Best Of

This is kinda desperate and embarrassing for both countries.

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2026/0313/1563169-ireland-uk-summit/

On the one hand, Ireland is desperate for help with maritime security, and is going to Britain for that help, a country with a Navy that is so stretched that it had to rush a warship out of dry dock to defend its base on Cyprus, but Ireland's capabilities are so much less that help from Britain represents a lifeline.

On the other hand, Britain's economy is in such a woeful state in terms of generating investment and attracting investment that they are delighted with investment of under a billion euro from Irish companies into Britain, that will generate fewer than a thousand new jobs. No word on British companies having the spare capital to invest in Ireland.

The agreements are doubtless Good Things, but they are revealing of the major weaknesses of each country and the long-term failure of each country to deal with those weaknesses.

It depends how salient proud of being Scottish is v. standing up to SKS. Reform do fine on the latter.

What's truly remarkable is how many still think the SNP will improve the lives of people like me, despite the fact they don't.

The SNP won’t improve the life of a Tory in the south of England? The total bastards!

And, for people like you, you'd continue voting SNP even if they slaughtered the firstborn, because it's an identity thing for you.

You don't really give a shit about their effectiveness in governing the Scottish people or improving their daily lives.

It's relative. All I have to do is check my student loan balance, or pick up a prescription, or drive down the A1 to the NE of England, to get a reminder. Or look at GDP figures which sees Scotland the strongest part of the UK outside the SE of England.

The tax rate hurts but I'm unusual for earning enough for this to have a material effect on my finances. The same goes for LBTT, which is going to really piss me off in a couple of years time. But for most people, these aren't big issues - and any wonkish remarks about Barnett fall flat when you consider how much energy we export over the border (now on my 3rd SNP leaflet pointing this out).

You don't have to be a nationalist fanatic to support the SNP. Most people aren't.

Terrible, terrible development. Israel began striking Lebanese state infrastructure. This infrastructure is used not just by Hezbollah, but also by Lebanese civilians, most of whom oppose Hezbollah.

Collective punishment is wrong; it also helps Hezbollah, which is more isolated than ever domestically in Lebanon, facing unprecedented popular fury even inside the Shia sect, for dragging Lebanon into war. Collectively punishing the Lebanese may push more of them toward supporting "resistance" in the face of indiscriminate aggression.

https://x.com/LizHurra/status/2032347611487687055

I’m shocked at this, absolutely shocked !!

Netanyahu playbook.

The genocidal cnut has no brake, no off buttom, its genicide of Arabs, full stop.

He'll use the tired old "weeding out the terrorists" to carpet / blanket bomb anything that stands up. Just look at Gaza.

They won't let anyone in and they wil quite happilly build a massive buffer zone around Israel.

The time has to come when he is hunted down, taken out and until he is, Israel must be sanctioned and ostracised in the same way as Russia. He is no better than Putin, in many ways he is far worse than Putin.

Almost the only interesting thing that Sarwar has done was to suggest that Starmer should stand down as PM. Of course he did this ineptly and ineffectively having failed to check if anyone was going to follow his lead before he went over the top.

When you compare the 2024 election with the last Holyrood election there is a massive swathe of constituency seats that should fall to Labour with a fairly uniform swing. Swinney has been awful as First Minister if not as catastrophic as his 2 predecessors largely because he avoids doing anything at all if he can possibly help it. He should be an easy target for a disgruntled electorate but it is not easy to see who is going to be firing the shot at the moment. Labour are in the Straits of Hormuz, Reform in Scotland make Reform in the rest of the UK look organised and professional, Alba probably won't even stand because they have run out of money and the Tories are coming off a remarkable high point for them and are likely to be slaughtered. And the Greens? Well, their period in government was apocalyptic.

The SNP may be atrocious but there is the lack of a credible alternative.

I actually think Sarwar would be an improvement on Swinney in office, but the unpopularity of Labour nationally and the awkwardness of his position he has taken with the national party are likely to prevent that. I agree it's probably the SNP by default.