IntenseDebate - SWLondonMan

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Iain Dale: In the afte... · 0 replies · +1 points

I can remember skiing in the Chouf in the morning and water skiing in the afternoon in Beirut Bay. Great country, great people, but wholly corrupt politicoes. The explosion of the Ammonium Nitrate stored in the port for 6/7 years is a tragedy, and an indicator of the beaurocracy endemic in the country.

4 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Iain Dale: Scrap IR35,... · 1 reply · +1 points

Now would be a good time to scrap the DFID levy and divert the funds internally, making better use of the money.

4 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Iain Dale: If the Seco... · 0 replies · +1 points

Rolling news coverage certainly aided the anti-Vietnam war movement in the US. Hence the strict news coverage during the Falklands conflict.

4 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Iain Dale: If the Seco... · 0 replies · +1 points

Falklands. They can clear the plastic landmines that the Argentinians left.
South Georgia. All the old debris from whaling needs clearing up.

4 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Iain Dale: If the Seco... · 0 replies · +1 points

Rolling news coverage certainly aided the anti-Vietnam war movement in the US. Hence the strict news coverage during the Falklands conflict.
As for the media's coverage of PPE shortages, surely that is in the hands of the NHS' own supplier to arrange and not in the purview of micro-managing Ministers.
No-one can predict how the virus will progress, we can but take best efforts on the advice of experts. And they may well be lauded and congratulated at a future date or excoriated.
We live currently in a democracy and some of the measures that have had to be adopted are draconian and unfriendly, but necessary to restrict the viral spread. So we have to live with it and media coverage needs to accept this.
I do question why the news media is seemingly given free rein to roam around and sometimes adopt critical reporting stances.

4 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Iain Dale: If everyone... · 0 replies · +1 points

I am surprised that the campaign has not made better use of EU inteference in domestic matters. Why have there been no questions to remainers about the refusal of the EU to allow UK to remove VAT from women's sanitary products. Is that not a loss of sovereignity?
Austerity wasn't a vicious Tory measure against the people. The EU have demanded that nations abide by the Stability Growth Pact and keep deficits to less than 3%. That debt levels be circa 60%. This restricts govermental spending.
Remaining in the EU means yielding our controls to the EU Commission, an unelected and unaccountable body that sets policy and advances legislation. Legislation that the nodding donkeys in the EU Parliament pass, as little time is allocated to debate. Westminster then passes this without debate as they are a dictat. And I believe, that some 60% of Parliamentary Acts are EU derived.
The electorate is not foolish, many understand the trade offs with EU membership, the detail just needs to be shouted out.
This election may reflect Thatcher's election victory, party boundaries being crossed to achieve an end. Who in their right minds would vote for Magic Grandad and his team of ultra-leftists, or Swinson and her overt rejection of the demos.

4 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Iain Dale: UKIP's Sarg... · 0 replies · +1 points

What I find amazing is Labours havering over Brexit. They have no doubt discussed the recent history of the EU versus newly elected National Governments and budgets that stray from the Stability Pact rules. See Greece and Tsipras and Italy. Labour's election manifesto of re-nationalisation, spending and taxes would not be acceptable to the EU, which would veto it as an economic policy. So Labour have a vested interest in ensuring that Brexit happens. Yet they sit on the fence and haver. It does ask questions as to just what they want and whether the economic manifesto is anything other than empty rhetoric designed to get votes. OR, they are fools and idiots.
Ponder on that.

4 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Iain Dale: UKIP's Sarg... · 0 replies · +1 points

You could of course use that well known nautical term :- Rowlocks, pronounced rollocks.

4 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Iain Dale: Why shouldn... · 0 replies · +1 points

With regard to the demo's around London, where were the water cannon's which would have been so usefully deployed?

5 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Rachel Wolf: The Gover... · 0 replies · +1 points

This is nanny-statism at its worst. In fact, the way that government now intrudes into everyone's life is quite disturbing, given that we spent half a century in a Cold War against authoritarian Soviet Russia and its satellites, demanding freedoms on par with our own.
I despair that a Tory government is at the forefront of authoritarianism, and doing so only to curry favour with the shouty metropolitan elites who will vote Labour. Indeed, even the EU has attempted to control the dissemination of information.
The porn pass is not going to work, you are reliant on the porn sites actually wanting to comply with UK laws when they are domiciled overseas, (many in Cyprus).
There are far more serious issues to address, such as knife crime and fraud generally, along with the pernicious Agit-Prop that the left has launched to include young children.

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