Well, here's hoping this result will convince all major parties of the need for thoroughgoing constitutional reform - both of the levels of government and the electoral system. The Conservative majority in England may look very different under AV+, but I assume they are willing to be part of a cross-party consensus on the issue.
Perhaps.
Still, Jacqui Smith, eh? My Highland Park is a good 100ml short after that one.
I sympathise with the irritation of academics at the growth in pointless bureaucracy, but I must admit I'm slightly concerned to see the inclusion of academic supervision in the list of 'tick-box activities' that prevent Mary Beard from having a coffee with post-grads.
I don't think that Dawkins is trying to tell Christians what they can and can't believe so much as trying to flush out what many of them actually DO believe. It's much less frustrating to converse with the literalists like Robertson, because they do at least claim to believe that what the Good Book says is true. The problem lies with those who want to have their ontological cake and eat it - the sort who will say 'I believe in the theory of evolution - but God invented it' (whether they filigree this 'insight' with the language of theology or not). I think Dawkins is using reductio ad absurdum to say 'Look, it would be quite ridiculous if you thought this, wouldn't it? Now tell me what you actually think.' I'm not saying it's a strategy that will work; pushing religionists onto the defensive usually doesn't. But I hardly think he would disagree that the opening sentence to his article is facile. That's the rhetorical purpose of it.
Blimey. Them's some beer goggles that young lady is wearing.
Still, I doubt he spent any longer on the conversation than you did on this blog post...
I can imagine the BNP voters moving over to that wholesale, given attitudes to our Celtic brethren. So as a ploy it would only work once, like the guy who stood as a Literal Democrat and ended up taking enough 'contact lenses in the wrong eyes' votes to deprive the Lib Dem of first place. But it might be worth a shot. I have this crazy idea for setting up a pan-European party in opposition to the Lisbon Treaty. It needs a name that generally succeeds in connoting the concept of liberty in as many European languages as possible. There's every possibility that I could lose lots of money, get votes from about four men and a dog, and end up looking like a bit of a plonker, but hey - I'll get it all back from the CIA anyway!
As far as the BNP is concerned - whilst collecting UK manifestos for Mannheim, I took it upon myself to flick through the BNP manifesto (don't worry, I used the Adobe Reader equivalent of tongs) and was amused - and slightly concerned - to see that it is apparently party policy to bring Eire within a wider United Kingdom. Quite apart from the - ahem - logistical difficulties this entails, I can only assume it means one of two things:
1) They have a deportation plan for the natives, and are going to settle ethnic traitors like me (along with our half-breed babies) out in the misty peat bogs and let us all die of alcohol abuse and potato famine;
2) They haven't realised that bringing 4 million Celts into the UK is going to mess about with Anglo-Saxon ethnic purity even more than 1 million Poles has.
"I am luke-warm (but warm) when it comes to European Integration plus a bit of a lefty when it comes to the “socioeconomic” dimension."
I am slightly warmer on European integration and a bit less of a lefty on socioeconomic matters, and I come out 'just below' the Lib Dems in policy space. Two anecdotal results make a dataset, right? Unfortunately, I will be voting in Poland, which means that I'm either going to have to hold my nose and vote for the 'donkeys led by donkeys' post-communist left, or make a wasted vote on a point of principle, given that my party of choice (Centrolewica) is currently hovering somewhere between statistical irrelevance and 0.5% in the polls. Still, given that the most recent pre-election poll put turnout at approximately 5%, my presence at the polling station might have some sort of statistical effect....
![[Avatar]](/images/avatar26.png){kind=avatar}
Contraption