***** This thread is now closed, please CLICK HERE to go to Volume 22 *****
As above.*
* this site does not endorse any political party in any shape or form. Any posts/links deemed offensive by moderators will be removed
Last edited by: VxFan on Fri 27 Mar 15 at 10:29
|
>> Perspective?
>>
>> www.telegraph.co.uk/news/investigations/11411007/Jack-Straw-and-Sir-Malcolm-Rifkind-in-latest-cash-for-access-scandal.html
There's a useful debate to be had about MPs second jobs. IMHO the answer there is different for (a) a backbencher keeping up his trade or profession (eg a lawyer or the family manufacturing business) and (b) a former Minister returning to the backbenches taking on multiple directorships.
Rifkind and Straw are both standing down at the election. They will no longer be MP's after Parliament is dissolved on 30 March. The discussions they had with the bogus inquirer were about what they might do after May 7th. While that raises some issues of propriety, similar to those that applied to me when I left the Civil Service, it's a bit rich to portray it as being about MPs second jobs.
|
>> There's a useful debate to be had about MPs second jobs.
If the public of this country wish their MP's to be solely focused on them and to have no other jobs... then they need to be prepared to pay them a sensible wage, a wage that reasonably reflects what an 'achiever' in life should get when they are making decisions about the running of the country.
Paying an MP what a London police inspector earns is IMO ridiculous.
I think that in the main the fiddling has come about because the headline wage has been deliberately kept low, with the unwritten rule that you can make a lot back by being inventive with expenses etc.
Most people agree the inventiveness is wrong... so let's do something about it.
£150K for an MP.... £300K for a minister......£400K for senior minister and £500K for PM.
First Class travel o.k.and why not have a government car for a Minister.
Then no fiddling, no made up expenses, nothing other than genuine expenses... fall foul of that criminal investigation for fraud or similar.
|
|
That's a reasonable theory WP but if the public of this country wish their MP's to be solely focused on them and to have no other jobs they cannot then complain when their MPs are all professional politicians with a limited experience of real life.
|
>> That's a reasonable theory WP but if the public of this country wish their MP's
>> to be solely focused on them and to have no other jobs they cannot then
>> complain when their MPs are all professional politicians with a limited experience of real life.
What's wrong with a 40 or 50 something businessman/woman retiring early or putting his/her business in a trust or something and becoming a politician?
I don't necessarily want pimply youths going to Uni then going straight into politics.
|
>> What's wrong with a 40 or 50 something businessman/woman retiring early or putting his/her business
>> in a trust or something and becoming a politician?
Absolutely nothing. Northampton South's Brian Binley, honourably mentioned by me down thread, did exactly that. A limited cohort though, mainly Tory and likely to lack diversity in either gender or ethnicity.
Brian is standing down at the election. The Conservative PPC, likely to be elected as seat was Tory from 1974 to 97 and again from 2005, looks like a time server from local government. On various Enterprise/Development Boards and active in the Local Government Association.
>> I don't necessarily want pimply youths going to Uni then going straight into politics.
Nobody does but current system points to exactly that route. Given the pressures, the scope for bad publcity/reputation etc you'd almost have to be mad to want to.
I wouldn't do it.
|
"likely to lack diversity in either gender or ethnicity."
i.e. political correctitude. Like Natalie the Green who only wanted questions from women?
|
>>£150K for an MP
I absolutely agree. And then the salary would be enough to encourage a higher calibre of applicant. But what about the failed schoolteachers who currently sit on the benches; ridiculous to give them that sort of payrise.
|
>> I absolutely agree. And then the salary would be enough to encourage a higher calibre
>> of applicant. But what about the failed schoolteachers who currently sit on the benches; ridiculous
>> to give them that sort of payrise.
Hmm. At this point a whole pot of complexity is opened.
First of all is there any real evidence that calibre of applicant is a problem, or if it is would doubling the salary while stopping second jobs solve it?
Most seats under our electoral system are 'safe' for one party or another. The MP is effectively appointed by the selection process of the incumbent party. That process is itself subject to approval of candidates by party HQ and tp wider pressure/corruption from the centre. Somebody the leadership want either personally or as a 'reward' for service to the party is parachuted in.
One MP with a very safe seat rose quickly to Junior Minister role only to be proven useless and go back to the benches at first reshuffle. Was that wholly disconnected from his family's massive donations to the party? In this case he's a Tory but I'm under no illusion; the same culture exists in Labour. The Lib Dems might be marginally better.
|
>> >>£150K for an MP
>>
>> I absolutely agree. And then the salary would be enough to encourage a higher calibre
>> of applicant. But what about the failed schoolteachers who currently sit on the benches; ridiculous
>> to give them that sort of payrise.
>>
With most legislation now in Brussels, UK MPS are grossly underutilised.
The holidays are: tinyurl.com/2b9g444
2014-15 session
Recess
House rises House returns
Summer 22 July 2014 1 September 2014
Conference 12 September 2014 13 October 2014
November 11 November 2014 17 November 2014
Christmas 18 December 2014 5 January 2015
February 12 February 2015 23 February 2015
By my reckonning about 13.5 weeks holiday. or 25% of a year.
Cut their numbers by 50% first . With the hours they do, they are NOT worth £70k...
|
Those are the times the House sits madf.
Excepting set piece debates, whipped votes and those matters in which they have responsibility or personal interest Members don't spend a great deal of time there. Nor would there be much benefit if they did. Not saying that's right but it's the way it works.
Far more of their time is (rightly) taken up with constituency and similar work. Not just correspondence casework, clerks can handle that, but attending meetings with constituents, dealing with local issues/concerns from planning to hospitals etc etc.
As a member of Northampton's Rail User Group I've seen two local Members, firstly Sally Keeble (Lab) and then Brian Binley (Con) engage with its work. They attend monthly meetings, two/three hours on Saturday morning, write on group's behalf, facilitate/attend meetings with Ministers and others etc.
The RUG is just one of many constituency pressure groups making calls on their time.
My daughter did her yr11 works experience in Sally Keeble's constituency office. She also confirms just how hard Ms Keeble worked - she lost her seat in 2010 but will stand again in May.
|
>> With most legislation now in Brussels, UK MPS are grossly underutilised.
I missed that yesterday, it's another plausible myth put about by the anti-europe lobby and unchellenged by our media. .
Tell me, which of the major acts in the last two sessions of Parliament were about legislation 'from Brussels'?
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Wed 25 Feb 15 at 08:34
|
|
None: which is why MPs are underutilised.....
|
>> Rifkind and Straw are both standing down at the election.
Correction. Straw is standing down, Rifkind had planned to carry on.......
|
>>
>> >> Rifkind and Straw are both standing down at the election.
>>
>> Correction. Straw is standing down, Rifkind had planned to carry on.......
Update. Rifkind will stand down at GE and has resigned his Chairmanship of Intelligence Select Committee.
Nice juicy safe seat there for somebody.
|
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31574817
Austin Mitchell claimed labour would win if they put up a candidate who was "raving alcoholic sex peadophile".
Thing is he's right even if you don't agree quite with the way he phrased it. Two Jags could have said the same about Hull.
Last edited by: smokie on Mon 23 Feb 15 at 08:49
|
|
Austin on radio this morning. Stated the journalist was "stupid" in that they had taken his words out of a humour context, which of course they do for a story.
|
>> Austin on radio this morning. Stated the journalist was "stupid" in that they had taken
>> his words out of a humour context, which of course they do for a story.
Mitchell can be very funny. For several years he was a panel member in an offbeat radio quiz programme. His co-panelists were Charlie Kennedy and the late Julian Critchley. AM spent half the time creased up with laughter.
|
He was a journalist at ITV company Yorkshire Television from 1969 to 1977, presenting their regional news programme Calendar, although he spent a short period at the BBC in 1972. During his period at Yorkshire, he chaired a live studio discussion featuring a debate between Brian Clough and Don Revie on the day in 1974 in which Clough had been sacked by Leeds United.
(Wikipedia)
|
>> He was a journalist at ITV company Yorkshire Television from 1969 to 1977, presenting their
>> regional news programme Calendar,
I remember him on Calendar. He resigned from there to become Labour candidate in the Great Grimsby by-election which followed the death of Tony Crosland in February of that year. Lacking Crosland's personal vote and with govt at mid term low he was thought quite likley to lose. In fact he won albeit by a tiny majority. On same day though the Tories captured the staunch mining seat of Sutton in Ashfield where the incumbent had resigned to take on a job in Brussels.
There was an excellent cartoon on the subject in The Guardian by the late Les Gibbard
|
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11430186/Lord-Ashcroft-Ukip-plunge-in-aftermath-of-Channel-4-programme.html
That doesn't explain how OFCOM received 5000+ complaints for this program!
Ashcroft polls are biased against UKIP and trying hard to pursue public not to vote for UKIP.
|
I think we HAVE taken a hit after both that program and the remarks made by the ex-UKIP councillor (Tory for 20 years - but hey - ignore that).
The timing, of that program, just outside the pre-election time limit, but close enough to have an effect on the credulous, was clearly driven by political animus. It could well have been shown last year when its effect would have been less.
We cannot be so po-faced as to demand that programs about us such as this are not made; we should be more grown up than that, but I do believe the timing of this one was deliberately set to do maximum damage to our election chances.
We do have some, shall we say, unwelcome additions to our ranks; it may be a bit naive but we tend to trust folks who join us and make solemn declarations about their past political activities. We do not knowingly accept previous members of EDL, BNP, NF and so on, unlike other parties, but DO rely on the joiner's word.
No party however well funded, has the time to investigate every new member.
We do now attempt to vet every candidate for both local and national elections, but there again, we rely to an extent on truth in declaring things like Forum, Facebook & Twitter accounts (they ARE checked). I am not sure if we carry out a CRB check, though.
We definitely need to be more careful, particularly with high profile people and not let our excitement at a prominent person joining overcome proper caution and I hope that Head Office & the NEC of UKIP take note of hard earned recent lessons.
|
I think we just have to take the criticism Roger and if the playing field isnt entirely level, so be it, life isnt always fair.
It is tough to hear the criticism because there is nothing you or I can do about some woman we have never heard of, the only thing we can do is work hard locally with the people we know and believe in.
|
I started to watch 'UKIP the first 100 days' - I thought it might be amusing. Indeed, the first 3 or 4 minutes of archive footage of Nigel et al looked quite promising, but it quickly developed into a crass, not-very-clever tilt at UKIP. After 7 or 8 minutes, I switched it off and went to bed.
Clearly, the tv luvvies don't luv UKIP; they could more convincingly produce a programme featuring the greens - but they won't.
|
They should feature the Greens.
The Greens promise to build 500,000 new homes a year.
To do that we need more bricks, plaster board, insulation and copper wiring and pipes.
To produce more bricks and plaster we need new factories to increase capacity by some 300% from current levels.
If not powered by coal (!) , they would be powered by electricity. We don'y have enough electrical generating capacity. Wind and waves could not do it. We would need new power stations. The lead time for one new power station is roughly 7 years...
Say no more...
|
"The Greens promise to build 500,000 new homes a year."
Yes, but they will need 500,000 new homes a year - they have an open-door policy on immigration.
|
>> "The Greens promise to build 500,000 new homes a year."
>>
>> Yes, but they will need 500,000 new homes a year - they have an open-door
>> policy on immigration.
>>
They also talk about disbanding the army.
They'll need the army to keep peace with open door policies on immigration.
And they will need to concrete over much of England to build 500k houses a year. Which is a Green thing..:-)
|
"And they will need to concrete over much of England to build 500k houses a year."
............. at the same time as they want to return to 18th century agriculture - to, er, feed them all!
|
>> build 500k houses a year."
>> ............. at the same time as they want to return to 18th century agriculture - to, er, feed them all!
God what a bunch of idiots... almost as bad as UKIP. We'd be doomed, were it not for the sensible people in 'power'. One might almost feel alarmed.
|
I don't discount post 2004 arrivals from EU as contributory but we already had a significant housing shortage before they arrived. Main factor, aside from growth in indigenous population, was growing number of 'split' households (ie parents with shared custody) and single people working away from parental home - labour mobility.
Government can currently borrow for 25yrs at what? 2%? How many billions could be loaned at that rate, with repayments easily covered by rent, to develop a new stock of social housing.?
Meanwhile we pay inflated market rents to buy/let landlords to put vulnerable tenants in second rate homes.
And I'm ashamed to live in in one of world's richest countries.
|
"Meanwhile we pay inflated market rents to buy/let landlords"
Unpleasant as it is, it's simply the effect of market forces ......... too many people and not enough houses.
Single people have, for many years, moved away from the parental home. In recent years, much has been made of their inability to get away as they are forced to remain with their parents. You are right to infer that the additional 3 or 4 million hasn't helped.
|
>> "Meanwhile we pay inflated market rents to buy/let landlords"
>>
>> Unpleasant as it is, it's simply the effect of market forces ......... too many people
>> and not enough houses.
You might be confusing cause and effect there, Haywain.
|
"You might be confusing cause and effect there, Haywain."
I don't think so.
Increased demand for houses - not enough houses - price will go up for both purchase and rental properties. As the African weasel with a Russian accent says "Seemples". :-)
|
>> "You might be confusing cause and effect there, Haywain."
>>
>> I don't think so.
>>
>> Increased demand for houses - not enough houses - price will go up for both
>> purchase and rental properties. As the African weasel with a Russian accent says "Seemples". :-)
Yes but where is the demand from, and the money fuelling it? There's a whole industry built up around housing benefit, with people working the system from both sides. And the sums are not trivial. You cant attribute it to the laws of supply and demand when people aren't paying with their own money.
It might sound very Daily Mail to you and it does to me, but it's true. Do you think there would be so many split households I there was no way of getting the taxpayer to pay for it?
Its getting (a bit) harder now but the toothpaste escaped from the tube years ago and isn't going back in.
|
"Yes but where is the demand from, and the money fuelling it? "
You mostly answer this question yourself in your post timed 23:16 below.
Governments don't appear to understand how markets work - I say this because recently they made more money available (I believe, as a loan) to first-time buyers to help them afford a house. The very act of making more money available, in a seller's market, will obviously push prices even higher.
On the other hand, maybe the government does understand, but hopes that the stupid populus doesn't.
|
>> It might sound very Daily Mail to you and it does to me, but it's
>> true. Do you think there would be so many split households I there was no
>> way of getting the taxpayer to pay for it?
No. But I think the consequence would be people on the streets or stranded in abusive relationships. I see plenty of Housing stuff at CAB; landlords ripping off the migrant workers is a massive issue (as is abuse by shady employers). We're currently doing some stuff on letting agents too.
If you're state funded it's very easy indeed to end up labelled as 'intentionally homeless' with limited or no recourse to further help. Benefit tourism makes big headlines but the cases I'm seeing are the other way. Women with young children abandoned by their partners have it particularly hard. No money to stay here and no money to go home....
|
"Unpleasant as it is, it's simply the effect of market forces ......... too many people and not enough houses."
The latest news that net migration was 298,000 last year will not have helped the situation - at least, not according to my maths.
|
|
Those 298,000 (well its over 600,000 but 350,000 left the UK) incomers may be at least partly responsible for the boost to the UK economy of course.
|
"incomers may be at least partly responsible for the boost to the UK economy of course.'
According to the Beeb news, it's the booming economy that's attracting them.
|
>> "incomers may be at least partly responsible for the boost to the UK economy of
>> course.'
>>
>> According to the Beeb news, it's the booming economy that's attracting them.
It wouldn't boom without the available labour.
This where the old europe immigration thing for UKIP goes TU, economy booming, unemployment falling despite all them damn foreign types.
|
"It wouldn't boom without the available labour. "
Yes, we can go round and round here, can't we? Stop trying to detract from the original point about number of houses:number of people.
|
>> "It wouldn't boom without the available labour. "
>>
>> Yes, we can go round and round here, can't we? Stop trying to detract from
>> the original point about number of houses:number of people.
Well it doesn't seem to be holding the economy or society back does it? Is it really as much of a problem as people like to harp on about?
|
"Stop trying to detract from the original point about number of houses:number of people."
Bad news for the lefties - the news has just shown Labour and Libdems (together with UKIP) condemning the Conservative failure on immigration.
|
>> Bad news for the lefties - the news has just shown Labour and Libdems (together
>> with UKIP) condemning the Conservative failure on immigration.
Nahh. Tories committed to reducing net migration to tens of thousands. No ifs, No buts
As with their promises to reduce the deficit they've failed. No ifs, No buts.
Their political opponents can have a field day. Trying to portray that as 'bad news for the lefties' is absurd and needs me to borrow from Boris's vocab.
Nonsense on Stilts......
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Thu 26 Feb 15 at 18:46
|
"Trying to portray that as 'bad news for the lefties' is absurd "
I'm just surprised to see them on the same side as UKIP. It doesn't make it any easier for me to decide who to vote for.
|
>> I'm just surprised to see them on the same side as UKIP. It doesn't make
>> it any easier for me to decide who to vote for.
Only on same side a UKIP in sense of laughing at call me Dave's discomfiture. To my mind, the issue is that none of them will take time to explain. I know explain might be a bit close to 'the man in Whitehall knows best' but sometimes we do need to spell stuff out.
|
>> "incomers may be at least partly responsible for the boost to the UK economy of
>> course.'
>>
>> According to the Beeb news, it's the booming economy that's attracting them.
The two are not mutually exclusive.
According to credible economic theory the relationship is symbiotic.
|
BRITISH ECONOMY 'OVERHEATING', WORLD BANK CLAIMS
Mass immigration plus full employment a "vicious circle", experts warn
On other pages:
Obesity Epidemic
New Car Sales Up
Order Replicas of latest Fabergé Egg Online
Travellers Buy Stately Home for Cash, Evict Former Owners
|
>> And I'm ashamed to live in in one of world's richest countries.
Which country would you not be ashamed to live in?
|
>> Meanwhile we pay inflated market rents to buy/let landlords to put vulnerable tenants in second
>> rate homes.
And there's a can of worms.
I'm a natural Labour voter, or should be. I believe in welfare, and redistribution of wealth, which should properly be called just 'distribution'. I don't resent rich people (I'd like to be one) but they shouldn't be allowed to believe that they are the sole wealth creators or the true owners of their stash. Buffet and Gates understand that - they avoid tax whenever possible, but give 'their' money away directly, presumably because they think, with good reason, that governments are terrible at spending it.
They are right.
In-work benefits subsidise low wages, and keep them low. Housing benefit subsidises landlords, and keep rents (and house prices) high. My son, who has a decent enough job and is nearly thirty, can just about support himself in a scruffy, shared, rented flat in this part of the country - I don't think he can get beyond that for the foreseeable future unless I anticipate his inheritance pretty substantially. Yet I bought a house at 24. Progress?
It should be compulsory for whomever is elected to familiarise themselves with the systems of poor relief in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Speenhamland system, the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 and the background to them. Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it, and they certainly did between 1997 and 2010.
The crowning glory of this public and personal financial black hole is the unquestionably unaffordable health service. The NHS has to cater for every need, free, and within short target timescales. The better it does this, whether through allocation of more resources or efficiency measures, the more demand there is. The only way to make it affordable is to reduce demand.
Many senior doctors actually want to bring back waiting lists as a means of doing that. Major operations are regularly cancelled because the bed needed is seized for a clinically non-urgent minor case, such as the patient with a hernia or a bunion who has been waiting for nearly 18 weeks and has to be treated if the hospital is not to lose funding. How mad is that?
Efficiency and cheeseparing can only deal with this up to a point, and that point was reached some time ago.
I'd vote for the party that can acknowledge, face up to and deal with these issues, whatever colour its rosettes. Some hope.
I think Milliband actually gets this, but of course much of it is unsayable, especially the NHS bit. I think they even give Dunkin' Donuts credit for making a start on benefits, despite publicly ridiculing him for lack of progress.
Whether Labour can rally support for the necessary approach is doubtful; Ed M has gone a bit quiet on plans mooted some time ago to link benefits to a period of work and to over 21s. He's painted himself into a corner with a promise to cut tuition fees, made years ago before it became apparent that £9,000 a year actually puts no one off so he'll have to find money for that which he could have used for more effective bribes. Cameron has promised benefit cuts but at the same time has promised pensioners that they can keep their non-means tested benefits - each party of course trying to comfort it's 'own' voters rather than propose solutions to pressing problems.
Neither has gone anywhere near a credible solution for the NHS that I've noticed.
I admit I haven't checked out UKIP's ideas on the above.
|
"I admit I haven't checked out UKIP's ideas on the above."
I believe that Farage originally stated that the Health service should be, at least in part be insurance based a bit like the French system. He believed the current taxation based, free at the point of use system, was untenable in the the long term for much the reasons you state.
He has now done a U turn and UKIP now would leave the health service model basically unchanged. They are for some reason obsessed about hospital car park charges
A pity really since the original position was one of the few things that Farage said that made any sense.
|
>> Neither has gone anywhere near a credible solution for the NHS that I've noticed.
You have to completely and fundamentally rethink NHS funding and change the public perception about what it is and why it exists.
Fundamentally, Compulsory Medicare (a general generic term for insurance) needs to be introduced, on a sliding scale of percentage of salary basis. AHA you say we already pay NI, AHA I say, no you don't pay for hospitals and the NHS, you are paying for ALL social care and benefits out of that money. An excess needs to be charged. 10 quid for a doctor, 100 quid for an A&E attendance. No one values what they don't pay for, and a price at the door will cut the frivolous attenders.
The public can call for and the politicos can offer as election bribes, a cut in the NI payments, (no-one likes paying for immigrant scroungers do they) but the medicare payment is untouched because it is ring fenced and separate.
This means doing away with the Labour Parties sacred cows and kicking the memory of Bevan and Beveridge into touch. The name NHS has to go as well. This is why it will never happen its unthinkable.
This is not a unique UK NHS problem, medical care system's around the developed world are all suffering from under funding, over population, over reliance and an ageing population. Alas this means that what the undeveloped world never had, they will never get.
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 25 Feb 15 at 09:45
|
>> Fundamentally, Compulsory Medicare (a general generic term for insurance) needs to be introduced, on a
>> sliding scale of percentage of salary basis. AHA you say we already pay NI, AHA
>> I say, no you don't pay for hospitals and the NHS, you are paying for
>> ALL social care and benefits out of that money. An excess needs to be charged.
>> 10 quid for a doctor, 100 quid for an A&E attendance. No one values what
>> they don't pay for, and a price at the door will cut the frivolous attenders.
>>
>>
>> The public can call for and the politicos can offer as election bribes, a cut
>> in the NI payments, (no-one likes paying for immigrant scroungers do they) but the medicare
>> payment is untouched because it is ring fenced and separate.
That's the sort of thinking that is needed.
I quite like the hypothecation angle because it would help people to understand that it isn't free; but I'm not sure it's direct enough, and of course many people won't be paying anyway. On the plus side, any politician who wanted to promise to protect/increase health spending would have to promise the same in respect of the medicare tax.
You are quite right that anything "free" is not valued. A small charge to see a doctor might take a sizeable chunk off demand. But this stuff isn't easy; maybe a starting point to work things out would be prescription charges. The logic of these I'm sure was to deter people from traipsing to the doctor for free headache tablets etc but there are so many exceptions that only about 10% of prescriptions are paid for. It doesn't help that all you need to do to avoid paying is to tick a box on the back to say you are receiving benefits or on a low income.
There has always been rationing and in effect the targets have attempted to remove it by eliminating queues. That could only ever result in exponential demand increase.
|
>
>> That's the sort of thinking that is needed.
And of course, thats all ducked up now that they are devolving the NHS to local regions - Kills any chance of a properly funded and insured health care NHS political football again.
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 25 Feb 15 at 13:06
|
>>
>
>>
>> You are quite right that anything "free" is not valued. A small charge to see
>> a doctor might take a sizeable chunk off demand.
>>
My very thoughts the other day as I sat for two hours in the waiting room for my supposed appointment at 10.00 am.
I'd have paid £50 for a 10.00 appointment that actually meant 10.00.
|
Which gives rise to the oft repeated war cry from the left "No Two Tier Health Service"
Of course there can be a multi tiered health service, it already exists with private health care like Bupa and the alike.
|
>>(no-one likes paying for immigrant scroungers do they)
>>
Or the health tourists.
Over 10 years ago my daughter commented about very pregnant women arriving in the UK at LHR ,a quick trip on the Heathrow Express to St Mary's at Paddington and then at presenting for NHS treatment ( with their airline bag tags still attached to their suitcases!) .
|
>> >>(no-one likes paying for immigrant scroungers do they)
>> >>
>> Or the health tourists.
>> Over 10 years ago my daughter commented about very pregnant women arriving in the UK
>> at LHR ,a quick trip on the Heathrow Express to St Mary's at Paddington and
>> then at presenting for NHS treatment ( with their airline bag tags still attached to
>> their suitcases!) .
>>
While not denying the existence of health tourism it's pretty small beer in the scale of NHS funding. And just 'cos somebody with a dusky complexion arrived at LHR it doesn't mean they're not entitled to NHS treatment - could be as British as me.
|
>> I'm ashamed to live in in one of world's richest countries.
Never mind 'shame'. Think of the convenience. Just try living in one of the world's poorest countries. That'd learn yer...
I'm not joking.
|
Anybody hear this?
Ukip's Scottish MEP David Coburn, who has a voice like Ian Paisley but louder and raspier, was greeted with silence at best and a slow handclap when he had the temerity to say it was impossible to know how many houses were needed while we have no control over numbers coming here from the EU!
Nicola Bennett, leader of the Green Party who has a voice like a different kind of bandsaw, was on the other hand cheered repeatedly to the rafters (and not by a few) almost before she opened her mouth.
Coburn accused the audience of being packed with middle class Greens, and judging by the responses I had to agree with him. The audience were more or less indifferent to Lib Dem Ed Davey and Labour's Emma Reynolds.
|
"Coburn accused the audience of being packed with middle class Greens, and judging by the responses I had to agree with him. "
Hand-picked by the Beeb.
|
>> Nicola Bennett, leader of the Green Party who has a voice like a different kind
>> of bandsaw, was on the other hand cheered repeatedly to the rafters (and not by
>> a few) almost before she opened her mouth.
They have to cheer her as soon a she opens her mouth, because (based on her interview on LBC) nothing comes out of it, and they would have nothing else to cheer.
|
>> Anybody hear this?
>>
>> Ukip's Scottish MEP David Coburn, who has a voice like Ian Paisley but louder and
>> raspier, was greeted with silence at best and a slow handclap when he had the
>> temerity to say it was impossible to know how many houses were needed while we
>> have no control over numbers coming here from the EU!
UKIP have a problem in that except for Nigel F and Douglas Carswell their spokesmen struggle to sound credible. Its not necessarily what they say, its the way some of them say it. I suspect Coburn had already set the audience's teeth on edge before getting to this subject.
I also think most of the public can see through the migrants narrative. We had social housing crisis and an incipient one in the private market long before the first Poles arrived.
|
Judging by the audience reaction right from the off, well before the slow handclap, they were set up to cold shoulder him. Absolute silence followed his answers. There can't have been a single UKIP supporter in the audience unless he only had one hand.
Coburn is quite something. Imagine Paisley, with a Scottish accent, but much much angrier.
Bennett has obviously overcome the brain fade, she wouldn't shut up either. I'd have chucked them both out of the balloon just to get rid of the noise.
|
>> Bennett has obviously overcome the brain fade, she wouldn't shut up either. I'd have chucked
>> them both out of the balloon just to get rid of the noise.
It shouldn't, its irrational, but it irks me greatly that an aussie comes over here and starts telling us how the country should be run.
|
>> It shouldn't, its irrational, but it irks me greatly that an aussie comes over here and starts telling us how the country should be run.
I used to feel the same about that lefty Kenyan chap Peter Hain, who was raised in South Africa. I didn't mind him being a lefty but I thought he was cheeky being lefty here.
Over the years he settled into the Labour Party, became less rabid and ended up a minister. I don't mind him now. He's become one of us.
|
|
Oh yes the Wales Secretary and Anti apartheid revolutionary - born in Kenya. I always admired the anti-Apartheid chaps who demonstrated from the safety of the UK. MP for Neath in South Wales. My late BiL, all 5 foot 3 of him was officiating at the funeral of Rhodri Morgan (then First Minister in the Wales Government)'s mother - when Hain's mobile phone went off as he walked into the chapel, he told him in no uncertain terms to turn it of for leave....there was some muttering from Hain about not knowing who he was etc etc....his expenses were under scrutiny for a while as well. Not my cup of tea.
|
>> Oh yes the Wales Secretary and Anti apartheid revolutionary - born in Kenya. I always
>> admired the anti-Apartheid chaps who demonstrated from the safety of the UK
While clearly not at same risk as Biko or Donald Woods........
Hain came to UK as a teenager after his parents were given banning orders for their opposition to segregation making it impossible for them to work. The family home was under constant surveillance and harassment by the security forces. Unlikely he'd have been let back while apartheid was in its pomp.
Neither was it easy for him here. He was victim of an attempted letter bombing and was famously victim of attempt to frame him for a bank robbery.
Plenty in authority in UK thought we should side with our 'kith and kin' and getting a roughing up for opposition to apartheid was an occupational hazard on demos. The right wingnmedia were consistently hostile until well into seventies too. Soweto and the murder of Biko finally forced them to see reality.
|
>> The right wingnmedia were consistently hostile until well into seventies too. Soweto and the murder of Biko finally forced them to see reality.
You got it Bromptonaut. But actually 'reality' still shimmers a bit this way and that.
It's always been obvious that Peter Hain was a serious well-meaning person with excellent reasons to be anti-apartheid. When he came to this country he did so as an exile, and being the sort of fussy activist he is set about the reactionary aspects of our state more or less immediately. It was immature of me to object to this, as I did briefly at the time. But now I see him as one of us. You can't say he hasn't gone native.
Incidentally, I don't see RP as a thorough conservative but I do think his sniping at Hain comes from right-wing sources in structure and attitude.
I guess we've always seen Hain as a bit pushy and presumptuous. But he's a politician and they all are, or nearly. It's what they have to be to do what they do. Not a job for shy modest retiring types like us.
|
>> Judging by the audience reaction right from the off, well before the slow handclap, they
>> were set up to cold shoulder him. Absolute silence followed his answers. There can't have
>> been a single UKIP supporter in the audience unless he only had one hand.
>>
>> Coburn is quite something. Imagine Paisley, with a Scottish accent, but much much angrier
........but gay, as Coburn is, openly!
|
>> ........but gay, as Coburn is, openly!
and that is relevant how?
|
>> Judging by the audience reaction right from the off, well before the slow handclap, they
>> were set up to cold shoulder him. Absolute silence followed his answers. There can't have
>> been a single UKIP supporter in the audience unless he only had one hand.
Don't forget that the audience will have done a couple of 'warm up' questions before the live broadcast starts. Coburn may already have got their backs up before we heard a word. Although I'm not a regular listener to AQ I've a strong impression that, as a travelling show, audience reaction is heavily dependent on the locale and even the venue. Sometimes its very Mailesque, other times seemingly heavy on liberal views.
Watched it recorded once, over forty years ago in the era of David Jacobs and Isobel Barnett. Audience was invited through the school from where it was broadcast. It was less political back then, the move to be radio's Question Time is relatively recent, and things may have changed. I don't think though the audience is 'selected' in the way of the TV programme.
|
>> audience reaction is heavily dependent on the locale and even the
>> venue. Sometimes its very Mailesque, other times seemingly heavy on liberal views.
...any chance you could point me in the direction of a Mailesque one?
|
>> I also think most of the public can see through the migrants narrative. We had
>> social housing crisis and an incipient one in the private market long before the first
>> Poles arrived.
....and it's improved, or become worse, since then?
|
>> >> Poles arrived.
>> ....and it's improved, or become worse, since then?
Well it was getting worse before they arrived.
And has it stunned economic growth in any way?
|
That's the problem with immigration. It causes economic growth.
It will sort itself out in the end. They'll assimilate, lose their ridiculous work ethic and adopt traditional British ways of skiving and moaning about everything and we'll wonder what all the fuss had been about.
|
|
Sort of a catch. 22 here though. Need more. Houses so need more builders. Tried to get a bricklayer lately?. Best advertise for some in Poland.
|
Funnily, no reference has been made by the pro kippers or the anti kippers about Niges idea to abolish the discrimination laws with reference to employment.
Of course the leaderships have united on the premise of this being blatant racism. I on the other hand thought Nige was just being thoughtless in the way he tried to phrase an employment policy.
However its a terrific indication of how UKIP make up policy and develop manifesto on the fly. Its a case of "Lets say this - be as controversial as you like -if we get a good response we will develop it, if it doesn't we will never mention it again"
Now you could argue that this is a good way of providing universally popular policy driven by the majority, or you could say this is simply a way of pandering to prejudices of the day and damn the public good.
|
Didn't Gordon Brown coin "British jobs for British people"?
It would seem reasonable to employ a British person rather than not, other things being equal.
Assuming it was nationality he was on about; and I'm not sure you whether you would need to abolish any laws to do that.
|
>> It would seem reasonable to employ a British person rather than not, other things being
>> equal.
>>
The principle has empecable credentials when applied to other commercial costs.
Buy local, encourage local enterprise, minimise transport miles. All very green and PC.
|
Given that the programme that the quote comes from isnt being shown until Thursday, I am waiting to watch the whole thing and see his comments in context before I judge them.
I am certainly not going to take the word of journalists, be they pro or anti UKIP, the accounts by both sides are so different that only judging for myself seems sensible.
Regardless, it isnt policy and never was, it was a comment made during a documentary. My only question is what the question he was responding to was, which thus far hasnt been made very clear, I presume because it doesnt aid the narrative of the media reporting on it.
|
Stuu,
Listen to the man himself....
www.channel4.com/news/nigel-farage-race-discrimination-laws-scrapped
Been there for a day or so. I don't like Farage, I don't like UKIP. But its difficult to see what the outrage was about.
There's enough legitimate mud to sling, without making it up.
|
Not listened to clip again but gist of what I heard on radio yesterday was that he though UK was now colour blind and that race discrimination laws had outlived their usefulness.
If he thinks that he's WAY out of touch with reality.
Might not be as blatant as 'No blacks, dogs or Irish' but it's still out there big time. Mrs I cannot stand negroes isn't that much of an outlier. Somebody her openly states he doesn't trust Muslims.
|
|
To be clear, I heard heard the sound clip, just no picture. Does his facial expression, or wider context of longer version, change the meaning?
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Fri 13 Mar 15 at 20:02
|
I don't know.
Is this your normal approach? To ask someone else the value of something to decide whether or not you should watch it for yourself?
Seems a strange way of forming a position to me, but I guess its understandable.
|
I cannot get the vid to work on the public wifi where I am now - a caravan site in Staffordshire. I did though hear soundtrack yesterday because C4 allowed BBC R4 to include it in the PM news magazine.
My impression of what I heard was that Farage though race discrim legislation had outlived its usefulness. Am I wrong?
|
Sorry, I forgot you were in a field...
I didn't hear any soundtrack other than this video.
For me, I find it much easier to judge someone when watching them.
He did say that there should be no laws against discrimination by race or colour, but his justification was that its not needed, not that it was acceptable to discriminate.
It was a dumb speech to give, but it came across to me as someone who can sound thoughtful and genuine even when off the cuff talking about stuff he hasn't thought through.
The key lesson from that being that just because he sounds like he's considered something, it doesn't mean he has.
I think he's wrong, but this was hardly a disgusting or awful speech worthy of such outrage. It just rather sums him and his approach up - which is simple and limited (and very wrong), rather than evil.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Fri 13 Mar 15 at 20:26
|
>>It would seem reasonable to employ a British person rather than not, other things being equal
True. But what should British nationality be entitled to balance or not?
As an aside, I think Farage said "British born" which I do not agree with, it becomes a more reasonable point when referring to British nationality. e.g. one of my girls was born in Rio de Janeiro, albeit she now has a British passport and is a British citizen.
Are we saying that employers are deliberately giving jobs to foreign nationals? Or that for some reason a British national is more suitable but the foreign national gets it anyway?
Or are we saying that the Employer can choose a British person for no good reason except he doesn't want a foreigner?
Its hardly workable, however reasonable it sounds.
|
|
I'm really not sure how you can discriminate in some areas, and ban it in others. You either have the right to work in the uk or you don't.
|
|
I don't know either how this would work.All Farage is achieving sounding daft.The politics of division and hatred.
|
UKIP Thread Volume 21 - Roger.
