mockney piers

Dave Davies said something interesting last night. The government always win the vote, politics is about whether they win the argument. This is not done and dusted. Only having fun Santerme, though I'm a grumpy old man too. I agree that much has gone wrong thanks to nu labour, but I'm not seeing a desperate downward spiral of society, though I do see some facets of society doing that. Rioting isn't one of those, there's an exceedingly healthy tradition of rioting and sedition in this country and it's actually in many ways thanks to that rather than in spite of it that we are the wonderful country we are today. Freedoms and concessions from those in power are always fought for, never granted.

Well said smg. Peaceful protest achieves nothing. Riots bring about change. Maybe the government should use the age old tactic of killing the leaders then changing policy, simultaneously and pragmatically realising that they've got it wrong whilst getting to look strong and spinning themselves as a champion of the people. That was John Kerry's failing; you should always kill people when flip-flopping.

Grumpy old man in "it's all gone to the dogs" declaration shock ;-)

Ah, the good old days of heads on spikes ;-) I don't think sympathy has been lost. I think most people feel that saddling students with 40k debt as a start in life for those trying to better themselves is detrimental to those affected and society as a whole. The roles that will need filling for the challenges ahead also aren't necessarily paid that well, but the effects will be very very expensive indeed. Short sighted shit policy, if no ones listening to sense, then breK some windows and egg the royals!!!!!

Indeed dickensman. As regards your earlier point, it's a tricky one. A huge chunk of history involves not just trying to fill in the gaps or interpret what the gaps might mean, but also working out when gaps are gaps because theres nothing there. Reading significance into all gaps, well down that road only conspiracy theorists and Donald Rumsfeld madness lies!! ;-) I think we can all assume that governments are big on omission. We also know that they are big on White lies or misdirection. I cant see that anyone else has done outright lies quite so much though. 'The Rise of Political Lying' is worth a read. I can only hope that Cameron has read it too and had some thoughts about what the deeper significance of 'heir to Blair' is.

Well I'd say my inference looks the more rational and less screechy of the two quids, but that's probably my PC liberal bias at work ;-P

That's just your inference though quids. I took it to mean that she's thus unlikely to have been a stooge in a right wing smear campaign.

How the he'll is that PC liberal crap? It's just someone saying we have no idea about the truth behind the allegations, but some people have been smeared and some people turn out to be dodgy. Seems an eminently rational position to me, and that's from someone who finds Hari tiresomely annoying 80% of the time (though he has improved in the last year or two, maybe he's growing up a bit and becoming grumpy like all good people should)

How about being labelled "2/10 must try harder"?

I don't think transparency means everything being published. It's too expensive and too much information* can be as bad as too little. But increased transparency makes for better government. Huguenot's argument about California is non sequitur, as constitutional change does not follow increased transparency. What I'm trying to get at is that government is far too often partisan, corrupt and quite simply incompetent without being brought to book because burying or classifying information is too easy to do. If you've given a man an early release to secure trade deals, then I have absolutely no idea why that info shouldn't be in the public domain. If there has been ridiculous waste of taxpayers money due to shortsightedness or stupidity I see no reason why an FOI request can be esily pooh poohed to protect the politician or civil servant in question. These things are in the public interest but don't make it into the public domain except by the work of organisations like wikileaks and private eye. As I said if we had a press capable of doing so I'd be a happier man. This does not mean we have to be privy to the transcripts of every negotiation or antechamber chat over a glass of shampoo. What we need is some sanity brought to freedom of information so there can be sanity brought back to government. It doesn't help that we've just witnessed the most duplicitous government this country has known in the modern era, who have misled the public and even parliament (which I believe is a crime) more times than we care to mention. If we could count on politicians to bring scruples back to public service I'd be happy with that, but we all know circles tend to be vicious. Better, more transparent FOI can only help. *and if we can leave out nuclear facility access codes and military operational stuff, that's not the business of government per se is it. As for the DDay reference it's rather laughable straw man stuff as the only fighting of Germans on beaches these days is for towel space.

But plenty are intelligent. Why should they be lied so often to just because others are believe what their paper tells them to?!

Indeed much noise was made about a secret deal with Libya* to protect business interests, and the government were utterly outraged that anyone could suggest a thing 'wot me guv, do something that would get the Sun and Daily Mail up in arms and lose me votes, that's a scandalous suggestion and no way jose' 'Oh, it seems I did actually lie to you all about that, but you know, it was in the national interest, well some lobbyists and party funders' interests, and of course in the interests of my votes come the election' Still up for secrecy? "please explain to me why this prat is actually engaged in serious diplomatic work?" Actually it's not really diplomatic work, he goes around selling our weapons to people, hence why he was outraged that British justice my have something to say about illegal bribes to foreign parties to get them to buy our weapons. How dare the little people have a say....Joe Public's too stupid to be trusted with knowledge, power or a say so about how we, the better people, conduct ourselves don't you know. It's for his own good ok ya. Now I'm being childish nashoi, but nonsense it ain't!! *Actually it would be REALLY interesting to find out just how much the gov't knows about the case full stop. Private Eye for years has said that there is some juicy stuff to come out, and part of the reason why the government acquiesced so easily was because they didn't want Magrahi's defence team to go public with lots of inconvenient stuff (or truth/facts as they are otherwise known) that may include knowledge that Magrahi didn't do it and was very likely a scapegoat.

I know a great one near Penrith and a fantastic one in the brecons, masciryagui or something.

Don't get me wrong. Will be looking out for it. Just thought the triumphalism was a tad premature ;-)

If it's something pink for sale, that can be found here http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?9,582563,582563#msg-582563

This happened to me a few years back. I just got my head down, turned up and found myself a new job. Having also just been made redundant recently and once again found a new job im happy to say the job market was surprisingly buoyant; not that i have a clue what industry you're in. But best of luck with whatever path you decide upon.

Albeit on 9 votes SMG

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/war/just-because-we're-crushing-wikileaks%2c-it-doesn't-mean-you're-next%2c-say-governments-201012033317/

I know, you're right. Today a split condom, tomorrow the Sudetenland.... Bugger, Godwin.

Thing is we didn't need wikileaks to know how spineless the government has been regards Diego Garcia is it's all very much down on the record how they have done everything in their power to go against all the High Court judgements the Chagossians have won. Sad indeed.

The WW1 reference was very canny,as that saw probably the most draconian period of curtailment of press freedom this country ever saw, and far from saving lives it allowed the perpetuation of the monstrous slaughter for almost five years. People should think twice before regurgitating trite tired lines from politicians about the need for secrecy.

Obviously, like most people, there is lots of self justification going on, but he speaks many truths. I think the most important is that modern mainstream media far too often acquiesces to governments desalted on the one hand, and is lazy, cost cutting and basically rubbish on the other. Good investigative journalism seems to have been sidelined to the likes of Private Eye and weirdly occasional output in thins like Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone believe it or not. Your average issue of the even a supposedly reputable national daily is little more than regurgitated press releases and AP/Reuters stringer bylines. In the absence of this something like wikileaks is absolutely vital and proper journalism should hang it's head in shame.

I'm inclined to agree with Brendan. We only claim we need things to be secret because we live in a fucked up world where use all the wrong means to getting anything done. Once again I return to how Europe is pointing the way for the rest of the world to work, that all dispute is resovled through negotiated agreements and hung around a legal framework that all participants elevate certain responsibilities to. Once the rest of the world signs up to this there is no need for war, there is no need for aggressive tactics to force entry to or domination of markets or bullying to assure certain businesses are favoured over others. There is no need for national espionage. If businesses and religions and football clubs want to get involved in nefarious activities then they are welcome to do so with the obvious proviso that if they get caught they are in trouble. The business of government is to assure the moral legal frameworks within which society can better function and the distribution of a portion of our generated wealth at our behest (or at least within the broad brushstrokes of desire that democracy allows for). I think it all boils down to the fact that for executives, that's all terribly boring, but spies and tanks and things exploding and crisis round table summits etc etc etc are far more exciting. Those people should be sacked and given Modern Warfare Black Ops or Civilisation like everyone else!!!!

I think Joe Public is mostly concerned with transparency in XFactor decision making truth be told ;-)

National interest is one of those banal terms that mask a great deal of evil. Regards the footage Louisiana mentioned, the reality was that it was suppressed in the 'national interest', obviously because the nation might lose stomach for a brutal unjustifiable occupation and the consequent murder of innocents. In my book it's in the national interest to come to that conclusion. So by national interest we really mean government interest don't we. I thought post enlightenment we'd got past all that l'etat c'est moi type stuff, but try telling that to the bigwigs, apparachiks, advisers and so called representatives who make the murderous decisions. In terms of international diplomacy I think one of the things revealed is how Frank those involved in diplomacy can be, it's the public sphere that isn't supposed to know. Again I can't see how transparency can be a bad thing. If it helped states to behave like grown ups, have meaningful dialogue and work towards cooperation rather than scheme, manipulate and lobby, then this world might have hope for the future yet. I'm not holding my breath and my third shipment of assault rifles should be arriving at my cottage in the welsh mountains later in the week (that's more to do with the impending zombie outbreak than it is preparing for climate change doom thanks to oil business interests taking precedent over real national interests...oooh, there's that term again)