en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/1241687 Comments by sadbutmadlad http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2016/06/lord-ashcroft-my-final-eu-referendum-focus-groups-i-cant-make-my-mind-up-its-a-lot-of-responsibility-and-i-really-want-to-get-it-right.html#IDComment1024256446 Neither are remain, even if they win. The vote will be close and whoever loses will be complaining. Mon, 20 Jun 2016 08:15:26 +0000 http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2016/06/lord-ashcroft-my-final-eu-referendum-focus-groups-i-cant-make-my-mind-up-its-a-lot-of-responsibility-and-i-really-want-to-get-it-right.html#IDComment1024256446 http://www.conservativehome.com/leftwatch/2013/10/co-op-bank-the-generous-lender-which-props-up-the-labour-party-goes-into-meltdown.html#IDComment738360314 The gov would be blamed for undervaluing it and letting people make it profit. The gov would also be blamed for overvaluing it and costing the taxpayers billions. A no win situation unless you realise how the market works. There is no fair price. What happens to the price depends on if the media whip up a frenzy and if people start buying/selling it. Mon, 21 Oct 2013 20:13:59 +0000 http://www.conservativehome.com/leftwatch/2013/10/co-op-bank-the-generous-lender-which-props-up-the-labour-party-goes-into-meltdown.html#IDComment738360314 http://www.conservativehome.com/leftwatch/2013/09/lloyds-moan-right-wing.html#IDComment726246910 I think you'll find that is the lefties who are overly sensitive regularly taking offence at the slightest things even on behalf of those who don't care. Fri, 27 Sep 2013 12:16:39 +0000 http://www.conservativehome.com/leftwatch/2013/09/lloyds-moan-right-wing.html#IDComment726246910 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/leftwatch/2013/08/labour-co-op-mps-slam-zero-hours-contractswhile-their-own-donor-uses-them.html#IDComment694419161 And there is only a few hundred thousand on zero hour contracts, not a million. Look up the ONS figures, not the figures from some half hearted survey which is extrapolated using dodgy assumptions. As to the majority of the those on such contracts, they have a pretty decent income. Yes, there are a few who are being taken advantage of, but don't tar the whole scheme because of the tiny minority. Mon, 5 Aug 2013 19:41:34 +0000 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/leftwatch/2013/08/labour-co-op-mps-slam-zero-hours-contractswhile-their-own-donor-uses-them.html#IDComment694419161 http://bastardoldholborn.blogspot.com/2013/07/chris-obyrne-of-walton-liverpool.html#IDComment673574005 An alternative to the email addresses of Chris' relatives are their twitter accounts. @rachael_obyrne and @ann_obyrne Thu, 4 Jul 2013 20:16:00 +0000 http://bastardoldholborn.blogspot.com/2013/07/chris-obyrne-of-walton-liverpool.html#IDComment673574005 http://heresycorner.blogspot.com/2013/06/invisible-girl.html#IDComment671772368 As I followed the case, I wondered how much society's views made them elope and started the whole case off. They had got to a stage where they felt that the only solution was to escape society and go somewhere where they were anonymous because the results would be catastrophic. A slightly more tolerant society would have not criminalised the two of them. It would still have separated them, the teacher made to teach elsewhere. They might also have both got a bit of counselling to cope with the situation. As it is the girl has probably been more psychology damaged by the way the case has been handled than if the affair was allowed to run its course. Mon, 1 Jul 2013 21:16:22 +0000 http://heresycorner.blogspot.com/2013/06/invisible-girl.html#IDComment671772368 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/05/in-his-third-piece-for-conhome-adamafriyie-urges-radical-reform-of-international-aid.html#IDComment640838408 Well it's better for us to take advantage of their cheap labour and give them lots of money in return than to look on them with pity and give them money for which they don't need to do anything, just to salve our guilty feelings which I suspect is what many liberals think. Sun, 12 May 2013 19:17:56 +0000 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/05/in-his-third-piece-for-conhome-adamafriyie-urges-radical-reform-of-international-aid.html#IDComment640838408 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/05/in-his-third-piece-for-conhome-adamafriyie-urges-radical-reform-of-international-aid.html#IDComment640835992 Agreed. They are all at different stages in growth. But they are all going from 3rd world status to 1st world status. Well India and China are. And Africa will if they are allowed to do what India and China are doing - trade. Sun, 12 May 2013 19:12:32 +0000 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/05/in-his-third-piece-for-conhome-adamafriyie-urges-radical-reform-of-international-aid.html#IDComment640835992 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/05/in-his-third-piece-for-conhome-adamafriyie-urges-radical-reform-of-international-aid.html#IDComment640834532 Thanks for the correction. But the point is that China is doing what took us 200 years in a lot less time. Simply because we've already done the hard work. Sun, 12 May 2013 19:09:33 +0000 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/05/in-his-third-piece-for-conhome-adamafriyie-urges-radical-reform-of-international-aid.html#IDComment640834532 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/05/in-his-third-piece-for-conhome-adamafriyie-urges-radical-reform-of-international-aid.html#IDComment640833664 I don't think capitalism is a zero sum game. Look where it's got us and many other countries. Sun, 12 May 2013 19:07:26 +0000 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/05/in-his-third-piece-for-conhome-adamafriyie-urges-radical-reform-of-international-aid.html#IDComment640833664 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/05/in-his-third-piece-for-conhome-adamafriyie-urges-radical-reform-of-international-aid.html#IDComment640639449 And China is building all the roads in Africa. We took advantage of the Chinese for cheap labour. They in turn are looking at Africa for cheap labour. China will bring African countries to developed status, not western liberals feeling guilty about past colonialism and giving aid/charity because it makes them feel good. Trade not aid. Sun, 12 May 2013 11:34:44 +0000 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/05/in-his-third-piece-for-conhome-adamafriyie-urges-radical-reform-of-international-aid.html#IDComment640639449 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/05/in-his-third-piece-for-conhome-adamafriyie-urges-radical-reform-of-international-aid.html#IDComment640637480 "This starving third world children stuff has been going on for my entire life and my parents lives and beyond." Because they have been given aid all your life. Aid is not working. Think of the parable about giving food or seeds. Give food to someone and they will ask for food tomorrow. Give seeds to someone and they will grow their own food tomorrow. Food is aid. Seeds are trade. The seeds of growth. And you think African people are different to people in Western Europe and America. No they are not. They are still people. Thinking that they are different and need our largesse to keep them alive is not a very nice thought. I think of Africans as fellow humans who should be given the best help to improve their lives and I believe that letting them do what we did to get where we are now is the best thing. And that thing is trade and business and growth in their economy. They should be allowed to be taken advantage of. They can provide their relatively cheap labour to us. We will use them and give them lots of money. Money that they will quickly realise can grow and grow if they become more productive. But quickly they will start to demand higher wages and better conditions. Just like all the people working in FoxCon in China. Their pay and wages have changed dramatically over the last decade. Sun, 12 May 2013 11:30:39 +0000 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/05/in-his-third-piece-for-conhome-adamafriyie-urges-radical-reform-of-international-aid.html#IDComment640637480 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/05/in-his-third-piece-for-conhome-adamafriyie-urges-radical-reform-of-international-aid.html#IDComment640634237 What you are quoting is a guestimate based on Africa still getting aid in 2030. The reason populations in Africa is still growing is precisely because they are still being held back by aid. Aid does not allow the country's economy to grow. It keeps it down. If trade, not aid, was carried out with African countries then the fertility rate would naturally drop. The only reason why family have a large number of children is to keep tending the fields and because they are cheap to keep. We did the same in the past when we had an agricultural society. But when technology comes along and the economy grows, its more expensive to have lots of children. Education, feeding, toys, etc. are all expensive. For proof just look at who in the UK has large families. The poor on benefits who have everything paid for them. Or the very rich who pay for everything themselves. The normal family make do with one or two children. If we are still giving aid to Africa in 2030 then that is proof enough that aid is not working and we should be trying something else. That something else is TRADE. Sun, 12 May 2013 11:23:54 +0000 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/05/in-his-third-piece-for-conhome-adamafriyie-urges-radical-reform-of-international-aid.html#IDComment640634237 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/05/in-his-third-piece-for-conhome-adamafriyie-urges-radical-reform-of-international-aid.html#IDComment640631584 Yes, the standard of living of Chinese compared to us in the west is still lower. But the point is that it is catching up very quickly. We went from an agricultural society to an advanced technological one in 100 years. China has nearly caught up in just five years from the same starting point. The human rights issue is different and down to the government. But the economy in China is helping people get a better standard of living. No, effing way am I a leftie. I'm a right leaning libertarian. Lefties would demand more and more aid even though having given aid for decades it still hasn't worked. The old cliche of doing something over and over even though nothing changes is a good sign of stupidity by the left. Sun, 12 May 2013 11:17:54 +0000 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/05/in-his-third-piece-for-conhome-adamafriyie-urges-radical-reform-of-international-aid.html#IDComment640631584 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/05/in-his-third-piece-for-conhome-adamafriyie-urges-radical-reform-of-international-aid.html#IDComment640550303 Scrap the DfID and allow businesses to use Africa as a source of cheap labour and a source of cheap products, food included. Very quickly Africa will improve, just like China has improved it's average wage from $1000/yr to $8000/yr in only a few years. It does not need government to plan and control it, businesses are perfectly capable of using outsourced labour and importing/exporting. Africa does not need to be kept farming at the subsistence level, it needs a farming revolution like we had in the UK. We are now a lot more efficient in producing food than we were in the 1800s. We use fewer people to produce more food than before. This frees people up from slaving away in the fields to go and make more products and provide more services. Sun, 12 May 2013 08:18:08 +0000 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/05/in-his-third-piece-for-conhome-adamafriyie-urges-radical-reform-of-international-aid.html#IDComment640550303 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/04/simon-clark.html#IDComment631057439 That anyone is killed on the road is totally unacceptable. But we as a society in general have made a decision that the benefits from driving outweigh the disadvantages of the few deaths that do occur. In fact the number of deaths on the roads is now down to such a low figure that we are in the area where to stop even these deaths would require an extortionate amount safety devices and expense that driving would just not be possible anymore. Deaths would be stopped, but no one would be able to travel either. Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:51:25 +0000 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/04/simon-clark.html#IDComment631057439 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/leftwatch/2013/04/wilson-closed-more-coal-mines-than-thatcher.html#IDComment616210878 No they can't be added up. The numbers are not those closed each year. The figures shows the number NCB mines running at the end of the year. There will be a little bit of an overlap as some pits were marked as closing in Wilson's time, but they would not have actually closed till some years later. Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:00:36 +0000 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/leftwatch/2013/04/wilson-closed-more-coal-mines-than-thatcher.html#IDComment616210878 http://charlescrawford.biz/#IDComment607440384 It seems that the radical left (as opposed to those who had to live in a socialist paradise like the USSR) just do not understand the concept of jokes. Jokes have to be a bit edgy. They have to break a few taboos. They have to make you think. Progressives are so hooked on everything being controlled by the state and everything being equal that anything that pops up above the line must be verboten. They just can't accept any other explanation. So when it something like a "racist" joke appears which is not really, they think it is because there can be no other explanation. They are also notorious for not understanding that many jokes are taking the p out of the joker not the subject. Like Alf Garnet. Everyone laughed at him for his attitudes not with him. Sat, 30 Mar 2013 11:22:55 +0000 http://charlescrawford.biz/#IDComment607440384 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/leftwatch/2013/01/charities-should-operate-according-to-the-queensland-rules.html#IDComment544562656 So because the state got into the habit of paying child benefit and then changes its mind at some later date because of the poor state of the economy this is a bad thing. After everyone has got into the habit of getting "free" money to spend as they want and got "hooked" on it people will just have to go cold turkey and do without the Xboxes and other nice things. And after all these welfare cuts how many children will actually be in absolute poverty. I don't mean relative poverty which is measured against some average wage because that by definition means that there will always be poverty. How many will be without a roof over their heads, no fridge or cooker, education, etc? None. Tue, 15 Jan 2013 09:41:11 +0000 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/leftwatch/2013/01/charities-should-operate-according-to-the-queensland-rules.html#IDComment544562656 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/leftwatch/2013/01/charities-should-operate-according-to-the-queensland-rules.html#IDComment544105409 Should charities be paid by the government at all? They are paid to perform services. But they are effectively taking advantage of the tax system to undercut private companies. This is not a fair and level playing field and the market is twisted. Either charities should lose their tax exempt other preferential statuses (including business rates) and compete fairly against private companies or they should not be able to get paid by the government - full stop. Mon, 14 Jan 2013 20:48:21 +0000 http://conservativehome.blogs.com/leftwatch/2013/01/charities-should-operate-according-to-the-queensland-rules.html#IDComment544105409