Verbal

This is the one subject that you're distinctly unsound on, BTF. Your fear of the influence of minority parties is unfounded, I think, not least because the British electorate remains wedded to the basic shape of the two-party system. Yes, it gives minority parties a more representative influence in Parliament - but isn't that what 'representative democracy' is supposed to be about. The scaremongers against PR generally frequently cite two illusory spectres: the 'horror' of the absence of 'strong government' (which betrays an authoritarian weakness; after all plenty of 'weak' governments elsewhere, like the US, have been a damned sight better at presiding over successful economies than ours); and the ida that, say, neo-Nazi parties would gain influence (ignoring the distinct probability that voters, who have a habit of voting rationally, would adjust their voting behaviour accordingly to ensure that that did not happen). If AV gets voted down, it would be a tragedy for the long-term health of British democracy. It's not by any means the best form of PR; but it's a badly needed start.

I guessed it wouldn't be long before mini-turkish rolled in. So the conclusion of this thread appears to be that turkish wants to reserve the right to be a petty racist scumbag without being called one. Here are some that were made earlier: "The Blackshirts, praised by The Daily Mail for their 'sound, commonsense, Conservative doctrine', would routinely march in the streets of London chanting: 'The Yids, the Yids, we've got to get rid of the Yids."

On the offchance that you are really THAT dim.

I'm assuming that you didn't intend the hilarious combination of that question and your avatar.

I honestly couldn't give a flying **** what you think. I'm just pointing out that your credentials as an anti-racist are, shall we say, a little thin.

Exactly. The embarrassing Freudian slip which he's now corrected and the blackface avatar mean he's perfectly qualified.

I broke my middle toe a while ago. They splinted it (strapped it to another toe) but didn't straighten it. Do I have a life of pain to look forward to? Or is there a way of avoiding delldays' posts?

Not really. A wholly objective definition of 'bellend' would always end with the words 'David Cameron'. Try it, you'll see.

Are you related to delldays in any way Ducky? You accidentally answered you own question. You can't be constantly acting in the name of a dogma and at the same time always pursuing a game of political advantage. They are diametric opposites.

Delldays, I'd reply to your hopeless waffle if only you showed the tiniest talent for following an argument. Keep trying, though - you might strike lucky one day. Brown a political idiot? Of course! But we were talking about 'dogma' before you tripped over yourself, as always. Now go away and think really, really hard, and see if you can come back with a post which even you could be proud of.

You're talking about Brown the Chancellor, not Brown the PM. I couldn't detect any dogma in Brown the PM - I couldn't detect much of anything really, apart from a REALLY bad temper.

An invisible bellend then?

His views about the NHS generally have been shaped over the years by his wife's experiences in the NHS. In any case, the wings of the Tory Party now seem to be not 'left or 'right', but 'occasionally reasonable' (Ken Clarke) to 'egotistical, dimwitted maniac' (Lansley), with 'rabbit caught in the headlights (Clegg, Honorary Tory for Sheffield South) somewhere in between. Lansley couldn't help himself with the language he used for the 'apology' he issued to health professionals for his (now on-hold) 'reforms': 'I'm sorry you don't get it.' It's common to discover that politicians are idiots. But to put such an utter fool in charge of a £100 billion organisation is what makes Cameron so historically useless. Maybe he thought that Lansley's brainlessness wouldn't stand out among the other cretins like Gove (education u-turn), Spelman (Forests sell-off u-turn), Willetts (higher education cOck-up)...etc, etc. He was wrong.

It's more of a sliding scale - and Cameron has slid to the bottom with greased-lightning speed. Only Clegg has outdone him by demonstrating his utter uselessness, so transparently, so quickly, while making sure that he, like Cameron, has benefitted, free, from all the privileges (like an Oxbridge education) they are now busily denying succeeding generations. Incidentally, the odd and funny thing about Cameron's complaint about Oxford's admissions of black students (or black student singular), is that his numbers were based solely on those collected by David Lammy (then Labour Minister for Higher Ed), who made the same mistake when he threw an identical wobbly last year.

Close. I think Gemmel had Gandhi in mind.

More like Goebbels.

No, a debit card doesn't give you the same protection.

But Lansley is not proposing cuts to the NHS. He's proposing an INCREASE - and an overnight revolution based on some ideas he came up with in his sleep. And they're bonkers. It's like making army generals submarine commanders. The strong likelihood is that - like higher education - these 'reforms' will cost billions more.

I think when the nurses' union gives an unprecedented vote of no confidence in Lansley, at a crushing 98%, something is deeply wrong. In any case, your premise is mistaken. This government came in pledging NOT to cut the NHS. That's not what these 'reforms' are supposed to be about - though heaven only knows what they ARE about. Even Cameron seems baffled. And are rightly seen as both bizarre (because GPs on many of their own admission know remarkably little about the way the HNS works, and yet they somehow will be given blanket powers to determine NHS spending), counterproductive (driving down patient care), and ideologically driven (trying to create a 'market' in health). This thread should be merged with the Cameron=bellend thread - it's just the latest episode from these hopeless, immature, moronic, bellended toffs.

You're very welcome. Sleep paralysis and its characteristics are by no means 'one man's research' (the one man being Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths' College, London). It's a reasonably well studied phenomenon among professional psychologists, and I don't know of any that dispute Chris's basic argument. You could try and find some if you like, to support your 'pass'. I'd be interested to see a professional counterargument.

I wouldn't exclude enthusiastic loopiness.

Correct. Sorry.

That is precisely the thing that Chris French is describing - and episodes like this, he says, are surprisingly common, except that people are generally reluctant to admit they've experienced them. Sleep paralysis isn't only what's really going on when people claim they've been abducted by aliens (or attacked by demons in other cultures); it's been the inspiration of innumerable horror movies. Interesting also that you describe the effort to wake up. Chris maintained that most people are aware that they are dreaming, in some sense, and that the only escape is to wake up - except of course, they're paralysed and they are 'dreaming-awake'. Seems the worst of all nightmares.

I met an interesting psychologist last year called Chris French, who pretty convincingly argues that all claims of alien abduction are explained by a psychological event called sleep paralysis, during which hallucinations are common. More than half the population has experienced something like this at least once in their lives (which should mean a fair few on here): "The light had been switched off, and a comfortable feeling of warmth and heaviness marked the onset of sleep. But suddenly a slurping sound startled the sleeper. Everything seemed completely normal – until he noticed the green liana which had grown from the pot plant and reached his body. "Every movement became impossible, and every scream was smothered by the plant material that was growing around his mouth and throat. Thoughts raced through the mind: This wasn't a nightmare, the reality of the room was far too distinct and his perception and thinking were far too clear. Were the plants taking revenge on humankind, or had aliens conquered the planet?" The dreamer, in this case, was an eminent geoscientist from Edinburgh. What makes sleep paralysis particularly frightening is that, as the term suggests, you just can't move away from the threat and yet you're apparently wide awake (even though you're actually dreaming). http://www.ripaonline.co.uk/studies/sleep-paralysis-study

Why do aliens always head straight for the US of A? Why not Plumstead? Or Belgium?