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  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    Sandpit said:

    Elliot said:

    Danny Shaw

    Verified account

    @DannyShawBBC
    2h2 hours ago
    More
    Crimes recorded by police in the 44 forces up 14% in year to end of September.
    Violent crime up 20%
    Knife Crime up 21%.
    Robbery up 29%

    They really do need longer sentences for violent crime. You can't have a revolving door for gang members.
    Police numbers down by 20,000 and budgets cut by 20 per cent. Theresa May was Home Secretary.
    She was truly the Gordon Brown of the Tory administration. Coasting on the legacy of her predecessors, believing she would make a better PM than the man in Downing Street, storing up problems for the future, finally eliminating her rivals and winning the top job only to find that she was completely unsuited to it.
    Violent crime up, but general crime down. Interesting combination really.
    Do we get a regional breakdown of these figures - how much of the violent crime is these moped gangs in London and Manchester who the police have decided they can’t chase but where every victim needs to claim on their insurance?
    The new police tactic is supposedly to trap them and pull them off their bikes
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,723
    OchEye said:

    Charles said:

    Fenster said:

    Some thoughts on Theresa May/new leader.

    - I've never been impressed with her. Uninspired and boring.
    - I was disappointed when she became PM, but would've taken her in a heartbeat over Leadsom
    - During the honeymoon period and 23% poll leads I shrugged my shoulders, telling myself I must've got it wrong
    - Then during the GE those voters in the centre (like me) soon saw what I see. A dull, boring woman bereft of ideas
    - I'd support getting rid of her, hoping she gets replaced by someone with a positive spark, but only if some serious serious thought goes into it first*

    *As destabilising as removing a PM would appear to be, I'm not convinced it'd be that big a deal. Brexit was an enormous shock and has made little difference to ordinary people's lives. Getting shot of May would be far less of a shock. Things move quickly in the modern world.

    Trouble is, who can replace her and keep the two wings of the party together? Without putting centre ground voters off?

    Mogg - No
    Leadsom - No
    Gove - (I'm a fan, but I just don't think he's popular enough with voters) No
    Fox - No
    Patel - No
    Rudd - (too Remainian) - No
    Hammond - No

    The likes of Dominic Raab, Nicky Morgan, Savid Javid are all too unknown by the wider public to currently take on such a difficult task.

    It leaves Davis, Hunt and Boris.

    I like Boris but even as a fan I'm unsure. I do, however, think he'd make a good chairman and front-man. But many think the opposite.

    I guess this is why getting rid of May needs some serious chin-stroking before the MPs move against her.

    It's Hunt.

    Battle of the Jezzas.
    Please, then let him go to his local hospital, for say, an in growing toe nail, he'll leave in a coffin....Corbyn will have a field day, so many open goals, so many real and actual skeletons in the in the Hunt cupboard, and then there are the political ones rattling round in the background.....Rudd? Actually surprised the Met haven't been sniffing round after all the stuff in Private Eye.....Davis, all the Labour Party has to do is show recordings of him answering HoC committees, gather even the Mogg was shocked at some of the answers Davis gave. Boris hasn't got the support in the PCP although he may have in the membership. Fox is just useless. Gove, the face you most want to slap. The only one who shows any level of stability and intelligence is Hammond, but I can't see him lasting any length of time.
    The #spreadshitphil supporters club meet in a phone box monthly dont they?
  • welshowlwelshowl Posts: 4,460
    John_M said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Neoliberalism and austerity have led to-

    Massive national debt, economic growth, stagnant real wage growth, poor productivity growing inequality, high house prices/rents, rising intergenerational inequality and a lowering of environmental protection.

    Poverty has been policy.

    Both parties in the past have been on the side of the few at the expense of the many

    No more

    Alternatively, neo-liberalism means that (despite recent difficulties) living standards are now about twice as high as in 1980.
    It is a great time to be an older property rich person, no doubt, someone stuck the brakes on the gravy train so they could fill up their carts a little deeper. It is why the younger generation will be poorer that then the one that came before them.
    I doubt if young people in the early eighties (today's middle aged) had an easier time than young people do today. Far fewer of them went to University, and they faced higher unemployment. But, most of them prospered in the end, as I suspect most of today's young people will do as well.
    We had a young person's greatest friend; incredibly high inflation. Who needs a degree :).
    I think, certainly in terms of housing, the biggest contributor to "intergenerational unfairness" is near zero interest rates, and financial institutions' insistence, mostly post 2008/9 crash, of 20% deposits.

    If we go back to the 80's the rules of thumb for getting on the housing ladder were 5% deposit, max 3 x one salary plus one, (or 2.25 x two), 5% inflation, and 10% interest rates, and real house prices probably 2-4 times (depends on where you are exactly)less than now. We now have real prices at 80's X about 3, 4/5% interest rates and 20% deposits. Now of course prices have to some extent (there are other factor of course such as household formation rates, and the rise in population vs levels of house building) been driven to those levels precisely because we have such low rates because as rates have dropped "affordability" improved, until it too was eaten away by rising prices. Hence the jam we are in.

    Now interest rates are set by the BoE and though I suppose the Govt could intervene and make 5% deposits the norm I don't think that would do anything other than fuel a further rise in prices.

    We need a nice slow but steady rise in interest rates to something above "emergency" levels to rebalance some of this, (which will at one happy stroke resolve much of the pensions deficit crisis too at one and the same time).

    It's not easy at all but it's all the fallout from having "highly exotic" monetary policy for a decade.
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 3,630
    edited January 2018


    I can't actually understand a hard atheism stance, because if we take for example an explanation I heard for dinosaur fossils that God put them there to test our faith, because dinosaurs conflicted with his view of the age of the Earth.

    If we apply that logic of an all powerful God that is prepared to trick people into believing things that aren't true then we cannot trust absolutely anything all our science could be a trick by God which he maintains by making all the things we use it for work as well so anything you used to disprove God could simply be a trick by God. Far fetched doesn't matter only possible and with an all powerful God anything is possible.

    The same goes for an infinite number of "all powerful" beings. If the "all powerful" tooth fairy can make us believe they don't exist, they might exist.

    Things that we have no positive evidence for are equivalent to things that don't exist. Things that we can't know exist (the argument that god is unknowable to to mind of man) are practically equivalent to a thing that does not exist. If you cannot present evidence for a thing, why should I believe said thing? The argument of "we have no answer for x, therefore I propose a y that means x" just begs the question of "we have no answer for y". If you can have uncaused causes (which maybe we can), why can't the universe be such a thing? If you can't have uncaused causes, what caused god?
  • NEW THREAD

  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    Scott_P said:
    There again - she’s hardly out on a limb on this.

    From Bloomberg:

    IMF Wary of Cryptocurrencies (12:09 p.m.)

    The International Monetary Fund is aware there will be innovations but believes crypto-anonimity and its use to conceal illicit trades such as terror financing and money laundering is “unacceptable,” Managing Director Christine Lagarde said during a discussion panel.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,749
    edited January 2018
    Jonathan said:

    Gove, the father of Brexit, present at the birth.

    Surprising it's such a plain child..
  • TheJezziahTheJezziah Posts: 3,840
    148grss said:


    I can't actually understand a hard atheism stance, because if we take for example an explanation I heard for dinosaur fossils that God put them there to test our faith, because dinosaurs conflicted with his view of the age of the Earth.

    If we apply that logic of an all powerful God that is prepared to trick people into believing things that aren't true then we cannot trust absolutely anything all our science could be a trick by God which he maintains by making all the things we use it for work as well so anything you used to disprove God could simply be a trick by God. Far fetched doesn't matter only possible and with an all powerful God anything is possible.

    The same goes for an infinite number of "all powerful" beings. If the "all powerful" tooth fairy can make us believe they don't exist, they might exist.

    Things that we have no positive evidence for are equivalent to things that don't exist. Things that we can't know exist (the argument that god is unknowable to to mind of man) are practically equivalent to a thing that does not exist. If you cannot present evidence for a thing, why should I believe said thing? The argument of "we have no answer for x, therefore I propose a y that means x" just begs the question of "we have no answer for y". If you can have uncaused causes (which maybe we can), why can't the universe be such a thing? If you can't have uncaused causes, what caused god?
    Exactly, assuming I followed this as well as I think I did, this is pretty much the reason for my weak atheism (or at least as I see the label)
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 7,979


    I can't actually understand a hard atheism stance, because if we take for example an explanation I heard for dinosaur fossils that God put them there to test our faith, because dinosaurs conflicted with his view of the age of the Earth.

    If we apply that logic of an all powerful God that is prepared to trick people into believing things that aren't true then we cannot trust absolutely anything all our science could be a trick by God which he maintains by making all the things we use it for work as well so anything you used to disprove God could simply be a trick by God. Far fetched doesn't matter only possible and with an all powerful God anything is possible.

    The usual definition of God includes omniscience, omnipotence and benevolence. Your God doesn't sound very benevolent!
  • TheJezziahTheJezziah Posts: 3,840
    Could just be a trickster rather than mean, also I do quite like the advances we have made due to science so it isn't the worst trick to play. More of a Loki than a Devil.
  • Yorkcity said:

    Fenster said:

    Neoliberalism and austerity have led to-

    Massive national debt, economic growth, stagnant real wage growth, poor productivity growing inequality, high house prices/rents, rising intergenerational inequality and a lowering of environmental protection.

    Poverty has been policy.

    Both parties in the past have been on the side of the few at the expense of the many

    No more

    I hate to be impolite but anyone who suggests the 2010-2018 Tory government is responsible for a massive increase in national debt is either being really f*cking stupid or deliberately devious.

    There was nothing, NOTHING, the Tory government could've done to avoid a massive increase in national debt.

    Differing political opinions are fine, but the debt problem was an unavoidable fact.
    Anyone who suggests the 2010-2018 Tory government is responsible for a massive increase in national debt is either being really f*cking stupid or deliberately devious.

    I agree they are not entirely responsible. That would be as f*cking stupid or deliberately deviouss as saying Labour was entirely responsinle for the 2008 Global Financial Crisis

    I deliberately said both parties are responsible for the NeoLiberalism agenda and what it has led to.

    Which part of both parties don't you understand
    They're not responsible for the 2008 global crisis though they were responsible for the completely messed up banking reforms Brown passed that made our banks especially vulnerable to the crisis.

    They were responsible for maxing out the deficit at a permanent 3% of GDP in the good times so that when the crisis hit our deficit ballooned to being worse than Greece.

    They were responsible for believing their own spin that they'd eliminated Boom and Bust so there was no need to prepare for the next bust.

    Nobody other than Labour is culpable for that. Had we gone into the global crisis running a small surplus then we could have absorbed the crisis much better. It isn't the globes fault that we didn't.

    Any responsible government should prepare us as well as it can for the next inevitable crisis.
    Why then did Cameron and Osborne in opposition agree with government spending ? Especially during the period 2005 to 07.
    Realpolitik. Labour had just won it's third election in a row. Same reason Labour agreed initially to stay in line with Tory plans which meant a small surplus early on before the spending caps went to max.

    However if you recall Cameron's plan was to "share the proceeds of growth" to increase spending. If increased spending under Brown had come from growth and not taking us from a surplus to maxed out deficit then we would again have been a lot better off.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Ishmael_Z said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    Charles said:

    tyson said:

    Mr. Eagles, I heard, when studying Religious Studies at school, that ardent atheists (or other theists) are likelier to convert to a religion than lazy agnostics. Apparently there's a much shorter distance of travel between passionate opposition and conversion than not really being fussed and conversion.

    Interesting to consider, as I'm quite a relaxed atheist now but was a bit angrier about it in my youth.


    I cannot really understand aetheism....It is as non sensical as faith based doctrinal religion....

    The universe appeared from somewhere right?



    The stance: "The universe appeared from somewhere, we don't yet understand how or why, therefore God Did It," is called the "God of the Gaps" argument. It's rather fraught, though, because as we keep pushing back the boundaries of our knowledge and finding out how things do happen/have happened, the God of the Gaps keeps getting pushed into smaller and smaller gaps.

    "We don't know how x happened" is simply a statement of our own lack of knowledge or specific imagination - it's not a certain necessity for a deity.
    Science explains “how” not “why”
    Darwinism makes quite a good fist of answering a lot of "why" questions, and religion isn't great at any of these others. But I think this site needs a rule against religion in the mess.
    PB gets a bit frayed round the edges and some of the spelling is atrocious, but mess is harsh.
    No, I really do mean mess, as in officers' mess.
    You're presuming we all qualify as officers...
This discussion has been closed.