simmo
Senior Jockey
Wanna bet. I've dealt with them on numerous things and know that this is how they work. Councillors will tell you the same thing.
Brexit
- Thread starter icebreaker
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Wanna bet. I've dealt with them on numerous things and know that this is how they work. Councillors will tell you the same thing.
simmo
Senior Jockey
I think he is advocating nuking a lesser German city in order to remind Germany that they are not allowed to have any nuclear weaponsdue to their proclivity for starting world wars. Whilst showing them film of Nazi's goose-stepping their way up the Champs Elysee.
Whilst it doesn't entirely fit the bill, I'd suggest that Schengen could be considered a suitable target and may have the unintended consequence of persuading the French to surrender before it's begun.
There's no hard and fast rule. You get what are called 'member led' authorities, and you also get 'officer led' authorities. Basically different authorities exhibit different traits. I've come across authorities where the senior executives live in absolute terror of the political leadership and dutifully obey every last dot and comma of what they're told to do. I've also come across others where the political leader is little more than a puppet. The variable factor tends to be the political leadership. Ultimately, the political leader has the power to hire and fire chief executives. The extent to which they exercise their own executive final word defines the relationship
Equally, there's no hard and fast rule as to which works best. It really depends on the calibre of a small number of indviduals.
It's not massively different either to the relationship that exists in government between permanent secretaries and ministers. Some ministers will lean heavily on their civil servants and take their advice, others see the civil service as the enemy within. The big difference is the minister can't sack the civil servant like they can council Chiefs or Directors (albeit they might succeed in getting them seconded to another department). The westminster politician frustrated by whitehall tends instead to find alternatives such as bucket loads of SPAD's or rely on sympathetic 'policy think tanks' (not untypically crewed by their university chums)
simmo
Senior Jockey
Might be different in Scotland - I've had conversations with Council leaders in Scotland where they have advised me that they have no power to do anything and the only person who does is the Chief Executive.
And the only grounds on which a complaint against a council will be upheld by the SPSO (Scottish Public Service Ombudsman), is if they have broken one of their own policies. If they have no policy on a subject, then they cannot be found at fault. This led to a discussion which went remarkably close to this
Me: "What if they started shooting people, would the SPSO regard that as something that they should reprimand a council for?"
SPSO: "That would be a police matter, not one for the SPSO"
Me: "But would the SPSO act if a complaint was made about such a thing"
SPSO: "No. We can only act if the council has broken their own policies. We would advise the complainant to contact the police"
Me: "So essentially what you appear to be telling me is that a local council can do anything they want as long as it doesn't break the law or is done in a manner contrary to policies which they themselves can decide upon?"
SPSO: "I'm afraid so".
I can see just how this would have panned out
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That doesn't make sense. List the prerequisites for a functioning state and then tick those that would collapse without the eu
I think that's called a 'Ninja edit' Clive
Well there's clearly a lot of context missing to your transcript, and it does sound is if there's a likely sub-text to it. The only observation I'd make is that I've seen loads of situations where politicians have either over-ruled or brought undue pressure on officer/ executive decisions. I've also seen lots of incidents where the politician privately agrees with the decision, but doesn't want to admit doing so and risk voter backlash. In these cases they often blame the executive and use them as lightning conductors (whilst apologising the moment the door shuts).
Having said that, things are different in Scotland as I believe most stuff falls under the 2003 Act (and the 1001 ammendments made to it since). It would be a mistake for you to think that what you've experienced in Scotland is replicated across the rest of the country, and I note that you've walked back the "UK" and turned it into Scotland now. Having said that, the power of the Ombudsmen isn't as strong as urban myth would have us believe it is.
The most recent trend over the last two decades as local authorities moved first to a cabinet structure and full time paid councillors, and more latterly directly elected city Mayors, has been for elected members to become the more influential. You tend to find officer led authorities are more common in district councils
I'm not personally sure which the best structure is in truth. An autocratic politician who doesn't know what they're doing, or who finds themselves having to pander to a small minority in order to defend perilous electoral mathematics can be incredibly damaging. Control very often is best invested in the full time executive. Having said that, get a good, dynamic, and connected politician and they'll out perform the executive. It really depends on the calibre of key individuals and how their leadership filters into the organisational culture
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Grasshopper
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Is this a serious question?
Clearly, if you choose to have a multi-State entity, it is going to be more efficient to have a single structure (that all States participate in) to govern it, than attempt to have each State assimilate and integrate into that system State-by-State.
Any suggestion otherwise is bone-headed.
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im not sure what this I supposed to be about but democracy works regardless of how the structures are set up. It's not a perfect system but it's miles better than the alternatives
not so many years ago every seat in my local council was lib dem. Every single one. Now it's run (extremely well) by the conservatives with quite a big majority. None of this was due to national trends but purely down to the lib dems being pretty useless and acting as if they would never be removed from power
the lib dems like perhaps the Scottish Labour Party believed they were unbeatable. Complacent power or a total lack of accountability inevitably brings about poor governnace
which brings us back to the eu
Grasshopper
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Which brings us back to the question of exactly how bad has the Commission been for the UK?
There is a lot said about "laws made in Europe", as if they are punitive, but where is the evidence that this is the case?
Isn't it more accurate to define EU laws passed down to the UK, as generally progressive, and almost wholly benign? The Leave campaign are trying to paint the Commission as some sort of super-elite, forcing laws we don't want down our throats against our will. Which laws are they talking about?
There is a lot said about "laws made in Europe", as if they are punitive, but where is the evidence that this is the case?
Isn't it more accurate to define EU laws passed down to the UK, as generally progressive, and almost wholly benign? The Leave campaign are trying to paint the Commission as some sort of super-elite, forcing laws we don't want down our throats against our will. Which laws are they talking about?
im not greatly concerned about what's gone before but more with the present structure and intentions. If you were a shareholder in a company where you believed that the management were taking or intending to take the business in the wrong direction you would sell your shares.
and even if your shareholding had somehow not been affected by clueless past policy (euro shitwen) you would again sell your shares
many businesses will claim that there are many rules which are sapping and anti enterprise. I don't know the details so won't comment.
and even if your shareholding had somehow not been affected by clueless past policy (euro shitwen) you would again sell your shares
many businesses will claim that there are many rules which are sapping and anti enterprise. I don't know the details so won't comment.
It's about a technocracy Clive. On a national scale its what Italy introduced when Mario Monti was installed as Prime Minister. The problem with the democratic structure in poor stewardship is the period of transition and the damage done during it. That's why you have a double negative in your argument; it works, because when it doesn't we can change it. It works better of course if it doesn't fail in the first place, and that's always assuming that the electorate have the where for all to work out what's happening and change it (can't be guaranteed).
Simmo would be right to say that there are technocratic local authorities operating in the UK, (that's not to say they're rife mind you, and he over-stated their number), but they can perform a valuable role by way of safety net, and for the most part the voters will be totally unaware of their existance. Equally the civil service will also perform this role periodically when they're subjected to a less able minister. To pretend that they don't and its some big happy clappy democracy is naive
In a local authority the frequency with which you encounter these arrangements is greater due to the wider capability disparity between the full time and experienced executive coming up against community volunteers who attend meetings once every fortnight and are required to make informed decisions providing they've read and understood their briefings.
Europe is a roll out of this, but since you're dealing with council of ministers and heads of states rather than the chair of the parks and leisure committee, you would rather hope that you're starting to encounter a higher level calibre politician by now. There shouldn't be as much need for the bureaucracy to back-stop the political layering, but as the Italians demonstrated, sometimes intervention against the democracy is necessary, and there's already folk speculating how quickly they can impeach a President Trump
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Impeaching is an entirely different matter
not interested in specific examples or exceptions to the rule . Yes hitler Hamas and Chavez were elected. But It is simple logic which anyone should understand. There is far more risk of poor and corrupt governance when there is no accountability than when there is accountability (China is the time bomb here)
i don't understand what is difficult to understand about that
not interested in specific examples or exceptions to the rule . Yes hitler Hamas and Chavez were elected. But It is simple logic which anyone should understand. There is far more risk of poor and corrupt governance when there is no accountability than when there is accountability (China is the time bomb here)
i don't understand what is difficult to understand about that
It's a false equivalent Clive.
You can wake up one morning, take a view on your shareholding, and sell it within minutes. You can't do the same with a government. You can decide that you're going to vote against them, but you still have to wait for the clock to tick round and hope everyone else has come to the same conclusion
Yes but you never mentioned anything about trying to bring about a change of managerial direction did you? If that's what you were trying to do, then you retain your shareholding in order to try and extract some leverage over the board and begin some kind of campaign, quite probably joining a co-ordinated action with other like minded shareholders. That would be a decision equivalent to remaining in the EU and pursuing this illusive 'reform through influence from within' agenda
Your description was much more that of someone taking the decision to get themselves out of the arrangement and run for cover before the shareholding goes toxic.
Now you could say that option exists, but emigration is the equivalent of the sale (removing yourself from the exposure).
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Forget the Far East warbler. It will never replace Europe and this is my biggest issue with brexit. Trade will not really change significantly but it's still an enormous market for us. In fact only Germany and. Netherlands have a trade surplus with the U.K.
China is somewhere to buy from. Not to trade with. The place is a corrupt nightmare. Japan shuts it's doors and India makes the eu look like the leanest sme
i read yesterday that we actually export more services to Luxembourg than India. That's telling
for all the failures of the eurozone, Russia is in a (very welcome) decline and Brazil is in trouble
China is somewhere to buy from. Not to trade with. The place is a corrupt nightmare. Japan shuts it's doors and India makes the eu look like the leanest sme
i read yesterday that we actually export more services to Luxembourg than India. That's telling
for all the failures of the eurozone, Russia is in a (very welcome) decline and Brazil is in trouble
I see that the poiltical heavyweight and sometime cricketer Ian Botham has been recruited by the Leave campaign
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36413695
Terrific insight there Ian
I, for one, would really like to know David Cameron's views on Reverse Swing, the LBW law and the Duckworth-Lewis Method before polling day
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36413695
Terrific insight there Ian
I, for one, would really like to know David Cameron's views on Reverse Swing, the LBW law and the Duckworth-Lewis Method before polling day
icebreaker
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The latest ORB poll this morning indicates a slash in the lead of Remain over Exit from 13% down to 5%. Significant, no?
Surely immigration is the real big issue -- and the last few days incidents are a driver in this reduction?
Surely immigration is the real big issue -- and the last few days incidents are a driver in this reduction?
icebreaker
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Genuinely gents, is the organisation below a legitimate outfit, does anyone know?
Because their online polling results are just extraordinary -- 83% for Leave ???? :blink:
Nah, it must be Kipper bots in overdrive or something else dodgy .............
http://www.pollstation.uk/eu-referendum/poll/
Because their online polling results are just extraordinary -- 83% for Leave ???? :blink:
Nah, it must be Kipper bots in overdrive or something else dodgy .............
http://www.pollstation.uk/eu-referendum/poll/
I think its evidence of noise, and lack of conviction. I suspect that people like myself who hold something akin to 52/48 position are probably much more numerous in this vote than they are in other more established structures. Basically we're leaning one way, but not particularly strongly, and could still be talked down. Having said that, when in doubt on foreign policy the best thing to do is check out what William Hague thinks. Whatever he says, do the opposite, 9 times out of 10 you'll be right, and Hague has reversed his view it appears and decided to throw in with the 'remain' campaign