大象传媒

So the Scots feel ill done by. They shouldn't worry, the amount of MP's in our Parliament with Scottish credentials can only mean that eventually we will all be ruled by the same Parliament. However, It will be from Scotland, not London England.

How unified is South Africa, not very.
Why should we expect it to be. If we look at the so called land of the free, namely North America, they are no where near to equality. A good example is the difference in Bushes visits to New Orleans, a city with a large poor black community and California, predominantly white and well off.
Even here in the UK we still do not have racial harmony.
Will we ever?

Pierre Barron
Re Editors Blog
Do you perchance double as Michael Grade's press secretary ?

HH

As hinted earlier, this is Salmond v Maitlis Part II. Well, I suppose it makes a change from Kirsty Wark in Mrs Angry mode.

This time, however, could the 'devil in a skirt' - that's him not her - be challenged on the concept of 'Scottish Oil' and asked to explain why 'London' is seen as a term of abuse?

Dear Newsnight

re Barrie Singletons post, it would be interesting to look at why some people need to control others and why the population is sometimes so apathetic and lacking any fighting spirit

after all we are meant to be an island warrior nation?

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

re North Sea Oil,

I think it was parcelled out according to length of coastline with the English coast down to the Wash, I think,

if we went our different ways would it mean that the Norwegians were quids in?

best wishes
Bob
hopefully not too apatehtic

An outsider could be forgiven for thinking that Scotland was a land of savages and paupers, if the rantings of sections of the English mass media were anything to go by. Constant whinging about how grateful Scots should be for English largesse will fuel a sufficient desire for independence. Whilst New Labour laugh in a derisory way at alleged "black holes" in the financial proposals of SNP, or the Tories in Westminister for that matter, the rest of the country realise that New Labour represents what is Animal Farm Government.

'Democracy' is a populace overworking to pay large mortgages and basing their views of political parties according to their own personalities and the 'news' conveyed by a largely politically slanted media. The politicians have to dress up their policies to appeal to the self interest of potential voters and very large business interests and receive a lot of income from those with financial clout. Voters learn they do not 'get the government they vote for' but place a vote that is only one of a great many and they may never see the government of their choice. Choice is a theoretical entity that works only in a market where there is an over supply of some commodity. 'The people' don't choose a particular crowd to run their country. Individuals place a vote, each for a whole variety of reasons one of which may be habit or even as a parent voted. It could be because the candidate is good looking or has appeared on TV etc. It may be the best we can imagine but has many faults. All humans are imperfect and so are their systems, their electorate and their politicians.

Cheery Thought For The Day: EU Integration - A fait accompli?

The excellently managed interview with Alex Salmond last night just reinforced my more general concerns.

Devolved, deregulated, and 'free to choose'. Who would have thought that UK citizens would so bovinely endure the anarchism of *two* New Left parties (cleverly marketed as alternatives, all chanting 'freedom' and liberty and similar inanities) for nearly 3 (maybe 5) decades, when really (bar futile efforts from Old Stalinist, more sinned against than sinning, Labour, it's all come down to just voting for more *lack of* government (and shortly, loss of sovereignty)?

Only 850,000 Poles in UK? How does anyone know for sure? Is that just the estimated number registered for work, i.e those of working age? If so, that would surely mean that something like 1 in 25 of the Polish people are now in the UK. How many are in other the other 25 EU states (excluding Poland)? How many would vote, and how many for 'Donald Tusk' and his party?

Given that under Tusk, the Poles now have a quasi-New Labour, pro-EU Reform Treaty (quasi 'Trotskyite' like government just like we do), I'd be a bit worried about the electoral process if I was Polish and didn't like the results and prospects of yet more free-market 'freedom and democracy',
(aka anti-Stalinist, aka anti-Civil Service, aka anti-welfare state) New-Left/Bronstein/Miliband style.

But still, we've been happily protesting (Elvis, Rock n Roll, Dylan and the Greenwich Village people, pop etc) our way towards genetic oblivion for at least half a century now, naively pulling 'The Establishment' down, laughing irreverently at what others had built, with the aid of 'alternative comedians' making out they were on the left (but what left I ask?), voting for the same bunch of anarcho-capitalists all the time without knowing it (they just have different make-overs), so what does one really expect?

Furthermore, given those Polish numbers, and projecting to other EU states, it looks like New Labour and EU(SSR) bureaucrats have already created its borderless, nationhoodless, EU states, and all but thrown away our sovereignty (for what it was ever worth).

See earlier blog comments, 22nd October and earlier (but then again, if you want cheery thoughts,.. don't)

/blogs/newsnight/2007/10/monday_22_october_2007.html

harriet hamster - Michael Grade is the boss of ITV, so I am not too sure what your point is here ?

It is difficult not to be convinced by conspiracy theories when those who expound them use logic and documented evidence whilst politicians use rhetoric and complex statistics to promote their arguments. If you've ever worked with a statistician you will know the average error involved in the model itself can be huge but as Barries points out it is the deicisons made about what to put into the model that really render the results potentially meaningless as an exercise in understanding actuality - however many times policy makers use the word actual in their nu-english.

UK media coverage is evidently poor in terms of breadth and geographical scope - 大象传媒 and SKY seem to pick three or four items relating to:
a) westminster politics (who said what to who and should they be believed - a bit like office gossip coordinated by the media on a national scale)
b) the enemy, previously Irish nationalism now Islamic globalism, and
c)for SKY a human interest story, Di or the McCanns, and for the 大象传媒 an NGO story (usually a green organisation or a 'rights' - i.e. read ethnic - organisation)

and then repeat them for the entire day - whereas e.g. France24 covers a myriad of interestng social and political stories across the globe and gives a more optimistic view of innovation and enterprise by ordinary people.

Look at the distribution of MEPs and the way that France and the UK are regionalised. Then look at Sweden, Finland, Scotland and consider how the UK regions etc may go.

Next think about UK demographics and how these have dramatically changed in recent decades and how this varies by region, bearing in mind the below replacement level fertility rates in the EU and especially the original, indigenous Britons and other Europeans). Ask yourself why this has come about, and remember, today, there is a world of difference between 'born here', or British, and ethnicity (75% of London's Local Authorities are 50% or under White British at 7 years of age). Think long term, and consider other large urban areas.

Much of the talk of immigration into what now remains of) the *United* Kingdom, has switched to focusing on economic migration between EU states. But that is quite different from immigration, as the EU's Frattini is advocating. That focuses on increasing *legal* migration from Africa and S Asia.

As I have said elsewhere, it is understandable why we are importing people, it's ostensibly because of our dangerously low birth rates. But one must then ask *why* it has fallen so low throughout Europe and what likelihood there is of any reversal (if what I have said is sound, it will just get worse, and it won't be helped by EU anti-sex discrimination law or vilification of Islam, or even more promotion of female education in the top half of the ability distribution (what if it *is* largely genetic/heritable?), as this will just sustain the low birth rate whilst also skewing it towards relatively lower ability, bringing GDP down ultimately.

Additionally, where we get people from is a major problem, and it isn't one which will be easily solved by having a 'points system', as if we try to take large numbers of people from continents which have a much lower mean ability level (as measured by IQ or OECD PISA like tests), we will just denude ('brain drain') those continents of a good proportion of the small number of people that they produce, and which they need to sustain their own economies/infrastructure (see the graph in another comment showing the proportion of doctors to people in different African countries for example).

What worries me most is not just the blind-spot as to the nature of human diversity and assortive mating, but also the aggression with which it is sustained and those drawing attention to it are attacked, by those who seem to be ideologically committed to promoting a naive equalitarianism and who refuse to factor it into rational analysis and discussion the empirical facts of the matter. The root problem is the *very* low (below replacement level) European birth rate.

The critical question to ask and answer is: what brought that about?

Why do so few people today appear to understand what biological fitness is, and that there is far more to life than just the here and now, i.e. impulsivity and immediate gratification. This is a paradoxical clue as to the nature of this self-perpetuating problem I suggest, and one which appears to be critically related to intelligence (which sadly, we do not appear to be able to improve through more education, in fact, in the long term, we may just end up lowering it.).

I did try to post a grateful and appreciative comment on the Editor's blog, but the comment monster swallowed it. So thank you for the feedback and good luck with the overhaul.

Re#9 above - Cheery Thought For the Day: EU Integration - A fait accompli?

Fait accompli/coup d鈥檈tat 鈥� take your pick; but then again鈥�.

Having been kept hidden from public perception for more than half a century, 鈥業ntegration's鈥� illegitimate siblings, 鈥榗oercion鈥� and 鈥榮ubjugation鈥�, the most evil and covert objective components of the whole EU 鈥楶roject鈥�, are now being recognised more readily as such by people right across the Continent. Universal reaction has yet to grow apace, but when it does, and the sooner the better, politicians can expect the worst.

So even though, bizarrely, a very large chunk of brain-washed Britain sleepwalks on; oblivious to the potentially devastating consequences of swallowing the deceit-laden bilge that continues to be doled out by Europhile politicians, there is just a possibility that all might not be lost.

Monnet, Salter, Spaak and Spinelli, to name but four of the original architects of the EU Project, whose long-term objective was the creation of a supranational entity to ensure a permanent peace, are long gone, but the collateral damage, whether intended or not, has been done. There are now many power-crazed opportunists with far less 鈥榥oble鈥� ideals who have taken their place and who will stop at nothing in order to fulfil a fanatical desire to establish total and unconditional control over the lives of nearly half a billion people.

n.b. Should this Reform Treaty become law, ensuring as it will that a Superstate called Europe becomes a legal entity, then anyone who believes that the proposed 100,000 strong EU 鈥楻apid Response鈥� Army won鈥檛 be used to maintain total subservience and suppress civil dissent in former Nation States, is living in a dream world!

What price democracy then?

What price indeed.

/dna/mbreligion/F2213240?thread=4707975&skip=0&show=20

wow, kwame was a really great host on review last friday 鈥� hopefully he gets the job more often.

i would love to see a discussion about britney spears - on mtv!!

i was amazed to see a discussion about a pop artist that was timed to coincide with the release of her new single.

especially amusing was kirsty wark warbling on about "britney's electro pop". i think she meant pop pure and simple. as if tagging electro onto the moniker makes it worthy of discussion.

I am sure this will seem trivial but where,oh where has the "humour" (sorry - humour) gone? Ages since I saw a joke for an 11 year old or any sort of light hearted stuff. OK there's not much light hearted about the news(especially in the demonisation of Sir Ian Blair, who is committed to improving the Met's culture probably against the wishes of many who ENJOY the old canteen culture) but all the more reason to insert something to make us chuckle. Please!