Lord Hollick led a wide ranging debate last Thursday to call attention ‘to the case for policies to support economic growth and to promote investment, innovation, technology, infrastructure, skills and job creation’. Because of the large number of Lords wishing to speak we were limited to the absurdly short time of 4 minutes each! Surely this is another example of the House of Lords being far too large!
There were a number of maiden speeches and Lord Collins of Highbury in his first speech thanked the House for changing the law in a way that changed his life and that of other Gay and Lesbian people. In a phrase that must have warmed the hearts of many who welcome our more liberal attitude to sexual orientation he said: “I thank your Lordships, not least for the fact that I am able to say “my husband”. These Benches have helped transform my life and the lives of countless other lesbian and gay people in this country. I am immensely pleased that it is no longer just noble friends on one side of this House who applaud progress in this area but noble Lords on every side of the Chamber. That consensus is a sign of this House at its best.” http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldhansrd/text/110331-0001.htm#11033157000422
My less eye catching contribution was on the importance of avaiation policy – or the lack of it – to the UK economy.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldhansrd/text/110331-0001.htm#11033157000422
My Lord, I’m afraid I will disagree on aviation policy which maybe in part me living next to an expanding airport in the middle of a vast residential area. It is an accident waiting to happen.
Aviation as far as business and technology goes is the past. Freight by air is too expensive, save small packages neatly fitted below passengers seats. Business now is conducted via the internet, even our politicians are conducting meetings via the web.It is unnecessary and wasteful to fly in most cases not forgetting of course the carbon costs.
Of course the industry serves the holiday maker but even those flights are becoming uneconomical and why should the Air industry be allowed to pay so little for fuel when I pay approx 80p(inc VAT) per litre as tax to the Government on petrol.
Aviation is heavily subsidised, to the extent that it pays no VAT on tickets, and there is no tax on aviation fuel. A litre of aviation fuel costs around 30 – 33p, while a litre of petrol for the car costs around £1.19. Aviation is a sector that is very lightly taxed indeed. The benefit to the UK aviation industry of not paying these taxes is worth at least £9 billion a year. When VAT rises, the benefit will be even greater. And it’s not just aircraft: spare parts, servicing: if it flies and it isn’t a bird, it’s VAT-free. Even the in-flight meals and the in-flight scratch cards.
Why are we the taxpayer subsidising this industry, not only do we bail out banks but we continuously subsidise the air industry. Isn’t it time these industries got off the tax payers back, isn’t it time they were assessed in their disability to work and earn a living.
Anyone who flies today is out of their mind. The best move the people could make, on their own behalf, is to boycott flying altogether.
Unless the population is simultaneously ready to use the power of their pocket to change the way they are being scammed, the longer this nonsense will continue.
Seats too small for a tiny slender woman to feel comfortable in is abuse of the traveller. Lining up for hours to be snarled at and manhandled in order to board is beyond the realm of reality. Accepting the notion that strangers can invade your private self is perverse. Are the public really ready to hand over good cash for this total misery?
Get a train, take the car, go by sea, or, holiday in the UK and see how quick those who want your cash will change their way of thinking. Instead of making more, they will face less. And the less will grow big once you learn how wonderful it is not to submit to this British disease called the ‘customer’ is a bloody nuisance, if it wasn’t for them this airline, airport, meal service, etc., would work like clockwork.
So, if you don’t buy a ticket, they will then see their baby working like the clockwork they wish for.
The power is in the pocket. Remember that people.
Women mentioning their “wife” and men mentioning their “husband” is surely a highly amusing evolution of the words, and of humour!
In view of the term “wife” having refered as often as not to a “chattel” until the women’s rights movements of the last years of the 19thC, one wonders whether a woman’s “wife” is an indentured or tied servant of some sort, or for that matter a man’s “husband”.
Does a man’s husband entail that the other is a wife, or are they both each other’s husbands, or both each other’s wives?
On the recent Census forms it asked about polygamous marriages. Before long , will people be talking about their wife AND their husband in the same…. mouthful, or will it be necessary to convert to UK Mohamedanism to be allowed that dubious privilege? ie two wives and one husband or two husbands?
If you are a Muslim male are you allowed two husbands, or do their standards not permit such public avowal?
Gareth is I believe the expert on husbandry, I won’t say he’s into cows but knows a lot more than most.
I note from the dictionary there is no “wifery”.
Two wives ?!! What about my Human Rights ?!!
@Twm O’r:
I always thought, when I was a child, I could have two husbands and when I found out I couldn’t it remained a disappointment. Maybe in the next life!
However, the truth is, to call a husband a husband when they are already a husband themselves, is simply to throw the term and sentiment into the field called ridiculous. And that is to further force the idea of marriage into the range of the derranged. It is an attck on marriage. A lampoon of the institution.
In other words, it is an attack on that we deem natural. And this fad will expand. Similar to how the cat walk beauty was no longer a woman but a man at a recent fashion show in Paris. You see, a woman has been reduced to sinew and bone, taking the need for a round figure out of the preserve of women into the preserve of men who wish they were women and women who wish they were men.
Now there you see the final slaughter of the female sex. Anorexic women and men taking the place of the once revered body of the rounded goddess. Equality and its result. Women are men and vice versa. We are all androgynous.
Caligula all over again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligula
But you are allowed to have two husbands, just remember to divorce the first.
@ladytizzy: And the fun is?
I am currently husbanding my tomato seedlings Carl, so I have plenty to do.
I agree with Maud about lampoons and ridicule, but it means a lot to the noble lord in question, who has his self respect.
Once again, Lord Soley, if Heathrow folk don’t want an extra runway, can Durham Tees Valley have it please? Not much point though, is there?
Economics needs to take a lesson from Ecolonomics
i.e. to factor into its fundamental formulations exhaustive Ecological-facts-and-futures;
otherwise it is doomed to continue sawing-off the very branch upon which it sits picking the Tree-of-Life’s finite fruits.
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0204T05Apr11.JSDM.
Ladytizzy. Durham Tees Valley for the new hub airport – get me the T shirt! I’ll bring my shovel up North and start digging late at night!
That’ll be more money spent on translators- yer frerm Ilford mate innit bruv, past the Watford Gap is all foreign.