IntenseDebate - andy0101

6 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - If May listened to the... · 0 replies · +1 points

I agree with much of this but you say "A modicum of good will and pragmatism on both sides should enable [smooth movement of goods] to be achieved." You seem to take it for granted that there is a modicum of good will and pragmatism on both sides.

6 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Daniel Hannan: Like th... · 0 replies · +1 points

Problem solved.
And a touching faith in the schools in this country as you shake its dust off your feet.

6 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Daniel Hannan: Like th... · 0 replies · +1 points

I will not carry a card on streets of my own town to show a state official on demand.

6 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Daniel Hannan: Like th... · 0 replies · +1 points

I find all this hard to believe.
Obviously the people who came on the Empire Windrush are British subjects, with the same rights and obligations as I have. I do not understand how that has been called into question. There is something rotten in the department that did this and that department should be cleansed.
Equally, people who came to this country while we were members of the European Union came under rights we agreed to and cannot, should not, dispute. They are valuable members of our society and, which is more important, they have rights under our law. We should not and dare not tear up that law.
We are now I believe and hope leaving the "European Union". We can begin a great and no doubt acrimonious debate about who should join us. But the rights of those who have joined us legally and in good faith are as important as my own rights, as necessary to defend, as crucial to link our history and our future.

6 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Is the Home Office blu... · 0 replies · +1 points

Lord Chief Justice Thurlow, to a petitioner who complained against unjust behaviour to him by the local government: "When did you ever expect a Corporation to have a conscience, seeing it has no soul to be damned and no arse to be kicked?"
Plus ca change.

6 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Daniel Kawczynski: The... · 0 replies · +1 points

I don't think the article suggested that the PiS could or should be replicated in Britain.
Britain has not been invaded or conquered for a long time, thanks to salt water. Poland was divided and subdivided by Prussia, Austria and Russia, yet remained Poland. It was a country for a couple of decades between the wars, then overrun with great slaughter successively by the two worst dictatorships of the 20th century. The process towards parliamentary government has been very slow in Britain; somehow my grandparents had part in that process, and their grandparents too. In Poland, the grandparents lived under a different system (where, for example, in a university department, one person had to be pushed into joining the Party so that the department could get photocopy paper). I imagine people have different priorities in their politics.
But I don't know much about PiS. I don't know if they are frothing and demented fools or people trying to do their best.
If they are as extreme as Milton suggests, I hope very much we are at least somewhat innoculated against such viruses from Right or Left.

6 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Daniel Kawczynski: The... · 0 replies · +1 points

Thanks.
"The art of wit is all in this expressed, what oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed."
That first sentence crystallises so many unformed impressions from the last two decades.

6 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Andrew Gimson's PMQs s... · 0 replies · +1 points

A problem the French recognised in 1917, and solved by appointing General Nivelle who offered real flair and a determination to "impose his will on the German foe" by completely new methods. A new man and a new plan for swift and certain victory.
In less than a month, the Nivelle Offensive caused such grief to the French army that mutiny broke out.
But Nivelle certainly had flair.

7 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Iain Dale: As May spea... · 1 reply · +1 points

"I decided to let him speak, and let the listeners judge for themselves ... I think the listener got far more from this interview than I would have if I had picked him up on something every thirty seconds."
If only more interviewers did the same we might have something worth listening to instead of the usual shouty matches we get from the BBC (whose interviewers, btw, seldom wait for thirty seconds before interrupting; to be quiet for ten seems too much for them).

7 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Kieron O'Hara: An unlo... · 0 replies · +1 points

Agree, ianne.
Though if it had been left to parliament, I think the problem would have been ignored.

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