One thing I instinctively disagreed with Paul Nuttall on last night was this request for policeman to wear cameras to check they don't shoot unarmed people...
Isn't this like setting the field for bad bowling at the start of a test match? Surely the Police interview process should weed out the type of person who cant be trusted with a gun?
Sorry but I have to disagree with you. One could have said exactly the same thing about police interviewing suspects after arrest which used to be done without recording and which was very liable to corruption and 'adjustment ' or 'clarification'.
When someone has that amount of power and cannot be absolutely trusted (as the police certainly cannot by now) it is necessary to make use of whatever technology is available to keep them on the straight and narrow.
It might stop those living outside around Marble Arch from being able to come here, which would be a plus.
If they meant it. I think it's just window dressing for the May elections.
However it does seem to be possible to do.
"European Directive 2004/38/EC deals with the right of the citizens of the Union and their family members to move freely within the territory of the member states and live where they like. This directive maintains the requirement that EU citizens need to ‘exercise an economic activity or dispose of sufficient resources in order to take up residence in another Member State’. If this requirement was incorporated into British law, it should now be robustly enforced."
USA - Christie "The daughter of the 91-year-old woman who died as first responders were delayed due to traffic on the George Washington Bridge said the lane closures were not responsible for her death."
One thing I instinctively disagreed with Paul Nuttall on last night was this request for policeman to wear cameras to check they don't shoot unarmed people...
Isn't this like setting the field for bad bowling at the start of a test match? Surely the Police interview process should weed out the type of person who cant be trusted with a gun?
Hopefully the interview process will weed out many of the officers who are not suited to serve as armed officers.
But there are several other points: 1) Interview processes and training can only do so much. Some poor officers will slip between the cracks. There is no such thing as a prefect interview process, especially when trying to work out how a candidate would respond to stressful situations.
2) It's not a case of 'trust'. Mistakes happen, especially in situations that can be fluid and quick-moving. Someone may have to make a snap judgement and come up with the wrong answer - exactly what the jury say happened in the Duggan case. It could easily have been the other way.
3) AIUI, any incident where an armed officer fires is automatically investigated (by the IPCC?), even if no-one is hit. Having the videotape will help sort out what happened and why, in most cases.
4) Complacency is a killer. We all have a habit of learning to do something well, and then cutting corners over time. This is what killed Keith Tilbury in 2007 during a training exercise: the instructor got so complacent that he kept different types of bullets in a Quality Street tin - someone even used a baby food tin. He reached in, picked out a live bullet instead of a blank ...
Are would-be immigrants going to have to satisfy immigration officers that they're useless cretins with no useful skills?
It seems both weirdly niche - there's probably less high skilled EU migrants taking low skilled jobs than than EU migrants claiming benefits - and also obviously creating weird incentives. It also doesn't chime with his other sentence "On low-skill immigration we believe there was too much of it from the EU". I think Chukka Umunna is generally a pretty intelligent guy who knows his stuff, so I assume he just flubbed his lines as he tried to having something to say in an area where Labour are without policies.
EDIT: Having looked at this more closely, Umunna just seems to be saying it was a problem, not that they should be banned from doing it. Just the Guardian being useless at reporting again, I guess.
No. Labour are saying they want to reform freedom of movement to be freedom to work, i.e. You can only come to another EU country if you have a job lined up.
The Spectator quote is the same one the Guardian are pegging their story on. I'm inclined to agree with Socrates that he flubbed the line while trying to say something tough-sounding but meaningless. The quote doesn't even make sense as a pander. But let's see what they say in follow-up.
Nuttall seems to have stuck to UKIP lines on stuff, all his positions look perfectly sensible (within the UKIP framework) to me.
Just had a look at Lewisham - the 3 seats there are all Labour safe seats with the Lib Dems in second.
About as far from UKIP fertile territory as you can get ! Perhaps this is why Nuttall didn't look good on the TV...
Actually, Nadine Dorries seemed to speak more coherently on UKIP policies, shame she said vote Conservative at the end of it all!
ok Sam
I'm going to say it. It may sound harsh but we both know it's what you want and for very good reasons.
Come over to us. Come over to the Conservatives.
And you know that that party is the Conservatives.
Get rid of Cameron and Osborne and he probably would.
Cameron yes - he's a wet. Osborne not so sure - he's Tory I think.
We need a reforming chancellor not a political one.
Yes we do. But the country didn't want one and quite frankly, no matter how necessary, there is no way an incoming CoE would have driven the UK car off the cliff to rebase asset prices and debt levels.
just the usual cameroon defensive nonsense to hide the issue of Osborne not having a clue. It's not a question of what the country wants it's what it can do. Osborne had a chance to push through reform in 2010 and 2011 when the electorate were primed for change. He bottled it and declared job done. He called it wrong.
Cameroon? Moi? How very dare you.
There is some substance in what you say. GO was idiotically happy with himself and his politicking in the early days for sure. It was a bad habit left over from opposition where such politicking is all there is.
But (and do I really have to keep repeating this, even, surreally to their opponents?) he was and is in a coalition government and what better way for the LDs to imprint their own stamp than by opposing a more "necessary" measure that he might have suggested. The country was in the mood for change but not a la 1997 it wasn't.
The Cons did not win a majority so to imagine what they would or might or could have done is fruitless. Was there a failure of nerve also? Of course. But would it have been possible for them to run towards the sunlit uplands of dramatic and necessary reform given the GE2010 results? Nope.
The guilty plea in Plebgate is big news. Whether or not it's correct, it will be interpreted as vindication for Andrew Mitchell.
Agree – And it doesn’t look good for the three police officers accused of deceiving MPs over ‘Plebgate’ who face a new investigation by the police watchdog.
Was there something specific going on - e.g. good local candidate or activist defecting or something? If it's entirely from scratch that's a very impressive performance (it's not bad in any event, but turnout was low)
Haverhill is a surprisingly working class industrial town - it looks like somewhere from South Humberside transplanted into rural Suffolk.
Such places gave the largest Lab to Con swings between 2001 and 2011. Not, as I've pointed out before from any desire to 'vote blue go green' or to increase overseas aid, but because of rising disgruntlement about deindustrialisation and immigration.
They are the places that the Conservatives now need to win big in if they are to win general elections (in order to counter the leftward shift of the public sector middle class) but where the metropolitan Conservative leadership now looks no different to the metropolitan Labour leadership. Hence an open door for UKIP.
Haverhill's an absolute dump of a town; sadly, I know it all too well. However, it is surrounded by some okayish countryside and some superlative villages lies to its east: Clare, Cavendish, and Long Melford.
Haverhill's the run-down, unkempt gateway to a better land.
As a campaign slogan for the tories "Haverhill's the run-down, unkempt gateway to a better land" is certainly unique, I'm not entirely sure how effective it may be though.
I'm not a Conservative, and I'm not campaigning.
You were replying to a electoral analysis of Haverhill that concluded it was somewhere the tories needed to win big. Now that may or may not be stating it a touch strongly, but to respond to that political analysis with a complete denigration of the place in question is a very peculiar rebuttal indeed.
Typical Tory thinking though, want your vote but would not want to be associated with you
Tony Brown is a very popular local tradesman and so had quite a personal vote.
Party loyalties are quite thin on the ground there and turnout is usually very low. In the last few years this ward has elected UKIP, Con, Lab, Independent and Haverhill Residents, all on very low turnouts. This was a plague on all your houses vote on a town that sees itself as remote from all institutions of power - Borough, County, Westminster and Brussels.
They have been let down by all parties and just want someone to represent them effectively.
From The Lib Dem Candidate in Haverhill:- Whilst I agree that UKIP are fighting on exeptionally fertile turf here in Haverhill, I must point out that I had customers coming into my shop congratulating me on my stand against migrants.
Of course I had taken no such stand, but I do think that we ignore public sentiment at our peril. Those who voted UKIP were largely unconcerned with bad representation or poor infrastructure in Haverhill, (indeed our leaflet was the best on local issues), they were more concerned that they were being ignored over migration and/or immigration.
When cross questioned, few of my potential supporters who were voting UKIP wanted to leave the European Union - unless that was the price to be paid for proper controls on migration.
They have ceased to trust the coalition on this issue and we need to allay those fears before the next round of voting or we shall suffer the consequences.
People here say Nuttall was rubbish, but he was the victim of a classic BBC QT ambush last night. At some point it probably occurred to him the audience was stacked full of NHS pilgrims and other inner city labour types.
Surely the fact it was held in Lewisham of all places (just after the Duggan verdict, coincidentally) would have been a clue. He should have left well alone.
Opinions that we are finding are mainstream in many parts of the country were greeted with stony silence.
Dimbleby's smirk said it all.
I didn't say that Paul Nuttall was rubbish last night. I'm saying that I was disappointed with his performance and he should have been prepared for these BBC ambushes; re, the Romanian stooge who brought racism into the immigration debate. I've seen him perform much better on the hustings and in other venues.
Comments
However it does seem to be possible to do.
"European Directive 2004/38/EC deals with the right of the citizens of the Union and their family members to move freely within the territory of the member states and live where they like. This directive maintains the requirement that EU citizens need to ‘exercise an economic activity or dispose of sufficient resources in order to take up residence in another Member State’. If this requirement was incorporated into British law, it should now be robustly enforced."
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/11/nick-boles-my-plan-to-boot-out-sponging-eu-immigrants/
But there are several other points:
1) Interview processes and training can only do so much. Some poor officers will slip between the cracks. There is no such thing as a prefect interview process, especially when trying to work out how a candidate would respond to stressful situations.
2) It's not a case of 'trust'. Mistakes happen, especially in situations that can be fluid and quick-moving. Someone may have to make a snap judgement and come up with the wrong answer - exactly what the jury say happened in the Duggan case. It could easily have been the other way.
3) AIUI, any incident where an armed officer fires is automatically investigated (by the IPCC?), even if no-one is hit. Having the videotape will help sort out what happened and why, in most cases.
4) Complacency is a killer. We all have a habit of learning to do something well, and then cutting corners over time. This is what killed Keith Tilbury in 2007 during a training exercise: the instructor got so complacent that he kept different types of bullets in a Quality Street tin - someone even used a baby food tin. He reached in, picked out a live bullet instead of a blank ...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/6207464/Firearms-officer-shot-colleague-with-live-ammunition-kept-in-Quality-St-tin.html
Police shootings in the UK are thankfully rare:
http://www.channel4.com/news/police-fatal-shooting-trigger-happy-fact-check
There is some substance in what you say. GO was idiotically happy with himself and his politicking in the early days for sure. It was a bad habit left over from opposition where such politicking is all there is.
But (and do I really have to keep repeating this, even, surreally to their opponents?) he was and is in a coalition government and what better way for the LDs to imprint their own stamp than by opposing a more "necessary" measure that he might have suggested. The country was in the mood for change but not a la 1997 it wasn't.
The Cons did not win a majority so to imagine what they would or might or could have done is fruitless. Was there a failure of nerve also? Of course. But would it have been possible for them to run towards the sunlit uplands of dramatic and necessary reform given the GE2010 results? Nope.
http://www.oddschecker.com/football/english/premier-league/cardiff-city-v-west-ham/total-home-goals
Party loyalties are quite thin on the ground there and turnout is usually very low. In the last few years this ward has elected UKIP, Con, Lab, Independent and Haverhill Residents, all on very low turnouts. This was a plague on all your houses vote on a town that sees itself as remote from all institutions of power - Borough, County, Westminster and Brussels.
They have been let down by all parties and just want someone to represent them effectively.
Whilst I agree that UKIP are fighting on exeptionally fertile turf here in
Haverhill, I must point out that I had customers coming into my shop
congratulating me on my stand against migrants.
Of course I had taken no such stand, but I do think that we ignore public
sentiment at our peril. Those who voted UKIP were largely unconcerned with
bad representation or poor infrastructure in Haverhill, (indeed our leaflet
was the best on local issues), they were more concerned that they were
being ignored over migration and/or immigration.
When cross questioned, few of my potential supporters who were voting UKIP
wanted to leave the European Union - unless that was the price to be paid
for proper controls on migration.
They have ceased to trust the coalition on this issue and we need to allay
those fears before the next round of voting or we shall suffer the
consequences.