gdp's Comments

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Timothy Stafford: Four historical parallels that help understand Trump

Thu, 19 Jan 2017 19:12:41 +0000

In a similar vein, is anyone listening to this? http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b083vwp2 You can catch up on them and the next one is at lunchtime tomorrow.

Conservative Home : Ted Yarbrough: The Anglosphere is the perfect launchpad for a global Britain

Tue, 27 Dec 2016 18:24:01 +0000

No need for that, they already know everything. And can make free trade deals just by wishing them into existence without doing any work.

Conservative Home : WATCH: "God rest ye, merry gentlemen"

Tue, 27 Dec 2016 18:18:13 +0000

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bukhmxx88wo :)

Conservative Home : Spencer Pitfield: We musn't avert our eyes from the grinding reality of poverty in Britain

Fri, 18 Nov 2016 19:53:05 +0000

You're not wrong there, I didn't agree with the Tory welfare reforms but the system as it stood in 2010 was a mess and needed to be intelligently sorted out, which hasn't happened. The forest of benefits and "credits" (that word puts off many older people who associate it with debt and don't claim what they're entitled to), people not knowing what to do in case they lose their benefits, the whole thing is out of control. Peope move into and out of ill-paid work and there is no more recognition of the realities of life than there was in 2010, the only answer is a basic income which will allow people to survive but isn't a lot, and therefore people won't starve but it will be made clear to them that any work will improve their lot in life substantially without their "credits" tapering off. I would probably have voted against the October 2015 proposals but that's not to defend the status quo, it's to say that we need more intelligent thought on the matter and I wish Damian Green well but won't be holding my breath.

Conservative Home : Spencer Pitfield: We musn't avert our eyes from the grinding reality of poverty in Britain

Fri, 18 Nov 2016 19:48:29 +0000

So there was no poverty in the 80s, when immigration was a fraction of what it is today? No one was unemployed in Thatcher's day, and all workers earned high wages! Areas such as the north-east, where almost no immigrants live, are renowned for how well-off they are.

Conservative Home : Eamonn Butler: Remembering Milton Friedman, an optimist who changed the world

Wed, 16 Nov 2016 20:37:24 +0000

"Free to choose", unless you're one of General Pinochet's peons. http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2...

Conservative Home : James Frayne: Britain's new role in the world should be to forge a Global Free Trade Alliance

Tue, 11 Oct 2016 20:16:58 +0000

Yeah, let's go down the pub and make a free trade deal with the lads. How hard can it be?

Conservative Home : Peter Cuthbertson: There was no alternative to Thatcherism – even the SDP would have wrecked our c

Sat, 8 Oct 2016 16:41:01 +0000

What about North Sea oil?

Conservative Home : Andrew Gimson's Conference Diary: This lamentable rhetoric will in time produce a reaction

Wed, 5 Oct 2016 18:24:40 +0000

You're not wrong about the BMAG,, it's one of my favourite places, and don't miss the Catholic and Anglican cathedrals too. This is my favourite: https://bmagblog.org/2011/11/07/byam-shaw-the-boe... Get yourself down Mission Burrito in the Bull Ring if you want something to eat, it's not far from the Waterstones where they've got free wifi. My girlfriend lives in Birmingham so I'm a frequent visitor. Readers may be interested in "Our Joe" by Nick Timothy, who's gone on to become Theresa May's adviser, it's a recap of his legacy and what it means for the party he never actually joined but had and, it seems, continues to have a great influence on.

Conservative Home : "Let’s rise to this challenge, to our golden opportunity" of Brexit. Fox's Conference speech: full

Mon, 3 Oct 2016 19:28:58 +0000

At what point does it occur to people that disgraced former defence secretary Liam Fox and his friends are talking substance-free stuff based on utopian dreams that have nothing to do with, for instance, the livelihoods of Nissan workers? You can't just go down the pub with world leaders and make a trade deal, or magic a prosperous future into the air with platitudes about going out into the world, head held high, etc. There needs to be something there and it's obvious that disgraced former defence secretary Liam Fox and speak your weight machine Boris Johnson have nothing to offer.

Conservative Home : Nadhim Zahawi: Russia has to make a choice about its role in the world

Mon, 3 Oct 2016 19:19:23 +0000

Good job we haven't just pointlessly handed Russia a free gift at massive cost to ourselves then, isn't it? I'm sure people in Eastern Europe will sleep easy at night knowing conservatives across the Atlantic will support them against... oh, wait.

Conservative Home : James Frayne: May's conference speech should aim to destroy Labour

Thu, 29 Sep 2016 17:38:10 +0000

"Without the Tories’ Thatcherite baggage, UKIP are greedily eating into Labour’s Northern heartlands. This will continue" Is this really a certainty in these days of Diane James? If she doesn't have the crossover appeal Farrago has, and UKIP slumps, what are the likely consequences of this? If James appeals to fewer northern, working-class folk than Farrago, they wouldn't be replaced by Comrade Corbyn's Labour, and certainly not the Tories. The Liberal Democrats (sadly, imho) are struggling to make their voice heard. UKIP's forward momentum (no pun intended), will it really last now? You can see what Diane's strategy would be, but I don't believe it will work and I think we should consider the consequences if it doesn't. A divide within the UKIP camp has opened up with, I think, the likely outcome being the southern, lower-middle-class wing getting behind May and the northerners dropping back out. When her victory in the leadership election was announced I was enjoying a lunchtime visit to Birmingham Botanical Gardens and it came through on the World at One, and I think we still don't know what the consequences will be, but more likely a hollowing out of politics in the north, the drifting away of Scotland and the continuing dominance (the northern powerhouse having never been real) of the southern rentiers and their followers.

Conservative Home : Iain Dale: A week in which I helped to make a bit of Israel-Palestine history

Fri, 23 Sep 2016 16:00:12 +0000

EPIC DALE has brought about historic agreement between Jews and Arabs. They both think he's a bellend.

Conservative Home : James Heappey: May is right to give Hinkley the green light

Thu, 15 Sep 2016 18:16:20 +0000

It proves that some climate change is natural, not that it's all natural, that the freak weater, floods, droughts we've seen across the world are all coincidence. Not just carbon emissions, but also pollution and mismanagement of land that's made the floods even worse than they would otherwise have been. So you don't like the socialist agenda of many "greens", neither do I. But that's a reason for liberals and conservatives to get involved in the environment debate, not pretend it isn't happening. Have a look at this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookrevi... It makes no sense I can see, Tories talk about responsibility, living within our means and not passing on debts to future generations, yet their environmental policies are the opposite of this, they think they can keep taking from nature and give nothing back, as if pollution wasn't a way of saddling future generations with a debt that if it goes too far can never be repaid.

Conservative Home : Mohammed Amin: Integrating Muslims. The UK does better than the US (just). And both do better than F

Wed, 31 Aug 2016 18:37:32 +0000

There was one in 2003 though

Conservative Home : Quentin Letts: Europhiles have even managed to make Groundhog Day about Brexit

Tue, 23 Aug 2016 18:48:29 +0000

Letts not.

Conservative Home : Frank Young: May's social reform agenda must not forget fathers

Thu, 18 Aug 2016 18:37:54 +0000

You're not wrong there, and it's also bad for some jobs to be monopolised by men or women. Most notably, the whole culture in which men don't become primary school teachers, or try to. If a boy doesn't have a father at home he can at least have successful men to look up to in some way. Unfortunately it is seen as un-manly to enter various jobs in teaching and caring, and those men who do take up such jobs are, bizarrely, viewed with suspicion. A drive to recruit men to such jobs would be very useful in that sense. We are opening up jobs to qualified women that have historically been men's preserve, but it hasn't happened enough the other way round and we see what happens when a boy isn't taught how to be a good man by seeing good men living out the roles a 21st-century man is called upon to. You don't have to be a Sir Bufton Tufton type to think family breakdown is bad. But I'd argue that this is mainly not down to social liberalism, but to the inability of men to make a living in a heavily casualised workforce in which permanent jobs are scarce. And you can debate the causes of that, but it's a problem that should be discussed and the "right" has tended to either avoid or blame it all on immigration, rather than ask other questions about the economy and society we live in.

Conservative Home : The arts thrive - as councils cut subsidies

Wed, 10 Aug 2016 19:01:43 +0000

There should be free access to museums to underline the fact that even the poorest in society can access culture, and those of us who can afford should donate as much as they can. The fact is, if you don't want subsidies, do you donate to the museum and hit the donation box on an artist's website? Because any other way, some people will be shut out for financial reasons, which isn't right. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/fe... That is the sort of thing that's unacceptable, and we almost lost the Wedgwood Museum here in Stoke. It is thus the responsibility of lovers of the arts, if they have any money, to make voluntary donations to keep it free at the point of access. It is a delight that when I go to the museum here and the equally excellent museum in Birmingham people of all races & classes are to be found, but that's not guaranteed forever.

Conservative Home : Iain Dale: The UKIP leadership election. Five nonentities and Diane James.

Fri, 5 Aug 2016 19:48:24 +0000

support gary johnson then

Conservative Home : Harry Fairhead: Introducing our new Nanny State Rich List

Thu, 4 Aug 2016 13:48:14 +0000

http://whofundsyou.org/org/taxpayers-alliance