Wanderer Vagabond

For a so called serious question, it isn't phrased particularly well. No I don't like Putin, I have no particular opinion on Russia because one does not lead to the other. I despise Trump but that doesn't mean that I despise America. Putin is the leader of a government for whom opponents seem to suffer unfortunate 'accidents', like being poisoned by Polonium, what is there to like about him? Regarding the aircraft there may be facile speculation in some dubious media, I'd tend to go with the evidence from the Dutch Safety Board and Joint Investigation Team (JIT) who examined the aircraft remains and have irrefutable proof that the aircraft was hit by high velocity fragments from a Russian made 9N314M-type warhead which is normally fired from a BUK missile system. The area below the the hit aircraft system was Ukranian territory controlled by pro-Russian separatists. Since it was only the Separatists that were trying to down aircraft (they didn't have their own aircraft for the Ukranian military to be targeting) there is no reason at all to believe the crap put out by RT. The missile that downed the plane was not an air to air missile, it came from the ground which was held by the separatists. I do accept that it was most likely an accidental shooting down of the aircraft, but I do not accept that the separatists didn't fire the missile and only unthinking people willing to unquestioningly accept propaganda would do so.

If people choose to work for Murdoch, that is a risk that they take. My hatred of Murdoch is because of the undue power that he wields over both New Labour and the Tories, if he wants political power he should get himself elected (but of course he isn't a British citizen so he can't) not sneak in through the back door (of number 10 Downing Street).

But we're not going to lose jobs by leaving the EU are we??? What happened to those 'sunny uplands'?

Interestingly I held much the same view of RT until their reporting of the downing of flight MH17 over the Ukraine, after that I only see them as a mouthpiece of the Kremlin. The 'reporting' had nothing factual merely fairy story assertions of how the Ukranians themselves had probably shot the aircraft down ignoring any fact to the contrary. I should say that I do in fact believe that the downing of the aircraft was a genuine accident but the stupid conspiracy theories put up by RT would have made Trump proud. This idea that they report things 'as they are' and leave viewers to make their own mind up is pure fallacy. They give you the accepted Kremlin version. As I said I did originally take them to be a genuine news source, after MH17 they have a lot to do to repair the damage they did to their reputation (I'm not even sure that they can).

Greeenie for that, it does pretty much sum up the problem of TV today (I no longer have one since I wont pay for a licence when there is probably only a couple of programmes a month that I could be bothered to watch). This guy pretty much stated the case from the US 25 years ago

The big attraction for me of the EU is the quote attributed to Murdoch who complained that when he went to Brussels they ignored him, when he regularly goes into 10 Downing Street (under both New Labour and the Tories) they listen to him and act on his concerns. Why, is beyond me. I'm still not a massive fan of Corbyn but if he stated categorically that if elected to PM he'd tell Murdoch do one, I'd vote for him just for that 'policy' (I haven't voted Labour in decades). I'd even suffer the loss of jobs if Murdoch was told to pack up all his UK businesses and go somewhere else, the man is a parasite.

Rupert Murdoch (both parties)

Rather sadly I believe that we have passed into the post-truth era, facts seem to be whatever people want them to be. I would go as far as to say that people would rather go with emotion rather than anything factual since an emotional decision, by definition, cannot be wrong. To see a master of this you only need to watch Trump playing his supporters, no facts involved there at all, just pure venomous emotion. I personally prefer the line from C.P. Scott,"Comment is free but facts are sacred", but I'm clearly in the minority.

Why not? brexiteers blame the EU for all our ills surely we're allowed to reciprocate?

Is that similar to a proper English arm waving fuss should my narrow-boat unfortunately make any form of contact with a shiny plastic boat in a lock? Your xenophobia against the French suggests that you don't actually know any, merely that you read too much Daily Wail. If I see someone who proposes to carry out a manouvre that looks like it may not be successful am I going to step in and assist so that I can carry some of the blame when it does go wrong? I'd advise against it but after such advice, then the choice is theirs, I'm not getting involved in a potentially risky manoeuvre, and if your choice is to do so then more fool you. This manoevre was in a fairly strong current (you don't get many of them on canals you know!) and if unsuccessful could have resulted in damaged rudders, pulpits, etc. As it happened, it didn't, due to the skill of the boatman.

This is all very well, but taking the example that you use, the NHS. How has this incompetent Government 'improved things' (disregarding any Brexit arguments). They've thoroughly p*ssed off the junior doctors and abolished nursing bursaries so that nurses now have to pay to train themselves (up to degree standard) and once qualified just earn enough to start having to repay their student loan back to the incompetent Student Loans Company who remit is now to screw the students for all that they can (penalty payments for frivolous reasons, poor tracking of just how much the student have paid from their loans, continuing to take payments (via HMRC) even once the loans are paid off). This paying for your own training is becoming a recurrent theme in industry since it can become a nice little earner for the company concerned. Capita are a good example of this, they take people on without pay to train them for 16 weeks in roles that are pretty much exclusive to Capita (so no real transferable skills) and then if the poor sucker decides that they don't want to be taken for a ride, Capita impose a 'training fee' of £21,000 if they try to leave the course once they've joined. Now bear in mind that for this wonderful 4 month course from Capita you have to finance yourself say £500 a month for a shared room somewhere and the same again for living costs (these 'training opportunities' are in London and Manchester so you are paying city prices) and of course being in 'employment' you don't qualify for any benefit so for the 'privilege' of working for Capita you have to find about £4000 to enjoy their 'training' I will agree that lack of training in industry has been a problem for decades and isn't just down to this (or even the previous Government), but the forlorn hope that British Industry are suddenly going to get a conscience about it after Brexit and start proper training is whistling in the wind. What they will probably do if they cannot import the cheap labour to do the jobs, will be to export the jobs to where the cheap labour is.

Your excitement over UK training seems to be rather misplaced. To begin with your proposal that the number of eastern european workers is reducing isn't necessarily that great. It probably means that they have got sick of listening to people telling 'johnny foreigner' to go home and are now doing precisely that. If I were eastern european I think I'd probably do the same and go to a country appreciating my skills. In terms of UK training, you need to have a look at the government privatised flagship, Learndirect responsible for 73,000 apprenticeships (not some poxy couple of dozen at McLaren building cars that only the elite can afford). They have recently been subject to an OFSTED report which grades their courses as crap. There is every likelihood of them going into administration now since, following the report, the government has now withdrawn support for them. That is the reality of training in the UK, we have always underinvested. A south london school has had to withdraw Engineering from it's available course because the government curriculum in the area is obsessed with the baccalaureate which has no place for practical skills

Unsurprisingly, you totally failed to answer the question asked,so to help you out I'll post it again. Is 'nothing happening' as alleged by nb Innisfree? or are things getting worse and we have to live with it? As I pointed out the last time I asked, the two positions are mutually exclusive. (I expect you to avoid the question again so if you answer it I'll be pleasantly surprised)

I think that we are getting a bit of inconsistency in our (your!) arguments here. The response from Phoenix V was partially in reply to the post above from nb Innisfreee in which he claimed that 'nothing will happen', as I pointed out to him stuff is already happening and Phoenix verified this from personal experience. So are you agreeing with Innisfree that nothing has happened? or are you saying that things are getting worse and we have to live with it? The two positions are incompatible with one another.

Not sure whether you read the description properly, the boats who didn't look keen were already moored two abreast from the pontoon, even had they taken his bow and stern line they would then have had to pass them to someone on the boat alongside them to then pull his boat sideways into the pontoon. Basically with a current flowing he managed to put his boat sideways into a double banked mooring up against the pontoon. They did show appreciation of his ability when the manoeuvre was completed, (the French are quite impressed by skilled boat handling). Like I said neither I, nor anyone else would be able to do it with a 60 foot narrowboat, I don't care how good they are.