You have the governing party having to choose between an anti gay, pro fix hunting, Walter mitty banker, or a right wing anti immigration focused individual who thought it was a good idea to have vans drive around london with "go home" in massive letters.
One of these two will be responsible for negotiating our exit from the European Union, which after a mess of a campaign with half truths and lies from both sides, is looking like the worst decision since Tony decided he knew best about Iraq.
The opposition is fighting itself, led by a man which would be perfect if he could actually lead, instead mumbles and bumbles his way through his tenure, more interested in his hopeless quest for a mythical new way of politics.
All under the shadow of a media that has ultimate control of who sits where.
We are renewing my son's passport at the moment (he has Irish citizenship) and the application form has a note on it reminding people that the UK will be in the EU for at least 2 years yet so there is no need to rush
I've been reviewing the results of last year's Labour leadership elections, and was reminded that Eagle came 4th, yes 4th, in the deputy leadership contest.
And now this Blairite, who voted for the Iraq invasion, and who is at odds with the party's grassroots, think she can topple Corbyn when she couldn't even secure the deputy leadership post...
This won't end well. I'm expecting a SDP style split any day soon. The centre won't hold...
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: I've been reviewing the results of last year's Labour leadership elections, and was reminded that Eagle came 4th, yes 4th, in the deputy leadership contest.
And now this Blairite, who voted for the Iraq invasion, and who is at odds with the party's grassroots, think she can topple Corbyn when she couldn't even secure the deputy leadership post...
This won't end well. I'm expecting a SDP style split any day soon. The centre won't hold...
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: I've been reviewing the results of last year's Labour leadership elections, and was reminded that Eagle came 4th, yes 4th, in the deputy leadership contest.
And now this Blairite, who voted for the Iraq invasion, and who is at odds with the party's grassroots, think she can topple Corbyn when she couldn't even secure the deputy leadership post...
This won't end well. I'm expecting a SDP style split any day soon. The centre won't hold...
I have been waiting for a split since the end of Blairs reign. I don't think anyone in the party has the stomach to branch out on their own. There could be a few that up sticks to alternative parties but an SDP style affair is asking for too many to get out of their comfort zones, and comfy seats.
All the while the tories manage to get by with constant infighting and backstabbing.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Thebiggesthat wrote: The Blairite faction can bugger off to the Lib Dems, see how that suits them.
Ideologically they have more in common with the neo liberals on the blue side of the house.
There are Blairite groups in both the Tories and Labour, and its my opinion that they should just embrace each other as a new party and drop this pathetic charade.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: I've been reviewing the results of last year's Labour leadership elections, and was reminded that Eagle came 4th, yes 4th, in the deputy leadership contest.
And now this Blairite, who voted for the Iraq invasion, and who is at odds with the party's grassroots, think she can topple Corbyn when she couldn't even secure the deputy leadership post...
This won't end well. I'm expecting a SDP style split any day soon. The centre won't hold...
If she runs, she's probably falling on her sword. I daresay another candidate with a better chance of success will enter and win, but she'll take a hit politically. If they don't, she'll lose. But they all want her to be the first, so imagine the last week has been spent with others trying to convince her that it's in her interests to run (when it isn't).
I'm disappointed with upcoming politicians frankly - this was a golden opportunity to totally reform the leading political parties into something which better represented the spread of opinion and we just got more of yesterday's politicians.
Next election i'm voting for an independent MP or myself.
The thing is that to get into politics is very difficult unless you join an existing party.
UKIP and Farage had a damn good go with a major single issue to campaign on. After 15 years they got one MP, who was a defector from the Tories. This illustrates a problem with the FPTP system.
Single issue protest candidates have been elected occasionally. Jon Snow got elected by surfing the wave of disgust with Neil Hamilton. A senior consultant got elected in Hampshire or somewhere by campaigning specifically on the proposed closure of the local hospital.
Other new parties include the SDP, who were defectors from Labour in the early 1980s, and the Referendum Party (Sir James Goldsmith) another single issue party like UKIP, and of course the Green Party who have international connections. Only the Greens are still going.
The SNP and Plaid Cymru were also one issue parties but they have managed to break out of the pure Independence movement towards a broader platform of government. They found this easier thanks to the creation of the devolved assemblies. English or UK National parties do not have that chance and must try to grow the hard way.
Therefore the best way to enter politics if you want to create a broad platform is to join an existing party and change it from within. We've seen this before in the Labour Party with the Militant Tendency of the 1980s, which certainly helped make Labour unelectable for 10-15 years. When you look at John Major's victory in 1992 it's amazing that Labour could not have done better, and it reflects the distrust at the time of left wing Labour politics.
Blair won a massive Labour victory in 1997 by (A) not being the Tories who by then were widely hated and (B) being nearly as right wing as the Tories. By the early 2000s it was evident that the Liberal Democratic Party was more left wing than mainstream New Labour.
Corbyn's leadership is evidence that there is an appetite in the country for a far more left-wing Labour party.
Can a medium hard left Labour party make good numbers at the polls?
Could Labour split into two parties? Who would win the majority and retain the main party organisation and funds? Where would the dissidents go?
Is it at all possible that the Conservative Party could split?
I really hope the labour party machine doesn't block Corbyn running in this contest on a technicality as i'm sure that would split the party,
the parliamentary party keeps the name and funds but crashs and burns like they did in scotland
although letting him run and win (my guess as to the result) might well result in a split anyway with at least some of the current MPs abandoning ship, but I think most of them will swallow their pride and abide by the wishes of their constituents
Corbyn keeps the name and funds, but looses a number of MPs who hang around as independants and then fade out of politics
of course it would all be moot if somebody stood against corbyn and won, but even then I could see a lot of the younger more left wing new party members giving up on labour (and maybe politics and voting) totally if they do
the parliamentary party keeps the name and funds, but party membership crashes again and a number of unions withdraw their cash meaning the party can't properly fund any further election campaigns
whatever happens I don't think the lib dems will benefit, they are still a toxic brand for their partnership with the conservatives, the are on the opposite side of the brexit debate to the labour voters who were considering moving their votes (mainly to UKIP) and their leader was even more useless than corbyn in the referendum debates
so the potential winners are the conservatives (who will briefly pull together when the leadership fight is over having made the requisite blood sacrifices),
and UKIP if it manages to carry on without Farrage (who's personal popularity kept it afloat every time it messed up by letting the real nutters in it's ranks speak), without his inexplicable attraction I suspect voters will be more inclined to listen to the media screaming racism, fascism, incompetence, no actual policies etc
If the Labour Party should split into hard left and soft left sections, the soft left would find a welcome in the Liberals, I think, and this would enhance Liberal power and influence which would be a good thing.
With the Tories seemingly moving to the right, this would give UK voters three distinct options, plus the SNP as a major force in Scotland. Assuming Scotland does not split off, the SNP would be likely to ally with the New Labour Party or the Liberal Democrats.
Farage will be heard from again, I am sure. He's going to lose his cushy job as a Euro MP, and he will have to make up the money somehow. However I don't think he will make a major impact on politics by himself and I don't believe he will have a party to be head of.
Hunt is desperate to push this new contract to save money for Osborne. He's thrown every piece of evidence out of the window regarding it, lied through his teeth, and as a result is one of the few Tory politicians who I find the dislike of by the left fully justified.
In the end Hunt probably will ram through the new contract. The number of doctors available will be reduced by various forms of refusal, and the NHS will bimble on somewhat worse than before. Probably no money will be saved because hospitals will have to rely on expensive locums who will be their former doctors having left for private practice.
In Tory Leadership news:
The BBC wrote:Theresa May will promise to put workers on the boards of major firms and curb excess corporate pay, as she starts her campaign to be Tory leader and PM.
Both these are EU ideas that the UK government of the day greeted with horror when they were proposed.
That's a weak sop to the left and the working classes. Any "represenrative" sitting on a board will be purely tokenism and with no power or authority. Without a union behind them, you might as well not bother.
The BBC wrote:Theresa May will promise to put workers on the boards of major firms and curb excess corporate pay, as she starts her campaign to be Tory leader and PM.
Both these are EU ideas that the UK government of the day greeted with horror when they were proposed.
Should a good idea (you seem to indicate it is) not be implemented no matter the source?
This would indicate decent leadership rather than dogmatic partisanship.
Absolutely. The workers' councils seem to work very well in Germany, for example.
It's just ironic that the power elite that reacted with horror to these EU initiatives when proposed now plans to bring them into the UK in preparation for leaving the EU.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: I've been reviewing the results of last year's Labour leadership elections, and was reminded that Eagle came 4th, yes 4th, in the deputy leadership contest.
And now this Blairite, who voted for the Iraq invasion, and who is at odds with the party's grassroots, think she can topple Corbyn when she couldn't even secure the deputy leadership post...
This won't end well. I'm expecting a SDP style split any day soon. The centre won't hold...
If she runs, she's probably falling on her sword. I daresay another candidate with a better chance of success will enter and win, but she'll take a hit politically. If they don't, she'll lose. But they all want her to be the first, so imagine the last week has been spent with others trying to convince her that it's in her interests to run (when it isn't).
I read an interesting stat that says 80% of Labour grassroots organisations are backing Corbyn, but 80% of Labour MPs want Corbyn out...
This is irresistible force against immovable object on a scale not seen for a long time!
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: I've been reviewing the results of last year's Labour leadership elections, and was reminded that Eagle came 4th, yes 4th, in the deputy leadership contest.
And now this Blairite, who voted for the Iraq invasion, and who is at odds with the party's grassroots, think she can topple Corbyn when she couldn't even secure the deputy leadership post...
This won't end well. I'm expecting a SDP style split any day soon. The centre won't hold...
I have been waiting for a split since the end of Blairs reign. I don't think anyone in the party has the stomach to branch out on their own. There could be a few that up sticks to alternative parties but an SDP style affair is asking for too many to get out of their comfort zones, and comfy seats.
All the while the tories manage to get by with constant infighting and backstabbing.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Thebiggesthat wrote: The Blairite faction can bugger off to the Lib Dems, see how that suits them.
Ideologically they have more in common with the neo liberals on the blue side of the house.
I too was of the mind that most of these Labour MPs wouldn't have the guts to break away, but if the Tories get their act together, and victory in 2020 looks like a faint hope...anything can happen.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: I've been reviewing the results of last year's Labour leadership elections, and was reminded that Eagle came 4th, yes 4th, in the deputy leadership contest.
And now this Blairite, who voted for the Iraq invasion, and who is at odds with the party's grassroots, think she can topple Corbyn when she couldn't even secure the deputy leadership post...
This won't end well. I'm expecting a SDP style split any day soon. The centre won't hold...
Also, her local party supports Corbyn.
It's very funny.
Yeah, Eagle's local party are trying to de-select her or taking steps to achieve this. What a mess.
I've just watched Eagles interview on yesterdays Andrew Neil show.
Good god, she's a poor candidate. She sounded utterly depressed, was dodging questions, repeating the blandest of soundbites and is generally the exact type of Westminster drone that the populace have grown to dislike.
If Corbyn gets on the ballot (which I think he will), she will be smashed. And then what? The Labour MPs have gone too far to just bend the knee to Corbyn.
Kilkrazy wrote: Absolutely. The workers' councils seem to work very well in Germany, for example.
It's just ironic that the power elite...
From what I've read, May isn't really one of the power elite in the colloquial sense (Quincy Wright excluded). She's not one of the Old Boy's club that Bojo, Gove, Cameron, Osborne and so forth belong to. She did Geography at Oxford instead of PPE or History or politics, and she's not exactly made a huge number of friends in Government. Her dad was a clergyman instead of minor gentry or rich businessman. I read a quote in the Times once from a supposed Whitehall insider, who said that she was only ever chosen as 'the best of a bad lot of token women' and it's why they handed her the supposedly cursed brief of Home Secretary (so that it wouldn't affect one of the more serious male contenders when it went pear shaped). The Times journalist speculated her successful tenure there is because she's a 6am-6pm office worker who refuses to leave the details to the civil servants and concentrate entirely on policy and politics, like most ministers.
As a slightly religious gal, she's opposed most things relating to LGBT rights over the years, so I'm not massively keen on her because of that. On the other hand, she's been the driving force behind the Government opposing things like FGM. So whilst she's not the PM I'd pick, she's probably closer to us working schmoes than any of Cameron's other cronies.
Kilkrazy wrote: Absolutely. The workers' councils seem to work very well in Germany, for example.
It's just ironic that the power elite that reacted with horror to these EU initiatives when proposed now plans to bring them into the UK in preparation for leaving the EU.
Of course it's probably all just talk.
This is Britain. The mere mention of trade unions is a red rag to a bull for some sections of British society (my elderly father still hasn't recovered from the 1970s )
so this idea of workers' councils will set off all kinds of alarms bells.
I think they're a good idea, but they might be a hard sell to a British public that is naturally suspicious and hostile to the idea of organised labour.
Kilkrazy wrote: Absolutely. The workers' councils seem to work very well in Germany, for example.
It's just ironic that the power elite...
From what I've read, May isn't really one of the power elite in the colloquial sense (Quincy Wright excluded). She's not one of the Old Boy's club that Bojo, Gove, Cameron, Osborne and so forth belong to. She did Geography at Oxford instead of PPE or History or politics, and she's not exactly made a huge number of friends in Government. Her dad was a clergyman instead of minor gentry or rich businessman. I read a quote in the Times once from a supposed Whitehall insider, who said that she was only ever chosen as 'the best of a bad lot of token women' and it's why they handed her the supposedly cursed brief of Home Secretary (so that it wouldn't affect one of the more serious male contenders when it went pear shaped). The Times journalist speculated her successful tenure there is because she's a 6am-6pm office worker who refuses to leave the details to the civil servants and concentrate entirely on policy and politics, like most ministers.
As a slightly religious gal, she's opposed most things relating to LGBT rights over the years, so I'm not massively keen on her because of that. On the other hand, she's been the driving force behind the Government opposing things like FGM. So whilst she's not the PM I'd pick, she's probably closer to us working schmoes than any of Cameron's other cronies.
This is just my take, but the more I read about May, the more I'm convinced we're going to be getting John Major version 2.0, and that's not a compliment in my book.
I have no doubt that May would be fairly competent, but with Britain BREXITING, a bold vision is needed for the UK in the 21st century.
May is not inspiring in that regard.
Automatically Appended Next Post: May's time as home secretary was a disaster, immigration being the main failing, but the fact that she locked somebody up for 8 years, without any charges, should serve as a warning to those who value this nation's liberty.
May is too much in the pocket of those who want more surveillance of this nation's citizens...
This morning -- all within the space of 10 minutes -- they've put out a demand/request for a new general election whilst also now starting a leadership contest internally.
This is just my take, but the more I read about May, the more I'm convinced we're going to be getting John Major version 2.0, and that's not a compliment in my book.
I have no doubt that May would be fairly competent, but with Britain BREXITING, a bold vision is needed for the UK in the 21st century.
May is not inspiring in that regard.
Automatically Appended Next Post: May's time as home secretary was a disaster, immigration being the main failing, but the fact that she locked somebody up for 8 years, without any charges, should serve as a warning to those who value this nation's liberty.
May is too much in the pocket of those who want more surveillance of this nation's citizens...
She's always been in favour of more governmental powers to detain, place under surveillance, and arrest without due process, which I dislike heartily. In a brexit environment where she (and others like her) can no longer be blocked on such things by European legislation, that does worry me. Governments from Blair onwards have brought in ever-increasing security measures in the name of fighting terrorism, and the record so far has been that that they're deemed illegal within a few years, removed, and then replaced with slightly different worded version. But without the pressure from Europe on human rights, I fear what a kneejerk government reaction to a terrorist attack under May would do. That's one reason not to be in favour of her becoming PM, but frankly, I don't think anyone else will be any better in that respect. I think everyone bar the Lib Dems seems inclined towards the security state these days, so it's not so much a strike against her as it is the Tories.
The image that's trickled out of May is a workaholic administrator, who is capable but with little imagination. That being said, a good chunk of that image was spread by her political enemies over the years, she's not one for self-advertisement, so it's flourished somewhat. She may well bloom as the PM. Alternatively, she might be Broon MK2, or anything in between. Time alone will tell, I suspect.
Kilkrazy wrote: Absolutely. The workers' councils seem to work very well in Germany, for example.
It's just ironic that the power elite that reacted with horror to these EU initiatives when proposed now plans to bring them into the UK in preparation for leaving the EU.
Of course it's probably all just talk.
This is Britain. The mere mention of trade unions is a red rag to a bull for some sections of British society (my elderly father still hasn't recovered from the 1970s )
so this idea of workers' councils will set off all kinds of alarms bells.
I think they're a good idea, but they might be a hard sell to a British public that is naturally suspicious and hostile to the idea of organised labour.
No, worker's councils are a great idea! It makes the sense the EU would want such a thing. Is first step on road to Council Union! Does anyone know what the Russian word for a union of worker's councils is btw?
She's always been in favour of more governmental powers to detain, place under surveillance, and arrest without due process, which I dislike heartily. In a brexit environment where she (and others like her) can no longer be blocked on such things by European legislation, that does worry me.
How many times did we go through the whole "the ECHR isn't the EU" deal in the old thread?
She's always been in favour of more governmental powers to detain, place under surveillance, and arrest without due process, which I dislike heartily. In a brexit environment where she (and others like her) can no longer be blocked on such things by European legislation, that does worry me.
How many times did we go through the whole "the ECHR isn't the EU" deal in the old thread?
The Tories also want to leave the ECHR. The EU requires us to sign up to the ECHR, I think (which we should do anyway as Britain played a leading role in writing the European Convention on Human Rights).
Soviet is used to denote a worker's council, or peasant's council prior to the Russian revolution.
So USSR stands for Union of Worker's Council Socialiast Republics.
Doesn't quite have the same ring to it.
Interesting that the party without quotas for female MPs and doesn't push positive affirmative action for female politicians, and doesn't bang on endlessly about the glass ceiling for women provides the UK's 2nd female prime minister. The Labour Party and Liberal Democrats have no potential female leaders in sight.
She's always been in favour of more governmental powers to detain, place under surveillance, and arrest without due process, which I dislike heartily. In a brexit environment where she (and others like her) can no longer be blocked on such things by European legislation, that does worry me.
How many times did we go through the whole "the ECHR isn't the EU" deal in the old thread?
With us not being in the EU, the odds of us leaving the ECHR is heightened considerably. Certainly, with EU membership no longer a factor, there's nothing stopping any Government saying they intend to withdraw from it and draw up a British version to replace it. It's been a regular feature in the press for some time now, so I'm not entirely certain why you're attempting to link back to that tired old argument.
It just occurred to me that this time next year, we could be looking at Hilary Clinton, Theresa May, Angela Merkel, and Marine Le Pen sitting around a table representing the Western world. What an interesting thought.
I've despised every Conservative government I've ever had the misfortune of living under, but despite losing Cameron, and despite the deep divisions during the referendum over Europe, the Tories have re-grouped, and bounced back in record time...
I have a grudging respect for them
Labour, in contrast, are a shambles. Their call for a General Election is risible, especially when they're on the verge of civil war, and by all accounts, the Labour party coffers are running on empty. . Why would May gamble a small working majority for an extra year in power?
Yeah, right now a snap election is THE LAST THING we need. We need unity and leadership.Labour is pretty much destroying itself lol. I think, generally speaking, the Conservatives are the only one who have a leg to stand on currently. Mandate or not. Finish the term and go from there. Every bugger else needs to sort their selves out.
The Conservative Party has always seen the achievement of power as its primary mission. What to do with it is a secondary concern.
Naturally there are factions behind the scenes and their quarrels sometimes break out in to public view, as with John Major's "bastards". Let's not forget the EU referendum was nothing to do with "the will of the people" or "democracy", it was a bid by Cameron to prevent another public breakout of "the bastards".
I have just heard that May is to be the new PM after Leadsom withdrew her bid.
Extraordinary! Everyone who hoped to benefit from the referendum; Cameron, BoJo, Gove and Farage, has seen their ship of hope sunk under them in a brief few weeks. Meanwhile boring old May, the outsider, has slipped through the inside of the curve.
reds8n wrote: Nothing Labour is doing is making any sense.
This morning -- all within the space of 10 minutes -- they've put out a demand/request for a new general election whilst also now starting a leadership contest internally.
As we now have fixed term parliaments by law, Labour calling for a general election is just ignorant and strongly implies they have contempt for legal procedure.
If they called for a Bill to repeal the Fixed Term Parliaments Act 2011 then that would be different, they might yet do so, but throwing rattles out of pram doesnt help them or anyone else.
It could be an odd thing to say, but both the main party's seem to too focused on party politics and not what is best for the country, does that make sense? Surely we must have moved on enough to leave these extremes behind? The day to day running of the country should be boring, not made up of soundbites or short term gimmicks.
I believe a civilised society has a moral responsibility to look after the weak and vulnerable. That all children should have access to a decent education so that they can reach their full potential. Taxes should be fair and not excessive. If you've worked hard and managed to the £50k+ salary bank why should you suddenly lose a big chunk of it? I'm sure if they closed tax loopholes and controlled government waste then that would help.
I really do dread what is to come as I have no faith in either party at the moment.
reds8n wrote: Nothing Labour is doing is making any sense.
This morning -- all within the space of 10 minutes -- they've put out a demand/request for a new general election whilst also now starting a leadership contest internally.
As we now have fixed term parliaments by law, Labour calling for a general election is just ignorant and strongly implies they have contempt for legal procedure.
If they called for a Bill to repeal the Fixed Term Parliaments Act 2011 then that would be different, they might yet do so, but throwing rattles out of pram doesnt help them or anyone else.
General elections can still be called early by putting through an act of parliament.
reds8n wrote: Nothing Labour is doing is making any sense.
This morning -- all within the space of 10 minutes -- they've put out a demand/request for a new general election whilst also now starting a leadership contest internally.
As we now have fixed term parliaments by law, Labour calling for a general election is just ignorant and strongly implies they have contempt for legal procedure.
If they called for a Bill to repeal the Fixed Term Parliaments Act 2011 then that would be different, they might yet do so, but throwing rattles out of pram doesnt help them or anyone else.
The current parliament can be dissolved by a vote of no confidence or by a simple 2/3rds majority of MPs, it doesn't have to run for five years.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wolfstan wrote: It could be an odd thing to say, but both the main party's seem to too focused on party politics and not what is best for the country, does that make sense? Surely we must have moved on enough to leave these extremes behind? The day to day running of the country should be boring, not made up of soundbites or short term gimmicks.
I believe a civilised society has a moral responsibility to look after the weak and vulnerable. That all children should have access to a decent education so that they can reach their full potential. Taxes should be fair and not excessive. If you've worked hard and managed to the £50k+ salary bank why should you suddenly lose a big chunk of it? I'm sure if they closed tax loopholes and controlled government waste then that would help.
I really do dread what is to come as I have no faith in either party at the moment.
All political parties are a combination of different impulses and influences. Some are out for themselves and their friends, some are concerned with good government and the health of the nation.
It isn't easy to see what is best for the nation, and it gets worse when people start to use ideology or nepotism instead of analysis.
My worry over the past 20 years has been that we need a healthy economy because everything else depends on it. However what is the point in a healthy economy if it only benefits the top 10%? Maybe it's possible for an economy actually to be unhealthy and still benefit the top 10%.
Kilkrazy wrote: The Conservative Party has always seen the achievement of power as its primary mission. What to do with it is a secondary concern.
Naturally there are factions behind the scenes and their quarrels sometimes break out in to public view, as with John Major's "bastards". Let's not forget the EU referendum was nothing to do with "the will of the people" or "democracy", it was a bid by Cameron to prevent another public breakout of "the bastards".
I have just heard that May is to be the new PM after Leadsom withdrew her bid.
Extraordinary! Everyone who hoped to benefit from the referendum; Cameron, BoJo, Gove and Farage, has seen their ship of hope sunk under them in a brief few weeks. Meanwhile boring old May, the outsider, has slipped through the inside of the curve.
Serves them right, the spankers.
Frankly, I don't think Bojo or Gove ever had a chance. Neither of them had the party backing required. Bojo might have made it to the top two, but he'd have been sunk as every other candidate rallied behind May. Sensibly, he chose to pull out, especially after Gove started playing games. He'll get a nice fat portfolio in the new cabinet, and make a bid in five or ten years for leader.
Had remain won, Camrron and Osborne would have done very nicely for themselves, but as it is, Cameron hopped off the ship, and now Osborne is fighting not to go down with it. Him and May have had an acrimonious relationship in the past, so I daresay he's desperately hoping he's not about to wake up and find himself Minister of Agriculture or Communities or something equally lower-tier. That all being said, I have a certain level of respect for Cameron, he fell on his sword quickly and efficiently, and the minute it was clear it was May's victory, arranged for a seamless transition. None of that Tony Blair will he/won't he nonsense.
May played it safe. That could almost be called the motto of her political career. That may do us well as a country, and I'm hoping over the next few weeks a clear direction for the country will emerge. The markets and pound are crying out for reassurance right now, to the extent that May just winning allowed them to rally to a small extent.
......Challenger rules
There is a dispute in the party about whether, as leader, Mr Corbyn would be automatically given a place on a new ballot, or whether he would need the backing of MPs and MEPs to do so.
Anyone wishing to challenge Mr Corbyn needs the backing of 20% of Labour MPs and MEPs - which currently means 51.
Some say Mr Corbyn would also need this backing to be able to stand, but his supporters say he has an automatic place as leader.
A long-standing member of the National Executive Committee, Christine Shawcroft, told the BBC the relevant section of the rulebook refers only to "potential challengers".
And Unite union leader Len McCluskey has said excluding Mr Corbyn would be "a declaration of civil war" and warned of "the mother of all splits" if he is kept off the ballot paper.
But Harriet Harman, former deputy Labour leader, insisted that Mr Corbyn would have to have the support of 20% of the party's MPs to get on a new ballot "because the leader needs to lead an alternative Labour government".
Mr Corbyn received the backing of only 40 MPs in a confidence vote in which 172 expressed opposition to his leadership of the party.
Analysis
By Ross Hawkins, BBC political correspondent
Jeremy Corbyn has suggested he may go to court if he's not automatically on the ballot paper in Labour's leadership election.
His rivals say he needs the support of a fifth of Labour MPs and MEPs to compete; he says he doesn't.
Two different and completely contradictory bits of legal advice have been obtained. Who's right? This is the key passage in the party rule book:
Labour rulesImage copyrightLABOUR
Do the words "in this case any nomination" apply only to challengers, or do they suggest the sitting leader needs the backing of MPs and MEPs too?
Mr Corbyn's opponents say there is a precedent. When Neil Kinnock - then leader - was challenged by Tony Benn in 1988 Lord Kinnock says he sought nominations.
One barrister active in Labour politics, and a fierce critic of Mr Corbyn, Jolyon Maugham QC, told the Today programme the rules had changed since then and the words above do not force the current leader to find Parliamentary friends.
Don't be fooled into thinking this is just a legal dispute though; the rulebook is another battleground for a bitter political scrap.
Labour's ruling committee, the NEC, will decide and their decision may then be challenged in court.
Whatever the result, the losing side in the dispute won't cheerfully accept it.
Those trying to replace Mr Corbyn argue any leader who can't get the support of 20% - just 51 - of his MPs is a pretty hopeless leader.
The other side say the argument shows the Labour leader's challengers are afraid of a fair fight.....
Surely Corbyn must have some idea of how much support he has? If he really cannot get such support, even though legally he may not need it, he would be more of a fool than I think he is now.
If he can't muster 50 MP's, he's shot as an effective leader. Even if he refuses to leave his throne, he'll spend 4 years reading letters out in Parliament and being increasingly ignored by everyone.
He's done for, but he doesn't want to be. The question is, will he hand the Tories an easy four years in power?
Ketara wrote: If he can't muster 50 MP's, he's shot as an effective leader. Even if he refuses to leave his throne, he'll spend 4 years reading letters out in Parliament and being increasingly ignored by everyone.
He's done for, but he doesn't want to be. The question is, will he hand the Tories an easy four years in power?
Not so much Corbyn but maybe labour has to in order to find out what the hell they stand for so they are in some position to challenge in 2020.
The party is all about getting into power. Something Corbyn is as guilty of as anyone inspite of his new politics bluster.
This putsch against Corbyn seems very underhanded. They know he has the support of the party membership, so they're trying to force him out before triggering a fair leadership contest they know they cannot win.
I'm no Corbyn fan and I'll never vote for him but this is despicable. I thought my contempt for Labour couldn't get any stronger. I was wrong.
BBC sources have been told that George Osborne is no longer planning to be in Brussels tomorrow to attend a meeting of EU finance ministers, with Financial Secretary to the Treasury David Gauke attending in his place. Make of that what you will...
Hah! Looks like someone won't be Chancellor on Wednesday anymore.
Also, Owen Smith has announced he will also stand against Corbyn. So there's two candidates in the ring now.
I think its more that the Labour party is done for. At the moment its the the leader and the membership Vs the PLP.
There is little that the PLP can do at this point other than crash the Labour party entirely. They could try and oust Corbyn but if , and its a big if, they do there will almost certainly be a wave of deselections for the next GE and whatever horror that the Tory's managed to transform themselves into will be guaranteed another 5 years in power. At least at that point there may be something approaching a genuine Labour party for the first time in decades.
The PLPs best option by far would have been to wind their necks in and be something even approaching an effective opposition. Or join the Torys like they secretly want to.
I think its more that the Labour party is done for. At the moment its the the leader and the membership Vs the PLP.
There is little that the PLP can do at this point other than crash the Labour party entirely. They could try and oust Corbyn but if , and its a big if, they do there will almost certainly be a wave of deselections for the next GE and whatever horror that the Tory's managed to transform themselves into will be guaranteed another 5 years in power. At least at that point there may be something approaching a genuine Labour party for the first time in decades.
The PLPs best option by far would have been to wind their necks in and be something even approaching an effective opposition. Or join the Torys like they secretly want to.
In an ideal world there would be a split. There should be.
The Labour name is still a valuable asset so I continue to believe that the party will be ridden with infighting, backstabbing and general skullduggery albeit not as practiced as the Conservatives.
Kilkrazy wrote: Absolutely. The workers' councils seem to work very well in Germany, for example.
It's just ironic that the power elite that reacted with horror to these EU initiatives when proposed now plans to bring them into the UK in preparation for leaving the EU.
Of course it's probably all just talk.
My concern is that May is still tory through and through. I'd be more suspicious that this is a long game of reducing even further the unions to reduce the risk of strikes and ballots because 'the workers now have their say'.
May's voting record is not that impressive either and so I'm not entirely sure I believe anything she said to be honest. I think we will see a few civil liberties being eroded under her tenure with a more aggressive snoopers charter and stronger powers to detain people without due process as that has always been something she has been keen on. I also expect that if we leave the EU that a number of rights we currently have will be abolished (so maximum number of working hours except by agreement). We have to remember that May was supportive of the notion that workers could give up their rights for a few shares in their companies, effectively exposing those with limited long term realisation to company exploitation for a small temporary monetary gain. All of the choices were poor but this one still leaves me with the shivers.
Fortunately I don't see her lasting longer than June 2020 but by that time the damage may well have truly already been done, and we could be in a worst situation by then if UKIP grabs too many of disillusioned Brexiters from the Tories and Labour (which we can only hope might be at least offset by dissatisfied Remainers moving over to Lib Dems).
If Labour had any sense they would put aside the internal squabbles and hammer the tories with everything they have got. After all most recession parties are at the fortune of the global stage - the coming recession can be solely placed at the door of Tories. Labour should hammer home again and again that they can no longer be considered the party of fiscal sense.
More trouble within Labour. Only 24 hours notice being given to an NEC meeting regarding whether Corbyn will be allowed on the ticket (likely be a secret ballot) -
There are 33 NEC members and Corbyn is likely to have a majority of around 4 if everyone turns up but at least 2 NEC members are on holiday and those more likely to be able to support him are less likely to be able to attend a meeting in London at such short notice. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was planned that way to give him the double blow of not getting enough votes from the parliamentary party and then not getting enough votes from the NEC.
But what does this mean? Will Brexit occur? Will Bremain happen?!
I find it funny how the Leave party have all been jousted for the race to PM by a background Remainer.
I'm not following much of the news at the minute, other the pound against the dollar (which was 1.30 last I checked). Am saving what money I can though, just in case Brexit is handled badly.
Everyone pegging May as potentially a good thing because "stability" is rather ignoring the fact that the status quo is hardly an appealing prospect for the people May and her pals have been vigorously and relentlessly bum fething for the last decade.
Personally the idea of a May-run Tory Brexit with Labour in a shambles makes my blood run fething cold.
UK politic's won't be a saying anymore soon at this rate. We're off and Ireland will get together again. The UK is now done for and it's all about how now. Roll on #indyref2
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: This putsch against Corbyn seems very underhanded. They know he has the support of the party membership, so they're trying to force him out before triggering a fair leadership contest they know they cannot win.
I'm no Corbyn fan and I'll never vote for him but this is despicable. I thought my contempt for Labour couldn't get any stronger. I was wrong.
It's politics.
Corbyn got in from the huge influx of £3 cheapo memberships. He's got the support of these newcomers, (at least we assume he has, but if that is definitely the case why would a challenge to his leadersip by a threat?) but not necessarily the long term party members. IDK where he stands with the unions or the general electorate.
Remember that MPs are looking for a leader they think can give them a better chance of keeping their seats at the next election. There is no point in a political party that cannot get itself elected to power. Policies are irrelevant if they cannot be brought on to the political stage.
MPs are often in good touch with their local party and the mood of the non-party electorate in their constituency and may hold significant loyalty from local party and electorate whatever their situation with relation to the party leadership and the floating £3 members. For example, the Beast of Bolsover kept his seat throughout the New Labour revolution despite his suddenly unfashionable hard left views, because his local party and electorate liked him. (I like him myself.)
The fact that so many MPs are against Corbyn suggests not that they are mad Blairites wanting to make a secret conspiracy to get Blair or Brown back into power that will get them deselected. It suggests they have come to the conclusion that Corbyn is a terrible party leader and hasn't got a cat in hell's chance of boosting the party at the next general election.
They want to get Corbyn out now and have four years to establish his successor so the party can fight the next election with a decent chance of winning.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: Like I said, they know they can't beat him fairly in a leadership contest so they're trying to rig the process and force him out. ...
...
Or to look at it a different way, Corbyn is so abysmal a Labour leader that he doesn't know how to use the party playbook in his favour.
......Challenger rules
There is a dispute in the party about whether, as leader, Mr Corbyn would be automatically given a place on a new ballot, or whether he would need the backing of MPs and MEPs to do so.
Anyone wishing to challenge Mr Corbyn needs the backing of 20% of Labour MPs and MEPs - which currently means 51.
Some say Mr Corbyn would also need this backing to be able to stand, but his supporters say he has an automatic place as leader.
A long-standing member of the National Executive Committee, Christine Shawcroft, told the BBC the relevant section of the rulebook refers only to "potential challengers".
And Unite union leader Len McCluskey has said excluding Mr Corbyn would be "a declaration of civil war" and warned of "the mother of all splits" if he is kept off the ballot paper.
But Harriet Harman, former deputy Labour leader, insisted that Mr Corbyn would have to have the support of 20% of the party's MPs to get on a new ballot "because the leader needs to lead an alternative Labour government".
Mr Corbyn received the backing of only 40 MPs in a confidence vote in which 172 expressed opposition to his leadership of the party.
Analysis
By Ross Hawkins, BBC political correspondent
Jeremy Corbyn has suggested he may go to court if he's not automatically on the ballot paper in Labour's leadership election.
His rivals say he needs the support of a fifth of Labour MPs and MEPs to compete; he says he doesn't.
Two different and completely contradictory bits of legal advice have been obtained. Who's right? This is the key passage in the party rule book:
Labour rulesImage copyrightLABOUR
Do the words "in this case any nomination" apply only to challengers, or do they suggest the sitting leader needs the backing of MPs and MEPs too?
Mr Corbyn's opponents say there is a precedent. When Neil Kinnock - then leader - was challenged by Tony Benn in 1988 Lord Kinnock says he sought nominations.
One barrister active in Labour politics, and a fierce critic of Mr Corbyn, Jolyon Maugham QC, told the Today programme the rules had changed since then and the words above do not force the current leader to find Parliamentary friends.
Don't be fooled into thinking this is just a legal dispute though; the rulebook is another battleground for a bitter political scrap.
Labour's ruling committee, the NEC, will decide and their decision may then be challenged in court.
Whatever the result, the losing side in the dispute won't cheerfully accept it.
Those trying to replace Mr Corbyn argue any leader who can't get the support of 20% - just 51 - of his MPs is a pretty hopeless leader.
The other side say the argument shows the Labour leader's challengers are afraid of a fair fight.....
Surely Corbyn must have some idea of how much support he has? If he really cannot get such support, even though legally he may not need it, he would be more of a fool than I think he is now.
You need to understand corbyn.
He knows where his power base is, with the more extrme unions, fringe hard left MP's (an insufficient minority) and with a portion of the party membership on the £3 list, many of whom joined specifically to vote for him.
Corbyn doesnt need the Labour party, he nereds the Labour vote. When the parliamentary Labour party was considering a vote of no confidence in him rather than try to fend it off he ignored it and attended a rally of left wing activists. Corbyn showed he knows where his power lies, it is worriting because it means if Labour win under Corbyn we wont get the Labour we are used to but an extreme left variant not seen since the time of Michael Foot.
The other notable thing is that any other politician would have gone by now. Corbyn isnt any other politician, he doesnt care if he has no mainstream support so long as he wins and can unleash his leftist vision. The man screams out as extremely dangerous demogogue who should not be allowed anywhere near power.
Hopefully the public see this too, or at least see it over thier disdaijn for yet more Tories.
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: This putsch against Corbyn seems very underhanded. They know he has the support of the party membership, so they're trying to force him out before triggering a fair leadership contest they know they cannot win.
I'm no Corbyn fan and I'll never vote for him but this is despicable. I thought my contempt for Labour couldn't get any stronger. I was wrong.
It's politics.
Corbyn got in from the huge influx of £3 cheapo memberships. He's got the support of these newcomers, (at least we assume he has, but if that is definitely the case why would a challenge to his leadersip by a threat?) but not necessarily the long term party members. IDK where he stands with the unions or the general electorate.
Remember that MPs are looking for a leader they think can give them a better chance of keeping their seats at the next election. There is no point in a political party that cannot get itself elected to power. Policies are irrelevant if they cannot be brought on to the political stage.
MPs are often in good touch with their local party and the mood of the non-party electorate in their constituency and may hold significant loyalty from local party and electorate whatever their situation with relation to the party leadership and the floating £3 members. For example, the Beast of Bolsover kept his seat throughout the New Labour revolution despite his suddenly unfashionable hard left views, because his local party and electorate liked him. (I like him myself.)
The fact that so many MPs are against Corbyn suggests not that they are mad Blairites wanting to make a secret conspiracy to get Blair or Brown back into power that will get them deselected. It suggests they have come to the conclusion that Corbyn is a terrible party leader and hasn't got a cat in hell's chance of boosting the party at the next general election.
They want to get Corbyn out now and have four years to establish his successor so the party can fight the next election with a decent chance of winning.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: Like I said, they know they can't beat him fairly in a leadership contest so they're trying to rig the process and force him out. ...
...
Or to look at it a different way, Corbyn is so abysmal a Labour leader that he doesn't know how to use the party playbook in his favour.
If you ask me I thinks it more likely it´s just a growing discrepancy between the party elite and the party base.
*edit*
Orlanth wrote:The other notable thing is that any other politician would have gone by now. Corbyn isnt any other politician, he doesnt care if he has no mainstream support so long as he wins and can unleash his leftist vision. The man screams out as extremely dangerous demogogue who should not be allowed anywhere near power.
What? This is only getting more hilarious, has Corbyn transformed into chairman Mao over the last few days or whats going on?
Yodhrin wrote: Everyone pegging May as potentially a good thing because "stability" is rather ignoring the fact that the status quo is hardly an appealing prospect for the people May and her pals have been vigorously and relentlessly bum fething for the last decade.
Personally the idea of a May-run Tory Brexit with Labour in a shambles makes my blood run fething cold.
The clear point is that no-one anywhere is in a position to challenge May, however horrific her policies may or may not turn out to be in reality.
Cameron, BoJo, Gove and Farage gone. Corbyn hanging on by his eyebrows. Osborne probably nervous given he is Cameron's right hand man.
The most impressive politicians we have left are Scottish and may be leaving in a couple of years to make their own country, and good luck to them.
The UK is set to get a new prime minister in a matter of days, with Theresa May claiming victory in the Conservative leadership election after her opponent Andrea Leadsom dropped out of the race. Current prime minister David Cameron has just announced he plans to vacate his office by Wednesday evening.
As prime minister, May’s top priority will be tackling the fallout from the UK’s vote to leave the European Union, but what will a May premiership mean for science and technology issues in the UK?
May has been home secretary for the past six years, where she has overseen two bills that demand the scientifically impossible. Earlier this year, MPs voted the Psychoactive Substances Act into law, essentially banning almost anything with the potential to alter your mental state – a definition researchers have warned is scientifically meaningless and potentially harmful.
And she is currently attempting to get the Investigatory Powers Bill through parliament. The bill is an update to the UK’s surveillance laws and has been widely criticised for introducing new powers, such as retaining internet users’ 12-month browsing histories. The bill also appears to ask online service providers to reveal encrypted messages for which they do not have the key – a mathematical impossibility. With May as prime minister, it seems very likely the bill will pass unhindered.
The prime minister-in-waiting’s voting record reveals her likely stance on other important issues. May voted against plans to legalise assisted dying and against a ban on smoking in public places, which has been shown to improve public health.
May also has a negative approach to environmental issues. She has generally voted against measures to fight climate change and was in favour of the UK’s recent failed attempt to combat the spread of tuberculosis by culling badgers. She is also against environmental regulation for fracking in the UK.
The fact that so many MPs are against Corbyn suggests not that they are mad Blairites wanting to make a secret conspiracy to get Blair or Brown back into power that will get them deselected. It suggests they have come to the conclusion that Corbyn is a terrible party leader and hasn't got a cat in hell's chance of boosting the party at the next general election.
They want to get Corbyn out now and have four years to establish his successor so the party can fight the next election with a decent chance of winning.
They don't want Blair nor Brown back, no one is quite that daft, but they do want a right wing Labour party despite the very strong possibility that it will be unelectable (well depending just how far right the Tories have swung of course). A right wing Labour party is not what the membership wants, as Corbyn's lanslide election showed.
I find the "£3 members" slurs disturbing to be honest; they are members of a political party and while some of them are there for gaks and giggles I am sure I would be very surprised if most of them aren't genuine members, at least as long as Labour looks like it will be on the left.
Of course they are real members in the sense of having paid a subscription and got a party card that admits them to the annual conference and so on. However, as recent joiners, clearly they aren't the long term hard core party activists, because they would already have been members.
The operation of the party works at several levels. Being a basic member only gives you a vote in a few circumstances. It isn't enough to select Corbyn as leader because he is left wing of the party, and think the job is done.
If the new £3 members want to transform the party away from its current centrist position they need to work from the grassroots. They may have to deselect MPs they dislike and find candidates who are more left-wing. To do this they need to start going to meetings, get voted onto the selection committee and so on.
This isn't impossible but it will require a level of commitment and organisation that isn't automatically provided by buying a £3 membership.
......Challenger rules
There is a dispute in the party about whether, as leader, Mr Corbyn would be automatically given a place on a new ballot, or whether he would need the backing of MPs and MEPs to do so.
Anyone wishing to challenge Mr Corbyn needs the backing of 20% of Labour MPs and MEPs - which currently means 51.
Some say Mr Corbyn would also need this backing to be able to stand, but his supporters say he has an automatic place as leader.
A long-standing member of the National Executive Committee, Christine Shawcroft, told the BBC the relevant section of the rulebook refers only to "potential challengers".
And Unite union leader Len McCluskey has said excluding Mr Corbyn would be "a declaration of civil war" and warned of "the mother of all splits" if he is kept off the ballot paper.
But Harriet Harman, former deputy Labour leader, insisted that Mr Corbyn would have to have the support of 20% of the party's MPs to get on a new ballot "because the leader needs to lead an alternative Labour government".
Mr Corbyn received the backing of only 40 MPs in a confidence vote in which 172 expressed opposition to his leadership of the party.
Analysis
By Ross Hawkins, BBC political correspondent
Jeremy Corbyn has suggested he may go to court if he's not automatically on the ballot paper in Labour's leadership election.
His rivals say he needs the support of a fifth of Labour MPs and MEPs to compete; he says he doesn't.
Two different and completely contradictory bits of legal advice have been obtained. Who's right? This is the key passage in the party rule book:
Labour rulesImage copyrightLABOUR
Do the words "in this case any nomination" apply only to challengers, or do they suggest the sitting leader needs the backing of MPs and MEPs too?
Mr Corbyn's opponents say there is a precedent. When Neil Kinnock - then leader - was challenged by Tony Benn in 1988 Lord Kinnock says he sought nominations.
One barrister active in Labour politics, and a fierce critic of Mr Corbyn, Jolyon Maugham QC, told the Today programme the rules had changed since then and the words above do not force the current leader to find Parliamentary friends.
Don't be fooled into thinking this is just a legal dispute though; the rulebook is another battleground for a bitter political scrap.
Labour's ruling committee, the NEC, will decide and their decision may then be challenged in court.
Whatever the result, the losing side in the dispute won't cheerfully accept it.
Those trying to replace Mr Corbyn argue any leader who can't get the support of 20% - just 51 - of his MPs is a pretty hopeless leader.
The other side say the argument shows the Labour leader's challengers are afraid of a fair fight.....
Surely Corbyn must have some idea of how much support he has? If he really cannot get such support, even though legally he may not need it, he would be more of a fool than I think he is now.
You need to understand corbyn.
He knows where his power base is, with the more extrme unions, fringe hard left MP's (an insufficient minority) and with a portion of the party membership on the £3 list, many of whom joined specifically to vote for him.
Corbyn doesnt need the Labour party, he nereds the Labour vote. When the parliamentary Labour party was considering a vote of no confidence in him rather than try to fend it off he ignored it and attended a rally of left wing activists. Corbyn showed he knows where his power lies, it is worriting because it means if Labour win under Corbyn we wont get the Labour we are used to but an extreme left variant not seen since the time of Michael Foot.
The other notable thing is that any other politician would have gone by now. Corbyn isnt any other politician, he doesnt care if he has no mainstream support so long as he wins and can unleash his leftist vision. The man screams out as extremely dangerous demogogue who should not be allowed anywhere near power.
Hopefully the public see this too, or at least see it over thier disdaijn for yet more Tories.
I tend to have a blind spot towards the more extreme leftists. Although I have seen Labour activists who would give even hardline south american marxists a run for their money.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kilkrazy wrote: Of course they are real members in the sense of having paid a subscription and got a party card that admits them to the annual conference and so on. However, as recent joiners, clearly they aren't the long term hard core party activists, because they would already have been members.
The operation of the party works at several levels. Being a basic member only gives you a vote in a few circumstances. It isn't enough to select Corbyn as leader because he is left wing of the party, and think the job is done.
If the new £3 members want to transform the party away from its current centrist position they need to work from the grassroots. They may have to deselect MPs they dislike and find candidates who are more left-wing. To do this they need to start going to meetings, get voted onto the selection committee and so on.
This isn't impossible but it will require a level of commitment and organisation that isn't automatically provided by buying a £3 membership.
There is a trend of undermining rather than building anything sustainable that is creeping in as well.
Also the commitment to change would probably see apparently ardent supporters fall by the wayside, which always leaves those on the extremes to push on. To be fair though I know a lot of activists who genuinely want change for the better and are working towards that end.
All political parties change over time in response to the changing social climate and according to the wishes of the members.
A string of Labour leaders over the 80s and 90s worked to fight off the Militant Tendency and make the party electable. Along the way, Clause 4 or whatever it was called got dropped. If the party members want to put it back in, they can do it.
Party membership doesn't confer power according to a simple 1 to 1 equation, though. A small number of highly committed and influential people can wield more power than large numbers of casual members who fill in a postal ballot once every few years.
My point is that not a very high percentage of the new £3 members are going to be these committed people. Some people may have thought they just need to cast a ballot and sit back to watch the magic happen. Things don't work like that IRL.
Sitting MPs are highly committed and influential. If they refuse to work with Corbyn, and he relies on the mass vote of the £3 members to keep him in power, it's difficult to see how the party can carry on,
JC may have the support of 300,000 party members, that still leaves nearly9 million Labour voters out there who haven't had their say. The only way to confirm what they thought would be to have a General Election and see how Labour do, but as somebody has mentioned, the Labour MP's probably have a good idea on the mood of the electorate. Which is why they want rid of him..
Well, with David Cameron on the verge of packing his bags, I suppose it's time to assess his 'legacy,' for want of a better word.
I'll declare from the start my loathing of all things related to the Conservative party, but by God, Cameron was as ineffective a PM that Britain has ever had.
A PR man masquerading as a Prime Minister, a leader of the Conservative Party who wasn't even a Conservative (he was New Labour through and through) and perhaps most damning of all, a PM who abandoned ship in the middle of the worst crisis in British history since WW2.
His vision of one nation conservatism failed, his big society policy was a shambles, he preceded over a shameless attack on the least well off sections of British society, and the rise of foodbanks and DWP sanctions on his watch will follow him to the grave.
He dodged bullets in his early days thanks to a willing stooge called Nick Clegg acting as a human shield for him, won elections on the basis that the alternative choice was the ghastly Gordon Brown or the tailor's dummy calling himself Ed Miliband, got lucky in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, shamefully rolled up the white flag to the EU went he tried to negotiate a better deal for the UK, and badly miscalculated about holding an EU referendum...
Incompetent, ineffective, and badly out of his depth, David Cameron MP, was one of the poorest Prime Ministers Britain has had in living memory, or even further back.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Well, with David Cameron on the verge of packing his bags, I suppose it's time to assess his 'legacy,' for want of a better word.
I'll declare from the start my loathing of all things related to the Conservative party, but by God, Cameron was as ineffective a PM that Britain has ever had.
A PR man masquerading as a Prime Minister, a leader of the Conservative Party who wasn't even a Conservative (he was New Labour through and through) and perhaps most damning of all, a PM who abandoned ship in the middle of the worst crisis in British history since WW2.
His vision of one nation conservatism failed, his big society policy was a shambles, he preceded over a shameless attack on the least well off sections of British society, and the rise of foodbanks and DWP sanctions on his watch will follow him to the grave.
He dodged bullets in his early days thanks to a willing stooge called Nick Clegg acting as a human shield for him, won elections on the basis that the alternative choice was the ghastly Gordon Brown or the tailor's dummy calling himself Ed Miliband, got lucky in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, shamefully rolled up the white flag to the EU went he tried to negotiate a better deal for the UK, and badly miscalculated about holding an EU referendum...
Incompetent, ineffective, and badly out of his depth, David Cameron MP, was one of the poorest Prime Ministers Britain has had in living memory, or even further back.
Final rating 3/10
Cameron had to resign. In this he had a modicum of honour. He completely screwed the pooch over Brexit, he so mishandled the remain campaign so badly alongside Osbourne (the guy who did the real disappearing act), that he had no future.
Leave the EU and your shares will fall, leaverthe EU and house prices will fall, leave the EU and it will hurt our banking sector and international trade.
He forgot that the UK electorate is not made up entirely of stockbrokers, shareholders and banking industry workers. Most of his scares not only had no effect on the average working joe, but in many cases benefited them. "House prices might fall?" Good, rent is too high. "Stocks and shares plummet?" They never shared any the good times, why should we care if they lose out now, it doesnt effect everyone erlse and is a good shock to the entitled classes that change must come.
Cameron's stockbroker arguments to Remain were blue collar worker and the disenfranchised underclass reasons to Leave.
It showed how little thought he had placed not only in this huge gamble with the nations future, which he commited uis to solely to outmaneuver Farage and Eurosceptics in his own party; but how little he considered the welfare of any but a privileged few.
I agree with the rest of your assessment, 3/10 is about right fro Cameron.
Even allowing for how piss poor Cameron was, Gordon Brown was far worse. Cameron was shallow and unconcerned, but he did have balls, genuine leadership skills and got the UK to have some credibility after the pissweak Gordon Brown which everyone in foreign diplomatic circles exploited. Blood-in-the-water is a fair assessment of how world politcal and financial leaders saw the Brown government and the PM himself. Brown was spineless and incapable for standing up for the UK even on issues he was passionate about. Cameron inherited a culture of contempt and exploitation from the White House, Kremlin and Beijing which he quickly turned around by proving he had balls and could stand his ground in negotiations.
Blair was a war criminal and makes him far worse in my book. Blair was a genuinely clever man and a strongman, I respect him for that, because he managed to hoodwink the vast majority of the electorate with his 'New Labour', and most people still dont understand how the con trick he pulled two decades on works. He also did far more damage to the UK by his social disestablishmentarianism than any other Prime Minister in modern history. The damage others did was transientary, Blair's damage was irreperable as he disrupted the nations underlying culture in his self serving reforms. And as the Russians understood from their transition to the Soviet era cultural damage destabilised, divides and what is broken is often lost forever. Iraq finished him, but this was his principle crime.
Callaghan and Major were both decent and competent people surrounded by self serving incompetents and corrupt exploiters and paid the price. Maggie had enormous faults but even larger talents and shook up the nation and gave us a viable economy - for a price.
In my assessment we had decent Prime Ministers up until 1997, then crap from that moment onwards. As fro the parties behind them though, they have been rotten to the core since the late 60's.
Wolfstan wrote: JC may have the support of 300,000 party members, that still leaves nearly9 million Labour voters out there who haven't had their say. The only way to confirm what they thought would be to have a General Election and see how Labour do, but as somebody has mentioned, the Labour MP's probably have a good idea on the mood of the electorate. Which is why they want rid of him..
I think anyone putting faith in the predictive power of Labour party officials should have a think back to what happened in Scotland of late. Many in Labour are keen to write off their dismemberment north of the wall as some freakish one-time event driven by irrational nationalist sentiment and that we'll all come to our senses any day now and restore them to their rightful place(a sentiment especially common among the Labour MPs who got chucked out). They've been saying that since the 2015 UK election, and before then they said it after the 2011 Holyrood election, and again before that at the 2007 Holyrood election. The SNP, we have been endlessly told for over a decade, are a "busted flush", always moments away from final defeat and with it the triumphant return of Labour. It's a political Zeno's Paradox, with red Achilles never quite able to catch the yellow Tortoise as he boasts he will.
The Scottish Parliament will "kill nationalism stone-dead!", was the confident prediction of now-Lord George Robertson and his PLP pals in the late 90's.
"A freak occurrence, a protest vote, no more than that", came the cry from down south in 2007.
"Brown will put paid to these SNP usurpers! Afterall, all the Jockos need is to hear our pronouncements in the right accent." the PLP told us in 2009.
"Iain Gray, that's the man to see off these SNP jokers!" they declared in 2011, immediately prior to the SNP winning a majority, a deliberately nigh-impossible feat in the Labour-designed Holyrood electoral system.
"Hah, a referendum, what are they like, support for independence will never go north of 25%, you'll see" pronounced SLab bigwig Duncan Hothersall, with similar sentiments coming from McTernan and various PLP staffers, right before they turned a nearly 40 point lead into a narrow 10 point victory.
"Send Jim Murphy back up there, he'll show the SNP what's what, having him jog about in a Scotland footie top for the cameras and promise to bring back bevvy at matches, they'll be eating out of his hand!" the UK party insisted, immediately before being reduced to a single Scottish MP in a night of landslides so large they repeatedly broke the BBC's "swingometer" graphic.
"That Kezia Dugdale, she's a good one, made Jim a fine deputy, no doubt we'll be back on top with her at the helm!" was the sentiment of the Party in the days before the 2016 Holyrood elections in which Labour fell so far they actually became the third party behind the Tories, who more than half of Scotland still have a bone-deep and visceral hatred of.
Now all that is not meant to be crowing about the SNP's recent success, nor even is it particularly meant as a dig at Labour as a whole, but it's hardly the predictive record of Nostra-sodding-damus is it. I would strongly caution English supporters of Labour against putting any significant amount of stock in what MP's believe about their own electorate, because time & again they've been shown to be hopelessly out of touch and prone to wildly, desperately flailing around for any scrap of data they can twist into a justification for their existing belief that really everyone agrees with them, only sensible innit etc.
The membership evidently believe the party exists to represent their interests, and the PLP evidently believes the membership exists to support their bid for power and nothing more. I don't see how that dispute is resolvable - either Corbyn, as he is entitled to be according to party rules, is on the ballot and will in all probability handily defeat anyone stood against him, in which case the party's MP's will have to desert because they've made their position within a Corbyn-led party untenable with this very public farce of an attempted coup; or the PLP will find some underhanded way of keeping Corbyn off the ballot, in which case only two scenarios are really plausible: almost all of them will be deselected and they'll have won the battle to oust Corbyn but lost the war to keep Labour as a managerial centre-right party, or there will be a huge exodus of members and union disaffiliations leaving them in the same state as the Scottish branch of the party - devoid of money and activists and unable to campaign.
Indeed, even if you ignore their record on Scotland entirely, the fact these bumbling idiots couldn't foresee the potential outcomes of their own shambolic coup attempt is a pretty comprehensive condemnation of their ability to predict things - I wouldn't trust them to tell you for sure if the sun will rise tomorrow, nevermind the genuine mood of their electorate.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Well, with David Cameron on the verge of packing his bags, I suppose it's time to assess his 'legacy,' for want of a better word.
I'll declare from the start my loathing of all things related to the Conservative party, but by God, Cameron was as ineffective a PM that Britain has ever had.
A PR man masquerading as a Prime Minister, a leader of the Conservative Party who wasn't even a Conservative (he was New Labour through and through) and perhaps most damning of all, a PM who abandoned ship in the middle of the worst crisis in British history since WW2.
His vision of one nation conservatism failed, his big society policy was a shambles, he preceded over a shameless attack on the least well off sections of British society, and the rise of foodbanks and DWP sanctions on his watch will follow him to the grave.
He dodged bullets in his early days thanks to a willing stooge called Nick Clegg acting as a human shield for him, won elections on the basis that the alternative choice was the ghastly Gordon Brown or the tailor's dummy calling himself Ed Miliband, got lucky in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, shamefully rolled up the white flag to the EU went he tried to negotiate a better deal for the UK, and badly miscalculated about holding an EU referendum...
Incompetent, ineffective, and badly out of his depth, David Cameron MP, was one of the poorest Prime Ministers Britain has had in living memory, or even further back.
Final rating 3/10
Cameron had to resign. In this he had a modicum of honour. He completely screwed the pooch over Brexit, he so mishandled the remain campaign so badly alongside Osbourne (the guy who did the real disappearing act), that he had no future.
Leave the EU and your shares will fall, leaverthe EU and house prices will fall, leave the EU and it will hurt our banking sector and international trade.
He forgot that the UK electorate is not made up entirely of stockbrokers, shareholders and banking industry workers. Most of his scares not only had no effect on the average working joe, but in many cases benefited them. "House prices might fall?" Good, rent is too high. "Stocks and shares plummet?" They never shared any the good times, why should we care if they lose out now, it doesnt effect everyone erlse and is a good shock to the entitled classes that change must come.
Cameron's stockbroker arguments to Remain were blue collar worker and the disenfranchised underclass reasons to Leave.
It showed how little thought he had placed not only in this huge gamble with the nations future, which he commited uis to solely to outmaneuver Farage and Eurosceptics in his own party; but how little he considered the welfare of any but a privileged few.
I agree with the rest of your assessment, 3/10 is about right fro Cameron.
Even allowing for how piss poor Cameron was, Gordon Brown was far worse. Cameron was shallow and unconcerned, but he did have balls, genuine leadership skills and got the UK to have some credibility after the pissweak Gordon Brown which everyone in foreign diplomatic circles exploited. Blood-in-the-water is a fair assessment of how world politcal and financial leaders saw the Brown government and the PM himself. Brown was spineless and incapable for standing up for the UK even on issues he was passionate about. Cameron inherited a culture of contempt and exploitation from the White House, Kremlin and Beijing which he quickly turned around by proving he had balls and could stand his ground in negotiations.
Blair was a war criminal and makes him far worse in my book. Blair was a genuinely clever man and a strongman, I respect him for that, because he managed to hoodwink the vast majority of the electorate with his 'New Labour', and most people still dont understand how the con trick he pulled two decades on works. He also did far more damage to the UK by his social disestablishmentarianism than any other Prime Minister in modern history. The damage others did was transientary, Blair's damage was irreperable as he disrupted the nations underlying culture in his self serving reforms. And as the Russians understood from their transition to the Soviet era cultural damage destabilised, divides and what is broken is often lost forever. Iraq finished him, but this was his principle crime.
Callaghan and Major were both decent and competent people surrounded by self serving incompetents and corrupt exploiters and paid the price. Maggie had enormous faults but even larger talents and shook up the nation and gave us a viable economy - for a price.
In my assessment we had decent Prime Ministers up until 1997, then crap from that moment onwards. As fro the parties behind them though, they have been rotten to the core since the late 60's.
Cameron's greatest advantage i.e not being Gordon Brown, could only take him so far. He needed substance to fall back on. But when you beelive in nothing, stand for nothing, and are little more than a walking policy vacuum, his premiership was bound to fail.
I honestly believe Cameron would have been more happier in the Labour party as a Blairite.
UK scientists dropped from EU projects because of post-Brexit funding fears
Doubts over the UK’s ability to win future project grants mean some EU partners are avoiding working with British researchers
Britain’s vote to leave the EU has unleashed a wave of discrimination against UK researchers, with elite universities in the country coming under pressure to abandon collaborations with European partners.
In a confidential survey of the UK’s Russell Group universities, the Guardian found cases of British academics being asked to leave EU-funded projects or to step down from leadership roles because they are considered a financial liability.
In one case, an EU project officer recommended that a lead investigator drop all UK partners from a consortium because Britain’s share of funding could not be guaranteed. The note implied that if UK organisations remained on the project, which is due to start in January 2017, the contract signing would be delayed until Britain had agreed a fresh deal with Europe.
The backlash against UK researchers began immediately after the June referendum when the failure to plan for a post-Brexit Britain cast serious doubts over the chances of British organisations winning future EU funding. British researchers receive about £1bn a year from EU finding programmes such as Horizon 2020, but access to the money must be completely renegotiated under Brexit.
The 24 universities in the Russell Group are regarded as Britain’s elite institutions. With Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, University College London and Imperial College among their number, they are renowned for world-class research and academic excellence.
One leading university said anecdotal evidence that UK applicants were being dropped from EU bids came almost straight after the vote. Since then they had witnessed “a substantial increase in definitive evidence that EU projects are reluctant to be in collaboration with UK partners, and that potentially all new funding opportunities from Horizon 2020 are closing”.
Incidents reported by the universities suggest that researchers across the natural sciences, the engineering disciplines and social sciences are all affected. At least two social science collaborations with Dutch universities have been told UK partners are unwelcome, one Russell Group university said in the survey.
Speaking at Oxford’s Wolfson College last Friday, the university’s chancellor, Chris Patten, said Oxford received perhaps more research income than any European university, with about 40% coming from government. “Our research income will of course fall significantly after we have left the EU unless a Brexit government guarantees to cover the shortfall,” Lord Patten said.
The uncertainty over future funding for projects stands to harm research in other ways, the survey suggests. A number of institutions that responded said some researchers were reluctant to carry on with bids for EU funds because of the financial unknowns, while others did not want to be the weak link in a consortium. One university said it had serious concerns about its ability to recruit research fellows for current projects.
Some Russell Group universities declined to comment for the survey, and not all of those which did knew of any discrimination against their researchers. Though one university said concerns over the impact of the referendum had become a part of almost every conversation about research, their academics were continuing with funding applications as usual.
A week after the referendum, science minister Jo Johnson told academics and industry figures he had raised concerns over potential discrimination against UK researchers with the EU science commissioner, Carlos Moedas. Johnson has asked a team at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to gather evidence for discrimination and urged organisations to report any incidents. Until the UK left the EU, he said the situation was “business as usual”.
Others see it differently. Joe Gorman, a senior scientist at Sintef, Norway’s leading research institute, said he believed UK industry and universities would see “a fairly drastic and immediate reduction in the number of invitations to join consortiums”.
Only 12% of bids for Horizon 2020 funds are successful, a rate that falls by more than half in highly competitive areas. Given the low probability of winning funds at the best of times, Gorman said it was natural risk aversion to be cautious of UK partners. In many cases, British organisations will not have a clue they have lost out. “If you don’t get invited to the party, you don’t even know there is a party,” he said.
“I strongly suspect that UK politicians simply don’t understand this, and think it is ‘business as usual’, at least until negotiations have been completed. They are wrong, the problems start right now,” he added. As a former European commission official, Gorman oversaw research projects and now advises universities and companies on how to succeed in EU-funded research programmes.
According to Gorman, the UK government must make a clear and immediate statement on how Britain will take part in future EU projects from outside the union. “All the talk is about when negotiations will start,” he said. “We don’t want that. People want to know now what is going to happen. This could all be solved by one pronouncement from one minister.”
Another obstacle British researchers face is the potential bias, whether conscious or not, of the independent evaluators who score applications for EU funding. Xavier Aubry at Zaz Ventures, a consultancy that works with consortiums to win Horizon 2020 funding, said Switzerland was discriminated against at the evaluation stage after its 2014 referendum to restrict immigration.
Aubry’s firm operates a “no win, no fee” policy, which has left him second-guessing how the evaluators will respond to the Brexit vote. “Right now the problem is that we don’t know how the evaluators will react, he said.” “Even if they are briefed that they should not discriminate, they could have unconscious biases.”
As a result, he thinks British organisations will have to bring more to the table to justify the risk of them being included in a consortium. “We are becoming more strict,” he said. “But we are not telling people to stop working with the UK.”
Which is entirely to be expected. There is no guarantee of British universities remaining part of the programmes in 2+ years time and none of these programmes will be completed within two years (remember that a PhD takes 3-4 years and then consider that many of these research projects are post-doctoral level research). So why would anybody choose to partner with a group who may have to drop out and jeopardise the whole project halfway through?
Indeed, even if you ignore their record on Scotland entirely, the fact these bumbling idiots couldn't foresee the potential outcomes of their own shambolic coup attempt is a pretty comprehensive condemnation of their ability to predict things - I wouldn't trust them to tell you for sure if the sun will rise tomorrow, nevermind the genuine mood of their electorate.
They're right-wingers so they will not and can not allow leftism to reclaim the party and their particular flavour of liberalism prevents them from understanding why Corbyn has principles and why people find that appealing. They believe he's doing the same thing they would, play power games and build his Personal Brand® out of pure self-interest, instead of being ideologically committed to Labour actually representing working-class people and pursuing policies that are judged to be moral.
Kilkrazy wrote:Of course they are real members in the sense of having paid a subscription and got a party card that admits them to the annual conference and so on. However, as recent joiners, clearly they aren't the long term hard core party activists, because they would already have been members.
The operation of the party works at several levels. Being a basic member only gives you a vote in a few circumstances. It isn't enough to select Corbyn as leader because he is left wing of the party, and think the job is done.
If the new £3 members want to transform the party away from its current centrist position they need to work from the grassroots. They may have to deselect MPs they dislike and find candidates who are more left-wing. To do this they need to start going to meetings, get voted onto the selection committee and so on.
This isn't impossible but it will require a level of commitment and organisation that isn't automatically provided by buying a £3 membership.
I agree with this. Most of the people I know my age (twenties) who signed up for their £3 memberships have done nothing else with regards to Corbyn bar sharing a few facebook posts. I think one went to a rally once. That's out of about 15 people. If that's in any way representative of the new influx, Corbyn's supporters aren't so much 'the Labour membership' as they are 'A bunch of vaguely liberal-inclined types who thought politics should work like Big Brother with a £3 text vote'.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:Well, with David Cameron on the verge of packing his bags, I suppose it's time to assess his 'legacy,' for want of a better word.
I'll declare from the start my loathing of all things related to the Conservative party, but by God, Cameron was as ineffective a PM that Britain has ever had.
A PR man masquerading as a Prime Minister, a leader of the Conservative Party who wasn't even a Conservative (he was New Labour through and through) and perhaps most damning of all, a PM who abandoned ship in the middle of the worst crisis in British history since WW2.
His vision of one nation conservatism failed, his big society policy was a shambles, he preceded over a shameless attack on the least well off sections of British society, and the rise of foodbanks and DWP sanctions on his watch will follow him to the grave.
He dodged bullets in his early days thanks to a willing stooge called Nick Clegg acting as a human shield for him, won elections on the basis that the alternative choice was the ghastly Gordon Brown or the tailor's dummy calling himself Ed Miliband, got lucky in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, shamefully rolled up the white flag to the EU went he tried to negotiate a better deal for the UK, and badly miscalculated about holding an EU referendum...
Incompetent, ineffective, and badly out of his depth, David Cameron MP, was one of the poorest Prime Ministers Britain has had in living memory, or even further back.
Final rating 3/10
Eh. I'd be more inclined to give him a five out of ten. Why? Because whilst not much of note happened under his watch, not much of note happened under his watch. It isn't necessarily a bad thing. We didn't get into any major wars, the economy did alright, and tomorrow more or less went on like today. Yeah, sure, a lot of support for these in need got cut down, and student fees went up. Not particularly impressive. On the other hand, same-sex marriage got legalised, forced marriage was banned, the modern slavery bill was passed, and postgraduate education got funded. On the scales, I'd say things probably work out about even. Some good, some bad, you know?
Cameron was a placeholder, but he was dignified enough to clock when his time had come and step down with a minimum of fuss and time. None of the Tony Blair 'will I/won't I'. There were enough potential successors/talent that it wasn't like the Tory party was going to dissolve into years of ineffectual infighting like Labour.
So all in all? 5/10. He won't be missed, but he will be forgotten. Like many Prime Ministers before him.
Yodhrin wrote:
I think anyone putting faith in the predictive power of Labour party officials should have a think back to what happened in Scotland of late. Many in Labour are keen to write off their dismemberment north of the wall as some freakish one-time event driven by irrational nationalist sentiment and that we'll all come to our senses any day now and restore them to their rightful place(a sentiment especially common among the Labour MPs who got chucked out). They've been saying that since the 2015 UK election, and before then they said it after the 2011 Holyrood election, and again before that at the 2007 Holyrood election. The SNP, we have been endlessly told for over a decade, are a "busted flush", always moments away from final defeat and with it the triumphant return of Labour. It's a political Zeno's Paradox, with red Achilles never quite able to catch the yellow Tortoise as he boasts he will.
The Scottish Parliament will "kill nationalism stone-dead!", was the confident prediction of now-Lord George Robertson and his PLP pals in the late 90's.
"A freak occurrence, a protest vote, no more than that", came the cry from down south in 2007.
"Brown will put paid to these SNP usurpers! Afterall, all the Jockos need is to hear our pronouncements in the right accent." the PLP told us in 2009.
"Iain Gray, that's the man to see off these SNP jokers!" they declared in 2011, immediately prior to the SNP winning a majority, a deliberately nigh-impossible feat in the Labour-designed Holyrood electoral system.
"Hah, a referendum, what are they like, support for independence will never go north of 25%, you'll see" pronounced SLab bigwig Duncan Hothersall, with similar sentiments coming from McTernan and various PLP staffers, right before they turned a nearly 40 point lead into a narrow 10 point victory.
"Send Jim Murphy back up there, he'll show the SNP what's what, having him jog about in a Scotland footie top for the cameras and promise to bring back bevvy at matches, they'll be eating out of his hand!" the UK party insisted, immediately before being reduced to a single Scottish MP in a night of landslides so large they repeatedly broke the BBC's "swingometer" graphic.
"That Kezia Dugdale, she's a good one, made Jim a fine deputy, no doubt we'll be back on top with her at the helm!" was the sentiment of the Party in the days before the 2016 Holyrood elections in which Labour fell so far they actually became the third party behind the Tories, who more than half of Scotland still have a bone-deep and visceral hatred of.
Now all that is not meant to be crowing about the SNP's recent success, nor even is it particularly meant as a dig at Labour as a whole, but it's hardly the predictive record of Nostra-sodding-damus is it. I would strongly caution English supporters of Labour against putting any significant amount of stock in what MP's believe about their own electorate, because time & again they've been shown to be hopelessly out of touch and prone to wildly, desperately flailing around for any scrap of data they can twist into a justification for their existing belief that really everyone agrees with them, only sensible innit etc.
I'm fifty fifty on that. I agree that the SNP are here to stay on the political scene. They've got a very hard core voter base. and I don't thinkg we're ever going to see a Scotland where Labour holds as many seats as the SNP do now in the foreseeable future.
I'm not convinced though, that Labour is done for, and will never win a seat back. I don't believe the SNP has such a grip on the hearts and minds of Scotland that they'll be able to hang onto their current extensive majority if Labour succeed in reforming in an effective way. I believe Labour is running out of time, and has at best, fifteen years to do so. If they don't, then yes, the SNP will probably continue to dominate Scotland (although I reckon the Lib Dems will steal a few seats back). There are still enough Labour voters in Scotland though, that I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up looking at a 50/40/10 makeup of SNP/Labour/Others Scottish Parliament in ten years, you know?
They're right-wingers so they will not and can not allow leftism to reclaim the party and their particular flavour of liberalism prevents them from understanding why Corbyn has principles and why people find that appealing. They believe he's doing the same thing they would, play power games and build his Personal Brand® out of pure self-interest, instead of being ideologically committed to Labour actually representing working-class people and pursuing policies that are judged to be moral.
The funny thing I find is that most people I know who bought the £3 vote have no idea what Hard or old school Labour even is, or the faintest clue about anything to do with economics or politics. They don't even necessarily know what Corbyn's policies are beyond 'I REPRESENT THE PEOPLE AND WILL MAKE THINGS BETTER'.
They've just heard that he's not like other politicians (which in all fairness; he isn't), and voted for him based on that and the above soundbite. The minute you start asking whether they think his economic policies are feasible, you get blank looks. Much like Brexit I suspect, most of Corbyn's supporters support him because of an exasperation with the current political elite for various social/economic reasons, rather than any ingrained belief or actual knowledge of the political situation.
Jeremy Corbyn has called for "calm" and "dignity" from Labour members after leadership challenger Angela Eagle's constituency office was vandalised.
A brick was thrown through the window of the constituency office on Monday.
Mr Corbyn said that "as someone who has received death threats this week" he condemned the "threatening act" and the other "abuse and threats" MPs faced.
The Labour leader urged members and supporters to "treat each other with respect and dignity".
It comes as Labour's National Executive Committee prepares to rule on whether Mr Corbyn should automatically be included in the party's leadership ballot, triggered by ex-shadow business secretary Ms Eagle's leadership challenge.
Unions say party rules are clear that the Labour leader must be in any leadership contest, but his opponents say he needs the nominations of 51 MPs or MEPs to stand.
The ruling NEC could face the threat of legal action from Mr Corbyn.
In a statement on the attack on Ms Eagle's office, Mr Corbyn said: "It is extremely concerning that Angela Eagle has been the victim of a threatening act and that other MPs are receiving abuse and threats.
"As someone who has also received death threats this week and previously, I am calling on all Labour Party members and supporters to act with calm and treat each other with respect and dignity, even where there is disagreement.
"I utterly condemn any violence or threats, which undermine the democracy within our party and have no place in our politics."
Ms Eagle launched her leadership challenge on Monday, saying Mr Corbyn had failed to connect with Labour voters and said she could provide "strong" leadership to "heal our country in these dangerous times".
BBC political correspondent Iain Watson said the decision the NEC reaches on the leadership ballot rules could have far-reaching consequences.
He said if the Labour leader is required to get 51 nominations in order to stand he could struggle to get on the ballot as only 40 of his party backed him on a motion of no confidence recently.
Labour-commissioned legal analysis states Mr Corbyn needs the nominations - just like any challenger - but unions say, as existing leader, he does not.
The BBC has seen legal advice sent to Unite by solicitors that states: "The rules by which the Labour Party is governed are unambiguous: the leader does not require any signatures to be nominated in a leadership election where there is a potential challenger to the leadership."
The solicitors make clear that legal action will be launched unless Mr Corbyn is automatically on the leadership ballot, and they would halt any leadership election by applying to the High Court for an injunction.
What the Labour rule book says:
ii: Where there is no vacancy nominations may be sought by potential challengers each year prior to the annual session of Party conference. In this case any nomination must be supported by 20% of the combined Commons members of the PLP and members of the EPLP. Nominations not attaining this threshold shall be null and void.
Mr Corbyn, who has never had much support among his party's MPs, was elected as leader overwhelmingly in a vote of Labour members and registered supporters last year.
He had been due to speak at the Unite union's policy conference in Brighton on Tuesday afternoon, but he will not now do so as it clashes with the party's NEC meeting.
Unite union general secretary Len McCluskey has warned Labour not to seek a "sordid little fix" to prevent Mr Corbyn defending his leadership.
He said it would be "alien to the concept of natural justice" if the Labour leader was not "automatically on the ballot paper".
The rules were "not ambiguous" and the incumbent "must be able to defend themselves", he said.
Ms Eagle, former shadow business secretary, launched her leadership challenge against Mr Corbyn on Monday.
Her bid for the job followed days of her calling for Mr Corbyn to resign, after a succession of walkouts from the shadow cabinet in protest at his leadership.
Ms Eagle told BBC Radio 4's Today that "now" was the time for Labour to elect its first female leader, especially given the Conservatives were getting a second female prime minister in Theresa May.
Asked how she would differ from Mr Corbyn as leader, she said: "I wouldn't be hid in my room, not talking to Labour members."
'Just emotion'
She accused Mr Corbyn of failing to campaign with "enough confidence" to stay in the European Union during the UK's recent referendum.
And she said unlike Mr Corbyn, she would not be calling for Article 50 - which kick starts the formal process for leaving the EU - to be signed straight away.
"That would cause chaos. We need to spend more time disentangling ourselves from the EU in a way which does the least damage. So I wouldn't rush to the exits," she said.
She also defended her tearful response in a number of TV and radio interviews after she quit the shadow cabinet, saying she had tried unsuccessfully for nine months to make Mr Corbyn's leadership work.
"It was just emotion that I had been unable to deliver that," she said.
"There is more than one way to be a leader and I think being in touch with your emotions is quite important. It was a difficult day. Politicians ought to be human beings and leaders can be human beings."
Owen Smith, MP for Pontypridd and Labour's former work and pensions spokesman, has said he would consider making a rival leadership challenge.
'I've failed'
Meanwhile, a YouGov poll for the Election Data website suggested that of 1,221 trade union members surveyed, 63% thought Mr Corbyn was doing badly as leader, compared with 33% who thought he was doing well.
Some 76% said it was unlikely that Mr Corbyn would ever become prime minister, while 69% said it was unlikely Labour would win the next election while he was leader.
Union representatives take up 12 of the NEC seats - about a third of the total.
Deputy leader Tom Watson told a parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) meeting that his abandoned peace talks with union leaders earlier this month had failed to close the gap between MPs and pro-Corbyn elements of the party.
He said: "For years I've been told I'm a fixer. Well I've tried to fix this, I've really, really tried, and I've failed.
"I've tried to find a way forward for the party between two apparently irreconcilable decisions.
"Clearly the vast majority of the PLP has already made it clear they wouldn't countenance a settlement that involved Jeremy staying in place."
I'm fifty fifty on that. I agree that the SNP are here to stay on the political scene. They've got a very hard core voter base. and I don't thinkg we're ever going to see a Scotland where Labour holds as many seats as the SNP do now in the foreseeable future.
I'm not convinced though, that Labour is done for, and will never win a seat back. I don't believe the SNP has such a grip on the hearts and minds of Scotland that they'll be able to hang onto their current extensive majority if Labour succeed in reforming in an effective way. I believe Labour is running out of time, and has at best, fifteen years to do so. If they don't, then yes, the SNP will probably continue to dominate Scotland (although I reckon the Lib Dems will steal a few seats back). There are still enough Labour voters in Scotland though, that I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up looking at a 50/40/10 makeup of SNP/Labour/Others Scottish Parliament in ten years, you know?
That wasn't particularly my angle, more that Labour MP's and PLP bods couldn't predict that rain will make you wet than an assertion Labour are done forever - I broadly agree with your point. Labour could come back, but they'll have a real job of it if we remain within the UK. I doubt we would see a Scottish Parliament with those kind of numbers though, even if independent.
There's a solid 15-ish% of your traditional, well-off, paternal, oldschool Tories. Probably another 10-ish% of people who consider themselves "liberal centrists" but when push comes to shove many will vote Tory, the sorts of people who were fully aboard the New Labour project. Probably roughly 5% are nominally leftists, but are such hardcore Unionists that they'll put aside all their socioeconomic principles if they fear Labour aren't being sufficiently bellicose in their condemnation of the SNP for anything and everything. The Tories have their current level of support by combining their 15% base with most of the 5% hardline Loyalist group, and the chunk of the "liberal centrist" bloc who're not in the SNP. I expect they will be able to sustain that 20-25% range for the foreseeable future if we remain within the UK. Our Tories aren't quite as neoliberal as the UK mothership, but they're still Tories.
Labour's problem is their "broad church" up here has completely splintered. The SNP has hoovered up most of the left & centre-left voters, as well as a goodly chunk of the actual centrists, and the libertarian left went to the Greens rather than Labour when the Lib Dems collapsed. Labour are left with a rump electorate consisting mostly of centrist professionals, older "not gonnae change now" voters, the portion of the nominal-centrists who can't quite bring themselves to vote Tory and who see the Lib Dems as a waste of time, the ever shrinking portion of the working class unconvinced by independence, and those among the hardcore Loyalists who can't bring themselves to vote Tory. Which was bad enough, but they're taking another blow right now because the people most likely to reconsider their current allegiances as a result of Brexit are the centrist professionals who don't yet support the SNP, but prize the European aspect of their identity or rely on single-market access for business reasons. Resident EU citizens, regardless of socioeconomic status, are also going to be less likely to support even tentatively Unionist parties in future.
The result of all that is their activist base has been thoroughly hollowed-out and they have no real money coming in, they had to rely on mailshots paid for in large part by the UK party to get their leaflets out at the last Holyrood election. So aye, they could come back, but I doubt it will be any time soon. Independence would give them their best shot, but given Kezia's still doing foot-stamping "But I wanna UK ANNA EU! Waaah!" interviews rather than taking the opportunity to acknowledge reality, I don't know if they'd be up to grabbing that chance. Hopefully someone would, there needs to be a party of labour even if it's not the Labour Party.
Ketara wrote: The funny thing I find is that most people I know who bought the £3 vote have no idea what Hard or old school Labour even is, or the faintest clue about anything to do with economics or politics. They don't even necessarily know what Corbyn's policies are beyond 'I REPRESENT THE PEOPLE AND WILL MAKE THINGS BETTER'.
They've just heard that he's not like other politicians (which in all fairness; he isn't), and voted for him based on that and the above soundbite. The minute you start asking whether they think his economic policies are feasible, you get blank looks. Much like Brexit I suspect, most of Corbyn's supporters support him because of an exasperation with the current political elite for various social/economic reasons, rather than any ingrained belief or actual knowledge of the political situation.
Rather a flawed man who consistently supports leftist values than a liberal who knows exactly what he can get away with.
Wolfstan wrote: JC may have the support of 300,000 party members, that still leaves nearly9 million Labour voters out there who haven't had their say. The only way to confirm what they thought would be to have a General Election and see how Labour do, but as somebody has mentioned, the Labour MP's probably have a good idea on the mood of the electorate. Which is why they want rid of him..
I think anyone putting faith in the predictive power of Labour party officials should have a think back to what happened in Scotland of late. Many in Labour are keen to write off their dismemberment north of the wall as some freakish one-time event driven by irrational nationalist sentiment and that we'll all come to our senses any day now and restore them to their rightful place(a sentiment especially common among the Labour MPs who got chucked out). They've been saying that since the 2015 UK election, and before then they said it after the 2011 Holyrood election, and again before that at the 2007 Holyrood election. The SNP, we have been endlessly told for over a decade, are a "busted flush", always moments away from final defeat and with it the triumphant return of Labour. It's a political Zeno's Paradox, with red Achilles never quite able to catch the yellow Tortoise as he boasts he will.
The Scottish Parliament will "kill nationalism stone-dead!", was the confident prediction of now-Lord George Robertson and his PLP pals in the late 90's.
"A freak occurrence, a protest vote, no more than that", came the cry from down south in 2007.
"Brown will put paid to these SNP usurpers! Afterall, all the Jockos need is to hear our pronouncements in the right accent." the PLP told us in 2009.
"Iain Gray, that's the man to see off these SNP jokers!" they declared in 2011, immediately prior to the SNP winning a majority, a deliberately nigh-impossible feat in the Labour-designed Holyrood electoral system.
"Hah, a referendum, what are they like, support for independence will never go north of 25%, you'll see" pronounced SLab bigwig Duncan Hothersall, with similar sentiments coming from McTernan and various PLP staffers, right before they turned a nearly 40 point lead into a narrow 10 point victory.
"Send Jim Murphy back up there, he'll show the SNP what's what, having him jog about in a Scotland footie top for the cameras and promise to bring back bevvy at matches, they'll be eating out of his hand!" the UK party insisted, immediately before being reduced to a single Scottish MP in a night of landslides so large they repeatedly broke the BBC's "swingometer" graphic.
"That Kezia Dugdale, she's a good one, made Jim a fine deputy, no doubt we'll be back on top with her at the helm!" was the sentiment of the Party in the days before the 2016 Holyrood elections in which Labour fell so far they actually became the third party behind the Tories, who more than half of Scotland still have a bone-deep and visceral hatred of.
Now all that is not meant to be crowing about the SNP's recent success, nor even is it particularly meant as a dig at Labour as a whole, but it's hardly the predictive record of Nostra-sodding-damus is it. I would strongly caution English supporters of Labour against putting any significant amount of stock in what MP's believe about their own electorate, because time & again they've been shown to be hopelessly out of touch and prone to wildly, desperately flailing around for any scrap of data they can twist into a justification for their existing belief that really everyone agrees with them, only sensible innit etc.
The membership evidently believe the party exists to represent their interests, and the PLP evidently believes the membership exists to support their bid for power and nothing more. I don't see how that dispute is resolvable - either Corbyn, as he is entitled to be according to party rules, is on the ballot and will in all probability handily defeat anyone stood against him, in which case the party's MP's will have to desert because they've made their position within a Corbyn-led party untenable with this very public farce of an attempted coup; or the PLP will find some underhanded way of keeping Corbyn off the ballot, in which case only two scenarios are really plausible: almost all of them will be deselected and they'll have won the battle to oust Corbyn but lost the war to keep Labour as a managerial centre-right party, or there will be a huge exodus of members and union disaffiliations leaving them in the same state as the Scottish branch of the party - devoid of money and activists and unable to campaign.
Indeed, even if you ignore their record on Scotland entirely, the fact these bumbling idiots couldn't foresee the potential outcomes of their own shambolic coup attempt is a pretty comprehensive condemnation of their ability to predict things - I wouldn't trust them to tell you for sure if the sun will rise tomorrow, nevermind the genuine mood of their electorate.
If you lean towards extremes, left/right wing, you are likely to only mix with people of the same ideology. So therefore the supporters of Jeremy Corbyn and likely to be meeting people that reinforce the belief that he is what the Labour party needs. All those new members that voted for JC, and those joining, are all of the same ideology. No matter what they say they, can’t possibly know what the majority of Labour voters are thinking.
The MP’s calling for him to step down will have a better feel for things as they will be meeting these voters. This is probably why they feel he needs to go, there is concern that Labour won’t win the next election. The idea that these MP’s are self-serving actually reinforces the concerns over JC. If they are so concerned about keeping their seat and all the benefits that go with it, they will want Labour to be attractive to the general public. JC might be motivated by noble ideals, but his appeal will be too limited.
Wolfstan wrote: [ No matter what they say they, can’t possibly know what the majority of Labour voters are thinking.
The same can be said of the PLP, in fact the membership is actually a better indicator of actual voters by the simply fact that there are far more of them so at least they have a better sample size. At this stage there needs to be a proper leadership election (including Corbyn) and whatever the vwinner is it needs to be absolutely respected by all parties if Labour is going to be taken in any way seriously.
If you lean towards extremes, left/right wing, you are likely to only mix with people of the same ideology. So therefore the supporters of Jeremy Corbyn and likely to be meeting people that reinforce the belief that he is what the Labour party needs. All those new members that voted for JC, and those joining, are all of the same ideology. No matter what they say they, can’t possibly know what the majority of Labour voters are thinking.
The MP’s calling for him to step down will have a better feel for things as they will be meeting these voters. This is probably why they feel he needs to go, there is concern that Labour won’t win the next election. The idea that these MP’s are self-serving actually reinforces the concerns over JC. If they are so concerned about keeping their seat and all the benefits that go with it, they will want Labour to be attractive to the general public. JC might be motivated by noble ideals, but his appeal will be too limited.
Sorry, but that's a load of tripe, as illustrated above in the post you quote. Surely, if MPs are so sensitive to the realities of their electorate's views, all those Labour MPs up here wouldn't have managed to spend the last decade being consistently, repeatedly, unrepentantly wrong, to the point where they were finally got rid of with swings of 30-35%, sometimes with majorities so many thousands strong the seats were considered "bastions" of Labour flipping completely the other way.
As for noble ideals and limited appeal - polling consistently shows the electorate are far, far to the left of the PLP in terms of their policy preferences, to the point that nationalisation of utilities, transport etc routinely comes back between 60 and 70%, the problem is they've been convinced we can't afford to do those things. Now, Jeremy might not be any more able to persuade people that's wrong than his predecessors, but this idea that he's a raging Trot trying to appeal to a nation of Little Thatchers is just flat out untrue.
But regardless, the opinions of the PLP on Corbyn's electability are not sufficient justification to overrule the democratic will of the party membership and change the rules of the party on a whim to exclude the incumbent leader who is entitled to be on the ballot. If the PLP want to launch a leadership challenge, that's their right, ill-advised though it is at the present time, but this grotesque perversion of the democratic process - staggered, orchestrated resignations with media collusion to try and force him to step down, then when that failed throwing out the party rulebook and removing him from the ballot via a secret vote of the NEC - is disgusting behaviour, and if the goal is genuinely to make Labour "electable"(maybe I'm old fashioned by the way, but I always thought you did that by persuading people to agree with you, not by just vacantly trotting along in the wake of public opinion as interpreted by focus groups), is ludicrously and hilariously counter-productive. If this farce actually succeeds in offing Corbyn the party is going to go into full-scale rebellion, the unions will pull their funding, and the media narrative for the next five years is going to be of a Labour party tearing itself to pieces, assuming Labour survives as a coherent entity at all.
Electable? Labour in this state couldn't win a school talent show, nevermind a national election, and nobody's to blame for that but the PLP morons who apparently launched this whole debacle without ever once asking themselves what they'd do if Corbyn didn't so as he was told.
Sorry, but that's a load of tripe, as illustrated above in the post you quote. Surely, if MPs are so sensitive to the realities of their electorate's views, all those Labour MPs up here wouldn't have managed to spend the last decade being consistently, repeatedly, unrepentantly wrong, to the point where they were finally got rid of with swings of 30-35%, sometimes with majorities so many thousands strong the seats were considered "bastions" of Labour flipping completely the other way.
As for noble ideals and limited appeal - polling consistently shows the electorate are far, far to the left of the PLP in terms of their policy preferences, to the point that nationalisation of utilities, transport etc routinely comes back between 60 and 70%, the problem is they've been convinced we can't afford to do those things. Now, Jeremy might not be any more able to persuade people that's wrong than his predecessors, but this idea that he's a raging Trot trying to appeal to a nation of Little Thatchers is just flat out untrue.
I'd hasten to add that even if an MP is aware of the local feeling on a matter, it doesn't necessarily translate into an actual shift in party policy. Your MP can be completely in touch and still bound by the central party machine and politicking, indeed, I think that is more often the case than not.
I also feel it should be noted that just because the public wants something does not make it a good or practicable idea. The will of the public is sovereign and must be followed, but if the people who have the means/knowledge believe the public will to be bloody disastrous and try and obstruct it for (what they believe to be) the good of the nation, I'm not entirely surprised. I disagree, mind you, but I can understand it. When it comes to Corbyn, all politicking aside, I suspect a not inconsequential number of Labour MP's are in that position. They've been saddled with Corbyn by the £3 a vote X-Factor crowd, but they're more than aware of the fact that he probably can't win an election, and it would be even more disastrous if he did. The constant tarring of the entire PLP as evil plotting Blairites is so simplistic, I'm not surprised the people on my FB (namely, the ones who support Corbyn but know nothing about politics) have seized upon it with such eagerness. There are plenty of normal Labour MP's, who do represent their constituents and want the best for everyone, who also think he's a bloody disaster waiting to happen.
, then when that failed throwing out the party rulebook and removing him from the ballot via a secret vote of the NEC
In all fairness, the wording involved could be interpreted both ways, and it kind of is the function of the NEC Committee to provide clarity where definition is ambiguous. I agree that it's pretty shifty behaviour to try and prevent him from running the way they are, but if those are the rules of the party then....well, those are the rules of the party. If Corbyn cannot raise the 51 votes required to be nominated like everyone else can, that's not on anybody but him.
We didn't get into any major wars under Cameron? That wasn't for lack of trying. Remember, he got us involved in the bombing campaign against Libya and helped destabilise that country.
He wanted to bomb Syria too and remove the Syrian regime, which would have put us at risk of direct conflict with Russia. (Bombing their military ally and all that). IS would have been in any even stronger position with a defeated Assad regime leaving a power vacuum in its wake.
Thank god Cameron's folly and ego was foiled.
The man wanted to be Blair Mark 2, he even declared himself the "Heir to Blair" back in the days when Blair's reputation wasn't yet toxic.
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: We didn't get into any major wars under Cameron? That wasn't for lack of trying. Remember, he got us involved in the bombing campaign against Libya and helped destabilise that country.
He wanted to bomb Syria too and remove the Syrian regime, which would have put us at risk of direct conflict with Russia. (Bombing their military ally and all that). IS would have been in any even stronger position with a defeated Assad regime leaving a power vacuum in its wake.
Sure. But none of it happened. When the time comes to write the history books and consider the lasting impact his tenure had on the country (or legacy, for the popular phrase), things 'Cameron wanted to do but never managed to' won't really rank very highly. Lobbing a few explosives around in the Middle-East four or five times ahead of major announcements, which is what actually happened, is something that practically every American/British/French premier does these days. It's hardly unique and doesn't have much of an impact on things at home if you're not considering something specific like the causes of terrorism. It doesn't qualify even as a 'war' let alone a major one, and I'd be surprised if it gets more than a footnote in the big ol book of 'Things Past Prime Ministers Did'.
Which is entirely to be expected. There is no guarantee of British universities remaining part of the programmes in 2+ years time and none of these programmes will be completed within two years (remember that a PhD takes 3-4 years and then consider that many of these research projects are post-doctoral level research). So why would anybody choose to partner with a group who may have to drop out and jeopardise the whole project halfway through?
Yes it is and was warned of before the vote. The UK is looking at losing about £1.4bn per annum in research funds from the EU by withdrawing completely. It would be the same effect as scrapping the Science and Technology Research Council. The UK does very well out of the EU funds and which hence allows it punch above it's weight in research terms as it can attract some of the best people from throughout the world. This in effect raises the ratings of the Universities.
The long term issue is that without match funding it's likely that University ratings will drop and hence the attraction to foreign students will diminish greatly as they pretty much choose universities based on their ratings internationally. A significant amount of University money arises from foreign student fees which means that they will lose access to the EU funding in the short term and in the long term more money from the fees. The age of many great research universities are hence numbered in the UK (the Oxford's and Cambridge's will likely survive as they get very generous donations) if a long term solution to the funding is not found (and it isn't expected to come from the UK government).
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angelofvengeance wrote: Corbyn always reminds me of the annoying peasant from Monty Python & The Holy Grail lol.
So we are suggesting that the tory leadership contest is then some 'farcical aquatic ceremony'? Sounds about right though.
, then when that failed throwing out the party rulebook and removing him from the ballot via a secret vote of the NEC
In all fairness, the wording involved could be interpreted both ways, and it kind of is the function of the NEC Committee to provide clarity where definition is ambiguous. I agree that it's pretty shifty behaviour to try and prevent him from running the way they are, but if those are the rules of the party then....well, those are the rules of the party. If Corbyn cannot raise the 51 votes required to be nominated like everyone else can, that's not on anybody but him.
There's no ambiguity at all:
That's from the 2010 conference, detailing the change that was made which is now in the party handbook, and why it was made. If there's no vacancy, challengers need nominations. Explicitly changed from everyone needing them. There's no way I'm aware of to twist the English language enough to introduce ambiguity there, but the NEC are trying their damndest apparently.
And if there was any doubt whatsoever that this is a politically-motivated stitch up rather than the honest attempt to clarify the rules it's been presented as, it's just emerged that the NEC is only accepting submissions from the legal expert who supports the PLP line. The one who supports the factual, reality-based Corbyn position isn't being permitted to speak or even enter the session.
I'd hasten to add that even if an MP is aware of the local feeling on a matter, it doesn't necessarily translate into an actual shift in party policy. Your MP can be completely in touch and still bound by the central party machine and politicking, indeed, I think that is more often the case than not.
I also feel it should be noted that just because the public wants something does not make it a good or practicable idea. The will of the public is sovereign and must be followed, but if the people who have the means/knowledge believe the public will to be bloody disastrous and try and obstruct it for (what they believe to be) the good of the nation, I'm not entirely surprised. I disagree, mind you, but I can understand it. When it comes to Corbyn, all politicking aside, I suspect a not inconsequential number of Labour MP's are in that position. They've been saddled with Corbyn by the £3 a vote X-Factor crowd, but they're more than aware of the fact that he probably can't win an election, and it would be even more disastrous if he did. The constant tarring of the entire PLP as evil plotting Blairites is so simplistic, I'm not surprised the people on my FB (namely, the ones who support Corbyn but know nothing about politics) have seized upon it with such eagerness. There are plenty of normal Labour MP's, who do represent their constituents and want the best for everyone, who also think he's a bloody disaster waiting to happen.
Then they can either follow party procedure, issue an honest challenge, and abide by the result, or they can bog off to a party that more closely matches their views. Again; even if everything these MP's fear is 100% right, that doesn't give them the right to overrule the membership and second-guess the electorate. And frankly, I think this whole "£3 a vote X-Factor crowd" style sneering is exactly what's wrong with UK politics - why is it Corbyn's failure if he can't persuade PLP members to nominate him, but the voters' failure if the PLP can't persuade them Corbyn is a bad choice?
Ketara wrote: They've been saddled with Corbyn by the £3 a vote X-Factor crowd,
You would save word count if you just wrote "scum". You would also save the time spent on coming up with ways to not actually call them scum but still mean it.
, then when that failed throwing out the party rulebook and removing him from the ballot via a secret vote of the NEC
In all fairness, the wording involved could be interpreted both ways, and it kind of is the function of the NEC Committee to provide clarity where definition is ambiguous. I agree that it's pretty shifty behaviour to try and prevent him from running the way they are, but if those are the rules of the party then....well, those are the rules of the party. If Corbyn cannot raise the 51 votes required to be nominated like everyone else can, that's not on anybody but him.
There's no ambiguity at all:
That's from the 2010 conference, detailing the change that was made which is now in the party handbook, and why it was made. If there's no vacancy, challengers need nominations. Explicitly changed from everyone needing them. There's no way I'm aware of to twist the English language enough to introduce ambiguity there, but the NEC are trying their damndest apparently.
And if there was any doubt whatsoever that this is a politically-motivated stitch up rather than the honest attempt to clarify the rules it's been presented as, it's just emerged that the NEC is only accepting submissions from the legal expert who supports the PLP line. The one who supports the factual, reality-based Corbyn position isn't being permitted to speak or even enter the session.
Your image link is broken. Here's the actual current text, from the BBC.
I believe the ambiguity is not so much as to whether a challenger needs nominations, as it is whether or not the current leader needs them. Or as the BBC puts it: 'Do the words "in this case any nomination" apply only to challengers, or do they suggest the sitting leader needs the backing of MPs and MEPs too?'
It simply doesn't say. The only thing made clear is that challengers require them, not whether a current leader does. There's a precedent whereby in '88, Kinnock, the Labour leader in identical circumstances, says he was required to seek the back of an appropriate number of PLP members. If there was no ambiguity, why would he have done this? The answer is simple, it was unclear, so he just got on and did it because he had other things to worry about, and could easily manage the requisite number of nominations. Corbyn, meanwhile, has a spot more difficulty, so is querying it.
With regards to the NEC, the NEC can do what they like. That's the point. One ofheir functions is to clarify matters like these, they can interview whoever they like. I still agree it's probably a stitch up, but I reiterate; if Corbyn not only cannot manage the requisite number of nominations to handwave this away, but also has the NEC of the Labour Party slated against him, that's on nobody but him. If he can get caught on technicalities, the technicalities are still the rules. If the rules are unclear, they are decided by the NEC, and if the NEC doesn't like him? Tough. I'm sure Thatcher was very sad when her own party removed her too.
My image link works fine on my screen, but here it is rehosted:
EDIT: The point of the image being; the rule as it exists today was explicitly changed to clarify that only challengers must seek nominations. There is no ambiguity.
Ketara wrote: They've been saddled with Corbyn by the £3 a vote X-Factor crowd,
You would save word count if you just wrote "scum". You would also save the time spent on coming up with ways to not actually call them scum but still mean it.
I'll thank you not to put words in my mouth, and to remove the vitriol from your own before you choke on it. I'd count some of those £3 a vote crowd as being extremely close friends. That still doesn't detract from the fact that they know nothing about politics, nothing about economics, nothing about the Labour Party generally, and indeed, nothing about Corbyn. I've seen so many factually incorrect attacks from those friends against the Tories and Blairites shared on FB that I've stopped even bothering to comment on them.
Yodhrin wrote:
And frankly, I think this whole "£3 a vote X-Factor crowd" style sneering is exactly what's wrong with UK politics
I'm not sneering, and if that's what came across, it was a miscommunication. I'm simply aware of what the people who I know chipped in to get Corbyn where he is are like (that is, mainly keyboard activists with no real knowledge of or involvement in the Labour party), and assume they are part of a larger trend. They might very well not be, but most of the times I've seen a Corbynista active in a facebook, Guardian, or BBC comments thread, they've simply reinforced that stereotype. Again, perhaps they are not representative, I'll acknowledge that happily, but it's been my experience, and I'll stand by it.
Forget Corbyn - he's only the 'leader' of the oppositon.
There is a much bigger problem on our hands - another unelected PM foisted on us.
Fair enough, we're a parliamentry democracy, but when you have a one horse leadership contest, and when even 200,000+ Conservative party members are denied a vote on who gets to be their leader, you know something is wrong!
Add to the mix that Osborne intervened to stop the Americans investigating HSBC and you have ask yourself what kind of mickey mouse democracy are we living in?
Meanwhile, having finished shedding crocodile tears for the victims of his Iraq fiasco, Tony Blair is sunning himself on a luxury yacht off the coast of Sicily!!!!
What kind of nation is this? Blair should be in the dock!!!
Somebody get me me the hell out of this corrupt cesspool of a nation. Give me Scottish independence now!!!
My family's sociall group back home in Scotland are an interesting mix that I don't think is talked about much.
Generally speaking, SNP voters, want to stay in the UK, opinions kind of mixed on Europe.
Speaking in broad strokes, the caricature of the logic is along the lines of.
Tory is a rivh snobby scumbags, living off of old money never worked a proper job in their life. Not voting for them.
Labour is a rich scumbag in bed with and paid for by the union's whose only goal is to make them and their mates richer, screw everyone else along the way.
SNP, well I know him. I have a chat with him when I'm getting the morning paper. Good bloke that.
Good Job Brits on leaving the EU. If I was a part of that country and voted to leave I would be extremely offended by the recent remarks about how the British people voted incorrectly. Telling an entire nation they are wrong because they don't agree with your viewpoint is rather ignorant.
SemperMortis wrote: Good Job Brits on leaving the EU. If I was a part of that country and voted to leave I would be extremely offended by the recent remarks about how the British people voted incorrectly. Telling an entire nation they are wrong because they don't agree with your viewpoint is rather ignorant.
Telling a nation that they're wrong and then backing your argument up, however, isn't.
There is a much bigger problem on our hands - another unelected PM foisted on us.
(
Newsflash.
ALL our Prime Ministers and First Ministers are unelected. The electorate vote for constituency MPs. Those MPs or the controlling parties with a majority of democratically elected MPs select a leader by varied means dependant on the party and office.
And no there is nothing wrong with that system, we don't need premier elections to accompany parliamentary elections. It would be a fething mess.
SemperMortis wrote: Good Job Brits on leaving the EU. If I was a part of that country and voted to leave I would be extremely offended by the recent remarks about how the British people voted incorrectly. Telling an entire nation they are wrong because they don't agree with your viewpoint is rather ignorant.
Telling a nation that they're wrong and then backing your argument up, however, isn't.
Actually this isnt how it works.
Brexit is advisory and must be respected. respected means going through the procedures towards leaving, activating the process procedurally. However that is done domestically not through the irrevocable Article 50. of the Lisbon Treaty.
There is plenty of time during the process to halt reverse or amend the process.
Voting for Brexit doesnt mean 'we leave today', no matter what Merkel and Juncker might want. It mean that the UK government respects the people and considers leaving and makes plans for that event.
A number of analysts (including mysefl) worked this out a fortnight ago, and the idea of doing it this way is gaining traction slowly. Recent comments say that Brexit might take six years. This means triggering Article 50 in four, and that assumes the public are still behind it. Meanwehile we move towards the exit. Create lists of legislation to be repealed such as the European Commnunities Act 1972 and discuss them in parliament. All of these actions are directly in respect or the public will.
If over the next four years the public change their mind, so be it.
If over th next four years Brexit leads to a need for EU reform that makes the EU into something Uk citizens would be more happy to be part of, so be it.
The one thing that should not be done is obeying Junckers demand for article 50 to be triggered within 14 days of Camerons suiccessor being slected. This is especially because when the EU unelected burweaucracy wants to make pol;itical moves they take their own sweet time, often several time longer than comparable bodies. The Canada-EU trade deal has taken nine years to work out, and isnt signed yet.and will never be hurried. How dare they demand we do things on their timetable, which is extra extra short, when they have no respect for efficiency .
SemperMortis wrote: Good Job Brits on leaving the EU. If I was a part of that country and voted to leave I would be extremely offended by the recent remarks about how the British people voted incorrectly. Telling an entire nation they are wrong because they don't agree with your viewpoint is rather ignorant.
Telling a nation that they're wrong and then backing your argument up, however, isn't.
And if that argument is based on "belief" and not fact then it still is wrong. It was rather amusing how after the vote the British economy tanked for a day or two and the liberal media jumped all over it. usually with something along the lines of "SEE WE TOLD YOU SO!, STUPID BRITISH PEONS!"
And now after a very short period of time the economy has not only stabilized but is trending upwards and has more then recovered its losses. I don't see those same media outlets saying "whoops our bad".
SemperMortis wrote: Good Job Brits on leaving the EU. If I was a part of that country and voted to leave I would be extremely offended by the recent remarks about how the British people voted incorrectly. Telling an entire nation they are wrong because they don't agree with your viewpoint is rather ignorant.
Telling a nation that they're wrong and then backing your argument up, however, isn't.
And if that argument is based on "belief" and not fact then it still is wrong. It was rather amusing how after the vote the British economy tanked for a day or two and the liberal media jumped all over it. usually with something along the lines of "SEE WE TOLD YOU SO!, STUPID BRITISH PEONS!"
And now after a very short period of time the economy has not only stabilized but is trending upwards and has more then recovered its losses. I don't see those same media outlets saying "whoops our bad".
The pound is still down. There's still massive uncertainty in the markets. Perhaps reality simply has a liberal bias?
Even then, how is it arrogant to lay down your case and argue that this was a mistake?
There is a much bigger problem on our hands - another unelected PM foisted on us.
Fair enough, we're a parliamentry democracy, but when you have a one horse leadership contest, and when even 200,000+ Conservative party members are denied a vote on who gets to be their leader, you know something is wrong!
I'm torn on this one.
When I was younger, Gordon Brown came into power shortly after I'd taken an interest in politics and I considered it outrageous. Then someone pointed out to me that the party and their ideals was voted in, not the figurehead, and if your vote would change because of who was standing at the top, you were a bit of an idiot. Then someone else pointed out to me that a change in leader could equate to a change in ideals. Then Brown got booted out, and I didn't think about it again.
Fastforward to now, and I'm still slightly torn, but I come down marginally on the side of 'no election needed'. Why? Because a leadership election of sorts was held, and the first two rounds voted on. And because I saw this chart on the BBC which showed me that actually, it's really not that uncommon in British political history, and there's sufficient precedent for it to be constitutionally and morally permissible.
Not only that, a general election right now would probably result in Labour tearing itself apart further, and I have no desire to strengthen the Tory majority even more. It's fine where it is.
Finally, May actually can't call a general election if she wanted to. Under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, 2/3 of the house have to vote on it, or a vote no confidence lost. She could call a vote, but I doubt she'd actually win it. Labour want to moan and gripe right now, the last thing they actually want is an election.
Apparently that wasn't on the official agenda, the vote was taken after some people had already left and it's open to being overturned by law since Labour membership is supposed to let you vote in leadership elections.
Apparently that wasn't on the official agenda, the vote was taken after some people had already left and it's open to being overturned by law since Labour membership is supposed to let you vote in leadership elections.
The circus truly never ends.
I liked this quote from some opponents of Corbyn -
However, Corbyn’s opponents believe the other rules of the contest, agreed after he had left the room to address his supporters outside, make him “absolutely beatable”, saying, “we can win this, fair and square”.
Yep, they can win it "fair and square" by excluding a significant portion of the party membership who they expect would vote against their chosen candidate.
SemperMortis wrote: Good Job Brits on leaving the EU. If I was a part of that country and voted to leave I would be extremely offended by the recent remarks about how the British people voted incorrectly. Telling an entire nation they are wrong because they don't agree with your viewpoint is rather ignorant.
Telling a nation that they're wrong and then backing your argument up, however, isn't.
And if that argument is based on "belief" and not fact then it still is wrong. It was rather amusing how after the vote the British economy tanked for a day or two and the liberal media jumped all over it. usually with something along the lines of "SEE WE TOLD YOU SO!, STUPID BRITISH PEONS!"
And now after a very short period of time the economy has not only stabilized but is trending upwards and has more then recovered its losses. I don't see those same media outlets saying "whoops our bad".
The economy was always going to drop after the Brexit result came through since no-one knew what would happen. Markets hate uncertainty. The pound has only recovered slightly since Theresa May won the PM bid - it's nowhere near what it was before the referendum though. This is only the short term effects, we're yet to see the long term effects. There are already talks of the science and research sector missing out on world leading researchers for collaborations and funding (which may or may not get replaced). Then we need to see just exactly what Theresa May manages to get for us in the Brexit deal, if it even happens (was a quiet Remainer), never mind making new trade deals with other countries such as the USA and Canada (since the existing deals were made through the EU). Furthermore, the media is either Brexit or Bremain. You'll never get neutral facts within the media, you'll need to do your own research.
Also I am offended that you proclaim that Britain voted the right way. 48% of voters would disagree with you. It was an incredibly close call and while I dejectedly accepted the result, to suggest that we had voted the correct decision and disregard the people who voted Remain is a slap in the face. Especially for those of us (myself included) who will be living a good 60 years or so with this monumental decision. As a result I am considering my options about moving abroad. Brexit could be the best thing that the UK ever did, likewise it could be the worst thing that the UK ever did - and I'm not willing to take the risk if it's the latter.
The principle of representative democracy is that your elected representative has to represent you and take your interests into account even if you didn't actually vote for him.
The EU referendum however reduces an extremely complex political and social issue to a single binary yes/no choice and does not allow the presentation of any compromises.
It therefore denies the core concept of representative democracy.
In terms of benefit to the UK as a whole, or sections of the population, it is still very hard to make out areas where the EU free UK is likely to be better off, and much easier to discern areas where things are going wrong straight away (like science projects.)
Even the most downcast of society are likely to feel a negative impact of their choice since EU funding and to some degree the benefit of EU trade protection was concentrated in the areas that voted Leave.
There aren't any concrete reasons why being out of the EU is likely to lead to a better, more prosperous UK. In fact there is a good chance there won't be a UK in five years time.
I hate feeling so depressed about it. The only positive I can see is that the power elite may have been so shaken up by the protest vote that they reverse a lot of the policies of the past 30 years.
Also I am offended that you proclaim that Britain voted the right way. 48% of voters would disagree with you. It was an incredibly close call and while I dejectedly accepted the result, to suggest that we had voted the correct decision and disregard the people who voted Remain is a slap in the face. Especially for those of us (myself included) who will be living a good 60 years or so with this monumental decision. As a result I am considering my options about moving abroad. Brexit could be the best thing that the UK ever did, likewise it could be the worst thing that the UK ever did - and I'm not willing to take the risk if it's the latter.
I doubt it will be 60 years. The vast majority of the younger populace were more forward thinking and preferred a world of open movement rather than the past isolationist thinking. In 20 years these people will be the dominant part of the populace and will almost certainly want back in. Whatever happens the Brexit will be a medium term issue, that is likely to have severe economical consequences. But I'm considering the same as to how to emigrate, unfortunately I only have english parents and grandparents so I'm wondering whether an EU country will accept asylum on the grounds of persecution by politician idiocy.
I doubt it will be 60 years. The vast majority of the younger populace were more forward thinking and preferred a world of open movement rather than the past isolationist thinking. In 20 years these people will be the dominant part of the populace and will almost certainly want back in.
Had we stayed in, that would have been the case. But once we've left, the weight for the status quo will shift again as people grow up not being part of the EU. Whether people will want to rejoin will be a result of many factors, from how satisfactory the links developed in the ensuing two decades are, to how well/badly both us and the EU do. The concept of being in the EU as 'forward' is whiggish, and therefore intrinsically flawed.
Some amusing stuff- So Corbyn is allowed on the ballot paper, but only people who have been with the Labour Party more than 6 months can vote. So that cuts about 100,000 people from the vote lol.
angelofvengeance wrote: Some amusing stuff- So Corbyn is allowed on the ballot paper, but only people who have been with the Labour Party more than 6 months can vote. So that cuts about 100,000 people from the vote lol.
Aye. Most of the £3 vote people will have to re-apply now.
It's really quite interesting. The fact they let Corbyn go automatically to the ballot paper removes any accusations of a 'stitch-up', and the Unions swung that by 18 votes to 14. But when it came to the £3 members, enough NEC votes went the other way that there's clearly sufficient feeling at the top that the £3 voters aren't serious enough members that they probably shouldn't participate.
So they've decided to raise the cost, I assume because they figure anyone willing to chip in £25 is actually a serious supporter and should have a say. It'll also help boost party coffers. I can't say I disagree with their assessment so far, I did think Corbyn should be on the list, but I also thought the £3 entry made it too accessible to people with no knowledge or interest in the Labour party beyond one man/issue, to influence things like a reality tv show. This is a good way of proceeding, I think.
I suppose if it hurts Corbyn's base substantially, what it shows is that his 'mandate' actually rested upon a number of whimsical, ultimately uninvolved people. If he wins it with this rule though, it becomes clear that his mandate really is a mandate from the masses (well, the Labour Party members), and the PLP should fall into line. A good way of ascertaining the truth, really.
If I were hard left and new to Labour I would try and find the £25, be quite motivated and bloody minded about it in fact.
This is so obviously a deliberate attempt to mow the lawn and cut out bottom rung support, there will be clear motivation to make it fail.
Between you me and Dakka, I dont think it will work even if the above isnt true. Yes, 100K cant vote unless they cough up, but Corbyn has been in longer than six months and has a huge standing majority.
Had we stayed in, that would have been the case. But once we've left, the weight for the status quo will shift again as people grow up not being part of the EU. Whether people will want to rejoin will be a result of many factors, from how satisfactory the links developed in the ensuing two decades are, to how well/badly both us and the EU do. The concept of being in the EU as 'forward' is whiggish, and therefore intrinsically flawed.
Unlikely. A greater proportion of older people vote and 20 years is not long enough to remove all memory of being in the EU. Many of those people that voted leave will have moved on, whilst the younger generation will then make up most of the voting population in the future. The young generation will not forget what was snatched away for them just as middle age people still remember the poll tax issues 30 years ago because of their impact and why the tires are very careful not to be seen as going back to those days. It is progressive to think that a larger wider community is beneficial over an isolated 'us and them' view. We no longer live in the 1800's where you can find mist resources you need on your own doorstep. In a period of globalisation, likely where significant elements of the work force will be moved to robotics then being part of a larger group will give you more clout and control over the world events and direction.
On the issue of JC election I fail to see why the last 6 months voters will make that much of a difference. He still had a clear majority 9 months ago, these members will still be there despite the 6 month decision.
Unlikely. A greater proportion of older people vote and 20 years is not long enough to remove all memory of being in the EU. Many of those people that voted leave will have moved on, whilst the younger generation will then make up most of the voting population in the future..
It'll remove all memory of it from the subsequent 20 years worth of matured adults, and assuming no great economic catastrophe on our part and success on the EU's part, where will the political desire to re-run a new entry come from? Especially considering a new entry would be a full subscription to things like the Euro, which many remainers even now do not want.
Even if your model were accurate, all it would guarantee is that we'd leave again twenty years subsequent to rejoining because another 20 years worth of people who didn't care for the EU would then become the largest voterbase. Unless you're going to not only predict the economic consequences I just gave, but a societal attitude shift forty years from now?
The young generation will not forget what was snatched away for them
Which is? Visa free travel in Europe? Being able to export to Europe with one less bit of paperwork? Another academic grant body to apply to? Beyond vague things like 'European unity', there's precious little in the way of hard obviously visible benefits enjoyed by the majority of the populace. And I'm really doubting that should things go alright, those things would be sufficient to impact upon opinion twenty five years hence. Things will be decided by the issues of the day and recent memory when that time comes.
just as middle age people still remember the poll tax issues 30 years ago because of their impactand why the tires are very careful not to be seen as going back to those days. It is progressive to think that a larger wider community is beneficial over an isolated 'us and them' view. We no longer live in the 1800's where you can find mist resources you need on your own doorstep.
See, I'm afraid this is where I stop taking you seriously. This is literally the classical whiggish view of society, where everything is always ascending to some new culturally superior civilisation, that we are only now just reaching the pinnacle of. Every single generation before you has said exactly the same thing in the name of 'progress', but I'm pretty sure what you and a 19th century colonialist would view as 'progressive' are quite substantially different. In another 50 years time, it'll be different again.
It would have been ridiculous for the current leader not to automatically go on the ballot form, in my opinion. The business with the £3 members is slightly different.
It was the £3 members who swept Corbyn into power. The vote to exclude them from the election came after Corbyn and a couple of his supporters had left the meeting, and it was not a scheduled agenda item.
It therefore looks like a bit of a stitch-up.
This of course emphasises how disliked Corbyn is within the party leadership and, more importantly, his lack of skill at political management.
A seasoned operator like Harold Wilson would never have allowed himself to be outmanoeuvred in this way. After getting the vote in his favour he would have lit his pipe, asked if there was any other business, declared the session closed and called for beer and sandwiches to celebrate a job well done. No chances for sneaky voting behind his back.
All that being said, I agree with Ketara's point that £3 members should not be given the same weight in voting as full price members unless they want to chip in to party funds to the same extent.
If Corbyn's power is underlined by a strong supportive vote in this election, he will carry on for a couple of years at least. Possibly he may improve, or he may turn out actually to be useless and widely unpopular. The next set of council elections will be something of a Litmus test on the success of whoever ends up as leader.
The big question is whether the ABC vote (Anyone But Corbyn) can find a realistic candidate. I don't see much point in canning Corbyn to replace him with someone who may turn out just as poor. Better that the party accept several years in the wilderness in order to wrangle its internal issues, develop a new strategy, and allow the public to ferment its dislike of the Conservatives.
I never thought I'd find myself in agreement with John McDonnell, but these Labour plotters are next to useless. Talk about night of the rubber knives
As for breaking away, they wont don't it - they haven't got the balls.
Secondly, in response to Ketara, Orlanth, Kilkrazy, et al, you'll get no argument from me about the legality of May's ascension to the role of PM. Legally, and technically, it's above board, but that doesn't make it right, and yes I'm aware there is historical precedent for this, but even so, we#re in the absurd situation of May herself being unable to call a GE to legitimise her status, because the fix term parliament act binds her.
Again, I repeat my claim that this is a Mickey Mouse democracy. Nothing that has happened these past weeks can sway me from that viewpoint.
Up here in Scotland, there is 1 Tory MP, but still we have a Tory PM foisted on us. We voted to stay in the EU by a 2/3rds margin, and yet, here we are getting yanked out of it.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Again, I repeat my claim that this is a Mickey Mouse democracy. Nothing that has happened these past weeks can sway me from that viewpoint.
Up here in Scotland, there is 1 Tory MP, but still we have a Tory PM foisted on us. We voted to stay in the EU by a 2/3rds margin, and yet, here we are getting yanked out of it.
Democracy? Don't make me laugh...
With all due respect, that comes down to who you're talking about it being a democracy of or for; i.e. the democratic grouping being discussed. Is the British Parliament accountable to Cornwall? No. To Scotland? No. To Great Britain? Broadly speaking, yes. Scotland is treated in this regard as having as much as of a general say as the equivalent number of people living elsewhere, be it in Ireland or London. If it were undertaken in absolutely any other way, it would grant Scottish votes a primacy above all others, which would indeed make it a mickey mouse democracy.
My perspective, after much thought, is simple. When Scotland went to the polls, it went there with certain promises of devolution in mind. Foreign policy and trade agreements were not one of those devolutions. Scotland voted to stay on the understanding that foreign policy was subordinate to the will of the British Government, which derives its mandate from the British Parliament, which derives its mandate from the majority of people in Britain. There was never any promise, implied or otherwise, that the devolved Scottish Parliament would have control of foreign policy, or that Scotland would in future be allowed to make its own choices on foreign policy separate to those of the British Government.
As such, the last independence referendum is still valid, and calling for a fresh one on the basis of 'the foreign policy shift now being undertaken is not what the Scottish people want', well, sorry? That was kind of part of the deal. If Scotland voted to stay, it was implicitly agreeing that foreign policy would run from Westminster, there was never any offer of anything else on that subject. If Scotland wanted an independent foreign policy, it would have voted to leave. That was kind of the point, either the primacy of Westminster in certain affairs was accepted to be valid, or Scotland needed to make it's own way.
Otherwise, where does it end? Seriously? How can Scotland maintain a separate foreign policy whilst remaining part of Britain? Genuine question there. All I've heard so far is, 'INDYREF MK2 WOOO', but you can't hold an indyref every time a policy shift in the domain of the British Government (which has been accepted as the legitimate authority to make those decisions for the collective British people) occurs. What would be a practical solution to this issue, that doesn't either overrule the primacy of the British Government, or turn us into a mickey mouse democracy whereby Scottish votes are considered to be worth more? Because I can't think of anything.
Either Scotland has to accept that foreign policy is the department of the British Government (and therefore the British people as a whole), or it has to be independent. And that choice was made not that long ago. I suppose another indyref could be called, but even if Scotland voted to stay again, all it would mean is that Scotland reserves the right to call an indyref every time the British Government makes a decision. In which case, it's not really accepting the primacy of the British Parliament?
If you lean towards extremes, left/right wing, you are likely to only mix with people of the same ideology. So therefore the supporters of Jeremy Corbyn and likely to be meeting people that reinforce the belief that he is what the Labour party needs. All those new members that voted for JC, and those joining, are all of the same ideology. No matter what they say they, can’t possibly know what the majority of Labour voters are thinking.
The MP’s calling for him to step down will have a better feel for things as they will be meeting these voters. This is probably why they feel he needs to go, there is concern that Labour won’t win the next election. The idea that these MP’s are self-serving actually reinforces the concerns over JC. If they are so concerned about keeping their seat and all the benefits that go with it, they will want Labour to be attractive to the general public. JC might be motivated by noble ideals, but his appeal will be too limited.
Sorry, but that's a load of tripe, as illustrated above in the post you quote. Surely, if MPs are so sensitive to the realities of their electorate's views, all those Labour MPs up here wouldn't have managed to spend the last decade being consistently, repeatedly, unrepentantly wrong, to the point where they were finally got rid of with swings of 30-35%, sometimes with majorities so many thousands strong the seats were considered "bastions" of Labour flipping completely the other way.
As for noble ideals and limited appeal - polling consistently shows the electorate are far, far to the left of the PLP in terms of their policy preferences, to the point that nationalisation of utilities, transport etc routinely comes back between 60 and 70%, the problem is they've been convinced we can't afford to do those things. Now, Jeremy might not be any more able to persuade people that's wrong than his predecessors, but this idea that he's a raging Trot trying to appeal to a nation of Little Thatchers is just flat out untrue.
But regardless, the opinions of the PLP on Corbyn's electability are not sufficient justification to overrule the democratic will of the party membership and change the rules of the party on a whim to exclude the incumbent leader who is entitled to be on the ballot. If the PLP want to launch a leadership challenge, that's their right, ill-advised though it is at the present time, but this grotesque perversion of the democratic process - staggered, orchestrated resignations with media collusion to try and force him to step down, then when that failed throwing out the party rulebook and removing him from the ballot via a secret vote of the NEC - is disgusting behaviour, and if the goal is genuinely to make Labour "electable"(maybe I'm old fashioned by the way, but I always thought you did that by persuading people to agree with you, not by just vacantly trotting along in the wake of public opinion as interpreted by focus groups), is ludicrously and hilariously counter-productive. If this farce actually succeeds in offing Corbyn the party is going to go into full-scale rebellion, the unions will pull their funding, and the media narrative for the next five years is going to be of a Labour party tearing itself to pieces, assuming Labour survives as a coherent entity at all.
Electable? Labour in this state couldn't win a school talent show, nevermind a national election, and nobody's to blame for that but the PLP morons who apparently launched this whole debacle without ever once asking themselves what they'd do if Corbyn didn't so as he was told.
As I keep saying, no matter how noble his ideals are, he needs to be able to appeal to more than just traditional Labour voters, which he isn't. I'm not saying that currently the rest of the Labour party is any better, but if they actually made the effort, they could be. Corbyn at his core is too left wing, he may learn to compromise (I don't think he really could personally. If he did it would be get what he wanted) but the public won't trust him enough.
You could argue that the Liberals are potentially in a stronger position. Now that most of those that the public felt betrayed their values have gone, they could rebuild and attract Labour voters. The country needs a fair system, not a radical one.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Again, I repeat my claim that this is a Mickey Mouse democracy. Nothing that has happened these past weeks can sway me from that viewpoint.
Up here in Scotland, there is 1 Tory MP, but still we have a Tory PM foisted on us. We voted to stay in the EU by a 2/3rds margin, and yet, here we are getting yanked out of it.
Democracy? Don't make me laugh...
With all due respect, that comes down to who you're talking about it being a democracy of or for; i.e. the democratic grouping being discussed. Is the British Parliament accountable to Cornwall? No. To Scotland? No. To Great Britain? Broadly speaking, yes. Scotland is treated in this regard as having as much as of a general say as the equivalent number of people living elsewhere, be it in Ireland or London. If it were undertaken in absolutely any other way, it would grant Scottish votes a primacy above all others, which would indeed make it a mickey mouse democracy.
My perspective, after much thought, is simple. When Scotland went to the polls, it went there with certain promises of devolution in mind. Foreign policy and trade agreements were not one of those devolutions. Scotland voted to stay on the understanding that foreign policy was subordinate to the will of the British Government, which derives its mandate from the British Parliament, which derives its mandate from the majority of people in Britain. There was never any promise, implied or otherwise, that the devolved Scottish Parliament would have control of foreign policy, or that Scotland would in future be allowed to make its own choices on foreign policy separate to those of the British Government.
As such, the last independence referendum is still valid, and calling for a fresh one on the basis of 'the foreign policy shift now being undertaken is not what the Scottish people want', well, sorry? That was kind of part of the deal. If Scotland voted to stay, it was implicitly agreeing that foreign policy would run from Westminster, there was never any offer of anything else on that subject. If Scotland wanted an independent foreign policy, it would have voted to leave. That was kind of the point, either the primacy of Westminster in certain affairs was accepted to be valid, or Scotland needed to make it's own way.
Otherwise, where does it end? Seriously? How can Scotland maintain a separate foreign policy whilst remaining part of Britain? Genuine question there. All I've heard so far is, 'INDYREF MK2 WOOO', but you can't hold an indyref every time a policy shift in the domain of the British Government (which has been accepted as the legitimate authority to make those decisions for the collective British people) occurs. What would be a practical solution to this issue, that doesn't either overrule the primacy of the British Government, or turn us into a mickey mouse democracy whereby Scottish votes are considered to be worth more? Because I can't think of anything.
Either Scotland has to accept that foreign policy is the department of the British Government (and therefore the British people as a whole), or it has to be independent. And that choice was made not that long ago. I suppose another indyref could be called, but even if Scotland voted to stay again, all it would mean is that Scotland reserves the right to call an indyref every time the British Government makes a decision. In which case, it's not really accepting the primacy of the British Parliament?
I'm calling for 2 things:
1) Article 50 to be invoked ASAP
2) A general election to be held so that the British public can have a say on May's coronation.
Talk of the Labour party being a shambles, and this being able unable to provide an effective opposition, is neither here nor there. That's not the British public's problem. At a stretch, the SNP could be the opposition - they seem to be making a good go of it as it stands.
If these two points happen, then, and only then can we claim to have some semblance of democracy.
The political instability card being played for not invoking article 50 won't wash anymore. We have May in place. Give her a few weeks to get settled in, and devise a strategy/negotiating team, and let's get on with it.
As always with the Scotland issue, we'll have to agree to disagree.
As always with the Scotland issue, we'll have to agree to disagree.
I'm aware we disagree on the whole referendum thing, but that wasn't the point of my post. I'm genuinely curious as to exactly what action or solution could be undertaken to acknowledge the fact Scotland can vote differently without either undermining democracy in Britain (e.g. prioritising Scottish opinion above British), or effectively undermining the primacy of the British Government (e.g. another indyref every time a policy shift occurs). Can you think of anything? Because I honestly can't, and I'm curious to see if anyone else can.
I personally feel that a snap election now would be a very bad idea. We need a solid government. Labour Party is in no condition to contend for a premiership. Corbyn is not PM material and frankly, neither are any of the other Labour leadership candidates.
As always with the Scotland issue, we'll have to agree to disagree.
I'm aware we disagree on the whole referendum thing, but that wasn't the point of my post. I'm genuinely curious as to exactly what action or solution could be undertaken to acknowledge the fact Scotland can vote differently without either undermining democracy in Britain (e.g. prioritising Scottish opinion above British), or effectively undermining the primacy of the British Government (e.g. another indyref every time a policy shift occurs). Can you think of anything? Because I honestly can't, and I'm curious to see if anyone else can.
A full federal solution, with an elected senate to replace the lords, and England divided into regions to balance things up. That would be a big help and a good start.
It's not England's fault for being 85% of the UK's population, but it's high time something was done to address the issue.
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angelofvengeance wrote: I personally feel that a snap election now would be a very bad idea. We need a solid government. Labour Party is in no condition to contend for a premiership. Corbyn is not PM material and frankly, neither are any of the other Labour leadership candidates.
I'm no fan of the Conservative party, but if Labour are a shambles, it's not the Tories fault, and the British public shouldn't be denied a GE just because a bunch of Blairites are too busy stabbing Corbyn in the back, than provide effective opposition.
As always with the Scotland issue, we'll have to agree to disagree.
I'm aware we disagree on the whole referendum thing, but that wasn't the point of my post. I'm genuinely curious as to exactly what action or solution could be undertaken to acknowledge the fact Scotland can vote differently without either undermining democracy in Britain (e.g. prioritising Scottish opinion above British), or effectively undermining the primacy of the British Government (e.g. another indyref every time a policy shift occurs). Can you think of anything? Because I honestly can't, and I'm curious to see if anyone else can.
A full federal solution, with an elected senate to replace the lords, and England divided into regions to balance things up. That would be a big help and a good start.
It's not England's fault for being 85% of the UK's population, but it's high time something was done to address the issue.
But wouldn't that still leave us in exactly the same position? I mean, America is fully federalised, but the national Govenment still determines foreign policy. If we'd been federalised a year ago, we'd still be in exactly the same position, with Scotland having voted differently and still leaving the Union against it's will.
As always with the Scotland issue, we'll have to agree to disagree.
I'm aware we disagree on the whole referendum thing, but that wasn't the point of my post. I'm genuinely curious as to exactly what action or solution could be undertaken to acknowledge the fact Scotland can vote differently without either undermining democracy in Britain (e.g. prioritising Scottish opinion above British), or effectively undermining the primacy of the British Government (e.g. another indyref every time a policy shift occurs). Can you think of anything? Because I honestly can't, and I'm curious to see if anyone else can.
A full federal solution, with an elected senate to replace the lords, and England divided into regions to balance things up. That would be a big help and a good start.
It's not England's fault for being 85% of the UK's population, but it's high time something was done to address the issue.
But wouldn't that still leave us in exactly the same position? I mean, America is fully federalised, but the national Govenment still determines foreign policy. If we'd been federalised a year ago, we'd still be in exactly the same position, with Scotland having voted differently and still leaving the Union against it's will.
Not if it required a specified majority of the regions to vote for a constitutional change (like in the US where you need 2/3rds of the states to bring in a constitutional amendment, if I remember it correctly) in order for it to pass. Then it would depend on how these regions were set up as to whether it would have been possible for Leave to win 2/3rds of the regions with only 52% of the national vote.
Not if it required a specified majority of the regions to vote for a constitutional change (like in the US where you need 2/3rds of the states to bring in a constitutional amendment, if I remember it correctly) in order for it to pass. Then it would depend on how these regions were set up as to whether it would have been possible for Leave to win 2/3rds of the regions with only 52% of the national vote.
Are you suggesting that every time a foreign policy change is enacted by a government, it should need to be ratified by regional assemblies? Because if so, that just leads to the situation whereby your vote can be horribly devalued depending on where you live, and the general undermining of democracy. Unless you're going to set up a Scottish Parliament equivalent for every region of six million people. In which case, then again, you just end up with the same scenario, where Scotland can be outvoted by the rest of Britain and made to do something against its will.
In other words, it either combines the undermining of national government with the undermining of democracy, or institutes the undermining of national government for no discernible change in the situation with regards to Scotland.
I'm with Malus on this one, Ketara, - I voted leave, but I recognise the vote was pretty close.
If we had a senate, and regions for England, London, and other places that voted remain, might have acted as a counter-balance in such a crucial vote, and had a majority still voted to leave, say the 2/3rds clause, it would have been a lot fairer, in my view.
Obviously, we can't have a vote on every foreign policy discussion, just the big decisions like EU membership, otherwise, government would grind to a halt.
And if we had a US style senate with the senate having some powers denied to Parliament, I think we'd be in a better position for checks and balances...
Would it change the Scotland situation? I don't know...
Not if it required a specified majority of the regions to vote for a constitutional change (like in the US where you need 2/3rds of the states to bring in a constitutional amendment, if I remember it correctly) in order for it to pass. Then it would depend on how these regions were set up as to whether it would have been possible for Leave to win 2/3rds of the regions with only 52% of the national vote.
Are you suggesting that every time a foreign policy change is enacted by a government, it should need to be ratified by regional assemblies? Because if so, that just leads to the situation whereby your vote can be horribly devalued depending on where you live, and the general undermining of democracy. Unless you're going to set up a Scottish Parliament equivalent for every region of six million people. In which case, then again, you just end up with the same scenario, where Scotland can be outvoted by the rest of Britain and made to do something against its will.
In other words, it either combines the undermining of national government with the undermining of democracy, or institutes the undermining of national government for no discernible change in the situation with regards to Scotland.
Leaving the EU is not just Foreign Policy, though. It has impacts across too wide an area to be put entirely into that box. It is more akin to a constitutional change than a purely foreign policy one.
The economy was always going to drop after the Brexit result came through since no-one knew what would happen. Markets hate uncertainty. The pound has only recovered slightly since Theresa May won the PM bid - it's nowhere near what it was before the referendum though. This is only the short term effects, we're yet to see the long term effects. There are already talks of the science and research sector missing out on world leading researchers for collaborations and funding (which may or may not get replaced). Then we need to see just exactly what Theresa May manages to get for us in the Brexit deal, if it even happens (was a quiet Remainer), never mind making new trade deals with other countries such as the USA and Canada (since the existing deals were made through the EU). Furthermore, the media is either Brexit or Bremain. You'll never get neutral facts within the media, you'll need to do your own research.
Also I am offended that you proclaim that Britain voted the right way. 48% of voters would disagree with you. It was an incredibly close call and while I dejectedly accepted the result, to suggest that we had voted the correct decision and disregard the people who voted Remain is a slap in the face. Especially for those of us (myself included) who will be living a good 60 years or so with this monumental decision. As a result I am considering my options about moving abroad. Brexit could be the best thing that the UK ever did, likewise it could be the worst thing that the UK ever did - and I'm not willing to take the risk if it's the latter.
I actually didn't proclaim they voted the "right" way, I did congratulate them on leaving the EU though, which in my opinion was a good move. I am pointing out the double standard of the British left in regards to the Media. Anyone with knowledge of the market knew just as you said, that the market would decline directly after the BREXIT vote, I also heard on a news radio program that one of the reasons for its sharp decline was that the Media had been saying the BREXIT vote was a sure thing to fail and a lot of businesses tried to capitalize on that, and when the vote passed they quickly did a 180 and attempted to salvage their previous investments.
In other words, everyone knew the market would crash for a bit until confidence had been restored. The Left wing media outlets were screaming as I mentioned, hell even here in America I listened to no fewer then three experts on the British economy talking on NPR and another radio station about how this was a huge sign, and that the economy would remain this bad because of the "racist" right wing nutjobs voting to leave. They actually used the word Racist mind you. Apparently for disagreeing with the left they are all racists.
Now that the vote is a bit older the market has recovered remarkably well, if you look at the numbers the British stock market the FTSE 100 is at its highest point since August of last year and is STILL going up!
Those same news outlets here in the U.S. and those same experts on the British economy are not coming forwards to redact their statements, nor to apologize for their rash reaction, that is the problem. I hate America's two party system because your either right or your left, with very little in the way of a middle ground, and in England it appears that is the case now as well.
The FTSE 250, however, is not recovering so quickly and more accurately represents british businesses as a whole (the FTSE 100 is heavily skewed to large International businesses which will be less affected by Brexit than the smaller companies included in the 250). That is currently still down on the pre-vote level.
The Pound is also still way down against the dollar, which could affect fuel prices. Pound also still way down against the Euro. They also do not seem to be recovering.
A Town Called Malus wrote: The FTSE 250, however, is not recovering so quickly and more accurately represents british businesses as a whole (the FTSE 100 is heavily skewed to large International businesses which will be less affected by Brexit than the smaller companies included in the 250). That is currently still down on the pre-vote level.
The Pound is also still way down against the dollar, which could affect fuel prices. Pound also still way down against the Euro. They also do not seem to be recovering.
I've said this a dozen times before, but again for both sides; trying to measure the economic difficulties brexit caused won't be feasible until we have a few years worth of data to draw from. It'll take another five years of data after that before we can ascertain whether it was a good, bad or negligible thing.
At the moment, I could cherry pick an economic argument and data to support either position, and that's because there's no real argument to be made either way as of yet beyond 'The markets are a bit jittery because of uncertainty'. They could correct by next week, or do the opposite, and then reverse again after whichever one.
A Town Called Malus wrote: The FTSE 250, however, is not recovering so quickly and more accurately represents british businesses as a whole (the FTSE 100 is heavily skewed to large International businesses which will be less affected by Brexit than the smaller companies included in the 250). That is currently still down on the pre-vote level.
The Pound is also still way down against the dollar, which could affect fuel prices. Pound also still way down against the Euro. They also do not seem to be recovering.
I've said this a dozen times before, but again for both sides; trying to measure the economic difficulties brexit caused won't be feasible until we have a few years worth of data to draw from. It'll take another five years of data after that before we can ascertain whether it was a good, bad or negligible thing.
At the moment, I could cherry pick an economic argument and data to support either position, and that's because there's no real argument to be made either way as of yet beyond 'The markets are a bit jittery because of uncertainty'. They could correct by next week, or do the opposite, and then reverse again after whichever one.
Agreed. I think the true impact on our markets will be when the negotiations for the exit begin and when the final deal is announced. If the UK cannot get the passports businesses want then we may be in serious trouble. If we can get them then things will probably be the same as if we had stayed.
A Town Called Malus wrote: The FTSE 250, however, is not recovering so quickly and more accurately represents british businesses as a whole (the FTSE 100 is heavily skewed to large International businesses which will be less affected by Brexit than the smaller companies included in the 250). That is currently still down on the pre-vote level.
The Pound is also still way down against the dollar, which could affect fuel prices. Pound also still way down against the Euro. They also do not seem to be recovering.
That is a very misleading post. The FTSE 250 is recovered completely to where it was prior to the vote and is only slightly lower then it was at the start of the year, The Left aggrandized the sudden drop in the stock market on June 27th saying this is how the british economy would be from then on. Two weeks later though, the FTSE250 went up about 2k points, or in other words, recovering to pre-vote levels as you said.
As far as the British pound, if you look at the numbers, the British pound has been steadily declining for years, you can either attribute that to global uncertainties, the rise of the Chinese Yen or you can blame all of it on a single vote that happened years after the decline started.
A Town Called Malus wrote: The FTSE 250, however, is not recovering so quickly and more accurately represents british businesses as a whole (the FTSE 100 is heavily skewed to large International businesses which will be less affected by Brexit than the smaller companies included in the 250). That is currently still down on the pre-vote level.
The Pound is also still way down against the dollar, which could affect fuel prices. Pound also still way down against the Euro. They also do not seem to be recovering.
I've said this a dozen times before, but again for both sides; trying to measure the economic difficulties brexit caused won't be feasible until we have a few years worth of data to draw from. It'll take another five years of data after that before we can ascertain whether it was a good, bad or negligible thing.
At the moment, I could cherry pick an economic argument and data to support either position, and that's because there's no real argument to be made either way as of yet beyond 'The markets are a bit jittery because of uncertainty'. They could correct by next week, or do the opposite, and then reverse again after whichever one.
Agree completely, which is why I pointed out that the "Economic" experts that news outlets keep producing are about as much use as a fart in a space suit.
A Town Called Malus wrote: The FTSE 250, however, is not recovering so quickly and more accurately represents british businesses as a whole (the FTSE 100 is heavily skewed to large International businesses which will be less affected by Brexit than the smaller companies included in the 250). That is currently still down on the pre-vote level.
The Pound is also still way down against the dollar, which could affect fuel prices. Pound also still way down against the Euro. They also do not seem to be recovering.
That is a very misleading post. The FTSE 250 is recovered completely to where it was prior to the vote and is only slightly lower then it was at the start of the year, The Left aggrandized the sudden drop in the stock market on June 27th saying this is how the british economy would be from then on. Two weeks later though, the FTSE250 went up about 2k points, or in other words, recovering to pre-vote levels as you said.
FTSE 250 on June 23rd: 17,333.51. FTSE 250 today: 16,790.90 For most of June it was around the 17,000 mark.
It's close but not at the same level.
Also, the pound may have been declining for years but never so harshly except for ~Jan 2009.
As always with the Scotland issue, we'll have to agree to disagree.
I'm aware we disagree on the whole referendum thing, but that wasn't the point of my post. I'm genuinely curious as to exactly what action or solution could be undertaken to acknowledge the fact Scotland can vote differently without either undermining democracy in Britain (e.g. prioritising Scottish opinion above British), or effectively undermining the primacy of the British Government (e.g. another indyref every time a policy shift occurs). Can you think of anything? Because I honestly can't, and I'm curious to see if anyone else can.
A full federal solution, with an elected senate to replace the lords, and England divided into regions to balance things up. That would be a big help and a good start.
It's not England's fault for being 85% of the UK's population, but it's high time something was done to address the issue.
I have sometimes thought that a senate similar to the US model, with two representatives from each shire, might be a good idea. This obviously still gives the English nation a majority of the seats, but it should be considered that the English nation is very far from a monobloc. If London had the same weight in the UK senate as Derbyshire or Cornwall, that would go a long way to reducing the current concentration of power in the south-east.
As always with the Scotland issue, we'll have to agree to disagree.
I'm aware we disagree on the whole referendum thing, but that wasn't the point of my post. I'm genuinely curious as to exactly what action or solution could be undertaken to acknowledge the fact Scotland can vote differently without either undermining democracy in Britain (e.g. prioritising Scottish opinion above British), or effectively undermining the primacy of the British Government (e.g. another indyref every time a policy shift occurs). Can you think of anything? Because I honestly can't, and I'm curious to see if anyone else can.
A full federal solution, with an elected senate to replace the lords, and England divided into regions to balance things up. That would be a big help and a good start.
The House of Lords is broken, but not for reasons some think.
Do you know when the Uk government was able to draft in a raft of new draconian legislation.
Its was after getting rid of (most of) the hereditaries.
People assume the hereditaries were all tories, all the time. When in fact it was they who put the brakes on Thatcher, not the elected or appointee parlimentarians. When they did the same to Blair he got rid of them because he wasnt going to shand for anyone being in his way.
Then replaced them with appointees, made more peers than anyone since the time of William the Conqueror.
Elect the whole house you might say. But the reason we have our problems is because of the sort of people we elect into office. Time and again. Moar democracy is not the answer if we cant get a handle on those we elect.
The House of Lords as an appointed advisory house works, but the determination as to who appouints members should be taken away from the commons because it gets used as a means of tooling the house with yes men, and defeats the object of it being there.
Its is odd that the best de facto custodianship came from people who were born in to the position and therefore didn't have to kiss anyones arse to get there or stay there, and can and would oppose self serving dick moves by elected government officials. Its a realipolitik answer rather than a spun one, and therefore actually worked rather than 'looked right'. That system wasn't ideal, far from it, but it actually worked and kept parliament on the straight and narrow until 1999. Whet we need is a system of appointees that better reflects the society than a coterie of nobles. As fro the nobles and the bishops, they should be allowed to stay as a portion of the whole, they are the people who have done most to keep up the good work. Add a smattering of captains of industry, retired politicians only of the members of the upper house think they deserve it. So no Lord Two Jags thank you. Add to that a large percentage about 30% total of public nominees appointed by independent committee.
All told you would have an upper house worthy of its name and its duty - to keep the lower house in check and balance.
If you just elect them you might as well just have one chamber, as they have the same mandate.
To Kilkrazy, I'll say this: I think the appetite is there amongst the British public for an elected senate, but as always, the problem is Westminster. Trying to get them to surrender power would be like getting blood out of a stone.
To Orlanth, I say this: Fair points about Lords of yesteryear, but no matter how benign they were, or how good they were, an unelected lord making decisions is still bad for democracy.
If it were up to me, I'd keep 5 year terms for MPs, but I would give the small number of senators a 7 year term, so they could take the longer view and work in the national interest, a sort of elder statesman or woman type.
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Mozzyfuzzy wrote: Bit late on this but, has anyone else enjoyed the irony of unelected leaders of labour past, telling JC he's unelectable?
I guess it takes one to know one.
It's particularly funny to see Neil Kinnock, a man who once campaigned against the EU, and the house of lords, lecture Corbyn on Labour values.
For those who don't know, Kinnock is now a lord, and used to work for the EU
Kilkrazy wrote: It would have been ridiculous for the current leader not to automatically go on the ballot form, in my opinion. The business with the £3 members is slightly different.
It was the £3 members who swept Corbyn into power. The vote to exclude them from the election came after Corbyn and a couple of his supporters had left the meeting, and it was not a scheduled agenda item.
It therefore looks like a bit of a stitch-up.
This of course emphasises how disliked Corbyn is within the party leadership and, more importantly, his lack of skill at political management.
A seasoned operator like Harold Wilson would never have allowed himself to be outmanoeuvred in this way. After getting the vote in his favour he would have lit his pipe, asked if there was any other business, declared the session closed and called for beer and sandwiches to celebrate a job well done. No chances for sneaky voting behind his back.
Could he have declared the session closed? Isn't that the purpose of the chair of the party? Anyhow, Corbyn won his position in 2015 so the people who are getting excluded because they joined up during the last six months will likely not harm him.
Replace the Lords with an elected Senate is bad juju. Leave them as they are, because Parliament has the power to bypass the lords anyway, (Parlimentary Acts 1911 +1949).
Honestly, how would a senate work? Would it be like the American system? Or would it be two Houses of Parliament? If it is the latter that is a colossal waste of money. What if one house is one party and the other is the other? That is also a bad idea.
I do have to say this about the Scotland issue and the issue of general democracy. Scotland has to accept that it should get less of a political say than London, merely because London has more people than all of Scotland. Unfortunately their opinions matter more than yours.
welshhoppo wrote: Replace the Lords with an elected Senate is bad juju. Leave them as they are, because Parliament has the power to bypass the lords anyway, (Parlimentary Acts 1911 +1949).
Honestly, how would a senate work? Would it be like the American system? Or would it be two Houses of Parliament? If it is the latter that is a colossal waste of money. What if one house is one party and the other is the other? That is also a bad idea.
I always thought that the best thing to do would be to have an upper house made up of people with a real stake in the country and expertise. Say, representatives of the Army, Navy & RAF, Doctors, University lecturers & teachers, policemen, judges & firemen, the top ten richest private British citizens, ex-prime ministers, a handful of CEO's from the FTSE 100, a random sample of people on jobseekers, several clergymen representing all the major faiths, all the Mayors from the major cities, people with the highest order of knighthood, and so on. Put them in for five year stints.
The selection process would be a bit of a pain to codify the first time around, as you'd need a different selection process for each type of seat (religious, military, judicial, and so on), but that's the sort of thing I wouldn't mind spending a bit of taxpayer money on. Fill up two or three hundred seats like that, and you'll end up with a really diverse spread of people from all walks of life, all with something invested in this country.
welshhoppo wrote: Replace the Lords with an elected Senate is bad juju. Leave them as they are, because Parliament has the power to bypass the lords anyway, (Parlimentary Acts 1911 +1949).
Honestly, how would a senate work? Would it be like the American system? Or would it be two Houses of Parliament? If it is the latter that is a colossal waste of money. What if one house is one party and the other is the other? That is also a bad idea.
I do have to say this about the Scotland issue and the issue of general democracy. Scotland has to accept that it should get less of a political say than London, merely because London has more people than all of Scotland. Unfortunately their opinions matter more than yours.
While I didn't specify it, I assumed that reconfiguring the second chamber would involve a lot of changes to the constitution among which would be changes to the Parliamentary Act.
The purpose of the senate, as in the US system, is that all regions of the country were equally represented in Parliament whatever their actual population.
This would deal with the Scotland situation, which BTW I believe is false anyway. Democracy as practiced in western countries is not about the 50.00000000000000001 per cent of the population being allowed to dictate to the 49.99999999999999999 per cent of people with different views.
It'll remove all memory of it from the subsequent 20 years worth of matured adults, and assuming no great economic catastrophe on our part and success on the EU's part, where will the political desire to re-run a new entry come from? Especially considering a new entry would be a full subscription to things like the Euro, which many remainers even now do not want.
That's simple. It will come from a desire to be able to make a difference on the global stage. As other nations with larger populations become more industrialised, the small nations will have less say in the global politics. The Country's ability to influence the world in economic and political terms will diminish. By being part of Europe you have the ability to highlight our values on this stage that can then goes forward as the approach of group of nations. Little England will be increasing marginalised as the more economical and political advantages come from working with the bigger nations. The, what will then be, asian power houses will then be able to dominate and trade etc negotiations because we simply couldn't afford to have it fall apart.
Ketara wrote: Even if your model were accurate, all it would guarantee is that we'd leave again twenty years subsequent to rejoining because another 20 years worth of people who didn't care for the EU would then become the largest voterbase. Unless you're going to not only predict the economic consequences I just gave, but a societal attitude shift forty years from now?.
That's possible but probably unlikely. The current referendum was won because of an aging population with many having mild to significant bigoted views from a period when education was much poorer than it was today combined with a general dissatisfaction of the political process due to the pain/gain inequalities that the Tory party has wrought through society during a massive economical upheaval. These factors are unlikely to all combine in the future. A significant majority are now educated to a much better standard (a significant fraction to University level) where they daily come into contact with a wide variety of cultures from across the globe. This leads to understanding and empathy as well as friends that means they don't fall victim to the fear of 'aliens' invading the country and ruining it 'for the Brits' which is then inflamed by demagogues with just plainly false and misleading slogans. If anything young people in general are more open to sharing in a wider community than older people because they have lived as part of a global community and they live in hope for the future not fear it.
Ketara wrote: Which is? Visa free travel in Europe? Being able to export to Europe with one less bit of paperwork? Another academic grant body to apply to? Beyond vague things like 'European unity', there's precious little in the way of hard obviously visible benefits enjoyed by the majority of the populace. And I'm really doubting that should things go alright, those things would be sufficient to impact upon opinion twenty five years hence. Things will be decided by the issues of the day and recent memory when that time comes.
So lets see, Visa free work for anyone anywhere in Europe, whether that is a Teacher, Doctor, Skiing Instructor whereas future work visa's will likely be restricted in someway (unless the door swings both ways)
Just general access to wider and broader work areas (say for example they wanted to work in a field that was mainly based in Germany)
Access to Small Business grants to start up their own business
Funding for their education in other countries (like Erasmus)
Grants to get them involved in society
Just look here for more information:- http://ec.europa.eu/youth/index_en.htm And that's not taking into account things like European Regional Development Fund that, for example, put more than £0.5billion into regenerating Hull to make it a more vibrant environment that all can enjoy and will provide better prospects for the younger people of that city.
Ketara wrote: See, I'm afraid this is where I stop taking you seriously. This is literally the classical whiggish view of society, where everything is always ascending to some new culturally superior civilisation, that we are only now just reaching the pinnacle of. Every single generation before you has said exactly the same thing in the name of 'progress', but I'm pretty sure what you and a 19th century colonialist would view as 'progressive' are quite substantially different. In another 50 years time, it'll be different again.
I never said we were ascending to a culturally superior community, the rampant excessive capitalism could quite well be a big downfall for society. I'm more of the opinion that you can be progressive and hopefully change things for the better by being in the thick of things like being in the growing global entities (EU for us) that are forming or you can be regressive with the vision 'that it wasn't like this in my day' so lets go back to it even if it doesn't fit modern society very well. All it means that you will be dragged along in the current while desperately trying to swim backwards only to realise that you've been dragged there anyway and exhausted yourself by doing it. And realistically we are in a better society than we were 200 hundred, even 30 years ago. Technology, medical care, the economy, welfare are all superior than they were and we have got to here by people thinking progressively and how to make things better. Yes sometimes there are mistakes but we are definitely better off now than we were.
Dear God, Boris just made Foreign Secretary. I knew she'd have to give him a good portfolio, but I was hoping she'd feed him the Home Secretary position to choke on.
Hammond is Chancellor, and Osoborne's been given the boot. Looks like his sudden brownnosing didn't save him.
welshhoppo wrote: Replace the Lords with an elected Senate is bad juju. Leave them as they are, because Parliament has the power to bypass the lords anyway, (Parlimentary Acts 1911 +1949).
Honestly, how would a senate work? Would it be like the American system? Or would it be two Houses of Parliament? If it is the latter that is a colossal waste of money. What if one house is one party and the other is the other? That is also a bad idea.
I do have to say this about the Scotland issue and the issue of general democracy. Scotland has to accept that it should get less of a political say than London, merely because London has more people than all of Scotland. Unfortunately their opinions matter more than yours.
While I didn't specify it, I assumed that reconfiguring the second chamber would involve a lot of changes to the constitution among which would be changes to the Parliamentary Act.
The purpose of the senate, as in the US system, is that all regions of the country were equally represented in Parliament whatever their actual population.
This would deal with the Scotland situation, which BTW I believe is false anyway. Democracy as practiced in western countries is not about the 50.00000000000000001 per cent of the population being allowed to dictate to the 49.99999999999999999 per cent of people with different views.
I like Ketara's idea too.
Actually... prior to the 17th amendment, the US Senate was originally elected by the State's legislature, rather than the people directly electing each Senators.
Therefore, the states governance had a certain degree of representation in the General Government. The General Government would derive authority from the citizens of the United States and the states to wield power over certain objects that affected the nation as a whole. State governments would continue to derive authority from their respective citizens to wield power over objects enumerated in their state's constitutions. At the time, it was felt that state representation in the national government would act as a check against any usurpation of state power by the General Government.
Since the passage of the 17th amendment... states rights and the ideals of the 10th Amendment went to the gaks.
So I'd argue that it's your regional government (however it's constructed) elects an equal # of senators to the office. If you'd rather the people to directly vote in the Senators... I'm not sure the outcomes would be any different than your existing Westminster system.
Ketara wrote: Dear God, Boris just made Foreign Secretary. I knew she'd have to give him a good portfolio, but I was hoping she'd feed him the Home Secretary position to choke on.
Hammond is Chancellor, and Osoborne's been given the boot. Looks like his sudden brownnosing didn't save him.
Well, Shocked at BoJo. Maybe he will choke on it since he'll be involved in Article 50 and all that entails going forwards.
That's simple. It will come from a desire to be able to make a difference on the global stage.
Like Norway? I'm not sure your Joe Bloggs in the street really cares about 'making a difference on the global stage', we leave that sort of thing to posturing politicians.
As other nations with larger populations become more industrialised, the small nations will have less say in the global politics. The Country's ability to influence the world in economic and political terms will diminish.
Industrialisation does not equate to influence in global politics. And even if it did, so what? You don't see people in Switzerland right saying, 'Oh Golly Gosh, I belong to an insignificant nation, I'd better bind my country to ever closer union with Germany so that my people can have more influence!' Quite the opposite, by contemporary events.
By being part of Europe you have the ability to highlight our values on this stage that can then goes forward as the approach of group of nations. Little England will be increasing marginalised as the more economical and political advantages come from working with the bigger nations. The, what will then be, asian power houses will then be able to dominate and trade etc negotiations because we simply couldn't afford to have it fall apart.
We're projected to have the biggest economy in Europe within fifty years, and our population to overtake both Germany and Russia. I'm not quite feeling the narrative of decline you're feeding me here. Sure, we might not be a superpower, but we aren't exactly going to be Madagascar in twenty years, no matter how you spin it.
That's possible but probably unlikely. The current referendum was won because of an aging population with many having mild to significant bigoted views from a period when education was much poorer than it was today combined with a general dissatisfaction of the political process due to the pain/gain inequalities that the Tory party has wrought through society during a massive economical upheaval.
Firstly, people who aren't bigoted voted out, myself among them. Secondly, I'd agree that whilst less people were educated in the 1950's, the overall general quality of education since has not gone up, if anything, it's been the opposite. Finally, the Labour party had something to do with it.
These factors are unlikely to all combine in the future. A significant majority are now educated to a much better standard (a significant fraction to University level) where they daily come into contact with a wide variety of cultures from across the globe. This leads to understanding and empathy as well as friends that means they don't fall victim to the fear of 'aliens' invading the country and ruining it 'for the Brits' which is then inflamed by demagogues with just plainly false and misleading slogans. If anything young people in general are more open to sharing in a wider community than older people because they have lived as part of a global community and they live in hope for the future not fear it.
This is all pure speculation, and frankly, I would postulate, imaginary.
So lets see, Visa free work for anyone anywhere in Europe
So yep, like I said, Visa free travel.
Access to Small Business grants to start up their own business
Those are commercial loans guaranteed by the British Government, nothing to do with the EU if you're talking about t he standard start-up loans.
Funding for their education in other countries (like Erasmus)
Grants to get them involved in society
So like I said, another grant agency.
And that's not taking into account things like European Regional Development Fund that, for example, put more than £0.5billion into regenerating Hull to make it a more vibrant environment that all can enjoy and will provide better prospects for the younger people of that city.
I specified hard obvious visible benefits. Your average bloke walking down a street in Hull doesn't tend to clock that the local hall got repainted or a new art gallery opened and think 'What a great organisation the EU, funding all this for us!'.
I never said we were ascending to a culturally superior community, the rampant excessive capitalism could quite well be a big downfall for society. I'm more of the opinion that you can be progressive and hopefully change things for the better by being in the thick of things like being in the growing global entities (EU for us) that are formingor you can be regressive with the vision 'that it wasn't like this in my day' so lets go back to it even if it doesn't fit modern society very well All it means that you will be dragged along in the current while desperately trying to swim backwards only to realise that you've been dragged there anyway and exhausted yourself by doing it. And realistically we are in a better society than we were 200 hundred, even 30 years ago. Technology, medical care, the economy, welfare are all superior than they were and we have got to here by people thinking progressively and how to make things better. Yes sometimes there are mistakes but we are definitely better off now than we were.
You're conflating a lot of things there. Firstly the development of scientific method has nothing whatsoever to do with forms of government. Secondly, saying that 'we are in a better society than we were 200 hundred, even 30 years ago' is inherently incorrect, because there is no objective measurement for a society, it varies by culture and moral standards of the day. You may well find in two hundred years that they view your 'better' society as having been a retrogressive step.
Finally, you still haven't shown why merging nation-states into superstates is 'progressive' and maintaining the existing model of nation state is 'regressive'. You're simply throwing out a massively loaded deterministic, whiggish, and western view of the world and history.
Ketara wrote: Dear God, Boris just made Foreign Secretary. I knew she'd have to give him a good portfolio, but I was hoping she'd feed him the Home Secretary position to choke on.
Hammond is Chancellor, and Osoborne's been given the boot. Looks like his sudden brownnosing didn't save him.
The problem with Hammond though is that he does like to cut public spending and there is no way to do that without hitting those already on the lower payscales. This doesn't point to a more inclusive society May was talking about.
As for Boris well, it could be punishment as well. He quit out of leading the Brexit because he knew how toxic the whole mess was and May has now given him back that role. Either he leaves and 50% of the population hates him for it or he (in the end) decides it is better to remain publicly and again 50% of the population hate him for it. In essence May might be hitting Boris's chance of going for PM in 4 years time.
Ketara wrote: Dear God, Boris just made Foreign Secretary. I knew she'd have to give him a good portfolio, but I was hoping she'd feed him the Home Secretary position to choke on.
That's ah...interesting. I'm not sure how effective he will be in that role if all the big nearby nations that are major trading partners are particularly miffed at him.
welshhoppo wrote: Scotland has to accept that it should get less of a political say than London, merely because London has more people than all of Scotland.
As it stands now in matters beyond the purview of the Scottish parliament its all down to pure numbers so by that measure it is democratic. Given that Scotland is a nation in its own right, and whose population are seeing themselves less and less as 'British', the current situation is increasingly unpalatable. That's why you get calls for such things as an exemption from Brexit or even for a federal UK although in reality these things will never work (or rather be allowed to work).
A growing proportion of Scotland's population will not accept that it has "less political say" than London and having their political will routinely ignored. It may be 'democratic' in the current sense but it is also why the union is in grave danger.
Amber Rudd is the new home secretary, someone who hasn't really crossed my radar before. Looking into her background, she seems to have been one of May's attack dogs previously in chasing up FGM and to have carefully worked her way up in junior ministerial positions. She'll have her work cut out for her taking over the Home Office from May. One to keep an eye on, I think.
Fallon is being kept on. Pretty generic Tory from what I recall of him, never done anything exceptionally interesting or bad. Not aligned with the public schoolboy group so much, he didn't go to Eton, or Oxford/Cambridge.
David Davis leaving Downing Street now, which is veeery interesting. He got sidelined quite some time ago, so he'd be an interesting one to see back in the political game. It seem May is really stirring things up in the Tory party, she's muscling out a lot of Cameron's crew. I'm noting that Gove is nowhere in sight right now.
Ketara wrote: Dear God, Boris just made Foreign Secretary. I knew she'd have to give him a good portfolio, but I was hoping she'd feed him the Home Secretary position to choke on.
That's ah...interesting. I'm not sure how effective he will be in that role if all the big nearby nations that are major trading partners are particularly miffed at him.
It's just been announced David Davis is the effective Minister for Brexit, so Johnson will have nothing whatsoever to do with it. He's a reasonably good 'un that Davis, so good move there. He was Cameron's rival back in the day, and has championed opposition to lots of things I dislike. He's a grammar school working class origin bloke, Jewish mother, ex Territorial Army, University of Warwick & London Business School alumni. Kicked up lots of stinks over torture & civil liberties. May might find she bites off more than she can chew with him when it comes to her surveillance bills.
Like Norway? I'm not sure your Joe Bloggs in the street really cares about 'making a difference on the global stage', we leave that sort of thing to posturing politicians.
Yes and like Norway we will have no say on what new EU laws are in place, no veto if goods have to meet a new standard or have to be an approved by an EU certified country. Basically they say jump and we have to say 'how high?' Although the person on the street might not care about such things, we should care because this type of posturing ensures that we aren't railroaded into decisions that we either think are globally or UK bad news. Having 28 countries saying we disagree is much more powerful statement than one squeaky eccentric voice in the corner being awkward. You should care because in the long term it can have significant impacts.
Ketara wrote: Industrialisation does not equate to influence in global politics. And even if it did, so what? You don't see people in Switzerland right saying, 'Oh Golly Gosh, I belong to an insignificant nation, I'd better bind my country to ever closer union with Germany so that my people can have more influence!' Quite the opposite, by contemporary events.
You only have to look at the current steelworks crisis to know that's not true. China dumped so much steel on the market that it deflated prices to point where it had an effect on other steel manufacturers in simple move to try and dominate the steel market for years to come. Industrialisation means more money and that means a greater share of the markets which means ultimately more influence as their political decisions can then have ramifications across the globe. Realistically Switzerland has the closest ties all EEA nations than anyone (it's Switzerland-heavy to coin a new term). They have something like 250,000 people just commuting on a daily basis and on the order of 1 million EU citizens living there. It doesn't want to join the EU completely because of historical financial reasons and the EU are happy for it that way because of the employment it brings. In some ways Switzerland has just as much influence as other member states but there are specific fundamental reasons for this. It won't be the same for the UK because direct daily ties are less, it's just not comparable.
Ketara wrote: We're projected to have the biggest economy in Europe within fifty years, and our population to overtake both Germany and Russia. I'm not quite feeling the narrative of decline you're feeding me here. Sure, we might not be a superpower, but we aren't exactly going to be Madagascar in twenty years, no matter how you spin it.
Yes it was and you know why it was considered that this was a possibility - simply because of our high net immigration keeping a young youthful workforce. The reason Germany was predicted to slide was because it had low immigration and an aging population. Effectively in 50 years it was predicted that as most people would have been retired there would simply not be enough people to keep all the factory's running. It's one reason why Germany are quite happy to take a lot of Syrian immigrants because they see it as an opportunity. With the current migration movements you may find these predictions are turned on it's head (with the UK having now the same issue that Germany was predicted to have). Russia is a different issue; their economy is based largely on oil - with a world predicted to need to get itself off carbon fuels (unless we want to make a real environmental mess) then it means Russia's oil fields will effectively be worthless. Our economy is not based on oil (more banking, service, high tech industrial) so are not exposed to this shock.
Ketara wrote: Firstly, people who aren't bigoted voted out, myself among them. Secondly, I'd agree that whilst less people were educated in the 1950's, the overall general quality of education since has not gone up, if anything, it's been the opposite. Finally, the Labour party had something to do with it.
I didn't say you were, but many are even at a background uninformed level are (especially in the older age bracket). I have many debates where the older people I know state "These people are taking our jobs..." or "Have you seen what it's like in the city centre there's hardly any English..." and despite everything these are bigoted views because it's blanket uninformed views of a group of people without any attempt to get to know them. As I don't know what you mean by "the general quality of education" but I presume you have evidence for this? Also what is the Labour party responsible for, because for a large proportion of the last 50 years Tories have also been in charge?
Ketara wrote: This is all pure speculation, and frankly, I would postulate, imaginary.
Actually after coming from a working class background but now working at a University where I get to speak to these people on a daily basis I would highlight that I am basing my assessment on actual information from talking to people. I'd hence question why you thought what I was saying was imaginary?
Ketara wrote: So yep, like I said, Visa free travel.
There's a massive difference between visa free travel and visa free work. Visa free travel is likely to continue because the EU will not want to lose the tourists to southern spain etc. Long term living and working is an entirely different issue as it severely restricts what you can do and for how long. It means that you are less likely to be employed in the Country in question if it does not meet their requirements (say lack of skills) or where they are trying to protect their own EU workforce. That graduate with a degree in biotechnology might be ideally suited for a job in Germany, but can't get it because of visa restrictions is a terrible waste of skill and talent if there is no equivalent job in the UK (and then are forced to work as a service manager in a job they don't really want or are interested in). Visa free work is about freedom of choice and the liberty of the person to make the best of their life which is not something we should try and restrict.
Ketara wrote: Those are commercial loans guaranteed by the British Government, nothing to do with the EU if you're talking about t he standard start-up loans.
Incorrect the EU provide similar schemes see here :- http://ec.europa.eu/small-business/finance/index_en.htm And the same goes for youth schemes and training, they are directly funded EU schemes that are supported by the UK but the money still comes from the UK.. It allows younger people from more deprived backgrounds to be given the chance to further their own aspirations and not be hamstrung and not being able to achieve their potential (or are you saying once working class should always be working class???)
Ketara wrote: I specified hard obvious visible benefits. Your average bloke walking down a street in Hull doesn't tend to clock that the local hall got repainted or a new art gallery opened and think 'What a great organisation the EU, funding all this for us!'.
Hmm well maybe you should visit Hull then and visit it before making such generalisations. The £0.5billion didn't just go to repainting a building; it's used to redevelop whole areas so rather than being run down and looking like it's just got out of WWII into pleasant airy spaces that people want to come to and work. That's encourages people to come to the area, for employers to move into the area because people like living in the area, which brings new business opportunities for accommodation, restaurants, retail outlets, outdoor activities etc etc. These things have a massive boost to the area because it doesn't just employ people directly but in all the associated businesses that crop up out of it as well even when these aren't directly funded by the EU. To think that this money is just painting a Town Hall is incredibly blinkered. Go and check out these places and compare to what they did look like and then try and say the same thing.
Ketara wrote: You're conflating a lot of things there. Firstly the development of scientific method has nothing whatsoever to do with forms of government.
Wrong it has everything to do with forms of government. There are plenty of examples where Authoritarian governments have repressed scientific method (even the point of shooting Teachers etc) because it introduces a chain of free thinking they wish to avoid. Even in modern day Tory politics the issue of shooting badgers works completely against scientific evidence where it might benefit the immediate surrounding area but in fact spreads TB wider across the countryside as the few badgers that survive migrate outwards and spread it to other previously uninfected dens. This is a perfect example where scientific method is ignored in favour of pleasing the masses (another example is dredging rivers to prevent flooding where in fact it can make things worse). Truly liberal governments would listen to evidence based advice and act according (and explain to the populace) whereas more authoritarian are more likely to ignore this unless it is convenient.
Ketara wrote: Secondly, saying that 'we are in a better society than we were 200 hundred, even 30 years ago' is inherently incorrect, because there is no objective measurement for a society, it varies by culture and moral standards of the day. You may well find in two hundred years that they view your 'better' society as having been a retrogressive step.
I think I'd be quite happy to say that we have progressed, after all having a child is now fairly risk free, whereas a hundred years ago it could be fatal. A cut a hundred years ago could become infected and kill you. You can now call someone on the otherside of the globe in an instant. We can reach the bottom of the seas and the outermost planets. People are assumed innocent until proven guilty by their peers instead of stereotyping someone. If you are convicted society tries it's best to provide development to allow them to become a contributor to society rather than just chopping a hand off or hanging them. Anyone can be educated and become a world leader in whatever business they are in whereas before you had to be born into the right place etc etc. These were all driven by a progressive society to make the world they live in a better place.
Ketara wrote: Finally, you still haven't shown why merging nation-states into superstates is 'progressive' and maintaining the existing model of nation state is 'regressive'. You're simply throwing out a massively loaded deterministic, whiggish, and western view of the world and history.
OK, how about this...In the beginning there was just a person with a rock and he needed to eat. Occasionally he was lucky and grabbed a rabbit, but many times he missed or a hyena or other human took it off him as he was not as strong as them; so
This person met another person with the same issues and they agreed to work together. Now they could trap that rabbit much more easily and scare off the hyenas, but that pack of lions could still threaten them; so
These two people met up with other groups and formed a tribe. They were much stronger, they could defend from lions and hunt much bigger prey. With many minds new ideas started so that rock became a spear, then a bow, but there were many tribes and they fought often; so
Several tribes agreed to group together and they formed a town. And it was strong with walls and allowed them to protect each other and they learnt and grew; but little did they realise that across the river was a much bigger town, that one day came 'asking for a tithe' and the smaller town had no choice but to comply; so
all the towns on this side of the river decided to group together and it made them much stronger. Now whenever the big city on the other side of the river came calling they all came to each others aide and things were good, because all the towns benefited from this arrangement over time.
This would be progressive (I hope you can see the analogy) a regressive step would of course be going back to the individual townships
Ketara, I suggest you read: 'The Man, the state and war' by Kenneth Waltz. Its a very quick read but will allow you to see the logic behind why there is a great mistrust towards nation-states.
That's possible but probably unlikely. The current referendum was won because of an aging population with many having mild to significant bigoted views from a period when education was much poorer than it was today combined with a general dissatisfaction of the political process due to the pain/gain inequalities that the Tory party has wrought through society during a massive economical upheaval. These factors are unlikely to all combine in the future. A significant majority are now educated to a much better standard (a significant fraction to University level) where they daily come into contact with a wide variety of cultures from across the globe. This leads to understanding and empathy as well as friends that means they don't fall victim to the fear of 'aliens' invading the country and ruining it 'for the Brits' which is then inflamed by demagogues with just plainly false and misleading slogans. If anything young people in general are more open to sharing in a wider community than older people because they have lived as part of a global community and they live in hope for the future not fear it. [End quote]
So you just called everyone who voted out an old, ignorant, uneducated, bigoted xenophobe. Thats really the problem with the aftermath of this vote, it has happened the result is in, dont like tough but insulting a large preportion of the populus really isnt going to help.
So you just called everyone who voted out an old, ignorant, uneducated, bigoted xenophobe. Thats really the problem with the aftermath of this vote, it has happened the result is in, dont like tough but insulting a large preportion of the populus really isnt going to help.
No I did not, hence the word "many" and "in general" which last time I looked in the dictionary doesn't mean "everyone". It means a significant fraction but there are plenty that are not just they are not the majority. Please read the context of the statement.
There are plenty of polls and surveys that show that the older generation vote in higher numbers. There are also plenty of surveys that show older people are more 'scared' of immigration (and in essence slightly bigoted because you are tarnishing a group of people with one brush) than younger people and there are plenty of video/interview examples. The simple case is that if the older people had voted in the same proportion of the population as the younger population then we would have voted to remain. But regardless all proportions of society have mild to severe cases of bigotry, it's just that for the younger population it's much less severe proportion wise for a variety of reasons.
welshhoppo wrote: With May as Prime Minister and Hammond as Chancellor, I was really hoping Clarkson would get Foreign Secretary
Jeremy?
What's the worse that could happen? He did try and get us a trade deal with India.
Jeremy Clarkson is making nough money doing what he is doing. But if he wanted to stand for a seat in the Tory party he would be parachuted in very swiftly. People would vote for him.
Yes and like Norway we will have no say on what new EU laws are in place, no veto...
And? The assertion you made was that your average joe schmoe (aka the majority of the population) will want to rejoin the EU to, in your words 'make a difference on the world stage'. I countered that your average joe schmoe in Norway, a country that has had several votes on the matter has no such desire. Talking about what influence Norway does or does not have within the EU is utterly irrelevant to both the point you made and my counter.
You only have to look at the current steelworks crisis to know that's not true. China dumped so much steel on the market that it deflated prices to point where it had an effect on other steel manufacturers in simple move to try and dominate the steel market for years to come. Industrialisation means more money and that means a greater share of the markets which means ultimately more influence as their political decisions can then have ramifications across the globe. Realistically Switzerland has the closest ties all EEA nations than anyone (it's Switzerland-heavy to coin a new term). They have something like 250,000 people just commuting on a daily basis and on the order of 1 million EU citizens living there. It doesn't want to join the EU completely because of historical financial reasons and the EU are happy for it that way because of the employment it brings. In some ways Switzerland has just as much influence as other member states but there are specific fundamental reasons for this. It won't be the same for the UK because direct daily ties are less, it's just not comparable.
I don't know if you've paid much attention to Switzerland recently, but they're actually about to be removed from the Erasmus scheme and various other things because they have democratically voted against ever closer union in the form of restricting immigration. So...no, they're demonstrably, verifiably, factually not keen on the EU because of current political circumstance within the EU, and the EU is not happy about their decision.
In other words, I stand by my assertion that Switzerland is not being forced by it's comparative lack of 'industrialisation' to integrate into the EU. And again, I maintain that industrialisation and international muscle are not the same thing, as any economist will tell you. They sometimes go hand in hand, but they're not inherently linked, any more than the banking sector is, or military might is. International influence comes down to an extremely wide range of factors.
Yes it was and you know why it was considered that this was a possibility - simply because of our high net immigration keeping a young youthful workforce. The reason Germany was predicted to slide was because it had low immigration and an aging population. Effectively in 50 years it was predicted that as most people would have been retired there would simply not be enough people to keep all the factory's running. It's one reason why Germany are quite happy to take a lot of Syrian immigrants because they see it as an opportunity. With the current migration movements you may find these predictions are turned on it's head (with the UK having now the same issue that Germany was predicted to have).
Why? You seem to be mixing up the removal of freedom of movement from the EU with the elimination of immigration altogether. There is nothing stopping a Britain from outside the EU taking as many immigrants from around the world as they feel is necessary for economic aims. There is no shortage of people in third world hellholes who will jump at a ticket to the land of the NHS where the police don't take you away in the night.
I didn't say you were, but many are even at a background uninformed level are (especially in the older age bracket). I have many debates where the older people I know state "These people are taking our jobs..." or "Have you seen what it's like in the city centre there's hardly any English..." and despite everything these are bigoted views because it's blanket uninformed views of a group of people without any attempt to get to know them.
In all fairness, for every stupid uninformed old person I've seen or met who voted leave, I've met just as many young people who voted 'In' that didn't have a clue about anything either. Ignorance is not limited to those who voted 'leave'.
As I don't know what you mean by "the general quality of education" but I presume you have evidence for this? Also what is the Labour party responsible for, because for a large proportion of the last 50 years Tories have also been in charge?
I mentioned Labour because you fingered the Tories specifically. You didn't mention the other party that's been in charge for a good chunk of the last thirty years. When it comes to things like grade inflation and syllabus changes, they're just as responsible.
With regards to the general quality of education, there are several standards by which to measure. A fun one which gets frequently performed is to stick a current GCSE student in front of a 'O' level science paper from the 1960's, most of it doesn't appear now until second year A level. There's also been an increase in the amount of class time dedicated to things like 'Food Technology' and 'Media Studies'.
I'm not saying, mind you, that kids are thicker, or that the things they learnt on those papers back then were necessary. Christ, they're still teaching simultaneous equations today at GCSE, when they'd probably be better off teaching them how to do their taxes.
Actually after coming from a working class background but now working at a University where I get to speak to these people on a daily basis I would highlight that I am basing my assessment on actual information from talking to people. I'd hence question why you thought what I was saying was imaginary?
I'm in the exact same position. Working class background, work at a University. Which one are you located at? I flit between King's College and London Business School at the moment.
The reason I said it was imaginary, is firstly because you associate University attendance with a better education, when a number of the Universities that exist are sub-par degree factories in many regards. Many others used to not have the label of 'University', but specialised in the same areas and qualifications as they do now. Take Canterbury Christchurch University for example. Excellent teacher training. If I followed your critieria that more people are at University, and thus, better educated, I'd be ignoring the fact that the exact same people were doing the exact same training at the exact same place before, simply because it wasn't labelled 'University'.
You're also assuming that going to University automatically opens up dialogues with foreign students when many lower tier universities have low foreign student attendance.You're also assuming that because someone has drinks with another student from a different country, that they'll develop a specific stance on a foreign policy issue. People are rarely that simple.
In short, I found everything in that paragraph to be a vast assumption. That's why I called it imaginary. Which was rude of me, and you know? I apologise for that, I was out of line. But I still don't believe any of it to be founded on anything other than vague anecdotal evidence generalised to the extreme.
There's a massive difference between visa free travel and visa free work. Visa free travel is likely to continue because the EU will not want to lose the tourists to southern spain etc. Long term living and working is an entirely different issue as it severely restricts what you can do and for how long. It means that you are less likely to be employed in the Country in question if it does not meet their requirements (say lack of skills) or where they are trying to protect their own EU workforce. That graduate with a degree in biotechnology might be ideally suited for a job in Germany, but can't get it because of visa restrictions is a terrible waste of skill and talent if there is no equivalent job in the UK (and then are forced to work as a service manager in a job they don't really want or are interested in). Visa free work is about freedom of choice and the liberty of the person to make the best of their life which is not something we should try and restrict.
How many people in the UK do you think work abroad for a significant period of time as compared to the number of British citizens? The answer is, surprisingly few. As a material benefit, it doesn't affect too many people.
I specify significant, because students getting a bar job whilst they travel the world for a year or two is pretty standard, and ones from outside the EU do it all the time.
Ketara wrote: T
Incorrect the EU provide similar schemes see here :- http://ec.europa.eu/small-business/finance/index_en.htm And the same goes for youth schemes and training, they are directly funded EU schemes that are supported by the UK but the money still comes from the UK.. It allows younger people from more deprived backgrounds to be given the chance to further their own aspirations and not be hamstrung and not being able to achieve their potential (or are you saying once working class should always be working class???)
The start-up loans that young people actually utilise in this country are these.
https://www.startuploans.co.uk/ Trust me on this, I tried setting up a business once. The EU has particular criteria, and most people don't meet them. The start up loan company is the normal method of financing young entrepreneurs. Many of the links on the EU site you specified actually take you through to start up loan company partners.
Hmm well maybe you should visit Hull then and visit it before making such generalisations. The £0.5billion didn't just go to repainting a building; it's used to redevelop whole areas so rather than being run down and looking like it's just got out of WWII into pleasant airy spaces that people want to come to and work. That's encourages people to come to the area, for employers to move into the area because people like living in the area, which brings new business opportunities for accommodation, restaurants, retail outlets, outdoor activities etc etc. These things have a massive boost to the area because it doesn't just employ people directly but in all the associated businesses that crop up out of it as well even when these aren't directly funded by the EU. To think that this money is just painting a Town Hall is incredibly blinkered. Go and check out these places and compare to what they did look like and then try and say the same thing.
I'll be honest, I just picked Hull as a random town name. I could have said Swansea or Broadstairs, it was just the easiest one that fell to mind. My original point though, to apologetically drag back to it, was that your average joe schmoe doesn't see that sort of development and link it to the EU. The EU doesn't tend to advertise it's involvement particularly. Perhaps that's their mistake, but your waxing lyrical about the benefits of that EU support is somewhat moot.
The discussion was based around the fact that your average bloke doesn't actually link, in his mind, many hard benefits to his having access to Europe, because there aren't many. Most of them are on a more general level with regards to trade and diplomacy. Sure, there are plenty of benefits to being within the EU, I'm not denying that. But the point being discussed is how much benefit does an individual receive, or indeed, perceive himself as receiving? And how badly will he miss them when they're gone? My argument is that people won't be longing to rejoin the EU in twenty years, because even those who lived under it only benefited (for the most part) from it in abstract national level ways.
Wrong it has everything to do with forms of government. There are plenty of examples where Authoritarian governments have repressed scientific method (even the point of shooting Teachers etc) because it introduces a chain of free thinking they wish to avoid. Even in modern day Tory politics the issue of shooting badgers works completely against scientific evidence where it might benefit the immediate surrounding area but in fact spreads TB wider across the countryside as the few badgers that survive migrate outwards and spread it to other previously uninfected dens. This is a perfect example where scientific method is ignored in favour of pleasing the masses (another example is dredging rivers to prevent flooding where in fact it can make things worse). Truly liberal governments would listen to evidence based advice and act according (and explain to the populace) whereas more authoritarian are more likely to ignore this unless it is convenient.
Mate, I hate to be the one to tell you, but liberal governments lie, spin figures, and ignore scientific evidence just as much as authoritarian ones. They're less likely to stand you against the wall for disagreeing, but there's no intrinsic link between the development of modern medicine and government form. When penicillin was discovered in 1928, it wasn't because Stanley Baldwin was in power. When the Nazi's were in power meanwhile, Heisenberg did some wonderful research into atomics. I could belabour the point, but I'll actually have to start dragging in academic citations (this is related to my speciality) and I don't feel like doing work on Dakka!
I think I'd be quite happy to say that we have progressed, after all having a child is now fairly risk free, whereas a hundred years ago it could be fatal. A cut a hundred years ago could become infected and kill you.
And in fifty years, we may find bacteria are resistant to anti-biotics, and future generations lament our regressive approach to medicine. 'They prescribed drugs to everyone freely? Were they mad?'
You can now call someone on the otherside of the globe in an instant. We can reach the bottom of the seas and the outermost planets. People are assumed innocent until proven guilty by their peers instead of stereotyping someone. If you are convicted society tries it's best to provide development to allow them to become a contributor to society rather than just chopping a hand off or hanging them. Anyone can be educated and become a world leader in whatever business they are in whereas before you had to be born into the right place etc etc. These were all driven by a progressive society to make the world they live in a better place.
You're conflating the more efficient performing of a function with 'progression in society', not to mention several things that other 'advanced' societies right now would argue are necessary (like the death sentence). In other words, you're looking at the world and assuming that your opinion is the most naturally 'progressive' one.
OK, how about this...In the beginning there was just a person with a rock and he needed to eat. Occasionally he was lucky and grabbed a rabbit, but many times he missed or a hyena or other human took it off him as he was not as strong as them; so
This person met another person with the same issues and they agreed to work together. Now they could trap that rabbit much more easily and scare off the hyenas, but that pack of lions could still threaten them; so
These two people met up with other groups and formed a tribe. They were much stronger, they could defend from lions and hunt much bigger prey. With many minds new ideas started so that rock became a spear, then a bow, but there were many tribes and they fought often; so
Several tribes agreed to group together and they formed a town. And it was strong with walls and allowed them to protect each other and they learnt and grew; but little did they realise that across the river was a much bigger town, that one day came 'asking for a tithe' and the smaller town had no choice but to comply; so
all the towns on this side of the river decided to group together and it made them much stronger. Now whenever the big city on the other side of the river came calling they all came to each others aide and things were good, because all the towns benefited from this arrangement over time.
This would be progressive (I hope you can see the analogy) a regressive step would of course be going back to the individual townships
Why was it not more progressive to butcher all the other tribes' men and steal their women, possessions, and children to become the strongest tribe around? Why was it progressive to object to the tithe? Why was it not more progressive to make an alliance with the other towns, but then use that alliance as a cover to kill their leaders and take over several towns and rule them all? Why would it not be more progressive to integrate entirely with the tithe demanding power?
The point I am trying to make, is that you see life as you do that narrative above. You look at starting event A, and then the multiple subsequent possibilities B,C, D, E, and so on. You then make a judgement based on your own morals and beliefs that Possibility C would be the best outcome from Event A, and call it progressive if C occurs, and either regressive or less progressive if anything else occurs.
But what makes C objectively progressive? The answer is, nothing but your own mind. And your mind is conditioned to prioritise certain morals and outcomes by the society and circumstance of your upbringing. To come full circle here, what you have experienced in your life makes you believe that European integration/membership is the 'progressive' thing. But in reality, there are a myriad number of other potentials, and none of them are inherently 'better' than any others or more 'civilised'. Those words are nothing more than value based judgements.
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Optio wrote: Ketara, I suggest you read: 'The Man, the state and war' by Kenneth Waltz. Its a very quick read but will allow you to see the logic behind why there is a great mistrust towards nation-states.
There's plenty of reasons for nation-states to be considered bad, I accept that. There's just as many for them to be considered good, as well as pros and cons for the alternative forms of governance. And depending on your perspective the good points could be the bad ones, and vice versa.
I hadn't encountered the book, but I just digested the wiki entry and read the introduction to the book, and I can't say I'm massively impressed, he doesn't seem to have a patch on Quincy Wright, who would have been his contemporary if he published in 1960.
Yeah, there's other things to consider. For example, in Scotland, well, in my home town anyway, the vast majority of immigration has come from Indian families. Potentially, brexit may be better for their long distance relatives than being in the EU.
Brexit if done the way the Brexiteers want will put everyone, Indian or Irish or Italian, on the same basis. Everyone will need a visa under conditions decided by the UK government, which presumably will involve the points system we already have had for some years for non-EU people.
There's no reason to suppose that Indians will have easier access to these visas than Irish or Italian people.
So you just called everyone who voted out an old, ignorant, uneducated, bigoted xenophobe. Thats really the problem with the aftermath of this vote, it has happened the result is in, dont like tough but insulting a large preportion of the populus really isnt going to help.
No I did not, hence the word "many" and "in general" which last time I looked in the dictionary doesn't mean "everyone". It means a significant fraction but there are plenty that are not just they are not the majority. Please read the context of the statement.
There are plenty of polls and surveys that show that the older generation vote in higher numbers. There are also plenty of surveys that show older people are more 'scared' of immigration (and in essence slightly bigoted because you are tarnishing a group of people with one brush) than younger people and there are plenty of video/interview examples. The simple case is that if the older people had voted in the same proportion of the population as the younger population then we would have voted to remain. But regardless all proportions of society have mild to severe cases of bigotry, it's just that for the younger population it's much less severe proportion wise for a variety of reasons.
The question then becomes how many is many 10%\50%\90% so say 49% not the majority but still in this vote thats about 8.3 million people you just insulted. For my part being in the eu was bad for my job prospects i'm not university educated or highly trained at all never travelled there as money is tight all the time due to bosses having access to a vertualy unlimited work pool who will work for the minimum wage and be quit well off due to economy of scale 6+ can live on min wage in one house better than a family with the 3 kids can, and as ketra said above for you it looks bad for me it looks good it all comes down to point of view. Hence a large amount of labour voters also voted out who you maybe suprised to learn also dont have a paper education. (Degrees etc) but do have other skills which are seen as useless as there undercut all the time in the hunt for jobs, and outside of the major citys it is a hunt.
As to polls showing voting trends if the younger generation actually voted and realised that a vote is important regardless of how much diffrence it would make and appriceated it more things could of been diffrent BUT THEY DIDN'T VOTE (not all) and so they (not all) seem not to care, and as i was told when i was younger if you dont vote you cant complain about the result.
I understand your situation. I am working a minimum wage job myself.
The sad thing about voting Leave is that the crappy situation many of us find ourselves in is not due to the EU but the UK government's policies over several decades. The EU actually has put a lot of money into deprived areas to help raise them up; that will be lost.
In other words, as a protest vote it might or might not have had some effect on the general ideas of the power elite, but more practically it is cutting off your nose to spite your face. Cornwall will lose over £400 million of EU funding for example, and wants the UK government to make it up. How is that going to happen with a 25% cut in corporation tax?
There is no doubt the economy is suffering. That cannot translate into more and better jobs for working people. Hopefully it will improve eventually. We'll have lost several years of progress though.
On a wider note, it's a fact of statistics that factors such as older age, lower educational attainment, and anti-immigration attitudes, correlated more strongly with voting Leave than voting Remain.
It seems pointless to deny that reducing immigration was the key plank of the Leave platform. That doesn't automatically translate into racism, of course.
But the National Front has been out harassing Poles and leafletting Camden with "Proud to be white and British" posters. They aren't on the Remain side, even though they do not represent all of the Leavers.
On a wider note, it's a fact of statistics that factors such as older age, lower educational attainment, and anti-immigration attitudes, correlated more strongly with voting Leave than voting Remain.
It seems pointless to deny that reducing immigration was the key plank of the Leave platform. That doesn't automatically translate into racism, of course..
Naturally. The problem has been the number of people who voted remain that have and still are, equating old with being racist, and a low level of education/employment with being stupid. Having a different vision of the future for Britain does not necessarily mean either of those things. But the attempt to dismiss a good third of the country as being them, is a real intellectual blind spot for the liberal middle classes at the moment. I've seen far more chillingly anti-democratic and vicious things written by people who identify themselves to be liberal of late than I have the actual racists/facists, and that's worrying.
On a wider note, it's a fact of statistics that factors such as older age, lower educational attainment, and anti-immigration attitudes, correlated more strongly with voting Leave than voting Remain.
It seems pointless to deny that reducing immigration was the key plank of the Leave platform. That doesn't automatically translate into racism, of course..
Naturally. The problem has been the number of people who voted remain that have and still are, equating old with being racist, and a low level of education/employment with being stupid. Having a different vision of the future for Britain does not necessarily mean either of those things. But the attempt to dismiss a good third of the country as being them, is a real intellectual blind spot for the liberal middle classes at the moment. I've seen far more chillingly anti-democratic and vicious things written by people who identify themselves to be liberal of late than I have the actual racists/facists, and that's worrying.
This anti racist witch hunt is actually counter productive and only serves to help fuel racism. Its a self fulfilling prophecy.
You don't counter genuine racism by ignoring peoples' concerns and labelling swathes of them racist. All that achieves is to drive ordinary, reasonable people into the arms of the real racists and bigots.
Kilkrazy wrote: Irish and Italian people don't need visas to visit or immigrate to the UK at the moment.
Exactly. Therefore, one could surmise a hypothetical family with a heritage from outside the EU could theoretically see EU freedom of movement as unfair. And so, potentially vote for leaving the EU, if that was the primary thing they cared about.
Wanting more control of managing immigration shouldn't be seen as wanting to close immigration.
With David Davis at the head of the Brexit department, I was interested to hear what his tactics are likely to be (source: Reuters).
Speech in May wrote:"The first calling point of the UK’s negotiator in the time immediately after Brexit will not be Brussels, it will be Berlin, to strike the deal: absolute access for German cars and industrial goods, in exchange for a sensible deal on everything else.
"Similar deals would be reached with other key EU nations. France would want to protect the 3 billion pounds of food and wine it exports to the UK. We have seen the sort of political pressure French farmers are willing to bring to bear when their livelihoods are threatened, and France will also be holding a general election in 2017.
"So there is almost certainly going to be a deal, one that maintains a free market between the EU and the UK. The reality is that the hard-headed, pragmatic businessmen on the continent will do everything to ensure that trade with Britain continues uninterrupted."
Daily Telegraph article pre-referendum wrote:"The UK, once we vote to leave, will negotiate a new relationship with the EU. And like all negotiations, the outcome will be dictated by what is in the best interest of both sides. To those people who insist that the EU would erect tariffs should we vote to leave, ask why would those countries damage their own trade with the UK. Out of spite? If that is the case, then, to paraphrase Groucho Marx, I wouldn’t want to be a member of any club which threatened to ruin me if I left it."
"Everyone will gather round the negotiating table and hammer out a deal that benefits everyone. The core of that deal will be our trade with the EU. Our European neighbors know only too well that the tariff option will hurt key European industries. The negotiations will overlap with general elections in Germany and France. Not even the French will hurt themselves just to hurt us. So does anyone seriously think that the Continent will put up barriers to trade for no conceivable gain? I think not.
"So what would the UK look like outside the EU? Free trade with the EU, freer trade with the rest of the world. We would be free of EU government and bureaucracy, but would opt in, as others do, to those programs that are in our best interest. In short, it would be something new, something better, something in the interests of the UK and of the EU."
I'll be interested to see how this fares with Juncker's 'No pre-talks' edict. Speaking of Juncker, Davis' stated opinion of him was that:
"He is a protagonist of a European Superstate at a time when the electorates of Europe have risen up against precisely that mad idea.
"He is a lifetime politician from a country that seems to have a season ticket on the European gravy train – he would be the third European Commission president to come from that tiny country.
"He was a fanatical supporter of the Euro. He was one of its architects, and still thinks it is a good idea, despite the devastation it has wrought on the Mediterranean countries.
Sad to see that white supremacists and fascists have become so powerful in the UK. I'd get out of there while I still could if I were you. May will be ten times worse than Thatcher and is likely to lead England (and just England) into a war with France. The US will have to come sort everything out in the end, just as we solved the Nazi problem with bombs and battalions of soldiers. The problem as I see it is that you have no left wing. You have Labour, the party of George W. Bush's personal manservant/whipping boy/fluffer Tony Blair. And you have the usual Tory fascists who offer nothing but blundering incompetence. Just being a tory is a political death sentence right now, but there are enough white supremacists in Labour to keep England as a closed-border fascist police state for decades to come. You really need to overhaul your system and start having general elections every four years so your governments don't just stay in power until they make a mistake and collapse.
I think we can have this discussion in a more polite manner than that moving forwards. While you may disagree with the stances of some political parties in the UK, there's no need to be that insulting about it. Thanks
Skullhammer wrote: ....
As to polls showing voting trends if the younger generation actually voted and realised that a vote is important regardless of how much diffrence it would make and appriceated it more things could of been diffrent BUT THEY DIDN'T VOTE (not all) and so they (not all) seem not to care, and as i was told when i was younger if you dont vote you cant complain about the result.
Just for the record, according to Opinion, 64% of registered young voters, actually voted.
In this case it seems that low turnout is a truism routinely turned out to attempt to vilify and delegitimise young voters, as if they haven't got enough gak to put up with.
Labour leadership: Donor to challenge Corbyn ballot ruling
A Labour donor is launching a legal challenge to the party's ruling that Jeremy Corbyn can be automatically included in the leadership ballot.
Michael Foster, whose family gave £400,000 to the party, said he was worried about "apparent manipulation" of the rules by Labour's ruling body, the National Executive Committee (NEC).
On Tuesday, the NEC voted 18-14 to allow the Labour leader on the ballot.
His rivals Angela Eagle and Owen Smith need the backing of 51 MPs or MEPs.
The Labour leadership contest was sparked when Ms Eagle, who resigned from Mr Corbyn's cabinet, announced she was challenging her leader and secured the necessary nominations.
There was a dispute over the interpretation of Labour's rules, and whether they allowed Mr Corbyn to automatically defend his leadership, or whether he would also be required to secure 51 nominations.
Live updates on Labour leadership and May's new cabinet
Labour leadership election rules
After a reportedly highly-charged meeting, at which Labour's governing body considered legal advice, the NEC ruled in Mr Corbyn's favour.
But Mr Foster, who stood as a parliamentary candidate in Camborne, Redruth and Hayle in Cornwall, said he was concerned that "everyone in the room had a different political agenda".
He insisted his legal challenge was "not about politics", saying: "I'm simply concerned that this is an important issue. It's about the rule of law.
"The advice given was certainly not given the expert consideration given by a high court judge."
'Determined to win'
Mr Foster said three contrasting pieces of advice had been given by three different lawyers, and the matter must be considered by a neutral court of law.
"When you conduct a membership association and it has a set of rules, you cannot, in Britain, a democracy that stands or falls by application of law, bend the rules to suit a particular circumstance or particular position," he added.
He expected a court to hear the case within days, he said.
Who can vote in Labour leadership contest?
Labour Party members, affiliated trade union supporters and so-called registered supporters are able to vote although there are some key differences from the 2015 contest, which Jeremy Corbyn won:
Labour Party members need to have signed up on or before 12 January to be eligible to vote. Nearly 130,000 people have become members alone since the EU referendum. As it stands, they won't automatically be able to take part
Anyone can become registered supporters - giving them a one-off vote - if they pay £25 and "share" Labour's aims and values. There is a two-day window for people to sign up, expected to be 18 to 20 July although this has not been confirmed
Registered supporters who paid £3 to vote in last year's leadership election will have to reapply
Affiliated trade union or socialist society supporters can sign up for less then £25, with rates depending on the organisation they belong to
Speaking after Tuesday's decision, Mr Corbyn said he was "delighted" and would fight to keep his position.
"The inequality and poverty that exists in this country, the need to end the privatisation of our National Health Service, the need to give real hope and opportunity to young people all across this country," he said.
Ms Eagle said she welcomed the contest and was "determined" to win.
She said she had eventually decided to launch a formal challenge because he was unwilling to stand down and she could provide the real leadership he could not.
On Wednesday, Owen Smith, also a former shadow minister in Mr Corbyn's cabinet, announced he would also run.
The Pontypridd MP, who quit as shadow work and pensions secretary last month, said he could "heal" the party and "turn the page" on its internal strife.
It is truly laughable that this is dragging on.
I believe that JC should go, but since he isn't moving of his own accord his inclusion on a ballot of contenders should be a no brainer.
Have the contest then maybe look at rewriting the regulations eh?
The thing about the Labour Party's rules is that they are the Labour Party's rules. If they are ambiguous and unclear, it is the Labour Party's responsibility and right to clear them up. It isn't something a judge can reasonably decide, because there is no obvious violation of law involved.
I mean, the Party can make a rule that you must wear a stick of celery in your pocket while voting. If someone turns up to vote with a plastic stick of celery, the party can decide if that counts or not. A judge can't.
The Party can't make a rule that only white people are allowed to vote, and if they did it would be capable of being prosecuted.
Real News wrote: Sad to see that white supremacists and fascists have become so powerful in the UK. I'd get out of there while I still could if I were you. May will be ten times worse than Thatcher and is likely to lead England (and just England) into a war with France. The US will have to come sort everything out in the end, just as we solved the Nazi problem with bombs and battalions of soldiers. The problem as I see it is that you have no left wing. You have Labour, the party of George W. Bush's personal manservant/whipping boy/fluffer Tony Blair. And you have the usual Tory fascists who offer nothing but blundering incompetence. Just being a tory is a political death sentence right now, but there are enough white supremacists in Labour to keep England as a closed-border fascist police state for decades to come. You really need to overhaul your system and start having general elections every four years so your governments don't just stay in power until they make a mistake and collapse.
Edited for Rule 1, motyak
The Conservatives are hardly fascists. They're not perfect (who is?) but they're performing an awful lot better than the opposition lol. As for your comment about Tory= political death sentences you should maybe look at Labour right now lol. A party at risk of splitting due to in-fighting between the main Parliamentary Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn's small group of followers/activists. Despite their rep for being Bush jr.'s mate, they're still socialists so very much left wing.
We do have elections every 4yrs, I'm not sure what made you think otherwise.
Real News wrote: Sad to see that white supremacists and fascists have become so powerful in the UK. I'd get out of there while I still could if I were you. May will be ten times worse than Thatcher and is likely to lead England (and just England) into a war with France. The US will have to come sort everything out in the end, just as we solved the Nazi problem with bombs and battalions of soldiers. The problem as I see it is that you have no left wing. You have Labour, the party of George W. Bush's personal manservant/whipping boy/fluffer Tony Blair. And you have the usual Tory fascists who offer nothing but blundering incompetence. Just being a tory is a political death sentence right now, but there are enough white supremacists in Labour to keep England as a closed-border fascist police state for decades to come. You really need to overhaul your system and start having general elections every four years so your governments don't just stay in power until they make a mistake and collapse.
Edited for Rule 1, motyak
The Conservatives are hardly fascists. They're not perfect (who is?) but they're performing an awful lot better than the opposition lol. As for your comment about Tory= political death sentences you should maybe look at Labour right now lol. A party at risk of splitting due to in-fighting between the main Parliamentary Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn's small group of followers/activists. Despite their rep for being Bush jr.'s mate, they're still socialists so very much left wing.
We do have elections every 4yrs, I'm not sure what made you think otherwise.
Why are you bothering to respond to an obvious troll post ?
So, Morgan and Gove are out. Grayling seems static. Hammond is chancellor. And surprisingly, Fox is back in!
I was discussing it with my father last night, and we both agreed there was something distinctly fishy about Bojo's new appointment; namely that we thought it was a done deal before the leadership contest was over. Johnson never ran, and stayed so very quiet and well-behaved throughout the entire thing it was quite unusual.
Some of you may recall me predicting a few weeks back that I thought May was the obvious successor, and Bojo would lose any contest due to a lack of serious party support? It would be interesting if Bojo thought the same, and came to an agreement with May then; namely a nice fat ministerial portfolio, and the prospect of a solid shot at leader when May departs in exchange for keeping things simple now. Gives him a chance to show he can be taken seriously, a chance to build up the Parliamentary support base he's currently lacking, and a right hand position in the cabinet.
With Davis running the Brexit department, Johnson will be kept well away from the serious business going on in Europe. Him and Fox will be packed off to the rest of the globe, China, America and so on to drum up business and shake hands in photographs. Which frankly, I think Johnson may actually do quite well. He's partially American too, which could come in handy in Washington in the days ahead. Assuming he doesn't turn into Prince Phillip (which I don't think he'll do, he still has his eye on the leadership after May), he may actually make a rather good Foreign Secretary in the end.
Edit:- Liz Truss is Justice Secretary and Justine Greening Education Secretary now. The women are certainly moving up the cabinet under May.
For once, Ketara, I'm inclined to agree with you - it all seems a bit fishy. I'm happy that DD is heading up the BREXIT department, as it means it's getting taken seriously....
As for the rest of them, non-entities, and Conservative ministers that aren't even Conservatives!
None the less, I am bitterly disappointed in this. Why? Because as I've said before, BREXIT presents us with a unique opportunity to re-order and remake this country for the better, a UK fir for the 21st century.
What is needed is a bold plan...
But all we've got is grey, dull, safe...
I switched on the news and what did I see - more building projects announced for London, and I thought, same old same old...
I think we're looking at decades of managed decline, much as it was in the 1980s...a few people getting richer, and the rest of us struggling to keep our heads above water...
Ah, but wait and see. But in all honestly, I don't have to wait and see - I can judge these people by their track records as MPs and Ministers, and there is nothing that fills me with the slightest confidence...
I'd disagree with you there on two fronts at least. Of what are considered to be the six major ministerial posts (Foreign, Home & Justice Secretaries, & Ministers for Health & Education and the Chancellor of the Exchequer), three are held by women. Two ministers are gay. And the Prime Minister is a woman. An amazing signal for equality within politics within this country.
Meanwhile, when it comes to the old rich boys/blue blood image of the Tories? Boris, Hunt, Rudd and Hammond still tick it. But Davis? Working class, University of Warwick. May? Clergyman's daughter. Justine Greening? Comprehensive education and University of Southampton. Truss? Middle class family, comprehensive education. Fallon is middle class (father was a surgeon, University of St Andrews). Liam Fox? State school and University of Glasgow.
This is possibly the most equal cabinet in history in terms of gender, and the least rich old boy toff dominated Tory cabinet to occur. I think that's fabulous, personally. And it's worth pointing that out and celebrating.
I'd disagree with you there on two fronts at least. Of what are considered to be the six major ministerial posts (Foreign, Home & Justice Secretaries, & Ministers for Health & Education and the Chancellor of the Exchequer), three are held by women. Two ministers are openly gay. And the Prime Minister is a woman. An amazing signal for equality within politics within this country.
Meanwhile, when it comes to the old rich boys/blue blood image of the Tories? Boris, Hunt, Rudd and Hammond still tick it. But Davis? Working class, University of Warwick. May? Clergyman's daughter. Justine Greening? Comprehensive education and University of Southampton. Truss? Middle class family, comprehensive education. Fallon is middle class (father was a surgeon, University of St Andrews). Liam Fox? State school and University of Glasgow.
This is possibly the most equal cabinet in history in terms of gender, and the least rich old boy toff dominated Tory cabinet to occur. I think that's fabulous, personally. And it's worth pointing that out and celebrating.
Don't get me wrong - it's a welcome victory for equality, and the presence of people with working-class roots in the cabinet, is also to be welcomed.
None the less there comes a time when you have to look beyond a person's gender or background and ask:
What are your policies, what is your vision for Britain...and I see nothing that inspires me...
The Tories are very good at gaining power, but is often the case, they have no idea what to do when they're in office...
Don't get me wrong - it's a welcome victory for equality, and the presence of people with working-class roots in the cabinet, is also to be welcomed.
None the less there comes a time when you have to look beyond a person's gender or background and ask:
What are your policies, what is your vision for Britain...and I see nothing that inspires me...
The Tories are very good at gaining power, but is often the case, they have no idea what to do when they're in office...
That's fair enough, I was just challenging the proposition of 'grey, dull and safe'. Hammond, May, and Fallon tick that box, but not so much the others. The rest of them? There's a really diverse mix of backgrounds and personalities there. You're right that nothing's been put forward yet, but don't you think it's a bit early? Davis hasn't been in cabinet since the 90's, Fox has been out in the cold a while, and most of the rest have never held such major portfolios. May herself is a new PM.
I think a week or two of figuring out where the tea point in the office is, who you need to have on speed dial, and general adjustment is to be expected before any of them start to make serious plans or announcing anything major. If May did have a 'vision for Britain' and a full raft of policies worked out at this stage, before her first cabinet meeting, that would be a far grimmer more ominous sign than anything else quite frankly.
I heard of an interview with Norman Tebbit where he was asked, 'What would be the best thing May could do?', and his response was 'Bring back actual Cabinet responsibility and debate, instead of this bizare thing begun by Blair where the Prime Minister and Chancellor decide all the policy and the Cabinet is just there for show'.
I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong in other words, but I think you're jumping the gun slightly. I'm content to wait a month and see what happens. Right now, I'm encouraged by the range of backgrounds and opinions in the Cabinet. Considering originally we weren't even going to have a new PM until October, things are already moving at a sufficient speed that I don't begrudge giving her until the end of August to figure out where she's going.
I'm more than happy to give Mrs May until September to get her feet under the table, plan the BREXIT strategy, and appointment the negotiating team. No problem with that.
Even so, when these people got into politics, I assume, and hope, they did so because they wanted to change Britain. They must, at the very least, have some idea, some vision for Britain.
Power for its own sake, the status quo, is not good enough for the UK heading into a post-BREXIT 21st century.
The same old same old ain't gonna cut it against the Yanks, India, China etc etc
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: I'm more than happy to give Mrs May until September to get her feet under the table, plan the BREXIT strategy, and appointment the negotiating team. No problem with that.
Even so, when these people got into politics, I assume, and hope, they did so because they wanted to change Britain. They must, at the very least, have some idea, some vision for Britain.
Power for its own sake, the status quo, is not good enough for the UK heading into a post-BREXIT 21st century.
I'm with you there. Fingers crossed, eh?
I'm annoyed Hunt survived. There weren't many cabinet members I felt were pigheaded enough they should never have been there to begin with, but he's one of them. It's a bad sign for the BMA.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: I'm more than happy to give Mrs May until September to get her feet under the table, plan the BREXIT strategy, and appointment the negotiating team. No problem with that.
Even so, when these people got into politics, I assume, and hope, they did so because they wanted to change Britain. They must, at the very least, have some idea, some vision for Britain.
Power for its own sake, the status quo, is not good enough for the UK heading into a post-BREXIT 21st century.
I'm with you there. Fingers crossed, eh?
I'm annoyed Hunt survived. There weren't many cabinet members I felt were pigheaded enough they should never have been there to begin with, but he's one of them. It's a bad sign for the BMA.
Hunt's continuation is good news for the Scottish NHS - we've already seen a surge in junior doctor applications up here from down south.
Was reading the Guardian, and some professor of politics made the point that majority of 12 + lots of sacked cabinet ministers on the backbenches with too much time on their hands + Cameron loyalists = trouble for PM May...
And in other news, the new chancellor pretty much confirmed that if Scotland wants to keep its EU status, then it'll have to go independent...
Ketara wrote: So, Morgan and Gove are out. Grayling seems static. Hammond is chancellor. And surprisingly, Fox is back in!
I was discussing it with my father last night, and we both agreed there was something distinctly fishy about Bojo's new appointment; namely that we thought it was a done deal before the leadership contest was over. Johnson never ran, and stayed so very quiet and well-behaved throughout the entire thing it was quite unusual.
Some of you may recall me predicting a few weeks back that I thought May was the obvious successor, and Bojo would lose any contest due to a lack of serious party support? It would be interesting if Bojo thought the same, and came to an agreement with May then; namely a nice fat ministerial portfolio, and the prospect of a solid shot at leader when May departs in exchange for keeping things simple now. Gives him a chance to show he can be taken seriously, a chance to build up the Parliamentary support base he's currently lacking, and a right hand position in the cabinet.
With Davis running the Brexit department, Johnson will be kept well away from the serious business going on in Europe. Him and Fox will be packed off to the rest of the globe, China, America and so on to drum up business and shake hands in photographs. Which frankly, I think Johnson may actually do quite well. He's partially American too, which could come in handy in Washington in the days ahead. Assuming he doesn't turn into Prince Phillip (which I don't think he'll do, he still has his eye on the leadership after May), he may actually make a rather good Foreign Secretary in the end.
Edit:- Liz Truss is Justice Secretary and Justine Greening Education Secretary now. The women are certainly moving up the cabinet under May.
I prefer to believe that May is setting BoJo a do or die challenge.
She knows he is a well-educated, intelligent and personable guy who also is a slacker and a bit of a buffoon. A stint at Foreign Secretary will either force him to straighten up and fly right, or crash and burn.
A transformed, hard working BoJo would be a major asset to the Conservatives, and to the country. Possibly even a successor PM to May, who might be looking four or nine years ahead at this point in time. As head of the party it's her duty to bring up new talent.
OTOH if BoJo is incapable of fulfilling a serious ministerial appointment, it's best to find that out and send him packing in disgrace to avoid him getting near anything else important.
Real News wrote: Sad to see that white supremacists and fascists have become so powerful in the UK. I'd get out of there while I still could if I were you. May will be ten times worse than Thatcher and is likely to lead England (and just England) into a war with France. The US will have to come sort everything out in the end, just as we solved the Nazi problem with bombs and battalions of soldiers. The problem as I see it is that you have no left wing. You have Labour, the party of George W. Bush's personal manservant/whipping boy/fluffer Tony Blair. And you have the usual Tory fascists who offer nothing but blundering incompetence. Just being a tory is a political death sentence right now, but there are enough white supremacists in Labour to keep England as a closed-border fascist police state for decades to come. You really need to overhaul your system and start having general elections every four years so your governments don't just stay in power until they make a mistake and collapse.
Edited for Rule 1, motyak
The Conservatives are hardly fascists. They're not perfect (who is?) but they're performing an awful lot better than the opposition lol. As for your comment about Tory= political death sentences you should maybe look at Labour right now lol. A party at risk of splitting due to in-fighting between the main Parliamentary Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn's small group of followers/activists. Despite their rep for being Bush jr.'s mate, they're still socialists so very much left wing.
We do have elections every 4yrs, I'm not sure what made you think otherwise.
Why are you bothering to respond to an obvious troll post ?
Because said troll post was reported to the mods this morning (by me), and they've (so far as I can tell) decided to take no action bar censoring a single word? I mean, really, are such obvious inflammatory flame bait posts permissible now? I've been banned for days in the past for less.
I prefer to believe that May is setting BoJo a do or die challenge.
She knows he is a well-educated, intelligent and personable guy who also is a slacker and a bit of a buffoon. A stint at Foreign Secretary will either force him to straighten up and fly right, or crash and burn.
A transformed, hard working BoJo would be a major asset to the Conservatives, and to the country. Possibly even a successor PM to May, who might be looking four or nine years ahead at this point in time. As head of the party it's her duty to bring up new talent.
OTOH if BoJo is incapable of fulfilling a serious ministerial appointment, it's best to find that out and send him packing in disgrace to avoid him getting near anything else important.
I disagree with nothing here.
That being said, Johnson has a tendency towards dishonesty that I dislike. It got him fired when he was a journalist, and it showed up rather starkly in the brexit campaign. He needs to put a lid on that, or I will never vote for him. It's one thing to obscure the truth, or omit facts, it's another to make things up.
Ah of course. I missed Motyaks post immediately after. I really should have just gone straight to the source instead of reading the quote chain and jumping to conclusions.
I prefer to believe that May is setting BoJo a do or die challenge.
She knows he is a well-educated, intelligent and personable guy who also is a slacker and a bit of a buffoon. A stint at Foreign Secretary will either force him to straighten up and fly right, or crash and burn.
A transformed, hard working BoJo would be a major asset to the Conservatives, and to the country. Possibly even a successor PM to May, who might be looking four or nine years ahead at this point in time. As head of the party it's her duty to bring up new talent.
OTOH if BoJo is incapable of fulfilling a serious ministerial appointment, it's best to find that out and send him packing in disgrace to avoid him getting near anything else important.
I disagree with nothing here.
That being said, Johnson has a tendency towards dishonesty that I dislike. It got him fired when he was a journalist, and it showed up rather starkly in the brexit campaign. He needs to put a lid on that, or I will never vote for him. It's one thing to obscure the truth, or omit facts, it's another to make things up.
I agree with you. to be économique avec la vérité is an important part of diplomacy in certain circumstances, but that is different to making stuff up.
However, we live in an age when telling people comfortable lies that confirm what they want to believe is sometimes a more successful policy than telling them the truth. That's why the Daily Telegraph pays him £275,000 a year for his weekly column. I don't think this is likely to work with hard-bitten international diplomats though.
It strikes me that the annual surveys of most trusted and distrusted career people in the UK always have doctor at the top and politician, journalist and estate agent at the bottom three (the exact ranking varies by year.)
My impression, from across the Atlantic, is that things are moving along with more alacrity than was predicted (or perhaps desired) by commentators even just a week ago. It all looks downright professional, especially compared to how a lot of us Americans feel about our upcoming prospects.
I suppose the pm question was sorted much quicker than we all thought. Many of us thought Cameron would be in until September, so he was out six weeks earlier than we thought.
Kilkrazy wrote: Rather than Alacrity, Celerity might be a better adjective.
Just wanted to highlight how despondent things are here (and how despondent UK commentators came off). You have a crisis of national disunity, yes, but there is a team of seemingly competent people forging ahead and that sense of purpose is enviable, again from an American POV.
Kilkrazy wrote: Rather than Alacrity, Celerity might be a better adjective.
Just wanted to highlight how despondent things are here (and how despondent UK commentators came off). You have a crisis of national disunity, yes, but there is a team of seemingly competent people forging ahead and that sense of purpose is enviable, again from an American POV.
The Conservatives do seem to have gotten themselves together remarkably fast. Unlike Labour, who are resolutely trying to kick each other in the shins in a dark room. The team May's assembled actually gives me some hope that we'll be able to negotiate some advantageous terms on our behalf.
It has long been claimed that membership of the EU increases trade, and with it wealth and welfare, among its members.
Well let us just assess how accurate that is.
Now understanding and explaining movements in trade is difficult. They can be effected by bank crises, oil shocks, global disruptions like the collapse of the Soviet empire, new members joining the community, new competitors and so on. The best way to assess whether we got an advantage from entering Europe is to compare our export performance into Europe against that of a comparable group of similarly developed competitor countries who did not enter.
This exercise has been done by Michael Burrage in an exercise for the Civitas think tank. He took the European export performance of the UK and measured it against the European export performance of a group consisting of America, Australia, Canada, Iceland, Japan, Norway, and Switzerland.
The three graphs below show this performance in three distinct periods. Before entry into the EU, then after entry in what you might think of as the Common Market period, and then in what might be termed the Single Market period.
Given that the stated intent of the Single Market was to improve on the trading performance of the Common Market, you would expect our performance to get progressively better in each graph. The actual facts are illuminating. Red is the UK, black is the OECD group.
The first graph shows how, prior to our entry into the European Community, we actually performed worse than our non-EU OECD competitors, at least until we were about to enter when we had a sudden sprint.
Then, as the second graph shows, once we were inside the Common Market, our trade with Europe performed better, as you would expect.
The final graph is the most telling. In the Single Market period our exports grew if anything slower than our OECD competitors, despite our membership. During the Single Market period, despite all the costs incurred, the treaties signed, the regulations implemented, despite all the controversies of the European project, our performance in selling to Europe was worse than our competitors outside the EU.
Why is this?
There are two possible reasons. One is that the burden of the Single Market bureaucracy handicapped us against our competitors. This is almost certainly true to some extent, but the far bigger reason
Trade tariffs during the 1980’s and 1990’s were far higher than they are today, before they were reduced by the World Trade Organisation and its predecessor the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Our success in the 80s and early 90s was the result of being inside a trade protectionist barrier, and little else. That is now largely gone, and with it we are now at a disadvantage to our global competitors.
Another benefit that we have supposedly derived from our membership is increased foreign direct investment in our economy.
It is certainly true that at the beginning of the Common Market period there was a spike in foreign investment in this country.
However, since the barriers have come down we have received far less foreign investment than either Norway or Switzerland, both outside of the EU, even once we have accounted for their oil industry and financial services.
So there seems to have been no discernible benefits to our trade or to foreign direct investment.
The final supposed benefit of our membership is how the EU ‘increases our influence on the world stage’, and increases our ‘clout’, allowing us to secure more favourable trade terms across the world.
Put to one side how our adding our ‘clout’ has not improved the EU’s dreadfully weak foreign policy.
We can test out how well that ‘clout’ has served our interest if we look at the EU’s performance on trade agreements.
When negotiating trade agreements with other countries, the EU has to balance the interests of the 28 different member states. This has had dire consequences for the UK.
To start with trade agreements negotiated by the EU take a very long time to conclude. We still don’t have free trade agreements with China, India or the US. The talks with India have been ongoing for almost a decade.
Our interests are not well represented in trade negotiations. The majority of free trade agreements that have been successfully negotiated by the EU are with North African or South American countries, with far more historical and cultural links to Mediterranean countries than to us.
The only Commonwealth country to enjoy a free trade agreement with the EU so far is South Africa, and that has more to do with Nelson Mandela than the UK’s ‘clout’. Other than that the first will be Canada, which is just pending.
This is all a function of how marginalised Britain’s interests are within the EU. It is no surprise than we have been outvoted in the Council more than twice as often as any other country.
The consequence of this is that these trade deals are not tailored to our requirements.
Much has been made of how hard it would be for a single country to negotiate successful trade deals on its own. But if we compare the EU’s trade deals to those that Switzerland have negotiated, with its small population and limited global influence, then we see something interesting.
Switzerland have seen an increase in growth rates in trade as a result of two thirds of their free trade agreements. The UK has only seen an increase in growth rates in trade from one third of the EU’s free trade deals.
So little Switzerland, with its population of 8 million, is able to negotiate better trade deals for itself than the EU does on our behalf.
Does anyone seriously believe that Britain, the fifth largest economy in the world, would not be able to negotiate by itself at least as successfully as Switzerland?
Just as damning is that the majority of these trade agreements do not include services. Services account for over three quarters of all the UK’s economic activity. They have provided much of our economic growth in recent years, as well as most new employment.
Our creative industries, our financial services and legal services are some of the best in the world. It seems certain that they would be included in any trade deal negotiated by the UK.
So on trade, on investment, and on access to overseas markets the benefits we have supposedly derived from the EU are far less than commonly understood. They may well be negative.
As I said, I was initially doubtful of Professor Minford’s assessment that we would be better off outside of the EU irrespective of the EU’s response. But he is very likely to be right.
Those business groups such as Goldman Sachs and the CBI, who have warned of catastrophe should we leave, are likely to be wrong.
It is not surprising that these business are making the argument to stay in.
At the end of the day these businesses are arguing for their own, very narrow interest. Indeed, I think we should all raise an eyebrow at the tremendous concern that these companies are showing for our national welfare, given that at least six of Britain’s ten biggest multinationals pay no corporation tax at all.
Nevertheless, we should pay attention to their concerns. They have huge sunk costs in distribution and supply networks, and worry about losing access to existing EU markets. And whilst they are not job creators or particularly good innovators, they still represent an important component of our economy.
These businesses can relax. There is no doubt that such access would continue in the event of British exit. No-one can reasonably say that the UK would cease to have access to European markets.
The worst case scenario is that the UK would revert to trade on a World Trade Organisation basis, with tariffs imposed on our exports into the EU.
Let us leave aside cars and food for the moment. Everything else has relatively small barriers, and these are almost certainly negotiable down to zero.
If Europe wants to stick to trading on a WTO basis, they are very badly positioned to do so.
Everyone knows that the balance of trade is in Europe’s favour.
We currently import £59 billion more from Europe than we export. After Brexit we would be Europe’s largest export market, worth £289 billion in 2014, larger than China.
To see our importance to Europe, you only need to walk down the street. More than a quarter of all cars sold in this country are Mercedes, BMWs, Audis or VWs. And those are just some of the German brands. We are Europe’s second largest, and fastest growing car market.
This negotiation will primarily be about politics, and our European colleagues pre-eminently concerned about their national interest.
We are too valuable a market for Europe to shut off. Within minutes of a vote for Brexit the CEO’s of Mercedes, BMW, VW and Audi will be knocking down Chancellor Merkel’s door demanding that there be no barriers to German access to the British market.
And while they are at it they will be demanding that those British companies that they own will have uninterrupted access to Europe. We are talking Mini and Rolls Royce, owned by BMW, and Bentley, owned by Volkswagen. Premium brands with healthy demand across Europe.
And this is not just German cars. The same will happen with Shell and Unilever in the Netherlands, EDF, EADS and the viticultural trade associations in France, Seat in Spain, and Fiat and the fashion designers in Italy.
The pressure from European companies for a free trade deal between the UK and the remaining member of the European Union would be huge.
We have far more to gain than we have to lose, while the opposite is true for the EU. People have spoken, wrongly, about 3.3 million British jobs being ‘linked’ to our membership of the EU. Well there are over 5 million jobs on the continent that are linked to trade with Britain.
Access to our market is more important to Europe than our access to theirs.
To put it bluntly, the most powerful country in Europe needs this negotiation to succeed to the tune of a million jobs, on cars alone. The second most powerful needs it to the tune of half a million jobs, on wine and cheese alone. The first few months may be hysterical, but the leaders of France, Germany, Spain, Italy Poland and the rest know that the way to lose elections is to destroy your own industries. That is a powerful advantage for us.
And then there are the absolute benefits that Britain would gain. Our food imports would be cheaper outside of the common external tariff. We would be free to reduce our regulatory burden, making our businesses more competitive. We would be able to negotiate our own trade deals, opening up new markets.
And then there is the City.
The prevailing thought seems to be that the City would be damaged should we leave the EU. This is extremely unlikely, and it would be perfectly possible to negotiate proper protection for any significant areas at risk.
There are two obvious examples where the City might gain.
TTIP, the upcoming EU-US trade deal looks likely to exclude financial services, due to a tiff between American and French film makers, and American concerns about having to recognise .
Any UK-US trade deal would not omit one of the UK’s most important sectors.
And then is the Financial Transaction Tax. Within the EU we would face the circumstance where French bonds sold in the City would have to have the tax charged on them, and then remitted to the French Treasury.
Outside the EU, the city would continue to be free continue as before, such as trading in euro-denominated bonds, while ensuring that it is free of the threat of an FTT, as well as being free of all the other stifling European legislation.
And any action taken against an independent City would de facto be also against New York and Hong Kong, which would be too stupid for words.
In total, it is easy to see Britain could be better off out, even on such terms. And this is the very worst case scenario.
Some people have suggested that we should look to Norway, or to Switzerland, to see what terms we can expect once we have left.
The idea that we have to fit our future into some Procrustean bed created for far smaller countries is nonsense.
The conventional options are laid out in the table, with a reminder of what they involve. We do not need to disappear into the details – always a problem with discussions on Europe – but let me outline what we should take from them.
The first one, EEA membership, often called the ‘Norway option’, works well for Norway but is not really appropriate for a major power like the UK.
Sometimes pejoratively described as ‘government by fax’, the balance of power looks to be squarely on the EU side. The disparity is exaggerated – Norway is represented on 200 EU committees, it does not have the accept every ruling, half its financial contributions are voluntary, and many of the EU’s regulations are copied from other international organisations’ requests – organisations on which Norway is represented and we are not.
Nevertheless, as it stands this model would not work for us. To make it viable it would need an arbitration court (not the ECJ), a dispute resolution procedure, and a number of other institutional changes. It would be possible to design and even negotiate such a structure, but it would take much more than 2 years.
The Swiss option, EFTA membership plus a host of bilateral treaties, is the best starting place and is informative in many ways.
It is not perfect for us however. It incorporates ‘free movement of people’ for the moment, although there is a clash coming on that, after a Swiss referendum was carried in favour of applying an emergency brake – a real one this time!
However, understand the comparative negotiating position.
Switzerland is a small country surrounded by the EU. Its trade is absolutely dominated by the EU – over 62 per cent of its exports go to Europe. It runs a large trade surplus, and it is not big enough to be a critical market for any EU nation.
The negotiation between the EU and Switzerland in the 1990s was marked by some hostility after it rejected EU membership, and yet it struck a decent deal.
The optimum aim for us would be similar, but without the free movement of peoples. That would not be on the table. Essentially we would be looking for a full scale free trade agreement. And it has just been done by another country.
If you want a model of how this would look, go on the European Commission website and look at the Canadian Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement that the EU has just struck.
It eliminates all customs duties, which the EU website excitedly describes as worth €470 million a year to EU business. A similar deal with Britain would save it 5 times that on cars alone.
This would be a perfectly good starting point for our discussions with the Commission.
At the same time these negotiations are going on Britain will need to undertake a massive programme of simultaneous negotiations to negotiate free trade agreements with target countries that will be key to a more global approach.
Trade Targets
If you read as many assessments of Brexit as I have, you can easily come to the conclusion that each side of the argument tends to get exaggerated. I am certain that the catastrophic predictions of the Europhiles are simply nonsense. That is why Toyota, Nissan, Airbus, even BMW, Opel and Volkswagen have now said that Brexit will not hinder their investments in Britain, sometimes in reversal of previous positions.
On the pro Brexit side, too, there are a range of estimates from modestly to dramatically better off. The difference here depends most upon exactly what we choose to do with the country and its new found freedoms. The greatest improvements will come if we grasp the opportunities for free trade with both hands.
That means immediately seeking Free Trade Agreements with the biggest prospective markets as fast as possible. There is no reason why many of these cannot be achieved within two years. We can pick up the almost complete agreement between the EU and Canada, and if anything liberalise it. We can accelerate our component of the TTIP deal with the USA, and include financial services.
Diverting our current contributions to the EU will help to smooth the transition period following the referendum.
The most effective policy would be to continue, in the short term, all of the EU’s current spending within the UK.
This means continuing to support agriculture, separate from the Common Agricultural Policy, as well as continuing research grants and regional funding.
But this would not come near to accounting for our total contributions – around £18 billion gross and £9 billion net.
We should find a way of improving the global trade performance of our economy. The companies that find it hard to export are the small and medium ones, for obvious reasons. They do not have the huge international sales and transport departments of the biggest companies.
We could afford to fund a new Board of Trade, dedicated to helping British businesses create new links to countries with which we achieve trade deals.
The funding would be available to set up an office in every major commercial centre and capital, completely separate from the Foreign Office, staffed with experts who know the language, the customs and the regulations and are on hand to help British businesses develop links in the country.
Imagine an 0800 number and an email address where a small manufacturer in Lancashire can call Shanghai or Mumbai or Sao Paolo, and find out in English how to negotiate the import regulations, find a freight forwarder, hire a warehouse, translate a brochure, the simple things that stop too many small businesses from operating abroad. They may be small companies, but this is not small beer: I am talking a billion pound project here.
We must see Brexit as a great opportunity to refocus our economy on global, rather the regional, trade. This is an opportunity to renew our strong relationships with Commonwealth and Anglosphere countries.
These parts of the world are growing faster than Europe. We share history, culture and language. We have family ties. We even share similar legal systems. The usual barriers to trade are largely absent.
The Prime Minister has repeatedly stated that we are a trading nation with global horizons. This is undoubtedly true. So it is time we unshackled ourselves, and began to focus policy on trading with the wider world, rather than just within Europe.
We would also have the opportunity to reform our economy, pushing through the changes necessary to create a dynamic, modern economy. Competitive tax rates, a competitive labour market, and effective, rather than burdensome, regulation. After Brexit we can put all that right without asking Brussel’s permission.
The European Union was a noble vision. It was borne out of Europe’s history. A history of war, conflict, tyranny and destruction.
Two world wars ripped Western Europe apart. It is an entirely understandable, indeed an admirable, response to such horror to want to break down national barriers and increase bonds between peoples and countries.
Spain emerged from Franco’s tyranny. Portugal from Caetano. Greece shook off the rule of the Colonels. And after the Berlin Wall fell, whole swathes of Eastern Europe rediscovered democracy and liberty.
Faced with such a history it is entirely understandable that the European Union came into being. It is a profoundly peaceful project, dedicated to protecting democracy across Europe.
But this history is not our history. Britain has its own proud tradition of fighting tyranny, of protecting liberty and democracy both at home and abroad.
For us, Europe has always been about trade. For the continent, it is about so much more. This does not mean either side is wrong. But the European Project is not right for us. The Global Project is.
If you don't want to wade through the article, two interesting charts he drew up in there were these:-
I suspect that between them, they reveal our Government's intended negotiating position.
And? The assertion you made was that your average joe schmoe (aka the majority of the population) will want to rejoin the EU to, in your words 'make a difference on the world stage'. I countered that your average joe schmoe in Norway, a country that has had several votes on the matter has no such desire. Talking about what influence Norway does or does not have within the EU is utterly irrelevant to both the point you made and my counter.
And my counter to this is that the younger generation on the whole voted to remain in the EU so hence on this basis so want to play a wider role on the world stage. Just because Norway wants that does not mean the future UK population wants the same thing. It is clearly demonstrable that the younger population want to remain engaged and that for the vast majority of people their views do not change in a significant way over time (so socialist, conservative, liberal etc). The assertion that the 75% of the younger vote population will simply change their mind on the issue in 20 years is unfounded and in generally can be evidenced by how people maintain the same consistent voting preferences.
Ketara wrote: I don't know if you've paid much attention to Switzerland recently, but they're actually about to be removed from the Erasmus scheme and various other things because they have democratically voted against ever closer union in the form of restricting immigration. So...no, they're demonstrably, verifiably, factually not keen on the EU because of current political circumstance within the EU, and the EU is not happy about their decision.
In other words, I stand by my assertion that Switzerland is not being forced by it's comparative lack of 'industrialisation' to integrate into the EU. And again, I maintain that industrialisation and international muscle are not the same thing, as any economist will tell you. They sometimes go hand in hand, but they're not inherently linked, any more than the banking sector is, or military might is. International influence comes down to an extremely wide range of factors.
Yes I'm aware of what is happening in Switzerland. And again just like the UK it is fear of immigration that has resulted in many people voting the way they have. The simple black and white view that closing the borders will help, will as in the UKs situation, bite them on the rump when they realise the benefits in the EU will bring. But it is still the most heavily linked country not in the EU simply from its geographical location. It integrated with the EU heavily because it benefits both sides, their strong financial systems is what makes it attractive for them to be integrated as much as possible with the EU.
Induistrialisation (which in this context could include financial industrialisation) provide more income to the Country, that means their actions have a bigger impact on the international stage. Hence their ability to affect the world society increases as the other countries have to take notice if they make radical changes (e.g. dumping steel). They simply have more influence. I can't think of any non-industrialised that has a large say in global society. This is why china, india etc are all rapidly increasing their industrialisation because they know that makes them stronger when it comes to negotiating trade terms (both from imports and exports).
Why? You seem to be mixing up the removal of freedom of movement from the EU with the elimination of immigration altogether. There is nothing stopping a Britain from outside the EU taking as many immigrants from around the world as they feel is necessary for economic aims. There is no shortage of people in third world hellholes who will jump at a ticket to the land of the NHS where the police don't take you away in the night.
So why not from Europe and have open borders? As they benefit the economy why not allow free movement where people can take their skills to where they think it would be most appreciated. What makes the 150,000 or so people from one of 27 other countries in the EU so different? It's no more than 0.5% EU population coming into the country that bad? It seems that you are arguing that migration is acceptable as long as it isn't from the EU? In effect you are saying the needs of the state outweigh the needs of the individual which is a dangerous path in my view. The state is there to make decisions for the betterment of society and people as a whole.
Ketara wrote: In all fairness, for every stupid uninformed old person I've seen or met who voted leave, I've met just as many young people who voted 'In' that didn't have a clue about anything either. Ignorance is not limited to those who voted 'leave'.
That's quite true; in fact I'd argue that none of us have a full 'clue' about the EU. Which in my view a referendum should never have been had. I've worked with EU legislation in waste for a 10 years or so and I may know this but I don't know all of EU legislation which is why I expect our voted representatives to undertake this as they should have a much broader knowledge. My view is biased because from what I have worked with and seen and read implies to me that EU is a good idea. We only recycle 50% of our household waste because the EU brought in legislation (and hence we don't need landfills and incinerators everywhere). The only reason the emissions from landfills and energy from waste facilities is miniscule is because of EU legislation. The only reason the emissions from lorries are better than they used to be was because of EU legislation. Without the EU the emissions from waste would be much worse making our environment be a poorer place to live and work in. On top of this I've also read up on the EU and seen what other things they provide. Yes there are issues, but that is the same with any relationship - I try to improve this by responding to consultations and such like. However we have decided as a nation that there are few things we don't like and basically thrown out the partner - but likely any relationship the one you get on the rebound is generally much worse.
Ketara wrote: I mentioned Labour because you fingered the Tories specifically. You didn't mention the other party that's been in charge for a good chunk of the last thirty years. When it comes to things like grade inflation and syllabus changes, they're just as responsible
With regards to the general quality of education, there are several standards by which to measure. A fun one which gets frequently performed is to stick a current GCSE student in front of a 'O' level science paper from the 1960's, most of it doesn't appear now until second year A level. There's also been an increase in the amount of class time dedicated to things like 'Food Technology' and 'Media Studies'.
I'm not saying, mind you, that kids are thicker, or that the things they learnt on those papers back then were necessary. Christ, they're still teaching simultaneous equations today at GCSE, when they'd probably be better off teaching them how to do their taxes.
But Labour were responsible for massively encouraging University uptake by younger people so that the overall education level increased (although you could also add that it ensured people weren't on the unemployment figures either). Tories have always been more elitist.
Just because an exam is harder does not mean the education system is worse or better. The 60's system was based on the old comprehensive/grammar school format. Those that excelled at a certain age were sent in one direction and rest to the 'everyone else' category. There were no second chances - it didn't matter whether you were a year late in your class because of your birth date or that you developed skills later in life. If you didn't make the grade that was it. The A-level exams were then designed for these elitist institutions with small class sizes that focussed solely on these type of subjects so is it really a surprise that the exams where harder. However now you have a system where children can develop at their own rate and shouldn't be Pidgeon-holded when they may still have years of development in front of them.
What's wrong with Food Technology or Media Studies? If they can develop into a Michelin star chef or a sound engineer from these humble beginnings so what that they didn't do advanced mathematics? The important thing about education is to learn the basics and an ability to think for themselves so they can challenge what they hear with the "Is this correct, does it make sense etc?"
And I'm at Leicester
Ketara wrote: The reason I said it was imaginary, is firstly because you associate University attendance with a better education, when a number of the Universities that exist are sub-par degree factories in many regards. Many others used to not have the label of 'University', but specialised in the same areas and qualifications as they do now. Take Canterbury Christchurch University for example. Excellent teacher training. If I followed your critieria that more people are at University, and thus, better educated, I'd be ignoring the fact that the exact same people were doing the exact same training at the exact same place before, simply because it wasn't labelled 'University'.
That is just putting words into my mouth. I would be quite happy to replace University with polytechnic or whatever, but they don't really exist anymore as almost everything is called 'University'. Regardless it still means that they have been educated for longer, had a wider variety of educational experience and became exposed to a wider cultural background than a lot of people did than when they were in the 60/70s. Lets be honest many children left at 15 without any formal qualifications at that time. Also I fear that unless you have been taught and been to all these "sub-par degree factories" then I would say this statement is just educational snobbery (which I also see where I am) because you can't possibly know they are 'sub-par'.
Ketara wrote: You're also assuming that going to University automatically opens up dialogues with foreign students when many lower tier universities have low foreign student attendance.You're also assuming that because someone has drinks with another student from a different country, that they'll develop a specific stance on a foreign policy issue. People are rarely that simple.
That's just wrong. You assume that wider cultures does not in itself mean other people from around the UK, with different backgrounds. It's about not being isolated and limited to a select group of peoples views. Regardless of whether you meet foreign students or not you still meet people from different backgrounds, with different views and outlooks. When issues crop up that means they talk and debate and get a wider understanding of other peoples views of the world. That makes them less entrenched, more likely to see the argument from a different angle. It doesn't just have to be from foreign soils.
Ketara wrote: In short, I found everything in that paragraph to be a vast assumption. That's why I called it imaginary. Which was rude of me, and you know? I apologise for that, I was out of line. But I still don't believe any of it to be founded on anything other than vague anecdotal evidence generalised to the extreme.
How many people in the UK do you think work abroad for a significant period of time as compared to the number of British citizens? The answer is, surprisingly few. As a material benefit, it doesn't affect too many people.
So regardless these few don't matter, those that think they might like to do this don't matter. It's not about where they end up it's about allowing people the opportunity to do so if they so wish without restrictions. To allow them to fulfil their ambitions without state interference.
Trust me on this, I tried setting up a business once. The EU has particular criteria, and most people don't meet them. The start up loan company is the normal method of financing young entrepreneurs. Many of the links on the EU site you specified actually take you through to start up loan company partners.
But that doesn't mean that everyone will be refused or everyone won't meet the criteria does it? Just because some people are refused (everyone can't be accepted anyway) it doesn't mean that others should suffer surely?
Ketara wrote: I'll be honest, I just picked Hull as a random town name. I could have said Swansea or Broadstairs, it was just the easiest one that fell to mind. My original point though, to apologetically drag back to it, was that your average joe schmoe doesn't see that sort of development and link it to the EU. The EU doesn't tend to advertise it's involvement particularly. Perhaps that's their mistake, but your waxing lyrical about the benefits of that EU support is somewhat moot
Yes I'd agree that the EU should have advertised it more. So should the Remainers for the referendum. However it may also be the MEPs but then they had a vested interest not to. IIRC though this point started on what benefits the EU gave to UK so you are conceding that such development projects did improve the life of people in the area even if they didn't realise it? And then on that basis was it reasonable for those that knew about it to vote Leave because they hadn't had their turn yet?
Ketara wrote: The discussion was based around the fact that your average bloke doesn't actually link, in his mind, many hard benefits to his having access to Europe, because there aren't many. Most of them are on a more general level with regards to trade and diplomacy. Sure, there are plenty of benefits to being within the EU, I'm not denying that. But the point being discussed is how much benefit does an individual receive, or indeed, perceive himself as receiving? And how badly will he miss them when they're gone? My argument is that people won't be longing to rejoin the EU in twenty years, because even those who lived under it only benefited (for the most part) from it in abstract national level ways.
Ha, one of the things I learnt working with the public is that they never realise what they have until it has gone. Once it has gone they moan and complain until they get it back. But I don't think it is about missing something because the younger people that voted to remain already recognise that they are going to lose it. In the 20 years when a vote might come round again, they will just remember it as something they could have had (and knowing humans will have inflated it to something much greater than it ever would have been).
Ketara wrote: Mate, I hate to be the one to tell you, but liberal governments lie, spin figures, and ignore scientific evidence just as much as authoritarian ones. They're less likely to stand you against the wall for disagreeing, but there's no intrinsic link between the development of modern medicine and government form. When penicillin was discovered in 1928, it wasn't because Stanley Baldwin was in power. When the Nazi's were in power meanwhile, Heisenberg did some wonderful research into atomics. I could belabour the point, but I'll actually have to start dragging in academic citations (this is related to my speciality) and I don't feel like doing work on Dakka! .
Well we have never really had a truly liberal government (and there may not ever be because humans are too power hungry) but the principle still stands the more liberal governments generally use scientific evidence to guide them whereas the further away from this you get the more likely they will pander to populist notions or just what they think benefits them directly.
It's not about specific events, that's like saying any individual weather pattern is directly linked to climate change; it's just impossible to prove. It's the general statistics that's important, the more free the society the greater the scientific endeavour as both humans and monetary resources can be diverted to these areas. You can still get individual events that are at the edge of the distribution (and I'd argue the Nazis are a strange case because in terms of scientific growth they were very liberal as long as it was for them) but the overall scientific growth will be affected - but no I don't think citations would be good they would not be fun for everyone else.
And in fifty years, we may find bacteria are resistant to anti-biotics, and future generations lament our regressive approach to medicine. 'They prescribed drugs to everyone freely? Were they mad?'.
And why would it be regressive? That would be because the biotech industry see no reason to invest in new ones because it is not financially viable (yet). No individual country is willing to pay a biotech company because no one else is helping to fund it either (so why should one country stump up all the cost). However we now have to start thinking as a larger social community, we need to be progressive in our approach to creating new antibiotics or vaccines that means working together (take the Ebola vaccine for example, it was only countries working together that allowed it to be brought forward, the countries the virus affected individually would never been able to affect such a solution. Hence the regressive step would have been to carry on working as individual countries, whereas the progressive step is to work together as a wider community. You've effectively argued why the EU is a good idea from a social perspective!
Ketara wrote: You're conflating the more efficient performing of a function with 'progression in society', not to mention several things that other 'advanced' societies right now would argue are necessary (like the death sentence). In other words, you're looking at the world and assuming that your opinion is the most naturally 'progressive' one.
I'd be quite happy to argue that it is for the examples given, so yes!
Why was it not more progressive to butcher all the other tribes' men and steal their women, possessions, and children to become the strongest tribe around? Why was it progressive to object to the tithe? Why was it not more progressive to make an alliance with the other towns, but then use that alliance as a cover to kill their leaders and take over several towns and rule them all? Why would it not be more progressive to integrate entirely with the tithe demanding power?
Again you are sort of agreeing with my point. In all your scenario's there is a larger society that is deemed progressive because it looks after it's a wider society. Now the question is whether the method is progressive or regressive, well I'd argue the progressive route is the non-violent route because it maximises the benefit for the individuals over the aggressive option which would be regressive because it requires an approach closest to the first step (i.e. bashing each others brains out with a rock for the rabbit)
Ketara wrote: But what makes C objectively progressive? The answer is, nothing but your own mind. And your mind is conditioned to prioritise certain morals and outcomes by the society and circumstance of your upbringing. To come full circle here, what you have experienced in your life makes you believe that European integration/membership is the 'progressive' thing. But in reality, there are a myriad number of other potentials, and none of them are inherently 'better' than any others or more 'civilised'. Those words are nothing more than value based judgements.
No, I'd argue its more fundamental than that. I'd argue that it is evolutionary; any other evolutionary driver that made us not want to be part of a wider community would have resulted in us living our lives alone in caves. The drive to be in a larger community drives us to join religions or wargaming clubs or go dancing in nightclubs. Therefore I'd argue that any situation that drives us to a larger more inclusive groups is not just my view of progression but that is driven into us by evolutionary processes and hence is progressive in that sense.
For my part being in the eu was bad for my job prospects i'm not university educated or highly trained at all never travelled there as money is tight all the time due to bosses having access to a vertualy unlimited work pool who will work for the minimum wage and be quit well off due to economy of scale 6+ can live on min wage in one house better than a family with the 3 kids can, and as ketra said above for you it looks bad for me it looks good it all comes down to point of view. Hence a large amount of labour voters also voted out who you maybe suprised to learn also dont have a paper education. (Degrees etc) but do have other skills which are seen as useless as there undercut all the time in the hunt for jobs, and outside of the major citys it is a hunt.
But you are pointing the finger at the EU/immigration when in reality it is not that simple (I fully agree with what killkrazy said). Lower wages come from a UK government 'policy' of having some unemployment; no employer is going to be paying more than necessary for what I assume is unskilled labour. It is also impractical from an economy view as well. For example if all 'unskilled' workers had a £3000 pay rise then everyone on higher wages would demand one as well. Then you have higher manufacturing costs and the goods you buy will increase as well. Effectively you get a spike in inflation and once the dust settles all you will find is that you being paid more, but everything is more expensive so nothing actually changes.
This would not be different whether we were in the EU or not (and in reality it could be worse if they removed the working time regulations where instead of the maximum 45 or so hours a week you'd need to get minimum wage you'll have to work more and in odder shift patterns. The EU have tried to pump prime deprived areas but it does require people to engage with it. The only way you can ever get out of the minimum wage is to learn what skills you need to develop and go out and get them. Many Local authorities do provide courses (and some do it free for those on minimum wage) to help people try and get out of the situation you are describing. Yes it does require hard work, time and effort but then that goes for everybody who wants to progress (except the lucky few that just get born into positions but they are very rare). If you always look to others for the reasons why you aren't progressing then you will never progress. It requires an individual to put in the legwork. If you need to go to University then the opportunities are there, even from a distance learning perspective. the power to change anything is always in the individuals hands, no governing body is going to be able to hand it to a person.
Skullhammer wrote: As to polls showing voting trends if the younger generation actually voted and realised that a vote is important regardless of how much diffrence it would make and appriceated it more things could of been diffrent BUT THEY DIDN'T VOTE (not all) and so they (not all) seem not to care, and as i was told when i was younger if you dont vote you cant complain about the result.
I never agree with this view, whether they vote or not they are still part of society and the government is there, in theory, to support all aspects of society. A persons importance in a debate should not be based on whether they voted or not.
And my counter to this is that the younger generation on the whole voted to remain in the EU...
Let me stop you there for that paragraph.. You're working off flawed statistics from the word go, I'm afraid. You're equating 'More younger people who voted were inclined to vote remain in the EU' with the fact that 'Young people want to remain in the EU'. This is incorrect. Less than 40% of young people actually voted in the referendum. At best, 25%, or 1 in 4 young people wish to remain within the EU. So actually, even though that wasn't entirely what I said, the idea that
75% of the younger vote population will simply change their mind on the issue in 20 years
is far more likely than you think. Not to mention your comment about how people 'retain the same voting principles' is also inaccurate, most studies show that people get more conservative as they get older.
Yes I'm aware of what is happening in Switzerland. And again just like the UK it is fear of immigration that has resulted in many people voting the way they have. The simple black and white view that closing the borders will help, will as in the UKs situation, bite them on the rump when they realise the benefits in the EU will bring.
So......you acknowledge your original assertion that ' It [Switzerland] doesn't want to join the EU completely because of historical financial reasons' is wrong? And that right now, there is another element, namely that of immigration? Talking about how they don't realise how good the EU is for them is something else altogether.
Induistrialisation (which in this context could include financial industrialisation) provide more income to the Country, that means their actions have a bigger impact on the international stage. Hence their ability to affect the world society increases as the other countries have to take notice if they make radical changes (e.g. dumping steel). They simply have more influence. I can't think of any non-industrialised that has a large say in global society. This is why china, india etc are all rapidly increasing their industrialisation because they know that makes them stronger when it comes to negotiating trade terms (both from imports and exports).
I'll be blunt, I don't think you and I are working from the same definition of industrialisation here, so I'l leave this one to lie. Plus, we can only have so many paragraphs of responses before it gets silly!
So why not from Europe and have open borders? As they benefit the economy why not allow free movement where people can take their skills to where they think it would be most appreciated. What makes the 150,000 or so people from one of 27 other countries in the EU so different?
There are several reasons. One is that immigration from outside the EU is predictable according to set criteria on a yearly basis, allowing an appropriate number of immigrants to be admitted based on domestic circumstance, whereas EU migration fluctuates madly depending on new entrants, and other factors. A second is that pressure to reduce immigration results in only the controllable (i.e. from outside of the EU) immigration getting cut in order to have some impact on it. This can result in family of people already living here, and people with more useful skills than those emigrating from the EU not being allowed access. I could go on. The point is simple; one is controllable. The other not. As such, it is inherently more desirable from a socioeconomic perspective.
In effect you are saying the needs of the state outweigh the needs of the individual which is a dangerous path in my view. The state is there to make decisions for the betterment of society and people as a whole.
You have an exceedingly idealistic view of government. Though somehow, I'm not surprised.
But Labour were responsible for massively encouraging University uptake by younger people so that the overall education level increased (although you could also add that it ensured people weren't on the unemployment figures either).
As I pointed out further down, shuffling people off the polytechnic register and onto the University register doesn't really count for much when it's the same course with the same people at the same place.
Not only to mention that mass university attendance is not necessarily a good thing in several regards. But that's another debate.
Just because an exam is harder does not mean the education system is worse or better. The 60's system was based on the old comprehensive/grammar school format. Those that excelled at a certain age were sent in one direction and rest to the 'everyone else' category. There were no second chances - it didn't matter whether you were a year late in your class because of your birth date or that you developed skills later in life. If you didn't make the grade that was it.
That would be a surprise for my father, who took his A level equivalents three times. He must have imagined those two years of his life.
The A-level exams were then designed for these elitist institutions with small class sizes that focussed solely on these type of subjects so is it really a surprise that the exams where harder. However now you have a system where children can develop at their own rate and shouldn't be Pidgeon-holded when they may still have years of development in front of them.
You have a very idealistic view of the current education sector as well. Wish I did!
What's wrong with Food Technology or Media Studies? If they can develop into a Michelin star chef or a sound engineer from these humble beginnings so what that they didn't do advanced mathematics? The important thing about education is to learn the basics and an ability to think for themselves so they can challenge what they hear with the "Is this correct, does it make sense etc?"
Sadly, Food technology never taught me to be a michelin star chef, or even skills in that direction. As someone who took and achieved a GCSE in it, it was a bloody waste of time. We spent most of it looking at McDonalds production processes, because even the people who designed the course think that's where most of the people who do it are going to end up.
And I'm at Leicester
Excellent history department up there! Good institution.
Also I fear that unless you have been taught and been to all these "sub-par degree factories" then I would say this statement is just educational snobbery (which I also see where I am) because you can't possibly know they are 'sub-par'.
I've been to enough of them, and known enough people who went to them to know what they do. Both my brothers went to them as well, and I was shocked at the sort of grade inflation they promote. Work I'd barely have graded a 2:2 was getting mid 2:1 marks. You see enough other stuff on the grapevine, and heck, even in the news. There's a reason London Metropolitan got its license for foreign students revoked, and it wasn't because they were taking too long to vet their quality of students!
The problem with converting all the polys into Universities, is that they couldn't contend with the actual Universities, from the Plate Glass institutions down, in either the classical humanities (they didn't have the staff or libraries) or the sciences (didn't have the budgets). They also couldn't attract the high grade students. The result was that they carried on doing the vocational stuff they did before, only slapped with the 'degree' label, and started a load of low cost humanities degrees, that for the most part that weren't worth the paper they were written on because any student who was any good went to a better uni.
Sadly, not much has changed for most of them. There's ultimately only a finite number of people who are good at things like history, philosophy, politics, writing, and so entering uni every academic year, and the better unis hoover up all the good candidates. That leaves the ones who would like to do it, but usually don't have the skills or talent. Not all of them of course (some pull it together or have other reasons for low grades), but most. If they were grading at the same level as the Russell group, most of those students would fail. So they have to accept lower par work so they can try and climb the ranking tables. It's a cruel circle really.
That all said, the ones that stuck to their guns and specialities on more vocational courses do well for themselves. So Christchurch on teacher training, Kingston on business studies, and so on. A philosophy degree from either isn't worth much, but a qualification in their speciality? Still worth a lot.
That's just wrong. You assume that wider cultures does not in itself mean other people from around the UK, with different backgrounds. It's about not being isolated and limited to a select group of peoples views. Regardless of whether you meet foreign students or not you still meet people from different backgrounds, with different views and outlooks. When issues crop up that means they talk and debate and get a wider understanding of other peoples views of the world. That makes them less entrenched, more likely to see the argument from a different angle. It doesn't just have to be from foreign soils.
I quite agree with that. But I repeat, it's a long way from having a more open frame of mind to having a specific view on foreign policy, which is what you're equating it with.
So regardless these few don't matter
,
So you acknowledge it is only a few. My point is made.
But that doesn't mean that everyone will be refused or everyone won't meet the criteria does it? Just because some people are refused (everyone can't be accepted anyway) it doesn't mean that others should suffer surely?
I was outlining hard material benefits to eu membership for individuals. I acknowledged straight off the bat that a few people would be eligible for a handful of grants. The point is that it's a handful. You tried to assert that small business loans generally came from the EU, but your own link leads back for the most part to the British institutions for start-up loans.
Again, if it is only a few that are eligible for eu direct grants, then my point is made. The vast majority of people do not see this hard benefit, and therefore will not miss it (you can't miss what you never had).
Ha, one of the things I learnt working with the public is that they never realise what they have until it has gone. Once it has gone they moan and complain until they get it back. But I don't think it is about missing something because the younger people that voted to remain already recognise that they are going to lose it. In the 20 years when a vote might come round again, they will just remember it as something they could have had (and knowing humans will have inflated it to something much greater than it ever would have been).
Perhaps. I still maintain that less than 40% of those young people bothered to get out of bed to vote, and less than 30% bothered to vote to stay. Assuming things go well, I continue to assert that they'll not even think about it, and that it would take a success story on the EU's part and a failure story on ours to make people want to rejoin.
Well we have never really had a truly liberal government....
I think I'll leave that tangent there, as these replies are getting too long. If you want to discuss it further, go ahead and open a fresh thread on it.
Well, it appears that Operation "Unite the Tories" has been successful.
And all we had to do is bend over and grab our ankles for the hard right, euro-sceptics.
r_squared wrote: Well, it appears that Operation "Unite the Tories" has been successful.
And all we had to do is bend over and grab our ankles for the hard right, euro-sceptics.
Let me stop you there for that paragraph.. You're working off flawed statistics from the word go, I'm afraid. You're equating 'More younger people who voted were inclined to vote remain in the EU' with the fact that 'Young people want to remain in the EU'. This is incorrect. Less than 40% of young people actually voted in the referendum. At best, 25%, or 1 in 4 young people wish to remain within the EU.
Oh come on, that's not how statistics work. On this basis I could claim that the 28% of the people that didn't vote would have voted to Remain simply because they didn't vote and by not voting wanted to remain in the EU because that was the default option if no one voted. If your sample is large enough then you can be reasonably confident that it is representative which is how all polls and sampling methods work. The probability that the 60% who didn't vote at all would significantly vary from the result is incredibly small because it would mean that the 40% sample you took was in the very tail of the distribution. It is much more probable that the voting preference is reflective of some median nearby result. What we don't know is the error on the sample to determine how far out we could be from the median result. We could find that the actual percentage of young voters wishing to remain/ leave was 70/30 or 80/20 rather than the 75/25 within a 99% probability threshold but it's not going to be 30/70 because the sample error on the 40% would have to be huge to the point that what we are saying is that any result has effectively the same probability of being true (and hence you can't say what the true result is at all). I suppose I could do a MonteCarlo sample analysis but I'm not that bothered! But this is why the referendum result in itself has to be treated with caution. We don't know the sample error on the data, it could be that the sample error is +/-4% on the result (with a 99% certainty). That means the true result could be anywhere between 48% -56% in favour of Leave because you have such a large unsampled non voting proportion and an unknown error. If the result had been 70:30 it is much more convincing as the error is extremely unlikely to be so large as to change the result.
Ketara wrote: Not to mention your comment about how people 'retain the same voting principles' is also inaccurate, most studies show that people get more conservative as they get older.
Quite possibly, but that doesn't mean they change who they vote for. Otherwise Tories would be dominant in areas of older people and Labour in younger areas. But that demographic isn't seen and is more associated with wealth. People just become more conservative with the views they already have (so those supporting the EU will become more entrenched, more conservative that the EU is the only way to go, not less so).
Ketara wrote: So......you acknowledge your original assertion that ' It [Switzerland] doesn't want to join the EU completely because of historical financial reasons' is wrong? And that right now, there is another element, namely that of immigration? Talking about how they don't realise how good the EU is for them is something else altogether.
No I am not, from a political perspective they didn't want to join the EU because of the way it runs its financial sector historically. Switzerland is being called to task by the EU because it stopped accepting free movement, because it didn't want too many people 'playing with it's toys'. When it realises it is having the bigger and better toys being taken away it is almost certainly fall in line. Switzerland isn't choosing to leave, it is choosing to ignore one of the tenets of the EU to see how far it can push things.
Ketara wrote: You have an exceedingly idealistic view of government. Though somehow, I'm not surprised.
Yes I do, but then I'd prefer to have an idealised view as it is something to always aim for and improve upon even if things are never likely to get fully there. I think that approach is much better because if you get to the god enough stage then you run the risk of lethargy and stagnation. Challenging ourselves continuously allows us to become a better society.
Ketara wrote: As I pointed out further down, shuffling people off the polytechnic register and onto the University register doesn't really count for much when it's the same course with the same people at the same place.
But it does avoid snobbery of titles and people feeling that they are better educated than someone else just because they went to a University and avoids elitism.
That would be a surprise for my father, who took his A level equivalents three times. He must have imagined those two years of his life.
Yes and my Dad was shuffled into a school where he wasn't developed (and never encouraged to remain in education) and left at 15. I'm not saying that people didn't work hard to get their results just that the system was designed to encourage elitism and catering only to the best for these exams. Todays exams maybe easier from a purely technical perspective but that doesn't make the education worse, just more inclusive. Universities are there for the specialisation and allow people to achieve that and at least people will be more mature and developed to take better advantage of it. Education is better now because it attempts to provide everyone the opportunity to exceed in the areas they are most suited for; unlike the 60's where you could be pigeon holed.
Ketara wrote: You have a very idealistic view of the current education sector as well. Wish I did!
Don't get me wrong I don't think the system is perfect but education is better because it is more inclusive. My main concern is the way the government focuses on targets because it forces a style of teaching by repetition rather than understanding. I don't think it really teaches children to think and question things but rather take what they are given as read. Hence people become more vulnerable to believing anything they hear unless its outrageous. On the other hand maybe that's the overall government aim after all how many actually want their populace questioning what they are doing?
Ketara wrote: Sadly, Food technology never taught me to be a michelin star chef, or even skills in that direction. As someone who took and achieved a GCSE in it, it was a bloody waste of time. We spent most of it looking at McDonalds production processes, because even the people who designed the course think that's where most of the people who do it are going to end up.
No, but then it might for someone else, just as doing maths doesn't mean you will become a top accountant, but some people will - it provides an opportunity for people to exceed where they may otherwise do poorly in the more traditional/esoteric fields. I find that a depressing cynical view as it views no potential for these children.
I've been to enough of them, and known enough people who went to them to know what they do. Both my brothers went to them as well, and I was shocked at the sort of grade inflation they promote. Work I'd barely have graded a 2:2 was getting mid 2:1 marks. You see enough other stuff on the grapevine, and heck, even in the news. There's a reason London Metropolitan got its license for foreign students revoked, and it wasn't because they were taking too long to vet their quality of students!
The problem with converting all the polys into Universities, is that they couldn't contend with the actual Universities, from the Plate Glass institutions down, in either the classical humanities (they didn't have the staff or libraries) or the sciences (didn't have the budgets). They also couldn't attract the high grade students. The result was that they carried on doing the vocational stuff they did before, only slapped with the 'degree' label, and started a load of low cost humanities degrees, that for the most part that weren't worth the paper they were written on because any student who was any good went to a better uni.
Sadly, not much has changed for most of them. There's ultimately only a finite number of people who are good at things like history, philosophy, politics, writing, and so entering uni every academic year, and the better unis hoover up all the good candidates. That leaves the ones who would like to do it, but usually don't have the skills or talent. Not all of them of course (some pull it together or have other reasons for low grades), but most. If they were grading at the same level as the Russell group, most of those students would fail. So they have to accept lower par work so they can try and climb the ranking tables. It's a cruel circle really.
Apart from those that are really bad (if they get their licence revoked etc) I would argue that they are just catering to a different type of student, it doesn't make it worse. They can still be provided with a high quality education. Yes there may be some cynical approaches because of league tables, but this is the same issue as above in that it's the league tables that are the issue not the Universities. Just getting a degree at perceived better universities is no guarantee that the candidate is any good. I've had interviewees that have had PhDs from well respected universities that are absolutely hopeless from an operational perspective, they exceed in the thinking about things but the ability to actually apply it is just not there; whereas students from former polytechnics without a brilliant grade have been a godsend because they just get it. Their education gave them the foundation but they also had the practical ability to apply it as well. Going to a lesser though of university is not in itself an indicator of a poorer education in my view.
Ketara wrote: So you acknowledge it is only a few. My point is made.
,
That's just been taken out of context as I was referring to your wording. I don't think several millions of people over decades is few - the point I was trying to make is that because they were in the minority that as a society we shouldn't care about them and lack any empathy of their circumstances.
Ketara wrote: The point is that it's a handful. You tried to assert that small business loans generally came from the EU, but your own link leads back for the most part to the British institutions for start-up loans.
So? In reality most business loans come from banks. The point is that the EU provide tangible benefits across the UK in multiple different ways. One individual method might not amount to much but the sum of the parts is much greater. Even that one start up grant from the EU could result in the employment of several people and in time grow to a large organisation that employs hundreds of people living in the UK. A few people might only directly benefit from it but the long term benefits can be much greater. These opportunities will simply be gone in the future as the UK is not going to match funding and banks will be adverse to more risky ventures during the coming recession.
Assuming things go well, I continue to assert that they'll not even think about it, and that it would take a success story on the EU's part and a failure story on ours to make people want to rejoin.
Well given the current UK governments direction and imploding opposition I think the UK failing is more likely. But I do think you are putting down the younger generation, they do think about it, rather they are more motivated by other things rather than voting. I remember what I was like when I was at Bristol during the general election. I was supportive of one party and the issues at hand but I didn't think my vote would make a difference so I just didn't vote (and probably forgot on the day in question because May was always exam season).
Oh come on, that's not how statistics work. On this basis I could claim that the 28% of the people that didn't vote would have voted to Remain simply because they didn't vote and by not voting wanted to remain in the EU because that was the default option if no one voted. If your sample is large enough then you can be reasonably confident that it is representative which is how all polls and sampling methods work. The probability that the 60% who didn't vote at all would significantly vary from the result is incredibly small because it would mean tha/t the 40% sample you took was in the very tail of the distribution. It is much more probable that the voting preference is reflective of some median nearby result....
It is totally how statistics work. Let's break the debate on this point down down step by step.
You are making a generalised assertion, namely that 'the younger generation on the whole voted to remain in the EU' and that this is evidence that they, in your words, 'Want to play a larger role on the world stage'. Your evidence for this assertion is that statistic (I'm assuming) that around 3/4 young people voted to stay (the exact percentage varies depending on the polling data utilised, but let's work with that).
Now we've already kind of had out the concept that being outside the EU does not preclude functioning on the world stage. I would posit Japan is a perfect example of that capacity, but you and I seemed to have different concepts of industrialisation and future events, so we left that one behind. I also pointed out that people in Norway seem happy to not need to function on the world stage but retain independence from the EU, your counter is that the fact that so many young people in the UK voted to stay in, so you believe they must feel differently to Nordic teens. As things stand right now, you've in no way linked the desire to 'perform on the world stage' to that of 'wanting to remain within the EU' ; these are two extremely different things, and your own counter-arguments about material benefits provided by the EU would serve to promote an alternative explanation for a desire for EU membership.
But ignoring that too and assuming(for the sake of argument) we roll with the idea that EU membership is the only way to 'perform on the world stage', and that all votes to remain within the EU area are also votes in favour of that reasoning. As things stand, the fact is that about 36% of young people voted. Now you're claiming that this must be a statistically representative portion of the country on the basis that it is a large sample. In many cases, I would agree with you, but due to the point attempting to be established, a certain degree of rigour is required in order to ascertain any essential limitations or biases inherent in the sample, no matter how large.
And right now, the most self-evident bias inherent in the sample, is simple. Only people who actually care about politics and the future of this country will have been inclined to vote. People who felt they were too ignorant, or were simply lazy, or just didn't care would have all stayed at home. And such people arecompletely unrepresented in the sample, on account of the fact that they stayed at home. Now you can try to claim that such people would be so small in numbers as to not affect the numbers, but how do you know? Where is your evidence for that assertion when they're completely unrepresented in your sample? Even if you polled all of them again right now, they'd still be excluded on the basis of the fact that they wouldn't be bothered to respond.
Going empirically for a minute here, I would say I've met just as many young people who didn't give a damn about politics/international affairs as those who did, if not more. From the smart to the stupid, young people I know tend not to care so much.
So. Summing up this point, I believe your argument is suffering from a variant of Flew's 'Death of a 1000 qualifications'. We've come a long way now from that assertion of 'most young people want to stay within the EU to have a greater impact on the world stage. We've now hit:-
'Most young people (assuming the statistical sample of young people is entirely representative despite an unquantifiable bias towards people who care about politics) want to stay within the EU (assuming that all participants are including this reasoning when the time came to submit their vote) in order to have a greater impact on the world stage (assuming that participation in the EU is the only way to have an impact on the world affairs).
Your original assertion is getting so mangled with assumptions, all of which are debatable, that it's almost unrecognisable!
Quite possibly, but that doesn't mean they change who they vote for.
If this were accurate to any substantial degree, our government would never change as there wouldn't be a sufficient number of voters changing sides to swing it.
No I am not, from a political perspective they didn't want to join the EU because of the way it runs its financial sector historically. Switzerland is being called to task by the EU because it stopped accepting free movement, because it didn't want too many people 'playing with it's toys'. When it realises it is having the bigger and better toys being taken away it is almost certainly fall in line. Switzerland isn't choosing to leave, it is choosing to ignore one of the tenets of the EU to see how far it can push things.
So you believe that despite voting to curb immigration, Swiss citizens would not view large scale immigration as a reason not to join the EU? The point being made here is that Switzerland has reasons other than financial to not want to join, and unless you're going to assert what's in the previous sentence, you have to capitulate on this one.
But it does avoid snobbery of titles and people feeling that they are better educated than someone else just because they went to a University and avoids elitism.
Does it? You implied I was suffering from such a delusion about two posts back. If it had truly been the great leveller in the way you're describing, the thought would never have occurred to you.
Yes and my Dad was shuffled into a school where he wasn't developed (and never encouraged to remain in education) and left at 15. I'm not saying that people didn't work hard to get their results just that the system was designed to encourage elitism and catering only to the best for these exams.
There is an alternative explanation, namely that people were channelled towards an appropriate place to learn the skills they needed to be successful in life. After all, by the time Uni is an option, they're already 18. They're adults. That kid with a 2:2 in Politics from Bolton University may know a handful more about politics, but he'll have spent three years struggling for a qualification with few job prospects, and mired himself in debt. Don't you think it's irresponsible to burden that student with that University debt for the benefit of a little extra political knowledge, as well as profligate with limited taxpayers funds?
And it's not necessarily a case of making him free to study the subject he loves either (just to head that argument off). Most young people haven't got a bloody clue what they want to do for a living, and this constant pushing for kids to go to University has become an inculcated societal one. Both of my brothers went to university, got useless degrees, and hated their time there. But they went because they didn't know what else to do and everyone expects you to these days.
Don't get me wrong I don't think the system is perfect but education is better because it is more inclusive. My main concern is the way the government focuses on targets because it forces a style of teaching by repetition rather than understanding.
Sadly, a natural result of tailoring Uni education to the masses has been a conversion of that level of education to repetition. All these students are now 'customers' for spoonfeeding, and Government increasingly wants the sector to try and quantify the unquantifiable so they can trot out statistics for the population. It's also meant that the intense competition of having so many Universities has accelerated grade inflation and the importance placed on ranking tables.
On the other hand maybe that's the overall government aim after all how many actually want their populace questioning what they are doing?
Is that a touch of cynicism I hear? I'll make a Private Eye reader of you yet.
No, but then it might for someone else, just as doing maths doesn't mean you will become a top accountant, but some people will - it provides an opportunity for people to exceed where they may otherwise do poorly in the more traditional/esoteric fields. I find that a depressing cynical view as it views no potential for these children.
These children have potential (all kids do), but the courses themselves are poorly designed and instituted, and more about getting easy grades for schools to show off than they are to do with employment or the children's futures.
That's just been taken out of context as I was referring to your wording. I don't think several millions of people over decades is few
Several millions? Source please.
So? In reality most business loans come from banks.
And the reason they give the loan is because the government underwrites the debt. They wouldn't do it otherwise, not for young people with no seizable assets, savings, or substantial credit history.
The point is that the EU provide tangible benefits across the UK in multiple different ways. One individual method might not amount to much but the sum of the parts is much greater. Even that one start up grant from the EU could result in the employment of several people and in time grow to a large organisation that employs hundreds of people living in the UK. A few people might only directly benefit from it but the long term benefits can be much greater. These opportunities will simply be gone in the future as the UK is not going to match funding and banks will be adverse to more risky ventures during the coming recession.
I'm sorry, but you've started generalising away from the specific point being discussed; namely the hard material benefits of being within the EU, and how many people benefit from them, and not only that, are aware of doing so (in order for them to miss them later on to make them want to rejoin). I maintain it is a negligible number of the total population of the UK. I'd be surprised if it were higher than a few million.
and is a slightly bizarre choice for her department as she is
pro fox hunting;
pro fracking in national parks;
votes against renewable energy projects;
and is a climate change sceptic
So I postulate that DEFRA will be renamed in the next few days to the:-
Department of (not the) Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs
Also we have Sajid Javid in charge of communities who is pretty much opposed to anything that is run by the state. So that's going to help the local authorities he is responsible for then...
And then we have Liam Fox in charge of international trade who resigned 5 years ago because he let an unauthorised friend 'advise' him during international defence trips. We can expect these to be reliable then...
In other news there is a growing unease from other governments that when they are trying to contact the UK they are getting the following message:-
So the National Labour Party has suspended the Brighton and Hove Labour Party, apparently. Seems they're maybe a bit sore after pro-Corbyn members were elected in democratic votes.
Feth me, these lunatic MPs have crossed the Rubicon now. There's no going back,after you start suspending and booting out entire sections of your party. A Labour split is a foregone conclusion now.
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: Feth me, these lunatic MPs have crossed the Rubicon now. There's no going back,after you start suspending and booting out entire sections of your party. A Labour split is a foregone conclusion now.
The Guardian says that bullying, abuse, and an improper ballot are alleged to have been part of the process, so it needs to be rerun. Considering someone's just been arrested for making death threats to Eagle, that's not unlikely.
I don't think half the Corbyn supporters realise what they're actually supporting, they weren't around in the 70's & 80's, and it's not exactly taught in schools. McCluskey owns Corbyn now. This is the hard left reasserting control. And they're out for themselves. Not 'the masses', not 'Corbyn', not 'the working man'.
whembly wrote: <--- this 'Murrican redneck is all confused. How can this party suspend that party?
O.o
There's the national labour party which is meant to represent the party at a national level. Then you have a large number of local labour party branches, with their own leadership, to represent the party members at a local level. The national party has suspended one of their local branches, seemingly trying to annul a vote which didn't go the way they wanted.
whembly wrote: <--- this 'Murrican redneck is all confused. How can this party suspend that party?
O.o
It's mostly due to our parliamentary system.
The Labour party is not just one homogenous entity, it consists of various branches and associations, and historically, because of it's links to the co-op movement and trade unionism, this complicates things further.
Each branch or association, is responsible for selecting candidates for MP, and if all goes well, whoever gets selected gets to contest the election.
In American terms, that would be a primary...I think
As for the party suspending that party, this is a simple analogy, but say the Republican party HQ in Washington was unhappy with the Alaskan branch, they could suspend it, or impose sanctions or whatever.
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: Feth me, these lunatic MPs have crossed the Rubicon now. There's no going back,after you start suspending and booting out entire sections of your party. A Labour split is a foregone conclusion now.
The Guardian says that bullying, abuse, and an improper ballot are alleged to have been part of the process, so it needs to be rerun. Considering someone's just been arrested for making death threats to Eagle, that's not unlikely.
I don't think half the Corbyn supporters realise what they're actually supporting, they weren't around in the 70's & 80's, and it's not exactly taught in schools. McCluskey owns Corbyn now. This is the hard left reasserting control. And they're out for themselves. Not 'the masses', not 'Corbyn', not 'the working man'.
Though nobody has actually filed any official complaints of bullying or abuse and the only recorded event of bullying and abuse was by right-wing labour members, from what I've heard (though admittedly it was a biased source, so will have to wait and see).
Though nobody has actually filed any official complaints of bullying or abuse and the only recorded event of bullying and abuse was by right-wing labour members, from what I've heard.
Really? From the BBC:
Labour's national executive committee said the suspension followed "alleged abusive behaviour" at Saturday's AGM.
That'll be a public meeting with lots of witnesses.
A letter sent by Katherine Buckingham, the national party's head of disputes and discipline, said Labour had received "many complaints and reports of concern" following the meeting.
She wrote: "These allege abusive behaviour by some attendees, as well as reports that the ballot results were not properly reached.
"We are particularly concerned that the safety of members at the meeting was compromised."
Those sound like official complaints to me. What else would you call a letter to the party head of disputes and discipline?
I'm not saying that there /were any issues. But the whole deal with momentum and Corbyn's supporters abusing the opposition is well-documented by now, so it wouldn't surprise me if it were true here.
No it isn't, you are completely misunderstanding how sampling works, please see below.
Ketara wrote: Your original assertion is getting so mangled with assumptions, all of which are debatable, that it's almost unrecognisable! .
No I'd argue that you are taking a load of different discussions mangling the points and then putting them back together in a way that suits your argument (which always makes forums debates tricky) and why I try to only refer to the points in the previous post rather than mash it altogether wave a magic wand and go 'ta da' look none of it makes sense!
Ketara wrote: Now we've already kind of had out the concept that being outside the EU does not preclude functioning on the world stage. I would posit Japan is a perfect example of that capacity, but you and I seemed to have different concepts of industrialisation and future events, so we left that one behind.
Yes Japan is a perfect example of what happens to an isolated country that is susceptible to shocks with an ailing economy because it doesn't have that global influence. But now you seem to be arguing for my side of the debate???
http://dollarcollapse.com/japan/japan-brexit-currency-war-loser/ This is the sort of situation we run the risk of by going on our own ,we would have reduced weight on the global stage, the ability to negotiate good terms and fend off these shocks is only minimised by being part of a larger group acting in a co-ordinated fashion.
Ketara wrote: I also pointed out that people in Norway seem happy to not need to function on the world stage but retain independence from the EU, your counter is that the fact that so many young people in the UK voted to stay in, so you believe they must feel differently to Nordic teens.
I'm not sure I ever mentioned Nordic teens specifically. Norway chose to remain outside the EU, but it hence lacks as much global influence (which is why some of eastern European countries do not wish to see us leave because many of our principles align with theirs and it provides a stronger block with the EU that won't be there anymore). Without a poll otherwise I'm not sure we can say what Nordic teens want?
Ketara wrote: a certain degree of rigour is required in order to ascertain any essential limitations or biases inherent in the sample, no matter how large.
As I said the error
Ketara wrote: And right now, the most self-evident bias inherent in the sample, is simple. Only people who actually care about politics and the future of this country will have been inclined to vote. People who felt they were too ignorant, or were simply lazy, or just didn't care would have all stayed at home. And such people arecompletely unrepresented in the sample, on account of the fact that they stayed at home. Now you can try to claim that such people would be so small in numbers as to not affect the numbers, but how do you know? Where is your evidence for that assertion when they're completely unrepresented in your sample? Even if you polled all of them again right now, they'd still be excluded on the basis of the fact that they wouldn't be bothered to respond.
If your sample is large enough then within a statistical error the unsampled proportion will fall within your existing result. As a simple example take a hundred 2D6 rolls. We know (assuming unloaded dice) that the average roll should be 7 but in reality the average roll will be somewhere slightly off of this value say 7.05. Your error for a 99% result could be say (+/- 0.1). Effectively your actual result lies anywhere between 6.95 and 7.15 within a 99% error margin. Now say you took 40 randomly 2D6 from your original 100. The true average roll is still the same 7 but there is greater probability you have picked a few more higher/lower rolls but you still have a sample that is large (2/5ths of the total population) so lets say the average you measure is actually 6.6, but because the sample is smaller your error is larger (say +/-0.5). Hence for the lower sample of 40 you have a 99% confidence that your value is within 6.1 to 7.1 (so still correct within the error). Now lets say we didn't know the average roll and someone strolled into the room and said "that's rubbish we all know the average roll is 9, you've just picked out the wrong sample!". Well we can test this by simulations. Say we simulate 10,000 times a hundred rolls of which we pick 40 randomly determine how many give us an average result of 9. This number then tells you what the probability is that true result is actually 9 (so say out of 10000 simulations, 10 gave you an average of 9 that would imply there is a 0.1% chance the actual average is 9, i.e. not very likely).
Exactly the same thing applies to the proportion of young voters. We have a sample, we don't know what the true average, but the result gives us an answer within a certain error. However what we can say that the 40% sample gives us confidence with approx 99% probability that the result within the errors is reflective of the true average across all voters. The probability that the result is skewed so massively that the actual voter ratio is massively out is likely to be very small indeed (not impossible but unlikely enough that it can be discounted)
Ketara wrote: Going empirically for a minute here, I would say I've met just as many young people who didn't give a damn about politics/international affairs as those who did, if not more. From the smart to the stupid, young people I know tend not to care so much.
Then the circles we run in are different, but neither of us will be able to say it would be representative so it doesn't mean that much.
Ketara wrote: If this were accurate to any substantial degree, our government would never change as there wouldn't be a sufficient number of voters changing sides to swing it.
Well in reality it doesn't if you take a wider more holistic view rather than the froth (randomness) on the surface
Ketara wrote: So you believe that despite voting to curb immigration, Swiss citizens would not view large scale immigration as a reason not to join the EU? The point being made here is that Switzerland has reasons other than financial to not want to join, and unless you're going to assert what's in the previous sentence, you have to capitulate on this one.
You don't know this at all. They voted to curb immigration, not join the EU. They are linked but no-one knows which holds more weight. It is quite possible that they relent on the issue if the EU does threaten to withdraw banking passport controls and so forth. You are relating a desire to control immigrants in Switzerland with the desire or not to be strongly tied with the EU and that is just hypothesising. As I said Switzerland historically didn't want to join the EU because of it's financial system/organisations, no one has asked which is more important for the future (yet, though that might be coming to a head).
Ketara wrote: There is an alternative explanation, namely that people were channelled towards an appropriate place to learn the skills they needed to be successful in life. After all, by the time Uni is an option, they're already 18. They're adults. That kid with a 2:2 in Politics from Bolton University may know a handful more about politics, but he'll have spent three years struggling for a qualification with few job prospects, and mired himself in debt. Don't you think it's irresponsible to burden that student with that University debt for the benefit of a little extra political knowledge, as well as profligate with limited taxpayers funds?
And so we are saying the State, or just you, or the wicked witch of the west have the right to make that decision? It is their life and they are entitled to make that decision. By all means as a society we should provide advice to assist what may be the best course of action but why should the state force that decision? How does anyone know that the person getting a 2:2 at Bolton University will not become the best PM we have ever had or bring world peace. At worst you saying that the state 'in it all its glory' should make a decision about a person at a specific time in their life about what their future holds; so those the state doesn't think are up to much can go to the workhouse, those lucky few can go to University. It's Authoritarianism government at it's worst and something I am completely opposed to. At best as I said earlier it's elitism; it's assuming that University degree at Bolton is not worth the paper it is written on and all those that get that piece of paper are going to worse off with it.
Ketara wrote: But they went because they didn't know what else to do and everyone expects you to these days.
But was still their choice, it unfortunately shows a lack of support from society as whole that they did that, but then at the same time as an individual you still have to make choices for yourself.
Ketara wrote: Is that a touch of cynicism I hear? I'll make a Private Eye reader of you yet.
No plenty of cynicism especially when it comes to the Conservatives, but I do try and ensure that all possible other possibilities are considered (after all most of the time things that go wrong are genuine mistakes). But I do also ensure that I am always hopeful that we can improve and be better. I think endless cynicism is just as bad as hopeless optimism, it's about maintaining a balance.
Ketara wrote: I'm sorry, but you've started generalising away from the specific point being discussed; namely the hard material benefits of being within the EU, and how many people benefit from them, and not only that, are aware of doing so (in order for them to miss them later on to make them want to rejoin). I maintain it is a negligible number of the total population of the UK. I'd be surprised if it were higher than a few million.
So? That's how the conversation started (and that more younger people realise this than older), you asked for the benefits of being in the EU were and I gave you a non-comprehensive list of what I thought the benefits were. You wanted to specifically talk about grants and as I pointed out that was one of items that I highlighted so going back to the more generalised conversation is reasonable considering you were saying that the grants themselves did not make up enough of a reason on their own?
Also based on the previous part of the post above there are definitely 3.3 million "of the total population" that have benefited from the UK being in the EU, and likewise the UK has benefited from those 3.3 million of the population.
whembly wrote: <--- this 'Murrican redneck is all confused. How can this party suspend that party?
O.o
There's the national labour party which is meant to represent the party at a national level. Then you have a large number of local labour party branches, with their own leadership, to represent the party members at a local level. The national party has suspended one of their local branches, seemingly trying to annul a vote which didn't go the way they wanted.
whembly wrote: <--- this 'Murrican redneck is all confused. How can this party suspend that party?
O.o
It's mostly due to our parliamentary system.
The Labour party is not just one homogenous entity, it consists of various branches and associations, and historically, because of it's links to the co-op movement and trade unionism, this complicates things further.
Each branch or association, is responsible for selecting candidates for MP, and if all goes well, whoever gets selected gets to contest the election.
In American terms, that would be a primary...I think
As for the party suspending that party, this is a simple analogy, but say the Republican party HQ in Washington was unhappy with the Alaskan branch, they could suspend it, or impose sanctions or whatever.
EDIT: Malus, get your tanks off my lawn!!!
Thanks for the insight.
Still seems, dangerous. (@Do_I_Not_Like_That, the most the National RNC could do is shut off the funding spigot. The local/states partys are very autonomous... which has it's own problems )
The NEC is damned no matter what they do. same with the PLP and everything else that is part of the Labour machine.
I wouldn't be surprised by the allegations coming out of Brighton though. My experiences tell me that bullying is considered a legit method by JC supporters. Not that the right of the party have anything to crow about.
Apparently Chairman Thatch is to blame for Labours current woes as well.
Mr. Burning wrote: The NEC is damned no matter what they do. same with the PLP and everything else that is part of the Labour machine.
I wouldn't be surprised by the allegations coming out of Brighton though. My experiences tell me that bullying is considered a legit method by JC supporters. Not that the right of the party have anything to crow about.
Apparently Chairman Thatch is to blame for Labours current woes as well.
It has been argued by others, and I tend to agree with it, that the Labour Party died in 1983...
What we've had these past 30 years is a movement that never really recovered from the collapse of the wall, and the historical decline of Trade Unionism...
It's a 20th century party that has assumed zombie like status as it lurches into the 21st century.
Corbyn's not to blame for this historical decline, but IMO if the party did split, my reaction would be: what took you so long?
No I'd argue that you are taking a load of different discussions mangling the points and then putting them back together in a way that suits your argument (which always makes forums debates tricky) and why I try to only refer to the points in the previous post rather than mash it altogether wave a magic wand and go 'ta da' look none of it makes sense!
If you disagree with the way I've put it together, I can literally substantiate it point by point with direct quotes for the back and forth. I re-read everything when I put together the summary.
The reason I summarised and brought it full circle is because otherwise in forum debates, if you don't do that you end up arguing back and forth about the definition of the colour purple when your original topic was the interior design industry in Kazakhstan. Which is kind of pointless
Yes Japan is a perfect example of what happens to an isolated country that is susceptible to shocks with an ailing economy because it doesn't have that global influence.
Yes, such an ailing economy that it's regularly listed as being in the top three worldwide...
Don't get me wrong, I accept that there are pros and cons to being outside the EU economically speaking. But you're shifting the goalposts there slightly, the point was that we'd have less influence on the world stage. But as things stand, we have 1/28th of the influence of a trading bloc, which could be considered to be less than that of an independent nation. Because the collective influence is not British influence.
And Japan, for all it's economic woes, is still a reasonable economic powerhouse in terms of production, consumption, and muscle. No, it's not China or the US or the EU, but who is? It's unrealistic to equate the two. It's still doing far better for itself, than say, Ghana, Norway, or Canada in terms of world influence. Who all do very well for themselves also.
If your sample is large enough then within a statistical error the unsampled proportion will fall within your existing result.
With the qualification that it is has to be possible for it to do so. I comprehend every piece of the statistical reasoning, but maintain it is wrong because of the inherent bias of the nature of the test being undertaken. You are trying to do the equivalent of assessing the opinion of homeless people on a piece of policy by asking homeowners. No matter what all of the homeowners think, their opinions in no way include what homeless people think, because there are no homeless people participating.
In other words, you cannot ascertain the opinions of people who do not care about politics enough to vote on a given political matter by examining the opinions of people who have voted. Because the fact that they voted excludes them automatically from being part of the group of 'people who did not care enough to vote'. If I walked out the door tomorrow, and polled every single person who had not voted in the last election, and included the option 'don't know, don't care' on the card, I daresay I would get several million hits for that option. But the opinion of those people would be completely statistically unrepresented in the results of a general election, despite them making up a statistically significant proportion of the responses there. All you can ascertain from the GE data is that x number of people did not care enough to submit a vote.
That's not to say that some of the young un's who didn't vote in the brexit referendum wouldn't be inclined towards remain. And that another proportion might be inclined towards brexit. But the quantity of the 'meh' or 'don't know don't care' vote is completely unknown, and may well be (and judging by the fact they didn't vote, is inclined to be) really quite large. You could potentially guess from the votes counted that for every one person that did not vote who was inclined towards brexit, three would be inclined towards remain. That would be a permissible interpretation.
But what is not known, is out of those four voters with an inclination, how many 'don't know don't care' voters there were. If there are even six of those for every four with an inclination had they been at the polls, suddenly your result of '3/4 young people supports remain' changes quite violently. Considering 65% of young people didn't vote, that would suddenly mean that the actual result is 39% of young people don't care. And given that these were people who didn't care enough to share up, I daresay that the 'Don't know, don't care' contingent would be higher than three for every two with a natural inclination.
You are relating a desire to control immigrants in Switzerland with the desire or not to be strongly tied with the EU and that is just hypothesising.
It's not an unreasonable assumption. If a citizen is opposed to X, and membership of an organisation includes X by default, it would be an unusual person indeed who didn't consider X to be a problem with joining that organisation. They might choose to do it anyway, but they're unlikely to suddenly not mind X.
I hate small children screaming, and Thorpe Park has a lot of them in the queue to get in. I might choose to stand in the queue and endure the screaming, but it doesn't mean I'm suddenly okay with it. Likewise, if the Swiss are opposed to uncontrolled immigration, but uncontrolled immigration is the price of being in the EU, it would logically follow that whilst they might choose to endure it, they're still not going to be happy about it.
Spoiler:
And so we are saying the State, or just you, or the wicked witch of the west have the right to make that decision?
Yes. Because as a taxpayer, I'm paying for it, instead of a local homeless shelter. We live in a world of finite resources, and appropriate decisions must be made as to the best utilisation of those limited resources.
It is their life and they are entitled to make that decision.
If they're willing to pay for it, they can do whatever they want.
By all means as a society we should provide advice to assist what may be the best course of action but why should the state force that decision?
Because the state is footing the bill and has limited resources. If the person does not agree with that use of resources, they are free to campaign politically for a re-evaluation of priorities.
How does anyone know that the person getting a 2:2 at Bolton University will not become the best PM we have ever had or bring world peace.
How do we know that person wouldn't do it without the 2:2?
At worst you saying that the state 'in it all its glory' should make a decision about a person at a specific time in their life about what their future holds; so those the state doesn't think are up to much can go to the workhouse, those lucky few can go to University.
Or, alternative possibilities that are likely to be of more benefit both to them and society can be opened up with that money that would have sent them to University. There's things in between the 'workhouse' (seriously, what's with the Victorian rhetoric?) and the sparkling utopia of university debt. Some are better. Some are worse. Often those two things change depending on the person.
You will note how social mobility has fallen despite the abolition of grammar schools and 50% of kids going to University.
Eh. I still maintain several millions is too high, I suspect it would be closer to three million at an absolute ceiling, but the specific point is conceded.
So? That's how the conversation started (and that more younger people realise this than older), you asked for the benefits of being in the EU were and I gave you a non-comprehensive list of what I thought the benefits were.
Not quite. I asked what they were on a material concrete regular level for your average citizen, and then listed visa free travel and the occasional odd grant agency as potential ones, and asked for others. You then mentioned how visa free travel was no inconsequential thing, and that grants were a huge thing (linking to a website). (I can pull quotes if you think I'm misrepresenting this)
We have now established that grants benefit only a very small number of people, but that visa free travel has a very hard benefit for 1.2 million people living abroad, and most likely another few million who travel frequently. Now that's out of a population of close to 70 million.
The reason for asking originally was to ascertain (to come full 180) whether or not people would miss the benefits of being within the EU substantially, and whether or not this would incline them to change their mind in the future. So far, the examples presented would appear to indicate that those benefits are only enjoyed by a minority of a few million. Even if I take your figure of seven million for travel, and then add on a ludicrous million receiving personal grants, we are still nowhere near a sufficiently high number of beneficiaries for the majority of people to be 'missing' the EU's supposed many hard tangible benefits to them in twenty years time.
Also based on the previous part of the post above there are definitely 3.3 million "of the total population" that have benefited from the UK being in the EU, and likewise the UK has benefited from those 3.3 million of the population.
I'm not entirely sure you can include foreign immigrants contributing towards 'How many British citizens have benefited from EU membership in a concrete material way that is perceivable by them on the empirical level'. You could potentially argue it as a benefit to existing British citizens, but good luck arguing that one, judging by the Brexit rhetoric, many of them perceive it as a bane, not a boon.
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: Oh ffs. Could you both please take the bickering over statistics to a PM or at least use spoilers?
Bickering? I'm quite enjoying the conversation, there's no animosity here. I was a little rude at first, but I apologised for that. I accept you might not want to read it, and the spoiler suggestion is fair enough. There's no need to be unpleasant about it though.
Tell me about it. I'm trying to institute spoiler tags and it just isn't working properly for some reason.
EDIT: Whelp, apologies for the rest of your gents and your tired fingers, but I'm afraid I can't seem to spoiler tag properly right now. Very strange. One of the points had to be left unspoilered, I suspect it's something to do with a BB code configuration/usage I'm not aware of.
Ketara wrote: Tell me about it. I'm trying to institute spoiler tags and it just isn't working properly for some reason.
EDIT: Whelp, apologies for the rest of your gents and your tired fingers, but I'm afraid I can't seem to spoiler tag properly right now. Very strange. One of the points had to be left unspoilered, I suspect it's something to do with a BB code configuration/usage I'm not aware of.
Name me a single political party that isn't. I would far rather a genuine left wing government than any of the gak that I have seen in my lifetime though.
Name me a single political party that isn't. I would far rather a genuine left wing government than any of the gak that I have seen in my lifetime though.
Let me clarify. What I mean is that they're out for a return to the olden days, where the Labour party danced to Union strings and Callaghan had tea with the Union leaders in Downing Street once a week to learn what the Labour party's stance would be on affairs. Kinnock subsequently threw the hard left out of the upper tier of the Labour party, and they've been waiting for a chance to get back in ever since.
Now we have Corbyn completely at McCluskey's mercy. I don't think we're going to have another winter of discontent, the Unions don't have the power. But the remnants of the old hard left are emerging, and most young people today simply don't have the historical background to know what happened last time that occurred.
Ketara wrote: where the Labour party danced to Union strings and Callaghan had tea with the Union leaders in Downing Street once a week to learn what the Labour party's stance would be on affairs.
You mean compared to today when the Tories dance to the tune of the city of London?
Ketara wrote: where the Labour party danced to Union strings and Callaghan had tea with the Union leaders in Downing Street once a week to learn what the Labour party's stance would be on affairs.
You mean compared to today when the Tories dance to the tune of the city of London?
The Tories dance to their own tune, and always have done. Whatever mischief they make, whatever taxes they raise or lower, it's because they've decided to do it. The Chairman of Goldman Sachs isn't running the country by proxy. The Union leaders back then though, were a bunch of hardcore Trotskyites with a ridiculously unhealthy level of influence in government. Frustration with that is what lead to Thatcher.
And even if it were the case, under the supposed rule of Goldman Sachs, I can at least get my telephone connected inside of a year, the trains replace their rolling stock, and we're not crippled by industrial strikes. We don't want to go back to the seventies, nuh-uh.
The Tories dance to their own tune, and always have done..
Its strange that the tune that is always being played seems to be particular beneficent to the City though isn't it?
That's because the Tories have a political ideology that endears them to it, and social links to people who work in it. Not to mention that ever since downgrading the civil service, they rely on consultancy firms a ridiculous amount.
But I repeat, that's different to the Union leaders. You know, people like the lovely Arthur Scargill, who turned out to be on Soviet pay. I've heard enough tales of the what happened to people who jumped picket lines, or who went to work somewhere and didn't want to join the Union. Or god forbid, withheld their Union dues. Half of the leaders were no better than gangsters in terms of how they got there.
The Unions tried to control the country through mass strikes and violent clashes with the police. Stupid fethers ruined the labour movement for everyone for the next thirty years and caused such unpopularity Thatcher got away with murder in some regards.
Ketara wrote: where the Labour party danced to Union strings and Callaghan had tea with the Union leaders in Downing Street once a week to learn what the Labour party's stance would be on affairs.
You mean compared to today when the Tories dance to the tune of the city of London?
The Tories dance to their own tune, and always have done. Whatever mischief they make, whatever taxes they raise or lower, it's because they've decided to do it. The Chairman of Goldman Sachs isn't running the country by proxy.
Workers gaining power is the point of unions. Withholding production is one of the simplest ways of fighting back against your employer, whose exploitation of you is why you have a job in the first place. People why try to sabotage your efforts at reclaiming the worth you produce are not people you need to be kind to at all. They're called scabs, you know? The police exist precisely to stop workers from taking the factories over. They are not an ally.
Unions that join together and do mass strikes and recognise the police as their enemy are good unions. This is basic leftism.
Rosebuddy wrote: Workers gaining power is the point of unions. Withholding production is one of the simplest ways of fighting back against your employer, whose exploitation of you is why you have a job in the first place. People why try to sabotage your efforts at reclaiming the worth you produce are not people you need to be kind to at all. They're called scabs, you know? The police exist precisely to stop workers from taking the factories over. They are not an ally.
Unions that join together and do mass strikes and recognise the police as their enemy are good unions. This is basic leftism.
And when legislation can't get through Parliament without the support of the Unions? When they're holding the Government and country to ransom? You essentially end up with a bunch of unelected Trotskyites running the country, and when as mentioned, enough of those unions aren't even representing their own members so much as they're forcing people to join or get the crap kicked out of them round the back, you have problems.
I want to live in a democracy. Not a country where my elected Prime Minister has to wine and dine the head of TUC and other unions and desperately try and persuade them to let the economy start moving again, like over pay rates in 1974. And then to have to accede to whatever they dictate.
You can live in a Trotskyite fantasy if you like. I'll pass. What you're describing isn't Unions preventing workers from exploitation so much as it is workers being exploited by a small group of hard-left people who manipulate them to realise their own political wet dreams. Much like New Labour, but more kicking the gak out of people who don;t want to join you.
As opposed to a country where our Chancellor wines and dines Googles Chief Executive..... oh wait.
Also there was the endemic bullying in the Tory Youth Wing, but that's also different. Right?
Also where were all these trotskyists the last 30 years? Seems odd that they've only joined up with JC on the ballot, kinda lazy really, and not proper Trotsky behaviour.
Mozzyfuzzy wrote: As opposed to a country where our Chancellor wines and dines Googles Chief Executive..... oh wait.
It's weird. You'd almost think that I'd made an argument that I liked people other than the government having too much control over the government when it was the Tories instead.
Anyway, I maintain my point. No google or newspaper executive has brought on the winter of discontent or anything even close to it. When google stops the bins being picked up, or the ill being treated, or corpses buried, we can talk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_Discontent
Rosebuddy wrote: Workers gaining power is the point of unions. Withholding production is one of the simplest ways of fighting back against your employer, whose exploitation of you is why you have a job in the first place. People why try to sabotage your efforts at reclaiming the worth you produce are not people you need to be kind to at all. They're called scabs, you know? The police exist precisely to stop workers from taking the factories over. They are not an ally.
Unions that join together and do mass strikes and recognise the police as their enemy are good unions. This is basic leftism.
And when legislation can't get through Parliament without the support of the Unions? When they're holding the Government and country to ransom? You essentially end up with a bunch of unelected Trotskyites running the country, and when as mentioned, enough of those unions aren't even representing their own members so much as they're forcing people to join or get the crap kicked out of them round the back, you have problems.
I want to live in a democracy. Not a country where my elected Prime Minister has to wine and dine the head of TUC and other unions and desperately try and persuade them to let the economy start moving again, like over pay rates in 1974. And then to have to accede to whatever they dictate.
You can live in a Trotskyite fantasy if you like. I'll pass. What you're describing isn't Unions preventing workers from exploitation so much as it is workers being exploited by a small group of hard-left people who manipulate them to realise their own political wet dreams. Much like New Labour, but more kicking the gak out of people who don;t want to join you.
The one living in a fantasy here is you. You see careerist politicians trying to kick out a social democrat who is wildly popular with the actual Labour base and drawing in tens of thousands of new supporters because he is someone who finally shares their ideals and think that, obviously, it's the Hard Left manipulating the poor saps who watch X-Factor and pay £3 and don't know anything about politics unlike your own good self who hates unions and doesn't want any of that class war silliness in your leftist party. The fact of the matter is that Corbyn isn't disliked among MPs because of his skills or lack thereof at the abstract act of politics, organisation or oratory (unlike that wonderful Blair!) but because he's a leftist at all and would scare away the nice wine dinners with lobbyists and those cushy consultation jobs after retiring from politics would dry right up.
At every step of this hilarious process the MPs have been craven idiots with nothing but disdain for democracy and at every step the sheer depths of their incompetence and imbecility have been revealed to be greater than previously thought. After Corbyn replaced them as they quit, ignored their baseless vote of no confidence, accepted the leadership challenge and defended his right to be on the ballot (twice!) they secretly pushed through a motion to prevent new members from voting for leadership once they were sure enough Corbyn supporters had left the room for it to work and what you take away from the situation is that Corbyn is nothing but a wooden puppet for those dastardly evil trots. This is not a useful perspective.
Mozzyfuzzy wrote: As opposed to a country where our Chancellor wines and dines Googles Chief Executive..... oh wait.
It's weird. You'd almost think that I'd made an argument that I liked people other than the government having too much control over the government when it was the Tories instead.
Anyway, I maintain my point. No google or newspaper executive has brought on the winter of discontent or anything even close to it. When google stops the bins being picked up, or the ill being treated, or corpses buried, we can talk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_Discontent
How about bringing the global economy to its knees and having to be bailed out by the tax payer?
The one living in a fantasy here is you. You see careerist politicians trying to kick out a social democrat who is wildly popular with the actual Labour base and drawing in tens of thousands of new supporters because he is someone who finally shares their ideals
What ideals would those be? Beyond 'mumble mumble end austerity, ditch Trident, nationalise trains, people's quantitative easing mumble mumble' Corbyn hasn't exactly laid many out. His stated policies so far have been brief as they are general for the most part.
Do you think that the number of people who voted for Farage last election share all his ideals?
think that, obviously, it's the Hard Left manipulating the poor saps who watch X-Factor and pay £3 and don't know anything about politics
I thought when Livingstone made a reappearance that it was worrying. I'm more worried now by the fact that the Unions are now the only thing keeping Corbyn in power, because unions haven't had that sort of leverage over the head of a Labour party since Callaghan. And McCluskey IS hard left. Many of the people pushing for deselection ARE hard left. Whatever the people sitting at home do or don't think, the fact remains that the hard left HAS made something of a bid to solidify it's grip on the party again under Corbyn.
Corbyn himself? I think he's a well-intentioned, if slightly self-righteous backbencher who's been backed into a corner by the PLP, and is utilising whatever tools he can grab to stay where he is. And unfortunately, the only tools he can grab are those proffered by the hard left right now, but those will come with a price if he wins.
unlike your own good self who hates unions
I actually rather like unions. I think they have a very proper place in defending the working man's leverage at the work place. I think they've been historically very significant in improving the lot of the working man, and I think most employees should be unionised. That reminds me actually, I've been meaning to join one myself. Have to do that tomorrow...
Sorry, does that disturb the rather lurid narrative you're painting of me here? I mean, 'RABBLE RABBLE EVIL UNIONS RABBLE RABBLE'.
That help?
The fact of the matter is that Corbyn isn't disliked among MPs because of his skills or lack thereof at the abstract act of politics, organisation or oratory (unlike that wonderful Blair!) but because he's a leftist at all and would scare away the nice wine dinners with lobbyists and those cushy consultation jobs after retiring from politics would dry right up.
There's a hint of that, but I think it's more that he has no chance of winning an election. YMMV.
At every step of this hilarious process the MPs have been craven idiots with nothing but disdain for democracy and at every step the sheer depths of their incompetence and imbecility have been revealed to be greater than previously thought.
You're generalising an awful lot of people there. Are you going to call them all Blairites too?
After Corbyn replaced them as they quit, ignored their baseless vote of no confidence,
He's been a pretty naff leader, as evidence by his lack of ability to, y'know lead. He's also given Cameron the easiest ride he's ever had. I have a lot of respect for Corbyn, but I wouldn't exactly call the charges on his fitness for the position 'baseless'.
accepted the leadership challenge and defended his right to be on the ballot (twice!) they secretly pushed through a motion to prevent new members from voting for leadership once they were sure enough Corbyn supporters had left the room for it to work
That's quite some revisionism. And even if it were true, it would reflect pretty poorly on Corbyn and his supporters that they'd wander off from a Council still sitting and deciding on important matters. Weak bladders or something?
what you take away from the situation is that Corbyn is nothing but a wooden puppet for those dastardly evil trots[/i].
Not quite. What I took away was that up until now, Corbyn had a certain degree of autonomy. He had a shadow cabinet (scheming or otherwise), and the (admittedly passive) support to indifference of the PLP whilst he did his job. Now? Literally the only thing keeping him there is Len McCluskey. Len can remove him tomorrow. And I don't feel that such a level of power by the Unions over the Labour party is the way forward, either for Labour, or for the country.
I actually rather like unions. I think they have a very proper place in defending the working man's leverage at the work place. I think they've been historically very significant in improving the lot of the working man, and I think most employees should be unionised.
Sorry, does that disturb the rather lurid narrative you're painting of me here? I mean, 'RABBLE RABBLE EVIL UNIONS RABBLE RABBLE'.
That help?
You're painting your own lurid narrative by comparing unionism to trotsykyism and alluding to the winter of discontent as being the only result of any politicised union. The fact is that the Labour party was born out of the unions, something that NU Labour tried to distance themselves from. The 90s are over, no one is interested In Tory Lite anymore. We don't need any more conservatives, especially not smiling knife Blairites.
You're painting your own lurid narrative by comparing unionism to trotsykyism
Dear God man, have you read a history book on the sort of pull and stunts the Unions had in the 1970's? Or the biographies of the Union leaders of the time? The upper echelons of the unions were seeded with men who thought they had as much a right to run the country as the democratically elected government, and took extremely heavily from Trotskyism. Christ, look at the struggle they had keeping Militant Tendency out of the party machine?
There is unionism. And there is trotskyism. One is fine. The other is fine. When they mix and start influencing the official opposition, I get worried. Len McCluskey himself has cited in interviews that Marx, Lenin & Trotsky were 'his most significant political influences'. You know, Trotsky and Lenin, those two wonderful blokes who did so much good for the people of Russia. 'Course, a lot of people disagreed with what was best for them and had to be shot, but hey? Workers unite, etc. McCluskey is now the man with Corbyn completely in the palm of his hand (without the union votes, Corbyn wouldn't even be on the ballot).
The fact is that the Labour party was born out of the unions, something that NU Labour tried to distance themselves from.
Yup. Papering over the cracks of the fact that Union and working class support was fading. Mainly because they succeeded, and the working classes began to move upwards and life got comfy even for those at the bottom. So they tried to evolve. It didn't work, but hey, they tried.
The 90s are over, no one is interested In Tory Lite anymore. We don't need any more conservatives, especially not smiling knife Blairites.
I agree with this. I disagree McCluskey and Corbyn are the ones to do it. We need more of an Attlee government. Not a Callaghan one.
Neither have any of the current union leaders and as you said yourself the political environment is different now. The winter of discontent was 38 years ago.
Neither have any of the current union leaders and as you said yourself the political environment is different now. The winter of discontent was 38 years ago.
Half and half. You are right that the winter of discontent could not be mirrored now. The Unions do not have the sway in the modern workplace and picketing capabilities have been reduced. But the fundamental power issue with potentially having a Prime Minister at the mercy of the union leaders is not quite so distant. So for example:-
The huge mandate from the Labour membership is what is keeping Corbyn in power.
That, at least, is now factually incorrect. The NEC only voted to automatically include his name on the ballot sheet by 18 to 14 votes, without the Union votes he'd have been ousted then.
Corbyn will have two choices, assuming he sees off the leadership challenge (which I think he will, although he won't get the same landslide as last time). Either he accepts he has no actual control over the PLP they don't choose to give him (rendering him completely impotent), or he'll have to start trying to deselect MP's and intimidate others until line. Corbyn is one man, he doesn't have anywhere near the level of resources, even with his momentum factional group, to pull that off on his own.
That leaves the Unions and the hard left. If they insert themselves into the key positions of the PLP, take over the local Labour groups in safe seats, and bludgeon the rest of the MP opposition into place with intimidation, they will effectively control Mr Corbyn and the Labour party. And hey, I suppose you could say that would be a good thing, and make the Labour party more true to it's roots. And there's no guarantee he'd win the next election anyway.
Regardless, I think that even the slimmest prospect of a Labour Prime Minister completely dependent on Union backing to get anything through Parliament and control the party would be a disastrous. Why? Because it would mean that the Prime Minister can do nothing without the consent of the Unions, and can be removed by them whenever they wish. In effect? That makes McCluskey, a confirmed Trotskyite by his own words, the unelected Prime Minister, with the other union bosses his cabinet.
That is what I dislike about the situation. Not some strange fear of the winter of discontent being mimicked or hatred of the unions generally. It's power politics in it's most pure form; anyone who isn't the PLP controlling the PM and Government is inherently undemocratic, because they are the ones we vote for.
Regardless, I think that even the slimmest prospect of a Labour Prime Minister completely dependent on Union backing to get anything through Parliament and control the party would be a disastrous. Why? Because it would mean that the Prime Minister can do nothing without the consent of the Unions, and can be removed by them whenever they wish.
Should he win the leadership election, and I see no reason why he won't, the PLP will have to fall broadly in line behind him or form their own breakaway party which will probably have a short shelf life; they have no other choice. The unions will not be "controlling him", they will of course be influencing him and he will be ideologically close to their position anyway but as I said earlier the same can be said for the hard right Tories and the City.
Ketara wrote: That is what I dislike about the situation. Not some strange fear of the winter of discontent being mimicked or hatred of the unions generally. It's power politics in it's most pure form; anyone who isn't the PLP controlling the PM and Government is inherently undemocratic, because they are the ones we vote for.
Labour would need to win a general election before they can form a government which would need a pro Corbyn PLP who would have been voted in in a GE.
And even if it were the case, under the supposed rule of Goldman Sachs, I can at least get my telephone connected inside of a year, the trains replace their rolling stock, and we're not crippled by industrial strikes. We don't want to go back to the seventies, nuh-uh.
Amazingly enough when we just had BT you could get your phone connected in less than 1 year.
According to the Rebuilding Rail Report, the cost of running the railways has more than doubled in real terms since privatisation, from £2.4 billion during the five year period 1990-95 to around £5.4 billion per year during 2005–10.
Our research, carried out with Corporate Watch, has found that we could save £352 million by bringing the railways into public ownership - £13 per UK household (infographic). These savings are based on the lower borrowing costs for government-financed investment, and the elimination of shareholders dividends. The Rebuilding Rail Report further factors in the costs associated with the fragmentation of services and keeping Network Rail’s debt off the government balance sheet, bringing the cost of privatisation to an estimated £1.2 billion - enough to fund an 18% cut in rail fares.
Since the cost of running the railways cannot be met by passenger fares alone, the government pays billions of pounds in subsidy to the train operating companies. However, much of this public subsidy doesn’t even reach the railways, but goes straight to shareholders. For example, between 1997 and 2012 on the West Coast Mainline, Virgin Trains paid out a total of £500 million in dividends, having received a direct subsidy of £2.5 billion.
As the train operating companies are private firms, they have a legal duty to maximise their profits for shareholders, rather than put passengers first. The five largest private train companies received almost £3 billion in taxpayer support between 2007 and 2011. This allowed them to make operating profits of £504 million, over90% of which was paid out in dividends to shareholders. In our present system, private companies can make millions of pounds of profit every year, whilst depending on public subsidy and investment. This situation is understandably unpopular. Indeed, the argument found most persuasive by those who want the railways in public ownership is that railways should be accountable to taxpayers rather than shareholders.
As corporate profit have increased, so have fares for passengers. Since privatisation, the average price of a train journey has increased by 22% in real terms. The price of season tickets on some commuter routes is regulated to prevent large above-inflation rises, so this headline figure disguises the fact that walk-on tickets onsome routes have been hiked by 245%! This has left Britain with rail fares that are nearly twice as expensive as France, Germany, Italy and Spain. In January 2015 train fares rose by 5% on some routes, taking the overall increase since 2010 to 24.7% - far outstripping increases in wages. A recent YouGov poll found that 47% of the public that support public ownership of our railways believe it would bring down fares.
The sell off of our railways has also failed to deliver increased investment in rail infrastructure. Lack of private investment means the average age of trains is higher than it was in 1996, and any investments are usually underwritten by the government - evidenced by the electrification of the West Coast Mainline. And whilst there has been a 60% increase in rail passengers since 1994/95, there has only been a 3 per cent increase in new carriages, causing in serious overcrowding on many routes.
In Scotland, responsibility for letting rail franchises is devolved to the Scottish Parliament. In October 2014 the ten-year franchise was awarded to Abellio, wholly owned by the Dutch government, despite calls to suspend the tendering process in light of promised new powers for Holyrood. Scotrail is the second most subsidised franchise in the UK, and rail union RMT have estimated that dividends paid to shareholders have forced fares up by around 7%. The Co-op Party and train drivers’ union Aslef have set out a vision for a publicly owned Scottish rail network, with co-operative principles, and a commitment to community benefit and customer service.
Claiming the privitaisation of the railways is in any way better -- unless you're a shareholder in company X/Y/Z , ism frankly a joke.
And whilst we are indeed not crippled by industrial strikes you've entirely we have of course seen waves of strikes from every level of the educational sector as well as in the NHS and the like as well.
Southern Railways has had to modify its timetable to cancel 326 trains a day due to disruption caused by construction work and an ongoing dispute with RMT staff who have been using high levels of calling in sick to register their disagreement with company policies.
Should he win the leadership election, and I see no reason why he won't, the PLP will have to fall broadly in line behind him or form their own breakaway party which will probably have a short shelf life; they have no other choice.
Or they could just, ignore him and hope he crashes and burns at the next election whilst paying lip service.
The unions will not be "controlling him", they will of course be influencing him and he will be ideologically close to their position anyway but as I said earlier the same can be said for the hard right Tories and the City.
When Goldman Sachs puts it's own candidates up to take control of local Tory parties and is singlehandedly keeping in the Tory leader in spite of the PTP, again, we can talk. I know you want to link the two, but they're really not analogous.
Labour would need to win a general election before they can form a government which would need a pro Corbyn PLP who would have been voted in in a GE.
I don't think it would happen anyway, but I am exceedingly wary of the Unions have so much control over Labour, especially if they reach Government. I believe it unlikely, but not impossible. If you are comfortable with the prospect, then I suppose we'll just have to disagree.
Claiming the privitaisation of the railways is in any way better -- unless you're a shareholder in company X/Y/Z , ism frankly a joke.
And whilst we are indeed not crippled by industrial strikes you've entirely we have of course seen waves of strikes from every level of the educational sector as well as in the NHS and the like as well.
'Better' is a bad way of putting it, and certainly not the one I would choose. The exact statement I made was that the trains had new rolling stock now. Which they do. The railways were chronically underinvested when they were nationalised before, they kept engines on well past their sell by date. And I think that having ALL the railways under one central authority and at risk from strikers is /probably inadvisable.
I'm actually not opposed to railway nationalisation, I think it can turn out quite nicely (there was a branch of the local railways which had their franchise confiscated quite recently and did well). A mix of the two approaches is probably best. There's a certain parallel in munitons manufacturing, if you keep a Government owned facility operating, it lets you keep an eye on prices and gives you a base of expertise to expand from/draw upon if one of the other suppliers needs ousting and replacing. If the Government made sure to reserve one or two franchises for themselves (not necessarily always the same ones), used that as a baseline for monitoring the private franchises, and were willing to confiscate them in cases of gross inefficiency like this SW dispute running right now (I'm on the side of the Union workers on that one), it would probably work quite well.
With re: medical and educational sector strikes, I'm on the workers side for those as well for the most part. I'm actually quite pro-Unions. I just don't like the idea of them wielding extensive political power.
Southern Railways has had to modify its timetable to cancel 326 trains a day due to disruption caused by construction work and an ongoing dispute with RMT staff who have been using high levels of calling in sick to register their disagreement with company policies.
Also, from what I have heard from some of the train staff so take with a hefty dose of salt, a large part of that particular problem is that apparently Southern brought in a policy which blocked people from being able to work overtime. As it turns out their whole timetable relied on people working overtime so they ended up with the problem of conductors getting off the trains halfway through the route as their shift had ended and the train being unable to continue as it didn't have the necessary staff.
Also, from what I have heard from some of the train staff, a large part of that particular problem is that apparently Southern brought in a policy which blocked people from being able to work overtime. As it turns out their whole timetable relied on people working overtime so they ended up with the problem of conductors getting off the trains halfway through the route as their shift had ended and the train being unable to continue as it didn't have the necessary staff.
Southern is playing games because it wants to bring in conductor-less trains. They've pledged not to fire any conductors, but they'll naturally be planning on shifting them to other posts and then quietly shedding staff for five years until their wage bill has been slashed by a third. The Union is naturally opposed because less staff means less Union strength. I personally think it's a bloody stupid idea because having a guard on board is very handy when one needs advice or direction, and for general security and safety purposes.
They should confiscate SW's bloody frachise already.
Conductor less trains? How the feth are they going to enforce fares then?
I don't use trains regularly anymore, but I used to use them weekly when I was at Uni. There used to be Conductors who'd come along with a little hand held ticket machine, and you could pay for a ticket there and then on the train with cash or a cash card. Whenever I was in a hurry and didn't have time to queue for a ticket (only one booth out of three was ever operating), I'd board the train with the intention of paying the Conductor. But by the end of my three years, it was rare for there to be a Conductor.
I'd have boarded a train with every intention of paying for a ticket when the guy came to collect, but ended up getting a free £7 train journey.
Pay banners at every entrance and exit along the route I'd assume.
London does it with the docklands light railway thanks to the oyster card.
But yeah I'm not a fan of the the idea for the whole safety aspect of it. - Guy keels over with a heart attack, noone gets on that carriage, who is going to notice?
However it is technically feasible. Especially when you're telling about routes timewise that aren't much longer then the DLR. Longer journeys they'll never people wandering through trying to sell you stuff anyways.
Compel wrote: Pay banners at every entrance and exit along the route I'd assume.
Not at the two stations I travelled back and forth between. One station along the route had that, but I rarely used that station, except when my train was passing through. I haven't used that train in a long time, but to the best of my knowledge it hasn't changed.
Longer journeys they'll never people wandering through trying to sell you stuff anyways.
I experienced that in Paris, on the trains and at the Eiffel Tower and the Champ de Mars. Couldn't go 10 feet without having some Romanian petition shoved in my face or black guys trying to grab my wrist and show me their little gimmicks, or guys on the trains trying to flog us stuff.
I know you want to link the two, but they're really not analogous.
They are though, its just that the Labour party and the Unions are openly aligned due to their historical links. Do you honestly believe that the City doesn't have considerable pull with the Tories?
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:Conductor less trains? How the feth are they going to enforce fares then?
People jump fares all the time anyway, and I daresay the conductors only ever catch a small proportion of them (say, 5-10%). If you assume that those people are going to all be jumping trains whether you have conductors or not, you have to balance say, half of that lost revenue in caught jumpers (because they'll still have teams of conductors and travel police boaridng and leaving trains or setting up temporary checkpoints to catch jumpers for that purpose) against the wage bill of a conductor on every train, I assume there is a vast, vast saving to be made. If a basic Conductor costs £25,000 a year and you have one on every train and a thousand trains running a day, think of high that wage bill is. If you can shed that many staff, your profits would go through the roof to the tune of millions. Against those sorts of figures, a handful of teenagers and students jumping fares that you were never going to get anyway on trains you have to run anyway, are no contest.
Silent Puffin? wrote:
They are though, its just that the Labour party and the Unions are openly aligned due to their historical links. Do you honestly believe that the City doesn't have considerable pull with the Tories?
There's having influence, and then having control. It's the difference between a co-worker and a boss.
Right now, the Unions have influence. They contribute large sums of money, and are well represented in the NEC and left wing community. That's fine, and good. I like that. But I don't want Corbyn essentially beholden to them to be able to pass legislation and being used as a puppet in the event of him reaching power. That would demean democracy.
I guessed £25,000 as an average sort of salary for the UK. A quick google shows the wage scale varies from £15,000-£28,000, but overtime is usually available if they want to earn more.
Not that this is a surprise as the media is controlled by a few very wealthy individuals that have no interest in a left wing more social agenda. At some point the media is going to have to be legislated to ensure it proves balanced coverage as at the moment we can massive front page articles that deliberately mislead the public and then post apologies in tiny writing on a page no one is going to read after the event such as the attached
As for the nationalising rail networks its not such a bad idea anymore to make more effective services. A lot of things publicly owned in the 80/90's were simply more expensive as private companies could provide the same service cheaper as they didn't have to provide all the benefits the state would have to. However these state benefits have now all been eroded to point where in fact they are similar or less beneficial than the private sector provide (for example access to private healthcare etc). On top of this the private sector want to make a 15-20% profit on everything they do. So in reality state run operations now have the ability to operate these services much more cost effectively (for the same service) for the consumers. The real risk to state run operations is what I consider "sticky fingers" where basically politicians don't like something and therefore feel the need to change because of their electorate. That then means the operations get tied up with ever less efficient modes of operation because that is what the MP of the day wants. In my view the best method of operation would be for the state to award a contract on a similar basis to a state owned business with an aim of limiting the overall profit but still act like it is a business. So for example if you nationalised the energy services the state companies remit would be to make a profit of say £0.5billion that is fed straight back to the government to support new infrastructure whilst ensuring that the service is still efficient whilst not hammering the average consumer for the benefit of shareholders that may have no real interest in the Country. The French have the right idea for example EDF are mostly (completely?) owned by the French state, which in effect means they profit from our energy needs.
I would make it a rule that every correction an dretraction a newspaper makes (and they would *have* to make them if proven demonstrably false), would have to be made in the same text size and font as the original article...
He wants to spend £200 billion on renewing Trident, then he wants to scrap it sometime down the line...
Sweet mother of God...
Please Mods, let me swear...this has to be the most stupidest bat gak insane idea I have heard in years...
You are completely taking it out of context. What he is saying is that he supports world disarmament of nuclear weapons but that it has to be done as a global initiative. However given current world insecurities (Rogue states, China and Russia making land grabs etc) with each other doing it right now might be a bad thing (although on the other hand as a country you can make a stand and fully disarm and then challenge others why they still need them, after all you can always argue that the only use of Nuclear weapons is for mass murder on potentially millions of people that are not responsible for their direct governments actions, but that's another debate). Hence we need them now, but globally push to not need them in the future (and also that is easier for us as we only hire, maybe with a refund if returned unused, the nukes from the US). That can't be a bad thing surely?
oh well played 
