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DrKF77

Listed below are comments made by DrKF77 between Monday, 6th October 2008 and Wednesday, 17th December 2008.

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Talking Iraq 3:34pm on 17 Dec 2008 And so the odds on an election next summer shorten dramatically, I should think...
Medical dilemma of suicide law 2:12pm on 11 Dec 2008 Shame there's no button to press to complain about the complaint about Brian Taylor's blog...

To my mind, he was generating discussion around an important issue. He did offer his personal opinion on the matter, but there was no point at which I did not think that I could differentiate between the factual reporting and Brian Taylor's opinion; from the comments generated, I don't think anyone (well, with one possible exception...) did either, nor that his opinion has unduly influenced anyone else. Indeed, the array of comments saying 'actually, I think you are wrong...'

If Brian Taylor had *broadcast* his opinion on Reporting Scotland, I could see the problem; if his opinion had evidently influenced anyone, I could see the problem; if it was difficult to tell that this was his opinion, I could see the problem. All I see, though, is someone trying to make a problem where one need not exist.

In fact, Brian Taylor (jeez - I'm supporting him, and I didn't think I could call him by his first name; funny how those with an axe to grind can be so informal) offers his opinion on a regular basis (how the party leaders did at FMQs, week in, week out, springs to mind) in this blog. It's half the point.

I'm glad Brian Taylor posted the entry he did (even though I disagree - and I wonder whether someone else would have been complaining if BT's opinion had tallied with his own?).

Luckily, for all the baiting ("Brian... No response..?" - bleurgh, what sort of creep are you?) it seems no one else was half as offended as Mr Easily Offended, so this can all blow over...
Medical dilemma of suicide law 2:17pm on 08 Dec 2008 Come on yourself greenockboy - think this most emphatically *is* worth reporting and discussing; it's always a bit disapointing when people harrangue Brian for not following their preferred agenda, and all the more so in this case. Do you lack an opinion on this subject, or just not see its relevance?

Surely we can get back to bellowing in to our respective party political buckets next time?

For what it's worth, I personally support Margo MacDonald's stance on this wholeheartedly. To keep alive those who no longer wish to live (or to keep alive those incapable of making their preferences known, having done so prior to their decline) strikes me as considerably more barbaric than a well-regulated scheme to permit those in such circumstances to make informed and free decisions.
Core issues 1:30pm on 01 Dec 2008 Brigadierjohn - you will be heartened, then, that outrage over this move has most emphatically not been 'party political' but has cross-bench support, yes?
Caught up in a conspiracy theory 2:03pm on 19 Nov 2008 I've been following this for ages now, across the various blogs on the subject, and very interesting it is too.

Just to state at the outset that I don't (no, really, I don't) have any preconceived notion as to whether the 'OCT' or the 'CD' theories are correct, but I did think it's about time someone stepped in and said that the way some of you are treating Johnny Pixels is an absolute disgrace. Not that he needs my support - he seems content to largely ignore the insults thrown at him - but it really has become rather distasteful.

I shan't name names - you know who you are - but as well as routinely resorting to ad hominem attacks (to take but one egregious example, routinely calling him 'Harpo' is childish in the extreme and, I fear, says considerably more about those doing the name-calling than anyone else), it seems that what some of you would like most of all would be for JP simply to stop posting, which of course would turn this discussion in to nothing but a mutual appreciation society.

I know those who disagree with the 'official story' are passionate about their beliefs and their cause, but some of you should be ashamed of yourselves.

K

(not a government shill, for what it's worth)
I said it before 2:07pm on 14 Oct 2008 So sorry you found what I thought was a reasonable question to be 'tub thumping', Charlie, and I'll certainly *try* to cut out the 'demanding attitude', since it seems to have punctured your calm somewhat.

That said, I have a couple of supplemantray questions. I gave a list of people who I thought might have opposed 42 days detention as a matter of reasoned principle, having given the matter serious consideration based on experience in relevant fields. Now, I take on board that you reject what we might call 'expert testimony' (although largely, I suspect, simply because you disagree with them), and that "some of them let their own personal ambition and ambition cloud their judgement".

You've seen off Lord Goldsmith (fair point) - but what of the others? And, specifically, if 'some of them' were so led to their conclusions, which of them were *not* so led (since that is the implication). That is to say, which of those named above do you credit with having reached the point of opposition based on reasoned consideration?

The point I have been trying to make is that, throughout this debate, here and passim, you have characterised opposition to 42 days detention as, variously, 'a right-wing putsch', the result of confused, partial or self-interested thinking, Tory fellow-travelling and worse - do you honestly think there is and can be no opposition to 42 days detention based on sound moral, legal, technical or any other basis?

I can see your side of the debate - I might disagree, but I wouldn't label you an idiot for holding the position, or characterise you as a shill, or in league with diabolical forces.

But what I can only call your partisan hackery, which as I said above is wilfully blind, leads you to trot out these malicious and provocative smears at every opportunity.

For shame, for shame.
I said it before 08:25am on 14 Oct 2008 Hardwidge, you old rogue! Still peddaling the tripe about this having been opposed and finally scuppered by 'ideologues and vested interests'? For shame, still - your hackery is premised on a wilful blindness. Those who opposed the legislation, you say above, are composed the hard left living in the past and the opposition for oppositions sake brigade on the other side of the house.

Speak to me of Lord Goldsmith (former Attorney General, who described the proposed legislation as 'not only unnecessary but also dangerous') or of Eilish Anglioni, (Labour party member and Procurator Fiscal in Scotland), of Baron Dear (cross-bench peer and former Inspector of Constabulary), or Andy Hayman (the Met's former head of counter-terrorism), or Sir Ken McDonald (Director of Public Prosecutions) - each and every one of whom has opposed this odious bill.

Are they 'the hard left living in the past' or 'the opposition for opposition's sake brigade'. I think we should be told.

I also assume you group these renegades (Tory shills all, by your account) amongst the anti-intellectual and disorganised, also above? Like the anti-intellectual and disorganised names from British literature? (42 of them, so I shan't list them all - but as an intellectual yourself, I am sure a couple of your favourite authors are in there.)

Still, as you are more than perfectly well aware, I've brought this all up before, and not once have you responded. But you have amongst the most partisan lines of anyone on this forum to push, and mustn't let facts get in the way.

As I said before, this isn't Zen - it's pure hackery.
42-days is dead 12:58pm on 08 Oct 2008 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*.
Paper Monitor 12:37pm on 07 Oct 2008 I don't know what the cereal would taste like, but the milk, surely, would be sour...
42-days is dead 4:30pm on 06 Oct 2008 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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