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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Latest betting prices – GE2015 and possible UKIP defections
Only change on Sporting Index http://t.co/56fhx8BJCR GE spreads. LDs up one seat pic.twitter.com/1P3z6gIpFO
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Quite.
Ukip and Labour too high and Conservatives a little shy.0 -
Brilliant interception and try from Ireland. Bye bye that bet.0
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I still can't quite believe the odds for UKIP being 9.5-11.5 seats. Anyone who suggested that a year ago would have been laughed out of forum.0
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FPT
Quite, a lot of people HAVE forgotten that. And it may well be the case that an Islamic education would be a much better education than the degenerate and anarchic education they would get in a bog standard sink comprehensive, even for non muslims. They certainly will not be expected to have to go through putting rubber devices on bananas.Ninoinoz said:
Because they aren't doing anything illegal, perhaps?Socrates said:More on how screwed up those Muslim schools are:
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/education/ofsted-warns-of-extremist-influences-and-radicalisation-in-east-london-muslim-schools-9874875.html
Why are they not being closed down?
They don't have to follow the National Curriculum and those independent schools seem to be following a Islamic orientated curriculum.
It is a free country, but some people seem to have forgotten that.0 -
Switzerland win the doubles to take a 2-1 lead against France in the final of the Davis Cup0
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To be fair, the most likely outcome is still 5-6 seats, it's just that it's the nature of spread betting that the asymetrical pay-off means that that anyone (who believed the most likely seats was 3 or 4) would still be a buyer at 6. If that makes sense :-)Paul_Mid_Beds said:I still can't quite believe the odds for UKIP being 9.5-11.5 seats. Anyone who suggested that a year ago would have been laughed out of forum.
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They're overstated in spread betting because of the zero bound.Paul_Mid_Beds said:I still can't quite believe the odds for UKIP being 9.5-11.5 seats. Anyone who suggested that a year ago would have been laughed out of forum.
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Jeez, should have put some more on Oz, two tries in just a few minutes and it's 17-12.
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Burnley win! YaY!0
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It won't be a free country if a generation of kids are raised to believe in crap like conservative Islam. If people want to have their kids raised in the culture of rural Pakistan, they can move there. If your kids are in this country, they need to be taught to integrate with the rest of country, and the values of British liberal democracy, which are overwhelmingly superior to those of Islamic autocracy. The rest of society shouldn't have to deal with the consequences of children being brought up to be intolerant and backwards.Ninoinoz said:
Because they aren't doing anything illegal, perhaps?Socrates said:More on how screwed up those Muslim schools are:
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/education/ofsted-warns-of-extremist-influences-and-radicalisation-in-east-london-muslim-schools-9874875.html
Why are they not being closed down?
They don't have to follow the National Curriculum and those independent schools seem to be following a Islamic orientated curriculum.
It is a free country, but some people seem to have forgotten that.
Oh, and one of the schools was funded with taxes too.0 -
Just so you know, Crowdscores got you news of the goals two minutes before the BBC :-)MikeSmithson said:0 -
Following their crushing away win at Stoke will OGH be flying a Burnley FC flag from the windows of Smithson Towers and what will the Labour party collective conclude ?
A nation awaits ....0 -
Have you heard the songs sung by Rangers and Celtic supporters when they're playing each other?Socrates said:
It won't be a free country if a generation of kids are raised to believe in crap like conservative Islam. If people want to have their kids raised in the culture of rural Pakistan, they can move there. If your kids are in this country, they need to be taught to integrate with the rest of country, and the values of British liberal democracy, which are overwhelmingly superior to those of Islamic autocracy. The rest of society shouldn't have to deal with the consequences of children being brought up to be intolerant and backwards.Ninoinoz said:
Because they aren't doing anything illegal, perhaps?Socrates said:More on how screwed up those Muslim schools are:
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/education/ofsted-warns-of-extremist-influences-and-radicalisation-in-east-london-muslim-schools-9874875.html
Why are they not being closed down?
They don't have to follow the National Curriculum and those independent schools seem to be following a Islamic orientated curriculum.
It is a free country, but some people seem to have forgotten that.
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We'll worry when they get the goals one minute before they happen... ;-)rcs1000 said:
Just so you know, Crowdscores got you news of the goals two minutes before the BBC :-)MikeSmithson said:0 -
@paulhutcheon: Pat Rafferty, the @unitetheunion chief, has written to @uklabour gen sec Iain McNicol about the running of the Scottish l-ship contest
@paulhutcheon: I reckon the @scottishlabour hustings on the BBC tomorrow will now be lively...0 -
As long as it's not an England flag with a Burnley FC badge.JackW said:Following their crushing away win at Stoke will OGH be flying a Burnley FC flag from the windows of Smithson Towers and what will the Labour party collective conclude ?
A nation awaits ....
Yeehah! Third try from Oz.0 -
Oops. Hammers loseSwiss_Bob said:
As long as it's not an England flag with a Burnley FC badge.JackW said:Following their crushing away win at Stoke will OGH be flying a Burnley FC flag from the windows of Smithson Towers and what will the Labour party collective conclude ?
A nation awaits ....
Yeehah! Third try from Oz.
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Remind me which country created Pakistan, a supposed "homeland" for Muslims. As you sow...Socrates said:
It won't be a free country if a generation of kids are raised to believe in crap like conservative Islam. If people want to have their kids raised in the culture of rural Pakistan, they can move there. If your kids are in this country, they need to be taught to integrate with the rest of country, and the values of British liberal democracy, which are overwhelmingly superior to those of Islamic autocracy. The rest of society shouldn't have to deal with the consequences of children being brought up to be intolerant and backwards.Ninoinoz said:
Because they aren't doing anything illegal, perhaps?Socrates said:More on how screwed up those Muslim schools are:
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/education/ofsted-warns-of-extremist-influences-and-radicalisation-in-east-london-muslim-schools-9874875.html
Why are they not being closed down?
They don't have to follow the National Curriculum and those independent schools seem to be following a Islamic orientated curriculum.
It is a free country, but some people seem to have forgotten that.
Oh, and one of the schools was funded with taxes too.0 -
5th in the league, you must be in heaven.Sunil_Prasannan said:
Oops. Hammers loseSwiss_Bob said:
As long as it's not an England flag with a Burnley FC badge.JackW said:Following their crushing away win at Stoke will OGH be flying a Burnley FC flag from the windows of Smithson Towers and what will the Labour party collective conclude ?
A nation awaits ....
Yeehah! Third try from Oz.
Do the fans still want Allardyce sacked? :-)0 -
India?Sunil_Prasannan said:
Remind me which country created Pakistan, a supposed "homeland" for Muslims. As you sow...Socrates said:
It won't be a free country if a generation of kids are raised to believe in crap like conservative Islam. If people want to have their kids raised in the culture of rural Pakistan, they can move there. If your kids are in this country, they need to be taught to integrate with the rest of country, and the values of British liberal democracy, which are overwhelmingly superior to those of Islamic autocracy. The rest of society shouldn't have to deal with the consequences of children being brought up to be intolerant and backwards.Ninoinoz said:
Because they aren't doing anything illegal, perhaps?Socrates said:More on how screwed up those Muslim schools are:
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/education/ofsted-warns-of-extremist-influences-and-radicalisation-in-east-london-muslim-schools-9874875.html
Why are they not being closed down?
They don't have to follow the National Curriculum and those independent schools seem to be following a Islamic orientated curriculum.
It is a free country, but some people seem to have forgotten that.
Oh, and one of the schools was funded with taxes too.0 -
Good value there for the Conservatives, but some of you will no doubt think that's my pro-Tory bias
Are we expecting any polls tonight?0 -
India wasn't independent until the 15th August 1947Swiss_Bob said:
India?Sunil_Prasannan said:
Remind me which country created Pakistan, a supposed "homeland" for Muslims. As you sow...Socrates said:
It won't be a free country if a generation of kids are raised to believe in crap like conservative Islam. If people want to have their kids raised in the culture of rural Pakistan, they can move there. If your kids are in this country, they need to be taught to integrate with the rest of country, and the values of British liberal democracy, which are overwhelmingly superior to those of Islamic autocracy. The rest of society shouldn't have to deal with the consequences of children being brought up to be intolerant and backwards.Ninoinoz said:
Because they aren't doing anything illegal, perhaps?Socrates said:More on how screwed up those Muslim schools are:
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/education/ofsted-warns-of-extremist-influences-and-radicalisation-in-east-london-muslim-schools-9874875.html
Why are they not being closed down?
They don't have to follow the National Curriculum and those independent schools seem to be following a Islamic orientated curriculum.
It is a free country, but some people seem to have forgotten that.
Oh, and one of the schools was funded with taxes too. 0 -
This is a great moment Jack. Burnley have now won more points away from home than ever before in a whole season in the PremiershipJackW said:Following their crushing away win at Stoke will OGH be flying a Burnley FC flag from the windows of Smithson Towers and what will the Labour party collective conclude ?
A nation awaits ....
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Me personally, not yetSwiss_Bob said:
5th in the league, you must be in heaven.Sunil_Prasannan said:
Oops. Hammers loseSwiss_Bob said:
As long as it's not an England flag with a Burnley FC badge.JackW said:Following their crushing away win at Stoke will OGH be flying a Burnley FC flag from the windows of Smithson Towers and what will the Labour party collective conclude ?
A nation awaits ....
Yeehah! Third try from Oz.
Do the fans still want Allardyce sacked? :-)
But we were 4th a couple of weeks back!0 -
There was no chance that Jinnah an his supporters would have agreed to be part of a Hindu-majority State, in 1947.Sunil_Prasannan said:
Remind me which country created Pakistan, a supposed "homeland" for Muslims. As you sow...Socrates said:
It won't be a free country if a generation of kids are raised to believe in crap like conservative Islam. If people want to have their kids raised in the culture of rural Pakistan, they can move there. If your kids are in this country, they need to be taught to integrate with the rest of country, and the values of British liberal democracy, which are overwhelmingly superior to those of Islamic autocracy. The rest of society shouldn't have to deal with the consequences of children being brought up to be intolerant and backwards.Ninoinoz said:
Because they aren't doing anything illegal, perhaps?Socrates said:More on how screwed up those Muslim schools are:
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/education/ofsted-warns-of-extremist-influences-and-radicalisation-in-east-london-muslim-schools-9874875.html
Why are they not being closed down?
They don't have to follow the National Curriculum and those independent schools seem to be following a Islamic orientated curriculum.
It is a free country, but some people seem to have forgotten that.
Oh, and one of the schools was funded with taxes too.
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The Burnley miracle portends a once in a century Welsh victory over the mighty All Blacks.0
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Here's a typical lefty wingers hypocriscsy ... sOutham Observer FPT
"In other words, it was an honest Tweet from a middle class politician who like almost all other middle class politicians from all parties spends almost no time with people who fly flags out of their windows, drive white vans and are covered in tattoos. "
Just roll the beauty of that post around for a while and admire the design, style and technicolor hypocriscsy. The denigration of the white van man continues as someone of lesser worth than them goes to show this is how the left all think. Yet they want their votes while accusing Tories and UKIP and others of being out of touch in a similar way in a vain attempt to spread the blame as far as possible.. Its quite simply utterly laughable.
We all also know for sure that had a Tory , Kipper or another tweeted this photo then these same lefties just like SObs would be ripping the into them without mercy or making lame excuses like this. I don't mind it they did rip into the person its just tthe utter hypocritical positioning that the left always take that gets me.0 -
?Sunil_Prasannan said:
India wasn't independent until the 15th August 1947Swiss_Bob said:
India?Sunil_Prasannan said:
Remind me which country created Pakistan, a supposed "homeland" for Muslims. As you sow...Socrates said:
It won't be a free country if a generation of kids are raised to believe in crap like conservative Islam. If people want to have their kids raised in the culture of rural Pakistan, they can move there. If your kids are in this country, they need to be taught to integrate with the rest of country, and the values of British liberal democracy, which are overwhelmingly superior to those of Islamic autocracy. The rest of society shouldn't have to deal with the consequences of children being brought up to be intolerant and backwards.Ninoinoz said:
Because they aren't doing anything illegal, perhaps?Socrates said:More on how screwed up those Muslim schools are:
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/education/ofsted-warns-of-extremist-influences-and-radicalisation-in-east-london-muslim-schools-9874875.html
Why are they not being closed down?
They don't have to follow the National Curriculum and those independent schools seem to be following a Islamic orientated curriculum.
It is a free country, but some people seem to have forgotten that.
Oh, and one of the schools was funded with taxes too.
In early 1947, Britain announced the decision to end its rule in India. In June 1947, the nationalist leaders of British India—including Jawaharlal Nehru and Abul Kalam Azad representing the Congress, Jinnah representing the Muslim League, and Master Tara Singh representing the Sikhs—agreed to the proposed terms of transfer of power and independence.
The modern state of Pakistan was established on 14 August 1947 (27 Ramadan 1366 in the Islamic Calendar) in the eastern and northwestern regions of British India, where there was a Muslim majority.
So basically the British agreed to independence and Pakistan (Jinnah) and India (Jawaharlal Nehru and Abul Kalam Azad) got on with partitioning.
That's my reading of it but as I say Wiki is not the best source but it is quick!
So technically India :-)0 -
Oh the non judgementalism.Socrates said:It won't be a free country if a generation of kids are raised to believe in crap like conservative Islam....If your kids are in this country, they need to be taught to integrate with the rest of country, and the values of British liberal democracy, which are overwhelmingly superior to those of Islamic autocracythe values of British liberal democracy, which are overwhelmingly superior to those of Islamic autocracy.
A century ago I would have agreed with you about British liberal democracy, but compulsory western degeneracy is not the way to deal with islamism.
Militant Islamism in the UK is in part another strand of the same phenomenom as UKIP is now and Mary Whitehouse and her supporters were thirty years ago - a rejection of the utter moral degeneracy of our (and the rest of the wests) ruling elite and the culture they have foisted on the rest of us since the dreaded Roy Jenkins became home secretary in the '60s.
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FPT:
The point is that in 1880 Britain might have been genetically quite homogenous. What the article does not demonstrate is that 134 years later that is still the case, since you clearly need it spelling out.Swiss_Bob said:
And what has that to do with the price of a loaf of bread?CarlottaVance said:
In 1880......Swiss_Bob said:
That the people of the British Isles are a race or not is a political viewpoint:MonikerDiCanio said:
These topical questions – hot potatoes in political debates ranging from potential Scottish independence to Britain’s role in the European Union – have now also been probed at the most fundamental level of all in ground-breaking research by an eminent team of Oxford researchers. The team, led by Oxford geneticist Professor Sir Walter Bodmer, has conducted a detailed and wide-ranging study of the genetic make-up of the Peoples of the British Isles (PoBI). Fascinatingly, their findings show that most people living in the British Isles are fundamentally extremely similar, genetically-speaking at least.
http://www.oxfordtoday.ox.ac.uk/features/what-makes-british
the data gave an accurate picture of the genetic makeup of rural Britain in around 1880
As for humans and mosquitoes you are so wrong it's laughable:
And as for 'me and mosquitos' since I didn't raise the point - you're the one who is laughably wrong.....0 -
You've peaked then!Sunil_Prasannan said:
Me personally, not yetSwiss_Bob said:
5th in the league, you must be in heaven.Sunil_Prasannan said:
Oops. Hammers loseSwiss_Bob said:
As long as it's not an England flag with a Burnley FC badge.JackW said:Following their crushing away win at Stoke will OGH be flying a Burnley FC flag from the windows of Smithson Towers and what will the Labour party collective conclude ?
A nation awaits ....
Yeehah! Third try from Oz.
Do the fans still want Allardyce sacked? :-)
But we were 4th a couple of weeks back!0 -
And yet there are almost as many Muslims in modern India as there are in modern Pakistan.Sean_F said:
There was no chance that Jinnah an his supporters would have agreed to be part of a Hindu-majority State, in 1947.Sunil_Prasannan said:
Remind me which country created Pakistan, a supposed "homeland" for Muslims. As you sow...Socrates said:
It won't be a free country if a generation of kids are raised to believe in crap like conservative Islam. If people want to have their kids raised in the culture of rural Pakistan, they can move there. If your kids are in this country, they need to be taught to integrate with the rest of country, and the values of British liberal democracy, which are overwhelmingly superior to those of Islamic autocracy. The rest of society shouldn't have to deal with the consequences of children being brought up to be intolerant and backwards.Ninoinoz said:
Because they aren't doing anything illegal, perhaps?Socrates said:More on how screwed up those Muslim schools are:
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/education/ofsted-warns-of-extremist-influences-and-radicalisation-in-east-london-muslim-schools-9874875.html
Why are they not being closed down?
They don't have to follow the National Curriculum and those independent schools seem to be following a Islamic orientated curriculum.
It is a free country, but some people seem to have forgotten that.
Oh, and one of the schools was funded with taxes too.0 -
Understandable that the Tories are odds-on to win Rochester in May given Ashcroft's polling and the actual result on Thursday.0
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No, Britain granted Independence to Pakistan a day early, 14th August.Swiss_Bob said:
?Sunil_Prasannan said:
India wasn't independent until the 15th August 1947Swiss_Bob said:
India?Sunil_Prasannan said:
Remind me which country created Pakistan, a supposed "homeland" for Muslims. As you sow...Socrates said:
It won't be a free country if a generation of kids are raised to believe in crap like conservative Islam. If people want to have their kids raised in the culture of rural Pakistan, they can move there. If your kids are in this country, they need to be taught to integrate with the rest of country, and the values of British liberal democracy, which are overwhelmingly superior to those of Islamic autocracy. The rest of society shouldn't have to deal with the consequences of children being brought up to be intolerant and backwards.Ninoinoz said:
Because they aren't doing anything illegal, perhaps?Socrates said:More on how screwed up those Muslim schools are:
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/education/ofsted-warns-of-extremist-influences-and-radicalisation-in-east-london-muslim-schools-9874875.html
Why are they not being closed down?
They don't have to follow the National Curriculum and those independent schools seem to be following a Islamic orientated curriculum.
It is a free country, but some people seem to have forgotten that.
Oh, and one of the schools was funded with taxes too.
In early 1947, Britain announced the decision to end its rule in India. In June 1947, the nationalist leaders of British India—including Jawaharlal Nehru and Abul Kalam Azad representing the Congress, Jinnah representing the Muslim League, and Master Tara Singh representing the Sikhs—agreed to the proposed terms of transfer of power and independence.
The modern state of Pakistan was established on 14 August 1947 (27 Ramadan 1366 in the Islamic Calendar) in the eastern and northwestern regions of British India, where there was a Muslim majority.
So basically the British agreed to independence and Pakistan (Jinnah) and India (Jawaharlal Nehru and Abul Kalam Azad) got on with partitioning.
That's my reading of it but as I say Wiki is not the best source but it is quick!
So technically India :-)
India was granted Independence on the 15th.
So - Pakistan didn't secede from an independent India.
Simples
Wiki also has this that might be of interest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-nation_theory0 -
Some contrast today at political meetings in Scotland today.
Lib Dem Conference .... attendance about 100
Radical Independence.... attendance over 3000
SNP .............................. attendance 12000 and waiting list for tickets0 -
Are we expecting any polls tonight? UKIP need to be close to 20% to keep up the momentum.0
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But wait! There's more!Swiss_Bob said:
You've peaked then!Sunil_Prasannan said:
Me personally, not yetSwiss_Bob said:
5th in the league, you must be in heaven.Sunil_Prasannan said:
Oops. Hammers loseSwiss_Bob said:
As long as it's not an England flag with a Burnley FC badge.JackW said:Following their crushing away win at Stoke will OGH be flying a Burnley FC flag from the windows of Smithson Towers and what will the Labour party collective conclude ?
A nation awaits ....
Yeehah! Third try from Oz.
Do the fans still want Allardyce sacked? :-)
But we were 4th a couple of weeks back!0 -
"Britain appeased Islamism way back in the 1940s by creating Pakistan." - Discuss 0
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Apologies, had you confused with MonicadiCanio.CarlottaVance said:FPT:
The point is that in 1880 Britain might have been genetically quite homogenous. What the article does not demonstrate is that 134 years later that is still the case, since you clearly need it spelling out.Swiss_Bob said:
And what has that to do with the price of a loaf of bread?CarlottaVance said:
In 1880......Swiss_Bob said:
That the people of the British Isles are a race or not is a political viewpoint:MonikerDiCanio said:
These topical questions – hot potatoes in political debates ranging from potential Scottish independence to Britain’s role in the European Union – have now also been probed at the most fundamental level of all in ground-breaking research by an eminent team of Oxford researchers. The team, led by Oxford geneticist Professor Sir Walter Bodmer, has conducted a detailed and wide-ranging study of the genetic make-up of the Peoples of the British Isles (PoBI). Fascinatingly, their findings show that most people living in the British Isles are fundamentally extremely similar, genetically-speaking at least.
http://www.oxfordtoday.ox.ac.uk/features/what-makes-british
the data gave an accurate picture of the genetic makeup of rural Britain in around 1880
As for humans and mosquitoes you are so wrong it's laughable:
And as for 'me and mosquitos' since I didn't raise the point - you're the one who is laughably wrong.....
Your argument does nothing to refute the argument that the people of the British Isles could/should be considered a race.
Immigration does not eradicate the existing population's race unless we're talking about ethnic cleansing at the same time, which we're not.
My point was it's political, it's not based on evidence.0 -
YouGov tonight, Opinium tomorrow.AndyJS said:Are we expecting any polls tonight? UKIP need to be close to 20% to keep up the momentum.
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I recall part of the reason partition was granted was due to help muslims from that part of the world had given Britain during the second world war, ie we owed them a favour.Sunil_Prasannan said:"Britain appeased Islamism way back in the 1940s by creating Pakistan." - Discuss
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Latest image from Rochester.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doHWn84loBc0 -
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@_AndreaUrbanFoX 7h
Bob Geldof was paid $100,000 to give a talk on poverty in Australia. Awkward. http://m.adelaidenow.com.au/news/for-geldofs-poverty-talk/story-e6freo8c-1111118043626?nk=d34fd31797ae5d22dfb925e709a5e718 … … #BandAid30
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Let joy be unconfined and organic carrot juice and broccoli quiche fill the halls of LibDem Burnley fans nationwide.MikeSmithson said:
This is a great moment Jack. Burnley have now won more points away from home than ever before in a whole season in the PremiershipJackW said:Following their crushing away win at Stoke will OGH be flying a Burnley FC flag from the windows of Smithson Towers and what will the Labour party collective conclude ?
A nation awaits ....
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Only a 100k Aussie dollars ?Sunil_Prasannan said:
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@_AndreaUrbanFoX 7h
Bob Geldof was paid $100,000 to give a talk on poverty in Australia. Awkward. http://m.adelaidenow.com.au/news/for-geldofs-poverty-talk/story-e6freo8c-1111118043626?nk=d34fd31797ae5d22dfb925e709a5e718 … … #BandAid30
Tony Blair will learn him.0 -
Apparently Jinnah would have accepted being part of India as long as it was a decentralised federation but Nehru was a socialist and demanded a strong central state. My view is that we should have backed Jinnah's compromise.Sunil_Prasannan said:"Britain appeased Islamism way back in the 1940s by creating Pakistan." - Discuss
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Evening all
I wanted to comment on David's piece in the previous thread but as I have a life I've only just got back to Stodge Towers.
David's piece may be about UKIP now but it could have been almost word-for-word about the Alliance in the 1980s. Inevitably, any "third" Party has to define itself with reference to the two traditional major parties whether they draw their support primarily from the one or the other. The "plan" for the Alliance was to supplant Labour and then directly challenge the Conservatives and there was plenty of evidence that once the threat of Labour had been seen to be erased, many Tories would gladly abandon their Party for the Alliance - I saw this first-hand canvassing at Greenwich.
In truth, the duopoly supports each other - the "fear" of the other side is used to keep the voters in check. If that fear was permanently erased, the duopoly would be in real trouble. Indeed, the combination of the fall of Communism and the successful conversion of Labour by Tony Blair to a non-socialist party of the centre or centre-left enabled it to reap millions of ex-Tory votes who no longer believed that voting Labour would usher in a period of darkness.
UKIP has to contend with that - yes, it has its converts who will stay fierecely loyal but for others tempted the "fear" that by voting for Farage they will allow the opponent to win will be very strong. Ultimately, the LDs could never break that spell - the SNP on the other hand has shown what an insurgant Party CAN achieve - and frankly I suspect Farage won't succeed either.
The other truth is that the Labour and Conservative Parties have a symbiotic relationship - without the one, the other will not endure.0 -
In areas of indigenous sectarian hatred, we should take a pretty hard line on making local schools teach tolerance too.rcs1000 said:
Have you heard the songs sung by Rangers and Celtic supporters when they're playing each other?Socrates said:
It won't be a free country if a generation of kids are raised to believe in crap like conservative Islam. If people want to have their kids raised in the culture of rural Pakistan, they can move there. If your kids are in this country, they need to be taught to integrate with the rest of country, and the values of British liberal democracy, which are overwhelmingly superior to those of Islamic autocracy. The rest of society shouldn't have to deal with the consequences of children being brought up to be intolerant and backwards.Ninoinoz said:
Because they aren't doing anything illegal, perhaps?Socrates said:More on how screwed up those Muslim schools are:
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/education/ofsted-warns-of-extremist-influences-and-radicalisation-in-east-london-muslim-schools-9874875.html
Why are they not being closed down?
They don't have to follow the National Curriculum and those independent schools seem to be following a Islamic orientated curriculum.
It is a free country, but some people seem to have forgotten that.0 -
That may be so, but do you think the Muslim league, and Muslim soldiers loyal to them, would have just said "that's okay" if the British had announced a single Indian State, and left?Sunil_Prasannan said:
And yet there are almost as many Muslims in modern India as there are in modern Pakistan.Sean_F said:
There was no chance that Jinnah an his supporters would have agreed to be part of a Hindu-majority State, in 1947.Sunil_Prasannan said:
Remind me which country created Pakistan, a supposed "homeland" for Muslims. As you sow...Socrates said:
It won't be a free country if a generation of kids are raised to believe in crap like conservative Islam. If people want to have their kids raised in the culture of rural Pakistan, they can move there. If your kids are in this country, they need to be taught to integrate with the rest of country, and the values of British liberal democracy, which are overwhelmingly superior to those of Islamic autocracy. The rest of society shouldn't have to deal with the consequences of children being brought up to be intolerant and backwards.Ninoinoz said:
Because they aren't doing anything illegal, perhaps?Socrates said:More on how screwed up those Muslim schools are:
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/education/ofsted-warns-of-extremist-influences-and-radicalisation-in-east-london-muslim-schools-9874875.html
Why are they not being closed down?
They don't have to follow the National Curriculum and those independent schools seem to be following a Islamic orientated curriculum.
It is a free country, but some people seem to have forgotten that.
Oh, and one of the schools was funded with taxes too.
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The [Two-Nation] theory has been facing scepticism because Muslims did not entirely separate from Hindus and about one-third of all Muslims continued to live in post-partition India as Indian citizens alongside a much larger Hindu majority.[31][32] The subsequent partition of Pakistan itself into the present-day nations of Pakistan and Bangladesh was cited as proof both that Muslims did not constitute one nation and that religion was not a defining factor for nationhood.[31][32][33][34][35]Paul_Mid_Beds said:
I recall part of the reason partition was granted was due to help muslims from that part of the world had given Britain during the second world war, ie we owed them a favour.Sunil_Prasannan said:"Britain appeased Islamism way back in the 1940s by creating Pakistan." - Discuss
Some historians have claimed that the theory was a creation of a few Muslim intellectuals.[36] Prominent Pakistani politician Altaf Hussain of Muttahida Qaumi Movement believes history has proved the two-nation theory wrong.[37] He contended, "The idea of Pakistan was dead at its inception, when the majority of Muslims (in Muslim-minority areas of India) chose to stay back after partition, a truism reiterated in the creation of Bangladesh in 1971.[38]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-nation_theory
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@Sean_F
Here's a good article about the lack of inevitability of partition:
http://www.outlookindia.com/article/What-If-Attlee-Hadnt-Partitioned-India/287314
0 -
Assuming an Indian confederation, the Muslim League quite likely would have done. The leadership had its power base in the moderate central belt of India (most of the Muslims that stayed behind). Punjab would have also stayed integrated and was largely moderate. It's all quite possible.Sean_F said:
That may be so, but do you think the Muslim league, and Muslim soldiers loyal to them, would have just said "that's okay" if the British had announced a single Indian State, and left?Sunil_Prasannan said:
And yet there are almost as many Muslims in modern India as there are in modern Pakistan.Sean_F said:
There was no chance that Jinnah an his supporters would have agreed to be part of a Hindu-majority State, in 1947.Sunil_Prasannan said:
Remind me which country created Pakistan, a supposed "homeland" for Muslims. As you sow...Socrates said:
It won't be a free country if a generation of kids are raised to believe in crap like conservative Islam. If people want to have their kids raised in the culture of rural Pakistan, they can move there. If your kids are in this country, they need to be taught to integrate with the rest of country, and the values of British liberal democracy, which are overwhelmingly superior to those of Islamic autocracy. The rest of society shouldn't have to deal with the consequences of children being brought up to be intolerant and backwards.Ninoinoz said:
Because they aren't doing anything illegal, perhaps?Socrates said:More on how screwed up those Muslim schools are:
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/education/ofsted-warns-of-extremist-influences-and-radicalisation-in-east-london-muslim-schools-9874875.html
Why are they not being closed down?
They don't have to follow the National Curriculum and those independent schools seem to be following a Islamic orientated curriculum.
It is a free country, but some people seem to have forgotten that.
Oh, and one of the schools was funded with taxes too.0 -
I think I told you before Socrates that I would have loved it if the whole goddam Empire were a decentralised federation (backdated to pre-1775, natch!) - then it truly would have been - or indeed would still be - the Greatest Empire in the world!Socrates said:
Apparently Jinnah would have accepted being part of India as long as it was a decentralised federation but Nehru was a socialist and demanded a strong central state. My view is that we should have backed Jinnah's compromise.Sunil_Prasannan said:"Britain appeased Islamism way back in the 1940s by creating Pakistan." - Discuss
The "Imperial Senate" in the Star Wars galaxy would then have been based on a true earth-based counterpart 0 -
Good evening, everyone.
Markets are up. I'm rather tired, though, so I might leave it until tomorrow, unless something jumps out at me [though I'd prefer to get the pre-race article up today].0 -
F1: ah, that's why markets were delayed.
Red Bull excluded from qualifying.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/301616170 -
I was thinking that perhaps they need to improve a bit in the polls to compensate for slightly underperforming in Rochester compared to what the constituency polls were showing.RobD said:
I don't see why they need to be at 20%. Staying at the 15% or so level would also be good for them.AndyJS said:Are we expecting any polls tonight? UKIP need to be close to 20% to keep up the momentum.
0 -
Yes, no one with any vision.Sunil_Prasannan said:
I think I told you before Socrates that I would have loved it if the whole goddam Empire were a decentralised federation (backdated to pre-1775, natch!) - then it truly would have been - or indeed would still be - the Greatest Empire in the world!Socrates said:
Apparently Jinnah would have accepted being part of India as long as it was a decentralised federation but Nehru was a socialist and demanded a strong central state. My view is that we should have backed Jinnah's compromise.Sunil_Prasannan said:"Britain appeased Islamism way back in the 1940s by creating Pakistan." - Discuss
The "Imperial Senate" in the Star Wars galaxy would then have been based on a true earth-based counterpart
I'm unhappy about the British Isles being disunited.
You could have government that circulated the capitals every few years with days for 'local' issues to be discussed, keep everyone happy.0 -
As the EU has shown, throwing together states of very different levels of income into one union is very problematic, and it would be multiplied a lot by the sheer scale of poverty in India. Had the Empire been one federation, Indian politics would have dominated the whole thing due to the massive population advantage.Sunil_Prasannan said:
I think I told you before Socrates that I would have loved it if the whole goddam Empire were a decentralised federation (backdated to pre-1775, natch!) - then it truly would have been - or indeed would still be - the Greatest Empire in the world!Socrates said:
Apparently Jinnah would have accepted being part of India as long as it was a decentralised federation but Nehru was a socialist and demanded a strong central state. My view is that we should have backed Jinnah's compromise.Sunil_Prasannan said:"Britain appeased Islamism way back in the 1940s by creating Pakistan." - Discuss
The "Imperial Senate" in the Star Wars galaxy would then have been based on a true earth-based counterpart
A federation of the British Isles and North America could have worked. Australia and New Zealand were too far away.0 -
And you still lost. Just how bad was your ground game in the referendum?malcolmg said:Some contrast today at political meetings in Scotland today.
Lib Dem Conference .... attendance about 100
Radical Independence.... attendance over 3000
SNP .............................. attendance 12000 and waiting list for tickets0 -
We've seen a very slight downtick in UKIPs position in the polls over the last few weeks, so it'd be good to stop that decline. Of course, as you say, it'd be even better for them to go up!AndyJS said:
I was thinking that perhaps they need to improve a bit in the polls to compensate for slightly underperforming in Rochester compared to what the constituency polls were showing.RobD said:
I don't see why they need to be at 20%. Staying at the 15% or so level would also be good for them.AndyJS said:Are we expecting any polls tonight? UKIP need to be close to 20% to keep up the momentum.
0 -
The SNP seem to be benefiting from some sort of "sympathy vote" following the referendum. If YES had won, I imagine it would be Labour experiencing a big membership boost.0
-
Will put the article up shortly. Backed Ricciardo at 2.2 to be top 6. I know the Red Bull's rubbish in a straight line, but it's very good in the corners and Ricciardo's a very good driver.0
-
F1: and here it is. Sleepy, so it might be a bit addled:
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/abu-dhabi-pre-race.html0 -
Will Red Bull even start after their wing problems?Morris_Dancer said:Will put the article up shortly. Backed Ricciardo at 2.2 to be top 6. I know the Red Bull's rubbish in a straight line, but it's very good in the corners and Ricciardo's a very good driver.
0 -
There are no fast corners here, so that's quite a 'bold' tip.Morris_Dancer said:Will put the article up shortly. Backed Ricciardo at 2.2 to be top 6. I know the Red Bull's rubbish in a straight line, but it's very good in the corners and Ricciardo's a very good driver.
0 -
Mr. L, BBC article says they will, they'll just have to stiffen the front wing.0
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"Sympathy votes" aren't logical. The SNP ought to be losing members at the moment because they've just lost the referendum they spent the last five years saying they were determined to win.Monkeys said:
Why would Scottish voters trust Better Together to negotiate Independence?AndyJS said:The SNP seem to be benefiting from some sort of "sympathy vote" following the referendum. If YES had won, I imagine it would be Labour experiencing a big membership boost.
0 -
Mr. Maaarsh, Ricciardo's the fifth-fastest chap out there. We've seen all season how good he is at overtaking.
Of course, he could end up failing horrendously, and I'll look as silly as a mongoose wearing a fez. But then, that's why it's called gambling, rather than prudent investment
0 -
"Sympathy vote," is an illogical assumption - 45 percent of voters have pretty much one party that can win seats and speak for them in Parliament. Better Together's vote is split 3-ways, and their handling of "The Vow," is hilarious, annoying a subset of the 55.AndyJS said:
"Sympathy votes" aren't logical. The SNP ought to be losing members at the moment because they've just lost the referendum they spent the last five years saying they were determined to win.Monkeys said:
Why would Scottish voters trust Better Together to negotiate Independence?AndyJS said:The SNP seem to be benefiting from some sort of "sympathy vote" following the referendum. If YES had won, I imagine it would be Labour experiencing a big membership boost.
.0 -
One thing in his favour is starting at the back. He's the worst starter on the grid so at least this is 1 race where he really can't lose that many places.Morris_Dancer said:Mr. Maaarsh, Ricciardo's the fifth-fastest chap out there. We've seen all season how good he is at overtaking.
Of course, he could end up failing horrendously, and I'll look as silly as a mongoose wearing a fez. But then, that's why it's called gambling, rather than prudent investment0 -
I'm broadly speaking a supporter of European co-operation and collaboration between states. Too much of the pre-1945 history of our Continent illustrated the folly of antagonism and conflict.Socrates said:
As the EU has shown, throwing together states of very different levels of income into one union is very problematic, and it would be multiplied a lot by the sheer scale of poverty in India. Had the Empire been one federation, Indian politics would have dominated the whole thing due to the massive population advantage.
A federation of the British Isles and North America could have worked. Australia and New Zealand were too far away.
Yet I'm not blind to the disparities - they existed in the 1970s when the likes of Spain, Portugal and Greece emerged from decades of dictatorship into democracy and wanted to secure that democracy within the EEC. Even then, their economies lagged far behind those of France, West Germany and the UK. Even within countries like France and Italy, there were and remain huge regional differences.
I've often said on here that conservatives, socialists and liberals, for their own seasons, misunderstood and misrepresented the events of 1989-90 just as they had the events of 1918-19. We could and should have done so much better but what we have now is infinitely better than militarily antagonistic power blocs across Europe and hundreds of tanks favcing each other a couple of hours drive from the Rhine.
The EU is flawed - no question. Had it never come into being or if it fell apart now, what would be the consequence ?0 -
Mr. Maaarsh, well, quite.
Hamilton must hope the Williams' don't start well. Weirdly, only one of the five races to date have been won by the chap on pole.
Anyway, I am off.0 -
So basically Socialist Centralising Government replaces effective viceroy with regal idiot who facilitates socialist centralising government and millions of deaths after scuttling without a proper settlement.Socrates said:@Sean_F
Here's a good article about the lack of inevitability of partition:
http://www.outlookindia.com/article/What-If-Attlee-Hadnt-Partitioned-India/287314
What a ghastly party Labour are.0 -
Quite a bit of UKIP activity in my patch now, though still not very targeted. They're working with two leaflets. There's a small one with 5 points (1 anti-Coalition, 1 anti-Lab, 1 immigration, 1 "positive change" and one "leave the EU and grow the economy") and a bar chart showing them winning the Euros. The larger leaflet has three pages of policy text in tiny print - I've not read it all yet and doubt if many have, but it's clearly intended to answer the "there's just about immigration" line.
That said, we didn't run into any doorstep flak today - 300-odd contacts in a WWC ward (Kimberley), plenty of Labour and not much UKIP. Two people mentioned Flaggate, but both were Labour loyalists grumbling that it was a distraction. If anything special is happening, we didn't detect it.0 -
Well, Lewis is consistently quicker than Rosberg in the races, and starts with fresher tyres, so the only cloud on his horizon is reliability or Nico rolling the dice on a collision when Lewis goes past.Morris_Dancer said:Mr. Maaarsh, well, quite.
Hamilton must hope the Williams' don't start well. Weirdly, only one of the five races to date have been won by the chap on pole.
Anyway, I am off.0 -
We're speaking counterfactually of course. If the - for lack of a better word - Greater Commonwealth had been run properly there wouldn't be rampant poverty - or at least not as much poverty as there is today.Socrates said:
As the EU has shown, throwing together states of very different levels of income into one union is very problematic, and it would be multiplied a lot by the sheer scale of poverty in India. Had the Empire been one federation, Indian politics would have dominated the whole thing due to the massive population advantage.Sunil_Prasannan said:
I think I told you before Socrates that I would have loved it if the whole goddam Empire were a decentralised federation (backdated to pre-1775, natch!) - then it truly would have been - or indeed would still be - the Greatest Empire in the world!Socrates said:
Apparently Jinnah would have accepted being part of India as long as it was a decentralised federation but Nehru was a socialist and demanded a strong central state. My view is that we should have backed Jinnah's compromise.Sunil_Prasannan said:"Britain appeased Islamism way back in the 1940s by creating Pakistan." - Discuss
The "Imperial Senate" in the Star Wars galaxy would then have been based on a true earth-based counterpart
A federation of the British Isles and North America could have worked. Australia and New Zealand were too far away.
Also by my calculations (which are sometimes correct!), India would now be only 38% of the population including all current Commonwealth states, the USA, other currently non-Commonwealth English-speaking states and the EU - yes, even the EU has English as an official language, so it would qualify
EDIT: Also the digital age would make communication and adminstration much easier.0 -
Why on Earth do you think it is a sympathy vote?AndyJS said:The SNP seem to be benefiting from some sort of "sympathy vote" following the referendum. If YES had won, I imagine it would be Labour experiencing a big membership boost.
It's about 60,000 Scots deciding that they didn't do enough to help make Independence happen, and signing up to be members of the SNP (or Scottish Greens) as the most obvious first step to making sure that they do everything they can to win the next referendum.0 -
(This may be an urban myth) when Mountbatten was asked what his views were on Partition, with hindsight he replied "Well, I really f***ed that one up, didn't I?"Sunil_Prasannan said:
Remind me which country created Pakistan, a supposed "homeland" for Muslims. As you sow...Socrates said:
It won't be a free country if a generation of kids are raised to believe in crap like conservative Islam. If people want to have their kids raised in the culture of rural Pakistan, they can move there. If your kids are in this country, they need to be taught to integrate with the rest of country, and the values of British liberal democracy, which are overwhelmingly superior to those of Islamic autocracy. The rest of society shouldn't have to deal with the consequences of children being brought up to be intolerant and backwards.Ninoinoz said:
Because they aren't doing anything illegal, perhaps?Socrates said:More on how screwed up those Muslim schools are:
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/education/ofsted-warns-of-extremist-influences-and-radicalisation-in-east-london-muslim-schools-9874875.html
Why are they not being closed down?
They don't have to follow the National Curriculum and those independent schools seem to be following a Islamic orientated curriculum.
It is a free country, but some people seem to have forgotten that.
Oh, and one of the schools was funded with taxes too.0 -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11247738/David-Cameron-wont-win-a-majority-insists-Mark-Reckless.html
"Mr Reckless, who successfully defended his Rochester and Strood seat this week after defecting, said the damage inflicted by his new party on the Tories next May would be "small if any"."0 -
Depends whether by "the EU never coming about" you mean just the formation in 1993, or none of the process from 1951.stodge said:
I'm broadly speaking a supporter of European co-operation and collaboration between states. Too much of the pre-1945 history of our Continent illustrated the folly of antagonism and conflict.Socrates said:
As the EU has shown, throwing together states of very different levels of income into one union is very problematic, and it would be multiplied a lot by the sheer scale of poverty in India. Had the Empire been one federation, Indian politics would have dominated the whole thing due to the massive population advantage.
A federation of the British Isles and North America could have worked. Australia and New Zealand were too far away.
Yet I'm not blind to the disparities - they existed in the 1970s when the likes of Spain, Portugal and Greece emerged from decades of dictatorship into democracy and wanted to secure that democracy within the EEC. Even then, their economies lagged far behind those of France, West Germany and the UK. Even within countries like France and Italy, there were and remain huge regional differences.
I've often said on here that conservatives, socialists and liberals, for their own seasons, misunderstood and misrepresented the events of 1989-90 just as they had the events of 1918-19. We could and should have done so much better but what we have now is infinitely better than militarily antagonistic power blocs across Europe and hundreds of tanks favcing each other a couple of hours drive from the Rhine.
The EU is flawed - no question. Had it never come into being or if it fell apart now, what would be the consequence ?
The European Union did not end the Cold War. The failure of the Soviet state and Reagan restarting an arms race they couldn't keep up with did. I think it's unforeseeable for there not to be some form of European community in an alternative scenario. It's just the level of integration that was up for debate.0 -
I think you'd have to go back to the very beginning of the formation of British rule in India during the 18th Century to change that. There was endemic poverty in India before we turned up, and corporate rule made it a lot worse. It would be extremely difficult to get India to have an industrial revolution on par with the British. Perhaps the best way to make India as economically strong as possible is to get Fox's India bill go through, but even then I think it would just prevent famines and bit more income, rather than get them to Western European standards.Sunil_Prasannan said:
We're speaking counterfactually of course. If the - for lack of a better word - Greater Commonwealth had been run properly there wouldn't be rampant poverty - or at least not as much poverty as there is today.Socrates said:
As the EU has shown, throwing together states of very different levels of income into one union is very problematic, and it would be multiplied a lot by the sheer scale of poverty in India. Had the Empire been one federation, Indian politics would have dominated the whole thing due to the massive population advantage.Sunil_Prasannan said:
I think I told you before Socrates that I would have loved it if the whole goddam Empire were a decentralised federation (backdated to pre-1775, natch!) - then it truly would have been - or indeed would still be - the Greatest Empire in the world!Socrates said:
Apparently Jinnah would have accepted being part of India as long as it was a decentralised federation but Nehru was a socialist and demanded a strong central state. My view is that we should have backed Jinnah's compromise.Sunil_Prasannan said:"Britain appeased Islamism way back in the 1940s by creating Pakistan." - Discuss
The "Imperial Senate" in the Star Wars galaxy would then have been based on a true earth-based counterpart
A federation of the British Isles and North America could have worked. Australia and New Zealand were too far away.
Also by my calculations (which are sometimes correct!), India would now be only 38% of the population including all current Commonwealth states, the USA, other currently non-Commonwealth English-speaking states and the EU - yes, even the EU has English as an official language, so it would qualify
EDIT: Also the digital age would make communication and adminstration much easier.0 -
Oh dear.... Oh dear dear me.
Labour now moving into mega "China Syndrome"meltdown mode. Quite staggering that it has all fallen apart over one twittered photo. They will never survive months on the hustings, they just won't.
Sunday Telegraph
Emily Thornberry row: MPs like Ed Miliband are out of touch, says Hazel Blears
Career politicians like Ed Miliband are out of touch with voters because they lack experience outside Westminster, Hazel Blears warns, after Emily Thornberry's resignation over her 'sneering' white van man tweet
#SaveEd#WeLoveEd0 -
I never implied the EU ended the Cold War but the response to the collapse of Communism was, I think, badly wrong and, to her credit, and one of the few things with which I ever agreed with her, Margaret Thatcher was right about the risks of German Reunification. Unfortunately, people thought she was trapped in the WW2 mindset but I'm sure she wasn't. She couldn't stop Helmut Kohl (understandably) or persuade George HW Bush (equally).Socrates said:
Depends whether by "the EU never coming about" you mean just the formation in 1993, or none of the process from 1951.
The European Union did not end the Cold War. The failure of the Soviet state and Reagan restarting an arms race they couldn't keep up with did. I think it's unforeseeable for there not to be some form of European community in an alternative scenario. It's just the level of integration that was up for debate.
Both the EU and COMECON were the instruments by which the respective controlling superpower of their part of Europe enforced collaboration and co-operation. Inevitably, the American model was primarily economic and equally inevitably the Soviet model was political.
The economic model had to work because it guaranteed liberal democracy through prosperity whereas the failure of post-WW1 democracy across Europe was the result of economic failure and as we see now economic failure and insecurity provides a direct political challenge to the liberal democratic and capitalist model. When the Iberian dictatorships collapsed in the 1970s, they turned to the economic model of the EEC as a bulwark against the potential threat of Communist political subversion.
0 -
To the extent that Robert has time to be interested in football he is, like his Dad, Alistair Campbell and Prince Charles, a Burnley fan.Charles said:
Didn't know you were a Burnley fan...rcs1000 said:Burnley win! YaY!
No excuse: you need to come to our exhibition of Burnley's finest art when it opens in January
My family come from that part of Lancs where they have a Lib Dem MP who is going to hold his seat next May.
0 -
Like father, like son!Charles said:
Didn't know you were a Burnley fan...rcs1000 said:Burnley win! YaY!
No excuse: you need to come to our exhibition of Burnley's finest art when it opens in January
It's perhaps just as well that Paddy Power didn't choose to settle those bets placed on the Clarets being relegated in much the same manner as he declared Chelsea Premier League Champions yesterday.0 -
Southport?MikeSmithson said:
To the extent that Robert has time to be interested in football he is, like his Dad, Alistair Campbell and Prince Charles, a Burnley fan.Charles said:
Didn't know you were a Burnley fan...rcs1000 said:Burnley win! YaY!
No excuse: you need to come to our exhibition of Burnley's finest art when it opens in January
My family come from that part of Lancs where they have a Lib Dem MP who is going to hold his seat next May.0 -
It seems like we've swapped sides on Thatcher. I think her opposition to a united Germany, while understandable given history, was completely wrongheaded. The Germans in the two different states were one people and wanted to re-united. It would be very wrong for Britain, France and America to stop that, and them trying to would have likely caused huge anger at the West from Germany, seriously damaging NATO. The reluctance of Germany to step up to the plate in the Eurocrisis some 50 years later shows the depth of their moral renewal since 1945.stodge said:
I never implied the EU ended the Cold War but the response to the collapse of Communism was, I think, badly wrong and, to her credit, and one of the few things with which I ever agreed with her, Margaret Thatcher was right about the risks of German Reunification. Unfortunately, people thought she was trapped in the WW2 mindset but I'm sure she wasn't. She couldn't stop Helmut Kohl (understandably) or persuade George HW Bush (equally).Socrates said:
Depends whether by "the EU never coming about" you mean just the formation in 1993, or none of the process from 1951.
The European Union did not end the Cold War. The failure of the Soviet state and Reagan restarting an arms race they couldn't keep up with did. I think it's unforeseeable for there not to be some form of European community in an alternative scenario. It's just the level of integration that was up for debate.
Both the EU and COMECON were the instruments by which the respective controlling superpower of their part of Europe enforced collaboration and co-operation. Inevitably, the American model was primarily economic and equally inevitably the Soviet model was political.
The economic model had to work because it guaranteed liberal democracy through prosperity whereas the failure of post-WW1 democracy across Europe was the result of economic failure and as we see now economic failure and insecurity provides a direct political challenge to the liberal democratic and capitalist model. When the Iberian dictatorships collapsed in the 1970s, they turned to the economic model of the EEC as a bulwark against the potential threat of Communist political subversion.
I largely agree with your last paragraph, but I think all that would have been possible without "ever closer union". A close community of nations along the British preferred model could have been great, and we'd have avoided the human misery of the Eurozone crisis (six years and counting...)0 -
Well, then I have no choice but to invite you as well...MikeSmithson said:
To the extent that Robert has time to be interested in football he is, like his Dad, Alistair Campbell and Prince Charles, a Burnley fan.Charles said:
Didn't know you were a Burnley fan...rcs1000 said:Burnley win! YaY!
No excuse: you need to come to our exhibition of Burnley's finest art when it opens in January
My family come from that part of Lancs where they have a Lib Dem MP who is going to hold his seat next May.
From Cotton to Gold: the Hidden Collections of the Industrial Northwest
31st January - 17th April
in partnership with the Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery, the Haworth Art Gallery and Towneley Hall0 -
How did Labour get into this mess? They were led for years by a public-school-educated Oxford lawyer posh boy and no one batted an eyelid. Now Ed is getting it from all sides for being posh and aloof. Here's a thought: if Dave fell under a bus and was replaced by someone common, then the Tories would have the least posh leader of all parties - Miliband, Clegg, Farage - and would storm to power.Moses_ said:Oh dear.... Oh dear dear me.
Labour now moving into mega "China Syndrome"meltdown mode. Quite staggering that it has all fallen apart over one twittered photo. They will never survive months on the hustings, they just won't.
Sunday Telegraph
Emily Thornberry row: MPs like Ed Miliband are out of touch, says Hazel Blears
Career politicians like Ed Miliband are out of touch with voters because they lack experience outside Westminster, Hazel Blears warns, after Emily Thornberry's resignation over her 'sneering' white van man tweet
#SaveEd#WeLoveEd0 -
Sunil Prasannan @Sunil_P2 · 23m 23 minutes ago
Bar chart of all Great Britain by-election results since GE 2010 (updated for Rochester & Strood)
https://twitter.com/Sunil_P2/status/5362319146469294090 -
LOLCharles said:
(This may be an urban myth) when Mountbatten was asked what his views were on Partition, with hindsight he replied "Well, I really f***ed that one up, didn't I?"Sunil_Prasannan said:
Remind me which country created Pakistan, a supposed "homeland" for Muslims. As you sow...Socrates said:
It won't be a free country if a generation of kids are raised to believe in crap like conservative Islam. If people want to have their kids raised in the culture of rural Pakistan, they can move there. If your kids are in this country, they need to be taught to integrate with the rest of country, and the values of British liberal democracy, which are overwhelmingly superior to those of Islamic autocracy. The rest of society shouldn't have to deal with the consequences of children being brought up to be intolerant and backwards.Ninoinoz said:
Because they aren't doing anything illegal, perhaps?Socrates said:More on how screwed up those Muslim schools are:
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/education/ofsted-warns-of-extremist-influences-and-radicalisation-in-east-london-muslim-schools-9874875.html
Why are they not being closed down?
They don't have to follow the National Curriculum and those independent schools seem to be following a Islamic orientated curriculum.
It is a free country, but some people seem to have forgotten that.
Oh, and one of the schools was funded with taxes too.0 -
I was hoping we might get 3 or 4 polls tonight and then a couple more tomorrow. Disappointing that it's only 2 all weekend.0
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Tonight's Opinium taken before Roch/Str result. Lab 33(nc) Con 30 (-4) Ukip 19(+1) LD 7 (+2)
Snp 5 Greens 40 -
The problem was the social, economic, political and cultural consequences of Re-Unification were well predicted and documented at the time. The massive depopulation of Eastern Germany, particularly with young women heading to the West to find rich husbands, the cost of cleaning up decades of environmental damage caused by misguided Marxist economics and the cultural fact that the people of the East, without the legacy of forty plus years of capitalism, had developed different moral attitudes all caused problems.Socrates said:
It seems like we've swapped sides on Thatcher. I think her opposition to a united Germany, while understandable given history, was completely wrongheaded. The Germans in the two different states were one people and wanted to re-united. It would be very wrong for Britain, France and America to stop that, and them trying to would have likely caused huge anger at the West from Germany, seriously damaging NATO. The reluctance of Germany to step up to the plate in the Eurocrisis some 50 years later shows the depth of their moral renewal since 1945.
We will see the same if and when the Koreas re-unite but on a much larger level.
The argument in 1989-90 was that it was somehow necessary to tether the post-Communist states of Eastern Europe to the western economic and security model (with all the problems that is now causing). Conservatives saw the emerging Eastern European countries as a bulwark against federalism (i.e: the dominant Franco-German Axis) so wanted them in the EU to dilute that (which it hasn't).
It was the same argument used about Spain, Portugal and Greece in the 1970s and about Turkey now. Nobody either recognised or cared about the economic disparities and the problems they would cause then and it's only now that people have started to realise what the consequence of poor policy-making has been.0 -
To be fair he was distracted by his wife getting boned by Nehru.Charles said:
(This may be an urban myth) when Mountbatten was asked what his views were on Partition, with hindsight he replied "Well, I really f***ed that one up, didn't I?"Sunil_Prasannan said:
Remind me which country created Pakistan, a supposed "homeland" for Muslims. As you sow...Socrates said:
It won't be a free country if a generation of kids are raised to believe in crap like conservative Islam. If people want to have their kids raised in the culture of rural Pakistan, they can move there. If your kids are in this country, they need to be taught to integrate with the rest of country, and the values of British liberal democracy, which are overwhelmingly superior to those of Islamic autocracy. The rest of society shouldn't have to deal with the consequences of children being brought up to be intolerant and backwards.Ninoinoz said:
Because they aren't doing anything illegal, perhaps?Socrates said:More on how screwed up those Muslim schools are:
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/education/ofsted-warns-of-extremist-influences-and-radicalisation-in-east-london-muslim-schools-9874875.html
Why are they not being closed down?
They don't have to follow the National Curriculum and those independent schools seem to be following a Islamic orientated curriculum.
It is a free country, but some people seem to have forgotten that.
Oh, and one of the schools was funded with taxes too.
So we can really blame the disaster of partition on the Indians and the Labour government.0 -
Damn that will change ELBOW....a bitTheScreamingEagles said:Tonight's Opinium taken before Roch/Str result. Lab 33(nc) Con 30 (-4) Ukip 19(+1) LD 7 (+2)
Snp 5 Greens 4 0
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