UK Politics Thread V: Upon This Blasted Heath

[South Park Labourite]

I am not British but if I were I would probably support The Labour Party. As far as I know they are the only party which will support the trans community and redistribute the wealth to create a responsible society, they are the only progressives.

Labour aren't the only progressives and I say that as a Labour Party member. The Liberal Democrats and the Greens both have adopted policies that in some cases are more progressive than Labour.

Trot.

[Tananat]

Boers are inbred as well you know right? Do you support limiting Boer immigration if they were persecuted (which they are not)?

I'd need to see some evidence, i'm not aware of it, but if it were the case, then yes, probably. I'd also need to see statistics on their social attitudes and crime rates and such. I don't hide the fact that i'm opposed to immigration from communities that are opposed to LGBT rights and gender equality.

Would that include LGBT people from those countries?

[The Huskar Social Union]

Labour aren't the only progressives and I say that as a Labour Party member. The Liberal Democrats and the Greens both have adopted policies that in some cases are more progressive than Labour.

Trot.

[Tananat]

Labour aren't the only progressives and I say that as a Labour Party member. The Liberal Democrats and the Greens both have adopted policies that in some cases are more progressive than Labour.

Trot.

Can't hear you over all the campaigning I did with noted Trot Ben Bradshaw's team at the general.

[HMS Vanguard]

You know there are countries where ethnic Africans and ethnic Chinese both live under the same laws and with the same institutions and with (compared to the transnational comparison) very similar and uniformly high incomes?

And the vast majority of migrants wont be from those countries.

Sure. The fact that the differences persist in those countries does make it highly likely that those differences are biological.

OECD data shows that in some countries immigrant test scores continue to be depressed at the second generation relative to natives while in others second generation immigrant test scores exceed native test scores. The former countries are ones that have taken lots of Africans and Middle Easterners and the latter countries are ones that have taken a lot of Chinese.

[Imperializt Russia]

Influencing less than a fifth of the Leave voters is being more responsible than any other person?

Farage took UKIP from getting less than 7% of the seats in the EU election in 2004 to winning it in 2014; he's the reason there was a referendum, albeit only because David Cameron shit the bed about him stealing the Tory back bench.

It is unarguable that he is a Great political figure just like Thatcher was in the seventies into eighties. You don't have to think he's Good to think that.

It's pretty arguable.

But you've made my point for me. He's not why we got a referendum. It's because of Cameron. Not just because he actually legislated for it, because it was because of a very Tory falling out that pushed him to it. UKIP itself certainly wasn't relevant, certainly not centrally.

So why is the government ignoring the majority's call for Soft Brexit?

Some democracy.

I'm sorry, but that's irrelevant to the point.
I am saying Farage secured a massive display of democracy in this country, and a massive democratic event, and for that the country owes him a debt.

How democratic the "never before seen" display of "massive democracy" is not relevant to being a massive display of democracy worthy of a peerage.








Okay.

[South Park Labourite]

This definition is wrong. Trot is defined as anyone to the left of me. However every moderate also thinks that, so I'm a trot to some people.

[South Park Labourite]

Trot.

Can't hear you over all the campaigning I did with noted Trot Ben Bradshaw's team at the general.

omg he's such a bae .

[Imperializt Russia]

This definition is wrong. Trot is defined as anyone to the left of me. However every moderate also thinks that, so I'm a trot to some people.

"urban dictionary .com"

I wonder if that could possibly have anything to do with the definition given there being wholly incorrect.

[South Park Labourite]

This definition is wrong. Trot is defined as anyone to the left of me. However every moderate also thinks that, so I'm a trot to some people.

"urban dictionary .com"

I wonder if that could possibly have anything to do with the definition given there being wholly incorrect.

You're to the left of me, yes? Clearly you're a SWP entryist on NSG.

[Eastfield Lodge]

This definition is wrong. Trot is defined as anyone to the left of me. However every moderate also thinks that, so I'm a trot to some people.

We're all Trots according to Vanguard. Even Lamadia is a Trot (can't wait to see her reaction to that).

[Ifreann]

Labour aren't the only progressives and I say that as a Labour Party member. The Liberal Democrats and the Greens both have adopted policies that in some cases are more progressive than Labour.

Trot.

Canter?

[South Park Labourite]

This definition is wrong. Trot is defined as anyone to the left of me. However every moderate also thinks that, so I'm a trot to some people.

We're all Trots according to Vanguard. Even Lamadia is a Trot (can't wait to see her reaction to that).

Trottiness is a spectrum, as we all know.

[The Huskar Social Union]

We're all Trots according to Vanguard. Even Lamadia is a Trot (can't wait to see her reaction to that).

Trottiness is a spectrum, as we all know.

The true question is, are you a lefty trot, or a righty trot.

Or one of those bastard top trots.

[South Park Labourite]

Also, in contrast to Socialist Party and the SWP, everyone knows that the AWL are basically just revolutionary tories.

[Hydesland]

Bullshit. This idea that the FTSE indices are unrelated to the health of the UK economy is purely a Remain invention of the past 3 months.

They're not unrelated, but it's always boosted by depreciation - so it's very hard to disentangle any info in this case.

That doesn't make any sense. Productivity determines how much is produced, which determines prices.

In economics, productivity is how efficiently things are produced. I.e. how much output you get for given 'units' of capital and labour, there is no reason this efficiency would be affected immediately at all. Y

No.

You can't think of any theories that link investment to employment, really?

What you are saying now is that although their predictions were wrong, and were less accurate than those of the political Leave campaign, it's possible that this was due to chance rather than incompetence. OK, I will share that ground with you.

The predictions weren't wrong at all, in fact I just said the economy is tracking those predictions well. I've never seen such ridiculous gaslighting regarding a previous post.

I said nothing happened to GDP or unemployment. I do expect increased trade barriers would reduce the value of the pound, at least in the short run.

No, you said nothing happened for 6 - 12 months, you did not specify GDP/employment.

Sure, people with a specific interest in FX discussed how Brexit might affect FX. The mainstream media did not lead with articles about FX.

Goldman Sachs hires experts, these people are experts. Almost all experts predicted the pound would decline, the pound declined.

Right and if I say an asteroid might hit earth before you read this post, there's really no reason to see that prediction as less than perfect because I also said it might not happen. Great.

If an astronomer says an incoming asteroid might hit earth, but it might not. Then we blow it out of the sky with rockets, I will not call that astronomer a fraud.

What knowledge do "experts" add? When have they been right when others have been wrong? If they are very often wrong but admit that their predictions are highly likely to be wrong, why do you talk as if "expert" predictions should be taken seriously, rather than treated as speculation?

Uh, what?

[Vassenor]

You're right. We don't need experts. We've got Michael Gove's STRONGLY HELD OPINIONS™ which never change and are never wrong.

Unless he wants to be an asskisser and say that a thing he thought was a bad idea is suddenly the greatest idea in history now that his boss wants to do it.

[HMS Vanguard]

Bullshit. This idea that the FTSE indices are unrelated to the health of the UK economy is purely a Remain invention of the past 3 months.

They're not unrelated, but it's always boosted by depreciation - so it's very hard to disentangle any info in this case.

It is not. If the domestic economy were predicted to go down, the index would lose value in pre-vote pounds.

That doesn't make any sense. Productivity determines how much is produced, which determines prices.

In economics, productivity is how efficiently things are produced. I.e. how much output you get for given 'units' of capital and labour, there is no reason this efficiency would be affected immediately at all. Y

Well quite.

No.

You can't think of any theories that link investment to employment, really?

Low unemployment is a result of correct pricing of labour. It doesn't matter if labour is priced low in absolute terms: you can still have full employment. Investment in part determines productivity, not employment.

What you are saying now is that although their predictions were wrong, and were less accurate than those of the political Leave campaign, it's possible that this was due to chance rather than incompetence. OK, I will share that ground with you.

The predictions weren't wrong at all, in fact I just said the economy is tracking those predictions well. I've never seen such ridiculous gaslighting regarding a previous post.

The think tank predicted falling employment and growth. Neither has fallen.

I said nothing happened to GDP or unemployment. I do expect increased trade barriers would reduce the value of the pound, at least in the short run.

No, you said nothing happened for 6 - 12 months, you did not specify GDP/employment.

As you please, but it doesn't make much sense to interpret my comment as denying actually observed changes. What I have disputed is the significance of the currency changes. Ultimately currency changes in themselves don't matter: the pound lost more against the dollar in 2014, largely unremarked, than it has done in the past months. They matter in so far as they affect living standards.

Sure, people with a specific interest in FX discussed how Brexit might affect FX. The mainstream media did not lead with articles about FX.

Goldman Sachs hires experts, these people are experts. Almost all experts predicted the pound would decline, the pound declined.

Right, and I didn't dispute that. I said that the people now clutching at the horror of the pound depreciation didn't draw much attention to currency depreciation when they believe, falsely, that they would have the much more political powerful tokens of dropping GDP and rising unemployment to play.

Right and if I say an asteroid might hit earth before you read this post, there's really no reason to see that prediction as less than perfect because I also said it might not happen. Great.

If an astronomer says an incoming asteroid might hit earth, but it might not. Then we blow it out of the sky with rockets, I will not call that astronomer a fraud.

Tons of quacks incorrectly predict that asteroids will hit the earth. If that is the level on which you place economic "experts", we are hardly disagreeing (I actually probably wouldn't go that far).

What knowledge do "experts" add? When have they been right when others have been wrong? If they are very often wrong but admit that their predictions are highly likely to be wrong, why do you talk as if "expert" predictions should be taken seriously, rather than treated as speculation?

Uh, what?

We were discussing "expert" predictions that have been falsified by observations. You said that's OK because they admitted they might be wrong. Although that's nice and honourable, I am asking how are they useful? If their use just honesty admitting they're often not useful? Or something more than that? (also, why wasn't that honesty that their predictions were highly likely to be wrong attached to news stories and the Remain campaign reporting their predictions?)

[Anywhere Else But Here]

"urban dictionary .com"

I wonder if that could possibly have anything to do with the definition given there being wholly incorrect.

You're to the left of me, yes? Clearly you're a SWP entryist on NSG.

What is happening here? Has Wolf achieved self-awareness?

[Imperializt Russia]

"urban dictionary .com"

I wonder if that could possibly have anything to do with the definition given there being wholly incorrect.

You're to the left of me, yes? Clearly you're a SWP entryist on NSG.

I mislaid my pocket Communist Manifesto.

[Hydesland]

It is not. If the domestic economy were predicted to go down, the index would lose value in pre-vote pounds.

The index is not measured in pounds, so it doesn't make sense to measure it in 'pre vote pounds'. By the way, the FTSE 250, which has more local firms, is basically flat, maybe a little up - if you somehow measure it in 'pre vote pounds', I suspect it will be down. But the FTSE is irrelevant anyway, you realize that experts think it's basically impossible to predict stocks, right? That's like, a staple theory of economics.

edit: of course, the price of individual shares enters the calculation of the index, so if you want to recalculate the index using say the dollar price, by all means be my guest

Low unemployment is a result of correct pricing of labour. It doesn't matter if labour is priced low in absolute terms: you can still have full employment.

Incoherent, plus wages are sticky.

Investment in part determines productivity, not employment.

That's just.. wrong. Unless you strictly define investment as investing in labour substituting capital goods, which is stupid.

The think tank predicted falling employment and growth. Neither has fallen.

The think tank made a conditional forecast, they said: "Cutting rates from 0.5% to a new record low of 0.1%, starting with a quarter point cut on Thursday, and buying another £200bn of government bonds could offset most of the effects of Brexit, NIESR said". The central bank did just that, therefore its initial bearish predictions do not apply, the only prediction that applies is that the negative effects will be offset by this central bank action, which they appear to have been, at the cost of major currency depreciation.

They matter in so far as they affect living standards.

Higher import prices increase inflation, inflation affects living standards.

Right, and I didn't dispute that. I said that the people now clutching at the horror of the pound depreciation didn't draw much attention to currency depreciation when they believe, falsely, that they would have the much more political powerful tokens of dropping GDP and rising unemployment to play.

I don't know who these people are, but I think you're conflating media pundits and politicians with experts.

Tons of quacks incorrectly predict that asteroids will hit the earth.

They aren't astronomers though. It's you suggesting we go for quacks rather than astronomers (experts).

If that is the level on which you place economic "experts", we are hardly disagreeing (I actually probably wouldn't go that far).

We were discussing "expert" predictions that have been falsified by observations. You said that's OK because they admitted they might be wrong.

No, stating a probability is not admitting you might be wrong. If I say that flipping a coin has a 50:50 probability of being heads, and it lands as tails, that does not mean that initial statement was wrong or that I was admitting I 'might be wrong'.

More importantly, the predictions weren't falsified, because those people explicitly stated that the prediction only applies if the central bank does not do any stimulative measures, the BoE did do stimulative measures, therefore they don't apply.

[South Park Labourite]

You're to the left of me, yes? Clearly you're a SWP entryist on NSG.

I mislaid my pocket Communist Manifesto.

Ah, solidarity comrade, I hate it when that happens.

[South Park Labourite]

http://www.politico.eu/article/peter-ma ... ationship/

The most inspiring British gay statesman has informed me of a sad reality .

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/davehill ... ndon-mayor

One of the saddest things to never happened. Mandy would have trounced Boris.

[Souseiseki]

join us today for another delve into parliament and its law making. today's focus shall be, in typical souseiseki fashion, on the laws which criminalize possession of images of legal adults having legal sex the government does not like. more specifically we will be attempting to ascertain whether our new libertarian candidate dominic raab supported these laws as doing so would surely undermine his libertarian credibility. its also the classic souseiseki salt mine so it's no secret why i choose it.

not gonna lie, everything in the wall of text was just stuff i came across the got pissed off at while looking for actual things relevant to dominic. you can totally ignore it while still getting the gist of the post. but since we all love the parliament of the united kingdom so much i'm going to assume no one will do that.

we start off with a classic explanatory note note on the new offence

"The Government believes that these clauses constitute an interference with Convention rights under Articles 8 and 10 but that for the reasons set out below this is justified as being in accordance with the law"

ya don't fucking say

"The material to be covered by this new offence is at the most extreme end of the spectrum of pornographic material which is likely to be thought abhorrent by most people."

the law has been used to target things like urethral sounding and fisting, the most vanilla shit in the world. as covered extensively in previous posts it was later extended to consensual sex. in otherwords, this a lie. alternatively, we're so conservative that this is our line for "the most extreme"

The House of Lords upheld convictions for offences of causing actual and grievous bodily harm in the case of Brown [1994] 1 AC 212 which involved a group of sado-masochists who had engaged in consensual torture. The threshold that the clauses have set is very high, so while those taking part might argue that they had consented to it, such consent is not valid at law.

every fucking time i read up on this shit i see r v brown being used as a justification for all sorts of stupid fucking shit and everything comes flooding back to me.

not immediately overturning that shit was the ECHR's real crime in my eyes. they're too conservative and too light-handed.

also again we note that the statements about the threshold being very high is a lie.

----

anyway, that brings our quick peek into the explanatory notes to an end. in order to actually get into whether or not raab supported this we will need to jump to the specific amendment that closed the "loophole" where consenting adults having consensual rape fantasy was legal. this lies in the criminal justice and courts act 2015.

in order to do this i need to plow my way through parliamentary record. this is, as you may appreciate, a massive bitch, so i hope you appreciate this!

http://services.parliament.uk/bills/201 ... tages.html

"The final provisions in part 1 deliver on a commitment that is important to me and the Prime Minister. The Bill will make it a criminal offence to possess pornography that depicts real or simulated rape. I am sure that both Houses will share my view that such images are wholly unacceptable and that it is right to close this gap in the law."

bite me you fucking shitheel

Sadiq Khan: [...] We do not oppose the plans relating to automatic release and recall, and we welcome clause 16, which bans the possession of extreme pornographic images depicting rape. A number of victim groups and experts have called for that change, and the Government and the Justice Secretary should be commended for listening to the evidence.

if there was any doubt sadiq khan was a useless shitbag let these rumours be dispelled. we will also give him a gold star for commending the justice secretary, whose department had earlier stated there was no evidence whatsoever such material leads to actual crimes, on listening to evidence. their original consultation of course being noted for its absolute absence of any sort of evidence. but don't let that get in your way sadiq, go give the tories a big old hug!

My final point on part 1 concerns the new offence introduced in clause 16 that criminalises the possession of pornographic materials depicting rape and non-consensual sexual penetration. I truly applaud the Government’s efforts in this regard to minimise the use and dissemination of extreme pornographic materials, and particularly the work they are doing to minimise the opportunities for children to come into contact with this filth. In my view, however, there can be no benefit to society or to the individuals involved if persons convicted of sex offences are left languishing in prison without treatment or, worse, released into the community

huh, this guy has a good point. he's using typical "the children!!!" scaremongering (they've been doing this since they tried to keep all hardcore porn banned in 2003, it's very old) and is making people into criminals over legal adults having legal sex (are you tried of this yet?) but at least he recognizes that just throwing people in jail does fuck all to actually fix things.

it should be apparent at this point i'm just going through and ctrl + fing for rape until i find the relevant section and amendments and bitching as i run into stupid shit on the way. this is pretty much the only way i've found to actually navigate commons/lords debates and committees that actually works.

David Austin: My name is David Austin. I am the assistant director at the British Board of Film Classification

it's hard to describe my feelings at the moment in words. in lieu of that i shall use metaphor: if i had drums beside me i would be beating them as hard as i could.

David Austin: Yes, there are examples of sexually violent material that are not caught by the Bill. There are a number of areas of violent and abusive pornography that are not caught. It might help if I list one or two of those areas. [...] It was in reference to animation. We have not seen the updated explanatory notes on the Bill—I do not know whether they have been published yet. The notes that we have seen do not talk about animated content. It is possible to argue—I do not know how the courts will interpret it—that animation is not realistic, even though it is getting more and more realistic all the time with computer-generated imagery. CGI images of children and animated images of children in sexual abuse situations are illegal under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, so that would take care of animated depictions of child abuse, but it does not take care of animated depictions of rape of adults, for example.

There is a Japanese genre called hentai which is a pornographic genre which features things like incest, underage sex and forced sex.

does he want to ban hentai without knowing what it even is?

i'm also wondering whether he wants to ban cartoons that depict the "rape" of adults. as far as i can tell this asshole actually wants to you have to make a snap judgement on whether a cartoon character look young and is enjoying the sex they're having. lucky the committee seems to immediately dismiss him almost immediately as the idea is fucking retarded, or they just ran out of time. it's a shame they can't see how everything else is fucking retarded, but thems the breaks.

i mean, he's just saying it won't be covered, so maybe that's just him stating fact and he doesn't want it banned? but he's also from the BBFC so he gets zero benefit of the doubt, hmm.

Clause 16
Possession of pornographic images of rape and assault by penetration
2.15 pm

Dan Jarvis: I beg to move amendment 14, in clause 16, page 16, line 30, leave out from ‘explicit’ to end of line 31 and insert

‘way, real or simulated depictions of either—’.

The Chair: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 29, in clause 16, page 16, line 31, leave out from ‘of’ to end of line 37 and insert

‘the portrayal of sexual activity which involves real or apparent lack of consent,’.

Amendment 28, in clause 16, page 16, line 37, at end insert—

‘(c) sexual activity where one of the participants is portrayed in such a way as to make them appear under 18;

(d) a person participating in a sexual activity with someone who is depicted as a member of their immediate family; and

(e) sexual activity incorporating sexual threats, humiliation or abuse which do not form part of a clearly consenting role-playing game.’.

are you ready? here comes the big one!

they actually wanted to ban incest porn. fucking gold.

this is another reminder that every time they say "child" you should mentally substitute "adult that looks like a child".

Its inclusion in the Bill is a real victory for groups like Rape Crisis South London and the End Violence Against Women coalition that have long campaigned against rape pornography. Their open letter to the Prime Minister last summer was signed by more then 100 women’s groups, academics and campaigners and has been instrumental in bringing us to this place.

thanks a lot assholes

We are eager to work with the Government to help to ensure that we get this right and to stamp out such abhorrent images. It is in that spirit that we tabled these amendments to explore how the Bill might be improved.

please take a moment to dwell on this sentence. notice the kind of language the government uses on this issue. "stamp out", "abhorrent", "no place in our society", "evil thing", "cult of violence". next time you're thinking about calling me cynical or hyperbolic please just sit and have a think and remember that this is what the government actually thinks of me. my own government. this is what "our sovereignty" means to me.

Subsection (2)(c) clearly states that an image will come within the scope of the offence if it portrays something in an “explicit and realistic way”. As Mr Austin explained, that could allow material that is badly acted, such as clearly fictional depictions of rape with actors acting a script, escaping the scope of this legislation.

you have no idea how entertained i am by the idea of the defence of bad acting

There is some ambiguity, however, on whether clause 16 will achieve this. Concerns have been raised, for example, about videos portraying under-age sex, many of which feature women who are over the age of 18 but look far younger and are purposely depicted as pre-pubescent. That is exacerbated by pairing them with much older actors, resulting in material that has been described as looking just like child abuse.

oh no, not over the age of 18. anything but that. pedophiles might start watching videos of legal adults and be encouraged to seek out legal partners or legal pornography for a non-harmful outlet instead of viewing or worse participating in actual child abuse. what a horrible prospect that would be.

I am sure that there is full agreement across the Committee that such images are unacceptable. Just as the last Labour Government acted to ban pornography depicting harmful and life-threatening acts, we are ready to work with this Government to send a clear message that extreme material that glorifies sexual violence is not acceptable.

lol at the tories slabbering over the labour government and the labourites getting on their knees to profess how awesome the tories proposals are

Can the Minister reassure us about animation? I did not realise that there was such a genre, and I am not convinced that the Bill will capture it. Is there a way that we can incorporate it?

person learns that they may not be able to throw people in jail over cartoons, immediately moves to rectify situation

There is growing evidence of the impact of this sort of product, particularly on young people. I have heard from young girls who see such hard-core pornographic material and are genuinely fearful of their first sexual encounter, because they think that that is what sex is about and that they ought to endure this sort of abusive experience. I have also heard from young boys who, as young boys do, when they are searching around to try to figure about a bit more about sex, stumble across this material and therefore think that this is the way they should act towards a woman.

i think i mentioned it before, but this is word for the word the same rhetoric used to ban all hard core pornography back in the day. the "decency of society", "public morality" and "but the children" shit was the exact same rhetoric used to justify banning male homosexual acts and unequal ages of consent back in the day. the rhetoric has not changed one fucking bit.

It is about the detrimental effects that homosexuality has on society as a whole. It is about trying to counter a climate where this sort of behaviour is condoned and seen as somehow normal. As she rightly said, exposure to this type of material leads young people to believe that that is the way to behave. There is quite clearly a societal imperative for us to take action on such material.

i may or may not have edited this quote

I have to declare an interest: I graduated in law from Durham university, but my extra-curricular activities tended to predominate somewhat, so I cannot aspire to the distinction to which the two learned professors rose. But I am grateful to them for outlining their approach to the Bill. They quite rightly say that the use of the term “realistic” mirrors international provisions on pornography that are designed to cover both real and simulated images. They argue in support of an amendment to suggest that some clarification of what “realistic” means would be helpful. I am fairly open-minded about how we do that. It could be done in the Bill, but if my hon. Friend the Minister can assure me that there are better ways to achieve such clarity, I will be content to listen to his argument.

Clearly, this is an opportunity to fill a gap that some of us would say has existed for too long. I think that we all share the difficult aspiration for criminal law not to have to play catch-up constantly with the more alarming developments with which the otherwise welcome innovation of the internet presents us from time to time.

they can already throw people in jail over non-realistic cartoons and they are still mad that the definition of realism means they can't prosecute people over shit that isn't actually fucking happening

Jeremy Wright: I think that we are all conscious of the fact that in discussing the clause and the amendments, we must strike a delicate balance as legislators. We are talking about the most extreme and disturbing images, but also those that, although distasteful to most, might not warrant the intervention of the criminal law. We must therefore be careful to balance our distaste, and in some cases disgust, against the personal sexual freedoms of consenting adults to behave as they wish without undue state interference. We must also bear in mind the existing criminal law in related areas.

someone makes a good point. he's still kowtowing to their bullshit, but he's making the right motions about consenting adults and how you can't just throw everyone you don't like in jail. will he be our hero?

Jeremy Wright: I think that Ministers and everyone else should be humble enough to accept that we may not have got everything right, but inevitably, wherever we decide to draw the line, there will be disagreement about whether we have drawn it in the right place. There will be those who say—they have already said it during the course of this Committee’s deliberations—that we have not gone far enough on the offence; others will say that we have gone too far. I do not think that there is a good argument that we have gone too far; we will certainly always consider whether there is further action that we can take.

nope he's backing out he's perfectly ok with throwing people in jail over consenting adults under the right circumstances, hope is a mistake

Amendment 28 would extend the parameters of the existing offence. It would widen the scope of the existing extreme pornography possession offence to cover depictions that appear to portray incest, under-age sexual activity and scenes involving sexual threats, humiliation or abuse. Now is probably the best time for me to provide some background on the law as it stands.

mmm, amendment 28. let's keep that one in mind.

The offence is narrowly targeted, for good reason.

(lie)

Hon. Members will recall that the original offence was created by the then Government following a full public consultation, and it is deliberately targeted at the extreme end of the scale.

note: the majority of the responses to the consultation were negative (271 out of the 397, or 68%)

“While those who view extreme pornography will not necessarily go on to commit sexual offences, their use of such materials sustains a culture in which a ‘no’ to sexual activity is not taken seriously; in which equality and dignity are not protected”.

but all the acts done take place within a culture where "no" to a sexual activity is taken very seriously. could it be this person has no fucking idea what they're actually talking about? maybe if we did actual sex-ed instead of just trying to ban everything and being prude fucks we wouldn't have this problem? just a thought!

To conclude my remarks on the development of section 63 of the Criminal Justice Act 2008, during the public consultation, there was considerable concern among respondents and in Parliament that the offence could have a serious impact on people’s private sexual behaviour and personal freedoms. The offence was carefully and deliberately constructed with these concerns in mind.

everytime they say this while completely ignoring the truth of what precedents have been set and how the CPS has conducted itself in carrying prosecutions using this legislation just makes me angrier

Jeremy Wright: [...] I must make it clear that the Government consider the protection of the country’s children from sexual abuse a top priority, and we are always open to and appreciative of suggestions to strengthen the law where necessary. However, to extend the offence to cover depictions of apparent under-age sexual activity is unnecessary.

he's saying there's no need to cover this shit because it's already covered under other laws, but...

In addition, although I find the depictions of sexual threats or humiliation and simulated acts of adult incest deeply distasteful, as I am sure does everyone else, there are others—competent adults—who do not share our views. In a liberal democracy, the law intervenes only when necessary. It would be stretching the definition of “necessary” to include these extensions. I do not feel that it is appropriate to broaden the terms of the existing offence any wider than the Government propose.

It is important to state that the extreme pornography offence is one of simple possession, not of publication, dissemination or broadcast. The publication of obscene material is covered by other legislation, including the Obscene Publications Act 1959, but the law should be slow to intervene in simple possession and should do so only where there is a real need. I believe that depictions of rape constitute such a need but that a wider case for prohibition is not made out. I am grateful for the support shown for our proposal across the Committee, but for the reasons explained I am convinced that it is both unnecessary and inappropriate to extend this offence to cover the images that this amendment would capture. I cannot therefore support it.

oh come on jeremy, you're so close! you're so fucking close! why are you supporting this crap?

conclusion: the government adds all sorts of clauses to mega bills that makes it impossible to ascertain single votes on issues so it was impossible to determine whether or not dominic actually supported the specific clause or amendments. i'm still posting this though because it took me an hour and a half to go through all this shit. consider it another part of my continuing series on how the government are absolute idiots on this issue. however, raab did vote in favour of the bill period, so take that as you will i guess?

i am also leaving it in as an invitation to my brexit voting friends. since you are so strongly supportive of parliamentary sovereignty i have no doubt that you must have significant experience interacting with our great parliament in order to form such a strong opinion on its proceedings. i have not quite hit the hansard and divisions yet, can you help me solve the mystery of dominic rabb and section 37 of the criminal justice and courts act 2015? was he down for clause 16? was the commons amendment 28 carried? was lords amendment 36B carried? was the house divided? i can't handle all this democracy, my body is tingling! as far as i can tell the bill went through mostly without question and no one, least of all dominic rabb, had much to say about it. based on this i think we can reasonably extrapolate that he was either supportive of or at least ambivalent to the law. oh well.

...

is it just me or did the committee make absolutely no reference to the written evidence submitted in relation to clause 16? did they... completely fucking ignore all of it in favour of letting some prick from the BBFC go on about how how hates hentai?

[HMS Vanguard]

It is not. If the domestic economy were predicted to go down, the index would lose value in pre-vote pounds.

The index is not measured in pounds, so it doesn't make sense to measure it in 'pre vote pounds'.

Well, yes, actually, it is. The index itself is not purchasable, it is a synthetic product, but it is a synthetic product composed of a number of different commodities each valued in pounds.

By the way, the FTSE 250, which has more local firms, is basically flat, maybe a little up - if you somehow measure it in 'pre vote pounds', I suspect it will be down. But the FTSE is irrelevant anyway, you realize that experts think it's basically impossible to predict stocks, right? That's like, a staple theory of economics.

edit: of course, the price of individual shares enters the calculation of the index, so if you want to recalculate the index using say the dollar price, by all means be my guest

You pretend that you do not understand what I am saying, or that I am talking nonsense, then you propose I do things that don't make sense unless you understood full well what I was saying.

Low unemployment is a result of correct pricing of labour. It doesn't matter if labour is priced low in absolute terms: you can still have full employment.

Incoherent, plus wages are sticky.

How is it incoherent?

How does currency depreciation creating an inflation shock create unemployment in conditions of sticky wages? Should rather do the opposite, if it does anything at all.

Investment in part determines productivity, not employment.

That's just.. wrong. Unless you strictly define investment as investing in labour substituting capital goods, which is stupid.

I disagree.

The think tank predicted falling employment and growth. Neither has fallen.

The think tank made a conditional forecast, they said: "Cutting rates from 0.5% to a new record low of 0.1%, starting with a quarter point cut on Thursday, and buying another £200bn of government bonds could offset most of the effects of Brexit, NIESR said". The central bank did just that, therefore its initial bearish predictions do not apply, the only prediction that applies is that the negative effects will be offset by this central bank action, which they appear to have been, at the cost of major currency depreciation.

OK: so please link to Remain promotional material that stated "the negative effects of Brexit can be eliminated by central bank action".

Higher import prices increase inflation, inflation affects living standards.

Agreed.

I don't know who these people are, but I think you're conflating media pundits and politicians with experts.

Perhaps. If they strongly disagreed in a way favourable to Brexit, your position may be correct.

They aren't astronomers though. It's you suggesting we go for quacks rather than astronomers (experts).

Which is the crux of the matter. Economist is defined by credentials not ability to make correct predictions. Astronomer is defined by ability to make correct positions. My position is that pretty much everyone commenting on economics is a quack. I have made no specific prediction of the short term economic effects of Brexit, nor have I endorsed other peoples', nor did I base my vote in the referendum on beliefs about the short term economic effects of either option.

No, stating a probability is not admitting you might be wrong. If I say that flipping a coin has a 50:50 probability of being heads, and it lands as tails, that does not mean that initial statement was wrong or that I was admitting I 'might be wrong'.

It is if you wish to present NSG Hydesland Experts as predicting a heads outcome.

More importantly, the predictions weren't falsified, because those people explicitly stated that the prediction only applies if the central bank does not do any stimulative measures, the BoE did do stimulative measures, therefore they don't apply.

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That is a more reasonable argument.