Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
Brief after work drinks in the workplace is not a party
Your integrity is becoming yet one more of Johnson's casualties, H, and it's painful to see.
Would it not be better to replace him so you can get behind the party again with a clean conscience?
No, it would be as damaging longer term to the party as removing Thatcher was in 1990 and set in motion a civil war which would in effect last for almost 2 decades. Most of which we would again spend in opposition
Hang on, the man that you are defending from "treachery" was the main architect of his predecessor's demise. He is the most disloyal individual probably ever to have held the office of PM in this country. He is not even loyal to his new wife (the buyers remorse comment). He doesn't deserve yours or anyone else's loyalty. I hope Theresa is thinking of ways she can get her justified revenge.
Boris never personally challenged May, he only stood after she had resigned after the Tories were polling below 25% and had lost over 1,000 councillors and got just 9% in the European elections of 2019.
Boris' differences with Theresa were also on policy ie over getting Brexit done and the nature of her deal, not personal vendetta like the attempted Cummings coup is. Same with Heseltine, his disagreements with Thatcher were over the poll tax and Europe, not personal as such.
The only possible policy disagreement could be if Cummings and Sunak and Gove want tighter restrictions than Boris is imposing, which really would be a recipe for Tory civil war
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Yep it was straight out of the Boris Johnson Pinocchio play book. She would have been better to have said she forgot to put it on.
100% of Prime Ministers of the UK knowingly broke Covid rules during lockdown.
I think you mean - something like - they are sorry if they did but maybe they didn't and we'll have to wait and see - or maybe the police will look at it and then we'll have to wait so long that everyone will have forgotten about it.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
He must be praying even more trhan most dutiful sons for the indefinite postponement of London Bridge, after which the purse strings of the Duchy of Lancaster estate are going to be fastened against him
Bad day for poshos all round.
The Prince Andrew ruling is a victory for women
The effect is a ‘win’ for Virginia Roberts Giuffre – she can continue her quest for justice in open court
As I have repeatedly said I am not an American lawyer but the decision of the Judge is bewildering. He said:
"In a similar vein and for similar reasons, it is not open to the court now to decide, as a matter of fact, just what the parties to the release in the 2009 settlement agreement signed by Ms Giuffre and Jeffrey Epstein actually meant."
One thing which appears to have changed is that Giuffre is now saying that Andrew knew she was trafficked. That appears to be a new allegation. Is there some new evidence to support this that was not available before?
Imagine having achieved that stunning historic majority with the entire right wing establishment on your side only to spaff it all up the wall so quickly over really lame lying & partying with your new young wife at work. It’s genuinely mind boggling. https://twitter.com/ayeshahazarika/status/1481312444811255813
Why do people keep saying stuff like this? It is only "genuinely mind boggling" if you had somehow never heard of Boris Johnson and his many gaffes, mischiefs, and affairs. For anyone who knows even only a little about the man this is all very familiar territory.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Yep it was straight out of the Boris Johnson Pinocchio play book. She would have been better to have said she forgot to put it on.
Very likely, it happens all the time when someone's just finished talking to a deaf person.
Completely OT. An excellent if slightly excruciating film on Netflix. 'Never Rarely Sometimes Always'. Why is called this I have no idea but it's a very fine film with a relatively unknown cast and female director
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
If the Union is to be preserved it will be by the UK Tories refusing indyref2 when in power, or by UK Labour offering Scots devomax and scraping a No vote in an indyref2 when they are in power.
The SCons are now largely completely irrelevant to preserving the Union and will be unless they somehow managed to deprive the SNP and Greens of a Holyrood majority, which they failed to do last year while Boris won a landslide for the UK Tories 2 years before
That reminds me. You still have not answered my question: should the UK have given India independence? The Indians wanted it, but the UK by its laws had no need to grant it.
Churchill's Tory government never did, only Attlee's Labour government did
Come on, answer my question, were Labour right to give India independence, please? I'm trying to work out youir limits, seeing as you support independence for Wales and Antrim (the former in the UK, the latter still sort of).
No I don't, I voted for more Tory candidates than Plaid even in that town council election and I want to keep NI in the UK, just Antrim may prefer UDI to joining Ireland.
Churchill did oppose Indian independence at the time, so had I been a Tory MP from say 1935 to 1945 then I probably would have opposed Indian independence at the time. However India did go independent and we have to accept it is now an independent nation, albeit still within the Commonwealth.
However India is a different case from Scotland as it was a colony without MPs, Scotland is part of the UK with MPs and its own parliament.
We had just fought a war ostensibly against tyranny. We spilt much blood to make sure Europe, and large parts of the rest of the world, were free and could enjoy democracy. Why is it so hard for you to say that granting those same freedoms to India was a good thing?
We went to war with Hitler only when he invaded Poland, not when he merged Germany with Austria and much of Czechoslovakia
You quote events, immutable facts. History is about the interpretation of facts. Without quoting anymore facts, what is your, personal, view on whether Indian independence was a good thing?
BTW the Anschluss was wildly popular in Austria. Ok the Sudetenland didn’t go down quite so well, but it was the final straw that made Poland the line in the sand.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Edit: That would have been the actual breach ofr the rules.
Encouraged by the judgement the other week, I presume this guy will now argue that because Eric Gill did some really sick shit it must be removed and the corporation won't do so, so he is going to.
That is a really good and interesting article. Thanks for that. The Guardian long articles really are great reading.
I’ve been reading The Grauniad for years, and yes there is a lot of hand-wringing middle class bollocks in there, no doubt. But, for me, on balance, it’s the best of the papers. They do a lot of very good stuff that far outweighs the shite for me. But I’m of the left so I would say that.
It's really gone down the swanny during Covid to the point where I no longer buy it or its Sunday sister the Obs. It seems to have this worldview that left-wingers are universally pro-restrictions, when many millions are not, and fails to recognise the manifold strong leftwing reasons to oppose restrictions. Zoe Williams was the sole anti-lockdown voice in its pages for a goodly while – and as good as many of her columns were, she was drowned out by the rest.
Brief after work drinks in the workplace is not a party
Your integrity is becoming yet one more of Johnson's casualties, H, and it's painful to see.
Would it not be better to replace him so you can get behind the party again with a clean conscience?
No, it would be as damaging longer term to the party as removing Thatcher was in 1990 and set in motion a civil war which would in effect last for almost 2 decades. Most of which we would again spend in opposition
Hang on, the man that you are defending from "treachery" was the main architect of his predecessor's demise. He is the most disloyal individual probably ever to have held the office of PM in this country. He is not even loyal to his new wife (the buyers remorse comment). He doesn't deserve yours or anyone else's loyalty. I hope Theresa is thinking of ways she can get her justified revenge.
Boris never personally challenged May, he only stood after she had resigned after the Tories were polling below 25% and had lost over 1,000 councillors and got just 9% in the European elections of 2019.
Boris' differences with Theresa were also on policy ie over getting Brexit done and the nature of her deal, not personal vendetta like the attempted Cummings coup is. Same with Heseltine, his disagreements with Thatcher were over the poll tax and Europe, not personal as such.
The only possible policy disagreement could be if Cummings and Sunak and Gove want tighter restrictions than Boris is imposing, which really would be a recipe for Tory civil war
Sorry old chap, but for someone who claims they know the Conservative Party machine you are either "doing a Boris" or you are being massively naïve. Anyone who knows anything about Tory politics or has anyone with contacts in the know know that he managed the coup that took her down. He did for his ego and that he knew if he left it longer someone else would steal the prize.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Oh so it wasn't the talking to the deaf person it was because she then went on not to wear it. So no excuse in other words apart from "I forgot".
Edit: I mean if I am doing 70mph on a motorway and then turn in to Little Dribblington High Street (speed limit 30mph) but keep going at 70mph can I say I forgot to slow down.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Oh so it wasn't the talking to the deaf person it was because she then went on not to wear it. So no excuse in other words apart from "I forgot".
Quite; talks to X, X can't understand, lowers the mask, they have their chat, and then she goes off forgetting to put the mask up again.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Edit: That would have been the actual breach ofr the rules.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Oh so it wasn't the talking to the deaf person it was because she then went on not to wear it. So no excuse in other words apart from "I forgot".
Quite; talks to X, X can't understand, lowers the mask, they have their chat, and then she goes off forgetting to put the mask up again.
As per my edit: if I am doing 70mph on a motorway and then turn in to Little Dribblington High Street (speed limit 30mph) but keep going at 70mph can I say I forgot to slow down.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Edit: That would have been the actual breach ofr the rules.
So she chose to "Boris" about it.
Is this really Borising? Doesn't sound like it to me.
".wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again.""
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Edit: That would have been the actual breach ofr the rules.
So she chose to "Boris" about it.
Indeed. But she is leader of the SNP so all is good.
He must be praying even more trhan most dutiful sons for the indefinite postponement of London Bridge, after which the purse strings of the Duchy of Lancaster estate are going to be fastened against him
Bad day for poshos all round.
The Prince Andrew ruling is a victory for women
The effect is a ‘win’ for Virginia Roberts Giuffre – she can continue her quest for justice in open court
As I have repeatedly said I am not an American lawyer but the decision of the Judge is bewildering. He said:
"In a similar vein and for similar reasons, it is not open to the court now to decide, as a matter of fact, just what the parties to the release in the 2009 settlement agreement signed by Ms Giuffre and Jeffrey Epstein actually meant."
Misquoted by the BBC - go and read the judgment - you can see why things were rejected...
It is in the judgment, at the bottom of p1 and top of p2. In fact the following sentences give a better idea of its meaning. That says, As will appear more fully below, the Court's job at this juncture is simply to determine whether there are two or more reasonable interpretations of that document. If there are, the determination of the "right" or controlling interpretation must await further proceedings."
Does anyone else find the notion, that the (hardly surprising) legal judgement just rendered against His Royal Lowness, is providing aid & comfort to Boris Johnson?
Because methinks these two stinking scandals - Randy Andy and Lying Bojo - are on track to get their just deserts, and are NOT gonna provide cover for one another.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Edit: That would have been the actual breach ofr the rules.
So she chose to "Boris" about it.
Is this really Borising? Doesn't sound like it to me.
".wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again.""
Because she wilfully broke the rules. Forgot or not knowing the law is AFAIK and IANAL (edit) NOT a defence. Speaking to a deaf person some time previously has nothing to do with it.
Encouraged by the judgement the other week, I presume this guy will now argue that because Eric Gill did some really sick shit it must be removed and the corporation won't do so, so he is going to.
That is a really good and interesting article. Thanks for that. The Guardian long articles really are great reading.
I’ve been reading The Grauniad for years, and yes there is a lot of hand-wringing middle class bollocks in there, no doubt. But, for me, on balance, it’s the best of the papers. They do a lot of very good stuff that far outweighs the shite for me. But I’m of the left so I would say that.
It's really gone down the swanny during Covid to the point where I no longer buy it or its Sunday sister the Obs. It seems to have this worldview that left-wingers are universally pro-restrictions, when many millions are not, and fails to recognise the manifold strong leftwing reasons to oppose restrictions. Zoe Williams was the sole anti-lockdown voice in its pages for a goodly while – and as good as many of her columns were, she was drowned out by the rest.
Yeah I don’t read much of their Covid coverage. I don’t read anyone’s Covid coverage. I read this place for Covid coverage.
Haven’t bought a hard copy for 20 years but I give ‘em a fiver a month. I do get Apple News so get access to stuff through that, like The Times. I find a lot of that tooth grindingly irritating, there’s a lot of middle class bollocks in that too, but instead of hand wringing it’s the the entitled, condescending type that boils my piss.
100% of Prime Ministers of the UK knowingly broke Covid rules during lockdown.
99.99999999% of voters say they didnt write the rules in the first place
Very good! (Although at least two 9s too many, to be pedantic)
I wrote the same, about it being too many 9s, then didn't send it because I was too ashamed to be THAT pedantic. Glad there's someone else out there though
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
If the Union is to be preserved it will be by the UK Tories refusing indyref2 when in power, or by UK Labour offering Scots devomax and scraping a No vote in an indyref2 when they are in power.
The SCons are now largely completely irrelevant to preserving the Union and will be unless they somehow managed to deprive the SNP and Greens of a Holyrood majority, which they failed to do last year while Boris won a landslide for the UK Tories 2 years before
That reminds me. You still have not answered my question: should the UK have given India independence? The Indians wanted it, but the UK by its laws had no need to grant it.
Churchill's Tory government never did, only Attlee's Labour government did
Come on, answer my question, were Labour right to give India independence, please? I'm trying to work out youir limits, seeing as you support independence for Wales and Antrim (the former in the UK, the latter still sort of).
No I don't, I voted for more Tory candidates than Plaid even in that town council election and I want to keep NI in the UK, just Antrim may prefer UDI to joining Ireland.
Churchill did oppose Indian independence at the time, so had I been a Tory MP from say 1935 to 1945 then I probably would have opposed Indian independence at the time. However India did go independent and we have to accept it is now an independent nation, albeit still within the Commonwealth.
However India is a different case from Scotland as it was a colony without MPs, Scotland is part of the UK with MPs and its own parliament.
We had just fought a war ostensibly against tyranny. We spilt much blood to make sure Europe, and large parts of the rest of the world, were free and could enjoy democracy. Why is it so hard for you to say that granting those same freedoms to India was a good thing?
Because, like Churchill, HYUFD is a racist, plain and simple.
Brief after work drinks in the workplace is not a party
Your friends on here have been suggesting for months HY, don’t get sucked into the ridiculous and fake Personality games of politics - read up on the world of political ideas to firm up what your own politics is, the ideas and policies you are at home to caucus with because they further your set of values. That’s what is worth defending in this world, not defend ridiculous cad’s dying in a ditch of their own lies.
The point is I do agree with the direction Boris is taking the country and there is very little policy difference from any alternative leader seeking to benefit from the attempted Cummings coup
That is an interesting post.
How would you describe that direction? You can be as granular or broad brush as you like. But is there even enough clarity out there to point to?
Is it a one nation label, as MCMillan. Thatcherism? Business friendly? Tax or borrow and spend big on infrastructure? Supply side laffer curve? Big state or small state? Fighting or stoking inflation? What achieves the levelling up promise? Vote blue go green, or just getting by paying lip service to it? Keen to exploit Brexit by diverging from the European social model, or not on board with that?
Surely, promising spending without raising taxes, as his winning manifesto and talk of economic boosterism has been since is sure fire way to boom and bust?
It’s just been a chancers short term thinking really?
Scottish Tory Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should resign - and says he will write to the 1922 Committee to express no confidence in his leadership. "It's his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions." https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1481294784652324871
Scottish Tory MPs are less than 2% of Tory MPs overall
Must be because the Union is so tremendously popular north of the border.
Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government which would have a big majority even with 0 Scottish MPs and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely.
Otherwise Scots have Holyrood for most of their domestic policy anyway
Lets pick this apart: "Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government"
So the opinion of elected Scottish Conservative MPs doesn't matter? The opinion of the leader of the party in Scotland doesn't matter?
"and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely"
As you have no respect for party colleagues north of the border and do not think their opinions matter, I can understand why you keep reposting this.
Unionist my arse. You vote for Welsh Nationalists, provide succour to Scottish Nationalists and only care about England.
Not compared to the majority of the Party that is not Scottish, it does not have a veto in the Tory Party as it does not have a veto UK wide either.
England does not even have its own parliament unlike Scotland however so Scots should stop whinging
Scots should stop whinging
We are talking about the Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party.
That you think he should "stop whinging" just demonstrates how mad you have gone today. Are there enemies within? Your own MPs and officials need now to be cast out for their crimes of pointing at the stark naked Prime Minister and saying " what clothes, we can see your cock"?
Truly Mad.
On reflection, HYUFD might have a point. He and his fellow ideologues can't have whinging remainer or pretend remainer Jocks within the party. And I can't see ahy successor to Mr J being any more sympathetic. Which raises a serious question about what happens to the Scottish Tories, whose entire rationale is union with London.
Political union with London, but not necessarily party union with the English and Welsh Tory Party. There's every case for a Scottish only Unionist Party.
Except that the very action of splitting is a huge political defeat for them. The last serious proposal was brutally stamped out.
Not at all - if they bring it about after it being denied before, especially if there is a tussle, it will give them renewed credentials with the Scottish electorate.
Face palm.
For credentials to be renewed don't they have to exist in the first place? I suppose if you want go back to the fifties something like a credential could be dug up..
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Edit: That would have been the actual breach ofr the rules.
So she chose to "Boris" about it.
Is this really Borising? Doesn't sound like it to me.
".wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again.""
Because she wilfully broke the rules. Forgot or not knowing the law is AFAIK and IANAL a defence. Speaking to a deaf person some time previously has nothing to do with it.
She made and broke the rules.
"Forgot or not knowing the law is AFAIK and IANAL a defence."
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
If the Union is to be preserved it will be by the UK Tories refusing indyref2 when in power, or by UK Labour offering Scots devomax and scraping a No vote in an indyref2 when they are in power.
The SCons are now largely completely irrelevant to preserving the Union and will be unless they somehow managed to deprive the SNP and Greens of a Holyrood majority, which they failed to do last year while Boris won a landslide for the UK Tories 2 years before
That reminds me. You still have not answered my question: should the UK have given India independence? The Indians wanted it, but the UK by its laws had no need to grant it.
Churchill's Tory government never did, only Attlee's Labour government did
Come on, answer my question, were Labour right to give India independence, please? I'm trying to work out youir limits, seeing as you support independence for Wales and Antrim (the former in the UK, the latter still sort of).
No I don't, I voted for more Tory candidates than Plaid even in that town council election and I want to keep NI in the UK, just Antrim may prefer UDI to joining Ireland.
Down has a bigger Protestant majority than Antrim, per the 2011 Census.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Edit: That would have been the actual breach ofr the rules.
So she chose to "Boris" about it.
Is this really Borising? Doesn't sound like it to me.
".wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again.""
Because she wilfully broke the rules. Forgot or not knowing the law is AFAIK and IANAL a defence. Speaking to a deaf person some time previously has nothing to do with it.
She made and broke the rules.
"Forgot or not knowing the law is AFAIK and IANAL a defence."
Yeah. Ignorance of the law is 100% a defence.
Oh soz I was in a tizzy of excitement. I meant *not* a defence.
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
If the Union is to be preserved it will be by the UK Tories refusing indyref2 when in power, or by UK Labour offering Scots devomax and scraping a No vote in an indyref2 when they are in power.
The SCons are now largely completely irrelevant to preserving the Union and will be unless they somehow managed to deprive the SNP and Greens of a Holyrood majority, which they failed to do last year while Boris won a landslide for the UK Tories 2 years before
That reminds me. You still have not answered my question: should the UK have given India independence? The Indians wanted it, but the UK by its laws had no need to grant it.
Churchill's Tory government never did, only Attlee's Labour government did
Come on, answer my question, were Labour right to give India independence, please? I'm trying to work out youir limits, seeing as you support independence for Wales and Antrim (the former in the UK, the latter still sort of).
No I don't, I voted for more Tory candidates than Plaid even in that town council election and I want to keep NI in the UK, just Antrim may prefer UDI to joining Ireland.
Churchill did oppose Indian independence at the time, so had I been a Tory MP from say 1935 to 1945 then I probably would have opposed Indian independence at the time. However India did go independent and we have to accept it is now an independent nation, albeit still within the Commonwealth.
However India is a different case from Scotland as it was a colony without MPs, Scotland is part of the UK with MPs and its own parliament.
We had just fought a war ostensibly against tyranny. We spilt much blood to make sure Europe, and large parts of the rest of the world, were free and could enjoy democracy. Why is it so hard for you to say that granting those same freedoms to India was a good thing?
Because, like Churchill, HYUFD is a racist, plain and simple.
Ssshhh, you aren't supposed to point out St. Winston's flaws.
Not much I can add really (though that won't stop me). If I were the Opposition (and to a point I am), I wouldn't push too hard for Johnson's fall. There are huge short and medium terms advantages to keeping him in No.10, wounded, with the vultures circling and any other mixed metaphor you want to use.
Forget Confidence votes in the Commons - all that does is unite the governing party. The emotional point about drinks at No.10 while people were dying alone with relatives unable to be with them will resonate long and loud.
I also imagine (and the memoir coming from the key players will be worth a read) the atmosphere in No.10 and Whitehall in general was febrile from early March onward as the scale of this approaching crisis became clear.
One can understand the temptation for people operating under constant pressure and stress to kick back for a moment and we can argue technicalities about private land and whether it was a works event or a "party" but none of that matters.
It's not about following the letter of the law but the spirit of the law. Individuals may have opted to knowingly flout the law out of frustration or anxiety or concern for loved ones of friends (and it's distasteful to use the fact others broke the law as part of the "defence" of the PM as two wrongs don't make a right) but those at the centre of power should hold themselves to a higher standard or at the very least the same standard as the majority of the British people.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Edit: That would have been the actual breach ofr the rules.
So she chose to "Boris" about it.
Is this really Borising? Doesn't sound like it to me.
".wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again.""
Because she wilfully broke the rules. Forgot or not knowing the law is AFAIK and IANAL a defence. Speaking to a deaf person some time previously has nothing to do with it.
She made and broke the rules.
"Forgot or not knowing the law is AFAIK and IANAL a defence."
Yeah. Ignorance of the law is 100% a defence.
Edited now Chris all is good we can resume the discussion. Where do you stand on whether the Sturge should have and Boris should resigned.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Edit: That would have been the actual breach ofr the rules.
So she chose to "Boris" about it.
Is this really Borising? Doesn't sound like it to me.
".wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again.""
Because she wilfully broke the rules. Forgot or not knowing the law is AFAIK and IANAL a defence. Speaking to a deaf person some time previously has nothing to do with it.
She made and broke the rules.
She made and broke the rules. It's yoiur 'wilful' I don't agree with. Or comparison with Mr Johnson's attitude to the rules.
He must be praying even more trhan most dutiful sons for the indefinite postponement of London Bridge, after which the purse strings of the Duchy of Lancaster estate are going to be fastened against him
Bad day for poshos all round.
The Prince Andrew ruling is a victory for women
The effect is a ‘win’ for Virginia Roberts Giuffre – she can continue her quest for justice in open court
As I have repeatedly said I am not an American lawyer but the decision of the Judge is bewildering. He said:
"In a similar vein and for similar reasons, it is not open to the court now to decide, as a matter of fact, just what the parties to the release in the 2009 settlement agreement signed by Ms Giuffre and Jeffrey Epstein actually meant."
One thing which appears to have changed is that Giuffre is now saying that Andrew knew she was trafficked. That appears to be a new allegation. Is there some new evidence to support this that was not available before?
Pass but I suspect it was something innocent such as Prince Andrew asking where are you from - Florida without Prince Andrew or Virginia (at the time) understanding the consequences of the statement.
This bit is interesting for @DavidL (page 21 paragraph 55)
At trial, should the case proceed to trial, he perhaps could have an opportunity to prove that Prince Andrew could have been Sued successfully in Florida on the §2255 claim, in which case these claims might be pertinent to an assertion of the release defense in this case.
So the way to bring the Florida trial judgment back into play is to admit enough guilt that the Florida case can be investigated more thoroughly within the trial.
You would need to be incredibly stupid to do that.
Encouraged by the judgement the other week, I presume this guy will now argue that because Eric Gill did some really sick shit it must be removed and the corporation won't do so, so he is going to.
That is a really good and interesting article. Thanks for that. The Guardian long articles really are great reading.
I’ve been reading The Grauniad for years, and yes there is a lot of hand-wringing middle class bollocks in there, no doubt. But, for me, on balance, it’s the best of the papers. They do a lot of very good stuff that far outweighs the shite for me. But I’m of the left so I would say that.
It's really gone down the swanny during Covid to the point where I no longer buy it or its Sunday sister the Obs. It seems to have this worldview that left-wingers are universally pro-restrictions, when many millions are not, and fails to recognise the manifold strong leftwing reasons to oppose restrictions. Zoe Williams was the sole anti-lockdown voice in its pages for a goodly while – and as good as many of her columns were, she was drowned out by the rest.
Actually I agree with this. But it's a symptom ; the paper has become much more predictable, and frightened to challenge itself. There is still some great stuff here and there, as northernmonkey says, but there's also quite a lot of rubbish.
I would still easily choose it over media like the telegraph, though, which I most often find bordering on the unreadable.
So, what sort of dead cat do we think Johnson's team are likely digging up ready to chuck on the table?
Prince Andrew has done the job for them, dutiful Royal that he is.
Nah, not enough; Prince Andrew being charged with a criminal offence might be.
I'm wishing:
- Very good health for HMQ for the coming period. - Russia to keep out of Ukraine. - No unexpected asteroids impacting. - The absence of a massive solar storm would be good too...
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
As I've mentioned above, you're artificially conflating two separate issues. There's a long tradition of country-specific Unionist parties like the Ulster Unionists in the UK. It would do the cause of the Scottish Tories, and Unionism in general a lot of good if they form a new one.
No, it's a huge propaganda victory for the SNP - and a huge personal defeat for the MPs. They will instantly be disqualified de jure or in practice from being PM of the UK. The party's focus will move to Holyrood - and deviate more and more from the London-based party. As we are seeing happen.
Except, do we see any significant likelihood of a Scottish Prime Minister again as things currently stand? The wonky structure of devolution already mitigates against it, and nobody is interested in fixing it with full federalism because (a) of the problem of the size of England and (b) the English electorate isn't interested in making the change.
A political arrangement in which sister parties run separately in different states or provinces within one country, with their own manifestos and accommodating differences in policy and outlook, is not unprecedented. It could work.
Insofar as I can see from down here, the SNP has two trump cards to play with the electorate: independence, and standing up for Scotland. The Scottish Conservatives can make a much more plausible pitch on the latter point if they repudiate the English party and strike out on their own.
Scottish Unionists would clearly rather that devolution had never happened, but they are where they are. They would, one assumes, infinitely prefer Home Rule to the end of Britain, and such a half-in, half-out arrangement could retail well with the kind of middle-class voters who don't particularly love the Union or rule from London, but can recognise some benefits to the arrangement and are afraid that outright separation would make Brexit look like a cake walk and leave them significantly poorer.
It would also be harder for the Nationalists to argue that outright independence is essential if the Scottish Parliament were to end up with control of most of its own tax revenues as well as domestic policy, and a rupture therefore entailed abandoning a common defence, a common currency (and contingent system of transfer payments,) a seamless and borderless free trade area, but not very much else.
Some distance from their political brethren down South would give the Unionists the time and the space to move towards such a position.
Asymmetric devolution didn't stop SLAB MPs becoming PM or getting positions in the Cabinet - even ones whose responsibilities had been devolved to the Scottish Parliament (i.e. John Reid as Health Secretary).
Things have changed quite a lot since the early 2000s.
Maybe for the Conservative Party. But I'd hope Labour being an actual, real unionist party would ignore any frothing at the mouth by the Faragistas and actually offer ministerial positions to any competent newly elected SLAB MPs.
That wouldn't be a problem for them, I'm sure. There's always the Scotland Office, the Foreign Office and the MoD.
But, in all seriousness, having a PM representing a Scottish constituency in this day and age would pose not just constitutional questions but also significant presentational problems. They'd spend most of their time dealing with business that was irrelevant to their own constituents who, for most purposes, were represented by a completely separate Government that said leader had nothing at all to do with. It's more than a little bit silly.
Unless FFA is on the way, pretty much any economic based Cabinet position would have some relevance to a SLAB MP. Besides what matters would be the Labour membership. Labour members have their faults - they elected Corbyn for one as leader - but not one would have a problem in electing an MP from Scotland as Labour leader. When Ian Murray stood for the deputy leadership, nobody raised any constitutional objections to him being a candidate.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Edit: That would have been the actual breach ofr the rules.
So she chose to "Boris" about it.
Is this really Borising? Doesn't sound like it to me.
".wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again.""
Because she wilfully broke the rules. Forgot or not knowing the law is AFAIK and IANAL a defence. Speaking to a deaf person some time previously has nothing to do with it.
She made and broke the rules.
"Forgot or not knowing the law is AFAIK and IANAL a defence."
Yeah. Ignorance of the law is 100% a defence.
Oh soz I was in a tizzy of excitement. I meant *not* a defence.
OK. Leaving out the word "not" can be quite an important omission, though.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
I see you've moved on from 'Jezza made me elect this morally vacant arsehole' to 'they're all as bad as each other'. A couple more hours and total self exculpation will be achieved.
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
As I've mentioned above, you're artificially conflating two separate issues. There's a long tradition of country-specific Unionist parties like the Ulster Unionists in the UK. It would do the cause of the Scottish Tories, and Unionism in general a lot of good if they form a new one.
No, it's a huge propaganda victory for the SNP - and a huge personal defeat for the MPs. They will instantly be disqualified de jure or in practice from being PM of the UK. The party's focus will move to Holyrood - and deviate more and more from the London-based party. As we are seeing happen.
Except, do we see any significant likelihood of a Scottish Prime Minister again as things currently stand? The wonky structure of devolution already mitigates against it, and nobody is interested in fixing it with full federalism because (a) of the problem of the size of England and (b) the English electorate isn't interested in making the change.
A political arrangement in which sister parties run separately in different states or provinces within one country, with their own manifestos and accommodating differences in policy and outlook, is not unprecedented. It could work.
Insofar as I can see from down here, the SNP has two trump cards to play with the electorate: independence, and standing up for Scotland. The Scottish Conservatives can make a much more plausible pitch on the latter point if they repudiate the English party and strike out on their own.
Scottish Unionists would clearly rather that devolution had never happened, but they are where they are. They would, one assumes, infinitely prefer Home Rule to the end of Britain, and such a half-in, half-out arrangement could retail well with the kind of middle-class voters who don't particularly love the Union or rule from London, but can recognise some benefits to the arrangement and are afraid that outright separation would make Brexit look like a cake walk and leave them significantly poorer.
It would also be harder for the Nationalists to argue that outright independence is essential if the Scottish Parliament were to end up with control of most of its own tax revenues as well as domestic policy, and a rupture therefore entailed abandoning a common defence, a common currency (and contingent system of transfer payments,) a seamless and borderless free trade area, but not very much else.
Some distance from their political brethren down South would give the Unionists the time and the space to move towards such a position.
Asymmetric devolution didn't stop SLAB MPs becoming PM or getting positions in the Cabinet - even ones whose responsibilities had been devolved to the Scottish Parliament (i.e. John Reid as Health Secretary).
Things have changed quite a lot since the early 2000s.
Maybe for the Conservative Party. But I'd hope Labour being an actual, real unionist party would ignore any frothing at the mouth by the Faragistas and actually offer ministerial positions to any competent newly elected SLAB MPs.
That wouldn't be a problem for them, I'm sure. There's always the Scotland Office, the Foreign Office and the MoD.
But, in all seriousness, having a PM representing a Scottish constituency in this day and age would pose not just constitutional questions but also significant presentational problems. They'd spend most of their time dealing with business that was irrelevant to their own constituents who, for most purposes, were represented by a completely separate Government that said leader had nothing at all to do with. It's more than a little bit silly.
Unless FFA is on the way, pretty much any economic based Cabinet position would have some relevance to a SLAB MP. Besides what matters would be the Labour membership. Labour members have their faults - they elected Corbyn for one as leader - but not one would have a problem in electing an MP from Scotland as Labour leader. When Ian Murray stood for the deputy leadership, nobody raised any constitutional objections to him being a candidate.
What really matters, therefore, is the reluctance of the Scottish electorate to elect Labour MPs...
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Edit: That would have been the actual breach ofr the rules.
So she chose to "Boris" about it.
Is this really Borising? Doesn't sound like it to me.
".wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again.""
Because she wilfully broke the rules. Forgot or not knowing the law is AFAIK and IANAL a defence. Speaking to a deaf person some time previously has nothing to do with it.
She made and broke the rules.
She made and broke the rules. It's yoiur 'wilful' I don't agree with. Or comparison with Mr Johnson's attitude to the rules.
Of course you don't agree. Because it's that irregular verb. Despite your somewhat bizarre diversion into the but she was speaking to a deaf person ploy.
The point is both Boris & Nicola made and broke the rules. You think one is entirely justified and the other grounds for resignation. I am none too sure.
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
As I've mentioned above, you're artificially conflating two separate issues. There's a long tradition of country-specific Unionist parties like the Ulster Unionists in the UK. It would do the cause of the Scottish Tories, and Unionism in general a lot of good if they form a new one.
No, it's a huge propaganda victory for the SNP - and a huge personal defeat for the MPs. They will instantly be disqualified de jure or in practice from being PM of the UK. The party's focus will move to Holyrood - and deviate more and more from the London-based party. As we are seeing happen.
Except, do we see any significant likelihood of a Scottish Prime Minister again as things currently stand? The wonky structure of devolution already mitigates against it, and nobody is interested in fixing it with full federalism because (a) of the problem of the size of England and (b) the English electorate isn't interested in making the change.
A political arrangement in which sister parties run separately in different states or provinces within one country, with their own manifestos and accommodating differences in policy and outlook, is not unprecedented. It could work.
Insofar as I can see from down here, the SNP has two trump cards to play with the electorate: independence, and standing up for Scotland. The Scottish Conservatives can make a much more plausible pitch on the latter point if they repudiate the English party and strike out on their own.
Scottish Unionists would clearly rather that devolution had never happened, but they are where they are. They would, one assumes, infinitely prefer Home Rule to the end of Britain, and such a half-in, half-out arrangement could retail well with the kind of middle-class voters who don't particularly love the Union or rule from London, but can recognise some benefits to the arrangement and are afraid that outright separation would make Brexit look like a cake walk and leave them significantly poorer.
It would also be harder for the Nationalists to argue that outright independence is essential if the Scottish Parliament were to end up with control of most of its own tax revenues as well as domestic policy, and a rupture therefore entailed abandoning a common defence, a common currency (and contingent system of transfer payments,) a seamless and borderless free trade area, but not very much else.
Some distance from their political brethren down South would give the Unionists the time and the space to move towards such a position.
To be successful in Scotland in any future, a party will have to be a supporter of independence. Just a case of whether Tories or Labour jump the shark first.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Edit: That would have been the actual breach ofr the rules.
So she chose to "Boris" about it.
Is this really Borising? Doesn't sound like it to me.
".wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again.""
Because she wilfully broke the rules. Forgot or not knowing the law is AFAIK and IANAL a defence. Speaking to a deaf person some time previously has nothing to do with it.
She made and broke the rules.
"Forgot or not knowing the law is AFAIK and IANAL a defence."
Yeah. Ignorance of the law is 100% a defence.
Oh soz I was in a tizzy of excitement. I meant *not* a defence.
OK. Leaving out the word "not" can be quite an important omission, though.
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
As I've mentioned above, you're artificially conflating two separate issues. There's a long tradition of country-specific Unionist parties like the Ulster Unionists in the UK. It would do the cause of the Scottish Tories, and Unionism in general a lot of good if they form a new one.
No, it's a huge propaganda victory for the SNP - and a huge personal defeat for the MPs. They will instantly be disqualified de jure or in practice from being PM of the UK. The party's focus will move to Holyrood - and deviate more and more from the London-based party. As we are seeing happen.
Except, do we see any significant likelihood of a Scottish Prime Minister again as things currently stand? The wonky structure of devolution already mitigates against it, and nobody is interested in fixing it with full federalism because (a) of the problem of the size of England and (b) the English electorate isn't interested in making the change.
A political arrangement in which sister parties run separately in different states or provinces within one country, with their own manifestos and accommodating differences in policy and outlook, is not unprecedented. It could work.
Insofar as I can see from down here, the SNP has two trump cards to play with the electorate: independence, and standing up for Scotland. The Scottish Conservatives can make a much more plausible pitch on the latter point if they repudiate the English party and strike out on their own.
Scottish Unionists would clearly rather that devolution had never happened, but they are where they are. They would, one assumes, infinitely prefer Home Rule to the end of Britain, and such a half-in, half-out arrangement could retail well with the kind of middle-class voters who don't particularly love the Union or rule from London, but can recognise some benefits to the arrangement and are afraid that outright separation would make Brexit look like a cake walk and leave them significantly poorer.
It would also be harder for the Nationalists to argue that outright independence is essential if the Scottish Parliament were to end up with control of most of its own tax revenues as well as domestic policy, and a rupture therefore entailed abandoning a common defence, a common currency (and contingent system of transfer payments,) a seamless and borderless free trade area, but not very much else.
Some distance from their political brethren down South would give the Unionists the time and the space to move towards such a position.
To be successful in Scotland in any future, a party will have to be a supporter of independence. Just a case of whether Tories or Labour jump the shark first.
Or indeed whether the SNP swing round to supporting it again
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Edit: That would have been the actual breach ofr the rules.
So she chose to "Boris" about it.
Is this really Borising? Doesn't sound like it to me.
".wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again.""
Because she wilfully broke the rules. Forgot or not knowing the law is AFAIK and IANAL a defence. Speaking to a deaf person some time previously has nothing to do with it.
She made and broke the rules.
She made and broke the rules. It's yoiur 'wilful' I don't agree with. Or comparison with Mr Johnson's attitude to the rules.
Of course you don't agree. Because it's that irregular verb. Despite your somewhat bizarre diversion into the but she was speaking to a deaf person ploy.
The point is both Boris & Nicola made and broke the rules. You think one is entirely justified and the other grounds for resignation. I am none too sure.
One occasion of the kind where I know people make that precise mistake naturally; the other repeated parties at No. 10.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Edit: That would have been the actual breach ofr the rules.
So she chose to "Boris" about it.
Is this really Borising? Doesn't sound like it to me.
".wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again.""
Because she wilfully broke the rules. Forgot or not knowing the law is AFAIK and IANAL a defence. Speaking to a deaf person some time previously has nothing to do with it.
She made and broke the rules.
"Forgot or not knowing the law is AFAIK and IANAL a defence."
Yeah. Ignorance of the law is 100% a defence.
Oh soz I was in a tizzy of excitement. I meant *not* a defence.
OK. Leaving out the word "not" can be quite an important omission, though.
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
As I've mentioned above, you're artificially conflating two separate issues. There's a long tradition of country-specific Unionist parties like the Ulster Unionists in the UK. It would do the cause of the Scottish Tories, and Unionism in general a lot of good if they form a new one.
No, it's a huge propaganda victory for the SNP - and a huge personal defeat for the MPs. They will instantly be disqualified de jure or in practice from being PM of the UK. The party's focus will move to Holyrood - and deviate more and more from the London-based party. As we are seeing happen.
Except, do we see any significant likelihood of a Scottish Prime Minister again as things currently stand? The wonky structure of devolution already mitigates against it, and nobody is interested in fixing it with full federalism because (a) of the problem of the size of England and (b) the English electorate isn't interested in making the change.
A political arrangement in which sister parties run separately in different states or provinces within one country, with their own manifestos and accommodating differences in policy and outlook, is not unprecedented. It could work.
Insofar as I can see from down here, the SNP has two trump cards to play with the electorate: independence, and standing up for Scotland. The Scottish Conservatives can make a much more plausible pitch on the latter point if they repudiate the English party and strike out on their own.
Scottish Unionists would clearly rather that devolution had never happened, but they are where they are. They would, one assumes, infinitely prefer Home Rule to the end of Britain, and such a half-in, half-out arrangement could retail well with the kind of middle-class voters who don't particularly love the Union or rule from London, but can recognise some benefits to the arrangement and are afraid that outright separation would make Brexit look like a cake walk and leave them significantly poorer.
It would also be harder for the Nationalists to argue that outright independence is essential if the Scottish Parliament were to end up with control of most of its own tax revenues as well as domestic policy, and a rupture therefore entailed abandoning a common defence, a common currency (and contingent system of transfer payments,) a seamless and borderless free trade area, but not very much else.
Some distance from their political brethren down South would give the Unionists the time and the space to move towards such a position.
To be successful in Scotland in any future, a party will have to be a supporter of independence. Just a case of whether Tories or Labour jump the shark first.
Nope. 50% of Scots are Nationalists, 50% are Unionists, the SNP have most of the former locked up
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
If the Union is to be preserved it will be by the UK Tories refusing indyref2 when in power, or by UK Labour offering Scots devomax and scraping a No vote in an indyref2 when they are in power.
The SCons are now largely completely irrelevant to preserving the Union and will be unless they somehow managed to deprive the SNP and Greens of a Holyrood majority, which they failed to do last year while Boris won a landslide for the UK Tories 2 years before
That reminds me. You still have not answered my question: should the UK have given India independence? The Indians wanted it, but the UK by its laws had no need to grant it.
Churchill's Tory government never did, only Attlee's Labour government did
Come on, answer my question, were Labour right to give India independence, please? I'm trying to work out youir limits, seeing as you support independence for Wales and Antrim (the former in the UK, the latter still sort of).
No I don't, I voted for more Tory candidates than Plaid even in that town council election and I want to keep NI in the UK, just Antrim may prefer UDI to joining Ireland.
Churchill did oppose Indian independence at the time, so had I been a Tory MP from say 1935 to 1945 then I probably would have opposed Indian independence at the time. However India did go independent and we have to accept it is now an independent nation, albeit still within the Commonwealth.
However India is a different case from Scotland as it was a colony without MPs, Scotland is part of the UK with MPs and its own parliament.
We had just fought a war ostensibly against tyranny. We spilt much blood to make sure Europe, and large parts of the rest of the world, were free and could enjoy democracy. Why is it so hard for you to say that granting those same freedoms to India was a good thing?
We went to war with Hitler only when he invaded Poland, not when he merged Germany with Austria and much of Czechoslovakia
You quote events, immutable facts. History is about the interpretation of facts. Without quoting anymore facts, what is your, personal, view on whether Indian independence was a good thing?
BTW the Anschluss was wildly popular in Austria. Ok the Sudetenland didn’t go down quite so well, but it was the final straw that made Poland the line in the sand.
Hitler's occupation of the Sudetenland was as popular with the German majority there, as the Anschluss was with the Austrians, perhaps even more so.
And of course it was blessed by the British AND French governments at Munich, as well as by bulk of public opinion in both countries.
The "final straw" was when Hitler broke the Munich agreement in the spring of 1939 by occupying the rest of the Czech lands, and turning over Slovakia to Slovak nationalists & Hungarians.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
I see you've moved on from 'Jezza made me elect this morally vacant arsehole' to 'they're all as bad as each other'. A couple more hours and total self exculpation will be achieved.
Nah not at all. Jezza did make me elect this morally vacant arsehole because I didn't want a trot anti-semite as PM. Of course you pays your money and takes your choice. Plenty did want the trot anti-semite but I saw him as the worse of two evils.
As for La Sturge, they both made and broke the rules. That's all that anyone needs to know. Are you saying Nicola was so plain idiotic that she was unable to summon up the presence of mind to remember the law she herself had introduced. Well that's a novel avenue to drive down.
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
As I've mentioned above, you're artificially conflating two separate issues. There's a long tradition of country-specific Unionist parties like the Ulster Unionists in the UK. It would do the cause of the Scottish Tories, and Unionism in general a lot of good if they form a new one.
No, it's a huge propaganda victory for the SNP - and a huge personal defeat for the MPs. They will instantly be disqualified de jure or in practice from being PM of the UK. The party's focus will move to Holyrood - and deviate more and more from the London-based party. As we are seeing happen.
Except, do we see any significant likelihood of a Scottish Prime Minister again as things currently stand? The wonky structure of devolution already mitigates against it, and nobody is interested in fixing it with full federalism because (a) of the problem of the size of England and (b) the English electorate isn't interested in making the change.
A political arrangement in which sister parties run separately in different states or provinces within one country, with their own manifestos and accommodating differences in policy and outlook, is not unprecedented. It could work.
Insofar as I can see from down here, the SNP has two trump cards to play with the electorate: independence, and standing up for Scotland. The Scottish Conservatives can make a much more plausible pitch on the latter point if they repudiate the English party and strike out on their own.
Scottish Unionists would clearly rather that devolution had never happened, but they are where they are. They would, one assumes, infinitely prefer Home Rule to the end of Britain, and such a half-in, half-out arrangement could retail well with the kind of middle-class voters who don't particularly love the Union or rule from London, but can recognise some benefits to the arrangement and are afraid that outright separation would make Brexit look like a cake walk and leave them significantly poorer.
It would also be harder for the Nationalists to argue that outright independence is essential if the Scottish Parliament were to end up with control of most of its own tax revenues as well as domestic policy, and a rupture therefore entailed abandoning a common defence, a common currency (and contingent system of transfer payments,) a seamless and borderless free trade area, but not very much else.
Some distance from their political brethren down South would give the Unionists the time and the space to move towards such a position.
To be successful in Scotland in any future, a party will have to be a supporter of independence. Just a case of whether Tories or Labour jump the shark first.
Nope. 50% of Scots are Nationalists, 50% are Unionists, the SNP have most of the former locked up
Being a bit loose there. You mean, 50% of voters in Scotland are independists, 50% are British nationalists.
Encouraged by the judgement the other week, I presume this guy will now argue that because Eric Gill did some really sick shit it must be removed and the corporation won't do so, so he is going to.
That is a really good and interesting article. Thanks for that. The Guardian long articles really are great reading.
I’ve been reading The Grauniad for years, and yes there is a lot of hand-wringing middle class bollocks in there, no doubt. But, for me, on balance, it’s the best of the papers. They do a lot of very good stuff that far outweighs the shite for me. But I’m of the left so I would say that.
Well I am of the right...ish. Anti-state anyway. And I agree with you. It is the last good journalistic newspaper left in the UK. The Telegraph and even the Times are very poor these days (Though the Telegraph is dire rather than just poor) and the Independent is a rag. The rest are comics. And even in that class not a patch on 2000AD
I don't agree with much of the political slant of the Guardian but they still know how to produce a proper newspaper and they have columnists and journalists who can actually write.
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
As I've mentioned above, you're artificially conflating two separate issues. There's a long tradition of country-specific Unionist parties like the Ulster Unionists in the UK. It would do the cause of the Scottish Tories, and Unionism in general a lot of good if they form a new one.
No, it's a huge propaganda victory for the SNP - and a huge personal defeat for the MPs. They will instantly be disqualified de jure or in practice from being PM of the UK. The party's focus will move to Holyrood - and deviate more and more from the London-based party. As we are seeing happen.
Except, do we see any significant likelihood of a Scottish Prime Minister again as things currently stand? The wonky structure of devolution already mitigates against it, and nobody is interested in fixing it with full federalism because (a) of the problem of the size of England and (b) the English electorate isn't interested in making the change.
A political arrangement in which sister parties run separately in different states or provinces within one country, with their own manifestos and accommodating differences in policy and outlook, is not unprecedented. It could work.
Insofar as I can see from down here, the SNP has two trump cards to play with the electorate: independence, and standing up for Scotland. The Scottish Conservatives can make a much more plausible pitch on the latter point if they repudiate the English party and strike out on their own.
Scottish Unionists would clearly rather that devolution had never happened, but they are where they are. They would, one assumes, infinitely prefer Home Rule to the end of Britain, and such a half-in, half-out arrangement could retail well with the kind of middle-class voters who don't particularly love the Union or rule from London, but can recognise some benefits to the arrangement and are afraid that outright separation would make Brexit look like a cake walk and leave them significantly poorer.
It would also be harder for the Nationalists to argue that outright independence is essential if the Scottish Parliament were to end up with control of most of its own tax revenues as well as domestic policy, and a rupture therefore entailed abandoning a common defence, a common currency (and contingent system of transfer payments,) a seamless and borderless free trade area, but not very much else.
Some distance from their political brethren down South would give the Unionists the time and the space to move towards such a position.
To be successful in Scotland in any future, a party will have to be a supporter of independence. Just a case of whether Tories or Labour jump the shark first.
Nope. 50% of Scots are Nationalists, 50% are Unionists, the SNP have most of the former locked up
There are some of us who could go either way so probably don't belong in either category.
He must be praying even more trhan most dutiful sons for the indefinite postponement of London Bridge, after which the purse strings of the Duchy of Lancaster estate are going to be fastened against him
Bad day for poshos all round.
The Prince Andrew ruling is a victory for women
The effect is a ‘win’ for Virginia Roberts Giuffre – she can continue her quest for justice in open court
As I have repeatedly said I am not an American lawyer but the decision of the Judge is bewildering. He said:
"In a similar vein and for similar reasons, it is not open to the court now to decide, as a matter of fact, just what the parties to the release in the 2009 settlement agreement signed by Ms Giuffre and Jeffrey Epstein actually meant."
One thing which appears to have changed is that Giuffre is now saying that Andrew knew she was trafficked. That appears to be a new allegation. Is there some new evidence to support this that was not available before?
Pass but I suspect it was something innocent such as Prince Andrew asking where are you from - Florida without Prince Andrew or Virginia (at the time) understanding the consequences of the statement.
This bit is interesting for @DavidL (page 21 paragraph 55)
At trial, should the case proceed to trial, he perhaps could have an opportunity to prove that Prince Andrew could have been Sued successfully in Florida on the §2255 claim, in which case these claims might be pertinent to an assertion of the release defense in this case.
So the way to bring the Florida trial judgment back into play is to admit enough guilt that the Florida case can be investigated more thoroughly within the trial.
You would need to be incredibly stupid to do that.
That's not the way I would read it. More likely is that she will be crossed about whether the "Royalty" referred to in the pleadings in the Florida case was Prince Andrew and, if it was, does that not mean he could have been a defendant in that case? I don't think Andrew has to admit anything. That seems to me that meaning of the word "potential" that seems to cause the Judge, if not the parties an issue.
Reading the judgment there seems to be a question of whether Andrew would have been subject to the jurisdiction of the Floridian court but if he was a co-defendant with Epstein, who of course was domiciled there, I don't see that being a problem. The difficulty for Andrew is that this means that the merits of the case will have to be gone into and he will have to subject himself to deposition.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Edit: That would have been the actual breach ofr the rules.
So she chose to "Boris" about it.
Is this really Borising? Doesn't sound like it to me.
".wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again.""
Because she wilfully broke the rules. Forgot or not knowing the law is AFAIK and IANAL a defence. Speaking to a deaf person some time previously has nothing to do with it.
She made and broke the rules.
She made and broke the rules. It's yoiur 'wilful' I don't agree with. Or comparison with Mr Johnson's attitude to the rules.
Of course you don't agree. Because it's that irregular verb. Despite your somewhat bizarre diversion into the but she was speaking to a deaf person ploy.
The point is both Boris & Nicola made and broke the rules. You think one is entirely justified and the other grounds for resignation. I am none too sure.
One occasion of the kind where I know people make that precise mistake naturally; the other repeated parties at No. 10.
Quite the contortionist. People absolutely do make that mistake naturally. But only Nicola Sturgeon is the First Minister of Scotland who introduced the blimming law in the first place. As people have been arguing about Boris all bleedin' day.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
I see you've moved on from 'Jezza made me elect this morally vacant arsehole' to 'they're all as bad as each other'. A couple more hours and total self exculpation will be achieved.
Nah not at all. Jezza did make me elect this morally vacant arsehole because I didn't want a trot anti-semite as PM. Of course you pays your money and takes your choice. Plenty did want the trot anti-semite but I saw him as the worse of two evils.
As for La Sturge, they both made and broke the rules. That's all that anyone needs to know. Are you saying Nicola was so plain idiotic that she was unable to summon up the presence of mind to remember the law she herself had introduced. Well that's a novel avenue to drive down.
People are idiotic in real life when it comes to forgetting to put the mask back; it;s not a familiar situation. But of course you'd rather sack her for talking to an elderly person than Mr Johnson for repeated whoopee parties.
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
As I've mentioned above, you're artificially conflating two separate issues. There's a long tradition of country-specific Unionist parties like the Ulster Unionists in the UK. It would do the cause of the Scottish Tories, and Unionism in general a lot of good if they form a new one.
No, it's a huge propaganda victory for the SNP - and a huge personal defeat for the MPs. They will instantly be disqualified de jure or in practice from being PM of the UK. The party's focus will move to Holyrood - and deviate more and more from the London-based party. As we are seeing happen.
Except, do we see any significant likelihood of a Scottish Prime Minister again as things currently stand? The wonky structure of devolution already mitigates against it, and nobody is interested in fixing it with full federalism because (a) of the problem of the size of England and (b) the English electorate isn't interested in making the change.
A political arrangement in which sister parties run separately in different states or provinces within one country, with their own manifestos and accommodating differences in policy and outlook, is not unprecedented. It could work.
Insofar as I can see from down here, the SNP has two trump cards to play with the electorate: independence, and standing up for Scotland. The Scottish Conservatives can make a much more plausible pitch on the latter point if they repudiate the English party and strike out on their own.
Scottish Unionists would clearly rather that devolution had never happened, but they are where they are. They would, one assumes, infinitely prefer Home Rule to the end of Britain, and such a half-in, half-out arrangement could retail well with the kind of middle-class voters who don't particularly love the Union or rule from London, but can recognise some benefits to the arrangement and are afraid that outright separation would make Brexit look like a cake walk and leave them significantly poorer.
It would also be harder for the Nationalists to argue that outright independence is essential if the Scottish Parliament were to end up with control of most of its own tax revenues as well as domestic policy, and a rupture therefore entailed abandoning a common defence, a common currency (and contingent system of transfer payments,) a seamless and borderless free trade area, but not very much else.
Some distance from their political brethren down South would give the Unionists the time and the space to move towards such a position.
To be successful in Scotland in any future, a party will have to be a supporter of independence. Just a case of whether Tories or Labour jump the shark first.
Nope. 50% of Scots are Nationalists, 50% are Unionists, the SNP have most of the former locked up
Being a bit loose there. You mean, 50% of voters in Scotland are independists, 50% are British nationalists.
Poor use of language there Mr Carnyx. There may be some unionists who might describe themselves as British nationalists but I doubt it would be many. Funny how you guys use "nationalist" as a term of abuse only if it is non-Scots folk
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
As I've mentioned above, you're artificially conflating two separate issues. There's a long tradition of country-specific Unionist parties like the Ulster Unionists in the UK. It would do the cause of the Scottish Tories, and Unionism in general a lot of good if they form a new one.
No, it's a huge propaganda victory for the SNP - and a huge personal defeat for the MPs. They will instantly be disqualified de jure or in practice from being PM of the UK. The party's focus will move to Holyrood - and deviate more and more from the London-based party. As we are seeing happen.
Except, do we see any significant likelihood of a Scottish Prime Minister again as things currently stand? The wonky structure of devolution already mitigates against it, and nobody is interested in fixing it with full federalism because (a) of the problem of the size of England and (b) the English electorate isn't interested in making the change.
A political arrangement in which sister parties run separately in different states or provinces within one country, with their own manifestos and accommodating differences in policy and outlook, is not unprecedented. It could work.
Insofar as I can see from down here, the SNP has two trump cards to play with the electorate: independence, and standing up for Scotland. The Scottish Conservatives can make a much more plausible pitch on the latter point if they repudiate the English party and strike out on their own.
Scottish Unionists would clearly rather that devolution had never happened, but they are where they are. They would, one assumes, infinitely prefer Home Rule to the end of Britain, and such a half-in, half-out arrangement could retail well with the kind of middle-class voters who don't particularly love the Union or rule from London, but can recognise some benefits to the arrangement and are afraid that outright separation would make Brexit look like a cake walk and leave them significantly poorer.
It would also be harder for the Nationalists to argue that outright independence is essential if the Scottish Parliament were to end up with control of most of its own tax revenues as well as domestic policy, and a rupture therefore entailed abandoning a common defence, a common currency (and contingent system of transfer payments,) a seamless and borderless free trade area, but not very much else.
Some distance from their political brethren down South would give the Unionists the time and the space to move towards such a position.
To be successful in Scotland in any future, a party will have to be a supporter of independence. Just a case of whether Tories or Labour jump the shark first.
Nope. 50% of Scots are Nationalists, 50% are Unionists, the SNP have most of the former locked up
This is a fair comment. I was wondering about this today; what must us true Scots do to get rid of SNP Holyrood government. Given the unionist vote splitting it might be another 10/20 years before we're out of the dystopian nightmare.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Edit: That would have been the actual breach ofr the rules.
So she chose to "Boris" about it.
Is this really Borising? Doesn't sound like it to me.
".wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again.""
Because she wilfully broke the rules. Forgot or not knowing the law is AFAIK and IANAL (edit) NOT a defence. Speaking to a deaf person some time previously has nothing to do with it.
She made and broke the rules.
She did. The breach was out of consideration for another person, and forgetfulness. She admitted her mistake, apologised and moved on. She did not give it large at FMQ about how shocked and disgusted she had been when she learned of this sickening breach of the rules, person responsible would be brought to justice etc.
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
As I've mentioned above, you're artificially conflating two separate issues. There's a long tradition of country-specific Unionist parties like the Ulster Unionists in the UK. It would do the cause of the Scottish Tories, and Unionism in general a lot of good if they form a new one.
No, it's a huge propaganda victory for the SNP - and a huge personal defeat for the MPs. They will instantly be disqualified de jure or in practice from being PM of the UK. The party's focus will move to Holyrood - and deviate more and more from the London-based party. As we are seeing happen.
Except, do we see any significant likelihood of a Scottish Prime Minister again as things currently stand? The wonky structure of devolution already mitigates against it, and nobody is interested in fixing it with full federalism because (a) of the problem of the size of England and (b) the English electorate isn't interested in making the change.
A political arrangement in which sister parties run separately in different states or provinces within one country, with their own manifestos and accommodating differences in policy and outlook, is not unprecedented. It could work.
Insofar as I can see from down here, the SNP has two trump cards to play with the electorate: independence, and standing up for Scotland. The Scottish Conservatives can make a much more plausible pitch on the latter point if they repudiate the English party and strike out on their own.
Scottish Unionists would clearly rather that devolution had never happened, but they are where they are. They would, one assumes, infinitely prefer Home Rule to the end of Britain, and such a half-in, half-out arrangement could retail well with the kind of middle-class voters who don't particularly love the Union or rule from London, but can recognise some benefits to the arrangement and are afraid that outright separation would make Brexit look like a cake walk and leave them significantly poorer.
It would also be harder for the Nationalists to argue that outright independence is essential if the Scottish Parliament were to end up with control of most of its own tax revenues as well as domestic policy, and a rupture therefore entailed abandoning a common defence, a common currency (and contingent system of transfer payments,) a seamless and borderless free trade area, but not very much else.
Some distance from their political brethren down South would give the Unionists the time and the space to move towards such a position.
Asymmetric devolution didn't stop SLAB MPs becoming PM or getting positions in the Cabinet - even ones whose responsibilities had been devolved to the Scottish Parliament (i.e. John Reid as Health Secretary).
Things have changed quite a lot since the early 2000s.
Maybe for the Conservative Party. But I'd hope Labour being an actual, real unionist party would ignore any frothing at the mouth by the Faragistas and actually offer ministerial positions to any competent newly elected SLAB MPs.
That wouldn't be a problem for them, I'm sure. There's always the Scotland Office, the Foreign Office and the MoD.
But, in all seriousness, having a PM representing a Scottish constituency in this day and age would pose not just constitutional questions but also significant presentational problems. They'd spend most of their time dealing with business that was irrelevant to their own constituents who, for most purposes, were represented by a completely separate Government that said leader had nothing at all to do with. It's more than a little bit silly.
Unless FFA is on the way, pretty much any economic based Cabinet position would have some relevance to a SLAB MP. Besides what matters would be the Labour membership. Labour members have their faults - they elected Corbyn for one as leader - but not one would have a problem in electing an MP from Scotland as Labour leader. When Ian Murray stood for the deputy leadership, nobody raised any constitutional objections to him being a candidate.
What really matters, therefore, is the reluctance of the Scottish electorate to elect Labour MPs...
Encouraged by the judgement the other week, I presume this guy will now argue that because Eric Gill did some really sick shit it must be removed and the corporation won't do so, so he is going to.
That is a really good and interesting article. Thanks for that. The Guardian long articles really are great reading.
I’ve been reading The Grauniad for years, and yes there is a lot of hand-wringing middle class bollocks in there, no doubt. But, for me, on balance, it’s the best of the papers. They do a lot of very good stuff that far outweighs the shite for me. But I’m of the left so I would say that.
Well I am of the right...ish. Anti-state anyway. And I agree with you. It is the last good journalistic newspaper left in the UK. The Telegraph and even the Times are very poor these days (Though the Telegraph is dire rather than just poor) and the Independent is a rag. The rest are comics. And even in that class not a patch on 2000AD
I don't agree with much of the political slant of the Guardian but they still know how to produce a proper newspaper and they have columnists and journalists who can actually write.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Edit: That would have been the actual breach ofr the rules.
So she chose to "Boris" about it.
Is this really Borising? Doesn't sound like it to me.
".wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again.""
Because she wilfully broke the rules. Forgot or not knowing the law is AFAIK and IANAL a defence. Speaking to a deaf person some time previously has nothing to do with it.
She made and broke the rules.
She made and broke the rules. It's yoiur 'wilful' I don't agree with. Or comparison with Mr Johnson's attitude to the rules.
Of course you don't agree. Because it's that irregular verb. Despite your somewhat bizarre diversion into the but she was speaking to a deaf person ploy.
The point is both Boris & Nicola made and broke the rules. You think one is entirely justified and the other grounds for resignation. I am none too sure.
They both appear to have lied, though I would say Jimmy Krankie's lie was not quite in the same league as Mr. Johnson's.
Johnson has clearly followed the Sturgeon approach of waiting for a deeply boring and non-committal report, with limited scope, to say absolutely nothing.
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
If the Union is to be preserved it will be by the UK Tories refusing indyref2 when in power, or by UK Labour offering Scots devomax and scraping a No vote in an indyref2 when they are in power.
The SCons are now largely completely irrelevant to preserving the Union and will be unless they somehow managed to deprive the SNP and Greens of a Holyrood majority, which they failed to do last year while Boris won a landslide for the UK Tories 2 years before
That reminds me. You still have not answered my question: should the UK have given India independence? The Indians wanted it, but the UK by its laws had no need to grant it.
Churchill's Tory government never did, only Attlee's Labour government did
Come on, answer my question, were Labour right to give India independence, please? I'm trying to work out youir limits, seeing as you support independence for Wales and Antrim (the former in the UK, the latter still sort of).
No I don't, I voted for more Tory candidates than Plaid even in that town council election and I want to keep NI in the UK, just Antrim may prefer UDI to joining Ireland.
Churchill did oppose Indian independence at the time, so had I been a Tory MP from say 1935 to 1945 then I probably would have opposed Indian independence at the time. However India did go independent and we have to accept it is now an independent nation, albeit still within the Commonwealth.
However India is a different case from Scotland as it was a colony without MPs, Scotland is part of the UK with MPs and its own parliament.
We had just fought a war ostensibly against tyranny. We spilt much blood to make sure Europe, and large parts of the rest of the world, were free and could enjoy democracy. Why is it so hard for you to say that granting those same freedoms to India was a good thing?
We went to war with Hitler only when he invaded Poland, not when he merged Germany with Austria and much of Czechoslovakia
You quote events, immutable facts. History is about the interpretation of facts. Without quoting anymore facts, what is your, personal, view on whether Indian independence was a good thing?
BTW the Anschluss was wildly popular in Austria. Ok the Sudetenland didn’t go down quite so well, but it was the final straw that made Poland the line in the sand.
Hitler's occupation of the Sudetenland was as popular with the German majority there, as the Anschluss was with the Austrians, perhaps even more so.
And of course it was blessed by the British AND French governments at Munich, as well as by bulk of public opinion in both countries.
The "final straw" was when Hitler broke the Munich agreement in the spring of 1939 by occupying the rest of the Czech lands, and turning over Slovakia to Slovak nationalists & Hungarians.
Good point re the ‘final straw’. Of course the Volksdeutsche, wherever they were, were happy to ‘come home to the Reich’.
There’s the idea that if Hitler had stopped after Munich he’d be seen as a great statesman in Germany today. A fascinating, and unsettling, counter-factual.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
I see you've moved on from 'Jezza made me elect this morally vacant arsehole' to 'they're all as bad as each other'. A couple more hours and total self exculpation will be achieved.
Nah not at all. Jezza did make me elect this morally vacant arsehole because I didn't want a trot anti-semite as PM. Of course you pays your money and takes your choice. Plenty did want the trot anti-semite but I saw him as the worse of two evils.
As for La Sturge, they both made and broke the rules. That's all that anyone needs to know. Are you saying Nicola was so plain idiotic that she was unable to summon up the presence of mind to remember the law she herself had introduced. Well that's a novel avenue to drive down.
People are idiotic in real life when it comes to forgetting to put the mask back; it;s not a familiar situation. But of course you'd rather sack her for talking to an elderly person than Mr Johnson for repeated whoopee parties.
This is not as rigorous as I've come to expect from you. Sorry to go meta on the discussion but you are justifying her actions in terms that people have been criticising Boris for all day. Of course people are idiotic in real life when it comes to forgetting to put the mask back on but because she is First Minister of Scotland who made the flipping law she does not get to make that excuse. Same with Boris.
Plus your argument has gone from "she was talking to a deaf person so it's fine" to "she forgot to put the mask back on so it's fine".
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Edit: That would have been the actual breach ofr the rules.
So she chose to "Boris" about it.
Is this really Borising? Doesn't sound like it to me.
".wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again.""
Because she wilfully broke the rules. Forgot or not knowing the law is AFAIK and IANAL a defence. Speaking to a deaf person some time previously has nothing to do with it.
She made and broke the rules.
She made and broke the rules. It's yoiur 'wilful' I don't agree with. Or comparison with Mr Johnson's attitude to the rules.
Of course you don't agree. Because it's that irregular verb. Despite your somewhat bizarre diversion into the but she was speaking to a deaf person ploy.
The point is both Boris & Nicola made and broke the rules. You think one is entirely justified and the other grounds for resignation. I am none too sure.
They both appear to have lied, though I would say Jimmy Krankie's lie was not quite in the same league as Mr. Johnson's.
I'm not exactly the biggest fan of Nichola Sturgeon, but she'd have to be going some to be in the same league as Johnson. Even Jeffrey Archer must be a bit taken aback by today's events.
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
As I've mentioned above, you're artificially conflating two separate issues. There's a long tradition of country-specific Unionist parties like the Ulster Unionists in the UK. It would do the cause of the Scottish Tories, and Unionism in general a lot of good if they form a new one.
No, it's a huge propaganda victory for the SNP - and a huge personal defeat for the MPs. They will instantly be disqualified de jure or in practice from being PM of the UK. The party's focus will move to Holyrood - and deviate more and more from the London-based party. As we are seeing happen.
Except, do we see any significant likelihood of a Scottish Prime Minister again as things currently stand? The wonky structure of devolution already mitigates against it, and nobody is interested in fixing it with full federalism because (a) of the problem of the size of England and (b) the English electorate isn't interested in making the change.
A political arrangement in which sister parties run separately in different states or provinces within one country, with their own manifestos and accommodating differences in policy and outlook, is not unprecedented. It could work.
Insofar as I can see from down here, the SNP has two trump cards to play with the electorate: independence, and standing up for Scotland. The Scottish Conservatives can make a much more plausible pitch on the latter point if they repudiate the English party and strike out on their own.
Scottish Unionists would clearly rather that devolution had never happened, but they are where they are. They would, one assumes, infinitely prefer Home Rule to the end of Britain, and such a half-in, half-out arrangement could retail well with the kind of middle-class voters who don't particularly love the Union or rule from London, but can recognise some benefits to the arrangement and are afraid that outright separation would make Brexit look like a cake walk and leave them significantly poorer.
It would also be harder for the Nationalists to argue that outright independence is essential if the Scottish Parliament were to end up with control of most of its own tax revenues as well as domestic policy, and a rupture therefore entailed abandoning a common defence, a common currency (and contingent system of transfer payments,) a seamless and borderless free trade area, but not very much else.
Some distance from their political brethren down South would give the Unionists the time and the space to move towards such a position.
To be successful in Scotland in any future, a party will have to be a supporter of independence. Just a case of whether Tories or Labour jump the shark first.
Nope. 50% of Scots are Nationalists, 50% are Unionists, the SNP have most of the former locked up
There are some of us who could go either way so probably don't belong in either category.
LOL if you haven't made your mind up by this point you're either very young (yet strangley able to vote in referendum) or a total moron.
Thinking legally. If it is decided that the massive party with 40 people and a load of booze and sausage rolls was actually a work event because it took place on the work property, then the Notts student who had a party should get his fine back.
All students work from home. Their rented house is their workplace. That is where they write their essays, as Johnson well knows.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Edit: That would have been the actual breach ofr the rules.
So she chose to "Boris" about it.
Is this really Borising? Doesn't sound like it to me.
".wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again.""
Because she wilfully broke the rules. Forgot or not knowing the law is AFAIK and IANAL (edit) NOT a defence. Speaking to a deaf person some time previously has nothing to do with it.
She made and broke the rules.
She did. The breach was out of consideration for another person, and forgetfulness. She admitted her mistake, apologised and moved on. She did not give it large at FMQ about how shocked and disgusted she had been when she learned of this sickening breach of the rules, person responsible would be brought to justice etc.
Yeah yeah she forgot. It matters not a jot why she took it off to start with. I mean it's perfectly fine for someone to forget the law. Even if they themselves have made that law. Right?
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
As I've mentioned above, you're artificially conflating two separate issues. There's a long tradition of country-specific Unionist parties like the Ulster Unionists in the UK. It would do the cause of the Scottish Tories, and Unionism in general a lot of good if they form a new one.
No, it's a huge propaganda victory for the SNP - and a huge personal defeat for the MPs. They will instantly be disqualified de jure or in practice from being PM of the UK. The party's focus will move to Holyrood - and deviate more and more from the London-based party. As we are seeing happen.
Except, do we see any significant likelihood of a Scottish Prime Minister again as things currently stand? The wonky structure of devolution already mitigates against it, and nobody is interested in fixing it with full federalism because (a) of the problem of the size of England and (b) the English electorate isn't interested in making the change.
A political arrangement in which sister parties run separately in different states or provinces within one country, with their own manifestos and accommodating differences in policy and outlook, is not unprecedented. It could work.
Insofar as I can see from down here, the SNP has two trump cards to play with the electorate: independence, and standing up for Scotland. The Scottish Conservatives can make a much more plausible pitch on the latter point if they repudiate the English party and strike out on their own.
Scottish Unionists would clearly rather that devolution had never happened, but they are where they are. They would, one assumes, infinitely prefer Home Rule to the end of Britain, and such a half-in, half-out arrangement could retail well with the kind of middle-class voters who don't particularly love the Union or rule from London, but can recognise some benefits to the arrangement and are afraid that outright separation would make Brexit look like a cake walk and leave them significantly poorer.
It would also be harder for the Nationalists to argue that outright independence is essential if the Scottish Parliament were to end up with control of most of its own tax revenues as well as domestic policy, and a rupture therefore entailed abandoning a common defence, a common currency (and contingent system of transfer payments,) a seamless and borderless free trade area, but not very much else.
Some distance from their political brethren down South would give the Unionists the time and the space to move towards such a position.
To be successful in Scotland in any future, a party will have to be a supporter of independence. Just a case of whether Tories or Labour jump the shark first.
Nope. 50% of Scots are Nationalists, 50% are Unionists, the SNP have most of the former locked up
Being a bit loose there. You mean, 50% of voters in Scotland are independists, 50% are British nationalists.
Poor use of language there Mr Carnyx. There may be some unionists who might describe themselves as British nationalists but I doubt it would be many. Funny how you guys use "nationalist" as a term of abuse only if it is non-Scots folk
These voters simply don't think about it - it's always the British centre which is the norm and the other is different.
I don't use it of Scots voters as it is so ambiguous anyway - even in the independence sense does one mean the Scottish National Party, Greens, Alba, and/or the indy-voting Labour voters?
The point I am making is that it is HYUFD himself whio uses it in a pejorative sense and I'm reminding him it does not carry that actual meaning. Indeed, the purest example of a nationalist speech in 2014 was by Mr Cameron in Glasgow - crying out to the blood of the dead of the Somme and referring to his familial roots in Scotland.
I do find blind political loyalty quite odd. "My party right or wrong" does typify some posters on here. I used to quite like David Cameron, but would be quite happy to say if he messed up. I liked Ken Clarke, but he was certainly not right all the time. It is a kind of ideological blind spot that some people have I guess.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
I see you've moved on from 'Jezza made me elect this morally vacant arsehole' to 'they're all as bad as each other'. A couple more hours and total self exculpation will be achieved.
Nah not at all. Jezza did make me elect this morally vacant arsehole because I didn't want a trot anti-semite as PM. Of course you pays your money and takes your choice. Plenty did want the trot anti-semite but I saw him as the worse of two evils.
As for La Sturge, they both made and broke the rules. That's all that anyone needs to know. Are you saying Nicola was so plain idiotic that she was unable to summon up the presence of mind to remember the law she herself had introduced. Well that's a novel avenue to drive down.
Squirrelier than a Tufty club outing.
However I was mucho entertained by you simultaneously claiming credit for warning everyone about BJ being an arsehole while whining about Labour forcing you to vote for said arsehole. Reminded me of what PB Toryism is all about, so thanks for that.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Oh so it wasn't the talking to the deaf person it was because she then went on not to wear it. So no excuse in other words apart from "I forgot".
Quite; talks to X, X can't understand, lowers the mask, they have their chat, and then she goes off forgetting to put the mask up again.
As per my edit: if I am doing 70mph on a motorway and then turn in to Little Dribblington High Street (speed limit 30mph) but keep going at 70mph can I say I forgot to slow down.
Are you bored and giving this contrarianism lark a whirl just for the sake of it?
Yes you can. The bench will disbelieve you and have £500 off you and give you points or an Awareness Course, and life goes on.
OR you can tell the court you were out of the country at the time and your blind Latvian au pair, who has now emigrated to Pitcairn Island, was behind the wheel. Should this turn out to be not true, the penalties go beyond fines and points.
Somewhat reminiscent of when Brendan Bracken marched into the Division Lobby in May 1940 (along with WSC himself) at the conclusion of the Norway Debate, to vote FOR the (then) Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain?
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
Because she forgot to put it back on, I expect. Very common in that situation if you aren't used to it.
Edit: That would have been the actual breach ofr the rules.
So she chose to "Boris" about it.
Is this really Borising? Doesn't sound like it to me.
".wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again.""
Because she wilfully broke the rules. Forgot or not knowing the law is AFAIK and IANAL (edit) NOT a defence. Speaking to a deaf person some time previously has nothing to do with it.
She made and broke the rules.
She did. The breach was out of consideration for another person, and forgetfulness. She admitted her mistake, apologised and moved on. She did not give it large at FMQ about how shocked and disgusted she had been when she learned of this sickening breach of the rules, person responsible would be brought to justice etc.
Yeah yeah she forgot. It matters not a jot why she took it off to start with. I mean it's perfectly fine for someone to forget the law. Even if they themselves have made that law. Right?
Did I forget a not in there somewhere?
Yes, I think you forgot one before the word "perfectly".
Feel free to send me stuff to proofread before posting it if you'd like to in the future.
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
As I've mentioned above, you're artificially conflating two separate issues. There's a long tradition of country-specific Unionist parties like the Ulster Unionists in the UK. It would do the cause of the Scottish Tories, and Unionism in general a lot of good if they form a new one.
No, it's a huge propaganda victory for the SNP - and a huge personal defeat for the MPs. They will instantly be disqualified de jure or in practice from being PM of the UK. The party's focus will move to Holyrood - and deviate more and more from the London-based party. As we are seeing happen.
Except, do we see any significant likelihood of a Scottish Prime Minister again as things currently stand? The wonky structure of devolution already mitigates against it, and nobody is interested in fixing it with full federalism because (a) of the problem of the size of England and (b) the English electorate isn't interested in making the change.
A political arrangement in which sister parties run separately in different states or provinces within one country, with their own manifestos and accommodating differences in policy and outlook, is not unprecedented. It could work.
Insofar as I can see from down here, the SNP has two trump cards to play with the electorate: independence, and standing up for Scotland. The Scottish Conservatives can make a much more plausible pitch on the latter point if they repudiate the English party and strike out on their own.
Scottish Unionists would clearly rather that devolution had never happened, but they are where they are. They would, one assumes, infinitely prefer Home Rule to the end of Britain, and such a half-in, half-out arrangement could retail well with the kind of middle-class voters who don't particularly love the Union or rule from London, but can recognise some benefits to the arrangement and are afraid that outright separation would make Brexit look like a cake walk and leave them significantly poorer.
It would also be harder for the Nationalists to argue that outright independence is essential if the Scottish Parliament were to end up with control of most of its own tax revenues as well as domestic policy, and a rupture therefore entailed abandoning a common defence, a common currency (and contingent system of transfer payments,) a seamless and borderless free trade area, but not very much else.
Some distance from their political brethren down South would give the Unionists the time and the space to move towards such a position.
To be successful in Scotland in any future, a party will have to be a supporter of independence. Just a case of whether Tories or Labour jump the shark first.
Nope. 50% of Scots are Nationalists, 50% are Unionists, the SNP have most of the former locked up
There are some of us who could go either way so probably don't belong in either category.
LOL if you haven't made your mind up by this point you're either very young (yet strangley able to vote in referendum) or a total moron.
Any future referendum will be... in the future. Why would it be strange that I can vote in it?
If you know a trick whereby I will become younger by then, please do share. I'll happily sacrifice my vote for Elixir of youth. Thanks in advance.
Have we discussed this apology. I'm glad they resigned, good riddance imo.
..wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again."
Took her mask off at a wake
Burn her
As I understand it, she was talking to an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly - indeed quite likely to be a partial lipreader. (This is also probably at the root of that incident with Jack Straw and the lady with the veil years ago).
Of course there is a valid excuse. And I'm sure Scottish plod would have listened to each and everyone's valid excuse also if they were pulled up on it.
Not an excuse; an entire justification, if you recall, when communication with a deaf person is/was involved.
Yeah. An excuse as I said. But an SNP excuse so all good.
A legal exception. But because it's SNP involved it can't be in your view. The reason I'm a bit short on this is that I have a deaf person in my family, and an elderly partly deaf relative - so I do know how and why these things happen.
Yes indeed I have a (stone) deaf person in my family also (mother) so spare me the feel my pain bit.
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
Good; you will also know how people react in the most surprising ways in that situation - they don't always think it through and react by removing masks. And we don't know the distance - I seem to recall they were socially distanced anyway for what little that counted indoors in reality.
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
So why was she "kicking herself very hard" etc as per her quote if it was an entirely legitimate exemption to mask wearing.
I see you've moved on from 'Jezza made me elect this morally vacant arsehole' to 'they're all as bad as each other'. A couple more hours and total self exculpation will be achieved.
Nah not at all. Jezza did make me elect this morally vacant arsehole because I didn't want a trot anti-semite as PM. Of course you pays your money and takes your choice. Plenty did want the trot anti-semite but I saw him as the worse of two evils.
As for La Sturge, they both made and broke the rules. That's all that anyone needs to know. Are you saying Nicola was so plain idiotic that she was unable to summon up the presence of mind to remember the law she herself had introduced. Well that's a novel avenue to drive down.
Squirrelier than a Tufty club outing.
However I was mucho entertained by you simultaneously claiming credit for warning everyone about BJ being an arsehole while whining about Labour forcing you to vote for said arsehole. Reminded me of what PB Toryism is all about, so thanks for that.
Well I am no longer a PB Tory so I will take your word for it. And yes absolutely hands up step forward I admit it. Labour elected Jeremy Corbyn as leader and the mere possibility of him becoming Prime Minister made me take action to vote against him and that meant the Conservatives.
Absolutely no problem with saying that as often as it needs saying.
Comments
If it was a legal exception to be able to take your mask off in the presence of a deaf person then I am gobsmacked and shows the idiocy of the whole thing. You said "an elderly person who couldn't hear her properly" so I know what let's remove the only thing that is preventing me infecting this elderly person and bellow into her face.
She will have heard what Nicola said but might easily have caught Covid and dropped dead two weeks later.
But this is fine in your book.
I am surprised you did not know that
"Politicians can be fired by the British People, and by the British People alone. That is the marvel of our Constitution.
The next opportunity will be in 2024."
The mask thing for the deaf was always an exception everywhere in the UK. Indeed someone accompanying a deaf person could go completely maskless in shops.
It was and remains a horrible dilemma.
BTW the Anschluss was wildly popular in Austria. Ok the Sudetenland didn’t go down quite so well, but it was the final straw that made Poland the line in the sand.
Edit: That would have been the actual breach ofr the rules.
I would expect this is widespread and conservative mps need to get their letters in
Douglas Ross has shown the way
Edit: I mean if I am doing 70mph on a motorway and then turn in to Little Dribblington High Street (speed limit 30mph) but keep going at 70mph can I say I forgot to slow down.
https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1481306139337838601?t=pb5jtSbTqgtEx3pH2p29Zg&s=19
".wanted to express "how sorry I am for my breach of rules that I ask all of us to follow".
they said: "I want to be clear that regardless of the circumstances, I was in the wrong. There are no excuses.
"These rules do apply to me, just as they do to everyone else, and the rules really matter.
"I am kicking myself very hard - possibly harder than my worst critic ever could - but more importantly I'll be making sure I don't drop my guard again.""
In fact the following sentences give a better idea of its meaning.
That says, As will appear more fully below, the Court's job at this juncture is simply to determine whether there are two or more reasonable interpretations of that document. If there are, the determination of the "right" or controlling interpretation must await further proceedings."
Because methinks these two stinking scandals - Randy Andy and Lying Bojo - are on track to get their just deserts, and are NOT gonna provide cover for one another.
She made and broke the rules.
Haven’t bought a hard copy for 20 years but I give ‘em a fiver a month. I do get Apple News so get access to stuff through that, like The Times. I find a lot of that tooth grindingly irritating, there’s a lot of middle class bollocks in that too, but instead of hand wringing it’s the the entitled, condescending type that boils my piss.
Glad there's someone else out there though
How would you describe that direction? You can be as granular or broad brush as you like. But is there even enough clarity out there to point to?
Is it a one nation label, as MCMillan. Thatcherism? Business friendly? Tax or borrow and spend big on infrastructure? Supply side laffer curve? Big state or small state? Fighting or stoking inflation? What achieves the levelling up promise? Vote blue go green, or just getting by paying lip service to it? Keen to exploit Brexit by diverging from the European social model, or not on board with that?
Surely, promising spending without raising taxes, as his winning manifesto and talk of economic boosterism has been since is sure fire way to boom and bust?
It’s just been a chancers short term thinking really?
Yeah. Ignorance of the law is 100% a defence.
Not much I can add really (though that won't stop me). If I were the Opposition (and to a point I am), I wouldn't push too hard for Johnson's fall. There are huge short and medium terms advantages to keeping him in No.10, wounded, with the vultures circling and any other mixed metaphor you want to use.
Forget Confidence votes in the Commons - all that does is unite the governing party. The emotional point about drinks at No.10 while people were dying alone with relatives unable to be with them will resonate long and loud.
I also imagine (and the memoir coming from the key players will be worth a read) the atmosphere in No.10 and Whitehall in general was febrile from early March onward as the scale of this approaching crisis became clear.
One can understand the temptation for people operating under constant pressure and stress to kick back for a moment and we can argue technicalities about private land and whether it was a works event or a "party" but none of that matters.
It's not about following the letter of the law but the spirit of the law. Individuals may have opted to knowingly flout the law out of frustration or anxiety or concern for loved ones of friends (and it's distasteful to use the fact others broke the law as part of the "defence" of the PM as two wrongs don't make a right) but those at the centre of power should hold themselves to a higher standard or at the very least the same standard as the majority of the British people.
This bit is interesting for @DavidL (page 21 paragraph 55)
At trial, should the case proceed to trial, he perhaps could have an opportunity to prove that Prince Andrew could have been Sued successfully in Florida on the §2255 claim, in which case these claims might be pertinent to an assertion of the release defense in this case.
So the way to bring the Florida trial judgment back into play is to admit enough guilt that the Florida case can be investigated more thoroughly within the trial.
You would need to be incredibly stupid to do that.
I would still easily choose it over media like the telegraph, though, which I most often find bordering on the unreadable.
I'm wishing:
- Very good health for HMQ for the coming period.
- Russia to keep out of Ukraine.
- No unexpected asteroids impacting.
- The absence of a massive solar storm would be good too...
Besides what matters would be the Labour membership. Labour members have their faults - they elected Corbyn for one as leader - but not one would have a problem in electing an MP from Scotland as Labour leader. When Ian Murray stood for the deputy leadership, nobody raised any constitutional objections to him being a candidate.
https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1481322046982606850?s=20
It doesn’t actually solve his problem though as it doesn’t clear his name. For example, could there be other potential accusers?
Just another Kool Aid overdose.
The point is both Boris & Nicola made and broke the rules. You think one is entirely justified and the other grounds for resignation. I am none too sure.
And of course it was blessed by the British AND French governments at Munich, as well as by bulk of public opinion in both countries.
The "final straw" was when Hitler broke the Munich agreement in the spring of 1939 by occupying the rest of the Czech lands, and turning over Slovakia to Slovak nationalists & Hungarians.
As for La Sturge, they both made and broke the rules. That's all that anyone needs to know. Are you saying Nicola was so plain idiotic that she was unable to summon up the presence of mind to remember the law she herself had introduced. Well that's a novel avenue to drive down.
I don't agree with much of the political slant of the Guardian but they still know how to produce a proper newspaper and they have columnists and journalists who can actually write.
Reading the judgment there seems to be a question of whether Andrew would have been subject to the jurisdiction of the Floridian court but if he was a co-defendant with Epstein, who of course was domiciled there, I don't see that being a problem. The difficulty for Andrew is that this means that the merits of the case will have to be gone into and he will have to subject himself to deposition.
Let's hope the voters respond in May and give the Conservatives an absolute shellacking.
There’s the idea that if Hitler had stopped after Munich he’d be seen as a great statesman in Germany today. A fascinating, and unsettling, counter-factual.
Plus your argument has gone from "she was talking to a deaf person so it's fine" to "she forgot to put the mask back on so it's fine".
All students work from home. Their rented house is their workplace. That is where they write their essays, as Johnson well knows.
Perhaps he AND the PM now can appreciate the wisdom of Kermit the Frog?
To paraphrase - "It ain't easy being Blue"!
Did I forget a not in there somewhere?
I don't use it of Scots voters as it is so ambiguous anyway - even in the independence sense does one mean the Scottish National Party, Greens, Alba, and/or the indy-voting Labour voters?
The point I am making is that it is HYUFD himself whio uses it in a pejorative sense and I'm reminding him it does not carry that actual meaning. Indeed, the purest example of a nationalist speech in 2014 was by Mr Cameron in Glasgow - crying out to the blood of the dead of the Somme and referring to his familial roots in Scotland.
However I was mucho entertained by you simultaneously claiming credit for warning everyone about BJ being an arsehole while whining about Labour forcing you to vote for said arsehole. Reminded me of what PB Toryism is all about, so thanks for that.
Yes you can. The bench will disbelieve you and have £500 off you and give you points or an Awareness Course, and life goes on.
OR you can tell the court you were out of the country at the time and your blind Latvian au pair, who has now emigrated to Pitcairn Island, was behind the wheel. Should this turn out to be not true, the penalties go beyond fines and points.
Feel free to send me stuff to proofread before posting it if you'd like to in the future.
If you know a trick whereby I will become younger by then, please do share. I'll happily sacrifice my vote for Elixir of youth. Thanks in advance.
Absolutely no problem with saying that as often as it needs saying.