Going into Conference, Labour really has been given a golden opportunity to seize the agenda and explain why Labour is the party of the 2020s.
So far saying and doing nothing has not been too bad, the Tories have decided they want to destroy their own reputation. But Labour can be in a position to win the most seats if they act now - and get themselves into the 40s
57% of voters and 88% of Tory voters and 85% of Leave voters back the government authorising the Border Force officials to, in certain circumstances, turn back small boats of migrants https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1436344387185872898?s=20
It doesn't make it right or practical though. There would probably be a majority of Leave voters in favour of sinking them if they were given that option.
Its a completely impractical, insane and dangerous idea.
"Sink all boats without permission to be in UK waters". I think I'd go with that. Perhaps a hundred deaths now, and none in the future.
My old dad used to say that if the Nazis had invaded England there would have been those that would have turned a blind eye to the gas chambers. I think you just proved his point.
Choose to believe what you like.
I do choose to believe that anyone who could express the view that there were any circumstances when it would be correct to order servicemen to sink a boat full of civilians and children is a sick and twisted minded individual.
I think there are many others would would "choose to believe" the same.
Your concerns will kill many more than my hard-heartedness.
Perhaps you need to volunteer. I think it would be an order most military personnel would refuse.
Armed forces shoot non-combatants all the time. The RAF bombed Iraq last month. Do you think they checked the ISIS membership card of every single person on the business end of those Paveway IVs?
Where will iSAGE be dragging their goal posts to next?
Fair point, but there's a fair bit of goalpost moving by many posters on here, isn't there? Namely:
When cases are going up: cases don't matter at all, let's stop counting them. When cases are going down: that's great news, let's celebrate.
Maybe it's just me, but I'm a bit concerned by rising hospitalisations, ICU/ventilator cases, and deaths. Still a long way to go, I think.
There is a degree of logic to that though: - Cases going up used to mean similar proportional increases in hospitalisations and deaths, after a lag. Post-vaccines, the relationship is much smaller, so cases going up isless important than it was (while still not competely unimportant) - Cases going down still means that, after a lag, hospitalisations and deaths will go down or they at least certainly can't go up (you can't get hospitalised or die from Covid if you haven't got it)
(this does assume that a fairly consistent proportion of real cases are detected, so that the direciton of movement of cases stats reflect real cases, at least in the downwards direction)
Yes, I agree with all that. I was merely pointing out that there is a bit of inconsistency in the reaction to falling/rising numbers, especially from those who just wish Covid would disappear. (Of course we all wish this - but it hasn't happened yet and won't for a while).
Covid is never disappearing....i fully expect it that on average 100 people a day die with covid for a long time to come.
But as we see from the data, under 60 and fully vaxxed, your chance of death is literally down with the hit by a bus territory. Unfortunately it is going to continue to kill some of the very old and vulernable.
But Al is not under 60 and fully vaxxed.
More seriously, "100 deaths a day for a long time to come" sounds on the pessimistic side. How are you getting that?
They are lumping together two quite distinct forms of taxation. Stamp (and other) duties, compared to a recurring tax on the property.
It’s still a tax and a source of income for HMT.
But it's not like-for-like.
In fact stamp duty is bloody stupid: it discourages trading down (making the market less liquid and reducing availability), and it disproportionately affects those with relatively little net assets.
57% of voters and 88% of Tory voters and 85% of Leave voters back the government authorising the Border Force officials to, in certain circumstances, turn back small boats of migrants https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1436344387185872898?s=20
It doesn't make it right or practical though. There would probably be a majority of Leave voters in favour of sinking them if they were given that option.
Its a completely impractical, insane and dangerous idea.
"Sink all boats without permission to be in UK waters". I think I'd go with that. Perhaps a hundred deaths now, and none in the future.
My old dad used to say that if the Nazis had invaded England there would have been those that would have turned a blind eye to the gas chambers. I think you just proved his point.
Whilst I don’t think we had the intense hatred for neighbours that existed in parts of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, I think there would have been plenty of willing collaborators.
I can’t see a British equivalent of the Ustase or Russian National Army coming into existence. I could see a large British Division of the Waffen SS being formed.
Indeed, Britain thinks it is immune to extremism. It is not.
Mississippi will overtake New Jersey for deaths per million shortly, despite New Jersey being almost entirely urbanised and with 20 times the population density of Mississippi.
Florida only 12th in the ranking but putting serious effort in to catching up.
It was that long ago that they were "beneath the US average" or "similar to California".
They are lumping together two quite distinct forms of taxation. Stamp (and other) duties, compared to a recurring tax on the property.
It’s still a tax and a source of income for HMT.
Stamp duty is the worst form of property tax. It isn't a tax on holding property, it is a tax on mobility.
That's bad for encouraging people to 'right-size' their properties, which makes it bad for others who want to get a better house on the ladder, its bad for moving for jobs. It just encourages people to stay put which is not what we should be encouraging people to do.
Someone who has a mansion and lives in there for 50 years can avoid paying any stamp duty in that period. Someone who is mobile moving homes every five years due to work, or changing circumstances like kids, or going to a smaller house after the kids leave the nest etc can face stamp duty every time they move.
Mobility is the last part of property that should be taxed.
I certainly agree with all that. This makes it a good example of our politics creating bad incentives for politicians.
Because most people only pay stamp duty very rarely, and at a time when they're being fleeced for all sorts of fees (e.g. estate agency, legal, mortgage application fees), and they can generally make it work by sticking the extra on the mortgage, it's a tax with much lower political cost than council tax, or even more so income tax, let alone a new reformed property or land value tax.
Someone could inherit a valuable property portfolio from their family, spend their life living in it, renting it out, leaving it sitting empty, or selling some of it, whatever, and never pay a penny in Stamp Duty. Whereas someone whose job moved about and buys a succession of small flats to live in would pay a shedload. Calling it a property tax is a joke.
I agree. I think that there should be an exemption for people that can prove they are relocating due to a change of location of their job. It is a major disincentive to labour mobility.
Just abolish Stamp Duty and replace it with an annual property tax at, say, a seventh of the stamp duty rate (on the basis that, on average, people move every seven years) and go from there.
Just been to one of the greatest small art museums in the world. The Rosengart Collection. Lucerne. Acquired by Swiss Jewish art dealers Siegfried and daughter angela Rosengart from the 1920s.
Now housed in a 1920s bank it has an outstanding collection of Picassos (he painted angela 5 times - personal friends), a phenomenal collection of Klees, plus masterpieces by Cezanne, Bonnard, Dufy, Miro, Monet, Modigliani, Calder, Matisse, Seurat, Signac, You name it. And some superb Chagall
Ten rooms of total genius. It would make a good national gallery of modern European art for an average midsized European country. Like, say, Portugal. Or Finland. I’ve no doubt it’s superior to the equivalent in lubljana or Dublin. Or Australia? Or anywhere in Africa?
I am now getting happily drunk by the fake wooden medieval bridge
Hello. That sounds fabulous. However unless it's in your contract I don't know why you have to always say you're getting drunk. There's no need. Much more efficient to just add a PS when you're not getting drunk.
Btw, this week I actually went out to the pub and had oysters. Yep.
But please note that I deconstructed it. I had the oysters (3 Maldens) ad hoc on a tray outside a fishmongers - ie in their proper setting - and then only after that did I go to the pub and do in there what such places are rightfully for, drink.
Fantastic! An 80-yr old joke. You're on fire.
I'm not 80. Nothing like.
Very nearly a good response. But a bit desperate to find a retort. And it showed, sadly.
I remain happy with it. But you keep on giving your take on things. I quite often notice.
This is the sort of rally I am hoping to see in the Raducanu match tomorrow.
2120 UK time, amazon prime, btw.
Yes, should be great. What a story.
As for this one, I think it's done but you never know with Topping. He could be just changing his shirt.
57% of voters and 88% of Tory voters and 85% of Leave voters back the government authorising the Border Force officials to, in certain circumstances, turn back small boats of migrants https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1436344387185872898?s=20
It doesn't make it right or practical though. There would probably be a majority of Leave voters in favour of sinking them if they were given that option.
Its a completely impractical, insane and dangerous idea.
"Sink all boats without permission to be in UK waters". I think I'd go with that. Perhaps a hundred deaths now, and none in the future.
My old dad used to say that if the Nazis had invaded England there would have been those that would have turned a blind eye to the gas chambers. I think you just proved his point.
Choose to believe what you like.
I do choose to believe that anyone who could express the view that there were any circumstances when it would be correct to order servicemen to sink a boat full of civilians and children is a sick and twisted minded individual.
I think there are many others would would "choose to believe" the same.
Your concerns will kill many more than my hard-heartedness.
Perhaps you need to volunteer. I think it would be an order most military personnel would refuse.
Armed forces shoot non-combatants all the time. The RAF bombed Iraq last month. Do you think they checked the ISIS membership card of every single person on the business end of those Paveway IVs?
Silly false equivalence, and you know it. For someone to look at a small boat full of civilians and deliberately sink it is a very different scenario.
57% of voters and 88% of Tory voters and 85% of Leave voters back the government authorising the Border Force officials to, in certain circumstances, turn back small boats of migrants https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1436344387185872898?s=20
It doesn't make it right or practical though. There would probably be a majority of Leave voters in favour of sinking them if they were given that option.
Its a completely impractical, insane and dangerous idea.
"Sink all boats without permission to be in UK waters". I think I'd go with that. Perhaps a hundred deaths now, and none in the future.
My old dad used to say that if the Nazis had invaded England there would have been those that would have turned a blind eye to the gas chambers. I think you just proved his point.
Whilst I don’t think we had the intense hatred for neighbours that existed in parts of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, I think there would have been plenty of willing collaborators.
I can’t see a British equivalent of the Ustase or Russian National Army coming into existence. I could see a large British Division of the Waffen SS being formed.
Indeed, Britain thinks it is immune to extremism. It is not.
Collaboration and extremism have entirely different motivations, however.
Just been to one of the greatest small art museums in the world. The Rosengart Collection. Lucerne. Acquired by Swiss Jewish art dealers Siegfried and daughter angela Rosengart from the 1920s.
Now housed in a 1920s bank it has an outstanding collection of Picassos (he painted angela 5 times - personal friends), a phenomenal collection of Klees, plus masterpieces by Cezanne, Bonnard, Dufy, Miro, Monet, Modigliani, Calder, Matisse, Seurat, Signac, You name it. And some superb Chagall
Ten rooms of total genius. It would make a good national gallery of modern European art for an average midsized European country. Like, say, Portugal. Or Finland. I’ve no doubt it’s superior to the equivalent in lubljana or Dublin. Or Australia? Or anywhere in Africa?
I am now getting happily drunk by the fake wooden medieval bridge
Hello. That sounds fabulous. However unless it's in your contract I don't know why you have to always say you're getting drunk. There's no need. Much more efficient to just add a PS when you're not getting drunk.
Btw, this week I actually went out to the pub and had oysters. Yep.
But please note that I deconstructed it. I had the oysters (3 Maldens) ad hoc on a tray outside a fishmongers - ie in their proper setting - and then only after that did I go to the pub and do in there what such places are rightfully for, drink.
Fantastic! An 80-yr old joke. You're on fire.
I'm not 80. Nothing like.
Very nearly a good response. But a bit desperate to find a retort. And it showed, sadly.
I remain happy with it. But you keep on giving your take on things. I quite often notice.
This is the sort of rally I am hoping to see in the Raducanu match tomorrow.
2120 UK time, amazon prime, btw.
Ah - Amazon Prime - thanks for that - I can watch it then.
Haven't got and well down about it too. Can I come round if I bring a big bag of Cheesy Wotsits?
What's with you and the Wotsits? Yeah all right then. I have a meagre £5 of Rads at 20, how much you get on at 100?
They are lumping together two quite distinct forms of taxation. Stamp (and other) duties, compared to a recurring tax on the property.
It’s still a tax and a source of income for HMT.
Stamp duty is the worst form of property tax. It isn't a tax on holding property, it is a tax on mobility.
That's bad for encouraging people to 'right-size' their properties, which makes it bad for others who want to get a better house on the ladder, its bad for moving for jobs. It just encourages people to stay put which is not what we should be encouraging people to do.
Someone who has a mansion and lives in there for 50 years can avoid paying any stamp duty in that period. Someone who is mobile moving homes every five years due to work, or changing circumstances like kids, or going to a smaller house after the kids leave the nest etc can face stamp duty every time they move.
Mobility is the last part of property that should be taxed.
I certainly agree with all that. This makes it a good example of our politics creating bad incentives for politicians.
Because most people only pay stamp duty very rarely, and at a time when they're being fleeced for all sorts of fees (e.g. estate agency, legal, mortgage application fees), and they can generally make it work by sticking the extra on the mortgage, it's a tax with much lower political cost than council tax, or even more so income tax, let alone a new reformed property or land value tax.
Someone could inherit a valuable property portfolio from their family, spend their life living in it, renting it out, leaving it sitting empty, or selling some of it, whatever, and never pay a penny in Stamp Duty. Whereas someone whose job moved about and buys a succession of small flats to live in would pay a shedload. Calling it a property tax is a joke.
I agree. I think that there should be an exemption for people that can prove they are relocating due to a change of location of their job. It is a major disincentive to labour mobility.
Just abolish Stamp Duty and replace it with an annual property tax at, say, a seventh of the stamp duty rate (on the basis that, on average, people move every seven years) and go from there.
Hmm, you'd maybe do just as well to reform council tax bands and tax that instead, to replace some of tyhe cuts to local government. Cue lots of howling from the upper bands, of course.
They are lumping together two quite distinct forms of taxation. Stamp (and other) duties, compared to a recurring tax on the property.
It’s still a tax and a source of income for HMT.
Stamp duty is the worst form of property tax. It isn't a tax on holding property, it is a tax on mobility.
That's bad for encouraging people to 'right-size' their properties, which makes it bad for others who want to get a better house on the ladder, its bad for moving for jobs. It just encourages people to stay put which is not what we should be encouraging people to do.
Someone who has a mansion and lives in there for 50 years can avoid paying any stamp duty in that period. Someone who is mobile moving homes every five years due to work, or changing circumstances like kids, or going to a smaller house after the kids leave the nest etc can face stamp duty every time they move.
Mobility is the last part of property that should be taxed.
I certainly agree with all that. This makes it a good example of our politics creating bad incentives for politicians.
Because most people only pay stamp duty very rarely, and at a time when they're being fleeced for all sorts of fees (e.g. estate agency, legal, mortgage application fees), and they can generally make it work by sticking the extra on the mortgage, it's a tax with much lower political cost than council tax, or even more so income tax, let alone a new reformed property or land value tax.
Someone could inherit a valuable property portfolio from their family, spend their life living in it, renting it out, leaving it sitting empty, or selling some of it, whatever, and never pay a penny in Stamp Duty. Whereas someone whose job moved about and buys a succession of small flats to live in would pay a shedload. Calling it a property tax is a joke.
I agree. I think that there should be an exemption for people that can prove they are relocating due to a change of location of their job. It is a major disincentive to labour mobility.
Just abolish Stamp Duty and replace it with an annual property tax at, say, a seventh of the stamp duty rate (on the basis that, on average, people move every seven years) and go from there.
Not sure from where I am sitting I like that idea lol !
57% of voters and 88% of Tory voters and 85% of Leave voters back the government authorising the Border Force officials to, in certain circumstances, turn back small boats of migrants https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1436344387185872898?s=20
It doesn't make it right or practical though. There would probably be a majority of Leave voters in favour of sinking them if they were given that option.
Its a completely impractical, insane and dangerous idea.
"Sink all boats without permission to be in UK waters". I think I'd go with that. Perhaps a hundred deaths now, and none in the future.
My old dad used to say that if the Nazis had invaded England there would have been those that would have turned a blind eye to the gas chambers. I think you just proved his point.
Whilst I don’t think we had the intense hatred for neighbours that existed in parts of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, I think there would have been plenty of willing collaborators.
I can’t see a British equivalent of the Ustase or Russian National Army coming into existence. I could see a large British Division of the Waffen SS being formed.
Indeed, Britain thinks it is immune to extremism. It is not.
Collaboration and extremism have entirely different motivations, however.
Yes but the real believers are normally the biggest collaborators. Then of course you get the enthusiastic turncoats. It is not a pleasant picture of humanity!
Where will iSAGE be dragging their goal posts to next?
Fair point, but there's a fair bit of goalpost moving by many posters on here, isn't there? Namely:
When cases are going up: cases don't matter at all, let's stop counting them. When cases are going down: that's great news, let's celebrate.
Maybe it's just me, but I'm a bit concerned by rising hospitalisations, ICU/ventilator cases, and deaths. Still a long way to go, I think.
There is a degree of logic to that though: - Cases going up used to mean similar proportional increases in hospitalisations and deaths, after a lag. Post-vaccines, the relationship is much smaller, so cases going up isless important than it was (while still not competely unimportant) - Cases going down still means that, after a lag, hospitalisations and deaths will go down or they at least certainly can't go up (you can't get hospitalised or die from Covid if you haven't got it)
(this does assume that a fairly consistent proportion of real cases are detected, so that the direciton of movement of cases stats reflect real cases, at least in the downwards direction)
Yes, I agree with all that. I was merely pointing out that there is a bit of inconsistency in the reaction to falling/rising numbers, especially from those who just wish Covid would disappear. (Of course we all wish this - but it hasn't happened yet and won't for a while).
Covid is never disappearing....i fully expect it that on average 100 people a day die with covid for a long time to come.
But as we see from the data, under 60 and fully vaxxed, your chance of death is literally down with the hit by a bus territory. Unfortunately it is going to continue to kill some of the very old and vulernable.
But Al is not under 60 and fully vaxxed.
More seriously, "100 deaths a day for a long time to come" sounds on the pessimistic side. How are you getting that?
I said on average....we will see it higher in winters, and especially if covid continues to crowd out flu, which kills many oldies every year.
Also, I said with COVID, not from covid, again considering the fact a lot that there are always going to be some that are dying of other things with they have it, or that it the final nail in the coffin.
Its not tin foil hat territory to suggest around the margins if we keep counting as we currently do, it will always add probably low 10s to the figure every day.
57% of voters and 88% of Tory voters and 85% of Leave voters back the government authorising the Border Force officials to, in certain circumstances, turn back small boats of migrants https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1436344387185872898?s=20
It doesn't make it right or practical though. There would probably be a majority of Leave voters in favour of sinking them if they were given that option.
Its a completely impractical, insane and dangerous idea.
"Sink all boats without permission to be in UK waters". I think I'd go with that. Perhaps a hundred deaths now, and none in the future.
My old dad used to say that if the Nazis had invaded England there would have been those that would have turned a blind eye to the gas chambers. I think you just proved his point.
Choose to believe what you like.
I do choose to believe that anyone who could express the view that there were any circumstances when it would be correct to order servicemen to sink a boat full of civilians and children is a sick and twisted minded individual.
I think there are many others would would "choose to believe" the same.
Your concerns will kill many more than my hard-heartedness.
Perhaps you need to volunteer. I think it would be an order most military personnel would refuse.
Armed forces shoot non-combatants all the time. The RAF bombed Iraq last month. Do you think they checked the ISIS membership card of every single person on the business end of those Paveway IVs?
Silly false equivalence, and you know it. For someone to look at a small boat full of civilians and deliberately sink it is a very different scenario.
Is it? The targeting TV on drones and jets is extremely hi-res, though at least they do try and target the chaps with AK-47 clones, etc.
Just been to one of the greatest small art museums in the world. The Rosengart Collection. Lucerne. Acquired by Swiss Jewish art dealers Siegfried and daughter angela Rosengart from the 1920s.
Now housed in a 1920s bank it has an outstanding collection of Picassos (he painted angela 5 times - personal friends), a phenomenal collection of Klees, plus masterpieces by Cezanne, Bonnard, Dufy, Miro, Monet, Modigliani, Calder, Matisse, Seurat, Signac, You name it. And some superb Chagall
Ten rooms of total genius. It would make a good national gallery of modern European art for an average midsized European country. Like, say, Portugal. Or Finland. I’ve no doubt it’s superior to the equivalent in lubljana or Dublin. Or Australia? Or anywhere in Africa?
I am now getting happily drunk by the fake wooden medieval bridge
Hello. That sounds fabulous. However unless it's in your contract I don't know why you have to always say you're getting drunk. There's no need. Much more efficient to just add a PS when you're not getting drunk.
Btw, this week I actually went out to the pub and had oysters. Yep.
But please note that I deconstructed it. I had the oysters (3 Maldens) ad hoc on a tray outside a fishmongers - ie in their proper setting - and then only after that did I go to the pub and do in there what such places are rightfully for, drink.
Fantastic! An 80-yr old joke. You're on fire.
I'm not 80. Nothing like.
Very nearly a good response. But a bit desperate to find a retort. And it showed, sadly.
I remain happy with it. But you keep on giving your take on things. I quite often notice.
This is the sort of rally I am hoping to see in the Raducanu match tomorrow.
2120 UK time, amazon prime, btw.
Yes, should be great. What a story.
As for this one, I think it's done but you never know with Topping. He could be just changing his shirt.
I changed my shirt three times yesterday AAMOF. Hot as fuck.
You're back to your insecure posts. Much better when you are forthright about stuff you know about, where and when you are having your tea, for example. Chops, oysters, a very rich seam to mine there, post-wise.
They are lumping together two quite distinct forms of taxation. Stamp (and other) duties, compared to a recurring tax on the property.
It’s still a tax and a source of income for HMT.
Stamp duty is the worst form of property tax. It isn't a tax on holding property, it is a tax on mobility.
That's bad for encouraging people to 'right-size' their properties, which makes it bad for others who want to get a better house on the ladder, its bad for moving for jobs. It just encourages people to stay put which is not what we should be encouraging people to do.
Someone who has a mansion and lives in there for 50 years can avoid paying any stamp duty in that period. Someone who is mobile moving homes every five years due to work, or changing circumstances like kids, or going to a smaller house after the kids leave the nest etc can face stamp duty every time they move.
Mobility is the last part of property that should be taxed.
I certainly agree with all that. This makes it a good example of our politics creating bad incentives for politicians.
Because most people only pay stamp duty very rarely, and at a time when they're being fleeced for all sorts of fees (e.g. estate agency, legal, mortgage application fees), and they can generally make it work by sticking the extra on the mortgage, it's a tax with much lower political cost than council tax, or even more so income tax, let alone a new reformed property or land value tax.
Someone could inherit a valuable property portfolio from their family, spend their life living in it, renting it out, leaving it sitting empty, or selling some of it, whatever, and never pay a penny in Stamp Duty. Whereas someone whose job moved about and buys a succession of small flats to live in would pay a shedload. Calling it a property tax is a joke.
I agree. I think that there should be an exemption for people that can prove they are relocating due to a change of location of their job. It is a major disincentive to labour mobility.
Just abolish Stamp Duty and replace it with an annual property tax at, say, a seventh of the stamp duty rate (on the basis that, on average, people move every seven years) and go from there.
The attached says that 'leveling up' CGT and Income Tax would raise £90 billion over 5 years.
57% of voters and 88% of Tory voters and 85% of Leave voters back the government authorising the Border Force officials to, in certain circumstances, turn back small boats of migrants https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1436344387185872898?s=20
It doesn't make it right or practical though. There would probably be a majority of Leave voters in favour of sinking them if they were given that option.
Its a completely impractical, insane and dangerous idea.
"Sink all boats without permission to be in UK waters". I think I'd go with that. Perhaps a hundred deaths now, and none in the future.
My old dad used to say that if the Nazis had invaded England there would have been those that would have turned a blind eye to the gas chambers. I think you just proved his point.
Whilst I don’t think we had the intense hatred for neighbours that existed in parts of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, I think there would have been plenty of willing collaborators.
I can’t see a British equivalent of the Ustase or Russian National Army coming into existence. I could see a large British Division of the Waffen SS being formed.
Indeed, Britain thinks it is immune to extremism. It is not.
Collaboration and extremism have entirely different motivations, however.
Yes but the real believers are normally the biggest collaborators. Then of course you get the enthusiastic turncoats. It is not a pleasant picture of humanity!
Collaborators, in the main, aren’t the believers, but the people willing to bend their views to the prevailing wind, so as to best benefit from the status quo. And are often flexible enough to reinvent themselves entirely if the wind changes. History is replete with examples; in Russia and Eastern Europe there are plenty.
57% of voters and 88% of Tory voters and 85% of Leave voters back the government authorising the Border Force officials to, in certain circumstances, turn back small boats of migrants https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1436344387185872898?s=20
It doesn't make it right or practical though. There would probably be a majority of Leave voters in favour of sinking them if they were given that option.
Its a completely impractical, insane and dangerous idea.
"Sink all boats without permission to be in UK waters". I think I'd go with that. Perhaps a hundred deaths now, and none in the future.
My old dad used to say that if the Nazis had invaded England there would have been those that would have turned a blind eye to the gas chambers. I think you just proved his point.
Whilst I don’t think we had the intense hatred for neighbours that existed in parts of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, I think there would have been plenty of willing collaborators.
I can’t see a British equivalent of the Ustase or Russian National Army coming into existence. I could see a large British Division of the Waffen SS being formed.
They did set up a British and Commonwealth corps of the Waffen-SS on the same ex-PoW model as the RONA: the Britisches Freikorps. Not that it came to much.
57% of voters and 88% of Tory voters and 85% of Leave voters back the government authorising the Border Force officials to, in certain circumstances, turn back small boats of migrants https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1436344387185872898?s=20
It doesn't make it right or practical though. There would probably be a majority of Leave voters in favour of sinking them if they were given that option.
Its a completely impractical, insane and dangerous idea.
"Sink all boats without permission to be in UK waters". I think I'd go with that. Perhaps a hundred deaths now, and none in the future.
My old dad used to say that if the Nazis had invaded England there would have been those that would have turned a blind eye to the gas chambers. I think you just proved his point.
Choose to believe what you like.
I do choose to believe that anyone who could express the view that there were any circumstances when it would be correct to order servicemen to sink a boat full of civilians and children is a sick and twisted minded individual.
I think there are many others would would "choose to believe" the same.
Your concerns will kill many more than my hard-heartedness.
Perhaps you need to volunteer. I think it would be an order most military personnel would refuse.
Armed forces shoot non-combatants all the time. The RAF bombed Iraq last month. Do you think they checked the ISIS membership card of every single person on the business end of those Paveway IVs?
Silly false equivalence, and you know it. For someone to look at a small boat full of civilians and deliberately sink it is a very different scenario.
Is it? The targeting TV on drones and jets is extremely hi-res, though at least they do try and target the chaps with AK-47 clones, etc.
I believe there is a moral difference between collateral civilian death (sorry to use the term) as part of military action against an enemy and deliberately killing civilians.
57% of voters and 88% of Tory voters and 85% of Leave voters back the government authorising the Border Force officials to, in certain circumstances, turn back small boats of migrants https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1436344387185872898?s=20
It doesn't make it right or practical though. There would probably be a majority of Leave voters in favour of sinking them if they were given that option.
Its a completely impractical, insane and dangerous idea.
"Sink all boats without permission to be in UK waters". I think I'd go with that. Perhaps a hundred deaths now, and none in the future.
My old dad used to say that if the Nazis had invaded England there would have been those that would have turned a blind eye to the gas chambers. I think you just proved his point.
Choose to believe what you like.
I do choose to believe that anyone who could express the view that there were any circumstances when it would be correct to order servicemen to sink a boat full of civilians and children is a sick and twisted minded individual.
I think there are many others would would "choose to believe" the same.
Your concerns will kill many more than my hard-heartedness.
Perhaps you need to volunteer. I think it would be an order most military personnel would refuse.
Armed forces shoot non-combatants all the time. The RAF bombed Iraq last month. Do you think they checked the ISIS membership card of every single person on the business end of those Paveway IVs?
Silly false equivalence, and you know it. For someone to look at a small boat full of civilians and deliberately sink it is a very different scenario.
Is it? The targeting TV on drones and jets is extremely hi-res, though at least they do try and target the chaps with AK-47 clones, etc.
I believe there is a moral difference between collateral civilian death (sorry to use the term) as part of military action against an enemy and deliberately killing civilians.
Fair enough. It's still a lot more personal in that sense than, say, the view of a Lancaster bomb-aimer.
I'm loving the anti-maskers on here today. It's hilarious. Calling people who judge their own risks and choose to wear masks at certain times things like 'moronic' et al.
I am still wearing a mask at certain times. I judge when and where I will wear my mask; it is not always, but whenever I go into a shop, or pick or drop off the little 'un from school. To be frank, it's not much - perhaps twenty or thirty minutes a day, tops. I have judged the risks - as I see them - and made a choice.
It also does f'all harm. to myself or anyone around me - and may even help.
That's not moronic. It's personal choice in a civilised society.
I absolutely defend your right to choose, but I'd challenge your 'harmless' contention.
Mask wearing is not harmless, it is a trade-off of harm vs spreading the virus.
Humans are not meant to wander around with their faces covered. The face, and seeing each other's expressions, are the fundamental tenets of building trust, both with strangers and acquaintances.
The idea that mask-wearing is a zero-downside practice is deeply wrong, and flies in the face of decades of psychological research that shows that looking people – quite literally – in the mouth is a vital function of all human relationships.
I'll have to remember to 'look you in the mouth' if we ever meet, and give your teeth a good inspection
You should, that's how we communicate.
My youngest daughter is currently undergoing speech therapy because she doesn't enunciate all her sounds properly, and the wearing of masks at school through her reception year when school wasn't locked down etc has really been counterproductive. Her teacher's been cursing it whenever we speak on the subject, quite rightly saying you can't teach phonics properly with a mask on.
I don't really think about how you make certain sounds, you just do, but children learn from looking at your teeth etc while you speak. So we're currently working on the 'f' sound which requires putting your top teeth on your bottom lip "like a bunny" and blowing. Our advice is to try and practice this as much as possible with her, and to make a point of showing the teeth when doing so.
I'm sorry your daughter is going through that. If it helps, I underwent many years of speech therapy, and still do not speak perfectly. In fact, I didn't speak at all until I was five. It's not affected my life much at all (except for the fact I never shut up).
But I fail to see why wearing a mask in a shop would cause any difficulty.
Thank you for your kind remarks.
My reasons for not wearing a mask in a coffee shop.
1: Its pretty hard to drink coffee through a mask. 2: Cloth masks which are all most people are wearing, and disposable cheap clinical masks, not properly worn don't offer that much protection at all compared to getting vaccinated etc 3: If anyone is really bothered about the virus, they should be shielding or wearing a proper clinically safe mask like an FFP3 one which will protect far better than a cloth mask. 4: For anyone else who isn't vaccinated, or is OK with a vaccine breakthrough, better it occurs now over the summer than over the winter. 5: Even at the 'best' of times unless you ban sitting in, most people in a coffee shop would never be wearing a mask anyway. Because . . . see point 1. 6: Masks are stifling, uncomfortable and make communication harder.
I see absolutely no advantage to wearing a mask and only harms.
There is one massive advantage to wearing a mask: much lower levels of virus that reach others. And the size of the viral load people receive seems to be highly correlated with how sick they get. More masked people, means smaller viral load, which means more asymptomatic and mild cases, and fewer serious ones.
Maybe, in theory. Especially pre-vaccines, in theory.
Though where's the evidence for it now post-vaccinations? Not the theory, but the evidence. Is there any evidence at all that high cloth (not medical) mask wearing correlates with more mild cases when controlling for the same demographics and the same vaccinations?
Because England right now seems to be in a sweet spot of very high cases, but very low serious cases (ICUs) and deaths relative to almost all the rest of the western world. Without wearing masks.
Well, the evidence is that vaccines are equally efficacious on Delta as on previous variants. It's just that if you're infected with Delta you shed up to 1,000x as much viral material.
And this is why our vaccines do less well: our systems aren't hit with 100 virus particles, but by 10,000.
57% of voters and 88% of Tory voters and 85% of Leave voters back the government authorising the Border Force officials to, in certain circumstances, turn back small boats of migrants https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1436344387185872898?s=20
It doesn't make it right or practical though. There would probably be a majority of Leave voters in favour of sinking them if they were given that option.
Its a completely impractical, insane and dangerous idea.
What, turning them around or sinking them?
Both.
(I assumed the latter was sarcastic so I did mean the former)
So Captain HYUFD is wrong...again?
Private HY feels more apposite?
I only mentioned turning round the boats as per the poll, it was NigelF who mentioned sinking them
It was NigelF in fact, and just to be clear I was not proposing such a barbaric policy, though one poster has already proved that there are some people in this country who would.
Take the point you were being sarcastic, Omnium was not
Fewer deaths and less suffering. How hard is that to understand as an idea?
57% of voters and 88% of Tory voters and 85% of Leave voters back the government authorising the Border Force officials to, in certain circumstances, turn back small boats of migrants https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1436344387185872898?s=20
It doesn't make it right or practical though. There would probably be a majority of Leave voters in favour of sinking them if they were given that option.
Its a completely impractical, insane and dangerous idea.
What, turning them around or sinking them?
Both.
(I assumed the latter was sarcastic so I did mean the former)
What annoys me about this discussion is that it misses *why* the migrants want to come to the UK. And we can solve the issue much more effectively with the right responses, than drowning people in the Channel.
1. Properly fund the bodies that assess migrants claims. It is a complete false economy to have a system that takes four to five years to assess claims. If you could process most asylum seekers in three to four months, then it would dramatically reduce the pull of coming to the UK.
2. Crack down on illegals working in the uk. Those Albanians at the car wash, they're probably working illegally. (Albeit they probably came as a tourist and stayed.) Simply, it's a hell of a lot easier working in the UK "informal" economy than in most other European countries. The Norwegians don't even bother kicking failed asylum seekers out, as they "self deport".
Mercedes given Bottas engine penalties in the only race all year where he could have taken points off Max.
It's a constant source of wonder they can be so good at building cars, but so shit at strategy. Take a look at James Vowles CV on linkedin if you want some idea of the sort of limited academic background they let run the show.
57% of voters and 88% of Tory voters and 85% of Leave voters back the government authorising the Border Force officials to, in certain circumstances, turn back small boats of migrants https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1436344387185872898?s=20
It doesn't make it right or practical though. There would probably be a majority of Leave voters in favour of sinking them if they were given that option.
Its a completely impractical, insane and dangerous idea.
"Sink all boats without permission to be in UK waters". I think I'd go with that. Perhaps a hundred deaths now, and none in the future.
I think it would be pretty traumatic for the people doing the sinking. They would, after all, be murdering people.
Just been to one of the greatest small art museums in the world. The Rosengart Collection. Lucerne. Acquired by Swiss Jewish art dealers Siegfried and daughter angela Rosengart from the 1920s.
Now housed in a 1920s bank it has an outstanding collection of Picassos (he painted angela 5 times - personal friends), a phenomenal collection of Klees, plus masterpieces by Cezanne, Bonnard, Dufy, Miro, Monet, Modigliani, Calder, Matisse, Seurat, Signac, You name it. And some superb Chagall
Ten rooms of total genius. It would make a good national gallery of modern European art for an average midsized European country. Like, say, Portugal. Or Finland. I’ve no doubt it’s superior to the equivalent in lubljana or Dublin. Or Australia? Or anywhere in Africa?
I am now getting happily drunk by the fake wooden medieval bridge
Hello. That sounds fabulous. However unless it's in your contract I don't know why you have to always say you're getting drunk. There's no need. Much more efficient to just add a PS when you're not getting drunk.
Btw, this week I actually went out to the pub and had oysters. Yep.
But please note that I deconstructed it. I had the oysters (3 Maldens) ad hoc on a tray outside a fishmongers - ie in their proper setting - and then only after that did I go to the pub and do in there what such places are rightfully for, drink.
Fantastic! An 80-yr old joke. You're on fire.
I'm not 80. Nothing like.
Very nearly a good response. But a bit desperate to find a retort. And it showed, sadly.
I remain happy with it. But you keep on giving your take on things. I quite often notice.
This is the sort of rally I am hoping to see in the Raducanu match tomorrow.
2120 UK time, amazon prime, btw.
Ah - Amazon Prime - thanks for that - I can watch it then.
Haven't got and well down about it too. Can I come round if I bring a big bag of Cheesy Wotsits?
What's with you and the Wotsits? Yeah all right then. I have a meagre £5 of Rads at 20, how much you get on at 100?
Same. Have done some (over) laying back though. You know how I am. Still, a very decent return either way now, and you don't get many 3 digit winners in life, layback or no.
They are lumping together two quite distinct forms of taxation. Stamp (and other) duties, compared to a recurring tax on the property.
It’s still a tax and a source of income for HMT.
But it's not like-for-like.
In fact stamp duty is bloody stupid: it discourages trading down (making the market less liquid and reducing availability), and it disproportionately affects those with relatively little net assets.
I see lots of other posters made the same point I did, only they did it much better.
Mercedes given Bottas engine penalties in the only race all year where he could have taken points off Max.
It's a constant source of wonder they can be so good at building cars, but so shit at strategy. Take a look at James Vowles CV on linkedin if you want some idea of the sort of limited academic background they let run the show.
Why would a 'limited academic background' inhibit a person's ability to do strategy well?
Comments
So far saying and doing nothing has not been too bad, the Tories have decided they want to destroy their own reputation. But Labour can be in a position to win the most seats if they act now - and get themselves into the 40s
Anything could happen in the next 2 years
More seriously, "100 deaths a day for a long time to come" sounds on the pessimistic side. How are you getting that?
In fact stamp duty is bloody stupid: it discourages trading down (making the market less liquid and reducing availability), and it disproportionately affects those with relatively little net assets.
It was that long ago that they were "beneath the US average" or "similar to California".
As for this one, I think it's done but you never know with Topping. He could be just changing his shirt.
Also, I said with COVID, not from covid, again considering the fact a lot that there are always going to be some that are dying of other things with they have it, or that it the final nail in the coffin.
Its not tin foil hat territory to suggest around the margins if we keep counting as we currently do, it will always add probably low 10s to the figure every day.
NEW THREAD
You're back to your insecure posts. Much better when you are forthright about stuff you know about, where and when you are having your tea, for example. Chops, oysters, a very rich seam to mine there, post-wise.
https://www.ippr.org/news-and-media/press-releases/social-care-plan-a-clear-improvement-on-current-system-but-leaves-key-problems-unresolved-says-ippr
And this is why our vaccines do less well: our systems aren't hit with 100 virus particles, but by 10,000.
1. Properly fund the bodies that assess migrants claims. It is a complete false economy to have a system that takes four to five years to assess claims. If you could process most asylum seekers in three to four months, then it would dramatically reduce the pull of coming to the UK.
2. Crack down on illegals working in the uk. Those Albanians at the car wash, they're probably working illegally. (Albeit they probably came as a tourist and stayed.) Simply, it's a hell of a lot easier working in the UK "informal" economy than in most other European countries. The Norwegians don't even bother kicking failed asylum seekers out, as they "self deport".
It's a constant source of wonder they can be so good at building cars, but so shit at strategy. Take a look at James Vowles CV on linkedin if you want some idea of the sort of limited academic background they let run the show.