Alf Bentley

A most generous, helpful offer. I foresee a new story line in which Apu campaigns for an independent Sikh Punjab, engages in sexual activity with a prominent Tory FT moderator, then vomits on his shoes after excess alcohol.

Labour NEC has blocked her as candidate, and rightly so: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43895858 I'm all in favour of local parties selecting candidates where possible but it sounds as if party HQ needs to do a few basic checks first, after this and Jared O'Mara. I don't know how many of this woman's bonkers opinions were already in the public domain, but I imagine that party HQ could have found out about them, even if the local party couldn't. As for her being a teacher, I suppose she might be a perfectly good teacher despite apparently believing in strange conspiracy theories. Wouldn't fill you with confidence, though.

Can understand your Dad not wanting to see them on the table after a day working with them. I'm going "Other: Sainsbury's Be Good to Yourself Tomato & Three Bean Soup"

If true - and it sounds as if it is - then party HQ need to deselect this woman immediately. It's not as if it's some no-hope seat either - Worcester was a Labour seat under Blair/Brown and the sort of place they need to win to form a govt. For a selection meeting in a winnable seat, I'm sure there would have been a lot more than 10 people there. I can only assume they didn't know about her background and statements - which suggests a lack of due diligence.

This should be in the Unpopular Opinions thread - or we should create an Astonishing Revelations thread or something. Either that or you're a dry-humoured troll. Mind you, it's decades since I consumed any Bovril (despite consuming Marmite almost every day).

I doubt that many politicians are racist (aside from the likes of Griffin). Racially ignorant in a few cases, maybe. If Sharpe's Fox's gossip about Rudd shagging Kwase Kwarteng is accurate (as it seems to be), she presumably isn't a racist. Politicians pandering to the racism of some voters is the problem. All parties have been guilty of that to some extent, but this Windrush business and the "hostile environment" policy take it to another level....pandering to voters again the cause. Linking this to my electoral reform hobby horse.... Rees-Mogg took part in the C4 debate last night. He was saying how, as an MP in Somerset, the one "Windrush" constituency case he'd had was an Australian, long-term resident and facing similar problems to the West Indians in places like Inner London. If we had an STV system, we'd have Tory MPs in the inner cities and Labour MPs in market towns/rural areas, so there'd be less ignorance all round. I mean, how many potential Windrush deportees will Tory MPs meet in their constituencies in Surrey, Bucks or Norfolk....and how aware of issues in farming will Labour MPs be in their constituencies in Salford, Hackney or Leicester?

Agree with you on both points: the govt's failure to see the bigger picture and the slanted journalism of the Guardian. Even as someone more sympathetic to the Guardian's politics I find some of its slanted articles annoying. That's why I switched to the Independent back when that started and was still a good paper - more balance and challenge to the reader's thinking, not just pandering to the reader's prejudices like the Grauniad or the Mail. I now only get the Guardian on Saturday - mainly for opinion articles & lifestyle stuff, not news reporting, though some investigative/analytical articles are good. Tbf, short-term thinking afflicts both main UK parties, but the Tories are in power now - at a critical period in our history. It's not just education/immigration, the same criticism can be made re. the Irish border, housing, apprenticeships etc. Maybe that's another argument in favour of electoral reform - coalitions can produce greater stability and more long-term, strategic politics, rather than just short-term fixes that keep the electorate onside? I suppose the Guardian would argue that their article was about the impact of Brexit. But it would certainly have been more balanced and informative to include info about any large influx from India & Philippines (I wasn't aware of that myself) - or indeed from Jamaica. Mind you, I do wonder whether the Brexit-voting public are really going to be happier if there are a lot fewer European nurses and lot more Indians and Filipinos. I know immigration wasn't the only factor in the Brexit vote but it was one of them - and I don't think people concerned about high immigration just wanted more Indians and fewer Poles...

Ironically, it was mentioned in a Windrush debate yesterday (C4 News?) that the UK has an ongoing recruitment drive in Jamaica - seeking to recruit lots of qualified Jamaican nurses. Don't suppose the Windrush fiasco will help. I'm sure that higher pay will still attract some, but the idea that our immigration policy will treat them like scum if they stay too long might put some off. If we want to have fewer European workers in this country, might it not be a good idea to fund the training and employment of British nurses properly? Instead of using the wage differential to nick qualified Jamaican nurses on the cheap - to replace the qualified European nurses that we nicked on the cheap but are now alienating? Not exactly morally righteous to expect Jamaica to train up our nurses for us, either. But, looking on the bright side, I suppose it helps us reduce the deficit - and in a few decades people will be able to grumble about there being too many West Indians in the country, like they did in the 70s.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/uranus-smell-rotten-eggs-life-planet-proof-alien-world-clouds-hydrogen-sulphide-ammonia-a8319861.html "Uranus smells like rotten eggs, scientists have found". Thought that was common knowledge already? Honestly, so much money wasted on research.

I support you, Wymes. She has an intriguing air of calm mystery. If you got a bit fresh, though, the only mystery would be where your body parts were dug up.

The greater likelihood of a small, extremist party holding the balance of power is partly why I oppose national "pure PR" with parties getting a % of MPs to match their national vote %. Israel is an example of that - though they do have a minimum threshold. So, no Israeli party can hold the balance of power with less than 3.25% of the vote....whereas in the UK, the DUP holds the balance with 0.9% of the national vote! But there are ways of having a proportional system without that risk. Under the German PR system, a party doesn't get any seats unless it gets 5% of the vote across a region (or wins a constituency outright). I prefer Single Transferable Vote in Multi-Member Constituencies - similar to the system used to elect MEPs. That way, you'd elect 7-10 MPs for a much larger constituency (e.g. Leicestershire, Birmingham). Votes would be counted proportionally, so any party with about 7%-12% in that constituency would get at least 1 MP. Advantages of that system: - Much fairer, more proportional reflection of votes cast - The big parties would have MPs nationwide, not just in their heartlands: Tory MPs in big cities/industrial areas, Labour MPs in rural areas/small towns, unlike now -> giving them better understanding of the country as a whole - Smaller parties (e.g. UKIP, Greens) could get fairer representation and a few MPs, provided they had decent support in a large city or county - Tiny extremist parties would not get any MPs on a small national percentage of votes, so little chance of them holding balance of power - Parties with strongly localised support (e.g. SNP, Plaid, N. Irish parties) would still get representation in their heartlands

I like what he says, but not as he intends. I think it would be great if lots of people (including women) dressed up for the day in a national costume of velvet knickerbockers, lace collars and Van Dyke beards. It would be an expression of our famed English sense of humour. Alternatively, I suppose we could trim the hedge, wash the car, do some unpaid overtime for the boss, read the Daily Mail, then grumble mildly to one another about taxes and the weather? Come on, you killjoys! Corbyn has enough bad ideas, but his 4 public holidays for the 4 UK nations sounds a great idea: social bonding, local bands playing live in the park, an ale tent, recitations of the work of English writers, stalls selling curry, filled Yorkshire puddings, Polish sausages & Baklava, all bringing together the races and generations....then, after dark, a big drunken brawl among the middle-aged white blokes, while the youth stabbed one another and sold drugs.

I was thinking the same, Wymes. About time he got shagging. Shouldn't even wait for the wedding, in my view. If we see him out and about, maybe a chorus of "3-0, and you still don't shag!" would shame him into action?

I'm hoping they name him Dale Verne Avicii out of respect for recent losses in the entertainment world.