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PROPORTIONAITY

Why don't you get Frank Luntz to do a poll of newsnight viewers (or UK nationals in general) to see how many really care?

On second thoughts, the sooner we stop running things on the basis of Focus Groups the better. Leading is not about slavishly following (or shaping) populist opinion. It's about managing in the best interests of the people.

So please, no more ....I have to ask, is he....

Sigh. So much for proportionality and rationality in the media.

"It has made short-term military gains, but over time it will feel economic and political losses. If Russia truly wants respect and influence, it must change course," wrote in the Irish Examiner."

Given Russia's resources, military might, its allies (SCO) and potential customers for energy, somehow, all that rings worse than hollow.

Has the hatchet job on the Civil Service completely undermined the FCO's grasp of reality? These futile efforts to marginalise a traditional statist enemy (and at worst provoke conflict) are so 'transparent', and it won't do the West (or Mr Miliband), any good whatsoever.

Yes jadedjean I read the NewStatesman on Focus groups by Martin Bright. as he wrote
"Focus groups are often dominated by those who shout the loudest. Brown never looks like he means it when policy is made this way"
He also said that Brown has had no mandate from the party, let alone the country and he is becoming an isolated figure.--As I blogged earlier he may get the sympathy vote.

"Other measures include "free" five year loans of up to 30% of a property's value for first time buyers of new homes in England."

Hope Gavin remembers to ask Alasdair what this means for Scotland? [A copy
of The Barnet Formula may be used as
candidates attempt to answer this Q.]

Supplementary: can we spend the
equivalent amount that we would
have got had Highland Clearances
not happened on the Titians that
The Duke of Sutherland wants to
sell back to the nation for £100m?

Billbradbury (#3) I didn't read the New Statesman article, but I agree. Anyone who's done even a little work in Behavioural Science should know that assessing people's attitudes and opinions is no basis upon which to run a railroad (or anything else). It's just a means to abrogate reponsibility and insult the electorate/viewers, which, sadly Newsnight seems to be becoming rather adept at.

'free five year loan of up to 30% of the value of a house for first time buyers
in England' ...... better or worse than
the deal Peter Mandelson got before
he had to resign the first time?

MONEY TO BE HAD - OR US?

Do I remember £6 and a lot of noughts, a few years back, available via a quango to fund some educational scheme? If I remember rightly the money was mopped up by bogus companies, set up to mop up money, and nothing was achieved.
Isn't that what will happen here? One of you sharp minds blogged a possibility recently. But I get the feeling a whole industry will arise to siphon off interest free money and invest it where it will yield interest. After all, the MPs do something similar in the housing field - don't they? And after the 10p debacle, it is clear that Prudence Kitten is too far up the curtains to realise he is laying another egg. (Am I mixing my metaphors again?)

MACAVITY AND THE EUSSR

Barrie (#7) "Am I mixing my metaphors again?"

What-everrrrrrr... Just don't let it stop you!

Although ...whilst Prudence may well be up the curtains .

That's gone a bit quiet recently hasn't it ?

PS. Any prospect of our country/Kingdom back instead of all these aka

Even Eire isn't too keen.

"FISCAL DISCIPLINE"

Alistair Darling has taken over from the previous clown, Gordon 'bankrupt' Brown. He came out with the sentance that "fiscal discipline will continue to serve as well as it has done in the past 10 years".

What fiscal discipline?

Labour has grown the obesity of government to 50% of GDP. This isn't "discipline". Tha is a lard-arse on a spending binge.

Never have hard working people bled dry by such a bunch of credit card spending spivs, in both national and local government, as under Labours totally disgraceful mis-management of the public accounts.

Both Brown and Darling talk total garbage about "key figures" but ignore all the real key figures.

Our manufacturing base is the weakest in the Western Hemisphere, Govt debt is colossal and hidden in public/private scams/schemes, consumer debt is the highest in Europe, the Balance of Trade has been hemoraging £Billions every year for every year these bankrupt Labour losers have screwed the economy dry.

Someone please bring these clowns to an end with an election asap.

i would like to ask one question.
In the last 8 years, the house prices have risen by 172%, and no one blinked an eye. Why are people crying now because they have fallen by 10%? Did people expect the prices to continue going up for ever?

Alasdair Darling seemed to be all over the place ........ this is what he said on Lewis
to the local paper:



Notice too how he let slip to Gavin Esler that he was simply 'reprofiling' money
that was already announced in the
spending review .......

Five year loans

What a great strategy to lure young families and foreign residents living in the UK to buy near the top of the market! And I suppose more money is coming out of taxpayers’ pockets in order to underwrite these loans? Strange, I don’t see any winner in this rescue plan. Oh wait....the government!

Barrie, ref #7
I think you are referring to New Labour's oh-so-wonderful Individual Learning Account; just do a web search on the two words ILA and FRAUD.

I particularly like this from theregister (Oct 2001):
"The government has decided today to shut down an IT training scheme it set up in 1999 that has become a magnet for
unscrupulous training organisations and conmen."




New Labour's ILA scheme came shortly after their attempt to cripple IT re-skilling and re-certification in small IT
contracting companies with IR35, which therefore favoured larger IT companies specialising in placing expensive but
inexperienced, untrained and unqualified bods-in-suits. With such an approach, is it any surprise then that we have recently
had so many leaks of our private and personal data from government and related agencies?

Rather insultingly in my view, New Labour claimed that the ILAs could be used by those small IT companies instead of their
usual re-skilling plans; suggesting that the 200 pound ILA could replace the previous expensive and time-consuming IT
re-certification efforts shows either that New Labour didn't understand what was involved or didn't care. The 200 pound ILA
wouldn't even cover the cost of the IT certification exams, and the relevant IT training courses and study materials were
considerably more expensive.

At Gordon Brown was then in charge of the Treasury he was a driving force behind IR35, why I do not know, though now we know more of his character and abilities we might imagine the reaction if some lowly IT contractor pointed out significant flaws
in his spreadsheets. I truly consider this possible given lack of consideration of the consequences of removing the 10p tax
band; was this simply incredibly poor use of a spreadsheet?


Recently New Labour has decided to cut funding for re-skilling. Here's a quote from the summary of the Select Committee on
Innovation, Universities and Skills Third Report:
"We conclude that the decision to cut funding to ELQ students was insufficiently justified either by persuasive analysis of
its likely effectiveness in achieving the desired goals or evidence of the likely wider impact of the policy."


The full report can be found at


So, there we have New Labour's mantra 'Education, Education, Education' in action.

Barrie,
though you may not get many responses to your arguments to 'spoil Party Games' I feel sure you provoke much thought.

I was wondering if, for the sake of discussion, a country could be said to be democratic if once every four or five years the populace could vote into government either the Army, the Navy or the Airforce, with pretty much everyone else ruled out due to the influence, power and organisations of the main three?

Would this seem at all similar to a clique maintaining power while giving the appearance of democracy?


For any concerned about such a comparison I would say that I respect our professional military forces as they are incredibly
effective, despite being underpaid and underfunded, and in the rare media coverage we have of their operations they
frequently display what I consider to be admirable qualities such as forethought, fortitude, courage and comradeship; this is
almost exactly the opposite of how I feel about our professional politicians.

With nearly a decade of cooling recorded by satellite measurements, and another decade projected before the "inevitable" warming recommences, perhaps Susan Watts would like to run a piece on how ever-increasing CO2 emissions are causing both warming AND cooling?