Had breakfast under the cork oaks, here in the Costa Vicentina. Glorious sunshine, amazing really, for late October, but not too hot. A perfect 23C
Spent the morning reading about the Early Portuguese Empire - omg
Had a custard tart and two large shots of madronho for lunch
Spent the afternoon cycling around the beaches, dunes, and valleys, with my airpods on, blissed out to Verdi, the Waterboys, and Ulrich Schnauss - seriously, why have I only just discovered dirt road cycling PLUS music??!!
Now I eat a pretty decent sirloin, with brilliant Alentejo red, as the sun sets over the eucalyptus groves and the goat farm
And only now do I log on, to clog my head with horror stories of Covid, and yet, there is none (UK wise). The news is modestly better?
I may adopt this perspective in future. Just IGNORE Covid and enjoy life, and it will go away. And life, as of this minute, is sweet
I'm a Unionist who votes for the secessionist Green Party in Scotland, because I can see that voting for them has a positive effect on Green policies, and I know I can still vote for the Union in any referendum.
If you think they promote any positive green policies you are barking , a bunch of absolute arseholes, I would rather vote Tory than those wasters.
I'm a Unionist who votes for the secessionist Green Party in Scotland, because I can see that voting for them has a positive effect on Green policies, and I know I can still vote for the Union in any referendum.
I voted Green on the list to balance my Lib Dem vote. Don't know whether I'd vote at all in an indyref, seems like two bad choices to me.
Erdogan has declared the Ambassadors from ten countries persona non grata as their countries have criticised Turkey for imprisoning a human rights activist: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59023465
Worth noting that the UK is *not* on the list, although the US, Canada, France and Germany are. Whether that should make us proud or sad is another matter altogether.
Sad that we are now down among the despots, not much further to fall.
Are you seriously arguing that all of the countries that have not had their ambassadors expelled are despotic?
Had breakfast under the cork oaks, here in the Costa Vicentina. Glorious sunshine, amazing really, for late October, but not too hot. A perfect 23C
Spent the morning reading about the Early Portuguese Empire - omg
Had a custard tart and two large shots of madronho for lunch
Spent the afternoon cycling around the beaches, dunes, and valleys, with my airpods on, blissed out to Verdi, the Waterboys, and Ulrich Schnauss - seriously, why have I only just discovered dirt road cycling PLUS music??!!
Now I eat a pretty decent sirloin, with brilliant Alentejo red, as the sun sets over the eucalyptus groves and the goat farm
And only now do I log on, to clog my head with horror stories of Covid, and yet, there is none (UK wise). The news is modestly better?
I may adopt this perspective in future. Just IGNORE Covid and enjoy life, and it will go away. And life, as of this minute, is sweet
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
From speaking to my female friends and colleagues there is a really big worry about going out late. More than normal, however I don't think this is isolated to the UK. It's a trend I think every country is facing because of social media poisoning the minds of young people.
There is a protest going on this Wednesday night across a lot of University cities in the UK. The plan is to boycott all clubs that night with further action planned going forward until the clubs do something to improve security for women. It is centred on Nottingham but Edinburgh, Sheffield and Exeter are also involved along with other cities. One of the things they want - quite rightly - is that if anyone is caught trying to spike drinks they are held by security and the police called. Given spiking is a serious crime one would think this would be happening anyway but apparently a lot of clubs are worried about getting into trouble with the licencing authorities and so just throw the scumbags out rather than getting the police involved. So of course they can just move on elsewhere and try again.
My daughter is at Nottingham and works in one of the local bars/cafes and she says the students are really worried about this fairly new development of injecting. There have been 12 injection cases reported in the last 2 weeks and 44 spiking cases in total since the start of term.
Its a very old problem and clubs have never got to grip with it. If the security catches a problem and reports it to the Police then that should be something that's congratulated and not something they're worried about. Security throwing a criminal out onto the streets should be what they get into trouble with licencing over.
I'm mentioned it before but back in my clubbing days I was assaulted by a complete stranger on the dance floor of a club. CCTV showed he just walked across the floor and one-punch hit me in the eye and I fell to the floor. Security grabbed the guy and chucked him out. It was only when I didn't stand up and then someone turned me over and saw the amount of blood on the floor that a couple of my friends ran out onto the street and flagged down a copper who arrested my attacker. I suffered a shattered eye socket, broken nose, was nearly blinded in that eye and it could have been worse and the bouncer threw the guy out onto the streets. 😡
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
We are going to obsess them for many years (and, TBF, the reverse). We are the ex who divorced the EU DESPITE EVERYTHING THEY DID FOR US
The EU will be the ex who pores over our social media, trying to work out if we are sad or happy or faking either, and whether we are getting better sex with AUKUS than we did with them
Meanwhile we will pretend not to care but when we are drunk we will send snide gossip about France's penile equipment and Spain's worsening cellulitis via Tik Tok and Snapchat
Had breakfast under the cork oaks, here in the Costa Vicentina. Glorious sunshine, amazing really, for late October, but not too hot. A perfect 23C
Spent the morning reading about the Early Portuguese Empire - omg
Had a custard tart and two large shots of madronho for lunch
Spent the afternoon cycling around the beaches, dunes, and valleys, with my airpods on, blissed out to Verdi, the Waterboys, and Ulrich Schnauss - seriously, why have I only just discovered dirt road cycling PLUS music??!!
Now I eat a pretty decent sirloin, with brilliant Alentejo red, as the sun sets over the eucalyptus groves and the goat farm
And only now do I log on, to clog my head with horror stories of Covid, and yet, there is none (UK wise). The news is modestly better?
I may adopt this perspective in future. Just IGNORE Covid and enjoy life, and it will go away. And life, as of this minute, is sweet
And why did you post?
He’s a writer Flint knapper, thats what they do. Besides I post all kinds of rubbish on here, so why shouldn’t he?
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
We are going to obsess them for many years (and, TBF, the reverse). We are the ex who divorced the EU DESPITE EVERYTHING THEY DID FOR US
The EU will be the ex who pores over our social media, trying to work out if we are sad or happy or faking either, and whether we are getting better sex with AUKUS than we did with them
Meanwhile we will pretend not to care but when we are drunk we will send snide gossip about France's penile equipment and Spain's worsening cellulitis via Tik Tok and Snapchat
Had breakfast under the cork oaks, here in the Costa Vicentina. Glorious sunshine, amazing really, for late October, but not too hot. A perfect 23C
Spent the morning reading about the Early Portuguese Empire - omg
Had a custard tart and two large shots of madronho for lunch
Spent the afternoon cycling around the beaches, dunes, and valleys, with my airpods on, blissed out to Verdi, the Waterboys, and Ulrich Schnauss - seriously, why have I only just discovered dirt road cycling PLUS music??!!
Now I eat a pretty decent sirloin, with brilliant Alentejo red, as the sun sets over the eucalyptus groves and the goat farm
And only now do I log on, to clog my head with horror stories of Covid, and yet, there is none (UK wise). The news is modestly better?
I may adopt this perspective in future. Just IGNORE Covid and enjoy life, and it will go away. And life, as of this minute, is sweet
And why did you post?
Because now I'm a bit squiffy and in the mood to SAY THINGS
Had breakfast under the cork oaks, here in the Costa Vicentina. Glorious sunshine, amazing really, for late October, but not too hot. A perfect 23C
Spent the morning reading about the Early Portuguese Empire - omg
Had a custard tart and two large shots of madronho for lunch
Spent the afternoon cycling around the beaches, dunes, and valleys, with my airpods on, blissed out to Verdi, the Waterboys, and Ulrich Schnauss - seriously, why have I only just discovered dirt road cycling PLUS music??!!
Now I eat a pretty decent sirloin, with brilliant Alentejo red, as the sun sets over the eucalyptus groves and the goat farm
And only now do I log on, to clog my head with horror stories of Covid, and yet, there is none (UK wise). The news is modestly better?
I may adopt this perspective in future. Just IGNORE Covid and enjoy life, and it will go away. And life, as of this minute, is sweet
Cases are down week on week by a pretty big number and the current trend is for them to keep falling. We've also got half term this week which is a natural limiter on transmission. We also did over 300k booster jabs in England in a day which is up from just under 200k.
As I said last night, the worry isn't really about the virus, it's that the politicians will bottle it and reimpose restrictions unnecessarily.
Had breakfast under the cork oaks, here in the Costa Vicentina. Glorious sunshine, amazing really, for late October, but not too hot. A perfect 23C
Spent the morning reading about the Early Portuguese Empire - omg
Had a custard tart and two large shots of madronho for lunch
Spent the afternoon cycling around the beaches, dunes, and valleys, with my airpods on, blissed out to Verdi, the Waterboys, and Ulrich Schnauss - seriously, why have I only just discovered dirt road cycling PLUS music??!!
Now I eat a pretty decent sirloin, with brilliant Alentejo red, as the sun sets over the eucalyptus groves and the goat farm
And only now do I log on, to clog my head with horror stories of Covid, and yet, there is none (UK wise). The news is modestly better?
I may adopt this perspective in future. Just IGNORE Covid and enjoy life, and it will go away. And life, as of this minute, is sweet
Transpontine Portugal also pleasant, I am anchored off the desert islands called imaginatively the Ilhas Desertas 12 miles S of Madeira. Weirdly we are not allowed ashore on a desert island without a mask
Had breakfast under the cork oaks, here in the Costa Vicentina. Glorious sunshine, amazing really, for late October, but not too hot. A perfect 23C
Spent the morning reading about the Early Portuguese Empire - omg
Had a custard tart and two large shots of madronho for lunch
Spent the afternoon cycling around the beaches, dunes, and valleys, with my airpods on, blissed out to Verdi, the Waterboys, and Ulrich Schnauss - seriously, why have I only just discovered dirt road cycling PLUS music??!!
Now I eat a pretty decent sirloin, with brilliant Alentejo red, as the sun sets over the eucalyptus groves and the goat farm
And only now do I log on, to clog my head with horror stories of Covid, and yet, there is none (UK wise). The news is modestly better?
I may adopt this perspective in future. Just IGNORE Covid and enjoy life, and it will go away. And life, as of this minute, is sweet
And why did you post?
Because now I'm a bit squiffy and in the mood to SAY THINGS
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
From speaking to my female friends and colleagues there is a really big worry about going out late. More than normal, however I don't think this is isolated to the UK. It's a trend I think every country is facing because of social media poisoning the minds of young people.
There is a protest going on this Wednesday night across a lot of University cities in the UK. The plan is to boycott all clubs that night with further action planned going forward until the clubs do something to improve security for women. It is centred on Nottingham but Edinburgh, Sheffield and Exeter are also involved along with other cities. One of the things they want - quite rightly - is that if anyone is caught trying to spike drinks they are held by security and the police called. Given spiking is a serious crime one would think this would be happening anyway but apparently a lot of clubs are worried about getting into trouble with the licencing authorities and so just throw the scumbags out rather than getting the police involved. So of course they can just move on elsewhere and try again.
My daughter is at Nottingham and works in one of the local bars/cafes and she says the students are really worried about this fairly new development of injecting. There have been 12 injection cases reported in the last 2 weeks and 44 spiking cases in total since the start of term.
Its a very old problem and clubs have never got to grip with it. If the security catches a problem and reports it to the Police then that should be something that's congratulated and not something they're worried about. Security throwing a criminal out onto the streets should be what they get into trouble with licencing over.
I'm mentioned it before but back in my clubbing days I was assaulted by a complete stranger on the dance floor of a club. CCTV showed he just walked across the floor and one-punch hit me in the eye and I fell to the floor. Security grabbed the guy and chucked him out. It was only when I didn't stand up and then someone turned me over and saw the amount of blood on the floor that a couple of my friends ran out onto the street and flagged down a copper who arrested my attacker. I suffered a shattered eye socket, broken nose, was nearly blinded in that eye and it could have been worse and the bouncer threw the guy out onto the streets. 😡
It's a disgrace.
"Security" in most clubs controls the drug dealing. If they are not beating up people drugging other people in their clubs, then they aren't protecting their business properly.
Britain today... When I was a lad, the Piranha Brothers would have sorted them out.....
Doug and Dinsdale Piranha now formed a gang, which the called 'The Gang' and used terror to take over night clubs, billiard halls, gaming casinos and race tracks. When they tried to take over the MCC they were for the only time in their lives, slit up a treat
Need more data, but today’s COVID numbers do suggest a feast of humble pie could be in order for some.
We’ll see. Too early to be certain.
Indy SAGE crying into their beers tonight.
We've still got to wait a bit longer to know for sure. What's a known factor is that we've been very close to the herd immunity threshold for a while, the whole "run this thing hot before winter" idea was and remains correct.
I fear for countries that haven't done what we did over the summer and let the virus find vaccine refusers before the bad flu season we're due.
If we are on that path (and the evidence for it is definitely growing) then that delay from June to July may look a lot worse in hindsight as we'd be 4 weeks further down the path towards vaccine+natural herd immunity.
Yes, I strongly opposed the June delay largely for the reasons you cite. We’ll see how it all pans out I guess.
I'm a Unionist who votes for the secessionist Green Party in Scotland, because I can see that voting for them has a positive effect on Green policies, and I know I can still vote for the Union in any referendum.
I voted Green on the list to balance my Lib Dem vote. Don't know whether I'd vote at all in an indyref, seems like two bad choices to me.
This latter point - I wonder how universal it is? I don't want Scottish independence. But I don't think the union is salvagable in its current form. If we get to the point where there is little positive that the No campaign can say (and last time was pretty bad) there is a real risk that the undecided and ambivalent sit on their hands.
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
From speaking to my female friends and colleagues there is a really big worry about going out late. More than normal, however I don't think this is isolated to the UK. It's a trend I think every country is facing because of social media poisoning the minds of young people.
There is a protest going on this Wednesday night across a lot of University cities in the UK. The plan is to boycott all clubs that night with further action planned going forward until the clubs do something to improve security for women. It is centred on Nottingham but Edinburgh, Sheffield and Exeter are also involved along with other cities. One of the things they want - quite rightly - is that if anyone is caught trying to spike drinks they are held by security and the police called. Given spiking is a serious crime one would think this would be happening anyway but apparently a lot of clubs are worried about getting into trouble with the licencing authorities and so just throw the scumbags out rather than getting the police involved. So of course they can just move on elsewhere and try again.
My daughter is at Nottingham and works in one of the local bars/cafes and she says the students are really worried about this fairly new development of injecting. There have been 12 injection cases reported in the last 2 weeks and 44 spiking cases in total since the start of term.
You're right, the clubs are petrified of losing their licence. In Brighton, one of the large clubs is facing a boycott; a lot of students have complained about having their drinks spiked - not injections. The club owners have said they'll put disposable lids on drinks served from now on. Maybe better than nothing, but not really tackling the problem.
On the subject of Rohypnol, there was once a denizen of this site who used to boast of getting on long haul flights, dropping a couple with a glass of wine, and only waking up at the other end.
Wasn't that SeanT?
I miss that guy
I remember the stories from when I was a lurker. To be fair to him there was a postscript, that he once did it on a high profile press flight to Shanghai and had to be literally carried off the plane, at the other end, semi-conscious, by the journalists from the Telegraph, Mail, etc
But then - he claimed - he ended up sleeping with some beautiful PR girl on the same trip, so it all turned out fine
I never knew where his boasting went from normal embroidery to outright and frankly objectionable fantasy
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
From speaking to my female friends and colleagues there is a really big worry about going out late. More than normal, however I don't think this is isolated to the UK. It's a trend I think every country is facing because of social media poisoning the minds of young people.
There is a protest going on this Wednesday night across a lot of University cities in the UK. The plan is to boycott all clubs that night with further action planned going forward until the clubs do something to improve security for women. It is centred on Nottingham but Edinburgh, Sheffield and Exeter are also involved along with other cities. One of the things they want - quite rightly - is that if anyone is caught trying to spike drinks they are held by security and the police called. Given spiking is a serious crime one would think this would be happening anyway but apparently a lot of clubs are worried about getting into trouble with the licencing authorities and so just throw the scumbags out rather than getting the police involved. So of course they can just move on elsewhere and try again.
My daughter is at Nottingham and works in one of the local bars/cafes and she says the students are really worried about this fairly new development of injecting. There have been 12 injection cases reported in the last 2 weeks and 44 spiking cases in total since the start of term.
In Brighton, one of the large clubs is facing a boycott; a lot of students have complained about having their drinks spiked - not injections. The club owners have said they'll put disposable lids on drinks served from now on. Maybe better than nothing, but not really tackling the problem.
The issue stems from a police force that just doesn't take women's security seriously. Night clubs and other late night venues are taking their queue from the police when they don't bother reporting attempted spiking and sometimes even attempted rapes.
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
They’re still in the full ‘lover scorned’ stage, aren’t they?
I seem to recall an unattractive spasm of Germanophobia on here at the time of the Fall of Kabul (or Saigon II as certain hysterics had it) over how they were betraying the people of Afghanistan. That was before it was evident quite how much betraying the UK was doing of course.
Interesting piece in The Guardian from Burnley. A Trouble Town. Decades of mismanaged town politics which led to people voting in fascists 20 years ago. Then LibDem. Then Brexit. Then the Tories. And no matter who they vote for and what they try, the town keeps getting reamed.
At some point red wall voters will realise the pot of gold they voted for isn't there. But they know that Labour councillors and MPs and government didn't help either. And the fascists they elected 20 years ago? Catastrophically ineffective. So what is the point?
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
They’re still in the full ‘lover scorned’ stage, aren’t they?
I seem to recall an unattractive spasm of Germanophobia on here at the time of the Fall of Kabul (or Saigon II as certain hysterics had it) over how they were betraying the people of Afghanistan. That was before it was evident quite how much betraying the UK was doing of course.
What stage does that suggest the UK is at?
When do we (or they) start looking suspiciously at new partners and finding serious faults in them?
On the subject of Rohypnol, there was once a denizen of this site who used to boast of getting on long haul flights, dropping a couple with a glass of wine, and only waking up at the other end.
Wasn't that SeanT?
I miss that guy
I remember the stories from when I was a lurker. To be fair to him there was a postscript, that he once did it on a high profile press flight to Shanghai and had to be literally carried off the plane, at the other end, semi-conscious, by the journalists from the Telegraph, Mail, etc
But then - he claimed - he ended up sleeping with some beautiful PR girl on the same trip, so it all turned out fine
I never knew where his boasting went from normal embroidery to outright and frankly objectionable fantasy
A common problem with alcohol is that it blurs the line between reality and imagination.
On the subject of Rohypnol, there was once a denizen of this site who used to boast of getting on long haul flights, dropping a couple with a glass of wine, and only waking up at the other end.
Wasn't that SeanT?
I miss that guy
I remember the stories from when I was a lurker. To be fair to him there was a postscript, that he once did it on a high profile press flight to Shanghai and had to be literally carried off the plane, at the other end, semi-conscious, by the journalists from the Telegraph, Mail, etc
But then - he claimed - he ended up sleeping with some beautiful PR girl on the same trip, so it all turned out fine
I never knew where his boasting went from normal embroidery to outright and frankly objectionable fantasy
It looks like @SeanT might have flagged you, the b******!
On the subject of Rohypnol, there was once a denizen of this site who used to boast of getting on long haul flights, dropping a couple with a glass of wine, and only waking up at the other end.
Wasn't that SeanT?
I miss that guy
I remember the stories from when I was a lurker. To be fair to him there was a postscript, that he once did it on a high profile press flight to Shanghai and had to be literally carried off the plane, at the other end, semi-conscious, by the journalists from the Telegraph, Mail, etc
But then - he claimed - he ended up sleeping with some beautiful PR girl on the same trip, so it all turned out fine
I never knew where his boasting went from normal embroidery to outright and frankly objectionable fantasy
A common problem with alcohol is that it blurs the line between reality and imagination.
Also, if he is to be believed (a big IF), the excessive amounts of heroin, Xanax, danger, adrenaline and women thirty-years-his-junior. That will cloud your veracity, I sometimes wonder if he is even alive, still
On the other hand, as a contributor to a Flint Knapping Supplement for one of the major newspapers, I have heard that the Shanghai story is TRUE. And she WAS famously beautiful. So who knows
Looks like UK governments have screwed the pooch on Covid passports - tbf not just Johnson this time - while Macron and others made the right call.
Vaccines are good. They are nearly enough to contain the epidemic on current vaccination rates and general social behaviour But not quite. There's a Micawber principle at play here.
So if vaccines aren't quite good enough, where do you go from here? No-one wants to lock down again. We're missing that vital tool that drives up vaccination rates and allows fine tuned controls on social distancing.
Go for vaccines and 'natural immune systems' combined. Its worked for months already.
The NHS will just have to do the best it can do over the winter.
Unfortunately this may be the case, but it was unnecessary. We are where we are. A&E is collapsing. People who could have been treated will die. More people will die from Covid than would otherwise. Even if many of those were unvaccinated through choice or inaction, every avoidable death is regrettable.
Where do we draw the line with "every avoidable death" is regrettable?
Everyone who dies from diabetes having been obese?
Everyone who dies from cancer having smoked?
Everyone who dies from cirrhosis having drank?
Everyone who dies from Covid19 having refused a vaccine?
Everyone who dies from an accident having gotten behind the wheel?
Where do you draw the line? Avoidable deaths happen, they're a risk people take whenever they make choices.
It is the endless human search for safety. A bug of advanced western societies, particularly our own, it keeps manifesting itself in bad law and bad political decisions. So it is with Covid.
This is the rough you get with the smooth. The culture of individual liberty, which forms the basis of capitalism and liberal, rights-based governance also comes along with an emphasis on individual lives ahead of institutions, ahead of efficiency, ahead of loyalty to your nation, and so on. To argue against the wasting of lives to preventable deaths is perhaps sometimes right, but the reason you feel like you're swimming against the tide is that you are. And that tide is a good thing.
If your policy is to abandon a set of people to their deaths for some other perceived benefit, it is to be expected (actually, welcomed) that you are resisted, questioned, requestioned, and resisted again.
The mounting frustration which PT has exhibited at this process has really buoyed my spirits in recent days. It shows that the dismissal of individual lives is not casually accepted in this country, and that is a sign of greatness.
I think the easier ones to think about are avoidable self-imposed deaths.
Dangerous sports? Road accidents through driving like a Hoon? People going up Ben Nevis without appropriate equipment? People on lilos being swept out to sea?
Erdogan has declared the Ambassadors from ten countries persona non grata as their countries have criticised Turkey for imprisoning a human rights activist: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59023465
Worth noting that the UK is *not* on the list, although the US, Canada, France and Germany are. Whether that should make us proud or sad is another matter altogether.
Sad that we are now down among the despots, not much further to fall.
Are you seriously arguing that all of the countries that have not had their ambassadors expelled are despotic?
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
Interesting piece in The Guardian from Burnley. A Trouble Town. Decades of mismanaged town politics which led to people voting in fascists 20 years ago. Then LibDem. Then Brexit. Then the Tories. And no matter who they vote for and what they try, the town keeps getting reamed.
At some point red wall voters will realise the pot of gold they voted for isn't there. But they know that Labour councillors and MPs and government didn't help either. And the fascists they elected 20 years ago? Catastrophically ineffective. So what is the point?
I'm a Unionist who votes for the secessionist Green Party in Scotland, because I can see that voting for them has a positive effect on Green policies, and I know I can still vote for the Union in any referendum.
I voted Green on the list to balance my Lib Dem vote. Don't know whether I'd vote at all in an indyref, seems like two bad choices to me.
This latter point - I wonder how universal it is? I don't want Scottish independence. But I don't think the union is salvagable in its current form. If we get to the point where there is little positive that the No campaign can say (and last time was pretty bad) there is a real risk that the undecided and ambivalent sit on their hands.
There will be no indyref2 allowed while we have a Conservative government anyway, if Labour get in and allow one they will then have to think how best to sell the Union whether by devomax or whatever
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
From speaking to my female friends and colleagues there is a really big worry about going out late. More than normal, however I don't think this is isolated to the UK. It's a trend I think every country is facing because of social media poisoning the minds of young people.
There is a protest going on this Wednesday night across a lot of University cities in the UK. The plan is to boycott all clubs that night with further action planned going forward until the clubs do something to improve security for women. It is centred on Nottingham but Edinburgh, Sheffield and Exeter are also involved along with other cities. One of the things they want - quite rightly - is that if anyone is caught trying to spike drinks they are held by security and the police called. Given spiking is a serious crime one would think this would be happening anyway but apparently a lot of clubs are worried about getting into trouble with the licencing authorities and so just throw the scumbags out rather than getting the police involved. So of course they can just move on elsewhere and try again.
My daughter is at Nottingham and works in one of the local bars/cafes and she says the students are really worried about this fairly new development of injecting. There have been 12 injection cases reported in the last 2 weeks and 44 spiking cases in total since the start of term.
Its a very old problem and clubs have never got to grip with it. If the security catches a problem and reports it to the Police then that should be something that's congratulated and not something they're worried about. Security throwing a criminal out onto the streets should be what they get into trouble with licencing over.
I'm mentioned it before but back in my clubbing days I was assaulted by a complete stranger on the dance floor of a club. CCTV showed he just walked across the floor and one-punch hit me in the eye and I fell to the floor. Security grabbed the guy and chucked him out. It was only when I didn't stand up and then someone turned me over and saw the amount of blood on the floor that a couple of my friends ran out onto the street and flagged down a copper who arrested my attacker. I suffered a shattered eye socket, broken nose, was nearly blinded in that eye and it could have been worse and the bouncer threw the guy out onto the streets. 😡
I doubt that nightclubs - in the way we think of them - will be around for much longer. Most people would agree that both the incident you experienced and the reports of spiking drinks (including injections) are intolerable. But the police cannot be called in to deal with every fight or allegation of unlawful behaviour. This is because they don't have the resources, and on a practical level the whole nightclub cannot be locked down whilst witness statements are taken from everyone in the room; it would kill the whole night for everyone involved.
Most likely, the bad behaviour will move, along with the excitement which inevitably attracts young people, to places that that are unlicensed and even less safe. I don't know what the answer to this problem is.
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
Looks like UK governments have screwed the pooch on Covid passports - tbf not just Johnson this time - while Macron and others made the right call.
Vaccines are good. They are nearly enough to contain the epidemic on current vaccination rates and general social behaviour But not quite. There's a Micawber principle at play here.
So if vaccines aren't quite good enough, where do you go from here? No-one wants to lock down again. We're missing that vital tool that drives up vaccination rates and allows fine tuned controls on social distancing.
Go for vaccines and 'natural immune systems' combined. Its worked for months already.
The NHS will just have to do the best it can do over the winter.
Unfortunately this may be the case, but it was unnecessary. We are where we are. A&E is collapsing. People who could have been treated will die. More people will die from Covid than would otherwise. Even if many of those were unvaccinated through choice or inaction, every avoidable death is regrettable.
Where do we draw the line with "every avoidable death" is regrettable?
Everyone who dies from diabetes having been obese?
Everyone who dies from cancer having smoked?
Everyone who dies from cirrhosis having drank?
Everyone who dies from Covid19 having refused a vaccine?
Everyone who dies from an accident having gotten behind the wheel?
Where do you draw the line? Avoidable deaths happen, they're a risk people take whenever they make choices.
It is the endless human search for safety. A bug of advanced western societies, particularly our own, it keeps manifesting itself in bad law and bad political decisions. So it is with Covid.
This is the rough you get with the smooth. The culture of individual liberty, which forms the basis of capitalism and liberal, rights-based governance also comes along with an emphasis on individual lives ahead of institutions, ahead of efficiency, ahead of loyalty to your nation, and so on. To argue against the wasting of lives to preventable deaths is perhaps sometimes right, but the reason you feel like you're swimming against the tide is that you are. And that tide is a good thing.
If your policy is to abandon a set of people to their deaths for some other perceived benefit, it is to be expected (actually, welcomed) that you are resisted, questioned, requestioned, and resisted again.
The mounting frustration which PT has exhibited at this process has really buoyed my spirits in recent days. It shows that the dismissal of individual lives is not casually accepted in this country, and that is a sign of greatness.
Despite being named in this quote I missed it until Matt replied, so I'd better reply since I'm named. And what absolutely trite codswallop.
Valuing "lives" over living is a nice soundbite if you don't want to think. Just value "lives" and move on, pat yourself on the back for being so virtuous.
Except everyone is guaranteed to lose their lives over something and a great proportion of deaths are if you trace it back "avoidable".
Over 70k people died from respiratory illnesses every single year 2015-2019. How many of them were "avoidable"? Should we be locked down to prevent the common cold and influenza spreading which kill tens of thousands annually?
Its greatness that requires people to stand up to the trite bullshit you're spouting. We could stop "avoidable deaths" by locking down forever, banning the sale of alcohol, banning the sale of tobacco, banning the sale of sugary snacks and so on but then don't be surprised if people decide such a life isn't worth living and we run out of money to fund the NHS anyway.
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
From speaking to my female friends and colleagues there is a really big worry about going out late. More than normal, however I don't think this is isolated to the UK. It's a trend I think every country is facing because of social media poisoning the minds of young people.
There is a protest going on this Wednesday night across a lot of University cities in the UK. The plan is to boycott all clubs that night with further action planned going forward until the clubs do something to improve security for women. It is centred on Nottingham but Edinburgh, Sheffield and Exeter are also involved along with other cities. One of the things they want - quite rightly - is that if anyone is caught trying to spike drinks they are held by security and the police called. Given spiking is a serious crime one would think this would be happening anyway but apparently a lot of clubs are worried about getting into trouble with the licencing authorities and so just throw the scumbags out rather than getting the police involved. So of course they can just move on elsewhere and try again.
My daughter is at Nottingham and works in one of the local bars/cafes and she says the students are really worried about this fairly new development of injecting. There have been 12 injection cases reported in the last 2 weeks and 44 spiking cases in total since the start of term.
Its a very old problem and clubs have never got to grip with it. If the security catches a problem and reports it to the Police then that should be something that's congratulated and not something they're worried about. Security throwing a criminal out onto the streets should be what they get into trouble with licencing over.
I'm mentioned it before but back in my clubbing days I was assaulted by a complete stranger on the dance floor of a club. CCTV showed he just walked across the floor and one-punch hit me in the eye and I fell to the floor. Security grabbed the guy and chucked him out. It was only when I didn't stand up and then someone turned me over and saw the amount of blood on the floor that a couple of my friends ran out onto the street and flagged down a copper who arrested my attacker. I suffered a shattered eye socket, broken nose, was nearly blinded in that eye and it could have been worse and the bouncer threw the guy out onto the streets. 😡
I doubt that nightclubs - in the way we think of them - will be around for much longer. Most people would agree that both the incident you experienced and the reports of spiking drinks (including injections) are intolerable. But the police cannot be called in to deal with every fight or allegation of unlawful behaviour. This is because they don't have the resources, and on a practical level the whole nightclub cannot be locked down whilst witness statements are taken from everyone in the room; it would kill the whole night for everyone involved.
Most likely, the bad behaviour will move, along with the excitement which inevitably attracts young people, to places that that are unlicensed and even less safe. I don't know what the answer to this problem is.
There's no reason the Police couldn't attend to incidents like mine decades ago, or what women are complaining about today. In most towns and cities nightclubs will tend to be on certain streets that at night Police will be automatically stationed outside at night - which they can be funded for no doubt by the taxes and duties on the sales in those clubs.
As I said, when I was attacked and they realised the severity of it a couple of my friends ran out, flagged down a copper and pointed out the offender to him and the copper nicked him. Why couldn't the bouncer have done that instead of chucking out the offender so that he nearly got away?
If a club were to call or radio in to the Police that they had trouble there could be cops there in a couple of minutes, if that. No need to shut everything down, just need security to hold onto the offender until the Police arrive.
Its a choice by clubs to have security throw offenders onto the streets instead of getting the Police to take them into custody.
Texas laws and the Texan constitution have defined marriage as the sexual union between one man and one woman.
Personally I do not have a problem with same sex marriage but as with abortion Texas is a more conservative and more Republican and more religious state than the US as a whole and so the Supreme Court will have to affirm if its laws are to be struck down on social issues.
For reference Texan voters are split on the issue, 46% in favour of same sex marriage, 46% opposed. 69% of evangelicals and 58% of Black Protestants in the state oppose same sex marriage.
By contrast 70% of Americans overall now support same sex marriage
Wow. Has Lewis Hamilton actually just managed to overtake without causing a massive accident?
You really don't like him, do you?
Tbh, I don’t really like any modern F1 driver. Maybe Lance Stroll because I have a soft spot for gallant losers. The rest tend to come across as spoiled, self-righteous, reckless brats.
That applies equally to Max Verstappen, whom I first nicknamed Max Vercrash’em.
I had to laugh at Neville tonight saying in the post-match discussion with Carragher saying that Man Utd shouldn't get rid of OGS because they'd had van Gaal and Mourinho who didn't work out and Mourinho was "the best manager in the world".
Mourinho was already a laughed-at egotist before Man Utd hired him, I don't think anyone sane in 2016 would have said that Mourinho was still the best manager in the world by then. He was found out and Chelsea's has-been years ago.
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
Interesting piece in The Guardian from Burnley. A Trouble Town. Decades of mismanaged town politics which led to people voting in fascists 20 years ago. Then LibDem. Then Brexit. Then the Tories. And no matter who they vote for and what they try, the town keeps getting reamed.
At some point red wall voters will realise the pot of gold they voted for isn't there. But they know that Labour councillors and MPs and government didn't help either. And the fascists they elected 20 years ago? Catastrophically ineffective. So what is the point?
So, basically, we will have a large group of voters who are politically homeless and for whom voting is a waste of time as nothing ever changes.
Labour have taken these areas for granted, as they did with Scotland, for many years and now don’t speak to them or even want to understand what they want.
The Tories, at least, offered hope and if that fails where do they go ?
Back to being labelled as thick, stupid and racist and voting against their own interest by online labour activists based in big cities.
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
From speaking to my female friends and colleagues there is a really big worry about going out late. More than normal, however I don't think this is isolated to the UK. It's a trend I think every country is facing because of social media poisoning the minds of young people.
There is a protest going on this Wednesday night across a lot of University cities in the UK. The plan is to boycott all clubs that night with further action planned going forward until the clubs do something to improve security for women. It is centred on Nottingham but Edinburgh, Sheffield and Exeter are also involved along with other cities. One of the things they want - quite rightly - is that if anyone is caught trying to spike drinks they are held by security and the police called. Given spiking is a serious crime one would think this would be happening anyway but apparently a lot of clubs are worried about getting into trouble with the licencing authorities and so just throw the scumbags out rather than getting the police involved. So of course they can just move on elsewhere and try again.
My daughter is at Nottingham and works in one of the local bars/cafes and she says the students are really worried about this fairly new development of injecting. There have been 12 injection cases reported in the last 2 weeks and 44 spiking cases in total since the start of term.
Its a very old problem and clubs have never got to grip with it. If the security catches a problem and reports it to the Police then that should be something that's congratulated and not something they're worried about. Security throwing a criminal out onto the streets should be what they get into trouble with licencing over.
I'm mentioned it before but back in my clubbing days I was assaulted by a complete stranger on the dance floor of a club. CCTV showed he just walked across the floor and one-punch hit me in the eye and I fell to the floor. Security grabbed the guy and chucked him out. It was only when I didn't stand up and then someone turned me over and saw the amount of blood on the floor that a couple of my friends ran out onto the street and flagged down a copper who arrested my attacker. I suffered a shattered eye socket, broken nose, was nearly blinded in that eye and it could have been worse and the bouncer threw the guy out onto the streets. 😡
I doubt that nightclubs - in the way we think of them - will be around for much longer. Most people would agree that both the incident you experienced and the reports of spiking drinks (including injections) are intolerable. But the police cannot be called in to deal with every fight or allegation of unlawful behaviour. This is because they don't have the resources, and on a practical level the whole nightclub cannot be locked down whilst witness statements are taken from everyone in the room; it would kill the whole night for everyone involved.
Most likely, the bad behaviour will move, along with the excitement which inevitably attracts young people, to places that that are unlicensed and even less safe. I don't know what the answer to this problem is.
There's no reason the Police couldn't attend to incidents like mine decades ago, or what women are complaining about today. In most towns and cities nightclubs will tend to be on certain streets that at night Police will be automatically stationed outside at night - which they can be funded for no doubt by the taxes and duties on the sales in those clubs.
As I said, when I was attacked and they realised the severity of it a couple of my friends ran out, flagged down a copper and pointed out the offender to him and the copper nicked him. Why couldn't the bouncer have done that instead of chucking out the offender so that he nearly got away?
If a club were to call or radio in to the Police that they had trouble there could be cops there in a couple of minutes, if that. No need to shut everything down, just need security to hold onto the offender until the Police arrive.
Its a choice by clubs to have security throw offenders onto the streets instead of getting the Police to take them into custody.
The police have to work in a different way to the ambiguous justice dispatched by nightclub bouncers. Once they are involved, then it has significant consequences. Unless a case is absolutely clear cut, it really isn't just a case of calling them in for a few minutes to sort out a problem. You have mentioned your assault before, and it seems like a random, unprovoked attack. But most fights are not like that. If you have something like GBH, a very serious crime, then the police would really need to shut the music down, turn the house lights on, and interview everyone in the room to establish the truth of what went on, who started the fight etc. They might need to get forensics in and a crime scene set up. Otherwise people will complain that they aren't doing their job. It is the same with this spiking thing; if the police are being called in, then there is a public expectation that they will do everything they can to secure a conviction. So that might well mean going through a similar process, with all the disruption caused. It all goes down to the adversarial nature of our justice system, and the need to prove something beyond reasonable doubt.
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
Wow. Has Lewis Hamilton actually just managed to overtake without causing a massive accident?
You really don't like him, do you?
Tbh, I don’t really like any modern F1 driver. Maybe Lance Stroll because I have a soft spot for gallant losers. The rest tend to come across as spoiled, self-righteous, reckless brats.
That applies equally to Max Verstappen, whom I first nicknamed Max Vercrash’em.
Has there ever been an F1 driver who didn't have support from their parents?
I think tarmac runoff areas have created reckless tendencies, but I would say Lewis is one of the better drivers in terms of being a fair racer.
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
The point I was trying to make, perhaps clumsily, is that independence movements don’t necessarily hinge on raw wealth but the perception of economic advantage. Which Bavarians seem to think being in Germany gives them, as do the Welsh. The Scots seem less concerned.
But equally, it’s years since I was in Bavaria and I could easily be completely wrong.
Wow. Has Lewis Hamilton actually just managed to overtake without causing a massive accident?
You really don't like him, do you?
Tbh, I don’t really like any modern F1 driver. Maybe Lance Stroll because I have a soft spot for gallant losers. The rest tend to come across as spoiled, self-righteous, reckless brats.
That applies equally to Max Verstappen, whom I first nicknamed Max Vercrash’em.
Has there ever been an F1 driver who didn't have support from their parents?
I think tarmac runoff areas have created reckless tendencies, but I would say Lewis is one of the better drivers in terms of being a fair racer.
I have to say I don’t agree - I think he gets away with quite a lot that others wouldn’t.
As for your first question, probably not given the amount of work involved. But there’s being self confident and there’s being a twat.
Edit - he’s surely going to win from here barring mechanical failure though.
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
From speaking to my female friends and colleagues there is a really big worry about going out late. More than normal, however I don't think this is isolated to the UK. It's a trend I think every country is facing because of social media poisoning the minds of young people.
There is a protest going on this Wednesday night across a lot of University cities in the UK. The plan is to boycott all clubs that night with further action planned going forward until the clubs do something to improve security for women. It is centred on Nottingham but Edinburgh, Sheffield and Exeter are also involved along with other cities. One of the things they want - quite rightly - is that if anyone is caught trying to spike drinks they are held by security and the police called. Given spiking is a serious crime one would think this would be happening anyway but apparently a lot of clubs are worried about getting into trouble with the licencing authorities and so just throw the scumbags out rather than getting the police involved. So of course they can just move on elsewhere and try again.
My daughter is at Nottingham and works in one of the local bars/cafes and she says the students are really worried about this fairly new development of injecting. There have been 12 injection cases reported in the last 2 weeks and 44 spiking cases in total since the start of term.
Its a very old problem and clubs have never got to grip with it. If the security catches a problem and reports it to the Police then that should be something that's congratulated and not something they're worried about. Security throwing a criminal out onto the streets should be what they get into trouble with licencing over.
I'm mentioned it before but back in my clubbing days I was assaulted by a complete stranger on the dance floor of a club. CCTV showed he just walked across the floor and one-punch hit me in the eye and I fell to the floor. Security grabbed the guy and chucked him out. It was only when I didn't stand up and then someone turned me over and saw the amount of blood on the floor that a couple of my friends ran out onto the street and flagged down a copper who arrested my attacker. I suffered a shattered eye socket, broken nose, was nearly blinded in that eye and it could have been worse and the bouncer threw the guy out onto the streets. 😡
I doubt that nightclubs - in the way we think of them - will be around for much longer. Most people would agree that both the incident you experienced and the reports of spiking drinks (including injections) are intolerable. But the police cannot be called in to deal with every fight or allegation of unlawful behaviour. This is because they don't have the resources, and on a practical level the whole nightclub cannot be locked down whilst witness statements are taken from everyone in the room; it would kill the whole night for everyone involved.
Most likely, the bad behaviour will move, along with the excitement which inevitably attracts young people, to places that that are unlicensed and even less safe. I don't know what the answer to this problem is.
There's no reason the Police couldn't attend to incidents like mine decades ago, or what women are complaining about today. In most towns and cities nightclubs will tend to be on certain streets that at night Police will be automatically stationed outside at night - which they can be funded for no doubt by the taxes and duties on the sales in those clubs.
As I said, when I was attacked and they realised the severity of it a couple of my friends ran out, flagged down a copper and pointed out the offender to him and the copper nicked him. Why couldn't the bouncer have done that instead of chucking out the offender so that he nearly got away?
If a club were to call or radio in to the Police that they had trouble there could be cops there in a couple of minutes, if that. No need to shut everything down, just need security to hold onto the offender until the Police arrive.
Its a choice by clubs to have security throw offenders onto the streets instead of getting the Police to take them into custody.
The police have to work in a different way to the ambiguous justice dispatched by nightclub bouncers. Once they are involved, then it has significant consequences. Unless a case is absolutely clear cut, it really isn't just a case of calling them in for a few minutes to sort out a problem. You have mentioned your assault before, and it seems like a random, unprovoked attack. But most fights are not like that. If you have something like GBH, a very serious crime, then the police would really need to shut the music down, turn the house lights on, and interview everyone in the room to establish the truth of what went on, who started the fight etc. They might need to get forensics in and a crime scene set up. Otherwise people will complain that they aren't doing their job. It is the same with this spiking thing; if the police are being called in, then there is a public expectation that they will do everything they can to secure a conviction. So that might well mean going through a similar process, with all the disruption caused. It all goes down to the adversarial nature of our justice system, and the need to prove something beyond reasonable doubt.
As I said the Police were involved with my assault, thanks to my friends not security. I have no idea if they shut the club down since I woke up in hospital, I don't believe they did instead I think they took the CCTV. Which was enough to get a conviction.
But if the security aren't calling the Police when a crime is committed because they're worried being a crime scene may hurt sales then that absolutely proves my point that they're choosing not to get the cops involved and that should lead to a loss of a licence. The licencing authorities should reward those who ensure justice is done and strip the licence of those who attempt to cover up or trivialise law breaking.
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
UDI for Antrim, according to HYUFD!
(even though County Down is actually more Protestant than Antrim is)
Great news on the Covid numbers: hopefully this is more than just a half term and reversing of SW overcount issue.
Now, let's get on with getting people boosters (my wife and I are hoping to get ours today), and making sure that there are no need for restrictions.
(Of course, the government is usually well behind reality*, and will implement restrictions at exactly the moment it is obvious that cases are already heading downwards.)
* See India only going on the red list after cases had already started dropping
Well, I obviously hope you're right that the Government holds its nerve (albeit that, even if it does, progress could yet be undone by a really terrible flu season.)
I'm certainly not as sanguine as others that a move to Plan B would cause no real damage. One reads that bookings for hotels and restaurants for the Christmas season are already much slower than usual. If any restrictions come back then I predict that many, perhaps most, of the population will roll its eyes, say 'here we go again', and assume that Christmas is going to be cancelled, with dire consequences.
My understanding is that the cities are heaving at the weekend. People may not *book* Christmas events (for fear of them being cancelled), but if they still go out, then the damage to the economy is likely to be negligble.
We went out for Sunday roast today at a local pub/restaurant and enquired about Christmas dinner. They said they've already sold out.
Pretty mean of PBers to "like" this post on account of Philip & family being denied their Christmas goose!
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
UDI for Antrim, according to HYUFD!
(even though County Down is actually more Protestant than Antrim is)
Oh yes - I do apologise. Thank you. Yes, County Antrim of course.
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Ireland to stay in the UK but if under the GFA there was a border poll and NI voted for a United Ireland with Antrim voting against then culturally Antrim would never accept Dublin rule. So in that case it would declare UDI
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
UDI for Antrim, according to HYUFD!
(even though County Down is actually more Protestant than Antrim is)
Every MP in county Antrim is DUP and every constituency in Antrim voted Leave.
That is not the case for County Down as South Down has an SDLP MP and North Down has an Alliance MP and both those constituencies also voted Remain.
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Ireland to stay in the UK but if under the GFA there was a border poll and NI voted for a United Ireland with Antrim voting against then culturally Antrim would never accept Dublin rule. So in that case it would declare UDI
But you positively supported that solution. Anyone would think you were a Catalunyan independista, only on steroids - UDI from two states and an international treaty at once.
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Ireland to stay in the UK but if under the GFA there was a border poll and NI voted for a United Ireland with Antrim voting against then culturally Antrim would never accept Dublin rule. So in that case it would declare UDI
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Irelandthe United Kingdom to stay in the UKEU but if under the GFAEuropean Union Referendum Act there was a border pollReferendum and NIthe UK voted for a United Irelandto Leave the European Union with AntrimScotland voting against then culturally AntrimScotland would never accept Dublin ruleLeaving the EU. So in that case it would declare UDI
Given that both Neil Gorsuch penned the majority opinion extending anti-sexual discrimination legislation to include LBQT, I think this is one area where liberals probably needn't be worried.
Attempts to roll back the clock against public opinion - especially as increasing numbers of people now know married gay people - are likely to do nothing other than harm the Republicans at the ballot box.
Given that both Neil Gorsuch penned the majority opinion extending anti-sexual discrimination legislation to include LBQT, I think this is one area where liberals probably needn't be worried.
Attempts to roll back the clock against public opinion - especially as increasing numbers of people now know married gay people - are likely to do nothing other than harm the Republicans at the ballot box.
That depends, while Americans as a whole back same sex marriage, evangelicals and Black Protestants remain opposed.
The latter are especially strong in the deep South
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
From speaking to my female friends and colleagues there is a really big worry about going out late. More than normal, however I don't think this is isolated to the UK. It's a trend I think every country is facing because of social media poisoning the minds of young people.
There is a protest going on this Wednesday night across a lot of University cities in the UK. The plan is to boycott all clubs that night with further action planned going forward until the clubs do something to improve security for women. It is centred on Nottingham but Edinburgh, Sheffield and Exeter are also involved along with other cities. One of the things they want - quite rightly - is that if anyone is caught trying to spike drinks they are held by security and the police called. Given spiking is a serious crime one would think this would be happening anyway but apparently a lot of clubs are worried about getting into trouble with the licencing authorities and so just throw the scumbags out rather than getting the police involved. So of course they can just move on elsewhere and try again.
My daughter is at Nottingham and works in one of the local bars/cafes and she says the students are really worried about this fairly new development of injecting. There have been 12 injection cases reported in the last 2 weeks and 44 spiking cases in total since the start of term.
Its a very old problem and clubs have never got to grip with it. If the security catches a problem and reports it to the Police then that should be something that's congratulated and not something they're worried about. Security throwing a criminal out onto the streets should be what they get into trouble with licencing over.
I'm mentioned it before but back in my clubbing days I was assaulted by a complete stranger on the dance floor of a club. CCTV showed he just walked across the floor and one-punch hit me in the eye and I fell to the floor. Security grabbed the guy and chucked him out. It was only when I didn't stand up and then someone turned me over and saw the amount of blood on the floor that a couple of my friends ran out onto the street and flagged down a copper who arrested my attacker. I suffered a shattered eye socket, broken nose, was nearly blinded in that eye and it could have been worse and the bouncer threw the guy out onto the streets. 😡
I doubt that nightclubs - in the way we think of them - will be around for much longer. Most people would agree that both the incident you experienced and the reports of spiking drinks (including injections) are intolerable. But the police cannot be called in to deal with every fight or allegation of unlawful behaviour. This is because they don't have the resources, and on a practical level the whole nightclub cannot be locked down whilst witness statements are taken from everyone in the room; it would kill the whole night for everyone involved.
Most likely, the bad behaviour will move, along with the excitement which inevitably attracts young people, to places that that are unlicensed and even less safe. I don't know what the answer to this problem is.
There's no reason the Police couldn't attend to incidents like mine decades ago, or what women are complaining about today. In most towns and cities nightclubs will tend to be on certain streets that at night Police will be automatically stationed outside at night - which they can be funded for no doubt by the taxes and duties on the sales in those clubs.
As I said, when I was attacked and they realised the severity of it a couple of my friends ran out, flagged down a copper and pointed out the offender to him and the copper nicked him. Why couldn't the bouncer have done that instead of chucking out the offender so that he nearly got away?
If a club were to call or radio in to the Police that they had trouble there could be cops there in a couple of minutes, if that. No need to shut everything down, just need security to hold onto the offender until the Police arrive.
Its a choice by clubs to have security throw offenders onto the streets instead of getting the Police to take them into custody.
The police have to work in a different way to the ambiguous justice dispatched by nightclub bouncers. Once they are involved, then it has significant consequences. Unless a case is absolutely clear cut, it really isn't just a case of calling them in for a few minutes to sort out a problem. You have mentioned your assault before, and it seems like a random, unprovoked attack. But most fights are not like that. If you have something like GBH, a very serious crime, then the police would really need to shut the music down, turn the house lights on, and interview everyone in the room to establish the truth of what went on, who started the fight etc. They might need to get forensics in and a crime scene set up. Otherwise people will complain that they aren't doing their job. It is the same with this spiking thing; if the police are being called in, then there is a public expectation that they will do everything they can to secure a conviction. So that might well mean going through a similar process, with all the disruption caused. It all goes down to the adversarial nature of our justice system, and the need to prove something beyond reasonable doubt.
As I said the Police were involved with my assault, thanks to my friends not security. I have no idea if they shut the club down since I woke up in hospital, I don't believe they did instead I think they took the CCTV. Which was enough to get a conviction.
But if the security aren't calling the Police when a crime is committed because they're worried being a crime scene may hurt sales then that absolutely proves my point that they're choosing not to get the cops involved and that should lead to a loss of a licence. The licencing authorities should reward those who ensure justice is done and strip the licence of those who attempt to cover up or trivialise law breaking.
Why don't the police target clubs more closely? They seem to a good place to find criminals. Given that the police will be out and about on Friday and Saturday nights, and absent serious disorder elsewhere, they should be paying them detailed attention.
Looks like UK governments have screwed the pooch on Covid passports - tbf not just Johnson this time - while Macron and others made the right call.
Vaccines are good. They are nearly enough to contain the epidemic on current vaccination rates and general social behaviour But not quite. There's a Micawber principle at play here.
So if vaccines aren't quite good enough, where do you go from here? No-one wants to lock down again. We're missing that vital tool that drives up vaccination rates and allows fine tuned controls on social distancing.
Go for vaccines and 'natural immune systems' combined. Its worked for months already.
The NHS will just have to do the best it can do over the winter.
Unfortunately this may be the case, but it was unnecessary. We are where we are. A&E is collapsing. People who could have been treated will die. More people will die from Covid than would otherwise. Even if many of those were unvaccinated through choice or inaction, every avoidable death is regrettable.
Where do we draw the line with "every avoidable death" is regrettable?
Everyone who dies from diabetes having been obese?
Everyone who dies from cancer having smoked?
Everyone who dies from cirrhosis having drank?
Everyone who dies from Covid19 having refused a vaccine?
Everyone who dies from an accident having gotten behind the wheel?
Where do you draw the line? Avoidable deaths happen, they're a risk people take whenever they make choices.
It is the endless human search for safety. A bug of advanced western societies, particularly our own, it keeps manifesting itself in bad law and bad political decisions. So it is with Covid.
This is the rough you get with the smooth. The culture of individual liberty, which forms the basis of capitalism and liberal, rights-based governance also comes along with an emphasis on individual lives ahead of institutions, ahead of efficiency, ahead of loyalty to your nation, and so on. To argue against the wasting of lives to preventable deaths is perhaps sometimes right, but the reason you feel like you're swimming against the tide is that you are. And that tide is a good thing.
If your policy is to abandon a set of people to their deaths for some other perceived benefit, it is to be expected (actually, welcomed) that you are resisted, questioned, requestioned, and resisted again.
The mounting frustration which PT has exhibited at this process has really buoyed my spirits in recent days. It shows that the dismissal of individual lives is not casually accepted in this country, and that is a sign of greatness.
I do still have some sense of greatness being British. The sense of greatness is derived from our openness, and being the most progressive country in the world in respect of dealing with racism; itself connected to decolonisation initiated by the British nation after 1945. Unfortunately much of this good work has been undone over the last decade or so, with the encroachment of identity politics in to all areas of public life.
In terms of your point above, risk based decisions where people may end up dying or seriously injured take place behind the scenes all the time. Decisions about road junctions is a routine area with quite significant consequences. In the end, the rights of individuals to avoid preventable deaths do not, in reality, hold any sort of veto over public policy. However, there is a phenomenon where known threats to safety lead to panics, and bad policies being adopted with all sorts of peverse outcomes. Covid isn't the worse example of this, but a similar process is at play.
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Ireland to stay in the UK but if under the GFA there was a border poll and NI voted for a United Ireland with Antrim voting against then culturally Antrim would never accept Dublin rule. So in that case it would declare UDI
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Irelandthe United Kingdom to stay in the UKEU but if under the GFAEuropean Union Referendum Act there was a border pollReferendum and NIthe UK voted for a United Irelandto Leave the European Union with AntrimScotland voting against then culturally AntrimScotland would never accept Dublin ruleLeaving the EU. So in that case it would declare UDI
Scotland cannot declare UDI without Westminster approval as Westminster has been sovereign over Scotland since 1707, Holyrood is merely a creation of Westminster.
If Northern Ireland voted to leave the UK however under the GFA UK law would no longer apply to Antrim and it could and would declare UDI before it had to submit to Dubin rule.
Much as Iain Smith's Rhodesia declared UDI in the 1960s during decolonisation over a disagreement over UK PM Wilson's proposed terms of independence with the support of the Tory right, only in Antrim Protestant Unionists are the majority while whites were only ever a minority in Rhodesia
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Ireland to stay in the UK but if under the GFA there was a border poll and NI voted for a United Ireland with Antrim voting against then culturally Antrim would never accept Dublin rule. So in that case it would declare UDI
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Irelandthe United Kingdom to stay in the UKEU but if under the GFAEuropean Union Referendum Act there was a border pollReferendum and NIthe UK voted for a United Irelandto Leave the European Union with AntrimScotland voting against then culturally AntrimScotland would never accept Dublin ruleLeaving the EU. So in that case it would declare UDI
Scotland cannot declare UDI without Westminster approval as Westminster has been sovereign over Scotland since 1707, Holyrood is merely a creation of Westminster.
If Northern Ireland voted to leave the UK however under the GFA UK law would no longer apply to Antrim and it could and would declare UDI before it had to submit to Dubin rule.
Much as Iain Smith's Rhodesia declare UDI in the 1960s during decolonisation with the support of the Tory right, only in Antrim Protestant Unionists are the majority while whites were only ever a minority in Rhodesia
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
UDI for Antrim, according to HYUFD!
(even though County Down is actually more Protestant than Antrim is)
Every MP in county Antrim is DUP and every constituency in Antrim voted Leave.
That is not the case for County Down as South Down has an SDLP MP and North Down has an Alliance MP and both those constituencies also voted Remain.
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Ireland to stay in the UK but if under the GFA there was a border poll and NI voted for a United Ireland with Antrim voting against then culturally Antrim would never accept Dublin rule. So in that case it would declare UDI
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Irelandthe United Kingdom to stay in the UKEU but if under the GFAEuropean Union Referendum Act there was a border pollReferendum and NIthe UK voted for a United Irelandto Leave the European Union with AntrimScotland voting against then culturally AntrimScotland would never accept Dublin ruleLeaving the EU. So in that case it would declare UDI
Scotland cannot declare UDI without Westminster approval as Westminster has been sovereign over Scotland since 1707, Holyrood is merely a creation of Westminster.
If Northern Ireland voted to leave the UK however under the GFA UK law would no longer apply to Antrim and it could and would declare UDI before it had to submit to Dubin rule.
Much as Iain Smith's Rhodesia declared UDI in the 1960s during decolonisation over a disagreement over UK PM Wilson's proposed terms of independence with the support of the Tory right, only in Antrim Protestant Unionists are the majority while whites were only ever a minority in Rhodesia
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
UDI for Antrim, according to HYUFD!
(even though County Down is actually more Protestant than Antrim is)
Every MP in county Antrim is DUP and every constituency in Antrim voted Leave.
That is not the case for County Down as South Down has an SDLP MP and North Down has an Alliance MP and both those constituencies also voted Remain.
On the subject of Rohypnol, there was once a denizen of this site who used to boast of getting on long haul flights, dropping a couple with a glass of wine, and only waking up at the other end.
Does a call flight involve the mile high club?
You know, I'm a member of the half mile high club.
It's like the mile high club, but with half the number of people involved.
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Ireland to stay in the UK but if under the GFA there was a border poll and NI voted for a United Ireland with Antrim voting against then culturally Antrim would never accept Dublin rule. So in that case it would declare UDI
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Irelandthe United Kingdom to stay in the UKEU but if under the GFAEuropean Union Referendum Act there was a border pollReferendum and NIthe UK voted for a United Irelandto Leave the European Union with AntrimScotland voting against then culturally AntrimScotland would never accept Dublin ruleLeaving the EU. So in that case it would declare UDI
Scotland cannot declare UDI without Westminster approval as Westminster has been sovereign over Scotland since 1707, Holyrood is merely a creation of Westminster.
If Northern Ireland voted to leave the UK however under the GFA UK law would no longer apply to Antrim and it could and would declare UDI before it had to submit to Dubin rule.
Much as Iain Smith's Rhodesia declared UDI in the 1960s during decolonisation over a disagreement over Wilson's proposed terms of independence with the support of the Tory right, only in Antrim Protestant Unionists are the majority while whites were only ever a minority in Rhodesia
LOL at the notion that Antrim has more of an ability to UDI than Scotland.
If Northern Ireland voted for reunification with Ireland then under the GFA the entire island of Ireland would be recognised as within the rule of Ireland. Ireland would claim rule over all of Ireland including Antrim and that would be recognised by the UK, the whole of the EU and the USA and more.
Antrim could go into rebellion against Ireland, but they'd be put down quite easily.
Rhodesia was a self-governing nation that had been self-governing for 42 years prior to its UDI. Even then no countries recognised Rhodesia's UDI, and it led to war and the country eventually returned eventually to a period of direct British rule before it became legally independent as Zimbabwe instead.
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Ireland to stay in the UK but if under the GFA there was a border poll and NI voted for a United Ireland with Antrim voting against then culturally Antrim would never accept Dublin rule. So in that case it would declare UDI
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Irelandthe United Kingdom to stay in the UKEU but if under the GFAEuropean Union Referendum Act there was a border pollReferendum and NIthe UK voted for a United Irelandto Leave the European Union with AntrimScotland voting against then culturally AntrimScotland would never accept Dublin ruleLeaving the EU. So in that case it would declare UDI
Scotland cannot declare UDI without Westminster approval as Westminster has been sovereign over Scotland since 1707, Holyrood is merely a creation of Westminster.
If Northern Ireland voted to leave the UK however under the GFA UK law would no longer apply to Antrim and it could and would declare UDI before it had to submit to Dubin rule.
Much as Iain Smith's Rhodesia declared UDI in the 1960s during decolonisation over a disagreement over UK PM Wilson's proposed terms of independence with the support of the Tory right, only in Antrim Protestant Unionists are the majority while whites were only ever a minority in Rhodesia
Er, anyone can declare UDI. It's unilateral.
However if the mother country still legally retains the powers over that country it will be swiftly overruled, see Madrid's response to Catalonia's UDI
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
UDI for Antrim, according to HYUFD!
(even though County Down is actually more Protestant than Antrim is)
Every MP in county Antrim is DUP and every constituency in Antrim voted Leave.
That is not the case for County Down as South Down has an SDLP MP and North Down has an Alliance MP and both those constituencies also voted Remain.
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Ireland to stay in the UK but if under the GFA there was a border poll and NI voted for a United Ireland with Antrim voting against then culturally Antrim would never accept Dublin rule. So in that case it would declare UDI
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Irelandthe United Kingdom to stay in the UKEU but if under the GFAEuropean Union Referendum Act there was a border pollReferendum and NIthe UK voted for a United Irelandto Leave the European Union with AntrimScotland voting against then culturally AntrimScotland would never accept Dublin ruleLeaving the EU. So in that case it would declare UDI
Scotland cannot declare UDI without Westminster approval as Westminster has been sovereign over Scotland since 1707, Holyrood is merely a creation of Westminster.
If Northern Ireland voted to leave the UK however under the GFA UK law would no longer apply to Antrim and it could and would declare UDI before it had to submit to Dubin rule.
Much as Iain Smith's Rhodesia declared UDI in the 1960s during decolonisation over a disagreement over UK PM Wilson's proposed terms of independence with the support of the Tory right, only in Antrim Protestant Unionists are the majority while whites were only ever a minority in Rhodesia
Er, anyone can declare UDI. It's unilateral.
However if the mother country still legally retains the powers over that country it will be swiftly overruled, see Madrid's response to Catalonia's UDI
And Ireland would retain those powers over Antrim. 🤦♂️
They'd also have if needed the military, the police, and the recognition of the entire world.
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Ireland to stay in the UK but if under the GFA there was a border poll and NI voted for a United Ireland with Antrim voting against then culturally Antrim would never accept Dublin rule. So in that case it would declare UDI
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Irelandthe United Kingdom to stay in the UKEU but if under the GFAEuropean Union Referendum Act there was a border pollReferendum and NIthe UK voted for a United Irelandto Leave the European Union with AntrimScotland voting against then culturally AntrimScotland would never accept Dublin ruleLeaving the EU. So in that case it would declare UDI
Scotland cannot declare UDI without Westminster approval as Westminster has been sovereign over Scotland since 1707, Holyrood is merely a creation of Westminster.
If Northern Ireland voted to leave the UK however under the GFA UK law would no longer apply to Antrim and it could and would declare UDI before it had to submit to Dubin rule.
Much as Iain Smith's Rhodesia declared UDI in the 1960s during decolonisation over a disagreement over Wilson's proposed terms of independence with the support of the Tory right, only in Antrim Protestant Unionists are the majority while whites were only ever a minority in Rhodesia
LOL at the notion that Antrim has more of an ability to UDI than Scotland.
If Northern Ireland voted for reunification with Ireland then under the GFA the entire island of Ireland would be recognised as within the rule of Ireland. Ireland would claim rule over all of Ireland including Antrim and that would be recognised by the UK, the whole of the EU and the USA and more.
Antrim could go into rebellion against Ireland, but they'd be put down quite easily.
Rhodesia was a self-governing nation that had been self-governing for 42 years prior to its UDI. Even then no countries recognised Rhodesia's UDI, and it led to war and the country eventually returned eventually to a period of direct British rule before it became legally independent as Zimbabwe instead.
Antrim would lose any rebellion. Easily.
HYUFD keeps forgetting Antrim is more Catholic than County Down (39% v. 31%)
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Ireland to stay in the UK but if under the GFA there was a border poll and NI voted for a United Ireland with Antrim voting against then culturally Antrim would never accept Dublin rule. So in that case it would declare UDI
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Irelandthe United Kingdom to stay in the UKEU but if under the GFAEuropean Union Referendum Act there was a border pollReferendum and NIthe UK voted for a United Irelandto Leave the European Union with AntrimScotland voting against then culturally AntrimScotland would never accept Dublin ruleLeaving the EU. So in that case it would declare UDI
Scotland cannot declare UDI without Westminster approval as Westminster has been sovereign over Scotland since 1707, Holyrood is merely a creation of Westminster.
If Northern Ireland voted to leave the UK however under the GFA UK law would no longer apply to Antrim and it could and would declare UDI before it had to submit to Dubin rule.
Much as Iain Smith's Rhodesia declared UDI in the 1960s during decolonisation over a disagreement over Wilson's proposed terms of independence with the support of the Tory right, only in Antrim Protestant Unionists are the majority while whites were only ever a minority in Rhodesia
LOL at the notion that Antrim has more of an ability to UDI than Scotland.
If Northern Ireland voted for reunification with Ireland then under the GFA the entire island of Ireland would be recognised as within the rule of Ireland. Ireland would claim rule over all of Ireland including Antrim and that would be recognised by the UK, the whole of the EU and the USA and more.
Antrim could go into rebellion against Ireland, but they'd be put down quite easily.
Rhodesia was a self-governing nation that had been self-governing for 42 years prior to its UDI. Even then no countries recognised Rhodesia's UDI, and it led to war and the country eventually returned eventually to a period of direct British rule before it became legally independent as Zimbabwe instead.
Antrim would lose any rebellion. Easily.
Every MP in Antrim is DUP, not every MP in Scotland is SNP, Antrim would therefore have more of its population behind it.
The UK and EU and Ireland can say what they want if there was a United Ireland vote in NI, Antrim would still have voted against and Antrim would still never accept direct Dublin rule. The alternative of course if it was imposed on Antrim without its consent is inevitably the resumption of a paramilitary terrorist campaign in Ireland by loyalist paramilitaries.
Ireland's government could send troops into Antrim if it wanted to try and restore order but it would face a terrorism campaign as long as the UK government faced from the IRA in nationalist parts of NI until the GFA in opposition to direct rule from London. Antrim would not surrender and it would be naive to expect otherwise.
Rhodesia managed to be self governing for 14 years after its UDI with just 10% support of its population and support only from the Tory right in the UK and diplomatic relations maintained only with apartheid South Africa. Antrim would have the support of most of its population and much of the Tory right too
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Ireland to stay in the UK but if under the GFA there was a border poll and NI voted for a United Ireland with Antrim voting against then culturally Antrim would never accept Dublin rule. So in that case it would declare UDI
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Irelandthe United Kingdom to stay in the UKEU but if under the GFAEuropean Union Referendum Act there was a border pollReferendum and NIthe UK voted for a United Irelandto Leave the European Union with AntrimScotland voting against then culturally AntrimScotland would never accept Dublin ruleLeaving the EU. So in that case it would declare UDI
Scotland cannot declare UDI without Westminster approval as Westminster has been sovereign over Scotland since 1707, Holyrood is merely a creation of Westminster.
If Northern Ireland voted to leave the UK however under the GFA UK law would no longer apply to Antrim and it could and would declare UDI before it had to submit to Dubin rule.
Much as Iain Smith's Rhodesia declared UDI in the 1960s during decolonisation over a disagreement over Wilson's proposed terms of independence with the support of the Tory right, only in Antrim Protestant Unionists are the majority while whites were only ever a minority in Rhodesia
LOL at the notion that Antrim has more of an ability to UDI than Scotland.
If Northern Ireland voted for reunification with Ireland then under the GFA the entire island of Ireland would be recognised as within the rule of Ireland. Ireland would claim rule over all of Ireland including Antrim and that would be recognised by the UK, the whole of the EU and the USA and more.
Antrim could go into rebellion against Ireland, but they'd be put down quite easily.
Rhodesia was a self-governing nation that had been self-governing for 42 years prior to its UDI. Even then no countries recognised Rhodesia's UDI, and it led to war and the country eventually returned eventually to a period of direct British rule before it became legally independent as Zimbabwe instead.
Antrim would lose any rebellion. Easily.
Every MP in Antrim is DUP, not every MP in Scotland is SNP, Antrim would therefore have more of its population behind it.
The UK and EU and Ireland can say what they want if there was a United Ireland vote in NI, Antrim would still have voted against and Antrim would still never accept direct Dublin rule. The alternative of course if it was imposed on Antrim without its consent is inevitably the resumption of a paramilitary terrorist campaign in Ireland by loyalist paramilitaries.
Ireland's government could send troops into Antrim if it wanted to try and restore order but it would face a terrorism campaign as long as the UK government faced from the IRA in nationalist parts of NI until the GFA in opposition to direct rule from London. Antrim would not surrender and it would be naive to expect otherwise.
Rhodesia managed to be self governing for 14 years after its UDI with just 10% support of its population and support only from the Tory right in the UK. Antrim would have the support of most of its population and much of the Tory right too
County Down 31% Catholic County Antrim 39% Catholic
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Ireland to stay in the UK but if under the GFA there was a border poll and NI voted for a United Ireland with Antrim voting against then culturally Antrim would never accept Dublin rule. So in that case it would declare UDI
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Irelandthe United Kingdom to stay in the UKEU but if under the GFAEuropean Union Referendum Act there was a border pollReferendum and NIthe UK voted for a United Irelandto Leave the European Union with AntrimScotland voting against then culturally AntrimScotland would never accept Dublin ruleLeaving the EU. So in that case it would declare UDI
Scotland cannot declare UDI without Westminster approval as Westminster has been sovereign over Scotland since 1707, Holyrood is merely a creation of Westminster.
If Northern Ireland voted to leave the UK however under the GFA UK law would no longer apply to Antrim and it could and would declare UDI before it had to submit to Dubin rule.
Much as Iain Smith's Rhodesia declared UDI in the 1960s during decolonisation over a disagreement over UK PM Wilson's proposed terms of independence with the support of the Tory right, only in Antrim Protestant Unionists are the majority while whites were only ever a minority in Rhodesia
Er, anyone can declare UDI. It's unilateral.
However if the mother country still legally retains the powers over that country it will be swiftly overruled, see Madrid's response to Catalonia's UDI
And Ireland would retain those powers over Antrim. 🤦♂️
They'd also have if needed the military, the police, and the recognition of the entire world.
It wouldn't as Antrim would declare UDI before Ireland took over sovereignty.
If Ireland wanted to fight a counter terrorism war for decades against loyalist paramilitaries however that would be up to Dublin
Just for a bit of fun, and given that the Republic also had a census in 2011, we can calculate the percentages of Protestants and Catholics (and Protestant Others and Catholic Others) across the whole of the nine-county Ulster!
50.8% Catholic 42.7% Protestant & other Christians 1.2% Protestant others and Catholic others 5.4% Protestant none/not stated and Catholic none/not stated.
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Ireland to stay in the UK but if under the GFA there was a border poll and NI voted for a United Ireland with Antrim voting against then culturally Antrim would never accept Dublin rule. So in that case it would declare UDI
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Irelandthe United Kingdom to stay in the UKEU but if under the GFAEuropean Union Referendum Act there was a border pollReferendum and NIthe UK voted for a United Irelandto Leave the European Union with AntrimScotland voting against then culturally AntrimScotland would never accept Dublin ruleLeaving the EU. So in that case it would declare UDI
Scotland cannot declare UDI without Westminster approval as Westminster has been sovereign over Scotland since 1707, Holyrood is merely a creation of Westminster.
If Northern Ireland voted to leave the UK however under the GFA UK law would no longer apply to Antrim and it could and would declare UDI before it had to submit to Dubin rule.
Much as Iain Smith's Rhodesia declared UDI in the 1960s during decolonisation over a disagreement over UK PM Wilson's proposed terms of independence with the support of the Tory right, only in Antrim Protestant Unionists are the majority while whites were only ever a minority in Rhodesia
Er, anyone can declare UDI. It's unilateral.
However if the mother country still legally retains the powers over that country it will be swiftly overruled, see Madrid's response to Catalonia's UDI
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Ireland to stay in the UK but if under the GFA there was a border poll and NI voted for a United Ireland with Antrim voting against then culturally Antrim would never accept Dublin rule. So in that case it would declare UDI
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Irelandthe United Kingdom to stay in the UKEU but if under the GFAEuropean Union Referendum Act there was a border pollReferendum and NIthe UK voted for a United Irelandto Leave the European Union with AntrimScotland voting against then culturally AntrimScotland would never accept Dublin ruleLeaving the EU. So in that case it would declare UDI
Scotland cannot declare UDI without Westminster approval as Westminster has been sovereign over Scotland since 1707, Holyrood is merely a creation of Westminster.
If Northern Ireland voted to leave the UK however under the GFA UK law would no longer apply to Antrim and it could and would declare UDI before it had to submit to Dubin rule.
Much as Iain Smith's Rhodesia declared UDI in the 1960s during decolonisation over a disagreement over UK PM Wilson's proposed terms of independence with the support of the Tory right, only in Antrim Protestant Unionists are the majority while whites were only ever a minority in Rhodesia
Er, anyone can declare UDI. It's unilateral.
However if the mother country still legally retains the powers over that country it will be swiftly overruled, see Madrid's response to Catalonia's UDI
And Ireland would retain those powers over Antrim. 🤦♂️
They'd also have if needed the military, the police, and the recognition of the entire world.
It wouldn't as Antrim would declare UDI before Ireland took over sovereignty.
If Ireland wanted to fight a counter terrorism war for decades against loyalist paramilitaries however that would be up to Dublin
You keep forgetting poor old County Down which is MORE PROTESTANT and LESS CATHOLIC than County Antrim.
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Ireland to stay in the UK but if under the GFA there was a border poll and NI voted for a United Ireland with Antrim voting against then culturally Antrim would never accept Dublin rule. So in that case it would declare UDI
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Irelandthe United Kingdom to stay in the UKEU but if under the GFAEuropean Union Referendum Act there was a border pollReferendum and NIthe UK voted for a United Irelandto Leave the European Union with AntrimScotland voting against then culturally AntrimScotland would never accept Dublin ruleLeaving the EU. So in that case it would declare UDI
Scotland cannot declare UDI without Westminster approval as Westminster has been sovereign over Scotland since 1707, Holyrood is merely a creation of Westminster.
If Northern Ireland voted to leave the UK however under the GFA UK law would no longer apply to Antrim and it could and would declare UDI before it had to submit to Dubin rule.
Much as Iain Smith's Rhodesia declared UDI in the 1960s during decolonisation over a disagreement over UK PM Wilson's proposed terms of independence with the support of the Tory right, only in Antrim Protestant Unionists are the majority while whites were only ever a minority in Rhodesia
Er, anyone can declare UDI. It's unilateral.
However if the mother country still legally retains the powers over that country it will be swiftly overruled, see Madrid's response to Catalonia's UDI
The two lead stories in Der Spiegel are both about the UK. One about the supposed epidemic of girls being drugged in clubs "since Boris Johnson's 'Freedom Day'" and one about how there's a shortage of bus drivers because they are being attracted by higher salaries driving lorries. They seem somewhat obsessed.
The third story also says that British grandmothers are only heating their homes when their grandchildren visit.
Let’s be honest they are not going to say the U.K. is a success because they then have to explain why they are still so restricted.
Germany's a bit of a patchwork, isn't it? The States individually set restrictions, so some have very few restrictions while others still have mask mandates.
I wonder if you get ultra federalist types whining about states not their own taking actions just to be different or neurotically comparing differences in COVID stats between individual Länder?
The Bavarians seem to have stopped whingeing about Indy and how those nasty northerners don’t understand them though.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
We will see, the Bavaria Party still got 36,748 votes in September and the likely new SPD government in Germany was rejected in Bavaria which still voted overwhelmingly CSU
My distinct impression - which could be entirely wrong - is that Bavarian independence is like Welsh independence. A sizeable chunk think it might be quite nice to tell all those pigignorant Uitlanders to feck off, but aside from a few fanatics most of them are far too appreciative of the money flowing in to actually take it seriously.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
Apart from the slight difference that Bavaria is the second wealthiest state in Germany
So is Scotland in the UK. Even if we take London and the South East as two separate ones, it’s still third (possibly just fourth, depending on how you reckon it).
London and the South East are two separate areas, though I accept while I oppose Scottish independence Scotland is relatively wealthy, helped by North Sea oil of course. Though it also spends far more than it raises in tax with the UK Treasury funding the difference
So why do you advocate UDI for Northern Ireland?
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Ireland to stay in the UK but if under the GFA there was a border poll and NI voted for a United Ireland with Antrim voting against then culturally Antrim would never accept Dublin rule. So in that case it would declare UDI
I don't, I want the whole of Northern Irelandthe United Kingdom to stay in the UKEU but if under the GFAEuropean Union Referendum Act there was a border pollReferendum and NIthe UK voted for a United Irelandto Leave the European Union with AntrimScotland voting against then culturally AntrimScotland would never accept Dublin ruleLeaving the EU. So in that case it would declare UDI
Scotland cannot declare UDI without Westminster approval as Westminster has been sovereign over Scotland since 1707, Holyrood is merely a creation of Westminster.
If Northern Ireland voted to leave the UK however under the GFA UK law would no longer apply to Antrim and it could and would declare UDI before it had to submit to Dubin rule.
Much as Iain Smith's Rhodesia declared UDI in the 1960s during decolonisation over a disagreement over UK PM Wilson's proposed terms of independence with the support of the Tory right, only in Antrim Protestant Unionists are the majority while whites were only ever a minority in Rhodesia
Er, anyone can declare UDI. It's unilateral.
However if the mother country still legally retains the powers over that country it will be swiftly overruled, see Madrid's response to Catalonia's UDI
And the response of the Republic to Antrim's UDI.
Catalonia is about 50% pro independence, 50% unity with Spain. Easier to maintain though of course Madrid faced riots and mass protests in Catalonia too and of course it faces ETA terrorists in the Basque country
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Had breakfast under the cork oaks, here in the Costa Vicentina. Glorious sunshine, amazing really, for late October, but not too hot. A perfect 23C
Spent the morning reading about the Early Portuguese Empire - omg
Had a custard tart and two large shots of madronho for lunch
Spent the afternoon cycling around the beaches, dunes, and valleys, with my airpods on, blissed out to Verdi, the Waterboys, and Ulrich Schnauss - seriously, why have I only just discovered dirt road cycling PLUS music??!!
Now I eat a pretty decent sirloin, with brilliant Alentejo red, as the sun sets over the eucalyptus groves and the goat farm
And only now do I log on, to clog my head with horror stories of Covid, and yet, there is none (UK wise). The news is modestly better?
I may adopt this perspective in future. Just IGNORE Covid and enjoy life, and it will go away. And life, as of this minute, is sweet
I'm mentioned it before but back in my clubbing days I was assaulted by a complete stranger on the dance floor of a club. CCTV showed he just walked across the floor and one-punch hit me in the eye and I fell to the floor. Security grabbed the guy and chucked him out. It was only when I didn't stand up and then someone turned me over and saw the amount of blood on the floor that a couple of my friends ran out onto the street and flagged down a copper who arrested my attacker. I suffered a shattered eye socket, broken nose, was nearly blinded in that eye and it could have been worse and the bouncer threw the guy out onto the streets. 😡
The EU will be the ex who pores over our social media, trying to work out if we are sad or happy or faking either, and whether we are getting better sex with AUKUS than we did with them
Meanwhile we will pretend not to care but when we are drunk we will send snide gossip about France's penile equipment and Spain's worsening cellulitis via Tik Tok and Snapchat
writerFlint knapper, thats what they do. Besides I post all kinds of rubbish on here, so why shouldn’t he?As I said last night, the worry isn't really about the virus, it's that the politicians will bottle it and reimpose restrictions unnecessarily.
"Security" in most clubs controls the drug dealing. If they are not beating up people drugging other people in their clubs, then they aren't protecting their business properly.
Britain today... When I was a lad, the Piranha Brothers would have sorted them out.....
Doug and Dinsdale Piranha now formed a gang, which the called 'The Gang' and used terror to take over night clubs, billiard halls, gaming casinos and race tracks. When they tried to take over the MCC they were for the only time in their lives, slit up a treat
I miss that guy
I remember the stories from when I was a lurker. To be fair to him there was a postscript, that he once did it on a high profile press flight to Shanghai and had to be literally carried off the plane, at the other end, semi-conscious, by the journalists from the Telegraph, Mail, etc
But then - he claimed - he ended up sleeping with some beautiful PR girl on the same trip, so it all turned out fine
I never knew where his boasting went from normal embroidery to outright and frankly objectionable fantasy
What stage does that suggest the UK is at?
At some point red wall voters will realise the pot of gold they voted for isn't there. But they know that Labour councillors and MPs and government didn't help either. And the fascists they elected 20 years ago? Catastrophically ineffective. So what is the point?
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/oct/24/weve-been-hammered-on-the-breadline-in-burnley-covid-universal-credit
On the other hand, as a contributor to a Flint Knapping Supplement for one of the major newspapers, I have heard that the Shanghai story is TRUE. And she WAS famously beautiful. So who knows
Dangerous sports?
Road accidents through driving like a Hoon?
People going up Ben Nevis without appropriate equipment?
People on lilos being swept out to sea?
Should we withdraw mountain rescue and the RNLI?
Most likely, the bad behaviour will move, along with the excitement which inevitably attracts young people, to places that that are unlicensed and even less safe. I don't know what the answer to this problem is.
Just as well, given what happened last time they got a bit carried away over that.
And is it really 4.3x better than the French Brie I picked up from Aldi on Thursday?
(I find that things bought online from the producer give a better quality for less money - usually.)
Despite being named in this quote I missed it until Matt replied, so I'd better reply since I'm named. And what absolutely trite codswallop.
Valuing "lives" over living is a nice soundbite if you don't want to think. Just value "lives" and move on, pat yourself on the back for being so virtuous.
Except everyone is guaranteed to lose their lives over something and a great proportion of deaths are if you trace it back "avoidable".
Over 70k people died from respiratory illnesses every single year 2015-2019. How many of them were "avoidable"? Should we be locked down to prevent the common cold and influenza spreading which kill tens of thousands annually?
Its greatness that requires people to stand up to the trite bullshit you're spouting. We could stop "avoidable deaths" by locking down forever, banning the sale of alcohol, banning the sale of tobacco, banning the sale of sugary snacks and so on but then don't be surprised if people decide such a life isn't worth living and we run out of money to fund the NHS anyway.
https://twitter.com/dancanon/status/1452332903778684941
F1 goes off in 5 mins.
32% of Bavarians against 39% of Welsh willing to consider independence is even quite a similar proportion.
As I said, when I was attacked and they realised the severity of it a couple of my friends ran out, flagged down a copper and pointed out the offender to him and the copper nicked him. Why couldn't the bouncer have done that instead of chucking out the offender so that he nearly got away?
If a club were to call or radio in to the Police that they had trouble there could be cops there in a couple of minutes, if that. No need to shut everything down, just need security to hold onto the offender until the Police arrive.
Its a choice by clubs to have security throw offenders onto the streets instead of getting the Police to take them into custody.
https://mobile.twitter.com/TheSportsman/status/1452339968853037062
Personally I do not have a problem with same sex marriage but as with abortion Texas is a more conservative and more Republican and more religious state than the US as a whole and so the Supreme Court will have to affirm if its laws are to be struck down on social issues.
For reference Texan voters are split on the issue, 46% in favour of same sex marriage, 46% opposed. 69% of evangelicals and 58% of Black Protestants in the state oppose same sex marriage.
By contrast 70% of Americans overall now support same sex marriage
https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/state/texas/views-about-same-sex-marriage/
https://news.gallup.com/poll/350486/record-high-support-same-sex-marriage.aspx
That applies equally to Max Verstappen, whom I first nicknamed Max Vercrash’em.
Mourinho was already a laughed-at egotist before Man Utd hired him, I don't think anyone sane in 2016 would have said that Mourinho was still the best manager in the world by then. He was found out and Chelsea's has-been years ago.
Labour have taken these areas for granted, as they did with Scotland, for many years and now don’t speak to them or even want to understand what they want.
The Tories, at least, offered hope and if that fails where do they go ?
Back to being labelled as thick, stupid and racist and voting against their own interest by online labour activists based in big cities.
I think tarmac runoff areas have created reckless tendencies, but I would say Lewis is one of the better drivers in terms of being a fair racer.
But equally, it’s years since I was in Bavaria and I could easily be completely wrong.
As for your first question, probably not given the amount of work involved. But there’s being self confident and there’s being a twat.
Edit - he’s surely going to win from here barring mechanical failure though.
But if the security aren't calling the Police when a crime is committed because they're worried being a crime scene may hurt sales then that absolutely proves my point that they're choosing not to get the cops involved and that should lead to a loss of a licence. The licencing authorities should reward those who ensure justice is done and strip the licence of those who attempt to cover up or trivialise law breaking.
(even though County Down is actually more Protestant than Antrim is)
That is not the case for County Down as South Down has an SDLP MP and North Down has an Alliance MP and both those constituencies also voted Remain.
Antrim is also more Protestant than Down
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Northern_Ireland#/media/File:Religion_Northern_Ireland_Districts_2011_Census.png
More importantly, this is somewhere where the Republican Party has missed the enormous changes in their own country. Support for same sex marriage is around 70% in the US, and even a majority of Republicans are in favour.
Attempts to roll back the clock against public opinion - especially as increasing numbers of people now know married gay people - are likely to do nothing other than harm the Republicans at the ballot box.
The latter are especially strong in the deep South
I do still have some sense of greatness being British. The sense of greatness is derived from our openness, and being the most progressive country in the world in respect of dealing with racism; itself connected to decolonisation initiated by the British nation after 1945. Unfortunately much of this good work has been undone over the last decade or so, with the encroachment of identity politics in to all areas of public life.
In terms of your point above, risk based decisions where people may end up dying or seriously injured take place behind the scenes all the time. Decisions about road junctions is a routine area with quite significant consequences. In the end, the rights of individuals to avoid preventable deaths do not, in reality, hold any sort of veto over public policy. However, there is a phenomenon where known threats to safety lead to panics, and bad policies being adopted with all sorts of peverse outcomes. Covid isn't the worse example of this, but a similar process is at play.
If Northern Ireland voted to leave the UK however under the GFA UK law would no longer apply to Antrim and it could and would declare UDI before it had to submit to Dubin rule.
Much as Iain Smith's Rhodesia declared UDI in the 1960s during decolonisation over a disagreement over UK PM Wilson's proposed terms of independence with the support of the Tory right, only in Antrim Protestant Unionists are the majority while whites were only ever a minority in Rhodesia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_states_by_GRP
60.3% Protestant & other Christian denominations
31.3% Catholic
1.0% other
7.5% none/not stated
Analogously, for the historic area of County Antrim:
53.1% Protestant & other Christian denominations
38.7% Catholic
1.2% other
7.0% none/not stated
Plus as I said county Down has an SDLP MP and an Alliance MP, it is not pure DUP as county Antrim is where every MP is Unionist
If Northern Ireland voted for reunification with Ireland then under the GFA the entire island of Ireland would be recognised as within the rule of Ireland. Ireland would claim rule over all of Ireland including Antrim and that would be recognised by the UK, the whole of the EU and the USA and more.
Antrim could go into rebellion against Ireland, but they'd be put down quite easily.
Rhodesia was a self-governing nation that had been self-governing for 42 years prior to its UDI. Even then no countries recognised Rhodesia's UDI, and it led to war and the country eventually returned eventually to a period of direct British rule before it became legally independent as Zimbabwe instead.
Antrim would lose any rebellion. Easily.
Otherwise you're saying that Norway is poorer than Nigeria.
County Antrim 39% Catholic
They'd also have if needed the military, the police, and the recognition of the entire world.
The UK and EU and Ireland can say what they want if there was a United Ireland vote in NI, Antrim would still have voted against and Antrim would still never accept direct Dublin rule. The alternative of course if it was imposed on Antrim without its consent is inevitably the resumption of a paramilitary terrorist campaign in Ireland by loyalist paramilitaries.
Ireland's government could send troops into Antrim if it wanted to try and restore order but it would face a terrorism campaign as long as the UK government faced from the IRA in nationalist parts of NI until the GFA in opposition to direct rule from London. Antrim would not surrender and it would be naive to expect otherwise.
Rhodesia managed to be self governing for 14 years after its UDI with just 10% support of its population and support only from the Tory right in the UK and diplomatic relations maintained only with apartheid South Africa. Antrim would have the support of most of its population and much of the Tory right too
County Antrim 39% Catholic
If Ireland wanted to fight a counter terrorism war for decades against loyalist paramilitaries however that would be up to Dublin
50.8% Catholic
42.7% Protestant & other Christians
1.2% Protestant others and Catholic others
5.4% Protestant none/not stated and Catholic none/not stated.
Remember, this is just for a bit of fun!
You said "wealthier".
Now, there are many ways one can measure "wealth", but it's generally based around people being - you know - better off.