politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » A Labour man in a Labour job. What’s not to like about Andr

Alanbrooke said:

NickPalmer said:

Generally grouchy response from Tories to this sensible article, summarised as "We do too care about infrastructure" and "You lot weren't any better anyway". It's certainly true that one of the few identifiable strategic differences at the election was that Osborne wasn't willing to borrow to invest and Balls was. Whatever the merits of that, it certainly gives a basis for questioning where the money for the infrastructure body will come from: we are being offered sizzle rather than steak, and the pundits who liked Cameron's speech also queried how the pleasant words would actually be translated into reality.

I see no reason to criticise Adonis for taking the job, but pointing out the apparent lack of serious backing for it is legitimate. If we're proved right and Adonis resigns in frustration three years from now, that'll be politically relevant. If the Government proves us wrong by stumping up for the investment after all, that's fine too, in the national interest.

LOL you built no houses, no roads and no airports when in government but you are experts in infrastructure ?

Total bollocks Nick, you were so bad you make Osborne look good.

Very very true. Brown spent "investment" money on welfare payments and extra wages in the public sector's admin jobs. Money that should have been spent on roads. Prescott even promised to halve car journeys! That started to happen when the economy went into the toilet.

P1 looking a bit worthless due to the diesel spillage. P2 might be rainy. So, that could make drawing conclusion for qualifying difficult, and based solely on P3.

DavidL said:

antifrank said:

@JosiasJessop A heartwarming story. But what about all the lives that the little runts disrupted while they were "finding themselves"? Are they not to be taken into consideration also?

Being a good parent is at least as hard as getting rid of the structural deficit. Having had 3 goes at it now I am increasingly of the view that nature is at least as important as nurture and the underlying character of the child will determine much of their behaviour.

(angst ridden father of two, smiled)
... Fill you with the faults they had and add some extra just for you.
Larkin.

Plato_Says said:

Moderates like Don "Jack Jones, My Political Hero" Brind?

Well that's a novel definition, I'll give you that.

NickPalmer said:

SouthamObserver said:

If Adonis resigns in three years time it will not be politically relevant if the Labour party remains in its current state of myopic self-indulgence. One day you will realise this Nick. But I guess it might take a few years and several electoral drubbings. It's extraordinary how those inside the Corbyn bubble can't see how totally irrelevant Labour has become.

Yes, we'll have to agree to disagree. I don't think there's any doubt that the many hostages to fortune produced by a lifetime on the left of Labour make it difficult for Corbyn. Equally I think many moderates in Labour are quietly surprised that the total meltdown predicted after the initial onslaught hasn't happened: positive suppport for Corbyn remains significantly higher than Ed was managing in the latter years (though Tories think he's terrible), and party polling is around what it was at the election.

So most moderates, like Don, are giving it a fair try and putting forward constructive suggestions. Your standard reaction (3 times on this thread alone) has become "Aaargh, no, we're all doomed". Give it a rest!

Comrade, here is your monthly cheque from mother Russia for services rendered.

HYUFD said:

Corbyn has higher negatives than Ed though

Absolutely, and that will help Tory turnout. But essentially it doesn't matter too much if, say, Flightpath thinks Corbyn is appalling but merely thought Ed was useless. You win elections by getting people who like you to vote, and if nobody much cares you lose.

Huffington Post has done an interesting two-day poll immediately after the Cameron speech illustrating the issue. On the one hand, 38% agree with Cameron that Corbyn is pro-terrorist (apparently, 22% of Labour voters agree but vote Labour anyway). 62% either disagree (31%) or have no opinion. On the other hand, 29% feel that Cameron has changed the Conservative Party, while 71% feel he hadn't (41% no, 30% no opinion). Those who actually heard the whole speech are more pro-Cameron and anti-Corbyn, but it's reasonable to assume that that is a more Tory subsample than otherwise.

That's a poll taken at peak Tory moment with Cameron all over the media. It shows the Tories in a reasonably good position - notably the madrassa and housing sbits went down well - but not a slam-dunk position.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/10/08/poll-david-cameron-speech-nasty-tories_n_8262526.html?utm_hp_ref=uk&ncid=newsletter-uk

NickPalmer said:

HYUFD said:

Corbyn has higher negatives than Ed though

Absolutely, and that will help Tory turnout. But essentially it doesn't matter too much if, say, Flightpath thinks Corbyn is appalling but merely thought Ed was useless. You win elections by getting people who like you to vote, and if nobody much cares you lose.

Huffington Post has done an interesting two-day poll immediately after the Cameron speech illustrating the issue. On the one hand, 38% agree with Cameron that Corbyn is pro-terrorist (apparently, 22% of Labour voters agree but vote Labour anyway). 62% either disagree (31%) or have no opinion. On the other hand, 29% feel that Cameron has changed the Conservative Party, while 71% feel he hadn't (41% no, 30% no opinion). Those who actually heard the whole speech are more pro-Cameron and anti-Corbyn, but it's reasonable to assume that that is a more Tory subsample than otherwise.

That's a poll taken at peak Tory moment with Cameron all over the media. It shows the Tories in a reasonably good position - notably the madrassa and housing sbits went down well - but not a slam-dunk position.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/10/08/poll-david-cameron-speech-nasty-tories_n_8262526.html?utm_hp_ref=uk&ncid=newsletter-uk

The data point that should terrify you in that poll is that 22% of Labour supporters think that Jeremy Corbyn holds a “security-threatening, terrorist-sympathising, Britain-hating" ideology. It doesn't exactly sound as though you can necessarily count on their vote.

blackburn63 said:

Being able to paint is not necessarily virtuous.

But it might represent an unintended benefit for the world; if only AH had been moderately successful (as an artist)..

On kids, we're all anecdotal as it's hard to agree what good child behaviour is, let alone measure which countries display it. My 2p worth is that we've shaken off the reputation that we used to have of actively disliking kids (I remember an article in a Sunday broadsheet suggesting seriously that Baden-Powell might have had paedophile leanings since "It is not normal to like children unless they are your own"), but we're still a bit neurotic about them, simultaneously wanting to treat them as innocent darlings and mature adults. The general drift is undoubtedly to the latter - you have to be very cocooned these days to be innocent in any way beyond the age of 7 or so.

Inner London kids (who I mostly see now) generally seem OK to me in everyday life (no idea what they're like at home) - more boisterous than adults, pretty streetwise and probably willing to try anything once without too many regrets, but very few actually nasty.

Convenient for someone.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iranian-commander-brigadier-general-hossein-hamedani-killed-by-isis-while-advising-syrian-regime-a6687276.html

It's certainly true that one of the few identifiable strategic differences at the election was that Osborne wasn't willing to borrow to invest and Balls was

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzpin

To DavidL at 8.40 -
Yes
Cogent cohesive and correct.

NickPalmer said:

On kids, we're all anecdotal as it's hard to agree what good child behaviour is, let alone measure which countries display it. My 2p worth is that we've shaken off the reputation that we used to have of actively disliking kids (I remember an article in a Sunday broadsheet suggesting seriously that Baden-Powell might have had paedophile leanings since "It is not normal to like children unless they are your own"), but we're still a bit neurotic about them, simultaneously wanting to treat them as innocent darlings and mature adults. The general drift is undoubtedly to the latter - you have to be very cocooned these days to be innocent in any way beyond the age of 7 or so.

Inner London kids (who I mostly see now) generally seem OK to me in everyday life (no idea what they're like at home) - more boisterous than adults, pretty streetwise and probably willing to try anything once without too many regrets, but very few actually nasty.

I find other people's kids highly irritating, except for my own nephews. I also remember how much of an obnoxious brat I was as a kid, and my wife was semi-jokingly referred to as a "devil-child" by her father.

My wife now wants to start a family. I think about all that, and then have all my work colleagues and friends make 'jokes' about having no more sleep anymore, and how your whole life changes forever.

Frankly, it puts me off. It sounds shit.

antifrank said:

NickPalmer said:

HYUFD said:

Corbyn has higher negatives than Ed though

Absolutely, and that will help Tory turnout. But essentially it doesn't matter too much if, say, Flightpath thinks Corbyn is appalling but merely thought Ed was useless. You win elections by getting people who like you to vote, and if nobody much cares you lose.

Huffington Post has done an interesting two-day poll immediately after the Cameron speech illustrating the issue. On the one hand, 38% agree with Cameron that Corbyn is pro-terrorist (apparently, 22% of Labour voters agree but vote Labour anyway). 62% either disagree (31%) or have no opinion. On the other hand, 29% feel that Cameron has changed the Conservative Party, while 71% feel he hadn't (41% no, 30% no opinion). Those who actually heard the whole speech are more pro-Cameron and anti-Corbyn, but it's reasonable to assume that that is a more Tory subsample than otherwise.

That's a poll taken at peak Tory moment with Cameron all over the media. It shows the Tories in a reasonably good position - notably the madrassa and housing sbits went down well - but not a slam-dunk position.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/10/08/poll-david-cameron-speech-nasty-tories_n_8262526.html?utm_hp_ref=uk&ncid=newsletter-uk

The data point that should terrify you in that poll is that 22% of Labour supporters think that Jeremy Corbyn holds a “security-threatening, terrorist-sympathising, Britain-hating" ideology. It doesn't exactly sound as though you can necessarily count on their vote.

Cameron did not lift his speech from the draft of a failed speech writer which had been hawked around and rejected for the last 20 years.

TCPoliticalBetting said:

Roger said:

OT. But sort of following Don's musings.......
I've been pondering why French children are so different from English ones. Visiting art galleries in France you see large parties of young and very young schoolchildren being genuinely fascinated by the art. Not only are they there and interested but very well behaved
....... One of the least attractive features of the UK (apart from the weather the chauvinism the obeasity and the philistinism) is the prurience which is much less obvious in France. I wonder whether it's the general desire to repress which was so evident during the Tory Party Conference which is at the heart of it?

Classic example of how lefties hate their country.

And a pathetic excuse for the crass ignorant vulger spittle strewn and violent behaviour of lefty yobbos hell bent on their bogus protests.

Casino_Royale said:

DavidL said:

There are many flaws in Don's piece, most of which we have discussed before.

Firstly, one of the reasons the government can still borrow cheaply despite still having the worst deficit in Europe is that the markets accept that they are serious about addressing it. Borrowing lots of additional "cheap" money would dangerously undermine that.

Secondly, one of the many major problems left by the Brown disaster is that far too much of our government expenditure goes on current spending. It is just incoherent and irrational to expect the government to spend a lot more on, say, WTC, and on infrastructure. These are choices and the government has chosen correctly.

Thirdly, after the latest revisals to the GDP figures the argument that austerity somehow reduced growth gets ever more untenable. Growth in the UK has matched that of the US since 2010 and is by far the best in the EU. The idea that it would have been sustainable to borrow even more, drive demand even more and somehow generate additional growth that was somehow going to magically produce the extra tax revenues to pay for it all is just stupid. It is no longer even an arguable position, it is stupid.

The fact is that the easy tax revenues of the bubble in the City and plentiful north sea oil are gone and they are not coming back. Our deficit was much more structural than was appreciated at the time and is much harder to eliminate as a result. This means real cuts along with tax increases are going to be needed to rebalance our economy onto some sustainable footing. This will not be easy or politically popular but it is absolutely necessary.

So where does that leave the ambitions of Osborne? If this new body is to have a new budget rather than simply making better use of the old one he will have to bear down even harder on current expenditure to release resources for capital spending. I think there is no doubt that he wants to do that. Whether he finds that politically doable will be an interesting question.

Osborne is good with strategy, rabbits, sorting longstanding outrages in the tax system and recognising the value of infrastructure investment - so he's perfect for building a strong economy. But, for me, Conservativism is about more than just the money.

I'm not sure Osborne has an answer to that yet.

You can't fix the "more" until you've fixed the money. Conservatives have this in their DNA.

Labour? Not so much...

Tories scrimp and scrape all year, then battle round the shops to find that toy their kid desperately wants for Christmas.

Labour writes a wish list to Santa.

HYUFD said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

'A labour man doing a labour job' - very well put. Last term the soft left policies were aparently the Lib Dem's fault. This term the are a cunning ruse to wrong foot the Labour party. PM trotting out the same hackneyed pro-EU arguments. Between Labour's swing to the left and the Conservative's strategic manoeuvres to the left, the political ground has just been massively shifted leftward. I believe it's what Tory supporters call 'winning'.

As opposed to the right-wing leadership of Hague, IDS and Howard which is what Tory supporters call 'losing'

The Tories are occupying the centre ground. From the centre you can look left and right in modest comfort. From either extereme all you get is a crick in your neck which proves ultimately untreatable.

Casino_Royale said:

NickPalmer said:

On kids, we're all anecdotal as it's hard to agree what good child behaviour is, let alone measure which countries display it. My 2p worth is that we've shaken off the reputation that we used to have of actively disliking kids (I remember an article in a Sunday broadsheet suggesting seriously that Baden-Powell might have had paedophile leanings since "It is not normal to like children unless they are your own"), but we're still a bit neurotic about them, simultaneously wanting to treat them as innocent darlings and mature adults. The general drift is undoubtedly to the latter - you have to be very cocooned these days to be innocent in any way beyond the age of 7 or so.

Inner London kids (who I mostly see now) generally seem OK to me in everyday life (no idea what they're like at home) - more boisterous than adults, pretty streetwise and probably willing to try anything once without too many regrets, but very few actually nasty.

I find other people's kids highly irritating, except for my own nephews. I also remember how much of an obnoxious brat I was as a kid, and my wife was semi-jokingly referred to as a "devil-child" by her father.

My wife now wants to start a family. I think about all that, and then have all my work colleagues and friends make 'jokes' about having no more sleep anymore, and how your whole life changes forever.

Frankly, it puts me off. It sounds shit.

As someone new to this lark, it's also tremendous fun (and I speak after a rather sleepless night).

It's also the greatest responsibility you will ever have.

Quite. I mentioned on here a few weeks ago about the attitude of alleged refugees breaking down fences in Croatia et al - there wasn't any patient waiting - within 36 hrs it was all violence and yelling/stone throwing.

Frankly, I thought that bode ill at the time, this was a large group of people who simply didn't think they needed to behave - or that their entitled attitude to pick and choose where they lived was going to be a serious problem.

I feel very sorry for all the countries effected by Mrs Merkel. If official estimates are accurate - Germany could be looking at over 7m arrivals/family joiners from all sorts of alien cultures. It's a nightmare.

MarqueeMark said:

I get the impression that many kind-hearted Germans thought they were doing the right thing to atone for their nation's past sins by willingly opening their doors to a cuddly Gremlin. Unfortunately nobody told them not to get them wet or feed them after midnight....

TOPPING said:

NPXMPX2 reminds me of Winnie a bit, which is not not a compliment.

The Pooh?

Or Mandela?

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. G, not unlike Allah, my mercy is greater than my wrath.

You should have done it MD

CR

"French schoolchildren in London are the worst behaved and rudest of them all."

Maybe it's the culture shock? They arrive for lessons in the morning kiss everyone they meet and the police arrive......

Because, the vast majority of criminals are people who reoffend again, again, and again. Dozens of occasions in some cases.

Yep, so why not just bang them up for five years at a time. Then they can't reoffend.

Practice has finished, for what it's worth, but this piece on the BBC livefeed was interesting:
"When we were speaking to Christian Horner about 90 minutes ago he was meant to go on to the pitwall, he was taken into the Red Bull hospitality by Bernie Ecclestone and they have just finished talking. It was Christian, Helmut Marko and Bernie in a big meeting. When Bernie came back out he gave David a nod, a wink, and a thumbs up."

JosiasJessop said:

Casino_Royale said:

NickPalmer said:

On kids, we're all anecdotal as it's hard to agree what good child behaviour is, let alone measure which countries display it. My 2p worth is that we've shaken off the reputation that we used to have of actively disliking kids (I remember an article in a Sunday broadsheet suggesting seriously that Baden-Powell might have had paedophile leanings since "It is not normal to like children unless they are your own"), but we're still a bit neurotic about them, simultaneously wanting to treat them as innocent darlings and mature adults. The general drift is undoubtedly to the latter - you have to be very cocooned these days to be innocent in any way beyond the age of 7 or so.

Inner London kids (who I mostly see now) generally seem OK to me in everyday life (no idea what they're like at home) - more boisterous than adults, pretty streetwise and probably willing to try anything once without too many regrets, but very few actually nasty.

I find other people's kids highly irritating, except for my own nephews. I also remember how much of an obnoxious brat I was as a kid, and my wife was semi-jokingly referred to as a "devil-child" by her father.

My wife now wants to start a family. I think about all that, and then have all my work colleagues and friends make 'jokes' about having no more sleep anymore, and how your whole life changes forever.

Frankly, it puts me off. It sounds shit.

As someone new to this lark, it's also tremendous fun (and I speak after a rather sleepless night).

It's also the greatest responsibility you will ever have.

Thanks. It scares the living daylights out of me. I don't feel remotely qualified or ready. And I don't get enough sleep as it is.

MarqueeMark said:

Casino_Royale said:

DavidL said:

There are many flaws in Don's piece, most of which we have discussed before.

Firstly, one of the reasons the government can still borrow cheaply despite still having the worst deficit in Europe is that the markets accept that they are serious about addressing it. Borrowing lots of additional "cheap" money would dangerously undermine that.

Secondly, one of the many major problems left by the Brown disaster is that far too much of our government expenditure goes on current spending. It is just incoherent and irrational to expect the government to spend a lot more on, say, WTC, and on infrastructure. These are choices and the government has chosen correctly.

Thirdly, after the latest revisals to the GDP figures the argument that austerity somehow reduced growth gets ever more untenable. Growth in the UK has matched that of the US since 2010 and is by far the best in the EU. The idea that it would have been sustainable to borrow even more, drive demand even more and somehow generate additional growth that was somehow going to magically produce the extra tax revenues to pay for it all is just stupid. It is no longer even an arguable position, it is stupid.

The fact is that the easy tax revenues of the bubble in the City and plentiful north sea oil are gone and they are not coming back. Our deficit was much more structural than was appreciated at the time and is much harder to eliminate as a result. This means real cuts along with tax increases are going to be needed to rebalance our economy onto some sustainable footing. This will not be easy or politically popular but it is absolutely necessary.

So where does that leave the ambitions of Osborne? If this new body is to have a new budget rather than simply making better use of the old one he will have to bear down even harder on current expenditure to release resources for capital spending. I think there is no doubt that he wants to do that. Whether he finds that politically doable will be an interesting question.

Osborne is good with strategy, rabbits, sorting longstanding outrages in the tax system and recognising the value of infrastructure investment - so he's perfect for building a strong economy. But, for me, Conservativism is about more than just the money.

I'm not sure Osborne has an answer to that yet.

You can't fix the "more" until you've fixed the money. Conservatives have this in their DNA.

Labour? Not so much...

Tories scrimp and scrape all year, then battle round the shops to find that toy their kid desperately wants for Christmas.

Labour writes a wish list to Santa.

I mean social policy, cultural matters, foreign policy, constitutional reform, leadership on values and mapping out a national destiny.

JosiasJessop said:

Casino_Royale said:

NickPalmer said:

On kids, we're all anecdotal as it's hard to agree what good child behaviour is, let alone measure which countries display it. My 2p worth is that we've shaken off the reputation that we used to have of actively disliking kids (I remember an article in a Sunday broadsheet suggesting seriously that Baden-Powell might have had paedophile leanings since "It is not normal to like children unless they are your own"), but we're still a bit neurotic about them, simultaneously wanting to treat them as innocent darlings and mature adults. The general drift is undoubtedly to the latter - you have to be very cocooned these days to be innocent in any way beyond the age of 7 or so.

Inner London kids (who I mostly see now) generally seem OK to me in everyday life (no idea what they're like at home) - more boisterous than adults, pretty streetwise and probably willing to try anything once without too many regrets, but very few actually nasty.

I find other people's kids highly irritating, except for my own nephews. I also remember how much of an obnoxious brat I was as a kid, and my wife was semi-jokingly referred to as a "devil-child" by her father.

My wife now wants to start a family. I think about all that, and then have all my work colleagues and friends make 'jokes' about having no more sleep anymore, and how your whole life changes forever.

Frankly, it puts me off. It sounds shit.

As someone new to this lark, it's also tremendous fun (and I speak after a rather sleepless night).

It's also the greatest responsibility you will ever have.

We need responsible people to have children. Go to it.

Cyclefree said:

Good manners need to be taught to children - not for reasons of etiquette - but because, fundamentally, they are about kindness to others around you. So just as we make space on buses for parents with buggies to make life easier for them it is incumbent on parents to teach their children not to screech and throw bread rolls at us.

Without good manners we could not live together in any sort of bearable way in the public space.

Indulging children is doing them no favours because they will never learn any sort of self-discipline otherwise. Mind you, even if you do teach them (or think you do) they turn into teenagers and seem to forget everything they've ever learnt. Or maybe that's just mine.......

Well said.

I'm certainly no father-of-the-year and my kids are spoilt but I won't have any cheek or impoliteness. I'm a rugby-boy and like all rugby players I had the petulance and cheek battered out of me. But, I swear a lot! Not at the children, but just generally.

My wife kicks my backside for swearing but sometimes tolerates my boy answering her back (my daughter isn't old enough yet, but she will answer back soon...) and I don't get that.

I think it's very difficult to stop a kid from growing up swearing, especially in a working class, valleys area like this, but I can make him be nice to people. And he is, to be fair.

Ironically, he's scared to death of swearing because my sister is a policewoman and my wife got my sister to put the handcuffs on me for swearing

runnymede said:

Because, the vast majority of criminals are people who reoffend again, again, and again. Dozens of occasions in some cases.

Yep, so why not just bang them up for five years at a time. Then they can't reoffend.

Why stop there.. put them in camps with barbed wire and have armed guards in towers to make sure that they cannot escape and then make them work till they drop . Your type of social justice ...

JEO said:

Casino_Royale said:

NickPalmer said:

On kids, we're all anecdotal as it's hard to agree what good child behaviour is, let alone measure which countries display it. My 2p worth is that we've shaken off the reputation that we used to have of actively disliking kids (I remember an article in a Sunday broadsheet suggesting seriously that Baden-Powell might have had paedophile leanings since "It is not normal to like children unless they are your own"), but we're still a bit neurotic about them, simultaneously wanting to treat them as innocent darlings and mature adults. The general drift is undoubtedly to the latter - you have to be very cocooned these days to be innocent in any way beyond the age of 7 or so.

Inner London kids (who I mostly see now) generally seem OK to me in everyday life (no idea what they're like at home) - more boisterous than adults, pretty streetwise and probably willing to try anything once without too many regrets, but very few actually nasty.

I find other people's kids highly irritating, except for my own nephews. I also remember how much of an obnoxious brat I was as a kid, and my wife was semi-jokingly referred to as a "devil-child" by her father.

My wife now wants to start a family. I think about all that, and then have all my work colleagues and friends make 'jokes' about having no more sleep anymore, and how your whole life changes forever.

Frankly, it puts me off. It sounds shit.

It should definitely not be done lightly. And it is often exhausting. But, for me, it was also the most rewarding thing I've ever done. It doesn't matter how tired you are, one smile from the little blighter makes it all feel worth it.

And, not to come across the arrogant parent, but after we had our first, it made me feel like I'd be wasting my life before it on meaningless trivial stuff. I'm not disrespecting anyone else's choices with that, just saying how my own life felt to me.

I'm sure (I hope) I will feel the same - but I need to get there first. I just don't feel a desperate need to have them - is this normal?

At the moment, most existing parents think they're being funny but they're basically just putting me off and not helping.

Britain Elects ‏@britainelects 5m5 minutes ago
Sandford & the Wittenhams (South Oxfordshire) result:
CON - 42.8% (-4.4)
LDEM - 36.7% (+16.4)
LAB - 13.1% (-3.7)
GRN - 7.4% (-8.3)

Greens and Labour doing well.

dr_spyn said:

Britain Elects ‏@britainelects 5m5 minutes ago
Sandford & the Wittenhams (South Oxfordshire) result:
CON - 42.8% (-4.4)
LDEM - 36.7% (+16.4)
LAB - 13.1% (-3.7)
GRN - 7.4% (-8.3)

Greens and Labour doing well.

Decent result for the Lib Dems. but this will be their problem come 2020 - they are just SO far behind everywhere now.

I'm allergic to children. Never liked them for more about 20 mins. And we decided that neither of us wanted or was right temperamentally for them. I have no idea how any parent holds down a job with a young one. I've hand-reared puppies from birth and feeding them every two hours for 4 weeks left me a zombie.

I can manage a couple of weeks - but the idea of months and months of this just fills me with horror. I'm simply not cut out for it. The biohazard aspect doesn't bother me at all and have acres of patience - but just not for grizzling.

JosiasJessop said:

Casino_Royale said:

Thanks. It scares the living daylights out of me. I don't feel remotely qualified or ready. And I don't get enough sleep as it is.

I don't know about other people, but we've developed coping strategies to do with lack of sleep. Fortunately the little 'uns sleep is improving now he's 15 months.

As for being qualified, remotely or otherwise: we felt exactly the same way. It's only when you see the mothers who work as nursery nurses struggle to cope with their first-born that you realise that there are no qualifications, and you are never quite ready.

You'll learn to cope with the downsides. But do not forget the upsides either. I can operate for an entire day on one of his smiles, and his laughter covers up the smell of any number of nasty bio-warfare nappies.

It really is the most tremendous great fun. Despite having chucked in work, my existence (perhaps not the best way of putting it) is so much bigger than it was before.

Well, nearly.

Scott_P said:

@SunNation: The #piggate co-author admits her source "could have been slightly deranged" http://t.co/O09nIv7QJG http://t.co/Pt34359OgA

And destroys any chance of being considered a journalist. She's a fictional novelist.

"Speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, Ms Oakeshott told the audience: “I think [the question about burden of proof] rests on a really false premise, which is that things that are written in books need to have the same standard — if you like to use that word — as things that are written in newspapers.”

She added: “You might just as well say: ‘Well, you couldn’t have put that in Barbie Princess magazine.’

“Would I have got that story into The Sunday Times? Well, I reckon it probably could have been a diary story, expressed much more euphemistically.”

Britain Elects ‏@britainelects 4m4 minutes ago
EU referendum poll:
Remain: 44% (-1)
Leave: 39% (+1)
(via ICM / 07 Oct)

My better half doesn't have kids. She has horses. They both need their shit clearing out and cost a fortune - horse crap smells alot better than baby poo though ;p.

Best of luck with the kids, Casino Royale

Plato_Says said:

I'm allergic to children. Never liked them for more about 20 mins. And we decided that neither of us wanted or was right temperamentally for them. I have no idea how any parent holds down a job with a young one. I've hand-reared puppies from birth and feeding them every two hours for 4 weeks left me a zombie.

I can manage a couple of weeks - but the idea of months and months of this just fills me with horror. I'm simply not cut out for it. The biohazard aspect doesn't bother me at all and have acres of patience - but just not for grizzling.

JosiasJessop said:

Casino_Royale said:

Thanks. It scares the living daylights out of me. I don't feel remotely qualified or ready. And I don't get enough sleep as it is.

I don't know about other people, but we've developed coping strategies to do with lack of sleep. Fortunately the little 'uns sleep is improving now he's 15 months.

As for being qualified, remotely or otherwise: we felt exactly the same way. It's only when you see the mothers who work as nursery nurses struggle to cope with their first-born that you realise that there are no qualifications, and you are never quite ready.

You'll learn to cope with the downsides. But do not forget the upsides either. I can operate for an entire day on one of his smiles, and his laughter covers up the smell of any number of nasty bio-warfare nappies.

It really is the most tremendous great fun. Despite having chucked in work, my existence (perhaps not the best way of putting it) is so much bigger than it was before.

Well, nearly.

When we met, Mrs J felt pretty much as you do. Yet as she approached forty and realised now-or-never territory was a few years away, she slowly changed her mind.

And she's a great mother. Immensely protective (as Turkish mothers tend to be), and intensely loving.

There has been one very notable change. Before we had Robert, she lived for work. Now she can hardly wait to get home. Something she shares with much of the new fathers I know.

Kids are great. They get you out of your comfort zone, challenge you in every way and stop you getting set in your ways.

It's worth it for the bath toys alone.

I think kids are easier when they're grandchildren. You can be proud of them when you want and give them back when they're a nuisance.

Witchsmeller Pursuivant under attack:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34484611

ydoethur said:

JosiasJessop said:

ydoethur said:

david_herdson said:

"Steve Richards underlines the gap between Osborne’s ambition and his budget plans. “It does not cost very much money to hire Lord Adonis to run an Infrastructure Commission, but it is very expensive to build infrastructure"

Typical Labour thinking. How much did all those railways in the 19th century cost the government?

The price of the Board of Trade Railways Inspectorate.

On the other hand, as very few railways ever paid dividends, it could be argued that it lost money via taxes that would have been paid had more financially attractive options been taken. (This is of course one reason why outside Britain the vast majority of railways were built with government aid.)

That being said, as they fuelled rapid economic growth, it could be argued such things were paid for in other ways and by other industries, especially coal.

Many investors, particularly in the two railway bubbles, lost their shirts. But the country as a whole has benefited from those losses many times over.

ISTR reading somewhere that the Great Central from London to Sheffield - Britain's last main line - never made any money. Which was one reason it was closed.

No, it didn't. Jack Simmons called it 'a dinosaur', because it replicated about five existing lines but was built and maintained to a much higher standard than any of them. It simply represented an empire building mentality on the part of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincoln's chairman, nothing more - and it pretty much ruined the company.

With that I am off to work. Have a good day.

IIRC the Great Central was built to Continental standards (deliberately to link to a planned Channel Tunnel) - would have been a useful goods link to the Chunnel and therefore a complement to HS2. So there was a bit more to Watkin's vision than that - even if it was unsustainable in the medium term, which brings ups back to your point.

JosiasJessop said:

Casino_Royale said:

Thanks. It scares the living daylights out of me. I don't feel remotely qualified or ready. And I don't get enough sleep as it is.

I don't know about other people, but we've developed coping strategies to do with lack of sleep. Fortunately the little 'uns sleep is improving now he's 15 months.

As for being qualified, remotely or otherwise: we felt exactly the same way. It's only when you see the mothers who work as nursery nurses struggle to cope with their first-born that you realise that there are no qualifications, and you are never quite ready.

You'll learn to cope with the downsides. But do not forget the upsides either. I can operate for an entire day on one of his smiles, and his laughter covers up the smell of any number of nasty bio-warfare nappies.

Well, nearly.

It really is the most tremendous great fun. Despite having chucked in work, my existence (perhaps not the best way of putting it) is so much bigger than it was before.

Thanks JJ - that's very insightful and I appreciate it.

JEO said:

Casino_Royale,

I think it depends on the individual but it is normal for a lot of men. I think it also depends on what your own family background was like. I think people that had very warm and close relationships with their own parents and siblings look forward to it more.

In terms of what parents say, you need to realise that all parents want to do is talk about their child and how fantastic he is, and how he did this amazing thing yesterday. But we know we come across as boring self-obsessed drones when we do that. So we shield ourselves from that criticism by joking about it being a negative.

I do think it's right that you wait until you're ready, as there will be the odd occasion you resent your child and you want to minimise that. But it's for sure the best thing I've ever done, and the vast majority of parents who planned their children will say the same.

Thanks JEO. But you think the choice is up to me?

We've been married for over 2 years, and my wife is coming up to 32. She is badgering me weekly ;-)

Tunisian Nationa dialogue quartet awarded Nobel peace prize.

Glad I dodged the Merkel bet, bookie's paradise that market.

John_M said:

Casino_Royale said:

JEO said:

Casino_Royale said:

NickPalmer said:

On kids, we're all anecdotal as it's hard to agree what good child behaviour is, let alone measure which countries display it. My 2p worth is that we've shaken off the reputation that we used to have of actively disliking kids (I remember an article in a Sunday broadsheet suggesting seriously that Baden-Powell might have had paedophile leanings since "It is not normal to like children unless they are your own"), but we're still a bit neurotic about them, simultaneously wanting to treat them as innocent darlings and mature adults. The general drift is undoubtedly to the latter - you have to be very cocooned these days to be innocent in any way beyond the age of 7 or so.

Inner London kids (who I mostly see now) generally seem OK to me in everyday life (no idea what they're like at home) - more boisterous than adults, pretty streetwise and probably willing to try anything once without too many regrets, but very few actually nasty.

I find other people's kids highly irritating, except for my own nephews. I also remember how much of an obnoxious brat I was as a kid, and my wife was semi-jokingly referred to as a "devil-child" by her father.

My wife now wants to start a family. I think about all that, and then have all my work colleagues and friends make 'jokes' about having no more sleep anymore, and how your whole life changes forever.

Frankly, it puts me off. It sounds shit.

It should definitely not be done lightly. And it is often exhausting. But, for me, it was also the most rewarding thing I've ever done. It doesn't matter how tired you are, one smile from the little blighter makes it all feel worth it.

And, not to come across the arrogant parent, but after we had our first, it made me feel like I'd be wasting my life before it on meaningless trivial stuff. I'm not disrespecting anyone else's choices with that, just saying how my own life felt to me.

I'm sure (I hope) I will feel the same - but I need to get there first. I just don't feel a desperate need to have them - is this normal?

At the moment, most existing parents think they're being funny but they're basically just putting me off and not helping.

Personally I found parenting delightful between ages 3-14 and 18 onwards. I'm sorry to say I don't really like young teenagers or babies .

Funnily enough, Tony Blair said almost exactly the same thing in 'The Journey'.

One of the few memorable things in his book, actually.

Mr. Royale, if you consider it inevitable then decide instead on what price you wish to exact.

blackburn63 said:

OldKingCole said:

blackburn63 said:

I'm happy to rehabilitate first time offenders, especially the young, we all make mistakes. But for career criminals aged 30+ there is no point wasting valuable time and resources, throw away the key.

A friend of mine, ordinarily a liberal type, is serious when he talks of clinical research on long term inmates, as an animal lover he'd prefer to see drugs tested on rapists rather than beagles, I think he has a point.

You know what the genetics of the beagles are though. Can make a difference. Too many variables in humans.

No reason not to give it a try, 1000s every year are paid to be clinical research guinea pigs, its how drugs come to the market.

Good point. On thinking about your post I have a suspicion that I have read somewhere that jail inmates ARE given the opportunity to volunteer for such tests. Somewhere, anyway.

Mr. Pulpstar, ha, it's not a specialist area for me, I admit.

On the other hand, I am blessed with relentless stubbornness.

The point stands: if something's going to happen anyway, you may as well try to seek an advantage from it.