Declan

I'm not about to start another Radio 1 scandal!

It rather beggars belief we've spent all that money to move the landing stage to a slightly less convenient spot.

Used to listen to her doing my homework on a Sunday Night.

To be fair there probably is a stronger case for Ramsey having a swimming pool than Peel or Castletown. From a logistics point of view.

Also Ramsey's residents have a chip on their shoulders about everything being Douglas centric. And four members of COMIN represent Ramsey or Ayre.

Personally, my opinion is ambiguous on the matter. It seems a shame to reduce services in local areas. I'm not convinced that our finances are so bad that public services should be allowed to crumble, particularly given some of the other expenditure that goes on. The hysterical clucking from those calling this a "no-brain" decision is coming from the usual headless chickens. But this swimming pool not a priority for me. Let's hear the economic case first. Anyway, I doubt the populist vote outside the South is for keeping the Southern Swimming Pool. It's closure won't lose many votes in Kirk Michael.

So? There's only 4 of them. (Well 5 if you count Stu - but I doubt he's against a proposal that would mean less exercise and more car travel).

Yeah too soon.

Presumably Ashford?

Too soon for a TT thread!

You'd think the Tories would have been all over this. Small businesspeople wrongly convicted because of public sector incompetence and bureaucracy. That's their core voters and they can't even sort that.

They were the biggest cultural vandals going. I'd hate to be Charles Guard, walking along Douglas Prom an looking at the peeling paint rather than the Tower of Refuge. Going to Laxey and focusing on a portacabin rather than the wheel. He'd probably complain because there was camel shit at the pyramids.

Agreed. That has been mitigated somewhat since the bus station shut by having more regular buses and coordinating times would help further. I’d say the only time I’ve waited at Lord Street for more than 15 minutes lately was when I arrived by boat and the shut the Sea Terminal half an hour before the last bus.

There was a certain sense to the freebie for over 75's. That far into retirement fixed income and pension returns will have eroded after 10 or 15 years of inflation. Additionally, their mobility would have declined by that time, meaning they are at home all day. It seems fair that they should have had free access to broadcasting. Not sure that those conditions still apply with an increase in wealthy pensioners and longer life spans. Then I'm not sure the licence fee remains the best model for funding the BBC, but then it's critics haven't proposed a sensible alternative yet.

There was a degree of lying and spin - she was a politician after all. And there were valid charges against the tabloids for distortion. But nobody expected Labour to shut up after the election. They challenged her in Parliament, marched in the streets, petitioned for what they believed in. In fact it's leader had an official post - Leader of the Opposition. People are only saying that falsehoods influenced the referendum in 2016, because there were falsehoods. Brexit is playing out very differently to how it was portrayed - that's people's real experience. And the people leading the Brexit Campaign have been shown time and time again on other matters to be liars. A referendum is just a snap-shot of what the opinion is at a given moment based on the information available at that time. People change their minds if the information proves inaccurate, or the outcome fails to match what they were promised. Some people come of age and others die or move abroad. Just as one Parliament can't bind its successors, people in the future are allowed to conclude that a referendum got it wrong.

Is that what we call a Black Spot now?

I agree this is a survey rather than consultation. There's no opportunity for interested parties to comment on the proposal. Maybe there's a way to find common ground between parties (Stu's proposal that the Bishop is automatically included in the shortlist of Legco nominees for example). You are even forced to answer YES/NO on the prayers question, when my answer would be - Don't care so long it's not compulsory. It's not poll either which would use a sample of the population, not just the motivated like CofE congregations. He's not the data keeper though. It's the third party survey software that is. Only data is name (which isn't validated) and that they live on the Isle of Man, so hardly specific information.

There was a thread on Manx Nostalgia on Facebook. Somebody posted a picture of the old bus station. There were no buses and no passengers. There were two people who seemed to be engaged in a drug purchase. The comments were full of people reminiscing about buying single cigarettes from the kiosk and the lonely hearts messages and the holes in the wall of the gents' cubicles. It was a simpler, more innocent time. To be honest I'd rather have regular buses and a joined up timetable so I don't have to wait too long between buses. Than having to wait somewhere, no matter how opulent.

The problem is the amendment that asked for a consultation stipulated that the consultation should be done by the proposer (Hooperman). Obviously that's idiotic but that's Rob Callister for you. There's no need for a consultation, it's merely a ploy to obstruct change. A poll and a consultation are different.

Well I'm in favour of representative democracy rather than referenda driven. But it's not a panacea - bad decisions will be made in every system.

He is right about there has been a general move towards democracy and local accountability- the Keys were self-elected until 1867, gradually suffrage expanded to all the adult population, LegCo moved from being all appointees of the UK to being mostly selected by the Keys, decision making was transfer from the UK and the Governor to the Keys. In that the Island has kept in step with the rest of the British Isles and indeed "the West" (universal suffrage and the right to self determination. But that should be an ongoing process, but its stalled since the Millennium for similar reasons the Keys viscously opposed public elections prior to 1867 - the status quo has benefitted them.

He does want that. It's been blocked by the other Tynwald members. This is a baby step towards that, which he thought had sufficient support for in the Keys. And unfortunately the reactionaries and self-interested parties in the Keys opposition to democracy mean we have to take small steps. However the anti-democrats in the Keys forced this "consultation" through in the hope that Hooper's unpopularity would lose it. You'll notice it was following an amendment by Rob Callister. Don't let Callister's desire for retribution over his sacking obscure the simple democratic principle at stake here. If you believe that all of Tynwald should be elected - then support this proposal because it's a small step towards that goal.

Yes. Because this isn't about Hooper, it's about whether an off-Island appointee should have the power to legislate over us.

Pity we're not at the breakfast table to object then.

But we weren't bullied into changing. Britain made a conscious decision to move to metric in the 60's - well before it join the EU. In fact they'd been legal since 1897. Clearly, as part of the negotiations to join up with the EU we agreed to use the common measurement system of the community. But the decision to join was ratified by a refrendum. AND most people seem happy with the decision to move to metric... https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/choice-on-units-of-measurement-markings-and-sales/outcome/choice-on-units-of-measurement-consultation-response Overall preference Number of responses Percentage of responses Status quo (keep metric as primary unit of measurement) 81,867 81.1% More choice (open to increased use of imperial measures) 870 0.9% Purely metric (completely metric system) 17,798 17.6% Purely imperial (completely imperial system) 403 0.4% Total 100,938 100%