Friday 12th January 2018
Posted: Fri 12 Jan, 2018 7:12 am
Morning all.
Good morningCurious isn't it? We who wish to be European and part of something larger than petty national concerns now have Nigel Farage speaking for us more than Jeremy Corbyn.
In their desperation to keep hold of one vote base I fear Labour are losing another. I certainly won't vote for them again if they keep up this malarkey. And I'm exactly the kind of person they attracted last time.
I understand they have a difficult balancing act to maintain but it seems to me Corbyn is ignoring the wishes of most of his members and 50% of the electorate, the remain half who overwhelmingly voted Labour, in order to appease his voters in places like Hartlepool.
I have no answer to this conondrum Labour is faced with, all I can say is if Corbyn carries on like this many like me will not vote Labour at the next general election.
And all I can see is vacillating and Keir Starmer doing the best he can with what he's got to work with.
There is a strong case for a second referendum on the terms. But Farage is not a party leader or even an MP. Now, as before, he is a weapon deployed by media and business interests against parliamentary democracy. To obsess about a second referendum is to put the cart before the horse. The decision on whether to have a second poll depends on the terms. Those have not yet been agreed. The central issue for the next eight or nine months is what they should be. The referendum’s time will come.
PaulfromYorkshire wrote:As I've said before, while we will never know, it seems most likely to me that the 52:48 split in the referendum was not 52 Hard Brexit : 48 Hard Remain
Most likely, the majority of voters were errr Leave-ish or errr Remain-ish
There are those like Farage who will always try and polarise this, but the productive way forward is somewhere in that middle ground IMHO.
tinybgoat wrote:This was interesting, by Martin Kettle
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... t-fighting" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"On Europe, Labour was right to be cautious. No longer"
Not sure the title of the piece really fits, but he's good of Farage:There is a strong case for a second referendum on the terms. But Farage is not a party leader or even an MP. Now, as before, he is a weapon deployed by media and business interests against parliamentary democracy. To obsess about a second referendum is to put the cart before the horse. The decision on whether to have a second poll depends on the terms. Those have not yet been agreed. The central issue for the next eight or nine months is what they should be. The referendum’s time will come.
Lost Soul wrote:But there is no middle ground.
With the yes or no vote - once you've committed your vote you are either hard brexit or hard remain.
The 'not bothered ' are the third who didn't vote at all.
I do see what you mean, but neighbours I talked to at the time felt they should vote, because you should, but were massively undecided.Lost Soul wrote:But there is no middle ground.
With the yes or no vote - once you've committed your vote you are either hard brexit or hard remain.
The 'not bothered ' are the third who didn't vote at all.
I agree (but abstain on the much cleverer and subtle, bit)howsillyofme1 wrote:tinybgoat wrote:This was interesting, by Martin Kettle
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... t-fighting" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"On Europe, Labour was right to be cautious. No longer"
Not sure the title of the piece really fits, but he's good of Farage:There is a strong case for a second referendum on the terms. But Farage is not a party leader or even an MP. Now, as before, he is a weapon deployed by media and business interests against parliamentary democracy. To obsess about a second referendum is to put the cart before the horse. The decision on whether to have a second poll depends on the terms. Those have not yet been agreed. The central issue for the next eight or nine months is what they should be. The referendum’s time will come.
I think we are not far off the time when Labour should become bolder.....not now though....let us get to March and the start of the next negot6iations which will possibly go rapidly downhill for the Government as I think their position is incoherent
I am still not convinced that a second referendum will be a good idea in any circumstance but i am open-minded as it will depend on the deal and the questions and there are much cleverer and subtle people than me
I agree (but abstain on the much cleverer and subtle, bit)
but maybe Labour could be doing more to question what type of trade deals would be available post Brexit & whether they match up to the 'leave' promises
Firefighters warned of this some years ago. As all the fire prevention work they were doing behind the scenes helped to stop fires happening in the first place they warned that politicians may be tempted to believe we didn't need as many firemen anymore. But of course, with fewer firemen doing fire prevention work, fewer fires are prevented before they happen and we start getting more full-on blazes with fewer firefighters and resources to tackle them.Nottingham train station evacuated after large fire
There do seem to be a lot at the moment don't there.....not sure if there is an underlying cause but it is clear when resource is tight then the tendency is to focus on reactive rather than proactive - we also tend to value the fire response activities (as an example) than the fire prevention part.........Willow904 wrote:Yet another fire:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... large-fire" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Firefighters warned of this some years ago. As all the fire prevention work they were doing behind the scenes helped to stop fires happening in the first place they warned that politicians may be tempted to believe we didn't need as many firemen anymore. But of course, with fewer firemen doing fire prevention work, fewer fires are prevented before they happen and we start getting more full-on blazes with fewer firefighters and resources to tackle them.Nottingham train station evacuated after large fire
It's probably really hard to say that any given fire would or wouldn't have happened isn't it?gilsey wrote:According to Joe Anderson the fire in the Liverpool car park would have been controlled much earlier in previous years, with more resources.
He is partisan, of course, but still probably right.
Hospitals, roads, HS2 - Carillion has so many fingers in so many pies. You could almost say it's too big to fail. A bailout, of pensions at the very least, seems inevitable. Cameron used the financial crash as cover to pursue an ideological policy to shrink the state. The real causes were still out there, though. EU action has forced some issues to be addressed re the banks, but a lot of what could and should have been done post financial crash simply hasn't. Predatory capitalism Ed Miliband called it. Others call it wealth extraction. The countries that resist the most enjoy the most equality and better living standards. The Tories, far from resisting, actually encourage it. And while the private sector runs away with all the cash, the Tory politicians are left with the job of selling this daylight robbery to the electorate. I'll be interested to see how they pin this latest global corporate failure (Carillon is very much a global company) on Labour.Ministers from across the Government met last night to discuss the plight of construction services company Carillion amid fears it is close to collapse, it has been reported.
Cabinet Office minister David Lidington hosted the summit of senior figures including Business Secretary Greg Clark and Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss.
Well there was until you arrivedAnatolyKasparov wrote:Good discussion this morning.
You see, this is what I really disagree with. I don't think that's the right way of reading public opinion.Lost Soul wrote:But there is no middle ground.
With the yes or no vote - once you've committed your vote you are either hard brexit or hard remain.
The 'not bothered ' are the third who didn't vote at all.
Boris JohnsonVerified account
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The US is the biggest single investor in the UK - yet Khan & Corbyn seem determined to put this crucial relationship at risk. We will not allow US-UK relations to be endangered by some puffed up pompous popinjay in City Hall.
Was there ever a more puffed up, pompous popinjay in City Hall than Johnson himself?RogerOThornhill wrote:Once upon a time the Conservative Party used to have Foreign Secretaries that knew how to act the part on the world stage and not come out with embarrassing guff like this.
Boris JohnsonVerified account
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The US is the biggest single investor in the UK - yet Khan & Corbyn seem determined to put this crucial relationship at risk. We will not allow US-UK relations to be endangered by some puffed up pompous popinjay in City Hall.
Adam Bienkov
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Boris Johnson, who once accused the former US president of having a "part-Kenyan... ancestral dislike" for the UK and called the former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton a "sadistic nurse", accuses Sadiq Khan of damaging US-UK relations.
I imagine all of those who hurled unfounded and uninformed accusations in Starmer's direction will be quick to say "Oh, yeah, looks like I was wrong. Sorry"...they will won't they?Almost 100 unprosecuted cases against sex attacker John Worboys will not be reviewed by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), it has emerged.
Lawyers representing Worboys' victims asked the CPS to review the 93 cases that the 60-year-old rapist was not prosecuted over.
One of his victims said it would be a "total scandal" if the additional cases were not reviewed.
The CPS said it had no plans to review its decision-making.
We could start by someone who made that accusation on here perhaps?RogerOThornhill wrote:Well.
John Worboys: 'No plans' to review rape cases
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-42662297
I imagine all of those who hurled unfounded and uninformed accusations in Starmer's direction will be quick to say "Oh, yeah, looks like I was wrong. Sorry"...they will won't they?Almost 100 unprosecuted cases against sex attacker John Worboys will not be reviewed by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), it has emerged.
Lawyers representing Worboys' victims asked the CPS to review the 93 cases that the 60-year-old rapist was not prosecuted over.
One of his victims said it would be a "total scandal" if the additional cases were not reviewed.
The CPS said it had no plans to review its decision-making.
I couldn't understand that either.RogerOThornhill wrote:I'm struggling to see what 'in a political capacity' could possibly mean when applied to someone who is like y'know, the actual Foreign Secretary.
One of the first things the Coalition did in 2010 was cancel or postpone a large amount of planned infrastructure investment and spending. Much of the early lauded deficit reduction came from reducing capital investment rather than the day to day spending the government insisted could be reduced by slashing "Labour waste". It strikes me that ongoing austerity has had quite an impact on Carillion's outlook. Although Carillon is still winning several school building contracts, for instance, are there as many as there were under Labour's Building Schools for the Future programme? Just a thought. I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons connected to management decisions, rapid expansion into too diverse interests etc. But I bet austerity has played some part. Making profit by building things with public money isn't usually something the private sector is rubbish at.howsillyofme1 wrote:Looking at Carillion parochially - Wolverhampton cannot afford to lose 400 good jobs
How did it get to this?
Or, to put it another way, the private company, Carillion, is dependent on tax-payer funding for its survival. (Not that I'm defending austerity.)Willow904 wrote:One of the first things the Coalition did in 2010 was cancel or postpone a large amount of planned infrastructure investment and spending. Much of the early lauded deficit reduction came from reducing capital investment rather than the day to day spending the government insisted could be reduced by slashing "Labour waste". It strikes me that ongoing austerity has had quite an impact on Carillion's outlook. Although Carillon is still winning several school building contracts, for instance, are there as many as there were under Labour's Building Schools for the Future programme? Just a thought. I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons connected to management decisions, rapid expansion into too diverse interests etc. But I bet austerity has played some part. Making profit by building things with public money isn't usually something the private sector is rubbish at.howsillyofme1 wrote:Looking at Carillion parochially - Wolverhampton cannot afford to lose 400 good jobs
How did it get to this?
Well, that's where we agree.AnatolyKasparov wrote:You see, this is what I really disagree with. I don't think that's the right way of reading public opinion.Lost Soul wrote:But there is no middle ground.
With the yes or no vote - once you've committed your vote you are either hard brexit or hard remain.
The 'not bothered ' are the third who didn't vote at all.
It is, however, a major reason why referendums are generally bad and should be avoided as much as possible.
I mean, even most TORIES don't like Trump. Who exactly does he think he is impressing with this?RogerOThornhill wrote:Once upon a time the Conservative Party used to have Foreign Secretaries that knew how to act the part on the world stage and not come out with embarrassing guff like this.
Boris JohnsonVerified account
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The US is the biggest single investor in the UK - yet Khan & Corbyn seem determined to put this crucial relationship at risk. We will not allow US-UK relations to be endangered by some puffed up pompous popinjay in City Hall.
Yes. We have a representative democracy. Use a referendum when a significant change to that system is proposed. Otherwise not.Lost Soul wrote:Well, that's where we agree.AnatolyKasparov wrote:You see, this is what I really disagree with. I don't think that's the right way of reading public opinion.Lost Soul wrote:But there is no middle ground.
With the yes or no vote - once you've committed your vote you are either hard brexit or hard remain.
The 'not bothered ' are the third who didn't vote at all.
It is, however, a major reason why referendums are generally bad and should be avoided as much as possible.
It's not the way to read public opinion. it is a way of obtaining a result which can then be used to say ' The public have given us a mandate to ( insert whatever you like here )...'
So while your vote is yours until it is cast. It then becomes a statistic to be used - not necessarily in the way you'd intended.
I'm not saying the voter becomes hard brexit or remain - but the resulting statistics are effectively counted as such. Your vote, while precious to you ( maybe ) before it is cast, then becomes valuable fuel and then can be manipulated to mean something that you never intended it to mean.
Absolutely. And they won't be the only one. Serco, G4S, Capita, Atos.PorFavor wrote:Or, to put it another way, the private company, Carillion, is dependent on tax-payer funding for its survival. (Not that I'm defending austerity.)Willow904 wrote:One of the first things the Coalition did in 2010 was cancel or postpone a large amount of planned infrastructure investment and spending. Much of the early lauded deficit reduction came from reducing capital investment rather than the day to day spending the government insisted could be reduced by slashing "Labour waste". It strikes me that ongoing austerity has had quite an impact on Carillion's outlook. Although Carillon is still winning several school building contracts, for instance, are there as many as there were under Labour's Building Schools for the Future programme? Just a thought. I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons connected to management decisions, rapid expansion into too diverse interests etc. But I bet austerity has played some part. Making profit by building things with public money isn't usually something the private sector is rubbish at.howsillyofme1 wrote:Looking at Carillion parochially - Wolverhampton cannot afford to lose 400 good jobs
How did it get to this?
The UK doesn't actually outsource much more public services to the private sector than Germany, as far as I can tell, but the UK had 167 contracts worth more than 100m euros in 2015 compared to Germany's 5 according to the above article, which I think is very relevant to Carillion and some of the points I've been trying to grapple with today.The UK spends more than the rest of the EU combined on pricey procurement contracts
Michael Fabricant?AnatolyKasparov wrote:I mean, even most TORIES don't like Trump. Who exactly does he think he is impressing with this?RogerOThornhill wrote:Once upon a time the Conservative Party used to have Foreign Secretaries that knew how to act the part on the world stage and not come out with embarrassing guff like this.
Boris JohnsonVerified account
@BorisJohnson
Follow Follow @BorisJohnson
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The US is the biggest single investor in the UK - yet Khan & Corbyn seem determined to put this crucial relationship at risk. We will not allow US-UK relations to be endangered by some puffed up pompous popinjay in City Hall.
I Tried Avoiding Plastic For A Week – It Was Difficult
From lunch to loo roll, alternatives to products using plastic were often hard to find and much more expensive.
howsillyofme1 wrote:I agree (but abstain on the much cleverer and subtle, bit)
but maybe Labour could be doing more to question what type of trade deals would be available post Brexit & whether they match up to the 'leave' promises
Possibly they could - and to be fair they are a bit. The difficulty is that the media (abetted by some who should know better) are screaming for Labour to say more but actually they are not interested unless it can be spun as controversial. Starmer can point out the inconsistencies and nonsense the Government's position is as much as he likes but a Labour amendment on the CU can be spun as a 'split' or 'rebellion' and is of far more interest
I am a bit of a political nerd so go looking for things but how many people calling for more from Labour are actually dépendent on the mainstream media to get that information - and do you think this area of the media is neutral and fair in their coverage of Brexit, and of Labour in general?
The issues around Brexit are complex as we move into what the deals will look like and someone like Starmer is clever enough to understand this and so does not simplify it to a point that goes into a meaningless soundbite or pretend the answers are easy. Davis though is a classic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect so he can sound blasé and confident about things
I think what I'm after is a pre-emptive anti-brexit angle on areas where it's likely to fall far short of what leave voters had been promised. It would be kind of priming the pumps in anticipation - a bit like Brexiteers had been doing for years sowing anti eu feelings - so that people are pre-conditioned to feel dissatisfied with a hard Brexit settlement.howsillyofme1 wrote:I agree (but abstain on the much cleverer and subtle, bit)
but maybe Labour could be doing more to question what type of trade deals would be available post Brexit & whether they match up to the 'leave' promises
Possibly they could - and to be fair they are a bit. The difficulty is that the media (abetted by some who should know better) are screaming for Labour to say more but actually they are not interested unless it can be spun as controversial. Starmer can point out the inconsistencies and nonsense the Government's position is as much as he likes but a Labour amendment on the CU can be spun as a 'split' or 'rebellion' and is of far more interest
I am a bit of a political nerd so go looking for things but how many people calling for more from Labour are actually dépendent on the mainstream media to get that information - and do you think this area of the media is neutral and fair in their coverage of Brexit, and of Labour in general?
The issues around Brexit are complex as we move into what the deals will look like and someone like Starmer is clever enough to understand this and so does not simplify it to a point that goes into a meaningless soundbite or pretend the answers are easy. Davis though is a classic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect so he can sound blasé and confident about things
It's irritating that so much packaging says its recyclable but only in some areas, I suspect some local authorities only provide a recycling scheme so that they meet minimum legislation targets, but have no incentive to widen the materials they take.frog222 wrote:Our recycling bins are suppposed to be for plastic bottles, but I put a variety of other plastic containers in too .
Maybe if they finish up with tons of heavier plastic containers they MIGHT just think of a useful process for using them !
Frog4 was in Germany a couple of years ago . People were bringing back their bottles to shops ... so old-fasioned .
Not doing so just raises the suspicion they are just indulging in "feel good" window dressing.Willow904 wrote:I enjoyed this article on trying to live "plastic free" as encouraged by Theresa May. We could all certainly do a little more, but it does bring us back to the question May declined to answer "why don't the government ask producers to do more"?