Daniel Moylan (another contemporary of Philip & Theresa May) on the peerage list too. Fun that Frank Field. Kate Hoey, Ian Austin, Gisela Stuart and John Woodcock were not nominated by Corbyn!
Pretty good list all in all. Charles Moore is a bonus.
Claire Fox is an interesting choice.
An utter disgrace. An apologist for the IRA. Someone who denies the Srebrenica massacre, who libelled the ITV journalists who reported on the war crimes the Serbs perpetrated against Bosnian Muslims during the civil war, who like Corbyn associates with Holocaust deniers. A woman who has said that child abuse images should remain on social media because they are mostly simulated.
This is who a Tory PM thinks should be in the legislature. Because.....
I'm happy that Ken Clarke is there.
Really that's it. All the current incumbents can bugger off.
I'd be interested if anyone can add to my Lord's legislature of 1?
I have to admire the chutzpah of my old pal Dick Newby:
The Liberal Democrat Lords leader Lord Newby also weighed in on the “bloated” second chamber: "By giving a large number of his cronies peerages, he has shown that the Tories have abandoned any pretence of reducing the size of the bloated House of Lords."
It's bloated partly because it is over-stuffed with LibDems!
Nick Clegg would have been much better served asking for a second chamber elected by PR on the basis of the nationwide vote in a general election than agreeing to AV.
Discuss.
That would certainly have been a better idea, although I think there is a useful role for a bunch of old duffers distinguished former statesmen.
A second chamber based on national share of the vote in a General Election was/is an absolutely terrible idea that has been doing the rounds for ages. Because it leaves large numbers of people in the ridiculous position of deciding whether they prefer to use their vote to have some influence over the membership of the House of Commons, or over the House of Lords. And leaves both sides claiming a democratic 'mandate' when in one or other of the cases their votes might have been achieved without actual popular support.
Is it a more ridiculous idea than a bunch of people who were selected on the basis of the size of the cheque they wrote?
Yes, because at least the current House of Lords doesn't claim a democratic mandate for occasionally interfering in the passage of legislation.
That doesn’t stop it interfering. It’s just a term of abuse for the likes of Baroness Amos when it doesn’t slavishly wave through the government programme.
I think the best thing we should do to clear it up is to rename the House of Lords to the House of Advisors or something like that.
Make it clear that we have a unicameral Parliament with the House of Commons elected Chamber is the only one that can make actual decisions. The House of Advisors (formerly Lords) can be packed full of any 'experts' who can give advice to the House of Commons to then act upon or ignore as they please.
Go back to the name it had in the Middle Ages, when sitting without the Commons:
The Great Council of State.
That works and is better than what I called it.
Even better, we could rename Lords to Councillors then. Get rid of any pretensions of being high and mighty.
In theory that’s the Privy Council
The Great Council was the peerage assembled to advise the King - or more usually, to fund him.
The Privy Council was the small group of close advisers, including the Lord Treasurer, the Keeper of the Privy Seal, the Comptroller of the Household, the Lord Chancellor, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (from 1399) and at various times the Archbishop of Canterbury and/or the Papal Legate. It was in effect the forerunner of the modern cabinet.
This business of cancelling/delaying the "pilot" sporting events with spectators. I understand the concerns about indoor events like World Snooker, but what on earth is the logic behind thinking there are particular risks involved in experimenting with outside events like County cricket? When thousands of people are allowed on Bournemouth beach in a far less controlled socially distance environment? Is it just because everyone at County cricket is thought to be over 80?
Cricket is possibly one of the few sports that could quite easily co-exist with covid regulations. I cannot honestly see crowds coming back to football next season either. Anyone who has ever been for a pee at a PL game at half-time knows there is no way on earth crowds can come back until there is an effective vaccine.
Standing pointlessly about in a field doesn’t spread the virus? Who knew.
Daniel Moylan (another contemporary of Philip & Theresa May) on the peerage list too. Fun that Frank Field. Kate Hoey, Ian Austin, Gisela Stuart and John Woodcock were not nominated by Corbyn!
Pretty good list all in all. Charles Moore is a bonus.
Claire Fox is an interesting choice.
An utter disgrace. An apologist for the IRA. Someone who denies the Srebrenica massacre, who libelled the ITV journalists who reported on the war crimes the Serbs perpetrated against Bosnian Muslims during the civil war, who like Corbyn associates with Holocaust deniers. A woman who has said that child abuse images should remain on social media because they are mostly simulated.
This is who a Tory PM thinks should be in the legislature. Because.....
I'm happy that Ken Clarke is there.
Really that's it. All the current incumbents can bugger off.
I'd be interested if anyone can add to my Lord's legislature of 1?
Re: vaccine testing. Surely it would be far more sensible to target vaccination at the young and economically active, seeing as apparently it is they who are the biggest reason for the virus spreading?
Why reward them for their recklessness?
People aren't just spreading it through 'recklessness'. They are spreading it through going to work and supporting businesses. The point is that there is huge damage caused to the economy by measures put in place to contain the spread of COVID-19. These measures are almost entirely focussed on preventing the spread of the disease - ie. at those who are economically active and generate the wealth of the country by being so.
Given that at the moment we seem to be declaring hundreds of deaths a day "from COVID", despite a large proportion of the people apparently not going anywhere near a hospital, one wonders what the purpose of what is going on at the moment actually is.
As the vast majority of people in the UK live in areas with less than 2 cases per 100,000 people the restrictions remaining in place seem crazy. Take Goodwood tomorrow. It’s a vast outdoor site. There is no Covid in Chichester or the surrounding area. Yet public attendance has been cancelled. Yet those people can go to a gym? It’s madness.
There is a major problem with CV-19.
There's a long time gap between an actual infection happening, and it being recorded.
If you get CV-19 tomorrow, you probably won't feel even vaguely unwell for nine or ten days, and you probably won't get a positive result (assuming you even go to get tested) for two weeks.
In other words, there's a massive gap between infection and measurement. It leads to people mis-attributing cause and effect. And it leads to poor policy decisions. You can do something like open nightclubs, and there's no increase in reported cases for two weeks: hence night clubs don't result in spread.
It's like driving with your eyes fixed on the rear view mirror.
But if you like I will give you a bet at 5-1.
In two years time, after a vaccine has been widely distributed, and lots of decent evidence based peer review papers have been distributed, we will be able to know if mask wearing encouraged the spread of CV19 or helped prevent it.
Come on. Money where your mouth is. (@contrarian, you too)
Step up and bet on it.
An even £100 but I get masks made no difference.
Hang on, you were arguing that masks would actually cause a rise in infections.
If they simply make no or little difference that is an entirely different argument to the one you were making. IIRC when people like myself were saying that we couldn't see why there was a fuss about wearing a mask because at the very least they were neutral. You argued that they weren't neutral they were going to cause a rise in infections.
I had the dubious pleasure of watching the Prime Minister's briefing (sound off) while enjoying a late breakfast in my favourite cafe in Barking.
There are several fine lines being walked here - the foremost is economic health vs public health. The fact 5,000 annual members and their guests won't attend Goodwood tomorrow is a financial blow for Goodwood Racecourse but beyond that and the wailing from ITV racing there's no atmosphere, it's frankly not the end of civilisation as we know it.
The other fine line is the line between mental health and public health - that's the mental health of children and those adults who are apparently bereft if they aren't commuting and sitting in an office with their "chums". I suspect the pressure on school re-openings will rise if case numbers continue to rise and this isn't going to be an easy one for Government to get right.
There seem to be any number of anomalies and contradictions in what is being allowed and what isn't which is recognition of the complexities of the decisions being made and the consequences deriving therefrom.
As I ranted last night, the public have only themselves to blame if we see a big new rise in cases (suspect we won't). The "rules" on mask wearing and social distancing (which were of course unenforceable) have frayed to the point of irrelevance in some areas and the price of the large scale flouting of these rules may be played out in the weeks to come.
We await, of course, with trepidation (a) further evidence of spread of this wretched disease in the coming weeks and (b) any indication from Scotland of whether opening schools causes a substantial rise in cases.
Both the latest round of rule tweaking and the Government's new slogan suggests that, as I predicted, the spread of masks everywhere like a rash will continue to gather pace. Now I don't know - perhaps this, combined with further announced restrictions on people visiting each others' homes, will be enough to keep a lid on the disease even when the snotlets all go back to the classroom. But if they're not then what will the Government choose to throw under a bus? Will it shut down the schools (either all of them, or possibly only the secondaries?) Or will it let the schools stay open and close every business that can't operate without the customers all covering their faces with rags (i.e. pubs, restaurants, cafes and gyms?)
Screw up the kids' education or toss many of their parents on the scrapheap of long-term unemployment. That might end up being the choice. What will Boris Johnson decide? Your guess is as good as mine on that one.
Who decided on Jo Johnson being a peer, is that his brother or would that be seen as a conflict of interest? We also have the son of a former KGB agent who somehow acquired 30% ownership of aeroflot.
It's enough to make you weep. In fact I am. I'm weeping as I type.
If you wrote in a spy thriller, Russian KGB spy comes to England, acquires a third of a national airline, and son becomes a lord a couple of weeks after parliament points out malicious Russian interference in our elections, it would seem ridiculous. Yet no-one even cares! Let alone being anyone surprised by it.
Well the son of a Polish-Belgian communist was seeking to become PM in 2015, and no-one cared about that, despite the Daily Mail's best efforts.
A Polish-Belgian Communist who fought for this country. As opposed to a Russian lose to Putin who made his vast wealth, well, how, exactly?
I always find Claire Fox very eloquent, and what she's saying usually very sound, politically.
However, I am puzzled with how one journeys from revolutionary communism to libertarianism without it being a u-turn.
I do find it strange as well. It is a journey quite a few of them have taken including of course Brendan O'Neil. I must admit I have never bothered to go and look how they justify it but do mean to sometime.
There has been no journey. I`ve been listening to Claire Fox for at least 15 years. She, and O`Neill, have been consistent throughout.
They are strongly anti-authoritarian libertarians (Marxist Libertarian they say) - so are at the extreme (ish) of liberal thought. They stand up for individual flourishment and equality of opportunity, with a particular concern for the working class and suspicion of elites. They love liberal democracy. O`Neill, in particular, argues well and is a cracking good writer.
I`m broadly with them, though they are a touch too libertarian for me.
However ... they are arch humanists - which I am not. They believe that humans are special and good and are not at all responsible for the environmental destruction that abounds. I part company with them there.
Having said that, in this Covid madness, which I believe has quickly transformed into a direct attack on our liberal democracy itself, Spiked provides a dose of sanity in a mad world. I recommend it highly.
Thanks Stocky that is a very useful summary. I am sorry I have been too lazy or preoccupied to spend the time finding this stuff out for myself. I believe from your descriptions that I am more in common with them than yourself.
You and @Stocky need to look a bit more closely at what the Spiked Online crowd actually say and support and who funds them. To this day they deny the finding of the court which held that they had libelled journalists over what happened in Bosnia. Everyone is entitled to hold all sorts of opinions. They are not entitled to invent their own facts. Such a person is not, IMO, fit to be in Britain’s legislature.
Re: vaccine testing. Surely it would be far more sensible to target vaccination at the young and economically active, seeing as apparently it is they who are the biggest reason for the virus spreading?
Why reward them for their recklessness?
People aren't just spreading it through 'recklessness'. They are spreading it through going to work and supporting businesses. The point is that there is huge damage caused to the economy by measures put in place to contain the spread of COVID-19. These measures are almost entirely focussed on preventing the spread of the disease - ie. at those who are economically active and generate the wealth of the country by being so.
Given that at the moment we seem to be declaring hundreds of deaths a day "from COVID", despite a large proportion of the people apparently not going anywhere near a hospital, one wonders what the purpose of what is going on at the moment actually is.
As the vast majority of people in the UK live in areas with less than 2 cases per 100,000 people the restrictions remaining in place seem crazy. Take Goodwood tomorrow. It’s a vast outdoor site. There is no Covid in Chichester or the surrounding area. Yet public attendance has been cancelled. Yet those people can go to a gym? It’s madness.
There is a major problem with CV-19.
There's a long time gap between an actual infection happening, and it being recorded.
If you get CV-19 tomorrow, you probably won't feel even vaguely unwell for nine or ten days, and you probably won't get a positive result (assuming you even go to get tested) for two weeks.
In other words, there's a massive gap between infection and measurement. It leads to people mis-attributing cause and effect. And it leads to poor policy decisions. You can do something like open nightclubs, and there's no increase in reported cases for two weeks: hence night clubs don't result in spread.
It's like driving with your eyes fixed on the rear view mirror.
But if you like I will give you a bet at 5-1.
In two years time, after a vaccine has been widely distributed, and lots of decent evidence based peer review papers have been distributed, we will be able to know if mask wearing encouraged the spread of CV19 or helped prevent it.
Come on. Money where your mouth is. (@contrarian, you too)
Step up and bet on it.
An even £100 but I get masks made no difference.
Hang on, you were arguing that masks would actually cause a rise in infections.
If they simply make no or little difference that is an entirely different argument to the one you were making. IIRC when people like myself were saying that we couldn't see why there was a fuss about wearing a mask because at the very least they were neutral. You argued that they weren't neutral they were going to cause a rise in infections.
I can see the logic of that argument (even though I think it is bollocks)
1. Wearing a mask does not offer protection 2. People believe that it does therefore indulge in riskier behaviour 3. This leads to an increase in infections
Comments
https://news.sky.com/story/uk-weather-its-the-hottest-day-temperatures-soar-to-35c-in-heathrow-and-it-could-get-hotter-12039756
Really that's it. All the current incumbents can bugger off.
I'd be interested if anyone can add to my Lord's legislature of 1?
The Privy Council was the small group of close advisers, including the Lord Treasurer, the Keeper of the Privy Seal, the Comptroller of the Household, the Lord Chancellor, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (from 1399) and at various times the Archbishop of Canterbury and/or the Papal Legate. It was in effect the forerunner of the modern cabinet.
Norman Tebbit
Thats about it
If they simply make no or little difference that is an entirely different argument to the one you were making. IIRC when people like myself were saying that we couldn't see why there was a fuss about wearing a mask because at the very least they were neutral. You argued that they weren't neutral they were going to cause a rise in infections.
BoJo: 'More champagne, my Lord?'
JoJo: 'Certainly, Prime Minister'
Both the latest round of rule tweaking and the Government's new slogan suggests that, as I predicted, the spread of masks everywhere like a rash will continue to gather pace. Now I don't know - perhaps this, combined with further announced restrictions on people visiting each others' homes, will be enough to keep a lid on the disease even when the snotlets all go back to the classroom. But if they're not then what will the Government choose to throw under a bus? Will it shut down the schools (either all of them, or possibly only the secondaries?) Or will it let the schools stay open and close every business that can't operate without the customers all covering their faces with rags (i.e. pubs, restaurants, cafes and gyms?)
Screw up the kids' education or toss many of their parents on the scrapheap of long-term unemployment. That might end up being the choice. What will Boris Johnson decide? Your guess is as good as mine on that one.
Although 'Lady Johnson' does sound more like a euphemism than a title.
Big fail for McCluskey and Starmer who backed the Unite union in proposing strike action
You and @Stocky need to look a bit more closely at what the Spiked Online crowd actually say and support and who funds them. To this day they deny the finding of the court which held that they had libelled journalists over what happened in Bosnia. Everyone is entitled to hold all sorts of opinions. They are not entitled to invent their own facts. Such a person is not, IMO, fit to be in Britain’s legislature.
1. Wearing a mask does not offer protection
2. People believe that it does therefore indulge in riskier behaviour
3. This leads to an increase in infections
camp. Good luck