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The editorial itself is forgettable, but this comment by “Cavirac” astounded me:
Polls run in the left, centre and right newspapers show overwhelming support for Macron by the French public with regards to the changes he will make to SNCF.
People in the private sector (builders, electricians, plimbers etc.) now see their retirement age at 67. You need to have worked for 41 years to get a full state pension, tha’st six years more than in the UK.
The SNCF, EDF and La Poste workers can retire at 50 if their work is “physical” on a full pension and 55 if they are administrative staff.
Not only do they get to retire but they get loads of perks which are not taxed. EDF workers get a 80% discount on their electricity bills and after working for five years this discount is for life. SNCF get free European rail travel for themselves and direct family. La Post get a super Mutual insurance which allows them access to the best hospitals in France for free. The facteur (postman/woman) suffer very bad shoulder and elbow strain from leaning out of their vans delivering the post apparently and many need replacement elbow and shoulder joints.
EDF, La Poste and SNCF also own holiday villages all over France including some of the more prestigious holiday resorts where they benefit from all inclusive holidays as stupidly low prices, typically 150 Euros per week per person.
All this comes at a cost and is paid for by the tax payer and the users. It represents a big chunk of the current deficit for each of these institutions.
This is why the general public in France support Macron in this. Why should they have to work every hour god sends till they are 67 to get a shit pension when a guy who sweeps the station platform, because it is outside manual work, be able to retire at 50 on full pay and still keep his perks including cheap holidays etc?
Can any readers familiar with France tell me whether that is a fair presentation of the facts?
Despite the fact that I foresaw all this years ago. So did you. So did anyone with the slightest knowledge of the principles of law. So did anyone who had ever read a fricking detective novel.
The Times reports,
Metropolitan Police ditches practice of believing all victims
Britain’s biggest police force has abandoned its policy of automatically believing victims after a series of flawed inquiries into alleged sex crimes, The Times can reveal.
Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, said she had told officers they must have an open mind when an allegation is made and that their role was to investigate, not blindly believe.
“You start with a completely open mind, absolutely,” she said. “It is very important to victims to feel that they are going to be believed. Our default position is we are, of course, likely to believe you but we are investigators and we have to investigate.”
The issue has become one of the most fraught for the police service since a national policy instructed officers to believe alleged victims automatically. It was aimed at encouraging people to come forward with the confidence that they would be taken seriously, particularly in sexual abuse cases.
The guidelines were put in place after revelations in 2011 that police had failed to properly investigate abuse allegations, including by victims of the former BBC presenter Jimmy Savile, who was revealed after his death to have been Britain’s most prolific paedophile. However, the Met was later severely criticised after its detectives placed their faith in a man known only as Nick, declaring that his uncorroborated claims of a Westminster abuse ring were “credible and true”. The Crown Prosecution Service is considering whether Nick will be charged with perverting the course of justice after his claims were shown to be false.
Sir Richard Henriques, a retired judge, identified failings in Operation Midland and said that the instruction to believe a victim’s account should be withdrawn. It undermined the principle of suspects being innocent until proven guilty, he said in 2016.
Ms Dick took the helm at Scotland Yard nearly a year ago, after the collapse of Operation Midland. Asked if she was rethinking the belief policy, she said: “Rethink? I’ve rethought. I arrived saying very clearly to my people that we should have an open mind, of course, when a person walks in. We should treat them with dignity and respect and we should listen to them. We should record what they say. From that moment on we are investigators.”
She said that the police had been criticised for not being open-minded enough. It was important to encourage victims to come forward and she wanted to “go on raising confidence”.
She said: “Our job in respect of investigations is to be fair, to be impartial, and where appropriate to bring things to justice — and of course to support victims, but it isn’t all about victims.”
That is progress. But I note that she is still saying “victims” instead of “those who claim to be victims”.
“Labour’s plan to tackle inequality can revive the ailing development sector”, writes Nick Dearden in the Guardian.
Clicking on Mr Dearden’s name took me to a link that said, in true Grauniad style, “Nick Dearden is director of the Global Justice Now (formerly World Development Movement)” The faltering fortunes of “the Global Justice Now” and similar organizations in what is called the aid “sector” (as if were part of the economy rather than a drain on it) distress Mr Dearden for understandable reasons. No man likes to see his prospects of a secure and comfortable living imperilled. I do not see why the rest of us should care. I would be quite happy to issue the development sector with a one way ticket to Switzerland.
Mr Dearden writes,
At the height of New Labour’s power, Peter Mandelson famously said: “We are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich.” To be fair, he added, “as long as they pay their taxes”. But New Labour never had a burning ambition to reduce inequality. They could live with inequality as long as no one was really poor.
Extreme poverty was the focus of New Labour’s international development policy. The wanted to make global capitalism work for the poor – better markets and voluntary codes of conduct to encourage the private sector to “do the right thing”.
And the problem with this was…?
It wasn’t without its achievements, coming as it did after an era in which the poor were regarded as responsible for their own poverty. But it continued to allow the real drivers of poverty, western corporate and foreign policies, to go unchecked, while offering a charitable contribution to clean up the mess they created.
Emphasis added. Libertarians and similarly inclined folk often see the Guardian commentariat as being no less daft than the Guardian writers. That is not always true. Nearly all the most popular comments to this piece make pretty good sense and I am going to quote several of them. For instance take this one from someone called ‘Humza’, who says,
No, fighting poverty is much more important than fighting inequality. Trust Labour to come out with a policy that would punish the person who makes $5 a day and scream injustices because his neighbour can only manage $1 a day.
Absolute/extreme poverty has dramatically declined over the past couple of centuries and quelle surprise, that coincides when most of the world began to transition to world trade and free markets.
https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty
Mr Dearden continues,
On Monday, Labour announces a new development policy which takes a radically different approach. In essence, you can’t solve the problem of poverty without tackling inequality. And you can’t tackle inequality without dramatically changing how the global economy works.
In other words, Labour’s policy is unworkable.
Concretely, Labour proposes a new law, ensuring that all aid money must be spent fighting inequality as well as poverty.
Neocolonialism! British interference in the policies of sovereign African nations! (Hat tip to commenter ‘daveg861’ for that point.)
Fighting inequality requires huge changes to the way the global economy works.
In other words, Labour’s policy is unworkable. Wait, didn’t I say that only a minute ago? Yes, I did, but if Mr Dearden is going to repeatedly state that reducing inequality cannot be done unless the Labour party conquers the world I am just going to have to repeatedly point out that it ain’t gonna happen.
Labour proposes a range of policies that will require further clarity in office
Those policies require further clarity in office the way a fish requires further water on the deck of a trawler.
but include changing the way we trade with southern countries, clamping down on tax dodging, reforming the debt system, transforming institutions like the IMF and World Bank, introducing a financial transactions tax, changing the way we measure wellbeing, and providing “global leadership on the refugee crisis”.
As ‘FatherChewyLouie’ says in the most recommended comment, “What exactly do Labour mean by providing “global leadership” on the refugee crisis? If it’s what I think it means then I can guarantee it won’t be a vote winner.”
Meanwhile, back in the The Global Justice Now! universe:
Countries like Britain grew rich on the turbocharged exploitation of Africa
Countries like Britain might have, but Britain grew rich because of the Industrial Revolution before it had African colonies. When it got them it turned out they were a net cost to the British government and were unpopular thereby. The original “Little Englanders” were opposed to expansion of the British Empire for that reason. (I swear, I had already written that when I saw a comment by ‘YEverKnot’ saying the very same thing. Of course it is a fairly obvious point to make.)
– and still today Africa bleeds wealth to rapacious corporations. Aid, which should be a form of reparation or, at least, redistribution of wealth akin to taxation, becomes largesse: a gift which should be cut in the bad times, and given to our current government’s pet projects in good times.
Reparations? That might not go down well with voters. However, the point about aid being largesse which can be cut off on a whim is true. And thus Mr Dearden unintentionally makes an excellent argument against government-to-government foreign aid and against the very existence of his beloved “development sector”.
When Corbynites say how their leader’s apparent chumminess with Hezbollah and Hamas or the IRA only arose because to make peace one must talk to those one does not like, I have long been in the habit of asking, “So why did he never meet with the equivalents on the side the left wingers don’t like? When did he arrange to meet with ‘price tag’ Israeli terrorists, or with Loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland? Why did he never have similar dialogue with fascists and racists?”
I must eat my words. He did.
Via a post on the “UK politics” subreddit by “Tophattingson”, I learned that in March 2015, Corbyn spoke for a conference organized by the fascist cult “LaRouche Movement”.
Mark Meechan a.k.a. “Count Dankula”, the man who imperilled us all by making a funny video of a little dog lifting its paw like a Nazi salute, has been found guilty of a crime under the Communications Act 2003 at Airdrie Sheriff Court.
If we are handing out punishments to obvious non-Nazis for doing stuff that reminds people of Nazis I don’t see why that Seig-Heiling pug should get away scot-free.
The basic facts are given in this Wikipedia page: Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, and there is a BBC “What we know so far” piece here. I keep hoping to read somewhere that they are beginning to recover. I keep not doing it.
What should the UK government do? What do you think about the measures it has taken so far?
Here are some opinions from several different points of view to get you started:
What can Theresa May do about Russia over the Salisbury poisoning? – Dominic Waghorn, Sky TV.
After the Skripal attack, talk of war only plays into Vladimir Putin’s hands – Simon Jenkins in the Guardian.
Alex Salmond: Don’t shut down my TV show over spy attack – Andy McLaren, STV News.
In 2011 the Scottish Government Executive* passed the stunningly illiberal Offensive Behaviour at Football Act. Judge it by its defenders: a Scottish National Party Member of the Scottish Parliament called John Mason said, “We should all know by now expressing political views is no longer acceptable at football matches.”
He framed the issue as if the only thing required of citizens was that they should keep up to date with the inexorable increase in what is deemed “unacceptable” (to whom is never specified). Once they know the rules, they will of course comply, so politics becomes merely a matter of Filch hammering up new decrees on Hogwarts wall.
Earlier posts on the same topic were “New stirrings at the Old Firm” and “Free speech for all (neds need not apply)”.
But, for once, a Ministry decree has been removed from the wall.
The BBC reports:
MSPs vote to repeal football bigotry law
MSPs have voted to repeal Scotland’s Offensive Behaviour at Football Act.
The legislation was passed by the then-majority SNP government in 2011 in a bid to crack down on sectarianism.
But all four opposition parties argued for it to be scrapped, saying it unfairly targets football fans and has failed to tackle the problem.
Ministers argued the move was “foolhardy” but were outvoted by 62 to 60, meaning the Football Act will be taken off the statute book in April.
The legislation has deeply divided opinion from the start, with those who support it saying it was needed to fight the scourge of sectarianism within Scottish football.
But opponents say the law treats football fans as “second class citizens”, and is not needed as police and the courts already had sufficient powers to deal with offensive behaviour.
They also claim that the law is badly worded, and therefore open to different interpretations of what is and is not “offensive behaviour”.
*As Sam Duncan S reminds me, in 2011 it had not yet decided got permission to call itself a Government. Added later: apologies again, Duncan S, not Sam Duncan. This post is jinxed.
In yesterday’s Guardian Jill Abramson asked,
“Are we seeing signs of a Democratic wave in the primaries?”
The article optimistically discussed the Democrats’ chances in various upcoming US electoral contests, including the next presidential election:
Though winning control of the House of Representatives in 2018 is their focus, my Democratic sources say that there are already 20 credible presidential challengers giving serious thought to opposing Donald Trump in 2020. The list, unsurprisingly, includes a raft of Democratic senators, and, perhaps surprisingly, at least three strong women, New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand, Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar and Massachusetts’s Elizabeth Warren.
My eyes had been glazing over at the mention of “strong women”. Then I read this:
It’s easy to look at what’s happening in Washington DC and despair. That’s why I carry a little plastic Obama doll in my purse. I pull him out every now and then to remind myself that the United States had a progressive, African American president until very recently. Some people find this strange, but you have to take comfort where you can find it in Donald Trump’s America.
Ms Abramson is “a political columnist for the Guardian. She is visiting lecturer in the English department at Harvard University and a journalist who spent the last 17 years in the most senior editorial positions at the New York Times, where she was the first woman to serve as Washington bureau chief, managing editor and executive editor.”
Something of a prototypical strong woman herself, then. And if she wants to carry around a little plastic Obama doll to hug when she feels sad, far be it from me to deny her the right. Though I do not believe I ever went through the phase of needing to have a “blanky” or other “comfort object” constantly around me, many toddlers do. I am sure the right to keep and bear blankies is in the penumbra of the US Constitution somewhere. It just… somehow… is not what I expected of a former bureau chief, managing editor and executive editor. (Visiting Lecturer in the Harvard English department, maybe.) Is that what strong American women (who by definition are all Democrats) do these days? Maybe I’m just out of touch. Maybe it is accepted that among the accoutrements of the modern strong woman is a doll representing a male authority figure that she can clutch for comfort. Maybe New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand, Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar and Massachusetts’s Elizabeth Warren all have little plastic Obamas that help them cope with their fears, and that’s OK.
Ryanair’s Micheal O’Leary, as reported in today’s Mirror:
Ryanair chief threatens to ground cheap flights to persuade voters to ‘rethink’ Brexit
CEO Michael O’Leary says he wants to make people realise they are “no longer going to have cheap holidays”
Ryanair is threatening to ground its planes to persuade voters to “rethink” Brexit .
Michael O’Leary, the budget airline’s chief executive, said he wants to “create an opportunity” by making people realise they are “no longer going to have cheap holidays.”
He told an audience of airline leaders in Brussels: “I think it’s in our interests – not for a long period of time – that the aircraft are grounded.
“It’s only when you get to that stage where you’re going to persuade the average British voter that you were lied to in the entire Brexit debate.
“You were promised you could leave the EU and everything would stay the same. The reality is you can leave the EU, yes that’s your choice, but everything will fundamentally change.”
Mr O’Leary warned that there would be a “real crisis” as flights between the UK and the EU are disrupted after Brexit.
He said: “When you begin to realise that you’re no longer going to have cheap holidays in Portugal or Spain or Italy, you’ve got to drive to Scotland or get a ferry to Ireland as your only holiday options, maybe we’ll begin to rethink the whole Brexit debate.
“They were misled and I think we have to create an opportunity.”
Or EasyJet’s Johan Lundgren?
EasyJet chief executive Johan Lundgren, who was on stage alongside Mr O’Leary, interrupted him to say: “If you start grounding your planes, I’m flying.”
“Heyulp! Heyulp”
Who will rescue Polly this time? Who will answer her call?
Will it be those apparently reformed criminals, the Ant Hill Mob?
“Come to parliament, Sinn Féin, as saviours of Ireland – and Britain”
Or will it be her trusted guardian Sylvester Sneekly and his business associates?
“Business must speak up, and save Britain from Brexit”
Two desperate appeals in five days have gone unanswered. Oh, won’t somebody come?
As I have said before, I retain a belief in CAGW two-and-a-half letters to the left of most commenters on this blog. But Bob Ward – Policy and Communications Director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics – is not the first believer in the imminent peril of climate change to have a damn good go at pushing my scepticism-marker to the right. On the LSE British Politics and Policy blog, he writes:
Do male climate change ‘sceptics’ have a problem with women?
Betteridge’s Law of Headlines applies for a reason. If someone knows a thing for sure, they don’t ask the air. They state it, good and hard.
Although clearly not all climate change ‘sceptics’ are male, writes Bob Ward,
Get-out clause.
it does appear that those who most intensely promote climate change denial are usually male, and routinely refer to female climate scientists in a dismissive way. He provides some evidence for his argument.
The standard of what he thinks is evidence is what prompted me to write this post.
On 20 February, the Global Warming Policy Foundation launched a new pamphlet at the House of Lords, attacking the mainstream media for not giving more coverage to climate change ‘sceptics’. The author, Christopher Booker, is a veteran columnist for The Sunday Telegraph. This will be the 65th pamphlet published by the Foundation, since it was registered as an educational charity by Lord Lawson of Blaby in 2009, 57 of which have been written by men only.
So 8 out of the 65 were not. That is 12.3%. According to a Guardian article asking how well women are represented in UK science in the light of the forced resignation of Tim Hunt (an affair which itself demonstrated the incompatibility of modern feminism with science), women make up just 12.8% of the STEM workforce. So the GWPF’s pamphlet output is, as we scientists say, only short by a whisker. Yeah, that 12.8% is a factoid I plucked out of the air of questionable relevance to anything, but so is Bob Ward’s figure of 57/65 GWPF pamphlets not having a woman’s name at the end. Incidentally I am shocked that the Guardian, unlike Mr Ward, ignores scientists of non-binary gender. No, wait! I have suddenly seen that Mr Ward’s rather strange phrasing “written by men only” might not after all be a progressive acknowledgement that some authors presenting as male or female might actually consider themselves as part of the Two Spirit community. It could just be about papers with more than one author. Oh, poot. That’s a paragraph of snark wasted. Not to worry, though. All I have to do is put a question mark at the end and I can use it after all: Does Bob Ward have a problem with the Two Spirit Community?
However, male dominance of the Foundation’s other activities is even stronger. Of its 10 Trustees, all but one are men. All of the 25 members of its “Academic Advisory Council” are men.
Those square quotes are men. I can tell by the way they are so aggressive and in yer face. Female punctuation marks are much nicer.
Its Chair, Director, Deputy Director, Science Editor, Energy Editor, Director of Development and Researcher are all men. And all seven of its annual lectures have been delivered by men.
So that’s the Global Warming Policy Foundation shown to be almost as sexist as liberal Hollywood luvvies or Oxfam directors. Are we going to reach the bit where we prove – or even attempt to prove – the sexism of climate sceptics in general rather than this one think-tank soon?
The Foundation does not disclose any details about the identities of its members, thought to number about 100, or its donors who last year gave more than £284,000. It is not obvious why the Foundation should be able to benefit from charity status while appearing to operate as an old boys’ club. It is not, for instance, raising awareness of men’s issues, such as the risks of prostate cancer.
Huh? I can vaguely see how he gets from “does not disclose any details about the identities of its members” to “appearing to operate as an old boys’ club”, but where did the bit about prostate cancer come from? The term “old boys’ club” or “old boy network” is usually taken to mean a group that operates by the principle of “it’s not what you know but who you know”. But the mention of “boys” is a historical hangover from the days when the days when practically all professionals were male. There was never any suggestion that old boys’ clubs became more acceptable if they dealt with old boys’ issues.
I asked the Charity Commission to investigate whether the under-representation of women within the governance and activities of the Foundation was the result of discrimination. The Commission had previously carried out an inquiry into the Foundation and concluded that it had violated the rules for education charities because it was solely promoting climate change denial.
However, it refused to make any enquiries about the under-representation of women on the grounds that “there are no legal requirements around gender balance in governance and that under s20(2) of the Charities Act, the Commission is precluded from interfering in the administration of a charity”.
Good to see the Charity Commission staying within its legal remit. Gambling Commission, please note.
The Foundation may be dominated by older men because climate change denial is simply not popular among women and young people.
Science of the sort that Bob Ward approves of is also disproportionately old and male. Old because it takes time to learn this stuff, male because… well, that is not a question into which modern science cares to delve.
Numerous studies have suggested that climate change ‘sceptics’ are usually older and male, with political views that place less value on the environment. However, recent polls of the UK public suggest that there is little gender difference among the small proportion of the population who are hardcore ‘sceptics’.
The fact that Mr Ward put in this nugget that undermines the rest of his article made me think a lot better of him. But it still undermines the rest of his article.
A tracking survey commissioned by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy showed that, in March 2017, 7.6% answered “I don’t think there is such a thing as climate change” or “Climate change is caused entirely caused by natural processes”, when asked for their views. Among men the figure was 8.1%, while for women it was 7.1%.
As above.
Anyone who has engaged with ‘sceptics’ will have learned that it is the men who are most vocal about their views.
Anyone who has engaged with ‘human beings’ will have learned that it is the men who are most vocal about their views.
They tend to lack any training or qualifications in climate science, but still appear to believe that they know better than the experts. And there is also a degree of male chauvinism that often underlies the arguments put forward by ‘sceptics’ during public discussions. For instance, when Lord Lawson was asked to comment on a statement by Professor Dame Julia Slingo, the chief scientist at the Met Office, about the link between flooding and climate change, he did not refer to her by her professional title but as “this Julia Slingo woman”.
The degree of male chauvinism in that is close to zero. I am female but if I do not think too highly of a person I might easily refer to them as “this X Y man” if they happen to be male and “this A B woman” if they happen to be female. To omit her professional title does fall short of the highest standards of courtesy but before we specifically condemn Nigel Lawson for sexism perhaps we ought to establish that he is more insulting to women than to men. Paradoxically he could defend himself from the charge by pointing to his frequent waspishness to his male political allies, his male political enemies, and to the male chat show host Clive Anderson. I am sure Lord Lawson would not have dreamed of making disparaging reference to the appearance of a lady.
Other climate change ‘sceptics’ routinely refer to female climate scientists in a dismissive way. For instance, Professor Joanna Haigh of Imperial College London was called a “puffed-up missy” in a trademark rant by James Delingpole for the extremist website Breitbart. Mr Delingpole also referred on his website to Dr Emily Shuckburgh, an experienced climate scientist who specialises on impacts in polar regions, not by her name or job title but as “some foxy chick from the British Antarctic Survey”.
What an adorably old-fashioned chappie Delingpole is. As indeed is Mr Ward. A chick can go Oxford and have a science degree and still be pretty damn foxy, you know. This is a point upon which I feel strongly.
Female scientists outside the UK are also exposed to sexist invective from climate change ‘sceptics’, with Scientific American reporting that, in the United States, “more than 90 percent of the harassing emails they receive are from men and often include gender-specific abuse”.
Of course not all climate change ‘sceptics’ are male chauvinists, but it is clear that those who most obsessively promote climate change denial are usually male, arrogant, and unable to accept that the experts are right, particularly if they are female.
No, it is not clear. Insufficient evidence has been provided to support the assertion.
Edit: Oh, and one further thing. A point so fundamental that I didn’t think of putting it in until later, like the Zeroth Law. Lord Lawson, James Delingpole, the entire complement of the Global Warming Policy Foundation irrespective of gender, and every climate sceptic on the planet could all be misogynist space Nazis who wear Free Cuckistan socks in bed and it still would not make their opinions on climate change wrong.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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