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UK PoliGAF thread of tell me about the rabbits again, Dave.
- Thread starter Chinner
- Start date
curls
Wake up Sheeple, your boring insistence that Obama is not a lizardman from Atlantis is wearing on my patience ð¤
Lear said:The Daily Express is at it again with this charming front page.
At this point they might as well just have 'IMMIGRANTS! GAYS! PANIC!' as a headline, it'd be about as subtle.
:lol :lol :lol
Oh my god, how did I miss this? Ethnics? WTF does that even mean?
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
radioheadrule83 said:
Sounds to me like there will be a whole load of problems with it. Off the top of my head:
- how will they know you are a graduate?
- what do they do with older people who take degrees for fun/education/career change and not for money?
- it's discriminatory taxation for entry to certain professions that require a degree - that's bad for social mobility whichever way you look at it
- what if you take a degree and it's a mistake, you hate it and go off and do something else?
- I'd expect an increase in institutions that offer the tuition (so you learn the stuff) but don't award degrees - because they won't be universities they will be essentially unregulated
- how would you treat an overseas student who paid full fees and then subsequently came to live in the UK? Tax them (for having a degree) or not tax them (because they paid for it already)?
- will the tax apply to graduates of foraign universities?
- will it be retrospective?
- if those who pay in full for the course at the time avoid the tax (which seems only fair), then this ends up being a regressive tax on those who can't afford to
It is all very messy.
phisheep said:
I'm also wondering,
- How do they determine whether or not the degree the individual received was a factor in the person's later success? Some degrees are quite worthless (like mine, I suspect)
- will the tax only apply until course costs are recovered or will it be for the rest of students' lives?
-What about graduates that leave the country?
Although I admit I haven't read much about the proposed plans, it seems pretty unfair to me
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10670182
They're painting these potential cuts to the licence fee as a reflection of the general need for austerity but i can't shake the feeling that Rupert Murdoch is pulling the strings here.
They're painting these potential cuts to the licence fee as a reflection of the general need for austerity but i can't shake the feeling that Rupert Murdoch is pulling the strings here.
i wonder if there is any polling on the public desire for a cut in the license fee, obviously the bbc as an institution is broadly popular, and many conservatives have an ideological desire to cut the bbc and see this as a step towards that, as well as speculation about deals cut with murdoch and whatnot, but i'm interested whether amidst all that, this is something that resonates with people. i rather suspect it does, that people think £145.50 is a bit too much, but i'm not sure.
from the telegraph interview, this stood out.
he can fuck right off with that. his party didn't win a majority.
from the telegraph interview, this stood out.
he can fuck right off with that. his party didn't win a majority.
Chinner said:
big society just means small government, usual Tory mantra. Gives them free reign to slash and burn public services, with the safety net of 'oh, we aren't making cuts, we're allowing local people to be more in control of their services'. I.e you want it, you fucking do it.
as for cuts in the license fee and the hoo-ha around wages paid to top earners (I think only 3% or something small was for salaries), hopefully they'll look at freezing it for a while rather than absolute cuts.
blazinglord
Member
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8246689.stm - seems like there is support for lowing the TV licence fee. But I do think the BBC have shot themselves in the one foot by being secretive about the salaries it pays despite the organisation being funded by the taxpayer, and investing in projects outside their remit (a la Lonely Planet). And now they are proceeding to shoot themselves in the other foot by being bullish about the licence fee cuts and becoming more overtly hostile to the government which will give them even more incentive to scale back the size of the BBC.Empty said:
His party only fell twenty seats short of a majority though, and would have probably gained an overall majority if equal sized constituencies had been in place at the time of the 2010 election. I would say that David Cameron has more of an electoral mandate to be Prime Minister than either of the other two party leaders.
blazinglord said:
that poll would be more useful if i knew whether it explained what such a cut would mean in terms of BBC output, so present a couple of options like £10 cut = ????, £20 cut = ???, £70 cut =???. people generally like to pay less tax, but they also loath getting less in services, so asking if people want to just pay less tax without explaining what that means can get some misleading results.
blazinglord said:
somehow i think you'd dislike that logic if in an alternate post-election universe i used it to say that a lib-lab coalition has a mandate if PR had been put in place at the last election. on the point, i didn't say anyone else had a better electoral mandate or claim that his party didn't do well, i think that boiling an argument down to 'LOL I HAVE ELECTORAL MANDATE' instead of just debating the issues and presenting what he thinks is best for the people in this country, is off given that his party platform didn't pass the post needed to get a mandate on their own.
blazinglord
Member
To be honest, I think the idea that Britons want Scandinavian style services with American style taxes is a myth perpetuated by big state proponents and social democrats. I think a more accurate deduction from these sort of polls would be that people on a whole want to pay less taxes, but the taxes they already pay, they want to see it invested more efficiency on essential services instead of wasted on vanity projects.Empty said:
I wasn't talking about combining the results of parties. None of the three parties campaigned on merging parties or pooling together their votes with another party. As a general rule, I don't tend to like the uncertainty of coalition governments (although I do think that the current coalition government we have is doing a good job so far). But ultimately I take the view that the party who has the most votes has won and therefore has an electoral mandate. If Labour had just 5 more votes than the Tories, then I would say that Labour has the electoral mandate to govern, because in terms of votes they have succeeded in gaining the most votes. The joining together of parties is irrelevant and is fundamentally undemocratic because it could, in theory lead to a coalition of losers (which was almost the case when the Lib-Lab-SNP-Green-Plaid coalition idea was floated).
Anyway, I'm sure you take a different view as a proponent of PR (if I remember correctly), but that's a debate to be had closer to the referendum date. Meanwhile, I don't think characterising David Cameron as 'stealing the keys to no.10' and whatever mischaracterisations Labour supporters have labelled the current situation, is accurate or really that fair.
blazinglord said:
well britons gave new labour two landslides and they campaigned broadly on that idea, it was more scandinavian style investment in public services though, so there is clearly some appeal. it wasn't an attempt to trot out an argument that this is true of all britons, or the majority, more to point out that it is common for voters to want the best of both worlds without realism, something that has led to such torrid public finances in the western world, and that would skew those poll results if you don't force realism on them.
blazinglord said:
i think you missed my point. it was merely to point out that saying they have a mandate as if the rules have been changed to suit them they would have got a majority would be a weak argument given how you'd likely react to a similar argument on the other side of the fence. i compared changing seat sizes to changing the rules of the game so parties would campaign knowing they are going to coalition up, i don't actually think that. as for other points, if they are directed at me, i don't know if you remember but i supported the lib dems allying with the tories, though i've been unsatisfied about how they've represented my interests so far. i have no interest in reigniting an argument on PR, like with the EU i think the topic was pretty comprehensively debated in the election thread. i wish i could bring it back next may because it would be relevant, but alas we are only voting on alternative vote, which regrettably isn't a proportional system.
blazinglord said:
so you'd be in favour of some kind of acerbo law?
edit: i think i may have just activated 'le legge di godwin'.
blazinglord
Member
I thought Godwin only applied to mentions of Nazism or Hitler. :lolEmpty said:
But yeah, I'm strongly in favour of plurality because of its simplicity, transparency and fairness. It is also my view that having equal sized constituencies isn't gerrymandering. Yes the Tories want to change it because they will benefit and it will eliminate the inbuilt Labour bias. But that doesn't make the proposed changes any less fair. Labour are just going to have to work harder to appeal to more people in rural and larger constituencies to win a seat.
radioheadrule83
Banned
I saw a tweet the other day that (completely innocently) used the acronym BS for the "Big Society", and I was suddenly overcome with shock that people haven't just been calling it BS from the off! That was a big campaign slogan and I didn't notice any if any of the opposition picking up on it and calling it out as the bullshit it is.
I'm sick of hearing about it. Dave was in Liverpool bigging up his Big Society ideas and his Big Society bank which will have a fund of £60-100m initial capital (ie. fuck all), and he was neglecting to mention how he had scrapped the rebuilding of schools in the area and the £10m he slashed from the council's budget there. Nothing against the cuts, cuts have gotta fall everywhere, but its the hard facedness of it all -- standing there trying to convince people he's onto this wonderful, great, and empowering idea that will free them all from nasty big government - when all he's really saying is - "we can't afford to bankroll some of these things anymore, so we'd really appreciate it if you do it yourselves"
For some things, that will work, for a lot of things it won't. Some areas simply won't have the resources to look after themselves that way. I don't think the initiative is a bad idea in an ideal world, and its not a bad idea in the real world in some instances either - it just irritates the fuck out of me to hear this vague campaign slogan getting parrotted on the airwaves months after the election as though its something better than it is.
I'm sick of hearing about it. Dave was in Liverpool bigging up his Big Society ideas and his Big Society bank which will have a fund of £60-100m initial capital (ie. fuck all), and he was neglecting to mention how he had scrapped the rebuilding of schools in the area and the £10m he slashed from the council's budget there. Nothing against the cuts, cuts have gotta fall everywhere, but its the hard facedness of it all -- standing there trying to convince people he's onto this wonderful, great, and empowering idea that will free them all from nasty big government - when all he's really saying is - "we can't afford to bankroll some of these things anymore, so we'd really appreciate it if you do it yourselves"
For some things, that will work, for a lot of things it won't. Some areas simply won't have the resources to look after themselves that way. I don't think the initiative is a bad idea in an ideal world, and its not a bad idea in the real world in some instances either - it just irritates the fuck out of me to hear this vague campaign slogan getting parrotted on the airwaves months after the election as though its something better than it is.
The coallition is doing my head in. On the one hand they seem to be moving towards rectifying the last government's atrocious record on civil liberties. Section 44 powers have been restricted (though the ECHR had just ruled them illegal, so they had to do something) and we've been promised a review of counter terrorism legislation, so hopefully 28 days detention will be got rid of (probably only down to 14 days, but it's something). Theresa May has turned out not to be as atrociously bad an appointment as I first suspected and her approval of the Supreme Court's decision in HJ & HT v Secretary of State for the Home Department seems to show she's not a massive homophobic cow, or at least she can leave her personal feelings on the side. We've also been promised much needed libel reform. Though as an aside my personal view is that the biggest problem with libel law is the issue of costs which obviously affects all litigation and I'm therefore sceptical as to how well any reform would actually deal with the problem. I'm interested to see what happens though.
Then on the other hand we have the usual Tory bullshit. This Big Society nonsense is just a nicer way of saying they're rolling back the public sector. As someone put it on Twitter 'If you're so fucking clever, do it yourself'. Then we have the restructuring of the NHS which is going to cost a fortune and no doctor seems to actually want. Then there's the Academies Bill which is currently being rushed through Parliament in what, if I were a cynical man (which I am), seems a blatant attempt to stifle debate when there seem to be lots of legitimate concerns.
I think the basic summary of the conclusion i've come to is that good work on civil liberties doesn't really change the fact that they're still Tories at heart.
Then on the other hand we have the usual Tory bullshit. This Big Society nonsense is just a nicer way of saying they're rolling back the public sector. As someone put it on Twitter 'If you're so fucking clever, do it yourself'. Then we have the restructuring of the NHS which is going to cost a fortune and no doctor seems to actually want. Then there's the Academies Bill which is currently being rushed through Parliament in what, if I were a cynical man (which I am), seems a blatant attempt to stifle debate when there seem to be lots of legitimate concerns.
I think the basic summary of the conclusion i've come to is that good work on civil liberties doesn't really change the fact that they're still Tories at heart.
radioheadrule83
Banned
phisheep said:
I'll try and address all the points you mentioned as I understand it:
It will only apply to people who start as an under graduate in the new scheme. For example, if you're already a graduate, you're not going to suddenly pay graduate tax -- you will have already paid for your education.
Essentially its just changing the method of paying university fees to something that would be more affordable and convenient for the government than bankrolling the SLC.
If you think about it, most under-graduates take a loan to pay for their fees, and they pay the fees up front. That's £3000-6000+ a year that prospective students have got to worry about. Then, regardless of how well they do thanks to that degree (they may not even *get* the degree), they start paying their loan back once they start earning over £15k or so per annum. Student loans accrue interest, so it takes longer for lower paid workers to pay off their loans than it does for people who become successful as a result of their education. This does nothing for social mobility either... its hardly an encouraging system, one that encourages a lifetime of debt for education.
Under the new system, details of which are not finalised, the undergraduate would not have to worry about fees at all. They join up, take the course, if they subsequently earn above a threshold they begin to pay the tax, if they don't - they don't. Details about when the tax should stop (a number of years after graduation, or after a set payment) aren't finalised.
The president of the NUS was fairly wait-and-see on the proposals for all of these reasons:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2010/07/graduate-tax-vince-current
So I think it could be a good thing! But we need to see the detail.
blazinglord
Member
Well it would be very strange if a Tory government didn't govern as Tories and didn't seek to 'roll back the state'. To be fair, they have moderated and cut back some key Tory policies (like the inheritance tax which I'm disappointed about), but it's not like the Lib Dems aren't small state proponents either. Nevertheless, you are right, this is definitely a Tory government with Lib Dem cushioning, and rightly so with the Tories being the majority party in both the coalition and in the House of Commons.Lear said:
Captain Chaos
Member
JonathanEx said:
I watched it and thought that he made himself look like a spoilt, stroppy brat.
I think that under the Tories the country will quickly go to shit.
Although one good thing to come out of the coalition is that the Lib Dems have now completely blown any chance of a decent result in the next general election. This is good news for Miliband as voters will mass migrate back to Labour.
What I meant by that despite progress in certain areas, we still see all the worst aspects (to my mind) of the Conservative party.blazinglord said:
Also to talk about the Tories having a 'majority' is meaningless. They failed to achieve a majority as it's defined constitutionally, hence the need for a coalition (of course they could have attempted a minority government, but that would've been about as effective as a chocolate teapot).
I'm definitely in agreement that the Lib Dems have probably thrown any chance of doing well in 2015, unless there's a major turnaround before then.
blazinglord
Member
I think David is more statesman-like and would be able to offer an alternate government that people could take seriously - apparently he is already drawing up an alternative deficit reduction plan and court back Southern support. I'll concede, I am not keen on Ed's Miliband's record as Environmental Secretary, his enunciation is grating and but I also think his background will be hold him back. Personally, I don't care if the next PM isn't married, but these days with the importance of personality politics and the need to court those all-important voters in middle England, I don't think his martial status will contrast well with David Cameron's homely look.Chinner said:
The minority Conservative government in Canada has done quite well, but I agree. The coalition is a more effective outcome than a minority government. To my mind, as a Tory, I'm glad that critics are calling it ConDem cuts instead of Tory cuts. It will make re-election for the Tories a lot easier. :lolLear said:
I do think though, that the Liberal Democrats economically are more in tune with the Tories than Labour. The only real difference between the two, was when to start cutting. In fact, I have read (in the Guardian), that it was the Liberal Democrats that encouraged the Tories to cut certain programmes more drastically than they would have otherwise done. Like the child tax credits - apparently the Tories wanted to cut it for those earning 50k and over, but it was the LibDems who pressed them to cut it further to include those earning over 25k.
Yes I mis-wrote. What I meant was that the Conservatives hold plurality in parliament, yes not an absolute majority in seats, but they are still the largest party in parliament. They have 48 seats more than the second-largest party and the largest share of the vote. In other words, more people wanted a Conservative government than they wanted a Labour or Liberal Democrats government.Empty said:
J Tourettes
Banned
Chinner said:
I was in favour of Ed until I met a member of his team the other day. Completely vile wanker of a person who I wouldn't piss on if they were on fire.
Conversely, I met also met a member of team David and she was very lovely and seemed to have more of an understanding as to where Labour fucked up.
I've just read this shocking news about a Great British Patriot being barred from Buckingham Palace. Those Regal Germans and their friends in the liberal left media elite will pay for this!
So the CPS aren't bringing any charges in relation to the Ian Tomlinson case. Absolute bullshit. (Full statement by the CPS is here)
There's a very probably legitimate issue as to causation for unlawful act manslaughter, given the differences in the medical evidence but to not bring charges for assault (either occasioning ABH or common) or misconduct in public office is appalling. Given that there was such strong evidence of the police officer in question pushing Mr Tomlinson, there really seems no hope of any police officer being charged in the future. We effectively have a situation where the police can act with impunity. As an aside, the reasoning for not charging common assault, which would be a very minor offence in the circumstance but at least it would be something, that the limitation period of 6 months had expired is infuriating. Limitation periods are necessary and useful legal implements and I don't contest that the 6 month period for common assault is based on solid reasoning. My issue is that the CPS took so long to start the investigation and dragged it on for so long that the limitation period ran out for an offence that I'm fairly certain the police officer in question would have been found guilty of.
Luckily the decision is going to be contested. I hope some good comes of it, but I have my doubts.
Just found an article that the first pathologist in the case, the one who performed the autopsy that disagrees with the subsequent two autopsies and the primary that there are evidentail difficulties with causation, is being investigated for incompetence by the GMC in relation to autopsies.
So it appears the CPS are willing to find that it is in the public interest to prosecute someone who posted an ill-advised, but ultimately harmless tweet and yet won't prosecute in cases of probable police misconduct. Nice to know.
Edit
There's a very probably legitimate issue as to causation for unlawful act manslaughter, given the differences in the medical evidence but to not bring charges for assault (either occasioning ABH or common) or misconduct in public office is appalling. Given that there was such strong evidence of the police officer in question pushing Mr Tomlinson, there really seems no hope of any police officer being charged in the future. We effectively have a situation where the police can act with impunity. As an aside, the reasoning for not charging common assault, which would be a very minor offence in the circumstance but at least it would be something, that the limitation period of 6 months had expired is infuriating. Limitation periods are necessary and useful legal implements and I don't contest that the 6 month period for common assault is based on solid reasoning. My issue is that the CPS took so long to start the investigation and dragged it on for so long that the limitation period ran out for an offence that I'm fairly certain the police officer in question would have been found guilty of.
Luckily the decision is going to be contested. I hope some good comes of it, but I have my doubts.
Just found an article that the first pathologist in the case, the one who performed the autopsy that disagrees with the subsequent two autopsies and the primary that there are evidentail difficulties with causation, is being investigated for incompetence by the GMC in relation to autopsies.
So it appears the CPS are willing to find that it is in the public interest to prosecute someone who posted an ill-advised, but ultimately harmless tweet and yet won't prosecute in cases of probable police misconduct. Nice to know.
Edit
Oh that cunt. His minders allegedly pushed Peter Tatchell down a flight of stairs when he confronted him. I wish Unilever would hurry up and bankrupt the BNP, just so they shut up for a while.SmokyDave said:
SmokyDave said:
haha, this morning the Palace was all like "He's an MEP, sorry but he's entitled". Then Griffin did the Patriots speech and now they're like "eff off, cuntface".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10729194
video
Could have been really awkward but Tatchell managed it with grace.
What basis exactly do Griffin's minders have to force him out of a corridor that's in Westminster?
radioheadrule83
Banned
I was hoping they'd let him go as per the privilege and it would just pass by quietly without incident and without him getting too much press. He'll whine on about his exclusion for weeks. Oxygen to the flames.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
Lear said:
Rotten decision not to prosecute. And the justification given isn't anywhere as near watertight as some seem to have claimed. There's at least one prosecutor takes a different view here:
http://theanonymousprosecutor.blogspot.com/2010/07/ian-tomlinson.html
In particular the decision not to charge ABH under section 47 seems very dodgy - just because there is room for doubt as to precisely what harm was caused doesn't mean that none was (or that none could be proven).
Horrible.
It's very, very suspicious. There's talk of it being a 'cover up' and while I wouldn't go that far, simply because I don't have any evidence for it, there's definitely something wrong going on here.phisheep said:
Just looking through my Criminal law notes (i'm a bit rusty) and in Donovan [1934] 2 K.B. 498 the threshold for ABH was set extremely low. Per Swift J it 'includes any hurt or injury calculated to interfere with the health or comfort of the prosecutor. Such hurt or injury need not be permanent, but must, no doubt, be more than merely transient and trifling.'. In light of this I'm just baffled as to why there is no charge under section 47.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
Lear said:
It's very odd. It is odder still that they are using this excuse that there is a six months time limit on prosecuting common assault (s127 Magistrates Court Act 1980) - because there are ways around that.
Here's an example: R v Scunthorpe Justices ex parte McPhee & Gallagher [1998] EWHC Admin 228. In this case the initial charge was robbery, but the indictment was amended, more than six months after the offence, to include common assault. It went to appeal on the six-month limit, and it it turns out there is no limit for amending a charge. So all they'd need to do is charge ABH and then amend to include common assault.
This is what they do when charging members of the public - it should be what they do when charging policemen.
That's very interesting. In light of that, there's a growing pile of evidence that they've placed the bar for bringing charges far higher than they would do if they were investigating a member of the public. If the places were reversed and it was a member of the public who struck a police officer from behind and then pushed him to the ground, you know that the CPS wouldn't fuck around as they have donephisheep said:
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
Lear said:
Exactly. In addition if it were a member of the public, so far as the evidence of death goes, they might have a few post mortems until they came up with one that showed that death was caused by the assault and use that one in evidence - leaving the poor old defence team on legal aid to poke around the details, whereas here the sheer fact of there being differing postmortem results is used as a reason for not charging at all rather than picking the best one for the purpose.
The more I think about this the messier it is.
There's another take on it here:
http://ofinteresttolwayers.blogspot.com/2010/07/members-of-jury.html