Should Clegg call for a withdrawal from Afghanistan?
September 11th, 2009
Would this be as popular as their pre-2005 Iraq policy?
One of the huge areas of government policy which is increasingly being opposed by voters is the continued deployment of British troops in Afghanistan.
A YouGov poll for the Telegraph a week ago found a split of 26% in favour and 62% against to the question “Do you favour or oppose the continued deployment of British troops to Afghanistan?. Surprisingly the party whose voters are most in favour of pulling out are the Tories with the Lib Dem just behind and Labour more supportive. But even supporters of Brown’s party split 38% in favour to 51% against.
As each new report of British casualties comes in electors seem to be growing in their scepticism about the whole point of the exercise.
So why don’t the Lib Dems, the party that gained so much in the 2005 election for being opposed to Iraq, become the first to call for a withdrawal? Wouldn’t this give them a distinctive position from the big party consensus that could pay dividends on polling day?
This might be being considered. Last week James Forsyth at the Speccie’s CoffeeHouse blog picked up on Clegg’s phraseology in a statement on the issue.
Clegg said: “I think there’s a tipping point where we have to ask ourselves whether we can do this job properly, and if we can’t do it properly we shouldn’t do it at all. I don’t think we are there yet”. It was the use by Clegg of the word “yet” that suggested to Forsyth that this might be on the cards.
The danger of such a policy stance is that they’d be accused of “going soft on terror” but that doesn’t seem to resonate in the way that it used to and, in any case, Brown’s foundering over the release of the Lockerbie bomber has made it difficult for him to get much mileage out of such an attack.
The view that we should get out is growing and I just wonder whether we’ll see something from Clegg at the Lib Dems conference which starts at the end of next week. Being the first would be consistent with Iraq and looks increasingly like the right thing for Britain to do.
Mike Smithson
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First !!!
Such a blatantly obvious policy stance to be adopted by a party with absolutely zero chance of forming the next Government that it’s just surprising that Clegg didn’t decide on this one earlier.
Electorally, yes.
But this issue, above all else, should be above electoral considerations.
If he genuinely feels it is the right thing to do then yes - though I suspect he knows in his heart of hearts that it is essential to stay there.
You just need to look at what happened in Mingora and around Buner when the Pakistani Taliban were allowed to flourish there. The same will happen in FATA and south/south-eastern Afghanistan if NATO withdraws. Withdrawing will mean more suicide bombs and terrorist attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan - and attacks which will more easily be exported to the UK.
That said, the Lib Dems are the ideal party to suggest radical shifts in strategy. They should definitely follow Cameron/Hague’s rather vague statements of discomfort with the Afghan elections with a more strident condemnation. They should bring up the uncomfortable fact that Britain and America take on the hardest missions.
I think i might have the wrong thread here, but what the hell.
I think Alistair Darling should take over from Gordon Brown BEFORE the next election.
He is neither Blairite or Brownite, or new labour or old labour.
He would make an exellent unifying candidate. Plus he’s popular amongst the business community.
But anyway, we’ll see.
However, in this cynical post-Blair world, were Clegg to do the expedient rather than right thing, and call from withdrawal from Afghanistan, he would get more headlines than he did during the Gurkhas debate.
I wonder how many votes are in it?
I suspect Afghanistan itself won’t be a major policy driver when it comes to voting intention (certainly nowhere near the scale of Iraq) - but the extra name recognition that would come due to such a major distinction in policy might pay dividends in its own right.
Not sure if there are any particular constituencies where this would make a crucial difference - though it would shore up national support for a party which often relies too much on local issues - and it might stem the slow leaking of votes away to Greens.
3 “They should bring up the uncomfortable fact that Britain and America take on the hardest missions.”
Quite so, to my mind this is one of the key aspects. Britain continues to put it about, like we were a major power, instead of accepting that we have become a rapidly declining and virtually bankrupt nation.
If we absolutely must stay in Afghanistan, let’s see other NATO countries shouldering their responsibility in terms of manpower and equipment as well as sharing the enormous cost. That should see our involvement cut by around 80% at least. Should they refuse, then we should exit.
If Clegg believes it to be in the British interest, can make a proper case whilst also fully explaining the potential implications of withdrawal and how these can be properly mitigated, then yes. If, however, it is done as a calculation to gain votes, then absolutely no.
Politicians of all sides need to be more clear as to why a secure and stable (not the same as a fully functional western style democracy) Afghanistan is critical to regional security and will contribute significantly to wider international security.
The Iraq policy was credible because the Lib Dems opposed that war from day one.
That doesn’t hold true for Afghanistan, does it?
the squib dums are operating in a policy free zone.
they need to become relevant, and for that they need to differentiate themselves from cameron and brown who will at election time get bogged down in boring and mundane economic matters leaving the squib dumjs without a strong platform.
now the election is proven to be a farce, democracy has not worked there and people are effcetively dying to keep one warlord in charge as apuppet leader over another, then the time has come to say how much we value the lives of our soldiers.
fighting the germans in 1944, as my dad did, was obviously a valid war. fighting in afghanistan so karzai can collect money from western business interests is not quite the same.
cleary the recent election was rigged and fixed. it should be made null and void.
can clegg make a decision without the old drivel about not being patriotic?
saying the war was to fight for democracy (ha ha whatever that is) and that there is no democracy possible as it stands so let warlord 1 and warlord 2 sort it out themselves along with the taleban has my vote.
after 150 years of trying nobody has ever won a war in afghanistan and quelled the locals, and brown is not going to be the first.
Just thinking about the political consequences, I’m not sure that in itself promising withdrawal would move a lot of votes either way. Unlike Iraq, a lot of voters are probably just not sure either way, and even if they have an opinion, it’s not necessarily very strongly held.
What a policy of withdrawal would do for the LibDems is free up some (hypothetical) money for other policy priorities. This is particularly useful if the Tories decide to follow the advice of a lot of posters here and promise public spending cuts: When Cameron says Britain can’t afford your [hospital | bus route | invalidity benefit | police], Clegg can say the LibDems would protect it using the money Cameron would have spent subsidizing wife-boiling.
A nice idea but will Nick Clegg do it? As a party I think the Lib Dems do need to make it policy to come out of Afghanistan and Iraq as both wars are not our responsibility.
11 - Splendid Isolation might have been a viable option when nobody moved much outside their village, the British Emptire covered a fifth of the globe and the British Navy was twice the size of its next biggest rival. However it is a tad myopic in the age of crossborder terrorism and the globalisation. However please let Nick Clegg adopt such a policy, it would confirm the Lib Dems as a joke party with its leader as the global village idiot.
Not even the Scottish National Party has called for a withdrawl from Afghanistan. Which is notable, as we have a long record of opposing UK military engagements. Eg. remember this?
Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond has become the first leading UK politician to speak out over the air strikes against Serbia, calling them counter-productive.
In a televised address to the Scottish people, Mr Salmond said… “It is an act of dubious legality, but above all one of unpardonable folly.”
But reacting to the breaking of ranks among domestic politicians, Foreign Secretary Robin Cook accused Mr Salmond of being “unfit to lead”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/307225.stm
Salmond received dogs abuse for his opposition to the NATO bombing of Serbia. In fact, he still does, from Labourite smearbots. It is notable that even timbot brought it up recently here at PB, so it is clearly featuring in Labour’s Smear Database for use in their dirty blog war.
Clegg can expect much the same if/when he makes his mind up on Afghanistan. He is a bit late to be opposing it now though.
The most the SNP has said about Afghanistan is that Gordon Brown should “rethink strategy”:
http://www.snp.org/node/15628
Not quite in the same league as our strident opposition to NATO’s bombing of one of our WWII European Allies.
Clegg would be very (ahem) brave to be the first leading UK politician to call for a withdrawl from Afghanistan. Bravery is not necessarily a valuable quality in a politician, according to Sir Humphrey Appleby, GCB, KBE, MVO, MA (Oxon).
12. James Burdett: it would confirm the Lib Dems as a joke party with its leader as the global village idiot.
There is no vacancy…
10. A good post by Edmund in Tokyo.
If Clegg does, eventually, make a clear shift to advocating withdrawal, it will have nothing like the effect in shifting votes that their Iraq policy had in 2005. And even that 2005 ‘Iraq effect’ is seriously overstated by most commentators.
Remember, the SNP’s Iraq policy was almost identical to Charlie Kennedy’s, and we dropped 2.4 points at UK GE 2005, losing 50,000 voters. Kennedy did well for other reasons at that election. Eg. folk liked him. How many voters like Nick Clegg or Tavish Scott? Nowhere near the numbers that were fully paid-up members of the Charlie Kennedy Fanclub.
PS. Can any Welsh PBers (not you Punter - you are just full of LD spin) tell us how Kirsty Williams is getting on. I had never even heard of here before I just Googled who was the leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats. She can’t possibly be as big a prick as Mike German. Surely?
The challenge in Afghanistan is the same as in all other military endeavours – to achieve a political or diplomatic outcome through other means.
It also requires exactly the same factors to deliver success – clarity of objectives, clarity of strategy, clarity of tactics, adequate resources and sustained political and public will.
The problem facing our involvement in Afghanistan is that all of these factors are muddy or absent to one degree or another.
The broad objective is to fight the war on terror. But what does that really mean? Much more of the successes we have had in avoiding 9/11 repeats comes from policing and intelligence work rather than duffing up the Taleban. Yes there is a link but it is not well explained and it is not pursued logically or tenaciously. If the objective requires the death of the Taleban then we should be killing them mercilessly at every opportunity. A policing or nation building action is only loosely going to support the (already woolly) objectives.
This issue on objectives underlies the whole weakness. If the UK’s security requires Taleban elimination then we should not confuse or hold back because of conflicting objectives. The government and Dave (and Cleggover) should state unequivocally why we are there and what outcome is the determinant of success. The necessary objectives for British security may conflict horribly with other ‘nicer’ themes such as democracy in Afghanistan, the place of women in Afghanistan, the impact of opium sales on the strategic picture, willingness to inflict ‘collateral damage’, policy towards Pakistan etc.
FWIW I think the case can be made to stay in, but that that demands a brutal and clear objectives statement along the lines of: ‘We will not intervene to affect democracy or women’s rights or tribal rivalries – we are there solely to destroy the Taleban’s ability to support Al Qaeda and potential terrorist acts in the United Kingdom’. Or put it another way – we’re fighting the war like utter pussies. (Not the soldiers who are individually fighting it like heroes, but the useless politicians).
On strategy – it seems the British armed forces are not as capable now as they once were in running hearts and minds / counter-insurgency operations. The US military has openly lost faith in our value as an ally. We seem to have lost the ability to learn lessons and adjust strategies. We also allow our interest in supporting Karzai to blind ourselves to the fact that opium money is the Taleban’s funding system. Vetoing the aerial eradication of poppy fields (because it would cut into the corrupt support base of southern politicians, most obviously Karzai) is demanding a fight but at the same time paying the other side. Childishly naïve. We should ruthlessly destroy the poppy fields from the sky and cut out the flow of money. Karzai and his corrupt gang of drug middlemen are not worth fighting for.
On tactics – a better story. The US and UK militaries are fiercely competent at the ground level. It is to Gordon’s Brown lasting shame and eternal damnation that the ability to deliver tactically is so woefully hampered by the next issue – lack of resources.
On resources – what can one say other than that the Labour party quite obviously detest the military. Helicopters, adequately protected vehicles, body armour, air cover, you name it – we miss it. The death toll has passed 200. It need not have been anything like as high. I’m no Islington paintywaist and accept without distress that in war soldiers die. But every general and every politician’s absolute moral duty is to do all they can to protect their men and give them the best chance they can to prevail. Labour have betrayed those soldiers and so their families grieve needlessly. For shame.
And finally to ‘political and public will’. That after 9 years we still do not know clearly why we are there and that the public mood towards involvement in Afghanistan is so negative demonstrates a profound failure of leadership. The government do not act in any way as if they accept that the UK is a nation at war. Afghanistan seems be about item 987 on Gordon’s list of things to worry about. If he lies awake at night I am sure it is worrying about his own sorry predicament and not that of those he has placed in harm’s way. And meanwhile men die.
The betrayal of the military covenant is not yet one of the huge stains on this government’s sorry record of comprehensive failure. In the history books of tomorrow it will be.
14. More village idiot photos:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/07/10/article-1198756-05A9CED2000005DC-886_468×599.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_sW65ilskOC8/RwQDeynoMsI/AAAAAAAAGs0/9tEsnWFXPUc/s320/GordonBrownPickingNose.jpg
http://lifeinthenhs.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/freckly_gordon_brown.jpg
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/3743/gordonbrownan8.jpg
FPT, Ted, personally I think that Turing was one of the greatest men of the last century, and was, as you say, treated despicably.
But I’m still unhappy with the idea of an apology. An apology for one’s own wrongdoing is the right thing to do. An apology on behalf of people who are long dead is an exercise in vanity, IMHO.
18 General Election Box-Ticking The Gordon Way: having obviously sewn up the gay vote with his Turing apology, Gordon will next go on to sew up the wimmins vote with an apology for all those witches burnt to a crisp…
Hint, Gordon: whilst in apology mode, how about apologising to the people of Britain for TAKING ALL THEIR F****** MONEY AND P****** IT UP AGAINST A WALL? That’s the one we want to hear.
20. As I said yesterday, I’d certainly be impressed by Gordon’s sincerity if he decided to apologise in the Japanese manner.
20 That would do instead….
….although I suspect that he isn’t allowed sharp things right now.
19. Marquee Mark: Hint, Gordon: whilst in apology mode, how about apologising to the people of Britain for TAKING ALL THEIR F****** MONEY AND P****** IT UP AGAINST A WALL? That’s the one we want to hear.
I make no apologies for taking the action necessary to protect the economy from the global recession - in contrast to the Conservative Party, whose policy is to do nothing.
22 …And I’ll take no lessons in savings from the party opposite…especially lessons in saving the world.
The Sun: ‘Brown given a Baracking’
The White House took the unusual step of releasing details of the leaders’ phone conversation.
A President rarely lets the world know of a dispute with an ally - especially one with the British PM.
Last night’s 40-minute call was the eighth between the men since Mr Obama took office - and the President used it to express his anger personally.
http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/2632451/New-low-in-British-US-relations-as-Barack-Obama-tells-Gordon-Brown-of-his-fury-at-the-release-of-the-Lockerbie-bomber.html
Naughty boy Gordon. No more trips to Cape Cod’s hotspots for you laddie.
The question has to be is what is Paddy Ashdown thinking…
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6823071.ece
Gordon Brown’s leadership is the subject of seething speculation once more. I have spoken to ministers, special advisers, MPs and other senior Labour supporters in recent days. Before long, and not always at my prompting, two questions arise: Will Brown lead Labour in the next election? Should he do so?
Three new factors have also come into play. The first is the spate of opinion polls that opened the new political season this month. In Number Ten and beyond there had been at least a faint hope that, after an August in which the Conservatives’ frailty on health and other policy areas were exposed, the gap between the two parties might have narrowed. There was virtually no change – suggesting, perhaps, that as long as Brown is at the helm the Conservatives can say or do anything and remain well in the lead.
Second, Brown’s handling of the Lockerbie/Libya affair reduced even his more ardent admirers to despair, exposing a wider failure to engage with the electorate. In the midst of Brown’s chaotic response, one special adviser who was once a fan of the Prime Minister’s declared to me: “It’s time for the postman”, a reference to Alan Johnson’s previous vocation.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/steve-richards/steve-richards-so-should-he-stay-or-should-he-go-and-does-it-really-matter-1785230.html
It’s good to see Gordon Brown coming out with the difficult decisions for which he is so renowned. How his advisers must have tried to tell him “No, Gordon- it can only result in difficulty for you; there is no good way to spin it” But he stood fast “No-my moral compass is clear. I must apologise for something I and no one of my generation had anything to do with.”
OT.
Five Live is reporting that the gender testing of Caster Semanya has revealed that she has an inter-gender condition and that the IAAF will now meet to consider whether this constitutes an unfair advantage.
#13, by Stuart Dickson September 11th, 2009 at 5:35 am
Not even the Scottish National Party has called for a withdrawl from Afghanistan. Which is notable, as we have a long record of opposing UK military engagements. Eg. remember this?
…Not quite in the same league as our strident opposition to NATO’s bombing of one of our WWII European Allies….
Stuart, you are doing yourself no favours.
What started out as a decent proposition - SNP support for AFG - quickly turned into a futile rant. To make matters worse it is historically inaccurate!
The UK’s ally was Yugoslavia - the Southern Slavs - not the Serbs. Serbs fought Serbs, as did every other ethnic combination in that f3cked-up nation.
SIS chose the Communists over the Chekniks; a decision that would cost dearly in the Greek Civil-War. Their leader - Generalissimo Tito - was a Croat.
Oh, as a by-the-by, my late father-in-law was his personal bodyguard.
I thought the LibDems opposed Iraq because of the lack of a UN mandate. They said they would have supported it otherwise.
We are not “unilaterally” in Afghanistan, so are you suggesting that they take unilateral action, or just state that they will seek to persuade NATO to pull out?
21 What he ought to say is this:-
“I wish to make an apology, and an important announcement. For many years, I have believed that I was a successful Chancellor of the Exchequer, and would make an effective Prime Minister. I now realise that I was wrong to believe both these things, and I wish to apologise to the whole Country, for the harm that I have caused, in both offices.
I shall now be going to Buckingham Palace to tender my resignation to Her Majesty the Queen, and I would urge you to all to support David Cameron’s Conservative party in the coming election.”
It would make tactical sense for the Lib Dems to have a few differentiating policies - at present they have not carved out for themselves a sufficiently distinctive position. Some of those who favour withdrawal from Afghanistan will need to comment on whether this would attract their vote, because I am one of the minority that supports continued engagement in Afghanistan, so I am not a good target for this message. It would not, however, particularly deter me from voting for the Lib Dems if that otherwise turned out to be my final choice.
Good morning Thatcherites for Stalinism.
Of course Clegg shouldn’t call for withdrawal from Afghanistan, but he will.
Off topic, Steve Richards has a good article in the Independent this morning:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/steve-richards/steve-richards-so-should-he-stay-or-should-he-go-and-does-it-really-matter-1785230.html
The key paragraph for me is the following one:
“Of course the joy and torment of politics is its sweaty unpredictability. If the polls are still terrible for Labour after the conference season something dramatic might happen. No one knows for sure. One Cabinet minister tells me there will be no successful coup but that it is just possible Brown may decide to quit.”
The reason we should be out of Afghanistan is that like all outside armies we become part of the problem rather than the solution.
I hope someone puts down an emergency motion at the Lib dem conference calling for withdrawl-at least it will then be properly debated.
Timbot is on early , but which one is it?
15 Kirsty is wonderful! How she is doing in leading the Lib Dem group in Cardiff, I am not sure, although I will post anything I pick up!
Of the two Labour Wars Afghanistan was always the more difficult to win simply because there has never been any cogent analysis of what a win would be.
When a Lib Dem enthusiast told me in a pub that Blair was going into Afghanistan I laughed and told him Blair was just bullshitting as was his wont. Unfortunately I was wrong.
Should we be there ? Suppose I had been right, would there be a thread today advocating intervention in Afghanistan ? I don’t think so.
The arguments against withdrawal tend to be on the lines that if we did then our men, ( I decline to use the term boys ) have died in vain.
Dulce et decorum est …
32. antifrank - “… at present [the Lib Dems] have not carved out for themselves a sufficiently distinctive position.”
Candidate for Understatement of the Day?
What, exactly, are the Lib Dems for?
We know what Labour Mafia are for: you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.
We know what the Tories are for: rah rah rah; fog in the channel isolates France; Last Night at the Proms; Did you know that half that map used to be pink lad? yawn
We know what the SNP are for: independence
But what are the Lib Dems for? Diddly squat. Big fat nothing. Oh yeah, and PR. (which does them b***er all use north of the border by the way)
38 - The arguments against withdrawal tend to be on the lines that if we did then our men, ( I decline to use the term boys ) have died in vain.
No its not, if we pull out we’ll end up sending troops back in to secure the Pakistan border down the line.
This is a regional war, the second front of which is in Afghanistan.
The main casualties are being taken by the Pakistani Army and police.
37. Thanks Tim13
Have they started numbering the bots now?
Nothing to see here, move along…
Mr Miliband insisted that ordering the military release of journalist Stephen Farrell from his Taliban captors was the right thing to do, rejected calls for an inquiry.
He said it was a hard thing to say given the loss of life but he believed the rescue “was the right thing to do”, and asked whether an inquiry was necessary said: “No, I don’t think an inquiry is needed, all the procedures were followed.”
http://page.politicshome.com/uk/miliband_farrell_release_right_thing_to_do_no_inquiry_needed.html
Nothing to see here, move along…
Mr Miliband insisted that ordering the military release of journalist Stephen Farrell from his Taliban captors was the right thing to do, rejected calls for an inquiry.
He said it was a hard thing to say given the loss of life but he believed the rescue “was the right thing to do”, and asked whether an inquiry was necessary said: “No, I don’t think an inquiry is needed, all the procedures were followed.”
http://page.politicshome.com/uk/miliband_farrell_release_right_thing_to_do_no_inquiry_needed.html
“We know what the SNP are for”
Hope dashed by reality; like every Scottish football campaign.
Worth linking again:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/recession/6169544/European-Commission-sees-galloping-UK-debt-crisis.html
We can’t afford Afghanistan, let alone win it.
Labour have ruined the country - again.
Let the Tories put it right - again.
That central truth needs to be drummed into voters heads with millions of tiny toffeehammers, in the months leading up to the GE. I have no doubts it will work and we will see a Conservative government.
My worry is that Labour have so conclusively shagged the UK, no one can fix it. Thatcher had North Sea Oil, the Falklands War and the proceeds of Privatisation, these gave her enough latitude and capital to enable her to force the painful medicine on the country.
Cammo probably won’t be so lucky. He will try and he will fail.
The debt and deficit are so obscenely large, we will be permanently damaged, and relegated to the third tier of nations.
Quite an achievement by Labour.
43 “[Miliband] said it was a hard thing to say given the loss of life but he believed the rescue “was the right thing to do”, and asked whether an inquiry was necessary said: “No, I don’t think an inquiry is needed, all the procedures were followed.””
He’s turning into Gordon Brown, isn’t he? Can someone tell him that one is already one too many.
45 - You posted last night on the Tories Europe position divorcing them from power influence and the US.Imagine a unilateral pull out from AfPak added to that.
Its not going to happen, not should it.
Watch the last ten minutes of Newsnight last night.
Quite, and the Pakistan area is very very volatile!
I don’t think the whole (sustainable long-term) available size of the army is big enough to cover even Helmand at the neccessary troop density for a counter-insurgency and the people who decided on Iraq while Afg was still going on should be [censored for the squeamish].
So (imo) Britain could cover a bit of Helmand adequately. A few other countries might cover other small dangerous bits or large non dangerous bits. The yanks would have to do the rest but personally i don’t think the yanks are going to have the money or willpower to sustain it.
So personally i think Afg was f**ked by Iraq.
I also think the best way to fight jihadism is to guard our own borders properly while using hit and run tactics externally i.e training camp in a desert somewhere -> decent fleet with a bunch of commando ships and a mini-carrier -> boom boom, shooty, shooty -> job done, come home -> keep doing that till they’re fed up.
Last but very much not least defence is zero priority for this government as shown by the people they put in charge. It’s either been semi-decent people who are being sacked in two stages like Hutton or Reid or whoever’s the biggest muppet in the cabinet at the time. People getting killed in wars wwhile these people are in charge just feels like a twisted joke.
Thinking purely politically though I don’t know. For the Tories just focusing on the adequate supply of equipment seems like the obvious route for now but for the LDs i’m sure. I think they’d probably benefit from taking this path overall but i don’t think the response will neccessarily be even over the country.
Seems to me, as an often (but not always) LibDem voter (stopping the Trident programme’s a good idea, by the way, assuming that co-incidentally the UK workers, by hand or brain,will be found other UK work) that “View from Cumbria” in post 38 is right.
I know, I think, what the American policy is in Afghanistan. The word naive comes to mind. Quickly!
It’ll give them a small electoral bonus, but if they really believed it they would’ve mentioned it before in the last 8 years and almost all the electorate will realise that.
44. MM - “Hope dashed by reality… “
Is it not better to live a life of hope and optimism? Is that not what all these psychologists tell us: that the happiest people are the ones who dare to dream, and dare to strive for goals?
Timid “realists” are rarely the happiest souls.
What would you rather do Mark? Live your life in cowered defeatism.
Scots will choose the path of light. It is simply a matter of when.
PS. hearty congrats to the England team!! Bloomin class act. I will be getting my order in for a St George’s Cross. I kid you not.
51. English country dancer - “… if they really believed it they would’ve mentioned it before in the last 8 years and almost all the electorate will realise that.”
Indeed.
52 Good on you for taking my ribbing in good part! Maybe one day the sun will shine on your lot too. But the sun and Scotland…not the most frequent of bed-fellows!
I’m not convinced that defence is Nick Clogg’s top priority, nor the country’s in economic times such as these. But in terms of distinctive policy, scrapping Trident is substantial enough so there’s no need for this on top.
I always felt that Ming had it right on this; we should get out of that misadventure in Iraq because we were on a hiding to nothing and it was distracting from the mission we could win, in Afghanistan. However it’s too unilateral, and any policy that makes our contiunued co-operation dependending on other countries matching our commitment may be a more diplomatic approach.
Parents who take children to school or clubs needs to prove they aren’t criminal. Welcome to New Labour’s police state.
F1: P1 of Monza starts in under an hour.
People reckon KERS will give a very big advantage (and Renault are running it as well as Ferrari and McLaren) so the major area of interest will be whether it’s enough to stop the Brawns and Red Bulls doing well.
Second item of interest is how well Fisichella can do. Possible he might just upset the natural order of things.
And last but not least: if the Brawns and Red Bulls are kept off the first two rows of the grid that can only be good news for Button.
56 - indeed. The MoD pay for my husband’s vetting as he works with the ATC, 3 times in 2 years. They are apparently going to do them all again ( last one was 6 months ago ). Methinks MoD could spend that money elsewhere.
On topic: I’m not a simple policy of withdrawal is very credible. We and the Americans have been sucked in, and - as so often - it’s extremely hard to get out. And what a disaster it has been, largely because of the spectacular stupidity of invading Iraq in the middle of the Afghanistan deployment.
Having said that, I guess in cynical electoral terms Clegg can make policy in the knowledge that he’ll never have to implement it. But I don’t think this is vote-changer; people are rightly very concerned about why we are losing lives in Afghanistan in what appears a never-ending deployment, but they are also realistic enough to know that the problem isn’t so simple that there is a simple answer.
46, reminds me somewhat of the head of Haringey social services. All boxes were ticked, all the forms filled in correctly, look at these graphs showing how well we’re performing. Yes, someone died, but the important thing is that we followed procedure.
Morning all from a gloriously sunny Easter Ross (54 Mark you were unlucky)
I am surprised Nick clegg hasn’t already called for withdrawal from Afghanistan since it won his party so many votes in 2005 and it might help them keep some of them at the General Election.
Meanwhile I hear on the news this morning that in a “back to the future” instead of beer and sandwiches at No 10, Gordon Brown at taxpayers expense is to host a buch of Trade Union Barons at Chequers this weekend.
Holding out the GE begging bowl perchance? I still think he will go in May next year but maybe some of you are correct in thinking a snap election next month.
Trident won’t be scrapped.
It’s cost is approx. £1billion p.a. and - as Stuart has posted before - Scotland believes it deserves £500 million of that. What would be put in it’s place would cost just as much.
Trident is not expensive. The warheads are, but no major party is seriously considering nuclear-disarmament. What costs are the subs; a programme called MUFC!
Talk of replacing Trident with TACTOM is nothing but talk. The US do not arm Trident with conventional warheads for the same reason that Russian cruise-missiles aren’t uranium-tipped. Trident is a Strangelove-system: you use it to end the world (or civilisation as we know it).
38 “The arguments against withdrawal tend to be on the lines that if we did then our men, ( I decline to use the term boys ) have died in vain.”
Agree, and how personally attached any particular area feels to the “our” bit will decide their reaction imo. I’d imagine a negative reaction in areas associated with the military (maybe a gender split there), a shizophrenic reaction in working class areas of half-positive and half-negative, positive in guardianista areas, muted positve in some ethnic areas, neutral in others.
Definitely not a clear-cut outcome though probably helpful to the LDs in keeping the gains they made over Iraq (nb Pashtun not neccessarily that popular with non-pashtun bods from Afghan and Pakistan - i wouldn’t be surprised if they had their own version of getting away scot-free except it would involve pathans).
40 on 38
The mess in Pakistan pre-dates the latest western intervention in Afghanistan and if Tim you are suggesting that that was the real reason for our involvement rather than 9/11 then you might have a point.
I have heard other reasons which are more pausible but too shocking even for public websites.
However, should we stay there. I think not simply because I see no benefit from our being there. What has been prevented by our presence ? What will be prevented by our continued presence ?
I don’t think it makes a jot of difference what anyone says or does now but I would hope that when the question is asked in a couple of years we have a stronger reason for staying, if so we do, than embarrassment from withdrawal.
On topic
On an issue where the lives of British service personnel are at stake, he should say what he thinks about the merits of the issue. If the voters get the least impression that any party is playing politics by making decisions on the basis of he sort of electoral tactical considerations mentioned in some comments above, that party will pay a price for it. As indeed Gordon Brown has.
But Afghanistan is not Iraq, for several vital reasons:
1) The West had a cast iron casus belli when we went into Afghanistan, as we did not have in Iraq: the Taleban had provided a base for people who had actually attacked America (and Britain - dozens of UK citizens died on 9/11)
2) Our leaders were telling the truth about why they went into Afghanistan, and had full UN support, where they were at best utterly mistaken in the reasons given at the time for invading Iraq and had rather less support.
3) In Afghanistan we helped existing opponents of the regime which had attacked us to overthrow it, where Iraq was an outright invasion.
None of which proves that our involvement in Afghanistan has been so perfectly implemented that there is no place for constructive criticism of government policy, provided it is done in a way which does not undermine our troops.
55. tpfkar - “… scrapping Trident…”
Another, long-standing, SNP policy.
When will the Lib dems come up with some distinctive policies?
45…and sadly there are those who do not understand that the markets can shred the value of your currency in minutes. the Government has to stop spending and now!
64. AVFC - you can’t drop a hint like that and leave us dangling! What other reasons????
Just been thinking about the idea of large numbers of Indian troops going in to Afghanistan. Not sure if it would help improve relations with Pakistan (fighting the same enemy), or start a war (opening up a second front on Pakistan’s north-west border). Might be worth a try though - and offers a route out for our troops.
55. tpfkar - Nick Clogg
Nice typo!
Will we solve the Afghan issue in under 10 years?
Unlikely
Will we have the Finances to continue AND INCREASE our resources in Afghanistan?
Nope.
Can we afford the major military programs which underpin our fighting a war so far away?
Nope.
The answer is obvious.
Politically it’s not.
But I forecast we will be out in a major way by 2012.
The reason that we went into Afganistan was to get Bin Laden and stick his head on a pike. He isn’t there anymore so neither should we. The army does not have a clear goal, nor the means (thanks to Mr Brown) to achieve it if there had been one.
The Lib-Dems should campaign for withdrawl from Afganistan. It will bring back some of the anti-war vote to them, and even if it proves controversal that controversy will help to give them air time which they desperately need to remind people that they exist. When the British are finally forced to slink out of Afganistan with tail between legs (like in Southern Iraq) calling for a pull out early will look prophetic.
62
Unfortunately there is more at play than reasoned argument.
I expect Trident to come under serious pressure.
On another, but related point, I also expect us to see the benefit levels of the US with the taxation levels of Sweden, thereby completing the destruction of Atlee’s legacy - New Labour - Gordon Brown would have accomplished that which Conservative governments would not have attempted (In fact most Conservative governments would have fought to maintain Atlee’s contribution to our social infrastructure (though not to extend it))
The problem with AFG is that the Taliban are not confined to AFG. Indeed, they started out in the Madrassas of Pakistan. If they are left to expand unchecked, then they will start to control parts of Pakistan, a nuclear power.
The question is: are we prepared to let a fanatical terrorist organisation get close to (or even access) nuclear weapons?
We may not be winning the war in AFG, but it is limiting the reach of the Taliban.
There are rumours that the US has contingency plans to attack Pakistan’s nuclear weapon installations if/when the Taliban get close to them. In that situation, I would expect India to attack even earlier. I.e. a regional nuclear war.
We are gambling for very high stakes here. A unilateral withdrawal would do damage to our international reputation that would make the Megrahi Affair look like the trailer to a blockbuster.
35 Agreed - if it’s not accurate, it’s appalling.
When Tony had a ‘heart problem’ it was all over the media.
The BBC even had a Q&A on it
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3205978.stm
If Gordon is on this medication, then it is a matter of national interest.
by Plato September 10th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Source: http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2009/09/10/could-there-be-a-secret-mps-ballot-on-browns-future/#comment-1208835
I was working at the same institution when the said war-criminal was admitted. Interestingly the geezer was afforded the same protection - physical and cyber - as the local gangsters!
Oh, by-the-by, he was there more then once. :O
73 “If they are left to expand unchecked, then they will start to control parts of Pakistan, a nuclear power”
But western parts of Pakistan can rarely be said to have been “controlled” by Islamabad. That doesn’t mean those western parts are any nearer to getting their hands on nuclear weapons. Pakistan has for many years essentially been a loose federation of the civilised and the bat-shit crazy; you just have to live with that reality.
The taliban are a pashtun group. The idea that they’ll get wide support outside their own areas is bogus imo. There’s a neocon strand in all this that *wants* Pakistan to implode so they can snag their nukes. These people are playing a very dangerous game.
71. chris strange - “… help to give them air time which they desperately need to remind people that they exist.”
Yep. That is what all this Clegg/Afghanistan stuff is really about: trying to get some LD brand recognition out there in the vote market.
But is all publicity good publicity? The LDs better hope so.
15: Re Kirsty Williams.
She is a much wanted fresh face in Welsh politics and has far more personality and sp*nk that Mike German ever had. However like all the parties at the Welsh Assembly, the LDs are lacking any good economic policy as much of the Welsh private sector economy gradually departs to Eastern Europe and the public sector is squeezed. All are still arguing about bilingualism - to the extent that at many secondary schools children spend three hours a week learning Welsh compared with one hour learning French/German/Spanish etc.
I do not know whether Kirsty is more Dem than Lib which is an important distinction in many of the rural parts of Wales. However, her Brecon presence could save that seat at the GE, Mark Williams will hold Ceredigion but Montgomery could well go.
The LDs sank at the Euro elections and lost their only Welsh seat to UKIP. The LDs have not yet capitalised on the failure of the Labour/PC ruling alliance at Cardiff Bay - this alliance is now fracturing as the GE looms. Kirsty has a lot to do to maintain the LD status quo in Wales before they can advance.
77, mostly for the Lib Dems. But there are times when it distinctly is not. The number 30 springs to my mind, for some reason.
68 One of the reasons that elements in the ISS in Pakistan continue to aid Taliban associated groups is because Karzai and others in Afghanistan have developed relations with India. Pakistan continues to view India as the enemy and any involvement in Afghanistan by the Indian Government rouses great suspicions.
78, the proliferation of Welsh language signs and so forth in Wales utterly confounds me. Everybody there comprehends English, so why double the cost of road signs and similar devices by adding a language few people read but which seems to be very fashionable?
77 “Yep. That is what all this Clegg/Afghanistan stuff is really about: trying to get some LD brand recognition out there in the vote market.”
I think that’s probably true but at least if they start a debate we might at least get some clear decision on what the objective is.
Perhaps the Lib Dems could also tell us how liberalism fits in with the new checks/database on voluntary work. Nick Clegg and the other high minded liberals could tell us if the limits of this system have been reached.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8249020.stm
How many people have been found by the CRB system to be unfit to work with children, and do the politicans have to undergo checks. It seems to be a huge operation, which relies on overstating the risks to children of corrupt individuals.
72. bono publico - “… the benefit levels of the US with the taxation levels of Sweden, thereby completing the destruction of Atlee’s legacy.”
You will search long and hard to find a better summary of the horrifying result of 12 years of Labour government. Self-inflicted annihilation.
Here is a little light reading for any passing Dirty Labourites:
Look on your works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
84, just for the sake of controversy, could we not equally ascribe the United Kingdom’s present woes to being governed by Scotsmen for 12 years?
75, earlier this year, the Taliban were in effective control of the Swat Valley, only 100 miles from the capital, and getting closer. Pakistan’s army drove them out, once the political will was found, but it wouldn’t have taken that much for them to reach Islamabad.
I’d hope we’re taking steps behind the scenes to encourage Pakistan to take a firmer line.
73
Indeed.
The Taliban (’Army of Students’) was formed to assert control over Afghanistan by Pakistan - they tried to put in a puppet/friendly government (they were trying to break the cycle of civil war - as well as stymie Iran).
The rumours of the US plans to take Pakistan’s nukes beyond the control of both the Pakistanis themselves and Taliban/al-Qa’Ida have been around for years - Pakistan’s Command-and-Control protocols fill any sane government with fear
86. At the time it looked to me like the pakistani army pulled its finger out when they realised the neocons wanted Pakistan to implode.
73. I think justifying the presence in Afghanistan on the basis of doomsday scenarios involving Pakistan is going to be a very hard sell.
More damaging still is the way the strategic justification for the war there keeps shifting…AlQaeda…Taliban…democracy…schools ‘n’ hospitals…Pakistani nukes…apart from the obvious inconsistency the whole drift seems to be toward a semi-permanent and quasi-colonial presence. I don’t the public has the stomach for that, nor will they be happy about the financial expense.
So there’s certainly a case for strategic reassessment. But that’s a long way from what the Lib Dems might come up - essentially a rehash of the pacifist posturing of 2005.
Morning All!
75,
I agree Pakistan needs political stability and the sooner we realise that the better. We need to try and promote deals with Pakistan in return for political stability…
86. Ruth Kelly in spot of bother.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23742836-details/Ruth+Kelly+fumes+at+1%2C000+car+rental+%27rip-off%27/article.do
78. Financier
Thanks for a very informative post.
However, I must point out an inaccuracy: “The LDs sank at the Euro elections and lost their only Welsh seat to UKIP.”
The LDs did not have any Welsh MEP to lose!
http://tinyurl.com/l7pdto
Call me old-fashioned, but Nick Clegg should call for a withdrawal from Afghanistan if Nick Clegg believes this is the right thing to do for the country, not for the Liberal Democrats
To do it just because it would be politically distinctive and maybe popular is not a good reason for someone who wishes to be taken seriously as a leader. Taking a view just to win votes, independent of whether that view is genuinely held, is shallow and weak.
“Should Clegg call for a withdrawal” in short, No, such a decision would be fraught with dangers leaving Clegg too exposed to attack on so many fronts. ‘Weak on Terror’ ‘undermining the Troops’ the accusations are endless.
This war is not Iraq, taking a principled stance before the out set of war paid off for the LibDems, there will be little or no electoral advantage after eight years, then changing your mind.
I think the important thing now for Clegg is to have a policy in place based on what he thinks is the right course of action, a policy that he believes in and can argue for with conviction. What ever position he does choose to take however, will look weak, even opportunistic imho, having left it so late in his leadership to voice such an epiphany.
action to be taken against MG directors.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8250051.stm
interesting point about briefings by officials, but nothing on the politicans who are as usual beyond reproach, even though the site was close to some key marginals.
95. If the Phoenix (sic) Four are to be disqualified - as they rightly should be, in my view - then there should also be serious questions as to whether certain ministers should also be barred from office.
Interesting article, and as always in politics there are the separate issues of what’s right and what gets votes. If Clegg did call for withdrawal the obvious question would be what had changed since he opposed withdrawal a month or two earlier. He could say that on reflection he’d been mistaken, but politicians rarely do that. The truthful answer that he thought it’d be useful in the coming election isn’t something he could say. So…?
As for what’s actually right - I stayed with my cousin a couple of weeks ago (he’s a retired general, previously on the Chiefs of General Staff, and retains an active interest) and we talked it through, and I’ve talked to some other well-informed people as well. My impression (and this should only be attributed to me) is that the predominant Army view is that it’s worth fighting partly to prevent the horrors that an established government that supports terrorism can create, but mainly because a Taleban government in Afghanistan would force Pakistan to tack to the wind or be taken over itself, and the presence of nukes in Pakistan makes that too terrifying to contemplate.
There isn’t much doubt that the forces were overstretched when we joined the Helmand offensive before we’d pulled out of Iraq: normal British doctrine is to have one fully-engaged brigade in action and one more when needed in the short term, and for quite a while we were up to two brigades full-time. Some of the commanders quite liked that up to a point as it appealed to the gung-ho we-can-do-it! tradition, but overstretch gradually degrades equipment, training and willingness to stay in the Army.
That problem is now receding, as is the equipment issue - the troops are individually equipped pretty optimally (arguably better than the Americans) and the improved armoured vehicles and helicopters are coming through - one can debate whether we should have gone into Helmand before they did, but there were military arguments for that and it’s in any case not now the key factor. The key factor is absolute clarity on the mission, not just for Britain but for the coalition: if the purpose is to prevent Taleban rule, that’s fine, but if it’s also to fight the drugs trade and improve human rights and reduce corruption, than it gets hopelessly tangled up.
Peter from Putney is IMO right that there’s no logical reason why we should be the main engaged force with the Americans (though the Canadians are doing a good deal too - they’ve had 500 casualties if you include minor injuries, I’m told). I favour capping our involvement, but the hard fact about that is that if we say ’someone else must take more of the load’, it’s possible that nobody will, and what then?
95
The BBC made the point (My pills! My pills, quickly nurse!) that politicians had (suspiciously) escaped any blame, although they were deeply involved.
The Cheadle Gatley result was very very good for the Lib Dems as both parties put a lot in, and if the reported Lib Dem vote of 2,600 is correct, it has jumped 20%. I think that needs clarrifcation. Will await the Stockport Council official figure. Irrespective it indicates a Lib Dem hold at Cheadle in the General, following the pattern being picked up of them holding in their current parliamentary seats. Labour vote fell back again voting tactically.
I guess the Liberal Democrats are targetting heavily these areas plus their potential gains, including two maybe three from the Conservatives.
If so they will be letting go over 500 seats,will their vote in these seats go and who will it polarise around.
98. The report is obviously a whitewash, no suprise there. I hope the media and opposition parties pursue this because it is a disgraceful case of government misconduct that costs thousands of jobs.
A pull out by just the British cannot happen. The americans would not tolerate a british withdrawal which leaves US forces in a more dangerous position.
O/T
Easterross, I’ve enjoyed reading for your recent interesting pieces on PB2. I am looking at a possible betting strategy on the number of SNP seats won at the next GE. I know it’s tricky because of the much discussed tipping point (so let’s not discuss it further!), but are you prepared please to suggest a realistic best and worst case for the party in terms of seats won.
86. “The rumours of the US plans to take Pakistan’s nukes beyond the control of both the Pakistanis themselves and Taliban/al-Qa’Ida have been around for years - Pakistan’s Command-and-Control protocols fill any sane government with fear”
I disagree, the people who propose the doomsday scenario regarding Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are invariably the same Neo Cons who got us in to the mess in Iraq and took their eye off Afghanistan. The scenario is used as a casus belli, one that can be used to justify any military action in Pakistan.
Pakistan takes good care of its nukes not because of fears of what the Taliban may do but because they have an enemy next door that would like to seize or destroys Pakistan’s nukes if war was to break out.
The security of Pakistan’s nukes is a legitimate concern, but it is one that the Pakistanis themselves have reason to prioritise and their is no substantive evidence that they are doing otherwise.
“Should Clegg call for withdrawal?”. No he should not, though I would not be surprised if he did, as I was always suspicious about the Lib Dems “principled” opposition to the Iraq war.
Afghanistan is a mess and will be a political headache for years to come. However, the idea that we can walk away from it now would be political and moral cowardice, and would have much worse ramifications for years to come. What we should be focussed on is giving the troops the resources to do the job. This should be the message that all genuinely principled opposition parties should be delivering
98 What are the odds that releasing the Rover report and attacking the directors (rightly or wrongly) will blow up in Mandy/Browns faces? The cost of the enquiry alone should raise a few eyebrows in itself. Sixteen million!!!
103. I can’t help feeling that the whole idea that Pakistan, which has major (and battle-tested) military resources of its own, could be overrun by the Taliban is a little far-fetched.
15/78 Kirsty Williams came in as a fresh face with lots of promise, but since then has almost diappeared without a trace!!!
The LDs problem in Wales, is that they are largely seen as a middle class party that does not represent one thing or another. The remaining Welsh Liberal tradition has been pushed to one side (in Welsh speaking areas it had already moved to Plaid) and has been replaced by a suburban democrat tradition which has pockest of support in the cities but very few strongholds.
Your lack of knowledge of Welsh politics is demonstrated by your claim that LDs lost their Welsh Euro seat to UKIP - Wrong - they have never ever held a Welsh Euro seat.
And you claims that Ceredigion is safer than Montgomery are just naive. The LDs will lose Ceredigion, and the only way they can keep Montgomery will be to get rid of Lembit. I originally thought that Kirsty would help them keep the Brecon seat, but now I am not so sure, which leaves the Welsh LDs becoming the Welsh LD at Westminster.
“Should Clegg call for a withdrawal from Afghanistan?”
I think that Clegg and the Libdems need to be careful about how they go about doing this to be honest, simple because of the timing so close to an election. They would need to build up to it and make their case water tight on principle. Charles Kennedy had made his strongly held views about the whole Iraq issue very clear from the start, and when we were just at the stage of debating such a Foreign policy move. It later gave him and the Libdems stance on Iraq a lot of credibility in the run up to the 2005 GE, more importantly, it was not regarded as a cynical political move.
Despite the fact that the government have failed to set out the case for our continued presence in Afghanistan, not helped by their appalling record on supporting the military effort robustly from the start. There will be longer term problems facing the country if we leave right now, and just as vitally for their immediate neighbour Pakistan, and they are not going to go away in the foreseeable future. Its a very dangerous flash point, and could further destabilise both countries, never mind our relationship with America if other countries then follow us. We should not take a decision like this lightly.
97.”That problem is now receding, as is the equipment issue - the troops are individually equipped pretty optimally (arguably better than the Americans) and the improved armoured vehicles and helicopters are coming through”
Words fail me.
Jeff Randall on “green shoots”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeffrandall/6169820/Recovery-talk-is-meaningless-to-the-man-with-his-P45-in-the-post.html
And here’s the rub. Talk of recovery is meaningless to the vast majority of voters, unless it involves more jobs and stable wages. Arcane economic data, remote stock market indices, even trumped-up statistics on house prices matter not a jot to the man who has just been told that his P45 is in the post.
97 ‘the troops are individually equipped pretty optimally (arguably better than the Americans) and the improved armoured vehicles and helicopters are coming through’
Really NPMP? What tosh. Friends serving out there now, and preparing for tours later this month would beg to differ.
NPMP did you miss the headlines in the Evening Standard which referred to clapped out Sea Kings being little use in Afghanistan?
Academic really, when Cameron is PM, defence will be subjected to, ’slash-n-burn’ like everything else.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6829750.ece
Which of the three party leaders would not agree that we should get out of Afghanistan as soon as possible?
The difficulty is in defining the criteria for leaving.
Do we leave to save money? Lives? The mission is complete? What is the mission? Cut and run?
It is that which will trip Clegg up. He is not good enough to deal with that complexity effectively.
He can only go for cut and run and be distinctively different, and even he knows that would be political suicide in so many constituencies if not with sandal central.
But I agree with madasafish. Cameron will have us out by 2012.
112, it is not an edifying thing to read a leftist gleefully referring to the severe spending cuts necessitated by the utter failure of this terrible Labour government. It reads like a florist exulting in a recent spate of deaths and looking forward to an increase in sales.
But Mike don’t you know that without our presence in Afghanistan you’d be soon finding a terrorist under every bed, just like every sports club harbours child molesters.
108/110/111.
I think the point is that the troops should have enough equipment to do the job, not to prevent internet Tories using troop deaths to criticise the government.
There isn’t enough equipment in the world for that.
Of course the equipment shortages for you will be solved 6 months into a Conservative administration.
Whether or not equiopment levels change.
113. My vision for the future remains the same - an end to official foreign adventurism and colonial-style entanglements, replaced by a policy of hiring out our troops when necessary to the Americans at a (high) market rate.
I think Pakistan is perfectly able to look after its own nukes and to suggest that the Taliban insurgents could possibly get anywhere near them is laughable.
“The Pakistan Army is the largest branch of the Pakistan Armed Forces, and is mainly responsible for protection of the state borders, the security of administered territories and defending the national interests of Pakistan within the framework of its international obligations. The Pakistan Army a total strength of 520,000, about the size of of the Army of the United States, with a reserve element of 500,000 who have a reserve obligation up to the age of 45 years. Reserve status lasted for eight years after leaving active service or until age forty-five for enlisted men and age fifty for officers.”
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/pakistan/army.htm
85. MD - “… ascribe the United Kingdom’s present woes to being governed by Scotsmen for 12 years?”
That was England’s choice: you chose to let yourselves be governed by Blair, Brown, Darling and the rest of the Labour Mafia for 12 years.
Admittedly, the Tories won the popular vote in England in 2005, however, due to FPTP - which the vast majority of English politicians support - Labour got far more English MPs.
Go figure!
If the English want to be ruled by English people, then I will be the last one to stand in your way. Most other countries govern themselves, so why should England and Tibet be the exceptions?
116.Nasty but totally predictable response from you. Best ignored.
116. who has said anything about using troop deaths to criticise the government?
Using 40 year old helicopters because the government has done very little other than to consider ordering replacements, fits in with similar problems over the lack of clear action to replace 30-40 year old transport aircraft.
Keep smearing for the sake of it, you know it loses votes.
118 - I don’t think the Pakistani Taliban has ever been planning a full on military assault against the Pakistani Army.
103
I cite as evidence the reaction of the US (and UK, and European and Chinese) Foreign Secretaries to the increase in Indian/Pakistani tensions of a few years ago. They moved quickly and determinedly to ease the situation by whatever reassurances they could offer.
Plus the US instituted a $100 million program to enhance Pakistans C&C program.
It seems that this has borne fruit - while Pakistan rejected a US offer of a Weapons Control System they have designed one of their own, based on western style systems that has met with US approval.
116 timmy, what do you care about the lives of British troops?
The point is that Nick Palmer is claiming that the soldiers are properly equipped when the word of those actively serving in theatre is somewhat different. Or are we to put more faith in the opinion of a retired General against those actually on the front line and suffering as a result of being underequipped?
Actually Stuart the English chose to be governed by Mr Howard last time.
114
Hmmm surely the present problems with the economy, are due to the, ‘liberalisation’ of the banking system during the Thatcher era, which the present government did nothing to address, in fact made worse.
Charles Clarke biffs Brown again
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/10/charles-clarke-gordon-brown-cuts
“It is good news that Labour’s leadership seems to have abandoned the misleading and incredible proposition that the general election choice will be between ‘Labour investment’ and ‘Tory cuts’,” said Clarke,
The botched election, which appears to have been more corrupt than the last Zimbabwean one (even Mugabe didn’t claim 98% of hundreds of votes cast when observers saw on 15 voters enter the polling station), is the biggest crisis that the Afghanistan operation has faced.
The plan that Obama, Brown & rest of NATO have is to stabilise Afghanistan under a Government broadly acceptable to the various factions, build up Afghan Army and police and gradually hand over security to them having used NATO forces to gain control and hold back incursions across the border.
Instead they have created and helped sustain a corrupt Government with little acceptance outside of Kabul, one which deflects aid into its own pockets, leaving huge areas of Afghanistan at mercy of local warlords and holding back development for much of the population. Without a Government enjoying widespread popular support the strategy fails.
Cameron’s overheard discussion with Hague and Hague’s pronouncements yesterday are a start in at least recognising that NA?TO needs to address this. What does Clegg say?
125 - Of course they did.
And the Attlee 1951 - 5 Government had the election stolen from them.
124. Well if it’s a choice between serious military men and comical Ali-style figures like NP there’s no real competition, is there?
Thinking about this in purely tactical electoral terms, rather than what I might think is best, I think advocating withdrawal from Afghanistan would be a big risk for Clegg, with more downside than upside.
Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan initially had broad public support. That public support has dissipated because, essentially, we are losing.
It may, or may not, have been possible to win had the war been pursued more competantly, and without the distraction of Iraq. It is much easier to criticise the conduct of the war than to be the first political leader to admit defeat. I’m not sure Clegg really wants to become associated with the concept of defeat in the public imagination.
I think this is what makes it different to Afghanistan (whatever the rights or wrongs of various courses of action).
Advocating withdrawal, taking up a distinctive position, implies advocating defeat, because the Lib Dems are not in a position to argue that it was all a mistake from the beginning.
[131] - …different to Iraq obviously!
From the Beeb - hmm..
“Gordon Brown has said he is sorry for the “appalling” way World War II code breaker Alan Turing was treated for being gay.”
131 TLZ - that’s an interesting perspective, I’m not 100% sure that it would *look* like defeat, there comes a time when it’s sensible to withdraw and regroup/rethink tactics.
I think we’re there and have been for quite a while. Until there is a coherent rationale for why *we* are there, then I’m in the pull-back camp.
113
Witan
Thanks
I began to feel I was a nutter as all the other posters keep on going on about the war being necessary..
It is not.
Suppose the Taliban do over-run Pakistan.The worst case.
So what’s India going to do? Sit idly buy as the Taliban take over Pakistan’s nukes?
Of course not. Such an outcome would be very welcome to india’s military as it would give them the excuse to remove Pakistan as a military power for 50 years by bombing their military into radioactive waste.
So first straw argument collapses.
All the rest is bullsh1t and wishful thinking. If we cannot invade Pakistan and stop the flow of fighters we will be fighting a guerilla war for the next 50 years.
There is absolutely zero chance of a military victory…
110, the Taliban can’t win an open fight with the Pakistani army today, but they don’t need to.
In the short term, Pakistani politicians could do deals with the Taliban, and other religious extremists, buying their support at too high a price.
In the long term, if the extremists become established in the areas where the army recruits, preaching that men should only fight in jihad, not for a secular state, then the Pakistani army will soon cease to be an effective bulwark. When the majority of your potential recruits are religious zealots, implacably opposed to the existence of a secular state, you’ve got real problems.
Hopefully, Pakistan will be able to avoid both scenarios, but complacency is dangerous.
130. Which is which?
“the troops are individually equipped pretty optimally (arguably better than the Americans) and the improved armoured vehicles and helicopters are coming through”
“”We have destroyed 2 tanks, fighter planes, 2 helicopters and their shovels - We have driven them back.” “
re tim @ 1005, yes the Atlee government was robbed too
126, you’re right, it’s entirely down to Thatcher and the coincidence that decades have elapsed since her era and the incumbent Prime Minister and decade-long Chancellor altered the regulatory system are mere distractions.
I maintain that you, sir, are a villainous florist.
133 Gordon apologises for something that happened when he was 1yrs old and the victim is dead.
Well that’ll make a big difference, nice and safe though. Oh and he was a WW2 hero and gay - shame he wasn’t from an ethnic minority.
Perhaps GB will take notice of another No 10 petition
Mr Simpson said that voters were increasingly venting anger on the doorstep when activists attempt to promote New Labour policies.
He said that the party was facing “certain defeat” at the general election next year unless it adopts a more left wing “Old Labour” agenda.
“If you want to go down the New Labour route it is suicide,” he told the Daily Mirror.
“People are sick to the back teeth of that approach. Our people are being told to ‘—- off’ on doorsteps by people who would historically be Labour supporters.
“New Labour is dead. It’s like the parrot in Monty Python. Anybody who is going to take over and lead us down that path is taking us to certain defeat.”
He called for Gordon Brown to stand aside as leader and suggested that Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary whose older brother David is Foreign Secretary, should take over.
His remarks represent a serious blow for the Prime Minister. Mr Simpson’s union, formed from the merger of the Transport and General Workers Union and Amicus, has more than two million members and is a major donor to Labour.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/6171887/New-Labour-is-dead-like-Monty-Python-parrot—Derek-Simpson.html
123. The US offered Pakistan the technology to build PALs into their weapon system, but that is essentially immaterial to the security of such weapons from the Taliban. PALs are about command authority to use an assembled weapon. The Taliban would still need to steal one in the first place, and there’s no reason to think there was ever much chance of that happening, and once they have stolen it the PAL is of little value if it is removed or bypassed, or the weapon disassembled for its plutonium.
A technical measure to prevent unauthorised detonation of a nuclear bomb should be a much lower priority than preventing them being stolen in the first place.
It’s also worth remembering that out nuclear weapons don’t have such security features, but nobody seems to worry about that.
109
Ah! but its a, ‘price worth paying’
141 ScottP - softening up Gordon before lunch me thinks…
Since we were all remembering the good old days of Tony, seriously, were the Labour party high when they replaced him with Gordon?
http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2009/09/makes-you-proud-to-be-british-part-94.html#links
141 “Our people are being told to ‘—- off’ on doorsteps by people who would historically be Labour supporters.”
heh heh
Interesting Simpson’s looking beyond the usual suspects.
145 Tony was a ‘terrible electoral liability’…
Anyone with two braincells to rub together could see Gordon isn’t PM material media wise - even before the sky fell in.
It goes back to hatred clouding judgement.
139
Removing Controls. Immediately after taking office the Government removed many of
the damaging controls and restrictions – on prices, dividends and incomes – that limited
the wealth-creating capacity of the British economy. The abolition of exchange controls
in 1979 opened up a whole new range of investment opportunities for those who wished
to invest abroad; and, by improving the rate of return on investment in the UK, it also
encouraged foreign investment in this country. The ending of controls on banks and
building societies, particularly those governing consumer credit and the composition of
banks’ assets have widened consumer choice and brought an end to mortgage ‘rationing’.
‘Big Bang’, the deregulation of Britain’s financial markets in October 1986, has given our
financial services sector the freedom it needs to maintain and enhance London’s role as a
world leader in this field.
Conservative Campaign guide 1989, where it all began.
124 - I note you filter out any military opinion that claims equipment is not a major issue.
But of course that opinion will be filtered back in if there is a Conservative Government
130. Actually maybe Comical Ali wasn’t always wrong…
“The British forces which were dropped there have been eliminated mostly on the (battle)field, except for those who fled … It is a complete defeat … Amazingly the Americans have pushed the British to do that. They pushed them ahead as if it is an experiment. The result was very tragic for the British.”
146 Mr Simpson also threatened Labour back in the summer ‘no blank cheques’ for campaigning.
Could we refrain from lending a helping hand to Tim’s little wankfest?
147 - It does, i remember seeing a Labour party activist on newsnight back in 2006 saying pretty much that Labour won in 1997, 2001 and 2005 thanks to the Labour movement, and Tony Blair was a hinderance, and they would have got an even bigger majority in 1997 if they had someone else instead of Blair.
Actually Stuart the English chose to be governed by Mr Howard last time.”
Chris-have you forgotten to take your pills this morning? Naughty boy!
I can’t believe no one has made a joke about Nick Clegg and withdrawal method, and why he managed not to get the 30women pregnant
Gordon Brown should be replaced by Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband if he can’t pull Labour out of its current polling woes, the boss of Britain’s biggest union warned today.
Derek Simpson, joint general secretary of the Unite union, said that the credit crunch had left New Labour as dead as a “Monty Python parrot” but Mr Brown had failed to change party policy to reflect voters’ concerns.
Mr Simpson said that “the answer is to change the policies of the Labour Party and if necessary change the people of the Labour Party”. Mr Miliband, 39, “has potential to be a lot more progressive”, he added.
His words came as the Prime Minister held a crunch meeting with 15 union leaders at Chequers today, part of a move to reassure Labour’s paymasters ahead of next week’s TUC conference.
It also emerged that union leaders are beginning to back electoral reform as a last-gasp way of stopping David Cameron getting to Number 10.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23743020-details/Union+leader+backs+Ed+Miliband+to+lead+Labour+after+Brown/article.do
148. So is the next Labour manifesto based on “we will sort out anything we haven’t got round to in the last 12 years”
?
A ringing endorsement
Good morning to all those Taliban hunters that wouldn’t say boo to a goose. Here are some facts:
1. The Taliban won’t be defeated by a Nato response that is half hearted at best, (cant see any German, Danish, Dutch or Belgian fighting troops), and lacks any leadership at the top.
2. Most Taniban have their main hideouts and secret lairs on the Pakistan side of the border with the full acquiescence of the Pakistani Security Services. (Amazing how SS keeps cropping up all over the world; well perhaps not.
3. Afghanistan is still a Tribal society in the main, and it still has the politics of the clans, (something like 17th century Scotland, Stewart), and will remain impervious to modern DEMOCRATIC polling.
For all these reasons and much more, Afghanistan is a losing proposition for any government to take on, let alone our inept British one.
99. david (s) - “If so [the Lib Dems] will be letting go over 500 seats, will their vote in these seats go and who will it polarise around.”
That is a very, very good question. And a very, very important one: where will the LD vote go in the non-LD-target seats (ie. 90% of the seats)?
The SNP are licking their lips in several areas, as the significant LD vote has melted like snow off a dyke. Without Charlie Kennedy, the LD vote - outwith LD seats - is as soft as Softy Walter.
156 - Ed will be leader if Brown stays and loses the election.
156. The air of desperation is palpable, isn’t it?
In an interview with the Guardian, Simpson claimed that Brown too often “behaved like a rabbit in the headlights, suffering a paralysis for fear his colleagues are going to whip the knives out and stab him
“That does not lead you to have a confident stance if you are not sure where the knife is coming from,” he said. “Too often he is like a rabbit in the headlights, frightened of his back, his front and frightened of his side, and then something drops on his head.“. Simpson also said that half the parliamentary party and the cabinet “already think we have lost the next election.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/10/union-leaders-warn-gordon-brown
160. Ironic if he takes over as PM in 2015 just as the lights go out due to his inept provision for power generation…
107. penddu - “Kirsty Williams came in as a fresh face with lots of promise, but since then has almost diappeared without a trace!!!”
That’ll be why I (a total politics geek) had never heard of her!
162 ScottP - oh dear.
Mr Simpson really isn’t a happy chappy, is he?
I think Gordon may not enjoy his lunch.
141. Looks like there could be something in URW’s tip yesterday on Mr Ed (Miliband) as next Labour leader with Labour’s paymasters coming in favour.
142
But this would not be the ‘Taliban’ stealing a weapon, just as A Q Khan did not sell Nuke know-how on behalf of the Pakistani government.
Alliances would shift and a faction within the army would become affiliated to a Religio/Political faction and Weapon(s) would move seamlessly from notional government possession to notional ‘opposition’ possession, without physically changing hands. The people who would launch the device still have the weapon - only they decide who to give it to
This is Schrodinger’s cat, but when the box is open we see whose finger is on the button.
156.
Replace Brown with Ed Milliband. I watched him recently in the commons when he stood in for Alistair Darling, who was on a trip to Washington. He was appalling absolutely appaling, George Osborne wipe the floor with him !
If the Unions are telling Labour that “New Labour” is dead and should return to Old Labour left policies then it really is going to be curtains for Labour !
166. Is this a back the Millipede movement?
Derek Simpson’s comments will make uncomfortable reading for any Labour MP or activist but are little more than sabre rattling.
It remains to be seen if he or any of the Union big wigs actually carry out their threat to withhold funding Labour’s GE campaign.
160 tim - I wouldn’t put it quite as confidently as that, but for a while I’ve been thinking Ed M is under-priced. Best offer seems to be on SPIN; a buy at the current 1.5 corresponds to decimal 16.67.
168 - Come on Wayne, you know Gideon has staff to wipe the floor for him.
158
Point 3
And the same politics through its Tribal Areas, infects Pakistan.
Talking about Ed Milliband, which Milliband was Sion Simon talking about when he said the following. Was it Ed or David, or both?
“The young princes who now stride the parade ground with the confidence born of aristocratic schooling can never be afraid. They never have been. Like latter day Pushkins drilled in the elite academy of Brownian blitzkrieg, they are bursting with their sense of destiny. It’s not the Milibands, the Ballses or the Burnhams who are unconsciously nervous. This is the moment for which they were created. They are ready.”
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/conference/2007/09/labour-majority-increase
171 - Who else has markets up?
Hills have taken theirs down after we moved Darlings price yesterday.
Rover bosses’ pay ‘unreasonable’
The executives running carmaker MG Rover when it collapsed gave themselves “unreasonably large” payments, an independent report has said.
But who sold this Company to them for a nominal £1 each? LABOUR, that’s who. :shocked:
170 SSC Indeed he is - unfortunately for Gordon, Mr Simpson has a very large sabre and a gob to match.
I wouldn’t be the tiniest bit surprised if he pushed Gordon all the way to the line - extracting concession after concession out of him.
Simpson will be around for a long time after Gordon has gone - and Gordon needs him a lot more than Mr Simpson needs Gordon, i.e. not at all.
Not the world’s strongest negotiating position.
171. Betfair has a market but the spreads are wide
Selected :
Purnell at 15.5
Mandy at 40
Burnham at 30
Cooper at 21
I’m not absolutely 100%, but I think Derek Simpson continues to be a rather influential person within the Labour movement.
At conference, he is barely off the platform. That may count for nothing of course, but he does seem to get about and has the ear of various important people. So I would take what he says quite seriously from a punting perspective even if you may not agree with him.
170. The unions are in the same boat as traditional Labour voters. As long as they’re glacially loyal to the Labour party then they effectively disenfranchise themselves and everyone can ignore them.
176. shouldn’t it read:
The MPs running Britain when it collapsed gave themselves “unreasonably large” expense and pension payments, an independent report has said.
madasafish the main thrust for withdrawl from Afghanistan will be cost. Or rather a lack of cost effectiveness.
That is what has happened again and again to our forays into that place. The people, the terrain, the global position all make it a terrible place for the conventional military.
The line that our security starts in Kabul is just that: bull.
Our security starts at home and who we let into that home and how they behave, how our own family behave and how they contribute to the family security.
The Taliban were never a terrorist threat to the UK, but their guests, Al Qeada, were.
The relationship between the two hardline organisations is changing. The Taliban are beginning to distance themselves from Al Qeada as they realise that the military action from the west will not ease until the threat to their interests is removed.
Who doubts that if Al Qeada (including their clones) is forced out of Afghanistan and the Pakistan border lands, that the west will be tempted to pull out?
So if we make that more and more explicit on one hand with the military threat on the other, the Taliban may shift position even more. Surely that is why there is occasional talk of negotiating with the Taliban?
Pakistan’s problem with the Taliban is a connected yet separate issue, and it is theirs not ours. Pakistan becoming a haven for terrorism against the west is our problem but do a deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan will help that too.
We cannot solve the problems in that region. No way. So why spend more wealth and lives to achieve the unachievable rather than the limited goal originally envisaged: removing Aghanistan as a terrorist base and support point.
171 tim - Bet365, VCbet, Paddy Power, Stan James, Ladbrokes, Coral. But they all have Ed M at 10.0 or 9.0.
145.
So, Tony Blair backs the Megrahi release. The list grows.
I wonder if Gordon does?
181. The company was gifted to asset-strippers for short-term political reasons. It’s the most appalling scandal.
176/181. Taxpayer value “unreasonable” ? Ministers saw an easy get out for their nearby MPs when they sold the company to the group that wasn’t going to cut jobs before the 2005 GE.
Interesting the government aren’t focussing on this bit of the rover report
“There was evidence of a questionable briefing to the press by an adviser to the former Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt”
183 Correction: Decimal 10.0 or 11.0
179 He certainly is and was also the big wheel for Labourlist funding too.
If you’re interested in union manoeuvrings - this blog is excellent
http://renelavanchy.wordpress.com/
184 - Stuart, you’ve been told many times, “It’s a matter for the Scottish executive”
Gordon is irrelevant in this matter. As he is in so many other matters.
Simpson also said that half the parliamentary party and the cabinet “already think we have lost the next election.”
What on earth do the other half think…?!
172.
Tim,
I must admit I’m not Osborne’s biggest fan (having the same surname and all) yet I’m not joking I went into the gallery to watch the budget finance debate and Darling had dashed off to Washington leaving Ed Milliband “to it” he appeared really very nervous and not upto it.
Can I say that you have made some really good points re. Afghanistan this morning. Pakistan is a big big problem
174
Looks like both miliblands.
I can’t make up my mind whether to picture them in powder blue, camomile green or blush pink uniforms: all with lots of gold braid and calf-length black boots, plus the little matching Kepis - and not to forget the obligatory swagger stick - very Ruritanian and more camp than the coffee.
Of course, Ed Miliband, like his brother David, would never challenge Gordon Brown, so we are probably talking about a post-Brown vacancy in the by-no-means certain event of a Labour defeat. And he may well anyway not run if his older brother does so. He is ultra-modest, and loathes talking about such hypotheticals.
But that crucial momentum is gathering behind him is — whether he likes it or not — no longer in doubt.
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/public-accounts/2009/09/miliband-tipped-influential
189 Well you never know for sure. Outside the set piece speeches…
The size of the splash someone makes at conference is inversely proportional to the real influence they actually have. If you want to get on the platform at conference you’re usually desperate.
195. “If you want to get on the platform at conference you’re usually desperate.”
Gordo ?
195 - The size of the splash someone makes at conference is inversely proportional to the real influence they actually have.
Not always
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh8ktNsie0I
196. Will Sarah be on stage this year - or too busy twittering..
193. I hope that mental image also included trousers
“inversely proportional to the real influence they actually have”
Sorry, ain’t buying that baloney.
167. “But this would not be the ‘Taliban’ stealing a weapon, just as A Q Khan did not sell Nuke know-how on behalf of the Pakistani government.
Alliances would shift and a faction within the army would become affiliated to a Religio/Political faction and Weapon(s) would move seamlessly from notional government possession to notional ‘opposition’ possession, without physically changing hands. The people who would launch the device still have the weapon - only they decide who to give it to
This is Schrodinger’s cat, but when the box is open we see whose finger is on the button.”
If you can’t trust the Pakistani military then you can’t trust the technical measures. The technical measures aren’t magic, those measures ultimately rely on people doing their job to correctly implement and control them. If you worry about the military being subverted by the Taliban the issues of security and launch authority is moot.
It is anyway an unanswerable conundrum, how do we know that the people with their fingers on the buttons haven’t already switched allegiance?
I follow your argument but you can see how such hypothesising can quickly become a zero-evidence justification for immediate action if you wanted it to.
Derek Simpson thinks New Labour is dead and Ed Miliband should be leader?
In the spirit of the Labour Lemmings attacks on David Cameron - personally responsible for Black Wednesday, Simpson thinks that the man who was chairman of the economic council repsonsible for the ‘long-term planning’ of the UK economy and chief adviser to Crash Gordon should take over in the middle of recession with Labour’s crippling national debt top of the future doozies?
Nice One Simpson, clear evidence why the unions lost their influence, they haven’t a Scooby.
Nice to see another name on the revolving carousel of ‘SAVE US!’
202. Perhaps he wants an advance on the “union modernisation fund” incase that tap dries up next June..
141. ScottP
Here is the full Mirror Exclusive that the Telegraph nicked:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/09/11/new-labour-is-like-the-monty-python-parrot-dead-115875-21664252/
203 Brownism is dead, bring in a fresh Brownite!!!!
Derek Simpson, Homer’s thicko brother
This puts Chris Graylings “Wire” bullshit into context.
South African police adopt shoot to kill policy ahead of World Cup
Police in South Africa have adopted a new “shoot to kill” policy called “You will soil your pants, criminal” to deal with armed lawbreakers ahead of next year’s football World Cup.
203 - I’m surprised Gordon hasn’t cut out the middleman a started paying the “Union modernisation Fund” directly into Labour’s bank account, it would blunt Simpson’s sabre somewhat.
Why would Clegg say we should pull out of a UN mandated mission incorporating a host odf NATO allies?
Is he thick?
Oh yes I see ….
Afghanistan can be won with the right leadership and commitment. It will not be easy and it will take time. All the Western nations need to bring this commitment. And it is right for politicians to call for this and to demand more urgent action. it is right for politicians to question the status quo. But to say get out for shallow opportunistic reasons, ignoring wider strategic implications, is just cheap politics.
All the public want to know is that the task given our troops is a fair one and they will be properly equipped and not overstretched. The other issue is that our military learn the lessons of the war quickly and that the whole of the MoD effort is focussed on this war and not fancy toys for a fictional future war.
198.
If she does lets hope she doesn’t use the same phrase
“Welcome on Stage My Husband, your Prime Minister”
How sickening that was. He might be her husband but that f4cking clown is not our Prime Minister. Blair was ellected prime minister and said he was staying for 5 years. What an utter con this Labour lot have been. The public haven’t forgotten this broken promise, its the core reason why Brown is loathed. HE HAS NO DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED REASON TO BE PM !
198 - Get ready for SamCam overkill.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/6169482/Samantha-Cameron-stylish-professional-and-very-powerful.html
In the kitchen, David Cameron specialises in hearty meals: slow-cooked stews and big joints
We knew that already, but everyones entitled to a private life.
Its rumoured that on Black Wednesday Dave was found chopping onions on top of the cistern.
206 South Africa, beacon of hope.
MODERATED
205 Derek’s not as daft as he looks.
“According to figures obtained by The Times, Derek Simpson, joint general secretary of Unite, received £89,035 in benefits on top of his £105,217 salary in 2007 - giving him the largest package of any general secretary. His total pay and perks, including pension, housing benefit, employers’ national insurance and car benefit, worked out at £194,252.”
[209] - He retains, remarkably, the confidence of the House of Commons. Ergo he is legitimately, and democratically, PM. We don’t have directly elected PMs.
213 Oh he is still a thicko, he is just a massive hypocrite as well. And he has a face that only a mutha could love.
214 Timothy - I wouldn’t go so far as to accuse Labour MPs of retaining confidence in Gordon Brown.
Afghanistan can be won with the right leadership and commitment.
by TrevorsDen September 11th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Trevor, please define ‘win’.
[213] - Undoubtedly Union leaders are vastly overpaid, but is it really fair to include “employers’ national insurance” as part of his overall package?
209
Strange I don’t remember this argument being used against, Macmillan,Home,Callaghan,Major. If Queenie accepts the nomination of the HofC that person is PM. If you are calling for the monarch to be removed from the loop and the PM to be directly elected, please say so.
[216] - Perhaps not. It’s a bit of a problem with our democracy that they can so manifestly lose confidence in the PM, and yet the chance of a successful motion of no confidence must be pretty much zero.
So it’s only in the technical sense that he retains the confidence of the House.
Anyone know off-hand when the last no confidence motion was tabled?
Ed Millibad? heh heh
219 The tenuous nature of the British system makes it all the more likely he will pay his price at the ballot box, deliciously enough.
212. Moderated
Mike,
Can you explain why when you allow obscene and excessive amounts of abuse by other favourites ?
201
But that is the point. The military are bound up in Pakistani politics.
Pakistan moves from military dictatorship to democracy and back to dictatorship because of endemic corruption - or even accusations of corruption. And the military themselves are not a homogeneous grouping.
Musharref, put in place by a group within the armed forces, at the end could not count on the support of that same group.
219 - Wonder what Queenie will say next June?
Hello me old muckas?
From the Telegraph puff piece.
SamCam (her mother Annabel Astor is co-founder of mail-order furniture company Oka, while her father is the wealthy Old Etonian Sir Reginald Sheffield, a direct descendant of King Charles II, who owns 3,000 acres of Lincolnshire farmland)
From Wiki
DaveCam Cameron is a direct descendant of Queen Victoria’s uncle and predecessor on the throne, King William IV (4th great-grandfather) and his mistress Dorothea Jordan (and thus 5th cousin, twice removed of Queen Elizabeth II)
http://www.plaidcymru.org/content.php?nID=156;lID=1
“In the future, Plaid Cymru aims to implement a more progressive tax system, with a greater number of income tax bands and a 50% rate of tax on incomes above £50,000 a year. We will scrap the unjust council tax and replace it with a fair local income tax. We will strengthen the links between higher and further education and economic activity, provide up-to-date training opportunities and take action to ensure that there is broadband access for business in all parts of Wales. We will provide improved north-south links with good public transport.”
225 nice to see some quality in our Conservative politicians. Those ghastly socialists and their whippets and pigeons are just too much to take.
225, I agree, Mr. Cameron would be a far more intesting fellow to be featured in the next series of Who Do You Think You Are? than Mr. Brown.
221 ” 221.Ed Millibad(sic)? heh heh ”
Leaving the poor spelling and the faulty punctuation aside,Slackbladder….was that a serious political comment or a serious political BETTING comment ?
We need to be told before committing our hard-earned.
225 “One is well chuffed…”
225 - Hopefully, Queenie will say “Now I am no longer the deputy prime minister, I resign my peerage”.
As has been said on here many times, Cameron has real class.
231 *CLAPS*
The only real qualification required to be PM, is to prove that you are able to command a majority in the Commons on Finance bills. That’s it.
If you want a directly elected executive that’s something quite different to what we have. And there are definitely arguments for it.
228 - After moving into No10, Cameron’s first act will be to remove all the Dralon covered furniture that’s accumulated over the past 12 years.
Oh why don’t you just give up tim! The SA policy is one by your favourite political party the luvvy luvvy ANC.
That policy born of a crime situation which kills more people in SA than were being killed in Iraq at the height of the insurgency and the situation arises from actions or lack of them by the saint Mandela.
All of which has nothing to do with the historically shocking state of crime and murder in the UK.
Turing?
If one man can be said to have won WW2 it was him. In truth one man in all probability cannot, but his contribution was immense and he was also one of the greatest mathematicians in our history.
In those circumstances what was allowed to happen to him was one of the greatest disgraces and shames on our nation that it is possible to think of.
The campaign for some sort of apology or recognition that we did wrong by him is well founded and whatever you want to call it saying sorry in some shape or form is long long overdue.
We should go much further. We need to protect and preserve Bletchely Park and salute Turings achievement and those of his fellow codebreakers and engineers. Tommy Flowers being one.
In my opinion Trafalgar Square should be reconfigured to represent our naval heroes and The ’spare’ plinth should be put to proper use, rather than self indulgent publicity seeking, and given over to the victors of the Battle of the Atlantic.
228 Mr Brown’s antecedents contain more of the better off than he would like people to know.
226 …..and make sure badgers are eliminated from our green and pleasant valleys.
Conservatives have a projected 16% national vote over Labour after last nights local by’s;
http://www.24dash.com/news/Local_Government/2009-09-11-Labour-makes-headway-in-latest-council-by-elections
By various circumstances, the war in Afghanistan has become about the integrity of the Western Alliance and particualrly our relationship with the Americans. Thanks to our failures in Iraq and Helmand (thanks to poor leadership from both the military and the politicians and lack of investment), we have become tied to the American mission.
If we pull out before the Americans do, we will lose all credibility in Washington for decades. Maybe that’s no bad thing as many people think we have spent too much time and money pretending to still be a world power, but a British withdrawal would have profound consequences for us and Europe.
Do we imagine that if we pull out any of the other European powers (whom we persuaded to make this a major NATO mission) are going to hand around for long? That means the end of NATO as an effective force and the Americans giving up on Europe. One of the main reasons European countries are able to spend so much on social security is because they don’t have to spend much on defence.
I dont think the UK or the world will be a safer place if we pack up and go home as a military power (which is what withdrawal from Afghanistan will mean).
Afghanistan isn’t about the Taliban or al-Qaeda, human rights or Pakistan anymore, its about the Western Alliance and everyone advocating withdrawal needs to realise that. There is no pain-free exit.
236
Capt. ‘Johnnie’ Walker.
227 - Theres definitely a Royal Equine thing going on.
http://www.freakingnews.com/pictures/33000/Prince-Charles-Princess-Anne–33213.jpg
http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m3/mar2008/1/8/EAA1DE73-E52F-D308-BA3B2793F6C0EBD8.jpg
No bloody racing pigeons there.
Tally Ho.
Self-awareness award of the day! or not…
Lord Mandelson said the Phoenix Four, the former bosses of MG Rover, should show some humility and apologise in the wake of a report into the carmaker’s collapse, which they have dismissed as a “witch hunt”.
“I think it’s breathtaking that they should show such brass necked nerve in trying to claim that this report is some kind of whitewash or witch hunt. We haven’t seen an ounce of humility from them today,” he said.
“They don’t accept any responsibility, they don’t give any account of their actions or what they did.”
http://page.politicshome.com/uk/phoenix_four_should_show_humility_and_apologise_says_mandelson.html
re 220 Timothy (LZ) the last one seems to have been in the HoL on 1/12/93 and the last one in the HoC on 23/7/93 over Maastricht. Details here
236, one of my recent ancestors (two or three generations before me) worked at Bletchley Park. She died before they started handing out the medals though.
236 - “If one man can be said to have won WW2 it was him.”
You have quite an anglo-centric view of history. What happened to Turing was wrong because of what happened not because it happened to someone who was vital to Britain’s war effort. It was no more or less wrong than similar cases taken against other men over the years.
he survival of a language depends on a complex combination of social, educational, economic and political factors. Wales needs a new Welsh Language Act which will give the Welsh language full official status and will establish specific linguistic rights for Welsh speakers. Plaid Cymru has already extended the number of bodies that will now comply with the current Welsh Language Act and is in the process of securing the right to legislate further on matters relating to the Welsh Language.
· The post of Welsh Language Commissioner must be established.
· The provision of Welsh-medium education must be expanded and consolidated.
81: Morris Dancer
http://www.plaidcymru.org/content.php?nID=173;lID=1
“In the future, Plaid aims to ensure further opportunities for use of the Welsh language in the workplace. We believe that a long-term timetable should be drawn up to change the administrative language of the local authorities in Ceredigion, Anglesey, and Carmarthenshire to Welsh as they already make fairly substantial use of the language. We aim to create a Professional Welsh Qualification giving career value to learning Welsh.”
A few people have shor memories when it comes to the constitution. You don’t have to be an MP to be PM or in the Cabinet. You don’t have to be in the Lords either - we’ve had non-MP/Lord Cabinet Ministers before, and Home having resigned his peerage was neither a Lord nor an MP as Prime Minister.
Nor is the PM elected by anyone other than their constituents. “Unelected” PMs include Major, Callaghan, Home, MacMillan, Eden etc etc.
The obvious candidate to take over from Brown in the short term is Mandy. He can do it from the Lords for a few months before the election. Who else is there? Johnson doesn’t want it. Neither Milliband is capable. Straw is the new Howard (utterly loathsome).
Ultimately this is why there will be no coup. There is noone else for the role apart from mandy, and the PLP hates him more than Brown.
I was told one of the curiosities of the Enigma machine was that the patent for it was sitting in the London Patent Office during the war, but people didn’t know at the time. Not sure how true this is, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
248 You forgot HH.
249 Jonathan - There was definitely a patent. I’m not sure, though, whether the codebreakers knew about it. But if I recall correctly, thanks to the Poles, the physical arrangement of the machine was known quite early.
249. “one of the curiosities of the Enigma machine was that the patent for it was sitting in the London Patent Office during the war,”
Very probably true, but not materially important. Like any good cipher, the operating mechanism of the machine was not a secret.
229: If we’re going to ban all jokes and banter on here then cut 90% of the comments. If OGH wishes that then he can inform me himself. Until then I will continue my whimsy and light-heartedness.
Interesting you picked me up…and not the many many of tim’s contributions.
247, I fail to see why taxpayers should fund signs twice the size to accommodate a minority language when the majority language is comprehended by everyone.
246. The whole thing seems utterly pointless as he apparently has no surviving family either.
Will the next step be to apologise to all the descendents of those women executed for witchcraft or heresy, or those with ancestors hanged for petty thefts?
Go for a General Election Gord,you know it makes sense!
Labour gained in the latest council by-elections, taking one seat from the Green Party and narrowly missing another.
Its candidate Lynn Senior triumphed at Leicester’s Castle ward, where the representation was split between the two parties in the 2007 main polls.
Labour failed by just 127 votes at Westoe, South Tyneside Borough where the independent vote slumped.
Labour failed to advance in overall vote share, with analysis of five comparable results putting Tories a projected 16.5% ahead, in line with recent opinion polls.
There were not enough wards fought both times by Liberal Democrats to make a calculation of their support.
In a disappointment for Tories, they failed at Cheadle and Gatley, Stockport Borough, Greater Manchester, where they won another ward seat last year.
Independent Community and Health Concern, the group represented in the Commons by Dr Richard Taylor, headed off a Conservative challenge at Lickhill, Wyre Forest District, Worcestershire.
Lib Dems came from fourth place to cut Labour’s majority at Heworth, York City.
Counting takes place today for two further by-elections at Daventry District, Northamptonshire.
217. I’m sure the Russians felt the same way when they went in, in 1979, and the British in 1839 and 1878 and 1919.
Oh wait…
248. Ian Bailey
You are quite right of course and by all means make your Brown appointee the appointed Prime Minister. After all I’m sure the country will welcome yet another unelected officiary imposed on them by the Labour Party.
It will be a reminder to us all that at its heart Labour is a beacon of democratic choice and liberty and a shining example of what the Mother of all Parliaments has to offer in modern times. It would be a move of the same quality as those of the last two years.
Please please please manipulate the system once again so that we can take on Peter ‘three chances, two titles, 1 empire, 10 jobs’ Mandelson (I know its not as good as “three houses, two jags and two shags” but hey Mandy can’t win em all)
Bring it on!
I see the SE has failed to live down to the gloomsters predictions, back to 3500 by August, errr ’shurely shome mistake’.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23742936-details/Footsie+%27to+smash+5500+barrier%27+as+London+bounces+back+from+disaster/article.do
255 Pointless? I’m not sure I agree. Given his contribution to computing, arguably Turing would have had a shot one-day of appearing on a British £10/10Euro note.
We have to celebrate people who made such a contribution to our society. This is the first step. Meanwhile, his story is horrible and one I think we should be reminded of.
258 Are you, or anyone else, proposing a directly elected executive? I might have missed it. Might be popular.
254. That’ll be because a large majority of people in wales support bilingualism and giving the two languages equal status.
Wales isn’t weird in this. Go to Belgium, Canada etc. etc.
Despite the protestations of some on both sides who care passionately about these things, language issues really aren’t massively politically divisive in Wales any more.
260. But what about all the other gay men who also suffered from the law in the past?
But this isnt 1839 or even 1979. After 8 years no one should underestimate the difficulties of achieving our objectives in Afghanistan, but the establishment of a viable state that won’t permit itself to act as a springboard for global terorrism is not beyond the ability of America and its allies.
We are already doing a lot better than any previous foreign intervention in Afghanistan, as we havent been booted out yet and havent taken or inflicted anything like the casulaties suffered in previous incursions.
262: One would question however how many people understand only Welsh, and not english. However in places like Canada you would have a signifigant population which only knew English, or only knew French.
262 - Belgium is not bi-lingual, except Brussels. It is two monolingual regions side by side. The equivalent here would be Welsh-only road signs in Wales (and probably a huge increase in traffic accidents!)
259 - Spare a thought for SeanT of this Parish, who took propert advice from the Tory doomsters on here.
James Hyman, head of residential sales at Cluttons estate agency said: “September 15 was the nail in the coffin of London’s property market.
For anybody not sure whether to buy a property after the collapse of Northern Rock and the weakening economy, Lehman Brothers finally made up their mind.
“But now the market has done an incredible U-turn. Since January, you are seeing a 15 per cent to 20 per cent uplift.
Prices have probably now plateaued for the next six months but we will see lots more properties coming on to the central London market.”
I wonder if Sean could sue?
263 A general posthumous apology would be valid, but I think Turing’s achievements make him an exceptional case. You probably wouldn’t be typing away now on pb.com without him.
Cnadian biligualism leads to some odd situations. Years ago the Canadian Post issues a stamp to commemorate the writer Lucy Montgomery. It depicted her most famous character, ‘Anne of Green Gables’ and, as all Canadian stamps have to be bilingual, carefully captioned it “Anne of Green Gables, Anne de Green Gables”. A bit like ‘Ambulance/Ambiwlans’ really.
268 Turing was certainly one of the greatest Englishmen of the twentieth century.
However, more important than symbolic apologies, which won’t change an injustice done half a century ago, it would be preferable for Brown to address the injustices being perpetrated today by his government, such as the Gary McKinnon and Ian Norris cases.
251. Yes there was a patent as the Enigma was a commercial design with each power creating a variation of that. The original design was from Sweden if I remember correctly. The British also used Enigma as the basis of the Typex machine. The Japanese Magic cypher was also based on Enigma. Actually this isn’t as foolish as it sounds since in a good cyper all the security is in the key exchange. Enigma was first broken by the Poles before the war, but the Germans then changed their design to make that method no longer work.
You can rely on Lib Dems to be unprincipled, unpatriotic, opprtunistic and cowardly, so you’re probably right.
270 - Labour politicians only apologise for things other people have done.
268. I see - and would you extend this policy of apologising to everyone who suffered in the past when social attitudes were different to all the myriad other groups and individuals it could encompass?
There’s a huge difference between correcting or acknowledging miscarriages of justice and seeking to rewrite the law retrospectively. If you apply today’s standards to the past in this way you may as well pardon everyone convicted of any offence at all - after all, apart from the unfairness of many laws, court procedures were decidedly dodgy as well.
236
Quite right, look at the sort of lefty luvvy who snuggles up to Mandela.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1030356/David-Cameron-stockinged-feet-legend.html
p.s.
Do you still have the Tshirt?
264. “We”? I take it you’re presently serving in HM Armed Forces?
I’m sure we can all agree that this politician should apologise for his whole existence before he dies.
In 1976 David Waddington QC led the defence in the trial of Stefan Kiszko; a case that would become one of the most notorious miscarriage of justice in recent years. The British tax clerk from Rochdale, who was convicted of the murder of 12-year-old Lesley Molseed, would go on to serve 16 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. This was because Kiszko’s defence team made significant mistakes. Firstly, they did not seek an adjournment when the Crown delivered thousands of pages of additional unused material on the first morning of the trial. Secondly, in court, Waddington maintained the inconsistent defence of diminished responsibility which Kiszko had never authorised.[2] Kiszko was finally released in 1992 after the Court of Appeal was told forensic evidence showed that he could not have been the murderer. Ironically, Kiszko’s appeal was first lodged on the day Waddington was announced as the new Home Secretary in 1989.
276. No, I used the term “We” to refer to our country’s effort in Afghanistan and those of our allies.
Ah I see we have yet another new smear target today
Greetings mortals. Just a flying visit to announce some earth shattering political news, there may soon be a political betting opportunity in my own neck of the woods. St Helens council are to “consult” on having an elected mayor with a decision to be made by December. If they decide to go with the elected mayor then they would be elected along with May’s local/general election. I believe that other authorities in the area have been “invited” to look at the idea but I don’t know which ones.
[244] - Thanks Chris A!
It’s striking that all previous changes of government were preceded by confidence motions!
If Brown calls a snap election before Cameron can table such a motion he’s a nailed-on certainty to thwart a Tory majority!
210. Is she introducing her husband to conference? How many followers has she got on Twitter?
Or am I confusing SamCam with another leader’s wife?
277 why tim? Should all people who make a mistake in their jobs apologise for their ‘whole existence’? Or is it just because he later became a Conservative politician that you felt the need to post that?
277; tim drags another target from the database.
Tell me, was the same evidence available in 1976 as in 1992? Forensics change a lot over time.
264 “After 8 years no one should underestimate the difficulties of achieving our objectives in Afghanistan, but the establishment of a viable state that won’t permit itself to act as a springboard for global terorrism is not beyond the ability of America and its allies.”
8 years ago maybe. I think the US is too broke now and that’s before we find out if there’s more nasty economic shocks to come.
Oops, looks like Gordon is breaking the rules. From Paul Waugh:
UPDATE: The PM’s spokesman refused to brief in detail on the Chequers meeting, claiming it was a “political” meeting. When I asked why it was being held at Chequers (tax-payer funded), he said that other meetings with the CBI were held there.
FURTHER UPDATE: Number 10 have now corrected the PM’s spokesman, pointing out that the Chequers meeting was indeed “government” business rather than “political” business.
Oh yes? That’s not what the Grauniad thinks:
Gordon Brown is being warned by union leaders at a rare private meeting in Chequers that he needs to throw caution to the wind or see Labour slide to an election defeat. The prime minister is to meet as many as 15 union leaders today ahead of next week’s TUC conference and the imminent Labour party conference.
286 cue another 5 days of Gordon wanting everyone to be clear there is no question of any impropriety on his part. Just like with his expenses.
284 - Yes.
The forensic evidence was available at the time
Kiszko’s defence team made significant mistakes. Firstly, they did not seek an adjournment when the Crown delivered thousands of pages of additional unused material on the first morning of the trial.
Then there was the inconsistent defence of diminished responsibility which Kiszko never authorised, on the grounds that the testosterone he was receiving for his hypogonadism might have made him behave unusually.[2] Kiszko’s endocrinologist, if called, would have said that his treatment could not have caused him to act such a way that would make him carry out murder. He was never called.
The manslaughter claim undermined Kiszko’s claims that he was totally innocent and destroyed his alibis (a defence known in legal parlance as ‘riding two horses’). In fact, his innocence could have been demonstrated at the trial. The pathologist who examined Molseed’s clothes found traces of sperm, whereas the semen sample taken from Kiszko by the police contained no sperm. There was medical evidence that Kiszko had broken his ankle some months before the murder and, in view of that and his being overweight, he would have found it difficult to scale the slope to the murder spot. The sperm findings were suppressed by the police and never disclosed to the defence team or the jury: The medical evidence of his broken ankle was not disclosed either to the court.
288 sounds very much like the Labour Home secretary responsible for the police should be apologising.
Another Labour administration, another series of disgraces.
re 269 bilingual road signs are a complete nonsense and waste of money and all except the most demented Plaidist would support that. In these times of economic cutbacks then they are the first things that should go.
If you go practically anywhere in the world you’ll see an octagonal red sign at junctions. Almost universally the wording white on it will say “STOP”.
260 What happened to Turing happened to a large number of men and particularly in 1950’s imprisonment was not uncommon ( an acquaintance of mine, now dead, was haunted by his trial in the mid 50’s right up until his death aged 85, it had destroyed his career, estranged him from members of his family and even nearly 5 decades later he was ashamed). Turing’s crime would have remained one until 1992 when the age of consent for gay sex was lowered to 18 as his partner was 19.
It is a blot on British history that so much pain was caused to so many but I’m not sure what an article headed “I’m proud to say sorry” adds to it all. Brown uses his apology in a very political manner - the reference to saying sorry is certainly because of accusations about his failure to do so elsewhere.
Its always difficult when a conviction has happened for something no longer a crime - perhaps a general Bill retrospectively pardoning everyone convicted of actions no longer criminal? Germany has just done this for the convictions of those who worked against the Nazis.
285. I wouldn’t call the US broke: it’s got a major budget deficit but no one is calling in the receivers just yet. The US spent c. $900bn on the direct costs of both Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, compared to an annual US defence budget of $800bn. As the US effort in Iraq starts to wind down, there is plenty of money, machines and men that the US can redirect to central Asia.
The US isnt about to admit defeat in Afghanistan and it wont look kindly on any ally that does.
288 Another sidetrack - I wonder what bad news you’re attempting to divert attention away from? Mandy/Rover or Brown’s blatant abuse of the public purse viz a viz his political chit chat with the unions at Chequers?
291. Good post Ted. Once again what we see here is half-arsed gesture politics of the worst kind.
And meanwhile, the same PM has colluded in the creation of new miscarriages of justice via the US extradition treaty and the European Arrest Warrant - not to mention the grotesque ‘anti-terrorism’ laws.
288: Actually that own paragraph says:
The sperm findings were suppressed by the police and never disclosed to the defence team or the jury
So Waddington didn’t have access to all the information at the time. So he cannot take full blame for the miscarridge of justice.
293 One hopes there was no discussion of fund raising for an election campaign. One hopes Derek Simpson doesn’t use it as leverege were it so.
Gordon Brown, utter incompetent.
294 I know you can’t help having a pop at Brown. A petition is put on the no10 website asking the PM for an apology and the PM apologises. It’s a good thing. Get over it, it’s not the end of the world. St Dave would have done the same. It clearly means alot to a large number of people. Surely you can live with it.
Sometimes you pb.com Tories will attempt to use anything at all to attack the govt. Get a life.
290 I think you will find that Welsh Stop signs only say Stop, but that as in England there are no red octagons to be seen!!
297 you mean the way the Labour lot on here will use anything to attack the Tories? Who’d have thought it?
Yes, its a good thing he apologised. There are far grosser things he has done and is doing to get exercised over.
Even incompetent buffoons are capable of some reasonable actions.
295 - Of course he shouldn’t take full blame.
The tragedy of Kiszkos case was twofold.
Bent coppers.
And a grossly incompetent (lets give him the benefit of the doubt) politician QC.
297. If I organise a petition asking for an apology from Brown for individuals I consider to have been mistreated in the past, can I expect a rapid positive result, then?
OT: F1 news: Renault going to sue Piquet over ‘crashgate’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8250436.stm
301 Who knows give it a go, you might get someone to sign it if you’re genuine and have a real case. I am not sure you’re capable of doing it though in a straightforward way, you would probably use it to make a dig at someone.
300: But tim..you chose to single him out in post 277. You said he should ‘aplogise for his own existance’.
That doesn’t tie up with ‘gross incompetence’. Thats personal, nasty and vindictive.
If he made professional mistakes, he made professional mistakes, but you took it over the line and twisted it as if the entire mistake was all on him.
262, a majority also support leaving the EU and bringing back hanging. When they erect gibbets on Cardiff (doubtlessly flanked by bilingual signs indicating the potential hazard to life) that argument will hold water.
302, unsurprising given the seriousness of this issue. I do hope there’s convincing evidence one way or the other.
303. A couple of distant ancestors of mine were persecuted as supposed ‘witches’. Any chance of a pardon, do you think? Or are there no votes in that?
Waddington
If he is the one I am thinking of, he was recognised as a rolling disaster (a year/ year and a half as Home Secretary).
He made, vaguely, the right noises, but the Tory party quickly saw he was hopeless - in fact, so bad that he was exported to somewhere sunny and out of the way(?)
Just been in the lift at 30 Millbank and it stopped on the 3rd floor(CCHQ); they have two big screens, one on either side of reception. They’ve been tuned into Sky News every time I’ve stopped on that floor before (quite often since I work a few floors higher), today they were tuned to BBC News 24. I wonder if there’s any relevance to this at all…
307. No of votes influenced by this blast from the past ?
298 - My apologies - I was wrong on the Octagons (or at least polygonally challenged).
306 runnymede - I think your best chance would be to ask Harriet Harman to take up the case. It sounds right up her street.
Perhaps every local council should be instructed to set up a special unit to identify and apologise for witch-burnings in their area.
Nice
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23743017-details/Haringey+sent+child+to+live+with+Heathrow+bomb+plotter/article.do
The council at the centre of the Baby P scandal sent a foster child to live with the ringleader of the airline bomb plotters, the Standard can reveal.
According to evidence at the trial, Ali and his co-conspirators discussed taking children on board the flights to allay the suspicions of security staff.
306. One of my ancestors was a witch prosecutor at Salem, so perhaps I ought to apoligse to you runneymede, although the US is out of our jurisdiction!
tim, thanks for the concern, but I already bought a flat, two months ago. I am now just waiting to exchange.
I’m sure you were on the site at the time, so either you have a terrible memory problem, or you must be - ta-da, quelle surprise, someone get the smelling salts - a bunch of different posters with one name.
And incidentally I bought the flat just cause I want somewhere nice to live, near my daughter. I am far from convinced that this property price rebound will be sustained.
311: the witch-finder general unit?
290. You do realise that people like you and Morris Dancer are a big part of the reason why the vote in favour of devolution in Wales went up from 20% of the votes cast in 1979 to a majority in 1997, don’t you? As a Welsh nationalist myself (though not really a Plaid supporter) I’m strongly tempted to urge you to keep up the good work…
As has already been mentioned, bilingualism is simply not controversial in Wales any more for the vast majority of people any more. So, to put it bluntly, what business is it of yours to tell us what to do? (And before you moan about the costs again, consider that (a) Welsh speakers pay taxes too, and are entitled to expect that the government will deal with them in their own language; and (b) it doesn’t cost any more to paint ABERTAWE on a roadsign than it costs to paint SWANSEA.)
re 298 penddu I presume that you don’t get around much? perhaps you’d care to re-read the Highway Code
316: It costs more to paint both though
“I’m sure we can all agree that this government should apologise for its whole existence before it dies.
by tim”
With just a little tweak, even the diversionary lies of tim can become serious and definitive truths.
316 Of course, no discussion of Welsh language signs is complete without a link to this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7702913.stm
318. So a bit more of the sign is covered in white paint and a bit less in blue. Does that really make a measurable difference?
I would like to know Mike’s answer to the question, since he is after all a Lib Dem. If I were advising them, I’d say OF COURSE! Politically speaking, this would be all upside for them. Labour and the Tories are leaving that ripe plum untouched, and all the Lib Dems have to do is grab it.
To suggest that David Waddington was primarily responsible for the conviction of Stefan Kiszko is just PB (that’s “Partisan Bile” not “Political Betting”).
307 - That’ll be the One.
Interestingly his role in the conviction on Kiszko appeared again in his career.
While he was Home Secretary there was an inexplicable delay of an investigation into the Kiszko case.
“What happened to Turing happened to a large number of men and particularly in 1950’s imprisonment was not uncommon” — I agree and I for one do not seek to demand apologies for all acts taken under the laws and morality of times past.
My view is quite self centred and so should the nations view. This was a man who by his work and dedication saved countess countless lives. Indeed the financial opportunities his (and Tommy Flowers) work might have created were lost due to national security (this applied to others as well of course). The war was shortened by 2 years. The war in the western desert effectively won by code breaking.
As such punishing this act of personal weakness which harmed absolutely no one (no minors were involved) was an absolute disgrace.
If Brown is slyly seeking political credibility for this then that is to be sneered at. But the petition was independently got up and a response of some sport inevitable. Browns decision is a fair one - certainly to do otherwise would have been totally untenable.
I repeat my views from a previous post and suggest that we should go much further in remembering and honouring Turing his work and that of others.
BTW - somewhere in a grave in Germany lies the grave of Hans-Thilo Schmidt (who committed suicide in Gestapo custody) who stole the enigma secrets and sold them to the French who passsed them on to the Poles. But thats another story.
Interesting development in the Rover story with Lord Mandelson demanding that they voluntarily bar themeselves from running businesses.
Lets hope this precident is extended to politicians with Brown et al barring themselves from any future political activity
297. So I take it then that you believe that the Prime Minister should respond positively to petitions on the 10 Downing Street website. Well I see the top one currently with 70k votes is a call call for him to resign. Should he do that as well?
After all that would ‘clearly mean a lot’ for over twice as many people and even more people than that would have appreciated a chance to vote on the Lisbon Treaty as requested by numerous petitions?
Unfortunately, rather than address the issues of today the Prime Minister would rather make empty apologies for long past events which he had no involvement in and has only likely read about in books (he was about 2 and half years old when Turing died).
I also note there is a petition asking him to apologise for the economic crisis (which is contemporary and arguably he had significant influence over from a UK perspective) yet has he apologised? Indeed not. He is using the rather pathetic defence that even though he was responsible to the British people for the British economy for a decade none of it was his fault (Darling once again confirmed this view this week claiming it was a global crisis).
The disingenuity of Labour knows no bounds. Who the hell does Brown think he is that he has the right to apologise for other peoples actions in another era?
Oh dear…
Downing Street suffers communication problems
How two very different accounts of a phone call between Gordon Brown and Barack Obama left journalists puzzled
Ears pricked up. This directly contradicted what was said last night and, if the case, should have seen Downing Street brief on the whys and wherefores of the conversation between the two leaders.
Lewis made another error by refusing to brief any details of today’s union leaders’ meeting at Chequers on account of it being a political, rather than a government, issue. That, too, was later corrected by Downing Street.
It sounds pernickety, it might even sound rough – but unless Lewis insists on being in on those conversations with Obama and Brown, he’s not in the loop.
And unless Downing Street irons out its communication teething pains as we head towards a general election, the lobby will keep looping the loop.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2009/sep/11/downing-street-brown-obama
323 - The defence that Waddington ran actually claimed Kiszko killed the girl.
Arguing that he had done it because of the medication he was on and unsurprisingly not calling Kiszkos doctor who would contradict the Defence.
313. The direct descendant of the magistrate overseeing the historical episode I am referring to is a well known public figure. Perhaps I should ask for an apology from him?
Our Glorious Leader explains his decision to apologise for Turing in the Telegraph. The comments are not wholly sympathetic…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/gordon-brown/6170112/Gordon-Brown-Im-proud-to-say-sorry-to-a-real-war-hero.html
329. I’m unclear on this though - who’s fault is it really - Thatcher, DC or Boris ?
Gordon Brown [on Alan Turing]: I’m proud to say sorry
Another dog whistle to the gay community - or is Gordon Brünö hinting at his own closeted state?
Yep, Johnny Walker was the one [if you had to choose one person] who “swung” it for us. Churchill said as much.
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/16662390.jpg
309
Zero
Unless it confirms the Conservatives readiness to admit a mistake when they find out they’ve picked a wrong’un - no Milibands hanging on for a couple of years - no (sotto voce) Gordo the Grate appointed to unanimous acclaim
If Labour dumped Gordon Brown I would probably vote for them again, for old time’s sake, even though I know it is time for a change.
But then I read a vile tim post and I’m not sure. It’s one thing to be tired, out of ideas, badly led, losing your way, etc etc. But 12 years of absolute power also attracts real scum. The only way to get rid of the cynical, careerist, unprincipled McBrides and Drapers of this world is to lose power and watch them lose interest, shrivel, and die.
330. Good idea, cause I ain’t apologising for anything!
316, it costs twice as much, most Welsh people can’t speak Welsh and with enormous public debt I can think of few things more worthless than writing road signs twice when everybody speaks one of them and few the other.
I am naturally pleased you enjoy reading my posts, and advert you to the forthcoming pb2 post regarding F1 race predictions, due at some point on Saturday evening.
Why doesn’t Brown apologise for the extinction of Homo Neanderthalensis arguably caused by Homo Sapiens Sapiens?
Oh I forgot it was a global problem…….
316. Damn, Random, don’t make them stop. It brings joy to my day to see tories coming up with views on the welsh language which were considered extreme and reactionary in the 1960s, and which must cause no end of embarrassment to Nick Bourne’s new model Welsh Conservative Party.
242 I think Tim’s database is a bit short of facts. The Royal Family do keep pigeons:
http://www.royal.gov.uk/TheRoyalHousehold/RoyalAnimals/Workinganimals/Thepigeonlofts.aspx
I have a distant memory that Princess Anne has some of her own too!
tim, Did you notice the post last night by The Screaming Eagles that one of his previously solid Labour-voting friends, who lurks but not posts here, cited you and your tactics as one of the doubtless other reasons why he would be supporting the Conservatives next time?
I imagine pb’s daily readership must run into thousands (Mike S, what are the current actual stats?), and as you post so prolifically that many will regard you the authentic Labour “voice” on the site.
Well, all I can say as a Tory activist, is more power to your keyboard. Perhaps CCHQ might send you a cheque to help defray your expenses.
338 But bilingualism does deliver joys like this:
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/tm_objectid=17564553&method=full&siteid=50082&headline=road-sign-leaves-welsh-speakers-bewildered-name_page.html
or this
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7702913.stm
338 - Quite right. Is there anybody in Wales who doesn’t speak English any more? (And only speaks Welsh, not Gujarati etc….). If so, they’re almost certainly confined to small pockets of rural North Wales, so you could justify having bilingual signs there. But elsewhere it’s just silly.
My sister went to university in Cardiff, liked it there, and decided to stay. But she’s been hamstrung in the jobs market because she doesn’t speak Welsh, and so many places demand it. There must be thousadns of others like her who have taken their talents alsewhere, and all because of a few misguided sentamentalists. Utterly absurd.
I was in Wales at the weekend and saw that one sign towards the M50 was not translated - surely it should have been “M50 M50″ ?
Had I been Welsh I probably would have been very confused.
344. We’ve had this debate before, and some of our Welsh contributors have noted that the only monoglot Welsh speakers are likely to be aged under four.
340, I’m a rightwinger, but not a Tory. Could you explain to me why it is extremist to be against the spending of public funds on a language which some speak, but not all, in addition to spending money on another language which everybody speaks? The phrase ‘pissing money away’ rather springs to mind.
344, that is quite a vile side-effect of this strange state-backed fetish for Welsh.
340 Sorry if I disappoint you but I am a Tory and I am 100% behind bilingual road signs. Language is heritage and its promotion, protection and presevration is og vital importance. This is true not only in Wales but in Gaelic Scotland, in the designation of Scots as a language in its own right and in encouragement of Irish Gaelic in those parts of Northern Ireland where it exists.
There should also be investment into the resurgence of Cornish and encouragement at a local level to look at lottery or similar funding into dialects, study and preservation thereof. Broad Norfolk being a good example!
This is where we have come from. You wouldn’t tear down Westminster Abbey to build Bovis Homes.
346 There are attempts to limit numbers buy getting them to look the wrong way for traffic
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/4605768.stm
348 and more than that, it is identifying of areas and people.
344. My old (Welsh) history teacher used to refer contemptuously to the Welsh language movement as a ‘jobs for the boyos’ outfit.
I don’t entirely share his view but I understand where he was coming from.
Cyntaf?
Personally, if it’s really that important to support Welsh, I’d be in favour of enforcing strict separation of the costs of making everything bilingual, to be paid for out of a separate ‘Welsh Language’ budget, to be funded by a separate Welsh Language Tax on everyone in Wales. Then we’d see how popular this madness really is.
348 and in Northern Ireland it’s not only the Gaelic but also conservation of Ullans/Ulster Scots
344. Hm, brilliant, keep going. I think I’ll keep an archive of these and forward them to Nick Bourne myself.
“Is there anybody in Wales who doesn’t speak English any more? (And only speaks Welsh, not Gujarati etc….). If so, they’re almost certainly confined to small pockets of rural North Wales.”
Hm, so you obviously have an in-depth knowledge of the topic on which you are pontificating.
“a few misguided sentamentalists”. Another classic. Several recent opinion polls suggest that a large majority of non-welsh speakers are supportive of legislation giving equal status to Welsh, and a smaller majority want further such legislation.
Think a second. How do “a few misguided sentimentalists” manage to influence policy so thoroughly? Just how does that happen?
There are interesting debates to be had about language issues. I’m generally to be found in a fairly centrist position on most of them. But seriously folks, most of you don’t even begin to have a clue about these issues. There are reams of arguments about the principles involved here going back at least 130 years, huge weights of evidence about linguistic demography, and tomes of policy consultation and responses on all these issues.
But don’t let me distract you from the debate you’re having.
354 well, yes that is true.
To be honest, I am just a provincial little East Anglian longing for the return of the Heptarchy. But there is beauty in the diversity of dialects and language and everything unwholesome about standardisation is present in the person and speech of Tony ‘Estuary Incarnate’ Blair.
my grandfather was so Broad Norfolk I could barely understand him at times. But he had a great voice.
355, you appear to have missed the final paragraph. I shall helpfully repeat it here (though not in Welsh, alas) so you can tell us your thoughts on it:
“My sister went to university in Cardiff, liked it there, and decided to stay. But she’s been hamstrung in the jobs market because she doesn’t speak Welsh, and so many places demand it. There must be thousadns of others like her who have taken their talents alsewhere, and all because of a few misguided sentamentalists. Utterly absurd.”
Do you approve of the fact that someobody capable of communicating with everyone should have her career prospects damaged because she does not speak a minority language?
348. What’s wrong with English???
353. Yup, if the costs were exposed to the taxpayer, it might not appear quite so popular.
The DVLA spend lots of money translating all of their systems and printing forms
348. Why not go the whole hog and let’s have all our signs and books translated into Middle English in England as well as modern English? After all aren’t other English speaking nations and the advance of technology slowly but surely undermining the English Language?
I realise it might be considered a little too contemporary in terms of the Goidelic languages but here’s just a snippet:
Translation of Luke ch.8 v.1–3, from the New Testament
Syððan wæs geworden þæt he ferde þurh þa ceastre and þæt castel: godes rice prediciende and bodiende. and hi twelfe mid. And sume wif þe wæron gehælede of awyrgdum gastum: and untrumnessum: seo magdalenisce maria ofþære seofan deoflu uteodon: and iohanna chuzan wif herodes gerefan: and susanna and manega oðre þe him of hyra spedum þenedon.
It is after all our heritage. Perhaps it should be taught in schools as well?
358 there is nothing wrong with it.
I like Mackerel, it doesn’t stop me hankering for Sea Bass on occasion.
Just as the Scots Nats quieten down, the Welsh Nats start up, great…
338. Evidence please that adding an extra line of text doubles the cost?
340. *English* tories if you please (and my experience is that it’s the English that’s the significant part of that phrase, not the tory - lab/LD types are often just as bad). I usually vote conservative myself BTW, though I have voted Plaid on occasion and was a Yes voter in the last referendum.
343. I particularly liked ” People living near an Aberdeenshire building site in 2006 were mystified when a sign apologising for the inconvenience was written in Welsh as well as English.” Granted Aberdeen is a Welsh place name, but still…
344. “Quite right. Is there anybody in Wales who doesn’t speak English any more? ” And that is relevant to what, precisely? There are plenty of people in Wales (up to half a million) for whom Welsh is very much their first language and English is a foreign language they happen to understand well enough to follow Coronation Street but would not necessarily feel comfortable enough to discuss a welfare issue with the local council in.
But here’s a thought for you. In the Netherlands these days there are so few people left who do not understand English that the TV over there no longer bothers to subtitle English speakers when they are being interviewed on the news. Would you therefore like to moan about the Dutch government wasting money printing road signs in Dutch and say it would be much more convenient if they did everything in English instead? i doubt it somehow - when it comes to somewhere like that I suspect the likes of you have no difficulty understanding that people in their own country should be able to use their own language and not learn another. So why not Wales?
And as for your sister - sorry, but I don’t believe it. Especially in Cardiff. Oh, I don’t doubt she’s saying that and it’s even possible that was one of the reasons she was given, but for the minority of posts where bilingualism is genuinely a requirmeent for the job then the organisation in question will almost always offer language training to someone who in other respects is the best candidate for the job except for not being able to speak Welsh. If your sister has been telling people she’s not prepared to learn on the other then I’d believe it, but then that’s her fault.
360, translating books is fine if they’re translated by individuals and bought by consumers interested in them rather than being funded by taxation. I have nothing against Welsh, except that it is being used to waste taxpayers’ funds in a matter which offers no benefit whatsoever.
360 Well, that is an argument against preserving languages yes, but it is a little broad brush. Not everything that is new is worth a candle.
348 - Have you come across the delightful language Ulster-Scots, which is now an official language in Northerl Ireland (or Norden Airlann) following the Belfast Agreement (or Bilfawst Greeance). I urge you to look at their website: http://www.ulsterscotsagency.com/, and note the various forms of financial assistance that are available for promoting the language (or ‘leid’)
Perhaps RodCrosby will join me in establishing the Scouse Agency to promote bilingual road signs in Liverpool?
The notion that someone is proud to be sorry makes little sense if you think about it for more than a second.
353. There are significant areas in Wales where the main laguage of the community is Welsh and the local authorities conduct most, if not all, of their routine business in that language. In these areas the financial burden of bilingualism is caused by the requirement to translate everything into English. Are you in favour of an “English Language” tax as well?
366 I have not come across it other than being aware of its existence.
360.362 please dont encourage them! Up here in the Scottish Highlands virtually all road signs are in English and Gaelic. As an alternative they have the Gaelic sign at one point and then the English sign about 5 feet further on. It can be utterly confusing and frankly I think it is more dangerous when a road sign has a name and distance in one language and the same information in the other language immeidately beneath, parhaps if for 3 or 4 locations resulting in a sign with 6 or 8 items on it.
368 Print benefit forms in English only. You’ll be amazed how many can suddenly speak something other than Welsh…
366. In 1901 there were more Welsh-born people in Liverpool than in any Welsh city including Cardiff! [We held the Eisteddfod three times too.]
http://www.flickr.com/photos/llgc/3701815388/
re 348 Dyed that argument is ludicrous. Why not decide that we all need to revive Norman french or Anglo Saxon then?
360. I think older versions of English should definitely be taught in schools - we already do with Shakespeare and Chaucer.
Interestingly this debate re. who understands what is far from new. As William of Nassyngton wrote in 1325 about the multilingual situation in the England of his day -
‘And somme can Frensche and no Latyn,
þat vsed han cowrt and dwellen þerein.
And somme can of Latyn a party,
þat can of Frensche but febly;
And somme vnderstonde wel Englysch,
þat can noþer Latyn nor Frankys.
Boþe lered and lewed, olde and ʒonge,
Alle vnderstonden english tonge.’
366 I hope you noticed that the Ulster lot are not afraid of calling themselves “Scotch” unlike their cousins across the water who swear it is only to be used of whisky.
367 That’s my view - sorrow isn’t something to be proud of so in context it can only mean that Gordon is proud of himself in being able for once to say sorry.
364. MD I agree. I was just highlighting the excesses that some previous commentators attitudes might lead to (the books comment was intended to allude to it being required by legislation).
Personally, I would favour a world that was full of rich and diverse languages but with the way globalisation is going(and the economic implications that that entails) slowly but surely languages will die out until there are but a handful left. Unless people want to stop globalisation all they will do is waste an awful lot of money trying to keep languages alive that are heading for neo-extinction.
Clegg may call for withdrawal as much as he likes - most Tory MPs will want to dive in there and protect their staff with rubber helmets!
373 English was already taking over, just don’t cross the Tamar!
373 I would be happy if they taught Received Pronunciation of the style used by the BBC in the 1960s and 1970s…….
I would love to see the demise of the neighbours inflection? Where every statement has a rising tone at the end as if it’s a question? But I dare say it will become Standard English?
http://johnrentoul.independentminds.livejournal.com/156705.html
372 - Certainly well into the 1960s you could hear Welsh spoken in my area (Anfield) and lots of chuches with Welsh signboards and, presumably, services in Welsh.
370. Easterross. My apologies. I considered myself truly chastised.
My mischievious side has been growing in recent days (possibly as a result of the tedious nature of the political scene right now). I could well be going through political cold turkey.
379, I concur entirely.
374. I thought it was Ulster Scots.
379 In linguistic circles, that particular affectation is called the “moronic interrogative”.
O/T
Do pb.com posters have to undergo “intensive” training on equality?
A councillor in Leicestershire has been suspended for making racist comments at a public meeting, a council has revealed.
Tory Robert Fraser was also reprimanded by Leicestershire County Council’s standards sub-committee and ordered to complete “intensive”
training on equality.
The punishment came after Mr Fraser made derogatory comments about Romanians at a public meeting and also said that some Europeans “make the Irish look like complete amateurs”.
The comments were witnessed by people at the public meeting in January, and were also put on video website YouTube, the Leicester Mercury reported on Thursday
110 - posts like Nick’s at 97 really are something.
Nick, you did yourself no credit with that one.
384 - It seems to be ‘Scots’ in English, but ‘Scotch’ in Ulster-Scots!
341
I see Timbot has been trying to derail the thread with a few new nasty smears.
Tim’s problem is that his “facts”/smears always fall short and are disproved.
I think we need a poll, hopefully one will appear to liven things up a bit.
I remember my (Welsh) physics teacher at school complaining about a job interview in his younger days. Over the years he repeated umpteen times “The panel asked me, ‘Mr Chislett, can you speak Welsh?’ And I knew they would ask me that!”
385. You forgot the question mark at the end!
375. Welsh is a distinct historic language of the UK and most importantly is a living language. I have no problem with it receiving support, provided that doesn’t become oppressive and discriminate against English speakers.
What really is pointless and annoying is attempts to ‘revive’ dead languages like Cornish or raise some English dialects like Scots or Ullans to a higher status than others (e.g. Yorks or Westcountry).
365. DITHWS
Certainly a lot of what is new is not worth a candle but why should certain languages be preserved and others arguably finer (e.g 16th /17th/ 19th Century English) not be?
Why shouldn’t English be preserved without the illiterate abominations imposed on it by the likes of Microsoft and texting and certain newer English speaking nations?
I am right in thinking the Welsh Language was invented by someone rubbish at scrabble?
127.
“Charles Clarke biffs Brown again”
It is a sin that the Guardian, presumably as an act of charity, pays this biffon for his odd scribblings. Could they not find him something useful to do such as heating up an old people’s home with his ears?
317 - I already realised my mistake and apologised in 310!!
352 - You might not be but others certainly are!!!
338 - The majority of billingual signs are exactly the same size as monolingual ones, and even taking into account some larger ones, it is doubtful whether the overall cost increase exceeds 10%. A small price to pay for recovering our heritage.
394 Who had lost several of the letters down the back of the sofa…
381. There’s some good info about the Welsh here.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/northeast/sites/history/pages/liverpool.shtml
370. I’ve been reading up on my Scottish history lately. Apparently the Gaels did very little to preserve the Pictish language.
Possibly the story/quote of the day
A neat little anecdote in Steve Richards’ column this morning:
“When David Cameron bumped into Charles Clarke at the end of the summer, the former Cabinet minister told the Tory leader in relation to the attempted coup: ‘Don’t worry… we’ll be back’. Cameron replied to him only half jokingly: ‘That’s exactly what I am worried about’.”
400, aye, the Tories have to keep their wits about them concerning a possible new PM and a snap election. I doubt we’ll have either, but they still need to be planned for.
Personally I think English is the best language in the world! There, not too unbiased am I? LOL!
Disclaimer: I did learn both German and French to GCSE level, and I’m supposed to be bilingual in my mother(’s) tongue, Malayalam (a southern Indian language), although I’m not in practice! (Shhh Don’t tell mum!)
I also taught myself how to read Russian Cyrillic and Greek, but not familiar the spoken languages.
400 - Was via coffeehouse
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5321501/clarke-and-cameron-in-conversation.thtml
Apparently four languages spoken in Scotland in the 700s. English, British, Gaelic and Pictish.
400.
““When David Cameron bumped into Charles Clarke……”
Claokroom attendant encounters road sweeper.
386 I think most of us would face mandatory re-education if we were local councillors (some of us are, of course, but maybe we get a pass for opinions expressed on this site). It’s a very silly story.
WRT Welsh, it does seem a bit daft to have bilingual signs etc. in parts of the country where nobody speaks the language.
WRT Turing, as ever, Brown tried to make it party-political, thereby robbing his remarks of any value whatsoever. After all, as Ted has pointed out, Turing would have run the risk of prosecution under governments of either party.
380: I don’t agree with his analysis. The game isn’t as simple as Win vs Lose (as it is in sport). The degree of lose matters as well, and that will affect judgement.
Take a game of football. Labour FC vs Tories United. Labour are the eqivalent of 2 goals downs with 10 minutes to play. Their ’star’ player for the last 10 years is there on the pitch, but wheezing away, and the new oppontants star striker Cameronindo is running rings around him….
Of course you would take him off. But this the equivalent of Newcastle and Brown is/was their Keegan.
404 The indigenous langauges of Scotland are British (Welsh) and Pictish (which may be related to either Welsh or Basque or Suomi - nobody knows)
Gaelic came into the west later from Ireland and English into the south-east
393 I rather like broad accents and local language, it adds loads of colour/variety/identity.
As a Geordie with an RP accent [unless when drunk when I sound like Jimmy Nail], the only thing I’m *genuinely* concerned about it the inability of kids to write correctly - both in terms of spelling and grammar.
If they can articulate themselves in *words* then I hope that they’ll have the ability to communicate *verbally* when they need to.
Many of my teenage friends had such strong accents that I could only get the gist of what they were trying to say from the odd key word - like Rab C Nesbitt.
I was reduced to lots of smiling, nodding and looking quizzical when I thought I’d lost the plot completely…
408 Unlikely to be Suomi, as the Finno-Ugric languages were a later arrival in western Europe, I understand.
Hilarious story in the Daily Mail.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1212583/Family-horrified-getting-restaurant-describing-year-old-daughter-little-f–er.html
408/10. Pictish is Celtic according to Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictish
410 - Point taken about Suomi - My personal theory is that Pictish was related to Basque - and that it is a remnant of the original indigenous language of all of Britain. DNA evidence suggests that the Welsh and Irish are genetically close to the Basques, and it may be that their original languages were replaced by Celtic which came later.
408. Wasn’t ‘British’ also a language brought in from overseas originally?
407
304 - seems like you just about summed tim up
“personal, nasty and vindictive!”
411. Speaking of language. Why does the F-word need to be asterisked out?
338.Sorry Random,but my Swansea born-and-bred step-daughter lost out on a post to a less qualified but Welsh-speaking candidate last year.She now works in London and has no intention ever to return.As someone who spoke Welsh to my grandparents as a child,and still can follow a conversation in Cymraeg Cwm Tawe,I find it all immensely sad that our well qualified young people are leaving for this reason.
406. And do you know of anywhere where genuinely nobody speaks the language? Even Monmouthshire (which some people like to claim was/is part of England) something like 5% of the population speak Welsh according to the last census. Heck, even parts of Herefordshire were Welsh speaking until the 19th century. Frankly I suspect it’s easier and cheaper to simply do it everywhere than decide that some places shouldn’t be covered, produce criteria to explain why, and then find yourself having to deal with people who feel their rights are being trampled on.
Agree on Brown. There was definitely a feeling of “I’m proud to be the first prime minister who is so enlightened and tolerant as to see that this needs to be apologised for” about it:-/
418 - Ah the famous urban myth…..everyone who loses a job likes to balme it on something beyond their control - ‘because I wasnt from an ethnic minority…’.
Maybe the better candidate got the job?
420 - Penddu, see my post no. 390.
Following on from the Moronic Interrogative, the BBC leads the way in being unable to use the absolute construction. This from todays “World at One”;
“Fifty five years after he committed suicide, the Prime Minister offered a full apology to the mathematician and war here Alan Turing”
As far as I am aware, Goedon Brown has not yet topped himself.
Perhaps some contributors might be aware of Dylan Thomas’s view of Welsh nationalism,
‘Mr Thomas answered the question in three words, of which the second and third were “Welsh nationalism”.’
422 “As far as I am aware, Gordon Brown has not yet topped himself.”
But is he even still allowed belt, tie, shoelaces?
Come on, Slackbladder at 362. We have loads of posts about ‘useless bilingual roadsigns’, then a couple of people try to put an alternative view and you’re moaning?
For those who are interested in other viewpoints, I would summarise my approach to the issue like this.
In the modern era if a language ceases to be one which is used for government, official business, commerce, education, media, arts etc then it is nothing but a patois. It has a couple of generations left to live if you’re lucky. A monolingual roadsign or benefit form in a bilingual country is making a statement; it’s telling the minority language community that they are not the government, they are not in power, that their language has no status. This was the debate which was had in Wales in the 60s and 70s (when the language issue was very divisive), leading to a whole range of reforms culminating in the establishment of S4C in 1982 which was supported by all main parties. Since then, linguistic issues have not been so hotly-debated, and there’s a broad consensus across 4 main political parties that bilingualism based on equality of status should be a normal part of Welsh life, as it is in many other places around the world.
From this leads inevitably to the public and symbolic displays of bilingualism which some of you (understandably, given that you were born and raised in a largely monolingual country) find so odd. It also leads to companies and public bodies advertising some jobs as needing the ability to speak Welsh as a skill, in order to provide services to Welsh-speakers who want them. For the ‘unfairness’ of someone being passed over for a particular job if they can’t speak Welsh, you have to balance on the other side the potential ‘unfairness’ of Welsh-speakers only being able to access public services in their second language.
I’m sure we all appreciate your concern, but most Welsh people, including the 600,000 of us who use Welsh daily but also speak English, the 200,000 of us who speak mainly English but can get by in Welsh, and the 2 million of us who don’t speak Welsh, are actually reasonably content with bilingualism as it is, thanks.
413
Old theory was that Pictish was not related to any Indo-European (or, as it was termed: ‘Aryan’ - to show how old the theory is) language.
421-Perhaps you would like to have swapped with me to comfort her weeping when she lost out to someone on her course with a substantially inferior degree?
Random perhaps you could tell us the extra costs of every school, every hosiptal, every local authority, every QUANGO etchaving to duplicate every document it produces in Welsh? I was enraged by the wanton waste when I was at school. Perhaps websites like NICE’s could have counters so we can see the pitifully few numbers who read the Welsh one.
Apologies if already posted
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/recession/6169544/European-Commission-sees-galloping-UK-debt-crisis.html
“The projection is more than twice the level forecast by the UK Treasury, which expects the debt to peak at around 80pc before gradually falling as growth revives and tax revenues come back to life.
What is shocking is that UK risks decoupling from the other major economies in Europe, vaulting past Germany, France and even Italy into a wholly different league.”
180%!!!! Give Labour another 5 years and we can make 180% seem like a distant pleasant memory.
418. Sorry to hear about your step-daughter, and perhaps I was wrong to imply it never happens (though I would say that if speaking Welsh was one of the qualifications required for the job - and I don’t know it was - then the Welsh speaking candidate was not less qualified. Having said that if this was the only way in which the other candidate was superior then the employer should have been prepared to offer language training - they can even get the Welsh Assembly to pay for it these days, I believe - and they were wrong not to). I was however responding to someone who was claiming his sister was finding it impossible to find a job in Cardiff without speaking Welsh. This is self-evident nonsense, especially when you consider that Welsh speakers in Cardiff form only about 10% of the total population. Cardiff does not have a 90% unemployment rate.
No doubt this has been posted and discussed on previous threads but I think this maybe the most significant story of the day:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/09/11/new-labour-is-like-the-monty-python-parrot-dead-115875-21664252/
Oh to be a fly on the wall in Chequers. Whatever, it hardly bodes well for Labours future that their paymasters are banging on about the messages that cost them so dearly in the latter part of the 20th Century. Will it be a case of Déjà vu for Labour?
428, an FoI request might provide the answer.
431 ‘Simpson, 64, who began work in an engineering factory at 15…’
…and now enjoys the luxury of a suite at the Waldorf when the strain of travelling by chauffeur driven car back to his union funded home 35 minutes from Central London proves too much.
I’m sure he’ll feel right at home in the austere surrounding of Chequers. As will the other brothers on six figure salaries. (I’m so glad I gave up my union membership).
Apple ogees if this august blog already bears a reference:
http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2009/09/if-brown-is-ill-he-deserves-our.html
Gradualy edging closer to the mainstream…
via guido, is this a hint that a journalist made the story up?
“The Phoenix Four were paid a combination of salaries and bonuses, which accrued primarily from a Guernsey Trust that received money from Rover’s parent company.
Maurice Minor, 61, who worked at the Longbridge factory for 32 years, said: “I think the report was a huge waste of money - it’s not going to do anything for anybody.”
434
and how did ‘gradually’ lose a ‘l’?
The public needs to know!
This is awful - poor chap:
“Two thugs who punched a young man so hard that he has been left with half and head have escaped charges.
Steve Gator, 26, had to have half his skull removed by surgeons after he smashed his head on a pavement in the brutal attack.
Now the disfigured forklift driver has been told that the teenagers who ambushed him will not face charges after the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the case.
The CPS said it didn’t have enough evidence to proceed but Steve’s mother, Nina, expressed her disbelief at the decision.
‘Our boy is walking around with half-a-head - what more evidence do they need?’ said Mrs Gator, 47. ‘I can’t believe it.’2
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1212734/Yobs-left-young-man-half-head-escape-charges.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0Qo4I7kP2
393 Well, I already said jsfl, I am all in favour of dialects being preserved. However we are talking about languages which are being spoken right now. 16th-19th century English is beautiful and should be taught in schools, but it is not a conversational language in the way that Welsh, Scots, Gaelic are.
Cornish is probably the anacronism, it is barely alive, however it is not yet anywhere near requiring bilingual signs etc and so some small investment to preserve the language and encourae its learning seems sensible, then we will see.
‘The CPS said it didn’t have enough evidence to proceed’
Usually an expression reserved for cases involving Labour politicians or their lackeys. Any such links in this case?
435 R5 had an interview with Maurice Minor this morning - I thought I’d misheard his name and then wondered if his parents’ were exceptionally loyal British Leyland employees….
428. Actually seeing as you’re the one who is convinced it is excessive, why don’t you? Obviously you must know how much it is to know it’s too much. Unless you’re the sort of bigot who thinks anything is too much, of course.
As for the general issue, see Meurig’s post at 425. This is simply not a significant controversy in Wales (even the majority who don’t speak Welsh do not as a rule feel that those who do should be discriminated against), and hasn’t been for years. And at the end of the day it’s our country and our language and our taxes that are paying for it.
440. Did they employ a Mr Austen Cambridge?
438. What is the point of trying to revive a language which has been dead for 200 years (Cornish)?
It is so dead that until very recently there were angrily competing versions of the ‘revived’ language, some based on the Cornish of many hundreds of years ago.
Why not try to recreate the speech of the Strathclyde Welsh or as earlier suggested, the Picts?
Presumably because there isn’t a loony separatist organisation demanding it and hoping to be the recipient of abundant public sector largesse as a result.
355 Meurig
There are reams of arguments about the principles involved here going back at least 130 years
It was 130 years ago that earnest young composers were gaily tripping around the countryside collecting and notating indigenous folk songs. Although this pandemic spread to the furthest corners of Europe, it was British music that suffered the most. Ralph Vaughan Williams became offender-in-chief.
All this was the product of romantic nationalism which sought to revive and emancipate new nations and languages. A delight for the emergent middle classes. William Thoms, the 19th century scholar who coined the term “folk lore”, described this field of study as “the traditions, customs, and superstitions of the uncultured classes.”
So here we have it: the roots of the Nationalist Parties exposed.
The Stuart Dicksons of this site have yet to learn the benefit of classical harmony and universal reach. It is time to repaint the map pink.
“And at the end of the day it’s our country and our language and our taxes that are paying for it.”
Cue post on how the taxes raised in Wales don’t cover the costs and how the Welsh are actually subsidised by the English, followed by long boring argument.
Too boring, I am off
430-Thanks,Random.Incidentally,in South Wales this seems mainly a Cardiff problem.Swansea businesses seem to disregard it.It may be a consequence of the vast public and quasipublic sector now established around the Assembly Government.
R5 Live just now: US Coastguard has fired on a suspicious boat in the Potomac River.
443 Yes, I realise my argument is weaker when is comes to Cornish. Call it a soft spot for the Cornish. I certainly wouldn’t support large scale investment in the language from the public purse although there is a local interest in revival and always has been. A good case for lottery funding as opposed to taxation perhaps.
Nick Clegg is doomed…DOOMED to a life on the dole after the next election!!
Martin Day > Clegg
Clegg = Egg
EZIO!
Not sure whether we have this one. Seems to have appeared today
“Two Labour Councillors join Lib Dems in Redbridge”
447.
Could it be Gordon trying to sneak in to the US for a quiet holiday, noting his unpopularity their ?
444. Seth, that wasn’t quite what I was aiming at - I was thinking more of the attempts of people like Hugh Owen to ensure that Welsh language and literature were subject to academic study.
But I agree with some of your post. The later versions of the folklorist movement did form a part, at least, of Plaid’s roots (see Peate, Iorwerth C.) but I’m ambivalent at best towards it and would argue that there are other, more relevant strands in Welsh nationalism.
I also can’t stand Vaughan Williams. Don’t mind a bit of Dvorak though, but I suppose he stands accused of the same sort of thing.
425. And I would entirely agree with your somewhat smug view if the region is solely responsible for the costs of maintaining its bilingual status. If Wales is self-funding it is entirely Welsh business. But is it?
When you consider Barnett and PESA which suggest Wales, like certain other regions, are net beneficiaries from other regions particularly in the South and East of the country it does make such considerations somewhat more complex.
After all if those who purportedly subsidise the region should not have any say in how the money is spent then surely they equally should have the right to decline the opportunity of subsidising the region?
Alternatively, perhaps if there was a ‘bilingual tax’ charged solely in Wales to fund the measures it would be impossible for those of us elsewhere to criticise how such measures were developed?
However, if a tax was imposed, then I suspect the question becomes:
Would most Welsh people, including the 600,000 of us who use Welsh daily but also speak English, the 200,000 of us who speak mainly English but can get by in Welsh, and the 2 million of us who don’t speak Welsh, still actually be reasonably content with bilingualism?
451
Surely they would greet him as one of their own - Benedict Arnold
454 This should be interesting -
‘Scotland Yard Launches Probe Into MI6. Police are investigating MI6 over the alleged mistreatment of a non-British detainee, Sky News has revealed.’
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/MI6-Investigated-By-Scotland-Yard-Over-Claims-A-Detainee-Was-Mistreated-Sky-News-Reveals/Article/200909215379916?lpos=UK_News_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15379916_MI6_Investigated_By_Scotland_Yard_Over_Claims_A_Detainee_Was_Mistreated%2C_Sky_News_Reveals
New thread - “Has the SNP discovered the Mandela polling secret?
448. The revival of Cornish is of course a wildly eccentric project being driven by a small group of enthusiasts spending, for the most part, their own time and money. But then, so was the effort to revive Hebrew 150 years ago, and over 5 million people speak that as a first language now.
It’s only recently that Cornish has got big enough (IIRC ca. 3,000 people speak it including a handful of first language speakers) to attract a modest degree of official support. Interestingly, a significant driver for this support is a recognition that by adding to the cultural distinctiveness of Cornwall in this way the value of Cornwall as a tourist destination is enhanced. It can therefore be seen as a self-funding change…
379 - I saw some City type well into his late 40s using it on the news the other day. I’ve noticed it a fair bit in London, and its certainly common in people under 30.
425, bilingualism is probably not stable in the long term, because it gives English an open door into Welsh.
From memory, studies into language death show that the greater the percentage of bilinguals, the easier it is for words to enter the threatened language, which in turn makes bilingualism easier for speakers of that language. Once enough words from the dominant language have seeped in, the patterns in them mean that the derivational morphemes follow suit (thus, ex- is now a English prefix). Eventually, once people use the dominant language sufficiently often, they start resorting to it for obscure bits of grammar (can’t remember the 3rd person passive subjunctive, use English grammar) and so the process continues.
In the end, there is little trace left of the original language beyond, just a strong accent and a few unusual constructions. Official pressure by the dominant language isn’t required to achieve this, and even official support for the threatened language can’t hold back the tide.
The French aren’t having much luck keeping English words out of their language. If they can’t, Wales definitely can’t. Oh, the official language may remain pure, but not the spoken language. Indeed, I understand that in both Welsh and Gaelic, the more obscure lentitions are being lost in favour of a more English pattern.
Bilingualism can be stable on the border between two monoglot regions, or where religion is involved, but not for a country like Wales.
of course, it’s not just Wales that has this problem. Projections are that, by the end of the century, every language which currently has under 10 million speakers will be moribund, and those with under 100 million will be threatened - i.e, Italian will be where Welsh is now, and Welsh on life support.
Well Random you give the game away. It’s not your country it’s part of the UK, and while you’re looking up the duplication waste you can look up how much the UK taxpayer contributes to Wales. And yes any money wasted on completely unnecessary duplication is too much
453. Oh, jsfl, like HustLlama I’ve no interest in getting into that debate. But just for info:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/wales_politics/8154392.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/wales_politics/8137877.stm
meurig
Languages dead and alive should of course be the object of academic study. Isn’t that why Prince Charles attended Prifysgol Aberystwyth?
It is using dead languages to provide directions to live motorists that is courting trouble.
The trouble with over-immersion in folk-lore and nationalism is that the fanatical lose their sense of reality and proportion.
Wasn’t it Vladimir Stasov, the Russian nationalist behind the “mighty handful” of Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Borodin etc, who became so convinced of the beauty and power of the elephant that he claimed the animal to be indigenous to Russia.
The Scots attempt to adopt the ‘beautiful game’ as their own has met with similar incredulity. The Welsh are doing better with Rugby Football.
Seth, your attempts at baiting are wittier than most. I salute them.