Verbal

So you think DA's comments didn't 'cause displeasure'?

Her words have spoken more loudly than her actions over the years, Andy. As far as actions are concerned, she has not been a political innovator - she's certainly no Barbara Castle - and so her loss would not be greatly felt. Frankly, if she were such a political force, she'd be more than a shadow junior health minister by now.

Yes. She holds a shadow position in Health. It's a vital part of her job therefore to represent all people equally and fairly, not just the ones she somehow believes don't 'divide and rule'.

I see you're one of those 'sample of one' hysterics.

A bit of an exaggeration, wouldn't you say, Viking? Or has Mr Plod already been round and given you a clip round the ear for this post?

For timing alone, Abbott committed a worse offence than flinging off a casual racist remark: she allowed her narcissism and hubris to get in the way of a far more important event - the conviction and sentencing of two of Stephen Lawrence's murderers. Just a day after sentencing, the fact that everyone is talking about Abbott is a travesty.

Clearly you didn't intend to. However... And to the next question: 'demand'. How can this be something that's just kind of 'there'. It's manipulated, stimulated, depressed, prone to collapse or to come from nowhere. As Henry Ford used to say, if he gave people what they wanted he'd have produced faster horses. And his natural successor Steve Jobs specialised in creating demand for things where none previously existed. No amount of clever software-writing gets around this problem, that demand is fabricated: we need what we want, we want what we need - and we want and need things we once never imagined existed. Your Utopia is built on sand.

1920 in Oxford - not sure about Cambridge. And women continued to be excluded from some colleges until 1974.

Not a book? And yes, precisely, you imply a Lovecrafty 'society', as a thinking, feeling entity - whether you intended to or not.

No, but Newnham is a women-only college, and the 'early start' on this form of provision (not positive discrimination, since women were excluded from the majority of Oxbridge colleges) dates back to the 19th century.

Are you kidding? I was quoting YOU. See post 72. Again, when you say 'society' makes decisions, or, more quaintly, 'has needs' what do you mean by 'society'?

Actually not one word of that addressed the questions I asked. Let's start with a simpler one: can you define this apparently conscious 'society'?

Dune and turkish do look alike.

Dear God, where to start? This paragraph alone is utterly baffling. What on earth is this 'society' that's made a 'conscious' (!) decision that it 'needs' jobs? Is it this same mysterious 'society' that decides what jobs need to be accomplished? What is a 'functioning society'? And how can you calculate what a 'country' (no longer 'society'?) 'needs to be done'. You can only get away with a paragraph as odd as that by anthropomorphising 'society' and/or 'country' to the point of absurdity.

The one in 'Friends'.

I'd like to have no financial system. I'd like everything to be free, for human rights to be enshrined in global war, and human needs prioritised above everything else. Essentially, a resource-based economy based on actual human requirements. In which case you should call yourself Mohammad, and go and discover some tablets. (Sorry: formatting went to hell)

I don't think you quite grasp the point of 'science'. They don't build stuff and do experiments only to confirm what they think they already know, or think they know. As far as I understand it, the Higgs Bosun is a particle necessary for the 'standard model' of quantum mechanics to cohere. The standard model itself may itself be wrong, despite it's extraordinary predictive and explanatory power, just as Newton's mechanics were proved wrong when they were displaced by Einstein's theory of general relativity. (Not that it stopped Nasa from using Newtonian equations to send men to the Moon.) What I don't get about the OP is the suggestion that the 'alternative theory' is anything new. It just sounds - 4D; the curvature of spacetime - like a retread of general relativity.

I can't answer this one. Try google?

Three reasons why Diane Abbott is innocent: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/david-schneider/diane-abbott-is-innocent_b_1185591.html I'm convinced.

This is pretty amusing...Diane Abbott runs away from Sky. [video=youtube;o6h-NHq8BNw]

Almost 400 Met officers have criminal records. Anything's possible.

WTF are you on about? Besides, this is a thread about the murderers of Stephen Lawrence - not Megrahi, nor, luckily for you, those, like you, who advocate violence against women. It's worth pointing out to those outside the capital that these convictions have a significance for Londoners especially, that goes beyond the events at the Old Bailey yesterday and today. The criminal gangs that terrorised communities were actually fostered to some degree by an incompetent, corrupt and occasionally violent Metropolitan police (The hacking scandal is just the latest to hit a profoundly dysfunctional and criminally infused police force). In other words, the very authorities that were supposed to protect Londoners made them more vulnerable - taking bribes from violent thugs like Clifford Norris and obstructing inquiries, victims and witnesses that came into contact with them. The Lawrence case highlighted the corruption to such a staggering degree that it forced the Met into reform. Not enough of course - not yet, anyway. While in 1999, blacks were five times more likely than whites to be subject to stop-and-search, now the figure is seven times more likely. Things have, in this instance, actually got worse. But it is at least less likely now that someone - god forbid - in Neville Lawrence's position will be treated the way the Met did originally, when they accused him of being part of the problem, and generally regarded him and his wife as nuisances. Today, I doubt we'd have to wait for someone of the stature of Nelson Mandela to demand that plainly identified suspects be actually, like, arrested, and that evidence be sought. The death of Stephen Lawrence, the Macpherson inquiry, and the hacking scandal are slowly rolling back the lid on the corruption and wilful incompetence that has been allowed fester in a uniquely unaccountable force. Doreen Lawrence was undoubtedly right to say she felt no desire to celebrate after the convictions - after all, there are still at least three more murder suspects out there who need to be brought to justice, and what follows in the next few months will be a test of how far the Met has come But the verdict IS a reason for Londoners to celebrate. Now that there's a reasonable expectation that Met officers might arrest drug gangs rather than profit from them, the city just feels a little safer. Here's hoping.

When did I do any of that, genius? Exactly when, ever? You're going to have to come to terms with this conviction and its consequences. I can see it may take some time.

If you actually read anothersaint's post you wouldn't post such peevish rubbish.

I think you'll find you're disqualified from being a solicitor. As BTF says, these are minimum sentences.