´óÏó´«Ã½

Excellent I get first Post.

The plot thickens, another piece of insightful digging at the forces at work on the ground in the 'real' economy.

Respect to you Paul.

I can see the slightly sinister tone of the 'british jobs for british workers slogan' taken out of the mouth of GB no less and used as a golden opportunity which the far right will not have missed in the current circumstance.

Those neatly printed posters on the picket line appeared quite quickly didn't they!

Gordon is caught between a rock and a hard place on this issue, very clumsy rhetoric and strategising from him i.e. typical. At least he has realised his mistake and has 'condemed' the strike which uses his own words as a rallying call.

Now more than ever with politics in a state of paralysis and the situation on the ground deteriorating rapidly it is really important that the decent people of this country as represented by the 'silent majority' come out of thier slumber and remind the politicians and the ruling elite in general of the founding principles of a progressive society.

They will.

Jericoa

When I first saw this speech reported by the Beeb at the time of the conference I asked myself why was such a inflammatory phrase used in such an anodyne context?

The phrase had little relevance to the very valid context that industrial training and even education itself has failed under the current administration. Those of us who were looking for improved training intiatives were disappointed both by the content of the speech and this particular additional and surprising context.

Now I know at that time there was a great deal of discussion about how the Labour government had abandoned those of the white working class who had for one reason or another been unable to participate in the changed economy.

Indeed, one of the teaching unions had come up with some serious research to indicate that the white working class were suffering worst of all the groups in society. That this group had been targeted by the BNP was deemed to have a strong political relevance given the then resurgence of the BNP.

I have heard it remarked that this slogan was put into Brown's speech in the way that it was to try and counter the spread of BNP influence.

This might be just rumour but whatever the reason the words were an overstatement, a serious risk and very dangerous. That they have come back to bite the Prime Minister is his own fault and he gets no sympathy from me.

So far we can be thankful that Unite has kept some sort of a lid on these demonstrations as they have their own specific reasons to seek changes to the way EU laws are now being enforced.

Of course the BNP are going to infiltrate the picket lines: they have learned a lot from the SWP over the years. I wouldn't be too surprised to find that both extremist parties are on the picket lines for their own purposes.

My concern is that firstly the government has lost control of employment policy, secondly tried to play games with the politics of employment, and thirdly has now had the entire thing blow up in its face.

Competent it isn't.

This is going to get a whole lot more ugly before it is over and it is entirely the government's fault.

That Gordon Brown could ever come out with such a childish soundbite is a measure of his competence and pandering nature.

I'm not surprised that parasites such as the BNP are ready to take advantage of the genuine grounswell of disaffection. I expect we'll being hearing more from these rodents in months to come.

In the interests of forewarning there is a seductive and longstanding prototype for right wing propaganda. It has been used throughout the last 200 years against many, mainly in an antisemitic mode. I would expect it to reappear modified to apply to western government/ bankers/ capitalism.............................



The price of freedom is eternal vigilance !

Three reasons why I will not be voting for Labour at the next general election:

1. "No return to boom and bust" - will Gordon Brown now do the honourable thing and resign, now that he is presiding over "bust"? No, because it is all someone else's fault - an excuse not granted to the Tories, of course. When all goes well, then it goes without saying such success is because of our amazing chancellor-turned-prime minister!

2. "No time for a novice" - I assume GB will relay that pearl of wisdom to Barack Obama when they next meet?

3. "British jobs for British workers" - I assume GB will support the current strikes in support of his soundbite?

The moral of the story is: You cannot make fools of the electorate and then expect their support.

Most big buisnesses are built on a sea of credit and attempt to produce ever more at ever cheeper market prices to sustain market share in saturated and declining markets whilst at the same time trying to pay off creditors, which can include pension funds.
The credit was deployed/justified on the assumption of 5%growth [no longer possible ]



Workers with household debts accrued from the days they were told that "things could only get better" have to work harder and longer for less money , to pay off that debt with interest and compete with workers from former communist countries with no debt ,who can pay their fare and still at half wages enjoy the good life when they return home,untill the pound fails .


Banks have too many non performing loans and liabilities for complex products already sold and interest rates are forced down by central banks restricting recovery of their severely weakened capital base.

Add the cost burden of the farewell state to the above and sooner or later the last man standing will be working for 5 trillion pounds a year and will eventualy fall behind with his 99.9999999999999999999999999% tax rate above personal allowance and get sent to prison ,where he will be expected to guard himself.

In a deflationary world economy BUILT ON OVERCAPACITY OF PRODUCTION FUELLED BY EASY CREDIT how will Britain stand still never mind pay off any of its debts both public and private .

The burden of government debt is the hungry Ponzi elephant in the room that Gordon does not wish to discuss , which makes his rhetoric truly pathetic and moreso if he believes it.



What percentage of the REAL economy is government debt ?

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ has quite rightly interviewed Roubini ,why then has Peter Warburton IEA also not been interviewed ,is it because so many of those publick figures with their fingers in the ponzi pie who scoffed at his conclusions for a decade would be embarassed, with no stone to hide under and no excuse for saying they did not know what was going to happen .?

The comments on the Barefacts website are very interesting. I think everyone is keen to ensure that this greivance does not become hijacked by the BNP because then they know that this can be used as a stick to beat them with.

I noted the comment made here about the possible infiltration by the Socialist Workers party, if you look on the Lenins tomb blog there is certainly talk of this and I was wondering how many of the comments on the Bearfacts website might have come from this source especially the newer members calling for global unions etc. Although this is a sentiment I agree with I don't particularly want to hijack anyone elses greivance.

It has also been noted on other comment boards, I think it was the independent, on how useless the unions have become. I even commented on it myself. Like Blair was Bushes poodle the unions seem to have become NuLabours poodle and the working class tossed asunder. I believe Bob Crow of the RMT had a meeting the other week with interested parties on forming a new party for the workers. Apparently John McDonald turned up late, spoke briefly then left!! Says it all really.

"..........this is our vision: Britain leading the global economy - by our skills and creativity, by our enterprise and flexibility, by our investment in transport and infrastructure - a world leader in science; a world leader in financial and business services; a world leader in energy and the environment from nuclear to renewables; a world leader in the creative industries; and yes - modern manufacturing too - drawing on the talents of all.................. "
Beloved Leader speech 2007

Well, I guess I take it all back then, presumably Gordo is pouring money into industry and not burning it in the bottomless banking and public sectors.
Maybe it just isn't being reported............

Does this meant that the man who has stifled all innovation and investment, throttled us with red-tape, inflicted on us countless surveys, tax gimmicks, planning legislation etc etc. actually had a Damascene conversion along the way and then forgot to do anything about it?

Well probably. He announces a brand new initiative every week, and then doesn't do anything to make it happen.
Times up Gordon, game's a bogey.

PS
Pesto (everything must change) #
151 Jericoa -I would be keen to help.

Regards,

#7

I already had you on my list. Vegetable grower has set up a seperate blog space which you can track down via post no. 37 on PM previous blog...thats how i did it anyway.

to date we have:

Wakeupbritain, jericoa, somali pirate, vegetable grower, Tigerjayj, bobrocket, dodgy9999, kooltidings, coralbloom, Friendlycard, bewilderingthetruth, allmyfault.
cooltidings, romeplebian and edinglehart.

15 in all.

Jericoa

The internet is said to have played a large part in the last US election. Looks like it could have a big effect on the next UK one too.

#7, allmyfault wrote:
"151 Jericoa -I would be keen to help."
Try googling "membership jericoa lobby group"

I dare say if Mr. Brown could have foreseen the economic catastrophe that would be visited on his country 15 months later, he might have been more circumspect. In the event, he chose to utter the populist claptrap and now he will pay the price.

It may be overstating the case to describe the current wave of unrest as racist but it certainly betrays a collective protectionist instinct which appears to run totally contrary to the PM's expressed beliefs. The government knows that it cannot exclude EU citizens (except, for some reason, Romanians and Bulgarians) from employment and EU companies from open tender processes without breaching the fundamental principles of the post Maastricht EU. What this may do, however, is to unite those who want to see the end of the Brown government and those with an anti EU agenda in common cause leaving those who see the EU as an opportunity not a problem without a platform and Britain excluded and isolated.

Re 8

Yes I would be interested in joining in the group.
It would be good to have some purposeful adult disussion on the biggest challenge we have had to face in my lifetime, and it would perhaps stop me constantly swearing at the TV in response to our PM's pathetic attempts to justify his mindless daily drip feed of drivel, which I now call "Global-de-gook"

People could always boycott Total petrol stations.

By the way just in case people didn't realise Total run that other paragon of virtue Buncefield.

At the end of the day WE are all responsible for the mess WE got ourselves in, there is no one else.
WE did it.
WE have been turning a blind eye to the activities of the banks, governments and big business because it suited US.
OK.
So now we have got over the big problem as to who is to blame for this mess, can WE get together and sort it out.
THEY don't own us,
THEY can't tell us what to do.
It is entirely up to US.
F. THEM
at the end of the day I would rather see the whole house of cards collapse, don't YOU know that there are children DYING in Africa because of YOU.
Economic Crisis, YOU don't know the meaning of the words.

Seems to me its similar to MAJOR'S

BACK TO BASICS?

Intended to mean whatever you want

but when asked; Brown said he meant

something else bit like the END TO BOOM &

BUST?

WHATEVER?

I used to live round the corner from buncefield, always stank of petrol
Nice to kmow they are Environmentally friendly as well as Worker friendly, lets hope their shareholders are prepared to man the barricades as they go to NO1



Total S.A.'s Head Office Address:
Total. S.A.
2, place Jean Millier
La Défense 6
92400 Courbevoie
France

Send them an email, send them a letter, and boycott any forecourt that supplies Total petrol (harder to identify than you thought).

These people have nothing but contempt for you the consumer, well lets see how well they do without us
Oh yeah, and before those smug people at Shell get any big ideas, you are no2 (remember greanpeace, they were just a bunch of hippies, we have spending power) followed by BP at no3

One at a time and the big boys fall into line or just fall that is their choice (always glad to give a free market choice)

12. At 8:27pm on 01 Feb 2009, angloscotty wrote:

Re 8

Yes I would be interested in joining in the group.
It would be good to have some purposeful adult disussion on the biggest challenge we have had to face in my lifetime, and it would perhaps stop me constantly swearing at the TV in response to our PM's pathetic attempts to justify his mindless daily drip feed of drivel, which I now call "Global-de-gook"

Sorry but that is just a sign of middle age.
Jeremy Harding had a brilliant take on that in
'Jeremy Harding Speaks to the Nation'
He said that when he was young, hearing things on the news inspired him to take to the picket lines or out on the streets protesting but now he was reduced to watching the evening news saying 'Barstards' every now and then.

Re-kindle your youth, you now have experience on your side, get out of that sofa and write a letter/email or two, you know it will make you feel better (and the excercise will do you good) :)

Gratifying that words used to sound good and completely forgotten come back to bite someone you know where!

Maybe he'll learn to mean what he says, and not say things he doesn't mean.

All too often politicians will play with words to achieve their ends-I believe it's called spin.

Time they all learned to use our language with respect for it and us.

In respect of far right and far left use of such situations as Total-isn't this always the case?

These poor souls are being shamelessly manipulated for political ends-again!

As the EU regulations are aimed at any nationality being able to work in any EU country, I'm not sure there's a 'get out'-maybe if there is some indication of malpractice in the awarding of the contract? Sadly, I think this has to stick as is, and no amount of ranting and raving will overturn the decision.

As for not employing British workers-I can understand why-the costs of tax and NI are so high, I'm not surprised! (I am assuming that if the labour is imported then they are paid from the parent company-Italian in this case?)
And are foreign workers subject to our legislation if they are technically employed by a foreign country?

I am also assuming that all the angry unemployed are not work shy, like a great deal of the people who try for a job with my companies?

Welcome home Alexander-my boiler broke today, so have a small inkling of how you must have felt with no gas a couple of weeks back on your travels!

Had to boil water on the cooker too as it turns out we have a switch for an immersion heater but no heater! An example of British housebuilding short cuts I think!

Wouldn't mind, but in this Siberian cold blasting through my house (I'm in Kent watching lots of the white fluffy stuff falling) plays havoc with my muscles and joints!

Like the sound of your green island Jeroica-can I go and do the accounts/HR/H and S please?

today made me think of what it really could be like as our economic situation worsens. I can manage for a couple of days, but months of this? No thanks.

A world leader in energy? I don't think so.

It's beginning to seem to me that all these speeches being quoted are actually as manifestation of some bizarre sort of humour-not to be taken seriously at all!

I' not against Total per se, they were just undortunate to raise their head above the parapet first but they will do as a symbol of what is wrong.

WE made Total do what it is doing today, We set the wheels in motion because WE wanted cheap petrol and plastics, WE gave them the business environment to act as they are doing.

Well no more.

WE say STOP

The global businesses that realise this and accept the 'New Capitalism' will be the ones that WE allow to succeed.

They had better get used to it and start adapting because the future starts now. With or Without them.

On the subject of 'British jobs for British workers' tenders for contracts and the workers who undertake those contracts are nothing to do with Governments in the EU. There are long standing problems in trying to get UK companies to tender for EC Contracts. This is the result of UK Government failures to highlight the availability of EC Contracts and if you go to the following URL you will see the range of contracts available.

Individuals cannot tender for contracts and if an EU firm has a better price for a contract do you really think that the tenderer will go for a higher price!?
Try to make your audience aware of the real issues here and not the political hype!
Kind regards.

SPOT THE BALL SUP.

" . . . drawing on the talents of all to create British jobs for British workers."

This is worthy of the Great Blair! I had not read it ON THE PAGE till now.

All you have to do is swap round the couplets and it becomes: '. . . drawing on the talents of all to create British workers for British jobs!' British workers 'to fit' British jobs THAT ARE OUT THERE if the unemployed rise up and retrain.

It's probably 'High Scottish' grammar.

I think you are missing the point. With Brown, it's all political. Whether he knew he was delivering a hostage to fortune isn't really relevant. He didn't care. Most opposition spokesmen pointed out at the time he couldn't deliver "British jobs for British workers", and were largely ignored.

Brown's agenda at the time was twofold: He was pushing his "Britishness" (to cover up his Scottishness) and he was setting out to steal the Tories clothes in advance of what was intended to be an autumn election. He calculated that, politically, the long term risk of not creating "British jobs for British workers" was less than the short term risk of losing the election.

In the end, of course, he wobbled and didn't call the election, so there was no short-term payback, only long term risk, and now he's learning the cost of that risk.

Shame, eh?

Tigerjayj

I sympathise with your boilerless experience. I recall when mine packed up five years ago: it can only happen in winter!

As for your missing immersion heater this is a management matter.

The house-building industry in the UK suffers from quality issues. This is part of a more general malaise in which boom times suck the untrained and incompetent into working on sites. The management are supposed to sort these issues out but having one such manager as a neighbour I know he would be challenged to sort out toffees from boiled sweets.

We have serious management issues in this country. Many people in positions of responsibility got there through ambition rather than knowledge and experience. They are simply riding a horse called Career and thus have no choice other than to behave like cowboys.

It is no wonder the lower orders think they can get away with the same as there are no standards any more.

We must aspire to quality in our work and in our lives. This would necessarily mean that there would be no place in our legislature for the likes of Blair and Brown.

ASPIRING TO LIFE/WORK QUALITY (#24)

Concise and to the point stanilic.

To meet your aspiration (now largely lost in the shambles) I have proposed we seek to create competent individuals rather than units of commerce. (Blair's education X 3)
I have even put a self-funding (commercial!) plan together that those who should know found enticing, and came on board - but those who might promote - didn't.

To my mind the, years from conception to puberty should be dedicated to the secure 'establishment' in life, of each new being. Capable individuals do not espouse nihilism.

Wisdom, elegance and excellence.

Is this the new labour's winter of discontent...nationalism making its first full outing perhaps with a union such as Unite not really feeling the pulse of its members... well they would'nt would they as they have always promoted their left wing agenda from the Lexus full trim and petrol allowence perk position.
And as for that unelected Lord the Tebbit get on your yacht and get a job in Euro fairy land Mandelson, one word....Gobshite.

Re 17
I have not been described as middle aged for a long time, so I'll take that as a complement.

Seriously, whatever age you are, I can't believe you have not uttered the odd profanity when faced with the arrogance and hypocracy which we are expected to swallow on a daily basis.

I have spent the last few months trying to understand how the modern banking system works and in what way it contributed to our present troubles.

There are many more factors which were involved and will be , more so, in the future, which is why the GB et al. approach of expecting a global version of the FSA to solve all the problems is naive and short-sighted.

He trivialises the problem if he thinks all that is needed is to get the lending-borrowing cycle going again.

That is why I felt the Alternative G20 Forum for real people was a good idea.

Ok - "British jobs for British workers" does not preclude "British jobs for other nationalities as well", now does it? We're going to have to have "British jobs" (i.e. jobs, whether at home or abroad, originating in the activities of British taxpayers) in order to allocate them to anyone at all. Therefore the apellation "British" can be seen as merely shorthand for that. Nothing in Brown's speech need be construed in such a mean spirited way as to suppose he had exclusion in mind. On the contrary, it seems to me to be very much in the interests of all of us to take a step back from this narrow, fear-inspired way of looking at things. However, it is in the nature of fear to produce panic and muddled thinking. The best politicians can do for us is to stand against the current of our own foolishness, in both good times and bad. But who will listen? After all, there were not many people who were ready to pay attention to the warning signs when the supposed "good times" were rolling on the way up, were there? The worst that can be said of Brown is that he was willing to let things go just as long as he thought it "prudent" to do so: any politician should be measured by the degree to which they are prepared to educate and enlighten. If they can be entertaining too then so much the better.
Doesn't leave many to choose from, does it?
Least of all, Brown, who is easily seen as a pusillanimous populist after all, though it is still up to us as to how we ourselves behave. We don't show our moral superiority by jumping on a bandwagon of our own negativity.

COOKIEDUCKER I HAVE TO REFER YOU TO THE BLOGDOG

It's SIR Gobshite!

Imagine if you lived in a land where 90 percent of the people spoke English and only 10 percent spoke fluent Munckin. Imagine if, historically, there were large parts of your country where no Munckin had ever been spoken or, if at all, in very small numbers indeed.

Imagine that the Munckins controlled nearly all the Media but that virtually everyone you knew were happy speaking English and had no interest in learning or speaking Munckin at all?

Imagine coming home from work each night, turning on the TV News and hearing time after time promotion of the Munckin language, reports of ancient ceromonies where the best Munckin speaker or the best Munckin writer were given awards and it was conveyed by implication that these people, solely because they speak Munckin, are the best and brightest in your land.

Now imagine having to pay taxes in order to support the Munckin language and imagine finding that those taxes were also paying for Munckin speakers to run your TV & Radio stations or that, increasingly, the best paid jobs in your Public Sector were going to Munckin speakers simply because there is a law enforcing the use of Munckin in the Public Sector? Hence, so the Munckin speakers argue, why hire both an English speaker and a Munckin speaker when it is cheaper to hire just a Munckin Speaker alone. Soon it becomes policy to hire only Munckin speakers to Public Sector posts.

It starts off quietly, subtlely and before you know it your children are going to school and being forced to learn Munckin, you switch on your TV or Radio and all you hear are views supporting the promotion of Munckin. Then your boss calls you in one day and tells you that you have not got that hard-worked for promotion because of the new laws enforcing the use of Munckin in the company and that, as you only speak English, a Munckin speaker has been promoted over you. Imagine your boss eventually telling you that you are being made redundant simpy because you speak English?

No one listens, no one cares. The Media will not report or highlight your plight simply because there is no one any longer in the Media who cares about anything other than Munckin. Those few English-speakers who may remain are so afraid of their own positions that they keep quiet, fearful of speaking out for fear that they too will lose their own jobs. The over-whelming majority have now become nothing more than a powerless minority in their own land.

Today in Wales moves began to move law making powers from Parliament to the Welsh Assembly in order to allow the Assembly to enforce the promotion and speaking of Welsh in private sector companies in Wales.

This news may well not even be reported on the national News or in the national Press. It will most likely, quietly and subtlely, go unnnoticed by the majority of people living in these British Isles. It will however, ultimately, affect us all.

Think about Wales today.

Think about the Munckins.

Dirty stuff Paul.

Its not the first time you have lost your way, but undermining these strikers by suggesting this is BNP action is shameful.

The 'far right' is transnational capital that we really need to fight is the power of transnational capital.

Transnational capital lobbies, seeks and gets the sort of regulation that allows for cheap workers to undermine working conditions.

This is quite the opposite of the way you are using 'far right' and the aims involved.

Until you sort this out in your head, please stop undermining people's important and difficult action, just to get 'a new angle'. You would be better staying home and writing books - not pretending to be a serious journalist.

Haven't you seen the Comment is Free article by New Labour stooge Jon Cruddas, about the big battle against the BNP? (With 150 responses telling him to shut it?)

Do you really want to be toadying along behind New Labour?

You are destroying your own credibility.

what is Mandy on about.

there are 300,000 uk workers in the eu and 1m plus EU workers [never mind the illegals and non eu] working in the uk.

which means, in job numbers, the uk would benefit from a british jobs for british workers policy? ;)

so the eu has more to fear than we do.

seriously there has to be something wrong when people are brought over by the boatload to parts of the uk with high unemployment. The contract may have been open but the job selection was not offered in the uk. That is what needs to be looked at.

given our energy market is, like an old colony, owned by foreign companies then it is hardly surprising they will look after their own people first?

given what has happened why do new labour politicians believe in the market as the best mechanism for strategic resources?the market is neither efficient nor just as a mechanism for deciding price and use of resources.

#31 stayingcool

I think that is a bit unfair, I did not read it that way.

I saw it as a cynical attempt at mis-direction by the BNP. Feeding off genuine anguish and frustration of grass roots workers whom are the salt of the earth as far as I am concerned.

I dont think the strikes were organised by the BNP any more than Paul Mason does (thats my take on it anyway). It is in fact much worse than that.

The BNP are feeding off the anguish and frustration of our honest and descent industrial beating heart and cynically trying to channel it into something with racial undertones via the loose tongue and poor judgement of Gordon Brown.

Those signs appeared very quickly in front of the camera, I bet they were printed and distributed by the BNP about 1 week after Gordon Brown made his speech. Ready, fuelled up waiting to go when the opportunity arose.

The vast majority of the strikers will find the BNP as distasteful as the rest of us once they see the core of what they are really about.

The strikers just want a descent job so they can provide a descent life for their families, that is what the strikes are about. They are scared about what they see happening around them and honest enough to try to do something about it.

They are our best chance, the swelled ranks of government non jobs can not be expected to effect any chance.

These guys on the picket line are the best chance we have and I feel sick to the stomach at the thought of the BNP trying to misdirect their energy and honesty in action for their own purpose.

Jericoa

Britain is becoming more and more isolated and I fear is being set up for the fall guy. EU ministers spout publicly about global problem global solution blah blah but the reality is more and more countries are going down the route of protectionism.
Getting to the fundamental basics here, if we can't live by choice in our own Country, learn a skill and then obtain employment without fear of losing out to EU citizens (and I assure you I am not being xenophobic here) then there is a very real problem.
EU law is being cited as a reason but the reality is several countries have implemented legislation via their own legal systems to secure fair and balanced conditions favouring their domestic workers. Our government has failed us in this regard.
Peter Mandelson's response to wildcat strikes seriously raised the question whether he believed in a Britain anymore or whether he just classed us as another Euro state.
Its no surprise foreign companies are seeking funds from our government to retrain staff they are about to be made redundant. It won't be long before the government are giving out grants for redundant employees to learn foreign languages so they can search for work abroad. Global solutions to a gobal problem. Whatever happened to the saying "charity begins at home"?

All this striking (I believe the issue has been resolved?) made me wonder-

Isn't this the same principle as having call centres abroad because of closing down the British ones? Why didn't those call centre workers being made redundant make a similar kind of fuss?

What strikes me (no pun intended) is Gordon Brown's growing propensity to lapse into old, Soviet style, tractor production targets rhetoric when he speaks these days. That "Britain leading the global economy ..." speech was such arrant nonsense one wonders if the man really is deluded.

Don' know about others, but Brown's speeches and speech-making style leave me stone cold. He spews out such utter, unrealistic guff that probably serves only to alienate him from the oridnary Brit.

For a bloke who seems obsessed with the notion of "Britishness", Gordon Brown increasingly comes across as being about as British as Joseph Stalin.

OUR FEMINIZED CULTURE

"I will just point this out in the interests of accuracy."

You're trying to herd cats Paul!

Said that (said for short) is an intensional idiom of propositional attitude.

It's usually a waste of time saying this of course, as reporting is rarely accurate reporting as it is in natural language which is riddled with intensional idioms which renders it non-truth functional and irrational, suitable mainly for spin (nefarious rhetoric), poetry and legalistic 'argument'. All very dramatic and very feminine - looking at HE take-up of courses, females delight in/flock to these subjects, males tend to avoid them. Watch the news for more.

PS. BREAKING NEWS: Someone fell over and hurt themself today. It's very cold!

Tigerjay #36

Those of us with damaged hearing, who groan inwardly when we get to speak to someone on the sub-continent because we can't understand the accent, will probably join with me in congratulating Barclays who are re-instating UK based call centres any minute now. Who knows, we might even get bank managers who recognise us soon.

Back to Flash Gordon saving the world. Why do we allow ourselves to be governed by this unelected leader with his unelected advisor (Mandy)?

Is it called Old Labour because that's how you get the older you get?

NewFazer (#39) "Why do we allow ourselves to be governed by this unelected leader with his unelected advisor (Mandy)?"

Is it because they have, along with Thatcher and crew, successfully contributed towards making the electorate dumber and more gullible?

JJ #40

Although I accept a lot of what you say (your presented evidence leaves me little option) I do not like some of it very much. It fills me with gloom.

Not only dumber and more gullible but ever more helpless and impotent.

I must engage 'stressbuster' mode again.

I'll get me Fazer.

NewFazer (#41) "I do not like some of it very much. It fills me with gloom."

That, alas, is why it receives such a negative response. We appear programmed to escape or avoid aversive stimulation and whilst the facts appear to well established, the nature (the genetic basis) of those facts make it almost impossible to deal with politically in our current Liberal-Democratic type of system. Sadly, denial doesn't help us deal with the problem, it just lets it grow. We have to change our way of life, and that means our politics, whether we like it or not it will hurt those who come after us even more if we don't.

#42 JJ

''We appear programmed to escape or avoid aversive stimulation''

''denial doesn't help us deal with the problem, it just lets it grow''.

I dont think I can add anything to those statements except my total agreement.

Only two things can break the denial cycle we are in those are.

1) cataclysmic change imposed from outside or within.

2) a new understanding and awareness of what a human being is, forged into a new political system to reflect that. It will not resemble anything that has gone before.

The more we manage to do of no.2 on that list the less of No.1 will need to be endured is my take on it so pretty worth while I think!

We have set up a seperate lobby forum. I think you could bring something to the lobby group if you are interested, a lot of the regular contributers are there already.

It is nothing more than what it says, it is apolitical in nature.

let me know if you are interested ed-inglehart and vegetable grower and coralbloom regularly post links. we have about 23 so far. membership will be locked temporarily at least at 30 to keep it focused.

Would be great to see you there as well.

Jericoa.

#42 JJ

Read quite a few of your comments on these threads now. While I agree with much of what you say, you do seem to put a lot of emphasis on "the nature (the genetic basis)" being the prime cause of what got us into this mess.

I do not disagree. But your view of genetic basis seems to be very much in the James Watson mould.

When you say "those facts make it almost impossible to deal with politically in our current Liberal-Democratic type of system," do you think that this system somehow arose despite our ingrained nature? Or could this "Liberal-Democratic type of system" also be a result of our "genetic basis"?

UltraTron (#44) Point 1 - We are not all rthese same. Watson was just accurately reporting what the literature indicates, he doesn't work in this field himself. There's little doubt that what we are and what do is largely a function of what our genes express (from the colour of our eyes to how well our CNS transmitter transporters/receptors work). People behave differently, some are more impulsive than others, others more aggressive etc, and we're not going to change any of that by talking to people (education/therapy)- it just doesn't work (just look at the crime reconviction figures as one example). Behaviour has to be better managed, which is not the same thing as changing people from one type into another - i.e human alchemy. For a system which does not practice what we currently do, see the PRC. Skinner (much misunderstood) thought China might be a place which could effectvely implement Behaviour Management - this possibly explains why the EAB/ABA has been banished to the dog-house by (most) Jewish psychologists.

UltraTron (#44) Point 2 is that the fact that physical reality is determined doesn't mean we can't get some degree of control over it through better prediction/technology. Medicine depends on this, so does engineering. The points made about low TFRs in the so called advanced economies, are well known, the bit about differential fertility by SES groups (and race), and especially female education and differnetial feritlity skew does not seem to have sunk in, in fact, it is currently politically incorrect, perhaps precisely because, in our Liberal-Democracies, we have legislated to proscribe the very policies which might actually prevent/reverse the trend? The PRC has passed legislation in 1995 which would not be passed in the EU becaue of Article II of the Charter of Human Rights. It is at least possible that some hostile group has engineered this for hegemonic advantage, but what matters is whether it is, as it seems to be the case, actually happening, as I and others say it is.

Hey Paul

Are you on holiday or still taking time off to work on your book.

Robert Peston is stealing a march on you ... he'll be getting the biggest bonus!

Hope you are not ill, sorry if you are.