Quote of the day 9th October 2013
"The greatest crime to our own people is to be afraid to tell the truth"
(Stanley Baldwin)
(Stanley Baldwin)
Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria
Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Comments
Osbourne can stand and lie and say the economy is getting better, its not, its just inflating, so he decides to inflate it further to hide the figures, not exactly telling the truth really.
Then comes Adam Afriyie over the weekend.
Lets have a referendum on "Europe" before the next election. His only aim, however, was not to answer the budding question it was to ensure that UKIP voters do not affect the tory vote so much in 2015.
So do me a favour Adam, either start to tell the truth to the british people or just simply go back to sleep.
"Cameron told porkies on the Norway veto" - that is a statement of fact.
"this is a good/bad thing" - that would be a view or an opinion on something.
so you may agree or not on my comment opinions - ie that the lie told by cameron is a fear of telling the truth, but you cant disagree with the fact of the lie itself.
You can disagree with my opionion that the osbourne lie is "not exactly telling the truth" but you cant disagree with the fact that that the infation is indeed making the recover appear when its not really there,
So whilst i am gratful that you do allow other opinions and I guess it is my opinion on Adams motives, you cant just reject a comment as opinion when it does contain a lot of fact as well.
Let me put it another way
Gordon Brown taxed my pension fund - this is a fact
Gordon brown sold off a lot of british gold - this is a fact
Gordon brown was possibly the worst chancellor and then PM in my lifetime - that is my opinion
However ...
* Most allegations that someone is lying or telling "porkies" are matters of opinion, because it is rarely possible to be certain about whether the person making the statement actually believes it.
* It is possible for intelligent people to disagree about to what extent Norway has the ability to influence single market rules. For that reason I am not calling you a liar although I disagree with you.
That Norway does not have a formal veto over EU decisions is an objective fact - in my opinion - and it is also an objective fact that we would lose ours if we left.
One can make an argument - and you have made a strong one in the past - that members of the EEA, like Norway have some influence on single market rules, but the argument that they have more influence than EU members does not - in my opinion - stand up to scrutiny. I do not believe that either side of this argument are telling deliberate "porkies".
It is also an objective fact - in my opinion - that Britain has more influence than Norway now, not less, although we still would have most of that influence - as a G8 member, UN security council permanent member, and OECD member, for instance - if we left the EU.
Whether what was left of the UK would be able to hold onto that influence if the Scots vote for Independence is another matter entirely but that is a different debate ...
It is also an objective fact the British growth figures are adjusted for RPI, and that they are driven to a significant extent by export growth, and it is an objective fact that almost all economic commentators including some who are not very friendly to the Conservatives think that the British economy is growing. Those who criticise Osborne have almost entirely moved on to the territory of whether we have the "right" kind of recovery.
Since many of his harshest critics accept that the economy is growing, the suggestion that George Osborne does not believe his own words when he says that the same thing, which is what you would have to prove to substantiate the charge of lying, is - in my opinion - very unreasonable indeed. But I am not accusing you of lying because I accept that you believe what you wrote.
I don't pretend to know what Adam Afriye's motives were - it's pretty unlikely that he was trying to lose votes for the Conservatives but I will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he also thought calling for an early referendum was in the national interest.
Incidentally the original Baldwin quote was in the context of being open and honest with the British public about the capabilities of a potential enemy we might be thinking of going to war with and the potential consequences - "the bomber will always get through" - of such a decision.
Now was there a recent PM who failed the Baldwin test of giving the British people accurate information about a potential enemy? I seem to recall that there was.