It has been a great time here.
Thank you all

it has deepend my belief that the left sucks bad.

Yes, I agree sprint, a good, sensibly bitching has been had by all.
despite all the obvious differences, we have kept it pretty steady.

Thank you all, thank you FD and mods, thank you linesmen, thank you ball boys.

perceptions_now wrote on Aug 21^st, 2010 at 9:49am:


I disagree PN.

Few years back, Sir John Cope. Tory MP for Bristol North East where my parents live - he was a good fella.
Even in the years when the Conservatives were shedding seats like refugees chuck kids into oceans - he held on.

The reason because he was around the constituency all the time, if you had a problem or an issue and wrote to him, he wouldn't just write a personal letter back, often he'd call around on his own about 7pm at night and find out more about the problem.

I remember when the council were going to move Irish Travellers onto a disused horse's field near our house, he worked tirelessly with the local residents to get the decision reversed, often meeting people daily and going to London and voting.

He was a good man and a local man.

Many politicians are scoundrels, but when there are men like Cope around it gives you hope.


EDIT -

John Ambrose Cope, Baron Cope of Berkeley, PC (born 13 May 1937) is a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom.

He was educated at Oakham School before qualifying as a Chartered Accountant. He served as Member of Parliament for South Gloucestershire from 1974 to 1983. When that constituency was abolished for the 1983 general election, he was returned for the new Northavon constituency, serving in until his defeat in the 1997 general election by the Liberal Democrat Steve Webb. In 1988, he was sworn of the Privy Council.

Cope served as Paymaster-General in John Major's government between 1992 and 1994. Before that, Cope had been a whip, and played a significant part in the pressure put on the BBC to reintroduce Russian-language services during the attempted coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991, apparently returning to a Cabinet meting to forcefully put the case, at the height of the uncertainty, that the recently-cut services should be reinstated forthwith. He was made a life peer as Baron Cope of Berkeley, of Berkeley in the County of Gloucestershire in 1997. He has served as Opposition Chief Whip in the House of Lords, on the Conservative front bench. In 2007 he was replaced be Baroness Anelay.

I've been in Oz most of this week and attended a really good lunch on Thurs in Melbourne at the Windsor Hotel.

He's Labor and retiring but Lindsay Tanner was one of the guests and he spoke really well. Was pretty impressed with his handling of a lot of the questions.

He's very well versed in demographic trends and why the Greens support has increased so much.

Kevin Andrews was the other guest and he wasn't as impressive.


Interesting though, the questions were all very Liberal biased.

If the views of the Australian Institute of Directors forum is replicated across the country, the Liberals will win handsomely.

Yes very good thanks.

Canada is coming to an end around Jan for us, been a lot of upheaval where I work and I am going to work in the head office in California.
A really interesting part of the world right now, not without significant problems.

It's pleasant to be here and is a complete coincidence I am here same time as the election.
I had this trip booked in long before Ms Gillard called this date.

Makes life interesting anyway.

You would have liked some of the questions at the lunch forum on Thurs -

From the floor - "If you run a company and you have four key people making all the decisions, then everything goes to pot and you're looking for a scapegoat. Is it not true that all four senior managers should be fired and not just one?"

Tanner - "Well given I am one of the four you're presumably alluding to, it won't surprise to hear I don't necessarily agree with that...."

I didn't catch the guy's name but there was a columnist from the Age up with Tanner and Andrews who spoke pretty well.

He actually said that he thought the ALP had missed Tanner in this campaign as well. He added that he though the ALP would be returned but with a reduced vote and that on the other side of the election is where they will miss Tanner.

On asked did he think Tanner was more competent than Swan, the guy replied "I think every man and his dog knows that's the case"

His best bit was talking about how it's hard to judge some poll answers and predict a result, he gave an example from Mt Gambier.

"Who do you think will run the economy better?"
"Liberals probably"

"What do you think of the current Government?"
"Pretty average actually mate. I reckon they've stuffed up this issue with the boat people and the mining tax"

"Who do you plan to vote for?"
"I'll vote for Labor"

He added - "I mean how do you reconcile that? But these people are entitled to vote however they like. Just makes our job as columnists hard to work out"

Equitist wrote on Aug 21^st, 2010 at 12:23pm:



That's an incredibly blinkered view of looking at an Institute with hundreds of members.

Plus also those members make decisions in their companies which afffect millions of Australian workers.

Reasonably influential people I would say.

I managed to sneak an invite though despite being neither an Australian worker nor a Director in Australia!
Glad I went though.
The creme brulee was lovely 

Andrei.Hicks wrote on Aug 21^st, 2010 at 12:27pm:


You remember nemesis, dont you andrei? the one who describes everyone above minimum wage (or welfare) as a parasite?