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balhamu

Listed below are comments made by balhamu between Thursday, 18th December 2008 and Friday, 30th October 2009.

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Nutt faces sack 6:52pm on 30 Oct 2009 It's interesting that commentors here - normally so conservative in their views on drug law liberalisation - criticise the government here.

What was your reaction when cannabis was declassified in the first place?

What would your reaction be if the government accepted these views and legalised cannabis and ecstasy because of the scientific evidence?

I'm sure you would be screaming about the governments lack of morality and how it's deliberately engaged in destroying the fabric of British society or using evil ZaNuLab drugs to keep the population docile.

I think Alan Johnson was correct - the job of the advisor was to advice on the science and leave the weighing up of that evidence against other factors (including public opinion) to democratically elected politicians. However, the advisor strayed from his remit and threw his toys out of the pram because these other factors are weighted more strongly by decision-makers. It is fairly clear his position was untenable.
Survival but at what price? 9:56pm on 05 Jun 2009 @yazbod

Interesting to see how many of Gordon Brown's new 'cabinet' are non-elected.

I think it might be a good idea if the entire Cabinet was unelected. Obviously the idea would be need a lot of work, but I think many issues re Parliament could be resolved.

* Elected PM gets to appoint a Cabinet (with greater mandate)

* Parliament would be elected to scrutinise the Government and actually provide real accountability rather than being so 'whippable' and having so many Government Minister's "scrutinising" their own policy
The best prepared award 00:39am on 01 Apr 2009 Aren't you missing the story here?

New OECD figures suggest UK will have a less severe recession than the US, Japan, Germany and the Eurozone (see p57 onwards)

[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]

Real GDP (2009 projection)

UK - 3.7% decline in real GDP
US - 4% decline in real GDP
Japan - 6.6% decline in real GDP
Germany - 5.3% decline in real GDP
Italy - 4.3% decline in real GDP
Eurozone - 4.1% decline in real GDP
Canada - 3% decline in real GDP
France - 3.3% decline in real GDP
Other OECD - 3.9% decline in real GDP

Unemployment (2010 projection)

UK - 9.5%
US - 10.3%
Japan - 5.6%
Germany - 11.6%
Italy - 10.7%
Eurozone - 11.7%
Canada - 10.5%
France - 10.9%
Other OECD - 9.4%

Dare I say, on these figures the UK looks better prepared?

And can right-wingers (and the Conservatives tomorrow at PMQs) have the cheek to have mentioned previous negative OECD/IMF forecasts, and also mention that the OECD also said yesterday we can't afford more fiscal stimulus while ignoring these forecasts.

You bet they can!
Wrapping up 10:16am on 31 Dec 2008 #261 Roll_on

The Conservatives have no credibility whatsoever when it comes to talking about efficiency savings through reforming two-tier areas of local government.

This Government strongly encouraged two-tier areas to merge into a unitary authority. This would improve efficiency dramatically (both directly through less staff being needed and indirectly through the umpteen local partnerships that require large bureaucracy and painfully slow decision-making being far easier to manage). It would also help local government become more accountable - at the moment in two tier areas no-one has a clue who is responsible for what.

I worked for a large Conservative shire county in 2006 when the Government were looking at this. We were looking at the business case for reforming local government in this way. We found 100 MILLION POUNDS worth of direct efficiency savings - 10% of expenditure in the authority.

So, efficiency Cameron would want that you would think? No brainer?

But no. Cameron said no. 2 reasons given by the politicos at Conservative Central Office.

1. We do not want Labour to have any efficiency savings. We want to wait for a Conservative government if we were to do this, so then WE can claim the credit.

2. All two tier areas are Conservative-controlled. We would make a lot of our councillors redundant (and also be unable to quote statistics showing how the massively higher % of Conservative councillors there are than the % Labour) and also damage our grassroots base were we to merge authorities.

A third reason was that many county councillors were also district councillors. Turkeys do not vote for Christmas! The leader of the council I worked for was threatened with being the target of a press smear campaign if he pressed ahead - the media would be told of allegations of inappropriate behaviour with children. Local politics sure is nasty!

SO

Cameron has no credibility at all. He said "no" to 100 million a year of efficiency savings for political reasons.
2008: The Brown rollercoaster 6:57pm on 22 Dec 2008 #366 robinjd

As I've said before (and you cried to the moderators about to get it removed because it was an "offensive" post), the fact you seem to be here all day would suggest there's another poster who is more likely to be in the pay of a political party to be here.

Some people actually have to work.

Let's see if this stays up or *someone* complains about this.
2008: The Brown rollercoaster 11:17pm on 19 Dec 2008 iangb

Starter for 10 (based on the parliament.uk library research document on the 2005 election):

Labour votes at 2005 election - 9,552,400

Total income support claimants May 2005 - 2,150,760

So, if 100% turnout of income support claimants, assuming they are all British citizens who are eligible to vote, and all vote Labour gives you 22.5% Labour voters on income support in 2005

That's quite unrealistic for a number of reasons.

First, turnout among those claiming income support is rather less than 100% - assuming that it is the same as those living in social housing - which I would suggest is generous - would give a 51% turnout

Taking account of this would reduce the total number of people on income support who voted in the 2005 election of 1,125,380 - and assuming they all vote Labour, thats 11.3% of Labour voters

Secondly, they are rather unlikely to all vote Labour. Looking at the stats, 55% of people in social housing who voted voted Labour in 2005 (16% Tory, 19% LD, 10% other).

Taking account of this would reduce the total number of people on income support who voted in the 2005 election for Labour of 618,959, or 6.5% of Labour voters.

I need go no further (though there are a lot of other adjustments that need to be made e.g. Income Support claimants who are not British citizens, the fact that Income Support claimants tend to be distributed in certain non-marginal seats and so have a lower impact on elections than their numbers would suggest and so on and so on).

Labour's majority in 2005 was 767,500. So if you take away "the core NuLabor vote", they would have still won. Oh well. Best find some better stereotypes I guess.

And hope Cameron disenfranchises those who are on benefits or unemployed, or don't live in the Home Counties, or work for the public sector.
2008: The Brown rollercoaster 10:52pm on 19 Dec 2008 #85 iang-b

Care to expand on that comment?

What proportion of Labour voters at the previous election were income support claimants?

Humour me.
2008: The Brown rollercoaster 10:20pm on 19 Dec 2008 #76 donofthenorth

Don't put too much trust in polling myself.

Brown is miles behind - the current poll is far too kind to him.
2008: The Brown rollercoaster 10:05pm on 19 Dec 2008 #64 strongholdbarricades

Recession is biting unfortunately
Intriguing politics 10:36pm on 18 Dec 2008 #210 RobinJD #228 balhamu

Act 1:

#210 RobinJD said:

I hadn't realised that balhamu and derekbarber were part of the work shy brigade who only get going on this post later in the day when the benefits offcier calls.

Act 2:

#228 balhamu said:

#210 RobinJD So not posting during the day makes me work shy? How do you work that one out? Surely your multiple posts during the day (in this ego and others) mark you out as work shy? Unless, of course, this is your work? Care to elaborate?

Act 3:

*Someone* cries to the moderators

Act 4:

Post #228 is removed for the following reason:

Dear BBC Blog contributor, Thank you for contributing to a BBC Blog. Unfortunately we've had to remove your content below Comments posted to BBC blogs will be removed if they are considered likely to provoke, attack or offend others; are racist, sexist, homophobic, sexually explicit, abusive or otherwise objectionable; are considered to have been posted with an intention to disrupt; contain swear words (including abbreviations or alternative spellings) or other language likely to offend.

Risible.

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