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Oh dear, poor Nicola Sturgeon. The UK government has kept their word and have confirmed investment at Faslane.She must be spitting.
She isn't alone. 100 million stupidly wasted on something we don't need and will never use.
Jim wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "What if Wales, NI, and Scotland say Yes to staying, but England says they want out?
That would really test the 'family' of nations ethos. ..."
Not really, if you are talking about..."
that might be the immediate result of a referendum, but the consequences would play out quickly as Scotland would say it is unrepresentative of their part of the united kingdoms and demand another independence vote
Marc wrote: "that might be the immediate result of a referendum, but the consequences would play out quickly as Scotland would say it is unrepresentative of their part of the united kingdoms and demand another independence vote ..."That's up to them. It's their problem, not my problem. I cannot make them stay. Certainly I'm not willing to pay them to stay. If they want to be an independent country then just go away and do it.
Will wrote: "She isn't alone. 100 million stupidly wasted on something we don't need and will never use."I certainly hope we'll never use it.
Jim wrote: "Marc wrote: "that might be the immediate result of a referendum, but the consequences would play out quickly as Scotland would say it is unrepresentative of their part of the united kingdoms and de..."it might be our problem Jim if the stock markets react. Actually if we pull out of Europe that could well send the stock market plunging
Marc wrote: "Jim wrote: "Marc wrote: "that might be the immediate result of a referendum, but the consequences would play out quickly as Scotland would say it is unrepresentative of their part of the united kin..."I'm sure Dave has a cunning plan up his sleeve.
Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "Oh dear, poor Nicola Sturgeon. The UK government has kept their word and have confirmed investment at Faslane.She must be spitting."
And so she should be. People are commiting suicide after been declared fit to work by IDS's crackpot schemes, when it's clear, they're not fit to work.
And here we are throwing money at nuclear weapons.
Still waiting for maritime patrol aircraft. There's been quite a few Russian naval units hanging around the Scottish coast with impunity.
Interesting story today in The National (Scottish newspaper)A man with severe Down's syndrome (he can't read, write or talk) was sent a form asking him if he's fit to work! Needless to say, the man had trouble filling it in...
So that's what they mean by compassionate conservatism.
That party is a fucking disgrace, and anybody who voted for that party, knowing full well what they've been doing these past 5 years, should hang their heads in shame.
But I doubt they will.
somewhere the calculation has been made that such people are second class citizens and therefore afforded second class rights. I think most Tory governments and shadow governments since Thatcher have always held to this. What has changed is that they have now taken a significant part of the electorate along with them in this belief. The irony is many of the families and communities on the margins of society are the offspring of those families & communities thrown on the scrapheap in the 1980s.
R.M.F wrote: "Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "Oh dear, poor Nicola Sturgeon. The UK government has kept their word and have confirmed investment at Faslane.She must be spitting."
And so s..."
This is what the Scottish people were promised when they voted to stay in the United Kingdom, RMF. Are you saying that we should not keep our promises?
R.M.F wrote: "Interesting story today in The National (Scottish newspaper)A man with severe Down's syndrome (he can't read, write or talk) was sent a form asking him if he's fit to work! Needless to say, the man had trouble filling it in...
So that's what they mean by compassionate conservatism. ..."
Let's just stop and look at this one.
He couldn't read, write or talk.
But on the grounds that he hadn't previously starved he obviously has carers who've been dealing with the paperwork for him.
So a form comes asking if he's fit for work. So he cannot read it. Just like he cannot read anything else that has been sent him. But assuming that he's housed and has eaten in the past week, somebody has obviously been filling the forms in for him.
So one assumes that his carers will continue to fill the forms in for him.
It's nothing to do with conservatism
It's just bureaucracy and what happens when mindless bureaucracy interacts with the real world. Blind people get sent letters because the muppet on the desk that's dealing with them hasn't read the file so doesn't know they're blind. The dead get sent letters because the muppet on the desk that is dealing with the problem hasn't bothered to read along the line on the spreadsheet to check that the person is still alive. (that one I can vouch for from personal experience)
In this case it could well be an automated system sending out the letters.
I had this when I was on the sick for a fortnight. About three months later I got a letter telling me that I had to turn up for an interview to see if I was fit to work, and if not I'd lose my benefits.
I phoned up and explained I'd been back at work for three months. The lass on the other end apologised, checked and discovered that the department paying my benefit had told them when I started claiming but hadn't bothered to tell them when I stopped.
It's nothing to do with the government. It's just jobsworths sitting in offices who don't particularly care what's happening because they get their salary at the end of the month whatever.
Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "Oh dear, poor Nicola Sturgeon. The UK government has kept their word and have confirmed investment at Faslane.She must be spitti..."
We were promised home rule/federalism. Nobody said anything about some extra concrete for a naval base.
Jim wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "Interesting story today in The National (Scottish newspaper)A man with severe Down's syndrome (he can't read, write or talk) was sent a form asking him if he's fit to work! Needless..."
Agree with a lot of this, but it's the culture that the government are creating that causes these things.
We know from media reports that these people are under immense pressure from the DWP to make cuts left, right, and centre.
Marc wrote: "somewhere the calculation has been made that such people are second class citizens and therefore afforded second class rights. I think most Tory governments and shadow governments since Thatcher ha..."Tax dodgers and evaders cost the UK far more than benefiet cheats, but more people are employed to catch the latter.
The Tories are too scared to stand up to companies like Amazon who'll rung rings round them, and it's unlikely the Tories will go after their city friends who benefit from these things, either.
As always with a Conservative government, one rule for them, one rule for everybody else.
Rubbish, RMF. You just refuse to cut the government a break.The same thing happens in other walks of life. Bank errors, insurance companies, any kind of company that has to write to the public. I've even known the Co-op to make similar mistakes and you can hardly call them the right wing enemy.
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Geoff (G. Robbins) (merda constat variat altitudo)
(last edited Aug 31, 2015 08:59AM)
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R.M.F wrote: "We were promised home rule/federalism. Nobody said anything about some extra concrete for a naval base."Wrong, that's exactly what was said. Good use of hyperbole, BTW. You would have been the first to tell us that we were not meeting our obligations if we hadn't done it.
Where you are concerned we can't win.
R.M.F wrote: "Agree with a lot of this, but it's the culture that the government are creating that causes these things. ..."
This culture was been evolving over thirty years that I'd go bail on
Remember I've had to deal with RPA and other government departments since the 1970s. It was under a labour government that BCMS staff were told that they were to assume that all farmers were intent on deceiving them and to never give them the benefit of the doubt.
R.M.F wrote: "Tax dodgers and evaders cost the UK far more than benefiet cheats, but more people are employed to catch the latter. The Tories are too scared to stand up to companies like Amazon who'll rung rings round them, and it's unlikely the Tories will go after their city friends who benefit from these things, either.
..."
Given that we've had labour governments for 13 of the last twenty years, and the last one was 'Intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich' and had plenty of budgets to get tax evasion dealt with I don't think you can blame it on any particular party
This thread would be incredibly boring if everyone had the same point of view.
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Geoff (G. Robbins) (merda constat variat altitudo)
(last edited Aug 31, 2015 10:13AM)
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R.M.F wrote: "Marc wrote: "somewhere the calculation has been made that such people are second class citizens and therefore afforded second class rights. I think most Tory governments and shadow governments since Thatcher ha..."Tax dodgers and evaders cost the UK far more than benefiet cheats, but more people are employed to catch the latter.
The Tories are too scared to stand up to companies like Amazon who'll rung rings round them, and it's unlikely the Tories will go after their city friends who benefit from these things, either.
As always with a Conservative government, one rule for them, one rule for everybody else."
It has nothing to do with Tory governments. The reason that Amazon and others pay the tax they do is because of international treaties that were signed of by the Labour government when they were in power.
Amazing that you never heard about these "tax dodging" corporations whilst Labour were in power. That was because they caused it and were on dodgy ground.
Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "Marc wrote: "somewhere the calculation has been made that such people are second class citizens and therefore afforded second class rights. I think most Tory governments and shadow go..."You talk as though the Conservatives haven't been in power for 5 years, or that they have another 5 years to sort this out.
Jim wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "Tax dodgers and evaders cost the UK far more than benefiet cheats, but more people are employed to catch the latter. The Tories are too scared to stand up to companies like Amazon w..."
Attacking the Tories is default mode for me :)
On that note, I'm no Labour supporter either.
The point I'm making and you seem to be missing, is that you cannot unilaterally rescind a treaty, it has to be completely renegotiated. Try as you might you cannot blame this on the Tories.You need to look past your prejudices and examine the facts.
Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "We were promised home rule/federalism. Nobody said anything about some extra concrete for a naval base."Wrong, that's exactly what was said. Good use of hyperbole, BTW. You would ..."
Westminster doesn't listen to anybody, even when it's one of their own saying it.
Example: Russian ships have been cruising around Scottish coast quite a few times, and have passed oil rigs that are important to the UK economy.
Reaction: A Royal Navy destroyer dispatched from Portsmouth takes 36hrs to get there, by that time the Russian ship is long gone.
Why? Because Westminster scrapped maritime patrol aircraft and shut down RAF Leuchars in Fife that used to deal with these incidents.
Former defence chiefs round on Westminster for doing this, but Westminster blames the SNP for causing uncertainty...
R.M.F wrote: "Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "Marc wrote: "somewhere the calculation has been made that such people are second class citizens and therefore afforded second class..."governments of all stripes have had generations to sort this out. What was so depressing about the recent election campaign and the present Labour leadership one, is that these are the same debates we've been having cyclically since the 1980s. No new ideas under the sun. The Labour leadership campaign is 1980s (Foot) Labour versus 1990's Blairite Labour.
Even Thatcher couldn't target the weakest as directly as the present government have, because at that time there were still pressure able to be brought to bear on government by outside protest groups. All that now seems to have gone and her vision of rugged individualism and self-interest has triumphed far more successfully than in her own day, since our nation seem to have accepted it as the correct ideological path.
In case you hadn't figured it out, I'm not a Labour supporter either
Whilst I agree that the loss of the Maritime Surveillance Patrol aircraft was a strategic loss to the UK, it wouldn't have made the destroyer arrive any earlier.The Strategic Defence Review, conducted by the Labour Party (Sorry, it's there again) was responsible for scrapping a large percentage of our maritime fleet. This was, of course, the reason why we didn't have a destroyer there in a reasonable timescale.
And before you blame the Tories for cancelling Nimrod, you should look at the facts. They basically had no choice because it had been so badly managed by the previous administration. Read here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAE_Sys...
R.M.F wrote: "You talk as though the Conservatives haven't been in power for 5 years, or that they have another 5 years to sort this out. .."
They haven't been in power for five years, they were part of a coalition government.
R.M.F wrote: "Example: Russian ships have been cruising around Scottish coast quite a few times, and have passed oil rigs that are important to the UK economy. Reaction: A Royal Navy destroyer dispatched from Portsmouth takes 36hrs to get there, by that time the Russian ship is long gone.
Why? Because Westminster scrapped maritime patrol aircraft and shut down RAF Leuchars in Fife that used to deal with these incidents...."
Basically because it was gesture politics. A maritime patrol aircraft isn't going to take out most Russian warships on their own.
If the warship is to be destroyed, it'll as likely be taken out by a cruise missile fired from an Astute submarine
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Geoff (G. Robbins) (merda constat variat altitudo)
(last edited Aug 31, 2015 04:08PM)
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The Nimrods burned £3.5 billion and there would only have been 9 of them and no guarantee they would work.They are looking at tendering for replacements now with a cost of $1 billion, so there will be maritime reconnaissance again. The Nimrods weren't even safe. If you remember one of the land based variants blew up over Helmand with all lives lost. They found the same problems with the refurbished ones for maritime use, and a load more.
Here's a link to that - http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/oc...
So you see, the Tory-led government actually did something right after years of Labour ineptitude.
A little fact checking keeps your prejudices under control, RMF.
Umm, Geoff, that report actually blames private contractors for failing to properly maintain the aircraft, rather than the design of the aircraft itself (admittedly rather old, being initially based on the Comet airframe).That's not labour ineptitude, itself a somewhat biased comment don't you think???
Tory ineptitude was choosing to scrap the aircraft rather than insist that MOD put better budget controls in place. In fairness, no other administration in history has managed that yet, either, so even i find it harsh to over critisise that
From what I read on the subject, Britain pays over the odds for defence equipment, simply because keeping a few well paid jobs at BAE makes for good politics. It makes lousy economical sense though, as cheaper (and as equally good) alternatives exist.
Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "The Nimrods burned £3.5 billion and there would only have been 9 of them and no guarantee they would work.They are looking at tendering for replacements now with a cost of $1 billion, so there wi..."
The entire Scottish coast (including valuable oil rigs) are completely exposed to foreign activities.
I live nearby to Scottish coastal areas. It's ok for you to say that living in the middle of England, I'm the one at risk of Russian invasion! :)
Jim wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "You talk as though the Conservatives haven't been in power for 5 years, or that they have another 5 years to sort this out. .."
They haven't been in power for five years, they were..."
The fib dems were singing from the same song sheet as the Tories.
have you been to London recently? The Russian invasion here is complete. Property, nightlife, court tourism and even Putin bumping off his enemies all live and well in the capital
Typical double standards in this country. You have refugees fleeing from war, and the drawbridge goes up. Russians with dubious background on the other hand, are given the red carpet treatment.
Marc, for most of us in the UK London has always been a foreign place anyway: full of people we cannot understand and mostly don't like...
hmmm, our ethnic diversity means UKIP has no traction here and even though it is an immensely rich city it hasn't forgotten its social conscience and consistently has been a London City in terms of MPs. It even has the flexibility to return a Tory mayor in the teeth of its overwhelming Labour sensibility, although that's not served it well.
R.M.F wrote: "Typical double standards in this country. You have refugees fleeing from war, and the drawbridge goes up. Russians with dubious background on the other hand, are given the red carpet treatment."RMF, wealthy refugees have always been treated differently...
R.M.F wrote: "The entire Scottish coast (including valuable oil rigs) are completely exposed to foreign activities. I live nearby to Scottish coastal areas. It's ok for you to say that living in the middle of England, I'm the one at risk of Russian invasion! :) ..."
Given that the SNP seem to think it's adequate to base the Scots airforce in Lossiemouth
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics...
With the army based round a three battalion infantry brigade, I don't think you're going to get much support there either.
But don't worry, if we have followed the Yanks in fitting cruise missiles to Trident subs one of them could screw an invasion force from 1000kms away ;-)
R.M.F wrote: "The fib dems were singing from the same song sheet as the Tories..."bollocks.
Otherwise there'd have been boundary changes five years ago
Jim wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "The entire Scottish coast (including valuable oil rigs) are completely exposed to foreign activities. I live nearby to Scottish coastal areas. It's ok for you to say that living in ..."
Can't blame the SNP for that. Defence is a reserved matter.
On the subject of Trident, why is Osborne announcing a jobs bonanza? The SNP and most of Scotland oppose it, if Corbyn wins, Labour will oppose it, and parliament hasn't even voted to renew it or not...If Osborne is keen on nuclear weapons, then he can move them away from Scotland's most populous city and moor them on the Thames outside the House of Commons.
Marc wrote: "hmmm, our ethnic diversity means UKIP has no traction here and even though it is an immensely rich city it hasn't forgotten its social conscience and consistently has been a London City in terms of MPs. It even has the flexibility to return a Tory mayor in the teeth of its overwhelming Labour sensibility, although that's not served it well. ..."Whilst I don't particularly 'like' London, I admire it. It is a cosmopolitan city, with all the advantages and problems that brings. It has serious problems with electoral fraud but it actually pays for a lot of the rest of the UK.
It sucks in investment which might have gone to the regions, but there again it might not. I think it is still one of the great world cities. I wouldn't live there, but I'm glad people do :-)
Will wrote: "RMF, wealthy refugees have always been treated differently... ..."True, look at Sean Connery :-)
wouldn't live anywhere else in the world Jim!
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Regally, I understand that Wales is a Principality. As is Monaco, and Lichtenstein., of course.