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message 2601:
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Patti (baconater)
(new)
Jan 11, 2016 11:14PM
Stop stepping on the heels when you take them off and they'll last longer.
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If he lied or tried to cover up the fact he wasn't in the UK then that's one thing.However, technology communications means that his direct presence isn't necessarily required. I doubt if many of the people who work at the Environment Agency see him very often and his absence wouldn't make any difference to them.
Jim wrote: "Given that my wellies cost about the same as David Camerons, they're not a major expense.But I tend to get through about two pairs a year"
Your wellies cost the same as David Cameron?? What are they made from then???
Pig leather.
Michael Cargill wrote: "If he lied or tried to cover up the fact he wasn't in the UK then that's one thing.However, technology communications means that his direct presence isn't necessarily required. I doubt if many of..."
Oh he wasn't needed, but when he took the job he specifically said he would be hands on and turn up in emergencies.
Of course they don't need him. They don't need politicians either, but they do like to get their pictures taken
Will wrote: "Jim wrote: "Given that my wellies cost about the same as David Camerons, they're not a major expense.But I tend to get through about two pairs a year"
Your wellies cost the same as David Cameron..."
the same cheap twelve or thirteen quid wellies he buys. Obviously I get mine at an agricultural engineers so they're cheaper than supermarket :-)
Patti (baconater) wrote: "Stop stepping on the heels when you take them off and they'll last longer."After over fifty years it's a bit late to tell me now!
Mind you I have had pairs that lasted long enough for me to wear the soles smooth
The first EVEL vote is happening today. It's a social housing bill and Scottish MPs are refused entry. That'll kill Scottish nationalism stone dead - a two tier parliament.
Please excuse my ignorance but what exactly is EVEL?
Michael Cargill wrote: "If he lied or tried to cover up the fact he wasn't in the UK then that's one thing.However, technology communications means that his direct presence isn't necessarily required. I doubt if many of..."
Sounds like a good reason to scrap the post and maybe employ people to do something practical such as planting trees on hillsides?
English Votes for English Laws. (All MPs will continue to speak and vote on the existing legislative stages but only relevant MPs will be allowed to vote at the new phases where the Speaker declares a bill, or clause within a bill, is English or English and Welsh only) An attempt to answer the West Lothian question in possible the most inept manner possible. Why England can't have its own devolved parliament too I don't understand. edit it also politicises the SPeaker which is unacceptable
Nope. Sorry I still don't understand. I even googled it. :(
Basically the problem is that they dare not have an English Parliament. It might vote to do things like stop paying money from England to the other devolves. Indeed it could make the UK parliament largely irrelevant because the population of the UK is 64.1 million, the population of England is 53 million. So an English parliament might well see no reason why it should take any more notice of a vote in a Scots parliament than in the Icelandic parliament.From the point of view of an English parliament you can see why. Assume that the other parliaments are unanimous, that is 11 million votes cast in favour of something.
This means that if the English parliament splits 60% to 40% against something, and all the others are Unanimous in favour, then their votes would just tilt the balance. In reality, assuming split votes in other parliaments a 55 to 45 vote in an English parliament means that it's passed in a UK context and the English have it.
So they tried to stop this by splitting England up into regions, ideally making them client states for various political parties, but that fell at the first hurdle when the North East voted so conclusively against it that the Labour party dropped the idea. Basically the English would first like to be English, and then look at regional government within England.
Now they're trying to stop it by allowing only MPs representing English constituencies voting on issues that are purely English. We had the farce of the SNP saying they'd vote on fox hunting because a bill to change the law only in England would be a Scottish Issue. Now we've got this social housing thing.
Evel isn't going to work. In fact it'll probably just mean that they end up having to have an English Parliament, and at that point the UK parliament will be irrelevant because it's unlikely a UK parliament could make it's will stick in England if the English parliament voted against it.
Although I doubt that there would be popular support for an additional group of politicians, all with their snouts in the trough, would there? So a separate English parliament is a non starter
And that's another valid point. The way the various devolved administrations have provided excellent career opportunities for politicians has been noted. If there are 129 MSP then pro-rata then at that level of representation England would need over 1200!So either the Scots are grossly over represented or, actually, the MPs sitting for English Seats in Westminster is a remarkably economic way of dealing with it.
A more sensible idea might be to just have an English parliament in Westminster, which meets occasionally as a UK parliament with proportionate numbers of MPs elected from other areas. The sensible thing would be for the devolved MPs to turn up every other week, or on Mondays and Tuesdays
So, was Trump banned from the uk today?
Patti (baconater) wrote: "So, was Trump banned from the uk today?"Nah.
No such luck. He's too rich, so the Tories all love him.
well Keir Starmer invited Trump to his constituency, the SNP opposed the ban (or one of their MPs did and the Washington post covered it :-)
Has anyone any views on the No Borders shenanigans at Calais yesterday, that is if you saw any reportage of it. I am noticing that journalists are very selective on the subject, one might even say censored. I keep in touch as we use the Tunnel regularly but less so since the problems have been escalated. If there was a viable alternative I'd use it and avoid the are but travelling with dogs on the ferries is not all it's advertised to be. Husband has just booked for next month and I'm worrying already,
I'm sure I'd have an opinion if I knew what's happened.
Oh. Dave just told me they hosed people off a ferry.
The solidarity pro immigrant agencies along with the No Borders mob organised a march through Calais. Despite the fact that since the Paris attack there is a state of emergency and all assemblies and demos are banned. What they wanted to demonstrate wasn't obvious to anyone until they neared the port then a few hundred migrants broke the fence and boarded a P&O ferry. That made it clear what their objective was. Next week the Calais people are marching to say they've had a guts full and the government should do something. They feel very isolated and commerces are closing because people are afraid to go there. Rightly so, I've seen some shocking videos taken on public transport.
Oh yes Diane Abbott was there and Jeremy Corbyn went to Dunkirk and hugged babies in the camp there. Nobody should be living in camps, the conditions are more than squalid. The problem is enormous but they should be processed and either accorded asylum or sent back. I'm afraid it's a bigger job than any politician or EU bureaucrat can handle or wish to soil their hands with (euphemism for losing votes) . All sorts of people are using these migrants for their own ends,The bleeding hearts feel good about sending food or unused clothes, the No Borders are using them as cannon fodder to challenge our government. The anarchists are running the Jungle with Mafia like protectionism. They supply goods and services, people smuggling is one aspect. No wonder they are stirring the migrants to revolt against the new accommodation as they wont be able to get in that part as freely as they can now.
Meantime our government just close their eyes to the poverty and misery and degredation and hope it will all go away. Typical of that lot.
Actually they don't hope it will go away Will, just that the voters will forget about it.
I'm enraged that people are made to live like that, whilst Cameron want to spend fifteen million quid on a museum to that vile woman. And blows off Hellfire* missiles at £ 250K a pop which usually seem to be aimed at Toyota pickups worth about fifty quid.*Or whatever they call them these days.
I'm sure that's part of the censorship, if people saw what is happening they would see what is also happening to towns in France too. I've seen a bungalow with people sleeping on the garage roof and dormers. I know the migrants conditions are unspeakable but so is living in a town over run. I used to work in Boulogne. People are scared to go out, to drive is a nightmare. I don't think the aid agencies are helping. It's like putting a plaster on a dying man. It's got to be sorted not prolonged. You also should know that not all of the people there want change, unbelievable though it seems. Some have been there years.
The cover up that the German (and others) government tried to do of all the sexual abuse carried out by immigrants is disgusting.
There an article in a German newspaper quoting a civil servant reporting on the banning of asylum seekers to the swimming pool. A girl was raped and others had harassment. One chap was on video masturbating into the jacuzzi, and the official reported that they 'emptied their intestines' into the kids pool. Nice!
There are several problems hereOne is that these people want to come to live in the UK. Frankly there seems to be a lack of enthusiasm in the UK to accept them, especially as there is a not unreasonable fear that if we accept these, more will come. Germany threw open the doors and got over a million asylum claims.
Then there is the problem of Syria and the Middle East.
We have a very simple policy in the Middle East. We keep the oil flowing. We have no friends there, merely people we want to keep trading with. This is a highly immortal stance, or perhaps amoral might be better, and it's been the policy of this country since just before the First World War when the Navy switched from coal to oil. Every UK government of every party has stuck with it. Given the switch of civil industry and then of the population in general across to oil/gas based energy system,s the policy has is now more important. It's possible that in twenty or thirty years time oil will have diminished in importance to an extent at which we can once more ignore the area and let it drift back under the control of some local peace keeper.
Oh and the local peacekeepers. There's a division right across the area we were hoping to quietly buy oil from, as the Shi'ite and Sunni war kicks off again. This has been fought, on and off, since about 680AD (61 AH) and is not going to be solved at any point in the near future. Iran and Saudi are fighting a number of proxy wars, the Russians joining in hasn't really helped anybody. What also isn't helping is various people's proxies getting out of control. Saudi Wahhabi Islam has several offshoots, mostly, in our eyes, unpleasant. Fortunately for the west these people kill far more Muslims than they ever kill Westerners.
So the main argument for supporting the Saudis who we don't particularly like is that if we don't, they could collapse and Iran would quietly mop up the useful bits of the area and gain control, either directly or by proxies, of most of the oil.
But of course, Iranian dominance would be an utter anathema to a lot of Sunnis so if anything the fall of Saudi would make the terrorist problem and the general fighting worse.
On top of that in all probability at some point in the next thirty years Iran will have nuclear weapons. From its point of view it needs nuclear technology because the leadership is farsighted enough to see that in a generation oil could drift into irrelevance and as Iran wants to be the local superpower, it needs muscle, and oil funding will no longer supply that muscle.
I'm glad I'm old! I just can't see a resolution. It's like the oil, once it's out and spread it can't go back in the bottle.
Lynne (Tigger's Mum) wrote: "I'm glad I'm old! I just can't see a resolution. It's like the oil, once it's out and spread it can't go back in the bottle."Yes, you've about summed it up. Of course it's all mixed up with Race, in that the Iranians are not Arab and ostentatiously never have been. The Arabs have a long history of looking down on other Islamic peoples because it's their religion and their book and language, and on top of that you get a mixture of nationalisms and tribalisms and all sorts of stuff.
And there are a lot of people who're sick of the who damn lot and a fair proportion of them are hammering at our doors because they don't give a damn about it all, they just want a chance of a better life, and they cannot imagine being able to get it in a world where bureaucratic corruption is endemic and the abuse of power is normal.
And in fact there are more of them hammering at our doors because we have been short sighted enough to forment unrest, supply weapons to the Suadis who have given them out indiscriminately to various groups who seem hell bent on blowing up the world, wreck a perfectly serviceable Iraq at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives because the US fell out with Saddam Hussein, and can't seem to stop lobbing missiles indiscriminately into the mess (whilst wringing our hands and saying it's nothing to do with us)...Lynn is right. It's a mess that will never end until the oil runs out.
Well Saddam was part of the previous policy of support local strongmen who would crush the opposition and keep order. So we backed the Shah, Saddam, didn't particularly care about Syria, and used the Saudi Royal family to keep order in Arabia. We also did it in Egypt after Nasser.
The French government is a joke, if it doesn't happen in Paris it isn't important, Does that ring a bell with us? Hollande is so weak, he's called Flanby, (the custard dessert) or m. Marshmallow or Commemoration man, and again there's no cohesion or effective opposition. They are all jockeying for personal promotion but not for the good of the people. They should never have let the situation get so bad but now there are also couple of thousand at Dunkirk and at Boulogne. No one is actually saying how big the problem is but I think they genuinely don't have a clue how to handle this. There will be blood spilled. I feel like Cassandra but at least I've got my eyes open. I can understand the bien pendants blaming the west for their interference, it certainly triggered a chain reaction they never expected. They should be careful what they wish for. The exit EU brigade must be gleeful.
I'm not sure what is going to happen to France. They've got a demographic crisis plus an inevitable pension crisis, never mind a problem with an ethnic minority which has been severely marginalised
Yes they have Jim, you're quite right about that. Their state pension rate though Is higher than a UK basic old age pension almost double, , but they do have to pay more years to get it. I think you have to pay for 40 years contributions and the employers social charges are higher.
If I remember a lot of the French Pensions schemes were (at least twenty years ago) by industry.What this meant was that if you went into Agriculture you paid a very large contribution to cover the cost of the large number of elderly farmers retiring. This was even larger because there were so few farmers entering the profession.
It was discussed on one of the farming programmes, the chap found he was paying more than his postman (who was a civil servant) for a poorer pension.
Of course the number of civil servants had continued to grow which made funding their pension cheaper per participant
It was one reason why the flow of farmers from the UK to France slowed something. There were other reasons as well, the difficulty in buying land, the restrictions on who you could sell your produce to etc
I warned earlier that the establishment would pull out the dirty tricks for the EU referendum, and the BBC will be the biggest culprit. This summer, when the migrant crisis is at its height, again, don't be surprised when you don't hear a dicky bird about it in the media.
We aren't hearing that much now really. Nobody wants to deal with it so ignoring it and hoping it goes away seems to be the norm.
I suspect that the 'establishment' of all three main parties is so out of touch with what the general population thinks that they'll spend the entire campaign talking at cross purposes
Jim wrote: "I suspect that the 'establishment' of all three main parties is so out of touch with what the general population thinks that they'll spend the entire campaign talking at cross purposes"Having been involved in the Scottish independence referendum as a campaigner, I've got relevant experience of witnessing propaganda on both sides, and how negative the respective campaigns were at times.
Point is though, regardless of what side you're on, the British public deserves a decent campaign for a decision of this magnitude.
I watched youtube videos on the last campaign in the 1970s, and it's striking how people from opposite ends of the political spectrum campaigned alongside each other. It was very strange, for me, seeing Tony Benn and Enoch Powell on the same side!
Cameron trying to bounce a quick vote on the public could backfire, and an avalanche of scare stories and bullshit does nobody any favours, but I suspect that's what the political class wants, that, and an uninformed public making a decision...
Cameron looks like he's going to try and delay the actual vote now, but today's news; that the EU leaders are going to try and make exit terms tough to dissuade others from trying may play into the 'IN' vote's hands; or provoke a big backlash.
I get the impression that a lot of the other EU leaders don't really believe an 'out' vote is possible
The French are really worried about the possibility of us leaving without firm trade agreements which enable them to sell to us freely. Farmers have thrown that one into the pot today along with their other concerns while they strike this week. Some French papers mention the fact that they should also leave. Big cracks are appearing. That's why they are saying it's not possible. The commissioners laundry bills in the underpants department are mounting.
What a lot of people forget is the EU sells us more than we sell the EU, so of course they want decent trade deals if we leave.
That's right Jim and for goods which come in by road transport we export on the back of imports. A Continental haulier will backload a consignment of UK goods for about half the cost of the price they were paid to deliver in the UK. I could get a full load taken to northern France for about £400. To import the same distance would cost £700 minimum. You only have to sit dockside for an afternoon and read the names on the vehicles to get an idea of the ratio UK to Europe vehicles.
Just saw a news report out of Canada saying that there are huge demonstrations against Uber by taxi drivers in France, coinciding with air traffic controllers and teachers striking.Seriously, does anyone in that country ever actually work?
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