If we had Kevin's PPT now it would certainly be better than the current messy combination of Council Tax and Stamp Duty. However, getting to it from where we are now would involve a long running gun battle with Conservative interests in the South East. Would it be worth it ? Well, I think so, yes, but I would expect to be in a minority.
Why all this fuss about the "possible" change of a Treaty ? If we get an agreement we won't need to break any Treaty. That's the point. By showing that he's prepared to make such a change if necessary and by demonstrating, now, that he's prepared to put up with a row in the meantime, Boris Johnson is simply strengthening the hand of his negotiating team. Good luck to him. It was remarkable to hear Rachel Reeves this morning say we needed "real negotiating and less posturing". Does't she realise that "real negotiating" IS posturing ?
I think Junerays was making a joke. A good one, too.
Julian Smith ? Very able and still there.
Surely we are the Party of Freedom of Choice ?
The Oregon Law works well enough but the Canadian approach is better. In Canada you can seek medical assistance to end your life if you're in the very early stages of dementia. In Oregon you can't. Obviously there would still need to be safeguards but the "death within six months" requirement, as suggested by Dignity in Dying is too draconian. If people have demonstrated a long-standing wish for a medically assisted death and choose to follow that when dementia is becoming apparent to them, such a death should be their right. Ultimately, your life is your most basic possession. It doesn't belong to God or anyone else. Any decision to end it should be yours and yours alone.
This is a very good article - realistic and very constructive. The sub-headline of the introductory bit, though, made me think it was another Anti-Euro piece. Which it isn't.
He also said that China was "actively trying to stop the Western powers from developing a vaccine". When Andrew Marr asked his for the evidence to back that up, he simply said "intelligence sources". This news had presumably been given to him in confidence as a Senator. So we are asked to believe it simply because he says he's seen it ? Well, either it's in confidence or it's not. If he uses such intelligence to support his argument then surely he should not do so without SOME liberty to publish what he's been told.
Whatever happens in the election, Trump will never admit that he's lost. He never does. He still insists he won the popular vote four years ago and that the turnout at his inauguration was bigger than Obama's. So the stage is set for a result in which he does lose - both the popular vote and the electoral college - but refuses to admit it, blaming postal vote fraud and Democrat illegalities. Then, in November or December, he says he's refusing to leave office and calls on the military to support him. A nightmare, I know, but I fear it could happen and what we are now seeing are the legal preliminaries for that scenario.
As I understand it, three of the four did not actually resign their membership of the Conservative Party before standing as Brexit Party candidates. They therefore waited to be thrown out - which they were. Isn't there some rule book somewhere that says that if people have their membership withdrawn from them because they have actively supported another Party they can't just be re-admitted upon the whim of CCHQ ?
![[Avatar]](/images/avatar26.png){kind=avatar}
Medley