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Prospects 11 March, 2008

  • Newsnight
  • 11 Mar 08, 11:05 AM

Dan Kelly is today's programme producer - here is his early email to the team.

Good morning all,

We have some good options today. Ahead of the budget, David Grossman has been examining party policy towards the very rich, and examines whether the public鈥檚 attitude towards tax and the very wealthy may have changed. Who should we do off the back?

Later today the Home Affairs Select Committee will reveal new figures about the number of young people missing from school rolls across the country - could this be evidence of a higher than expected number of forced marriages in Britain? There is also a separate and perhaps more rigorous study in Luton on this subject.

Mark Urban has a film from inside Gaza and we have an interview on the back of the drama with Francis Brooke.

What else? Citizenship classes will probably feel too old by tonight, but what do you think?

Dan

Comments  Post your comment

  • 1.
  • At 12:13 PM on 11 Mar 2008,
  • csharp wrote:

given wheat prices have gone from 拢80 to 拢180 a tonne why do farmers/landowners still get 4 billion a year subsidy?

its boom time for incomes. they don't need tax money. Food prices are going just one way. UP.

  • 2.
  • At 02:23 PM on 11 Mar 2008,
  • John wrote:

Please don't treat us like idiots again and repeat parts of the 10 minute drama right after it has finished!

  • 3.
  • At 02:39 PM on 11 Mar 2008,
  • Bob Goodall wrote:

Dear Mr Kelly

Possible storyline re the Budget tomorrow/ what might we wish to see?

The CBI is asking the Chancellor to look at Business taxes, perhaps he could look at taxes affecting high street shops who are under increasing competitive pressure from the internet, if things continue like this without inducements for businesses to keep a presence on the high street might we see a rapid contraction of the high street as we know it with far less shops and stores, within two years?

This might or might not be desirable but might have implications for example on our communication and transport links?

best wishes
Bob

  • 4.
  • At 02:52 PM on 11 Mar 2008,
  • Bedd Gelert wrote:

One could invite ideas for what would constitute a suitable 'Oath of Allegiance' which would keep the ex-Attorney General 'Lord' Goldsmith happy.

Here's my starter for ten, but I just know you folks out there can do a lot better..

"I pledge allegiance to Big Business and Consumer Capitalism, and resolve myself to do everything I can to help them, by word and by deed,
And by jove, if there should be a conflict between this and those old British values of honesty and fair play, I resolve that this should not get in the way of making more money."

Also, is there any chance of getting Gerri Peev on the show to discuss the conflict between 'Freedom of Speech', being 'On/Off the record', and how we can still get 'just the facts' without becoming 'acquiescent', as a follow up to the similar debate with Guido Fawkes and Michael White some time ago ??

  • 5.
  • At 02:56 PM on 11 Mar 2008,
  • Bill Bradbury wrote:

"You never see a farmer on a bike" as they say upt'north. Set-aside ended? Don't make me laugh. I have seen more empty fields around where I live to feed the Third World.
Never a day passes without a farmer showing one pig or other complaining about the price they get when we hear that China and India are crying out for more meat. Too idle to get off their fat subsidised backsides to find a market, expecting the easy option of the local supermarkets and their customers to pay more.

They have been living too long on EEC subsidies. It's either too much rain or too much sun to make an excuse to put up prices. Now it's ECO fuel.
I am still bitter over the great potato "rip off" of the 70's when farmers were spraying spuds purple to keep the prices high, claiming there was a shortage. Some may forgive but I will never forget. The price of a bag of chips never came down, Remember?

IDIOTS (ref: John #2)

I have agree - I kept peering at my VCR and then came to the conclusion Newsnight had pressed the wrong button. How little I lnow of quality broadcasting!

  • 7.
  • At 03:17 PM on 11 Mar 2008,
  • John wrote:

Please don't treat us like idiots again and repeat parts of the 10 minute drama right after it has finished!

HOW TO MARRY

A quick look at the "Matches" in your local paper will show that marriage, British-style, consist of finding a face that looks a lot like yours and "falling for it". Then comes the split, the angst, the traumatised kids, the extra housing need etc. I gather the "other" way leads to angst, trauma, etc too, but is marriage breakdown as prevalent?
Should we not look to the "beam" of failure in our own dumb approach before telling "them" to remove the "mote" from their eye, and to see it our way?

  • 9.
  • At 03:25 PM on 11 Mar 2008,
  • Bedd Gelert wrote:

One could invite ideas for what would constitute a suitable 'Oath of Allegiance' which would keep the ex-Attorney General 'Lord' Goldsmith happy.

Here's my starter for ten, but I just know you folks out there can do a lot better..

"I pledge allegiance to Big Business and Consumer Capitalism, and resolve myself to do everything I can to help them, by word and by deed,
And by jove, if there should be a conflict between this and those old British values of honesty and fair play, I resolve that this should not get in the way of making more money."

Also, is there any chance of getting Gerri Peev on the show to discuss the conflict between 'Freedom of Speech', being 'On/Off the record', and how we can still get 'just the facts' without becoming 'acquiescent', as a follow up to the similar debate with Guido Fawkes and Michael White some time ago ??

  • 10.
  • At 06:21 PM on 11 Mar 2008,
  • Simon Davis wrote:

I could not find a suitable blog on the 大象传媒 to make a comment about the 'White' season on the beeb so...

What on earth has a young girl and her abused mother turning to ISLAM have to do with a season on the white working class?.

The 大象传媒 seems to be in thrall to Islam and at the same time seems to hate Catholics, working class people and Daily Mail readers.

The 大象传媒 is about to air a programme which paints Pontius Pilate and Judas in a good light, well if it is okay for the 大象传媒 to keep attacking Christianity than it should also do the same with Islam.

Of course I doubt the 大象传媒 will do that as it has just spent tens of millions of taxpayers money on launching a new Arabic service.

The 大象传媒 is a disgrace and must try and recruit people who are not left wing Guardianistas, and start showing some balance in it's reporting.

  • 11.
  • At 07:18 PM on 11 Mar 2008,
  • wrote:

SO MANY HOT POTATOES

I absolutely LOVE Bedd Gelert's oath.
Where do I go to swear it - I can't wait. Is it OK to invoke the name of Lord Goldsmith when doing so?
I guess the "White season" is really the "None of The Above" season. Was it Littlejohn who coined: "You couldn't make it up"? Where is Spitting Image in our hour of need?
Or even Vera Lynne??

  • 12.
  • At 08:05 PM on 11 Mar 2008,
  • Ian Vine wrote:

It's a pity if Newsnight is not covering the scandalous Goldsmith report - since it raises key controversies around citizenship ceremonies.

Just how can any modern British government even contemplate requiring an oath of allegiance to "Queen and country" for every UK citizen? Yet Lord Goldsmith's incompetent report makes a mockery of what multicultural British citizenship should mean - by urging that young citizens should be required to swear just such a solemn promise when leaving school.

Apparently the good lord, as our erstwhile top law officer, wants republicans and anti-royalists to LIE on oath! And he wants government to impose sanctions on young people who refuse to "volunteer" for such hypocritical ceremonies!

For a nation once proud to pioneer fundamental liberal values, and which claims to enshrine freedom of conscience within its laws, enforcing such a step upon new immigrants is disputable enough . Yet it is plainly bizarre to advocate imposing such a contentious requirement upon indigenous British citizens - most obviously those non-English ones who may be sincere Welsh or Scots nationalists.

At least new prohibitions against religious discrimination stop Goldsmith from demanding allegiance to a god at the same time. But does not the Human Rights act protect the freedom of conscience of anti-royalists, and render his proposed sanctions illegal? To incur official disapproval and financial penalties for refusal to swear an appropriate allegiance to law and country might just be half-defensible. But to suffer for denying an antiquated devotion to the undemocratic British monarchy would be amongst the biggest legal and political outrages of modern times.

What would that reactionary oath conceivably do to address the many causes of alienation from our failing "common bond" of loyal citizenship? Is this kind of blinkered, futile, barely coherent, yet deeply immoral gimmickry becoming typical of what our government's massive consultancy budget continues to waste our taxes upon?


  • 13.
  • At 09:17 PM on 11 Mar 2008,
  • Adrienne wrote:

ALLEGIANCE

What about the 0.5% of the UK population which has automatic citizenship of a luxury holiday resort in the Middle East? Where does their allegiance truly lie?

Bedd (#4) - Excellent!
Barrie (#6)- Dysgenesis + scotoma ;-(

  • 14.
  • At 10:05 PM on 11 Mar 2008,
  • Adrienne wrote:

OATHS OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE IDF ?

What about the 0.5% of the UK population which has automatic citizenship of a luxury holiday resort in the Middle East? Where does their allegiance truly lie?

Bedd (#4) - Excellent!
Barrie (#6)- Dysgenesis/scotoma? ;-(

  • 15.
  • At 11:14 PM on 11 Mar 2008,
  • wrote:

ADRIENNE

Lovely to have you posting again Adrienne.
Sorely missed (particularly now that I have the soreness of dysgenesis and scotoma on top of all the stuff we 70yo males suffer from). Have you got a touch of dudgeon or is it the pain of posting on this broken site?
I miss your "tell it like it is" blasts full of IQ doom. They cheer me up no end. (:o)

  • 16.
  • At 07:27 AM on 12 Mar 2008,
  • Adrienne wrote:

Barrie (#15) - I'd vote for you if you stood again.

My remarks were (perhaps too obliquely) addressed to the Newsnight production team. The image of you and your VCR had me chuckling, ageing has clearly done you no harm :-)

Perhaps some of our smarter Northern relatives (they come top in PISA, there's less dysgenesis up there!) had the right idea centuries ago? Perhaps Newsnight Review could invite Aki Kaurismaki on to give some of us a lift (not that I think he'd come).


Why we endure these potty ideas from the likes of Goldsmith, Hodge and others when their chums are so busy de-nationalising/Balkanizing/fragmenting this country into EU 'statelets' (Regional Assemblies etc) to make it dovetail with the Lisbon Treaty (part of their 'Socialist' International agenda) is truly Kafkaesque, but again, that's dysgenesis for you :-(

/blogs/newsnight/2008/03/thursday_6_march_2008.html

etc.

No doubt some of the Muslims will get the allegiance message :-(

  • 17.
  • At 07:49 PM on 14 Mar 2008,
  • machinewarrior1 wrote:

Young people missing in schools in the UK. Actually this skates carefully over the fact that these young people are almost entirely females, so hoping to obfuscate the gender violence inherent in this practice.

It's time we stopped turning a blind eye to the gender apartheid that operates here in the UK.

This lily livered covert deal that operates between the ethnic patriarchs and the indigenous patriarchs is this,

"You don't call us racist and we will let you treat your women in the manner to which you are accustomed."

This to prevent male-on-male violence has led to the sacrifice of the human rights of many ethnic females here. It's allowed the ethnic patriarchs to hijack our anti racist agenda and use it to silence objections to systematic cultural gender violence It is utterly immoral and has to stop. NOW.

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