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Post by robbiealive on Jan 26, 2024 13:07:52 GMT
I'm suggesting a sort of obligatory, universal citizen service, with military and civil options and a fairly wide window (say 18-30 years) in which to complete it. This is very approximately the system they used to have (probably still do) in France, although they do penalise conscientious objectors quite severely (the civilian alternative is several months longer than military service and stigmatised in some quarters). Many, many years ago I spent my gap year in France, volunteering with the LPO (League pour la Protection des Oiseaux). It was in its infancy and a much smaller organisation than the RSPB and its handful of reserves had, at most, one paid warden, all the other work was done by conscientious objectors and the occasional volunteer like me. So I'm envisaging a system where citizen servants choose military or civil service (no penalty for choosing the civilian option) and have a wide range of options available. Probably three pay rates, civil, military and highly qualified (for anyone doing a role that requires a university-level qualification). Budding professionals (medics, lawyers, engineers, coders, whatever) could choose to gain some work experience or opt for something completely different and spend their service providing care to older people, building flood defences, assessing homes for retro-fitting as part of the energy transition, restoring upland forests, working as a research technician etc. etc. All the people for whom formal education isn't a success would get another chance to get training and experience (that might lead to a career) in a different context that might suit them better than school or college did. They wouldn't face a choice between the military or the scrapheap. No stigma and plenty of opportunity to network with people from different backgrounds, on different career paths. Everyone (male and female) would be expected to contribute something to their society, in one way or another. Obviously government adjusts the mix of placements according to what it judges we need. And in a crisis we could call up people with relevant citizen service experience to help out (would have been very handy during the pandemic...). To be honest this would been a fantastic opportunity for me. I have friends now who did VSO but people from my very working class background were not even aware this opportunity existed. I would have opted for the civil version (perhaps with foreign travel) and I'm certain it would have broadened my horizons (at 18 I'd never been to a proper play or a concert or a proper restaurant, or abroad or virtually anything outside my immediate surroundings), it would have built my self confidence and I would almost certainly have chosen a different career path from teaching which was the only 'profession' my parents and I knew of. I'm sure it would have broadened my social circle as well, which has taken many years to do under my existing life. It would also have probably at least delayed and possibly prevented my first disastrous marriage ( which everyone I knew was doing in their early 20s). Perhaps the real benefits of such a scheme would be to the working classes. Those families who provide all those benefits themselves to their children will understandably be much less interested in it. IN DEFENCE OF THE LIBERTY OF YOUTH! I always enjoy yr snippets of auto-biography. The problem with athena s scheme is its compulsory & universal nature. At those levels it would be unwieldy, v expensive, dictatorial & judging by our recent experiences (NHS vaccines aside) beyond the capacity of our bureaucratic & political systems to deliver. As to follow up Lakeland Lass says above -- imagine it being run by Capita or Fujitsu. It would be a money-grabbing scheme for every fly-by-night agency which would win contracts to run the schemes. British youth historically has enjoyed a high degree of personal, economic & social liberty comapred with most Continental societies. To pursue this speculation about British exceptionalism would require a v long post but some of its ingredients would be: the absence of conscription within a non-militaritic society; a precocious & v high degree of urbanisation & secularisation within the framework of non-intrusive & non-dogmatic religions; a looser family stucture & different expectations about sexual activity & new household formation; different systems of training in early employment & a tendency for people to achieve relatively high earnings at a early stage in their working lives I'm not saying this was all to the good but it meant Brit youth was freer. I admit it was probably easier for males in our youth. I hitchhiked all over in Europe aged 16-18 & because we were so young were the beneficiaries of many acts of kindness & even gifts of money eagerly accepted! Tougher for girls. But I would have shuddered at the idea of any form of national service. These days young people travel? Greatly helped by cheap air fares. Is travel restricted to middle-class kids.
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Post by shevii on Jan 26, 2024 13:10:00 GMT
I watched the ICJ interim court judgement on Israeli genocide and, although it's nothing we didn't know, when laid out in that balanced fashion it's quite a devastating critique of Israel including statements made by representatives of the Israeli government being genocidal in nature, the bombing of hospitals and schools and the mass displacement of people. Key was that many of the South African allegations are "plausible" with regards to genocide- again something the United Nations had already told us.
The case goes forward but will obviously be too late for many Palestinians and the interim measures give plenty of scope for Israel to pretend to be doing things and don't or simply reject the order. At least it will be there for the main case for failure to comply. South Africa has shown up most of the Western nations who have not supported their case and have made no genuine effort to reign in Israel. Indeed in the case of USA and UK they could be complicit in arming Israel to commit genocide.
I expect Netenyahu to double down but Israel risks becoming a rogue state in the long run by not making any effort to comply with the ruling. Shame it didn't include the ceasefire demanded by South Africa but I don't think that was ever going to be on the cards.
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Post by lululemonmustdobetter on Jan 26, 2024 13:11:39 GMT
Techne NEW POLL: Labour regains edge as Conservatives see support dip: Lab: 44% (+1) Con: 24% (-1) Lib Dem: 10% (-1) Reform: 9% (=) Green: 7% (+1) SNP: 3% (=) Others: 3% (=) 👥 1,641 surveyed 🗓️ +/- 17/18 Jan 2024 I'm amused that a 2% increase in the lead from an already whopping 18% one is regarded as "Labour regaining edge". What the hell is this pollster's definition of "neck-and-neck" I wonder?? Ah batty, but as usual you are missing the bigger picture. Those nefarious LDs, who are secretly plotting for us all to be sold into slavery, have seen their share fall by 9% from 11 to 10%. On a more serious note (another slow day at work), similarly to what I did a week or so ago with the Lab and Con, I've been looking at LD opinion poll VI in the run up to an election to see if there is any indication as to what we can expect them to achieve in a GE. As the LD's didn't exist as a party prior to '92, naturally I haven't include the SDP/Lib alliance years.Year of GE VI % 9 months VI at Dissolution GE % share Seats Won seat gained for 1% VI prior to GE 2024 9.6 2019 9 14.8 11.6 11 1 2017 12.6 6.8 7.6 12 1.6 2015 7.4 8.0 7.9 8 1 2010 19.8 20.4 23.0 57 2.4 2005 23.4 20.2 20.0 62 3.1 2001 17.1 13.6 18.2 52 2.8 1997 13.2 12.3 16.8 46 2.7 1992 14.8 16.0 17.8 20 1.1
As one would expect with our electoral system the seat gained by % tends to increase with an overall increase in % share. Something obviously occurred between '92 and '97 to improve the efficiency of converting % share to seats (normally put down to ABT tactical voting).
The difference between VI 9 months prior and final vote share tend to be in the region of 3%, based on the data above, which would currently put the upper level for the LDs around 13%. To get to the level of seats many are forecasting you, would expect them to need to get at least 17/18 % share. If there share is around the 13% mark, it would require a level of efficiency/co-ordination of the ABT hitherto unseen to win 40-50 seats. Whether the structures, knowledge and inclination of the electorate is present to allow this is debatable.
By the time of the dissolution, to reasonably say they are in with a chance of winning circa 50 seats, they will need to be around 13/14% in the polls.
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Post by leftieliberal on Jan 26, 2024 13:15:39 GMT
Another good article from Hamish McRae in the i newspaperWhile various people (including Sir David Attenborough) still bang on about population, here is the reality. After the baby boom comes the baby bust, and it has already begun. The mainstream forecasts for the world’s population project will be falling by the end of this century. The central estimate of the most recent United Nations World Population Prospects puts the global population topping out in the 2080s at around 10.4 billion, against its present 8.1 billion. But since 2020, something remarkable seems to have happened. Since the pandemic, birth rates are falling even faster than seemed likely three or four years ago. Many people expected that as the disruption eased, the number of babies being born would bounce back. The reverse has occurred, as the decline has gathered pace.
The bank HSBC has just updated its work on what is happening, showing that in 2023 births fell on average by around 4.5 per cent. In some countries, the decline is really quite dramatic. In China, where the population is already falling, live births fell by 5.6 per cent, in Germany by 6 per cent, and in South Korea and Ireland by around 8 per cent. These are HSBC estimates, and they didn’t give a number for the UK, but official figures show that births in England and Wales fell by 3.1 per cent in 2022 and a further fall of that scale would be consistent with the rest of the world.
HSBC comments: “As things stand, we’re on a path of the world’s population to start shrinking before 2040, with developed markets already on a path to dramatic population decline over the course of the next few decades. This may, of course, change, if some of these factors turn around, but there’s nothing in the data to suggest that they will.”
If this is right, we will have to rethink just about everything. By the end of this century, far from continuing to climb, the world’s population will have halved. So the footprint humankind puts on the planet’s resources will be much lighter. That will be a huge relief, though it should not be allowed to blunt our efforts to lighten that footprint now.So let's stop worrying about immigration.
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Jan 26, 2024 13:26:16 GMT
To be honest this would been a fantastic opportunity for me. I have friends now who did VSO but people from my very working class background were not even aware this opportunity existed. I would have opted for the civil version (perhaps with foreign travel) and I'm certain it would have broadened my horizons (at 18 I'd never been to a proper play or a concert or a proper restaurant, or abroad or virtually anything outside my immediate surroundings), it would have built my self confidence and I would almost certainly have chosen a different career path from teaching which was the only 'profession' my parents and I knew of. I'm sure it would have broadened my social circle as well, which has taken many years to do under my existing life. It would also have probably at least delayed and possibly prevented my first disastrous marriage ( which everyone I knew was doing in their early 20s). Perhaps the real benefits of such a scheme would be to the working classes. Those families who provide all those benefits themselves to their children will understandably be much less interested in it. IN DEFENCE OF THE LIBERTY OF YOUTH! I always enjoy yr snippets of auto-biography. The problem with athena s scheme is its compulsory & universal nature. At those levels it would be unwieldy, v expensive, dictatorial & judging by our recent experiences (NHS vaccines aside) beyond the capacity of our bureaucratic & political systems to deliver. As to follow up Lakeland Lass says above -- imagine it being run by Capita or Fujitsu. It would be a money-grabbing scheme for every fly-by-night agency which would win contracts to run the schemes. British youth historically has enjoyed a high degree of personal, economic & social liberty comapred with most Continental societies. To pursue this speculation about British exceptionalism would require a v long post but some of its ingredients would be: the absence of conscription within a non-militaritic society; a precocious & v high degree of urbanisation & secularisation within the framework of non-intrusive & non-dogmatic religions; a looser family stucture & different expectations about sexual activity & new household formation; different systems of training in early employment & a tendency for people to achieve relatively high earnings at a early stage in their working lives I'm not saying this was all to the good but it meant Brit youth was freer. I admit it was probably easier for males in our youth. I hitchhiked all over in Europe aged 16-18 & because we were so young were the beneficiaries of many acts of kindness & even gifts of money eagerly accepted! Tougher for girls. But I would have shuddered at the idea of any form of national service. These days young people travel? Greatly helped by cheap air fares. Is travel restricted to middle-class kids. "a precocious & v high degree of urbanisation & secularisation within the framework of non-intrusive & non-dogmatic religions; a looser family stucture & different expectations about sexual activity & new household formation" - I wouldn't say that was any different to anywhere else in northern Europe.
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Post by leftieliberal on Jan 26, 2024 13:28:08 GMT
Mark It would rather depend if "compulsory" ID came with a requirement to have it in your possession at all times. If you know your history steve the end of ID cards after World War 2 began in 1950 when Clarence Willcock, a Liberal, refused to show his ID card to a policeman. Although the magistrate had to find him guilty, he encouraged him to appeal, and although this also went against him it led to the formal abandonment of ID cards and the National Register on 21st February 1952. The police officer, PC Harold Muckle, demanded to see Willcock’s ID card. Willcock refused to show PC Muckle his card and is quoted as saying “I am a liberal, and I am against this sort of thing.”I hope we would all endorse Clarence Willcock's position today.
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Post by barbara on Jan 26, 2024 13:28:47 GMT
I hope that the CPS are already looking at how much more evidence they need to prosecute the Directors and senior management of the Post Office for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice: www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68079300Paula Vennells can always become a voluntary Prison Chaplain. That's one of things I found most shocking in the drama and subsequent documentary. This is an ordained priest who the Archbishop of Canterbury wanted to make a bishop and yet we have clear evidence that she supported the prosecution and taking back of money from the postmasters, in one case when the Post Office's own report said there was no evidence. She tried to cover up the scandal and lied to Parliament and shut down the independent investigation. It makes my mind boil. What does she believe in? What does she think - in the cliché - Jesus would have done? How can belief in the bible and in Jesus only work in your head and have no effect whatsoever on your behaviour. Her hypocrisy is incredible. And they wonder why Britain is becoming a secular country. Not soon enough for me. (And I'm not even getting started on the bloody religious zealots in the US who are some of the most bigoted and unchristian people you will ever meet.)
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Post by leftieliberal on Jan 26, 2024 13:39:46 GMT
I hope that the CPS are already looking at how much more evidence they need to prosecute the Directors and senior management of the Post Office for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice: www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68079300Paula Vennells can always become a voluntary Prison Chaplain. That's one of things I found most shocking in the drama and subsequent documentary. This is an ordained priest who the Archbishop of Canterbury wanted to make a bishop and yet we have clear evidence that she supported the prosecution and taking back of money from the postmasters, in one case when the Post Office's own report said there was no evidence. She tried to cover up the scandal and lied to Parliament and shut down the independent investigation. It makes my mind boil. What does she believe in? What does she think - in the cliché - Jesus would have done? How can belief in the bible and in Jesus only work in your head and have no effect whatsoever on your behaviour. Her hypocrisy is incredible. And they wonder why Britain is becoming a secular country. Not soon enough for me. (And I'm not even getting started on the bloody religious zealots in the US who are some of the most bigoted and unchristian people you will ever meet.) Sadly, some people in the religious hierarchy can be just as big sinners as atheists. I recommend reading Giles Fraser's articles on Unherd if you want to know about failings in the Church of England. (Fraser had his own epiphany with the Occupy protests outside St Pauls, otherwise he might well have ended up as part of the hierarchy without ever thinking why.) Both my recently-retired vicar and I are great Fraser fans.
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Post by davem on Jan 26, 2024 13:43:11 GMT
Another good article from Hamish McRae in the i newspaperWhile various people (including Sir David Attenborough) still bang on about population, here is the reality. After the baby boom comes the baby bust, and it has already begun. The mainstream forecasts for the world’s population project will be falling by the end of this century. The central estimate of the most recent United Nations World Population Prospects puts the global population topping out in the 2080s at around 10.4 billion, against its present 8.1 billion. But since 2020, something remarkable seems to have happened. Since the pandemic, birth rates are falling even faster than seemed likely three or four years ago. Many people expected that as the disruption eased, the number of babies being born would bounce back. The reverse has occurred, as the decline has gathered pace. The bank HSBC has just updated its work on what is happening, showing that in 2023 births fell on average by around 4.5 per cent. In some countries, the decline is really quite dramatic. In China, where the population is already falling, live births fell by 5.6 per cent, in Germany by 6 per cent, and in South Korea and Ireland by around 8 per cent. These are HSBC estimates, and they didn’t give a number for the UK, but official figures show that births in England and Wales fell by 3.1 per cent in 2022 and a further fall of that scale would be consistent with the rest of the world.HSBC comments: “As things stand, we’re on a path of the world’s population to start shrinking before 2040, with developed markets already on a path to dramatic population decline over the course of the next few decades. This may, of course, change, if some of these factors turn around, but there’s nothing in the data to suggest that they will.”If this is right, we will have to rethink just about everything. By the end of this century, far from continuing to climb, the world’s population will have halved. So the footprint humankind puts on the planet’s resources will be much lighter. That will be a huge relief, though it should not be allowed to blunt our efforts to lighten that footprint now.So let's stop worrying about immigration. I have been making this point for a while now. The difference is I have used the World Bank data on birth rates. UK in 2022 was 1.6 per woman , or a 20% reduction per generation. Obviously this takes time to feed through to the total population. This fall in birth rates has been masked by the increase in life expectancy over the last century, but that appears to be stabilising now, so the fall of in birth rates will start hitting the total population over the next decade. All this means that the in balance in the age distribution means we have two options, possibly three: Extend the working life to 75 years. Not a popular option. Have significant immigration from those area with birth rates above 2.2 per female. This covers the poorest countries in Africa. The third is to hope that AI frees up enough people from the workforce to take the jobs in health and social care. Obviously this will need us to look at care sector jobs in a different light and pay them accordingly. The economies which will thrive will be the ones who get this transition right. Unfortunately too many people are still fighting yesterday’s battle of overpopulation for the political classes talk openly about the challenges ahead.
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Post by robbiealive on Jan 26, 2024 13:57:08 GMT
"a precocious & v high degree of urbanisation & secularisation within the framework of non-intrusive & non-dogmatic religions; a looser family stucture & different expectations about sexual activity & new household formation" - I wouldn't say that was any different to anywhere else in northern Europe. You may be right. As I said it was a speculation involving a numer of ingredients some of which you highlighted. My point would be if British youth enjoyed a higher degree of freedom in not-so-distant times then they had more to lose from prescriptive systems of controlling them. I imagine life looked different in northern Ireland.
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Post by robbiealive on Jan 26, 2024 14:03:25 GMT
On Voter ID I just hope that if Labour win power they have the balls to abolish it. They could surely unite the non-Tory parties on this one. The fuss would soon die down. The Tories have played v dirty on voter ID even to the point, as Danny comments, in allowing 65+ transport ID as proof but not Young People's travel cards. This may have been suggested by another agency, but a disinterested rather than a gerrymandering government would simply have over ruled it and not discriminated against young people's ID.
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
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Post by pjw1961 on Jan 26, 2024 14:15:09 GMT
If you look on page 2 of the report linked to above you will find the Electoral Commission made 5 recommendations to government to improve the position: Review the list of accepted ID Improve access to the Voter Authority Certificate for voters Provide options for voters who do not have or cannot access any form of accepted ID Polling station staff should continue to collect data on the impact of voter ID at future elections The electoral community should work to improve the collection of data at polling stations for future elections See report for details. Thanks. So if the answer to voter ID problems is a National ID scheme how will that solve the " cannot access" group who seem to be at the heart of the EC issues.? No one is saying that a national ID scheme is the only solution to voting ID, just that if people routinely carried one (in the manner steve described in Spain) it would be an obvious proof of the right to vote. Forgetting national ID cards for the moment, the Government introduced a theoretically universal ID scheme (the Voter Authority Certificate) which failed - the EC says of it: "awareness and take-up of the Voter Authority Certificate was low – awareness of the availability of the free Voter Authority Certificate stood at 57% in May 2023, and only 25,000 certificates were actually used as a form of ID on polling day" For an incoming Labour government one option would be to remove the need for ID for voting and revert to the prior position. I have a feeling they won't do this and will instead seek to implement the EC recommendations above, including widening the permissible ID.
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Jan 26, 2024 14:21:59 GMT
Interesting polling showing some big differences between young men and women. Young women tend to be a lot more Liberal than young men
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Post by barbara on Jan 26, 2024 14:23:54 GMT
That's one of things I found most shocking in the drama and subsequent documentary. This is an ordained priest who the Archbishop of Canterbury wanted to make a bishop and yet we have clear evidence that she supported the prosecution and taking back of money from the postmasters, in one case when the Post Office's own report said there was no evidence. She tried to cover up the scandal and lied to Parliament and shut down the independent investigation. It makes my mind boil. What does she believe in? What does she think - in the cliché - Jesus would have done? How can belief in the bible and in Jesus only work in your head and have no effect whatsoever on your behaviour. Her hypocrisy is incredible. And they wonder why Britain is becoming a secular country. Not soon enough for me. (And I'm not even getting started on the bloody religious zealots in the US who are some of the most bigoted and unchristian people you will ever meet.) Sadly, some people in the religious hierarchy can be just as big sinners as atheists. I recommend reading Giles Fraser's articles on Unherd if you want to know about failings in the Church of England. (Fraser had his own epiphany with the Occupy protests outside St Pauls, otherwise he might well have ended up as part of the hierarchy without ever thinking why.) Both my recently-retired vicar and I are great Fraser fans. Yes of course religious people are human, just like the rest of us but the rest of us don't subscribe publicly and openly to a belief system that, at least in the New Testament, talks about good acts, turning the other cheek, thinking of those less fortunate, standing up for the less advantaged against the powerful, eschewing personal wealth etc. And yet so many don't seem to think this has anything to do with their everyday life. It's mystifying to me. I understand trying and failing but some such as Jacob Rees Mogg for example don't even try.
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Post by alec on Jan 26, 2024 14:30:39 GMT
I keep seeing this kind of thing in the international press but so far, the mainstream media in the UK has largely failed to pick up the theme, but as I said yesterday with disability benefits, this will touch everyone -
The study quoted found that the record sick days taken by workers in 2023 were sufficient to translate what would have been 0.5% growth into 0.3% GDP decline, and a technical recession. That's the impact that covid is having.
Interestingly, when I looked at the additional sick days taken by UK workers in 2023 compared to pre-pandemic times, and then worked out what this represented as a proportion of total working hours, I came up with a figure of 0.75% of productive work lost to additional sick days, so very close indeed to the 0.8% GDP turn round found in this German analysis.
This is something that Labour really needs to understand if they are serious about rebuilding the country. With the way repeat infections increase the risk of debilitating illness, we should expect to see this drag effect on the economy grow over time, unless we start to address transmission of airborne illness, and no one will be able to get the economy motoring if we're losing 1% or more of output to sickness, on top of the direct costs of treating all those sick and disabled people.
On a brighter note - preliminary results from a Finnish study indicate that installing HEPA filters in kindergartens reduced parental workplace absences by 30%. That's how we're going to get out of this mess, but first, we need to acknowledge that we are in a mess in the first place.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2024 14:46:23 GMT
Thanks. So if the answer to voter ID problems is a National ID scheme how will that solve the " cannot access" group who seem to be at the heart of the EC issues.? No one is saying that a national ID scheme is the only solution to voting ID, just that if people routinely carried one (in the manner steve described in Spain) it would be an obvious proof of the right to vote. Forgetting national ID cards for the moment, the Government introduced a theoretically universal ID scheme (the Voter Authority Certificate) which failed - the EC says of it: "awareness and take-up of the Voter Authority Certificate was low – awareness of the availability of the free Voter Authority Certificate stood at 57% in May 2023, and only 25,000 certificates were actually used as a form of ID on polling day" For an incoming Labour government one option would be to remove the need for ID for voting and revert to the prior position. I have a feeling they won't do this and will instead seek to implement the EC recommendations above, including widening the permissible ID. Thanks -v interesting. We do seem to make a meal of this issue don't we ? !
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steve
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Post by steve on Jan 26, 2024 15:02:24 GMT
Alec Your thoughts on this rather different sick leave experience
While us workers in general have lower paid sick leave entitlement , in the case of non unionized low paid workers the figure is often zero However since the election of President Biden the average entitlement has risen.
Despite this the number of sick days taken by adults in employment or education is at its lowest since 2017. The US economy is growing and the Biden presidency has seen 13 million jobs added.
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Jan 26, 2024 15:12:37 GMT
Russia weaponsing social media: www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/26/germany-unearths-pro-russia-disinformation-campaign-on-x It's one of the biggest challenges for democracies today that the information the public get informing their voting decision no longer comes only from domestic sources as in the distant cosy past but can come from anyone and anywhere with no checks and verification and that Russia long ago realised it was one of their most powerful ways of undermining western societies which in a hang over from Soviet times they feel the need to do, war or no war due to a kind of childish zero sum game mentality towards us. Realising this we should make it as hard for them as possible. If that means banning FB and twitter for national security reasons so be it.
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Post by moby on Jan 26, 2024 15:17:32 GMT
We stand more chance of having a useful dialogue on these issues if the same party are in power in both Wales and England. The tories just ignored us.
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steve
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Post by steve on Jan 26, 2024 15:19:55 GMT
In village idiot news Tory talking head and party chair Richard Holden engaged in some industrial scale wishful thinking.
He played down the current polls showing the Tories trailing Labour by 20 points or more, saying: “It’s quite understandable that between elections polls move around an awful lot.”
In fact the around 20% lead for Labour hasn't moved significantly for a year.
He's either lying,stupid or self delusional. It's of course entirely possible he's all three.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2024 15:36:02 GMT
Its time for Starmer to say something about his defence policy. The gathering realisation that a Trump Presidency would expose Europe to a complete rethink about risk is discussed in this G article . www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/26/why-are-european-defence-leaders-talking-about-warI found two comments interesting:- *A proposal ( from the EPP) that EU should take over from NATO. I confidently predict that Macron will dust off his " Strategic Autonomy" before too long. * A suggestion that NATO-including as it does, UK & Turkey would "try to bed down and endure a Trump presidency as they did from 2016.". In 2016 Putin hadn't invaded Ukraine. ! * The latest US military aid package really might not get to Ukraine !! YouGov's "most important issues " tracker has "Defence & Security" at 12% with no discernible recent change. The public have yet to catch up on this. And/Or have more pressing issues day to day.
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Jan 26, 2024 15:47:43 GMT
Its time for Starmer to say something about his defence policy. The gathering realisation that a Trump Presidency would expose Europe to a complete rethink about risk is discussed in this G article . www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/26/why-are-european-defence-leaders-talking-about-warI found two comments interesting:- *A proposal ( from the EPP) that EU should take over from NATO. I confidently predict that Macron will dust off his " Strategic Autonomy" before too long. * A suggestion that NATO-including as it does, UK & Turkey would "try to bed down and endure a Trump presidency as they did from 2016.". In 2016 Putin hadn't invaded Ukraine. ! * The latest US military aid package really might not get to Ukraine !! YouGov's "most important issues " tracker has "Defence & Security" at 12% with no discernible recent change. The public have yet to catch up on this. And/Or have more pressing issues day to day. "YouGov's "most important issues " tracker has "Defence & Security" at 12% with no discernible recent change" - It shouldn't matter whether the public are aware of it or not though now some are beginning that campaign. I very much doubt the public were aware of the increasing risk during the 1930s that Churchill was trying to warn people about.
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Post by crossbat11 on Jan 26, 2024 16:10:26 GMT
For those of us not entirely convinced that we're dooooommmmed to an ever Far Right leaning continental Europe, this is a heartening account from a Polish journalist about the progress Tusk's newly elected liberal-left coalition is making in Poland and how, rather amusingly, and with a forgiveable bat-squeak of schadenfreude too, the former right wing populist masters of the country are getting themselves into a bit of a fractious lather. Sanchez in Spain is fighting the good fight too. Two large liberal European democracies proving how electorates tend to step back from the brink in terms of either putting the Far Right into power or keeping them there for very long. The US and Brazil walked away too. They stared into the abyss and turned around.The danger of course is that once in power the Far Right tend to subvert democracy as a way of entrenching themselves. Hungary is a warning, maybe Italy too. The Netherlands political system may protect them from Wilders in the end. Macron steams ahead in France. Le Pen remains at bay. Poland gives me hope and encouragement for a more liberal and optimistic Europe emerging. As does the likely ousting of this right wing Tory Government and, in my view, the impending criminal comeuppance of Trump. For the sake of my children, and theirs to come too, I renounce the raining on their parade and sour accusations that optimism and hope is complacency and the future is the devil's. I'm on the side of the angels. Always will be. No other way,in my view. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/26/poland-right-populist-ministers-president-pardon-law
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2024 16:16:31 GMT
I'm on the side of the angels. Always will be. No other way,in my view. Well who isnt ? They are peaceful folk aren't they ? But will they put in an appearance ? Have you ever seen one ? ps- Sanchez is fighting the good fight by pardoning politicians who want to break his country up. Tusk is definitely good news.
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Post by alec on Jan 26, 2024 16:19:38 GMT
steve - I can't really comment without seeing the data, if you could give the reference. All I have been able to find from a quick search is data from 2020, which shows the % of US workers not taking sick days has declined from 30% - 20%, the number taking 1 day from 2% - 1%, the number taking 2-3 days stable at 18%, 4 - 5 days up from 5% - 9%, 6-10 days up from 5-8%, 11 - 20 days doubling from 2% - 4%, and more than 20 days up from 4% - 5%, which suggests a worsening picture - www.statista.com/forecasts/1260743/number-of-sick-days-taken-from-work-or-school-among-us-adultsIt would be very odd indeed if the US was seeing declining sick leave at present.
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Jan 26, 2024 16:41:12 GMT
For those of us not entirely convinced that we're dooooommmmed to an ever Far Right leaning continental Europe, this is a heartening account from a Polish journalist about the progress Tusk's newly elected liberal-left coalition is making in Poland and how, rather amusingly, and with a forgiveable bat-squeak of schadenfreude too, the former right wing populist masters of the country are getting themselves into a bit of a fractious leather. Sanchez in Spain is fighting the good fight too. Two large liberal European democracies proving how electorates tend to step back from the brink in terms of either putting the Far Right into power or keeping them there for very long. The US and Brazil walked away too. They stared into the abyss and turned around.The danger of course is that once in power the Far Right tend to subvert democracy as a way of entrenching themselves. Hungary is a warning, maybe Italy too. The Netherlands political system may protect them from Wilders in the end. Macron steams ahead in France. Le Pen remains at bay. Poland gives me hope and encouragement for a more liberal and optimistic Europe emerging. As does the likely ousting of this right wing Tory Government and, in my view, the impending criminal comeuppance of Trump. For the sake of my children, and theirs to come too, I renounce the raining on their parade and sour accusations that optimism and hope is complacency and the future is the devil's. I'm on the side of the angels. Always will be. No other way,in my view. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/26/poland-right-populist-ministers-president-pardon-lawThe countries that are susceptible to right wing populism are those that haven't experienced it yet. We've had our fill of a version of it and are heading (or most of us are) in the other direction it seems, as are the Poles. It will be interesting to see how Wilders pans out in the Netherlands. I suspect that once PM he will have a terrible attack of typically Dutch pragmatism and in fact probably won't have much choice as the conditions of the parties that he needs to work with appear to be that he tones it right down. He's an old political hack in a way, he's been knocking about The Hague for decades. Re Sanchez a Spanish friend tells me he's unnecessarily burnt a lot of bridges and caused division by cosying up to Catalan separatists for short term political gain but I know nothing more about him. I don't think we need to worry about Italy. National politicians there are weak by definition and it's got an extremely independent minded and confident judiciary. Hungary really is an unpleasant one off in the EU as Poland showed.
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Post by crossbat11 on Jan 26, 2024 16:43:42 GMT
I'm on the side of the angels. Always will be. No other way,in my view. Well who isnt ? They are peaceful folk aren't they ? But will they put in an appearance ? Have you ever seen one ? ps- Sanchez is fighting the good fight by pardoning politicians who want to break his country up. Tusk is definitely good news.[/quote Here's some coverage of Sanchez's negotiations with the Catalan independence leaders in his admittedly rickety broadly centre left coalition. He's told them that an independence referendum is off the table. I think what he's put together, in effect, is a Far Right thwarting coalition more than anything else. He's found an assembly majority, somehow, that's holding for now. The alternative was to allow the centre-right party into power who would bring in the Far Right in order to allow them to govern. This is what weakened centre right parties are tending to do now, where they can, in quite a few European countries. Dancing with the devil to survive. The Spanish people may conclude that the keeping out of the Far Right is a prize worth having, even if the price is some double dealing shenanigans with Catalan independence politicians. www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/sanchez-tells-catalan-president-self-determination-referendum-is-off-the-table/
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Post by crossbat11 on Jan 26, 2024 16:45:10 GMT
colinFor some reason my response to your post has become embedded in yours. Apologies. Keyboard malfunction!
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Post by crossbat11 on Jan 26, 2024 16:47:34 GMT
domjgMy reply to Colin addresses the Sanchez point you make.
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Post by robbiealive on Jan 26, 2024 16:47:38 GMT
For an incoming Labour government one option would be to remove the need for ID for voting and revert to the prior position. I have a feeling they won't do this and will instead seek to implement the EC recommendations above, including widening the permissible ID. I raised the subject of Voter ID in its current incarnation & I wish I had not bothered: tho it's amusing to see the "voices of the people" scurrying around defending a dirty piece of legislation or muddying the waters. 1. It is an a priori that requiring voter ID will prevent some people from voting. It's a fact which some people cannot seem to grasp. 2. The only justification for such discrimination is that it solves a serious problem. It doesnt because no such problem exists. Why should anyone give a toss about EC pontification given (a) they cannot monitor the number of people who are discouraged from going near a polling station by Voter ID in the first instance, an unknown which may encompass the most serious discrimination inherent in Voter ID, & (b) the fact that the government ignores their recommendations! You may be right that Labour would keep the legislation in which case they would be listening to the EC when the Tories don't! & institutionalising Tory illogic: finding a solution to a problem that does not exist. I shall never mention the subject again.
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