IntenseDebate - David

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Sarah Ingham: Corbyn a... · 0 replies · +1 points

Well said. If the last eleven months' worth of economic destruction and suppression of quality of life had been inflicted upon the UK by a Labour government of whatever shade of red, the voice of the centre-right - from everywhere to the Opposition benches in the Commons to the ConHome threads - would have been heard long and hard in expressing its dismay. And the point of reckoning may not need to await the public inquiry. It may come in the forthcoming round of elections, especially if Farage and Fox come up with a united front.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Adam Afriyie: Self-int... · 1 reply · +1 points

As is so often the case in relation to any such example of green crap, we don't want it, don't need it, can't afford it, didn't vote for it and can't be expected to campaign for it. Is there a single Conservative MP prepared to stand up and say so, or are all of them now dedicated worshippers at the altar of Net Zero?

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Adam Afriyie: Self-int... · 0 replies · +1 points

Indeed. All I would have added is "give him a job", but as matters stand we do not - yet - have a role in the British cabinet equivalent to that of the legendary Iraqi Information Minister. Come on, Carrie - what are you waiting for when all this green propaganda needs a skilled and capable advocate who can bring some much needed sunshine into our lives, even if it is only as a result of laughing at him?

(In passing, Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf aka Comical Ali is still alive and celebrated his 80th birthday last July.)

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - John Bald: Handing the... · 7 replies · +1 points

Thank you for drawing this to our attention. Now that Lord Frost is taking over Michael Gove's Brexit duties, perhaps the next reshuffle might sensibly include Michael Gove's early return to Education with a brief that involves not merely confronting the Blob but ruthlessly defeating it. The early dismissal of these two advisers would be a good start.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Caroline ffiske: How n... · 0 replies · +1 points

"Indeed, 'victims … may not be aware that they are a victim of a non-crime hate incident, even though this is clear to others'."

This is, of course, where that bane of modern day life, the professional offence taker, comes into sharp focus. Is it really a sensible use of police time and resources to appease busybodies where no actual crime has been committed?

"Twenty years on, the Conservatives could go full circle – and simply do away with the concept of Hate Crime altogether."

Bring it on - this is one element of Blair's toxic legacy that his distant heirs would do well to disclaim.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Paul Howell and Heathe... · 0 replies · +1 points

Indeed. And let's not get started on the advocates of Net Zero and their scripts.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Paul Howell and Heathe... · 4 replies · +1 points

In days when The X Factor was still watchable, Gary Barlow once gently reprimanded a hapless contestant with "when you sang that song just then, I counted 32 flat notes. If you're going to stand any chance of coming through with me to the live finals, you're going to have to work really, really hard."

In the above article, I have just counted 15 instances of "invest" and its derivatives. We all know very well that when a politician uses the term "invest", it will usually mean "spend", "subsidise" or "squander". To paraphrase Gary Barlow, any politicians who think they have the capability of convincing the electorate of the benefits of HS2 are going to have to work really, really hard. The authors of this piece have fallen well short. Unless they seriously believe that "investment" in a monumental folly - in the sense of a costly ornamental structure with no practical purpose - is beneficial in its own right, they ought perhaps to consider likely footfall, the cost of a return ticket in today's money, and the number of years it would take before the "investment" was recouped.

There were also two instances of the grating "build back better", but that's another story.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Ryan Bourne: The lifti... · 0 replies · +1 points

If a sacking and ignoring exercise, however welcome in theory, was now deemed too late, we might at least hope that the presumed public inquiry will carefully scrutinise how the members of SAGE were appointed and by whom. Ministers or civil servants? Application and interview or word of mouth? Judicious vetting or nodding through with a nudge and a wink? This might in due course explain how Professor Neil Ferguson came to be a SAGE member despite his poor track record, and how Carl Heneghan from the Centre of Evidence Based Medicine was not deemed worthy of SAGE membership but the lifelong communist Susan Michie was.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Stephen McPartland and... · 0 replies · +1 points

Well said, and I will add something I submitted to a Telegraph thread that also featured this buzz phrase.

Covid has caused individuals to become ill. Some have recovered quickly, some slowly, and regrettably some have not recovered and remain ill or have died.

In itself this has not caused damage or destruction to infrastructure that calls for a "building back" project, better or otherwise. Admittedly the absence of the ill from the workplace can cause damage in a different sense, but this would not need a reconstruction project.

It is only government action, in this pandemic, that has caused such damage or destruction. Arguably some of it may have been necessary, but in many cases the principle - similar to the fabled village in the Vietnam War - is "we had to destroy it in order to save it, so now we'll have to rebuild it."

In that last sentence, "it" may reasonably be described in many instances as "quality of life". Are they capable of saving it, and will its rebuilding be "better" or not?

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - WATCH: WHO won't rule ... · 0 replies · +1 points

Ironic, isn't it, that the only world leader who would have had the clout and the determination to call out the Chinese for their gross negligence, once the dust had settled, is no longer in office. Let's also imagine for one moment, in a very hypothetical parallel universe, that the outbreak had happened in (say) Atlanta and that the finger of suspicion was being pointed at its Center for Disease Control & Prevention HQ - the calls for sanctions and reparations against the USA would be loud and prolonged.

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