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4 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Aine Lagan: Our next l... · 2 replies · +1 points

I suspect she is a sort of "call me Dave" Conservative.

4 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Aine Lagan: Our next l... · 1 reply · +1 points

"where progressives can look over the border at a fundamentally more liberal society." Why is being a progressive always considered a good thing? Are you not meant to be a Conservative? In what way does taking "a firm position on equality issues in Northern Ireland." make society more liberal (in the traditional sense of liberal = free)?

If I lived in Northern Ireland the views of this girl would make me mark an X on the ballot paper against the name of the redoubtable Arlene with peculiar firmness.

4 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Aine Lagan: Our next l... · 0 replies · +1 points

Quite possibly. Perhaps if they impose a referendum on abortion in Northern Ireland (over which Westminster should have no say) they could also have one here (where Westminster can legitimately legislate). I would expect a reduction in the time limit of some sort would pass.

4 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - WATCH: Watson shouldn'... · 0 replies · +1 points

I wouldn't get too upbeat on Watson, the nonce finder general. What about calling Leon Brittan, under parliamentary privilege and without evidence: “as close to evil as any human being could get”? And don't forget Leon Brittan was Jewish.

I think it infinitely more repulsive to defame an old man on a bogus charge of being a paedophile where there is no chance to sue for slander (because it is said in the HOC) than it is, say, for Chris Williamson to say the Labour Party had gone too far in apologising for anti-semitism (which after all is just an opinion not anti-semitism itself).

I think Watson one of the most odious people in parliament and it is not as if there is not plenty of competition.

4 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Sponsored Post: Richar... · 1 reply · +1 points

What about somebody who builds a house in order to let it out? The builder has created a house in the same way a factory has created a car. Once the house has been built surely the builder is entitled to sell it at the highest price just as the car maker sells his car at the highest price (maybe to a leasing company?) and maybe the buyer of the house is a landlord. Indeed the higher the price of houses the more likely more will be built.

Incidentally I have never had a property for let. I just buy equities and more particularly corporate bonds. The companies I invest in may be doing something useful but I am not. I am behaving just like a rentier. I wait for the coupon to come in as the landlord waits for the rent check; same attitude different investment.

There is a problem of rents being too high. However, that is a function of house prices being too high. House prices are too high because a) interest rates are too low, b) there are too many people in this country and c) politicians prop up the market by ridiculous policies such as the "help to buy" scheme.

4 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Northern Ireland Bill ... · 0 replies · +1 points

I agree too.

4 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Sponsored Post: Richar... · 5 replies · +1 points

That is ridiculous. All investment is effectively lending money by those who have it to those who do not - for a fee. The same principle is at work if you buy a share; the company wants your money because it doesn't have enough. You give it in the expectation of a reward.

Do you want to abolish savings? If there are no savings there are no possessions. Without possessions man is either a slave in a communist state entirely beholden to the nomenklatura or he is living in a state of nature where anything goes.

4 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Sponsored Post: Richar... · 0 replies · +1 points

Quite. There is a great danger we ruin what is left of this green and pleasant land because it is easier to do that than confront the real problem; a tidal wave of uncontrolled immigration from all four corners of the world.

4 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Don't assume that Corb... · 0 replies · +1 points

The Conservatives have been very lucky to have Corbyn as leader of the labour Party, but then the Labour Party has been very lucky to have May as leader of the Conservative Party; its about even Stevens in the luck department.

4 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Don't assume that Corb... · 2 replies · +1 points

I once went there to have a peening (hammering out the blade) lesson with Simon Fairlie for my scythe. Rather a splendid (if dishevelled) place and person. Simon wore the waistcoat and trousers of a filthy old chalk pinstripe suite and was covered in straw. There was also a pulchritudinous but grumpy blonde hippy covered in young children and her husband who ran courses in how to build compostable toilets.

I wouldn't, however, recommend their economic policies. There were copies of the Guardian lying around everywhere, placards for the Green Party from a long past election and yet prices were surprisingly "entrepreneurial".

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