Blah Blah

Like many members, I'm now resigned to Labour losing a GE being the only way he will be got rid of. And am hoping the tories call an early GE to save us all from his incompetance. A telling moment was during the (third I think) hustings, when Jeremy again tried to claim credit for forcing the government to U-turn on tax credits and welfare reform etc (like the Lords had nothing to do with that of course). And Owen Smith pointed out how it was he as shadow DWP minister who did all the work, and that Jeremy met with him just once in 9 months. This is the telling sign of what kind of leader Jeremy is, one who doesn't know what's going on in parliament half the time because he doesn't meet one to one with ministers. He's more interested in speaking to the already converted at rallies than he is in doing the actual work of healing rifts within the party. In other words, he hides. He clearly doesn't lke dealing with people who challenge him. That's why he doesn't do too many media interviews. We've seen his irritation a few times now (and even at members who support Smith challenging him) and in one interview with Evan Davies, he was just wierd, saying 'boo' to Davies at one point. He will be torn apart in the run up to a GE.

Yes, I too am constantly having to remind other party members of all the things New Labour DID do after 16 hard years of the Tories. People are obsessed with Iraq. There is no reasoning with some people either. You have new members joining who aren't interested in party process and call foul if anything they don't like is said about Jeremy Corbyn. In fact, the labour party is far more democratic than they realise. The membership at least get a say in who leads the party. And everything, from branch delegate upwards is decided by those members who take part in those things. I've been a party member for a long time, and I've never seen such fury and bad behaviour by some members. It is mob rule. That's what Jeremy has unleashed from the membership, and he seems unable to do anything about it.

It's an East Dulwich forum though. Why would Peckham Rye councillors have threads here?

I grew up with a boiler in my bedroom! These days, landlords have to have the boiler serviced every year (that is the law), so the real danger is not actually private landlords, but those of us that own our own homes and only get an engineer in when the thing breaks down. Personally, we get ours serviced every year too - better safe than sorry - although the boiler is in the kitchen, not a bedroom. And servicing isn't just the boiler, but all the gas applainces and the meter too.

Quite. Affordable is just a by word for as much as you can get away with, towards market prices.

He speaks to the already converted, that's the problem.

Interesting. It also shows though how law and planning rules are getting in the way of any meaningful attempts to do something. Also why does it have to be private developers who build on the land? Why can't it be housing associations or even councils the land is sold to?

Our ballots are arriving from today and it's quite clear from Heidi's account just how clueless Corbyn is when it comes to running his office. If he can't even keep an opposition cabinet together, how on earth will he ever be able to run a government. There is a LOT of denial amongst Corbyn supporters. Labour is almost certainly heading to electoral defeat under him, but they all seem to think some great revolution is coming in the marginals. I will be voting for Smith, but don't expect him to win. And yes, Heidi is being attacked on social media. Groups like Momentum are definitely organising to steal the party for themselves, and don't seem to care if it can win an election or not.

It's because I don't like marshmallow - and wagon wheels have that in them. I've never eaten a tea cake thing for the same reason. Love oysters though - can eat buckets of those!

I've never eaten a Wagon Wheel. I've never seen Game of Thrones.

I buy food for people begging all the time, and have never regretted doing so.

We got a bronze in the womens hammer - totally random :)

The the condition of the cycle lane is terrible - it's falling apart with missing kerbs stones filled in with tarmac. The whole thing is poorly designed, including the lampost that sits right in the middle of the start of the lane from the crossing. When you put lanes on pavement as shared space, you encourage cyclists to share the whole space.

titch juicy Wrote: > Indeed. But, of course it's relevant. The only > reason the BBC charge is because they don't have > advertising. The reason why the BBC have a Royal Charter and licence fee is because they were the first broadcaster. They can easily become a commercial broadcaster if the licence were taken away. My original comment was in reply to the idea that the BBC couldn't survive without the licence fee, when they obviously could survive under a commercial business model.

How do two Police officers on motorbikes stop 60 kids on quad bikes and scooters? Therein lies the answer to Police powerlessness.

C4, ITV, C5 do not charge viewers. That is perhaps why you added advertising to my orignal point when it's not relevant to that point, which was that a licence fee is not the only model for providing a broadcast channel.

I don't watch Ross so hadn't noticed he'd moved :D but he WAS being paid around ?5 million by the BBC, and there was a storm at the time over that. I think it reasonable to expect the BBC to not try and compete with the salaries of the commercial broadcasters. If the BBC loses household names as a result, then so what? They can create new ones. It's not as though there's a shortage of budding Actors, Presenters and the like.

But that is the point. The rate of death of black men at the hands of police is not proportionate to the percentage of black men arrested. That is why the protests are happening - whether the actual figures are true or not.

And I wonder what percentage of crime (especially violent crime) is carried out by men? There's probably a correlation there Loz.

Ah I understand. I guess I drew the comparison because I watch much more on Netflix than I do on the BBC and I think that is the problem. In a market place of subscriptions, people will increasingly resent paying for something they hardly watch because the law says they should. I think it is inevitable that the BBC model of funding will have to change.

Those are good points rendel. Perspective is often lost in the emotions of a single incident. Of course, the aim should be for no deaths in custody or during arrest and there is always room for improvement on that

But other channels exist without charging the public, so to suggest the BBC can only exist because of a license fee is nonsense. The question therefore is one of freedom from corporate clients and mass markets. But it's hard to maintain public support when people like Jonathan Ross are paid millions every year. If a license fee frees the BBC from normal market forces, then how do they justify such huge salaries?

I'm with WM and LMix on this. BLM is focussing on a specific issue that most white people don't even see. If white people were disproportionately killed by Police Officers, there would be a similar protest. Some Police Forces in the US have a serious problem with institutionalised racism, and when that is combined with a macho culture and the level of risk widespread gun availabity and ownership puts Police Officers at, it's no wonder things happen as they do. The UK is not comparable, except in terms of the disproportionate numbers of black people who have died in Police custody. But the UK has I think, a better awareness of institutionalised racism, and it's consequences. And UncleGlen does it again. When he is not confusing the EBU with the EU, he decides to reference the execution of an innocent man as somehow being the same as the Police apprehending a (possibly armed) suspect. Not a troll imo, just not very smart. The death of De Menezes does though highlight how easy it is for human beings with guns, to make the wrong decisions in a climate of fear. For the UK, it was an extremely shocking but also unique exercise of poor Policing. In the US though, it keeps happening - and I think part of the reason is that daily fear of facing seriously armed criminals. 123 Police Officers were killed on the job in 2015. It's also interesting to note that only 12% of US Police Officers are female as well.

People already watch BBC live on the net via proxy sites. Licensing for catch up and the net is just unenforceable. Would also point out that services like Netflix are far cheaper than a TV licence and Netflix now distributes a lot of BBC drama and docs. Youtube also carries a lot of BBC programming as well. Even with a pin, people can just share pins with friends/family who do have licences. This has come about as a direct reuslt of the Government wanting to keep free licences for the over 65's, but now ordering the BBC themselves to pay for it. It costs around ?750m a year to provide those free licences. So the hope is that requiring licences for BBC catch up services will plug that cost.