I'm not quite sure how Priti Patel managed to hang on to her job in the recent reshuffle.
Right at the top of her 'to do' list after the last GE was to stop asylum seekers/refugees/economic migrants/criminals (select according to taste) crossing the Channel. Not only has she singularly failed to do this, but I understand numbers have doubled this year. Regardless of the reasons, she's accountable for the failure. If I'd have missed my targets at work so spectacularly, I'd have been out on my ear.
And it's not as if Patel has any other notable achievements to compensate for her failure on Channel crossings. Far from it.
I get the feeling she will stay there until the migrant situation gets so bad she can be made a scapegoat for it and sacked. At the moment people are focussed on other things, plus the weather is getting bad so less people will attempt the crossings.
She thought she knew it all, but has failed to implement the bright ideas that she had (IE: wave machines to divert the boats and send the asylum seekers back).
There's no magic switch to flick.
She's been drafting a new bill to tackle the issue which is getting feedback to see how it affects stakeholders at the minute (see the RNLI histrionics by some here).
That process needs to be run through to its conclusion then see if it works.
This issue is fixable, the Aussies have done so, its just a case of making the right choices. We'll see soon when her bill is published and gone through Parliament whether its really been tackled or not.
Got to laugh at Patel announcing more 'increased sentences'. This seems to be a recurring trick to fool the public: they change the law to increase the theoretical maximum sentence, normally to life imprisonment. But little actually changes in the courts, as the sentencing guidelines remain largely unchanged. Its similar to what labour did, longer jail sentences were introduced at the same time as automatic release half way through, so no effective change.
IIRC under the coalition government, someone sneaked through a rule change. People on bail for one offence were automatically *not* eligible for bail a second time.
Since about 95% of crime is committed by repeat offenders, this warehoused large numbers of them.
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Labour are out of power precisely because of your comments
However, the conservative party's desire for power is much more pragmatic
Got to laugh at Patel announcing more 'increased sentences'. This seems to be a recurring trick to fool the public: they change the law to increase the theoretical maximum sentence, normally to life imprisonment. But little actually changes in the courts, as the sentencing guidelines remain largely unchanged. Its similar to what labour did, longer jail sentences were introduced at the same time as automatic release half way through, so no effective change.
'Tougher sentences' don't work very well as a deterrent to seasoned criminals anyway.
The only thing that really deters is a high risk of being caught, prosecuted and punished. They'd be much better focusing on how to improve the currently abysmally low rates of arrest/prosecution/conviction. But that's much harder than simply announcing 'tougher sentences'.
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
If you legalise anything more people will do it, that means more people will try harder drugs like heroin and cocaine just because they can.
You can still keep the treatment options for those who are heroin addicts now
That's not necessarily true. Not at all.
Prohibition has failed and because of criminalisation its not possible to open up easy and successful education and treatment option.
The proportion of UK adults taking illegal drugs and the proportion of UK adults smoking legal cigarettes are almost the same now and could crossover in the next few years. Tax, education and treatment has worked in driving down smoking rates.
Got to laugh at Patel announcing more 'increased sentences'. This seems to be a recurring trick to fool the public: they change the law to increase the theoretical maximum sentence, normally to life imprisonment. But little actually changes in the courts, as the sentencing guidelines remain largely unchanged. Its similar to what labour did, longer jail sentences were introduced at the same time as automatic release half way through, so no effective change.
My first thought when they announced money to allow more electronic tags this morning was that money would be way better spent getting people through court rather than afterwards.
Despite moaning about the courts yesterday, I don't agree with that one.
The issue at the minute is the revolving door so people get [eventually] through the courts and end up back on the streets and back ultimately before the courts again.
If people could go through the courts once and be genuinely rehabilitated and not end up back before the courts again . . . that'd be worth more than almost any other investment.
Which is why this stuff is so bleeding depressing. It isn't about being soft or tough on crime. It ought to be about what works well. Given our comparatively high prison population, combined with no discernibly lower rate of offending it is clear UK justice policies don't work. So what do we get? A doubling down. Every year. For some headlines.
I was back in Rochdale yesterday managing the removers as my parents are moving up here (after 41 years in the same house). Whilst I've seen how busy the town is getting over the years, it really hit home yesterday with absurd traffic levels.
Quite simply there are too many cars, too many houses, too many people. For 20 years the council have allowed houses to be built and built and built along the Rochdale > Littleborough road to the point where its now ludicrously busy.
New houses means you need new roads. New schools. New infrastructure. But there has been none of that. Just people piled on top of people so that you can barely move. Yes I know my perspective has shifted having moved to the country. But at which point do councils have a requirement to actually stop and plan rather than just let developments go up everywhere?
This is one of the problems. I've posted before about the likelihood of houses being built on the fields behind our house. I'm (really*) not against that in principle, but it does require upgrading facilities. It needs a new road in from the bypass. It needs at least a local shop or two. It needs a school or drastic expansion of the nearest school. The town would benefit from management of the floodplain (which only floods 1-2 times per year) to put in some nice parkland/playing fields (the town lacks this, just a few small play parks) and some good cycling/walking infrastructure to get from the new houses to the town centre in the most direct way. Those - even some of those - could make the development a net plus for us. The proposal is however houses only.
*I'll be a bit sad about it. There's a barn owl will lose its home/hunting ground, the deer will no longer wander through in the early morning, the hares won't be running across the field... But we do need houses and the flood plain means that the houses won't be that close and won't really impact on us in terms of privacy etc. It will be a less nice view, but I'd trade that if it led to new amenities for the town.
The LA have the ability (working with the Trafffic Authority) to really push active travel.
There are all kinds of possibilities, and things that can be made requirements. You (or somebody) need to get stuck in with the Council. The Council has a very short institutional memory for good practice.
Places like Nottingham, and Chesterfield, are doing quite remarkable things.
You need a group of enough to lobby every councillor at the relevant Local Gov levels, and to keep on for a long time.
This is the sort of thing a non-sectarian Green Party should be for.
Thanks also. There's scope here to do something quite exciting, linking up with existing cycle routes/bridleways. Unfortunately a lot of the opposition here is of the NIMBY variety, opposed to any development on the site, so I'm not sure whether there's a group that can be pulled together to push for an active travel component. Maybe local running/cycling/equestrian clubs... I'll have to check.
Isn't the problem with legalising everything is that it rather undermines the regulation of drugs (i.e. including prescription drugs) in general? Why shouldn't someone get hooked on painkillers?
Got to laugh at Patel announcing more 'increased sentences'. This seems to be a recurring trick to fool the public: they change the law to increase the theoretical maximum sentence, normally to life imprisonment. But little actually changes in the courts, as the sentencing guidelines remain largely unchanged. Its similar to what labour did, longer jail sentences were introduced at the same time as automatic release half way through, so no effective change.
My first thought when they announced money to allow more electronic tags this morning was that money would be way better spent getting people through court rather than afterwards.
Despite moaning about the courts yesterday, I don't agree with that one.
The issue at the minute is the revolving door so people get [eventually] through the courts and end up back on the streets and back ultimately before the courts again.
If people could go through the courts once and be genuinely rehabilitated and not end up back before the courts again . . . that'd be worth more than almost any other investment.
Nope - the current issue is crimes that occurred in 2018 still haven't had their day in court
And it's getting worse.
Justice delayed is often Justice denied because no-one is going to court as a witness for an event 2+ years ago.
On topic, Stephen Bush of Statesman's email this morning - an interesting comment:
"The central reason why Patel's stock is not as high as it once was among Conservative activists is the perception that her department is failing: that she is unable to prevent more people coming here on boats in search of a better life, that we have de facto decriminalised most crimes other than murder and speeding, that the Metropolitan Police is poorly run, and so on.
Now, the wheel of politics has plenty of turns and it's possible that this time next year we're once again talking about how much activists and MPs love Priti Patel. But the concern among some MPs who believe - rightly in my view - that Patel was integral to their 2019 re-election is that the fall in the Home Secretary's stock among party activists is the first sign that the government's advantage as far as crime and security is concerned might once again be about to come under serious threat in the country as a whole."
Well, when the police seem more interested in policing Twitter, that catching speeding motorists appears to be more of a priority than stopping protesters blocking the roads, and when police themselves turn out to have a lot of bad eggs in their ranks, it’s hardly surprising that confidence in the Home Secretary is low.
Elements of the Tory target demographic were always rather reluctant to give up the right to speed, prefereably when pished. I can remember the arguments over the introduction of the breathalyser, etc.
If you want to find one point in recent history, where the general public started to lose faith in the police, the introduction of speed cameras is probably it.
I am in favour of people sticking to speed limits, and consequently of punishing people when they do not. However, policing in a democracy has to be by consent, and it's evident that the argument over speeding is not won. There is not consent for the enforcement of speed limits. Or at least the minority opposed is the largest for any policing issue.
Living in a village where twats drive through sometimes at double the speed limit, I would like to see speed averaging cameras introduced to catch the irresponsible bastards
I am a big respecter of speed limits, especially the lower ones. One phenomenon I have never understood is when you get stuck behind someone trundling along at 40mph on a country road, then when they get to a village with a 30mph limit they keep going at 40mph! It's like they're driving the nitro truck in the Wages of Fear or the bus in Speed or something and can't deviate from their preferred speed.
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Oh, come on. You don't strike me as one of the more extreme activists. I don't know how old you are, but the "hang 'em flog 'em" Tory activist used to be a minority type that was generally grinned at with derision 20 years ago. They probably hide their true views a little more now, but they run the party. MPs are scarred shitless of standing up to them, so the party has become a right wing populist party with a cult following for the leader. The nutjobs have the control and they are unlikely to relinquish it until they have been in opposition for a while, so no time soon.
One thought I have had for years is that the government could have driven the kind of industrial transformation that Beaker is now such an advocate of. Instead of just piling on a Corporation Tax cut they could have made it conditional.
Let big companies only pay 19% tax if they are a living wage employer. If they maintain no forced waiving of working time rules. If they give proper maternity and sick pay. That would have had a huge impact on pay and working conditions.
Instead we have people like Johnson triumphing the slashing of both corporation taxes and corporate responsibility, then working why companies are paying low wages and imposing poor conditions as direct result of their own policies to deliver exactly that.
That shows your short thinking and is typical of Champagne Socialists like yourself.
The state setting a "living wage" becomes a ceiling rather than a floor. So you expect people can earn that and not a penny more, even if they're skilled.
Having a free market solution to raise wages like we're seeing now isn't simply about getting people to a "living wage" . . . it means skilled workers who graft and apply themselves absolutely should be able to earn more than a living wage.
Remove the ceiling on salaries. Do you have an alternative solution that doesn't have a ceiling to pay rates?
We do not have a free market solution. A free market would allow employers to recruit from wherever they wanted and pay whatever they wanted. We have a regulated market and a disorganised government that has failed to plan for entirely predictable and predicted challenges scrabbling around for a narrative that might buy them a bit of time.
A government that truly believed in a high wage economy in which employees enjoyed uniformly top class working conditions would not have the trade union laws this one does.
Trade unions don't sustainably boost working conditions, markets do.
That is nonsense.
I accept dinosaurs like that fool McCluskey have an ideological agenda to promote from within their grace-and-favour tied homes, but having a Trade Union provided lawyer with one during an individual dispute with an employer (say an unfair dismissal proceeding) is the other side of the coin.
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
If you legalise anything more people will do it and try it. That means more people will try harder drugs like heroin and cocaine just because they can.
You can still keep the treatment options for those who are heroin addicts now
Both legalisation and criminalisation are terrible policies, but one is likely to be worse than the other. There is no good policy available in a free society. I think decriminalisation would be worth a try.
A third variant, never yet tried, is to make possession and use the really big offence, not dealing. There will always be career criminals to run the big operations, and there will always be replacements available. So arguably the sane option is to attack demand. Most new users are idiots rather than career criminals. How much demand would there be if possession and use alone carried a very long prison sentence?
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
If you legalise anything more people will do it and try it. That means more people will try harder drugs like heroin and cocaine just because they can.
You can still keep the treatment options for those who are heroin addicts now
Heroin treatment now is almost impossible. You can’t get a prescription for heroin except in very rare circumstances, the substitute Methadone is a different drug in its effect, and the available treatment services are vastly underfunded.
Making heroin available over the counter (or on prescription for registered addicts) would raise funds for treatment programmes, stop people dying of bad drugs, and most importantly reduce the number of people who end up unable to function in society becuase of addiction and crime.
Got to laugh at Patel announcing more 'increased sentences'. This seems to be a recurring trick to fool the public: they change the law to increase the theoretical maximum sentence, normally to life imprisonment. But little actually changes in the courts, as the sentencing guidelines remain largely unchanged. Its similar to what labour did, longer jail sentences were introduced at the same time as automatic release half way through, so no effective change.
My first thought when they announced money to allow more electronic tags this morning was that money would be way better spent getting people through court rather than afterwards.
Despite moaning about the courts yesterday, I don't agree with that one.
The issue at the minute is the revolving door so people get [eventually] through the courts and end up back on the streets and back ultimately before the courts again.
If people could go through the courts once and be genuinely rehabilitated and not end up back before the courts again . . . that'd be worth more than almost any other investment.
Nope - the current issue is crimes that occurred in 2018 still haven't had their day in court
And it's getting worse.
Justice delayed is often Justice denied because no-one is going to court as a witness for an event 2+ years ago.
I agree that that's an issue. As I said I was at Court yesterday as witness for the prosecution for a crime that happened in 2019, which has now been continued so that it will be before the Court in 2022 instead.
However the flip side of that is that a not-insignificant proportion of people before the courts in 2021 were also before the courts in say 2019 and 2016 and 2013 and 2010 and ...
What proportion of people before the courts are actually first time offenders?
Breaking the revolving doors is much-needed and would reduce crime and reduce pressure upon the courts.
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
If you legalise anything more people will do it, that means more people will try harder drugs like heroin and cocaine just because they can.
You can still keep the treatment options for those who are heroin addicts now
That's not necessarily true. Not at all.
Prohibition has failed and because of criminalisation its not possible to open up easy and successful education and treatment option.
The proportion of UK adults taking illegal drugs and the proportion of UK adults smoking legal cigarettes are almost the same now and could crossover in the next few years. Tax, education and treatment has worked in driving down smoking rates.
In the prohibition era in the US fewer people drank alcohol than they did before it was illegal and once it was legalised.
Once homosexuality was legal more people had active homosexual relationships, previously many with homosexual inclinations kept their feelings repressed and did not have same sex sexual relationships as it was illegal. Now of course it was right to legalise it but the point is if you make something legal that was illegal more people will try it. Same reason some people go to Amsterdam not just for the sites but as they can legally get drugs and use prostitutes.
I would just about legalise cannabis and soft drugs, I would not legalise hard drugs for that reason. As you note more people still smoke cigarettes, which are legal, than take illegal drugs
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Labour are out of power precisely because of your comments
However, the conservative party's desire for power is much more pragmatic
@HYUFD 's sagacious observations are preventing Labour taking power? I'm sure even the man himself wouldn’t claim such influence!
Got to laugh at Patel announcing more 'increased sentences'. This seems to be a recurring trick to fool the public: they change the law to increase the theoretical maximum sentence, normally to life imprisonment. But little actually changes in the courts, as the sentencing guidelines remain largely unchanged. Its similar to what labour did, longer jail sentences were introduced at the same time as automatic release half way through, so no effective change.
My first thought when they announced money to allow more electronic tags this morning was that money would be way better spent getting people through court rather than afterwards.
Despite moaning about the courts yesterday, I don't agree with that one.
The issue at the minute is the revolving door so people get [eventually] through the courts and end up back on the streets and back ultimately before the courts again.
If people could go through the courts once and be genuinely rehabilitated and not end up back before the courts again . . . that'd be worth more than almost any other investment.
Does anyone actually get rehabilitated by going to prison? There is a language of rehabilitation, but in the eyes of the public prison is there for punishment.
Taking the example of Anne Sacoolas, there is a great desire to see her extradited, tried, and sent to jail for a long time. But what purpose would that truly serve? This is all about a public thirst for punishment.
Adam Boulton of Sky has just got Insulate Britain to admit their plans would cost between half and one trillion pounds over 10 years
Without a concrete commitment to half a trillion plus spent on their pet project they'll continue to blockade roads.
People need to be imprisoned if they continue with this. Let them demonstrate from prison.
Their demand is every house in UK is fully insulated? Putting aside the cost and the practicalities of delivering, how much CO2 would this actually save? It's a generally laudable goal but is it a screaming must all be done in next year emergency priority?
A better target might be get on a build more nuclear so we can switch from gas faster?
A better target might have been to get on and build more wind turbines (and insulate more houses) when, less than a decade ago, people like Boris Johnson were claiming that they couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding and people like Anne-Marie Trevelyan were denying the existence of climate change altogether. If we had a government made up of people who accepted reality, we wouldn't need XR!
We don’t need them. We have a govt who accepts this. Wind turbines have been going up offshore for quite a while now and New ones in the pipeline. Complaining about what people used to think when the science wasn’t as settled as it is now is futile.
There is no battle, all mainstream parties accept this. The Tories do. Trevelyan does.
Who, in the Current govt on the climate issue, does not Accept the need to take action ?
I got my house insulated, paid by the govt, a while ago. There are schemes and the govt is taking action.
The science was well settled a decade ago. Indeed, it's been known since the 1980s that CO2 emissions were an urgent problem. The reason we're in a mess now is not because of XR, Greenpeace and Co; it's bacause of the refusal of governments, particularly right-wing governments, to act on the advice of the scientists.
Not clear which "mess" you are referring to. The one caused by Putin pulling on the Gas Supply noose he has been given around Germany's neck?
And how has the expansion of wind energy not been on the advice of the scientists?
We have had 3 large rounds of offshore wind farm licensing, let in 2000, 2010, and (I think) 2019. We are now doing round 4.
Which seems to be 'following the science' very well.
If following the science is about insulation, that was settled a generation ago.
Newnight man Justin Rowlatt was followed doing his house up as an "Ethical Man" in 2006, and Energy Efficiency was a huge theme of "Homeworld '81" in Milton Keynes. The Money Programme even sponsored the build of an energy-efficiant house. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-56996505
On topic, Stephen Bush of Statesman's email this morning - an interesting comment:
"The central reason why Patel's stock is not as high as it once was among Conservative activists is the perception that her department is failing: that she is unable to prevent more people coming here on boats in search of a better life, that we have de facto decriminalised most crimes other than murder and speeding, that the Metropolitan Police is poorly run, and so on.
Now, the wheel of politics has plenty of turns and it's possible that this time next year we're once again talking about how much activists and MPs love Priti Patel. But the concern among some MPs who believe - rightly in my view - that Patel was integral to their 2019 re-election is that the fall in the Home Secretary's stock among party activists is the first sign that the government's advantage as far as crime and security is concerned might once again be about to come under serious threat in the country as a whole."
Well, when the police seem more interested in policing Twitter, that catching speeding motorists appears to be more of a priority than stopping protesters blocking the roads, and when police themselves turn out to have a lot of bad eggs in their ranks, it’s hardly surprising that confidence in the Home Secretary is low.
Elements of the Tory target demographic were always rather reluctant to give up the right to speed, prefereably when pished. I can remember the arguments over the introduction of the breathalyser, etc.
If you want to find one point in recent history, where the general public started to lose faith in the police, the introduction of speed cameras is probably it.
I am in favour of people sticking to speed limits, and consequently of punishing people when they do not. However, policing in a democracy has to be by consent, and it's evident that the argument over speeding is not won. There is not consent for the enforcement of speed limits. Or at least the minority opposed is the largest for any policing issue.
Living in a village where twats drive through sometimes at double the speed limit, I would like to see speed averaging cameras introduced to catch the irresponsible bastards
I am a big respecter of speed limits, especially the lower ones. One phenomenon I have never understood is when you get stuck behind someone trundling along at 40mph on a country road, then when they get to a village with a 30mph limit they keep going at 40mph! It's like they're driving the nitro truck in the Wages of Fear or the bus in Speed or something and can't deviate from their preferred speed.
Yep we get that a lot around here. I think there is a case for more shocking public info adverts. The difference between 30 and 40 mph collision with a pedestrian is death by dangerous driving and a prison sentence.
Got to laugh at Patel announcing more 'increased sentences'. This seems to be a recurring trick to fool the public: they change the law to increase the theoretical maximum sentence, normally to life imprisonment. But little actually changes in the courts, as the sentencing guidelines remain largely unchanged. Its similar to what labour did, longer jail sentences were introduced at the same time as automatic release half way through, so no effective change.
IIRC under the coalition government, someone sneaked through a rule change. People on bail for one offence were automatically *not* eligible for bail a second time.
Since about 95% of crime is committed by repeat offenders, this warehoused large numbers of them.
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
If you legalise anything more people will do it and try it. That means more people will try harder drugs like heroin and cocaine just because they can.
You can still keep the treatment options for those who are heroin addicts now
Both legalisation and criminalisation are terrible policies, but one is likely to be worse than the other. There is no good policy available in a free society. I think decriminalisation would be worth a try.
A third variant, never yet tried, is to make possession and use the really big offence, not dealing. There will always be career criminals to run the big operations, and there will always be replacements available. So arguably the sane option is to attack demand. Most new users are idiots rather than career criminals. How much demand would there be if possession and use alone carried a very long prison sentence?
I would actually focus treatment on users and toughen sentences for dealers and suppliers of hard drugs ie tackle the problem at source
Isn't the problem with legalising everything is that it rather undermines the regulation of drugs (i.e. including prescription drugs) in general? Why shouldn't someone get hooked on painkillers?
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Oh, come on. You don't strike me as one of the more extreme activists. I don't know how old you are, but the "hang 'em flog 'em" Tory activist used to be a minority type that was generally grinned at with derision 20 years ago. They probably hide their true views a little more now, but they run the party. MPs are scarred shitless of standing up to them, so the party has become a right wing populist party with a cult following for the leader. The nutjobs have the control and they are unlikely to relinquish it until they have been in opposition for a while, so no time soon.
And in his boring way, Starmer is taking Labour activists places they don't want to go. It's insufficient (yet) but it's there if you look.
Besides, Labour are in opposition, their sugar rush only really hurt them. The Conservatives are in power. That means their self-indulgence hits everyone.
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Labour are out of power precisely because of your comments
However, the conservative party's desire for power is much more pragmatic
Was it so pragmatic when it picked Hague over Clarke after the 1997 defeat following 18 years in power and then followed that by picking IDS over Clarke and Portillo?
Isn't the problem with legalising everything is that it rather undermines the regulation of drugs (i.e. including prescription drugs) in general? Why shouldn't someone get hooked on painkillers?
Americas opiate crisis (which now kills more than vehicle accidents or guns) was fuelled by over prescription of legal opiates.
If you make these things available, addiction expands. We should know, we started the international opium trade.
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
If you legalise anything more people will do it and try it. That means more people will try harder drugs like heroin and cocaine just because they can.
You can still keep the treatment options for those who are heroin addicts now
Both legalisation and criminalisation are terrible policies, but one is likely to be worse than the other. There is no good policy available in a free society. I think decriminalisation would be worth a try.
A third variant, never yet tried, is to make possession and use the really big offence, not dealing. There will always be career criminals to run the big operations, and there will always be replacements available. So arguably the sane option is to attack demand. Most new users are idiots rather than career criminals. How much demand would there be if possession and use alone carried a very long prison sentence?
If possession of a few grams gets a prison sentence, what should be the punishment for possession of a few kilos?
You’re right on the wider point though, countries really need to pick one extreme or the other. Be either Portugal or Singapore.
I was back in Rochdale yesterday managing the removers as my parents are moving up here (after 41 years in the same house). Whilst I've seen how busy the town is getting over the years, it really hit home yesterday with absurd traffic levels.
Quite simply there are too many cars, too many houses, too many people. For 20 years the council have allowed houses to be built and built and built along the Rochdale > Littleborough road to the point where its now ludicrously busy.
New houses means you need new roads. New schools. New infrastructure. But there has been none of that. Just people piled on top of people so that you can barely move. Yes I know my perspective has shifted having moved to the country. But at which point do councils have a requirement to actually stop and plan rather than just let developments go up everywhere?
This is one of the problems. I've posted before about the likelihood of houses being built on the fields behind our house. I'm (really*) not against that in principle, but it does require upgrading facilities. It needs a new road in from the bypass. It needs at least a local shop or two. It needs a school or drastic expansion of the nearest school. The town would benefit from management of the floodplain (which only floods 1-2 times per year) to put in some nice parkland/playing fields (the town lacks this, just a few small play parks) and some good cycling/walking infrastructure to get from the new houses to the town centre in the most direct way. Those - even some of those - could make the development a net plus for us. The proposal is however houses only.
*I'll be a bit sad about it. There's a barn owl will lose its home/hunting ground, the deer will no longer wander through in the early morning, the hares won't be running across the field... But we do need houses and the flood plain means that the houses won't be that close and won't really impact on us in terms of privacy etc. It will be a less nice view, but I'd trade that if it led to new amenities for the town.
The LA have the ability (working with the Trafffic Authority) to really push active travel.
There are all kinds of possibilities, and things that can be made requirements. You (or somebody) need to get stuck in with the Council. The Council has a very short institutional memory for good practice.
Places like Nottingham, and Chesterfield, are doing quite remarkable things.
You need a group of enough to lobby every councillor at the relevant Local Gov levels, and to keep on for a long time.
This is the sort of thing a non-sectarian Green Party should be for.
Thanks also. There's scope here to do something quite exciting, linking up with existing cycle routes/bridleways. Unfortunately a lot of the opposition here is of the NIMBY variety, opposed to any development on the site, so I'm not sure whether there's a group that can be pulled together to push for an active travel component. Maybe local running/cycling/equestrian clubs... I'll have to check.
There is one main road, the A58 which leads east from Rochdale, through Littleborough then climbs over Blackstone Edge - the Pennines ridge which dominates the landscape. Another road leads to Todmorden and the equally crowded Calderdale area, another past Hollingworth Lake through Milnrow and on to the M62.
Vast numbers of houses have been built along the A58 corridor, with the only way out towards the motorway, the town or anywhere else in Greater Manchester being along that road. Like so many others in the area this has terraced houses on both sides along most of its route.
What was needed was a spine road. Leave Littleborough and follow the canal corridor towards the new Kingsway Business Park. That at least would have taken much of the traffic off the already congested road. But no, houses got built across where parts of it would have to go.
This is the kind of uncontrolled lack of planning I was referring to. Allow developers to buy land (some green belt, some sold by the council, a big chunk the former hospital. Cram in houses that don't have enough parking, don't build any roads or shops or schools. And then wonder why the area is so difficult to get around. Lots of Pennine places have topographical restrictions - people may want to live there but unless you can bulldoze a new road down a hillside its very difficult to get more people in or out.
Got to laugh at Patel announcing more 'increased sentences'. This seems to be a recurring trick to fool the public: they change the law to increase the theoretical maximum sentence, normally to life imprisonment. But little actually changes in the courts, as the sentencing guidelines remain largely unchanged. Its similar to what labour did, longer jail sentences were introduced at the same time as automatic release half way through, so no effective change.
My first thought when they announced money to allow more electronic tags this morning was that money would be way better spent getting people through court rather than afterwards.
Despite moaning about the courts yesterday, I don't agree with that one.
The issue at the minute is the revolving door so people get [eventually] through the courts and end up back on the streets and back ultimately before the courts again.
If people could go through the courts once and be genuinely rehabilitated and not end up back before the courts again . . . that'd be worth more than almost any other investment.
Does anyone actually get rehabilitated by going to prison? There is a language of rehabilitation, but in the eyes of the public prison is there for punishment.
Taking the example of Anne Sacoolas, there is a great desire to see her extradited, tried, and sent to jail for a long time. But what purpose would that truly serve? This is all about a public thirst for punishment.
Forcing all foreign "diplomatic" staff to be familiar with the UK Highway Code. And reaching a tacit reciprocal understanding that they won't be allowed to drive like idiots with no consequences would have more utility.
Got to laugh at Patel announcing more 'increased sentences'. This seems to be a recurring trick to fool the public: they change the law to increase the theoretical maximum sentence, normally to life imprisonment. But little actually changes in the courts, as the sentencing guidelines remain largely unchanged. Its similar to what labour did, longer jail sentences were introduced at the same time as automatic release half way through, so no effective change.
My first thought when they announced money to allow more electronic tags this morning was that money would be way better spent getting people through court rather than afterwards.
Despite moaning about the courts yesterday, I don't agree with that one.
The issue at the minute is the revolving door so people get [eventually] through the courts and end up back on the streets and back ultimately before the courts again.
If people could go through the courts once and be genuinely rehabilitated and not end up back before the courts again . . . that'd be worth more than almost any other investment.
Does anyone actually get rehabilitated by going to prison? There is a language of rehabilitation, but in the eyes of the public prison is there for punishment.
Taking the example of Anne Sacoolas, there is a great desire to see her extradited, tried, and sent to jail for a long time. But what purpose would that truly serve? This is all about a public thirst for punishment.
It shouldn't be just about rehabilitation or just about punishment, the argument should be over the balancing of the two in my opinion. We are punishing people, and some won't be able to be rehabilitated, but we should try our best with those who can, and not punish them too much afterwards to make recidivism even easier an option than it already will be.
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
If you legalise anything more people will do it, that means more people will try harder drugs like heroin and cocaine just because they can.
You can still keep the treatment options for those who are heroin addicts now
That's not necessarily true. Not at all.
Prohibition has failed and because of criminalisation its not possible to open up easy and successful education and treatment option.
The proportion of UK adults taking illegal drugs and the proportion of UK adults smoking legal cigarettes are almost the same now and could crossover in the next few years. Tax, education and treatment has worked in driving down smoking rates.
In the prohibition era in the US fewer people drank alcohol than they did before it was illegal and once it was legalised.
Once homosexuality was legal more people had active homosexual relationships, previously many with homosexual inclinations kept their feelings repressed and did not have same sex sexual relationships as it was illegal. Now of course it was right to legalise it but the point is if you make something legal that was illegal more people will try it. Same reason some people go to Amsterdam not just for the sites but as they can legally get drugs and use prostitutes.
I would just about legalise cannabis and soft drugs, I would not legalise hard drugs for that reason. As you note more people still smoke cigarettes, which are legal, than take illegal drugs
I have often thought that if I am lucky enough to live well above the normal age range I might take up smoking again because I used to enjoy it. Similarly I might take up the odd spliff and perhaps a few mind altering drugs to see what they are like, having never taken them in my younger years. It's be an interesting way to go, and beats a one way trip to Switzerland!
Isn't the problem with legalising everything is that it rather undermines the regulation of drugs (i.e. including prescription drugs) in general? Why shouldn't someone get hooked on painkillers?
I would look to have kind of tiered system whereby certain drugs are fully legalised in a similar way to alcohol/nicotine (e.g. cannabis), while the availability of others is limited to pharmacies such that proper advice can be given at the point of sale and usage monitored to some extent.
The aim is to give people access to drugs safely that aren't cut with all sorts of rubbish, to drive the gang-based drug dealing trade out of business and so reduce violent crime, and to raise tax given the negative externalities associated with drug usage.
The next step would be to work globally sort out more ethical supply lines that don't support gangs and extremists in South America, Afghanistan etc.
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Labour are out of power precisely because of your comments
However, the conservative party's desire for power is much more pragmatic
Was it so pragmatic when it picked Hague over Clarke after the 1997 defeat following 18 years in power and then followed that by picking IDS over Clarke and Portillo?
Johnson picked over Hunt was certainly a desire for power over competence.
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
Definitely legalise cocaine too.
It is a piece of piss for anyone who wants to get any of these drugs, to do so.
A law that can't be enforced is not a good law. All you're doing is pushing people into the grateful arms of criminals.
Tax them and try to eradicate their use via education and treatment instead.
Don't see how that works. Are you going to legalise the whole supply chain all the way back to licensed, legal growers in Colombia? If you don't you are sponsoring untold misery and death all the way up the chain. If you do, is the Colombian government going to be very happy with that?
And btw the young Freud was markedly unpopular with contemporary medics for causing an explosion in cocaine use and associated civic problems - all at a time when the stuff was 100% legal everywhere.
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Labour are out of power precisely because of your comments
However, the conservative party's desire for power is much more pragmatic
Was it so pragmatic when it picked Hague over Clarke after the 1997 defeat following 18 years in power and then followed that by picking IDS over Clarke and Portillo?
Hague wasn't such an unreasonable choice if you ask me, I think he just got the job too young and was unfairly discriminated against by the electorate on the basis of his northern accent. But picking IDS was lunacy.
On topic, Stephen Bush of Statesman's email this morning - an interesting comment:
"The central reason why Patel's stock is not as high as it once was among Conservative activists is the perception that her department is failing: that she is unable to prevent more people coming here on boats in search of a better life, that we have de facto decriminalised most crimes other than murder and speeding, that the Metropolitan Police is poorly run, and so on.
Now, the wheel of politics has plenty of turns and it's possible that this time next year we're once again talking about how much activists and MPs love Priti Patel. But the concern among some MPs who believe - rightly in my view - that Patel was integral to their 2019 re-election is that the fall in the Home Secretary's stock among party activists is the first sign that the government's advantage as far as crime and security is concerned might once again be about to come under serious threat in the country as a whole."
Well, when the police seem more interested in policing Twitter, that catching speeding motorists appears to be more of a priority than stopping protesters blocking the roads, and when police themselves turn out to have a lot of bad eggs in their ranks, it’s hardly surprising that confidence in the Home Secretary is low.
Elements of the Tory target demographic were always rather reluctant to give up the right to speed, prefereably when pished. I can remember the arguments over the introduction of the breathalyser, etc.
If you want to find one point in recent history, where the general public started to lose faith in the police, the introduction of speed cameras is probably it.
I am in favour of people sticking to speed limits, and consequently of punishing people when they do not. However, policing in a democracy has to be by consent, and it's evident that the argument over speeding is not won. There is not consent for the enforcement of speed limits. Or at least the minority opposed is the largest for any policing issue.
Living in a village where twats drive through sometimes at double the speed limit, I would like to see speed averaging cameras introduced to catch the irresponsible bastards
I am a big respecter of speed limits, especially the lower ones. One phenomenon I have never understood is when you get stuck behind someone trundling along at 40mph on a country road, then when they get to a village with a 30mph limit they keep going at 40mph! It's like they're driving the nitro truck in the Wages of Fear or the bus in Speed or something and can't deviate from their preferred speed.
Yep we get that a lot around here. I think there is a case for more shocking public info adverts. The difference between 30 and 40 mph collision with a pedestrian is death by dangerous driving and a prison sentence.
This is something I can agree with you completely on.
The TAC adverts on TV in Victoria are like nothing that you ever get in this country and they work.
Got to laugh at Patel announcing more 'increased sentences'. This seems to be a recurring trick to fool the public: they change the law to increase the theoretical maximum sentence, normally to life imprisonment. But little actually changes in the courts, as the sentencing guidelines remain largely unchanged. Its similar to what labour did, longer jail sentences were introduced at the same time as automatic release half way through, so no effective change.
My first thought when they announced money to allow more electronic tags this morning was that money would be way better spent getting people through court rather than afterwards.
Despite moaning about the courts yesterday, I don't agree with that one.
The issue at the minute is the revolving door so people get [eventually] through the courts and end up back on the streets and back ultimately before the courts again.
If people could go through the courts once and be genuinely rehabilitated and not end up back before the courts again . . . that'd be worth more than almost any other investment.
Does anyone actually get rehabilitated by going to prison? There is a language of rehabilitation, but in the eyes of the public prison is there for punishment.
Taking the example of Anne Sacoolas, there is a great desire to see her extradited, tried, and sent to jail for a long time. But what purpose would that truly serve? This is all about a public thirst for punishment.
The justice system needs to be seen to operate fairly. That requires both a punishment and rehabilitation aspect to any given sentence.
In the case you mention, the lady killed someone, and was to be prosecuted for manslaughter. Society agrees that people who kill people, even if that outcome was not their intention, deserve to lose their liberty for a period of time as punishment. Causing death by dangerous driving is usually 10 years or thereabouts, less in practice with good behaviour.
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
Definitely legalise cocaine too.
It is a piece of piss for anyone who wants to get any of these drugs, to do so.
A law that can't be enforced is not a good law. All you're doing is pushing people into the grateful arms of criminals.
Tax them and try to eradicate their use via education and treatment instead.
Don't see how that works. Are you going to legalise the whole supply chain all the way back to licensed, legal growers in Colombia? If you don't you are sponsoring untold misery and death all the way up the chain. If you do, is the Colombian government going to be very happy with that?
And btw the young Freud was markedly unpopular with contemporary medics for causing an explosion in cocaine use and associated civic problems - all at a time when the stuff was 100% legal everywhere.
Yes legalise the entire supply chain, that's the entire point. If you're not legalising the entire supply chain the entire thing is pointless.
I don't care if the Colombian government is happy or not. The growers don't have to be in Colombia, get a licenced and regulated company doing it like Diageo does for alcohol.
I was back in Rochdale yesterday managing the removers as my parents are moving up here (after 41 years in the same house). Whilst I've seen how busy the town is getting over the years, it really hit home yesterday with absurd traffic levels.
Quite simply there are too many cars, too many houses, too many people. For 20 years the council have allowed houses to be built and built and built along the Rochdale > Littleborough road to the point where its now ludicrously busy.
New houses means you need new roads. New schools. New infrastructure. But there has been none of that. Just people piled on top of people so that you can barely move. Yes I know my perspective has shifted having moved to the country. But at which point do councils have a requirement to actually stop and plan rather than just let developments go up everywhere?
This is one of the problems. I've posted before about the likelihood of houses being built on the fields behind our house. I'm (really*) not against that in principle, but it does require upgrading facilities. It needs a new road in from the bypass. It needs at least a local shop or two. It needs a school or drastic expansion of the nearest school. The town would benefit from management of the floodplain (which only floods 1-2 times per year) to put in some nice parkland/playing fields (the town lacks this, just a few small play parks) and some good cycling/walking infrastructure to get from the new houses to the town centre in the most direct way. Those - even some of those - could make the development a net plus for us. The proposal is however houses only.
*I'll be a bit sad about it. There's a barn owl will lose its home/hunting ground, the deer will no longer wander through in the early morning, the hares won't be running across the field... But we do need houses and the flood plain means that the houses won't be that close and won't really impact on us in terms of privacy etc. It will be a less nice view, but I'd trade that if it led to new amenities for the town.
Is there a coordination of planning between councils and national government? In Scotland there is a duty on councils to produce a plan which is then reviewed by national gmt. I haven't looked into this in detail but for instance in my home area it is pretty clear what the plans are for new houses and where, and one can put one's views to the review. And, I assume, the total of plans bears some relation to government planninbg for new houses, new social/council housing, etc.
I'm wondering if this explains the otherwise bizarre map of Nimbyism in the UK we were discussing in PB a few weeks ago - total contrast across the Anglo-Scottish border.
There is a local plan, with consultation on that (we made our views known - essentially the above). I don't know whether the national government gets involved. The local plan has housing/mixed use which includes the proposed development, new roads etc - much, if not all, of what I ask for above. The proposed development is a smallish part of that site, accessed from the more desirable of the adjacent roads, but just houses. I hope the council will enforce their plan, so that at least some of the infrastructure is also built - wait and see, I guess. The council own the land in question, which is leased to the farmers, so they will have some conflicting interests, I guess - I'm sure there is a lot of good they could do with the money from selling the land, but I hope they don't lose sight of the benefits from doing the right development.
WRT to this, the plan needs to be examined by a government appointed planning Inspector before it can be adopted. I cannot tell if this has happened in your case. What generally happens in situations like this is the developer will go through a process of getting as much profit out of the site as possible (ie putting on twice as many houses, and only providing the perks that directly boost the value of the houses they are building). There is also a loophole whereby if the plan gets to be more than 5 years old, or the Council isn't delivering enough housing, then the plan becomes 'out of date'; which is often effectively a green light to go ahead anyway. In such a scenario, as an objector, you have to find harm in some way: IE is the existing infrastructure really that inadequate, would there be such disruption on the roads that it 'significantly and demonstrably' outweighs the benefit of more housing. Not sure if any of this applies here, but people who have been scarred by these battles will be able to tell you that you can't really rely on what is in the plan, unfortunately.
Thanks, that's interesting.
Last plan is over 5 years old. The new plan is not yet adopted (is that the right word? - still out for consultation, I think).
The developer's plan is not yet in for planning permission; it has only been sent round to residents, by them, for consultation. I suspect, as you say, it may be an unrealistic opening gambit - they might add some amenities in response to the consultation, which were - perhaps - always planned anyway. As for impacts, that's the other interesting thing. The proposed development is, in the first stage, only 300 houses. Impacts not so great or hard to show. The local plan has ten times that number in a contiguous area. Overall, it would have a big impact. But added a few hundred at a time? No single group of a few hundred makes a huge difference...
For this particular development, the council does in principle have absolute veto as they own the land, I guess. But council budgets what they are, there will be a strong incentive to sell and put the money to use.
I assume - and accept - that all the earmarked land will be built on over the few years. The thing that I hope can still be influenced is exactly what is built.
On topic, Stephen Bush of Statesman's email this morning - an interesting comment:
"The central reason why Patel's stock is not as high as it once was among Conservative activists is the perception that her department is failing: that she is unable to prevent more people coming here on boats in search of a better life, that we have de facto decriminalised most crimes other than murder and speeding, that the Metropolitan Police is poorly run, and so on.
Now, the wheel of politics has plenty of turns and it's possible that this time next year we're once again talking about how much activists and MPs love Priti Patel. But the concern among some MPs who believe - rightly in my view - that Patel was integral to their 2019 re-election is that the fall in the Home Secretary's stock among party activists is the first sign that the government's advantage as far as crime and security is concerned might once again be about to come under serious threat in the country as a whole."
Well, when the police seem more interested in policing Twitter, that catching speeding motorists appears to be more of a priority than stopping protesters blocking the roads, and when police themselves turn out to have a lot of bad eggs in their ranks, it’s hardly surprising that confidence in the Home Secretary is low.
Elements of the Tory target demographic were always rather reluctant to give up the right to speed, prefereably when pished. I can remember the arguments over the introduction of the breathalyser, etc.
If you want to find one point in recent history, where the general public started to lose faith in the police, the introduction of speed cameras is probably it.
I am in favour of people sticking to speed limits, and consequently of punishing people when they do not. However, policing in a democracy has to be by consent, and it's evident that the argument over speeding is not won. There is not consent for the enforcement of speed limits. Or at least the minority opposed is the largest for any policing issue.
Living in a village where twats drive through sometimes at double the speed limit, I would like to see speed averaging cameras introduced to catch the irresponsible bastards
I am a big respecter of speed limits, especially the lower ones. One phenomenon I have never understood is when you get stuck behind someone trundling along at 40mph on a country road, then when they get to a village with a 30mph limit they keep going at 40mph! It's like they're driving the nitro truck in the Wages of Fear or the bus in Speed or something and can't deviate from their preferred speed.
Yep we get that a lot around here. I think there is a case for more shocking public info adverts. The difference between 30 and 40 mph collision with a pedestrian is death by dangerous driving and a prison sentence.
In Taiwan, the penalty for speeding, or riding without a helmet was to be dragged into a mobile van and forced to watch video of crash aftermaths, brain operations and photos of injuries and disabilities caused.
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
Definitely legalise cocaine too.
It is a piece of piss for anyone who wants to get any of these drugs, to do so.
A law that can't be enforced is not a good law. All you're doing is pushing people into the grateful arms of criminals.
Tax them and try to eradicate their use via education and treatment instead.
Don't see how that works. Are you going to legalise the whole supply chain all the way back to licensed, legal growers in Colombia? If you don't you are sponsoring untold misery and death all the way up the chain. If you do, is the Colombian government going to be very happy with that?
And btw the young Freud was markedly unpopular with contemporary medics for causing an explosion in cocaine use and associated civic problems - all at a time when the stuff was 100% legal everywhere.
Yes legalise the entire supply chain, that's the entire point. If you're not legalising the entire supply chain the entire thing is pointless.
I don't care if the Colombian government is happy or not.
The UK cannot legalise activities in Colombia. Your whole case collapses if the Colombian government is unhappy.
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Labour are out of power precisely because of your comments
However, the conservative party's desire for power is much more pragmatic
Was it so pragmatic when it picked Hague over Clarke after the 1997 defeat following 18 years in power and then followed that by picking IDS over Clarke and Portillo?
Hague wasn't such an unreasonable choice if you ask me, I think he just got the job too young and was unfairly discriminated against by the electorate on the basis of his northern accent. But picking IDS was lunacy.
There is an argument that a Clarke-led opposition in 2001 would have allowed Blair to do what he wanted to and go into the Euro.
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
Definitely legalise cocaine too.
It is a piece of piss for anyone who wants to get any of these drugs, to do so.
A law that can't be enforced is not a good law. All you're doing is pushing people into the grateful arms of criminals.
Tax them and try to eradicate their use via education and treatment instead.
Don't see how that works. Are you going to legalise the whole supply chain all the way back to licensed, legal growers in Colombia? If you don't you are sponsoring untold misery and death all the way up the chain. If you do, is the Colombian government going to be very happy with that?
And btw the young Freud was markedly unpopular with contemporary medics for causing an explosion in cocaine use and associated civic problems - all at a time when the stuff was 100% legal everywhere.
Yes legalise the entire supply chain, that's the entire point. If you're not legalising the entire supply chain the entire thing is pointless.
I don't care if the Colombian government is happy or not.
The UK cannot legalise activities in Colombia. Your whole case collapses if the Colombian government is unhappy.
Why would the legalised drugs be grown in Colombia? Why wouldn't they be grown in the UK? Or any other nation where its legalised?
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Labour are out of power precisely because of your comments
However, the conservative party's desire for power is much more pragmatic
Was it so pragmatic when it picked Hague over Clarke after the 1997 defeat following 18 years in power and then followed that by picking IDS over Clarke and Portillo?
Hague wasn't such an unreasonable choice if you ask me, I think he just got the job too young and was unfairly discriminated against by the electorate on the basis of his northern accent. But picking IDS was lunacy.
Was it his accent? I quite liked his accent which was reasonably well spoken with a slight Yorkshire hint, not too dissimilar to Harald Wilson. Angela Rayner on the other hand sounds terrible to most southern ears I would guess.
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
If you legalise anything more people will do it and try it. That means more people will try harder drugs like heroin and cocaine just because they can.
You can still keep the treatment options for those who are heroin addicts now
Both legalisation and criminalisation are terrible policies, but one is likely to be worse than the other. There is no good policy available in a free society. I think decriminalisation would be worth a try.
A third variant, never yet tried, is to make possession and use the really big offence, not dealing. There will always be career criminals to run the big operations, and there will always be replacements available. So arguably the sane option is to attack demand. Most new users are idiots rather than career criminals. How much demand would there be if possession and use alone carried a very long prison sentence?
I would actually focus treatment on users and toughen sentences for dealers and suppliers of hard drugs ie tackle the problem at source
The sentences for the big dealers are already extraordinarily long. It appears to make no difference. This is because there is always a supply of career criminals, though small in number (huge in impact of course). But how many new users would start if the threat was a very long sentence just for possession of individual quantities?
Society is entitled to make these sorts of judgements as to how serious actions are, and to change its mind.
I was back in Rochdale yesterday managing the removers as my parents are moving up here (after 41 years in the same house). Whilst I've seen how busy the town is getting over the years, it really hit home yesterday with absurd traffic levels.
Quite simply there are too many cars, too many houses, too many people. For 20 years the council have allowed houses to be built and built and built along the Rochdale > Littleborough road to the point where its now ludicrously busy.
New houses means you need new roads. New schools. New infrastructure. But there has been none of that. Just people piled on top of people so that you can barely move. Yes I know my perspective has shifted having moved to the country. But at which point do councils have a requirement to actually stop and plan rather than just let developments go up everywhere?
This is one of the problems. I've posted before about the likelihood of houses being built on the fields behind our house. I'm (really*) not against that in principle, but it does require upgrading facilities. It needs a new road in from the bypass. It needs at least a local shop or two. It needs a school or drastic expansion of the nearest school. The town would benefit from management of the floodplain (which only floods 1-2 times per year) to put in some nice parkland/playing fields (the town lacks this, just a few small play parks) and some good cycling/walking infrastructure to get from the new houses to the town centre in the most direct way. Those - even some of those - could make the development a net plus for us. The proposal is however houses only.
*I'll be a bit sad about it. There's a barn owl will lose its home/hunting ground, the deer will no longer wander through in the early morning, the hares won't be running across the field... But we do need houses and the flood plain means that the houses won't be that close and won't really impact on us in terms of privacy etc. It will be a less nice view, but I'd trade that if it led to new amenities for the town.
Is there a coordination of planning between councils and national government? In Scotland there is a duty on councils to produce a plan which is then reviewed by national gmt. I haven't looked into this in detail but for instance in my home area it is pretty clear what the plans are for new houses and where, and one can put one's views to the review. And, I assume, the total of plans bears some relation to government planninbg for new houses, new social/council housing, etc.
I'm wondering if this explains the otherwise bizarre map of Nimbyism in the UK we were discussing in PB a few weeks ago - total contrast across the Anglo-Scottish border.
There is a local plan, with consultation on that (we made our views known - essentially the above). I don't know whether the national government gets involved. The local plan has housing/mixed use which includes the proposed development, new roads etc - much, if not all, of what I ask for above. The proposed development is a smallish part of that site, accessed from the more desirable of the adjacent roads, but just houses. I hope the council will enforce their plan, so that at least some of the infrastructure is also built - wait and see, I guess. The council own the land in question, which is leased to the farmers, so they will have some conflicting interests, I guess - I'm sure there is a lot of good they could do with the money from selling the land, but I hope they don't lose sight of the benefits from doing the right development.
WRT to this, the plan needs to be examined by a government appointed planning Inspector before it can be adopted. I cannot tell if this has happened in your case. What generally happens in situations like this is the developer will go through a process of getting as much profit out of the site as possible (ie putting on twice as many houses, and only providing the perks that directly boost the value of the houses they are building). There is also a loophole whereby if the plan gets to be more than 5 years old, or the Council isn't delivering enough housing, then the plan becomes 'out of date'; which is often effectively a green light to go ahead anyway. In such a scenario, as an objector, you have to find harm in some way: IE is the existing infrastructure really that inadequate, would there be such disruption on the roads that it 'significantly and demonstrably' outweighs the benefit of more housing. Not sure if any of this applies here, but people who have been scarred by these battles will be able to tell you that you can't really rely on what is in the plan, unfortunately.
Thanks, that's interesting.
Last plan is over 5 years old. The new plan is not yet adopted (is that the right word? - still out for consultation, I think).
The developer's plan is not yet in for planning permission; it has only been sent round to residents, by them, for consultation. I suspect, as you say, it may be an unrealistic opening gambit - they might add some amenities in response to the consultation, which were - perhaps - always planned anyway. As for impacts, that's the other interesting thing. The proposed development is, in the first stage, only 300 houses. Impacts not so great or hard to show. The local plan has ten times that number in a contiguous area. Overall, it would have a big impact. But added a few hundred at a time? No single group of a few hundred makes a huge difference...
For this particular development, the council does in principle have absolute veto as they own the land, I guess. But council budgets what they are, there will be a strong incentive to sell and put the money to use.
I assume - and accept - that all the earmarked land will be built on over the few years. The thing that I hope can still be influenced is exactly what is built.
Yeah, well all I can say is good luck and to repeat what I said before, don't rely on the plan. It sounds like they may be trying to sneak something through the loophole I described previously. Don't trust them. And don't rely on the Council to act reasonably. The fact that they have a financial interest in it makes the whole situation even more dubious. Sorry to be so negative. I would set up an action group and try and find some wealthy retired lawyers to pick through every detail of what is going on, and get on the back of your local Councillors. With a bit of luck, by the end of the process, in 20 years or so time, you might just about get what was sold to you in the draft plan.
The one thing I would say is don't be put off by the tag of Nimby, its just a slur. An acquaintance of mine was a very senior Council planning officer, and he successfully fought off development on a field opposite where he lived for 20 or so years (obviously it fell within a different Council).
The book Broken Homes by Peter Bill and Jackie Sadek is very good on this situation. Very readable.
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Labour are out of power precisely because of your comments
However, the conservative party's desire for power is much more pragmatic
Was it so pragmatic when it picked Hague over Clarke after the 1997 defeat following 18 years in power and then followed that by picking IDS over Clarke and Portillo?
Hague wasn't such an unreasonable choice if you ask me, I think he just got the job too young and was unfairly discriminated against by the electorate on the basis of his northern accent. But picking IDS was lunacy.
There is an argument that a Clarke-led opposition in 2001 would have allowed Blair to do what he wanted to and go into the Euro.
Obviously Clarke would have been my choice over Hague, but I'm a pro European social democrat not a Tory. Clarke's views on the EU made it impossible for him to lead the Tories. I'm not sure Blair would have got the euro past Brown or HMT/the BOE to be honest, but there is certainly an interesting counterfactual history where we joined. I suspect we would have blown the whole thing up.
Isn't the problem with legalising everything is that it rather undermines the regulation of drugs (i.e. including prescription drugs) in general? Why shouldn't someone get hooked on painkillers?
Americas opiate crisis (which now kills more than vehicle accidents or guns) was fuelled by over prescription of legal opiates.
If you make these things available, addiction expands. We should know, we started the international opium trade.
No one was or is running public health campaigns explaining the risks, dangers, and side effects of opiates in the US.
Drugs in the UK should be legalised but this wouldn't necessarily mean you could pop down to Boots for a spliff. There would have to be a huge education programme and perhaps even licensing although that might create a market in those similar to the one for drugs.
On topic, Stephen Bush of Statesman's email this morning - an interesting comment:
"The central reason why Patel's stock is not as high as it once was among Conservative activists is the perception that her department is failing: that she is unable to prevent more people coming here on boats in search of a better life, that we have de facto decriminalised most crimes other than murder and speeding, that the Metropolitan Police is poorly run, and so on.
Now, the wheel of politics has plenty of turns and it's possible that this time next year we're once again talking about how much activists and MPs love Priti Patel. But the concern among some MPs who believe - rightly in my view - that Patel was integral to their 2019 re-election is that the fall in the Home Secretary's stock among party activists is the first sign that the government's advantage as far as crime and security is concerned might once again be about to come under serious threat in the country as a whole."
Well, when the police seem more interested in policing Twitter, that catching speeding motorists appears to be more of a priority than stopping protesters blocking the roads, and when police themselves turn out to have a lot of bad eggs in their ranks, it’s hardly surprising that confidence in the Home Secretary is low.
Elements of the Tory target demographic were always rather reluctant to give up the right to speed, prefereably when pished. I can remember the arguments over the introduction of the breathalyser, etc.
If you want to find one point in recent history, where the general public started to lose faith in the police, the introduction of speed cameras is probably it.
I am in favour of people sticking to speed limits, and consequently of punishing people when they do not. However, policing in a democracy has to be by consent, and it's evident that the argument over speeding is not won. There is not consent for the enforcement of speed limits. Or at least the minority opposed is the largest for any policing issue.
Living in a village where twats drive through sometimes at double the speed limit, I would like to see speed averaging cameras introduced to catch the irresponsible bastards
I am a big respecter of speed limits, especially the lower ones. One phenomenon I have never understood is when you get stuck behind someone trundling along at 40mph on a country road, then when they get to a village with a 30mph limit they keep going at 40mph! It's like they're driving the nitro truck in the Wages of Fear or the bus in Speed or something and can't deviate from their preferred speed.
Yep we get that a lot around here. I think there is a case for more shocking public info adverts. The difference between 30 and 40 mph collision with a pedestrian is death by dangerous driving and a prison sentence.
In Taiwan, the penalty for speeding, or riding without a helmet was to be dragged into a mobile van and forced to watch video of crash aftermaths, brain operations and photos of injuries and disabilities caused.
Might focus the mind. If you wanted to be really shocking for repeat offenders perhaps they should use augmented reality to make them watch a simulation of a loved one being hit by a speeding car.
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Labour are out of power precisely because of your comments
However, the conservative party's desire for power is much more pragmatic
Was it so pragmatic when it picked Hague over Clarke after the 1997 defeat following 18 years in power and then followed that by picking IDS over Clarke and Portillo?
Hague wasn't such an unreasonable choice if you ask me, I think he just got the job too young and was unfairly discriminated against by the electorate on the basis of his northern accent. But picking IDS was lunacy.
Was it his accent? I quite liked his accent which was reasonably well spoken with a slight Yorkshire hint, not too dissimilar to Harald Wilson. Angela Rayner on the other hand sounds terrible to most southern ears I would guess.
I dunno, I remember it getting mocked. I thought it was fine. The only British accent I can't stand is home counties posh. I can't listen to radio 4.
Isn't the problem with legalising everything is that it rather undermines the regulation of drugs (i.e. including prescription drugs) in general? Why shouldn't someone get hooked on painkillers?
Americas opiate crisis (which now kills more than vehicle accidents or guns) was fuelled by over prescription of legal opiates.
If you make these things available, addiction expands. We should know, we started the international opium trade.
No one was or is running public health campaigns explaining the risks, dangers, and side effects of opiates in the US.
Drugs in the UK should be legalised but this wouldn't necessarily mean you could pop down to Boots for a spliff. There would have to be a huge education programme and perhaps even licensing although that might create a market in those similar to the one for drugs.
I think you should be able to pop down to Boots for a spliff. Actually I think you should be able to pop down to Morrisons for a spliff.
Anywhere that tobacco and alcohol is sold. But yes education and treatment is key.
I'm curious if that happened what would distinguish Waitrose spliffs?
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
Definitely legalise cocaine too.
It is a piece of piss for anyone who wants to get any of these drugs, to do so.
A law that can't be enforced is not a good law. All you're doing is pushing people into the grateful arms of criminals.
Tax them and try to eradicate their use via education and treatment instead.
Don't see how that works. Are you going to legalise the whole supply chain all the way back to licensed, legal growers in Colombia? If you don't you are sponsoring untold misery and death all the way up the chain. If you do, is the Colombian government going to be very happy with that?
And btw the young Freud was markedly unpopular with contemporary medics for causing an explosion in cocaine use and associated civic problems - all at a time when the stuff was 100% legal everywhere.
Yes legalise the entire supply chain, that's the entire point. If you're not legalising the entire supply chain the entire thing is pointless.
I don't care if the Colombian government is happy or not.
The UK cannot legalise activities in Colombia. Your whole case collapses if the Colombian government is unhappy.
Why would the legalised drugs be grown in Colombia? Why wouldn't they be grown in the UK? Or any other nation where its legalised?
Good point. They will definitely flourish in all the UK's tropical rainforest, especially that which grows at upwards of 2,000 feet.
I was back in Rochdale yesterday managing the removers as my parents are moving up here (after 41 years in the same house). Whilst I've seen how busy the town is getting over the years, it really hit home yesterday with absurd traffic levels.
Quite simply there are too many cars, too many houses, too many people. For 20 years the council have allowed houses to be built and built and built along the Rochdale > Littleborough road to the point where its now ludicrously busy.
New houses means you need new roads. New schools. New infrastructure. But there has been none of that. Just people piled on top of people so that you can barely move. Yes I know my perspective has shifted having moved to the country. But at which point do councils have a requirement to actually stop and plan rather than just let developments go up everywhere?
This is one of the problems. I've posted before about the likelihood of houses being built on the fields behind our house. I'm (really*) not against that in principle, but it does require upgrading facilities. It needs a new road in from the bypass. It needs at least a local shop or two. It needs a school or drastic expansion of the nearest school. The town would benefit from management of the floodplain (which only floods 1-2 times per year) to put in some nice parkland/playing fields (the town lacks this, just a few small play parks) and some good cycling/walking infrastructure to get from the new houses to the town centre in the most direct way. Those - even some of those - could make the development a net plus for us. The proposal is however houses only.
*I'll be a bit sad about it. There's a barn owl will lose its home/hunting ground, the deer will no longer wander through in the early morning, the hares won't be running across the field... But we do need houses and the flood plain means that the houses won't be that close and won't really impact on us in terms of privacy etc. It will be a less nice view, but I'd trade that if it led to new amenities for the town.
The LA have the ability (working with the Trafffic Authority) to really push active travel.
There are all kinds of possibilities, and things that can be made requirements. You (or somebody) need to get stuck in with the Council. The Council has a very short institutional memory for good practice.
Places like Nottingham, and Chesterfield, are doing quite remarkable things.
You need a group of enough to lobby every councillor at the relevant Local Gov levels, and to keep on for a long time.
This is the sort of thing a non-sectarian Green Party should be for.
Thanks also. There's scope here to do something quite exciting, linking up with existing cycle routes/bridleways. Unfortunately a lot of the opposition here is of the NIMBY variety, opposed to any development on the site, so I'm not sure whether there's a group that can be pulled together to push for an active travel component. Maybe local running/cycling/equestrian clubs... I'll have to check.
I really encourage on that, but be warned - it is a vocation.
And your windows of opportunity are often the 3 week comment period on Planning Apps.
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Labour are out of power precisely because of your comments
However, the conservative party's desire for power is much more pragmatic
Was it so pragmatic when it picked Hague over Clarke after the 1997 defeat following 18 years in power and then followed that by picking IDS over Clarke and Portillo?
Hague wasn't such an unreasonable choice if you ask me, I think he just got the job too young and was unfairly discriminated against by the electorate on the basis of his northern accent. But picking IDS was lunacy.
There is an argument that a Clarke-led opposition in 2001 would have allowed Blair to do what he wanted to and go into the Euro.
Labour's position was that joining the euro would require a referendum vote. The thought was that Tone was so adored and persuasive at the time that he would have easily carried the country with him. I'm not so sure.
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
Definitely legalise cocaine too.
It is a piece of piss for anyone who wants to get any of these drugs, to do so.
A law that can't be enforced is not a good law. All you're doing is pushing people into the grateful arms of criminals.
Tax them and try to eradicate their use via education and treatment instead.
Don't see how that works. Are you going to legalise the whole supply chain all the way back to licensed, legal growers in Colombia? If you don't you are sponsoring untold misery and death all the way up the chain. If you do, is the Colombian government going to be very happy with that?
And btw the young Freud was markedly unpopular with contemporary medics for causing an explosion in cocaine use and associated civic problems - all at a time when the stuff was 100% legal everywhere.
Yes legalise the entire supply chain, that's the entire point. If you're not legalising the entire supply chain the entire thing is pointless.
I don't care if the Colombian government is happy or not.
The UK cannot legalise activities in Colombia. Your whole case collapses if the Colombian government is unhappy.
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Labour are out of power precisely because of your comments
However, the conservative party's desire for power is much more pragmatic
Was it so pragmatic when it picked Hague over Clarke after the 1997 defeat following 18 years in power and then followed that by picking IDS over Clarke and Portillo?
Hague wasn't such an unreasonable choice if you ask me, I think he just got the job too young and was unfairly discriminated against by the electorate on the basis of his northern accent. But picking IDS was lunacy.
There is an argument that a Clarke-led opposition in 2001 would have allowed Blair to do what he wanted to and go into the Euro.
Obviously Clarke would have been my choice over Hague, but I'm a pro European social democrat not a Tory. Clarke's views on the EU made it impossible for him to lead the Tories. I'm not sure Blair would have got the euro past Brown or HMT/the BOE to be honest, but there is certainly an interesting counterfactual history where we joined. I suspect we would have blown the whole thing up.
I wasn't in favour of joining the Euro, but an interesting counterfactual is that UK membership of The Euro might have made it more successful and it might have been very prosperous for us, seeing as we dominate the financial world. The Euro could have been a British driven project, which I guess would have been KC's viewpoint.
Isn't the problem with legalising everything is that it rather undermines the regulation of drugs (i.e. including prescription drugs) in general? Why shouldn't someone get hooked on painkillers?
Americas opiate crisis (which now kills more than vehicle accidents or guns) was fuelled by over prescription of legal opiates.
If you make these things available, addiction expands. We should know, we started the international opium trade.
But opiates are available, you just have to want them enough to go asking around. I'm sure for many it would be faster to find a dealer then a GP.
For me the ideal isn't just decriminalisation but a holistic approach to users. Destigmatising drug use, supporting users and mandating anti-addiction programmes. Even America's making a start on cannabis and some psychedelics. Why are we falling behind the US?
Isn't the problem with legalising everything is that it rather undermines the regulation of drugs (i.e. including prescription drugs) in general? Why shouldn't someone get hooked on painkillers?
Americas opiate crisis (which now kills more than vehicle accidents or guns) was fuelled by over prescription of legal opiates.
If you make these things available, addiction expands. We should know, we started the international opium trade.
But opiates are available, you just have to want them enough to go asking around. I'm sure for many it would be faster to find a dealer then a GP.
For me the ideal isn't just decriminalisation but a holistic approach to users. Destigmatising drug use, supporting users and mandating anti-addiction programmes.
Especially as we know that chemical addiction is a tiny part of the process of becoming an addict, which is usually root caused in loneliness, isolation, and related mental health issues.
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Labour are out of power precisely because of your comments
However, the conservative party's desire for power is much more pragmatic
Was it so pragmatic when it picked Hague over Clarke after the 1997 defeat following 18 years in power and then followed that by picking IDS over Clarke and Portillo?
Hague wasn't such an unreasonable choice if you ask me, I think he just got the job too young and was unfairly discriminated against by the electorate on the basis of his northern accent. But picking IDS was lunacy.
Was it his accent? I quite liked his accent which was reasonably well spoken with a slight Yorkshire hint, not too dissimilar to Harald Wilson. Angela Rayner on the other hand sounds terrible to most southern ears I would guess.
It wasn't his accent, which wasn't particularly strong. It was the bizarre cadence and strangely inconsistent stress. Plus the fact he regularly talked out stuff no-one gave a toss about.
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
Definitely legalise cocaine too.
It is a piece of piss for anyone who wants to get any of these drugs, to do so.
A law that can't be enforced is not a good law. All you're doing is pushing people into the grateful arms of criminals.
Tax them and try to eradicate their use via education and treatment instead.
Don't see how that works. Are you going to legalise the whole supply chain all the way back to licensed, legal growers in Colombia? If you don't you are sponsoring untold misery and death all the way up the chain. If you do, is the Colombian government going to be very happy with that?
And btw the young Freud was markedly unpopular with contemporary medics for causing an explosion in cocaine use and associated civic problems - all at a time when the stuff was 100% legal everywhere.
Yes legalise the entire supply chain, that's the entire point. If you're not legalising the entire supply chain the entire thing is pointless.
I don't care if the Colombian government is happy or not.
The UK cannot legalise activities in Colombia. Your whole case collapses if the Colombian government is unhappy.
You don't have to grow the plants in Colombia.
They are less frost hardy than citrus, so the UK is going to have to find a third country to supply it.
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Labour are out of power precisely because of your comments
However, the conservative party's desire for power is much more pragmatic
Was it so pragmatic when it picked Hague over Clarke after the 1997 defeat following 18 years in power and then followed that by picking IDS over Clarke and Portillo?
Hague wasn't such an unreasonable choice if you ask me, I think he just got the job too young and was unfairly discriminated against by the electorate on the basis of his northern accent. But picking IDS was lunacy.
Was it his accent? I quite liked his accent which was reasonably well spoken with a slight Yorkshire hint, not too dissimilar to Harald Wilson. Angela Rayner on the other hand sounds terrible to most southern ears I would guess.
It wasn't his accent, which wasn't particularly strong. It was the bizarre cadence and strangely inconsistent stress. Plus the fact he regularly talked out stuff no-one gave a toss about.
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
Definitely legalise cocaine too.
It is a piece of piss for anyone who wants to get any of these drugs, to do so.
A law that can't be enforced is not a good law. All you're doing is pushing people into the grateful arms of criminals.
Tax them and try to eradicate their use via education and treatment instead.
Don't see how that works. Are you going to legalise the whole supply chain all the way back to licensed, legal growers in Colombia? If you don't you are sponsoring untold misery and death all the way up the chain. If you do, is the Colombian government going to be very happy with that?
And btw the young Freud was markedly unpopular with contemporary medics for causing an explosion in cocaine use and associated civic problems - all at a time when the stuff was 100% legal everywhere.
Yes legalise the entire supply chain, that's the entire point. If you're not legalising the entire supply chain the entire thing is pointless.
I don't care if the Colombian government is happy or not.
The UK cannot legalise activities in Colombia. Your whole case collapses if the Colombian government is unhappy.
Why would the legalised drugs be grown in Colombia? Why wouldn't they be grown in the UK? Or any other nation where its legalised?
Good point. They will definitely flourish in all the UK's tropical rainforest, especially that which grows at upwards of 2,000 feet.
I do believe its as equally technically possible to grow coca plants as it is to grow cannabis plants. Especially with lights etc to stimulate growth.
Its grown in Columbia primarily for ease and because the criminals can get away with growing it there, not because its not possible to grow elsewhere.
Legalise and regulate it and if there were no legal alternatives you'd soon have legal businesses legally growing it in this country. Using whatever technology is required.
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
If you legalise anything more people will do it and try it. That means more people will try harder drugs like heroin and cocaine just because they can.
You can still keep the treatment options for those who are heroin addicts now
Both legalisation and criminalisation are terrible policies, but one is likely to be worse than the other. There is no good policy available in a free society. I think decriminalisation would be worth a try.
A third variant, never yet tried, is to make possession and use the really big offence, not dealing. There will always be career criminals to run the big operations, and there will always be replacements available. So arguably the sane option is to attack demand. Most new users are idiots rather than career criminals. How much demand would there be if possession and use alone carried a very long prison sentence?
I would actually focus treatment on users and toughen sentences for dealers and suppliers of hard drugs ie tackle the problem at source
The sentences for the big dealers are already extraordinarily long. It appears to make no difference. This is because there is always a supply of career criminals, though small in number (huge in impact of course). But how many new users would start if the threat was a very long sentence just for possession of individual quantities?
Society is entitled to make these sorts of judgements as to how serious actions are, and to change its mind.
I don't really want to live in a society where a young person gets a custodial sentence for trying a puff on a spliff thanks.
Adam Boulton of Sky has just got Insulate Britain to admit their plans would cost between half and one trillion pounds over 10 years
Without a concrete commitment to half a trillion plus spent on their pet project they'll continue to blockade roads.
People need to be imprisoned if they continue with this. Let them demonstrate from prison.
Their demand is every house in UK is fully insulated? Putting aside the cost and the practicalities of delivering, how much CO2 would this actually save? It's a generally laudable goal but is it a screaming must all be done in next year emergency priority?
A better target might be get on a build more nuclear so we can switch from gas faster?
A better target might have been to get on and build more wind turbines (and insulate more houses) when, less than a decade ago, people like Boris Johnson were claiming that they couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding and people like Anne-Marie Trevelyan were denying the existence of climate change altogether. If we had a government made up of people who accepted reality, we wouldn't need XR!
We don’t need them. We have a govt who accepts this. Wind turbines have been going up offshore for quite a while now and New ones in the pipeline. Complaining about what people used to think when the science wasn’t as settled as it is now is futile.
There is no battle, all mainstream parties accept this. The Tories do. Trevelyan does.
Who, in the Current govt on the climate issue, does not Accept the need to take action ?
I got my house insulated, paid by the govt, a while ago. There are schemes and the govt is taking action.
The science was well settled a decade ago. Indeed, it's been known since the 1980s that CO2 emissions were an urgent problem. The reason we're in a mess now is not because of XR, Greenpeace and Co; it's bacause of the refusal of governments, particularly right-wing governments, to act on the advice of the scientists.
Not clear which "mess" you are referring to. The one caused by Putin pulling on the Gas Supply noose he has been given around Germany's neck?
And how has the expansion of wind energy not been on the advice of the scientists?
We have had 3 large rounds of offshore wind farm licensing, let in 2000, 2010, and (I think) 2019. We are now doing round 4.
Which seems to be 'following the science' very well.
If following the science is about insulation, that was settled a generation ago.
Newnight man Justin Rowlatt was followed doing his house up as an "Ethical Man" in 2006, and Energy Efficiency was a huge theme of "Homeworld '81" in Milton Keynes. The Money Programme even sponsored the build of an energy-efficiant house. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-56996505
Wow. I'm glad someone's mentioned the Milton Keynes thing. I was thinking about that the other day - I went with my parents as my dad was looking for ideas for the houses he was building. ISTR an ugly 'energy efficient' showhome there, and a more 'normal' one as well. I think we went back in 86 as well, when I got a SuperTed toy promoting energy efficiency.
Isn't the problem with legalising everything is that it rather undermines the regulation of drugs (i.e. including prescription drugs) in general? Why shouldn't someone get hooked on painkillers?
Americas opiate crisis (which now kills more than vehicle accidents or guns) was fuelled by over prescription of legal opiates.
If you make these things available, addiction expands. We should know, we started the international opium trade.
No one was or is running public health campaigns explaining the risks, dangers, and side effects of opiates in the US.
Drugs in the UK should be legalised but this wouldn't necessarily mean you could pop down to Boots for a spliff. There would have to be a huge education programme and perhaps even licensing although that might create a market in those similar to the one for drugs.
I think you should be able to pop down to Boots for a spliff. Actually I think you should be able to pop down to Morrisons for a spliff.
Anywhere that tobacco and alcohol is sold. But yes education and treatment is key.
I'm curious if that happened what would distinguish Waitrose spliffs?
Organic. But spliffs is another problem. There's no reason to think tobacco smoke is more damaging to the lungs then other sorts, its just what we have most data for. You want to encourage smoking?
Also, cannabis psychosis. Not, sadly, a myth created by The Man to scare you off the stuff.
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
Definitely legalise cocaine too.
It is a piece of piss for anyone who wants to get any of these drugs, to do so.
A law that can't be enforced is not a good law. All you're doing is pushing people into the grateful arms of criminals.
Tax them and try to eradicate their use via education and treatment instead.
Don't see how that works. Are you going to legalise the whole supply chain all the way back to licensed, legal growers in Colombia? If you don't you are sponsoring untold misery and death all the way up the chain. If you do, is the Colombian government going to be very happy with that?
And btw the young Freud was markedly unpopular with contemporary medics for causing an explosion in cocaine use and associated civic problems - all at a time when the stuff was 100% legal everywhere.
Yes legalise the entire supply chain, that's the entire point. If you're not legalising the entire supply chain the entire thing is pointless.
I don't care if the Colombian government is happy or not.
The UK cannot legalise activities in Colombia. Your whole case collapses if the Colombian government is unhappy.
You don't have to grow the plants in Colombia.
They are less frost hardy than citrus, so the UK is going to have to find a third country to supply it.
There is such a thing as greenhouses. Regardless, we should do what is best for our citizens. It is on Colombia and Mexico to then decide to do what is best for theirs in that context.
For what it's worth, I think you have the pressure the wrong way round. There is heavy sentiment for legalization in many of these poor countries but they feel they need to be pro-prohibition because of political pressure from rich countries, most notably the United States.
How come the Magnificent Muscly Man is so low in these ratings? Is he not loved by his own?
He seems to have a following with the whippersnappers. Imagine going to the barber and asking for a Boris cut?
I foresee many decades ahead for these lads of whining about why cool, sexy, liberal elite Remoaners won’t shag them.
One on the extreme right - and I bet that's apposite - has a bit of a 'clockwork orange' vibe going on there. I would not like to cross his path if I was down on my luck.
Adam Boulton of Sky has just got Insulate Britain to admit their plans would cost between half and one trillion pounds over 10 years
Without a concrete commitment to half a trillion plus spent on their pet project they'll continue to blockade roads.
People need to be imprisoned if they continue with this. Let them demonstrate from prison.
You really need to control this libertarian streak of yours, Philip.
It is a new political philosophy: Thompsonian Libertarianism. Non-intervention in things Philip agrees with. High handed authoritarianism for people he doesn't like!
Got to agree with him regarding these holier-than-thou twats blocking the roads though. Lock up up!!
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
Heroin is a very important medical drug used liberally by the NHS – many mothers will have had it during childbirth. I'm told it's pretty safe when clean and uncut, assuming the dosage is correct. Weirdly, lots of people don't seem to realise that diamorphine is heroin (the latter was originally a brandname which became generic, like tarmac).
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Labour are out of power precisely because of your comments
However, the conservative party's desire for power is much more pragmatic
Was it so pragmatic when it picked Hague over Clarke after the 1997 defeat following 18 years in power and then followed that by picking IDS over Clarke and Portillo?
Hague wasn't such an unreasonable choice if you ask me, I think he just got the job too young and was unfairly discriminated against by the electorate on the basis of his northern accent. But picking IDS was lunacy.
There is an argument that a Clarke-led opposition in 2001 would have allowed Blair to do what he wanted to and go into the Euro.
Obviously Clarke would have been my choice over Hague, but I'm a pro European social democrat not a Tory. Clarke's views on the EU made it impossible for him to lead the Tories. I'm not sure Blair would have got the euro past Brown or HMT/the BOE to be honest, but there is certainly an interesting counterfactual history where we joined. I suspect we would have blown the whole thing up.
I wasn't in favour of joining the Euro, but an interesting counterfactual is that UK membership of The Euro might have made it more successful and it might have been very prosperous for us, seeing as we dominate the financial world. The Euro could have been a British driven project, which I guess would have been KC's viewpoint.
Like you I am something of a euro-sceptic, as in sceptical about the wisdom of a single currency without fiscal union. I suspect they will muddle through, they're too invested in it. But I think if we had been a member in 2008 we probably would have crashed out, and that might well have blown it up completely. I think we should have joined Schengen and enjoyed properly open borders, passport free travel to Spain, through trains from Glasgow to Paris etc, but not the euro until there was a more meaningful degree of fiscal union.
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Labour are out of power precisely because of your comments
However, the conservative party's desire for power is much more pragmatic
Was it so pragmatic when it picked Hague over Clarke after the 1997 defeat following 18 years in power and then followed that by picking IDS over Clarke and Portillo?
Hague wasn't such an unreasonable choice if you ask me, I think he just got the job too young and was unfairly discriminated against by the electorate on the basis of his northern accent. But picking IDS was lunacy.
Was it his accent? I quite liked his accent which was reasonably well spoken with a slight Yorkshire hint, not too dissimilar to Harald Wilson. Angela Rayner on the other hand sounds terrible to most southern ears I would guess.
I dunno, I remember it getting mocked. I thought it was fine. The only British accent I can't stand is home counties posh. I can't listen to radio 4.
On which topic. When did BBC speak make "Police" into a monosyllabic word? Am finding it impossible to follow what is going on with the plees and pleesing in general.
Isn't the problem with legalising everything is that it rather undermines the regulation of drugs (i.e. including prescription drugs) in general? Why shouldn't someone get hooked on painkillers?
Americas opiate crisis (which now kills more than vehicle accidents or guns) was fuelled by over prescription of legal opiates.
If you make these things available, addiction expands. We should know, we started the international opium trade.
No one was or is running public health campaigns explaining the risks, dangers, and side effects of opiates in the US.
Drugs in the UK should be legalised but this wouldn't necessarily mean you could pop down to Boots for a spliff. There would have to be a huge education programme and perhaps even licensing although that might create a market in those similar to the one for drugs.
I think you should be able to pop down to Boots for a spliff. Actually I think you should be able to pop down to Morrisons for a spliff.
Anywhere that tobacco and alcohol is sold. But yes education and treatment is key.
I'm curious if that happened what would distinguish Waitrose spliffs?
Organic. But spliffs is another problem. There's no reason to think tobacco smoke is more damaging to the lungs then other sorts, its just what we have most data for. You want to encourage smoking?
Also, cannabis psychosis. Not, sadly, a myth created by The Man to scare you off the stuff.
I don't want to encourage it. I want to discourage it, but treat it as a health & education matter not a law enforcement matter.
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
If you legalise anything more people will do it and try it. That means more people will try harder drugs like heroin and cocaine just because they can.
You can still keep the treatment options for those who are heroin addicts now
Both legalisation and criminalisation are terrible policies, but one is likely to be worse than the other. There is no good policy available in a free society. I think decriminalisation would be worth a try.
A third variant, never yet tried, is to make possession and use the really big offence, not dealing. There will always be career criminals to run the big operations, and there will always be replacements available. So arguably the sane option is to attack demand. Most new users are idiots rather than career criminals. How much demand would there be if possession and use alone carried a very long prison sentence?
I would actually focus treatment on users and toughen sentences for dealers and suppliers of hard drugs ie tackle the problem at source
The sentences for the big dealers are already extraordinarily long. It appears to make no difference. This is because there is always a supply of career criminals, though small in number (huge in impact of course). But how many new users would start if the threat was a very long sentence just for possession of individual quantities?
Society is entitled to make these sorts of judgements as to how serious actions are, and to change its mind.
I don't really want to live in a society where a young person gets a custodial sentence for trying a puff on a spliff thanks.
No, if you did I imagine you would be living in Singapore
O/T I need to rant about utter cockjuggling thunder***** who post spoilers about TV shows on forums.
They need to sodomised by pylons.
What show and what forum as most are good at highlighting what's allowed and what isn't...
Billions and normally the DS Forums are going for having threads spoilered and non spoilered but someone's put a bloody great huge spoiler in the thread title.
I want to commit unspeakable acts of violence towards the person who posted the spoiler.
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Labour are out of power precisely because of your comments
However, the conservative party's desire for power is much more pragmatic
Was it so pragmatic when it picked Hague over Clarke after the 1997 defeat following 18 years in power and then followed that by picking IDS over Clarke and Portillo?
Hague wasn't such an unreasonable choice if you ask me, I think he just got the job too young and was unfairly discriminated against by the electorate on the basis of his northern accent. But picking IDS was lunacy.
There is an argument that a Clarke-led opposition in 2001 would have allowed Blair to do what he wanted to and go into the Euro.
Obviously Clarke would have been my choice over Hague, but I'm a pro European social democrat not a Tory. Clarke's views on the EU made it impossible for him to lead the Tories. I'm not sure Blair would have got the euro past Brown or HMT/the BOE to be honest, but there is certainly an interesting counterfactual history where we joined. I suspect we would have blown the whole thing up.
I wasn't in favour of joining the Euro, but an interesting counterfactual is that UK membership of The Euro might have made it more successful and it might have been very prosperous for us, seeing as we dominate the financial world. The Euro could have been a British driven project, which I guess would have been KC's viewpoint.
The Euro could never have been a British driven process as France and Germany always prioritized their relationship with each other over us. They both have a deeply embedded policy of coming to a joint position before EU summits. Their combined weight in the various institutions was always going to drive decision making and leave us fighting a rear guard action.
Isn't the problem with legalising everything is that it rather undermines the regulation of drugs (i.e. including prescription drugs) in general? Why shouldn't someone get hooked on painkillers?
People are already hooked on legal painkillers. One of the ancillary problems of scheduling drugs is that the scheduling has little or no basis in science. e.g. MDMA, which is extremely safe compared to other legal and illegal drugs, is Class A, whereas alcohol, one of the most dangerous and debilitating drugs, is entirely legal.
People know the law is an ass, which is one reason why millions ignore it.
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Labour are out of power precisely because of your comments
However, the conservative party's desire for power is much more pragmatic
Was it so pragmatic when it picked Hague over Clarke after the 1997 defeat following 18 years in power and then followed that by picking IDS over Clarke and Portillo?
Hague wasn't such an unreasonable choice if you ask me, I think he just got the job too young and was unfairly discriminated against by the electorate on the basis of his northern accent. But picking IDS was lunacy.
You can also add picking Home over Butler in 1963.
On the Labour side similarly picking Foot over Healey in 1980, Ed Miliband over David Miliband in 2010 and Corbyn over Burnham in 2015
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
Heroin is a very important medical drug used liberally by the NHS – many mothers will have had it during childbirth. I'm told it's pretty safe when clean and uncut, assuming the dosage is correct. Weirdly, lots of people don't seem to realise that diamorphine is heroin (the latter was originally a brandname which became generic, like tarmac).
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Labour are out of power precisely because of your comments
However, the conservative party's desire for power is much more pragmatic
Was it so pragmatic when it picked Hague over Clarke after the 1997 defeat following 18 years in power and then followed that by picking IDS over Clarke and Portillo?
Hague wasn't such an unreasonable choice if you ask me, I think he just got the job too young and was unfairly discriminated against by the electorate on the basis of his northern accent. But picking IDS was lunacy.
You can also add picking Home over Butler in 1963.
On the Labour side similarly picking Foot over Healey in 1980, Ed Miliband over David Miliband in 2010 and Corbyn over Burnham in 2015
I think Miliband vs Miliband is a less extreme example, and I'm not only saying that because I voted for Ed!
How come the Magnificent Muscly Man is so low in these ratings? Is he not loved by his own?
Yes, I thought the same. We're always told, with some justification, that Boris's lovable rogue persona tickles the fancy of vast swathes of the country. And yet the most ardent Tories in this poll seem not to be as enamoured as the voters. I can only guess that the Tories polled are skewed to the fiscally dry, traditional values branch of the party.
They must have no sense of humour. I mean, how can anybody resist this sort of thing? -
So fortunate we are in these challenging times to have this man at the helm.
He spends a few seconds making a terrible build back batter pun . . . and leftwingers ensure its viewed millions of times sharing his build back better message.
How productive were those few seconds? No wonder he's Prime Minister.
I know exactly why he's Prime Minister. It's for the same reason Benny Hill got to number one with "Ernie".
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
Heroin is a very important medical drug used liberally by the NHS – many mothers will have had it during childbirth. I'm told it's pretty safe when clean and uncut, assuming the dosage is correct. Weirdly, lots of people don't seem to realise that diamorphine is heroin (the latter was originally a brandname which became generic, like tarmac).
Yep. Been on it three times.
I get fentanyl these days for colonoscopies. Very moreish stuff.
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Labour are out of power precisely because of your comments
However, the conservative party's desire for power is much more pragmatic
Was it so pragmatic when it picked Hague over Clarke after the 1997 defeat following 18 years in power and then followed that by picking IDS over Clarke and Portillo?
Hague wasn't such an unreasonable choice if you ask me, I think he just got the job too young and was unfairly discriminated against by the electorate on the basis of his northern accent. But picking IDS was lunacy.
There is an argument that a Clarke-led opposition in 2001 would have allowed Blair to do what he wanted to and go into the Euro.
Obviously Clarke would have been my choice over Hague, but I'm a pro European social democrat not a Tory. Clarke's views on the EU made it impossible for him to lead the Tories. I'm not sure Blair would have got the euro past Brown or HMT/the BOE to be honest, but there is certainly an interesting counterfactual history where we joined. I suspect we would have blown the whole thing up.
I wasn't in favour of joining the Euro, but an interesting counterfactual is that UK membership of The Euro might have made it more successful and it might have been very prosperous for us, seeing as we dominate the financial world. The Euro could have been a British driven project, which I guess would have been KC's viewpoint.
Like you I am something of a euro-sceptic, as in sceptical about the wisdom of a single currency without fiscal union. I suspect they will muddle through, they're too invested in it. But I think if we had been a member in 2008 we probably would have crashed out, and that might well have blown it up completely. I think we should have joined Schengen and enjoyed properly open borders, passport free travel to Spain, through trains from Glasgow to Paris etc, but not the euro until there was a more meaningful degree of fiscal union.
It's not just the passport controls which make Glasgow to Paris difficult. Any train going through the tunnel must be secure, so every passenger must still go through security at Glasgow just as at St Pancras. The train would effectively have to be for Paris only, picking up but not setting down at intermediate stations with passengers who wanted to go Glasgow to London having to take the next train (without security).
Now, a night train Belfast --> Dublin --> Liverpool --> London and the reverse with the train on the ferry would be excellent. Would require big subsidies, but would be a cheapish gesture of UK unity compared with fantasy bridges.
Isn't the problem with legalising everything is that it rather undermines the regulation of drugs (i.e. including prescription drugs) in general? Why shouldn't someone get hooked on painkillers?
Americas opiate crisis (which now kills more than vehicle accidents or guns) was fuelled by over prescription of legal opiates.
If you make these things available, addiction expands. We should know, we started the international opium trade.
No one was or is running public health campaigns explaining the risks, dangers, and side effects of opiates in the US.
Drugs in the UK should be legalised but this wouldn't necessarily mean you could pop down to Boots for a spliff. There would have to be a huge education programme and perhaps even licensing although that might create a market in those similar to the one for drugs.
I think you should be able to pop down to Boots for a spliff. Actually I think you should be able to pop down to Morrisons for a spliff.
Anywhere that tobacco and alcohol is sold. But yes education and treatment is key.
I'm curious if that happened what would distinguish Waitrose spliffs?
Organic. But spliffs is another problem. There's no reason to think tobacco smoke is more damaging to the lungs then other sorts, its just what we have most data for. You want to encourage smoking?
Also, cannabis psychosis. Not, sadly, a myth created by The Man to scare you off the stuff.
I don't want to encourage it. I want to discourage it, but treat it as a health & education matter not a law enforcement matter.
Allow me to agree with you on this as wholeheartedly as I disagree with you on Brexit!
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Labour are out of power precisely because of your comments
However, the conservative party's desire for power is much more pragmatic
Was it so pragmatic when it picked Hague over Clarke after the 1997 defeat following 18 years in power and then followed that by picking IDS over Clarke and Portillo?
Hague wasn't such an unreasonable choice if you ask me, I think he just got the job too young and was unfairly discriminated against by the electorate on the basis of his northern accent. But picking IDS was lunacy.
There is an argument that a Clarke-led opposition in 2001 would have allowed Blair to do what he wanted to and go into the Euro.
Obviously Clarke would have been my choice over Hague, but I'm a pro European social democrat not a Tory. Clarke's views on the EU made it impossible for him to lead the Tories. I'm not sure Blair would have got the euro past Brown or HMT/the BOE to be honest, but there is certainly an interesting counterfactual history where we joined. I suspect we would have blown the whole thing up.
I wasn't in favour of joining the Euro, but an interesting counterfactual is that UK membership of The Euro might have made it more successful and it might have been very prosperous for us, seeing as we dominate the financial world. The Euro could have been a British driven project, which I guess would have been KC's viewpoint.
No the Euro would have been a disaster for us as it's a system rigged in favour of surplus countries and against deficit countries, who bear the burden of any adjustment. We are a deficit country. Once the first crisis struck, we'd have been Greece or Italy on steroids, and too big to bail out.
We escaped that disaster against Blair's wishes and only through the judgement and good instincts of the British people.
I was back in Rochdale yesterday managing the removers as my parents are moving up here (after 41 years in the same house). Whilst I've seen how busy the town is getting over the years, it really hit home yesterday with absurd traffic levels.
Quite simply there are too many cars, too many houses, too many people. For 20 years the council have allowed houses to be built and built and built along the Rochdale > Littleborough road to the point where its now ludicrously busy.
New houses means you need new roads. New schools. New infrastructure. But there has been none of that. Just people piled on top of people so that you can barely move. Yes I know my perspective has shifted having moved to the country. But at which point do councils have a requirement to actually stop and plan rather than just let developments go up everywhere?
This is one of the problems. I've posted before about the likelihood of houses being built on the fields behind our house. I'm (really*) not against that in principle, but it does require upgrading facilities. It needs a new road in from the bypass. It needs at least a local shop or two. It needs a school or drastic expansion of the nearest school. The town would benefit from management of the floodplain (which only floods 1-2 times per year) to put in some nice parkland/playing fields (the town lacks this, just a few small play parks) and some good cycling/walking infrastructure to get from the new houses to the town centre in the most direct way. Those - even some of those - could make the development a net plus for us. The proposal is however houses only.
*I'll be a bit sad about it. There's a barn owl will lose its home/hunting ground, the deer will no longer wander through in the early morning, the hares won't be running across the field... But we do need houses and the flood plain means that the houses won't be that close and won't really impact on us in terms of privacy etc. It will be a less nice view, but I'd trade that if it led to new amenities for the town.
The LA have the ability (working with the Trafffic Authority) to really push active travel.
There are all kinds of possibilities, and things that can be made requirements. You (or somebody) need to get stuck in with the Council. The Council has a very short institutional memory for good practice.
Places like Nottingham, and Chesterfield, are doing quite remarkable things.
You need a group of enough to lobby every councillor at the relevant Local Gov levels, and to keep on for a long time.
This is the sort of thing a non-sectarian Green Party should be for.
Thanks also. There's scope here to do something quite exciting, linking up with existing cycle routes/bridleways. Unfortunately a lot of the opposition here is of the NIMBY variety, opposed to any development on the site, so I'm not sure whether there's a group that can be pulled together to push for an active travel component. Maybe local running/cycling/equestrian clubs... I'll have to check.
I really encourage on that, but be warned - it is a vocation.
And your windows of opportunity are often the 3 week comment period on Planning Apps.
Yep, I'd need to find a good local retired person to take it on
O/T: some hope for Conservatives in that Johnson only scores just above Priti Patel, but the real shocker is the two most swivelly of swivelly-eyed nutjobs, Frost and Rees-Mogg right up at the top. The modern Conservative Party clearly still has more extremists in it than Labour under Corbyn if so many want to endorse these two!
Neither Frost or JRM are as bad as Jezza.
But.
The people at the top of the list are the ones who make the Conservatives feel good about themselves, who tell the activists what they want to hear. In that sense, they are the mirror image of Corbyn.
In some ways, fair enough. But at some point, all parties need someone to remind them that not everyone thinks like them, or they can't have what they want. To give him his due, BoJo does that with greenery.
But who in the professional wing of the Conservative Party is left who is prepared to stand up to the activists?
Look, the Tories have been in power for 11 years now.
After 10 years in power all parties get a bit bored and less fresh and full of ideas. The activists too start to want a leader who is ideologically purer rather than to just stay in power for the sake of it.
Labour however has been out of power for over a decade, so it is they whose leadership needs to stand up to activists more than the Tories
Labour are out of power precisely because of your comments
However, the conservative party's desire for power is much more pragmatic
Was it so pragmatic when it picked Hague over Clarke after the 1997 defeat following 18 years in power and then followed that by picking IDS over Clarke and Portillo?
Hague wasn't such an unreasonable choice if you ask me, I think he just got the job too young and was unfairly discriminated against by the electorate on the basis of his northern accent. But picking IDS was lunacy.
There is an argument that a Clarke-led opposition in 2001 would have allowed Blair to do what he wanted to and go into the Euro.
Obviously Clarke would have been my choice over Hague, but I'm a pro European social democrat not a Tory. Clarke's views on the EU made it impossible for him to lead the Tories. I'm not sure Blair would have got the euro past Brown or HMT/the BOE to be honest, but there is certainly an interesting counterfactual history where we joined. I suspect we would have blown the whole thing up.
I wasn't in favour of joining the Euro, but an interesting counterfactual is that UK membership of The Euro might have made it more successful and it might have been very prosperous for us, seeing as we dominate the financial world. The Euro could have been a British driven project, which I guess would have been KC's viewpoint.
No the Euro would have been a disaster for us as it's a system rigged in favour of surplus countries and against debtor countries, who bear the burden of any adjustment. Once the first crisis struck, we'd have been Greece or Italy on steroids, and too big to bail out.
We escaped that disaster against Blair's wishes and only through the judgement and good instincts of the British people.
Yes, Blair could have screwed us. As on over spending, he had terrible economic judgement. Thank goodness he made up for it with his foreign policy wisdom.
The top of those rankings is a real horror show. Apart from Ben Wallace, who I have never heard of, Nadhim Zahawi is the first in the list who is not a genuine fruitcake or appalling second rate hack. When did the politicians in this country become so poor quality?
July 4, 1387. At 12.36
By chance - I honestly had no idea - the Count of Eu died in July 1387, poisoned by his sister.
Don't agree with Patel talking about tougher sentences for drugs whatsoever.
Time to legalise them instead.
Cannabis at most, certainly not hard drugs like heroin
Definitely legalise heroin. It’s not difficult to be a functional heroin addict, with a good quality product and treatment options - yet it’s the most likely drug to be cut with all sorts of crap by the black market, and turns lives upside-down because of the dependency on the dealers.
Heroin is a very important medical drug used liberally by the NHS – many mothers will have had it during childbirth. I'm told it's pretty safe when clean and uncut, assuming the dosage is correct. Weirdly, lots of people don't seem to realise that diamorphine is heroin (the latter was originally a brandname which became generic, like tarmac).
I'm getting rather specialist here, but most tarmac used on roads nowadays isn't technically Tarmacadam; it's asphalt concrete, and there are 1,001 different types.
(The main difference is that Tarmacadam used tar as the binding agent; asphalt uses bitumen. To confuse matters more, most Tarmacadam nowadays is actually bitmac, which is the Macadam aggregate bound together with asphalt as a halfway house between the two.)
Comments
She's been drafting a new bill to tackle the issue which is getting feedback to see how it affects stakeholders at the minute (see the RNLI histrionics by some here).
That process needs to be run through to its conclusion then see if it works.
This issue is fixable, the Aussies have done so, its just a case of making the right choices. We'll see soon when her bill is published and gone through Parliament whether its really been tackled or not.
Since about 95% of crime is committed by repeat offenders, this warehoused large numbers of them.
But this was "cruel', "hostile" etc....
However, the conservative party's desire for power is much more pragmatic
The only thing that really deters is a high risk of being caught, prosecuted and punished. They'd be much better focusing on how to improve the currently abysmally low rates of arrest/prosecution/conviction. But that's much harder than simply announcing 'tougher sentences'.
Prohibition has failed and because of criminalisation its not possible to open up easy and successful education and treatment option.
The proportion of UK adults taking illegal drugs and the proportion of UK adults smoking legal cigarettes are almost the same now and could crossover in the next few years. Tax, education and treatment has worked in driving down smoking rates.
It isn't about being soft or tough on crime. It ought to be about what works well.
Given our comparatively high prison population, combined with no discernibly lower rate of offending it is clear UK justice policies don't work.
So what do we get? A doubling down. Every year. For some headlines.
And it's getting worse.
Justice delayed is often Justice denied because no-one is going to court as a witness for an event 2+ years ago.
I accept dinosaurs like that fool McCluskey have an ideological agenda to promote from within their grace-and-favour tied homes, but having a Trade Union provided lawyer with one during an individual dispute with an employer (say an unfair dismissal proceeding) is the other side of the coin.
So desist with your Johnsonian cliche playbook.
A third variant, never yet tried, is to make possession and use the really big offence, not dealing. There will always be career criminals to run the big operations, and there will always be replacements available. So arguably the sane option is to attack demand. Most new users are idiots rather than career criminals. How much demand would there be if possession and use alone carried a very long prison sentence?
Making heroin available over the counter (or on prescription for registered addicts) would raise funds for treatment programmes, stop people dying of bad drugs, and most importantly reduce the number of people who end up unable to function in society becuase of addiction and crime.
However the flip side of that is that a not-insignificant proportion of people before the courts in 2021 were also before the courts in say 2019 and 2016 and 2013 and 2010 and ...
What proportion of people before the courts are actually first time offenders?
Breaking the revolving doors is much-needed and would reduce crime and reduce pressure upon the courts.
Once homosexuality was legal more people had active homosexual relationships, previously many with homosexual inclinations kept their feelings repressed and did not have same sex sexual relationships as it was illegal. Now of course it was right to legalise it but the point is if you make something legal that was illegal more people will try it. Same reason some people go to Amsterdam not just for the sites but as they can legally get drugs and use prostitutes.
I would just about legalise cannabis and soft drugs, I would not legalise hard drugs for that reason. As you note more people still smoke cigarettes, which are legal, than take illegal drugs
I'm sure even the man himself wouldn’t claim such influence!
Taking the example of Anne Sacoolas, there is a great desire to see her extradited, tried, and sent to jail for a long time. But what purpose would that truly serve? This is all about a public thirst for punishment.
And how has the expansion of wind energy not been on the advice of the scientists?
We have had 3 large rounds of offshore wind farm licensing, let in 2000, 2010, and (I think) 2019. We are now doing round 4.
Which seems to be 'following the science' very well.
If following the science is about insulation, that was settled a generation ago.
Newnight man Justin Rowlatt was followed doing his house up as an "Ethical Man" in 2006, and Energy Efficiency was a huge theme of "Homeworld '81" in Milton Keynes. The Money Programme even sponsored the build of an energy-efficiant house.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-56996505
And plenty do already.
Besides, Labour are in opposition, their sugar rush only really hurt them. The Conservatives are in power. That means their self-indulgence hits everyone.
If you make these things available, addiction expands. We should know, we started the international opium trade.
You’re right on the wider point though, countries really need to pick one extreme or the other. Be either Portugal or Singapore.
There is one main road, the A58 which leads east from Rochdale, through Littleborough then climbs over Blackstone Edge - the Pennines ridge which dominates the landscape. Another road leads to Todmorden and the equally crowded Calderdale area, another past Hollingworth Lake through Milnrow and on to the M62.
Vast numbers of houses have been built along the A58 corridor, with the only way out towards the motorway, the town or anywhere else in Greater Manchester being along that road. Like so many others in the area this has terraced houses on both sides along most of its route.
What was needed was a spine road. Leave Littleborough and follow the canal corridor towards the new Kingsway Business Park. That at least would have taken much of the traffic off the already congested road. But no, houses got built across where parts of it would have to go.
This is the kind of uncontrolled lack of planning I was referring to. Allow developers to buy land (some green belt, some sold by the council, a big chunk the former hospital. Cram in houses that don't have enough parking, don't build any roads or shops or schools. And then wonder why the area is so difficult to get around. Lots of Pennine places have topographical restrictions - people may want to live there but unless you can bulldoze a new road down a hillside its very difficult to get more people in or out.
The aim is to give people access to drugs safely that aren't cut with all sorts of rubbish, to drive the gang-based drug dealing trade out of business and so reduce violent crime, and to raise tax given the negative externalities associated with drug usage.
The next step would be to work globally sort out more ethical supply lines that don't support gangs and extremists in South America, Afghanistan etc.
(* While on RNLI business - obviously a bad apple with a boat might have a side line...)
And btw the young Freud was markedly unpopular with contemporary medics for causing an explosion in cocaine use and associated civic problems - all at a time when the stuff was 100% legal everywhere.
The TAC adverts on TV in Victoria are like nothing that you ever get in this country and they work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2mf8DtWWd8
In the case you mention, the lady killed someone, and was to be prosecuted for manslaughter. Society agrees that people who kill people, even if that outcome was not their intention, deserve to lose their liberty for a period of time as punishment. Causing death by dangerous driving is usually 10 years or thereabouts, less in practice with good behaviour.
I don't care if the Colombian government is happy or not. The growers don't have to be in Colombia, get a licenced and regulated company doing it like Diageo does for alcohol.
Ours has been in the pipeline since about 2011.
Planning Resource have a tracker page, with interactive maps:
https://www.planningresource.co.uk/development-plan-tracker
Javascript off breaks the firewall if necessary, or surf the Gooogle Cache, or register.
Society is entitled to make these sorts of judgements as to how serious actions are, and to change its mind.
The one thing I would say is don't be put off by the tag of Nimby, its just a slur. An acquaintance of mine was a very senior Council planning officer, and he successfully fought off development on a field opposite where he lived for 20 or so years (obviously it fell within a different Council).
The book Broken Homes by Peter Bill and Jackie Sadek is very good on this situation. Very readable.
I'm not sure Blair would have got the euro past Brown or HMT/the BOE to be honest, but there is certainly an interesting counterfactual history where we joined. I suspect we would have blown the whole thing up.
Drugs in the UK should be legalised but this wouldn't necessarily mean you could pop down to Boots for a spliff. There would have to be a huge education programme and perhaps even licensing although that might create a market in those similar to the one for drugs.
Actually I think you should be able to pop down to Morrisons for a spliff.
Anywhere that tobacco and alcohol is sold. But yes education and treatment is key.
I'm curious if that happened what would distinguish Waitrose spliffs?
And your windows of opportunity are often the 3 week comment period on Planning Apps.
For me the ideal isn't just decriminalisation but a holistic approach to users. Destigmatising drug use, supporting users and mandating anti-addiction programmes. Even America's making a start on cannabis and some psychedelics. Why are we falling behind the US?
Plus the fact he regularly talked out stuff no-one gave a toss about.
Its grown in Columbia primarily for ease and because the criminals can get away with growing it there, not because its not possible to grow elsewhere.
Legalise and regulate it and if there were no legal alternatives you'd soon have legal businesses legally growing it in this country. Using whatever technology is required.
Could BoJo be succeeded by SaJa, or even KwaKwa?
Also, cannabis psychosis. Not, sadly, a myth created by The Man to scare you off the stuff.
They need to sodomised by pylons.
For what it's worth, I think you have the pressure the wrong way round. There is heavy sentiment for legalization in many of these poor countries but they feel they need to be pro-prohibition because of political pressure from rich countries, most notably the United States.
Got to agree with him regarding these holier-than-thou twats blocking the roads though. Lock up up!!
I think we should have joined Schengen and enjoyed properly open borders, passport free travel to Spain, through trains from Glasgow to Paris etc, but not the euro until there was a more meaningful degree of fiscal union.
PS the Bruce Willis character was dead all the time.
I want to commit unspeakable acts of violence towards the person who posted the spoiler.
People know the law is an ass, which is one reason why millions ignore it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11660210
On the Labour side similarly picking Foot over Healey in 1980, Ed Miliband over David Miliband in 2010 and Corbyn over Burnham in 2015
Icy dead people.
Now, a night train Belfast --> Dublin --> Liverpool --> London and the reverse with the train on the ferry would be excellent. Would require big subsidies, but would be a cheapish gesture of UK unity compared with fantasy bridges.
We escaped that disaster against Blair's wishes and only through the judgement and good instincts of the British people.
I’m sure there’s an allegory there.
(The main difference is that Tarmacadam used tar as the binding agent; asphalt uses bitumen. To confuse matters more, most Tarmacadam nowadays is actually bitmac, which is the Macadam aggregate bound together with asphalt as a halfway house between the two.)