In my paper over the weekend there was a comparison of Conservative and DUP coalition and what would be a ‘rainbow’ coalition of Labour and all the others, what I found interesting was that the ‘rainbow’ coalition still did not pass the number of seats the Conservatives won. If you have a coalition unless it’s a war govt, it should comprise no more than 2 parties, otherwise everything gets too fractured with all the little parties requiring appeasement.
Personally I think given that we voted to leave the EU we need a parliament that is grown up and gets on with the task in hand and us get out of the EU, rather than bitching about petty ‘personal’ wants.
I don’t want another GE anytime soon and in the coming months the Conservatives need to pull apart Labour’s manifesto promises of financial nirvana, aimed at 18-22 yo and highlight that university fees are a direct result of a Labour desire that all 18yo go to university in 1998/99, as a way of reducing the dole numbers, but there was no will to fund this via the public purse as it was too expensive and as the numbers at uni increased, this cost continued to spiral, hence no one else sought to end it in between times. IIRC in the 90s there was a crisis in British universities wrt funding, which spawned the debate about course fees.
Whatever about the opposition and the others, the chances of any Government with a majority of 12, let alone if 10 of them are from the excretiable DUP, surviving a 5 year parliament are about zero.
Throw in the difficulties and compromises that the horrifically complex Brexit negotiations are going to generate and those chances disappear into the outer reaches of the galaxy.
The betting money is on the DUP over-reaching themselves and the parliamentary Tory party refusing to back May in delivering on promises made to the lovely characters of the DUP - add in the normal attrition and the Tories will be losing a vote of no confidence with 18 months.
The only real answer - given the timescale of the Brexit process - is a national government. Sadly however that’s not going to happen and the Tories will limp on, whether they ditch May now, in the summer recess, or as soon as Brexit occurs, and screw it up because they simply don’t have the ability to offend anyone.
This affects every single member of the Corps. Can’t ignore it or hope it will go away.
Last year we had some quite engaging debates on the sqn around the EU referendum and then the US election, among other things. We do this as part of the “training for life”, but staff don’t get involved at all in the debates.
What’s wrong with taking power back and giving it to the people through a democratic system, a government chosen by the people, rather than a totalitarian, authoritarian, illusion of democracy that is the EU, that ignores the people, lines the pockets of the rich elites, and drowns the people’s voices to a small whisper in a huge constituency.
Don’t forget it is allegedly only true democracy if the “right” team wins. Generally if the “wrong” team wins there’ll be shouty rallies, pointless mass demonstrations and, if we’re lucky, riots.
Perhaps if you steady that knee, and take a look at politics, the trends and the basics of socialism and capitalism. Emotional knee jerking and spraying granola all over your keyboard won’t help anyone.
Everyone wants democracy, until it doesn’t go there way.
It was a Labour govt that stopped milk in Secondary schools. originally free milk was for all under 18 and as RAS says Mrs T, opposed the motion originally, but as it got voted in and she was Ed Sec, she got the blame.
I seem to recall that like all things in the public sector this was abused in more recent times as those people supplying it (not farmers) for under 5s, were ripping the govt off by claiming well above cost at around 90p a pint, a number that sticks in my mind as we didn’t and still don’t pay that for 2 pints.
I remember the milk at primary school, one third of a pint bottles which they had to take the tops off to stop it being nicked for use at home, I found out later. This was unrefrigerated, ‘full’ milk (ie layer of cream on top) which by the time we got it at morning break, depending on the classroom, could have a nice crust of chalk dust/dust. It didn’t all get drunk, so I imagine teachers took it home. We had one classroom where is got put next to a radiator, which haunts me to this day I hate ‘warmed’ milk to just drink.
TBH I imagine free milk was started in the 40s as for many kids it would have been an important part of their daily food intake.
Bring what back? Democracy? Yea we are doing that by leaving the EU…
Or do you want your voice to be lost in a huge constituency, to a rich unelected elite in another country, in a broken system that can’t be challenged, changed or contested by the people. Your own democractically elected government overwritten, undercut, and undermined by an unelected fat cat gravy train?
Why do you think we even had the referendum? Because the EU laughed at us and laughs at other countries when we try and reform it, improve it and challenger it.