Quote of the day 1st August 2017
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
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National Insurance Increase
Taking In Refugee Children
Foreign Worker Quotas.
Hinkley Point
New London Airport
Social Care
European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR)
Energy Price Caps.
Now I may indeed agree with a lot of the U turns, but why U turn? why not just get it right first time?
See U turns like that dont fit with "stand like a rock"
The details of policy are something else again, which will be influenced by style, principle, the evidence base available to you about relevant circumstances, and bluntly, whether you have the votes to get it through.
You are of course right that it's best to get the policy right first time.
Nevertheless, it is a simple fact of life that governments which have slim majorities (or none at all) will sometimes be forced into U turns.
This sad reality does not invalidate Jefferson's point that consistency is more important in matters of principle than in matters of style.
and why is it a matter of principle to leave the EEA? that is not what the quetion asked. i think style would be staying within theEEA whist leaving the EU, its simple logic
I would consider it a matter of principle not to take money from a pension fund which left it unable to meet the commitments of that fund but I presume from the words in Jim's question "which is not in deficit" that this isn't the case which was meant.
The calculation of how much money you need to put into or leave in a pension fund to meet its liabilities, PROVIDED that you DO intend to honour those liabilities, is clearly more than a matter of style but is not a matter of principle. I would call it a matter of policy.
Reasonable people could differ about whether membership of the EEA or being subject to the ECJ is a matter of principle. Both of these are - rightly - absent from Jim's list of things on which the government has changed policy.