Quote: Firkin @ 29th November 2019, 10:31 AMCharles Kennedy was good Horse.
I'm not sure what his Chinese sign has to do with anything.
General Election 2019 Page 9
Firkin
Yes - thank you.
I can only try to comment as I see it. It's not easy to explain my position but here it is so far as I can do it. Others will disagree which is their right. The only serious poll has a Tory majority of 68 but 40 are on a knife edge and consequently it could easily go the other way although Lab would have to do a deal with LD or SNP. The equivalent poll in 2017 sent the Tories into shock and turned out to be very accurate. The 2017 one was done 9 days before the election. This time it was done 14 days before so it gives Lab plenty of opportunity to do much more to ease the gap and even totally overturn it.
For all of his reputation, Bozo is not actually very good at debating. He's not that great even at making speeches. He's not especially great on anything other than writing with a colour that puts a lot of people off and rallying a big crowd to feel optimistic, Central Office knows that it will take just one really major blunder and it will all go pear shaped. So he hasn't done Andrew Neil and may not do. And as you say he didn't do the climate one which I watched in full and marked as 1 Corbyn 2 Berry 3 Sturgeon 4 Swinson 5 Price. But as always I much preferred Attenborough this evening to all of them.
While the Tories' targets on climate show them as slightly slower and less energised than they could or should be, I doubt that this is how it will work in practice. If elected, the international pressures would be on them and of course the father, the girlfriend and even the baby may exert pressures along with Michael Gove. He's not historically my sort of bloke although I marginally prefer him to Cameron, Osborne and Blair, all of whom I despised, while I did actually rather like Mrs May. But I don't think he is illiberal or not at all progressive environmentally. Let's face it. He bends with the wind.
In fact, as people get wildly furious on some of the words he has used, and I wouldn't support them, I really do think they should get a grip of the important issues like banning drill videos and misogynistic and homophobic rap acts even if risking accusations of racism so as to reduce knife crime. They also need to start addressing properly the BBC article this week on how extreme porn has led to 38% of women experiencing unwanted slapping, strangling, punching or spitting in sex. And I wouldn't be at all surprised following today's appalling attack in my favourite area of London - I have gone out of my way in the past two years to go back to Borough market where my Nan used to be daily and support the trade there as well as quietly supporting community aspects of Millwall - if it turns out yet again that cannabis worsened schizophrenia is a factor but we will have to wait and see. I am eerie on timing. I wrote to my MP about this yesterday.
I am not a natural strategist. Not anywhere manipulative enough. However, I did learn to understand strategy from what I observed in work and politics over a very long period of time. I think currently it goes like this. Most Tory voters these days are not living as if they have just walked out of the ark. Many have children and grandchildren. A lot of their concerns are quite similar to those of Lab and Lib Dem voters. They would have wanted Cons representation in the climate debate. But then you have The Brexit Party which is a different kettle of fish. Some pluses. Some negatives. It's not keen on the climate change thing - ie Farage and some of its voters. Cons have got to win most of those votes in Lab held seats. To go ultra green before the election rather than after might turn them off. As I say I think they will (have to) do more if elected.
The main strategic context is this, You have to recognise that the Tories have been split on the EU almost since time began and it has increasingly got worse. Finally with this so called deal the candidates have all agreed to support it. That is unprecedented. To have stood down for the Brexit Party when the Brexit Party stood down in Con held seats would have been fair and reasonable. But if you got as a consequence a coalition of Cons and Brexit MPs when Brexit are against the deal it would be back to square one. No resolution whatsoever. The country again in stalemate which impacts on services.
So it was impossible. They are having to go full out to get the Brexit people voting for them and if it takes the fake appearance of not caring about climate change for a few weeks to do it then in a sense fair enough. But frankly all politicians are currently sadly lost and are praying for some sort of clear result one way or the other. I feel somewhat sorry for us all. Unlike Lulu I'm a (Chinese) tiger although my parents are both horses. So as in Chinese the first part of my name Horseradish is my surname and it is the second part of my name that is my first name. It's true. I was Christened Radish.
In the 2017 - 2018 winter period, there were more than 50,000 "excess winter deaths" in England and Wales.
That total is the highest number of such deaths over the same period for more than 40 years.
As I write these words, the temperature outside is subzero.
Global warming? Greta Thunberg and her ilk see it as a huge global problem but I strongly suspect that the people who are about to die of cold in the next few months together with all their loved ones see it (if it's actually happening) as an absolute blessing - the only drawback of which is that, if it is actually happening, it's happening far too slowly. Apparently the average global temperature has increased less than 1°C since 1906 - and that's from a website that publicises the dreadful dangers of global warming and wants us to do everything to stop it.
Yes, wildlife does appear to be suffering in certain areas and people in certain areas of certain foreign countries appear to be suffering too.
Those animals and those people have my sympathy but I suspect politicians are smart enough to know that those animals and those people won't be voting in the forthcoming election - but all the people under threat of dying from cold this winter and all their relatives represent a huge number of potential votes.
I'm amazed none of the main parties is campaigning to have global warming exacerbated dramatically.
Stylish. 
The trouble with climate change as an issue is that it's existential and not easy to grasp for a lot of people. It also suffers from having no easy villains (us? cows?) whereas an issue like Brexit has plenty of pantomime villains for people to get their teeth into, like Johnny Foreigner the Benefit Scrounger, Muslims and their exploding suicide vests, petty Brussels Bureaucrats and lots of other baddies straight from central casting (although not reality).
It doesn't help that climate change has also become enmeshed in this tiresome culture war we all have to be defined by, so that the people who usually talk about climate change are the type of people (liberals, scientists, celebrities, Hollywood actors) who people on one side of the political debate are preprogramed to despise with every ounce of their being.
Nah, the real trouble is that all the talk is of 'fighting the symptoms', no-one dare broach the real issue, that the real cause of climate change is that there are too many humans on this small planet.
The latest poll data from Electoral Calculus puts the predicted Tory majority at 12 seats - down from a predicted 80 in less than a week!
With just under a fortnight to go, there's plenty of time for further ups and downs in the predicted results and Brexit's future still hangs in the balance.
Quote: billwill @ 30th November 2019, 11:59 AMNah, the real trouble is that all the talk is of 'fighting the symptoms', no-one dare broach the real issue, that the real cause of climate change is that there are too many humans on this small planet.
Which is covered by what i said. Overpopulation is not the sort of nice neat villain that other issues throw up.
Quote: Rood Eye @ 30th November 2019, 12:07 PMThe latest poll data from Electoral Calculus puts the predicted Tory majority at 12 seats - down from a predicted 80 in less than a week!
With just under a fortnight to go, there's plenty of time for further ups and downs in the predicted results and Brexit's future still hangs in the balance.
If Brexit's a baby then at least half of us are hoping for the death of the slimy little f**ker. 'Kill the Brexit Baby' would actually make a pretty pithy slogan if any Lib dems want it for free.
Quote: billwill @ 30th November 2019, 11:59 AMthe real cause of climate change is that there are too many humans on this small planet.
And yet, historically, those who have done most to reduce the world's population have had a very bad press indeed.
Someone rang my doorbell at 10am today which I ignored because I wasn't expecting anyone and later on when I went out there was a leaflet from my local Labour party MP on the doormat. I know the line of thinking is that a Saturday/Sunday morning is probably the best time to catch someone at home but a Sunday morning takes the piss.
I've barely seen anybody. No posters in windows, no people knocking on doors, no anything other than the stuff in the media.
Quote: chipolata @ 1st December 2019, 9:17 PMI've barely seen anybody. No posters in windows, no people knocking on doors, no anything other than the stuff in the media.
We:'ve had a visit from the LibDem man and leaflets from him, Labour and SNP. Typically, the lazy Tories and the mad UKIP woman, are invisible.
In the ITV election debate tonight, Boris and Donald Trump were criticised for saying disrespectful things about historically oppressed groups in our society.
All the other party representatives expressed shock and horror at the non-politically-correct quotations attributed to Boris Johnson ("tank-topped bumboys") and Donald Trump (talking about grabbing women in an inappropriate manner).
When Nigel suggested that most men have said similar or worse things after a night at the local boozer, there were howls of disagreement from the other speakers.
It makes me wonder whether the other speakers were simply being dishonest or whether they genuinely believe that most men have not said similar or worse things.
I suspect that it is more likely that they are so brain-washed by the media that anything said by Boris or Trump is automatically wrong or a lie.
You'd need to be brain-dead, not brain-washed, to think that Trump is anything less than a monster.