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Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 6:28 pm
by AnatolyKasparov
I'm not talking about Labour's post referendum strategy (which people are entitled to take issue with) here.

I mean, we often hear stuff about how Jez is this amazingly hardline anti-European - up there with the likes of JRM and Hoey. If so, it shouldn't be hard - as with those people - to find plentiful past enthusiasm from him for withdrawal from the EU Great Satan. But it actually seems thin on the ground, instead it seems he was a long standing Eurosceptic - but in the genuine sense of that term. This also explains how he was able to swing behind a "critical remain" position last year fairly easily.

(and on the sackings point, if front benchers defy the whip they are putting their positions at risk - this is convention and everybody is aware of it. There was an occasion before the GE when Corbyn allowed people to break ranks on Brexit and keep their jobs - far from being thanked for this, pundits of course castigated him as "weak")

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 6:32 pm
by frog222
After years of not appearing to give a toss one way or the other, dozens of Conservative MPs simultaneously began tweeting their eco-credentials during the screening of the final episode of Blue Planet II. Oddly, many of them used almost identical language in their tweets. It was almost as if Conservative party HQ had sent everyone a template text of what to tweet.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -planet-ii" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Seriously getting ready for next time ?

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 6:40 pm
by Tubby Isaacs
gilsey wrote:Interesting blog about transport investment on the face of it, but also the north-south divide.
http://tomforth.co.uk/wheretrustinexpertsdies/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Every big UK city already has, and could design, billions of £s worth of schemes with a higher BCR than Thameslink. But they haven't been funded in the past and they wouldn't be funded now. As we speak, the government is cancelling many of the few such schemes it approved in the past. This is not because the schemes' BCRs are too low, remember they only need to beat the 1.4 of Thameslink, but because the investments would not directly benefit London.

And this is my worry about boosting BCRs in poorer places with a rebalancing toolkit, or a wider-economic benefits toolkit, or an agglomeration-model supplement, or something else. Our current system has for the past three decades ignored the data. How will improving the data help?

The change that really needs to happen is that we start using BCRs. The UK government needs to admits that it doesn't do so currently. It needs to show that it understands why it doesn't. Then it needs to change.

To put it more simply, Northern Schemes have deserved higher investment for three decades, and the money was spent in London anyway. Why will making them yet more deserving make a difference?
His bold.
Good questions. It's a real mess.

The best answer I can give is that high profile BCRs in London have been very conservative in the recent past. Crossrail I think was 1.87. Thameslink at 1.4 sounds far too low. I don't know why this is, maybe the Treasury gets involved. It's got a longstanding bias against spending big money- it stuck a ridiculous contingency on HS2, which it knows very well will get cited as "the real cost" and make people less likely to support it.

But it doesn't kill these expensive projects in London, because Ministers see the need for eg Crossrail from up close (even if they never go on the tube, they'll be aware of their staff arriving at work as if they've come in on a cattle truck, and they'll hear lots of lobbying. So the project goes ahead. It's right that they do, but it's a pretty ridiculous way to make decisions.

Another possibility, and I don't know if this is the case, I'm guessing, is that BCR's refer to the whole cost of a project. But for stuff in London, an effort's made to make beneficiaries pay directly for it via levies etc (I think there should be more, but some effort is made). So something might have a a low BCR, but when you take off the additional levies, that can leave a smaller amount for the Treasury to cough up. So it's actually excellent value for the Treasury to cough that up. I'd guess that outside London it's much harder to get significant contributions from outside. So stuff that would go ahead in London, doesn't. This isn't really fair.

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 6:47 pm
by Tubby Isaacs
AnatolyKasparov wrote:I'm not talking about Labour's post referendum strategy (which people are entitled to take issue with) here.

I mean, we often hear stuff about how Jez is this amazingly hardline anti-European - up there with the likes of JRM and Hoey. If so, it shouldn't be hard - as with those people - to find plentiful past enthusiasm from him for withdrawal from the EU Great Satan. But it actually seems thin on the ground, instead it seems he was a long standing Eurosceptic - but in the genuine sense of that term. This also explains how he was able to swing behind a "critical remain" position last year fairly easily.

(and on the sackings point, if front benchers defy the whip they are putting their positions at risk - this is convention and everybody is aware of it. There was an occasion before the GE when Corbyn allowed people to break ranks on Brexit and keep their jobs - far from being thanked for this, pundits of course castigated him as "weak")
For the "weak" stuff to work, it's got to be people the public care about. With all due respect, to Catherine West, Andy Slaugher and Ruth Cadbury, all of whom I like, that doesn't apply. And the sort of media that say this "weak" rubbish, are more likely to go apeshit over "moderates" being sacked. The way to hit back at "weak" is to kick out an ally. There are some of those who aren't up to it.

If the Single Market is the destination, Labour needs outriders. The Shadow Paperclips Minister is as good as anyone. And they're likely delighting their constituents as they do it.

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 7:24 pm
by citizenJA
I'm unable to meaningfully respond to AK and Tubby last posts
I'm tired and have had a series of difficult days
I re-read them and I realise I'm very tired
I'll go look at the latest Crace article
Fortitude - I need some

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 7:27 pm
by citizenJA
Crace depressed me further though it's not his fault
Theresa May apparently sent him a Christmas card and he can't figure out why

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 7:33 pm
by SpinningHugo
AnatolyKasparov wrote:
SpinningHugo wrote:
PaulfromYorkshire wrote:So, Corbyn who isn't pragmatic and real world enough to be Labour leader is, err, too pragmatic and unprincipled with Brexit.

OK Xmas drinks beckon :-)
1983.

He has not changed his mi


He doesn't really support Remain. Do try to keep up.
A question for you (and nobody else I have put it to has been able to answer this definitively)

When was the last time (before the referendum, to avoid any "clever" answers) that Labour's present leader supported, explicitly and unambiguously, our leaving the EU?

1983.

He hasn't changed his mind on anything.

Lots of other anti EU votes since then of course, who he surrounds himself with, how the rest of the Campaign group votes and how he has behaved post referendum make his views clear

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 7:41 pm
by Willow904
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Tony Connelly‏Verified account
@tconnellyRTE

Senior EU official: “That is that you can’t at the same time have frictionless trade and be outside the customs union and the single market. The way to have frictionless trade is to be in those constructions. That’s why they were created.”

5:45 PM - 15 Dec 2017

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 7:52 pm
by refitman
SpinningHugo wrote:

1983.

He hasn't changed his mind on anything.

Lots of other anti EU votes since then of course, who he surrounds himself with, how the rest of the Campaign group votes and how he has behaved post referendum make his views clear
In 1983 I wanted to be a fire engine. I've changed my mind since then.

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 8:11 pm
by SpinningHugo
refitman wrote:
SpinningHugo wrote:

1983.

He hasn't changed his mind on anything.

Lots of other anti EU votes since then of course, who he surrounds himself with, how the rest of the Campaign group votes and how he has behaved post referendum make his views clear
In 1983 I wanted to be a fire engine. I've changed my mind since then.
I assume you weren't 34.

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 8:23 pm
by refitman
Whoosh.

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 8:37 pm
by SpinningHugo
refitman wrote:Whoosh.

Whoosh indeed..

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 8:43 pm
by gilsey
Tubby Isaacs wrote:
But it doesn't kill these expensive projects in London, because Ministers see the need for eg Crossrail from up close (even if they never go on the tube, they'll be aware of their staff arriving at work as if they've come in on a cattle truck, and they'll hear lots of lobbying. So the project goes ahead. It's right that they do, but it's a pretty ridiculous way to make decisions.
That's pretty much the point he's making, isn't it, that the decision-makers are biased towards their own experience.

One of his proposed solutions is strong regional devolution, which would help with other UK problems too.
We should replace this national system with a number of competing regional systems of experts, each with competing ideas and competing myths to push. This is how most countries that are more productive than ours work.

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 8:56 pm
by PorFavor
refitman wrote:
SpinningHugo wrote:

1983.

He hasn't changed his mind on anything.

Lots of other anti EU votes since then of course, who he surrounds himself with, how the rest of the Campaign group votes and how he has behaved post referendum make his views clear
In 1983 I wanted to be a fire engine. I've changed my mind since then.
In 1983, I was a fire engine.

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 9:01 pm
by HindleA
[youtube]VxFYUGs99Po[/youtube]

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 9:03 pm
by citizenJA
The wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round
all through the town
Except where bus service been whacked because Tories don't care if people can breathe or not

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 9:11 pm
by HindleA
Wondered about the fireperson's? hose.

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 9:17 pm
by HindleA
Not just UC of course,continued residualisation of length/effect of contributions;denials as default in extra costs allowances,would suggest far more fundamental than "the least well off",application but potentially all of us in a blink of an eye.Your savings replete dramatically whilst in abeyance before any extra costs allowance at the same time of reduced earning ability.

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 9:21 pm
by PorFavor
HindleA wrote:Wondered about the fireperson's? hose.
Got a ladder in them. Boom boom!

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 9:30 pm
by Willow904
HindleA wrote:Not just UC of course,continued residualisation of length/effect of contributions;denials as default in extra costs allowances,would suggest far more fundamental than "the least well off",application but potentially all of us in a blink of an eye.Your savings replete dramatically whilst in abeyance before any extra costs allowance at the same time of reduced earning ability.
Agree with how any of us can find ourselves unemployed or sick at any time. There is certainly a wider point about the continuing erosion of social security more generally. The dominance of UC in the current discussion of benefits has certainly crowded out other equally important, and generally negative, changes to our universal safety net.

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 9:30 pm
by adam
PorFavor wrote:
HindleA wrote:Wondered about the fireperson's? hose.
Got a ladder in them. Boom boom!
I just decided not to post a reply to this for which we can all be very grateful.

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 10:13 pm
by citizenJA
Goodnight, everyone
love,
cJA

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 10:14 pm
by RogerOThornhill
I know Letts is an utter plank but he seems to have surpassed himself with this.
Quentin Letts‏
@thequentinletts
Follow Follow @thequentinletts
More
India in 1947 had rather less difficulty gaining its independence than we are having in 2017 leaving the Brussels empire. Time for Boris to go the full Gandhi.
:roll:

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 10:16 pm
by RogerOThornhill
Is it just me or is Twitter utterly hopeless when you have a less than 100% effective broadband connection?

I can sit there and wait for it for minutes before it decides to let me look at new tweets or even one when I click on it. And don't even start on if I want to reply.

Or maybe it's just my connection that's flippin' hopeless...

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 10:20 pm
by PorFavor
@citizenJA

Night night.

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 10:28 pm
by PorFavor
David Davis's Brexit department tops government secrecy table

Exclusive: Department for Exiting the EU failed to respond to more than 60% of freedom of information requests (Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... recy-table

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 10:31 pm
by PaulfromYorkshire
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/i ... r-11703441" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

inspiring-life-labours-angela-rayner

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 10:40 pm
by HindleA
@Roger twitter working o.k with me.I am on a kindle I have no idea if that makes any difference.What sometimes happens is that it sticks,I reset on router and it reestablishes after a couple of minutes.

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 10:43 pm
by PorFavor
PaulfromYorkshire wrote:http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/i ... r-11703441

inspiring-life-labours-angela-rayner
Moving story.

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 10:43 pm
by PaulfromYorkshire
From that Mirror article

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 10:45 pm
by PaulfromYorkshire
PorFavor wrote:
PaulfromYorkshire wrote:http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/i ... r-11703441

inspiring-life-labours-angela-rayner
Moving story.
It is. I liked one comment on Twitter from someone who said they were diametrically opposed to Rayner politically but believed Parliament would be better for more like her.

Well said.

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 10:48 pm
by HindleA
https://www.theguardian.com/society/201 ... -creditors" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Four Seasons Health Care earns reprieve after deal with creditors
Uncertainty for 17,000 care home residents ended temporarily after troubled firm strikes debt holiday deal with private equity investors

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 10:49 pm
by PorFavor
Should have said -

All the more moving for the matter-of-fact style of telling - with a bit of humour thrown in.

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 10:55 pm
by PaulfromYorkshire
PorFavor wrote:Should have said -

All the more moving for the matter-of-fact style of telling - with a bit of humour thrown in.
Agreed.

The Mirror doesn't always get it right IMHO, but when it does it can be very good.

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 10:56 pm
by NonOxCol
RogerOThornhill wrote:I know Letts is an utter plank but he seems to have surpassed himself with this.
Quentin Letts‏
@thequentinletts
Follow Follow @thequentinletts
More
India in 1947 had rather less difficulty gaining its independence than we are having in 2017 leaving the Brussels empire. Time for Boris to go the full Gandhi.
:roll:
Even by the standards of 2017, that would make my top 10 worst tweets of the year. Literally fucking unbelievable that the thought would even occur to someone to make the comparison, let alone release it to the public.

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 11:04 pm
by HindleA
Wait for 2018...

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 11:08 pm
by PorFavor
Night night.

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 11:10 pm
by PaulfromYorkshire
Sorry got distracted by Nigella being slightly miffed on Twitter at being described as the "priestess of high camp" on Gogglebox.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Fri 15 Dec, 2017 11:13 pm
by Tubby Isaacs
gilsey wrote:
Tubby Isaacs wrote:
But it doesn't kill these expensive projects in London, because Ministers see the need for eg Crossrail from up close (even if they never go on the tube, they'll be aware of their staff arriving at work as if they've come in on a cattle truck, and they'll hear lots of lobbying. So the project goes ahead. It's right that they do, but it's a pretty ridiculous way to make decisions.
That's pretty much the point he's making, isn't it, that the decision-makers are biased towards their own experience.

One of his proposed solutions is strong regional devolution, which would help with other UK problems too.
We should replace this national system with a number of competing regional systems of experts, each with competing ideas and competing myths to push. This is how most countries that are more productive than ours work.
I didn't actually read the post, apol.

The way I'd put it is that the Treasury is biased against expensive projects. Lots of these are inevitably in London (land costs, tunnelling, the cheaper stuff already done), but this is "balanced out" by personal experience of ministers. I don't know if the same thing happens with less expensive projects. But even if the BCRs of these are fine, I think you need to be prepared to do lower BCRs outside London to address where we are. It's very easy that you get into one London project causing the need for another one. Which is a nice circle to get into, but harder for other places.

In London's defence, by international comparisons, it's not lavishly endowed with infrastructure. Then again smaller places aren't either.

Devolution could certainly help, though Wales and Scotland already have that. Do they do better for Treasury/DfT capital funding than eg Manchester necessarily?

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Sat 16 Dec, 2017 1:29 am
by HindleA
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 13626.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Austria's conservatives strike deal with far-right party founded by ex-Nazis to form coalition government

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Sat 16 Dec, 2017 2:50 am
by HindleA
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... ental-plan" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Department for Work and Pensions single departmental plan

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Sat 16 Dec, 2017 3:10 am
by HindleA
https://dpac.uk.net/2017/12/the-need-to ... one-aspis/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


The Need to Fight Institutionalisation

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Sat 16 Dec, 2017 3:13 am
by HindleA
"Whilst cuts to state-funded assistance have been blamed on austerity, there is one area of care that is rolling in cash, hundreds millions of pounds being thrown into assessment and treatment units and psychiatric hospitals for people with learning difficulties and autism. Research by Mark Brown at Lancaster University’s Centre for Disability found that the Government spent £477m last year on incarcerating 2,500 people with learning difficulties and autism in ATUs ; in cash terms the state is prepared to pay £190,800 per year or £525 per day for institutionalized care for one individual.

Let’s not be under any illusion, whilst the numbers of disabled people being detained under the Mental Health Act (MHA) has reduced from 3500 to 2150 between 2011 to 2017, the trend for young people is going the other way: in 2011 young people made up 7.6% of the total of disabled people detained under the MHA but by 2017 this had risen to 13%. Many of these are people with learning difficulties or autism who are admitted for short-stays that then become long-stay placements. This is caused by the systematic failures of Local Authorities and Clinical Commissioning Groups to adequately fund local education, health and social care services that would facilitate disabled individuals’ participation in their local mainstream education provision whilst living with their families. These figures do not include people with learning difficulties or autism who have restrictions placed on their freedoms whilst living in institutionalised psychiatric and social care settings as a result of deprivation of liberty safeguard order issued under the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

No, this is no longer austerity, it’s now ideological"

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Sat 16 Dec, 2017 3:15 am
by HindleA
"Disabled people whose capacity is not being questioned by the state cannot be complacent either – with savage cuts to care packages, disabled people are being institutionalised within their own homes or within residential and nursing homes. And as such institutionalisation is on the way back for all disabled people."


Indeed."Good old days"

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Sat 16 Dec, 2017 3:23 am
by HindleA
Hammond's recent contraevidential tosh a reminder that fascistic utterations are not always accompanied by a moustache and a Swastika.

Re: Friday 15th December 2017

Posted: Sat 16 Dec, 2017 3:26 am
by HindleA
Not helpful,blah,blah.What else is it by definition to say less productive against actual evidence?