Labour says it will vote against DUP's proposed TV Licence reforms Deputy Labour leader Tom Watson has said his party will vote down any Parliamentary changes to the TV Licence fee, following the Conservatives entering coalition talks with Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party. Yesterday afternoon Watson wrote to Conservative culture secretary Karen Bradley to "defend" the BBC "against …
Some actually decent stuff there. Some properly demented stuff too, so I'm told ( I haven't read the full thing ).
That would pretty much describe every parties manifesto, to be fair. Like Horoscope's, they are designed to have enough that everybody can identify with. Also like Horoscope's they tend to get ignored as soon as they are finished with (ie, in power).
Give me a call when any of it is legally binding with a forfeit of removal from their seat if they fail to deliver adequate progress towards it, measured at least annually by an independent party, and able to be triggered by public pressure if they look like they're not delivering.
Until then, they can promise to give me the world on a stick and it makes absolutely no difference.
No other job in the world can you get away with saying you'll do something, not do it for four years, and then get re-hired on the basis of promising to do it "this time around".
No other job in the world can you get away with saying you'll do something, not do it for four years, and then get re-hired on the basis of promising to do it "this time around".
Almost every job I have experience of involves promising to do stuff and then spending the rest of the allocated time coming up with excuses for why it didn't get done (always with the passive voice...)
No other job in the world can you get away with saying you'll do something, not do it for four years, and then get re-hired on the basis of promising to do it "this time around".
Hell one of 'em lost his seat, and then went bitching about only 35K redundancy.
Lost seat = Fired for being incompetent, and still gets redundancy? and then whinges at an amount that's more than the average wage.
As my friend used to say.
Shithouses the lot of them.
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Come off it, the Green Party is, quite realistically, a protest / advocacy outfit and so it will almost automatically advocate alternatives to nuclear. Nuclear is tried and tested, the other technologies are not - you should welcome their advocacy of alternatives - they might provoke an advance in the technology that is better, if not well they tried.
idealogical hatred
ideological hatred TFTFY
As for the comment, with nuclear power we are powering our life on a mortgage, to be paid off over a million years ... the utilities companies do not even factor decommissioning of power plants into their prices correctly, let alone waste management. These are undeniable facts, once you know these facts, nuclear power is silly.
If you disagree, I think you could earn big bucks cleaning dirty thirty!
As for the comment, with nuclear power we are powering our life on a mortgage, to be paid off over a million years ... the utilities companies do not even factor decommissioning of power plants into their prices correctly, let alone waste management. These are undeniable facts, once you know these facts, nuclear power is silly.
And once you know that natural nuclear reactions have taken place 2 billion years ago at Oklo creating a nuclear waste problem that mother nature dealt with perfectly safely by geological disposal then arguments against geological disposal in sensible and suitable locations looks increasingly silly.
Thorium is the future of nuclear anyway, not uranium.
Environmental sustainability isn't a cult though. If you genuinely see it as such, it's probably because you're too far gone to the consumerism cult.
Um. So if you think that chopping down trees on the other side of the planet, machining them down into pellets and then shipping them all the way across the sodding planet to burn in our green and environmentally friendly biomass (ex coal) plants is not:-
1) Green in any way shape or form.
2) Environmentally sustainable.
3) Likely to reduce CO2 emissions.
4) something which should qualify for renewable subsidies (which lest we forget were sold to the public as being required to reduce CO2 emissions to save the planet from downing when the ice caps melt!)
Then your a flat earth nut?
This sort of thing is a perfect example of why you shouldn't let activists anywhere near making decisions because you end up with a patently absurd situation which for some reason is defended by environmental supremacist zealots righteously convinced of their own superiority and unwilling to admit that making decisions on feelings rather than analysis demonstrably results in poor outcomes that run contrary to their own objectives. The people responsible for this sort of absurdity have more knowledge of slogans than sense, imo.
So yeah, if standing in opposition to this lunacy makes me part of a consumerism cult, then sign me up. If other sane people join then at least i'll be in sane company.
"So if you think that chopping down trees on the other side of the planet, machining them down into pellets and then shipping them all the way across the sodding planet to burn in our green and environmentally friendly biomass (ex coal) plants"
FWIW, that's just typical of poor government legislation and guidance, and business doing it's damnedest to increase profits while staying within the letter of law. The way it should have been written and the way it was actually written is what has caused this disconnect between pollution and so-called green energy sources. It only looks at the emissions at the point of generation, not the whole production cycle.
Um. So if you think that chopping down trees on the other side of the planet, machining them down into pellets and then shipping them all the way across the sodding planet to burn in our green and environmentally friendly biomass (ex coal) plants is not:-
1) Green in any way shape or form.
2) Environmentally sustainable.
3) Likely to reduce CO2 emissions.
4) something which should qualify for renewable subsidies (which lest we forget were sold to the public as being required to reduce CO2 emissions to save the planet from downing when the ice caps melt!)
Then your a flat earth nut?
I'd like to point out you can be an environmentalist and also think that shit is stupid. Using examples like that is fair enough, but to say that is all it is about or all think is wrong. Would be the same as saying you are a consumer and then taking some really daft example of fanboyism applying it to all consumers and assuming you must be a complete sucker.
Totally agree, it is fucked up, even if we had sustainable forests next to the plants and used the wood from there ... still better than nuclear, though ... because CO2 levels can be reduced to acceptable levels in time-frames several magnitudes (couple centuries vs millions of years) below nuclear waste disposal.
There are much better alternatives, though, wind, solar, and geo-thermal (admittedly, all still need substantial research and development). The thing is, the energy source is unlimited and free, when the sun stops shining, humanity will have already been long gone ;-).
PS10 solar power plant is very interesting, I think. We need to increase efficiency and get the costs down ... that was the first of a series.
Totally agree with your basic point - this has always been a ridiculous fudge. But I think you will find that it is a fudge which has primarily been fostered by the industry trying to improve their environmental credentials since 2011, and government has simply sucked it up.
Ridiculously it seems to be pretty much the only "environmental" policy they have supported, and it is obviously just a coincidence that the industry is making tons of money out of it.
I am sure that the political donations and hospitality received by the primary champion of this, Nigel Adams MP (Con) have had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
It is a total disgrace and no self-respecting person who is concerned about what we are doing to the environment should support it.
"Nice to see a religious cult with 10 (ten count 'em!) MP's is gonna be pulling the strings....."
Funny thing is, when I express my belief that proportional representation is a fairer system than first past the post, those defending FPTP often claim that PR is more likely to lead to fringe parties getting excessive influence - but that's just what is happening now under FPTP. At least it's not a 'coalition of chaos', as it's not officially a coalition :)
What happens if no one can form a majority, because no one wants to deal with the 10 DUP members?
You get a minority government, where each vote is taken on its merits. It makes the government extremely vulnerable to a confidence motion, which if lost would customarily result in an election. It's why parties with a plurality, but not a majority, generality prefer a coalition.
Those of us who live in the US can only dream of a government hamstrung by "each vote is taken on its merits". Instead positions on issues that should not be partisan are because party leadership tells them how to vote.
Makes no sense that no republican can ever vote for a tax increase[1], or no democrat can ever vote to cut social security[2], but certain things are party gospel where independent thinking is not permitted!
[1] where removal of any deduction including obvious loopholes is considered a "tax increase"
[2] where a change in the retirement age by even a single month a decade out is considered a "benefit cut"
I think what happens is that no party can force through legislation in the teeth of opposition. What they'd be forced to do is negotiate and compromise to come up with legislation that commands sufficient cross party support.
That doesn't sound too bad to me, but the politicians no doubt hate it.
One of the problems is that none of the parties can act responsibly and when in opposition will take any opportunity to make trouble for the government and if that includes voting against something that they know is good then I believe they will do it.
It is not in the interests of the opposition party for the economy to do well and the current government to do a good job.
A politician will put their personal interests first (ambition) and then the interests of their party second. The nation an its people come third behind those priorities.
And this applies to all of them, including the ones who try to sell themselves as not being like that - these are the worst ones because they are fakes.
That's why we need term limits - if there was a maximum of two terms then half of the US House of Representatives would have no concern about how their decisions look to party leadership and the next election. You can see this from how differently members behave who are not running for re-election or are so popular there is no chance of being knocked off in a primary or general election.
There are a lot of republicans in the house caught between a rock and a hard place with health care because they promised they would repeal Obamacare, and know that if they voted against doing so they would be vulnerable to a primary challenge. However, except for those in very red districts, they know they are vulnerable to a democratic challenge for what they voted as a replacement. If half of them couldn't run again, they could act on what they believe, rather than fear of being "primaried" or having financial support pulled in 2018 for not following the party line.
"The £147 "fee" is payable by anyone who uses a TV to watch live news as it is broadcast, or who uses a tablet or desktop computer to stream it over the internet via BBC iPlayer."
I thought it was for all BBC broadcast output, not just news, if viewed live? It's three years since I had a TV licence so I may be behind the times.
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> ...TV or an internet device capable of video playback.
Last time I looked: irrespective of ability of playback! You have an Internet connection, you have to pay, cf. Rundfunkbeitrag.
Cannot say I like it. Still better than the old GEZ/Stasi thing.
Well, you might have heard, the Stasi were amateurs compared to our secret services' arsenal. They have the capacity to record your farts as you attempt to expel your excrements, should you do so with your mobile in your pocket ... as well as record the time and location of the WC's you use ...
It's much the same in France where we have the redevance tele which gets collected with your council tax. You can opt out if you don't have a goggle box. You don't have to pay of use the internet though.
Yes, maybe, but on state-sponsored TV, you get 10 minute add breaks between child programs ... on BBC, you get none of that, you pay, you know why you pay ... in France, in the 30 odd years I live here, still do not know why I pay ... I'd happily pay if only they could remove adds between the child content, the ONLY stuff we watch on TV ... keeps the kids busy while we prepare in the mornings ... we have a TV for consoles, but even they hardly ever get used ... high-end PC's have spoiled the kids, don't want to touch consoles anymore ...
The Poll tax, or everyone pays in - then you get it back if you cant afford it tax.
That would have been a nightmare to implement, but actually is fair, in that at least everyone would 'see' how much stuff costs, even if they don't end up leaving their hard earned cash with the government to do it.
I was taught economics by two teachers, one left wing and one right wing. They agreed that everyone in politics wants the same goal, enough for everyone. The difference is how to implement.
Left wingers think government knows best and will ensure the money goes into the right places, if you just give you money to us.
Right wingers think that once you have enough you will donate time and money to the right places to fix the issues.
In truth I find that government need to fix some of the long term issues, but are useless at the short term ones, so I kind of think we do OK.
Biggest issue is we have the NHS, fantastic idea but introduced without long term funding plans. Just like so many other government ideas, could it be due to a 4-5 year term and no personal responsibility for the results?
Government passed a law that affects Banks (maybe other areas too) to cover this the 'Senior Management regime' where if you should have known better you can be fined personally as well as the company. Time to get this to Everyone in Every job, stop the stupid 'I was told to' and 'I wont have to sort it out' responses.
I do think of entering politics but I am too blunt and can't agree with any party enough to join.
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