Is Labour losing the battle to be called “progressive”?
August 17th, 2009
Why’s Mandy’s message not getting through?
Early last week we saw a furious outburst from Peter Mandelson following the use by his old foe George Osborne of the term “progressive” to describe the Conservatives. We ran a thread on it.
This is a description that seems to touch a raw nerve within the Labour movement which was probably the back-ground to Mandy’s move.
So what will the parties make of this new poll from PoliticsHome? For if Labour thought that “progressive” was for its exclusive use then the findings don’t look encouraging. The scores were: LD 22%: CON 22%: GRN 17%: LAB 12%. The rest said either that no parties were progressive or that another party could be described as this.
So how much does it matter? Well not that much except that you cannot devise political rhetoric which is too out of synch with public opinion. If this poll is in anyway accurate then Labour needs to think again.
The poll results also suggest that ‘progressive’ does not have strong liberal or left wing associations for a majority of voters. Thus 12% understand it to mean ‘liberal’, and 7% to mean ‘left wing’.
Progressive is most commonly understood to mean ‘reforming’ (63%), ‘modernising’ (61%), and ‘enterprising’ (45%).
Other polling this week: There might just be a voting intention poll in the next 24 hours. I am still trying to confirm.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
Progressive is a silly word; only used by those with no “values”.
Progressive is just a politicians word for ‘we have no blinking idea’ but we’ll package it up in recyclable plastic to get people in the room.
It would have been fascinating to see the responses of Scottish voters. I’d be tremendously surprised if the Scottish National Party did not win the “Most Progressive” beauty contest hands-down north of the border.
Lib Dems and Greens a poor 2nd and 3rd.
Generally speaking most Unionist politicians are tremendously reactionary. Antediluvian would not be too strong an adjective for most of them.
I must buy a thesaurus. They are a tremendous tool. Mike, where is the Edit function.
Given that New Labour has demonstrated a remarkable enthusiasm for -
* Wars of conquest involving huge numbers of civilian casualties
* Highly authoritarian and often sickeningly populist attempts to restrict crucial civil liberties
* The daily use of often grotesque smears against political opponents
* Appropriating the language of the far right
Isn’t is remarkable that even 12% of the voters think of them as ‘progressive’?
Who could be meant by the “other party” that’s tying the Tories and LibDems? Presumably only people in Scotland and Wales would mention the Nats or Plaid.
Everybody else saying “UKIP”? Or is the “other party” thing people’s way of expressing that they have no idea what the question means, but don’t like to admit it?
FPT Completely relevant to this debate:
I’ve been less than complimentary about Phillip Blond and his ‘Red Tory’ tag and all this ambiguous use of the ‘Progressive’ label.
However, in this excellent article in the Daily Mail (hat-tip Conhome) Blond puts some explanation around such labels and if this is the ethos of the Conservative Party Leadership and they pursue it in Government then there will be no splits between the right and the centre and oh how Labour will howl in anguish as Brown’s disastrous 12 year vision is dumped in the dustbin of 20th Century political failure.
For modern radical Conservatism, there are two great evils – the centralised State and the monopolised market.
And both are evil, because both have destroyed what all true Conservatives really believe in – the life and institution of British society.
For the Tories, the State no longer serves society. It has dispossessed the people and amassed all power to itself.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1206855/PHILLIP-BLOND-We-new-radicals.html
Phillip Blond - from zero to hero in one article in my book.
It is also entirely compatible with Hannan’s general thinking IMO
Call me a red progressive Tory if you like but to me it’s what Conservatism is all about.
I have always found the use of the word “progressive” by the left to be tendentious. It implies right wing views are regressive or negative in comparison. I’m glad this trick has backfired.
The chief relevance of this is as a manifestation of Labour’s reverse Bridget Jones problem. Bridget Jones’s one famous political comment (made in the mid 1990s) was:
“It is perfectly obvious that Labour stands for the principle of sharing, kindness, gays, single mothers and Nelson Mandela, as opposed to braying, bossy men having affairs with everyone, shag shag shag left, right and centre, and going to The Ritz in Paris and telling all the presenters off on the Today programme.”
When only 12% of the public see Labour as progressive, we can be sure that the general aura of niceness has worn off from Labour. I wonder how Bridget Jones would describe Labour now? Certainly it’s the Labour ministers who are telling all the presenters off on the Today programme.
It’s a meaningless term and, as Cameron and Osborne have shown, one that it’s easy to take over and define.
I take progressive as meaning that you base your policies on improving the realities of the present. Who disagrees with that?
22% for other parties?!? If they didn’t poll massively in Scotland/Wales that’s not particularly credible.
6 Edmund - I think your last sentence is spot-on.
This is the worst Scottish sub-sample for the SNP in a very long time. Very good for Scottish Tories.
YouGov/Sunday Times
Westminster voting intention - Scotland
Fieldwork: 13-14 August
Sample size: 196
(+/- change from UK GE 2005)
Lab 35% (-4)
SNP 23% (+5)
Con 21% (+5)
LD 13% (-10)
BNP 3% (+3)
UKIP 2% (+2)
Grn 1% (n/c)
oth 2%
http://www.yougov.co.uk/archives/pdf/ST-results_AUG09.pdf
At this rate, Labour are gonna walk Glasgow NE.
Appropo of my discussion this morning with Madasafish on previous thread: DOW opened up a few minutes ago 140 points down.
“Green Shoots alert”
DOW currently pouring Roundup on Gordons ‘Recovery’
9. I have a vague memory of Nick Palmer once quoting Bridget Jones on here as evidence of how the Tories were doomed to defeat and irrelevance. Faintly risible at the time, hilarious now.
DOW opened up a few minutes ago 140 points down.
now close to 200 down
15 - David Cameron’s entire career as party leader has been devoted to making that quotation of historical interest only.
Let’s try this one again with a few amended words to see if it gets through…
Last year I had a bet with Hopi Sen about the UK suffering the worst from the recession over the next four quarters. Well all the data is not quite in but in the spirit of Paddy Power I am conceding.
Once of the requirements was that I own up to being absolutely useless at forecasting GDP growth and I do that now, but in my own defence it was the Japanese that did for me. Canada and France are clearly doing best with the US in strong third place. Japan are quite obviously no-hopers at the bottom (despite the last quarter’s growth) and it’s pretty much a anybody’s guess between UK, Germany and Italy for 4th, 5th and 6th. That’s the current order but these figures get revised so much.
So there we have it, I’m an economic illiterate
1. No, progressive is a word used by the Left, especially including Communists, Trotskyists at al, to cover all things that they approve of, such as Wind Farms in our most picturesque countryside, or Camps where they can put all the middle class.
18 - Never mind Chris, George Osborne said the same as you did too.
FPT - 346 - Dropping the ‘public option’ in the House bill essentially emasculates it. The ‘end of life’ stuff is already gone from Senate versions too. It is now clear that the House bill in its present form is not viable - there are not the votes to pass it, and support for it in the country is collapsing rapidly as feeling shifts towards those who were called ‘un-American’ and ‘astro-turf’. Even CNN no longer pushes the line that the protests were all ‘fake’ and admits that HR 3200 is unpopular.
After the town hall meetings, politicians are realizing that this is an unpopular measure, and also that they have to face these people in elections next year (all the House, 1/3 of the Senate), and that passing this in its present form will not help their prospects.
Oddly enough there is something of an echo of the NHS debate: Everyone here admits that their health care system is far from perfect, but mostly they like it just the same, they are comfortable with it, and don’t want it messed with.
20 Another E-illiterate talking.
20 - And of course, Gordon Brown claimed that we were best placed within the G7 to withstand the recession.
There’s nothing remotely progressive about forcing everybody to pay for and carry ID cards.
Hey guys. “progressivism” is a political theory which goes back to the late 19th Century, where it links with the now defunct “positivism” political philosophy. A recognisable political theory at one time it was used by Woodrow Wyatt and FDR to sell their particular governments. Like so many other politically associated words, it has been bowdlerized by the Left to mean “people like us”. The Tories are also using the word without much idea of what the word stands for.
test?
FPT
Lee
Glad to note you have not been scared off by the resident pub bores! Less glad to hear that your missus is one of those responsible for the gridlocked baby-buggies in The Larder. (;-) …only kidding!)
I think LD strength in the area is traceable to the 80s/90s when the through route was such an issue. Since Wanstead was so solidly Conservative t the time, the LDs probably cornered the market in Anti-Tory vote. As we have seen elsewhere, where the Yellow Peril mange to put down roots, they are devilishly difficult to be rid of and the respectable second place they got last time undoubtedly owes much to local history. They probably would have made greater inroads but for the fact the local Conservative MP, Patrick Jenkin, was very popular and of course he was a Cabinet Member for a while.
I lived in Wanstead through much of the road disruption and returned again recently to see the obvious benefits from the tunnel and general upgrade of the area. St Mary’s Road will probably always be an accident black spot though. I should know. I jog down it regularly. Watch out for me.
All the best
PtP
18. Problem with your theory is that GDP includes “activity” from the government by hosing the future down todays drain - ie borrowing more and spending = higher GDP today.
So a basket case country A can show higher GDP than prudent country B - but be deeper in the brown stuff.
22 - Weathercock and Madasafish in their Share Price dealing room.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caeXUgw7bwY
Rasmussen Poll: 10% of investors rate economy as good or excellent, 48% say poor…
http://tinyurl.com/RR0486
On topic:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5268748/labour-isnt-working.thtml
27 tim, why are they trading shares from your bedsit?
* * * BETTING POST * * *Glasgow North East by-election - best prices
Lab 8/13 William Hill
SNP 5/4 Victor Chandler
Ind 16/1 Victor Chandler
Con 100/1 Victor Chandler
LD 100/1 Paddy Power, Victor Chandler
Is anyone aware of any other bookies offering Glasgow NE prices, apart from Paddy Power, Victor Chandler and William Hill?
(No sign of any Ladbrokes prices on this market for weeks now. Wake up Shadsy!)
27. You stuck with your recently bought shares, Tim?
Speaking of progressive..
One hundred “progressive” public figures – including our very own Vince Cable – have signed up to the Compass campaign for a new quango to tackle the “excessive levels” of “banking and executive remuneration”.
http://www.liberal-vision.org/2009/08/17/vine-cable%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%9csolution%e2%80%9d-to-high-pay%e2%80%a6another-quango/
As Krugman, in sarcastic mood, writes -
“But the truth is that the plans on the table would, roughly speaking, turn America into Switzerland — which may be occupied by lederhosen-wearing holey-cheese eaters, but wasn’t a socialist hellhole the last time I looked.”
If you have an ‘I’m alright Jack’ group of voters then it’s difficult to get past their selfishness. Polls show there are many who do care about others health care as much as their own but something more cutting will be needed to break through the barrier that is holding the US back.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/opinion/17krugman.html?_r=2&ref=opinion
O/T from prev thread
212 Will L,
Like you I am the typical person Labour should be targeting, however I was given the opportunity to go to a major Scottish Public School thanks to the Assisted Places Scheme.
I was a bit of a misfit in that public school, I was different from my peers because my parents were poor and I was seen as a working class English fenian! The bullying was rife, so I toughened up. I learnt more about people and the social class system we live in through that experience, never mind the rugby you play the or education you receive - they are not that important, but your character is. The only way to survive in the public school system is to prove to everyone that you deserve to be there. The toffs actually like intelligent working class people, just as long as we cultivate the right attitude. If they don’t like you they ignore but at least they do not resort to current hate you receive from Labour.
I have suffered discrimination from Labour types because I was public school educated - and at university some lefty tutors hated me for it. I am sure the grading wasn’t very objective but I did well enough to study for a Masters elsewhere. I suffered similar discrimination in the work place but the public school experience taught me to rise above it. The biggest bullies in the world are freemasons and lefties.
I continue to believe that England should become a more meritocratic society but there are too many barriers. Firstly the Queen and the Royal Family need to step aside. Second. Disband the Church of England and it return to Rome where it really belongs - no more splits, no more gay priests, etc. England really should become a Catholic country again. Third. Abolish freemasonry and other secret societies.Finally. Destroy Labour by giving Scotland the independence it wants.
Unfortunately these will not happen soon, so the lefties and toffs will continue to fight each other while everyone else suffers.
For the last threes I have been running my own company, employing dozens of staff. People management and customer service are the key but you need resilience and drive. The ability to change and re-engineer operations help you through the bad times like now.
Well, Chris is a gent for conceding way before he had to, but I shall look forward to recieving my chocolates!
As it stands the UK is squarely in the middle of the G7, behind Canada, France and the US, just ahead of Germany and Italy and well ahead of Japan. However, as Chris says, these figures get revised a great deal, so places 3-6 are still up for grabs (USA may be out of reach in bronze, but I think the UKs Q2 figures were probably low, so I won’t say so for certain)
Anyway, a pleasure to win my first non-gameofskillplayedwithcardsandchips bet in five years. (I swore off after allowing hope to triumph over reason in 2004.)
YouGov/Sunday Times sub-samples (cont.).
Amazing result from YouGov’s “Rest of the South” region (ie. SW + SE England, excluding London). Lib Dems ahead of Labour!
Con 51%!!!
LD 20%
Lab 19%
UKIP 5%
Grn 3%
BNP 1%
oth 1%
If Labour get absolutely annihilated in the entire south of England, and the Midlands, and get seriously battered about in Wales and Scotland too, can they EVER realistically recover?
34 - Only shares I’ve bought this year were the HSBC issue at 254p in March and tipped on here for the benefit of your good self and the other FTSE Numpties.
What are they trading at today?
37. What about golf clubs - can they survive your cull of societies ? Or are they hotbeds of militant protestantism ?
Off topic, something for all the twitter boosters to consider:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8204842.stm
39 Stuart
We can only hope they never recover. I hope they go into liquidation. The prospect of a Tory government must be the best present to SNP. That’s why I hope the Tories win a huge majority at the next GE.
Defeating Labour is the first step towards freedom and independence.
If I’m repeating myself, it’s because nothing’s changed:
Shut the f*** up tim you c***!
35 Vince Cable hasn’t really moved on from his 70’s Labour roots has he? He went through a New Labour journey of his own but increasingly his attitudes hark back to the state managed enterprise culture of Wilson/Callaghan days.
39. I see Plaid Cymru are at 3% in those sub-samples for Midlands/Wales. That would imply about 15% in Wales only.
37 Why must I become a member of a Church some of whose tenets I do not believe?
Freedom of Religion 1, Francis 0
41 Not aware golf clubs were secret societies. There is nothing wrong with other Christian churches, but homosexual priests/vicars is not acceptable.
Call me a religious bigot if you like but Christianity does teach values.
42, I wonder what percentage of day to day conversation is meaningless. 60% meaningful speech is still far more than the average government utterance.
Sorry, how defeatist/unpatriotic of me.
44 - The answer is £6.38.
I presume that was the question.
You can get a good profit then; and you call yourself a Socialist? Shame on you.
47 No one says you be forced to be any religion, however most Anglicans and Catholics have similar beliefs. Once the gay priest issue is sorted, they should merge.
52, who’d be head of the church? Pope or monarch?
49 - The headline was far too polite about twitter. The money shot was buried deep in the text:
“The study found that only 8.7% of messages could be said to have “value” as they passed along news of interest.”
FPT:
Looking at the data for the ICM poll, there are some interesting results in there (all figures are C/L/LD)
Male voting 47/26/16
Women 42/25/21
So LDs doing much better with women (5% off Tory, 5% on LD)
Labour only lead in the 18-24 range (30/35/19)
Other age groups:
25-34 - 47/25/25
35-64 - 42/26/19
Conservative’s weakest social class is C1 (38/30/22) whereas they are now very strong in the C2 (45/25/13) and even the DE bands (43/31/16). AB shows a not unexpected 50/18/21
Regional breakdowns:
South - 44/20/26
Midlands - 53/23/15 (Plaid are here at 5%)
North - 35/34/15 (SNP are in here at 10%)
UKIP/BNP/Green at about 2% each nationally.
Those Midlands, South East as well as C2 and DE figures look deadly for Labour… Not to mention that considering the North includes the near Tory-free Scotland, those are not that bad. Looking at the South figures, maybe some reassessment of the LibDems prospects might be in order?
Finally former voting figures from 2005.
Intending to vote Conservative (95/17/28)
Intending to vote Labour (1/67/5)
Intending to vote LibDem (2/8/63)
I swear the Lib Dems look to be ahead in that graph but actually have the same value as the Tories.
I don’t know, what is it with Lib Dems and dodgy bar charts
Only Lib Dems Can Be More Progressive Here!
From the archives - memories of the cancelled election:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/floods%2c-foot-and-mouth%2c-floods%2c-terrorism%2c-floods%2c-floods%2c-says-brown-20071008454/
Maybe I’m getting old, but twitter just seems like a big waste of time. It’s like if everyone in the world had a blog, 99% of them would be complete crap, with 1% being of any use to anyone. The noise/sound ratio is completely off.
41
Golf.
Scottish game isn’t it?
Invention of the Covenanters. Designed to let them while away a few hours between battles.
“Jesus and no quarter!”
52 Rubbish. I happen to be a thoroughly Protestant Anglican, in the Reformed tradition. So are many (bit not all) of my co-religionists. I am an Anglican, not a Roman Catholic. Sorry ’bout that, Francis.
39. Stuart - I hate to tell you this but Labour came third in the SE ex London and the SW at the 2005 GE as well.
58 - quite agree. I got halfway through the Twitter registration process before I realised it was going to be a total waste of my time.
55 SthLondon Nick
Interesting to see that Clegg is still successful with the ladies!
But I thought the accepted wisdom was that women vote Conservative more than men do?
I wonder what has brought about the change? Is Cameron winning over men or is he losing women? I am guessing the former, as WWC men become increasingly disenchanted with Labour.
It’s still strange though. I was under the impression that modern elections have always been about winning over women, who tend to change their voting patterns more than men do.
Must be time to take away the posting priviledges of ReBrandedHorse, all they seem to do is post abuse.
46. NoOffenceAllan - “I see Plaid Cymru are at 3% in those sub-samples for Midlands/Wales. That would imply about 15% in Wales only.”
Nope.
That is an extraction too far Allan!!
Typically PC only get about 1%-3% in YouGov’s “Midlands/Wales” sub-samples, so 3% is actually at the high end.
I have absolutely no problem with that, you are more on the Methodist/non conformist side of the C of E. What do you think of the current divide in the C of E. Why have so many Anglicans converted to Roman Catholicism? …… because the lefties have penetrated it and destroyed it. The Anglican churches where I live give High Church services, not much different to RC.
66. The illuminati are responsible - or Vatican agents - or are they the same thing?
66 If you have no problem with it, then why do I have to merge with the RCs?
On the Boris front
http://www.london.gov.uk/view_press_release.jsp?releaseid=23239
59. bono publico
Golf invented by the Covenanters?!?
NO NO NO NO NO!
Golf is much older than that.
It is first recorded in a statute of James I (reigned 1406-1437).
63 - That crossed my mind as well. The LDs are doing better in the South than their recent results would suggest. For the Tories the Midlands results are absolutely fantastic, whilst the North seems to be the only hope for Labour. I am surprised at the female intention figure, maybe Clegg is more of a hunk?!? Or on a serious point, women can often be associated with running the household finances, so Vince may be an asset there. The love bombing of the LDs seems to be working for Cameron and to take nearly 1/5 of the ex-Labour vote (when they were already low in 05) is a good achievement. What is interesting is that amongst the local middle class C1 (or more accurately the “get through the monthers”), the Conservative message hasn’t helped. I suspect they are worried about things such as tax credits etc…
Incidentally, I am not sure which is more annoying - the fact that I have NEVER been asked to join the Freemasons (because they do not think I am important enough) or the fact that one day someone MIGHT ask me to join the Freemasons (because they thought that I was that hard up for a social life.)
Darling under fire for staying in Scotland
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2009/08/darling-under-fire-for-staying-in-scotland.html
[55] - Looking at the South figures, maybe some reassessment of the LibDems prospects might be in order?
Perhaps, but I’d need to see what the 2005 figures were for starters.
73 wibller - Greg Hands is rather over-egging the pudding here. Presumably they have phones and e-mail in Edinburgh, or at least in Edinbugh SW.
75 Richard Nabavi
Agreed. It is silly season though, so…
58- I never embrace new technology or innovation until is has been tested on others, but I have yet to see any reason to take an interest in twitter. I’m glad others also question its value.
By the way, I read that facebook is losing popularity among young people as too many “old” people have started to join its ranks. I suppose nothing makes a phenomenon like facebook unpopular so fast as discovering that your mom wants to add you as a friend.
“They”?
60 - I’m an Anglican (or Episcopalian as they say here), and many members of the C of E (American division) are former Catholics, Methodists or Baptists who like the relative freedom of the Episcopal church. They would not say there is no difference.
I forgot who it was who said, “Twitter is stalking for stalkers who can’t be bothered to leave the house.”
70
BTW
What do you make of this (apart from the absurd sample size)?
http://www.snptacticalvoting.com/2009/08/scottish-mini-poll.html
Labour not using the NHS:
http://twitter.com/search?q=%23LabourNotUsingNHS
75 - slightly, perhaps. Certainly more so in the case of Darling. But there really is absolutely no excuse for Balls to be uncontactable or even out of the country on A-level results day.
77 - Oddly enough my daughter found me on Facebook and wasn’t pleased at all - she prefers Myspace though.
Twitter I just don’t ‘get’ at all. I don’t need to know what person A had for breakfast or whether they’ve finished their coffee / gone for a dump / love the NHS, all in less than 140 characters.
All these things tend to led to what Alan Bennett called ’somewhat redundant intimacy’.
5 With an eye on VIPA and just for 2005 voters I worked out the shares after changes = C 44:Lab 26: LD 18. Not out of line with recent polls but ouch for the LDs.
Of the 22.7% Lib Dem share this would show Lib Dems retaining 14.3%, losing 6.4% to Conservatives and 1.1% to Labour but getting 2.9% from Labour & 0.7% from Tories = 17.9%
Conservatives retain 95% of their 33.2% so 31.5%, get 6.4% from Lib Dems and 6.2% from Labour = 44.1%
Labour retain 67% of their 36.2% share so 24.3%, get 1.1% from the LDs and 0.3% from Conservatives = 25.7%
There is loss to other parties or no vote of 2% of C, 8% of Lab and 4% of Lib Dems = 4.5%
83 - What is so urgent about A level results that Balls has to be in the country to deal with it?!
86 Neil
University clearing - which will be far more of an issue this year than usual because there are more university applicants and fewer job vacancies as fallback options.
86, indeed. Given he buggered up the exams last time the less he has to do with them the better.
68
You don’t have to. It’s highly unlikely it will ever happen, however I would like the two churches to work more closely together. I am no fan of evangelism and believe that they have been a party to causing friction in the C of E.
67. There possibly are a few self interested Vatican agents trying to destabilise the C of E and it is wrong if they do. Most Anglicans and Roman Catholics detest freemasonry/illuminati so not sure about Vatican=Illuminati
85 a reply to South London Nick at 55.
86 - he’s Eductation Secretary. It’s one of the biggest dates in the school calendar. He should be avilable for comment, and not from a deck chair in the Bahamas, or whatever.
89. Oh I forgot to include the Freemasons - how remiss of me.
87 - Arent uni’s Mandy’s department now? (Not that I think that’s an argument for Mandy being in the country either.)
91 - And what good will his comments do? Will we really miss them?
90 - Thanks Ted. Looking at the regional splits and removing Scotland it does appear that Eric Pickles’ determination not to pile up votes where they are already ahead, looks like it is coming true. If they do get 20% in Scotland it will be interesting to see if they have used the same techniques to target the seats they have a hope of winning, or if they will be like the LDs are too thinly spread. Labour look like they are in trouble South of Manchester and outside inner London. Could the country turn blue outside the conurbations?
This is one of the fastest growing viewed videos on Youtube at the moment. 3.1 million viewings in a short period of time.
The Obama Deception :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw&feature=related
There are some very good bits of information on the Obama administrations links to notorious lobby interests, the Bilderburg group, the Federal Reserve banking systems motives in causing the current debt-induced worldwide recession, and a general tendency towards Oligarchy and attacks against democracy across the world today.
93 - clearly we’re not going to agree on this. It’s not a question of his comments being necessary or welcome, but that he should be around to make them. Approaching it from a different angle; would you agree that, aside from the ‘it’s his job’ angle, what appears to be happening is that Balls is hiding behind his Ministers so he doesn’t have to take questions about dumbing down, etc?
84- Ha! I can just hear it… “Daaaaaaaad!”
I suppose twitter appeals to those who have always been a legend in their own mind and aspire to be a star of sorts but, as you suggest, it doesn’t exactly lend itself to the old showbiz maxim ‘Always leave them wanting more.’
95
*Belms mightily*
95. Pass the custard, someone pls
96 - I wouldnt agree, no. What appears to be happening is that the guy is on holidays. Even Ed Balls deserves a holiday.
100, Ed Balls deserves only one thing: to be fired into space from some sort of giant artillery gun.
95
And of course no other US president had such links?
5,– “Wars of conquest involving huge numbers of civilian casualties”
Iraq Bodycount - the left wing anti war website estimates about 8,000 civilian deaths during the initial war phase of the invasion. Deaths since are some 100,000 but the great majority of these were inflicted by terrorists or insurgents.
8000 is a tragic number but in the context of invading a country of 28 million its not ‘huge’.
Lets stick it to Labour Runnymead but lets use facts.
“Labour to target hunt ban voters”
“Conservative sources admit they are “nervous” about the implications of the image of the fox as a “cuddly animal” being used in the run-up to the General Election. There are also fears that the party’s pledge to authorise a targeted cull of badgers in the battle to control TB in cattle herds will also play into the hands of opponents who wish to portray them as bloodthirsty enemies of wildlife.”
http://www.thisiswesternmorningnews.co.uk/news/Labour-goes-battle-hunting-ban/article-1257173-detail/article.html
101
Give him an iron-rich diet and build an electromagnetic weapon (it’d be greener)
27 - Probably getting very irrelevant and confusing to those who don’t live in Wanstead now (and I don’t think it’ll help with betting on the constituency much!)
My missus was actually responsible for getting the Larder to move their front of store display because she couldn’t get in with our double-buggy-for-twins.
[quote]St Mary’s Road will probably always be an accident black spot though. I should know. I jog down it regularly. Watch out for me. :)[/quote]
(let’s hope the code works, there’s no edit here is there)
Does the smiley mean that you jog in the road and I should be keeping an eye out to make sure that I don’t hit you
If you continue to the park when jogging you probably go past my current house too.
All the best.
Lee
101 - No that’s too easy - why not something like this, so we can all enjoy the extended spectacle….
http://www.darwinawards.com/stupid/stupid1998-11.html
****EXCLUSIVE****
There has been a major leak of Labour’s election manifesto :
http://alturl.com/piuk
104. A repeat of the amazingly successful tactics of Norwich North where Labour’s vote fell 70% from the GE - brilliant!
108. Going on your last few posts, I was expecting that to be a link to the Protocols of Zion.
97 - now Twitter is left wing nirvana…
http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2009/08/17/how-twitter-challenges-right-wing-dominance-online/
@95:
I have seen the Fnords.
“Labour brass twitters as Tories fritter away poll lead with own goal over future of health service”
“If the opinion polls are right and Ireland votes in favour of the Lisbon Treaty on October 2, it will pose a massive challenge to the shadow cabinet just days before they meet their grassroots supporters at the annual party conference.
THE timing for Cameron could hardly be worse because, if there is indeed a ‘Yes’ in Ireland, then he will come under intense pressure from the eurosceptic majority in his ranks to promise a UK referendum as soon as he gets into power.”
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/labour-brass-twitters-as-tories-fritter-away-poll-lead-with-own-goal-over-future-of-health-service-1861620.html
61. runnymede - “… Labour came third in the SE ex London and the SW at the 2005 GE as well.”
Aha! But were they coming 3rd in the POLLS in SW + SE (excl London) regions 9 months prior to the UK GE 2005?
We must compare like with like.
@104:
I’m not an enemy of wildlife. Some of it is *very* tasty.
@113:
Gabs, you do know the Tory ICM score went *up* 2pts, right?
And you can f*** off as well, Gabble you f***ing c***!
F*** OFF AND DIE!!!
Goodbye.
116 - believe it or not, that’s the headline of the stupid article. I can only presume that the journalist is talking about Irish opinion polls. So he’s managed to shove the Irish Euro vote, the NHS and Twitter into a headline - which nicely compliments an article which doesn’t make a word of sense.
104 Gabble.
I agree with you that many hunt supporters are nasty arrogant people, however why are so many lefties equally as arrogant of hateful?
113. Goodness, with Gabble, Francis and Will L all on the site at once, it’s like being in a parallel universe.
Do we have any Illuminati in?
120
It reminds me of Dante’s Inferno
113, gabble, you are delusional if you genuinely believe that any party member will do anything to rock the boat prior to the next election. After the election you may have a point, but that will be less of a problem as Labour will have been critically injured, possibly comatose.
As an aside if you intend to keep using the Independent as a source of informed opinion you better be quick. It’s readership is falling faster than the Labour parties membership. Both will soon be extinct.
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=44152&c=1
113 Hypothetical Bulls**t. Wait until October, then see what happens. Lefties are all theoretical, never pragmatic.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/davidhughes/100006675/bumbling-bob-ainsworth-does-it-again/
121 I am waiting for my membership application to be processed, Martin.
123. 1 in 5 copies of the Indy were given away free
120.
We even have the treasured ‘runnymede’, Labour MP for…..
No doubt you will have a lot more spare time after May.
lol
The rest of us have ‘enforced leisure’ due to the Labour recession.
Opinion polls ahead of 2 October 2009 referendum:
% For/Against/Don’t know
01.06.09: 54/28/18
18.05.09: 52/29/19
16.02.09: 51/33/16
Opinion polls ahead of 12 June 2008 referendum:
% For/Against/Don’t know
06.06.08: 30/35/35
17.05.08: 35/18/47
26.01.08: 26/10/64
52.5% of voters rejected the Lisbon treaty on 12 June 2008
http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/imported/irish-voters-tilt-towards-a-%E2%80%98yes%E2%80%99-for-the-lisbon-treaty/65632.aspx
129 - so are you happy you and your leftie cohorts raped democracy by telling a country to vote until they got the answer ‘right’?
doesn’t proggresive just mean how keen you are on bumming, drugs and single mothers?
131 - No wonder the Tories and the Lib Dems are scoring so well then.
128. Well that’s a first - me being accused of being a Labour MP(!).
gabble, I’m confused. Are you actually taking pleasure in the fact that the Irish being forced to submit to their second referendum may discomfit the Tories. If so shouldn’t you actually be hanging your head in shame that the British people don’t even get one referendum, despite the fact that it was enshrined in your liars manifesto? You have a very warped sense of justice if so.
104- The fox angle isn’t a bad one for Labour… it just isn’t a great one either. If I were advising them, I’d tell them to use it (although not disproportionately or indiscriminately, but rather as part of a balanced political diet). Still, the most remarkable thing about the issue has to be the fact that this is probably one of the best items to be found in the paltry array of weapons at Labour’s disposal at the moment. I don’t think the Tories should become too terribly worried about it, but they shouldn’t ignore it either.
106 Lee
The last thing you need to worry about on PB is being irrelevant and/or confusing…..
Now, regarding The Larder, I shall have to speak to James about this as I rather liked the front of shop display as it was.
Yes, I almost certainly go past your house as I pant down past the Church and the Golf Course to the park. Give me a cheer as I go by. Any jogger who makes it across the St M/Overton Drive junction alive deserves some recognition.
[Do you think we can any more parochial without eliciting a few well chosen words from RBH....?]
gabble, sorry forgot to add, I don’t expect an answer, you have proved on countless occasions you are either too stupid or too embarrassed to provide answers.
135 - they will then seal the deal on twitter with #welovethefox
123 / 127 - He was quoting from the Irish Independent. A ‘paper even less reputable than the British one. If you can believe that.
134 - Ireland has not been forced to submit to a second referendum. There was a huge parliamentary majority in favour of it.
135. S&S - the number of votes that might change on the basis of this issue may not even in the hundreds, UK-wide. It’s only total desperation that has led Labour to raise it.
Message from Stalingrad to Mr. Bean:
“Surrender is forbidden. New Labour will hold their positions to the last
manperson and the last round, and by their heroic endurance will make an unforgettable contribution towards the establishment of a Progressive Front and the salvation of the Socialist world.”140, Neil, perhaps you could be good enough to explain to me why the first answer was not deemed to be good enough to be final?
22% think the Conservatives are the most progressive Party?
I can only think that the PoliticsHome pollsters took their notebooks and pencils one wet Saturday afternoon to “The Den” home of Millwall FC.
129. Ireland will soon allow all EU citizens full voting rights (all elections). Surely once they do, the remaining EU states will do the same. I am sure Gordon Brown is looking west to see how EU citizen voting blocs will swing results. If opinion polls show other non Brit EU citizens to be left leaning and/or pro-EU, Brown will change the voting rules to extend their voting rights in the UK.
Who will gain from such an extension of voting rights? Lib Dems, Labour or Tories? I don’t think UKIP, BNP or EDP would attract votes from EU citizens.
Oh, and runnymede.
90% of the UK public believe that Dr Kelly was murdered in the last poll conducted.
More than 95% of the US public believe that JFK was murdered as the result of an active conspiracy rather than the isolated act of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Both of the above may have indirectly been cuased by policy made within the Builderburg group. It is real, whereas most other organisations - Illumanati, etc, etc, simply do not exist or have no influence or power.
The Builderburg group is a hard-left leaning Global Shadow Government, which brings together the the intelligence services of the USA, UK, Israel, France, Europe, etc, banking multi-billionaires, and media barons. Together they run the world’s governments and will often kill any opposition politician that refuses to come on board. It is the only international gathering that insists on total secrecy and ruthlessly enforces it’s will. Most wars are discussed within it before proceeding. The Iraq war is the only war where it’s members were split.
It seems runnymede you are the one that is isolated and unrepresentative.
The ‘official version of events’ is not always the majority view. It is simply the view put out by those in power, usually to serve their own interests, and conceal their own wrong-doing.
Thucydides - ‘Most people will not trouble themselves with finding out the truth, but simply accept the first story they hear’ (430BC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group
133 LOL!
Us veteran PBers wear these misattributions like badges of honour, Runnymede. My own favorite is ‘right-wing Cockney’ although that would rate as remarkably accurate by comparison with the recent ‘outing’ of JackW as a Site Socialist.
146 “…Dr Kelly was murdered in the last poll conducted.”
Jeez, Will, that must have been some Poll! Who conducted it - Herod?
143 - I dont think anyone expects issues such as a country’s relationship with an organisation such as the EU to ever be given a “final” answer. The Irish government called a 2nd referendum because it thought it was in the country’s interests. It’s up to the Irish people to say whether they agree.
Francis,
The SNP might do quite well among EU citizens.
I seem to remember the SNP targetting the Polish vote to very good effect at the Scottish general election in May 2007. (Suffrage for Holyrood elections is based on the LOCAL electoral roll -> ie. EU citizens get a vote, which does not apply for Westminster elections.)
143.
The poll before the June 08 vote shows the DKs on 35%.
It is interesting to see that the drop in the DKs has all gone over to the For camp. Which suggests, the more people read and understand the treaty, the more in favour of it they are.
148. Orderly…quick…
138/141- It’s true, if Labour get too excited about this helpful yet tiny issue, they risk doing more harm to their own prospects than good by looking completely out of touch and disconnected from the issues that normal people are worrying about. This could be played to Labour’s advantage, but only on a small scale. The Tories, for their part, have to be careful to neither disregard nor inflate little annoyances like this. The way the Tories approach the fox issue could foreshadow how they deal with other unhelpful issues that arise in the future.
81. Hard to look at these in isolation , due to tiny sample size. This one goes against the trend , which was steady rise in SNP support, at worst you would need to wait for some time to see if it continues in future polls, which I find hard to believe.
gabble, as predicted no answer to my question. So let’s try another. Do you genuinely believe that members of the public in Ireland are actually reading the treaty? If so why do you believe this when our own politicians have admitted to not reading it?
.
.
Neil, if what you say is true can you give an example were a referendum has been rerun following a yes answer?
149. Very amusing Neil - we all know if the answer had been ‘yes’ that would indeed have been seen as ‘final’.
145 - Got a link for that? Or is it something you heard from the illumunati?
151 - The ‘dont knows’ broke strongly to the ‘no’ side. That’s why the referendum was lost. And noone has actually read the treaty.
LabourList has outdone itself.
According to them, because of Hannan, Obama will be assassinated - or at least, words to that effect…
http://www.labourlist.org/hannans_rhetoric_feeds_dangerous_right_wing_beast_fletcher
Mike, shouldn’t the ICM/Guardian poll usually be out tonight?
For the Mandelson Lovers at PB. A few polling facts from the electorate !
Ain’t that bloody good as you think is he ?
Now hopefully some will STFU about the devious unellected snake.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2219
157. Neil: “The ‘dont knows’ broke strongly to the ‘no’ side.”
Yes, in the June 2008 vote. However, the polls show that the DKs have broken towards the For camp since the vote.
“The local supermarket is a front for the evil works of will. It’s part of a national chain of illegal racketeering outlets, whose final aim is to Destroy single vaccine stocks. They’ve already claimed victims - everyone from david kelly to princess diana have been caught out. Only The WI has seen through the scam, which is why francis, in cahoots with will, is trying to Cover up alien landings with a view to putting an end to The WI. “
Generate your own conspiracy theory.
http://www.alchemica.co.uk/conspire/truth.cgi
156 - I never said otherwise. I only disputed the fact that the second referendum is being “forced” on the Irish.
161 - No they dont. There has only been one poll on the second referendum so far (that I have seen). We have no idea whether the ‘yes’ lead now is composed of ‘dont knows’ breaking for ‘yes’ or ‘no’ voters switching over. And your analysis that it is based on better understanding of the treaty is so obviously bogus as to probably qualify as a lie.
“Voter understanding of Lisbon Treaty on the increase”
“Research undertaken by the Referendum Commission indicates a substantial increase in the level of understanding of the Lisbon Treaty among Irish voters.
According to a statement released today, 60pc of voters say they now have at least some understanding of it.
This compares to the 44pc who said they had at least some understanding of the Treaty days before polling day in June 2008.”
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/lisbon-treaty/voter-understanding-of-lisbon-treaty-on-the-increase-1847136.html
Neil, I think we will take your comment at 163 as Oh Deary me and leave it at that.
163. If you have voted ‘no’ in a referendum, surely that should be an end to the matter - at the very least for a substantial period of time.
The idea that you can be asked to vote again in short order is simply an affront to democracy. But you are right that ‘forced’ isn’t quite the right word - ‘bullied’ would be more like it.
158 - I’ve only scanned the article on Labourlist, but I did not see any argument with Hannan’s facts as quoted there…
165 - A post which doesnt back up your assertion in any way. Why am I surprised?
164. Neil: “There has only been one poll on the second referendum so far (that I have seen).”
See my post @129:
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/17/is-labour-losing-the-battle-to-be-called-progressive/comment-page-2/#comment-1181438
I thought the Tory EU group was pro Lisbon?
Or is it anti semitic?
MacMillan Scott doesn’t seem to have been put off by legal threats.
http://www.theparliament.com/no_cache/latestnews/news-article/newsarticle/ousted-tory-mep-defends-criticism-of-new-ecr-leader/
Anthony’s graph beginning to look very nice for the Conservatives;
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/voting-intention
Large gap starting to develop once more!
171. BINGO
165, gabble, that extract supports this comment how “…….the more people read and understand the treaty…..” For gods sake “some understanding” that’s pitiful.
167 - Do you know how much support there is in the Dáil for a second referendum? There is only 1 party opposed to it. The referendum has not been forced on the Irish; their government (and opposition) was desperate to hold it. If the Irish people object they can vote no and kick the political establishment out at the next election. You cant really bully people into doing what they wanted to do anyway.
139 That quote from the Irish Independent is illuminating as to the other parallel universe; that of the political commentariat. They are all of the view that last week was very good for Labour, that Mandelson was a tour de force. Obviously Cameron would have preferred that Alan Duncan & Dan Hannan had been more Trappist in their behaviour but on the evidence so far it didn’t play with the voters intent or feelings. Mandelson made some disparaging remarks that didn’t gain traction and they all applaud his genius but no-one in the public who decide these things listened.
I am reminded of the Bail Out Bounce where while Labours polling improved and “hung parliament” became more a possibility the response from voters as polled was far more lukewarm and less impressed than that of the commenteriat.
171 tim - I think Macmillan Scott wrote that letter some time back, wasn’t it reported last month in the Yorkshire Post?
176- This short term stuff doesn’t usualy have an effect anyway, it’s just probably seen as general bickering, only major(ish) events tend to move polls, IMHO
‘The debate on the National Health Service is a proxy for a debate on nation-specific ideologies and policies’
… although the Tories are actually pledging to increase expenditure on health in England, they’re planning overall cuts in spending, which will result in lower budgets for the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish administrations, and possibly the need to cut spending on their NHS’s. So in fact, the Tories may end up spending more on the English NHS resulting in less spending on the NHS’s in the other UK countries.
… under the guise of a supposedly uniform British NHS that no longer exists, the parties canvass our support and that of those living in the other UK nations in order to deliver their own unspoken agendas for England. Unspoken, that is, because if they can’t even say the name of the country whose NHS they are supposedly standing up for, then such a health service is not a National Health Service that is truly designed with the best health outcomes in mind for the English nation.
http://britologywatch.wordpress.com/2009/08/17/the-debate-on-the-national-health-service-is-a-proxy-for-a-debate-on-nation-specific-ideologies-and-policies/
Some MP’s think he was murdered :
‘Why the death of Dr David Kelly simply will not go away’ Norman Baker MP
http://www.libdemvoice.org/opinion-why-the-death-of-dr-david-kelly-simply-will-not-go-away-1636.html
In a Telegraph poll conducted within months of the death in 2004 under full news coverage, 90% had doubts, and many wanted Blair to resign.
A more recent BBC poll in 2007 said 62% of the British public have doubts regarding the death of Dr David Kelly.
No inquest has ever been held into the death of Dr Kelly. It was halted by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer. No explanation has ever been given.
The paramedics to arrive first on the seen effectively stated he they believed he had been murdered, and it made to look like suicide, at a press conference.
‘Medics raise Kelly death doubts’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4089729.stm
A month ago 13 senior doctors signed a letter doubted the official verdict and requesting the long-delayed inquest take place.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1199109/13-doctors-demand-inquest-Dr-David-Kellys-death.html
Runnymede you’ve lost this argument.
Game, set, match.
Pulling out the details from the YouGov poll:
Leader Total Well/Total Bad
Cameron 55/35
Brown 26/70
Clegg 41/29
45% fear loss of job or family member job, 29% don’t
Raise living standard:
Brown/Darling 22
Cameron/Osborne 33
Neither 38
When will growth start?
Already Has 7%
End of Year 13%
Early 2010 20%
Late 2010 25%
2011 24%
FSA handled bonuses well?
No - 78%
Yes - 9%
During Gordon Brown’s summer holiday, Lord Mandelson is in charge of the government this week. What is your opinion of an unelected peer standing in for the prime minister?
Favourable - 16%
Not - 67%
178- Plus it is August. All the best journalists are on holiday somewhere
I mean 176! I don’t talk to myself….much…
176 - after 12 years people have seen enough of Brown and Labour to make up their minds one way or the other. Most have now done so and are unlikely to change short of a seismic event of some sort.
They get on with their lives and tend to ignore the daily minutiae of politics, just keeping an ear open on the ‘big picture’ front.
177, It was certainly doing the rounds on the 31st of July, not exactly hot off the press.
http://www.libdemvoice.org/expelled-tory-mep-reveals-fascist-links-of-tories-new-euro-leader-15785.html
167 There is plenty of precedent for the technique though, Runnymede. The Spanish Inquisition, for example, would keep asking the same question until the respondent got the answer right.
175. Stop comparing apples and oranges Neil. If you believe in referenda on issues of this sort then you also need to abide by the result. If you think by contrast that the proper way issues should be decided is by parliamentary vote, then don’t hold referenda.
You’ve let the cat out of the bag with your comment about the political parties being ‘desperate’ for a second referendum. We all know why that is - they are desperately worried about losing the huge torrent of cash they are accustomed to having poured down their throats by the EU.
As for the ‘bullied’ expression - the timing of this second referendum, coming as it does against the background of a catastrophic recession, is no accident. As you well know.
186 - no-one expected the Spanish Inquisition, but the second referendum wasn’t exactly a shattering surprise….
95/146 etc. - Mad as a bag of frogs…
Just watching the BBC news package on Afghanistan. They are stating the increase in casualties is as a result of having to move troops around to support panthers claw which has resulted in a lack of troops elsewhere. This lack of troops has been exploited by the Taliban to inflict casualties. If that opinion takes hold Bob’n'Gord are even deeper in the doo doo than they are now.
Is Will L, Norman Baker MP?
“The Builderburg group”
…recently had the CEO of WH Smith as its Chair. They can barely run their business, yet apparently they run a secret world government…….
181 - The most interesting of those non-voting intention poll results is the one about when Britain will come out of recession. 69% do not expect Britain to come out of recession this year. That may or may not be correct. If it is wrong, might Labour benefit from exceeding voters’ expectations? I suspect not (not least because unemployment will keep rising for some considerable time to come) but it is a question worth posing.
192. Chairman - Bob?
193. The definition of ‘out of recession’ used by members of the general public won’t be the textbook one.
193 - If the UK comes out of recession, will that help Labour, will people give Labour the credit for this, or have people made their minds up and want ‘change’?
That Independent article is fantastic. The headline bares no relation to the article. Still, it made Gabble happy for a brief moment. Bless.
192 It would be rather reassuring, David, to think that somebody was actually running the world. All the evidence of my sixty years indicates that nobody is, or, if they are, they haven’t a bloody clue what they are doing.
172. Gin. Very interesting graph. Interesting to note the slow but inexorable rise in the red line recently. Also noteworthy are the own goals directly attributable to bad decisions by Brown. Note the huge dip when he didn’t sack Jacqui Smith and the second dip when he mishandled the expenses fiasco. I doubt either are long term deal breakers though a new leader is an absolute necessity.
antifrank, 193, I think the problem Labour face is that people do not really react to the “technical” definition of a recession. They experience a recession as closing shops, lost jobs, repossessions all of which will continue long after we have scraped over the 0.001% increase in growth technical exiting from recession.
192 - “The Builderburg group” Is that a shady halfway house meeting point for the Bilderberg Group and the infamopus Build-A -Bear Workshop which has spread its tentacles out from the US.
http://www.buildabear.com/
I note in the other thread people were asking for genuine good reasons to vote Labour at the next election. Here are a few reasons to vote Labour:
1. To save the NHS.
2. To keep VAT below 22%.
3. To support Labour in its progressive agenda; pursuing policies such as equal opportunity, fairness, and leading the world in the fight against poverty.
4. To ensure one of the great economic minds of this generation, Gordon Brown, is able to continue steering us away from the threats of recession and mass unemployment. GB has huge international respect, and he deserves the same back home with a full term as PM.
5. To guarantee the BBC remains fully funded and able to continue delivering global excellence in journalism and investigative reporting.
6. To keep the Tories out (remember the 90s; do you want another Black Wednesday?)
Those are just off the top of my head. I’m sure there are hundreds more I can share later…..
Spot the side that’s lying by far the most in the US health care debate. Pretty obvious as they have the most to lose.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/08/chart-of-the-day-6.html
True/Mostly True -
Democrats 8, Republicans 2
Half True/Barely True
Democrats 5, Republicans 2
False/Pants on Fire
Democrats 5, Republicans 14
And yet, some people try and claim that both sides are equally the problem…….
198 but the blue line is increasing also and at a faster rate
203 - Shhhh… don’t spoil it for him….
201. Not a patch on Adrian Harper I’m afraid - although ‘To ensure one of the great economic minds of this generation, Gordon Brown..’ was a decent effort.
198 ‘Interesting to note the slow but inexorable rise in the red line recently.’
Roger, if you look carefully you’ll see that the blue line is also rising and at a steeper angle. As a result it is diverging from the red one. Read into that what you will.
richie,
“…6. To keep the Tories out (remember the 90s; do you want another Black Wednesday?)…..”
Do you know how much Black Wednesday cost? Look it up you will be surprised. Particularly bearing in mind the vast amounts of money being sprayed about at the moment.
As for the rest of your list, struggling to detect if you are serious or it is irony, sorry.
201…i should love another Black Wednesday. fortunes were made!
201 ‘To ensure one of the great economic minds of this generation, Gordon Brown, is able to continue steering us away from the threats of recession and mass unemployment. GB has huge international respect, and he deserves the same back home with a full term as PM.’
Christ alive. Does anyone really believe this to be true?
163. Neil, if you seriously think that then you’re way beyond cloud cuckoo land! Ireland is being forced to hold a second referendum because Sarkozy, Merkel and co want Lisbon to go through. What was it Schroeder said after the Irish rejected the Nice treaty? “Then keep voting until you get the right answer!” In a democracy it is the people who are sovereign, if you have a referendum and the vote is no that should be the end of the issue. What part of “No” don’t they understand?
REBRANDED HORSE
You are now banned from the site completely.
209 - Ed Balls does. In Ed Balls’ mind, Gordon’s standing as a economic genius is second only to Ed Balls.
1. To save the NHS.
Whos getting rid of it?
2. To keep VAT below 22%.
Whos raising it?
3. To support Labour in its progressive agenda; pursuing policies such as equal opportunity, fairness, and leading the world in the fight against poverty.
You do realise that the wealth gap has widened under Labour?
4. To ensure one of the great economic minds of this generation, Gordon Brown, is able to continue steering us away from the threats of recession and mass unemployment. GB has huge international respect, and he deserves the same back home with a full term as PM.
Remind us what the debt is and will be? What our unemployment levels are, what our long term economic outlook us and which direct competitors are already out of the recession?
5. To guarantee the BBC remains fully funded and able to continue delivering global excellence in journalism and investigative reporting.
The BBC needs reforming, and again who has said we should be rid of it?
6. To keep the Tories out (remember the 90s; do you want another Black Wednesday?)
Black Wed is a blip compared to now.
211 “REBRANDED HORSE
You are now banned from the site completely.”
Goodness!
What did I miss while I was out?
Mr RH was never as offensive as tim, so why’s he still here? Or as annoyingly silly as gabble, so why’s he still here?
This is very funny!
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/sport/sport-headlines/usain-bolt-spotted-in-victorian-photograph-200908171988/
Ahh.. Busy day I return to see Tim following the New Labour strategy of insults, and repetion of a loads of nonsense.
Keep it up Tim, you are a very good recruiting agent for the Conservative party. Keep it up.
I havent read the entire thread yet, but the bingo card seems to be getting close to a full house. Can anyone confirm?>
On thread
and I have posted this before…, the more Conservative policy is put under scrutiny, it will become clear how unpalatable Labours policies are(such as there are).
214. He used the front bottom swear word and what men usually do to it!
214 - I suggest you look at posts 44 and 117. (And they are just today’s examples.)
Nobody seems to have picked the 22% other party for who is the most ‘progressive’? Surely that’s a strange result?
214- That’s not exactly a fair assessment. I wouldn’t doubt Mike’s judgment on this one.
My favourite PB moments are when the LabBots display that most elementary of human emotions: hope.
eg. Roger is at his funniest when he is at his most hopeful.
It is these fleeting moments of hope that will make their crushing defeat all the more impossible to bear.
Just ask Jack McConnell.
CHORUS: “Who?”
214 GeoffH. Mr Horse indicated somewhat forcibly that another member of the site should go forth and multiply and then expire permanently.
Mike gave Horse a yellow card on Friday and now a red card and relegation to ConHome.
You have been warned !!!
219
the greens will surely get quite a few votes?
Rebranded Horse was given a warning, then a temporary ban and now a permanent one.
201. Richie Rich August 17th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Brown has been a failure on every level from Economic to Political. Everything he has done has made his and his parties plight worth. There will be no redemption, no forgiveness - Gordon Brown and Labour are doomed - DOOMED to defeat.
201 ‘To guarantee the BBC remains fully funded and able to continue delivering global excellence in journalism and investigative reporting.’
Not anymore it doesn’t. Have you seen how many staggeringly expensive libel law suits they’ve managed to become embroiled in recently thanks to sloppy journalism? Google ‘panorama’ & ‘libel’, and see where some of your TV licence fee is going.
214. He went way beyond the line, it’s well deserved, Tim and Gabble have never said that they wanted another poster to die.
“Gin. Very interesting graph. Interesting to note the slow but inexorable rise in the red line recently.”
Shame about the better rise in the blue line…….
“Post Lisbon Treaty Referendum Research Findings”
“The key (spontaneous) factor behind the No vote was a lack of understanding of the Treaty, which is mentioned by 45% of No voters. Indeed, 65% of Soft No voters cite this reason, clearly indicating that lack of knowledge was the deciding issue in the campaign.”
http://www.dfa.ie/uploads/documents/Publications/Post%20Lisbon%20Treaty%20Referendum%20Research%20Findings/5.pdf
222 - Relegation to ConHome….?
Oh dear God!.. Noooooooooooo….!
“219
the greens will surely get quite a few votes?”
But Greens are already separate at 17%.
Comfusing.
231 Oops sorry didnt look at the graph…
227 O/T But what is going on at Crumlin Road? Can’t the police stop it.
Comfusing = confusing….
222-Looking at today’s postings I don’t see them as being off the scale of the robust debates we have here. Though I may have missed other yellow carding incidents…
216 - Oy, I’ve spend most of my time on here today discussing MRSA and Hospital Cleanliness, don’t bring me into it.
off to work night all.
224 Apparently Mike Smithson becomes alluringly handsome when angry with the added bonus of a rush of testosterone and resultant extra hair folicule !!
Sadly for Mike he’s going to have to get mad as hell to gain a full top covering !!
233. I suspect it’s just a bunch of the local pond life “having a laugh,” they probably think by burning down a derelict courthouse they’re striking a blow for Ireland against the British War Machine.
235 - If you really think that 44 and 117 are in the general tone of the site then you have really got the site wrong.
236
You obviously forgot what you posted on the last thread Tim…
Too busy with excabilbur and the bot program of “facts for every situation”?
201 - Richie. That’s the best spoof post so far this month. Brilliant!
237 don. Haven’t you forgotten something ??
I’m just filling in the forms to get the accreditation to attend the fringe events at the Labour and Tory Conference.
The former costs £275 while the latter costs £400 just for two days.
Fortunately somebody else is picking up the tab but that’s quite a difference between the parties.
I wonder how much it costs for UKIP?
LOLOL. Remind me again why anyone thinks Mandelson is a great communicator?
Incidentally tim, if your newborn died in an NHS hospital of a disease caught while in there, would her life have been “well lived”? You Labour cockroach.
239 I could figure that if it was one or two throwing a quick match and running away but thirty or forty taking their time with petrol bombs? I mean how long does it take the Peelers to show up.
“General Sir David Richards backs Bob Ainsworth on Afghanistan time frame”
“There is no difference between my views and those of the Secretary of State on this. It is unhelpful to all those engaged in this conflict, both here and in Afghanistan, to suggest that there is.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6799251.ece
The tories need to wind their neck in. Being unhelpful to the troops on the frontline is pretty poor form, to say the least.
@244:
Market forces at work, Mike.
People want to go to the party that will form the government next spring.
I suggest everyone now calls tim “a complete f***ing c***” (which won’t be hard, as it is true) so that everyone has to be banned by Mike.
If we do that, pb will eventually consist solely of tim and gabble - repeating the same irritating, nasty and mendacious posts to each other until the end of time.
They will be locked in a kind of Sartrean hell, which they well deserve.
192. The Builderburg Group is an umbrella forum that meets in secret. Its power comes from its co-ordination of three things.
First the co-ordination of the activities of the Intelligence Services - CIA, MI6, MOSSAD, European Services, etc. They can exert tremendous power on policy-making, in much the same way that organised crime did in 1930’s America.
Second the co-ordination of media coverage, which self-censors and offers an oligarchic hard-left world-viewpoint (for example, on the simultaneous ‘need’ for ‘mass third world immigration’ and ‘birth control/family planning’ - two completely opposed and contradictory policies, yet this is the modern media consensus).
Third an active oligarchy in politics. Through inviting one member of each political party - left and right, and assassinating those that refuse to attend/collude, it can impose its will on any politician, who dare not oppose it.
There are obviously various networks underneath it that wield more direct and obvious power. The Builderburg Group is a manifestation of their oligarchic self-interest.
The Federal Reserve System of the USA - which is a non-government private banking cartel, is probably a notorious example. It is a system through which oligarchic bankers rob savers and pensioners through debt-inflation, creating unlimited fiduciary money through debt creation (exploiting the absence of a gold standard). Through these means booms and busts are created like clockwork.
Is debt inflation exaggerated? No.
The US dollar has lost 96% of its value since the creation of the Federal Reserve, based on official figures. Before that the US dollar has held CONSTANT value for nearly 200 years!!!
We actually see a huge transfer of wealth from savers (those foolish enough to put their money in managed pension funds, insurance funds, mutual funds, etc.) directly to bankers whose bonuses are rigged regardless of true performance (there is no distinction between inflationary asset-price spirals causing (non-real) profits and profits caused by real physical growth and sound investing). This is the true cause of the current recession. Yet why have you not read this elsewhere in the last two years. They now, teasingly confess, but refuse to do anything about it, because it is not in their interest to do so.
The bankers lose nothing with the bust, but gain huge bonuses from the asset-price spiral. Busts are therefore caused like clock-work. This is literally mega-corruption caused by banking oligarchy (or as economists call it - banking oligopoly).
The only way to prevent it from happening again and give savers/pensioners real returns is through breaking up the big banks and funds, outlawing managed funds, ending banking insurance (allowing banks to go bust if making bad loans), abolishing fiduciary money (in favour of a gold standard), strict credit controls and ending bank bonuses based on inflationary asset-price spirals (non-real profits). There is no other solution.
Notice that the above solution favours freedom, and free-enterprise, not banking oligopoly. Bankers have bankrolled hard-left movements for more than 100 years, including funding the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Russia.
http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/ArticleDisplay.php?Article=NoneDare04
‘Government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem.’
‘Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains’
244 Mike S. The Jacobite Conference accreditation is a snip at 50 guineas.
Full running buffet and all the Lib Dem canvassers you can bag in the rough shoot !!
248..or this Autumn…
“Being unhelpful to the troops on the frontline is pretty poor form, to say the least.”
G-d knows what you’d describe not providing proper equipment then…..
251 O/T but have you any knowledge of Swansea West? As the seat of the Father of the House (I suspect he is old enough to have served at Culloden with you)I wonder if it had crossed your radar.
“First the co-ordination of the activities of the Intelligence Services - CIA, MI6, MOSSAD, European Services, etc”
Wow, WH Smith is more than just a newsagents and stationers then……
Since nearly everybody seems off-topic, I may as well get my pennyworth in. Just read today’s “Evening Standard” and feel quite sick. My bete noire met Gaddafi’s sun at the Corfu villa of Jacob Rothschild (another of my bete noires, of which alas there are too many). It seems Gaddafi’s son, Seif upset relatives of the Lockabie victims, by calling them “very greedy, and trading on the blood of their sons and daughters.” I felt even sicker seeing some of these ‘greedy’ relatives requesting mercy for the Lockerbie bomber who is dying of terminal cancer. Some people, alas, are gluttons for punishment and keep sticking the other cheek out to get another punch in the face. Personally, I’d be happy to see the bomber, Seif Gaddafi, Jacob Rothchild and his revolting houseguests rolling in agony and begging for mercy which never comes.
201 Let’s take Richie Rich seriously for a moment. He has made the first real attempt to answer the question, and he probably represents a strand of thinking amongst Labour supporters, or at least lines that Labour activists might push. And in fact, I think he has partly put his finger on positive messages that Labour could push.
Of his six ‘positive’ reasons for voting Labour, four (1, 2, 5,and 6) are not positive reasons: they are variations of ‘keep out the evil Tories, who will do nasty things’, and are based on misrepresentation of Tory policies, or just straight prejudice (eg 6). So we’ll strip those out.
Which leaves:
3. To support Labour in its progressive agenda; pursuing policies such as equal opportunity, fairness, and leading the world in the fight against poverty.
Actually, that is a positive reason to vote Labour, if you want that sort of authoritarian social engineering and micro-management of our lives. It’s the Harman agenda, which has its supporters. I’m not sure it’s an election winner, though.
4. To ensure one of the great economic minds of this generation, Gordon Brown, is able to continue steering us away from the threats of recession and mass unemployment. GB has huge international respect, and he deserves the same back home with a full term as PM.
Well, that is certainly what some people were saying, and (bizarrely) honestly believed, especially last Autumn and to a certain extent at the G20. It’s a tricky one to run when unemployment is rising fast and the public finances collapsing, but it does remain one of Labour’s best lines, albeit looking very jaded now.
Note that - even if you believe it - it would no longer be a positive reason for voting Labour if they change leader.
gabble (and tim) I’d just like to get things clear on Afghanistan. As we all know, president Karzai has just brought in a law to allow Afghan men to starve their women to death if they refuse to have sex.
Do we support this law or not? Are we, as seems to be the case, defending this wife-starving government with British soldiers’ lives? Or is it just democracy we’re defending?
If it is just democracy we are defending with our soldiers’ lives, and not wife-starvation per se, I take it we will be withdrawing our soldiers if Karzai wins? Yes?
Or is there a third alternative? Hey, maybe we AGREE with wife-starvation? Has Bob Ainsworth checked this with Harriet Harman?
Confused of Bangkok.
“Being unhelpful to the troops on the frontline is pretty poor form, to say the least.”
It’s hard to imagine anything less helpful to the troops than a fourth-choice, fifth-rate mediocrity like Bob “My moustache has a higher IQ than I do” Ainsworth at the MoD.
Why is Mandle-pooh’s message not getting through…?
Check the English soldiers - spot-the-jock - dying for the Celtic-Chairman’s zero-dead fallacy!
Jocks are scum! [And f3ck-off Easterross: you are a Scootsman Conservative. We ENGLISH will not miss you'se!] Enough already:Scotland is a failed state with on over-polished ego. Go, and-be-gone-with-yee-scum!
249 L’enfer, c’est Labour?
247. Selective quoting Gabble? Surely not…
Mr Ainsworth has had a difficult baptism as Defence Secretary. The Times revealed last month that Mr Brown had been close to appointing Jim Knight, the employment and welfare minister, to the job, before senior Labour figures suggested that Mr Ainsworth would be a more appropriate choice.
He is unlikely to be making any more predictions about the length of British involvement. By yesterday his “year or so” of Sunday had become “a couple of years”.
But that even that was swiftly contradicted by the outgoing Army chief. General Sir Richard Dannatt said that British forces could remain committed to operations in Afghanistan for another five years.
258 - I thought that following your support for the Iraq war you then went on to support the war in Afghanistan, whilst reading AJP Taylors “The Origins of the First World War” where he finds the roots of the 1914 - 18 conflict in the Second World War.
258. SeanT: “As we all know, president Karzai has just brought in a law to allow Afghan men to starve their women to death if they refuse to have sex.”
As I said yesterday, a revolting law!
What kind of ‘men’ would exploit the poverty and deprivation of women in the third world, for their own sexual gratification? One can only guess.
Why are we there? We are defending the rights of the Afghan people to choose their own government.
255 David. Haven’t you noticed those large rooms at the back of each WH Smith - An absolute hub of espionage and naughtyness activity. My latest theory is that ReBrandedHorse was a plant sent by the Builder-A-Burger group to de-stabilize PB !!
The Builder-A-Burger Group is the military wing run by MacDonalds whose aim is to restrict the Mega Burger Tipped Nuclear Weapons to liberal democracies and so ensure that its subjects become so obese as to be non-functioning morons …. rumour has it that a leading Cameron strategist is its UK leader !!
245 - It does no one any good peddling nonsense linking Hospital Cleanliness to MRSA John.
Best to concentrate on the real causes
261. Indeed. But on reflection, I think maybe Beckettian is the mot juste, rather than Satrean.
I envisage this hell as being two ugly, anonymous, red-painted mouths - tim and gabble - suspended in endless blackness, telling each other vile and depressing lefty lies for the rest of eternity.
Bon Ainsworth: Apart from having sticky little fingers where party coffers are concerned, note his obscenely high second-home expenses in 2007/8, what qualifications does this jumped up union leader possess? His moustache reminds me of another ‘orrible little man, and his ideas of democracy are very alien. Interesting question: If the unfortunate Mrs Ainsworth refuses to (shall we say) cook his onions, will he punish her with starvation??? LOL
264. If we are defending the “exploiters of women” with our soldiers lives, Gabble, I shall expect you to despatch the Royal Marines to defend me in Rainbow 4 tomorrow. I may need it when the girls see the size of my latest dollar advance.
But you still haven’t answered my actual question.
If Karzai wins, are we leaving the country? Or will our soldiers continue to die for a government that supports wife-starvation?
Answer the question.
265 see 254 for more earth like debate.
264 ‘Why are we there? We are defending the rights of the Afghan people to choose their own government.’
Gabble, this is getting ridiculous. How many reasons are there now? Only recently Brown said that we were in Afghanistan to defend Britain from Al Queda and international terrorism.
No wonder it’s such a mess when no-one seems to have the foggiest idea what the soldiers are out there dying for.
263. Same goes for you - the maggot formerly known as tim.
If Karzai the Wife-starver wins the election, are British soldiers staying in Afghanistan? If so, why?
Am I the only one to suspect that Gabble’s contributions are made less out of an undying dedication to the Labour cause and more out of the joy of stirring a hornet’s nest?
His handle is Gabble, for Christ’s sake. He might as well just show up under a bridge, with big tufts of poofy pink hair tumbling over his giant ears.
Why does anybody bother arguing with him?
273
Why Gabble starts on his hyperlinkathon (usually late at night) I usually go to bed. Its not worth pressing F5.
273.
“with big tufts of poofy pink hair tumbling over his giant ears.”
A disguise he could usefully sell to Michael Gove. How many grandfather-age politicians are there in this country who look 13?
273. No, I think Gabble actually half-believes this stuff. Or, at least, I believe he genuinely hates rightwingers - same goes for tim. That’s why they are incoherent but persistent. They are genuinely motivated - but by animosity, rather than principle.
I suspect both of them were bullied by some better-looking toffs at school or Uni. Hence the lifelong inferiority complex.
254 Punter. Sorry no news on Swansea West as yet.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/6040441/Lockerbie-bomber-Lord-Mandelson-met-Libyan-leaders-son-in-Corfu.html
275 wageslave, be careful not to slag off Gove. You’re dissing one of timmy-maggot’s political heroes.
Totally O/T.
What HAS Ann MacIntosh done to her constituency officers to arouse so much ire and anger? Presumably something far far worse than all the expenses scandal stuff which Constituency Parties up and down the land are studiously ignoring with the Chammereon blessing.
Perhaps there is a peculiar affliction which only affects hopeless female Conservative MPs with the initials AM in seats where the Lib Dems are in with a chance?
278
Poor old Mandy, Where Mandy goes trouble follows. Fleeting conversation, entirely co-incidental. Yeah right!
It’s midnight here. I have a busy day of thriller writing tomorrow.
Gabble, tim, tick tock tick tock.
271. EdP: “Gabble, this is getting ridiculous. How many reasons are there now?”
The reason we went into Afghanistan was to remove the Al-Qaeda-sheltering Taliban from power and hand the country back to the people.
It’s always been the reason and hasn’t changed.
276 - I’d imagine a law on marital rape is against the Afghan Constitution.
However, until 1991 British Soldiers necessarily fought for a country with a laws legalising rape within marriage.
Both are beside the point in the battle within Afghanistan and Pakistan.
If I were you I’d be more worried about checking the ID cards of those trafficked women you intend to bore.
273
diane
Stop picking onGgabble.
He brightens up the bleakest day with his endless effusion of wit and lightness, helping us see that the Beloved Leader is saving Britain from the mad hordes of Conservatism.
I think Gabble is much under-rated… and deserves a Cabinet post…
277 What do you know of Leeds if anything?
265.
” whose aim is to restrict the Mega Burger Tipped Nuclear Weapons to liberal democracies ”
Their latest wheeze is to destroy humanity as we know it by diverting the Onion Rings of Saturn into an elliptical Lembit Orbit.
282 ‘The reason we went into Afghanistan was to remove the Al-Qaeda-sheltering Taliban from power and hand the country back to the people.’
Gabble, you seem very confused. Even allowing for some ‘elastic’ interpretation that’s a fairly different reason from the one you gave at 264. Make your mind up which is correct.
Here’s a link to the Afghan wife-starving story.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8204207.stm
Are British soldiers being killed to keep these monsters in power?
282. But you just said the reason we are there is to defend democracy. But the democracy we are defending has just passed a law to allow men to starve their wives.
Where do we draw the line, you festering little coldsore? What if they passed a law allowing slavery? Maybe they already have but they call it marriage? What is the f*cking difference between these guys and the Taliban? Who are in Pakistan anyway??
283. This doesn’t even make sense, as you well know, which is no doubt why you reach in desperation for an ad hominem argument by the fourth sentence.
Tut tut, guys. I expected a lame couple of answers but this beats my lowest expectations.
Is this really the best defence of the war you can come up with? - “Well, we also allowed rape in marriage until quite recently”.
Just listen to yourselves. Imagine if you were a mother of a soldier in Helmand. Jesus wept.
282.
“The reason we went into Afghanistan was to remove the Al-Qaeda-sheltering Taliban from power and hand the country back to the people.”
A friend of a friend of mine offered some years ago to hand Bin Laden to the Yanks on a plate, dead or alive, in whole or in bits as they chose. There was of course some money involved as there always is in that part of the world but not very much. The US politely declined.
As for the ‘hand country back to the people’ joke, there is not really any ‘country’ called Afghanistan and there is no unified political system. Afghanistan is basically the bits which both the British and the Russians sensibly gave up on when they were carving out their empires in the 19th Century. Due to lack of communications, safety, mpney and any kind of political identity, it is almost impossible therefore for anyone to develop any kind of a power base to turf out the current thieving bandit regime.
289 - Werent you in favour of invading Afghanistan? Have you changed your mind? Why?
Frank Field has complained that a constituent is being left to go blind and suggests
http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2004/10/labour_mp_supports_free_market.html
EDM criticising Diabetes care in English hospitals, signed by Labour MPs:
http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=37049&SESSION=899
Oh deary me… We have non patriots in the PLP ranks… It is so hard to believe that every attempt to attack the opposition, results in it boomeranging back…
276 SeanT
“I suspect both of them were bullied by some better-looking toffs at school or Uni. Hence the lifelong inferiority complex.”
Hmm. Rather like Gordon Brown!
244, “I wonder how much it costs for UKIP?”
24 Sovereigns and 6 Groats I’d guess.
289.
“the democracy we are defending has just passed a law to allow men to starve their wives.”
Things have moved on considerably but it is not too long since, due to the way that pay was arranged, the wives of British servicemen had to submit to whatever demands their returning husbands made of them if they wanted to feed their children. Until fairly recently indeed, serving members of the armed forces also had a private get-out agreement for the CSA which served as a massive disincentive for their spouses to leave them despite sexual exploitation, domestic violence etc.
260 That’s not very nice. Actually the Scots are very good people and I am a die-hard English Nationalist. Yes they may get more than their fair share of government spending but really they don’t want it, they would rather be independent.
If you want to become an English Nationalist please drop the hate, visit http://www.thecep.org.uk and the English Democrats http://www.englishdemocrats.org.uk these groups are pro-England, not anti-Scottish.
288 - Mike.
There seems to be some confusion as to whether this law has been passed and is constitutional.
Karzai looks like he’s tried to but off some shia mullahs, but it appears that Parliament will have to pass it, which is unlikley, and it to be judged constitutional, even less likely.
295 How low can you go wageslave? You’re defending a ‘democracy’ that threatens to starve wives by smearing the very soldiers who’ve been sent out to keep that regime in power .
288. It’s not just those monsters, it’s the Pakistani government as well. I’d guess that the whole thing is an attempt to preserve the integrity of the borders of Pakistan (the Taliban monsters want old tribal boundaries, while the current monsters are OK with the borders they have).
That’s just a guess, though, I cannot pronounce on this with Will L-like certainty.
291. I was in favour of invading Afghanistan after 9/11. And I still believe that was a just war, well won.
But as soon as we won, we should have got the hell out, left them to it, ringfenced the country, told them we would bomb them all to death if they allowed any more terrorist camps within their borders, and we should have severely restricted all immigration from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Meanwhile, as an incentive for the Afghanis to prevent al Qaeada infiltration - and to treat their women better - we should offer to buy their annual opium crop in toto - it would probably cost a tenth what this war costs the west.
Of course I am using 20/20 hindsight. But at least I am using hindsight. The government just seems to be blundering on, sacrificing soldiers, in complete blindness.
Do they even know what “winning” would look like?
‘Confused of Bangkok’. President Karzai is trying to update the successful feat of the women of Athens in Aristophanes Lysistrata. Unfortunately he misread it.
297
Thats irrelevant Tim, Its the fact that Karzi didnt try to stop it. It was all about appeasing fundamentalists in the run up to the elections.. at least IIRC thats what BBC radio was saying at the weekend.
Do women have the vote?
It is funny how all these lefties on the forum are suddenly ‘official version stallwarts’.
If we dig up comments from only a year ago, their they were riding the Obama wave, based entirely on anti-Bush conspiracy theories.
Sounds like sour grapes.
The problem they’ve got is that Bush handed over to Obama, and now Obama is the one connected to the Federal Reserve, Builderberg, etc. The evidence mounts.
The Obama Administration is one of the most sinister in American history. Watch the video above. 3.1 million viewings.
Anymore word on this supposedly imminent poll?
304 - are we approaching a ‘grassy knoll moment’?
297. Oh, so there’s some *confusion* as to whether Afghan men are now officially allowed to starve their wives.
Phew! That must be a huge relief for the British soldiers out there. “I’m risking my life to defend a foreign government that just WANTS to allow wifestarving, but the exact law is uncertain, so that’s fine”.
297 I don’t like to agree with you Tim, but Chapter 2 Article 27 of the Afghan Constitution declares that:
“Any kind of discrimination or disctintion between the citizens of Afghanistan shall be forbidden. The citizens of Afghanistan, man or woman, have equal rights and duties before the law.”
That to me is pretty clear. The (proposed?) law would be/is unconstitutional.
260. You are a real sad person.
300 SeanT.
Many in New Labour believe the Afghanistan was will be their equivalent of the Falklands War that will in their opinion sweep them to power. Labour wants an equivalent of the 1982 conflict, hence Iraq War, need I say more. As Will L says, Labour are controlled by the Bilderberger group and want white men to die and be replaced by third world immigrants. Simple anglophobic scum they are.
PS When you take out a credit card or loan, the money is only created when you pay back the loan or card. The banks never had the money in the first place to lend just a facility to create zeros on bank balance !!!! Debt is robbery by the banks.
300. SeanT: “…ringfenced the country, told them we would bomb them all to death if they allowed any more terrorist camps within their borders…”
Ah. Kill everyone? That’s your solution?
On the other hand, our troops are supporting the establishment of a democracy so that the Afghan people will have self-determination.
302 - Karzai introduced it.
You seem to be hinting at a schism between you and EDP down at Jollyphonicus and the Tory front bench.
Would you care to elaborate?
Do you think the troops should be withdrawn.
300 - You seem to support all wars, in whatever order you “feel” they have occurred, until someone gets killed and then advocate withdrawl.
Why not just oppose them all in the first place?
Given the number of off-the-point, tendentious and plain odd posts we have seen, I hereby declare today Garbage Day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7gIpuIVE3k
Further to 308, Article 27 declares that:
“No one shall be punished without the decision of an authoratative court taken in accordance with the provisions of the law, promulgated prior to the commitment of the offence.”
This provision would also make the decision of a husband, who is not an “authoratative court” to punish his wife in the aforementioned manner, unconsitutional, in my opinion.
308 - Correct.
Sean is hysterical again.
tim - in all seriousness, I know you are not an idiot. You may be annoying but you are not an idiot.
Do you HONESTLY support this war? Or is it just because you are a lefty and a Labourite and you are feeling defensive because Labour got us in there?
Or do you honestly see some geopolitical gain that we can seriously achieve, that makes up for the moral outrage that our soldiers are being killed to defend wife starvers (manque or otherwise)?
If there is some serious and realisable goal, I’d love to hear it. Cause the government certainly seems confused. And so does the army.
308- Article 3, section 14 of the Constitution of Iran:
“In order to attain the objectives specified in Article 2, the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has the duty of directing all its resources to the following goals… securing the multifarious rights of all citizens, both women and men, and providing legal protection for all, as well as the equality of all before the law.”
http://www.servat.unibe.ch/icl/ir00000_.html
So what gives you such confidence in the Supreme Court of Afghanistan?
300. I agree, SeanT.
Why are we using infantry when we all know nukes are the only solution?
The West didn’t win the Second World War until they nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It will be no different in the ‘World War Against Islamic Terrorism, 2001-Present’.
Bomb them into the Stone Age. Oh I forget, they already are in the Stone Age.
There is only one real solution of two steps. Nothing else will work.
Step 1
Offer them Unlimited Aide in Exchange for a compulsory Western-Style Education System and Democracy. Kill anyone trying to set up a maddrassah. No more aide for military expenditure and bank loans to senior politicians!
Step 2
They refuse. Nuke them.
UK casualties. Nil
318, are you being serious?
I once had a conversation with a teacher in his late thirties, a clever chap, but who reckoned the West should threaten to nuke Mecca if there were another terrorist attack.
We aren’t fighting people in nice clear uniforms but an ideology. You can’t blow an ideology up.
316 - I honestly support it.Taking UK politics out of it for all the reasons outlined by Obama.Defeating violent Islamism in Afghaistan or Pakistan without defeating it in the other is impossible.
312
No, but the law is absolutely apalling .
The suggestion that there is a schism between me and EDP and the Tory front bench is as ludicrous as most of your other posts.
Divide and rule eh Tim…, I wonder which PB’er you will suck up to next.. I’ll be watching…
316 - And don’t forget you’re going to vote Conservative.
And its Conservative policy to support the war (although there’s a persistent rumour that David Davis is going to jump ship)
318 ‘UK casualties. Nil’
Wrong. UK casualties extremely high when the a device is detonated here as an act of revenge by another party, or another nuclear power decides not to let such an act go unchallenged.
311. This is called deterrence, Gabble. It’s what saved all our lives in the Cold War.
Oh dear.
308. That’s just bollocks. Muslim law overrides secular law, as we all know, and Muslim law is overwhelmingly patriarchal. If there is a conflict between Muslim law and the Afghan constitution, which would come out on top?
From wikipedia on the Afghan Constitution as promulgated in 2003:
**
The Constitution describes Islam as its sacred and state religion. A system of civil law is described, but no law may contradict the beliefs and provisions of Islam. It was widely reported that Sharia law is not specifically mentioned, but in fact Hanafi jurisprudence is one of the six branches of Sharia law. Moreover, concessions are made to Shia jurisprudence in cases arising strictly between Shi’ites [that's the wife starving law].
Followers of other religions are “free to exercise their faith and perform their religious rites” within the limits of the law. There is no mention of freedom of conscience, and in fact apostasy from Islam is punishable by death (see below).
**
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Afghanistan
Does this constitution make women equal in Afghan society at the moment? No. Enough said.
The constitution is a phantasm to please the west, which defends and underwrites the Afghan regime.
Our soldiers are dying to defend wife-starvers.
323. No, the plan is genius, the only thing stopping it from happening is the obstructing force of the CIA, lead by Peter Mandelson from his lovely pied-à-terre under Iron Mountain.
I cannot believe that nobody has figured this out already!
“Tory panel to probe Baron’s expenses for a second time”
“Conservative Central Office has ordered a second review of the Billericay MP’s claims by a scrutiny panel, set up by Tory leader David Cameron.”
…
“The claim had already been probed by the panel which looked at all Tories’ expenses, and did not ask for any repayments.”
http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/4547825.Tory_panel_to_probe_Baron_s_expenses_for_a_second_time/
264
Gabble
‘Why are we there?’
Defending the rights of the Afghan government to pass mediavel laws to legalise rape in marriage and prop up a corrupt regime?
Can you tell us how this differs from the Taliban & where’s Harperson with her equalities stuff when you need her,too embarrassed and gone into hiding?
322
So what?
How many Labour MP’s didnt support the War in Iraq and ditto the War in Afghanistan?
324 - Muslim law overrides secular law,
Don’t be silly.
Karzai’s politicking, abhorrent law isn’t even designed to apply outside the Shia community.
328- Well, as long as it’s limited to the Shia community, what is everybody complaining about?
320 tim
I am broadly in favour of the war in Afghanistan.
Our primary aim should be to prevent Afghanistan (and FATA) becoming a training ground for terrorists. A secondary aim should be to kill/capture as many Al-Queda as possible. Anything which we do, strategically or tactically, should be judged against those aims.
Tony Blair, Jack Straw, Margaret Beckett, Gordon Brown, and David Miliband all spent too long focussing on Iraq. They didn’t focus on the mission in Afghanistan and it is now coming back to bite them.
Counter-narcotics, female emancipation, and nurturing democracy are irrelevant to the strategic aims of our mission, though they may be tactically necessary on occasion. People like Harriet Harman cause immense damage by pretending otherwise.
317 S&S, a very good point. Parallels can be drawn with the infamous 1936 Soviet Consitution, which promised similar rights, immunities and freedoms. The truth with all constitutions, is they are only worth more than the paper they are written on if there is a resolute publci will and competent judiciary to enforce their provisions. I doubt that that exists in Afghanistan and consequently I fear for the rights of those Shia women. My point was that the law is/was technically invalid; I doubt, however, that will bring comfort or solace to its victims if enacted.
323. Not true. You’ve have been watching too much Hollywood propaganda.
If we let the Russians and Chinese into NATO, then there will be no problems. Why we didn’t let them in years ago I don’t know. Clearly we need them on the inside, rather than outside, where they can be ambivalent about Islamic Terrorism against the West.
So the solution requires the agreement of Russia and China. They both have serious problems with Islamic Insurgency. Their agreement depends on a transparent and honest goals, that seek the greater good of humanity. I think they will agree if these pre-conditions are met.
If we don’t wipeout Islamic Terrorism now, once and for all, it will escalate anyway. How many more will die? - millions, billions? - because nobody had the courage to go nuclear now?
It is only a matter of time before Iran gets nuclear weapons. If we do it now it will be a very one-sided affair.
You need to remember that if Step 1 is a honest, appealing and forward-looking, no one will want to invoke Step 2. Step 2 is the deterrent that makes it work, Step 1 the carrot that makes it reasonable.
328 Tim, SeanT does have a point. Article 3 states that:
“No law shall contravene the tenets and provisions of the holy religion of Islam in Afghanistan”.
The question, legally, is whether this would allow the proposed law, even if it would be invalidated by other provisions of the Constitution.
331- Exactly, and I would add too that the interpretation of “equality” in Islamic societies should not be viewed through the lens of western secular culture.
Before the Russian invasion, there was a University in Kabul. The government was broadly left, but not excessively so, considering the proximity to the USSR - Cuba it was not. But outside Kabul (and the other ‘major’ towns) things were as they are now. Nothing changes in Afghanistan and it is a mistake to believe that change can ever be forced on the place from outside.
I just looked up Kabul University on’t interweb to see how much time has taken from my memory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabul_University
Read the piece.
You’ll see the name Hekmatyar - the authentic Afghan politician.
He is not a Taliban and was defeated by them when they brought the Afghan civil war ‘to an end’, but last I heard, he was hawking himself around trying to rally support for the Talis.
334 Absolutely, but when you consider the relative standards of development, Afghanistan could be compared to the USA say (circa) sixty years ago when Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), still in force, held that racial segregation in education was constitutional. So its not as if only Islamic constitutions can be corrupted, for not so long ago the US constitution, now held up as a pillar of civil rights and freedoms, was abused in the same way.
332 Will L, I think you need to get out more. On second thoughts maybe it’s best if you stayed in, preferably in a nice secure environment, well away from any sharp objects or fissile material.
If anyone wants a good reason for ANY civilized nation to be involved in Afghanistan then watch the excellent film Afghan made film ‘kandahar’. It’s possible to take the view that it’s none of our business like some thought of the slaughter in Ruanda but for those who believe civilized nations have responsibilities then there is no choice.
337. I take it EdP, that you’ve lost the argument.
lol
314
‘“No one shall be punished without the decision of an authoratative court taken in accordance with the provisions of the law, promulgated prior to the commitment of the offence.”
This provision would also make the decision of a husband, who is not an “authoratative court” to punish his wife in the aforementioned manner, unconsitutional, in my opinion.’
Richard,
If a woman is not allowed out of the house without her husband’s permission (which is part of the new law),its a little bit difficult for her to see a lawyer (assuming that a lawyer would ever accept her case) or get to a court.
Clearly you have never been to a muslim country and you think the Afghan constituition is Mary Poppins reborn.
338 - Then why didn’t we get involved in the Congo, where far more people died than in Iraq, Afghanistan, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia put together?
336- Yes, but you can at least say that equality under the law was an aspirational standard that was gradually approached in the U.S. to the extent that social standards and customs would allow. I see no trend toward social liberalization in Afghanistan that would give hope that things will improve in the future there… on the contrary, things seem to be going in the opposite direction.
330. Setting aside human rights as you do - ! - the war probably isn’t even winnable militarily. There’s a reason the mighty British Empire and the glorious Red Army lost in Afghanistan. It’s the same reason we will probably lose in the end.
This kind of daunting terrain cannot be held in perpetuity against a hostile, highly armed, fiercely independent, confusingly tribal, utterly alien and extremely motivated populace. You can blow them out of one valley but then they will sneak back in another. I guess you COULD kill them all.
Do we really think we can do better than the Red Army? The Soviets utilised extreme cruelty and massive firepower - and they had a land frontier they could just cross. They still lost, out of sheer exhaustion.
Why don’t we just pull out - and bribe them? Give every warlord 50 million dollars a year not to harbour terrorists. They are greedy. They will take it.
And on that hopefully cynical note, I must abed. Kapkap.
340 JohnF, that is clearly not my view which I hoped I showed at #331 in response to a similar comment. Take the time to read my comments before attacking one out of context.
Gabble the new head of the army has been bollocked already, then, for telling the truth. Now he has to act as a nodding dog for Ainsworth as the article you quote from the Telegraph shows:
This morning (Ainsworth) told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 that it was “becoming almost impossible to say anything without it being taken out of context and twisted”.
He added: “I was responding to the misrepresentation of what General Richards had said. It was being said that he claimed we were going to be in Afghanistan for 40 years. I said that was ludicrous and that I thought that over the next couple of years we could make progress, that increasingly the Afghan National Army would be at the forefront of this fight and that we could concentrate on training and mentoring, and that that would grow as part of our role in Afghanistan.”
General Richards said: ”In an interview a few weeks ago I said the whole process in Afghanistan might take as long as 30 to 40 years. This seems to have been taken by some as meaning that the British Army would be involved in operations like those we are currently engaged in for that duration.
“I want to nail this once and for all. It is not what I said or what I believe. Afghanistan will need international help for many years to come – for example, through development, governance and security sector reform – and I am sure the UK will play a part in that. But a British military force along current lines should only be needed for a much shorter period.
“There is no difference between my views and those of the Secretary of State on this. It is unhelpful to all those engaged in this conflict, both here and in Afghanistan, to suggest that there is.”
So we can understand and we will be in Afghanistan for a generation to meet Ainsworth’s strategic aims. for who but the army will protect the ‘development workers’ for the next 20 years?
It is interesting how on the ‘War Against Islamic Terrorism 2001-Present’ most from left and right agree on this forum and unite around a common purpose.
The wartime unity is still with is.
How refreshing.
So who are these EdP-type defeatists and cowards in the media recently? I’ve no idea where their agenda comes from, but amongst the general public Islamic Terrorism continues to be a growing concern.
341- Nobody made a good movie about Congo.
338. Where next Roger? Iran? China? North Korea? I’d like to hear your logic of where we intervene, and where we don’t.
Curiously, you are more than happy to see burqas on the streets of Bradford, yet not Kabul.
Lefties. God help us.
And that really IS it. Nyte.
338 Roger - Blimey, on that basis you’d want us to invade half the countries in the Middle East and Africa.
348- Hollywood, show us the way!
349 - Its all a spectrum.
Roger is at one end with Thatcher. Douglas Hurd toppling off the other.
342 True, but the idea (that some espouse) that you can invade a country, impose a Western consitution and hey-presto within 8 years, you’ll have a fully functioning “civilised” (to quote Roger) democracy is absurd. Many in Afghanistan want to preserve what are at best described as cultural and religious traditions. Until the public will for Western democracy arrives in Afghanistan, there is little point trying to impose it. It makes you question why we are still there.
Oy, I’ve spend most of my time on here today discussing MRSA and Hospital Cleanliness, don’t bring me into it.
by tim August 17th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Please do not insult our intelligence.
That is not true is it. You have spent most of the day smearing and spinning.
Just a few examples to demonstrate this.
Where is that sewer tim? Under your feet perhaps.
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/17/will-hannannhs-end-up-like-the-coulson-revelations/#comment-1181026
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/17/will-hannannhs-end-up-like-the-coulson-revelations/#comment-1181057
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/17/will-hannannhs-end-up-like-the-coulson-revelations/#comment-1181082
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/17/will-hannannhs-end-up-like-the-coulson-revelations/#comment-1181187
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/17/will-hannannhs-end-up-like-the-coulson-revelations/#comment-1181026
341
‘338 - Then why didn’t we get involved in the Congo, where far more people died than in Iraq, Afghanistan, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia put together?’
How about Zimbabwe?
I suppose New Labour didn’t want to upset their pal Mbeke in South Africa,much more important than stopping the starvation of innocent civilians.
352- All of this makes it pretty evident that whatever the reasons may be for staying in a place like Afghanistan, improving the culture can’t realistically be among them. You have to accept that they may become wife-starving, homocidal maniacs the moment you leave, or maybe even while you’re still there. If this fact nullifies your reason for being there in the first place, you might as well just leave.
353 - You liked comment 83 so much you posted it twice.
Go ahead and post the MRSA comments if you wish, as Its not clear what point you are trying to make.
319, religions can be wiped out, and have been often enough. There may be a few people still worshipping the Aztec gods, but not in the original way, via human sacrifice. Closer to home, the counter-reformation successfully restored Catholicism in many areas.
If we really wanted to, we could eradicate Islam within the borders of Afghanistan, but it would require near-totalitarian measures for the first few decades. We could do it, but we shouldn’t.
I’ve heard a few people suggest nuking Mecca, sometimes without waiting for another terrorist attack. The general idea is to inflict enough hardships on Islam that even its most fanatical followers conclude their god wants them to suffer, and abandon all thoughts of expansion.
The people suggesting this have mostly been life-long Labour supporters, but they know the Labour party would oppose such a policy, which seems to be one of the reasons many of them are flirting with the BNP.
tim the point is you do not tell the truth. Indeed I doubt you could do so for more than a few seconds even if you tried really, really hard and screwed up your eyes in concentration.
The person standing in the sewer is you.
Pet Shop Boys lyrics from 20 years ago:
Dictation being forced in Afghanistan
Revolution in South Africa taking a stand
People in Eurasia on the brink of oppression
I hope it’s gonna be alright
’cause the music plays forever
(For it goes on and on and on and on)
I hope it’s gonna be alright
(Alright Alright Alright Alright)
Forests falling at a desperate pace
The earth is dying and desert taking its place
People under pressure
on the brink of starvation
I hope it’s gonna be alright
Generations will come and go
but there’s one thing for sure
Music is our life’s foundation
and shall succeed all the nations to come
I hope it’s gonna be alright
’cause the music plays forever
(For it goes on and on and on and on…)
I hope it’s gonna be alright
(On and on and on…)
‘Cause the music plays forever
(For it goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on)
The year three thousand may still come to pass
but the music shall last
I can hear it on a timeless wavelength
never dissipating but giving us strength
(It’s alright)
I hope it’s gonna be alright
(Alright Alright Alright Alright)
343 SeanT
I don’t want to set aside human rights at all. Long term, we should take every diplomatic measure in the book to further the cause of human rights in Afghanistan. I want female education - generally. improving female education is the fastest way of increasing development in poor countries. I want a functioning democracy with a stable social structure.
But we didn’t go to war to free Afghanistan. We went to war to kill Bin Laden and his cronies in revenge for Sept. 11, to disrupt his organization by eliminating training camps, and to ensure that they have no way of easily regrouping in Afghanistan or the border region by getting rid of the Taliban.
To some extent, we are already winning, because the Taliban and their AQ chums have been forced to go underground.
We do need to increase infrastructure spending, at the very least, so that the Afghan National Army has a fighting chance if/when they take over. In order to do this, we need to hold our ground for long enough to build roads.
Schools are fantastic, but we didn’t send our troops to war to educate Afghans. Democracy, if done sensibly without too much corruption, helps locals see that a future is possible. To that end it is a great thing. But it is not our objective, merely a path to it.
The terrain is very inhospitable but NATO has huge numbers of drones, both for aerial surveillance and for firing missiles. Of course, these automated weapons are no substitutes for troops, but they can help immensely as force multipliers.
338. antifrank. These Reductio ad absurdum arguments are silly. Why try to close down Belsen when Auchwitz was much worse. The point is that Afghanistan like Ruanda could be solved relatively easily. It’s not on the scale of Iraq and certainly not of the Congo both of which amounted to civil war.
Incidentally the film had nothing to do with Hollywood and those few Americans who could deal with the subtitles hated it.
361 Roger, you are, I see, a believer in ultima ratio regum, along with the Burmese junta and governemt of the People’s Republic of China, that force and coercion are the only sources of international law. Put’s you in esteemed company.
Hang on, I thought respect for the rule of law, was the mark of “civilised” nations?
Tim, Which swine flu vaccine will you have? the one with mercury? or the one without?
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5269468/the-flu-jab-choice-the-department-of-health-might-not-tell-you-about.thtml
Maybe Dan Hannan has a point?:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090817/thl-woman-in-labour-refused-ambulance-d831572.html
WRT the NHS debate that took place over a few threads previously, a comment from Canada, which is a leftist’s dream as far as universal coverage is concerned, sheds some interesting light.
Dr. Anne Doig, the incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association, said her country’s health care system is “sick” and “imploding,” the Canadian Press reported.
“We know there must be change,” Doig said in a recent interview. “We’re all running flat out, we’re all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands.”
Current president of the CMA, Dr. Robert Ouellet, said that “competition should be welcomed, not feared,” meaning private health insurance should have a role in the public health system.
Doig said that universal health care, while good in some ways, has not always been helpful for sick people or their families.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5jbjzPEY0Y3bvRD335rGu_Z3KXoQw
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,539943,00.html
Completely random off-topic question. What are the broadcasting rules on celebrities appearing in TV adverts if they are standing for Parliament?
363 - I’ll read it later, but please don’t tell me Fraser Nelson is channelling Melanie Phillips vaccine scares.
Demanding our troops risk, and often suffer, death and maiming to support a foreign government which insists that starving women to death is acceptable should ome as no surprise.
Our own Foreign Secretary said on the wireless yesterday that sometimes it is OK to kill and maim women and children to persue a political cause, indeed his view is that it is sometimes even effective to do so.
So there we have it. In the view of one of the top four in the British Government, terrorism is sometimes OK. Of course he didn’t say what those sometimes were, but the princple is established and everything else must be subjective judgement.
@367:
You know, tim, when I am self-appointed benevolent dictator for life, you will be in charge of drafting draconian legislation against hacks deliberately creating health scares.
I’m not sure what a fitting punishment for a serial perp like Melanie would be. I think maybe she should be pumped full of measles. Or made to live with a Muslim.
Polls where r u ? Pls give us something to talk about, rather than listening to the socialist walter mitty’s on here!
367,
tim - don’t bother reading it. You’re not far off. A shameful episode from Fraser Nelson - peddling to the whack-jobs.
369, Martin - can I be a special advisor for that post?
Completely OTT bt absolutely hilarious. Dont read in office or you will lose all respect due to uncontrollable gigling
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/no%11one-to-phone-a-radio-show-ever-again-200907031874/
368. HurstLlama
“…the Government was resolved to fight with increasing vigour the banditry and terrorism “which continues to show itself in our towns and villages in the most odious manner, causing widespread unrest”"
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1301&dat=19440101&id=gUERAAAAIBAJ&sjid=o5YDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5217,56347
Is there something in the water today?
Apart of the simultaneous manifestation of multiple lunatics upthread (one of whom thinks I am a Labour MP)…
…we have at post 283. (re rape in marriage) probably the most ludicrous post put up on here since the classic ‘we warn and we leaflet before we bomb’.
Betting postLet’s hope Ferrer can convert a 1-0 and 4-2 lead into a 2-0 victory over Wawrinka. Slightly speculative bet, but it’d be nice to win in straight sets for once. [As I'm typing Ferrer breaks to make it 5-2].
Berdych’s odds have fallen marginally to 2.74 from about 2.9 against Gonzalez. Still worth taking, I think.
Also, Isner is 2.42 to beat Haas. They’ve met thrice, always on hard courts as their match tomorrow will be, and it’s 2:1 to Isner who’s playing pretty well of late, including putting out Tsonga in the Legg Mason Classic and nicking a set from Andy Roddick in the semis of that tournament. I’d back Isner, if I hadn’t already.
375, FFS. 30-0, he needs two points to win and its suspended due to goddamned rain. ARGH!
368: Gabble @ 20:27
Sorry, the Foreign Secretary said that terrorism is sometimes acceptable. I don’t see how deliberatley targeting innocent men women and children and killing or maiming them in pursuit of some political aim is ever acceptable.
Trying and bring in the actions of the resistance movements in WWII doesn’t work, not least because they did not deliberately target the innocent.
377. HurstLlama: “I don’t see how deliberatley targeting innocent men women and children and killing or maiming them in pursuit of some political aim is ever acceptable.”
I agree and David Miliband made no such claim.
378 - what then, in Gabble’s fantasy world, did he actually say?
374: good to have you join us, comrade runnymede
Is it reasuring or alarming that at Will L’s distance we are so close as to be indistinguishable?
Ah, Ferrer wins. Huzah.
379.
He referenced attacks on installations rather than people:
“Presenter Matthew Parris asked Miliband: “Are there circumstances in which violent reaction, terrorism, is the right response?”
The foreign secretary replied: “That’s such a hard question. ‘Right’ has to be judged in two ways, doesn’t it? Whether it’s justifiable and whether it’s effective.
“I think I’m right in saying that one of the ways in which the ANC tried to square the circle between being a movement of political change and a movement which used violence, was to target installations rather than people.
“The most famous ANC military attack was on the Sasol oil refinery in 1980. That was perceived to be remarkable blow at the heart of the South African regime. But I think the answer has to be yes – there are circumstances in which it is justifiable, and yes, there are circumstances in which it is effective – but it is never effective on its own.”
He went on: “The importance for me is that the South African example proved something remarkable: the apartheid regime looked like a regime that would last forever, and it was blown down.”
The foreign secretary went on to argue whether the action taken by the ANC was indeed “terrorism” and whether it was called such at the time.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/17/miliband-terrorism-menzies-campbell
371
Andy, Could you explain why rather than just dismissing it out of hand.
380. Nick - I’m really not sure.
382 - “there are circumstances in which it is justifiable, and yes, there are circumstances in which it is effective.”
What part of this quote are you having trouble with. Whether he brings it around to a specific ‘type’ of terrorism isn’t the point. And the violent tactics of the ANC were terrorism, and even someone like Desmond Tutu slammed them for using such methods.
379 Below are some of Millibands thoughts on terrorism; one wonders whether he’d have a different view were his wife blown into myriad pieces by a explosion, or his children cut to ribbons and maimed by a terrorist device.
“Yes, there are circumstances in which it is justifiable, and yes, there are circumstances in which it is effective.”
“The importance for me is that the South African example proved something remarkable: it looked like a regime that would last forever, and it was blown down.”
“It is hard to argue that, on its own, a political struggle would have delivered. The striking at the heart of a regime’s claim on a monopoly of power, which the ANC’s armed wing represented, was very significant.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00lyfm8
385.
He’s talking about violent action against property, as he details in his answer.
Nowhere does he say that violence against “innocent men women and children” is acceptable.
377
Reagan and Thatcher didn’t mind supporting terrorists back in the eighties did they!
- Today’s media have all but forgotten that the emergence of Afghanistan’s Taliban can be largely attributed to the policies of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a hard-drinking, party-loving Texas congressman who helped funnel billions of dollars in arms to “freedom fighters” like Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
In the 1980s, Charles Wilson, a colorful and powerful Democrat from the East Texas Bible Belt, was a member of a Congressional appropriations sub-committee. From that position of power he funneled billions of dollars in secret funding to the CIA, which used the money to purchase weapons to help the mujahideen drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan.
In those days, the mujahideen were viewed by the US as “freedom fighters” and were so-named by then-president Ronald Reagan, who praised them for “defending principles of independence and freedom that form the basis of global security and stability”.
In that Cold War environment, chasing the Russians out of the country trumped all other considerations. Among the weapons funded by Congress were hundreds of Stinger missile systems that mujahideen forces used to counter the Russians’ lethal Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunships.
And there were also tens of thousands of automatic weapons, antitank guns, and satellite intelligence maps. According to author George Crile, Wilson even brought his own belly dancer from Texas to Cairo to entertain the Egyptian defense minister, who was secretly supplying the mujahideen with millions of rounds of ammunition for the AK-47s the CIA was smuggling into Afghanistan.
From a few million dollars in the early 1980s, support for the resistance grew to about $750 million a year by the end of the decade. Decisions were made in secret by Wilson and other lawmakers on the appropriations committee.
To help make his case, Wilson exploited one of the decade’s scandals, the Iran-Contra affair, arguing that Democrats who were voting to cut off funding for the Contras in Nicaragua could demonstrate their willingness to stand up to the Soviet empire by approving more money for the Afghan fighters.
Many Muslims from other countries volunteered to assist various mujahideen groups in Afghanistan, and gained significant experience in guerrilla warfare. Some of these veterans have been significant factors in more recent conflicts in and around the Muslim world.
The effort was successful. On February 15, 1989, General Boris Gromov, commander of the Soviets’ 40th Army, walked across Friendship Bridge as the last Russian to leave Afghanistan. The CIA cable from its Islamabad station to the agency’s headquarters said, “We won.” Wilson’s own note said simply, “We did it.”
Pakistan’s president at the time, General Zia ul-Haq, who had allowed the weapons to move through his country on CIA-purchased mules, credited Wilson with the defeat of the Russians in Afghanistan. “Charlie did it,” he said.
Thus, the largest covert operation in CIA history ended with Russia’s humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan.
But in Charlie Wilson’s War (2003 Grove/Atlantic), Crile notes that the US-financed war against the Soviets in Afghanistan also helped create the political vacuum that was filled by the Taliban and Islamic extremists, who turned their deadly terrorism against the US on September 11.
p.s.
Hmmm seem to remember Dave saying what an honour it was to meet Neslon Mandela, so he obviously wasn’t an ANC terrorist was he.
Bet Dave never wore the, ‘Tshirt’
386 EdP
Milliband is such an immature maggot, the loathsome product of dyed-in-the-wool armchair Bolshies, that anything he says is without sense or reason. Literally a case of all mouth and no trousers!
If the British soldiers’ role as defenders of the wife-starving Afghan regime causes you to question your country’s actions, I encourage you to just watch this video, which should renew your faith in the righteousness of this mission led by Barack the Great:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTBq_ybkBmI&feature=related
“We’re gonna spread happiness, we’re gonna spread freedom… Obama’s gonna change it, Obama’s gonna lead ‘em…”
['em = YOU]
I also strongly suggest that this video should be made mandatory viewing for all British soldiers in the field to boost their morale.
Miliband - is the Foreign Secretary. Shouldn’t be playing semantics and talking about when terror is technically OK - it send totally the wrong message regardless of intent. I don’t expect those radicalising in Pakistan and Afghanistan will get into a debate about what he meant - they will just use his words where he says it is acceptable in some circumstances. In their case, I expect they will say that includes the sort of things they are planning. Idiocy of the highest order.
Q Mr Miliband, is terrorism ever acceptable?
A Terrorism is never acceptable
Don’t define it, justify it or get into a debate. If its accepable, its not terrorism. Therefore Terrorism is never acceptable,
Further evidence of his unsuitability for the high offices of state.
274- dear me wage slave you are really getting desperate in your search for an insult.
Gove is 41 - OK nearly 42. Grandfather age? What sort of rutting family do you come from.
He combines being Scottish, adopted and a former journalist on the BBC ‘Today’ programme so on all counts is hardly a fair target for a lefty sympathiser.
And wage slave, the administration which turned down the chance to arrest Bin Laden was the Democrat Clinton Administration. This was after the 93 WTC attack and Blackhawk down.
Rape within marriage, while technically not a criminal offence in this country, up till 1991, was a good deal less likely than it is in modern Afghanistan. And, pre-1991, in the UK, assault within marriage (whether sexual or otherwise) most definitely was an offence.
re 181 glad to see I was in the minority about unelected peers. What’s the matter with a member of the House of Peers running things?
re 238 Jack W I’m afraid you’ve got it all wrong. Extra testosterone makes it fall out!
363/383 - MTF.
I’m happy to have, or give my children either.
Frasser Nelson is peddling an old vaccine scare made popular by Melanie Phillips on this side of the Atlantic.
As is pointed out by Martin Coxall and Andy Cooke above, he should be deeply ashamed of himself.
You need to read about the thiomersa# controversy to find out more.
Although Nelson refers to it as thimerosa#, perhaps indicating his total fuckw#ttery.
# = l
re 264 we’re paying to keep anti-narcotics experts in the country as well. They’ve just had their biggest success in nabbing four of the biggest warlords and drug bosses only for that twit Karzai to let them off because it would bring shame on such high ranking families. That man does not deserve our support.
363/383 - MTF.
I’m happy to have, or give my children either.
Frasser Nelson is peddling an old vaccine scare made popular by Melanie Phillips on this side of the Atlantic.
As is pointed out by Martin Coxall and Andy Cooke above, he should be deeply ashamed of himself.
the spam trap is preventing me posting more detail, suffice to say Nelson cannot even spell the name of the controversial substance.
Reading the wilder ideas on this thread reminds me of a documentary piece I saw recently where they were trying to track down someone distributing videos promoting islamic terrorism. The guy with an Arab name turned out to be an old, scrawny white bloke, shambling around like a wino, who could barely string a neuron together.
When I read strange things on blogs I picture that bloke as writing them.
I’ve heard some bollocks on pb.com but tonight is a bit special.
Can the Afghan war be won. Yes it can depending on the objectives. Can it be won if our aim is to impose a western democratic & social model? Not impossible but unlikely. And that shouldnt be our aim.
The problem is that we are in there now and at this point admitting any kind of balls and getting out simply isnt politically feasible for anyone. Thus better to prosecute the war with every you got.
Gabble you can try and spin it how you like, the Foreign Secretary said that there are times when terrorism is acceptable.
That is an astonishing position for a British Foreign Secretary to hold at any time. To publicise it when we have troops on the ground fighting a terrorist insurgency is truly amazing. To do so when those same troops are taking severe casualties takes stupidity and unfitness for office to a level to a whole new level.
re 363/7 tim I wouldn’t bother - it’s anti vaccine hogwash. MTF - let’s put this as simply as possible. Mercury is an element, thiomersal - the Spectator cannot even get the English name right - is a compound which contains mercury. It is not mercury and whatever its toxicology it’s as ludicrous to say that it must be toxic to health just because it contains mercury as saying that because carbon is a large fraction of hydrogen cyanide then everything we eat must be poisonous.
383,
Sure. There are very few things that have been studied as thoroughly as the purported link between thimerosal/mercury and autism. It has been utterly debunked.
One such paper is here.
A good summary of the vaccines/MMR/Thimerosal information is here
Frankly, it is inexcusable for any legitimate journalist in this day and age to be peddling this line.
I have sympathy for those who had the view in 2001-2004, and even for those up to the present day who have been taken in - but for anyone in a position of responsibility (medical, political, journalistic) to be spouting it in 2009 after the colossal amount of attention focussed on it - well, words fail me. For Fraser Nelson to try to use it for a political point is twice unforgiveable, for he has forced me to stand shoulder to shoulder with tim.
I agree that Afghanistan isn’t going to become a modern Western country any time soon. But since the creation of the Harzai government there has for the first time emerged an indigenous liberal, human rights movement. It is small and fleeting, but the longer we can maintain some form of quasi-democratic governance there, and a Western ideals based constitution, the more than indigenous movement will strengthen. Chances are that when we leave a strong man will take over, but after that, a domestic democracy might occur.
re 383 so Gabble when some poor bugger from the Royal Engineers gets blown to bits trying to defuse a bomb nicely left at a building, that’s all right then is it?
What lunatic dissembling you sometimes descend to.
new thread
393 Sean Fear. Are you saying that the law does not define rape within marriage as “assault”? What weasle words does the law use to differentiate between the two, defining rape as the lesser offence? I find that incredible and deeply disturbing.What on earth do our legislators imagine happens to a victim of rape?
401 - In the comments Fraser Nelson adds.
Richard, Im no scientist but I have studied the thimerosal issue thoroughly
Laughable.
Sean Fear. I should have said “did not describe prior 1991″. Sorry.
Any bets on which party will be the first to promise a specific date for pull out from Afghanistan,judging from the polls on Sky it will be a very popular move.