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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » With ballot packs just about go out Davey is the clear favouri

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited July 2020 in General
imagepoliticalbetting.com » Blog Archive » With ballot packs just about go out Davey is the clear favourite for LD leadership

When former Environment Cabinet minister last ran for the Lib Dem leadership just over a year ago he had big obstacle to surmount – his gender. There was a strong view in the party that then was the time for first female leader and my sense was that Davey felt this as well. He went through the motions but at least his decision to run meant that there was a contest.

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Comments

  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281
    First like Davey?
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Second like Davey's party never will be.
  • I would like to apologise for my recent outbursts and I hope all users will accept my full and unreserved apology
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Good for you CHB.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    We have already had 2 leaflets from the LDs since lockdown and got our first in touch out this weekend.

    The combined county and district and London elections next year will provide a big first test for Davey
  • CorrectHorseBatteryCorrectHorseBattery Posts: 21,436
    edited July 2020
    May I make a suggestion, when responding to a post from another thread, as well as adding FPT, can we also quote the post. This makes it clearer what is being responded to and if you add the full quote tree, you can see the context in full.

    For example:

    @Mexicanpete

    Foxy said:


    Yes, I disagree with the notion that Britons are substantially thicker than comparable countries where 50% is go on to higher education. Even developing countries like Mexico and Turkey beat 20% Tertiary educated. The future economy is knowledge based.

    Neither is history and Classics pointless. Both our PM and his chief advisor studied these subjects.

    There is much to criticise in the poor quality of much British Tertiary education but that is a different issue.

    The Classical history and Latin reference was a dig at Mr Johnson. If it floats one's boat go for it. Media Studies is the go to subject for criticism by Tories, once again if it floats your boat...etc.
    How does the UK rate in international comparisons of Classics and PPE?
    I don't know, but I am a Bsc.(Econ.) in Politics, (PPE, without the thinking or the difficult bit) which has no earthly use whatsoever.
    Wow, far more intelligent than I
    The quality of teaching was woeful at times, although some Professors were inspirational too. The late Barry Jones, who was ex Labour, ex SDP, a driving force for the development of Cardiff Bay and a BBC Wales go-to at election times. I loved University.

    I have subsequently learned more at the University of Life.
    As somebody who dropped out of University my honest belief is that it has done me no negatives in life.
  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
  • Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Mike, I think @Philip_Thompson might have been responding to my apology post above. Sorry if I've got confused
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
  • Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Mike, I think @Philip_Thompson might have been responding to my apology post above. Sorry if I've got confused
    Yes I was. I assumed Mike clicked reply on the wrong post. Sorry if I caused any confusion.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,397

    I would like to apologise for my recent outbursts and I hope all users will accept my full and unreserved apology

    Everyone has some outbursts now and again.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,397
    I actually kind of believe him, though I don't see it as a positive. Corbyn is so vain about his own moral goodness that he cannot be broken as nothing can shake him.

    alex_ said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    MaxPB said:

    UK ministers looking at plans to raise taxes for over-40s to pay for social care

    Exclusive: Matt Hancock advocate of plan to raise tax as solution to social care crisis

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/26/uk-ministers-looking-at-plans-to-raise-taxes-for-over-40s-to-pay-for-social-care

    I bet this will be introduced in a couple of years just as I turn 40 too. Student grants were abolished and tuition fees introduced just as I started university so I had to pay fees while students who'd started previously didn't. I know full well pensions by the time we retire are going to be crap too. Now this . . . I can see it happening!
    They should definitely make it 50 or 55. Our generation seems to have become the most put upon, unable to buy property because our parents' generation pulled the ladder up behind them, huge childcare costs and longer living parents resulting in huge care costs.

    We definitely have become the very definition of the "squeezed middle" politicians love talking about. I'm lucky to have a career that has affordede a fairly comfortable life and the chance to own my own home but loads of my friends are t so fortunate.
    Our generation also inherits far more on average than any previous generation did and also far more of use went to university
    It remains disputed how much ‘of use’ we are...
    I'm of the view that the 50% uni target was a big mistake and far less of our lot should be going to university.

    I agree with @MaxPB's sentiment though, our lot are getting screwed. We don't vote Tory, they offer us nothing.
    Agree 100%. It has had a double negative impact of both providing many students with useless degrees instead of practical training or apprenticeships whilst at the same time devaluing those degrees and courses which would otherwise be considered of value.

    I think the Australian plans to overhaul university funding look to be exactly the thing we should be doing here.
    I would halve the number of people going to university, cut the number of degrees, cut the costs of the remainder of degrees and increase apprenticeships.
    I would vote for you.

    One of the great shames of the 50% idea from Major was that it removed the incentive for Government to fund those students doing courses that benefit our country - or at least gave them a perfect excuse to stop the funding.

    This was very short sighted and damaging for the country.
    You haven't heard my other views yet.

    I support public ownership of the railways, increases in tax on the wealthiest.
    I read the other day that the Tories have formally abandoned the 50% target, to strong criticism from Labour...
    Wasn't aware Labour had criticised it but that seems a mis-step to me.
    I remember all the students thinking as a target it was a dumb idea, and that was in sixth form.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited July 2020

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,002

    I would like to apologise for my recent outbursts and I hope all users will accept my full and unreserved apology

    A very generous apology indeed
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,280
    O/T

    Interesting prediction from December 1982 at 16 mins 40 secs.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv0UZGJzVQY&lc=UgxR9Zln6S8i1lhBcPd4AaABAg
  • CorrectHorseBatteryCorrectHorseBattery Posts: 21,436
    edited July 2020

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
    I'm not knocking him for taking a job in general, I am knocking him for taking a job with Facebook.
    Facebook is an absolute arse of a corporation and it's fundamentally bad for democracy and privacy. It is a complete contradiction of what Clegg should stand for, to be working for Facebook.

    The fact we're so reliant on it, is what makes it so dangerous in my view. I'm just as reliant on it as you, I am trying my best to get off it.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
    I'm not knocking him for taking a job in general, I am knocking him for taking a job with Facebook.
    Facebook is an absolute arse of a corporation and it's fundamentally bad for democracy and privacy. It is a complete contradiction of what Clegg should stand for, to be working for Facebook.

    The fact we're so reliant on it, is what makes it so dangerous in my view. I'm just as reliant on it as you, I am trying my best to get off it.
    I know Facebook is hated by the left now, but I don't hate it and I don't think Clegg does. Its not like he was attacking them before he took the job with them and changed his tune is it?
  • Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
    I'm not knocking him for taking a job in general, I am knocking him for taking a job with Facebook.
    Facebook is an absolute arse of a corporation and it's fundamentally bad for democracy and privacy. It is a complete contradiction of what Clegg should stand for, to be working for Facebook.

    The fact we're so reliant on it, is what makes it so dangerous in my view. I'm just as reliant on it as you, I am trying my best to get off it.
    I know Facebook is hated by the left now, but I don't hate it and I don't think Clegg does. Its not like he was attacking them before he took the job with them and changed his tune is it?
    Is it hated by the left? Don't they love it because of all the pro-Corbyn groups it has.

    Please don't associate everything I say with "the left". Not only is "the left" not one group of a hivemind, it's also not entirely represented by me. I'm fairly sure I'm excluded since I've praised Blair.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Am I right in thinking that Bournemouth have been relegated because Hawk Eye failed to give Sheffield United a goal against Aston Villa?

    Pre-technology mistakes by referees would happen and you'd just have to shrug and say "swings and roundabouts" over the 38 games there'd be mistakes in your favour and against . . . but that's not happening repeatedly over the 38 games and if I was a Bournemouth fan I'd be rather bitter about that.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
    I'm not knocking him for taking a job in general, I am knocking him for taking a job with Facebook.
    Facebook is an absolute arse of a corporation and it's fundamentally bad for democracy and privacy. It is a complete contradiction of what Clegg should stand for, to be working for Facebook.

    The fact we're so reliant on it, is what makes it so dangerous in my view. I'm just as reliant on it as you, I am trying my best to get off it.
    I have never used Facebook.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
    I'm not knocking him for taking a job in general, I am knocking him for taking a job with Facebook.
    Facebook is an absolute arse of a corporation and it's fundamentally bad for democracy and privacy. It is a complete contradiction of what Clegg should stand for, to be working for Facebook.

    The fact we're so reliant on it, is what makes it so dangerous in my view. I'm just as reliant on it as you, I am trying my best to get off it.
    I know Facebook is hated by the left now, but I don't hate it and I don't think Clegg does. Its not like he was attacking them before he took the job with them and changed his tune is it?
    Is it hated by the left? Don't they love it because of all the pro-Corbyn groups it has.

    Please don't associate everything I say with "the left". Not only is "the left" not one group of a hivemind, it's also not entirely represented by me. I'm fairly sure I'm excluded since I've praised Blair.
    I don't mean you in particular. Hating Facebook seems to be quite common now on the left now, or perhaps more by Europhiles in particular which is odd because Facebook don't really have any sort of partisan bias at all.

    I don't understand why people beyond Carole Cadswallop hate Facebook so much?
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Cyclefree said:

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
    I'm not knocking him for taking a job in general, I am knocking him for taking a job with Facebook.
    Facebook is an absolute arse of a corporation and it's fundamentally bad for democracy and privacy. It is a complete contradiction of what Clegg should stand for, to be working for Facebook.

    The fact we're so reliant on it, is what makes it so dangerous in my view. I'm just as reliant on it as you, I am trying my best to get off it.
    I have never used Facebook.
    You might appreciate it if you give it a try.

    Its good for keeping in touch with distant family. I primarily use it to put up pictures of my children which can then be instantly seen by their grandparents etc

    Great during lockdown or whenever you can't see the people you love as often as you like.
  • Cyclefree said:

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
    I'm not knocking him for taking a job in general, I am knocking him for taking a job with Facebook.
    Facebook is an absolute arse of a corporation and it's fundamentally bad for democracy and privacy. It is a complete contradiction of what Clegg should stand for, to be working for Facebook.

    The fact we're so reliant on it, is what makes it so dangerous in my view. I'm just as reliant on it as you, I am trying my best to get off it.
    I have never used Facebook.
    You might appreciate it if you give it a try.

    Its good for keeping in touch with distant family. I primarily use it to put up pictures of my children which can then be instantly seen by their grandparents etc

    Great during lockdown or whenever you can't see the people you love as often as you like.
    Technically their website and apps are really very poor. They're incredibly slow and resource-intensive.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
    I'm not knocking him for taking a job in general, I am knocking him for taking a job with Facebook.
    Facebook is an absolute arse of a corporation and it's fundamentally bad for democracy and privacy. It is a complete contradiction of what Clegg should stand for, to be working for Facebook.

    The fact we're so reliant on it, is what makes it so dangerous in my view. I'm just as reliant on it as you, I am trying my best to get off it.
    I know Facebook is hated by the left now, but I don't hate it and I don't think Clegg does. Its not like he was attacking them before he took the job with them and changed his tune is it?
    Is it hated by the left? Don't they love it because of all the pro-Corbyn groups it has.

    Please don't associate everything I say with "the left". Not only is "the left" not one group of a hivemind, it's also not entirely represented by me. I'm fairly sure I'm excluded since I've praised Blair.
    I don't mean you in particular. Hating Facebook seems to be quite common now on the left now, or perhaps more by Europhiles in particular which is odd because Facebook don't really have any sort of partisan bias at all.

    I don't understand why people beyond Carole Cadswallop hate Facebook so much?
    It's simple. They, rightly, believe that republicans (and other assorted right wingers across the world) spend money too, to paraphrase Michael Jordan. They don't care who really advertises on Facebook as long as they pay the bills and aren't breaking the law.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    MaxPB said:

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
    I'm not knocking him for taking a job in general, I am knocking him for taking a job with Facebook.
    Facebook is an absolute arse of a corporation and it's fundamentally bad for democracy and privacy. It is a complete contradiction of what Clegg should stand for, to be working for Facebook.

    The fact we're so reliant on it, is what makes it so dangerous in my view. I'm just as reliant on it as you, I am trying my best to get off it.
    I know Facebook is hated by the left now, but I don't hate it and I don't think Clegg does. Its not like he was attacking them before he took the job with them and changed his tune is it?
    Is it hated by the left? Don't they love it because of all the pro-Corbyn groups it has.

    Please don't associate everything I say with "the left". Not only is "the left" not one group of a hivemind, it's also not entirely represented by me. I'm fairly sure I'm excluded since I've praised Blair.
    I don't mean you in particular. Hating Facebook seems to be quite common now on the left now, or perhaps more by Europhiles in particular which is odd because Facebook don't really have any sort of partisan bias at all.

    I don't understand why people beyond Carole Cadswallop hate Facebook so much?
    It's simple. They, rightly, believe that republicans (and other assorted right wingers across the world) spend money too, to paraphrase Michael Jordan. They don't care who really advertises on Facebook as long as they pay the bills and aren't breaking the law.
    That should be considered a very good thing, not a bad thing.

    The last thing anyone should want is a Megacorp deciding who has the right to speak and who does not.
  • Garmin is in big trouble it seems
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Caught up with ricegate. Man that Indian woman really let the side down with her terrible rice cooking. It's so simple. Wash the rice, double the amount of water by volume compared to the rice, put into a medium sized pan, bring to the boil, put the lid on your pan bring down to minimal simmer, wait for 10 minutes, turn off the heat, don't take the lid off, wait for 5 more minutes. Your rice is cooked to perfection. I've been using that method for about 20 years and it's never gone wrong, I don't understand how her mum didn't teach her how to make rice, it's literally lesson one for every Asian person, my mum taught my sister and I when I was in year 8 and she had to work in the evenings so we had to make the rice for dinner ourselves.
  • MaxPB said:

    Caught up with ricegate. Man that Indian woman really let the side down with her terrible rice cooking. It's so simple. Wash the rice, double the amount of water by volume compared to the rice, put into a medium sized pan, bring to the boil, put the lid on your pan bring down to minimal simmer, wait for 10 minutes, turn off the heat, don't take the lid off, wait for 5 more minutes. Your rice is cooked to perfection. I've been using that method for about 20 years and it's never gone wrong, I don't understand how her mum didn't teach her how to make rice, it's literally lesson one for every Asian person, my mum taught my sister and I when I was in year 8 and she had to work in the evenings so we had to make the rice for dinner ourselves.

    Run a fork over the rice at the end to fluff it up but yes the method is what I use
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 30,846

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
    I'm not knocking him for taking a job in general, I am knocking him for taking a job with Facebook.
    Facebook is an absolute arse of a corporation and it's fundamentally bad for democracy and privacy. It is a complete contradiction of what Clegg should stand for, to be working for Facebook.

    The fact we're so reliant on it, is what makes it so dangerous in my view. I'm just as reliant on it as you, I am trying my best to get off it.
    Nah Facebook is great. It allows me to stay in touch with hundreds of friends, colleagues and family around the world and has renewed old friendships for me that had long lapsed due to distance. It allows me to meet like minded people for a whole range of different interests and has opened up huge areas of new interest for me.

    If you are stupid about the way you use it then it can be used as a tool for bad things. But the same is true of a car, a mobile phone or any other piece of modern equipment or service. You just have to be sensible.

    Moreover if you are worried about privacy issues you shouldn't be online at all.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    Cyclefree said:

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
    I'm not knocking him for taking a job in general, I am knocking him for taking a job with Facebook.
    Facebook is an absolute arse of a corporation and it's fundamentally bad for democracy and privacy. It is a complete contradiction of what Clegg should stand for, to be working for Facebook.

    The fact we're so reliant on it, is what makes it so dangerous in my view. I'm just as reliant on it as you, I am trying my best to get off it.
    I have never used Facebook.
    You might appreciate it if you give it a try.

    Its good for keeping in touch with distant family. I primarily use it to put up pictures of my children which can then be instantly seen by their grandparents etc

    Great during lockdown or whenever you can't see the people you love as often as you like.
    I’ve always managed to keep in touch with everyone I want to through other means so have never seen its utility (to me, anyway). I rather like writing and receiving letters. I know, I know .......
  • CorrectHorseBatteryCorrectHorseBattery Posts: 21,436
    edited July 2020

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
    I'm not knocking him for taking a job in general, I am knocking him for taking a job with Facebook.
    Facebook is an absolute arse of a corporation and it's fundamentally bad for democracy and privacy. It is a complete contradiction of what Clegg should stand for, to be working for Facebook.

    The fact we're so reliant on it, is what makes it so dangerous in my view. I'm just as reliant on it as you, I am trying my best to get off it.
    Nah Facebook is great. It allows me to stay in touch with hundreds of friends, colleagues and family around the world and has renewed old friendships for me that had long lapsed due to distance. It allows me to meet like minded people for a whole range of different interests and has opened up huge areas of new interest for me.

    If you are stupid about the way you use it then it can be used as a tool for bad things. But the same is true of a car, a mobile phone or any other piece of modern equipment or service. You just have to be sensible.

    Moreover if you are worried about privacy issues you shouldn't be online at all.
    Actually I primarily don't use the app itself to be honest because it runs like ass. Same for the website.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880

    Cyclefree said:

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
    I'm not knocking him for taking a job in general, I am knocking him for taking a job with Facebook.
    Facebook is an absolute arse of a corporation and it's fundamentally bad for democracy and privacy. It is a complete contradiction of what Clegg should stand for, to be working for Facebook.

    The fact we're so reliant on it, is what makes it so dangerous in my view. I'm just as reliant on it as you, I am trying my best to get off it.
    I have never used Facebook.
    You might appreciate it if you give it a try.

    Its good for keeping in touch with distant family. I primarily use it to put up pictures of my children which can then be instantly seen by their grandparents etc

    Great during lockdown or whenever you can't see the people you love as often as you like.
    FB groups have also replaced many specialist forums (fuck off with 'fora') so if you are, for example, a seasoned trafficker in Porsche parts you've simply got to have a presence on it.

    The advertising bit is apparently immensely powerful too but I don't understand it. My wife pays some young woman with an asymmetric hair cut and a thumb ring to do it for her and says the returns are very good.

    So it has great utility and you don't have to look at the photos of Lancasters with 50% opacity poppies photoshopped on to them and all the rest of the nonsense if you don't want to.
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136

    Garmin is in big trouble it seems

    Test your backups. Test your backups.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,280
    It would be better if there were a range of viable alternatives to Facebook so that one company isn't so powerful.
  • rpjsrpjs Posts: 3,787
    Andy_JS said:

    It would be better if there were a range of viable alternatives to Facebook so that one company isn't so powerful.

    But for a social network to be useful, it needs as many people on it as possible. The utility comes from the ubiquity.
  • rpjsrpjs Posts: 3,787
    Georgists rejoice! Your time has come at last!
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,280
    Twitter is full of po-faced puritans pouring scorn on people for having the temerity to book a holiday to Spain at the moment.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    Andy_JS said:

    It would be better if there were a range of viable alternatives to Facebook so that one company isn't so powerful.

    I use Google+ instead, don't you?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Here's the news we've been waiting for..

    Musk jokingly challenged Johnny Depp to a cage fight, when asked about texts the actor had allegedly sent threatening to cut off his penis.'


  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,087
    edited July 2020

    Cyclefree said:

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
    I'm not knocking him for taking a job in general, I am knocking him for taking a job with Facebook.
    Facebook is an absolute arse of a corporation and it's fundamentally bad for democracy and privacy. It is a complete contradiction of what Clegg should stand for, to be working for Facebook.

    The fact we're so reliant on it, is what makes it so dangerous in my view. I'm just as reliant on it as you, I am trying my best to get off it.
    I have never used Facebook.
    You might appreciate it if you give it a try.

    Its good for keeping in touch with distant family. I primarily use it to put up pictures of my children which can then be instantly seen by their grandparents etc

    Great during lockdown or whenever you can't see the people you love as often as you like.
    I was surprised a few years ago to find out how many people run their local service businesses very significantly via Facebook - I know eg beauticians who do that.

    In our gym the main channel for communication is a private FB chatroom.

    As someone who did my first website in about 1994 and was a blogger for years and years - it crept up and surprised me about 5 years ago just how far FB permeates.

    As for FB being targeted - partly there are some real questions, partly they are a convenient Aunt Sally that some like to unite around attacking. It makes them feel part of a group.

    It used to be MacDonalds, who are a good company. Then it has been Nick Clegg, and more recently Toby Young has been one.

  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,087
    edited July 2020
    Dura_Ace said:



    (fuck off with 'fora')

    Durums Ace it is, from here on in.

    (Fuck off with Dura - that's a homophone for a whisky.)
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,631
    edited July 2020
    MattW said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
    I'm not knocking him for taking a job in general, I am knocking him for taking a job with Facebook.
    Facebook is an absolute arse of a corporation and it's fundamentally bad for democracy and privacy. It is a complete contradiction of what Clegg should stand for, to be working for Facebook.

    The fact we're so reliant on it, is what makes it so dangerous in my view. I'm just as reliant on it as you, I am trying my best to get off it.
    I have never used Facebook.
    You might appreciate it if you give it a try.

    Its good for keeping in touch with distant family. I primarily use it to put up pictures of my children which can then be instantly seen by their grandparents etc

    Great during lockdown or whenever you can't see the people you love as often as you like.
    I was surprised a few years ago to find out how many people run their local service businesses very significantly via Facebook - I know eg beauticians who do that.

    In our gym the main channel for communication is a private FB chatroom.

    As someone who did my first website in about 1994 and was a blogger for years and years - it crept up and surprised me about 5 years ago just how far FB permeates.

    As for FB being targeted - partly there are some real questions, partly they are a convenient Aunt Sally that some like to unite around attacking. It makes them feel part of a group.

    It used to be MacDonalds, who are a good company. Then it has been Nick Clegg, and more recently Toby Young has been one.

    You need to also take into account how much business you lose. I wouldn't join something or use something that only organised through facebook as I don't have an account and wouldn't consider getting one to use a business. By all means do things through social media but have other ways convenient to get the same information
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,087
    edited July 2020

    Cyclefree said:

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
    I'm not knocking him for taking a job in general, I am knocking him for taking a job with Facebook.
    Facebook is an absolute arse of a corporation and it's fundamentally bad for democracy and privacy. It is a complete contradiction of what Clegg should stand for, to be working for Facebook.

    The fact we're so reliant on it, is what makes it so dangerous in my view. I'm just as reliant on it as you, I am trying my best to get off it.
    I have never used Facebook.
    You might appreciate it if you give it a try.

    Its good for keeping in touch with distant family. I primarily use it to put up pictures of my children which can then be instantly seen by their grandparents etc

    Great during lockdown or whenever you can't see the people you love as often as you like.
    I'd concur with Philip on this one.

    Does your daughter use it for her pub? There could be quite a lot of benefit in a village group with that at the core of it. A village is about the right scale as a community to be wired via FB.

    Watching how one of our local Councillors used it to cement a place at the centre of the community was quite something.

    Still doing it now he is our MP but it is up for grabs whether it is really a good forum for an entire constituency. It occupies the place that Grant Shapps constituency forum did 10-12 years ago when he was innovating with that.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,087
    edited July 2020

    I would like to apologise for my recent outbursts and I hope all users will accept my full and unreserved apology

    Cheers, Horse.

    Reading last night's thread almost all of it seemed to be outbursts from a number of us about pensioners; can't remember if I commented.

    There seems to be a perception that pensioners all live in castles with gold plated vegetable patches and sometimes relocate to cruise ships.

    That's only some of them. There are plenty who only have the state pension plus a small occupational, and spend their holidays looking after grandchildren and in guesthouses, or at home.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,631
    MattW said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
    I'm not knocking him for taking a job in general, I am knocking him for taking a job with Facebook.
    Facebook is an absolute arse of a corporation and it's fundamentally bad for democracy and privacy. It is a complete contradiction of what Clegg should stand for, to be working for Facebook.

    The fact we're so reliant on it, is what makes it so dangerous in my view. I'm just as reliant on it as you, I am trying my best to get off it.
    I have never used Facebook.
    You might appreciate it if you give it a try.

    Its good for keeping in touch with distant family. I primarily use it to put up pictures of my children which can then be instantly seen by their grandparents etc

    Great during lockdown or whenever you can't see the people you love as often as you like.
    I'd concur with Philip on this one.

    Does your daughter use it for her pub? There could be quite a lot of benefit in a village group with that at the core of it. A village is about the right scale as a community to be wired via FB.

    Watching how one of our local Councillors used it to cement a place at the centre of the community was quite something.

    Still doing it now he is our MP but it is up for grabs whether it is really a good forum for an entire constituency. It occupies the place that Grant Shapps constituency forum did 10-12 years ago when he was innovating with that.
    So your councillors/mp/pub exclude out the 25% of people who never use facebook. That is nice of them.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,087
    Pagan2 said:

    MattW said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
    I'm not knocking him for taking a job in general, I am knocking him for taking a job with Facebook.
    Facebook is an absolute arse of a corporation and it's fundamentally bad for democracy and privacy. It is a complete contradiction of what Clegg should stand for, to be working for Facebook.

    The fact we're so reliant on it, is what makes it so dangerous in my view. I'm just as reliant on it as you, I am trying my best to get off it.
    I have never used Facebook.
    You might appreciate it if you give it a try.

    Its good for keeping in touch with distant family. I primarily use it to put up pictures of my children which can then be instantly seen by their grandparents etc

    Great during lockdown or whenever you can't see the people you love as often as you like.
    I'd concur with Philip on this one.

    Does your daughter use it for her pub? There could be quite a lot of benefit in a village group with that at the core of it. A village is about the right scale as a community to be wired via FB.

    Watching how one of our local Councillors used it to cement a place at the centre of the community was quite something.

    Still doing it now he is our MP but it is up for grabs whether it is really a good forum for an entire constituency. It occupies the place that Grant Shapps constituency forum did 10-12 years ago when he was innovating with that.
    So your councillors/mp/pub exclude out the 25% of people who never use facebook. That is nice of them.
    Nothing is stopping them using Facebook. But it's just a convenient channel for engaging more people. If people want to engage otherwise, they can.

    You could equally argue that not using FB is excluding 75%, or the MP's column in the local paper is excluding all those who don't read it.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,631
    MattW said:

    Pagan2 said:

    MattW said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
    I'm not knocking him for taking a job in general, I am knocking him for taking a job with Facebook.
    Facebook is an absolute arse of a corporation and it's fundamentally bad for democracy and privacy. It is a complete contradiction of what Clegg should stand for, to be working for Facebook.

    The fact we're so reliant on it, is what makes it so dangerous in my view. I'm just as reliant on it as you, I am trying my best to get off it.
    I have never used Facebook.
    You might appreciate it if you give it a try.

    Its good for keeping in touch with distant family. I primarily use it to put up pictures of my children which can then be instantly seen by their grandparents etc

    Great during lockdown or whenever you can't see the people you love as often as you like.
    I'd concur with Philip on this one.

    Does your daughter use it for her pub? There could be quite a lot of benefit in a village group with that at the core of it. A village is about the right scale as a community to be wired via FB.

    Watching how one of our local Councillors used it to cement a place at the centre of the community was quite something.

    Still doing it now he is our MP but it is up for grabs whether it is really a good forum for an entire constituency. It occupies the place that Grant Shapps constituency forum did 10-12 years ago when he was innovating with that.
    So your councillors/mp/pub exclude out the 25% of people who never use facebook. That is nice of them.
    Nothing is stopping them using Facebook. But it's just a convenient channel for engaging more people. If people want to engage otherwise, they can.

    You could equally argue that not using FB is excluding 75%, or the MP's column in the local paper is excluding all those who don't read it.
    I wasn't saying not to use facebook, I was saying don't use facebook to the exclusion of all else. and its much more than 25% 20 to 25% is the figure who have never had a face book account....add in those that got one back when facebook was the in thing then after a couple of months stopped logging in and no longer have the password and I suspect you are pretty near if not over 50% of people.

    Nothing is stopping them signing up its true but a lot of us merely don't want to a service that we neither need nor want because its convenient for someone else to use.

    If your gym organises through facebook I can assure you there will be people who think like that who have considered your gym seen the facebook requirement and taken themselves to another gym. They won't tell you or complain they will merely take there wallet elsewhere.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,087
    edited July 2020
    Pagan2 said:

    MattW said:

    Pagan2 said:

    MattW said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
    I'm not knocking him for taking a job in general, I am knocking him for taking a job with Facebook.
    Facebook is an absolute arse of a corporation and it's fundamentally bad for democracy and privacy. It is a complete contradiction of what Clegg should stand for, to be working for Facebook.

    The fact we're so reliant on it, is what makes it so dangerous in my view. I'm just as reliant on it as you, I am trying my best to get off it.
    I have never used Facebook.
    You might appreciate it if you give it a try.

    Its good for keeping in touch with distant family. I primarily use it to put up pictures of my children which can then be instantly seen by their grandparents etc

    Great during lockdown or whenever you can't see the people you love as often as you like.
    I'd concur with Philip on this one.

    Does your daughter use it for her pub? There could be quite a lot of benefit in a village group with that at the core of it. A village is about the right scale as a community to be wired via FB.

    Watching how one of our local Councillors used it to cement a place at the centre of the community was quite something.

    Still doing it now he is our MP but it is up for grabs whether it is really a good forum for an entire constituency. It occupies the place that Grant Shapps constituency forum did 10-12 years ago when he was innovating with that.
    So your councillors/mp/pub exclude out the 25% of people who never use facebook. That is nice of them.
    Nothing is stopping them using Facebook. But it's just a convenient channel for engaging more people. If people want to engage otherwise, they can.

    You could equally argue that not using FB is excluding 75%, or the MP's column in the local paper is excluding all those who don't read it.
    I wasn't saying not to use facebook, I was saying don't use facebook to the exclusion of all else. and its much more than 25% 20 to 25% is the figure who have never had a face book account....add in those that got one back when facebook was the in thing then after a couple of months stopped logging in and no longer have the password and I suspect you are pretty near if not over 50% of people.

    Nothing is stopping them signing up its true but a lot of us merely don't want to a service that we neither need nor want because its convenient for someone else to use.

    If your gym organises through facebook I can assure you there will be people who think like that who have considered your gym seen the facebook requirement and taken themselves to another gym. They won't tell you or complain they will merely take there wallet elsewhere.
    I didn't say that any of them use it to the exclusion of all else; they don't.

    I can probably estimate that if coach puts out a gym announcement, perhaps 75% of members would see it via Facebook the same day.

    From the point of view of the business, the FB benefit is the community that already exists to reach out into, plus contact can be that much more frequent, plus that it gives you a whole infrastructure you would otherwise need to self-maintain.

    On a more general point, it is quite interesting the numbers of organisations / businesses that put more work into their FB presences rather than their websites these days.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083
    HYUFD said:

    We have already had 2 leaflets from the LDs since lockdown and got our first in touch out this weekend.

    The combined county and district and London elections next year will provide a big first test for Davey

    Yes, a consequence of the postponement is that we have created a super Thursday next year.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083
    MaxPB said:

    Caught up with ricegate. Man that Indian woman really let the side down with her terrible rice cooking. It's so simple. Wash the rice, double the amount of water by volume compared to the rice, put into a medium sized pan, bring to the boil, put the lid on your pan bring down to minimal simmer, wait for 10 minutes, turn off the heat, don't take the lid off, wait for 5 more minutes. Your rice is cooked to perfection. I've been using that method for about 20 years and it's never gone wrong, I don't understand how her mum didn't teach her how to make rice, it's literally lesson one for every Asian person, my mum taught my sister and I when I was in year 8 and she had to work in the evenings so we had to make the rice for dinner ourselves.

    Why a medium sized pan? Surely it depends on how much rice you have to cook?
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,087
    edited July 2020
    IanB2 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Caught up with ricegate. Man that Indian woman really let the side down with her terrible rice cooking. It's so simple. Wash the rice, double the amount of water by volume compared to the rice, put into a medium sized pan, bring to the boil, put the lid on your pan bring down to minimal simmer, wait for 10 minutes, turn off the heat, don't take the lid off, wait for 5 more minutes. Your rice is cooked to perfection. I've been using that method for about 20 years and it's never gone wrong, I don't understand how her mum didn't teach her how to make rice, it's literally lesson one for every Asian person, my mum taught my sister and I when I was in year 8 and she had to work in the evenings so we had to make the rice for dinner ourselves.

    Why a medium sized pan? Surely it depends on how much rice you have to cook?
    I missed rice-gate - is this another version of English-Tea-teabag-last-gate?

    I've never really had trouble cooking rice, either - though Aldi flavoured or ready-to-go rice has been a guilty secret in my cooking for quite some time for a flexible carb portion of all kinds of meals, especially during lockdown.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,068
    edited July 2020
    MattW said:

    Pagan2 said:

    MattW said:

    Pagan2 said:

    MattW said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
    I'm not knocking him for taking a job in general, I am knocking him for taking a job with Facebook.
    Facebook is an absolute arse of a corporation and it's fundamentally bad for democracy and privacy. It is a complete contradiction of what Clegg should stand for, to be working for Facebook.

    The fact we're so reliant on it, is what makes it so dangerous in my view. I'm just as reliant on it as you, I am trying my best to get off it.
    I have never used Facebook.
    You might appreciate it if you give it a try.

    Its good for keeping in touch with distant family. I primarily use it to put up pictures of my children which can then be instantly seen by their grandparents etc

    Great during lockdown or whenever you can't see the people you love as often as you like.
    I'd concur with Philip on this one.

    Does your daughter use it for her pub? There could be quite a lot of benefit in a village group with that at the core of it. A village is about the right scale as a community to be wired via FB.

    Watching how one of our local Councillors used it to cement a place at the centre of the community was quite something.

    Still doing it now he is our MP but it is up for grabs whether it is really a good forum for an entire constituency. It occupies the place that Grant Shapps constituency forum did 10-12 years ago when he was innovating with that.
    So your councillors/mp/pub exclude out the 25% of people who never use facebook. That is nice of them.
    Nothing is stopping them using Facebook. But it's just a convenient channel for engaging more people. If people want to engage otherwise, they can.

    You could equally argue that not using FB is excluding 75%, or the MP's column in the local paper is excluding all those who don't read it.
    I wasn't saying not to use facebook, I was saying don't use facebook to the exclusion of all else. and its much more than 25% 20 to 25% is the figure who have never had a face book account....add in those that got one back when facebook was the in thing then after a couple of months stopped logging in and no longer have the password and I suspect you are pretty near if not over 50% of people.

    Nothing is stopping them signing up its true but a lot of us merely don't want to a service that we neither need nor want because its convenient for someone else to use.

    If your gym organises through facebook I can assure you there will be people who think like that who have considered your gym seen the facebook requirement and taken themselves to another gym. They won't tell you or complain they will merely take there wallet elsewhere.
    I didn't say that any of them use it to the exclusion of all else; they don't.

    I can probably estimate that if coach puts out a gym announcement, perhaps 75% of members would see it via Facebook the same day.

    From the point of view of the business, the FB benefit is the community that already exists to reach out into, plus contact can be that much more frequent, plus that it gives you a whole infrastructure you would otherwise need to self-maintain.

    On a more general point, it is quite interesting the numbers of organisations / businesses that put more work into their FB presences rather than their websites these days.
    I have an account on Facebook, but only login every few moths. The advertising was just too annoying intrusive and irrelevant to me, which makes me doubt that their algorithm is that clever.

    This stat startled me though. 80% of Trumps advertising g budget in 2016..

    https://twitter.com/plural_vote/status/1287593084264443904?s=09
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    Facebook is great. It allows me to stay in touch with hundreds of friends, colleagues and family around the world and has renewed old friendships for me that had long lapsed due to distance. It allows me to meet like minded people for a whole range of different interests and has opened up huge areas of new interest for me.

    If you are stupid about the way you use it then it can be used as a tool for bad things. But the same is true of a car, a mobile phone or any other piece of modern equipment or service. You just have to be sensible.

    Moreover if you are worried about privacy issues you shouldn't be online at all.

    Don't do any politics on facebook. You wouldn't know how I vote or my views on Brexit from there.

    Brilliant resource for natural history. On a bunch of moth and insect related sites. If I have a weird parasitic wasp drawn to the moth traps, I now have the specialist for parasitic wasps at the Natural History Museum able to ID it for me (and in turn, very excited that he has a new information point for records he would never have had a few years back.)



    In turn I now know that the spread of this Stauropoctonus bombycivorus is probably the reason that my Lobster Moths (upon which it predates) have drastically reduced in numbers, sad to report.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083
    edited July 2020
    Foxy said:

    MattW said:

    Pagan2 said:

    MattW said:

    Pagan2 said:

    MattW said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Good for you CHB.

    The LDs have been in government more recently than LAB and during the coalition Davey was almost certainly the most effective minister who shaped climate change policy and drove it through against Osborne.
    Absolutely agreed that the Lib Dems were good allies to have during the coalition years and brought along some competent people. If he were to want to switch parties I'd certainly welcome people like Davey, but I doubt he will so if the stars align again in the future like they did in 2010 good luck to them as junior partners.

    As well as Davey I'd give a shout out to Clegg himself and Danny Alexander especially.
    Clegg is currently out spinning for Facebook, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of respect for him over that.
    He's retired from politics now, why shouldn't he take a job from a company like Facebook?

    I have more respect for someone taking one job like that and being an honest broker that clearly works for them than going around on the speech circuit raising the same amount of money pimping themselves out to whoever writes a cheque while pretending to be independent.

    Facebook bores me now but its a good company for keeping in touch with people. I have family in multiple countries and its a good way for people to keep in touch with pictures of grandchildren etc
    I'm not knocking him for taking a job in general, I am knocking him for taking a job with Facebook.
    Facebook is an absolute arse of a corporation and it's fundamentally bad for democracy and privacy. It is a complete contradiction of what Clegg should stand for, to be working for Facebook.

    The fact we're so reliant on it, is what makes it so dangerous in my view. I'm just as reliant on it as you, I am trying my best to get off it.
    I have never used Facebook.
    You might appreciate it if you give it a try.

    Its good for keeping in touch with distant family. I primarily use it to put up pictures of my children which can then be instantly seen by their grandparents etc

    Great during lockdown or whenever you can't see the people you love as often as you like.
    I'd concur with Philip on this one.

    Does your daughter use it for her pub? There could be quite a lot of benefit in a village group with that at the core of it. A village is about the right scale as a community to be wired via FB.

    Watching how one of our local Councillors used it to cement a place at the centre of the community was quite something.

    Still doing it now he is our MP but it is up for grabs whether it is really a good forum for an entire constituency. It occupies the place that Grant Shapps constituency forum did 10-12 years ago when he was innovating with that.
    So your councillors/mp/pub exclude out the 25% of people who never use facebook. That is nice of them.
    Nothing is stopping them using Facebook. But it's just a convenient channel for engaging more people. If people want to engage otherwise, they can.

    You could equally argue that not using FB is excluding 75%, or the MP's column in the local paper is excluding all those who don't read it.
    I wasn't saying not to use facebook, I was saying don't use facebook to the exclusion of all else. and its much more than 25% 20 to 25% is the figure who have never had a face book account....add in those that got one back when facebook was the in thing then after a couple of months stopped logging in and no longer have the password and I suspect you are pretty near if not over 50% of people.

    Nothing is stopping them signing up its true but a lot of us merely don't want to a service that we neither need nor want because its convenient for someone else to use.

    If your gym organises through facebook I can assure you there will be people who think like that who have considered your gym seen the facebook requirement and taken themselves to another gym. They won't tell you or complain they will merely take there wallet elsewhere.
    I didn't say that any of them use it to the exclusion of all else; they don't.

    I can probably estimate that if coach puts out a gym announcement, perhaps 75% of members would see it via Facebook the same day.

    From the point of view of the business, the FB benefit is the community that already exists to reach out into, plus contact can be that much more frequent, plus that it gives you a whole infrastructure you would otherwise need to self-maintain.

    On a more general point, it is quite interesting the numbers of organisations / businesses that put more work into their FB presences rather than their websites these days.
    I have an account on Facebook, but only login every few moths. The advertising was just too annoying intrusive and irrelevant to me, which makes me doubt that their algorithm is that clever.

    This stat startled me though. 80% of Trumps advertising g budget in 2016..

    https://twitter.com/plural_vote/status/1287593084264443904?s=09
    Another moth fancier, eh? You meet so many in here.

    My dog trainer only takes bookings via a private Facebook group. So I am forced to use it. The real problem with the internet is that, within any market segment, it drives everything toward one dominant supplier.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083
    MattW said:

    I would like to apologise for my recent outbursts and I hope all users will accept my full and unreserved apology

    Cheers, Horse.

    Reading last night's thread almost all of it seemed to be outbursts from a number of us about pensioners; can't remember if I commented.

    There seems to be a perception that pensioners all live in castles with gold plated vegetable patches and sometimes relocate to cruise ships.

    That's only some of them. There are plenty who only have the state pension plus a small occupational, and spend their holidays looking after grandchildren and in guesthouses, or at home.
    Of course. But there is no denying their favourable position viewed in aggregate (I believe average earnings in retirement now exceed those in work?), and there are numerous ways in which they (soon to be we) are treated more favourably than working age people in a similar financial position.

    No-one is suggesting devising measures that hit the poorest pensioners, but the fact of poor pensioners is a poor argument for seeking unreasonably to protect the benefits of the richer ones.
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 4,784
    The Tories had got a slight poll bounce from the feel good of lockdown easing. Will be interesting to see if Spain and nervousness about similar elsewhere will reverse those gains. I think there may be a couple of points in it.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083
    MattW said:

    IanB2 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Caught up with ricegate. Man that Indian woman really let the side down with her terrible rice cooking. It's so simple. Wash the rice, double the amount of water by volume compared to the rice, put into a medium sized pan, bring to the boil, put the lid on your pan bring down to minimal simmer, wait for 10 minutes, turn off the heat, don't take the lid off, wait for 5 more minutes. Your rice is cooked to perfection. I've been using that method for about 20 years and it's never gone wrong, I don't understand how her mum didn't teach her how to make rice, it's literally lesson one for every Asian person, my mum taught my sister and I when I was in year 8 and she had to work in the evenings so we had to make the rice for dinner ourselves.

    Why a medium sized pan? Surely it depends on how much rice you have to cook?
    I missed rice-gate - is this another version of English-Tea-teabag-last-gate?

    I've never really had trouble cooking rice, either - though Aldi flavoured or ready-to-go rice has been a guilty secret in my cooking for quite some time for a flexible carb portion of all kinds of meals, especially during lockdown.
    Tear the pack, press the minute button twice, then press start. Max seems to be making heavy weather of it with all his sums and measuring of rice and water by volume.
  • Tim_BTim_B Posts: 7,669
    R. I. P. Olivia de Havilland. Aged 104, double Oscar winner and last surviving star of Gone With The Wind. The last survivor of Hollywood's golden age.
  • NorthCadbollNorthCadboll Posts: 329
    sorry but who are the Liberal Democrats? They appear to be back where they were as the Liberal Party in the mid 1970s, prominent in a few hotspots (inc my home constituency) and utterly irrelevant across most of the rest of the country. Choosing between someone who was a cabinet minister in the government which imposed austerity and a strange woman who doesn't know her gender isn't going to get them far beyond the Guardian, tree hugging readership and the "neither of the other two" brigade. They should just join with the Greens and become the "dont scare the children with real policies" party!
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    Tim_B said:

    R. I. P. Olivia de Havilland. Aged 104, double Oscar winner and last surviving star of Gone With The Wind. The last survivor of Hollywood's golden age.

    I was starting to think nobody else had noticed that.

    A truly great actress, albeit according to reports a very bad sister. However, being a sister to Joan de Havilland-Fontaine can’t have been easy.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    On topic the Liberal Democrats have two choices.

    One is Ed Davey.

    The other is self-inflicted total oblivion.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    IanB2 said:

    MattW said:

    I would like to apologise for my recent outbursts and I hope all users will accept my full and unreserved apology

    Cheers, Horse.

    Reading last night's thread almost all of it seemed to be outbursts from a number of us about pensioners; can't remember if I commented.

    There seems to be a perception that pensioners all live in castles with gold plated vegetable patches and sometimes relocate to cruise ships.

    That's only some of them. There are plenty who only have the state pension plus a small occupational, and spend their holidays looking after grandchildren and in guesthouses, or at home.
    Of course. But there is no denying their favourable position viewed in aggregate (I believe average earnings in retirement now exceed those in work?), and there are numerous ways in which they (soon to be we) are treated more favourably than working age people in a similar financial position.

    No-one is suggesting devising measures that hit the poorest pensioners, but the fact of poor pensioners is a poor argument for seeking unreasonably to protect the benefits of the richer ones.
    Good morning everyone. Missed the discussion on pensioners last night; have to admit, as representatives of that generation on here, that my wife my wife and I do feel fortunate at the moment. We've had our problems over the years; like most people life hasn't always been a 'bowl of cherries' and our personal financial situation could, without some poor decisions at a crucial stage, have been better, but like many of our friends we're comfortable, and as I say, feel that we're better off in retirement than our parents and certainly grandparents. Not sure whether our grandchildren will be able to say that!

  • GadflyGadfly Posts: 1,191
    IanB2 said:

    MattW said:

    IanB2 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Caught up with ricegate. Man that Indian woman really let the side down with her terrible rice cooking. It's so simple. Wash the rice, double the amount of water by volume compared to the rice, put into a medium sized pan, bring to the boil, put the lid on your pan bring down to minimal simmer, wait for 10 minutes, turn off the heat, don't take the lid off, wait for 5 more minutes. Your rice is cooked to perfection. I've been using that method for about 20 years and it's never gone wrong, I don't understand how her mum didn't teach her how to make rice, it's literally lesson one for every Asian person, my mum taught my sister and I when I was in year 8 and she had to work in the evenings so we had to make the rice for dinner ourselves.

    Why a medium sized pan? Surely it depends on how much rice you have to cook?
    I missed rice-gate - is this another version of English-Tea-teabag-last-gate?

    I've never really had trouble cooking rice, either - though Aldi flavoured or ready-to-go rice has been a guilty secret in my cooking for quite some time for a flexible carb portion of all kinds of meals, especially during lockdown.
    Tear the pack, press the minute button twice, then press start. Max seems to be making heavy weather of it with all his sums and measuring of rice and water by volume.
    Place rice in Pyrex bowl and wash in several changes of water until clear. Cover with 1/2" of water, apply lid, and zap on full power for 20 minutes.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,087
    edited July 2020
    IanB2 said:

    MattW said:

    I would like to apologise for my recent outbursts and I hope all users will accept my full and unreserved apology

    Cheers, Horse.

    Reading last night's thread almost all of it seemed to be outbursts from a number of us about pensioners; can't remember if I commented.

    There seems to be a perception that pensioners all live in castles with gold plated vegetable patches and sometimes relocate to cruise ships.

    That's only some of them. There are plenty who only have the state pension plus a small occupational, and spend their holidays looking after grandchildren and in guesthouses, or at home.
    Of course. But there is no denying their favourable position viewed in aggregate (I believe average earnings in retirement now exceed those in work?), and there are numerous ways in which they (soon to be we) are treated more favourably than working age people in a similar financial position.

    No-one is suggesting devising measures that hit the poorest pensioners, but the fact of poor pensioners is a poor argument for seeking unreasonably to protect the benefits of the richer ones.
    I think your first para is off, unless you don't mean "earnings" (does that include eg the State Pension?). I think the one you are thinking of is that one report in 2017 (Resolution Foundation) said that pensioner households were £1000 a year better off *after housing costs*. No idea whether that was before housing benefit or not.

    (Obvs more pensioners own homes outright, but Housing Benefit would perhaps skew to younger groups).

    The stats are a black art as we all know, as you can make them say whatever you want depending on your adjustments (eg people wanting to talk about UK as unequal often take GINI numbers on pre-benefit system figures - which is designed to make it more equal), but the average pensioner household income after housing costs is around £320 a week and has not increased since 2010. Hardly rolling in gold dust.

    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/878009/pensioners-incomes-series-2018-19-report.pdf

    I'd certainly agree on very high pension incomes, which I may not reach - I am of the generation that had my pension arrangements significantly damaged in the Gordon Brown period, so I am partly in property now.

    But I don't think there is anything like as much money there to raid as people imagine.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,087
    edited July 2020
    If anyone has the numbers to hand, I would love to see the calculations as to how much tax income would be raised by say an extra say 5% tax rate on incomes above 50k for people over 60.

    My suspicion is that it would only add a fraction of a % to the total tax take.

    If you want a straw in the wind, a proposed 2.5% tax on all income earned by over-40s would raised about £15bn - 2% of govt expenditure.
    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/over-40-tax-ministers-social-care-money-billions-raised-government-a8671406.html
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    MattW said:

    IanB2 said:

    MattW said:

    I would like to apologise for my recent outbursts and I hope all users will accept my full and unreserved apology

    Cheers, Horse.

    Reading last night's thread almost all of it seemed to be outbursts from a number of us about pensioners; can't remember if I commented.

    There seems to be a perception that pensioners all live in castles with gold plated vegetable patches and sometimes relocate to cruise ships.

    That's only some of them. There are plenty who only have the state pension plus a small occupational, and spend their holidays looking after grandchildren and in guesthouses, or at home.
    Of course. But there is no denying their favourable position viewed in aggregate (I believe average earnings in retirement now exceed those in work?), and there are numerous ways in which they (soon to be we) are treated more favourably than working age people in a similar financial position.

    No-one is suggesting devising measures that hit the poorest pensioners, but the fact of poor pensioners is a poor argument for seeking unreasonably to protect the benefits of the richer ones.
    I think your first para is off, unless you don't mean "earnings" (does that include eg the State Pension?). I think the one you are thinking of is that one report in 2017 (Resolution Foundation) said that pensioner households were £1000 a year better off *after housing costs*. No idea whether that was before housing benefit or not.

    (Obvs more pensioners own homes outright, but Housing Benefit would perhaps skew to younger groups).

    The stats are a black art as we all know, as you can make them say whatever you want depending on your adjustments (eg people wanting to talk about UK as unequal often take GINI numbers on pre-benefit system figures - which is designed to make it more equal), but the average pensioner household income after housing costs is around £320 a week and has not increased since 2010. Hardly rolling in gold dust.

    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/878009/pensioners-incomes-series-2018-19-report.pdf

    I'd certainly agree on very high pension incomes, which I may not reach - I am of the generation that had my pension arrangements significantly damaged in the Gordon Brown period, so I am partly in property now.

    But I don't think there is anything like as much money there to raid as people imagine.
    Our big concern is health, and the possible need for 'support] as bodies become less 'fit and strong'. Saw a post the other day which said.
    'How do you know if you are old? Fall down; if you are young people will laugh; if you're old, people will panic.'

    When we moved to this town, at 60+, we had a son living round the corner and a daughter with a job where she could manage her own hours living 40 minutes drive away. Son's job has now taken him out of UK and daughter has, very sadly died. Nearest relative, in a geographical sense, is eldest grandson 45 minutes away with a time-consuming job.
    It's not too bad in that another son lives about 90 minutes away, although he has a demanding, time-wise, job.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Very important FTPT
    ClippP said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    MaxPB said:

    UK ministers looking at plans to raise taxes for over-40s to pay for social care

    Exclusive: Matt Hancock advocate of plan to raise tax as solution to social care crisis

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/26/uk-ministers-looking-at-plans-to-raise-taxes-for-over-40s-to-pay-for-social-care

    I bet this will be introduced in a couple of years just as I turn 40 too. Student grants were abolished and tuition fees introduced just as I started university so I had to pay fees while students who'd started previously didn't. I know full well pensions by the time we retire are going to be crap too. Now this . . . I can see it happening!
    They should definitely make it 50 or 55. Our generation seems to have become the most put upon, unable to buy property because our parents' generation pulled the ladder up behind them, huge childcare costs and longer living parents resulting in huge care costs.

    We definitely have become the very definition of the "squeezed middle" politicians love talking about. I'm lucky to have a career that has affordede a fairly comfortable life and the chance to own my own home but loads of my friends are t so fortunate.
    Our generation also inherits far more on average than any previous generation did and also far more of use went to university
    It remains disputed how much ‘of use’ we are...
    I'm of the view that the 50% uni target was a big mistake and far less of our lot should be going to university.

    I agree with @MaxPB's sentiment though, our lot are getting screwed. We don't vote Tory, they offer us nothing.
    Far FEWER
    Funny you should mention this, I was watching a video on speech today and saying far less is perfectly correct.
    Who was saying that? Probably just one person´s opinion, and my opinion is probably just as good as his.
    Yes, that's literally the point. The idea that there is a distinction between less and fewer applying to countable and uncountable nouns was invented by a style guide writer out of thin air - they wrote that they found it nicer to themselves.

    If you look at textual analysis of the English language as actually used across centuries there is no such split, people use less and fewer interchangeably.

    Anyone pushing prescriptivist bollocks on this is being a total smug utterly wrong wanker.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    ydoethur said:

    On topic the Liberal Democrats have two choices.

    One is Ed Davey.

    The other is self-inflicted total oblivion.

    They’re getting quite good at number two. Maybe they will combine both. Sir Ed Davey is a true man of the people able to energise a new generation of Lib Dems? A more inspirational, colourful personality it is hard to imagine. Who could do more to steal the limelight away from Starmer and Johnson?
  • philiphphiliph Posts: 4,704
    Jonathan said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic the Liberal Democrats have two choices.

    One is Ed Davey.

    The other is self-inflicted total oblivion.

    They’re getting quite good at number two. Maybe they will combine both. Sir Ed Davey is a true man of the people able to energise a new generation of Lib Dems? A more inspirational, colourful personality it is hard to imagine. Who could do more to steal the limelight away from Starmer and Johnson?
    If it is true that the LibDems have had a recent surge of members in the last 12 months or so, then:

    Are they eligible to vote?
    Are they leftish, orange, eco
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,087
    edited July 2020

    MattW said:

    IanB2 said:

    MattW said:

    I would like to apologise for my recent outbursts and I hope all users will accept my full and unreserved apology

    Cheers, Horse.

    Reading last night's thread almost all of it seemed to be outbursts from a number of us about pensioners; can't remember if I commented.

    There seems to be a perception that pensioners all live in castles with gold plated vegetable patches and sometimes relocate to cruise ships.

    That's only some of them. There are plenty who only have the state pension plus a small occupational, and spend their holidays looking after grandchildren and in guesthouses, or at home.
    Of course. But there is no denying their favourable position viewed in aggregate (I believe average earnings in retirement now exceed those in work?), and there are numerous ways in which they (soon to be we) are treated more favourably than working age people in a similar financial position.

    No-one is suggesting devising measures that hit the poorest pensioners, but the fact of poor pensioners is a poor argument for seeking unreasonably to protect the benefits of the richer ones.
    I think your first para is off, unless you don't mean "earnings" (does that include eg the State Pension?). I think the one you are thinking of is that one report in 2017 (Resolution Foundation) said that pensioner households were £1000 a year better off *after housing costs*. No idea whether that was before housing benefit or not.

    (Obvs more pensioners own homes outright, but Housing Benefit would perhaps skew to younger groups).

    The stats are a black art as we all know, as you can make them say whatever you want depending on your adjustments (eg people wanting to talk about UK as unequal often take GINI numbers on pre-benefit system figures - which is designed to make it more equal), but the average pensioner household income after housing costs is around £320 a week and has not increased since 2010. Hardly rolling in gold dust.

    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/878009/pensioners-incomes-series-2018-19-report.pdf

    I'd certainly agree on very high pension incomes, which I may not reach - I am of the generation that had my pension arrangements significantly damaged in the Gordon Brown period, so I am partly in property now.

    But I don't think there is anything like as much money there to raid as people imagine.
    Our big concern is health, and the possible need for 'support] as bodies become less 'fit and strong'. Saw a post the other day which said.
    'How do you know if you are old? Fall down; if you are young people will laugh; if you're old, people will panic.'

    When we moved to this town, at 60+, we had a son living round the corner and a daughter with a job where she could manage her own hours living 40 minutes drive away. Son's job has now taken him out of UK and daughter has, very sadly died. Nearest relative, in a geographical sense, is eldest grandson 45 minutes away with a time-consuming job.
    It's not too bad in that another son lives about 90 minutes away, although he has a demanding, time-wise, job.
    It's an interesting one. I have a similar.

    As you know, I lost my last parent in the autumn - and we were deliberately in a house ideally placed for walking to town centre etc.

    My intention is to keep it, but due to Corona I have been living on my own since then - and as a Type I diabetic I always have a risk of an incident which might require third party help. All it takes is for me to get my several times daily treatment slightly wrong, once, or have a virus which interferes etc.

    In those circs you either have arrangements where you see someone daily, or you run the risk of being found in a coma or dead days later should you have an issue.

    Still reflecting on plans, but it will probably involve having a lodger for the long-term, and redesigning the house to facilitate.

    Also plays havoc with pension plans, but that is another story.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771

    sorry but who are the Liberal Democrats? They appear to be back where they were as the Liberal Party in the mid 1970s, prominent in a few hotspots (inc my home constituency) and utterly irrelevant across most of the rest of the country. Choosing between someone who was a cabinet minister in the government which imposed austerity and a strange woman who doesn't know her gender isn't going to get them far beyond the Guardian, tree hugging readership and the "neither of the other two" brigade. They should just join with the Greens and become the "dont scare the children with real policies" party!

    So, you think they are only seven or eight years away from their beat performance in a half century?
  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,349
    I'm amused by the Spanish quarantine fuss. Surely, it was alaways a matter of "Do you feel lucky? Well, punk, do ya?"

    Now it's "He shot me."

    Are they adults? if so, act like adults. However, I suspect most won't take much notice of the quaranrine restriction anyway. They're always the people who know best.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,087
    rcs1000 said:

    sorry but who are the Liberal Democrats? They appear to be back where they were as the Liberal Party in the mid 1970s, prominent in a few hotspots (inc my home constituency) and utterly irrelevant across most of the rest of the country. Choosing between someone who was a cabinet minister in the government which imposed austerity and a strange woman who doesn't know her gender isn't going to get them far beyond the Guardian, tree hugging readership and the "neither of the other two" brigade. They should just join with the Greens and become the "dont scare the children with real policies" party!

    So, you think they are only seven or eight years away from their beat performance in a half century?
    This is being gratuitously cruel.

    They are always 7 or 8 years away from their best ever performance.
  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,349
    Mr 1000,

    As my daughter pointed out when she was twelve. "When you talk about less qualified people, what exactly do you mean?"
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    edited July 2020
    CD13 said:

    I'm amused by the Spanish quarantine fuss. Surely, it was alaways a matter of "Do you feel lucky? Well, punk, do ya?"

    Now it's "He shot me."

    Are they adults? if so, act like adults. However, I suspect most won't take much notice of the quaranrine restriction anyway. They're always the people who know best.

    There are no quarantine restrictions on coming back to this country. That’s the biggest and most unconvincing lie by a government since Gordon Brown claimed ‘what I actually said was, ‘no more Tory boom and bust.’’

    The rule is that you go home, using public transport, and stay there for a fortnight. Don’t leave the house unless you (a) have to or (b) want to.

    That is not quarantine. Quarantine is what they did in Vietnam, where people returning to the country were put in army camps at the point of entry under full isolation for fifteen days.

    For all the good this policy will do, they might as well not bother. Although in fairness that’s the way say, Dominic Cummings has been behaving anyway.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    There is definitely a need for more diversity in the leadership of British politics. Jacinda Arden is the role model to follow at the moment.

    Not sure Sir Ed can pull that off.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    CD13 said:

    Mr 1000,

    As my daughter pointed out when she was twelve. "When you talk about less qualified people, what exactly do you mean?"

    She must be a wow at parties, and how can she live with a language where the equivalent distinction cannot be made about more qualified people?
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    edited July 2020
    Alistair said:

    Very important FTPT

    ClippP said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    MaxPB said:

    UK ministers looking at plans to raise taxes for over-40s to pay for social care

    Exclusive: Matt Hancock advocate of plan to raise tax as solution to social care crisis

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/26/uk-ministers-looking-at-plans-to-raise-taxes-for-over-40s-to-pay-for-social-care

    I bet this will be introduced in a couple of years just as I turn 40 too. Student grants were abolished and tuition fees introduced just as I started university so I had to pay fees while students who'd started previously didn't. I know full well pensions by the time we retire are going to be crap too. Now this . . . I can see it happening!
    They should definitely make it 50 or 55. Our generation seems to have become the most put upon, unable to buy property because our parents' generation pulled the ladder up behind them, huge childcare costs and longer living parents resulting in huge care costs.

    We definitely have become the very definition of the "squeezed middle" politicians love talking about. I'm lucky to have a career that has affordede a fairly comfortable life and the chance to own my own home but loads of my friends are t so fortunate.
    Our generation also inherits far more on average than any previous generation did and also far more of use went to university
    It remains disputed how much ‘of use’ we are...
    I'm of the view that the 50% uni target was a big mistake and far less of our lot should be going to university.

    I agree with @MaxPB's sentiment though, our lot are getting screwed. We don't vote Tory, they offer us nothing.
    Far FEWER
    Funny you should mention this, I was watching a video on speech today and saying far less is perfectly correct.
    Who was saying that? Probably just one person´s opinion, and my opinion is probably just as good as his.
    Yes, that's literally the point. The idea that there is a distinction between less and fewer applying to countable and uncountable nouns was invented by a style guide writer out of thin air - they wrote that they found it nicer to themselves.

    If you look at textual analysis of the English language as actually used across centuries there is no such split, people use less and fewer interchangeably.

    Anyone pushing prescriptivist bollocks on this is being a total smug utterly wrong wanker.
    The worst kind of people are people who put two spaces after a full stop because “they were taught that way”. So what? It’s crap and unnecessary in a digital age. Thank god HTML removes it by default.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    IshmaelZ said:

    CD13 said:

    Mr 1000,

    As my daughter pointed out when she was twelve. "When you talk about less qualified people, what exactly do you mean?"

    She must be a wow at parties, and how can she live with a language where the equivalent distinction cannot be made about more qualified people?
    It can.

    You have more (greater number of) qualified people.

    You have better (more suitably) qualified people.
  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,349
    edited July 2020
    Dr Ydoethur,

    You point out another thing. Exaggeration. That goes with the territory.

    Polly T managed to shriek about ethnic cleansing some time ago. My pet hates include ... journalists, vegans and anti-vaxxers. Any Venn diagrams about?

    Edit. Thank you for pointing out the obvious about 'less' and 'fewer'. Unlike her dad, she meant it as a joke.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    rcs1000 said:



    No they don't.

    No one ever said "there's fewer water in this glass than that one"

    Fewer applies exclusively to countable things.

    Apologies, in my rage posting I forgot to point out I was talking about the acceptability of using less to reference countable nouns rather than the use of fewer for uncountable nouns.

    Anyone who wants to claim that fewer must always be used rather than less for countable nouns must struggle with saying "there is one fewer cup on this table than before" without sounding like an idiot.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    The oldest use that the Oxford English Dictionary gives for less with a countable noun is a quotation from 888 by Alfred the Great

    I'm pretty okay with being counted alongside Alfred the Great here.
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    Alistair said:

    rcs1000 said:



    No they don't.

    No one ever said "there's fewer water in this glass than that one"

    Fewer applies exclusively to countable things.

    Apologies, in my rage posting I forgot to point out I was talking about the acceptability of using less to reference countable nouns rather than the use of fewer for uncountable nouns.

    Anyone who wants to claim that fewer must always be used rather than less for countable nouns must struggle with saying "there is one fewer cup on this table than before" without sounding like an idiot.
    I couldn’t care fewer
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    ydoethur said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    CD13 said:

    Mr 1000,

    As my daughter pointed out when she was twelve. "When you talk about less qualified people, what exactly do you mean?"

    She must be a wow at parties, and how can she live with a language where the equivalent distinction cannot be made about more qualified people?
    It can.

    You have more (greater number of) qualified people.

    You have better (more suitably) qualified people.
    OK, what about more obese people?
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    Alistair said:

    Very important FTPT

    ClippP said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    MaxPB said:

    UK ministers looking at plans to raise taxes for over-40s to pay for social care

    Exclusive: Matt Hancock advocate of plan to raise tax as solution to social care crisis

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/26/uk-ministers-looking-at-plans-to-raise-taxes-for-over-40s-to-pay-for-social-care

    I bet this will be introduced in a couple of years just as I turn 40 too. Student grants were abolished and tuition fees introduced just as I started university so I had to pay fees while students who'd started previously didn't. I know full well pensions by the time we retire are going to be crap too. Now this . . . I can see it happening!
    They should definitely make it 50 or 55. Our generation seems to have become the most put upon, unable to buy property because our parents' generation pulled the ladder up behind them, huge childcare costs and longer living parents resulting in huge care costs.

    We definitely have become the very definition of the "squeezed middle" politicians love talking about. I'm lucky to have a career that has affordede a fairly comfortable life and the chance to own my own home but loads of my friends are t so fortunate.
    Our generation also inherits far more on average than any previous generation did and also far more of use went to university
    It remains disputed how much ‘of use’ we are...
    I'm of the view that the 50% uni target was a big mistake and far less of our lot should be going to university.

    I agree with @MaxPB's sentiment though, our lot are getting screwed. We don't vote Tory, they offer us nothing.
    Far FEWER
    Funny you should mention this, I was watching a video on speech today and saying far less is perfectly correct.
    Who was saying that? Probably just one person´s opinion, and my opinion is probably just as good as his.
    Yes, that's literally the point. The idea that there is a distinction between less and fewer applying to countable and uncountable nouns was invented by a style guide writer out of thin air - they wrote that they found it nicer to themselves.

    If you look at textual analysis of the English language as actually used across centuries there is no such split, people use less and fewer interchangeably.

    Anyone pushing prescriptivist bollocks on this is being a total smug utterly wrong wanker.
    The worst kind of people are people who put two spaces after a full stop because “they were taught that way”. So what? It’s crap and unnecessary in a digital age. Thank god HTML removes it by default.
    Research has shown that two spaces after the full stop increases reading speed of the text. I write for the reader so I use two spaces. Even in tweets.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    edited July 2020
    The integer 1 is less than 2.
    e is less than pi.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    If the LD leadership can’t hold the attention of a political blog for five minutes, it doesn’t have much hope in the country. They need to do something more radical.
    https://youtu.be/UzPh89tD5pA

  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited July 2020
    CD13 said:

    I'm amused by the Spanish quarantine fuss. Surely, it was alaways a matter of "Do you feel lucky? Well, punk, do ya?"

    Now it's "He shot me."

    Are they adults? if so, act like adults. However, I suspect most won't take much notice of the quaranrine restriction anyway. They're always the people who know best.

    The problem is that people neither do detail or think through the consequences of their action.

    So people saw they could go to Spain and ignored the small print that the countries listed for travel without quarantine was subject to change.

    And they aren't prepared for 2 weeks in quarantine which for my family would have had zero impact except not possibly skipping a bit of exercise.

    Yet even though it's quarantine would have had zero impact we didn't go because well it didn't make much sense to go.
  • Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,060

    Alistair said:

    Very important FTPT

    ClippP said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    MaxPB said:

    UK ministers looking at plans to raise taxes for over-40s to pay for social care

    Exclusive: Matt Hancock advocate of plan to raise tax as solution to social care crisis

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/26/uk-ministers-looking-at-plans-to-raise-taxes-for-over-40s-to-pay-for-social-care

    I bet this will be introduced in a couple of years just as I turn 40 too. Student grants were abolished and tuition fees introduced just as I started university so I had to pay fees while students who'd started previously didn't. I know full well pensions by the time we retire are going to be crap too. Now this . . . I can see it happening!
    They should definitely make it 50 or 55. Our generation seems to have become the most put upon, unable to buy property because our parents' generation pulled the ladder up behind them, huge childcare costs and longer living parents resulting in huge care costs.

    We definitely have become the very definition of the "squeezed middle" politicians love talking about. I'm lucky to have a career that has affordede a fairly comfortable life and the chance to own my own home but loads of my friends are t so fortunate.
    Our generation also inherits far more on average than any previous generation did and also far more of use went to university
    It remains disputed how much ‘of use’ we are...
    I'm of the view that the 50% uni target was a big mistake and far less of our lot should be going to university.

    I agree with @MaxPB's sentiment though, our lot are getting screwed. We don't vote Tory, they offer us nothing.
    Far FEWER
    Funny you should mention this, I was watching a video on speech today and saying far less is perfectly correct.
    Who was saying that? Probably just one person´s opinion, and my opinion is probably just as good as his.
    Yes, that's literally the point. The idea that there is a distinction between less and fewer applying to countable and uncountable nouns was invented by a style guide writer out of thin air - they wrote that they found it nicer to themselves.

    If you look at textual analysis of the English language as actually used across centuries there is no such split, people use less and fewer interchangeably.

    Anyone pushing prescriptivist bollocks on this is being a total smug utterly wrong wanker.
    The worst kind of people are people who put two spaces after a full stop because “they were taught that way”. So what? It’s crap and unnecessary in a digital age. Thank god HTML removes it by default.
    Speaking as one of those “worst kind of people”, I was taught touch typing at school and double spacing after a full stop became automatic; trying to change now would just slow me down too much to bother with.
    One thing I have noticed while tying to touch type in a lot of programs is that I get a lot of what i call DOubled CApitals, particularly at the beginning of sentences; this is another thing where I think my touch typing instincts are not getting on well with modern software.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    I haven’t lurked for a few days (new born in the house!) so may have missed prior discussion. But what was the consensus on the NY Times UFO story and where the congressional process is headed?

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/us/politics/pentagon-ufo-harry-reid-navy.html
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,087
    Alistair said:

    The oldest use that the Oxford English Dictionary gives for less with a countable noun is a quotation from 888 by Alfred the Great

    I'm pretty okay with being counted alongside Alfred the Great here.

    "Less cakes, Ma. I burnt some."
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    Alistair said:

    Alistair said:

    Very important FTPT

    ClippP said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    MaxPB said:

    UK ministers looking at plans to raise taxes for over-40s to pay for social care

    Exclusive: Matt Hancock advocate of plan to raise tax as solution to social care crisis

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/26/uk-ministers-looking-at-plans-to-raise-taxes-for-over-40s-to-pay-for-social-care

    I bet this will be introduced in a couple of years just as I turn 40 too. Student grants were abolished and tuition fees introduced just as I started university so I had to pay fees while students who'd started previously didn't. I know full well pensions by the time we retire are going to be crap too. Now this . . . I can see it happening!
    They should definitely make it 50 or 55. Our generation seems to have become the most put upon, unable to buy property because our parents' generation pulled the ladder up behind them, huge childcare costs and longer living parents resulting in huge care costs.

    We definitely have become the very definition of the "squeezed middle" politicians love talking about. I'm lucky to have a career that has affordede a fairly comfortable life and the chance to own my own home but loads of my friends are t so fortunate.
    Our generation also inherits far more on average than any previous generation did and also far more of use went to university
    It remains disputed how much ‘of use’ we are...
    I'm of the view that the 50% uni target was a big mistake and far less of our lot should be going to university.

    I agree with @MaxPB's sentiment though, our lot are getting screwed. We don't vote Tory, they offer us nothing.
    Far FEWER
    Funny you should mention this, I was watching a video on speech today and saying far less is perfectly correct.
    Who was saying that? Probably just one person´s opinion, and my opinion is probably just as good as his.
    Yes, that's literally the point. The idea that there is a distinction between less and fewer applying to countable and uncountable nouns was invented by a style guide writer out of thin air - they wrote that they found it nicer to themselves.

    If you look at textual analysis of the English language as actually used across centuries there is no such split, people use less and fewer interchangeably.

    Anyone pushing prescriptivist bollocks on this is being a total smug utterly wrong wanker.
    The worst kind of people are people who put two spaces after a full stop because “they were taught that way”. So what? It’s crap and unnecessary in a digital age. Thank god HTML removes it by default.
    Research has shown that two spaces after the full stop increases reading speed of the text. I write for the reader so I use two spaces. Even in tweets.
    What research? All research I’ve read suggests that is only true for mono-space typefaces and not for modern typefaces where the software already increases the gap for a space after a full-stop.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    IshmaelZ said:

    ydoethur said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    CD13 said:

    Mr 1000,

    As my daughter pointed out when she was twelve. "When you talk about less qualified people, what exactly do you mean?"

    She must be a wow at parties, and how can she live with a language where the equivalent distinction cannot be made about more qualified people?
    It can.

    You have more (greater number of) qualified people.

    You have better (more suitably) qualified people.
    OK, what about more obese people?
    You can have more (greater number of) obese people.

    And you can have fat gits.
This discussion has been closed.