually we should probably blame bacteria. There are more bacterial cells in human bodies than human cells.
True. There's a bacteria in every human cell too - passed down the maternal line.
I presume you are talking about mitochondria. Hope you have more than one per cell.
Yes, that would have been better without the 'a' , sorry. We'd be pretty slow running on just one (depending on which type of cell).
The biologist round here tells me they are likely to have been bacteria which became trapped a very long time ago, although that's only a theory.
Case growth in London looks horrific. For the most recent days with more or less complete data, namely Dec 12-14, the cases by specimen date were more than double compared to 7 days earlier. With tier 3 only just having started, a couple more doublings are probably already locked in.
It is said that humans should live to about 120. You live a full life, keep your marbles, and at around 120, white haired and bearded (not the ladies!), you get very thoughtful and spiritual for a few days, and then at some point just quietly depart physical existence. That's the ideal.
It's very noticeable that In almost every poll since the Corbyn trouble, Labour have failed to get back to that 39-40 area they were approaching.
i expect that the Tories will be down to at least 34-35 by later in January though, if not a lot more than that, so Starmer will probably still be ahead even without that.
Too early I believe. Conservatives really struggling by Autumn unless we have won back the Falklands again.
Are they hoping M. Macron will invade the Isle of Wight or something?
Davey's impressive Covid performance looks like it is paying dividends...or it could just be MoE.
There won't be a vaccine bounce until we see benefits to real life from it.
...that will coincide with an end to furlough. At that moment I am not expecting a bounce, certainly not for the Conservatives.
I have no idea where politcs will be by the early summer
There are so many variables and anything to Boris riding high to him having been replaced must give lots of betting opportunities, though not for myself as I do not bet
It is said that humans should live to about 120. You live a full life, keep your marbles, and at around 120, white haired and bearded (not the ladies!), you get very thoughtful and spiritual for a few days, and then at some point just quietly depart physical existence. That's the ideal.
I'm not an LD, I'm a liberal. That's why I'm in the Conservative Party.
The thing is, a lot of people seem happy to describe themselves as "liberal" and all seem to have different interpretations of what the term "liberal" actually means.
I've encountered liberals in the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties in my time and I suppose the real schism in 20th century politics was within liberalism. The emergence of social democracy in the 1930s and notions of the Welfare State, begun under Asquith and continued by Beveridge, have defined or re-defined liberalism and moved it away from the Gladstonian notion or, as it is sometimes termed, "classical liberalism".
Despite that, the superficial synergies between liberalism and social democracy masked some strong philosophical divergences . In the same way, Cameron's notion of "liberal conservatism", for all it appeared similar to Orange Book Liberalism, wasn't and the divergence after 2010 was rapid.
Looking at it now from the outside, it's not something over which to lose sleep. How political thought responds to growing environmental concerns, notions of AI and the place of the individual, not so much via-a-vis the State but in terms of the notion of individuality in the Information Age is the kind of areas of debate for liberals, conservatives and socialists alike.
Yes to that. But you can`t get away from ideological underpinnings completely: that the unit of importance for liberalism is the individual/liberty, for collectivists it is groups/communities and for conservatives it is family unit/nation.
Given that the LibDems are supposed to be representing the former, it is regrettable that people like PT (and Truss for that matter) are not LibDems.
You've hit the nail on the head about individualism v collectivism v family/nationalism.
I believe firmly in individualism/liberty first and foremost. Can you say the same about LDs? Clegg, Davey, Alexander maybe which is why they worked well in the Coalition.
But not the Cable, Farron, Swinson wing who are more collectivists.
You have a massive Nation State thing going on too. This is clear.
Actually I have a small Nation State thing going on. It's why I support Sindy etc.
Smaller is better. Closer to the people.
Ha. Very good. But you know what I mean, I think. You're quite nationalistic.
It depends upon how you define nationalism.
I think citizens of a nation should vote for that nations laws absolutely. But that's democracy not nationalism.
I also believe people should be able (within reason) to choose which nation they want to be their nation.
I despise things like birtherism. I like relatively open borders globally. Let people who want to come and become citizens of this nation.
Spot on. My personal view - which seems to be unpopular with both sides of the Brexit debate and is certainly a minority view - is that we should not be restricting those who want to come to this country if their intent is to become a citizen. I would not even say they need to adopt all of our traditions and customs and certainly not our religions even though I have a deep love for our customs and traditions (if not for religion in any form). There is room enough for different customs and traditions living side by side.
They would however have to adopt some of the fundamental principles and ethical positions that underlie our democracy. Belief in democracy, adherence to the law which can only be changed by the traditional means of the democratic process, acceptance of equality of gender, race, sexuality and any other equalities passed by our Parliament. Our judicial and Governmental principles (although the practices are open to debate and reform). Also absolute acceptance of freedom of speech and association and the laws and customs that underpin all these things.
This is just a list off the top of my head and I am sure there would be others. But if people are willing to accept these things and wish to become British/English/Scottish etc then I would be welcoming them.
For concrete examples I would be encouraging EU nationals to stay and be welcome. I would also welcome any from Hong Kong who wish to come here.
You`re not concerned about overall population size?
Not at the moment no. And it will to some extent be self regulating. Of course at some point in the future it might become an issue but at that point you change policy. Right now in the UK the issue is a demographic timebomb where by we have an aging population and a falling birthrate. Nice if you are independently wealthy but for anyone else it means more likelihood of being poor in old age when the state can no longer afford to look after you.
Yes I get you. And the vast majority of humans will agree. GDP is all. But what about the planet and its other species and habitats?
I would love to see the population stabilise or fall overall in the world. But the only way to make that happen short of something nasty is to increase the wealth of the developing world. It is only at that point that populations stabilise.
The UK is not contributing to the increase in population. This is a function of a developed society and is the same across much of the first world. Stopping people coming here will not save the environment overall. Only making people rich enough and secure enough that they no longer need to have large families will do that.
But they use more resources.
I`ve come to agree with Monbiot`s comment, made over ten years ago, that the only way is some form of global governance run on non-democratic lines and led by scientists, philosophers and naturalists charged with the job of reducing homo sapiens population worldwide and protecting remaining habitats. Again, I realise that I`m in a tiny minority on this. Which is why the planet is doomed for so many non-human species (and eventually humans too).
That's rather pessimistic. On current trends, medium projections are for the global population to hit a peak of about 11-12 billion at around the end of the century before starting to fall again. This is primarily due to the rapidly falling birth rates as countries develop and women gain working and reproductive rights. So long as this process continues (foreign aid helps here), we can reasonably expect not to completely overrun the planet before the pressure starts to ease.
We`re completely overrunning the planet already! 11-12 billion of us. Using and destroying everything.
How can you not be pessimistic about the appallingness of our strain of the species?
It all went wrong from the agricultural revolution, but I accept that mine is a minority view.
I blame grass. It came up with a cunning plan to breed a species that would plant it everywhere.
Actually we should probably blame bacteria. There are more bacterial cells in human bodies than human cells.
True. There's a bacteria in every human cell too - passed down the maternal line.
I presume you are talking about mitochondria. Hope you have more than one per cell.
Yes, that would have been better without the 'a' , sorry. We'd be pretty slow running on just one (depending on which type of cell).
The biologist round here tells me they are likely to have been bacteria which became trapped a very long time ago, although that's only a theory.
'Trapped'. They sit around with lots of free glucose and oxygen all day long and we take away their crap. Who's trapping whom?
It's very noticeable that In almost every poll since the Corbyn trouble, Labour have failed to get back to that 39-40 area they were approaching.
i expect that the Tories will be down to at least 34-35 by later in January though, if not a lot more than that, so Starmer will probably still be ahead even without that.
Too early I believe. Conservatives really struggling by Autumn unless we have won back the Falklands again.
Are they hoping M. Macron will invade the Isle of Wight or something?
He’d better not. Serious breach of quarantine, and he’s got no children to act as an excuse.
It's very noticeable that In almost every poll since the Corbyn trouble, Labour have failed to get back to that 39-40 area they were approaching.
i expect that the Tories will be down to at least 34-35 by later in January though, if not a lot more than that, so Starmer will probably still be ahead even without that.
Too early I believe. Conservatives really struggling by Autumn unless we have won back the Falklands again.
Are they hoping M. Macron will invade the Isle of Wight or something?
He’d better not. Serious breach of quarantine, and he’s got no children to act as an excuse.
I understand the first, but what have les enfants got to do with it? Unless it's the dinosaurs or Shanklin funfair or something.
I'm not an LD, I'm a liberal. That's why I'm in the Conservative Party.
The thing is, a lot of people seem happy to describe themselves as "liberal" and all seem to have different interpretations of what the term "liberal" actually means.
I've encountered liberals in the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties in my time and I suppose the real schism in 20th century politics was within liberalism. The emergence of social democracy in the 1930s and notions of the Welfare State, begun under Asquith and continued by Beveridge, have defined or re-defined liberalism and moved it away from the Gladstonian notion or, as it is sometimes termed, "classical liberalism".
Despite that, the superficial synergies between liberalism and social democracy masked some strong philosophical divergences . In the same way, Cameron's notion of "liberal conservatism", for all it appeared similar to Orange Book Liberalism, wasn't and the divergence after 2010 was rapid.
Looking at it now from the outside, it's not something over which to lose sleep. How political thought responds to growing environmental concerns, notions of AI and the place of the individual, not so much via-a-vis the State but in terms of the notion of individuality in the Information Age is the kind of areas of debate for liberals, conservatives and socialists alike.
Yes to that. But you can`t get away from ideological underpinnings completely: that the unit of importance for liberalism is the individual/liberty, for collectivists it is groups/communities and for conservatives it is family unit/nation.
Given that the LibDems are supposed to be representing the former, it is regrettable that people like PT (and Truss for that matter) are not LibDems.
You've hit the nail on the head about individualism v collectivism v family/nationalism.
I believe firmly in individualism/liberty first and foremost. Can you say the same about LDs? Clegg, Davey, Alexander maybe which is why they worked well in the Coalition.
But not the Cable, Farron, Swinson wing who are more collectivists.
You have a massive Nation State thing going on too. This is clear.
Actually I have a small Nation State thing going on. It's why I support Sindy etc.
Smaller is better. Closer to the people.
Ha. Very good. But you know what I mean, I think. You're quite nationalistic.
It depends upon how you define nationalism.
I think citizens of a nation should vote for that nations laws absolutely. But that's democracy not nationalism.
I also believe people should be able (within reason) to choose which nation they want to be their nation.
I despise things like birtherism. I like relatively open borders globally. Let people who want to come and become citizens of this nation.
Spot on. My personal view - which seems to be unpopular with both sides of the Brexit debate and is certainly a minority view - is that we should not be restricting those who want to come to this country if their intent is to become a citizen. I would not even say they need to adopt all of our traditions and customs and certainly not our religions even though I have a deep love for our customs and traditions (if not for religion in any form). There is room enough for different customs and traditions living side by side.
They would however have to adopt some of the fundamental principles and ethical positions that underlie our democracy. Belief in democracy, adherence to the law which can only be changed by the traditional means of the democratic process, acceptance of equality of gender, race, sexuality and any other equalities passed by our Parliament. Our judicial and Governmental principles (although the practices are open to debate and reform). Also absolute acceptance of freedom of speech and association and the laws and customs that underpin all these things.
This is just a list off the top of my head and I am sure there would be others. But if people are willing to accept these things and wish to become British/English/Scottish etc then I would be welcoming them.
For concrete examples I would be encouraging EU nationals to stay and be welcome. I would also welcome any from Hong Kong who wish to come here.
You`re not concerned about overall population size?
Not at the moment no. And it will to some extent be self regulating. Of course at some point in the future it might become an issue but at that point you change policy. Right now in the UK the issue is a demographic timebomb where by we have an aging population and a falling birthrate. Nice if you are independently wealthy but for anyone else it means more likelihood of being poor in old age when the state can no longer afford to look after you.
Yes I get you. And the vast majority of humans will agree. GDP is all. But what about the planet and its other species and habitats?
I would love to see the population stabilise or fall overall in the world. But the only way to make that happen short of something nasty is to increase the wealth of the developing world. It is only at that point that populations stabilise.
The UK is not contributing to the increase in population. This is a function of a developed society and is the same across much of the first world. Stopping people coming here will not save the environment overall. Only making people rich enough and secure enough that they no longer need to have large families will do that.
But they use more resources.
I`ve come to agree with Monbiot`s comment, made over ten years ago, that the only way is some form of global governance run on non-democratic lines and led by scientists, philosophers and naturalists charged with the job of reducing homo sapiens population worldwide and protecting remaining habitats. Again, I realise that I`m in a tiny minority on this. Which is why the planet is doomed for so many non-human species (and eventually humans too).
That's rather pessimistic. On current trends, medium projections are for the global population to hit a peak of about 11-12 billion at around the end of the century before starting to fall again. This is primarily due to the rapidly falling birth rates as countries develop and women gain working and reproductive rights. So long as this process continues (foreign aid helps here), we can reasonably expect not to completely overrun the planet before the pressure starts to ease.
We`re completely overrunning the planet already! 11-12 billion of us. Using and destroying everything.
How can you not be pessimistic about the appallingness of our strain of the species?
It all went wrong from the agricultural revolution, but I accept that mine is a minority view.
I blame grass. It came up with a cunning plan to breed a species that would plant it everywhere.
Actually we should probably blame bacteria. There are more bacterial cells in human bodies than human cells.
True. There's a bacteria in every human cell too - passed down the maternal line.
I presume you are talking about mitochondria. Hope you have more than one per cell.
Yes, that would have been better without the 'a' , sorry. We'd be pretty slow running on just one (depending on which type of cell).
The biologist round here tells me they are likely to have been bacteria which became trapped a very long time ago, although that's only a theory.
Similar for chloroplasts in plants, and possibly even for cell nuclei in both animals and plants.
It is said that humans should live to about 120. You live a full life, keep your marbles, and at around 120, white haired and bearded (not the ladies!), you get very thoughtful and spiritual for a few days, and then at some point just quietly depart physical existence. That's the ideal.
I'd settle for that at 80.
Just get to 80 and keep rolling.
My wife has and is and a couple more years and I hope to !!!!!
It's very noticeable that In almost every poll since the Corbyn trouble, Labour have failed to get back to that 39-40 area they were approaching.
i expect that the Tories will be down to at least 34-35 by later in January though, if not a lot more than that, so Starmer will probably still be ahead even without that.
We might head to a 2019 European elections situation quite quickly if Johnson's deal blows up the Tory party. I don't think Labour will necessarily benefit.
It is said that humans should live to about 120. You live a full life, keep your marbles, and at around 120, white haired and bearded (not the ladies!), you get very thoughtful and spiritual for a few days, and then at some point just quietly depart physical existence. That's the ideal.
Yes, Where do I sign?
Sounds good! But in reality we'd work until 105-110 under that regime, wouldn't we?
It is said that humans should live to about 120. You live a full life, keep your marbles, and at around 120, white haired and bearded (not the ladies!), you get very thoughtful and spiritual for a few days, and then at some point just quietly depart physical existence. That's the ideal.
A truly nice vision. I have always fancied toppling off a Cornish clifftop at a great age but I bet if I were to reach that great age I would change my mind. I'd keep putting it off. I probably wouldn't even risk going to Cornwall.
Peacefully in my sleep in my 90s or later please.
Yes, it'd be a shock to my descendents but I'd rather be in very good health up until then and then not know anything about it.
It is said that humans should live to about 120. You live a full life, keep your marbles, and at around 120, white haired and bearded (not the ladies!), you get very thoughtful and spiritual for a few days, and then at some point just quietly depart physical existence. That's the ideal.
A truly nice vision. I have always fancied toppling off a Cornish clifftop at a great age but I bet if I were to reach that great age I would change my mind. I'd keep putting it off. I probably wouldn't even risk going to Cornwall.
Peacefully in my sleep in my 90s or later please.
Yes, it'd be a shock to my descendents but I'd rather be in very good health up until then and then not know anything about it.
If I cant wipe my own arse I want the mental capacity to take the cyanide, or whatever the least traumatic method is at the time.
It is said that humans should live to about 120. You live a full life, keep your marbles, and at around 120, white haired and bearded (not the ladies!), you get very thoughtful and spiritual for a few days, and then at some point just quietly depart physical existence. That's the ideal.
Yes, Where do I sign?
Sounds good! But in reality we'd work until 105-110 under that regime, wouldn't we?
I'm not an LD, I'm a liberal. That's why I'm in the Conservative Party.
The thing is, a lot of people seem happy to describe themselves as "liberal" and all seem to have different interpretations of what the term "liberal" actually means.
I've encountered liberals in the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties in my time and I suppose the real schism in 20th century politics was within liberalism. The emergence of social democracy in the 1930s and notions of the Welfare State, begun under Asquith and continued by Beveridge, have defined or re-defined liberalism and moved it away from the Gladstonian notion or, as it is sometimes termed, "classical liberalism".
Despite that, the superficial synergies between liberalism and social democracy masked some strong philosophical divergences . In the same way, Cameron's notion of "liberal conservatism", for all it appeared similar to Orange Book Liberalism, wasn't and the divergence after 2010 was rapid.
Looking at it now from the outside, it's not something over which to lose sleep. How political thought responds to growing environmental concerns, notions of AI and the place of the individual, not so much via-a-vis the State but in terms of the notion of individuality in the Information Age is the kind of areas of debate for liberals, conservatives and socialists alike.
Yes to that. But you can`t get away from ideological underpinnings completely: that the unit of importance for liberalism is the individual/liberty, for collectivists it is groups/communities and for conservatives it is family unit/nation.
Given that the LibDems are supposed to be representing the former, it is regrettable that people like PT (and Truss for that matter) are not LibDems.
You've hit the nail on the head about individualism v collectivism v family/nationalism.
I believe firmly in individualism/liberty first and foremost. Can you say the same about LDs? Clegg, Davey, Alexander maybe which is why they worked well in the Coalition.
But not the Cable, Farron, Swinson wing who are more collectivists.
You have a massive Nation State thing going on too. This is clear.
Actually I have a small Nation State thing going on. It's why I support Sindy etc.
Smaller is better. Closer to the people.
Ha. Very good. But you know what I mean, I think. You're quite nationalistic.
It depends upon how you define nationalism.
I think citizens of a nation should vote for that nations laws absolutely. But that's democracy not nationalism.
I also believe people should be able (within reason) to choose which nation they want to be their nation.
I despise things like birtherism. I like relatively open borders globally. Let people who want to come and become citizens of this nation.
Spot on. My personal view - which seems to be unpopular with both sides of the Brexit debate and is certainly a minority view - is that we should not be restricting those who want to come to this country if their intent is to become a citizen. I would not even say they need to adopt all of our traditions and customs and certainly not our religions even though I have a deep love for our customs and traditions (if not for religion in any form). There is room enough for different customs and traditions living side by side.
They would however have to adopt some of the fundamental principles and ethical positions that underlie our democracy. Belief in democracy, adherence to the law which can only be changed by the traditional means of the democratic process, acceptance of equality of gender, race, sexuality and any other equalities passed by our Parliament. Our judicial and Governmental principles (although the practices are open to debate and reform). Also absolute acceptance of freedom of speech and association and the laws and customs that underpin all these things.
This is just a list off the top of my head and I am sure there would be others. But if people are willing to accept these things and wish to become British/English/Scottish etc then I would be welcoming them.
For concrete examples I would be encouraging EU nationals to stay and be welcome. I would also welcome any from Hong Kong who wish to come here.
You`re not concerned about overall population size?
Not at the moment no. And it will to some extent be self regulating. Of course at some point in the future it might become an issue but at that point you change policy. Right now in the UK the issue is a demographic timebomb where by we have an aging population and a falling birthrate. Nice if you are independently wealthy but for anyone else it means more likelihood of being poor in old age when the state can no longer afford to look after you.
Yes I get you. And the vast majority of humans will agree. GDP is all. But what about the planet and its other species and habitats?
I would love to see the population stabilise or fall overall in the world. But the only way to make that happen short of something nasty is to increase the wealth of the developing world. It is only at that point that populations stabilise.
The UK is not contributing to the increase in population. This is a function of a developed society and is the same across much of the first world. Stopping people coming here will not save the environment overall. Only making people rich enough and secure enough that they no longer need to have large families will do that.
But they use more resources.
I`ve come to agree with Monbiot`s comment, made over ten years ago, that the only way is some form of global governance run on non-democratic lines and led by scientists, philosophers and naturalists charged with the job of reducing homo sapiens population worldwide and protecting remaining habitats. Again, I realise that I`m in a tiny minority on this. Which is why the planet is doomed for so many non-human species (and eventually humans too).
That's rather pessimistic. On current trends, medium projections are for the global population to hit a peak of about 11-12 billion at around the end of the century before starting to fall again. This is primarily due to the rapidly falling birth rates as countries develop and women gain working and reproductive rights. So long as this process continues (foreign aid helps here), we can reasonably expect not to completely overrun the planet before the pressure starts to ease.
We`re completely overrunning the planet already! 11-12 billion of us. Using and destroying everything.
How can you not be pessimistic about the appallingness of our strain of the species?
It all went wrong from the agricultural revolution, but I accept that mine is a minority view.
I blame grass. It came up with a cunning plan to breed a species that would plant it everywhere.
Actually we should probably blame bacteria. There are more bacterial cells in human bodies than human cells.
True. There's a bacteria in every human cell too - passed down the maternal line.
I presume you are talking about mitochondria. Hope you have more than one per cell.
Yes, that would have been better without the 'a' , sorry. We'd be pretty slow running on just one (depending on which type of cell).
The biologist round here tells me they are likely to have been bacteria which became trapped a very long time ago, although that's only a theory.
Mitchell, who got the Nobel Prize for explaining how chloroplasts capture solar energy into chemical energy, and how mitochondria release it, was one of my Biochem profs. I never understood a word he said.
It's very noticeable that In almost every poll since the Corbyn trouble, Labour have failed to get back to that 39-40 area they were approaching.
i expect that the Tories will be down to at least 34-35 by later in January though, if not a lot more than that, so Starmer will probably still be ahead even without that.
Arguably their base splinters back to the 2010-2015 support base if the former UKIP lot go back to not voting, or voting Labour or BXP. A few percent still to come from those that swapped from Labour to Tory as well.
All in all, I think Labour will lead between 5-10 points in a few polls next year perhaps
Davey's impressive Covid performance looks like it is paying dividends...or it could just be MoE.
There won't be a vaccine bounce until we see benefits to real life from it.
...that will coincide with an end to furlough. At that moment I am not expecting a bounce, certainly not for the Conservatives.
Then you fundamentally misunderstand human behaviour.
A return to normal will see any desire for change at the top go. Once we've weathered Brexit, which will of course never be as bad as the boy-that-cried-wolf-Remainers have hyped it up to be, there will just be blue skies on the horizon. Growth, more jobs, reopening of society and the economy.
It is said that humans should live to about 120. You live a full life, keep your marbles, and at around 120, white haired and bearded (not the ladies!), you get very thoughtful and spiritual for a few days, and then at some point just quietly depart physical existence. That's the ideal.
Yes, Where do I sign?
Sounds good! But in reality we'd work until 105-110 under that regime, wouldn't we?
We couldn't afford to retire still at 68.
I thought AI was going to take care of that?
Yes, it very well might.
It's the great unknown that could turn everything on its head.
It is said that humans should live to about 120. You live a full life, keep your marbles, and at around 120, white haired and bearded (not the ladies!), you get very thoughtful and spiritual for a few days, and then at some point just quietly depart physical existence. That's the ideal.
Yes, Where do I sign?
Sounds good! But in reality we'd work until 105-110 under that regime, wouldn't we?
We couldn't afford to retire still at 68.
We'd want to. If you don't keep wanting, what's the point of staying on anyway?
Have often mused how folk might live their lives differently if we knew we had a fixed life span? Say dying on your 70th birthday was baked in from the start. Radically not the same I would presume.
It's very noticeable that In almost every poll since the Corbyn trouble, Labour have failed to get back to that 39-40 area they were approaching.
i expect that the Tories will be down to at least 34-35 by later in January though, if not a lot more than that, so Starmer will probably still be ahead even without that.
Too early I believe. Conservatives really struggling by Autumn unless we have won back the Falklands again.
Are they hoping M. Macron will invade the Isle of Wight or something?
He’d better not. Serious breach of quarantine, and he’s got no children to act as an excuse.
I understand the first, but what have les enfants got to do with it? Unless it's the dinosaurs or Shanklin funfair or something.
If you have children, it’s apparently OK to break every quarantine rule going.
My first thought after laughing was, maybe they know something we don't. But then I went to look at what a Galactic Archaeologist actually does and was amazed to find that I was both profoundly disappointed and yet fascinated and excited at the same time. Now this would be a great career choice at 16.
It's very noticeable that In almost every poll since the Corbyn trouble, Labour have failed to get back to that 39-40 area they were approaching.
i expect that the Tories will be down to at least 34-35 by later in January though, if not a lot more than that, so Starmer will probably still be ahead even without that.
Arguably their base splinters back to the 2010-2015 support base if the former UKIP lot go back to not voting, or voting Labour or BXP. A few percent still to come from those that swapped from Labour to Tory as well.
All in all, I think Labour will lead between 5-10 points in a few polls next year perhaps
Interesting.
I'm planning an article on why Labour may never win again.
It is said that humans should live to about 120. You live a full life, keep your marbles, and at around 120, white haired and bearded (not the ladies!), you get very thoughtful and spiritual for a few days, and then at some point just quietly depart physical existence. That's the ideal.
A truly nice vision. I have always fancied toppling off a Cornish clifftop at a great age but I bet if I were to reach that great age I would change my mind. I'd keep putting it off. I probably wouldn't even risk going to Cornwall.
Peacefully in my sleep in my 90s or later please.
Yes, it'd be a shock to my descendents but I'd rather be in very good health up until then and then not know anything about it.
I want to die on my 100th birthday and I want my wife to be so upset that she cancels her 21st birthday party as a mark of respect.
It is said that humans should live to about 120. You live a full life, keep your marbles, and at around 120, white haired and bearded (not the ladies!), you get very thoughtful and spiritual for a few days, and then at some point just quietly depart physical existence. That's the ideal.
A truly nice vision. I have always fancied toppling off a Cornish clifftop at a great age but I bet if I were to reach that great age I would change my mind. I'd keep putting it off. I probably wouldn't even risk going to Cornwall.
Peacefully in my sleep in my 90s or later please.
Yes, it'd be a shock to my descendents but I'd rather be in very good health up until then and then not know anything about it.
I want to die on my 100th birthday and I want my girlfriend to be so upset that she cancels her 21st birthday party as a mark of respect.
Marxist theory would tell you that what you want is impossible.
It's very noticeable that In almost every poll since the Corbyn trouble, Labour have failed to get back to that 39-40 area they were approaching.
i expect that the Tories will be down to at least 34-35 by later in January though, if not a lot more than that, so Starmer will probably still be ahead even without that.
Arguably their base splinters back to the 2010-2015 support base if the former UKIP lot go back to not voting, or voting Labour or BXP. A few percent still to come from those that swapped from Labour to Tory as well.
All in all, I think Labour will lead between 5-10 points in a few polls next year perhaps
Interesting.
I'm planning an article on why Labour may never win again.
You're totally impartial of course
Maybe I should write an article about why the Tories will lose in 2024? It would be equally interesting, although perhaps just as useless (depending on point of view)
The economy number is much, much better than I anticipated. All down to Rishi's free money.
Just 80% approval for the vaccine? To be fair to Johnson that is ingratious. Probably more by accident than design he has done well with vaccines.
There are 20% of the population like TSE and Scott_P who will never, ever be gracious enough to acknowledge that Boris could ever do anything even grudgingly worth acknowledging. Even protecting them from a killer pandemic.
Johnson delenda est.
Carthago, Carthiginis is a feminine noun. Hence, Carthago delenda est.
Johnson is not. I think you need to check the case ending of your gerundive.😀
Interesting. I'm planning an article on why Labour may never win again.
Yes, I remember all the commentators saying in the summer of 1992 the Conservatives were the natural party of Government and Labour the natural party of Opposition.
One Telegraph piece envisaged John Major still being PM in 2001 having won his third General Election.
It's very noticeable that In almost every poll since the Corbyn trouble, Labour have failed to get back to that 39-40 area they were approaching.
i expect that the Tories will be down to at least 34-35 by later in January though, if not a lot more than that, so Starmer will probably still be ahead even without that.
Arguably their base splinters back to the 2010-2015 support base if the former UKIP lot go back to not voting, or voting Labour or BXP. A few percent still to come from those that swapped from Labour to Tory as well.
All in all, I think Labour will lead between 5-10 points in a few polls next year perhaps
Interesting.
I'm planning an article on why Labour may never win again.
You're totally impartial of course
Maybe I should write an article about why the Tories will lose in 2024? It would be equally interesting, although perhaps just as useless (depending on point of view)
One thing we should be wary of is that there may we’ll be a lot of churn in seats in 2024, even leaving aside boundary changes. For example, I can see the Tories losing Uxbridge and gaining Wansbeck or its successor. Similarly, the SNP may well suffer several losses and pick up Edinburgh South.
Interesting. I'm planning an article on why Labour may never win again.
Yes, I remember all the commentators saying in the summer of 1992 the Conservatives were the natural party of Government and Labour the natural party of Opposition.
One Telegraph piece envisaged John Major still being PM in 2001 having won his third General Election.
So we are going to now disadvantage the UK in winning medals all in the name of diversity. The UK is never going to come close to winning an Olympic medal in things like basketball.
The whole reason the UK has had a series of successful Olympics is exactly because the concentration of funding sports where we are truly worldclass and that funding can make the difference between a medal and not....the South Korean approach.
Further proof that the Telegraph has become a comic and is only useful as emergency bog roll.
I am afraid you are fighting a losing battle here old chap. No lesser person than the Director himself John McTiernan has now confirmed what all sensible people knew all along.
Then you fundamentally misunderstand human behaviour.
A return to normal will see any desire for change at the top go. Once we've weathered Brexit, which will of course never be as bad as the boy-that-cried-wolf-Remainers have hyped it up to be, there will just be blue skies on the horizon. Growth, more jobs, reopening of society and the economy.
I'm planning a summer garden party. Cannot WAIT!
Obviously, people will be happy for some form of "normality" and the mood will improve during 2021 but you and I both know there will be a financial reckoning for everything that has happened and that will dominate the rest of this Parliament.
I'd also argue when we get back to "business as usual", the limitations of some of the current Cabinet are going to be cruelly exposed - it's never the big things that cause problems, it's the little things, the small matter badly handled which becomes a crisis and forces a Ministerial resignation and undermines the image of Government competency.
Then you fundamentally misunderstand human behaviour.
A return to normal will see any desire for change at the top go. Once we've weathered Brexit, which will of course never be as bad as the boy-that-cried-wolf-Remainers have hyped it up to be, there will just be blue skies on the horizon. Growth, more jobs, reopening of society and the economy.
I'm planning a summer garden party. Cannot WAIT!
Obviously, people will be happy for some form of "normality" and the mood will improve during 2021 but you and I both know there will be a financial reckoning for everything that has happened and that will dominate the rest of this Parliament.
I'd also argue when we get back to "business as usual", the limitations of some of the current Cabinet are going to be cruelly exposed - it's never the big things that cause problems, it's the little things, the small matter badly handled which becomes a crisis and forces a Ministerial resignation and undermines the image of Government competency.
Carry on like that, and you won't be getting an invite to Mortimer's soiree!
Then you fundamentally misunderstand human behaviour.
A return to normal will see any desire for change at the top go. Once we've weathered Brexit, which will of course never be as bad as the boy-that-cried-wolf-Remainers have hyped it up to be, there will just be blue skies on the horizon. Growth, more jobs, reopening of society and the economy.
I'm planning a summer garden party. Cannot WAIT!
Obviously, people will be happy for some form of "normality" and the mood will improve during 2021 but you and I both know there will be a financial reckoning for everything that has happened and that will dominate the rest of this Parliament.
I'd also argue when we get back to "business as usual", the limitations of some of the current Cabinet are going to be cruelly exposed - it's never the big things that cause problems, it's the little things, the small matter badly handled which becomes a crisis and forces a Ministerial resignation and undermines the image of Government competency.
Umm...can I take issue with your last sentence? The government has no image of competency right now.
Further proof that the Telegraph has become a comic and is only useful as emergency bog roll.
I am afraid you are fighting a losing battle here old chap. No lesser person than the Director himself John McTiernan has now confirmed what all sensible people knew all along.
Mrs P's 88 year old father, who was given an appointment for his first Covid shot next Tuesday, was called by the GP practice today and told the appointment was going to be rearranged for after Christmas, date tbc. ☹️
Supply issues apparently. I hope it's not a sign of things to come.
Further proof that the Telegraph has become a comic and is only useful as emergency bog roll.
I am afraid you are fighting a losing battle here old chap. No lesser person than the Director himself John McTiernan has now confirmed what all sensible people knew all along.
Labour has a decent leader now certainly in contrast to his predecessor. What Starmer has to do is to persuade those who voted for the Conservatives last year they can vote Labour in 2024. Part of that will be to accept elements of the Johnson programme so no talk of re-joining the EU for instance.
If I were Starmer I'd concentrate on domestic issues and pick where the Conservative record is sub-optimal and go strong on how Labour would do the things the voters want and do them better than the Tories who have had 14 years to improve things....
Tactically, that's probably cunning... I wonder how much of the current faff is about running down the clock, not on Barnier, but on Baker et al.
But it's no way to run a country.
No it isn't. And not that it might not have been tried anyway, but I think the various procedural shenanigans during earlier Brexit phases have emboldened the government on this type of thing. Once you've done it, for what is felt to be a good reason, it becomes easier and easier to justify doing it again.
I remember someone posting a tweet the day before polling suggesting Trump needed a 16-point lead in the Election Day ballots to offset Biden's likely advantage in the mail-in ballots.
When I heard Trump was leading by 14 in PA, I decided to back the Democrats to win the State.
Mrs P's 88 year old father, who was given an appointment for his first Covid shot next Tuesday, was called by the GP practice today and told the appointment was going to be rearranged for after Christmas, date tbc. ☹️
Supply issues apparently. I hope it's not a sign of things to come.
Sorry to hear that, I did mention I had heard stuff like this before.
Interesting. I'm planning an article on why Labour may never win again.
Yes, I remember all the commentators saying in the summer of 1992 the Conservatives were the natural party of Government and Labour the natural party of Opposition.
One Telegraph piece envisaged John Major still being PM in 2001 having won his third General Election.
Mrs P's 88 year old father, who was given an appointment for his first Covid shot next Tuesday, was called by the GP practice today and told the appointment was going to be rearranged for after Christmas, date tbc. ☹️
Supply issues apparently. I hope it's not a sign of things to come.
Sorry to hear that, I did mention I had heard stuff like this before.
Interesting. I'm planning an article on why Labour may never win again.
Yes, I remember all the commentators saying in the summer of 1992 the Conservatives were the natural party of Government and Labour the natural party of Opposition.
One Telegraph piece envisaged John Major still being PM in 2001 having won his third General Election.
Anyone think Johnson may be deliberately delaying agreeing to a deal because he wants as little time as possible before the 31st for Parliament to scrutinise it?
I would state that it is now too late to strike a deal and we'll have to accept no deal for now.
Further proof that the Telegraph has become a comic and is only useful as emergency bog roll.
I am afraid you are fighting a losing battle here old chap. No lesser person than the Director himself John McTiernan has now confirmed what all sensible people knew all along.
He's a convicted perjurer, his views can be discarded.
Plus intent is only part of it. There's people who make what they insist is a comedy movie but which might be entirely devoid of humour as far as the audience is concerned.
Labour has a decent leader now certainly in contrast to his predecessor. What Starmer has to do is to persuade those who voted for the Conservatives last year they can vote Labour in 2024. Part of that will be to accept elements of the Johnson programme so no talk of re-joining the EU for instance.
If I were Starmer I'd concentrate on domestic issues and pick where the Conservative record is sub-optimal and go strong on how Labour would do the things the voters want and do them better than the Tories who have had 14 years to improve things....
Starmer is an improvement on Corbyn and that is a very low bar
I haven't seen anything yet to put him in Blair's status and of course I voted Blair twice
It is said that humans should live to about 120. You live a full life, keep your marbles, and at around 120, white haired and bearded (not the ladies!), you get very thoughtful and spiritual for a few days, and then at some point just quietly depart physical existence. That's the ideal.
A truly nice vision. I have always fancied toppling off a Cornish clifftop at a great age but I bet if I were to reach that great age I would change my mind. I'd keep putting it off. I probably wouldn't even risk going to Cornwall.
Peacefully in my sleep in my 90s or later please.
Yes, it'd be a shock to my descendents but I'd rather be in very good health up until then and then not know anything about it.
I want to die on my 100th birthday and I want my wife to be so upset that she cancels her 21st birthday party as a mark of respect.
That glorious story of Tony Curtis when he married Jill Vandenburg, 45 years his junior. When asked whether he was worried about their age difference, he replied:
Comments
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/18/row-as-boris-johnson-ally-lined-up-for-top-job-at-office-for-students
And I guess a part of me was hoping that the intelligentsia who post on here would take the trouble to read the speech properly - especially those gushing in praise for it.
I always think it would be better to be "last seen heading strongly for the summit". Count me in for the paragliding and the climbing.
What I would love to see is more proper polling for Scotland, London and Wales.
Especially the last, as we all know roughly what the result will be in the first two (so no value there) but there might be value in Wales in some surprising ways.
Davey's impressive Covid performance looks like it is paying dividends...or it could just be MoE.
i expect that the Tories will be down to at least 34-35 by later in January though, if not a lot more than that, so Starmer will probably still be ahead even without that.
The biologist round here tells me they are likely to have been bacteria which became trapped a very long time ago, although that's only a theory.
There are so many variables and anything to Boris riding high to him having been replaced must give lots of betting opportunities, though not for myself as I do not bet
We couldn't afford to retire still at 68.
Yes, it'd be a shock to my descendents but I'd rather be in very good health up until then and then not know anything about it.
All in all, I think Labour will lead between 5-10 points in a few polls next year perhaps
A return to normal will see any desire for change at the top go. Once we've weathered Brexit, which will of course never be as bad as the boy-that-cried-wolf-Remainers have hyped it up to be, there will just be blue skies on the horizon. Growth, more jobs, reopening of society and the economy.
I'm planning a summer garden party. Cannot WAIT!
It's the great unknown that could turn everything on its head.
Radically not the same I would presume.
https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/politics/fareham-mp-and-attorney-general-suella-braverman-backs-dominic-cummings-over-lockdown-trip-2863171
https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/CCW318/researcher-in-the-field-of-galactic-archaeology
My first thought after laughing was, maybe they know something we don't. But then I went to look at what a Galactic Archaeologist actually does and was amazed to find that I was both profoundly disappointed and yet fascinated and excited at the same time. Now this would be a great career choice at 16.
https://rsaa.anu.edu.au/research/themes/galactic-archaeology
No alien civilisations, just alien stars.
I'm planning an article on why Labour may never win again.
Maybe I should write an article about why the Tories will lose in 2024? It would be equally interesting, although perhaps just as useless (depending on point of view)
Johnson is not. I think you need to check the case ending of your gerundive.😀
One Telegraph piece envisaged John Major still being PM in 2001 having won his third General Election.
Remind me what happened in 1997?
Of course one lot seems to get called out and the other not, I will leave you to guess which
https://twitter.com/markjstephenson/status/1340011069037789188?s=19
The whole reason the UK has had a series of successful Olympics is exactly because the concentration of funding sports where we are truly worldclass and that funding can make the difference between a medal and not....the South Korean approach.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/dec/18/basketball-surfing-and-skateboarding-get-extra-in-olympic-funding-round
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/die-hard-christmas-movie-director-b1775480.html
I'd also argue when we get back to "business as usual", the limitations of some of the current Cabinet are going to be cruelly exposed - it's never the big things that cause problems, it's the little things, the small matter badly handled which becomes a crisis and forces a Ministerial resignation and undermines the image of Government competency.
https://twitter.com/markjstephenson/status/1324042080134615040?s=19
https://twitter.com/johnredwood/status/1339826925141897218?s=21
I best sign up to the Tory Party
Mrs P's 88 year old father, who was given an appointment for his first Covid shot next Tuesday, was called by the GP practice today and told the appointment was going to be rearranged for after Christmas, date tbc. ☹️
Supply issues apparently. I hope it's not a sign of things to come.
https://time.com/5079487/die-hard-christmas-movie
If I were Starmer I'd concentrate on domestic issues and pick where the Conservative record is sub-optimal and go strong on how Labour would do the things the voters want and do them better than the Tories who have had 14 years to improve things....
When I heard Trump was leading by 14 in PA, I decided to back the Democrats to win the State.
The pianist at the front? Gone now.....
There's also this story in The Times.
https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1339873230883045377
The government are likely to have overpromised and underdelivered once again.
The irony is that the government's approach to vaccines was genuinely world beating.
We've now got to the level of "of the military stage a coup and install Tump as dictator surely Betfair must settle Trump as the winner."
They support a lemon of a Government
I would state that it is now too late to strike a deal and we'll have to accept no deal for now.
I haven't seen anything yet to put him in Blair's status and of course I voted Blair twice
"What can I say? If she dies, she dies...."