IntenseDebate - oliness1

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - How to ensure that dis... · 0 replies · +1 points

The State has forced much of the economy to shut down. Personal responsibility is only possible if you have a free society and a free market economy. We don't have that right now because a significant proportion of business is shut down or operating under onerous restrictions.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - How to ensure that dis... · 0 replies · +1 points

Problem really began with Eat Out to Help Out. Once you're giving people tax money to eat at a restaurant, how can you possibly say that free food for kids over the holidays is too expensive/not the government's job?

If we were taking the Swedish approach - leaving people to decide for themselves if they want to quarantine but not forcing everything to shut down - we'd have a case for denying free school meals. But we've put large parts of the country out of work and forced them to live off the taxpayer. They have every right then to demand more benefits.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Henry Hill: Sturgeon i... · 0 replies · +1 points

The party in power messing up won't lose them support unless there is a viable alternative. An anti-lockdowner right now doesn't have a political home, as all parties are pro-lockdown. Theresa May messing up Brexit didn't lose her Brexiteer support because Labour advocated a BRINO VS Remain second referendum.

If the Tories return to being pro-freedom party, if they ended lockdown in England and allowed us to move on, they'd get support in Scotland. But they're not an alternative because they're not offering anything different.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Competence · 0 replies · +1 points

He should have projected strength and fired Cummings. That was the moment people lost faith in him. He seemed captured by an unelected advisor that nobody ever liked or trusted. It destroyed the sense of national unity that existed during lockdown. Since then, he hasn't been able to decide whether he wants to focus on suppressing the virus or restarting the economy.

So he tells people off for their complacency, yet encourages them to go to the cinema. There's no consistency, no ability to make a strategic decision as to whether to open up and live with covid, or close down to suppress it. He's been giving these contradictory messages out since June, and accepted hypocrisy among his inner circle. That's what's destroyed people's faith in him.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - "We are acting on the ... · 0 replies · +1 points

The claim is 50,000 cases a day - noone knows how many of them will end up as deaths. That makes it worse, I wouldn't never have thought a Conservative government and a previously libertarian PM would be threatening putting the army on the streets.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Is it really worth bre... · 0 replies · +1 points

You can't always withdraw from a treaty unilaterally. That's why Spain can't just withdraw from the Treaty of Utrecht and take over Gibraltar. That's why there was such concern over the backstop because the UK couldn't just suddenly abrogate it.

Once a treaty is signed it's permanent unless it has a sunset clause or withdrawal mechanism. To suddenly refuse to follow a treaty ends any possibility of agreements being honoured in the future. Any peace treaty can be voided and countries do what they like, including invading other countries. Treaties are binding for a very good reason - they're how our species has started to progress beyond endless war.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Garvan Walshe: Breakin... · 0 replies · +1 points

Last winter everyone was so sick and tired of constant delays to Brexit that they just wanted to get phase 1 over and done with. We'd had 3.5 years of stalemate - Boris won on a promise that we'd get this deal done so we can move on to something else. It seems that phase 2 wasn't thought through very well.

I hoped that the EU wouldn't try to play as hardball as they have in negotiations but as they have, we should have anticipated this first before agreeing to the WA. I've always thought the two phase negotiating process was a mistake - it would have been better to delay Brexit until everything was agreed. Much better than to be in this half-way transition.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Daniel Hannan: Fewe... · 0 replies · +1 points

It's made worse by social media, which reinforces the sense of agoraphobia due to the negative feedback and scaremongering that you'll receive if you go out. If I go out with others and have fun, I'll be called a selfish "death spreader" on Facebook. I don't want that, so it's easier just to stay home.

4 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Ryan Bourne: The peril... · 0 replies · +1 points

I didn't vote Tory for the first time ever in December to have a Union Jack-waving version of Corbyn. I voted for limited government, limited taxation, and personal freedom. And yet this government is nearly as bad as Labour. They're going after the self-employed with IR35 rollouts, they're taxing technology companies.

Become a proper classical liberal, free market party. Don't go left. The left lost.

4 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - 'Words have consequenc... · 0 replies · +1 points

But how could you have guaranteed we'd get a free trade deal and be able to leave? It takes two sides to agree that. If the EU wanted, they could always have said (as they have) "you can cease to be a member state but you only leave your seat at the voting table and are still bound by our laws". In which case we can choose to be bound by the laws or leave with no deal.

It was always a potential scenario that the EU would play tough. In which case we need to decide if leaving with no deal is better than remaining and coming back in with our tail between our legs.

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