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So how do explain Davis' U-turn on civil liberties?
There are several options, and it could be any of them or a mix. For example:-
1) He has access to information we do not and has rationally changed his mind accordingly
2) He still disagrees but is preserving cabinet unity, an extremely common occurrence in government.
3) He believes his best place to mitigate its effects/May's excesses is in Cabinet, as opposed to on the outside where he has little influence.
4) He traded compromise on this for a free hand/his own opinion carrying through on something of more importance to him/something he deems of more importance the country.
It's quite easily the case that there are rational options for his behaviour, ones which involve no compromise of integrity. It's extremely easy to judge from the outside, but I find it far more realistic to believe that well educated, experienced, and generally principled people have good reasons for their behavioural changes when they occur.
Being well educated, or having access to information that the rest of the public doesn't have, is no guarantee of good decision making IMO.
So with all due respect, I'm not buying it.
Tony Blair had intelligence info denied to the rest of us, and was surrounded by well educated, intelligent people, but we got the Iraq debacle, and the rest is history.
Thatcher's cabinet government, if the files released under the 30 year rule are anything to go by, wasn't all it was cracked up to be, either.
Political history is littered with people who changed once they got a whiff of power, Clegg being a textbook example, so it is likely that Davis has gone native.
"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd
Its' going to be interesting over the next few decades because with more university educated students that implies stronger support for the LDs in the future if they retain current voting preferences.
That is to say no other party appeals to students, and that the hysteria of Brexit making graduates leave the UK is untrue.
Erm, newsflash, Brexit won. You are now in the "don't want to change crowd". It's pro-EU voters that now want change....
Well there are two sorts of Inners, those who want to try and halt the process and those that want a fairer EU deal. I have no issues with us trying to get the best deal for the UK, but I am opposed to the notion of watering down the results, thereby protesting change to halt change isn’t the way forward, its two steps back!
So just to clarify what you are saying here - that given that 48% did actually vote to remain, you are saying that the approx. 28% or so that didn't vote are actually in the majority pro-EU people? Would that not effectively make the country pro-EU by quite some margin? And yet A lot of Brexiters argue that because the vast majority of MPs support the EU that this isn't representative? What you are saying is that the UK *is* being taken out of the EU against the majority of people in the country. Does that not make the support for Brexit being in the minority and hence we should not really be driving through the hardest Brexit possible? Would you mind going on question time and saying this?
I wouldn’t say that on question time. My assumption is not fact, and so can't be proven at the minute. I have strangely found something that you have latched onto because of a rare agreement that furthers your cause! As clarification I don't think the opinions of those who were registered to vote but didn't (apart from those that wanted to but e.g. physically couldn't) matter. I find it funny how some people took no interest in the Referendum, but since they didn't see a benefit to them in the result, start proactively moaning about their social injustice. Their views are illegitimate and so do not help or hinder both the IN and OUT result.
You've just pointed out that you think the majority of possible voters are pro-EU, surely that would indeed get them far because they are the only voice arguing for the majority? And just to clarify which part of the population are you expecting to making Brexit work?
It may or may not, it is all circumstantial. Every part of the population will make Brexit work. We are all cogs in the economy and each have a say on which way we should be going. It would be stupid to assume one part of the population would have a higher standing for the future of the UK than another. Ultimately it is up to the elected party for the proceedings, but after we are out for good, it is up to all of us to carry on business as usual.
Now that's just lazy, you are just copying what has already been done, as for being the bottom; I don't know that submarine looks pretty good... Also I assume you have evidence of the actual chances that the class is all from the EU given your sweeping statement (or is this just more "alternative facts").
No my caption was undeniably balanced. It did not 'assume' the whole class was from the EU, but the likelihood is the probably are. Think about it. If they were born in the UK, then they were born in the EU era, if they came from Europe the highest percentage says from an EU state. Yes there could be some born outside of the EU in the class, but statistically I think it would be proportionately less. Saying my caption is 'Lazy' because I know you disagree with it, is just a little childish.
Completely! Thought I'd check to see if the stalemate had moved on and it has. I might not be posting as frequently however. Then again I wouldn't want you missing out on my opinions now, would I?
ook-Keeping and Accounts are my speciality with cleanups.
This party is for the advancement of Indigenous English, Welsh,Scottish and Irish Nationals only.
The Abolish Magna Carta Reinstate Monarchy Party Members will lose the shackles of democracy and all the trappings that go with it.
We will have the power of free speech which has been denied to us for so long.
The following are just a few of the items we intend to redress:
The Unsigned Illegal document, The Magna Carta, will be Abolished.
As good business people, our Queen or King will be head of Government and will attend Parliament as required, or as they wish.
Abolish Magna Carta, Reinstate Monarchy Party, fully intends to Nationalize and make profitable the Coal Industry, Electricity, Gas, Water, BT, National Lottery, Royal Mail, Post Office, BBC & Railways.
Abolish Magna Carta, Reinstate Monarchy will stop All Foreign Aid, and use this money to pay toward the National Debt.
Age discrimination will be punished with imprisonment.
V.A.T. Returns are time consuming and costly to business. It will be drastically altered along with Import and Export Taxation.
Council Tax will be abolished.
Unions will be outlawed.
Income Tax will be rearranged to make it fair to all and sundry.
Employment Law will be reduced to give Employers their right to choose whom they employ and how much each employee is paid.
Maternity Pay, Paternity Pay, and Sick Pay will be abolished.
Employment linked Pensions will be abolished, and Employees will be encouraged to make their own Retirement Savings Plans.
Maternity Leave will not guarantee future employment.
Government Pensions will be paid only to those who work and pay National Insurance Contributions.
The Workhouse will be reinstated for vulnerable people.
Grammar Schools will return. Sex education will be abolished.
All Schooling and Education will be paid for by parents.
All Police Officers will pass tougher exams before recruitment.
Many Royal Mail workers will be recruited from Ex Servicemen.
Nuclear Power will be banned.
Fracking will incur imprisonment.
Laws, Courts, and the Prison Service will be reformed.
All Benefits to Asylum Seekers and Immigrants will be stopped, and All will be repatriated back to their country of origin, All other Nations will be encouraged to repatriate their English, Welsh, Irish.
Asylum Seekers, Immigrants, Their Ancestors & Descendants will be removed from All Banks, NHS, Government & All Security positions.
Human Rights Laws will be abolished.
Churchill will be charged with Treason and causing the deaths of thousands of little German School Children when he bombed Dresden.
The ethnic origins of All members of Government will be checked.
The Israeli terrorist Karl Marx will be charged with Treason and causing the Paris Revolution and the end of the French Monarchy.
Blair family Assets will be confiscated & paid to Hussein’s family.
Compensation will be paid to Dwarves created by Thalidomide.
Dentists, Optitions & Hearing Specialists will be taken out of the NHS. Doctors & Surgeons will have pay reductions, & many restrictions as regards dangerous medications to patients.
All child Benefits will be abolished to restrict society burdens.
Every Nation on this planet needs Ethnic Cleansing as the terrible Israeli Karl Marx, Winston Churchill, Sigmund Freud, Abu Hamza etc., proves.
Radio, TV, Films, Writers & Reporters will be regulated.
The Death Penalty for anyone using a Radio Signal to kill or control another human being or animal, except in warfare.
All Pornography, Homosexuals, Transvestites etc. will be removed from Films, Plays, Radio, Television etc.
Asylum Seekers, Immigrants & their descendents will not be allowed to own or work in any British Radio, TV, Newspaper or Magazine.
Asylum Seekers, Immigrants & their descendents will not be allowed to work in any food preparation, Medicine or Pills or Vaccines manufacture or preperation, to prevent sabotage.
Chemical Castration for Paedophiles and Murderers.
Asylum Seekers & Immigrants, their ancestors & descendents, must not be allowed to assess or check any school, college or university exams in the UK as this may be detrimental to Welsh or English students.
All Company Law will be drastically altered in favour of the Employer.
Unemployment Benefit claiment time will be cut to a minimum.
All disabled parking spaces will be banished.
Blue Badges will be obsolete and cancelled.
Housing Benefit will be discontinued.
All Irish Traveller sites will be closed, and All Irish Travellers, their ancestors and descendents will be repatriated back to Ireland.
We will Not sell Arms to other nations.
The British Armed Forces will be for our defence of the UK only
British Armed Forces will Not interfere in other nations disputes.
The British Armed Forces will Not train other nations in warfare.
British Armed Forces can be hired, Payment first, at their discretion, to help in natural disasters, rescues, etc, as they see fit.
British Armed Forces will be manned by indigenous English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish Nationals only.
Judges will no longer be able to promote their friends, colleagues, or favourites to be judges. The vacancies will be applied for as ordinary jobs and an IQ test will be used to assess the suitability of the applicants.
Psychiatrists and Mental Health workers will have a higher IQ than the patients they pretend to be superior to.
Drug addicts will no longer receive free treatment via the NHS for their addiction.
The NHS will be abolished, along with all the scams that go with it.
"Churchill will be charged with Treason and causing the deaths of thousands of little German School Children when he bombed Dresden."
"The Israeli terrorist Karl Marx will be charged with Treason and causing the Paris Revolution and the end of the French Monarchy."
... err...... think the proverbial ship might've sailed on those ones yes ?
said person has a wee bit of form here :
She also waged a vendetta against a radio station she accused of altering her brain remotely
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
So how do explain Davis' U-turn on civil liberties?
There are several options, and it could be any of them or a mix. For example:-
1) He has access to information we do not and has rationally changed his mind accordingly
2) He still disagrees but is preserving cabinet unity, an extremely common occurrence in government.
3) He believes his best place to mitigate its effects/May's excesses is in Cabinet, as opposed to on the outside where he has little influence.
4) He traded compromise on this for a free hand/his own opinion carrying through on something of more importance to him/something he deems of more importance the country.
It's quite easily the case that there are rational options for his behaviour, ones which involve no compromise of integrity. It's extremely easy to judge from the outside, but I find it far more realistic to believe that well educated, experienced, and generally principled people have good reasons for their behavioural changes when they occur.
Being well educated, or having access to information that the rest of the public doesn't have, is no guarantee of good decision making IMO.
So with all due respect, I'm not buying it.
Tony Blair had intelligence info denied to the rest of us, and was surrounded by well educated, intelligent people, but we got the Iraq debacle, and the rest is history.
Thatcher's cabinet government, if the files released under the 30 year rule are anything to go by, wasn't all it was cracked up to be, either.
Political history is littered with people who changed once they got a whiff of power, Clegg being a textbook example, so it is likely that Davis has gone native.
In think the real answer is he is a professional politican what else should we expect? And with going politicians Davis will always be able to pull out an excuse or blame it on someone else/thing. If they are a going Prime Minister it is even easier, just look how Tony Blair got off the hook with the Iraq inquiry! 'I didn't know it was a dodgey dossier! They said it was alternate facts and it certainly wasn't in the public interest to have it any time soon! I need to bugger off into the past first till the heat cools off!' U-turns come with political experience not education and it is usually when someone no longer controls a situation, the situation controls them.
ook-Keeping and Accounts are my speciality with cleanups.
This party is for the advancement of Indigenous English, Welsh,Scottish and Irish Nationals only.
The Abolish Magna Carta Reinstate Monarchy Party Members will lose the shackles of democracy and all the trappings that go with it.
We will have the power of free speech which has been denied to us for so long.
The following are just a few of the items we intend to redress:
The Unsigned Illegal document, The Magna Carta, will be Abolished.
As good business people, our Queen or King will be head of Government and will attend Parliament as required, or as they wish.
Abolish Magna Carta, Reinstate Monarchy Party, fully intends to Nationalize and make profitable the Coal Industry, Electricity, Gas, Water, BT, National Lottery, Royal Mail, Post Office, BBC & Railways.
Abolish Magna Carta, Reinstate Monarchy will stop All Foreign Aid, and use this money to pay toward the National Debt.
Age discrimination will be punished with imprisonment.
V.A.T. Returns are time consuming and costly to business. It will be drastically altered along with Import and Export Taxation.
Council Tax will be abolished.
Unions will be outlawed.
Income Tax will be rearranged to make it fair to all and sundry.
Employment Law will be reduced to give Employers their right to choose whom they employ and how much each employee is paid.
Maternity Pay, Paternity Pay, and Sick Pay will be abolished.
Employment linked Pensions will be abolished, and Employees will be encouraged to make their own Retirement Savings Plans.
Maternity Leave will not guarantee future employment.
Government Pensions will be paid only to those who work and pay National Insurance Contributions.
The Workhouse will be reinstated for vulnerable people.
Grammar Schools will return. Sex education will be abolished.
All Schooling and Education will be paid for by parents.
All Police Officers will pass tougher exams before recruitment.
Many Royal Mail workers will be recruited from Ex Servicemen.
Nuclear Power will be banned.
Fracking will incur imprisonment.
Laws, Courts, and the Prison Service will be reformed.
All Benefits to Asylum Seekers and Immigrants will be stopped, and All will be repatriated back to their country of origin, All other Nations will be encouraged to repatriate their English, Welsh, Irish.
Asylum Seekers, Immigrants, Their Ancestors & Descendants will be removed from All Banks, NHS, Government & All Security positions.
Human Rights Laws will be abolished.
Churchill will be charged with Treason and causing the deaths of thousands of little German School Children when he bombed Dresden.
The ethnic origins of All members of Government will be checked.
The Israeli terrorist Karl Marx will be charged with Treason and causing the Paris Revolution and the end of the French Monarchy.
Blair family Assets will be confiscated & paid to Hussein’s family.
Compensation will be paid to Dwarves created by Thalidomide.
Dentists, Optitions & Hearing Specialists will be taken out of the NHS. Doctors & Surgeons will have pay reductions, & many restrictions as regards dangerous medications to patients.
All child Benefits will be abolished to restrict society burdens.
Every Nation on this planet needs Ethnic Cleansing as the terrible Israeli Karl Marx, Winston Churchill, Sigmund Freud, Abu Hamza etc., proves.
Radio, TV, Films, Writers & Reporters will be regulated.
The Death Penalty for anyone using a Radio Signal to kill or control another human being or animal, except in warfare.
All Pornography, Homosexuals, Transvestites etc. will be removed from Films, Plays, Radio, Television etc.
Asylum Seekers, Immigrants & their descendents will not be allowed to own or work in any British Radio, TV, Newspaper or Magazine.
Asylum Seekers, Immigrants & their descendents will not be allowed to work in any food preparation, Medicine or Pills or Vaccines manufacture or preperation, to prevent sabotage.
Chemical Castration for Paedophiles and Murderers.
Asylum Seekers & Immigrants, their ancestors & descendents, must not be allowed to assess or check any school, college or university exams in the UK as this may be detrimental to Welsh or English students.
All Company Law will be drastically altered in favour of the Employer.
Unemployment Benefit claiment time will be cut to a minimum.
All disabled parking spaces will be banished.
Blue Badges will be obsolete and cancelled.
Housing Benefit will be discontinued.
All Irish Traveller sites will be closed, and All Irish Travellers, their ancestors and descendents will be repatriated back to Ireland.
We will Not sell Arms to other nations.
The British Armed Forces will be for our defence of the UK only
British Armed Forces will Not interfere in other nations disputes.
The British Armed Forces will Not train other nations in warfare.
British Armed Forces can be hired, Payment first, at their discretion, to help in natural disasters, rescues, etc, as they see fit.
British Armed Forces will be manned by indigenous English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish Nationals only.
Judges will no longer be able to promote their friends, colleagues, or favourites to be judges. The vacancies will be applied for as ordinary jobs and an IQ test will be used to assess the suitability of the applicants.
Psychiatrists and Mental Health workers will have a higher IQ than the patients they pretend to be superior to.
Drug addicts will no longer receive free treatment via the NHS for their addiction.
The NHS will be abolished, along with all the scams that go with it.
"Churchill will be charged with Treason and causing the deaths of thousands of little German School Children when he bombed Dresden."
"The Israeli terrorist Karl Marx will be charged with Treason and causing the Paris Revolution and the end of the French Monarchy."
... err...... think the proverbial ship might've sailed on those ones yes ?
said person has a wee bit of form here :
She also waged a vendetta against a radio station she accused of altering her brain remotely
Well apart from being a total Crackpot for a new Monster Raving Lunatic Party, there are a few interesting points:
1) 'Nationalize and make profitable the Coal Industry, Electricity, Gas, Water, BT, National Lottery, Royal Mail, Post Office, BBC & Railways'
Most of this is irrelevant, but I believe electricity and water should be government owned infrastructure whereby companies would sign leases to run the facilities and charge to a strictly fair and limited pricing agreement. I think the railways are ok, but the government needs greater intervention for better consumer price and to oust useless companies like Southern Rail with their long term contracts.
2) 'The Workhouse will be reinstated for vulnerable people'
The original workhouses were horrific. However a hostel setup that trained people and educated them in the process would be a good idea so that by the time they were discharged they could hopefully get a better standing in life.
3) 'Laws, Courts, and the Prison Service will be reformed'
An always on going process, but one I think we can all agree on.
4) 'Compensation will be paid to Dwarves created by Thalidomide'
One of the NHS's worst disasters, I am surprised there has been no major legal battle over compensation.
5) 'Unemployment Benefit claiment time will be cut to a minimum'
An always on going process, but one I think we can all agree on.
6) 'All Irish Traveller sites will be closed'
A semi-on going process as councils move them onto purpose built locations. Personally I believe they should lose the right to be called 'traveller's' as most do not travel once they have situated themselves on illegal land. When they are relocated they get permanent caravans. I believe when they are relocated the councils should charge them in some way for the tax payers money spent on a new site and the clean up after the environmental disasters they cause with rubbish.
Apart from that they are either a lunatic or doing this election stunt as a joke. They have no political chance outside of a good laugh. Quite funny ready thanks for posting!
That is to say no other party appeals to students, and that the hysteria of Brexit making graduates leave the UK is untrue.
Erm, you know there are both Labour and Conservative student supporters club? Students don't just vote LDs. There's also a sizeable support for other parties too, including the Green party.
As for graduates leaving, I think you are being too focussed on 'new' graduates. There has indeed been an upswing in the number of graduates admitting they are taking a more positive stance on looking for jobs abroad since Brexit, but how that translates into emigration figures is unclear. The more worrying thing that was noted is that there has been a shift in those that are looking (so younger, more educated). The UK can hardly afford to lose *any* educated (hence generally better paid and higher tax payers) younger people. The current position is starting to creek because there are so many of the baby-boomer years that are in the process of retiring/needing NHS assistance and there are too few people in the younger generation that are coming through. As such the relative need vs the relative income is becoming more skewed. Losing even a small proportion of the younger educated generation only piles more pressure on the system because it is struggling to cope already. The number of people needing the NHS and retiring is only increasing. What provided some assistance was free immigration from the EU as that provided a much needed boost to income tax to support these services. If you lose this (quite likely) and even a small proportion of the younger generation then the services you take for granted now just won't be viable in the future as there simply will be too much demand and not enough people supporting it.
Well there are two sorts of Inners, those who want to try and halt the process and those that want a fairer EU deal. I have no issues with us trying to get the best deal for the UK, but I am opposed to the notion of watering down the results, thereby protesting change to halt change isn’t the way forward, its two steps back!
How do you define a fair deal. We have a fair deal with the EU now (as in everyone has the same rights as everyone else in the EU). If it means the UK gets more for providing less then that is not a 'fair' deal at all. If a significant proportion want free movement for all and free trade access, isn't that a fair deal. You can still have Brexit and have these things...And look at it from the other side of the coin, you are quite happy to say that Remainers should get on with it and not try and prevent the process; yet that is what the Brexiters have done for the last 15-20 years. They've tried to undermine, lie and halt the EU (including NF and UKIP who have taken positions and pay as MEPs in a deliberate attempt to undermine as much as they could); and yet such things were never criticised or claimed as against the "will of the people", yet as soon as the Brexiters get there own way they are expecting the Remainers to 'just get on with it' and not protest (and do exactly the opposite of what Leavers did before the referendum. That is intensely hypocritical.
Whirlwind wrote: I wouldn’t say that on question time. My assumption is not fact, and so can't be proven at the minute. I have strangely found something that you have latched onto because of a rare agreement that furthers your cause! As clarification I don't think the opinions of those who were registered to vote but didn't (apart from those that wanted to but e.g. physically couldn't) matter. I find it funny how some people took no interest in the Referendum, but since they didn't see a benefit to them in the result, start proactively moaning about their social injustice. Their views are illegitimate and so do not help or hinder both the IN and OUT result.
This is a forum debating the issues. If you don't like being challenged on what you said, you are probably in the wrong place... . I was more interested in that you believe that the country is pro-EU, but don't think there should be support for staying in the EU. There's always been the argument that it is the democratic will of the people to leave. Yet that can't be your opinion if you believe that the majority of people (when you take into account non-voters) are in fact pro-EU because then that wouldn't be the will of the people. That implies a preference that a minority should make the decisions for the majority does it not? It doesn't really matter whether people voted or not. Parliament is there to represent everyone (not just those that vote). Just because people don't vote is not a reason to shuffle them into the gutter and ignore them.
It may or may not, it is all circumstantial. Every part of the population will make Brexit work. We are all cogs in the economy and each have a say on which way we should be going. It would be stupid to assume one part of the population would have a higher standing for the future of the UK than another. Ultimately it is up to the elected party for the proceedings, but after we are out for good, it is up to all of us to carry on business as usual.
Why should people just carry on as normal? The government wants to drive a free trade market in the future across the world (plus other airy fairy statements). Yet the people that in the majority that will have to do this are firstly the educated as they will bring forward the businesses (who in the main voted remain) and the current and next generation (who again in the majority favour staying in the EU). The baby boomers and older vastly supported Leave; their impact on the economy will be much smaller (and over 15-20 years will pass away). The uneducated rly on the educated to bring forward new ideas, new companies and so on (and get paid more at the same time). Effectively (and generally) Brexiters are relying on Remainers to pull their ass out of the fire by continuing this trend. But why should they care - why should they support an elderly generation that forced something on them they didn't want. Why should they pay the less well educated more money when they have been negatively impacted by the Brexit decision. What happens if they effectively just put up two fingers and say, we are worse off due to the Brexit vote but we can make things at least easier by reducing the benefits for the Brexiters (in general)?
No my caption was undeniably balanced. It did not 'assume' the whole class was from the EU, but the likelihood is the probably are. Think about it. If they were born in the UK, then they were born in the EU era, if they came from Europe the highest percentage says from an EU state. Yes there could be some born outside of the EU in the class, but statistically I think it would be proportionately less. Saying my caption is 'Lazy' because I know you disagree with it, is just a little childish.
Somehow I seriously doubt you included the UK when you said the EU And no sorry, it was lazy, all you have done is copied the idea and tried (badly) to spin it the other way (rather than create something new). For example here are a few new ones for you:-
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
"Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. " - V
I've just supported the Permanent European Union Citizenship initiative. Please do the same and spread the word!
"It's not a problem if you don't look up." - Dakka's approach to politics
Exports of jam, cheese, and biscuits? In whose world?
Our jam and biscuits are mediocre at best, particularly compared to the fine products coming out of France, Belgium etc.
Our cheese is pretty good, actually. But I'm pretty sure we already import more from the EU alone than we export to the entire world. And with us importing around half our food in general, there is no way we are going to suddenly find some surplus, unused arable farmland... and if we did, who runs the new dairy farms? Is there an upcoming generation of hipster artisanal cheesemakers? Where will they get the cheap agricultural labourers from to actually milk and tend the cows, once free movement is a thing of the past? All just feels like cloud cuckoo land stuff.
My game theory analysis is that May is desperate. She's in the high risk / high reward segment of the game -- she has very little to lose, because unless she can deliver a solution that makes everyone happy, she will be remembered as an even worse PM than her old buddy Piggy. And there is no solution that makes everyone happy, given that "everyone" includes racists; every EU country; and the more rational Brits who might enjoy wargames of post-apocalyptic gladiatorial combat but don't actually want to be reduced to fighting over the last tin of dog food in the real world.
So she has to gamble. She's talking tough and hoping to fake out the EU negotiators, because any moment of weakness will be seized on by the vultures of her own party. She has one chance to not be eaten alive and/or crucified, so she might as well gamble everything, gamble the fate of the country, on getting this right. Because if she fails big, it won't be any worse for her career than failing small. But it will be much, much worse for the UK.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/02/16 21:08:26
So many quotable extracts in that article that put the finger right on the insanity of this whole Brexit bollocks. Including demented claims of failure due to "remoaners" rather than an abject refusal to look reality in the face.
If you support Brexit, read that article and know that is how the rest of us, and by the rest of us I mean the lot of us who didn't vote for this nonsense and the non-pants on head foreign commentators, view you and this mess your delusions have dragged us into.
I enjoyed it anyway.
"All their ferocity was turned outwards, against enemies of the State, foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals" - Orwell, 1984
So how do explain Davis' U-turn on civil liberties?
There are several options, and it could be any of them or a mix. For example:-
1) He has access to information we do not and has rationally changed his mind accordingly
2) He still disagrees but is preserving cabinet unity, an extremely common occurrence in government.
3) He believes his best place to mitigate its effects/May's excesses is in Cabinet, as opposed to on the outside where he has little influence.
4) He traded compromise on this for a free hand/his own opinion carrying through on something of more importance to him/something he deems of more importance the country.
It's quite easily the case that there are rational options for his behaviour, ones which involve no compromise of integrity. It's extremely easy to judge from the outside, but I find it far more realistic to believe that well educated, experienced, and generally principled people have good reasons for their behavioural changes when they occur.
Being well educated, or having access to information that the rest of the public doesn't have, is no guarantee of good decision making IMO.
So with all due respect, I'm not buying it.
Tony Blair had intelligence info denied to the rest of us, and was surrounded by well educated, intelligent people, but we got the Iraq debacle, and the rest is history.
Thatcher's cabinet government, if the files released under the 30 year rule are anything to go by, wasn't all it was cracked up to be, either.
Political history is littered with people who changed once they got a whiff of power, Clegg being a textbook example, so it is likely that Davis has gone native.
He could also have gone bat gak crazy with power, have been lying all along, and so forth. Certainly, there are other options besides what I listed. But then again, one of those options is that he's a lizard in a man costume, so generally speaking 'inside the realms of possibility' and 'realistic' are two separate kettles of fish.
Davis is an old school politician. As such, I would theorise it's a mix of 2 & 3 of the options I gave. Cabinet unity is very much a hallmark of old school politics, and I suspect after spending so long on the outside, he's not keen to rock the boat now that he's back in it. So a standard mixture of professionalism and self-interest. We won't know until people like me are going through the cabinet minutes in fifty years though.
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
Researchers exploring why there has been a substantial increase in mortality in England and Wales in 2015 conclude that failures in the health and social care system linked to disinvestment are likely to be the main cause.
Fine work there Mr Hunt.
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The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
Those pamphlets in reds8n's post are a good example of why it is a very good thing that religion's influence in modern, secular nations is limited. I'm aware these are some fringe nutjobs, of course - holy hand grenade, claiming Europa and the bull is some biblical harlot on a devilish beast? Among the rest of those outlandish claims?
Kilkrazy wrote: Sadly I feel Bliar's involvement can only hurt the "Rethink Brexit" campaign.
Can't agree with you more! I think Tony Blair's and John Majors involvement with the Remain was highly damaging to the campaign. I don't think you could pick two worse living former Prime Ministers who were almost unanimously hated by the time they left office. I see Blair's new preaching campaign as another disaster in the making, he will get picked apart by the Brexiteers and will be ignored by the general public. I genuinely know one person who was going to vote Remain, but when Blair joined the scene, they changed their mind and voted Leave because they hated him for what he did and ultimately got away with.
Graphite wrote: Yeah, I suspect that the venn diagram of "Voted remain" and "Despise Tony Blair" has a very significant area of overlap.
Brilliant!
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Witzkatz wrote: Those pamphlets in reds8n's post are a good example of why it is a very good thing that religion's influence in modern, secular nations is limited. I'm aware these are some fringe nutjobs, of course - holy hand grenade, claiming Europa and the bull is some biblical harlot on a devilish beast? Among the rest of those outlandish claims?
Its truly sad that today we still have these Religious extremists trying to get in political sway, I know they have a small following, but still, I genuinely can't see why people would believe all that rubbish.
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I think that if there's one thing unites every British citizen I've ever met, it's the level of complete and utter contempt Tony Blair is held in. I've not heard a single person praise the man since 2004.
UKIP doesn't have any reason to exist given that it has acheived its poorly judged aims. I can see its funding and membership evaporate within the next few years leaving nothing but (even more) fringe nutters like the wondrous examples above.
4) 'Compensation will be paid to Dwarves created by Thalidomide'
One of the NHS's worst disasters, I am surprised there has been no major legal battle over compensation.
It wasn't the NHS's fault; thalidomide was a failure of the contemporary clinical trial methodology which were quite heavily based on animal studies.
Basically thalidomide was fed to rats who showed no abnormalities because rats will terminate and reabsorb nonviable fetuses. No one apparently noticed that rats that were given thalidomide had smaller litter sizes and the end result was that thlidomide was approved for clinical use in good faith.
One of the main reasons why drugs take so long to be approved today is to prevent another thalidomide.
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Ketara wrote: I think that if there's one thing unites every British citizen I've ever met, it's the level of complete and utter contempt Tony Blair is held in. I've not heard a single person praise the man since 2004.
It's amazing Blair was as popular as he was in '97. Every Labour supporter I currently know says they always knew he was rotten.
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It's amazing Blair was as popular as he was in '97. Every Labour supporter I currently know says they always knew he was rotten.
Blair will always be remembered for the catastrophe that was the Iraq second war and how the populace was misled about the presence of WMD. If there had been a more honest debate about the whole issue (After all Saddam was gassing 10's to 100's thousands of his own people) then I'm not sure people would be so overtly hostile. However things are also forgotten. Under his tenure environmental standards improved massively, they allowed the public to have greater access to the workings of government/parliament/councils etc and so on. Are we also so sure that things are any different now? People espouse that we should get close to Trump, but suppose he went to war with (for example) Iran, given current circumstances how likely is it that we (as a nation) would join in to pander to Trump?
However as I've said before people can change (just like criminal that has served time) and that current actions should be taken over those that happened a decade ago. He may really have learnt from past mistakes and is correct in that he has more experience than most in knowing what happens when the public is misled. In some ways he has and continues to support free movement and hence you could argue he is sticking by what he believes in. How many of our MPs can we really say are doing that currently (especially when you consider those that espoused the £350m per week for the NHS and so on then voted against it) or Corbyn who seems to change his policy every few hours or so.
I'd prefer Blair a thousand times over Thatcher.
"Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. " - V
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"It's not a problem if you don't look up." - Dakka's approach to politics
Ketara wrote: I think that if there's one thing unites every British citizen I've ever met, it's the level of complete and utter contempt Tony Blair is held in. I've not heard a single person praise the man since 2004.
It's amazing Blair was as popular as he was in '97. Every Labour supporter I currently know says they always knew he was rotten.
I remember the relief that I, and I think a lot of the nation, felt that at long last the shambling corpse that was the conservatives had been shoved out of Govt, and we had a new "centrist" party that was "young", united and optimistic. Blair did seem to be a breath of fresh air, and seemed to be offering something new.
Look how that ended up.
I think the cynicism and bitterness of that flowed out of those years has made me immediately suspicious of anyone who promises a bright, shining new future. Especially when it comes out of the foetid political mire that is UKIP.
"All their ferocity was turned outwards, against enemies of the State, foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals" - Orwell, 1984
Mr. Burning wrote:
It's amazing Blair was as popular as he was in '97. Every Labour supporter I currently know says they always knew he was rotten.
It's slightly before my time. But those I speak to recall bitterly how he seemed this fresh burst of air, who promised that if everyone paid a little bit more in taxes, everyone could be a winner. And for a while, it seemed like that was the case. Then the shambles of his second and third terms hit.
It's amazing Blair was as popular as he was in '97. Every Labour supporter I currently know says they always knew he was rotten.
Blair will always be remembered for the catastrophe that was the Iraq second war and how the populace was misled about the presence of WMD. If there had been a more honest debate about the whole issue (After all Saddam was gassing 10's to 100's thousands of his own people) then I'm not sure people would be so overtly hostile.
Blair did plenty of other harm. He wasn't responsible for the economic fiasco Brown presided over at the Treasury from 2002/3 onwards, but that doesn't mean he's absolved entirely from it (being Prime Minister entails a certain level of responsibility).
Thing is, Blair (and by extension, New Labour) was essentially smoke and mirrors. There was no substance to it. Blair introduced 'spin' as a serious concept to British politics, where you put out a soundbyte every morning even if there's nothing to say, re-announce the same pot of money in ten different ways, voice an opinion on absolutely everything, and so forth. Cameron carried on in that tradition, and it's been quite refreshing since May got in to not by bombarded by that constant vacuous media feeding. Blair could never get off the telly, and spent most of his swanning around with celebrities and other countries trying to be the great statesman instead of actually doing his job.
And when he did do it, he was as autocratic as Thatcher ever was. He desperately wanted to be a President. He did everything he could to break down the various separation of powers with the judiciary (the new Supreme Court under a Lord Chancellor who is a political appointment), threw cabinet responsibility out of the window to govern in conjunction with Brown, forced through Lisbon, and so forth. He had a messianic complex which is still evident today in his standard media briefing which he gives every month to make sure nobody forgets he exists.
He did some good. Minimum wage, for example. But a lot of what of he took credit for initially (Northern Ireland, the economic boom of the late 90's, etc) is very clearly the result of actions taken long before he touched them in hindsight.
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Mr. Burning wrote:
It's amazing Blair was as popular as he was in '97. Every Labour supporter I currently know says they always knew he was rotten.
It's slightly before my time. But those I speak to recall bitterly how he seemed this fresh burst of air, who promised that if everyone paid a little bit more in taxes, everyone could be a winner. And for a while, it seemed like that was the case. Then the shambles of his second and third terms hit.
...
People who weren't around at the time don't understand how widely loathed the Conservative Party had become. Apart from all the damage that Thatcher did, Major's tenure saw the Black Monday disaster, with interest rates soaring to 15% overnight, and then a series of serious corruption scandals. By 1997 the nation was more than ready for a change. Blair seemed to promise that.
Ketara wrote: Blair did plenty of other harm. He wasn't responsible for the economic fiasco Brown presided over at the Treasury from 2002/3 onwards, but that doesn't mean he's absolved entirely from it (being Prime Minister entails a certain level of responsibility).
Thing is, Blair (and by extension, New Labour) was essentially smoke and mirrors. There was no substance to it. Blair introduced 'spin' as a serious concept to British politics, where you put out a soundbyte every morning even if there's nothing to say, re-announce the same pot of money in ten different ways, voice an opinion on absolutely everything, and so forth. Cameron carried on in that tradition, and it's been quite refreshing since May got in to not by bombarded by that constant vacuous media feeding. Blair could never get off the telly, and spent most of his swanning around with celebrities and other countries trying to be the great statesman instead of actually doing his job.
And when he did do it, he was as autocratic as Thatcher ever was. He desperately wanted to be a President. He did everything he could to break down the various separation of powers with the judiciary (the new Supreme Court under a Lord Chancellor who is a political appointment), threw cabinet responsibility out of the window to govern in conjunction with Brown, forced through Lisbon, and so forth. He had a messianic complex which is still evident today in his standard media briefing which he gives every month to make sure nobody forgets he exists.
He did some good. Minimum wage, for example. But a lot of what of he took credit for initially (Northern Ireland, the economic boom of the late 90's, etc) is very clearly the result of actions taken long before he touched them in hindsight.
That's not really the point I was trying to make. Yes all governments do some bad and some good things (and a lot is dependent on an individuals approach to the world). What makes Blair stand apart is the 2nd Iraq war and for this he is generally reviled. If you exclude this event from the mind set though, you would probably have another leader that most couldn't really remember with any particular detail. It's key events that make leaders stand out (for example Thatcher and the poll tax).
However it is still not really a good idea to judge someone's current actions on their actions from ten years ago. We all have changed in that time so both perceptions/actions/motives and their perceptions/actions/motives are likely to have changed.
"Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. " - V
I've just supported the Permanent European Union Citizenship initiative. Please do the same and spread the word!
"It's not a problem if you don't look up." - Dakka's approach to politics
