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  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 24,321
    RoyalBlue said:


    The Commission was specifically designed to be immune from popular pressure. That’s why the European Parliament is the only one in the world that cannot initiate legislation. Everything has to start with the Commission. It’s like a government that can’t be voted out. The top team is decided by the Member States, but the vast bulk of personnel do not change. It is a Gosplan for our times.

    I swear to God this country would be better off if everybody was forced to write out 1000 times "The Government is in Whitehall. The Parliament is in Westminster. They are not the same thing".

    We do not vote the Government in or out. We vote for MPs in the Parliament, not Ministers in the Cabinet. The Prime Minister is appointed by the Queen, s/he appoints the Cabinet, and they work via the Civil Service. The vast bulk of the Civil Service do not change from year to year. Apart from Private Members' Bills, the Parliament does not initiate legislation, the Government does. Government does not stop during elections, it remains in place (which was why Alistair Darling continued to act as Chancellor after the 2010 election until Cameron became PM and replaced him with Osborne). These wanton misconceptions are incredibly difficult to shift.
  • You’re like The Guardian.

    The Guardian has admitted that a cartoon about the Israel-Gaza conflict portraying a grotesque Benjamin Netanyahu as a puppet master controlling William Hague and Tony Blair "inevitably" echoed "past antisemitic usage of such imagery".

    https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/guardian-admits-error-in-publishing-netanyahu-puppet-master-cartoon-1.38862
    Its bullshit. A way for people like you - those who can't argue a case through logic and facts - to try and smear their opponents by drawing false equivalency with extremist views.
  • Foxy said:

    Yes, while there are many grumbles, and often legitimate ones including my own, it is undeniable that the system itself has widespread support across the ages and parties.

    It is not unrelated to the Blitz spirit, or experience of the trenches or Dunkirk*. The NHS was born of a particular time, for a reason. It was officially created in 1948, but actually British doctors and nurses had almost all been working for a decade as government employees, either in uniform or under the defacto nationalisation of hospitals as a war time measure. The NHS is the visible remnant of that cultural unity.

    * Blitz spirit, trenches and Dunkirk are also national mythologies, not always backed up by forensic study. We stood alone in 1940 as the worlds largest empire, with a quarter of the worlds land area and people. We had the grain of Canada, the minerals of Africa and Australia, the multitudes of India and the oil of the Gulf under our control. We were not just a small island off the North Shore of Europe.
    That, and your earlier comment, do help explain the mythos of the NHS.
  • Foxy said:

    Yes, while there are many grumbles, and often legitimate ones including my own, it is undeniable that the system itself has widespread support across the ages and parties.

    It is not unrelated to the Blitz spirit, or experience of the trenches or Dunkirk*. The NHS was born of a particular time, for a reason. It was officially created in 1948, but actually British doctors and nurses had almost all been working for a decade as government employees, either in uniform or under the defacto nationalisation of hospitals as a war time measure. The NHS is the visible remnant of that cultural unity.

    * Blitz spirit, trenches and Dunkirk are also national mythologies, not always backed up by forensic study. We stood alone in 1940 as the worlds largest empire, with a quarter of the worlds land area and people. We had the grain of Canada, the minerals of Africa and Australia, the multitudes of India and the oil of the Gulf under our control. We were not just a small island off the North Shore of Europe.
    Generally I find the NHS only has widespread support because people have never experienced the far better systems that exist across much of Europe. The idea that the NHS is anywhere near the best in the world is a widely believed myth, but a myth none the less.
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    Times: Surrey facing cash crisis.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 24,321
    SeanT said:

    There is much prosperity to be had, in being the smaller, free trading appendix to a large protectionist empire. Cf Hong Kong, and Singapore. Or Iceland.
    You'd be looking at Iceland a long time before you thought "prosperity". It's basically a flat Scotland for goodlooking people.
  • I don't know about that, as far as I can see HMRC works very well compared with its equivalents in other countries, and is certainly much easier to deal with than most. Have you seen a US tax form?
    The Irish tax agency seems to work pretty well.

    But in such things personal experience colours thoughts.

    And I've certainly heard about the nightmares of American bureaucracy.
  • At least some common sense shown today by the courts...

    Graduate loses bid to sue Oxford over 2:1 degree

    http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-42974641
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 14,339
    SeanT said:



    Can you say better? If not: do one.

    Nothing that compares to the glories of serving in the cohortes praetoriae of Maxim magazine, no.

  • viewcode said:

    You'd be looking at Iceland a long time before you thought "prosperity". It's basically a flat Scotland for goodlooking people.
    I suspect that if you think Iceland is flat in any way you probably haven't been there. The only flat bits tend to be around the edges.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 24,321
    SeanT said:

    lol. I've been under fire, and been shelled, bombed, and held at gunpoint. Not for Britain's army, admittedly, but for the British media. Maxim Magazine, to be precise.

    I should almost certainly have died. But I escaped. Sheer luck got me out of a near-fatal scrape caused by my utter, witless, arrogant and block-headed stupidity.

    Nonetheless I have been there.

    Can you say better? If not: do one.

    If memory serves, @Dura_Ace is an ex-Navy flier who flew in warzones in the Noughties, and is probably not the best person to make that challenge to...
  • George Soros has certainly been the subject of more than his fair share of anti-Semitism. That doesn’t put his actions beyond criticism but it does mean that responsible national newspapers need cast iron evidence before giving birth to new memes.
  • Foxy said:

    Yep, though I suspect that you mean it as jest.

    The antisemitism of the right differs from that of the left in its nuances. The left focusses on Israel as the puppet master, on the right it is more that Jews are untrustworthy, lacking in patriotism and scheming.
    No, straight-up I hadn't realised.

    When you're reading and thinking about politics everyday you don't need the more insidious imagery to give you an opinion.

    I'd always thought that Ed Miliband was a bit of a wet-wipe but preferred him to his cowardly, complacent and over-rated brother. I never could understand why EdM beating DM was called 'back-stabbing' whereas there was no similar criticism of DM.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 24,321
    SeanT said:

    I was in Iceland about a year ago. My first visit in two decades. To be honest I expected hollowed out Great Recessiony wilderness. I found the opposite. It seemed remarkably content, affluent, relaxed, and full of ideas and optimism.

    If Britain could be a giant, giant Iceland I would be delighted. It won't be easy. But that must be our post-Brexit aim

    It's not beyond our reach. This is what we used to be. Elizabethan England really was the nimble early mammal skipping between stupid ageing dinosaurs. We can be that, again.
    Indeed. Given the reality of a Brexit, it seems to be the only way forward.
  • George Soros has certainly been the subject of more than his fair share of anti-Semitism. That doesn’t put his actions beyond criticism but it does mean that responsible national newspapers need cast iron evidence before giving birth to new memes.


    A key pro-EU campaign to reverse the Brexit vote has been given more than £400,000 of funding by American billionaire George Soros’s foundation, the Guardian can disclose.


    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/07/billionaire-george-soros-backs-campaign-to-reverse-brexit
  • brendan16brendan16 Posts: 2,315
    Or having the Northern Ireland secretary on the committee makes sense given the customs union and border issues and the need for some sort of agreement with the Republic?

    If Anna Soubry was being appointed to the rule I might think otherwise.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 24,321

    I suspect that if you think Iceland is flat in any way you probably haven't been there. The only flat bits tend to be around the edges.
    Ouch! Yes. I meant to write "flatter" but thinking about it that probably wasn't great either... :(
  • tysontyson Posts: 6,121
    SeanT said:

    Very true. I've had several well known doctors (i.e. well paid private quacks) say to me that if you have something majorly wrong, a real emergency, then go to the NHS. Always. It's not just the money, you will probably get better care.

    Private hospitals in the UK are ideal for people with chronic but non urgent conditions who want better food, and their own room.

    This does not mean the NHS is utopian, it's just the eccentric way UK healthcare is warped by the behemoth that is the NHS.
    When Petr Cech had his head injury he ended up being rushed to Oxford, and being treated alongside my buddie in the NHS...Abramovich's billions didn't keep him from the NHS....
  • PongPong Posts: 4,693
    edited February 2018

    True, it's not as serious as his and Corbyn's support for those who actually did kill fellow MPs and maim their wives.
    With sufficient intel/policing resources, Tommy Mair could have been stopped. And Darren Osborne.

    To allow rightwing nutjobs the freedom to target opposition politicians was a political choice made by the conservative government.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 51,292

    Generally I find the NHS only has widespread support because people have never experienced the far better systems that exist across much of Europe. The idea that the NHS is anywhere near the best in the world is a widely believed myth, but a myth none the less.
    I don't argue with that, but cultural myths are very deeply felt. Privatising the NHS is political suicide:

    https://www.healthinsurancedaily.com/health-insurance/product-area/pmi/article484712.ece

    Any health reform needs to be done within the parameters of a national system, with universal access, free at the point of use and by non profit making bodies. Those are the political realities for the forseable future, for better or worse.
  • You’re like The Guardian.

    The Guardian has admitted that a cartoon about the Israel-Gaza conflict portraying a grotesque Benjamin Netanyahu as a puppet master controlling William Hague and Tony Blair "inevitably" echoed "past antisemitic usage of such imagery".

    https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/guardian-admits-error-in-publishing-netanyahu-puppet-master-cartoon-1.38862
    After what I've just realised any Conservative activists of 2015 are on very thin ice in making insinuations about anti-semitism.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 14,339
    SeanT said:

    Idly flying around in a fucking RAF chopper in the Cairngorms does not, with all due respect, compare to being literally kidnapped at gunpoint by Hezbollah, and then sitting in a room waiting to die.
    Well, if we're going there...

    Kosovo: 19 combat missions. Released weapons 19 times.
    Afghanistan: 66 combat missions. Released weapons 28 times.
    Iraq: lost count but it was just about every day for a year.
  • PongPong Posts: 4,693
    edited February 2018
    Pong said:

    With sufficient intel/policing resources, Tommy Mair could have been stopped. And Darren Osborne.

    To allow rightwing nutjobs the freedom to target opposition politicians was a political choice made by the conservative government.
    *is*

    *is a political choice being made by the conservative government.*
  • George Soros has certainly been the subject of more than his fair share of anti-Semitism. That doesn’t put his actions beyond criticism but it does mean that responsible national newspapers need cast iron evidence before giving birth to new memes.

    Some of our newspapers are responsible ?
  • tysontyson Posts: 6,121

    An LD who has become a big Corbyn, albeit not Labour, fan.

    Partly I expect because Cable doesn't impress him but I wonder if Foxy is having guilt feelings of having voted Conservative in 2010. At least I think he said he did.
    I think people forget the detoxification project of Cameron actually reached a majority of Doctors in 2010......so it doesn't surprise me that Foxy flirted with the dark side like many of his colleagues. Fucking idiots in retrospect because after 8 years of the Tories many are as miserable as sin at work....but there you go.....
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 14,339
    SeanT said:



    And..... times you sat in a chair with a fucking bearded fucking lunatic with a gun pointed at you?

    Zero.

    And this is your JOB. You dropped fucking bombs for a living. I got into my shit as a JOKE. Which went bad. Yet I still experienced something way more frightening than you. Sorry.

    So how do your Pound Shop Ross Kemp antics give any legitimacy to your shared pride in Britain's martial heritage?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 51,292
    SeanT said:

    And..... times you sat in a chair with a fucking bearded fucking lunatic with a gun pointed at you?

    Zero.

    And this is your JOB. You dropped fucking bombs for a living. I got into my shit as a JOKE. Which went bad. Yet I still experienced something way more frightening than you. Sorry.
    Denis Healey's law of holes: When you are in one, stop digging.

    I have done neither, and am heavily peacenik, but have great respect for people like @Dura_Ace who see their duty to the nation and the world differently.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 51,292
    tyson said:

    I think people forget the detoxification project of Cameron actually reached a majority of Doctors in 2010......so it doesn't surprise me that Foxy flirted with the dark side like many of his colleagues. Fucking idiots in retrospect because after 8 years of the Tories many are as miserable as sin at work....but there you go.....
    Yep, hands up to that one. I genuinely believed it in 2010 when Cameron seemed to have changed the Tory party.

    I remain an LD, though sympathetic to much of Corbyn's social agenda, because I do not support his economic agenda. I am dry as dust on debt and fixing the deficit.
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 8,643
    Foxy said:

    Denis Healey's law of holes: When you are in one, stop digging.

    I have done neither, and am heavily peacenik, but have great respect for people like @Dura_Ace who see their duty to the nation and the world differently.
    It does seem strange to proclaim your pride in the British military and then slag off the experience of someone who served.
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 8,643
    Foxy said:

    Yep, hands up to that one. I genuinely believed it in 2010 when Cameron seemed to have changed the Tory party.

    I remain an LD, though sympathetic to much of Corbyn's social agenda, because I do not support his economic agenda. I am dry as dust on debt and fixing the deficit.
    In some ways Cameron did change the Tory party... gay marriage or the commitment to international aid.
  • The Conservatives are four points ahead of Labour in the latest poll of voting intentions for The Times despite open divisions across the party.

    The YouGov poll shows the Tories on 43 per cent, up 1 point compared with last week, Labour on 39 per cent, down 3 points, and the Lib Dems on 8 per cent, up 2 points.

    The news will be a relief for the Conservatives, who have faced widespread coverage of the leaks and splits throughout the party over Brexit.

    Theresa May extended her advantage over Jeremy Corbyn to 8 points on the question of which would make the best prime minister, up from 6 points last week. Some 37 per cent think she would do best, 29 per cent would back the Labour leader and 33 per cent do not know.

    The news will be a relief for the Conservatives, who have faced widespread coverage of the leaks and splits throughout the party over Brexit.

    Theresa May extended her advantage over Jeremy Corbyn to 8 points on the question of which would make the best prime minister, up from 6 points last week. Some 37 per cent think she would do best, 29 per cent would back the Labour leader and 33 per cent do not know.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/poll-lead-brings-relief-for-tory-party-after-infighting-ss929xtmw
  • tysontyson Posts: 6,121
    edited February 2018
    Foxy said:

    Denis Healey's law of holes: When you are in one, stop digging.

    I have done neither, and am heavily peacenik, but have great respect for people like @Dura_Ace who see their duty to the nation and the world differently.

    The shovel seems quite apt here......

    Thinking about other PD types who like to big up their cogliones...I find it incredible how the persistent draft dodger Trump gets away with it all.......
  • There is an even divide on whether it was right to vote to leave in 2016, with 43 per cent agreeing and 44 per cent disagreeing. Last week there was a significant, six-point lead for those saying it was wrong to leave.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 14,339
    <
    tyson said:

    find it incredible how the persistent draft dodger Trump gets away with it all.......

    Senator Tammy Duckworth (who lost both her legs flying a UH-60 in combat in Iraq) comments accurately and thusly:

    https://twitter.com/SenDuckworth/status/954872169774841857
  • tysontyson Posts: 6,121
    edited February 2018
    Foxy said:

    Yep, hands up to that one. I genuinely believed it in 2010 when Cameron seemed to have changed the Tory party.

    I remain an LD, though sympathetic to much of Corbyn's social agenda, because I do not support his economic agenda. I am dry as dust on debt and fixing the deficit.
    I actually think in 2010 many Doctors were NuLaboured to death with the performance management crap, meaningless targets and bullshit NuLab NHS speak.....I think that more than anything insulted their intelligence and subsequently repelled them as much as they were seduced by Cameron's snake oil charm...

    Different times Foxy......
  • swing_voterswing_voter Posts: 1,466
    rkrkrk said:

    In some ways Cameron did change the Tory party... gay marriage or the commitment to international aid.
    I an remain unconvinced how deep and meaningful was the Cameron conversion of the Party, I suspect it was a fad at the time...
  • Thinking further about anti-Jewish imagery by political parties there was the Labour 'Fagin' posters of 2005:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4223091.stm

    while in the 1962 Orpington byelection the Liberals were alleged to have used the Conservative's candidates Jewish background as a smear:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpington_by-election,_1962

    So all parties might dabble in such things when they think there are votes to be had.

    Bloody depressing.
  • swing_voterswing_voter Posts: 1,466
    SeanT said:

    If these figures remain the same in March, then it's all over for even the diehard Remainiacs in the Malaysian foxholes of plebiscitary delusion. Surely.

    Brexit is upon us. At what point do the Jolyon Maughams of this world swallow the pill, and make the best of it?
    The trouble with saying BREXIT is upon us....is what is BREXIT? Until there is a coherent argument based around a clear vision then there will be divisions and splits and dare I say it disagreement here and in the country.
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 8,643

    I an remain unconvinced how deep and meaningful was the Cameron conversion of the Party, I suspect it was a fad at the time...
    On gay marriage I doubt they will go back.
    On international aid it’s certainly possible.

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 59,436
    SeanT said:


    lol. I despise TMay's pathetic government (like every sane Briton) but these are catastrophic figures for Labour. HMG is in the middest of possible midterms, yet Labour are still behind, and very significantly behind in the crucial metrics.

    They imply a massive defeat for Labour in 2022. Let the new infighting begin.
    "Middest of possible midterms"? It's only seven and a bit months since the last election. How long are you expecting parliaments to be from now on?
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    SeanT said:


    lol. I despise TMay's pathetic government (like every sane Briton) but these are catastrophic figures for Labour. HMG is in the middest of possible midterms, yet Labour are still behind, and very significantly behind in the crucial metrics.

    They imply a massive defeat for Labour in 2022. Let the new infighting begin.
    I think Labour did so well in 2017 because nearly everyone assumed the Tories were going to win easily and therefore at least some people could afford to cast a heart-over-head "romantic" vote for Corbyn sure in the knowledge that he wasn't going to get anywhere near Downing Street. In fact he got within 950 votes of becoming prime minister in a rainbow coalition. Also it would be difficult for the Tory campaign to be as awful as it was last time.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 54,864

    George Soros has certainly been the subject of more than his fair share of anti-Semitism. That doesn’t put his actions beyond criticism but it does mean that responsible national newspapers need cast iron evidence before giving birth to new memes.

    https://twitter.com/scribblercat/status/961365900707418113
  • viewcode said:

    Indeed. Given the reality of a Brexit, it seems to be the only way forward.
    They sent bankers to jail and sought to avoid the personal debt trap we and our kids are in. Sounds good to me
  • AndrewAndrew Posts: 2,900
    AndyJS said:

    I think Labour did so well in 2017 because nearly everyone assumed the Tories were going to win easily and therefore at least some people could afford to cast a heart-over-head "romantic" vote for Corbyn sure in the knowledge that he wasn't going to get anywhere near Downing Street.

    Agreed. On top of that, the Tories thought they were so far ahead they could afford to spend electoral capital on the social care reforms. Double oops.
  • rpjsrpjs Posts: 3,787
    SeanT said:

    OMFG, American tax forms. Jesus F Christ on a tricycle.

    I think I first realised that America's supremacy, as a nation, was time-limited and ending, when I first encountered the US tax system. A nation capable of such stupid, sapping bureaucracy was a nation destined for decline, like all others, from Nineveh to Tyre.
    My theory is that the two largest groups that settled America in the 17th and 18th centuries were the English and the Germans. America therefore could have had a bureaucracy with all the flexibility of the English and all the efficiency of the Germans. Sadly it got the reverse.

    And of course, one reason why the tax system is such a mess is that the tax preparation firms lobby Congress to keep it a mess and make their services necessary.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 83,554
    edited February 2018
    Reddit bans deepfake porn videos

    http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42984127

    While the algorithms aren't quite there yet, we aren't far off a situation where videos can be faked as easily as still images to a degree of realism that only a real expert will be able to detect real from fake.

    That is a pretty scary situation for anybody who has lots of photos of themselves online.
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    edited February 2018
    The Tory plotters must be a tad annoyed at this series of polls from different companies showing the Conservatives doing rather well in the circumstances.
  • AndyJS said:

    The Tory plotters must be a tad annoyed at this series of polls from different companies showing the Conservatives doing rather well in the circumstances.

    What is driving this shift I wonder? Nobody can say the headlines have been good for the Tories and they have to be seen as divided by the public on Brexit (and divided is normally a total killer for a political party).
  • Dutch sailor who killed his wives named as Jack the Ripper

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dutch-sailor-hendrik-de-jong-who-killed-his-wives-named-as-the-ripper-t53lvjh99

    Bloody foreign criminals, coming over here murdering our prozzies...
  • Danny565Danny565 Posts: 8,091
    Go on Mrs May.... call an election :D
  • RobDRobD Posts: 60,365

    The Conservatives are four points ahead of Labour in the latest poll of voting intentions for The Times despite open divisions across the party.

    The YouGov poll shows the Tories on 43 per cent, up 1 point compared with last week, Labour on 39 per cent, down 3 points, and the Lib Dems on 8 per cent, up 2 points.

    The news will be a relief for the Conservatives, who have faced widespread coverage of the leaks and splits throughout the party over Brexit.

    Theresa May extended her advantage over Jeremy Corbyn to 8 points on the question of which would make the best prime minister, up from 6 points last week. Some 37 per cent think she would do best, 29 per cent would back the Labour leader and 33 per cent do not know.

    The news will be a relief for the Conservatives, who have faced widespread coverage of the leaks and splits throughout the party over Brexit.

    Theresa May extended her advantage over Jeremy Corbyn to 8 points on the question of which would make the best prime minister, up from 6 points last week. Some 37 per cent think she would do best, 29 per cent would back the Labour leader and 33 per cent do not know.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/poll-lead-brings-relief-for-tory-party-after-infighting-ss929xtmw

    Gold standard confirmed! :o:D
This discussion has been closed.