42-days is dead
If it were not for the small matter of a global financial crisis or the vital debate over what Peter Mandelson did or did not say over the hummus to George Osborne, all eyes would now be on the next stage of the debate about extending detention without trial. It is clear this morning that 42-days is politically dead.
Ministers have told Gordon Brown that when the proposal comes to the Lords - probably next Monday - it faces defeat by a three figure margin.They have also warned him that to use the Parliament Act to drive the bill through would be politically suicidal.
For now, the official line is that the prime minister still believes in 42-days and that ministers will try to persuade the Lords to back him.That line will last only until the Lords kick the idea out. It is possible that some form of extended detention without trial may be revised and revived for Labour's next election manifesto.
A clear sign that the game's up came in the reshuffle when two of the ministers most closely involved were moved -Tony McNulty's left the home office to go to DWP and Baroness Ashton is leaving the Lords front bench to replace Peter Mandelson in Brussels.
Even if the PM had not made up his mind, an article by Andy Hayman, Scotland Yard's former Head of Anti-Terrorism, in today's Times would have made it up for him. Hayman writes that :
"It would have been my job to make these proposals work but just trying to understand them gives me a headache... Let's get real. This will just not work... The bill is about politics and it won't work."
He adds intriguingly that :
"I was astonished when, in July last year, the government floated the idea of revisiting the detention limit. I remain curious as to what prompted this rethink."
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42 days is dead! Rejoice!
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Hopefully Nu-Labour will be dead soon, too.
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Very good news.
Plus another nail in Browns coffin.
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Looking forward to hearing the Zen Buddhism version of this story...
Some folks get all angry and upset but this was in the Brown plan all along... relax and dither and the world will dither with you.
At last someone has the common sense to agree with the tories and David Davies and argue that this bill will be clubbed to death and should never return.
What next?
Where does this leave Jacqui Smith who spent an evening haranguing her party on behalf of the dithering leader? looking like a loyal but complete and utter fool...just like she does about her protestations over Sir Ian Blair.
Next stop the IMF; who will come knocking as soon as they see the monstrous rise on government spending and the collapse in tax receipts.
Put an end to all our msiery; we don't like you.
Call an election.
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Was it not rather predictable, before the financial crisis, that the 42 day bill would go through with a smallish majority then stall in the Lords'?
Which does not mean that the govt could not try to force it. GB has rather amazingly not been hanged for the lamb; would he be hanged for the sheep?
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I was persuaded that under extreme circumstances 42 days detention was necessary and proportionate. The problems started when the usual ideolgues and vested interests started getting a slice of the action. Their efforts just twisted the bill into an unusuable shape so, of course, it became unworkable.
The steel jawed heroes of business and their Tory pals have dug their heels in over corporate governance and fair wages in a similar way, and the consequences of that are seen in the global financial crisis. As surely as bad CEO's turned a blind eye to shady balance sheets, similar forces of procrastination are operating here.
It's no coincidence that risk aversity and lay-offs are part of British culture. Folks say they want "fit for purpose" and a "better world" but when the solutions are put on the table the panic begins to tighten their chest and grip their throat, and they run crying back to mummy for the "safety" of the old and familiar. Of course, when the inevitable happens they cry: "How could it happen?", and "Never again!", and so on, and so forth.
A little more Zen in your ego, dear?
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42 days was only ever about 'macho politics'. It was Gordon trying to look big and authoritive.
Speaking as one lone individual - the whole issue drove me to examine what the Conservatives were saying and I signed up as a member of their party.
I hadn't voted in a general election since 1997, however, the Conservatives stance and David Davis links with Liberty made me think that the Conservatives really have changed as a party.
At a personal level 42 days was the final nail in the Labour coffin. It mobilised me to do all I can to actively ensure we get rid of Labour at the next election.
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I think everyone will be glad about this in one way or another.
Lets just hope that David Davis doesn't think it is some kind of existential justification for his absurd vanity trip earlier this year.
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Great News for freedom... however...
Nick
Could you estimate what this legislation has cost the tax payer?
All the time/expenses etc?
What does parliament cost to run a day, and how many days were spent on this etc...
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Hows that for you- the unelected part of the UK, is helping to stop the prevent tyranny
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Doesn't surprise me, this ones been nailed and shelved.
No more nails, that has a nice ring to it carrots.
Nick, becoming more frustrated by the day!
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Now GB should drop ID cards. That will save lots of money and shoot one of the Tory foxes.
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Cue Laborties slating David Davis for wasting money by resigning over the issue.
42 days has always been a Norwegian Blue, beautiful plumage, The only reason it stayed on the perch was because Gordon Brown Nailed it there.
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I wouldn't obsess about Zen, sweetie.
It's missing the point...
Typical Tory.
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This is why I totally support the House of Lords. They are a good safety net if any ridiculous policies make it through the lower chamber.
My Lords I have only one thing to say - thanks.
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As surely as bad CEO's turned a blind eye to shady balance sheets, similar forces of procrastination are operating here.
Bwahahahahahaha.
Bad CEO's turning a blind eye to shady balance sheets?
Step forward Gordon Brown. CEO of UK PLC.
This 42-day gig offers Gordon the perfect political 'out' for his destruction of the economy. He could go to the people on a 'point of principle' ie this 42-day thingy knowing he'll get obliterated as the electorate show their gratitude for destroying the UK economy and all their pensions and savings.
He can then live on in obscurity with the delusion that he is not responsible for the destruction of our entire economy. Deluded Labour apparatchik apologists can blame the Tories for bringing us into recession. Twenty years from now they'll be going on about how unemployment was really bad under the Tories in 2010. etc etc.. A bit like they go on about how bad it was in 1979. A week after Thatcher took over. Myopically omitting how bad it was the week before she took over.
After all, thanks to another bit of figure-rigging we're not in technical recession yet.
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All the surreptitious deals behind the scenes and subsequent denials were for nothing then by the looks. If as expected this is thrown out by the Lords, where does that leave Gordon Brown ? Even more beleaguered, if that's possible.
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Once again it's the supposedly undemocratic and elitist House of Lords which people have to thank. The Lords has many faults but it has one huge thing in it's favour. People appointed for life cannot be whipped or browbeaten into backing a government with threats of deselection or being pushed out by boundary changes. It's worth remembering that Thatcher used to get beaten by the Lords time and time again, but she never thought about turning it into a lackey's chamber, only Balir tried that!
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Cue Laborties slating David Davis for wasting money by resigning over the issue.
Cue me lambasting those so-called defenders of civil rights, the 300-plus Labour MP's, who failed to take their cue and show solidarity in a non-partisan manner by having even a single Labour MP resign in sympathy.
They should be ashamed of themselves.
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Andy Hayman is quoted "I was astonished when, in July last year, the government floated the idea of revisiting the detention limit. I remain curious as to what prompted this rethink."
Easy - Brown saw political advantage. A chance to wrong foot Cameron and Co. by pushing this through. And at what a cost to the integrity of parliament and certain Northern Ireland politicians? I thought Davis was a wally to resign but he did have good cause to be upset at the shenanigans.
Same mindset that brings Mandy back into the Cabinet. Not a good move for the Country (friction within Cabinet - to much baggage); a smart move for Brown because it wrongfoots the Bliarites.
Same mindset that saw the 10p tax debacle.
It seems to me that most of what Brown does is self and not Country serving.
If his Granny's still alive she needs to go into hiding - she'll be on eBay within the week!
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I celebrate along with everyone else, but . .
Andy Hayman writes in The Times, "I am convinced that we will soon need the power to hold suspects for more than the current limit of 28 days".
I dare say they do but there in nothing stopping the authorities from bringing suspects before magistrates in camera to obtain a warrant. It is the without charge that so offends against the first principles of justice.
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Charlie the somnificator, persuaded, surely not!
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Now GB should drop ID cards.
He can't. He'd have to admit that he'd made a mistake. The man is incapable of admitting he's made a mistake. Even with his 10p tax debacle he wasn't sorry for sticking the poor with higher tax. He was sorry they were upset about it.
It's the sort of apology where I (say) smash your window with a house-brick and when apprehended express regret not for the damage to your property but tell you that I'm only sorry you misunderstood my motives. Huh?
Gordon Brown doesn't do apologies. Gordon Brown doesn't admit to mistakes.
That will save lots of money and shoot one of the Tory foxes.
Naaaah. Not a chance.
Gordon Brown admit he's wrong? Don't be silly.
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Excellent!
ID cards are next on the hit-list.
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#14 Charles_E_Hardwidge
Do you think it might be courteous to include the posters name and position when responding directly to a contribution?
How does you increasingly spiteful manner of late square with your teachings?
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Haymans comments sound so similar to the remarks of Inland Revenue tax inspectors who admitted that they did not understand the new IR35 rules brought in by the brooding "genius" Brown. He was busy setting up the economy for its fall as the then Chancellor.
Also when you consider that 10p and raising the GM debate again recently were patently suicidal should this surprise us?
Clearly Brown has almost total contempt for those that disagree with him and will keep pushing forward duff ideas assuming that the little people will recognise his great "genius".
In fairness a surprisingly large number of people were for 42 days. But its like the death penalty - they are in the majority until the detail and implications are made apparent.
I can only assume that the current realignments of factions in Labour is to do with money as they are probably bust and need donors. In any event they are doomed. Utterly.
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#14 Charles_E_Hardwidge
I wouldn't obsess about Zen, sweetie.
That's a new keyboard you owe me!
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Apparently he still plans to push ahead for them, despite it being 'political suicide'
I'd love to know what goes on inside that head of his, first he brings back Mandy - who not only hates him, but is incapable of honesty and will likely get sacked inside a year - and now he plans to push ahead on this?
His going to be squeezed between a simmering rebellion, Mandy's plotting, grassroots resentment and embarrassment over 42 days and Glenrothes.
If he thought the weeks running up to the conference were bad... I still maintain he'll be gone by Easter.
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If you are going to flog a dead horse you may as well flog it to the point of utter exhaustion!
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re: 10 ker-chop
"Hows that for you- the unelected part of the UK, is helping to stop the prevent tyranny"
True; it's also one of the good points about the eu which is rarely mentioned.
Sometimes having an unelected chamber/organisation which can supercede the democratically elected chamber/laws is actually a good thing.
This is precisely the kind of reason that organisations like the un and eu were created after world war 2; to stop individual countries from passing laws which would have steered them towards a nazi-style state.
Even if it was forced through by the Parliament Act, it wouldn't become accepted law, because first of all the eu would overrule it, and secondly if a case came to the Lords they would treat the passed law in the same way that a lawyer would treat an invalid/illegal contract.
For example, if someone signs a contract, but the contract itself is illegal (eg by being unduly unfair), then the contract is deemed to be void; the fact that both sides had signed it is irrelevant as the contract itself is illegal; the same would happen if they passed this law; the law itself would be deemed illegal and void by both the eu and the Lords when it comes to judging individual cases, because other more basic laws (human rights) make the passed law itself illegal; an illegal law is not valid no matter how many parliamentarians voted for it.
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We have to have some extended period of detention. I'll go along with 28 days but 42 is over the top.
As others have said...next stop ID cards to go too.
And, by the way, I speak as an ex London copper.
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The City "faith" in turbo-capitalism and the Tory "faith" in Thatcherism are equally bankrupt. The financiers and their Tory pals brought us to the point of meltdown and are trying to capitalise on that. This approach isn't reason, science, or reality. It's just another delusion.
It's no wonder that the unthinking Tories were so quick to whip up a crowd. Their ethos is to burn the witch but, as we know today, many witches were educated people who helped play a vital role in society by healing people from illness. It's sad they're so closed off they can't see that.
I have no idea if the bill will be dropped or not but the same problems of ignorance and hysteria remains in the system, and that's the real problem. The calm, realistic, and mature approach of Brown, Darling, and Mandelson can help change that.
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Im not so sure Nick... Downing St is still suggesting that this will be happening.
And I for one would be very very happy to see Gordon committ political suicide... so can no-one talk him out of it please!!
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42 days detention without trial is dead.
Gordon was wrong, again he refused to listen
Bringing Peter Mandelson into our government was not a good move, it just proves how out of touch he is with the general public.
A new Elected government is needed, the public must have trust in the people who govern them.
The EU is a mess, no unity, very expensive, not popular, not wanted by any but politicians.
Labour has divided this country and it must be put right but Labour can not solve the problems we have got.
Labour created them.
We work to live, we need freedom to enjoy.
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Charles
Hows that "I told you so" feeling in your throat doing?
Student Knee Jerk Politics I as typed earlier.
Why 42 days pushed forward
Are Islamic Terrorists more nasty than Catholic ones?
The government runs on fear and bullying.
Blunketts Tanks at Heathrow after Sept 11.
A true nonsense.
Or the Bully McNaughty, bullying people with the Labour line We're right and you're wrong and if you don't believe us we'll Smeer you.
I wonder how many phones have been thrown by Calm Gordon this morning?
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Hey.... Where have all the drones gone.
Probably all in an equality and diversity meeting.
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I suggested Carles E Hardwidge be a member of the panel on Questiontime.
For some reason the Mods banned my comment; why would that be?
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Does CEH really believe the drivel he brings forth?
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The financiers and their Tory pals brought us to the point of meltdown and are trying to capitalise on that.
And there was me thinking that '63 quarters of unbroken economic growth' were entirely due to Gordon Brown's magnificent stewardship of the economy. Because that's what Gordon Brown kept telling us. Now the wheels have come off it turns out the whole thing was actually an 'age of irresponsibility' and all the Americans/yanks/banks/other people's fault.
Like I said. Delusional Labour apparatchiks. But none more delusional than the unshiftable nominal head of the UK government.
I have no doubt too that he'll invoke the Parliament Act. It's been invoked for a lot less (fox-hunting). There may be political capital to be made amongst those who were able to forgive even the Iraq war as long as nobody was enjoying their afternoon chasing foxes on horseback with dogs. Look, we're the party that saved all the ickle foxes.
Forget the economy. Forget the Iraq war. Forget 42-day detention without charge. We saved the foxes in the teeth of these unelected Lords. Let's stick it to these 'privileged' Lords again and show them who's boss eh?
We are doomed. Have been since about 2001. This was never going to end well.
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I don't go with the idea still being bandied around by some that that McCavity Brown is a decent man promoted (self-promoted) one step too far. Ditto that he's trying to do what's right in difficult times.
He more than any other single individual in the UK is responsible for helping create those hard times, not least by evangelically promoting minimal regulation of the city generally and the banking centre in particular. "not just a light touch but a limited touch" - CBI speech 2005.
And everything he does seems to be calculated to shore up his personal position, before any consideration of the national intest.
42 days is one of the most egregious examples of this: of zero practical policing benefit; never likely to pass into law; hugely divisive; but permitting GB and Labour to say to the Mail and Express that they're tough on terrorism.
I am now more optimistic that ID cards will follow 42 days into the dustbin of history and the taxpayer will be saved billions - which will also be of significant help to the economy.
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#2 power_to_the_ppl wrote:
"Hopefully Nu-Labour will be dead soon, too"
They are dead, but won't lie down.
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There is one thing I dont fully understand.
IF Gordon can make Mandy a peer because he put him in his cabinet. What stops him creating 150 other peers and staffing all his ministrys with unelected peers.
It would guarantee that when they are in oposition they will be able to block all bills that they dont like.
I presume that there must be a rule around this that stops him doing it. Does anyone know if there is? What is it, a limit to one per parliamentary session?
It was bad enough that they sold peerages for party funding, but this is worse Mandy without having to offer a thing, his support isnt even guaranteed.
I suppose Mandy could be there as the 42 days enforcer as well. how many other peers would he have to drag through the Aye lobby to carry the vote for Gordon
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#40
I am now more optimistic that ID cards will follow 42 days into the dustbin of history
I don't share your optimism. It has been apparent for some time that the Maximum Leader has lost the plot but still they can't find 70 Labour MPs to initiate a leadership contest. Why?
Well, either they think a: Crash Gordon is doing a sterling job or b: they're afraid to lose even 18 months more pay, expenses and pension contributions. Not one of them could find it in their hearts to quit in sympathy with David Davies.
The entire Labour party is now shackled to this disaster. They'll take their hiding in the Lords and then invoke the Parliament Act. They'll go ahead with ID cards. They have to. The die is cast. They might as well get their 18 months extra dosh. Assuming the pound will actually be anything other than kindling in 18 months time. By no means certain at this rate.
They're all going down together. And they're going to take us with them.
It's a catastrophe.
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Some folks may remember the odd cases of violent serial rapists where the police DNA tested an entire area or a certain description of person to identify or exclude suspects. The usual die-hards and vested interests would naturally protest but one can't doubt the effectiveness of a measure like this when necessary.
The 42 days detention bill is similar in nature, and is intended to deal with what geeks would call an "edge case". You don't wear a seatbelt because you plan on crashing your car, nor fit an alarm because you plan on getting your house burgled. This bill is no different. It's just a specialist tool for a specialist requirement. It's an insurance policy against a small but very real and nasty possibility.
When seen in these terms, I'm puzzled how the opposition and vested interests can justify going into a frothing rage like some rabid pitbull on a chain. I think, their judgementalism and unsociable attitudes are just getting in the way. If they calmed down a bit they might start contributing, and it's possible a better variant of this bill could pass without a hitch. I doubt they will as ego loves to paint itself into a corner but miracles can happen, so some say.
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No doubt the deals done with the Irish, Kieth Vaz et al will now be not tendered either.
Still on the bright side, watch Clegg go for it with the verve and swagger of a Tasmanian Devil, slating the Governments handling of this, bet he doesn't sit on the fence thats for sure.
The only ones to come out of this with any creditablity is the Conservatives, said it was madness and voted accordingly.
Call the election Gordon, do something the country wants for a change, oh I forgot, this is a time for experience.
Guess what, we've had the experience, its not nice, its not clever and its certianly not what we want to put up with for the next 18 months or so....
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37. skynine
Because its offensive, objectionable and would be likely to provoke attack.
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Nick,
There is no point rejoicing in the defeat of the 42 days bill, since the mindset that delivered this policy to us has not changed. Neither Brown nor smith seem to appreciate the rule of law.
I am also intrigued by the notion that Brown in considering bringing back Blunkett. If this is true, may we also a role in Government for Lord Tony?
Incidentally, #32 CEH
I thought it was only a matter of time until we saw the three words, Brown, Mandelson and Darling in the same sentence. I am just surprised it was Charles that wrote it, and that the mods allowed it!
All the best
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They are dead, but won't lie down.
The first thing Cameron should do on election is bang every single Labour MP that voted for this (the ones still with a job and the ones with fresh P45's) up for 42 days without trial, compensation or charge.
Pour encourager les autres.
If we do need to charge them we could charge them with attempted abuse of the human rights act or somesuch.
See how they like it. More to the point, drive home good and early what a dangerous political weapon they've handed to some future government. Just like the ID card legislation. Have they no concept how this could be abused by a future government? Do they not think through the weapons they hand on to potentially less enlightened successor regimes?
Although in the context of this catastrophe of a government it is likely that future governments will be more enlightened for a decade or so. That doesn't mean they'll repeal these awful laws/ID cards though. The government's philosophy will always remain 'better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it'. So this garbage will remain on the books until the day some successor to the present Dark Lord's government is elected.
And then it will be too late.
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6
Why do you always post such fanciful nonsense. Brown has had his fingers in the Treasury for 10 yrs and by all accounts still has. To blame anyone else for this debacle is delusional. It was Brown who created the useless FSA and took away that responsibility from the Bank of England, no one else. The buck stops with Gordon Brown.
As for 42 days , Brown picked it up so he could appear tough, now as per usual its all turned sour.
Brown was the worst chancellor in living memory and likewise is the worst PM.
The only saving grace is that no bank in their right mind would have him on the board after he has been booted out.
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#42 - Pot_Kettle
"I presume that there must be a rule around this that stops him doing it. Does anyone know if there is? "
I don't think there is Pot. Remember all those 'working peers' Blair created in the early years. In fact, when the economic situation reaches the point where the unemployment figures are unacceptable, I think everyone who has been out of work for more than two weeks should become a working peer and then not count. Our jobless figures will be the envy of the developed world.
I offered to return to blighty if they gave me a peerage and they wrote back offering me a dukedom to stay away.
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That's good it's been dropped ... 28 days sounds a fairly long time already to be held without charge. Sounds too long actually. A decrease rather than an increase is what we should be discussing. As for ID cards, I'd be very surprised if they see the light of day.
On the 42 days thing, this was an example of Labour pandering to what they think "Middle England" want to hear, rather than getting on with fostering a more equal and civilised society. A somewhat bigger example of this was their refusal to hike direct taxation for higher earners ... that's why we have so many of the so called "stealth taxes".
No, I don't like it when Labour try to please Middle England. Eventually gets them into trouble, doesn't it?
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#18 garethm2
"Once again it's the supposedly undemocratic and elitist House of Lords which people have to thank."
Agreed, as debated on the last thread, but it hardly reflects any credit on our so-called democracy.
What's actually needed is separation of the legislative and executive powers in such a way as to end the "elective dictatorship" of the PM. Without a written constitution adopted after a referendum, any "safeguard" we have is purely illusory since the PM could create enough NuLab peers to push 42 days through tomorrow if he wished to.
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Do we think GB cares if using the Parliament Act would be politically suicidal? Here is a man who recently appointed Peter Mandelson to a cabinet position. Political suicide seems to be what he does: perhaps he's just trying to figure out a way to hang himself and shoot himself at the same time, just to make sure (metaphorically speaking, of course).
Seriously though, why can't he use the Parliament Act? My understanding is it's not usually used to force through something that's not a manifesto commitment, but that's just a convention, isn't it? There's nothing to actually stop him doing it if he wanted to.
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May I suggest that mandy should be elevated with the title 'Lord Voldamort of Despair' - ?
However regarding regulation -- it is not quantity that matters it is quality.
There is already too much regulation - the problem is that the FSA are regulating the wrong things in the wrong way.
One of this quangos 'business plans' was based its future financing (including pension payments) being generated by fines!
Suggesting that 1) they don't expect to stop bad behaviour and 2) stopping bad behaviour would be 'bad' for their business...
Let the banks fail -- its the only way to get rid of bad banks -- it is how capitalism works.
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"The 42 days detention bill is similar in nature, and is intended to deal with what geeks would call an "edge case". You don't wear a seatbelt because you plan on crashing your car, nor fit an alarm because you plan on getting your house burgled. This bill is no different. It's just a specialist tool for a specialist requirement. It's an insurance policy against a small but very real and nasty possibility."
A valid point - but doesn't the existing law already allow for the limit to be broken in exceptional conditions?
This is just a way of getting round nasty things like legal safeguards.
The easier the law becomes to detain someone without trial the more that law will be called into force. We may be trying to prevent ourselves from terrorists only to open the door to tyrants.
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The usual die-hards and vested interests would naturally protest but one can't doubt the effectiveness of a measure like this when necessary.
Ahhhh. The old 'If you ain't guilty you've got nothing to fear' approach.
I object to blanket DNA testing to 'catch' rapists. Doesn't make me a rapist.
Are you in favour of torture or mind-bending drugs if there's just one example that it worked and saved an innocent life?
Where do you draw the line? How much do I 'belong' to the state?
Most child abuse/rape is carried out by family members. Perhaps we should have every room in every house fitted with CCTV cameras to make sure we're not abusing our children. Only the guilty could possibly object.
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"IF Gordon can make Mandy a peer because he put him in his cabinet. What stops him creating 150 other peers and staffing all his ministrys with unelected peers."
I am not sure if there is anything in place to prevent this. Only the fact that when another government takes over they will just create a load more peers to regain control of the house and it would soon esculate out of control.
I remember reading that Labour have created more peers then the entire Conservative government before them - but I can't remember where I read that, or even if it is true.
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One of the arguments I heard for the 42 days detention was that was how long it would take to decrypt any data that was encrypted on a suspects PC.
As any second rate geek will happily tell you, its a complete piece of cake to encrypt data in such a way that the combined forces of the NSA, MI5/6, GCHQ, Mossad and the KGB couldn't decrypt it in a reasonable time scale. It's possible they never could, if they were really devious.
The assumption that with time you can decrypt data is worrying for another of the Government's bright ideas - ID cards. If encrypted data can be decrypted (by any means and with time) then it's just a paperwork exercise. Nothing is gain except the justification of the scheme itself, that it must continue because we have created it...
Both these examples will work perfectly if we assume that "Bad People" are stupid, but in actual fact they are not, so neither will work.
Additionally it rather vainly assumes we are brighter than the "Bad People", which I am afraid we probably are not.
For what ever Political reasons you wish to put forward for binning both of these ideas (and there are many!), there are glaring elephant-in-the-room sized technical issues that mean they should never have even got this far.
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What a strange world it is we now live in where our elected house is trying to take away our basic rights and the only people trying to stop them are the unelected, often hereditary, peers.
Strange times indeed.
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#42 Pot_Kettle
"What stops him creating 150 other peers and staffing all his ministrys with unelected peers."
Nothing, zilch, nada.
It's that constitution that's not worth the paper it's not written on, again.
OTOH, it would make him an even more universal figure to hate fun than he is already, but Mugabe coped with that OK for a long while.
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It's progress, another unworkable or liberty threatening policy proposal ditched. Still a few to go.
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whenever you look at this board, somebody has written "call an election" at the end of their post. can we please stop using this irritating refrain? i think from people's posts it can usaully be interpreted that they individually would like a new government anyway. not only is it boring and unoriginal, it is ridiculous: why should a government resign simply for being behind in the opinion polls?
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U @ 43
... "It's a catastrophe." ...
Yes it is. And Gordon Brown has been shown to be a rather empty politician who is now flapping around for little more than personal survival.
BUT it's crystal clear that the catastrophe (if it's the economy you're talking about) has primarily been caused by excesses of capitalism, in particular the buffoons who've been running the US Federal Reserve and many of the banks. I thought we'd agreed that, no?
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#24 xraspecs
Excellent indeed, and with you on ID Cards too.
Enough of this scaremongering!
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The 'detention without trial' period should be consistent across all of the EU.
If a basic human right such as this cannot be agreed by the EU, then you wonder what the value of being a European citizen is.
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#44 Charles_E_Hardwidge
The 42 days detention bill is intended to deal with what geeks would call an "edge case".
It's just a specialist tool for a specialist requirement. It's an insurance policy against a small but very real and nasty possibility.
I'm puzzled how the opposition and vested interests can justify going into a frothing rage like some rabid pitbull on a chain.
I can give you a couple of reasons why wise counsels should be against this law.
1. This government appear to be unable to draft a proper piece of legislation.
When they have finished with it, the bill will be so loosely defined that it will be able to be used in all sorts of unanticipated ways.
Well meaning platitudes such as "It's not intended to be used in such cases" count for nothing. It will end up being used for purposes outside the stated aims.
2. All of the "terror legislation" pushed through by this government has done nothing to prevent a terrorist attack. Indeed it has not been about preventing terrorist attacks, rather it is about instilling a heightened fear of terrorism and terrorists in the population at large so that this government can curtail individual liberties even further.
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Please see below ... if you are more A than B, then I respectfully submit that you are a misguided fool.
Statement A
I am extremely angry with Gordon Brown for over expanding the public sector in the UK at a time when it would have been more prudent to have done the opposite.
Statement B
I am extremely angry with the capitalist bankers who have so greedily, foolishly and fraudulently chased higher and higher yields over the last few years, the consequences of which are now driving the whole of the developed world into a long and painful recession.
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The idea of Peter Mandelson and George Osborne bitching about Gordon Brown in idyllic holiday surrounding is enough to turn anyone's hummus sour in the mouth.
I seem to remember the extension of detention without trial was originally a Blair initiative, which Brown had returned to after cutting the proposed length of detention by more than half.
Whatever the outcome of the vote of the Lords, it makes David Davis's resignation over this single issue look particularly foolhardy and futile.
Any changes proposed by Parliament to the processes of law and justice will always be debated fully by both houses before they can go on the statute books or can be moderated enough to be generally acceptable.
Our parliamentary system may have taken more than 600 years of continuous development and reform, but as it functions today, it offers a perfect platform for further reforms and is the highest court of appeal for perceived injustice.
As such it is debatable that an extension to the time terror suspects can be detained without trial is actually needed.
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Good
There was no evidence it was needed and much that it could make terrorism worse
I think Nu Labour loves populist authoritarian measures.
They love the idea of people demanding measures which will enable the government to more fully spy and monitor them.
Make no mistake its not terrorist that suffer or care about whatever authoritarian measures th government make
History shows that powers demanded by government are invariabley used and abused far more widely than originally claimed, witness the use councils have been making of anti terrorsm laws to spy on people suspected of not recycling --enviro criminals as they are now called
This 42 day law will also be abused, it will next extend to ordinary criminals, then whoever tyhe police dont like then people who might do something etc and finally to anyone accused of anything
Nu Labour have single mindely pursued a police state since the day they came to power. Their nightmatre goal is to be able to spy on absolutely everyone all the time for any reason they see fit, to lock anyone up for any period of time at behest of anyone in power.
If ever there was proof of the worthlessness of the commons it is the way they have allowed it to happen, and ironically the value of the lords that they have blocked it
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I'd like to know what Zen buddhism has to say about that true mark of a great leader: the one who knows when to go...
Tony Blair will godown is history (indeed he already has) as having timed his exit to perfection; and yet he could have demanded he stay longer to beat Lady Thatcher's record in office. But he went.
Now the man who spent thriteen years plotting against Blair...who has that plotting etched into his face doesn't seem to understand that his time is up.
He stood right full square with Clinton and Greenspan's social engineering project when they decided to throw money at the masses instead of ask for a ten percent deposit. ALl of the expansion fo banks balance sheets happend under newlabour; noe of this was happening under Thatcher or Major - desptie their deregulation.
Now he can't even get the wors out 'a problem that started in America' without realising half way through that no-one beilieves him anymore; it was started by him.
And yet on and on he goes with more and more unpopular measures forced through with threats and pacts and all the time the damage is being etched further into his grotesque grinning face.
The tragedy is that there was never a time when he was great; only a time why no-one could understand how he had managed to keep all the plates spinning at once. Now the bigger tragedy unfolding is that he can't see when it is time to go.
He has made his mark in history with his spendaholic social engineering ways.
It will punctuate 21st century history as an experiment never to be repeated again.
Call an election.
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The amateur sees shadows in everything and lurches all over the place. Mostly, this is just lack of skill and experience on their part, and the Tory party is more than happy enough to supply you with razor blades.
Indeed, the most extreme comments and paranoia can be found in the Tory sympathisng comments. Hysteria, anger, and other forms of mental illness are catching, so one keeps a distance.
The controlling and insular mind feeds Freudian damage, but the Zen Buddhist mind routes around it and allows it to die of its own accord. Thus, happiness takes "no effort".
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57: of course they have. they had to replace all of the hereditary peers removed by house of lords reform. peers are elected roughly on the basis of party strength in the commons.
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Well whose a silly billy Give you a clue DD there see if you can work that out.
Does anybody on here believe that DD has influenced to lords or anyone else for that matter.
He may not have ruined his career but he hasn't done himself any favours.
I had thought that the Tories had made a mistake when he wasn't elected leader but he has proved himself unsuitable thats not to say the other one they chose was.
To be perfectly honest I have never thought that 42 days was necessary, but acting on the advice of the police and Mi5 and the rest it seemed the right thing to do, lets in this case that things dont prove GB to have been right otherwise a lot of people including my self will look pretty silly and perhaps a lot not feeling anything ever again..
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If you knew anything about signals intelligence, counter-terrorism, security systems, or the new passport system you wouldn't make a comment like that.
When given an opportunity to educate and reassure folks the Tories just print lies and wind them up. And this is a party some people want as a government?
Dudes, you have a credibility problem.
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#62 moderateprogressive
whenever you look at this board, somebody has written "call an election" at the end of their post. can we please stop using this irritating refrain?
I'm assuming my position is sufficiently obvious that I don't need to add the tag-line "call an election".
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Next ID cards and after that the really hard one BBC censorship.
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Nu-Labour are beaten for sure
So we must be strong and endure,
Thanks to Gordon's mad hatters
The red flag's in tatters
And their evil plot is no more!
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64
Scare mongering indeed!
Iraq could attack UK soverignty in 45 mins.
Grannies body searched in Airports.
Tanks in Heathrow Airport.
Concrete Barriers up all round london.
82....no.....42 days locked up without any reason.
That! is scaremongering...get over yourself.
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The Tories have such overwhelming desire to grab onto power that they'll do anything to get attention and throw a hissy fit like the angry German kid.
I must admit, I laugh when it throws up a mental picture of, say, Osborne rushing around like some schoolboy with piles from TV studio to TV studio.
Game forums are full of fanbois like that who throw an apoplectic fit when they don't whatever bling it is this week that's the height of some whimsical fashion.
Call an election? Hmph, call an ambulance.
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I've just noticed that Andrew Adonis (a former education policy adviser who was made a Lord so he could be education minister, and is one of the people most responsible for the Government's obsession with league tables, testing and Academies) has been made Minister of State in the Transport Department, about which he presumably has little or no expertise.
Another outrageous example of bypassing the democratic process, such as it is.
Adonis has never even stood as a candidate for MP, let alone been elected - although he was a Liberal Democrat councillor in Oxford and was at one time a LD prospective parliamentary candidate. At least Mandy was an MP before he was shunted off to Brussels.
Deafening silence on this in the press.
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62 Says---" Why should a government resign because it's behind in the opinion polls " . Not why people want it to resign, it's because this government is totally incompetent and is in increasing danger of destroying the economy . It has now lost the trust of a majority of the population, is unable to govern effectively because of the incompatibility of it's hierarchy and cannot appear to make any decision without recourse to it's masters in Europe. For three weeks we have listened to senior members of the government proclaiming that " action will be taken ", to the best of my knowledge, apart from a trip to the USA and a trip to Brussels, no effective action has been proposed or taken which has made any difference to the economic situation.
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#67 sagamix
I'm flippin' livid with Gordon Brown, livid. Not for expanding the public sector but for all of his deleterious decisions as Chancellor and PM. Thankfully the rest of our elected (and non-elected) public servants have come to their senses and thrown out this latest catastrophe of 42 days but others have sneeked through.
Capitalism has cycles, despite our idiot's pledge of no more boom and bust. However, as Heseltine put it last week, 'capitalism sometimes gets it wrong but the State always gets it wrong'. The guy's still a legend. I would far rather live under capitalism than socialism.
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"sagamix wrote:
Please see below ... if you are more A than B, then I respectfully submit that you are a misguided fool.
Statement A
I am extremely angry with Gordon Brown for over expanding the public sector in the UK at a time when it would have been more prudent to have done the opposite.
Statement B
I am extremely angry with the capitalist bankers who have so greedily, foolishly and fraudulently chased higher and higher yields over the last few years, the consequences of which are now driving the whole of the developed world into a long and painful recession."
I have to lean towards Statement A - but only because Statement B is distorted to fit your opinion.
The whole basis of the system was to make as much money for their employers (and themselves and in turn the government). So I find it hard to be angry at the bankers as they are not really the problem - the problem is the system that allows this to happen. Basically - "Don't hate the player hate the game" and Gordon Brown was happy for the players to play the game as it drove the economy forward.
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#68 newtactic
"Our parliamentary system may have taken more than 600 years of continuous development and reform, but as it functions today, it offers a perfect platform for further reforms and is the highest court of appeal for perceived injustice."
Wow! so was NuLab just having a laugh by putting all that constitutional reform referendum stuff in the the '97 manifesto before ratting on it?
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67. sagamix
What if Im both?
How does your character analysis pan out then?
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74
My how many strings to your bow have you got?
Now a counter terrorist expert!
Now tell me expert, whose actions prompted terrorist activity in the UK recently, if you need a clue it's in most of the videos made by the terrorist before tha attacks.
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CEH
Just a little info to rock your world
For Buddhists ultimate reality is not understood as personal. But morality requires personality. To illustrate consider the morality of a rock. One does not blame a rock for being used in a murder since it is not a person with moral duties. Rather the moral duty lies with the person who used that rock for evil purposes. Buddhism lacks the personal framework for moral duty to hold. With Buddhism, karma is that framework for morality. But karma is impersonal. It is akin to a law of nature. Breaking a karmic "rule" is not intrinsically evil. There seems to be no significant difference between error (non-moral mistakes) and sin (moral wrongdoing). Furthermore, many Buddhists even assert that the dualities of "good" and "evil" ultimately break down. "Good" and "evil" would be part of maya, the illusory world of sensory reality. The categories of morality are not grand enough to map onto ultimate reality. And enlightened individuals will see that good and evil blur into one. But such a position means that ultimate reality would not be "good." It wouldn't be "evil" either, but what assurance then exists that "ultimate reality" is even a worthwhile pursuit? And what grounds would there be for living a morally good life as opposed to an amoral life without regard for moral distinctions, or an inactive life avoiding moral choices as much as possible? If Buddhism asserts that reality is not ultimately personal and the distinctions between good and evil are not actually real, then Buddhism does not have a true foundation for ethics.
Once you have read and understood you will be truly enlightened
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73. grandantidote
Just on a small point of order:
MI5 were not pro 42 days, they were agnostic towards the issue.
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@62
Call an election
I do hope you are now suitably iritated
Call an election
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60 - Brownedov wrote:
"It's that constitution that's not worth the paper it's not written on, again".
Which maybe explains why they never got round to writing one in the first place?
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Brown, Mandelson, and Darling are equivalent to the Tao, Zen, and stoicism. This is what the Chinese call the "three pillars of wisdom", and quite a potent combination.
Who can fathom the depths of Tao?
Who can understand the mind of a Zen master?
Who can disbelieve their own eyes?
And so, it begins...
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I hope you are right and that it is scaremongering and political posturing by the Government.
The Government have managed to stop several attempts at terrorism just in time, though it would appear mainly due to luck than judgement (e.g. Haymarket bombers).
In each of these cases, it has been clear that the potential perpatrators (even the 7/7 bombers) had been under surveillance by MI5 for some time, but they had to wait until the specific evidence was sufficient before they could act.
Let's hope that we do not end up in a situation where a terrorist has to be let go due to lack of evidence and succeeds in their plot.
Though maybe if that happens it's the price of liberty. Difficult issue.
RE ID Cards
Unquestionable that the Conservatives would bring them in the medium-to-long-term.
There would be massive efficiency gains to the state and improvements in the quality of public services (i.e. lower taxes, better bang from the buck) from allowing more effective data-sharing between Government departments. It would also help with illegal working - a visa could be included on an ID card that contains information about work status (most illegal workers are allowed to be here e.g. students, just not to work). It would also be a passport to public services, if a government wished to restrict free services to e.g. British citizens only.
It just depends on a) if there are sufficient safeguards to prevent misuse (e.g. no requirement for everyone to carry them around on their person at all times); and b) the Civil Service can administer the scheme to prevent data being lost or stolen
It's a trade-off between liberty and whether these gains are worthwhile e.g. I'd rather have inefficiency, higher taxes and services that are not as good as they could be if we need to have some ID card (or ID care-lite such as shared data) to get there.
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#71. Charly McObfuscate, wrote
"The amateur sees shadows in everything and lurches all over the place. Mostly, this is just lack of skill and experience on their part, and the Tory party is more than happy enough to supply you with razor blades."
Whereas the professional uses moronic zen platitudes to cover up the fact his ideas are verifiably nonsense.
Normally, by the time the amateur has realised that the supposed zen wisdom is nothing but a few poorly chosen and brutually mutilated metaphors, the professional has deftly changed the subject to something else entirely thus leaving the amateur in a perpetual game of catch-up until they lose interest.
"If you knew anything about signals intelligence, counter-terrorism, security systems, or the new passport system you wouldn't make a comment like that.
When given an opportunity to educate and reassure folks the Tories just print lies and wind them up. And this is a party some people want as a government?"
You honestly don't see the problem with those two paragraphs? Do you have any sense of irony?
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#64 vor_tecks
Good 2nd post. Sorry I didn't spot that your 1st post was intended as irony.
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Mark @ 83
... "I find it hard to be angry at the bankers as they are not really the problem - the problem is the system that allows this to happen" ...
Totally agree with you, Mark ... the problematical (and now discredited) system being free market capitalism.
Robin @ 70
I concur with a lot of what you're saying there too, Robin.
So are you with me on this? Ready for a good dose of socialism?
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Chancellor Alistair Darling says the government will do whatever necessary to ensure stability of the financial system.
He said that would include action to support the banking system as a whole as well as supporting individual banks.
The chancellor told MPs that European countries needed to work more closely together on responding to the crisis.
His statement came as stock markets worldwide plunged on concerns about the health of the banking sector.
Thanks Darling you have said exactly what you said last week. It had no effect then and it will have no effect now
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Know one thing, know many things.
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Carrots @ 85
... "What if I'm both? How does your character analysis pan out then?" ...
Trust you to be difficult!
If you're both equally, then I guess you can't be a misguided fool. You must be either one or the other.
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Sorry Nick.
"If it were not for the small matter of a global financial crisis ........, all eyes would now be on the next stage of the debate about extending detention without trial."
But the fact is the global financial crisis is a thundering herd of elephants. At this point, who really cares if Mandelson is a "good pick"?
Peston may be doing the economics, but surely you must concentrate on the political impacts?
Brown trolled off for a meeting between heads of state of the 4 biggest economies in Europe. Came back and (as I understood) told us there was some cohesive view about how to make progress.
Then Merkel sprung a surprise within 24 hours.
So what does that say about Brown's political antennae?
Could he be the Revered Architect of a new global financial order, if he can't even agree a real position with 3 other neighbours?
Politics ain't just about what you do in your back yard. It's about international relations. With the possible exception of defence, none are so important as the economics.
The "42 day" issue is important. But right now, there's an Australian (who has committed no crime in his own country or the UK), likely to be deported to Germany because of an EU law allowing such an effect if a 3rd country has a law he "would have" broken.
Don't like what the Aussie says, but do YOU know what laws exist across the individual EU countries?
Surely there's some real political issues to talk about.
"42 days" will come back into play at some point. It's not today...
Right now, I'd like to understand the international politics affecting a current financial crisis and existing laws.
Bugger the squabbles between the guacomole brigade.
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73. grandantidote
To be perfectly honest I have never thought that 42 days was necessary, but acting on the advice of the police and Mi5 the rest it seemed the right thing to do
Does anyone else see just how scary this degree, level and depth of thinking towards our liberty is?
It should also be noted that despite this rather ambivalent position Mr G still made 17 posts against DDs position in June.
You just cant trust these old communists.
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Lets not crack open the champagne yet - it's not dead until Brown stops pushing it.
For all we know he may be about to launch his campaign for 35 days detention.
However, nice to see Lords ready to kick this into the long grass - almost makes one wonder what they were doing when the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 was going through (or perhaps the Lords don't mind "thought crimes" on the books) ?
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All English @ 69
... "Nu Labour have single mindely pursued a police state since the day they came to power" ...
Oh come on.
You're certainly living up to your user name with that one, aren't you?
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67 Sagamix
Bit too simplistic that set of choices don't you think?
That set of options is something akin to a questionnaire you might get in the News of the World "10 questions to find out if you are a toff or a chav"
....except the average News of the World piece has less glaring holes in it.
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@44. CEH
You might care to think about the R.I.P.A. It was intended to be used against suspected terrorist but is now being used by local councils to investigate parents who are suspected of trying to get their children into a good school.
As it happened with the R.I.P.A so it would surely have happened with 42 day detention: its use would have spread. As an example, police forces across the country routinely use the Public Order Act against people who swear. This is a gross misuse of an act which was brought in to deal with public disorder in the 1930's when Moseley's Blackshirts were running riot.
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42 days is dead in the water.
Whatever Mr Hardwidge might wish us to believe - he has one of the most partisan lines to push on these blogs, after all - this is a victory for, inter alia, a significant number of Labour MPs (I refer, as I did when we thrashed this all out first time round, to Diane Abbott, Lord Goldsmith, Elish Aglioni and others), the Lib Dems, civil liberty groups and, yes Charles, also the Tories.
It is a victory for those of us who, in fact, thought long and hard about the matter, and came to the considered conclusion that it was a step far too far - a form of unnecessary internment to be resisted. It remains, as it was first time around, a deliberate provocation and needless insult to suggest those of us who opposed 42 days did not, in fact, give the proposal consideration, or are but Tory fellow-travelllers.
As I seem to recall saying first time around, the hypocrisy necessary to suggest that opposition to the bill is (only) political opportunism, when the bill itself represents (at least as much as any defence of the nation) a stick with which to beat Brown's political opponents as 'soft on terror' suggests a myopia that does disservice to the faculty of understanding.
It's not about Zen, it's just pure hackery.
For shame.
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An informative and clever essay but it misses the point. One can acquire Phds and huge libraries in this but it's not really necessary. Indeed, as the most accomplished and experienced showed only yesterday in a previous topic, acquiring technique and baggage can reinforce delusion. Better, really, just to have no technique and carry no rocks. It doesn't get much easier than that.
Both these comments miss the point as well with their perceptions of reputation and circumstance. Things aren't always as they seem or how people wish them to be. This thing is, this thing is not. There is no try, only do. You are what you do, and you do what you are. Something has a nature and it flows from this to that. Quite simple.
And so, here we are. :-)
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76. englandrise
Next ID cards and after that the really hard one BBC censorship.
Many are already clamouring for it.
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Fairly @ 99
I so agree.
The political ramifications of what's going on in the financial sector are potentially momentous ... and, if you're a lefty like me, rather exciting!
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#90 threnodio
I'm sure it does, but isn't it about time that it is codified, even if it just says "the PM can do whatever s/he wants if s/he has a majority in the HoC"? In a way, I would be pleased if Brown does create 150 or so NuLab peers this week to ram it through.
Even some of the Tories on this thread might then wake up to the need for some safeguards in the system somewhere.
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Jonathan @ 103
Oh okay. Simple, but not simplistic, was what I was aiming for.
So, you don't think that whichever one of those two statements rings your bell says quite a lot about your politics?
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The Western mind tends towards this, is, and I. The Eastern mind tends towards that, maybe, we. Zen Buddhism suggests yes, no, and maybe.
So, someone is trying to get on board the Zen bandwagon, or faking getting onto the Zen bandwagon, or is faking it and absorbing it accidently. Who knows?
It would be funny if the howling paranoids started turning into clones of Derek Draper. The utter anniliation of the Tory mindset by their own hand? Yes, quite amusing.
Oh, whoopsie.
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Since Comrade Brown is so keen on 42 days why not go the whole hog and lock people up indefinitely while we investigate the case against them? Who knows, during the global recession perhaps we can make some money exporting ideas to North Korea.
At least with a low and defined limit on how long someone can be detained it encourages the police farce to get off their behinds and get a case together. The longer they have, the less the sense of urgency and before long they will want longer.
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#89 Pot_Kettle
Who are you (and others) imploring to call an election?
Gordon Brown? Labour MPs in Parliament? The Queen?
Do you think there is any chance they would listen?
Do you think they would be surprised that right-wingers who hate Labour and all they stand for want an election?
I think your best chance of a change of Government before 2010 is if you could convince someone to hold a coup. I hear there are some close to the Conservative Party who could help out with this (though I'm not sure 'Scratcher' is actually much cop at making coups work). I'm sure there's a businessman from Belize who could help out on the funding side.
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#93 MonkeyBot5000
Brilliant - best refutation of his garbage I've seen, although your Mac one came close.
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The right wing media ran a hatchet job of Environmental Health's use of RIPA while neglecting that they were upholding the human rights of victims suffering from noisy neighbours.
Also, RIPA is being used by folks like ALexander Hanff as a defence against the major ISP's snooping on peoples clickstream and abusing website owners intellectual property.
The ill-informed and hysterical right wing putsch is just what it says on the tin. It has no credibility and is quite antisocial. I suggest, you calm down and take another look at things.
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@4 - robin
"Next stop the IMF; who will come knocking as soon as they see the monstrous rise on government spending and the collapse in tax receipts."
sadly, the IMF have been kept from the door, by brown at the mini summit.
hes managed to convince the other there that the IMF needs to scrap or change its limits on borrowing as regards % of GDP
big borrowing - pay later here we come!
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The sooner it is dropped the better.
For how soon would it be before they included a clause to ban us bloggers for being a threat to the nation.
I thought I'd never think this but thank goodness for the House of Lords.
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"sagamix wrote:
So are you with me on this? Ready for a good dose of socialism?"
The problem is that socialism has problems of it's own.
Maybe the best idea would be a mix of socialism and capitalism, where everyone gets a basic allowance from the government and if they want anything else they have to work for it.
However, I do think that now would be a good time to come up with extra properties social housing/homelessness. We have a slowing building trade so companies could get government contracts.
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If Daring, Brown and Mandelson represent the three pillars of wisdom then we might as well accept the imminent arrival of the four horses of the apocalypse.
They will never understand capitalism; they stuffed up a growing economy and loaded us with debt.
They obliged the banks to expand their balance sheets as an experiment in social engineering with 130% mortgages to the workshy.
Thye have ruined this country with their culture of entitlement.
Now their apologists want to end free speech and tell me to stop calling an election.
No, thanks. No thanks to the end of free speech, no thanks to newlabour and no thanks to socialism.
Call an election.
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"There is no try, only do."
Isn't the quote "Do or do not, there is no try"? Been a while since I watched Empire though so may be wrong.
"Something has a nature and it flows from this to that"
Actually, anyone with an understanding of nature will tell you that nature has cycles and isn't linear.
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@115 CEH
As you well know, or should do, the RIPA was NOT designed to be used by Environmental Health against noisy neighbours. It WAS designed for use against terrorists.
I'm afraid I have no idea about the 'ill-informed and hysterical right-wing putsch'. What does that have to do with the misuse of the RIPA?
Stick to the subject and answer the question!
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Ha! What a waste of puff from Gordy - 42 days my .... Lock him up for forty two days please.
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has primarily been caused by excesses of capitalism, in particular the buffoons who've been running the US Federal Reserve and many of the banks. I thought we'd agreed that, no?
My padawan, you may need to reread the post where you think I let Gordon Brown off the hook for this economic catastrophe.
I did no such thing. The US sub-prime leakage was simply the trigger to the bust of our home-grown borrow and squandering messiah of 'no more boom and bust'. The alternative to blaming the yanks is that to imagine that absent a US sub-prime trigger it would have made rock-solid sense for Gordon Brown to continue to flood the economy with borrowed money, rig low interest rates and encourage the population to borrow and squander in their turn. Because their house 'went up' by 12% last year. Absent a US sub-prime 'trigger' you'd have to go along with the idea that that was an entirely robust and sustainable state of affairs.
Now do you see why it's Gordon Brown's fault? US sub-prime was just the trigger for our own insane property boom. Nurtured at great expense by Gordon Brown. If it hadn't been US sub-prime that stopped the insane rush to borrow ever more money there'd have been some other trigger. The root cause of the UK's economic woes is/was insane levels of public and private borrowing.
Really. Just re-read what I've written on the relevant thread.
But agree with you 100% that Gordon Brown is drowning in a tar-pit of debt and lack of public confidence entirely of his own making.
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110 Sagamix
Those questions do nothing to differentiate my political leanings.
I agree with both statements.
Many people would find the context of the words 'capitalist' or 'Gordon Brown' inflammatory, but I can see past that, so it does nothing to make me chose one over the other.
Both statements are essentially correct.
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The right wing media ran a hatchet job of Environmental Health's use of RIPA while neglecting that they were upholding the human rights of victims suffering from noisy neighbours.
So, for clarity, your contention when this RIPA Bill was passed was that it was with the explicit understanding that it should be routinely used by councils to clamp down on poor recycling discipline?
And then you tell us not to worry about 42 day detention or ID cards.
We're going to hell in a handcart. FTSE down over 7% today and the nation's thought-leaders response is to make sure we can be detained for 42 days without charge.
I hope Zen will keep you equally philosophical when there are riots breaking out in the soup kitchens.
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A government which appeared to be teetering on the edge of disaster three weeks ago is milking the world economic crisis for all it's worth claiming to be the only show in town when it comes to sound financial management.
This would be an appropriate time to take stock. The economic questions are being debated will well informed enthusiam on the blogs of Messrs. Mason and Peston. I think we should be addressing the wider political issue here.
Readers of the other blogs will be aware of a growing concern that the current events are being seized on by government as a further opportunity to claw power into the executive at the expense of the democratic process. In other circumstances, it may have been appropriate to see how far the government would go in building a controlled and over regulated society. What recent events are showing is that Chas. E is completely wrong to view RIPA and extended detention as appropriate measures. They are part of something far more sinister - a general erosion of the freedoms the British have enjoyed. This cannot be ignored.
I am hoping that our Scottish friends will remember these matters in a couple of weeks time and hand Labour the thrashing they deserve at Glenrothes. We need to refocus.
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I can't see Brown being put off by a few unfavourable remarks.
After all, Andy Hayman was only the former head of Anti Terrorism at Scotland Yard.
Brown is the head of everything!
If Brown says we need 42 days, then we need 42 days. If Brown says its true, then it must be.
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This is quite ignorant and cruel. Bruising and petualent, might one say? Hmmm, typical Tory. I can see why they have no policies and cling to Thatcherism.
The government had forward thinking plans for the economy, NHS, and security and all of these have been opposed by closed minds and vested interests.
As with the habitual and reactive campaigners against this bill, they don't look down the line and see the results of their decisions.
Life on Planet Tory is nasty, brutal, and short.
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The 42 day bill fades into insignificance if you compare it with the last 42 days.
Is G.B. on the ledge ready to jump or is his comrade at the hip holding him back, or the extra weight going to make an even bigger mess.
The question for today who do you trust more politicians, bankers, estate agents, used car salesmen or journalists.
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U and the numbers @ 123
Nope, sorry. Don't agree. Wrong in fact.
Three things ...
1. You are, by miles, overestimating the intelligence of Gordon Brown. All he did was go along with things ... he's clueless.
2. UK property values overshot but a large part of the rise was a fairly rational bidding up of prices, based on lower than usual interest rates and the democratisation of credit.
3. The US engineered, but now international, Credit Crunch has triggered a major recession in most of the developed world. Most of these countries have not had a property bubble and none of them have had Gordon Brown.
See?
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Who's the know all that can't spell while busily telling everyone else how wrong they are?
I'm not cracking open the champagne either, I'm sure there is a back door route to getting 42 days on the statute book.
I don't buy it as necessary, I don't buy it as safe, I don't buy it on the 'nothing to hide nothing to fear '' basis.
I do think it will infringe our freedoms and I do remember the old chap at the Labour Party Conference.
And I do want an election!
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Nick
Can you ask the BBC to create a separate blog for Buddhists?
My head hurts
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Pot_Kettle @87
I'd just like to expand a little on your argument on buddhism, and perhaps introduce a couple of thoughts you don't seem to be au fait with in your argument.
As with all religions, plenty of people have written texts to put their 2-pence worth into the religion. Many of these texts included lists of punishments for specific transgressions. There are also specific "commandments" supposedly written by the tathagata buddha to describe buddhist morality, for example, buddhists should always eat only vegetarian food.
These lists basically show morality as ascribed to human beings (by other human beings).
In Buddhism, to be a human is like to be at the pinnacle of an iceberg - you're far more likely to be born into a realm or body in which you cannot change your karma (any part of the iceberg blow the sea), only humans can do that. Only humans possess the sentient thought that allows them to rise above their brain "programming" and ignore biological imperatives which would tie the soul to the never ending cycle of rebirth.
The whole point of buddhism is that all living beings suffer, constantly, and the buddhist feels compassion for all living beings and seeks to avert all suffering.
Since the whole point is to avoid rebirth, and therefore suffering, any accrual of karma ties the soul to the cycle of rebirth.
Since doing a good deed accrues positive karma, then not doing that good deed would accrue negative karma rather than being neutral, since by inaction, suffering is allowed to occur. It is therefore better to accrue good karma by action, than bad karma by inaction.
In that vein of thought then, could it not be argued that any action or inaction that allows suffering to occur, should be defined as "evil", since no better word for it seems to exist?
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119. RobinJD:
you arent "calling" for an election, you are writing on a bbc messageboard. it is pointless, but worse, irritating. regards your comments about free speech: if freedom of speech had been eroded, im fairly certain that some agent of the state would have prevented you from making your ridiculous, ignorant and partisan comments. and without a doubt, the party you love did more to prevent freedom of speech than the current administration.
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#113 balhamu
It's interesting you mention the Queen, since she is the only person apart from his party apparatchiks who could force "Duff" Gordon ever to hold an election (so long as he has a HoC majority), by dissolving parliament. But even that is not absolutely certain, as it has not been tried since the "Glorious Revolution" and I don't recall Bagehot covering that eventuality.
She could just dismiss him of course (not done since Billy4), but would then have to appoint a NuLab alternative.
Other than that, even the Lords' veto power on extending the life of a Parliament could be overcome by the appointment of as NuLab many peers as it took to make the vote in the Lords go their way.
I'm beginning to wonder if we're in for Long Parliament 2.
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Robin @ 119
... "They obliged the banks to expand their balance sheets as an experiment in social engineering with 130% mortgages to the workshy. Now their apologists want to end free speech and tell me to stop calling an election" ...
Workshy indeed ... Robin, you can be so mean spirited sometimes!
As for free speech, I'm perfectly happy for you to call an election. And what election will it be exactly, that you're going to call? ... something to do with your local scout troop perhaps?
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I'm so very glad that our unelected house has saved us from this legislation.
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Jon @ 124
... "I agree with both statements" ...
Ah yes, but which is the one that's MOST true, that's the point.
Do you think the upcoming long and painful recession across the whole of the developed world has (mainly) been caused by the excesses of capitalism as represented by the malfunctioning banking system?
... or is it Gordon Brown?
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@32 - Charles
"... the Tory "faith" in Thatcherism are equally bankrupt. The financiers and their Tory pals brought us to the point of meltdown and are trying to capitalise on that. This approach isn't reason, science, or reality. It's just another delusion."
Sir, you are incorrect in your assessment.
for example:
both conservative and labour proposed Bank of England independance
had the conservatives won the election and actioned this proposal, the BofE would have retained its powers to step in and stop banks from over-stretching.
labour won the election and actioned this proposal, but with a fundamental difference - they removed powers from the BofE and handed a version of them powers to the FSA, assuring the public that this way would safeguard us all.
the labour party want to be seen as giving independance and trusting them, but wanted the FSA so they continued to have a controlling influence as regards financial policy.
sadly for us all (in one way or another) all this acheived was confusion and when urgent action was required, politics got in the way of sorting the problem out.
this can be applied to many areas where the labour party have, it would appear, adopted conservative policies, but when the small print is checked, its been only partially adopted to trump the conservatives in the public realm.
- as regards the 42 day policy:
"... I have no idea if the bill will be dropped or not but the same problems of ignorance and hysteria remains in the system, and that's the real problem. The calm, realistic, and mature approach of Brown, Darling, and Mandelson can help change that"
Sir, I would question the "calm, realistic and mature approach"
the fact that brown needs to bring anyone in from outside the cabinet, (ie, no confidence in the people he had put in place already) would indicate anything but calm.
Realistic?
as with so many of labours policies under brown especially, he tries to bring in a policy, hes warned (from all sides) about the failings of it, he he ignores all the warnings and tries to force through his way, and then either drops the policy like a stone, gives concessions to appease back benchers who threaten to revolt on other policies, or reverses the policy altogether, costing everyone and causing confusion in the policy area.
(look at his one off payments of the 10p tax rate debacle or the concessions he gave to backbenchers in other areas to get the 42 day bill passed through the commons, for example)
mature?
i would seriously doubt this, hes doing backroom deals hand over fist to try and implement his "program for change" (which he never mentions anymore) to not only keep his job as labour leader, but to get his way in the commons, despite having a large voting majority.
this shows panic rather than "calm, realistic and mature" government.
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It might very well be revived for a manifesto but lets face it with the many pledges we have had from previous manifesto's going unfulfilled no one will ever believe a party manifesto again....
With there new found green bias on anything perhaps saving paper and not writing a manifesto would be more appropriate.
Banking dead school reform dead Labour party dead.....
It will be many many years if ever before Labour get a chance of power again especially with no scottish vote for them.
Nu Labour Boom and Nu Labour bust
we can save a good few billions killing off the ID card too.
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1. You are, by miles, overestimating the intelligence of Gordon Brown. All he did was go along with things ... he's clueless.
Hmmm. I don't think you'll find me claiming Gordon Brown is a genius. Unless in an ironic way. Although I have heard it reported. I'm on record here as calling for an IQ test for the PM. Perhaps he once, aged 11, sat an IQ test to go to grammar school or something and he was very smart for an 11 year old. But I have to say I've seen precious evidence of it since. Perhaps that kick in the head at rugby did more than knock his eye out of whack.
I was, however, prepared to believe that he might at least have slightly above average intelligence but I fear all my prejudices have been confirmed about what constitutes a 'high IQ' in the Labour party. Yep.... he's clueless. But the most dangerous sort of clueless. One who thinks he's clever. And whether by physical fear or even lower IQ amongst his peer-group (Labour politicians) he has managed to railroad the management of the UK's economy through the last eleven years as some kind of economic beserker.
2. UK property values overshot but a large part of the rise was a fairly rational bidding up of prices, based on lower than usual interest rates and the democratisation of credit.
Ah. There's your mistake right there. As the events unfolding demonstrate it wasn't a rational bidding up of prices at all. It was only 'rational' if you thought the average house should indeed cost six or eight times the average wage. In an allegedly low inflation environment over the past 11 years it really didn't make sound financial sense for house prices to treble.
One can only wonder what the incompetents, after promising 'no more boom and bust' and no house price bubbles back in 1997 were thinking of. The kindest thing that could be said is that it was sheer negligence and dereliction of trust. I tend to believe that the wannabe 'clever' chancellor thought he'd somehow discovered the hitherto hidden magic formula of 'Borrow 3% of GDP every year and squander it into the economy'. Because he's a genius. Because he says so.
Your point 3) follows on from your point 2). But since your point 2) is in error we'll have to disagree.
Once we had a house price bubble engineered in the UK with our banks, under the blind eye of Gordon and his rigged low-inflation only mandated BoE and his 'look but don't touch' mandated FSA the only question was what would burst the bubble.
You can blame Greenspan for the US' catastrophe. I will continue to blame the clown who emulated him for the UK's catastrophe.
Gordon Brown.
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@44 - Charles
"The 42 days detention bill is similar in nature, and is intended to deal with what geeks would call an "edge case". You don't wear a seatbelt because you plan on crashing your car, nor fit an alarm because you plan on getting your house burgled. This bill is no different. It's just a specialist tool for a specialist requirement. It's an insurance policy against a small but very real and nasty possibility.
When seen in these terms, I'm puzzled how the opposition and vested interests can justify going into a frothing rage like some rabid pitbull on a chain. I think, their judgementalism and unsociable attitudes are just getting in the way. If they calmed down a bit they might start contributing, and it's possible a better variant of this bill could pass without a hitch"
Sir I see where you are coming from, to me, it appears you trust the government more than they trust each and everyone of us.
as weve seen with other measures ie, speed cameras, congestion charges, transfer of housing stock to public/private partnerships, etc, what at face value appears a "specialised measure," serving a particular purpose, when brought in, almost always is used for another purpose.
congestion charging in the name of green taxes and protecting the environment, sees an extremely low amount of that funding raised going into "green" projects.
the motorist paid over £45 billion in taxes last year, yet less than £9 billion of that went on transport projects.
when i want a broken kerb stone repairing or we need a pot hole filling in at local level, the pot is empty and there is no money.
wheres it gone? labour MPs wont answer, instead they suggest by asking this question, we are "demanding the closure of hospitals and schools" to quote greg pope labour MP for hyndburn.
42 days in theory would be fine as a "specialist tool for a specialist requirement" but i have to ask, why would labour simply not add an amendment to the bill, that made it only applicable for the "special requirement"?
labour's past record on using one law for other purposes (ie, terror legislation to stop 2 or more people protesting against an MP for causing NHS dentists to disappear from my their area) is there for all to see.
The opposition and vested interests (ie, the voters that they serve) far from acting like rabid pitbulls, might actually be doing what voters put them there to do, block a government policy that will be used against them in other ways they were told wouldnt happen?
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You're mistaken in some technical details and all over the shop but the general look and feel is usable.
I see what you're getting at with "evil" but it's a bit of a loaded term. Really, it's a matter of perspective.
Perhaps, and perhaps this law exists in some form already and folks notions of civil liberties and history are bunk.
Better hope nobody asks what money is for...
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C_E_H
I don't know why you are able to generate hostility against people who could - maybe - support any party, as long as in government they get it right.
Life-time's experience, I guess.
"The amateur sees shadows in everything and lurches all over the place. Mostly, this is just lack of skill and experience on their part, and the Tory party is more than happy enough to supply you with razor blades."
Perhaps, Charles, you hadn't noticed that the greatest shadow over personal liberty during the last century was driven by a homicidal ex-trainee-priest (Joe Stalin). You could understand why people saw shadows in everything.
Even the worst so-called right-wing leader (the completely abominable Adolf - actually a National Socialist, whatever that means) didn't slaughter 20-30 million of his own people to develop a totally nonsensical economy.
You won't find me defending what I believe to be potentially fraudulent actions by US banks. Or the stupidity of other banks buying junk without bothering to check its value.
And you wouldn't find me defending a UK government whose regulatory agencies couldn't be bothered to understand what risks our banks were undertaking.
I think that's fairly impartial.
"If you knew anything about signals intelligence, counter-terrorism, security systems, or the new passport system you wouldn't make a comment like that."
Well, Charles, if you could guarantee that the ID / passport systems will never be breached, I'd be less concerned.
I'd bet that someone will rapidly "steal" somebody else's whole life data and give it another name. Is that a Tory ambition? Or a Labour-supporter's wish?
Sounds like too many people in government don't get the limitations of technology. Why should they? How many have any experience of trying to introduce IT systems? How many buy the consultancy hype, because they don't have the tools to kick suppliers around, just to make sure anything they buy into makes sense?
I've no idea whether today's comments about GCHQ being permitted to capture all personal internet and telephonic data is true.
That's something the Stasi would have died for. (KGB, too, except that it was never within their grasp... I've worked with some Western guys who wanted Glasnost to be reversed, because it impaired their option to flog stuff into a weak Russia - and the ability of a centralist government to impose stuff. Bastards on both sides.)
11 years into a "project", it becomes a little hard to talk about the Tory-boys cosying up to business.
I don't think anybody believed that a "Free market" was intended to encompass a regime where bright, amoral, people could "invent" value to be flogged as though it were truly worth the equivalent of genuine assets.
I do think that many of us expected OUR Government to be sincere when introducing an oversight authority for financial institutions.
Had they been capable, they would have at least spotted the tsunami of tripe being included on bankers books.
It may have led to UK banks delivering less growth for a few years. (Which would have impacted tax-take.) But limited the flood of BoE/Government printed money being poured into a black hole.
I happen to think that, despite the dumbing down of education in the UK, there is still a huge amount of creativity within these isles.
Goodness knows, I'd prefer any spare cash to be put into creative/future looking products and projects and less in shoring up historically stupid excesses.
Just don't come back with one of your sneers about "Tory thinking".
It just ain't that.
You don't have to be poor to have a social conscience, and vote Labour. (Sainsbury, Drayton, Blair, etc., prove that...)
You don't have to be rich to vote Tory. (John Major gained more of the popular vote than Blair ever did - or Brown ever could...)
You don't even need to wear sandals and a beard to vote Lib-Dem. (Somebody must have said that the best economics analyst within Parliament is Vince Cable - but he worked as a chief economist in one of the world's big oil companies, so I guess he can't count..)
But we should be allowed to elect governments doing sensible things, saying stuff that is believable and DELIVERING.
Mandelson, Draper, Campbell... All the spinmeisters back.
Goodness help us.
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#135
I think you are wrong about GB could go on and on without intervention from the Queen - Parliament is automatically dissolved after 5 years isn't it (as laid down in the 1911 Parliament Act).
I'm not sure the Queen could call an election before 5 years is up without the PM asking her to - obviously it's convention but it may have a statutory basis too.
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42 days is a folly.
But again this blog's sub prime daily mail prose style drips with innuendo and implications of plotting and sub plotting......
The real issue becomes buried in the politics of rancour and rumour.
The comments from your correspondents above sadly support the success of the project. They echo that style and mindset;they also confirm,what appears to be a slanted perspective.
There is a complete lack of dignity in this approach which demeans journalism.
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The big problem with anti-terrorist laws is that councils are now abusing the law to pursue what are relatively minor cases, even non-criminal ones - remember the school issue?
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@74 Charles_E_Hardwidge
You are quite right I don't understand everything about "signals intelligence, counter-terrorism, security systems, or the new passport system" and I suspect nor do you, but I do know more than the average Joe about data encryption.
Short of using a quantum computer (which is still only in the theoretical stages of construction), with enough resources *any* encryption can be decrypted with the proviso that there is a) the appropriate resources and b) enough time.
I can lay my hands on plenty of *free* software that would encrypt data in such a way as take so long to decrypt that the data would be worthless by the time is was decrypted. To believe that this software doesn't exist is naive.
Imagine the data is like a present wrapped up in millions and millions of layers of wrapping paper, each taking time to remove. Get the picture?
"signals intelligence, counter-terrorism, security systems, or the new passport system" all assume that the "Bad People" are stupid (and that rather vainly that we are brighter), but this is not the case. These bad people have the time and resources and unlike the "Good People" don't have to comply with inconvenient laws.
(And by the way I seem to remember the new biometric passport system being cracked by a *newspaper* of all things!)
Why does RIPA include making it a criminal offence not to hand over a password when asked for? Answer: it's the quickest way to decrypt the data.
Why does Microsoft meet with government officials, nothing to do with Bitlocker surely?
My point is that you can't argue that 42 days is needed and that ID cards (note I never mentioned passports before you did) will be secure - one contradicts the other on purely technical reasons.
Either encryption works or it doesn't. Most of the time it just slows down the process of accessing the information.
I have no Political point to make, but purely on technical merits they won't work.
An aside that comes from this is that if new code busting supercomputers come online and encrypted data can be decrypted faster, do you think the 42 day limit would be reduced?
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Now then ... there are many people who, faced with such constant repudiation of what is clearly true, i.e. that the global recession is not the devilish work of Gordon Brown, would quit and go home. I, however, am not one of those people, I am made of sterner stuff.
So, for all you economic global holocaust deniers out there, let's try a little bit of maths, okay?
If we have an outcome (X) being a long and painful recession, and we have a couple of conditions potentially in place in the various countries which are suffering X ... let's call the conditions A and B where,
A = country ruled for ages by Gordon Brown
B = country exposed to US banking fallout
We can say ...
For UK: X follows A + B
For US: X follows B
For Germany: X follows B
For Japan: X follows B
For All Others: X follows B
Now, what is the common factor? Looks like B, doesn't it?
And if we remove A from the UK equation, do we still get X? ... yes we do!
Thank you.
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@67 - sagamix
"Please see below ... if you are more A than B, then I respectfully submit that you are a misguided fool.
Statement A
I am extremely angry with Gordon Brown for over expanding the public sector in the UK at a time when it would have been more prudent to have done the opposite."
- in part i agree, in that expanding the public sector by more than 1.5 million (tax payer funded) public sector jobs was foolish whilst following policies which have removed 1.7 million manufacturing jobs from our economy, and turning us into a "service job" based economy whilst allowing those same "sevice jobs" to be moved abroad by business.
"Statement B
I am extremely angry with the capitalist bankers who have so greedily, foolishly and fraudulently chased higher and higher yields over the last few years, the consequences of which are now driving the whole of the developed world into a long and painful recession"
- im not angry at them at all, mainly because they simply did what they did by using the rules and laws that guided their industry.
it wasnt the bankers that changed the law to lend 6 times a persons yearly income to buy a house or lend out a 125% mortgage.
those chasing higer yields are also those that work to benefit us via our pension funds, etc. by increasing profits in this area, the government get more revenue in taxation and we benefit from a bigger pensions pot.
so i would estimate that i am a semi misguided fool?
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U @ 141 and, it often seems, most other places ...
At some point, not necessarily now, I would be interested to hear your take on Gordon Brown's responsibility for the economic disaster zone that is the proud and independent nation of Iceland in October 08.
He's to blame, obviously, but would that be 90% or 100% in your view?
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Peter Mandelson remains in the news. Sorry to hear about anyone suffering from kidney stones, but I am sure he didn't lie for hours on a trolley in a corridor, nor will he be in a mixed ward.
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Disgusted Dorothy there are a few old boys on here who can't spell and they are all Labour old Labour new Labour Socialists whatever but crazy mixed up.
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The recent record of vested interests and the opposition is that they're trying to dominate events and stoke voters fears. You just have to look at the pharma companies trying to bend the NHS over the table, or the tin-foil hat lunacy from the Tory front bench. It paints a picture of control and manipulation by people just trying to muscle their way into the door.
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#126 threnodio
"I am hoping that our Scottish friends will remember these matters in a couple of weeks time and hand Labour the thrashing they deserve at Glenrothes."
I don't think you need to worry about the length of Scottish memories - the Tories are still only just recovering a little post Thatcher, who went 18 years ago. Further, I can't see anything Brown has done since the Labour conference having any positive impact on the campaign - quite the contrary, especially putting a no-no like Murphy into the Scotland office.
Even Prescott has started campaiging against the SNP, which can only win the SNP a few more votes. There's a mildly amusing BBC video of his contribution here.
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141 - the U
... "it really didn't make sound financial sense for house prices to treble" ...
No, but to more than double made sense.
... "Your point 3) follows on from your point 2). But since your point 2) is in error we'll have to disagree" ...
No, my point 3 stands just fine on its own. In any event, as I make clear above, my point 2 is not erroneous. Indeed it is the opposite of that, it is true.
Please see my excellent post @ 149 for a further explanation.
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119 Robinjd
Out of the hundreds of Bizare posts on these blogs, your's sets new standards for the most ridiculous (IMO) and yet thankfully you're free to express it to the world.
Some end to free speech, your still free to embarrass yourself , be thankfull for the cloak of anonymity.
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Part of me is rejoicing that this repressive, authoritarian measure from a wholly corrupt Labour Government is likely to be kicked into touch...........but..............BUT....................
Another part of me is hoping that Brown tries to force this through using the Parliament Act and thus triggering a massive wave of public anger which will precipitate his downfall and taking the Sleazy Labour Party down to oblivion with him.
Here's hoping!
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Well here goes I hope someone gets 2 read this before someone complains and removes it... There will come a day when when the 42 day bill will look like a piece of legislation that should have been passed..we have buried deep inside this countries society people/groups who wish to undermine our way of life by any means available to them. The atrocities which have occured here in recent years,I think are the tip of the iceberg. Before you ask I am not a member of the BNP, a Nazi, or a member of any other Arian based lunatic sect but, the freedoms which we enjoy here and extend to all people who express a desire to settle here have been abused, this is not racism because I am not a racist, but when there are parts of this country that in reallity are no go areas for the indiginous population I find this deeply disturbing...but it seems from the other posts here that I am alone in these feelings.
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#145 - balhamu
The Queen can require that Parliament is dissolved if the government is unable to effectively govern. This would generally only occur in the event of the loss of a motion of no confidence or if the government were to lose their majority through mass defections.
However, theoretically, there are a number of scenarios albeit highly improbable which might trigger a constitutional crisis which in turn would mean an election.
It is still called 'Her Majesty's Government' for exactly the reason that it is 'her' government and she can dispense with its services. In practice, any crisis which would warrant the dismissal of the entire government would pale into insignificance compared with the mayhem that would ensue if she actually sacked them.
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Now I've had a chance to absorb that one, I think, you have a point. By better shaping the trigger point it forms a clearer guarantee. That should enable it to remain useful while allaying peoples fears, which would have another plus in that all the byzantine procedural junk could be lopped off.
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#129 mikethebiscuit
The question for today who do you trust more politicians, bankers, estate agents, used car salesmen or journalists.
At the moment, I'd have to say Estate Agents are probably the most trustworthy - and I never thought I'd say that.
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#145 balhamu wrote:
"I think you are wrong about GB could go on and on without intervention from the Queen - Parliament is automatically dissolved after 5 years isn't it (as laid down in the 1911 Parliament Act)."
I fear I'm correct. The 1911 and 1949 Parliament Acts left brought in a 5-year time limit but left unchanged the right of the Lords to "to extend the life of Parliament". Thus the Commons could pass a bill to extend Parliament indefinitely, but Brown would need to create enough peers to ensure its passage through the Lords.
The relevant information is in note SN/PC/675 of 23 March 2007 which is available on the
UK Parliament website in PDF - enter the note ID in the search box. The relevant text (p.4) is: "The Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 transformed fundamentally the House of Lords' legal power in relation to legislation. With the exception of Bills to extend the life of Parliament, the House of Lords does not have a sustainable 'veto' over primary public legislation introduced originally in the Commons."
Yet another reason to have a written constitution, methinks.
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"The amateur sees shadows in everything and lurches all over the place. Mostly, this is just lack of skill and experience on their part, and the Tory party is more than happy enough to supply you with razor blades."
Perhaps, Charles, you hadn't noticed that the greatest shadow over personal liberty during the last century was driven by a homicidal ex-trainee-priest (Joe Stalin). You could understand why people across Eastern Europe saw shadows in everything.
Even the worst so-called right-wing leader (the completely abominable Adolf - actually a National Socialist, whatever that means) didn't slaughter 20-30 million of his own people to develop a totally nonsensical economy.
You won't find me defending what I believe to be potentially fraudulent actions by US banks. Or the stupidity of other banks buying junk without bothering to check its value.
And you wouldn't find me defending a UK government whose regulatory agencies couldn't be bothered to understand what risks our banks were undertaking.
I think that's fairly impartial.
"If you knew anything about signals intelligence, counter-terrorism, security systems, or the new passport system you wouldn't make a comment like that."
Well, if you could guarantee that the ID / passport systems will never be breached, I'd be less concerned.
I'd bet that someone will rapidly "steal" somebody else's whole life data and give it another name. Is that a Tory ambition? Or a Labour-supporter's wish?
Sounds like too many people in government don't get the limitations of technology. Why should they? How many have any experience of trying to introduce IT systems? How many buy the consultancy hype, because they don't have the tools to kick suppliers around, just to make sure anything they buy into makes sense?
I've no idea whether today's comments about GCHQ being permitted to capture all personal internet and telephonic data is true.
That's something the Stasi would have died for. (KGB, too, except that it was never within their grasp... I've worked with some Western guys who wanted Glasnost to be reversed, because it impaired their option to flog stuff into a weak Russia - and the ability of a centralist government to impose stuff. Bastards on both sides.)
11 years into a "project", it becomes a little hard to talk about the Tory-boys cosying up to business.
I don't think anybody believed that a "Free market" was intended to encompass a regime where bright, amoral, people could "invent" value to be flogged as though it were truly worth the equivalent of genuine assets.
I do think that many of us expected OUR Government to be sincere when introducing an oversight authority for financial institutions.
Had they been capable, they would have at least spotted the tsunami of tripe being included on bankers books.
It may have led to UK banks delivering less growth for a few years. (Which would have impacted tax-take.) But limited the flood of BoE/Government printed money being poured into a black hole.
I happen to think that, despite the dumbing down of education in the UK, there is still a huge amount of creativity within these isles.
Goodness knows, I'd prefer any spare cash to be put into creative/future looking products and projects and less in shoring up historically stupid excesses.
Just don't come back with one of your sneers about "Tory thinking" - or any other sorts.
It just ain't that.
You don't have to be poor to have a social conscience, and vote Labour. (Sainsbury, Drayton, Blair, etc., prove that...)
You don't have to be rich to vote Tory. (John Major gained more of the popular vote than Blair ever did - or Brown ever could...)
You don't even need to wear sandals and a beard to vote Lib-Dem. (Somebody must have said that the best economics analyst within Parliament is Vince Cable - but he worked as a chief economist in one of the world's big oil companies, so I guess he can't count..)
But we should be allowed to elect governments doing sensible things, saying stuff that is believable and DELIVERING.
Mandelson, Draper, Campbell... All the spinmeisters back.
Goodness help us.
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This view is narrow and not something folks peddling cryptography or newspapers put as the first item.
There's more to signals intelligence than decrypting high strength encrypted data, and the passport system wasn't cracked.
Anyone casually versed in the basics of these issues knows this but folks are easily misled by poor advertising and headlines.
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#142 - denzil69
Your refutation of Charles' comment #44 is absolutely spot on.
It seems astonishing that we are being asked to put our unconditional trust in our so-called benign paternalistic government, while they themselves treat us with suspicion. If they trusted people more, they would not need to pursue a "surveillance and control" social agenda.
In serious business dealings someone who asks you to trust him, but without being prepared to provide proper contractual guarantees, should be viewed with utmost suspicion. Such a person is probably a con artist. But yet we are being asked to "trust" that our government will never and could never abuse the law.
In my opinion, this plea for "trust" without a willingness to submit to legal guarantees, is the plea of the aspiring dictator.
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No49
I have just watched the former CEO of Lehmans being questioned by a Congressional committee.
Anyone that thinks the current Prime Minister is responsible for the Global crises is a political illiterate.
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Please can we call a halt?
The world economic situation cannot by the wildest stretch of the imagination be blamed on Gordon Brown.
Whether (a), the country is in any state to withstand the buffeting after GB's 10 years as Chancellor and 1 year as PM and (b) whether the government has the collective ability under his leadership to devise a strategy to avert a disaster is certainly a question which can be asked.
Whether the crisis should be allowed to dominate the agenda to the degree that all other political issues are smokescreen by it is a question which most certainly should be asked.
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Denzil @ 150
Well, you sound like a kind and thoughtful person who just happens to have gone down the wrong track (politically speaking).
Just to clarify, when I say the "bankers", I mean the laissez faire capitalist system as proudly represented, in this case, by the US Federal Reserve and Wall Street. In the UK, when it comes to finance and economics, as with so many other things, we just copy America, don't we?
Any case, even if we hadn't, we would still have been sucked into this ... witness Germany, France, Japan, Australia, Italy, Canada etc etc.
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Another political masterclass from Gordon? This guy's good isn't he?
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#139
More re-writing of history by the right-wing bloggers. Conservatives were NOT proposing Bank of England independence in 1997 - they didn't want to lose their ability to engineer a political business cycle via the Eddie and Ken show.
Indeed, the Conservatives initially OPPOSED Bank of England independence. They did not accept it until Feb 2000, when Portillo announced the U-turn that the Tories would "respect" the 1997 decision.
#150
More misleading stats from the right-wingers e.g. as I've demonstrated on an earlier post, there have been nowhere near as many as 1.7 million public sector jobs created since 1997. And few of them are pen-pushing ones. I went into this in detail on an earlier blog - the ONS publish stats on this. In 1997, there were 5.2 million public sector jobs (516,000 Civil Servants); in 2008 there were 5.8 million public sector jobs (522,000 Civil Servants). That's a 600,000 increase for the mathmatically challenged here. The increases in employment are focussed on education and the NHS rather than 'admin' people.
And to abdicate responsibility for the current financial mess from bankers. Breathtaking! And Conservatives were telling us 1997-2008 we didn't deregulate enough and that what we had was crippling innovation and holding our economy back. Government concern over the extravegent and, as we know now, irresponsible and undeserved, bonuses in the financial sector was 'the politics of envy'.
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sagamix #108
"The political ramifications of what's going on in the financial sector are potentially momentous ... and, if you're a lefty like me, rather exciting!"
Sad really. The ramifications are potentially momentous. Yes.
Don't understand why anyone could think that a collapse of the money systems could be exciting.
Nobody should want a melt down in global financial markets. Goodness knows that China, India and many other developing economies don't need the world to be bu****d up by a bunch of stupid financial bright-sparks.
Or want governments that really had no idea about what was going on.
Can't say I'm a lefty or righty.
I just like governments that get sensible. That normally means they place limits on how much of the GDP they can reasonably take, to recycle via support for the poorest parts of society (with which I can agree).
And governments that have a little bit of an idea about why GDP is growing. And whether it is sustainable. And not based on taking more than justified to support a government payrole, and relying on a credit-boom.
I've never known a time when governments around the world just walked away from taking an oversight role over finances. Or just pretended to each other that they (uniquely) knew what to do to resolve it.
It's a mess.
If you really are a lefty, please don't tell me you want government to take over all aspects of finance and production.
What happened to BL? For goodness sake, it was a Brit who (post WWII) helped to re-build VW. Was he invited back to do the same for UK car manufacturing. Well, no.
Don't tell me that Eastern European - state owned industry - was a success. I've lived through stuff that you wouldn't want to know. Maybe you never went there. It was ugly. KGB guys I worked with admitted the same.
Why do you think that China - the only sensible Communist regine (I'm sure you'd agree that N. Korea is just a basket case)
has adopted a capitalist approach?
Problem for the West is that governments have allowed "finance" to be equated to "capital".
Just ain't so.
Capitalism should depend on real investment, in stuff that allows the production of new stuff that has some use in society.
Financial instruments don't do that. Never have. No expertise required to work that out...
Just when did Blair and Brown decide that financial institutions should be given not just a light touch, but a limited touch?
I don't remember voting on that policy.
I don't think even Thatcher said that finance guys should be allowed to do whatever they like.
But she didn't cut the EU off at the knees.
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so this governments first steps towards a police state have failed well i can only hope it remains dead.
this government is moraly bancrupt inept in bussiness and rubbish at governing thus trying to create a police state is there only way of staying in power, under there bright pretty red flag chairman brown would have done every thing to keep his and his parties well paid underachieving jobs.
may be its a good thing 42 is dead but what have they got planned to slip in the back door?
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#149 - sagamix
Well done, sagamix, for your attempt at irrefutable logic.
The only problem is that it is flawed. You have treated an outcome (X) which is relative as though it were absolute. You need to define what exactly "a long and painful recession" is. There are degrees of "recession", and so therefore we need to assess the influence of your factor "A" - the influence of Gordon Brown - on the DEGREE of recession we experience.
It is perfectly logical that the exclusion of your factor "A" from the UK category, may have resulted in our experiencing a lesser degree of recession.
So I am afraid you have not succeeded in getting Mr Brown off the hook.
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Sorry.
Seems that some postings don't get through.
Hate to think that anything to do with C_E_H has to be referred.
Not sure that's a politically correct situation.
Just wish that more people accepted that different ideas could be accepted. Where did all the tribalism come from?
Born Labour or Tory or Liberal?
Just check the DNA. Nothing says that you have to become any type of person.
Too sad.
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#165 - Charles_E_Hardwidge
Nobody has ever written a piece of software - including encryption software - that cannot be cracked. In fact just about anything that can be made can be unmade. The best anyone can hope for is to create something so complex that it simply is not worth the bother but what is the value of the personal data of every person in the land? Much too great, I would suggest, to discourage a determined cracker.
Add to that the propensity of these people to lose data in the post, leave laptops on tube or in cabs and even sell cameras used for surveillance by the security services on Ebay without clearing the memory and you have a recipe for disaster. The government tells the public only what it believes we need to know. It's about time the people were able to treat the government the same way.
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138 Sagamix
You ask who is 'more' to blame - Brown or Capitalists.
Well - the answer is they are equally to blame.
The finance industry has certainly acted irresponsibly - but so has Mr Brown.
Gordon's job is to reign inappropriate behaviour in and to make fair and responsible trade easy. That is what we pay him for. That is what he wants us to vote him to do at the next election.
I don't blame Brown for every penny of the global crisis. I blame Brown for Britain's contribution to it. I also blame Brown for not leaving any contingency in his plans for a 'bust' period.
Sagamix - read this link from 1998 - Brown is not thick. He clearly knows what he should have been doing for the last 10 years:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/the_economy/183557.stm
Yes - Brown has failed.
Thus - to 'dial a cliche' - election now please.
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42 days is the biggest non-issue of our time. If you object in principle, then why not vent your spleen at 28 days ?
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Some folks abuse trust by cheating and stealing. The economic crisis and social disorder is the end result of that if you haven't noticed. I fail to see how more Thatcherism can turn it around.
Detection and enforcement are part of the solution but the Prime Minister is, today, promoting better values which can help prevent problems arising in the first instance:
"Successful market economies need trust which can only be built through shared values."
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"At a personal level 42 days was the final nail in the Labour coffin. It mobilised me to do all I can to actively ensure we get rid of Labour at the next election."
This is the most preposterous statement I have read on this issue, and God knows the competition is stiff.
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Richard fuld, the gorrilla of greed.
The chairman of lehmans brothers
walks away with 300m dollars?
Is that right?
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149 Sagamix
I think that example is again too simplistic.
Here is another set simplistic questions - I assume that you will be a good egg and will answer them - seeing as the rest of us are answering your questions:
1. How much should Gordon Brown be blamed for the depth of our current financial and economic situation:
a. Not at all
b. Partly
c. Totally
2. Please justify your answer to question 1.
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#168 threnodio
Good post, and I agree the 2 first questions to ask are your (a) & (b), but surely anyone who's lived through those 11 years is also entitled to ask whether:
(c) following his claims to have ended boom & bust can anyone believe a word he says?
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159. Busy Pete
You are not alone. I believe many if not all the problems are caused by an incredible influx from other countries bringing with them their lawlessness, drugs, etc. Some are ok but the bad ones make it worse for the good ones so they are all tarred with the same brush.
There is a huge white flight out of our cities to other as yet unaffected parts of the country. Thousands of us are moving abroad. This leaves, as someone posted before, the poor and the oppressed. Thanks Gordon and Tony Bliar.
How can we accommodate all these flipping people. How can we house them? Millions of them don't pay tax. Go and look at Edgware and many other places in NW London, its a disgrace. They found 18 Chinese all squashed into a house in my area, all illegal immigrants, living in squalor. They had dug a trench to use as a toilet. None paying tax of course. All working on black market. Disgusting. Looney lefty liberal socialists probably think that's ok. Bet they wouldn't like them in THEIR backyard though.
Brown and Blair let them all in.
Brown and Blair will retire to their huge mansions, Pimlico and the Highlands. Why not send them to Iraq and make their wives wear burkas?
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180 Hogorgog
Hogorgog........ I suppose you have a point.
I could have written the usual long list of catastrophic complaints, but it gets very wearing pointing out the full list of governmental disasters in every post.
Suffice to say that Iraq is the largest nail in Labours coffin.
42 days was just the issue that finally pushed me (personally) over the edge.
The rest of Labour's failures are well known.
Presumably you are in see no evil, hear no evil, spout lots of opinions mode?
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@165 Charles_E_Hardwidge
Narrow as you may believe my view is, it is an apolitical one, based on technical real world merits. Technically these projects are flawed. Not so much a crack in the wall sized flaw too, it's more like the entire side of the building is missing!
To say I am "not casually versed in the basics of these issues" would be wrong.
Why does the Security Services want to remain agnostic to this idea? It's simple really, the cost in time and effort to decrypt the flow of data would rise exponentially if this Bill were passed. "Bad People" would just move to the next algorithm encased in another, encased in another , encased in another until enough levels had been reached that any time sensitive data would take so long to crack as to be rendered history by the time the process was finished.
By FAR the easiest way to access this information is to acquire the password (by fair means or foul...), and this is where it gets spooky.
You are perfectly correct there is far more to counter intelligence than decrypting (very) high strength encoded information, but isn't the very point of 42 days that the spooky work *hasn't* got the evidence it wants and so *needs* more time to investigate. If the Intelligence services haven't got enough evidence by the arrest stage then they are not doing their job properly. (Oh I would like them - the Security Services that is, to start encrypting the data on their laptops that they keep losing, but that's a story for another day...)
Look if someone is planning to do "Bad Things", arrest them for anything you can. Then investigate the hell out of them. Al Capone was arrested (and successfully imprisoned) for tax evasion.
Let's allow the Security service to get on with their job, without slapping them in the face with a piece of legislation that would probably hinder them in the worst cases.
And you really think the biometric security for the passports hasn't been broken? Go to any random search engine and enter "?Fakeproof? e-passport is cloned in minutes". Proof of concept breaches have existed from the moment the scheme went public. Real breaches are occurring right now. Don't delude yourself, the "Bad People" are very smart indeed, and a lot more motivated than us.
Someone else here also touched on an interesting point. With the current financial situation, can we afford ID cards?
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#158
"Another part of me is hoping that Brown tries to force this through using the Parliament Act and thus triggering a massive wave of public anger which will precipitate his downfall and taking the Sleazy Labour Party down to oblivion with him."
Won't happen. He will bluster about it being "the right thing to do", as his spokesman did today, but when it starts to put at risk his position in No.10 he will back off, slowly but surely. He always does - the overriding mission of the current government seems to be to hold onto office as long as possible.
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re: 183 Brownedov
"following his claims to have ended boom and bust can anyone believe a word he says?"
I'd change that question, and instead of saying "can anyone believe a word he says", I'd ask "can anyone believe he understands anything that he's talking about"
The answer to that is plainly "no".
He honestly seemed to think that he could somehow stop the natural economic cycle from happening, and that the system could follow a growth path to infinity without ever having any downturn.
To me, and to anyone else who's ever studied anything whatsoever at school, this was just an absurdity.
When he originally announced it then deafening alarm bells should have rang in the media with them all saying "oh no, the man in charge of the money is a total idiot". Why didn't that media outcry happen? I don't know. There was also a similar lack of outcry when he stole all our pensions.
But that missing outcry was only in the media; most people I know saw all this coming even as far back as 1997, because it was just a question of time before you'd see the bad effects when you have an idiot in charge of all the money.
It's odd, but when the guy who's just taken charge of the country's money says something so mind-blowingly stupid, then he should have been dragged away by the men in white coats right there and then.
All the signs have been there since day 1 in 1997, it's just that the media never bothered to report it.
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I've just read through your comment on encryption and passports and can say without a doubt you're missing the bigger picture and getting some technical details wrong. That's just a fact and, probably, why you're sucked into the tinfoil hat stuff.
This gets to the heart of the narrow and vengeful Tory mindset. The Tories just want to drag everything down and start a fight. It's the easiest way for hoods to rise to power. This can't happen if folks stay calm.
There you go. Tories: mad and bad.
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#187
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
That's why Cameron has found opposition easy up until now - just oppose.
In the current financial climate the Conservatives are finding it more difficult, U-turn here, U-turn there, economic policy on the hoof following the Government's lead. It's amusing to watch the government-in-waiting duck and dive.
Just got to hope Gideon's lack of judgement and previous opportunism on the economy doesn't claim defeat from the jaws (or even the intestine) of victory.
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I think in a nutshell you have to decide.
Do you want the state to be the servant or the master, bearing in mind that once the state becomes the master it won't like becoming the servant.
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Ee by gum. The Labour chodes are out in force tonight.
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Tough to get excited about this. In principle I am happy with 42 days. Their Lordships know though that Gordon can't carry his own party on this. Given the economic climate this is just a distraction. 400 point drops on the FTSE concentrates the mind on other matters.
42 days was about playing at politics. The same can be said for 10 p rate abolition. Imaging building for the sake of it. GB needs to concentrate on core Labour values. It is that simple.
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The question is, how did Brown get himself into this mess in the first place?
The Police and security services were not asking for this unworkable piece of legislation, and doing away with Habeas Corpus and Magna Carta were never going to be vote winners.
Brown seems determined to promote policies that are massively unpopular, such as ID cards, HIPs, 10p tax fiasco, no referendum on constitutional treaty, allowing councils to abandon weekly rubbish collection, high taxes, etc etc
He is either out of touch, or simply doesn't care.
By choosing policies that no one wants, what Brown is saying to the electorate loud and clear is "Don't vote Labour!"
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#188
Brown never claimed to have abolished the business cycle.
Economic growth in the UK has gone from being among the most volatile in the OECD to being the 3rd least volatile. 1997-2007 the claim looked fair. The UK seemed more resilient than other economies after the Asian crisis and after the dot-com crash, and continued growth during these 2 hits to the world economy.
We are entering recession now in 2008, admittedly. Though it looks likely to be a technical recession, with 'negative growth' for 2 quarters and continued year-on-year growth with a moderate impact on unemployment.
We will see if the prediction of ending 'boom and bust' was correct over the next 2 years. Difficult to predict these things - it's dependent on whether the 'credit crunch' continues at its current severity or not, and whether the allies of the Conservatives are successful in damping down consumer expectations sufficiently (obviously a deep recession is a big political winner for the Conservatives)
And I'm sure if the recession is short and shallow, it will be down to the Conservative government 1979-1997. If not, entirely down to Brown. Nice to have things both ways isn't it?
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189 Charles_E's R Good _ Hardwidge
Not that either of us debate.......... I'm just floating words into the ether you understand.......
In a way it would be nice to go back to the days of Gene Hunt - and to fit up the baddies with a few grams of planted weed.
It would be faster and cheaper than buying and running a vast arrays of super computers, operated by people in brown corduroy trousers, working around the clock (for 42 days anyway), hoping that we can crack an off-the-shelf encryption.
The terrorists targeting this country have a simple way forward. Find an encryption that takes 43 days for the most advanced computer in the world to break.
Use a large prime number or something.
P.S. I've changed my mind about fitting people up with weed. Seems a bit wrong on reflection. A bit like locking people up without charge.
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189
So you think the best way to start a fight is the Nu Labour way.
Lie about a countries defenses bomb the civil populace to the stone age and then occupy if for years at the cost of billions of pounds from the Tax payer.
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192 Power-to-ppl
Expect peak-oilyness on 14th October. Full moon.
Only joking - Labour dudes - I don't agree with you that often - but I do like the hard core band who post here often.
It is entertaining.
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#192
You better watch out, power_to_the_ppl. I'll set my whippets and my pigeons on you.
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@ 189 Charles_E_Hardwidge
You still haven't put forward a single reasonable (apolitical) technical reason why I am wrong. And I don't think you can.
You bluster as much as you can and look at "the big picture". I'll float another cliché back at you "The devil is in the detail", these projects *are* flawed.
These flaws *will* be exploited by the very people we are trying to protect ourselves from.
Your political views are clouding rational technical judgement.
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I would be so interested in hearing from our non Prime Minister about the situation in Afghanistan. I wonder if he would like to give us all the benefit of his inside knowledge of what he would think of putting in a dictator to take the place of the elected President. You know the country which we have invaded with our NATO colleagues to bring democracy to. Please you could not make it up. You will get up to date soon Nick, you are just so slow. Doesn't the BBC get the news anymore, if I know about the French media decoding messages between Ambassadors then why don't you know, or must we wait for one of the famous BBC exclusives, without admission of where it came from.
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What an incredible idiot this country has as its 'leader'
Markets need morals, says Brown
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7655723.stm
Brown says he wants bankers (private individuals, working in private companies) to follow some moral standards that (presumably) he, Brown, will lay down.
This from a someone who has just re-appointed an individual who has twice had to resign from cabinet posts in disgrace (and will the disgraced blunkett be coming back too?).
If we (the tax paying public) have immoral indiviudals foist upon us - despite having a vote; how the heck will be be able to hold private individuals in private companies to account??
Madness.
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re: 195 balhamu
From what I can gather, the "stability" of the uk economy from 1997 to 2007 has been an illusion, driven by a combination of debt (public and private) and false accounting by the government; reality has now set in and the market is correcting itself.
I might be wrong, but I think there are 2 things at play here. One is the credit crunch, which is making the market jittery and generally causing the real economy to slow down. The other is that the market, having realised what a mess their own accounts are in, have also finally admitted/realised that the government accounts are in a similar desperately bad situation, so you get a double-whammy because the markets are scared on all fronts.
If only Brown had done something to help flatten the curve a bit in earlier years instead of believing that you can have infinite growth forever with no correction/downturn, we'd be in a much better position. But instead he just continued to borrow and spend whatever he could, with no thought of what tomorrow would bring.
It was all a disaster waiting to happen; it was inevitable because of the seeds that he'd sown. It's almost as if he made a conscious effort back in 1997 to set things up for the biggest possible fall/collapse that he could.
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re: 202 the-real-truth
That had me seething too, not just the hypocrisy, but also the fact that he wants to setup a financial system in his own personal image.
He's gone beyond delusions of grandeur, and has strayed into a Messiah Complex.
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I just don't want to discuss it any deeper in here. I suggest, you take the pointers for what they are instead of treating it like an argument. If you want to know more do some research. It's not a test of manhood or anything.
Putting these issues aside, my general view on encryption is it's fine for protecting against casual theft. I figure, if I get the door kicked in I'll have more to worry about than handing over the keys.
I've lobbied for a secure internet system similar to Microsoft's paper and prototype. That's just one of many legitimate reasons for them to meet with the government. Nothing spooky there.
Generally, I think, the government and auhtorities have lacked policy and presentation polish, and some of the less helpful reasoning and lazy media has crept into the gap. Hoepfully, that will change.
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Gordon do you want the Green Titanic deck chairs on the port side and the red Titanic deck chairs on the Starboard side, or the other way around.
By the way shouldn't you be driving the ship rarther than organising the deck chairs?
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#189
"This gets to the heart of the narrow and vengeful Tory mindset. The Tories just want to drag everything down and start a fight. It's the easiest way for hoods to rise to power. This can't happen if folks stay calm."
What makes you think I'm a Tory, or are you just using that as a catch-all term of abuse for anyone who dares disagree with your views? Actually, if you care, I voted Labour for nearly 30 years until the last two elections - then LD as I could no longer stomach Blair, Brown, Harman et. al.
My observation that Labour's first priority seems to be staying in office is based on professional and personal observation of the political process over a long period. It is made more in regret than gladness.
The last Conservative government got a bit like that towards the end, witness their spiteful privatisation of the railways, but they were amateurs compared with New Labour. The justification always given by politicians on all sides for the cynicism of the process is that "if you're not in office you can't do good things." They never admit that the prestige, salary, fringe benefits, career enhancement etc. is even part of their thinking.
Just about tolerable as a Machiavellian necessity if the government concerned were doing good things - but they're not...
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The Prime Minister is talking about a culture change. You can't legislate for everything. This is a matter of leadership, teamwork, and patience. (Something that's in short supply in this blog.)
Given the power the Prime Minister has he's looking very responsible by any standard. In comparison, the miniscule power folks have in here is routinely used to froth and rave, and step beyond respectable limits.
Keywords: insight and skill.
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#204
I have heard from a number of sources that Brown is very poor at juding other peoples perception/reaction to things.
Just look at how he was stabbed in the back by blair, mandleson and co -- anyone else would have seen that coming...
If this flaw is genuine then it would account for why he is so keen to try to put formal controls in place -- it would be the only way of him being sure of what is actually happening.
However, these things can't be controlled - they can only be managed and (if you are really good) harnessed - so he is on a hiding to nothing.
This is the fatal flaw of socialism - the need for micro management to a level that can never be acheived. Where as in a free market a few (very well thought out) rules to govern the overall market place will give that elusive outcome with minimal effort.
Brown - the colour of toast.
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dereckbarker
"Richard fuld, the gorrilla of greed.
The chairman of lehmans brothers
walks away with 300m dollars?
Is that right?"
Doesn't seem right to me.
If that's a fact, governments across the world should take a bit more interest in how executive pay is agreed.
Doesn't mean that people who create new companies should be cut off. But most directors are simply employees - like most of us. Hired in to do a job.
Just what has our regulatory system allowed? I sort of have wished that the New Labour stuff would be a bit more aggressive.
If executives are paid enormous sums (because they have to compete in a global market for really capable potential competitors - which I believe is garbage!) why don't they also have to accept the same conditions of redundancy, resignation, pension rights, or firing, as all the other employees they oversee?
Don't ask me - ask Gordon.
He screwed up private sector pension schemes.
Surely he could have brought in some legislation to make sure that failing executives were put into the same basket as other folks who don't really get a lot when executives screw things up.
You want an opinion?
I'm happy to pay people (guys/gals) who take on a big job. Really well. But without so many protective devices.
But I'd like their exits (and pension funds) to be similar to those of their employees. That may make them focus on a company, rather than a totally personal outcome.
Sorry if that's a bit too liberal for you.
Still can't see what Brown has done to impose some discipline on executive benefits. Guess he didn't want to screw up TB's financial way out. Maybe his own.
I happen to live in the SE. Chance. Where I actually grew up, there weren't too many opportunities. Like a lot of folk, I migrated away from a place I really liked.
Sadly, not a lot of cash. (Pension expectation less than I'd hoped. Don't totally blame Brown, but he hasn't helped.) House that could be worth less than when I bought it.
Don't give a lot of concern about the politics of governments. Would just like them to manage my - and your - money a bit better.
Is that too much to ask?
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I hear what you're saying but too many political and journalistic lightweights think Machiavelli is the answer to evrything. The Tao covers similar ground but is more subtle and has a more positive tilt. Personally, I consider it the superior item, and it has a lot to say about morality and markets.
I have a similar personality type but, then, so does Steve Jobs and Baroness Scone. Other personality types have their strengths and weaknesses, so I wouldn't get too precious about it. For the big picture, teamwork, and the long term, you can't beat someone like Gordon Brown.
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So, after ten years, Gordon wants to introduce a "moral" system for economies.
For goodness sake, I assumed that Brown was supposed to be the "moral compass" to offset the Blair flim-flam.
I have never,ever, contributed to a political party. Why would you?
This guy is well off the scale of a "real life".
I always hoped that politicians would take a fairly "moral" view.
So why has GB decided, 11 years into his dominance of UK finances, that a new approach is required?
Can't be anything to do with a failure to manage financial institutions for a decade, I guess.
Or Labour party finances (which don't bear scrutiny).
He can't have allowed our taxes to have been used in an immoral way, surely?
I don't dislike the guy. Just find it hard to understand why a PhD in History (big topic about some Scottish bloke we've never heard of or been interested in) is doing in charge of a nation engaged in two wars (and a few bits left over in the Balkans).
The moral guy would have walked away from the mess a long time ago.
It wasn't moral compass, but ambition, that kept him digging a financial hole for our kids to fall into.
Just what have you done, GB, to encourage a moral compass for financial institutions in the UK?
Don't give a damn about other nations. You couldn't change them. But you could have influenced - or dictated to - UK based companies.
End result?
Brown and Darling wandering about in the debris, wondering how all that mess could have occured. And being grateful that they had pensions paid from taxes - rather than investments.
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re: 211 Charles_E_Hardwidge
"For the big picture, teamwork, and the long term, you can't beat someone like Gordon Brown."
Glad to see you haven't lost your sense of humour.
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As an aside, given that Brown is now going on about the markets being carved in his own moral image, I spotted this:
The minimum wage for 16/17 year olds is 3.53 (I'm not sure how that's legal; surely it goes against the ageism and discrimination laws?)
"Apprentices" are exempt and can in theory be paid around 2.00 per hour or even less (which explains the government's new drive for diplomas as they involve apprenticeships)
(and, as discussed before, kids on "Work Experience" don't get paid anything at all)
How wonderful that the labour moral compass is working so well when it comes to people getting a fair deal.
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# 195 balhamu
"Brown never claimed to have abolished the business cycle."
I thought he actually made frequent references to Boom and Bust, and how it had all been the fault of previous Conservative government.
Oddly, Brown has stopped mentioning it of late. I wonder why?
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C_E_H
Poster: I have heard from a number of sources that Brown is very poor at juding other peoples perception/reaction to things.
You: "I have a similar personality type but, then, so does Steve Jobs and Baroness Scone. Other personality types have their strengths and weaknesses, so I wouldn't get too precious about it. For the big picture, teamwork, and the long term, you can't beat someone like Gordon Brown."
And, by your implication, you too Charles.
Sorry, dude, GB has been saying for a decade that he has a long-term vision. But never explained to me - and many more - what that was. I'd really like to understand where my - and my kids' - taxes will be distributed.
Steve Jobs used private capital to create his empire.
GB uses taxed income to pay for his.
Are you really arguing (suggesting, as you don't think a site like this is geared up for genuine arguments) that the two are comparable?
Baroness Scone? I presume you mean Baroness Young of Old Scone?
It's a little hard to spot the similarities you appear to claim.
Do you really believe that a strongly capitalist, profit-focused guy like Jobs is like Brown?
Or do you cross-dress to get into your Baroness Scone moments?
Come on Charles.
I hoped that Brown would be a bit more "moral" than Blair ever managed.
Been through some of those personality analysis sessions. Very expensive way to waste money! Normally paid for by corporations who don't really understand what they could unleash. Never saw a single illustration of a personality type you couldn't have recognised just by being around them.
Don't mean a thing, if you don't take it seriously.
Really don't care what personality type runs a government or economy. As long as that individual has a real sense of purpose.
Not too happy that GB is only now talking about a moral dimension to economics and finance. After a decade prowling around the corridors of the power over tax-payers' money. And some pretty doubtful choices.
Odd thing is that I agree that Jobs did some good stuff. But guess that Tata will deliver more benefit to more millions, because what they focus on is real stuff, in a real world.
If you can help people develop, create and deliver good looking copy, that's a benefit.
But if you could deliver a cheap form of transport for a few million people to get around, find new markets, understand other lives, I'd still say that is better.
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Re #204
He's not the Messuiah, he's a naughty little boy!!
(all together now)
Always look on the bright side of life!
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#179 Charles_E_Hardwidge
Some folks abuse trust by cheating and stealing.
That'll be our nu-labour overlords then.
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#211 Charles_E_Hardwidge
For the big picture, teamwork, and the long term, you can't beat someone like Gordon Brown.
Damn, there goes another keyboard.
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#215
Brown made frequent reference to the existence of the business cycle e.g. the Golden Rule to borrow only to invest over the business cycle, the test for the Euro about business cycle convergence etc. He never claimed to abolish it.
It always referred to the violence of the business cycle. It is undeniable that volatility of economic growth has decreased. We used to be among the most volatile economy, now we are among the least.
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Jon Cook @ 182
... "Here is another set simplistic questions - I assume that you will be a good egg and will answer them - seeing as the rest of us are answering your questions" ...
No problem. No way, do I want to come across as anything but a good egg.
The answer is (a) not at all.
And why? ...
Because the recession is caused by the banking collapse. The banking collapse is caused by the credit crunch. The credit crunch is caused by US sub prime, Wall Street financial engineering and lax monetary policy from the Fed. Gordon Brown had zero to do with any of that.
The UK specific factors (that our houses got a bit overvalued, and that we may have a higher than advisable level of government debt) are trivial in comparison.
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Nick,
some people have started to question the judgement of Gordon Brown. If you refer back to postings made some weeks ago you will understand that Brown is an Aspidistra.
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FOM @ 172
... "Don't understand why anyone could think that a collapse of the money systems could be exciting" ...
And I don't understand how anyone can think that it isn't.
Remember the fall of the Berlin Wall? The collapse of Communism? That was exciting, wasn't it? ... to see the well deserved demise of a cruel and intellectually flawed political and economic system? Exciting? Of course it was.
Well, for me, this is no different. In fact, I'm getting a bit excited even as I'm typing this. Woah, steady on there!
Listen, for too long, we have had a dumb and blind faith in the American ultra capitalist system, the "market knows best", free enterprise rules okay, and all that rubbish, when it's clear to me that this model does not work in the interests of the vast majority of people. It's inherently unstable too, as we are now seeing.
So, I've been expecting this and I am glad that it's happening. I don't think it will be armageddon, or anything like that, but I do think there is a good chance it will lead to a better way of running things ... and, no, I do not mean a return to East European type socialism with the state owning everything.
But just the prospect of finally breaking open the "market is king" consensus is refreshing, don't you think?
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#221
the recession is going to be caused by the fact that a social engineering experiment was carried out in this country whereby people who could not afford mortgages were given one.
The experiment was simple; evidence accrued that homeowners committed less crime; the biggest percentage of non homeowners were on low incomes; the bisggest percentage of crime was perpetrated by those on low incomes without a home. The next step was easy - provide an avalanche of cheap credit to low income households to encourage them to own their own homes. They would then commit less crime.
The Uk banking system followed the chancellor's lead and pumped the economy full of cheap credit lending up to 130% of value on the pretext that prices would always rise. While the party lasted all went well as home prices rose and home ownership rose but regulators and the regulator in chief, Gordon Brown, failed to supervise the self certified mortgage sector and people simply borrowed far more than they could afford to repay.
The withdrawal of this credit as banks delever and the collapse in house prices are just two factors why consumer spending is in dramatic reverse.
This experiment was carried out by Clinton and Greenspan in the US and eagerly picked up and followed by Gordon Brown in the UK.
Look at the leverage in the banking system and building socities prior to 2000 when they were still operating as prior to the independance of the Bank of England... building societies in particular just lent out what they had on deposit and there was no such thing as a 100 percent mortgage.
Then the Brown boom began and with no intervention from the Tripartite regulators or their master, Gordon Brown, the banks went on an unprecedented lending spree.
The very idea that no blame can be attached to Gordon Brown is like saying the captain of the Titanic had genuinely believed it to be unsinkable - until he rammed it into an iceberg.
Gordon Brown and his buddy Alan Greenspan (sorry, economi advisor) hatched this experiment in social engineering and it has gone catastrophically wrong.
The difference is that in the UK Gordon Brown decided to try the same experiment with the UK offering absurdly high returns on PFI projects and leveraging up the government ot unprecendented levels; all kept conveniently off balance sheet.
We've already had the call form the IMF... and an interim loan cannot be far way.
Doubtless there will be the usual howls of protest at this post form the newlabour spendaholics who jsut can't believe that the party is over and are desperate for another dose of Gordon's special medicine.
There is none left.
Call an election.
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Expanding the economic sweetspot is vital to improving success. It's harder to sell subtle than shrill in the short-term but easier over the long-term. It's why the Tories are going for smarmy pitbull politics and hoping they get lucky and election day falls at the right part of the cycle. Nick Clegg pulled the same stunt with the Liberal leadership election.
I remember when the house market was slowing down and the banks, estate agents, and media all played their part in hyping it up again. It's the same scummy manipulation that these so-called "liquidation sales" con-artists pull. Folks have embarassed themselves a bit but the party's over. Once they get over their funk, I hope, they'll accept it was for the best.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
#164 fairlyopenmind
Excellent analysis - must have been tired last night and didn't spot it, but recommend anyone who hasn't read it to do so. Absolutely non-partisan but devastating to NuLab.
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#188 getridofgordonnow
Good points and fair comment.
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Brown and his "right thing to do" is flawed in his case.
Margaret said it was the "right thing to do" when after much deliberating she decided our troops would defend the Falklands from the Argentines. THAT was a good example of the right thing to do.
Blair going into Iraq because of somebody in Afghanistan blowing up the twin towers in America WAS NOT and Brown just thinks saying it ad infinitum to all crises is going to be a panacea. It is not because we don't trust him or his integrity. He doesn't work in integrity with anybody else either.
He is an unelected Wally. And that's being kind.
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#149 sagamix
To quote Ex President Reagan 'there you go again'. You're still punching an invisible target. I haven't heard one commenter here pinning the whole credit crisis on GB.
Your 'maths' is bogus. Can I recommend that you take an open university course so that you don't make a fool of yourself again?
BTW - For an equation to be an equation it must contain an equals sign. I think that's covered in the first week of the course.
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#213 getridofgordonnow
LOL. Could CEH be on the verge of needing the men in white coats, just like his hero. The posts seem more manic than usual and the new expertise claims suggest someone else could be getting a Messiah complex.
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@ 224
Okay Robin, I semi see where you're coming from and I sort of agree in a kind of a sense. The British love affair with home ownership, ignited by the Wicked Witch, often leads us into places which we really should avoid, doesn't it? A bit like any love affair, I guess, in that respect.
But I can't have your conspiracy theory, I'm afraid ... for me, cock up wins out all day long. Gordon Brown has been the pawn of the markets, not the evil mastermind behind them. So I don't blame him for what's happening, I feel sorry for him. Do wish he would step down, however. Better for everyone if he was told to do that.
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6. Charles_E_Hardwidge wrote:
I was persuaded that under extreme circumstances 42 days detention was necessary and proportionate. The problems started when the usual ideolgues and vested interests started getting a slice of the action.
No Charlie; the problems started when degree and depth to your thinking started to be recognised.
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@ 230
... "I haven't heard one commenter here pinning the whole credit crisis on GB" ...
Me neither, Jonno, I've heard about 25 of the bozos. Sorry if you feel I'm banging my head against a BW but I'm one of those people who, when looking in the face of ignorance, cannot just smile and walk away. It's a fault of mine, I recognise that.
... "Your 'maths' is bogus. Can I recommend that you take an open university course so that you don't make a fool of yourself again?
BTW - For an equation to be an equation it must contain an equals sign. I think that's covered in the first week of the course" ...
The OC? ... can't I aspire to a little more than that, please? What about, say, Warwick or Bristol or someplace similar?
And of course you're right, equations have an equals sign, they do teach that in the first week. They teach that in the first week of primary school, I believe, after which, as you progress a little higher, you come across other exotic mathematical terms such as "is greater than" and "is a necessary condition of" and "is a member of the set of" and "tends to but never equals". You know the sort of thing, I suppose, since you've clearly got an excellent grasp of the subject.
Hey, Mr Jonno, I don't appreciate being patronised by pea brains, you know what I mean?
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"And I'm sure if the recession is short and shallow, it will be down to the Conservative government 1979-1997. If not, entirely down to Brown. Nice to have things both ways isn't it?"
The Tories have been out of power for other 11 years but the New Labour supporters still blame the Tories for everything from the current financial problems, to the rise in knife crime and probably some even blame them for the bogeyman.
If we get out of this recession pretty cleanly (which is unlikely at the moment) then it won't be down to the last Tory government (although it might be down to the next Tory government though if it drags on).
However, I find it ironic that someone who so clearly (or blindly) supports the government to talk about having "things both ways" when New Labour manage to take credit both for the boom of the last 11 years (and actually even more when they talk about consecutive quarters of growth!) which was built more on global factors then on New Labour policy and yet when it starts to come crashing down they back away and point globally for the problem.
If New Labour want to take credit for the "boom" then they have to take credit for the "bust" as well - especially when as a government they didn't put away anything for the rainy day that everyone else saw coming.
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232
Saga
You are right to say it's not entirely Browns fault, on the goings on, but he suffers from a Rimmer complex.
He has claimed many a time to be the economic genius behind the good times and rode that train till it crashed. Therefore it is only human nature to blame him now.
As believed he was the architect for the economic upturn, he now believes (frighteningly) that he has the skills to turn it around. He hasn't he just has not got the talent, that the sychophants around him say he has.
The saying goes those who want to stand as an MP shouldn't be allowed to. Certainly the case of Gordon and his PM wish.
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@ 236
Never heard of the "Rimmer Complex" Harry (does it give you spots?) but, if it means what I think you're driving at then, yes, he has it alright.
I agree that it's human nature to give him a kicking, he deserves a kicking. He's not what we need. But, and I think we're agreeing here too, the sad truth is that he was a falsely praised passenger on the way up and he is a falsely blamed bystander now, on the way down.
Through all the venting that goes on here, it's very important to recognise that because, if you misdiagnose the root of your problem, the odds are that you'll reach for the wrong medicine bottle.
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232. sagamix
Its not really the love affair with home ownership thats a problem. You cant still blame the wicked witch Shes as much to blame for anything today today as Callahan and Wilson are. My Parents wanted to buy their own home in the 1950s and it took years to save up a good deposit.
Prices have been driven up by exceptionally cheap credit and ridiculously attractive deals such as the practice of cash backs; which I know some buy to let investors actually used as income.
The British public must (well at least those who borrowed to the max) are equally to blame with their must have now culture. The banks are also to blame for these practices, but the people and the banks were all left unfettered.
The only single controlling entity that could have stopped all this was the government via tighter regulation.
Its not a cock up; it was negligence and the very least your can level the charge of turning a blind eye because the dumb masses and big business were happy.
And all this from a man that proclaims prudence and an indepth knowledge of economics.
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I see some folks are making the usual personal attacks and referring posts to the moderators again. You like to dish it out but can't take it, eh?
Some folks think governance, like war, is just another game of Halo.But, like the 42 days issue, you're playing with the blood of your buddies lives. We're all on this planet together.
I have no idea if this bill is dead in the water or not, but when seen through the lens of that perspective I wouldn't be too sure.
The Prime Minister is a great leader, and that's what seperates the men from the boys. Some would die for a man like that. We all would.
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Can the Lords vote labour out?
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#236 HarryPFlashman
"he suffers from a Rimmer complex"
Priceless - and so true.
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#225
As I understand it, the preferred economic narrative of right-wingers on here is that:
* Thatcher saved the British economy on entering power in 1979.
* She embarked on painful (but necessary) reform to decisively shift the empoyer/employee relationship decisively in favour of the capitalists (through breaking and cowing the trade unions) giving the labour market flexibility, destroy manufacturing industry at which we are at a comparative disadvantage, privatise industry and public services to save it from the dead hand of state monopoly and help shift our economy to the service industries at which this nation of shopkeepers is better suited and reduce taxation on the rich to allow a level of inequality to be built up that would give entrepreneurs sufficient incentive to work hard
* In the short-term, there was a lot of pain such as unemployment caused by these policies
* However, from 1993 the tree that Thatcherite reform had been growing began to bear fruit. The good economic performance we have seen 1997-2008 is entirely due to these reforms
* Since 1997, Bliair, Clown and NuLabourPF have been gorging themselves on this Thatcherite fruit. They have lopped off several branches from the tree and have not kept sufficient fruit to plan more trees for future years.
* This leads right-wingers on here to the conclusion
a) Economic growth 1997-2008 is entirely down to Thatcherite reform and Labour can claim no credit
b) The current downturn is all Labour's fault
Maybe you have a different analysis, Mark (and I would agree with you that the view above is wrong in several respects). But many posters on here would agree with that analysis. That's why I said what I did in my posting.
If you read my postings, you will find a considered view. I don't 'clearly' or 'blindly' parrot the Government line. I try and correct the worst of the right-wing propoganda and lies on here.
A lot of the problems that the UK is still dealing with are due to the 1979-1997 economc policies. Mass worklessness and poverty were a side-effect of the Thatcherite reforms. This was a primary cause of the social problems we see today. That is undeniable.
The subjective part of an analysis is whether Labour have achieved all they could have done 1997-2008 in fixing these problems and trying to tame the social outcomes associated with the post-Thatcherite Major/Blair settlement on economic policy.
And this 'rainy day' argument is flawed. As I've said many times, debt as % GDP has not increased. We have had a balanced (or almost balanced) current budget over the past economic cycle (contrasting with a cumulative £320 billion current deficit 1979-1997). Labour borrowed to invest in infrastructure, schools and hospitals. Conservatives sold the assets of our country at a discount through privatisation at a discount to their City chums, selling off council houses for a discount and squandering the North Sea Oil receipts to pay for tax cuts for the rich, mass unemployment and associated social problems.
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#234
I'm sorry if it came across as patronising I just thought it was a particularly lazy piece of 'maths'. If you going to use the greatest of arts then please do it properly.
One glaring error is the fact that the Xs in your reasoning do not refer to the same thing. The rest of the analysis is therefore invalid.
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Flame patricia,
I am afraid patricia that your such a snob
that I couldn't resist this one from the other blog.You say,
My husband's ancestor in fifteenth century was Attorney General to Henry VIII.
So what your saying is that he took part in helping this serial wife killer did he.
Quite a lot to be proud of there then.
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Carrots @ 238
All true ... you are being very reasonable today, I must say!
I'm a fan of home ownership. Also a fan of the democratisation of credit that we've seen. Went too far though, no question about that ... in particular some of the self cert stuff and also the spivvy side of the BTL street.
What I don't want to see now is a knee jerk reversion to the days when it was next to impossible for the average person to get a mortgage. That will return property to its previous status of an asset available only to the privileged few.
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88 Carrots, You say
MI5 were not pro 42 days, they were agnostic towards the issue.
Well they certainly weren't against were they.
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#232
Okay saga; agreed the housing bubble was ignite by Baroness Thatcher...but even she railed at the discounts proposed by her cabinet at the beginning of this scheme and there were no 100% mortgages an building societies lent out what they had on deposit.
Financial advisors in those days tracked the deposit numbers per month knowing how much they would have to lend out.
The Gordon Brown took over the controls and the great social engineering experiment began; 130% mortgages with no deposit and no proof of income were given to anyne who walked in and asked for one and the abnks funded themselves in the wholesale creodit markets and not through deposits.
All this was waved through on the nod by the new Tripartite regulator overseen by none other then Gordon Brown.
There is no other way to explain what happened; the buck has to stop somewhere; these lendiong practises did not predate Gordon Brown the coincide with his stewardship as Chancellor and his oversight of the Tripartite structure.
The buck stops with Gordon Brown; he is completely and utterly responsible for the excesses of the last eleven years and he will take the rap.
The truth will out and the longer he sits there denying it, perversely, the more people will look for ways to pin it on him.
Anyone can argue that they got soaked because it was raining... but did you bother to protect yourself from this torrential downpour of cash? No.
Call an election.
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#242
the 'right wing propoganda and lies' should read 'the right wing setting the record straight and presenting newlabour apologists with the real track record of their spendaholic government and not the edited highlights presented to them by the dear leader'
I'm sorry the facts about newlabour's record don't look too pretty but that's what comes from eleven years of tax, reckless spending and negligent refulation.
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Jonno @ 243
Thanks. Apology accepted. And mine too for calling you a pea brain! You may well be but I have no surefire way of knowing that.
Thing is, it wasn't meant to be solid Maths ... I just sometimes look for different ways to make my points, you know, rather than the same old thing all the time.
Also, I have neither the space on here, nor all the necessary symbols on my keyboard, for a watertight mathematical explanation of the global financial system.
I wish it were otherwise.
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You've made some good comments. I've seen how some folks discussing security systems get caught up in the 'thrill of the chase' but when you gently roll some facts in their direction they tend to melt away.
There's a flow to history, and folks play their roles as it happens. Things change, and people change. Steve Richards comments on that today. Developing awareness and self-awarenes can help, and is something both the left and right should develop.
By expanding the sweetspot, Gordon Brown has helped increase the range, flexibility, and resilience of the economy. This helps folks get over dualism of the planned versus laissez-faire economy. I think, it's something we could appreciate more.
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Balhamu,
I praised some of your earlier postings as inspiring debate - unlike C_E_H who is a pompous blathering school child getting his kicks through taunts.
However, you seem to have been worn down by the anti-Brown weighting of the body of the Kirk on this site and are now resorting to an unlistening, militant (and therefore ugly) stance; that has the air of hopelessness about it. Can we have the considered Balhamu back please - to inspire rather than snipe. It might encourage others to do the same.
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The Nu Labour Troll Hawkridge wrote...
"The Prime Minister is a great leader, and that's what seperates the men from the boys. Some would die for a man like that. We all would."
Sadly a lot of our soldiers ARE dying because of Brown.
How dare you come onto this Forum and make such stupid and absurd comments.
Gordon Brown as Chancellor deliberately starved the military of funding. That is why so many brave young men have died in "Snatch" Land Rovers instead of having proper armoured vehicles. Time and time again, pleas from those in charge, right down to the ordinary squaddie, have asked for better resources and equipment.
Brown is an absolute disgrace. He supposedly writes about "Courage". He doesn't know the meaning of the word.
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Nick,
I hope that your readers were listening to the Andrew Neil Daily Politics today, tuesday.
We know that the Icelandic banks are 'in trouble' so who is going to bail them out. That's right the wonderful Russians. You know the ones who that little bit of a problem over Georgia. Well, in return for helping out the Icelanders, ahh the Cod War, the Russians want access to a aprt of the American former airbase, just like America has a bit of Cuba, where they do bad things to bad people as Prince Harry would say.
I wonder if the Russians have the same plans for Iceland, they may find some war criminals who they could put there. Just a thought, who exactly could I be thinking about?
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#250
Dualism is actually the debate over body and soul, well who is fighting over the dead body of the labour party because it has already lost its soul.
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Nick
The 42 day period of detention is something I would support if it meant no more posts from CEH for 7 weeks.
In the meantime, it is more than a bit irritating to have CEH make selective quotes from various posts completely out of context. The notion that Brown, Mandelson and Darling is anything other than a menage a trois from hell is just too unreasonable, even for Charles. No sooner has Mandy got his stilletos under Brown's table, and the financial sector implodes. Is this a mere coincidence? Meantime, they can whisper Darling to each other until they are breathless and the UK economy is spent. Good to know that there are Labour Zen Budhists who think this is all part of the big plan.
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245. sagamix
mmmmm, Must be having a bad day, normal services will be resumed.
246. grandantidote.
No they were agnostic as I said, they had no beef, no opinion, no position on the matter.
Im agnostic about God, so it would be misleading and quite wrong to scream believe, believe, he must exist because the Carrot says so.
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Re 252, bernie
Agree
Only an absolute idiot who had never read a history book would go to war in Afghanistan. In 150 years nobody, including the British Empire and the Russian Empire have won there, it was only ever going to be an absolute bloody mess. The problem is getting out. Anybody want to have a whip around to send the troll there to patrol the roads. If no money just a whip around would do.
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#248
Many incorrect factual assertions are posted by those with right-wing sympathies.
A recent example from this blog would be that Conservativives supported BoE independence and it was in their manifesto in 1997 - a complete lie (they didn't decide to "respect" this decision until Feb 2000) and that there are 1.7 million more public sector workers since 1997 (there are 600,000 more).
Maybe I'm being uncharitable in my interpretation of whether these glaring factual errors are deliberate (and so propaganda and lies) or by mistake and true errors.
'Spendaholic' - these were the political choices made by the electorate in 1997, 2001 and 2005 that they wanted increased public spending to improve public services and to try and alleviate social problems, and increased taxes to pay for this spending. Labour were quite clear that this is what people would be getting if they voted for them.
Maybe not what you voted for, but I rather suspect you voted Conservative. I'm so democracy hasn't led to the outcomes that you personally wanted to see (low tax, low spending, no investment, tax cuts on the rich and wealthy at a guess; unsure where you stand on regulation)
Borrowing is not up and we pay less to service our debts than we did when Labour took office. I think a better definition of 'spendaholic' is squandering over £350 billion of this country's assets to purchase tax breaks for the rich, unemployment, poverty and social dislocation. Labour have increased the Government's income to ensure they can pay the day-to-day bills and only borrowed to invest for the future.
#251
I would hope my posts are considered as ever. It is a fruitless task though and maybe some frustration is showing through...
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100 Carrots. My! Carrots you have been a buzy boy haven't you tracing back all that way, but really pretty pointless considering my position on DD remains unchanged,you seem to forget that DD voted for 28 days and then resigned rather stupidly over 42 days.
When as its been proved there was still plenty of time to raise objections in a sensible manner
"It should also be noted that despite this rather ambivalent position Mr G still made 17 posts against DDs position in June."
What I said was
To be perfectly honest I have never thought that 42 days was necessary, but acting on the advice of the police and Mi5 and the rest it seemed the right thing to do.
You see having no personal knowledge of how terrorists work, not ever been involved in that kind of work unlike every Tory on these blogs who appears to be well versed in the way that terrorists run their filthy business.
I tend to trust the people that we appoint to carry out these counter terrorist activities, If we can't trust these people then we had just as well sit back and let them do as they like.
I am quite aware that they sometimes make mistakes and one in particular was tragic.
I trust the armed services to look after myself and my family and they sometimes make mistakes. unfortunately we are all susceptible to making mistakes in all walks of life but only occasionally it results in death.
With regard to your last remark I have never been what you consider to be a communist.
I am as I have said before a socialist and a supporter of the Labour party in most things.
I was not in favour of the 10p tax. I think GB made a mistake for not attending parliament on the expenses issue, but I am sure he knew what the result would be.
I am completely behind him on the issue of the referendum as is Ken Clark, Gummer, and Chris Patton and a number of other Tories.
I am not in favour of referendum on any government issue whichever party is in power.
I am not in favour of introducing identity cards at this time, I think it may become necessary in the future but not at this time.
So you see I dont follow slavishly the policies of the government, but on balance I am mostly behind them.Whereas the Tory party offer nothing to me that I would consider to be good for the working classes of the country, never have and I guess never will but I live in hope.
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#52 Brownedov
"What's actually needed is separation of the legislative and executive powers in such a way as to end the "elective dictatorship" of the PM. Without a written constitution adopted after a referendum, any "safeguard" we have is purely illusory since the PM could create enough NuLab peers to push 42 days through tomorrow if he wished to."
Excellent, couldn't agree more.
The so-called 'unwritten constitution' has been a blight and a curse on the political system.
Its the constitutional set-up that's bad, not that an unelected second chamber, consisting of nominated party hacks, millionaires who purchased their peerages, 92 hereditary members, and certain Anglican bishops, is good.
Thatcher and Blair, in particular, showed their contempt for democracy. A supreme court is also required with the power to strike down unconstitutional legislation. It could ensure that extended detention without charge and ID Registers would never reach the statute book.
There isn't much else that can be said about this appalling Government and PM, that hasn't been said already. No need to waste words.
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Some maths for Sagamix
Let X stand for depth and pain felt during and after the credit crunch
X varies according to a number of factors.
F1 : Exposure of banking industry to ?toxic? debt related to sub-prime selling
F2 : Regulation of banking industry by relevant authorities relating to liquidity, checking of viability of assets etc
F3 : Financial position of a country in relation to current debt, future availability of tax revenues etc.
Now, any reasonable person would admit that these 3 factors will ALL have some bearing on X. Therefore the real question is ?Has GB had any effect on each of these factors?. Obvious answer ? Yes of course, he was chancellor for 10 years and is now PM. Secondary question ? ?Has the effect that GB has had on these factors produced an increase or decrease in X?. That one is obviously a matter of opinion, but to my mind the answer is an increase in pain.
GB is NOT responsible for sub-prime mortgages.
GB IS responsible for how well-place (or otherwise) this country was to withstand a downturn in the economy.
To put it another way.
All countries are exposed to the US banking fallout.
All countries are feeling DIFFERENT levels of pain.
Therefore there is something that modifies the effect of the banking fallout in each country. What is it? The regulation of the industry and the financial readiness of the country.
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The big problem when Thatcher came to power was the Unions. She took steps (some not very palatable) to curb that power.
What exactly was the big problem in 97 (unless you count ?people were fed up of the Tories?).
According to GB it may well have been the economy, boom and bust, and housing bubbles.
Well, what did GB do? He allowed the biggest housing bubble in history to develop, he took away the BoE?s power to regulate the banking industry and step in when there were problems, and he set the country up so that when the bust was finally set off - by the American sub-prime problem ? we were in a much worse position than we should have been.
That?s why it?s not ALL GB?s fault, but it IS why he bears a great deal of responsibility for the amount of pain that we are feeling / will feel in the future.
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@ 239 Charles_E_Hardwidge
Don't you dare speak on my behalf ever again, if you assume men would die for Brown feel free to put yourself at the front of the queue.
@250 Charles_E_Hardwidge
"I've seen how some folks discussing security systems get caught up in the 'thrill of the chase' but when you gently roll some facts in their direction they tend to melt away", but CEH that's exactly what YOU did in post 205!
@239 Charles_E_Hardwidge
"I see some folks are making the usual personal attacks". Let me get this straight...YOU are accusing US of making personal attacks?
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Every single Labour MP and every one of their sleazy supporters ought to be hanged for treason. By rewarding the dregs of society and penalising the competent and productive Labour has turned this country into a cesspit.
Run to Glenrothes if you must, Brown. How you have changed your tune. But it won't save you. Nothing will.
No longer will we stand for your tyranny!
Rot in hell, Nu-Labour!
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I'm generally happy with my facts and attitude, so won't rush to defend them. It's enough that the ignorance and vanity of ego is flushed into the open.
Some folks might like to try flower arranging and yoga. It can teach you a lot of the world, yourself, security, and economics. (And be another way of passing the time.)
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248RobinJd
BUT they're not "facts" are they Robin. They're your opinions (and weird ones at that IMO).
At least Balhamu introduces an element of factual basis to his arguements with creditable sources of info, virtually th only person that does)
All this about Social Engineering is your view,just like it was the view of many that the great sell off of Council houses by Thatch was such an attempt and the great sell off of Westminster's houses only to selected people by Shirley Porter was similar (oh no that was a "fact" because she was prosecuted for gerrymandering - sorry)
See the difference??
119# Re your claim that your freedom of speech is being denied when you're apparently speaking freely on here! a bit strange don't you think?
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For Charles
GB doing the ?big picture?. ?I?ll hide it in the detail, they?ll never notice. 10p tax losers? What 10p tax losers??
GB doing ?teamwork?. ?Good morning my minions. Now tell me, how are we going to stab Tony in the back today?
GB doing ?long term?. ?I need a good newspaper headline tomorrow, what can we do. I must be in power and stay in power, who might my rivals within the party be and how can I get rid of them?
Great Leader!
By the way Charles, re an earlier post on this blog. I hadn?t realized that the Tories were responsible for burning witches. Next you?ll be telling us they persuaded Eve to eat the apple. Incidentally I take it you didn?t know that around 75% of those accused of witchcraft in this country were acquitted, and the majority of the rest were hung. In fact there are only 2 actual documented cases of witches being burnt ? but hey, it made a good line didn?t it?!
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"38. At 12:48pm on 06 Oct 2008, Arquebuss wrote:
Does CEH really believe the drivel he brings forth?"
No, it is his attempt at sattire, and baiting tories. It is much easier to rise above and not take the bait.
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"a) Economic growth 1997-2008 is entirely down to Thatcherite reform and Labour can claim no credit
b) The current downturn is all Labour's fault
Maybe you have a different analysis, Mark (and I would agree with you that the view above is wrong in several respects). But many posters on here would agree with that analysis. That's why I said what I did in my posting."
I would say that anyone who is being fair would have to agree that neither of the above statements are true.
Yes, the reforms Thatcher put into place helped to kick start the economy (and I think it is fair to admit that the economy was in a better state when the Tories left then when they came in) however Labour have helped nuture it and came out with some good ideas of their own (e.g. letting the BoE set interest rates - although I think that was a precursor to joining the Euro).
So Labour can claim some credit - but the growth was more to do with the global economy and the excess of cheap credit then Labour's careful hand.
Flipside is that the downturn is due to the end of cheap credit and global factors.
"If you read my postings, you will find a considered view. I don't 'clearly' or 'blindly' parrot the Government line. I try and correct the worst of the right-wing propoganda and lies on here."
Maybe I have been slightly unfair, however you are someone who before I read your posts I have a very good idea of what they will contain - maybe you are trying to act as a counter weight to the more right-wing posters (and I admit that they do need correcting on occasion) but the same is true of some left-wing posters.
"A lot of the problems that the UK is still dealing with are due to the 1979-1997 economc policies. Mass worklessness and poverty were a side-effect of the Thatcherite reforms. This was a primary cause of the social problems we see today. That is undeniable."
This is where I have to disagree, yes a downside of Thatcherite reforms was mass unemployment - but that was as much the fault of the unions as Thatcher. The unions bumped heads with the government and neither wanted to back down - by the time the Unions power had been broken the country had found that many of the products could be made cheaper elsewhere. However, from 1992 onwards the job market was growing and there were jobs around but sections of the population were unwilling to relocate/retrain to find work. If you live in an area of high-unemployment then you are unlikely to find a job in the local area - therefore if you want to work you have to move. As a young man my grandfather and his brothers had to move to find work because of high unemployment in the area he grew up, the same was true of my father and myself."
"And this 'rainy day' argument is flawed. As I've said many times, debt as % GDP has not increased."
I don't think it is flawed, I would counter that the debt as % of GDP is flawed. Think of it at a personal level:
Your mortgage costs are 40% of your salary, you get a 10% pay rise - do you
a) think "Great, now I can borrow more so I still owe 10% of my salary"
b) Either decide to shortern the term of your mortgage and pay off more debt
c) Neither and just use the extra 10% pay increase for day to day living.
Choice "A" only works as long as you don't have to take a pay cut, or need to suddenly borrow more money - both of which it looks like the government will be facing (recession would lead to lower GDP and they are borrowing more to help prop up the banks)
"We have had a balanced (or almost balanced) current budget over the past economic cycle (contrasting with a cumulative ?320 billion current deficit 1979-1997). Labour borrowed to invest in infrastructure, schools and hospitals. Conservatives sold the assets of our country at a discount through privatisation at a discount to their City chums, selling off council houses for a discount and squandering the North Sea Oil receipts to pay for tax cuts for the rich, mass unemployment and associated social problems."
So if we have a balanced budget how come that the National debt has increased so much? And Labour have been around for 11 years if they wanted to nationalise the industries they could - they just realised how much it would require in investment (just as the Tories realised when they sold them). By it's very nature anything that the government touches seems to be a bottomless money pit.
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239. Charles_E_Hardwidge wrote:
The Prime Minister is a great leader, and that's what separates the men from the boys. Some would die for a man like that. We all would.
First I thought:
Thats has to be one of the funniest things ever written on any blog Ive ever read.
Then I realised that young lads are dying because of him and his cuts backs which led to inferior kit being issued in Iraq.
Oh well I guess you cant fund those equality and diversity officers from thin air can you.
Someone has to make the odd sacrifice eh!
Dont suppose you want to lead by example do you?
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To anyone expecting rationality from CEH.
The Charles E Hardwidge ?How To Blog? method
1. Dress everything up in pseudo-religious claptrap that can be discarded as and when you need to insult people.
2. Claim to understand everything, but tell others that understanding is a barrier to knowledge.
3. When challenged directly either a) ignore the post b) claim to have already posted the answer elsewhere or c) state that it should be obvious and advise the poster to find out for themselves.
4. Occasionally ?back up? statements with references to having experience of / awareness of / or having predicted anything that is being written about.
5. When the pressure gets too much, announce your intention to quit posting as ?too many people just don?t get it?. Then, when the heat dies down, return on another blog and start from 1 again.
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259 Carrots sorry carrots I meant you were a busy boy but your probably a buzy boy as well, undecided would have been a better word if there had been any doubts in their mind then surely they would have opposed,
Agnostic is neither opposing or supporting a belief in God,. Which to me is rubbish you either believe or you dont if your agnostic its just that your afraid you might be wrong, sort of an each way bet.
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259. grandantidote
Oh all right.... Im sorry.
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I'm not going to comment on individual policy or people, but I can get behind the general position.
Personally, I think, a more mature political model should be promoted by parliament and the media, instead of the usual chest beating and headline chasing.
Anyway, the old politics is a busted flush and folks are getting older, so it's probably going to happen anyway. I figure, most of the froth is just ego railing against it.
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Grandantidote
An explanation please.
How do you square this statement
"To be perfectly honest I have never thought that 42 days was necessary"
with these
"in order to protect millions of innocent people this (42 days) may have to be done . . . if that?s the price we have to pay to protect the populace then thats what we have to do and we have to do it."
"I would rather see the mistake being some poor soul being locked up for forty two days who will eventually get over it, than the mistake of not arresting someone who goes on to blow to pieces a hundred or so innocent men women and children".
Now I'm not denying you have a right to your opinion, but I don't see how you can claim the first having written the second.
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The real reason 42 days is dead is because Gordon Brown can't use the Parliament Act to get it through.
The Parliament Act requires you to be able to get the Bill through the House of Commons several times in quick succession.
Brown has lost all of his authority and would never get enough of the rebels onside as he managed to do before, even with the help of the DUP.
Many of the rebels have the safest labour seats, and even if he threatened to remove the labour whip from them, all that would achieve would be a motion of no confidence being passed. The rebels are popular in their own constituencies, they'd win even if they had to run as independents.
Its going to be interesting to watch Brown struggle to get even the less contentious issues through the Commons over the next year or so, very much like John Major in 1996-97.
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264# Power People.....
The words of a Right Wing Blogger.
Need we say more?
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272. grandantidote wrote:
Agnostic is neither opposing or supporting a belief in God,. Which to me is rubbish you either believe or you dont if your agnostic its just that your afraid you might be wrong, sort of an each way bet.
No. it can mean undecided, it is possible not to have an oppinion on something.
Especially when armed with very little fact.
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Grandantidote
Ref 275. and what Grawth wrote:
Oh dear.... the plot thickens
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re: 277
We'll see who's laughing in 2010 sweety ;)
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"Its going to be interesting to watch Brown struggle to get even the less contentious issues through the Commons over the next year or so, very much like John Major in 1996-97."
Except Major never lost a single vote in the commons whilst he had a majority. In fact for the whole of the 92 - 97 government, The largerst majority the tories had was 21 and then when John Major removed the whip, even as a minority Government, he still only lost one substantive vote.
The fact that Blair had lost a vote with a majority of 60+ and that Brown looks like he would do the same shows how weak they really are.
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#240 Richard196
"Can the Lords vote labour out?"
Not unless "Duff" Gordon tries to delay the general election beyond June 2010. Even then, he could just create enough new peers to extend this Parliament forever.
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I'm focused and level enough, which is more than can be said for some folks posting from the anonymity of the herd.
I watched the attack build up on the Prime Minister and it followed a similar curve. It's flattering to see you give me that much power over your ego but, really dear, I have no use for it.
If a man cannot govern his own mind how is he fit to govern a country? That's something for the ideologues and opposition to chew on. In your own time.
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I need the help of regular bloggers on here.
I am trying to cast the lead in a film of Charles's life. I need an actor who is a combination of:
Clint Eastwood / Charles Bronson (cleaning up the mean streets)
Kevin Costner (Elliot Ness - taking on the Mob)
Bruce Lee (martial arts supremo)
Daniel Craig (secret service insider)
Bill Gates (technology wizard)
Karl Rove (kingmaker, power behind the throne, etc)
Gary Kasparov (master strategist)
Buddha
The messiah
Probably ought to throw in a few inspirational business leaders as well...
Any ideas?
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278, 282
Surely "Agnostic" means literally "without knowledge"?
Could be applied to a few of the posters here....
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re: 284
LOL. I reckon he looks like this!
(Or maybe Steve Buscemi in Fargo)
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#260 brynt41
I agree entirely, but it certainly looks as though the BluLab Tories will push out the NuLab Tories next time. I suppose they may be a little less authooritarian than NuLab, but the $64,000 question will: Are they really unionists and what will they do to save the union?
If they're not prepared to bring in some form of democratic federal system, I really can't see why Scotland & Wales should stay in, leaving the UK consisting of just England & Northern Ireland, at least until the repblicans outnumber the unionists there.
Bad news for the majority in England, I suspect but eventually the European courts may be able to rule the quasi-democracy at Westmidden unlawful.
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#269
Thanks for taking a more measured view than many posters here.
I would find it hard to agree that high unemployment was caused by the unions. The primary cause to me would seem to be deliberate Government policies to destroy jobs they saw as uncompetitive through engineering a recession and making exports uncompetitive, and to remove trade barriers.
Unemployment was 'a price well worth paying' as (so it was thought) a short-term adjustment cost for economic restructuring.
Unfortunately, the hysterisis effects of unemployment were unforeseen (de-skilling, de-motivating, long-term unemployment, impact of moving onto sickness benefit to massage employment statistics) , as were the geographic immobilities in the labour market that prevent relocation (e.g. housing costs, difficulty the unemployed face in moving in advance of having a job to move too, ties to communities).
The impacts of these policies are still being felt now on large areas of social policy.
re 'saving for a rainy day' - I think your personal level analogy is not entirely correct. Responsible lenders would have an idea of the level of debt that it is affordable for people to take on, directly correlated with their level of income. If I earned £100,000 banks would consider me to be able to afford to borrow significantly more than if I earned £50,000 (twice as much).
The choice Labour had was to 'fix the roof' while reducing debt at the expense of investment in infrastructure, education and health (which would be expected to increase long-term growth), or to 'fix the roof' by undertaking this investment.
The government have balanced the CURRENT budget over the economic cycle.
The current budget is the day-to-day bills (benefits, public sector salaries, prisons, defence etc), rather than the loan to purchase a car or a mortgage to purchase a house (new schools, hospitals, infrastructure).
They have borrowed to invest. This is why debt has increased in real terms (though of course it has decreased slightly as a % GDP).
And my post wasn't suggesting re-nationalisation. More pointing out that the previous administration made a lot of money from selling off assets (at a discount) and using the North Sea Oil revenues to plug the gaping £350 billion hole in their day-to-day budget over 1979-1997, rather than to invest the money sensibly. This wasn't preparing for a 'rainy day' in my view.
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Before anyone get's too excited I'd look for a better script.
Failing that, Daffy Duck.
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#281
Weak or free-thinking , allowed (to a larger extent) to have a mind of their own and representing a diverse range of views.
Also, as someone who values democracy and holding the Executive to account, surely such behaviour is a sign that Labour MPs today are more effectively doing their job of scrutiny on behalf of their constituents rather than being whipped into submission as Conservative MPs in Major's administrations.
I think MPs questioning the Party/Government line is a healthier situation than all thinking the same on every issue or voting against their own opinions.
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#276 zzkevinm
Fair point. The labour rebels may prove to be our only democratic safeguard.
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Charles
All 'folks' here post from the anonymity of the herd.
Get over yourself.
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#284 E_Murdstone
Why not resurrect Chaplin to film it as a remake of The Great Dictator?
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Fantastic news. I have opposed 42 days since it was first mooted, and I also oppose ID cards. Get these unecessary distractions out of the way and focus on winning the next election.
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Just for the record - it's kind of the newlabour apologists to attempt to correct the 'inaccuracies' in other posters figures but after eleven years of newlabour spinning the numbers I do not feel they are in a position to have the benefit of the doubt.
A government that vowed to end the business cycle or boom and bust; a government who moved the goalposts whenever it suited as to when the business cylce began; a government who hid billions of off balance sheet 'investment spending'; a government who didn't actually know how many immigrants were entering the country; a government who had millions 'donated' unknowingly only to then admit they did know after all....
You believe your numbers. I'll believe mine.
The only real number that will matter is the number who believe they've been utterly duped for eleven years by newlabour spendaholics and will register their despair/disgust/rejection at the polling station when they get the chance.
be that Henley, Crewe and Nantwich, Glasgow East or London; it's not looking too good when you have to actually get out there and defend your record, is it?
See you in Glenrothes.
Call an election.
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re: 294
Erm, I think they should be focusing on saving Britain from going down the pan rather than 'winning the next election'.
Typical NuLyingBore fixation with keeping hold of power.
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Grawth @ 261
Oh alright then, fair cop. But I was merely attempting (yet again!) to rebut the ridiculous argument, propounded quite regularly on here, that Gordon Brown, like some evil genius master criminal, sitting there stroking his white cat, is the root cause of this banking meltdown. He plainly isn't and I hope that most people can now see that. Anycase, I will try not to return to this and I will also try to avoid the cod mathematics ... no promises on either score, however.
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239. Charles_E_Hardwidge
The Prime Minister is a great leader, and that's what seperates the men from the boys. Some would die for a man like that. We all would.
Put your money where your mouth is.
How dare you speak in the name of all of us?
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284. E_Murdstone
I have your man
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42 days is indeed dead
Can we have something else to argue about please.
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296 re: 294
Erm, I think they should be focusing on saving Britain from going down the pan rather than 'winning the next election'.
Typical NuLyingBore fixation with keeping hold of power.
.................
Typical tired lumpen rightwing drone speak. I would say that labour winning the next election is essential to saving Britain. Cameron is not the solution, he is an empty suit.
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#295
Why is any spinning that you said New Labour did relevant to the debate here?
I'm an objective observer, and would like to make my judgement based on the facts. I'm sure most of the population think like this too.
Your argument is "Labour made stuff up, so I don't care what the facts are, I should make my judgement based on made-up 'facts' that are biased the other way".
Isn't that somewhat irrational from someone who wants to judge the actual record of this government?
Maybe not for you, because it is apparent that a Labour government (regardless of how it performs) is a disaster for you from a personal political perspective.
Don't call an election - the Queen shouldn't allow it as Labour have a large majority and clear mandate until 2010.
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My good friends! ... I won't deny that I have been hurt by charges of over simplicity in some of my recent contributions and so, in the hope of making it up to you all, I am now pleased to present something (see below) that is meaningful, perhaps even verging on the profound.
The First Assertion:
I believe that equality of opportunity (but not of outcome) is the cornerstone of a civilised society. Without it, there can be no "freedom" in the real sense of the word and the fact that so many people can't develop their gifts, because they have no proper chance to do so, is a drag on the prosperity of us all. That a person's prospects in life should be so materially affected by the lottery of who their parents are is a very BAD THING.
The Second Assertion:
I believe that, when a person has worked their tail off to become prosperous and successful, it is right and proper that he or she, if they so wish, are able to spend some of their hard earned personal wealth on giving their children the best possible start in life ... for example, by forking out for an expensive private education. To seek to do this for your children is human nature at its best and it should be encouraged. It is a very GOOD THING.
Now, where are you? ...
If you AGREE with #1 and DISAGREE with #2, you are a clear thinking progressive. You are one of the Good Guys. Like me, I'm one of these ... plus maybe 3 or 4 of the other regular posters.
If you DISAGREE with #1 and AGREE with #2, you are, I'm sorry to say, an evil reactionary. You are one of the Bad Guys (there are 8 of these among the regulars) and you have to be opposed at all times, and every time, however painful it may be for everyone involved.
If you AGREE with both assertions, you are a well meaning but muddle headed centrist. There are 12 of these appearing regularly. The great news here is that, with a little gentle (but occasionally firm) guidance, there is no reason on earth why you can't end up joining the Good Guys before too long.
If you DISAGREE with both assertions, you
are a crazy mixed up kettle of spuds and I'm not sure what to suggest. I'd say that we have 5 of these.
I'm not so rude as to start gratuitously outing people into the 4 categories (to recap, that's Clear Thinking Progressive, Evil Reactionary, Muddle Headed Centrist, and Crazy Mixed Up Kettle Of Spuds) but, if you're sufficiently interested and you ask me, I will be happy to tell you, based on what I've seen of your posts, where I reckon you are.
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288. At 2:23pm on 07 Oct 2008, balhamu wrote:
"I would find it hard to agree that high unemployment was caused by the unions. The primary cause to me would seem to be deliberate Government policies to destroy jobs they saw as uncompetitive through engineering a recession and making exports uncompetitive, and to remove trade barriers."
Perhaps I phrased my thoughts about the Unions badly in my earlier post, but I think a good example would be the Miner's Strike - after over a year with the pits out of action several previously viable pits had to be closed down because they had flooded, other mines were closed because the cost of getting the coal from the ground was more expensive then buying it in.
In other industries Unions would make demands that meant that the production cost of making an item would be more expensive then production in other countries. You have probably noticed that the stronger Unions now are the ones where the work can not easily be done abroad.
"Unemployment was 'a price well worth paying' as (so it was thought) a short-term adjustment cost for economic restructuring."
I agree the government did have political reasons for making some sections unemployed - although I think you would probably agree that if the actions had not been done then the nature of world trade would have meant it would have happened later - we can not cope with the likes of China or India on cost basis (I would be quite happy if the government made it a condition of the bank bailouts that they had call centres in the UK - but I doubt that).
"Unfortunately, the hysterisis effects of unemployment were unforeseen (de-skilling, de-motivating, long-term unemployment, impact of moving onto sickness benefit to massage employment statistics) , as were the geographic immobilities in the labour market that prevent relocation (e.g. housing costs, difficulty the unemployed face in moving in advance of having a job to move too, ties to communities)."
As someone who was made redundant under New Labour (company I worked for went bust) I can confirm that there is very limited support when it comes to relocation (you get help with travel costs for interviews but nothing for actually moving to a new area) so I would expect this was just as bad under the Tories.
Incidently help with travel costs was the only useful service the Job Centre staff provided, the staff were unhelpful and seemed totally unaware that for computing jobs the internet is a much better way to find jobs then their machines! They even failed to process my claim properly meaning I lost 2 months of benefits - I finally got news that the process was complete the day after I got the confirmation letter from my new job!
"re 'saving for a rainy day' - I think your personal level analogy is not entirely correct. Responsible lenders would have an idea of the level of debt that it is affordable for people to take on, directly correlated with their level of income. If I earned ?100,000 banks would consider me to be able to afford to borrow significantly more than if I earned ?50,000 (twice as much)."
I think recent events show that not all lenders have been that responsible! But my point was a simplification so I agree that it isn't entirely accurate. I do feel the point about percentages being a problem when the GDP starts to shrink (especially as when employment starts to go down so does tax revenue but unemployment costs go up)
"The choice Labour had was to 'fix the roof' while reducing debt at the expense of investment in infrastructure, education and health (which would be expected to increase long-term growth), or to 'fix the roof' by undertaking this investment."
I agree, it is the same as a house owner deciding between replacing the roof or paying off more of the mortgage - although considering that the government have spent billions on failed computer systems, the war on terror they could have put more aside to pay off the mortgage!
On reflection it probably would have been prudent to have increased taxes slightly when the economy was good so they could have more money to throw at problems now (but hindsight is 20:20).
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#301 The Notting Hill Hammer
"I would say that labour winning the next election is essential to saving Britain."
You didn't say from what.
Democracy, perhaps?
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#290
"Also, as someone who values democracy and holding the Executive to account, surely such behaviour is a sign that Labour MPs today are more effectively doing their job of scrutiny on behalf of their constituents rather than being whipped into submission as Conservative MPs in Major's administrations."
I'm all in favour of "independent-minded" MPs. It's an inevitability that, with party- selected candidates, many if not most will toe a party line.
Odd thing is that, while Major gained the most popular votes of any party leader in the 20th Century, he ended up with a majority of only 21. (Just a third of the present administration's majority - and an eighth of Blair's original landslide margin.)
Hardly a wonder that significant whipping was required to get some bits of government business through...
Had he lost a couple of key votes on the Maastricht Treaty, it would have been dead in the water. (Actually rebel voters exceeded his nominal majority.) Had that happened, we wouldn't have even contemplated the issue about a referendum on the Constitution (sorry - Treaty of Lisbon). Things wouldn't have got that far!
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#302
Like the mandate to not put the European constitution?
my argument is not "newLabour made stuff up" my argument is the facts speak for themselves:
We're in a recession.
5m are on benefits
Child poverty has got worse not better
No infratstructure projects were commissioned despite all that money and all that spending in eleven years.
Now you are relying on the French to build us some nuclear power stations
The Tripartite system has collapsed in failure and categorically failed to illuminate (or was ignored) the extreme levergae in the banking system
The PM, Chanceloor and BofEngland governor are having to hold an emergency meeting tonight because this problem has reached breaking point yet you still balem the Americans - well your chancellor blithely followed their example and borrowed big.
Th IMF will be next and you people will be licked out for decades.
It's a sad fact that so much good intention (and that I would not dispute) has ended with this much indebtedness, waste, acrimony, dystopia and bankruptcy but it all followed on from the chancellor's wild hubris when he called for an end to tory boom and bust.
Call an election (if you don't find one gets called anyway)
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#302 balhamu
"Don't call an election - the Queen shouldn't allow it as Labour have a large majority and clear mandate until 2010."
They had a large majority of nine on 42 days, and the DUC won't be there for them every time, so don't get too carried away.
Personally, I wouldn't call a quarter of the electorate voting for them and more than 60% of voters voting against them a "clear mandate", although I would agree that in 2001 they were somewhat less unpopular than their fellow unionist opponents.
Finally, I would point out that since WW2 the norm has been to hold a general election after 4 years (ie 2009) but on the 2 occasions it has been held near the last possible moment (ie 1964 & 1997) the incumbent lost quite clearly.
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#303 Sagamix
What about this reaction.
#1 - agree 100%
#2 - agree that it is human nature to want to give your children the best start in life, disagree that people should be encouraged to pursue the "private" option.
My understanding of the private school sector is that many parents would prefer not to pay fees if there was an equally good state alternative on offer. Where I live, two of the three state schools produce better academic results than the local private school.
But of course, it's not that simple is it? one of the other state schools is very poor by comparison, and so people who can afford to move into the catchment area of the good schools - for many families, moving into the catchment areas is as unobtainable as paying private fees.
What about selective state education? Some parents will help/push (depends on your point of view) their children (extra coaching, etc) to get them in. Other parents leave their kids to fend for themselves.
what about faith schools? Some parents are religious - their kids get access. Some parents will play the church game for a few years - their kids get access. Some parents won't bother.
It is one of the great failures of (all) modern governments that they have not been able to come up with an education system that provides genuine equality of oppurtunity for all children (your "assertion 1"). While they continue to fail on that front, human nature will continue to mean there are haves and have nots - both in the division between private and state education, and within the state system itself.
Bit longer than expected, sorry.
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Everything develops from the centre. Some folks misunderstand what the centre is and/or end up getting sucked into the extremes. Gore Vidal's famous comment on the 'dead centre' is funny but wrong.
Returning to the topic:
This is where the ideologues and vested interests "defending freedom" got it wrong. They were defending their own preconceptions and trying lift votes. It wasn't about creating the best law for society, it was all about them.
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For those who are seriously interested in how the Afghanistan war will end then may I suggest thet you read the New York Times of the 4th October which contains elemnets of an exchange between ambassadors. The truth is out there only so few want to seek it. We are all being prepared for the installation of a dictator and our retreat.
Oh, and I wonder when publicity will be given to the report from a select committee on possible charges being brought against British soldiers for their possible involvement in the torture process. So much possible!
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What I would like to know is...
Why is it that the government push through an unpopular (hateful) policy of 42 days detention, justified by the recommendations of experts in the police and MI5...
While at the exact same time, they refuse to change existing drug laws, which would probably get about a 50/50 approval rate (at a guess, since at least half the people I know do some kind of drug - yes, even the really normal-seeming ones)... DESPITE the evidence of experts.
Another thing... given that they were refused 90-odd days detention and are simply pushing it through by increments, (14 days... 28 days... 42 days... etc), what are the chances they'll settle with 42?
Also, how long until it's used for purposes other than terrorism? Or until terrorism is redefined a bit more widely?
I'd also like to say what I want to see in a political party, because frankly the tories are evil and labour are idiots. Why do we even have other parties if only those 2 ever get in anyway. I'm only 24 and I can see the whole system is corrupt.
1: End Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Leave them a huuuuge box of chocolates and a note that says sorry.
2: As in a previous post (or another thread), guarantee pensions and (limited) savings with government bonds, then let the banks fall.
3: Rebuild the schools system as a proper learning establishment - include trade skills (eg woodwork, bricklaying) as choices from 11. Reduce the number of subjects a child must take, the reason kids don't know much is that they have to take in such a range of information. Fewer subjects = more depth.
4: Drop the terror laws. All of them. We didn't need them when we had real terrorists, we don't need them now.
5: Regulate newspapers using a truly independant body, funded by the newspapers themselves. Too many of them print lies, or opinions disguised as fact (I'm looking at you, Daily Mail).
6: Regulate all financial institutions and abolish the Fractional Reserve system. Usury was illegal in christian countries for a very very very long time. in fact, only jews were allowed to lend at interest in this country for a long time, hence the stereotype.
7: Cap mortgages at 4x ONE salary, to enable a family to buy a house and have a partner stay at home to bring up the kids.
8: Limit child tax credit to ONE child. That way, we can have all the good bits of a one child policy with none of the drawbacks.
9: Roll back all other tax credits, and replace them with just not taking the money in the first place.
10: Cap Council tax at present levels, replace increases with a nominal increase in income tax. All the benefits of no council tax rises, coupled with the benefits of not having to overhaul the whole system. Council Tax can then be gradually phased out. This does mean that national government needs to share the money fairly though.
That's it, for now.
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It seems the NuLabour Trolls are out in force on this board.
Balhamu Post 269...
The government have balanced the CURRENT budget over the economic cycle.
The current budget is the day-to-day bills (benefits, public sector salaries, prisons, defence etc), rather than the loan to purchase a car or a mortgage to purchase a house (new schools, hospitals, infrastructure).
What a load of nonsense! These words could have come from the mouth of Gordon Brown.
So when is a debt that needs to be repaid not a debt? According to you when it's a loan? Derrr???
So a mortgage or a loan for a car and its monthly payment does not form part of an individual's budget? What planet are you on?
Gordon Brown had the sheer arrogance to lecture banks and financial institutions recently on hiding off balance borrowing and debt. The sheer hypocrisy of a man who has saddled the UK with £100 billion of PFI debt is staggering. This debt, plus the pensions of a vastly increased Govt workforce will have to be paid by future generations for many years to come.
This is Enron style accounting of the worst kind. I find it unbelievable that when questioned about this Brown simply dismisses it out of hand and calls it investment in the public services. This is not investment. This is unprecendented spending that HAS to be repaid in the future.
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Reality is not democratic nor does it care for tin-pot egos in the slightest. It's mostly chillingly cold, rather big, and quite ruthless. I doubt it notices the finger wagging and chimpanzees waving their tin-foil rescued from the garbage dump. Choice can be as lethal as a bomb in a crowded shopping centre - it just explodes in a different form.
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#306
Why do you use the pronoun "you" at me to refer to what this Government have done?
It is not clear we are in recession (while certain sectors of the economy definitely are e.g. housebuilding), and technically a recession would require negative growth during Q3 and Q4 (current figures only cover Q1 and Q2 of 2008).
And it's not clear if a coming recession will be a 'bust' - that depends on its length, severity (e.g. if year-on-year GDP growth goes into reverse) and impact on unemployment.
And pinning any forthcoming recession on Gordon Brown would have a lot more credibility if other countries in the world were not suffering from the current financial problems that we are, and we were doing a lot worse than others. The first is clearly not the case. We are still in the 'wait and see' stage on the second I think.
Unless of course he has had a pervasive influence on the economic climate across the world, which I'm not sure even you would argue (though perhaps I'm wrong).
Over your postings, you give three reasons for pinning things on Brown - and the last two are at odds with the arguments that you normally make on here.
1) Government borrowing is only slightly lower as % of GDP then in 1997 - the argument appears to be that if we didn't invest in schools, hospitals etc and paid back the debt, then the private sector wouldn't have taken on so much debt (the 'follow the leader' argument)
2) The government should have intefered in the lending practices of bank (remember the 1970s 'corset'), regulated more and cracked down on poor corporate government practices and use of incentive pay in the financial sector (which would have a lot more credibility if you right-wingers were not arguing the reverse of this until the last two months, and tentative proposals for crack-downs on pay in the financial sector were called the 'politics of envy' by you on a social mobility blog not very long ago)
3) The Government should have intervened earlier to prick the housing market bubble (though, again, there didn't seem to be many voices on the right saying this until a couple of months ago)
And child poverty has not risen since 1997 - the reduction in child poverty is merely smaller than it was in 2006.
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#304
Thanks for your intelligent and sensible response. Agree with much of what you say (though would also add on the 'rainy day' point that Labour were elected to invest in public services rather than pay back debt).
#308
Within our constitution, they have a clear mandate (as you know, I agree with the points you have made on constitutional reform earlier in this blog. Though if there was real desire for change in 2005 within the current constitution, people would bite the bullet and vote Michael Howard in 2005 as Lib Dems did for Blair in 1997)
Labour clearly still have the ability to govern (whether they do that well or badly), and there is no chance of a "No Confidence" vote being passed in the Commons.
BTW you omit 1992 in your list of maxing out the time between elections - the last government was in power 1987-1997 with only 1 election over the 10 years.
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I detest this Labour government and the BBC for blatantly showing bias favouring them. David Davies was castigated usually on a BBC programme without proper right of reply. Thank god for the House of Lords (That is something I never thought I would say). The Daily Politics today had 2 Labour MP's and the big brother cat George discussing how wonderful Brown is and how he will win the next election ! How about asking for a show with 2 Tory MP's and a biassed extra discussing how awful Brown is, and has been. The licence fee will be going if the Beeb carries on like this as all voters will press their MP's to legislate this WHEN Labour are thrown out of office as a minority party.
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#313 bernie5470
"This is Enron style accounting of the worst kind."
Elegantly put, and very true.
But it's a pity that politics boils down to general elections about which party will be the more truthful or accurate bean counters rather than being concerned that the system is so rotten that we need a fresh, democratic start.
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"The government have balanced the CURRENT budget over the economic cycle.
The current budget is the day-to-day bills (benefits, public sector salaries, prisons, defence etc), rather than the loan to purchase a car or a mortgage to purchase a house (new schools, hospitals, infrastructure).
What a load of nonsense! These words could have come from the mouth of Gordon Brown.
So when is a debt that needs to be repaid not a debt? According to you when it's a loan? Derrr???
So a mortgage or a loan for a car and its monthly payment does not form part of an individual's budget? What planet are you on?"
It is easy to see the difference if you think about one as having to borrow to pay the monthly bills and the other as borrowing to buy a new house.
Borrowing to pay the monthly bills just gets you deeper in trouble (you will likely have to borrow the month after as well because you still can't pay the bills).
Borrowing the buy a house means that with each payment you make you are closer to paying off the loan plus you have an asset which has some degree of value.
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#313
Debt repayments sit in the current budget. In CASH (i.e. nominal, not allowing for inflation) there were £30 billion in 1996/97 and £30 billion in 2006/07. They are included in the day-to-day bills in the current budget which has been balanced.
Current surplus 1979-1997= MINUS £350 billion
Current surplus 1997-2008 = PLUS £1.6 billion
Who squandered money to pay the day-to-day bills again? The ones with the positive current surplus?
We don't have £100 billion of PFI "debt" - read the IFS's informative Green Budget 2008 where they break PFI liabilities down into "debt" and "payment for future services that could be changed by future Governments". 30% of schools PFI and 50% of hospitals PFI fall into that latter category.
Even allowing for PFI debt in the way the IFS suggest, debt as % GDP is slightly lower than it was in 1996/97
And of course there were no public pensions liabilities before 1997.
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Philip Green is blaming the media for the high street depression. I agree, the media should pay more attention to what they say and how they say it. They like to perform like some 'scoop' saving the world but are never there to take the hit for their actions.
I think, there's a lot of issues with the media chasing headlines and , sometimes, too much freedom of information. As with businessmen and financiars who are having to chew on hubris, the media could do with taking a look at itself. Coverage on this 42 days affair alone has been woeful.
And, Nick. I'm looking at you.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Murds @ 309
Quite. I take the (reluctant) view that you have to take away the private option if you are truly serious about attaining the goal of equality of opportunity. I recognise that it's no small infringment of personal freedoms to do that but in this case, for me, it's omelettes and eggs.
Based on your answer, I'm happy to annoint you as a CTP.
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"Hmm.
Post #313 and #319 seem eerily similar.
Mark_We = bernie5470.
Any other aliases Mark/Bernie?
Busted."
Actually I was quoting from 313 and explaining the difference between the two :)
My comment was at the bottom:
It is easy to see the difference if you think about one as having to borrow to pay the monthly bills and the other as borrowing to buy a new house.
Borrowing to pay the monthly bills just gets you deeper in trouble (you will likely have to borrow the month after as well because you still can't pay the bills).
Borrowing the buy a house means that with each payment you make you are closer to paying off the loan plus you have an asset which has some degree of value.
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Gosh, I'm on a roll today ... just love reducing the vast complexities of Human Affairs to a series of binary questions!
I'm more like a sort of giant super computer than an actual person, aren't I?
- is it correct to credit Gordon Brown for the boom?
- is it correct to blame Gordon Brown for the bust?
YES/NO - unfair and wrong (blinkered NL)
NO/YES - unfair and wrong (blinkered BTP)
YES/YES - fair but wrong (most of the Public)
NO/NO - fair and right (me)
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275 Grawth
You question how below.
"To be perfectly honest I have never thought that 42 days was necessary, but acting on the advice of the police and Mi5 and the rest it seemed the right thing to do."
With what I had said previously which you picked out
in order to protect millions of innocent people this (42 days) may have to be done . . . if that?s the price we have to pay to protect the populace then thats what we have to do and we have to do it."
I really dont see your problem the first paragraph you will see that I say
"may have to be done"not I think it should be done.
" if that?s the price we have to pay to protect the populace then thats what we have to do and we have to do it."
That statement was based on what you failed to say below.
.Is that I then said ."
"You see having no personal knowledge of how terrorists work, not ever been involved in that kind of work unlike every Tory on these blogs who appears to be well versed in the way that terrorists run their filthy business.
I tend to trust the people that we appoint to carry out these counter terrorist activities, If we can't trust these people then we had just as well sit back and let them do as they like."
At no time am I aware of saying that I think suspected terrorists should be locked up for 42 days.
I certainly still believe that the next statement is exactly what I still think and probably millions of others think the same , we are not talking about trumphed up charges as ocurred with the Irish so called terrorist who were jailed for years that was criminal, had the 28 days or 42 days have been in operation then there might not have been the rush to charge them.
I had said
"I would rather see the mistake being some poor soul being locked up for forty two days who will eventually get over it, than the mistake of not arresting someone who goes on to blow to pieces a hundred or so innocent men women and children".
That is not saying that I want any one locked up for 42 days its merely offering the choice between one scenario and another
and my preference.I would have been happy with 28 days but we were advised that the police needed 42 days and maybe they did we may find out to our cost.
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#316 balhamu
"BTW you omit 1992 in your list of maxing out the time between elections"
My #308 referred to the two elections "held near the last possible moment". 1964 & 1997 were held more than five years after the previous general election. The 1950, 1959, 1970, 1979, 1983, 1987, 1992 & 2001 elections were all held during the fifth year of parliaments. The betting seems to be that unless "something turns up" NuLab will likely hold the next election in June 2010.
"Though if there was real desire for change in 2005 within the current constitution, people would bite the bullet and vote Michael Howard in 2005 as Lib Dems did for Blair in 1997"
Sad but true, although at least the 1997 taught LibDems that referendum promises mean nothing to NuLab. Sadder still that they copied NuLab over Lisbon, and I say that as someone who would have voted Yes given the opportunity but puts truth and democracy first.
"Labour clearly still have the ability to govern (whether they do that well or badly), and there is no chance of a "No Confidence" vote being passed in the Commons."
Time will tell, but you're probably right. It's hard to say what the next backbench rebellion will be or how successful but I acknowledge that few of the turkeys will vote for Christmas. OTOH who can tell what, say, a 'flu pandemic would produce in the the way of by-elections.
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264 ppl your a total buffoon.
You say.
" Labour has turned this country into a cesspit."
And somebody should drop you into it you would be quite at home there.
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"Independent minded Mp's"
Like the ones that ask questions for cash?
The grey area's of irrelevant jocking.
A pillory of defeated posters.
Let wisdom lead you through your
temple of doom.
When the shilling is polished the appearance is brighter.
Peace be with you all!
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I would like to see an ammendment to the parliamenmt act that means it can only be used when there is a larger majarity than a mere 50% in the House of Commons. Perhaps 60% minimun or even two thirds. Labour's behavious shows that the parliament act as it stands is merely a tool to batter the country with.
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CEH @ 310
... "Everything develops from the centre. Some folks misunderstand what the centre is and/or end up getting sucked into the extremes. Gore Vidal's famous comment on the 'dead centre' is funny but wrong" ...
Gore Vidal, now there is (was?) a Clear Thinking Progressive!
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I've found a handful of well structured facts can make the more shrill and emotive performances dry up quite fast. They bounce back later if the dominant position in their mind is still occupied by junk but, then, the world may have moved on and the subject will have changed. So much for "independent" and "free" thinkers.
I also think that 42 days might help avoid another De Menzies affair. If there's less heat in a terrorist situation it's possible that things might progress in a better way. Again, that's something the "independent" and "free" thinkers could reflect on.
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Heh, that's rather good.
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ProLib @ 312
Now, you sound like a person I can do business with ... apart from that Fractional Reserve Banking thing which I feel is a little bit sweaty palmed.
Is it okay with you if I mark you down in our camp as a Clear Thinking Progressive?
If you don't reply, I'll assume you're happy and I'll just go ahead and do it.
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303. sagamix
I see were being boxed and catalogued now. What box am I in again?
Very 1984.
Ok so I cant choose how to educate my children because its tough on the poor.
Whats the next step antisexualism and futurology.
I am interested to know just how you would force the rich to use state education and what you would do with the private centres of excellence.
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333. Charles_E_Hardwidge
I wondered when you two would team up.
Youre made for each other!
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#324 Mark_WE
"Actually I was quoting from 313 and explaining the difference between the two"
It makes posts much easier to follow if you put quotes in "italics" or even to use CEH's method of
It isn't hard to do. Full details of what formatting you can use are in my #75 on the New ways into blogs thread.
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#332 Charles_E_Hardwidge
"I also think that 42 days might help avoid another De Menzies affair."
Speaking to him would have avoided the de Menezes affair. If they didn't dare risk that, they'd hardly have arrested him let alone locked him up for 42 days, unless you mean that would have given them time to "fit him up".
You really are desperate today aren't you?
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#324
Noticed that. My apologies.
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Brownedov, thanks for the advice. I never knew that you could use html codes in the blogs - but thinking about it I probably should have realised as I have seen formatting in blogs just never actually noticed it!
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338 Browndov
Nobody wants to fit anyone up. the bent copper rule is you fit some up to buy time. Not you need time to fit some on up. If the police did their job properly on that day and Menezes was stopped. They would have realised straight away that he wasn't the terrorist they were looking for. Thats the problem I'm having with the lib dems at the moment, a little too paranoid. Yes stand up for human rights and civil liberties. but lets not go too far. Civil disobedience from a serious party? Make outrageous exaggerations and you will be ignored, Like David Davies.
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335 carrots...
"I see were being boxed and catalogued now. What box am I in again?
Very 1984."
Many of us appear to be boxed and catalogued by your kind, under Red flag wavers, New labour apairochicks, Zanu labour apologists So what's your point?
All I can remember from the 1984 story where the proles gather together for a Two minutes hate session. They watch a telescreen depicting their enemies and express their hate. or some rubbish like that. Seems familiar somehow.
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I was talking about a bigger and more interconnected picture. You're focusing too tightly, and I don't appreciate the football hooligan talk. It's offensive.
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342. dhwilkinson wrote:
Futurology
There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed.
The Party imposes antisexualism upon its members because sexual attachments diminish loyalty to the Party. neurologists are working to extinguish the orgasm; sufficient mental energy for prolonged worship requires repressing the libido, a vital instinct, and therefore requires externally-imposed sexual restriction by the authorities.
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Oh no, someone's upset Charles by suggesting he's 'desperate'.
Must be one of us 'spivvy, thuggy, omerta' type people he keeps going on about.
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Sagamix
Suspect I'm something of a muddle-headed wotsit (in general as well as specific terms!).
Anyway, here's where I think the difference lies.
Scenario #1 - the state sector is not performing as well as the private sector in health / education / wherever. This clearly denies poor people the same life opportunity as rich people, so we must blame the rich for being rich, make poor people resent the rich, and remove the private option completely, thus making everything fair, although still not performing well.
Scenario #2 - the state sector is not performing as well as the private sector in health / education / wherever. This clearly denies poor people the same life opportunity as rich people, so we must raise the performance of the state sector until it is at least the equal of the private sector, which removes the need for the private sector and makes everything fair but at a higher level than scenario #1.
The labour party tends very strongly to chopping the heads off the tall daisies, whereas they should be about providing the conditions for all daisies to reach as high as possible.
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#325 sagamix
- is it correct to credit Gordon Brown for the boom?
- is it correct to blame Gordon Brown for the bust?
YES/NO - unfair and wrong (blinkered NL)
NO/YES - unfair and wrong (blinkered BTP)
YES/YES - fair but wrong (most of the Public)
NO/NO - fair and right (me)
So since GB wants to take the credit for the boom, but not the blame for the bust he comes under the "blinkered NL" category - unfair and wrong.
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Garth @ 346
Mmmm, I know, your scenario #2 would be lovely ... make the state sector so good that only a fool would go private. That is classic MHC thinking, as it happens!
It's such a conundrum because, if you leave the private option there, then the very fact that the most wealthy and influential members of society can opt out means you will never achieve the goal.
This is a raising of standards, btw, not a levelling down. Has to be accompanied by a real focus on raising educational standards which, to me, translates quite simply as better teachers. Pay them more, make it a prestige profession to attract really good people. Let them do the job free of government interference. The potential, here, is massive if we grasp the nettle.
Would you, under any circumstances, support the abolition of private schools?
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@ 347
Correct
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Carrots @ 335
... "I am interested to know just how you would force the rich to use state education and what you would do with the private centres of excellence" ...
Ah, easy. You don't make private schools illegal because no way do we want the police bursting in to St Cedrics or wherever, breaking up double geography. No, you just have a rule that says, to go to university in the UK (unless you are a foreign student) you have to have A levels, and then you say that only state schools can offer A levels. You can still send your kids private, if you really want to, but it would become a route taken only by a few eccentrics.
As regards your category, I'd like to treat you as a special case and allow you to choose what you'd rather be ... so how do you see yourself as between Evil Reactionary, Clear Thinking Progressive or Muddle Headed Centrist?
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DHW @ 342
... "Very 1984" ...
Interesting how this novel is used so often by the right, isn't it? Almost as interesting as its author being a lifelong socialist. It's a bit like Springsteen's anti war "Born In The USA" song getting used as a flag waving anthem by right wing pro war republicans in the States.
Ah well. So few great works of art, in any field, produced by people with right wing political views (Mein Kampf anyone?) so I guess one can't blame them too much.
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#340 Mark_W_Elliott
You're welcome.
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#346
Of course this assumes that parents go private because of the quality of the school.
While a factor, it is definitely not the most important one.
The 'social' aspects of private schools (e.g. avoid the plebs, future networking opportunities) are crucial to many parents in their decisions to go private.
Regardless of how good state schools are, there will always be parents who demand private schools to insulate their children from the influence of the children of the less well-off or to purchase improved social networks. So your scenario 2 is unlikely to happen in my opinion.
And I'm not clear how this Labour government have been 'cutting the heads of the tall daisies', unless you are referring to some instint that a lot of left-wingers have.
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#346
Of course this assumes that parents go private because of the quality of the school.
While a factor, it is definitely not the most important one.
The 'social' aspects of private schools (e.g. avoid the plebs, future networking opportunities) are crucial to many parents in their decisions to go private.
Regardless of how good state schools are, there will always be parents who demand private schools to insulate their children from the influence of the children of the less well-off or to purchase improved social networks. So your scenario 2 is unlikely to happen in my opinion.
And I'm not clear how this Labour government have been 'cutting the heads of the tall daisies', unless you are referring to some instinct that a lot of left-wingers have.
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350. sagamix
And there we have it in one swoop.
At the age of 18 your new dept of education would discriminate against excellence in order to bring about equality.
As I said before, its just dumbing down in order to level the playing field.
You do that and the wealth just walks out.
Also some Unis (already private) would just turn down government funding and charge higher fees and we would pay.
I ll get back to your other points later today.
Busy day
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#341 dhwilkinson
"Nobody wants to fit anyone up."
I didn't suggest that anyone except CEH might be - my #338 was simply trying to understand was his bizarre assertion in his #332 and wondering what lay beneath it. As you can see from his #343, the answer was, usual, nothing,
"If the police did their job properly on that day and Menezes was stopped. They would have realised straight away that he wasn't the terrorist they were looking for."
Absolutely, and that was the essence of my point. I'm glad we agree on something.
"Thats the problem I'm having with the lib dems at the moment, a little too paranoid. Yes stand up for human rights and civil liberties. but lets not go too far. Civil disobedience from a serious party?"
I'm a Liberal, not a LibDem, but right now their policies in this area are absolutely spot on.
"Make outrageous exaggerations and you will be ignored, Like David Davies."
See CEH's #332 for outrageous exaggerations, and yes I know I shouldn't feed the troll. Mea culpa.
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@ 355
... "At the age of 18 your new dept of education would discriminate against excellence in order to bring about equality" ...
No it wouldn't, Carrots, because almost all kids would be in a state school, wouldn't they? No discrimination involved.
Hey, your wording is telling though. You assume that the children of the few eccentrics who opt out would be "excellent" ... but why? ... just because they have continued to go private?
Right, so private = excellence for you then, that seems clear. Private will always be better and people must always be able to go private ... you see where that leads, don't you? ... that's ER town, isn't it?
"All the Wealth walks out" is just an idle threat as far as I'm concerned. I'm just not worried about that. Don't think it would happen and, even if to some extent it did, the gain beats the pain.
Private Unis with no government funding, operating totally outside the system on the fees of a few wealthy oddballs? ... Don't think so.
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#345 Grawth
Yes, us "soggy" Liberals obviously have a darker side on his planet.
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357 Sagamix not getting at you in any way just using your post to give my opinion of parents who send their children to private schools,their are a few reasons why they do this.
Private school is a status symbol in the same way as having to have a better house than your contemporaries or a better car,
some thing to boast about.
Sending a child to a private school could indicate that you dont have faith in your child , that you dont think that he/she could compete with other children from poorer backgrounds or are afraid that he/she might not be able to compete either physically or mentally with people from all walks of life.
Then of course there is the possibility that you genuinly believe that the private school is a better school and send their children there irrespective of the cost which some can afford and others struggle desperately to afford rather than lose face by putting them into a state school.
Boarding school. no one will convince me that there is any justification for sending a child to boarding school, if you can't look after your children ,then don't have them.
I guess there can be exceptions to that, if in some circumstances the parents have to work abroad and the level of education in that country is poor, but boarding school is a poor option and is certainly not benificial to the child not to be able to experience a life at home with a loving family.
Thats the view of a man who left school at fourteen after recieving a very poor wartime education. Now is the time to have a go lads and lasses.
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You can knock it off with peppering me with smears. I'm not so dumb I can't see what some of you people are pulling and it's not going to work. Add value and be nice, or put a sock in it.
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apropos #310:
This is indeed where ideologues and vested interests "defending freedom" got it wrong -in pushing this legislation against a plethora of voices (within the Labour party, this of course included such figures as Diane Abbott, Lord Goldsmith and EWlish Anglioni, and I wonder under which category - ideologues and vested interests - you would place those people?) the ideologues of the Labour party sought to shore up their electoral position by portraying opposition to internment as 'soft on terror' and themselves as 'defenders of freedoms' (robbing Peter to pay Paul springs to mind).
In pushing this legislation, it most certainly was not about creating the best law for society. It was all about *them*.
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@ 359
Yes a motley collection of motives, all told, isn't it? Not something we want to protect, let alone promote. We can do so much better.
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357. sagamix wrote:
... "At the age of 18 your new dept of education would discriminate against excellence in order to bring about equality" ...
No it wouldn't, Carrots, because almost all kids would be in a state school, wouldn't they? No discrimination involved.
Ok this line of thinking is bonkers but lets play anyhow:
Yes it would, the principal is at play even if you only discriminate against 100 children a year. Even if they are the kids of a few oddballs as you so nicely put it.
Ref centres of excellence, come on you need to get out more and see what these places offer, you should at least know what you are seeking to stop.
Yes private generally offers excellence as far as an academic education and sporting facilities are concerned. But I agree private is not always better. The trouble is that the sate system is very mixed and very badly administrated and controlled too much by government. So I choose to opt out.
"All the Wealth walks out" is not an idle threat. I could go and live in any part of western Europe and take a good chunk of my business with me. People would send kids abroad or move away for a few years and return. I know many that come over from Europe to work but would not dream of educating their kids here so they go back if they can not afford state schooling.
I understand that you would happily sacrifice much in order to achieve equality but I would not. I will happily pay the tax to improve the state system so long as the money reaches the kids. I will not happily pay for the maladministration that exists.
Ref private Unis. British universities already have institutional autonomy, government funding is relatively new. I think there are even now some private ones. Many UK parents already pay to send their kids to foreign universities. Many go to the US. UK universities would adapt to the new demands created by your very brave new world
I think this one ideology is what I detest about socialism, it naturally seeks to dumb down what is good in order to bring about equality, you think that so long as we are all in the doo doo together then its ok.
The role of the state is to offer a minimum safety net for all, it has absolutely no right to reduce my choice not to take part in its often very mediocre and substandard services, nor has it the right to limit my options in the future should I choose to opt back in later.
Just one last thought, if I was forced to stay in the UK (probably had my passport confiscated by the ministry of truth) and I had to use the system, I would just pay for extra tuition to compensate and this would again propel my kids ahead of the average. In fact I may just home tutor them. Or is that banned too now?
Grandantidote
I actually agree with much of what you add. Especially about boarding, but nearly all only flexi board now. But no one looses face by using the state system. Its just not as good.
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Carrots @ 363
Thanks for the response. I do understand where you're coming from. You think that eliminating the private option would reduce overall standards (due to reduced competition) whereas I think it would increase standards (by ensuring the vested interest of everyone). We'll only know who's right when it happens, I guess.
However, with you, I suspect that you'd be in favour if retaining the private option as a matter of principle. I think that, even if you thought the impact on standards would be benign, you would still wish to preserve the freedom of parents to buy out. C'mon, I'm right aren't I? For you, freedom of choice is the thing, and you pay lip service to equality of opportunity ... it's not that important to you, the equality aspect, is it?
Which is all fine, you've made a value judgement ... as regards education, freedom of choice trumps equality of oportunity ... but why don't you admit that instead of dressing it up as concern for standards? What you're doing here is very like the backwoodsman in the US, who usually goes Democrat but won't be voting for Obama, insisting it's because Obama "lacks experience".
You know what I mean?
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364. sagamix
You are spot on as far as the freedom issue is concerned, Freedom for the individual sits above all else, by a mile in fact, nay five miles.
I take the view that this hard won freedom should only be curtailed or limited when the benefit to society is huge. I further take the view that there are acceptable losses when it comes to maintaining said freedoms and at times they may well be high.
The state, when ever it takes control and tries to regulate or rule too heavily, simply gets it wrong and everyone ends up suffering. Someone said the other day, Individuals gets things wrong now and again, the state just gets everything wrong. Perhaps not 100 percent correct but we all know what he meant.
I accept that there is some weight to your argument, just no where near enough to limit my freedom of choice. I can see that if you drain the cream from the top of the bottle then the milk that is left is weaker for it, However, in balance the unintended consequences of your idea will damage society as a whole and they are not easily measurable.
I take a dim view of any argument that says I should relinquish freedom and surrender myself to an over controlling state, right or left wing, either way, that just leads to, in my mind, an abhorrent and dispiriting existence for all.
People are at their best when faced with endeavour, socialism just encourages people to hold out their hands and to look to the state for a solution.
We must look after our weak and do it well, but we must not make it advantageous to be so, nor must we disadvantage the strong.
So I guess that means Yes to your last question, the battle for equality is not big on my agenda. I guess thats because people just arnt equal.
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Oppps,
Add in ability to that last post
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@ 365
Days in the year ... nice!
That is so considered, genuinely felt (and elegantly expressed, if I may so) that, if I wasn't such a fanatic, if I was up for being converted, it might come close to doing it.
Not being sarcastic.
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Very kind.
Catch ya later.
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The furore concerning Osborne's supposed discussions about soliciting a donation to the Conservatives is absurd, and the product of febrile minds of journalists and politicians.
The fundamental point is that no donation was received, and no evidence has been produced that it was actually asked for.
Even if there were discussions between Osborne and others about soliciting a donation from Deripaska, so what? If one were to be condemned for everything one discussed, everyone would be doing 20 years minimum - "I could kill him/her", etc.
Of course, the greatest criticism should be reserved for Rothschild, whose behaviour has been purile and ludicrous, to say the very least. Clearly, he has allowed himself to be manipulated by Mandelson into doing exactly what he asserts should not be done, namely gossiping about what is said on private occasions. He appears not to realise that two wrongs don't make a right.
What hold does Mandelson have over Rothschild, to persuade him to destroy a long term friendship at a stroke?
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369 ian mcmaster
If you believe all the nonsense you have just wrote then you must be wearing blinkers down to your boots, read it again and see just how absurd it is everyones guilty except the wrongdo'er George Osbourne.
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