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Vote Green, Go Blue? – politicalbetting.com

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  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,776

    Taz said:

    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?

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/oct/24/weve-been-hammered-on-the-breadline-in-burnley-covid-universal-credit

    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.
    I recall a fascinating conversation with a group that included a French trade unionist. She maintained that Switzerland wasn't "A proper democracy".

    A bit of discussion later and it became clear that her issue was that in Switzerland, matters that should be only decided as fundamental human rights could be voted on. The specific point of the cow-bell lady* came up.

    What I find interesting is that the idea that various pieces of public policy have been moved into something which resembles medieval notions of the power of the Church. These questions have been reserved to the judgement of the (not-very) elect(ed) - the great and good will decide these matters and deliver their Judgement. And it is Hersey to demure.

    So you have a situation where people, on the one hand, celebrate freedom, voting rights etc and then say that, actually, *this* stuff is reserved for the Upper 10,000 to decide upon.

    I think this is the problem at the heart of modern "populism" - the people have been repeatedly told they are sovereign. Democracy! rules! ok! Then comes a laundry list of things where you are not allowed to have an opinion.

    https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/01/14/swiss-citizenship-woman-denied-cowbells/96398518/
    That's an interesting story. It strikes me as quite healthy that those who know you and have to live with you get to decide your citizenship. Personally, this wouldn't be an issue on which I'd deny someone citizenship. But who knows - perhaps there's more to the story than is revealed here. OF COURSE there's more to the story than revealed here.
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MrEd said:

    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 Ireland the United Kingdom to stay in the UK EU but if under the GFA European Union Referendum Act there was a border poll Referendum and NI the UK voted for a United Ireland to Leave the European Union with Antrim Scotland voting against then culturally Antrim Scotland would never accept Dublin rule Leaving 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 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
    Rhodesia was self-governing for decades. Antrim has never been self-governing.

    Any terrorism campaign in Antrim would be short-lived. The IRA had the support of much of America and others around the globe, nobody would support Antrim.

    The idea Conservatives are suddenly going to support terrorism is laughable. Anyone that did would quite rightly be expelled from the Party.
    Antrim has its own councils.

    You can find guns on the darknet now, you do not need to smuggle them though plenty of criminal networks who would supply them for funds which could be raised from the local population, loyalist paramilitaries have weapons stores secretly stacked away in various rural parts from the Troubles era and plenty have drugs criminal networks for funds.

    Lots of rightwing Tories would support Antrim in its wish for self-determination in such circumstances including me if it voted against a United Ireland even if a majority of NI did vote for Irish unity, even if we would not go so far as to support terrorism. You are a liberal not a rightwing Tory anyway
    No Tories would, since anybody who openly supported terrorists would be expelled from the party and no longer a Tory. They'd be referred to the Police and the authorities.

    Its farcical to suggest. May as well suggest Scotland can UDI.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,653
    I'm 'watching' F1 on BBC text - strangely exciting.

    Must be akin to following the Crimean War by reading the the London Gazett
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,418
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Mr HUYFD, not too far from your home in Essex is Canvey Island. The population has, for several years, consistently voted for independence, with CIIP councillors holding most of the local district council seats allocated to the island, and gets most of the votes in the County Council elections.
    Why hasn’t the locally ruling Conservative party conceded the right of the islanders to independence?

    Canvey Island Independents want a separate district council from Castle Point, not to be an independent nation
    My question stands. What objection does the Conservative party have?
    I don't have an objection but it is not seeking to be an independent nation
    Don’t be pedantic. What objection can there be to a separate Canvey Island Council? Not a Parish Council.


  • You should seriously consider referring yourself to the government's Prevent programme.

    Pretty sure there's a crack CCHQ 'Prevent HYUFD from getting near a keyboard' unit ready to go.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Cookie said:

    Taz said:

    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?

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/oct/24/weve-been-hammered-on-the-breadline-in-burnley-covid-universal-credit

    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.
    I recall a fascinating conversation with a group that included a French trade unionist. She maintained that Switzerland wasn't "A proper democracy".

    A bit of discussion later and it became clear that her issue was that in Switzerland, matters that should be only decided as fundamental human rights could be voted on. The specific point of the cow-bell lady* came up.

    What I find interesting is that the idea that various pieces of public policy have been moved into something which resembles medieval notions of the power of the Church. These questions have been reserved to the judgement of the (not-very) elect(ed) - the great and good will decide these matters and deliver their Judgement. And it is Hersey to demure.

    So you have a situation where people, on the one hand, celebrate freedom, voting rights etc and then say that, actually, *this* stuff is reserved for the Upper 10,000 to decide upon.

    I think this is the problem at the heart of modern "populism" - the people have been repeatedly told they are sovereign. Democracy! rules! ok! Then comes a laundry list of things where you are not allowed to have an opinion.

    https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/01/14/swiss-citizenship-woman-denied-cowbells/96398518/
    That's an interesting story. It strikes me as quite healthy that those who know you and have to live with you get to decide your citizenship. Personally, this wouldn't be an issue on which I'd deny someone citizenship. But who knows - perhaps there's more to the story than is revealed here. OF COURSE there's more to the story than revealed here.
    She talked to international press and used Twitter to trash Swiss traditions

    She also complained about being woken up by church bells.

    All in all sounds like a PITA
  • meanwhile back at the ranch -

    City of Seattle ballot returns for 2021 general election as of Friday 10.22 = 40,293 (8% of active reg)
    > which accounts for 15% of projected final turnout of 55% of 490k total active registered voters

    Seattle Times ($) - Black leaders call on Seattle mayoral candidate M. Lorena González to pull ‘racist’ ad saying Bruce Harrell sided with sex abusers

    With a little over a week remaining before votes are counted, Seattle’s mayoral race exploded into vitriol Saturday as rivals Bruce Harrell and M. Lorena González traded accusations of racism and enabling sexual abusers.

    The spark was a new attack ad aired by González’s campaign, which accuses Harrell of siding with sexual abusers including ex-Mayor Ed Murray — a late hit that was blasted as desperate and racist by Harrell and allies including Black community leaders.

    . . . [T]he commercial, which juxtaposes images of Harrell with media accounts of the Murray sex-abuse scandal. The ad features a white rape survivor who says she could never vote for Harrell. . . .

    The 30-second ad seeks to contrast González, who was the first member of the Seattle City Council to publicly call for Murray to consider resigning several months into the 2017 scandal, with Harrell, who made no such public demands and at times defended the mayor from calls for him to step down.

    The new commercial opens with the woman, identified only by her first name and initial, saying she’d been raped five years ago, and that the rapist was never prosecuted.

    “It was horrifying to me to hear Bruce Harrell defend Ed Murray saying people shouldn’t be judged by what they’ve done in the past,” she says in the ad, adding later, “Bruce Harrell has repeatedly sided with abusers. As a survivor, I could never vote for him.”

    Harrell and his allies Saturday called the ad blatantly racist . . .

    “It was more than a dog whistle. It was blatant,” said Harrell.

    Gerald Hankerson, regional president for the NAACP . . . compared the ad to the “Willie Horton” ad in the 1988 presidential campaign, which stoked white fears of crime by showing a photo of a Black man who raped a white woman while on prison furlough.

    . . . Lincoln Beauregard, the attorney who represented Murray accuser Delvonn Heckard in the April 2017 lawsuit that broke the scandal into public view, defended Harrell at Saturday’s event and called the attack ad a dishonest and inflammatory portrayal. . . . .

    González declined to pull the ad and doubled down in a statement from her campaign Saturday afternoon.

    “Bruce Harrell has a troubling history of discrediting survivors of abuse and harassment. As Council President, he used his position to defend Ed Murray, even after multiple, credible accusations of child rape. His response to this ad is another example of him denying the facts and discrediting a victim,” the statement sent by campaign manager Alex Koren said.

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,897
    edited October 2021

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MrEd said:

    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 Ireland the United Kingdom to stay in the UK EU but if under the GFA European Union Referendum Act there was a border poll Referendum and NI the UK voted for a United Ireland to Leave the European Union with Antrim Scotland voting against then culturally Antrim Scotland would never accept Dublin rule Leaving 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 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
    Rhodesia was self-governing for decades. Antrim has never been self-governing.

    Any terrorism campaign in Antrim would be short-lived. The IRA had the support of much of America and others around the globe, nobody would support Antrim.

    The idea Conservatives are suddenly going to support terrorism is laughable. Anyone that did would quite rightly be expelled from the Party.
    Antrim has its own councils.

    You can find guns on the darknet now, you do not need to smuggle them though plenty of criminal networks who would supply them for funds which could be raised from the local population, loyalist paramilitaries have weapons stores secretly stacked away in various rural parts from the Troubles era and plenty have drugs criminal networks for funds.

    Lots of rightwing Tories would support Antrim in its wish for self-determination in such circumstances including me if it voted against a United Ireland even if a majority of NI did vote for Irish unity, even if we would not go so far as to support terrorism. You are a liberal not a rightwing Tory anyway
    No Tories would, since anybody who openly supported terrorists would be expelled from the party and no longer a Tory. They'd be referred to the Police and the authorities.

    Its farcical to suggest. May as well suggest Scotland can UDI.
    Supporting a recognition of Antrim UDI would actually be the best way to avoid terrorism.

    Because if Dublin imposed direct rule on Antrim without Antrim's consent and refused to recognise an Antrim UDI a paramilitary war is what would result as much as the IRA war in NI in nationalist areas against direct rule from London
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,399
    Logs in. Sees @HYUFD is advanced in military preparation again.
  • Cookie said:

    City break in York with the family today and tomorrow. It is absolutely packed. I've never seen it so busy, not even when the races were on. Went out for tea at 6 - all the restaurants were fully booked. Ended up eating in a perfectly adequate fish and chip shop, which probably saved us about £40.
    Anyway, everyone up for having as good a time as possible. Almost no sign of masks.
    National rail museum tomorrow. Very excited...

    Have you walked atop the city wall yet? Above the madding throng. And VERY well aerated!
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,776
    Charles said:

    Cookie said:

    Taz said:

    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?

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/oct/24/weve-been-hammered-on-the-breadline-in-burnley-covid-universal-credit

    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.
    I recall a fascinating conversation with a group that included a French trade unionist. She maintained that Switzerland wasn't "A proper democracy".

    A bit of discussion later and it became clear that her issue was that in Switzerland, matters that should be only decided as fundamental human rights could be voted on. The specific point of the cow-bell lady* came up.

    What I find interesting is that the idea that various pieces of public policy have been moved into something which resembles medieval notions of the power of the Church. These questions have been reserved to the judgement of the (not-very) elect(ed) - the great and good will decide these matters and deliver their Judgement. And it is Hersey to demure.

    So you have a situation where people, on the one hand, celebrate freedom, voting rights etc and then say that, actually, *this* stuff is reserved for the Upper 10,000 to decide upon.

    I think this is the problem at the heart of modern "populism" - the people have been repeatedly told they are sovereign. Democracy! rules! ok! Then comes a laundry list of things where you are not allowed to have an opinion.

    https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/01/14/swiss-citizenship-woman-denied-cowbells/96398518/
    That's an interesting story. It strikes me as quite healthy that those who know you and have to live with you get to decide your citizenship. Personally, this wouldn't be an issue on which I'd deny someone citizenship. But who knows - perhaps there's more to the story than is revealed here. OF COURSE there's more to the story than revealed here.
    She talked to international press and used Twitter to trash Swiss traditions

    She also complained about being woken up by church bells.

    All in all sounds like a PITA
    Yes, she does.
    I used to be a (church) bellringer. There was a surprising number of incidents of people moving to an area and getting the hump because of bells being rung twice a week. The argument that the bells predate the incomers always cut puzzling little ice.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,988
    ITV report on the govt’s new plan to get convicts to fill lorry driver shortages going very viral on Tik Tok… “Here’s Dean, he’s on day release from jail working in haulage. His offence was importing drugs, involving a lorry”
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1452366526560997380
  • Charles said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MrEd said:

    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 Ireland the United Kingdom to stay in the UK EU but if under the GFA European Union Referendum Act there was a border poll Referendum and NI the UK voted for a United Ireland to Leave the European Union with Antrim Scotland voting against then culturally Antrim Scotland would never accept Dublin rule Leaving 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 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
    Rhodesia was self-governing for decades. Antrim has never been self-governing.

    Any terrorism campaign in Antrim would be short-lived. The IRA had the support of much of America and others around the globe, nobody would support Antrim.

    The idea Conservatives are suddenly going to support terrorism is laughable. Anyone that did would quite rightly be expelled from the Party.

    Randolph Churchill : Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalist_Anti-Repeal_Union
    IIRC, Lord Randolph was playing what he called "the Orange card" in a VERY high stakes game for power in Westminster, hoping that it would prove to trump his (mostly Tory) opponents.

    Something less than a holy vow, leastways from his own point of view.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,776

    Cookie said:

    City break in York with the family today and tomorrow. It is absolutely packed. I've never seen it so busy, not even when the races were on. Went out for tea at 6 - all the restaurants were fully booked. Ended up eating in a perfectly adequate fish and chip shop, which probably saved us about £40.
    Anyway, everyone up for having as good a time as possible. Almost no sign of masks.
    National rail museum tomorrow. Very excited...

    Have you walked atop the city wall yet? Above the madding throng. And VERY well aerated!
    We have! It had been a few years since I'd done so. Never fails to surprise me how exhilarating it is. It doesn't look all that high from street level. Above the madding throng is very well put.
  • HYUFD said:



    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MrEd said:

    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 Ireland the United Kingdom to stay in the UK EU but if under the GFA European Union Referendum Act there was a border poll Referendum and NI the UK voted for a United Ireland to Leave the European Union with Antrim Scotland voting against then culturally Antrim Scotland would never accept Dublin rule Leaving 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 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
    Rhodesia was self-governing for decades. Antrim has never been self-governing.

    Any terrorism campaign in Antrim would be short-lived. The IRA had the support of much of America and others around the globe, nobody would support Antrim.

    The idea Conservatives are suddenly going to support terrorism is laughable. Anyone that did would quite rightly be expelled from the Party.
    Antrim has its own councils.

    You can find guns on the darknet now, you do not need to smuggle them though plenty of criminal networks who would supply them for funds which could be raised from the local population, loyalist paramilitaries have weapons stores secretly stacked away in various rural parts from the Troubles era and plenty have drugs criminal networks for funds.

    Lots of rightwing Tories would support Antrim in its wish for self-determination in such circumstances including me if it voted against a United Ireland even if a majority of NI did vote for Irish unity, even if we would not go so far as to support terrorism. You are a liberal not a rightwing Tory anyway
    No Tories would, since anybody who openly supported terrorists would be expelled from the party and no longer a Tory. They'd be referred to the Police and the authorities.

    Its farcical to suggest. May as well suggest Scotland can UDI.
    Supporting a recognition of Antrim UDI would actually be the best way to avoid terrorism.

    Because if Dublin imposed direct rule on Antrim without Antrim's consent and refused to recognise an Antrim UDI a paramilitary war is what would result as much as the IRA war in NI in nationalist areas against direct rule from London
    Bullshit. The only way to avoid terrorism would be to respect the democratic vote of Northern Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement recognising unification in full.

    Anyone who attempted to spark terrorism making Antrim independent would be ostracised and destroyed.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,454
    Oh good, @HYUFD is talking about crushing secessionists again like he's playing a computer game. Nevermind.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,418
    Cookie said:

    Charles said:

    Cookie said:

    Taz said:

    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?

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/oct/24/weve-been-hammered-on-the-breadline-in-burnley-covid-universal-credit

    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.
    I recall a fascinating conversation with a group that included a French trade unionist. She maintained that Switzerland wasn't "A proper democracy".

    A bit of discussion later and it became clear that her issue was that in Switzerland, matters that should be only decided as fundamental human rights could be voted on. The specific point of the cow-bell lady* came up.

    What I find interesting is that the idea that various pieces of public policy have been moved into something which resembles medieval notions of the power of the Church. These questions have been reserved to the judgement of the (not-very) elect(ed) - the great and good will decide these matters and deliver their Judgement. And it is Hersey to demure.

    So you have a situation where people, on the one hand, celebrate freedom, voting rights etc and then say that, actually, *this* stuff is reserved for the Upper 10,000 to decide upon.

    I think this is the problem at the heart of modern "populism" - the people have been repeatedly told they are sovereign. Democracy! rules! ok! Then comes a laundry list of things where you are not allowed to have an opinion.

    https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/01/14/swiss-citizenship-woman-denied-cowbells/96398518/
    That's an interesting story. It strikes me as quite healthy that those who know you and have to live with you get to decide your citizenship. Personally, this wouldn't be an issue on which I'd deny someone citizenship. But who knows - perhaps there's more to the story than is revealed here. OF COURSE there's more to the story than revealed here.
    She talked to international press and used Twitter to trash Swiss traditions

    She also complained about being woken up by church bells.

    All in all sounds like a PITA
    Yes, she does.
    I used to be a (church) bellringer. There was a surprising number of incidents of people moving to an area and getting the hump because of bells being rung twice a week. The argument that the bells predate the incomers always cut puzzling little ice.
    I used to drink in a 17th C pub. About 30 years ago a house was built next door. The first occupants, and indeed their successors, used to complain about the noise on a Saturday night.

  • Oh good, @HYUFD is talking about crushing secessionists again like he's playing a computer game. Nevermind.

    Not this time actually, he's talking about talking up secessionists.

    Only this time its his favoured successionists that for some reason magically won't be crushed despite having the whole of their government (Ireland), the UK, the EU and the USA against them. 🤦‍♂️
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,027
    edited October 2021
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MrEd said:

    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 Ireland the United Kingdom to stay in the UK EU but if under the GFA European Union Referendum Act there was a border poll Referendum and NI the UK voted for a United Ireland to Leave the European Union with Antrim Scotland voting against then culturally Antrim Scotland would never accept Dublin rule Leaving 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 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
    Rhodesia was self-governing for decades. Antrim has never been self-governing.

    Any terrorism campaign in Antrim would be short-lived. The IRA had the support of much of America and others around the globe, nobody would support Antrim.

    The idea Conservatives are suddenly going to support terrorism is laughable. Anyone that did would quite rightly be expelled from the Party.
    Antrim has its own councils.

    You can find guns on the darknet now, you do not need to smuggle them though plenty of criminal networks who would supply them for funds which could be raised from the local population, loyalist paramilitaries have weapons stores secretly stacked away in various rural parts from the Troubles era and plenty have drugs criminal networks for funds.

    Lots of rightwing Tories would support Antrim in its wish for self-determination in such circumstances including me if it voted against a United Ireland even if a majority of NI did vote for Irish unity, even if we would not go so far as to support terrorism. You are a liberal not a rightwing Tory anyway
    You seem to have no idea how idiotic you sound

    Maybe get a cup of tea
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,372

    Scott_xP said:

    ITV report on the govt’s new plan to get convicts to fill lorry driver shortages going very viral on Tik Tok… “Here’s Dean, he’s on day release from jail working in haulage. His offence was importing drugs, involving a lorry”
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1452366526560997380

    Fantastic to see people who are reaching the end of their sentence and getting released from jail are able to get work.

    As we all know employment is the best way to defeat recidivism. Its great to see you highlighting a government success in driving down recidivism here.
    The people,up,in arms over this are exactly the sort of people,who would support this in the normal course of events.

    I don’t see reintegrating criminals back into society As being a bad thing.

    It’s not like,they’d let Peter Sutcliffe do,it if he was still alive.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,758

    Cookie said:

    City break in York with the family today and tomorrow. It is absolutely packed. I've never seen it so busy, not even when the races were on. Went out for tea at 6 - all the restaurants were fully booked. Ended up eating in a perfectly adequate fish and chip shop, which probably saved us about £40.
    Anyway, everyone up for having as good a time as possible. Almost no sign of masks.
    National rail museum tomorrow. Very excited...

    Have you walked atop the city wall yet? Above the madding throng. And VERY well aerated!
    On cold mornings there's little better to be done than explore these things. Any attack would have certainly taken place in the morning. I'd not fancy it.
  • Following the ways of the weekend so far, I thought I should look at -gism words.

    An obvious one to start with is neologism. It seems clear that this is something @DuraAce would love to have made. Obviously it's a neo- 'new', +logos 'word'. Our very own JizzJunky might have to wait.

    We also have syllogisms and paralogisms. These are words about logic; the start of syllogism is derived from syn- meaning 'together', and it's a combination of two logical statements to prove a third one. In paralogism, the para- comes from Greek meaning 'contrary to', hence a paralogism is "a piece of illogical or fallacious reasoning". Which I'm sure we've all seen here.

    There's 'agism', which is a bit dull etymologically. Similarly dull in their origin, but a bit more spicy in their current trans-centred battle, are biologism, the belief that human nature is defined by biology; and psychologism, the belief that that our nature is defined by our psychology - as separate, or at least different, from our biology.

    There's also 'priggism', meaning being a prig, which might either have derived from the same word meaning a 'dandy', or a 'thief', or from the word prick. Quite amusingly for here, quislingism is a word. Meaning an act of treachery, working for an occupying force. And finally savagism. This has its origin from the Latin word for 'of the woods', silvaticus.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,701
    Catty academic news just in...



    Trisha Greenhalgh
    @trishgreenhalgh
    ·
    9h
    If UK government decide they need extra scientific help to deal with the Covid-19 crisis, I’m available. Unlike some Oxford professors, I’ve never been asked my opinion on pandemic policy. Unlike some, I’ve never been catastrophically wrong in my predictions either. Just saying.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,656
    ITV report on the govt’s new plan to get convicts to fill lorry driver shortages going very viral on Tik Tok… “Here’s Dean, he’s on day release from jail working in haulage. His offence was importing drugs, involving a lorry”
  • Following the ways of the weekend so far, I thought I should look at -gism words.

    An obvious one to start with is neologism. It seems clear that this is something @DuraAce would love to have made. Obviously it's a neo- 'new', +logos 'word'. Our very own JizzJunky might have to wait.

    We also have syllogisms and paralogisms. These are words about logic; the start of syllogism is derived from syn- meaning 'together', and it's a combination of two logical statements to prove a third one. In paralogism, the para- comes from Greek meaning 'contrary to', hence a paralogism is "a piece of illogical or fallacious reasoning". Which I'm sure we've all seen here.

    There's 'agism', which is a bit dull etymologically. Similarly dull in their origin, but a bit more spicy in their current trans-centred battle, are biologism, the belief that human nature is defined by biology; and psychologism, the belief that that our nature is defined by our psychology - as separate, or at least different, from our biology.

    There's also 'priggism', meaning being a prig, which might either have derived from the same word meaning a 'dandy', or a 'thief', or from the word prick. Quite amusingly for here, quislingism is a word. Meaning an act of treachery, working for an occupying force. And finally savagism. This has its origin from the Latin word for 'of the woods', silvaticus.

    Is there a reason, why we hardly ever hear or read about "Shiitism"?
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,926

    Scott_xP said:

    ITV report on the govt’s new plan to get convicts to fill lorry driver shortages going very viral on Tik Tok… “Here’s Dean, he’s on day release from jail working in haulage. His offence was importing drugs, involving a lorry”
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1452366526560997380

    How judgemental

    He is on day release and contributing to his life post jail

    Actually I think that tweet is out of order
    Putting his skills to use for a legitimate purpose? This sort of thing should be celebrated, not sneered at.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,027
    edited October 2021

    ITV report on the govt’s new plan to get convicts to fill lorry driver shortages going very viral on Tik Tok… “Here’s Dean, he’s on day release from jail working in haulage. His offence was importing drugs, involving a lorry”

    You are just as bad as @Scott_xP

    He is on day release working his way to a new future

    Shame on you and all those who try to politicise this story
  • ITV report on the govt’s new plan to get convicts to fill lorry driver shortages going very viral on Tik Tok… “Here’s Dean, he’s on day release from jail working in haulage. His offence was importing drugs, involving a lorry”

    Presumably you agree that convicts getting a job when they leave prison, so that they get drawn back into a life of crime, is the best way to rehabilitate prisoners and ensure a reduction in recidivism?

    So presumably you're congratulating the government on this policy?
  • eekeek Posts: 28,366

    Scott_xP said:

    ITV report on the govt’s new plan to get convicts to fill lorry driver shortages going very viral on Tik Tok… “Here’s Dean, he’s on day release from jail working in haulage. His offence was importing drugs, involving a lorry”
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1452366526560997380

    How judgemental

    He is on day release and contributing to his life post jail

    Actually I think that tweet is out of order
    If he’s on day release, tescos taking 4 hours (unpaid for the driver) unloading the van is going to create great problems if he isn’t home by 7pm.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59030936

    For those who think the jizz sack's antics are just a bit of harmless fun.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,656

    ITV report on the govt’s new plan to get convicts to fill lorry driver shortages going very viral on Tik Tok… “Here’s Dean, he’s on day release from jail working in haulage. His offence was importing drugs, involving a lorry”

    You are just as bad as @Scott_xP

    He is on day release working his way to a new future

    Shame on you and all those who try to politicise this story
    Its amusing

    https://twitter.com/home?lang=en-gb
  • londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,639

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MrEd said:

    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 Ireland the United Kingdom to stay in the UK EU but if under the GFA European Union Referendum Act there was a border poll Referendum and NI the UK voted for a United Ireland to Leave the European Union with Antrim Scotland voting against then culturally Antrim Scotland would never accept Dublin rule Leaving 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 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
    Rhodesia was self-governing for decades. Antrim has never been self-governing.

    Any terrorism campaign in Antrim would be short-lived. The IRA had the support of much of America and others around the globe, nobody would support Antrim.

    The idea Conservatives are suddenly going to support terrorism is laughable. Anyone that did would quite rightly be expelled from the Party.
    Antrim has its own councils.

    You can find guns on the darknet now, you do not need to smuggle them though plenty of criminal networks who would supply them for funds which could be raised from the local population, loyalist paramilitaries have weapons stores secretly stacked away in various rural parts from the Troubles era and plenty have drugs criminal networks for funds.

    Lots of rightwing Tories would support Antrim in its wish for self-determination in such circumstances including me if it voted against a United Ireland even if a majority of NI did vote for Irish unity, even if we would not go so far as to support terrorism. You are a liberal not a rightwing Tory anyway
    You seem to have no idea how idiotic you sound

    Maybe get a cup of tea
    Time for @HYUFD to have a nap 👍
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,274

    ITV report on the govt’s new plan to get convicts to fill lorry driver shortages going very viral on Tik Tok… “Here’s Dean, he’s on day release from jail working in haulage. His offence was importing drugs, involving a lorry”

    You are just as bad as @Scott_xP

    He is on day release working his way to a new future

    Shame on you and all those who try to politicise this story
    You tell em Big G :D
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Cookie said:

    Charles said:

    Cookie said:

    Taz said:

    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?

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/oct/24/weve-been-hammered-on-the-breadline-in-burnley-covid-universal-credit

    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.
    I recall a fascinating conversation with a group that included a French trade unionist. She maintained that Switzerland wasn't "A proper democracy".

    A bit of discussion later and it became clear that her issue was that in Switzerland, matters that should be only decided as fundamental human rights could be voted on. The specific point of the cow-bell lady* came up.

    What I find interesting is that the idea that various pieces of public policy have been moved into something which resembles medieval notions of the power of the Church. These questions have been reserved to the judgement of the (not-very) elect(ed) - the great and good will decide these matters and deliver their Judgement. And it is Hersey to demure.

    So you have a situation where people, on the one hand, celebrate freedom, voting rights etc and then say that, actually, *this* stuff is reserved for the Upper 10,000 to decide upon.

    I think this is the problem at the heart of modern "populism" - the people have been repeatedly told they are sovereign. Democracy! rules! ok! Then comes a laundry list of things where you are not allowed to have an opinion.

    https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/01/14/swiss-citizenship-woman-denied-cowbells/96398518/
    That's an interesting story. It strikes me as quite healthy that those who know you and have to live with you get to decide your citizenship. Personally, this wouldn't be an issue on which I'd deny someone citizenship. But who knows - perhaps there's more to the story than is revealed here. OF COURSE there's more to the story than revealed here.
    She talked to international press and used Twitter to trash Swiss traditions

    She also complained about being woken up by church bells.

    All in all sounds like a PITA
    Yes, she does.
    I used to be a (church) bellringer. There was a surprising number of incidents of people moving to an area and getting the hump because of bells being rung twice a week. The argument that the bells predate the incomers always cut puzzling little ice.
    But don’t you know how much they paid for their houses?
  • ITV report on the govt’s new plan to get convicts to fill lorry driver shortages going very viral on Tik Tok… “Here’s Dean, he’s on day release from jail working in haulage. His offence was importing drugs, involving a lorry”

    You are just as bad as @Scott_xP

    He is on day release working his way to a new future

    Shame on you and all those who try to politicise this story
    Its amusing

    https://twitter.com/home?lang=en-gb
    No - it is judgmental and wrong
  • Like a Matt cartoon ...
    image
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,926

    ITV report on the govt’s new plan to get convicts to fill lorry driver shortages going very viral on Tik Tok… “Here’s Dean, he’s on day release from jail working in haulage. His offence was importing drugs, involving a lorry”

    You are just as bad as @Scott_xP

    He is on day release working his way to a new future

    Shame on you and all those who try to politicise this story
    Its amusing

    https://twitter.com/home?lang=en-gb
    No - it is judgmental and wrong
    Perhaps they think a trained HGV ex-con would be better suited for a job as a haberdasher in his new life?
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MrEd said:

    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 Ireland the United Kingdom to stay in the UK EU but if under the GFA European Union Referendum Act there was a border poll Referendum and NI the UK voted for a United Ireland to Leave the European Union with Antrim Scotland voting against then culturally Antrim Scotland would never accept Dublin rule Leaving 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 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
    Rhodesia was self-governing for decades. Antrim has never been self-governing.

    Any terrorism campaign in Antrim would be short-lived. The IRA had the support of much of America and others around the globe, nobody would support Antrim.

    The idea Conservatives are suddenly going to support terrorism is laughable. Anyone that did would quite rightly be expelled from the Party.

    Randolph Churchill : Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalist_Anti-Repeal_Union
    IIRC, Lord Randolph was playing what he called "the Orange card" in a VERY high stakes game for power in Westminster, hoping that it would prove to trump his (mostly Tory) opponents.

    Something less than a holy vow, leastways from his own point of view.
    Churchill was only ever a power player in his own head
  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,507

    I'm 'watching' F1 on BBC text - strangely exciting.

    Must be akin to following the Crimean War by reading the the London Gazett

    I was doing similar and used the info to place a bet which probably wasnt wise.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Cookie said:

    Charles said:

    Cookie said:

    Taz said:

    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?

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/oct/24/weve-been-hammered-on-the-breadline-in-burnley-covid-universal-credit

    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.
    I recall a fascinating conversation with a group that included a French trade unionist. She maintained that Switzerland wasn't "A proper democracy".

    A bit of discussion later and it became clear that her issue was that in Switzerland, matters that should be only decided as fundamental human rights could be voted on. The specific point of the cow-bell lady* came up.

    What I find interesting is that the idea that various pieces of public policy have been moved into something which resembles medieval notions of the power of the Church. These questions have been reserved to the judgement of the (not-very) elect(ed) - the great and good will decide these matters and deliver their Judgement. And it is Hersey to demure.

    So you have a situation where people, on the one hand, celebrate freedom, voting rights etc and then say that, actually, *this* stuff is reserved for the Upper 10,000 to decide upon.

    I think this is the problem at the heart of modern "populism" - the people have been repeatedly told they are sovereign. Democracy! rules! ok! Then comes a laundry list of things where you are not allowed to have an opinion.

    https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/01/14/swiss-citizenship-woman-denied-cowbells/96398518/
    That's an interesting story. It strikes me as quite healthy that those who know you and have to live with you get to decide your citizenship. Personally, this wouldn't be an issue on which I'd deny someone citizenship. But who knows - perhaps there's more to the story than is revealed here. OF COURSE there's more to the story than revealed here.
    She talked to international press and used Twitter to trash Swiss traditions

    She also complained about being woken up by church bells.

    All in all sounds like a PITA
    Yes, she does.
    I used to be a (church) bellringer. There was a surprising number of incidents of people moving to an area and getting the hump because of bells being rung twice a week. The argument that the bells predate the incomers always cut puzzling little ice.
    I used to drink in a 17th C pub. About 30 years ago a house was built next door. The first occupants, and indeed their successors, used to complain about the noise on a Saturday night.

    It depends what you mean by “complain”

    Saying “please keep it down in the garden after midnight” to the landlord is fine.

    Whinging to your neighbours about the noise is fine

    Taking the pub to court wouldn’t be
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Taz said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ITV report on the govt’s new plan to get convicts to fill lorry driver shortages going very viral on Tik Tok… “Here’s Dean, he’s on day release from jail working in haulage. His offence was importing drugs, involving a lorry”
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1452366526560997380

    Fantastic to see people who are reaching the end of their sentence and getting released from jail are able to get work.

    As we all know employment is the best way to defeat recidivism. Its great to see you highlighting a government success in driving down recidivism here.
    The people,up,in arms over this are exactly the sort of people,who would support this in the normal course of events.

    I don’t see reintegrating criminals back into society As being a bad thing.

    It’s not like,they’d let Peter Sutcliffe do,it if he was still alive.
    Given it’s Halloween…
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    IshmaelZ said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59030936

    For those who think the jizz sack's antics are just a bit of harmless fun.

    It’s nothing to do with anything Boris has said.

    She’s a hostage. That’s all.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,656
    Re Tory plans to allow sewage to be pumped in the rivers and seas

    https://twitter.com/paullewismoney/status/1452321285841866756/photo/1
  • BlancheLivermoreBlancheLivermore Posts: 5,911
    edited October 2021
    Another word I've had to enjoy reading on here amongst the polite discourse today is 'wank'. Its deliberately offensive use earlier wasn't sanctioned, so I hope I can get away with its etymology!

    It's uncertain, but it seems to be derived from the word whank.

    I've found two early dialectic uses of this word. First from Jameison's Dictionary Of Scottish https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Jamieson_s_Dictionary_of_the_Scottish_La/wHIrAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=whank&pg=PA610&printsec=frontcover meaning "A stroke; the act of striking, properly with the fist". Which does seem to tie up the etymology to me!

    But I love the Northern/Yorkshire usage too much not to mention it!

    In the North, a "whank" meant a large portion. It seems to be mostly related to cheese in the written examples, but I think you could equally ask your butcher for a whank of his meat!
    https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Yorkshire_Anthology/fL9PAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=whank&pg=PA113&printsec=frontcover

    The word seems to have developed its modern meaning in the late 19C, and has been found to have been used in that sense earliest by military. Possibly unrelated to this usage, wank was used synonymously to wonk to mean a novice sailor in the navy. But whank or wank have been found used in around 1920, mostly from the air force.

    Amongst the terms that seem to have come from the RAF are whank-pit ("A bed: R.A.F.: since ca. 1920"), whanker ("a masturbator: low" late C. 19–20), whanker's colic "An undiagnosed visceral pain: R.A.F/: since early 1920's"), whanker's doom ("Debility: R.A.F.: since ca. 1925"), and whanking-pit ("the Army's form of whank-pit: since early 1920'")

    But my very favourite, which I'm going to use, is the brilliant "whanking-spanner" ("An imaginary tool like a 'sky-hook'" and "The hand: low: since ca. 1920")
    https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/142491/where-does-the-word-wankers-come-from
  • Charles said:

    Charles said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MrEd said:

    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 Ireland the United Kingdom to stay in the UK EU but if under the GFA European Union Referendum Act there was a border poll Referendum and NI the UK voted for a United Ireland to Leave the European Union with Antrim Scotland voting against then culturally Antrim Scotland would never accept Dublin rule Leaving 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 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
    Rhodesia was self-governing for decades. Antrim has never been self-governing.

    Any terrorism campaign in Antrim would be short-lived. The IRA had the support of much of America and others around the globe, nobody would support Antrim.

    The idea Conservatives are suddenly going to support terrorism is laughable. Anyone that did would quite rightly be expelled from the Party.

    Randolph Churchill : Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalist_Anti-Repeal_Union
    IIRC, Lord Randolph was playing what he called "the Orange card" in a VERY high stakes game for power in Westminster, hoping that it would prove to trump his (mostly Tory) opponents.

    Something less than a holy vow, leastways from his own point of view.
    Churchill was only ever a power player in his own head
    You may have a point.

    Sort of a 19-century forerunner to George Brown . . . an odd couple in more ways than one.

    Brilliant in some ways, flawed in many others, but generally well-intentioned. And NEVER dull.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,656

    ITV report on the govt’s new plan to get convicts to fill lorry driver shortages going very viral on Tik Tok… “Here’s Dean, he’s on day release from jail working in haulage. His offence was importing drugs, involving a lorry”

    You are just as bad as @Scott_xP

    He is on day release working his way to a new future

    Shame on you and all those who try to politicise this story
    Its amusing

    https://twitter.com/home?lang=en-gb
    No - it is judgmental and wrong
    Like you on most things then?
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Re Tory plans to allow sewage to be pumped in the rivers and seas

    https://twitter.com/paullewismoney/status/1452321285841866756/photo/1

    £123bn invested in infrastructure, £57bn paid to shareholders.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Charles said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59030936

    For those who think the jizz sack's antics are just a bit of harmless fun.

    It’s nothing to do with anything Boris has said.

    She’s a hostage. That’s all.
    You think saying she was teaching journalism had no bearing on her current predicament?

    It may not have done, we don't know. But the laziness, inattention to detail and insouciance about outcomes for brown people are telling.
  • Re Tory plans to allow sewage to be pumped in the rivers and seas

    https://twitter.com/paullewismoney/status/1452321285841866756/photo/1

    There are no plans to "allow" it.

    Its already happening and long has been. Its the existing law that it can happen and does happen already and long has been. 🤦‍♂️
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    IshmaelZ said:

    Charles said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59030936

    For those who think the jizz sack's antics are just a bit of harmless fun.

    It’s nothing to do with anything Boris has said.

    She’s a hostage. That’s all.
    You think saying she was teaching journalism had no bearing on her current predicament?

    It may not have done, we don't know. But the laziness, inattention to detail and insouciance about outcomes for brown people are telling.
    It provided the Iranians with a convenient excuse plus additional leverage (personal embarrassment).

    But they would have found another excuse if he hadn’t said it
  • ITV report on the govt’s new plan to get convicts to fill lorry driver shortages going very viral on Tik Tok… “Here’s Dean, he’s on day release from jail working in haulage. His offence was importing drugs, involving a lorry”

    You are just as bad as @Scott_xP

    He is on day release working his way to a new future

    Shame on you and all those who try to politicise this story
    Its amusing

    https://twitter.com/home?lang=en-gb
    No - it is judgmental and wrong
    Like you on most things then?
    It is wrong on many levels
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,988
    edited October 2021

    Re Tory plans to allow sewage to be pumped in the rivers and seas

    https://twitter.com/paullewismoney/status/1452321285841866756/photo/1

    They plan to dump raw sewage cos they can't get the chemicals to treat it.

    Thanks to Brexit.

    It's literally a shitshow
  • Charles said:

    Re Tory plans to allow sewage to be pumped in the rivers and seas

    https://twitter.com/paullewismoney/status/1452321285841866756/photo/1

    £123bn invested in infrastructure, £57bn paid to shareholders.
    No doubt quite a lot invested in UK pensions
  • IshmaelZ said:

    Charles said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59030936

    For those who think the jizz sack's antics are just a bit of harmless fun.

    It’s nothing to do with anything Boris has said.

    She’s a hostage. That’s all.
    You think saying she was teaching journalism had no bearing on her current predicament?

    It may not have done, we don't know. But the laziness, inattention to detail and insouciance about outcomes for brown people are telling.
    Yes it had absolutely no bearing whatsoever on her current predicament.

    She was already in prison and already being held hostage long before the PM spoke. The Iranians were already increasing her sentence before he spoke too.

    That's why he was asked about the situation. Because it had already happened. Unless the Iranians have a TARDIS her being in this predicament has not a scintilla of a relationship to what happened after she ended up in this predicament.

    But if you find it easier to blame the PM of the UK instead of the Iranians holding her hostage, then that's on you. 🤷‍♂️
  • Scott_xP said:

    Re Tory plans to allow sewage to be pumped in the rivers and seas

    https://twitter.com/paullewismoney/status/1452321285841866756/photo/1

    They plan to dump raw sewage cos they can't get the chemicals to treat it.

    Thanks to Brexit.

    It's literally a shitshow
    The only shit I smell is bullshit coming from you.

    The link before you shared simply said the Tories had voted against a proposed amendment to outlaw what is already legal and long been happening. Nothing to do with chemicals or Brexit.

    Do you have a source saying that this is happening due to Brexit? Not delusional Twitter idiots or EU fanzines like the London Economic or New European?
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Scott_xP said:

    Re Tory plans to allow sewage to be pumped in the rivers and seas

    https://twitter.com/paullewismoney/status/1452321285841866756/photo/1

    They plan to dump raw sewage cos they can't get the chemicals to treat it.

    Thanks to Brexit.

    It's literally a shitshow
    The only shit I smell is bullshit coming from you.

    The link before you shared simply said the Tories had voted against a proposed amendment to outlaw what is already legal and long been happening. Nothing to do with chemicals or Brexit.

    Do you have a source saying that this is happening due to Brexit? Not delusional Twitter idiots or EU fanzines like the London Economic or New European?
    That wasn’t what the amendment AIUI. It put a legal duty on water companies to prevent *any* pollution into waterways. Including by other actors.
  • Another word I've had to enjoy reading on here amongst the polite discourse today is 'wank'. Its deliberately offensive use earlier wasn't sanctioned, so I hope I can get away with its etymology!

    It's uncertain, but it seems to be derived from the word whank.

    I've found two early dialectic uses of this word. First from Jameison's Dictionary Of Scottish https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Jamieson_s_Dictionary_of_the_Scottish_La/wHIrAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=whank&pg=PA610&printsec=frontcover meaning "A stroke; the act of striking, properly with the fist". Which does seem to tie up the etymology to me!

    But I love the Northern/Yorkshire usage too much not to mention it!

    In the North, a "whank" meant a large portion. It seems to be mostly related to cheese in the written examples, but I think you could equally ask your butcher for a whank of his meat!
    https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Yorkshire_Anthology/fL9PAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=whank&pg=PA113&printsec=frontcover

    The word seems to have developed its modern meaning in the late 19C, and has been found to have been used in that sense earliest by military. Possibly unrelated to this usage, wank was used synonymously to wonk to mean a novice sailor in the navy. But whank or wank have been found used in around 1920, mostly from the air force.

    Amongst the terms that seem to have come from the RAF are whank-pit ("A bed: R.A.F.: since ca. 1920"), whanker ("a masturbator: low" late C. 19–20), whanker's colic "An undiagnosed visceral pain: R.A.F/: since early 1920's"), whanker's doom ("Debility: R.A.F.: since ca. 1925"), and whanking-pit ("the Army's form of whank-pit: since early 1920'")

    But my very favourite, which I'm going to use, is the brilliant "whanking-spanner" ("An imaginary tool like a 'sky-hook'" and "The hand: low: since ca. 1920")
    https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/142491/where-does-the-word-wankers-come-from

    As soon as the coast is reasonably clear, I invite all PBers (regardless of personal politics or sanity) to visit the great Pacific Northwest!

    AND while your here, make sure to check out the Wankers's Corner Country Store AND the Wanker's Corner Saloon & Cafe both located just south of Portland in the charming hamlet of . . . wait for it . . . Wankers's Corner.
  • RobD said:

    NIMBYism on steroids more like.
    What a terrible, terrible idea.

    Glad I'd already quit the party as this would be another deal-breaker for me.

    What's next, if someone wants to open an Aldi supermarket give the existing Morrisons, Tescos and Waitrose a vote on whether to allow the competition to open up or not?
  • Charles said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Re Tory plans to allow sewage to be pumped in the rivers and seas

    https://twitter.com/paullewismoney/status/1452321285841866756/photo/1

    They plan to dump raw sewage cos they can't get the chemicals to treat it.

    Thanks to Brexit.

    It's literally a shitshow
    The only shit I smell is bullshit coming from you.

    The link before you shared simply said the Tories had voted against a proposed amendment to outlaw what is already legal and long been happening. Nothing to do with chemicals or Brexit.

    Do you have a source saying that this is happening due to Brexit? Not delusional Twitter idiots or EU fanzines like the London Economic or New European?
    That wasn’t what the amendment AIUI. It put a legal duty on water companies to prevent *any* pollution into waterways. Including by other actors.
    I know. That's why I'm saying that Scott is spreading bullshit.

    Voting against forbidding water companies from allowing any pollution into the waterways (which would be a significant change in how they operate) is not the same as voting to allow something that wasn't allowed before.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,582
    edited October 2021
    Taz said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ITV report on the govt’s new plan to get convicts to fill lorry driver shortages going very viral on Tik Tok… “Here’s Dean, he’s on day release from jail working in haulage. His offence was importing drugs, involving a lorry”
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1452366526560997380

    Fantastic to see people who are reaching the end of their sentence and getting released from jail are able to get work.

    As we all know employment is the best way to defeat recidivism. Its great to see you highlighting a government success in driving down recidivism here.
    The people,up,in arms over this are exactly the sort of people,who would support this in the normal course of events.

    I don’t see reintegrating criminals back into society As being a bad thing.

    It’s not like,they’d let Peter Sutcliffe do,it if he was still alive.
    That could have made for a 1,500 word Guardian editorial, on how we were rehabilitating offenders back into society.

    Ditto with pay rises for drivers and hospitality staff, but becuase of the “B-word”, these are now seen as bad things by people who would have been natural supporters only a few years ago.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,988
    Interesting to note which Tories did not vote to allow dumping raw sewage.

    Sadly Tissue Price doesn't make the cut
  • Scott_xP said:

    Interesting to note which Tories did not vote to allow dumping raw sewage.

    Sadly Tissue Price doesn't make the cut

    There was no vote to "allow" anything that isn't currently allowed. You're a liar and shouldn't smear Tissue Price who isn't here to defend himself from your dishonest lies.
  • Scott_xP said:

    Interesting to note which Tories did not vote to allow dumping raw sewage.

    Sadly Tissue Price doesn't make the cut

    There was no vote to "allow" anything that isn't currently allowed. You're a liar and shouldn't smear Tissue Price who isn't here to defend himself from your dishonest lies.
    Maybe Scott should get his whanking spanners off the keyboard, and have a torque with himself instead.
  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,507

    Another word I've had to enjoy reading on here amongst the polite discourse today is 'wank'. Its deliberately offensive use earlier wasn't sanctioned, so I hope I can get away with its etymology!

    It's uncertain, but it seems to be derived from the word whank.

    I've found two early dialectic uses of this word. First from Jameison's Dictionary Of Scottish https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Jamieson_s_Dictionary_of_the_Scottish_La/wHIrAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=whank&pg=PA610&printsec=frontcover meaning "A stroke; the act of striking, properly with the fist". Which does seem to tie up the etymology to me!

    But I love the Northern/Yorkshire usage too much not to mention it!

    In the North, a "whank" meant a large portion. It seems to be mostly related to cheese in the written examples, but I think you could equally ask your butcher for a whank of his meat!
    https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Yorkshire_Anthology/fL9PAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=whank&pg=PA113&printsec=frontcover

    The word seems to have developed its modern meaning in the late 19C, and has been found to have been used in that sense earliest by military. Possibly unrelated to this usage, wank was used synonymously to wonk to mean a novice sailor in the navy. But whank or wank have been found used in around 1920, mostly from the air force.

    Amongst the terms that seem to have come from the RAF are whank-pit ("A bed: R.A.F.: since ca. 1920"), whanker ("a masturbator: low" late C. 19–20), whanker's colic "An undiagnosed visceral pain: R.A.F/: since early 1920's"), whanker's doom ("Debility: R.A.F.: since ca. 1925"), and whanking-pit ("the Army's form of whank-pit: since early 1920'")

    But my very favourite, which I'm going to use, is the brilliant "whanking-spanner" ("An imaginary tool like a 'sky-hook'" and "The hand: low: since ca. 1920")
    https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/142491/where-does-the-word-wankers-come-from

    As soon as the coast is reasonably clear, I invite all PBers (regardless of personal politics or sanity) to visit the great Pacific Northwest!

    AND while your here, make sure to check out the Wankers's Corner Country Store AND the Wanker's Corner Saloon & Cafe both located just south of Portland in the charming hamlet of . . . wait for it . . . Wankers's Corner.
    Also, while I couldnt add to the earlier discussion about Bavaria's wealth, I do know it is home to the mountain Wank near Garmisch.
  • I like (I think) that "likes" are tabulated on PB.

    Question - is there any tabulation (actual or possible) for number of times that a posters posts are "quoted" as per the system?

    Possibly a preferable portrait of a PBer's posting prowess, perhaps?
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    edited October 2021

    Another word I've had to enjoy reading on here amongst the polite discourse today is 'wank'. Its deliberately offensive use earlier wasn't sanctioned, so I hope I can get away with its etymology!

    It's uncertain, but it seems to be derived from the word whank.

    I've found two early dialectic uses of this word. First from Jameison's Dictionary Of Scottish https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Jamieson_s_Dictionary_of_the_Scottish_La/wHIrAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=whank&pg=PA610&printsec=frontcover meaning "A stroke; the act of striking, properly with the fist". Which does seem to tie up the etymology to me!

    But I love the Northern/Yorkshire usage too much not to mention it!

    In the North, a "whank" meant a large portion. It seems to be mostly related to cheese in the written examples, but I think you could equally ask your butcher for a whank of his meat!
    https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Yorkshire_Anthology/fL9PAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=whank&pg=PA113&printsec=frontcover

    The word seems to have developed its modern meaning in the late 19C, and has been found to have been used in that sense earliest by military. Possibly unrelated to this usage, wank was used synonymously to wonk to mean a novice sailor in the navy. But whank or wank have been found used in around 1920, mostly from the air force.

    Amongst the terms that seem to have come from the RAF are whank-pit ("A bed: R.A.F.: since ca. 1920"), whanker ("a masturbator: low" late C. 19–20), whanker's colic "An undiagnosed visceral pain: R.A.F/: since early 1920's"), whanker's doom ("Debility: R.A.F.: since ca. 1925"), and whanking-pit ("the Army's form of whank-pit: since early 1920'")

    But my very favourite, which I'm going to use, is the brilliant "whanking-spanner" ("An imaginary tool like a 'sky-hook'" and "The hand: low: since ca. 1920")
    https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/142491/where-does-the-word-wankers-come-from

    As soon as the coast is reasonably clear, I invite all PBers (regardless of personal politics or sanity) to visit the great Pacific Northwest!

    AND while your here, make sure to check out the Wankers's Corner Country Store AND the Wanker's Corner Saloon & Cafe both located just south of Portland in the charming hamlet of . . . wait for it . . . Wankers's Corner.
    Also, while I couldnt add to the earlier discussion about Bavaria's wealth, I do know it is home to the mountain Wank near Garmisch.
    Eureka - White Gold!
  • JohnLilburneJohnLilburne Posts: 6,240
    Charles said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Charles said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59030936

    For those who think the jizz sack's antics are just a bit of harmless fun.

    It’s nothing to do with anything Boris has said.

    She’s a hostage. That’s all.
    You think saying she was teaching journalism had no bearing on her current predicament?

    It may not have done, we don't know. But the laziness, inattention to detail and insouciance about outcomes for brown people are telling.
    It provided the Iranians with a convenient excuse plus additional leverage (personal embarrassment).

    But they would have found another excuse if he hadn’t said it
    My presumption was that she *was* teaching journalism and that admitting it was thought (incorrectly) to be likely to improve her position.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    RobD said:

    NIMBYism on steroids more like.
    What a terrible, terrible idea.

    Glad I'd already quit the party as this would be another deal-breaker for me.

    What's next, if someone wants to open an Aldi supermarket give the existing Morrisons, Tescos and Waitrose a vote on whether to allow the competition to open up or not?
    I think this is Steve Baker and another MP not party policy
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,582

    Charles said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Charles said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59030936

    For those who think the jizz sack's antics are just a bit of harmless fun.

    It’s nothing to do with anything Boris has said.

    She’s a hostage. That’s all.
    You think saying she was teaching journalism had no bearing on her current predicament?

    It may not have done, we don't know. But the laziness, inattention to detail and insouciance about outcomes for brown people are telling.
    It provided the Iranians with a convenient excuse plus additional leverage (personal embarrassment).

    But they would have found another excuse if he hadn’t said it
    My presumption was that she *was* teaching journalism and that admitting it was thought (incorrectly) to be likely to improve her position.
    The worst possible case for people to bring up.

    She’s an Iranian citizen, who committed offences in Iran and was arrested in Iran.

    There’s a huge misunderstanding as to the law on dual citizenship, deliberately so on the part of her British supporters - the UK government can do precisely nothing under international law, and the Iranians are going to enjoy rubbing their noses in it, no matter who is the British representative trying to negotiate on her behalf.
  • I like (I think) that "likes" are tabulated on PB.

    Question - is there any tabulation (actual or possible) for number of times that a posters posts are "quoted" as per the system?

    Possibly a preferable portrait of a PBer's posting prowess, perhaps?

    Yeah, I see posts that have no likes but get about twenty replies.

    They're obviously more interesting posts than the repost of a funny tweet that gets twenty likes.

    But a deliberately offensive post can get a lot of responses without being interesting, and hopefully wouldn't get likes.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,701
    Here we go. Again. My sense of intense deja vu is disorientating...



    Allie Hodgkins-Brown
    @AllieHBNews
    ·
    10m
    Monday’s Daily MIRROR: “Get Booster & Save Xmas” #TomorrowsPapersToday

  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,722
    Cookie said:

    City break in York with the family today and tomorrow. It is absolutely packed. I've never seen it so busy, not even when the races were on. Went out for tea at 6 - all the restaurants were fully booked. Ended up eating in a perfectly adequate fish and chip shop, which probably saved us about £40.
    Anyway, everyone up for having as good a time as possible. Almost no sign of masks.
    National rail museum tomorrow. Very excited...

    If you have time and inclination, the pub in the station next door (York TAP) has a very good range of beers :smile:
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,372
    Selebian said:

    Cookie said:

    City break in York with the family today and tomorrow. It is absolutely packed. I've never seen it so busy, not even when the races were on. Went out for tea at 6 - all the restaurants were fully booked. Ended up eating in a perfectly adequate fish and chip shop, which probably saved us about £40.
    Anyway, everyone up for having as good a time as possible. Almost no sign of masks.
    National rail museum tomorrow. Very excited...

    If you have time and inclination, the pub in the station next door (York TAP) has a very good range of beers :smile:
    It has a belting selection. Owned by the same group who have the equally excellent Newcastle Tap.

    So does the maltings just over the road.

    The House of Trembling Madness is also excellent.
  • I like (I think) that "likes" are tabulated on PB.

    Question - is there any tabulation (actual or possible) for number of times that a posters posts are "quoted" as per the system?

    Possibly a preferable portrait of a PBer's posting prowess, perhaps?

    Yeah, I see posts that have no likes but get about twenty replies.

    They're obviously more interesting posts than the repost of a funny tweet that gets twenty likes.

    But a deliberately offensive post can get a lot of responses without being interesting, and hopefully wouldn't get likes.
    Perhaps powers-that-be could provide buttons for range of responses, in addition to tabulating sheer # of quotes. Would be more useful than the "off topic" button which seems to get pushed mostly by mistake, certainly NOT every time someone strays off into the ozone somewhere - which is large part of the charm (if that's the word) of PB.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,372
    Scott_xP said:

    Interesting to note which Tories did not vote to allow dumping raw sewage.

    Sadly Tissue Price doesn't make the cut

    A former labour MP nails the issue


    https://twitter.com/thelma_dwalker/status/1452221671591534595?s=21
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,722
    Taz said:

    Selebian said:

    Cookie said:

    City break in York with the family today and tomorrow. It is absolutely packed. I've never seen it so busy, not even when the races were on. Went out for tea at 6 - all the restaurants were fully booked. Ended up eating in a perfectly adequate fish and chip shop, which probably saved us about £40.
    Anyway, everyone up for having as good a time as possible. Almost no sign of masks.
    National rail museum tomorrow. Very excited...

    If you have time and inclination, the pub in the station next door (York TAP) has a very good range of beers :smile:
    It has a belting selection. Owned by the same group who have the equally excellent Newcastle Tap.

    So does the maltings just over the road.

    The House of Trembling Madness is also excellent.
    It is indeed. No chance of squeezing in upstairs on the weekend, I should think, but might be possible on a Monday...

    Still, the offie alone is worth visit
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,375
    edited October 2021
    On raw sewage:

    1. PT is quite right, the law currently allows raw sewage to be deposited by water companies into the sea (although Southern Water was recently fined £90m for deliberately doing so).
    2. The House of Lords passed an amendment to make such deposits illegal.
    3. The Tories whipped against it in the HoC, so it failed.

    I can't see any defence for the Tories here. What sort of world do we live in where it's legal for water companies to deposit raw sewage into the sea? The fact that it's been 'legal' in the past is hardly relevant - it shouldn't have been. There was a chance to change it. They didn't take it.
  • On raw sewage:

    1. PT is quite right, the law currently allows raw sewage to be deposited by water companies into the sea (although Southern Water was recently fined £90m for deliberately doing so recently).
    2. The House of Lords passed an amendment to make such deposits illegal.
    3. The Tories whipped against it in the HoC, so it failed.

    I can't see any defence for the Tories here. What sort of world do we live in where it's legal for water companies to deposit raw sewage into the sea? The fact that it's been 'legal' in the past is hardly relevant - it shouldn't have been. There was a chance to change it. They didn't take it.

    its a shit law that also takes the piss
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Sandpit said:

    Charles said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Charles said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59030936

    For those who think the jizz sack's antics are just a bit of harmless fun.

    It’s nothing to do with anything Boris has said.

    She’s a hostage. That’s all.
    You think saying she was teaching journalism had no bearing on her current predicament?

    It may not have done, we don't know. But the laziness, inattention to detail and insouciance about outcomes for brown people are telling.
    It provided the Iranians with a convenient excuse plus additional leverage (personal embarrassment).

    But they would have found another excuse if he hadn’t said it
    My presumption was that she *was* teaching journalism and that admitting it was thought (incorrectly) to be likely to improve her position.
    The worst possible case for people to bring up.

    She’s an Iranian citizen, who committed offences in Iran and was arrested in Iran.

    There’s a huge misunderstanding as to the law on dual citizenship, deliberately so on the part of her British supporters - the UK government can do precisely nothing under international law, and the Iranians are going to enjoy rubbing their noses in it, no matter who is the British representative trying to negotiate on her behalf.
    Yes. Still fucking brilliant to give the game away because you are too lazy to read your briefing notes properly
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,926

    On raw sewage:

    1. PT is quite right, the law currently allows raw sewage to be deposited by water companies into the sea (although Southern Water was recently fined £90m for deliberately doing so recently).
    2. The House of Lords passed an amendment to make such deposits illegal.
    3. The Tories whipped against it in the HoC, so it failed.

    I can't see any defence for the Tories here. What sort of world do we live in where it's legal for water companies to deposit raw sewage into the sea? The fact that it's been 'legal' in the past is hardly relevant - it shouldn't have been. There was a chance to change it. They didn't take it.

    It was mentioned up thread that the amendment would have made it the responsibility of the water company to prevent any dumping by anyone, not just themselves. Shouldn't the environment agency be responsible for policing that, not private companies?
  • I like (I think) that "likes" are tabulated on PB.

    Question - is there any tabulation (actual or possible) for number of times that a posters posts are "quoted" as per the system?

    Possibly a preferable portrait of a PBer's posting prowess, perhaps?

    Yeah, I see posts that have no likes but get about twenty replies.

    They're obviously more interesting posts than the repost of a funny tweet that gets twenty likes.

    But a deliberately offensive post can get a lot of responses without being interesting, and hopefully wouldn't get likes.
    Perhaps powers-that-be could provide buttons for range of responses, in addition to tabulating sheer # of quotes. Would be more useful than the "off topic" button which seems to get pushed mostly by mistake, certainly NOT every time someone strays off into the ozone somewhere - which is large part of the charm (if that's the word) of PB.
    A wide range of emoji options is a way to deal with the current like/off-topic choice.

    I think a count of replies would be at least as interesting as the current count of just likes.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    Charles said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59030936

    For those who think the jizz sack's antics are just a bit of harmless fun.

    It’s nothing to do with anything Boris has said.

    She’s a hostage. That’s all.
    You think saying she was teaching journalism had no bearing on her current predicament?

    It may not have done, we don't know. But the laziness, inattention to detail and insouciance about outcomes for brown people are telling.
    Yes it had absolutely no bearing whatsoever on her current predicament.

    She was already in prison and already being held hostage long before the PM spoke. The Iranians were already increasing her sentence before he spoke too.

    That's why he was asked about the situation. Because it had already happened. Unless the Iranians have a TARDIS her being in this predicament has not a scintilla of a relationship to what happened after she ended up in this predicament.

    But if you find it easier to blame the PM of the UK instead of the Iranians holding her hostage, then that's on you. 🤷‍♂️
    What is this "that's on you" shit? Is English your first language?
  • On raw sewage:

    1. PT is quite right, the law currently allows raw sewage to be deposited by water companies into the sea (although Southern Water was recently fined £90m for deliberately doing so recently).
    2. The House of Lords passed an amendment to make such deposits illegal.
    3. The Tories whipped against it in the HoC, so it failed.

    I can't see any defence for the Tories here. What sort of world do we live in where it's legal for water companies to deposit raw sewage into the sea? The fact that it's been 'legal' in the past is hardly relevant - it shouldn't have been. There was a chance to change it. They didn't take it.

    its a shit law that also takes the piss
    Frankly, doubt if Boris really gives a toss.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,009
    dixiedean said:
    I'll be voting No. As I hope most people will.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,375
    edited October 2021
    RobD said:

    On raw sewage:

    1. PT is quite right, the law currently allows raw sewage to be deposited by water companies into the sea (although Southern Water was recently fined £90m for deliberately doing so recently).
    2. The House of Lords passed an amendment to make such deposits illegal.
    3. The Tories whipped against it in the HoC, so it failed.

    I can't see any defence for the Tories here. What sort of world do we live in where it's legal for water companies to deposit raw sewage into the sea? The fact that it's been 'legal' in the past is hardly relevant - it shouldn't have been. There was a chance to change it. They didn't take it.

    It was mentioned up thread that the amendment would have made it the responsibility of the water company to prevent any dumping by anyone, not just themselves. Shouldn't the environment agency be responsible for policing that, not private companies?
    Here's the Bill (amendment); make of it what you will, but it seems pretty uncontroversial to me:

    https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/41752/documents/350

    Methinks the water companies may have pretty strong links with the Tories, as it happens. Vested interests and all that.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,582

    On raw sewage:

    1. PT is quite right, the law currently allows raw sewage to be deposited by water companies into the sea (although Southern Water was recently fined £90m for deliberately doing so).
    2. The House of Lords passed an amendment to make such deposits illegal.
    3. The Tories whipped against it in the HoC, so it failed.

    I can't see any defence for the Tories here. What sort of world do we live in where it's legal for water companies to deposit raw sewage into the sea? The fact that it's been 'legal' in the past is hardly relevant - it shouldn't have been. There was a chance to change it. They didn't take it.

    The problem was, that the discharges were happening becuase of lack of treatment capacity, for a variety of reasons but mostly due to planning delays.

    The Lords Bill was an Opposition ambush, designed for the social media campaign at COP26.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,009
    RobD said:

    NIMBYism on steroids more like.
    Good. Why should local residents be steamrollered by fat cat developers and their golfing buddies on the council?
  • RobD said:

    On raw sewage:

    1. PT is quite right, the law currently allows raw sewage to be deposited by water companies into the sea (although Southern Water was recently fined £90m for deliberately doing so recently).
    2. The House of Lords passed an amendment to make such deposits illegal.
    3. The Tories whipped against it in the HoC, so it failed.

    I can't see any defence for the Tories here. What sort of world do we live in where it's legal for water companies to deposit raw sewage into the sea? The fact that it's been 'legal' in the past is hardly relevant - it shouldn't have been. There was a chance to change it. They didn't take it.

    It was mentioned up thread that the amendment would have made it the responsibility of the water company to prevent any dumping by anyone, not just themselves. Shouldn't the environment agency be responsible for policing that, not private companies?
    Here's the Bill (amendment); make of it what you will, but it seems pretty uncontroversial to me:

    https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/41752/documents/350

    Methinks the water companies may have pretty strong links with the Tories, as it happens. Vested interests and all that.
    And many millions or even billions in UK pensions
  • londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,639
    Taz said:

    Selebian said:

    Cookie said:

    City break in York with the family today and tomorrow. It is absolutely packed. I've never seen it so busy, not even when the races were on. Went out for tea at 6 - all the restaurants were fully booked. Ended up eating in a perfectly adequate fish and chip shop, which probably saved us about £40.
    Anyway, everyone up for having as good a time as possible. Almost no sign of masks.
    National rail museum tomorrow. Very excited...

    If you have time and inclination, the pub in the station next door (York TAP) has a very good range of beers :smile:
    It has a belting selection. Owned by the same group who have the equally excellent Newcastle Tap.

    So does the maltings just over the road.

    The House of Trembling Madness is also excellent.
    I've been to the House of Trembling Madness several times including recent and it is an absolutely top venue 👍
  • Sandpit said:

    On raw sewage:

    1. PT is quite right, the law currently allows raw sewage to be deposited by water companies into the sea (although Southern Water was recently fined £90m for deliberately doing so).
    2. The House of Lords passed an amendment to make such deposits illegal.
    3. The Tories whipped against it in the HoC, so it failed.

    I can't see any defence for the Tories here. What sort of world do we live in where it's legal for water companies to deposit raw sewage into the sea? The fact that it's been 'legal' in the past is hardly relevant - it shouldn't have been. There was a chance to change it. They didn't take it.

    The problem was, that the discharges were happening becuase of lack of treatment capacity, for a variety of reasons but mostly due to planning delays.

    The Lords Bill was an Opposition ambush, designed for the social media campaign at COP26.
    Quite a clever one, it seems?
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,926

    RobD said:

    On raw sewage:

    1. PT is quite right, the law currently allows raw sewage to be deposited by water companies into the sea (although Southern Water was recently fined £90m for deliberately doing so recently).
    2. The House of Lords passed an amendment to make such deposits illegal.
    3. The Tories whipped against it in the HoC, so it failed.

    I can't see any defence for the Tories here. What sort of world do we live in where it's legal for water companies to deposit raw sewage into the sea? The fact that it's been 'legal' in the past is hardly relevant - it shouldn't have been. There was a chance to change it. They didn't take it.

    It was mentioned up thread that the amendment would have made it the responsibility of the water company to prevent any dumping by anyone, not just themselves. Shouldn't the environment agency be responsible for policing that, not private companies?
    Here's the Bill (amendment); make of it what you will, but it seems pretty uncontroversial to me:

    https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/41752/documents/350

    Methinks the water companies may have pretty strong links with the Tories, as it happens. Vested interests and all that.
    Ah yeah, it's right there in the first clause (17ZA, 1). That seems like quite an onerous duty.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,454

    RobD said:

    NIMBYism on steroids more like.
    Good. Why should local residents be steamrollered by fat cat developers and their golfing buddies on the council?
    Because ‘local residents’ are a bunch of selfish whoppers
  • Farooq said:

    RobD said:

    On raw sewage:

    1. PT is quite right, the law currently allows raw sewage to be deposited by water companies into the sea (although Southern Water was recently fined £90m for deliberately doing so recently).
    2. The House of Lords passed an amendment to make such deposits illegal.
    3. The Tories whipped against it in the HoC, so it failed.

    I can't see any defence for the Tories here. What sort of world do we live in where it's legal for water companies to deposit raw sewage into the sea? The fact that it's been 'legal' in the past is hardly relevant - it shouldn't have been. There was a chance to change it. They didn't take it.

    It was mentioned up thread that the amendment would have made it the responsibility of the water company to prevent any dumping by anyone, not just themselves. Shouldn't the environment agency be responsible for policing that, not private companies?
    Here's the Bill (amendment); make of it what you will, but it seems pretty uncontroversial to me:

    https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/41752/documents/350

    Methinks the water companies may have pretty strong links with the Tories, as it happens. Vested interests and all that.
    And many millions or even billions in UK pensions
    Oh, that's ok then
    It is if it is your UK pension
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,375
    edited October 2021
    Sandpit said:

    On raw sewage:

    1. PT is quite right, the law currently allows raw sewage to be deposited by water companies into the sea (although Southern Water was recently fined £90m for deliberately doing so).
    2. The House of Lords passed an amendment to make such deposits illegal.
    3. The Tories whipped against it in the HoC, so it failed.

    I can't see any defence for the Tories here. What sort of world do we live in where it's legal for water companies to deposit raw sewage into the sea? The fact that it's been 'legal' in the past is hardly relevant - it shouldn't have been. There was a chance to change it. They didn't take it.

    The problem was, that the discharges were happening becuase of lack of treatment capacity, for a variety of reasons but mostly due to planning delays.

    The Lords Bill was an Opposition ambush, designed for the social media campaign at COP26.
    That doesn't really answer my point. Do you think it should be legal for water companies to allow discharge of raw sewage? The answer's straightforward, I think. And while there may be practical issues, as you mention, that stop it being solved overnight, the principle of such practice being against the law makes sense. As for it being an Opposition ambush, I believe that it was supported by their lordships across the political spectrum.
This discussion has been closed.