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"The problem is most of the UK is different: it's sustained by services and consumer spending and debt. I'm not sure how much of that world Gordon Brown is seeing - and without a big revival in the credit markets, how much he can actually do for it."

Yes, some sense at last amidst all the hyperbole and emoting - thank you Paul. To reverse this requires a change in decades of tilt towards the feminisation of our culture which is also crippling our birth-rate and lowering our national human capital. That reversal demands RADICAL change and ..... time.

:o( It's a sad day for English cricket now that Kevin Pietersen has left. However, Andrew Strauss is also a great player and I look forward to seeing him as captain too. Certainly look forward to Stephen's film later tonight.

Chris Gunness, a spokeman for UNWRA speaking from Jerusalem on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ News at 17:00 was a welcome relief amidst all the rhetoric.

How realistic/sane/just is it to expect Hamas to agree to stop doing what Israel asserts is the sine qua non for a permanent ceasefire i.e a) to cease rocketting and b) to stop bringing arms into Gaza?

We have a highly equipped Israeli army/airforce/navy, left with its arms industry intact and no doubt still receiving high tech military supplies from the USA, pounding a group of militants equipped with little more than small arms, crude rockets and mortars. If anyone wants to stop this conflict, disarming Israel might help, as might arming or supporting Hamas with comparable weapons or UN forces to deter Israel. Israel says it's entitled to defend its citizens....but what do people think Hamas is doing other than alerting the rest of the world to the consequences of Israeli control of their border, airspace, sea-lanes, imports, exports etc?

The Israeli government has yet to 'win' the war, in the political terms they need to reverse their Lebanon debacle, so it is futile for any Wester leader to try for a cease-fire. They will, of course, 'welcome' any plan; but, as they have done so many times before, find some way of sabotaging it.

As January 20th approaches, and with it Obama with a new agenda however, they will come under real pressure; as they see failure overtaking them.

Belated Happy New Year to you regulars! Still back working so I am one of the lucky ones.
It can only happen in this country that cricket could knock off the prime news spot serious issues in Gaza and that forgotten land Zimbabwe.
I wish Brown et al could get so worked up over that!
As to Brown's sojourn into foreign parts (near me-Merseyside) I must be too much of a Labour rebel to be invited to speak to him.
As to the car industry, is it not surprising that those so called "gas guzzlers" or expensive CO2 emissions cars have been finished by the constant harping on about how they should be taxed off the road. They apparently now have!!!! Well done Gordon. Motorists have now got the message-we won't buy any more new cars.

A Labour victory of which to be proud, plus all the other parties who have jumped on this "tax-band" waggon.

STANDING BY (#1)

Dear JJ, I stick my neck out and you label me feminised, intensional and - well - wrong. That's OK, I can handle that (read the preceding in a doubly shrill tone).

But for the umpteenth time of asking: when will you spell out YOUR prescription for success? To write: "That reversal demands RADICAL change and ..... time." will not do.
(Nor will any explanation in obscure technical terms.) Your sources are impeccable, but impeccable is not a definition of 'right'. Nor are they a formula for action NOW.

Come on JJ, it is 2009 (spurious reasoning) let's have both barrels. Eugenics? In PRECISELY what form?
Benign dictatorship? How do we get the right leader? Fortress UK? Global governance?

You have nothing to lose but your immunity.

It is true that the industrial sector in the developed world in general has followed farming into a niche position. This has left the service sector as the main employer and creator of wealth.

The problem is that the 'service sector' covers a multitude of sins; ranging from hamburger flippers at McDonalds to rocket scientists in the equity funds.

New Labour understandably made a play for the latter end of the spectrum; putting its eggs in the banking basket. That was, for a long time, a very profitable decision; though there was a price to be paid (literally) in obscene bonuses. It also left us now exposed to something approaching a mono-culture; and we are paying the price for that too.

We probably did not invest enough in the knowledge industries, except those related to finance. We do, though, have a strong infra-structure in these fields. Gordon Brown should, therefore, be visiting the high-tech industries of the future rather than the dying smoke-stack industries.

'The Downturn' is a great opportunity for many companies to further cut staff costs and overheads by either going offshore and/or online, or just going elsewhere! How did anyone think that services like premade foods etc would be viable long term businesses? A daft question - people believe all sorts of daft things these days. The spin-doctors tried to make reality ape the entertainment world.

Are we finally seeing the demise of a phenomenally crazy/lazy/unhealthy service sector bubble - if so, what ARE people going to do?

MASTERS AND MISTRESSES OF SPIN

What Israel is saying is that they will stop what they are doing only if they achieve their objectives, nothing else.

Why the media don't JUST say that isn't beyond me, but it's hardly . Do they think the Gaza Palestinians won't notice?

The bit that's the most bizarre is when Hamas (the legitimately elected democratic government, West Bank Fateh tried the coup, and then when that failed, the USA/EU/Israel essentially blockaded Gaza) is accused of 'smuggling' weapons into its own country - but much of the media repeats this over and over again.

barrie (#6) "But for the umpteenth time of asking: when will you spell out YOUR prescription for success? To write: "That reversal demands RADICAL change and ..... time." will not do."

I've already answered that, and shortly afterwards (coincidentally) you heard Brown and others saying much the same. The trouble is, I fear it won't work as it's taken a long time to get into this mess, so it will take a long time to get out of it (if we ever do). It's genetic (and entropic) you see.

Stop believing in fairy tales (head talk) would be a good start. Start accepting that this is extremely ugly and that we've had a lot of unscrupulous, self-interested, narcissistic, people at the helm for far too long as they have ridden a great wave of anarchistic deregulation - we now need to face up/sober up to the fact that this is dire.

Yet we still watching eye-candy 'sing and dance' their way through the news and accept it, and take seriously some people saying they are 'offended'! Poor dears.

investing in car making? Talk about Canute economics?

it all smells a bit 'Heroes of the Tractor factory'?


it costs people say 30 grand to go to uni yet they could become a trade [plumber electrician etc] for a fraction of that. What do we need? More media studies grads or more roofers?

Excellent Newsnight tonight - my favourites being Steve's report on English cricket and Jeremy on the couch with Ed Smith & Lord Maclaurin. Interesting point raised by Jeremy on the arguement between Peter Moores and Kevin Pieterson coming out in public - perhaps he could have been saved if it was private and behind closed doors. Even Ed Smith joked that perhaps this could all have been avoided by having Andrew Strauss (now the new Captain) in the first place!
Brilliant :o)

#9 JadedJean
"... the legitimately elected democratic government ..."

Yes but you don't like democracy! I quote you:

"Hitler, Mussolini and Roosevelt did what they did in the 1930s (essentially running planned economies) because of the catastrophic financial mess which had been brought about by anarcho-capitalist 'democratic' deregulators peddling the merits of 'freedom'. Yet you and others of your ilk are still naively arguing for precisely this.
....
On the other hand, if you want to see history repeat itself, just keep thinking the way that you are."


Remember t your comments usually relate to tripe you quote about about race "realism" and IQ, "big government" and being against cultural Marxism and anti-fascists and you are hazy about the Holocaust.

I presume you do think WWII happened.

Thanks for making me smile!

It all makes me feel a little ... well ...like ... laughing and laughing at your posturing!

Myself I quite like democracy and freedom.

Why don't we condemn Israel's actions Paxman asked Miliband? It wouldn't be helpful to use such language the latter says. Now there's a surprise. Note Miliband repeated the 'smuggling bit' again just in case anyone missed it.

Clearly, democratically elected governments are only acceptable to Israel and the West so long as they're their type of democratic government, anything else is likely to find itself made subject not to 'regime change' but to 'regime_weakening_to_the_point_of_ineffectivity_so_the_favoured_alternative_can_run_the_show' instead.

See Zimbabwe and Iraq for other examples of the helpful hand of western free-market liberal-democracy at work.

McNulty.....no need for words.

Sir Stephen Rose - a tad more assertive than usual. Has he been taking PR lessons from Sir Alan Sugar?

PS. Thanks for the 'treats'.

bookhimdano (#11) "What do we need? More media studies grads or more roofers?"

What does it matter so long as some honoured pedlar sucessfully relieves people of their wages/salaries/savings or puts them into debt?

Could they really say it any clearer/louder? (or is pointing this out now a 'hate-crime'?)

To understand Hamas' - look at what their Kids TV shows - see clips on YouTube (Hamas kids 2009) where school kids act out military 'games' with guns, chanting ' our movement is Hamas, our path is jihad, our aspiration is death for Allah'.

Why doesn't the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ seem to mention this - it's so crucial to understanding the mindset and Culture of Hamas and the Jihad terrorists worldwide.

@ 16
60+ years of a God given land occupation can do that to you.

I've always swung in favour of the down trodden such as the Palastinians but i find myself ... supporting the Israel invasion! Jesus! i can be fickle sometimes. Maybe its the biased reporting from the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ that has changed my long establised views on the Israel occupation of Palastinian lands or maybe i've seen one report too many of Islamic radicals in the usual full blown rant only Muslims can do - and recently seen on British streets - that has got me changing sides. If we could just de-programme the religiously indoctrinated,(Christians,Jews,ect) treat them as mentally ill patients...oh well, i dream on.

Was it Mark Urban who was in the West Bank?.. interesting report and the attitudes expressed, no third Intifada on the horizon; the better life might not be worth risking. This is worthy of extra reporting, ie how does the wider Arab/Muslim world view this conflict, well, we already know Irans thoughts on Israel but Egypt has appeared to have played a big part in brokering peace between the warring parties before and just recently as well - albeit with tunnels on its borders, I was unaware that Egypt was a player for peace in the region.

As for anyone holding their breath for the Obama effect to kick in, don't bother. If you get another chance to see the Five Presidents in the oval office, take a good look, preferably with a 42 inch HD TV and look real close ...strings everywhere.. thunderbirds this ain't. Satans little helpers one and all...we'll maybe not Jimmy 'the peanut' Carter..he told reporters years ago he once witnessed a UFO...i always had him down as an alien anyway...but the rest...a cabal of front men for the Evil one.

Mistress76uk

a typical post of yours was on TV :)

just in case you missed it

Awww thanks Bookhimdano! I remember catching it on youtube.com - and I loved it and still do. Thanks :o)

QUOTE OF THE DAY (#14)

"McNulty - no need for words."

Political plonker in a nutshell. Thanks JJ.

thegangofone (#13) I remind you that Hitler's, Mussolini's and Roosevelt's parties were democratically elected. Furthermore, to describe what happens in history and to point out the consequences of behavioural trends is not, strictly speaking to personally favour or disfavour those trends. Each of the above movements were responses to desperate times, and not all of what they did was good, nor bad. Clearly those who are ideologically committed to anarchism, Trotskyism, the de-regulated free-market etc, have a vested interest in depicting what they did as darkly as possible. That, I remind you, is political propaganda, i.e party politics. It is rhetoric.

Newsnight the government are constantly assuring us they are not going to lose any more data, ID cards are a great idea and its all Damian Greens fault anyway.

I suppose its not strictly data but to lose 3,000 blank passports via a low security van is ludicrous.

Worth seeking a comment from the government?

#21 JadedJean

"not all of what they did was good, nor bad" - vague as usual. You are no apologist are you. You don't deny or affirm the Holocaust so probably can't make up your mind due to a genetic predisposition.

Roosevelt didn't burn down Congress so far as I recall.

As ever I am centre left and certainly not a Trotskyite or an anarchist. Lib Dem voter actually.

As for "depicting what they did as darkly as possible" I don't need to depict Hitler and Mussolini as "darkly as possible" because history does that for me.

Objectively.

Thanks for making me smile although I usually do keep a sick bucket handy when I read your posts!

Barrie (#6) "You have nothing to lose but your immunity."

You've got to be kidding. Blogdog (who appears to move in mysterious ways at times) is the least of my worries on that score, (but is a very effective censor nonetheless). Pursuit of truth requires one to go where it takes one, and to share what one finds with others (whether that 'offends'or not). Whilst that's the only way that we have ever advanced our grasp over what matters, there are always those guardians of the status quo who act as if they somehow know better.

SELF-CENSORSHIP = DENIAL

barrie (#6) Over the past couple of years, the drivers of what has hit us recently have been repeatedly posted and elaborated upon in this blog. Back in february 2007, ETS, the largest Educational Testing Research and delivery service in the world held an unprecedented press conference warning how a was brewing based on low literacy levels, changes in the economy, and significant changes to USA demographics. Despite all this, did Newsnight or the rest of our press pick up on it? Even here, (and in CiF) one just saw neo-liberals bleated that this was mere scaremongering (the ETS original video, unfortunately no longer available) evcen said that their FOCUS groups indicated that whilst research foundations were well aware of the problem, the general public just weren't taking it in.

As I've said before, ETS were not the first to express serious concern (as they publicly acknowledged in their press conference), other researchers have been pointing these trends out for years but have been given the PC silent tratment (e.g. Lynn warned of it in the early 2000 looking at the USA data). One has to ask why this was the case. Why were the driving factors made worse through accelerated rates of immigration and 'education, education, education'?

SCAREMONGERING?

Here's saying much the same.

Continuing my lonely self-appointed task of checking Newsnight's coverage of the current Gaza crisis for bias I can affirm it passed muster again but that's only a personal opinion of course.

I happen not to understand why Egypt has trouble securing its border against Hamas smuggling especially as I understand it's opposed to Hamas. I would appreciate enlightenment.

I'm still concerned that we don't hear 'goodnights' (or rather see them being expressed) from guests (better word in the context than 'interviewees'). Perhaps it's because I don't watch TV very often that I'm sensitive to a practice that has become commonplace but it does seem rude to me. Of course if guests won't stop making their points then they have to be cut off but most are anxious to say goodnight in the usual way it seems to me and I don't see why we shouldn't see them as well as hear them - if only to check out the sincerity of the smile.

Can I ask JadedJean not to post so often please. You're crowding the rest of us out and it's discourteous. Thank you.

rinpoche1 (#27) "Can I ask JadedJean not to post so often please. You're crowding the rest of us out and it's discourteous."

Ten post something substantial. Compare the frequency of posts to a Newsnight Web Team blog with say Peston's.

How about explictly explaining to us how you think the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ/Newsnight is biased? How do you think Arab interviewees feel when they see representatives of the UK who are Jewish or ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ interviewers who are Jewish? Do you think that might bias anything? Do you really think there are many (any) in the Arab world who don't see what Israel is doing as disproportionate and duplicitious, if not criminal? If you do, you are incredibly naive.

JadedJean @ [28]

Thank you for responding. I did expect you would.

Since I address you directly in my post (but only in the last paragraph note) of course it's incumbent on me at least to thank you for taking that time and trouble and of which former you appear to have an abundant superfluity and of the latter I can only, speaking strictly for myself, wish was so excessive as to be an outright impediment to success.

rinpoche1 (#29) I take it that it has occured to you that one of the reasons why they are cut off so abruptly might be because the interviewers/production team are signalling exasperation with what often amounts to no more than egregious subterfuge, mendacity (aka bare-faced lying) which is masquerading as diplomacy?

JJ @ [30]

(but actually you're referring to my [27] about saying goodnight).

It's not that guests are cut out abruptly but simply that they're not really allowed to participate fully in that most basic social intercourse of saying 'hello / goodbye' and where our social instincts are most finely tuned to pick up on just the kind of things you mention.

Moreover there's a cultural thing involved as well. In Arabic for example there actually is no real equivalent to our word 'goodbye' and if (as a fluent speaker of Arabic) you were merely to use the word 'ma'assalam' ('go in peace') provided by dictionaries you would likely be considered socially inept and possibly even rude.

If Newsnight were to do what you suggest then that would be a value judgement and sooner or later it would land them in difficulties.

Thank you BTW for advising me that 'mendacity' means 'lying': you often use quite hard words I haven't the faintest idea what you mean.

Getting back to my request to you not to post quite so often (and at any rate not so often as to swamp the rest of us and our own modest literary and philosophic offerings) of course I'm always content to see, and sometimes address if I genuinely have something further to contribute, any response you care to make to a post.

However that's not really where the problem lies. Tonight for example you begin at [1] with some chest-beating on a favourite theme entirely unrelated to anything from the Paul Mason you quote - egregious discourtesy indeed - and after Mistress76uk's pleasant post [2] on cricket (a game), and an example incidentally of just the sort of thing I like to see when looking in and browsing contributions, you begin over again at [3] with a post which this time is not even allegedly about Newsnight content ... and so it goes on.

Frankly I'm surprised you're not embarrassed by the extent you hog these forums and once again I can only ask you to stop posting quite so often because you are quite simply spoiling it for the rest of us.

rinpoche1 (#31) "Thank you BTW for advising me that 'mendacity' means 'lying': you often use quite hard words I haven't the faintest idea what you mean."

So I've noted. Please stop posting such long-winded, pompous, inconsequential, and totally out of touch (given the News content), drivel e.g:

"If Newsnight were to do what you suggest then that would be a value judgement and sooner or later it would land them in difficulties."

Cricket has nothing to do with anything, not even cricket these days.

JJ @ [32]

A risible tropism on your part and not even cricket.

I shan't take either time or trouble to notice you again.

rinpoche1 (#33) I'm

Here is a for anyone thinking of purging, as this behaviour has been widely reinforced by some in recent decades.

Think 'The Apprentice'.