Skip to content

politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Corbyn: Winning the election but losing the argument?

1235»

Comments

  • SpeedySpeedy Posts: 12,100
    edited August 2015
    tyson said:

    OMG- Donald Trump on C4. He is a complete loon. He's as mad as box of frogs. He makes old boy Jezza seem like a sane moderate in comparison.

    Someone needs to be making contingency plans for a military junta to have a coup if that crazy, crazy man comes anywhere close to winning.

    Calm down, he might be even better than George W.
    At least under President Trump america will be too bothered with war on Mexico to do any harm in the rest of the world.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 75,258


    Also, the half-decent jobs tend to require not just a basic pass (like a D or E) but a C or a B. In fact there seems almost no demand from employers for grades D-G, even though they exist, and even though they are useful at showing the range in skills. (Not that the letter grades will exist for much longer of course!)

    Replacement, 1-9, where 9 is the highest and 5 is considered a 'pass' (for whatever reason - as you say, D and E are technically passes, but because the Govt. does not value them for league tables I think employers have come to think of them as somehow not 'proper' passes).

    This is not of course going to cause massive confusion and head scratching when it works through to the job market or even to UCAS...
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 75,258
    edited August 2015
    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    You could also ask when was the last time we had a purely capitalist government in Europe?

    That's easy. Never. Nobody has ever tried capitalism in its pure form for a very good reason - the potential social costs are far too high and the risk of revolution would therefore be too great.

    Also, of course, in theory at least pure capitalism requires that nobody ever raise taxes - therefore a capitalist government is technically as much of an oxymoron as a communist one.

    You always end up therefore with a hybrid economy of some sort in a sane system (War Communism in Russia, complete with the famous moneyless budget, being disqualified for not being sane) - it's just a question of where you put the emphasis on the different parts.
    Indeed the only nations which come close are perhaps Singapore and the UAE
    Arguably they don't really come close either, although they are the closest nations. Some of the tax havens might just qualify, e.g. the Virgin Islands. (I don't know much about such places, if I'm wrong, would some kind person please put me right?)
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,455
    I did A level maths with a group of Hong Kong students, whose English was very good and maths excellent.

    But they couldn't tell you what VIII less IV was.
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,742
    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    You could also ask when was the last time we had a purely capitalist government in Europe?

    That's easy. Never. Nobody has ever tried capitalism in its pure form for a very good reason - the potential social costs are far too high and the risk of revolution would therefore be too great.

    Also, of course, in theory at least pure capitalism requires that nobody ever raise taxes - therefore a capitalist government is technically as much of an oxymoron as a communist one.

    You always end up therefore with a hybrid economy of some sort in a sane system (War Communism in Russia, complete with the famous moneyless budget, being disqualified for not being sane) - it's just a question of where you put the emphasis on the different parts.
    Indeed the only nations which come close are perhaps Singapore and the UAE
    Singapore is almost the opposite of capitalism; it is a free-market economy but investment is intricately planned in almost every detail by the government so capital is subjugated to clever bureaucrats.

    You probably need to go back to the pre-War, I mean the first one, to get proper capitalism in some places.
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,455
    ydoethur said:


    Also, the half-decent jobs tend to require not just a basic pass (like a D or E) but a C or a B. In fact there seems almost no demand from employers for grades D-G, even though they exist, and even though they are useful at showing the range in skills. (Not that the letter grades will exist for much longer of course!)

    Replacement, 1-9, where 9 is the highest and 5 is considered a 'pass' (for whatever reason - as you say, D and E are technically passes, but because the Govt. does not value them for league tables I think employers have come to think of them as somehow not 'proper' passes).

    This is not of course going to cause massive confusion and head scratching when it works through to the job market or even to UCAS...
    Hardly the first such change.

    To the unknowledgeable, it looks like I suddenly improved between my AS and A2 years - because in the former the highest grade was an A whilst in the latter it was A*.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 130,258
    tyson said:

    OMG- Donald Trump on C4. He is a complete loon. He's as mad as box of frogs. He makes old boy Jezza seem like a sane moderate in comparison.

    Someone needs to be making contingency plans for a military junta to have a coup if that crazy, crazy man comes anywhere close to winning.

    He hits the populist button though, a battle between Trump and Sanders would be fascinating though Bloomberg might fancy his chances as an independent. Hillary should beat Trump without too many problems
  • MattWMattW Posts: 29,804
    edited August 2015
    The Jezza meetings, including this one, remind me of religious revivalist meetings, with which I have some acquaintance from the past.

    Note - not religious meetings - specifically revivalist in the American Camp tradition, swapping tropes and excitement while expecting a resurgence of their tribe.

    Will there be any "I didn't know it was like this" testimonies of newly minted converts?

    (Update: Gah. Missed out any Final Trump puns)
  • If you're talking about surds and quadratics then we aren't talking about Grade C students anymore. The relevant discussion here is students at the D/C borderline, or equivalent, since C seems to be the starting point for job entry or university. No student taking the current foundation tier is even going to encounter those subjects.

    Not that those topics aren't important - and if you want to go on to do a technical/quantitative subject then grade C isn't good enough. But changes to the current foundation paper are a separate issue.

    Hmmm, I guess I was thinking of the Higher Paper as the people who I knew had trouble with Maths, and didn't pass took that paper rather than the Foundation.
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    O/T:

    The Tory 1997 party election broadcast which was never shown after being vetoed by John Major:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcxzBr-Wihg
  • I think the jobs which tend to ask for a B (from what I've seen) are grad scheme jobs, where I get the sense they are often looking for ways to filter people out, like asking for 340 UCAS points! But I'm a passionate believer in that no matter what low point you come up, with all the resources available today, anyone can get re-educated and add to their skills and qualifications, even if they don't initially do well at school.
  • SpeedySpeedy Posts: 12,100
    edited August 2015
    HYUFD said:

    tyson said:

    OMG- Donald Trump on C4. He is a complete loon. He's as mad as box of frogs. He makes old boy Jezza seem like a sane moderate in comparison.

    Someone needs to be making contingency plans for a military junta to have a coup if that crazy, crazy man comes anywhere close to winning.

    He hits the populist button though, a battle between Trump and Sanders would be fascinating though Bloomberg might fancy his chances as an independent. Hillary should beat Trump without too many problems
    True, though there are people who might be really troubled by Trump's rise, like those who have put money on Jeb Bush.
    Kidding aside when George W. was selected by the Supreme Court to be President I was afraid that he might find and push a big red button in the oval office, only after a few months I realised that Bush was a stooge, a stupid frontman that did whatever his cabinet told him to do and was completely under his VP control.
  • SpeedySpeedy Posts: 12,100
    edited August 2015
    AndyJS said:

    O/T:

    The Tory 1997 party election broadcast which was never shown after being vetoed by John Major:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcxzBr-Wihg

    He probably banned it because it was a private conversation between Blair and Mandelson.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 130,258
    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    You could also ask when was the last time we had a purely capitalist government in Europe?

    That's easy. Never. Nobody has ever tried capitalism in its pure form for a very good reason - the potential social costs are far too high and the risk of revolution would therefore be too great.

    Also, of course, in theory at least pure capitalism requires that nobody ever raise taxes - therefore a capitalist government is technically as much of an oxymoron as a communist one.

    You always end up therefore with a hybrid economy of some sort in a sane system (War Communism in Russia, complete with the famous moneyless budget, being disqualified for not being sane) - it's just a question of where you put the emphasis on the different parts.
    Indeed the only nations which come close are perhaps Singapore and the UAE
    Arguably they don't really come close either, although they are the closest nations. Some of the tax havens might just qualify, e.g. the Virgin Islands. (I don't know much about such places, if I'm wrong, would some kind person please put me right?)
    Yet, but social welfare provision does not really matter for tax havens as they are mainly populated by the rich anyway
  • SimonStClareSimonStClare Posts: 7,976
    edited August 2015
    New thread.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 130,258
    Speedy said:

    HYUFD said:

    tyson said:

    OMG- Donald Trump on C4. He is a complete loon. He's as mad as box of frogs. He makes old boy Jezza seem like a sane moderate in comparison.

    Someone needs to be making contingency plans for a military junta to have a coup if that crazy, crazy man comes anywhere close to winning.

    He hits the populist button though, a battle between Trump and Sanders would be fascinating though Bloomberg might fancy his chances as an independent. Hillary should beat Trump without too many problems
    True, though there are people who might be really troubled by Trump's rise, like those who have put money on Jeb Bush.
    Kidding aside when George W. was selected by the Supreme Court to be President I was afraid that he might find and push a big red button in the oval office, only after a few months I realised that Bush was a stooge, a stupid frontman that did whatever his cabinet told him to do and was completely under his VP control.
    Cheney was certainly the most powerful VP in history
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 130,258
    EPG said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    You could also ask when was the last time we had a purely capitalist government in Europe?

    That's easy. Never. Nobody has ever tried capitalism in its pure form for a very good reason - the potential social costs are far too high and the risk of revolution would therefore be too great.

    Also, of course, in theory at least pure capitalism requires that nobody ever raise taxes - therefore a capitalist government is technically as much of an oxymoron as a communist one.

    You always end up therefore with a hybrid economy of some sort in a sane system (War Communism in Russia, complete with the famous moneyless budget, being disqualified for not being sane) - it's just a question of where you put the emphasis on the different parts.
    Indeed the only nations which come close are perhaps Singapore and the UAE
    Singapore is almost the opposite of capitalism; it is a free-market economy but investment is intricately planned in almost every detail by the government so capital is subjugated to clever bureaucrats.

    You probably need to go back to the pre-War, I mean the first one, to get proper capitalism in some places.
    Singapore has a tax rate and government spending rate both under 20% of gdp, those few workers who do work for the government are just extremely able and well organised and selected by very conmpetitive exams
  • MTimTMTimT Posts: 7,034
    For those who are not convinced that the email scandal is having any real effect on Hillary's chances, I recommend you take a gander at the charts towards the end of this article from the Washington Post:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/08/20/yes-its-a-major-problem-that-two-thirds-of-voters-dont-think-hillary-clinton-is-honest-or-trustworthy/
  • Corbyn now speaking at Nottingham rally and being broadcast on

    http://www.ng-digital.co.uk/
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 130,258
    MTimT said:

    For those who are not convinced that the email scandal is having any real effect on Hillary's chances, I recommend you take a gander at the charts towards the end of this article from the Washington Post:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/08/20/yes-its-a-major-problem-that-two-thirds-of-voters-dont-think-hillary-clinton-is-honest-or-trustworthy/

    CNN had her still leading national polls even despite the email scandal, her chances are probably more linked to whether or not she faces Donald Trump than the email scandal unless there are any more developments
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    :smiley:

    I did A level maths with a group of Hong Kong students, whose English was very good and maths excellent.

    But they couldn't tell you what VIII less IV was.

  • flightpath01flightpath01 Posts: 4,903
    HYUFD said:

    Speedy said:

    HYUFD said:

    tyson said:

    OMG- Donald Trump on C4. He is a complete loon. He's as mad as box of frogs. He makes old boy Jezza seem like a sane moderate in comparison.

    Someone needs to be making contingency plans for a military junta to have a coup if that crazy, crazy man comes anywhere close to winning.

    He hits the populist button though, a battle between Trump and Sanders would be fascinating though Bloomberg might fancy his chances as an independent. Hillary should beat Trump without too many problems
    True, though there are people who might be really troubled by Trump's rise, like those who have put money on Jeb Bush.
    Kidding aside when George W. was selected by the Supreme Court to be President I was afraid that he might find and push a big red button in the oval office, only after a few months I realised that Bush was a stooge, a stupid frontman that did whatever his cabinet told him to do and was completely under his VP control.
    Cheney was certainly the most powerful VP in history
    Do you both have to show yourselves up?
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 39,539
    RodCrosby said:


    They invaded Poland too, 16 days later...

    "Outwardly everything seemed equitable, a part of Poland for Hitler and a part for Stalin. However, just one week after the signing of the Pact, Stalin played his first dirty trick. Hitler began the war against Poland, while Stalin stated that his troops were not yet ready. He could have told Ribbentrop that before the Pact was signed, but he did not do so. Hitler began the war and found himself on his own. The result? He, and he alone, was branded the perpetrator of the Second World War.

    Once he had begun the war against Poland, Hitler immediately found himself at war with France, that is, at war on two fronts. Every German schoolboy knew how a war on two fronts would turn out in the end for Germany.

    As far as Stalin was concerned, Poland had been partitioned, not in the Chancellery in Berlin, but in the Kremlin in Moscow. In effect, Stalin got the war he wanted, with a western nation destroying others around it, while Stalin remained neutral, biding his time. When, later, he got into serious difficulties, Stalin at once received help from the West.

    In the end, however, Poland, for whose liberty the West had gone to war, ended up with none at all. On the contrary, she was handed over to Stalin, along with the whole of Eastern Europe, including a part of Germany. Even so, there are some people in the West who continue to believe that the West won the Second World War.

    Hitler committed suicide; Stalin became the absolute ruler of a vast empire hostile to the West, which had been created with the help of the West. For all that, Stalin was able to preserve his reputation as naive and trusting, while Hitler went down in history as the ultimate aggressor. A multitude of books have been published in the West based on the idea that Stalin was not ready for war while Hitler was. In my view, the man who is ready for war is not the one who loudly proclaims himself prepared for it, but the man who wins it — by dividing his enemies and knocking their heads together."
    Icebreaker, by Viktor Suvorov, 1990
    I don't see that as a dirty trick. Each side got what it wanted. Half of Poland, plus food and raw materials for the Germans, access to German military technology for the Soviets. Obviously, Stalin and Hitler were each planning to double-cross the other eventually.
  • John_MJohn_M Posts: 7,503
    Evening all. I think Labour's fundamental issue is that many of the issues it was created to be solved have...been solved.

    We still talk about poverty, but compared to the 50s and 60s, we're collectively incredibly wealthy. I was _poor_ as a child. Outside loo, hiding from the rent man, hand-me-down clothes, not barefoot, but certainly threadbare and run down etc. We weren't the poorest in our village either.

    I know this is shades of the four Yorkshireman sketch, but think how far we've progressed in every single sphere since then; single mothers, LGBT rights, workers' rights, housing quality and so on and so forth.

    I find it disconcerting that many on the left still use language that harks back to the slums and rookeries of the early twentieth century. That immoderate language just makes them seem mad or at least, unbalanced.

  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Speedy said:

    HYUFD said:

    tyson said:

    OMG- Donald Trump on C4. He is a complete loon. He's as mad as box of frogs. He makes old boy Jezza seem like a sane moderate in comparison.

    Someone needs to be making contingency plans for a military junta to have a coup if that crazy, crazy man comes anywhere close to winning.

    He hits the populist button though, a battle between Trump and Sanders would be fascinating though Bloomberg might fancy his chances as an independent. Hillary should beat Trump without too many problems
    True, though there are people who might be really troubled by Trump's rise, like those who have put money on Jeb Bush.
    Kidding aside when George W. was selected by the Supreme Court to be President I was afraid that he might find and push a big red button in the oval office, only after a few months I realised that Bush was a stooge, a stupid frontman that did whatever his cabinet told him to do and was completely under his VP control.
    You realised wrong, my friend.

    John Kerr, our man in Washington at the time, described him to me as one of the smartest politicians he had ever met. The whole folksy charm thing was a perfectly crafted act
  • JEOJEO Posts: 3,656
    @Rod_Crosby

    Summarising the western scholars' opinion on Icebreaker Hugh Ragsdale concludes that the book is "generally considered discredited" by now,[7] whereas Jonathan Haslam notes that Suvorov's claims "would be comical were it not taken so seriously".[8]
  • JPJ2JPJ2 Posts: 380
    Don Brind:

    Which bit of none of Burnham, Kendall or Cooper would become PM do you not get??
Sign In or Register to comment.