Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper – Boundary Commission
The best thing Yvette can do is stop forcing houses on the South and let the market work, so that people seek cheaper accommodation in places like West Yorkshire
Head oop North and save the golden couple’s marriage
It is a tough time for Ed and Yvette, the nearest thing the Government has to a golden couple. You remember who I mean. He is Ed Balls, the Chancellor’s jut-chinned henchman; she is Yvette Cooper, the elfin housing minister who reduces the Tories opposite to pathetic simpering croons.
They are the kind of dynastic union that Hollywood used to produce – the closest the Yorkshire Parliamentary Labour Party has yet come to Bogart and Bacall. Apart from the ghastly, bossy, high-taxing politics they both espouse, they are as charming and fortunate a pair as you could hope to meet in Westminster. But now their union – this marriage of minds and hearts – has been struck by tragedy.
In a touching gesture, the Labour high command gave them exactly what they wanted: not matching pillow cases, not his ‘n’ hers electric toothbrushes; no, they were given two lovely safe Labour seats, side by side, his in Normanton and hers in Pontefract, and across the land all piously assented. Those whom the Labour fixers had put together, groaned the congregation, let no man put asunder; and no man dared, until the Boundary Commission came along.
These grim mathematicians have worked out that West Yorkshire’s population is declining by comparison with other parts of the country. The place does not need 23 MPs. It can manage quite happily with 22, and Ed Balls has been wiped off the map.
Now you might have thought that this was the kind of well-deserved reverse he would take in his stride. Being a man of supreme confidence, and, indeed, balls, you would have thought that Ed would dust himself down and take himself off to some other part of the country, whence to join his wife in Parliament.
But the funny thing is that Ed is making a terrific fuss, and together with Yvette and two other Labour MPs he is taking the Boundary Commission to court, to preserve Normanton and his right to sit in a seat adjacent to his wife.
Should we wish him well in this hugely romantic gesture? Should we support the two Ballses’ bid to continue their dominion of West Yorkshire? I think not.
In fact this legal action has all the makings of a serious scandal. As is well known, Labour already has far more seats than it deserves.
Partly this is because people not unreasonably flee from seats represented by Labour MPs to seats represented by Tories, so the population of many Labour-held areas is actually going down at a time of strong population growth. The population of Scotland is expected to fall by
10 per cent over the next 35 years; the North-East is expected to lose two per cent, and the same kind of attrition can be seen in the Labour heartlands of Merseyside and Hull.
And yet the allocation of seats has notoriously failed to match the changing demography, so that Labour tends to have loads of small seats (Hackney South and Shoreditch has 57,204 electors, compared with 103,480 for the Tory Isle of Wight), and Tory MPs need about 4,000 more votes to get to Westminster than Labour MPs.
That was why the Boundary Commission sucked its teeth when it came to the Balls family stitch-up in Yorkshire, and decided, in the name of democracy, that one Balls must be dropped. How can Ed, a man of dignity and principle, even think of contesting this essential revision? The answer, I fear, is that he is being encouraged by his mentor, Gordon Brown.
This court case could go on for month after month. In fact, it might go on for so long that – do you know what – they might just find they could not get it through before the next election if, as is quite possible, Gordon decides to call a snap one immediately on taking over.
That would mean the whole Boundary Commission redesign would have to be postponed, and without a boundary review Gordon Brown’s beleaguered Labour government might save as many as 20 gerrymandered seats, and with the polls the way they are, 20 seats could make all the difference.
It is a beautiful little plot, and it is outrageous. Much as we sympathise with Ed and Yvette, we cannot tolerate this kind of jiggery-pokery. So let me suggest an alternative means by which Ed could save his seat. He should turn to his wife – no, not to ask her to give up her seat to a man – but to look at the effects of her policies on the demography of England.
The other day I was using a borrowed car and a demented German satnav took me out of Manchester. We went through Stockport and Stalybridge and at a place called Tintwistle we picked up the A628 and suddenly the road was flying over the moors, the Pennines, and I had a sensation of driving over the vast spine of England, and I thought, stone me, look at all this room.
Look at the light and the space. There were huge great fells and dells, or possibly dales, wuthering into the distance, and tiny underpopulated villages nestling under shoulders of purplish scree, and I thought how amazing it was that there should be such splendid vacancy only minutes from Manchester’s dilapidated suburbs, and how incredible that Yvette Cooper was bullying the South-East to accept an intolerable 34,000 more houses per year for the next 20 years, turning the Home Counties into a great roundabouted megalopolis.
Why, when there is so much room oop North? Why, when whole Victorian terraces are being destroyed in Liverpool and elsewhere? Why is the Government collaborating in this terrible flight from North to South? Is it just that it sees the South as the motor of the economy and wants to maximise tax revenue? It is madness.
The best thing Yvette can do is stop forcing houses on the South and let the market work, so that people seek cheaper accommodation in places like West Yorkshire. She would stop the South-East turning into Mexico City, and she might find that enough people went up North to justify the existence of her husband’s constituency.
309 Comments
‘Home owners in areas hit by John Prescott’s demolition schemes have lost an average of £35,000 on the price of their properties’ (Thalia)
In terms of ways to keep a halt on inflation, without seeing interest rates rise, it’s genius.
You go knock the poor buggers’ houses down, they have to buy newer, more expensive ones, their mortgage repayments increase, hey presto less money supply!
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Ossie . Yes quite right I read you quoting him . Isn’t IDLEX saying that these things are not equivalent though? I hesitate to interpret but I think he suggests that for quite complex reasons we either need or are fed endless apocalypses when there are in fact none or few. If so he would be rather in agreement with you perhaps he would clarify? IDLEX?
On moral equivalency I also have a dislike of this tendency which like lazy expression flattens everything into meaninglessness
Things are in general of a more different weight than is supposed. I very much hope that any `would be assassin` chooses to passive smoke me to death rather than any traditional method involving fire arms .
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oops,thought it was lost soz
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Perhaps there might be a TV programme called Would you care for some more tea?, in which contestants vie to scare the wits out of the audience with one or other terrifying and imminent threat to the continued existence of everyday life as we know it, all backed up by Eminent Authorities/ Bible/ Qabbalah/ Astrology/ Science/ What I Heard In The Pub Last Night. I think it would be a hit.
I believe this has already been done, idlex, albeit under the innocuous sounding title of televised coverage of Blair’s monthly press conference.
It’s rumoured that even Blair’s press conference tea cups have coded threats such as, ‘I love Tony…or else’. Also wondrous descriptions of our Anthony such as:
Saint Anthony. (aka St. Anthony the Abbot.) Renowned for giving away his legacy and becoming a hermit. He went into seclusion and at that time experienced, he claimed, every temptation the devil could devise – including physical wrestling matches with demons and followers of Satan, who took the form of wild beasts, fearsome mythical creatures and, worst of all, Tories. Yet Anthony hardened himself, learned to take continuous punishment and ignore pain.
A colony of hermits grew up about him, and after 20 years he emerged to rule them in a community, the monks being in solitude except for worship and meals. After a few years he went away to the desert near Thebes, where he lived most of the rest of his long life.
Halleluiah!
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Sorry, idlex, I somehow chopped the attribution off of the first para of my last posting. This should have said,
idlex said:
Perhaps there might be a TV programme called Would you care for some more tea?, in which contestants vie to scare the wits out of the audience with one or other terrifying and imminent threat to the continued existence of everyday life as we know it, all backed up by Eminent Authorities/ Bible/ Qabbalah/ Astrology/ Science/ What I Heard In The Pub Last Night. I think it would be a hit.
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‘I hope that if someone wants to murder me they will choose to passive smoke me to death’ (newmania)
Idlex, Do we accept the challenge? (Steven_L)
I don’t see the point, since passive smoking doesn’t kill. And I have no wish to kill him anyway.
Unfortunately the “lies” about passive smoking aren’t lies and a lot of people have been damaged by it, usually as children, so get to suffer the effects all their lives.
Ossie is quite right, the important thing is to unravel the mess made in recent years and try and reinstate our basic freedoms. (Thalia)
A Times editorial in November 2005 described the case against passive smoking as ‘lies’, and Dominic Lawson used the same word – ‘lies’ – about the matter in the Independent earlier this year. The plain fact of the matter is that most studies have shown little or no link between passive smoking and fatal illness. Using the few that did find a danger is ‘cherry -picking’, and is exactly what was used to select intelligence that said Iraq had WMDs, and ignore intelligence that it did not, to support a predetermined decision.
And I regard it as a simple freedom of mine to smoke cigarettes in pubs, just as tobacco has been smoked for centuries in this country. And, out in the wilds of Devon, pretty much my only pleasure in life is to go down to my local pub, and have a pint and a cigarette, along with many others who do the exactly the same. There is a non-smoking bar for those who don’t like it. But as of next year, this simple and harmless pleasure will be completely denied me by a bunch of lying medics and political bullies.
And if you don’t think that my rights in this respect matter, then don’t be too surprised if I don’t give a damn about your rights either.
Doesn`t he suggests that for various reasons everything is presented as apocolyptic , when in fact it isn`t . Is that right ? (newmania)
Yes, that is what I mean.
Grey areas are repeatedly being rendered black and white. Minor or uncertain dangers are regularly being presented as being major and absolutely certain dangers, and honest disagreement and dissent is dismissed or suppressed in order to create a false unanimity of opinion.
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Yes I agree that passive smoking can be dangerous but it is not as dangerous as Labour would like to make out. Alcohol, on the other hand is a lot more dangerous, yet Labour seem to be doing their best to encourage that. Think of it this way, have you ever heard of a car accident caused because the driver had nicotine in his blood or heard of a violent crime committed by someone who had spent the day smoking? I think not. If alcohol was as safe as labour like to make out I fail to see why alcohol consumption is still used as a defense in thousands of trials of violent crime. Of course tackling smoking is trendy and easy so Labour will act, but when it comes to something that is deemed as acceptable by the PC brigade they will turn a blind eye. The end result is a country where the PC brigade will harp on about the need to make smacking your own child a criminal offence, but in the next breath will be condeming anyone who believes in life sentances for child-abusers as far-right thugs. Lets face it Labour have eroded any sense of right and wrong in Britain and replaced it with legal and illegal
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Re: smoking, passive or otherwise, well said idlex and Steven!
As the passive victim of car exhaust fumes and (heavily taxpayer subsidised) aviation emissions which damage our health, planet and dwindling energy resources, I don’t complain. I recognise that we are, almost of all us, guilty of damaging each other’s health and environment, so do strongly object to being stigmatised, criminalised and generally scapegoated for the collective misdemeanours of society.
I’m one of c 12 million- proud – smokers in UK who deserve a medal for the c 8 billion pounds of extra tax we collectively pay each year. We fund the entire budget of the NHS, yet, as research has shown, make far less demand on the NHS than non-smokers do – because we snuff it younger.
I don’t smoke near non-smokers, so those who object to me smoking – tough! All of you non-smokers give up your unhealthy, filthy, smelly habits and I’ll give up mine.
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idlex, thank god you’re back. (raincoaster)
What happened? I’ve not been reading the thread the past week or so.
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k said:
Yes I agree that passive smoking can be dangerous but it is not as dangerous as Labour would like to make out. Alcohol, on the other hand is a lot more dangerous, yet Labour seem to be doing their best to encourage that…Lets face it Labour have eroded any sense of right and wrong in Britain and replaced it with legal and illegal.
Excellent, K! Thank goodness for your still, small voice of reason on this. xxx
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K-Yes I agree that passive smoking can be dangerous but it is not as dangerous as Labour would like to make out. Alcohol, on the other hand is a lot more dangerous`
K -Passive smoking is dangerous in huge quantities yes but no more so than the traces of toxicity that might be found in the air generally. Richard Dawkin`s complained that in court ,being ,obliged to admit there was a `chance` of an impossible event, he was unable to clarify the difference between chance , ,mathematically and chance significantly. There is chance that all my atoms will simultaneously rush through a worm hole and reform next to you . If I were to pull out a lit cigarette in your fabulous Byzantine palace the chance of it hurting you ,is infinitely more .But still not significant against the general background of chances.
I mention this to de mystify representations of likelihood `Starting point , misleading scale and ad hoc axis are all ways in which normal life can be claimed to be an ongoing crisis. I could quote many examples . I `ll just say speed cameras and growl a bit .
Why would the state want a crisis without end . Same reason as usual from Hitlers Braun haus fire onwards .It is and has always been the propaganda preparation to an extension of control.. King ken today began his police crack down on cyclists meanwhile habeas corpus is being sold to the EU .
I feel there is a significant chance that we are right in the sh…!
( oh agree on alcohol ! if I had one law it would be zero drink if you drive until 25 the death toll is sickening , avoidable and justifies restriction)
AND THALIA
Still Innocent (except of being boring )and feel innocence shines from guilt free contribution .I have nothing to apologise for . Oh happy state.
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Oh blimey why do I even try to be cool. Wrong sodding name. Soz
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All of you non-smokers give up your unhealthy, filthy, smelly habits and I’ll give up mine. (‘Flo)
Welcome to our little smoker’s den. You’ll find me in there, Steven_L, PaulD, and one or two others.
We don’t all think the same way about other issues, but in this matter we are at one.
And the truth of the matter is that anti-smokers generally simply don’t like cigarette smoke, and are largely indifferent to the negligible health risks to themselves. I’ve found this out in furious online exchanges with them on other message boards, where almost without exception they say: “It stinks!”
But once things are banned simply because they are disliked, then the path is open to ban more or less anything and everything. We get along, as you say, through mutual tolerance. Once such tolerance is gone, we cease to get along, and must come into continual conflict with each other about absolutely anything and everything.
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Ok case in point-old ladies can be put in prison for non-payment of debt yet a soldier has just got a suspended sentance for downloading child porn! Seems topsy turvy to me
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Thank God you’re back, Idlex. You say:
Grey areas are repeatedly being rendered black and white. Minor or uncertain dangers are regularly being presented as being major and absolutely certain dangers, and honest disagreement and dissent is dismissed or suppressed in order to create a false unanimity of opinion.
Herein lies the secret of political correctness. The trick is to make a forceful statement like “The welfare of all children is paramount”. Who would dare argue with such a noble pronouncement?
Along comes a thinking person to challenge the intellectual rigour of that claim. Immediately they are labelled as a paedophile / child beater because they won’t agree to it.
Call for doubling of budget, more scare stories, more staff, more meetings, more funding to purge society of this menace…
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K -I have pondered this as I wandered around the garden where I have to go to smoke.I notice that almost uniquely this subject defeats my ability to have any repsonse except revulsion.Not a lot of use I know but a good question I think
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Paul D `Call for doubling of budget, more scare stories, more staff, more meetings, more funding to purge society of this menace…`
There seems to be a bit of agreement on this. Another problem is the ratchett effect in that it is exceedingly difficult to removelaws budgets staff amd empires once they are in place no matter the silly ad hoc excuse.
In Iceland they could at one time not have any more laws than could be remembered by the reader/rememberer . Hence if one was agreed on ,another had to be droppedGood idea except if I got the job they would have to drop almost all of them
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Passive smoking does kill. I know because it bloody nearly killed me aged 7, aged 8, aged 9 aged 22 and left me in chronic pain with permanent lung damage thanks to my ever loving parents’ 60 a day each habit from before my birth until I was 12 and completely screwed. My early years were spent at hospitals with Doctors telling my mother she and my father shouldn’t smoke in the house and my mother lying to them about it while I was on oxygen. It screwed up my life and my education and left me in chronic pain. Even after bronchial pneumonia and a collapsed lung nearly killed me aged 7 and the six month course of heavy duty steroids permanently stunted my growth my parents didn’t stop smoking. That’s addiction for you. You can rationalise anything. My younger sister also developed asthma and chronic lung problems.
My parents gave up smoking when I was 12 because it started to affect their health.
Go ahead, have a good laugh, you are all right Jack it isn’t affecting your health. Yet. Some people are more vulnerable than others. Canary in a coal mine. Too fucking bad for us. Lucky old you.
You don’t want to know the rest of the story, I can tell. There is plenty of research to back my experiences. The great thing about the anti-smoking laws is it doesn’t stop you smoking, it just stops you smoking around me so at least now I can go out to earn a living as best I can. I have lost good jobs because the smoke from other people I was sharing studios with was crippling me.
It does not of course prevent anyone smoking around their children and will not prevent what happened to me and my sister happening to your children.
I believe this thread is about housing.
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Yes welfare of children is paramount. So labour discourage fatness, stop many parents videotaping school plays, ban smacking and take children to court for hurling insults at each other. They also encourage anorexia, make child abuse and dangerous driving low risk crimes(and then wonder why parents drive their children to school), allow supermarkets to stock “sexy” underwear for children, refuse to prosecute violent school bullies, punish schools for expelling said violent bullies etc-feel free to add to my list of labours double standards
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Thalia,
Passive smoking does kill, but so do a lot of things in excess. Lets remember humans are not imortal whether they smoke or not.
I was not saying passive smoking was not dangerous I was pointing out it is not as dangerous as is made out in the popular press. It is also not as dangerous as alcohol, which has destroyed far more lives than passive smoking ever has. Illness from passive smoking also occurs after long term exposure whereas alcohol related deaths and injuries do not require long term exposure to alcohol. remember you had the choice (of sorts-I understand your frustration on this point)to leave jobs where people smoked, you do not get a chance to choose whether or not you will be a victim of a drunk driver.
Of course smoking around children is wrong, but the banning of smoking in bars will only encourage people to smoke at home and hence around thier children who, unlike the adults in the now smoke free bar, do not have the ability to choose to go elsewhere. I do not smoke and if a bar is too smokey for me I will take my custom elsewhere. if all non-smokers did this bars would soon introduce no-smoking policies of their own accord.
What is needed is not knee-jerk legislation, but greater education campaigns and incentives to discourage parents smoking around children so other children do not have to suffer as you and your siblings did.
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K its only a small point bit isn`t discouraging fatness a good thing? I wish I could discourage mine.
I `m more interested in what you say about sexualising children.
To be argumentative (?)haven`t children always copied there mature role models?You obviously feel very strongly and despite rumours to the contrary , I hate being in anyones bad books so please forgive any clumsinessof expression
I have a small(13month) son and I also worry a lot about the dangers he may face. Then , I know if he is to become any sort of man he has to learn to face them
Where do you draw that line?
oooooo yes Google Islington gazette and search post bag top left menu. How to drive your Liberal opponent of 43 up the wall by moi.Called speechless.
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In my view the popular press don’t know the half of it.
I do, I’ve lived it, am living in pain from it, and I’ll probably eventually die from it.
I, and my sister are in the minority,and lots of people, including the government make lots of money out of tobacco so it’s taken decades for anyone to do anything.
Frankly I’m very surprised anti-smoking legislation has got to the point it has, I can only deduce that there is now so much evidence they are more worried about being sued by people like me than they are about losing revenue.
It must be bad.
Thank you for explaining my choices to me “K”. It’s not like I was there or anything.
I did not have a choice to leave the jobs, I could not stay there. That is the point. Choice 1: cripple yourself in great pain while all about you are having fun and end up in hospital again for breathing other peoples smoke. Choice 2:go on the dole. Some choice Honey. I did not get to choose whether or not I wanted to live in pain and suffering all my childhood and have my health, education and prospects wrecked, plus the multiple near death experiences, because my parents smoked. How can you possibly call this my choice?
“greater education campaigns and incentives to discourage parents smoking around children” was what was tried on my parents. They didn’t give a shit.
It is more dangerous than alcohol. Alcohol mostly only affects the drinker unless they are violent or stupid enough to drive. Smoking affects everyone in the house.
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Thalia said:
Passive smoking does kill. I know because it bloody nearly killed me aged 7, aged 8, aged 9 aged 22 and left me in chronic pain with permanent lung damage thanks to my ever loving parents’ 60 a day each .
..Go ahead, have a good laugh, you are all right Jack it isn’t affecting your health. Yet. Some people are more vulnerable than others. Canary in a coal mine. Too fucking bad for us. Lucky old you…I have lost good jobs because the smoke from other people I was sharing studios with was crippling me…It does not of course prevent anyone smoking around their children and will not prevent what happened to me and my sister happening to your children.
I am so sorry to hear about your health problems caused by your parents’ selfishness, Thalia, however, not all smokers are selfish. I don’t smoke in my office or other public places, or near non-smokers, children or otherwise.
Even if you maintain that all smokers are selfish and deserve stigmatisation, which I believe to be unreasonable, it is most unreasonable to exclude other forms of polluting, damaging activity from your categorisation of selfishness, which is what you appear to do.
Drivers and those who fly are selfish, because car exhausts and aviation emissions pollute the air quality of countless numbers of people, considerably deplete our energy resources and damage our environment, our ecology and our planet. I accept that, as I drive, I am selfish. Though as I’ve stopped flying, I am taking some small responsibility for reducing the impact of my personal carbon footprint.
Do you not drive or fly or engage in any other polluting activity? If you do, then you are also guilty of selfishness.
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idlex said:
Welcome to our little smoker’s den. You’ll find me in there, Steven_L, PaulD, and one or two others.
We don’t all think the same way about other issues, but in this matter we are at one.
Thanks, idlex! I’m very pleased to join you. I believe we’ve a right to our smoking den where we harm no one but ourselves. Those who stigmatise us while they continue to tax us to blazes and drive, drink, fly or engage in any of the other polluting, damaging activities – collectively known as human existence – are evading reality.
As for addictions, even tea and coffee are addictive.
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I also am sorry to hear of your condition, Thalia.
However, I wonder how old you are. In my childhood in the 1950s, I believe something like 80% of the adult population were smokers, and that was also true in my family. Smokers, at that time, could and did smoke almost everywhere. However, I don’t remember any of my friends suffering from the kind of chronic lung damage you describe. Also, I might remark, I don’t remember any of my friends being allergic to anything either.
But sometime in the late 1970s, when smoking was already in steep decline, I began to notice that more and more children were suffering from asthma and any number of allergies.
This is, of course, merely my personal experience. But if asthma and allergies have been multiplying in recent decades, it seems to me that smoking is unlikely to be the cause. Instead, it might be the vastly increased traffic on our roads, or any of the various other toxic wastes that pollute our environment, or perhaps something else altogether.
Smoking is now, it seems, the scapegoat upon which nearly all our modern ills are blamed. This is convenient for the state, in that it allows the victim to be blamed for his own disease. But I rather suspect that when the last smoker is hung, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn sometime in the next decade or two, these various maladies will mysteriously endure, and some new scapegoat will need to be found.
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k said:
Yes welfare of children is paramount. So labour discourage fatness, stop many parents videotaping school plays, ban smacking and take children to court for hurling insults at each other. They also encourage anorexia, make child abuse and dangerous driving low risk crimes…etc-feel free to add to my list of labours double standards
The list would be the length of War & Peace. Well said, K. I’m as sick of Nulabs double standards as you are. Not least of these, is this business of creating a two tier State, whereby politicians exempt themselves from much of the punitive legislation they foist on us. Why should they be exempt, while in Parliament, from the ban on smoking in public places? Why should they get away with destroying our pension and retirement rights while giving themselves glittering pension pots and retirement deals? What manner of self delusion makes them believe they’ve the right to extensive, bogus expenses and tax avoidance schemes while locking us in regulatory hell?
Above all else, how dare they conspire to have us watched, spied on, in our cars, on our streets, above our homes and gardens, via our DNA and in virtually every aspect of our existence. There are now even talking cameras, to chastise us, apparently! Roll on the next election, please.
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newmania
I think it is better to encourage healthy eating as opposed to encouraging children to be a particular weight which has cosmetic implications and detracts from the real aim, whih is healthiness. Often a fat person may be healthier than a thin person so it is not a good idea to automatically equate slimness with healthiness. There is no point in being skinny if a child is stuffing their face with chips twice a day and not exercising.
Thalia
i am sorry, but alcohol is more dangerous than smoking. You claim that alcohol only hurts other people if the drinker is violent or stupid, but by the same arguement smoking only effects the smoker unless the smoker is selfish.
Alcohol effects far more than the drinker as any british courtroom can show. And yes your hand may have been forced somewhat, but you still have more choice about where you work than about whether or not you are are the victim of a drink related crime. I quit a job once because I could not stand the smoke, but it was my choice at the end of the day. Nearly all people will have at some point been forced into making a choice because of factors beyond their control. Some people have to refuse jobs because it would mean walking through a bad area on their own in the dark. People with photosensitive-epilepsy cannot work in environments where they might be exposed to strobe lights, reflected light or soemtimes even repeated patterns.
However, I did not say that you had a choice as a child. In fact I made a point of saying that it is children who suffer most from these new laws simply because they do not have the ability to choose unlike adults.
I also have to agree with auntie flo that smoking is not the most harmful pollutant. I have dissected the lungs of non-smokers who lived in cities and smokers who lived in the countryside and it is the city dwelling non-smokers who have the greatest amount of damage to their lungs (although smokers are still at greater risk from lung cancer I think). It is frequently the case that a child who reacts badly to smoking would also react badly to city living. But that is not an excuse for people to smoke around children
Your case is an extreme one, but that was the fault of your parents not all smokers. I do believe in banning smoking in front of children outright, but banning all smoking is discriminating against those who do not harm others, but do help to fund things like the NHS through the tax.
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I have dissected the lungs of non-smokers who lived in cities and smokers who lived in the countryside and it is the city dwelling non-smokers who have the greatest amount of damage to their lungs (although smokers are still at greater risk from lung cancer I think).
How fascinating, k. Are you a coroner or something?
Perhaps you might tell us what smokers’ lungs actually look like inside? According to almost everything I have been told, they are absolutely black, and half filled with tar. However, I have read elsewhere that they are almost indistinguishable from other lungs. Which is it?
And I found that “I think” after your statement that smokers were at greater risk of lung cancer rather surprising. Back in the 1960s, it was almost axiomatic that they were.
My 60s cohort would roll their joints complaining that they had to be made using tobacco, which they regarded as far more dangerous than cannabis. Many of them went on to become regular smokers, and would blame their habit on the tobacco-filled joints they’d smoked in earlier years.
Given this new generation of smokers, I assumed that in time many of them would contract lung cancer, and that I would be attending funerals of cancer-stricken smokers. But it never happened. I have, it seems, no smoker friends who have died of lung cancer, nor, it seems, even friends of friends. And the only people that I do know who died of lung cancer were both non-smokers, and both of those in relatively recent times.
But, again, this is simply my extremely limited personal experience.
But, last year, a little puzzled, I began to do a little bit of online research for raw data on cancer deaths, and turned up a very interesting Swedish study – Cancer Trends During The 20th Century (2002). This appeared to show that the incidence of all cancers had remained roughly stable until about 1945, when it suddenly started rising. And kept on rising. The authors’ conclusion was:
There is a common environmental stress that
accelerates several cancer forms such, as colon cancer, lung cancer,
breast cancer, bladder cancer and malignant melanoma. Every effort
should be taken to identify and eliminate this stress.
Again, this is only one study, although the only study I could find that gave me the kind of raw figures I wanted. But, looking at the data presented, I could only agree with the authors’ conclusions.
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Well exactly.
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IDLEX. You childhood in the 50s eh . You will be pleased to know ( I hope) that your virtual self is youthful and vibrant .. I am 42 and imagined myself dealing with a mustard keen young scholar somewhat more up to date than me.
K all very interesting . you are Queen of social issues in my book.I would like to know some of your sources.How do you know all this ?
Yes , there are dangers and risks , it is the relative importance of them we have to be clear headed about. Otherwise where do you stop and i think myself thatis always the question
20MPH limits(now happening over Borough) by schools . YEs I think . Eveywhere .No I think . Policed by ghastly new surveillance technology (All still true)NO!!!. Another problem with lossof freedoms is the technological ability to police them . Data bases have been mentioned but advances in video allied to computers .Scary and happening.Gallileo . I wonder if i am the only one here who knows what this terrifying EU project is . Not arrogance and I `m probably wrong here but it is true that these developments proceed quietly , to quietly.
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Please Newmania, can you just read what you write before hitting the ‘post’ button? A quick revision of your ‘stream of consciousness’ style of writing might remove the more gross of your grammatical errors and might even make it possible for some of us to understand whatever it is that you’re on about.
Or are you a sad example of the standard of education in Islington?
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Good to see you smoking addicts are so fuddled that you miss the point – so wrapped up in the habit that you start banging on about not being able to smoke in pubs as if it’s of the same moral order as starting a war on spurious grounds, killing thousands of innocent people in a foreign country and leaving your own soldiers there afterwards in great peril, hoping they’ll somehow deal with the impossible mess you’ve created. You might want to clarify your comments if you don’t mean this, but the way you’re arguing suggests that this is precisely what you feel. Get your heads above the clouds of smoke and you might see what’s going on; droning on like this is, I believe, a distraction from the real issues that we have to hammer home.
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Idlex,
No I am not a coronor, but I have studied anatomy. smokers lungs are normally black, but so are the lungs of city dwellers (you know that black stuff you get on walls in industrial areas sometimes-guess whats in your lungs) so they often look the same as other peoples lungs.
cancer is a complicated issue and has a genetic basis hence you get some people who smoke sixty a day without any ill effects and other people become ill through passive smoking. There is no getting away from the fact that smoking is very unhealthy and the best thing anyone could do for their health is give up smoking. However lots of things are unhealthy and people have to be treated like adults and allowed to make their own choices. burnt food and heated up extra virgin olive oil are also carcinogens, but the government does not even see fit to warn about them.
ossie-I am not a smoking addict and do not nor have I ever have smoked and in your tirade against those who you feel are missing the point, you did not mention what you feel the point is.
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Ok, completely off topic, but has anyone seen the speech by Omar Brooke, someone just e-mailed me the link to youtube. basiclly this guy is laughing about the 9/11 and 7/7 bombings and the killings of hostages in Iraq. he is also making lots of not-particulary veiled threats against non-muslims and yet I do not think he has been arrested. Ok yes it was a private speech, but plenty of people have been arrested by the police for making private speechs. many of those arrested have had no complaints made against them and the police have had to spend hours investigating whether or not a crime was committed. Another example of double standards! It is also insulting to muslim people not to arrest him as it encourages the idea that he speaks for them when he clearly does not.
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K – I’ve been saying what I feel the main point is for the last three e.mails sent to this site: that this banging on about smoking is a distraction from the government’s real weak points. Blair must love it, because it diffuses the focus on his disgraceful record over Iraq, immigration, health and education (I think the word ‘lies’ was bandied about earlier).
Having said that, I’m chastened (OK, horrified) to see in today’s Telegraph that Boris Johnson now seems to think there’s going to be mass civil disobedience inspired by things like the compulsory use of car seats for children. So the man I’ve pointed out as one of our main hopes for leading this pointed attack on the government is dissolving into irrelevancy as well – and I don’t accept the “it’s an infringment on my freedom to let my child do what he wants in my car” argument – does Boris think it’s a good idea to drive down the motorway without seatbelts on his children, as I noticed he was caught doing the other day? Face it – we’re not going to punch holes in the government on the issue of car seats, sorry Boris – I hate the nanny state and what Brussels is doing to our ancient English laws, but I won’t be rioting in Parliament Square over my child having to sit in a car seat…
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Ossie – there will always be one issue “more important” than another (in someone’s opinion).
The point you miss is Labour’s attitude to smokers is indicative of a state of mind that spills over into so many other policy areas.
For the record, as a smoker I believe
1. I shouldn’t annoy other people with the habit.
2. I shouldn’t smoke in front of children.
3. Staff should be entitled to a smoke-free workplace, except where they agree to work in pubs.
4. Pubs, hotels etc should be at liberty to provide a well-ventilated smoking room for customers if they want to.
The Spanish and French are coming to a sensible compromise on this. Why can’t we? Spain and France once had Franco and Napoleon as dictators. We now have New Labour.
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Excellent, Ossie! The wonderfully confused irrationality of your last posting about smokers could not be a more classic example of the primeval responses and and moral panics I referred to in a previous posting,even if it was designed to be so. You’ve fallen into all the traps, false logic and spurious arguments you accuse us smokers here of falling into. Wish I’d time to reply properly – will do later.
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Quite frankly, after a hundred comments, virtually every thread on this site devolves into an endless argument about smoking and if you don’t believe me, check the archives.
One more day till the Torygraph article gets posted here; that’s some relief anyway.
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Raincoaster
Actually the telegraph article has the same basis-the instalation of laws under the guise of protecting us that have little real impact accept on our wallets. This time it is car seats because it is easier for the government to make parents put kids in car seats than tackle dangerous drving(ok this time europe made them but tough they wanted to be part of europe so they can accept the blame). It should not take long before that discussion turns to the banning of smoking.
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Chris, I appreciate your constructive criticism which is well deserved. I `m afraid the inadequacies of the educational system here (ultimately down to ultra witch Margaret Hodge) are near the top of my `Don’t get me started list ` so I `I’ll spare you that. Mine was reasonably good education , so the entire blame falls on my head. Worse still,I have a degree in English Literature and understand all to well the ghastly chore of reading James Joyce in his `Stream of Consciousness` phase. More consideration of others is required and as I greatly enjoy the lucidity of you all, I `ll do my best.
As you have identified I have been fighting the local Liberals here for a while and thinking on your words clarifies a decision, many London parents have to make. The decision to leave. I was most fortunate in obtaining a Council grant to attend St. Albans School years ago… Had I not, there was an excellent grammar and by today’s standards the secondary moderns were fine institutions. With a growing family I will have to use the state schools here and that is not going to happen. This is not snobbery but if I tell you that the Labour party campaigned on the basis of handing the running of our schools to Camden it will give you an idea of the state of things.
Previously was it THALIA who identified this flight from London? This is the main reason ,and I will be joining the exodus. What a sad comment on the treatment of ordinary people in the Capital. We get the double whammy of Blair and Livingstone and by voting with our feet we leave them the field.
There have been complaints that original thread has been mislaid, well not by me on this occasion. Flight from Labour controlled areas is exactly why the Conservative party have such a low ratio of seats to votes. This is precisely why Labour are so desperate to avoid the electoral consequences of this “foot ` voting by delaying and fudging the boundary commission’s work. This was, in my opinion one of the very best Boris articles and to me it is like the book with which big brother’s agent catches Winston Smith. It says all the things you have suspected and believed but says it so much better.
Of the `lucid contributors` K is on great form . Tremendous stuff and with a nice sense of balance.
Hope you will bear with me
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Guys, listen – I don’t care if you all smoke yourselves to death and I don’t care if you do it in pubs, outside pubs, in the privacy of your own home or whatever. But think carefully about your replies – you’re going on about smoking, and I’m trying to get it off that subject. Smoking is just, well, a smokescreen; car seats are just a distraction. Indeed, the numbers are against you. Fewer than half the people of this country smoke; and I’d argue that the ones with kids are terrified about the safety of those kids and aren’t about to storm Parliament in order to win the right not to put them in car seats. The fact is, you’re not going to whip up enormous anti-government feeling over either of these issues. But you are wasting a lot of energy over them, and allowing the big issues to be clouded over…
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Ossie, that people are interested in one issue is no reason to conclude that they’re not interested in another. This thread isn’t actually for the discussion of either smoking OR the UK’s descent into futile and immoral wars, so it’s silly of you to take people to task for not staying on your off-topic.
There are plenty of forums, and plenty of posts right here, that relate to your point. Find them. (I’m only sparing the smokers because I’ve given them this sort of lecture several times).
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Quite frankly, after a hundred comments, virtually every thread on this site devolves into an endless argument about smoking and if you don’t believe me, check the archives. (raincoaster)
What archives?
And it’s simply not true that virtually every thread devolves into an endless argument about smoking. If you don’t believe me, check the archives.
If the issue regularly arises, it is simply because there is real social division about the matter, with strong feelings on both sides.
Such disagreements fuel discussion. Where all are agreed on some matter, there is little or nothing to discuss. If we aren’t all discussing the Iraq war, as Ossie seems to think we should be, it is probably because we mostly agree that it is a foolish, tragic, and quite possibly disastrous enterprise.
Although, no doubt, someone will promptly disagree.
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`If the issue regularly arises, it is simply because there is real social division about the matter, with strong feelings on both sides.`
Well said that Idlex !It is often the little things that are in there way the most telling .
I bumbled along for many years feeling alienated from most of my trendy London chums because I am and always have been a main stream Conservative. However I didn`t do anything about it until the Coucil took my parking space away. I would love to tell the story (another time)
Two years later I would say I am probably the best known activist in the area. As I said to my brother . Isn`t it strange one minute I`m fuming about the Parking scam the next you find yourself thinking `….and while we`re at it what exactly are we doing in Europe because I`ve had enough!!`
To pretend that `World Peace `matters more than my childrens schools is exactly the sort of humbug and cant I cannot abide . Unfortunately , in my house, I decide on who should run the country and my wife decides where our children will go to school.
( Old one I know)
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Guys – this thread started out with an apparently juicy attack on the government’s gerrymandering . That’s a serious issue and one I wanted to talk about. I’ve never said we should only talk about the Iraq war of the lies about WMDs, only that it’s absurd to put them on the same level as a ban on smoking in public houses (that was your point, Idlex, not mine). I entered this thread purely because I was fed up with distractions about Paul Newman; and then about the above topic. I know the beauty of these things is that we explore all manner of different avenues, but this thread has been extraordinary for where it’s gone, and half the 300 or so comments have been either very strange, very irrelevant or mischievously and wilfully intent on distracting us from thereal issues. But before you accuse me of being a one-issue man, please read beack over what I’ve been saying… I’ll defend to the death your right to go on about smoking bans, but it doesn’t mean I have to agree that it helps a discussion on boundary commissions or government skulduggery…
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It is often the little things that are in there way the most telling. (newmania)
Particularly if they personally impact upon oneself, as did your lost parking space. Then it all starts getting personal.
In some ways, it might be said that all discussions are either about private or public matters. To the degree that they are matters of public interest, we generally adopt a detached and even philosophical attitude. And to the degree that they are matters of private concern, we are engaged and enraged.
Guys – this thread started out with an apparently juicy attack on the government’s gerrymandering. (Ossie)
These threads are conversational, Ossie. Boris’ role, I sometimes think, is that of a football referee, who hands the ball to one team, and blows the whistle to start the game. What happens after that is anybody’s guess.
The same is true of ordinary everyday conversation. I’ve never known any conversation end up anywhere near where it started.
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You will be pleased to know ( I hope) that your virtual self is youthful and vibrant .. I am 42 and imagined myself dealing with a mustard keen young scholar somewhat more up to date than me. (newmania)
It may simply be that, as one grows older, one tends to hold more settled opinions, and has perhaps also learned how to express them, and has encountered many differing ones.
I spent most of my youth in a state of confusion. And, looking back, I think that fairly well describes most of the people I knew. We were all rather confused.
But, around the age of 30 or so, the mist somehow began to lift a little. I think far more clearly now than I did back then.
But no way clearly enough, of course.
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‘Although, no doubt, someone will promptly disagree’ (Idlex)
I disagree! Bush snr and Clintons disasterous policy of bringing Iraq to its knees through 10 years of sanctions and bombing sortie’s left Bush jnr little or no alternative but regime change.
Iran was becoming too powerful thanks to Putin’s decision to start re-arming the Ayatollahs and put them on a sophisticated nuclear program.
If we have just left Iraq to rot Iran may have sponsored a shiite uprising. If we had lifted the sanctions Saddam would have been so mad with us after we had spent years bombing him that he would never have come to heel.
In retrospect Clinton shouldn’t have sanctioned Iraq, he should have armed them again on the proviso that if they attack Israel, Kuwait or Saudi Arabia Baghdad gets severely bombed.
If Iraq does descend into civil war now who do we support? The Iranian sponsored shiites who want an Islamic theocracy? Or the Syrian sponsored Ba’athist Sunni’s who want separation of church and state?
We’ll probably end up helping out the Sunni Ba’athists (covertly of course), back to square one, and all the result of 15 years of bad foreign policy, not just the last 3 years.
Who’s benefitted? Iran and the other gulf states, no-one else.
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From the intor – letting the market work does not mean forcing people to move to Yorkshire it means allowing builders to build houses free from most of the bureaucratic restraints that mean we are replacing less than 1% of housing stock annually. House prices are going up because we have prevented the demand side of the supply & demand curve working.
This is both painful to ordinary people but worse, unnecesarily painful.
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Neil is correct; also the social stigma to living in flats compounds the problem.
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