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The government's backward equality policy makes me hopping mad. I worked as a male PA for nearly fifteen years, both in the UK and my native Holland, and had to combat public sector "positive discrimination" policies on a number of occasions.

Forcing public and private sector firms to employ a female PA, secretary or receptionist when male candidates are available is not a progressive step; it is an outdated policy that does not encourage women (or men!) to try their hand at professions that were previously considered gender-specific.

Positive discrimination promotes resentment, leading to bullying and subsequently a hike in employment tribunals on both sides of the divide.

If I wasn't sure previously, Harman has helped me make up my mind today never to vote for Labour again in future.

Labour is fast moving back to the balmy, intolerant left-wing policies that made it unelectable for decades.

the green revolution would be self financing if we had a two way grid like germany where it employs 1/4 million people and generates 24 billion euros. but that would mean doing something good for the people. freeing them from slavery to the multinational energy companies.

also it would be far harder for massive energy prices/strikes if we had 90 days energy storage. currently the scam is uk gas is stored in europe and then sold back to us when the price rises.

apparently this is the efficiency of the energy market the govt believes in. efficient at generating profits certainly.

time to do something good for the people? ie build storage and have a two way grid.

On the green issues don't we have a problem with the lag time to get on-line renewable energy. Offshore windmills have to wait years for the ship "to place them on the sea bed", the carbon shortfall is in 2020-ish.

Nuclear is not renewable and the storage issues are a time bomb in practical and political terms.

I tend to sound neo-hysterical on a number of issues (Scottish referendum 2010) but there could be a very severe cost to us not just socially.

Poor supply and higher demand equals even higher prices. If businesses think there is even a query over power supply they will clear off.

Oil discoveries don't appear to be that massive. Energy security in terms of oil/gas sourced from countries that are stable suppliers is also not increasing so far as I can see.

What happened to Labour funding or did I fall asleep?

Bring on Anthony Howard to discuss GB's first year...always good for a pithy comment or six!

Re- Gordon Brown, could a linguistics specialist or body language expert offer some insights into the way in which Brown's inability to communicate, compounds all of his (and hence our) problems.
The simplist physical or vocal task appears to create problems for him (Eg. his absurd pantomime over signing the Lisbon Treaty/ shaking hands with Sarko this week/getting lost at the State Bunfight also for Sarko/ kissing his wife for the camera, when their wedding was announced). He gabbles his words. Being unable to speak without a script, he reads long and detailed passages which are impossible to follow(Eg. the strange meeting he called in Scotland with the oil companies, which he seemed to think was an appropriate response to national concerns at Fuel Tax levels.) He's looking to sit down almost before he's got to his feet, in the Commons (Eg. at his first PMQ's.) He frustrates everyone,even other politicians, with his inability to answer a straight question. He doesn't know what to do with his hands. He seems unable to pronounce the most familiar of words normally ( 'soon-eye' instead of Sunnei/ 'alky ada', god in heaven, for Al Quaeda/ yesterday we got Lord Kill ill rather than the more widely accepted Carlilse.) And then of course there's that strange little group of mannerisms that he performs with his mouth. The listener can't concentrate on what he's saying for waiting to see him do it again.
It all adds up to someone who's not up to even normal everyday behaviour, leave alone holding high office. Had he been a teacher, any class of 14-year olds would have worked him out in a couple of days. It says much about the gulf between our political leaders and the public, that Brown could squirrel himself away in perpetual budget purdah for ten years, grumbling about Blair in unattributable briefings, denying the public the chance to see just how odd he is. In any other walk of life, his limitations would have shown up immediately. As soon as he became PM, he got found out.

The futures bright the futures orange, but, only if the planet becomes a desert, or maybe the futures black, as in no blue sky’s or maybe its white as in a frozen constitution locked in the words and not meanings?

#5 grumpy-jon

On the one hand I am no Gordon Brown fan, he does have ability though.

On the other hand given your immigration spiel the other day I am relieved you are not advising left arm salutes or Oswald Mosely "single finger postures".

He used to spend a lot of time practicing, as did Mussolini and Hitler I think.

Can't say I was ever impressed by the films.

Maybe its the content that matters to people.

It is a media age.

But Blair was very effective on presentation and ultimately it looks as though as he will be seen as froth and of no long term importance.

Brown won't have the same opportunities as the hens are coming home to roost for New Labour.

Then again if the present is white and the only options are black and orange, then maybe we should throw green into the mix to represent the true nature and credibility of a realistic future that validates the welfare of the planet as well as its people and the billions of other creatures running around on it who don't get a vote in being made extinct.

grumpy-jon: how fortunate that we have a Scottish PM so that your mockery of his accent (which is pretty much like mine- I grew up in Glasgow) isn't rejected by the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ as being racist. If we ever have an asian PM or even a gay one with a slightly camp voice you'll be silenced.

Personally after 10 years of Tony I'm glad we have a PM who doesn't spend more time on image than content.

yes his style is 'constipated with straining sounds' but if Gordon only does one thing and gets the uk into renewable with a two way grid [as it looks he might from the speech?] he would have done a good thing that history will praise. unlike tonys wars....

Why not get Wendy Alexander MSP on tonight to discuss poor communication?

She may need a brother to interpret
as she's 'lost her voice' - on the day
the Holyrood Standards Committee
decided to recommend her exclusion
from Parliament (for a day) because
she had broken rules on disclosures
of leadership campaign contributions.

As Holyrood is now in recess, there
will not apparently be a full vote on
her expulsion until after the summer
so this cloud will continue to hover?

Perhaps there is an honourable way
out but she has decided to cling on.
Her poll rating is as bad as Gordon's
and this is not good news for Labour.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Re #7. Hi G of 1.
Yes Brown has ability. The ability to lie about a referendum. The ability to loot the pension funds of his voters. To conduct a disasterous sale of much of the nation's gold reserves, against all advice. The ability to be so unable to command the respect of his back-benchers, that he needs to horse-trade away a billion of the tax-payers' money, in order to scrap through a meaningless vote. And then lie about it.
Let's hope we never get a PM with no ability.
On immigration, I try to look at some of the issues; you know, those things that the media ignore. Was surprised to see that you ignored them and clung to the junk Mosley/Mussolini imagery that the media likes to cue-up in viewers' minds.

Re #9.Hello Peter. I didn't mock Brown's accent, since its irrelevent to the issue; had I wanted to do so, it wouldn't have been easy, since he seems unable to pronouce words consistently from one speechifying session to the next. I suspect he's so tense when public-speaking, that he's got the material semi- memorised, and it's this tension that creates his communication problems.
If the country had a PM with the savy of Alex Salmond, I'd be much relieved, and wouldn't care what accent he had (except on immigration of course, where Salmond's as nutty as the rest of them)

SEX/RACE INEQUALITY - IT'S INEVITABLE

Statistically speaking, from all the empirical research on individual and group differences, it's clear that men and women (as groups) are not equals. To understand the significance of this statement one has to look at a number of parameters of their respective Gausssian ('bell curve') distributions (e.g. the ranges as well as measures of central tendency such as the means and standard deviations). This tells one something about relative frequencies in the upper tails of the distribution.

The evidence dictates that in some (intellectually demanding or key skill) jobs, one won't find as many females as males or as many of one ethnic group as another. It's a statistical inevitability. One can't change this through legislation, quotas, positive discrimination or naming and shaming tables.

Demanding equality of frequency proportional to population base rates reflects statistical ignorance.

NECESSARY EVIL

If we are to ask: 'Why do we get deeply flawed characters at the top of politics' it is first necessary to point out the symptoms of those flaws; un-British though it may be. There are studies of Blair on the web, and they tally well with mine; he was not suitable for purpose. Brown is a far cry from a mature, stable being - the ideal for leadership. Surely it is axiomatic that if the cream is 'off', so is the bulk of milk from which it has risen? If so, we need to look at how MPs are drawn from the general populace. Suddenly the ducks line up, and it is clear that we have a system guaranteed to elect MPs with the wrong attributes and aims. If we are to cleanse the party political pond, we must call sludge 'sludge', scum 'scum', weed 'weed' and a stench 'a stench'. Let the work of cleansing begin.

PIPERS

Barrie (#16) He who pays the piper:


And on incorrigibility:
/blogs/newsnight/markurban/2008/06/why_dont_we_put_robert_mugabe.html

BLOGGING CREDO

I post here to test ideas through reaction. However, I get so little reaction (that has actually engaged with my points) that I am still as 'right' as when I started.

I get the impression this is a common experience. It would appear the fault 'lies in ourselves' (as with voting into power faulty MPs).

Britain is in a far more parlous state than is realised, while parties and media connive at the lie within which we all dwell. Newsnight is loath to step outside that lie, but to its credit, allows forthright comment here.

Perhaps it is up to the radical enquirers on this forum to tighten their science (broadest sense) and edge the lie into the light, until it is udeniable? The thousand mile journey starts with a single step.

Blogging Credo

Barrie, We (JJ and I) read your writings and (mostly) nod approvingly. For myself I rarely post as it seems rather like shouting in a sound-proofed room. If we voice some opinions which were common enough a few years back we get censored (poor old JJ) so it's a bit pointless really. Since the recent changes on the NN blog structure, some 'forthright' views appear to be subject to automatic rejection. One might be forgiven for thinking software was involved.

On your topic of worthless leaders I concur absolutely but unlike you see little hope for change. I tried to think back to our last worthy leader and gave up about the time of Magna Carta. There is a deal of truth in the concept that those who aspire to leadership are, per se, unfit to lead (due to overlarge egos I suspect). The problem lies not so much in the men but in the system. That's where it all falls down course as the system can only be man made.

'MOSTLY' APPRECIATED ALSO POINT TAKEN

I have been in experimentation all my life as an industrial chemist expanded to a maverick thinker. Blogging is a multiple experiment. Many (oh many) of the mixes and processes I tried were wild and off piste - SOME WORKED and gave me an edge in a field where the 3ms and Akzos dominate. The rational bit of me (mercifully in thrall to the wild bit) agrees totally with you, NewFazer, but I have the time, so what the hell?
I think I have posted before: 'The ultimate optimist is a pessimist who keeps trying'.
As Eric used to say: 'There's no answer to that!'
JJ's field of battle is fraught for the quaking guardians of whatever it is. Perversely I feel the cavalry are nearer when I see her (him?) in the bin.
Good to make contact NF.