It is slowly becoming clear that Osborne`s autumn statement has only drawn more attention to his failures and has gone down in the country like a lead balloon...Perhaps Osborne`s Christmas gift to Ed Mliband?
"The national debt is what we have piled up by decades of spending more than we make. It is approaching £1.5 trillion (£1,500,000,000,000). We cannot possibly pay it off."
Osborne made the mistake of not matching his address to the public mood,I think.
Hitchens is on good form today
"Sexism, or a load of hot air from EDF?
How long is it since British schools dared to tell girls they couldn’t study science? Yet all this week, the French-owned energy giant EDF has been plastering unpopular newspapers with advertisements featuring huge pictures of a woman called Niki Rousseau. She appears above the words (in block capitals): My old school taught me that girls don’t do science.
Really? I’m still looking for fellow pupils of Ms Rousseau at that school, Leiston High in Suffolk, in the early 1980s. But EDF eventually admitted to me that Ms Rousseau herself studied Biology at GCE O-level. This is surely very odd if they ‘taught’ her that ‘girls don’t do science’.
EDF blustered that the claim (which has Ms Rousseau’s stern face above it and her name beneath it) isn’t actually in quote marks. So what? What other conclusion could any normal person draw from this display, than that these were her words?
In the end they fell back on saying (over and over again): ‘It’s how she felt.’ Well, she may well have felt this. I might feel that I am a poached egg and start demanding toast to sit on. But if I am not one, my feelings don’t alter the facts.
One of the nastiest habits of modern Leftism is that it constantly pretends that things are worse than they are, and then uses this exaggeration to demand yet more positive discrimination. I think this is wicked, myself, and plan to complain to the Advertising Standards Authority."
The women not studying science due to a vast unprovable sexist conspiracy has been a meme in the US the past year or so, the left trying to import it here. Sexism/feminism of course being based on the long discredited Soviet ideology of human beings as blank slates.
The more equal and and freer a society the less women are forced to study science.
On topic. I suggest that yougov should produce a weekly Scottish opinion poll which uses their daily polling data but consolidated and adjusted appropriately for Scottish demographics. This would not require additional polling, but just additional calculations.
I can see it, it might fly well north of the border, but in the other 570+ seats it would be suicide. It wouldn't take much effort for their opponents to start hanging the "unilateralist" tag around their neck, it might not be true, but it would dovetail nicely with the "taking us back to the 70's" meme, and give people an opportunity to pull out all that old footage of members of the shadow cabinet on CND marches as young people.
Time has moved on, unilateralist really has no relevance to my age group. We can't afford Trident especially as it is a weapon we neither need, nor I hope would we ever use. The Falklands showed it's irrelevance.
The are all sorts of weapons that were not used in the Falklands, should they also be abolished? There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
The surprisingly sensible liberal Democrat for Hampstead & Kilburn for the Burqa thing right :
If it's not appropriate to wear a Balaclava or a motorcycle helmet, then it's not appropriate to wear a Burqa.
So it's fine to ban them in banks, shops etc?
Firms should obviously be allowed to choose who they serve, as Nigel Farage pointed out last week.
Within the law. Now I know you are not suggesting that people could refuse to serve a black man. However, whilst the law allows a landlord to refuse to serve a troublesome drunk or a shoe salesman could refuse to serve a drunk causing a disturance, you cannot refuse to serve a polite law abiding person purely out of an issue of discrimination. Frankly this is where Farage's comments are totally pathetic.
Who did Farage say shouldn't be served?
He said he wasn't bothered about women breastfeeding in public. It is Claridge's, who are nothing to do with Farage, that were involved in the incident. What did Farage say that upset you so?
Please, Mr. Isam, don't start that argument off again. We had it for two days enough is enough.
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
On topic. I suggest that yougov should produce a weekly Scottish opinion poll which uses their daily polling data but consolidated and adjusted appropriately for Scottish demographics. This would not require additional polling, but just additional calculations.
Similarly Populus could do fortnightly summaries.
The latest YG has 240 unweighted sample taken from Scotland, that would need to be trimmed down a bit to weight it for sex/age/social group etc, so might well give a sample size of around 200. Voting population of Scotland is 4.2m. So that subsample would give a MoE of around 7%, that might be a bit coarse to be useful I would suggest.
I can see it, it might fly well north of the border, but in the other 570+ seats it would be suicide. It wouldn't take much effort for their opponents to start hanging the "unilateralist" tag around their neck, it might not be true, but it would dovetail nicely with the "taking us back to the 70's" meme, and give people an opportunity to pull out all that old footage of members of the shadow cabinet on CND marches as young people.
Time has moved on, unilateralist really has no relevance to my age group. We can't afford Trident especially as it is a weapon we neither need, nor I hope would we ever use. The Falklands showed it's irrelevance.
The are all sorts of weapons that were not used in the Falklands, should they also be abolished? There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
It is the only case of us being attacked by another nation during the nuclear age, how is not relevant to the argument?
Didn't stop the number of insurgencies we fought either.
How does that affect other people? I wouldn't change nuns' habits either.
I think it's bloody rude to cover your face when speaking to other people, but I don't think that's justification to ban the burka, seeing that it's a fairly mild effect. There's a stronger case that it should be done because the majority of women wearing it are being pressured into doing so.
Motorcyclists are not allowed to wear helmets into a bank because the bank wants their face visible for security cameras. A lot of places currently gloss over people wearing a burka having their id checked because it would require them to show their face. Fundamentally not being able to visually identify someone is a security risk. This tolerance of face covering will evaporate very fast the first time there is a terrorist incident in which the suspect while present could not be identified because they were wearing a burka.
Yes, but where the person in the burka blows themselves up the ID point hardly matters. Where they actually rob the bank it then would become an issue. Presumably banks etc have been robbed by people in helmets.
The murderers of Lee Rigby wanted to be themselves killed. They wanted to start a counter reaction they wanted us, non muslims, to embark on anti muslim attacks and thus start a war. With that terrorist mindset, a burka has relatively little anti terrorist meaning. Socially it may well be different and clearly it is a major handicap to allowing people to integrate. It strikes me as a way of men opressing or controlling women - I find it difficult to see it as religious since many muslim women do not wear it. But where are we going here? A woman covering herself up is bad and apparantly so is a woman merely feeding her child.
I guess that answers the "Who are the British going to bomb that America won't" question. They're going to nuke America and put the poor bastards out of their misery.
On topic. I suggest that yougov should produce a weekly Scottish opinion poll which uses their daily polling data but consolidated and adjusted appropriately for Scottish demographics. This would not require additional polling, but just additional calculations.
Similarly Populus could do fortnightly summaries.
The latest YG has 240 unweighted sample taken from Scotland, that would need to be trimmed down a bit to weight it for sex/age/social group etc, so might well give a sample size of around 200. Voting population of Scotland is 4.2m. So that subsample would give a MoE of around 7%, that might be a bit coarse to be useful I would suggest.
I think the suggestion was that you would lump together a week's polls, so you would have a sample of ~1000 on your figures.
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
That does beg the question of who will be in the White House in 5-10 years time. There are all sorts of European conflict scenarios, or more likely threat scenarios where a non-interventionist president might sit on his hands, or play for time.
A new president absorbed by domestic issues might not feel the need to get involved with Putin flexes his muscles at Europe, after a little unpleasantness in the Ukraine, when a few Russian tanks "stray" into Poland he might go for a game on the golf course, when Trident free Britain protests, and is quietly told to be quiet because there are a number of warheads pointed at our cities, we would I believe acquiesce.
I can see it, it might fly well north of the border, but in the other 570+ seats it would be suicide. It wouldn't take much effort for their opponents to start hanging the "unilateralist" tag around their neck, it might not be true, but it would dovetail nicely with the "taking us back to the 70's" meme, and give people an opportunity to pull out all that old footage of members of the shadow cabinet on CND marches as young people.
Time has moved on, unilateralist really has no relevance to my age group. We can't afford Trident especially as it is a weapon we neither need, nor I hope would we ever use. The Falklands showed it's irrelevance.
The are all sorts of weapons that were not used in the Falklands, should they also be abolished? There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
It is the only case of us being attacked by another nation during the nuclear age, how is not relevant to the argument?
Didn't stop the number of insurgencies we fought either.
Nothing in the UK arsenal deterred the Falklands war, should we get rid of the lot?
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
Charles De Gaulle answered your question sixty years ago.
Veramabulus Yougov already does break down its daily figures to set out the Scottish figures too along with regional ones, the figures are there if OGH wants to look for them, I think he just wants more Scotland specific polls
'Who are we planning to nuke" hopefully no-one..but if anyone thinks the fellas that like to chop peoples heads off would not use a nuke to hit us, then plainly they are ignorant.
'Who are we planning to nuke" hopefully no-one..but if anyone thinks the fellas that like to chop peoples heads off would not use a nuke to hit us, then plainly they are ignorant.
So say they do: 1) What specifically are you going to bomb when that happens? 2) Assuming there are plausible targets and these people can be deterred by threatening them, why wouldn't the Americans be interested in doing it?
'Who are we planning to nuke" hopefully no-one..but if anyone thinks the fellas that like to chop peoples heads off would not use a nuke to hit us, then plainly they are ignorant.
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
That does beg the question of who will be in the White House in 5-10 years time. There are all sorts of European conflict scenarios, or more likely threat scenarios where a non-interventionist president might sit on his hands, or play for time.
A new president absorbed by domestic issues might not feel the need to get involved with Putin flexes his muscles at Europe, after a little unpleasantness in the Ukraine, when a few Russian tanks "stray" into Poland he might go for a game on the golf course, when Trident free Britain protests, and is quietly told to be quiet because there are a number of warheads pointed at our cities, we would I believe acquiesce.
The US has a policy of full spectrum dominance and has invaded and instigated a number of conflicts since the end of the Cold War (Ossetia, Serbia, Libya, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria). I wish we could have a non interventionist US president, unfortunately they have reacted violently to the prospect of a multipolar world. All the more reason to close their bases on our territory.
I can see it, it might fly well north of the border, but in the other 570+ seats it would be suicide. It wouldn't take much effort for their opponents to start hanging the "unilateralist" tag around their neck, it might not be true, but it would dovetail nicely with the "taking us back to the 70's" meme, and give people an opportunity to pull out all that old footage of members of the shadow cabinet on CND marches as young people.
Time has moved on, unilateralist really has no relevance to my age group. We can't afford Trident especially as it is a weapon we neither need, nor I hope would we ever use. The Falklands showed it's irrelevance.
The are all sorts of weapons that were not used in the Falklands, should they also be abolished? There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
It is the only case of us being attacked by another nation during the nuclear age, how is not relevant to the argument?
Didn't stop the number of insurgencies we fought either.
Nothing in the UK arsenal deterred the Falklands war, should we get rid of the lot?
Nukes justification is deterrence, our conventional forces retook the islands.
The conventional forces we now have stationed there seem to have more of a deterrence effect than Trident did or has.
On topic. I suggest that yougov should produce a weekly Scottish opinion poll which uses their daily polling data but consolidated and adjusted appropriately for Scottish demographics. This would not require additional polling, but just additional calculations.
Similarly Populus could do fortnightly summaries.
Good ideas. The Yougov idea would be an inexpensive way for Yougov to stretch their data and resell to a Scottish newspaper such as the Scottish Sun. They should pay you a Monkey for the idea!
Of course Spain may also join Argentina on the target list with Gibralter.
The polling shows most voters want to retain a nuclear deterrent, but a cheaper version than Trident
I was under the impression that Trident was relatively cheap considering the number of years the contract was over, and that in any case the amount of money that could be recouped from it was close to zero owing to the terms of the said contracts. I believe that NPxMP said as much a week or so ago.
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
Charles De Gaulle answered your question sixty years ago.
You're probably thinking of a specific quote that I'm missing but the French are in a different situation, since they're specifically trying to reduce the power of the Americans, whereas Trident was a way for the British to give the Americans moral support against Russia (and financial support, by buying their stuff.)
I can see it, it might fly well north of the border, but in the other 570+ seats it would be suicide. It wouldn't take much effort for their opponents to start hanging the "unilateralist" tag around their neck, it might not be true, but it would dovetail nicely with the "taking us back to the 70's" meme, and give people an opportunity to pull out all that old footage of members of the shadow cabinet on CND marches as young people.
Time has moved on, unilateralist really has no relevance to my age group. We can't afford Trident especially as it is a weapon we neither need, nor I hope would we ever use. The Falklands showed it's irrelevance.
The are all sorts of weapons that were not used in the Falklands, should they also be abolished? There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
It is the only case of us being attacked by another nation during the nuclear age, how is not relevant to the argument?
Didn't stop the number of insurgencies we fought either.
Nothing in the UK arsenal deterred the Falklands war, should we get rid of the lot?
Nukes justification is deterrence, our conventional forces retook the islands.
No, the justification for a having nukes is to deter a nuclear attack by having a guaranteed second strike capability. That is why the use of the Falklands as an example for its failure and thus redundancy doesn't hold water.
I can see it, it might fly well north of the border, but in the other 570+ seats it would be suicide. It wouldn't take much effort for their opponents to start hanging the "unilateralist" tag around their neck, it might not be true, but it would dovetail nicely with the "taking us back to the 70's" meme, and give people an opportunity to pull out all that old footage of members of the shadow cabinet on CND marches as young people.
Good points but it needn't be unilateralist. Having 4 subs, at least one permanently at sea and being able single-handedly to devastate many Russian cities in an afternoon isn't necessary. It's expensive, excessive and dangerous.
Err...?
Do you really think they are all pointed at Moscow? Chances are that they are not pointing anywhere but can be targeted in minutes.
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
Charles De Gaulle answered your question sixty years ago.
You're probably thinking of a specific quote that I'm missing but the French are in a different situation, since they're specifically trying to reduce the power of the Americans, whereas Trident was a way for the British to give the Americans moral support against Russia (and financial support, by buying their stuff.)
The question from foxinsox was "Who are we planning to nuke?"..so it was the question.
You're still not answering that. The question you're answering is "who might want to nuke us", which unfortunately has a lot of potential answers, but it's not obvious which ones Britain having nuclear submarines would help with.
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
Charles De Gaulle answered your question sixty years ago.
You're probably thinking of a specific quote that I'm missing but the French are in a different situation, since they're specifically trying to reduce the power of the Americans, whereas Trident was a way for the British to give the Americans moral support against Russia (and financial support, by buying their stuff.)
Nice idea but drifting from reality more than somewhat. See the thoughts of Ernest Bevin as well as Charles de Gaulle.
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
Charles De Gaulle answered your question sixty years ago.
You're probably thinking of a specific quote that I'm missing but the French are in a different situation, since they're specifically trying to reduce the power of the Americans, whereas Trident was a way for the British to give the Americans moral support against Russia (and financial support, by buying their stuff.)
So french nukes good, brit nukes bad ?
It's not really a good vs bad thing. French nukes have a plausible if weird rationale for a goal that France has (albeit a fairly mental one), whereas British nukes don't seem to have any kind of rationale that anybody's able to articulate.
It is slowly becoming clear that Osborne`s autumn statement has only drawn more attention to his failures and has gone down in the country like a lead balloon...Perhaps Osborne`s Christmas gift to Ed Mliband?
You do understand the 'lead-balloon' metaphor schmuckie...?
FalseFlag It was actually Cameron and Sarkozy who pushed Obama into action on Libya as Blair pushed Clinton into action on Kosovo and remember Thatcher's 'now don't go wobbly on me George' after the invasion of Kuwait
I wouldn't be sympathetic to a Muslim employee who went to work in shop that sold booze and fags, and then raised a moral objection to handling them. OTOH, I'd be a good deal more sympathetic to a Muslim employee who went to work for a shop that didn't sell such things, and was then subsequently told he had to handle them, or get fired.
To press you on this, Sean, do you mean you'd be "sympathetic" in that you'd feel for their predicament, or do you mean the shopkeeper should be required to continue to employ them even if they refused to serve customers wanting to buy 20 Rothmans and a four pack of Special Brew?
Because those are quite different things. I'd be sympathetic in the first sense, but it's ludicrous to require an employer to continue to employ (or alternatively to pay off) an employee in those circumstances.
I also feel sympathetic to the registrars who have moral qualms about marrying gay people. But I don't feel sympathetic enough to pay for them to have a person without such qualms to sit with them and register the marriages they choose not to.
I'm not an expert on employment law, but I'd take the view that if an employer sought unilaterally to change an employee's terms of employment in such a fundamental way, then he ought not to be allowed to terminate such employment for non-compliance with his instructions, without paying damages to that employee.
On why the AS hasn't been the unmitigated triumph some of the Tory press initially hailed it as: Arguably the most important fact in the AS was the revision of projected tax revenues to reflect stagnation in the tax take despite growth in the economy. Combined with the IFS's statement of 'Colossal Cuts' it's given Labour a macro-economic argument to go with the micro one (the cost-of-living crisis) that's been relatively successful. This is that if you don't address the problems of productivity and low-wages - your tax take won't grow even with the return to growth, necessitating an approach that offers more than just cutting.
Most people of course don't pay attention to the intricacies, but it's one of the reasons that Labour's response has been far more confident this year, as they smell a way out of the conundrum that's kept Osborne ahead so far even as he's failed in his promises - namely that if we're in so much debt and the Tories are rubbish at getting it down, how can you justify cutting less, except for reasons of emotion?
Obviously that's not going to convince many on here, or those who are firmly in the cuts camp - but it seems to have added a bit of purpose and definition where before there was drift and the worry that even if his economics were dodgy Osborne had framed the argument on the economy so successfully that there just wasn't a way to win it in terms understandable to the public.
SNP appears to be pushing the monarchy debate ahead in Scotland. Not handing over The Queen's cut from the crown estates is as good a way of saying "push off" as you can think of bar shouting it.
On the lack of Scottish opinion polls, it's worth saying that it would be advisable to avoid the trap of putting any stock in the Scottish subsamples in UK-wide opinion polls. You'll see apparent polling sites like James Kelly's "Scot Goes Pop" (which is essentially an SNP fan page run by someone who doesn't even know what a confidence level is) quoting these as if they're giving a coherent picture of opinions on the ground.
I completely understand why political campaigners go down that road - they're not interested in actual public opinion, they just want something positive to throw at their opponents - but you'd be a fool to stake any money on the basis of that kind of analysis. Waiting for an actual Scottish opinion poll is the only strategy here, frustrating though that may be.
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
Charles De Gaulle answered your question sixty years ago.
You're probably thinking of a specific quote that I'm missing but the French are in a different situation, since they're specifically trying to reduce the power of the Americans, whereas Trident was a way for the British to give the Americans moral support against Russia (and financial support, by buying their stuff.)
So french nukes good, brit nukes bad ?
It's not really a good vs bad thing. French nukes have a plausible if weird rationale for a goal that France has (albeit a fairly mental one), whereas British nukes don't seem to have any kind of rationale that anybody's able to articulate.
I think thge UK rationale is straightforward:
1. support NATO allies versus other nuclear powers viz Russia China 2. last guarantee of defence if NATO fails.
If Russia nuked Frankfurt would Obama dither and back off or risk some US cities by forcing the alliance ?
The polling shows most voters want to retain a nuclear deterrent, but a cheaper version than Trident
That'll just be middle-option bias in the polling. Try polling them on how much Trident actually costs at the moment and see how much of a clue they have...
I can't find the link, but I think basically you've got 1/3 firmly for, 1/3 firmly against and 1/3 that you can prod through whichever gate you like by messing around with the question.
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
Charles De Gaulle answered your question sixty years ago.
You're probably thinking of a specific quote that I'm missing but the French are in a different situation, since they're specifically trying to reduce the power of the Americans, whereas Trident was a way for the British to give the Americans moral support against Russia (and financial support, by buying their stuff.)
So french nukes good, brit nukes bad ?
It's not really a good vs bad thing. French nukes have a plausible if weird rationale for a goal that France has (albeit a fairly mental one), whereas British nukes don't seem to have any kind of rationale that anybody's able to articulate.
Now I am lost. The French second strike capability is rational but a British second strike capability isn't? Why is that?
I can see it, it might fly well north of the border, but in the other 570+ seats it would be suicide. It wouldn't take much effort for their opponents to start hanging the "unilateralist" tag around their neck, it might not be true, but it would dovetail nicely with the "taking us back to the 70's" meme, and give people an opportunity to pull out all that old footage of members of the shadow cabinet on CND marches as young people.
Time has moved on, unilateralist really has no relevance to my age group. We can't afford Trident especially as it is a weapon we neither need, nor I hope would we ever use. The Falklands showed it's irrelevance.
:sighs:
We have to build and design SSBNs and SSNs because it is in our national interest. We are not buying Trident....
FalseFlag It was actually Cameron and Sarkozy who pushed Obama into action on Libya as Blair pushed Clinton into action on Kosovo and remember Thatcher's 'now don't go wobbly on me George' after the invasion of Kuwait
HYUFD -The toppling of these regimes has been planned for years. Years. Don't buy into PR fluff.
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
Charles De Gaulle answered your question sixty years ago.
You're probably thinking of a specific quote that I'm missing but the French are in a different situation, since they're specifically trying to reduce the power of the Americans, whereas Trident was a way for the British to give the Americans moral support against Russia (and financial support, by buying their stuff.)
So french nukes good, brit nukes bad ?
Yes, and he's just explained why. Moreover, we cannot use our nuclear weapons without codes provided by the US. Meaning we cannot use them in a way that the US would not approve of. Meaning they are not a British asset, they are a US asset on British soil, paid for by Britain.
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
Charles De Gaulle answered your question sixty years ago.
You're probably thinking of a specific quote that I'm missing but the French are in a different situation, since they're specifically trying to reduce the power of the Americans, whereas Trident was a way for the British to give the Americans moral support against Russia (and financial support, by buying their stuff.)
So french nukes good, brit nukes bad ?
It's not really a good vs bad thing. French nukes have a plausible if weird rationale for a goal that France has (albeit a fairly mental one), whereas British nukes don't seem to have any kind of rationale that anybody's able to articulate.
I think thge UK rationale is straightforward:
1. support NATO allies versus other nuclear powers viz Russia China 2. last guarantee of defence if NATO fails.
If Russia nuked Frankfurt would Obama dither and back off or risk some US cities by forcing the alliance ?
Stuff Frankfurt. What if someone Nuked Birmingham?
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
Charles De Gaulle answered your question sixty years ago.
You're probably thinking of a specific quote that I'm missing but the French are in a different situation, since they're specifically trying to reduce the power of the Americans, whereas Trident was a way for the British to give the Americans moral support against Russia (and financial support, by buying their stuff.)
So french nukes good, brit nukes bad ?
Yes, and he's just explained why. Moreover, we cannot use our nuclear weapons without codes provided by the US. Meaning we cannot use them in a way that the US would not approve of. Meaning they are not a British asset, they are a US asset on British soil, paid for by Britain.
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
Charles De Gaulle answered your question sixty years ago.
You're probably thinking of a specific quote that I'm missing but the French are in a different situation, since they're specifically trying to reduce the power of the Americans, whereas Trident was a way for the British to give the Americans moral support against Russia (and financial support, by buying their stuff.)
So french nukes good, brit nukes bad ?
It's not really a good vs bad thing. French nukes have a plausible if weird rationale for a goal that France has (albeit a fairly mental one), whereas British nukes don't seem to have any kind of rationale that anybody's able to articulate.
I think thge UK rationale is straightforward:
1. support NATO allies versus other nuclear powers viz Russia China 2. last guarantee of defence if NATO fails.
If Russia nuked Frankfurt would Obama dither and back off or risk some US cities by forcing the alliance ?
Stuff Frankfurt. What if someone Nuked Birmingham?
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
Charles De Gaulle answered your question sixty years ago.
You're probably thinking of a specific quote that I'm missing but the French are in a different situation, since they're specifically trying to reduce the power of the Americans, whereas Trident was a way for the British to give the Americans moral support against Russia (and financial support, by buying their stuff.)
So french nukes good, brit nukes bad ?
It's not really a good vs bad thing. French nukes have a plausible if weird rationale for a goal that France has (albeit a fairly mental one), whereas British nukes don't seem to have any kind of rationale that anybody's able to articulate.
Now I am lost. The French second strike capability is rational but a British second strike capability isn't? Why is that?
Rational given their objectives, but the French objective is in turn a bit mad.
Think of it like this: Alice is scared of spiders, so she won't go in the bathroom in case there's a spider in it. Bob isn't scared of spiders, but he won't go in the bathroom in case there's a spider in it.
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
Charles De Gaulle answered your question sixty years ago.
You're probably thinking of a specific quote that I'm missing but the French are in a different situation, since they're specifically trying to reduce the power of the Americans, whereas Trident was a way for the British to give the Americans moral support against Russia (and financial support, by buying their stuff.)
So french nukes good, brit nukes bad ?
It's not really a good vs bad thing. French nukes have a plausible if weird rationale for a goal that France has (albeit a fairly mental one), whereas British nukes don't seem to have any kind of rationale that anybody's able to articulate.
I think thge UK rationale is straightforward:
1. support NATO allies versus other nuclear powers viz Russia China 2. last guarantee of defence if NATO fails.
If Russia nuked Frankfurt would Obama dither and back off or risk some US cities by forcing the alliance ?
Stuff Frankfurt. What if someone Nuked Birmingham?
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
Charles De Gaulle answered your question sixty years ago.
You're probably thinking of a specific quote that I'm missing but the French are in a different situation, since they're specifically trying to reduce the power of the Americans, whereas Trident was a way for the British to give the Americans moral support against Russia (and financial support, by buying their stuff.)
So french nukes good, brit nukes bad ?
Yes, and he's just explained why. Moreover, we cannot use our nuclear weapons without codes provided by the US. Meaning we cannot use them in a way that the US would not approve of. Meaning they are not a British asset, they are a US asset on British soil, paid for by Britain.
well that's the statement, but firstly do we all believe it and secondly it's not the only way of delivering warheads, just the fastest.
Obviously that's not going to convince many on here, or those who are firmly in the cuts camp - but it seems to have added a bit of purpose and definition where before there was drift and the worry that even if his economics were dodgy Osborne had framed the argument on the economy so successfully that there just wasn't a way to win it in terms understandable to the public.
Anyone not convinced of at least fairly serious cuts needs to buy a calculator.
£1,451bn national debt costs us £52bn per year in interest, more than we spend on defense.
£720bn spending - £612bn income = £108bn deficit
£108bn costs us an extra £8bn in interest every subsequent year
Every five years we increase the amount we spend on interest every year by the equivalent of the defense budget, every ten years by the equivalent of the Education budget.
At the moment interest payments are at a record low, any time the markets find somewhere better to put their money, or start to suspect we might not pay it back (ie if EdM is elected) those rates might go up a lot. If we ended up being in the position Italy or Ireland was, we could be paying double that interest easily.
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
Charles De Gaulle answered your question sixty years ago.
You're probably thinking of a specific quote that I'm missing but the French are in a different situation, since they're specifically trying to reduce the power of the Americans, whereas Trident was a way for the British to give the Americans moral support against Russia (and financial support, by buying their stuff.)
So french nukes good, brit nukes bad ?
Yes, and he's just explained why. Moreover, we cannot use our nuclear weapons without codes provided by the US. Meaning we cannot use them in a way that the US would not approve of. Meaning they are not a British asset, they are a US asset on British soil, paid for by Britain.
Rubbish!
Put yourself in their place. Would you really manufacture a world destroying device, for another country to hold in perpetuity, with total carte blanche to use, knowing full well that allegiances can shift over time? Rot. There are widespread rumours that even US manufactured war planes have kill switches fitted, let alone nukes.
I can see it, it might fly well north of the border, but in the other 570+ seats it would be suicide. It wouldn't take much effort for their opponents to start hanging the "unilateralist" tag around their neck, it might not be true, but it would dovetail nicely with the "taking us back to the 70's" meme, and give people an opportunity to pull out all that old footage of members of the shadow cabinet on CND marches as young people.
Time has moved on, unilateralist really has no relevance to my age group. We can't afford Trident especially as it is a weapon we neither need, nor I hope would we ever use. The Falklands showed it's irrelevance.
The are all sorts of weapons that were not used in the Falklands, should they also be abolished? There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
It is the only case of us being attacked by another nation during the nuclear age, how is not relevant to the argument?
Didn't stop the number of insurgencies we fought either.
Nothing in the UK arsenal deterred the Falklands war, should we get rid of the lot?
Nukes justification is deterrence, our conventional forces retook the islands.
No, the justification for a having nukes is to deter a nuclear attack by having a guaranteed second strike capability. That is why the use of the Falklands as an example for its failure and thus redundancy doesn't hold water.
Nuclear attack by whom? I just don't see the circumstances in which a state actor would use them against us.
EdinTokyo As I said you would have to convince them Trident is cheapest
Luckyguy1983 Maybe, but while it is true George W Bush was aggressive and more of a hawk than even Blair and certainly Brown and Reagan even perhaps than Thatcher, remember Grenada, Obama is more of a dove than Cameron, as Bush Snr was than Thatcher and Clinton was than Blair, Bush Snr and Major about the same
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
Charles De Gaulle answered your question sixty years ago.
You're probably thinking of a specific quote that I'm missing but the French are in a different situation, since they're specifically trying to reduce the power of the Americans, whereas Trident was a way for the British to give the Americans moral support against Russia (and financial support, by buying their stuff.)
So french nukes good, brit nukes bad ?
It's not really a good vs bad thing. French nukes have a plausible if weird rationale for a goal that France has (albeit a fairly mental one), whereas British nukes don't seem to have any kind of rationale that anybody's able to articulate.
Now I am lost. The French second strike capability is rational but a British second strike capability isn't? Why is that?
Rational given their objectives, but the French objective is in turn a bit mad.
Think of it like this: Alice is scared of spiders, so she won't go in the bathroom in case there's a spider in it. Bob isn't scared of spiders, but he won't go in the bathroom in case there's a spider in it.
Sorry, Mr. Tokyo, but you lost me on the spiders thing. As I said up-thread, there are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent. However, I don't see how its rational, but weird, for the Frogs to retain such a capability, but not the Brits (or, for that matter, the Yanks, Russians, Israelis, Iranians, North Koreans and anyone else).
The economy is now 6x bigger than it was in 1938 so when the BBC and others talk about reducing spending to that level the are talking about a State that would "only" be spending 6x as much as then.
...
What all the political parties have to face is that there are massively difficult choices to make in fixing the horrific imbalance that Brown caused in our economy in the decade from 2000 to 2010. Whatever reservations I have about the ambitions of the Tories and the likelihood of them being able to deliver they at least have a route map for a road in the right general direction.
Your point about Brown is well made. We need to rebalance the economy and that economy needs to create more revenues. It seems to me that some taxes are slipping through the net and we have just seen the attempts to catch them. The govt cuts are in current spending and it wants to maintain or increase capital spending. The 2013 spending review said - 'By 2014-15, departments will be saving £20 billion a year compared to 2010 through a programme of collective action to drive efficiencies and reduce wasteful expenditure. The Government had already achieved half of these savings by April 2013'. There is scope for cuts.
And of course as you imply, all of this will take time - and all of this is inescapable if you are rational and not a socialist. Its why govts need a majority - to do difficult things. Its why I despair at people going out of their way to usher in another socialist govt. Will a socialist govt press down on welfare?
In so far that growth does not provide the leeway to reduce the deficit (and its the structural deficit we need to cut) then for a start we need to look at everyone avoiding taxes before we start putting them up. We can sympathise with not wanting to pay taxes for wasteful spending but when spending and waste is being cut and the alternative is for all existing payers to pay more then those avoiders must at long last expect to pay their share.
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
Charles De Gaulle answered your question sixty years ago.
You're probably thinking of a specific quote that I'm missing but the French are in a different situation, since they're specifically trying to reduce the power of the Americans, whereas Trident was a way for the British to give the Americans moral support against Russia (and financial support, by buying their stuff.)
So french nukes good, brit nukes bad ?
Yes, and he's just explained why. Moreover, we cannot use our nuclear weapons without codes provided by the US. Meaning we cannot use them in a way that the US would not approve of. Meaning they are not a British asset, they are a US asset on British soil, paid for by Britain.
well that's the statement, but firstly do we all believe it and secondly it's not the only way of delivering warheads, just the fastest.
Do you really not believe this article:
'Given the complexities of the US designed electronics and computer programmes embedded in every aspect of the Trident system it seems unlikely that a British prime minister could launch them – unless the US President gives his own authorisation. If David Cameron ever had to press the button a light might flash on President Obama's bedside Teasmade but that would be all.'
I think you do. Truth is immediately apparent in every syllable.
It even has something for those who accuse the more level headed amongst us of 'sucking up to Putin' -
'According to a US diplomatic telegram released by WikiLeaks last year, President Obama handed over the unique serial numbers of the UK's missiles to the Russians as part of an arms reduction deal, despite the strong objections of Her Majesty's Government. As a result the Russians now know exactly what we have got and what it can do. Sucking up to Putin is clearly more important than the 'independence' of the British deterrent.'
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
Charles De Gaulle answered your question sixty years ago.
You're probably thinking of a specific quote that I'm missing but the French are in a different situation, since they're specifically trying to reduce the power of the Americans, whereas Trident was a way for the British to give the Americans moral support against Russia (and financial support, by buying their stuff.)
So french nukes good, brit nukes bad ?
It's not really a good vs bad thing. French nukes have a plausible if weird rationale for a goal that France has (albeit a fairly mental one), whereas British nukes don't seem to have any kind of rationale that anybody's able to articulate.
Now I am lost. The French second strike capability is rational but a British second strike capability isn't? Why is that?
Rational given their objectives, but the French objective is in turn a bit mad.
Think of it like this: Alice is scared of spiders, so she won't go in the bathroom in case there's a spider in it. Bob isn't scared of spiders, but he won't go in the bathroom in case there's a spider in it.
Sorry, Mr. Tokyo, but you lost me on the spiders thing. As I said up-thread, there are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent. However, I don't see how its rational, but weird, for the Frogs to retain such a capability, but not the Brits (or, for that matter, the Yanks, Russians, Israelis, Iranians, North Koreans and anyone else).
The aim of French nuclear weapons is to assert themselves vs the Americans. The British don't have that objective.
The North Koreans (for example) in turn have a different strategic situation. It's totally rational for them to have nuclear weapons, because they need them to deter invasion (direct or by proxy) by the Americans. (See Libya.)
Edit to add: This is normal in security. The kind of security measures you need will depend on the threat. (In the French case, the threat is mostly to their self-image...)
Obviously that's not going to convince many on here, or those who are firmly in the cuts camp - but it seems to have added a bit of purpose and definition where before there was drift and the worry that even if his economics were dodgy Osborne had framed the argument on the economy so successfully that there just wasn't a way to win it in terms understandable to the public.
Anyone not convinced of at least fairly serious cuts needs to buy a calculator.
£1,451bn national debt costs us £52bn per year in interest, more than we spend on defense.
£720bn spending - £612bn income = £108bn deficit
£108bn costs us an extra £8bn in interest every subsequent year
Every five years we increase the amount we spend on interest every year by the equivalent of the defense budget, every ten years by the equivalent of the Education budget.
At the moment interest payments are at a record low, any time the markets find somewhere better to put their money, or start to suspect we might not pay it back (ie if EdM is elected) those rates might go up a lot. If we ended up being in the position Italy or Ireland was, we could be paying double that interest easily.
I hate - in a nice way - the Frogs but, well their Scandinavian ones, taught us good English! The word is "defence": No freaking 's'....
I can see it, it might fly well north of the border, but in the other 570+ seats it would be suicide. It wouldn't take much effort for their opponents to start hanging the "unilateralist" tag around their neck, it might not be true, but it would dovetail nicely with the "taking us back to the 70's" meme, and give people an opportunity to pull out all that old footage of members of the shadow cabinet on CND marches as young people.
Time has moved on, unilateralist really has no relevance to my age group. We can't afford Trident especially as it is a weapon we neither need, nor I hope would we ever use. The Falklands showed it's irrelevance.
The are all sorts of weapons that were not used in the Falklands, should they also be abolished? There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
It is the only case of us being attacked by another nation during the nuclear age, how is not relevant to the argument?
Didn't stop the number of insurgencies we fought either.
Nothing in the UK arsenal deterred the Falklands war, should we get rid of the lot?
Nukes justification is deterrence, our conventional forces retook the islands.
No, the justification for a having nukes is to deter a nuclear attack by having a guaranteed second strike capability. That is why the use of the Falklands as an example for its failure and thus redundancy doesn't hold water.
Nuclear attack by whom? I just don't see the circumstances in which a state actor would use them against us.
Would we ever use them, I certainly wouldn't?
What you or I would do is neither here nor there. However, we are moving on from the argument you put forward and to which I responded - that the Falklands war somehow had something to say about the utility of nukes. So, if you don't mind I'll call it quits at this point and go and get on with luncheon.
On the lack of Scottish opinion polls, it's worth saying that it would be advisable to avoid the trap of putting any stock in the Scottish subsamples in UK-wide opinion polls. You'll see apparent polling sites like James Kelly's "Scot Goes Pop" (which is essentially an SNP fan page run by someone who doesn't even know what a confidence level is) quoting these as if they're giving a coherent picture of opinions on the ground.
I completely understand why political campaigners go down that road - they're not interested in actual public opinion, they just want something positive to throw at their opponents - but you'd be a fool to stake any money on the basis of that kind of analysis. Waiting for an actual Scottish opinion poll is the only strategy here, frustrating though that may be.
Surely the problme with the subsamples, apart from the small size, is that they are not going to be internally demographically weighted (that will be across GB as a whole) and only partly politically weighted (for SNP identifiers/voters, but again the other weighting will be across GB as a whole). However if the polling company can re-weight them and aggregate them, as has been suggested, surely this will be OK?
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
Charles De Gaulle answered your question sixty years ago.
You're probably thinking of a specific quote st Russia (and financial support, by buying their stuff.)
So french nukes good, brit nukes bad ?
Yes, and he's just explained why. Moreover, we cannot use our nuclear weapons without codes provided by the US. Meaning we cannot use them in a way that the US would not approve of. Meaning they are not a British asset, they are a US asset on British soil, paid for by Britain.
well that's the statement, but firstly do we all believe it and secondly it's not the only way of delivering warheads, just the fastest.
Do you really not believe this article:
'Given the complexities of the US designed electronics and computer programmes embedded in every aspect of the Trident system it seems unlikely that a British prime minister could launch them – unless the US President gives his own authorisation. If David Cameron ever had to press the button a light might flash on President Obama's bedside Teasmade but that would be all.'
I think you do. Truth is immediately apparent in every syllable.
It even has something for those who accuse the more level headed amongst us of 'sucking up to Putin' -
'According to a US diplomatic telegram released by WikiLeaks last year, President Obama handed over the unique serial numbers of the UK's missiles to the Russians as part of an arms reduction deal, despite the strong objections of Her Majesty's Government. As a result the Russians now know exactly what we have got and what it can do. Sucking up to Putin is clearly more important than the 'independence' of the British deterrent.'
Not respecting local members was where Cameron started to lose chunks of his membership.
UKIP replaces unremarkable candidate who doesnt appear to have updated his blog since he stood in Croydon in 2010 http://ralphukip.blogspot.co.uk/ with telegenic minority candidate already familiar to the public... and the shock here is ... ?
I can see it, it might fly well north of the border, but in the other 570+ seats it would be suicide. It wouldn't take much effort for their opponents to start hanging the "unilateralist" tag around their neck, it might not be true, but it would dovetail nicely with the "taking us back to the 70's" meme, and give people an opportunity to pull out all that old footage of members of the shadow cabinet on CND marches as young people.
Time has moved on, unilateralist really has no relevance to my age group. We can't afford Trident especially as it is a weapon we neither need, nor I hope would we ever use. The Falklands showed it's irrelevance.
The are all sorts of weapons that were not used in the Falklands, should they also be abolished? There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
It is the only case of us being attacked by another nation during the nuclear age, how is not relevant to the argument?
Didn't stop the number of insurgencies we fought either.
Nothing in the UK arsenal deterred the Falklands war, should we get rid of the lot?
Nukes justification is deterrence, our conventional forces retook the islands.
No, the justification for a having nukes is to deter a nuclear attack by having a guaranteed second strike capability. That is why the use of the Falklands as an example for its failure and thus redundancy doesn't hold water.
Nuclear attack by whom? I just don't see the circumstances in which a state actor would use them against us.
Would we ever use them, I certainly wouldn't?
First off any arms reductions, let alone nuclear arms reductions, should be multilateral. Second - given the possibiluty of a rogue state and the possible spread of illegal or 'dirty' nuclear weapons there is still the issue of deterrence.
EdinTokyo As I said you would have to convince them Trident is cheapest
Luckyguy1983 Maybe, but while it is true George W Bush was aggressive and more of a hawk than even Blair and certainly Brown and Reagan even perhaps than Thatcher, remember Grenada, Obama is more of a dove than Cameron, as Bush Snr was than Thatcher and Clinton was than Blair, Bush Snr and Major about the same
Well that's where we part company. I see American foreign policy as a continuum, which carries on regardless of who the face in the White House is. The differences being purely presentational or at most tactical (Obama team's preference for indirect warfare -so-called 'soft' power); the desired outcome being the same. I think playing the personality game is a bit of a red herring.
I can see it, it might fly well north of the border, but in the other 570+ seats it would be suicide. It wouldn't take much effort for their opponents to start hanging the "unilateralist" tag around their neck, it might not be true, but it would dovetail nicely with the "taking us back to the 70's" meme, and give people an opportunity to pull out all that old footage of members of the shadow cabinet on CND marches as young people.
Time has moved on, unilateralist really has no relevance to my age group. We can't afford Trident especially as it is a weapon we neither need, nor I hope would we ever use. The Falklands showed it's irrelevance.
The are all sorts of weapons that were not used in the Falklands, should they also be abolished? There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
It is the only case of us being attacked by another nation during the nuclear age, how is not relevant to the argument?
Didn't stop the number of insurgencies we fought either.
Nothing in the UK arsenal deterred the Falklands war, should we get rid of the lot?
Nukes justification is deterrence, our conventional forces retook the islands.
No, the justification for a having nukes is to deter a nuclear attack by having a guaranteed second strike capability. That is why the use of the Falklands as an example for its failure and thus redundancy doesn't hold water.
Nuclear attack by whom? I just don't see the circumstances in which a state actor would use them against us.
Would we ever use them, I certainly wouldn't?
What you or I would do is neither here nor there. However, we are moving on from the argument you put forward and to which I responded - that the Falklands war somehow had something to say about the utility of nukes. So, if you don't mind I'll call it quits at this point and go and get on with luncheon.
Well they don't deter an attack by conventional forces, that point remains, whether they do a nuclear attack who knows?
For me I remain bound by the convention of not targetting civilians which nukes do.
I suppose the rationale for British nukes is that we are part of a successful nuclear-armed alliance, and that means that those member states who can afford to should contribute towards that Alliance's nuclear capability. The view that we can leave everything up to the Americans is far too widespread.
FalseFlag It was actually Cameron and Sarkozy who pushed Obama into action on Libya as Blair pushed Clinton into action on Kosovo and remember Thatcher's 'now don't go wobbly on me George' after the invasion of Kuwait
HYUFD -The toppling of these regimes has been planned for years. Years. Don't buy into PR fluff.
I must have missed that American invasion of Lebanon between 2001-2008. Murderous Yankee bastards with their nefarious plans to steal all that Lebanese oil.
By the way, you realise that Rumsfeld and his party got kicked out of power?
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
Charles De Gaulle answered your question sixty years ago.
You're probably thinking of a specific quote that I'm missing but the French are in a different situation, since they're specifically trying to reduce the power of the Americans, whereas Trident was a way for the British to give the Americans moral support against Russia (and financial support, by buying their stuff.)
So french nukes good, brit nukes bad ?
It's not really a good vs bad thing. French nukes have a plausible if weird rationale for a goal that France has (albeit a fairly mental one), whereas British nukes don't seem to have any kind of rationale that anybody's able to articulate.
I think thge UK rationale is straightforward:
1. support NATO allies versus other nuclear powers viz Russia China 2. last guarantee of defence if NATO fails.
If Russia nuked Frankfurt would Obama dither and back off or risk some US cities by forcing the alliance ?
Stuff Frankfurt. What if someone Nuked Birmingham?
it would be an improvement ?
You are thinking of Liverpool.
The way Liverpool and Everton are playing many fans might wish to start from scratch.
No I don't just go with every conspiracy rumour on the planet.
Where's the conspiracy theory? Use your own common sense. Even at the height of the Cold War we weren't 'one country' to the extent that they could trust any old Harold Wilson who might get in not to destroy the world or go over to Russia. What on earth makes you think with all the complexities of the system, that they would not ensure that the US was part of the decision making process? There really is no other remotely sensible way of thinking about it.
Luckyguy Well we will have to disagree, who occupies the White House and No 10 makes a big difference in terms of foreign policy in my view, as it would have had Gore beaten Bush in 2000 or McCain beaten Obama in 2008, or here had Charles Kennedy beaten Blair in 2005 or Foot Thatcher in 1983
More accurately the UK lets our partners do the mass-surveillance and is happy to receive the take presumeably in return for similar services rendered in the other direction. That way everyone gets the information they want, and no one has the awkwardness of having to comply with their own monitoring laws. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
Charles De Gaulle answered your question sixty years ago.
You're probably thinking of a specific quote that I'm missing but the French are in a different situation, since they're specifically trying to reduce the power of the Americans, whereas Trident was a way for the British to give the Americans moral support against Russia (and financial support, by buying their stuff.)
So french nukes good, brit nukes bad ?
It's not really a good vs bad thing. French nukes have a plausible if weird rationale for a goal that France has (albeit a fairly mental one), whereas British nukes don't seem to have any kind of rationale that anybody's able to articulate.
This talk on nuclear weapons is interesting since it shows why labour are suffering in Scotland. The crazy left saw Scottish independence as a way of removing nuclear weapons. they became angry at labour for preventing it. The SNP bounce seems to be a bounce towards an extreme left party. We have to wonder what the non-extreme left element of that party will do. The desire for independence must surely have been shattered by the fall in oil price. There seems little rational in a prosperous low tax high welfare balanced economy Scotland.
FalseFlag It was actually Cameron and Sarkozy who pushed Obama into action on Libya as Blair pushed Clinton into action on Kosovo and remember Thatcher's 'now don't go wobbly on me George' after the invasion of Kuwait
HYUFD -The toppling of these regimes has been planned for years. Years. Don't buy into PR fluff.
I must have missed that American invasion of Lebanon between 2001-2008. Murderous Yankee bastards with their nefarious plans to steal all that Lebanese oil.
By the way, you realise that Rumsfeld and his party got kicked out of power?
I don't know what you're disputing here -the word of 5 star General Wesley Clarke? Plans fall behind schedule, and the public reaction to Iraq clearly made conventional invasion of these other regimes politically impossible.
Luckyguy Well we will have to disagree, who occupies the White House and No 10 makes a big difference in terms of foreign policy in my view, as it would have had Gore beaten Bush in 2000 or McCain beaten Obama in 2008, or here had Charles Kennedy beaten Blair in 2005 or Foot Thatcher in 1983
Leaders change, policy remains the same. Institutions persist, careerists remain, the military industrial complex marches on.
I suppose the rationale for British nukes is that we are part of a successful nuclear-armed alliance, and that means that those member states who can afford to should contribute towards that Alliance's nuclear capability. The view that we can leave everything up to the Americans is far too widespread.
An alliance indicates if not parity of power, at least the independent joining of two or more powers. Us paying into a system we cannot use independently, but the US can use theirs with impunity, isn't an alliance, it's a tax.
Not respecting local members was where Cameron started to lose chunks of his membership.
UKIP replaces unremarkable candidate who doesnt appear to have updated his blog since he stood in Croydon in 2010 http://ralphukip.blogspot.co.uk/ with telegenic minority candidate already familiar to the public... and the shock here is ... ?
These actions erode local activist networks. You end up with fewer deliverers, fewer canvassers and no representatives.
FalseFlag The military industrial complex would surely still have ground troops in Iraq as there would be had Mccain beaten Obama. Had Gore beaten Bush there would have been no invasion of Iraq. Had Foot beaten Thatcher nuclear weapons would have been scrapped in the UK, had Kennedy beaten Blair troops would have been withdrawn from Iraq years earlier. Anyway, got to go
I can see it, it might fly well north of the border, but in the other 570+ seats it would be suicide. It wouldn't take much effort for their opponents to start hanging the "unilateralist" tag around their neck, it might not be true, but it would dovetail nicely with the "taking us back to the 70's" meme, and give people an opportunity to pull out all that old footage of members of the shadow cabinet on CND marches as young people.
Time has moved on, unilateralist really has no relevance to my age group. We can't afford Trident especially as it is a weapon we neither need, nor I hope would we ever use. The Falklands showed it's irrelevance.
The are all sorts of weapons that were not used in the Falklands, should they also be abolished? There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
It is the only case of us being attacked by another nation during the nuclear age, how is not relevant to the argument?
Didn't stop the number of insurgencies we fought either.
Nothing in the UK arsenal deterred the Falklands war, should we get rid of the lot?
Nukes justification is deterrence, our conventional forces retook the islands.
No, the justification for a having nukes is to deter a nuclear attack by having a guaranteed second strike capability. That is why the use of the Falklands as an example for its failure and thus redundancy doesn't hold water.
Nuclear attack by whom? I just don't see the circumstances in which a state actor would use them against us. Would we ever use them, I certainly wouldn't?
Ukraine told give up nukes and we (Russia, USA and Britain) guarantee your borders and safety.....
EdinTokyo As I said you would have to convince them Trident is cheapest
Luckyguy1983 Maybe, but while it is true George W Bush was aggressive and more of a hawk than even Blair and certainly Brown and Reagan even perhaps than Thatcher, remember Grenada, Obama is more of a dove than Cameron, as Bush Snr was than Thatcher and Clinton was than Blair, Bush Snr and Major about the same
Well that's where we part company. I see American foreign policy as a continuum, which carries on regardless of who the face in the White House is. The differences being purely presentational or at most tactical (Obama team's preference for indirect warfare -so-called 'soft' power); the desired outcome being the same. I think playing the personality game is a bit of a red herring.
Yet Obama has very clearly withdrawn hundreds of thousands of troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, refused to bow to GOP pressure to invade Syria, and is doing his best to bring Iran back into the fold with a nuclear deal.
There is a genuine difference when different parties will elections. Why else would Wesley Clark, who so harshly criticised the last administration on the same terms you do, enthusiastically endorse first Clinton, then Obama for the presidency?
Luckyguy Well we will have to disagree, who occupies the White House and No 10 makes a big difference in terms of foreign policy in my view, as it would have had Gore beaten Bush in 2000 or McCain beaten Obama in 2008, or here had Charles Kennedy beaten Blair in 2005 or Foot Thatcher in 1983
The desire for independence must surely have been shattered by the fall in oil price. There seems little rational in a prosperous low tax high welfare balanced economy Scotland.
I think we risk overplaying the oil price thing a bit. When the oil price was over $100 the total Petroleum Revenue Tax take for the UK from the North Sea was £1.1bn, now its about £400m. So the worst you could say was that the Scottish Government would have lost about £600m, or about £120 per scot, this is in contrast to the Barnett Formula being worth about £1,300 per scot. Its not nothing, but its hardly significant.
There are respectable arguments that can be made for the UK doing away with its nuclear deterrent but the fact that it did not deter the Falklands war is not one of them.
I think it it's actually quite an important point, since by far the least implausible answer to the key question "Who are the British planning to nuke that the Americans won't" is "Argentina".
Charles De Gaulle answered your question sixty years ago.
You're probably thinking of a specific quote that I'm missing but the French are in a different situation, since they're specifically trying to reduce the power of the Americans, whereas Trident was a way for the British to give the Americans moral support against Russia (and financial support, by buying their stuff.)
So french nukes good, brit nukes bad ?
Yes, and he's just explained why. Moreover, we cannot use our nuclear weapons without codes provided by the US. Meaning we cannot use them in a way that the US would not approve of. Meaning they are not a British asset, they are a US asset on British soil, paid for by Britain.
FalseFlag It was actually Cameron and Sarkozy who pushed Obama into action on Libya as Blair pushed Clinton into action on Kosovo and remember Thatcher's 'now don't go wobbly on me George' after the invasion of Kuwait
HYUFD -The toppling of these regimes has been planned for years. Years. Don't buy into PR fluff.
I must have missed that American invasion of Lebanon between 2001-2008. Murderous Yankee bastards with their nefarious plans to steal all that Lebanese oil.
By the way, you realise that Rumsfeld and his party got kicked out of power?
I don't know what you're disputing here -the word of 5 star General Wesley Clarke? Plans fall behind schedule, and the public reaction to Iraq clearly made conventional invasion of these other regimes politically impossible.
Because the supposed plan for invasion of Lebanon was never a plan. It was what Clarke heard from one individual paraphrasing a paper Clarke never saw in a brief conversation. Clarke himself later admitted it could well have been a brief discussion paper. The US had "a plan" to invade Canada in the 19th Century - it doesn't mean they were ever seriously considering it.
Obviously that's not going to convince many on here, or those who are firmly in the cuts camp - but it seems to have added a bit of purpose and definition where before there was drift and the worry that even if his economics were dodgy Osborne had framed the argument on the economy so successfully that there just wasn't a way to win it in terms understandable to the public.
Anyone not convinced of at least fairly serious cuts needs to buy a calculator. £1,451bn national debt costs us £52bn per year in interest, more than we spend on defense. ... Every five years we increase the amount we spend on interest every year by the equivalent of the defense budget, every ten years by the equivalent of the Education budget. .... any time the markets find somewhere better to put their money, ...... those rates might go up a lot. If we ended up being in the position Italy or Ireland was, we could be paying double that interest easily.
Very very true. The tragedy for us is that the largest news and media outlet, the BBC, just does not communicate that. Instead the BBC chooses to present stories of "dramatic cuts" and "back to 1930s" spin. The other morning we had one of the "New economics" spokes people given the prime R4 Today slot spouting her "we can borrow more" nonsense. It is sad watching our slide back into socialism.
EdinTokyo As I said you would have to convince them Trident is cheapest
Luckyguy1983 Maybe, but while it is true George W Bush was aggressive and more of a hawk than even Blair and certainly Brown and Reagan even perhaps than Thatcher, remember Grenada, Obama is more of a dove than Cameron, as Bush Snr was than Thatcher and Clinton was than Blair, Bush Snr and Major about the same
Well that's where we part company. I see American foreign policy as a continuum, which carries on regardless of who the face in the White House is. The differences being purely presentational or at most tactical (Obama team's preference for indirect warfare -so-called 'soft' power); the desired outcome being the same. I think playing the personality game is a bit of a red herring.
Yet Obama has very clearly withdrawn hundreds of thousands of troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, refused to bow to GOP pressure to invade Syria, and is doing his best to bring Iran back into the fold with a nuclear deal.
There is a genuine difference when different parties will elections. Why else would Wesley Clark, who so harshly criticised the last administration on the same terms you do, enthusiastically endorse first Clinton, then Obama for the presidency?
Lesser of two evils? That's why I prefer Obama to the Republicans -slightly less batshit crazy. I did not say there was no difference. I said there was a long term foreign policy project. Obama changed the regime in Libya by bombing in support of the 'Arab Spring'. Mccain might have preferred to invade. Either way, the policy has been to continue to take out regimes that threatened US hegemony in the region, no matter the human cost.
Not respecting local members was where Cameron started to lose chunks of his membership.
UKIP replaces unremarkable candidate who doesnt appear to have updated his blog since he stood in Croydon in 2010 http://ralphukip.blogspot.co.uk/ with telegenic minority candidate already familiar to the public... and the shock here is ... ?
These actions erode local activist networks. You end up with fewer deliverers, fewer canvassers and no representatives.
He was elected by the local party... check their facebook
UKIP Hastings & Rye 2 December Hastings & Rye UKIP Branch last night elected their PPC, Congratulations to Gogglebox's Andrew Michael
EdinTokyo As I said you would have to convince them Trident is cheapest
Luckyguy1983 Maybe, but while it is true George W Bush was aggressive and more of a hawk than even Blair and certainly Brown and Reagan even perhaps than Thatcher, remember Grenada, Obama is more of a dove than Cameron, as Bush Snr was than Thatcher and Clinton was than Blair, Bush Snr and Major about the same
Well that's where we part company. I see American foreign policy as a continuum, which carries on regardless of who the face in the White House is. The differences being purely presentational or at most tactical (Obama team's preference for indirect warfare -so-called 'soft' power); the desired outcome being the same. I think playing the personality game is a bit of a red herring.
Yet Obama has very clearly withdrawn hundreds of thousands of troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, refused to bow to GOP pressure to invade Syria, and is doing his best to bring Iran back into the fold with a nuclear deal.
There is a genuine difference when different parties will elections. Why else would Wesley Clark, who so harshly criticised the last administration on the same terms you do, enthusiastically endorse first Clinton, then Obama for the presidency?
Lesser of two evils? That's why I prefer Obama to the Republicans -slightly less batshit crazy. I did not say there was no difference. I said there was a long term foreign policy project. Obama changed the regime in Libya by bombing in support of the 'Arab Spring'. Mccain might have preferred to invade. Either way, the policy has been to continue to take out regimes that threatened US hegemony in the region, no matter the human cost.
Except it wasn't to protect US hegemony in the region. Gadaffi had already come in from the cold and was in the US orbit. If the US had backed him to the hilt in suppressing the rebels, he would have been a loyal stalwart. But they didn't because they knew that his suppression of protesters as a terrible crime against human rights. The point they started bombing was when Gadaffi's murderous army was at the gates of Benghazi and threatening mass slaughter.
You can also look at Syria: Obama did nothing for several years after the protests had started. Even after the mass killings were documented, he did nothing. All he did was to announce a red line as a way to get the hawks off his back. It was only when Assad later crossed that red line that Obama was forced to act or his credibility would go up in smoke. And he then acted in the most minimum way possible: arming and training some of the rebels. If he wanted to take out Assad he could easily have done it by now.
Comments
The more equal and and freer a society the less women are forced to study science.
http://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/1vuho8/the_documentary_that_made_scandinavians_cut_all/
Similarly Populus could do fortnightly summaries.
Didn't stop the number of insurgencies we fought either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfU3hI8ML30
The murderers of Lee Rigby wanted to be themselves killed. They wanted to start a counter reaction they wanted us, non muslims, to embark on anti muslim attacks and thus start a war. With that terrorist mindset, a burka has relatively little anti terrorist meaning.
Socially it may well be different and clearly it is a major handicap to allowing people to integrate. It strikes me as a way of men opressing or controlling women - I find it difficult to see it as religious since many muslim women do not wear it.
But where are we going here? A woman covering herself up is bad and apparantly so is a woman merely feeding her child.
A new president absorbed by domestic issues might not feel the need to get involved with Putin flexes his muscles at Europe, after a little unpleasantness in the Ukraine, when a few Russian tanks "stray" into Poland he might go for a game on the golf course, when Trident free Britain protests, and is quietly told to be quiet because there are a number of warheads pointed at our cities, we would I believe acquiesce.
1) What specifically are you going to bomb when that happens?
2) Assuming there are plausible targets and these people can be deterred by threatening them, why wouldn't the Americans be interested in doing it?
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2014/11/04/do-we-have-a-foreign-policy/
The conventional forces we now have stationed there seem to have more of a deterrence effect than Trident did or has.
Have I missed something?
Of course Spain may also join Argentina on the target list with Gibralter.
The polling shows most voters want to retain a nuclear deterrent, but a cheaper version than Trident
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/dec/06/theresa-may-child-sexual-abuse-inquiry-panel-accused-victims-letters
Do you really think they are all pointed at Moscow? Chances are that they are not pointing anywhere but can be targeted in minutes.
Or do you believe the Septics control them...?
:muppet-watch:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2863696/Goggleboxgate-Ukip-candidate-s-fury-ousted-key-seat-star-hit-C4-show.html
"Nigel Farage was last night accused of recruiting ‘toffs for the top’ of Ukip after a candidate in a key target seat expressed fury that he had been ousted in favour of a star of the TV programme Gogglebox."
Not respecting local members was where Cameron started to lose chunks of his membership.
Most people of course don't pay attention to the intricacies, but it's one of the reasons that Labour's response has been far more confident this year, as they smell a way out of the conundrum that's kept Osborne ahead so far even as he's failed in his promises - namely that if we're in so much debt and the Tories are rubbish at getting it down, how can you justify cutting less, except for reasons of emotion?
Obviously that's not going to convince many on here, or those who are firmly in the cuts camp - but it seems to have added a bit of purpose and definition where before there was drift and the worry that even if his economics were dodgy Osborne had framed the argument on the economy so successfully that there just wasn't a way to win it in terms understandable to the public.
SNP appears to be pushing the monarchy debate ahead in Scotland. Not handing over The Queen's cut from the crown estates is as good a way of saying "push off" as you can think of bar shouting it.
http://i.imgur.com/KPJHRfY.jpg
I completely understand why political campaigners go down that road - they're not interested in actual public opinion, they just want something positive to throw at their opponents - but you'd be a fool to stake any money on the basis of that kind of analysis. Waiting for an actual Scottish opinion poll is the only strategy here, frustrating though that may be.
1. support NATO allies versus other nuclear powers viz Russia China
2. last guarantee of defence if NATO fails.
If Russia nuked Frankfurt would Obama dither and back off or risk some US cities by forcing the alliance ?
I can't find the link, but I think basically you've got 1/3 firmly for, 1/3 firmly against and 1/3 that you can prod through whichever gate you like by messing around with the question.
We have to build and design SSBNs and SSNs because it is in our national interest. We are not buying Trident....
:tumbleweed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8YtF76s-yM
http://www.oldham-chronicle.co.uk/news-features/8/news-headlines/89151/nine-accused-in-new-grooming-scandal
Think of it like this:
Alice is scared of spiders, so she won't go in the bathroom in case there's a spider in it.
Bob isn't scared of spiders, but he won't go in the bathroom in case there's a spider in it.
£1,451bn national debt costs us £52bn per year in interest, more than we spend on defense.
£720bn spending - £612bn income = £108bn deficit
£108bn costs us an extra £8bn in interest every subsequent year
Every five years we increase the amount we spend on interest every year by the equivalent of the defense budget, every ten years by the equivalent of the Education budget.
At the moment interest payments are at a record low, any time the markets find somewhere better to put their money, or start to suspect we might not pay it back (ie if EdM is elected) those rates might go up a lot. If we ended up being in the position Italy or Ireland was, we could be paying double that interest easily.
http://www.theweek.co.uk/politics/45658/nonsense-heart-britains-independent-nuclear-defence
Would we ever use them, I certainly wouldn't?
Luckyguy1983 Maybe, but while it is true George W Bush was aggressive and more of a hawk than even Blair and certainly Brown and Reagan even perhaps than Thatcher, remember Grenada, Obama is more of a dove than Cameron, as Bush Snr was than Thatcher and Clinton was than Blair, Bush Snr and Major about the same
And of course as you imply, all of this will take time - and all of this is inescapable if you are rational and not a socialist. Its why govts need a majority - to do difficult things. Its why I despair at people going out of their way to usher in another socialist govt. Will a socialist govt press down on welfare?
In so far that growth does not provide the leeway to reduce the deficit (and its the structural deficit we need to cut) then for a start we need to look at everyone avoiding taxes before we start putting them up. We can sympathise with not wanting to pay taxes for wasteful spending but when spending and waste is being cut and the alternative is for all existing payers to pay more then those avoiders must at long last expect to pay their share.
'Given the complexities of the US designed electronics and computer programmes embedded in every aspect of the Trident system it seems unlikely that a British prime minister could launch them – unless the US President gives his own authorisation. If David Cameron ever had to press the button a light might flash on President Obama's bedside Teasmade but that would be all.'
I think you do. Truth is immediately apparent in every syllable.
It even has something for those who accuse the more level headed amongst us of 'sucking up to Putin' -
'According to a US diplomatic telegram released by WikiLeaks last year, President Obama handed over the unique serial numbers of the UK's missiles to the Russians as part of an arms reduction deal, despite the strong objections of Her Majesty's Government. As a result the Russians now know exactly what we have got and what it can do. Sucking up to Putin is clearly more important than the 'independence' of the British deterrent.'
So before Putin became the bogeyman du jour, America was giving him the serial numbers of our nukes. Now Obama is making speeches declaring him one of the biggest dangers to the world.
http://www.theweek.co.uk/politics/45658/nonsense-heart-britains-independent-nuclear-defence
The North Koreans (for example) in turn have a different strategic situation. It's totally rational for them to have nuclear weapons, because they need them to deter invasion (direct or by proxy) by the Americans. (See Libya.)
Edit to add: This is normal in security. The kind of security measures you need will depend on the threat. (In the French case, the threat is mostly to their self-image...)
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/12/06/uk-mass-surveillance-regime-does-not-breach-human-rights-law-tribunal-rules
Second - given the possibiluty of a rogue state and the possible spread of illegal or 'dirty' nuclear weapons there is still the issue of deterrence.
For me I remain bound by the convention of not targetting civilians which nukes do.
By the way, you realise that Rumsfeld and his party got kicked out of power?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Nuland
Well that did not end well for Ukraine.
There is a genuine difference when different parties will elections. Why else would Wesley Clark, who so harshly criticised the last administration on the same terms you do, enthusiastically endorse first Clinton, then Obama for the presidency?
UKIP Hastings & Rye
2 December
Hastings & Rye UKIP Branch last night elected their PPC, Congratulations to Gogglebox's Andrew Michael
You can also look at Syria: Obama did nothing for several years after the protests had started. Even after the mass killings were documented, he did nothing. All he did was to announce a red line as a way to get the hawks off his back. It was only when Assad later crossed that red line that Obama was forced to act or his credibility would go up in smoke. And he then acted in the most minimum way possible: arming and training some of the rebels. If he wanted to take out Assad he could easily have done it by now.