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djlazarus

Listed below are comments made by djlazarus between Tuesday, 3rd November 2009 and Thursday, 26th November 2009 (3 Hours Ago) .

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Prime Minister's Questions: Schools 07:46am on 26 Nov 2009 Personally I'd like to see religion barred from schools altogether. There's no place for superstition in any place of learning and it's abhorrent that impressionable children can be targeted by religious groups to spread their ideology at all.

Ideally all under-16s should also be barred from churches, but that's a problem for another day.

Knowledge is supposed to be taught in schools. Ideology is supposed to be developed by people naturally, not shoved down their throats from an early age by whoever the nearest adults consider to be correct.

Let schools teach knowledge and facts. Let people discover religion for themselves if they wish to do so, and keep it as a matter of personal conscience.
If you thought it was all over... 11:39am on 19 Nov 2009 The more anonymous the better, in my opinion, as it makes it more likely that everyone will ignore them.
Not the Queen's Speech 11:32am on 19 Nov 2009 Once you read past all the undignified party-political table-tennis that makes up 3/4 of the comments on this blog, it seems to me that once again it's fairlyopenmind who seems to hit the nail on the head.

The speech itself is irrelevant. The queen could have announced anything - world peace, two teachers for every pupil in schools, our own personal 24/7 GP each - but without any delivery on the promises to follow it all up, the entire exercise is pointless.

Sitting there spelling out unrealistic grandiose plans that the government have no intention of following up on is a bit like sitting round discussing what you're going to do with your winnings when you win the lottery.

Like most people sitting out here in the real world, I don't care who's in charge providing they're doing a decent job.

Gordon's intentions are admirable, yes. But they're just like my intentions to give half my lottery winnings to charity when my numbers finally come up.
Plotters, quitters and fighters 3:08pm on 16 Nov 2009 Good article Nick.

I think the Fighters are probably deluding themselves, but their belief is nonetheless admirable in a certain way. I'd also guess that these are the fewest in number.

The Plotters are wasting their time, I think. There may be a "Milliband-Bounce" effect if they were to get their way (or a "Harmon-Nosedive" in that eventuality) but I can't see it being enough to win over the electorate. Fact is, if there was anyone in the Labour party capable of getting them out of the mess they're in, they'd have done it already.

The Quitters have probably got it right, and like the rest of us, just wish he'd call the election and get it over with.
The real debate has scarcely begun 11:03am on 11 Nov 2009 #273 disgusted

That's a little bit like me claiming that my cat came closer to solving Fermat's Last Theorem this morning than he has done all the rest of this year.

=========================

Very good, I see your point on that and it's a fair one - gives me an idea actually, I might put one of my cats in a cardboard box later to see what it makes of Schroedinger ;)
The real debate has scarcely begun 11:00am on 11 Nov 2009 #272 chewster

I agree that "cost-efficient public services" is more of an aspiration than a realistic goal for any political party, but it doesn't mean that we as the electorate should stop demanding it.

In contrast, my overall impression of the past 12 years is that I'm paying twice as much in tax and NI for public services that are barely half as good as they were pre-97.

I just wish the media would focus on things like this rather than the state of people's handwriting.
The real debate has scarcely begun 10:26am on 11 Nov 2009 #247 franco

I can record my phone calls at any time by pressing one button on my mobile, there's nothing state of the art about it whatsoever, it's actually next to the button you use to answer it in the first place.

Plus, if the recording equipment was state of the art, I'd have expected it to record the whole call - the fact that the start is missing leads me to suspect she was fiddling on her phone to press that same Record button when she first received the call.

#257 fubar

Loath again as I am to be sticking up for Brown on this, but in real life I'd probably also come across as shy, but I'm very partial to flinging things at the wall from time to time when I get frustrated - being on hold with customer services that can't speak English, and every day I see the tax deductions on my wage slips are two common examples.

As fairlyopenmind points out at 258, the media should be battering Brown and the government because of their appalling record on delivering cost-efficient public services. Every day should be like a massive buffet of opportunity to pick fault at their performance for anyone wanting to criticize NuLabour. But yet instead they spend all their efforts slagging him off for having untidy handwriting, it beggars belief quite frankly.

For what it's worth I've read the transcript of the call, and although the exchange looks quite heated at times, I think Brown handles it quite well under the circumstances. In fact, I reckon he came nearer to actually answering a question on this call than he ever has during PMQs.
The real debate has scarcely begun 10:15am on 11 Nov 2009 #258 fairlyopenmind

Once again, you're officially the most reasonable and balanced blogger on here, great post.
When politics matters... 3:38pm on 09 Nov 2009 I confess I'm actually starting to feel sympathetic towards Brown. I've said before that even though I disapprove of more or less everything he's done over the past decade or more, I still believe he's made the majority of his decisions with good intentions.

Similarly, I think it's a bit harsh on him for the press to imply that his actions regarding the letter and the Cenotaph are signs of indifference or malice on his part. Brown might be many things - incompetent, insensitive, tactless, indecisive, etc etc, but I don't think he's malicious. It's reached the point now where he looks like he enjoys being prime minister even less than we do these days, but is ploughing on so as not to go down in history as a quitter as well.

The best solution for everybody would be for him to call an election, now. It won't save his job, but he might just salvage a tiny amount of dignity.
So, the Czech was not in the post 4:29pm on 03 Nov 2009 #141 me

I meant of course, no-one under the age of 52, not 46. It's been a long day ;)

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