Election coverage

Some are going hungry, some are getting fatter , that adds up surely

An increase in foodbanks people going hungry, yet people and children in the UK are getting fatter and fatter something doesn't add up. Some (not all) people will take whatever is on offer whether they need it or not.

Kids going to school hungry, surely their parents can afford a box of cereal and a pint of milk (no cooking skills involved).

An election with no politics. This is interesting.

www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2015/04/09/this-isn-t-an-election-it-s-an-extended-photo-op

I hadn't realised how much the press had been excluded and that there are no press conferences.

Talking about doctors, this is interesting.

www.onmedica.com/newsArticle.aspx?id=500d8aec-706b-4566-9b27-67738c30d3a7

Research shows that the rise in foodbanks is linked to cuts in benefits. Who would have guessed it?
Bet the Tories deny it.

Would more people be happier with their doctors if they found them in the lotus position when they walked into the surgery?

Or knowing my typing, it could have come out as lotus doctors -sort of pretty and Japanese

Isn't a locus doctor just another name for a GP?
Are they cheaper than locum doctors?

The public is more sensible than the government.

www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2015/04/09/trident-intervention-shows-the-tories-are-in-real-trouble

I thought that could be a new word for me to learn Soutra

"Locum doctors" -honestly, iPads! I suppose I should be glad it didn't write "locust" doctors!!!

Excuse me, but this is a simplistic argument argument, a burglar is not deterred by "fake/dummy" burglar alarms on the outside of a house, nor will an alarm deter him if there is no possibility of arrest or punishment. A nuclear deterrent is just a very large and expensive bluff. There are other more insidious threats today-terrorism, biological warfare among them. I know that while we may consider the Cold War to be behind us, Russia today is a very dangerous threat -look at Ukraine and Crimea, but I still think to spend over £100 billion at a time when the rest of our armed forces amount to little more than a token presence or decorative tourist attraction, is a vanity which makes no sense. Aircraft carriers when we have no aircraft to carry? Massive redundancies in all 3 services? I may not know the perfect answer, but when our NHS is haemorrhaging money employing locus doctors and agency nurses because of staffing shortages, and we cannot afford care for the elderly, the demented or even open GP surgeries for one more day a week because of a shortage of GPs, well I think it is time we saw sense.

The claim is that because of the devastation nuclear weapons bring about, they will never be used. But they have been, haven't they. And the bombs that are available now are apparently many times more powerful than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (which killed around 120,000 - not counting those that suffered from the fall-out).

I too think that the money would be better spent on ensuring that our children grow up happy, healthy and well educated and part of a society that values each person.

After years of expecting the bomb to go off, things calmed down. And after the Wall came down, they got even calmer. But with Putin breathing heavily and flexing his muscles, Syria, Iraq, Gaza and IS who knows? The point about a deterrent is that it deters without being used. mcem nit sure what you mean by 'unthinkable'. Nuclear weapons have been used in my lifetime and so have chemical and biological weapons. Think the unthinkable.

A burglar is stopped sometimes by all kinds of deterents. Real and fake.

Trident - another example of a waste of money and a waste of (Scottish) space.
Just had some SNP election literature and I back the slogan bairns not bombs.
The use of nuclear weapons is just unthinkable.

Hmm, maybe how was what I had in mind? An opinion maybe based on what you have read, even heaven forfend in a link?

It helps just by being.

Would you care to say how Trident helps or would help with defence in, for example, renewed hostility with Argentina over the Falklands? Or in Syria or any of the current flashpoints in the world today?

Republican iPad, that should have been Stansgate

I too have a lot of time for Tam Dalyell and he is generally held in the greatest respect. He was a great chum of my late Dad and I can even forgive him referring to my mother as a "Brunnhilde like " figure!!
How about the late Tony Benn? Aka Viscount StansgTe. I believe he went to Westminster School, also pretty posh , but unlike Eton, brainy as well.

Trident helps with defence. Even if we never use it.

Yes I am back on political threads.

Another old Etonian, well known as an environmentalist, and at one time the youngest Labour peer in the Lords, is Peter, Lord Melchett.

Tam Dalyell, known as the Labour MP who was a thorn in Thatcher's flesh over the Belgrano sinking, was an old Etonian and by no means right wing! He was there with an old friend of mine who was on the same wavelength.

djen Re Lansdale, no there are probably not many leftwingers working for the Times but the printed press has obvious political biases; however I would have thought that if you work for the BBC you should not show your political affiliations in an interview otherwise you are not doing your job properly, and I would have thought he would be professional.