Let me mark your card with a sceptical pen
Government ministers have been out and about this morning flogging the virtues of their plans for forcing RBS and Lloyds/HBOS to sell off some of their assets and increase competition for our money on the High Street. Let me mark your card with a sceptical pen.
First, this isn't really the government's plan at all. It is being forced on London by Brussels, which has insisted on a more competitive environment as the price for the multi-billion pound state aid pumped into both banks.
Second, if the High Street needs more competition, why was it that, only a year ago, the government encouraged Lloyds and HBOS to merge? Many commentators, consumer groups and bankers warned this would create a high-street behemoth and HBOS could have been bailed out by the taxpayer without a merger (as was RBS). But Gordon Brown was so keen to save HBOS that he intervened personally with the then Chairman of Lloyds to say competition rules would be waived to allow the marriage to take place. Lloyds' shareholders (which through our pensions probably means you and me) paid dearly for this shotgun wedding -- and now, only a year later, the giant is to be unravelled.
Third, be suspicious about claims that the proposed sell off will herald a new age of high-street competition. RBS has agreed to sell off its insurance arms (so a new master for Churchill) and to get rid of the few branches it still has in England which trade as RBS (NatWest in Scotland will go too). This will still leave RBS with over 2,700 branches throughout the country -- as well as its vast international operations.
Lloyds will also suffer only mild pruning. It's being told to get rid of its smaller building societies (which it intended to do anyway) and its TSB branches in Scotland. That will barely dent the 30% share of High Street deposits and loans it currently accounts for.
Bottom line: RBS and Lloyds will continue to dominate High Street retailing banking for the foreseeable future in this country -- and it will be a long time before any new competition will rival them.
Gordon Brown welcomes banks plan
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Very concise overview: Brussels driven, not solving competition, exposes lack of UK sovereignty by exposing powerlessness at the Treasury, Lloyds bounced almost fraudulently into an unnecessary deal.
To paraphrase:
When you sup with the State, no spoon is long enough
...especially when The State is the EU.
If Darling-Brown knew Brussels would step in they were disingenuous at best or fraudulent. If Darling-Brown did not know, they were incompetent. I hate false dichotomies, but this seems like a genuine one: Which is it?
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Andrew
I already view every Government announcement from the stand point that if you believe the exact opposite of what they say you wont go far wrong.
This banking change is another lost opportunity to force real change for the future.
We need to ensure that TO BIG TO FAIL is not used again to rob the people of their money.
Also will there ever be an investigation to seek out wrong doing and prosecute those responsible?
I think not because it could all end back at 10 - 11 Downing street
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I think the sceptical pen might also extend to the ratification of the Lisbon treaty. In fact it does. I've blogged about it at Those Magnificent Men in their Party Machines.
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Brown will have some difficulty putting a positive gloss on this as he was preening himself when the Lloyds HBOS merger was announced extolling the virtues of the bigger better bank.
Lloyds maninupulated this situation of late by delaying the sale of C&G to improve their bargaining position - so that off loading C & G would seem like a significant concession.
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Andrew whilst you are right that this is of very little significance to the customer in increasing choice in the high street (re banks); and its timing makes it look as if it is purely to enable the government to say that has made some money off the back of taking over the banks before the election. The truth is there is very little room for manoeuvre. The IFS maintained that in April that over the long term the government was unlikely to make any money on the takeover of the banks and that is probably true. What we have to remember is that the government acted when the banking system was in meltdown and many pensioners would have lost everything. Gordon Brown actually on this one has to be applauded because he acted when the free market went into free fall.
It is also disingenuous to say that HBoS Lloyds was a shotgun wedding, they were all grown ups, Lloyds thought they were going to make a killing - sad but true they were encouraged not coerced, to suggest otherwise is a cheap shot.
Gordon Brown maybe to blame for a lot but to attack him on the one thing he obviously did well smacks of political bias, which we don't expect from BBC employees.
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The best and only solution to the banks' problems was how Brown and his pet chancellor forced this merger/ takeover on the taxpayer. Now they say it's better to sell of the good bits to whoever will take them, and keep the dodgy bits as the property of the taxpayer; brilliant. Then it transpires it's not our holy duo reccommending this course of action in the interest of the taxpayer, but the European commission exercising it's sovereignty over the governance of the United Kingdom. Why, was it not made plain a year ago that the merger would infringe Europe's spur of the moment rules. Is this now seen by our European masters as a way of curbing any possible British financial clout in the future and paving the way for total dominance of the banking system by the European Central bank or indeed the German federal bank. It may well be, knowing Brown's history of abject surrender of everything British to the unelected autocrats of Europe, and may be designed to create a back door route to handing total financial control to Europe and entry into the Euro.
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Re:7 Could I venture the thought that modern democracy is not democracy, its a business...
We're not represented by our politicians, we're exploited by them...
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Governments do what the bankers tell them to do. Doesn't anyone get this yet?
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Any announcement from this government needs to be put through the Brown-stuff filter.
Like Myners this morning explaining why Britain is the last of the major Euro economies to come out of recession. The reason is the influence of the financial sector on our economy... is that a new revelation? Then given that knowledge how could Brown have laid claim to Britain being "best-placed" to weather the recession?? Lie upon lie.
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It's a lie, of course.
You know why they have perforations on books of stamps ? So that you can separate them more easily. The question you have to ask yourself, is why try to separate a bank, TSB, that has been totally and utterly merged, when you have an alternative that is barely on nodding terms with its partner ?
To even suggest that TSB can be reformed is utter drivel. Branches have been closed and merged, and accounts moved. This choice has been made because it suits the banks, not the taxpayer, who will be offered a gutted and 'cherry picked' hulk, which will be of little interest to anyone.
The government created a monster, and is now finding that it can only dismantle it, under their direction.
Here we go again. Economic policy directed by banks.
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For once the U.K. appears to be d'accord with the rest of Europe. These banks need to be re-structured.
The question was raised, who runs the country? The banks brought the country's economy to its knees; the banks then went begging to the tax-payer to bail them out; the tax-payer now has to spend more money to get a banking system that works.
Whatever you may think about the European Commission in Brussels, for once they are doing something about this crisis. Even the Europe based banks are now having to re-structure in a similar way.
The tax-payer may have to fund this for the next few years to make sure they have a banking system they can rely on, and works in their favour.
For the banks....it's time to pay the piper!
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It's a stretch of the imagination to believe that a government that didn't foresee the crash, can develop a perfect solution, particularly when it's not of their making but being imposed on them by the EC whose aim has little to do with the good of the UK or the banks involved, but in ensuring fair competition.
As a solution, it appears more like kicking a tin can down the road and hoping that one day it will land upright. Certainly on the Lloyds TSB side. it looks to have been fashioned to their benefit, if there is ever any benefit to be had out of this situation. Whilet gulping down taxpayer money, it seems not to have occurred to banks that a failed economy won't be profitable to them, but they only have a short term view, and as long as bonuses are being paid for achievements that don't align with government requirements, they'll operate as vultures on a battlefield. These are tough words, but the government don't appear to understand the market forces they should be controlling. This is good for investment banking, but as we know so well, that doesn't make it good for the UK. Guess who's going to be paying all the mountainous fees ?
If the government take us into a second recession, the consequences will be fatal for Labour, possibly for all time.
The markets are edgey, and so am I.
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Thank you for the frozen image on my (at least) browser page of PM Brown, besides a 'Play' button set to activate yet more.... well, who cares any more?
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It is as always big business runs this country , parliament just pay lip service.
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Britain ended up with 4 banks because that was all that the business could support. After Big Bang and the demutualisation, the big banks started feeding on the small fry. So we have Barclays buying Woolwich lloyds C&G, TSB etc. Now the EU says divest.
Perhaps what should be divested are the dealing/investment side of the banks. Put these back to where they were. Barings went bust without bringing the whole world crashing down. The only dealing allowed would be in FX as it is needed to pay bills etc.
We would then have banks handling the utility side of payments savings etc and a whole other world of flotations etc for the dealing/investment side.
That to me looks like a solution that may work but why bring back Williams and Glynns, TSB etc. There are more banks/BS on our streets than shops now.
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Will the UK Taapyer now ask the RSB Bosses how they intend to avert a Catastrophe on the Chad/Cameroon Pipeline because the RSB funded it.
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I have to agree wildsundancer.
Every act of brilliance by the government is accompanied by humungous bonuses and eye watering investment bank fees.
Can Gordon confirm that I'll be able to get healthcare from my bank ?
I'm not going to applaud a government that provides a bank service at a cost of trillions. The last one we had didn't cost the NHS, the national economy, widespread unemployment and economic despair - or maybe it did.
Happy Christmas.
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16. Exiledscot52
"We would then have banks handling the utility side of payments savings etc and a whole other world of flotations etc for the dealing/investment side.
That to me looks like a solution that may work but why bring back Williams and Glynns, TSB etc. There are more banks/BS on our streets than shops now."
Makes sense. Sensible banking. There's a thought.
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What you have to remember is that we have, the general pubic that is, been watching what has been, in all respects, a 'farce'. We bought the tickets (votes) and sat in the seats and have been presented with the "greatest show on earth".
What have we been watching in reality is nothing more or less than a "bun fight".
The "buns" have all but been gobbled up by the EU and now we are watching the Banks being gobbled up too!
The next fight is over how much the MP"s can get away with.
It's fun, isn't it!
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RE :7
Sorry Mike-jay I do not see your point at all. There are many treaties that have been signed before that the signatories have withdrawn from in this world. I fail to see why the Lisbon Treaty should be any different.
Or are you just trying to help soften up public opinion so Cameron can abandon his "cast iron gaurantee."
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Andrew chopping a few banks up is like shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic considering the UK Financial deficit is the worst in the world
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On Friday 9 banks went broke in America the largest number in one day.
All taken over by one government entity.
In Germany unemployment fell for the first time in September, and in Australia over a month ago bank interest rates were raised. Yet no mention of this in Britain because it would reflect badly on Britain.
A leading US investor made comments on politicians that I cannot make in print, but ended with a great comment "They have a party and then send us the bill"
I cannot wait for this venal and incompetent government to remove itself, though I have no confidence in their successors.
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RE :24
If a majority of the population of this country decide in a referendum they want nothing to do with Lisbon. How will the EU stop withdrawal do you think?
Declare war on us?
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I think we're free (as a sovereign Nation State) to withdraw from the EU any old time we like ... is that not right? ... it's just that while we're in the Club, we have to abide by Club rules
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#25 SA
I respectfully say that there is no option to withdraw from the Lisbon treaty - the best that can be offered is a referendum on future constitutional changes.
#26 you confuse me Sir - Which club rules are we talking about?
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I see no justification whatsoever for banks to pay any employees any bonus of any sort, deferred or otherwise, until the taxpayer bail out money has been repaid together with a suitable return.
I believe that banks are aware of the principle that defaulting debtors are not rewarded for delinquent behaviour. If they wish to clear off to another country - our borders are not sealed and any such population movement would be beneficial as regards climate change and over population. Everyone's a winner.
Can anyone explain why Chancellor Darling and UK financial institutions work in an alternate reality where the normal rules of market economics work backwards for themselves - to their personal benefit and enrichment.
If we had a Socialist Party - I might vote for them.
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#28 sa
You omitted the final sentence - and this treaty has already been ratified.
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coats @ 27
"Which club rules are we talking about?"
I just mean the EU rules - which now incorporate the Lisbon Treaty, I guess - so while we're in the EU we need to comply with all of that; little point in being the naughty boy in the back row, chewing gum and cracking silly jokes - but we're not locked in to the EU itself; if we had a referendum, say, and the British people were foolish enough to vote to pull out, then pull out is what we could and would do
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The Treaty has been ratified.
Sieg Heil!
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On the subject of Andrew showing right wing bias not becoming of the BBC. I was just watching his performance on Have I Got News For You.
OK lets get this straight. We live in a parlimentry democracy. Therefore when I voted Labour I voted for the party not the leader or his bloc. the party have the right to change their leader as many times as they bloody well like.
I voted Labour on the understanding that Tony Blair was standing down and that we would shortly get a Brown premiership having voted Lib Dem for some years. Both Labour and Torys campaigned on 'vote Blair get Brown' so this rubbish spouted by educated right wingers who should know better is both misleading... no actually a manipulative lie
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I believe that (EU) polls show that only a third of the UK population support EU membership. It's believed that Cameron will attempt to make changes, as anything is possible by negotiation, but I would concede that it's not a very credible proposal, or likely to satisfy Europhobes.
As a UKIP supporter I prefer the Doomsday scenario. The previous example of a structure like the current EC, was known as the Soviet Bloc. It wasn't a rip roaring success and wasn't renowned for keeping member countries happy.
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Yeah the Soviet Bloc was just like the EU!
The big flaw with democracy is that their is lots of stupid people who believe everything Rupert Murdoch and the lunatic right wing press tell them.
I would love a referendum on a straight In or Out of Europe question.
We Europeans would win either the first time or a few years later when an isolated England crawls back because all its small businesses have collapsed and the financial sectors moved to anywhere but here.
By which time all of us with any sense will have emigrated
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#33
'I voted Labour on the understanding that Tony Blair was standing down and that we would shortly get a Brown premiership having voted Lib Dem for some years'.
Now I am sorry but Blair specifically said that on being elected he would serve a full term. Now he did serve a full term. On the basis that once he was overthrown by the coup which brought Brown to the leadership he resigned his seat, therefore his was a full term, only it was not a full parliamentary term.
Blair got us into the Iraq war, and occupation, and Brown oversaw our ignominious defeat, having funded the war all along. By the same process Blair got us into Afghanistan, Brown funded the war and occupation, and he now will seem not to accept that we must retreat from Afghanistan, again with our tails between our legs, and with all the lives and money simply wasted. We must not reinforce defeat, we must depart the scene. It is a disgraceful episode in British foreign policy, I mean Brown actually congratulating Karzai.
In the meantime I bet Kelly also proposes that there is an increase in MPs pay.
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Andrew,
how dare they. Another five, I mean another five. After congratulating Karzai, publicly, maybe Brown will 'greet' the bodies of the returning soldiers, those brave soldiers who have lost their lives for what. When Brown lists the names this afternoon then he must be forced by parliament to explain the purpose, the point of our being there. How dare he congratulate Karzai, how dare he even think about sending more soldiers. He must announce that no future soldiers will be sent to Afghanistan. That others have not met their committment, that others have not done it, so we won't.
Forget MPs squeeling about their Kelly report, forget all that guff, let them say during PMQs that this is not good eneough. No planted questions today praising some aspect of government policy, no planted questions about what the conservatives would or would not have done, 'nothing' I hear the labout ranks scream and holler. Today is the end, it is time to bring this whole sorry grotesque parliament to its end.
The Queen must never utter those words 'my parliament will...' because surely not even she wants 'ownership' of this parliament, this most, oh I am beginning to run out of words to describe this montrosity, this insult to democracy which this parliament has become, her parliament, her soldiers die for this bunch.
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RE :30
With the greatest of respect mike-jay I think you need to read exactly what that last sentence says. Here is the full thing in total
"Today, I will give this cast-iron guarantee: If I become PM a Conservative government will hold a referendum on any EU treaty that emerges from these negotiations."
"No treaty should be ratified without consulting the British people in a referendum."
There is no suggestion from this that the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty or not is a condition of a referendum. Clearly if ratification had been a condition Cameron would have said " in the first sentence words to the effect of "unless the Treaty has been ratified."
Unless of course your suggestion is that it was all a typical piece of political expediency.
Answer me this why should we replace one Prime Minister whose word is worthless on this issue with another Prime Minister whose word is worthless on this issue?
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Andrew,
changing the subject do other commenteers realise that we have lost our consolidated history on the BBC. I can find my comments made many months earleir but I used to be able to get in and find them under my username. Should we not have been told that our history was going. Another cunning plan, it will be more difficult to say stuff like 'I first mentioned this three years ago...'
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I would love to be a fly on the wall at the SFO this week when they interview Simon Mann and I bet there are a few Twitchy people including Lord Pinky because and a well known Oil Tycoon whom can be seen regularly with MP's & Lords.
It is also V interesting that Mann could have been released sometime ago but powers that be left him to rot.This smells like another Magahi Case to me.
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5 more of our boys MURDERED today by Afghan Police . These people cannot be trusted and I would not like ANY of these people walking behind me with a loaded gun.
They CANNOT be trusted,period, PULL OUT NOW
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#41
can you imagine the Nazis training the French resistance in occupied France in WWII to defend their country, France, from attack by the Germans, when or if the Nazis voluntarily retreated. I don't think so, yet this would seem to be the tactic which our Prime Minister is thinking will work in Afghanistan. Bizarre.
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Catch22
Is that you TAG???
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35 Ian Whitehead
I agree lets have it out, then at least it will shut up the tiny minority of EU sceptics who spray their nonsense constantly and seem to get an amazing amount of airtime.
I say there is only 24 hours to save the pound.
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The Prime Minister has spoken to President Karzai to congratulate him on his re-election as president of Afghanistan.
Sunday 1 November 2009
PM confident of support for Afghanistan’s democratic process
The Prime Minister said he was confident that Afghanistan’s leaders would support the remaining steps of the democratic process, following the decision by Abdullah Abdullah to pull out of the election run-off.
Thought that I would go to the Number 10 Official web site.
The words above were written on the Sunday, now today 5 soldiers have been murdered in Afghanistan, what has the Prime Minister got to say on his wonderful official web site, absolutely nothing, nothing, apart from the comment that yesterday he went somewhere to discuss anti-social behaviour and something about justice, well where is the justice for our dead and injured soldiers. Let us have a recording of exactly what he has said to Karzair this morning, or yesterday. Shame on them, shame on them all.
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#47
shucks, I could say that the answer is for me to know and you to guess, but there is something I think about my 'style' which gives the game away.
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Does anyone else love the idea of Brown saying we must hold our nerve in Afghanistan.
Easy to say when you are not the one being killed by those you are helping to train.
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RE :48
Whilst I agree there should be an "in" or "out" vote, and for the record my vote would be out I do not see the logic of the rest or your argument.
If for one second this Govt had thought it could have won a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty you can bet your boots there would have been one.
Similarly if it thought for one second it could win a vote to get this nation into the euro you can bet your boots there would have been one.
As Fraser Nelson revealed last night and as Gomer reiterates at Post 34 only the EU figures reveal only some 33% of this country support the EU. I wouldnt therefore call 66% a small minority would you?
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Andrew,
one reason given for our presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan is to bring them democracy, freedom, equal rights for women etc...Now then we have exactly how many Afghans or Pakistanis in this country. Surely the answer is to force those people who have either come from Afghanistan or Pakistan, or born to Af/Pak families, to return to the country which they continue to support so that they can lead by example, so that they can show what western democracy and freedom has achieved.
The mother of all parliaments, a wonderful country, why should they leave, when the good life is over here in Britain.
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Andrew,
this is what Brown has said on the Number 10 web site:-
Speaking at the reception, the Prime Minister said:
“You never forget your teacher. You never forget the influence they had on you and you have the ability to change lives so what you do for our country and what you do for children and young people is so absolutely crucial. These Teaching Awards are a signal of the importance we attach to teaching and education.”
I must ask what sort of teacher was it that educated Brown. Where on earth has he got his ideas from. What justification has Brown got for sending even more of our soldiers to their deaths in Afghanistan.
If we are to stay in Afghanistan, then it is time to take the gloves off. Go out, capture the killer, hang him from a lamp post for all to see. Kill his family, say there you go, sorted. You want war, well here it is, mass murder, war crimes, women and children slain, now I think it would soon be over. There was a well known anti-war tune in the sixties 'kill, kill, kill, kill, kill...' if we are to stay then let loose the dogs of war, I think that the Afghans pakistanis will soon learn who the masters really are, no more pussy footing around.
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My comment 41 "has been referred to the moderators" by I know not whom or why. Yet the comment merely reiterated what one of the few honourable MPs left in the Palace of Westminster said. This is Kim Howells, a former foreign office minister.
It is a serious issue that needs to be debated and addressed. For example NATO works because the troops TRUST each other regardless of nationality. I would wager that the trust NATO soldiers had for Afghan forces will at best be stretched to the limit, and at worst our service people will always have their finger on the trigger and will never let an Afghan stay behind them.
I saw an unconfirmed report that the 5 soldiers had taken off their helmets and body armour in the Afghan police station, to show that they trusted the Afghan policemen. A very sad day.
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Andrew,
August 1804 from Hansard debate:-
'Such a State as Afghanistan would be valuable, but a purely artificial State'
has nobody learnt any lessons, over two hundred years ago, and still our soldiers die in a purely artificial state, there is no law, there is no order, there is no democracy, there is only the justice of the gun and the bomb, and corruption. The trouble is that all is corruption, there is only evil.
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#54
'you never forget your teachers' Brown says. Maybe his comments had been read by the Afghan who murdered the five British soldiers, it did not take him long to forget his teachers, his mentors, he killed them, just shot them in cold blood.
However, we must not forget what our own forces of law and order did to the completely innocent Mr de Menezes, what punishment have they had. They shot him in cold blood with internationally illegal dum-dum bullets.
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my comment #42 has also been referred to the moderator, these are indeed interesting times. Is there freedom of speech or not, who are the moderators. What qualifications do you have to have to be a moderator?
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In response to todays tragedy the Ministry of Defence have said that the defence of Afghanistan's borders is vital to the security of the UK.
Then why have we pulled back from the Afghan borders ?
US and UK forces have both been pulling back to main bases after small remote bases in border areas faced intense attacks. It appears that the MoD doesn't even know what's happening in Afghanistan.
I expect Gordon to be clueless, but don't the MoD know what ISAF strategy is ?
I think that groups of MP's in support of government policy should be sent out on a tour of duty to participate in foot patrols. If it's that vital there'll be plenty of volunteers. Even Gordon should see the horrific disparity in behaviour between stuffing money into the wallets of bank executives who have detroyed our economy, and their sending working class soldiers to be maimed in some pointless military action.
The Soviet Union failed with a force of a quarter of a million, so unless Gordon is thinking of conscription, pulling out is the only option to a constant stream of coffins and casualties returning to the UK.
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57. Catch22: ;-)
"They shot him in cold blood with internationally illegal dum-dum bullets."
Hollowpoints are illegal in warfare but apparently OK to use on 'terrorists' and people using the Underground. Aim is to 'neutralise' them before they can detonate any explosives.
Wonderful world we live in.
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Andrew,
surely Brown should be asking that there is no president of europe until he has lost his job as prime minister. He is surely the perfect candidate, because what on earth will he do with himself after his loss of office.
Interesting about resettlement aid for MPs who do not seek re-election. Will Brown promise to serve a full term in the next parliament. What will be his position.
We need to be told what will happen with regard to the Lords, surely some of these discreited MPs will not go over to the other place.
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"Pakistani General Kiyani has taken up the matter of the abandonment of the broder posts by ISAF with General McChrystal"
It appears that the MoD are unaware of ISAF strategy, as indeed are the Pakistan army who presumed that ISAF forces would be securing the border during their current action against insurgents.
Current ISAF strategy is determined by the necessity to reduce casualties, which I cannot argue against, but it calls into question what we're doing there at all. If our forces are just going to remain holed up in central posts. we're giving up the majority of Afghanistan to insurgent activity, leaving things much as they were before we arrived.
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PETER DURHAM
The decision to adopt the Lisbon treaty is in my opinion part of the continued march towards a collective dictatorship in Europe.
We the European peoples are allowing the dismantling of democracy to accelerate at an increasingly alarming rate.
I now believe that the original concept for Europe as purely trading nations was a huge con trick perpetuated originally by Ted Heath and the Tory party, but which New Labour has now made even worse, actually there’s nothing new about a Stalinist dictatorship which is the way current politics is heading.
Can these people not appreciate that you can only impose this type of control and lack of participation for so long before rebellion becomes the only way that the frustration and injustice can be addressed.
REGARDS PETER
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NuLabour: Pay More Get Less - Official
Public services 'cost more and deliver less'.
Taxpayers are getting less value for money from public services since Labour came to power, according to a study by the Office for National Statistics.
Roll On 2010
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59#
They wouldnt know, though would they, Gomer?
ISAF being a NATO Op, and those who are sent there from British forces units are NATO declared assets, once they're in theatre.
So far as the MoD is concerned, the end of ones nose is the limit of its blame/jurisdiction/interest (delete as applicable).
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#54
further to my earlier post then the real answer for this atrocity is for the perpetrator of this awful deed be captured, not ill treated at all, questioned under caustion, and then placed on trial. In fact for this appalling act of terrorsim then he should also be brought and charged in this country. He should be extradicted, and tried in a British court. i hope that there is not a memoranum of understanding wherein it is allowed for foreigners to murder British subjects, serving for the Queen, defending thier Queen and country, can just be murdered.
Bring this man back to face trial. There must be no deaths without justice.
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Good afternoon each & Andrew.
My, my, but we seem to be more controversial than usual, going by the numbers of comments 'held back'.
Votes at sixteen?
I am all for children going through the motions to practice what they shall have the real opportunity to do at 18.
I am all for the change that those who cannot vote should not be taxed.
I would rather see some effort on getting those who have the vote to use it as things stand.
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You are currently discussing trains.
I recently went on a trip to Amsterdam. The trains there are double deckers. If we applied the same approach in the UK, we could double the capacity, without the need for new lines.
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#68 DRFC Ash
...perhaps vehicle elevators at each bridge?
PPP trains? Public debt to public expense and more and more private profit. Oh why not, it is working so well elsewhere in the economy.
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I am mildly amused that the moderators have removed my comment refering to the Lisbon Treaty at Post 28 because it was "off topic" and kept the rest on.
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Are the 'pre-moderators' different from the 'moderators'?
My innocuous postings about the Lisbon Treaty, #7 and #24, appearing yesterday and eliciting one or two responses, were later removed because they were 'off topic'. The emails I received didn't explain why they were off topic when there was a general debate taking place on the blog about the treaty.
Surely we deserve better information than this? Or are the decisions not as objective as they should be?
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67. Oudeis:
"Votes at sixteen?"
The PM would give domestic animals the vote if he thought their demographic was a match for his party.
Actually, they're not a bad match... Dumb, only see things in b&w, lick their b*lls...
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#72 TheBlameGame
I point my posterior in the general direction of those who propose this elsewhere. [if you know what I mean]
It seems to me to be little more than a poiler and a sweetener to any body that wishes to see real reform to our Political Process.
We shall do them all a great favour by giving each Political Party a slap come the next election.
Rather like the body of the electorate swishing away toublesome flies.
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I wonder what the situation would be if the EU decided we should send more troops to Afghanistan. I know that this is entirely hypothetical, but the fundamental issue over the Lisbon Treaty is what decisions are no longer within our control ?
The treaty is 'self amending', and though it may not currently have the power to send our troops to war, it can now take that power unto itself at any time, without any ability on our part to prevent it.
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74. GomerPyle
True, but I believe there has to be a majority agreeing to it... which will be a good thing as I doubt if the French, Italians etc will be as keen to follow the US into any old dust up as our government has been.
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Who will benefit from selling banks the taxpayers saved?
The 3,700 Royal Bank of Scotland staff who are the latest to make the necessary sacrifice for the idiocy of others have been treated to bankspeak at its effortless worst.
Something like this: “Good news! We’ve saved your industry! Now please leave quietly.” [my emphasis]
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sa @ 52
"If for one second this Govt had thought it could have won a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty you can bet your boots there would have been one. Similarly if it thought for one second it could win a vote to get this nation into the euro you can bet your boots there would have been one"
half right, I think (the Lisbon bit)
on the Euro, however, it was Gordon Brown (whilst at Number Eleven) who consistently opposed entry, holding out against the wishes of Tony Blair and (more importantly) me - the reason he did this ... Brown, I mean ... had nothing to do with the National Interest and everything to do with the lessening of the power/prestige of the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer job ... i.e. HIS job ... which no longer having our own currency would entail; typical Gordon in other words
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Aaaaah - but you misunderatnd my point. I'm talking about THEM deciding to send OUR troops to war. It's much easier to get a majority if you're excluding your own country, which some in Europe are seeking to do that on the Climate Change issue.
Europe is a wonderful way to circumvent the will of the people.
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tilacat @ 63
"there’s nothing new about a Stalinist dictatorship which is the way current politics is heading"
apology please (when you're ready) for abusing our wonderful English language
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Catch22 and TA Griffin.
As Taggy hasn't posted for a while and we have a new punter under the name of catch 22 but me thinks Catch 22 and Taggy are one of the same. I might be wrong
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Ref 68 DRFC ASh
Nice try but it wouldn't work on our lines because of the low bridges and yes the Dutch double deckertrains are very nice.
It would cost an arm and aleg to alter the bridges
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Sir Mark Thatcher has voluntered for the next "I am a celebrity get me out of here" only to avoid meeting Simon Mann.
SMT was found guilty of funding the Guinea coup and given a suspended sentence. He said he had "UNKNOWINGLY" funding the coup. What a load of tosh.
This is going to run because Pinky is involved as well.
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I note with a wry smile that Obama is now banging the environmental protection drum. Could someone please ask him why the Chad Pipeline has been operating for 7years WITHOUT any oil spill plans or Environmental Protection plans.
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I'm sure you're very interested in the Guinea coup EXXONMOBIL2, as one of those it is alleged was involved in setting it up is/was a major player in arranging deals between oil companies and the Third World.
I bet that there's a lot of nervousness in high places at the moment.
Now would be a good time to clear out those who put profit before morals. We'll just need to buy a bigger shovel.
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David Cameron's response sounds weak, and I'm an ignorant 'no brain'.
Even I can work out that he cannot introduce any UK law that takes precedence over EC law, I think the American response would be 'DOHHHHHHH'.
Labour votes going to the BNP and now Tory votes to UKIP - the nest election will be worth watching.
I bet Nigel Farage is punching the air in delight.
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The murder of 5 soldiers at a police station in Afghanistan is now being claimed by the Glorious Leader as the work of the Taliban, yet the BBC correspondent in Kabul insists that the Taliban has not admitted carrying out the attack. Who is telling the truth here?
This looks more and more like the work of a loner with a personal grudge against fellow policemen, and various reports refer to tribal rivalry. The conflict is a civil war and NATO is the occupying force - the rules of enegagement that our troops must fight under, mirror those used in Vietnam, and we all know happened next.
On Michael Won's website a few months ago a video clip showed Latvian troops training Afghans. A Taliban patrol were spotted on the brow of an adjacent hill, but NATO troops can only shoot if the Taliban shoot first. Later in the day the Latvians and Afghans were subjected to a fierce gun battle lasting 24 hours at their camp.
I agree with Catch22, we must take the offensive and be proactive, take off the kid gloves and take the enemy apart. If not pull out completely. There is no halfway house on this.
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Portcullis gate 2
"This banking change is another lost opportunity to force real change for the future.
We need to ensure that TO BIG TO FAIL is not used again to rob the people of their money.
Also will there ever be an investigation to seek out wrong doing and prosecute those responsible?
I think not because it could all end back at 10 - 11 Downing street"
These comments are typical of a certain kind of reaction to political events and because of their pathology merit closer scrutiny.
The writer combines two contradictory ideas,first that government is powerless to change the course of events,to quote "The banking change is another lost opportunity to force real change for the future" combined with subsequent paragraphs which ascribe machiavellian powers to the head of state and his deputy.
Governments of course have some powers but they are limited as both Mr.Obama and Mr.Brown have discovered.However a symbolic combination of omnipotence and powerlessness is a projection onto the state of infantile anxieties about the protective powers of parents.
Surveys show that conservative voters are more prone to anxiety and adverse to risk than voters of other parties.This is fully commensurate with the contradiction of power and powerlessness noted above, and would account for the high levels of verbal agression among right wing bloggers
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
#86
one of the problems which you touch on is the lack, the total abject lack of leadership by Brown. That is the link to the banking crisis in Andrews blog. The idea that a bank can be merged, with the knowledge from Mandelson in his role within the EU, was nothing other than a con trick.
There is no leadership from Brown in respect of Afghanistan either. Policy changes, strategy changes, personnel changes, at the MoD, ministerial changes, it is no different to the banks, who were the CEOs of the banks, they sure as hell were not bankers, same with the government, they can't fight a war. They have no exit strategy other than to leave the problem to the next government.
People should look at what is now happening in Germany with General Motors and the change of mind over the sale by the company of their German assets. Funny how the original announcement by Merkel was that Opal was saved, just days before an election. Same with Britain and MG Rover, no doubt we will have some government announcement that Brown/Mandelson have saved the GM plants in Britain, this announcement probably to be made just before an election, but then after the election the truth will out.
The banks have not been taken over by the government, the banks have taken over the government. Just as the government can't run a bank, they can't run an army either, they are not at the Ministry of Defence, it is still the Ministry of War.
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#80
there is a problem because I am afraid that we are being caught by the off subject law of Andrews blog. What must surely happen is for Andrew to blog more often, or is he now having restrictions placed on him by the powers that be, to keep to one subject, and to avoid all mention of the appalling situation which has been allowed to develope in Afghanistan. I would seem to be caught by the Faulty Towers concept of 'don't mention the war'.
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Good Morning Andrew,
we have to ask how the occupation of Afghanistan is being funded. How much is actually being paid to the Afghans for us to train their police and soldiers. Or is it one of Browns apprenticeship schemes.
The over-riding issue is that although we occupy Afghanistan, we do not have soldiers on the streets of Kabul, the majority of the people do not have any conception that Karzai is nothing other than a puppet of the west. What must happen is for the soldiers of the occupying forces to march into Kabul, to parade through the centre like the victorious army they are. This will then indicate to the Afghans that the sooner they conform, as soon as they do as they are told, then the occupation will end. After we have gone who gives a fig as to what they do, any terrorism on the streets of Britain will be met with no mercy, follow the law, if you breach it you will pay the penalty. There is even a strong case for the return of the death penalty. In fact a couple of hangings of completely innocent people will show that we mean business. We should also allow torture, if we think that somebody is planning something then the ends justify the means, no quarter asked for, and none given.
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#71
I have suffered the same fate as yourself. The trouble that the BBC have is that many of us commenteers are quicker on our feet than their reporters are allowed to be. They go to an expert for comment, and therefore can't surely see that many of us are better informed, have better sources than they have.
Andrews blog has become the real leader of pack, the trouble is that others do not like his dominance of the intelligent core of argument, and comment. For example, we must be able to ask how our vicyory in 2001 has turned to this ignominious situation.
What was General Sir Mike Jackson doing accepting orders to attack Iraq when Afghanistan needed all the resources at our disposal. He admits in his book that he sought his own legal advice before accepting the order, maybe if he said that I need to sort out Afghanistan first, then I may think better of him.
We need to show the Afghan people that democracy works, that will never be achieved for as long as Brown supports the Quisling Karzai.
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Andrew,
I thought that I would go to the Number 10 website to see what Brown had said in his statement on the very sad deaths of the British soldiers in Afghanistan. I show it in its entirety below:
'The death of five brave soldiers in a single incident is a terrible loss. My thoughts, condolences and sympathies go to their families, loved ones and colleagues. I know that the whole country too will mourn their loss.
They fought to make Afghanistan more secure, but above all to make Britain safer from the terrorism and extremism which continues to threaten us from the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. I pay tribute to their courage, skill and determination. They will never be forgotten.
It is my highest priority to ensure our heroic troops have the best possible support and equipment - and the right strategy, backed by our international partners, and by a new Afghan government ready to play its part in confronting the challenges Afghanistan faces. Our troops deserve nothing less. My commitment to them remains unshakeable'.
Now I'm sorry but whoever put this statement together would seem not to have a clue. No mention of the fact that only days earlier Brown had congratulated Quisling Karzai on his re-election as president.
When he says 'They fought to make Afghanistan more secure, but above all to make Britain safer from the terrorism and extremism which continues to threaten us from the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan'. The trouble is that the soldiers did not fight, they had not been killed fighting, they have been murdered, shot in cold blood by a person they were training, mentoring. Brown tells us we are not their to fight, the Afghans are going to do the fighting, the dying, yet he continues to push the lie that we are there to 'make Britain safer from terrorism and extremism' no if he told the truth, we are there to do 'bad things to bad people' as Harry would say. At least Harry doesn't lie.
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It is reported that Pakistan have allied themselves with some elements of the Taliban to fight their insurgents. Those elements have made it clear that they will fight ISAF in Afghanistan. Unsurprisingly Pakistan are fighting those elements of the Taliban who threaten them, not the elements who have anti Western intentions.
I won't speculate as to what's going on, but it's delusional to believe that we're doing anything to fight terrorism on the streets of the UK by our action out there.
I hope we're not fighting on behalf of those who want to build the Pan Afghanistan gas pipeline, though I have my suspicions.
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Breaking news banner on BBC website:
LATEST: American Billionaire Stan Kroenke has increased his stake in Arsenal to 29.9 percent
How exactly does ownership of a football club become more important than a shattered economy, a dog's breakfast in Afghanistan to put it mildly and a banking system ripping off customers with outrageous charges whilst fleecing the taxpayer for another bail out (and not the last one either if certain stories coming out of RBS are true).
I do remember a time long ago when the media were encouraged to concentrate on football, and that was in the 1970's in Brazil when the country was run by right wing generals. They did not semm to appreciate political comment much either.
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"City headhunters said they have been inundated with CVs from RBS bankers"
It's a problem but hopefully their offices will have trash cans or shredders to cope with the influx of worthless letters.
Honestly - I ask you - is this the best they can do ?
Their CV's must be a wonder to behold. 'I worked for the world's biggest bank and helped turn it into a record breaking financial disaster and aided in turning it into what has been officially described as a basket case. I trust that in a world of unemployed bank staff, you'll find a place for me to reproduce the same catastrophe elsewhere. Most recently I have helped in keeping the UK econmy mired in recession and stagnation and have obstinately blocked UK government policy, finding myself too scared to lend money. My psychiatrist says that with continued therapy this block should mend'.
I think we should think of 10 uses for a banker looking for a bonus.
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A very good afternoon Andrew,
I think that your programme ought to be shown again tonight. I would love you, no demand, that you interview Woolass, the man is at last letting the cat out of the bag.
I think that for many years there has been a massive cover-up, going back to the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. As soon as there is a problem with refugees, the solution is to go to war, so as to take away the reason why the refugees want to leave their country.
I think that Woolass knows that if we leave Afghanistan, then there will be a massive refugee problem. The same with Pakistan. Only trouble is that many in Pakistan will be able to call on family members in this country to say, things are terrible, can I come and stay with you for a few years until the problem is resolved.
This is not our problem. As you so cogently argued with Rammell, if we leave Afghanistan, and al-qaeda move back in then we will just go after them again. We can simply identify their camps using drones and satellites and simply bomb them from a distance. When I was young, in the early sixties, the argument about Vietnam was that if Vietnam fell, then the whole region would fall, that it would be the end. What has happened, the Americans now go on holiday to Vietnam and visit their old war sites.
Now I am not saying that the same will happen with Afghanistan, it is just that the arguments about continuing in Afghanistan is getting more tenuous every day. We are the problem and never will be the solution. What they need is a benign dictatorship, as long as you keep the problem in your own borders then we will leave you to it. Start exporting terrorism again, and we will simply bomb you, you want to go back to the fifteenth century, no problem, we will send you there, no problem.
Please do not forget that the 9/11 terrorists were mainly from Saudi Arabia, they were not Afghans, they just placed themselves in that country, and they trained in Hamburg, germany.
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Catch22/TAG#
This will probably be of interest to you. Makes for sobering reading...
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
Written by a geezer on the Defence Select Committee, ex Grenadiers, been to Afghan on many many occasions.
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Increasing competition in the UK banking industry is a large part of what would need to happen to avoid future crunching within the current system, but as you say, these are very tame measures towards that end. Gordo will be well aware of this since after all, instigating greater competition against the institutions we've propped up would obviously be a big fat shot in the foot when it comes to recouping the public money he's bet on those banks with.
The bottom line from where I stand is that once you look past the panic at the disco, through all the smoke on the water, globalisation is the leveller and the productivity bubble has burst. We're all staying afloat on stimulus, this year anyway, but how is the stimulus pot looking for next year?
We have to stop ignoring the weather. Put that telescope to the good eye and look to the horizon. The western grip on the global economic rudder is floundering, desperate for more hands on deck. That's going to mean the hands of the emerging economies.
In the meantime we're just learning from the hands we're playing in these little side games. Who ever heard of an endless winning streak anyway? In the great game of Global Economics there is no opportunity to cash in and leave the table.
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I must say that I agree with your tactics Catch22. We should never have put troops on the ground. It's giving away the basic advantage in technology we have and presenting a target that is only encouraging insurgency.
To identify the Taliban as the problem is hopeless, and if that's so, we'd have to question why Pakistan are allying themselves to anti-Western elements of the Taliban. The fact is that to specify the Taliban as the problem is like identifying everyone who votes BNP as fascist. Taliban supporters encompass a wide range of views based around a fundamentalist and very strict version of Islam. Some members of the Taliban have joined purely as a reaction to the corrupt Karzai regime.
Never forget that the US was a close ally of the Taliban when they were planning the Pan Afghanistan gas pipeline, and that the obsession with 'pacifying' the area appears more in line with completing that project than suppressing terror plotting against the West.
For any Minister to suggest that we are engaged in military action for the purpose of immigration control is repugnant and stooping lower than the BNP. This is what he is quoted as saying
"An argument that is not aired strongly enough in my view is the benefit of the presence of our armed forces and other countries' is to help us control immigration."
It leaves me speechless.
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Good afternoon each & Andrew,
Speechless? Must be my queue.
We bomb them, they flock to Dover, we stop bombing them, they shall flock to Dover to escape those who wish to bomb places this side of Dover.
Who would be an Afghan?
Bombed in their own country so that bombs do not fall here, we stop our bombing thus forcing them to come here to be bombed.
Tist our error to turn terrorist to tourist?
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78. GomerPyle wrote:
"Aaaaah - but you misunderatnd my point. I'm talking about THEM deciding to send OUR troops to war. It's much easier to get a majority if you're excluding your own country, which some in Europe are seeking to do that on the Climate Change issue."
What's clear and what's not!!?
The Lisbon Treaty does not require UN sanction for the EU to go to war.
Article 19 restricts an individual nation's ability to make a unilateral decision to go to war.
What happens if we're not convinced by the members' majority decision to choose a military option against a non-member state - and the decision is out of our hands (your point), I'm not sure as to what each member's obligations are.. it's not very clear cut.
This Annex (written after Ireland opt-outs) refers to Members' obligations when other Members are threatened:
"It will be for Member States - including Ireland, acting in a spirit of solidarity and without prejudice to its traditional policy of military neutrality - to determine the nature of aid or assistance to be provided to a Member State which is the object of a terrorist attack or the victim of armed aggression on its territory."
All sounds a bit vague if you ask me.
I can't make out how the burden of a military commitment is shared. Looks like it's almost proportional representation, size of commitment depends on size of country. It's a tiered structure, those who spend more have more say. (I think)
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I love the title of this article from the English language version of the Moscow Pravda:
Twenty Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the EU is a Reincarnation of the Former Soviet Union
Who says the Russins do not do irony?
This is the link:
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/04-11-2009/110289-berlin_wall-0
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#103
The Annex that you quote is certainly vague - probably deliberately so to enable EU countries to base their military commitments on what their voters will stand. We've already seen some of that.
The puzzling phrase in the Annex is ..."victim of armed aggression on its territory." Isn't this effectively an invasion of the EU now that it's become a single entity? And the military response is being left to the discretion of individual member states!
What's the likelihood of an eventual EU army provisioned on the same basis?
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Regarding the Lisbon treaty...what a wonderful exercise in democracy...Do we elect the EU commissioners? No.. Do we elect the new EU president? No ..yes, that special new kind of democracy where something goes ahead after the citizens of three countries explicitly vote against it and are ignored, where the citizens of 23 countries get no vote at all, and only 2 countries vote yes.
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105. mike-jay wrote:
#103
"What's the likelihood of an eventual EU army provisioned on the same basis?"
Clear as mud. You get all this ratification razzmatazz on something that's basically a work-in-progress.
The new EEAS is supposed to 'complement NATO... which is still the primary military organisation but under the Lisbon Treaty it looks like the politicians will have more influence than the military.
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107.
"looks like the politicians will have more influence than the military."
Sorry, that sounds naff... I meant the politicians would be more involved in the military side of affairs, which as we know is always dangerous.
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Andrew
Let's hope that other high street banks do not rival RBS's loss of GBP 2.2 billion, for the quarter ending September 2009. They also expect bankruptcies and unemployment to peak sometime next year, somewhat at odds with Downing Street's forecasts.
Could you please find out if the written off loans are domestic or off shore business?
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A bad morning Andrew,
the massive losses at RBS, otherwise known as the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Determined to turn this bank around. Restructuring is starting to pay off, a marathon and not a sprint. Customers growwing. Recession does not end? Momentous week for RBS, Asset Protection Scheme, our journey moving forward. Umbrella of the APS, I believe it will not rain.
People do not want to borrow, we are doing a lot of lending in the mortgage area. First time buyers, £45 billion to UK businesses, businesses repaying borrowing. Not drawing down their overdrafts.
Remuneration, yet bonuses being paid. Bonus policy. Treading a very delicate tightrope, bankers pay, reforming that area, good people leave us. People hard at work, casino like betting. Leading the way on pay, BBC pay, BBC need not make profit.
Shares in lieu of pay, bonuses which can be taken in shares.The main point is that if the staff were paid in cash then they would pay income tax and national insurance. If taken in shares then only Capital Gains Tax is paid, on the disposal, between the acquisition date and the sale date. If they do not make a profit then there is not even any Capital Gains Tax to pay. This is even worse the the Today programme identified.
The banks do not issue new shares for the staff, they have to purchase the shares in the market to satisfy the demands of the staff. One also has to look at the strike price of the bonus foregone and the price of the shares which need to be purchased to meet demands of the staff, and their bonus.
I could go on but we are being conned, seriously big time. They must not be allowed to get away with this. What you have to know is that one of the banks which RBS holds is a certain Coutts Bank, and who did Coutts used to be bankers to, surely not members of the Royal family, some very senior members of the Royal family at that. Surely Brown has not rescued the banks just because the Royal family would have lost money.
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Andrew,
in advance of the great speech we can expect from Brown I thought that I would go to the number 10 website to get the details, you know time place. So imagine my surprise when I went to the site and found this :-
The Prime Minister has visited Airbus UK’s manufacturing facility in the north Wales town of Broughton.
Gordon Brown visited a site that is being extended to help meet orders for the new A350 - the fastest selling passenger aircraft of all time'.
So we have how many days left to save the planet, before the Copenhagen summit, where air travel must of course be on the agenda. Where restrictions must be placed on airline development.
Now back to the Number 10 site, just look at the picture as Brown strides from the factory, smiling haughtily, look at me. At the same time I see pictures in my mind of when Bush was told of the 9/11 terrorist act. One can just imagine Brown wakes up in the morning, got away with reading out the names in parliament, brave heroes, they will never be forgotten, I am Sarah's hero, they are mine.
As we learn more and more and more about Brown the worse it gets. Saving the planet in less than forty days, the clock is ticking, we must not walk away from Afghanistan, we must save the banks, I saved you from Foot and Mouth, the floods, I can do it, I am in my mental bunker, just give me the time. I will destroy everything, a scorched earth policy, I will leave this to Balls, unless he wants to truent, with his wonderful wife, Cooper.
Do you know what would show to me that he is in control, that he sacks Woolass with immediate effect for telling us the truth, that we are in Afghanistan keeping the refugees from taking to the trail and finding themselves in Britain, as asylum seekers.
Furthermore, he must announce that nobody else has matched our committment to send extra troops so there will be no more extra soldiers sent to Afghanistan. That also allied soldiers will be seen on the streets of Kabul, that we will not use and pay for mercenaries, private contractors if you like, to do the job of security in Kabul. There are no UN nor allied soldiers in uniform on the streets of Kabul. Look at the jobs that some of our retired soldiers now do, I firmly believe that they are part of a firm providing these mercenaries, these private contractors to the area.
How dare Brown compare our soldiers to those that fought and died at the Somme and Normandy. The Somme was lions led by donkeys, we have the men, we can lose them, we'll give them a parade when they come back home, that'll keep them happy, a parade, a medal, meet the Queen, a good funeral, that'll do. Now then about saving the banks.
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Brown can justify the Afghanistan deployment as much as he likes. So long as the regime it supports is riddled by corruption his words aren't going to wash. If the Afghan government can't set a clear democratic example and treat the Afghan people as well as we expect them to, it's always going to look like we're supporting corrupt regime's for our own interests and the process will continue to lose support.
If the military option was having a positive effect we would be needing less troops by now, not more! You can't argue that the need to escalate military operations suggests anything but failure up to this point.
What is it good for? Absolutely nothin', say it again!
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Did someone say that RBS had grown bigger than the UK economy ?
Wasn't this just fantasy banking where bankers were totally out of control and making it up as they went along, and were thus able to pour money into their pockets - real money - unlike the illusion they had created ?
The problem is that banks have become wedded to their own fantasy world of investment banking that we're just pouring our wealth into the Wookey Hole that is no longer connected to the economy at large.
To try to replace the empty investments they had rewarded themselves so well for purchasing we could keep pumping money into banks for a year and still not have a functioning economy.
The original crash occurred becase governments appear not to have recognised what banks were doing. It would be catastrophic if the same ignorance led to another failure.
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Ben Bradshaw has declined to be my Prescribed Person at my forthcoming Employment Tribunal,hence, another setback for me. The IT have debarred me from calling any witnesses,(3days BEFORE the Case Management Discussion)hence,the rats smell is beging to woft thru ths case.
Nevermind, we shall have day(s) in court.
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Just come back from the other place, its gone mad. Everybody reporting Saga to the Mods. Insults flying everwhere.
And I keep getting error 404 when selecting comments or refreshing or the comments come up in mini size. ????????? Anyone else have this problem ?
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Andrew,
it is what Brown did not say which is important on all issues, climate change, banking, Afghanistan, Iraq, all of it.
What he does not say is that by June next year there must be a general election in Britain. It is looking more likely that what I am saying is totally irrelevant, I unlike Karzair cannot fix an election, I can't deny people the vote. I have my cronies, my yes men, but soon it will all disappear. I will be just an ordinary subject of the Queen like everybody else.
We did walk away from Iraq, we went in there, and we left. We deserted the people of Iraq. We will desert the people of Afghanistan. As a commentator pointed out if we left Afghanistan tomorrow, then Karzai would fall almost immediately. When we do leave Afghanistan how long does Brwon actually thin k that it will be before Karzai seeks asylum in Britain, or some other country where he has deposited his money. How long before we see Karzai being driven down our streets, with his home protected by the British security forces.
In his speech Brown kept making mention of how much money has been spent, how much international development aid money is being 'invested'. He can't get away from keep thinking that we are interested in the money, I'm not, I'm interested in the body count, how many human beings are being killed, murdered, slaughtered. There was a famous war film which contains a good quote which Brown may use 'They were expendable', they kept the refugees off the streets of Britain.
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I had to love the story on the US news that supplies of the government produced swine flu virus vaccine, which is being distributed by their local government, was being distributed to various banks ahead of the sick and young, before many doctors had received any supply.
The conceit and arrogance of the banks is beyond belief. I'm beginning to believe that the banks should have been allowed to fail and only those customers unconnected with the casino operations should have been saved.
I wouldn't normally agree with Greenpeace, but their worry about the carbon trading market turning into the next sub prime debacle is valid. The problem being that it doesn't do its job at present, and that when it does start functioning properly, that's when the speculators are liable to move in and start the whole thing spinning out of control.
If governments put what they tell us is 'the future of the world' in the hands of banks, then they better make sure it's properly regulated, or we know what will happen.
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#115
yes I too have been encountering the room 404 issue. Anything to do with the change which was implemented earlier this week. Surely the system was thoroughly tested before being implemented?
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@ 115 Spooky!
@ 116 Once you start to propose that there are sometimes very good reasons to slaughter people it becomes very difficult to convince your counterparts that actually there aren't.
If people don't start getting this there's a good chance the state of the argument could move from Brown's balancing of the sheets to Griffin's wearing of them.
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Andrew,
Brown says that we have deserted the streets of Kabul, that's what he means when he says that we have handed over control of Kabul to the government. We have already walked away.
Afghanistan is also an independent country, an independent state. This is getting worse than Vietnam. Did the Americans ever justify their war in Vietnam by we are keeping the terrorists off the streets of America, we are keeping America free by killing and murdering in Vietnam, using the local forces, the infamous massacre by American soldiers at Mai Lei. This occupation of an independent country on the basis that we are mentoring, just like the Americans in Vietnam were 'advisers'. After the American defeat in Vietnam what was the major problem which they had, remember the boat people, well that is what Woolass is worried about, the refugees when we pull out. Just like we had to reach agreement with China when we deserted Hong Kong, all we were really worried about was keeping control of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, the biggest bank in the world.
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Andrew,
here is a quote which Brown and his supporters may well understand. he understand about money, about investment, so try this 'do not throw good money after bad' in military terms 'do not reinforce defeat'.
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I saw an interesting comment on an Indian website. It said that Pakistan gets aid from the West by 'pointing a gun at its own head'. In other words it is able to obtain aid by being unstable. I don't think that's entirely accurate, but I have little doubt that Pakistan and the West are working to different objectives, and as long as that is the case, there is no possibility of success. As I've said before, the problems is and always was, Pakistan not Afghanistan.
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Here is some food for thought:
Given that the public finances are in dire straits, and inevitably public spending will have to be cut rather severely, is it in their best interests for the security/intelligence services to resolve the terror threat to our shores any time soon? MI5 and MI6 have had GBP billions thrown at them, far more than was ever available during the Cold War. I would say they are in a bit of a Catch 22 situation, what!
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Good afternoon each & Andrew.
#123 excellentcatblogger
This is not the concern of the security services, but rather a 'gift' to politicians. As with Global-Warming the Politicians have long-running topics with which to frighten the populace into seeing the status-quo as the only way to go.
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124 Good point.
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#115 xT
I too [Ubuntu] am suffering from Error 404.
It is all part of a conspiracy for sure. ;)
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Andrew,
is it not a problem that when of our heroic soldiers is killed that the wife, mother or some other relative is wheeled out by the MoD to say what a great person they were, and that they will be missed, that they loved the army, and that they have been sacrificed to keep terror off the streets of Britain, that they were always smiling, or that they had a great future. I'm sorry but this is getting pathetic. If they thought so much of their family they would stay at home filling supermarket shelves.
Getting a woman pregnant then going off to fight in Afghanistan, being part of a system which kills women and children, can we get real about our soldiers sign up to. They sign up to have a life better than the one they would have if they stayed at home.
I saw Jackson on the News 24, smiling away as usual. I just wish that one interviewer would ask him what job do you do now. Is there any truth that you are now part of a company which supplies irregulars in Afghanistan, that you provide mercenaries, military equipment on a commercial basis. That the former head of the SAS also works with the same company that you are a director of.
The elephant in the room about Afghanistan is that before our attack in Iraq, the second Gulf war if you like, there had been no terrorist attack in Britain by the people we are supposedly fighting in Afghanistan. This is appalling the way that Iraq is no longer mentioned. Until 2003 how many soldiers were killed in Afghanistan by the Talebhan. If we had concentrated on Afghanistan rather than Iraq then I do not consider that we have the same sort of problem which we now face. Finally, where exactly is Bin Laden?
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Andrew,
Brown says that the Talebhan have changed their tactics. That they took us on and now have changed their strategy. Oh, how cunning of them. I mean we saw what Harry does, calls up air strikes and just has people bombed, and killed. He did bad things to bad people. So are we surprised that seeing what was available to the allies, use of computers, drones, air strikes, superior firepower, that the Talebhan should use the same tactics which we used during WWII, sending in agents to France and other occupied countries as insurgents. They have adjusted their tactics alright, and nobody should be surprised.
If anything it is time for the allies to enter Pakistan, to join the pakistan army in defeating the Talebhan. We must show resolve asserts Brown, that because some of us have seen for years the disastrous policy of the labour governments that somehow we are giving succour to the enemy, that as soon as we talk about defeat, that they will have one final push, and that we will respond.
This is a disaster, for Brown to assert that criticism of our occupation of Afghanistan, that we should continue to support the occupation because it means that we support the Talibhan if we oppose our strategy, then this is just like WWI, where millions of lives were lost. Stop here I'm getting angry. Bring the troops out now. I wonder if anybody will dare to demonstrate on Sunday, this will be the last Remembrance day before I get on the streets. After this all is futility.
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Andrew,
on the 29th June 1916 the following question was asked in the House of Lords:-
'Whether the presence in this country of uninterned naturalised and un-naturalised German sympathisers does not constitute a serious national danger; and, if so, what steps His Majesty's Government propose to take in the matter'.
Now then I listen with great intent to Brown, the so-called Prime Minister and will rephrase the question, taking into account the terrorist threat which is meant to exist in this country from Afghanistan and Pakistan, and from where a threat to our national security now exists. The same question needs to be asked as above only replacing the word Germany, with Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Either we are under threat, or we are not under threat, if we are then the government must actually do something, not just sit back waiting for the next terrorist attack, there is always the enemy within, or so I am told by Brown.
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Andrew,
I do so think that the internet is in all probability absolutely detested by governments throughout the world. Why? Here is a copy from Hansard dated March 2002, 2002 note well:
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Bach) My Lords, the size, composition and mission of the International Security Assistance Force have proved adequate for helping the Afghan Interim Authority to provide the security and stability in Kabul which is needed for the Afghans to begin the rebuilding of their country. Its success and the warm welcome the ISAF has received from the people of Kabul are evidence of that and much more.
Now exactly how warm is an improvised expolosive device.
What has happened between March 2002 and today, when it has reached the situation where Afghan police now shoot British soldiers. Where Brown now asserts that we are in Afghanistan to keep terror off the streets of Britain. I say Iraq, that is what happened, who paid for Iraq, who went along with it...Brown, that's who, the man is a disgrace.
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Andrew,
about Browns speech this morning I too was sceptical, that is until I read Hansard, House of Lordss debate 21 May 1968, note well 1968:
Not long ago I wrote an article on "UNICEF'S Grandchild", and this is really what I am talking about to-day. I had gone back to Afghanistan and had met a man whom twenty years before I had seen as a starveling brought by his mother to the UNICEF milk depot to get the protein he was perishing without. He now has a child of his own, a boy born in the maternity hospital which the World Health Organisation had helped to provide and UNICEF had helped to equip. And I recalled how two Royal princesses had been persuaded to become midwives in order to set an example in a land of purdah, where the veiled and segregated women had been previously treated as chattels and childbearing machines. To-day in Afghanistan they have been allowed to unveil. A quarter of the students at Kabul University are now women learning to be doctors, to be nuclear and electronic engineers, to be architects, to be civil engineers, to be bridge-builders.
A social revolution has been wrought in Afghanistan, and I swear to your Lordships that it dates back to that UNICEF milk depot, when the women, shrouded from head to foot in their chadaris, the humiliation of their sex, brought their children for succour to the milk depot, and at the gynæcological and 649 pædiatric clinics where alongside they met women, unveiled women, whom the World Health Organisation had recruited from many countries. The Afghan women discovered that women could be professionals, and presently they found that, (they themselves, the women 'of Afghanistan, were important because the women doctors treated them as personalities in their own right.
I know that the above is a long extract from the speech but the most important aspect is worth repeating:-
'A quarter of the students at Kabul University are now women learning to be doctors, to be nuclear and electronic engineers, to be architects, to be civil engineers, to be bridge-builders'.
Accordingly when Brown spins his lies and half truths, just remember what was said in 1968, whilst Brown himself was probably preparing for university. Just how much has actually been achieved in the 41 years since that statement to the noble House of Lords, this government has to be the moist shameful that we have ever experienced. I saw the women casing their wasted votes in the recent presidential elections, clothed in their burkhas, please Brown just call an election, but before you do bring the troops out!
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Rewf 84 Gomerpyle
Sorry GP for not responding sooner and yes I am very interested in the Guinea news with Simon Mann and agree there are a few twitchers out there at the moment. I bet Lord Pinky is also twitching because he is/was involved in this coup. Pinky and MT are in for a lot of flack as is the London Basd magnate.
It won't be long before they connect it to the Chd/Cameroon debacle.
Where is Electric Hermit these days?
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I am contemplating buying a moderate stake of Exxonmobil shares ,say, 1000pounds and then I can make a formal complaint against the Chad/Cameroon Pipeline as a shareholder.
Ditto for the major UK contractor whom is the respondent in my IT and then complaining as a shareholder.
What do you think guys,is it worthwhile??
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Welcome to Britain.
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Roll_On_2010 134
Thanks for that Roll as well as keeping us updated everyday, you have provided a good laugh there as well.
Great stuff.
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Andrew,
further to my earlier post about women in Afghanistan listened to Flint on the BBC this evening, she really ought to be better informed. As for Brown and his five points, is this the same sort of five points that he has for entry into the Euro. Please!
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# 133
Give the Pan Afghan Gas Pipeline a once over while you're there EXXONMOBIL2. Our upstanding dear friend and anti-corruption candidate (and ex-Taliban associate) Mr Karzai, was on the payroll of the usual suspects.
You silly people. You entirely miss the point. The only reason we do business with him is because he is thoroughly corrupt. If we built a bullet proof shell over the top of Afghanistan and hemmed everyone in it still wouldn't solve the terroist problem, because Pakistan is a much more active centre for terrorism.
Pakistan have finally plucked up courage to take action, but it isn't going to achieve much because the government is so shaky, which is the nub of the problem. Is it our real intent to prop up a government with only a tentative grip on power, who also happen to be our sometime ally in the fight against terrorism ? Smacks a little of political interference to me.
The truth is that fundamental Islam is a dream that is not so appealing in reality, to judge from the happenings in Iran. However, for us to attempt to oppose a move that way, makes it all the more alluring.
This isn't rocket science. Look at Vietnam and Iran as examples. We lost so many young lives to attempt to oppose the inevitable, et voila, guess what happens in the end ?
I don't know whether or not Gordon will understand better if a picture is drawn or perhaps a flick through the history books will help. Thankfully we never interfered in China, or that would be a mess too.
Gordon is as much use as a cork tossed about in the sea in a hurricane, but Cameron has done himself no favours over his EC decision and his support for continuing the Afghanistan debacle. Neither will get my vote.
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Benefit fraud and error cost £3 billion.
Fraud and error in the benefits system cost £3 billion last year, a rise of £300 million figures show.
Perhaps if this NuLabour government could improve the inept departments who deliver services then maybe, just maybe we can start to save money instead of hosing it down the drain.
Don’t expect it any day soon!
Roll On 2010
#135 Susan-Croft
Thanks Susan.
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More MPs set to stand down at next general election.
Senior figures in all political parties warned that the new expenses regime announced on Wednesday will provide a “perverse incentive” for MPs to “take the money and run”, as one put it. Whips believe another 50 could decide to quit, on top of the 114 who have already announced that they will leave Parliament.
Andrew Dismore, Labour MP for Hendon, said: “People who may want to retire at the following election will leave with virtually nothing. Some people may consider thinking: ‘Well, might as well go now and take what is available’.”
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The following two articles are from an unusual source but ‘none the less’ relevant to the Britain of today.
Gordon Brown, the Robert Mugabe of corrupt Britain.
Britain is a corrupt country but in order for the corrupt to rule, they have to put in measures to control and spy on ordinary citizens.
The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) is a tool of the state to allow spying on citizens not based on any evidence whatsoever.
It is the state’s you’re guilty until you are proven innocent.
Ex defence chiefs turn on Grofaz, Gordon Brown.
Afghanistan is an unwinnable war.
Kim Howells, ex Labour minister called it right.
Now, three ex-chiefs of the defence staff have attacked Gordon Brown's commitment to the war in Afghanistan and support for UK troops.
Gordon Brown is causing the deaths of British service personnel by being inept and petty.
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MP's future roles will be more ceremonial than functional under the new EU rules, so why should they be paid big salaries ?
Perhaps we can dress them in uniforms and call them the Westminster Pensioners. They can provide tours around Parliament.
In future our MP's will just turn around and tell us they can't do anything, or take the blame for anything, as Europe has the power now. In private industry pay is based on the level of responsibility. They've passed it on to Europe - so tough luck.
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Lords all at sea as cannabis debate gets Nutt-ier by the day.
At times during the Lords debate on cannabis, I began to wonder what they were smoking. The week had begun with the dismissal of Professor Nutt as a government adviser for saying that alcohol and tobacco caused more harm than cannabis.
Now the members of the Upper House were onto drugs as well. In a few days we had gone from a Nutt-case to an even Nutt-ier case. It was only 11am, but many of the noble lords and ladies were nodding off. Frankly, it looked a bit suspicious.
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140#
Its all well and good these old defence chiefs turning on Brown and normally, anything that gives him a good kicking is fine by me.
HOWEVER....
Its a bit chuffin' late to be doing it now. Why didnt any of them say anything whilst they were still in post? When they still had command, when they still had real influence instead of harrumphing away in the lords where Gordon is going to completely ignore them. He knows it'll go away after one news cycle.
Part of the Haddon-Cave Nimrod review last week mentioned a major turning point as being the introduction of the IPT system for defence acquisition that came along following George Robertsons 98 SDR. How things changed, how economies and the peace dividend after the end of the cold war were important. He singled out two 4 star officers, one Army and one Air Force for forcing through 20-25% cuts without resistance and without adequate delegation and management and forward strategic thinking.
These same men who were beating their gums in the house of Lords today were in very senior positions at the same time - CGS, CDS, CNS - that this major change was going on. They saw first hand what the results were going to be as they came off the drawing board and were being implemented and would have been party to information from lower down the command chain raising concerns from Front Line Commanders about what the effects of these forced economies would mean.
And what did they do, to resist or to try and use their seniority to have any influence on what happened?
NOTHING.
They were more concerned with preserving their own pensions. They betrayed their own people by turning their backs on them and nodding through these monumental changes and now, suddenly, when they're retired on full pensions, they suddenly find their voices. Why? Why now? Why not back then?
The only reason politicians dont like the military getting involved in politics is that it means that someone who can speak authorititavely on the subject will show up their bad, penny pinching decisions for what they are and they dont like it up em, which is why they were up in arms about Dannatt. They would much prefer to have had the three stooges who spoke in the Lords today, where what they say will last for one news cycle over a weekend and then be forgotten by Monday morning, when everyone will be more interested in the results of Saturdays' X-Factor.
These three are a disgrace to the uniform and traded in their courage, integrity and backbones for their extra gold braid on their arms and their pensions and they sold their personnel out.
Brown cannot be excused his part, but these three are even worse.
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#142 Roll_On_2010
read the UN World Drugs Report 2009 (it's a pdf so you will have to google it)
I suggest starting with section 2: CONFRONTING UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES:
DRUG CONTROL AND THE CRIMINAL BLACK MARKET
The UN is the reason why we have the drugs laws we have, Johnson and the Goat have no idea what they are talking about.
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#144 BobRocket
Thanks Bob. I have downloaded the PDF and will read the section you refer to.
For anybody else the document can be downloaded from the following webpage:
UN World Drugs Report 2009
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Roll on 140
"Britain is a corrupt country but in order for the corrupt to rule, they have to put in measures to control and spy on ordinary citizens."
Calm down,Britain is not one country but three and co-ordinated corruption is beyond the capacity of an inept leader.
You should try and contain your impatience which as Kafka once said is a form of laziness.2010 will be here soon enough and you can then practise your goose step with the Latvian SS.Your absurd European allies who will spearhead the conservative drive into Europe.
To appear weak to our European colleagues and competitors without
being power is an invidious position to find oneself.Messrs Hague and Cameron have achieved this leaving the French and Germans shaking with laughter.I hope you are also amused because I detect parody in your blog of many dim but sincere people who share your views.
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# 146
I hope your maths is not indicative of your political astuteness. If we're going to count up the UNITED Kingdom's constituent parts - then I count FOUR, but let's not get picky.
I'm not personally a supporter nor denigrator of Latvians, and have no knowledge of how they walk. If you've read Gulliver's Travels you'll know the sin of picking on a race just because of how they walk.
Personally I'm going off the Tories, and Labour have less credibility than the Muppets (no offence to Muppets intended).
My own view is to leave the EU, but my main concern is that it possibly make me your ally. That's probably the Tory problem. You can't always be responsible for those you stand beside.
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#143
I could not agree with you more. I am disgusted by these people who come after safely being retired wiuth their pensions. It would be like a retired general seeking his own legal advice before the invasion of Iraq. I mean please, the man has to follow orders, not legal advice. You cannot abrogate your responsibilities by saying I took the orders, but I checked them first, thus saying if I was subsequently brought before a court for any war crimes then I would plead not guilty because my legal advoser told me that it would be ok.
I mean I can imagine if Hitler had survived and been tried at Nurembourg. I gave the orders but I did take legal advice from a very eminent lawyer, therefore I am not guilty. Bit like the legal advice which was given to the UK government before the invasion of Iraq.
I have a very close family member who was given an honourable discharge from the army, after he took his own action over what he was being ordered to do in Iraq. What happened to him, well the wonderful MoD took him to the High Court where they were granted an injunction preventing my very close family member from speaking in public. Why? Because he was saying what some people did not want to hear. Extra-ordinary rendition, enhanced interrogation techniques, all the 'stuff' has subsequently been investigated and found to be true, despite the government saying initially that there was no evidence.
I detest these generals and politicians coming out when it is too late, they should be ashamed, armchair generals, Colonel Blimps, get real.
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Andrew,
with regard to Quantitave Easing there is a serious problem which I do not think is being considered.
The government is putting money into the economy by purchasing gilts, from the financial institutions. The institutions are then putting this money into the stock market, hence the rise which we have seen in stock markets throughout the major economies. This is exactly what happened in the period 1928/29, especially in America. However, the wall of money eventually collapses, then no more money into the markets, then the government floods the market with gilts which they need to sell to fund their largess. The only way which the money can be raised to buy these new issues is by selling the shares which were bought in the previous period.
Next year stock markets will begin to collapse, no new money can be raised by companies for expansion because the government is taking all the money. I will tell you now, this is worse than the Great Depression, we are just so doomed, well actually not me, because I am entering the winter of my life, just leaving the autumn. So, it is for my children and grandchildren that I feel sorry for, my generation and the generation before me have ruined it, we have been guilty of gross arrogance, only too many have not learnt the lesson.
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Andrew,
I hear on the newspaper review on this morning's Today programme that the Guardian newspaper says that the 1948ers have had it the best. I would assert that they are out by one year. I was born on the 7th April 1949, just after the beginning of the new financial year. Why is that relevant I hear you all shout, well because go back almost nine months to August 1948, which is when the NHS came into existence.
Now not too much information here just to say that I think that my parents celebrated the NHS much to my benefit. I consider that I am, and others born on or after April 5th 1949 are in fact those that have benefited, because those born in 1948 would not have benefited from the full services of the NHS, in the form of pre-natal care.
I will never know what my life would have been like without the NHS, just to say that I have had a fractured femure, undescended testicle, eye sight problems, teeth broken in rugby, a malignant melanoma, and a couple of minor mental breakdowns, but apart from that I'm fine, he said crying into his laptop. Oh, and a set of twin boys who are lovely in their own little ways.
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Andrew,
I hope that others have spotted my usual deliberate mistake to check whether any of my comments are actually read, and understood. Of course the NHS came into existance on the 5th July 1948, not August, and I was not born prematurely. I think that the government of the day always planned that the NHS would come into existance nine months before the tax year, so that everybody born after the 6th April 1949 would be in the new tax year, and that they would have been born with the NHS in place, but also with the new financial benefits, and obligations.
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GP 146
"I hope your maths is not indicative of your political astuteness. If we're going to count up the UNITED Kingdom's constituent parts - then I count FOUR, but let's not get picky."
Brit·ain 1 (brĭt'n)
"The island of Great Britain during pre-Roman, Roman, and early Anglo-Saxon times before the reign of Alfred the Great (871-899). The name is derived from Brittania, which the Romans used for the portion of the island that they occupied. "
My reference was not to the United Kingdom`s constituent parts but to Britain`s.
I found your last paragraph hard to understand.I take it your preference is to leave the EU.Is that a lifestyle choice or a reasoned political position? I also don`t see how that makes us allies.I am in favour of a strong EU,I favor a Blair presidency to compensate for our weakness in Europe if the conservatives are elected.
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Andrew,
I missed this story which has the potential to rob all European citizens of their identity, religious beliefs and national traits. The European Court of Human Rights has decided that crucifixes have to be removed from all Italian classrooms are a violation of religious and educational freedoms. Italy is still a predominantly Catholic country with respect to religion.
Other countries are following suit notably Spain and Poland, much to the bewilderment of the Polish people. It is probably their religious faith that has kept the Poles going through thick and thin over the last century or so. Indeed some attribute the fall of the Iron Curtain to that Polish Pope.
Is this a case of making sure the same mistake is not made twice? what is the EU really? I think it is things like this that have made the Czech President so reluctant to agree to the Treaty of Lisbon. When all your life you have fought for your freedoms, he must be absolutely devastated. But what really angers me is the compliant sneering elitist Fourth estate who have in a cavalier fashion thrown our freedoms away.
The only silver lining is that the Depression that will shortly follow this recession may well wipe out the EU financially. The UK's financial black hole will see to it quite comfortably.
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I hear that the UK financial markets are baulking at legislation that will restrict their innovative abilities. Shouldn't their innovative abilities be curtailed entirely, as that's what got us into this mess ? Their innovation is not beneficial, but merely a vehicle for self-enrichment, unless they've taken Holy Orders. Their opinion are valueless, as it's like sharks campaigning for more offshore swimmers.
I trust that Parliament is aware of the damage that rejecting the Kelly report will do them, if that's what they are seriously considering. Any such idea and I will e-mail UKIP and suggest that they make implementation a manifesto pledge. Perhaps we can then, at last, dispose of the cosy two party politics we have so frequently suffered.
Afghanistan ? - a disaster. If we can decide who and what we're fighting, which hasn't been identified yet, there may be a chance of success if we flood Afghanistan and Pakistan with our troops. The mismatch of words and action in trying to meet a threat advertised as a fight for national survival, being met with a feeble response of 9,500 troops is the clearest sign of a government not believing its own propaganda. Gordon's lack of confidence in his own strategy is clear from his actions. Get stuck in or get out. War has no place for political niceties. Otherwise I foresee this continuing as an interminable insurgency with our troops just performing the role of target.
Stll, if there's a business deal on offer.
"A secretive firm linked to senior Labour figures has won contracts worth more than £175 million to redevelop Libya, a Daily Telegraph investigation has discovered."
I trust that al-Megrahi's recouperation is coming along nicely. I imagine expense was no object.
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My 153 forgot to paste the link (doh!)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/03/italy-classroom-crucifixes-human-rights
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"I favor a Blair presidency to compensate for our weakness in Europe if the conservatives are elected."
Yes.... you would do, wouldnt you?
Why is it that all you New Labour apologists and sycophants always have to be so damn sneery and judgemental about ANYONE who doesnt toe your line?
"Everyone who doesnt agree with us is a rampant little englander baby eating, SS-supporting Tory."
It is one of the most pernicious, odious and frankly enraging traits that I have ever seen in a fellow human being. And you all do it. You just cannot help yourselves, its like its in your DNA.
Lets just hope that the sincere but dim electorate arent too dim to consign your lot to the dustbin of history, come early next year. I dont care who gets in, so long as its not your collection of liars, cheats and thieves.
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This latest inquiry into the MP expenses is a BOONDOOGLE and the fact that a former #10 advisor,a.k.a. spin doctor is a buddy of the inquiry chief,god help us all.
Phone a friend for the next GE sez me.
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153#
Whose quote was it that religion was the opiate of the masses? Cant remember if it was Lenin or Stalin? Think it might have been Lenin.
Did you see the English language version of this weeks Prada, following the final ratification of Lisbon? Did you see what they likened it to?
Isnt that ironic?
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Ref 137 GomerPyle
I don't know much about the PAGas Pipeline but is would appear that plus oil could be the REAL reason why are boy are dying in Afghanistan.
I will do a bit of digging on it,no doubt the World Bank are funding it.
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#158
Yes I did, and they should know!
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Only a few day left before the Denmark meeting for the climate treaty..
Will someone ask the boffins why the Chad Pipeline is operating without any oil spill pans or environmental protection and expected to continue in such state for the next 40 years.
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#158 Ah but as I think about it, was it irony? It could well have been pity.
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Good morning each & Andrew.
Truely the era of Red verses Blue is over.
I would say that it is yet a little too early to nail ones colours to any current mast.
Should you feel that one or other of the single-issue partys who have a platform at present should be given a fighting chance at the next election. Please consider which issue should be at the fore.
I think that single issue should be the future of our Democracy. At the next election we could do much worse than opt for a candidate committed to electoral reform such that we can consign the Red x Blue duality to the dust bin of history.
I would go as far as to say that the difficulties we face at this time are as nothing in comparison to the risk we run of returning to this same old disaster by doing the same old thing ourselves in our answering the election question with anything other than progress on all fronts.
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#154
what must be banned is stock lending and short selling. Also, there must be no contracts for difference, and all transactions on the Stock Exchange must be for two day settlement at most. All Gilt transactions are effectively for cash settlement, the same for equities. Now that would soon stop the speculators. For example, a pension fund is not allowed to trade shares, they cannot buy them, make a quick profit, and sell them, they have exemptions from Capital Gains Tax, could that be why there is so much interest in SIPPs.
We might as well abolish Capital Gains Tax altogether, also why keep National Insurance and Income Tax separate. Directors of companies still take disproportionate dividends, on which they only pay income tax, rather than pay, which is subject to both national insurance and income tax. Merge the two, raise the tax allowances so that people earning less than £15,000 pay no tax, and concentrate on the tax cheats by getting rid of tax allowances. As for tax credits, these are means tested benefits by any other name, they are the problem and never will be the solution that is until we get real means testing.
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Just discovered this passage from the Marquis De Sade... how apt. This was written in 1797. Just shows how little changes..
"...this general paralysis has its source in your policy which, from maintaining the people in dependence, shuts them out from wealth; their ills are thus rendered beyond remedy, and the political state is in a situation no less grave than the civil government, since it must seek its strength in its very weakness."
"Your apprehension, lest someone discover the things I have been telling you, leads you to exile arts and talents from your realm. You fear the powerful eye of genius, that is why you encourage ignorance. This opium you feed your people, so that, drugged, they do not feel their hurts, inflicted by you. And that is why where you reign no establishments are to be found giving great men to the homeland; the rewards due knowledge are unknown here, and as there is neither honor nor profit in being wise, nobody seeks after wisdom."
"I have studied your civil laws, they are good, but poorly enforced, and as a result they sink into ever further decay."
"And the consequences thereof? A man prefers to live amidst their corruption rather than plead for their reform, because he fears, and with reason, that this reform will engender infinitely more abuses than it will do away with; things are left as they are."
"Nevertheless, everything goes askew and awry and as a career in government has no more attractions than one in the arts, nobody involves himself in public affairs; and for all this compensation is offered in the form of luxury, of frivolity, of entertainments."
"So it is that among you a taste for trivial things replaces a taste for great ones, that the time which ought to be devoted to the latter is frittered away on futilities, and that you will be subjegated sooner or later and again and again by any foe who bothers to make the effort."
You learn something every day...
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World Bank and USAID funding the Taliban.
The systemic failures of the World Bank /USAID and others could mean that US Federal Funds are finding there way into Taliban hands,hence, ironically, US Taxpayers are funding the deaths of their own soldiers and of course British and other UN Forces out in Afghanistan.
http://www.defence.pk/forums/u-s-foreign-affairs/33935-unocal-bridas-taliban-turkmanistan-gas-pipeline.html
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158#
Correction:
Turns out the quote is from Marx, not either of the two Soviets and should be "opiate of the people", although it is often misquoted (including by me!) as opiate of the masses.
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# 152
Taking your political arguments back to pre-history is pushing it a bit far anthony piepe, and it's highly confusing, as my genetic material was quite widely dispersed before it coagulated into my existence. However, I can boast that one of my agricultural labourer forebears appear to have performed a 'Lady Chatterley' with minor shires nobility, giving me a dog leg line back to William the Conqueror's invasion force. Genealogical snobbery of the worst form but, I perceive Europe is trying to claim me back.
I sensed you were anti-Europe from your contention that France and Germany were laughing at us, but perhaps you meant in a friendly party sort of way. Making Europe laugh is no bad thing, indeed with leaders like Berlusconi, it's quite an achievement that we have the ability to outshine such comic figures. Long may it continue.
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Fubar 156
"I favor a Blair presidency to compensate for our weakness in Europe if the conservatives are elected."
Yes.... you would do, wouldnt you?
Why is it that all you New Labour apologists and sycophants always have to be so damn sneery and judgemental about ANYONE who doesnt toe your line?
"Everyone who doesnt agree with us is a rampant little englander baby eating, SS-supporting Tory."
It is one of the most pernicious, odious and frankly enraging traits that I have ever seen in a fellow human being. And you all do it. You just cannot help yourselves, its like its in your DNA.
Lets just hope that the sincere but dim electorate arent too dim to consign your lot to the dustbin of history, come early next year. I dont care who gets in, so long as its not your collection of liars, cheats and thieves."
You are clearly enraged by my modest suggestion of a Blair presidency to compensate for the weakness of the present conservative policy on Europe.
They have allied themselves with marginal parties instead of the mainstream,and want to re-negotiate areas of the Lisbon treaty where they have scant hope of success.
My focus is effectiveness. A weak European president would play into the hands of heavily subsidized European interests like French agriculture, or the influence of German industry on EEC policy and that is why a strong British presence is essential.
I will leave you with a final philosophical point: All political careers end in failure Lloyd George,Asquith,Churchill,Eden,Macmillan,Wilson,Thatcher.The same was true of Anthony Lytton Blair,the most effective Labour PM since Attlee, who like Thatcher was forced out by his own party.
People of his ability should be used.You don`t have to like them.I sense from your post this is an emotional issue for you which interferes with a cool judgement of ends and means.
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#166 You can add UK Aid and all the NGO's out in Afghanistan. As the country is so corrupt, before any project is started (school, hospital etc.) the cash is splashed about to government leaders, local government officials, tribal leaders and as the Taliban are the local heavies they get their take as well. The question is, why after 8 years is the west making an issue out of corruption?
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Isn't it strange that the more we clean up politics, the more tawdry it becomes ?
If we filled Parliament with Staffordshire Bull Terriers they couldn't have their teeth more firmly clamped on to their perks and priveleges, but we wouldn't have to waste so much time try to discover what their latest self enrichment projects were. Mutts aren't quite as devious and untrustworthy as MP's.
From the latest rumours from Libya it appears that foreign policy is better understood if you can uncover the private commercial deal associated with government. It wouldn't go down well to discover that the war in Afghanistan was more for the benefit of commercial contractors than the fate of the Western World.
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EB 153
"The only silver lining is that the Depression that will shortly follow this recession may well wipe out the EU financially. The UK's financial black hole will see to it quite comfortably."
A clear cause of schadenfreude or pleasure in the suffering of others.
Do you enjoy your masochism with others or is it a purely private pleasure?
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158 Fubar
"Whose quote was it that religion was the opiate of the masses? Cant remember if it was Lenin or Stalin? Think it might have been Lenin."
I think it may have been Marx in the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.Mr.Attlee was more equivocal, saying that socialism owed more to methodism than to Marx.
The idea that religion is man made goes back at least to Protagoras,a Greek sophist,4th century BC.
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REF 170EXCELLENTCATBLOGGER
Could it be because we (MP's and UK Government) have repented after the expenses debacle and we must now show the world just how good and honest we are.Yeah right??!!
Where are the external auditors on all these FUNDED AID Projects??!!
In essence, WE the British Taxpayers are funding the deaths of our own service personnel??!!
I bet the Taliban JUST love us.
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Surprise surprise Exxonmobil are involved in the Afghan Gas Pipeline.
I will take this onboard when I become an Exxon shareholder next week.
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165 Fubar
Sade obviously got an unfair press.
So I always thought his forte was alternative enjoyments but his political commentary is as you say as apt today as then.
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I wonder how much employment these overseas projects bring to the UK ? At a rough calculation I would guess 'zilch' and with the wonders of modern accounting wizardry, I doubt it provides any benefit to the Exchequer either.
I suppose you could consider that providing jobs in the forces might be considered employment. It's just a shame that commercial enrichment should be achieved over the dead bodies of our young soldiers.
Perhaps it would help when Gordon attends the Armistice Day parade if he could point out which corporation our soldiers are currently fighting for. It may not even be British.
Peddling political parties like football teams, which you support come what may, allowing them unquestioning support no matter how sickening their bahaviour is, should be at an end. I won't vote blue or red. This is what has sunk our country into becoming little more than a banana republic with ethics even they would be ashamed of. I will vote UKIP, but I won't promote them, because I will just as readily turn on them if they can't match action to words.
With MP's we should presume corruption, unless they can prove otherwise.
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169#
Anthony, there is NO coherent conservative policy on Europe. There is no coherent conservative policy on anything. Thats not what I was getting at and certainly not what I was getting emotional about either.
I'm currently living and working in Brussels and thoroughly enjoying it and find it probably the most congenial, if not immediately productive, atmosphere I have ever lived and worked in... I am in no way a Europhobe. I'm paid in Euros, I pay my bills over here in Euros, its no big thing. If its Europe you're concerned about, OK, lets follow that line.
Blair is by and large a smoke a mirrors politician who although a good orator has no substance and is purely a smiling public face for whatever organisation he chooses to front. Had he been Serbian rather than British, he would probably have been standing in the dock at the Hague. The man who said we must be purer than pure, who for two and a half electoral terms fronted one of the sleaziest collection of troughers in modern day political history. The only serving British prime minister to be interviewed by the cops under caution.
Now, given the endemic corruption in the EU building in Schuman Place and throughout the organisation and how the accounts havent been signed off in 14 years, chances are he will be right at home there. But, if you really think that if he does get the top job that he will have the slighest interest in doing anything for the UK, as against enriching himself, then you are I'm afraid naive in the extreme. Blair only cares a tinkers cuss about himself. No-one else. The French and the Germans will do what they will anyway. We need strong representation in Europe to make sure we dont get shafted, granted, but do you seriously think that Blair is going to do that? If you do, I'm afraid, you're a mug.
It wasnt that which got my goat about your original post, go back and read the post again. It was the sneery, looking down your nose "everyone who doesnt agree with me is a dim right wing tory SS-worshipping baby eater". You either have no comprehension as to how much of a red rag to a bull that is, or you are fully aware and you just do it anyway because you cant help it.
I'm getting so sick of saying it, I'm thinking of having it either tattoed on my forehead or having it as a pre-amble to every post. Not everyone who is fed up to the back teeth with Labour is a member of the blue rinse brigade. Many of us lived through their crap as well and Ouedis in 63 gets it right. We're going to get a chance to break the duopoly at last and I hope the electorate can summon themselves out of their stupor to do it.
Labour on the record of their last three terms deserve never to govern again. They are a hideous embarrassment to their founding fathers. Keir Hardie would be spinning in his grave to see what this party has become. This is more a collection of washed up, rehabilitated former CPGB members and old fifth columnists than a party committed to social justice. A significant proportion of what was the old Labour core vote is haemorraging to the BNP of all places and yet, they do nothing about it.
They're not fit to run a bath let alone what was formerly the worlds 4th biggest economy.
The current tories are not the answer either, caught between two stools, terrified that some of the old "nasty party" mud will stick and completely bereft of the strong dynamic leadership that the nation needs. Cameron, whilst no doubt sincere and preferable to Brown purely because of his comparative lack of hubris is starting to find out that "just not being Gordon Brown" isnt going to be enough. There is still ample time for him to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and it wouldn surprise me in the slightest if that happened. It would disappoint me beyond measure if Gordon got in for another term (if he's got the guts to stick around and try for an electoral mandate of his own, which I very much doubt), but it wouldnt surprise me.
The Lib-Dums? Remember what happened the last time they were in.... honours for sale and the war to end all wars. No thank you.
Its just that sneery, assumptive tone that is the red rag to the bull and it is possible to state your case without resorting to it. As soon as it surfaces though, it becomes like a schoolyard punch-up and the whole reasoned political debate goes down the gurgler.
By all means, post whatever you like, but dont be surprised that if you dangle that particular worm in the water, that you're likely to get bites and big, flaming ones as well.
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#174 External auditors today simply tick boxes in the pre printed form. You must be thinking of real auditing which was phased out about 10 years ago. Gosh, when you join up the dots are current economic predicament begins to make some sort of sense...
#172 I most certainly do not want this to happen, but it is going to happen. What is startling is that the EU's economic plight was poor before the current recession. The unemployment rates are staggeringly high, and yet the politicians first and only priority is the Treaty of Lisbon.
The UK is the second highest contributor to the EU - do you honestly think that this can be maintained? You can also expect another bail out for RBS, their future outlook is not promising and loans written off in the last quarter were mostly domestic. The banks historically made vast profits, the taxes reaped from this sustained the UK's spending splurge - eg RBS each year paid GBP 1 Billion in tax, now it is zero and will be for quite a few years yet. Do the maths coupled with all the different debts any government has little leeway. At some point you run out of cash.
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177#
Exxon, I dont want to wind you up, but... if you think thats bad, you ought to hop across to Michael Yons site and read a few of his articles, particularly where he talks about the Kajaki Dam. You'll probably need to go back about 3 or 4 articles or so, but once you read that, it makes highly depressing, but very informative reading...
Read the tributes to the EOD fella who had defused 64 IED's before losing out to the 65th. They're from all over the world. You'd have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by it and it'll make you bloody angry as well.
It really is essential reading. Yon is to Afghan what Pilger was to Vietnam, but without the rabid anti-American subtext. He's an ex US SF bloke as well, so he's bought the t shirt as well, he's not just another journo with an agenda.
I'm not sure if he mentions the road convoys from Pakistan either... just in case though, I'll fill you in with what I've learned.
A lot of the supplies, particularly fuel oil, jet fuel, etc, comes overland from a sea port in Pakistan. Likewise, construction materials for things like schools, hospitals, other buildings, etc. Its just more practical to move it by road, because theres not enough strategic or commercial heavy lift air transport to do it any other way.
A series of questions then...
Where do you think it has to go through to get to Afghan?
Who do you think knows all about where it has to go to and how it has to get there, where it has to go through, where it will be vulnerable?
Who do you think therefore demands protection money to ensure those materials get to their destination intact without being ambushed in territory that they still hold?
Who do you think pays that protection money, to show theyre doing something constructive and in an attempt to try and buy the safety of those driving and escorting the convoys?
Who do you think then blows up said facilities once they've been built forcing the whole cycle to start again?
And finally, who never tells the wider public back home in UK, Europe and America about it happening again and again and again?
The answers to all of them are obvious.
Chew that one over mate. Its absolutely maddening.
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Ref 180 Fubar Saunders
Thanks FS and it does make my blood boil and you raise some very good points about international aided projects.
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Dear Mr Bradshaw
I am very concerned that British Taxpayers money is being diverted to fund the Taliban and the brutal murder of UK/US and International Troops in Afgahinstan.
In particular, I refer to UK DFID and other EU Funding of Projects in Afghanistan such as the Pan Afghan Gas Pipeline and other World Bank Funded Projects. I fervently believe that International Aid and funds are diverted to the Taliban because of the systemic failures of DFID/World Bank and others to have the necessary RING FENCED protection in place.
Another clear example of such malfeasance is the Chad/Cameroon Pipelne,which,as you are fully aware has been operating in a legal void for 7 years and is devoid of any oil spill plans or envirnmental management .
Can you please give me your assurance that UK funds are being safegarded from such malfeasance and your asurance that the Chad/Cameroon Pipeline is safe and does not offer catastrophic consequences.
with thanks
Exxonmobil2
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Thanks Fubar,I wasn'tfamiliar with Michael Yon but he makes V good reading.Thanks for the introduction
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The al-Megrahi arrangement just so happens to have worked, quite coincidentally, to the financial benefit of companies with close links to the government. It'll lessen the pain for them, as they mourn the dead on Armistice Day, if Afghanistan turns out to be equally lucrative.
A slight adaption to the saying 'where there's muck there's brass' could be applied.
The courage of our soldiers is only matched by the greed of our poliicians.
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G20 boys and girls meeting this weekend at St Andrews and what's the betting this incudes a game of golf at the Old Course which make me as mad as hell because they should be talking about the fraud/corruption at the USAID/World Bank and why are Inernational Funds being diverted to the Taliban to murder our servicemen.
G20 are a bunch of hypocrits,getting fat on the public funded gravy train.It also makes me mad because I am a golf freak and my taxes are paying for these goons to play golf.
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DFID Funding to Afghanistan
According to the DFID website they have funded nearly 1million pounds to the Afghanistan Government to fund an anti Maleria Campaign which gives me a wry smile as they spent similar sums along with the Chad/Cameroon Government during the pipeline construction which turned out to be a boondoogle along with a Pipeline boondoogle. I worked on that project and saw first hand the MALERIA campaign which included BLUE Bed Nets, BLUE overalls for the workforce,BLUE vehilce for the Project Mangement Team, and BLUE Containers.
Not everyone will know that the TESTSE FLY is partial to the colour of BLUE.
I don't know why they don't just send AK47 directly to the Taliban instead of this Bulls----- anti maleria nonesense,because that where the funding is going.
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More on the Taliban funding by Uncle Sam
http://www.worldpress.org/specials/pp/front.htm
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More Uncle Sam funding for Taliban
http://www.counterpunch.org/tomenron.html
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Fubar 169
"Blair is by and large a smoke a mirrors politician who although a good orator has no substance and is purely a smiling public face for whatever organisation he chooses to front. Had he been Serbian rather than British, he would probably have been standing in the dock at the Hague. The man who said we must be purer than pure, who for two and a half electoral terms fronted one of the sleaziest collection of troughers in modern day political history. The only serving British prime minister to be interviewed by the cops under caution."
Clearly your perception of Mr.Blair is wildly different to mine.He reformed the Labour party by overturning clause 4 in the face of considerable opposition,was instrumental in preventing genocide in Kosovo and Liberia,and yes,took us into an unpopular war.You may think he made serious mistakes, but they were bold ones with real consequences,not illusory as you imply.Like Margaret Thatcher and Churchill he is a divisive figure but a significant one and his abilities should be used in Europe where we are at a disadvantage because of unresolved questions about our membership.
The rest of your post returns to my real or imagined left wing convictions which you think invalidate my political arguments while sustaining your own.If you criticize the argument rather than the man you return stronger for it.My beliefs are of no interest to anyone but myself,but interesting ideas travel.
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Attn of the European Investment Bank (EIB) Chief Executive
Dear Sir,
As you are aware, the EIB informed me they could not investigate my claims ref the subject title because the EIB did not fund the CCP. Such statements are/were factually incorrect because the EIB DID fund the CCP approx 140 million Euro,hence, in line with the EIB Polices and Procedures for investigating fraud the EIB has failed to meet their own Polcies and Procedures Manadate.
I now appeal to the EIB Chief Executive to conduct an inquiry into the CCP and in particular the fact the CCP has not been provisiooned with the minimum safegards,ie. oil spill plans and environmental protection plans inter alia.
with thanks
Exxonmobil2
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If you can spare the time EXXONMOBIL2 this article gives a history of the political machinations and underlying commercial interests that have governed the politics involved in Afghanistan
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/americawarterrorism/americawarterrorism06.htm
The installation of a democratic government wasn't ever a prerequisite for the American's initial dealings with the Taliban, and Karzai's links with them have always been s positive factor in their adoption of him as President. Poor old Gordon's attempts to rationalise the shennanigans only confuse the issue of the US and the Taliban actually having been business partners at the outset.
If the US had commercial interests in Somalia we'd be involved there, but as it hasn't, we're happy to let them run terror camps, plot international terrorism and loose of their weapons all year round.
Bankers dictate economic policy and oil companies dictate foreign policy. Even less reason to pay MP's a living wage. They're largely obsolete.
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Ref 191 GomerPyle
Thanks Gomer and it make V disconcerting reading,doesn't it.
They won't be happy until WW3 kicks off.
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Gomerpyle
Yes the oil companies have previous. Their track record in the past gets rather murky in wars such as WW2. One prominent oil company traded on both sides of the street, with the allies and the axis powers. Nazi Germany got some of its oil from Roumania, but this was nowhere near enough to replenish its war machine once the war started.
A couple of other multinationals also traded with the Nazis, some ostensibly controlled by the forerunner of the CIA whose interests were predominantly in the intellectual knowledge that the Nazi war machine was producing. Examples are the rocket program which kick started NASA - saturn rockets and the Appollo series were derived from the V2 missile that bombed London; enrichment of Uranium processes.
So the phrase "military industrial complex" has been alive and kicking for most of the last century.
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I can't say I agree with you anthony piepe but, if what you contend is true, then isn't it more important that someone of Tony Blair's talents remains as Middle East Envoy where he can do some good, rather than waste his abilities in a meaningless post with no influence ?
For perverse reasons I'd welcome him getting the job, as the Tories would be forced to re-examine their attitude to the EU. UKIP would love the idea and, on that basis, it's never going to happen. As the second largest contributor to the EU, it would be folly for them to actively encourage our exit, but I can always dream.
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194 GP
"I can't say I agree with you anthony piepe but, if what you contend is true, then isn't it more important that someone of Tony Blair's talents remains as Middle East Envoy where he can do some good, rather than waste his abilities in a meaningless post with no influence ?"
Because it is a new post the influence of the president will depend on the holder.The kind of person selected will give important clues about the future of the EU.
If it is a minor figure, then his role will be mainly symbolic and power will remain with a coalition around the main European players,France and Germany.A more powerful president will signal an EU concerned with its international economic role and climate change which require global solutions.These external pressures should create a momentum towards internal reform of the EU because it is wasteful,bureaucratic and sometimes corrupt.
I understand from your post you are opposed to the whole EU project, in which case you are being consistent in agitating for withdrawal now.The half in half out membership proposed by the conservatives is not viable because the EU is resistant to a further re-negotiation of the Lisbon Treaty.In addition the pre-keynesian economics of the party puts them at variance with other member states, who they naively think will provide a lifebelt for the UK economy once they engage in cuts in public spending.
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OK Anthony, lets go back to your original, unsolicted reply to Roll_On at 140.
Bear in mind, he was quoting other, as he says "unusual" sources, rather than what you would maybe consider to be mainstream political viewpoints.
You weighed in with:
"....2010 will be here soon enough and you can then practise your goose step with the Latvian SS.Your absurd European allies who will spearhead the conservative drive into Europe."
So, considering he never gave any endorsement of any political position, apart from reporting a "fed up with Labour" perspective, where did that little half-brick come from then? "You can practise your goose step with the Latvian SS"??? "Your absurd European allies"??? Show me where he makes any reference to the tories in his post, directly in his own hand??
And you think that its an apt, apposite response to come in with something like that, when all you know about his politics is that he wants Brown out? Hell, so does most the country, including elements of his own party!
"To appear weak to our European colleagues and competitors without
being power is an invidious position to find oneself."
Right... I thought it was meant to be a lot broader than a "competition".
"Messrs Hague and Cameron have achieved this leaving the French and Germans shaking with laughter.I hope you are also amused because I detect parody in your blog of many dim but sincere people who share your views."
You're making some pretty big presumptions there, arent you? I wouldnt have thought that words like "autistic" and "castrated" are the kinds of phrases you'd expect from a Foreign minister of a first world nation - although young Milliband seems to career from one episode of foot in mouth to another, what with India and his justification of violent terrorism, and his defaming of the Polish Chief Rabbi - I notice as well that this particular foreign minister softened his tone dramatically within 24 hours as well.
As an aside, I seem to recall that the Pope was part of the Hitler Youth when he was young. I dont tend to see the left using that as a stick to beat him with. Wonder if its got anything to do with A.L. Blair converting to catholicism?
Now. At no point has Roll_on indicated that he favours the Hague-Cameron approach. You've just piled in, accused him of being allied to an SS Sympathiser, of being dim.... I mean, why dont you just wander up to him and punch him in the face while you're at it?
Imagined left-wing? With comments like that? If you care to have a trawl around either here or on Robinsons blog, you'll find plenty more who tend to echo the same sentiments as you did and are openly left leaning, flinging the same kind of stones.
It wasnt just Blair who reformed old Labour, getting rid of Clause 4, John Smith had a significant part in that before he died and Kinnock also played a part in ridding them of the scourge of the militant tendency, although these days, they've become like middle aged football hooligans - dispensed with their shell suits and come back in Saville Row handmade ones instead, into posts like Home Secretary, Defence Secretary, Veterans Minister and others. Blair was merely the one who sold it to the public under Mandelson's Snake Oil banner of "New Labour", trying to distance themselves from the past, in the same way the Tories have had trouble (and still havent done it) shaking off the nasty party tag.
Blair gave New Labour an electoral face, a fresh figure who was not Thatcher or Major to unite around who would bring them back in from the political wilderness, which is where they would have stayed had Brown been given the nod instead of Blair. He is very telegenic, he's a good orator, but then again, a lot of lawyers usually are. But he is insincere, he is a proven liar, he may have galvanised efforts in Kosovo and Liberia, but he took us into an illegal war in Iraq and a questionable one in Afghan. He failed to have the backbone to sack a Chancellor who spent his entire tenure in No11 plotting to overthrow him through a relentless smear campaign, he allowed this same chancellor enough rope to be able to not only hang himself, but also every tax payer with enough debt round their necks for the next 2 generations, and I could go on and on and on and on.
He's been a peace envoy in the middle east. To what ends? What has he achieved? Nothing!
How are we at a disadavantage with questions over our membership?
We're a full, unquestioning signatory to Lisbon, which is about to become law.
So, arent we at the centre of Europe now, at this particular point in time? Arent we a fully signed up player? Where is the question?
Something over what Cameron might attempt to do, or make noise about IF he wins the next GE, which is no foregone conclusion? At the moment, Cameron is a domestic nobody. What he says or promises either to his own backbenchers or to the public aint worth a bean at the moment. This is the here and now.
If we're not at the centre of Europe, but still in the tory slow lane, then what the hell were Blair and Brown doing for the last 12 years apart from breaking election pledges and giving away the rebate for us to have fallen as far down the ladder as you suggest?
What you say doesnt invalidate your political argument - you can argue whatever you like, its a personally held belief. Problem comes when you try and convince others that you're right and they are wrong. And throwing the proverbial, assumptive house bricks around accusing people of political sympathies that you dont know whether they have or not, is not a good way of attracting people to the strength of your argument.
Sorry. If that lot was meant to convince me that you are not one of the band of NL apologists and sycophants, if it is meant to convince me that my outburst was unwarranted, you'll have to try much much harder.
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The role of EU President has been defined as something akin to that of the Queen, but with less executive significance.
It's pointless to argue over an issue that passed like an attack of wind - worrying at the time, but nothing to get alarmed about. Tony has refused to put himself forward as a candidate, which I interpret as his desire to preserve his marketable appeal, but it leaves him as a non-starter. His dithering has ruled him out, as those who've already put their names forward will kick up a fuss if the party funster parachutes in and scoops up the role.
I'll remove myself from discussing something so unlikely any more, as it's just s distraction from real issues.
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189. anthony piepe
More information on those "bold" decisions by Mr. Blair.
Eccleston affair: 1997 election manifesto, Blair pledges to put an end to all tobacco advertising. Pledge reversed after meetings with Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosely. £1M donation from Ecclestone denied. FOI later reveals Blair lied about this.
1999: Nato's 78-day bombing of Serbia and Kosovo. Hundreds dead, destroyed an economic infrastructure. Justification - Serbian genocide. FBI failed to find single mass grave after the bombings.
The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the West's allies were committing ethnic cleansing of their own as Blair was triumphantly touring 'liberated' Kosovo.
Former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia in The Hague, Carla Del Ponte wanted to investigate NATO war crimes but resigned under pressure from the USA and British governments.
Blair's invoking of the 'holocaust' was proved fraudulent.
At a 1999 Kosovo "peace" conference in France, the Serbs were told to accept occupation by Nato forces and a market economy, or be bombed into submission. The perfect precursor to Afghanistan and Iraq?
Iraq: an illegal war. No clear, unequivocal evidence to support actions. Kofi Annan has since recognised that it broke international law.
There is currently a growing international movement to have Bush and Blair tried for war crimes.
However as Henry Kissinger is today walking around freely I doubt whether much will come of it.
ps Clause 1V, while good for the Labour party, has done little or nothing to reverse the growing gap between the wealthy and the poorest. In fact that gap has grown under Labour.
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Government failing to achieve value for money in billion pound contracts.
At least 43 major projects worth around £200 billion were "at risk" of not achieving value for money due to "significant weaknesses" in the expertise of government departments.
The Ministry of Defence, Department for Transport, and Department for Children, Schools and Families were signalled out for particular criticism by the National Audit Office.
Give over NuLabour wasting money….. It must be a misprint.
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The plan was simple. Gordon was to leap in front of Obama and the cameras at every opportunity and claim leadership on bringing the world out of recession. The plan was foolproof. What could go wrong with that ?
Everyone else has come out of recovery and Gordon's standing on his own looking rather confused, unable to claim credit for something that everyone else has done except him.
Now he just looks preposterous.
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Andrew,
will Brown be sending his condolences to Karzai for the unfortunate deaths of the Afghan police and army who so sadly lost their lives in a NATO air attack.
This is surely the way to keep the Aghans onside, kill them in accidental air strikes, like Harry said 'we do bad things to bad people'.
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BBC Moderator - Please remember that all blocked blogs are Snapshot and kept as proof of the non existent DA Notice to be posted in the land of the free and the brave as and when I choose.
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Andrew,
Remember you did invite me - and I take it I am now allowed to mention the DA Notice on my letter - or should I stick to USA sites such as 'Age of Autism' and 'Stephen Fry' for that.
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What can I say every Titanic has its Iceberg - God's to blame.
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Robin Rowlands
(open sesame)
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202 mrrobinrowlands
Please, what is a DA notice ?
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sagamix I have got some really, really bad news for you:
Labour hit by poll cash crisis.
Labour is facing an election crisis after being banned from spending extra money on campaigning. The party has been forced to make drastic cutbacks after expected donations failed to materialise.
It is under strict orders from its banks not to increase spending, despite the looming general election.
Labour MPs defending marginal seats complain they have been “fobbed off” with “DIY tool kits” to make their own campaigning materials and have received no other support from party headquarters because of the cash crisis.
And who says that banks are not acting sensibly.
Roll On 2010
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If politics involved intelligent strategy then Labour should call an election at the earliest possible moment. simply bacause they have no hope of winning one next year, and only further disasters are on the horizon. They'd fare much better in opposition and be well placed to exploit the mess they left behind. Though it will all be blamed on them, at some stage during the Parliament people will expect an improvement, and that's Labour's glimmer of hope.
Gordon won't do this, so Cameron's going to have a happy festive season and New Year.
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Are either Gordon or Bob Ainsworth at the Festival Of Remembrance? Not sure I've seen either of them yet...
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196 Fubar
OK Anthony, lets go back to your original, unsolicted reply to Roll_On at 140.
Bear in mind, he was quoting other, as he says "unusual" sources, rather than what you would maybe consider to be mainstream political viewpoints.
You weighed in with:
"....2010 will be here soon enough and you can then practise your goose step with the Latvian SS.Your absurd European allies who will spearhead the conservative drive into Europe."
"So, considering he never gave any endorsement of any political position, apart from reporting a "fed up with Labour" perspective, where did that little half-brick come from then? "You can practise your goose step with the Latvian SS"??? "Your absurd European allies"??? Show me where he makes any reference to the tories in his post, directly in his own hand?? "
I`m unclear why you feel the need to answer posts addressed to Roll-on 2010? Unless you share his attitudes? Otherwise I don`t see why you should bother.Surely he/she is capable of answering for themselves.
I am less concerned with his (or your) political affinities than with the ideas he endorses.Do you genuinely believe that this is a corrupt nation and the government is responsible? I not only find this naive in the extreme but also disturbing.I console myself with the knowledge that a loss of faith in political institutions is typical of capitalist crisis,but I am also aware of the descent of these attitudes into screaming intolerance.
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fs @ 196
"And you think that it's an apt, apposite response to come in with something like that, when all you know about his politics is that he wants Brown out?"
it's very apt
he's a Tory
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207#
I was of the understanding that unless you specifically address or reply to another poster's contribution, then anything that you write on here is fair game for anyone to comment on.
Roll_On didnt address his original post to anyone, it was just chucked out into the ether to no doubt, invite others to comment.
Why did I butt in then, you are asking, when in reality I should just butt out and allow you to insult anyone you like, whichever way you like?
Well, for better or for worse, I'm not that kind of person.
"The ideas he endorses"... what, like calling for an election to rid us of an inept, corrupt administration? Yeah. How dare he, the ungrateful wretch.
Anyone would think this was a liberal democracy, where there was still some degree of freedom of political expression. Dunno where anyone could possibly get that idea from.
Dont want the plebs getting ideas above their station, do we?
208#
Not tonight Josephine, I'm not in the mood.
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BBC Moderator - Please remember that all blocked blogs are Snapshot
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to be posted in the land of the free and the brave as and when I choose.
D / DA Notice - State Secret
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Which 80s faces are missing? - 27 March 2009 ( Erased )
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_week/7967652.stm
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David Starkey on a British revolution - 22nd May 2000 ( Street with No name )
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_week/8063136.stm
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Rawnsley on a Titanic week - 05 june 2009 ( Roland Rat )
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_week/8084701.stm
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Remember Remember the 5th of November - 05Nov 2009 ( V for Vendetta )
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/this_week
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This is a D / DA Notice
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Roll_On_2010 204
Well, that's an interesting story, what with all the 25/03/2010 speculation floating around too.
I was most amused by
"In a desperate move, Ray Collins, the party’s general secretary, tried to “seize” the party’s multi-million-pound property portfolio, made up of buildings owned by local branches around the country, in order to borrow against it. However, his attempt was thrown out by members of the party’s ruling body, the NEC, who feared the assets might be at risk."
My understanding is that most of the "local branches" are in fact autonomous entities that happen to be members of a club called the Labour Party. So Collins' move would have had about as much legitimacy as the ECB trying to appropriate my local cricket club. The NEC would therefore have been more wound up at the prospect of being taken to court than by any fraternal concern for the safety of local branch offices. Wouldn't it be interesting if any Labour member amongst us (!)was prepared to break cover and offer an opinion from the "inside"?
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Gordon Brown: worldwide snub over tax plans.
Gordon Brown is facing international embarrassment after leading nations slapped down his proposal for a tax on financial transactions to raise hundreds of billions of pounds.
The Prime Minister used a speech at a meeting of G20 finance ministers in St Andrews to call for the new tax to fund future bank bailouts – despite previous government opposition to such a move.
Appears that Crash Gordon got the heave-ho.
Roll On 2010 - Another Heave-Ho for Crash Gordon
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207#
And to answer your other question, do I find this country corrupt and the government to be responsible...
Well. It doesnt look good, does it?
*A two tier legal system, where the political elite can commit offences with impunity that would get one of the little people locked up. *Whitewash enquiry after whitewash enquiry.
*A politicised police force. A politicised civil service.
*Government employees working in No10 being successfully sued by opposition MP's for attempting to plant sexual smears in the press.
*A brazilian electrician turned into swiss cheese on the underground because of a failure by the police to correctly identify their target and use the appropriate rules of engagement, where if a soldier did it, he would be sent down for life for murder.
*And, the commander gets promoted. Two successive Prime ministers who mislead parliament.
*Licensed embezzelment of public funds by MP's, some of whom were cabinet ministers.
*Misuse of surveillance law by local councils.
* Manipulation of the legal process by the executive (SFO being dragged off BAe over Al Yamamah and subsequent deals)
* The Al Megrahi case.
* Complicity in torture in overseas countries
* Allegations of political manipulation of immigration.
* Cabinet ministers who have extramarital affairs with members of staff during work time on government premises.
I could go on and on and on and on. This, from a party whose leader said, we must be seen to be purer than pure.
Do I think that corruption is endemic? Its sure as hell getting there. Ineptness and "whats in it for me?" are utterly rife. Are the government responsible? Well, for those things I've listed above, who else is ultimately responsible? Where does the buck stop? Ah, pardon me, I know the answer to that question.... "Thatcher". Shouldnt have needed to ask.
You can call me naive if you wish. I dont think I ever recall the political system and the public ever holding each other in such outright mutual contempt. Its not quite got to Banana Republic levels of corruption yet... but when you have actions like those that the police took at Kingsnorth power station and at the G20 in front of the BoE, plus misuse of RIPA, I dont think its likely to be many years away. Can I see it getting to the point where you have to bribe public officials to get things done, where these things become the norm? I sincerely hope not.
More corrupt than what we ever should be. Inept, self serving and lawbreaking, most certainly.
If that makes me naive, then.... hell, I'm naive. All I know is that when the previous administration was losing its way after 18 years, the Labour party were screaming the house down. And they didnt do half the things that New Labour have done in its time in office.
Its only thanks to Camerons very curious tactics that Gordon hasnt been left a gibbering wreck in front of the despatch box. Any leader worth their salt would not have missed or deliberately fluffed as many chances to nail Brown as Cameron has. Blair certainly didnt with Major. Thats the kind of treatment Brown should be getting week in week out, but isnt.
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213 Fubar
The MP's transgressions that you delineate so accurately are so appalling that one would expect mass demonstrations.
Why this has not happened gives me grave concern over any election, just as I imagine it gives comfort, hopefully misguided, to the charlatans currently in post.
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F_S 213
Quite so - could add quite a few more to that list. It was the Smith Institute / slush fund thing that wound me up the most....
There are two theories to Cameron's recent PMQ performances. One is the desire to look statesmanlike, which means holding back a little. Connected to that, if a real row was to build up, he has no way of trusting the media not to have cobbled it all together into a highly disadvantageous form by the time the six o'clock news arrives.
The other of the two theories is the concern that, with a few genuinely poor performances from Brown, Labour MPs will rise up in some way and get rid of him. My guess is that, come election time, any single one of them could fight more successfully as Labour leader than Brown, who is pretty much universally loathed. By holding back, and making Brown look bad but not terrible, Cameron could, pragmatically, simply be not making life for himself any harder than it has to be.
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BBC Moderator - Please remember that all blocked blogs are Snapshot
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Posted USA - Age of Autism - Stephen Fry ( Poles Politics and Politeness)
D / DA Notice - State Secret
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Which 80s faces are missing? - 27 March 2009 ( Erased )
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_week/7967652.stm
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David Starkey on a British revolution - 22nd May 2000 ( No Name Street)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_week/8063136.stm
*** http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_week/8063131.stm
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Rawnsley on a Titanic week - 05 june 2009 ( Roland Rat )
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_week/8084701.stm
*** http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_week/8084705.stm
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Remember Remember the 5th of November - 05Nov 2009 ( V for Vendetta )
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/this_week
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This is a D / DA Notice - Light the Fire
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@ 213
"I could go on and on and on and on"
could you? ... what about?
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@ 211
"what with all the 25/03/2010 speculation floating around"
no way ... he'll take it to the bitter end
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@ 215
"There are two theories to Cameron's recent PMQ performances. One is the desire to look statesmanlike"
yes I can imagine he'd quite like to look statesmanlike
bet he'd like to be a couple of inches taller too
ah well
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218 sagamix
25/03/2010 allows the government to delay the budget until after the election. Much the best policy, to avoid all those Labour cuts affecting the voting!
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sagamix 219
My "the desire to look statesmanlike".
On reflection, "preference" would have been a better word. Less scope for you to play semantics.
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214#
We've turned into a nation of apathetic saps. I remember a Scot posting on another forum saying that be careful how hard you kick the English; they'll turn the other cheek, many many times for many years and then when you dont expect it, something will erupt and they will lash out.
Like you, I'm somewhat surprised that it hasnt happened yet and I'm left wondering precisely what form that final straw on the camels back is going to take. If it is ever going to come. I mean there was half a million on the streets of London for the Countryside Alliance and a million against the Iraq war... and nothing happened as a result.
Remember after the Madrid bombings, the locals took to the streets? If I recall rightly, the Spanish government fell not long afterwards. We couldnt say that either side was more used to terror - they'd had ETA for many years, we had the PIRA - so what was it in their national psyche that made all those people (2 million, I think) decide enough is enough?
215#
Maybe so. A high risk strategy, in my very humble, non parliamentarian opinion, but there you go. It still remains a possibility, if Brown or a less tainted Labour leader emerges (possibly John Hutton?) that not only a hung parliament may be possible, but also that Labour MAY just get a fourth term, particularly if the timing is such that the election takes place before the downturn of the W that is almost certain to come. For the tories to be successful, someone is going to have to show true leadership qualities, not just keeping a lid on a bunch of malcontents who are just waiting on buggins turn before showing their "true colours"... So, if he is to succeed, Cam has got a hell of a lot of ground to make up.
I'm not convinced he's going to be able to do it. But anything, a pigs head on a stick, even, is better than Brown.
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Many 'against student fee rise'
Most people are against raising university tuition fees for students in England, a survey has suggested.
A survey for the National Union of Students survey suggests only 12% of those questioned want fee increases to be considered.
Earlier this week, Business Secretary Lord Mandelson warned that the higher and further education sectors faced "increasingly tight fiscal constraints" and needed to raise more of their own funds.
"We will also have to look at the contribution that individuals make to the cost of higher education, which we will do through the independent fees review," he said.
So to put this in a nutshell the politicians have been trousering large amounts of taxpayer hard earned money for years, and still want to continue, yet our youngsters - our investment for the future have to shoulder more of the burden and go deeper into debt.
Looks to me like NuLabour have sunk to an even lower low than anyone can imagine.
Roll On 2010
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Andrew,
as we 'celebrate' Remembrance Sunday then we should not forget the part that the banks played in war, in particular in World War I, the Great War.
Without the banks then the war could not have gone on for as long as it did. The first item on the agenda for the government back in 1914 was to extend the bank holiday, so that outstanding deals could be settled. If people seriously think that only today do we have international banks then dream on. The international banking system could have collapsed in that August, think Lehman Brothers, think all the British and German banks who had transactions with each other.
Does anybody actually think that America was neutral, that they treated both sides in the conflict, in particular Germany, fairly with their financing of the war. There are many who think that the eventual defeat of Germany was because America joined forces with England from the very beginning and that the Great War was not a victory for France, Britain, and the other allies, but was a victory for the Anglo-Saxons, it really was a victory for money, for debt, for the banks and the bankers. Without money and the banks, without finance then the number of deaths in the Great War would have been reduced by millions.
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Robin Rowlands says:
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8 November, 2009 at 2:35 am
22nd May 2009
*** http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_week/8063131.stm ( Constitutional Longstop - David!!! )
*** http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_week/8063147.stm ( Nuremberg Defense – Dianne!!! )
Robin Rowlands
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The letter is to be released today.
"I will not be afraid of death and bane, Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane" - Macbeth
Robin Rowlands
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Letter to be released today.
"I will not be afraid of death and bane, Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane" - Macbeth
David Starkey you know full well - you were freed to speak - at her command.
Birnam Forest stirs to a roar that few will hear.
Robin Rowlands
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Good Morning Andrew,
as we remember our dead in wars and conflicts then surely the time has come to bring the troops home. We can supply soldiers to an International force, the UN, but they must be seen as UN soldiers, with blue helmets, taking orders from officers of the UN, not Britain. The same with Pakistan, the UN, must send in an army, made up of soldiers from all religions, from all nations, it is the only way to bring an end to the conflict, the problem is that the UN itself also needs reform.
At the moment it has become like the league of nations. The Americans must either agree to a UN force, or they must be seen as the aggressor, just as they, and we were, the aggressor in the war against Iraq. It is the war and occupation of Iraq which has stirred the blood of our 'enemies'.
There is the great unsaid at the moment, and it is resulting from Brown and his crass comments, and the people who advise him.
He continues the rhetoric that if we did not fight and kill in Afghanistan and Pakistan, then there would be terror on the streets of Britain. I say Pakistan because our aid is funding the Pakistani army, whether we like it or not Pakistan is in a civil war, a breakdown between the rulers and the ruled. So, we are employing the Pakistan army to fight on our behalf in their own country.
So, we are fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, that is what Brown tells us, it is not Moslems we are fighting, we are fighting countries, states, the Taliban. We are unfortunately losing this war because we have lost hearts and minds. I say we because nobody sees any difference between an American soldier and a British one.
My problem is that usually the victor has a feeling of arrogance, that somehow they are superior, that they hold sway. Now here is my problem. We are told that there are over a million people in this country either directly, or through birth, who are Pakistani, not according to Brown who are Moslems, but are Pakistani.
So can you imagine the problem, the unspoken problem which the politicians have opened. During the Great War, there was much anger against the Germans who were in this country, I mean the Royal family even changed their names to the Windsors, and many Germans were interred. So, what are we to do if we do withdraw from Af/Pak, that our soldiers will return to a country, where when they return home they will be on the streets with the very people they have been fighting, where they have seen their colleagues blown apart by IEDs, where suicide bombers bring fear and terror.
I know that this is off topic, that it is a very difficult situation, but look into your history books in America after their second civil war, where there was terror, where they had 'Carpetbaggers' who went South and where the tensions still exist.
As we remember the dead of all wars, remember the wars which we don't 'celebrate' the many conflicts where we lost, remember Afghanistan, not only this century, but previous centuries as well.
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Andrew,
a meeting of Finance Ministers, note well Finance Ministers. What on earth was Brown doing there, looking for a new job, getting in a job application, networking. The man is a disgrace, he must resign, no he must be sacked. No Queens speech with 'My government will...' this surely cannot be her government.
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JR @ 220
you're sometimes prone to being what I call "hyper rational" ... that is trying to be so Mr Spock about things that you forget the Human Factor, hence come to the wrong conclusion - it's an endearing and unusual quality in a political blogger (so please don't change!) and besides I suppose it's very handy for the "Research Scientist" I seem to recall you are - anyways, it's in play again here
what you're overlooking is how much Gordon simply ADORES being Prime Minister; whatever you or I may think, he feels he was born to be the Big Man (bit like Fubar) and in his own head he's doing a fabulous job
he knows he's going to lose, whenever he calls it, and so he will seek to maximise his time in the chair
June
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Andrew,
I have said before and now is the time to repeat it. The occupying forces in Afghanistan are going to retreat to the corales. They are effectively going to follow the policy which was adopted in South Africa during the Boer War. Effectively surrounding each small unit, village, town City, and then treating everybody outsiude that unit as the enemy. They will use thier superior air power, their helicopters, their bombers, and their drones, and let the Afghan police and army loose on the population to do the dirty work.
We 'got away' with terror in Iraq, we did 'stuff' which should not have been allowed to happen, without punishment. People see it, know it must not happen again so we now fight with one hand tied behind our backs. Well the death by bombing of the Afghan police and army personnel show that the gloves are coming off.
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can't think of a more sombre and serious matter facing us right now than the unholy mess in Afghanistan; just listening to the Defence Chief speaking about it on the Andrew Marr show ... chap called Sir Jock Stirrup ... and neither the name nor the cut of his jib is filling me with an enormous amount of hope for a satisfactory resolution
still, let us not forget, all this is more Tony Blair's fault than Sir Jock Stirrup's
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Andrew,
does nobody remember the reason for our aggressive act against Iraq. The argument that we faced weapons of mass destruction and that there was this 45 minutes lie. That was the justification.
Now we are told by Stirrup that it is in our national interests to continue to be in Afghanistan. Brown tells us that we have to be there to keep terror off the streets of Britain. Like WMD, this is nonsense.
If we stay in Afghanistan and there are no terror attacks then we will stay there because the policy is working. If there is a terror attack then that too will justify our continued presence in Afghanistan, the crucible of terror argument. If we withdraw and there are no terror attacks then the government will say that we did the job, see our policy was a success. If we withdraw and there is a terror attack, then the government will say we told you so, we should have stayed to keep terror off our streets.
This is madness, this mutually assured destruction, this is Game Theory, only there is no answer, time for a repeat of Dr. Strangelove.
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232#
Saga, Stirrup is the epitome of the type of senior commander who morphs into a politician as soon as he attains star rank. Sooner he retires with the pension he has spent the last 15-20 years assidously protecting, the better. "In our national interests", indeed... He answered a couple of Marr's questions as if Marr was stupid (might be a lot of things, but stupid isnt one of them)... I first met him in 92, didnt like him then, like him even less now.
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230#
HEY!
I'm mortified that you can compare me to THAT hubristic megalomaniac!
As an aside... Jesus, if Marr had spent as many minutes probing Stirrup as he did banging on about bloody Ashcroft... Hague just made himself look a t*t by wriggling instead of giving a straight answer....
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Just seen John Coulshaw's demolition job on Gordon as a gangster rapper on Something For The Weekend... thats cheered me up a bit!
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fubar @ 222
"We've turned into a nation of apathetic saps"
I kind of agree but not quite
firstly, I wouldn't say "turned into" because I'm not sure there's been such a big change - and secondly I don't think "apathetic saps" is the right phrase
but there's no doubt that at the present time, some of the particularly reprehensible aspects of the English national character are coming to the fore
foremost amongst these is the tendency to moan ourselves silly about the folks on the hill behaving badly (bankers, politicians, them) but show little interest in constructive ways to put things right; it's like we just want to moan ... like the moaning is itself the solution
then there's the need we seem to have ... an almost pathological need ... to blame everything we reckon is wrong about the country on The Authorities, the behaviour of Joe and Joanna themselves being of no relevance
we're a nation of forelock tuggers, quick to complain but yet almost always prepared to accept the status quo - if you want some really telling evidence of that, consider how we are one tenth of the way through the twenty first century and are happy to be ruled again by an ultra privileged public school elite
the war against poverty and Establishment corruption to be won on the playing fields of Eton? ... sick joke
amazing and depressing in equal measure
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Good morning each & Andrew.
C22, We had a win-win situation with the constant rise in house prices too and see where that has got us.
This terror if we don't error if we do scheme has the self same marks of the win-win about it.
We fight for Gordon, but who does Gordon fight for?
A while ago some here were looking to test their broadband speed, I have found this place...
http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk/
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well I know about Room 101 and I'm familiar with Racism 183, Fahrenheit 451 and even the One After 909
but Error 404?
nope, no clue
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237#
Well, they've tried winning it from the deli's of Hampstead & Islington mate and look where thats got us.
When I said turning into a nation of saps, I guess I should have said how long this process has been taking... certainly changed since WW2. True, the Brits have always had a characteristic of letting off steam by griping. Far better that, arguably, than taking to the streets at the drop of a hat in rent-a-mob fashion, as used to happen in Saddam's Iraq.
But how do we, the little people put things right? Can you clarify? What should they be doing that they are not? I'm serious mate, I'm not looking for holes in your argument, so dont go giving me any of that "go in and look at the bank manager in a progressive way if he offers you credit card cheques" and all that blarney. Seriously. What should we be doing? What do we have the power to do? I'm genuinely intrigued.
Right. Two minutes silence. Back in a bit.
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#240 Fubar_Saunders
If I may interject, by saying nothing.
Leastwise, I have nothing new to add to what I have been saying.
VFO4OM.
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What is it about the royals... every one of them with the exception of Eddie, the salutes at the cenotaph were... limp. How odd... given the tens of thousands of salutes they must have collected over the years....
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BBC Moderator - Please remember that all blocked blogs are Snapshot
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David,
Her majesty
Her Citizens
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Her Secret Service
Her Armed Forces
Her Civil Service
Her BBC
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Her Parliament
Her Church
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We are all her servants - As she is the Nation's
Not yours - Not europes
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Neither you or Gordon Brown have a mandate to change this.
You are acting like terrorists and criminals
You are no better than the Banks
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We live in difficult and fearful times
As a democracy we are a mess
As a member of Europe a disgrace
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Most of our European Neighbours put us to shame.
The road to Hell however is paved with desperation and good intentions,
if what has happened here in the UK, happens to a European Superstate - What then?
Robin Rowlands
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Andrew,
just watched the ceremony at the Cenotaph. Who actually put the programme together? The Ministry of Defence!
I argue that the deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are nothing glorious, now the deaths in WWI, were not glorious, they were futile. It is the futility of war, not the glory, which must be remembered. It is because we forget the futility that we allow this murder to continue. I have always had a problem with the wars, especially having been born in 1949.
Is there not a commandment from God, 'thou shalt not kill', yet we still kill, we still murder, we maim, we destroy. This is the end, it is time to bring the troops home. Watched 'Paths of Glory' last night, that should be shown every night until the troops are brought home. As for Blair laying a wreath! You seriously can't make it up.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
#242
could it be because they undersatnd more than others that they are complicit in this. That stupid boy Harry laying a wreath 'we do bad things to bad people', we call up air strikes and don't take prisoners.
I wonder if Harry put a card on his wreath, I fought in Afghanistan, I killed people, I do bad things to bad people. It is no wonder that he is often seen in night clubs drinking to excess, could it just possibly be a guilty conscience, that he sotimes thinks that drink eases the pain of memory, of what he has done, in his grandmother's name.
Just like Blair, Brown, the politicians don't get it, I think the Queen does. She is the Head of State of a disgrace, of ruritania, she has seen it all given away.
As for Scotland, why no Alex Salmond, I think that labour has just won the upcoming bye-election.
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237 Saga
the war against poverty and Establishment corruption to be won on the playing fields of Eton? ... sick joke
Isn't the sick joke that social mobility far from improving over the last decade has decreased, more kids stuck on sink estates with no role models to give them aspirations to improve their lot?
I agree it is ironic that we are looking at the uber elite to solve these problems - but what is the alternative?
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Andrew,
I know that this is only a very minor point but I think that it is an indication of how much I despise Brown. At least Blair, for all of his faults, made the decision to go to war. Brown neither agreed nor disagreed, he just paid for it, the 'he who pays the piper calls the tune'.
My point however is that when the Queen laid her wreath, she bowed, in honour, when Cameron placed his wreath, he bowed, same with Clegg, just look at Brown, he bows to nobody, a little nod if that, that is why he is to me a despicable, small minded, petty, pathetic little man. He might as well as worn a donkey jacket!
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I'm afraid that Remembrance Day isn't going to generate support for our failed foray into Afghanistan. I hear that the problem is the lack of public understanding. I believe the problem is government lack of understanding. If we wiped out all the Taliban, we'd be guilty of genocide. I read one report about the Governor of helmand speaking to a rally in Helmand composed of hundreds of Taliban, and this is after Panther's Claw, when we supposedly cleared the area of insurgents.
The Taliban are only doing what we planned to do if Nazi Germany ever succeeded in invading the UK. Add to that the universally detested Karzai and you have a recipe for interminable fighting. We even lost the chance to gain a moral purpose to the war when we allowed Karzai to soil the election process, but America was never going to allow him to fall from power anyway.
One day we'll leave Afghanistan to the Taliban, and any thought that the Afghan army can achieve a task that the combined might of the West failed to perform, is ridiculous. It is sensible to withdraw your troops to main bases to reduce casualties, but it also represents a retreat and acknowledgement that the mission is failing.
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Anybody!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11
Please can someone tell me what on earth mrrobinrowlands 225,226,227 is going on about ?
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fs @ 240
"But how do we, the little people put things right? Can you clarify? What should they be doing that they are not? I'm serious mate, I'm not looking for holes in your argument, so don't go giving me any of that "go in and look at the bank manager in a progressive way if he offers you credit card cheques" and all that blarney. Seriously. What should we be doing? What do we have the power to do? I'm genuinely intrigued"
well it's quite easy, I think ... let's take these two areas of (1) politics and (2) banks
the politics
I don't favour "direct action" in this area; too "mobruly" for my taste
I like Mr O's thing of hitting the status quo at the ballot box; i.e. do NOT vote either Labour or Tory
also, don't vote BNP (obviously!) and don't vote for silly fringe parties or (unless they happen to be total superstars) for Independents
so, if you're of a "close the borders and get out of Europe" disposition ... vote UKIP
if the environment is your big banana, vote Green
if you're a hard line socialist, find one of those "Real Socialist" type parties and vote for them
if none of the above fits, vote Lib Dem
do not (repeat NOT!) vote Lab or Clown and don't abstain or spoil the ballot either ... these latter two options being lazy and puerile respectively
so for me, given I'm a clear thinking progressive rather than a hard line socialist, and given I like Europe and multi ethnic immigration, and given I think the environmental thing is overplayed, then it's the Lib Dems
the banks
here, what I propose is unleashing the power of social opprobrium on the people involved - let's have relentless lampooning (Gomer is very good at it) and let's start treating these individuals (by which I mean EVERYONE who works for a bank and makes more than, say, £100k a year) as being on a par with Drug Dealers
they do it for the money, sure, but social status and respectability is also of great importance to these people - remove that and it will all start to crumble - think of it a bit like how all decent people snubbed South Africa and white South Africans until they dropped Apartheid
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246#
Steady on TAG, come on, give the kid a break.
Not only has he been brought up in one of the worlds most disfunctional, emotionally stunted, one parent families and lost his mother in traumatic circumstances with half the world not letting her rest - and this happened at a very difficult age for the boy, be fair - and then he finds out that the only reason he was brought into the world was to be "the spare", in case something happened to his brother!
Teenagers can be surly enough as it is - stop and think of the kind of growing up in public that Harry has had to do and what has happened to him in his short life and how finding out that kind of stuff affects you as a kid. He now finds in the army, a sense of purpose and belonging and a path that he can follow.
He might not have served out there in Afghanistan for long, but he was there. A lot longer than the children of the lions share of our political elite and a lot longer than either you or I.
The kid has been out there and played his part in an active war zone. To my mind, from the perspective of a former serviceman, that makes him "one of us", regardless of whether he's a Royal or not.
The drunkenness and falling out of nightclubs... he's not perfect, none of us are. How many of us have done all that stuff in our younger years and not had to grow up in public like he did?
Come on mate. I know youre rightly p***ed off about stuff, but Harry aint your enemy. Cut the kid some slack.
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247#
Not to mention that they've had twelve years of what the PM assured us were "plenty", a "golden age", billions and billions of pounds, and a firm political mandate to fight the war on poverty.
What? And its still not over yet???
Jesus Christ, even the donkey generals in the first world war didnt take this long and had some success to show for it!
War on poverty, my a*se. Just like the War On Drugs, The War On Terror, The War On this, that, the other.... what a crock.
Its a simple political trick. If you dont know the answer, the solution to something or its too hot a political potato, you hoof it into the distant long grass and call it a war on something, thereby telling the public that its going to be a long hard struggle and its going to take many years of sacrifice.
Then you go back to deciding which of your properties you're going to flip your allowances to this month and remembering to put in your 400 a month food allowance, making sure you didnt include any receipts....
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237 sagamix
"the war against poverty and Establishment corruption to be won on the playing fields of Eton? ... sick joke"
I know you will never recover from this particular obsession, no matter the quality or quantity of the therapy you receive. But I think you will find it is only Cameron and two others in the Shadow Cabinet who went to Eton.
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251. sagamix
On the V word...
anyone notice that when Clegg stands up at PMQs now he's given no respect what so ever... the mob just continue chuntering over him. Makes one seriously consider voting for the poor sod.
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jrp @ 254
it's just a point, JR, a valid one; not the biggest reason not to vote Tory ... far from it ... but let's not pretend it's of zero importance
anycase, I've moved on from this sterile Lab v Con game ... pls see 251 where I explain why I'll probably be voting LibDem
UKIP for you, I'd have thought, unless you want to cling to the discredited status quo
you don't want to cling to the discredited status quo do you, JR?
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250:
Well... Starkey's bit was about a potential revoloution in British politics, lamenting the lack of a leader to come along and truly inspire a change of direction at a political crossroads... not quite sure about the Nurembourg defence as the clip was about Gorbals Mick, when it was figured that when he got the push that Brown wouldnt be far behind. No such luck... unless he thought that Diane Abbott was trying to sell a line of "hey, it had nothing to do with me, I was just following the whips orders...". Not quite sure.
The Macbeth quote is actually this:
"Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be, until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him."
To which Macbeth muses "That will never be.
Who can impress the forest, bid the tree,
Unfix his earthbound root?"
And is preceded by the other famous quote "No man of woman born, can harm Macbeth" ..
So what is RR getting at? Well, the parallel I'm inclined to draw is that Macbeth is Mr Brown, who always wanted to be King... I guess that must make Mandy, Lady Macbeth.
He would be pleased...
Macbeth thought he was invincible and read too much into the witches prophesies. He saw things maybe too literally... then comes "Let every soldier hew him down a bough/And bear't before him/Thereby shall we shadow/The numbers of our host and make discovery
err in report of us." and then the "Macduff was from his mothers womb, untimely ripped"... he looked at the witches prophecies the wrong way. He just thought that these circumstances could never happen.
Going back to the Brown parallel... the closest analogy to all of this, metaphorically is a stalking horse against him. Dunno if anyones actually got the guts to do it. Somehow I doubt it. The opportunity for that was nearly 3 years ago and they all bottled it and allowed him to win a bloodless coup.
The significance of the D notice.. well a D-notice is normally a formal instruction in law from government to the media not to broadcast or transmit or print something. It could be argued that it is a censorship tool, rather than an operational security one, but.. depends on your perspective.
So, I think RR figures that someone is trying to shut him up unfairly and the Macbeth analogy (could have been written for Brown, got to wiki quotes and look at a few of the passages - very very apt) is arguably a rabble-rousing "your days are numbered" let-off of steam.
But I'm guessing.
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Post election I wonder how NuLab will re-invent themselves, for the sake of democracy we need a strong opposition.
The tragedy of the Blair years is that the only effective opposition came from the press, who were willing to turn a blind eye for the first 5 years - David Kelly and the dodgy dosier were the pivotal issues when Blair finally came under scrutiny.
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Blame @ 255
yes and, like I say, I reckon I WILL do exactly that ... vote LibDem
especially if Fubar and JR promise to vote UKIP rather than Conservative (same as Gomer's already said he'll be doing)
as to you and Coats ... well I trust the both of you to do something sensible, so you don't even have to tell me
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# 251
"....treating these individuals (by which I mean EVERYONE who works for a bank and makes more than, say, £100k a year) as being on a par with Drug Dealers"
I'm not against bankers sagamix, because of who they are (because I spent all my working life in a bank) but because of what they do. We don't try to exterminate venemous snakes because of what they are. We take steps to make sure they don't inflict harm because it's in their nature to do what they do.
The idea of an insurance fund for banks is a recognition that they can do the same again, and may even encourage reckless behaviour. It sounds as if Gordon has turned into a banker himself. It's a bank solution. Banks and government appear to have developed an unhealthy symbiotic relationship and are now acting as parasites on the economy.
The economy has developed a banking theme park look, with the wider population acting as serfs to the feudally run banking Lords. I'm still flabbergasted that this has happened under a Labour government and watch in dismay as everything re-forms as before, like some creature from a Terminator movie. Your analogy that the banks act as the Government's crack dealer has merit sagamix, but if Labour won't do anything about it, who will ?
I'm not optimistic about the economy, because the tactic of pumping it full of adrenalin has to stop some time, and banks have had no strategy to create a recovery, but that's not their function. Maybe Gordon should have enforced the requirement that bank bonuses be linked to strategies that revived the economy. Now we're told that the banks haven't complied with Government edict, but everyone still gets a bonus. Mad eh ?
I mess up - I get a bonus. I crash my company - I get a bonus. I continue to mess up - I get a bonus. It's a banker's life for me.
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gomer @ 260
"I'm not against bankers sagamix, because of who they are (I spent all my working life in a bank) but because of what they do"
yes, my feelings exactly
I also spent some time "doing it" ... not a life stretch but a fairly intense 7 years; although it kind of felt a lot longer! ... and I'm happy to agree that there are some A Okay people who happen to work in banks
thinking more of you than me there, obviously
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259#
I will mate, if for no other reason than UKIP have been the only party in my constituency who have bothered to engage with the public and dont appear to be taking your vote for granted. Deffo not Tory, certainly not at this rate (beginning to think they dont actually want to win to be honest) and Labour? Well, enough said...
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sagamix 251 256 (and noting 259 also)
I am not particularly sold on the concept of the "discredited status quo" - certainly not in the sense that we might be facing problems that cannot be solved within the framework of our existing political system, or in the sense that our political system (or, perhaps better, the people within it) has reached a point where it has disqualified itself in some way. I think you have to see some sort of quasi-religious light in order to absorb that kind of philosophy - in other words that to think that way involves a form of belief rather than being the conclusion of a logical argument. (I note, for example, that you offered no logical argument as to why the status quo was discredited to the extent that you imply - so I assume you are also regarding this discrediting as being in some way self-evident. Not criticising that, by the way.) So, in that sense, I have not seen the light and I am a non-believer.
Leaving aside some of the electoral logic - vote UKIP, get Labour - which I think is unassailable, UKIP doesn't get my vote because they haven't addressed sufficiently the creation of a plan for government. I have heard their views on agriculture, on public sector pensions, on the health service, on education, and they seem to me to have been cobbled it all together in a heavy weekend of realising that they had to have a whole manifesto and trying to fill the gap as quickly as they possibly could. Getting right out of the EU may be a policy that has its attractions, and sure, it affects everything else in terms of running the country, but it certainly isn't enough to be described as a complete model for government. So no, I won't be voting UKIP: sorry to stick that particular spanner in the works!
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#262 FB
There is a little time yet. Who knows you may yet get a more positive option than UKIP deserving of your trust.
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262 F_S
Interesting, what you say about trying to engage with the public. Round here, which I think is the safest non-metropolitan Conservative seat, the only ones who have sent anything or anyone round to try to secure my vote are, in fact, the Conservatives! All a bit of a shame really - I have been looking forwards to the Labour man dropping round for ages...
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257 Fubar
Well you have made more sense out of it than I could.
Wonder what has rattled RRs cage? Could be an interesting story if he dint write in riddles.
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F_S 257
"not quite sure about the Nurembourg defence"
I think that is just "I vos only obeyink zee orders".
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Just been reading about something called the "shadow banking system", which appears to be about the complex derivatives, CDS etc and metaphorically the big elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about. The numbers involved are HUNDREDS OF TRILLIONS, not the pitiful billions that are common fodder to our national GDP. The CDS market is about USD 47 Trillion, and the derivatives USD 500 Trillion - how accurate these figures are is anyones guess.
As the name suggests thete is little tangible or substantive knowledge of what is going on or has actually happenened. Veiled references by regulators indicate that when they inquired they were fobbed off by higher authority on both sides of the Atlantic. The problem worryingly is mainly located in the London and New York markets, but as far as I can see the shadow banking system is dead in the water as obligations cannot be met.
The angle I was interested in was the direct relationship between the banking system as we know it on the high street and the shadow version. From what I understand and my experience with the latter is zilch, the original funding for the shadow version must have come the banking system(?) but that regulation was pretty much non existent. Once it reached the shadow system it would be leveraged up to the hilt, and in some cases well beyond that.
Now with Quantitative Easing, what is to stop some/most of it dripping into the shadow system? I am out of my depth here, so am I going in the right direction or in circles? Please try and not be too cruel with your replies...
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I think the last nail in the coffin for our democracy came this week with the last hope of the public getting a vote on the Lisbon treaty.
The public have over a long period of time, come to the conclusion our democratic process no longer works. The first real indication of the publics lack of trust came with the death of Dr.Kelly, Weapons Inspector and has continued with all the policies which have been thrust on us by our Government and the EU. Questions of why we went to war in Iraq will not go away, MPs expenses etc, all this mistrust has culminated in the completion of the almost certain ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. The people of Britain were always very suspicious of Politicians, however I do not think before that they thought they were corrupt. Now they do. We are not like Americans who have total faith in their system and President (although this could very well change under Obama who is proving to be inept and out of his depth) we have always been very cynical, this could lead to great problems in our Country. This will be especially true if the Politicians continue to ignore the public. There has never been a time in recent history, when so many of the public have felt totally unrepresented by our political system.
This is not just going to effect Britain, the public of other Countries including France which puts itself right at the heart of the EU, are disaffected also by the thought of a federal EU. This elite few that now have such power in the EU and have had no mandate from any of the peoples of the Countries involved, except Ireland could find the results of such behaviour in the long term very costly. There are all sorts of very unpleasant parties springing up all over Europe who may very well do nicely out of a public that has been ignored.
In Britain, if people vote for fringe parties, power could very well go to those whom we do not want to see included in our democratic process. As such the main Parties have no one but themselves to blame. However despite their reservations, I believe the public should vote for one of the main parties to keep the political system safe from anything more frightening appearing and gaining power. Also the next Government will need a clear mandate, and definite policies to get us out of this crisis, because the real bad days are ahead not behind us.
I believe if politicians do not accept the reforms to the expenses, this will further ensure the public will withdraw their votes from the main parties.
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The horror for sagamix and myself I believe, though I shouldn't seek to speak for him, is that we see much less difference between the Tories and Labour than they would have us believe exists. There is the issue over public spending but Labour are going to be forced to adopt Tory policy sooner or later.
The greater issue is that political parties must obey the will of the masses - good Socialist rhetoric there. Feed the masses a hospital bed and they'll be happy, whereae bankers run off with the loot and pay for private healthcare. If you make the NHS sound good, of course we'll be happy.
To clarify the good banker/bad banker situation, I'll just quote from my recent history of banking. Most bank workers have had their salaries slashed through rarely receiving annual pay rises, and the relatively paltry bonuses they receive barely make up what they've lost. The more important fact is that it enables the banks to fuzzy up the issue of senior executives getting eye watering payments. The avaerage counter clerk doesn't buy a new Ferrari each year.
I want a political party that'll do as it's told. Is that too much to ask ? If it means Labour gets in again - that serves you all right. I'm not in the market for Labour - or Tory propaganda. I happen to be as offended by a Tory lie as a Labour one. Does that make me strange ?
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#269 Susan Croft.
"We have nothing to fear but fear itself."
NOW is certainly not the time to fall back in with this shambles.
Why do you think that we--the--people cannot sort this Democratic deficit out for ourselves by ourselves?
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It surprises me that members of the public would think about voting for UKIP. This party has had problems with expenses within the EU and has a very difficult track record. You cannot base your whole reason for being voted for on getting out of the EU. There are the day to day issues of running the Country to think about. I have heard very little from UKIP on education etc. They certainly have not earned the publics vote yet, in my opinion.
Anyway, I think UKIP would find it very difficult to deliver the withdrawal of Britian from the EU now that the Lisbon Treaty will be ratified. I would be more interested in finding out from them once they have the no vote to staying in the EU, how do they plan to extricate themselves from the EU, how will this be achieved. No one seems to be asking this question.
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Fubar 209
"Why did I butt in then, you are asking, when in reality I should just butt out and allow you to insult anyone you like, whichever way you like?
Well, for better or for worse, I'm not that kind of person.
"The ideas he endorses"... what, like calling for an election to rid us of an inept, corrupt administration? Yeah. How dare he, the ungrateful wretch.
You really are being unduly sensitive especially as you my comments were not addressed to you.
Does your sense of having been insulted by proxy include a spirited defence of the Latvian connection which seems to have triggered your outrage? You may have read in the "Sunday Times" today that the conservatives have posted minders for their absurd EU affiliates,this one`s racism,another`s homophobia,a third`s description of the Latvian SS as tragic heroes.You may also know that Riga was the holocaust capital of the baltic states and any association with these people should be treated with contempt.
To return to my original post which aroused your ire,roll on 2010 is such an ALi G right winger I find it hard to take him seriously as this quote makes clear.
"To appear weak to our European colleagues and competitors without
being in power is an invidious position to find oneself.Messrs Hague and Cameron have achieved this leaving the French and Germans shaking with laughter.I hope you are also amused because I detect parody in your blog of the many dim but sincere people who share your views."
This surely complements him on the subtlety of his posts, and amusement at those who take them seriously!
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268#
An interesting question indeed. I'm not sure we really want to think about that, otherwise we will be losing a lot of sleep.
One redeeming thing that Diane Abbott did say this week is that she was in favour of Glass-Steagel, the act that Clinton repealed that would have kept the casino and retail banks apart. Then again, I've heard someone else say that even if they had been kept apart, things like pension funds investing in these kind of derivatives etc would probably have dragged the entire thing down anyway.
It certainly didnt help RBS or BOA or AIG...
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265#
Yeah, I dont think mines far off either. Thats the thing; around our way, Lidlington is never seen because he's got the seat in the bag, Labour dont bother because they know they'll never get in in a month of sundays, the Libdems just buzz around the edges and send junk mail but never try and get out there and engage with the electorate.. the only one who has done has been the UKIP candidate. And, maybe there will be a more attractive option between now and polling day, who knows.
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GomerPyle 270
No, I do not personally believe that makes you strange at all. I understand your feelings completely, because I feel pretty much the same in the sense that I want a party that represents the people and has a mandate that the people are mainly in accord with. However our instructions will mainly be coming from the elite in the EU from now on, so what we think and say in Britain will not matter much, I dont think.
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#263 jrperry
The more entrenched we become in the same old Red or Blue choice the greater the distance between the public and our so called representatives shall become.
The people will never know just what is being done or has been done in our name unless and until the big Partys get a reality check.
As long as the regular voters turn in to toss the coin of choice and fully half of the electorate remain mere bystanders the behind the scenes swap of Democracy for Plutocracy will be fate-a-complete (do your translation, sorry).
Are we to call ourselves sheep?
And take the goad with the baaaad?
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#276 SC
[little stands still here]
What if my wishes come true?
We all turn out and vote in non-party representatives to fill the Commons. ZAP, Mandate.
Would not the disgruntled democrats in the rest of Europe take heart?
What the politicians have done to suit themselves CAN and should be undone by we--the--people.
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Oudies 271
I could not agree more that it is a complete shambles. However I am a great believer in history tends to repeat itself. Our political system is at least stable, once you start introducing all sorts of fringe parties particularly when the economy is in such a mess, it usually leads to the most ruthless ones taking the upper hand through fear. This could be a very frightening prospect.
Perhaps as important though is we are in a recession/depression, if you do not have a Government that can take charge of our economy through a definite mandate, who has some experience in Government, again this could lead to very deep problems. Before anything could be decided, all sorts of deals would have to be done until all the fringe parties etc could come to an agreement. If they ever did. This would be very bad news for the running of our Country particularly at this time.
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Susan, you put chains about yourself.
I do not advocate voting for the 'road widening' candidate. I attempt to attract the non-voter out. I wish that those elected are elected by a clear majority.
I have never lived under a Party that has ever had anything approaching a clear majority of the votes.
All the Red and the Blue want is a simple or great majority in the Commons. I would deny them that. [if poss]
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Oudies 278
Thats what my heart says, but I know this is the wrong time to even contemplate any kind of revolutionary action. The outcome could be worse than what we have. When there is anger, there is danger, I believe over time some of the smaller parties will start to establish themselves, then is the time to make change. It is unfortunate in Britain that such narrow politics has been allowed to develop which has has ensured that the 3 main parties are now able to call the tune. However I believe the elite in the EU will be doing that from now on, as such our politicians will have very little to do. It has started already if you notice, all the instructions about the banks etc are coming from the EU.
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P.S.
Many many of the Red and Blue candidates will also be brand new. The partys they represent have worked hard to bring us to this sorry pass.
What if those charged with Governance had no party baggage?
Only their fellow Brits to help forward?
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273#
At any point, did I say I was taking him seriously?
The only thing that riled me was your sanctimonious, left wing attitude. I see too much of it around these parts already and frankly, it makes me puke. You can address whatever kind of unprovoked invective you wish at another poster without riposte, except from the original poster... Maybe me not seeing it that way makes me oversensitive, then.
.....Lucky old two-faced-interfering-busy-body old me, eh?
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Susan @ 269
"However despite their reservations, I believe the public should vote for one of the main parties to keep the political system safe from anything more frightening appearing and gaining power"
you're not recommending a vote for your Eng Dems then?
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[my last on this today, I trust]
We are not beasts in a zoo. Our MPs are not our carers nor our keepers. If the big three do not have a back bone between them then I and my fellow Brits shall have to grow one all of our own.
To see these fraudsters as the only option makes us but easy prey for one shyster after another till the end of time.
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Well who would have thought it the Tories are more Left that NuLabour:
David Cameron's big tent catches eye of Tony Benn and Claire Short.
Two prominent leftwingers, former cabinet ministers Clare Short and Tony Benn, have spoken out in support of David Cameron’s Conservatives.
Short, international development secretary for six years until 2003, last week addressed a private meeting of Tory frontbenchers giving advice on overseas aid policy.
She said: “The Conservatives have committed to keeping up the budget and keeping up the commitment on poverty and keeping a separate department, so I am pleased about that.”
Meanwhile Benn, the veteran radical campaigner, confessed that that his views on civil liberties and Europe were closer to the Conservatives than Labour.
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NuLabour revolving door:
Lobbying row as ex-minister Paul Boateng lands defence firm job.
Paul Boateng, the former cabinet minister, has become a director of a private military company after lobbying the South African government to water down proposed anti-mercenary legislation.
Boateng has joined the board of Aegis Defence Services, run by Tim Spicer, the former Guards officer at the centre of the arms-to-Sierra Leone scandal in 1998.
The disclosure last night prompted a row about the so-called “revolving door” of former ministers who take up lucrative private-sector posts after leaving office.
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Trouble at mill for Crash Gordon:
Women MPs revolt over childcare vouchers.
Gordon Brown is facing a revolt from Labour women over plans to axe a childcare tax break that benefits the middle classes.
Senior backbenchers, including Patricia Hewitt, the former health secretary, and Caroline Flint, the former Europe minister who stepped down in June, have protested to No 10 over the decision to abolish childcare vouchers. They save parents up to £2,400 a year on the cost of nurseries, nannies or childminders.
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jr @ 263
"I note, for example, that you offered no logical argument as to why the status quo was discredited to the extent that you imply - so I assume you are regarding this discrediting as being in some way self evident"
well, the western financial system has imploded and the people responsible ... the Usual Suspects ... are still sitting pretty
they're laughing their socks off whilst the plebs settle the bill
so yes ... self evident ... I'm happy with that
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Appears that the greedy MPs just can’t take the money and Legg-it
Judge may grill rebel MPs who defy Legg on expenses.
Shamed MPs who challenge demands for the repayment of expenses could be put on 'trial' by a judge to justify their refusal, under new plans being considered.
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285 Oudeis
I agree there is a tendency to absolve ourselves of all responsibility. In truth we brought some of this on ourselves - for all the faults in the banking system we did not have to buy bigger houses, newer cars, the latest imported gadget....
It is for governments to provide the structure but we must also learn restraint.
It is easy to be pessimistic but there does seem to be more realism in people's attitudes and realism is good starting point to start recovery from.
Although, as has been mentioned, there are also some very unpleasant characteristics surfacing, which will hopefully go back in the box when we eventually see some signs of recovery.
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susan @ 276
"However our instructions will mainly be coming from the elite in the EU from now on, so what we think and say in Britain will not matter much, I don't think"
that must be a massive (!) concern for you if you believe that
and yet you counsel AGAINST voting for the parties (e.g. UKIP or EngDem) which want to extricate us from the EU
what's your "thinking" here, please?
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jrp @ 265
"a bit of a shame really - I have been looking forward to the Labour man dropping round for ages"
I dare say he knows that, JR, and (perhaps mindful of a lack of BUPA coverage) it's exactly why he hasn't
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#289 sagamix
well, the western financial system has imploded and the people responsible ... the Usual Suspects ... are still sitting pretty
they're laughing their socks off whilst the plebs settle the bill
I would agree with the above except to add that one of the suspects, Crash Gordon will not be sitting pretty come next year.
Roll On 2010 - Exit stage Left NuLabour, or should that be Exit stage Right NuLabour.
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Meanwhile down on the NuLabour funny farm:
Exposed: How Labour depends on the votes of Welfare Britain.
Labour has been accused of relying on the 'welfare vote' after the Conservatives published a provocative league table ranking Commons seats according to the number of benefit claimants.
A total of 189 constituencies in the first 200 are represented by Labour MPs, which the Tories claim explains why Ministers are failing to tackle the spiralling welfare bill.
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NuLabour predicting BNP in third place in Glasgow NE bye-election:
BNP set to advance in ex-Speaker Martin's Glasgow seat.
Senior politicians from all the main parties have conceded that the BNP could make the significant advance of saving its deposit in the Glasgow North East by-election, on Thursday.
However, Labour Party officials campaigning in the constituency warned yesterday that the BNP could even come third, as part of a "protest vote" against the number of asylum-seekers living in the area.
Also spotted this one on a NuLabour blog site:
If you were fascist and wanted to design a brand new web site, whose site would you copy:
Website 1
Website 2
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289
"well, the western financial system has imploded...."
Isn't that what's called hyperbole?
When I have to barter bags of rice from my stockpile in order to buy my smoked salmon, that's when I shall say that the western financial system has imploded!
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Civil servants being given time off for shopping trips and cake-baking competitions.
Government officials are being given time off for Christmas shopping trips, days at the races, and to compete in Whitehall jam-making and cake-baking competitions – all subsidised by the taxpayer.
The events are being offered by the Civil Service Sports Council with the help of a £1.4million-a-year grant from Government funds.
Government funds = Hard earned taxpayers money, yours and mine.
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# 276
On Europe I agree entirely Susan-Crof. I used to believe that membership of the EU was a way to sew us into a Socialist system whatever the electorate wanted. Now I believe that the actuality is something far more invidious and is clearly show by the Champagne Trotskyists within Labour who much prefer the holiday homes of anyone with money than a pub in inner city London.
The ruling elite, whether Trotskyist or Tory, appear equally fond of ermine, country homes, palaces for homes, and money under the table. Did you read of the latest Libyan deal, paid for in terrorist victims' lives. It'll be a fine boost to an offshore company with not a jot of benefit to the UK taxpayer, well maybe one or two, if you know what I mean.
The EU is the opium of the masses, democracy 'Karzai style'. Vote for who you want and get who is pre-ordained. The Queen must feel pretty miffed that the idea of ruling with divine authority has been stolen from her family's toolkit.
To get back to the other great lie - Afghanistan; remember Hillary asked why Pakistan could never find Al Quaeda. Me and 'Monty' the teddy bear appear to have succeeded where the CIA have failed. They've probably been busily engaged in turning Afghanistan's opium industry into the largest worl producer (notice how wherever the CIA goes the local drug empire explodes into life - pure coincidence I'm sure). Anyway, Google's pretty far advanced for the CIA so I'll let them have this for free.
"The area struck is believed to be under the control of Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a warlord involved in fighting U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan. Pakistan's military has struck a deal with Bahadur — saying they would leave him alone as long as he stayed out of their way in South Waziristan as they fight the Pakistani Taliban, the network the government blames for most of the suicide bombings in the country."
Now that's what I call action against terrorism - allowing no go areas, and for insurgents who openly resist ISAF and the West. I'll try and avoid expletives, but the 'furry sausage' is the point of that ? If there's a link to our streets, then the current activity isn't doing a sausage to change that.
Purely speculative, but I wonder if I looked up the proposed route of the Pan Afghanistan Gas Pipeline, whether I would see it traversing the south of the country, where Pakistan would think it well away from North Waziristan. The pipeline has nothing to do with UK security and indeed nothing to do with Western energy requirements, but everything to do with US oil company profits.
I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but a gas pipeline would be so vulnerable, they should pack up and go home now. They'd have more chance of maintaining a line of snowmen, which reminds of the time I built one in a remote Himalayan village - boy should I have known better. (Moral - beware of where you build snowmen).
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sagamix 292
I do not council against the English Democrats in fact I believe in time they are our greatest hope, for England. However at the present time they are a small party not fielding candidates everywhere. UKIP I have explained why I would not vote for them. We are a Country in crisis we must get through this time as best we can. Having an unstable Government could turn up all kinds of evils.
I do not believe in the near future Scotland will go Independent, so for the time being we will remain a Union. As such I want any Government to have a clear mandate, to get the recession sorted and so that Salmond does not get what he wants and cause trouble in our Parliament.
I think I have made myself very clear in my posts.
The English democrats are my party of choice and will remain my party of choice.
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NuLabour’s open door policy on immigration under fire…. again:
Home Office covered up immigration risk.
Labour's “open door” immigration policy knowingly risked allowing dangerous people to settle in Britain unchecked, according to documents seen by The Sunday Times.
The Whitehall correspondence, which was illegally withheld by the Home Office for four years, shows how ministers were told by the country’s most senior immigration official that his staff were to be “encouraged to take risks” when granting visas, work permits and extended residency to hundreds of thousands of new migrants.
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cat @ 268
you're right to worry about OTC derivatives ... they've mushroomed to an extent out of all proportion to their original simple "hedging of exposure" purposes
a crumb of comfort I can offer you though; the numbers which tend to get bandied around (such as those you quote) serve to exaggerate the size of total outstandings
let's take CDS (Credit Default Swaps) as an example:
a CDS is essentially an insurance product - the "buyer" of the CDS pays a premium to the "seller" and in return for that premium receives protection against a certain amount of exposure they have to a third party, Company XYZ Ltd say - thus if XYZ go bust during the tenor of the CDS (6 months, say) and the protection was for an amount £100 million, they (the CDS buyer) will receive a payment of £100 million from the CDS seller - they may have paid a premium of, for example, £1 million for this protection (if there was a perceived chance of approx 1 in 100 of XYZ going bust in the next 6 months, as at the time the CDS was purchased)
in other words, we have a single £1 million transaction and that's the end of the matter unless there actually IS an XYZ Ltd bankrupty (and usually there isn't)
what often happens when these deals get estimated for the purposes of "size of market" numbers, however, is the counting of BOTH sides (the buy side and the sell side) and the inclusion of the total value insured rather than just the premium
this leads to the £1 million transaction in our example being counted as a £200 million transaction
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#302 sagamix
I am not an economic geek but I found your comment informative and excellent.
Well done.
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sc @ 3c
okay thanks, think I get you - you're a big fan of the Eng Dems but they're too small at present - when they get bigger ... when enough other people have voted for them, in other words ... you will then consider voting for them yourself
on Europe, you feel we are being dictated to by an unelected elite and you'd love for us to come out - being a realist, however, you realise we're stuck with it for now and so it's not a priority for you - you further feel that UKIP (the one party committed to getting us out) are not fit for government and so you wouldn't vote for them either
what you DO want (at least as regards 2010) is a Tory landslide so they can get cracking with "sorting us out" ... in particular slashing public spending, paying down debt and so forth
cool!
now ... what about one of those "proper left wing" policies you were going to tell me about? ... you know, like the ones your Mother used to believe in?
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#302 sagamix
I too feel more informed, of what exactly I am as yet a little unsure...but, no problem.
While the seller, he who pockets the £1 million. Takes his well thought out risk I cannot see how disposed he would be to help the stricken asset out of trouble with nothing but that £1 million to play with.
His is a real gamble then in this present climate, no?
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jr @ 297
"When I have to barter bags of rice from my stockpile in order to buy my smoked salmon, that's when I shall say that the western financial system has imploded!"
without the eyewatering amount of state support (for which the plebs will be paying through the nose for a long long time) that is exactly what you'd be doing
'cept it might have been tinned not smoked
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301#
Seems that Neathergate isnt dead after all. The third page seems to be inching towards the smell of cordite leading a the smoking gun.
Very interesting.
Likewise the piece about Labour constituencies and the amount of benefit dependants therein... its been known for ages.
Funny how Auntie Beeb isnt recording any of these stories...
I must have missed it earlier on due to my overflow of outrage at the tories and their goose-stepping chums in the Baltic....
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roll @ 303 - why, thank you!
and O @ 305
well yes, if the seller (the insurer) gets their risk assessment wrong and a whole load of these so called "credit events" (such as the bankruptcy of Lehman Bros) crystallise in a short period, then they can be blown away themslves - and if they're blown away, they can't pay out on the protection and all these people who've bought CDSs from them (thinking they ARE protected) now find that they are not
that was AIG - AIG were the sell side of a vast amount of CDSs held by others (including many of those against Lehmans) - that's why AIG just HAD to be bailed - the whole house of cards would have collapsed otherwise - it was hairy scary
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Sagamix 304
The Lib/Dems are unelectable under Clegg and I certainly would never vote Labour after the wars, thats before they destroyed our economy. The Conservatives will start the movement for distancing Britain from the EU, and sort out the economy. By then the smaller parties will have established themselves and the English Democrats will be on their way as well. In my opinion they will complete the job of moving us from the EU and establish an English Parliament.
You are the one claiming to be a left wing person you tell me what their policies are.
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I saw this comment on another blog and could not help but link to it here:
Today - A quiet thought
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Stephen Fry's Site
http://www.stephenfry.com/2009/10/19/poles-politeness-and-politics-in-the-age-of-twitter
Robin Rowlands
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#311
Has you keyboard lost it's 'h'?
Or is there a point?
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sagamix 306
"without the eyewatering amount of state support... that [bartering because of the implosion of the western financial system] is exactly what you'd be doing"
Well, neither of us can prove it either way, but I think this is more hyperbole. When you consider, for example, the after effects of the Wall Street Crash - even then, there was no significant collapse in broad confidence in currencies (which is what you are really arguing for here). I think you have over-egged the pudding somewhat.
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susan @ 309
"You are the one claiming to be a left wing person, you tell me what their policies are"
okay, let's do it that way then
here's a starter for seven:
(1) progressive tax (rich pay more than now, poor pay less)
(2) high spend on infrastructure, health, education, overseas aid
(3) low spend on defence
(4) retail banking, mortgages, utilities, transport in the public sector
(5) acceptance and celebration of ethnic diversity
(6) more women and ethnic minorities in positions of power
(7) abolition of private schools
now, don't worry about whether you AGREE with these or not (we've "done" a few of them in any case, haven't we?)
no, the key question (since we're picking up on your thought provoking post of the other day) is which of the above do you consider to be "proper" Left Wing policies?
you just tell me which ones fit that description in your view; just the numbers would be fine if you don't want to type a whole load of words ... so for example, if you think that (say) progressive tax and the abolition of private schools ARE "proper" Left Wing policies but the others are not, then you can just reply ... 1 and 7
or by all means do words not numbers if you prefer; I'm not intending to be presciptive about things
okay? ... great
hit me!
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jr perry @ 313
overegging? I reckon not; I think that this may have been bigger than the Wall St crash as regards its ramifications
hey, check out the recent board above! ... see how a couple of our resident labourphobes are trying to big up "Neather" again?
what do YOU think of all that, JR ... you know, what do you get out the other side when you put it through the Spock Machine?
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sagamix 314
Thank you for coming out of the closet, (so to speak, at last), and sharing your left wing views.
My original post was to solicit your views not for me to second guess them.
Now you have listed 1 to 7 maybe we could hear more about these issues than Camerons mortgage, and are there any more you wish to share with us?
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315#
I'm sure if its inaccurate Saga, then the Sunday Times will find itself in court. No matter how much everyone else sticks their heads in the sand about it, theres enough smoke being generated... there must have been a fire at some point, even if it was just smouldering.
Five years for a whistleblower in the Home Office chasing an FOI request... and a couple of interesting names crop up, particularly Bill Jeffrey... he who has had the ultimate civil service responsibility in MoD now for that monolithic 8 billion pound money-pit they call Defence Information Infrastructure (DII)... and has had a regular mauling from the Commons Defence Select Committee on the subject. The names, places and faces seem to make sense. I have no reason to think that it cant have been possible.
Eitherway, theres nothing I can do about it. Its not upto me.....
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Fubar
"The only thing that riled me was your sanctimonious, left wing attitude. I see too much of it around these parts already and frankly, it makes me puke. You can address whatever kind of unprovoked invective you wish at another poster without riposte, except from the original poster... Maybe me not seeing it that way makes me oversensitive, then.
.....Lucky old two-faced-interfering-busy-body old me, eh? "
My first reaction was you were a liberal who felt for Roll On and wanted to comfort him.Further reflection makes me think you were leaping to the defence of a fellow reactionary.
This is not a question of party affiliation but a state of mind common to members of all parties or none at all.The mark of a good opponent is to learn something.You constantly personalize in remarks like "Your sanctimonious left wing attitude". You also rant trying to swamp people with words.
My comitment is to an economic and political rationality based on evidence.This makes me as fallible as you because any position I take involves judgement and selectivity.What I do dislike is your constant attribution to me of what Orwell called the "Smelly little orthodoxies" whether left or right.
You need a long period in a scientific purgatory before returning to to me with your nonsense.
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315 sagamix
Still not convinced by what you are trying to argue re now, the Wall Street crash and the purportedly narrowly averted collapse of the Western financial system. Going back to your 306, it is always worth remembering that the "eye-watering level of support", that we shall still be paying for after you and I are both dead, is not money that went to the banks (which I think we shall get practically all of back on a 5-10 years timescale), but money which is being spent in the public sector (arguably wastefully and arguably to try to garner a Labour victory next year) against a collapse in tax revenues. Interesting how government apologists, no matter how they try to disguise themselves, try to mask that very important distinction.
As far as Neather is concerned, there are a few subjects I don't "do" here, and one of them is immigration.
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318 anthony piepe
"a scientific purgatory"
What on Earth is that?
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I hope you lot do what your Doctor tells you:
GPs to abandon Labour in droves in favour of Tories
Fewer than one in ten GPs now plan to vote Labour in the next general election, with support for the Conservatives running at more than 50%, a Pulse survey has found.
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jrperry 320
I have always taken it to mean you are shunned because of your beliefs. In other words if you believe something no one else does, something out of the ordinary as in religion or similar you are in scientific purgatory.
I could be wrong of course.
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318#
Whatever. I think I'm perfectly capable of detecting the perjorative way you use the word "reactionary".
Tells me all I need to know.
"My comitment is to an economic and political rationality based on evidence"
Yeah. Course it is. And mine is to saving the whales.
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318. anthony piepe
Curious to know, anthony, if you are the same a.p. as the author of 'Mass Media and Cultural Relationships' and 'Television and the working class'?
Must be used to critics if that is the case. :-)
Reading over some of these posts following the Afghanistan thread and also one of your previous posts (189. and Tony Blair's "mistakes") ... made me realise that it is now the centre left (was going to say socialists but not an accurate tag for New Labour) who are now perceived to be more hawkish than the centre right. I'm basing this on the number of conflicts (±6 since '87) this government has shown such willingness to commit us to.. ironic that, always used to be the right who were the hawks.
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320#
Quite how a scientific purgatory is any different to ordinary common or garden purgatory is lost on me too... and probably on him as well.
He didnt say how long for... would forty days and nights do it, do you think?
Will I have to wear a white lab coat?
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The Purgatory thing has reminded me of my most odious french teacher.
We were given a piece to translate into English and it included a reference to "purgatoire". A puzzled classmate asked " please Sir what is it ?"
The teacher replied "its a place Catholics believe in that does not exist."
Thus at one blow insulting any Catholics in the class and not answering the question he was asked.
Oh happy days ?
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324. me
Correction:
"..the number of conflicts (±6 since '87) this government has shown such willingness to commit us to.."
should read (4 since 1997)..
Arithmetics was never my strong point.
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325 Fubar
I think forty days and forty nights is something else entirely!
"Will I have to wear a white lab coat?" - Well, with us, white lab coats have gone the way of some crazed perception of health and safety, so it's blue romper suits these days. I regret the passing of the white coat - so much easier to pass off the impression of being a "boffin" in one of those things. Back in my first job, I managed to spill litmus on one side and Yamada's on the other, so I had a very handy "indicator coat". Happy days!
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The Blame Game 324
"
Reading over some of these posts following the Afghanistan thread and also one of your previous posts (189. and Tony Blair's "mistakes") ... made me realise that it is now the centre left (was going to say socialists but not an accurate tag for New Labour) who are now perceived to be more hawkish than the centre right. I'm basing this on the number of conflicts (±6 since '87) this government has shown such willingness to commit us to.. ironic that, always used to be the right who were the hawks."
Both the conservative and labour parties initially supported campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan although conservative support for the Iraq campaign became more equivocal once the dubious evidence for it was exposed.Mr.Major dragged his feet on Kosovo so it was left to Mr.Blair to initiate a rescue of the Muslim population,Sierra Leone is another example, so yes,Labour in government has been relatively more hawkish and been engaged in two unpopular wars.
Historically,the Labour party had a strong pacifist wing. Keir Hardy opposed Britain`s entry into WW1 as an imperialist war,George Lansbury opposed rearmament in the thirties.But since then, the labour party has been part of a foreign policy- military consensus.They joined Churchill`s wartime coalition and began a nuclear weapons programme, but opposed Suez and Vietnam.
The general trend for the Labour party has been its institutionalization within a broad political consensus and a weakening of its socialist and radical impulses.To a very large extent this reflects the changing demographic of its political support as manufacturing has steadily declined and been replaced with white collar and professional work.Mr.Blair saw it as his mission to reflect this change in electoral support.
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320. At 7:57pm on 08 Nov 2009, jrperry wrote:
318 anthony piepe
"a scientific purgatory"
What on Earth is that?"
You will just have to imagine it as somewhere between a paradiso and inferni containing revolutionary thinkers and a faith in reason.Its location is nowhere because it is always being created.
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326 X Tunbridge
"We were given a piece to translate into English and it included a reference to "purgatoire". A puzzled classmate asked " please Sir what is it ?"
The teacher replied "its a place Catholics believe in that does not exist."
Thus at one blow insulting any Catholics in the class and not answering the question he was asked.
But you have to admire the man`s honesty
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anthony piepe 329
"The general trend for the Labour party has been its institutionalization within a broad political consensus and a weakening of its socialist and radical impulses.To a very large extent this reflects the changing demographic of its political support as manufacturing has steadily declined and been replaced with white collar and professional work.Mr.Blair saw it as his mission to reflect this change in electoral support."
I note in particular your claim that Labour's electoral support has shifted towards being from white collar and professional classes. Did you see Roll_On_2010's 295, where the reference cited therein tends to indicate that Labour's support is, in fact, predominantly from those in receipt of welfare benefits? My feeling is that you are confusing what you wish was true with what is actually true.
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If we had a banking industry half as efficient as the Afghan opium industry we wouldn't be in crisis at all. It's as toxic as our banks but more profitable.
For a malfunctioning country in the middle of a war this is an impressive report dated October 2009
"Afghanistan produces almost all the world’s opium – the raw material for heroin – which has a $65 billion global market catering to 15 million addicts, causing up to 100,000 deaths per year, spreading HIV at an unprecedented rate, and funding the Taliban and Al-Qaida, according to a new UN Offices on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report."
You'd imagine that an invasion force might make a difference.
"....the report noted that just 2 per cent of opiates produced are seized by authorities in the country, compared to 36 per cent of cocaine produced in Colombia."
In a grim irony it even rivals the EU.
"The Afghanistan-Pakistan border region has turned into the world’s largest free trade zone in anything and everything that is illicit – drugs of course, but also weapons, bomb-making equipment, chemical precursors, drug money, even people and migrants"
Our only successful function at present is to maintain Karzai in power. I'm beginning to believe that it remains the limit of our ambition, though what that achieves is of no benefit to the West in any form.
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Meanwhile back at the NuLabour funny farm:
Young jobless hits 1m: More 16 to 24-year-olds out of work in UK than in any other EU nation.
Youth unemployment is set to top one million this week, as it emerged that Britain has the highest number of jobless 16 to 24-year-olds in Europe.
At least NuLabour can use the fall back: It wasnae us it was those damn Americans across the pond.
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"Professor Sir Ian Kennedy, head of the new expenses watchdog, is to launch his own consultation on the discredited system of Commons allowances on the social networking site Facebook."
It's somewhat disturbing to find that the government appears to have employed someone exhibiting such clear signs of eccentricity, and I'm trying hard to be polite to someone who probably warrants sympsthy rather than abuse.
Would someone please administer medication ?
Facebook is no place for the faint of heart and uncomplicated of mind. Someone tell him please.
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331 anthony piepe
An honestly held oppinion perhaps but it was delivered with relish and intended to insult, which was uncalled for.
And the puzzled classmate probably still doesnt know its a Catholic Celestial naughty corner.
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You could not make this up if you really, really tried:
Secret Labour plan to axe spending on training for young people.
Confidential papers obtained by The Observer show that, while Brown and his ministers have suggested they are raising investment in training, skills and apprenticeships, behind the scenes they are preparing some £350m of cuts for 2010-11 that will slash the number of training places on offer by hundreds of thousands.
Young jobless hits 1m: More 16 to 24-year-olds out of work in UK than in any other EU nation.
Youth unemployment is set to top one million this week, as it emerged that Britain has the highest number of jobless 16 to 24-year-olds in Europe.
Crash Gordon’s speech at the Labour Conference 2009
And what of the big choices that this country has to make now - to help young people into work or to see, like the 80s, a wasted generation. And I’ll tell you the choice we’re making. To reject every piece of
Conservative advice and instead we will ensure school leavers training, guarantee the young unemployed work experience, expand university places and to increase, not cut the apprenticeships we need. I’m sorry to say that by opposing these measures conservative policy would callously and coldly return us to the lost generation and cardboard cities of the 1980s - we say never again. That’s the change we choose, the change that benefits the many, not the few.
Not only are NuLabour letting down our young people they are also betraying the people of Britain. If we do not train our youngsters now how can we take advantage when the economy recovers? The young people are our investment for the future.
NuLabour Betraying Britain
Roll On 2010.
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Quell surprise NuLabour for the few and not the many.
Pressure builds for radical reform of tax system to tackle wealth inequality.
A fierce debate within the government on how to tackle entrenched wealth inequality is to be ignited by a report ordered by Harriet Harman, the Labour deputy leader and the minister responsible for equalities.
The report is due to be published in January. Early drafts seen by ministers say wealth inequality has deepened, with the rungs on the ladder having grown further apart, reducing social mobility. It is also expected to underline the degree to which access to pensions and housing play a crucial role in entrenching inequalities in wealth and income.
NuLabour - Tackling inequality and the causes of inequality.
Roll on 2010.
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336#
You're right, he didnt know...
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Good morning each & Andrew.
...#336
I do not recognise the world of which you speak xT.
Where I grew up the class was either catholic or not. No halfway house.
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Good Morning Andrew,
let us get one thing straight from the beginning. We are not at war in Afghanistan, we are part of a coalition which occupies a country which is just a name given to an area of land, bit like many peoples back garden. You don't give your garden a name, yet we think we can combine bits of land and call it a country.
Now I was listening to some sort of army officer on the Today programme this morning on the Today programme. What he was wheeled on and allowed to say is that we are creating ink spots in Afghanistan. I have used the word previously of corales, or effectively concentration camps in terms of South Africa during the Boer war.
In these ink spots, these are gated communities with curfews imposed from 9 o'clock, the local people are protected and anybody in the area outside the ink spot is the enemy. When will the military understand that we are the invaders, we are now the terrorists, and that people who help us are collaborators just like Quisling Karzai.
I wish that the government would not allow the military on to the media to tell the enemy what our strategy in Afghnaistan is, or going to be. These people read the papers and listen to internet sites, they listen to the media in all its forms. So, just like the Ministry of Defence put an injunction preventing a very close family member of mine from speaking in public, then surely we ought to see the imposition of D-notices. The media must not be seen to supporting the enemy by undermining the work our brave soldiers are doing in foreign lands.
I still remember the tones of the spokesman during the Falklands conflict. We must not have pictures of returning bodies, of soldiers being treated for their injuries. All must be good news, can you imagine what would have happened in WWI if the bodies had been brought home and the funerals held after the Somme. Maybe again if we had the Great War would have been over earlier, only it wasn't. I think that the BBC ought to be more responsible, only good news from the front from now on, we no longer do bad things to bad people, we now do good things to bad people, we will be victorious, all is not lost, we are advancing in a negative push, we are not retreating on all fronts, we are allowing the enemy to replace our soldiers with their own.
However, I stress that there should be no more talking about the war, careless talk costs lives. Beware the enemy within.
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perry @ 319
"As far as Neather is concerned, there are a few subjects I don't "do" here, and one of them is immigration"
I like that answer (if it means what I think it means)
and I think it does
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sc @ 316
"maybe we could hear more about these issues than Cameron's mortgage, and are there any more you wish to share with us?"
oh do stop it, Susan ... I've blogged ad nauseum on all of those as you well know
still, I'm pleased to have re-established my radical "credentials"
and more to share with you? - well yes of course - no rush though - we've got our whole lives ahead of us, babe, haven't we?
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...Error 404.
If nothing else the 'hit' rate for the DP site is soaring.
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340 Oudeis
Well 50 odd years ago most primary schools in my neck of the woods were either state or faith with the Catholics having the majority of such schools. And yea it was only one or the other.However it changed at 11 year4s of age and there were few Catholic grammar schools so in my class , for example, there were 3 out of 28 pupils who were Catholic.I also recall there was only 1 Jewish boy in the school.
You use the phrase "halfway house" I suppose that is a good definition of Purgatory. I suppose it is a comforting concept, if you have been too bad to go to Heaven there is a place where you can wait until your sins are purged and then enter Heaven. Better than going straight to Hell ?
Since this came up I have looked on the web for the word and am amazed at the debate on there about the word and whether it is mentioned or not in the Bible etc. Some of the debate is quite hostile, must be reincarnations of my old French teacher. Reminds me of the Ghandi quotation, " I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ."
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Andrew,
let me go back to May 1919 and Hansard:
'by paragraph 453 of the King's Regulations governing the conduct of the Army, all officers on the active list and soldiers are forbidden to publish in any form whatever, or communicate directly or indirectly to the Press, his views on military subjects without special authority of the Army Council; and whether, by the express terms of the same paragraph, any information acquired by any officer or soldier while travelling or employed on duty is the property of the War Department and may not be published in the Press without the previous sanction of the Army Council'
Now then with regard to Kings (Queens) regulations are these still in place, because surely we know that stuff has changed, with former soldiers writing books etc...but should we really have the military, of any rank, either current or past, on our screens, telling us about military strategy, or their view on equipment, or morale, or anything at all. If they do come on to the media then can we take it that everything they say has been cleared by some committee, and therefore is nothing other than government propaganda!
We are not at war in Afghanistan/Pakistan, we occupy bits and pieces, and we supply money, arms, equipment and certain types of soldiers, in the 'war on terror'.
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jrp @ 328
"so it's blue romper suits these days"
that's how I've always pictured you, JR ... in a blue romper suit
how spooky is that?
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JRJerry 332 wrote
"I note in particular your claim that Labour's electoral support has shifted towards being from white collar and professional classes. Did you see Roll_On_2010's 295, where the reference cited therein tends to indicate that Labour's support is, in fact, predominantly from those in receipt of welfare benefits? My feeling is that you are confusing what you wish was true with what is actually true."
quoting
Roll-on
"A total of 189 constituencies in the first 200 are represented by Labour MPs, which the Tories claim explains why Ministers are failing to tackle the spiralling welfare bill."
To form a government the two main parties need to build a coalition across class boundaries, so Labour needs substantiasl middle class support which it achieved in `97,2001 and 2005, while the conservatives depend on working class support which they obtained in 1979,`83,`87 and `92.
In periods of political weakness,either party retreats to their core vote representing their historic class basis.In the case of labour these are working class areas with pockets of welfare dependency.
As for welfare gerrymandering in Labour held constituencies,if true it would be an expensive folly because the welfare dependent represent the least civic minded in the community,the most alienated and the least likely to vote.
Propensity to vote decreases rapidly from ABC!s to DEs.Evidence for this differential can be seen in relation to MPS expenses,more damaging to Labour support than Conservative although both parties are equally culpable.The welfare dependent are least likely to vote of all social groups because of their radical disconnect from civic society.
The three main parties are centrist and consensual and built coalitions across the class structure.You are more likely to find the underclass in the BNP which provides a home for the terminally alienated.
Finally there are numerous magazines and journals with information on the social basis of voting.There is "The Spectator" and "New Statesman" both of which are partisan.For a more objective analysis I recommend "The Political Quarterly" which should help save you from wishful thinking.
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roll @ 321
"Fewer than one in ten GPs now plan to vote Labour in the next general election, with support for the Conservatives running at more than 50%"
so, after the biggest investment in Health in recent history and a sweetheart deal on GP pay of quite breathtaking generosity, half of these "cough when I tell you" merchants are going to vote Clown!
tells us all we need to know about Doctors, doesn't it?
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Andrew,
I thought that I would look up the Remembrance day service for November 1937, so I went to Hansard of that date, on the basis that I am surprised that there are no demonstrations, this is from Hansard about an incident :
Mr. Attlee (by Private Notice) asked the Home Secretary whether he had any statement to make about the incident which occurred this morning at the Armistice Day celebration in Whitehall?
§ Sir S. Hoare The man whose cries interrupted the Two Minutes' Silence at the Cenotaph this morning is a man named Stanley Storey, aged 43, who was responsible for a disturbance in the Gallery of this House on 27th January and was in Cane Hill Asylum from 4th February to 21st September, on which date he escaped and has since been at large. He fell forward through the ranks of the police, who thought he was fainting, then got up and dived between the Naval Contingent shouting some such words as "No more war: end this hypocrisy." He was immediately removed to a room in the Colonial Office, and Special Branch officers were sent for who identified him at once from his appearance. He said to them that he had thought of making this demonstration three days ago, but had no intention of making an attack upon the King or upon anyone else. No weapons of any kind were found upon him. The man was obviously suffering from delusions. He is at present in Fulham Infirmary under observation. No question of criminal proceedings is under consideration. The only question is whether application should be made to the magistrates for his re-certification as a lunatic. This must depend on the result of observation.
Mr. Davidson Has the right hon. Gentleman seen a report in to-day's "Star" which states that the crowd surrounding this man cried, "Kill him, kill him," and will he not deprecate such outbursts?
So, it can be seen that any outburst against the hypocracy of the Cenotaph Memorial Service will be met with cries of 'kill him, kill him..' and that if you do not get killed then it is highly likely you will end-up in the lunatic asylum.
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Andrew,
as many will know there have been cases in the past where British soldiers did bad things to bad people, notably in Ireland after the Great War. Now I would like to put this in a modern context by at least getting people to understand what it must be like in Af/Pak at the moment. These are allegations made in parliament in November 1919 about what we may or may not have done, but can be seen as typical of what some members of the armed forces, of whatever country, would seem to be capable of:
Mr. MacVEAGH asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland (1) whether he has any information which he can communicate to the House with regard to police or military excesses at Ballymote, Cullen, Ballingare and Galway on 2nd October; at Lacklagh, Turloughmore and Tuam on 4th October; in Cork on 5th October; in Meelick, Mount Bellew, Gort, Cloondara, Tuam, Sheverie, Bally-boy, Ballymoe, Castlereagh, Williamstown and Ballintober on 8th October; in Kilhimo, Pallashenry, Pike, Cork, Dublin and Drum on 9th October; at Clifden on 10th October; at Clifden on 13th October; in Athlone and Dublin on 16th October; in Corofin, Cummer, Anbally, Ballin-tubber and Tralee on 17th October; in Tipperary and Mallow on 18th October;
(2) whether any official inquiry has been made into the atacks made by uniformed servants of the Crown, accompanied by wrecking, looting, arson, and, in some cases, murder, on the following towns: Fermoy in September; Kinsale and Cork in November; Thurles in January; Thurles, Cork and Dublin in March; Burladuff, Kilcommon and Limerick in April; Limerick, Thurles, Bantry, Kilcommon and Kilmallock in May; Middleton, Limerick, Bantry, Fermoy, Lismore, Newcastle West and Kilcommon in June; Limerick, Union Hall, Middleton, Bally-landers, Tralee, Arklow, Galbally, Cork, 1346 Ballagh, Emly, Tuam, Enniscorthy, Ballina, Leap, Caltra, Upperchurch and Tipperary in July; Castlerca, Doon, Rosegreen, Tralee, Kildorrey, Enniscorthy, Swords, Limerick, Tralee, Templemore, Castleiny, Loughmore, Killee, Bantry, Oranmore, Glengariffe, Dundalk, Kill, Knocklong, Shanagolden, Naas and Cove in August; and Ballaghaderin, Inniscarra, Tullow, Galway, Salthill, Carrick-on-Shannon, Tuam, Balbriggan, Drum-shambo, Ennistymon, Lahinch, Milltown Malbay, Ballinamore, Athlone, Killorglin, Trim, Kilfenora, Silvermines, Cork, Mallow, Liscarrol, Dunkerrin, Clonmore, Ballyshannon, Listowel, Ballygar, Drimo-league, Tuam, Galway, Roscrea, Tubber-curry, Ballyara, Achonry, Kilshenane and Gort in September; by whom were such inquiries conducted; whether any Reports have been made; and whether signed Reports will be called for and embodied in a Parliamentary Paper?
I think that we should bring the troops home now, otherwise we will be there for decades, just like the Russians in Germany, just like the British in Ireland, just like all occupation forces, they all come home eventually, victorious or not, they always come home, unless they were in the Great War on the front of course, they were buried where they died.
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It sounds as if our generals are now being wheeled out as apologists for government dictated strategy. I won't use the 'r' word as the military finds it particularly offensive, but in concentrating into "inkspots" we are conceding territory to the insurgents, allowing them the freedom to operate and move unhindered. Having troops holed up in concentrations isn't going to either, suppress the insurgents, or prevent their planning attacks on the UK.
If our rules of engagement change to shooting anything that moves outside those areas, then they'll be expending a lot of ammunition on the civilian population, creating justification for a universal insugency and provoking the accusation of war crimes.
Clearly the strategy IS to reduce casualties, and it's rather silly to deny it, and it's a quite sensible tactic in view of recent events. It isn't that we don't understand policy, it's that we don't believe it, otherwise there's be conscription and no concern about caualties, but this is a war dictated by election strategy, not military strategy.
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349#
It would seem like a bit of a poke in the eye, wouldnt it mate?
Maybe they havent forgiven them yet for Hewitt's godalmighty horlicks when it came to that recruiting system a few years back
TAG/Catch22:
Those regulations were succeeded by individual service acts of parliament around 1955 and are now before the commons being updated and due to be reissued shortly.
Whether that particular regulation remains in force, I dont know. Considering how much military discipline and the Human Rights Legislation have conflicted over recent years, I would think that there has been substantial change. In addition to that, there is a similar internal policing quandry in that the penalties for transgressing service law these days are so weakly enforced that they are nigh on meaningless.
Bit like the bit I saw on the BBC London news yesterday about cautions being handed out for ABH by the Met instead of upto 5 years in the chokey.
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sagamix 342
""...there are a few subjects I don't "do" here, and one of them is immigration"
I like that answer (if it means what I think it means) and I think it does"
It means exactly what the words say, no more, no less.
and your 349
"so, after the biggest investment in Health in recent history and a sweetheart deal on GP pay of quite breathtaking generosity, half of these "cough when I tell you" merchants are going to vote Conservative! Tells us all we need to know about Doctors, doesn't it?
Indeed it does - contrary to expectations, perhaps, their votes were not for sale. (You weren't trying to suggest that some variation on the theme of gratitude should have entered into their electoral decision-making, were you?)
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#352
I think that your final paragraph identifies the problem exactly.
As for Brown, I have noted earlier but look at him at the Cenotaph, where others have also now seen how this appalling apology for our Prime Minister bows to no man. The Queen bowed, the leader of the opposition Cameron, bowed, as did Clegg, Brown, nothing, maybe a hint of a nod. He probably feels quite guilty, what with the blood of the dead in Iraq and Afghanistan on his hands. I mean he uses the word heroes, is this the same hero which Sarah finds him to be. He has lost the meaning of the words he now uses, and he can't seem to be able to get the names of the dead correct when he writes to their loved ones. Shame on him, shame on his whole disgraceful administration. Mind you hes on the world stage again, with Heads of State in Germany, commemmorating something which he has had absolutely nothing to do about. Bit like when he went to the Normandy beaches, bring on the general election, this is shameful.
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@349 Saga
Yes our wonderful GP's, who will always see you for a flu jab, BP test or anything else they get targeted on but make an appontment for a real illness when you need it forget it!
Still you can't blame them if someone offers you extra money for doing what you should already be doing - who can blame them for taking the money.
As well managed as MP's expenses and as lucrative.
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Andrew,
according to a local westcountry newspaper the police are using private security firms at crime scenes in devon and Cornwall. I mean we use private firms in Afghanistan, we use private military equipment, why not have private security firms at crime scenes. Another job maybe for the retired soldiers, officers, and generals.
Does military law apply to mercenaries operating in Afghanistan, how many of them have died in the service of money. Why no allied actual soldiers in Kabul, inkspots, that all we are now, inkspots on a map. What colour, yellow?
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344 Oudeis
...drives you up the wall doesn't it!
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#353
These new regulations! Will it result in soldiers signing up not to defend their Queen and country, but to take orders from officers of a nation other than our own, on the basis that our soldiers will be ordered to do 'stuff' which other countries military are not allowed to do. Namely extra-ordinary rendition, enhanced interrogation techniques, and killing innocent people, namely I have not forgotten the inquiry into the death of Mr Mousa.
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Actually I do not believe either the Labour party or the Conservatives are appealing to their core voters and therein lies the problem.
The traditional Conservative voter expects low taxes, which the Conservatives are not going to deliver in their decision to keep the 50p tax, even though they know it will not raise any money. Nor do they have a plan to encourage business in the private sector. There is also a big gap in the thoughts of the Conservatives on education and other policies with the traditional Conservative voter. Most therefore will vote Conservative to keep Labour out rather than a faith in Conservative policies.
The usual Labour voter has had 12 years of expectation that Labour would improve social mobility, child poverty, good education in the state system, improvement in our inner cities etc and nothing has been delivered. The trust has been eroded between Labour and its core voter especially amongst low paid workers who have been ignored by this Government. The ones who have benefited have been those on benefits and immigrants both of which category usually choose not to vote or will vote Labour out of habit. Now Labour are falling between two stools in the sense of they are partly trying to swing back to left wing policies, but are hampered by their love of big business and wealth.
Both are further making themselves more unpopular by not listening to the voter, the expenses scandal, not getting to grips with the immigration problem and their agreement on the war, being an example.
Therefore the average voter is looking for something totally new, which represents their view.
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#358 meninwhitecoats
Indeed, I may be soon in need of your services.
Who put the 'imp' in improvement?
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jr @ 354
okay so you don't "do" Immigration on the blogs; very wise if my experience is anything to go by - let's leave it
switching instead to something you very much DO do; David Cameron and his trials and tribulations over his within the rules mortgage claims - I've been musing about an interesting dilemma he may have ... a quandry, really ... now that such claims are to be AGAINST the rules
if he has the money available, he could both pay back the amount claimed AND maybe pay off the mortgage too (now it's no good to him) couldn't he? - both of which would score some voter goodwill, I'd have thought
he must be tempted
BUT there's a problem, isn't there?
what if the more discerning voters get to thinking the thing through and, after the initial goodwill has worn off, they start to ask themselves a question ... "If he can afford to pay the loan off so easily, did he REALLY need it in the first place? ... and then (as I say, for the more intelligent voter) the obvious follow up question ...
"So was the mortgage ACTUALLY taken out principally to generate the maximum expense claim?"
just musing, however, no more than that
let's see what happens
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360 Susan
Good morning Susan
I was almost on the point of agreeing with you until you fell back on the immigration argument.
Ignoring that element of your post, you do raise some valid points neither party has faith in their policies to sell them to the electorate and we are stuck with a choice of NuLab masquerading as Tories or Tories trying to be more compassionate than NuLab.
Neither wear their new clothes well.
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coats @ 356
just gatekeepers to the System really, aren't they? - a necessary and worthwhile job, of course, and I'd say they used to be a bit underpaid - the opposite now, if anything
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sc @ 360
I know what you're looking for, Susan, but it's not "new"
been around for a long long time, in fact ... stole many a nation's soul away
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meninwhitecoats 363
I never fell back on any argument, the fact is the problem of immigration exists amongst voters, if no main stream party acknowledges it, it will remain a problem. Therefore you open the door to extremists. Its a fact we have to face, no matter how you or I feel.
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358 Coats
344, 361 Oudeis
Not only do I often get 404 when I refresh I am then thrown out and asked to sign in again by password , which I do, only to get another sign on site offering a change of password facility which I did not ask for and do not want. On one occasion I had to perform some other trick, forgoten what, to prove it was me "as I was accessing sensitive information".
Also when I do get back in, sometimes the blog and posts all come up in miniature!!!!
What have they done?
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So, in the case of Neather, where there appears to be a physical paper trail that is slowly coming undone day by day, any discussion is verboten and most of you run a mile from it.
We're facing retreat in Northern Helmand where dozens of service personnel have lost their lives,
The PM writes in felt tip pen in a style that would embarrass a six year old, to a mother who has lost her teenage son in a war he cannot possibly justify and cant even spell her surname correctly, let alone follow the right protocol,
He fails to bow at the Cenotaph to the war dead, some of which his actions as chancellor helped put there,
He gets kicked in the spuds over his proposal for a Tobin tax, with a comment from another finance minister of "Gordon just wants to tax everything"
His party tried to use the local party property estate as collateral to raise money to fight the election and get blown out
......And all you can witter on about is THAT sodding mortgage??
Saga, there are times I yearn for it to be possible to send you a large bucket of ice cold water over the internet, Tiswas style.
Quite often in fact. Sometimes on a daily, nay, hourly basis.
Do you not think there are more important things going on???
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362 sagamix
A bit desperate of you, this one. I recall, by the way, that you said you had overdone this subject and that you weren't going to raise it again.
First of all, Cameron's "trials and tribulations" with his mortgage extend no further than your postings on the subject, so I doubt he is losing sleep on the matter. Correspondingly, since your story never gained any traction (for very obvious reasons - i.e. that your accusations were at some unknown position between unsubstantiated and untrue), there is no voter goodwill to try to garner back, whatever he does, simply because there was no voter ill-will generated by his mortgage in the first place.
My understanding is that for sitting MPs, the proposition is that mortgage expenses are to become unclaimable at the end of the next parliament, so in any case, there's almost certainly quite a while to wait before the time comes when your interpretation potentially comes into play.
I think a lot of people might consider the concept of paying off a mortgage as soon as you can as being naive anyway - you can quite easily get a better return on the funds by investing than it costs to retain the mortgage. From a different angle, I also think many people would not be so naive as to think that what you can afford now determines a conclusion as to what you could afford five or more years ago - especially if there has been one or more significant changes of family circumstances in the meantime.
Finally, I think that the "more intelligent voter", as you put it, has rather more pressing issues to consider than what is, after all, basically a made up story emanating from an individual who, very much, has an overtly political axe to grind.
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369 jrperry
362 Saga
Just a couple of comments on the perennial war of Camerons Mortgage.
Saga does overegg the matter a bit. However I have reservations about a "White Knight", this is how Cameron portrays himself, who has taken maximum advantage of the system to get us to pay the interest in buying a nice house in the country for him. It is in all probability legit by these appalling "rules" in force at the time. But he still featherd his nest quite nicely thank you.No worse than many others, in fact better than most, but still greedy.
Are there any proposed rules about the new idea of renting only? I ask coz if there aint I can see houses owned/being bought by hastily arranged trusts or other family members, being rented like a buy to rent arrangement so we still buy the damn house for them, sorry pay the interest, no actually could charge a rent to cover the capital as well.
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So Professor Sir Ian Kennedy is going to play Lance-Corporal Jack Jones to Gordon's portrayal of Captain Mainwaring in a Facebook rendition of 'Dad's Army Does MP Expenses'.
Talk about going off at a tangent ? Perhaps I can enrol him in 'Mafia Wars', or maybe 'Farmville's' more to his taste. I can offer him a turnip he can't refuse.
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...Iv'e had nothing but kindness here hitherto
a few mild chastisements for all that I do
four hundred 'oopsies' and a little bit more
god help me if my errors reach four hundred and four
all IT blokes are baldies
such errors the cause
hair pulled out in handfulls
Damn Murphy and all of his laws.
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...Perhaps a little off topic, but...
Thought for today...
If all were to contact their Council Offices to insist on their name being on the electtoral roll maybe all would see a little bit more of their prospective candidates. Show that you matter no matter what.
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xtun @ 370
"Saga does overegg the matter a bit"
no, I'd more say the Rest of the World undereggs it; you just know (don't you?) when you've got hold of a BIG THING (ooo!) which is very important even though the "Clowns That Be" reckon it's a mere Bagatelle ... that's the sense I'm getting here
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Reading some analysis of the effects of QE, it's clear that one undesired effect has been to pump the market up in such a way as to make it a profit fest for investment banks. I presume that it wasn't the government's desired intention to single out investment banks for what we should term a 'bankage' scheme, but that's what they've done.
Gordon must still be the banks' 'pin up boy' as every action he takes leaves them awash with taxpayer money. As soon as QE stops, he'll soon discover how loyal they are, and I imagine they'll up skirts and move once they see there's no money left in the kitty.
They have managed to use 'bankage' to boost trading profits, which is outrageous. It's hard to knwo whether Gordon is congenitally stupid or just desperate for friends in the banking world.
The worst is yet to come, and with payments due under guaranteed PFI schemes there'll be precious little room left for manoeuvre. Losing childcare allowances will be the least of what will descend on us. Gordon will be choking on his 'Tory cuts' remarks and looking for a place to hide, as he tries to avoid raising income tax.
How Gordon wishes he could do QE for another six months.
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374#
Saga mate, you've only got hold of one big thing (in your mind anyway) and the perceived wisdom is that if you play with it too much, it makes you go blind.
So give it a rest, eh?
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@ 376 ... sure ... anyway, see you're doing the old "Bluster Till I Drop!" about this letter thing now, aren't you?
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376. At 3:48pm on 09 Nov 2009, Fubar_Saunders wrote:
374#
Saga mate, you've only got hold of one big thing (in your mind anyway) and the perceived wisdom is that if you play with it too much, it makes you go blind.
So give it a rest, eh?
===================================================
I agree. Sagamix do give it a rest. You also need to consider that the London house was extensively altered to accomodate Cameron's late son Ivan. There are hints of this in newspaper articles and the Cameron's do not wish spin this in any which way. I doubt that the house will be worth market value as the fittings and fixtures to accomodate a disabled person will detract from the house value.
If Ivan had survived the Cameron's would probably have stayed put, using Downing Street only as a day time office. From an equality point of view, and as a devotee of the equality elitist toff HH, I am sure you will agree that expenses should not disenfranchise an MP who has a family member that suffers from a disability and has aspirations to be government.
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377#
I have a profound respect for the war dead mate, they've had more courage than you and I would ever ever know. I will not excuse Murdoch for his tactics, but then again, when you play your politics through the media by news cycle, thats what you get when it turns on you...
I've said on NR's, he's written to every service family bereaved on his watch. Got to be 100-150. Not a squeak until now. So, how come this went so badly wrong? How come he was so badly advised? How come nobody checked it before it went out the door and said "er, PM, do you really think this is right?"
The road to hell is paved with good intentions mate, and although I dare say he meant well, this is not what we expect of a British PM. He's not upto the job and he never has been. Sorry.
And I will absolutely not have the family of the dead man slagged off by a bunch of trolls like Naylor. No way on this earth, I dont care how many times I get referred.
But I absolutely will not have the family of the serviceman slagged off.
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fs @ 379
against who are you judging him as regards letters to the next of kin of fallen soldiers?
churchill?
thatcher?
hank cinque?
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