IntenseDebate

12 years ago @ Conservative Home - Interview: Andrew Gims... · 0 replies · +3 points

Nail. head.

I knew Delingpole at one of his episodic periods at the telegraph. He absolutely craved attention and was always convinced he deserved to be a famous writer. He was extremely jealous of Boris (who also worked there).
Unfortunately for Delingpole (or Pod as he was known for some reason) he is nothing like as good a writer as Boris, nor as clever. I seem to remember he three times worked at the Telegraph, only in his latest incarnation - the angry blogger - did he succeed.
This whole angry man of the right anti-eco-warrior act was his way of becoming a name. it has certainly worked for him among a certain easy to impress constituency.
Unfortunately for Delingpole, he is a big figure among the green-ink brigade, not exactly a difficult crowd to work. He is still desperate to respectable.
This whole Breitbart thing is a way for him to get to America where my guess is he sees his future. When you look at the comments on Breitbart he has tapped into America's swivel-eyed crowd and in that rather deferential way Americans fawn over what they think are "intellectual" brits, they have embraced him.
I think he will do very well there.

12 years ago @ Conservative Home - Garvan Walshe: Boris i... · 0 replies · +1 points

The trouble for the Tory party is that they keep making education policy on ideological, and not pedagogical, grounds. While the idea that grammar schools improve social mobility is appealing, mainly because there are plenty of anecdotes of cases where it did, they only look at half of the picture. It is a classic case of observer bias.
In fact there is plenty of evidence to show that grammar schools decrease social mobility. If you look at pupils claiming free school meals, grammar schools admit 1/6th of the national average. If you look at performance of the entire cohort of children in regions with grammar schools, all children claiming FSM performed worse in areas where grammar schools existed than in areas with no selective schools.
The evidence suggests that while selective schools may improve the social mobility for the very small number of children from deprived schools who are admitted to grammar schools, the chances of admission into grammar schools for deprived children is very low. And in areas where grammar schools exist social mobility goes down, not up.

15 years ago @ A Tangled Web - INFILTRATION? · 0 replies · +1 points

I don't normally comment on NI posts as there are people who know far more than I do - but the old RUC was absolutely riddled with UDA infiltrators - so infiltrated that we did not release certain int to the RUC because you knew damn well it would be passed on straight away.
Of course it was always denied and the line was that the Army was "fully cooperating" with their colleagues in the RUC. Both sides knew it wasn't true.
I have no experience of the PSNI.

15 years ago @ A Tangled Web - ..and you are the father! · 0 replies · +1 points

GMG set up a holding company for its purchase of Emap

http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/insideguardian/200...
• Guardian Media Group plc, parent company of the Guardian, in partnership with Apax Partners, has incorporated a new company registered in the Cayman Islands as part of its proposed acquisition of Emap plc. The sale of Emap plc is due to complete later this month.
A spokesman for GMG said: "The tax arrangements of Apax Partners and GMG for the acquisition of Emap plc are completely legitimate, and are based on accepted practice and the recommendations of our advisers. This is not about GMG avoiding tax - indeed we have paid an average of 34% tax over the last five years.

"The purchase of Emap plc is structured as a UK Scheme of Arrangement which, as has long been accepted by HM Revenue and Customs, does not attract stamp duty on acquisitions. The new company will pay its full UK corporation tax."

15 years ago @ A Tangled Web - BEN'S GOT A(NOTHER) MO... · 0 replies · +1 points

Take The Daily Telegraph as an example. It's supposedly 'right-wing' yet it is the biggest peddler of the biggest corporate-scientific fraud ever perpetrated (global warming), and absolutely will not consider withdrawal from the EU.
Have you actually read The Daily Telegraph?

15 years ago @ A Tangled Web - ..and you are the father! · 0 replies · +1 points

I don't suppose the loss of my two posts is a tragedy on a par with the sacking of the Library of Alexandria... I dare say the world won't miss their passing.

15 years ago @ A Tangled Web - ..and you are the father! · 2 replies · +1 points

I don't want to appear paranoid - but, er, have a couple of my posts disappeared?

15 years ago @ A Tangled Web - ..and you are the father! · 0 replies · +1 points

I don't think that can be accurate. Not unless the population of North London has swelled of late.

But if the Graun, with 14m uniques a month, is a "small circulation" paper, then what does that make a title with a reach 1/7th the size? Irrelevant per chance?

15 years ago @ A Tangled Web - ..and you are the father! · 3 replies · +1 points

Two points:
1. If you measure the Guardian's online and print readership combined they dwarf the Express. The Guardian website gets 13,733,357 unique monthly users, the Express gets 1,937,030. By your metric (not one with which I agree) that makes the Graun 7.08 times as relevant.
2. I come back to my main question. What was the last story of any significance that the Express broke?

but where or when have I ever stated that I read, admire, respect or accept the Daily express?
Never as far as I know.

Could it possibly be that if I mention something, you are irretrievably opposed to it, on sheer principle?
I don't want to appear unkind, but don't flatter yourself.

15 years ago @ A Tangled Web - ..and you are the father! · 0 replies · +1 points

I can't speak to the Belfast Telegraph, but the Guardian is certainly not irrelevant. It has a string of exclusives, it has a massive readership outside of the UK.
It may not be politically to your taste, but it is by no means irrelevant.
The Express, on the other hand, has no influence whatsoever. Name a single scoop in the last 10 years. It also has shockingly bad journalistic standards. It long ago gave up any pretence at balance and I don't think its writers even know the difference between news and editorial.
I realise that it is politically more your cup of tea, but if it closed tomorrow, it would not be missed.
Much as I utterly despise the Daily Mail and its loathsome agenda, it is a highly relevant newspaper and cannot be ignored. It too blends editorial and news in ways that are not good journalism, but it is nothing like as bad as the Express.
The Daily Telegraph - which has gone a long way downhill when the new owners took over - does at least make more of an effort to separate the two.

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